Social Media is changing the role of sales professionals, especially those involved in brand management. A recent comment on the excellent Linkedin group, The Future of Social Media, raises the issue of how sales manager and brand managers will control real-time information flows.

What do you mean?

Well, if you're responsible for controlling a brand, you need to harness the flow of data, either at the source (your company) our at the communication points (blogs, twitter, facebook etc)

1. How do you monitor multiple streams of data in real-time?
2. How do you interact with customers communicating & mis-communicating your brand’s values? Or what you want to be communicated.
3. How do you guide this information flow both technically and socially?

An observation was made on the group:

"Social Media will evolve into something bigger and more culturally important, which is instant information"

I have some reservations about this.

If all from Social Media is instant information, without the controls, then we’re back to the dark ages, e.g. interruption advertising and other forms of push media.

Instant information by itself is just a raging torrent of data and can be manipulated 100 different ways.

Remember Pointcast a few years back.  Seems like ages now but at the time it was all the rage. Every PC in our company had data pushed at it, all ‘personalized’ but really just junk.

I really do hope that SM evolves into something more useful that interruption media but it may take a new generation of marketers to make it happen.

Why?

I think the incumbents will bend SM into shapes/forms they understand rather than let it grow organically.

Hope this doesn’t seem too negative. My little antennae twitched with I saw instant information getting married to social media. Fingers crossed!

Ivan

Beijing, China

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The Birmingham School of Media UK now offers a degree in Social Media. So, I guess it’s now gone mainstream. Expect more of this from other universities next year.

"Social media" in the context of Internet technologies is itself a relatively new term which broadly correlates to the concept of Web 2.0. "Social media consultancy" as a profession is being shaped by the early proponents of the field.

This MA programme will explore the techniques of social media, consider the development and direction of social media as a creative industry, and will contribute new research and knowledge to the field.

The research-based nature of this MA draws upon the expertise of the Interactive Cultures research unit based in the Birmingham School of Media (http://interactivecultures.org/). Our established and innovative work with music and radio industries, policy, cultural entrepreneurship as well as the practices of social media will inform class work and the directions of individual scholarship.

Teaching takes place in small groups. There will be a mixture of lectures, seminars, research workshops, presentations and field-trips. In exploring and innovating in research in social media you will work with other students and engage with professional practitioners, interacting and disseminating ideas through websites, blogs, Twitter and other social media as well as at networking events.

The taught postgraduate phase of the course will comprise modules that explore social media from a cultural studies perspective and explore political economy, social enterprise and social media organisations. The Masters component entails a substantial piece of independent study and the origin of either a social media production project of an original piece of research in the form of a 15000-word dissertation.

What will I be able to do when I've finished the MA Social Media?

• Become a social media consultant (and understand what that means);
• Develop innovative and low cost communication strategies for third sector organisations using social media tools;
• Develop innovative and alternative media projects;
• Work with existing mainstream media organisations as they develop social media strategies;
• Enhance your skills and contribute to the development of new professional practice in PR, marketing communications and web design;
• Continue to develop a scholarly interest in social media as part of a further research degree;
• Contribute to the development of the social media industry.

Ivan Walsh

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Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com
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FYI -scroll down to the end to see the images.

Like many families that move to China, we have tried different ways to help your lad to learn Chinese. Through trial and error, we have found a few ways that make a difference. This is the approach that works that best. After 9 months here, this learning ‘game’ we use has proved a huge success. He got 94% in his exam last month.

Remember, the tests are all in Chinese. 9 months ago he had almost no Chinese. Here’s how we (well, my wife) does it.

We write the words on the floor with a felt tipped pen using pinyin. This is the phonetic spelling of the word. Learning pinyin is fairly straightforward, though you need to understand the tones: 1,2,3,4 all of which have different means.

So,

Ma with tone #1 means Mother

Ma with tone #2 means Pig

and so on...

The trick is to pronounce the words with the right tone, otherwise…

To learn the Chinese characters, we write the pinyin on the floor (it works like a giant white board) and then ask junior to write in the characters.

This ‘game’ works with kids. They like the idea of filling in the gaps and working towards completion. I guess it’s like completing a jigsaw.

If you want more photos, let me know in the comments and I’ll add them.

Ivan

Beijing

Connect with me on:

Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com
Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/ivanwalsh
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh
Businessweek:http://bx.businessweek.com

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