Short & Sweet: Setting Your Social Media Policy

It may sound like a pain to do, but taking the time to write out a social media policy for your company can be the best thing you do for both company and those who participates in social media. A comprehensive social media policy is a roadmap that protects the business and their employees. Most businesses choose to be proactive with their social media policies and layout the groundwork up front and all at once. Others choose to develop a working document that evolves as the company grows. One approach isn’t necessarily better than the other, however, it’s a good idea to apply a few key elements to ensure that your social media policy is well structured and effective.

1. Clear & Fair

Social media policies should be clear and fair so that people will read and remember them. Save the fluff and get right to the point.

2. Expectations

We all utilize some form of social media each and every day. Chances are that clients, customers and even potential clients are watching what you do and your employees. This doesn’t mean that a strong hold should be put on the employees, but you should make sure that common sense is exercised. Information on the web travels quickly and once it’s out there – it’s out there. Think twice before hitting the send button.

3. Educate, Educate, Educate

Make sure that everyone is aware of what social media campaigns are underway, where you have a presence and what communication you’re sharing with the public. For example, designating specific internal correspondence as ‘must-read’ can alert your staff to press releases about new product launches, promotions and terminations and other company-related data.

4. Protect Assets

Set-up guidelines that share what employees can and can’t mention in social media contexts. This could be anything from trade secrets, proprietary technology or even sensitive documents. Provide examples if needed.

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

Know Your Truth

— Oscar Wilde once said “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” This made me start thinking about knowing your own truth and celebrating who you are as an individuals. I know for myself it’s not hiding of who I am or changing things about me just so I can fit in. There's a big difference between being you and being rude. You might have your opinions, dreams, and preferences, but so does everyone else. You shouldn't disrespect people who disagree with you; they have the privilege of being themselves just as you do. Conversely, don't agree with something you honestly don't think is right; just don't try to force your opinions on other people. Being your weird, goofy self has some ups and downs. Some people might think you're weird, call you names behind your back, or laugh at you. But by far the majority of people will have the utmost respect for you because you are brave enough to stand up to these things. People want to make friends with people who have something special about them: whether they make them feel good has a different sense of humor, or even something as simple as being a great parent. If everyone on the planet had the same attitude or personality, the world would be a boring one and I personally would be making plans on visiting mars. Don't lose yourself when you're with other friends. Be yourself. Don't be someone else so other people will like you; in the end, you would end up hurting other people and losing yourself.  Make sure that you can show the same "you" to everyone consistently.  Do what's right. You won’t truly be yourself unless you can face yourself.  Most of the time when people in general perceive you a certain way, it means you don't fit in to your society. Whether you want to fit in or not is up to you, but you are only setting yourself up for trouble when you neglect society's ways. (That is, unless you decide to live online for the rest of your life.) Don't deny yourself of the truth by saying it's everyone else's problem and not yours. You'll only be hurting yourself in the long run.  How I try to live by: my life, my style, myself

Define Yourself – Can't be yourself if you don't know, understand, and accept yourself first. It should be your first goal to find this out. Try to take time out for yourself and think about your life and choices. Try to think about what kind of things you would or wouldn't like to do, and act accordingly; finding out through trial and error helps more than you might think it does

Stop Caring How People Perceive You -  It really doesn't matter. It's hard to be yourself when you're caught up in wondering "Do they think I add value? Do they think I'm fat? Do they think I'm stupid?"  To be yourself, you've got to let go of these concerns and just let your behavior flow, with only your consideration of others as a filter — not their consideration of you.  This could go around in a vicious cycle trying to please people; it's totally pointless in the end, and it leaves you exhausted.

Honesty - We’re all imperfect, growing, learning human beings. If you feel ashamed or insecure about any aspect of yourself — and you feel that you have to hide those parts of you, whether physically or emotionally — then you have to come to terms with that and learn to convert your so-called flaws into individualistic quirks. Be honest with yourself, but don't beat yourself up; apply this philosophy to others, as well.

Chill Out - Stop worrying about the worst that could happen, especially in social situations. So what if you fall flat on your face? Or get something in your teeth? Learn to laugh at yourself both when it happens and afterwards. . It's also a quality for someone to be able to laugh at themselves and not take themselves too seriously!  Besides, laughing is a great stress relief.

