What would Microsoft say? Could Twitter become the social model for customer service delivery?

Hear Microsoft’s answer in a Radian6 Twebinar Thursday January 7^th at 2pm EST

How many uses does Twitter have?

With 40 million using 140 characters to communicate, Twitter’s ‘reason for being’ continues to evolve. Twitter’s simple question “What are you doing” helped a U.S. President become elected; helped free American James Buck from an Egyptian jail after issuing his one-word tweet “arrested” – which subsequently inspired a book called Twitterville; helped Dell sell $6.5M in computers – and with Comcast, Ford and now Microsoft as examples, it’s also becoming part of an emerging model for customer service.

What does ‘Social Customer Service Engagement’ look like?

Meet Microsoft’s Elite Tweet Fleet. It’s a new team that tackles customer service issues the social way. The Fleet listens and scours the Twittersphere for customers having problems with their Xbox 360 and asks how they can help. Customers can also contact the Fleet directly on Twitter @Xboxsupport. It’s the brainchild of McKenzie Eakin who created a pilot project to see if communicating socially could help educate and enable customers to help each other. And it worked – so well – that the pilot is now part of the business, working closely with the customer service crew.

Meet the Elite Tweet Fleet in our first Radian6 2010 Twebinar

The Elite Tweet Fleet has been up and running in time for the Christmas rush. Sales for Xbox 360 consoles were close to $1M last month alone and with all the latest Xbox games found under this year’s tree, Xbox consoles are no doubt getting a workout. So our Twebinar next week with Microsoft’s McKenzie Eakin and one of her Elite Tweet Fleet members, Jerry Kansky, will be topical. It will be our first Twebinar in 2010 so collect your questions and join the conversation Thursday January 7^th at 2 p.m. EST.

So… what is a Twebinar?

A Twebinar is a mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion.

How Can I Participate?

Join us by logging in with your Twitter account on Thursday, Jan 7th (no preregistration is required) or listen to the audio on our Engaged Brand BlogTalkRadio channel.

Since we’ll be using Twitter, just tweet us your questions with a #radian6 hashtag, include a “?” and we’ll be sure to see them. We’ve built the Twebinar interface so you can see all the tweets and discussion at a glance, listen to the broadcast, and submit your questions as we chat.

Twebinar Tips:

• Once the Twebinar has started, log in and you should hear music or the live broadcast. If you don’t hear the audio right away, please refresh your browser.
• If you login before the Twebinar starts, refresh your browser once the Twebinar begins and the BlogTalkRadio (BTR) interface will show up and start playing.
• To ask a question, type it in to Twitter using the #radian6 hashtag and end it with a “?”. We’ll see it.
• Your hosts for this episode will be @ambercadabra and @davidalston. Feel free to send them advance questions on Twitter if you like. We’ll also have @vargasl on hand to help gather and answer your questions during the broadcast.
• If you’d prefer to listen to the audio without the Twebinar interface, you can do so at our BlogTalkRadio channel.
• The full broadcast of the event will be posted on our blog shortly after the event is over, or you can always listen to the archive on BTR.
• Any other questions, leave them here in the comments or ask us on Twitter and we’ll do our best.

The end of the year is perfect timing we address the third step of achieve success in a challenging situation to stimulate positive change. When getting started in social media, you cannot dismiss and ignore an organization’s fears about social media engagement. Social media success is dependant upon a drastic change in corporate culture’s thinking and execution process. Already we have addressed two out of eight steps as defined by leading change management thinker, John Kotter – increasing the level of urgency and building the guiding team.

Now that urgency has been established and there is a team in place to lead, a relevant vision is needed to guide the way. How do you get the vision right?

1. Be creative – Quantitative data is always a necessity, but go beyond the number crunching and discover the emotional needs and desires of your community. Find out what they want to talk about and most, importantly, what they expect of your organization.
2. Capture clarity – One of the hardest things about change is communicating goals so other people see them as you do…with the same passion, intensity and drive. Draw a clear picture of the vision. Demonstrate the engagement that can be achieved.
3. Grasp low hanging fruit – Get the organization behind your team by scoring quick wins with easy opportunities discovered while making the case for change. Don’t try to tackle the big items on your agenda without first proving your team has the ability to succeed.

Stay tuned for how to turn this step into a resolution you can keep in 2010!

Many of us are tidying our desks today before we take a much-needed holiday break before the new year. Santa may have adapted social media, but perhaps your company is not quite there to making the jump into social media or gone beyond monitoring social media into customer engagement. This can be a frustrating situation, but before you leave your desk today, start brainstorming about your social media state of the union and compile your own holiday wish list.

We’ll help you compile the resources you need to make your case, so you can spend the next couple of weeks dreaming about sugar plums and enter the new year with a positive attitude!

1. Courage – Your first conversation (or repeat discussion) with the boss about social media can be a bit intimidating, but if you are prepared, never fear! Go ahead and schedule time on the boss’ calendar in 2010.
2. Bigger Ears – Conversations are happening everywhere and can be a bit overwhelming and hard to make the case for social media if you do not know what you are listening for. Determine what you are listening for, the point of need and what to do if the chatter is not about you.
3. More Time – Let’s face it, even if Santa were to grant us more time in the day, we would still find a way to waste it away. So perhaps, we should scratch the original request and ask for the gift of time management.
4. Additional Arms – The social media strategy for every organization matures at various speeds. No matter what stage of implementation you are experiencing, one person cannot handle it all. Explore how you can assist socializing the organization.
5. Reinforcement – Come back after the new year and discover the new goodies we have in store for you. In the meantime, check out some of the great conversations we have had with people just like you struggling and living the social media life.

Many of you read Chris Newton’s post last week  introducing Radian6′s take on automated sentiment, and we promised some more details on how it works inside the Radian6 system.

So without further ado, give a click and download this handy PDF that walks you through some of the basics of setting up and analyzing automated sentiment capabilities in Radian6. And of course, if you’re a Radian6 user, you can find some nitty gritty details in your dashboard under the FAQ section.

Automated Sentiment is just one of the capabilities we rolled out this past year, too. Have a look at some of the other stuff, like CRM and web analytics integration and Google Sidewiki monitoring, in these earlier posts. We want to help you make the most of Radian6 and the insights it can provide.

In 2010, we’re looking forward to talking more with you about how you’re using Radian6, and what would make it better, easier, and more valuable for you. Many of the features and capabilities we’ve developed and integrated have been based on your input about the value of social media monitoring and engagement, and how you connect the dots between your social media work and other areas of your business.

Please keep the feedback coming. Email us at community@radian6.com anytime with your suggestions and input, and look for more advancements in the coming year for weaving social media monitoring, measurement, and engagement deeper into your business.

Thanks for all of your support this year. We can’t wait to continue the conversation in 2010.

The end of the year is a popular time for reflection, and often times we look big picture to see what the past year has carried with it, and where the future might lead.

While you’re looking at trends and the big stories, though, now is a great time to reflect on your own company and where it stands with immersion and integration of social media. Looking back with an honest eye can help you get a handle on what worked, what didn’t, and how you’d like to sketch out next steps in 2010. Auditing should be as much a part of your business processes as planning.

So gather your team, grab some coffee and bagels, and talk through some of these questions for listening, engaging, and measuring social media.

Listening

1) Are we satisfied with how our listening outposts are set up? Do we feel like we’re getting the data and information we need?

2) What have we heard overall so far? What are the key themes that run through our listening efforts? What are the positives about what we’re hearing, and what do we want to work on?

3) How have we disseminated our listening intelligence through the business? Where could we improve this in the coming year?

4) Where have we focused our listening efforts to date (marketing, branding, PR, customer service)? What other aspects of the business could benefit by more organized listening efforts, and how can we help them integrate it?

5) How can we expand our listening efforts beyond our brand? What about things like industry trends or competitive analysis, and what advantages would those have for us?

Engaging

1) How would we define our engagement and outreach strategy this year on social networks? Was it primarily reactive or proactive? Is that course working for us, and why or why not?

2) What were our goals for participating in social media conversations, and did they change through the year? How?

3) Did this year illustrate the need for social media/engagement guidelines? Or if we already have them, how might we need to update them in the coming year?

4) What did we learn about our community and market’s expectations for things like response time, available information and answers, and what were the topics that came up most?

5) Where might we need to connect internal dots and processes to better flow the information and interactions that come from social media? Are there new/other departments and people we need to involve?

Measurement

1) Are we currently measuring elements of our social media efforts? Which goals do they align with, and what are we tracking?

2) What are we not tracking right now that would help us better understand the impact of our social media programs? What metrics or measurements do we have the capacity to track, and which require new methods?

3) Based on what we’re tracking, what efforts are progressing positively, and how do we define that? Which ones aren’t working as well as we expected, and what will we adjust based on what we’ve measured?

4) How much time are we devoting to measurement proportionally? Does it feel like too much or too little? How can we adjust? Do we have the right tools in hand to do the analysis we need?

5) How are we communicating our learnings from our tracking efforts, and to whom? Is that process working or how do we refine it?

So these are just a handful of ways to look back at 2009 and see where you’ve come, and help chart where you’re headed. You’ve got more, I’m sure, but perhaps these get you thinking.

Ask the hard questions. Ask some that you don’t have answers to, but make it a point to drive toward those answers in the coming year. Think about where you are on the path of social media maturity, and what the next logical steps are based on your available resources, goals, and other priorities.

