Be the consumer… 3 things to remember when sharing content

Share interesting, informative and/or creative content. When not pushing out content, stay engaged with your network.

This should go without saying but too often organizations, ‘dipping a toe in the water’, have the wrong idea about social media.

It’s not anyone’s fault – it’s just the way we’ve been conditioned. Because advertising makes sense to us, we sometimes treat social media as just another vehicle for self-promotion.

“Okay, so the website has flash, we have the billboard up, we bought ad space in the paper; and now it’s time to advertise on social media.”

Right? Wrong.

As we’ve said countless times, social media is for engagement, discussion, thought leadership, service, lead generation, community management, research and reaching a new demographic. Self-promotion is not on that list.

That said, here are a few tips to keep people engaged and make your ‘toe-dipping’ adventures successful.

1. Be the consumer: Before posting anything, ask yourself this: if you didn’t work for brand XYZ, would you read this? If the content is not creative, insightful, entertaining or educational, it’s not useful.

2. Be personal when sharing content: Use I, we and us when engaging and sharing. You’re not writing a press release when you tweet, blog, update, etc. Keep it light and personal.    

3. Stop pushing… engage and pull: Sharing news about your company is important, but it shouldn’t comprise more than 20% of your social efforts. Instead – ask questions, engage, and pull people into conversations rather than just pushing content out.

Have fun, make friends and enjoy the social space.

Every employee is a brand ambassador - train them!

Most organizations, whether they’re strictly ‘listening’ or ‘engaging’, are becoming more and more comfortable with the ‘once-terrifying’ world of social media. Many have developed plans, purchased monitoring solutions and hired social media managers. And others are not too far behind.

Organizations have dipped their toe in and are ready for the next step…

But, as organizations have become more comfortable with social media, so have their employees.  Unfortunately however, not all employees have dedicated the same time and resources that their employers have when it comes to social media.

More specifically, employees have jumped in out of curiosity or fun on their own time. They haven’t developed contingency plans, or studied best practices for twitter. They partake in the space on their own time and don’t pretend to be a corporate spokesperson on their Facebook page. (or at least they shouldn’t be - that job is for the social media team.) They may or may not be disclosing information about their place of work and that’s their decision.

There aren’t rigid restrictions for recreational social media use – which is far different than corporate social media.

Okay…..? So what does this all mean?

Your employees aren’t only employees between 9 – 5. They go home and tweet, blog, post, like, comment, pin, etc. at their leisure. And when they do, they still represent your organization in some form or another. They are constant brand ambassadors.

That said, it doesn’t matter how good your social media team is because, ultimately, the social media managers/reps are not the only ones representing your brand online.

So what do you do? After all, you can’t stop employees from partaking in social media activities on their own time.

1. Train them.

- Setup a “best practices” lunch and learn.

- Teach them how to deal with negativity.

- Conduct exercises on social media etiquette.

2. Let them know they are constant brand ambassadors.

- Encourage them!

- Give them a list of Do’s, not Don’ts.

- Make sure they know why you hired a social media team. (Employees are ambassadors, but not corporate account holders. Stress that.)

3. Develop a social media policy for employees.

- “If you choose to speak about the organization, please disclose that you are an employee and that your opinions do not necessarily reflect those of your employers.”

(shoot me a message if you’d like to speak more on creating this for your organization.)

What do you think? Can you add any tips?

5 Predictions for Social Media in 2012

As we enter the first week of 2012, let’s take a moment to think about what the coming 12 months may look like for the world of social media… or more appropriately, social business.

1.     Smarter analytics/ measurement

2012 will see a growth of social media measurement and analytics tools. By growth, we mean in acceptance and influence as well as in numbers. What will separate the players will be the ability to provide insight into the measurement. Capturing mentions and hits is one thing, but calculating sentiment, trends and demographics will be deemed necessary. Reporting what happened is good, but answering what it means will be even more important. Soon, we will even see trend forecasting, not just trend reporting. (proactive vs. reactive measurement.)

