This past week I attended the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) International Conference in New York City. Three words sum up most of the sessions I attended - social media trends.
Aaron Uhrmacher from Text100 had a great session on Navigating the Social Media World. Some figures he put out there opened my eyes, but by the end of the conference I heard them again and again - the Corporate World is taking to social media very slowly.
Sacred Heart University Study from 1/2008 - 70% of Americans don't believe "all or most" of media reporting. Yet blogs are increasing being seen as the de facto news source.
2008 - Only 11% of US companies are using blogs.
Twitter use is growing rapidly - 145 characters do we really need any more than that to say what we have to say?
Common Craft, LLC has some great online videos to explain social media to newbies.
According to Aaron a good Social Media Policy for a company should:
- be transparent
- be authentic
- uses common sense
- speak for yourself (no ghostwriting)
- doesn't share company secrets
- asks for help
Over and over again, I was told to answer questions in a topic that you know something about on LinkedIn. It's a great networking tip.
Aaron told us about utterz- mobile podcasting from your cellphone. Very cool. And he told us about summize, a google search feature for sites like Twitter.
Corporations can use the social media tools for good - Red Cross - Iowa Floods- established a blog, twitter account, and used utterz when the media could not get in to get the story out.
American Airlines - last summer when they stranded lots of people on their planes - established a crisis blog, but it wasn't connected to American Airlines own site, was bare bones and horrible.
Well that's it for this entry, as I downlaod all that I learned at the conference I'll share the highlights here. look for parts 2-4 coming soon. Do you have any social media trends that you are seeing?
Until next time, Tim