I’m been looking over a new media aggregation site called Mediagazer.  My initial thought was, “great…another aggregator that will simply clutter up a lot of content and put it in a needle-in-the-haystack format”, but those thoughts were dismissed as soon as I really started looking at it closely.

Mediagazer is a new effort from the uber-popular tech sharing community Techmeme, and is their first news vertical in almost four years. It bills itself as a site, “which will focus on the content production and distribution business, organizing topics as wide as journalism, blogging, video production, e-books, and digital distribution technologies”, and sure enough it does all of that.  There are a lot of good content assimilation sites, but I think Mediagazer will stand out as a leader if it can get enough good press early to build momentum.

I really like it’s easy-to-share buttons, with the ability to send information linked to either Mediagazer directly, or the original source of the story.  I think that is a brave and noble feature, most aggregators are trying their very best to drive as much traffic as possible directly to their own site (increase in traffic = increase in ad revenue), so the ability to link directly out is a fairly cool and risky idea. They do have sponsored news aggregation prominently displayed in the right column and halfway down the main page with no signs of traditional banner and display ads…yet. I also like the sharing simplicity, obviously aimed at social networks as the only two options are Twitter and Facebook.  Honestly, those are the only two places I ever share news anyway. Naturally, Mediagazer is also on Twitter, although thus far it appears to simply be a feed from their headlines as opposed to an interactive, engaging account.

I like the navigation and sharing potential from this site, so I’ll give it a try as a news source for a couple of weeks to see if it makes it into my regular lineup.  If you try it out, let me know what you think: is Mediagazer just another news aggregator, or a useful service for finding and sharing information?

A big hat tip to @acmackie for sending this over…absolutely hilarious!  If you work in agency land, this requires no further explanation.  If you aren’t in agency land, let me set this video up for you.

An RFP is a “request for proposal”.  People at various levels of responsibility that work at marketing and creative agencies get a lot of these, and they are usually at the last minute.  When multiple agencies are working in unison to try to piece something together for a client, well…it gets a little crazy.  Countless hours of phone calls and a seemingly endless stream of emails begin, all trying to put together a presentation deck (a PowerPoint), taking up dozens or hundreds of labor hours.  As this video mentions at one point, it’s likely that the client won’t even open it. I love the computer-voice line ”we may only send you one idea, since the decks we send you, you never even open”, hahaha!

If you live in a world of RFPs, please take a moment from the current deck you are working on and watch this.  You’ll thank me.

I’ve been thinking about the ever-increasing blurry line between public and private lives now that social media is mainstream.  I’ve personally been opening myself up to the world for about a decade; I started blogging by developing my own (very basic) blogging platform before the term “blog” was popular…and I haven’t looked back since then.

There have been a couple of times that I was alarmed by what people are capable of thinking or doing.  A few years ago I started getting anonymous comments on various videos of my children, asking me to pose them in certain ways or have them do certain things.  Naturally I deleted all traces of the videos online (yes it is possible) and became very aware of what I was posting after that.  Although I was always careful to never name them or reveal the location of my children even before this incident, I became very protective after that and have been quite conscious of what I would and would not publish.  Over the years I have become more widely known because of my marketing and social media work, and although I’m certainly a small fish in a big pond, I do have a lot of connections with people that I’ve never met face to face.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade my social media life.  I’ve turned so many of my digital-first relationships into real-life relationships, and I love social media and the way it connects the world. But, and there is always a but…

I’m closing up my personal Facebook profile, restricting it to only people I know in real life.

I was going to post this earlier in the week, but as I was proofing the draft, I skipped over to my blog reader and was quite surprised to see that one of the greats in social media, Darren Rowse the ProBlogger, announced pretty much the same thing.  It’s an excellent article, you can read it here, but it left me thinking that this was the right move for me.  Darren has a much larger audience than I do (and he deserves it!), so pointing people over to his Facebook Fan Page yielded some pretty good results.  The very next day on Twitter I saw that my friend Jessica Gottlieb was doing the same thing…purging Facebook.

