Disruption Tour --- Run To Survive

10 Activation-Ready Social Media Strategies and Tactics

John Burg Furturevisions.com

1. Set up Google Alerts for your brand.  Make sure that at least a junior associate is skimming as much as possible and providing basic reports around brand health.  If you don't know you're active constituency, you aren't going to correctly position your offering.  Simple insights and active exploration can net amazing results - as well as an appreciation for the channel overall.
2. Set up an open communications channel with Legal.  If Legal doesn't appreciate the social dynamic, they aren't going to give you the clearance you're looking for.  Nothing happens without legal approval.  Such is life in a corporation.  Get over it, so you can get to work.
3. Listen to the conversation.  Actively listening is a channel activity.  The world's largest focus group sits at your fingertips.  Listen to it.  Poke and prod.  Explore.  If you aren't ready to do this in house, outsource it.  A good vendor can provide you with cost efficient, timely brand health updates, as well as actionable insights into where you can be optimizing your marketing and messaging.  If you are in need of a few such vendors, please feel free to email me.
4. Share your insights.  Any half decent listening vendor will have lots of great insights into your brand.  The more you share these insights, the more your clients will appreciate your foresite in bringing these solutions to the table.
5. Enable indirect response to social media.  Not all brands are ready to participate in all conversations.  More often than not, your insights will directly impact multiple facets of your business.  If an issue arises around your product, and you're not equipped for direct response, at least alter your creative copy, brand positioning, search buys etc. - to reflect your corporate point of view.
6. Get someone from Corporate Communications on Twitter.  Introduce them to friends on Twitter.  Make sure that they become active members of the conversation.  They will soon appreciate both the power and social dynamic of this environment.  Make sure that you have legal clearance for minimal public participation, with lots of wiggle room for more private communications.  This will open up the lines of communication with early adopters today, while building a use-case for future channel usage.
   
7. Set up a disaster plan.  The biggest issue with disasters is that noone sees them coming.  Don't wait.  Set up a threshold for defining "disaster" and a plan of action in such an occurance.  It will only take a few hours.  But the potential payoff is tremendous.
8. Register your domain name, everywhere.  Plurk, Twitter, BriteKite, Ning, AIM, OpenID, Google ID... the list goes on.  There's nothing like buying back your domain name from a squater with more foresite than your entire organization.  Don't be lazy.  At the very least, assign this responsibility to a mindless drone (for now), and prepare for future activation in the days to come.
9. License as much as possible under a Creative Commons License.  With a shrinking proportionate amount of CC Licensed data and imagery available, open up your doors to the public.  Become a much needed resource for the most vocal part of the community - the content creators.  Limit your watermarking and branding whenever possible.  Make your presence known without trying to own the creative experience.  You don't need to KNOW all the influencers in order to speak to them.  It is often enough to simply create a presence in content discovery channels (see below).
10. Disaggregate your creative.  Make as much of your content available to as broad an audience as possible.  Optimize your for discovery - both via SEO and proper licensing and insertion into popular social channels (YouTube, Flickr, Google Image Search, SlideShare).  Put a "share this" button wherever appropriate.  Create TinyUrl's for Twitter sharing of your content.  Embrace the new dynamic.  Encourage virality.  Embrace the new dynamic.

Creative ways to leverage Twitter.

http://blog.rssapplied.com/public/item/creative-ways-to-leverage-twitter

Social media is a phenomenon. No one will argue with it’s popularity, traffic, and continued monopoly over people’s time on the web. For marketers, this is wonderful as it offsets the loss of access to consumers due to declining television ratings and diminished popularity of radio. Google grew to monopolize advertising in web 1.0,

The question is, now that everyone is participating, networking, tweeting and friending…what are companies going to do to leverage these tools?

LinkedIn secrets to marketing success

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19929.asp

LinkedIn offers you access to influential business decision makers, as well as a space to market your brand. Here's how to take advantage of the site and its functionality.

Membership in online professional communities is growing fast. The business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn has 23 million members, with 1.2 million new members signing up each month. By enabling dynamic connections between industry professionals, these communities effectively hit the overdrive switch on word of mouth referrals. They also provide a way to reach decision-makers and influencers when they are assessing business products and services.

But this presents both an opportunity, and a risk. Evangelists can tilt the balance in your favor or even get you on the consideration list, while detractors can cause your next deal to cave in at the 11th hour or turn prospects away forever.   

