Social Media Protocol: Utilizing Social Media Properly to Gain the Most Value from it.

Today I participated in a 90-minute online presentation sponsored by MarketingProfs.com titled Social Graces: Strategies to Take Your Social Media Marketing Beyond One-Off Tactics.

The program featured social media maven Greg Verdino who has seen first-hand how companies succeed and fail in this space. Greg thinks everyone should “take your social media activities from me-too tactics to key components of your marketing advantage.”

Here’s a brief summary I put together for you as a result of my participation -

Only the facts, please . . .

• It was stated that by 2012, online advertising would take up to 18% of an organizations marketing budget and Social Media would be allocated approximately 10% of that money.
• With regards to traditional advertising: “71% of consumers can’t remember the product or brand name after watching an ad.”
• Basically, we all know that ads are the guests at a cocktail party we try to avoid. (Who wants to be sold something that doesn’t interest them?)

We should look at Social Media consisting of three principles, which all involve more than one person to accomplish -

1. Community
2. Conversation
3. Partnership

There are new rules for communication that involve the key ‘buzz words’ we hear every day, but that are accurate. Things like responsiveness, authenticity, support community, humanization and partnership are just a few of the core effects that we must take into consideration when engaging in social media.

Five New Ways of Thinking

Harness the Power of Small Ideas (or Planting seeds for your brands future)

• No magic beans – Try a variety of things even though you may not succeed. They say “if you’re not failing, you’re not working”.
  

Connect the Dots

• 1, 2, 3, or more campaigns may be good, but if not integrated, they aren’t accomplishing the best results.
• Integrated Social Media means demonstrating, empowering, and involving the audience.

Every Touch is a Conversation Starter . . . so try not to screw it up!

• The world has changed, or “the square peg meets the round hole”
• Meaning: 0.2 marketing for a 2.0 world – or Doing the same old stuff and not realizing your target audience expect different things.

Amplify, Extend, & Enhance

• Using conversation – think about how to evolve conversation as a pathway to community.
• Social Media can be a megaphone in action, so be sure and recognize the power of course correction; you CAN turn haters into lovers.
• There is power buzzing around. Example: Dell lies. Dell sucks. – When Jeff Jarvis started blogging about his experience with Dell, it evolved into a reveloution against the electronics giant. Dell had no choice but to address the firestorm so they began an open online forum about consumer’s experiences and provided them a site to provide opinions and rate their products. Result: Dell now uses these sources to help build and improve product development, turning a negative into a positive.

Your ends should match your socks

• The public looks to us to provide value not just constantly distribute our messages to their blackberries or RSS feeds.
• You can learn a lot from others, but don’t make the mistake of duplicating the online efforts of another simply because they proved successful. Be innovative, create and test your own social media campaign.
• Remember: an online social media strategy that worked for one organization may not work for you.

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This Weeks' Thought: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Social Media or Social Nuisance?

When I was asked what I thought about utilizing blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Linkedin, and other forms of social media that now exist, my first response was that it was an unnecessary waste of time. I really didn't see the business or personal value they could bring. I viewed them rather as vehicles that encouraged vague dialogues or touchpoints with strangers who may or may not have any knowledge that I really wanted or needed. Yes, I use to think that any form of social media was more of a nuisance to the public, another form of spamming, and more a hindrance to garnering intelligence than beneficial to any individual or organization.

That is, until I decided to dedicate some time to researching this topic. Since then, I have come to the conclusion that social media can be a very valuable form of information sharing. For example, did you know that, according to "Ten Ways to Use Linkedin" by Guy Kawaski "All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees." I believe being actively involved in social media sites can be advantegeous, but it is up to the reader and organization involved in social media to filter out the value. It's also a responsibility of the writer or contributor of the information to streamline the message that they are trying to promote so that it is presented in a balanced and explicable manner. I believe that much can be learned from social media if it is used as a tool for knowledge sharing and as an open forum for the continuous development of both new ideas and the refinement of old concepts. It should be pointed out, however, that the information that is out here in cyberspace should not be taken as truth or fact just because someone who says they are an expert put it on the web.

If I have learned anything from studying this topic, it is that if you think you have found some good information or have discovered something new through social media, that you didn’t know before, do your homework. Once researched thoroughly, it may be that what you have read or learned is in fact, good information. Or it may be that someone is just expressing their opinion on a topic and presenting it as fact based when in reality it is unsubstantiated information.

A great deal can be gained from getting involved in social media and new information and ideas can be acquired each time you take the time to read and open yourself up to sharing your experiences. Value is a distinct possibility, if you use this type of interaction to your advantage and as a result, the collaboration and added intelligence can be the reward. You can also do research to gauge the health of a specific company or industry, enhance a business relationship or create a new partnership.

There are many different social media software applications, ones that focus on communication, collaboration, or entertainment and I will be delving into different examples on my blog in the future. I will examine such sites as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and more, to provide an overview of each and to help you scrutinize their differences and learn how to gain the most out of each application. After all, why bother taking the time to visit and utilize these sites, if you’re not getting the most value out of them?

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This Weeks' Thought: "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming." Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

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