Tag Archives: social media
5 Ways to Use Video for Employee Engagement
The core of your business: Your Employees
People often spend so much time trying to figure out how to reach their customers, grow sales and use social media for these purposes that they are at risk of forgetting the key members of their community: their employees.
Video is a powerful tool for employee engagement. People often think “video” then limit their thinking on what they can do with it. Companies should not limit themselves to focus on product or service offerings when they have a whole cast of stars within their team.
Here are 5 Ways to use video to spotlight your employees
…and in the process increase their engagement and create opportunity for your community to also get to know your business better.
The Most Exclusive And Engaging Social Network | @CoupleApp
The most engaging network? It’s a bold statement, but I think if we walk through the important aspects of engagement, you would undeniably agree, this app & network is about everything that works in engaged networks.
- Being genuine
- Feeling listened to
- Keeping open communication
- Sharing moments & emotionally driven messages
The catch? It’s only for two.
The benefit? Finding time in our increasingly digital worlds, and busy lives to make time for the important people in your life.
Social Connections | To Friend or Not To Friend : You had me at Subscribe
My friend and Social Media Consultant, Linda Bernstein came up with a good question on her Facebook status, she wanted to know if people friend people whom they do not know. It’s a great question that many people have varied perspectives on. Some people think of Facebook as a place they are building a community, whereas others keep it simple including only “real life” friends, in some cases, colleagues and co-workers.
Facebook is a very particular social network, and the way one handles it, should be different in strategy as compared to a Google +, Linked In, or Twitter.
Social Strategist and Consultant Gigi Peterkin had a great comment to add to the discussion. You can check her out at http://gigipeterkin.com
Who will you let into your inner circle?
In this post, I am going to focus on the Facebook question as it pertains to individual accounts and not pages.
The first thing I want to clarify here is that Facebook has privacy settings that allow you to keep your information private. Facebook also allows
Social Media Changes You and Society – The Human Connection
A knock came at my door about an hour ago while I was having a good and valued discussion with my daughter… My daughter went to look to see who it was, coming back to report she thought it might be some religious group. I got up to check for myself – I don’t really appreciate people knocking on my door – mainly because of special times like this, having a good discussion – then someone tries to just step in.
Usually I would have ignored it, but when I saw the girl on the other side, I could tell it wasn’t a “religious intervention” visit, and thought, let me see what she wants.
Ideas: Quizzing Your Way to Support – #NonProfit Strategy Built on Engagement #hungertohope
World Food Day was proclaimed in 1979 by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The aim of the Day is to heighten public awareness of the world food problem and strengthen solidarity in the struggle against hunger, malnutrition and poverty. – UN
I’ve been working on raising awareness for nonprofit groups on how to use social media for engagement over the past month via various speaking engagements and blog posts. When I heard about what The World Food Programme was doing in their strategy, I was impressed. The World Food Programme is the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger. They recognize the importance of reaching new communities and finding new friends to engage and support their mission and cause. The recently used a partnership with Zinga and got the Farmville community to support their efforts, with tremendous success.
What did Facebook games have to do with world hunger? The Farmville Community is a highly engaged community. By identifying the common interests and using the opportunity to partner for social good, this organization benefited greatly, and got to raise awareness in a new community they would not have ordinarily have reached.
What’s really nice about their campaigns is that their focus is not just on the fundraising part, it’s about really reaching out and sharing stories. One of their campaigns features Molly, they tell her story not to raise funds but to create an environment where they can engage people in communities worldwide to understand the work they are doing and make new friends to help support their efforts. One of the cool interactive features of their site is a quiz that helps participants gain a deeper understanding of the cause.
What is really interesting is that when you take their quiz, this action supports the cause! What a great idea! It’s not about taking your money, it’s about awareness and generating reward from enagagement.
In the video below, Bettina Luescher of the World Food Programme, is interviewed by John Haydon. She explains some of their campaigns and outreach strategies, including one campaign where they partnered with the actors from ” The Hunger Games”.
Coming up with creative ideas and partnerships provides great benefits! You reach new audiences and build energy around your cause. This energy creates interesting opportunities to build real relationships with followers or friends, rather than just placing organizations in positions where they beg for attention.
