Aptus Consultants

Operationalizing social media across the organization is perhaps on of the most challenging aspects of social media for companies and brands. Too many look at social media as a consumer-facing communications channel and forget that departments from HR to research and development and even internal collaboration among divisions can all be helped by social technologies and strategies.

We’re addressing that issue at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth in several discussions, one major one led by Zena Weist, Vice-President of Digital Strategy for Edelman. Her experience at brands like Embarq, Sprint and H&R Block, plus the brands she’s working with in her current role, gives her a unique and experienced look at how to incorporate social across the organization. She’ll share not just advice, but case studies on how to do it.

I caught up with Zena recently to get some good information from her before the event and for those of you who may not be able to attend. I asked her why companies funnel social media into a consumer-side communications channel, how we can get our organizations to move that thinking to internal and cross-silo mechanisms, how marketers can be in front of policy issues and more.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Zena has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. She’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Brian Clark from Copyblogger, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, Tim Hayden from 44 Doors, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception is $400, but let’s see if you’re paying attention! Register and use the code “ILOVESME” and you’ll get the early-bird price of $250, no matter what! Can’t be that! Go reserve your spot!

Event management for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth powered by Eventbrite

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

By now, many social media managers have realized a hardnosed reality: Most subject matter experts within the corporate walls don’t have time (or the skills) to blog. So you have two choices:

• Write/edit their blogs for them (and give up the rest of your life since writing is very time consuming)
• Hire a specialist or “real writer” to write for them.

That would be a journalist or professional business writer. (I use these interchangeably, even though there are some solid business writers who were never journalists.)

Hiring a good journalist has huge advantages — this is what they do. Journalists are trained to research, report, and write. They’re skilled in the art of connecting with targeted audiences with compelling, relevant content-and they’re storytellers which separates them from the rest of the corporate pack.

Image via Wikipedia

But the key is you want to hire the right writer, one that will deliver solid, compelling content and is a good fit.

I’ve been on both sides of the fence, in senior editorial positions hiring writers for big tech companies, and more recently, developing content for corporate clients as an agency. My first advice: look before you leap. A weak or ill-fitted writer, or one just learning the corporate ropes, can slow you down. They can even wreak havoc, forcing you to spend extra time managing them and cleaning up their messes.

In most of these cases I’m talking about typical corporate bloggers (vs. senior executives) who just need a writer or editor’s support. They’ll spend the time to share their detailed thoughts with the writer and work closely with them on story angles. The final result should be their “voice” even though it was written/edited by a professional. This isn’t that far from speech writing, but for some reason the social media purists have a problem with ghost writing for corporate bloggers.

So look for the following when you go to hire a writer:

1. Solid industry experience - They need to have a record of solid achievement. Check their references. What subjects do they write best about (industry expertise)? Did they deliver on time? Were they reliable, accurate? And if there was an issue, did they quickly take care of it? Would their former bosses hire them again?
2. Good fit - You don’t want a fashion writer writing about high tech. Still, a good writer can quickly adapt as long as they have solid business writing experience. Better to focus on getting a great writer than the perfect specialist, which is nearly impossible in some B2B and niche areas.
3.  Editorial skills - Blogging is a different style of writing than magazine or newspaper writing. Can they write in short bursts? Is it catchy, engaging? Are they good storytellers? How do they develop their stories (through use of personal anecdotes, etc.)? Don’t forget the basics either: They need to be very detailed in checking their facts and very accurate. If a blog blows up, it’s likely going to land in your lap.
4. Web knowledge - Good writers know the online world and how to connect with key audiences, but some are better versed than others. Query them about how their web knowledge and how they write to connect with their audiences. How do they do their research (Google alerts, Twitter, LinkedIn groups, etc.)? Are they socially active?  Do they have a Twitter following, are they active on Facebook, Google+, etc.? None of these are mission critical, but certainly can indicate how much lift you may get from their connectivity.
5. Communications skills - Journalists are trained to question the status quo, look under rocks, charge ahead in the pursuit of truth, etc. This often goes over like a lead balloon in the corporate world, so look for a well-rounded writer who is comfortable in this environment and knows how to work closely with your key stakeholders and bloggers.
6. Proactivity - You want a writer who’ll not be just an order taker. They need to proactively come up with story ideas and fresh angles to help you feed the content machine. Before you hire them, ask for some suggested topics: “How would you handle this subject?”
7. The “right” personality/attitude - This can be tricky. Like any other profession, some writers have better personalities and attitudes to fit the job. They need to be able to “sell” themselves and their ideas, and be versatile. Amazingly, some writers push back on doing multi-revisions and/or resist on being heavily edited (personally, this was beat out of me years ago at Business Week). Set expectations early on with agreements over how many revisions can be expected and what type of blogs the writer will be dealing with. If you have one that’s particularly difficult (i.e., multiple rewrites), put it on the table. In fact, setting clear expectations across the board on deadlines, quality of writing, meetings and so-on is critical.

Personality and values that sync with yours can be as important as editorial skills and experience. Once when I was at Intel, my partner and I hired a writer to help us ghost-write our family computing book for a division of Random House (referred to me by a personal friend). The guy had some decent clips, but turned out to be difficult to manage and would go off for days following different research trails. The result was mountains of barely relevant material we’d have to sort out. Even worse he was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to directions, even arguing with us. We finally let him go.

Another time several years ago we hired a senior writer to work on a four month editorial project for us for an ample fee. He did a good job. But when we came to near the end of the time frame, we’d exhausted the budget but still had several loose ends we needed help on (mainly proofreading materials, double-checking facts, etc.), basically asking him for a favor. He refused to budge, arguing he’d used up his hours, and we were out of money. We scrambled to get it done and meet the deadline. Writers have to make a living, but much of business is about being flexible and bending a little to help the client and get the job done; but this writer wasn’t into trade-offs or building good will. Needless to say, we never used him again.

The point is a good writer needs to have more than strong editorial skills. They need to be able to navigate through the corporate jungle and deal with various personalities. You’ll never find a writer with 100 percent of all of these qualities. If you do, send them my way. A good writer is hard to find, even today.

What about your perspective. Have you hired writers or bloggers for your company? What else would you add? Tell us in the comments.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

 

It’s the question that social media evangelists, speakers, consultants and practitioners begrudgingly have to answer. Sometimes, they have to or their jobs are in jeopardy. What is the ROI of social media. While I have my own perspective on that, there are many ideas and opinions on the issue. Part of what we plan to provide with our Explore events this year is a better understanding of the ROI question for all who attend.

Nichole Kelly, who not only writes for us here at SME but is so passionate about return-on-investment she named her company Full Frontal ROI, will be tackling the topic of ROI from a no fluff (read: no bullshit) perspective in Dallas on Feb. 17 at our first Explore event of the year. Kelly has a strong brand-side background and specializes in translating social media analytics and metrics to executive teams and C-level folks so they “get” what we’re doing. Her talk is going to be of great value to all who are in Dallas.

I caught up with Nichole recently to ask some questions about why companies struggle with the ROI issue and what they can do about it.

Be sure to check out Nichole over at her blog and assortment of writers at Full Frontal ROI.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Nichole has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. She’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Chris Baccus from AT&T, Adrian Parker of Radio Shack, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The first 100 registrants spots are filling up quickly! Register now and get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! After the first 100 seats are gone, the price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

Event management for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth powered by Eventbrite

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest post from Jordan Viator Slabaugh, Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management solution provider and SME client.

Using social media for business requires companies to embrace social channels to satisfy the needs of their customers, prospects and networks. This can mean many different tactics for various types of companies, but content is always at the heart of this activity.

On the heels of Community Manager Appreciation Day, it’s worth noting that Social Fresh found “community managers, surprisingly, spend more time on content creation than any other task.” In his latest report on managing social media, Jeremiah Owyang lists developing a content strategy as one of the key steps every social media strategist needs to undertake. And Beth Kanter recently wrote about the debate between creating versus curating content, highlighting a checklist from the Content Marketing Institute on creating valuable content.

Developing and executing a content strategy is one of the most time consuming tasks for most strategists. But with proper planning, this crucial area of focus can ensure better and more relevant content for your network while also making sure your company is sharing the most important messages from a company stand-point. One of the sections of the new whitepaper “The 7 Sessions Every Social Strategists Needs to Have”, a practical framework for how to approach and plan for this includes:

Planning out Content Proactively

You don’t sit down to write and send email messages and new webpage content in real time to send to your entire customer base, so why would you do the same for all of your social content. Using a centralized editorial calendar, strategists should be planning out social content before it’s actually being published. It guarantees your social channels won’t go silent due to team members having a busy day in the office, and it helps multiple people have insight into what is being planned and published.

Repurposing Content for Social Media Channels

You share the same or similar content across all your other communication channels. Why would social media be any different? It’s true that social media shouldn’t be used to spam your network by cramming marketing messages down its throat, but these people are also interested in hearing about company news, discounts, product updates and new content available. If you’re not thinking about what content you already have that can also be shared with your social networks, you’re doing extra work and missing opportunities to provide value.

Centralizing Content to Be Accessed Easily Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common.

If you have more than one person active in social media for your company, you know how complex it can be to stay coordinated. Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common. Have you considered creating a content library where all team members can find sample Tweets, Facebook status updates, links to new content or responses to common questions?

Build Social Activity into Campaign Plans

Social doesn’t exist in a vacuum (or at least, it shouldn’t). In the same way you assess what content you have in existence to share in social, you should assess how social media is an integral part of every campaign you launch or run. How can you use social media to launch your new product? What social media elements can be integrated to help amplify your latest marketing campaign? Or what content can help satisfy overarching customer care efforts?

Assess and Adjust Course as Needed

Content strategy is an ever-evolving aspect of social media. Your networks grow, your customer base changes and people’s interests vary. Tracking things like what content receives the most impressions, clicks, engagement and shares can help your social media program flourish over time. It also helps make sure you stay as relevant as possible to your network.

Content is one of the key aspects to a successful social media program. If you’re  not already thinking of this from a higher level, the time is now. Ann Handley of Marketing Profs said it best “In 2012, businesses will rise about the din of mediocrity and retool their content efforts to create a sustainable, workable model that produces stuff that has merit.”

How are you planning on creating your model?

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

Jordan Viator Slabaugh is the Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management system for enterprise companies and agencies.  She leads the company’s Marketing and social media strategy, as well as consults with clients on using social media to help achieve social business goals. She tweets at @jordanv and writes about social business best practices and trends on the Spredfast Social Business blog. 

I have been thinking about the value of Facebook fans lately, and how they stack up against other types of online and digital marketing payoffs. The problem with getting to an answer to the value of a fan, and what many small business owners face when trying to sort out what square to place their marketing dollars on, is the array of mismatched direction.

Small businesses aren’t very good at increasing their Facebook fan base. So even though they may be following all of the “rules of the Facebook road,” they aren’t seeing much if any return on their effort.

A Bigger Fan Base is Better

Ultralinx posted an article titled The Importance of Having a Fan Base, which included a cool infograph illustrating their point.

With the explosion of Social Media, businesses and brands have found a new way to advertise. Advertising through Social Media has a lot better ROI than most other types of advertising and can help build relationships between businesses and their customers. Building relationships with people fosters loyalty, as a result, loyalty has the potential to increase profit.

According to Ultralinx, the benefits of having a fan base include:

• 50% of small business owners reported that they gained new customers through social media.
• Ning, a social network platform, found that it only takes 20 people to create an online community.
• 64% of Twitter users say they are more likely to buy from a brand if they already follow it. 51% said the same on Facebook.

So, one would think that investing time and money building such a digital platform is the proper direction. And, as with your checkbook balance, bigger is better right?

Wait, Only 1% of Facebook Fans Engage with Brands

Just as we were  convinced to start ramping up our digital assault, we read a contradicting article, this from AdAge, that Not Many Fans Are Engaging; What are we to believe?

 For a few years now, brands have been touting frothy Facebook “like” numbers as evidence of their social-media acumen. But how many of those fans are actually bothering to take part in conversation with brands?

Not too many, as it turns out.

Slightly more than 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook are actually engaging with the brands, according to a study from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, an Australia-based marketing think tank that counts Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and other major advertisers as its supporters

Is Facebook for Business Overrated  

The point here is that  you can find a blog, an article, a video and multiple consultants to support either side of the equation. What is best for your business? It wasn’t long ago that I too was a bit skeptical and thought that Facebook for Business is Overrated. I have changed my mind, but with a qualification, only after you have built a Fan Base large enough to matter. If you aren’t willing to do what it takes to create a space for a “community” to gather around your brand, and grow that to a size large enough to matter then leave your Facebook chips at home. Size really does matter.

We have since placed a disproportionate amount of our marketing resources on that bet and Doubled Down on our Facebook Fan Page for our boutique apartment business. I am glad we did, as it is producing a steady stream of rental leads for us. However, not much of anything happened until we got close to 10,000 Fans. Prior to that, we were mostly talking to ourselves.

That raises another question, What is the Optimal Facebook Fan Base size to see a return?

It has taken some time to build a hearty, Hyper Local Fan Base, and a lot of work, trial and error. Patience was required. And, we didn’t know what the right size was either, until finally we started to experience a sharing of “Likes” and engagement. It has sort of been an obsession around our office for the last 24 months or so, but it looks like it is beginning to create a nice return.

What are your experiences — Especially those of you in small businesses? How many fans did you have before you began to see responses, leads and even sales or conversions? Where was your double down point? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from Tristan Handy from Argyle Social, a service SME uses and a company that sponsors our events. But I think you’ll agree, disclosures aside, it’s awesomeness. 

You’ve spent all year writing and sharing great content. And from time to time, you check to see how your posts perform. But when you look at that report—whether it’s in bit.ly, Google Analytics, or your social media management tool of choice—how do you interpret it? Is 100 clicks good? Is 1,000 clicks good?

If you don’t frame your performance correctly, your boss won’t recognize your impact. If you want to demonstrate success, you need to go further than simply reporting on the raw traffic you drove.

Fortunately, demonstrating your success can be easy. Just follow these three steps:

1. Measure the right stuff
2. Know how you stand up to your peers
3. Choose outliers to tell a story

Read on as I explore each step in detail.

