05 Jun

19 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed

Posted by Matt Silverman, under Business, Facebook, Features, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, Social Media, Social Media Lists, Twitter, small business, tech, youtube

Social Media Polaroids ImageDid you hear that? It’s the sound of another week coming to a close. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “How will I ever get to read all of the social media tips, app reviews, and trend analyses I’ve missed?”

Well, this is the Internet — you could search and scroll your way around in the hopes of finding the resources you’re looking for. Or, you could simply take a peek below at our handy weekly guide to all that was new on the web in the last seven days.

This week’s roundup includes some social media sleuthing tips for that upcoming job interview, the innovative ways that lawyers use the social web to advance their careers, and some Apple-themed products for baby that will have you cooing uncontrollably.

Social Media

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  • Top 10 Stop Motion Videos on YouTube
    The painstaking art of stop motion video is widely honored on YouTube. Here are 10 of the best animations we’ve seen.
  • Top 10 YouTube News Bloopers
    Who doesn’t love a good blooper reel, especially when it comes from those suit-and-tie-serious news anchors? For a laugh, check out these 10 greats that were just too good not to find their way to the Internet.
  • 5 Things the Library of Congress is Archiving Online
    You may not think of all your social media noodlings as a historical document, but that’s what the Library of Congress aims to create with its archive of the web. Check out what their huge project of capturing our time entails.
  • 6 Websites for Remembering and Honoring Veterans
    Though Memorial Day has passed, it’s never a bad time to take a moment and reflect on the sacrifices of those who defend our country. These six sites are full of important stories and resources.
  • How Lawyers Are Using Social Media for Real Results
    While many attorneys and firms have been cautious around new media, some have reinvented their careers through blogging, tweeting, and sharing. Here are some examples.
  • 4 Social Media Efforts to Aid the Gulf Coast
    The Gulf oil spill tragedy has left many feeling powerless to help out, but pockets of non-profits are using social media tools for grassroots action. Here’s a look at their efforts.
  • HOW TO: Make a Great How-To Video
    Tom Laidlaw, the CEO of the how-to video site VideoJug.com, shares some top dos and don’ts for the instructional format.
  • 4 Tips for Producing Quality Web Videos
    With the explosion of web video content, it’s harder than ever to get your productions seen and heard. Here are a few tips that will help you distinguish your videos.
  • How Does Facebook View the World?
    Facebook may be the first large scale Internet company to survive a bold “shoot first and ask questions later” policy when it comes to innovation. Here’s a look at what they’ve done right, and what could be improved.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

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For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

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For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Internet, Mashable, Twitter, YouTube

Tags: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, small business, social media, tech, twitter, youtube

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04 Jun

How Does Facebook View the World?

Posted by Chris Saad, under Facebook, Features, Opinion, Privacy, Social Media, contributor, data portability, editorial, open technology, social contracts

Facebook Global Network ImageChris Saad is VP of strategy at Echo, the world’s leading provider of comment/conversation technology to Tier 1 publishers. He is also the co-author of the Synaptic Web Strawman, co-author of the Attention Profiling Markup Language (APML) specification, and co-founder of the DataPortability Project.

Last week, I wrote a post calling out Mark Zuckerberg for making a correlation between Facebook’s privacy issues and their altruistic pursuit of data portability.

Today I’d like to do something a little different. I’d like to examine some of the reasons why Facebook is finding it challenging to either a) implement data portability, or b) communicate about issues of privacy or data portability — and why ultimately, that might be OK, in the sense that it leaves room for the rest of the web to innovate.

I will examine the issue in three parts. These parts, I believe, make up the crux of any reasonable criticism of Facebook at this time.

Data Portability vs. Interoperability

First, Facebook tends to discuss data portability without acknowledging the significance of open standards and interoperability.

Data portability is not just allowing users to access their data. There is a silent “Interoperable” before the phrase that means the data, and the protocols to get it, need to be based on open standards and be interchangeable. Letting people code against your API is not the same as building the API in such a way that others (i.e. social aggregators or networks) could participate in the transactions just as easily.

Facebook’s challenge, however, is that they are pioneering many of these interactions and can’t necessarily wait for standards to emerge or crystallize before acting.

Standards emerge after a good pattern gets established. In many ways, Facebook’s leadership in demonstrating these patterns at scale shows the way (and provides the market momentum and emotional fuel) for standards to emerge. See the OExchange announcement earlier this week, for example.

The challenge for Facebook here is to balance their need (and obvious appetite) for innovation with architectural choices that allow for open standards and interoperable protocols to be absorbed by their system. To show true commitment, they must also quickly adopt standards as they emerge.

Taking these steps would put them in good position to avoid the Internet-scale forces that often reject proprietary platforms as fast as they emerge. In addition to decisive action, if Facebook clearly acknowledged this to stakeholders, it would go a long way.

Will they make these decisions rather than pay lip service? That seems unlikely.

Social Contracts vs. Open Culture

Facebook Global Graph Image

Second, Facebook confuses privacy concerns with anger over a violation of their social contract with users, specifically with regard to people pushing back on the general goal of human openness.

The potential for social media to make the world a more transparent and connected place is real and significant. I don’t think that any rational person who seriously considers the trends could argue against the idea that people sharing more in public, and reading more about others, could reduce fear born from any sense of ‘us’ vs ‘them’.

I don’t think that anyone really challenges Mark Zuckerberg on this point when he makes it. They shouldn’t.

The challenge for Facebook, however, is they began with a social contract — a promise to their users — of a private place for sharing amongst mutually confirmed friendships.

To their credit as a company, they want to continue to push the boundaries, and innovate and evolve as quickly as the market. And the market has evolved. Thanks to Flickr, Twitter and others, public is the new default, and Facebook needs to keep up. For them to change direction towards these open defaults, however, they must declare this intention clearly and unequivocally.

The team at Facebook tries to talk about the need for an open and connected society, and have continued to make incremental steps in this direction. But they have really failed to put it in the context of their history and our future. They need to tell the story of a cultural trend towards openness and explain that while they started as private place, their (new) unashamed goal is move towards a public one.

Doing it in small steps without explaining the end goal or the reason, or even acknowledging the fundamental shift, is a big (and unnecessary) source of criticism.

Open Culture vs. Open Technology

Third, Facebook tends to use the word ‘open’ without drawing a distinction between culture and technology

When the team at Facebook talks about wanting to make the world more “open,” I, and others who care about such things, hear them cloaking themselves in the mantra of Open Technologies when they are actually talking about open/transparent/public culture.

Trying to draw the distinction between Open Technology vs. Open Culture is difficult for Facebook, considering that their audience is not that of our little echo chamber but rather a very mainstream community that does not understand such nuance. So in some regards, glossing over these distinctions is understandable given their target market.

The problem, though, is that making the world a more open place using closed technologies all routed through a single company is not the way it can or should work.

