Weinergate, or 10 steps to avoid a social media disaster with Amber Mac
Mike Grehan, VP and Global Content Director, Incisive Media, interviews SES Toronto 2011 Keynoter, Amber Mac, best-selling author, TV host, journalist and tech consultant on the subject of Weinergate, or how to avoid the kind of social media disaster that befell Congressman Anthony Weiner. Amber says the scandal involving Congressman Weiner is a wake-up call to businesses that need to build an online presence using social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, in order to communicate with their audience in a timely manner. Amber says companies and organizations must implement a social media policy or series of guidelines about how people in its organization should be communicating on social media platforms. For example, if a company is in the midst of a social media emergency, it should already have in place a series of guidelines so the emergency gets escalated to the proper authority who can quickly respond to it within 24 hours. Amber says it’s important for companies when crafting their social media policies to determine which social media platforms are best suited for their needs. Amber says two to three social media tools should be sufficient for any organization.
In her keynote address, Amber spoke on the topic, “10 steps to avoid a social media disaster.”
The 10 steps are:
1. Create a policy. Amber recommended using policytool.net to create a social media policy for your company.
2. Be authentic. She showed the Blendtec Will It Blend? videos as an example.
3. Be original. She showed Sit or Squat, an app create by Charmin as an example.
4. Be consistent. She showed the Old Spice video as an example.
5. Choose tools. She covered several categories, including blogs, social networking, and mobile. For blogs, she said “tell a story.” For social networking, she said “an image is worth 1,000 clicks.” For mobile, she compared HomeDepotCanada’s twitter feed with the one from HomeDepot in the U.S. The one in Canada was too salesy.
6. Listen well. She showed the United Breaks Guitars video as an example.
7. Listen well. She repeated this point and talked about using HootSuite to listen well.
8. Go home. She said don’t forget your website while creating new social media programs.
9. Go mobile. She said 35% of people fire up a mobile app before getting out of bed.
10. Watch trends. She compared Groupon with Uforce, mentioned Quora for crowdsourcing, FourSquare for location-based services, infographics, and Qwiki as trends that she was watching.
To learn more about speaking at SES Toronto, please visit:
http://www.sestoronto.com
Duration : 0:3:49
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) — Groupon Inc., the online-coupon site that spurned a $6 billion offer from Google Inc. this month, has filed to raise as much as $950 million in funding, according to the venture-capital website VCExperts. Groupon Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mason is shoring up the company as he ponders an initial public offering in the new year. Bloomberg’s Deirdre Bolton reports on Mason and Groupon in today’s Movers & Shakers. (Source: Bloomberg)