marketing & social media strategist focused primarily on helping public sector organizations achieve their objectives more efficiently and effectively
international speaker and workshop facilitator on the topics of strategic marketing, modern communications, social media engagement and government 2.0
Public Sector Marketing 2.0 - Fresh insights on government, association, and non-profit marketing in a Web 2.0 world
Here’s the 3rd installment of my favourite video series (i.e “Did You Know”) illustrating the changing media landscape. No explanation necessary, just watch the video and enjoy.
The original Did You Know 3.0 video can be watched here.
Whenever I give a workshop relating to social media, I often ask the following question when talking about social networks: “How many of you are currently on LinkedIn?”
In most cases about 60% of the people in the room put up their hand. I then ask those same people: ” How many of you have ever actually received any value from being on LinkedIn”?
One hand usually stays up.
What people tend to forget is that in most cases you’re not going to “receive” value simply upon signing up. This applies to all social media tools/applications. You need to be willing to put in some work (i.e. “give”) in order to receive. The truth is, the majority of people couldn’t be bothered and thus never end up using their accounts.
It is for those people that I want to provide the following simple use for LinkedIn, which involves very little time investment. It’s often overlooked and yet it’s right there front and centre. Basically, by following these steps you can find and connect with almost any person, from any industry in any city. The bigger your network, the better it works (concept of 3 degrees of separation).
This sets into motion an automatic message that will be sent to the connector from your immediate network as well as the end person that you are trying to reach. The ball is thus in their court and you will receive an answer 99.9% of the time. Just remember to limit your first degree connections to people that you have either personally met, done business with, or at least chatted via phone.
Why does this work?
Simple: When people see an introduction from a familiar contact, they feel obliged to respond. Don’t forget, 50 million users wouldn’t have signed up if this stuff didn’t work.
Have a look at my “Quick Tip” presentation below , which explains this exercise in visual form.
I’m always blown away whenever I step outside of the social media fishbowl/community and step into reality.
Which reality am I referring to?
The one where the vast majority of intelligent people in the workforce have never used, let alone heard of free tools such as Google Docs (assuming it’s not blocked).
What is it?
Google Docs is the ultimate tool for when you need wiki functionality, but don’t necessarily want to open it up to the public and/or you just have a short term initiative in mind.
What makes it great?
People are already used to using it (most don’t know they are)
How is that possible?
It uses the same menus, icons and basic features as Microsoft Office products (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
What’s the difference?
Any amount of people can work on the exact same document collaboratively in real-time. No more emails and/or documents with tracked changes!
Show me how!
Watch this video to get an idea of what I’m talking about…
So please , do yourself a favour (if you’re not already all over this) and start saving yourself and your organization some valuable time today!