While there are good guerilla marketing tactics you can employ to make the most of your presence on LinkedIn, one key principle to remember is that the site is a user-driven community where users create content that you cannot control. While the drawbacks are obvious, the good news is that you get pure, unfiltered and unbiased points of view. The following article provide tips for fostering the good, listening and reacting to the bad and applying beauty treatments to respond to the ugly.

1. Analyze the chatter.
You can gauge the overall reputation and health of your company by seeing what people are saying and by gathering insight and specific recommendations for improvements. Search on your company or product names and see what comes up. Are people bashing your product or recommending it? Are there specific recommendations for improvement? Here’s an example of a thread opened in the Questions section of LinkedIn that generated a lot of feedback:

Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)

From Micropersuasion.com

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/07/get-productive.html

Lifehacker is one of my favorite blogs. So when editor Gina Trapani invited me to guest blog about how to be productive with social media, I jumped at the opportunity. Here's the intro and summary. The full essay is here.

Social media is the equivalent of digital food. It's nourishing, tasty and, for many of us, necessary. However, consume too much and you can get sidetracked and create larger consequences. The good news is you can participate in social media in a way that adds value to your life. You just need to know how to manage it so so that it does not devour your attention—the most valuable commodity of the digital age. Here are three simple steps I take.

• Step 1 - Set a North Star
• Step 2 - Apply the Pareto Principle
• Step 3 - Schedule Time to Be Social

What is Social Networking

http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-social-media?src=embed

A very interesting presentation on Slideshare from Marta Kagan at http://martazkagan.com/

Why Companies Should Talk To Their Customers

ExpoTV recently ran a research study to determine how do consumers relate to each other. While this isn’t Forrester Research, so I will not defend, nor explain their methodology. It’s rare that analysts point to research other than their own, if I put your interests first, you’ll continue to come back to me.

Blog ExpoTV found that:

55% of customers in their survey want to have an ongoing discussion brands

Respondents were most anxious to talk to the product design (49%) department, followed by customer support (14%), marketing (14%) and pricing (13%)

89% said they felt more loyal if they knew the brand was listening through a feedback group (attention insight community vendors)

WOM: Sixty-one percent of survey respondents said that they told at least 10 people about the last brand they liked.

WOM: Eighty-one percent of respondents will tell at least five people.

Despite this evidence, it’s interesting to note that a recent WSJ Article that Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures featuring a Forrester report shows that many corporate blogs (a common way companies talk to customers) isn’t going that well. One common mis-step is that corporate blogs are focused on pushing their own agenda, not that of the readers/customers.

Passionate consumers at ExpoTV.com have spoken. Our survey, Brand Engagement: What Consumers Really Think, shows not only the desire consumers have to engage with brands, but also the benefits brands may receive from communicating with consumers.

A main takeaway from our survey is that consumers want to talk to brands – and lots of them. But even more interesting is that 55% of survey respondents would prefer to have ongoing communication with brands, as opposed to one time. Additionally, we found that the department consumers most wanted to offer feedback to was Product Design, at 49%. Not only do consumers want to talk to brands, they also want to have input on product design.

If brands listen to consumers, they may end up with more consumer loyalty. Eighty-nine percent of survey respondents said that they would feel more loyal or significantly more loyal to a brand they liked who invited them to participate in a feedback group. And, 63% of respondents would even feel loyal to a brand they were unfamiliar with that reached out to hear their opinion.

Brand advocacy can be a very powerful thing. Sixty-one percent of survey respondents said that they told at least 10 people about the last brand they liked. Eighty-one percent of respondents will tell at least five people.

We think our survey results are eye-opening in terms of how engaging with consumers can help increase brand loyalty and advocacy. When brands reach out to and listen to consumers, they may reap many benefits. For even more detailed information, contact David Rubinstein, dr@expotv.com.

