Last week’s poll question: Do you use sites such as Scribd, Issuu and Slideshare to publish your documents online?

• No, I’ve never heard of them 54%
• No, I don’t use these sites 28%
• Yes, but only some of the sites 15%
• Yes, I publish content to all three sites 13%

“Document sharing sites are relative newcomers to the social media space. Yet, they hold much promise for enabling the viral spread of PDFs, Word docs, and PowerPoint presentations. Content these days has to be both findable and sharable (search and social). These sites are built to support both practices. They, along with Google Docs, should be part of every social marketers bag of tricks.” –Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: Do you think integration of Twitter with LinkedIn is a good idea?

• No, there is too much banality on Twitter; it’s not a good fit 39%
• It remains to be seen whether it’s a good idea or not 22%
• Yes, Twitter is a place to have professional conversations, so it’s a good fit 21%
• It’s an oil/water mix 12%
• It’s a peanut butter/chocolate mix 6%

“Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says it’s a good idea to “put a little Twitter in everything.” At first blush, I thought this was a bad idea. But as it turns out, you can decide which Twitter posts get included in LinkedIn and which don’t, by using the hashtags #li or #in. Alternatively, you can choose to share all your tweets. I’m okay with the first option, but decidedly not okay with the second. You can also choose to tweet your LinkedIn status to Twitter followers as well. With these controls in place, what I thought was an oil/water mix is, in fact, peanut butter/chocolate. ” –Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: A recent survey indicated that 75 percent of small businesses are not using social media for marketing. Why do you think that may be the case?

• They don’t know how they might use social media. 35%
• They aren’t sure where to start. 28%
• They don’t feel they have the time. 23%
• They are stuck in routines, and it’s hard to change habits to include new activities. 14%

“‘Uncertainty’ is the word that marks the results of this poll. Much about the use of social media is uncertain to be sure. It’s a young medium that’s yet to prove itself in some respects. That being said, certain forms of social media have attained a track record of success. Blogging, for instance, has proved its worth as a beneficial tool for use in search engine optimization. Social networks like LinkedIn are useful for prospecting and lead generation. Even micro-blogging tools like Twitter have been recognized as having unique business potential (just ask Dell).

“We are between the ‘now and the not yet’ where social media for business is concerned. I’m guessing that, inside of five years, it will become commonplace” -Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: With growth in the use of “always-on” social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as vehicles for communication, do you find that you use e-mail more or less often than you used to?

• About the same, 59%
• Somewhat less often, 28%
• More often, 11%
• Rarely use e-mail, 2%

“It’s going to be a long time coming before e-mail is replaced. It’s too ingrained in our business psyche and, for better or worse, established as part of the workflow. While it lacks efficiencies that new tools like Google Wave are attempting to address, it’s stock-standard — everyone knows how to use it.

That being said, I’m finding that much of the anecdotal types of communication with co-workers and colleagues that used to route through e-mail now find themselves being sent via Twitter or Yammer. That leaves the more weighty stuff for my inbox.” –Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: Do you view Google Wave as a serious competitor to existing social networks such as Facebook and Twitter?

• Too soon to tell, 58%
• No, 23%
• Yes, 19%

“I just received my Google Wave invitation, and I’ve been checking it out.  I don’t think Wave will be a replacement for Twitter and certainly not Facebook. I see its greatest strength as a tool for collaborative communication, whether in a business context or otherwise. For example, I can imagine project teams working together, or association members having a chat about some relevant topic. Just having gotten on, I’m still trying to figure out its ‘innerds,’ though the interface is pretty straightforward. I’m with the majority here — I think the true value of what Wave can provide is yet to be determined.” — Paul Chaney
Image credit, iStock

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Last week’s poll question: Do you think social media could be useful for every company?

• Yes, 60%
• No, 25%
• Not sure yet, 15%

“It looks as if more and more companies are embracing the use of social media for business — or at least entertaining the idea. However, I’m reminded of what author Seth Godin said in his book “Meatball Sundae” (and I paraphrase): Trying to bring a new media tool set into a company that has yet to adopt the mindset is like trying to mix meatballs and ice cream. It just won’t work. Get the DNA of social media ingrained first.” — Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: Who tweets on your company’s behalf?

• One person tweets under corporate brand name, 34%
• We don’t use Twitter for our company, 29%
• Team of people tweets under corporate brand name, 21%
• Many employees tweet on behalf of company using personal accounts, 9%
• C-level executive (CEO, CMO, etc.) tweets using personal name, 8%

“There was more to this question than meets the eye. It wasn’t just a matter of who did the tweeting, but also how many companies employ it as part of their marketing communications strategy. That number was just over 71 percent, which is indicative of the trend toward Twitter being seen as a tool for business.

But, it was also a question of who. In our small company, I’m the person primarily responsible for tweeting, but we have several members of the staff who routinely work posts about the company into their tweets. I often use my personal account to tweet on behalf of the company, as well. We use Hootsuite, a tool that allows for several people to tweet under the corporate brand.” –Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: What should you do when your boss wants to friend you on Facebook?

• Use Facebook permission features and filter the info they see, 60%
• Add them, 18%
• Do nothing. Ignore the request and hope it goes away, 13%
• Reject the request, 9%

“The saying goes, ‘discretion is the better part of valor.’ While it is good to be brave (i.e. allow your boss to friend you), it is wise to be careful (i.e. filter what he/she sees). However, I think the best course of action is never to post anything to Facebook (or any other social network for that matter) that you would be embarrassed for your mother to see. That is my modus operandi and it works pretty well, especially considering both my mother and my boss are friends on Facebook. That, to me, is the highest form of discretion.” –Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: How interested are you in incorporating crowdsourcing into your business?

• I don’t understand crowdsourcing well enough to say, 48%
• Very interested, 16%
• Not interested at all, 12%
• Slightly interested, 9%
• We’re already doing it, 8%
• Moderately interested, 8%

“I suspect crowdsourcing is still a foreign concept to most, yet many companies are beginning to make use of it for product development. Dell uses crowdsourcing via its IdeaStorm platform to get customer feedback on new product ideas, some of which have been incorporated into Dell computers. T-shirt company, Threadless uses crowdsourcing to determine which T-shirt designs go into print. We are moving from a consumer-based mindset to one in which co-creation is expected. People want to have a voice in developing the products they consume.

James Surowiecki, in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds,” says, “[U]nder the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.” I believe it’s true: “We” are smarter than “me.” Crowdsourcing is certainly a discipline worth investigating.” –Paul Chaney

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Last week’s poll question: What is the most important metric to track in social media?

• Virality (the reach of your brand and how much your message is spread), 35%
• Sentiment (positive, negative or indifferent consumer reaction), 32%
• Financials (the effect social media has on your bottom line), 20%
• Volume (number of comments, blog posts, tweets, links, etc. about your brand), 11%
• Other, 2%

“Measuring social media is still a work in progress, so it’s not surprising to see “financials” not ranking more highly. We’re still trying to determine how social media affects the ROI. We know it has an effect; we just don’t yet fully know what metrics to wrap around it. I believe we will — and soon. Software is being developed right now that will help that. But, to quote a line from a favorite song of mine, some of this is a “matter of the heart.” It has intangible benefits that can’t be charted on a spreadsheet.” –Paul Chaney

Image credit, gimbat, via iStock

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