 Express Your Individuality - Whether it's your sense of humor, or even your manner of speaking, if your preferred way of doing something strays from the mainstream, then be proud of it... unless it's destructive to yourself or others. Be a character, not a type. 7

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

Social Media VS Social Networking

The differences between social media and social networking are just about as vast as today and yesterday geez! Indeed, there are some key differences and knowing what they are can help you gain a better understanding on how to leverage them for your brand and business.

1. By Definition

Social Media is a way to share information with a broad audience. Everyone has the opportunity to create and expand. All you really need is an Internet connection and you’re off to the races.

Social Networking is an act of engagement. Groups of people with common interests, or like-minds, associate together on social networking sites and build relationships through their communities.

2. Style of Communication

Social media is more about communication channel. It’s a format that delivers your message. Like tv, radio or mazines, social media isn’t a location that you meet. Social Media is simply a system that disseminates information to others.

Now, with Social Networking communications is a two-ways. Depending on the topic, subject matter or atmosphere, people congregate to join others with similar experiences and backgrounds. A conversation is the core of social networking and its through them relationships are gained.

3. Investment

It can be difficult to obtain numbers for determining the ROI from Social Media. How do you put a numeric value on the buzz and excitement of online conversations about your brand, product or service? This doesn’t mean that ROI is null, it just means that the tactics used to measure are different. For instance, influence, or the depth of conversation and what the conversations are about, can be used to gauge ROI.

Social Networking’s ROI is a bit more obvious. If the overall traffic to your website is on the rise and you’re diligently increasing your social networking base, you probably could attribute the rise in online visitors to your social efforts.

4. Responses

Social Media is hard work and it takes time. You can’t automate individual conversations and unless you’re a well-known and established brand, building a following doesn’t happen overnight. Social Media is definitely a marathon and not a sprint that needs much conditioning.

Social Networking is direct communication between you and the people that you choose connect with, your conversations are richer, more meaningful and more personal. Your network exponentially grows as you meet and get introduced to others.

5. Big No-No’s

A big no-no on with Social Media is  manipulating comments, likes, diggs, stumbles or other data, for your own benefit (personal or business). Asking friends, family, co-workers or anyone else to cast a vote just to cast it, doesn’t do anyone much good for you and it can become a PR nightmare if word leaks out about being dishonest.

Social Networking, you can tell your friends, colleagues, etc about your new business or blog and discuss how to make it a success. The conversations that you have can convert many people into trusted fans, so investing the time is worth it.

Social Media and Social Networking do have some similarities, but they really aren’t the same. Knowing that they’re two different marketing concepts can make a difference in how you position yourself or business going forward.

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

Using Social Media To Find a Job - Guess Blogger: Carmen Hudson, CEO of Tweetajob.com

Tacoma public library

View more presentations from Tweetajob.

Posted via web from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

RecruiterOnTheGo Saturdays Ramblings

Click here to download:

Saturday%20Ramblings.MP4.mp4 (13372 KB)

Posted via web from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

Should I Become A Mentor?"

               A Checklist To Help You

As you consider the possibility of serving as a mentor, it is time to stop and ask "Should I become a mentor?" I designed a checklist below to help you out. The checklist provides a description of the qualities that are most often thought to be conducive to successful mentoring. Successful mentors generally have many of the qualities listed here, along with other valuable qualities that are not listed but that are unique to them as individuals. Space is provided at the conclusion of this checklist for respondents to add those qualities that represent their unique or special assets to mentoring.
To use the checklist, respondents should read each statement and place an X in the appropriate column which represents the degree to which the statement characterizes the way the respondent sees themself. After ranking each statement (1) Strongly Agree that the statement is representative; (2) Agree; (3) Neutral; (4) Disagree; and (5) Strongly Disagree, respondents may reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses. There is no single "ideal profile,” but respondents who possess many of these qualities are likely to serve well as mentors. If one has serious doubts about the strength of their own qualifications, it might be useful to get a second opinion from a colleague who knows you well..

