The last post here looked at why it is important to engage in the existing communities which have been built around your industry or context. Community outreach should be the starting point for brands getting into social media before they begin building their own communities on social networks as communication channels with the customer.

Some more research has come out over the last few weeks, looking at why people visit or engage on a brand’s Facebook page. and again here . Facebook is a personal network. But even on a personal level, the interaction isn’t as widespread as the overall numbers and posts suggest. The average person has around 130 friends on Facebook . I know many Gen Y-ers have thousands but this is more of  a product of collecting ‘weak ties’ over time at school and college. Sure you can acquire meaningless ties with thousands of people over time but they aren’t what you would call engaged. So, ask yourself…of my 100-200 friends that you actually know in real life, how many do you chat to, post to, interact with on a daily basis? 1? 2? I bet no more than 5. So, that’s 5 people of your close friends!! What chance to brands have of getting people to actually talk to them? Especially if they buy into the “build it and they will come” myth.There are a few exceptions such as sports teams, celebs, bands etc but even then I think it’s a case of fans joining but actually engaging? And by that I mean offering useful product or service feedback and ideas…not a chance. Why?  Its still far too early for all brands to understand the space.

Many social media success stories are still old, broadcast media dressed up as social (Old Spice). The ones that have worked on an operational level are the innovators like Dell, Starbucks, or the ones using it provide customer service and integrating it into the enterprise.

Most are still setting up presences to then do exactly what they have done for years. The opportunities ARE most definitely there in social for brands, but you’ve got to look deeper than the current biggest, personal network to generate the kind of interaction and intelligence to form meaningful business decisions.

Last week I spoke at the social media and sports summit in Nottingham organized by the UK Sports Network. The name of the half day conference was ‘Breaking down the barriers’ as many in the UK sports industry are still tentatively feeling their way into social media. Keeping with the same theme, here are five of the barriers I have encountered when talking with sports clubs, but they apply to any organizations that are new to social media.

1. Too much hype

It is getting very hard to ignore the social media bandwagon. Each day brands and organizations are being bombarded with stats showing that Facebook now has more users than there are stars in the sky, businesses are making millions of pounds through Twitter and more people are watching YouTube than TV. The result has been many organizations jumping on the bandwagon without doing the necessary planning to work out how social media can help the overall business . It is easy to see the opportunities with social media and sales and marketing teams are always going to jump on these, but taking a step back, developing a clear strategy for social to: help sell more stuff, create better dialogue with the customers or improve the service will be far more valuable in the long run.

2. Social media is mislabeled

The boss still thinks social media is something his teenage daughter wastes her time on when she should be studying! Sound familiar? I think social media is currently mislabeled and (hopefully) will eventually become another channel that businesses use to connect with their customers. Businesses need agencies and consultants to come to them with business or communication strategies and programs that use social technologies to deliver better customer experiences, not social media campaigns. While it is seen as an independent program, it will be treated with skepticism by those who haven’t grown up with the new social tools.

3. Shiny object syndrome

This ties in the with hype problem. All we hear from the ‘mainstream media’ is the tools – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and the phenomenal growth they are enjoying. This leads to organisations and brands focusing on developing strategies based around the technology, when they might not be the most effective channel to the customer. Organisations need to do their research on their customers and find out which networks their customers use, how they use them, what content they like producing and sharing and who is influential. Once they have this knowledge and have done some internal planning on what resources they have, then they can choose the technology platform(s) which best suit their needs. Also, be wary about marrying your communications to one channel. As we have seen with MySpace, Bebo and Friendster, the network of the moment can quickly shed users or change focus.

