Author: Deanna Utroske

Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications and writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske.

4 Lessons from The Dark Side of Social Media

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

Community Managers from brands, agencies, professional organizations and more meetup periodically in New York City to network IRL and benefit from one another’s experiences—the good and bad. It’s a great way to share new knowledge and bond over common experiences.

This week, the #CMmeetup group gathered for a panel discussion on The Dark Side of Social Media. And here are the takeaways:

  1. “Leverage your personal social capital only for your own creations.”
    You may be the author of the latest viral social campaign. And of course, you work with a brand you believe in. “That doesn’t mean you should invest personal social capital to ensure the campaign’s success,” says Savannah Peterson, Global Community Manager at Shapeways, the 3D printing marketplace.
  2. “Be open and honest about why you can’t be open and honest.”
    When matters of privacy and legal concerns restrict how much a brand can share with fans and followers, share that fact with them instead. Honesty is really the best policy. “Be sincere, and also let them know what steps your team is taking to correct the concern or improve service,” advises Morgan Johnston, Corporate Communications Manager and Social Strategist for JetBlue Airways.
  3. “Have fun with harmless mockery.”
    Every brand gets made fun of; learn to roll with it. “When no one gets hurt and the teasing is in good fun, it can be a chance to show that the brand has a sense of humor and to engage in a bit of frivolity,” says Jeff Ramos, Community Manager with MKG.
  4. “Behind every tool is a person.”
    “Egregious mistakes cannot justifiably be attributed to a glitch or a platform error. People create and post content,” confirms Evan Watkins, Community Manager at MRY. The upshot: take time to make good choices because, in the end, you’re personally responsible.

Wish you’d been there to learn from the pros? Here’s a video of the lively panel discussion!

Featured image courtesy MKG.

8 Great Social Media Tips for Journalists

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

Skilled media professionals have the ethics and workflow strategies in place to excel in the digital age. It’s simply a matter of translating existing best practices to your platforms of choice.

Make the most of your social media presence by following these recommendations:

  1. Sign up for Google+ authorship.
    Make your byline work harder for you. Once you’ve signed up for Google+ authorship, your articles will be personalized with your Google+ profile photo in search results. And, you’ll have access to some useful analytics too. Learn more here.
  2. Link to your other social platform in your Google+ About section.
    Be sure Google knows how relevant you are across the social media universe and your readers know where else to find your insightful posts. Include all your social media accounts in the Links section of your Google+ About page.
  3. Link to your website above the fold of your Facebook profile.
    Drive traffic to your site by including a link to your homepage in the first two lines of your publication’s About section on Facebook. Readers are more likely to visit and bookmark your site if it’s one click away.
  4. Turn on your Facebook subscription feed.
    Encourage readers to follow your posts without needing to Friend you. Add a Follow button to your personal Facebook page by clicking on Settings, Followers, then Who Can Follow Me, and from there selecting Everybody.
  5. Make LinkedIn posts using the share button on your site.
    This lets LinkedIn know that your site content is the first stop online for the latest and greatest information in your field and that it’s share worthy. The LinkedIn share button on your site also conveniently lets you use one click to share the same link as an update, as a post to multiple LinkedIn groups and to Twitter as well.
  6. Personalize your LinkedIn URL.
    Customize the URL for your LinkedIn profile to match your byline. This creates a stronger affiliation between your profile and your personal brand and helps turn up your profile in search results as well.
  7. Filter your LinkedIn contacts.
    Connect with experts more quickly by filtering your contacts into useful categories. Get started by hovering your cursor over Network, clicking Contacts, hovering over a single contact and clicking Tag. You can assign multiple tags to any given contact and of course many contacts to each tag.
  8. Become a LinkedIn Influencer.
    Soon, influencers won’t be limited to the 500 leaders and motivators that LinkedIn hand-selected. You’ll be able to publish blog-style content on the site and become recognized as a thought leader in your field too. LinkedIn is rolling out this feature for users gradually; so watch for it on your page.

