Over the past few weeks, you’ve met our social media-loving team of community managers. They engage in social media, create a human connection with our community (or create helpful content for them), and embody a key element of our “Radian6-ness.” Of course, we continue to celebrate community management every day given its impact and important role in our enterprise social media strategy.

But we’re not done yet. Here are three more members of our community management team.

Heather MacLean, Senior Community Manager

Working with the Community Engagement Specialists team, Heather brings extensive marketing and public relations experience from both private and public sector organizations.  Heather has worked in social media for close to a decade and was the driving force behind Canada’s first electric utility embarking upon their social media journey.

Prior to the world of social media, Heather designed and executed the marketing and communications plan for Canada’s first Airline Travel Bank™. For her efforts, Heather was nominated and a finalist for Canada’s Top 40 Under 40.  In addition to the utilities/energy and aviation industries, Heather has worked in the IT, e-learning, aerospace/defense, tourism and news media industries.

Addicted to learning, Heather is working on her third degree in her spare time, loves spending time with family and friends and her Collie, Seven.  Heather’s other passions include the advocacy of literacy as the foundation for community.

Jenn Seeley, Community Engagement Specialist, Resident Travel Industry Watchtower

Jenn has been traveling since she was a little girl. From family vacations at Disney World to educational visits around Europe, she’s happiest when she’s on the go. Take offs and landings never get old. It’s no surprise that she loves her job as a Community Engagement Specialist with Radian6, focusing on travel, tourism, leisure and entertainment.

Originally from the tiny home of the longest covered bridge in the world, Jenn loves any opportunity to connect with people in faraway places. It’s no wonder she loves social media (and is slightly addicted to Twitter).

In her free time, Jenn enjoys watercolor painting, playing the trumpet and pretending she can knit.

Trish Forant, Community Manager

Trish joined the company in February of last year and is coming up on her one year anniversary. Prior to joining Radian6, she worked as a consultant, helping non-profits and small businesses create their social media strategies as an IT Instructor for ExecuTrain and as an Internet Specialist at Carnival Cruise Lines. If you’ve been on the social media scene for some time, you may know her best as @Dayngr, the founder, president and social media presence behind eMailOurMilitary.com, a charitable organization she created to support military service members through email and new media.

When she’s not engaging on behalf of Radian6, you can find Trish blogging about her life in sunny South Florida, being a mom to the Dayngrous Duo and her eldest son who recently became a Marine. As an active philanthropist, she’s passionate about using new media for good and is a founding member of Mom Bloggers for Social Good.

What’s your tip for successfully working with a social media community?

Heather: The main thing to remember is that you are working with people.  People like to be listened to, valued, respected and know that if they have a question, they can seek answers.  Working in social media is no different.  It is all about people.

Jenn: The travel industry is very mature in social media compared to other vertical markets. One might think this makes my job easier, but in fact it becomes more difficult to really find the best conversations to jump into, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed. My advice? Be patient, find the conversations that are the most interesting and do your best to be helpful. Sharing is caring!

Trish: Be yourself, let your personality shine though and be as social as possible. In many ways, working with your community across social platforms is like working at the counter of the small town general store, but on a much larger scale. Get to know the people by name, let them get to know you and treat them with the same respect you’d want them to treat you.

You can reach our team at community@radian6.com, or click on Heather’s, Jenn’s or Trish’s name for their Twitter handles.

Last week, Jeff discussed the Good versus Evil of using hashtags for social media measurement. This week, we’re focusing specifically on the hashtag fail. Brands use hashtags on a regular basis to engage their communities around their marketing campaigns and track the conversation. While some hashtag campaigns are a success, others aren’t so lucky. Here are some ways brands can prevent hashtag fails, as well as strategies for dealing with a hashtag crisis once it arises.

How to Prevent a Hashtag Fail

What better way to deal with a hashtag fail than preventing it in the first place? Here are some points to consider before you hit the tweet button.

