Social Marketing Conversations

Equating a successful social media presence to a well-planned cocktail party is a common comparison.  When plotting a strategy consider a variety of techniques based around the cocktail party model.

One of those tactics is a drawing or door-prize that uses a contest model.  The conversation on how to develop an online contest has come often enough and over the holiday break, I took the time to use my favorite ideation tool to develop a model.

There are two legs to this model – one is low ‘hard cost’ and just requires a good deal of manual labor to implement, monitor and manage.  The second leg assumes most all of what is in the first, but allows for a more robust implementation assuming a funded budget for custom programming and monitoring tools.

What would be the results of this kind of a campaign?

• Increased awareness of the brand / message
• Increased followers / fans
• Some combination of the two

How would you determine the ROI of the effort? Begin with tracking the initial investments and setting the baseline of what’s happening now.  Establish what a success looks like and monitor measure and readjust as needed.

There are probably a few more aspect than I have considered here though – what would you add?

The model used MindManager from Mindjet to create the Mind Map of the Online Contest Model.  Make sure you are current with Adobe Acrobat8 and Flash9 installed and this mind map & player should work (MindJet requirements).  Mac users may have issues – contact me to send you the MindMap itself if you have the Mac version of MindManager.

FCC Disclaimer – TSMB Media is a registered reseller of Mindjets Mind Manager products and receives no remuneration / compensation

Facebook put in play the privacy policy updates they promised on December 1st.  I blogged about it yesterday, lauding the process that will it will at least cause users to think about how they share information on Facebook – it’s likely to be the only time they are pressed to do so.

Today Adam Ostrow at Mashable posted responses from various organization who have put themselves at the front of the personal-privacy-on-the-Internet issue.  They have all come out with responses that portend the end of personal privacy on the web, should users ignore the process and just blindly accept the ‘suggested’ setting proposed by Facebook.

When presented with the dialog box and process today, I took extra time to understand what they we’re asking and what it might mean.  I do recognize that many users will not take the time, they will trust the recommendations and they will just click through the dialog boxes, permitting a level of visibility of their Facebook presence they perhaps did not intend.

If Facebook users are concerned about what they share, this process will allow them to review their setting (a good thing) and establish a level of personal visibility commensurate with their wishes.  If a Facebook user is not concerned with what they share, they will be able to quickly and easily set their account to be as open as the front door at Macy’s on Black Friday.

If later they wish to retract that level of permission, they will be able to albeit perhaps some information may ‘escape’ control of the account holder, but not because of Facebook – it would be because of a personal decision that I think Facebook is making an honest effort to help users confront.

The responses of the ACLU N. California Chapter, EFF, Sophos and Trend Micro are summed up by Adam in saying “All of these sources are essentially saying the same thing: the privacy changes at Facebook have the potential to create significant issues for those who don’t carefully review them, which, let’s be honest, is likely to be most users.”

Yes, it will be most users who ignore the best efforts of Facebook to involve them in this very important and pertinent issue, but the changes are being presented appropriately and honestly by Facebook, not being slipped in at the backdoor under some false pretense.  Instead of taking issue with Facebooks’ legitimate effort, I’d like to see the experts supporting the personal responsibility users SHOULD be taking in addressing their personal privacy, not deriding the effort by Facebook to have them address it.

Image Courtesy of Alicia Rae on Flickr

“I can’t get into social media, it’s too public – I do not want someone knowing everything about me!”  This is a popular objection for individuals and business looking into social media. 

In my opinion, privacy concerns in the US are way over-rated.  I get a sense that people are somehow expecting some degree of privacy online, but when back as far as 1999 Scott McNealy as CEO of Sun Microsystems was quoted by PC Week as saying, "You have zero privacy now, get over it", and that was back in 1999 – what do you think the environment is like now?  Privacy on the web is like looking for Hens teeth – they / it does not exist.

Moving past the implied lack of privacy on the web, you need to know that there are often excellent privacy controls already in place in most every social networks, Facebook is continuing to to enhance and simplify the process that allows you to determine just who gets to see what on your Facebook page.

Facebook is by far the most popular social network on the planet with over 350,000,000 users.  This kind of presence provides a unique opportunity for the people behind Facebook.  They can act like bullies and demand people comply with their policies and procedures, they can be benevolent dictators that establish policy and procedures they think best suit their audience or they can recognize that leadership is not something that is taken from people, it is given by people to the brands and people they trust.

