Linda Johannesson » social media

Facebook Pages Some Useful Changes

Linda Johannesson — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:02:07 +0000

Facebook is promising improvements to Pages that include: better communication, more opportunities for expression, improved relevancy…and it’s not even Christmas!

Want the official Facebook explanation? Here you can also preview the changes and get started using them.

For all the details around Facebook pages, take a peek here

Questions of the day

Will these changes change how you use pages? If so, how?

Truly Creative – Klick Inc.’s Holiday Video

Linda Johannesson — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 03:14:13 +0000

I WANT TO WORK HERE… Karl, can ya get me in?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Digital Story of the Nativity

Linda Johannesson — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:36:44 +0000

Merry (digital) Christmas to you and yours!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Blogging – a language all it’s own

Linda Johannesson — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:12:57 +0000

With the adoption of emerging advancements and the use of new tools comes a resulting lexicon.

Here’s a great post from the fine folks at HubSpot explaining some of the terminology associated with blogging.

Question of the day:

What other terms have you learned/coined through your blogging efforts?

Who is in your community?

Linda Johannesson — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:59:29 +0000

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am. I am blessed to know some fabulous people around the world. I had a skype chat yesterday with Bryan Person and we touched on the power of community, the importance of moderation and where this concept of community and conversation is headed for marketing and brands, in particular.

The power of community is here to stay, but it’s the how, when and where people, brands and organizations choose to use this power that will really change the make the difference. Is this a fabulous time to be in marketing, or what? As community and conversations evolve, it’s an exciting adventure for us to find our niche in this dynamic process.

Bryan is a social media evangelist and he’s an interesting and very insightful guy who is not afraid to take action on a new idea. , so in the spirit of building community, I’d like you to meet him. Here’s just a short conversation about one of his key milestones, the development of the social media breakfast.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Questions of the day:

Who in your network is worth introducing around? And, why?

An Invitation from the TorontoTalks Crew

Linda Johannesson — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:23:37 +0000

For all you IABC-ers out there…As outlined in the IABC 2010 World Conference program, there’s an “UNconference” session entitled Emerging Communication Channels scheduled for Sunday, June 6^th from 2- 5pm. We want as many of you to join us as possible. Your facilitators, aka The TorontoTalks Crew (TTC) are Jeremy Schultz, Christopher Swan, Bryan Person and me, Linda Johannesson.

So, what is an “UNconference” anyway? An UNconference:

Taps into wisdom of the crowds
Provides an opportunity for passionate people to share
Facilitates learning through conversations

It’s different from most conference sessions where you’d have one or two leaders speak and the audience listens, here, it’s the opposite. It’s the audience who has the floor – participants decide the topics – the content is determined by the wants, needs and desires of those in the room that day. You can participate as much or as little as you like in the discussions. The UNconference session will be a place for you to exchange your challenges, your victories, your concerns and your lessons learned with a diverse global audience of your IABC peers.

The session is free for conference attendees and will take place over a three hour time period, but feel free to come and participate for however long suits you.

A format skeleton for the session can be found here but, remember, the content will be up to you!

So, at 2pm Sunday afternoon grab your laptops, your mobile phones, ipads (if you’ve got’em), digital cameras, flip video cameras – come equipped with your case studies, your best resources, your stories, your burning questions, your best practices, your challenges and join us for the Unconference. It should be UNique learning opportunity and we hope that you’ll join us to enrich the experience .

In the meantime, if you have questions for the UNconference facilitators, ideas for discussion, want to share your stories, your experiences with other UNconferences, indicate your interest in attending, volunteer to lead a discussion, or just want to join in the conversation, you can find us online at grou.ps page , twitter, and on facebook.

I truly believe we can find wisdom in crowds, strength in communities and insight through conversation. So, join us in Toronto for our UNconference session and experience all three!

We are grateful to IABC for the opportunity to bring you this session. This kind of experience offers the entire membership another chance to “Be heard”.

We can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

‘Nuf Said

Linda Johannesson — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:49:18 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Milestone in Conversations

Linda Johannesson — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:47:35 +0000

There it was. In print. The brochure arrived.The annual event that I look forward to year after year.

Finally in 2010, after 20 years of membership in the association, I’m achieving a milestone. I’m on the agenda for the 2010 IABC Word Conference, taking place in my home city of Toronto. I won’t be playing the role of sage on stage. I won’t be at the microphone talking at an audience for an hour. Instead, I’ll be joining three others in facilitating a conversation. An approach that I think is far more fun!

I’m both honoured and excited to join an international crew Bryan Person from Texas, Jeremy Schulz from Arizona and Christopher Swan from California in facilitating a three hour Unconference Session, entitled Emerging Communication Channels

Beyond a love for warmer climates, we all share sense for what’s possible, a passion for marketing and communications, an interest in social media, and an obvious infatuation with technology and new ideas. It was these that brought us together at last year’s IABC World Conference. The four of us first met online through the conversations that took place through the outtathegate campaign. That was the start of a great collaborative experience. We continued our conversations long after the 2009 conference, brainstormed some ideas and then pitched a few to IABC for this year and… tada…this session was the result.

I think this is a prime example of how a conversation between strangers with something in common, backed by the power of social media can lead to an incredible exchange of ideas and the creation of something wonderful.

Just how wonderful? You’ll have to be part of our unconference session to find out!

We’d be honoured if you join our conversation…

The Big Reveal was Revealing Indeed

Linda Johannesson — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 10:08:28 +0000

I finally got to meet the person behind @iconic88. While I don’t usually follow brands or tweeps on twitter who aren’t forthright with providing details about their personal identity, I made an exception in the case of following @iconic88.

Iggy Pintado, or @iggypintado, author of The Connection Generation, a man I have great respect for, was following and recommending @iconic88. So, trusting Iggy’s advice, I hit the follow button too and found that @iconic88’s tweets were usually positive and uplifting, sometimes informative and there were always a number of them to be found in the tweetstream whenever I logged on for my twitter-fix.

At the recent A List Entrepreneurs function we had the chance to meet the mysterious @iconic88 as Iggy was doing the big reveal! I was really excited about being part of this event. The guest of honour was a genuine and warm hearted person, who was humble and optimistic and undeniably a good soul.

That said, I guess I just had far greater hopes for the event than I realized. It was great to be there for the big reveal, but I really thought there might be more substance to the evening’s discussions.

First off, I was surprised that in an event that was aimed at those who embrace social media (why else would you want to meet the unknown @iconic88). I just assumed that those who embraced social media would also embrace all the transparency and information sharing opportunities that come along with it, but we were told that we couldn’t take video (not that the dark lit room would have allowed it on your basic iPhone). I was genuinely surprised by the announcement asking us to refrain.

The discussions got underway, I was thinking I might learn something about creating a vibrant community on twitter, some real useful bits of information to apply to twitter strategy, some gems that I could employ or suggest to clients or associates.

Instead what I experienced was a very casual discussion between a couple of very nice, very sincere, very well meaning gentlemen. While it was all very pleasant and real, it also demonstrated a few of the things that, (pardon the language here) really piss me off about the discussions that happen around twitter.

I took offense to the warning from iconic88 to be wary of over-tweeting. While I agree over-tweeting is a bad thing, he was not the person to be offering this warning. According to his follow cost stats , his AVERAGE number of tweets per day falls around the 180 mark. Although over-tweeting is something he proclaims he doesn’t do, nor does he schedule his tweets. I want someone to tell me how an average of 180 tweets per day, yes that is 15 per hour, is NOT over tweeting. And, if someone has a family, a job, a life, how does one find the time to maintain this kind of average?

Then, of course, the conversation went to where it always goes, it turned to the number of followers! Why does it always have to come back to the lowest common denominator — the number of followers? Folks it’s not about the sheer numbers! It’s really not hard to get numbers, but connecting with the right people can be a challenge, but it is the key to unlocking twitter’s real value.

It really is about the conversations! How does anyone profess to have conversations with 30,000+ people? There is so much value to be extracted from twitter usage that is not reliant on huge numbers, but on connecting with those who can offer a valuable exchange. If you follow the right people, there’s undeniable value in that. So many people miss this in their discussions about twitter. So many of you think more is better, but as most of us travel along the path to reach our twitter goals, more often just means more “noise”.

My final challenge to the evening’s discussion was“ why, oh why, oh why do we keep focusing on the tactic? Why are we so hypnotized by the shiny object?

There were some great people there and I’m happy to have met many of them. I will continue to follow @iconic88 and @iggypintado and a few of the people in the video below, but I will also be sure to ask them, why we can’t we elevate our discussion as to how twitter as a tool (‘cause that’s all it is folks) can help us to meet our larger communications, marketing, education, personal development goals, strategies and objectives?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Question of the day:

What would make you follow someone with a high follow cost?

Social media and Marketing – When to jump in, creating brand ambassadors and the power of four…

Linda Johannesson — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:10:34 +0000

Robert Scoble, blogger and entrepreneur discusses how ideas spread. The public session was part of the Stanford GSB marketing course, the Power of Social Technology.

While his presentation style is undeniably understated, his observations and insights are powerful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Question of the day:

In the last bit of the video he refers to an intimate dinner conversation, if shared with the right four people, you could change the world.

Who would you like seated at your table?