What else are you looking at to see how your social media programs stacked up this year?

image by xmatt

One of the biggest criticisms of social media and communities is that they involve a lot of mindless chatter. At first and even second blush, this chatter doesn’t seem to lead anywhere and certainly doesn’t suggest hard business outcomes. It is, however, critical to building relationships. Conversational artifacts – the subjects and themes that people talk about – are critical to building long-term and sustainable relationships. Good salespeople have known this forever – it’s why CRM systems in all their clunkyness have space for birthdays, anniversaries, hobbies, etc. While those software fields are rarely used, people with good relationships skills never forget those small facts. Why? It is the mechanism we use to re-engage because it is
rarely effective to ask after an absence “Why haven’t you bought my product or service yet?” That would be darn awkward. Everyone needs some warm up before a game.

An example of the importance of conversational artifacts hit me recently at a conference. I was at the Inbound Marketing Summit and @newmediajim was speaking. He is a photographer/ videographer for NBC in the White House press corps and for those in social media circles a micro-celebrity in his own right because he gives a unique and first-hand account of history. I’ve been following him for quite a while – as someone who worked in Washington D.C. with a politics degree, I am fascinated by the inner workings of government. Other than that, I really have no reason to talk to Jim. Before the conference had started I saw a tweet from him giving some indication that he was having trouble finding the conference location.
I had tweeted back some specific instructions to help them find the entry. I got no response from Jim because I was just one of tens of thousands of followers – we had no relationship.

At some point after Jim’s presentation, he was chatting with someone I knew so I went over to introduce myself and tell him what a fan I was. But then something funny happened. I must have touched his arm when I said hello and he had on a very soft, velvety jacket. I made some comment about it and that led to some good natured bantering. That gave us the conversational space to continue a discussion and we talked for quite a bit about Washington, politics, and social media. Why? Because of Jim’s jacket. Stupid? Absolutely. Critical? Incredibly. Weeks later Jim sent the following tweet:

This is how relationships start – with a common thread and recognition. Talking about Jim’s jacket was an incredibly effective artifact in developing a relationship where he not only recognized me but remembered me well enough to know how to reach me. I’m sure Jim met a ton of other people at the Inbound Marketing Summit and if he’s like me, many of them are hazy memories. But we had a very funny conversation about something that really didn’t matter that much to either of us. I now know that I am likely to hear back from him if I have a question for him. Now in this case, I’m not at all sure that Jim and I will ever do business together per se but the example serves to illustrate a really important point about mindless chatter. It is exactly how we can start to orchestrate serendipity. For example, it was recently announced that NBC is being bought by Comcast. My husband’s company was recently purchased by Comcast. Maybe that ends up being a helpful connection. I don’t know that it will be but I can take an educated guess that it might be. Orchestrating lots of those probable opportunities leads to connections and relationships with people that matter. Over time you can track it.

I am a strong proponent of planning for specific business outcomes with social media and community initiatives and because of that, it is critical to understand the power chatter has to those outcomes. Does it make it harder and noisier to isolate the drivers of the business outcomes you are looking for? Maybe but I think that noise has always existed in the workflow, it is just that traditional database-driven applications do not do a great job of tracking or exposing it.

For social media managers looking to get political buy-in for some of these tools that can seem ‘chatty’, I recommend doing exactly what I did here – engage influencers and show some of the conversations to your colleagues. Many of them will be surprised at how quickly you can build personal connections and relationships with people who are critical to the hard business outcomes for which they are looking.

On this blog and across various other channels on the social web, we like to talk with you about the general principles and best practices of social media engagement and how you can encourage your organizations to monitor, listen and engage online. Several people on our team have been asked to speak about these topics to our budding generations of communicators and marketing professionals. Often, it was lamented that we did not have a program in place for students to use the Radian6 platform in a public relations campaigns or research course and get a hands-on social media monitoring experience before entering the real world.

Lament no further…Many of you asked for it and now we have it! We are pleased to announce the Radian6 Higher Education Trial Program. Faculty members (on behalf of their undergraduate classes) and graduate students can now apply to use the Radian6 platform for four weeks at no cost.

Each Radian6 Higher Education Trial Program session is for a period of thirty days only. To be considered as a candidate for this trial program, you must be a faculty member representing one undergraduate class or a graduate student currently enrolled in an accredited college/university. Each candidate will receive a training webinar. A webinar is mandatory before having access to the platform. We host them live via web conference, and they’re super easy.  They take about 30 minutes, and are designed to help answer your questions and give you a solid walk-through of our platform. Up to two additional hours of training will be be given to each candidate throughout the trial session to assist with their area of research.

Currently, we are only accepting three candidates (two undergraduate classes and one graduate student) per session throughout the Spring 2010 semester. The submission deadline for Session 1 is 28 December. Candidates will be notified of selection 30 December. If you are not immediately selected, we will keep your information handy for the next month’s selection.

Please email the following information to Lauren Vargas at lauren.vargas@radian6.com:

First Name:
Last Name:
College/University:
City, State, Country:
Work Phone:
Email Address:

If a student, what is your class standing?:

• Freshman
• Sophomore
• Junior
• Senior
• Graduate Study

If a faculty member, what are your research specialties or teaching interests using the Radian6 platform?

If a graduate student, what are your research specialties using the Radian6 platform?

Please select trial session of interest in order of preference:

• Session 1: 4-29 January
• Session 2: 1-26 February
• Session 3: 1 March – 2 April
• Session 4: 5-30 April

We are looking forward to the new year and this exciting new program for students! Along the way, we will share our findings and feedback with you about how students are experiencing and using the platform. So, apply today to become a part of the trial program or please pass along to educators and other relevant college/university programs.

Ho, ho, hold the social phone. Come on now, Santa is as about old skool as you can get.  He’s the jolly-old poster child traditional isn’t he – what with the sleigh transportation and sticking to snail mail for most of his communication?

Could he really change? Has he seen the light, dug out from under that snow bank of old ways and is he really trying something new?  What signs would we look for with this secretive, red & white clad, ZZTop facial-haired man to know something had changed?

In the spirit of good cheer, here are the 10 ways we think you’ll know that Santa’s embraced social media this year:

10. Foursquare shows him checking into your livingroom, and another 2 billion livingrooms for that matter on Christmas Eve;

9. Job posting appears on LinkedIn for “Elf of Social Media”;

8. TechCrunch first to break the story of Santa’s Sleigh 2.0 feature release;

7. #cookiesandmilk top trending hashtag on Twitter;

6. “Fan of Rudolph” appears in your Facebook friend requests list;

5. Ashton scrambles to come up with new picture of Demi brushing her teeth in the bathroom as @jollyoldstnick moves into top spot;

4. Mrs. Claus seen crowdsourcing new knitted gift ideas on her blog;

3. Santa’s Village Entertainment launches joint venture with Fred Figglehorn creating The Elf Channel on YouTube;

2. Status update email from TripIt shows Kris Kringle about to start trip to 43,244 cities the week of December 21st;

…and the number one way you’ll know Santa has embraced social media this year is…

1. Announces he’s using social media monitoring this year to to help him know who’s been naughty and nice

Happy holidays everyone.

We are closing in on the end of 2009 and everyone is trying to get a pulse of the industry to predict what the future holds. Marketing Profs helps shed some light on this topic with the recent release of their State of Social Media Marketing study. This research was conducted using the input of a panel of social media experts and survey responses of more than 5,000 Marketing Profs readers. In addition to these audiences, comScore mined its own panel data and shared with Marketing Profs to get an unbiased look at global usage of social media among non-marketers.

Some of the study’s key findings syncs up with our monthly topic of making the case for social media:

• The majority of companies do not have a social media policy or online interaction guidelines in place, but that having said policy/guidelines, leads to less internal confusion or more effective social media marketing. Why should your organization have a social media policy or rules of engagement?
• The majority of marketers state their measurement of return on investment (ROI) for their participation in social media is mediocre or average. The good news is, over half report they are using some form of tracking. How do you begin to make the case for social media with measurement?
• Only 15% of social media marketers state their job descriptions include blogging, posting or networking responsibilities. However, more than 50% of marketers indicate they are integrating social media into their existing job responsibilities. What is the first conversation you have with the boss to get started in social media and begin integrating new tools?

The report is divided into three sections and focuses on company, individual marketer and consumer use of social media. Each section delves further into exploring how social media responsibilities are currently being integrated into traditional tools, mindsets and culture. While perusing the report, you may find our very own David Alston quoted along with several other social media marketers.

One of the neatest things about this report is the section about how the self-reported Myers-Briggs personality types of social media marketers mesh with their industry responsibilities. Those who are social media marketers are more likely to be ENTJ (Extrovert-iNtuitive-Thinking-Judging) and enjoy mixing their personal and professional lives more so than the general population at ISFJI (Introvert-Sensing-Feeling-Judging).

How is social media changing?

While one cannot predict the future, it is always interesting to speculate what is on the horizon. Here are some highlights:

• Increase in case studies integrating social media with traditional tools/channels
• Increase in comfort level for expressing social media needs, desires and challenges
• Increase in social media policies/guidelines allowing for more open corporate culture

Many tool trends were mentioned, but the relevance of those remain to be seen. This report gives great insight into how we are moving forward as an industry, sharing knowledge and learning valuable lessons along the rocky road of social media integration. Happy reading and processing!

Measuring the performance of your social media campaign might be the hot button topic of 2009 and 2010 however it also seems akin to the recent mess with Tiger Woods in that everyone has an opinion and only a few really know what’s going on.

