All posts by Jeff Marmins

Social Strategy Sandbox Podcast Update

Social Strategy Sandbox microphone and headphones photo

We know there’s a lot coming your way.

How many white papers, videos, powerpoint decks and podcasts can you digest and still be productive day-to-day?

Our hope is that we can offer some easy-to-consume value in the form of podcast interviews with thought leaders and industry experts. Our goals for the Social Strategy Sandbox is 30 minutes of fun, value and actionable take-away.

Brand New Podcasts

Click here to subscribe to Social Strategy Sandbox; Blue circle with music note and text

Association Online Communities

Our most recent podcast is How Associations are Capitalizing on Online Communities with Joshua Paul, Director of Marketing and Strategy for Socious Software.  The discussion covered the use of online communities for member engagement and collaboration. We also covered how decisions are being made to plan and use online community software for Associations and non-profits.

YouTube Video Deep-Dive

Earlier in August we had the pleasure of a YouTube video deep dive with film producer, video production and marketing expert Torrey Loomis. One thing is certain. If you listen to this audio you will want to go do some video. YouTube is a powerful search engine and should be a business requirement. Learn how to avoid some common mistakes and where to start on Why Your YouTube Video Sucks (and what you can do about it).

Photo of Euan Semple

Coming in September: What’s Working Now In Social Business? A Global View

Want to join us live? Please do on September 12th at 10: 30 AM Pacific for What’s Working Now In Social Business? A Global View . I’m going to get to chat with consultant, author

and former Director of Knowledge Management for the BBC, Euan Semple. Mr. Semple has a great podcast series of his own about the use of the social web in business. Give it a listen and I’m sure you’ll see why we’re excited to have him on the Social Strategy Sandbox next month!

 

 

 

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Mix it Up – Combine Digital and In-Person Networking

Networking with drinks after work

Last night, countless groups assembled in hotels, offices, restaurants, bars and coffee shops for fun and business reasons.  They called or emailed each other to get together after work to discuss business growth, plan a business project or just “hang-out”.  Some may have considered it as part of a membership obligation. Others were sales prospect hunting. They met, had a great time, exchanged business cards and went home.  Two groups in the Sacramento area had “Socials,” last night that view connecting in a whole different way.

It was once thought that our digital lives would keep us within the confines of our homes and cubicles. The age of food delivery, on-demand entertainment and digital networking and communication tools would decrease our desire and ability to connect IRL (In Real Life). The opposite has proven true. Networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow us to connect with like-minded people and know more in advance about who we want to be sure to shake hands with at the Tweetup or Mixer. They allow us to continue the conversation online that started in the room. In fact, more people are getting together and connecting in more meaningful ways as a result of social technology.

Social Media Club Sacramento hosted #TheSocial at LowBrau in downtown Sacramento and Windfarm Marketing and Razorsharp Public Relations organized the Placer Business Tweetup at the Dono dal Cielo Winery in Newcastle.  Both of these groups invited their guests to join online through an online event management program, encouraged others to participate via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and email and still picked up the phone to encourage less “digital” friends to join them.  Just in the invitation process alone, their opportunities to meet new people was exponentially extended.  Attendees checked-in on Foursquare and uploaded photos to Instagram and Facebook.  Today, post-event, Facebook and Twitter are where the conversation continues.

There is tremendous (and FREE!) opportunity to intentionally grow your network by combining your interests, social networking online and getting yourself out the door.  You and your business are missing out if you don’t combine your digital and analog activity.

Are you in Sacramento? Check out the Sacramento Social Media Club Sacramento, Sacramento Tweetup, Placer Business Tweetup and Folsom Tweetup Calendars!  If you’re not in Sacramento, let Google introduce you to groups in your area.

Combine digital and in-person networking for more intentional connections.

Do you have a networking success story? Please share it with us!

 

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What is a social business ecosystem?

The ideal social business ecosystem is all of your people, information and processes connected in such a way as to waste less time finding the right person or the right answer.

The dictionary defines an ecosystem as any system of interconnecting and interacting parts, as in a business: The success of Apple’s ecosystem depends on hardware/software integration. Manufacturers, retailers, and customers are all part of the automotive industry’s ecosystem.

Social Business Ecosystem

It’s a simple way to look at it and makes sense when it comes to where social networking platforms can help people in a business of any size company. A functioning ecosystem is people sharing information easily and servicing customers efficiently.  The conversation among all stake-holders becomes accessible, making each part of the ecosystem truly connected to the other.

The scientific view, based on today’s technology, offers a more detailed explanation to what can be achieved in a business today.

  • A community of organisms together with their physical environment, viewed as a system of interacting and interdependent relationships and including such processes as the flow of energy through trophic level sand the cycling of chemical elements and compounds through living and nonliving components of the system.

    The American Heritage® Science Dictionary -

Sure, some of that is hard to apply to business as a concept but from a 50,000 foot cultural perspective, we see harmony, order and purpose. Businesses that are growing toward this objective are more fun places to work. They have engaged employees that treat customers better, fostering loyalty. They are not afraid to make mistakes or bring forth bold ideas.

Learn more about C7group.

Find out about our consulting services or workshops.

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Social Media Risk Management – Altimeter Group Research

Social media policy, procedure and training represented by a judge's gavel

Recently, Altimeter Group published their findings from a detailed study on Social Media Risk Management.We are grateful that Altimeter chose C7group as a resource for their research. Altimeter has fast become a benchmark for analysis of new and disruptive technologies and business practices.

“66% of companies surveyed said that social media represented a significant or critical risk to the reputation of the organization…”

Please view and share the report below. We welcome your comments.

C7group offers services in Social Media Governance (Policy and Procedure) and Employee Training (Example: Social Media Behavior and Best Practices).

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Portland high schools block social networking, video streaming sites #Fail

Barrier to Social and Learning Success Construction barricade yellow plastic men with hard-hats

Over the next two weeks, Portland’s school district will install filtering software on laptops issued to high school students, in order to block access to pornography, social networking sites and video streaming sites when the laptops are at home.

The district will install filtering software made by Sophos, an Internet security company based in Boston. The software will be downloaded automatically when students boot up their computers at school. Only when students get home will they discover that their lives have changed in a big way.

No longer will they have access to social networking sites like Facebook and video-streaming sites like Hulu and YouTube. Also blocked will be forums and news groups, games, dating sites, gambling sites and chat rooms. – The Portland Press Herald

This will prove to be the wrong approach. It is incredible how a School District can make this kind of decision. It is further evidence that migrating from old ways of thinking in business and education will take considerable effort and visionary thinking.  Today learning can be reinforced online.

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B2B Social Media – Become a Marketing Superstar

B2B Social Media Webinar Jeffrey Cohen Kipp BondarAs a business marketing to other businesses, you already know that it’s critical to embrace and optimize your social media efforts for all the ways it can extend your reach. But how do you turn social interactions into actionable leads, and more important, revenue? Can you really measure ROI, and if so, how? How do you learn and leverage best practices in a perpetually changing environment?

Next week we’re offering an opportunity to virtually meet Jeffrey Cohen, Social Strategist at Radian6 and Kipp Bodnar, Indound Marketing Manager at Hubspot during our webcast:  B2B Social Media – Become a Marketing Superstar. Jeffrey and Kipp are co-authors of The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More, and the co-founders of SocialMediaB2B.com. These established thought leaders will share their insights on B2B social media, offer case studies and answer questions relevant to your business.

B2B Social Media – Become a Marketing Superstar
Wednesday, April 25, 10 to 11am PT
Free
Register today

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Social Media and Sales Relationships by Jon Ferrara

Free to view! Here is the recorded version of Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble, presenting and discussing  tips about how to work as an effective team by tracking and managing their contacts, prospects, activities, communications and sales forecasts, including:

Maximize marketing impact
More revenue in less time
The need for unified communication

This webcast is part of the 2012 C7group Business Thought Leadership Series. Watch the video below  or continue reading to learn more about Jon.

A social entrepreneur at heart, Jon founded GoldMine Software in 1989 where he served as the executive vice president of the company until he sold it in 2000. GoldMine is one of the all time best selling CRM products that helped pioneer the entire Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market. During this time Jon was awarded the Earnst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award while GoldMine was named PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice in 1993 and again in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

After selling GoldMine and watching the immense rise in power social media was experiencing, Jon entered the startup world again when he noticed a distinct lack of any products that effectively combined Relationship Management, Social Listening and Engagement, and Collaboration with Sales and Marketing. In 2009 Jon founded Nimble to create an extensive Social Business platform to fill this gap.

Jon Ferrara: Social Media and Sales Relationships from C7group on Vimeo.

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The New Business As Usual by Euan Semple

This recorded webcast is part of the 2012 C7group Business Thought Leadership Series: Euan Semple leads a presentation about driving business, leveraging social media and the culture and workflow changes that are required. Watch Euan’s presentation below or read more about his background:

Euan Semple is one of the few people in the world who can turn the complex world of social networking into something we can all understand. And, at the same time, learn how to get the most from it. Ten years ago, while working in a senior position at the BBC, Semple was one of the first to introduce what have since become known as social media tools into a large, successful organization. He has subsequently had five years of unparalleled experience working with organizations such as Nokia, The World Bank and NATO He is a one-man digital upgrade option for us all to download. This world is changing fast, but he makes sense of it because he understands that the core basics remain the same: community, learning, interaction. He is a master story-teller who offers a host of practical tales about how this new world can work for real people in the real world. Author of Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do: A Manager’s Guide to the Social Web.

Euan Semple: The New Business As Usual from C7group on Vimeo.

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Social Learning and Employee Development by Halelly Azulay

Here is the recorded version of a valuable presentation and discussion with Halelly Azulay, CEO of TalentGrow from the 2012 Business Thought Leadership Webcast Series. Halelly Azulay discusses the realities of employee development and leveraging social networking and media for learner-driven, learner-generated employee education.

Halelly brings over 19 years of professional experience in the fields of workplace learning, performance, and communication with regulatory, corporate, government, non-profit, academic, and entrepreneurial clients. She is the author of Employee Development on a Shoestring (ASTD Press, 2012).

 

Social Learning and Employee Development by Halelly Azulay

View more presentations from C7group
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Which is more important–culture or strategy?

Our answer is clearly culture! We agree with Leslie Bradshaw at Jess3 (and we’re big fans). Is it really a choice though?  Paying appropriate attention to strategy and planning is part of an adaptive culture. We think that the modern social, digital business has an iterative process for regularly re-examining its own culture. (more…)

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