SmartBlog on Social Media - Best Practices and Case Studies on Social Media Marketing for Business » Rob Birgfeld

4 ways to transform your employees into social-media marketers

Rob Birgfeld — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:17:14 +0000

Arguably the hardest part of leveraging the power of social media is generating an initial swell of activity. Every day, we read fantastic case studies of companies who tap their biggest fans to help generate quality word-of-mouth. While there’s no question that customers are one of the most effective assets in social-media marketing, companies of all shapes and sizes often overlook their built-in social network: their employees.

A recent Forrester study indicates that tech-savvy employees who are equipped with information are more likely to advocate on their company’s behalf. Consequently, it is the responsibility of today’s marketer to arm their colleagues with the tools and messages to enable word-of-mouth. In today’s competitive environment, every social-media campaign needs a spark. Your employees, the very folks who build, sell and manage your products every day, are perhaps the most suited to kick-start your campaign. Here are a few ways to empower your employees to get your word-of-mouth moving.

Extend the “all-staff” e-mail. Internal “all-staff” e-mails are perhaps the No. 1 way employees hear about all the great milestones, product updates and announcements at your company. But why do we stop there? After each important announcement (intended for the outside world, of course), add a baked-in tweet or status update, complete with a link to the appropriate news release or landing page. Not only will your well-connected employees share the big announcement, their networks will listen — as they will be “breaking the news” from the inside.

Socialize PowerPoint. Is there a company PowerPoint deck that your sales or business development people use frequently? If you’re lucky, the deck details the value of your business in ways your website or your e-mail signature just can’t. So why not extend that messaging? Get that presentation uploaded on SlideShare, tag accordingly and get your entire staff to upload the deck to their LinkedIn profiles, via the SlideShare application (You can also use Google Presentation on LinkedIn).

“Like” where you work. Chances are, a good chunk of your staff is on Facebook. Scratch that. They all are. How many of them “like” your company? Some people may prefer to keep their personal life separate from their professional life, but it never hurts to ask. Most likely, they’ll accept — and several of them may turn into active (and valuable) participants.

Ax the fax and socialize your business cards. When was the last time someone interacted with you (or your company) via fax? So why is a fax number still a standard component of business cards while social-media outlets are omitted? It just makes sense. Your staff are leaving behind their business cards at conferences and meetings, so including a link to a blog, a company Twitter account or Facebook page provides potential customers or clients with a meaningful way to interact with your brand. All of the above also applies to your employees’ e-mail signatures. Present your staff with a template, complete with all appropriate social outposts — and watch your network grow.

What other ways are companies leveraging the employee marketer? Incentives?

Image credit: AVAVA, via iStock Photo

4 ways to transform your employees into social media marketers

Why crisis management and social media must co-exist

Rob Birgfeld — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:33:27 +0000

When it comes to corporate crises, social media is most often perceived as a culprit. Communications traditionalists, used to creating and managing messages, see the current environment as a polluted one in which a single blog post, tweet or update from a nobody can snowball into a full-blown catastrophe. They point to Domino’s and Motrin, as well as to Nestle and most recently, Gap to demonstrate how things have changed for the worse.

There’s no doubt things have changed — and we can argue until we’re blue in the face over whether what we’re seeing is better or worse. But what’s not open to discussion is that this new reality requires new tactics. And while social media has become the weapon of choice for angry masses to fuel the fire of negativity, it is also the very best asset for crisis management.

In a session titled “Digital Crisis Communications” at this year’s Blogworld Expo, panelists Scott Monty of Ford, Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication + Technology, Dallas Lawrence of Burson-Marsteller’s Proof Integrated Communications and moderator Valeria Maltoni shed light on what today’s corporations can do to monitor, confront and manage crises in social spaces. Here are a few choice takeaways from the panelists to help you navigate and avoid crises in a 2.0 world.

The principles remain the same. Handle issues quickly, accurately, professionally and with care—or pay the consequences. Holtz and the panel were quick to point out that the principles of crisis communications have not changed in today’s Web 2.0 world, but the conditions have. Companies should leverage all the tools they can access to monitor all relevant consumer generated media, not just traditional media, as any voice can trigger or sway public opinion.