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With my involvement in social media approaching it’s fourth year, I see a pattern emerging in the foundational elements of an effective online presence.  There are three elements in the strategy that encompass the tactics that I believe need to be adopted to support a presence.

I see it as particular to the timeline of an exchange or conversation and how it contributes to social capital.  The caveat is of course that no one strategy fits all companies.  If however you are not going to engage for a professionally developed social media strategy, this is a good one to cut your teeth on and get going.

The first point of the triangle is the blog.  Recently social media strategist have suggested that CEO’s and thought leaders might want to reconsider their use of the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.   That’s because as valuable as a CEO’s time is, posting to a micro-blogging tool that is not indexed by search engines represents content that cannot be later referenced in the conversation with an audience.  A blog on the other hand will retain the conversation, search engines will find it and those that want to, will then be able to find the content via search, by referral or via direct reference by other sites. 

The blog is the component that represents the location on the web where you would want to to open or reply to conversations regarding your public strategy, the reasons you’ve invested in the products / services you have and the virtues of the organization (your organization) behind it – it’s the stuff you want the public to know about you, your product and your company. 

It’s also where you’ll respond to comments posted elsewhere that you want to reply to that require more than a few dozen words.  Lastly, and this is a point I’ve debated before with friends, pundits and followers, do not attempt to moderate the comments made to your blog.  You can always delete spam, remove rude remarks and ban people who cannot be civil.  An attempt to moderate a blog implies you do not trust your audience – a mistake when trust is the commodity you have to trade in a social media setting.

The second point of the trinity is micro-blogging.  A lot of life and business happens between the more formal blog posts you make.  Sprinkled into the millions of inane tweets are much more salient tweets that, in a well prepared social media strategy, could serve to connect you and your company to your prospects, customers and stakeholders.  One at a time, the tweets might be irrelevant, but taken in context they can present a more human image of you and what you’re trying to accomplish.  They might also support a powerful ROI, one modeled by Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.TV in his now famous comparison of direct mail, freeway billboard and micro-blogging-based campaign results.

The third point of the triangle is social networking.  You may find that one social network is insufficient to connect to the audience you’re targeting, or you may find that there is a special-built social network that is already targeting your audience.  A Pew Internet Study shows that the majority of Internet users are participants in social networks now and their use is growing.

The social network rounds out the model by enabling a conversation unfettered by you or your company.  Unfettered, but not unmonitored.  You want your users to be able to connect with one another in a place you can connect with them.  They are going to talk about you, your product and your brand – there is just no stopping it.  By providing a platform for the conversation at least you get a chance to engage.

As an opening effort for the do-it-yourselfer’s out there, The Trinity of Social Media is complete with a blog, a micro-blog and a social network.  Pay attention to this, use at least this as a strategy and you’ll get a more positive result in social media than doing any single one of them without a strategy.

Is there a secret to it?  Only if you think there is a secret to strategy and a coordinated effort.  They need to be coordinated and developed to support one another in their operation and in the way they support one another.  Could one be implemented without the other?  Certainly – I present this strategy often enough to recognize that not everyone want to type / input their content. 

What else needs to be answered in this model? a lot.  If the blog was a video blog or a podcast would that work?  If the micro-blog was video or audio based would that count?  Which social network is the right one or should it be special constructed?  How do you get the answer?  subscribe here, join the community at TheSocialMediaBible.com or get a professional on your team and they can step your through the evaluation quickly.

Are there pitfalls to be avoided in the strategy?  Undoubtedly – but the overwhelming failure is to not engage in social media and believe you will somehow not be ignored or that your competition will also be complacent.  Actually, if you are a company and you are ignored, that is an important data point by itself – what might you be doing wrong?

[Update] I had someone suggest I create a Mind Map to help illustrate the Trinity of Social Media.  Neat idea! I used MindManager from Mindjet to create a Mind Map of the Trinity of Social Media.  Make sure you are current with Adobe Acrobat8 and Flash9 installed and this mind map & player should work (MindJet requirements)

If you’re on an Apple / Mac, you may only be able to open the .JPG of the map (click the image to the left).