How Sony Electronics Reaches Online –and Offline– with Bloggers Web Strategy by Jeremiah Although many brands forget that what happens offline echoes online, Sony is using a combination of digital and in person evangelism for a powerful concoction. Last night, I had dinner with Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow and Top Blogger, Rick Clancy who publishes on the Sony Electronics Blog. Head or Corp Comm spearheading Blogging Efforts Rick, who is actually the head of Corporate Communications has decided to establish himself in the front (read his bio) as the lead blogger. This is unique, as in many cases corp comm folks find the product experts to come front and center in the blogs rather than themselves. Outreach: Visiting 42 Stores in 40 Days Now, in many cases, blogs created and run by corporation communications folks tend to be sterile rehashes of press releases, and feature pro-corporate content. While the Rick’s blog is certainly squarly on the party line, he’s doing something that many do not, he’s getting out in front of the browser and actually meeting customers. He’s on a cross country tour to visit 42 stores in 40 days, the goal? to learn from customers at Sony Style stores, and to evangelize their latest offerings such as PlayStation, HDNA, Vaio, DSLR cameras, Blu-ray players and whatever cutting technology leaps forth. Taking a closer look at the blogging efforts I’m not the only one to enjoy Rick’s blog, as Heart Interactive’s CTO Mike “Glemak” Dunn proclaims via Friendfeed: “i think he’s excellent - a great example of using a true voice as a corporate blogger - he was good from day 1, a natural - “. I enjoyed how they have a flickr stream (but should embed flickr pics directly into the post) and have a Google Map Mashup to track his future locations. While Rick is certainly heading the right way, I made a few suggestions to him over wine, since he’s incorporating this as live event, I recommended he use Twitter to help pre-announce where he’s going to be (for example, today he’ll be in Portland) to help encourage technology early adopters to show up and meet and greet. Although I didn’t mention it, uploading pics in real time with Sony Ericson phones as well live streaming from the Vaio line could only help draw the connective tissue. Lastly, I just reviewed some of the incoming links to the Sony Blog on Technorati and see that their successful Mommy blogger event was covered by an influential mommy blogger –Rick should link back into the conversation. A room full of journalists and one Twitter user Perhaps it’s a sign of the time, but the room was filled with journalists from the top newspapers, (this was a press and analyst event) who were scribbling furiously during dinner. While the quality is by no means a comparison, I was live-tweeting the highlights in real-time, getting feedback from you all, in 140 characters or less on my twitter account. Is it game changing? Maybe if I took it more seriously, but then again, reporting isn’t my job. Sony’s vitual/real blogging outreach a good model Good wishes to Rick and the Sony team on their outreach, a good example of social media as an overlay to the real world –and important story for a company who captures these stories and displays them with digital devices.

50 Ways to use Social Media, listed by Objective

Chris Brogan, who continues to dazzle us with his thoughtful and helpful social media blog posts (I recommend subscribing to him) lists out “50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing“.

In twitter, Jon Burg suggests the lists could be segmented to further help understanding, I recommenced doing this by the 5 social computing objectives we’ve found at Forrester.

I’ve taken Chris’s exact list, but have segmented it into the five objectives. This way, you’re not randomly choosing tactics without first having a goal in mind. Of course, the first thing to do is to first understand how your community uses social technologies, start by using this free social technographics profile generator.

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1) Listening: Gleaning market and customer insight and intelligence

10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).

2) Talking: Engaging in a two way discussion to get your message out (and get messages in)

2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.

3) Energizing: Letting your customers tell your prospects on your behalf (viral, word of mouth)

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.

4) Supporting: Getting your customers to self-support each other

6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.

5) Embracing: Building better products and services through collaboration with clients

31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

Strategy, Training, and Planning
While not one of the 5 objectives, many of these aren’t directly social media tactics, but they are great rules of thumb.

16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email Chris for a calendar).
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.

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One of Chris’s recommendations was to check out Website Grader, I found that to be very interesting, try that free service.

If this were an official Forrester report, I’d segment even further by prioritizing by usage (polling marketers), cost, effectiveness, and then deliver specific recommendations. At some point in the future, I will probably get that chance to that research.

I could double this list with additional tactics, but I think it’s enough to get started, hopefully Chris’s initial list and my mind meld should help you to improve your objective based social media strategies.

The Other Starbucks Social Networking Site

brandautopsy.com

We know about the MyStarbucksIdea website, which Starbucks positions as a catch-all blog, customer feedback site, and social networking website. The reality is that website is an unfocused slush pile for customer generated ideas.

But how many of us know about Starbucks V2V? It’s a full-fledged social networking site to promote volunteerism with customers and Starbucks partners (employees). It’s under the radar at this point — participation solely by invitation — and has only been mentioned officially by the company as an update entry on MyStarbucksIdea.

Think Meetup meets LinkedIn and there you have Starbucks V2V (Volunteer 2 Volunteer). You can post a cause, an event, or an activity and have others join you. Easy enough to understand and simple enough to make happen.

Starbucks V2V has real promise. It’s clearly community-focused with a drive to making positive contributions to small corners around the world. By having profile pages for participants, it feels much more personal than does the way-too-sterile MyStarbucksIdea website.

