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Conferences & Education

5 Top-Notch Marketing Conferences

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A great marketing conference will offer one-of-a-kind perspectives on trending insider information in traditional and digital marketing. Speakers will help to lead and enhance expert learning sessions for a great full-bodied conference program that should focus on marketing strategies, business and consumer relations management, and other vital elements of your company’s marketing campaigns that is carried on, offline.

Marketing Conferences 2011

There are quite a few marketing conferences that can benefit anyone from the smallest business owner to a well-known public brand.

  1. Contagious: The Science of Word-of-Mouth Marketing Conference is held on June 30th, 2011 in NY, New York. This unique marketing conference provides industry expertise about findings into what really influences consumer decisions and how to use the old fashioned method of word-of-mouth advertising to build a larger audience.
  2. The PRSA 2011 will be held in Orlando, Florida on Sunday October 16th. This conference with the intriguing title of Bringing Sexy Back to Marketing is focused on show-and-tell presentations that are loaded with real case study information on maintaining great offline marketing campaigns as well as integrating online and offline efforts for greater possibilities.
  3. The American Management Association produces many conferences and seminars all around the U.S. regularly. One of their most vital seminars is the Fundamentals of Marketing: Your Action Plan for Success course. This course takes those new to marketing and gives them a thorough overview of exactly what they need to know, the most basic fundamentals behind successful marketing campaigns. Important marketing skill development begins here. Since these are covered in cities in the U.S. at various times it is best to check there schedule for this program.
  4. The Direct Marketing Conference is held October 1st through 6th in 2011 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, Massachusetts. This global event focuses on learning how to effectively develop successfully integrated marketing campaigns. Increasing the understanding of how to leverage data and other attributions. Networking with many peers from over 50+ countries can be quite an experience for any visiting this conference.
  5. The International Professional Communications Conference is an incredibly beneficial tool to any offline marketing campaign. This yearly conference held on the University of Cincinnati campus October 17th through October 19th can be an imperative element in training your entire marketing department on how to communicate effectively, and proactively with your possible consumers.

Over 90% of retail sales and word-of-mouth referrals still happen offline. It may be a dire mistake to put all of your marketing eggs into one digital basket with statistics like this still lingering around.

More than 93 percent of retail sales and 90 percent of word-of-mouth referrals happen offline. Yet, brands seem obsessed with using the latest and greatest social media tools to build customer loyalty. It is time to bring sexy back to word-of-mouth marketing and implement communications plans that fully engage customers, both online and offline.

  • Experience a show-and-tell presentation loaded with case studies and actionable best practice advice on how to engage and encourage customers to tell others about the brands they find talk-able.
  • Uncover the importance of investing in a strategy that engages employees and customers first, before you think about your technology plan.
  • Learn the importance of integrating online and offline programs, and tips for implementing both.

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Some of the Best Social Media Conferences

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You can’t have social media without the social. Although the internet produced what we now refer to as social media, this form of networking doesn’t live solely on the world wide web. Social media and social networking can also require face time. Especially for those who want to stay ahead of the trends and those who want to be on the leading edge of the capabilities that social media allots them.

There are a large collection of varying social media events held around the world every year. In fact, there is even a designated Social Media Week that will be celebrated by social networking enthusiast and experts from all over the map. The Second Social Media Week for 2011 runs from September 19th through the 23rd in locales such as Los Angeles, Berlin, Moscow, Milan, and many more places around the globe.

Social Media Conferences

Important social media conferences occur all throughout the year.

