This post was written by SmartBrief’s Doris Nhan.

Privacy policies are long and confusing and, more often than not, your customers aren’t reading them. So you shouldn’t be surprised when negative backlash follows after your customers find they’re being tracked via cell phone usage, Twitter activity or Facebook posts.

Data collection is key to tracking trends and optimizing products for a targeted audience. But when customers realize a marketing firm knows more about them than their grandmothers, they aren’t too happy.

And yet, such issues are less about privacy and more about responsible data usage, Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, said at the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, D.C. When companies responsibly use data in a way that greatly benefits their customers, their products transform from an invasion of privacy into an invaluable service.

Polonetsky pointed to Facebook’s launch of the News Feed as a prime example. When Facebook first released the News Feed, users hated it. They decried the real-time feature as a major violation of their privacy. But once people got used to the new look, they began to love and appreciate the News Feed’s integral role in the Facebook experience.

Solve your privacy problems by turning user data into a key component of your product in a way that is also highly beneficial to your users, Polonetsky said. How did Facebook do this? They didn’t bother to hide the News Feed from their users. The data being aggregated into the News Feed was most likely being logged anyway, and instead of hiding, they turned it into a profitable, user-friendly feature.

Companies have long been hiding what kind of data they collected, Polonetsky said, out of fear that customers would react badly and opt out. But by being upfront and showing your customers how you are using the data — and how it can benefit them — it puts control back in the hands of customers, who will likely appreciate your honesty and innovation.

So when you’re marketing to your customers, remember the Facebook saga. Facebook’s ability to adapt to users’ needs has helped them become the most prominent social network out there. Keep lines of communication open, and always be willing to adapt to the needs of your customers. Make the value of collecting data obvious and meaningful to your customers, and they’ll appreciate you for it — and keep coming back for more.

Image credit, winterling, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• 4 tips for avoiding getting fired for Facebook
• This week’s most clicked
• This week’s most clicked

This post was written by SmartBrief’s Doris Nhan.

The power of the public voice is growing exponentially. Every day there are more channels available for someone to voice a suggestion, or for a disgruntled customer to air complaints. Yet even with this wealth of technology at hand, some businesses are still lagging behind by failing to give consumers a venue for talking back.

Businesses looking for innovative ideas on how to interact with their customers while gathering feedback should look no further than the U.S. Department of Transportation and the open government initiatives that have revamped the way the agency is reaching out to taxpayers.

On the first day of the Gov 2.0 Summit, Transportation Deputy Secretary John Porcari discussed how the DOT drew from Twitter and Facebook to create a unique approach to collecting public feedback on proposed federal regulations.

Working with Cornell University’s e-Rulemaking Initiative, the DOT wanted to get rid of the traditional, legalese-heavy docket system for commentary on proposed federal regulations. They came up with Regulations.gov,  a means for the public to access proposals and use plain English to pitch ideas, give feedback and help shape government regulations –  in real time.

The DOT’s initiatives for an open government start on a simple concept that businesses should mimic: Feedback is free and it’s happening everywhere.

Of course, designing a feedback system from scratch isn’t going to be the answer for every organization. For many businesses, monitoring social channels is a perfectly adequate feedback model. Whatever your business’ approach, it’s important to bear the DOT’s lesson in mind: Leaving feedback needs to be as simple and as seamless as possible. Successfully interacting with customers while improving your business means accepting that many people have worthwhile opinions to share — and they don’t want to jump through hoops to give them.