1. Change your metric—Measure clicks per follower

The core measure of performance in social media marketing is clicks. A count of clicks answers the all-important question, “How many people read the content I shared?” But the number of clicks is an insufficient measure when it comes to evaluating your performance, as it just doesn’t provide enough information on its own. Obviously, getting 100 clicks is pretty impressive if you have 200 followers. It’s less impressive if you have 100,000.

To give your metrics more weight, start measuring clicks per follower (CPF). Just take that click data you already have and divide by the number of fans or followers for that account. If your tweet had 200 clicks and you have 7,000 followers, your CPF is 200/7,000, or 2.86%.

Normalizing by audience size is important for two reasons. First, hopefully your audience will grow over time, and it’s important that your idea of “good performance” scales with your audience size. If your audience has tripled in the past year, a post that got 100 clicks last year is more impressive than a post that got 100 clicks today. Second, it’s important if you want to compare your performance to your peers.

2. Benchmark your performance against your peers

The best way to determine what performance is “good” is to compare yourself against your peers. But this is often easier said than done. Fortunately, I’ve done all the hard work for you.

It turns out that audience size is the single biggest and most reliable factor that affects engagement (CPF). This is reflected in a recent study published by my company, Argyle Social, and seconded by a recent report from EdgeRank Checker.

If you compare the average CPF performance of hundreds of business social media accounts of varying sizes, smaller accounts perform better than large ones. This relationship holds true for both Facebook and Twitter.

(source: Argyle Social)

When you stop and think about it, this makes intuitive sense. At Ma & Pa’s Corner Store, the owner likely has a personal relationship with much of their audience. At a global online retailer, this clearly isn’t true. Closer relationships translate into greater engagement.

Does this mean that you should try to keep your audience size as low as possible? Probably not. If your goal is to maximize engagement, then larger accounts still get more clicks per post, even though followers engage less frequently.

(source: Argyle Social)

So, if your peer group is based on how many followers or fans you currently have, what we need now is a set of performance benchmarks for your peer group. The table below is just that.

(source: Argyle Social)

Let’s run through a quick example so that this makes a little more sense.

You’re a regional B2C retailer with 12,000 Twitter followers. You tweet a link that gets 12 clicks. That’s a CPF of .1%, which puts that tweet right at the 50th percentile in your peer group. Not great, but not too bad either. Then, you tweet another link that gets 180 clicks. That’s a CPF of 1.5%, which puts you in the 95th percentile. Awesome!

Running the numbers on your annual performance works the same way. Put together a big spreadsheet with all your posts, all of their clicks, and get an average CPF for the year. (Or use your social media management tool of choice.) Then compare yourself against the benchmarks above.

How do you perform? If you’re at the top of your peer group, great! Go brag about it and demand a raise. If you’re not, that’s OK—use this process to inform your 2012 goals. Create an action plan that will have you ahead of your peer group by this time next year.

 3. Select outliers

Now that you’ve diligently measured your CPF and normed it against your peer group, it’s time to select outliers. Rank your posts from 2011 by CPF. What do the top ten have in common? The bottom ten? Pull these out as success stories to celebrate and epic fails to vilify.

This step is particularly important in your year-end review because it helps you tell stories. Numbers are important, but human brains are wired for storytelling. If you can support your industry-benchmarked numbers from step 2 with some really excellent success stories and lessons learned, you’ll make a much bigger impact.

Want some of our success stories? Here are three of the best performing posts in the data set used for this research:

• Who’s been more influential in 2011, @PiersMorgan, @TinieTempah or @CharlieSheen? Vote for the Top 49 Men UK Edition now %link%
• Everyone #likes to WIN – Win A 25th Anniversary Nintendo Wii Bundle! #Wii #Retweet #Vancouver  %link%
• Facebook Achieves Majority – NEW Research from Edison and Arbitron: %link%

As you can see, looking at individual outliers is quite powerful. These three posts immediately beg the question, “Should I be posting more surveys, contests, and research?” Use anecdotal evidence like this to frame the larger conversation and to ask questions that should be looked into further.

Dominating your performance review

There you have it—three easy steps for success when it comes time to summarize your performance.

Do you use this process already or have a favorite of your own? Let us know in the comments.

Methodology

The data behind this analysis comes from a sample of customers’ activity on Argyle Social, a social media marketing software provider (and my employer!).

The selected sample included more than 150,000 posts from more than 1,000 Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts between November 2010 and December 2011. Our customers are professional marketers representing a range of company sizes across all major industries.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

Tristan Handy is Director of Operations for Argyle Social, a social media marketing dashboard that helps businesses create real returns from the social channel. Follow him on Twitter @jthandy.

As you know, Copyblogger‘s Brian Clark will serve as the opening keynote for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth on Feb. 17 in Dallas, Texas. Register now so you don’t miss out on the full day’s content and networking that I’ve started saying is a, “no-frills, learn-your-ass-off digital marketing event.” But his opening keynote will surprise many. It’s a new talk and one that I’m going to be taking a lot of notes from as well.

Brian’s talk is called, “The Star Wars Guide To Online Marketing Success.” I’m sure we’ll all get a kick, as well as some great knowledge from him. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Brian is a content marketing and internet marketing Jedi.

I caught up with Brian recently to allow us to start learning from him now, and to allow those who may not be able to join us in Dallas to get some scoop. We talked about Copyblogger’s recent redesign (the why, how, and what’s it done), why marketers today struggle with content marketing, how he would approach internet marketing for a company or brand that was not Copyblogger, how content marketing can work for non-sexy products and more.

As you can tell, the Force is with him. Come to Dallas on Feb. 17 and begin your training!

You won’t want to miss the business insights Brian has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. He’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, Tim Hayden from 44 Doors, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception is $400, but let’s see if you’re paying attention! Register and use the code “ILOVESME” and you’ll get the early-bird price of $250, no matter what! Can’t be that! Go reserve your spot!

Event management for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth powered by Eventbrite

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by Ann Davlin who works at MotoCMS – an advanced Flash CMS and Flash templates provider.

It’s not a secret that many recruiters and business owners use social networking sites to screen prospective employees. According to the survey of 300 hiring professionals conducted by Reppler the most popular online resources for time wasting are Facebook (76%), Twitter (53%) and Linkedin (48%). It probably means that the whole (online and offline) business world considers it necessary to take social networks activity into account and use it for corporate objectives. But there are not so many employers who enable their employees to use these social networks at the working time if they are not engaged in corporate social accounts maintenance: In 2009 Robert Half Technology proclaimed that:

• 54 percent of U.S. companies ban workers from using social networking sites while on the job;
• 19 percent of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes;
• 16 percent allow limited personal use of the web.

Image via Wikipedia

In 2010, Manpower Inc. published a survey of over 34,000 employers in 35 countries and it turned out that three out of four companies have no formal policy regarding on-the-job use of social networking sites. In addition to the fact that social networking sites expose employees’ productivity to risk, corporate networks security and confidential data prove there is a strong need to determine how social networks can influence organizations.

Surely the problem related to the non-purpose use of the web at workplaces is quite hot and is an object for debates. There are numerous pros and cons of on-the-job use of social network sites including:

Strengths

• It gives the “bush telegraph” effect.
• Employees will be well-informed about latest online trends.
• Organizations with an access to social networks are considered to be progressive ones.

