Simply having an online presence is not the answer

Sean Williams recently summed up key points from an article he had written for the Institute of Public Relations on communication strategy – and one of the points really hits home hard. Williams states: “Social Media is no panacea… We know that the creation of social networks – and the action of dialogue within these communities [...]

Email as a form of social media

Duct Tape Marketing has published an interesting post on the most neglected form of social media – email. The post points out that people have sent out email with ‘tell a friend’ or ‘forward to a friend’ buttons and links for years – as a result, it may well have actually been the first form of social [...]

Online business card for your online contacts

Mashable, The Social Media Guide, recently blogged about Card.ly, which lets social media mavens quickly create virtual business cards or online portfolios, which contain contact info from all of their social networks (Facebook address, Twitter account, and the like – there are close to 50 to include), as well as a short biography. There’s a [...]

Getting your story out there – the changing face of journalism

Building on my post from yesterday, I’ve decided to look into the changing face of journalism, and the new opportunities (and sometimes threats) offered by ‘new’ social media. According to Gino Cosme of Cosmedia, social media refers to the: “collective intelligence of internet users, the communities and web real estates they frequent, and the content [...]

The etiquette of defriending

When social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, began their rise to popularity, users seemed to race to add as many friends as possible, in an indiscriminate manner, perhaps out of curiosity to find out what acquaintances were up to, or maybe just to be seen as popular online. In this way, the [...]

Is social networking communication limited to the communications department?

Cellular News reports that a new study says top CEOs should do a better job at managing their presence online, on social sites like Twitter; LinkedIn; Facebook; and Wikipedia.
This is based on Fortune`s 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs – Sharon Barclay of the UberCEO blog conducted research over several weeks and found a [...]

The Grid: keeping South Africans connected

In a social-media saturated world, there always seems to be room for one more social network with an innovative approach to keeping its users connected. The Grid is a South African mobile social network that allows users to chat to their friends, keep track of their locations, and share things they like, from a cell [...]

Allowing information to find you

In a blogpost by Mark Cuban, he discusses how Twitter and Facebook compete with Google in an era where social media are becoming more and more significant in business and social life. As is discussed so often, we partake in so many social networks that the idea exists that it is no longer necessary to [...]

Twitchhiker tweets his way around the globe

It seems that twitterers are pretty generous – or at least the 7 530 followers of Paul Smith are, who have collectively paid for his travels to Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Washington DC, Chicago and Wichita. 
Paul is attempting to ‘twitchhike’ around the world to raise money for Charity:Water, ending up in New Zealand. So [...]

The lure of Cyburbia – even potatoes are in on the action!

There’s been a trend to write about digital exhaustion, the ‘dangers’ of connecting with people online and how this dissociates us from the real world. In this Sunday’s Sunday Times Magazine, Barry Ronge wrote about ‘The Lure of Cyburbia’, detailing how connectivity makes us all part of – and and at the same [...]