Do Your Research

If you tweet a hashtag without doing your research, your brand could find itself in a lot of trouble. You don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or inadvertently involve yourself in a conversation where you don’t belong. Before you decide on a hashtag for your campaign, look it up on Twitter to see if it is already being used and in what context.

Be Wary of Trending Hashtags

While it might be tempting to include a popular hashtag to get your campaign noticed, don’t align yourself with a topic that doesn’t fit with your brand or that is sensitive or controversial. For a great example of how to incorporate trending hashtags successfully, check out this tweet from the Red Cross.

We may not collect #tigerblood, but we know our donors & volunteers have fierce passion for doing good! #RedCrossMonth

— American Red Cross (@RedCross) March 2, 2011

Timing is Everything

Even if you’ve carefully researched your campaign hashtag, consider the timing. If your company is already going through a difficult situation, an ill-timed hashtag could cause more problems. Consider how the hashtag could be perceived by your community and anticipate all possible reactions. If you have any doubts, postpone your campaign or take another course of action.

Be Consistent

Keep your brand messaging and tone consistent for your customers. Before you launch a hashtag campaign, ask yourself if it is in line with your brand identity. Likewise, make sure the tone of the hashtag fits your brand. If your brand is known for being more on the reserved side, a silly hashtag might not jive with your community.

How to Handle a Hashtag Fail

You’ve launched a hashtag campaign and it isn’t going as planned. While you can’t take back your hashtag, here are some strategies to deal with the situation effectively.

Be Quick to Respond

The longer you go without taking action, the worse the situation will be. Decide if and when you will stop promoting the hashtag and implement your backup plan. Also, acknowledge the reaction of your community, both positive and negative. You can respond individually or send out general tweets, like Qantas Airways did in response to feedback around its #QantasLuxury campaign.

Wow! Some very creative tweeps out there. Keep the entries coming #QantasWeHearYou

— Qantas Airways (@QantasAirways) November 22, 2011

At this rate our #QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge.

— Qantas Airways (@QantasAirways) November 22, 2011

Apologize

If you have caused distress or offended your community, an apology is necessary. Be clear on why you are apologizing, be sincere, and don’t make excuses.

Find the Lesson to be Learned

You’ve heard the expression “every cloud has a silver lining.” As stressful as they might be, hashtag fails can give you valuable insight into your community and the areas where you can improve as a brand. They also present you with an opportunity to engage with your detractors and potentially turn the situation around.

Hashtags can be a valuable addition to your marketing campaigns if used wisely. While nothing can guarantee you won’t find yourself in an awkward or downright unpleasant hashtag fail situation, the above pointers and some common sense will help with your peace of mind.

What are some of your suggestions for avoiding the hashtag fail? How do you think brands should react when a hashtag campaign goes awry?

Every month we write an ebook or two to help you bring your organization to social media maturity. We’ve selected the 10 ebooks from our library that our community has found most useful.

