What You Should Learn About Hashtags From The MLB

Hashtags. Anyone one that knows anything about Twitter is somewhat familiar with hashtags. It is anything that follows the “#” sign. The beauty of a hashtag is that it can string together thoughts, conversations, and topics. I’ve shared some thoughts about how organizations can win with hashtags previously on this site.

Tonight, I’m watching the Brewers and Cardinals playoff game when I noticed the hashtag. You’ve probably noticed hashtags during some of your primetime TV shows such as The Voice. During this NLCS game they have the hashtag #POSTSEASON plastered on the outfield wall of Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

What does this have to do with organizations, though?! Well, let’s think of all the crazy things that Major League Baseball could have picked to be their hashtag for this event:

• #postseason
• #nlcs / #alcs
• #nlcs2011 / #alcs2011
• #nlcs11 /#alcs11
• #MLB
• #MLB11 / #MLB2011
• OR… #WorldSeries / #WorldSeries11 / #WorldSeries2011

Off the cuff, this is a lot of options – not to mention any hashtags related to teams: #Cardinals, #StLouis, #Brewers, #Milwaulke, #Tigers, #Detroit, #Rangers, #Houston!

If you are going to be using a hashtag for your organization’s event, think about how you might make it common sense and not cryptic. The MLB wisely picked #postseason. Postseason is a phrase that people already associate with these games. At 10 characters, it isn’t taking up too much Twitter real estate of the 140 character limit per tweet.

Besides picking a logical hashtag, you won’t engage fans, members, or the twitosphere if you don’t promote it. By defining the hashtag, the MLB has encouraged the conversation to take place. Their efforts to define the hashtag have been obvious to anyone that might be interested on various channels:

• Their homepage of MLB.com
• On Twitter – @MLB is tagging #POSTSEASON and retweeting posts; that models the way and encourages the conversations.
• On the outfield wall! Social media needs to translate into real world touches. This hits the viewers from the stands and those that are watching at home (like me). Check out this picture!

Check out the #POSTSEASON hashtag on the outfield wall.

The Innovation of Steve Jobs: My Apple IIGS vs. iPod Touch

We have lost a great American innovator with the passing of Steve Jobs. I took a minute yesterday to think about how my life has been impacted by his technology. It took me back to our first computer at home which was the Apple IIGS. Steve Jobs and Apple have a core principle of innovation. We slowly see this progress, but I thought it would be interesting to compare the technology of my first computer with that of my iPod today. We’ve certainly seen tremendous innovation over the last 25 years!

What strikes you most when you think of the impact that Steve Jobs has made in so many lives?

 

 

 

 

25 Ways to Drive Traffic To Your Website

I had the opportunity to share with some Indiana nonprofit professionals today at a Center for Nonprofit Success Leadership Series today. The other presenters were Rodger Johnson (http://www.getsocialpr.com) covered SEO / blogging and Jeff Robinson (http://www.visitindy.com) gave a nice case-study/overview of Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association’s efforts.

My bite of the the presentation was around developing content strategies for the website and social media. The social media channels section really honed in on the Big 4: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter & LinkedIn. Along the way I talked about how to measure the results and impact that is being made.

Here’s a copy of my presentation slides.

25 Ways To Get Traffic To Your Website – Center for Nonprofit Success – Social Media, Strategy, Measurement

View more presentations from Andy Huston

Looking forward to hearing success stories from the participants of this session!

What’s one tip that you’d give about getting traffic to your website?

How To Get Better Grades In College Using Social Media

I regularly work with college students and organizations that are heavily engaged with this audience. This infographic is in honor of the upcoming academic year!

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

Via:MastersinEducation.org

Organizations with a college membership base should be taking note.

Organization with roots in higher education have the purpose of building better men and women through their co-curricular experience.

First, of the proposed impact that social media has in academics. You are in school to get an education. If social media helps or enhances your success in the classroom – then yes, it is important. As the infographic suggests, faculty will be more likely to encourage use and facilitate ongoing discussion online following the formal classroom experience. This means continued growth in the college student demographic across social media channels.

Second, the demographics in various channels can not be ignored. Everyone knows Facebook is synonymous with college. The same goes for YouTube. Blogs, Twitter and other social networks currently lag behind these two behemoths — but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored!

What do you think about the assertions of this infographic?

Social Media Strategy Is Not…

This past year I had the opportunity to write an article for the Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values (AFLV) Connections Magazine regarding social media strategy.

I recently stumbled back upon the issue of that magazine and the image that accompanied my article really stands out. It stands out because so many people think they have a strategy for social media when they simply have a social media presence.

If you can’t view the image, it states:

Having a social media strategy is not just having a Twitter account or putting your calendar on Facebook. Twitter Talks; Facebook Connects; Foursquare Guides; Flickr & YouTube Show.

Strategy is not simply having a presence. Creating and managing a social media strategy is hard work. I’m living this daily in the trenches. In addition, I’ve been consulting, teaching and coaching many nonprofit/association staff and volunteers. You’ll be surprised by how big of an impact is possible by taking the time to write down some strategic goals.

After a recent coffee and consult meeting with Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity‘s expansion staff – I was told, “Wow, you just blew my mind!”

So ask yourself – Do I have a social media strategy or do I just have some accounts?

If you don’t have a strategy (personally, professionally, or both), email me to set up a meeting, call, or Skype session to start focusing your presence in order to deliver results.

Slides From My Social Media Strategy Presentation at Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity Convention

I just had the pleasure of speaking at the Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity Convention at the Omni Champions Gate in Orlando, FL. It is always a pleasure to educate volunteers and students about two things I’m very passionate about: fraternities & social media. And it is great to show organizations how they can achieve greater success through the thoughtful use of social media. It was nice to chat with some of the session attendees in person and online at #DSPConv11 following the session. I particularly enjoy sharing this information because I have crafted it based on seven years of experience and knowledge from working with social media in the trenches for organizations – both as a staff member and as a volunteer.

I promised the participants in my session that I’d share the slides so they could focus on taking notes that specifically relate to more of the content that I share since I try not to facilitate death by PowerPoint.

If you have any questions about the following presentation the the accompanying handout, please let me know by leaving a comment and I’ll be sure to help!

Social Media Strategy for Social Organizations Presentation:

Delta Sigma Phi – Social Media Strategy Presentation

View more presentations from Andy Huston

Social Media Strategy Development Guide:

Delta Sigma Phi – Social Media Strategy Development Worksheet

View more documents from Andy Huston

Is your organization or campus looking for a speaker about social media strategy? To reach me by email - click here.

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The Impact Of Google Plus On Blog Traffic

It is safe to say we’re enjoying the shiny new social media object that is Google Plus. Mashable’s Ben Parr has reported that Google+ has built a user base of 18 million users with 25-34 year olds making up 38% of the traffic to the site, based on a report from Experian Hitwise.

I’ve already shared my initial thoughts about how organizations will be able to use Google+. But now I’ve got some personal data that I’m excited to share about how Google Plus can drive traffic to your blog.

This past week I’ve only made one new blog post. I shared it on my social networks with the following audiences: Facebook [1639 friends], Twitter [1771 followers] , LinkedIn [812 connections], & Google+ [237 followers].

Despite the fact that Google+ is the smallest, by far, of my social networks it has been the biggest driving force of traffic to my blog this week – by far. 

Blog Referrer Traffic From Google Plus: From This Week

Bloggers take note! Organizations take note! Google Plus is having an early impact in driving web traffic. Will you be ready when Google Plus officially allows organizations, nonprofits and associations to have a presence?

Are these results just part of the shiny new social network? It’s hard to say at this point. As the old saying goes “all that shimmers is not gold”… but from my vantage point, it’s looking pretty golden.

Have you noticed an impact from sharing posts on Google+?

Google+ Hangouts Will Reinvent Communication In Organizations

Google+ is what’s hot in the social media world. As we continue to use this new social network, we’re continuing to see the new opportunities that it has for organizations. This post explores the opportunities for organizations to use the Hangout feature of Google Plus.

What are Google+ Hangouts? Hangouts are a way for people to video chat with users within their various social networks – or circles. Anyone in that circle can decide to join and chat. Here’s a quick video from Google that provides an overview of Hangouts.

How can organizations use Google+ Hangouts?

Once Google Plus announces its business/organization platform, I suspect we’ll see various attempts to maximize this feature. Because of the inherent relationships within organizations, they might be better positioned than their for-profit counterparts to use Hangouts effectively. Currently, individuals are able to Hangout with whatever Circles they specify. Here are a few of the things I’ve been thinking about if that potential segmentation exists at the organizational/business level:

• Fireside chats hosted by top leaders for the general membership
• Virtual meetings between grant recipients and donors
• Task force meetings
• Focus groups
• Networking events
• Information sessions for prospective members
• Community outreach
• Affinity / sponsor development
• Donor cultivation
• Event interaction for members that weren’t able to attend
• Facilitation of an educational session
• “Ask The Expert” special Q&A opportunities
• Identification of your biggest fans (who always wants to hangout with you?)
• Serving as the hub by building relationships between yours members & fans

As Justin Uberti shares, “With Google+ we wanted to make on-screen gatherings fun, fluid and serendipitous, so we created Hangouts. By combining the casual meetup with live multi-person video, Hangouts lets you stop by when you’re free, and spend time with your Circles. Face-to-face-to-face.”

Google+ is setting the stage for new opportunities that exist to have transparent, engaging communication throughout organizations. Time will tell how this feature is incorporated into the business/organization presence on Google Plus, but if it is included, it is safe to say that it will reinvent the way that organizations and communicate with their members and constituents.

Click here for more thoughts about the potential impact of Google+ for organizations.

Plug Social Media Into Your Email For Better Relationships

Social media is about relationships. We build relationships online just like we might in person. At it’s most basic level meet new people strike up a conversations.  Those relationships deepen over time and we learn more about the person. So, how can we apply maximize this for our organizations?

Start by deepening the relationships you already have. And, let’s be honest, where do we spend most of our time at work? Email.

The easiest way that I’ve found to do this to make my email socially aware by using Xobni (for Outlook & now Gmail-Beta) and Rapportive (for Gmail). These services reference the email address of the sender with their profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. And for Outlook – it adds a high powered search feature that will make finding old email exchanges and attachments a breeze! If you follow them on any of those services you’ll see their recent updates. If you don’t follow that person, you can click an easy “connect” button to add them as a friend. You might be surprised by who you’re not connected with – so it is an easy way to build your network and enhance the relationships at the heart of your organization. And, since you spend so much time in email, this becomes your personal customer relations management (CRM) tool where you can add personal detail. Let’s be honest, too, I doubt your organization’s database easily ties to email and imports social data.

So now when you get an email from a member of your organization you might see that they just posted pictures from their recent vacation. You can easily include a thoughtful note about the recent trip. Just think how much they’ll appreciate that you care and they’ll enjoy sharing more of that news with you.

This is really easy for anyone to implement – no matter how active their social media presence. Sometimes it’s the little things like this that can make the biggest impact.

How Evernote Helps Create Compelling Content

Evernote.com

Evernote is a great application that I use on the Web, PC, and as an App. This service saves, stores and synchronizes notes, images, photos and webclips on the cloud. Easily accessible anytime, anywhere on the web, PC or my smartphone. So it has pretty much become my back-up brain.

It is so effective because when you upload content you can tag it with general categories. Work, Personal, To Do, Social Media, Organization X, Association Y, and Nonprofit Z, and Inspiration. These are some of the categories I use… adjust as you need.

One of the HARDEST things for busy nonprofit staff or organization volunteers to do related to social media is think about NEW content. We are constantly putting out fires, battling the email inbox and working on the mountain of projects that seem more urgent than creating the next post. Or sometimes we just have writers block. That’s where Evernote comes in.

During my day I will clip and tag a news stories related to an organization. That becomes stored content for the future. Later, while grocery shopping, I’ll see something that might make a good analogy and take a picture and tag inspiration & the organization – more content. While I’m shopping I’ll edit my grocery list as I walk the aisle… or maybe scan a few tagged recipes if I’m not seeing anything that sounds good.

Here are some other ways your can use Evernote to get a jump on creating content:

1. Web Clips: news stories, other blogs, tips, best practices

2. Photos: pictures from events, random inspiration, notes I wrote on a napkin (because the app will read your handwriting)

3. Organize Notebooks: upload content to different notebooks to help segment your life

4. Tag Content: come up with meaningful categories that are somewhat broad, use multiple tags when needed

5. Find Unlikely Pairings: use the search feature to look up a topic and you might make some new connections to unrelated content

6. Your Cloud: work on a draft in the bus and then polish it off when you’re back at your PC later on

Do you use Evernote? I’d love to hear your tips and suggestions.