The exhausting compulsion to hit “refresh”
I love this “secret of adulthood” by Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project: “Happiness doesn’t always make me feel happy.” Continue reading
Scoop.it Pros: Laura Brown on curation and the display of information
Being a content curator is all about displaying information. We don’t create the content, we display it. We share it – and people read it. But, first you have to display it. There are several skills involved in displaying content. Here are some thoughts for you to consider when creating and curating a Scoop.it topic. Continue reading
Should social networks curate their own content? Or should users do it?
The challenge [for social networks] is to create something of permanent value for the community, to offer more than a temporary spotlight.
gdecugis‘s insight:
Austin Powell comes back on PaidContent the recent announcement by Tumblr to shut down Sotryboard and lay off the editorial team that was highlighting and curating Tumblr’s best content.
He makes a point that it’s been extremely hard for most social networks – with the notable exception of LinkedIn with its influencer program – to add value by curating its users’ best content.
I wonder whether that’s actually such a big deal. Continue reading
Learning to learn: a series on hacking your own brain
I recently partook in a discussion among some fellow community managers on the best ways to learn about the industry and how to train its future generations. When the conversation reached the point where we all shared the “training” we went through ourselves, the answers began getting interesting. Continue reading
Does meme count as culture?
The ubiquitous internet meme comes in many forms — from iterations on top of iterations of a viral video to a random picture of a cute animals with an ironic white Impact caption. They also seem to proliferate like one of those animals with an ironic white Impact caption, if you know what I mean.
Where you should focus while establishing your online presence
If you aren’t engaging your customers online, your business is missing out on a huge opportunity to generate sales and gain valuable new customers. Creating and maintaining an online presence isn’t easy. You can quickly become overwhelmed or waste money on unsuccessful outreach if you don’t approach it in an informed, strategic manner. Continue reading
Learning when to promote your message, and when not to.
One of the hardest things about becoming the “voice” of an organization is figuring out what in the world to say. Do you promote your group endlessly? Do you send out fun links you think your constituents will enjoy? Do you talk to your fans and figure out what they want? Well, the answer is yes to all the above. However, it’s very easy to fall into the trap many other organizations do and either promote the heck out of your mission or refuse to talk about yourself at all. Both tactics can result in you missing out on customers, constituents or funding and even chase your current followers away. So how do you find a good balance? Continue reading
Twitter and its impact IRL
Here in the US, the Dow recently tumbled almost 150 points in a “flash crash” caused by widespread digital panic. What was the cause of this panic? Twitter.
The bigger story is that someone hacked the official AP Twitter handle and tweeted a false report of a terrorist attack on the White House, which claimed that the President had been injured in said attack. This is significant in the grander scheme because the Dow essentially measures the health of the US economy and a hit of this magnitude means lots of people (deserving or otherwise) needlessly lost a lot of money in nanoseconds. Continue reading
Effective community building for social change
NOTE: Eric is talking about the non-profit sector, but these rules apply seamlessly to for-profit operations, personal brands, and enthusiasts.
There are currently around 1.5 million non-profits registered in the US alone, with total contributions amounting to just under $300 billion. But while many charitable organizations do spend more than 66% of a donation on their actual mission, it is a rare case. Perhaps more importantly, donors have very little control over their money and how it gets used, or to what end. Continue reading
Lame to fame: 4 tips for optimizing presentations for Twitter
Presentations and slideshows have been historically one of the most boring and standard corporate media currently available to employees and management. They are meant to purely educational or purely for selling — they are very rarely anything but a pitch or a corporate update. But with the rise of Slideshare as a platform for sharing a new kind of presentation, a lean, value-adding, and stand-alone type of presentation, and its proof as a viable option for driving traffic, the “corporate presentation” can be leveraged for more than its functional purpose and optimized to spread the company or personal message via social media.