Honestly, the announcement of my personal Facebook page going private isn’t big news.  I’m writing this because I am looking at this as perhaps more of a renewing of the line between public and private lives globally.  The pendulum tends to swing in trends…we went from very private (no internet access) to very public (ChatRoulette) and I think we’re going to start seeing a swing back to the private.  It’s not going to go back to total segregation however…I see a hybrid emerging, especially for social media professionals.

I’m closing up my Facebook profile and unfriending people that I don’t personally know…but honestly encouraging them to join me on my fan page.  And yes, I hate the term fan page…who am I that somebody would become a fan? I wish it were worded differently.  But it’s not, so that is what I will develop over time.  I had a conversation with somebody about this today, and they initially said something along the lines of “nice knowing you”, meaning that our digital connection was being cut.  On the contrary, I replied…I really think I’ll be engaging people a lot more with this move. My current Facebook status is automatically updated from my Twitter feed, so it’s actually not all that personal to begin with.  Twitter is still probably the best way to connect with me, but I’m not going to send it over to Facebook anymore; not to my personal or my public page.  We’ll see how it goes.

Hopefully now the separation of worlds will make more sense.  When my Aunt writes on my wall and asks how my mom is, half of my friends won’t wonder what she’s talking about.  When an online friend starts talking to me about HTML5 vs. Flash, half of my friends won’t wonder what he’s talking about.  And out of all of it, I think I can start putting up pictures of my children, and my friends from high school can comment on what good looking kids they are….because they really are good looking kids!

Thanks for understanding! I would love it if you would join me on my public Facebook page (I’m going to be careful to not call it a fan page), and if you have been thinking about this separation of public and private lives, I would love to hear about it in the comments or on Twitter. Or even on my new f** page.  ;)

____________________________

Did you enjoy this post? Consider subscribing to the RSS for future updates delivered straight to a feed reader, or come over to Twitter and say hi…that is where I do most of my one-on-one engagement

____________________________

Bathroom photo used under Creative Commons from Brymo

Tweetdeck, the Adobe Air desktop app that I use for the majority of my online communication,published an update to version 0.33.00 today. They have included a lot of media previewing in the new release including media support for platforms like Flickr, Twitgoo and mobypicture.  My favorite new feature? Without a doubt a new way to delegate API calls.  Instead of being limited to 150/hour the new rate (thanks to OAuth authentication) is 350 calls per hour! In plain speak, this means that it is far more likely that you can make it through the day without seeing the dreaded “rate limit exceeded” error message.

Other nice tweaks include a fullscreen mode (PC only), the ability to record, share and watch videos clips integrated with YouTube and editable, real-time searches.

If you want a quick look at everything you are missing by not upgrading, the fine folks over at Tweetdeck were kind enough to make a 1:58 video detailing everything (embeded below).  Does anybody else find the name of the test account name they used in the video a little…odd?

If you are a Twitter user but haven’t jumped into the Tweetdeck arena, I urge you to try it out.  It’s free, runs on most platforms without issues, and makes sorting and organizing information pretty simple.

Since I oversee or run large corporate social media accounts and the company I work for is responsible for dozens of Fortune 500 brands, stories like this make me cringe.

Earlier today, the very large, very well known UK mobile company Vodafone posted an incredibly inappropriate tweet on their official company Twitter account.  It said VodafoneUK  ”is fed up of dirty homo’s and is going after beaver“.

Ummm….

Needless to say, this is not something that any company would want published on their behalf.  I don’t know if Vodafone runs their social programs through an agency or internally, but either way it’s obvious that there was a breakdown of protocol.  I suspect one of two probable scenarios that would lead to something like this.  First, it’s possible that it is a disgruntled employee that was either on their way out the door already or was ready to be fired, because certainly somebody is getting disciplined for this.  Second, and what I think is more likely, is that a single dashboard was being used (perhaps something like CoTweet) to update business and personal accounts.

They responded in what I think is the best possible way: acknowledging it and apologizing profusely all day long on their Twitter account.  Many companies would be tempted to delete the tweet and then pretend it never happened, refusing to reply to anybody that pointed it out.  I’m glad Vodafone has taken this approach, but I also hope they will tell us how the “severe breach of rules” happened so that all of us can learn from this mistake.

Community managers take note: be extremely careful with your updates, and don’t mix up your personal and corporate updates!

