List of Social Media Election sites for Australian 2010 election. An early analysis of election 2010 sites. It’s particularly interesting to see which social media election sites are allowing the electorate to ask questions -versus who is providing answers.  And how useful is the site to online community members. I think CampaignIQ, Connect ALP or whatever it’s called is about putting in a minimum MyBarackObama, irrespective of the Australian Culture. On the other hand some of the grassroots, unsponsored stuff feels authentic and from a genuine need to connect and share cultural capital.

This election is going to be hotly contested – by social media sites – for relevancy. As politicians are scrambling for cultural relevancy and to be heard (the Debate on Sunday Night has been moved for Masterchef) so will websites that want to provide information on the coming election. If you are looking for a blow by blow comparison of Twitter followers vs YouTube views etc for each party, try the SBS website

1. ABC ELECTIONS broadcast site

The ABC has done a hybrid site – not really a community conversation build but aggregating information from multiple communities.

You can see the embedded tweet is from Lyndal Curtis Chief Political Correspondent. ABC is very much in sourcing content and then broadcasting it out – not engagement – mode. The Campaign Pulse is a social media dashboard monitoring sentiment on Twitter and Youtube and Flickr. None of it is embeddable, referrable or discussable.  Everything is official ABC journalist tweets and blogs, and ultimately unsatisfying.

2. Election Leaflets – Live Election Leaflet Monitoring

Enter your postcode and ElectionLeaflets.org.au will reveal to you all the brochures, posters and other paraphenalia littering your streets, shop fronts and stuck to stobie polls. Why is it important? Because theres some nasty stuff that goes on, under the radar, when it’s not been broadcast publicly on traditional media, but is adorning the front door of the local deli.

Note, they need to fix their iFrame widget to be one brochure and flickable rather than a toilet roll of leaflets. Anyway, see a dodgy leaflet? Take a photo and upload it, or email to ‘em. If your camera takes a GPS position (and a lot do) a map will also be displayed for the location of the brochure. Shame we can’t comment or ask questions about the brochures. Creating a community around some of the photos of brochures would be cool – otherwise why not just embed them from Flickr, like the Greens did one year?

3. Connect ALP – Campaign IQ

And odd site. Like someone looked at the tools that MyObama used and then promptly dropped all the community elements. I can’t friend a profile, there are no many-to-many discussions (though I can write on anyone’s wall, even a non-friend!), creating a group requires approval, and lots of opportunity to promote the labor party’s broadcast material. I hope this site improves a lot. It looks pretty but lacks community functionality. Even the signup process is a huge barrier to entry and looks intimidating. If you don’t need it on signup – not mandatory – stick it in the profile! Where’s the welcome centre? Where’s the leaderboard? I could go on.

No, I don’t know what “submitted issues” or “ideas raised” are either

They are in desperate need of a Help section, if not a whole Newcomer Welcome Centre. BTW I found “issues” but it’s a tiny link hidden in a separate area called ThinkTank (which took me to the signup page again). This site may well improve, social media wise, after a good usability/sociability going over but at the moment it’s  steep learning curve for sophisticated social media users, let alone the average “I’m only on Facebook for the kids” Australian.  The online community real world activism is right out of MyObama songbook – election leaflets (above) may want to add the leaflets?

4. My Politician – Keeping Track of Your Politician For You.

Oh I like a good sense of humour – so many social media site creators lack the ability to storytell and play with their community in a meaningful way.

developed by ireckon

Not particularly social but useful – if you want to avoid having your baby kissed at the local shops by a pollie.

My Politician enables you to search the profiles of all the federal Australian politicians, (candidates for election too, when the elections are on) and in future State politicians…

You can quickly locate statistical and contextual information about politicians in your electorate and compare them with other politicians across the country.

A note from CARA – My Politician provides an important opportunity for everyone to learn more about Australian politicians, and for Australian politicians to learn more from each other.

The My Politician website has been developed by the Cynical Assessment and Reporting Association (CARA – we made that up), an independent association (well, bunch of people) that is responsible, among other things, for making sure you can see nationally comparable data on Australian politicians. CARA has worked closely with no one across the country to develop this website.

