Author Archives: Chris Hambly

About Chris Hambly

He understands the nuts & bolts of websites, search engines and social media platforms and has a massive network of his own which he uses generously to support social media in the UK. He integrates noobes, old-hands, geeks, marketers, educators, PR, HR, musicians & artists with consummate ease working from his business in Marlow just outside London where he supports colleges offering online education and businesses breaking into social media.

Do You Sound Clouds?

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This is not a particularly long post, no, it’s just a wee note to let you know that we’ve got a Sound Cloud account.

I signed up to use the system for our online-radio (podcast) and the good people over at the cloud upgraded us (Ben Fawkes), which is amazingly nice of them. Ben is on twitter here twitter.com/benfawkes

So I’ve not uploaded anything yet, I’ve not produced any content, I’m still waiting to program the activity into my schedule, but I feel it is close.

I’d be interested to hear if you use Sound Cloud? – even as a consumer or content producer, how do you use the service? Feel free to post up your SoundCloud link.

 

On-Line Radio

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So after much deliberation, over a long period of time, I’ve made a decision to start a Social Media Mafia Radio Show!

You what?

Well yes, an on-line radio show with me hosting it. The show will likely be available to be streamed on-line and also available as a download, for playing in portable devices.

I used to run a show many years ago which featured great music, interviews, opinion and some featured guest slots.

One thing for sure it will be a roller coaster ride and you can well imagine what fun we can have with the Social Media Mafia brand itself.

The details need to be worked out, which is where you come in.

So, what sort of things would you like to listen to on such a show? Some of the questions at this point include:

  • how long?
  • what content?
  • what guests?
  • what news?
  • what format?
  • how frequent?
  • what music?

If you have some thoughts please stick them in the comment section below so we can get our heads together.

Social Media Do’s and Don’ts

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social media dos and don'ts

As the title suggests this post is an attempt to crowd source some ideas regarding social media Dos and Don’ts.

I could sit and ponder based on years of experience, I could also trawl the Internet and find more than thousands of case studies. But no, here I am interested in what YOU think?

I am interested in what you think because I know you will have experience, you will have come across things that have worked first hand, or second, or third and you will have also come across things which have failed miserably.

It is your opinion I value, and as a Family member I know you like to give and share your experience.

Essentially then this is another Family mission, I want you to state what you feel are your top 10 Do’s and Don’t regarding social media.

To get us started I am using the wonderful resource of Not Rules Tools from Ogilvy One.

Do

  • Tailor what you do to the specific social networking site.
  • Communicate with users in ways that they anticipate, expect and appreciate.
  • Provide incentives for users to disseminate your message.
  • Remember that the user doesn’t have to interact with you, so provide a compelling reason to do so in their language and their world.
  • Remember that people social network to have fun!

Don’t

  • Invest a huge amount of money without a business objective or metrics plan.
  • Try to recreate functionality that already exists that people are already using.
  • Force people to enter or offer too much information in order to network with you.
  • Drop the ball on keeping in touch with your users.
  • Fail to give them credit for their ideas.

I think you’ll agree a pretty darn fine kick-off point.

So, over to you, what would be your Top 10 Social Media Dos and Don’ts?

 

Social Media in Business 2011

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Social Media in Business

So our friends at Social Media in Business are ramping up for an autumn conference in London. One of the most important things with events of this nature is ensuring they absolutely offer a programme that educates the audience, or the participants, should I say.

The SMiB tag line is “educating businesses in how to use social media” and in fact the core value really is education in the true sense of the word. The SMiB background is academic, workshop based and always interactive. The two previous conferences, 2009, 2010 have encouraged this, and the team desire to ramp this up further for 2011. It’s not the type of environment where agencies are encouraged to “pimp”, it’s the type of environment where transparent open knowledge sharing is encouraged.

Naturally all event organisers like to touch on what is relevant, what is hot, what is now. This doesn’t always happen of course and sometimes many event companies do miss the mark by quite a wide margin. Which is why SMiB are asking you for your thoughts on facebook, crowd-sourcing if you like.

Your Mission

As a practitioner of social media, a Family member, a user, an addict, a business, a potential attendee, what would YOU like to get out of the next conference? What subject? What format and even perhaps who? Doesn’t matter if you do not plan on attending or can’t, you opinion is what I am after.

