13 Social Media Tools you should use as a consultant in 2014

Over the course of the years we have seen an explosion of social media networks and tools.  Though most of these tools come in Freemium, most of us continue with the free version.   Here is a list of tools  – and I will exclude Twitter and LinkedIn since most of you are using these anyway-  you should be using if you are trying to make your life simpler while using social media.

1. Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com )

Whether you are managing, monitoring or posting (planning) messages, Hootsuite is the tool that allows you to manage 5 profile for free (my suggestions: personal Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts plus your Facebook page and LinkedIn Company page).

2. Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts )

To complete your social media monitor you could set up a number of Google Alerts to get informed when Google has indexed more articles within your search criteria (your area of expertise, News, Video’s, etc.) . This is an ideal source to find content to share with your audience or leads

3. Buffer (www.bufferapp.com )

As a consultant you are probably reading a lot of blogs or articles.  Posting and sharing this information all at the same time is not a good idea.  Buffer will help you out by allowing you to schedule posts from theses articles themselves over 10 time slots during the course of the day on 3 social media platforms for free.

4. Commun.it (www.commun.it )

If you are a Twitter user, understanding and managing your audience is key.  Keep track of your new followers, who to unfollow, who to engage, etc. is good to know but what really stands out is to know who is no longer following you.  Commun.it and some other tools will provide you with the answer.  You can re-engage them and recapture your unfollowers.

5. WordPress (www.wordpress.com )

Consultants have  a lot of knowledge which could position themselves as a thought leaders.  You are probably trying to get into the press to get visibility with your target audience and it does not always work out every month.  So why not auto-publish and start your own blog.  Sharing your views, best practices, tips and tricks are great ways to get recognized for your knowledge.

6. Slideshare (www.slideshare.net)

Giving presentations and training sessions are part of your life.  Uploading your presentations to Slideshare will not only boost your SEO, but also create thought leadership and even generate leads.  It is also a great source to find information about your area of expertise or about your clients.

7. YouTube (www.youtube.com )

People like to see their consultants at work. Nothing works better than videos.  Using Instagram, Vine or just your smartphone you can create a good sample of what you do.  Posting these videos of presentations, training sessions or workshops will create the necessary trust to get invited for a sales pitch.

8. Google+ (www.googleplus.com )

You are for or against G+.  I am all in favor because the Hangouts are a powerful tool for communicating with clients.  Using these Hangouts you can not only save yourself from driving a lot of miles to visit your clients but also have face to face contacts and share data/presentations/et al from your PC in a streamlined way.  It can also be a great collaboration platform between fellow consultants working on the same projects.  A wonderful timesaver

9. Doodle (www.doodle.com )

Setting up meetings via email and/or phone can be very time consuming, so let Doodle help you find the ideal time to meet.  Yet another timesaver.

10. Dropbox (www.dropbox.com )

Sharing files has never been easier, using Dropbox you can share files between your own devices (PC/Smartphone/Tablet) but also between clients or peers.  There are of course alternatives such as Google Doc, Skydrive, Googgle Drive, etc.  These applications can also be used for making a backup of your data.

11. Evernote (www.evernote.com)

One of the apps I have come to appreciate over the course of the last year is Evernote.  Taking notes has never been easier.  The notes are synchronized between your devices so which ever device your bring to the meeting you have the latest meeting report on you.

12. Zapier/IFTTT (www.zapier.com & www.ifttt.com)

Though I am not a big fan of automating my social media activity, I have found that Zapier and IFTTT do have a place in my modus operandi.  It can automate the repetitive tasks I would do anyway.  And yes, they are people who are against this

13. Wunderlist (www.wunderlist.com)

If you are a bit like me you have a number of to do lists, As with Evernote, I have come to appreciate Wunderlist as a cross-device platform to keep track of all those tasks I need to accomplish.

Of course, the list does not end here.  There is always a bit of a trade-off between how much time you need to spend using the tool and how much ROI it provides.  Which other one’s are you using to make your social media life simpler or more complete.

Untapped Twitter potentials

There are many ways that people and companies use twitter.  There are those who produce and/or share content (active), the listeners, the passive and the ignorant. Of course, there are many shades and levels.

