Super Bowl Ads Should Reference Social Media
By Adam Maikkula | February 7, 2010
While you watch tonight’s Super Bowl game, keep an eye on your favorite television ads. I bet you will see many of them mention Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, and FourSquare within the ads. This is a great way for companies to direct a lot of consumers to quickly connect with them through social media. I’d also keep your eyes peeled for actual sites being used or poked fun at in commercial parodies. With this many people around the world watching television tonight, you can bet those who are social media savvy will be chomping at the bit to let the world know they have Fan Pages and Twitter accounts.
…Go Colts!
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The Economist: A Special Report on Social Networking
By Adam Maikkula | January 31, 2010
This week’s (January 30th – February 5th 2010) issue of The Economist did a special report on Social Networking. Reading through a few of their special report articles helped me realize that no matter how much time we at SMCpros spend in social media, it is still such a young piece of global culture. Reading through the special report also helped prove to me that there really is a clear generational gap between those who get it and those who are still trying to bend social media to fit an old model. I hope that people read this report and continue to participate more in social media until they realize that social media is revolutionary enough to force the world (business and social) to adapt to it (and not vice versa).
Here are a couple of interesting articles regarding social networking and business from The Economist’s special report. Check them out when you have a few minutes:
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Football Fever: Minnesota Vikings on Social Media
By Adam Maikkula | January 23, 2010
Who’s ready for some Vikings football Sunday night? I know I am! For a shorter blog post this week, I thought I would point out some of the players’ social media sites you might want to follow. Keep an eye on tweets coming out of New Orleans before and after the game. This should get you started:
Sidney Rice
Bernard Berrian
Bryant McKinnie
Visanthe Shiancoe
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Text your donations to 90999
By Adam Maikkula | January 17, 2010
In December, I donated $5 to Alicia Keys’ Keep A Child Alive foundation by texting “ALIVE” to 90999. Making the donation was really easy since I could use my cell phone to donate and have the $5 added to my Sprint bill at the end of the month. The texting process was very straightforward as I texted “ALIVE” to 90999 and immediately received a text asking me to confirm a one time donation billed to my cell phone. Once I confirmed my intention of donating the money, I received a ‘thank you’ text.
Last week, I received my Sprint bill and wondered how my text message donation would appear. Beneath my phone number, I read the details of my donation from 12/21/09. The one time donation was listed as:
“www.MobileGiving.org: Donation – 90999 KpChldAlv Dona – 12/21…$5.00″
As a consumer, it was great to see that my text donation was legitimate and that Sprint correctly billed me the proper amount. In all honesty, considering the total Sprint Surcharges and the Government Taxes & Fees, the $5 donation was nothing for me to be worried about (it was the least I could do). It was a pleasure to help the Keep A Child Alive foundation. I encourage you all to check out one of these text donation services for yourselves.
If you have been active on social media at all this week, you should have noticed the ‘”text ‘HAITI’ to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti” status messages going out. As a previous user of this 90999 service, I just wanted to let readers know that this is a legitimate service, and as you can see from my Keep A Child Alive experience above, it is a great way to support humanitarian efforts in a matter of seconds.
Social media has really helped the “ALIVE” and “HAITI” initiatives raise awareness, increase donations, and encourage public awareness by making it easy for campaigns to virally spread across the internet. It is one thing to receive a “Please Donate Money” letter in the mail, but it is an entirely different experience when you receive status message updates from many of your friends showing their support for one of these causes. For many people, it is far easier to get behind a cause if they know their friends are supporting it as well. Also, it is much easier to donate money when NOT being aggressively asked to do so. A tweet, update, or picture is often more effective than an aggressive “just give us money” communication. Remember, even if you do not wish to donate money yourself, you can help raise awareness by copying and pasting the messages above to your own social media.
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Ask questions
By Adam Maikkula | January 10, 2010
Asking questions to your connections, fans, and followers on social media is a great way to increase engagement by creating some easy conversation starters. I recently posted a question on my Facebook profile and my Twitter account asking people what their first job was, how old they were, and what they learned. Unexpectedly, my question received responses from 18 different people in the course of a few days. Not only did I learn some useful information about my connections, I also had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends that I had not talked to in a while…I also had the opportunity to make a new connection on Twitter who stumbled upon my tweet and felt like participating in my “#firstjob” conversation. Those who responded to my question felt inclined enough to help me with my survey that they took time out of their day to publicly post their answers as tweets or Facebook wall comments. It was great to see such a response to what seemed as such a simple question.
Take some time to think up your own questions and start posting them to your social media sites. I’m confident you will not only learn a lot, but you should also begin to see the true value of social media.
Starter questions:
What is the funnest thing you did over the holiday break?
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
What new hobby would you like to take up in 2010?
