Guess who’s back, back again? Mashable has wrapped another week jam-packed with tools and resources for your digital life. This week we have stories walking you through the startup investment process, Lady Gaga’s social media spectacle, a history of advertising on Twitter, and even some cool decals for your iPad. Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time. Editors’ Picks How Lady Gaga Created a Web Marketing Spectacle for Born This Way [PICS] Lady Gaga has paved a path for stars and brands to get inventive with the ways they use digital and social media to promote themselves and connect with fans. Here’s how she did it with her new album, Born This Way. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Conundrum Should Ballmer get the boot? Does Microsoft need a fresh, new face to guide it into a post-PC world? Let’s crunch the numbers. Hacking for Good: Three Ways for Devs to Get Involved Want to use your dev powers for the greater good
Join Mashable at the Mashable SXSWi House for the Geek Games on Sunday, March 13 and Monday, March 14. Mashable will invite 64 teams consisting of two to five players to participate in a single-elimination tournament of head-to-head matches in skeeball, foosball, trivia and more. There will be prizes for the winning team. More information on sign-ups for the Geek Games will be coming soon. Located at Buffalo Billiards, the Mashable SXSWi House is hosting a variety of public and private events ranging from VIP dinners to open networking opportunities and parties, including the third annual MashBash SXSWi party on Sunday, March 13 with music by DJ Chicken George. Register for public events at the SXSWi Mashable House on Eventbrite . The event is open to all 21+ SXSWi badge holders Thanks to our sponsors Come check out the Pepsi MAX truck experience at 3rd St. and San Jacinto. Follow @PepsiMAX on Twitter for the daily schedule including locations for exclusive film screenings, huge concerts, happy hours, BBQs, and giveaways! And, well, lots of free soda. Sony Electronics is a leading provider of audio/video electronics and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Sony is noted for a wide range of consumer audio-visual products, such as the BRAVIA® LCD and 3D high-definition televisions, Cyber-shot® and α (alpha) digital cameras, Handycam® camcorder and Walkman® personal stereo. Sony is also an innovator in the IT arena with its VAIO® personal computers; and in high-definition professional broadcast and production equipment, highlighted by the XDCAM® HD and CineAlta™ lines of cameras and camcorders, and the SXRD™ 4K digital projector. Join the Sony Conversation at Sony.com/Blog . Skifta is an app-based media shifting service that turns your Android phone into a global remote control. Easily access your digital media from virtually any source and stream to connected electronics in the home.
The next evolution of the social media manager position may very well focus on a puzzle piece that is largely missing in the social media strategy of news companies: monetization. Cox Media Group digital posted an opening Wednesday for a “Social Monetization Manager (SMM)” — someone who will focus on a strategy and implementation that will drive revenue to the company’s 100+ TV, radio and newspaper properties. Although Cox is one of the first news media companies to hire for a position of its kind, this may signal a larger shift for news companies experimenting with ways to monetize social media. In some ways, Cox is making a big bet that social media will play a big role in its revenue strategy — at least one big enough to require such a position. The position is part of a further shift in company strategy to invest in digital, and includes a recent structure shift that unified its digital and corporate business strategy groups to one team. According to the LinkedIn listing, the person will have a blend of digital savvy and sales expertise: “The right candidate will have a blend of digital media savvy, social media knowledge and first hand sales experience.
The Social Media Marketing Series is supported by Webtrends Apps , which lets you quickly create and publish Facebook, iPhone, iPad and Android apps. Learn more about it here or keep up with all Webtrends Social products by following its blog . Building any kind of team is a challenge, but pulling together the people who are going to represent your company in the social media arena is a particularly tricky task. What is the ultimate purpose of your social media team? Do you hire experts from outside the company or utilize existing employees? What do you look for in a social media executive? We talked to professionals who have gone through the process — from big global businesses to small companies — to try and find some answers to these questions. Have a read of their advice and let us know any useful experiences you’ve had in the comments below. 1. Set Clear Goals Before you consider the question of who , you need to have already established the answer to why ? “Firstly, before you set up a team, you have to be clear who you want to talk to and engage with and what your internal goals are,” says Jakub Hrabovsky , head of web relations for Vodafone UK
An independent and well-supported media is an essential tool for developing nations, said the World Bank’s David Nelson and The Brookings Institution’s Tara Susman-Peña on stage at Mashable and 92Y’s UN Week Digital Media Lounge Wednesday morning. During the talk, Nelson and Susman-Peña outlined how both of their organizations, in partnership with Internews , are working together to understand and promote local independent media and its impact on development. They believe a well-resourced, well-protected and widely accessible media network promotes better governance and a better economy, among other benefits. Currently, however, media is an overlooked and under-invested sector of development. One of the reasons for this, they explained, is the lack of data to understand what’s going on in developing countries, and how media development assistance impacts their progress. Consequently, the three organizations have launched a joint research initiative called the Media Map Project , which aims to demonstrate that impact through data analysis. The team behind the project is currently collecting and sifting through vast amounts of data, and plans to launch a web-based tool in May to give people easy access to what they’ve gathered, as well as the means to create visualizations to illustrate its meaning. You can learn more about the project by watching the video above. Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, Terje S. Skjerdal . Reviews: Flickr , Mashable More About: media , Millennial Development Goals , social good , social good summit For more Social Good coverage: Follow Mashable Social Good on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Subscribe to the Social Good channel Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad