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Jaggers Communications

Dec 29
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My Top 10 Social Media Posts of 2010

By Social Media

2010 was a great year for social media inspiration, with no shortage of great topics to address and questions to answer. Here are the top ten posts from this blog throughout the year:

  1. Time vs. Newsweek and the Demise of the English Language in which I freak out over the misuse of peak (peek!).
  2. Twitter: Why We Care What you Had for Breakfast I recognize that there are people who still don’t “get” Twitter (while only an estimated 8 percent of the population uses it, 100 percent knows what it is — this validated by the “Mom Index” which is determined by my mom saying “I know what that is.”)  I hope this post helps people in business understand why Twitter is an important communication tool.
  3. How NOT to use LinkedIn: Three D’oh!s from a Real-Life Example In social media consulting, we don’t spend a lot of time talking about LinkedIn, taking it for granted that people know how to use one of the first business social networking tools. It is only when someone steps so far out of line that it becomes necessary to outline the offense and make sure others don’t repeat it.
  4. Five Steps BHG Real Estate III Should Take Right Now I enjoy these social media case study opportunities that pop overnight and result in people sending me links and asking me to provide my thoughts on the situation. This one was pretty shocking and I think it’s been so popular because the lessons are applicable to any crisis or communications faux pas that any company (or representative) unfortunately might make.
  5. Five Ways to Avoid a Social Media Spanking I don’t know if the term “spanking” led to additional traffic on this page, but no matter — this is helpful advice for anyone posting content on behalf of a company.
  6. But Honestly Monica, Five Things Cooks Source Should Do Right Now The Cooks Source debacle was classic — probably the best foot-in-mouth social media episode of the year. Pretty much everyone wrote about it; I couldn’t resist throwing in my two cents.
  7. 10 Things to do on Your Facebook Fan Page I’ll admit it — I think I wrote this post more for me than for you — it’s something I get asked regularly and rather than repeating myself, I share the link to this post often. Of course there’s MORE you can do on a fan page . . . and this might lead to a Part Two post in the future.
  8. Charlottesville Car Dealerships and Social Media: A Study of Four Automotive Brands This began a series of reviewing service providers in my community and their use of social media.
  9. Ambassador You: An Employee’s Role in Social Media Also the topic of a presentation I’ve given to networking groups in several locations, the Ambassador You concept continues to be relevant and valued by businesses and marketing professionals.
  10. We’re Not Really Friends: Six Ways to Balance the Personal and Professional on the Social Web The “how do you separate the personal and the professional” question is one of the most frequently asked during my speaking gigs. This post helps explain my approach.

Thank you to all of you for a great first year of blogging about social media on Change the Conversation — keep reading in 2011 and feel free to let me know if you have any questions, case studies for me to review or would like me to come speak to your company or organization.

Dec 16
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The Four-Step Framework for Nonprofits Thinking about Social Media

By Social Media

I spend a lot of my time coaching and teaching nonprofit organizations on how to use social media. It’s not that simple of a task to take on, and nonprofits should not take the plunge into the social web lightly. It is super important for nonprofits to take this seriously and start getting organized — the tools of social media are free and more effective than any other marketing or mass media tactics used by nonprofits in the past.

There is a simple four-step framework for organizations to think about and to use to guide the process of developing a plan to use social media.

1. Read. Watch. Listen.

There are multiple tools to monitor what’s being said on the social web, but the important thing is to identify your geographic community, the search terms to look and listen for, the bloggers, the news feeds, the Twitter users — and to create all these searches in easy-to-follow alerts and notifications so you can quickly and efficiently stay on top of what is important to your community and, what your community is saying about your organization as well. You’re going to be watching videos, reading blogs and news items, following Twitter users and overall, paying attention to the content created in and about your community.

2. Find and Connect to Your Community.

The definition of community is not limited to geography. Sometimes geography plays a role; sometimes it does not. Maybe your community is the people in Ohio who love Soft-Coated Wheaten Terriers. Maybe the community is comprised of only people who have a rare and particular kind of disease. No matter — a community is a group that has one or more interests in common. Find them by searching for them and inviting them to your network. Find them and follow their content. Find them by uploading the contacts you have already made professionally, as a student, as a family member and a community member into your social networking platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and connect to the people who already have a presence in these social networks.

3. Interact with the Community.

Answer a question. Reply to a tweet or re-tweet something others will find of interest. Click that “like” button often. Leave comments on blogs and on Facebook. Share other people’s links often. Be helpful. And — when the opportunity presents itself for your community to get together in person — at a conference, a tweetup or just for a cup of coffee, go and put faces with names.

4. Produce Valuable Content.

Take photos and publish them. Blog. Tweet. Make a video and post it to YouTube. Create interesting and thoughtful content and share it with your community to help them, make them stronger, to bring them together (and on and on).

It’s a simple framework, but not a simple execution — but it may help your organization take the first step toward getting a handle on how to tackle social media for the community’s benefit.

Dec 14
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Introducing Jaggers Communications

By Jaggers Communications News, Uncategorized

Yesterday, I shared news on my personal blog that makes the focus of this blog a bit more evident. You may have even noticed some changes around this site, such as the introduction of a new page and a new business name.

I’m very pleased to announce that beginning January 3, 2011, I will launch Jaggers Communications. I will be using my experience in agency and corporate communications work to help businesses and nonprofits reach their business goals through strategic marketing, content creation, public relations and social media.

The tag line in the logo says it all – the work provided by Jaggers Communications is strategic — there will always be a correlation between our clients’ business goals and the communications efforts we produce on their behalf. We’re social — as in, we use social networks, social media and social strategy as a vehicle to drive a campaign forward. Social will always be an element of an overall strategic communications plan — not the plan itself. Smart is not only about using our brains to support your business, it’s about developing goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, realistically high and time-bound. SMART. See?

There are four industry categories we will continue to serve: health care, education, tourism and manufacturing (especially of the green variety.)

I am indebted to the reputation management firm Standing Partnership, my employer for the past five years, for giving me the experience, the confidence and the blessing to go out on my own and continue as my mentors and friends.

I am eagerly anticipating the adventure that awaits and I look forward to working for, and collaborating with many new friends and established contacts.