In the race to measure progress, some have:

• totally distorted the true definition of R.O.I (it is return on investment no matter what anyone tells you)
• given people a list of metrics to use without regard to whether or not they fit the company’s goals
• provided a similar list of metrics without any background in how to calculate them
• tried to apply traditional media metrics to social media
• quite frankly, made it harder on those of us legitimately trying to crack the social media measurement nut!

I’ve sat through a number of presentations this year where social media strategists with large corporations say that, for the moment, they aren’t as concerned with finding dollar-for-dollar impact of their efforts. Before we jump on them for it, let’s take a step back and realize that there will come a time when showing that impact is essential or there won’t be a social media budget.

Now, what I am comfortable in saying is that these folks are measuring their progress in some way, and that they’ve arrived at those metrics by going through a relatively simple process. You see, we (communications pros) like to make things harder than they really are. Are the metrics we use to measure social different than traditional? Yes, absolutely. Is the process by which we determine the metrics to use any different? Absolutely not! So what does that process look like?

• Benchmark research – Giving a number of talks myself over the last five years about measurement, I know that this is a step often skipped by communications pros. Don’t do it! Like traditional programs, conducting social media research is essential to establishing the baseline by which you measure progress. In social media, that has traditionally been through listening. However, there are those of us, including my friend Adam Cohen, who are talking about many other kinds of research that we can conduct before creating our social media goals and strategy. Whether it’s listening, or gathering data from Adam’s seven other sources, make sure you’ve allotted the money to conduct this research. You won’t be disappointed. 
• Establishing measurable goals – This is where we commonly get tripped up. What does a measurable goal mean? In its simplest terms, it’s a statement that combines elements of time, change (typically a numerical figure) and the behavioral element we are trying to alter. The goals should be based in large part on what we’ve discovered through our benchmark research (read: they shouldn’t come out of thin air). They should also be reasonably attainable. Far too often we create measurable goals at the high end of a range, which is only setting us up for criticism and failure down the line.
• Developing our strategy and tactics – Here is where we can finally get down to talking about the “fun” stuff. Obviously, the strategy and tactics should seamlessly flow from the research you’ve conducted, and the goals you’ve created.
• Implementation – Now, you can put your research, your measurable goals, your strategy and tactics to the test. Did your due diligence pay off? 
• Measurement – After you’ve conducted your research, established your goals, developed your strategy and tactics, implemented your plan you come down to the part where you figure out whether or not you’ve achieved what you hoped to achieve. Katie Paine always says this step isn’t about placing blame; it’s about ensuring that your communications programs achieve what they are meant to achieve. She’s right, obviously, and this is where you determine what changes you might need to make so that you can achieve those goals.

You see, if we return to basics on how we measure, measuring social media becomes less of a Rubik’s Cube®, and more something we can easily manage.

Before I turn you loose, I’d highly recommend that you check out what Katie Paine, Don Bartholomew and Olivier Blanchard are also writing on this subject. If you get stuck walking through the above steps, make sure you ping any of us on Twitter, or on our blogs. We’re working to make social media measurement as easy as we can!

About Chuck

Chuck Hemann is the manager of research and online reputation management for Dix & Eaton, a communications consultancy, based in Cleveland, Ohio, with specialized expertise in social media strategies and tools. You can connect with Chuck on Twitter and at his blog that tackles a myriad of PR/social media-related topics. The views in this post belong to Chuck Hemann and do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of his employer.

Thanks to all of you who joined us for today’s Engaged Brand Twebinar with Edward Boches, the Chief Creative Officer and Chief Social Media Officer at Mullen. We really enjoy it when you come prepared with questions and boy were you guys prepared today.

Edward has such a passion for social media. It was evident in all aspects of our conversation. His enthusiasm and expansive knowledge on the topic is definitely worth a second listen. So be sure to download the Mullen podcast.

I put together some of the highlights from today’s Twebinar but, seriously, there were so many awesome insights you really should listen to the podcast.

Some of Edward’s tremendous take-aways on Social Media:

• The cool thing about social media is that you can do a lot of things quickly, learn from them and then do something else.
• Counting fans and followers is a vapid metric. The quality of your followers is much more important than quantity.
• One word-of-mouth recommendation is worth more than 200 TV ads.
• People are turning to their social friends for recommendations.

Why should you get involved in Social Media?

• If you don’t you will be obsolete so fast
• It is the most exciting, inspirational, creative source of media. It is a revolution. It gives you more access to thinkers and new ways to expand your tribe

The 25 tactic when using Social Media:

• 25% of the time, talk about yourself or promote yourself.
• 25% of the time, promote content created by your followers.
• 25% of the time, identify and share links that will be useful to your community.
• 25% of the time, engage in dialog, answer questions and interact with your community.

If you take that approach people will spread your content, share things back with you, say nice things about you and share word-of-mouth.

Current Trends:

• Consumers want to participate, not just watch.
• People’s relationship with media is way more complex than it used to be, eg Obama’s inauguration.
• There are so many choices and options that people no longer have the same shared experience like they did when there were only 3 TV channels. People want to be connected to as individuals. Brands should customize their approach and invite communities to participate.

What is next for Social Media?

• In 1 or 2 years we won’t be using the word Social Media, everything will be Social.
• CrowdSourcing: Invite co-creation for everything you do. Your community will create content.

If we didn’t get to your question today, make sure you follow @edwardboches on Twitter. You can connect with him directly and see what he’s up to next. And be sure to check out his new blog TheNextGreatGeneration.com, it’s written entirely by Gen-Y 18-25 year olds who will share their thoughts on life, love and everything in between.

Thanks again for listening and participating. Here are a couple of the cool tweets that took place during the Twebinar:

One of the most talked about capabilities of social media monitoring platforms is sentiment analysis, more specifically the automation of same. It’s a technology that’s important and can be valuable to companies’ social media analysis, but it’s critical to understand how it works, when it’s useful, and what its limitations are.

At Radian6, we’ll be publicly releasing our automated sentiment capabilities inside the platform early next week, and they’ll be immediately available to all current and new customers. As a bit of background, however, we thought we’d talk a bit about what we see as the role of automated sentiment in social media monitoring and engagement, and how Radian6 is approaching it.

What is Automated Sentiment technology, and How Does Radian6 Use It?

Automated sentiment analysis is a system for automatically determining the sentiment of a sentence or phrase. Sentiment refers to the thought or mood of a post and can be either positive, neutral or negative.

Radian6 automated sentiment reviews on-topic posts as they come in, determines the sentiment of the post at the sentence level, and aggregates a positive, negative, or neutral designation at the post level based on specified sentiment keywords and phrases. If a particular document or post touches multiple topics, sentiment can be determined for each separate topic.

Stay tuned on the Radian6 blog next week for more detail on Radian6′s automated sentiment capabilities.

What Automated Sentiment Can Help With

As a first pass, automated sentiment analysis can help streamline the workflow of processing a high volume of posts by providing preliminary determinations of sentiment for each post. Users can then follow up with review and manual adjustment as necessary. Automated sentiment also provides an initial snapshot of postive-negative-neutral ratios, and can help identify trends at a macro level such as sparklines or aggregate changes in sentiment over time.

Looking at ratios of positive to negative sentiment over time can sometimes indicate collective brand preferences as expressed online, or the overall mindset or mood of audiences. The unfiltered and unedited nature of the opinions expressed on the social web and tracked through sentiment analysis can sometimes offer a more realistic, less clinical view of how customers and communities are responding to companies and brands.

Armed with this high level analysis and trend information, Radian6 users can better craft engagement strategy, understand hot button issues and topics around their brand, and reach out to their customers informed about the pulse of opinion about the company and it’s work.

Automated Sentiment and The Human Factor

Sentiment analysis, whether automated or manual, is a subjective process and always needs to be considered in the context of business goals.
What’s read as positive for one person or in one context might be considered neutral for another, so businesses need to consider and outline criteria for positive, negative, and neutral definitions based on their goals for online presence and engagement.

In addition, the complexity and nuance of the English language combined with available technologies for text analytics means that sentiment analysis cannot currently achieve 100% accuracy. In fact, accuracy rates across sentiment analysis engines can be highly variable, as the criteria to define an “accurate” sentiment determination is also somewhat dependent upon human interpretation and context.

There will always be a need for human review and involvement to verify automated results, and ensure that sentiment levels are tagged within the context of individual and unique business goals and agreed upon criteria.

For More on Radian6 Sentiment Analysis…

Stay tuned for a post early next week with some additional detail about the technical features of Radian6′s automated sentiment, and information on how to set it up inside your Radian6 dashboard. And as always, if you have questions or feedback for our team regarding this or any other feature, we’d welcome your input and conversation.

Image by richkidsunite

For some organizations, social media is a big playground and moving the conversations and relationships into that space is a natural move. For others, social media is explored because executive management sees an article in a business magazine or hears about Twitter and other online channels through CNN or other mainstream sources. Finding the motivating factor for many organizations is a tough nut to crack, but we are here to help you find a solution and make a relevant case for social media.

Knowing what you want out of social media and preparing the foundation for growth is just the beginning of what several organizations require before engaging. Locating an organization’s driving force for entering social media does not have to be an enigma if you know the general areas where you may find your source of inspiration that will spur your company into action.

First, you have to listen.

• What is provoking your community to participate in the social media space? The answer to the force you seek may not be found within your organization’s walls, but within the community you serve. Determine the rationale for why your community is flocking to social networks. Take a pulse of their attitudes and behaviors and how this compares to their offline engagement.
• Who are the people talking about you? Determine where these conversations are occurring and identify influencers…they are out there, but if they are not in the numbers that will generate interest for your organization, go beyond your own buzz.
• What are your competitors doing? Flip the conversation and begin seeking business intelligence. If your competitors are engaging in social media, determine where and why they are participating. If your competitors are not on the social media bandwagon yet, capitalize on this opportunity to grow online relationships.
• Where is there opportunity in your industry? Listen for the point of need. People are expressing their wants, needs and desires and you will only glean insights from this information if you are listening.