The My Politician website provides detailed information about the 226 federal politicians in Australia. It uses a new index of online data publishing characteristics, developed specifically for the purpose of identifying politicians that are trying to communicate with their electorate in a modern and meaningful way. This enables their performance on real things that matter to their electorate to be understood in a fair and meaningful way.

By providing information on Australian politicians, the My Politician website introduces a new level of transparency and accountability to the Australian electoral system.

It’s actually much easier to accept than ABC Election broadcast site – probably because we feel traditional media have had their turn at the megaphone?

5. 2010 Federal Election from University of Melbourne

Blogs are very top down – One Voice To Rule Them All and all that. Even group blogs are not many-to-many discussion channels. In the case of Uni of Melbourne, their blogs are written by “Experts” – University Professors. Being a naughty academic atheist, I’m of the opinion that Professors giving advice on real world election issues is like Priests giving advice on marital sex but hey! what do I know?

Climate change and carbon tax,
Alternative energy sources and zero emissions,Professor Mike Sandiford, School of Earth Sciences
Climate change policy Professor David Karoly, School of Earth Sciences
Climate change policy and the environment Dr Peter Christoff, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Population, immigration and refugees
Indonesian society and law reform Professor Tim Lindsey, Asian Law Centre
Multiculturalism in Australia Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh, National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies
Muslim communities in Australia, freedom of religion, Islam and human rights Professor Abdullah Saeed, Asia Institute
Rights and responsibilities of asylum seekers and granters Professor Sharon Bell, LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management
Social Justice, carbon trading/tax, climate, the underprivileged and disabled Professor Jeremy Moss, Social Justice Initiative
Economy, Industrial Relations and Tax Reform
Financial markets, financial regulation and manufacturing Professor Kevin Davis, Department of Finance
Industrial relations & the return of workchoices Professor Bill Harley Associate Professor John Howe Director, Centre for Employment & Labour Relations Law
Labour market and employment trends, industrial relations Professor Mark Wooden, Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research
Health reforms and hospitals
Economics and funding of health Professor Tony Scott, Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research
Mental health Professor Patrick McGorry, Orygen Youth Mental Health Research Centre
Paid maternity leave Amanda Cooklin,  Centre for Women’s Health, Gender and Society / Parenting Research Centre
Population health and epidemiology Professor Terry Nolan, School of Population Health
Primary care and super-clinics Professor Jane Gunn, Department of General Practice
Education
Higher education policy and governance Professor Lynn Meek, LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management
Schools performance analysis Professor Stephen Lamb, Graduate School of Education
Schools performance analysis Professor Jack Keating, Graduate School of Education
Women and leadership
Dr Lauren Rosewarne, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Environment
Resource management Andrew Hamilton, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Agriculture
Climate change impact on agriculture Professor Snow Barlow, School of Land & Environment
Agriculture and food security Professor Rick Roush, School of Land & Environment
Australian politics
Dr Scott Brenton, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Professor Brian Galligan, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Urban planning
Housing density & urban sprawl Dr David Nichols
Planning theory, planning practice, planning risk Dr Alan March
Urban growth boundary extension & sprawl, funding for urban issues, liveability and
access to public space, crime and violence prevention policy Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman
Money and politics
Joo-Cheong Tham, Law
Student Voices
Penny Rush is a Masters student in Public Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne.
Martin Bortz is a Masters student in Public Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne.
Jason Ball is completing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science at the University of Melbourne and is the Greens precinct Captain for University clubs at Melbourne, RMIT, La Trobe and Swinburne Universities.

Still, it’s nice to have these types of influencers talking directly to the public. Why? Because it puts paid to that “Come to Newspapers for Original Source Content – Ignore Loser Generated Content on Blogs” crap – here are the very original sources that traditional media usually has access to, talking to us directly. Be interesting to see if they get any comments…

6. 2020 Women

Bog standard survey

Or feedback form.  There is a blog with comments and a storycatcher (one way – you submit it to them for decision).

