Irish Social Media Awards 2014 Open Nominations

socialmedia-awards-2014 The Irish Social Media Awards are being held in June in Dublin and nominations opened today.

As with other years nominations are 100% free.

This year’s categories are:

Facebook categories:

Facebook Page for a Business (Non Campaign)
Facebook Page for a Non-Profit/Organisation
Facebook Page for a Business (owner managed)
Integrated Facebook Campaign: Page, App, Ads

Twitter categories

Best Business Twitter account – marketing, sales
Best Business Twitter account – support, CRM
Best Business Twitter Campaign

Mobile categories

Best Mobile App (Marketing)
Best Mobile App (Events)
Best Mobile Campaign Using Social Media

SME Categories

Best Use of Social Media by an SME (new)
Best Blog of an SME

Other Categories

Best Experimental Format (Vine, Instagram, Snapchat)
Best Social Media Only Campaign (not linked to any other media)
Most Innovative Use of Social Media
Best Use of Social Media by State Body
Customer Care using Social Media (Integrated)
Best Video/Video Campaign (non broadcast)
Best Online PR Campaign
Best Use of Social Media for a Sponsorship Campaign
Social Media Effectiveness – conversions, metrics etc
Best Integrated Social Media Campaign

Full details on the event site.

Twitter Sells Tweets

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

With most social networks the users are the product.

In the case of Twitter one of the problems the company has been struggling with is how to actually make money from it all ..

So selling their content ie. their users’ tweets appears to be one of the solutions.

According to an article on RWW Twitter has sold the data to Datasift and has other companies lined up to buy the same data.

So not only is Twitter claiming ownership of the content, but they’re also happily ignoring any privacy concerns users might have..

Expect privacy advocates to get very vocal on this.

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Fine Gael Take Social Media To New Lows

I’ve no idea who is “managing” Fine Gael’s web “stuff” during the 2011 Irish general election, but you would really have to ask yourself what they were thinking.

Firstly we had the introduction of new word into the Irish political lexicon – twolicy. Yes – they managed to combine “twitter” and “policy” and came up with this wonderful new term.

What is the “twolicy” all about?

Basically they’re asking all their supporters to follow the Fine Gael candidates and to tweet about them.. They’ve even supplied hashtags and all! Aren’t they um … Oh never mind.

This image kind of sums it up:

Fine Gaels Twolicy image

Ireland 2.0?

Now they seem to have taken things to a new low with their Valentine’s ploy.

Fine Gael's Cringe Inducing Valentine's card

Fine Gael's Cringe Inducing Valentine's card

I’m not sure if they’re even taking themselves seriously at this stage.

Cringe.

Be Careful Mixing Business With Pleasure

For a lot of people a business is known for its staff.

In the case of very small companies the staff are the company.

So if you are in business and you are using Twitter / Facebook bear that in mind. If your “personal” account is going to be associated, even indirectly, with your business account just take a moment to reflect before you post.

Reflecting does not equate with modifying or changing your personality. Personality is important.

It just means that you should think a bit before you tweet. Once you’ve posted it there is no going back.

Fantasy Animals, Pets and Pretzels More Popular Than Businesses

If you frequent the “twittersphere” or Facebook you’ll often come across businesses and their staff trying to market their products and services to you.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Of course, how they actually do it is another matter entirely …

But how successful are most of their attempts to “tap in” to “social media” and “maximise” their “potential”?

You’d have to wonder at times, especially when you look at how few “fans” or “followers” some of them actually have.

Fantasy animals, however, manage to get a reasonably respectable following..

Common Unicorn, for example, has over 1400 followers on Twitter and is listed 50 times:

Twitter's "Common" Unicorn

Twitter Unicorn

The unicorn is eclipsed by a Squirrel, however, who has managed to attract over 13.5k followers – being listed 660 times!

Twitter Squirrel

Twitter Squirrel

What about Facebook?

Facebook seems to be a great place to find oddly named “groups” for just about every possible “idea” under the sun, but a Danish pineapple has managed to get over 167k fans! Not to be outdone, Germany has a pretzel with over 379k !

And we shouldn’t forget that even cats, dogs and other pets are also finding a following on Facebook…

Why do I bring this up?

Well to start with it amused me, but also it puts things into perspective. A lot of people seem to be making a lot of money from businesses that want to “tap into” social media as part of their marketing. While there is nothing exactly “wrong” with that you’d have to wonder what kind of metrics they are using to sell their services to their clientele.

If a fruit or a pretzel can get  huge following on Facebook without it actually selling anything to anyone, how well can a “normal” business expect to do?

What is a measurement of their “success”?

The reality is that there probably isn’t a simple way to “measure” success. There are a lot of different factors that come into play.

But I digress..

Maybe the real “takeaway” from these rather silly examples is that they all share one thing in common – fun. They’re all frivolous fun. People use and interact with social media sites in their spare time, as well as during office hours. If you look at the kind of links people share, the pictures they post etc., you quickly realise that they don’t go to “social media” to buy or to be “sold to” or “marketed to”.

If you can instill some level of “fun” into your “presence” maybe you’ll find that you are actually more successful, though getting the balance right might not be that as easy for a business as it is for a fantasy animal.

Spontaneous Success Cannot Be Created

It may seem obvious, but you cannot force something to be spontaneous.
Spontaneous is that – spontaneous. It cannot be contrived or manipulated.
If you don’t believe me check the definition in any good dictionary.

Can you trust this man?

Can you trust this man?

Why is it that some “experts” believe that they can “cod” people (their clients and the media) into believing that they can manufacture spontaneity?

The most obvious example is any one of the multitude of “social media agencies” that have sprung up in the last year or so. While there is a need to help people engage more effectively online, making crazy promises cannot end well. Someone will get hurt.

A “viral” marketing campaign cannot be invented.

You can try to do something that will capture people’s imagination and interest. If you do it well and you are lucky, then maybe, just maybe, you will reach the “Holy Grail” and it will go “viral”
But you cannot guarantee that people will be interested enough for that to happen.

Everyone wants their product or success to become a massive success. We’d all love to become overnight successes, make our fortunes and be able to relax on a tropical island, wouldn’t we?

UPDATE: An interesting related post worth reading

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