  1. The SXSW interactive festival was celebrated from March 9th through the 13th of 2011. Five days of riveting presentations performed by some of the brightest minds in social media technology such as CEO and Founder of ScrollMotion, Josh Koppel.
  2. The Social Media Strategies Summit was held from February 8th through the 10th in San Francisco, California. This fantastic conference gave many the chance to learn from some of the top leaders in social media marketing. Representatives from Dunkin Donuts, Discovery Channel, Paypal and other big name brands were on hand to answer questions about their successful strategies. Social Media Strategies Summit or SMSS is coming to Boston Sept 20-22, 2011 and London Oct 25-27, 2011. During this 3 day summit attendee’s will learn how to best utilize and integrate the myriad social media platforms to engage customers directly at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Through the intelligent use of social media marketing you can, in house, have continuous direct contact with your customers.
  3. The 140 characters, or #140conf, 2011 conference was lauded to be the largest global gathering of those interested in how social media and the internet effected both businesses and people. Adam Ostrow, the Editor-in-Chief at Mashable, joined a long list of knowledgeable speakers at the #140c on June 15th and 16th.
  4. Another area in which social media marketing is beginning to bloom and boom is in the travel industry. For this reason the Social Media Strategies for Travel conference held on March 25th and 26th of 2011 was a superb opportunity for travel industry leaders to learn how to communicate, via social media formats, with their customers.
  5. The Search Exchange Internet Marketing Conference held on May 17th through 19th 2011, offered a helpful variety of educational possibilities by the collaborative efforts of hundreds of entrepreneurs and business professionals who shared the most vital keynotes and discussions on social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, web analytics, and search engine optimization.
  6. The Content Marketing World Conference of 2011 will be held from September 6th through September 8th in Cleveland, Ohio. This conference has a direct goal of helping to transform your businesses marketing department into a compelling factory for storytelling. Learning techniques to help engage prospects and current customers with the best messages through formats such as mobile, email, online, social, and face-to-face interaction can assist any marketing department in becoming content marketing experts by providing them with valuable education and vital tools.
  7. The WOMMA Summit, also known as the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, will be held from November 16th through November 18th, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This innovative way of marketing the oldest and most effective promotion helps attendees to understand how better to research and measure the integration of online social media with offline communications. New practices in word of mouth, coupled with social media marketing, provides the latest in trends to help give any business a great boost.
  8. Social Media Week: Global. Social Media Week’s mission is to explore how local and regional societies, cultures, and economies are becoming more integrated & empowered through a global network of communication. The Feb 2011 was a big success and the September 19-23, 2011 is looking to be just as big. It takes place in cities around the world.
  9. Blogworld & New Media Expo, While you might have missed NY in May 2011, the Social Media Summit for the Blogworld Expo will be in Los Angeles Nov 3-5. Topics Include: Content Creation, Distribution, Monetization, Networking and more.

One of the most vital elements of any education is the regular development and renewal of that very same education. What you may be 100% sure of today about an aspect of social media marketing, indeed, you may even be right, but that very element may have an entirely different focus depending on the whims of search engines and the ebb and flow of human communication, tomorrow. As long as you stay in tune with news and trends in any industry, you have the best chance for true success as is possible.

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Transparency & Social Media

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Embracing social media 100% may be the best investment, you as a business owner, can make for your company and brand. However, businesses already renowned in the social media world, can also be considered pioneers of this method of advertising and marketing.

Although many have heard of the benefits, fear of possible damage may have kept them at bay long enough that they are just now dipping a toe in the proverbial social media pool. Some of these businesses may be ultimately considered about the meaning behind the transparency of social media  as well as the implementation of.

Social media marketers speak about social media transparency and the importance of being open, authentic, and honest about their company’s brands or opportunities. However, keeping in mind that it is all about the people, and little of the product, that is the most important element of maintaining a balance in social media transparency.

What is Social Media Transparency?

Commonly, this phrase is used in reference with news media to inform the public why and how the business gathers information from a variety of sources. This is really no different than providing the name of which reliable source told you what. We already regularly do this in our daily rumor mills. The discussion of odd or unusual details may illicit a “who told you that?” Social media transparency only makes this a proactive measure. “This is what I heard, and here are the reliable sources that support that notion.”

As a business, sometimes your only role is to provide those details, the who as important as the why, and for many companies, being a reliable source of sources is just as important to their visibility. Regardless of the stepping stones of sources, the point is to lend credibility to your message, and build trust with your consumers.

As an individual we check-in and tweet with data, photos and more, so if we are transparent, we expect business to do the same right?

Transparency in Digital Media

When considering this element in relation to social media and most certainly when it comes to covering or reviewing products, or social business blogging, the main focus is to be open and honest in all elements of what you share. Are you doing a review for the new iPad? Share right away with your viewers that you received an iPad to research and blog about their product. As long as it breaches no contract, it is also good to share if you may not have received a free device to do your review, but that your review was paid or sponsored by another source.

It can also be used as a simple means of saying “Hey, I heard about this idea from a post at www.referencedsource.com and thought I’d share my opinion, thoughts, or review of this idea.” Not only is this the transparency that should be focused on, it is also good netiquette. It is the acknowledgement that while your post or blog is not created by a specific expert in a field, it is based on one, and here is the person who wrote the material that inspired your own.

