You probably already know it, the Carve team are a group of massive geeks who love to hang around on the internet to catch every social media related news story. They share it by email, by Twitter, by Facebook, but in the end it always stays in the office. So we’ve decided to share it with you. Concretely, every day the team will post a blog showcasing three articles to keep you posted about what’s hot in social media. No need to thank us, it’s our pleasure!

So for today….

Hootsuite announce new Facebook features: “Facebook Groups, Events, Photos & Geo Make #HootSuite Even Friendlier”

“How Younger Adults React to Brands on Social Networks”

“Google Explores Re-Ranking Search Results Using +1 Button Data”

Have a good read and see you tomorrow!

The Carve Team

The IMO is asking the world to say ‘Thank you Seafarers’ on June 25th.

Carve has been working closely with the IMO on the social media strategy to support the day.

Organisations and individuals can play their part using the Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Flickr, YouTube and blogger toolkits.

The official press release reads:

People everywhere are being urged to voice their support for seafarers by using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, by posting videos on YouTube, discussing seafarer issues on LinkedIn, or even writing a blog about life at sea, to mark the first ever international Day of the Seafarer, on 25 June, 2011.

Last year, the Diplomatic Conference which met in Manila to adopt milestone revisions to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (the STCW Convention) and its associated Code, also agreed that the unique contribution made by seafarers from all over the world to international seaborne trade, the world economy and civil society as a whole, should be marked annually with a ‘Day of the Seafarer’.

The date chosen was 25 June, the day on which the amendments were formally adopted.

An innovative web-based and social media campaign forms the centrepiece of efforts to celebrate the ‘Day of the Seafarer’ and to pay tribute to the world’s 1.5 million seafarers – men and women from all over the globe – for the unique, and all-too-often overlooked, contribution they make to the well-being of all of us.

The campaign, which emphasizes the fact that shipping is the engine of global commerce, responsible for the carriage of more than 90 per cent of world trade, and that it is seafarers who ensure the engine runs smoothly, delivering the essential items and commodities on which our lives depend, has already garnered support from industry partners, seafarers’ groups and many more.

The campaign is designed to be both educational and inspirational, including live, interactive links with seafarers aboard ships at sea. Everyone is encouraged to send the simple yet powerful message: “Thank you, seafarers”.

To join the campaign, go to www.imo.org and click Day of the Seafarer.

“Like” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SeafarerDay

Follow Day of the Seafarer onTwitter: @seafarerday

Watch videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/seafarerday

See photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seafarerday

The Secretary-General’s speech has been released on the eve of the day:

Looking forward to co-presenting with Justin Reid of VisitBritain later today on the National Tourism Office’s social media strategy, how its been  implemented, optimised and measured, a programme on which Carve has worked for nearly a year now.

The presentation is to representatives from a wide range of UK attractions, so I think it should be a really interesting day. If you’re at Kings Place today, look forward to meeting you there.

Update: Please find below the presentation we made (twice) yesterday.  Note that all the background images come the talented contributors to VisitBritain’s Love UK Flickr group #LoveUK

Here’s my (collectors?!) jar of Vegemite’s iSnack2.0 which I couldn’t help buy when I saw it at Foodland (at a significant discount) yesterday.

And there’s no danger of this jar ever being opened given my family made their own decision on an appropriate name based on their taste test of the original Name Me jar:

But seriously, Kraft has had to respond to claims from right around the world that the Vegemite iSnack2.0 naming debacle was a publicity stunt and publicly deny it, yet the latest twist that the new, new name - Cheesybite - was registered by Pizza Hut in 2006 as outlined in this article from the Sydney Morning Herald makes it even harder to believe.

There are those who believe it was a genuine mistake like Tony Richardson on the Crikey blog and here’s an interesting summary from Sheldon Nesdale as to why he believes it could never have been planned.

I’m more interested what impact this has had on the Vegemite brand and how effectively they’ve managed their brand’s reputation as is Professor Kenneth Miller from University of Technology Sydney’s marketing school in this interview with ABC Online.

