17 tips for using Twitter to grow your business

Just like black-and-white photography can reveal depths you’ll never see in colour, the short length of a Twitter message encourages new levels of creativity and effectiveness in marketing. Don’t believe me?  Here are my top tips on getting started with Twitter…and each is 140 characters or less.

How the social web can nourish your most personal relationship

The process of strengthening a relationship by working hard together; by facing, nurturing and celebrating your successes and challenges together — that’s an experience that’s open to any couple, or indeed any relationship, that integrates the creative and communicative possibilities of the social web. Here are some of the ways you can use the social web to bring the energy of creative collaboration into your relationship.

Building your social media team

Developing an effective social media team requires more than finding the right box on the org chart or figuring out where that community moderator should sit. Here are the kinds of capabilities you need on your team.

Today in the Globe & Mail: Alex on the business of social media

Today’s Globe & Mail included a special supplement about MBA programs, with a feature story on why and how schools are incorporating social media into the curriculum. “Within minutes or even seconds, online chatter can span continents, conveying positive spin or the kiss of death for a product or company,” reporter Diana McLaren writes. “Business schools are adapting to the rapidly shifting relationship between companies and consumers.”

Diana spoke to me about Social Signal’s experience integrating social media into today’s businesses. (And the Globe ran my favourite, uncredited headshot — by the remarkable Kris Krug.)

Here’s what Diana included in today’s story:

Social media consultant Alexandra Samuel, co-founder of Social Signal in Vancouver, says that social media is “not just a marketing technique. It also allows a business or organization a way of monitoring for customer care.

“Social media can’t just be out there isolated in some little marketing department. You need someone to monitor and respond to what people are saying.”

The challenge for MBA schools, she says, is to “get people to think about a dramatic shift in organizations needed for social media marketing. They need less hierarchy and more communication across teams. Generally speaking, one of the first concerns for business is risk management. The reality of social media is far greater than risk. It’s about throwing a party and no one comes, there’s no response.”

…

As someone who consults with organizations on social network marketing, but also a business owner herself who hires staff, Ms. Samuel agrees about the need for more MBA graduates to offer a combination of traditional skills, such as financial management and business strategy, with an understanding of social media that makes them “billable” to clients.

“My dream hire is for an MBA with social media expertise,” she says. “Someone who comes with the whole package.”