I know, I know — stealing is wrong. I know that; I do. I just happen to also really appreciate intricate, daring, transgressive acts with the potential for a huge payoff — or a huge disaster. I’d like to tell you I would have made a great criminal mastermind in another life — but the truth is that I’m way too much of a goody two-shoes. But I still marvel at the audacity of capers like the theft of a $250,000 Rembrandt drawing from a hotel in California last weekend.

Maybe that’s why I like social media marketing so much. At its best, social media campaigns are intricate, daring, transgressive acts with the potential for a huge payoff — or a huge disaster. If you’ve never looked at it that way, more’s the pity, because a lot of the potential of social media is tied up in being willing to think big and then plan small, just like an art thief.

Here are six ways social media marketers can take a page from the big book of art heists:

• Dream big or don’t bother. Nobody ever steals paintings of dogs playing poker. Sure, bad art would probably be easier to steal — but good luck finding a buyer for it. Social media is no different. You can do the bare minimum of setting up your Facebook page and telling your customers they can now “engage” with you, whatever that means. But why go to the trouble? Unless you’re willing to actually put in the work to create something of value for your audience, they’re just going to ignore you — and then the tiny amount of time you were willing to spend on your social efforts will go for naught.  I’m not saying you have to develop a world-beating campaign right out of the box; but if you don’t at least start out with a big goal in mind, you’re likely to end up the proud owner of a velvet Elvis instead of a Rembrandt.
• Know what people like. Art thieves don’t just steal works by artists they personally appreciate; they target artists whose work will sell. Otherwise they’d just be making work for themselves down the line. Art experts say Rembrandt’s work is the second most-likely to be the target of a robbery because he has a great deal of name recognition and his works sell for a lot of cash. Instead of focusing your social media efforts on your company or the issues that your company cares about, think about your customers and the issues that matter to them. Talk about subjects that have a great deal of resonance with your intended audience and draw a lot of attention. Otherwise you’re just making work for yourself down the line.
• Remember that simple plans are best. One of the interesting things about last weekend’s heist is that the thieves didn’t employ any high-tech trickery. They didn’t even break in. They walked into an art sale at a hotel;  one person distracted the curator; another person took the drawing off of an easel; then everyone walked out before the hotel could put two and two together. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes.  The thieves didn’t make work for themselves by complicating the plan. Look at your social media presence. Is it more complicated than it needs to be? Are you wasting effort or taking unnecessary risks?
• Sweat the details. Don’t mistake simple for easy. I’m sure it took a lot of research and planning to get all the details just right and then a lot of practicing to make sure the caper came off without a hitch. Are you adhering to social media best practices? Are you honing your craft? Or are you winging it and hoping for the best? The little things don’t seem very sexy, but when a social media campaign goes off the rails, it’s usually because someone got careless and sent a tweet from the wrong account, or something just as trivial.
• Recognize you can’t control everything. There is no such thing as a perfect plan. Putting a plan in motion means involving other people and other people are unpredictable. The best plans take a wide variety of variables into account and allow for adaptability and improvisation once the ball gets rolling. Don’t set your program on auto pilot; that way you’ll be able to adjust when your viral video doesn’t go viral or when you get negative comments instead of praise.
• Think about the day after. Law enforcement officials say that most art thieves get caught not while stealing their prizes, but when trying to sell them later. It turns out that the market for stolen art is somewhat limited. Similarly, too many social media campaigns focus on attracting a ton of fans and followers without any consideration being given to what the brand will do with these relationships once they’re formed. You need to have a plan for turning your acquisition into return on investment. Fortunately, the number of uses for a Twitter follower greatly exceed the number of uses for a stolen masterpiece. I guess staying on the right side of the law has its benefits after all.

Image credit: jorgenjacobsen, via iStock Photo

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This post is by Grace Cowlard, social media commentator for Neoco, an agency for social customer-relationship management.

What do the CIA, Lady Gaga, Fox News and Hugh Grant have in common? They were all recently hacked, and we’re pretty sure they want to avoid a repeat. Whether it’s an unscrupulous newspaper publisher or an activist group, the Internet is awash with pesky rogues of the digital generation, ready to pounce and bring down your brand’s hard-earned reputation.

The amount of destruction caused depends on a hacker’s motivation. “Hacktivists,” unlike serious cybercriminals, are usually low scale and low funded, seeking to embarrass companies, individuals or the government by exposing e-mails or contact information to make a statement or gain publicity. True cybercriminals, meanwhile, hack for payroll or credit card information or commit bank fraud, which are far more serious activities.

Groups such as the much-publicized LulzSec and Anonymous fall into the former category, taking advantage of coding error called SQL injection behind the scenes of a website. While LulzSec might have hacked the CIA’s website, many said the group’s efforts as “pranksters” put cybersecurity into the spotlight, providing a silver lining for the hacking thunderclouds.

So how can you protect your social media account against these digital fraternities? We rounded up eight tips on minimizing accessibility to hackers.

1. Maximize privacy settings on social networks by enabling secure browsing — using “https” — and login approval on Facebook to encrypt and protect your activity to prevent others from accessing information without your permission.
2. Become familiar with the Google tool “Me on the Web.” With a Gmail account, you can remove URLs of not only pages containing confidential information but also Blogger, YouTube and Google Maps content that might breach privacy.
3. Beware of links such as “hAha Is tHIS you in VIDoe? — http://www.infectedlink.ru.” They are worms and, once clicked, self-replicate to spread and infect networks.
4. ZoneAlarm has an infographic showing which social networks are most secure. Facebook leads the pack, while LinkedIn trails far behind. Check it out.
5. Log out of any mobile devices. If your phone is lost or stolen, you’ve granted immediate access to Facebook and Twitter accounts.
6. Change passwords regularly. Think outside the box and Include capital letters, numbers and punctuation, even incorporating Shift and Alt key symbols for maximum security.
7. Check third-party applications frequently, and revoke access of ones you do not use.
8. If you do get hacked, follow advice from Twitter or Facebook.