“There’s potential to do significant brand damage to Vegemite and Kraft because people are talking about it and they’re not talking about how wonderful Kraft is,” he said.

“They’re not talking about how wonderful the product is - the former iSnack 2.0 - they’re talking about things that will damage the brand.

I almost think this marks a watershed moment in our marketing history when 2.0 comes into the mainstream vernacular - many who’d never heard of Web2.0 certainly do now, but at what cost to our beloved Vegemite?

I recently spoke at the British Library on the subject of developing a social media strategy with a focus on social recruiting for the social media in recruitment event

Thanks to those of you who attended the event and participated in the debate afterward.

For those who didn’t I include a copy of the pres below, outlining our 10 x point plan.

It doesn’t mean a great deal without the accompanying commentary, so here is are the key points of nos 1-5.  The rest will follow next week….

1. Are you ready?

In his excellent blog, The CounterIntuitive CEO (a must read for anyone in management) Colony (Forrester CEO) equates social media to sex : i.e. you can read about it as much as you want, but it’s only when you start doing it that you actually get it.

This is sound advice.  Taking it one step further, for us, social media isn’t about having a Facebook fan page or a twitter account; there is way too much tokenism / box ticking right now in this space.  The organisations that are really benefiting from web 2.0/ social utilities are embracing the values that underpin them - transparency, openness, authenticity, conversation. If your organisation isn’t really ready to act in this way, then you’re not really ready.

2. Listening

We’ve written lots of post on this before, and indeed social media monitoring / online reputation management is a key part of the Carve proposition.  We basically used a slide showing 2 ears and 1 mouth as a reminder that it’s critical to listen first. Who is saying what (customers, employees, past employees, potential employees, partners, etc), Where are they saying it (Facebook, forums, blogs, niche communities, etc) and What are they saying? Typically we recommend a full social media audit (about which Jeremiah Owyang blogged recently) if you’re serious about understanding you and your competitors corporate social networking environment.

3. Identify objectives

What do you want to achieve? Get more customers? Get closer to your customers? Give them a better service [think crowd-sourced CRM. If you've no idea what that means look at http://twitter.com/comcastcares then get in contact] In corporate recruitment it might be to attract the top graduates, develop external talent communities for your pipeline;  for recruiters it might mean finding new ways of engaging passive talent,  offering new services to your clients, etc.
Sounds obvious, but without it you’re not building a strategy.

4. Choose your platforms; Decide what you’re going to say

Often your business might want to do everything:  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Xing,  (Europe’s leading business network if you’re not in the know) YouTube,  a private Ning community… all, you know, like, yesterday.  We advise that (following points 2 and 3) you identify the key platforms for your audiences and make them fly first.

Equally important is - seriously - what the heck are you going to say? There must be a million blogs, twitter accounts, Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups all set up - and all saying nothing. What is going to be your USP? What reason are people going to want to read you / retweet you / quote you / engage you in conversation?
Your organisations thing might be perhaps thought leadership… or the best insight into the market.. or using these tools to encourage peer to peer communities... or to give the deepest insight to the latest jobs… or to help your customers become prosumers and engage in your R&D process… or.. well you get the idea.

A good touch point is the 3C’s - community, content and conversation (as picked up by Recruiter in fact who covered our presentation )

5. Develop a Roadmap, build a team

Having chosen your platform, you need a roadmap for that platform, which a beginning, an end and attendant milestones / KPIs along the way. Here for nothing is a version we’ve developed for LinkedIn from the perspective of  a corporate recruiting environment.

Then build a team.
Do you know the first thing we strive to do when engaged to help an organisation or recruitment firm develop a social media /  corporate social networking strategy? Its to identify an internal champion - someone who really is passionate about dialogue, your customers.  They don’t need to be an expert on Facebook - but they do need to be able to enthuse their co-workers about the whys / wheres / hows of doing this. Secondly, you’ll need someone from your management team involved.   Get corporate comms on board, HR, legal.  And (perhaps) hire yourself a Twinten.

Points 6-10will follow next week. Please find the embedded presentation below.