The 22 Step Social Media Marketing Plan

by Ellyssa

Peter Kim, Senior Partner at Dachis Corporation, puts together a framework of 22 social media toolswhich can be used for marketing and promotion in a post for Mashable. Included with each tool are impressive examples of brands utilizing them in their own marketing efforts. And if that still isn’t enough, you can check out his original list of hundreds of well-known companies along with links to all of their social media efforts. Here are his top five examples:

1. Blogs (Johnson & Johnson, Delta Air Lines)
2. Bookmarking/Tagging (Adobe, Kodak)
3. Brand monitoring (Dell, MINI)
4. Content aggregation (Alltop, EMC)
5. Crowdsourcing/Voting (Oracle, Starbucks)

101 Business Twitter Ideas, Tactics, and Strategies

by Ellyssa

Barry Hurd at 123 Social Media provides a collection of articles written by niche experts on ideas for using Twitter for business and marketing. Here are a few of the links included in this guide to using Twitter professionally:

• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
• How to use Twitter for marketing
• Guidelines For Brands Using Twitter
• CEO’s Who Twitter

15 Useful Project Management Tools

by Ellyssa

If you are managing projects for your organization, you may want to check out the latest article from Smashing Magazine which discusses 15 Useful Project Management Tools. The piece covers six different types of tools for the job including:

1. Basic Project Management Apps
2. Wiki-Based Project Management
3. Bug and Ticket Tracking
4. Collaboration and Conferencing
5. Invoicing
6. Time Tracking

In addition to these I would add OpenProj which is a free, open source alternative to Microsoft Project, and also Project Manager Plus, a free application built to work with Zoho Creator and available through the Zoho Marketplace. Know of any others? Please leave them in the comments!

E-Reference Ratings from LJ

by spolanka

LJ just released E-Reference Ratings, “an evaluation of nearly 180 subscription based electronic resources in 14 subject categories.”  Of course, many of these are eBook platforms like Britannica, Credo, GVRL, Oxford, and Sage.   There was no category for eBooks, instead you’ll find them listed under the various subject categories. 

Products were reviewed by a team of 8 reference experts and included 7 criteria:  scope, writing, design, linking, bells & whistles, ease of use, value.  Resources were given a star rating, 1 to 4 stars to indicate * poor, ** satisfactory, ***good, ****excellent  A brief paragraph also accompanied each resource.

According to LJ, “Because we know that online resources continually grow and evolve—a list of this nature can date quickly—E-Reference Ratings, which made a print debut in the November 15th Reference Announcements issue, will find its permanent home and reach its full potential on our web site. We intend not only to keep up with these ever-changing products (adjusting the ratings as necessary) but also to expand the number of databases in each category and venture into new ones. We hope to hear from all parties—librarians, publishers, and vendors—about how we can keep this tool thriving and make it even more useful.”

Congrats LJ!  This was no small feat.

Screencasting for all

by clw

Would you like to do screencasts but don't have the software necessary, boatloads of time to edit or feel you don't have the technical knowhow? While attending EDUCAUSE last week, I learned about the Jing Project.

Jing is sort of Camtasia Light. It's actually made by the same people, TechSmith. You can do short screencasts with audio on the fly, easily, for free. You can then upload onto your server, the Screencast.com (Jing's) server (you distribute the URL to whom you wish), share in blogs, IM, etc. The screencast is immediately available. The only thing is that your screencast cannot be longer than 5 minutes. But you can do quite a bit in 5 minutes; not to mention that it's a good lenght for the average viewer' attention span.

Palgrave, Nature Launch eBook platform

by spolanka

eBook collections and platforms are popping up faster than daisies these days.  New this month is the Palgrave Macmillan platform - Palgrave Connect.  This is a collaborative effort from Palgrave and Nature and will include eBooks in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and business areas.  About 4,000 eBooks are available with the launch

Serials Solutions now includes eBooks

by spolanka

From a marketing email I received from Serials Solutions:

Serials Solutions KnowledgeWorks now includes 800,000 eBooks

    With more budget resources being dedicated to the purchase of eBook databases and titles, a new challenge is to help patrons easily find these valuable resources and increase their usage.  sp

    Serials Solutions KnowledgeWorks, the authoritative e-resource knowledgebase, now integrates over 800,000 eBook holdings into Serials Solutions 360 e-resource access services to benefit your patrons.

        * Help patrons find eBooks in your OPAC using 360 MARC Updates OPAC updating service
        * Enable patrons to browse an A-to-Z title list of e-resources include eBooks using 360 Core
        * Provide access to eBooks from citations or a citation search form using 360 Link OpenURL link resolver
        * Help patrons discover eBooks through 360 Search federated search service

 Other vendors are also offering this service, like the Ebsco A to Z list. 

We have the Ebsco product at WSU and are electing to not display the ebooks at this time.  Our patrons use our A to Z list to locate electronic journals (which are also in our catalog), so I really don’t like to clutter the product with other formats, particularly since ebooks are a growing collection.  At some point the ebooks will outnumber the journals. 

Does anyone know if Serials Solutions categorizes these formats so that they can easily be searched by journal, ebook, or database?  Ebsco A to Z does not currently do that.  If they did, I might consider adding the ebooks since I could default to a journals search on the patron screen, but have the ebooks and databases search available.