	30 Ideas for your 2012 Social Media Plan Looking for fresh ideas to add to your 2012 Social Media Plan? We’ve sifted through our most-shared posts from 2011 and compressed them into 30 Ideas.You’ll learn how to integrate social throughout your entire business, train your employees, find the content sweet spots, listen for business intelligence, delight your fans, handle your detractors, and measure your growing influence. Get this free ebook
	Strategically Social: 5 Keys to Becoming a Social Business This ebook by Brent Leary highlights how companies can leverage social tools and channels to listen to and engage customers in a variety of ways. It’s more important than ever before to engage customers where they are. Coordinating all the interactions and conversations with transactional data, calls for a more integrated, systematic approach. Even the smallest of companies can leverage social and mobile technologies to create opportunities and more meaningfully connect with customers. Get this free ebook
	Social Media for B2B: It’s Not as Different as You Think Social media has seemed out of reach for many B2B organizations but that just isn’t true. Social media for B2B organizations can be used to increase awareness, capture customer feedback, generate leads, research target markets, and monitor competition. Social media in its purest form is communication, and communication keeps business moving, no matter how it’s facilitated. Get this free ebook
	Four Steps to Integrating Social Media Into Successful Campaigns Social media is making an impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions, so what does that mean for your business? And what does the future hold for your campaign efforts? This ebook looks at the changing landscape resulting from social media, how to create a new campaign that incorporates social right from the start, and how these changes will benefit your business.Are you ready to create new, impactful campaigns that reach social consumers? Read on! Get this free ebook
	Defining and Measuring Influence Influence is more than a social media buzzword; it’s a powerful means of getting your community to speak up on your behalf, and learning how to identify and measure influence is the key to making the most of the phenomenon. This ebook gives you an in-depth look at the definition of influence, how influence morphs in the online space, how to measure it, and how to work the process of influencer identification and outreach into your current social media processes. Get this free ebook
	Training Your Company for Social Media Unsure of how to prepare your team to tackle social media? Wonder why training everyone in social media use is so important? Looking to learn which steps you need to take to build and execute a social media training program? Look no further, your answers are right here. Get this free ebook
	The Future of Analytics Dig into where measurement stands when it comes to social media. What is the future of social media analytics? Why is it so important, and how can you start making it an important part of your business objectives? This ebook will explain to you why social media analytics is so important and how you can benefit from it. Get this free ebook
	Social Media Etiquette – Minding Your Manners on the Social Web Need insights on what is acceptable behavior in social spaces like Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Forums? Curious as to what benefits you will reap by displaying proper social etiquette, or what approaches you should definitely steer clear of? And if you’ve ever wondered if there’s a difference between personal and professional etiquette, we’ll just say one thing – yes, there is. Get this free ebook
	Four Steps to Creating Content for a Social Media Community Ready for your content to spread throughout social media? This month’s ebook, Four Steps to Creating Content for a Social Media Community, combines content, strategy and community to showcase the steps, best practices and tactical approaches to making meaningful and sharable content. This will enable you to build and enhance relationships and empower your community to converse and share your content. Ultimately, this content experience could turn prospects into customers that stick around. Get this free ebook
	Getting the Competitive Edge with Social Media This ebook will show you how social media intelligence gathering can help you make definitive, today-based decisions about where your company is heading, and how to best directly compete in your marketplace. It will also lay out step by step ways you can analyze and use this information to find out what others in your marketplace are up to and illustrates how to take an honest look at how YOU are doing in relation to your competitors. Get this free ebook

When you’re done reading, please let us know what tips and tricks you found useful — and what new ebooks you’re hungry to see.

News organizations continue to increase their investments in social media monitoring within their newsrooms. It has moved to becoming a staple in the production of television news events such as live debates and vote night analysis during the Republican Party primaries and caucuses.

ABC’s This Week will begin running a regular segment in which the news according to social media will be analyzed and presented to viewers.

While social media may have been an unwelcome development in the world of professional journalism, it would appear that time has brought the two together.

Having access to large volumes of data that state spositions on political candidates, their policies, or their campaigns makes it awfully tempting to extrapolate some form of polling data. Tom Webster, CEO of Edison Research, a company doing the entrance and exit polling for the election pool (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, and the Associated Press), explains the limitations of social media data being used for polling purposes and why it hasn’t been done yet. It’s an excellent piece so I happily refer you to his blog BrandSavant.com for the details.

With polling out of the question – at least for now – here are two ways news organizations can utilize social media monitoring platforms for research and why.

Find the Outlier Stories

I’ve been following the Republican primaries using our platform since early December. In the lead up to the Iowa caucus, the mainstream media had been focusing on the implosion of Herman Cain’s candidacy, Newt Gingrich’s surge and collapse, Rick Santorum’s late rise in the polls, and whether or not Mitt Romney had the capacity to hold off all these forces.