4. Culture

The biggest barrier to adoption at the moment is for businesses to become more social.  For centuries, business has been used to communications being a one way street and companies have constructed their internal processes accordingly. Successful social media adoption means a cultural shift away from controlling messages and staff communications and letting go of some of the notions that shaped the media landscape – brand identity, press releases, corporate policies. Yes, it sounds scary and yes, new processes and technology need to be used to help it scale but organizations need to buy in to the reality that customers are going to dictate how and what they want to buy and the type of service that is necessary for them to become a brand advocate and spread positive WOM. Once that sinks in, then social needs to be integrated from the top down or bottom up (depending where the spark happens!).

5. Confusion over measurement

There are no universal metrics for measuring social media yet, and there might never be. Measurement of social programs has to be in context to the individual business, it is not as simple as impressions and clicks. What equals success for one company might not for the next and that makes universal metrics very hard to establish. However, if you have done your planning and know what your business objectives (sales, foster dialogue, increase customer engagement, gain market intelligence) are, then you can track these metrics and work out what equals success for your business.

There also seems to be confusion over ROI. This could be a post in itself, but if you are confused about ROI of social media then check out this presentation by Olivier Blanchard. He explains it better than I ever could!

What have I missed? What other barriers have you experienced to social media adoption? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

This is a guest post by Anthony Alsop. Anthony is a blogger and consultant at sportspiel.com.au. He has worked previously in both the IT and Sport sectors. Anthony is from Melbourne, Australia was was recently named the sporting capital of the world and he has consulted with sporting organisations both in Australia and in the United States. You can find him on Twitter @anthonyalsop or via email anthony@sportspiel.com.au

Since social media started to gain popularity in sports around 2008, we have seen the same question asked to leagues and teams “Do you have a social media policy for your players?”.  Do teams tell players what they can and can’t tweet?  Until now, we weren’t really sure.

There  has been players fined for criticising the catering of training camp, and last years NBA and NFL guidelines on when players can tweet, but never have we seen a policy on what to tweet.  Taken from this Mashable article, New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis tells us how the Jets handle it with their players:

There are certain things both the NFL and the Jets try and prep you on with how to use Twitter.  Some people still say whatever they want and that gets you in trouble sometimes … There’s also some people just don’t want to interact with fans and at first I wasn’t even on Twitter.  But I started seeing how it was progressing and people were showing it to me so I got into it.  I was missing out.

Thanks to John Shumate @JSHU06 we found out one way the Jets try to implement a policy with their players.

It’s interesting to note that their first point is “Verify Your Account”, as their own star quarterback Mark Sanchez is on Twitter, and he has not been verified. It’s easier said than done to get an account verified as Twitter are notoriously picky as to who they verify and there is no public knowledge as to how they truly give out verified accounts.

With 9 boxes on the wall and titles like “Do It”, “Do Not”, “Great Tweets” and others, the Jets are laying out simple and effective guidelines for their players to follow.

What do you think they might be saying?

Each day, more and more sports teams, organizations and athletes are launching social media programs, joining social networks and starting to jump on the social media bandwagon. The reasons are obvious – Their fans have shifted their media habits towards social platforms over official websites and want greater interaction with their team. The social tools allow a greater level of interaction and richer user experience and there is measurable commercial value to be realized by being active.

However, just setting up a Facebook Fan Page or Twitter account without an understanding of the rules of social engagement can result in missed opportunities or worse, the alienation and general pissing off of the people you want to engage with. So with that in mind, here are five, broad, best practices to kick things off.

1. Don’t be scared!

The main barrier seems to be a fear that getting into social media will open up a wave of regular and uncalled for criticism by the fans. In the same way that the fans vent, with furious anger, each time the team loses down the pub, on the forums and phone ins, this will now happen tenfold on Facebook or Twitter. Truth is, it probably will…for a while! Your fans love your team, so when they lose they aren’t rational but most of them are doing it because they care, with all their body parts they care and this should be embraced. Sure, there are the ones who will be unnecessarily negative, but with the correct engagement plan, they can be minimised and your social channel can become a valuable area to engage. Alongside the abuse will be valid points on how to improve the service at the game, the outlets in the ground and the customer service.

