All I want for Christmas (besides this creepy photo) is on my Social Media wish list

The holidays are upon us! Some celebrate Hanukkah, some celebrate Solstice, some celebrate Christmas. No matter your preference, I think we can all agree it’s a great time to reflect on the year behind us, be thankful for what we have today, and look to next year with hope and expectations.  Given the spirit of the season, I’ve put together a little list of things that I’ve asked Santa Clause for this year…in social media.  It’s a crazy list for sure, but if my 5 year old son can ask for a trip to the moon (and expect it to happen) I can dream big too!  I’m going to put out a plate of extra-special cookies and hope that ol’ Saint Nick brings me…

• Hyperlinks within Tweets. Can you imagine having an extra 20 spaces or so (that’s what a typical bit.ly link takes up) to say whatever you want? Instead of a tweet looking like this: “Check out this post I wrote about the upcoming Facebook Page Admin Controls and let me know what you are looking fwd to http://bit.ly/g7B3Zc” (exactly 140 characters) it would look like this: “Check out this post I wrote about the upcoming Facebook Page Admin Controls and let me know what you are looking fwd to the very most y’all!” (still 140 characters but with more room to chat!)
• Robust Admin Controls for Facebook Pages. I saw a sneak peak of them a while back when Facebook accidentally rolled out some new changes (you can see what I saw here) and it was definitely a step in the right direction.  Still, I would like better Insights (analytics) and the ability to ban users from a page without just flagging them.  I don’t want to wait for somebody at Facebook to *maybe* get around to it at some point. I get REALLY tired of the “first” and “gay” comments that go up on large pages all the time, but I have no tolerance for users that use hate language, attack individuals, constantly swear or link to porn
• Overlay for YouTube videos. No, not just annotations, I want to be able to overlay the videos with graphic images.  You know…put a floating logo in the bottom corner (clickable of course), insert a graphic in the background…neat things like that. Sure, I can do this in a video editor then upload, but I would like to use full controls within YouTube proper so I can make cool SWF commands happen
• Lists for friends in Foursquare. I treat Foursquare in a similar way as Twitter but with slightly tighter control.  Knowing that, I have a lot of “friends” on Foursquare that I would like to break into smaller groups so I can check on them in a more controlled and manageable way.  Kind of like Twitter Lists, but for Foursquare.  Foursquare Lists, anyone?
• Dynamic backgrounds on Twitter. Everything else with Twitter has advanced over time…why not the backgrounds? Since the redesign, putting together a nice background (within the whopping 40 pixels on the left for people that view the page on a 1024×768 screen) has been a challenge to say the least.  Instead of outdated CSS and a static image I would love some basic HTML function so I could put up links to my other pages

We’ll see if I’ve been naughty or nice, I’m hoping to get these simple gifts under the virtual Christmas tree this year.  As you head into the weekend (hopefully with loved ones), I will leave you with a paraphrase of a famous work:

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And wrote up the meta tags, then turned with a jerk,

And laying his mouse aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his keyboard, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all coded like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he uploaded out of sight,

“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

Data, without insightful interpretation, is worthless.  It’s like staring at the instruments of an airplane, but not knowing how to use them to get you where you want to go.

So you have 200,000 Facebook fans…so what? How many of them engage on a regular basis? What countries are primarily represented, and is it important to your business? What time of day is best for you to post so that you get the most exposure?  These are questions that should be asked, but often are not.

I think that so many people and organizations are in the habit of asking for reports that they just do it automatically, and assume that the process is over.  The way I see it, the process is just beginning at that point, and data can be used to make important business decisions, particular as they related to social media, looking forward.

A few guidelines and suggestions for how to use the data you capture:

• Flash reports are okay, but real strength from data comes by looking at a broad range.  The more time you have to collect data, the more solid your numbers will be and the variance of peaks and valleys shouldn’t affect the bottom line as much
• Sentiment is quite subjective, and I have yet to find a tool that auto-scores and does it well.  For example, if somebody tweets “Good Lord, my [brand] car is giving me a headache”, it’s typically scored as positive or neutral because of the inclusion of “good”.  A human looking at that would usually score it as negative.  I would rather hand-score a small number of data points than let a computer auto-score a massive amount
• Consistency with time and services are important.  If possible, try to pull data from the same source and at regular time intervals. For example, it’s much easier to analyze data from a single source that you pull every Monday, than to compare data from many sources that you pull when you “want to get a good look at things”.  Consistency is key
• I’m sure you are tempted to look at numbers each week as wins and losses, but it’s more important to look at data over a longer period of time.  For example, when we presented numbers to clients after the 4th of July Holiday weekend, tweets, comments and likes were down almost across the board.  It has to be taken into consideration that people were off of their computers and outside enjoying life, otherwise it seems like something went terribly wrong during that period.

I spend a lot of time looking over data that has been scraped from all around the internet, and an equal amount of time interpreting what it means so that we can help our clients make important strategic and tactical decisions.  What I’ve learned from all of this is that, no matter where you are pulling it from, data that stands by itself without good interpretation is at best worthless, at worst dangerous.