Social media followed those conversations closely however there was one outlier that the mainstream media had not turned their collective eye to: Ron Paul.  Ron Paul dominated social conversations in the lead up to the Iowa caucus. In fact, Ron Paul has continued to be a major source of social conversations in every primary to date. Depending on the week, he garnered more conversations then Gingrich or Romney and never had fewer social mentions then Rick Santorum – not in Iowa, not in New Hampshire, not in South Carolina, and not in Florida (a state Paul didn’t even campaign in).

The graph below shows the mentions generated by each candidate from January 22, 2012 to January 31, 2012 using the #flprimary hashtag.

It’s an interesting story. Ron Paul has lead social conversations against candidates that beat him at the polls. What is it about Ron Paul that has people talking about him on social?

Understand What is Driving those Conversations

Having made much of Paul’s dominance on social media, it’s possible to dig into the conversations about Ron Paul to see what is driving the bulk of those conversations.

The images below show how this can be done quite easily. By building a trend graph off of the Ron Paul section above, I drilled into the conversation spike that occurred the day after the Florida primary. Off of that spike, I produced a River of News to show me the actual posts that were generating conversations on that day around Ron Paul.

There were three conversations that trended the most. The first is a YouTube video from SuperPac soliciting donations. The second was a link to Ron Paul’s YouTube Channel with his Florida concession speech viewed nearly 95,000 times. Finally, a link to a TechCrunch.com article explores the social media buzz that is the Ron Paul campaign. So what is it about Ron Paul and his YouTube presence that drives people to share and discuss him online? More importantly why isn’t this bedrock of support translating into votes in the ballot box for Mr. Paul?

Media organizations interested in understanding the dynamics of social media and its impact on electoral politics in the Republican Party primary race can use this case study and Tom Webster’s blog as a departure point for in-depth analysis.

To paraphrase Tom (who was kind enough to chat with me via Twitter yesterday afternoon), the real nut to crack is, “The chasm between what people say in social media and what actual voters actually do.” If Ron Paul’s campaign manages to crack that nut and turn their social dominance into electoral success – and even if he doesn’t – then the historical data available on the social web could fill many blog, web, and print columns.

How are you digging deeper into your social media findings? How has social media monitoring helped you tell a story? Share your thoughts here. Check out more about analysis and insights here.

Healthcare organizations are making effective use of social media for patient and community engagement, educating their audience, and marketing their services. It’s not just the marketing and PR departments that stand to benefit from more active involvement in social media, however. Human Resource professionals in many industries are finding success with the major social platforms in recruiting new employees for their organizations.  As for those new grads entering the workforce, it’s worth noting that among that 18 – 29 year old demographic, digital media is the most popular source for news and information.

With that in mind, let’s look at the major social media platforms and how they can used to boost your healthcare system’s recruitment strategy.

Use LinkedIn to Test Candidate Knowledge

LinkedIn has emerged as the professional profile of record. The value of the site for social and professional networking should only increase as more professionals jump on board.  Create a careers oriented group for your facility and post your latest positions.  Utilize the LinkedIn Answers section of the site for posing questions to your audience.  The Answers function could be a great way for candidates to demonstrate their knowledge in the field, their interest in your facility, even the quality of their written communications. This can give a healthcare recruiter a preliminary look inside the candidate.

Tweet Your Jobs

More and more, recruiters in healthcare are connecting with other healthcare professionals on Twitter, either directly or via one of the many healthcare centered hashtag chats.  As more healthcare organizations use Twitter to post their own press releases, they’re also sharing articles of value to both their communities and the medical profession.  They’re establishing themselves as go-to stops for top health and wellness information.  Some facilities have gone the extra step, however, and created a career-specific Twitter handle.  Here’s one good example from St. Joseph’s Hospital. Remember to push your available positions into the right spaces by using the appropriate hashtags, maybe #healthcare coupled with #jobs as a straight forward example. Recruiters can also partner up with a service such as TweetMyJobs which posts jobs based specific job functions and geographical area.

Target Your Audience with Facebook

Recent surveys suggest that as many as 61% of physicians are using Facebook, at least for personal use. One advantage of advertising positions on Facebook is the platform’s ability to reach a large audience.  With a Facebook ad, you can choose the exact audience you are looking to target, down to the characteristics of the people you wish to reach. You will be queried on the group’s age, sex and specific keywords related to the position and Facebook will then calculate how many of its users fit your criteria. Of course, you’ll also want to look into posting your available jobs on your facility’s main Facebook page. Consider organizing them with a “Jobs at ___” tab. Take a look at this example from Scripps Health.

While these are the major social networks, social media is bigger than Twitter and Facebook. For your organization, it’s wherever people are creating and sharing content. It could be anywhere — blogs, forums, message boards, LinkedIn, or niche online communities.

For a look at how the Radian6 platform can help with HR recruitment, check out this brand new Radian6 TV Presentation.

Have you spotted examples of healthcare systems/brands effectively using social platforms for recruitment? Is your brand having success in this area? Any other tips you feel healthcare recruiters should know about?  Tell us about it in the comments.

Jason Boies is a member of the Radian6 Community Engagement Team.  His focus is on the worlds of healthcare & pharmaceuticals.  Get a prescription for health & pharma themed tweets by following him on Twitter at @JasonBoies.  Read other blog posts from Jason here.

My coffee at a NYC shop

Social media mecca, Facebook, filed for an initial public offering yesterday that could value it at $75 billion to $100 billion. According to the Wall Street Journal, this puts the social network on track for one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time.

Where does the success of Facebook come from? Why is it a place where gossip, game playing and the swapping of 250 million photos happens every single day? Perhaps it’s the addictive nature. Much like a cup of coffee, Facebooking is part of the daily routine of millions. Here are a few more reasons why they are strikingly similar.

1. Keeps you up all night
2. It’s the first thing you reach for in the morning
3. Your friends, family and coworkers are doing it
4. Can be bitter and cold
5. Or hot and steamy
6. Takes time to craft it just right
7. You might depend on it multiple times a day
8. Good way to kill time
9. You see people enjoying it
10. Countries from around the world partake in it
11. Can be updated
12. You can consume too much
13. Can burn you
14. You can probably make it through a day without it, but likely not much more
15. The thought of quitting leaves you in a cold sweat
16. You can poke it
17. It’s sharable
18. Can be custom-made to your needs
19. Gives you a quick fix
20. Can bring back memories
21. Experience it with friends
22. Makes you giddy
23. Some may find it gross
24. Slightly different everyday
25. Portable

Speaking of coffee, with Facebook being worth billions of dollars, Mashable found 10 things Facebook could technically afford, including all the coffee in the world.

Whether you’re a fan or frenemy of Facebook or whether you’re using it for personal or business needs, it certainly can be a helpful tool in your social media strategy. Learn more about Facebook and great ways to join your community with our ebook, 30 Ideas for your 2012 Social Media Plan.

What other ways is Facebook like a cup of coffee? How do you see the impact of the Facebook IPO unfolding? Grab a cup of coffee and share your thoughts here.

Social media influence is hotly debated topic. Everyone is talking about how to get it, who has it, how to harness it and can you measure it. If you’re looking to be the authority in your area of expertise, here are 18 mistakes guaranteed to destroy your online credibility -

1. Take yourself way too seriously
2. Never share anything valuable or helpful
3. Ignore your followers, friends, fans
4. Never follow anyone back
5. Share nothing but links to your own content
6. Write posts that offer no value
7. Spam blog comments with links back to your website
8. Criticize and judge everyone and everything harshly
9. Never connect
10. Never have conversations
11. Blog infrequently
12. Slam, bash and constantly spew negativity
13. Talk down to your community
14. Inject your opinion on subjects where you have no experience
15. Never participate in offline networking events
16. Keep using auto responders
17. Behave petulantly when someone gives you constructive criticism
18. Make it impossible to take you seriously

Geoff Livingston says “Real influencers are awarded their position for doing great things” and he’s right. To truly be influential, you’ve got to do great things. One way to start is to have an impressive body of work around a particular subject. Here are three ways to get started today.

