By Alexandra Reid
The International Olympic Committee is launching a host of programs with the goal of making the 2012 London Games the “most social and tech-savvy Olympics ever,” but restrictive social media guidelines reveal the organization’s inability to move beyond its old and broken command-and-control communications model.
In its Social Media, Blogging and Internet Guidelines the IOC states that it “actively encourages and supports athletes and other accredited persons at the Olympic Games to take part in ‘social media’ and to post, blog and tweet their experiences.” However, such activity must respect the Olympic Charter and comply with a confusing and contradictory set of rules that tightly controls what they can share.
The program’s centrepiece, The Olympic Athletes’ Hub, will let Olympic fans track athletes’ activities across multiple social channels including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google Plus. The IOC is also launching a host of Tumblr blogs and a virtual Olympic Village where fans can discuss the events with athletes and former Olympians in real-time. A gamification element called the Olympic Challenge — a game that’s integrated with Facebook and Open Graph – will encourage fans to compete with friends and other fans in predicting the outcome of the Olympic events. Foursquare check-ins are also encouraged, so long as they are at off-site venues.
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By Alexandra Reid
While content marketing has been around for a long time, content marketing through digital channels is becoming increasingly important in many of today’s marketing programs as social media and blogging continue to rise as influential channels where corporate thought leadership can be developed and displayed.
However, many companies are struggling to properly manage these channels, which demand a considerable amount of resources, especially the human resources required to find, develop and propagate high-quality content and engage communities. We’ve all seen corporate blogs and social media accounts flop because they lacked professionalism, resources dried up or there wasn’t a sound strategy in place to encourage long-term commitment.
To ensure professional and long-term management of their channels, many companies are outsourcing some or all of their blogging and social media activities to agencies or independent ghostwriters. Ghostwriters can take on a wide range of functions, from editing to article writing and even social media communications. While each agreement will vary depending on a company’s requirements, great ghostwriters share a number of professional qualities. If you are considering hiring one or several to write or edit your content, choose those who have the following skills:
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By Alexandra Reid
As a content marketer, I read a lot of blogs. I subscribe to 201 blogs and have another two dozen or so outlets saved as links, which I monitor daily. I monitor streams on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook and plough through Google news for hours every morning. I’m also a recent Prismatic user. This is how I uncover news for my clients and our agency and stay on top of the latest developments in each industry.
Out of the hundreds of news items I skim every day, I read perhaps only a fifth of their leads. Of those leads, only a small fraction grabs my attention and tempts me to read on. Of those I read through to the end, only a few are shared on our agency’s and client’s accounts. Needless to say, the vast majority of content I read on the Internet today is rubbish.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Fast Company, Econsultancy, MarketingWeek, TechVibes, and Business 2 Community.
How to properly define ‘great leader’ — and act like one
We don’t think of leadership as some set of fuzzy, intangible character qualities that some people are born with and others are not. We think of leadership as the performance of behaviours. The skill of performing these behaviours can be learned and developed by anybody. Some people do not develop these skills and therefore do not perform leader behaviours with much competence. Others develop some skill and become pretty good leaders. Others develop considerable skill and become great leaders. Author Geoff Smart defines “great leader” and explains what they do to achieve great results.
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By Caroline Kealey
There’s no question that social media is the darling of communications tactics at the moment, and with good reason. Social media gives communicators a direct, immediate and highly targeted way of engaging with our audiences. It’s a profound and permanent game changer.
The thing I find fascinating about social media is that getting in the game is simple. Log-in and you’re off to the races. While the ease of entry is one of the advantages of social media and a great equalizer among communicators, it also has some very real risks that are worth highlighting.
The first is that social media often leads to a sort of tactical tunnel vision on the part of both communicators and organizational leaders. It tends to produce a “shoot first, aim later” mentality that’s more about doing something, anything, with social media rather than focusing on a target outcome.
Ten years ago communicators complained that all they heard was “I need a brochure,” combined with an expectation that the task would be completed even if the request lacked strategic context, purpose or outcome. What worries me is that social media now seems to be the brochure of the 21st century, with “get me a blog” the new order of the day.
That’s why the sound principles and practices of strategic communications are particularly important when embarking on social media initiatives. Here are some insights to guide your communications tactical planning:
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By Alexandra Reid 