If your business or brand is highly followed on Twitter for a specific reason. Perhaps because you are the go-to company who helps to determine the safest toys for children. Advertising a toy as ‘safe’ because you were paid to do so, without sharing that you were paid to do so, is not only misleading, but can be the beginning of the end of your brand and every consumer who values its sources.

Can You Trust Me?

Although not all reasons behind transparency can present such dire consequences as the reference to children’s toys, the lack of transparency can indeed cause a shining company to fail simply due to lack of disclosure.

Social media is no doubt, a double-edged sword. The same format that can make your company’s brand a vital one, can also hammer away at it until transparency transforms into invisibility.

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7 Digital and Internet Media Conferences you should know about

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Part of any smart businesses marketing plan is the continued education of the employees responsible for these vital tasks. For this reason many businesses schedule regular digital and internet conferences for their marketing departments.

7 Highly Informative Digital and Internet Media Conferences

  1. Over 500 of the top decision makers in the entertainment, technology, and media industries came together in Arlington, Virginia at the 8th Annual Digital Media Conference East held on June 17th, 2011. The event consisted of twenty separate panels spanning six content tracks. Featured tracks included digital media, mobile, TV/Video, Social, Marketing, and Law and Policy elements.
  2. The National Conference for Media Reform of 2011was held from April 8th until the 10th and helped to join thousands of educators, media specialist, activists, journalist, policymakers, and more who simply want to better our media option. This three day conference included panels, hands-on workshops, film screenings, meetings, live entertainment, speeches and more.
  3. Detroit Michigan hosted the Allied Media Conference as a part of the Allied Media Projects network from June 23rd to the 26th of 2011 . This conference focuses on organic relationship-building and the concept of do-it-yourself media. It seems that each year this conference brings more businesses owners who are interested in utilizing interactive media as part of social organizational strategy.
  4. September 18th through the 22nd will bring the Web of Change Conference in Hollyhock, Cores Island, British Columbia. Celebrating its 11th year this conference always brings alternatives and trending methods to harness the power of the world wide web in effecting social changes around the globe.
  5. The Media Relations in the Digital Age Conference held in Hong Kong on July 7th and 8th 2011 is focused on learning how some of the more widely renowned brands successfully incorporate the digital world into media strategies. This can help to build leverage on many different platforms to help deliver a lucrative brand message.
  6. The TM’s Forum Management World Americas Conference will run from November 8th to the 10th in November of 2011. Held in Orlando, Florida this communications management conference has a bit of something for everyone from suppliers and providers to business partnership education. This conferences focus is to teach technical as well as business strategies to encourage success in the market of tomorrow.
  7. LeWeb, a Paris based Internet Ecosystem Conference will be held from December 7th until the 9th in a three day conference on important and trending information in the web marketplace. With over 3000 planned participants from more than sixty countries this group of executives, investors, senior members of the press, and entrepreneurs are sure to present an unforgettable conference with a wealth of vital information.

With tons of conferences held on industry information and trending standards in digital and internet media each year, there is quite likely one held not far from your own back yard. Joining Meetup groups or watching out on your social media accounts can be one of the best ways to keep informed of up-and-coming trends in digital and internet media.

Stay Tuned for Social Media Conferences and Marketing Conferences.

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Social Media For Recruiting

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It wasn’t long ago that social media was defined solely as a way to learn how a friend just ate at a great restaurant or who was getting engaged.

However, social media continued its evolution and became particularly useful for companies to locate, recruit, and learn about candidates for open positions. Using social media for recruiting has quickly ignited a hiring fire, lighting the way for many. While sites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are still often used for ‘fun’, as well as business, others like LinkedIn have become known as more ‘serious’or ‘professional’ space.

So how does a company effectively search and target potential candidates from such a large pool though?

Recruit from Your Own List of Friends and Followers

Using Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can all be useful in recruiting by being able to distribute information about open positions quickly and efficiently to large number of people. Recruiters know they’re distributing information to candidates who will take notice, especially since jobseekers are turned off by sites like CareerBuilder.com which have become filled with spam.

There are a number of free resources available. On most social media profiles, companies can use their status box in order to announce open positions, and of course good old fashioned networking is the best tool of all. On LinkedIn, after building connections of industry peers including co-workers, clients, and local companies, one can browse the profiles of each other’s connections, and then ask for introductions.

