Social Media Spotlight: Good Breeze Kiteboarding

On this week’s Social Media Spotlight, things get a little wet with an extreme sport: kiteboarding. An explanation to what kiteboarding is, well, it’s a form of sailing that takes bits and pieces from multiple sports and combines them. Kiteboarding can be done on water, land or snow! The hardest part of kiteboarding, I can presume, is managing to stay balanced while keeping the kite in the air to pull you forward. Interested in kiteboarding but not sure where to start? A good place would be Good Breeze Kiteboarding in Cocoa Beach, FL. The best way to learn is to take lessons, and when teamed up with world renowned Ron Jon Surf School, you can’t go wrong. We had the pleasure to speak with Billy Bosch, owner, operator and instructor at Good Breeze Kiteboarding. Here is what he had to say about their social media…

The Social Media Effect

Once upon a time, the only way to show support for anything was by showing up to an event and showing it in person. Nowadays you can do it in fewer than 140 characters, and in as little as 20 seconds. This isn’t to say that people don’t show up to events, because they do. The only difference is, in today’s society, more people are showing support for causes and events because of their ability to do it from home. Aside from people being lazy or stuck at work, often times the events take place far from where they reside. For instance, when Japan was hit by a Tsunami, people from all continents were showing support on Facebook and Twitter hoping for the best. Yeah, it might be just words, but when the world can unite to show support for a country hit by a huge disaster it makes you wonder, why did we have 2 World Wars?

Social Media Responsibility and Accountability

If you belong to a social media network and are currently employed, then there is no denying that at some point you have logged on to check or post an update. Whether you are viewing social media sites using your mobile phone or your computer, staying connected has never been easier. The accessibility of our personal social sites may be a godsend for some, it can also lead to the end of something great – your job.

More and more stories are hitting the web about people being fired or asked to leave a job because of content posted on their social media profiles. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or a blog site one writes in their free time, the Internet is a global tool. With the proper knowledge of search engines and enough time, you can find almost anything you set out to, including employee profile pages or comments. This new uproar is no surprise; more and more businesses are joining in on the social media bandwagon to better their brand’s image and name.

Convofy: A Must Have for Businesses

Convofy offers a new, never-seen-before, collaboration experience. We have reinvented the simple comment.
Annotate & collaborate on images, files, text & the whole web with people you work with.

Now people can literally see what you are talking about.
Use chat or comments to attach context and send out more meaningful messages to your team.

Let’s face it, if you work in a company that employs over 10 people, the office can get a bit hectic. Whether you are working on a multi-million dollar project, or just wanting to update your address in the yellow pages, communication can sometimes break down and nothing gets done. A partial attribute to this, let’s call it lack of focus, may very well be the availability of social media. It is natural to become friends with coworkers and talk about weekend plans or even ideas for happy hour, but when it hinders business performance, it can also harm your career.

Using Facebook to Help Students

If you haven’t heard of Facebook by now, there is a good chance you do not own a computer and live on a farm. Facebook is the fastest and largest growing social network of its era, climbing upwards of 600 million users worldwide in a mere 7 years. These days multi-tasking is a lifestyle, and Facebook inevitably became one of those tasks. School work has been placed on the backburner of society, simmering amongst the youth as they feel being socially interactive and “popular” will benefit their future. One problem teachers may be having is disconnecting students from this addictive site as much as possible to do work assigned for home. Kids will use social media one way or another, whether on their computer or computer-like mobile phones, so why not utilize this dependency for a greater educational well-being?

Facebook is Shutting Down Tomorrow!

OK, Facebook isn’t really shutting down tomorrow. In fact, I do not see Facebook fading away anytime in the future. However, I wrote a post on February 16th, 2011 titled “What Would You Do If Facebook Shut Down Tomorrow?” and this post was viewed an extraordinary number of times. In fact, that post is now PMC’s most viewed blog post. You have to remember that we have written blogs about YouTube, the Egyptian revolution, Twitter, and even the Super Bowl, and still Facebook rules over all, in terms of views. People found that post by searching terms such as, “is Facebook really shutting down tomorrow?” and “Facebook is shutting down,” etc. Facebook, projected to be the highest earning corporation in the world in 2018, has clearly done its job, cementing itself in the hearts and souls of its users.

The wild influx of people concerned with the demise of Facebook has truly showed me how reliant people are on the social networking giant. I’m not sure who would believe (or how they would be led to believe) that one of the most successful companies in the world would up and vanish tomorrow, but it clearly concerns people to such an extent that they will actually Google it. Perhaps the thought of losing their mainstay social network is so scary for most people because they have so heavily relied on it for nearly every aspect of their lives. Just think of what people use it for; video and photo sharing, networking, relationships, and music sharing via YouTube videos as well. People’s lives have become so intertwined with Facebook that it would be catastrophic to lose their Internet bread and butter.

I pose a challenge to you – give up all use of your Facebook for five days, and write a short response discussing how you felt during that time and how it affected you. If your response is chosen we will feature it on our blog!

5 Steps to a Successful Webinar

Having participated in my fair share of webinars over the past few months, it has long since come to my attention what makes a fantastic webinar, and what makes a poor webinar. Whether you are planning to host your very first webinar, or have done them in the past, these tips can help everyone create a better presentation for their audience.

Step One: Clearly Define Your Subject Matter.

The worst thing you can do is title your webinar something to the effect of “Basic Social Media” and then enter into long, advanced, philosophical rants about social media and its uses.  The title of your webinar draws in a particular audience, so if you title it “Basic Social Media,” chances are pretty good that the majority of your audience will consist of newcomers to social media. It would be foolhardy to move into advanced techniques while dealing with an audience that is full of novices