Well,
that was quick. Right after yesterday's surprising announcement,
Sony flew its yet-to-be-released NEX-VG10 camcorder into London just in time for
today's showcase event. Naturally, we had to get our hands on this shiny baby,
and boy we were impressed. In case you missed the news, this snazzy device is
the world's first consumer HandyCam with interchangeable lens, meaning you can
share E-mount lenses with your young NEX DSLRs, or take advantage of
the abundant A-mount lenses with the help of an adapter (which will cost you
extra, mind you). Likewise, there are also hot and cold shoe mounts on the mic
shaft to cater your current camera accessories. Read on for our thoughts on the
rest of the camcorder -- we've put together a little sample clip for you at the
end as well.
There
isn't much to complain about with this $2,000 (and, sadly, possibly £2,000 for
the Brits) piece of kit in terms of appearance and ergonomics. We like being
able to hold it by either the seemingly solid body (using the strap) or the mic
shaft, and both ways provided comfortable grip without much fatigue due to the
light weight (even with the bundled lens). We were also able to quickly master
the jog-dial control next to the 3-inch screen, but for this price, we expected
a touchscreen interface as well to make life easier. As for the bundled F3.5-6.3
18-200mm lens, we found that zooming required a bit more effort than we liked,
so thankfully there's auto focus mode -- just like any ordinary camcorder -- to
save us from further wrist work with the focus ring. We must also point out that
unlike the Olympus PEN,
this Sony camcorder didn't pick up any mechanical noise from its lens auto
focussing; otherwise, this kit totally wouldn't deserve such price tag.
Of
course, what we really care about is the picture and sound quality. All is
revealed in our sample reel below (remember to enable HD playback mode), but in
brief: stunningly accurate colors, sharp 1080/60i picture, and impressive audio
sensitivity (notice how the mic was able to pick up conversations from afar; you
can also enable just the front mics to minimise background noise). You may
notice some shakiness while we were adjusting the lens -- we'll blame it on our
lack of practice from the little hands-on time we had. Regardless, the NEX-VG10
certainly lived up to our expectation, and we look forward to hear what the
filming hobbyists think of this prosumer-level camcorder when it comes out in
September.
Update: commenter
aim120 dropped us a link to Sony's own sample clip. Enjoy!
In the industry right now – as we see
in the Social Media for Learning report
research data – there is considerable use of social media tools in instruction
delivery efforts. But there’s less evidence that people are using the tools to
support social learning. Often, people use social media tools as another means
of delivering content. For example:
Publishing the training department
newsletter on a blog
uto-scheduling tweets about class
assignments from a Twitter account that does not otherwise engage with the
learners or ask them to engage with each other
Hosting a software application development
course, in tutorial format, on a wiki
By contrast, using social media to
support and extend social learning invites learners to contribute, engage, and
participate with one another online. For instance, when:
Setting up a wiki for those in a new-hire
induction program to work together to edit a FAQs page for use by the next
group coming to the program
Having managers-in-training use a
microblogging tool for a leadership book-club discussion
Helping to support and participating in a
community of the organization’s customer service reps, to give them a place to
share war stories and strategies for dealing with challenges
So just using the online tools to
deliver content doesn’t support “social learning;” that happens when you use
the tools to invite interaction from and between the learners. It’s about
social, not media, and it’s about shared learning, not just pushing content.
New social media tools now enable social learning to happen on a much larger scale. But this doesn't mean that social learning is something we suddenly need to "do," as if it hadn't existed before or that we need to attempt to "implement." Rather, those involved in eLearning should work to ensure our designs home in on and support areas where social learning is already naturally occurring in the learner's workflow and leverage new tools where that makes sense. (Workflow questions: Where and when are workers asking for help from one another? Where do they need performance support?)
This infographics contains all the necessary dimensions for all the medias files in social medias : googleplus, facebook,twitter and pinterest etc. will be very useful for content creators on these social media if you need a good finish ;)
. People are now, more than ever, voicing their opinions online to thousands of people through social media channels like Twitter – and they expect companies to respond.
What happens if the company ignores it, is ignorant to the noise or is choosing not to engage in social media? That pile of complaints only grows bigger. As social media continues to grow, this is a trend that will only continue to grow. If a business wants to make social media a part of their marketing and outreach efforts, then it’s necessary to stop talking once in a while and start listening.
Participate
It’s better to be involved so that a business can provide solutions and answers to issues that arise as opposed to being absent and letting the negative posts run their course. If a company makes a concerted effort to rectify issues in social media, then others will see that effort and reward the company with their attention, understanding and likely their loyalty.
Respond
A part of participation as mentioned above. You must respond in all instances. While it used to be easy for a company to ignore letter writing campaigns and angry words through snail mail, that’s something that can’t be done anymore. A company cannot ignore damaging accusations, especially through online interactions.
Responding doesn’t have to mean immediately giving in to people who are complaining or making demands of you.
1. Know Your Audience
If you don't know who your audience is, how will you ever connect with them? Most brands have an understanding of their audience's demographics - age, gender, HHI, ethnicity. But you have to go beyond these statistics to get a better understanding of their interests, needs, mindsets, and behaviors to truly make a connection and become an important part of their lives.
In addition to the standard methods of audience discovery - industry research, focus groups, and brand surveys - you can also use social media data to build audience personas. Social monitoring software, Facebook Custom Audience, social referrals to your website, and question-and-answer sites are just a few of the sources you can use to learn more about your audience.