Link Up with LinkedIn

Another useful way to recruit on LinkedIn is by joining relevant groups and staying active within them by participating in the group’s discussions and keeping their eyes open for those who are active and knowledgeable.

While similar tools are available on almost all social media sites, LinkedIn gives recruiters the ability to not only view a candidate’s resume, they can also see any recommendations the candidate has received from their peers. The ability to give and receive visible recommendations is a tool that’s not as ‘visible’ and specific on other social media sites. Additionally, recruiting companies on LinkedIn can post available jobs and sign up for LinkedIn Talent Advantage, basically a toolbox for recruiters, both for fees.

There’s no reason to be afraid of approaching candidates. A recent survey on Internships.com found that almost 80 percent% of respondents didn’t mind if a company made contact about potential opportunities, so now is the time to make use of the many tools social media has to offer.

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Social Media is Saving Lives & Raising Awareness

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Has social media proved itself beneficial to your business? What if it actually saved your life or the lives of your children? Would you be a believer then?

Haiti Earthquake

We heard plenty of stories after the earthquake in Haiti last year of survivors under the rubble tweeting their locations, pleading for rescue. We may have even seen a few of the Facebook fan sites that sprang up in order to help direct rescuers to the most needed locations such as the Hotel Montana, a bit away from the epicenter but still desperately in need of help.

Many participants on both of these social networks also actively helped with the recovery effort by following and reporting request for supplies such as much needed first aid, food, and water to the Red Cross and other organizations that were headed into the devastation zone.

There can also be no doubt that Haiti also received an incredible amount of donations for their recovery by users on Twitter and Facebook who simply provided the information on how to donate quickly.

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

The tragic earthquake and its subsequent tsunami that leveled large parts of Japan’s coastline earlier this year was also a widespread and viral topic on social media networks from the moment the news reports came rolling in.

Users on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other social networking sites played major roles in more early warning systems, sharing information, reuniting family members, and the much needed donation gathering.

As their infrastructure began to fail and TV stations were knocked out, many of the people of Japan took to the social media networks to get their information, news, and knowledge of what was going on with the rescue efforts.

Some even used Twitter to advertise their safe locations, inviting others to join them. Hiroshi Matsuyama of CyberConnect advertised his safe zone on Twitter by tweeting that they had television, some food, and beverages. He gave his location, stated he had room for around thirty people and asked that others who needed help to reply via Twitter, the only means of communication he found he could rely on. 

Residents of Japan utilized Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and more to locate loved ones and shelters that were opening in affected areas.

So while there are a wide variety of technologies that can help to help us isolate ourselves from our fellow human beings, social media tools have absolutely shown their capacity for uniting us and bringing out the empathetic aspects of human nature.

It seems Japan and it’s unfortunate tragedy has only concreted the idea that a friend or follower in need can inspire true acts of generosity, empathy, and honor, something many find lacking in our daily dealings with those that we do deal with, even face-to-face.

The Good Fight

It doesn’t always have to be an immense tragedy to gather the attention of those who may help. Sometimes, it may only be a personal one.

For many Leukemia patients, the only cure available is the transplant of bone marrow from a matching donor. Finding a donor though has been a huge source of frustration and disappointment for those who are suffering, or those who have to watch a loved one do so. The highest probability for those sufferers is finding a donor in their same ethnic pool.

Caucasians in this situation can count themselves the luckiest, as 80% of them will be able to find a matching donor listed on the National Marrow Donor Program registry. However, of the 6.8 million registered, 20% are minorities and a meager 1% of those listed are South Asian. So for South Asians who are facing this type of personal devastation, the odds on finding a matching donor are pitifully low. To compound matters, many countries, like India, with a population of over one billion people, there is simply no registry at all. 

For those unfortunate sufferers, options were nil. That is, until social networks became an option. Now those who are unable to take advantage of opportunities to heal that may be available in some countries but not others, have an outlet.

Social media can provide those seeking help and their loved ones with the infrastructure to begin looking for options in previously unconventional methods. Enacting strategies that include building instant awareness and coupling it with mass micro-mobilization. This allows those who may have previously been voiceless, to grab the attention of the media, engage their viewers with videos and photos, powerful story-telling and blogging, and then to take action, whether it is in the form of a bone marrow drive, build a concerned community, and network possibly life-saving options.

