Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had at least a couple of days of relaxation.

I can’t say I ever really set New Year resolutions because I know I will never be able to keep to them. This year however I have set a broad goal. To simply become more active online again. Last year I received a number of tweets and DM’s from people asking where I had gone and why I stopped blogging. It wasn’t intentional; I just struggled to find the time to do it justice.

It’s always good to have accountability though right!

So follow me and keep me accountable:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/louisegriffiths

LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/louisekgriffiths

Blog RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/loukmedia/WIOQ

Do you have any goals for 2012?

You don’t have to go far in the online world to hear about Google+ now and having gotten my own invite yesterday I have been exploring it for myself. Apart from the obvious features I wrote about in yesterdays post ‘Is Google+ Really Ready to Battle in the Social Media Arena?’ I’d like to add that Sparks is a great alternative to Google Alerts and being in Google+ it is so easy to switch to gmail, calendars, tasks etc etc It really is a great little hub that I see increasing my productivity! Add this to all the new announcements of changes coming out I have realised that Google+ itself is merely the beginning for the future of Google.

The Googleverse has certainly been rolling out alot of new updates over the past week, first the +1 button which at first seemed completely pointless, then made more sense when Google+ was announced. Now they have been busily making changes, albeit mostly cosmetic at this stage, to many of their Google services that has really brought to my attention Google’s much bigger plans. In an announcement Google stated “The way people use and experience the web is evolving, and our goal is to give you a more seamless and consistent online experience — one that works no matter which Google product you’re using or what device you’re using it on.” So what are some of the changes that are happening already?

Google Calenders

First of all there are the cosmetic changes to Google Calenders. If you have a look it today it has a distinctive Google+ feel now and looks really clean and easy to use. They have basically just moved the location of some buttons, increased white space and Print and Refresh buttons are no longer links but icons. You can read the announcement of all the changes here.

Gmail

Then you have the changes that are to be expected to Gmail which Google announced in another announcement. You can try these out now by changing your Gmail theme to ‘Preview’ or ‘Preview dense’. These are just what they call ‘sneak peak’ but it will be the default theme very soon, or a similar version will be anyway. If you look at my screenshot below you will also notice in the top left hand side the +Louise which takes me straight to my Google+ account.

Google Analytics

Finally (for now) there are the additions to Google Analytics which will now track Tweets, Likes and +1’s which is about time! There are a number of steps for implementing this plugin and adding +1 functions to your posts so I will leave it to Google to show you how to do that as their announcement is quiet detailed.

So I think that Google+ is merely the tip of the iceberg or perhaps a better description would be that it is the new base to which everything else will feed off and operate round.

What are your thoughts on these changes? Have you heard or seen any other changes?

Is Google’s perseverance to try and create a ‘Facebook Killer’ a smart and achievable move or should they just give up and stop wasting their money building concepts that are destined to fail?

Well I guess that comes down to the kind of person you are. Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that they were kicked to the ground more times than they can remember before they succeeded. I believe Google have that entrepreneurial spirit. They know it can be done they are just trying to figure out how. That’s why I think they have made a smart move this time round with their new ‘project’ Google+ by making it invite only. This way the true influencers can check it out first, give their opinion and like any work in progress Google can then use that Feedback to improve it before the masses arrive.

For those who don’t know what Google+ is, here is a video by Google giving a brief overview

So what are my thoughts on Google+? Well to be honest I haven’t decided one way or the other yet. The potential is certainly there but in its current (rumoured) state it’s not yet a winning concept for me and it will depend on what Google does with it from here that will decide that. Let’s look at the main features of Google+:

Circles

Circles seem to be much like Facebook and Twitter lists albeit easier to assign due to a drag and drop feature. This will allow people to share certain things with certain groups, a great idea but I already assign certain lists on Facebook who cannot see my pictures etc. The potentially great thing about this is the ability to separate personal and professional content. For example I use Facebook for two very different reasons.  I use it to keep in touch with family and friends back home in Scotland but also as a professional networking tool. If Google+ can allow me to ensure my professional contacts don’t have to see my university assignment rants and my friends don’t need to listen to me talking about some business thing they have no interest in then great!

Photo editor

A great idea allowing users to not only upload photos but also edit them. It has great potential but I just hope it adds a little fun to it – I am thinking funny hats, moustaches and funky frames ala Instagram style.

Hangouts

Interesting concept of adding up to 10 friends (according to Mashable) in a video chat. Although this sounds really great – I don’t know when I would ever need to use it.  I would maybe do one-on-one with friends and family back home but I can already do that with Skype. What I think it has the potential to act as, is a small video conferencing facility for professionals who cannot meet face to face. That’s my hope for it anyway! My only hesitation is that according to Mashable the screen will change depending on who is talking. Clearly they have not met my friends and I would like to see how it keeps up with the speed my friends talk at, not to mention when 5 people are talking at once.