Weaknesses

• It’s hard to influence social networks messages of employees.
• Occasionally there is a need to invest money into office networks security.
• Some employees spend too much paid working time using private social network accounts.

Opportunities

• It is possible to increase labor productivity using this tool.
• It can be a good stimulation for workers enthusiasm.
• It’s also a good mean to increase the pleasure employees get during working hours.
• Using permissions for social communication it is possible to motivate and encourage workers.
• It can be a strong advantage while searching for new employees.

Threats

• Some public messages on social networks can really hurt the company’s public image.
• There can be some emotional and moral disorder of staff.
• There is a risk to infect corporate networks with viruses.

You can also supplement this list with other points which you consider to be important and influential. This ones are just examples that we think will make you think about the harm and benefits from using social networks at workplaces.

As Manpower’s survey states, very few organizations all over the world mentioned that their reputation has ever been impacted as a result of employees’ use of social networking sites at their workplaces. Here is a strict illustration on how little damage was caused by social media websites from the employers’ point of view.

Has your organization’s reputation ever been damaged by employees using social networking sites?

Americas – 11,000 employers from 9 countries from South and North Americas.
Asia Pacific – 7,700 employers from the Asia Pacific region.
EMEA – more then 16,000 employers from 16 countries of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

It shows that the threat of being damaged on the web by your own employees is lower than it’s considered to be. Within the whole world there are only 4 percent of companies whose business interests were negatively affected by the private online communication. Nearly 90 percent of businessmen don’t see any harm in social networks. Probably this diagram will look a little bit different in case of taking into account the employees’ productivity and time which they spend on social networks.

Now let’s get to another part, which can really be more important. This previous diagram was about actual damage, but what’s really widespread is not the damage, it’s the lack of any use from those employees spending their working time on social networks. Official Facebook stats claim that there are more than 400 million users which log in to Facebook every day and what is more important all of them combined spend something about 2 billion minutes a day on Facebook. Do you really think that all these people check their accounts at home after a working day? Nope! They spend their working time to chat with friends and relatives! Unfortunately, nobody estimates the work efficiency before and after such brakes. There are many employees who frankly think that social media communication during working hours relaxes them and even tones them up. This point of view is quite interesting and challenging to make some employers think about enabling their workers to surf through social media websites. But undoubtedly, this question requires a strong regulation.

For example, look at the graph below. Too much lemonade makes you hate lemons. This statement relates to pretty much everything – like eating sweets, watching TV and social media communicating too. So it is possible to find some solution when private communication becomes more of a useful thing than the harmful one for your business (position A). The point is that even if an unlimited access to the entertainment sites would be given to the employees during their working hours after some time general interest towards such form of wasting time starts to fall (position C) .

For example: if employees can use their private Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. accounts at workplaces 30 minutes a day they will be waiting for this time and will try to take maximum advantage of it. Then if they are allowed to communicate on the web for 2 hours a day – be sure workers will do the same as if they have had only 30 minutes (there is no need to hurry up if there is a plenty of officially allowed time). And when an unlimited access to all social media sites is provided people either get bored of this idea very quickly or they will waste the whole working time on the web (however in such case the employee risks to be fired).

So here are several suggestions on what can be done to minimize the threats and maximize the benefits of on-the-job usage of social media sites (as well as other entertainment online resources):

• Provide an unlimited access to entertainment sites and wait until employees will be tired of playing around on the web. In this case you’ll need a strong network protection software and plenty of patience.
• Provide an unlimited access to the web but do not let things drift – a constant online activity control is demanded.
• Allow a free access to the web only during breaks. It will save your corporate network from overloading and employees from time wasting.
• Another option is to forbid any access to social network sites at workplaces whatsoever. This step will probably reduce company’s popularity among current and potential employees, so be ready for a public dissatisfaction (especially if your competitors are not so strict).
• Provide an access to different sites for different categories of employees according to their duties. It requires some monetary and labor spending, but it is a very effective optimization tool.
• Describe all conditions concerning non-purpose use of social networks in the employment contract. This measure will clarify everything for both parties: employees and employers
• Establish fines for those who use Internet for private purposes. However there is a need to separate different types of employees: those which were and always will abuse an access to the web, those which will react and those who are indifferent to the web. All these people need an individual approach.
• It is possible to make entering social media sites a some kind of encouragement. The more effective employee is the more time he/she can spend on social networks. It will stimulate those workers who like to relax on the web and will build convenient labor conditions for others.

Probably there are no universal solutions for every single case but there is one good rule of thumb: be useful and don’t harm. If employees follow it then probably they deserve getting some encouragements from the company. A few minutes in social media communities a day can hardly hurt any business but this time will bring a feeling of satisfaction for every worker. But of course it’s all up to you: to allow web surfing during working hours or forbid it. You are welcome to choose your own way of solving the problem of non-purpose use of social media websites on workplaces.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

Ann Davlin is a young inspired blogger who is always open to trying new things. She works at MotoCMS -  an advanced Flash CMS and Flash templates provider. And if you are a fan of web design and social media (like Ann is) you can always follow her on Twitter (@SmilingAnny)

 

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Suzanne Norman, director of brand at Emma, an email marketing and communications company.

The bot problem

Let’s face it: most companies write marketing copy for the web and email that reads like it was written by a robot.

And nobody likes bots. (See: spambots, twitbots, fembots, that 80s movie with Emilio Estevez where all the semi-trucks come to life.)

photo by davedehetre

I spot this kind of writing all the time in email marketing campaigns — that’s the realm I work in — but it’s just as rampant in every other digital medium.

“The objective of our organization is to provide best-in-class e-commerce solutions that facilitate bottom-line growth.”

Okay, fine, but don’t you just help people sell more stuff?

When we marketing-types talk about content, we talk a lot about relevance and architecture and SEO optimization, but we don’t talk much about voice — that intangible quality in writing that shows off your company’s personality.

And that’s a shame, because voice drives how people feel when they read what you write. And when you can evoke a feeling in your customer, you’re closer than ever to a sale.

A few organizations have parlayed a memorable voice into brand distinction that delights their customers. (Moosejaw, Innocent Drinks and 826 Valencia come to mind right away.) But anybody can strengthen their company’s voice with writing that’s simply more conversational.

Three ways to fix it

Think, then talk, then write.
Writers often mistakenly believe that writing is about writing. It’s not about writing.

(It’s not about caffeine, either. Most days, anyway.)

It’s mostly about thinking.

When I haven’t thought enough about a piece, I know it. I find overwrought sentences, rambling paragraphs, lazy word choices and ill-advised Dolph Lundgren jokes. Those writerly fits and starts add up to a stilted, distant voice that bores readers faster than the plot of Rocky V.

To fix it, I call a smart friend and talk through my idea. A living, breathing audience asks questions and checks assumptions better than a blank page, and the dialogue always helps distill and refine my main points.

Best of all, it tricks my brain into approaching the problem conversationally, so I end up writing the thing considering what my reader wants, when she hesitates and how she reasons.

Ditch the multisyllabicness.
In email marketing — and really, in any marketing channel — your words have a few seconds to grab and keep your readers’ attention. And even then, people don’t really read so much as scan.

So when you write multisyllabic words overwrought into convoluted sentences with which one requires assistance in comprehending (you see what I did there), you lose readers.