7. Your Rights At Work

I don’t know what it is with Community Engine but it breaks a lot of sociability rules. Basic ones. Like if you end up on the “Log in” page there is no “Join Now” yet join now is plastered over other parts of the site. Weird. Like a bespoke package half finished… Needs a Sociability overhaul. Might be a new beta version for the election sites?  Looks pretty but doesn’t function well. Still, signup is better than on the ALP site (meaning, it’s probably the Labor Party fault it’s such a clunky barrier to entry to sign up). The welcome email (for verification) is missing as is the welcome centre. blah blah you guys know the drill now – a social tool that is missing the “soft skills”. It feels very much like ACTU put up the “ideas” and you get to follow their ideas.

I also looked at a bunch of other sites on this list but they were very much:

• Join our newsletter
• For Media Enquiries contact:…
• or in more than one memorable case, a PDF. Kid you not.

Sites 8 Election Blackout

Group blog by Peter Black

He’s locked his page down so I can’t copy and paste but basically, Peter is a Snr Lecturer in Law in Queensland.

Got another one or two going up this week. Remind me!

How about you? Spotted any memorable election social media sites out there? Particularly looking for a user generated site, rather than a pollies Facebook/Twitter account. got any?

Election 2.0 – List of social media election sites to watch. is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, election, election pamphlete, gov 2.0, leaflet, Online Communities, social media, social networks

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Social Media Monetization is becoming THE hot issue in online community chatter. Probably because companies are getting past the “why should we care?” and into “how do we get some dosh?” questions.

Social Ads are driving down the price of regular online ads:

A recent analysis by ComScore shows social networks, primarily Facebook and MySpace, have over the last year drawn an average CPM of only 56 cents, compared to the $2.43 average for the internet at large. Looking more closely, the ComScore data show that the average pricing for online ads exclusive of social-networking sites, namely Facebook and MySpace, would be much higher, about $2.99 for every 1,000 views; social sites dragged down the average online CPM by as much as 18% over the last year.

Some industry executives are concerned that Facebook and its ilk may in fact be reducing the overall pricing of CPMs, or the cost-per-thousand impressions, that are the basis for online ad pricing. (read the rest on AdAge)

The challenge is not that Facebook and other social networking sites are underpricing advertising, it’s that the context is different in online communities. And don’t think normal context – matching ads with subject keywords. Think emotional context.

If you wanted to advertise a new baby pram, you wouldn’t necessarily choose a TV show about cars or a magazine about trucks to do it, would you? And so it is online, we are used to matching ads with audience demographics. Even psychographics, thinking laterally. But what about mood? Focus and attention? At least with TV and magazines you know that at least nominally, they are there with some focus.

How do you advertise to an audience that is busy doing something contextually irrelevant to your keywords?

Situational advertising during social discussions by clintjcl on Flickr

You know what I mean: have you ever been running – nay, flying – from one meeting to another and had one of those guys on the street hold out a hand and stop you with “Do you have a few  minutes to save the planet”? No mate, I don’t – can’t you see I’m sprinting here, running late?

They make you feel so guilty. But there’s a time and place for those sorts of things and about to get the sack for running late yet again is not one of those times.

I think we accepted interruptive advertising on TV – nicely snuggled down to watch Sound of Music (or in my case, Chuck) and the ads come in. We get up, get a drink and do other things. Then back when the ads are finished. We’ve been trained to be passive, mildly receptive and basically quiet and doing as we’re told.

I talk through movies and TV shows a lot and am always in trouble in our house. Are you surprised?

In online communities, we are busy, like we are rushing from one meeting to another. And it’s personal – unlike watching a movie, which only occasionally engages our heart and soul. We are chatting with friends. We don’t want to get up mid conversation and click on an ad. We’re in the middle of our own soap opera.

If you ever wonder why advertising is the lowest revenue when monetizating for social networking it’s this: we are in active mode, not passive. We are in creative mode, not receiving. Chances are we won’t even notice the ads, while we fight with our boyfriend, gossip with our mum and dig around for jobs.

Unless it’s relevant to the discussion. Or we can get a kiss.

Monetization: Social Network Advertising is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Adage, ads, Advertising, Comscore, Facebook, Online Communities, social ads, social media, social networks

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I’m speaking on social media monetization at Social Media WorldForum in Singapore on September 22nd-23rd. I’m blogging about it now because the earlybird discount finishes 22 July. You can book at social media world forum. There will be two days of “interactive & engaging social media conference featuring leading key figure keynotes, brand case studies, topical Q&A and debates,exhibition hall, workshops and networking.” Facebook is the Platinum Sponsor.