If you dig a little deeper you’ll learn Starbucks V2V began in Brazil using technology developed by Comunitas. In a way, this is an International “best practice” that has been adopted by Starbucks North America. Cool.

My hope is Starbucks uses this full-fledged social networking site to endorse and develop a long-rumored “Starbucks Alumni” website. For years Starbucks has talked about setting up an Alumni network, but the job was always too daunting to begin. The technology clearly exists and the online usability is sufficient … which makes this Starbucks Alumni idea totally doable in 2008.

Why nurture relationships with ex-employees?

Well, many new hires at Starbucks were influenced by former Starbucks partners. Most ex-Starbucks employees had a positive time at the company and they’ve said good things to their friends about Starbucks. And for some of us, including me as a former Starbucks partner, we shared a common bond during our days at Starbucks. Reconnecting with former Starbucks colleagues on a company-endorsed website could potentially reignite the passions we all once had for Starbucks. That reignition of passion is something Starbucks could benefit from as it suffers through its “mid-life” crisis.

Facebook 'violates privacy laws'

By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley Facebook says it plans to "set the record straight" A Canadian privacy group has filed a complaint against the social networking site Facebook accusing it of violating privacy laws. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic has listed 22 separate breaches of privacy law in its country. Clinic Director Phillipa Lawson told the BBC that, with over 7 million users in Canada, "Facebook needs to be held publicly accountable". Facebook rejects the charge, claiming some of the highest standards around. The basis of the complaint, filed with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, states that Facebook collects sensitive information about its users and shares it without their permission. It goes on to say that the company does not alert users about how that information is being used and does not adequately destroy user data after accounts are closed. Minefield "Social networking online is a growing phenomenon," said Ms Lawson. "It is proving to be a tremendous tool for community-building and social change, but at the same time, a minefield of privacy invasion. "We chose to focus on Facebook because it is the most popular social networking site in Canada and because it appeals to young teens who may not appreciate the risks involved in exposing their personal details online." The 35-page action was lodged after students at the clinic analysed the company's policies and practices as part of a course this past winter and identified specific practices that appear to violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Pipeda). Harley Finkelstein, 24 and a Facebook user for the last three years, told the BBC: "A great percentage of Canadians using Facebook are aged between 14 and 25 and that raises vulnerability issues. "Some 14-year-old kid might not know that privacy settings exist or how to take advantage of them or appreciate the ramifications of having their private information disclosed to third parties." Industry leading controls In a statement, Facebook said: "We pride ourselves on the industry leading controls we offer users over their private information. We believe that this is an important reason that nearly 40% of Canadians on the internet use our service. "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors, most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users." But Mr Finkelstein disagrees: "Our investigation found that this is not entirely true - for example, even if you select the strongest privacy settings, your information may be shared more widely if your Facebook Friends have lower privacy settings. "As well, if you add a third-party application offered on Facebook, you have no choice but to let the application developer access all your information even if they don't need it." "We're concerned that Facebook is deceiving its users," said newly signed up Facebook user Lisa Feinberg, another law student behind the complaint. "Facebook promotes itself as a social utility, but it's also involved in commercial activities like targeted advertising. Facebook users need to know that when they're signing up to Facebook, they're signing up to share their information with advertisers." Publicly accountable The Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has a year to act on the CIPPC's complaint. The commissioner's office focuses on negotiation to resolve privacy disputes, but it can seek court injunctions if they fail to resolve the issues. Ms Lawson told the BBC the clinic's reasons for going after Facebook publicly were because past issues they have tried to discuss with the company went nowhere: "We don't see the point in going down that route again. "Our experience is it gets dragged out and they might make a few changes but they are making representations about their privacy controls and they need to be held accountable. That would be difficult if we did it through private conversations." Facebook said: "We look forward to working with Commissioner Stoddart to set the record straight and will continue our ongoing efforts to educate users and the public around privacy controls on Facebook, including a brochure and video project we have completed with Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian." All suspect Facebook has been accused of crossing the line over privacy issues in the past. Earlier this year, however, the Silicon Valley start-up introduced new tools it said would let users have greater control over their privacy, such as letting only certain groups of friends see their photos and other personal information. The director of the CIPPC sees their complaint as a shot across the bows of all social networking sites. Ms Lawson told the BBC the only reason they are focusing on Facebook at the moment is because they did not have the time or resources to look at others: "They are all suspect. Facebook is the most popular site in Canada and so that is why we looked at it particular but I am hoping to be able to do an analysis of MySpace later this year."