Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 3

Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Here’s Volume 3 in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

1. Facebook to Change How You Process Friend Requests by Jennifer Van Grove
2. Foursquare Launching New Must-Have Button for Websites by Marshall Kirkpatrick
3. Get rid of Those Annoying Farmville Requests with new Social Network About “What Matters to You” by Lauren Dugan
4. How to gracefully promote yourself online by Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich, Special to CNN
5. Is Twitter for Business Even Worth the Trouble by Jay Baer
6. Six Reasons Why I’m Not On Facebook, By Wired UK’s Editor by David Rowan, Wired UK
7. SocialSmack Gives You Props for Talking Smack About Brands by Ben Parr
8. The Cross-Generation Workforce by Andy McLoughlin, Forbes
9. The New Twitter Is an Attack on All Desktop Apps by Jennifer Van Grove
10. To Schedule Tweets Or Not by Chris Brogan

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

Dilbert: Social Media Marketing Manager

Dilbert never ceases to amaze me at how spot-on the strip is.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve talked to people who work in “the real world” and they say things like:

• “We have a company website…but it’s blocked during business hours.”
• “We have a Facebook Fan Page/Group/Etc…but we don’t have access to Facebook.”
• “We have a Twitter account…but we can’t access Twitter at work.”
• “No, I don’t read business related blogs…that’s against company policy.”

And the list could go on and on.

In this day and age the companies who are embracing the technological changes are going to be the ones to prevail.  The rest will eventually be left behind and forgotten about. That is what we believe. That is what we adhere to. And that is what we preach at our Indy Media School classes.

Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 2

Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Here’s volume 2 in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

1. AOL Launches SafeSocial…To Screen Your Kid’s Every Friend Posted (Katy Gathright – Social Times)
2. 4 Ways to Make Content Go Viral in Social Media (Kyle Lacy)
3. How Freelancers Might Use Social Media in the Future (Stephanie Marcus – Mashable)
4. Make Shareability a Priority (Chris Brogan)
5. Marketing Your Business through the Use of Podcasts (Gini Dietrich)
6. 100 Ways to Measure Social Media (Pam Dyer)
7. Social Media Parenting: Raising the Digital Generation (Matt Silverman – Mashable)
8. 12 Ways to Market Your Event With Social Media (Rich Brooks – Social Media Examiner)
9. Twitter And The Nine-Month Bounce (Erick Schonfeld – Tech Crunch)
10. Winemakers shun social media grapevine (Leslie Gevirtz – Reuters)

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.

Hootsuite Premium Pricing Shocker

Yesterday Hootsuite announced their new premium plans…

As I looked at this I was shocked by the top end (the actual top end is not listed here, but is in their Enterprise Services at $1499-$1998 per month).  The biggest shocker being their pricing emphasis on “Team Members” (a.k.a. other Hootsuite users who can use one or more of your social network accounts) rather than some sort of true functionality.

I recall just this past week looking through the FAQ’s and reading this & this (emphasis mine):

• “There is no cost to use the HootSuite Team Collaboration tools or any part of the social media dashboard at this time. Everything is free – though in the future, we will likely add premium level accounts.”
• “The web version of HootSuite as well as HootSuite Lite for iPhone and Android is currently free. HootSuite for iPhone and Android currently costs $2.99. We are investigating pricing plans and exciting new features for paid accounts.“

Fair enough. It’s worded in a  way that says, “We do charge for some things & will be charging for other things at some point. Don’t get used to having everything you currently have for free”.  You can’t argue with that. It’s pretty clear and from a business perspective understandable.

I have absolutely no problem paying for services. We’re in the business of getting paid for services & we pay for services all of the time if the ROI is there.  Just earlier this week in some sort of prophetic thought I was thinking to myself that if Hootsuite charged $5/mo for the service I had at that point in time I’d be happy to pay it.

Beyond the whole Team Members issue (I need this to be expandable to an infinite number of users, even if it costs $4.99/mo for each additional user) their $4.99/mo a plan suites me just fine.  But by charging $15 for the first team member for collaboration aspects (the “priority support” isn’t something I can see being used much & in my opinion should be there with any paid account), they’re really doing themselves no favors.

That said, I can see no good reason for most of our clients to bump up to the “Silver” plan solely for the purpose of allowing us access to their account via our account. And a good portion of them would probably be fine with the Basic plan as long as the advertising isn’t too annoying.

So having mulled this over we’ll be moving our internal Twitter collaboration over to CoTweet.  Facebook pages updates will take place through our Bronze Hootsuite account or directly via Facebook by other team members. Post updates via RSS will continue to be handled via WordPress & the Facebook app. For clients, we’ll simply log into their accounts when needed.  At the end of the day we may not be able to do everything the way we’d like to do it, but we can still do it.

Now it’s your turn. How will the Hootsuite changes affect you, if at all?  What other applications & services do you use for your social media management?  Let us know and if you’d like you can leave a voice message at 317-565-4250.

Ten Social Media Reads, Vol 1

Here at Watershed Studio we’re always scouring our RSS and Twitter feeds to see what’s going on in the world of technology and social media. Starting today we’ll share some of the top reads we come across in nice, easy to digest, posts. Enjoy.

1. 7 Surprising Statistics About Twitter in America (Jay Baer – Convince & Convert)
2. Delivering Wow! (Jeff Stanger – Blue Trolley Press)
3. Five ways to integrate social media into your overall marketing mix (Catherine Parker – Memeburn)
4. How to be the Life of the Social Media Party (Darren Rowse – ProBlogger)
5. How to Use Proactive Social Customer Service to Build Your Brand (American Express OPEN Forum)
6. IndyCar Drivers now tussle through Twitter posts (Curt Cavin – Indy Star)
7. More small businesses use Twitter, Facebook to promote (Jon Swartz – USA Today)
8. Social media: why there’s no point trying to escape (Shane Richmond – Telegraph Media Group)
9. The Power of Social Media: Educate Embrace and Empower (Kyle Lacy)
10. When Someone Blindsides You With a Negative Blog Post (Liz Strauss)

If you have any social media reads that you’d like to suggest, please contact us or Tweet us @watershedstudio.