Lecturing at SCU: online social networking as a contemporary business practice
Name a company, professional person, business or brand that you follow on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or get email newsletters from. How did you come to follow that source and what do you like about being in touch? How do you interact (customer service, community, feedback on product, promos, education, entertainment)? What brand or business are you aware of on social media not doing it well or otherwise making big mistakes? These are some of the questions I asked two business classes at Santa Clara recently.
Had a great time lecturing on #socialnetworking & #digitalmarketing to 2 biz classes at @santaclarauniv https://t.co/DuetiZyOji — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) October 13, 2014
Great to have @AnastasiaAshman at SCU today in my business class as guest lecturer on #digitalmarketing -real world expertise #SiliconValley — Tanya Monsef Bunger (@TMonsefBunger) October 2, 2014
enterprising women surfers in the front row! MT @TMonsefBunger: Great to have @AnastasiaAshman at #SCU guest lecture on #digitalmarketing — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) October 2, 2014
Looking forward to lecturing on #digitalmarketing & #socialnetworking to Contempo American Biz Issues classes at Santa Clara Univ this week! — Anastasia Ashman (@AnastasiaAshman) September 28, 2014
In fun, interactive hour and a half sessions, I encouraged the students to become independent scholars on the topic of digital marketing and social networking since it's a topic moving at the speed of light and will never be able to be covered properly at the pace of traditional textbook publishing. 
To supplement the student's rudimentary and out of date textbook chapter on this subject -- MySpace was listed first in section about social networks -- I shared my favorite cutting-edge sources for all things social networking and digital marketing:
- tools like Slideshare and Twitter chats like @MarketingNut Pam Moore's #mktgchat,
- relevant ters like content marketing, social curation, social discovery and double opt-in, and
- thought leaders in the space who produce free newsletters, webinars and other content that the students can subscribe to and learn as it happens: Brian Solis, Bryan Kramer, Jay Baer's ConvinceandConvert, Chris Brogan, Derek Halpern's Social Triggers, Shelly Kramer, ConversationAgent, Chris Garrett, Sonia Simone, Olivier Blanchard, Tara Gentile, Meghan Biro and Brian Clark.
I suggested the students can also make a Twitter list of digital marketing leaders and easily dip into what these players are discussing and with whom.
Thanks for the invitation to lead the digital marketing discussion for two of your business classes, Tanya Monsef Bunger! Your students are inspiring. Several have fledgling businesses, and many are aware consumers watching closely which businesses engage them online in meaningful ways, and which companies are failing to use digital tools to foster closer connection with their market.
Was pleased to be able to award a very participatory student, John, with a signed copy of Porter Gale's Your Network is Your Net Worth. Enjoy it!
And extra thanks to all the students of Contemporary American Business Issues for your participation and feedback, including Cindy, Armand, Jerica, Liv, Anabel, Brynn, Mariam, Meaghan, Alex, Marc, Paulina, Alec, Nicholas, Josalvin, and Ashley.
SEO Yourself By Filling Out Your GooglePlus Profile
Your G+ profile page is a web-wide cheat sheet for you & everyone else.
And when it’s time to update your avatar, your bio, your tagline, or whenever you’ve got fresh content to share, it'll help you remember where you are online too.
By hot linking all the places you need to update you’ll make your task so much easier. Since your G+ profile is prioritized by the Google search engine, when someone searches for you, they’ll also find all the other places you exist online too.
That's from my latest guest post for Jan Gordon's Curatti: Editors of Chaos.
I've been writing a weekly series about online community building at this social business and marketing site. My posts so far have incorporated aspects of curation, storytelling, branding, content strategy, conversation, cocreation, collaboration, discoverability, persuasion, fascination and engagement -- as well as highlighting best practices and work of industry figures I see leading the way.
Some of my Curatti guest posts:
- Who You Follow is Important and Here’s Why
- How to Use Twitter Chats to Build Dynamic Online Communities
- Who Should You Follow Back and Why?
- Here’s How to Use Social Media To Build Powerful Networks
- The Great Big Social Networking Experiment
- How To Find And Share Content That Makes You Distinct
- Go Public With Your Process To Attract Like-Minded People
New World Order Deja Vu
"We have built around us a borderless global society, without the need for proximity to connect," announces social business strategist Bryan Kramer in today's post "A New World: Proximity Redefined". "Social, mobile & online today has redefined how proximity inhibits our abilities to connect anywhere & anytime."
Globally unbound. Unconfined by traditional limitations. That's exactly what I've been saying and demonstrating for many years as an expatriate devoted to using social and mobile as a survival skill and tool.
But borderlessness is not just about using the tools. It's a mindset. And it's a need.
At GlobalNiche.net I teach others how to adopt this stance -- which, as Kramer points out, is a future work skill -- by committing to an intentional online life in which we see ourselves as unlimited, and build our social capital and connect to our broader networks for personal and professional development.
Kramer calls it a new world order.
That's exactly what I termed the phenomenon in 2009, of common interest and experience connecting us more than geography, nationality, and even blood when I introduced the group blog ExpatHarem.com to discuss the issues of hybrid identity, global citizenship, mobile progressivism, Third Culture.