Social Media WorldForum

The other speakers are:

• Brian Solis @briansolis
• Robbie Hills RockYou
• Blake Chandlee Facebook @bchandlee
• Pooja Arora P&G @pyxdust
• Thomas Crampton Ogilvy @ThomasCrampton
• Reynold D’Silva Unilever @reydsilva
• Kyle (Young Eul) Kim, Cyworld
• Lito S German BMW Group Asia
• Argha Sen Toys R Us
• Jeremy Khoo NTUC Fairprice
• Shalabh Pandey ChasingTheStorm
• Nicki Kenyon Mastercard
• Damien Cummings Dell
• Fotini Paraskakis Fremantle Media
• Winston Goh Samsung @winstongoh
• Lars Voedisch Dow Jones
• Derek Yeo Tiger Airways
• … and me! @SilkCharm

My best guess for Twitter names – if you know anymore, please let me know?  @SocialMediaWF is the official Twitter account and I don’t know the #tag – something short like #SMWFSing probably.

Will I see you there?

EVENT: Social Media World Forum in Singapore is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Argha Sen, Blake Chandlee, brian solis, cyworld, Damien Cummings, Derek Yeo, Fotini Paraskakis, Kyle young Eul Kim, Lars Voedisch, Lito S German, Nicki Kenyon, Pooja Arora, Reynold D'Silva, Robbie Hills, Shalabh Pandey, Singapore, social media, Thomas Crampton, Winston Goh

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Twitter verified MSF_USA – Doctors without Borders account. However they immediately used it to ‘broadcast’ spam messages. Good cause aside, spam is spam!  Social networks, because they are about people coming together around a Purpose and a Value system, are targets for everyone with a story to peddle.

When Twitter verifies accounts, they are doing so on the basis of “offline” reputation, not online. You can read more about the importance of offering verified accounts in social networks here. But what happens when the Not For Profit with offline credibility misuses that reputation to spam “in a good cause” online? Loss of reputation for all concerned – certainly credibility for the Not for Profit. But also for Twitter. Perhaps Twitter should point new verified accounts to my post on New On Twitter, Tips and Hints? Or anyone else tips blog post for that matter.

Do you consider this to be spam?

1. @LES_ TY for watching a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story! about 4 hours ago via web
2. @tom_zed TY for watching a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT about 4 hours ago via web
3. @LATIMESRAINEY Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story! about 4 hours ago via web
4. @LIFE_IS_EARTH Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story! about 4 hours ago via web
5. @GEOFFONTOUR Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story about 4 hours ago via web
6. @KSPHOTOHOUND Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story about 4 hours ago via web
7. @JULIE_POSETTI Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story about 4 hours ago via web
8. @DAVEIDAHO Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story about 4 hours ago via web
9. @PHOTOGRAPHY360 Watch a #STRVD for Attention film, 1 of 195 million stories of malnutrition: http://bit.ly/195mill RT and rewrite the story about 4 hours ago via web

Hmm  – the response? Twitter not happy. Glebe2037 was at least polite:

WARNING: Politically incorrect statement ahead.

I have a BIG issue with not for profits that wander into Twitter, take the higher moral ground and then treat people like rubbish, all in a “good cause”. We’re ALL here to make the world/community a better place, start living with the rest of us!

Twitter – Verified Spam for MSF_USA Doctors Without Borders is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: doctors without borders, glebe2037, medecins sans frontieres, MSF_USA, Not For Profit, Online Communities, social networks, spam, Twitter

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Fastcompany give you a URL and you upload a foto. You then ask friends, family and random stranger serial killers to click on your link. Prove how loved and popular you are. Here’s some tips: this article is not what you think it is.

3 Ways to Win FastCompany’s The InfluenceProject:

• Spam the link they give you to everyone in your email address book, your Facebook friends, join random Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups, Tweet, auto tweet and DM to your little heart’s content
• Tell them it’s a cute picture, the worst thing you’ve ever seen in your life, very funny, or important to you. Bait and switch.
• Lose sleep at night as you pump out links upon links.

