What's new in social media? Video stars
By Susan Goodwin It looks like 2013 is shaping up to be the year of video blogging.
As everyone looks for new and interesting ways to engage with their fans, we’ve moved beyond the static of pretty picture to the immediacy of the moving image.
The good thing is you don’t need loads of fancy equipment to create and share videos.
Here are just a few ways to add some videos to your social media repertoire:
Gifs Not quite a video but a super easy way to add some movement to your blog. Try makeagif as the simple solution to making your own animated Gif.
YouTube Not just for watching daggy music video clips from the 80’s! You can upload your own videos or you can just create your own playlist. It's a great way to showcase other artists, creators and influencers that inspire you (and the occasional daggy music video clip too!).
Vimeo A more refined version of You Tube and a great resource for some really gorgeous videos that show a lot of skill and talent. If you can make your own videos showcasing them here ensures many creatives will have access to your great work.
Vine A great new App that is the Instagram of video. Follow along, post your own videos right from your very own smart phone. Once you sign up, an easy step by step guide takes you through your first post. Super easy and highly addictive. I can see this being as big as Instagram soon.
Vine, Vimeo and You Tube can all be embedded into your blog as well as being shared via their various apps and sites, allowing you to get more mileage out of your videos.
And maybe you will discover you’re a star!
The year that was: What's new in social media
{Throughout January, we’re looking back at all the posts our awesome columnists wrote for us in 2012, before our team of some new and some returning contributors start blogging in February.} Ellison Bloomfield knows the internet well - she is a digital content developer by day and also writes for her popular blog Humane Resource, for which she has been recognised as a HR 'thought leader'. Her collection of posts in 2012 uncovered some great new apps, tricks, and programs to help us work smarter and keep our minds up to speed with the technical world while we're busy being creative with our hands. Thanks, Ellison! x Tess
Piquing your interest Pinterest has been around for about two years now and has slowly been gaining more popularity and interest. It is a social bookmarking site which allows you to create boards which you ‘pin’ pictures, links and items you like generally based on a category. Read more...
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In the cloud Last week, Andy wrote about the importance of regularly backing up computer data, and mentioned ‘cloud storage’ as one newer option. Today, I’m going to look at one popular cloud storage option, Dropbox. Read more...
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Facebook timeline for brands Facebook timeline is now mandatory for business pages and while many have fought to avoid the timeline this is no longer an option. Which means that businesses and page administrators now need to update their pages and ensure that they have an understanding of the new layout and the changes now in effect. Read more...
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If This, Then That Each morning when I wake up I check my email, twitter, instagram, path and facebook accounts and throughout the day I’m updating, adding and checking these accounts (and multitude of other profiles and accounts). Read more...
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eQuip yourself It can be very loud in the world of social media and Twitter is probably one of the loudest platforms around. Your Twitter stream is often full of people having conversations but it can be hard to work out where they started or even what is being talked about. Read more...
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Back to basics There are two questions I get asked by people who are trying to work out whether they need to be using social media in their business: Why? And how? Read more...
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Blog management with Posts There is a lot of work involved in managing a blog and if you have multiple accounts and platforms it can become tiresome. A new app called Posts helps to manage the process and can even be used to create a new blog. Read more...
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Don't feed the trolls There has been increasing conversation regarding ‘trolling’ in the last few weeks after some Australian public figures received threats via Twitter. Thus, several news outlets began campaigns to Stop the Trolls which has taken the conversation offline and into the mainstream. Read more...
Don't feed the trolls
There has been increasing conversation regarding 'trolling' in the last few weeks after some Australian public figures received threats via Twitter. Thus, several news outlets began campaigns to Stop the Trolls which has taken the conversation offline and into the mainstream. The term 'trolling' is used to represent faceless, anonymous bullies who set up accounts on social media sites solely to find targets and attack them, which isn't necessarily the definition that is known by online communities. Trolling usually refers to playing a bit of a joke on someone, being a prankster as it were and not maliciously attacking people.
Definitions aside, there may be times when you come across people in online communities and social networks who will relentlessly attack without logic or reason and who it's not possible to engage with in a conversation. There is a simple mantra when dealing with these people, 'don't feed the trolls'.
- Do not reply, it just gives satisfaction and additional ammunition
- Block and report. If they make a new account, block and report again
- Take a screen shot of the tweet, message or reply and keep it as a record if it's needed
There's a great quote, 'the internet has given us the ability to be anyone we want to be, it's a pity so many people choose to be stupid'. The reality is that there is a minority of people who enjoy causing hurt or humiliation to others these people exist in real life just as readily as they exist online.
Instead of adding to the issue simply don't let the conversation even start.
Ellison Bloomfield is a Digital Content Developer at Deloitte. Her blog – Humane Resource has received world-wide attention and Ellison is frequently quoted as a thought leader on HR issues both within Australian and international publications. She can be found on twitter @EllisonAmy
Blog management with Posts
There is a lot of work involved in managing a blog and if you have multiple accounts and platforms it can become tiresome. A new app called Posts helps to manage the process and can even be used to create a new blog. The app is for iPad and is at the more expensive end of the app spectrum at $10.49 but does have a lot of nifty features. Posts can be used with Blogger and Wordpress and you can add multiple accounts to your profile.
You have access to the majority of functions you'd have access to when using a web interface such as inserting links, images and general formatting. There is also the ability to swap to HTML if you happen to be handy with code.
Moderate comments
You can view the comments on each post as well as approve, mark them as spam or delete. There is also the ability to respond to comments allowing you to manage even more aspects of your blog through the app.
