Tomorrow we will meet again. But perhaps the 'we' who will meet tomorrow will not be the 'we' who met a moment ago. Is building trust or is building credibility the true asset? Continue reading

'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar. 'I — I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since... Continue reading

We keep our eye on the workplace landscape. Currently there are more than 30 unique job titles demanding social media leadership expertise. These require 120 distinct digital skills (competencies). Our training curriculum is aimed squarely at helping you develop these skills. Continue reading

My friend and former business partner, Gary Goldhammer, pointed me to a “must read” blog post the other day via Twitter - you know the way most Tweet-Peeps do – using one of those short untypeable urls so followers can follow his link and Gary can check in on how many of us believed him. That blog post was the author’s impressions of a talk she had attended by Edelman Digital’s David Armano on social media Engagement and Community Management. And from there, there was the usual social media sequence: embedded in the author’s post was the Powerpoint Mr. Armano... Continue reading

My friend and former business partner, Gary Goldhammer, pointed me to a “must read” blog post the other day via Twitter - you know the way most tweet-peeps do – using one of those short untypeable urls. so followers can follow his link and Gary can check in on how many of us believed him. That blog post was the author’s impressions of a talk she had attended by Edelman Digital’s David Armano on social media Engagement and Community Management. And from there, there was the usual social media sequence: embedded in the author’s post was the Powerpoint Mr. Armano... Continue reading

Heads up employers. Your social media policy restricting what an employee can post about your company - or if you require approval of those postings - may bring the NRLB to your doorstep. The NLRB has filed a complaint against American Medical Response of Connecticut for terminating an employee who posted negative comments about her supervisor on her personal Facebook page from her home computer. Co-workers responded to her remarks with supportive comments. The NRLB action asserts that the termination - as well as the company's social media policy is illegal under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.... Continue reading

Employment Compensation for Blackberry "OverTime?" A group of Chicago police officers are suing the city for overtime pay and violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act for the use of a Blackberry on police business after shift-time. The class action suit claims the Police Department expected officers to be on... Continue reading

Marketing Communications Facebook Launches a "Page" Recommendation Engine With millions and millions of its user's "likes" to tap, Facebook has officially launched a personalized "Discover Facebook Pages" feature. It visually displays screens and scrolls of Facebook pages, providing an easy way to browse through all kinds of Facebook Pages and... Continue reading

Legalities Novartis Receives First FDA Warning over Facebook Marketing The FDA advised Novartis that it misused Facebook's Share widget in marketing its leukemia drug, TAsigna. The FDA cited the information shared via the widget did not include the risks, and therefore did not provide balanced information. The FDA also took... Continue reading

New Research The Altimeter Group conducted qualitative research and reports Eight Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing. They benchmarked 30 brands against this criteria and they share their research results. Download the report and additional data not included in the report with these resource links: [ Resources for you ]... Continue reading

Government Sector Is Emergency Response Social Media Ready? Sixty nine percent of Americans think emergency response agencies should be regularly monitoring and responding to requests for help on social media and agency websites. And three out of four would expect help to arrive within an hour. This is according to... Continue reading

Non-Profit Sector Caffine for a Cause California-based Newhall Coffee gives non-profits beans, brand and a fund raising web site for a plug-and-play social enterprise initiative. Organizations receive between $3 and $6 for every sale of their own coffee blend. Newhall's Coffee for A Cause is open to any non-profit, although... Continue reading

Doing it your own way is the only authentic way to do anything. That doesn't mean we shouldn't understand the culture, so we can be part of it. That doesn't mean there isn't work to be done to get what we want from it. Best practices are just someone's opinion. No one died and made them king of anything. He He. Authenticity is always one of the best practices. Continue reading

The FTC has come out with an FAQ for social media and blogger endorsements. The FAQ is in response to requests from ad agencies, bloggers and advertisers. Social media practitioners have been concerned about staying within compliance, especially in light of Ann Taylor being called on the carpet for its blogger engagement practices under the new FTC guidelines. Last year's revisions to the FTC's Endorsement Guides specifically target bloggers who endorse products or services, requiring bloggers to disclosure the relationship between the blogger and the company that offers the endorsed service. The FAQ's clear up several circulating myths: there are... Continue reading

Employment 50% of Millennials Ignore Company Social Media Policies Half-way into Cisco's report on network security, that little statistic pops up. And, 27% of these Millenials say they go so far as to change settings on corporate devices to access prohibited applications. Cisco notes a similar study by Accenture found... Continue reading

Marketing Communications The FTC has come out with an FAQ for social media and blogger endorsements. The FAQ is in response to requests from ad agencies, bloggers and advertisers. Social media practitioners have been concerned about staying within compliance, especially in light of Ann Taylor being called on the carpet... Continue reading

Legalities Important EU Behavioral Advertising Opinion Adoption The EU's national data regulators, Article 29 Working Party, adopted a key online behavioral advertising Opinion on the tracking and advertising technologies used to deliver behavioral advertising. It holds that by May 20, 2011 Internet users must opt-in to receive "cookies" on their... Continue reading

New Research The Mall Behind the Spreadsheet: Women's Online Shopping Habits at the Workplace and Beyond. In a refreshingly visual report on a study AOL conducted for its sales team, AOL looks at how women shop and finds that 40% shop while at work - between the hours of 11... Continue reading

Government Sector The U. S. Department of Defense and the State Department are officially sanctioning the use of social media, including permitting the personal use of social networks on work computers. In a Foreign Affairs Manual on Information Management, the Departments acknowledge the roles social networking play in conducting diplomatic,... Continue reading

Non-Profit Sector The social media campaign buzz of the month goes to Old Spice, but we thought you'd enjoy seeing how a quick-moving university library at BYU embraced that current "meme" as an opportunity to market itself. Monitoring social media can hand you opportunities to leverage buzz. This video has... Continue reading

Posting an article from our Social Media Management News June Newsletter. Enjoy and subscribe! Marketing Communications Facebook's Community Pages, launched in April, are causing big headaches for brands, user controversy, and general anger and confusion. Follow the "read more" link for some management suggestions. In a nutshell, Facebook is creating automated "fan pages" (Community Pages) based on what individuals enter into their profile. Facebook populates the pages with Wikipedia content, including company logo, and automatically aggregates Facebook posts that contain related words on the pages, along with the comments and "likes" that accompany any post. If they become popular enough,... Continue reading

The 2010 Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) is coming up in Boston August 13-15th. I know you've got things about business to share with the Second Life community. Please join in and contribute to the convention by not just attending... Continue reading

Employment LinkedIn connections are at the center of a unique non-compete lawsuit. Technology staffing company, TEKSystems, contends that former employees violated a non-compete agreement by communicating with TEKSystems contract employees and connecting with them on the social network, LinkedIn. TEKSystems' complaint cites a specific example of a LinkedIn exchange by... Continue reading