Return on Investment? How about Return on Avoiding Pain? While many companies are looking to measure return on investment by looking at improved sales, greater operational efficiencies, etc., we often ignore social media’s crisis management benefits until it’s too late. Dallas Lawrence reminded attendees to invest in social media for what he calls a “return on avoiding pain.” To stop a crisis in its tracks, you have to have a presence and an ear to the ground. Lawrence cited United Airlines as an example. In 2008, when an archived story announcing the airline was filing for bankruptcy got picked up by Bloomberg – the story took off, made its way around the blogosphere and sent the stock tumbling. In the traditional sense, United did nothing wrong. But if they were appropriately monitoring — and consequently addressing the misinformation, the airline could have averted what turned out to be a true disaster.

Use Twitter as an ally. Lawrence referred to Twitter as “the single best crisis warning system ever developed.” Are you thinking about it in this light? Utilize Twitter to track discussions and use it to engage customers by answering questions honestly, addressing rumors and correcting misinformation. Thwarting crises is far easier when they are in their nascent stage.

Be ready on all fronts. Where are the groups that are looking to take your company down? Are you equipped to fight them on multiple fronts? Lawrence — after discussing the coordinated attacks from Greenpeace on Nestle — pointed to a study showing that 33 out of 34 political advocacy groups use at least one social media platform to engage their stakeholders. What’s more impressive, is 32 of those 33 are on every major platform. Are you ready to compete across the wide spectrum of social media? Monty suggested that any outcry from one group is best addressed on the same platform on which the complaint was made. For example, the Domino’s fiasco that originated on YouTube was addressed with a video from the CEO just two days later.

How are you using social media to respond to public relations issues? What tactics and tools have helped your company stay one step ahead?

Image credit: Hiob, iStock Photo

Secrets of successful group blogs

Rob Birgfeld — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:57:30 +0000

Launching a blog these days is simple. Publishing quality content on a consistent basis, however, is a challenge for many companies. Stuck with limited resources and a clear directive for growth, company often find themselves helpless and hapless. So who do you look to for help?

The answers may very well lie with three of the most successful group blogs on the Web. Mashable, Social Media Examiner and Nuts About Southwest (Southwest Airlines’ company blog) all utilize multiple authors, showing how colleagues, networks and readers can help generate great blog content.

At BlogWorld 2010, a panel dedicated to managing group blogs delivered some tactics to help any blog leverage multiple voices to build an online presence. Here a few to help you (and your company) get started:

Get senior leadership buy-in with a hot-button issue. According to Christi McNeill (the voice behind @southwestair), the idea for launching Southwest’s popular blog began when the reality series “Airline” ended its run on A&E. Recognizing that the transparent look at the airline benefited their image, Southwest started to pull together a team to blog. But what about leadership? Were they sold on the idea? Not until Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest, penned a blog post asking for input from customers on whether to keep Southwest’s unique approach to seating. Kelly was so impressed with the response and the quality comments on the issue, that the blog became central to communications strategy of Southwest.

Leverage your network. Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, shared insights on how he built a wildly successful blog in just a year. Leveraging his existing network and targeting social media’s leading voices, he asked for just one post per month. Initially, he didn’t worry about having one post per day — simply focusing on quality. Fast forward one year– and Social Media Examiner features 57 distinct voices and a waiting list of those trying to get access to the growing community.

Target. Recruit. Reward. Repeat. Both Mashable and Social Media Examiner watch metrics associated with guest posts to determine whether they will continue (or expand) the relationship with the contributor. Adam Ostrow, editor in chief at Mashable, says the editors look at the social influence of writers, as well as their activity to determine whether they are someone they can trust the Mashable brand with.

At the launch of their blog, Southwest recruited 30 bloggers from within the company — all were initially expected to post two stories a month on any subject they felt they felt comfortable with. That number has shifted over time, and new voices have come in and out of the blog — presenting sometimes serious, and often fun blog posts on life at Southwest. The team is often treated to pizza parties — and come together for quarterly outings to reward and refocus their involvement on the blog.