Are you or your company concerned about security and safety on social networks? What measures do you have in place to prevent hacks? If you have further tips or advice, leave a comment.

Image credit: PN_Photo, via iStockphoto

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The health care industry is discovering the opportunities that social media can offer, such as increased patient-physician interaction and service integration. However, this new platform also brings with it some risks — known and unknown — that must be carefully managed. Glenn Byrd heads up the advertising and promotions team at MedImmune. Byrd will be a speaker at the upcoming marcus evans Social Media for Pharma Conference on Jan. 13 and 14 in Washington, D.C. In this edited interview, he offers insights into the issues surrounding social-media and the pharmaceutical industry.

How can you improve your product by listening to the conversations online?

When you look at this issue, particularly through a business or a customer service perspective, I think it’s easy to see that if you have insight into what your customers really want, then that kind of information helps companies produce products that customers will want to buy. That’s a broad issue — not just for health care.

A key thing here is making sure that not only are you listening, but you have a process in place that actually helps figure out how to act on what you are hearing. Listening is not enough if you are not doing anything about it. In a way, it’s like real-time market research, at least for our industry. You’re getting that real-time feedback, but not by using your own stimuli, which may give you better information to act on.

What steps can be taken to improve communication between patient and doctor by implementing a social-media strategy?

One possible way is to use social media or other digital strategies to help patients comply with their medication dosing, especially where medications have specific dosing schedules or dietary restrictions. Once a patient opts-in to use these kinds of tools, physicians and their offices can use those tools to keep patients on track using reminders or other forms of communication with them, even to the extent of scheduling follow-up appointments. It also gives patients the opportunity to be able to interact directly with physicians. What isn’t clear is how many patients and physicians are willing and able to engage in this kind of activity.

What are the risks associated with using social media in the health care industry?

We know about some of the risks, but for others, we just aren’t sure yet because this is a new way of interacting. The industry has to figure out what tools actually work for certain kinds of communications. We have to decide whether to passively or actively monitor social-media activity. Those are things companies are trying to wrestle with right now. In some cases, from my regulatory perspective, there might be tools out there that just don’t provide the amount of detail, or don’t give you the means to provide the amount of detail that Food and Drug Administration regulations require.

For example, if one decides that they want to communicate product information and in that same content talk about their patient population or maybe their indication, you then have the requirement to provide risk information to balance that discussion. In a tweet, for example, there is simply not enough real estate to do that in 140 characters. That poses a real challenge and real risks for companies.

I think the risk really comes down to the choices a company makes. If they choose to have a product discussion, then the risks go up. They also might choose to educate audiences [about] a particular disease or disease state; or they might use these tools to share corporate business communications — then I think the risks are lower.

When it comes to adverse-event reporting practices, what positive contribution can social media make to this area?

We’ve yet to see what kind of impact social media will have in regards to adverse-event reporting. Our industry is working to figure this out right now. It’s also awaiting guidance from FDA that we hope to be coming out on this topic. That, combined with the guidance that the FDA is also working on around promotional use of social-media tools, should help guide us around both the promotional aspect as well as the adverse-events reporting aspects.

The data I’ve heard presented to the FDA seems to signal that adverse-event reporting might be lower than people think, but I believe it is too early to tell. The jury is still out on what role social media may play as things move forward.

Image credit: pixhook, via iStockPhoto

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In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti in January, the response on Twitter provided a “textbook example” of how people use social media as a community to share information about a crisis, provide solutions to help and promote awareness about what is happening on the ground, said Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross at Buzz2010.

Harman, who leads the Red Cross’s social-media efforts, said she  faced tremendous challenges after the earthquake in Haiti. Harman and her team found success in a number of efforts, including a text campaign (“text ‘Haiti’ to 90999“) that allowed donors to give $10 to Red Cross relief efforts by charging the donation to their cell-phone bills. But she said her greatest takeaway from the event was a realization as to how people in affected areas used social media in the midst of a major tragedy.

Unlike during past emergencies, people on the ground in Haiti used Twitter, Facebook, and other social tools to call for help, advertise their location and let friends and loved ones know about their condition and safety. This provided a huge “wake-up call” to the Red Cross, Harman said, because even though the organization could see these messages, it had no means to effectively use the information and act on them.

What changes the game:

• In a recent Red Cross survey on social media, 74% of the more than 1,000 respondents noted that they would expect cries for help made on social mediums to be answered within an hour. At this time, however, there is no effective means of providing this kind of response.

Next steps for the Red Cross:

• On Thursday, it will be meeting at the Emergency Social Data Summit to “ develop a process to address this and harness the communication power of new media.”
• By working with a number of government partners, other nonprofits, and their tech and social teams, the organization is focusing on taking the public’s information into account in disaster response.

For more insight from Harman on the Red Cross and its use of social media in disaster response, check out this video of her talk at Buzz2010:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wendy spoke on Tuesday, July 20, about social media and risk as part of our Buzz2010 event series in Washington, D.C. The final session of the series is Wednesday, Aug. 18, on social media and return on investment, with Olivier Blanchard. Space is limited, so sign up here.

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Photo credit, iStock

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