Sparks

In its simplest form is basically social search. The ability to find information based on previous actions etc. Its success will hang in the balance and depend on the uptake of the +1 feature Google has already implemented.

Conclusion

Well as I said it has a lot of potential. For me I see it fitting in that gap between Facebook and LinkedIn which brings together personal interests with professional networks. What it does need to do however is differentiate itself. People are not going to switch from Facebook unless they see the benefit and with so much of people’s lives on Facebook it may take quite a bit of persuasion to convince people the move is worth it.

Personally I would like to see it succeed as Facebook’s increasing privacy issues and current spam problems have really halted a lot of my use. What’s more, with personal branding becoming a bigger consideration for many people this will give users the ability to start again and well…. try and do it right! Another aspect I will be watching closely is how brands start using this platform – being founded on circles may make it much harder for a brand to get in and have the ability to communicate with customers – I wonder if, upon it’s officially launch, they will add profiles that are specifically developed for brands? Only time will tell …

What are your initial opinions for Google+?

I guess the ultimatum of short term fame or a long term strategy can be discussed in many contexts. You see it in the music and film industries all the time. People do certain things to launch themselves into the limelight without any real thought as to what they are going to do once the initial attention wears off.  Having been reading case studies, looking at Facebook and twitter campaigns and just generally keeping abreast of industry news I have had this recurring concern over the strategy foresight of some large companies with a social media presence.

Take NAB (National Australia Bank) for example, they came out with a clever and rather witty campaign which was predominantly offline but both started and was (in theory) supported by their online presence. For anyone not familiar with the campaign, you can read about it in more detail here, here and here which also explains the success financially for NAB. I thought it was a great campaign starting with what looked like a rogue tweet and quickly escalating into a multichannel well timed campaign. There is no doubt it was a fantastic and perhaps even award winning campaign but my issue is that since then, although I still see their ads on TV, overall it appears they have gone quiet. Now that’s not really true – their twitter account is always busy answering enquiries but the initial buzz has gone. So what do they do now? If they are to be as successful with the next one it has to be bigger and bigger surely?

Ikea was another great idea. Their Facebook campaign got followers to tag themselves in pictures, with the first to tag themselves on a item wining it. It was a fantastic idea – you can read about it here. But when the campaign is over, how many of those Facebook fans are still engaged enough to stick around?

I am not in any way suggesting that companies should not do invest time in building their followers and customers through these creative campaigns but what I do think should be happening is the implementation of a long term strategy. Think past the campaign; think past the next 3 months, what is going to keep your customers engaged for the foreseeable future?

As many of you know I am the community Manager (Intern) for media140au on twitter – the Australian arm of www.media140.com. This week was their most recent Australian event, which was held in the beautiful Powerhouse in Brisbane. The event was on Science Communication with much of the content focussing on digital media.

Although I was there to work at the event and don’t work in science communication, I found the event both interesting and a breath of fresh air to all of the social media talks going on at the moment. Although topics such as ROI did pop up, the focus was more on how scientists and other communicators in the field of science can communicate effectively with the public, something which is becoming harder to do with the increasing clutter on platforms such as twitter.

Having been to a number of events recently with a similar digital focus but mostly for marketers, advertisers and the likes I have to admit although ROI is an important subject the perhaps, less technical aspects of social media was a nice change and great to hear about. There were amusing presentations on video creation, informative workshops of data visualisation and interesting insights into how to deal with bad feedback online for example.

After the event though the one thing that really seemed to resonate with me was that the emphasis for the science communicators at this event was about the message. It was about communicating effectively, clearly and in a way the everyday public would understand and want to engage. Naturally many of the attendees were journalists so this makes sense but it really brought to light how much, in a corporate setting, the emphasis is always put on money and return on investment. I understand why this is the case but I just wonder how many lost opportunities to really connect and cement deeper relationships with your audience you miss when you are always thinking in terms of monetary outcomes. Obviously a company is there to make money not chat on twitter but don’t you think it’s time we started thinking more about the audience and long term engagement rather than short term, expensive, award winning campaigns? After all what’s the point of spending a huge amount of money on a campaign to get tens of thousands of followers to then only post sporadically once the campaign ends? I think many companies need to look at a more long term approach online and focus on good quality content. If you can’t produce good quality content on a consistent basis then don’t bother – after all social media is a communication channel, not a sales brochure.