A more interoperable, peer-to-peer method of achieving cultural transparency is critical for there to be true openness (of both kinds). There is an architecture that would allow each node (read: user/site/service) to be a first class citizen on the interoperable social web and to choose how public or private it is when it comes to sharing.

Facebook might know this, but their job is not to create an interoperable social web. They are the market leader — the clear winner — and as Dave McClure likes to say, “Open is for losers.” The nice thing about the web, though, is there are a lot of big, important, well funded and motivated losers who will ensure that Open will win in the end.

Facebook’s job, however, is to capitalize on their momentum and network effects to create maximum value for their shareholders. This is not ‘evil’ or even necessarily undesirable. Because like with open standards, oftentimes until someone shows the industry how it’s done (and frankly lights a fire under its butt), it’s often hard for us all to collectively imagine what the future might look like.

The challenge for Facebook — one they are more than capable of facing – is keeping up with the inevitable opening of the walls and the peering of the nodes. They are the most agile and innovative company at scale that has ever existed on the Internet. If anyone can do it, they can. The only question is, can the rest of the community execute as well?

Conclusion

In these three areas — Data Portability vs. Interoperability, Social Contracts vs. Open Culture, Open Culture vs. Open Technology — Facebook has made big moves and very high profile blunders. Their challenges are great and their ability to execute with ambition first, ask questions later and quickly clean up the mess is the very reason for their success.

Are these blunders a series of accidental missteps (a combination of ambition, scale and hubris) or a calculated risk to force their world view on unsuspecting users (easier to ask for forgiveness)? Only the executives at Facebook can ever truly answer this question.

What’s clear, though, is that their platform is tightly coupled with countless other websites and applications across the web, and their financial success is aligned with many influential investors and actors. At this stage, and at this rate, their continued success is all but assured.

But so is the success of the rest of the web. Countless social applications emerge every day and the rest of the web is, and always will be, bigger than any proprietary platform. Through its action and inaction, Facebook offers opportunities for us all. And in the dance between their moves and the rest of the web’s, innovation can be found.

The only thing that can truly hurt the web is a monopoly on ideas, and the only ones who can let that happen are web users themselves.


For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook


More Facebook resources from Mashable:

- Why Facebook’s Privacy War Is Not Over
- Why Facebook Must Get Serious About Privacy
- 4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook
- In Defense of Facebook
- The Local Advertising War Will Be a Clash of the Internet Titans

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alwyncooper

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Internet, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: data portability, editorial, facebook, open technology, privacy, social contracts, social media

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03 Jun

HOW TO: Organize Your Contacts for Networking Success

Posted by Dan Schawbel, under Business, Facebook, Features, How To, Social Media, Social Network Lists, Top Stories, Twitter, Web Apps, contact management, contacts, linkedin, networking, organize, social networking


Dan Schawbel, recognized as “Personal Branding Guru” by The New York Times, is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, LLC, the #1 international bestselling author of Me 2.0, and owner of the Personal Branding Blog.

Managing your online network is critical, whether you’re looking for a job, trying to advance in your career, or you’re starting a business. Think of the Internet as a global talent pool that has more contact information than the White Pages. In fact, 80 percent of available jobs are never even advertised, with more than half of all employees finding their jobs through networking, according to BH Careers International.

Social networks have connected and exposed us to more people than ever before. With all the online friends and followers you’ve accumulated, it’s become increasingly complicated to make sense of your social graph and use it to your advantage. It’s also never been more important to build your contact database, organize it, and then put it to work for you. The old adage “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” is true, so consider your rolodex more valuable than your wallet when it comes to achieving success in business.

Here is how to create a basic contact management strategy, stay connected and organized from your desktop to your phone, and give you some insight onto how to expand your network.

Your Contact Management Strategy

You will always have different tiers of relationships, from family, to friends, to associates, to acquaintances and everyone in between. In order to organize your database, you need to have specific categories in mind. Consider things like the strength of your relationship, how important the relationship is to you, the last time you connected with them, three things about them, what company they work for, their location, and their contact information (e-mail, phone, address, LinkedIn). You can use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, an Access Database, Act!, or another similar software package to help manage your contacts, using these columns. Aside from these software packages, there are other applications listed below that can help you. By organizing your contacts under these main categories, it will allow you to reconnect with the right people, and expand your relationships.

1. From Your Social Graph to Your Desktop

It’s very important that you have physical copies of your contact database as a backup. Although, you may participate in a handful of social networks, that data resides in the cloud, and not on your desktop. Backing up your social graph means that if, for some reason, your social media profile disappears, is removed entirely, or the social network collapses and you lose everything, you’ll be protected regardless. Try to get in the habit of exporting your contacts so that you have a copy on your desktop in an Excel file.

Here is how to save your social friends, contacts, and followers on your desktop:

Facebook: Although Facebook might appear as a wall garden, there’s actually a trick to capturing your friends’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Create or use your existing Yahoo! e-mail account and import your Facebook friends right into your address book. Then download the .CSV file to your desktop.

LinkedIn: After logging into LinkedIn, go straight to the “connections” link in the global navigation area. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see “export connections.” From the next screen, you can download the .CSV file to your desktop.

Twitter: You don’t have the ability to view email addresses or phone numbers of your Twitter followers. You can, however, download a .CSV file of 100 of your followers to your desktop by using Twitter Export. The information in the spreadsheet will be the name, user name, follower and following count, and their bios.

2. From the Cloud

Gist (Free): Use this tool to make sense of your social connections. After creating an account, you can immediately import your contacts from Outlook, Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Lotus Notes, as well as .CSV files and vCards. After you have established your network, you can view the last time you’ve reached out to each of your contacts, how many emails you’ve sent and received from them, and what companies they work for.

JibberJobber (Free to $9.95/month): This tool allows you to organize and manage your job search, track relationships, target companies, and track the jobs you apply to. With a free basic account, you can manage up to 75 contacts. There is no limit to the amount of contacts you can store with a premium account.

Xobni for Microsoft Outlook (Free): Microsoft Outlook can help you manage your address book, but with the Xobni add-on, you can integrate the social media profiles of your contacts. This means you’ll receive additional contact information that wouldn’t normally be included in your address book.

Disclosure: Gist is a sponsor of Mashable.

3. From Your Phone

The strongest relationships are created in the real world, not the virtual world. If you’re on a plane, train, car, or just at a networking event, you’ll want to capture contact information from the people you meet. A paper business card is still extremely important for exchanging information with people, but the following tools will help store information virtually on the go.

Groups 2 ($5.99): The fastest way to manage your contacts on your iPhone with a drag and drop interface. You can create your own groups, send a mass e-mail to members of each group, and attach vCards to share information with others. Aside from sending e-mails, you can make quick calls, and send text messages. An additional benefit with this application is that is syncs with your Windows address book.

WorldCard Mobile ($5.99): You can scan business cards onto your iPhone by taking a photo, and it instantly recognizes data from business cards and sorts the fields into a contact list. You can save a lot of information into each contact profile, including an image, e-mail, website address, phone number, SMS, and maps.