Scale to new heights. Mashable, the gold standard for social-media news, is an impressive model of scale. Sure, they get a good chunk of their content from guest bloggers, but most of their writers started as guest contributors. When they’re brought on as staff writers, their production skyrockets. According to Ostrow, Mashable’s staff writers are expected to publish four to five stories per day. In fact, Ostrow explained, Mashable looks to publish a piece every 30 minutes between the hours of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.

Here at SmartBlogs, we’re learning that connecting with influencers, readers and even our own staff for content is an incredibly useful exercise that we plan to further explore. Are you sitting on gold mine of content?

Image credit, parasoley, via iStock

Both Mashable and Social Media Examiner watch metrics associated with guest posts to determine if they will continue to run stories from the author. Mashable also looks at influence of writers, as well as their social presence to determine if they are someone they can trust their brand with.

4 ways keywords can drive your blog’s editorial calendar

Rob Birgfeld — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:43:28 +0000

Create valuable content and your customers will thank you. Create content that is valuable and visible and you’ll land more customers. Finding the “right” content for your blog is critical to generating visibility and building business. So how does one create the most effective content for a company’s blog? The answer may lie in your keywords.

At last week’s BlogWorld 2010, we collected some great tips from Top Rank Marketing’s Lee Odden (and a few others) to help you harness those keywords and take your content-marketing strategy to the next level.

Develop personas
Who are your customers? Odden suggests marketers define a variety of personas and build keyword lists around each of them. Marketing products to technology professionals? Isolate a chief technology officer in a given industry and build keyword lists around him/her. Then move to network admins in another industry and create a new set for them.

Research keywords in places you might not think to look
There are a variety of places to go and find the keywords that will affect your content strategy. Many marketers use free tools such as WordTracker and Keyword Discovery to help find variations of the core keywords they have already identified. Take that a step further and move to social spaces to gather keywords being discussed by your target audience(s). Sites such as 48ers.com and SocialMention are great places to start your hunt across the social Web. After taking a look at competitor’s keywords (with sites like SEMrush.com), Odden suggests marketers look in the mirror at their own sites and blogs. Not only should marketers pay attention to inbound search terms, but the searched terms from your own site can pay huge dividends. Are you creating the content that your customers are asking you for? Deliver and they’ll reward you by sharing and expanding your visibility.

Educate your authors
The nuts and bolts of content creation can (and often will) define your visibility. Whether you’re creating the content , or you have writers for your blog, it’s important to implement SEO basics. To start, make sure your title features the crucial keywords and tells the right story. While we all like to be clever, Odden reminds us that “search engines don’t understand puns or metaphors.”

Authors and editors must also realize that keywords in the URL and throughout the post are crucial. Feeling redundant? Synonyms are an equally important part of the SEO equation, so use them often.

Use outposts for coordinated efforts
In another BlogWorld 2010 session focusing on social media for B-to-B companies, Kirsten Watson, director of corporate marketing at Kinaxis, showcased a keyword implementation strategy worth noting. Each month, Kinaxis chooses one critical keyword and creates a lead-generation white paper on that subject. To generate awareness of this white paper, the team creates blog posts on (or around) that particular keyword, offering opportunities to download the full white paper. There are video interviews created on YouTube and presentations uploaded to SlideShare, as well as posted to staff members’ LinkedIn accounts, all tagged appropriately and focusing on the keyword of the month.

The results? Kinaxis has enjoyed a 270% increase in traffic to its domain and a 320% increase in leads generated online since kicking off the social campaigns.

Image credit: lambada, via iStockphoto

6 steps for creating a Web video series

Rob Birgfeld — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:27:19 +0000

This guest post is from Nikki Katz, managing editor for the BlogWorld Blog. SmartBrief is proud to be a media sponsor of the upcoming BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2010 in Las Vegas, where you can learn more about video at the Digital Broadcasting Track.

