Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not enough. Having social media accounts is certainly a great (and quite necessary) start, but if you don’t use them to interact with your current and potential customers, there’s really no point.

Luckily, I’ve picked 3 simple and free social media tools to get you pointed in the right direction:

• OnlyWire: Have a few social media accounts, lots to say and little time? Check out OnlyWire. This tool enables you to post content across multiple social networks at the same time, with the push of a button. The service includes all of the top social and professional networks, and the free version allows for 300 submissions per month. Say goodbye to multiple log-ins and hello to your customers.

• Roost: Use Facebook and Twitter, but not always sure what to post or when? Give your content a boost with Roost. Their free Campaign Creator connects to your profiles, lets you schedule single posts or entire campaigns, and analyzes their reach to suggest areas for improvement. This tool can also apply a fancy algorithm to your Facebook data, spitting out a score that determines whether or not your audience will drive business to your location. It’ll even tell you the geographic spread of your fans.

• Timely: Under the impression that the more times you hop on Twitter and drop your knowledge the better? Timely begs to differ…according to this tool, it’s not about the number of times you tweet, it’s about which times you tweet (however, please don’t forget that first and foremost it’s about the content). Timely will analyze your last 199 tweets, figure out the best time slots, and auto-schedule your posts based on the data. Now you can start dropping that knowledge when it’s most likely to be picked up.

With new social media monitoring tools (many of them free) popping up almost by the day, there should be no excuse for neglecting your networks. Start engaging with your current and potential customers and you might be surprised by the increase in online conversations surrounding your brand.

For small businesses not up to speed on social media, this form of online networking can open up a plethora of opportunities for companies who are looking to better engage their current and potential customers.

But what happens when your social media plans go astray? Is it too late to fix them or can you make the necessary changes and still capitalize on all social media has to offer your company?

The answer to those two questions is no and yes, respectively.

Understanding Your Social Media Mistakes

The first and foremost task is realizing what the mistake is, how it happened, and what can be done about it. Once those areas are understood, you can be on your way to bettering your social media efforts.

So what are some of the top SM mistakes your small business should try and avoid? They include:

• Not being social media oriented to begin with – This sounds like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many companies are slow to catch on to social media. Whether they think it is not worth their time or they don’t believe they have the resources for it, both are bad excuses. When used correctly, social media for a business can be quite profitable, both in terms of public relations and return on investment (ROI).;

• Not tracking your SM metrics – What’s the sense of doing something if you’re not going to track the results? Too often, companies will throw stuff out there for the public and not measure the ROI. Take the time to delve into the analytics and see what aspects of your company’s SM program is working and what needs attention;

• Not engaging when you get feedback – If you have a company blog, Twitter, Facebook accounts etc. you’re more than likely going to receive feedback from both current and potential customers. When an individual sends you questions and/or comments regarding your products and services, you need to respond in a prompt manner. In the event you don’t, the individual contacting your company is likely to take their questions and/or concerns elsewhere, perhaps your competition. This includes responding to negative feedback, something too many companies shy away from;

• Not providing fresh content – In the event part of your SM campaign involves blogging, you cannot blog once or twice a month as a business and expect to gain a large following. Along with the obvious reason for wanting fresh content (being viewed as up with the times), the major search engines will treat you more kindly if your content is fresh. Stale content leads to a lower ranking and less eyes on the page;

• Not thinking ahead – Remember, social media is always evolving, so you need to have your finger on the pulse. If your company chooses to outsource its social media needs, make sure you are working with a public relations or marketing firm that has your best interests in mind, not what is best for them. If you’re doing the SM campaign in-house, then sit down with the marketing team (assuming they are leading the project) and ask them to plan out what they will be doing tomorrow, the next day and the next day regarding social media. When consumers come to your site, you want them leaving with that ‘wow factor’ and not the ‘I’ve seen this so many times before’ factor.

Utilizing a strong social media campaign for your company is actually easier than you think.

At the end of the day, being social in today’s world has a lot more rewards to it than being anti-social.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ business phone systems writes extensively for www.business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

With over 3,152,000 Likes on the Audi USA Facebook page, it’s not surprising that Audi’s fan engagement is above average. What is surprising, however, is that Audi has had an average of 7,487 Likes and 292 Comments on their posts so far in April.

According to Mashable, Saif Ajani, CEO and co-founder of Visibli, is not sure why Audi ranked so high in this study. “We’re trying to figure it out ourselves,” Ajani says. Even though Visibli’s CEO can’t pinpoint why Audi ranked so high in this study, I can offer a few points as to how this happened:

1. Unique Opportunities: Audi isn’t just pushing out facts about their latest models, posting videos from auto shows, and giving away free cars on their Facebook page; Audi is creating an engaging experience for their fans.
   On March 11th, Audi asked fans, “What’s the best thing that anyone has ever said about your Audi at the pump?” This question encouraged conversation amongst car enthusiasts and provided a unique opportunity for Audi owners to share their stories. From our experience, status updates that end with a question have a higher interaction rate than those that do not.

   

2. Photos: From managing my own clients’ communities, it is obvious that photos generate a higher Facebook interaction rate than other posts that include videos, links, etc. Photos not only generate higher interactions on the Wall, but they also have priority when Facebook’s Edgerank determines what to include in the Top News feed. More time in the news feed means more consumer engagement.
   I decided to test this theory on the Audi Facebook page (since they post multiple pictures and albums a week) and found that Audi’s photo uploads have generated an average of 11% more Likes and 75% more Comments than other posts so far in April.

   

3. Passion: Let’s be honest, it helps that Audi is a recognizable, sexy brand, but that’s not all they have going for them. Just looking at Audi’s Facebook page, it’s obvious that there is a real passion there, both from the brand and the consumers.It’s important for any brand to play on the consumer’s emotion to increase engagement on Facebook.
   In this instance, Audi USA provides a platform for Audi lovers to bond over their favorite car and emotionally connect with the brand.

Why do you think Visibli concluded that Audi is the most engaged page on Facebook? Leave a comment below.

I had a great conversation with Barbara French of Tekrati and (formerly) Influencer50 about understanding the layers of influencer identification. We both agree on the importance of identifying and cultivating relationships with not only the most influential of your followers but also the second, third and fourth tiers. This extended group, who could potentially be considered brand advocates (a distinction best left to another post), has the potential to drive significant growth in your organization.

A few great examples of well-cultivated influencer groups:

• Maker’s Mark promotes brand advocates by inviting them into an Ambassador program which gives them personalized business cards and assigns their name to a cask in the distillery
• We’ve all heard of the recent Nestle fiasco on Facebook. Some Greenpeace advocates attacked Dove’s Facebook page at the same time, but Dove’s cultivated supporters rose up and backed the brand, with very little involvement from Dove itself

Do you have any good examples to share?

Three Common Reasons for Social Media

In our experience at Room 214 we typically see three major reasons organizations dive into social media:

1. Product Development/Feedback
2. Sales/Marketing/Brand
3. Customer Service

Each one of those “reasons” requires its own cast of characters to “own” the process. In addition – each carries unique key performance indicators to measure the health and success of the project. Because function-specific business goals, community value and KPI’s are all different – it’s critical for anyone heading social media efforts in a particular channel to have a clear understanding of the impact measures.

Know Thyself

To steal from Farmer Ted ask: “Who Am I?” In a recent webinar delivered by the Altimeter Group about developing a social strategy one key point was to consider how your company will run things. Will it be Organic, like a Microsoft, where it’s loose and open? Centralized like Starbucks, where it’s controlled by one department? Coordinated like HP, where all departments are participatory but guided by strategy and rules?

The success for a social media program increases significantly when the structure matches the culture – in the beginning that is. As the organizations ingests social media into its culture it will change things – but to begin with – know who you are. Natural leaders will emerge.

Structure Your Team Based on the Golden Rule: You Respond To It – You Own It
The rule is if you respond to an online conversation you own it. For that reason you don’t want PR people responding to a customer service issue because more than likely they don’t have the authority, or resources, to drive resolution. If you’re not driving resolution with customer service issues you’re doing more harm than good.

Conversely you don’t want a product developer in charge of creating a response to an attack (justified or not) on the brand.
Know the conversations happening around your brand and make sure the right people are there to own it.

Ensuring a Common Thread

We do believe Corporate Communications should have intimate knowledge of the organization’s social media activities. Reason: a disturbance in the force requires a quick and professional response. The organization does not want the 24-year old tasked with community management on Facebook stoking consumer ire because they didn’t keep their cool.

Competent Sounding Board

Even if the Corp Com team gets pulled in there needs to be an individual(s) acting as a competent sounding board to provide insight into the rules and structure of the community. This keeps from crafting a response strategy that unintentionally throws fuel on the fire.

So Who Owns It?

Answer the questions:

• What’s your reason for getting into social media?
• How will you measure success?
• What’s your corporate culture?
• What are people saying?
• Who’s got the budget?
• Who’s got the time, energy and willingness to do it right?

Envelope Please
And the answer is: It Depends

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

- Dr. Suess

….glad you asked though.

Expectations
Consumers expect free. If your content isn’t free, they’ll find it elsewhere. Mashable (via Nielsen) points out how cheap we’ve all become: “nearly eight out of every ten (79%) [consumers] would no longer use a web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost.” If content is now ubiquitous, how could we consider charging for it?

The Story
Everyone kept talking about the story and how it’s the most important part of content creation. Key takeaway: it doesn’t matter how cutting edge the technology is. If the story isn’t there, then consumers won’t stick with it. An issue that comes with this is that everyone gets to tell a story on the web. Which leads us to…

Curation
As everyone on the internet is now a content creator, curation has become a key part of filtering the web. Enter voting. Whether it be through Digg (for the internet at large) or through simple voting systems (for the children using Kerpoof), voting ensures that we don’t have to wade through the bad content.

Attention Spans
With an iPhone app, you have 10 seconds to pull someone in. With a movie, you might have 10 minutes (funny anecdote from Don Hahn on The Lion King choosing to have every animal in Africa appear in the first scene to achieve the “wow”). You need the initial punch in the stomach or, as David Rolfe said, you need to constantly find new ways to interrupt. Interruption gets harder as we multitask our way through life.

The Elephant in the Room
The theme of the conversation was story, story, story. All content creation, all one-way conversation. This notion seems terribly out-of-date. Consumers expect to be listened to, and if there isn’t a forum for conversation, they’ll move on.

Curation is a good first step, as it asks for interaction. But what about content creation that has always been one-way? My own key takeaway for any content creation, including tradional (film, TV) and new (blogs, Facebook and Twitter): Make sure you have a captivating storyline, functional if not innovative technology, and a feedback loop that opens the door for conversation. I do wonder what the film industry will look like in 2020.

Supporters of Conan O’Brien have joined forces to (loosely) create Team COCO. This team has some major traction, and it’s all because Conan O’Brien’s core audience is a group of Facebooking, Youtubing, non-traditional TV watching 20-somethings like myself. What I find most interesting is that the online conversation, one large enough to effect a sea-change in the world of late-night, is being held almost entirely outside of the reach of Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno and NBC.

There’s also an online store where you can buy a tshirt and print of this now well-known image. In case you’re too broke and/or busy to buy a t-shirt and attend a rally, you can simply download and print out an image of Conan’s hair and either wear or display it. He’s also had tremendous celebrity support (catch this greatvideo of Jimmy Kimmel on Leno).

Even google search appears to be on Team COCO.

So what?

Conan’s ratings, which have consistently been lower than his CBS counterpart David Letterman, have been up dramatically this week. Last night he beat out Letterman’s 1.0 rating with a 1.9, a number which represented Conan O’Brien’s all-time high. And, regardless of all the negative press, NBC has enjoyed a huge increase in viewership for The Late Show with Conan O’Brien.

Does this mean NBC will reverse its decision? No. The timing and fate of both NBC shows remains undecided. But it is without a doubt that NBC, any other network shopping a Conan show, and Conan O’Brien himself will take this extremely vocal audience into account as they move forward with decisions. It’s a tough debate with this group; you’ve got an audience who doesn’t affect a traditional metric (live viewership) but still will take the time to speak in a collective voice loud enough to make headlines.

So if you’ve got a group who is going to talk, it’s important prepare for their reaction. I’d venture to guess NBC had no clue the effect of their conversations regarding late night. It looks like it’s had both positive and negative effect thus far. I’m interested in the outcome.

Five years ago, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising were only beginning to take shape as legitimate lead generation and marketing strategies. At the time, SEO and PPC were cutting edge marketing strategies – many brands and companies had heard the buzz surrounding SEO and PPC, but were unable to pinpoint strategy or purpose behind it.

Today, SEO and PPC have evolved into common marketing strategies for brands to place their marketing budget. Companies understand the huge opportunities that exist within search marketing for return on investment. Social media, conversely, exists much like SEO and PPC did five years ago. Companies and brands are keen to explore the social media space, but are often unable to define social media marketing success or execute a defined strategy.

Within our niche in the industry, we execute both search marketing and social media marketing for clients. As such, there exists a unique opportunity to take learnings and success from search marketing efforts and transition into the social media space. This is what happened with an opportunistic client of ours.

We were initially hired to restructure The Client’s AdWords account and increase conversion volume. They had managed their PPC efforts internally, and reached out to us to take their account to the next level. After much research and testing, we were able to determine what converted within their account – what calls to action best resonated with users, what keywords and themes were most effective, and what landing page variations were most conducive to converting. We branched out their PPC efforts into Yahoo! and Bing with continued success. Eventually, The Client began asking, “what next?” – their PPC accounts were converting in record numbers at the lowest cost per conversion yet.

Moving forward, we thoroughly researched The Client and their presence online and saw a huge opportunity for them to improve their organic search rankings. Therefore, our next step in their overall strategy was an SEO overhaul. We were able to construct an SEO blueprint based upon their PCC successes and laid out a clear strategy with actionable goals. This SEO strategy is still being executed, but we have already seen important gains in organic search results for several search terms. Recently, The Client again asked “what next?” with their sights set on entering into the space of social media.

The next phase in the overall strategy for The Client was taking the business intelligence learned from successful PPC and SEO implementation and applying it into the space of social media. Sometimes, depending on what industry you are looking to engage with, simply setting up a Facebook page or a Twitter handle is not a priority for a client. After all, you cannot fit a square peg into a round hole. With The Client being in a niche industry, there simply was not enough chatter or interest on Facebook or Twitter to warrant developing a strategy. Therefore, we researched alternative, more relevant opportunities in the social media space for The Client to engage with.

After meeting with key stakeholders and discussing goals, we were able to conclude that the next logical step was for The Client to begin a blog. A blog strategy presented the best opportunity to base conversation in the social media space around learnings from search marketing. Why? Because through search marketing, we are able to pinpoint what inspires potential customers to engage with the company. The Client will be able to create engaging conversations based around these learnings through a blog. They will be able to reach their target audience, reach industry influencers who act as information-hungry word of mouth propellers,as well as comment on other niche blogs, message boards and forums.

As it was with search marketing five years ago, social media marketing today poses a conundrum for brands – they realize that they should probably participate in the space, but are unclear how to enter in and achieve success. For a company like The Client, calculated steps and a logical progression from search engine marketing to social media marketing proved to be the best strategy. The calls to action that have worked best through SEO and PPC now act as a road map for content creation we know will be relevant to prospects, customers and influencers in the social media space.

Has anyone else had success transitioning learnings from search engine marketing into social media? Have any questions or comments? Leave them here!

First, I would like to state that we are big fans of Forrester’s POST (People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology) approach to social strategy. The components represent a linear model that I’d argue holds true for any online marketing efforts. You can dig deeper into this by reading Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

The Figure below illustrates Forrester’s POST approach.

How the POST approach is actually integrated from a social media planning and execution perspective is where our own PPLE (Plan, Pilot, Launch, Extend – pronounced “people”) framework becomes relevant (see figure below).

The practices behind PPLE are outlined as follows:

Plan: Addresses six core program elements (Workflow, Marketing Strategy, Content, People, Technology and Data) in the context of research and Forrester’s POST methodology. This typically includes technology evaluations, social media monitoring, creative ideation, and development of strategies and tactics.

Pilot: Leverages a limited number of platforms with which to engage the market. Reduces risk, uncovers problems and provides data and feedback – flying “under the radar” to validate efforts prior to launch. This typically includes technology integration and development.

