We’re Off … to the Twittersphere!

Funny, funny stuff here:

What Makes a Guru? What Doesn’t?

Yep, it’s time for another cross-post to my Sibdu Blog on commercial, corporate and investment real estate. And as usual with these cross-posts, if you strip out the specific CRE mentions, I believe you’ll get plenty out of it as someone who is in social media. Or who is in business in general.

I’ve hit on several of these topics in individual posts in the past, but it is definitely time to bring them to the forefront in one post.

So with all of that in mind, please read: What Makes a Guru? What Doesn’t? And for social media-specific comments, please use the Comments here. Thanks.

My Ideal Job

One of them, at least, is here: WordPress.tv.

Besides, how can you go wrong with the job title of Reel Wrangler? Although it looks like it is already taken, it’s a cool spot nonetheless.

Would you be good at this kind of gig? Let me know in the Comments section.

By the way, another ideal job is the one I have here at Portalfuze and Sibdu. So no, I’m not looking. But this caught my eye after linking from a link to a link to a link kind of thing (you know the kind of path I’m talking about). So I thought I’d let your imagination run wild with it, like I did with mine.

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Quick housekeeping note: Because of a family emergency kind of situation, there won’t be any blog posts here until next Thursday or Friday, at least. Apologies, and see you then.

When NOT to Use Social Media

I’ve touched on this in the past. But I now have the quintessential blog post on when companies, organizations and the like should not even think about using social media.

Unfortunately, I didn’t write it.

But I have no problem pointing you to it, because not only do I think it is brilliantly written, I agree with 99% of it. Here it is, at the ever-excellent ReadWriteWeb.

Memo to Sprint: What Twitter is Not

Okay, I’m assuming that everyone who has had some kind of visual contact with a television set for at least 5 minutes in the last month or so has seen the Sprint commercial where the slightly smarmy voice-over guy says:

233,000 people just twittered on Twitter. 26 percent of you viewing this have no idea what that means.

Haven’t seen it? I’d be a bit surprised if you said you haven’t, considering that Sprint’s ad/marketing budget seems to be the same size as the gross domestic product of, say, Portugal ($237.3 billion, thanks for asking). No matter, though — here’s the entire spot, with the Twitter part being about :33 in:

It’s actually a funny line, especially considering my wife didn’t know what Twitter even was until a few months ago, and I had been on Twitter for several months before that.

I have a problem with the Twitter segment in the spot, though. Not the actual line — but what the cute little birdies are saying. That’s what has my knickers in a bit of a twist.

Fox News and Social Media

Now here’s a company that gets it just a little bit, when it comes to social media: Fox News and its Fox Nation social-media effort. If you’ve got some time (about a half hour), watch this video. It’s really informative.

Social Media Connection – Fox News Case Study – David Bullock and Jay Deragon from commlink on Vimeo.

Note: my apologies – WordPress wont let me embed this video. You’ll need to click on the first link above to watch it. Don’t worry, though; it’ll open in a new window.

If you didn’t watch it, I’ll list some of my take-aways. If you did, see if you agree with my takeaways:

Latest Danger from Public Networks

I’ve written several times now about public social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on, in terms of how organizations like corporations, government and associations should utilize them. Essentially, my message has always been to use them as an adjunct and a compliment to your organization’s social media/ networking strategy, but to not depend on them as your sole means of communicating with whatever audience you have.

While the headline for this post sounds like the typical “scare ‘em to death” promo that local television stations like to run during sweeps periods, it actually applies here. The “danger” results from not being able to directly communicate with your group in the way you want … or need.

Social Media and Web Applications

One area of social media that we “do” here at Portalfuze … but haven’t talked a lot about … is add social media to Web-based applications. Those applications can be within a current Web site, an application that runs independently of a Web site, and so on.

I recently posted this blog entry at Sibdu Blog about our RFP (request-for-proposal) platform, and how it can turn the search for commercial real estate on its head. How? In short, with our system the “demand” side (those looking for real estate to lease or buy) drive the search by issuing RFPs with their wants and needs. The “supply” side then responds to the RPFs.

To understand what’s coming, you first need to read the post at Sibdu Blog. I’ll wait.

Back? Good.

White Paper on Associations and Social Media

I had lunch last week with Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer of Socialfish. These are two smart ladies who really “get it” about social media and associations. They also like eggs for lunch (as do I) — chicken, not fish. And they like shoes (I only wear them because I’m told I have to).

I can’t wait to work with them more on projects. But that’s not why I’m writing this post.

Part of our conversation focused on white papers; specifically, the white paper we produced on social media and associations. They said they liked it, so I thought I’d check the stats for it over at Scribd.

Wow – 342 views (as of last Wednesday, when I wrote this post — thank you, WordPress advanced scheduling function), 65 downloads, 4 likes and 3 favorites. We like that here, I have to admit.

So I thought I’d bring it back, just in case you missed it the first time around:

View this document on Scribd

I hope you get a lot out of it. And as always, if you have questions, etc., please contact me. We like building social media-related networks, applications, etc., just as much as we like to talk about it. Probably even more, actually. Thanks.

Social Media Made Easy

I realize that people with varying levels of knowledge about social media read this blog. Sometimes I think my posts here fly over the heads of those who don’t know all that much about social media, but come here to learn about it.

For those people, I offer the following video. I didn’t do it myself, but I’d be really proud of it if I did. It explains social media in a very basic, yet entertaining way. Enjoy!

If you’d like to discuss more about social media and how it can help your organization, please contact me using the information in the “About Portalfuze (short version)” box.