Bump (Free): If you want to save precious time, and want to have a little fun with your in-person networking, then this application is for you. With Bump, all you have to do is hold your iPhone next to a fellow iPhone user and “bump” them together. You can share photos and contacts with other people who have iPhones and the Bump application.

Growing Your Network

There is a lot of value in a contact management system. It saves you time from researching information about people you’ve already met, and can act as a reference sheet. It also allows you to keep organized and aware of which contacts you haven’t spoken to in a while, and who works at companies that you either want to collaborate with, or work for. The payoff of investing time in a contact management system is that you will be able to keep track of the people you meet, refer back to it, and grow it throughout the course of your life.

In order to expand your network, you need to target people who are in your industry, and those who share the same interests and passions that you have. Once you connect with them in-person, through e-mail or phone, put them into your contact management system.

More business resources from Mashable:

- 5 Ways For Small Companies To Better Engage Reporters
- How One Small Biz Turned Their Company Retreat Into Social Media Success
- Growing Your Business: 5 Tips From the Founder of Foursquare
- 5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page
- HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, tiridifilm

Reviews: Facebook, Gmail, Internet, LinkedIn, Mashable, Microsoft Outlook, Twitter, Windows, Xobni, iStockphoto

Tags: business, contact management, contacts, facebook, how to, linkedin, networking, organize, twitter

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02 Jun

5 Small Business Social Media Success Stories

Posted by Erica Swallow, under Facebook, Features, Social Media, Twitter, bantam live, butter lane, emerson salon, feather your nest, liberty bay books, small business, small business tips series, the social man, yelp, youtube

This series is supported by Bantam Live, a web-based collaboration workspace with “Social CRM” for small business teams. For more information visit BantamLive.com.

A recent study conducted by the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business showed that nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their business processes, and that technology adoption rates in the U.S. among small businesses have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.

Whether your business is ahead of the curve or looking to catch up, small businesses on both sides of the track can learn from the success stories of others. Here’s a list of five companies that are kicking tail and taking names while staying on top of their social media efforts.

1. Emerson Salon Creates a New Business Model

In 2008, when co-owners Matt Buchan and Alex Garcia decided to buy and makeover a hair salon in Seattle, Washington, which they renamed Emerson Salon after Ralph Waldo Emerson, they decided that the Internet would be an important focus for their business. Little did they know that two years later, 75% of their business would be sourced from Facebook, Twitter and their blog. After talking with these savvy entrepreneurs, it was obvious that they had created a whole new business model in the hair and beauty industry, in which social media was king. Social media is so ubiquitous in their salon that Buchan noted that, “it’s rare for even a walk-in customer to come in and not have read our blog or seen our tweets.”

Buchan and Garcia have lent tremendous efforts towards building an online community while keeping up with the latest trends. You can measure their efforts by taking a look at their website. Right away, they have links to all of their social profiles, links to all of their stylists’ social profiles, their blog feed, and a button where users can book their next hair appointment online. Even more impressively, after booking an appointment, a user can share their appointment with friends on Twitter or Facebook. Since introducing social media into the mix, traffic to their website has more than tripled. It’s no wonder the salon believes so strongly in the power of connecting.

Lastly, Emerson Salon makes it a point to stay involved with the local community and build a place where customers can gather for just about anything. Buchan elaborated that, “whether it’s talking about the next local street fair, things we are passionate about (like the Lost finale), or just our latest hair cut special, social media is a great place to engage the community.”

2. Butter Lane Supports a Following

If there’s a cupcake bakery out there with an knack for social media, it’s Butter Lane. Not only are they on Facebook and Twitter, but they also run a Yelp offer and manage their Yelp venue page, maintain a blog on Tumblr, run group-buy specials on Groupon and LivingSocial, and have a special on Foursquare.

How do they keep up with all of it? Co-Owner Maria Baugh said she and her team are avid users of Postling, a social media management tool that allows businesses to see all of their brand activity on various social media platforms all from a single interface. Baugh noted, “It has a dashboard where we can see on one screen the most recent tweets, Facebook posts and Yelp reviews. And simply click one button to reply to any post immediately. Very convenient.” For small businesses who are strapped for time, a tool like Postling offers a one-stop place for staying in contact with customers.

For Baugh, the focus for Butter Lane will always be on perfecting their products and delivering excellent customer service. She stressed that:

“Obviously it’s crucial to make a great product, but it’s also extremely important to give the customer a great experience. It’s so incredibly simple, yet it’s so often overlooked. Go the extra step with service and you’ll win customers for life. Social media helps us do this in a variety of ways. Yelp particularly is very helpful for us to monitor our customer service and make sure our staff is going above and beyond. We take all of the reviews very seriously and have made modifications to both staff and product based on Yelp reviews over the months.”

It’s no surprise then that Butter Lane has gained a dedicated following. When recently asked to explain how Butter Lane had created a cult following, Baugh’s response was that, “it never occurred to us that people viewed us that way, and of course, we were thrilled. But if we do have any kind of cult following it is due in large part to our involvement in social media.”

3. The Social Man Gets Personal

In a business like social coaching, there’s no avoiding one-on-one conversations. A typical session could entail a lesson at the bar, a discussion on social dynamics, or a break-down of an interview with a hot girl. Jonathan Christian Hudson, founder of The Social Man, a small social coaching business based in New York City, explained the dynamics between coaches and clients. “Our clients have to trust us and like us in order to work with us,” he noted, “and there’s no better way I know of to demonstrate that than by putting our faces out there and having a real dialogue with them.”

Hudson asserted that one of The Social Man’s biggest competitive advantages was the natural personalities of his teammates:

“I’ve been told that the biggest thing that sets us apart is our personality. We come across as, and I’d like to think we are, down-to-earth guys –- the sort of cool brother that a dude always wanted. It’s the casual nature of the conversation we have with our audience that separates us from the pure marketers.”

Videos sites Blip.tv and YouTube have allowed The Social Man to get personal with clients and prospects. Through their channels on both sites, they run a series called “Ask the Social Man,” in which Hudson and his colleagues answer questions on dating and pick-up techniques. Since they began uploading daily videos, the company has seen a rise in site visits and sales.

4. Liberty Bay Books Starts Conversations

Liberty Bay Books is an independent bookstore located in Poulsbo, Washington that specializes in Scandinavian and nautical books. From a brief conversation with Owner Suzanne Droppert, you immediately understand that she places a very high value on conversation and the exchange of intellectual ideas. Social media, then, is a natural outlet for a community thought leader like Droppert.

Droppert began experimenting with social media after attending an educational seminar early last year. The presenter absolutely insisted the attendees join Twitter immediately. Droppert believes it is important to stay connected with online social conversations regarding your business’ space. She stays abreast on books, travel, food and local events via her store’s Facebook and Twitter pages. She also keeps the community up-to-date on book signings and in-store events on the company blog and YouTube channel.