Today we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr., and as such I intended to not post anything about social media, instead choosing to focus on the hope and vision that Dr. King believed in. That has changed after reading today’s blog post by Penelope Trunk, the Brazen Careerist; I have now decided to write about both social media and racism.  After reading her inflammatory post about what she considers to be a “racist rodeo” I got to the kicker…her very last line incites her users to publicly lambaste the McDonald’s corporation on Twitter, telling them that we won’t put up with racism and hate. The obvious inference here is that McDonald’s does indeed support both racism and hate by supporting the All-Star Rodeo, and event that Ms. Trunk determined to be full of racist clowns and cowgirls that are only interested in threesomes. My big problem with all of this? She didn’t bother to fact check before calling up an angry mob. I brought this to her attention in the comments section, but she seemed to shrugs it off as if facts had nothing to do with it.

In this day and age of social media people can, and do, often write and publish opinion as if it were fact. As I write this, I still do not know if McDonald’s does officially sponsor the rodeo or not, but I have reached out to them for comment. Taking a step back, to so broadly describe the rodeo as racist because of one person’s obviously emotional blog post is, in my opinion, a mistake. Social Media allows anybody to publish anything at anytime. Most people that do this have small audiences, but some, like Ms. Trunk, actually get a pretty big following. I don’t know where the breaking point is, but certainly it must be acknowledged that at a certain point a person does have a certain amount of social responsibility when they have such a large audience.She writes and gives business advice to Generation Y, and is widely held as an expert on many subjects. I think all of that is wonderful, and I wish her nothing but the best. However, the regurgitation of opinion framed to decry racism on Martin Luther King Jr. Day without doing any diligence or getting any facts from those accused is simply wrong. It is the digital equivalent of lighting the torches and storming Frankenstein’s castle…only in this case the monster is a large corporation. Racism is, in my opinion, often spread by fear and hatred, with very little room for facts or personal understanding. When I apply that same measure against Ms. Trunk’s charge to “do an act of activism” and “each Twitter today: @McDonalds Racism is not okay and neither is hate. Please stop your support of the All-Star Rodeo”, I see that she is spreading fear and hatred, with very little room for facts or personal understanding. I hate seeing such spurious activism being propagated through social media…already many people have tweeted that message, but I am guessing than none of them have done any fact checking.

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what happened. I do know that racism happens every day in this country and all around the world, and it should not be tolerated. I also believe that posts like this actually hurt the effort to bring true change and healing to our country as it relates to race.

Penelope Trunk’s blog has over 60k unique visitors, and that is where social media and responsibility come into play. With one tweet, she not only tied McDonald’s to racism and hate, but also asked others to do the same…all without checking with a single person from McDonald’s or the rodeo as to what the facts are. I run social media programs for some of the largest and most widely recognized brands in the world, and I was incensed by her lack of professionalism or follow-up. It seems that these days it is far easier to incite anger and hate than it is to educate and understand a problem. I know that Ms. Trunk has subscribed to this theory also, at least in the past. In her post from August 2007 she says:

“But this is what I know: The core to stopping racism is to understand it, and then trust the understanding. That’s how we can be ready to call out racism as something wrong when we need to.”

I believe that also…I believe in understanding. However, throwing around accusations and then asking your followers to do the same does not promote understanding, it propagates misunderstanding and confusion.  I believe that the idea behind the message that racism will not be tolerated is spot on, but the delivery was inappropriate.

How does this tie into social media? For me it is very simple and can be summed up in just a couple of words: responsibility and accountability. Now that social media allows us to spread a message around the world with just a few key strokes, all people…authors, tweeters and retweeters, should consider what they are publishing before they do, especially when something is as charged as accusations of racism. I would strongly encourage all to do some research before they put “publish”.