Two Partners supporting World Hunger Day.
To succeed in any campaign, you can’t just rely on the individuals in a community, you have to get the help from sponsors as well. I am thrilled to be participating and promoting the efforts of Razoo and Yum! Brands, the world’s largest restaurant company in support of the World Food Programme World Hunger Day this year. Yum! Brands’ annual World Hunger Relief campaign is the world’s largest private sector hunger relief effort.
You Can Help Too!
Please join us on World Hunger Day this October 16th, check out Geoff Livingston’s post for all the campaign details, or send out this tweet. It doesn’t cost you anything to raise awareness, and it makes such a difference! Please take a moment to click.
A Little Extra:
Just One Day Can Make A Difference!
Want to know what a day of giving can look like visually? Check out what Razoo put together in the video below!
A visualization of GiveMN 2011, showing how Razoo and GiveMN raised more than $14M total in a 24-hour Giving Day.
There are a lot of creative efforts and people joining to make World Hunger Day a success, if all you have to do to make a difference is mark it on your calendar, send out a few tweets, and maybe take a quiz, isn’t it worth it?
“The philanthropic goal encourages people to participate in small acts like a social share or a $10 or $25 donation. These small acts do make a big difference. To give you an idea of how that plays out here:
- – Just $10 feeds children.
- – Just $25 feeds a child in need during school for a half year.” - Geoff Livingston
I hope you will join us on October 16th and be a part of some social media good in action!
For more information you can check out the blogger kit here. You can make a difference just with a few clicks! Thank you!!
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Aviva Empowers Communities for a 4th Year Starting Today @AvivaCF #BeTheChange
The Aviva Community Fund Launches this week for it’s 4th consecutive year. This social media based contest puts the power into the hands of the communities around them to have a vote and make positive change possible with much needed funding. The Fund has given away millions of dollars to grass roots organizations and individuals who have come up with ideas to make positive change in their communities. You can check out previous winners here.
“I wanted to make a difference in my community for all children with disabilities, so how could I pass on the opportunity to enter the Aviva Community Fund?” said Kelly Meissner, idea generator behind 2011 Aviva Community Fund Winner Kate’s Kause. After winning $60,000 Kate’s Kause was able to build a fully accessible playground for the entire Elmira, Ontario community to use.
Starting today, Canadians can go to AvivaCommunityFund.org to submit ideas that will have a positive effect on their local community. After rallying support from friends, family, neighbours and co-workers, the most popular ideas will have a chance to be funded with the $1,000,000 Aviva Community Fund.
In the competition’s first three years, Canadians overwhelmingly answered the call proposing over 6,000 ideas and casting more than six million votes in support of causes from every province and territory.
Speaking about Change
I am really honored to be Aviva’s Quebec Speaker at the Community Fund Launch, where I where I will be highlighting some of the amazing opportunities this project gives business people and individuals to really get involved in supporting their communities.
Not only does Aviva give an opportunity to communities to grow and receive support for their positive change ideas, they also give their brokers an opportunity to support the projects in their areas. A great way for an insurance company to give back on many levels.
This competition not only uses social media to help spread the word, and allow people everywhere to support these local organizations, but it also creates a pattern of engagement that extends far beyond the contest itself. I wrote about this last year on 12 Most, and I invite you to continue reading below to learn about the 12 Most Ways Aviva Community Fund Excels at Community Giving.
You can also check out the ideas starting to appear here, and remember it doesn’t cost you anything to support a cause, just a click of support every day to help your favorite cause make it through to round two!
12 Most Charitable Ways @AvivaCF Excels in Community Giving
by Mila Araujo
What if I told you I had a million dollars to give away, and all you had to do to get part of it was to send me your request and if you could get your friends to support you, I’d hand it out? What would you do?
Well the Aviva Community Fund is doing just that, but they aren’t throwing it at you directly, they are giving it to your community so that not only you benefit, but your whole area can share the wealth, improve your life, your family’s and everyone around you.
What really sets this social good project aside from the rest is that it is not just a giveaway, its a competition. A competition that touches every single area of community in a positive way, and all anyone has to do to make it happen is embrace the idea of community. The true idea of working together and seeing the results of teamwork for social good.