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Social Media Spotlight part 2: Alicia Keys’ Keep A Child Alive foundation
By Adam Maikkula | January 3, 2010
Continuing from where I left off with last week’s Social Media Spotlight post, I would like to highlight a few of the different ways Keep A Child Alive uses social media. Depending on the responses I receive, I may go in-depth on each of these in my next blog post.
Website:
You will notice that Keep A Child Alive displays social media tabs (hyperlinks) to their various social media sites under the Get Involved section of their website.
Leveraging the ShareThis feature encourages viewers to distribute web content to their own friends, fans, and connections.
Fan Page:
One of my favorite parts of the Fan Page is the content they share in the Info tab fields. The information is very informative and describes how Fans can participate in the “Text ‘ALIVE’ to 90999″ campaign.
By keeping the Fan Page wall open, Keep A Child Alive allows and encourages its Fans to engage with them (and other Fans) through Facebook.
Causes:
Providing an in-depth description in the About section of their Causes profile has helped them receive 13,198 members and raise $5,945 through the Causes application.
Twitter:
Using a custom profile background helps influence viewers and followers to participate in the “Text ‘ALIVE’ to 90999″ campaign and makes the profile page feel much more personal.
Distributing various types of content within their 737 tweets has earned Keep A Child Alive 3,908 followers and placed them on 161 lists.
YouTube:
Most importantly, the organization leverages the YouTube Non-Profits profile to set themselves apart from typical users and gives them the ability to receive donations on their site using Google Checkout.
Posting new videos (18 so far) to their channel, Keep A Child Alive has collected 387 subscribers with 26,272 channel views…making them the 93rd most viewed non-profit this month on YouTube.
MySpace:
You will quickly see that they have incorporated the “Text ‘ALIVE’ to 90999″ campaign into their MySpace profile which also provides items available for download (wallpaper, photos, and logos).
A PayPal integration is provided to allow MySpace users to donate directly on the profile page.
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Social Media Spotlight: Alicia Keys’ Keep A Child Alive foundation
By Adam Maikkula | December 27, 2009
12 – time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys is Co-founder and Global Ambassador to Keep A Child Alive, a global foundation dedicated to providing anti-retroviral treatments and support to children and families within Africa and India affected by HIV/AIDS.
In 2002, Alicia visited Africa on behalf of an invitation to perform there. While in Africa, she saw and experienced conditions for herself and has since continued to raise awareness for the fight against AIDS.
Leveraging the power of technology and social media, Alicia and Keep A Child Alive (KCA) have developed a fundraising campaign inviting global citizens to text “ALIVE” to 90999 to make a one time $5 donation to KCA via their mobile phones. In addition to supporting KCA with a $5 donation, those who donate are entered into a drawing to be 1 of 5 people selected to join Alicia on her upcoming visit to Africa. Winners will spend 5 days in Africa with Alicia. So far, 250,000 people have donated $5 to KCA via the “ALIVE” campaign.
Integrating the fundraising campaign with their Facebook Fan Page, Causes profile, Twitter account, YouTube channel, MySpace account, and website, KCA is successfully gaining exposure and improving the affects of their fight against HIV/AIDS.
What I like most about the ALIVE campaign is that they are fully leveraging Facebook, Twitter, Causes, YouTube, Myspace, and their website to spread the word and communicate with their supporters. In addition to having a presence on these sites, KCA leverages products like ShareThis and also uploads videos and pictures to communicate visually with and engage their supporters.
Visit Alicia’s personal website and the various Keep A Child Alive sites to see how they are successfully using social media. Try to see if you can spot the important parts of their social media efforts and compare them to my next blog post. Next week, I will do a follow up blog post highlighting various parts of their social media. Comments are highly welcomed!
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YouTube helps non-profits in US and UK leverage social media
By Adam Maikkula | December 20, 2009
Visit YouTube’s non-profit channel to find out how your non-profit organization can leverage YouTube’s video platform to raise awareness, reach millions of viewers, and increase fundraising efforts. Leveraging YouTube in conjunction with Causes can drastically influence your non-profit’s online reach by integrating with the most popular social media platforms used today.
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Twitter’s Evan Williams discusses its explosive growth at TED2009
By Adam Maikkula | December 13, 2009
Yes, this video may be 10 months old, but it is still one of my favorite video explanations about the amazing growth behind Twitter. Take a look at the video when you have a second. I’m confident you will learn something about the evolution of Twitter no matter how advanced or amateur your usage is.
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Leveraging LinkedIn Events
By Adam Maikkula | December 6, 2009
Events posted on LinkedIn show up in your profile as Event recommendations based on your profile content. LinkedIn shows events that you may be interested in and allows you to see all the members attending the event (especially your personal connections). You have the ability to RSVP to upcoming events such as conferences and seminars in your area. Once you choose to attend an event, your network will be notified of your confirmation.
From a business development perspective, leveraging LinkedIn is a great way to drive attendance to your events as well as find out who is attending events you are interested in. Imagine being able to reach out to a sales prospect or potential business partner by attending relevant events (together)…
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