Image credit, Aseev, via iStock Photo

Related Posts:

• How to put customer data to work — and get away with it
• Is your company prepared for the next digital evolution?
• This week’s most clicked

“Things like access and transparency sound really great, until someone’s found the location of nuclear materials, TSA manuals or a lot of Social Security numbers, thanks to your government website,” said Elizabeth Losh of the University of California, Irvine, during her presentation at this year’s Gov 2.0 Expo. During her talk, Losh explored some of the biggest mistakes government programs make when they try to put Web 2.0 strategies to work.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes Losh cautioned government employees against during her talk:

• Making promises you can’t keep. Before you respond to a user’s request, make sure you actually have the authority to follow through on everything you say. Losh cited the case of a State Department worker who said they would look into a situation involving a Chinese blogger at a Twitter user’s request — which turned out to be a sensitive matter that had to be quietly ignored.
• Losing track of what your users really care about. Government websites don’t need to provide entertainment. They don’t need to mindlessly kowtow to the latest technology trends. They just have to serve users’ needs — and what most users need from government sites is information. The best way to keep your site relevant is by designing it with your current users’ needs in mind, Losh said, instead of something you think they might want down the road.
• Soliciting user content — and then forgetting about it. If you’re going to ask people to share information, you have to put it to work. Otherwise, “it encourages people to becomes cynical about user-generated content and the government’s relationship to it,” she said.
• Assuming everyone is going to be friendly. Hackers are going to be a problem, but so are trolls who just want attention and conspiracy theorists who are going to see hidden messages in everything you post online. You need to prepared to handle all of those eventualities, she said. At the same time, you can’t let those concerns make you deaf to citizen complaints — even if don’t like the way those complaints are being made.
• Confusing .gov with .com. The social-media sphere is dominated by corporate branding, but its worth remembering that social networks are striking up relationships with their users — and those users’ information — that may not be appropriate in a government space, she said. Don’t get caught up in trying to craft an elaborate brand experience that gets away from your agency’s mission. “This is the government. It’s not a brand,” she said.

Do you agree with Losh’s concerns? What other Gov 2.0 pitfalls do government institutions face? How can government agencies address these challenges?

Image credit: alengo, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• How you’re secretly driving away your followers — and what you can do to stop it
• Andy’s Answers: How InterContinental Hotels’ fan community is guiding its social strategy
• What all great fan communities have in common

This post is by Kaukab Jhumra Smith, a contributing editor at SmartBrief.

When Twitter agreed to allow the Library of Congress to archive its tweets, the public response to the news brought down the library’s website. That hadn’t happened since the release of the Starr Report in 1998, said Hope O’Keeffe, the library’s associate general counsel.

The government’s agreement with Twitter holds mutual benefit, she said: Twitter gets recognition as a culturally relevant tool, while the government preserves “a snapshot of our time.” Although historians and researchers are delighted, many members of the public have expressed alarm at the privacy ramifications of such a deal.

O’Keeffe and Elizabeth Hochberg, assistant general counsel at the U.S. General Services Administration, addressed the legal issues that crop up as agencies move to follow the Obama administration’s directive to increase transparency, participation and collaboration between citizens, communities, businesses and government. They spoke at the recent Gov 2.0 conference in Washington, D.C.

O’Keeffe and Hochberg’s advice is useful both for government agencies and the people who do business with them. Their biggest tip?

• Friend your lawyers. If you jump into a project because you think it’s easier to ask for forgiveness later than permission upfront, you may be risking jail, a lawsuit or the loss of your job, Hochberg said. Or you could be risking having your software platform yanked out from under your feet for noncompliance after you’ve spent months developing it, she cautioned.
  “You know you’re going to have to work with us in the future, and trust is really important,” Hochberg said. “We can help speed things up exponentially if you bring us in from the beginning.”

• Go by FAR. The Federal Acquisition Regulation applies to all software applications contracted for with appropriation funds, just like a tangible item purchased by the government.

• Don’t be deficient. If you offer your software application to a government agency for free when it usually commands a price in the marketplace, your software is considered a gift and requires the agency to jump through several internal hoops before accepting it. Otherwise, the agency could be held in violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.

• Negotiate terms of service. Standard terms of service from software providers usually don’t fly with government agencies. “We understand that you have your policies, but we have our laws,” Hochberg said.