Let me be clear when I mention the ignorant I mean those people and companies that have no account. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this but they are missing out on a lot of opportunities.

One thing that continuously amazes me is the fact that people and companies are mesmerized by the numbers in twitter (followers and following).  Everyone, especially companies, love having a lot of followers.  In order to increase the numbers, it might help to follow twitter accounts to leverage the follow back practice. Here lie a number of untapped potentials.

The first untapped potential of twitter lies in the people that you follow. Have you ever wondered why you follow them as a company? The smart answer of course is: “they have interesting content”. We all know the real answers are less glamorous.

However, I am convinced that if your company follows people they are not doing it for the content but for the follow back.  Tweets of these people are rarely read, let alone content retweeted. At best, companies might reply if the tweet is to complaint. If you really follow people for their content why not

1. Recommend them via a #(FF)/#followfriday tweet.
2. Retweet some of their “interesting” content
3. Start a conversation on twitter

Another untapped potential lies in the fact you contact the people who just unfollowed you. I know that some will bash this practice, but in an effort to learn you want to know why people follow you ( your good content 🙂 of course)  as well as why they stopped following you.  In this manner you can start a conversation and learn more about your audience. And are these not the reasons for using social media as a company?

I am sure there are more untapped potentials on twitter. Which ones are you leveraging?

The Social Media Alphabet

There was a time when the phonetic alphabet (Cfr. Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet) was used to spell out letters.  Remember the “T for Tango” or “C for Charlie”.

But today we live and work in a world with a whole new generational language and fairly soon there will likely be classes on, “how to speak Social Media”. But any language starts with an alphabet.  So here is my take on how to teach the alphabet.

The benefits of using this alphabet is that many generations can relate to these platforms and the usage of these names increases your “coolness” factor.

Which other platforms would you use?

Looking to implement social media in 2011?

Social media is all around us.  Over 600 million people of all ages are now engaged on social media sites.  Just take a look at the video “social media revolution 2” on YouTube.  In the course of 2010, companies have realized that these channels represent a great way to reach out and engage customers.

Joining social media as a company might seem easy and is started with a lot of enthusiasm.  However, success does not lie around the corner.  The initial drive to create necessary profiles and posts leads to worries about lack of success, large investments in time and hard to measure Return-On-Investment.

So, before you start, it is always a good idea to stop and think about the following items:

• Awareness of social media: How well do you understand what social media really is?  What different platforms are there out there and what are they used for?  Which ones do you pick to be active on?

TIP: A great start is to get a good overview by reading up on the subject or even better calling on a specialist who can show you the way.

• Strategy:  Social media is not a channel that stands by itself nor is it the exclusive territory of marketing.  HR, R&D and customer services can also benefit from it.  Social Media is an addition to what your company already does to reach it targets.

TIP: Find out if and where your customers are on social media and think about how to engage them – make it part of the questions in your annual customer satisfaction survey.

• Inventorize: Since so many people, including your own employees, are already using social media it might be a good idea to get a sense of where they are active and/or talk about your company.

TIP: The simplest way to do this is by going on the platforms and typing in your company name.

• Social media policy: Before you can really get going, it makes a lot of sense to create a social media policy or guidelines to help people protect their and your reputation online.

TIP: This policy should address items such as identity, time usages, company affiliation, handing negative comments, etc.

• Training:  This is one of the most forgotten but highly effective items in the whole process.  It can set you up for possible disasters – Not knowing the consequences of what you are doing or getting into can lead making simple mistakes with big reputation loss.

TIP: Create a customized training to will help your employees do their jobs using social media.

• Getting started:  Here the simple rule applies that you can not bite off more than you can chew.

TIP: Create a few profiles first (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) and add more as you go along.  Create both personal and company profiles and make the as complete as possible.

One final piece of advice is to start Monitoring.  Whether you are active or not, you should monitor what is being said about you.  TIP: Using free tools such Google alerts or http://www.socialmention.com are 2 great ways to start.  Paying platforms start at 100€ (www.Tracebuzz.com or  www.engagor.com) and provide better and more complete.

Companies can no longer wait to join social media on the basis that people are talking about them.  So it is better to join the conversation and engage the customers.

Mic Adam

Vanguard Leadership

Blog

Are we dumb? Lazy? Or naive?