As much as I dislike the general nastiness that can occur on a brand wall or in comment threads, I have to admit that it really gets to me more than just about anything when it’s done by younger kids. Although it’s aggravating to have to delete or defend against a minor (they even have an acronym…ATYO which stands for “annoying twelve year old”), as a father myself I’m more incensed by the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any parental monitoring. I see many of these kids say the same things, over and over on different community pages. I wish I could tell you that’s it’s just a few, but it’s not. It feels epidemic. It feels like there are mobs of children doing whatever they want, whenever they want, saying anything they want, online…and nobody is paying attention to them. They aren’t just saying annoying things, they viciously attack other people with racial and sexual slurs. F-bombs are prevalent. They say things like, “join my game and I’ll rape you” to mean “I’ll beat you in an online game”. I’m not holier-than-thou, but if I knew that one of my kids wrote that online, we would have a long talk, and probably not an entirely pleasant one.

To add to this…I’ve actually met several of these younger, aggressive people in real life (at conventions, gaming events, etc.) and guess what? They are about the most introverted, meek kids you could ever run across. They have a hard time carrying on a normal conversation, and they are slow to look anybody in the eye. I know that they are the same people because they brag about who they are online, and what they say. It’s passive-aggressive in such a polarized way.

Perhaps I’m blowing this out of proportion, but as I look at the even-increasing popularity of online communities, and the ever-increasing rise of really terrible behavior by younger people in these communities, I get worried. Are we allowing an entire generation to say whatever they want online, and refuse to teach them social norms offline?

I don’t know what the answer is, other than parental guidance and control. I feel that it’s a responsibility, and can certainly be done in a loving way. If you are a parent, do you monitor what your children do online, or do you allow them to surf at will? What about other parents that you know…what is their attitude?

Of course it goes without saying that the rude comments and aggressive attitudes in the pages I work with are hardly unique to young kids. As adults, we’ve obviously refined the art of slander and attack. However, I’m seeing this with so many kids, at this point, it really stands out.

What do you think? Is this an old problem that is being amplified by social media, or is this something new that is on the rise and only going to get worse? Either way…what do you think these people (kids and adults) will start to act like in real life if they can get away with (practically) anything they want online?

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“Kid Flipping The Bird” by http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinclark/9826288/, published with permission under Creative Commons

To date, the Insights have been underwhelming.  They have covered only the most basic information, and as somebody who works with big brands to engage and guide the community, I’ve got to say they have been less than helpful.  It seems that all of that changes today, however.  Facebook has announced “Facebook for Web Sites” and have already published full documentation about it.  The insight to user behavior should be interesting, as Facebook says:

“Once your app is up-and-running, you can get detailed analytics about the demographics of your users and how users are sharing from your application with Insights.

Insights supports analytics broken down by application and by domain. The product includes rich data about users sharing content from your site within Facebook no matter where those shares originated. For example, if a user puts a URL from your site in their Facebook status message, that data is included in the analytics for your domain.

The data from Insights is also included in the Graph API so you can integrate the Facebook analytics data with your own, in-house analytics systems.”

You can read some good commentaries over at Read Write Web and All Facebook. I’m not a developer, so it’s a bit early for me to really speculate on the implications of all of this.  I am a marketer, and the implications for this are exciting.  Having access to more granular user data (for example, being able to see what happens to a wall post after it is shared) is exciting and helpful.  It will allow me to do my job far more effectively, and will help me to predict future user behavior more easily, as opposed to just looking backward at what they have done.  Privacy groups are already crying foul (which is no surprise, the tiniest change in Facebook evokes this reaction), so we’ll see how it all plays out.

I think this is the first of many steps that Facebook will take to solidify itself as the premier destination, not just for users, but also for brands.

If you want to watch the video of F8, you can do so on the Facebook page. So what do you think…is this a step in the right direction, or a slippery slope toward invasion of privacy?

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To truly be effective in social media with influencers, I think you need to build a relationship, not ship a press package. You also have to recognize and understand the different groups that exist in social media, so you know how to develop and target brand programs and exposure.  In case you fear that I’m starting to sound a little too professional and polished in this approach, I submit for your approval a hand drawn diagram in the picture to the left.  Fancy, isn’t it? I put this beauty up on our office white board this morning while talking through the concept with a client.

Before we discuss what to do with these various groups, let’s start by defining them.

The consumer has the least amount of influence or interest in the product, but they represent the largest purchasing power…these are the folks that we are ultimately trying to sway, to move to purchase. Consumers are you and me and everybody else that has the ability to purchase your product or service, hereafter referred to generically and entirely to business-school like as “Brand X”.  This is the goal of the company: to get these (so far) non-customers to make the decision to give your company money in some capacity.  If they do this, you get to keep your job and keep on making more cool things like Brand X 2.0 and the new and improved iBrand X.

The enthusiasts are the people that still have a (relatively) small audience size (probably fewer than 3k total) but are hard-core lovers of the brand. They like all things Brand X and will talk about it day and night. They are also eager to assist the brand in many ways, including grass roots WOM marketing efforts, forum moderation and even customer support. This group of loyalists are invaluable to your marketing efforts (as we will look at later), but unfortunately are often passed over in an effort to reach somebody with a larger audience.

