Yammer gains traction

Here’s a short introductory video about Yammer. It’s a newish, but already popular (over 100,000 enterprises using it), social media tool which assists internal communication between colleagues in organisations.

For further information, you can read what Techcrunch had to say about Yammer here.

Too much (inappropriate) information

Numerous social media “gurus” extoll the importance of showing one’s personal side on social media sites. Indeed in the video below Loic Le Meur encourages people not to be afraid to be ridiculous.

In order to do this people mainly talk (too much sometimes) about their children or interests outside social media. Increasingly people are linking Foursquare to Twitter and my feed gets full up of “I’m at ..” which is becoming a bit tiresome.  I noticed last week Shel Israel said he is starting to unfollow Twitter users who “post lots of Foursquare crap”. However although it’s a bit of a nuisance, I don’t find it offensive.

Last week I was so disappointed when someone I have been following for quite some time and whose agency is making great strides in social media posted a Tweet urging people to check out a link which he said was really funny. I clicked on the link and was taken to a vulgar sexist cartoon which I found quite offensive. If diversity is supposed to be respected in the workplace shouldn’t this equally apply to his wider stakeholders in Twittersphere? I suppose he has shown more of his personality now. Ignorance up to now was bliss.

Open Leadership

I’ve mentioned Groundswell previously on my blog. The co-author Charlene Li has recently published Open Leadership, which I’ve just started reading. I’ll write more on the topic when I’ve finished the book.

How to promote your brand in social networks

I stumbled across a great talk over the weekend. Loic Le Meur discusses how to use social networks to promote brands. It’s a half an hour long so if you do not have time to watch it all here’s a few of his main points.

• Twitter and the like should not be used for campaigns. They are about building long-term relationships.
• Don’t buy followers.
• Brands that use Twitter well include Ford, Bestbuy, Red Bull and Zappos.
• He recommends reading Triiibes by Seth Godin.
• Read Jeremiah Owyang’s blog.

Thinking of hiring a social media expert?

Interesting although I’m sure there are a few experts out there such as Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Williams.

Fantastic measurable social media case study

I just came across this video of Antwerp Zoo’s baby elephant campaign. Struggling to compete with other leisure venues, Antwerp Zoo and their agency Boondoggle, came up with this unique campaign utilising a wide range of social media tools.  The campaign captured the Belgium population for almost a year.

The story centered around a pregnant elephant and the subsequent birth of her baby. The results speak for themselves. A staggering 41,387 people signed up to receive notification via text message or email when labour began and 559,824 people watched the birth live online. In the year following the campaign visitors to the zoo have risen 300,000.

UK retailers rapidly adopt social media technologies

I reported back in October that large UK retailers were lagging behind their US counterparts in their adoption of social media. Ten months on I thought it was time to take a look and see how the landscape has changed. The findings are very interesting.

Out of the ten retailers I selected in October, only 3 had a Facebook fan page. At the time Mashable reporter, Jennifer van Grove, blogged that 86% of US online retailers were using Facebook fan pages to engage with consumers. As you can see from the below the situation in the UK has changed significantly.

Eight out of ten retailers now have, what appears to be an official, Facebook fan page. Infact although Amazon UK does not have its own fan page the parent company has an official page. Therefore out of the ten I selected only John Lewis is not using Facebook to engage with consumers. Interestingly also Tesco’s fan page is specifically for its clothing range rather than its groceries.

Marketers may want to closely monitor how US companies are using social media technologies to keep ahead of the pack.

Retailer	Facebook Fan page in October 09	Facebook Fan page in August 10
Ocado	No	Yes
John Lewis	No	No
Tesco	No	Yes
Play.com	Yes	Yes
Currys	No	Yes
Next	Yes	Yes
Marks and Spencer	Yes	Yes
Littlewoods	No	Yes
Amazon UK	No	No

Facebook marketing help

As Facebook exceeds 500 million users, it continues to be an important tool for marketers. Indeed you may have already done a lot of work driving customers or prospective customers to a Facebook fan page but are now struggling to keep abreast with all the conversations. Fear not, London based iPlatform has launched a new solution called Conversocial to assist companies manage their fan pages. Read more about it here.

Social media in the UK

SimplyZesty have just put together a great video on social media statistics in the UK.

Some key points:

• 85% of the UK population is now online
• 1/3 of these have uploaded a video to a video sharing site
• 85% have watched video clips online
• 1/4 write blogs
• 60% read them
• 64% have their own profile on a social networking site
• Watching tv online has grown 600% in the last year
• 70% trust online recommendations from strangers
• 90% trust online recommendations from people they know
• A visitor coming from a social media site is 10 times more likely to make a purchase online than an average visitor

A look at Weedle

On reading that Weedle are planning to hire 50 staff, I decided to have a look at the site. The service which launched three months ago  is a free-to-join community. The site allows people to list their skills and connect with others who need that skill. It also promises to improve Google search listings. It would be hard to compete with LinkedIn’s popularity and brand awareness, however it may provide an additional opportunity to build online relationships.