Change in how we communicate is certainly a constant in our life today. How are you and your organization adapting to that change? Are you taking advantage of the ways to more efficiently communicate with your employees or with your customers?

The Vandiver Group has utilized the evolving social media technologies to enable change in the way we communicate as employees and as company representatives. TVG’s Pulse program and proprietary software creates an online, social space for more efficient and engaging conversations. Learn more about the Pulse program from our online Pulse booklet.

Pulse for Focus Groups
Instead of taking weeks or months to set up a focus group, Pulse efficiently brings together an online group, facilitates conversation, identifies key trends and builds summary reports. Pulse can gather valuable information from global audiences at the same time.

Pulse for Public Engagement
Managing public comments and responses is tedious. Pulse streamlines the process by taking large quantities of data and creating charts and graphs that capture public comment results.

Pulse for Brainstorming
Instead of scheduling multiple meetings and conference calls, Pulse uses an online platform to facilitate communication and collaboration. Employees in the same office or a network of offices can share ideas and opinions 24/7.

Pulse for Employee Engagement
Pulse engages employees in a two-way conversation to identify hot topics within an organization. Conversations allow employees to become more connect to the organization and builds the employee brand.

The answer is not so simple. There are hundreds of different sites online dedicated solely to searching social media content, and each has different strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of the sites and tactics TVG considers to be most efficient and comprehensive.

Blogs and Blog posts:

Google Blog Search- Starting with the most recognized and utilized search tool.  The main benefit of the Google Blog search is its ease of use since most are use to the interface.  Also helpful is the home page of the search that provides a listing of the most popular topics blogged about that day.

Technorati- The recognized leader in all things Blog.  Technorati is much more than a search engine- it is blogger central, so I encourage everyone who is not familiar with the site to explore Technorati and its many features.  The key to Technorati is its “authority” ranking which is determined predominantly by the number of blogs that link to your blog.  Every blog has a ranking based on their authority, starting with #1 as the most “popular” blog on the web.  The site’s Top 100 blog listing is very useful in identifying the most influential bloggers and conversations.  If you are just interested in performing a blog search, http://s.technorati.com is an easier site than starting on the main page.

Ice Rocket- Monitoring trends in blog conversations.  Ice Rocket is another source for comprehensive blog searches.  A unique feature of this site that TVG likes to use is the Trends Monitoring feature.  This search allows you to track the percentage of blogs mentioning a keyword or phrase (such as your company’s name).  You can compare up to 3 keywords to see how your company is doing compared to a competitor.  The results include a graph, which quickly demonstrates how popular your topic is in the blogosphere or how major events may have impacted your traffic (shown in spikes in the graph).

There are countless other sites out there to search blog posts, including the popular Digg.com.  But moving on to other social media sites you may want to research.  TVG recently discovered some new sites included in the list below in a great PRSA webinar presentation from Josh Hallett of Voce Communications.

Board Tracker- This is a unique site which searches discussion board conversations.  Instead of just locating your company on blog posts, you can now review public discussion boards or forums that are discussing your company or topic of interest.

Everyzing- A site for searching podcasts and online videos or audio files, such as those on YouTube.  Google, Technorati and other search engines do search tags of YouTube videos, but this site is dedicated exclusively to video and audio, therefore more comprehnsive.

Twitter Search- The leading search engine for microblogging site Twitter, Summize.com was recently acquired by Twitter and now can be utilized at search.Twitter.com.  Other utilized Twitter searches- TwitterTroll, TweetScan and a Google search created by MicroPersuasion blogger, Steve Rubel.

Social Mention- a site that searches all social media applications- including Twitter, Blogs, Flickr, YouTube, news sites and more.  This is a great site if you are looking for quick results covering the most popular applciations instead of the most comprehnsive results.

Radian6- A paid for service that provides comprehensive monitoring and analysis solutions.  Although most search engines are free of charge, for those clients and brands that are continuously discussed online, this is an excellent investment that will save you time and worries.

On a closing note- new search engines and social media tools are being created everyday.  The possibilities are endless, so find the tools that you find most useful for your goals and hopefully this overview gives you a few places to start.

Many people are familiar with YouTube as it appears in random sharing of bloopers caught on home video or television mishaps. But there are many other uses for the site–from viral marketing, contests, education and much more.

First the Facts:
· 200M+ Worldwide unique monthly visitors, 68M+ US Unique Visitors
· Sixth largest site in the US, ahead of Wikipedia, eBay and Amazon
· Hundreds of millions of videos viewed daily
· Hundreds of thousands of videos uploaded daily
· 56% 18- to 34-year-olds are registered, 47% overall
· 51% go to YouTube weekly or more often
· 50% watch all of the videos to the end
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings, US only, March 2008.