The first conversation you have with your boss about social media does not have to be nail biter if you have built a case on what you have gleaned from listening. Knowing what urges your community to foster discussion offers a wealth of inspiration and motivation for your organization to engage and become part of the conversation

& MTV is listening….

MTV is changing TV – yet again.  It’s listening and engaging with its audience – which at first glance, just sounds smart, not new.  But when you consider the audience is engaging from Twitterville, it starts to sound really interesting.

TV and Twitter Talking Together?

What do Tiger Woods, Adam Lambert and Twilight’s movie cast have in common?  While it sounds like the start of a bad joke, they’re actually the hot topics among the at-home TV audience for an MTV pop culture show – where real-time conversations from Twitter are integrated into the content of the TV show; “It’s On With Alexa Chung”.

Alexa Chung is a 26-year-old former British model turned TV host. Her American MTV show debuted in June featuring celebrity interviews, live music and videos: a mash up of TV and web to attract a young audience who spends time on Facebook and Twitter.

The audience interacts across a number of platforms:  TV, online and mobile. There’s a large and active following on Twitter. The show engages that Twitter audience who tweet their thoughts about the guests and the show. Then MTV takes the pulse of viewers by aggregating the themes of those Twitter conversations. What’s cool is that MTV then reflects that picture back to the audience via a visualization called Twitter Tracker.

MTV’s Twitter Tracker visualizes the volume of tweets around a guest or show topic based on the Twitter activity generated by MTV’s hosts, guests and fans. An individual who will never step inside the MTV studio is still able to engage, contribute content and become a catalyst to generate even more conversations – while becoming part of a community of fans and part of the story.

The show broadcasts weekdays for 30-minutes but the Twitter Tracker keeps the pulse of conversation going for the other 23.5 hours a day on its website — giving fans the opportunity to engage anytime.  This builds on MTV’s continued leadership in being a brand that engages its audience where, when and how they want.

The Genesis of Twitter Tracker:

The potential to use this innovative application with a daily audience has its roots in a couple of successful one-time shows. Twitter visualizations were first used during the MTV Video Music Awards show September 13^th and again during the European Music Awards show November 5^th.  As the shows were being broadcast, the Twitter Tracker was reflecting what people at home were tweeting about the show, connecting the at-home audience with a TV host who was reporting what was being tweeted. The show inspired the tweets and the audience’s tweets fed the show.  What celebrity doesn’t want instant feedback?

Here’s a taste of the first MTV Twitter visualization at the VMAs:

How it works and why it’s important:

These applications and content are created through a partnership of MTV, Twitter, Stamen Design and Radian6. Stamen creates the great visuals and applications that plug into the Radian6 platform.

For Radian6, it’s great to have clients like MTV who use the Radian6 platform in new and different ways. It also shows the potential of integration of social media with TV and other forms of offline media.

More importantly it shows how MTV works on growing a community. Engaging their audience and fans online at any time of day keeps them connected with content, not just during a broadcast. It also enables a window into the audience to discover what they’re thinking and talking about.  It’s no longer just about watching TV; it’s about enabling a live interaction between the show and the audience.  By bringing the community into the content, brings new people into the conversation and reinforces to the audience that they are part of the whole experience.

So what’s next?

MTV has been a leader in pretty well everything in media since it launched in 1981.  It’s a network built on firsts: in programming, technology, popular culture and personalities.  They’ve continually shaped and reflected the new and the emerging and no doubt will challenge us at Radian6 with new ideas to engage their community in the experience.

About Rob: Rob Begg is Radian6’s Director of Business Development for the media and entertainment industries.  You can connect with Rob on Twitter @rbegg.

“Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let’s love turbulence and use it for change.” –Ramsay Clark

Social media has rocked the way organizations communicate with their communities. While social media is nothing new (we have always endeavored to foster mutually beneficial relationships), the tools are new and the dialog is open and direct without a middle man interpreter. This turbulent change may be uncomfortable, but has the potential to rocket your organization into another dimension of community engagement!

When getting started in social media, you cannot dismiss and ignore an organization’s fears about social media engagement. Social media success is dependant upon a drastic change in corporate culture’s thinking and execution process. Leading change management thinker, John Kotter, states there are eight steps to achieve success in a challenging situation and stimulate positive change. We have already addressed the first step of increasing the level of urgency. Now, let’s move on to the second step, building the guiding team.

One person cannot change the tide of an organization on his/her own. A collaborative effort is required. Finding and recognizing the individuals necessary to blend together and drive a social media vision is not a difficult process, but must be thorough and set the stage for the remaining change management steps.

1. Determine Purpose: The guiding team should ensure change is successfully implemented and entrenched within the organization. Their vision and goals must be clear, but we will talk about how to ensure clarity in future steps.
2. Create Team Composition: The team should balance a whole range of skills, experiences and viewpoints and include people who are trusted, respected and share an understanding for change, strong leadership and communication skills, and represent all levels of the organization.
3. Establish Emotional Commitment: It is essential all members of the team be emotionally aware this change is much more about the future health of the organization than it is about them. Team members must be invested in the well being and growth of this team and vision through good times and those rocky, turbulent moments.

Finding your social media superheroes is a great first step to building your guiding team. However, you need more than the social media savvy to make your vision a success! Don’t forget to invite your harshest critics into the fold (like your legal team). Learning up front what their concerns are and inviting them to help overcome those obstacles is the quickest way to establish buy-in and help the enterprise socialize.

How did your organization build your guiding team? Who is representative? What makes the team gel? Please share your experiences, strength and commitment with us.

Sidewiki has been a hot issue since Google announced its release in late September. Why is it so hot? Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that enables you to contribute and read helpful information alongside any web page. Sidewiki provides an easy way for users to share their insights about any page on the web. Now any web page is social.

Google Sidewiki Monitoring Support

Last month, we rolled out Googel Sidewiki monitoring support because we know many of you asked if Sidewiki posts will be included in Radian6 results. By adding the Sidewiki feed URL as a Source Filter in your Topic Profile Configuration, Sidewiki posts will show up as comments in your Radian6 results.

So, we are making it easier than ever to put on your listening ears and find out what is being said on Google Sidewiki. As a Radian6 user, check out our newest training resources to assist you in configuring your Topic Profile to gather Sidewiki results:

• Training Video: Google Sidewiki available on your Radian6 Dashboard Video Tutorial area
• Radian6 Google Sidewiki Quick Reference Guide

It’s often the case that conversation revolves around the notion of brands coming to their agencies and saying, “We’ve got to be using Social Media!” The agency then calmly guides the brand through the steps. See, that was easy, wasn’t it?

But there are still many skeptics. Still many brands that aren’t sure they are ready to dip their toes in the water, let alone dive in headfirst. As a Social Media practitioner, what are you to do then? You know the value, but how do you make the case for Social Media? This issue was brought up by Radian6’s own Amber Naslund during a session at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City in mid-November. The resulting dialogue brought the issue into sharp relief as many in the room shared the frustrations and challenges they experienced regarding this very issue.

Let me be very blunt. If the senior management isn’t interested in it, doesn’t get it and doesn’t support it, you can pretty much forget about. It will be about as smooth as riding a giant piece of sandpaper down a gravel driveway while wearing a burlap sack. Sure, you could do it, but by the time you get to the end you’ll wonder why you even attempted it in the first place.

I really can’t stress this enough. Senior management buy in is critical. Without it, every tweet will be scrutinized; every blog post will be measured by some form of ROI; and every status update will need to go through four rounds of legal counsel. Or, they’ll just decide that “Social Media doesn’t work” because they didn’t see a spike in Q3 sales.

Ok, let’s move up the dial a little bit. How do you make the case for Social Media to a senior management group who is skeptical, but willing to give it a try? You start small, you start guerrilla and you work against a goal that scratches where senior management has an itch.

Here’s what I mean: Before pitching senior management on a Social Media strategy, work the organization horizontally (if you are internal). Or you may have to do a pilot project on the (real) cheap if you are an agency. Find someone sympathetic to the cause and do a little something with them. It doesn’t have to be a full blown initiative, just a little something. A Facebook page, a Flickr stream. Something manageable. But also, something that will yield results that senior management will take notice of.  Are they freaked out about Customer Service costs? Then show them how you can solve via Twitter without those pricey call centers.

Now, when you are ready to speak with senior management you can show them the results of you inexpensive pilot program and the money it saved and / or revenue it generated. It won’t be a lot, but it will at least show them the potential. We have to remember that senior management has a different set of needs and challenges and we have to speak in a language that will resonate. Oftentimes that means a little less touchy feely and a little more bottom line.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… (Hum along with me.) No, it is not wonderful just because the holiday season is upon us, but because The Engaged Brand is starting off another month with rockin’ content to help you make the case for social media.

Some think that making the case for social media is to engage and ask for forgiveness later. While this may work for some, it is not the best way to gain enterprise-wide buy-in or make the case for social media to be a program and not a mere campaign. Check out the content we are sharing with you to help you lay the foundations for a strong social media strategy that is aligned with your organization’s business goals and objectives:

• Introducing Social Media: The First Conversation With Your Boss
• The Anatomy of Engagement Guidelines Pt 1 – Social Media Policy
• The Anatomy of Engagement Guidelines Pt 2 – Rules of Engagement
• Fostering Social Media Success With Your Legal Team
• Why Measurement Makes the Case
• The Why and How of Social Media Participation
• Video: Bigger than TV?

Also, don’t forget to join us in December for two brand new twebinars. This is your chance to participate, ask questions and share your experiences. We are incredibly excited about the content this month and the conversations we hope it will spur.

Need more? Have we missed something? Got a topic you’d like us to tackle or a case study you’d like to see? A social media challenge you’re trying to solve. Let us know on The Engaged Brand.

The era of mass media introduced a lot of changes in how businesses communicate with customers.  It has also had a huge impact on society, as Marshall McLuhan noted: media such as TV and radio would shrink the globe into a “global village“, a term he coined in his book Understanding Media (1964), which I briefly reference in the video.

So what about social media?  Will its effect on society and, more specifically, on business communications be a passing fad or will it have a greater impact than the era of mass marketing?

Here is my riff on that question.  Please let me know your thoughts on the subject.

Today is World AIDS Day and (RED) would love you to help turn the web (RED). Imagine a world united – in red; united in purpose – to eliminate AIDS in Africa.

What is (RED)?

Remember the big splash Bono made in 2006 (with Oprah) for the launch of (RED), the brand he founded with Bobby Shriver to help eliminate AIDS in Africa? It’s a brand that brought iconic brands together to create (PRODUCT) ^RED™ items that generate contributions on each sale. (RED) has ten (PRODUCT)^RED partners that contribute as much as 50% of the profits from each (PRODUCT)^RED sale to the Global Fund, to help fight AIDS in Africa.

The Role for Social Media:

This year, Social Media has a big role to play during World AIDS Day through a new campaign. Chrysi Philalithes is (RED)’s Director of Digital Strategy & Marketing and she says there are lots of ways to participate: “For Facebook, we are asking people to share the Lazarus Effect video and change their profile picture to a (RED) one.  For Twitter we are asking people to use the hashtag #red”. She says this single day of turning Facebook and Twitter (RED) can “show the power of social media” to unite people around the globe to support people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa.

The reason to support (RED) this World AIDS Day:

3,800 men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa die from AIDS every day. But AIDS doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Two pills/day costing about 40 cents can make the difference – enabling a person with HIV to live a healthy, full life with their families. This transformation is called “The Lazarus Effect.”

Chrysi says (RED)’s theme this year is “ONE COLOR UNITES US” and “cities, brands, organizations and people are all coming together to show their support” by turning the themselves (RED) on World AIDS Day.

What is Radian6 doing today?

Already blogs and other social media are spilling over with information about events for World AIDS Day. Radian6 is pleased to support (RED) today, along with one of its customers, DELL, which is a (RED) partner. Radian6 is conducting social media monitoring and analysis of conversations connecting communities around the globe who are doing their part to turn the world – and the web – (RED) today.

As business people, we’re becoming more and more inundated with the presence of social media and the real-time nature of the social web. Our interests range from skepticism to curiosity to rampant enthusiasm, but one thing remains clear: social media in a business context needs a business case to go along with it.

If you’re exploring how social media fits into a business context, you’ll need several strategies to build a strong case for it, and this month, we’re going to help you lay the foundations.

If social media is new to your business, we’ve got some ideas for framing out the first conversation you should have about social media. From laying a groundwork for social media understanding to broaching some of the key topics and questions like strategy, resources, and how to measure social media, we’ve got some succinct conversation starters to get you in the door.

To help keep the discussion focused, build your conversations with your team, your clients, or management around three key principles of social media: listening, engaging, and measuring.

Making the case for listening might start with seeing how your own company is faring on the web, but sound listening strategy goes well beyond brand monitoring. Learn how to mine the social web for critical business intelligence, understand how and where your strongest advocates are participating in social media, and discover how prospects identify themselves through social channels.

When you’re ready to make the leap to participation in social media, it’s important to consider all the important aspects to engagement. We’ve got a quick discussion guide for you for The Why and How of Social Media Participation that talks about some of the most consistent culture elements of social media and social networks, and why participation can hold for your business.

And to be sure you’ve planned ahead, check out Part 1 of the Anatomy of Engagement Guidelines that’ll walk you through considerations for drafting social media policies and guidelines in your organization. Part 2 takes you through the important pieces of guiding social media participation inside your company, including thoughts about what to moderate and how to manage information flow.

If you’re in a company where regulatory issues are in play, or you’re accustomed to legal review of communication materials, you’ll want to check out this ebook on Fostering Social Media Success with Your Legal Team, with ideas on how to bring you or your clients’ corporate counsel into the discussion about social media participation. The tough critics matter, too.

No conversation about justifying social media would be complete without a chat around measurement, so we’ve started the discussion here with Why Measurement Makes the Case, including some ideas for demonstrating the impact of your efforts. But never fear; if more discussion on measurement, ROI, and the new world of new media metrics has you hungry for more, we’ve got you covered. Stay tuned for a future month of The Engaged Brand dedicated to all things social media measurement.

This month is full of resources and ideas for how to get your company or client conversation started around social media. What else would you add? What ideas and approaches have been successful for you? Let us know, and happy reading.

This past month, we have discussed how to get started in social media because the conversations about your organization, brand, industry, and competitors is happening with or without you. It all comes down to the choice of participation. But when you choose to engage, how are you enabling the conversation? How are your conversations being perceived?

Radian6 Guest Blogger, Rachel Happe, compared online communities to dinner parties to illustrate the idea of how the environment needs to be set to foster natural dialog. Let’s delve a bit deeper in how to start an online conversation effortlessly and begin building mutually beneficial relationships.

What is your goal?

Jumping into social media conversation may be a bit daunting at first. When you monitor and listen to the conversations about your organization, brand, industry and competitors before you engage in online discussions, you will have a better feel for who is talking and why they are having these conversations. When you decide to engage online, begin participating in discussions that interest you the most or about topics you feel most comfortable addressing. Granted, this does not mean you put on rose-colored glasses and ignore the other conversations, but this first step will help build your confidence and hopefully spur additional engagement.

To achieve authentic conversations, it is best to engage in social media with the overarching mantra of, participate through contribution and not promotion. Think about what type of value you are adding to the discussion and how you can build on social capital individually by improving each other’s knowledge capital collaboratively.

What makes a great discussion?

Think back on your liveliest conversations…what made them so? Passion, for starters. Empower your organization to engage in the topics they are both excited and knowledgeable about. In order to make a conversation interesting, those participating in the dialog must be also interesting. In allowing people to take off their corporate masks and speak with personality will attract much more dialog and nurture the comfort level needed to share stories.

Welcome newcomers, thank contributors, and be a good listener.We connect to each other through our own experiences. Do not monopolize the conversation to be exclusively about your organization, but encourage the sharing of stories. Provide a way for people to connect with other people in similar situations. Catalyze, facilitate and nurture healthy discussions — and get out of the way!

What is model behavior?

Conversations cannot be manufactured, but you have the ability to create the necessary conditions to enable successful dialog. Even if you find it extremely difficult, always strive to be kind and courteous online, just as you would in offline conversations. Remember that both civility and nastiness are contagious. Be authentic from the head, heart and gut and you will find your confidence will grow.

Learn to master patience and avoid emotional responses. Do not feel you must shoulder the burden of response. This is why engagement should be an organization-wide responsibility and why building external relationships is so valuable! When you have an issue, consider bringing the situation to the community and asking for their opinions and guidance. This will definitely enable some dialog.

Most importantly, have fun. Yes, the conversations we are having may take serious tones, but demonstrate it’s okay to experiment and that behind every organization and brand are individuals just like them.

Date: Thursday, December 10th
Time: 2pm EST

Do we really need to Make a Case for Social Media?

With …
•    325 million on Facebook
•    100 million on MySpace
•    40 million on Twitter
•    100 million daily views on YouTube
•    50 million people blogging

Edward Boches says social media changes everything except the need for creativity! He should know, as the Chief Creative Officer and Chief Social Media Officer at Mullen, a modern advertising agency based in Boston. He definitely has an opinion!

He’ll share those opinions and a multitude of stories in a Twebinar with Radian6’s Amber Naslund and David Alston on Thursday, December 10th at 2pm EST. Join us and meet Edward as he shares his passion for “Creativity in the age of Social Media”.

This Twebinar is open to communities everywhere so please join us by logging in with your Twitter account on Thursday, Dec 10th (no preregistration is required) or listen to the audio on our Engaged Brand BlogTalkRadio channel.

What is a Twebinar?

A Twebinar is a mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion.

How Can I Participate?

Since we’ll be using Twitter, just tweet us your questions with a #radian6 hashtag, include a “?” and we’ll be sure to see them. We’ve built the Twebinar interface so you can see all the tweets and discussion at a glance, listen to the broadcast, and submit your questions as we chat.

Twebinar Tips:

• Once the Twebinar has started, log in and you should hear music or the live broadcast. If you don’t hear the audio right away, please refresh your browser.
• If you login before the Twebinar starts, refresh your browser once the Twebinar begins and the BlogTalkRadio (BTR) interface will show up and start playing.
• To ask a question, simply type it in to Twitter using the #radian6 hashtag and end it with a “?”. We’ll see it.
• Your hosts for this episode will be @ambercadabra and @davidalston. Feel free to send them advance questions on Twitter if you like. We’ll also have @vargasl on hand to help gather and answer your questions during the broadcast.
• If you’d prefer to listen to the audio without the Twebinar interface, you can do so at our BlogTalkRadio channel.
• The full broadcast of the event will be posted on our blog after the event is over, or you can always listen to the archive on BTR.
• Any other questions, leave them here in the comments or ask us on Twitter and we’ll do our best.