Social Media is quickly become the easiest and fastest way to interact with people across the globe, but sometimes it’s difficult to add that personal touch. There’s only so much you can garner about a person from a Twitter avatar.

One way to add a little personality to your website, company or blog is to create a Web video series. By giving your audience a schedule of upcoming episodes, you’re keeping them interested in your content and looking forward to seeing more.

Here are some tips for setting up a Web video series on your site:

Establish a theme: Wrap your Web video series around a theme. Possibilities include how-to videos, tips and tricks, or even news commentary. Choose a topic that works best for your audience.
Assign a frequency: Determine how frequently you’d like to create and upload these videos. Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Pick something reasonable for your time schedule and stick to it.
Create an editorial calendar: Put together topic ideas for your series and add them to a calendar. Promote the calendar on your website so your readers know what’s coming up next.
Make your first video your template: The first video in the series should serve as your template. After watching this video, your audience should know what to expect from future installments — everything from your personality to the length of the videos. Yes, you can deviate as needed, but set their expectations up front.
Brand your videos: Add a logo or image to the beginning and ending of your video. That way, if other websites embed it, new readers know how to find you.
Set up a page for the series: Create a page on your website or blog that links to and/or embeds each of your videos. Include the title of each episode and a brief description, so users can quickly choose the content they wish to watch. This is also a great place to include future topics from your editorial calendar.

With these tips, you should be able to quickly develop an established audience, eager to come back and see what you video topic you’re producing next.

Have you had success with creating video content and/or a video series? Tell us your story!

Image credit, Zeffss1, iStock Photo

Driving real results with YouTube: Questions for aimClear’s Marty Weintraub

Rob Birgfeld — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 15:43:16 +0000

In advance of the upcoming SES Chicago 2010 conference, I had the opportunity to ask aimClear President Marty Weintraub some questions about taking advantage of YouTube. His company provides traditional and social pay-per-click (PPC) management, natural search-engine optimization (SEO), reputation monitoring/management and social media/feed marketing (SMO) services to national clients.

We’ve heard that YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, but most businesses are still barely scratching the surface. What do you think keeps marketers from utilizing the reach of YouTube?

It is amazing to me that there is so little discussion of YouTube as a search engine. Most marketers seemingly don’t view activity in YouTube as SEO. That’s the disconnect. YouTube is very much a search engine. There are likely several reasons for the disconnect.

Like Google or Bing, the YouTube search box is automatically populated with keyword suggestions as users type. Those suggestions amount to the best insights available as to how marketers should tag and optimize to achieve organic prominence in YouTube’s organic search engine results pages (SERPs). You can’t export or otherwise document suggestions within YouTube’s terms of service. Other YouTube keyword research “tools” are pretty much lame-ass and don’t offer as much insight as the suggest function itself. Savvy marketers have learned to scrape YouTube’s suggest box using curl or other data-extraction technology. The average client we see is baffled when we meet them.

YouTube ranking factors are a mashup of traditional SEO ranking factors like semantics, linking and tagging. However there is a YouTube internal social system which plays into users’ ability to get videos ranked for keywords. The fact that little-understood social components come to bear on rankings probably is a barrier for many marketers.

Does an opportunity exist because of this void?

Absolutely yes, an opportunity exists. AimClear has done extensive testing of keyword suggestions, corresponding SERPs and the ranking factors that seem to play into a solid ranking. There is plenty of real estate available in mid- and long-tail suggestions, where the winning videos don’t have a ton of authority by YouTube ranking standards.

Also, remember that Google and Bing/Yahoo include YouTube videos in their Universal/Blended search results. We’ve seen evidence that ranking well in YouTube internal organic SERPs correlates to Google.com’s organic universal results. In other words, doing well in YouTube organic rankings portends probable success in Google.com results.

You’ve worked on a variety of campaigns with significant YouTube components. Give us one of your favorite success stories that YouTube played a large part in creating.