Offline access
Offline access means you don't need to be connected to the Internet to draft posts, edit existing posts or manage comments. Any changes will be saved to your outbox and uploaded the next time you're online.
I've been using the app for the last few days and I've found it to be very simple to use. As with all apps over time they'll add more functionality and features allowing you to do everything you need to manage your blog from your iPad wherever you are.
What's new in social media: Back to basics
By Ellison Bloomfield There are two questions I get asked by people who are trying to work out whether they need to be using social media in their business: Why? And how?
There is a misconception that everyone should be using social media but the reality is social media won't be relevant for every business. You need to determine what you're aiming to achieve from using social media and how you'll go about achieving it to work out whether it's realistic for you.
It's also incredibly important to know where your customers are and which channel they're using so you're targeting the right one. If you're on YouTube but your current and potential customers aren't then you're wasting time and resources.
For a small business and for creatives managing their own labels or brands (often outside of a normal day job) there are a lot of reasons to use social media and a number of benefits that can be gained.
Twitter is fantastic for building your personal brand and engaging with people. Using Twitter to share what you're doing, making and who you are allows people to see who the person behind the label or brand is.
Your followers or fans can also amplify what you're doing across their own networks. If you have a store on Etsy or your own website add the 'follow' button in a prominent place (such as the banner) to make it easy for people to follow and connect with you.
Twitter can also be used to link to your other social channels such as Facebook.
Things to remember
It doesn't matter what social channel you're using you have to be yourself. It becomes obvious if someone isn't being authentic on social media and that can dramatically effect how credible people will think you are.
Generally, the only cost when it comes to social is related to time. Make the most of the tools that are available to manage your social streams such as Tweetbot for Twitter or Hootsuite to manage multiple accounts. This will cut down the time you're spending on the administration side and increase the time you can spend sharing and benefitting from the tools.
Look at what other people are doing in your profession or speciality. There will quite often already be people doing it well who you can learn from. If you need some tips or help there is a huge amount of information out there and a couple of posts here that can help you too!
Ellison Bloomfield is a Senior Analyst in Social Media at Deloitte. Her blog – Humane Resource has received world-wide attention and Ellison is frequently quoted as a thought leader on HR issues both within Australian and international publications. She can be found on twitter @EllisonAmy
What’s new in Social Media: eQuip yourself
By Ellison Bloomfield It can be very loud in the world of social media and Twitter is probably one of the loudest platforms around. Your Twitter stream is often full of people having conversations but it can be hard to work out where they started or even what is being talked about.
A new app for iPad is seeking to make it easier to manage conversations on Twitter by allowing you to delve further into the conversation and see where it began. The app called Quip was released just a few days ago and has a number of great features which makes it simple to navigate and use.
By holding down on an avatar you can see whether there have been any replies to a tweet and follow the whole conversation, or if the tweet you tap on is a reply you can see where the conversation started.
If you often feel like you're overhearing a snippet of a conversation but don't know the context for it, or left wondering what's going on, Quip can help you burrow in and find out the full story.
Quip isn't just about the conversation though - there are a couple of fantastic features that apps like this have been lacking, such as the timeline ticker at the side of the screen.
By tapping on the right hand side of the screen you get a timeline which allows you to scroll through the history of your Twitter stream. This is particularly useful if there is something specific you're looking for or if you've scrolled down and want to jump back up to the top quickly.
The photo view is also fantastic allowing you to see easily what the people you're following are sharing in a simple clutter free interface.
At 99 cents Quip is cheaper than a number of the more popular Twitter apps, but far more engaging and quite a bit easier on the eye.
Ellison Bloomfield is a Senior Analyst in Social Media at Deloitte. Her blog – Humane Resource has received world-wide attention and Ellison is frequently quoted as a thought leader on HR issues both within Australian and international publications. She can be found on twitter @EllisonAmy
What's new in Social Media: If this, then that
By Ellison Bloomfield Each morning when I wake up I check my email, twitter, instagram, path and facebook accounts and throughout the day I'm updating, adding and checking these accounts (and multitude of other profiles and accounts). Obviously this is time consuming and as anyone who is using multiple social media profiles will know there are often cross over points between streams. Something happening in one place can trigger something you want to happen in another place which means a manual process to get this to happen.
Enter ifttt - if this then that, which is a tool which allows you to set up triggers for activities to save you having to do it yourself. When this [trigger] happens then do this [action].
Ifttt works with a number of different channels including the most popular social media sites blogger, facebook, foursquare, flickr, gmail, the list goes on.
By creating tasks you can manage triggers, 'I post a photo to instagram' and create an action 'Save this file to dropbox'. You can set up your own tasks and share this with others which turns it into a recipe. When you go to the recipes tab you can see the tasks set up by others which you can then use and add to your tasks. This means you don't have to create it yourself (saving even more time).
There might be tasks or actions you want to do on a particular channel but the channel doesn't have the functionality to do it. By using ifttt you can create the actions you want and get the internet to work for you. If for any reason you don't need a task you can turn it off and when you need it again turn it back on and it will pick up again just like a new task.
Ifttt is simple to sign up to and the 1,000,000 plus recipes set up already are a simple starting point and provide you with an idea of what the service can help you to achieve.
Ellison Bloomfield is a Senior Analyst in Social Media at Deloitte. Her blog – Humane Resource has received world-wide attention and Ellison is frequently quoted as a thought leader on HR issues both within Australian and international publications. She can be found on twitter and pinterest @EllisonAmy