Head to the Twebinars site to log in and join the discussion (don’t worry, we don’t see your login credentials; Twitter keeps those). We can’t wait to talk with Edward, and we hope you bring along some questions.

Radian6 will be a great destination in December for learning and illuminating the path through social media. December 1st will see fresh new content in the Engaged Brand section of our site including e-books, articles and video.

Our December theme is “Making a Case for Social Media” and usually the first place you go to start that conversation is with your boss. We’ll have tips to make that conversation as easy and productive as possible. But before even booking a meeting with the boss, you can examine the “Anatomy of Engagement” that provides a framework and ideas for creating your guidelines for social media participation within the company and for engaging with your external community.

And if you want to know what the road ahead looks like, check out the new video by Radian6 CEO Marcel LeBrun. He’ll lead you down – or up- the Yellow Brick Road to social media maturity and outline not only the first steps to get started in social media, but the five stages to arrive at a fully engaged and mature social media company.

Two web events are also scheduled. On Thursday December 10th,  we’ll tackle “creativity in the age of social media” with Edward Boches (@EdwardBoches) who’s both the Chief Creativity and Chief Social Media Officer at the communications agency, Mullen. Edward’s always had an eye for creativity; even thumbing through the pages of ads in Life magazine as a lad captured his imagination. Perhaps that’s what led him into media communications. He’s had some pretty cool discussions in his career, presenting ideas to Oprah (who apparently liked them) and co-writing TV ads with Ellen DeGeneres. Edward will inject his enthusiasm and creativity into our Twebinar so be sure to join us on Thursday, December 10th at 2 pm EST.

Then as we head closer to the holidays, we’ll propose some good cheer with our friends at Molson Coors in a Twebinar Thursday, December 17th. We’ll be joined by Ferg Devins, Adam Moffat and Tonia Hammer as we talk about lessons learned and how social media connects brands with their communities. So raise a glass and toast the upcoming season with us.

Both Twebinars are open to everyone so please join us by logging in with your Twitter account on Thursday, Dec 10th and 17th (no preregistration is required) or listen to the audio on our Engaged Brand BlogTalkRadio channel.

What is a Twebinar?

A Twebinar is a mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion.

How Can I Participate?

Since we’ll be using Twitter, just tweet us your questions with a #radian6 hashtag, include a “?” and we’ll be sure to see them. We’ve built the Twebinar interface so you can see all the tweets and discussion at a glance, listen to the broadcast, and submit your questions as we chat.

Twebinar Tips:

• Once the Twebinar has started, log in and you should hear music or the live broadcast. If you don’t hear the audio right away, please refresh your browser.
• If you login before the Twebinar starts, refresh your browser once the Twebinar begins and the BlogTalkRadio (BTR) interface will show up and start playing.
• To ask a question, simply type it in to Twitter using the #radian6 hashtag and end it with a “?”. We’ll see it.
• Your hosts will be @ambercadabra and @davidalston. Feel free to send them advance questions on Twitter if you like. We’ll also have @vargasl on hand to help gather and answer your questions during the broadcast.
• If you’d prefer to listen to the audio without the Twebinar interface, you can do so at our BlogTalkRadio channel.
• The full broadcast of the events will be posted on our blog after the event is over, or you can always listen to the archive on BTR.
• Any other questions, leave them here in the comments or ask us on Twitter and we’ll do our best.

One of the most instant and powerful reactions to social media is information overload. So many sites! So many tools! Where on earth do we start, and do we have to do them all?!?

First things first: absolutely not.

There. Do you feel a little better? Catch your breath, and walk with me through a few of the reasons why trying to be everywhere isn’t necessary.

Your Community Isn’t Everywhere.

One of the reasons we so strongly advocate listening as the foundation of every social media strategy is because it’s the best way to figure out what sites, tools, and channels your community, audience and customers are using. It helps you make strategic decisions about:

• Who’s doing the talking about you
• Where they’re doing that talking
• How often those conversations are happening
• Where the larger conversations are that you want to be part of

If the chatter about real estate is on blogs but not on Twitter, then you can cross Twitter off your list (and yes, even if CNN and Alyssa Milano are there). If there are passionate enthusiasts about green building and sustainable design are on forums and Twitter but they’re not on Facebook, you don’t have to be pouring resources into that fan page you thought you needed.

Use your listening tools and strategies to pinpoint the discussions that are most important and valuable to you, and have the confidence to table the rest until and unless it matters to your business. It’s not about being cool or cutting edge. It’s about being present and relevant to the people who are asking for you.

Human Resources are Finite.

Let’s face it: we don’t have armies of people to deploy across the social web and spend all day in the trenches, chatting away on Facebook and YouTube and Ning and LinkedIn and Twitter and blogs and…you get the idea.

Social media often needs to tuck into our day, much like email and phone calls. We need to answer when called, start the conversation ourselves when it makes sense to do so, and otherwise not feel chained to our desks just in case someone shouts for us on MySpace.

Broken record moment: listening helps with this, too. Once you know where the relevant conversations are happening, it’s much easier to allocate resources to manage your company presence on those sites.

Social media can often become an AND instead of an OR, as well. If we have only so many hours per day to be on our chosen social media communities, it’s a great idea to spend the time and effort to audit all of the other things you’re already doing. Maybe the e-newsletter never took off but the chat on your community site did? It might be time to table the stuff that isn’t working in favor of redirecting resources to the activities that show promise toward your goals.

Impact Requires Depth of Experience.

If you’ve ever been to a professional networking event and have tried the “speed networking” or merely flitted about the room in hopes that you’ll meet everyone, you’ll know that short moments of connection rarely have the impact of a lasting conversation. You may have a business card in hand, but you’ll have trouble recalling the details, or finding that spark of commonality that means you’ll want to reach out and connect again.

So it goes with social networks, which are built on the premise of human touchpoints through technology. If you’re busy just collecting followers and fans and scrambling across the social web in hopes that being everywhere means you’re more visible, you’ll miss out. As we often say, it’s not about finding people in social media. It’s always about finding the right people.

So, silence that voice that tells you more and more is better and better. Use your listening skills and find the one or two places where you know you can have consistent, repetitive experiences and dialogue with the folks that want most to engage with you. (How do you know who they are, you ask? Start by talking to them and you’ll quickly see.) Providing consistency and familiarity over time breeds affinity. And affinity over time breeds loyalty, advocacy, and all the things you know you want but aren’t sure how to get.

Tools Come and Go

Don’t forget: the tools and sites we’ve come to know and love are almost certainly finite. Nothing lasts forever, most especially on the fleeting and fast moving internet. Remember that your best bet for any social media approach is a strategy that has a solid foundation irrespective and completely independent of the tools you use to get there. In other words, don’t talk about Twitter or Facebook. Learn what they help you do and accomplish, and always seek out the best and most streamlined paths you need in order to achieve those goals.

Put your listening ears on first, and you’ll always be able to find where the discussion and the people are.

So, does that help? What’s pushing you to feel like you have to be everywhere? And how are you applying filters to make sure you spend your time where it’s most valuable? Let’s have some chit chat in the comments.

Between now and Thursday, even before sitting down to a much anticipated and abundantly satisfying Thanksgiving dinner, we are all invited to use our favorite social media tool to tweet, blog, post a picture or video, to express our thanks and gratitude. It’s part of a 48-hour worldwide campaign called “Tweetsgiving 2009”. The idea is that if we think about what we are thankful for, it will also propel us to want to give.

The Tweetsgiving campaign last year fueled not only awareness for gratitude (for things as simple as chocolate and as cute as one’s puppy, to being thankful for parents and country), it also raised more than $10,000 US (the suggested donation of $10 netted a $30 average). The funds built a new classroom for an enthusiastic group of students in the Tanzanian village of Arusha. These kids barely have books (Gary Vaynerchuk has since sent his book “Crush It”) and now they’re connected to the world through the Internet – and they’ve been tweeting their thanks ever since. They’ve come to be affectionately known as the #TwitterKids!

The root of this campaign will make you believe that one individual can make a difference and perhaps remind us of the quote by Gandhi; “be the change you want to see in the world”. The story starts in Africa where one woman wanted to create a school so she saved her money from raising chickens to do it. She goes by the name “Mama Lucy” Kamptoni. Then one woman from the opposite side of the world called Stacey Monk, a management consultant on an extended trip, came to volunteer at Mama Lucy’s school. Later, when the school was at risk of being torn down by a developer, Stacey Monk quit her for-profit job and kicked her non-profit Epic Change into high gear. The school is now growing, as are the dreams of the students.

TweetsGiving is one of the early examples of engaging online communities for social good and is featured in numerous publications including Shel Israel’s book “Twitterville”. Epic Change simply saw it as the next evolution to using the phone, TV or door-to-door canvassing.

Radian6 is lending its support, as it did for the #beatcancer campaign, providing official social media monitoring or as Avi Kaplan, of Epic Change calls it, “gratitude-shared” monitoring. For Avi, that’s one thing that sets this campaign apart, is the focus on hope and gratitude rather than poverty. He believes it’s important to appreciate what we have and that “every expression of gratitude has the power to be transformative”. While every culture has its own way of expressing it, he says gratitude runs deep within the culture he witnessed among students and parents in Arusha. He hopes Tweetsgiving 2009 raises significantly more than last year and if so, the funds will build another classroom, a dormitory (orphanage), cafeteria and library. And if the campaign exceeds even those expectations, it will enable others, like Mama Lucy, to partner in new Epic Change initiatives. Avi has reason to be hopeful since momentum is already building and because this year’s campaign goes beyond connecting online communities. Live parties, university campus and city events are scheduled around the globe across six continents.

