So you woke up this morning thinking

"I NEED TO LEARN ABOUT SOME SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS…"

You may have missed these awesome tool collections that have earned over 1000 retweets, hundreds of likes, and a few social mentions. Each of the 40+ categories has a few relevant tips for understanding what you should be thinking about when you start exploring.

This Super List Of Over 200 Tools Should Keep Your Educational Thirst Quenched For A Few Weeks! To help focus on a topic of interest: there are category breakdown for trade shows, analytics, dashboards, visualization, and competitive intelligence .

 THE 200+ SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS SUPERLIST IF YOU HAVE ANY RECOMMENDATIONS, PLEASE ADD A COMMENT BELOW!

While social media provides a number of methods for pushing a message to external audiences or improve connections between community members, we have to remind ourselves to pay attention to the massive amount of information that is created using digital media.

IT’S NOT DIRECTLY ABOUT THE DATA; it’s about discovering insights to _drive actionable changes to your business._

The data can teach us an amazing number of things, especially when it comes to topics like competitive intelligence and learning about marketplaces or businesses that don't necessarily want to promote what they are doing.

With that said I've collected a few competitive intelligence and online research articles I've written over the past few months. If you value your professional life and the benefits you bring into the business world, give these articles a few minutes of thought (I promise you'll find a few great nuggets of wisdom.)

* 40+ Competitive Intelligence Tools * 40+ Social Media Tools for Tracking Stuff * Online Competitive Intelligence - Using Twitter for Find Competitor's Clients * B2B Social Media, 13 Steps to Create Your Pipeline

As organizations migrate further into the digital world, employees will cover a wide range of aptitude and experience using social media.

Some employees will be early adopters that broadcast ideas and conversation 24/7 with smartphones and wireless tablets, while other employees will struggle to adopt simple online tools.

The wide spectrum of aptitude and experience doesn’t have a correlation to the roles and responsibilities within the company, a senior executive may have trouble using e-mail while a mail room clerk may be a digital rock star.

As essential cogs in your business, your corporate social media plan can utilize the following ten tips to understand what you should be thinking about in a social media policy.

EMPLOYEE & EMPLOYER PERSPECTIVE One of the most critical things you can do is establish a simple breakdown of why your social media policy is good from both an employee and employer perspective. A good policy revolves around a team viewpoint of moving everyone in the right direction.

CRIMINAL AND LEGAL Social media isn’t just about having fun. There are serious repercussions depending on local, state, federal, and international laws. Educate your employees on pitfalls they should avoid.

PRIVACY POLICY You need to think about privacy for your company, the employees, employee families, and consumers that interact with your organization. Almost every employee in your company has hundreds of online connections and most of them carry a phone with a camera. _What they share as individuals has a big impact on the team._

SECURITY AND SPAM Employees using social media have dozens of passwords and usernames that they use at coffee shops, restaurants, and home environments. There are WIFI and mobile phone issues. What do they store on their phone or tablet? Your technology and legal team should give thought to preventable risks.

REGULATION AND COMPLIANCE Every industry and type of business has different sets of rules to follow. Many employees stumble when they adopt ‘best practices’ from another industry and they don’t know any better until everyone in the company is racking up hefty fines and penalties. These regulatory and compliance issues also change depending on the role of the employee as a workforce, manager, executive, or advisory board member.

EMPLOYEE MONITORING Employees have both legal and personal expectations of privacy and monitoring. Proper communication about when, where, and why employees may be monitored helps avoid human resource and court room nightmares.

ABUSE, HATE AND INTOLERANCE These things are unacceptable in the business world, but some employees may be engaged in them anyway. Having an explicit statement about employee monitoring and the companies reaction to such activity will deter negative situations in the future.

ADULT CONTENT The internet has a lot of content and it isn’t all kid friendly. Employees should be notified about acceptable language, use of search tools, what they share, and viewing of content when it relates to the company.

CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS The public relations team knows there are certain things that shouldn’t be engaged with by anyone except senior staff who have been trained for the topic at hand. Noting conversation topics to avoid is an easy step for helping employees put their foot in your mouth.

ESCALATION PROCESS Everyone stumbles or has a situation arise they can’t handle. Give your employees a process for immediately referring issues to someone who can help them. Whenever possible make sure to include a ‘no harm, no foul’ statement that demonstrates your escalation process is going to help the employee and not harm them.  Include a ‘panic button’ with mobile phone and e-mail access to a response team that is available in an emergency.

BONUS INCLUSION: TRAINING & CERTIFICATION PROCESS While a social media policy helps enforce a structure, it doesn’t necessarily help that structure evolve into an on-going business asset. Social media training elements should be offered on the above points to enable your employees to make stronger and better educated business decisions when the ‘policy’ wording doesn’t seem to fit.