Launch: Uses additional marketing tactics to extend awareness and participation within chosen social networks. Re-aligns with business objectives and earns multidisciplinary team and public support.

Extend: Extends efficiencies and insights to other social networking models, technologies, and customer-specific initiatives.

The PPLE framework offers a proven structure to follow while providing a unique and holistic client preview for social media campaign development and strategy. It is complimentary to Forrester’s approach, and helps to facilitate the communications and execution of work, ultimately enabling the value of our company.

Have you seen similar frameworks or methodologies? What does your experience tell you about this kind of asset?

I’ve been witnessing a dichotomy: Many marketing professionals are unaware social media agencies even exist, while at the same time, emerging hordes are on their way to creating them. Whether you’re a social media “expert” looking to build an agency, or part of a company trying to understand why you might need one – this post should offer some insight.

At Room 214 we consider three areas of focus as seen in the diagram above: Analysts, Engineers and Creatives. Competency with respect to communications and the actual execution of work takes place in and across each of the three, ultimately enabling our value as a social media agency.

Each of the three focus areas have their own value propositions, and like a tri-pod, the whole operation is ineffective if one of the legs is too weak to support its part of the load.

1. Being Analysts: One of the beauties of Internet-based campaigns is the ability to track and measure what people do. With traditional web analytics meeting with new conversational analytics, the data can be overwhelming. Social media agencies have the expertise in sifting through the data to interpret insights leading to actions.

Due to the explosion of social media, there has been an emergence of social media monitoring and business intelligence tools for benchmarking, competitive analysis and gaining insights around certain topics that can be tracked in blogs, forums, Twitter posts and mainstream media.

The question becomes:  Are the tools and data valuable? Yes. Do busy marketing or service support professionals have time to stay on top of them to the extent of actually impacting their business? Often not.

Top 5 Value Propositions from Social Media Analysts:

• Identification of trends, and insights into thought leadership
• Objective evaluations of tools, strategies and tactics
• Understanding and establishing best practices
• Research, benchmarking and measurement
• Filtering out the unwanted noise and capturing actionable data

2. Being Engineers: This is a key differentiator for our agency, in particular – even to the extent of adopting “social media engineers” as our tagline. Why? Because in our experience, a high level of expertise around technical platforms and infrastructure is a leading contributor to quickly making and keeping companies competitive.

Consider Facebook as a case and point: In the context of “engineering,” there are three technology environments in Facebook that need consideration: Application development, Facebook Connect, and the functionality of general pages. Each of these areas has its own set of rules. The documentation is arguably limited, and as@DominicDiMarco put it – “the target seems to be constantly moving.”

You may have great ideas – but the ability to execute and leverage relevant assets is often delayed and overly expensive due to a lack of technical (engineering) expertise.

Top 5 Value Propositions from Social Media Engineers:

• Knowledge of when to build vs. when to buy
• Ability to uniquely integrate, build and implement technology
• Insight to how solutions scale or how they are limited
• Innovation needed to improve upon accepted functionalities
• Customization of tools, applications and social platforms

3. Being Creatives: One thing I’ve noticed about “agency” vs. “contractor” status is the expectation around coming up with great ideas. Effectively implementing and supporting social media campaigns is critical to the success of any agency in this industry, but conceptualizing and communicating (internally or externally) great ideas requires a combination of skill and inspiration.

Expecting clients to conceptualize along with you without effective presentation aids, creative samples and proofs of concept can be an uphill battle. The ability to articulate, justify and demonstrate an idea from inception – then efficiently create the spaces by which it may grow and materialize is a practice in and of itself.

Top 5 Value Propositions from Social Media Creatives:

• Frameworks for brainstorming and conceptualization
• Development of visual samples or proofs of concept
• Collaborative processes to improve upon original concepts
• Holistic approaches to leveraging existing assets, advertising and PR
• Relevance around usability and effective models of engagement

It’s easy to conclude that leading social media agencies must wear many hats – analysts, engineers and creatives. And being successful while maintaining a competitive edge requires a constant fitting of all three hats.

Where do you believe most agencies are strong or lacking? Are there aspects of the stated value propositions you would like to elaborate on from your own experience?