Business and Charity Awareness

Sometimes little things can make a big difference, take the small change that Petri Plumbing and Heating made in June 2011. The company had offered a variety of coupons for discounts for various reasons, traditionally it was for unions, teachers, military etc. Then in June Petri Plumbing took their Facebook page and added entire tab dedicated to raising money for “Make A Wish” of Metro NY.

“We already donate to a bunch of charities as individuals in the community and as a business, this seemed like a great way to increase awareness about the cause… at the end of the day both my customers and my staff feel good about ourselves…we’re doing something more than just helping ourselves” Mike Petri

Petri Plumbing currently offers a 10% discount on work, if you make a donation to the Make A Wish foundation of metro NY. Clearly this is using social media for a higher social cause.

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The Pros and Cons of Article Base Sites

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The Pros and Cons of Article Base Sites

Although many small business and subsequently website owners may have their content creation options well in hand, others can struggle when it comes to supplying their websites or blogs with fresh topics and themes. Though the concept of article bases are far from new, they are certainly increasing in popularity as small businesses spring up all over the net daily.

How Can an Article Base Benefit a Small Business?

If you asked most website owners if they would like free content for their sites or blogs, you would be likely to get an odd look, a sly smile, and questioned on what kind of tricks you have up your sleeve. However, article bases really are a cut-and-dried option in many aspects.

  • Users can sign up to most article base sites for no cost
  • Small businesses owners can browse topics, read over articles, and choose those they enjoy for their own sites
  • Most sites have no limit on how many articles or blogs a user can choose to utilize from their available content

Article base sites sound pretty lucrative for a business owner so far, but what are the direct benefits for a company’s bottom line and their web presence or brand awareness?

Article Base Pros

  • Money that would be used to pay for content can be used in another needy facet of a small businesses marketing campaign
  • Business owners who create their own content can save their valuable time by using free content from article base sites
  • Browsing article sites can give a business owner ideas about new aspects or elements of their business that may attract the general public
  • Business owners may gain more insight as to what they can expect when and if they do pay for their content in the future
  • Using article base sites may help a small business website owner to find a content creation employee at an affordable price

With all of those pros, exactly why isn’t every business owner on the net clamoring to get the best articles from base sites daily? It may be due to a few of the important cons that can come with the usage of them.

Article Base Cons

Many business owners forego the usage of article bases for a few reasons.

Proper Crediting

Most often articles on article bases will come with either an excerpt at the bottom of the article, or even a patch of HTML code to paste under the content once it is placed on the businesses site. This is part of the give and take element that article bases promote. Web site owners get free content, content creators receive free exposure and even great back links to their own sites in their credited excerpt.

Having citations or credits at the bottom of content fairly eliminates it as a website content option and secludes it fairly well to the realm of blogs.

Conflict of Interests

Many of those who supply free content to article aggregate sites are doing so in effort to promote their own small businesses. So while it may not be immensely harmful to your profitability if a shoe store in California is linked to your Maine-based offline business, a user who runs his marketing business online, will not benefit, and indeed may suffer if they use article base content that leads to another marketing specialists website.

Stale, Outdated, and Copied

It may be in the eye of the beholder (and Google) whether or not an article is worth using if it has been used elsewhere , but commonly it is bad practice to use content that is not 100% original. This rule can be ignored, but only in the case of truly spectacular, highly-viewed content. Case-in-point, if you find an article on an article base that does not make you want to do a little dance, pump your fists in the air, and share with all of your friends, chances are, it will not give Google the warm fuzzies either. No one wants the cold shoulder from the Big G.

So Who Is Using Article Bases, and How?

Many business do use article base content, however, using them under the notion that even copied or stale content is better than no content is the absolute polar opposite of correct. Your site will fare much better with one of those fist pumping, celebratory articles than thirty overused, stale, and wildly credited ones.

Fortunately, there has been one glaringly large benefit for many users. Guest blogging is widely recognized, utilized, and has proven a successful option in content management, so using article base content in this manner may be the perfect option for a few reasons.