Use simple words instead, words you can read at a glance. It’s the surest way to copy that’s warm and friendly since it reflects how we actually talk.

It helps me to read my stuff out loud. Thesaurus-y words and convoluted phrases might sneak past my eye, but my ear will catch them every time. If I stumble over a phrase, I rework it. If a sentence stalls the whole paragraph, I rework it. If it’s another Dolph Lundgren joke, I rework it (begrudgingly).

Okay, two caveats. First, we web writers have to keep our copy keyword-rich and shiny for the Googles, so if your industry’s vernacular includes five-dollar words, try offsetting them with straightforward sentences and brief paragraphs.

And second, I’m not suggesting you dumb down your writing. Keep your sentences varied, your adjectives meaningful and your verbs brimming with life. Just put clarity and brevity before the fancy stuff, okay?

Have fun. Seriously.
Although the cats are giving us a run for it, I believe humans are the masters of humor.

Humor erodes our defenses. It makes us feel good. It puts us on the same team.

These qualities are wonderful for humanity and whatnot, but they also come in handy if you’re trying to sell something.

Humor isn’t right for every brand, but it shouldn’t be reserved only for the energy drinks and beer conglomerates of the world, either. Add simple, friendly asides to your writing or build your whole brand around a laugh-out-loud silliness — whatever seems in line with your company’s values and goals. Either way, readers will know that there’s another person behind the writing.

You know, talking about humor gets a little humorless, so I’ll point you to an essay I came across earlier this month by author, writing instructor and all-around badass Anne Lamott. Her style keeps you reading and makes you love her, but her humor never upstages her point.

What’s next?

It’ll take you fifteen minutes to apply some of these thoughts to your latest blog post or a landing page. Try it this week.

When you do, remember it’s not merely writing. It’s your company speaking. And your readers aren’t merely listening to what you’re saying. They’re reacting to how you say it.

Show no mercy to robotic words and phrases. Replace ‘em with words that show your humanity. Shape and refine your company’s voice, and your readers will respond.

You’ll boost your pageviews, I promise. You’ll sell more stuff.  And you’ll make the world a less robotic place.

Suzanne Norman works on all manner of brand-y things for Emma, an email marketing and communications company that serves more than 30,000 customers around the world. She lives in Nashville with her husband, son and inexhaustible supply of goat cheese.

Why are blogs such a powerful communications tool in the arsenal of a company? There are lots of reasons, really. But the explanation I’ve used that normally gives those who don’t quite understand blogging have their “ah-ha” moment is a simple one. To understand the power of a blog you have to compare it to something familiar.

Think about your company newsletter. If you’re not that hip to blogging yet, your company newsletter is probably still printed and circulated in everyone’s box in the mailroom. Or maybe it’s mailed to everyone’s house. But in some form or fashion, some printed piece of information is circulated monthly or bi-weekly to everyone in the company. There are pictures of new hires, company softball team news, maybe even some tips and tricks articles for the sales team and a list of birthdays.

Image via Wikipedia

The problem with that mechanism of communication is that the information has a limited life cycle and, due to costs, the publication has a limited circulation. Only a few people can access it.

With a blog, even if just focused on internal news, everyone, in or out of the company, can access it. There’s less hard cost to produce and adding news or information doesn’t add cost to the project. And the information can be updated on a whim, giving it a forever life cycle. Not to mention, the content can be more easily found thanks to the ubiquitous power of search.

Those reasons alone make a blog a much more powerful communications mechanism — internally or externally — than a company newsletter.

Capitalizing on that same analogy, though, think about how many company newsletters you’ve read that were interesting enough to want to read again.

It’s a comparable medium, but not the same. With more power, comes more responsibility.

It’s time companies grasped that and made their new newsletter, in whatever form, worth reading.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

I’ve argued recently that we are entering the Age of Relevancy in Marketing. The more relevant your message is, delivered to the more relevant audience at the more relevant time and in the more relevant place, the better your marketing will be. One critical element of that Relevancy Bullseye is location. Local is better because local is more relevant.

But corporations and brands struggle with local. It’s hard to sit at corporate headquarters and be connected on a 1:1 basis with every single customer, worldwide. It’s not just hard, it’s impossible. Or is it?

Kevin Magee will be bringing a very interesting talk and research to the table at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth that will dive into that topic — Can Big Brands Go Local? I sat down with Kevin recently to talk about the problems brands have and the solutions they should seek.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Kevin has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. He’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster of Edison Research, Aaron Strout from WCG, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

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The first 100 registrants get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! The full price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

Say goodbye to CoTweet. As of February 15, the free version will no longer be offered. Free customers will be given a chance to transition to ExactTarget’s new Social Engage product that is essentially an improved version of CoTweet’s enterprise product, but they’ll eventually have to pay for it. And frankly, they should have to. The innovation and integration with ExactTarget’s long-standing excellent email suite isn’t something the company should give away.

And it’s not something they have to. ET supplies email marketing and (now) social media management solutions to thousands of customers worldwide. There’s a barrier to entry from a price perspective that lies generally just north of what most small businesses can really afford. But that is to be expected from technology companies, especially those rooted in Silicon Valley (which CoTweet was, but ExactTarget wasn’t. ET is headquartered in Indianapolis and was co-founded by my friend Chris Baggott, now Chairman of Compendium.)

Still, CoTweet’s lifecycle is what we have to expect from technology companies. It goes like this:

• Start free to gain users.
• Reach critical mass and start charging, but leave a bare bones free product so you don’t alienate anyone.
• Begin focusing on enterprise companies that have more money to spend on your service than small businesses.
• Get acquired.
• Phase out the free so it doesn’t continue to distract your money-making ability.

Image via CrunchBase

It’s good business, even if it hurts small business. But Silicon Valley, and technology/software companies in other similarly labeled cradles of the world, don’t much care about small businesses. No one ever got rich helping the little people.

Mind you, this isn’t a criticism of ExactTarget. It’s a lamenting of the state of our world. I spoke with CoTweet co-founder and CEO Jesse Engle last week about the move. Jesse is one of a handful of technology executives who will occasionally call and fill me in on things. I’ve always appreciated that. We’ve talked about a variety of things over the last year or so, some CoTweet/ET related and others not. Jesse is a really good dude who wouldn’t turn his back on anyone. He’s also a damn fine businessman. Which is why CoTweet is being retired.

It’s sad, but it’s business. Jesse and his cohorts are doing the right thing. The freemium social media engagement tool marketplace is saturated and if ExactTarget can’t continue to service the free product to keep it competitive, why waste people’s time?

This will continue to happen to the platforms we love so. None of them really focus on small businesses. And if they do, they soon won’t. They’re all going after enterprise clients. That’s where the money is. Get a wad of them and you can get acquired. Get acquired and you can cash out, sit on a beach and plot your next company.

For more than a year, from 2009 through much of 2010, I had a great relationship with PostRank. They even volunteered to help me produce some of the most popular posts in the history of this website — rankings of the top blogs on various platforms. When I reached out to them after their acquisition by Google to perhaps refresh the lists, I was politely told they don’t focus their resources on that type of work any more.

uBerVu is one of the latest companies to pivot toward the alleged greener pastures. The upstart social media monitoring company was lauded by many, including me, for finally offering a social media monitoring solution that wasn’t hundreds of dollars per month. In the fall, they reorganized, refocused and are now hundreds of dollars per month.

