Can you believe Facebook the social media network of the world is now offering Amber Alerts(America’s Missing:Broadcast Emergency Response)? Amber Alerts is the link between our media and law enforcers. They work together to locate missing kids. Law enforcement release information to media in order to spark and generate tips to hopefully the safe return of the missing. Amber alerts came on the scene in 1996 when Amber Hagerman a 9 year old from Texas went missing. Law enforcement decided to put their differences aside and work together. As a result it has made link between media and government to come together for the greater good.

We now see our social networking is taking the stand with law enforcement and the media. Facebook is getting involved to help in the crusade of bringing home our missing. You can sign up to receive Amber Alerts through Facebook. Where you can then share with your friends. Did you know there are 800,000 children are reported every year? Now with Facebook law enforcement have a new tool to help locate our children.

Since 1996 Amber Alerts have located 525 of our missing children. Now imagine the reach they have now with Facebook getting involved in this crusade. The Amber Alerts on Facebook gives current information on the kids and any possible suspects involved in the abduction. It is very scary to see just how many children are missing. I think we are hoping this connection will bring some more of our missing home to their loving families.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/01/12/facebook.amber.alerts/index.html?hpt=Sbin
http://apps.facebook.com/amber_alert/

On January 11, 2001, MySpace, once the go-to site for social networkers on the Web, announced that it would be slashing the size of its workforce by nearly half. According to Mike Jones, the company’s CEO, the 47% decrease in the workforce is part of the new MySpace, “a significantly streamlined product”. While the company tried to put a positive spin on the 500-person layoff, Internet rumors have dogged the site of late, with some speculating that the declining site will eventually be sold by corporate owner NewsCorp.

Launched in 2006 by Tom Anderson (seen here), MySpace quickly gained popularity as a place for young users to establish their web presence and connect with friends. In the last couple of years, however, the site has steadily lost ground to the dominance of Facebook, sparking rumors of a company reduction. Despite reports of slowing revenue, the CEO remains optimistic about the site’s future, stating that MySpace, which redesigned its layout in October 2010, has increased its mobile use by four percent. He also announced plans to partner with foreign countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom.

Whether this staff layoff is a first step to a buyout or the next step in a decline remains to be seen.

Image c/o Robert Scoble

A lot of people have a hard time figuring out the best way to do promote themselves successfully on YouTube. Should they be serious and provide informative insights on everyday topics or should they try to be light hearted and goofy and make people laugh? You should do a bit of planning beforehand and choose the strategy which is closest to your company’s ideals and represents you best. Don’t try to present yourselves as something you are not as this will send mixed messages to your subscribers and dilute whatever your company has to offer. The best way to attract viewers is to get your video ranked by YouTube. This will take a little work, but isn’t anything too difficult if you devote a little time to it. Firstly you should make sure your video has a title that describes the content thoroughly. This makes your video much easier to find when people are searching for keywords related to it. You might even get visitors who aren’t searching for your video to watch. Another good practice is to make your description for your video as detailed as possible. This provides a good lead for people who are unsure about whether or not they want to click on your video. This also goes for whatever you choose to tag your video with. Tags are a simple way of organizing content and can really draw in viewers but don’t use too many as this can end up hurting your ranking in the long run. Lastly, enabling your video to be embedded will certainly boost your views and ranking on YouTube. It becomes infinitely easier to share the video and make it instantly viewable by whoever happens to stumble upon it.

So you signed up and created a Twitter account for your company. What do you do now? Firstly you should make sure your Twitter account is a near perfect representation of your company’s message and all around image. This includes altering the layout and design colors and making sure your bio contains a link to your company’s main webpage. This is much more important than you think as a generic layout could leave a wrong impression in some visitor’s minds and think your profile fraudulent. The visual aspects of Twitter are seldom discussed but they have a major effect on those that frequent the site.