Create

Share your knowledge by creating content that is informative and educational. Your ultimate goal should be to provide the most valuable content covering your topic of expertise. It doesn’t have to be an ebook, it could be a blog post, an infographic or even a video. Use the format that feels the most comfortable to you.

Curate

Are you reading great blogs? Share them. Do you have your own set of influencers? Interview them. Connecting this way, with those you consider to be thought leaders, is a wonderful way to provide great resources. Invite them to guest blog on your site. Share content and link to articles that you feel your peers would appreciate and find helpful. Have a resource library that would make a librarian drool and make it easily accessible.

Congregate

Keep the social in social media. Make your social real estate the place to be. It should be a no-brainer for anyone interested in your area of expertise to participate and connect with you. Encourage a sense of community by communicating with your site’s visitors and engaging with them across social networks. Invite comments, and differing opinions by asking thought-provoking questions.

Steer clear of those 18 social media fails, focus on the tips above, grab this month’s eBook covering social media influencers and you’ll be well on your way to creating an impressive body of work that others will take note of referencing.

Does online influence matter to you? What social fails would you add to this list? What suggestions would you have for someone looking to up the ante on their social media influence? Which social media influencers, if any, are influencing you?

These days it is impossible to wade onto the internet without tripping over studies touting their findings that a majority of businesses are adding social media to their marketing mix. As ubiquitous as those are, it is even more common to find social media (insert cheeky term here to avoid saying “experts”) shouting that every business must join social media and engage with their customers for fear of being out of business in five years.

And don’t forget the rulemakers telling you that you must Tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plus, Pin, Tumble, post, update in a certain ratio at a certain frequency every day. Including weekends.

As an early social media adopter and someone who advises companies about their social media strategy, I am also guilty of some of these transgressions. But guess who knows best what’s right for your business? YOU!

Understand the Company Culture

It’s too easy to take the word of experienced social media experts as the be-all and end-all of social media and do what they say. You are the one who understands your company culture and what social media adoption would look like in your C-suite. You are the one who knows the products and services you offer and which ones would benefit by a greater social presence. And who do you think is the industry expert in your specific industry? Not the social media consultant or blogger.

Dive into Social Media Learning

So what is a marketer, communicator or other business leader to do when looking at implementing social media for their company? Start by reading all you can about social media. I will assume that you are good at your job and you just need to understand how social media can fit into your efforts. And don’t think of it as a bolt-on component to your marketing or customer service. It is a revolutionary way of doing business. We offer lots of resources to help you start thinking as a social media marketer, as do many other companies and bloggers.

This is not something to take lightly, but you really are a better resource for how to implement social media in your organization. This can be a big effort (usually) or a small effort, but only you know what it means if your customers suddenly had an active channel to provide feedback to your company.

Listen and Share with Prospects

And who is better at convincing the VP of Sales that Twitter is about more than what people had for lunch. Sales people can listen for prospects at the point of need. They can answer questions with relevant ebooks or blog posts. They can even determine better times to contact someone based a prospect’s social profile.

Gather Competitive Intelligence

And your competitors? You are going to know what they are doing in social media in greater depth than someone from the outside. Although in a recent study 14% percent of marketers admitted to having no idea about their competitors social media activities.

Do this mean you should reject all overtures from agencies and social media consultants? Of course not. There is plenty of expertise and experience they can bring to the table, but there is plenty that you can do before that first meeting to improve the process.

