Archive for Strategy
Social Media Academy establishes global consulting network, Black Diamonds
Posted by: | CommentsSocial Media Academy’s Black Diamond consultants help small medium business to enter social media space.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Axel Schultze, Founder, CEO Social Media Academy
Social Media Academy founder Axel Schultze said: “Business leaders have a hard time to select a social media consultant that is right for them. Too many self proclaimed social media experts only confuse customers. We conquer this problem by creating a worldwide standard for methodologies, strategy development and social media execution plans. The Black Diamond Network consists of a worldwide network of certified social media consultants with a very transparent and unified experience profile.”
“Mark Moore, from Atlanta, GA, one of the founding members said: “One of our big advantages is our globally standardized methodology approach. Any member can jump into any project and knows exactly how we all work. This provides a great project security for small and large customers”. Boughty Canton, another founding member, from Singapore commented: “Businesses begin to understand that social media is not just a marketing tool but a general business strategy. As Black Diamonds members, we help companies to think and execute strategically”. Wendy Soucie from Wisconsin said: “An important aspect of the Black Diamond Network is our ability to provide very cost efficient social media packages to small businesses. Even though we are connected in a global network – the individual Black Diamonds operate locally. Each Black Diamond brings to the engagement an understanding of a particular regional area or even a vertical market dynamic.” Rick Speciale from Sydney, Australia and Catherine Sherwood from Albuquerque, NM see another advantage of the Black Diam ond group in the collaboration of different subject matter experts. “We both focus on the financial services industry. Collaborating with other experts while maintaining a standardized operating method gives customers the breadth and depth in expertise they expect”. Barbara Daniels from Mesa, AZ, also one of the founding members stated: “We collaborate on projects and strategic engagements as a group, each bringing our unique talents and backgrounds to create a synergy in the fast-paced world of social media that is the first of its kind. We take social media far beyond the marketing aspect, assisting companies in building mindshare and market share by imploring the proven principles and standardized methodologies of the Social Media Academy.”
The Black Diamond group is orche strated by the Social Media Academy and organizes knowledge webinars in the US, Europe and Asia helping businesses to better comprehend the impact social media has to their business, their market and their ecosystem. The Knowledge webinar series starts in September and is free of charge. A Black Diamond reception is established to help companies find the best social media strategist for their respective needs. The next leadership class, which is the base education to become a black diamond, starts September 16.
More details are available at: http://socialmedia-academy.com/BlackDiamonds
More corresponding links:
Social Media Academy http://socialmedia-academy.com
Social Media Leadership class http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/us-leadershipclass.cfm
Social Media Academy Methodology overview http://socialmedia-academy.com/html/methodologies.cfm
Social sites from people mentioned in this press release:
Axel Schultze http://xeeSM.com/AxelS
Barbara Daniels http://xeeSM.com/wk4coffee
Boughton Canton http://xeeSM.com/Boughty
Catherine Sherwood http://xeeSM.com/CatherineSherwood
Mark Moore http://xeeSM.com/RMarkMoore/
Rick Speciale http://xeeSM.com/speciale/
Walter Adamson http://xeeSM.com/walter/
Wendy Soucie http://xeeSM.com/wendysoucie/
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The Social Media Academy is an education and research institute providing education for business professionals from all industries on how to best apply social media to their respective businesses.
| Issued By | : | Social Media Academy Marita Roebkes | |
| Email Contact | : | Click to email (Partial email = @socialmedia-academy.com) | |
| Phone | : | 650 384 0057 | |
| Address | : | 288 Hamilton Avenue | |
| City/Town | : | Palo Alto | |
| State/Province | : | California | |
| Zip | : | 94301 | |
| Country | : | United States | |
| Categories | : | Human Resources, Education, Business | |
| Tags | : | social media, consulting, small medium business, methodology, Network, customer experience, assessment, strategy | |
| Last Updated | : | Sep 08, 2009 | |
| Shortcut | : | www.prlog.org/10335825 |
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Observe, Plan, Execute
Yesterday I was reminded of why organizations need to at least monitor their brand in the social media space, even if they choose not to participate in it. I received a following notice on Twitter from an Id that was representing themselves as a directory resource for a particular city that relies on tourism and honeymoons. Not a bad idea from a social media perspective.
So I go to check it out – especially since they had a large number of followers and numerous tweets. My Oh My… what a surprise… 600 plus tweets of what appeared to be randomly generated tweets which every once in a while created some images of questionable activities with Bollywood movies. I joke not… “committed the sin of Onan with ostensible Hindi movies” and “remembers the halcyon days of grotesque nightclubs” were actual tweets. OK, probably not as racy as you were expecting, BUT how would you feel if these tweets were coming from an account representing your company or posing as your company? Twitter has a new service for “verifying” accounts, however you need to justify your need for these types of accounts right now.
So it gets a bit worse. In Twitter, you can have a web URL in your profile. There was one in this case, so I clicked on it. Nothing racy on the other end, but it was an incomplete website. It looks like someone is attempting to build a directory of businesses in this tourist town. Again, not a bad idea, but what if you are the local government or the chamber of commerce for this town and already have an official site?
This case study gives us two lessons to consider…
First, what is at stake here is the town’s brand. Regardless of your participation in social media, if you have a brand to protect, you should at least establish a program of “monitoring” your brand. This program could range from using Google Alerts to a more robust tool such as those produced by Techrigy or Scoutlabs. All options essentially let you start for free. If you have limited volume, the “free” version of Techrigy or Scoutlabs may be all you need. I personally use a combination of Google Alerts and a paid version of ScoutLabs. I love the graphing capability of Techrigy, but for where my business volume is, Scoutlabs is the better fiscal choice.
The next step of your “monitoring” initiative is to define how you or your company will respond to events that occur. These don’t necessarily need to be “bad” events. You could reward those people who really promote your business. Or you can intervene when needed. Its better to be informed than blind. I call these reactions “Engagement Scripts” and they should be shared with everyone who communicates on behalf of your company. In severe cases, you may need legal counsel.
You may be thinking that I am blowing this case study out of proportion. Maybe the city in question was “alpha testing” some new social media initiatives and they just didn’t have the content completed yet. I can go along with that hypothesis, and I would encourage the company (city in this case) to test things privately. There is no reason to flood Twitter with 600 worthless messages – it still reflects poorly on the brand.
That leads us to lesson two… Plan your social media initiatives. By doing something as described in this case study, you are taking a shot-gun approach to social media programs. What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you trying to engage? Take the time to conduct an assessment to learn where your respective ecosystem is. The Four Quadrant Assessment Methodology (as defined by the Social Media Academy, and my personal preference) looks at where people are in the social web, sentiment analysis, key interests and reflections in the following areas:
- Customer mapping and field assessment
- Brand analysis
- Partner and alliance analysis
- Competition analysis
I’m not suggesting you get paralyzed by analysis. Think of it as clarifying the conversations you want to have and making them meaningful. Shooting fish in a barrel may be easy, but shooting the falls in a barrel is not one of my recommended actions. Do a little homework and planning, then go catch your trophy fish. I look forward to hearing about it.