2.     Content is king… and joker

As more organizations develop content strategies and pay more attention to creating content, we will see both ends of the spectrum. Some organizations will create some great material, while others in an attempt to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ will miss the mark. But, in each failed attempt at creating good content, organizations will learn from their mistakes and get better. Social media is still new and we need to allow for a learning curve (2012 falls somewhere in the middle of this curve.)

3.     Diversification of social efforts

Twitter and Facebook will still occupy the top spots in 2012, but that doesn’t mean that new, innovative and exciting tools won’t see success. With mobile’s unprecedented growth in the last few years, we will see more mobile-only apps commanding much attention in 2012. There will still be more fragmentation than consolidation in 2012.  What that means is that organizations with strong social IQ will recognize the niche tools and meet their consumers on the most appropriate channels. Expect Instagram and Pinterest to command even more attention than they’ve experienced in the last half of 2011.

4.     Less customer service slipups

Since some of the first slipups on Twitter and Facebook were recorded, organizations everywhere invested in contingency and emergency plans and placed them in their social media policies (where they belong.) Then, they invested in smart, young talent to help them craft their social identities online. Both the plans and the talent will prove to be smart decisions for most organizations in 2012. Expect less slipups. Some organizations are even implementing things like a talent management system to help recruit this new generation into their workforce.

5.     Everyone gets on board

In 2011 we saw a surge in businesses jumping on the social media train and 2012 will be no different. Businesses that were once skeptical of social media, can’t scoff anymore at its ability to reach consumers everywhere. Expect everyone to be online, at least in some capacity, in the coming months.

Near the end of 2012, we will revisit these predications and make a few more.

Have we missed anything? What do you predict?

Calculating social media ROI - is it even possible?

Determining an organization’s social media ROI has become one of the most critical questions facing communications, PR, advertising and marketing departments. And in many cases, those championing the social media efforts in their own organizations can’t quickly answer this question.

Determining ROI isn’t easy when a dollar figure isn’t directly correlated to a particular marketing effort. And with social media being most often used as a tool for brand awareness and customer engagement, it’s often difficult to provide a concrete ROI figure.

One thing I want to stress before I shed some light on the ROI question is that not all communications efforts should be tied directly to revenue. Sure, increasing the bottom line can be a result of a successful social media campaign but for the overall social media strategy, there are several things that can be measured to help define success.

I’m certainly not saying throw money out the window, but what I am saying is that we need to reshape the way we think about what constitutes a ‘return’ on investment.

So how does one determine ROI if it’s not about ‘money’ first?

It starts with an objective. First ask yourself and your organization “what do we want to accomplish with our social media efforts?” Once you establish what success looks like, you’ll be able to apply a simple formula that will help you determine ROI.

Here’s the formula….

ROI = Social Media Objective / Parameters + Measurement

Step 1 – Define your social media objective(s) (can be quantative or qualitative)

Step 2 – Select measurement parameters

Step 3 – Measure against your parameters

Step 4 – Review the results and determine ROI

Example: ROI = Social Media Objective / Parameters = Measurement

Objective = Increasing customer satisfaction

Parameters = Providing solutions to customers queries on Twitter/FB/G+/etc.

Measurement = Number of questions fielded/answers provided

ROI = Determine if results are worth the resources invested. 

And remember, objectives should always be placed in context of business goals – (more followers is not a business goal.)  

Here are a few good objectives that can be measured.

->  Increasing sales leads

->  Increasing sales

 -> Aid in research and development

 -> Increasing customer satisfaction

 -> Earning media coverage

 -> Reaching new demographic

 -> Driving visits to the website

 -> Reduction in support costs

-> Etc.

I know this is a simple formula and a simple example, and obviously we are leaving stuff out, but that’s the point. We are just trying to help you reshape the way you look at ROI and what social media success looks like.

Can you add anything?

Who Funds the Social Media Budget: Sales or the Communications Team?

This week I wrote a guest post for PR at Sunrise. If you’ve ever thought about the social media budget (for organizations/brands), I think you should give it a read.