A clever dude (Aristotle) once said – “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” If you aren’t involved in these conversations, it doesn’t mean they won’t be happening. You can’t control the community anymore but you can manage, learn and use the insights from it. Plus, it won’t all be negative!

2. Dedicate the resources.

Social isn’t as expensive as other media in terms of creation…but the cost is in the time your staff have to dedicate to do it properly. There really isn’t any hiding from this. You will get out what you put in and the more of your staff (and that includes the players) that you can get interacting with the customers in a way that is valuable to them…then the returns can be exponential. Hire a £20,000 per year intern and you will get what you pay for. In the same way that most of your staff have email and a telephone, social can become another communication tool for them to provide a better service to the fans.

3. Do your research

You know your customers (or you should do!) and what they want based on historical research. You need to do the same in social. This means spending time in the communities that already exist and listening to what works, what doesn’t, who’s influential, what media they like to consume. There is also software (free and paid) which can help with this and will give you a full picture of the type of tactics and the tools you need to be successful when you start to engage.

4. Integrate social with your other channels

Social isn’t a silver bullet. It needs to work in conjunction with your other media channels, online and offline. Your website is your official online home and will still be the place to convert sales and to make official statements but the conversations, UGC  and interaction will happen off site (for now). Make sure your social presences are designed properly, the content is engaging and integrates with the official site and that there are clear calls to action on your other marketing materials and programs.

5. View the engagement as your marketing and customer service

Your fans (or customers) are already active on the social web on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs or the multitude of forums and unofficial fan sites. By engaging with them on these platforms and your own official channels in the correct way, you can turbo charge your marketing, customer service and research programs. The fans are talking and exchanging opinions and ideas about your brand on a regular basis whether you are there or not. You can use these channels as a cost effective way to listen, learn and engage with them.

Ash Read is the co-founder of FundSport.com and a consultant here at Spearfish Labs. These roles allow Ash to combine his passions for social media and the development of sports at the grassroots level. You can follow Ash on Twitter at @ashread14

David Haye has the world at his feet. For those of you who may not know Haye is the WBA Heavyweight Champion of the World, and last month he made his first defence of his title, beating John Ruiz in style with a 9^th round stoppage.

David Haye doesn’t struggle to get coverage and let’s be honest, he’s doing just fine without social media, but, I feel if Haye was to utilise the tools at his disposal he could become one of the world’s biggest sports stars.

Online presence.

If you take a look at Haye’s official website you’ll notice that under the Hayemaker videos section only one of the six videos shows highlights of Haye’s boxing, the others are interviews on chat shows and TV appearances – to me this highlights that Haye and his team want to show his personality to the fans.

Another thing you’ll notice on the site is social media links to Haye’s Twitter, Facebook and MySpace pages, this shows he’s interested and keen to utilise social media. I follow Haye on both Twitter and Facebook, and his updates tend to come mainly when he has an upcoming fight and for me aren’t frequent enough.

Haye has nearly 25,000 followers on Twitter and around 72,000 fans on Facebook – a combined reach of nearly 100,000, without posting much content and little interaction.

How can Haye better utilise social media?

Here are my suggestions for Haye on how to utilise social media to grow his fan base and the Hayemaker brand.

Blog: Include a blog section on hayemaker.com, this would allow Haye to keep fans up to date with what he’s doing and what’s going on behind the scenes. A blog doesn’t have to be written either; Haye is comfortable and confident in front of a camera so my suggestion would be to video blog for fans once or twice a week

The video blog would provide great content and give fans a reason to visit Hayemaker.com, it would also increase website traffic and fan engagement, which in return could increase merchandise sales, ticket sales and pay per view subscriptions in future fights. He could even open up an “Ask the Hayemaker” section where fans could use email, Twitter and Facebook to send questions to Haye and he will answer selected ones in his blog.