In the end, Droppert’s goal is to share views, ideas and conversation with her customers and the authors who visit her store. Her social media efforts, which are an extension of her genuine interest in her customers, have led to a growth in sales, as well as a growth in genuine connections with her customers. Droppert mentioned, “People will mention they saw a post of mine on Facebook, and we’ll talk about it over coffee here in the store.”

The types of connections that Droppert has with her customers are rare in our fast-paced, self-centered world — something that every business, big or small, can work towards.

5. Feather Your Nest Makes a Name for Itself

Set in the tourist destination of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, Feather Your Nest is a specialty shop for homemade and vintage-looking gifts. You can find them on Facebook, Twitter, Etsy and their blog. Owner Gina Drennon, a web designer and self-starter, is a gem in the rough when it comes to Internet-savvy small business owners in her neighborhood. Drennon explained,

“Eureka Springs is a tourist resort with literally dozens and dozens of shops. We stand out in the crowd because very few [of those shops] are active in social media. Very few businesses here sell online, and those that do have not seen the success that we have.”

Drennon illustrated the situation perfectly. Eureka Springs is a town where not even use of the Internet has begun to blossom among small business owners. In that type of environment, an entrepreneur like Drennon is positioned to pull ahead. And that she did.

Drennon has made a name for her shop, and she has had tremendous success. Says Drennon:

“I’ve seen our web stats increase, followers increase, interactions increase, and most importantly, sales increase. But not only that, I’ve made many meaningful connections with bloggers and magazine editors that have featured our products and our store, which bring us huge amounts of attention that you really cannot put a price on. I can positively say that at least half of the national press we’ve received is due to contacts we’ve made over social media.”

Small businesses with shoestring marketing budgets should never underestimate the power of word of mouth generated by media. The folks at Feather Your Nest have certainly taken advantage of it.

There are countless examples of small businesses taking the reigns of social media and leading their businesses to success. Let us know which success stories stick out in your mind in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, dgrilla


For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook


Series supported by Bantam Live

Bantam Live is a web-based collaboration workspace for small business teams that combines “Social CRM” with project/task management and microblogging communication – all centered within a real-time activity stream. Business teams can share an address book and track contacts and conversations, track prospects and sales pipelines, and organize projects and tasks to get work done. With integrations to social networks, team members can search for keywords and reply to and import new contacts and their real-time profiles into Bantam Live.

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Internet, Tumblr, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, blog, iStockphoto

Tags: bantam live, butter lane, emerson salon, facebook, feather your nest, liberty bay books, small business, small business tips series, social media, the social man, twitter, yelp, youtube

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31 May

90+ Essential Social Media Resources

Posted by Matt Silverman, under Business, Business Lists, Facebook, Facebook Lists, Features, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Megalists, Mobile 2.0, Mobile Lists, Social Media, Social Media Lists, Twitter, Twitter Lists, iPhone Resource Lists, small business, tech, trending, youtube

Social Media SofaNow you’ve gone and done it. You’ve come across a list so enormous, so useful, and so awesome, our futile attempts to describe it have been lost in the tubes of cyberspace.

We’ll just say this: No matter what you’re into — Twitter, Facebook, Mobile Apps, Business Development, or good-old-fashioned YouTube hilarity — you will find it below.

So put down your barbeque, send out another huge thanks to our men and women in uniform, and limber up your scrolling finger — it’s a big one.

If you dig the uber-list, be sure to send some comments our way down below!

Social Media

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  • HOW TO: Disable Facebook’s “Instant Personalization” [PRIVACY]

    New menus on the Facebook home page this week took users by surprise, and left many concerned about the privacy implications of being suddenly more “connected” to their favorite sites and interests. If you’re looking for ways to opt out of these new features, this guide will show you how.

  • HOW TO: Spring Clean Your Twitter Account

    An untended Twitter feed can quickly become overgrown with useless tweets and dead weight users. These great tools will help you streamline your Twitter account in no time.

  • How Freelancers are Using Social Media for Real Results

    Social media can be a boon for those who make their living gig-to-gig. Sheer networking is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to landing work via the social web. We spoke to freelancers in a variety of fields to find out how they make it happen.