Picture this, a gorgeous man, a sultry smile and a microwaved frozen meal . . . I will take the first two. Ok, I am not completely delirious, I’m going somewhere with this. It’s Lean Cuisine’s new Australian TV ad. I have seen this ad a couple of time over the last couple of days and even shared it on facebook as I thought it was quite clever. Having realised today it is only in Australia I thought I’d share it.

So what’s the deal? Eric Dane, better know as Mark Sloan from Grey’s Anatomy talks about how tough it is to create the right amount of steam (for your meal). Relevance? For those who don’t know his Grey’s nickname is McSteamy.

I think it’s pretty good at targeting their target market, females aged 18 – 35 (I assume) with the money to spend on microwave meals. I think it works even for those that haven’t seen Grey’s Anatomy as he really plays the ’steamy’ part well.

Look, who am I kidding, It’s a commercial I don’t mind watching because he is nice to look at

Check it out below:

I came across this post online ‘Competing for Summer Internships, Using a Twitter Contest’ it was posted in the NY Times in late march and explains how Campbell Mithun an American Advertising Agency used Twitter to find their summer interns and then once they had their top 32 they interviewed them on skype.

I thought it was a great concept – they asked them to use hashtag #L13 and named it ‘Lucky 13’. They had 13 days to give 13 reasons why they should be chosen and contestants got really creative, doing videos, audio, interactive posts etc. A fantastic idea for an increasingly digital company to find talent that already uses and understands the digital world.

Although it may not work for all companies it is definitely showing the potential having a great personal brand online has in getting you the job or internship you want. One of my favourite quotes from the article is “For the first time, everything was out in the open; they knew who their competition was,” Ms. Fischer said, which led to the applicants “stepping up their game.” And it’s so true. The article also mentioned they had double the applications from the year before and the quality was great. No longer are you trying to glorify your years stint that you did packing shelves in the supermarket or trying to beef up a resume when you haven’t had your first break yet.

Here in Australia, I think this approach works particularly well, as universities in Australia don’t tend to be ‘ranked’ and everywhere I read companies seem to be becoming less caught up on where you studied and the grades you got and more interested in what you have done and how passionate you are. Having an online personal brand allows you to show that. So instead of sending a CV in you can link to your website/blog and social networking sites instead.

I think the other thing to take away from this is also that it is never too early to start. Get used to using social networks professionally now, start a blog – make the commitment to be building your ‘online resume’ now so that when the right opportunity comes around, it doesn’t look like you just started to get the job. This is especially important for people that want to work in Marketing, Advertising, Media etc where a growing portion of the industry is now focussing their efforts online and seeing digital as the way forward – even if you are looking for a entry level position you will need to show you understand the basic of the digital world.

Even for those not in these industries it is important though. Next week I am working in Brisbane at a media140 event focussing on Science Communication. It’s focus will be on how Scientists and Science communicators can use social technologies to communicate accurately to a wide audience. So  think it’s important for everyone to learn how to communicate effectively online in the digital world and social networks are a great place to start.

Today marks the first birthday of this blog – and something I am proud of since many blogs do not make it past the first 6 months. I also haven’t blogged nearly as often as I would have wanted or expected too. As many of you know for the last year I have been juggling full time university, a part time job, an internship and freelance work – which has been perhaps a little bit ambitious. This seems however as good a time as any to give you an update on the year ahead and the reason for my absence lately.

As of last Monday the 4^th April I no longer work for anyone else other than myself. I have been fortunate enough to now have enough freelance work to warrant leaving my employment and I believe this also gives me an opportunity to experience working in a company better suited to my interests in digital media. This is good news also because working from home gives me an opportunity to blog more, something I really enjoy doing.

I am now also in my second year of university and although the work load sometimes seems enormous and I often find myself biting my tongue when a lecturer manages to say with a straight face “If you don’t know this, you will never work in Marketing” – when I have worked in marketing without knowing it quiet successfully – thank you! Overall I can say I am enjoying the experience. For anyone who is working and considering leaving to get their degree like I did – just make sure you realise that instead of working the weekend you will now just spend it studying =)

I am also excited to be completing some interesting electives starting next semester such as cybercultures, cyberlanguages and digital production. Not part of my marketing curriculum I can take them as electives instead of a second major. I think this is one of the main reasons I went to university – I wanted to learn and experience things I knew I wouldn’t ordinarily get. I am not saying I couldn’t learn the content elsewhere but I am hoping that the lecturers and tutors who teach these subjects have a passion and a number of interesting experiences to share.

