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Category Archives: Des Moines
Measuring and monitoring your Facebook page
In the past year, we’ve seen companies big and small begin to use Facebook as a meaningful extension of their communications efforts. From customer service to social campaigns, more and more businesses from all industries are using Facebook pages to communicate with their audiences in new ways. Now that your company has its own Facebook page, are you taking advantage of all the free tools Facebook has to offer?
In our next Lava Lunch series workshop on Thursday, October 27th, we’ll dive deep into the existing and emerging Insights features behind Facebook Pages — how to find them, interpret them and act on them. We’ll also discuss the best third-party tools for monitoring your page, including best practices for staying efficient when moderating a Facebook page. Continue reading
Preparing your company for a social media crisis
Social networks are great for amplifying your company’s voice and reach – but they’ve also given a powerful megaphone to your customers, your audience, and the general public. Are you prepared for the inevitable “social media age” crisis that will demand the full attention of your communications team and push them way outside their comfort zone?
In our next Lava Lunch series workshop on Thursday, September 29th, we’ll share examples of how various organizations of all sizes have handled (and mishandled) unexpected crises. We’ll explore different tactics to get your team prepared to tackle everything from disgruntled individuals to full-on doomsday scenarios.
Refreshments and catered lunches will be provided. We’ll get started at noon, but feel free to stop by between 11:30 and 12:00 for some good, old-fashioned networking.
Tickets can be purchased at the bottom of this post for $30.00 per person, plus a nominal Eventbrite fee. Or, skip the fee and pay with Dwolla. Full event details and directions can be found on the Lava Lunch page.
Photo: underbiteman via flickr.
Lava Lunch: How to prepare your business for Google Plus
Our Lava Lunch series continues on Thursday, August 25th with a discussion about the newest player in the social networking space: Google Plus.
Drop by for a full download on the basic functionality and how it differs from other major networks. We’ll also unpack some of the future business uses for Google Plus, and what you need to prepare your organization for. (This isn’t a social network you can afford to ignore.)
Refreshments and catered lunches will be provided. We’ll get started at noon, but feel free to stop by between 11:30 and 12:00 for some good, old-fashioned networking.
Tickets can be purchased at the bottom of this post for $30.00 per person, plus a nominal Eventbrite fee. Or, skip the fee and pay with Dwolla. Full event details and directions can be found on the Lava Lunch page.
Upcoming Lava Row Lunch: QR Codes, Scan Tags and Augmented Reality
Join us on July 28th for this month’s installment of our Lava Lunch series, a discussion about QR codes, scan tags and augmented reality — and how to make these emerging technologies work for your brand or business. As usual, we’ll share examples and case studies of how businesses are currently taking advantage of the these new tools, but we’ll also discuss what makes some campaigns more engaging than others (here’s a hint: it’s more than just sending a customer to an online version of your ad!).
Refreshments and catered lunches will be provided. We’ll get started at noon, but feel free to stop by between 11:30 and 12:00 for some good, old-fashioned networking.
Tickets can be purchased at the bottom of this post for $30.00 per person, plus a nominal Eventbrite fee. Or, skip the fee and pay us with Dwolla. Full event details and directions can be found on the Lava Lunch page.
We hope to see you on July 28th!
Google’s social network finally revealed: The Google+ Project
Yesterday Google launched their much-rumored push into the social networking space: The Google+ Project. I was interviewed by ABC5‘s Katie Eastman (video embed below) about the new network and how it stacks up to the main competition – Facebook.
Here are a couple of quick takeaways and initial reactions to Google+:
No friend requests. Unlike Facebook, Google+ doesn’t require mutual friendship acceptance. Users can subscribe to each other’s updates without defining one another as a friend (similar to Twitter), thereby removing some of the initial social navigation barriers, drama and decision-making. Note: Google+ users still have complete control over how their profiles appear, down to specific individuals.
Small groups. Google+ has baked a feature called Huddle into the network, which lets you create small groups of colleagues or friends to interact with. We’re seeing an explosion of group messaging apps right now, and Facebook’s recent acquisition of Beluga proves that the major players want to have a presence in that space. Beluga is something we find quite useful here at Lava Row (we have a Beluga “pod” for our work group and one with a client team). Facebook has not yet integrated Beluga into it’s standard messaging system, so it appears that Google has beat them to it with Huddle – at least in terms of layering it on top of existing products.
Where will the users come from? The biggest challenge is 750 million+ active Facebook users that “live” in that ecosystem every day. Google will need to focus on user overlap (similar to the symbiotic relationship between Twitter and Facebook) because there’s no way to shift that many people overnight. Integrating Google+ with popular, existing products such as Gmail will also be key.
So what are your thoughts on Google+? The company has been stumbled of late with their Buzz and Wave products, but they’ve been quietly succeeding outside of North America with Orkut. Please leave your comments below.
The Launch of Google+ from Katie Eastman on Vimeo.
ABOVE: Video of the ABC5 interview with Nathan T. Wright. Watch for the Shane Reiser man-hug at the end!