As a business person, I don’t blame them. I understand.

But I hate it.

No one’s watching out for the little guy anymore. It’s a rush to acquisition, then increased revenues and cash outs. And to technology companies, small business isn’t good business. I worry that’s going to leave 97 percent of the world’s entrepreneurs and business owners out in the cold.

Even the handful of angel investors and venture capitalists I’ve talked to about the problem shrug it off. You don’t get rich helping little people. (If you have a soft spot in your heart for small businesses and have some money to invest, we should talk.)

Maybe one day I’ll be in a position to do something about it. In all likelihood I won’t. Doesn’t mean it won’t bug me as, one-by-one, our favorite free tools are set to pasture.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

In response to Altimeter Group’s recent Buyer’s Guide for social media management systems, I offered a long-standing criticism I had of Altimeter’s list of Social Media Management Solutions (SMMS) that they continue to include WildfireApp in their listing. My contention was that I believed WildfireApp to be a campaign and contest management tool for Facebook and lacking in enough functionality to really be classified as an SMMS provider.

And I stand corrected.

Alexandra Hoag and Maya Grinberg from the WildfireApp team took me through the newest version of the tool last week to ensure I had a full view of what they offer. I sure am glad she did because they certainly have more functionality now than I was aware of. I’d even used their campaign/contest management features in the last six months for a client and wasn’t aware enough to see the full functionality they have.

Image via CrunchBase

Before I share some of the neatness of WildfireApp, I will say this about correcting myself: Wildfire, along with many other SMMS providers, offers a set of features and functionality. None that I have found really complete the full set of functionality we’ve discussed here as being the eight functions of social media management solutions. While WildfireApp does have much more functionality than I previously was aware of, they are overwhelmingly Facebook-centric. I would hesitate to call them a full SMMS platform as a result. They do offer a full set of Facebook Management Tools, which is powerful for brands whose primary social media activity is focused on Facebook. The company is working on integration with Twitter brand pages and has some neat LinkedIn share functionality, too. But they really are only in the consideration set if you’re primary marketing focus is on Facebook.

That aside, here’s what WildfireApp has and what I like/dislike about it:

A Support Team

WildfireApp’s primary customers — those that subscribe to its pro or enterprise solutions — not only get an account manager to help navigate the tool and liaison with you, but there’s also an account strategist assigned to help you focus on the business goals you’re trying to achieve and how Facebook execution can help accomplish them. This level of professional services, which comes with the subscription and isn’t an up-charge, could be the critical difference between success or failure if your brand isn’t deeply engrained in Facebook’s ecosystem. It’s a smart value add for them and will set them a part from lots of competitors.

Page Manager Plus

The key component of WildfireApp that I was ignorant even existed was its robust Facebook Page Manager suite. It’s not just a handful of templates to create fancy Facebook tabs, but a robust set of tools that allows you to, in their words, “Bring your website to Facebook.” And much of their toolset, even the promotions and contests functionality, works the other way, too. You can pull the code, embed it on your site, and non-Facebook users can participate along in a synchronous environment. Having the robust functionality on Facebook is one thing. Bringing it back to your website is another. You could feasibly host a video contest with the tool, use your own website as the primary engagement point and have Facebook as a secondary one. Smart.

Messenger

The WildfireApp Messenger platform is simply an aggregation point for your page messages so you can monitor and respond. But it’s limited to Facebook and no other platform at present. While you can pull in and respond to comments from multiple pages, you’re limited to your Facebook world. There doesn’t seem to be a monitoring function, either. So someone mentioning but not tagging you in a conversation on Facebook won’t show up in your stream. However, the Messenger piece does allow you to schedule posts and, with an upgrade to the Enterprise version of the software, even target by geography. You could have one corporate brand page and still send local messages in your various geographic regions. While that behavior isn’t going to scale well compared to having a multiple page approach, for a brand with 20-30 locations and fewer, local messaging is at least feasible.

Promotion Builder

This is what WildfireApp started with and, in my mind, was for a long time. And they do promotions about as good as anyone. You can still go to WildfireApp and run a promotion on your Facebook page for a reasonable amount of money, too. But if you’re a Pro or Enterprise client, you get unlimited promotions, so you can always have something going to attract or engage fans. So you can run contests, have a pick your favorite poll, due sweepstakes, product regular coupons that are delivered to you Facebook fans and the like. And you can track referrals to the contest (giving you a better idea of how your advertising or outreach is doing) and get advanced demographics of the people who participate.

Bedfellows

Probably the most promising thing about WildfireApp is that they’re interwoven tightly with Facebook already. Facebook itself, in fact, is an investor in Wildfire through its fbFund. There’s even a video of former Facebook executive, and CEO sibling Randi Zuckerberg right on Wildfire’s front page in which she says, “Wildfire is an essential part of the Facebook ecosystem.” Facebook actually uses Wildfire to run some of its own promotions and pages. So it’s not only not going anywhere, it’s probably going to be consumed and become a service of the social network at some point. (Pure speculation, of course.)

So WildfireApp is much more powerful than I understood it to be. I apologize for any grief that may have caused anyone. It’s a robust management solution for any brand wishing to focus its social media marketing efforts on Facebook. If you’re looking to integrate management of Twitter, LinkedIn, your blog, YouTube and other avenues, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Is it an SMMS. Technically, yes. But understand the scope of what any tool you’re considering offers before you dive in.

And since many of you will ask, the Pro solution for Wildfire starts at $2500 per month. Enterprise is $3500 per month plus a sliding scale increase for every Facebook Page you add to manage.

Have you used WildfireApp? For what? Thoughts? The comments are yours.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

In celebration of Community Manager Appreciation Day, which is today, by the way, social media management solution Vitrue has established the first-ever Community Manager of The Year Award. And you can nominate yourself or your favorite community manager to be considered for the title, to be announced on Jan. 23 of next year. I’m honored to serve as one of the judges for the award, along with Community Manager Appreciation Day founder Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, Stephanie Agresta from Weber Shandwick, Vitrue’s CEO Reggie Bradford and a representative from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association‘s (WOMMA) board of directors.

To be eligible, you must be someone who spends at least 50 percent of your average work day managing, creating content for, moderating, posting and/or analyzing social streams for brands, companies or organizations. You can nominate yourself or someone else by going to the nomination form on Vitrue’s website. Qualified candidates will download a Q&A to be filled out and returned by Oct. 1, 2012. The questions will consist of strategy, best practices, theories, opinions, real-world scenarios, professional information and social marketing philosophy topics. Qualified entrants will receive Vitrue’s Social Marketing Strategy Kit as well.

Image via Wikipedia

The three finalists will win a trip to Las Vegas for Vitrue’s School for the Socially Gifted event at the WOMMA Summit in November. The winner will also receive their choice of the latest version of an iPad or iPhone, a three-month trial to Vitrue SRM 3.0 platform and a community manager survival kit filled with additional awards and surprises.

So nominate someone, or yourself, and show off your community management savvy. You might just be the first-ever Vitrue Community Manager of the Year!