Now before you start following every account you find you should begin posting informative tweets about your company. Provide outside links to pages that are interesting and showcase your company in the light you want. Begin searching for accounts of business partners and direct message them asking them to retweet some of your tweets. Make sure to take advantage of the trending topic of ‘Follow Friday’ on every Friday as well. You can also do targeted searches to see users who are talking about your company or topics related and follow them as well. Generally in the world of Twitter if someone follows you then you follow them back. Make sure you add your Twitter contact information to all of your necessary paper and digital documents as well for maximum coverage.

So you have been increasing your online presence lately in an attempt to update the public face of your company. Chances are you have put a good deal of advertising dollars behind this push and you expect to see some tangible results soon, right? Well, yes and no. A good indicator of your efforts would be to check the number of visitors your are getting from the different portals you have utilized. Find out if posting your info on blogs seems to be more successful than twitter updates. This will help you focus your information next time you choose to send out an e-mail blast. A good indicator of content is to see how many returning visitors you are getting and from where. Returning visitors are key to success as they are the foundation in which you are building your online presence upon. Make sure to provide content and a community in which visitors would be interested in returning to. At the end of the day you should also be checking to see how many new connections you have made. This is a good indicator of how strong your message is and the ability it has to draw in new visitors.

Launching a social media PR campaign may seem like a daunting task if you aren’t very internet savvy, but the process can be broken down into 7 easy steps. So if you are having trouble wrapping your mind around how to get your PR campaign off the ground just take a look at the guidelines below.
Define your message- You should firstly know what your message is going to be and how you would like to present it. Include all details so your message is clear and make sure your call to action is pronounced and concise. Make your press release general enough so that any common person could read and understand what you are saying but provide enough information to make those in the know more interested.
Rough draft your press release- Use your resources to create a rough draft of your press release. This should contain all the information you plan on releasing to the public. If you do not have your own resources contact WSI and they can provide you with a template as well as copyright management information.
Make sure your PR is socially friendly- Your press release should have all the necessary social components to make it easily shared online. That means information about Facebook fan pages, twitter accounts, and YouTube channels to subscribe to. This makes your information insanely easy for your target market to spread online.
Distribution- By now you should have a finalized press release to distribute. You should start by submitting it to the necessary local channels and media outlets. You can also find places online you can submit PR reports to that will distribute them online for free.
Share online- Now is the time to unveil your press release to your online community. If you don’t have an online community yet, this is a problem that you should consult our other posts to correct. Now is the time to post updates on your social media sites like Facebook and twitter.
Spread the word- Encourage your user base to spread your press release through their own profiles. This gives your message an infinite reach once it gets reposted enough times. You can use your own methods to get them to repost but I suggest some sort of incentive.
Follow up- The beauty of online press release management is the control you have. You can actively follow up to people’s reactions to your release and respond to them the way you see fit. You can do your own damage control if things get out of hand and you can edit your release if incongruities are spotted.

It used to be much more difficult to have your image tainted. Before the internet you could easily find ways to keep information about yourself from getting out. With the internet revolution however information is instant. You can find out about something seconds after it happens almost anywhere in the world. The same applies to you and your online presence. The easiest way to avoid an online crisis is to constantly manage your brand or have someone looking out for it. Use specialized social media tools to gauge people’s reactions to your company’s content and react accordingly. You should make sure your reactions come in a timely manner and clearly address whatever issue has arisen in a straightforward way. The last thing you want to do when reacting to negative criticism is send a mixed message. Cover your bases and address every aspect of the criticism and you should see little to no damage on your company’s credibility. The key to crisis management though is to make sure all of your employees are on the same page in regards to your crisis strategy. That cuts down significantly on reaction time and allows for a more unified stance on how you address issues. This will provide a strong backbone for you to build your company’s credibility upon and take on the issue of crisis management

When building upon your connections in a social networking community there is plenty you can do to benefit you greatly, but one false move could prove disastrous. A slight misstep in judgement could lose you costly connections you have worked hard to establish. There is a formula for increasing your social capital online and if you adhere to it you will see your community grow before your eyes. If you want to be successful in the business world you have to make connections with any and all associates you plan on working with; But never should you mix your personal life with your business life. Make a separate profile on the social site in question if you wish to keep in touch with friends and family.