HOPEFULLY THESE TIPS HELP ALONG THE WAY TO SUCCESS!

If you are trying to understand how corporate social media interacts with your organization, you need to give a lot of thought about the types of data being generated in your marketplace.

Many corporations suffer from an inability to 'connect the dots' between social media buzz and business revenue drivers.

They usually focus on areas of ego driven competition to earn the most fans, engage in the most conversations, or earn fifteen minutes of product fame.

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER… Is that social media creates an insane amount of extremely valuable consumer data.

It can tell you:

* Where people engage * Why they engage * What competitors are engaged with

A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN If social data is valuable, a proper match with your proprietary business data creates a priceless differentiator.

By creating mixtures of social data and proprietary data, you create an asset that is yours (and yours only.)

Some types of proprietary data you should think about:

* Customer lists * Purchase behaviors * Internal team communication * Local office information * Trade show and event attendees

AS YOU THINK ABOUT THESE ITEMS, READ THESE ARTICLES… * BarryHurd- Facebook - Big Data - Our Privacy * ZD Net - Web Data is Big Data * NY Times - Big Data troves stay forbidden to social scientist * ComputerWorld - VC Funds pour into Big Data vendors * Fast Co Design - How Companies like Amazon use big data to make you love them * InfoWorld - Big Data in the Cloud, Its time to Experiment * WSJ - What They Know

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SAY IT: social media creates an insane amount of data from purchasing and conversation behavior, employee and consumer interaction, and daily lifestyle choices.

HOW DO WE HANDLE INFORMATION OVERLOAD? In order to figure out how to use social media for your benefit, one of the best starting points is understanding how you can discover, listen to, and cultivate social media into something you can act on.

This leads us to the idea of creating a social media dashboard: a visualization of metrics and limitless data that needs to viewed through very specific types of business viewpoints.

The following articles cover both strategic questions and tactical recommendations. They've been tweeted over 1000 times and shared to hundreds of people on Google, Facebook, and Linkedin.

I've covered everything to why you should be doing it and what tools you can use to get it done regardless of whether or not you have a budget of $1 or $1 million.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. Creating a Free Social Media Dashboard Social Media Dashboard Design Creating Social Media Dashboards 40+ Social Media Dashboard Tools for Tracking Stuff

BONUS READING: What is Social Business Intelligence?

While there are many social media policy documents floating around and we've covered the topic in-depth here many times before (see related articles below) - it is always interesting when social media policy is viewed strictly from a legal and labor relations perspective.

On that note I want to draw your attention to cases from the acting general counsel of the U.S. National Labors Relations Board.

While the NLRB has a very broad goal, its various rulings regarding existing social media policy and regulation is interesting. The most recent report (dated January 25, 2012) covers 14 cases that examine whether or not employer based social media policies where too broad and had proper legal justification.

As I read through the entire 35 page document I noted that while this is an important footnote for social media policy it doesn't address the concerns of a global organization (it only deals with U.S. Labor Relations) and it also does not address any aspects of management, training, or executive oversight for social media within an organization.

If you are looking at developing a social media policy, these cases provide a good foundation of understanding and help identify some of the policies you should have in place.

The existing social media policy reports from the NLRB also don't address the ramifications of monitoring, tracking, and managing employee groups with consistent frameworks. This is disturbing from my viewpoint as PII (personal identifying information) and identify theft has been a trending issue the past 18 to 36 months. A majority of employees are unfamiliar with the tools, processes, regulations, and civil rights that govern PII.

IMPORTANT SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY DOCS Discharge for Facebook Comments & for Violation of Non-Disparagement Rule

Dishcarge for Facebook Comments was lawful, but policy was overly broad

Work Rules Overbroad, But Discharge was Lawful as Post Were not Protected

Social Media Policy Overbroad, Facebook Comments Were not Protected

Portions of Employer's Communication Policy Were Overbroad

Initial Social Media Policy Overbroad, but Amended Version Legal

Drugstore Social Media Policy Withstands Scrutiny

Social Media Policy - Unlawful Employee Discharge

Employees Facebook Postings Were Protected Concerted Activity

Facebook Postings Regarding Supervisor Still Protected

Facebook Postings in Healthcare Still Protected

Trucking Employee's Posting Not Protected

Criticism About Supervisor was Not Protected

CITY, STATE, FEDERAL PERSPECTIVES Keep in mind that the above findings are U.S. based and may change. There is still a lot of ground breaking hearings on employee and labor related law and how social media roles are playing into longterm employment, recruiting, and civil liberties here in the U.S.

