Not many of you are aware of this experimentation currently going on by our friends at Google. Recently Google Social Search which is a new stream of service under development in Google labs was launched. This service allows you search content from your social networks you are signed on. Social networks are a warehouse of information with data created by diverse individuals. According to Google these data can make social networks a lot more useful. While carrying of regular search people will be able to search out the views from friends or connections from their various social networks. These views I trust would help improve our search experience. For instance if I want to go on vacation to Bahamas my social search can reveal comments or views from friends on my any of my social contacts who may have at one point talked about Bahamas. Interesting. Right

Google also announced to a search deal to work with twitter on this. According the Google, user will be able to see Twitter post or tweets in Google search results. The service is designed to return traditional results along with updates and tweets that user’s friends and other people they follow on various social networks have posted.

I would agree that Google Social Search will make social networks very useful, especially with capturing useful data. Marrissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products said user will be able to fill out a Google profile, which will then be linked to friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and other social networks. Something tells me the Google the King of internet search will become the ultimate Social data aggregator the Google profile approach. Fingers crossed here. For users who already have a Gmail account, Google will simply have access to their contacts.

For the next couple of days I’ll be experimenting more with Google Social Search. You can join the experimentation to try it out as the development continues. Talk soon!

-Paulette.

Tealium Social Media lets marketers measure the ROI of their social media marketing and online PR initiatives using the same metrics as other digital marketing channels such as pay-per-click, email and banner advertising. The solution helps users decide which social media initiatives they should invest in and which to drop, as well as which media outlets or categories drive the most traffic and conversions.

“Tealium Social Media lets us measure our online PR and outreach initiatives with tangible metrics that make sense to our organization: visits to the site and online sales,” said Chris Hassett, VP of Sales and Marketing at Restorative Remedies, a San Diego provider of natural-products food supplements. “The solution gives us apples-to-apples comparison between our online PR and our other marketing vehicles, all from within our Google Analytics account”.

“Tealium Social Media brings a whole new level of measurement to social media marketing and online PR”, said Olivier Silvestre, co-founder at Tealium. “Social media measurement can now be done in the same tangible way that online marketers are accustomed to, with true ROI analysis”.

Tealium Social Media is available as both a stand-alone version and a plug-in to popular web analytics solutions such as Google Analytics, SiteCatalyst, NetInsight, WebTrends, Coremetrics and others. Introductory pricing for the subscription service starts at $250/month and is based on the depth of coverage.

“Tealium has solved the black box of PR and social media measurement,” said Erik Bratt, CEO of Engage Social Media, a social media and public relations agency focused on monitoring and measurement. “We can now make actionable decisions for our clients that drive better business results through PR and social media.”

More information can be found from the Tealium web site at http://www.tealium.com/products/social-media/.

Social media tools are quietly crippling into our work space. Blogs are playing an important role in communicating among stakeholders. Project management teams have found its usefulness in communicating project status and progress, educating and providing end users support. Blogs when incorporated facilitate knowledge sharing and discussions.  Matthew Hodgson highlighted key points from CIO’s article on “How to use enterprise blogs to streamline project management” in other to get the best of social tools in project management:

1. Rules of engagement

Lay out what the rules of engagement will be. That will make the executives more comfortable with going forward.

2. Start small

Blogs work well when they catch on virally, so you need to introduce the idea to the right people, who will then sell the idea to the rest of the organization.

3. Curing the email addicts

The primary communication medium is still e-mail,” says Jonathan Edwards, a Yankee Group analyst. “We’re all so accustomed to it. You can’t change the way people work overnight.”. One way to wean employees from e-mail communications is to use the sister technology to a blog: Real Simple Syndication (RSS) with invitations sent through email.

4. “Tag It” or “Bag It”

Teaching employees to use blog-editing tools isn’t hard, since they essentially look like a lightweight word processor. Instead, the challenge comes in reminding them to tag their posts with keywords that will help with later search and discovery needs

5. “No” is not a good answer

If companies don’t adopt blogging technologies for the enterprise, line-of-business heads are just a credit-card purchase away from a hosted offering.

I’ve had this experience myself, where the project team has just gone to Wordpress because its free and the internal support just isn’t there.

6. Wikis can be a challenge for users to learn

Although it’s easy to set up wikis, it’s not always so easy for users to take advantage of them. “Wiki platforms have a bit of a learning curve. You have to dig in to learn how to use it”. The use of wikimarkup instead of a WYSIWYG editor will definitely put some people off using it.

7. Diversify

Blogs can use embedded material from a wide range of sources, including YouTube for project and stakeholder interviews, Flickr for pictures of workshops, and Slideshare material of PowerPoint presentations to the Executive. Even your team’s useful internet bookmarks shared through Delicious are likely to appeal to people reading the project’s posts. This will help your posts appeal to a wider range of people.