If a business associate sends you a request make sure to connect with them and let them know you appreciate the gesture. Accepting requests and neglecting to do any sort of follow-up can leave a bad impression of you in people’s minds. You should also actively search out anyone who is important that you are not yet connected with and take the necessary steps to make that connection. Don’t wait for others to search you out. Make it easy for them and do it yourself! Lastly, an important aspect of strengthening your community connections is being active. Communicate with your followers regularly and comment them to show an interest in their actions. This will in turn spur them into being interested in your doings as well out of respect. This is truly the key to building your community presence.

Social media is very important in today’s rapidly evolving business market. What was once considered something you throw a few extra advertising dollars at has become the strongest selling point for many companies and products. Case in point: Do you think the Snuggie started selling well before or after a video of the infomercial was uploaded to YouTube and viewed millions of times? I think you know the answer. These are the 5 most popular social media platforms for getting your brand recognition and respect.
1. Bloggers/Wordpress (Blogs)- This is a no-brainer. These blogging giants have a typical blog template that has become the standard set-up for bloggers for years. These networks contain millions of blogs that house information on just about anything you could want to look up. Not only that but the fact that it is all user generated content ads an air of human life to everything. It is also an easy way to display the public face of your company or product.
2. Facebook- Facebook is heralded for its personal connections it builds, but it is also rapidly becoming a favorite for company’s who want that direct interaction with customers. It is a great environment in which it is easy to introduce promos and events to people and then gauge their reactions. This is especially helpful in building brand recognition and increasing customer relations.
3. YouTube- YouTube is a free video sharing service that has the ability to change everything. YouTube is especially popular with business who are out to make a name for themselves. You can upload all sorts of video content to get recognition whether it be video versions of existing material on your site or a blooper reel from a commercial shoot. Both will get different users to recognize your company.
YouTube is also so popular because of the ability to embed the videos on almost any web page which provides for easy sharing of your content.
4. Twitter- Twitter is the relatively new one to the social media bunch. Lots of business and companies have flocked to it championing the ease of network building and information distribution. It is also an easy way to keep followers updated with simple messages that are delivered to everyone on your followers list at once. This instant information has already proven to have a massive effect on movies at the box office. If word gets out its a stinker on Twitter, you can practically watch those opening weekend numbers fall.
5. Linked In- This is the social media platform preferred by professionals. Linked In provides you with connections to your trusted business associates and allows you to interact, share knowledge, and be introduced to others who could help your business grow. Linked In is the only social media site with built-in features just for business connections so use this to your advantage when advertising or marketing yourself online.

The first step in creating a Facebook fan page for you company is to visit the following link, pick a name, a category, and a sub category. The most important part about your page is the name of it.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

This should be the name of the business you are representing, or an offer that the business offers. If you decide to name the page an offer instead of a company you should make sure that it is something that will be relevant 3 years down the line. You simply can�t change the name of your Facebook page, so make sure you get it right the first time. For example naming a page �Save $300 Dollars in 2010 off a new car from Fake Dealership� would be better without the 2010, so that you do not have to discard the page next year. This leaves you with a page that reads �Save $300 dollars off a new car from Fake Dealership�. This looks better, but let�s see if we cannot improve it a bit more.

When somebody becomes a fan of your page they click �like�, and by doing so their feed reflects this. People will see �John Doe Likes Save $300 dollars off a new car from Fake Dealership�, I hope you can all spot where we can improve this. Since the average user has 130 Facebook friends, and since your friends get updated when you �like� something, this is free advertising. You have to think about how this will look when people see it on their wall. A better title for your page could be something like �Saving $300 dollars on a car from Fake Dealership� or even �When Fake Dealership gives $300 Discounts�. Personally I prefer the latter since it would read �John Doe likes When Fake Dealership gives $300 Discounts�, which to me looks much better. Being aware of what people will see your page like gives you a better idea of what you should choose.