I want to let you know that I did reach out to McDonald’s, the All-Star Rodeo and to Penelope Trunk. My efforts took a total of fewer than 10 minutes, but 10 minutes well spent. I wasn’t able to get in touch with anybody personally at McDonald’s, although I did find facts on their corporate website about how sponsorships and fundraising are handled. They say, “It’s important to know that approximately 85 percent of our restaurants are individually owned and operated by private business people. The decision to provide local sponsorship or donations is up to the individual franchise owner.” I have not heard back from Ms. Trunk yet, if she responds to my email I will certainly make a note of that here. The All-Star Rodeo did get back to me and sent quite a long email explaining their stance on the situation:

“All Star Rodeo Challenge was not sponsored by McDonalds it was raising money for the Ronald McDonald House Charity through autograph bandana sales at our Cowboys for Kids Pre Show of which 100% went to the Charity. Our cowboys and personnel went to local hospitals to visit sick children and brighten their day for no financial gain. In fact we raised over $15,000 for the Charity last year. In 2008 we worked with the Deanna Favre Hope Foundation and raised over $150,000 for women in Wisconsin for treatment of breast cancer. We as an organization always try to work with a charity in each market to give back to the community… We also believe in the First Amendment and freedom of speech. We believe you (referring to Penelope Trunk) have a right to your opinion, but also believe that does not necessarily make it true…many misrepresentations were made with no consideration of the truth.”

My point here is a simple: personal opinion is good…and publishing it online is great! Activism is what will continue to evolve our communities and countries into places where anybody, regardless of race, gender or religion, can thrive. Social media can be a great place to bring attention to problems…but if you are going to be making a stand, make sure that you have your facts in line before you hit the publish button.

I really do try to stay away from writing “prediction” posts…most of the time you’re not going to be right, and it’s really easy for people to point out what you were wrong about. That said, I’m a bit of a masochist at times so I’m going to post this up here on the first day of 2010 because I think this year will reveal significant evolution in social media. If you are in the field either professionally or as a casual but interested observer I would love to know what you think the next 52 weeks will hold for this new medium of communication.

1. Agencies will gobble up consultants. This is one of the biggest game changers I think, because a lot of the talent that is freelance now will be on payroll for an agency.  I already saw this starting in 2009 with amazing folks like James Whatley moving to 1000heads and Dave Armano going to Edelmen.  Heck, I even joined forces with M80 and I’m incredibly happy to be there. This change is going to be driven by three forces I think…. First, anytime a new business field emerges it usually starts off being run ad hoc by individuals or groups, but big business starts buying it up when it becomes a clearly viable venture.  Social Media is no different than organic foods, internet connectivity or the gold rush…eventually the big guy steps in and throws a lot of cash around, knowing that very often it is easier to purchase than innovate.  Second, agencies are used to being fairly full-service and right now they are not.  As Fortune 1000 companies start spending on social, they tap their usual agency of record to perform.  Right now most of those agencies can’t do anything other than subcontract the work out, no doubt they will change that in 2010.  Third, simply put… it’s getting fairly difficult to make good money as a consultant in social media.  With over 15,000 people on Twitter alone boasting about being a social media expert, the field is wide but shallow.  I would venture a guess that most of those experts made less than $1,000 in 2009 as directly related to their expertise.  Companies are starting to realize that just because somebody has a Twitter account it doesn’t mean that they can deliver the goods, so these same companies will stop tapping consultants and will start turning to agencies even more.  It stands to reason, therefore, that the agencies will need more talent.  Time to update your resume, folks, and practice interview questions.
2. Big companies will allocate big bucks to social. Until very recently I had a hard time convincing a company of any size to spend more than $10k directly on social media marketing and outreach.  Now I personally know many companies that are spending $1MM or more on social in 2010.  One very large, very well known company (that I have no association with professionally or personally) recently announced to internal department heads that they will be allocating 10% of 2009 marketing dollars to social in 2010.  I see other companies like Apple that have been conspicuously quiet in social finally starting to get into the game (although their engagement sucks…not a single @ reply or RT…)  Even though I’m happy to see money going to direct consumer interaction, I hope they don’t throw out big piles of money without being wise in their selection of outlets, otherwise they’ll pull it all back in when 2011 hits and we’ll see a big bubble pop like the dot com crash of the late ’90s.
3. Twitter will offer paid accounts. I don’t think this is too prophetic on my part, they’ve been talking about special business offerings for some time, and I have no doubt they will deliver to the paying business customer. What do businesses want more than anything? Metrics. Numbers. Analytics.  Bring it on Twitter, and make sure it’s not some rinky-dink package…we want numbers we can sink our teeth into!
4. Foursquare will be purchased. I have no substantiation for this other than a gut feeling.  They’ve got all-star investors and some nice funding, but I think they’re looking for a quick flip and 2010 would be a great year for it.  My guess? Surprisingly not Google, who buys companies like I buy groceries.  I think this one is going to either Microsoft or Twitter.  No matter, I love the service (you can friend me here) and they continue to do great things with their geo-location services.
5. MySpace will stabilize. The service has been bleeding 1MM+ users per month for some time, but I think that will slow down around the middle of the year.  At the 140Conf in LA a couple of months back I heard COO Michael Jones talk about a renewed focus on the music and entertainment industry.  I think this is a good move (as long as they don’t have many more gaffs like the acquisition and shuttering of imeem), since music is really what launched MySpace in the first place.  Let standard users go over to Facebook and make MySpace the best channel a musician can have.
6. ROI for social media will be standardized. This is the most elusive of all creatures…the return on investment in social media.  Since companies are going to be dumping buckets of cash into social (see points 1 and 2 above), they will get more insistent upon seeing a metric version of their return.  This is incredibly difficult to put onto paper, because scoring a relationship isn’t very cut and dry.  How does one measure  week over week growth of trust? Of perception?  It’s not easy.  Because social media occurs online, too many companies expect to see a simple ROI chart like they get with paid media, but social isn’t measurable like click-thrus.  I’ve seen several attempts at ROI (all have come up short), but I think 2010 will reveal a winner and one that will be adopted by the industry.  I should probably mention that I’m obsessed with this, so I work on it constantly.  With any luck, the methodology and algorithms that I have created will become standard.

