Here are the slides from the presentation:

• My opening slides with some example of different technologies.
• Social SharePoint – A Case Study

I hope you find them interesting.

Check it out:

Interesting post on Bloomberg about how the industry is intrigued by Twitter’s new ad serving strategy. The aspect that has people interested is the concept of “resonance”, i.e. using a metric based on how other people react to the advertisement. The interesting side of this is that popular adverts will get broadcast more, while as soon as people start losing interest in something, the ad will get dropped. The same concept would apply regardless of if you’re selling something as valuable as real estate; or something as spammy as diet pills; if the market reacts favourably to it, then the message will be reinforced by the network.

It’s an interesting concept and certainly adds something new to the game. The next few months will be quite interesting to watch.

It’s been interesting to watch this subject develop, from the early days of blogging all the way through to today. Blogging opened up self-publishing to the masses and coupled with a cheap camcorder one could even start to produce videos. Business has had to come to terms with User Generated Content, the ability for consumers to air feelings and opinions openly and the wide proliferation of information. It’s been a fun journey so far, and we’re still at the beginning. I’m just happy to be riding the wave!

1. Determine specifically what you want to get out of the site.
2. Set a period of time during which you’re willing to experiment with the site and develop a clear method to measure your progress.
3. Evaluate your success and determine whether the time you put into it is worth the return.

Some of us live in Twitter constantly, while for others it’s a brief foray. For example, if one is running a marketing campaign for mother’s day 2010, then they have a short, sharp focus that is easily measurable. However, for lots of people, the Twitter engagement is about trying to add value to their work, their day or their life. You can intrinsically gather if it’s really providing value. Otherwise, use the points above to see if they can provide a clear path.

With social media entering every part of our lives, both personal and professional, it’s a great opportunity to meet and discuss ideas with people working in this space. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting a company blog for a finance firm, or setting up a Twitter account for a disability appeal product or just interested in using Social Media to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing, come and join us and learn more. You can read more about it here.

Notice the stats for August are way higher than any of the other months. This was accomplished thanks to the work Kelly put in (which you can read all about on her post), but it’s a really good example of what can happen when you start using the tools at your disposal.

So, how can Social Media help a business? Well, building a business online is no different to opening a retail outlet. But when opening an outlet you get to choose where it’s going to be. Location is paramount to getting the traffic you need and that traffic is the lifeblood of your business. The situation online is totally different. All websites are born intrinsically equal; it doesn’t matter if you’re a purveyor of fine office furniture or if you sell real estate on the moon. Traffic is still the life blood of the business, but the rules are different. You need to pump effort into getting people to your site, building up relationships and making sure they come back. Social Networking gives you those tools, so make sure you get your hear around them today.

Next week is the third Thursday of August and that means that the Isle of Man Social Media Club is getting together for lunch at Paparazzi in Douglas.

Maybe you are trying to figure out Twitter, of have just established a Facebook Fan Page. Or maybe you’re a seasoned blogger with a long history in Digg. Everyone is welcome to come out and chat about the online world and how it’s affecting how we live and do business.

We meet at 12.30. Everyone buys his own lunch and we are usually all back at our desks by 14.00. It doesn’t cost anything to join, (but the price of your meal) and there are no forms to fill out. All you need is an interest in social media and the online world.

Everyone’s welcome to come and while you won’t get any health insurance leads, you’ll certainly get some pointers on how best to use Social Media and get to meet people living in that space.

More details on the Facebook page

One particular aspect is the prediction of how things will change over the next 10 years with a greater push towards social channels and the demise of traditional media. The net effect, however is that organisations need to take a long hard look at the ways they disseminate information to their stakeholders and how this trend is going to affect them. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling garden planters or ballet shoes or golf clubs, interacting with your customers on the channels they inhabit is critical to the success of your company, service or product. That’s why this information is so poignant, which is put quite succinctly in the opening paragraph of the piece:

These days, everyone is trying to figure out how to connect with other people. It used to be simple, you just placed some ads in whatever newspaper that was most suited to your product, but now that world is becoming ever more irrelevant. So how do you connect with other people today? And more importantly, how do you do it tomorrow?

Read the complete post here: Where is everyone?

This increased granularity is extremely important in today’s marketplace. There’s no debate that the market has moved from mass markets to mass customisation to personalisation of products and services. Social Media takes marketing down the same route. The article raises 4 questions that marketeers need to ask to any social media site they plan to target:

• What proportion of the site’s content is community generated versus content generated by the site operator or third parties?
• Does the community create quality content and how is that quality guaranteed?
• Will my existing online campaigns work on a social media site?
• What technologies or services does the site offer to help marketers target specific demographics or sub-groups?

The wholesale adoption of social media without the necessary analysis and introspection can carry a significant risk of failure. These questions need to be addressed and answered before any successful campaign can be launched.