Enterprise Social Networking Tips by Luis Suarez

6 thoughts on “Enterprise Social Networking Tips by Luis Suarez”

  1. This is a great post Luis and raises some very interesting questions about video blogging/interaction.
    It does add a very “human” element – putting a face, a voice – a person, and so much more to a blog and a train of thought. People generally respond to visual interaction very positively because they feel they are connecting with the person in a different way – a more real way!

    However….
    It “can” also be easier to “switch off” watching a video, loose a particular train of thought that you don’t when reading text. Do we actually “want to say more than we can write down”?
    Do we want to overload people’s brains that already can feel overloaded in the blogosphere? Is there “more” or “less” potential for dialogue?
    Writing has a remarkable ability to filter out the less important and concentrate the mind on the message and words in hand – no more!
    If it’s “snippets”, Q & A session and suchlike I can see it may really enhance your wonderful blogging.
    There is always a need to move forward…

    Just some thoughts (which you asked for!) 🙂

    1. Hi Marie-Louise, how wonderful! Many many thanks for dropping by and for adding those insightful comments! You bring up lots of great points and why I also had reservations in terms of including rich media where I participate myself, because I share the same concern as you described above. However, I do think voice can help you articulate better your points of view and expertise much much better than what text can do. More than anything else, because no matter how focused you may well be when you write down stuff you are always bound to leave, perhaps even more, relevant content out and the overall blog post will lose that insight.

      Now, I am not trying to justify the use of video on upcoming blog posts from myself, but I am thinking of just sporadically drop by over here and point folks to conversations I have online where I feel they could contribute to the overall messages from my own blogging over here. It’s not something that’s going to happen too often, but every now and then a sprinkle here and there to perhaps humanise a bit more the blog itself showing my face, my voice, my body language while interacting online and so forth. Perhaps it can add some more to the overall perception of my online persona. We shall see…

      What I am finding really interesting is that while bumping into a good number of videos in the last few weeks talking about all of these topics on Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, Open Business and so forth there hasn’t been a single video where I have said the very same thing twice! Which I find fascinating for how much my brain doesn’t know it knows until it’s queried about it, which is exactly the point that Dave Snowden highlights on that “Rendering Knowledge” post I referenced above.

      Either way, many thanks for dropping by and for sharing that lovely feedback! Like I said this rich media is not going to take over the blog, so not to worry, just the odd blog post every now and then 🙂 hehe

      Thanks again!!

  2. I’m struggling with this right now for my own (newly minted) blog. As much as I think I’m a great public speaker, sitting and recording video seems really tough to do. I get more nervous sitting in front of my computer, recording a video class, than I do in front of a hundred eager listeners. Any way to overcome that?

    Also, I’ve noticed that I get really annoyed when I go to a website and the only thing I see are videos with no text. Like you said above, combining both (video and text) may be the best option.

    1. Hi Fred, thanks a lot for dropping by and for the good feedback! I don’t think you are alone, to be honest, when putting yourself in front of a computer and hit record on that camera. I think it’s something we all go through at some point and in most cases it’s mostly due to our eagerness to record something good, perfect, with great quality and where we wouldn’t look like a bunch of amateurs. That’s perfectly normal.

      What I have learned about it though is how in most cases there is no need to be perfect, to have the perfect shot or everything else, unless you would want to make a professional career out of it. I think what matters in most cases is the message you would want to share across. It helps quite a bit, for instance, if, instead of just recording yourself, you would invite someone else for an 1:1 interview, or do a group video, like you can with Google Plus Hangouts. That certainly looks a lot less intimidating till you get used to it, before you go on your own. And nowadays recording through video can be very very easy. As easy as having a smartphone, hit record, and talk 🙂

      I agree with you that combining both video and text is the right balance. This blog, for instance, is not going to turn into a vlog all of a sudden. It’s going to continue being a regular personal business blog and the odd occasion with some video in the mix.

      Let’s see how it goes eventually. Let us know, by the way, when your blog is up and running, if not already, please 🙂

  3. Hi Luis, many thanks for sharing our interview in the context of the fascinating subject of video, and the effectiveness of this medium for the distribution and sharing and knowledge.

    I agree with you that video (like just about every medium) has its advantages and drawbacks. I spent some time as an SEO consultant, and in this context saw some of the downsides of video in terms of the issues with indexing and searching for video content. I also felt like @Mary-Louise that video consumption has some issues.

    Having said that, more recently I’ve found myself consuming more video. If I’m looking into a product (consumer or enterprise), I’ll often go looking for a video that explains it and shows it off, rather than trying to understand through text. I concede that this may say more about poorly-written brochure-ware than it does about the strength of good video content, but I do start grumbling to myself if I don’t see a video demo on a product page.

    I’d also suggest that the form factor of your average smartphone means it can be easier to watch a video rather that trying to read a lengthy article.

    Recently, digital marketing expert Chris Brogan mentioned that teenagers are as likely to search on YouTube as they are on Google – particularly when it comes to learning. YouTube’s recent claim to 1 billion users a month adds some validation here…

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