In the mid to late 1990’s, before I began working professionally within the social media industry – we called it the online community industry back then – I spent a number of years researching and writing about life online. My particular focus was on how individuals create an identity, form relationships and build communities in what were, at that time, largely text based online environments.
Many businesses have been, for some time, dabbling in the use of social media, usually in marketing their products and services or monitoring and responding to mentions of their brands. As we’ve seen time and time again in client engagements, these activities usually take place in silos and are disconnected from other, often parallel, business critical processes such as customer support, innovation, and product and service delivery.
My former employer, the BBC, has issued new guidelines for the official use of third party social networking and micro-blogging services. The new guidelines should not be confused with the guidelines issued several years ago on the personal use of blogging and social networking sites by BBC staff but instead are intended to cover official, albeit non-contractual, BBC activities on third party websites.
Last night I attended one of the Social Media Week events, Show Me the Money: Where’s the ROI in Social Media?, a panel discussion organised by Chinwag and hosted by Sun. The discussion, chaired by Andrew Gerrard, included Robin Grant from We Are Social, Luke Brynley-Jones of Our Social Times, Marshal Manson from Edelman, and Mark Rogers of Market Sentinel.
Anyone who follows my movements online will have noticed that I’ve been rather quiet recently. This is because I have, for the past month or so, been part of a Headshift team, which at various times drew upon the experience and skills of more than ten people, working to deliver a piece of strategic consultancy [...]
Originally posted on the Headshift blog, Robin Hamman talks about his experiences at the BBC, and curating user-generated content. Using technology from eVectors, Robin and Nik Street developed an example curation site around the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, named ClimatePulse.org.
Robin Hamman leads the Social Media practice at Headshift, and has over 10 years of experience devising, implementing, and managing social strategies.