  • 9 Essential Social News and Bookmarking Sites for Designers
    The design community is always hungry for content, inspiration, and tutorials. These nine networks are a great place to discover and share creative resources.
  • 4 Ways One Non-Profit Uses Location to Increase Engagement
    The National Wildlife Federation has been getting creative with their social media awareness campaigns, particularly when it comes to location-based technologies. This post discusses some of their innovations.
  • Tim Ferriss: 7 Great Principles for Dealing with Haters
    For all the personal connections and open sharing done on social networks, you’ll always find a fair share of scathing negativity. Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week, gave a talk at The Next Web ‘10 event in Amsterdam, and had these seven points to share on the subject.
  • Gowalla CEO Talks About the Future of Social Media [INTERVIEW]
    We sat down with Josh Williams to discuss the origins of his location-based network, and what current trends in the space mean for the future.
  • 5 Free Services for Pre-Scheduling Your Twitter Updates
    Whether for marketing purposes, event promotion, or just keeping your account fresh while you’re on vacation, a tweet scheduler can be a handy tool. Check out these five great ones, all of them free.
  • How Twitter’s New Media Blog Aims To Teach By Example
    Twitter’s new blog highlights news organizations with smart Twitter integration in the hope of becoming a resource for the media. We spoke with Twitter about their strategies and goals.
  • Top 10 LEGO Movie Tributes on YouTube
    Those stop-motion goodies are back, this time reenacting our favorite flicks in all their colorful plastic glory.
  • Top 10 YouTube Cover Songs
    For better or worse, YouTube has become the ultimate repository of musical tributes. From guys in their bedrooms, to a capella cleverness, to guitar-wielding toddlers, this hand-picked list highlights some of the best around.
  • 5 Ways to Support World Malaria Day Online
    The fight to end malaria in the developing world has become a rallying cause on the social web. Check out these five easy ways you can make a difference online.
  • How Non-Profits are Using Social Media for Real Results
    Social media has become an essential tool for non-profits in their efforts to spread awareness and raise funds. Check out some real-world examples of how some organizations have put the social web to good use.
  • Why Content Curation Is Here to Stay
    At times, content creators and content curators have been at odds. But the sheer volume of “stuff” and noise on the web has made curation essential. This post discusses the status of the curator on today’s social web.
  • Social Enterprise: 5 Tips for Getting Execs on Board
    There’s no longer much question about whether corporations need to be engaged in social media, but convincing the head honchos of the value can be challenging. We spoke to some of the top names in social strategy and got some great tips on bringing the boardroom up to speed.
  • How Does Twitter’s New Social Good Initiative Stack Up?
    The recent launch of Twitter’s Hope140 campaign has already done some good for important causes, but how effective is it when compared to other social awareness and fundraising campaigns? This post discusses the pros and cons of tweet-based charity.
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  • HOW TO: Find Long Lost Friends on Facebook
    400 million people are using Facebook. If you’re looking for someone, chances are you can find them there. Here’s how to do it.
  • HOW TO: Make the Most of Your Twitter Profile Page
    There’s a lot more to Twitter than just sharing your favorite foods in 140 characters. If you’re looking to make an impression with your profile page, check out these tips.
  • 5 Ways Government Works Better With Social Media
    Social media has the potential to make government more transparent and accessible. Here are five examples of how the social web can improve public services.
  • 8 Tips for a Successful Social Media Cause Campaign
    Social networks can provide unprecedented reach to non-profits and their partner companies, but there are some strategies to note before diving into the next campaign. Check out these eight tips.
  • 4 Tips for Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom
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  • Top 5 Social Media Tips for C-Suite Execs
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  • Why the Fashion Industry Loves Foursquare
    Lifestyle brand Diesel recently launched a fairly tacit Foursquare campaign that demonstrates the great marketing potential for location-based services. This post details where they succeeded, and where they fell short.
  • Why Hasn’t Location Reached the Mainstream Yet?
    Despite all the buzz about location-based services, most people don’t use them. Here are some of the reasons why, and a few predictions about the future of the trend.
  • HOW TO: Turn Slacktivists into Activists with Social Media
    Non-profit Twitter and texting campaigns may be tapping thousands of new cause contributors, but is a $10 SMS really where their engagement ends? This post speaks to how non-profits can deepen that connection through social media.
  • Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation
    Who are your kids friending on Facebook, and how much online time is too much? We asked the experts to weigh in on some concrete strategies for raising the first fully digital generation.
  • HOW TO: Get Notified When Someone Hacks Your Facebook
    Did you know that Facebook can alert you when someone logs into your account from an unknown computer? Follow these simple profile steps to set up this important security feature.
  • In Defense of Facebook
    With all the vitriol surrounding Facebook’s latest privacy gaffs, this post takes a moment to look at the people most responsible for our online privacy — ourselves.
  • How Facebook Makes Edgy Concepts Mainstream
    Two years ago, the thought of sharing your location or credit card purchase history online would have seemed ridiculous. Today, it grows ever more mainstream thanks to major social networks like Facebook that make these early-adopter trends more comfortable for the average user.
  • Why Twitter Needs to Do More to Save Trending Topics
    Twitter recently amended its trending topics algorithm in the hopes of producing more relevant and newsworthy results. But is this an interference in the natural development of popular topics? And is Twitter doing enough to remain a relevant source of real-time news? This post takes a hard look.
  • How the U.S. Engages the World with Social Media
    You might be surprised to learn that the U.S. Department of State and many of its embassies around the world are having great success shaping America’s image abroad through social media. We spoke with some of the diplomats and officials who are making a difference through Twitter and Facebook.
  • 21 Rules for Social Media Engagement
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  • 5 Innovative Websites That Could Reshape the News
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  • 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips
    If you’re not cognizant of your Facebook privacy settings, you may be broadcasting things to the world (or even certain groups of friends or family) that you may not have intended. Note these important settings to ensure you stay in control of your social data.
  • How Social Media is Changing Government Agencies
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  • EXCLUSIVE: Behind the Scenes at the “Married on MySpace” Wedding [VIDEO]
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  • TwitPic Founder Talks About the Future of Twitter Photo Sharing [VIDEO]
    TwitPic has become one of the most popular ways to share photos on Twitter. With a recent facelift and a lot of attention from prospective buyers, the company has some big plans in the works. We spoke to the founder, Noah Everett, to get his take on TwitPic’s rapid growth and future.

Business

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Mobile

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  • 4 Reasons the iPhone Is a (Video)Game Changer
    The iPhone has truly taken the video game world by storm, and there’s plenty yet to explore in mobile gaming. Check out this analysis of the current trends, and what they might mean for the future of the industry.
  • HOW TO: Turn Your Android Phone Into a Killer MP3 Player
    If you shun the iMusic lifestyle, you can still keep all your favorite tunes at your fingertips with an Android device. This post will show you how.
  • Top 10 iPhone Apps for TV Fanatics
    Whether you’re addicted to Lost, or have taken up the guilty pleasure of Gossip Girl, there are great TV tie-in apps that will keep you up to date, and tapped into some great bonus materials.
  • 8 Best Android Apps for Health and Fitness
    Whether you’re looking to get in shape or stay that way, your mobile device can help. The Android Market is full of health-minded apps that can keep you on track toward physical fitness. This post reviews eight of the best.
  • 10 Free iPhone Apps To Learn A New Skill In 10 Minutes
    Have you ever wanted to learn origami, CPR, or Morse Code? There are apps for those, and many more skills, so fire up your iPhone and check out this list of freebies.
  • How Mobile Technology is Affecting Local News Coverage
    The news-gathering game has changed, thanks to the ubiquity of smart, multipurpose handhelds. Whether you’re using your own device to report and disseminate the news, or you’re tapping a social web of mobile updates and Twitpics for sources, the mobile-savvy journalist is out at the front of the industry.
  • 7 Ways Journalists Can Use Foursquare
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  • 8 Best Android Apps for Photo Editing
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  • How the Next iPhone Will Improve Your Productivity
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Tech

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  • HOW TO: Give Your Inbox a Master Cleanse
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  • 5 Charities for Donating Your Old Electronics
    Just because you no longer have a use for your second generation iPod doesn’t mean it should be headed for the scap heap. Take a moment to note these charities where your old gadgets can be put to new use.
  • 7 Ways to Customize Your Real Life Online
    Sometimes, a startup can offer unique products that a big retailer or e-commerce outfit just can’t. These seven websites will customize all sorts of cool stuff — from shoes, to chocolate, to pet food.
  • 10 Awesome Webcam Feeds From Around the World
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  • How Big Live Promises Big Change for Online Music Fans
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  • 5 Great Ways to Find Music That Suits Your Mood
    There are plenty of ways to generate a playlist based on artist, song, or genre. But what if you just need a tune-stream for a broken heart, or an energizing workout? These five web apps can do it with a few clicks.
  • Why Much of Your Favorite TV Content Still Isn’t Online
    With web video consumption growing, why has TV been so reluctant to fully embrace online viewership? We spoke to researchers and TV executives for some answers.
  • HOW TO: Add Facebook “Like” Buttons to Your WordPress Blog
    This post goes over several ways to implement Facebook’s “Like” buttons and other social plugins into your hosted WordPress blog or website, so that you can hook into the Facebook social graph.
  • WordPress 3.0: The 5 Most Important New Features
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  • 6 Free Websites for Learning and Teaching Science
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  • 10 Awesome Vintage Video Games You Can Play Online
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  • 5 Tools For Integrating HTML5 Video in Your Website
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  • Five Amazing App and Gadget Demos from Google I/O [VIDEO]
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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, M-X-K

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, LinkedIn, Twitpic, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube, iStockphoto, video

Tags: business, facebook, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, small business, social media, tech, trending, twitter, youtube

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30 May

5 Things the Library of Congress is Archiving Online

Posted by Sarah Kessler, under Facebook, Features, Government, Library of Congress, Politics, Research, Social Media, Twitter, archive, history, web

In 2000, the Library of Congress started a pilot web archiving project focused on the presidential election. After the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks in 2001, the pilot project expanded and eventually became a permanent fixture of our national archives. Five full-time staff members orchestrate an open-source web crawler called Heretix to capture the Internet’s content for future generations.