I’ve got other ideas of what I believe 2010 will hold for social media, but I think six is probably enough to reference back throughout the year, and to tell me why and how I was wrong…haha! Whatever this coming year holds, I know one thing is certain: it’s going to be exciting and ever-changing.  As I type this I imagine there are some very smart people sitting around, enjoying a drink and talking about the little online service they’ve developed that will launch in 2010…and dreaming that it will be as explosive as Twitter or as big as Facebook.  I hope they are right, I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

This is part 6 of 6 in the series “6 Things You Need to Know About Running A Social Media Program”. You can read part 1 “The Client” here, it has a full introduction. Part 2 “The Product” is here, part 3 “Your Audiences” is here ,part 4 “The Channels” is here and part 5 “Other Professionals” is here.

I’ve created this list of “things you must know” mostly based upon very positive experiences I’ve had, but also from negative ones…things that I’ve either experienced myself or seen others do.  This isn’t a tactical post, I think I write plenty of those.  Instead, this is my advice to those that are going to lend their expertise to others, and hopefully by checking these off you will avoid some common mistakes that often result in unmet expectations, from one side or the other…or both.

Know Yourself

I bet you weren’t expecting that one, were you? Let me explain what I mean by this: simply put, you need to know your own strengths and weaknesses, and you need to know your work flow and financial needs; this is especially true if you are consulting. Since most of us actually do know our strengths and weaknesses, maybe a better way to word this is be honest with yourself.  I saw a quote online recently that really rang true with me. Unfortunately I haven’t always followed it.

Work for full price or work for free, but don’t work for cheap.

As I applied that to many situations in the past that I have had to deal with, I see how true this is.  I could probably write an entire series of posts about why this is so important, but for now I’ll just let you ponder it and apply it to your own situation. In knowing yourself, you need to be honest with what your needs (or those of your organization) are, because sometimes…no matter how much you need the work…it’s better to say no to a project.  For example, if you get into something that takes up all of your time but doesn’t meet all of your financial needs you won’t be able to take on another (potentially better) project when it does come around.  I understand the horrible economy that we have been mired in, so don’t misunderstand me.  If you need to eat and pay your bills, do what you need to do….just don’t get yourself stuck in a long term commitment that paints you into a corner.  If you have an opportunity that comes up that you need financially but does not make sense as a long-term project, consider offering to get the client started and in the right direction then training them how to do it themselves or pass it on to another person (see the previous post “Know Other Professionals“).  If this is the case, make sure you make it clear up front, otherwise you are going to be involved in some unpleasant conversations quickly.

Knowing yourself and being honest about where you are amazing and where you are weak is paramount to all business, not just social media.  Many of the successes that I’ve had in my career have been a direct result of taking on projects that are in alignment with my strengths.  Of course the flip side of this is true also…many of the failures that I’ve had along the way (and trust me, there are plenty) are a direct result of trying to do things that are outside of my scope of excellence.  It’s very tempting, when a new project comes along, to try to force it to fit into the mold that is your profession; don’t be taken by this foolishness.  Instead, seek out projects that you can knock out of the park.

Regarding the financial piece, I want to state again…sometimes the best business decision is to pass on a project.  This is often counterintuitive, but then again many aspects of business are.  Knowing yourself well usually helps in this decision. When considering a new social media project, don’t just consider the financial gains of the first check you receive from the client but really ponder what this will mean to your business 30, 60 even 120 days from now.  Beyond making a wise financial decision and working within your scope of excellence, don’t discount the chemistry that will be needed between you and the client.  There are people in this world that we just don’t get along with sometimes, no matter how nice they or you are.  If you have a meeting or two as you are pitching the program, sometimes you just get that gut feeling that the relationship is going to be painful.  Listen to your gut, spare yourself the trouble.  Why am I including this in the section about knowing yourself as opposed to the first part which was knowing the client? Because sometimes the problem is you, not the client.  You need to know yourself well enough to know when you will not be able to communicate or perform in such a way as to meet (and hopefully exceed) the client’s expectations.  Clients come and go, but your reputation sticks with you for a long time…treat it as the valuable asset that it is and know when to bow out of the process.

I hope you have enjoyed and learned from this “what you need to know about social media” series.  I’ve written in from the heart and from memories of bumps and bruises along the way, not from a text book or a news blog that I read.  The world of social media marketing is really just juvenile in development so there is a great, unchartered frontier in front of us.  I’m incredibly excited for what 2010 holds in terms of product development, commercial adaptation and soon-to-be-discovered rock stars for all that social media is.   Whatever your part in the chain, whether a service developer, manager for a large agency or a consultant working from your couch in front of the TV, thank you for all that you do to make this new media so dynamic and amazing.

Here’s to looking at 2009 in the rear view mirror, and to the unknown adventure of 2010 that lies ahead of us!

____________________________

Did you enjoy this post? Consider subscribing to the RSS for future updates delivered straight to a feed reader, or come over to Twitter and say hi…that is where I do most of my one-on-one engagement

____________________________

Photos used under Creative Commons License. Reflections photo from LollyKnit and quote photo by ct☮

This is part 5 of 6 in the series “6 Things You Need to Know About Running A Social Media Program”. You can read part 1 “The Client” here, it has a full introduction. Part 2 “The Product” is here, part 3 “Your Audiences” is here and part 4 “The Channels” is here.

I’ve created this list of “things you must know” mostly based upon very positive experiences I’ve had, but also from negative ones…things that I’ve either experienced myself or seen others do.  This isn’t a tactical post, I think I write plenty of those.  Instead, this is my advice to those that are going to lend their expertise to others, and hopefully by checking these off you will avoid some common mistakes that often result in unmet expectations, from one side or the other…or both.

Know Other Professionals

It’s important that you don’t get yourself into something that is not a good use of your time.  Know your strengths and weaknesses, and if part of a package deal is to provide a service that you aren’t strong in…hire it out.  I’m not kidding.  Hire it out, no matter how big or small you are.  Believe me, in the corporate agency world this practice isn’t just commonplace, it’s expected.  Think about building a social media program like building a house, and you are the general contractor. It’s your job to make sure the work gets done, and you may even pick up a hammer and hop in to help.  Leave the plumbing to the pros and focus on the big picture.  I know the temptation is to try to do it all yourself so that you’ll get paid more, but in my experience 9 times out of 10 this doesn’t work out quite as expected, and unmet expectations abound on both sides.

