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Social Network by Laurel Papworth - 5 new articles
Free webinar on Twitter for Australian Teachers – PIL Microsoft TeachersI’m teaching a free webinar on Twitter for Australian Teachers – it’s on the PIL network for teachers and sponsored by Microsoft. ***** It’s often said Twitter is one of the most powerful teacher professional development tools available. But how do you master it? What are the secrets to mastering Twitter, increasing your reach and influence, and understanding how to have Twitter serve you better? Join social media expert, Laurel Papworth from May 28th for three very exciting social media workshops tailored specifically towards educators. From beginner to expert, these courses will challenge and empower you. One lucky participant will have the opportunity to gain a Harvard Qualification! The person who refers the most friends to the Partners in Learning network be given a free Harvard online social media course. So tell your colleagues, tell your friends and become part of our online social revolution, who knows, you might even get your own #Hashtag. Information about the coursesTuesday 28th May, 4pm- Getting stated: Basic Twitter•
Tuesday 28th May, 5pm- Intermediate: Finding and Following Key Influencers
Tuesday 4th June, 4pm May- Advanced: Add Ons for Twitter
To join the sessions make sure you are registered as an Australian Partners in Learning Network member and stay tuned. Course details will be posted here soon and sent to all Australian PiL Network members. Join here on Livestream to participate in this Twitter course.     
Financial Services and Social Media The AustralianIf your financial services/advisor is not using social media, sack them. The Cost of Inaction is too high. WHEN the Twitter account of Associated Press was hacked last week, a single tweet was sent out: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 150 points in about four minutes, erasing about $150 billion of value. Once people looked outside and noticed that the White House was indeed still there and once AP had corrected the report, the market bounced back. The real questions are: how can a market be so vulnerable to a single tweet, is this a new situation and what should financial boffins be doing about social media? In 2008, Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams tweeted about it being a great day in Seattle. He was blissfully ignorant that the twitterati would put two and two together and figure out that Twitter had gained funding from a Seattle venture capital company. The market responded accordingly. Clearly, even Twitter’s CEO did not understand the impact of social media. Rumour, innuendo and conjecture about companies, investment, who’s hot, who’s not is grist for the mill in social media. No wonder the ASX updated their continuous disclosure guidelines this year to make it absolutely clear: the financial sector must monitor blogs, Twitter and Facebook to check whether details of secret deals are leaking. If a market-sensitive transaction is being discussed on social media, then the market must be informed. Monitoring social media is no longer optional for companies: it’s a legal requirement. Which makes it all the more surprising that research by Comar Brunton into more than 500 retail investors in Australia found that 54 per cent considered that social media delivered “no real benefits” for investors. Only 5 per cent of investors said they relied on financial planners or brokers for advice: the rest of the time they back their own judgment or else listen to family, friends or the media. Perhaps they don’t realise social media is family and friends? There are some great social media integrated dashboards available. I monitored the Toyota Prius brakes story unfold on Twitter, with the stock ticker open; it was fascinating to watch the price tumble in real time. Surely, even if the discussions are not from trusted friends and family, a large volume of strangers talking up or down a stock has to have some impact on investment strategies? The financial sector’s biggest issue on social media is not ROI (Return on Investment) but COI (Cost of Inaction). A response — even “let me find out” — is preferable to silence. Six years ago, when the Engadget technology blog received information that an Apple product would be delayed by three months and inquired of the company whether the rumour was valid, Apple responded with “We don’t engage with social media”. So Engadget published the rumour with Apple’s “no comment” response. Apple’s stock promptly tanked on massive selling, going from $107.89 to $103.42 in precisely six minutes. At the time, this wiped just over $4 billion off Apple’s market capitalisation. Oops. Apple now engages with social media. If I was talking to financial advisers and they proudly declared to me that they did not monitor, leverage or engage with social media, I would grab my purse and back out of the room. Rapidly. The cost to both of us would just be too high. Laurel Papworth is a social media educator and a member of Forbes magazine’s ‘Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers’ list globally. Twitter: @silkcharm First published in The Australian April 29 2013 (paywall)  Tweeting of purchases is a plug that money can’t buy – Social Media ROI MonetizationHow much is a a Tweet worth, in dollar terms? How about a customer sharing a purchase on Facebook – can that make you money? My article in The Australian April 1 2013 A FEW days ago, I bought a DVD on Amazon. At the end of the online checkout, Amazon thanked me for my purchase and then asked me to tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google Plus the Amazon link with an image of the DVD, the price and a description. Most of my friends have excellent taste (meaning the same interests and values as me!), so I pressed the “Tweet this Purchase” button. Off it went. While it’s nice to have customers talking about your product and services with their friends online, raising brand awareness and hopefully providing great reviews, the ability to measure how much that tweet, Facebook share or Google Plus