Live streaming: When training for his next fight I’d like to see Haye utilise live streaming to give fans a piece of the action during training, live streaming nowadays couldn’t be easier with tools like Ustream and Livestream.

Obviously there will be sections of training that Haye won’t want to broadcast to the world, but showing fans a bit of pad work would be provide them with an awesome insight.

Twitter: Haye mainly uses Twitter in the build up to his fights, I’d like to see him update on a more regular basis, and posting updates a few times a day to keep fans engaged even when he doesn’t have a fight coming up. It would also be great to see Haye posting behind the scenes images and video to Twitter, fans love multimedia content and this type of content usually sparks the most conversation.

Facebook: Again I’d like to see Haye posting updates more regularly on Facebook. The official David Haye Facebook page is an extension of his brand and a great opportunity to build up a vibrant community. However, to build up a real community he needs post relevant and compelling content on a more regular basis.

I’d also add a custom lading tab to his Facebook page, something to really make it clear that this is his official page – something the New York Jets and New Jersey Nets do well. A custom landing tab would provide Haye with a great opportunity to present visitors with engaging content and grab their attention as soon as they arrive on his page.

Conclusion.

The heavyweight boxing world has been crying out for an exciting, charismatic fighter for years and Haye is just that, he has a massive opportunity to become one of the world’s most well known fighters, and social media can help him along the way.

The tools and ideas mentioned above are just scraping the surface of what can be done with social media and I truly feel that with the right strategies and content Haye could become one of the world’s most popular sporting figures.

Utilising social media won’t only help Haye to grow his personal brand, it would also help to grow the Hayemaker Boxing/Hayemaker Promotions brands too, and give him the platform to promote any up and coming Hayemaker fighters, such as George Groves.

What do you think about David Haye? Would you like to see him utilizing social media? And how do you think other boxers could utilise social media?

Taking a break from the usual social media round up, this week we are having a look at six posts on our favourite topic – social media and sport. Sport is an inherently social activity and there is now a unique opportunity for teams, organizations and the athletes themselves to connect to their fans, and we are starting to see some good examples of that.

1. Why Teams Should Get Involved With Social Media – Jason Peck

A good, concise argument for why and how sports teams should be on the social web. The opportunity is there for teams who want to hear what there fans think, what they want, how their experience can be improved and this should be the first stage for all social media entrants. Put your customers (in this case, fans) at the centre of your strategy and you will be on the right track!

2. 5 Social Media Lessons the NBA Can Teach Businesses- Jalen Rose

Some organisatons are doing social well, very well! The NBA are one of those and ex player and now ESPN analyst, Jalen Rose has a look at how the corporate world could do well to use similar strategies and tactics with their customers.

3. Professional Athletes on Twitter

OK – not a post at all, but a site which shows, by sport, which athletes are active on Twitter. (I didn’t realize there was a Lingerie Football League , and will now research it thoroughly… especially as so many players seem to be on Twitter!)

4. Interview: Why Manchester City Get Social Media – Ash Read

While many UK sports teams haven’t embraced social media as a way to bring the fans closer to the club, a few have and Manchester City are probably the ones with the most coherent strategy. This interview is a useful window into how a team should focus their activity. Check it out.

5. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) wins via Social Media – Alex Lopez

Once critisised for ‘not getting it’, the UFC, led by their President Dana White are one of the more active organizations on the social web. As the post says, they have made themselves and the fighters more accessible to fans on a personal basis than any other sport.

6. Sports teams, leagues tap SAS Analytics to boost profits – Winnie Palaran

Interesting one to end with as we are now seeing sports teams use social media monitoring effectively. This post looks at how the San Francisco 49ers are using SAS Analytics to listen to their fans who are unhappy, thinking about not renewing season tickets, have ideas on how to improve the game experience etc. By harnessing those insights, the club is putting themselves at a competitive advantage over teams not actively listening and integrating.

Have a good weekend.