I’ve heard it said that the day you get a client is the day you start losing them…this idea is reinforced quickly if you try to do work that is outside of your scope of expertise. If you agree to do everything for a client and then actually try to do it all yourself, chances are great that you are either going to under-perform or miss your time line…or both! A good social media program typically involves strategy, deployment, creative assets, copy writing, analytics and reporting. Given that one of the key components of social media is immediacy and timing, trying to do all of this by yourself probably isn’t going to work.  It’s great to have a new client, but it’s even better to keep those clients and renew contracts quarter after quarter or even year after year. I think one of the best ways to insure that you keep them when it’s time to negotiate is to make sure that you are playing to your strength, and subbing out your weaknesses or those things that aren’t worth your time.

A good example of this usually involves creative assets. If you work with your client for any amount of time, eventually they will ask you for video creation or editing. Is this something you’re really good at? Most people aren’t, and trying to learn something like this on the go is very time consuming, which means you’re going to lose a ton of money trying to figure it out…and then you probably won’t deliver an A+ product anyway.  Take the time to get to know a video person or two (in case the first is busy) so that when it does come time to chop something up and syndicate it to YouTube in a short time frame you can deliver and not let the overall campaign suffer because you don’t know what you are doing.  Beyond video there are many other areas that you may want to look for assistance, particularly in the areas of creative and analytics.

How to develop your network – In terms of expanding your professional relationships, there really aren’t any shortcuts if you want to produce strong and lasting connections; and trust me on this, you want to.  I’ve met most of the people I know online at first, then usually in person later.  I go out of my way to find and follow interesting people on Twitter, and I particularly like to find folks in the cities I frequent: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York.  As well as I get to know people this way, I almost always do business with people that I’ve met face to face.  For that, I try to attend a few local tech and marketing events each month.  Be careful with this, if you try to attend everything (especially in the larger markets) then you’ll spend a lot of time and money socializing.  These days, when I attend an event in Los Angeles I usually set up Twitter searches for the hashtag or event name a few weeks ahead of time then pay attention to who is talking about attending.  I’ll usually engage them online with something like, “Hey I see you’re going to be at the such and such event in West Hollywood next week, let’s make time to say hi”, and of course when the event rolls around I make the effort to meet them.  If you start going to these, make sure you give a quick glance over my article “Social Tech Event Survival Guide“…if nothing else you’ll remember to bring breath mints

After meeting people at the event(s), make sure to follow up with them with a quick email, reminding them of who you are and what you do.  I usually reserve phone calls for those that I need to do immediate business with…the debt of the call and voicemail can honestly be too burdening on an alright tight work schedule.  An email shows that you remember them and that you are interested in keeping in touch, but it’s something that they can address in their time and on their terms.  Naturally these days I also put up a friendly tweet thanking them for their time.

Because of my efforts of the years to seek out friendly and awesome people, I have a network of artists, copy writers, attorneys (yes, they come in handy sometimes), video editors and just about every other profession that I would ever need to tap in social media.  When the time comes to subcontract with them I usually try to hire them on terms that will account for about 30% of the allocated money for that particular project, which also allows room for management and overhead.  Not only am I covered professionally, but I have to say…now when I walk into a tech event it’s really nice to see many people that I consider friends.

Knowing other professionals can be critical to the success of a social media program.  Next, in the final installment of this six part series I will talk about something that is even more important…knowing yourself.

____________________________

Did you enjoy this post? Consider subscribing to the RSS for future updates delivered straight to a feed reader, or come over to Twitter and say hi…that is where I do most of my one-on-one engagement

____________________________

Photos used under Creative Commons License. Seated professionals from thinkpublic and Blogworld photowalking from John Pozadzides

This is part 4 of 6 in the series “6 Things You Need to Know About Running A Social Media Program”. You can read part 1 “The Client” here, it has a full introduction. Part 2 “The Product” is here, part 3 “Your Audiences” is here.

I’ve created this list of “things you must know” mostly based upon very positive experiences I’ve had, but also from negative ones…things that I’ve either experienced myself or seen others do.  This isn’t a tactical post, I think I write plenty of those.  Instead, this is my advice to those that are going to lend their expertise to others, and hopefully by checking these off you will avoid some common mistakes that often result in unmet expectations, from one side or the other…or both.