- AB

10 reasons why free social media monitoring tools don’t measure up

In the past we’ve talked a little bit about free vs. paid social media monitoring tools. And I’ve always said free is okay…. Only if you can’t afford paid. And although free sounds nice, I should emphasize the fact that they can’t do nearly as much as a paid service.

There are literally hundreds of free social media tools out there; some are strong and others fail miserably. But even most of the ‘good’ ones pale in comparison to a paid social media monitoring service. I suggest using the free ones as a complement to a paid service.

Here are 10 weaknesses of free tools:

1.      Most free tools can’t capture all mentions of your company, brand, products, competitors, issues, etc. (They usually track one keyword at a time.)

2.      Most free tools lack various sources to monitor. (They lack the twitter pipeline, or good blog crawlers, etc.)

3.      Most free tools can’t save searches to a dashboard. (You have to perform ad hoc searches each time you log in.)

4.      Most free tools don’t have a query and tag system. Or, should I say: advanced search criteria. The result is that most retrieve a lot of irrelevant results and spam.

5.      Most don’t have an accurate way of measuring sentiment, demographics, track conversations, gauge influence, etc.

6.      Most free tools don’t allow you to engage directly from the application. (You have to sign in to Twitter and then find the particular tweet to respond to, for example.)

7.      Most free tools don’t allow you to compare different results from different search terms and themes. (Is there a correlation between results?)

8.      Most free tools don’t allow you to add multiple users to the account or manage the workflow. (You will have to go offline to assign work to people.)

9.      Most free tools don’t archive results/searches from the past.

10.  Most free tools don’t offer support from a professional social media representative. (When you pay for a service, you usually get support from a professional.)

We don’t want to say that free tools are useless – in fact, many of them are actually pretty good. We just want you to know their limitations.

What do you think?…..

5 steps to foolproof your social media efforts

Earlier this year, we talked about the 9 parts to a social media plan. That post provided, in detail, the framework behind all successful social media campaigns.

In this post, we’d like to complement that post with 5 ‘must-do’ steps to foolproof your social media efforts. Once you devise your 9 step social media plan, follow these 5 steps to really make your social media efforts pack a punch.

1.       Listen

- Start monitoring. Use a social media monitoring tool (Heartbeat by Sysomos and Radian6 are both great choices.)

- Take a web snapshot (what is the online perception of your organization?)

- Follow the influencers (also make note of the not-so-influential influencers; they are also important)

- Conduct a competitive analysis (what are your competitors doing? what is the competitive climate?)

2. Prepare

- Develop a creative strategy (what is unique about your organization?)

- Develop a content strategy

- Establish a production/editorial calendar

- Think about the visual design of your email campaign, Twitter page, Facebook page, blog, etc.

3. Execute

- Start blogging, tweeting, posting to your Facebook page, emailing, etc.

- Connect with the influencers and the not-so-influential influencers (everyone has a voice)

- Collect and segment your audience

- Use the data from your social media monitoring tools to engage effectively

4. Engage

- Engage with each defined audience (keep your business goals in mind at all times.)

- Continue producing content

- Continue monitoring your efforts

- Integrate all digital efforts

5. Evaluate

- How effective were your efforts?

- Which channels performed well? Which channels need more attention?

- Were your goals realized?

- How can you make your efforts more effective?

What else would you include in a foolproof plan?

Selling Social Media in the Boardroom

Your senior management team may not know the first thing about social media. But, chances are, they do know that to be competitive, they need to engage in social media.

If you’re passionate about engaging in social media, and think now is the time to dedicate some resources to a social media effort, here’s your opportunity to pitch your ideas and get corporate buy in.

Here are the 3 things to address when pitching your plan:

1.       Tie social media efforts to the organization’s goals

Executives may not care about retweets and followers, but what they do care about is business goals. So, show them how your social media plan will address the larger goals of your organization.

Tell them that by engaging online, you will be able to improve customer satisfaction, conduct research about existing products, help generate more sales leads and become an industry leader, etc.

