Social Media

Being good at work

Lovely post from Stephen Hale:

I think the culture and tools of social networking can go a long way to improve how people manage and share knowledge inside an organisation, and increase individuals’ productivity at work. Lots of people could be a little bit more productive if they used more of behaviours and the tools of social networking routinely at work.

Personally, I am much better at my job because of social tools. I’m better informed, often helped by others, better connected, more grateful, and more ready to share my own thoughts than I would be without tools like Yammer, Twitter and blogs.

Webinars a-go-go

Two more upcoming webinars from Learning Pool to tell you about – both free of course.

Closing the third sector skills gap

New for 2011 is My Learning Pool – a suite of over 20 online courses that have been designed for community and voluntary groups, small charities, social enterprises and others in the third sector.

During the webinar you will receive a guided tour of the training available on www.mylearningpool.com and learn how the bite sized chunks of learning can help improve your organisation or yourself from as little as £25 per subscription.

To find out more about My Learning Pool you can follow @MyLearningPool on Twitter, visit the Facebook page or log on to www.mylearningpool.com.

Find out more and sign up here.

#Walsall24 – an experiment in local government radical transparency

Join Learning Pool’s Dave Briggs and Walsall Council’s Dan Slee for this exclusive free webinar discussing Walsall’s groundbreaking Twitter experiment – #Walsall24.

Over a period of 24 hours, Walsall Council tweeted a cross section of what they were doing, providing a unique snapshot of the daily activities of a local authority.

Dan will discuss how the project came about, what the barriers were to making it happen and how they were overcome, and what the Council has learned from it.

Find out more about Walsall 24 at http://www.walsall.gov.uk/walsall24.htm.

Find out more and sign up here.

Online Ambition

Online AmbitionOnline Ambition is a great project run by Edinburgh Napier University, brought to my attention by the comment that Ella Taylor-Smith left on another post.

The aim of the project is to bring together young people, their parents and advisors to discuss using the web to enhance careers, rather than hinder them!

This will involve a range of different issues, such as digital CVs, using social media for profile and reputation building, and managing online profiles to ensure potential employers don’t get the wrong idea about you.

I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of using online networks to develop a career. If it weren’t for this blog, I’d still be stuck doing an administrative job in a council somewhere.

The first event is on April 11th in Edinburgh, with Ella and her colleagues, as well as Tim Davies. Here’s the flyer (PDF warning).

It will be great to see how the event goes, and this is something I can see being very successful across the UK.

Pulling, Not Pushing: How To Make Me Pay Attention

In my previous post about online listening, I mentioned RepKnight, a soon to launch lightweight tool for tracking keywords across social media services. In this guest post, RepKnight’s Lyra McKee talks about getting people’s attention online without irritating them.

RepknightSocial media is like the Internet in 1999; no one’s quite sure how best to use it or what exactly it should be used for. This tends to lead to a lot of bad behaviour, mainly by those trying to engage or market to citizens. At times, it verges on spam, with scheduled marketing messages and PR copy blasted in your ear like a trumpet.

The marketing spin gets our attention but it doesn’t make us “pay” attention; like the man being scolded by his wife to clean the living room while watching the Arsenal match, we’re listening but tuning the noise out so that the message doesn’t get through anyways. So how does someone make us “pay” attention on social media? And how can you get those you want to engage with to pay attention to you?

In the Web 2.0 world, marketing and adverts no longer impact us. We’re no longer wowed by the glossy billboard or TV ad. The only messages getting through are those that contain value. They are the ones that make us “pay” attention.

I separate the value providers in my Twitter and Facebook streams into 3 categories:

  • The Influencers: These people are like the parents of teenagers who actually do as their told. In our eyes, they have credibility so we listen to their every word. Generally, they’re either celebrities or industry thought leaders.
  • Friends: Our peers bring us value by satisfying our need for social approval (and sometimes making us laugh).
  • Founts of Knowledge: These are the folks who tweet links the rest of us find useful, like marketers who Tweet links about how to use Facebook and Twitter properly. We visit their social network profiles again and again to see if they’ve tweeted any news or info we’ve missed.

If you’re not the first or second one, you need to be the third one.

The important thing when pushing links and information is to be aware of who your audience is and question if it’s relevant enough to them. Try to add an element of engagement to the information; ask a question, like “What’s everyone think of the latest news *insert link*”. Use a tracking tool such as Bit.ly that lets you monitor how many people click the link.

Most of all, add to the conversation – not with your opinion (unless asked for it) but with useful tips and hints. You must constantly be bringing gifts to the table. This will get you noticed and make your target Tweeters and Facebookers pay attention.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to Tweet or Facebook me at @RepKnight; alternatively, follow me on my personal Twitter account @LyraMcKee or email me at lyra@repknight.com.

 

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