  • High-quality content that isn’t copied to a long list of other sites, but a short list of high-ranking ones, can be beneficial to the blog by adding outgoing links and regular content for your viewers.
  • Adding them to a running blog, instead of static web content, can help to avoid the no-no’s that can cause the Googlebot to flag your site negatively.
  • Using the content of the content creator who is intent on promoting themselves, their product or services, or other opportunities will likely cause the content to be shared on the authors website and social medias as well. This can in essence be a form of free social media marketing, although, not without the previously mentioned risk of diverting your customers to someone else’s business if you are not careful about the aspects of the author content you choose.

Article bases do have their pros and cons, but can always be at least minutely beneficial as long as the website owner uses caution and strategic planning when choosing which authors, and their related links, will be of benefit, or at least not detrimental to your own brand awareness.

 

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LinkedIn and Klout join the Social Button Revolution

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There does seem to be a button for just about anything digital these days. The Google +1 button provides a promotional value similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, and savvy blog readers will realize right off the bat if they have come upon an outdated blog if they arrive to one that doesn’t provide buttons to share their content on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and about 250 other social media websites and or aggregate sites.

Internet users have also grown increasingly fond of buttons that provide one-click sign up or register options that quickly and easily integrate existing social media accounts to a new sites registration process. Toolbar buttons also provide www users with endless options. Anything from quick-click website SEO buttons to buttons that can quickly send a user to their favorite email system pronto. 

LinkedIn Launches Quick Job App Button

Professional and business social network, LinkedIn, also has plans for their own button. The LinkedIn button will allow their users to utilize a button on employer’s websites labeled, “Apply with LinkedIn.” This handy button will allow any LinkedIn user to quickly apply for employment by submitting their LinkedIn profile as a resume. In the immediate future web users should begin to find this button cropping up on LinkedIn partner sites with a launch later this month.

Not only will this button make it incredibly easy for applicants to submit a full-bodied resume to a prospective employer, but on the employer end, it will also automatically sort candidates for them by pre-set configurations.

This doesn’t have any notable restrictions in that employers will also be able to include additional questions, requests, or requirements for applicants to their businesses. Employers will also be able to designate whether submissions will go to a URL, their email address, or even to a JavaScript callback.

Currently, hiring solutions generate about 43% of LinkedIn’s revenue. For a newly public company that will need to rely on employers as one of their leading demographics, this is an incredible and innovative tool.

Get Klout with +K

Providing social media analytics, Klout helps to provide the measure of a users influence across their own social networks. The analysis is provided by data that is collected from a users social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. This analysis includes taking a measurement of the size of a person’s network + content created + the reaction of your social network to your provided content. After this analysis users are provided with a number from 1 to 100 that will indicate their overall influence in their own niche, or on the topics they mention most.

Klout plans to increase their users’ clout by introducing their own button. Klout’s +K will allow users to designate other users as authorities on a given subject. This new button will allow individual users to +K any other person who has influenced their knowledge or ideas on a particular topic.

Users are provided with 5 +K’s per day that they can award to users on any topic. They can also +K the same user on the same topic once per week. The rankings will still be based on data from Facebook or Twitter, but users who regularly receive +K’s should definitely see a rise in their given Klout numbers.

While in the launch phase this new button will only respond to Klout’s own algorithms on a particular topic, in the future, Klout developers hope to allow users to submit their own topics.

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Crowdsourcing

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Outsourcing is already an old word, and we all know what it means – sending jobs to countries where the labor is cheaper than in the US. The new worldwide pool of cheap labor, they say, is called Crowdsourcing.It means taking a task, especially in software design, and putting it out there to the world to solve.

The word was coined in an article in Wired magazine in 2006. Jeff Howe published an article called “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”.  He wrote: “Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.”

What used to be top secret industrial secrets in the past, became open-source. It was sent out to the world to improve on, solve problems or fix. An open call to an unidentified group of people to solve a problem. It taps to the knowledge and wisdom of the many, for the benefit of many. Those who ask for help in an open-source know that their programs are now open to all. In Crowdsourcing it is between the companies and the solvers.

The “crowd” – the people involved, usually form an online community and submit solutions. The best solutions – also chosen by the crowd – go on to the source who posed the problem. The solvers are sometime rewarded, either monetarily or by fame. Crowdsourcing produces solutions from amateurs and experts alike, who like to solve problems as an intellectual challenge, or for a prize.