Know The Channels

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Ustream, blogs, forums and all of the other communities in social media each have a different feel, and as such have different rules and therefore different results should be expected.  I’m going to go on record as saying that, in my opinion, trying to target all areas is a big mistake unless you have an incredibly well resourced team.  For most of the Fortune 500 companies that I work with we target a handful of channels based upon the brand needs and expectations…I don’t think there is such a thing as a cookie cutter social media program.  Why?  Because the need of every client is different (remember that part I wrote about knowing your customer?)  That said, there are a few basics that should be covered, but once you have established those you’ll want to match specific needs with specific communities.  If you try to be all things to all people you’re going to get spread too thin.

When I present to a group that contains companies that haven’t yet jumped into social media, I get one question consistently, “where should I start?”  It’s a pretty difficult question to answer with any brevity because it’s like somebody asking “where should I start with business?” or “where should I start with marketing?” Social Media is such a broad scope of platforms, but when going through a 10 minute Q&A after a presentation and trying to answer as many questions as possible, I usually say “If you do nothing else, start a blog and have a presence on Facebook and Twitter”.  That said, it’s not always the answer for everybody, but it’s a good shotgun approach to start.  Following is a quick overview of the feel of each channel, with some possible pitfalls that you can experience in each.

Twitter – By now most companies have heard of Twitter and are anxious to get involved.  Recently it has been a lot easier for me to discuss Twitter strategy with organizations, a far cry from the days not too long ago that I insisted that Twitter names should be put on business cards (that got me laughed out of meetings in 2008). In the rush to get to this channel however, make sure you know what you are in for.  Twitter is extremely conversational and therefore is immediate and personal.  One of the biggest mistakes I see companies both large and small making on Twitter is trying to get their PR or legal department to approve everything that is published.  Yes, I’m serious…there are plenty of companies that still insist on running every single tweet through multiple PR teams to make sure the messaging is spot on.  The problem with this? Twitter is usually more like a conversation than a presentation.  Most companies that try this find out that their growth, engagement and brand lift are slow if not completely void.  The other extreme (and also a mistake) is to put a well-intentioned intern or recent hire in charge of communicating with your customers.  I don’t think this is a mistake because of age, but because of experience with the company.  Twitter is often the most immediate and intimate touch point with your current and future customers; make sure you put your best and brightest people behind this channel…and pay them well! They can make or break your reputation in just a few key strokes.

Facebook - With 350MM users and growing it’s the largest social network online, so certainly you need to be a part of it.  Facebook has its own feel also, and that is one of sharing and playing.  Facebook doesn’t necessarily have the feel of immediacy that Twitter does, but fans do have their own demands.  They want to share things with their friends and generally have fun, so your business should respond accordingly.  Encourage fans of your brand to upload their own photos and videos to your wall and get them to talk to each other.  Build community! Be careful about sweepstakes and giveaways however, there are some recent changes to Facebook’s terms of service that can get you suspended in a hurry if you are holding contents the wrong way from your brand fan page.

Blogs - Don’t forget about the blogs! They often get left off the list of social networks, but they are one of the original and the best.  I tell my clients that their company blog should be the official word on all things related to them, from press releases to product updates to setting online rumors and leaks straight.  This is the place that you have control to say what you need to say…but the community can still interact! If you want traffic through your blog, make it easy for people to find information (have a search bar prominently displayed near the top of the page), interact with you(don’t make them register or fill out CAPTCHA to comment) and share with their friends (use ShareThis, Tweetmeme buttons, etc.)  Commenting on blogs has slowed down considerably because of conversational channels like Twitter, but people still read them.  Make sure you keep your company blog current and relevant.

Although I’ve highlighted these three channels, there are so many others that can be beneficial to your company.  YouTube is the place to upload original video content, Ustream is incredible for hosting live events or doing video chats with fans and Foursquare is still a great (and mostly untapped) opportunity to geo-target your customers with special offers and incentives.  There are thousands of social networks around, make sure you find the ones that are good for your company then dive in and participate with your community!

In the next post I will talk about what it means to know other professionals.

____________________________

Did you enjoy this post? Consider subscribing to the RSS for future updates delivered straight to a feed reader, or come over to Twitter and say hi…that is where I do most of my one-on-one engagement

____________________________

Photos used under Creative Commons License. Twitter mashup from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and blogging ticket from Jacob Botter