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

We’ve heard for a year or two now that mobile marketing is next. Friends, mobile marketing is now. And brands are struggling to get their heads wrapped around it. From QR codes to Near Field Communications to SMS to location-based services, there’s an almost unlimited world of possibility out there for brands to go mobile, but little understanding from brands as to how.

That’s precisely why Tim Hayden of 44 Doors will be speaking at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth on Feb. 17 and why I also caught up with him recently to share some insights with all of you on the world of mobile marketing, engagement and how social media plays into it all.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Tim has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. He’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster of Edison Research, Aaron Strout from WCG, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

Event management for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth powered by Eventbrite

The first 100 registrants get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! The full price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

My friend Jason Keath at Social Fresh offered up some interesting statistics from Shareaholic this week on a blog post entitled, When Is The Best Time Of Day To Blog. Like similar data that has been shared elsewhere on best time to tweet, best time to post to Facebook and the like, this information is interesting, but I maintain my concern that people will read far too much into it and alter their marketing plans, perhaps at their own peril.

Remember that none of Shareaholic’s data is relevant to your business, your market, your competitors, your audience. It’s a broad swath of aggregated user data from a tool that allows people to share a piece of content across social networks, much like ShareThis, AddThis and other share widgets. There’s no distinguishing factors that make that information relevant to your specific business. Therefore, it’s interesting, but useless unless or until you take it as inspiration and test your own share data to see what is most effective for you.

I’m concerned about this type of data, largely because there’s absolutely no content analysis done to inform it. I’m glad Jason indicated early on in his post that people need to test their own blog content to see what works best for their audience, but we’re also missing so many possibilities as to why these numbers are what they are, or, as Tom Webster pointed out in our discussion on data this week, do they matter at all?

Two takeaways I got from Shareaholic’s charts: Nothing is ever read on Friday. Which I know is complete bunk. And people share more on Thursdays, but shockingly few people actually read what is shared. Also complete bunk.

More importantly, though, does day of the week or time of day even matter? We don’t know because we didn’t first see if the critical success factor was something different … like quality of the content. Do how to trim  your nails posts get more shares than top 10 ways to dance like Beyonce posts? Do business related posts drive more page views than fart joke compilations.

I would argue that while there might be opportune times and days to reach more audience members, time of day is less important than quality of content for both social sharing and page views. So, let’s take these numbers with a grain of salt and realize there’s a lot more insight and investigation that needs to take place before we start scheduling all our blog posts for Thursdays … when people share but don’t read.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

Facebook, Twitter & YouTube are the heavyweights of social media – and for good reason. They each have their target market in which businesses desperately want to get a piece of. Everywhere you go, you see and hear of these three platforms more than any other platform. So it’s no wonder they’re the most recommended and used platforms in the social media industry.

But are they right for every business? Have we elevated these platforms to the point in which now if a business isn’t apart of them, they feel as if they’re not doing justice to their social media strategy?

Image via Wikipedia

In this day and age, with people changing the way they view and use social media, there really is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ social media strategy. In fact, some businesses shouldn’t be on certain platforms at all.

For instance, if a divorce lawyer were on Facebook, would they get any likes? By liking the divorce lawyer, that like would broadcast to every friend, thus making it publicly known they’re going through a divorce or are thinking about going through a divorce. I don’t know many people who would want to make that kind of information public like that.

So Facebook may not be the best platform for a divorce lawyer. But should that mean that he shouldn’t be active on any social media platforms?

Instead of being on Facebook, he could create videos on how to prevent divorce, or how to find the best divorce lawyer or even the steps you need to take in order to bring up the possibility of divorce in a relationship.

The same topics could be written up and posted on his blog and then shared on Twitter so that it gets a bit more exposure. Twitter would be a safer bet, as whoever you follow isn’t broadcast to the world. You could read the tweets of the divorce lawyer without anyone knowing about it.

On the other hand, someone who owns a food truck, would benefit greatly from Twitter, Facebook & YouTube. They could advertise where they are on Twitter & Facebook, and then post a few videos of their awesome food on YouTube, maybe even some testimonials from customers. They would also benefit from Flickr, as posting up pics of their food, truck and various locations would be a blast.

YouTube may not even be the right platform at all for those looking to create their own videos. If you’re in the indie movie business, Vimeo may be a better option for you, as it’s known to cater to the indie market.

If you’re a business in that will be growing and looking for many employees in the future, LinkedIn will be a great driving force to find qualified candidates. Not only that, but LinkedIn has groups and Q&A in order to get you noticed and to do a little head hunting.

Dell is a great example of someone who uses LinkedIn well. Usually there’s very little interaction on posts in LinkedIn (unless it’s in a group) but when Dell posts a blog or status, they get quite a bit of engagement. That’s because they’ve made a huge splash in the LinkedIn communities. They also have a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Forum, Blog and I’m sure much more. They can handle that kind of busy social media strategy because of the size of their company.

The size of your organization and who will be managing and creating content will play a huge role in which platforms you first start out with. If you’re the only one who’s going to be creating any new content and know you won’t have the time, starting off with one platform, such as Facebook, would be just fine. Having one active platform is better than having a lot of empty platforms.

Which Platforms Are Right For Me?

So now the question is, how the heck do I figure out which platforms are right for me? Let me try to explain the process to go through in deciding which platforms are right for you. This process can sometimes take a month or more, so while it may be a quick read, the actual process should take a bit longer.

Let’s say I’m a new age gardener. I want to show people how to garden in a healthy way. But how do I do that?

First, I’m going to look at where my market is by searching Google, Facebook, Twitter Search, YouTube and niche specific forums to discover and investigate my target audience. LinkedIn would also be an amazing source of information as I can get involved in groups and the Q&A section.

I’m then going to look at competitor’s websites and social networks to see what’s working and what’s not. I’m going to get involved in their networks, and maybe even contact your target market directly to get the answers that you need (asking never hurt anyone!).

Through my experience with interacting with my target market and my competitors, it’s beginning to give me a clear picture of how I can be different while informative. I’m beginning to determine which questions need to be answered, what holes need to be filled, how to fill the gap (if there is any) of engagement and so on.

Once I’ve done my market research, process of elimination and analyzing what I want to do with my business in order to best benefit myself and others, I’ve decided to utilize these four platforms:

YouTube: I’m going to post weekly videos showing off a certain gardening technique, certain plants, chemical reviews, showing off the best mulch, explaining how to utilize each plant in a meal, etc.

Facebook: I’m going to start a Facebook page where I’ll post my videos, ask and answer questions that people have about gardening healthy, and share other useful information that I find from my colleagues.

Flickr: I’m going to post up pictures of completed meals where I’ve used the plants that I’ve grown, pictures of the stages of the each plant growth, screen shots from my videos to entice people to watch the full video,

Blog: I’m going to post up recipe’s using the plants that I grow, I’m going to post the videos in a blog post along with a little blurb so it gets some more exposure and I’m going to post up techniques, tips, tricks and explanations as to the best healthy gardening and why it’s great for anyone.

As you can see, the main driving force of all these platforms, are the videos. The videos on YouTube will drive all the other information on the other networks. I have decided that by posting videos and making YouTube my primary source of traffic, everything else will help solidify the entire strategy.

With all these platforms, I’m not going to forget to engage with others through out the platforms that I’ve chosen.