    9. And one more helpful reminder:
    Each platform preferences complete profiles when in returns search results. More of the people you want to find you will be able to do so faster when your profiles are complete.

Media pros who took part in a recent workshop that I led found these particular tips worthwhile. Feel free to leave a comment with your best social media advice for journalists and editors.

Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications and writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske

Tech Needs a Posture Check

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

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If you’re reading this on a mobile device or while sitting at your desk, I’ve got bad news: “The moment the spine collapses the brain collapses” (B. K. S. Iyengar).

We sit 9 1/2 hours each day. And though our minds accomplish feats of strength in front of the computer, our bodies and our brains suffer when we slouch at our desks and sag our heads forward over our phones.

Your Spine Online: The upstanding team of Breathe Repeat bloggers — Joyce Englander, Tracey Toomey and Jamie Lugo — led a masterclass on the hazards of tech neck and text head and how to remedy these nasty evolutionary adaptations of the digital age. “When you go online, your spine goes offline,” Toomey warned during Social Media Week 2014.

A better view: Your spinal alignment correlates directly to how others see you and how see yourself. Better posture makes you more confident, more memorable, and more likely to be viewed as a trustworthy leader.

Clever you: Good posture gives your lungs space to breathe fully and your brain nourishment to think clearly. Find your best alignment, and the creative solutions will flow.

In a slump?: Notice how you’re sitting. Yes, you. Now.

Being mindful of your alignment is the most important technique to improving it. Breathe Repeat recommends simply noticing your posture periodically, as well, as occasional field trips to the wall: with your heels, backside, shoulders, and back-of-the-head lined up, you’re standing tall!

Time is of the essence: You stay focused on your work; there’s an app for posture. Several, in fact. Posture Track monitors you through your computer’s camera and alerts you when things begin to collapse. StandApp reminds you to get up from your chair. And, Kripalu Yoga Break is a collection of 22, 5-minute yoga activities to keep you fit and refreshed throughout the day. And Perfect Posture is made for our Windows fans to mimic posture building exercises. Maybe tech is good for your posture after all.

Can I get that delivered?: Yoga’s more nourishing than the same old lunch from your local takeout joint, and it’s restorative too. You can get all the benefits of yoga from the comfort of your desk and share the goodness with your colleagues. The pros from Breathe Repeat will gladly drop by your office, and then you’ll be sitting upright, exuding creativity and productivity in no time.

Send them a quick note, and they’ll deliver yoga to you. It’s like Seamless for your spine!

Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications, where membership includes a YogaWorks discount.  Deanna writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske.

#eprdctn – Digital Publishing Professionals Collaborate on Twitter

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

Creating digital books takes a fair amount of knowhow and patience: ebook developers have CSS and HTML skills, and they put in long hours designing, coding, testing, and running quality assurance checks on each title that they build.

It’s a specialized — and potentially lonely — niche in publishing, not unlike copyediting, in its level of nuance and behind-the-scenes mystique. Some publishers and content creation teams employ a number of developers in-house. But many industry professionals work on teams of experts in related fields or remotely as independent consultants and are, in essence, isolated from their eProduction peers.

Along with that comes the challenge of a swiftly evolving digital publishing world, where there are frequent software updates, numerous tweaks to vendor specifications, and each new device launch means new rules and new creative opportunities for developers.

Hashtag Community

hashtagFortunately social media, and the #eprdctn hashtag, make it possible for eProduction pros to keep up with those changes, stay current, stay connected, and stay sane while working independently. “#eprdctn is a large community of ebook developers who discuss technical aspects of their day-to-day work. We share advice and resources as we find ways of improving workflows,” explains Iris Amelia Febres, an Ebook Developer at F+W Media who also teaches electronic publishing for Emerson College.

