Top ten trends of social media — innovation as per Randi Zuckerberg

At AU 2011 today, Randi Zuckerberg, Harvard grad and sister of the infamous Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, spoke on her experience and the impact of social media on our lives today. She went to work for her brother’s company after a stint of advertising in New York.

One of the formative experiences for her was what happened during the Virginia Tech Shootings – “every college student on FaceBook immediately changed their tag to a black ribbon for Virginia Tech, nobody told them to do it – it was my aha moment,” said Zuckerberg. “In September of this year I left Facebook to start my own media company – R to Z Media, to help companies maximize their investment in social media.” Also she has another project -a six month old son. New moms are the most engaged demographics on Facebook – they spend two hours a day on Facebook, “because you don’t sleep when you have a baby.”

“Social media is changing business completely, especially new people entering the workforce expect to access information easily and immediately. People are always wired and plugged in expect to collaborate, sometimes IM with other colleagues expect to get information in real time.”

At Facebook, Zuckerberg said they believed a great idea could come from anywhere. Some of the best ideas came from random ideas. Positive news travels faster and farther than ever before. Also negative news travels the same way. Every customer has a digital megaphone to all their friends.
“Who is doing it well – Wall Street Journal Social – see what articles your friends are reading. E-Commerce site Etsy lets you see what your friends like and what you might buy for them on their birthdays.”

People need to adopt social media guidelines for their companies, using geotargeting, and other methods.

Zuckerberg listed 10 Top trends in social media
1) Collaboration tools – want real time communication, group collaboration, share/store project in cloud, simultaneous editing of files, keep remote workers in the loop, personal profiles, and better understand each others’ skills.
2) Stay ahead by attracting young talent – using Facebook you can target people who have an engineering degree, work at a certain company and reach exactly who you want with a hiring message. Can have a hiring page, launch videos, etc.
3) Give your brand a human face – give your audience a glimpse behind the scenes, ask employees to share their experiences, speak in an authentic voice.
4) Stay timely and relevant – take advantage of current events, post timely content, results. With the royal wedding Zuckerberg said they doubled their likes with 127,546 new fans, the page was viewed by 1.3 million+ people (royal wedding LoveUK posts). This can also be very valuable for crisis control.
5) Use new customer service channels – Whole Foods has hours they’re available on Twitter.
6) Analyze insights to tailor your message – what is said about your company and competitors – what time of day are posts most effective, who is using your Facebook page.
7) Encourage crowdsourcing – Vitamin Water crowdsourced an entire product from start to finish.
8) Explore new e-commerce option – buy flowers through Facebook. Help do a live broadcast – QVC Facebook online allowed people to purchase right through their Facebook page.. Social commerce.
9) Interact in RealTime – live streaming can be about letting people be part of instantaneous conversation. Live video and events can truly help businesses.
10) Join the mobile revolution – new generation expects to access information anywhere on any device. A favorite mobile app is a Starbucks app which allows you to pay.

Tags: AU 2011, Autodesk University 2011, Facebook, R to Z Media, Randi Zuckerberg, social media, Starbucks, Twitter

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