5 Ways to Be a Social Media Expert Before Seeking Outside Help

• Learn about the basics of social media
• Document your company culture, including the obstacles to social media adoption
• Determine how social are your customers and prospects
• Understand what your competitors and your industry leaders are doing with social media
• Identify company created content (whitepapers, articles, FAQs) that can be re-worked as social media content

How much of the internal social media prep work have you done before working with an outside resource? Here’s a social media planning ebook that provides some more tips to get you heading down the right path.

This month’s ebook, Win Over Your Industry’s Social Media Influencers, will help you build a strategy for connecting with those who are influential in your industry. It will also guide you to becoming influential yourself! Here’s a snippet from the ebook.

How to Win Over Your Influencers

Reciprocation – If you give first, it’s easier to take. Giving can come in many forms. Offer freebies, insider information or exposure in exchange for a mention, feedback, participation, etc. Blog, link to or tweet about an influencer before you solicit their involvement in your endeavor. Tweet

Commitment and Consistency – Try to find a quote the influencer has already published indicating their love for your brand or support for your cause. Since they’ve publicly stated their opinion, their conscience will encourage them to remain consistent with their words, increasing the likelihood of following through with your request. Tweet

Social Proof – We learn the norm from the actions of others around us. If any of your influencers’ connections or other industry players have participated in your effort, call it out. Another way to provide social proof is with numbers; for example: “18 others are participating. We need 7 more and were hoping you’d be one.” Tweet

Liking – People do business with those they know, like and trust. Make communications personal. Be enthusiastic. The closer you can draw a personal connection to your target, the more willing they might be to take part. Tweet

Authority – In order to recruit authoritative supporters, you have to be authoritative yourself. Establish credibility as an organization or individual by using proper spelling and grammar, professional language, linking to success stories, etc. Tweet

Scarcity – The thought of missing out incites action. Offer a limited-time sneak preview, limited-edition product or service, or limited quantity. Tweet

This list is inspired by the six weapons of influence discussed in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, authored by renowned professor, Dr. Robert B. Cialdini.

Do you have an influencer strategy? How do you engage with influencers? Would you consider yourself influential? Check out the ebook.

Google+ Hangout with President Obama

Regardless of where you stand politically, last night’s Google+ Hangout with President Barack Obama highlights some important aspects of social media engagement.

The Google+ hangout was diverse with two wives, a group of students, a war veteran, a small business owner and others. President Obama listened and communicated with these Americans and others while effectively leveraging a platform that was comfortable for them and a vast majority of his audience. How do we know this? Before the hangout, a total of 228,094 people submitted 133,184 questions and cast 1,630,369 votes on the White House YouTube channel. This was a successful example of knowing where your audience spends their time. Here are four lessons you can apply to your social strategy:

Be innovative. While Obama has incorporated townhall meetings on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn during his presidential campaigns, this marked the first ever Google+ Hangout with a President. Talk about catering to your audience and encouraging dialogue. You too can be innovative if you know your audience and find a way to connect with them.

Engage your advocators and face your detractors. Obama faced the difficult questions about the economy, foreign aid, homelessness and unemployment rates head on. While some Google+ Hangout attendees had voted for him, others had not. Challenging questions are inevitable, especially in social media, and your community is judging you based on your ability to handle such questions. Think of this as an opportunity to turn your detractors into brand advocates and to further confirm the decisions of ambassadors. Honest, sincere and transparent answers go a long way.

Use multiple platforms. If you’re going to host multiple parties, you’d better mix up the venues. In this case, the White House effectively utilized several social media channels. People could submit a question on YouTube, watch on Google+, or follow along on Twitter using the hashtag #askobama. The next time your business wants to engage with your community be sure to know when and where to host the party (or parties!).

Understand public relations 101. Never turn down an opportunity to sway public opinion. It is important to use every conversation as an opportunity to improve your image, even if that means laughing at an impersonator.

It can be challenging for a brand to be knowledgeable, educational and laugh at the same time. Social media takes practice and requires companies to take chances. Find the right balance and your community will grow and reward you in return. What did you think of the first ever Google+ Hangout? I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you missed the hangout, watch it here.