#eprdctn is a community that “is most often [engaged in] a loose conversation about current issues. Once in a while we…have a ‘dumb question amnesty,’ during which time anyone can post any question — no matter how simple — to #eprdctn and get an answer from an industry leader. These are always very popular,” notes Laura Brady, Ebook Developer and Principal at Brady Type and an occasional leader of the #eprdctn group.

Flocking To Twitter

In 2011, Lindsay Martin started the group by contacting professional in the field who already used Twitter to share insights and encouraging them to include the hashtag with their posts, explains Ebook Developer Colleen Cunningham (@BookDesignGirl).

A valuable group of established experts, regulars, lurkers and drop-ins, “the #eprdctn community on Twitter is far and away my favourite co-worker. These people lighten my load with humour, tech support, news and information, and collaboration,” says Brady. Beginners are always welcome, according to Febres, who describes the community as both “a job board and a Q&A session.

Twitter makes it all possible. Some people have tried extending the group “to other social media platforms but Twitter seems to work the best because, there, it’s truly organic and of-the-moment. No moderators are necessary,” notes Cunningham. #eprdctn hosts a nicely structured hour-long weekly chat too; a “roundtable discussion, where it’s a bit of a free-for-all in terms of what to talk about. Sometimes major events of the week will form the session [or] guests lead talks and people will ask them questions,” says Febres. You can join the conversation each Wednesday at 11:00 am EST.

In Real Life

#eprdctn comes together in person, too! Febres organizes a casual meet-up of developers as time allows and points out that the community also tries to “get together if we’re attending a conference, like Digital Book World. It’s great to have that face-to-face time to connect with colleagues on a personal level. We trade stories and tips, network, and just have a good time. It’s part networking, part therapy. Making ebooks can be tough!”

Women’s Workforce

The group is doing work, beyond the day-to-day tasks at hand, by empowering women in tech to continue making great strides in the field of eProduction. “Ebook development seems to be a good gender mix, the leaders in the field are also a healthy mix. In fact, there are so many whip-smart women in this tech-focused space that it makes me a hopeful feminist ebook developer. The most outspoken members continue to be men but that is certainly shifting,” says Brady who strives “to mentor women trying to find work in ebooks.” And who, in planning the ebookcraft conference, “managed to get about 60% female speakers.”

Febres agrees that gender parity is important in the world of ebook production: “There’s a pocket of us female developers….we complain and challenge and wonder [and] we can be pretty vocal about it. I always try to share different ‘pro-women in tech’ networking events and resources, like the monthly Boston Girl Geek Dinner.”

You Can Too

As talented women-in-tech in their own right, Febres and Brady share a few suggestions about how you can launch your own social media lab-style community:

  1. Pick a day and time.
  2. Be consistent with your meetings.
  3. Posit questions to the group and share links.
  4. Invite others to participate.
  5. Have a hashtag!

Regularly scheduled chats can quickly turn into an anytime resource network. “Think of building a community as a collaborative tool, not a community with leaders and followers… #eprdctn is not a place to say and tell. It is where you go to figure out, to help, to ask for [help] and to find fellow travellers,” advises Brady.

Does your industry host useful social media conversations? Share your wisdom and community hashtags in the comments. Then, make sure you check out these related events this SMW14!

Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications and writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske.

Reading Between The Dots: A Story for Well-Rounded Digital Kids

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

Digital natives flourish in the online world. But what of those just getting the hang of their multi-media playground? What skills and practices will help a first grader get off on the right foot when it comes to tech? Randi Zuckerberg’s picture book Dot. recommends a balanced regime of digital and physical recreation.

Dot, a fashionably-sketched tech savvy young girl, is first seen as an all-digital all-the-time type: “She knows…how to tweet and to tag.” She’s fluent online and unprejudiced in her choice of devices. Digital knowhow keeps Dot well connected and endlessly adventurous. In this way, Dot is in lock step with her creator-author Zuckerberg, known for her roles as Facebook’s first marketing lead and now CEO of the Zuckerberg Media production company.

Dot has a dog — a conceit perhaps for Dot’s spirited side — and the two can’t stay put. The loyal and expressive dog loses patience waiting for Dot and bounds out of the house for a little recess. Not long after, Dot becomes thoroughly exhausted with her digital life. And, she’s shooed outside, thanks to a cameo appearance by her mother’s clapping hands.

Immediately, Joe Berger’s illustrations suggest that life now is much more colorful and visually boisterous than it was online. Once outside, Dot is all about DIY and hands-on and interactivity, playing with her peers. And in the end, she seamlessly blends her digital life with her in-person interests.

Dot is smart, well-rounded and a nifty poster child for tech-life balance. And without being cautionary or saccharine, Zuckerberg’s first picture book nudges young readers toward an idyllic childhood in the digital age.

It’s not just children that need this balance. Make sure you join SMW NYC this SMW14 for a host of events on how tech can help bring you back to a balance. Also read our previous post: Social, Mobile, Digital, Livable: A Review of Randi Zuckerberg’s Dot Complicated

Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications and writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske

Social, Mobile, Digital, Livable: A Review of Randi Zuckerberg’s Dot Complicated

Posted on by Deanna Utroske

A 360-degree perspective on the dot that is the dot-com era is hard to come by—the digital is terrifically vast. Which may explain why books aiming to be how-to guides for the digital age inspire advice of religious proportions: recall the Ten Commands For A Digital Age that Douglass Rushkoff inscribed in his 2010 book Program or Be Programmed. And now Randi Zuckerberg in Dot Complicated, a memoir-esque title on “tech-life balance,” offers up guidelines such as, “Repost unto others as you would have them repost unto you.”

Opiate of the masses aside, Randi’s view of the wired media space is panoramic. Having been Facebook’s first marketing lead, now CEO of the Zuckerberg Media production company and all the while coming of age, establishing a career, and having a family in the dot-com era, she’s a consummate professional shaping and parenting the future of tech. And, she’s giving us a 360-degree tour. Dot Complicated has something for readers at every level of social media savvy.

For those newly enchanted or simply curious, Randi recommends waiting no longer: “If you haven’t yet learned to tweet, blog, or upload photos to Instagram on your own, get on that.”

Dot Complicated isn’t a user’s guide to any platform, but once you’ve read it, you’ll be reassured to know that common sense is virtually all that’s necessary to participate effectively in social media communities.

If you prefer looking at the big picture of digital media, Randi’s ideas about the potential for media content to extend well beyond the medium will be inspiring. She gives us a glimpse of her vision for creating live social TV events that are not defined by any platform. And, social media experts will enjoy a behind the scenes look at silicon valley, the beginnings of Facebook and plenty of diverting celebrity encounters.

Randi’s advice for living well in a digital world centers on the social and the human behind all things tech, addressing etiquette and lifestyle issues, as well as spotlighting the social good that can come of modern media. Given the space Randi devotes to family and relationships topics in Dot Complicated, it’s no surprise that this project, which began as an online lifestyle community and blog, has also led to the children’s book Dot.

But perhaps the most valuable contribution Dot Complicated makes is an analysis of the “public, private, personal” boundaries that social media has rendered delightfully permeable. Randi defines each of these concepts as they exist in contemporary culture and offers useful guidance for navigating a world where “today, everyone is a broadcaster as well as a receiver.”

Randi seems to be every bit a brainchild of the Internet age, and as a result says she is “a passionate believer in the power of authentic identity….We are both the artists and the curators of our online one-person shows. Our digital selves are quickly becoming reflections of our actual selves.”

In Dot Complicated, she describes how to find tech-life balance as much as she models for the reader what it looks like to share faithfully and exercise discretion. The text is an old media template for a life well lived in the new media landscape. In the telling of Dot Complicated, Randi Zuckerberg demonstrates the very authenticity that she advises us to embrace.

 
Deanna Utroske is the Social Media Brand Director for New York Women in Communications and writes on women’s career issues, lifestyle topics and more. Follow her on Twitter @DeannaUtroske.