“Part of it is the election question: What do we want to archive?” says Abbie Grotke, a digital media project specialist on the Library of Congress’s web archiving team. “We can’t easily identify what is the ‘U.S. web.’ We can’t just say we want to get everything that’s ‘.com’ or ‘.gov.’ So we do have to do this selective process.”

So what does the Library of Congress think is worth saving? Here are the portions of today’s web your grandchildren will be able to access through the Library of Congress:

1. Twitter feeds—all of them

The Library of Congress announced in April that it would begin archiving Twitter feeds. Some Twitter feeds had already been archived in the past as part of special projects—for instance, some tweets regarding the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor were included in the collection about Supreme Court changes. But now Twitter has plans to donate their entire archive of public content.

Which means your tweets, my tweets, and Britney Spears’s tweets will all become a part of the archives. What is not yet clear, is exactly how all of these tweets will be used.

“The point is not to provide a Twitter interface at the library that you can go in and use like they do on the current website,” Grotke says. “There’s talk of more of a researcher, data mining –type access to it. We’re still trying to figure out what that is exactly, but people probably won’t be able to go in and look for you specifically.”

2. National Election Candidates’ Internet Presences

The Library’s web archive started with a project that documented an election, and much of its work continues to revolve around this topic. The archive collects about 2,500 snapshots of websites during every election cycle.

“A lot of what we do, particularly with the elections, goes away rather quickly,” Grotke says. “If the candidate loses the election, their website disappears.”

The archives include presidential, congressional, and even overseas elections. The Library’s foreign operations offices document elections in those regions. Researchers of the future, for instance, will be able to see the web that surrounded the 2009 general elections in India and Indonesia.

3. Facebook Pages—A Selective Few

The web crawler often follows candidates’ or congress people’s websites to their public Facebook Pages. While Facebook has made no Twitter-like deal to donate archives to the Library, sites on the social media platform inevitably come up while documenting major events.

Thus far, the Library has left it up to the author of the Page—not Facebook—to give permission to archive relevant pages.

“The position that we’ve taken so far is that the content we’re archiving is actually owned by the site owner who put it up there,” Grotke says. “We’ve been asking permission of the original site owner.”

So unless you’re a national election candidate who has given permission, you probably don’t have to worry about your grandchild stumbling across an embarrassing Facebook photo while doing archival research for his or her college thesis.

4. Notable Historical Events

The Library has also been archiving Congressional websites since 2002. The web archive team has collected websites regarding Supreme Court changes, the Sept. 11, attacks, the 2005 papal transition, Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war and the crisis in Darfur. A full list of current projects is available here.

5. News Sites That Give Permission

Unlike libraries in some other countries, the Library of Congress has no legal mandate to preserve the web. Therefore, the web archive team can’t collect everything they would like to without asking permission. Because news sites and blogs earn money on their content, the Library needs to get consent before it includes their pages in the archives.

Grotke says that few news organizations that the web archive team contacts for permission ever respond, which means that not much of the content in the web archives comes from news sites.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- 5 Ways Government Works Better With Social Media
- How the U.S. Engages the World with Social Media
- How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and Governmental Change
- 6 Ways Law Enforcement Uses Social Media to Fight Crime
- Why Open Source is the New Software Policy in San Francisco

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LawrenceSawyer

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto, pages

Tags: archive, facebook, government, history, Library of Congress, politics, research, twitter

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26 May

Where’s Facebook’s Event RSVP Widget?

Posted by Nick O'Neill, under Analysis, Events, Features, Products

RSVP Button IconFacebook has a whole suite of widgets (and social plugins) that bring social functionality across the web, but one major feature that they are missing is an event RSVP widget. Event promoters around the world want a frictionless way of converting site visitors into event attendees, not just fans of their Facebook Page.

While we have not heard anything about Facebook releasing such a product, we think something like this would have immense value for any event promoter. One of the greatest challenges of running an event is promoting it effectively and by providing a simple widget where users could RSVP, event planners could quickly attract attendees on their own site as well as through partnerships.

While there are a million things that I’d like to see Facebook produce, this ranks up there pretty high. Would you find an event RSVP product to be valuable? What other products do you think would add immense value?


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25 May

HOW TO: Send a Real Gift on Facebook

Posted by Amy-Mae Elliott, under DashGift, Facebook, Facebook Lists, Features, Gifts, How To, List, Lists, friendgiftr, parcelgenie

Sometimes flinging a virtual cupcake at a Facebook friend just isn’t enough. As you may know, Facebook has offered the option of purchasing real gifts since last summer.

A big pro here is that you don’t need to know the person’s address to send them a physical gift. And like the Twitter gifting services we recently rounded up, the service makes it easy to integrate birthday, anniversary, and holiday shopping right into your favorite social network.

Take a look at our quick how-to guide below, and if Facebook’s in-house offering doesn’t quite do it for you, check out the three alternatives we’ve also detailed.

Buy Facebook Credits

First things first: You need to get yourself some legal Facebook currency in the form of “Facebook credits.” You can purchase this virtual currency by going to the “Payments” tab in “My Account.”

Options to pay include Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover or JCB credit cards, PayPal or via cell phone. At the moment, one credit equals 10 cents, so you can buy 50 for $5, 100 for $10 and 200 for $20.

Head to the Gift Shop

Once your virtual wallet is full of money, head over to the Facebook store where you are presented with the options of “Music and MP3s,” “Virtual Gifts,” “Charity,” “E-Cards,” “Sports,” and of course, “Real Gifts.”

Enter the name of the person you want to send the gift to and you can then choose from toys, flowers, candy, baked goodies from Mrs. Fields, various items of jewelery, some smaller consumer electronic items, Fandango movie tickets, and our favorite — all sorts of geeky products from ThinkGeek.

A nice touch is the ability to choose the delivery date. If you’re super organized and know your Facebook friend has a birthday coming up in the next few weeks, you can get the gifting sorted ahead of time.

If you do know the address of the person you want the item sent to, you can add it. But the system works on the basis of the giftee confirming a delivery address once they get the wall notification (with a message personalized from you) that you want to post them a present.

And that’s it folks. And by the way, if the person refuses your gift for any reason, then the order will be canceled and Facebook will refund your credits — but not your feelings.

3 Alternative Services

1. DashGift

This Boston-based startup offers a limited service at the moment, but is certainly one to watch if they manage to sign up more partners. The premise is quite simple: You post a gift on your friend’s wall via the Facebook app. Your friend hits a link to get a DashCode and then goes to the local store/venue to redeem it for the item.