The last seven days have been quite busy in social media. Twitter announced their first advertising play, the UK had its first live election debate which was covered furiously online and all aircraft have been grounded for two days over Britain thanks to Icelandic Volcanic ash. Here are six posts with only one mention of one of those stories!

1. 12 Social Media Marketing Myths – Pamela H Dyer

The ‘social media penny’ is dropping for more and more brands and while in many cases, the executive suite are getting to grips with it, there are still a multitude of naysayers and social media myths flying around. This post looks to addess some of the more popular ones such as, ‘social media is free’, ‘is a fad’ and ‘can’t be measured.

2. TV Viewing’s Shift to the Web [STATS]- Jolie O’Dell

This one from from Jolie O’Dell at Mashable looks at a study of 1,000 US consumers and their TV viewing habits. There is a shift in motion away from the TV and towards watching the same content online. The most telling stat is that 43% had considered cancelling or had cancelled their cable service as a result of the availablilty of online TV content.

3. The Key to Social Media Success is Just 2 Letters – Jay Baer

Probably the winner this week is this one by Jay Baer, an excellent post on how social media programs should focus on being useful to the audience first and not chase the sale. As he points out, there is only two letters difference between ‘helping’ and ‘selling’ but in reality they are a world apart. Good stuff, check it out.

4. 10 Essential Rules for Brands in Social Media – Taddy Hall

We are going for numbers based posts this week! This is a nice checklist of best practices for any brands about to get stuck in to social media. Not exhaustive or necessarily right for every brand, but a useful set of rules to start the planning process.

5. How Companies Should Approach the New Twitter Advertising Model – Dallas Lawrence

Couldn’t really leave this one out, even though everyone is probably aware by now! This week Twitter moved into the paid advertising space with select brands now able to pay for their sponsored tweet to appear at the top of the Twitter search results. This post looks at how brands should approach the new opportunities…which is very different to display, paid or push marketing.

6. Don’t Make Social Media Another Silo – Daan Jansonius

Social Media is most successful when it permeates through an entire organization and isn’t lumped in the marketing, PR or communication departments as a silo. This post looks at how social media needs to be integrated into departments, employees and internal communications to provide the most value.

OK, that’s it for this week. Have a good weekend and whatever you do, do it safely!

This popped up in my Twitter stream yesterday via @Christinekorda , ‘A list of the 10 most bizarre social networks’ and I think it highlights, if we didn’t already know, how niche and contextual the social web is. This is extremely important to remember for brands looking to engage with potential customers.

It is so easy to focus on the latest ‘shiny tool’ or the biggest network, as we are constantly being bombarded with eye watering usage stats that lead to a ‘everyone else is doing it, so we must’ mindset, when the sensible strategy should be ‘a lot of my customers are doing it, so we must’. Yes, half the universe is on Facebook and however many billion tweets per month are about brands (exaggerating for effect!), and these shouldn’t be ignored but the challenge as a marketer is to figure out what is the best community for your customers,  where  can we have the most impact, what will provide the best context for your product.

If you sell mustache combs then wouldn’t http://www.stachepassions.com/ be better than a Facebook group?

If you are launching a new vampire show (and that is every network and channel in the known World right now) then maybe http://vampirefreaks.com/ would be better than MySpace?

If you have a product aimed at Christians then you should have a presence on http://lineforheaven.com/

Of course, it shouldn’t be mutually exclusive and presences with the major social networks won’t do you any harm, but some cost benefit analysis on where you will get the most value for your time is a major factor for SME’s. The value in your marketing efforts are going to be diluted big time if you are just part of the noise and unless you have a solid value proposition and offering, it would be naive to assume that customers will come and seek you out on Facebook or start enaging with you on Twitter.

