Newark, NJ Mayor Uses Twitter to Rescue Citizens

The dramatic snowstorm on Sunday, December 26 dumped over 30 inches of snow on the city of Newark. The citizens were trapped in their homes, often unable to get emergency medical assistance or even groceries. But never fear their Mayor was armed with a Smartphone and a Twitter account!

Throughout the clean-up process Mayor Cory Booker was on foot, in the snow, connecting with people through tweets and DMs (direct messages). He kept track of requests for help, made deliveries and motivated people to lend a hand during the crisis. He personally helped dig out cars and even delivered diapers to a trapped family.

Social media is often regarded as a way to grow your business or keep in touch with friends. But when it is used to really make a positive difference, it’s incredible to see the power of possibility it offers.

Read the full article >

Photo Credit: Taken by Dominique Wilson (@BrixCityGurl) and posted on Twitpic.

Measuring for Social Media Success

How do you know if your social media campaign is paying off? This is probably the #1 question we are asked as a company contemplates instituted a social media plan. Everybody wants to know if it is worth the time investment.

Truth is, if you plan the appropriate strategy, you should see positive returns, but how do you measure this?

Nichole Kelly has written an excellent article at Social Media Examiner entitled 8 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring. She goes over some simple, yet effective ways to assess the return on your social media efforts. Her 8 metrics includes measuring for:

1. Conversion Rates
2. The Control Group
3. Growth Rate
4. Marketing Campaign History
5. Customer Acquisition Costs
6. Retention Rates
7. Customer Saves
8. Cross-Sells

This article is a must read for anybody interested in determining the success of their social media efforts.

Facebook How To: Customizing Your Status Updates

Did you know you can hide your status updates from select “friends” on Facebook? A relatively new feature, this is one of my favorite security updates that Facebook has done in awhile.

I have a lot of “friends” of Facebook. Now clearly in the world of Social Media, a “friend” is a pretty loose word used to describe your network of direct connections on Facebook, Myspace, and other such outlets. Many of these Facebook friends are (“in real life”) friends of mine, but there are many people on my friends list I haven’t seen in over a decade. And I think I’m not alone when I say that I have more than a few “friends” that are just acquaintances, in actuality. While it’s handy and fun and very interesting to keep in touch with people from the various times and travels in my life, sometimes what I want to share on my personal page with my good friends isn’t necessarily what I want to share with a girl I met a few times through a friend of a friend who found and friend requested me online. Facebook seems to have finally caught onto that sentiment, and introduced a more customized experience for when you type your latest favorite quote in the box that begs the question, “What’s on your mind?”

Here’s how you customize who can and cannot see your status updates.

1. Sign into your Facebook Account, and click the Status Update bar. You can find this at the top of your News Feed on your Home Page,or to the right of your profile photo on your personal profile page (this goes for your business page as well)*Facebook tip: you’ll often see people write their status updates in the third person. Because your status update show up in your friends’ news feeds immediately after your name, you can use your name as the beginning of your update. For instance: in my status update box, I might write “is writing a blog post.” This will show up in my friends’ news feed next to a thumbnail of my profile photo, my name as I’ve opted to show it on my Facebook account, and my status update. So it reads like, “ Erin Inatsugu is writing a blog entry.”
2. Type in your status update, and before you hit the “Share” button, notice the little lock icon to the left of the share button.
   Clicking this lock allows you to choose who will see that particular post both in their news feed as well as on your profile page. You can choose to show everyone, friends of friends, friends only, or you can get even more specific and customize – meaning you can allow or disallow select people to see your status update.
3. Choose “Customize”.
   
   A dialogue box will pop up,
   
   giving you the option to “make visible” to certain people from your friends list
   
   or, if you’d rather narrow it down by people you do NOT want to see the posting, you can type in friends’ names to “Hide this from”.
   You can even choose to make this your default setting by checking the box in the bottom left corner of the dialogue box. Then hit “Save Setting”.
   
   *Keep in mind that this is different than your default privacy settings, which will override any privacy customizations you make to your individual postings. If you have your profile set to “private” overall, for instance, choosing the option to allow “everyone” to see your posting will not allow Facebook users who are not on your friends list to see that posting.
4. This will close the dialogue box and bring you back to your status update in progress. Simply hit “Share”, and you’re done. To verify that your settings were saved, just roll your cursor over the little lock icon next to your posted update, and you’ll see a box pop up that displays the setting you’ve chosen.
   

Why You Need a Company Social Media Policy

If you have more than one person in your company who engages in social media, you need to have a social media policy. Social media has quickly become the easiest way to grown your online presence. Through all popular outlets, you can quickly and effectively develop your online reputation and extend the brand of your business.

But the lines between person and business social media are quite blurry. For example:

• If an employee uses Facebook to converse with friends and family, should they be using it to share information about your company?
• If Twitter is how they tell their buddies where they are and what they are doing, should the same account be used to spread marketing messages?
• And what if they are looking for another job, but their personal accounts are intertwined with your business accounts. How does that look for your marketing image?

A social media policy is critical for any business since your online reputation will be significantly impacted by what is said about your company. Unless you provide guidelines for employees, you cannot really be certain what sort of reputation is being developed.

Saying “Don’t do it!” is not a policy

Social media has become a mainstream way of connecting with customers. To tell your employees that social media is not allowed is not realistic in today’s business world. Chances are employees are already engaging in social media for private use, and your social media policy should at least discuss what can be done during work hours. Also, if employees are already using social media, a policy can help to define what private social media outlets may be used to extend the brand of the company.

What should a social media policy govern?

A company social media policy should answer the following questions:

• Who owns the social media accounts that are used by your company?
• If employees have personal accounts, can they use them to market your company?
• What is the policy for talking about the company on personal social media accounts?
• What confidentiality is required around your company information?
• What copyright issues should be considered?
• What social media arenas does the company participate in?
• What individuals in the company are responsible for social media, and for those who aren’t responsible, what is their input (if any)?
• Who is in charge of reviewing social media output?
• Who is responsible for responding to customer complaints that appear in social media arenas?

Here are some excellent articles we found that can help you craft a social media policy:

• How to Write a Social Media Policy
• 10 Must-Haves For Your Social Media Policy
• Secrets to Writing a Social Media Policy That Actually Means Something

Sample Social Media Policies

If you’re are in the process of creating a social media policy, Social Media Governance keeps a database of corporate social media policies. They have example from many companies, including FedEx, Cisco and Harvard Law School.

Trying to Figure Out Facebook Privacy Settings?

It seems there has been a lot of talk lately about the Facebook privacy settings and how they can impact what information is shared about you. The Facebook privacy policy is one of the most extensive on the web, and it can take an hour or better to wade through what they have a right to do. So while everybody is up in arms, I’m fairly certain you would have been aware of the changes if you had the time or desire to read that document (being facetious here).

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do to secure my private Facebook information. While reading blogs and following information, I have yet to get a clear-cut answer. And then today on Mashable I read about a simple solution: Reclaim Privacy. It’s a simple a plug-in for your web browser that can scan your Facebook account and let you know what privacy settings allow your personal information to be shared.

I installed the plugin in less than 5 seconds (you just drag it to your bookmark toolbar), and in less than a minute I had my report. My personal information could be shared by any of my friends on Facebook. I corrected the setting, and now I got a green light – my privacy is once again secure on Facebook.

I hope you find this helpful. If you are tooling around on Facebook, feel free to become a fan of our Facebook page.