At the moment, some elements of the service are limited to the Boston area, such as SWEET cupcakes, a beer voucher for Tommy Doyle’s Bar, and Finale Desserts. But Fandango movie tickets and the $10 global giving donation are open to all users. Expansion into other local areas is planned this summer, so be sure to bookmark this app.

2. Friendgiftr

Friendgiftr has had no trouble signing up partners. Its social gift card service currently works with around 150 companies, many of which are major names. You can buy a gift card from any of the stores and present it to a friend on Facebook. Your friend can then either shop online with a card code, request a hard copy version to be mailed to them, or — and this bit is cunning — swap the card for one from another retailer.

So if you send someone a Lands’ End gift card, but they’re really more of an L.L. Bean kinda guy, they can do a switcheroo without you ever knowing.

3. ParcelGenie

ParcelGenie is a fantastic resource for small, affordable and fun gifts, such as candy, buttons, key rings and the like. Via the Facebook app, you can chose a gift, select a friend to send it to, and personalize a message that will be posted on their Facebook wall, after which they need to let ParcelGenie know where to mail the item. The app cleverly displays Facebook friends’ upcoming birthdays, so you may end up sending more than you expected to.


For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook


More Facebook resources from Mashable

- 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips
- HOW TO: Find Long Lost Friends on Facebook
- HOW TO: Disable Facebook’s “Instant Personalization” [PRIVACY]
- 5 Tips for Creating the Perfect Profile Pic
- 5 Ways Facebook Changed Dating (For the Worse)

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, kutaytanir

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, iStockphoto, sports

Tags: DashGift, facebook, friendgiftr, Gifts, how to, List, Lists, parcelgenie

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24 May

How Hospitality Companies are Using Social Media for Real Results

Posted by Jennifer Van Grove, under Business, Facebook, Features, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, coffeegroundz, disney, foursquare, real results, roger smith hotel, royal caribbean, small business, social media marketing

The Real Results series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web, you get business-critical information about key people and companies. See how it works here.

Butler Social Media Drinks ImageOften, we think of our offline lives as distinct from our online presence, but social media is real life. Look no further than the hotels you stay in, the restaurants where you dine, the airlines you fly on and the theme parks you take your family to for proof. More often than not, there’s a Twitter and Facebook account — possibly even a Foursquare presence — behind the venue in question.

Because social media is a platform for the customer’s voice — and that voice can be heard by anyone in the world — the hospitality industry as a whole has embraced social media in a huge way.

Hospitality businesses of all sizes — from the biggest hotel chain to the little neighborhood cafe — have found their own unique way to harness the power of Facebook and the distribution possibilities made available via Twitter.

Personalizing Customer Service

Customer service is the most obvious way for the hospitality industry to use social media, and Twitter is the perfect vehicle for resolving customer issues or making a guest’s day with a simple “thanks for visiting” tweet.

But the best in the business are going above and beyond in the customer service arena. For example, the Wynn Las Vegas and Encore hotels use social media sites like Twitter and Foursquare to improve their customer service efforts and better meet the needs of their guests.

As the E-strategy Development Manger for the hotels, Jade Bailey makes sure that her team greets and caters to guests who check in there on Foursquare or tweet about being somewhere on the property, both on social sites and in person. The team has also seeded Foursquare with numerous tips inside the hotel, enlightening guests on the fascinating stories behind some of the more lustrous decorative embellishments.

Smaller businesses are going the extra mile as well. CoffeeGroundz — an independent coffee shop in Houston, Texas — uses Twitter as a way to make its customer service more personalized than its bigger competitors.

The store’s general manager is credited with making CoffeeGroundz one of the first businesses to take to-go orders via Twitter, an effort that began in October 2008. In addition to to-go orders, the boutique coffee spot now also accepts table and event reservations via direct message on Twitter.

Storytelling


At the Roger Smith Hotel in New York, social media has become immersed within the hotel’s unique culture. At its core, the Roger Smith Hotel is about storytelling — with a focus on art and people — and social media has become the way in which the hotel can share these stories and create new ones.

In fact, Brian Simpson, the hotel’s director of hospitality, says that while the hotel certainly attempts to connect the dots between social media and sales, ROI is not the focus of the team’s social endeavors. “We’re less concerned about how many rooms are booked because of social media, and more focused on telling stories and connecting people … you can’t pay a marketing firm to make those connections.”

It’s this type of open thinking that keeps The Roger Smith at the forefront of the social media curve.

Simpson primarily relies on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the hotel blog to distribute and collect stories, but also recognizes the value of location-centric social networks like Foursquare and Pegshot. He approaches each social site with a different strategy, saying, “We take all of these stories and figure out which social media networks support them best.”

Simpson points to an event back in 2009 as a catalyst for some of its creativity. The artsy hotel then hosted a Social Media Breakfast, which led to interest from other social media and web groups, and ultimately inspired Simpson to actively immerse himself in the social media culture.

Because The Roger Smith is independent, Simpson found ways to bend the rules for groups and startups, making the hotel inviting to all types of social media event organizers. For Simpson, exposure is key and hosting these events helps get the hotel’s name out there. Today, the hotel is essentially the social media-friendly hotel of New York; events are booked for each night of the week and its become the official hotel of many a New York web conference.

“We’ve made social media a part of the hotel,” says Simpson. “If we stopped doing social media, the culture wouldn’t change, but the stories that get told about us would change, and that would change the perception of the hotel.”

With storytelling at the center of everything the Roger Smith does online and off, Simpson is also looking for the next great way to engage current and potential guests. He says, “now that everyone’s on Twitter, and everyone has a Facebook Page, our objective is to find out what’s next and stay ahead of the curve.”


The hotel is also being extremely avant garde with its approach to installation art. They’ve commandeered an art studio on Lexington Avenue outside the hotel and turned it into an experimental space where art meets social media. The space is dubbed the RS Pop-Up Shop, or RS POP, and it’s open to up-and-coming designers and artists who want to showcase their work with social media flair.

Each selected RS POP participant is heavily supported with social media exposure, so artists and designers are featured both in the art studio and online via the hotel’s social media channels.

Disclosure: The Roger Smith Hotel has hosted Mashable events.

Making Good with Mom


Mom is a very important person in the hospitality space. She books the hotels, makes travel arrangements and handles most of the money matters. Mom is often the decision maker for the family.

As the former Vice President, Public Relations/New Media at Universal Orlando Resort, Cynthia Gordon developed The Universal Mom Squad to make Mom’s experience at the park second to none.

Gordon says, “Hands down the best way to reach moms is online and through mom bloggers. Let’s face it, mom bloggers are a full-fledged Internet phenomenon. You have 42 million women online, with nearly half of those visiting blogs to get advice and recommendations. Mom bloggers have powerful voices and their opinions are valued by their readers.”

She credits Disney for its social media outreach efforts saying it “took the lead in courting mom bloggers and inviting them to experience their parks’ new attractions and services.”