2. Provide Value
Your content must provide some type of value to your audience. That value could be education, increased productivity, entertainment, or cost savings. To the consumer, it shouldn't seem like marketing, even though we know it is by nature. It's providing long-term awareness and brand recall. It's making sure your brand is right there with the consumer at each step along their path to purchase so that when it comes time to make a decision, you're the first brand that comes to mind.
4. Look Beyond Facebook and Twitter
Creating content doesn't automatically mean users will come consume it and engage with your brand as a result. You must draw attention to the content through owned, earned, and paid methods across a variety of channels, not just the big ones.
Ask yourself how else you can maximize the value of each piece of content and each campaign: Can you make the content more visible and sharable on your website? What other social channels does your audience use besides Facebook and Twitter? Can you use sites that accept submissions of specific content, like Visual.ly for infographics or Online-Sweepstakes.com for contests? How much are you able to pay to distribute your content on sites such as Outbrain or Taboola? Are you using Google+ to link to content on your website? (If the answer is no, I urge you to start today. Google+, while lacking in the engagement department, has a major impact on organic ranking.)
People share things not only because those things look good, but because those things make them look good.
7. Measure Success
Before creating a single piece of content or posting one Facebook message, determine the objective of your content and what metrics you will use to measure performance.
hile the specific metrics in each bucket will vary based on your strategy, objectives, and resources, some common ones are:
Awareness - impressions, reach, mentions
Consumption - clicks, visits, referrals
Engagement - likes, shares, +1s, time on site
Actions - leads/sales, PDF downloads, newsletter sign-ups, site navigation
Facebook is such a popular application that is so widely used for personal and business uses, it makes no business sense to ban it. If companies do not address this they could be at the mercy of corporate suicide
Social networking is like food and drink to Generation Y workers, they are so used to communicating in a more open and collaborative way. Therefore, forward looking companies should be aiming to encourage social media activity amongst their employees rather than stifling it
I couldn't agree more with this final statement stating that social networking is vital to Gen Y workers. We communicate more openly and collaboratively through this medium. And it should be encouraged rather than being stopped.
Thanks Kartini! I strongly agree too. To add on to your point, I think for the Gen-Yers, social media tools also facilitate on-going collaboration by engaging the emotive power of relational bonds to help bring everyone onto the same page.
I remember reading this in my Media Theories module: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory... hope you find it relevant!
"Agenda-setting theory is the theory that the news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. Agenda-setting theory's main postulate is salience transfer. Salience transfer is the ability of the news media to transfer issues of importance from their news media agendas to public agendas. Through their day-by-day selection and display of the news, editors and news directors focus our attention and influence our perceptions of what are the most important issues of the day. This ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda has come to be called the agenda setting role of the news media."
New study reveals the prime motivators behind why people follow brands
If you’re still looking to justify your social media activity to the board, perhaps the following stat will help: 97% of people say that social media has influenced their decision to make a purchase of a brand or product.
Pretty emphatic. And one of several very interesting findings from the team at get satisfaction. They’ve recently released a new infographic on why people follow brands. If part of your role is encouraging people to follow your brand, then it’s worth having a look.
Frito-Lay decided to launch a multi stage campaign which would entice people to become fans on their new Facebook page. They did this so effectively that they set a Guiness World Record for the most fans on Facebook in 24hours!
fter a live cooking demonstration in New York Times Square created media buzz, customers were given free bags of chips if they registered on a special product giveaway site and liked the page.
Companies are STILL dragging their asses trying to decide if it’s worth the investment. The longer they weight, the farther behind they’re going to get.
Businesses are still wrestling with the concept of integrating with social media, and it’s completely understandable. Despite the many reports that can be found online, along with case studies that speak to the success of social media being used for business there are still a number of questions being raise
Twitter is the prime example of where both strategies can exist, hand in hand. Many of the brands you follow are using both a push and pull strategy to engage their followers and also reach a small targeted group of people at the same time.
strong pull strategy here because they’re making use of the hashtags #sears and #tools, which is targeting those who may be following that hashtag as well as tweeting out a link to the tool itself with promotional copy
Facebook advertising is a push strategy.
Facebook apps are a pull strategy. You’re generating interest in users when you put out a Facebook app. You’re putting something out there, and users will interact and provide data to you because they’re interested and want to.
social media is kind of a blurred line when it comes to whether a push or pull strategy is most effective and even more so when it comes to what tactics are TRULY push and TRULY pull. Social media is so interactive and has so many facets to it, that I think traditional push and pull strategies will be redefined to match our generation and the channels that we’re able to market on.
Refering to "many educators are examining how to effectively implement social media on their campuses" - Penn State U has implemented Yammer, an enterprise social network private platform.
Simon Kemp, a speaker at the Mobile Show 2012 which I had attended gave a presentation on the 12 provocations on the future of Social (Media) and tracking the developments in social media. He laid out 12 provocations which he thinks would determine the next wave of success in social media (within the next 6mths).
this article mentioned the roles of implementing social media in their business. In the last few paragraphs, it was mentioned that there was so many community on different social media tools and these users do not know what is going on in other channels. This happened to the case in our scenario in CeL where we have so many portals and channels. How can users of these community actually see their responses, interactions across. This was very much inline with what we going for in our marketing plan. - to stage CeL website as a main hub to these channels.
Rules of Engagement
As social media continues to evolve, defining the “rules of engagement” will encourage thoughtful interaction that benefits the business, brand, customer, peers, and prospects at every touchpoint. In the end, we earn the attention, relationships and business we deserve.
Don’t just participate solely in your own domains
Participate where your presence is advantageous and mandatory.
As we move forward in education and the world continues to grow technologically it is incumbent upon the institutions that educate our children to make social media and technology available and a part of their learning every day.