There are tools (free and paid) to help you find where the fish are, and who the fish are. This should be the corner stone of any social media strategy and implementation plan, otherwise you run the risk of ‘fondling the hammer’ as Jeremiah Owyang put it. Some proper research and social profiling of your customers online behavior will be worth its weight in gold when it comes to ROI time…

Oh yeah, and once you have found where to fish, please don’t dynamite fish…Spearfishing is so much better!

Sports teams and athletes are at an enormous advantage to corporate or consumer brands. They have a huge amount of content, they have an exisiting, passionate offline community who want their rpoduct. On top of that, sports fans are one of the most brand loyal groups of people I can think of and sport itself is inherently social. It brings people together around the game itself, in bars and pubs, in people’s homes…and online can help augment the game experience by bringing the fans into the inner workings of the clubs on a daily basis.

A sports team’s product isn’t just the game each week that the fans will pay to come and watch and broadcasters will pay to distribute. Fans want interaction with the team and players and not through the traditional methods of the press and staged TV interviews. In the UK, Football is going through a rough time financially and we may see more clubs going the same way Portsmouth and Crystal Palace have recently -  into administration. I am not saying for a minute that a social media program will solve these structural problems, far from it, but it can keep the fans,  from feeling like the clubs don’t care about them and keep them coming through the turnstyles or buying their favourite players shirt – wanting to stay loyal, wanting to be brand advocates. Long term, that’s surely the game.

A team’s ‘customers’ want to be as close as they possibly can to the club and the players…this is in stark contrast to consumer brands. If you sell mobile phones, insurance or detergent, do your customers really want to be your friend? They will take any freebies or decent offers but its no small ask to keep them engaged on a regular basis and enjoying every bit of content, they just aren’t that interested. Not so in sport.

So, what can a club or team do to harness this opportunity?

Make sure you have a ‘fan engagement’ strategy – This is different to an online marketing and PR strategy. It needs to provide an experience the fans can’t get through traditional channels.

Have at least one community where conversations can take place – An interactive area of the clubs website,  An official Facebook fan page, a private social network. Be active and conversational here, don’t treat it as another PR vehicle.

Think what ‘exclusive’ content you can reward your fans or members with. There is boat loads of this! Exclusive footage from training, locker room interviews (within reason!), injury news from the physios, community projects….

Bring the fans into the fold. Consider empowering the fans, if you check your Facebook groups and forums I bet there are plenty of unofficial communities already thriving – harness that. Why not create Fan reporters, team tweeters, a fan zone that has some clout with the club. In Spain, Barcelona are ‘owned’ by the fans…other teams would do well to adopt a similar mindset.

Consider what Mobile can offer. Mobile is going to be big for entertainment – The devices are getting better and the teams already have a glut of content which can be distributed to people’s pockets. Think, what can we get to the fans via mobile? Arsenal and Chelsea both have iphone applications at around the £2.99 mark which is a good start. Sure they are the big fish, but the same will be true for clubs of all sizes, just on a different scale…the same principles apply.

Another key difference is that sports fans will pay for this type of content and level of interaction. Not huge amounts, as some fans will testify that it is expensive enough supporting their team but this is a question of value rather than pounds or dollars. Anything that provides a level of joy and touches the tribal part of our brains, a few quid here and there to make me feel it’s MY club is fine by me.

New Revenue

I think clubs have genuine untapped revenue streams here, not only through online advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales but in streaming and distributing their games and content to much, much bigger audience than they currently do through TV broadcasting contracts. For the clubs with international audiences (especially Asia and Africa who have a lot of growth in terms of intenet access ahead of them), if and when the devices and connectivity improve, they can have millions more people watch their games and additional content and pay micro payments for the privilege. We aren’t there yet but it is coming.

Youtube have begun streaming live sports events.  We have seen England football matches being streamed live, admittedly not very well yet but that is to do with the devices and the connectivity, Virgin are trailing 100mb broadband, Conservatives have said they will make high speed connectivity priority if they win the election this year, smart phone penetration is on the up…and that is just for the games, what about news, updates, promoting community and charity work?