We are joining social media platforms and making new friends every day.  Moreover, we even become friends with people we have never met before.  Some people pride themselves in having as many friends as possible and this is not without danger.

When horror stories began to appear in the US, we Europeans had some good giggles about all those stupid and silly things some people did.  Whether they were comments on Facebook, messages on Twitter or videos on YouTube, we could not believe our ears.  We got confirmation of the statement “only in the USA something like this can happen”.  It would not happen in Europe.  We, Europeans, know much better what privacy is plus we even think that our privacy is well protected.  Not to say, that we think we are smarter.  But nothing is further from the truth.  Looking at the newspapers over the last weeks, European horror stories are featured daily and they are not any different than we one’s we laughed at. Why?  Are we as dumb as the Americans or are we as naïf as they are?

Many of us are just unaware of the dangers of social media.  By providing information about yourself on social media you are giving up your right to privacy.  All the information is stored on a server “somewhere” in the world so how can you protect that data?  Of course, social media platforms provide a number of security and privacy settings but your data is still in the cloud and you have no control over it.  Luckily, I see a number of social media policies that clearly state that you give up your right to privacy when you participate to social media but the issue is that most people do not know of the existence of such a policy in their company not to say they have not read them.

Sometime ago I read a great quote by Sam Lessin: “Privacy used to be cheap but now it is a precious good that is expensive to keep”.  Even though this is very correct, I do not entirely subscribe to it.  I want to argue that if you do not want people to know certain details about you, you should just not post or share it on any social media platform.  Privacy is at your own discretion and under your control – End of story and free of charge!

The problem might have deeper roots.  It starts with the fact that 95% of us who participate in social media never read the terms of service of those platforms.  We press “I accept” within seconds since we really have no choice when we want to participate.  It continues with the fact that 50% never changes the standard privacy and security settings and thus opens the can of worms even further.  Finally, no one ever reads a book or manual on how to use the different platforms and that is where the biggest problem is lingering.  Did you ever read a book about Facebook or Twitter?  We no longer read manuals in general (even if we buy a car, mobile phone or digital camera) and are unaware of the pitfalls.  Is that not just the recipe for disaster?

Is there a role for government, business or the general education system here?  Yes, I am convinced of it.  People need this information and built up these skills so they can reduce these types of horror stories.  True, it is up to the individual to take some action but still a gentle push can go a long way.  Or even better, put a “how to use social media” manual or book under the Christmas tree this year for all your friends and beloved family and make them read it.

3 more items to add to your social media policy

A few weeks ago, I covered 3 items that could not be missing from a social media policy (Company philosophy towards social media, handling conflict and identity).  In a more recent post, I covered the reading and acceptance of the “terms of service”.  Today, I would like to add 3 more items to the list: disclaimers, ownership and hardware/software usage.

Starting with disclaimers, it sounds obvious but any personal blog should have clear disclaimer stating that the views expressed by the author in the blog is the author’s alone and do not represent the views of the company. Be clear and write in first person. Make your writing clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of the company.

When it comes to ownership, this area of the policy will clarify who owns what in terms of groups, fans, pictures, etc.  It is clear that anything created under the company’s logo and identity (email address included) is company property and should be transferable.

Finally, it is important to add a paragraph on hardware and software since the user will probably use a mix of platforms (work PC, home PC and/or mobile device).  These need to be protected against attacks and intrusions in order to protect the data of the company in profiles and others.  The use of company assets (computers, Internet access, email, etc.) is intended for purposes relevant to the responsibilities assigned to each employee. A clear statement about where what can be used at all time is a must and gives clear direction.

It is also a good idea for the company to provide information on what resources (eg. bandwidth used by YouTube) is taken up by different applications so that people are aware of the limitations and limit themselves the usage of certain platforms.

By implementing these 7 items, you are well on your way to creating a social media policy.  It is by far not all what can or needs to be such in a policy.  In future posts I will expand on more topics.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me.

Email: adammic@vanguard-leadership.be

Mob. +32 478 50 41 35

Website: www.vanguard-leadership.be

Blog: https://micvadam.wordpress.com/

Find me also on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Netlog, etc.

Social Media Terms of Service – Did you know this?