YouTube is, by far the most popular video sharing Web site online. Visitors use the site to upload and share videos. They share videos they’ve created themselves or clips that they’ve found on TV or the web. YouTube videos can also be shared through blogs, e-mails and other sites.

How can this concentration of active customers be utilized by your company or client?

Create a Brand Channel
A YouTube channel page serves as a profile page for a YouTube user. On your channel page, other YouTube users can see your public videos, favorite videos, bulletins and subscribers. Your channel page also displays several links that let other people connect with you (or your brand) by sending you a message, sharing your channel with friends or adding comments to your channel.

Some of our favorite brand channels-
Associated Press
EA Sports
HR Block

Create a YouTube Contest
The user-generated nature of YouTube is a great platform to hold a contest as part of a marketing campaign for your newest service or product. A contest promotes a high-level of engagement and meaningful interaction- from having fans share their favorite things about your brand to having them film your next television commercial.

Here are some of my favorites that are just wrapping up-
Everyone has a Natures Valley…Where’s Yours?
Tide to Go Instant Stain

Viral Video Production
The most common use of YouTube by organizations is to distribute viral videos as stand-alone promotional pieces.

Some famous viral videos include Gatorade’s Ball Girl video, Ok Go’s music video and Reebok’s Extended Terry Tate commercial.

When creating a viral video, companies often do not include their name in the production, creating the appearance that it was accidentally captured and uploaded by a general user.

If your company creates a viral video it is essential to remember the social media rules of authenticity and transparency — you should not hide that your company has created the video.

One last aspect of YouTube to remember is HAVE FUN. Visitors come to the site and send e-mails to friends for entertainment value. There is room to be informative but you also must be unique, innovative and entertaining.

Many people are familiar with YouTube as it appears in random sharing of bloopers caught on home video or television mishaps. But there are many other uses for the site–from viral marketing, contests, education and much more.

First the Facts:
• 200M+ Worldwide unique monthly visitors, 68M+ US UVs
• Sixth largest site in the US, ahead of Wikipedia, eBay, and Amazon
• Hundreds of millions of videos viewed daily
• Hundreds of thousands of videos uploaded daily
• 56% 18-34 year olds are registered, 47% overall
• 51% go to YouTube weekly or more often
• 50% watch all of the videos to the end
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings, US only, March 2008.

YouTube is, by far the most popular video sharing Web site online. Visitors use the site to upload and share videos. They share videos they’ve created themselves or clips that they’ve found on TV or the web. YouTube videos can also be shared through blogs, emails and other sites.

How can this concentration of active customers be utilized by your company or client?

Create a Brand Channel
A YouTube channel page serves as a profile page for a YouTube user. On your channel page, other YouTube users can see your public videos, favorite videos, bulletins and subscribers. Your channel page also displays several links that let other people connect with you (or your brand) by sending you a message, sharing your channel with friends or adding comments to your channel.
Some of our favorite brand channels-

Associated Press ( http://www.youtube.com/user/AssociatedPress)
EA ( http://www.youtube.com/user/EA)
HR Block ( http://www.youtube.com/user/TrumanGreene )

Create a YouTube Contest
The user-generated nature of YouTube is a great platform to hold a contest as part of a marketing campaign for your newest service or product. A contest promotes a high-level of engagement and meaningful interaction- from having fans share their favorite things about your brand to having them film your next television commercial.

Here are some of my favorites that are just wrapping up-
Everyone has a Natures Valley…Where’s Yours? (http://www.youtube.com/WheresYours)
and Tide to Go Instant Stain (http://www.youtube.com/mytalkingstain)

Viral Video Production
The most common use of YouTube by organizations is to distribute viral videos as stand-alone promotional pieces.

Some famous Viral Videos includes Gatorade’s Ball Girl video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SqJz0NgnnE&feature=related), Ok Go’s music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI) and Reebok’s extended Terry Tate commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jplpjCaec&feature=related).

When creating a viral video, companies often do not include their name in the production, creating the appearance that it was accidentally captured and uploaded by a general user.

If your company creates a viral video it is essential to remember the social media rules of authenticity and transparency — you should not hide that they have created the video.

One last aspect of YouTube to remember is HAVE FUN. Visitors come to the site and send emails to friends for entertainment value. There is room to be informative but you also must be unique, innovative and entertaining.