Here are the 12 Most ways that @AvivaCF Excels in Community Giving
1. Its about getting what you need
Want a million dollars? Well you can’t get it yourself. You need your friends, your family, your community to get involved. Doing this instantly creates positive energy in your group. In today’s world we are often too busy to talk to each other, to take the time out to stop and connect with those around us.
Navigating The Buzz of Branding: Start Here.
People aren’t looking for an ad,they aren’t looking to buy something.They are looking for a connection.
How do you do that? #branding
When Search Engine Giants Turn to Print – Your Marketing Strategy
Fading printers sign on an old stone wall – is print a thing of the past?
According to a recent infographic focusing on the demographics of online users, over 66% of adults are connected to a social network. According to Internet World Stats, as of Dec 31, 2011 over 78% of the North American Population is connected online. With information like this, it’s clear why there has been a surge in internet marketing, social media marketing strategy and a rush of forward thinking companies looking to find ways to reach the population in these areas.
The challenge for companies working on marketing strategies is balancing the investment into the online world with traditional media. Many are of the mind set that traditional media is dead, or soon will be. However, we need to consider that although everyone may be online, they still live in our offline world which is scattered with opportunity. When building a brand, or reinforcing one, it has never been sufficient
A Social Media & Digital Property Estate Plan – Till Death Do Us Part or Beyond
According to an article in The Sun, Bruce Willis intends to leave his music collection to his kids after his death, however, the article reports, according to their interpretation of the user agreement even though you pay for the music, the music is for the purchaser’s personal use, they are not selling it to you. So, you do not own it. As a result, Bruce Willis would have a problem – you can’t leave something you don’t own to your kids!
What are we all doing? Are we all downloading and paying for apps, books, music, etc. – yet none of us own any of it?! Surely every site that you “purchase” things from has a user agreement. How many of us are reading the small print and are we even understanding what it means? When I posted the link to the article on my Facebook Page, my friend Merlin U Ward wrote: “What will you do with your digital assets when you die?” Great question, but even more so is the question of what exactly are our digital assets? Do we have any? If the information in this article is correct, then it could be argued that it’s not an investment, and the “purchases” may actually just be loaners. It is definitely something to investigate and learn more about. How much are you spending on digital downloads? An even greater question, how would any company enforce this?
Do You Read Your User Agreements?
I speculate that this all came up because Bruce Willis was doing some planning and in making sure he was dotting all his “i”‘s , checked the agreement.
How many people actually read their user agreements? Most of us aren’t looking for this information as we download things, or even sign up for social media sites.
Every site has it’s own user agreement, perhaps this is a good opportunity to spend some time to understand what it is we are signing on for as we purchase things, or invest in accounts.
What about Social Sites? What Happens there?
This is a great article that gives and overview of what happens to your Facebook page after you die What happens to all my social networking information when I die? . I was pleased to learn that Facebook takes the time to actually give some very considerate options to the user’s family in such a sad and difficult time. They apparently can leave the page as is, or, at the request of the family can turn it into a memorial site. I think that’s pretty “human” of them.
This CNET article from 2010 covers how the Facebook and Twitter policies compare. I am happy to see both provide opportunity for the memorial concept. We invest so much into our social media activity, it’s nice to know it won’t all get wiped away in a flash.
So in the end, is it about you?
The big question is, what do you want to happen with your sites years down the line? Some people might want their entire sites taken down, others may want to keep things up so others could continue the connections. Circumstance certainly would play a role.
What would you do?
Would you leave your sites up so those you cared about could continue to honor and celebrate your life? Sharing stories together “In Memoriam” on your original page?
What if what you want is not what your family would want? How do these things get decided?
Interestingly there are services emerging to respond to this very thing, among them are Legacy Locker which offers free and paid plans, and Secure Safe, which offers a “Data Inheritance” service.
We have a lot to manage and think about when it comes to our evolving commitment to using social media, the information we share online, the investment of our time, and in Bruce Willis’ case even the investment into “buying” and building a music collection.
What do you think of this? The responsibility is on us as users to understand what we are signing on for. In the case of the downloaded music, I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg… and Bruce Willis is going to take it on for us.
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