Players

For the athletes and players there is also the opportunity to build a huge amount of brand equity. This can be used a positive platform for a media career, raise awareness for good causes they are involved with, create a more authentic and trusted voice for the individual than old school press releases. Some are doing it well, (more in the US but we are seeing signs of it this side of the pond). Chad Ochocinco has his OCNN channel, Shaq has been a Twitter exponent for a few years now. Having the players active on these channels does come with its own set of potential pitfalls, but ignoring the new communication channels and opportunities isn’t going to make them go away. The clubs, agents and athlete’s representatives need to find a balance where the players can be treated like adults and decide the type of relationship they want with their fans…they may need them after they retire!

Organisations, brands and sports clubs are all in the same boat with needing to be more trusted and that takes time and comes with authenticity and engagement. Its all people to people communications, after all!

Update: A good example of exactly what I was talking about is Manchester City. Read this excellent post by Ash Read covering similar lines of thought.

Right, we are coming to the end of February (2010 is going quickly) and there was plenty in the social media blogosphere this week for us to draw from. There were enough posts bookmarked this week to increase the top six to the top ten…but we are trying to keep the same format for a few more weeks. Please feel free to add any of your favourite stories from this week, or any other week for that matter, in the comments.

1. The New App Store Rules: No Swimsuits, No Skin, And No Innuendo – Jason Kincaid

Apple are going on an anti sexual content crusade in the app store. According to Apple, anything with overtly sexual content will be removed…unless its Playboy, which apparently isn’t sexual at all. Admittedly, its been a while since I read a Playboy, but unless they have done a serious re brand, this seems like a slight case of double standards. Jason Kincaid goes into the details.

2. Video, Customer Interactions, and Getting Seen – Valeria Maltoni

“Of all the amazing new technologies that are opening up possibilities to communicate and connect in the digital space, video is the one that holds the most promise”. I couldn’t agree more. Humans are visual beings and while we have been used to text based communications online, the next few years should see us using video more and more. The technology is there, connectivity is getting better and I believe the content is already there for brands…they just need to dig inside their company to find it. Valeria Maltoni takes us through some video strategy, from Technology, content and getting seen.

3. The Dalai Lama Officially Joins Twitter – Ben Parr

Not too much to say about this other than if you are a fan of his Holiest The Dalai Lama, then you can now follow his  musings on twitter. I doubt it is actually him on the keyboard but its pretty cool none the less! Follow him at @DalaiLama

4. Human Brands – Katy Lindemann

At Spearfish Labs, we are all about helping companies be more human.  In this post, Katy Lindemann talks about how some of the biggest and best brands (Virgin,  Apple, Ben & Jerry’s etc) reflect the personalities of their founders. Social media lets brands reflect a persona to their customers and this can be an extremely powerful branding strategy…if your founders are good!

5. Social Media Trends at Fortune 100 Companies [STATS] – Samuel Axon

We thought we would throw in some stats for all the bean counters out there. Burson Marstellar have released a study of the 100 largest companies in the Fortune 500, and found that nearly 80% are using social media to communicate with customers and stakeholders. What is better, is that they show some proof that customers actually like these methods of interaction. There is a good presentation embedded in the post so go and check it out.

6. Social media ‘teams’ needed to cut business confusion- IAB

An interesting one from the IAB. They are calling for specific social media teams to be set up in organisations to avoid the confusion that is currently being experienced when defining who ‘owns’ social media. The different disciplines and measurement metrics mean it shouldn’t rest solely with marketing or PR or Research. I get the point but believe that creating a social media department would merely be another silo when it needs to be integrated into every department and used internally as well as a customer communication channel. Guy Phillipson (IAB CEO) spells it out “If leveraged correctly, social media has the potential to sit at the very heart of an organisation,” We agree with that, so maybe the title is misleading. Worth a look.

OK, thats all for this week, folks. Have a good weekend.