        Strongly = 1    Agree = 2     Neutral = 3     Disagree Agree = 4      Strongly Disagree Agree = 5

                                                                              

1.  I see myself as being people-oriented;       ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     I like and enjoy working with other

     professionals.

2.  I am a good listener and respect my          ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     colleagues.

3.  I am sensitive to the needs and feelings     ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     of others.

4.  I recognize when others need support or      ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     independence.

5.  I want to contribute to the professional     ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     development of others and to share

     what I have learned.

6.  I am able to support and help without        ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     smothering, parenting or taking charge.

7.  I see myself generally as flexible and       ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     willing to adjust my personal schedule to

     meet the needs of someone else.

8.  I usually am patient and tolerant when       ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     teaching someone.

9. I am confident and secure in my knowledge    ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     of the field and make an effort to remain

     up-to-date.

10. Others look to me for information about my   ___    ___    ___     ___      ___

     subject matter and methods that I use.

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

Facebook Pet Hates

I will be posting my friend’s blog occasionally here to share his insights and wisdom! He is someone to definitely follow on twitter, facebook, linkedin and of course his blog!   

About Aren Grimshaw

"My Friend, Aren lives in UK, where he trains and advises small to medium businesses (SMBs), public bodies and charities on getting the most from Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. He has worked with a wide range of organizations in his region and trained more than 700 businesses in the effective use of Social Media. "

Earlier today I must admit I lost my cool for a few moments and published three status updates over the course of a minute outlining my three top ‘Facebook Pet Hates’. This quick run of updates followed a conversation with someone in Starbucks who told me that one company, responsible for many abuses on behalf of themselves and their clients, was now offering help and support to their clients in this area.

Copied in below is the three updates posted over Facebook for anyone not already connected to me on the platform to read. If you or your company have been advised to follow any of the techniques or practices listed below can I suggest you re-evaluate your relationship with them and look elsewhere for advice – they aren’t doing you any favors!

Facebook Pet Hate No. 1: Companies using personal profiles for their business on Facebook.
..that’s what Facebook Pages are for. It’s against the Facebook Rights and Responsibilities to do it (4.4 Registration and Account Security -You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain), provides no opportunity to measure interactions / other statistics needed to measure effectiveness and should it get ’suspended’ you lose all your hard efforts to date.

Facebook Pet Hate No. 2: Companies talking relentlessly about own achievements or brand.
Facebook’s a ’social’ platform, not a broadcast medium. You’re competing with 5bn bits of content per week & 60m+ updates on Facebook alone – occasional updates to highlight your work are fine but if the only one talking about you is you, you’re doing something wrong! Aim to connect, build a conversation, trigger debate but please don’t broadcast at me.

FB Pet Hate No. 3: Companies setting up Facebook Pages, Groups or Pages just because the competition does.
If you don’t know what you’re aiming to achieve by being on Facebook or understand the potential return, how will you know if it’s a success? Lack of result & giving up will follow – leading many to say there is no business benefit in being on Facebook.

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

The Sourcing 7 Social Event @ Twist

http://www.holytorres.com/Parties/SSS20100506/12143089_GQkaZ#863596117_gjxmY

Hello –

Again, The Sourcing 7 wants to say a HUGE THANK YOU for coming out and socializing! What a way to kick off our SIG, under NWRA.

We will be gathering & creating our agenda.  Once we finalize the details we will work with NWRA to keep everyone posted! We invite you to

Please share your experience on our facebook fanpage (The Sourcing 7). Also, Thank you Holy Torres for the wonderful photos! Stay Tuned!

 

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log

Social Influences Gets Real

The Internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another. There is a growing demand for the ability to connect to others in a more humanistic way by using the leading tools in social media and not allow the tools to do all the socializing. In order to function, we need to encourage social exchanges and social influences due to faster rates technological changes. Social Influences is how we can start working and sharing our knowledge to become better champions. Companies should focus on enabling champions to produce results by supporting learning through social networks. Trusted relationships are powerful in getting things done in our different work forces. It’s the trust that is essential of social influence. Just because we have the technical networks does not mean that learning will automatically happen. Our communications without trust is just noise, not accepted and never taken serious. Let’s look at how we can create, change our social influences with the base of trust on how we can share the knowledge as staffing professionals.

Posted via email from Kay Kelison's Digital-Log