Looking at last week’s on readability numbers the conclusion was that you need at least a university degree to understand what is said.  Meanwhile teens and people who have not benefitted years of education are joining these platforms and accepting the terms without reading.  Important to keep in mind that assume that your native language is ENGLISH!  What about us foreigners trying to read these terms…

But it is not all doom and gloom.  I also want to share some interesting facts I found when reading the ToS of the major social media platforms with you.

Most platforms require you to have a minimum age (13 in most – with parental approval till you are 18; LinkedIn requires 18).  However, Twitter has NO age limitation.

All sites obviously have the necessary claims regarding copyrights, trademarks, etc. and wave all responsibility, of course.

Here are some other interesting facts I found:

Flickr:

• You must provide TRUE, ACCURATE, CURRENT and COMPLETE information -> A false identity can lead to termination.
• You may not impersonate any person or entity, nor misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
• You can not use it for military, nuclear, and other weaponry.
• If you get sick using their product, you can not sue them
• You can not transfer your yahoo accounts

Youtube:

• Here too you must provide accurate and complete information
• You are not allowed to launch automated services onto the website

WordPress:

• You must not describe and assign keywords that are misleading of unlawful
• Your blog must be named correctly and not create illusion that is someone of something else.

LinkedIn

• A competitor may not have an account
• You can only maintain ONE account
• LinkedIn does not have any obligation to verify the identity but you can not use a false identity
• You may not invite people to your network that you do not know
• Have a real headshot and not a cartoon or symbol
• Add content to fields in which is not appropriate (eg. Title field can not contain phone number or email).
• Not to set up pyramid schemes or use LinkedIn to manage these types of pyramid schemes
• When you die when using LinkedIn, you can not hold them liable

Facebook

• You may not provide false personal information
• You can only have ONE profile
• You can not use Facebook if you are sax offender
• If you use Facebook from your mobile and the number changes you need to update within 48 hours.
• No pyramid schemes allowed

Twitter

• No age limit
• You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others.
• You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.
• You may not engage in name squatting
• You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone (follow a large amount of people in a short time, repeatedly follow and unfollow people, your updates contain only links and no personal info, etc.)

So as you can see, reading these terms of service might not only prove interesting but also eye opening.  You will notice that there is a lot of abuse of the ToS being tolerated by the social media platforms.

Have you discovered other interesting terms which I have missed?  I look forward to hearing them from you.

Why are we not reading the Terms of Service

During my research and survey in February 2010, I have come across the lax way of people accepting the Terms of Service when you sign up and participate in social media platforms.

Rather than reading this document over 55% of the users accept them without reading them and thus not knowing what is in them.  I understand that some of these are difficult to read.  So I put it to the test and came up with interesting but not surprising results which I will share with you in 2 blogs.  Firstly, I will concentrate on the readability of these pages.

Some numbers:

• Number of characters is between 15.000 (Twitter) and 40.000 (LinkedIn)
• Number of words is between 3.000 (Twitter) and 7300 (LinkedIn)
• Number of sentences is between 94 (Twitter) and  403 (Flickr)
• Number of words per sentence is between 20 and 30.
• There are about 5 characters and 1.8 syllables per word

With these statistics in mind I took a look at the readability of these texts and came to one conclusion: You need to be a graduate student to be able to read these texts.  I took a look at 2 these indexes (Gunning Fog Index and Flesh Read Ease score) and the results are as follows:

The Gunning Fog Index focuses on number of words in a sentence and percentage of 3 syllable words while the Flesh Readability Index focuses on number of syllables in a word and the number of sentences.  The standard Flesh Reading score should be in the range of 60-70 while the Fog Index is about 10 to 12. Note that Fog Index of over 18 or Flesh score under 30 means VERY DIFFICULT to read.

Just as a matter of comparison, Time magazine has a Fog Index of 11 and a Flesh Reading score of 52.  So here is where the different social media ToS stack up to:

Looking at these numbers the conclusion is that you need at least a university degree to understand what is said.  Meanwhile teens and people who have not benefitted years of education are joining these platforms and accepting the terms without reading.

Important to keep in mind that assume that your native language is ENGLISH!  What about us foreigners trying to read these terms… Ik know they exist in other languages!

Next week I will share with you some of the eye opening facts that I found…