Gordon is referencing the Walt Disney World Moms Panel — 43 hand-picked moms, and a few dads in the mix — who serve as online advisers and help answer park-related questions on behalf of Walt Disney World. The moms answer submitted questions and the inquisitive can browse through topics, search for answers, submit their own question or learn more about the panel. The program started in 2008 and new moms are added to the group each year.

Another hospitality brand catering to moms is the Royal Caribbean International cruise line. The company recently took the opportunity to invite a group of moms participating in the weekly hashtag Twitter event #gno (Girls Night Out) aboard its Oasis of the Seas cruise ship to host one of its Twitter parties while at sea.

The moms aboard the ship engaged with other moms the world round, spreading the message that cruise vacations are ideal for fun, family travel — there’s no cooking, cleaning or child care concerns to worry about. As the host, Royal Caribbean was a part of the thousands of tweets generated during the two-hour Twitter party.

Employee Education

Often, social media is siloed to an individual department. This situation sets the customer up for failure. Imagine an eager customer — aware of a company’s social media presence — who ventures out in the real-world and encounters employees with zero knowledge of their own company’s Twitter account or Facebook Page. The end result defeats the entire purpose of social media.

If social media is on the menu, then everyone from the doorman and the bartender to the CEO should know about it. Those in the know should make it a point to educate staff on their own social media presence and promotions, as well as encourage employees to embrace social technologies for their own personal use.

Simpson says this is what helps set the Roger Smith Hotel apart from its bigger competitors. He works with his social media partner Adam Wallace to maintain the Roger Smith accounts, but the two of them have also prioritized educating the hotel’s 100+ member staff. Together, they’ve inspired nearly a quarter of the team to take up tweeting by teaching them that it’s just about conversation.

As such, one of the hotel’s bartenders has developed his own following on Twitter. Simpson says that often the bartender will tweet while working his shift and even offer to pick up a drink for the first few patrons who stop by.

In connecting the dots between social media, management and staff, the hotel can ensure that guests’ expectations are superseded, and not deflated, when they walk in the door.

Series supported by Gist

Gist helps you build stronger professional relationships by bringing together information from across the web for all your contacts and their companies giving you the right information at the right moment to get a first meeting, deliver an amazing pitch, or just find a better way to make a connection. Gist does all the work for you, assembling a dynamic collection of all your contacts and their companies from your email inbox, your social networks, or even your CRM system automatically building and updating their profiles as new content is published – by them or about them.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lisegagne

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Internet, Mashable, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto

Tags: business, coffeegroundz, disney, facebook, foursquare, MARKETING, real results, roger smith hotel, royal caribbean, small business, social media, social media marketing, twitter

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23 May

Why Facebook Must Get Serious About Privacy

Posted by Dallas Lawrence, under Analysis, Facebook, Features, Opinion, Privacy, Social Media, contributor, social networks

Facebook Privacy ImageDallas Lawrence is Managing Director of Burson-Marsteller’s Proof Integrated Communications. He is a Mashable contributor on emerging media trends, online reputation management and digital issue advocacy. You can connect with him on Twitter @dallaslawrence.

The recent firestorm over Facebook’s approach to securing the privacy of its more than 450 million users continues to reverberate around the globe this week as thousands of news outlets cover the unfolding drama with almost breathless zeitgeist. And while traditional outlets are grappling with what it all means for the future of Facebook, online denizens have trumpeted their angst about the company’s most recent changes with more than 25 million blog posts.

The current crisis of confidence leveled against Facebook once again centers on the core issue of how the social networking platform manages access to its users’ information. PC World columnist JP Raphael noted earlier this month that with the significant new changes announced by the Palo Alto-based social giant, “achieving maximum privacy on Facebook now requires you to click through 50 settings and more than 170 options — and even that won’t completely safeguard your info.” According to news reports this week, the company may finally be reversing course (again) and returning to a streamlined security process.

To be sure, Facebook is no novice when it comes to navigating the controversies of privacy in the online marketplace, and it will very likely emerge from the current crisis singed, but not terribly worse for the wear. What is surprising however, and perhaps most troubling for a company that nearly all watchers agree must prove its mettle with a public offering in the next 18 months, is the voraciousness of the global opposition the recent controversy has sparked, and the apparent lack of corporate agility at Facebook to respond effectively to even the most basic crises inherent to an organization so intertwined in the daily lives of half a billion users.

The Lessons Facebook Can Learn from Google

Facebook Overshadow ImagePurported 7-year old texts from CEO Mark Zuckerberg are now lighting up the online community with an amusing, and some may say prescient peek into the then 19-year old’s views on privacy. The constant and steady drip of opposition forming around the most valuable social media property in the history of the Internet is beginning to paint a picture of a company that has failed to fundamentally understand that what got it to where it is today will not make it into what it wants to be: A wildly profitable public company rivaling the reach and prominence of Google.

The $200 billion search behemoth learned these same painful lessons of accountability earlier in the past decade as they became the public whipping boy for privacy issues. Regular Congressional hearings, editorial columns and tech-savvy thought leaders all lampooned Google for their approach to user information. Many began questioning its very core mantra of “don’t be evil” that had mightily bound Googlers for more than a decade. Google’s response was to aggressively educate global regulators and privacy experts while dramatically expanding their Washington, DC footprint. They further ramped up public policy and communications outreach efforts to ensure they were accessible and accountable to those most concerned about their industry and how they as a company approached the prickly issue of online privacy.

Transparency is Key to Facebook’s Maturation

As regulators and privacy watchdog groups from the EU, Canada and the U.S. begin to catch up to the social media revolution and the inherent policy concerns that came with it, Facebook’s maturation has reached a seminal moment in the platform’s life cycle.

For a brand built on the ideals of transparency (sharing your life updates with your friends and family), Facebook must begin to embrace the mantra of a transparent and accountable organization while remaining free from the constraints of life as a publicly traded, heavily regulated, investor-driven company.

Facebook’s chief policy guru Elliot Schrage appeared at least to grasp the challenges that lie ahead for the company during a question and answer session with The New York Times last week. “Another painful element comes from professional frustration,” Schrage wrote. “It’s clear that despite our efforts, we are not doing a good enough job communicating the changes that we’re making … We may not always agree about the speed and comprehensiveness of our response but I’m here because I’m confident Facebook’s future success depends on our ability to respond.”

Tough words and sound perspective from a smart, well-respected industry insider. If heeded, they may finally drive the internal changes necessary for Facebook to complete its startup evolution and graduate into the world’s most dominant — and profitable — communications platform.


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More Facebook resources from Mashable:

- How Facebook Can Become a Money Making Machine
- Facebook vs. Google: The Billion Dollar Battle to Be Your Default Social Profile
- 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips
- 4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook
- The Local Advertising War Will Be a Clash of the Internet Titans

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, malerapaso

Reviews: Facebook, Google, Internet, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: analysis, facebook, privacy, social media, social networks

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