The title of this article is kinda catchy doncha think? How do you feel about a bit more bait-and-switch this morning?

3 Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Win FastCompany’sThe InfluenceProject

• This project doesn’t show the Most Influential, it shows the Most Spammy. Given that they could’ve combined this exercise with fundraising and ever-so-worthy causes, it’s pretty hard to justify spamming me-me-me links.
• Affiliate Marketers rejoice! And anyone who takes their status/livelihood and wellbeing from having strangers prove they “love” them. The rest of us just groan.
• RickRolling was done with a sense of humour. This is rickrolling without the funny bone. The cool kids won’t play – you’ll be on your own with a bunch of losers*.

*losers: technical social media term. You wouldn’t understand…

Influence is one thing, Trust is something entirely else. Trust comes in on a tortoise and leaves on a galloping stallion. Old Chinese/Arabic/Whatever saying.

See what other people are saying: Ambercadabra, Deanna Zandt, Estaban Kolsky,

3 Reasons Why Fastcompany will excuse doing this

• Their advertisers only understand pageviews not sentiment. They got the twitosphere ranting, links coming in, so hey, it’s all good.
• It’s a joke (should’ve left it til April 1st then it would’ve been win-win-win)
• Viral is anything non-nutritious (superficial, timewasting and 3-minutes-of my life-I will-never-get-back). A gift is anything that makes other people’s life more interesting, fulfilled and pleasant. This is an exercise in playing with viral.

And if they are smart, they have phase two – all the “anti tools”. Such as a site called AutoUnfollowInfluenceSpammers.com

What do you think? SocialSpamRUs or a fun little game with the community? By the way, different types of social media expert influencers might be interesting? Or The Role of Leaderboards in Online Communities (that is what Fastcompany are building)

Last Word/Last Line: For those who retweet this as if it’s a real “how to win” article. READ BEFORE YOU ASSUME, LOSER. Heh.  Those who are outraged need not comment…

3 Surefire Ways to Win The Fastcompany Influence Project is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: fastcompany, influence, influenceproject, Online Communities, reputation, social media, the influence project, trust, Twitter, viral

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By adding an Amazon Bookshop to WordPress I can earn a little money, recommend some cool books and look rather groovy. And it doesn’t cost me a thing but time! AND gives you a bunch of Online Community books you may enjoy…

I’ve added an Online Communities Books bookshop to this here blog. You can see it – Online Community BookStore

It was actually harder than it should’ve been – but one very cool thing is that you never have to leave the blog to buy the book. Well, not until the final payment, which opens in a new window. Transactional based widgets still aren’t trusted I guess.

I only put nine books on the list – are there any missing? I put up some really old ones I love and some new ones from Brian Solis and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Want one?
How to Add an Amazon aStore to your WordPress blog by LiveWithRichard – add your page to the same folder as post.php.

And the actual Store widget itself is from Amazon.

Online Community Books – Amazon Bookshop on WordPress is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Online Communities

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One area that needs to be revisited every so often, is the “welcome” to new members. The early days when someone first joins are when habits, tone and value of the community culture, loyalty and stickiness are going to be set. So don’t miss an opportunity to welcome your new member, give them positive values to adhere to and things to do.

While I think this is the best online community signup ever, there’s more that you can do to make it easy for Visitors to move to Newcomers in the social network membership cycle. And registrations are important for identity in online communities. In fact one of the flaws of blogs is that they do not encourage sustainable identities thus leaving no “report card” of activity if the member turns out to be a troll. Note the last paragraph on identity and registration in online communities how Japan has moved from anonymous communities like 2CH to totally closed, invitation only, fully registered ones like Mixi. It’s really no surprise as mass social network audiences learn what really suits them.

Welcome Emails:

EMAILS: Signup emails that simply say “here’s your password” or only have “please click the verification link” are a wasted opportunity to connect. Why not list off the things they could do? Or once a month, update the welcome email with a campaign (competition or event that month) and some “did you know” statistics and facts for the members that join that month. Otherwise the answer to “what do I do here” might very well be “I dunno” and they wander off to another online community.

