Monthly Archives December 2010

As 2010 winds down and we all gear up for the start of a new year, there will be many posts about the topic of resolutions. The New Year gives us an excuse to start over and have another shot at making this year the best yet. There will be resolutions for weight loss, quitting smoking, spending more time with family, and all of the other classics. Since I am immersed in social media on a daily basis, I am also sure I will see many resolutions in regards to social media.

Most of these resolutions will come in one-size-fits-all dimensions and will not be tailored to the individual. So instead of doing a broad post about what you should do, I am going to share my personal social media resolutions, so you can take away from it what you will and maybe apply it to your work, life, or whatever. Without further adieu:

Continue to expand my knowledge base: One of the most important aspects of my job is to stay up to date on the latest and greatest trends that are happening in the social media world. So in 2011, I will make a dedicated effort to spend some time each day to read the blogs that will help me do that.

Document more: I don’t know about you, but my head is always filled with various trends and ideas, tools and more, that I usually learn about from following my first resolution. The next step in making all that knowledge applicable and usable is to do a better job of documenting what I read.

Improve my writing: Even though social media is a different kind of communication than formal writing, improving this skill is a great asset that can help me in many ways. Professionalism is still a very important skill, and nothing looks less professional than updates or e-mails with spelling and grammatical errors. In my case, it also will help streamline the process and make it less burdensome on the rest of the team.

Process is important: One of the things I learned over the last year is that you can have the best idea ever, but without the proper process to make sure it comes to fruition, it can quickly die a tragic death. This ties into resolution #2, because having a properly documented process can mean the difference between a ship-shape team and total chaos.

Prove value: Another important takeaway from 2010 is realizing that not everyone perceives value the same way. It is important to not only show the value in our actions and plans, but also to make sure we are cognizant of how others perceive value. With that insight, it’s much easier to understand how to prove our actions are adding value.

So there you have it. These are my personal resolutions for Social Media in 2011. As I mentioned, I hope you can look at these and utilize the concepts in your own resolutions. I hope you accomplish all of the goals that you set for yourself this year. Happy New Year to everyone.

Some of us need a little nudging—more like a good shaking—to remind us we’re actually not at work. The pull to check your email, send a file, tweak a deliverable, or post to a work-related social media account is constant and tempting. Even chocolate and good company is no match because separating yourself from something you’re deeply committed to and engaged by is a challenge.

But in the end, the people that really suffer are the people you care most about—your friends and family. Your kids can’t get through to “Blackberry Dad” and your friends don’t want to hang out with “Social Media Sarah.” It’s a conundrum you have to find a graceful way out of, and there are definitely some things worth trying to make it work. No judgments here, just helpful rules, from equally tech-work absorbed people, for making the most of your time off for the holidays.

Rule #1 – Turn off all work-related devices and streams. Go cold turkey for a few days. Not every email needs a right-now response, and you’ll be surprised to find that some things work themselves out when given a little bit of time.

Rule #2 – Make every computer/mobile interaction just for fun. It’s impossible in this day and age to unplug completely, and why should you when technology is this much fun? So when you find that shiny new iPad under the tree, boot it up for no other reason than entertainment.

Rule #3 – Set up emergency contact protocol and stick to it. Not everyone can abide by rule #1. Some gigs are just too demanding, but you can filter what’s important. Give your contact info to someone you trust, and tell them to reach out only for emergencies. Then, relax and enjoy yourself.

Rule #4 – Spend some quality online time with the kids. Hang out with your kids online over the holidays, and get ready to learn a few things. You may not make it on their Facebook profiles, at least the one their friends see, but you’ll get to see what sites they like and what digital haunts they frequent.

Rule #5 – Let yourself be engaged by the present moment. Living a digital life, one gets pretty used to navigating a constant stream of information. This is a good thing when you’re trying to manage a project with several moveable parts. It’s not a good thing, though, when grandma is telling you a story. Just listen. Don’t think about your next tweet or worry about shaving more time from a task to stay on track.

All right, enough with the instruction manual. It’s the time of year when sharing time and making memories with the important people in your life is the hippest and most connected thing in the world. Everyone does this in their own way, and the time has officially arrived. I’m signing out now to spread the joy.

Word of Mouth Marketing is the one of the oldest forms of marketing that there is. It refers to the process of recommendations about a product or service from one consumer to another. This basic premise is still one of the strongest influences on purchasing behavior. New online tools have increased the importance of word of mouth marketing because they allow for greater and faster sharing of information among consumers. The bad part is that keeping up with new technologies is a 24/7 endeavor by itself. So instead of focusing on merely keeping up with technology, it’s much more important on using the right technologies in the optimal way. That’s where the three E’s come in:

1. Engage – Engagment is the first step, assuming that you have already been listening to your consumers and know their digital hangouts. It involves reaching out and starting a conversation. There are many way to engage your consumers, such as blogger outreach, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, discussion boards, and the list goes on and on. Just remember if you are not engaging in conversation with your consumers, then you are missing valuable opportunities to make real connections—and you’ll wind up playing catch up when a crisis arises.
2. Encourage – This next step has two main components: making all of your content shareable and making it really easy for your consumers to share your content. When you make content shareable, you encourage your consumers to talk about your products and services all over the web. But first, you’ll have to create content that people will want to share. All content a company produces should be from this frame of reference. Then, close the Encourage loop by putting all necessary share icons in place—Facebook, Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us, Stumble Upon, etc. A little research will tell you which ones matter most to your consumers.
3. Empower – The is the last step in the three E’s process. It goes beyond encouragement, as it involves freely giving consumers the information or resources they need to become a brand advocate. A great example of this is the new Ford Fiesta campaign. Ford realized that, in order to encourage buzz around their new car, they needed to harness and empower individuals to do so. Ford gave away a number of the new cars and allowed select people to test drive them and share their experiences. By utilizing these ambassadors, Ford went from just encouraging organic sharing to actually empowering their consumers by recognizing them as brand advocates.

Despite the tactics you use, and which of these three steps your tactic focuses on, there is one more overarching E that also needs to be considered: the Emotional connection between a consumer and a brand. Because let’s face it, without this connection, it is very unlikely that a consumer will share their experience.