Mediaboss Marketing

New guidelines released this week by the New York City education department make it clear that social networking has a place in education, but they call for restrictions on how educators and students interact in such spaces.

The guidelines recommend prohibiting students and teachers from being "friends" on popular social-networking sites, such as Facebook, and instruct teachers to create school-related email accounts that are separate from their personal email accounts, for example, for interacting with students. The guidelines also call for principals or educational supervisors to closely monitor social-networking sites that are set up for educational purposes.

Despite the restrictions, city Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott touted the use of social networking as way to engage students and boost learning. In a letter to school principals released April 30, he wrote that the responsible use of such digital tools is important.

"We seek to provide our students with the opportunities that multimedia learning can provide--which is why we should allow and encourage the appropriate and accepted use of these powerful resources," he said.

Matthew Mittenthal, a spokesman for the 1.1 million-student district, emphasized that the guidelines do not recommend banning social-networking sites or interaction between students and teachers on such sites. The district will continue to collect feedback on the guidelines and will review them every three months and update them as needed, Mr. Mittenthal said.

Nancy E. Willard, the director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, based in Eugene, Ore., called the guidelines "noteworthy" in their "obvious concerted effort to recognize the importance of social media for instructional activities and the effort at distinguishing between professional and personal socializing."

But she and others expressed worries about how the guidelines will ultimately be carried out. For example, the recommendation that principals and supervisors oversee educational social-media sites and review their content closely is unlikely to work in the real world, she said.

"There is no way ... a principal can effectively manage a multitude of professional social-media sites," she said. "Impossible."

Communication Issues

In crafting the guidelines, the country's largest school district is following in the footsteps of other districts, including the 664,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District as well as the 9,000-student Minnetonka, Minn., district, which Mr. Mittenthal said were both used as models for the guidelines.

See more here:
N.Y.C. Outlines Social Media Guidelines for Educators

30-04-2012 16:43 Improving Access to Your Social Accounts - There are many ways in which you can link social media accounts and access them through a single system, but as yet none of these systems quite pull everything together in the way that we would wish. Accessing accounts remains a system wherein multiple web pages load up automatically when we log into the computer. From these web pages there then necessarily needs to be a short search to find any recent activity. All of this is very time consuming, so surely there is a better way? The answer is soon to arrive through the innovations of the Windows 8 ISO. This system is set to combine all of your social media with apps and other online integrated tiles. The free Windows 8 download will give you a good idea about how this will work when the system is finally released in October, but there is a huge potential for this system. The new Microsoft offering will utilize the Metro user interface, a system it introduced in 2011 as the system to run the Windows phone. The Windows phone was a huge success technologically but it was somewhat overshadowed by the sheer market dominance of Apple. Metro, however, will offer users a greatly increased level of access to and management of social media networks. The system works with a series of tiles that will be made up of apps and web links. These tiles will be constantly updating from the web in a live manner that will allow you to view things as they happen. For your ...

Continued here:
Social Media Networking | Improving Access to Your Social Accounts - Video

30-04-2012 17:04 Using Twitter for Your Link Building - What people do not realize is that you really can use your Twitter account to help you out with your SEO campaign. There are several different ways of using Twitter for your link building; in fact, that you can build valid, real and substantial links for your website using your Twitter account. You will be surprised at the high quality links you can generate with these methods. Here are some tips on using Twitter for your link building: * The first and most indirect way is by building relationships with people on Twitter. Yes, it will take you a while, but eventually you could wind up with links from these relationships. * Make a list of the top people in a particular genre. Take a topic and reach out to others, perhaps looking for the best videos on the subject, and find the Twitter accounts of the people that appear in the videos. Use Twitter to connect with them and also ask everyone for the best videos on the subject matter. Once you gather all of these people you can create your list of top people and reach out to them once more in the form of badges that they can place on their website that link back to yours. * Another way you might use your Twitter account is by reaching out to someone else. If they are tweeting that they need something in particular, and you can help them, do so! It could turn around to them rewarding you with promoting your site and your business. * Bring stories together. Use your ...

Read the original here:
Social Media Marketing | Using Twitter for Your Link Building - Video

01-05-2012 03:18 Using Social Media for Event Marketing - For an event to be successful, the world needs to know about it. There are many ways to market an upcoming event. Traditional methods like mailers, radio commercials and phone calls all work well. These days, however, it's important to put the Internet to effective use as well. One popular method is to send emails or post prominent messages on a website's main page. Social media presents many exceptional opportunities for marketing an event, so it should not be overlooked. Through social media, a company can let a huge audience know about an upcoming event. Strategies for using social media for event marketing effectively are highlighted below. Advertising Social Media Profiles at Trade Shows: During a trade show, modular exhibition stands can be arranged in a countless number of ways. Their versatility makes it easy for companies to incorporate information about their social media profiles into their design. The web addresses for a company's most important social media profiles can be emblazoned on modular exhibition stands so that attendees know precisely how to find them. When speaking with attendees, employees should make sure to mention their Facebook, Twitter and other social media profiles. This strategy makes it easy to gain more followers, which makes future event marketing more effective. Facebook and Event Marketing: A Facebook page can be used to keep current and prospective customers and clients ...

Read more from the original source:
Using Social Media for Event Marketing | How to Use Social Media for Event Marketing - Video

Social networking goliath Facebook (FB pending) announced today that it would "encourage" users to advertise their organ donor status on their home page. While not legally binding, advocates hope the initiative will lead users to register themselves as official organ donors the next time they renew their driver's licenses.

According to Organdonor.gov, more than 114,000 people are waiting for an organ donation, 18 of whom die every day. It's unquestionably a good cause, but with Facebook set to raise more than $10 billion, it's hard not to take a somewhat jaded view of the announcement.

In the attached video, Breakout welcomes our Daily Ticker colleague Henry Blodget to discuss Facebook and the possible motives behind founder Mark Zuckerberg's announcement.

Blodget says the project itself is unambiguously about the social good, but it's also something of a warning, or at least a reminder, to would-be Facebook shareholders. As Zuckerberg wrote in history's most famous S-1 filing, Facebook serves a social, not a financial, mission.

"That is the opposite of most companies," says Blodget. "That letter is really a warning to shareholders that Zuckerberg is going to be doing the social mission thingnot the business." Public company or not, "Facebook is still a Mark Zuckerberg production."

Zuckerberg's total control is a mixed bag for shareholders. Citing Amazon, where Jeff Bezos has a similar power, Blodget says it's no coincidence Amazon was one of only a handful of companies to survive the dot-com era. With Bezos running Amazon in accordance with his vision rather than that of Wall Street, he was able to steer the company away from the trap of short-term thinking. (Note: Jeff Macke owns shares of Amazon and wrote about the company last week.)

If you're a long-term shareholder, by which Blodget means five to 10 years, "you can't ask for a better ownership structure," according to Blodget. Zuckerberg has clearly proven "he's the right guy for the job."

The timing of the initiative, coming as it does on the eve of the IPO, may be a PR stunt with a twist. Zuckerberg could very well be hitting the rounds not to hype the stock but to demonstrate one final time that he's not going to be taking his head out of the sand for publicity, to talk up the company, or for any reasons other than his own social agenda.

Shareholders looking to ride along with the enigmatic Zuckerberg and his Facebook are going to be welcomed aboard once the company goes public. If they don't like the direction Zuckerberg takes the company, they can't say they haven't been warned.

More here:
It’s Zuckerberg’s World, Facebook Shareholders Just Live in It