We work with a multinational b2b business unit that successfully migrated their FAQs from their main website site to YouTube. It is an awesome sweaty SEO (good) mess. The main website ranks in Google and Bing/Yahoo and drives a lot of traffic to YouTube. Much of the traffic returns to site resources, driven by the video’s content. We buy promoted videos, literally, for competitors’ YouTube videos. The YouTube videos get bookmarked in Twitter and Facebook, funneling traffic first to YouTube and then the site. All of it shows up in Google.com, including the YouTube vids’ in Universal results. It’s awesome.

YouTube recently increased its time limit to 15 minutes. Do you have an opinion on video length?

Users have the attention span of a lit match in the wind, flickering out in very short order. It’s not that longer videos won’t work. In fact, they do. Take porn, for example. Many users skip until just before the end. All kidding aside, as a rule, we like videos to be short unless there is a really good reason otherwise. That said, there is no one-size-fits-all.

We’ve seen evidence that users will sit through a longer presentation if the video is freakin’ riveting and exactly the type of content that a specific user is interested in. Reciprocally, users will bail in the first 5 seconds of a video that totally sucks to them. Obviously, a huge factor is the visitor’s source. Like any other type of “landing page,” the right visitor will watch more of the right video, appropriately paired.

In traditional search, marketers can identify keywords with lesser competition that meet their audience’s need. Is there a strategy to finding content “gaps” that companies can fill on YouTube?

Yes! Your question makes me smile, because you asked this question without knowing aimClear had solved the problem. There are literally no commercial tools available, [but] aimClear plans to share a Mozenda agent, totally free of charge, which executes data extraction to a) document suggestions from the search box [and] b) correlate YouTube organic SERPs to probable YouTube ranking factors and Google.com’s organic Universal SERPs.

Beyond actual content/video creation, what are a few of the top tactics marketers can employ to make their content more visible/searchable?

Tag and optimize based on YouTube search suggestions.
Embed the video on your website. The links from YouTube won’t help your site, but, if you use content that is unique from the YouTube page and also optimized, your website’s page will rank in Google’s organic SERPs on its own, in addition to the video in Universal results.
Build out a network of high authority, active and engage YouTube users. Subscribe to their channels. Interact with them in holistic and sharing ways.
Comment on others videos. Don’t be sappy or gratuitous. Your participation will seed their engagement in your videos. Their participation is important to your rankings.
Master and use YouTube Insights Analytics. They provide a wealth of actionable information regarding how users interact with your videos.
Title the raw file using keywords, without stuffing.
Use other sites you control to do natural linking to your YouTube profile’s assets.

Where do other video platforms (Vimeo, Facebook, Blip.tv, etc.) fit in? Should businesses look to publish on as many platforms as possible?

We like to put different versions on different platforms. Change around the length, starting frame image, editing, file name and optimization scheme. While we’re on the cusp of larger deployment of tools that recognize audio, video sequences, etc … tools that recognize duplicate video content are still fairly easy to fool. Test, test and then test some more.

SERPs

Social with a KISS: Keep it short, stupid

Rob Birgfeld — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:21:02 +0000

I wish my mom knew how to text. If she did, we could avoid the 20-minute conversation in which she details every minute since our last chat and jump right to her request to come by and fix her “broken” computer.

For better or for worse, quick and to the point is what everyone is after these days. Blame it on SMS, Twitter or the sheer volume of information we are supposed to digest and act on, but today’s consumer is best served by providers of concise quality. That’s why SmartBrief, now 11 years old, is as relevant as ever to busy professionals looking for a briefing on the news that matters to them in their industry.

Quick is in, and marketers should take note. The KISS principle, meaning “keep it simple, stupid,” is something that all of us can learn and act on every day. But in our 140-character world, let’s adjust and go with “keep it short, stupid.” I won’t pretend to be the first to use this acronym, but I’d like to apply to it to social-media marketing practices.