What do you say?

What Would You Do?

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cornish adventure centre

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we can get more people involved with more things that touch the Social Media Mafia. It’s always been one of my aims, to be as inclusive as possible, to facilitate a community that actually “does stuff”. I think we’ve done that time and time again with various events over the years, what with all the unconfrences we’ve held. But, now, I’m thinking more about differing ways to get the community involved on-line.

When I started the Social Media Mafia many years ago I used to give the community (or, The Family, as it is affectionately known) a mission every now and then. Often this mission would take the form of “Digg” this page (remember that service?) or pop along and leave a comment here or there. In actual fact I think this type of activity was pretty well received and enjoyed by a large percentage of The Family, certainly judging from the responses each time.

So, yes, I really do believe a community does actually want to take part, to get involved and to “do stuff”.  So with this in mind I will endeavour to ask the community for their thoughts on real-life businesses we have links with.

Some friends of The Family have a Cornish Adventure Centre, which is a water-sports activity centre located on the south coast of Cornwall, UK. Elemental UK offer a whole variety of activities for kids and adults alike, ranging from kayaking to Sailing. They have a website which outlines the various water-sports in cornwall they offer and they also have a recently constructed facebook page that they intend to use to build a digital community.

YOUR MISSION

Your mission as a family member (or general reader of this blog) is to offer advise below as a comment in how they could adopt social media to aid them in building a community, what could do they with their facebook page, how could they use twitter? They do not have a budget for this so be realistic in your suggestions (can’t have people parachuting down for PR stunts).

Over to you, don’t be overly strategic, just plain practical ideas they could do.

 

Social CRM

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I’ve not had a look at the tool this video is discussing, but I wanted to post it here as it is a really good example of what a business really does need in terms of Social CRM. If it does what it says it can do, in such a simple, easy and streamlined fashion this is smart stuff for any company.

Social Media Mafia Blogging Policy

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We have a blogging policy document which indicates what a blogger on the Social Media Mafia website may or may not do.

Having read through countless blogging and social media policies (no really we did) we decided to take a leaf out of the book of Hill & Knowlton. Rather than re-invent the wheel we have adapted their policy for our own needs and published it below, we therefore extend our gratitude to Hill & Knowlton.

Any person who becomes a blogger for SMM must be informed of the following:

    • Most weblogs publish RSS feeds that others can subscribe to, so remember that others, including your colleagues, may be actively reading what you write.
    • Think of what you say in your weblog in the same way as statements you might make to the media, or emails you might send to people you don’t know. If you wouldn’t include it in those, don’t post it on your weblog.
    • Never disclose any information – including textual or visual material – that is confidential or proprietary to Social Media Mafia, Audana Ltd or any related company brand, or any third party that has disclosed information to you (e.g.clients, journalists, suppliers, etc.).
    • Talking about our revenue, future plans, will get you in legal trouble, even if it is just your own personal view, and whether or not you directly identify yourself as an employee/affiliate of SMM or Audana Ltd.
    • You may not sell any product or service that would compete with any of our company’s products or services without permission in writing from the CEO. This includes, but is not limited to events, training, books, products, and freelance writing. If in doubt ask!
    • You should make it clear that the views you express are yours alone.

    In addition, we include some advice on best practice:

    • Link, link, link – The web is all about links. When you find something interesting and relevant, link to it. You’ll be helping your readers, and you’ll generate links back to your blog.
    • Be on topic – keep your content themed around social media mafia content. Straying into life-style areas is OK, it presents you as human, but always look for ways to make it fit contextually with our site. And remember that your blog is a public place so try to avoid embarrassing your readers or others.
    • Check your facts – Even though your blog postings will be primarily made up of personal opinion, do your research well and check that your facts are accurate. Make sure you have permission to post any copyrighted items (e.g. images) to your blog, and be careful about posting or linking to items that may contain viruses.
    • Write about what you know – The best way to be interesting is to write about what you know. If you have a deep understanding of something, talk about the challenges and issues around it. Try not to rant about things you don’t understand, as you’re more likely to get embarrassed by a real expert.
    • Quality matters – Use a spell-checker and keep things clear and concise.

    Thanks for your understanding.