What to do next:

LANDING PAGE: This is where your FAQ, Tutorial or Welcome to Newcomers area shines. They get tips on “First 3 things to do on this site” or “The most popular subjects today are” and so on. Leading newcomers down a path a little is fine – but don’t do too much or they slip into passive reading, not active contributing mode. The first few connections a new person makes on a community dictates how they behave and sets their (mis) conceptions for how the community is run.

The Ravelry social network getting started page doesn’t have to be on your own community site, lots of Facebook pages also have “newcomer landing pages”.

Note, this Facebook page for Supre doesn’t appear to NON-newcomers, only those who are visitors and not yet “liking” the Facebook fan page. Of course it doesn’t work for engagement – it looks like the front page of a (passive) magazine cover, rather than a “come inside and meet the family” community fan page. Still, fashion is a bit more about the Cover than the Inside, no?

Visitors vs Newcomers

A visitor hasn’t yet signed up, and should be in “read only” mode. Newcomers have signed up and are in “contribute mode” but also “I’m scared I’m going to make the oldtimers cross” mode. And that’s pretty easy to do. Giving them special areas and making it clear that “stupid questions” are allowed, keeps the Elders from being too grumpy with seeing “how do I…” for the 10 millionth time.

What other things could we do to make newcomers feel welcome on forums and online communities? Without excommunicating them from the hurly burly online? Any ideas out  there? :p

Welcoming New Members to your Online Community is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: joining, membership, newcomer, Online Communities, online community, signup email, social network, verification, visitor, welcome, welcome email

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At the beginning of this month, I wrote about Influencers, and what they looked like online and off. Every social network has influencers. The reason why influencers are so important is because they stop you from having to “get” to every single community member yourself. They reach out for you. Do the hard yards, as it were. Not every influencer will have the same influence. But they are important none-the-less.

It’s no surprise that there are social networks of social media people – of course there are, people congregate around issues adn subjects and values they are passionate about. And blogging and tweeting and facebooking seems to be a pretty popular subject these days. But instead of going into the influencer list in more detail, lets adapt another list – why you need a social media expert – from @mediahunter Get Sticky blog on Why You Need An SEO Expert.

Because funnily enough, the arguments that work for hiring an SEO Expert also work for hiring a Social Media Expert. And for hiring any other kind of expert in your organisation, for that matter.

So here are 6 reasons why you might need to hire a Social Media specialist:

1. You have too much to do and too little time to do it. Good social media takes time rather than $$$, is it the best use of yours?
2. A fresh set of eyes. You probably stare at your marketing and PR strategies too much as it is and are possibly now blind to potential issues. A Social Media specialist brings afresh set of eyes to your campaigns with a single-minded view to improve your community brand relations.
3. True expertise. Many people working around marketing and PR say they understand social media but to be fair in most cases their knowledge is basic and founded on their personal use of Facebook and Twitter. Social Media evolves on a daily basis and is increasingly complicated juggling may scenarios and relationships. You need a specialist who is up-to-date with the very latest social media strategies and tools and with good experience.
4. Overcome internal politics. There can be a a lot of parties with vested interests in your strategies, all clamouring for your attention or priority. A Social Media specialist can present the FACTS and an unbiased strategy to achieve everyone’s goals in the RIGHT order.
5. Education. You and your team can learn more about social media from a specialist, that will improve your knowledge and value to the organisation as well assist in communicating why and what needs to be done. A good social media specialist explains “why” and “how” as well as performing the tasks at hand.
6. Better results. Unless you are a gun at social media then a specialist will most likely produce better and faster search results than you could achieve on your own. This is good for your company and good for you. And quite a lot less risky.

If you want to see the original 6 Reasons for Hiring A SEO Expert it’s here. As a good little social media expert, I just snaffled it for myself.

What do you think? Can social media use the same rules for expert engagement that SEO does? If you hand your community over to an expert, are you losing more than you gain? What do you think?

(PS Sydney Morning Herald Social Media Breeds New Field of Experts )

6 Reasons You Need A Social Media Expert is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: get sticky, mediahunter, seo, social media, social media expert, social networks

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