Your headline is only good as its tweet: Can you get your point across in 140 characters? Good, now remove at least 15 characters for the URL. Then, if you plan on getting anyone to retweet, get rid of another 15. And what if someone else retweets that retweet? Remove another 15 or so. You get the point. Oh yeah, and Digg’s headline character limit is only 60 characters.
Turn your blog post upside down: Take a glance at most of the blog posts you come across and you’ll note the formula. Start with a personal anecdote (see above), transition, then to the meat of the story. While long-form content still has a place, if your customers are likely on a mission to gather information or data, direct is the way to go.
Video clips, not films: YouTube recently increased its time limit to 15 minutes. Good news if you’re a filmmaker. Bad news for overzealous marketers. If you’re using online video to market products via a presentation or demo, keeping it short is more than suggested. If you must go longer than four or five minutes, help out your audience with some tips of where (i.e. product features at 2:45) you’re hiding the goodies. They might miss your fancy intro, but they’ll get right to what to matters to them, and to you.
Keep your Facebook updates focused: If you’re like me, you scroll through Facebook updates, bypassing the lengthy ones. Maybe it’s because you know it’s just another political rant or a long-winded take on last night’s “Real Housewives of Des Moines.” Rather than trying to fit all of your announcements and special offers into one update, spread it out and keep it direct with one message in mind.
Word of mouth travels farther with fewer words: Like Twitter, old-fashioned word of mouth can be affected by length. If you can communicate a concise message to your “talkers,” chances are they’ll be able to pass it along easily. Throw a complicated paragraph at your fans and they might digest the information, but it’ll most likely stop there. A short message is easily remembered, passed along — and has far greater potential.

Are you even still reading this? If so, let us know in the comments how you keep your social-media marketing concise. And, of course, keep it short … sir.

Image credit: flavijus, via iStockphoto

Win tickets to Facebook Success Summit 2010

Rob Birgfeld — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:07:28 +0000

**UPDATE** We have announced our two winners. The winner of the comment/blog portion of the contest, receiving two tickets to Facebook Success Summit is Elisha Tan, a psychology enthusiast and a Social Media Consultant at Adonai Training. Read her comment here. The winner of the Twitter contest is Bill Lage, a marketing technology manager for RE/MAX. Thanks for everyone who are participated in the event. We look forward to seeing you all in a couple of weeks!

Want to win a free ticket to the biggest online Facebook marketing event of the year?

Social Media Examiner and SmartBrief on Social Media have partnered to bring you Facebook Success Summit. And we’ve come up with a fun way to get you involved.

First, what is this event?

Facebook Success Summit 2010 is a large monthlong online conference dedicated to help businesses master Facebook marketing. More than 1,000 marketers have already signed up, including Microsoft, CNN, MetLife, AARP, HP, Mary Kay, Philips, Tropicana Atlantic City, AAA, University of Tennessee, Herbalife, Radisson Hotels and hundreds of smaller businesses.

Twenty-two of the world’s most respected Facebook experts will share their strategies with you. Hear from Brian Solis (author, Engage!), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day), Justin Smith (Inside Facebook), Jesse Stay (author, FBML Essentials), Paul Dunay (author, Facebook Marketing for Dummies), Darren Rowse (author, Problogger), Jay Baer (co-author, The Now Revolution) and Michael Stelzner (Social Media Examiner), as well as experts from Intel, Microsoft Xbox, Cisco, the Washington Redskins and SAP.

Presentation topics include everything from setting up a Facebook page to developing a Facebook strategy and engaging fans (just to mention a few!). Check out all the sessions.

At last year’s summit, 95% of attendees said they’d recommend the event to a friend and attend again.

How can you win tickets?

The prizes

We have three free tickets to the summit, valued at $597 each and the opportunity to be promoted to nearly 100,000 of your peers! And remember, this is an online conference — so no travel is required to participate.

Two ways to win

There are three tickets up for grabs and two ways to win:

#1: Twitter Entry: Simply click the button on the right or tweet for a chance to win one ticket:

I want to win a ticket to Facebook Success Summit http://bit.ly/freeFBSS (via: @SBoSM ) #winFBSS

You can tweet up to two times per day. Each tweet is an entry to win. We’ll randomly draw the winner of a free ticket. All tweets must have the #winFBSS hashtag included.