one is worth, is, well, priceless. Those little “Facebook Share” and “Tweet This” buttons are starting to show real power in the emerging C2C (Customer to Customer) media channels. ChompOn, a group-buying site similar to Living Social and Groupon, recently revealed that at the end of a purchase, if the customer “shares” the purchase on Facebook, it’s worth $14 to their business. Eventbrite, the social ticketing site, sold another $2.52 worth of tickets from an average of 11 people who clicked on the shared link. The customer is effectively signing up the next customer at zero cost. Because people who participate in donations, fundraising and not-for-profits know each other, Just Giving discovered that if a donor shared the link, 6 per cent of clicks coming through that link would donate and that one share is worth about $8 in donations. It’s worth noting that Facebook shares are worth dramatically more than tweeted links. Undoubtedly, this is because of the closeness of the social graph (a hundred close family and friends) on Facebook, versus the relative looseness of the connections on Twitter (several thousand acquaintances). Review sites such as Power Reviews have revealed that the value of a review shared to Facebook is $15.72. Once the customer reviews the product and submits it online, if they then share that review socially, their friends click on the shared link, come back and purchase the product. As for my DVD purchase on Amazon? No one appeared to have bought a copy from my tweeted link, as far as I’m aware. But then again, I’ve been too busy purchasing a new dress tweeted by a friend from an Etsy store to notice. Laurel Papworth is a social media educator and a member of Forbes magazine’s ‘Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers’ list globally. Twitter: @silkcharm First published in The Australian April 1 2013 (paywall) 
How to Write Facebook Sponsored Posts And Dodge the HatersYour sponsored posts on Facebook are hated, and customers leave ‘get out of my newsfeed’ messages in their hundreds. Welcome to social media engagement! how to write sponsored posts and not be a dork. Social Media is Earned Attention. The minute you have to Buy Attention you’ve really admitted that the content/story/message is not strong enough to stand on it’s own. In fact it’s crap. So hey, let’s inflict it on the customer community anyway by paying to get their attention, by yelling at them using traditional ads. Quel Surprise! The community starts yelling back.
Sure you get 145 comments but what happens when most of them are like this:
Harvey Norman are not the only one’s coming in for a community caning. Have a look at Walmart’s Page:
Facebook Users don’t care that they are Facebook’s product, not customers. They don’t care that Businesses are allowed to advertise to them. They don’t care if you have a really important event, competition, fundraiser, or promotion – just leave them alone. And they have a voice and they speak as one – leave us alone. Remember, a post that is contextually relevant to the reader is information, if it’s not, it’s spam. Tips to write better sponsored posts on Facebook:
Any other tips? This guy at btbmedia has no idea about social media so the points he makes are very traditional marketing. He makes the point about people like Gerry above not understanding “free” use of Facebook. he misses the point that Gerry knows, doesn’t care, and will use the SAME media channels to ANTI market the Walmart Brand. But our blogger basically says that if thousands of people click on your sponsored post, what does it matter if hundreds of thousands hate it? I would say in todays market that is short term gain for long term damage but I guess time will tell. I’m not convinced all News is Good News, all PR is Good Pr, in the always on, long tail of community discourse. Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV).  YouTube, Gmail, Google Places are Dead, Long Live Google PlusWill Google fold YouTube, Gmail and Places into Google Plus? Suddenly 1.5 billion users on one platform, with Businesses having only one Page to manage. Good or no? Oh, and Google’s Authorship Markup suddenly screws with your SEO (search engine optimisation) and SMO (social media optimisation) in ways that you can only imagine. (Google’s SMO search algorithm) One Business Page/Channel To Rule Them All. My Precioussesss. The images show the eery similarity between the rebranding of YouTube into OneChannel and Google Plus. Of course Google Plus could get a new name of OneChannel instead?  OneChannel To Rule Them All AdBreak:I’ve set up a little social media community on Google Plus. Please join us? How do you go from 1/2 a billion members to over a billion in a month? Merge YouTube, Gmail and Google Plus. YouTube has over 1 billion monthly active users, Gmail and Google Plus are both on 1/2 a billion MAUs (Monthly Active Users). In comparison Facebook has 1 billion MAUs. One quick way to convince Business to migrate to Google Plus business pages is to bring all their customer channels together. Imagine logging into your Google Plus profile and you have new menus on the left: Video, Mail, Places. Easy to imagine withe the Google Plus layout so similar to Youtube OneChannel and new Gmail. Otherwise how else do you explain how much Google’s video service YouTube is looking like Google Plus these days? Compare old and new: Then I had another look at Gmail rebranding – new compose, new bits and bobs and it occurred to me how easy it would be to just rebrand it as Google Plus.  Click to see Google Plus Circles
Merging of Google Plus Business Pages & Google Places is a no-brainer. Facebook already has merged Facebook Places and Business Pages, it makes sense not to run two separate business Pages, one for your shop and one for your shop’s location. If you were wondering what a Google Plus profile looks like, here’s mine. A lot like Blendtec new OneChannel profile and nothing like Cocacola old YouTube profile. Or you can look at my YouTube channel and my Google Plus Profile. YouTube, Gmail, Google Places are Dead, Long Live Google Plus? 
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