Gratitude could be the new currency for success. Scientific researchers are showing a link between gratitude and happiness and even improved performance at work; perhaps not unlike what philanthropist and investor John Templeton said, “to get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.” If this is possible, perhaps too is the goal of Epic Change, as it “seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude” – might we add –one tweet at a time! Happy Tweetsgiving!

“We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.” –R. D. Laing

Are you one of those people that would wait until the night before an exam to study or putter around until hours before the post was scheduled to be published to write the content? (No, I would never be talking about me…) Procrastination creates a sense of urgency and allows us to push through our fears and other obstacles to complete the task at hand.

When getting started in social media, you cannot dismiss and ignore an organization’s fears about social media engagement. Social media success is dependant upon a drastic change in corporate culture’s thinking and execution process. Leading change management thinker, John Kotter, states the number one step to achieve success in a challenging situation and stimulate change is to increase urgency.

Alright, sounds simple enough…how do I begin to motivate or create a sense of urgency?

1. Identify cause of urgency – Change typically begins to manifest in an organization when stakeholders begin to notice a vulnerability in the organization. Determine what soft spots have been revealed in your organization’s communication strategies with the advent of social media tools.
2. Recognize the causes of complacency – Understand why the organization is fearful of direct connection with the community and address those fears through education of how to safely interact and the value of long term relationship building.
3. Determine strategies to increase urgency levels – Sometimes one of the best motivators to get organizations involved in social media is to demonstrate how their organization, industry and competitors are being perceived in online conversations outside of the organization’s control.
4. Implement strategies and monitor progress – Set-up listening alerts to monitor online conversations and share your findings with other stakeholders and influencers in the organization.
5. Remind yourself and organization of the deadline – It is important to feel a level of comfort and be educated before jumping into social media interaction, but you don’t want to be the last one to the party…set a deadline of when you will enter social media and use the time prior to launch to alleviate fears and educate your organization about how you want to participate.

Urgency prompts action. Motivate your organization to change by giving them a realistic view of their organization through the lens of the community. Sometimes even bringing in outside perspectives to share these findings is helpful in stirring up urgency. Beware of sharing your findings with only those at the top of the organization. It is those people in the middle of your workforce that will make or break your change efforts. Ensure your organization has a wide-sense of urgency and create the buy-in necessary to stimulate change.

How are you using urgency as a motivator to influence change? Please share the pros and cons of your lessons learned.

By now those who know me are tiring of my constant cry, “Real Estate Is King.” I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen for the past year and a half that your brands need to be owning property all over the monopoly board. Just owning Boardwalk isn’t going to cut it.

What does that mean? Since the dawn of the internet we’ve all been following the same funnel based model for success:

• Run a bunch of advertising
• Have the call to action for the advertising be to the brand’s site
• Get people on to the site
• Convert the people

In applying this model we were trying to drive traffic to 1 destination. In doing so, the focus was always on Unique Visitors. The baseline and focal point for success rested on increasing the number of unique visitors. If you were estimating a conversion benchmark of 10%, having more unique visitors increased the total number of conversions. Makes sense.

But, in leveraging that model, we didn’t take into account all the other interactions taking place throughout the web. Often these interactions were smaller…micro if you will. Despite being small, they definitely mattered; and they still do.

As companies look to engage consumers where they are (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, etc.) something interesting is going to happen. Unique Visitors to the site are going to decrease. They’re going to matter less because the funnel isn’t linear.

Best Buy and Amazon recently announced that they are going to make their inventory available to any and all developers who want to create apps, widgets, or the like so that sales of the product could happen on this site. The idea is that they don’t care where the sale takes place, so long as it takes place.  The path to purchase isn’t linear. Think about it. You could be on Facebook with the Amazon App installed, see a deal on that book you added to your wish list, and then buy it right there…with NO need to visit Amazon.com. Now, that’s value.

But, what are we going to do about those decreased traffic numbers? The implications are huge. Online publishers set their value based on their audience size. Is your site less valuable because it now gets less traffic? Again, maybe the real point is we need to look beyond unique visitors when determining what success looks like.

Make no mistake about it, real estate is king. If your focused on hoping people land on Boardwalk you’re going to lose this game. Start buying up property now.

About Adam

Thanks to everyone who joined our Webinar today on Getting a Foothold in Social Media. Lauren made an in-depth presentation on the 7 Steps to Getting Started in Social Media.

1. Get Educated.
2. Listen.
3. Find Your Personality.
4. Define Success.
5. Participate.
6. Measure, Measure, Measure.
7. Don’t be Afraid to Fail.

But don’t worry if you missed out. We’ve got it all right here for you to download. Or if you prefer you can just view the eBook.

Also, thanks to those of you who sent in some thought-provoking questions. If any of you want to listen to the answers again they are recorded at the end of the Webinar.

You know that when it comes to embracing social media within organizations we often see the person leading the charge literally tackling the challenge with the skills of a social media superhero. And like most superheros they don’t think anything of the special powers they have activated in themselves and those around them. They remain humble and focused on the community they have pledged to serve.

Do you have these secret strengths inside you just waiting to break free? We think you probably do. Take a fun look at some of the special skills we’ve seen illustrated so wonderfully by the many social media superheros we’ve come to know.

The Top 10 Qualities of a Social Media Superhero

1. The strength of a thousand community members – Being a social media superhero often requires carrying the extra load of doing the “day job” while donning the cape of learning, exploring, and developing your social media skills. You need to dig deep down to find the energy and diplomacy to fly through potential bureaucracies, policies and corporate culture.

2. Shape shifting abilities – The ability to shape and shift your company’s culture towards one that is “community-centric” as opposed to target market only focused. This is potentially a massive shift for many companies because of the momentum towards continuing with what’s worked in the past.

3. Desire to live within your community – The practice of living amongst the community you serve, conversing with them, helping them, sharing and generally helping it to advance. Sorry, having a cool lair in a mountain may be cool but how can you truly understand the needs of the community if you are decidedly separated from them?

4. Super human listening – There are millions of conversations happening in the naked city of social media and you not only need to make sure your powerful ears are open, but you are honing in on the specific things where you can help. Crises can erupt, needs can be expressed, crowds can form around ideas and more and your super hero powers of community can be called into action in a flash.

5. The agility of a cat – Social media never sleeps. The response time expectations of the community ain’t your father’s community response time. Engaging with the community once you know what they need requires agility and focus and the ability to navigate the mazes within your own company.

6. The leadership to assemble your own social media justice league – Collaboration is the name of the game when it comes to solving problems within your community. And this same approach is generally required within your own company. You can’t do it alone, so you will need to find and activate the social media superhero within others in your organization.

7. Unending passion for what you do – Yes, being a superhero can sometimes be a misunderstood and unappreciated role. But at the core of all of your strength, indeed the strength of all of the social media superhero collaborators, is passion. For all of the long hours you will put in to listen, engage and act, you will need to have passion for what your business does. In fact, it is this same passion that your community will find so attractive about you and what you do.

8. Unparalleled bravery – Like a firefighter, you will find yourself running into a burning building of an online issue when everyone is running quickly in the opposite direction. While complaints about your brand are far from the only things you will encounter in your quest, they may be some of the most challenging. But they represent a chance to learn, to help someone, and to potentially repair or build a new relationship.

9. The ability to leap powerfully with both feet – Perhaps it’s not a tall building, but jumping into social media requires courage. It’s pretty hard to dip in a toe and truly know what it means to be a social media superhero. In many ways it just means deciding that the time is now and the community needs you…how can you go wrong by answering their call? It starts with listening; the first engagement leads to the next and you build from there. This is a lifestyle, not a campaign.

10. Commitment for the long-haul – The community loves a social media superhero with the same passion for things they are also passionate about. With their powerful listening abilities, helpful engagements and never ending action, a community grows to know they can depend on help from the social media superhero when they need it.

We believe you have it in you. Do you? Are you ready to don the cape and be your community’s next social media superhero?

Who says traditional media is dead?

Recently, Radian6 teamed up with MTV, Twitter and Stamen on a twitter visualization application that was used during the pre and post-show roundups of the MTV Video Music Awards. Bringing context-aware/relevant interactivity (eg. TV viewing and Twitter), while not a new activity, combined with the end user device of choice, is where a broad range of opportunities could present themselves. Enter Mariner and their newest Buzz TV application fusing traditional media with the future of now.

Mariner sees their role as helping Service Providers grapple with the social media learning curve and its role relative to the TV, understanding it and exploiting it to drive new revenues, retain and attract customers and even lower operating costs. Newer products like Buzz TV are efforts to take advantage of the convergence of old and new media.

Buzz TV was created in response to a Mediaroom application developers contest. Mariner attended an invitation only conference hosted by Microsoft for their Mediaroom application developers back in July. Part of the event was a challenge put to the attendees-within 30 days submit a concept that uses the Mediaroom middleware for a TV-based application; and deliver a working prototype in 60 days. No small task.

How It Works

Mariner set themselves apart from the competition and put the “buzz” in Buzz TV by integrating the Radian6 tool to to scan hundreds of thousands of blogs, microblogs, websites and social networks.

