All posts in “hootsuite”

Social Media Training Gets Formal in 2013

January 4, 2013 / Comments Off on Social Media Training Gets Formal in 2013 / Posted in: Blog


James Cooper is a strategist on the Content and Community team at Social Media Group (SMG). Follow @jamescooper

In his list of trends for 2013 on Fast Company, Ryan Holmes addresses a recent Harvard Business Review survey, which reveals that only 12 percent of companies using social media feel they are doing so effectively.

With businesses making increased use of social media, the demand for specialized training will surely grow. As Holmes points out, “social media skills will join email as part of basic business literacy in the digital age.”

Beverly Macy shares similar views with Holmes in her Huffington Post article, which lists her social media predictions for 2013. According to Macy, enterprises that are not fluent in social media will be at a competitive disadvantage. “All employees must be exposed to basic social media training and education to attain a knowledge baseline in the organization,” as Macy puts it.

Holmes stresses the importance for companies to provide “social media compliance training to ensure that workers in sensitive industries from finance to healthcare uphold regulatory standards while taking advantage of social media’s benefits.”

To make enterprise social media training a reality, Macy predicts that most companies will need outside consultation and guidance. She believes that companies will need to develop and integrate entirely new systems to train within the organization. As she points out, “most of today’s education systems inside the enterprise rely on technologies and procedures that do not encompass social platforms.”

And what’s higher education doing to meet the growing demand for social media education? Holmes thinks we can “expect to see more social media coursework at universities, as well as dedicated social media MBA programs, as schools rise to the challenge….”

Having trained clients to use social media at an enterprise-level and instructed social media courses at a university-level, I have long felt that social media training is an issue that deserves greater attention and resources from most companies and academic institutions. That said, I strongly agree with Holmes’ and Macy’s predictions, and I hope we see them realized in a big way in 2013 and years to come.

What do you think? What’s your organization doing to train staff?

Yammer Gets an Update

August 20, 2012 / Comments Off on Yammer Gets an Update / Posted in: Blog

Michelle McCudden is a Client Engagement Director on the Client Strategy & Innovation team at Social Media Group. Follow @mmccudden1

First, Yammer was bought by Microsoft for $1.2 billion.Just yesterday, it was announced that Yammer will integrate with HootSuite and other third-party apps, as well as roll out a new instant messaging feature similar to Google Talk. I’m interested in these stories, as Yammer is SMG’s inter-office network of choice, but I find myself most intrigued by its move into employee emotion analysis.

Yammer has partnered with Kanjoya to develop a product called Crane which analyzes Yammer messages for sentiment and reports “trending emotions” back to managers. I’ve long been skeptical of automated tools that claim to measure sentiment, as my research experience has shown time and again how challenging it can be for humans to consistently and accurately evaluate language, much less an automated program, which tends to struggle with concepts like irony and sarcasm. Crane bills itself as “different,” analyzing “with emotion first as opposed to simple positive, negative and neutral classification.”

Do you think Crane will actually be an asset to managers or just another dashboard to check? Will employees really post negative comments on Yammer or is that a career-limiting move?

 

 

Social Media Roundup for November 18, 2011

November 20, 2011 / Comments Off on Social Media Roundup for November 18, 2011 / Posted in: Blog, Social Media Roundup

 

Google+ Pages continued…

Last week, Google announced new Google+ Pages for companies. Since then, top brands, including Pepsi, Hugo Boss, and Toyota have started to build their Google+ communities. What’s next?

This week, Google announced a series of new features that will make Google+ Pages even more attractive, and easier to use for brands.

Third Party Tools To Help Manage Google+ Pages

For those companies using platforms like HootSuite and ContextOptional to manage multiple social networks now integrate Google+ Pages. This feature will help populate Google+ with more brands as many organizations already use Social Media Management tools for their daily social media activities.

Trending topics and other improvements to the Google+ search

According to Mashable, Google+ has quietly rolled out trending topics within Google+ search this week. Just like Twitter trending topics, Google+ lists the top 10 most discussed topics within their platform. In addition to that, there have been other improvements to Google+ search as well. Users are now able to search within their own posts, their circles or their entire Google+ network.

Google+ Search

Google also tweaked the search page slightly. One thing that caught my attention is that Google+ Search now defaults to “most recent” rather than “best of”. This is Google moving back into real-time search (since their high-profile split with Twitter in July).

Average Facebook User [Infographic]

The average age of a Facebook user is now 38. New stats and facts from a new Infographic designed by JESS3 that looks at the average Facebook user’s daily activities. The Infographic shows that Facebook users are still the most engaged  – 52% of the users use the platform daily, and more than 20% of users are engaged with other people’s content.

Future Steve Jobs?

At TEDxManhattanBeach last month,  a 12-year-old boy named Thomas Suarez impressed with a speech about his journey to become an app developer and how he founded his own company. The video came out last week and has received over 1 million views on YouTube.  People are referring to him as the next Steve Jobs, as he shows charisma rarely seen in people, let alone people his age.

From the YouTube introduction:

Thomas Suarez is a 6th grade student at a middle school in the South Bay of Los Angeles. When Apple released the Software Development Kit (SDK), he began to create and sell his own applications. “My parents, my friends and even the people at the Apple store all supported me,” he says, “and Steve Jobs inspired me”. Thomas points out that it’s hard to learn how to make an app. “For soccer you could go to a soccer team … but what if you want to make an app?” He’s started a club for fellow students at school, where he shares his knowledge of programming. Thomas articulates his vision that students are a valuable new technology resource to teachers, and should be empowered to offer assistance in developing the technology curriculum and also assist in delivering the lessons.