The influencers have a sizeable audience (from the tens of thousands to millions) but have little interest or knowledge of Brand X. In social media they have a massive audience, and are constantly asked to retweet a message, put up a link to a product or page, or just talk about a brand. Often they will do this, sometimes because they are being paid to, sometimes because they are just kind.  Corporate types and marketers usually get a good rise when an influencer mentions their product, the oh-so-popular Brand X, and think this is a completed cycle of marketing…that they have succeeded.  It is my belief that this isn’t the end-game, this is the starting line. This is the group that we want to convert into the most powerful and final group: the inciters.

The inciters have great interest in the product, use it, like it, and talk about it to their sizeable audience.  When an inciter knows and understands something, and feels passionately about it, they will talk about it…without a press kit to tell them what to say! Better yet, they won’t just talk about it, they’ll talk about it frequently.  This ultimately will drive the consumer (remember them?) to think, “well golly, since this really popular person obviously loves Brand X, I bet I will also!” and then rush down to their local big box store to buy it.

I described the four sectors of the community in a somewhat glib manner, but in all seriousness they exist roughly within the roles described, and all serve a very important part of the product (or service) sales cycle.  In our next post, we’ll look at the strategy and methodology behind the cycle, and how to move a person from one segment to the next.

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.  ;)

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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

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Bathroom photo used under Creative Commons from Brymo

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’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!

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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

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

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.

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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

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

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 Your Audience

Your audience is not “everybody” unless you are selling oxygen or religion…and even then there are plenty of people that don’t want either.  If you really think you can reach everybody, you are sorely mistaken.  You’re also going to be working 24/7 and going broke, because you cannot target everybody.  Now that we have established that, this is another great conversation to have with your client.  They probably have a pretty good idea of who their target audience is; make sure you understand who they are going after.  If you’ve done your homework (by knowing the product) then you can and should add to this conversation.  Once you understand the person that you are trying to reach you can start developing a strategy that will include some social media channels but not others.  Your strategy should also tell you when you should be active online (based upon when the target audience is), how often to engage them  and what sort of external resources you should link to that will add value to the community. If your client has no idea who they are targeting, I would suggest that you consider working this out with them before you start, it will prevent a lot of frustration from both sides.

You’ll notice that I said you will want to utilize some social media channels but not others…if you understand who your audience is, then you should also understand where your audience is and where they are not.  For example, although MySpace has been dropped by users like a bad habit as of late, they also recently announced a new focus on music.  It would stand to reason then that if your client is pitching music service, or is a band, producer, etc. then MySpace is still a viable (and reasonably good) social media outlet for them.  If, on the other hand, your client produces a durable good like car tires then putting effort into MySpace is likely a waste of time and resources because your core audience won’t be there.  Sure, people that listen to music do drive cars and therefore need tires, but this is the “appeal to everybody” mentality that will have you spinning your wheels in social media.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun, forgive me…it’s true though.

To understand your audience is to understand the timing and frequency of engagement as well.  By “engagement” I mean @ replies on Twitter, comments on Facebook threads and blog/forum posts, and other one-to-one engagement.  Don’t confuse engagement with publication…putting a post up that links to a new product launch is not engagement, it’s information sharing.  I’m talking about real, honest-to-goodness active engagement with your consumers. Not all audiences react the same to engagement and timing; some expect a very high level of interaction with the brand (especially in the tech sector) and some simply want to sit back and watch, they don’t need the always-on attention of the social media presence even though they are in the space themselves.

By knowing your audience you will also understand want other products, services and resources they would like other than your own brand.  When dealing with social media, it’s important to offer value to your consumers, and often times that means linking to resources outside of your client’s ecosystem.  While many traditional marketers would scoff at this idea, in my experience I have found that the more I offer to the community I’m speaking with that doesn’t necessarily link directly to the client’s site, the more retention we see from the community.  In other words, when I talk about and link to news stories, product offerings and other things I think the community would find interesting, the higher the follower/friend count goes and likewise the level of engagement.  Simply put, don’t just talk about yourself.  I have worked with a lot of traditional media and marketing types, and almost without exception they feel that this is a bad idea, “always keep the focus on your own product”, they say.  Social media is a different beast altogether, and the community knows this.  Of course that doesn’t mean you should link to things your direct competitors are doing, but use your common sense…if you find an article that you think would be good for your audience even though it’s not related to your client, bring some attention to it! Your audience will appreciate you for it.  As for the client, well…that’s another story.  It’s going to take some time to build up trust from them that this strategy is actually good for them overall.

If you spend the time to truly understand who it is that you are speaking to and with, your client is going to see measurable gains in some key areas like follow count and engagement, not to mention positive sentiment.  If you’ve been put in a position in which you have to roll out programs and channels very quickly and you don’t have time to do the research in advance, may I suggest a bold tactic? Ask them what they like.  Remember, social media is a conversation and not a platform, so don’t be afraid to talk to your audience and ask them what they are looking for.  The result may surprise you and your client, likely in a very good way.

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

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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

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Photos used under Creative Commons License. Facebook photo from Laughing Squid and crowd photo from Matthew Field