Eli Lilly the pharmaceutical company funded InnoCentive.com in 2001 to connect with people outside the company who could help develop drugs and speed the process. Very quickly they opened their doors to other companies who were interested in reaching their network of unknown experts. Companies like Boeing, DuPont and Procter & Gamble post their hardest problems on the site.

As an example: One of the problems posted was how to inject Fluoride in powder form into a tube of toothpaste without dispersing it. Colgate Palmolive’s problem was solved by someone who knew the solution the moment he read the problem. He suggested imparting an electric charge to the Fluoride and grounding the tubes. This person became famous in the “crowd” circles.

Another example: when HTC came out with the first Windows operated smartphone, the expectations were very high. Here it is again, the old revelry between Apple and Microsoft. The iPhone was so innovative, let’s see what the PC people can do to improve on it. The phone flew off the shelves and some stores reported a waiting list of over hundred people.

Not a month went by, and the bubble burst. The phone did not perform well. Callers to T-Mobile tech support, the company that sold the phone, were told to remove the battery at least twice a week to reboot it. Not an acceptable solution in our fast moving world.

At about the same time, Google open-sourced it’s Android. Within a few days a forums was opened and linked to many tech sites. The discussions were the disappointment and what to do with this new phone. One person, known only be his code name, took it upon himself to coordinated an effort to adapt the Android to the HTC phones.

2 days later the program was posted online, with instructions. Improvements were posted 2-3 times a day. Different people took upon themselves to work on specific problems; the camera, the map, the contact list. Less than a week later the Android operating system was sitting solidly on HTC phones.

The companies who post problems on InnoCentive’s site these days, post the reward that comes with solving the problem. The rewards pay from $1,000,000 for doubling the speed of Gnome Mapping to $10,000 for The Economist-InnoCentive Human Potential Index Challenge. Groups are formed and share in the reward. Is Crowdsourcing the new hobby? A form of cheap labor? New form of R & D? Yes to all of those. It is tapping to the smarts of people, whomever or wherever they are.

 

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New Creative Commons Option for YouTube Fans

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YouTube recently released some new options in creative commons licensing for their uploading fans. Users will now be able to choose to license their videos under CC BY or to retain the default option of Standard YouTube Licensing.

In human terms, CC BY is the ability to share, remix, or make commercial use of the video under the conditions of Attribution. This means the video must be attributed in the method that the author specifies, however, not in a manner that suggest that the original creator endorses you, your products, services or ideas.

 

Users must retain the understanding:

  • That any of the previous conditions can be waived if permission from the copyright holder is received.
  • That regardless of where the video or any elements of it are located in the public domain under the applicable laws, that its status is not affected by the license.

Most commonly, providing a link to the original authors web page is sufficient for applying proper attributions.

10,000 Videos

Along with its newly launched CC BY implementation, YouTube has also created a Creative Commons Video Libary that contains 10,000 videos from Al Jazeera, C-Span, Public Resource.org and Voice of America. This base catalog of videos are available for users to access, edit, and if desired, incorporate into their own projects.

YouTube Video Editor

The always useful video editor now also contains a CC option that will allow users to search for only creative commons videos from the freshly filled library and choose from them which to edit and remix. This can save loads of time for those who find video editing part of their daily grind. Once the CC BY video has been edited and remixed, the newly created video will automatically display the proper attribution linked titles to their original source videos.

The good news is that this library will only continue to grow, making the new liscening and editor capabilities. As it stands, after its first week with this format, the CC BY library has already grown from its initial 10,000 to well over 60,000.

What Does This Mean for Small Business?

Quite simply, this means that if you currently run your social media marketing campaigns through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you will be able to garner direct benefit for your business in time saved, higher quality videos, and quality linking to help build your web presence.

Whether you do your own video editing, or pay an employee to do so, this has been in the past a rather costly, time consuming element of a marketing campaign. The problem lies within the available creative commons licenses. As any video editor can tell you, searching for and locating videos or the content of videos can be a needle-in-the-haystack endeavor, with a walking-on-eggshells result.

This is because there are few places on the internet that allow for free, the usage of any of their material. Just like stock photos, there are stock videos, and fortunately, users can usually rely on these to be of high-quality.  Unfortunately, these can also be extremely costly and the specific proper attributions can make managing the editing process incredibly tedious.

YouTube’s new library and editing attributions presets have taken all of the hassle, and the hours of data mining out of the equation. Now creating a quick video to toss into your social media networks is easy work for just about anyone.

 

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