#2: Written Entry: Two tickets PLUS a mention in SmartBrief on Social Media and the Social Media Examiner Newsletter (nearly 100,000 subscribers total) will go to the winner in this category!

Simply write about your biggest Facebook marketing challenge on your own blog and link back to this page (please link to your post in the comments below) OR submit your entry by adding a comment to this page.

The judges (Mike Stelzner and Rob Birgfeld) will select the best written entry. Our decisions are subjective and final.

What you need to know

You can enter to win either or both prizes.
Tweets must contain #winFBSS.
The deadline is Friday, Sept 17th and winner will be announced shortly thereafter.
If you have already have a ticket, no worries. If you win we’ll either refund you or you can give your spare ticket to someone you really like.
No purchase is necessary to win.

Good luck!

We look forward to seeing your blog posts, comments and tweets. Have at it!

5 ways to spotlight your audience and extend your reach

Rob Birgfeld — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:25:13 +0000

On a recent road trip, “She Talks to Angels” by The Black Crowes came on the radio. Much to the dismay of my wife, I immediately started belting out the lyrics as if it was the anthem of my life.

Truth be told, I’m not a fan of the Crowes, nor that particular song (side note: I think Chuck Klosterman nails the critique of the band here). I have had that song on my iPod/iPhone for years, and could easily listen to it any time. When the song does come on my iPhone via shuffle, I quickly skip it and move to the next. So why do I get so excited when a song I can listen to anytime comes on the radio? The answer is that someone else, with a far greater reach, has chosen to share one of “my songs” with their audience.

We see a very similar phenomenon in social spaces. When a blog post, comment, video or tweet is republished or referenced by another, the excited author often shares their “success” with their network. They may retweet the mention, post a comment, or drop a link on Facebook bragging about their moment in the sun to their network. Because social media has created a culture where everyone is a publisher, smart marketers are finding ways to benefit by giving their audience and/or customers the stage.

This requires a change in ideology for many marketers who are stuck in Social Media 101. They broadcast their message and hope their followers, fans and customers share the information with one another. Some businesses do this very well, but others tap their audience to help create a more robust and interactive social presence.

Here are five quick ways to get your customers excited and talking — just by giving them the stage for a minute or two.

Solicit guest blog posts. Reach out to your customers and ask them for content submissions to be published on your blog. They can talk about their experiences with your product, best practices or anything that provides them the opportunity to blend your product and their message. A line or two detailing the guest author’s Twitter account, website, blog and/or company goes a long way.
Gather, source and publish your audience. Create a Twitter hashtag unique to your community to focus discussion. Then publish those discussions on your website, blog or community forum. You can also create Twitter lists dedicated to your customers and publish feeds from those groups in the same places.
Give a review or provide a recommendation on LinkedIn. Your customers are used to be talked at. This is why the occasional handwritten note goes so far. Take that notion a step further to give them thanks in an environment that matters to them professionally. If your customers create a product that you can stand behind, take the time to give them a glowing review in an appropriate public space. Or give them an unsolicited recommendation on LinkedIn. These are the handwritten notes of the professional social Web.
Switch up the platforms. A retweet is fine, but take a look at how you can leverage other channels to give your customers the visibility that will matter to them. Here at SmartBrief, the “Big Retweet” has paid off because we give our most-engaged readers visibility in one of our daily e-mail newsletters. Does a quality tweet deserve to be called out on your blog? Does an insightful blog comment deserve a mention on your Facebook page? A response or thank you in the same channel is a great first step — but you can take it a step further by giving them a shout-out in a different environment.
Give public recognition early and often. If you’ve involved your customers in any of the above ways, call the participants out by name in social spaces. You cannot assume everyone is tracking their name in every channel. Not only will an “announcement” provide a quick heads-up, it creates the proper context to those who will help spread your social presence.

All of these not only broaden your reach, but they also further engage your customers and make them feel closer to your presence. If done right — they will make your communications stronger and more trustworthy. And that’s far better than my best Chris Robinson impersonation.