8. Don’t create a blogger. Free one!

The best Bloggers are those who are motivated to write, so utilize their enthusiasm rather than forcing someone whose heart just isn’t in it.

9. Low barrier to adoption

Wikipedia works well because anyone can create and edit just about anything. Even when there are errors they are typically fixed within a few hours.

Rather than putting in place hard security models for approvals, leverage the rules of engagement and encourage discussion and interaction by having few barriers (if any) for participation in the conversation.

10. Two-way, not one-way

Social media like blogs are about conversation, not the one way dialogue that project reporting typically adopts. Be ready to answer questions and engage with stakeholders openly, honestly, and with transparency.

11. Have fun!

Adults often forget that ‘play’ is one of the most effective ways to learn. Experimentation with different tools within a project will allow you and others to understand their use so that when it comes to employing them for external communications you’ll be well equipped to know the ins and outs of social media — what works, what doesn’t, and why.

I remember chatting with a friend who wanted to know what I was busy doing, and I responded saying “I was pretty busy on a blog post”. But surprisingly he said to me, “Who reads blogs anymore?” Is it true that nobody read blogs anymore? Or has it lacked importance? Far from it. Blogs have become a primary part of some company’s communication routine. Many find it useful to communicate about new product release, support, or our very common tag “tips & tricks”. Blogs now serve as corporate editiorial pages.

Corporate blogs attract company audience to participate in discussions raised on post related to either the company or just any interesting subject raised by corporate bloggers. In some cases this audience comprises your employees (for internal blogs), customers or site visitors. For many it is a good selling point. You speak and sit back while viewers are open to give comments on your post. Many have found this open criticism medium helpful in readjusting business cases and goals.

Who participates in Corporate Blogs?

Every blog needs an individual I would refer to as the Managing Editor. This individual plays the role of ensuring the blogs keeps running no matter what, he/she plays god behind the scene. Employees should be encouraged to participate as either authors or contributors. Corporate blog that have seen the participation of top management executives have proved very successful. CEO’s and CTO’s who regularly participates in blogging draw the attention of other employees to the corporate blog and encourage them to participate. It’s what I refer to as “leading by example”.

Points to Note

Whatever blog type implemented by your company, either an internal or external blog, it is very important to catch the attention of the readers. As much as possible you should ensure that every post has a purpose to achieve. Striking titles is an attraction. It’s very important to include tags within every post. So never forget tagging, its Web 2.0 best souvenir. Placing post under specific categories helps in filtering each post according to relevant topics. Ensure to preview your post before publishing. It gives you a good picture of what it would look like to others. One last important point, be relaxed and friendly in writing. Don’t forget blogs are social tools, so ensure your blog has a social tone.

-Paulette.

A few days ago I was in one of my groups on Linkedin, and I commented to a group member’s question who was seeking academic materials on Web 2.0 and HR 2.0 as it relates to recruiting for his masters degree project. Unfortunately he only had available to him non-academic materials. Apparently, it is clear that academic materials are yet to be penned down. But how soon will this be? How soon will these never tuning back technologies stay out of the classroom books?  Blogs and Wikis are are growing with thousands of viewers reading articles and white papers on business case studies and more bloggers like you and I will never stop preaching about Web 2.0 until we hear it echo back at us. The enterprise is fast realizing the use of these tools to enhance collaboration and communication and overall improve performance. Like my dear friend at the onset of this post, I think his project will make an impression on his professors. We know Web 2.0 and HR 2.0 were all created outside the classroom but so are many of the technologies we know today, that we learnt while at school. Never the case I expect to see this new trend supported at the academic level pretty soon. I’m sure I’m not alone on this.

-Paulette.

Collaboration tools like emails and net meeting are not uncommon tools used by employees within the enterprise. Large email “CC” to team members and annoying bombardment of the email server with everyone trying to reply to an email while copying everyone on the mailing list. Granted emails are great, but then how much can be done with “Walls” like popular Facebook’s “Super Wall“? 

Profile “Wall” or “Group and Community Walls” have been found to be very effective in social networks to improve conversation and communication among community members. Users have found it easier to post comments and views without having to send either emails or copy everyone on the conversation thread.

Similarly, social tools such as walls as used in Facebook, MySpace or Beetnic can enhance conversation among employees in an internal social network. Employees can post their comments and views on business matters in a more relaxed atmosphere, like they normally will do with public social networks like Facebook. Walls can compliment emails and be used for real-time communication among projects teams or unit team members. In my next post I’ll discuss the pros and cons of implementing Walls. Don’t forget your comments are welcome anytime.

-Paulette.