Catherine Sherwood | Real Communications

Hey, Google, you should have asked first…

Catherine — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:45:37 +0000

Google forgot the first rule of social media when it released its Google Buzz social networking service. They forgot to listen first. Worse, they didn’t even start a conversation with their Gmail users. Many people woke up to find practically anyone they had ever sent a Gmail to suddenly their Buzz friends. This is not [...]

What is the Best Way to Measure Your Social Capital?

Catherine — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:12:36 +0000

Social capital is to social media what a Google page ranking is to search engine optimization. The difference is that a high Google page ranking means that – if people are looking for a company that does what you do – your company can be found. It infers a level of popularity and increases the [...]

What Makes the top 50 Facebook Fan Pages Work? Part 2

Catherine — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:53:49 +0000

What Makes the top 50 Facebook Fan Pages Work? In the case of Best Buy (#13 on The Big Money list), some real creativity and commitment. Best Buy has often been used as a case study for how online communities can develop and improve employee performance. In the book groundswell, six pages are dedicated to blueshirtnation, [...]

What Makes the Top 50 Facebook Fan Pages Work? Part 1

Catherine — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:25:47 +0000

The Big Money published a list of the top 50 companies on Facebook the other day. They measured both the number of fans and the amount of fan interaction. They did not include pages run by fans – though the company in the top spot (Coca-Cola) has a site that was founded by a fan [...]

Product Launches in the Age of Social Media

Catherine — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:15:43 +0000

As a former product manager who has launched literally dozens of products and new business lines, I had a checklist of all of the touch points needed for a successful launch. However, in the age of Web 2.0 and social media that checklist now has some new steps with more extended new timelines, and some [...]

Social Media Tools Week: Twitter | Social Media Prospecting Tool

Catherine — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:37:00 +0000

November 17, 2009 – Thanks for attending today’s webinar. My goal was to help you understand the unique value that Twitter brings in terms of being able to prospect for new customers. In the spirit of “Social Media Tools Week” I wanted to keep this presentation light on theory but heavy on how-to actually build [...]

LinkedIn: The Upside and Downside of the Following People Function

Catherine — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:33:34 +0000

Today I did a webinar on LinkedIn for Social Media Tools Week (sponsored by the Social Media Academy). I tried to make it a very how-to type of webinar. The main emphasis was on making connections with people you know and how to use those connections to effectively get to people you would like to [...]

Social Media Tools Week: LinkedIn | Active Business Networking Tool

Catherine — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:42:29 +0000

November 17, 2009 – Thanks to all of you who attended the webinar today on LinkedIn. My goal was to give you a step-by-step guide on how to use all of the features of LinkedIn to your advantage – from building a more robust and dynamic profile to how to use your 1st degree connections [...]

Social Media and Higher Education: Seems Like a No-Brainer

Catherine — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:41:34 +0000

I recently did a quick review of what colleges and universities are doing in the social media. I took from some good sources and compiled an overview of what is happening now. You can download that brief report belowSocial Media and Higher Education. Education_and_SocialMedia.pdf Many colleges are using Twitter and are on Facebook, but the use of [...]

Can You Segment Your Twitter Followers, and What Value Does That Bring?

Catherine — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:11:38 +0000

The matrix below was first posted on Social Media Today and was create by Ogilvy (an ad agency) for IBM. Although the original post was called “Have You Considered Segmenting Your Social Media Strategy?”, the matrix primarily speaks to how you can use Twitter and, secondarily, who you will be speaking to. One of the commenters to [...]