Trouble spots can include:

• Indemnification. The government will never agree to unlimited or undefined compensation for injury or loss.
• Jurisdiction. The federal government cannot be sued in state court, only in federal court, according to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
• Endorsement. The federal government cannot call any business a partner or an official provider. It will allow you to use the agency in a case study, but only if it scrutinizes each word.
• Federal records. The government has to comply with federal records laws.
• Intellectual property. The federal government has a right to copyright its images, and IP provisions must be hammered out in any terms of service. “People think they can screen-grab federal government pages and use them for themselves, but that’s not true,” Hochberg said.
• Privacy. “Privacy is going to be a bigger and bigger and bigger issue for all of us,” O’Keeffe said.
• Accessibility. All electronic and IT services have to be 508 compliant — that is, accessible to citizens with disabilities.
• Advertising. The government has to negotiate out any advertisements that would give the appearance of endorsements, like it has on its Facebook pages.

Make your case. If your lawyers end up being more of a roadblock than help, O’Keeffe and Hochberg suggest building a business case for adopting new technologies. Anticipate their objections, and show them that what you want to do is “a logical outgrowth of something that you’ve already been doing,” O’Keeffe said.

Identify lawyers who are open to technological change and add them to your team working on larger Gov 2.0 goals. Early notice and engagement can go a long way to winning lawyers over, O’Keeffe and Hochberg said.

Image credit: RTimages, via iStockphoto

Related Posts:

• How to convince skeptical managers to invest in social media
• Are you prepared for the pitfalls of Gov 2.0?
• Gov 2.0: How to engage your Hispanic fans

Yet many firms do little or nothing to try to connect with this growing audience. Maybe the problem is just that many organizations still aren’t sure how to create meaningful engagement with a Hispanic audience. Armando Rayo of Cultural Strategies spoke on the panel at the Gov 2.0 Expo, sharing advice on how organizations of all types can better understand and engage with Hispanic groups.

A few of Rayo’s key points:

• Recognize their diversity. Hispanics are often discussed as if they were a single group, but a grandmother from Puerto Rico living in New York City has different experiences than a single Mexican man living in rural Texas — or a second-generation Cuban student living in Miami — and the list goes on. Instead of trying to speak to a generic Hispanic community, try to develop a more detailed picture of who you’re trying to reach and tailor your message to those people, he says.
• Don’t just translate your English ads into Spanish. A literal translation will rob your message of its power, as idioms and shades of meaning get lost along the way. Instead, Rayo says brands should “transcreate” their messages — rethinking them from the ground up with a particular audience in mind. When you’re transcreating your message, remember to take regional dialects of Spanish into account. Depending on who you’re trying to reach, the word “car” might translate as “carro,” “coche” or “auto.” Even some Spanish words mean different things from one country to the next. “Ahorita” means “right now” in Guatemala — but in Costa Rica it means “later.”
• Think beyond Spanish. Not all Hispanic-Americans speak Spanish all the time. According to a 2006 report by National Consumer Study and National Hispanic Consumer Study, just 55% of Hispanics say Spanish is their dominant language. The same study found that 21% said they spoke English most of the time — and another 13% say they speak only English.
• Focus on the culture. If you want to connect with a Hispanic group, it’s vital you find ways to connect with their cultural values, Rayo says. Traditions might vary from one group to the next, but the importance each group places on their culture is one of the few things that most Hispanics have in common, he notes. Studies show that many of the strongest traditions have their roots in the family or in food, Rayo adds.
• Remember that a little goes a long way. Creating a message that speaks to a Hispanic audience does not mean it must target them exclusively. Rayo points to a Dr Pepper commercial — which contains just a second or two of a Spanish-language song — but resonates well with Hispanic audiences, he says, because it makes the brand seem inclusive.
• Give them something to do. Rayo emphasizes that — much like any group — Hispanics communities respond best to campaigns that inspire them and equip them to become active. Strive for a true conversation, he suggest, but don’t let it stop there. Find ways to help your new fans turn their engagement into action.

Image credit, JulNichols, via iStock

Related Posts:

• 5 keys to leveraging social recommendations
• 3 ways to think like Google and engage your social-media audience
• 5 ways to spotlight your audience and extend your reach

Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who literally invented the World Wide Web — the system of linking multimedia documents on remote computers — used a single prop throughout his rapid-fire presentation at Gov. 2.0 today to advocate for the use of open, linked data by government to create global communities.

It wasn’t a teleprompter or a PowerPoint presentation. It was a bag of potato chips.

The packaging for potato chips contains certain data, like the barcode and the calorie count, that’s understandable to anyone worldwide, Berners-Lee said. But not all the information is accessible to everybody, like the printer code at the bottom of the package, or the Americanized term “kettle chips.”

But the point, he said, is that all that doesn’t matter to somebody who wants to eat the chips.

“I ignore the stuff I don’t understand, I give a quick glance at the calories, and I open the bag and I eat it,” Berners-Lee said.

Berners-Lee wants government to focus on the potato chips and less on the packaging. He’s pushing for developers to get data to the public: make data open, make it capable of being read by machines and create links between the data, all without worrying about creating a separate vocabulary or agreeing on common terms and definitions.

Just look at all the terms out there and create data files from the vocabulary already in use, he said: the public will be able to find what they need and ignore the rest.

Related Posts:

• How to put customer data to work — and get away with it
• How the Department of Transportation is getting its feedback up to speed
• Are you prepared for the pitfalls of Gov 2.0?

Ideas do not spread because they are “good,” according to Dan Zarrella, author of “The Social Media Marketing Book.” “I have to myth-bust this,” Zarrella said. “There are plenty of good ideas that do not go anywhere and plenty of bad ideas that go everywhere.” Ideas spread because they fill a need or stand up to certain pressures better than others, he said.

At his presentation, he shared his advice for increasing the odds that your content will spread far and wide. Among his tips:

• Seed your campaign with as many people as possible. If you introduce an idea to more people, it will reach more people. Grow your Twitter followers, your e-mail lists and Facebook friends.

• Personalize. Just like you’re attuned to hear your name even in a noisy room, people respond to personalized messages in a crowded social media environment.

• Avoid the crowds. Click-through rates rise later in the day and on the weekends, even though traffic is lower on Twitter and Facebook during those times. That’s because there are fewer links competing for people’s attention. Post your content during these times.

• Talk like a fifth-grader. Use short words when sharing content on social media. The higher the reading level, the less people share your content.

• Put out a call for action. “Asking people to retweet works,” Zarrella said. “Don’t do it all the time. But it does work.”

In your experience, is his advice sound? What are some of your tips for upping the odds that your content will go viral?

Related Posts:

• This week’s most clicked
• Dan Zarrella on what makes people share content on Twitter
• How to put customer data to work — and get away with it

There’s a lot of talk about how social networking can improve the process of government. Where, in these early stages, do you see the most significant progress?

The most progress is being made by individuals who — in their spare time for the most part — use new media tools to expand their social networks to get a better finger on the pulse of their areas of expertise, discover news and information and meet people in all the nooks and crannies of the government. These are the folks who are breaking down silos informally.

What tools are being used most effectively?

With regard to Web 2.0 in the wild, I’d have to say that Twitter and Facebook still give the most bang for the effort. When used effectively, they can help you achieve the above. In a hybrid Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 environment, GovLoop.com (Facebook for Govies) has been a very effective — and quickly growing — social network for government employees at all levels, contractors, and other stakeholders for blogging and sharing information. On the Enterprise 2.0 side, many agencies are building their own social networking systems to help government missions. The classic example of this is INTELINK, a system used by intelligence professionals to collaborate on documents, share photos, and so forth.

It seems that the goal of much of Gov 2.0 is to create transparency and improve citizen services. Does a more open government improve processes or simply expose inefficiencies that have existed for years?

Remains to be seen. Probably both.

How should government balance transparency against the obvious needs for national security? Are these inherently conflicted?

There are things that are obviously — or legally — private and will be kept so. But the bulk of government knowledge and information is basically okay to fully release to the world. To take another angle on this question, there is what we might call global transparency (opening up information to the Web), and local transparency, which might just mean the FBI sharing better with the Massachusetts State Police (but not with the public). Transparency within the government is also important for national security and other important areas.

In terms of social media adoption, do you think the government is playing catch up with the private sector or has it gone the other way?

Right now almost everyone stinks at truly running a social government or social business in which the new tools and philosophies are breaking down silos and influencing human resources, accounting, purchasing, management, and even social life. We often compare the federal government to the best corporate examples (“Why isn’t the CIA more like Zappos??”) but the reality is that there are some great government examples, some great private sector examples, and many bad examples. And a lot of companies and agencies are playing a little catch up. Overall, I’d say that the best government stuff is as progressive as the best private sector stuff, though generally they have different specializations. Remember too, that the problems organizations face are often not technological but rather behavioral and cultural.

What are some lessons that business can learn from some of the social media strategies of Government 2.0?

Government agencies like the Department of Defense or the U.S. Postal Service dwarf large corporations in size and complexity. Someone was trying to impress me the other day with the fact that their company had over 80,000 global employees. I think there are well over half a million postal delivery people. Think about that. So I think that, to some degree, Halliburton can learn from the DoD, that UPS can learn from the USPS, and so forth. If the Army can figure out how to do secure social networking and break down silos and encourage informal problem solving within a rigid hierarchy, surely your business can.

Related Posts:

• Are you prepared for the pitfalls of Gov 2.0?
• Still seeking transparency
• This week’s most clicked

I attended a brilliantly packaged event last week, Blogging and Cupcakes: Using Social Media in a Crisis. Not a fan of getting to Georgetown at rush hour in the rain, I wavered, but with a curious confection of a title and Debbie Weil, a member of our SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board as co-host, how could I resist?

The presenter, Andrew P. Wilson, discussed how the Department of Health and Human Services used social media to respond to the Salmonella outbreak that resulted in the recent peanut butter recall. He and his team created blogs to raise the public awareness and help consumers determine if they were at risk, but ultimately what the agency could officially post was constrained by legal restrictions. So, the effort turned into an exercise in leveraging existing blogs and community health resources as vehicles for the message. HHS provided bloggers with sharable infographics and code for YouTube videos to add to their sites. Andrew, meanwhile, convinced his bosses that he should use his own name and face on a Twitter account and blog to get the reliable info out quickly, thereby becoming the de facto human face of the agency.

The bigger-picture implications about government partnering with citizens to disseminate information — and ultimately set the political agenda — are fascinating. In some ways, the issues are not dissimilar to those we face as business leaders and marketers. Like the corporate world, the government is learning how to:

• Listen to its audience, where they are.
• Engage the public and get feedback throughout the process.
• Shift from delivering a carefully crafted message — what to say to and where best to say it to persuade buy-in — to letting go of the message.
• Genuinely interact with the pubic, and not solely for political ends.
• Focus on helping people make smart decisions.
• Empower individuals to take action.

Despite those similarities, the road ahead for Gov 2.0 is so much more complicated than it is for those of us using social media to enhance products, services and brands. The scope of the mission is much greater: to create a truer democracy.

So, I guess you could say that the implications of an event been billed as crisis management and baked goods took a turn for the profound. Even my cupcake, white cake with chunks of fresh strawberries inside and and a big pink pouf of icing, was richer than expected.

Perfect food for thought.

Photo credit: Ginny

Related Posts:

• This week’s most clicked
• Beyond Follow Friday: How to reach out and show a little gratitude to your fans
• This week’s most clicked