The Global Social Media Network

Schiel Nativity, “The Little Drummer Boy”, Bing and Bowie

Happy Holidays! For over 45 years our family’s nativity set has been the centerpiece of our Holiday Season. The manger was made from a fallen cottonwood tree which was located at The Cottonwood Inn in Millbrook , NY, the place where my parents had their wedding reception back in 1963. The Hummel collection spans numerous years with cast of characters from both biblical times and the present. I felt that theDavid Bowie/Bing Crosby rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy” would be the perfect complement to the slide show. Schiel Nativity, The Little Drummer Boy, Bowie and Bing

Enjoy!

Really appreciate having Whrrl by my side at this event…this was an amazing afternoon!

Kelly Sonora posted an article MatchACollege.com (”Your Guide to the Best Accredited Online Degree Programs”) entitled

50 Awesome Online Lectures for Social Media Masters.

She brought it to my attention in case readers would find it interesting. I know I did.

Thanks Kelly for allowing this to be reposted here.

She writes:

Social media addicts and the developers, designers and business managers who run social media sites have totally revolutionized the way the rest of us get our news, network, promote our businesses, and connect with (and meet) friends. But even if you think you’re a social media smarty-pants, check out this list of 50 awesome online lectures dealing with social psychology, member-driven community structure, identity, etiquette, and marketing.

General

These general guides deal with Facebook hacks, page views, social media careers, and more.

1. Finding High Quality Content in Social Media: Carlos Castillo from Yahoo! Research Barcelona shares tips on digging through social media sites to find quality information and items.
2. A Large-Scale Study of MySpace: Observations and Implications of Online Social Networks: Here you’ll learn about spam, online deception and MySpace.
3. Facebook Pages and Media Hacks: This podcast shares hacks for building up your Facebook profile.
4. The Facebook Effect: This short video considers how Facebook has evolved to compete with MySpace and offer so many marketing and networking tools.
5. Social Media in Plain English: This video offers up a metaphor for the birth of social media, especially social bookmarking sites.
6. A Career in Social Media: Find out what it’s like to work in social media as an editor, blogger and consultant.
7. Politics and Social Media: This presentation from professionals from the University of Washington, Seattle Times and Microsoft Research explores the relationship between social media and politics.
8. What makes a social media expert an expert?: Find out what it takes to become a real social media expert here.
9. Even Poor Kids are Social Network Savvy: Read the transcript or listen to the podcast to learn how social media has reached all demographics and helps educate children on technology.
10. 2009 Social Media Predictions: See if you agree with what this man has to say about the new trends for 2009 in social media.

Marketing and Analysis

Learn all about the marketing techniques and data that drive social media promotion and profit.

1. Graph Mining Techniques for Social Media Analysis: Mary McGlohon from Carnegie Mellon University explains the purpose of and basic techniques for graph mining for social media.
2. How to Create a Social Media Strategy: Here you’ll learn about developing a smart strategy for standing out online.
3. World Wide Rave: David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR discusses new trends in digital marketing and consumer generated media.
4. PubCon South: What’s Happening with Social Media and Business?: Discover how businesses are figuring out how to use social media for marketing.
5. Social Media Marketing: This Q&A session is all about marketing trends and techniques.
6. How to Create a Buzz Using Social Media Tools: This intense video shares tips for cutting through the noise, staying relevant and staying competitive in the overpopulated social media universe.
7. Social Media Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Video Sharing: Learn about these social media marketing platforms.
8. New Rules of Marketing: Learn about cause marketing, basic PR and social media marketing in this podcast.
9. Social Media Marketing Strategies with Search Engine Optimization: Get SEO tips for boosting page views and more.
10. Digital Podcast 45: How to Make Social Networking Profitable: Help your company profit from all your social media marketing and networking.

Networking

Here you’ll find lectures that share tips for networking and remaining competitive.

1. The Secret of Social Media Success: Here you’ll learn how to develop and achieve your social media goals.
2. Is Social Media in YOUR Company’s DNA?: This podcast explains why social media is so valuable to companies.
3. Networking with Social Media and Strategies that Generate Leads: Learn about the best networking strategies for social media.
4. Capitalize on Social Media: Get tips for bolstering your reputation and promoting yourself with social media.
5. Second Life and Social Media: Networking Goldmine or Time Sink?: Discover whether or not Second Life is actually worth it for networking.
6. Facebook Social Media Optimization: Learn how to use Facebook for promotion and networking.
7. Social Networking Tools Simplified: Discover which social networking tools are most worth your time.
8. Social Networking + Social Media + Social Bookmarking = Traffic: Get more traffic by implementing these online networking techniques.
9. Social Networking and the Value of User Communities for Technical Communicators: This podcast looks at social networking generally, and as a tool that can help technical communicators connect with customers.
10. Social Media 101 – Intro to 8 Key Tips to Get Noticed Among the Noise: This series of videos helps you figure out how to find your niche and get your message out to the world.

Structure, Etiquette and Identity

Discover the fundamental building blocks of social media in these lectures, including social theory, identity perception, projection, basic structure and more.

1. Wikipedia Self-Governance in Action: Motivating the Policy Lens: Learn about Wikipedia’s social structure in this lecture.
2. Space Planning for Online Community: This Microsoft project goes over strategies and principles for organizing communities online.
3. What elements of an online social networking profile predict target-rater agreement in personality?: Consider how profiles and online identities attract each other online and in social history.
4. WhoAmI — A Web 2.0 Platform for Faceted Identity Management through Aggregation of Social Media: This 10-minute lecture explores how identity is created and shared through social media.
5. Social dimension of social media: This lecturer wonders why there is little to no relationship structure in social media.
6. Will Monetization Models for Social Media Ever Come?: These professionals wonder why sites like YouTube and Twitter still haven’t figured out a way to make money.
7. What’s New in Social Media?: This video highlights what’s new in social news and bookmarking sites, as well as new trends in social media company structure.
8. Utilize Social Media But Don’t Forget to Manage It: Lisa Buyer of The Buyer Group shares tips on staying organized and effective while using social media.
9. Built for Conversation: The interaction of design of social media: This hour-length video argues that social media networks “can only be effectively guided by means of a researched and learned examination of social psychology.”
10. Social Networks 3.0: LinkedIn is used as a model example for how social networks continue to evolve, in terms of structure, features and managing identity.
11. How to Build a Community Website: This technical guide will help you create a member-driven website.

Media Trends

Learn how some social media outlets and trends are starting to outshine traditional media sources.

1. Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia on the Future Brand Building with Consumer Media: “The Wikipedia guy” Jimmy Wales talks about the future of consumer-generated media.
2. Exploring Social Media Scenarios for the Television: Noor Ali-Hasan from Microsoft explores the interactivity trends prevalent online and how they can be adjusted for TV.
3. Finding Influencers and Consumer Insights in the Blogosphere: Discover who creates trends in the blogosphere.
4. Using Blogs to Provide Context for News Articles: Continue the debate about the relationship between blogs and traditional news media.
5. The moment when social media became the news: This lecturer discusses how social media is now considered a primary news source, in some cases.
6. Amsterdam plane crash: Twitter, social media and the anatomy of disaster: As Twitter users continue to break news faster than the traditional media, consider the pros and cons of democratic news sharing.
7. Social Media and the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election: Take a look at how social media impacted the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
8. Science and Social Media: Nancy Shute from U.S. News and World Report encourages science writers to use Twitter and other social media outlets.
9. Twitter a Hot Topic and mb’s ‘Journalists and Social Media’ Panel: Mediabistro.com’s panel includes reporters and professionals from NPR, BusinessWeek.com, PressThink, The Daily Beast and others, all of whom came together to talk about why social media is important for journalists.

I got into a minor accident which has rendered my vehicle temporarily inoperable.

This has prevented me from scoping out meetup points for The Los Angeles Hikers and Photographers Meetup Group which I’ve organized over the past year. The group has built some momentum over time, growing in size after each hike and I didn’t want to allow the accident to slow that momentum down.

After reading Seth Godin’s article “Ignore your Critics”,  I asked myself:

“What can I do so that the group can continue its hikes and grow as a group without continually relying on my lead?”

It was simple.

Seth’s article asked us to “delight these people”.

So, I empowered them.

I emailed the group asking if there was anyone interested in an Assistant Organizer position so that way the responsibility of organizing or finding hiking locations never had to continuously fall on a single member of the group. Since hiking locations around Los Angeles are at times hard to get to, having Assitant Organizers in those locations makes it easier from the to get to and describe the Meetup point and location.  It’s no coincidence that the people who wanted to become Assistant Organizers were not only delighted to do so but were among the most active and passionate members of the group.

In this case, I believe, what delighted the “sneezers” most, was the opportunity for them to become an active part in the growth of the group.

The question I’ve been getting lately and the one that seems to be floating around circles of people who aren’t involved with Social Media but want to get in is, “What’s it all for?”. Here is my reply.

11 Reasons Why I Use Social Media

11. Helps me to be seen as resourceful

10. Current content maintains my visibility throughout the Web without having to pay for sponsored links or ads

9. It generates a “buzz” about my business

8. Connects me with my audience at an emotional level

7. When I serve my customers well, they’re more likely to pass my name on to others

6. Establishes my business identity

5. Connects me with people in places I currently don’t have access to

4. Helps future clients get to know me better as a business professional and as a person

3. Connects me with businesses whose services I may need

2. Helps me to understand who my customers are

………….and the number one reason Why I Use Social Media is……..

1. Builds trust between me and my customer

Trust is the new currency.