So to round it up – I hope to blog more in the year ahead. Now I am only doing freelance work I am hoping this will give me more time to concentrate on what I want to do and what I am interested in. If you are looking for a freelancer you can have a look at what I do over at www.louisegriffiths.com

If you have been online today especially in the twitterverse you will have probably seen the backlash against Groupons superbowl ads. When I saw my twitter home feed filling with people who were unsubscribing from Groupon and expressing their disgust and disappointment in Groupon’s tasteless ads, I had to question if they could really be that bad.

Now if you had asked me what I thought about the ads when I first saw them, I would have told you that I would never ever use groupon. If you haven’t seen the ads yet there are a number of them and they start by talking about current issues in our world such as Tibet and deforestation and then turn it into a joke about how you can get a discount on purchasing something related to it. For example ‘Save the whales’ turns into ‘get a discount on whale watching’. I was really shocked they would use such sensitive issues and thought the ads really didn’t work AT ALL. They basically paid to lose a large proportion of their users. Here is the Tibet ad, which is the ad most people have seen and complained about:

I decided to visit their website to see if they had posted anything yet to defend their ads – instead I found this page: http://savethemoney.groupon.com/ . <You can watch the ads here too if you haven’t seen them. Suddenly the context of the ads started to make a little more sense – you can donate through their site to those causes related to the issues discussed in their ads and they will match your donation. Suddenly even though I still wouldn’t have ever gone with their idea the real issue was they forgot to tell the audience in their 30 second ads why they were bringing up these issues.  It really just goes to show that even good intensions can be thwarted by an ad with a terrible execution that does nothing but create a rather large chip in your reputation.

My advice – try to see past the ads to the underlying intention of the ads which was to raise awareness and raise money for important causes. Even if it was so terribly executed that the ads are more likely to just see them lose users.

What are your thoughts?

As many of you know I decided to go to university last year to get my degree and have written before about how shocked Iv’e been about the apparent ignorance of new university students when it comes to their online presence. As a point of reference I class new university students as those coming straight from high school with no ‘real life/work experience’. It’s one thing that many students don’t know what a blog even is, which is fine if you don’t have a reason to have one but more importantly is the lack of awareness of the privacy issues associated with their favourite social networking sites. Hardly any students I have asked knew about customising their privacy settings in Facebook or the dangers of adding everyone that requests an invite. So just how important is it for people to be aware of these types of things? Should it be part of the curriculum for students in high school or college/university?

It’s hard to avoid the thousands of blogs posts are articles out there explaining how we are living in an increasingly digital world and with a large portion of the 15 – 25 year old portion on facebook and online in general I think it’s important to ensure they know the long term consequences of what they post online. Here are some of the main reasons I think justify why all young adults should take a class in online etiquette and in this post social networking in particular.

Once on the web, you have no control over it

You all hear about those videos, pictures and posts that are one minute innocently (or sometimes not so innocently) posted online only to go viral for the world to see. Now it’s one thing to post your house party as an open event on facebook (see Corey for an example) or lose a little bit of dignity when a video you would rather forget about makes the news (like this girl) but there are more serious repercussions like being tagged in a photo from that awesome festival the day you were suppose to be off work sick (like this guy). Just think  about it, you spend months posting posts on your wall about how you are hung over at work or so bored you had a two hour lunch when the boos was out – you apply for a new job, why would an employer hire you if they see your work attitude?

Once on the web, always on the web

There is no denying it. Once something is online people share it, that’s often especially true of the things you wish nobody saw. Be careful what you post, it might just come back one day to haunt you.

Um what is she wearing!?

That sexy bikini shot may make you popular with those creepy people on facebook that email you telling you how hot you are but when it comes to trying to make a good impression, for example to an employer that same photo is likely to see you overlooked no matter how perfect the job is for you. Be careful with the photos you show, nobody wants to hire someone who doesn’t look professional and nobody wants to date someone when there seems to be photographic evidence of you having kissed every guy in the state.

You are going on holiday huh, oh look there is your address!

Posting your address or even your phone number is very risky! Don’t think it’s just your friends that can see it, if they are your friends they know your address so don’t post it online! If you post you and your family are going on holiday, then you might as well post ‘here is my address, my house can be robbed between January 31^st and February 22^nd when we will get back about 5pm. P.S dog is at grandmas so you won’t be disturbed’. Think about what you are sharing and for that matter be careful about the information those 3^rd party apps ask you for!

Students have to realise that in this digital world it’s not just employers looking at your profile (and those creepy spammers), don’t disregard university admissions having a look too!

So what is the golden rule I think everyone should follow?

If you don’t want your mother, employer or the person it’s about to see it – THEN DON’T POST IT!

Do you have any other rules you would add?