Example: If a business goal deals with enhancing customer satisfaction, explain to them that by engaging online with customers, you will be able to field questions and provide more info about products and services.

2.       Give them case studies

Executives are smart people. They hold high positions within the organization because they have an ability to learn from mistakes and find new ways to achieve success.

Provide them with case studies from competitors or other businesses in similar industries. Don’t scare them with horror stories of companies that didn’t properly manage their social media campaigns. Do show them social media success stories. Let them draw the connection between proper social media management and business success.

They will figure it out.

3.       Show them how you will manage risk

Shiny social media tactics and tools may excite you, but they may scare the executives. They don’t necessarily understand social media, which is why they are hesitant to get started.

Provide them with the following:

a.       Risk management plan - preapproved messages 

Set up a list of preapproved messages and tweets for employees speaking on behalf of the organization. Legal should approve these messages from the start.

This step helps keep ‘control’ of what is being said on behalf of the organization, at all times.

If the messages can be fluid and interchanged, they won’t seem ‘canned.’

b.      Contingency plan - Advisory board

Before something goes wrong, organize an advisory board so that potentially negative situations can be quickly diffused. Have a contact point for all departments within the organization and use them whenever you need specific expertise and/or information.

If something doesn’t work out and a negative situation is imminent, have a plan B and plan C to use, if need be.

Show the executives what you’ve done to manage risk and you’ll be off to the races.  

Did I miss anything? What would you add to the social media sales pitch?

Proper Community Management - 3 tools in the kit

We’ve heard the social media horror stories. Community managers who take too many liberties with their messaging and organizations without a strong enough presence to dispel misinformation online are two of the most common forms.

The latter requires a digital overhaul – one that may include: a digital audit, social media strategy, listening tools, a CRM system and a dedicated (and properly trained) community manager. (More on this ‘digital overhaul’ in future posts)

For now, let’s talk about the first form of bad brand management.

Hiring a community manager is tough work. You need to find someone who is passionate about social media, a good communicator, creative, flexible, quick learning, level headed, confidant…. And has institutional knowledge (they understand the company, its values, its core principles, hot-button issues, etc.)

Finding someone with all of this can be difficult (especially the institutional knowledge). So how do you go about it?

Find someone with all the skills and then teach them about the business. And finally, equip them with the proper tools to do their job right.

Here’s what should be in every community manager’s toolkit:

1. Response assessment plan/tree

Comments and posts can be broken down into several different categories. Give your community manager a proper breakdown of each ‘type’ of comment so that they know how to classify and handle each of them.

Have a plan of action for each ‘type’ of comment/post, once it’s been evaluated. What key messages should be used for each type of comment, and issue?

For example, an ‘unhappy consumer’ can be engaged with a simple: “Hi ….., I’m sorry you feel that way, is there anything I can do to help? My name is ……”

Evaluate Statement 

 Positive                                               Negative

 Spam?                                                    Spam?

 Happy consumer?                                  Troll?

                                                                Misinformed?

                                                                Unhappy consumer?

*this is only an example; a proper response assessment tree is much more extensive.

Once you establish the sentiment and type of comment/post, you can craft key messages for each individual issue mentioned.

     2. Key messages

You wouldn’t send a CEO up on stage without giving him or her some key messages on a variety of topics. So don’t send a community manager out there without some proper talking points. Your community manager should know the hot-button issues surrounding your organization and be ready to deliver the right messages.

A good community manager’s messages never seem canned – this comes from their creativity and good communication skills. (Hire for the skill, give them the knowledge.)

     3.Contingency plan

Not all comments can be dealt with easily with the response assessment tree (or whatever you wish to call it). So, create an advisory board for the community manager to use when facing the tricky comments and posts.

The community manager can handle ‘code yellow’ comments/posts, but who should they turn to for the ‘code red’ ones? Or, what should they say in these situations?

That’s up to you to decide. If you lay it out, and equip them with these tools, you’re well on your way to keeping your community properly managed.

What else do you think a community manager needs?