By Christopher Rollyson  Is the Tail Wagging the Dog? Evaluating the Potential of Location-based Social Applications
If you read any mainstream media or social media sites, you might have started to get the impression that a Foursquare, Gowalla or Loopt application is your only hope to make this quarter’s numbers because check-ins are on everyone’s lips, er, finger tips these days. However, for CMOs of large brands, what’s the real business potential of these apps in 2010? What can they do for your business, and what and where are their limitations? Here, I’ll share some due diligence I’ve conducted for one of my clients and give you some general guidance for using these apps this year. I’ve also included links to the best information sources. First, let’s start with an introduction of geosocial and how it fits into the ecosystem you already know.
By Christopher Rollyson PopTech Maps Course of Social Change reports on Chicago salon speakers who shares breakthrough applications of social technologies.
 PopTech’s Social Mapping Salon was 12 May 2010 in Chicago, and its evening component featured three ultra-creative leaders whose teams were using mobile technology to vastly improve business processes, within the context of disaster recovery, incarceration and violence. PopTech itself is focused on creating and nurturing disruptive innovation through design, technology and cross-boundary collaboration. This salon was about using social mapping to create breakthrough. Although I didn’t attend the day part of the salon, I gathered from talking to people that it’s about using social connections to disrupt lock-in thinking and unnecessary assumptions. Social maps (below, right – or, even bigger) are visual representations of connections and breakthrough areas.
Continue reading PopTech Maps Course of Social Change
By Christopher Rollyson  You Know Facebook Connect but why not LinkedIn Connect? discusses credentialing across websites in the Web 3.0 version of single signon.
Shannon Clark, on his Slow Brand blog, presents the idea of a LinkedIn Connect, which would enable users to authenticate and share certain approved information from their LinkedIn presence on third-party sites. He writes, “Why isn’t LinkedIn looking to be the Identity layer for not just a few applications running inside of LinkedIn or a very small handful of LinkedIn Partners, but instead to offer a strong, business focused identity layer for 1000?s of business applications across the Internet?” Great question that merited some cycles.
Here’s the post, with my thoughts below. A good thread with some technical discussion, but understandable for non-techies, too.
Continue reading You Know Facebook Connect but why not LinkedIn Connect?
By Christopher Rollyson  I’m pleased to announce that the Executive’s Guide to Twitter released two free online courses for executives and other time-starved people who want to understand and use Twitter effectively. Twitter 101 shows why Twitter may be important to your career and company while Twitter 201 is the how of Twitter. Each course is divided into several classes which take about 30 minutes each, so you can squeeze them into small weekend, airplane or lunch slots.
By Christopher Rollyson  Social Networking Bootcamp Combines Strategy, Management and Practice highlights the Social Networking Conference Pre-Conference LA, which features enterprise speakers and live LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and blogging examples.
I am pleased to share the updated agenda for the #snc2010 pre-conference. The morning session will focus on strategy, planning and management of enterprise social network initiatives and will feature several speakers who are currently leading businesses and initiatives. The afternoon will focus on practice and show live example/demos of using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and blogging tools for marketing campaigns. Read on to review the agenda in depth.
By Christopher Rollyson  Los Angeles Conference Offers Onramp for Managing Social Networking Initiatives: Learn from Leaders
I am excited to announce that I will be joined by several enterprise executive innovators in the pre-conference “Enterprise Social Networking Bootcamp.” They will share their experiences with using social networks for innovation. I have invited executives from mobile, manufacturing, telecoms, entertainment, media and retail. I will add them here as they confirm. You can read about some of the other panels I’ve led here.
By Christopher Rollyson Increasing Leverage of Social Business Investments with a Social Business Competency Team
 Using social technologies to improve business function and customer experience (“social business”) is already a complex proposition, and it is going to become more so in the near term. Today, we are in the initial stage of adoption in which most firms are still on the sidelines, so the main challenge is understanding how social business applies to the organization and developing the skills for engaging people. This is difficult because social skills are required—social skills in digital environments. However, soon the main challenge will be competition for attention, which will increase because more companies are entering the market.
Let’s assume your company has had several social networking experiments going for the past year or so. Most of them were funded haphazardly, you have achieved some promising results, but you also seen that engagement takes commitment. You wonder how can you get some “enterprise leverage” working for you in your desire to scale your social business initiatives without breaking the bank. Here I’ll discuss how the SNR approach uses Social Business Competency Teams, so you can apply its principles to your initiatives.
By Christopher Rollyson LinkedIn Body Language How Touch Creates Stronger Connections explains how touch helps you create a stronger LinkedIn network–literally and figuratively
 One of my Twitter friends recently sent me an article on touch and its powerful role in creating trust and relationship. I think about this frequently, but in the context of “touch” while interacting in social networks. In fact, during client work, I explicitly address “LinkedIn body language,” which raises awareness of online “gestures” and how they reinforce–or detract from–what someone is trying to say, so this presents an opportunity to delve into literal and figurative touch and its role in strengthening relationship and LinkedIn interactions.
The New York Times’ “Evidence That Little Touches Do Mean So Much” briefly reviews recent research on touch, and I’ll comment on its relevance to physical relationships and how you can use the concepts to take your touches in your LinkedIn interactions up a level. Continue reading LinkedIn Body Language How Touch Creates Stronger Connections
By Christopher Rollyson Social Networking for Professional Services Firms shows how Attorneys, Healthcare Providers and Investment Advisors Can Use Social Networks Safely
Having spent all of my career in professional services, I appreciate the conservatism and professionalism that characterizes regulated businesses. Professional services deal in complexity and trust, so they have internal and external constraints on their communications. Consequently, all are laggards in adopting social networking in their practices. However, as social networking adoption grows among their client bases, they will be at an increasing disadvantage by staying on the sidelines. Here I’ll offer a cursory treatment of a complex subject. After explaining how social networking is affecting professional services, I will show how firms can participate today while remaining within compliance. Continue reading Social Networking for Professional Services Firms
By Christopher Rollyson  Blogs The Relationship-Centric Approach to Building Readership, and Blogging: Ten Tactics to Build Traffic.
Most bloggers struggle with “building traffic” or readership to their blogs, so here goes with a very quick treatment of a complex subject. By the way, this post was precipitated by Javis, to whose question I just responded via Aardvark. He asked, “What can I do for my blog to get better visits?”
You may also wonder why I’m increasingly writing about blogging here. In fact, Twitter and blogging are very similar in many ways because the technology is broadcast and enables people to “follow” or “read” your content. The interactivity of Twitter and blogs is largely a matter of intention and practice. That’s why I will be addressing blogs here in 2010. Now, read on for some back-of-the-envelope advice on building a following for your blog. Continue reading Blogs The Relationship-Centric Approach to Building Readership
|
|