On a daily basis we receive inquiries for social media training via webinar and on-demand platforms.

The reality of the request is that most of the people want a "canned solution."

The general reasoning goes like this:

THEY HAVE A PROBLEM. THEY NEED IT FIXED. THEY WANT TO BUY SOMETHING OFF THE SHELF TO FIX IT.

Unfortunately when it comes to corporate social media training, nothing exist on the shelf.

There isn't a single cookie-cutter item that can be universally applied to a corporate footprint that doesn't cause more problems than it is worth.

_Typical examples include Facebook 101 and Twitter 101._

SOUNDS EASY RIGHT? No way!

SOME CORE PROBLEMS: 1-  FACEBOOK AND TWITTEr change so many elements on a quarterly basis that entire sections of '101′ material change with them. If you haven't included a process for tracking, managing, and evolving employee usage you can't even know how far past the expiration date your employees are.

2-  THE BASIC 101 COURSEWORK feeds into social media policy and social integration tactics.Many organizations don't have any social media policies or holistic integration plans in place. If I'm trying to help you train a team to understand social media I had best point out there isn't a roadmap to follow.

3- THE SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING REQUEST is probably marketing oriented. There is typically little understanding to connect social business concepts across the entire organization. This core problem limits ROI from a training program and sets different teams up for failure.

4- THE ORGANIZATION DOESN'T UNDERSTAND who internal and external social media influencers are and what is happening behinds the scenes. This means that there is little validation for people 'doing it right' in the industry when they could in fact, be doing it wrong, illegally, or immorally. Sometimes the most popular names in social media are breaking all the rules (and those rules can get you in really deep trouble.)

5- THE BUSINESS COGS driving the underlying need for the corporate social media training have not been identified. The larger the corporation is the more business consideration points need to be integrated into the social media training regiment.

UNDERSTANDING DISTRIBUTED TEAMS As you look at thousands of employees and an equal number of partners, vendors, consultants, clients, and prospects you begin to see dozens of silos that need to address specific social media training issues.

A cookie-cutter approach being applied to the entire group of partners, vendors, consultants, clients, and prospects creates ineffective and generalized curriculum that is off-topic and out-of-date.

This issue continues to escalate as you detail executive, management, and workforce layers within each national, regional, and departmental silo.

 APPLYING BASIC MODELS OF SOCIAL MEDIA TRAINING I typically recommend an evaluation of internal and external marketplace assets to create social media training and management processes.

A BASIC THREE STEP PROCESS:

-          Identify mission critical business impacts (opportunities / risks)

-          Identify social media savvy users (executives, employees, partners, team members, community)

-          Create best practices and training framework

The overall breakdown of social media training also works from a top down and bottom up perspective based on getting the right detail to the right level of the organizational pyramid. You need to weigh the training cost and personal development budget against the value of the employee and business impacts they mange.

* Leadership and executive team (private training) * General management (policy and process group training) * Workforce (large presentation training / webinar / on-demand) INTEGRATION In many cases marketing or public relations controls the 'social media steering wheel' in an organization.

During the business impact portion for opportunities and risks you need to define…

- what elements marketing/PR teams are doing.

- the types of organizational tools they currently have.

- what best-in-class platforms they need.

- what action indicators/budget impacts need to be monitored.

- what project overlapping project time frames are

ASSESSING ADOPTION Once a not-so-basic training structure is setup and the proper business impacts are noted, the goal of social media training is the ability for team members to make more effective business decisions with less effort. This includes enhancing basic awareness of the proper tools, the reduction of risks across the organization, and the ability to grow revenue opportunities.

To help some of our readers I've collected a list of training articles that I have written over at BarryHurd.com that detail some of the core elements around types of media and how the interact in both the offline and online world.

I typically add an additional article about once a month to this list in an effort to create a holistic resource to raise the common understanding of what 'social media' is and is not. This series of social media training documents is also a go-to list of ideas when I am researching client projects or developing tactical plans.

If a 'social media' whitepaper, platform, or strategy cannot address how the following elements interact with my current business environment, I have to undervalue the holistic portion of the new elements I am considering.

MY OVERALL STATEMENT:

As a business professional I don't support, endorse, or recommend the various "light and fluffy" whitepapers and reports that can't appropriately address fundamental business impacts.

I also don't appreciate it when someone is led down the 'path of no return' without having an idea of where they are heading first.

WITH THAT SAID…

The following documents were written to help give you a holistic idea of multiple elements and advance your understanding of core building blocks that can be used to strengthen an affective digital business model.

