FreshNetworks Blog

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At FreshNetworks we aim to bring you the best posts in social media, online communities and customer engagement online. In case you missed them, find below our top five posts in May.

1. Gordon Brown’s YouTube trauma

It seems like a long time ago now, but at the end of April Gordon Brown made a major announcement on expenses for MPs in the UK. And he made it on YouTube first. Here Charlie Osmond looks at why this wasn’t the best idea and why social media isn’t always the right medium for your message.

2. People are fed up of joining brand pages on Facebook

Research from the Internet Advertising Bureau suggests that people are becoming increasingly tired of requests to join brand pages and install branded applications on their Facebook page or in other social networks. We look at what this means for brands and marketers trying to engage customers in social networks.

3. The ten conversations to listen for in social media

We review a presentation from David Alston of Radian6 looking at how to sell social media to the executive level. The most interesting part of the presentation is an analysis of ten types of conversations that all brands should be listening for in social media. From the complaint to the point of need, and everything in between.

4. Champions, active users and trolls

As part of our series on online community management, Holly Seddon looks at the types of people who make up online communities. How to identify and deal with the different types to grow and build the community.

5. Build your own community or go where people are? Do both

There is a common debate about whether brands should engage customers where they are online (and so in social networks) or build their own site to bring them to (a branded online community). Here we look at the Hub and Spoke Model of Social Media Engagement. Showing how the most effective thing for any brand to do is to do both.