Image credit: mipan, iStockphoto

Making sense of social-media ROI with Olivier Blanchard

Rob Birgfeld — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:37:20 +0000

Olivier Blanchard is perhaps the most sought-after expert for those looking to connect the dots between social media and return-on-investment. Not only are we lucky enough to have him on our SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board, Olivier is sending off the Buzz 2010 Summer Series with a serious exclamation point. Before we introduce him to the association and nonprofit world here in D.C. on Wednesday, we wanted to throw some questions at him for the greater good.

The chatter around ROI seems to be as loud as ever. What would you attribute this to? Are we at a pivotal moment for business proving value for social media activities?

The chatter around social-media ROI is as strong as ever for two reasons: The first is simply because ROI [points to] one of the most important questions an organization can ask before green-lighting a social-media program: I could spend this budget somewhere else — Why should I spend it on social media? Before any other questions can be asked, you have to start with “why.”

The second is that most social-media “experts” seem incapable of a) being able to define ROI … and b) plug social media into a [profit-and-loss statement] and actual business objectives. Most [social-media marketers], having no true management background, they simply don’t understand how to tie social-media measurement and performance to business measurement and performance. This lack of business-management experience is a major problem in a field where everyone seems to have become an “expert” overnight.

As long as these so called “experts” fail to answer the ROI question, the chatter will continue. Ironically, the question can be answered in about three minutes. All it takes is someone on the social-media side of the table who understands how to plug new communications into a business from the C-suite’s perspective.

Have you noticed a recurring point where businesses and organizations decide to get serious about applying ROI to social activities? Is it based on experience, resources allocated or both?

Every organization is different. Some want to establish upfront measurement practices that include ROI from the very start. These are organizations with a specific focus or clear goals. ROI is based on accomplishing those goals. The program won’t get the go-ahead until every “t” has been crossed.

Others don’t get around to asking about ROI until 6 to 18 months after a program has begun and budgets need to be reviewed. Trust me, when 10% of your group’s budget is being cut, you start asking hard questions. Social-media programs not clearly in support of specific business objectives had better come up with a good answer when the budget hatchet starts to come down.

Typically, companies that start by identifying ROI before a social-media budget is assigned, people [are] recruited and the project is even outlined, fare better than their counterparts.

How can those who are in the trenches, but not selling product or services themselves, best justify their social efforts/hours to their bosses and peers?

By aligning their activities and objectives with key business objectives. The fastest way to ensure that your budget is renewed or validated is to show that you play a part in making the P&L positive.

Perhaps your group saves the organization money by using social media. Customer service is an example. Media buying, reach, could show some interesting cost reductions, [with social media] increasing reach while reducing relative Cost Per Impression. Perhaps your group generates not sales but leads by using [social-media] channels in insightful ways. There are dozens upon dozens of ways to ensure that your program can be shown to contribute to either reducing costs or generating revenue. What you don’t want to be is a “cost center” alone, or worse yet, the project team that can’t articulate its value to the organization. Which happens.

At Wednesday’s Buzz 2010 event here D.C., Olivier will be speaking with an association and nonprofit audience — taking a closer look at how organizations that are looking to provide customer (or member) value via social media build satisfaction into the ROI equation. Join us in person or follow the event with #buzz2010.

Image credit, Olivier Blanchard

SmartBlog on Social Media - Best Practices and Case Studies on Social Media Marketing for Business » Rob Birgfeld

4 ways to transform your employees into social-media marketers

Related Posts:

Why crisis management and social media must co-exist

Related Posts:

Secrets of successful group blogs

Related Posts:

4 ways keywords can drive your blog’s editorial calendar

Related Posts:

6 steps for creating a Web video series

Related Posts:

Driving real results with YouTube: Questions for aimClear’s Marty Weintraub

Related Posts:

Social with a KISS: Keep it short, stupid

Related Posts:

Win tickets to Facebook Success Summit 2010

First, what is this event?

How can you win tickets?

What you need to know

Related Posts:

5 ways to spotlight your audience and extend your reach

Related Posts:

Making sense of social-media ROI with Olivier Blanchard

Related Posts: