So many taken before they came into true fruition; it’s always a shame to see a TV show ended before true completion. Sometimes there are valid reasons for this – high budgets, low viewership, and being replaced by something better. It doesn’t make the loss hurt any less. I was beside myself for days after Veronica Mars was axed.

For those who have been following Community since the beginning, we’ve seen Pierce going crazy dressed as The Beastmaster, amazing paintball episodes, and the continued adventures of Kick-Puncher. It could all end up being taken away from us.

The show is on hiatus right now, with many rumors and mumblings pointing towards the cancellation of the show.

Not if Donald Glover has anything to say about it. All Community fans out there, rally to try and save the show, join the Facebook group, watch the video below and like it on the YouTube page.

David Armano, EVP, Global Innovation & Integration, Edelman Digital, was a speaker at a session titled, “The End of Social Media & The Beginning of Social Business”

His main point from the session is how businesses need to focus on scale and finding presence on the global stage, “It may not be the end of social media exactly, but the days of ad hoc and chaotic social initiatives may be coming to a close. As medium sized and large organizations come to the realization that “social” needs integration across multiple business functions, they will take the first step toward social business integration.

While social media may be measured in likes and followers, the success of social business initiatives will be evaluated by how effectively they can scale and be executed globally. In his session, David will outline the co-dependent relationship between social brand and business, and outline the migration path from developing media which is socialized, to truly becoming a connected business.”

One of the biggest hurdles businesses are facing in trying to grow their brand is they have to rely on the fickle, and strong reactions of the users. Nearly 70 percent of information on the internet is created by individuals, and the population of the digital universe is growing at a heightened rate.

Relying on individuals and customers creates a dichotomy for businesses. It allows consumers to become advocates for a business, but it also provides them an avenue to become a detractor. Having this split has changed the focus of a lot of businesses, increasing the importance of trust and transparency. Instead of simply relying on a quality product or service.

Community management has become a staple for businesses due to the need of staying in constant contact with consumers. Community managers are seen as ambassadors for an organization. They need to learn the Five C’s of Community:

Content (start with content)
Context (understand how your community wants to engage, where, why)
Connectivity (people know how their community works, and see a need, and know how others can help and connect accordingly)
Continuity (loook at social as a continous thing and keeping doing it. iterate and improve)
Collaboration (whether it’s internal or fb, if you have people collaborating over your business, that’s a good metric)

A strategy many businesses are starting to adopt, is using social media as an internal as much as an external platform. This creates an organic transition, and keeps social media in the minds of everyone in the company.

All of these various factors, and outlooks represent how social media is in a complete transition period for businesses. Their focus needs to change, and become more transparent for consumers. Their most important platform for increasing brand image.

"People want to be treated like they’re human," he said. "They want to receive a response sometimes. They maybe want to be retweeted…Everyone’s a person, whether you’re a celebrity or not, everyone is a person, so just treat them like that. Listen to their thoughts if you can. Just make sure that you’re not just putting messages out there and never responding to people, if you can help it."

There is a lot to be said for simply taking the time to acknowledge your followers. When you have a lot of them it can be tricky to engage with all of them as much as you’d like, but the more you can do this, the better you represent your brand, and the more their likely to think of you. 

It doesn’t hurt to give them a little something extra every now and then either. "Fans also want access," O’keefe adds. "They want behind-the-scenes things, like if you do something with your fans to get them backstage or even showing them pictures from behind-the-scenes or video from behind-the-scenes… that’s a popular thing and it’s a good thing to do because one of the reasons they’re following you is just to hear about what you’re doing with your day…they want freebies…free downloads, free knowledge…free things that you can provide them."

He continues, "It’s not that hard. I think we make it harder than it is, but there are a lot of people who wonder how to do that…"

Giving Back to the Community

Of course there is more to social media than Twitter and Facebook. You might have your own community, whether that be a blog with a consistent readership or an online forum. The main thing to keep in mind is that you need to give people a reason to come back.

"It first starts by offering some sort of value," says O’Keefe. "Value’s always the question….What’s value? Value can be any number of things. It can be the content of the site. It can be the environment. I’m big on building a specific environment and having a specific tone and attitude for the community. Your community’s not for everyone so being unique in some way – that’s a big value point, and you need to attract people through the normal ways people attract people to websites. An online community is just a website, so you need to have a good thing and make sure search engines can spider it, and then you’ll receive a lot of search engine traffic…"

Again though, communication isn’t a one-way street. Don’t just put your message out there and not interact with the community. "If you only have three members, treat those members really well, so they understand that you appreciate them being here…you interact with them – you discuss with them," advices O’keefe. "You build three, then you get to six…you build one by one and sometimes it’s fast. Sometimes it’s slow, but you have to have the long-term commitment to build it one at a time, and continually add additional value and encourage discussion…You need to make sure there is something taking place on your site."

Never forget the social aspect of social media. While your main goal may be to broadcast your own message or your own content, there won’t be many people left to receive that message if you ignore them and don’t treat them like the people they are.

I realize this is nothing new and I am not setting the world on fire with this but I came across this post at TechCrunch and it certainly made me think a little. Barack Obama, the President of the United States admitted on his current trip to China that he has never used Twitter. Huh? Wasn’t his campaign the one that utilized social media like never before so his supporters could have a feeling that they were truly a part of history in a real sense?

This is not a political discussion so if you are getting all “blue” or “red” state on me just go read something else. This is about someone who utilized a technology for some advantage in a very important situation then admitted that he never used the technology personally. I find that a little disturbing and we, as social media professionals and watchdogs, should have some opinion on this practice (not the person or anything else, just the practice). Oh and let’s put out ‘preemptive strike’ on all of the “If you were stupid enough to think it was actually him tweeting comments ………..” People wanting to believe they are part of something genuine is not stupid. In fact, in this world it’s hard to find.

MG Siegler reports

President Barack Obama has one of the most popular Twitter accounts with over 2.6 million followers. It should be no real surprise that most of the time it’s not him tweeting from it, instead its various people within the White House communication team that use the account to send out information. And now that he is the President, certainly there are some security concerns with him using something like Twitter. But, did you know that he’s actually never used Twitter at all?

That revelation was made tonight during a Q&A session at a town hall event with Chinese youth that was held in Shanghai this evening (which was streamed live on the web). The President fielded a question about the restricted use of Twitter in China and he had this to say, “I have never used Twitter but I’m an advocate of technology and not restricting internet access.”

Once again, I know it is silly to think that someone as busy as President Obama would have the time to knock out a tweet from time to time but if that’s the case (that he has NEVER used it) I really think it would have been more transparent to know this a little earlier. In fact, if I was one of the followers that felt like I was part of something bigger I would feel a little duped. To be transparent, I have not followed a politician (to my knowledge) on Twitter because I feel I get enough spin and rhetoric just being alive so I don’t to seek more from either side of the aisle.

TechCrunch’s visual take says it all in an ‘update’ to the President’s response to his Nobel Prize.

So who was / is actually updating this account with 2.7 million followers? I don’t know and probably never will. At this point, who really cares since we know that the President has never touched the account (although it is a Verified Account for Twitter which now means what?)

What we need to be looking at as social media “insiders” is talking a great game about transparency and then allowing the medium to be questioned and eventually devalued because there is nothing that is real. Will social media just become a place for online actors and actresses to portray others? Will we a need SMAG (Social Media Actor’s Guild) card to tweet at some point? We are treading on some thin ice in these areas when we talk about accessibility but then only fake it. Maybe being genuine is just old fashioned and overrated?

Maybe this is an emerging area of the online reputation monitoring and management industry which will require policies and actions on what to do when your social media persona is ‘found out’.

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To celebrate, Facebook shows off a world map of its user density, fun facts about the number 200 million and, in an era of community outreach, highlights a few ways they’re making a difference around the world in a video today. Check out where they’re most popular:

The highlighted apps include an app that helps to find missing children in South Africa, one that keeps users updated on delays in the London Underground and groups that unite users against the Colombian terrorist group FARC (The highlighted group, with over 430,000 members, describes itself as a “military weapon of espionage.” That’s a little freaky.). “Together we can make a difference,” the video concludes.

For a little historical perspective, this announcement comes 51 days after they reached 175 million active users, which was just 39 days after the site reached 150 million active users at the beginning of January.

I’m intrigued by the emphasis FB is placing on the humanitarian uses of the social network. Kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy when you know that the same thing you use to make fun of your friends’ awful photos can also help find missing children.

What are your favorite apps/groups/campaigns in this area? (Here’s mine; it’s run by my cousin.) Do you think this is a good focus for Facebook, or is this just something they’re doing to look good?

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OK, on to the matter of Google Health that was introduced by Google in 2007, opened in 2008 and is receiving some new attention. You can see CNET’s coverage which has been reworked due to some confusion regarding policies. Considering Google’s close ties to the current administration one has to guess that there is no coincidence that as the president ratchets up his talk on health care reform that Google begins to promote this product. Nice touch.

The idea behind Google Health is that you can have your medical records online with Google that you can update and share with people that you assign access to your data. The most obvious application is in an emergency situation that doctors have up to date information that will help them treat a patient having more information and thus avoiding any issues that may arise with pre-existing conditions and medications.

Sameer Samat, director of product management at Google, explained his personal impetus behind the new feature in a company blog post on Wednesday:

Just a few years ago, my father suffered a minor heart attack and was sent to the ER. I arrived on the scene in a panic, and was asked what medications he was taking. To my surprise, I had no clue. If my father had a Google Health account, and had shared his profile with me, I would have been up-to-date on his current medications.

The obvious question is about security. In a nutshell, you allow a person to have access to this data via an assigned e-mail address. That information cannot be forwarded to another party. These people can only see the information and not edit it as well. A record will be kept as to who saw the data also.

The big questions and concerns will be around security as they should be. I suspect that Google has taken every measure to lock this down. Something to consider though is that Google and this system is NOT regulated under the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA. Also, there will be Google employees that will have access to this data.

So when it comes to health information when do you hit the ‘too much information’ threshold? When do you put your information in another area that could possibly be compromised? What would happen in an emergency if this information could not be found as was the case with Mr. Samat? This begs a lot questions and it will certainly be an individual choice to get involved. What’s your take?

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You see it’s like this. We live in a world where everyone LOVES to talk and write about social media. They talk about how cool it is. They talk about the fun people they meet and have “relationships” with. They then tell you that it is the coolest thing in the world to have so many friends and to be so popular. Isn’t that great?!

Sure I guess but I rarely hear about any of the chumminess turning into business. I’m sure it happens but to what degree I don’t know. Check this story out though because it results in …….. a sale! Please excuse the vague references to the client. I swear this really happened. You can trust me. Remember, I’m Frank .

It goes like this. A start-up company is trying to figure out how to get momentum on the sales side. They have created a great product that solves real world problems for organizations. If you want the details please let me know and I would be glad to tell you. Anyway, they decide to old school the sales efforts. Phone calls from lists and trade shows are given a shot. They start their SEO efforts but they want business now to help them look more attractive to the investment community.

At that point they decide to use Twitter. Using tools like Twollo and Power Twitter they find people who have similar interests and needs that their product can meet. They come across an industry blogger who does a review of their great product which leads to inquiries that ends in a ……drum roll please …… SALE!

What didn’t happen were cheap automated pitches or direct “Hi, how are you? I sell this. How many do you want?” Nope. They just found people of like mind, discovered their needs and helped them solve their problem. Now there is a renewed excitement about their sales efforts. There is also the realization that there are people out there looking for their solution that aren’t on a list and actually want to talk with people. It works. Try it.

FT Takeaway – Twitter and other social media should be considered revenue generating tools. Relationships are nice but can they pay your bills? You must be in it in a genuine way and you must look to solve people’s problems. That’s when it works. If you are a phony you will be found out so save us all the hassle and go make a cold call.

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On February 12 in over 100 cities around the world, local Twestivals will be taking place which will bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water, a non-profit bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

There are over 100 cities officially signed up to participate, including London, Paris, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Austin, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Dublin, Munich, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Melbourne, Lima… the list goes on. And new cities are still coming on board.

But its not only large and famous places – Twestivals are taking place in all sorts of other towns and cities. For instance, I’m pleased that  Reading, a town just down the road from me, will have a Twestival as well and I’ll be there.

In case you’re wondering how Twestival got started,  here’s how:

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London UK decided to organise an event where the local Twitter community could meet offline, meet the faces behind the avatars, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity. The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, had close to 300 people in attendance (with a waiting list) and was able to do some good for charity in the process. There were also events in Toronto, Vancouver and elsewhere around the globe which found that Twitter was a great way to bring people together for a social cause. After the first Twestival there was significant coverage and interest to do it again in London. Organizers decided to host one every quarter; but then wondered if this concept would translate to other cities around the world. It could be a powerful thing to have multiple cities around the world host events on the same day, for the same charity, by people who are all connected via Twitter. We are about to find out exactly how much on 12 February 2009 with Global Twestival! Thank you for being a part of this exciting and collaborative experience.

If you’d like to help in a volunteerism role with any kind of Twestival organization, wherever you are, get in touch with Amanda Rose or Jaz Cummins. For updates, follow @twestival on Twitter.

Hope to see you on February 12.

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