I hope they help you ask the right questions that will lead you to the answers you need.

*  Different Media Types, creating a guide and map * Media Influence, the Elements of Media * What is Transmedia? * What is Syndicated Media? * What is Hyper Media? * What is Earned Media? * What is Bought Media? * What is Owned Media? * Social Media Infographics - Consolidated Media * Understanding information spikes around live events  If you find any of the articles interesting and helpful, please remember to like/retweet/share!

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There are a lot of questions regarding social media training and how it ties into a larger organization.

To help with that I've collected some of my thoughts in a free whitepaper that highlights some of the critical areas of impact you should be thinking about.

You can read through the list of questions I've covered below… but will need to download the whitepaper to get some of my value-added thoughts.

SOME QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT… * How much does this cost? * What forms of social media will reach our business goals? * Are there any "low cost" benefits? * What are we really trying to accomplish? * How long will this take? * Do you have any formalized goals or reports in place for your new media projects? * What is the internal budgetary support of the new venture? * If I don't have budget, where can I reallocate resources from? * Do you know what section of your online pipeline is causing problems? * Does someone within your organization "get it?"? * Have you identified organization leaders that can support new initiatives? * Who within your company has ultimate responsibility for online communication? * Who will maintain our social media presence? * Do you have a trusted, executive champion? * Do you currently know who is engaged in conversation about your business? * What groups and individuals are responsible for current online media activities? * Is there a formalized internal social media policy in place? * Have you talked to legal? * What platforms do you currently have a corporate digital presence? * What platforms do your employees currently have digital presences? * Do you have a method for tracking and coordinating social media efforts? * Do you know where your customers spend time online? * Does your company have an online voice? * Are there any users of social media that produce content? * Have current information assets been evaluated in a digital asset context? * Do you know what new communication tools your customer want to use with you? * Do you gather competitive intelligence from the online marketplace? * Do you have a method for focusing on actionable data? * Is human resources having difficulty retaining or attracting top talent? * Do you have a sales plan in place to take advantage of sudden online news? * Do you have a method of grading your social media efforts? * Do you understand the value of intellectual syndication? * Have you created any effort to mobilize and encourage your company supporters? * Can we take our time? * Can we take advantage of opportunities in timely manner? * Is there information is out there that we aren't tracking, that we should? * Can your business highlight accomplishments and involvement?__ * _and three more bonus questions…_ [wdsm_ad id="869" class=" aligncenter" ]

* A day doesn't go by without someone asking me about mobile media. At first glance it sounds like a relatively simple problem and is usually summarized by a question like "what is the best mobile app for us?"

If only it were that simple for a company.

The mobile trend is accelerating faster and faster.

IT ISN'T A QUESTION OF IF SOMEONE IS CONNECTED, BUT HOW, WHY, AND WHEN THEY ARE CONNECTED.

As a business professional there are dozens of reasons to use different mobile technologies ranging from 3g/4g wireless access, tablet applications, QR codes, GPS services, photo sharing, and content management systems.

There are also a variety of technical questions revolving around IT infrastructure, HR training, and on-going business integration.

Some basic questions I would have for any company looking to offer a mobile experience-

Basic 101

* What areas of our business could benefit? * What is the most practical and results oriented project? * How will I define, track, and improve my results? * Who else has done something like this?  WHO IS THE AUDIENCE?

* Is it internal or external? * do they represent revenue or cost savings? * do they use iPhone/iPad? * do they use WIFI? * do they use offline apps? * do they need push verification? * do they need SEO? * do they publish content with high volume storage needs (large video files, etc.) * does this audience have active social media channels? * does this audience have an active online or offline community? * do they utilize GPS or geo-location data? MOBILE SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

* does the mobile idea support revenue/cost savings? * does the mobile idea attrition or undermine current revenue? * does the mobile idea use a native or web delivery? * what is the overall budget of the entire 'web experience'? (you don't want to blow your entire web site budget on your app…) * what is the overall app marketing/user acquisition strategy? * what is the method of deployment and training? * what is the method of service and support? * what is the product lifetime of the mobile idea? THE NUTSHELL YOU NEED TO CRACK The idea around mobile media training isn't that mobile ideas are either good or bad…. but that most mobile ideas are half-baked.

Costs, efficiencies, and revenues need to take multiple impact points and coordinate and effective business projects.

For large businesses this means that multi-disciplinary teams need to work together to distribute costs and maximize a collateral effort. Singular departments looking for singular efficiencies will miss opportunity areas and education savings.

Smaller businesses need to focus on retaining and growing current revenue using mobile technologies, as this goal is often far easier to accomplish than trying to generate new customers through mobile media.