For example, I’m going to go to other YouTube channels that deal with healthy living and watch, comment & like their videos. I’m going to go to other Facebook pages and get involved in the conversations as my Facebook page. I’m going to find other gardening pictures on Flickr and comment, maybe even start a Flickr group so that we can compile the best healthy eating pictures. And lastly, get involved with other healthy eating and gardening blogs by commenting and guest posting.

So, that’s the process that I’ve gone through in order to decide which platforms are right for me and to determine how much work is going to have to be put into each platform in order for it to be a success. If anything sounds like too much, then I’ll simply put one on the back burner until I get a larger audience.

There may not be a ‘one size fits all’ social media strategy, but with each platform, comes the various different ways, and people, in which that platform can share your unique and awesome content with the world.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

Morgan Barnhart is an entrepreneur and responsible for SociableBoost, a social media marketing consultancy in San Antonio, Texas. The Eugene, Ore., native also has a background in voice over acting and producing and has been developing websites for 12 years.

One of the most powerful dynamics of social media is the democratization of information. The more you can read, learn and share, the more value you should be able to extract from various digital channels.

Tapping into Web 2.0 to stay educated and informed is a labour intensive proposition. The tools are free but your time comes at a cost, so the more efficiently you can mange the process the better. If you subscribe to a lot of blogs (and other RSS feeds) and invest time in sharing useful content with your audience this workflow will help you streamline the process.

Before getting started there is one important caveat I need to mention. This is a broadcast tactic that will help you become more efficient at scheduling and sharing information. It’s one small piece of digital communication puzzle. To get the most out of social media you need to make connections and build relationships by engaging in real time. Enough said, let’s proceed.

Configure Buffer App

Buffer is a great tool that helps you schedule posts on Twitter and Facebook. Essentially, any given time you are online you populate Buffer with the content you want to publish and the application schedules your posts based on the days and times you configured.

After setting up Buffer you will need to adjust the publishing schedule for each Twitter or Facebook channel based on your objectives. Buffer will pre set the same times daily but you have the option of adding, deleting or editing to meet your needs.

Note: The free version of Buffer App allows you to connect one Twitter account + one Facebook account and store a maximum of 10 posts in your “buffer”. I use the Pro version ($10.00 per month). This upgrade allows connectivity to a total of five accounts and 50 posts in your buffer.

Add the Buffer Bookmarklet to Your Browser

BufferApp offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari so you can add posts to your Buffer from any web page, including right from inside Google Reader.

Step 1:  Click the “Goodies” tab followed by the “Install” button on your browser of choice. 

Step 2: Click the “Install” button on the respective browser guide page

When your extension is installed the Buffer icon will show up in browser window.

Step 3: Go to Google Reader, open a post to preview it. Click the BufferApp icon in your browser to add the post to your Buffer.

Click “Add to Buffer” and your post gets queued for publishing as per the schedule you configured.

Alternative: Add Buffer to Google Reader

For those of you that don’t like to use bookmarklets or have challenges loading them in your browsers i.e. work computers that block add-ons, etc. there is still a way to use Buffer right from inside Google Reader.

Step 1: Click the “Options” icon in Reader (top right corner)

Step 2: Click “Reader Settings”

Step 3: Click the “Send To” tab in the navigation bar

Step 4: Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Create a custom link”

Step 5: Enter the Buffer parameters in each field (see below)

Enter the following in each field and click “Save”:

• Name: Buffer
• URL: http://bufferapp.com/add?url=${url}&text=${title}
• Icon URL: http://bufferapp.com/images/logo_icon_small.png

Schedule Posts from Google Reader

The next time you open up Reader you will  find Buffer as an option in the drop down under the “Send To” tab at the bottom of each post.

When you click to share via Buffer a new page will pop up in your browser containing the tagline from the blog post. At this point you can select which network(s) to schedule to and also edit the contents of the message.

When you “Add to Buffer” the post gets queued for publishing as per your configured schedules.

Summary

As someone who subscribes to a number of blogs (~100) and actively shares links I find this workflow to be very efficient. I like the fact that maintaining a consistent publishing schedule for the content I share doesn’t have to be in sync with days/times I check Google Reader. I also find the flexibility of being able to post directly from one platform to be a real time saver.

I have found the Google Reader/Buffer integration to be more time effective than using a tool like Hootsuite and having to go through multiple clicks in order to schedule each post. That being said, individual scheduling will give you more flexibility, however, if you invest a few extra minutes during the Buffer configuration process you can set up a pretty robust publishing schedule. It should also be noted that Buffer allows you to go in and change your schedule as required.

Finally, to reiterate the caveat from above. This workflow is great for reading and sharing but you still need to carve out some time for real time social media interplay – that where the magic happens. In addition to Buffer I also use Hootsuite and Sprout Social to monitor, respond, RT and jump into conversations.

What do you think about this workflow? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Also, feel free to share the social media process that helps make you more efficient. The comments are yours.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!

Social media monitoring is perhaps one of the most widely known and used social technologies among businesses large and small. Whether using free tools like Google Alerts and SocialMention.com or paid solutions like uberVu, Radian6, Sysomos or others, it seems listening as the most important function of a business’s efforts in social media has been successfully ground into our collective conscience. At least to those of us determined to implement good social media marketing strategies.

But social media monitoring is often thought of and implemented as a reactionary practice. Find the keyword mentions, then respond. Done. Smart companies know, however, that using social media monitoring as a proactive, business driver, can make the difference between being successful with your social media efforts and not.

Arienne Holland from Raven Internet Marketing Tools knows a thing or two about proactive social media monitoring. She implements tactics and strategies around monitoring for her company on a daily basis. She’ll be presenting her experiences as well as some good case studies of other brands doing the same at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth on Feb. 17. I caught up with her last week to chat about how companies are and can use monitoring more effectively.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Arienne has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. She’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The first 100 registrants get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! The full price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

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Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

Our friends at uberVu have shared a pretty interesting and far-reaching info graphic that shows the statistics around what they call the Social Media Lifecycle. The information compiled profiles companies and statistics around what uberVu believes to be the four pillars of social media success, which is, not coincidentally, the name of the company’s newest white paper, which can be downloaded for free.

The Four Pillars of Social Media Success, according to uberVu are monitoring, analytics, engagement and reporting. It’s one look at how companies can approach social media from some form of system or framework and be successful. While there are dozens of these lists, systems and frameworks out there, and all have merits, I found uberVus white paper to be an exercise in good, solid advice for companies hoping to start doing something with social media than just going through the motions. There are fancier and more complicated versions out there, but uberVu’s is simple.

Of course, uberVu’s perspective is also centered around consumer-facing monitoring as your primary use for social media. They are, after all, a monitoring platform. While there are dozens of other approaches to priorities in social media marketing, listening or monitoring normally comes first or near the top of the list of activities an organization needs to focus on, so it’s not bad information. Just know that it’s biased toward real-time reactionary practices rather than internal or deeper-focused strategies for your business.

The infographic (below) has some neat information in it, including what metrics brands are using to judge their social media success. Check it out:

The Four Pillars of Social Media Success can be had on uberVu’s website. Give it a look-see.

Now it’s your turn. What would your four pillars be? Did they miss something? Is there more to it than their four? The comments are yours.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! The first 100 to do so get an incredible discount! Reserve your seat today!