The Buzz TV application:

• Provides keywords to be searched, (i.e. the TV shows)
• Polls Radian6 periodically to retrieve data
• Formats for TV display
• Calculates the Buzz factors based on the references for each specific show against the total
• Enables re-tweeting from the TV

Don’t Touch that Channel

The team at Mariner believes products like Buzz TV have the potential to keep TV relevant to a very large youth demographic that is drifting away from the Cable/Broadcast medium and makes social media less intimidating to the overall TV-demographic. “We at Mariner think it is not a question of… either/or, we think there is promise in the blending of applications and devices in the new media world. The TV still has a role to play. The “lean back” viewing experience is still popular; now blend this with content-relevant dialogue and interactivity and we may have something,” explains Mike MacNeil, director of marketing at Mariner.

TV is a passive medium, but as the audience changes and adopts interactive media, TV is evolving beyond the “couch potato.” Stay tuned for more on how this application gains traction in both traditional and social media…

Traditional media is not definitely not dead; we are just experiencing the media differently. The possibilities of how to integrate traditional and social media are endless. We are incredibly eager to see what is on the horizon and what role Radian6 could play in powering cool applications to bring online conversations to traditional media.

Social media is not staying confined to the communications department, but stretching its wings in other areas of the enterprise media channels. Interested in finding out how to partner with Radian6 and breaking through communication barriers to introduce new and innovative media consumption? We are all ears.

We’re pleased to announce a Radian6 update we rolled out over the weekend, and wanted to communicate the new features that you now have available in your Radian6 account. In recent weeks we’ve been focused on adding coverage, streamlining workflows, enabling enterprise operating environments, and reaching out to an increasingly global user community.

Google Sidewiki Monitoring Support

We know many of you have asked if Sidewiki posts will be included in Radian6 results, and the answer is yes!  By adding the Sidewiki feed URL as a Source Filter in your Topic Profile Configuration, Sidewiki posts will show up as comments in your Radian6 results. Your Sidewiki feed URL will look like: http://www.google.com/sidewiki/feeds/entries/domainpath/googleblog.blogspot.com%2F/full?sortorder=published

Replace “googleblog.blogspot.com” with the URL of the domain you wish to monitor. Also stay tuned here for an upcoming how-to post on adding Sidewiki content to your results.

Portuguese Language Support

Social media is an increasingly global phenomenon. We recognize the need for social media monitoring beyond North America, and that the needs of international organizations may span across the globe. As a result, we’ve listed Portuguese as an available language during your Topic Profile Configuration process. Now, you can search exclusively for Portuguese keywords, or include Portuguese results in your overall searches. And as always, it’s easy to filter to include or exclude specific languages using the language filters for each topic profile – handy if you’re monitoring a large volume of content.

Dashboard Sharing

We also know that the social media monitoring needs of large organizations can be unique. Engaged organizations monitoring large communities may find themselves with several users who each reach out daily to dozens of community members, and need to have consistent information at their fingertips quickly. Power users may want to configure and share their monitoring dashboards with their teams. Or, management teams may want a turn-key dashboard to review monitoring results without having to spend time on configuration and setup. To address needs like this, we’ve rolled out the ability to copy and move a complete dashboard to another user in your domain.

At the top of your Radian6 dashboard, you’ll find a new “cog” icon to the left of your dashboard icons.  The dashboard cog allows you to select options for copying and moving your dashboards, as well as generating dashboard reports and renaming your existing dashboards. Copying a dashboard will create a complete duplicate of a dashboard from your account and send it to another, while retaining the original in your display. Moving a dashboard recreates the dashboard for the new user, and removes it from the original user’s display.

In addition to Copy/Move Dashboard, we’ve also added a simple alerting system. Users are notified when new dashboards are sent to their account, can accept and deny incoming dashboards, and defer accepting a new dashboard until later.

A few other notes on the new Dashboard Copy and Move capabilities:

• Minimized widgets will not be copied or moved. This allows you to customize dashboards with visible widgets and send without having to delete or reconfigure other widgets you may have on your dashboard.
• Radian6 currently has a limit of 8 dashboards per user. If you have more than 8 dashboards, you will not be able to receive a new one. However you will be provided with the option to remove one, or you may defer accepting the new dashboard until later.

Automatic Widget Repositioning

Along with the Copy/Move Dashboard capabilities, we’ve built in a fail-safe feature to guard against “losing” dashboard widgets off-screen when changing display or resolution size. Radian6 will now detect widgets that may be located off-screen upon login, and will automatically reposition them on-screen.

…

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and feedback. Our platform is built and improved with your needs in mind, so we always welcome your suggestions for how to make it a more powerful monitoring, engagement, and measurement tool for your business.

Ah, value is a tricky thing to describe or provide because the worth of something lies in the eyes of the beholder. Too often, value (quantitative and qualitative) is an after thought when an organization jumps into social media. The shiny new tools and keeping up with the Jones’ provides other distractions. Social or “new” media does not mean you throw the baby out with the bath water and forget basic business and marketing communication principles.

An organization or brand’s reputation is based on expectations, perceptions, business relationships and unique intellectual property assets. Social media is a prime outlet to skip the middle man and talk directly with your community and improve one or several of these areas. It is vital your organization understands how your community currently feels about your brand/value promise. Consider going back to the basics and conducting an internal and external analysis of context and perspective of your organization’s brand/value promise…both stated and implied.

Internal Analysis

• How does your organization create value?
• How does your organization differ from competitors?
• Why should your community accept your organization’s offer?

External Analysis

• How does your community measure the value your organization offers?
• How does your organization link value to community needs and desires?
• How does your organization communicate value difference between you and competitors?
• How does your organization measure the delivery of value promise?
• How can your organization increase return on value while delivering higher levels of value?

Delivering on Promise

Getting started in social media requires a firm understanding of where your organization has been, where it operates today and the promise of a brighter tomorrow. Do not let social media tools outshine your organization’s brand/value promise. Toby Bloomberg provides a great list of Guide Posts to Social Media Brand Value to continue your thinking and analysis of how your organization will incorporate the value promise with social media objectives.

Remember, promises are a dime a dozen unless you deliver on the promise and set your organization apart from the competition by establishing authentic, long-term relationships within your community. Build connections and begin to see your value increasing. Making a promise and keeping it in this transparent domain of social media will speak volumes.

Social Media is everywhere these days. It’s talked about, it’s lauded, it’s criticized. And for a business that might yet be Getting Started With Social Media, all of the information, tools, and opinions can be overwhelming.

Getting a foothold in social media does not have to be painful if you have the path in place to rise to the top. Please join Lauren Vargas, Radian6′s Community Manager, on Thursday, November 19^th at 2pm EST for our free webinar as we discuss what you need to build a solid social media foundation.

Lauren’s discussion will focus on a 7 step process to getting started in Social Media.

1. Get Educated.
2. Listen.
3. Find Your Personality.
4. Define Success.
5. Participate.
6. Measure, Measure, Measure.
7. Don’t be Afraid to Fail.

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/768210923

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

We can’t wait to talk with you about best practices and real-life examples, so be sure to bring some stories and questions.

Thanks to everyone for the great turnout at our Engaged Brand Twebinar today with Chuck Hemann from Dix & Eaton. The audience participation was so awesome; we had plenty of great, thought-provoking questions for our speed round.

Chuck shared so much fantastic information it was hard to keep up. He started with his brilliantly simple 4 step process for a Social Media campaign:

1. Listen
2. Create a strategy based on what you learned from listening
3. Engage the community
4. Measure the response

He said that “If you don’t listen and benchmark to begin with, it’s hard to measure the success of your Social Media program.”

He also shared the list of blogs he keeps in his RSS feed. Plus, he had some great nuggets of wisdom, such as “Engage people where they live, not where you live.” And “The conversation about you and your brand are going to be happening whether you participate or not.”

To hear more great nuggets from Chuck please download the Dix & Eaton podcast from BlogTalkRadio. And be sure to follow Chuck on Twitter at @chuckhemann so you don’t miss out on anything new he might have to say.

Thank you all for listening and participating. Here’s a few of the interesting tweets that occurred during the Twebinar:

TWEET FROM: LZONE
Like @chuckhemann, I agree that SM works best when it becomes a part of a company’s culture and doesn’t just reside in one dept. #radian6

TWEET FROM: CSLEDZIK
@lzone @alexiaharris Makes sense to start slow as Chuck said. Even listening ahead of time can help you be proactive. #radian6

TWEET FROM: ALEXIAHARRIS
@chuckhemann I read the blogs you suggested. I guess I’m on track #radian6

TWEET FROM: SONNYGILL
Ding ding. @chuckhemann touches on shaping corporate culture to be ready for SM within the business #radian6

TWEET FROM: GOKTGO
“The corporate culture has 2 b ready 4 social media…they have 2 b willing 2 collaborate w customers more than just push products” #radian6

______________________________________________________________________________

EDIT: We thought we’d add Chuck’s great list of social media blogs for all of those who’d like to check them out.

Aaron Strout: http://blog.stroutmeister.com/
Amber Naslund: http://altitudebranding.com/
Dave Fleet: http://davefleet.com/
David Griner: http://www.thesocialpath.com/
David Mullen: http://www.davidwmullen.com/
Don Bartholomew: http://metricsman.wordpress.com/
Geoff Livingston: http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/
Jason Falls: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/
Katie Paine: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/
Olivier Blanchard: http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/
Radian6: http://www.radian6.com/blog/

Today, and for the rest of this weekend, I’m hanging out with some social media smarties on the Social Fresh Cruise. I know it sounds rough, and believe me, it is – having some fun on the ocean (and in Mexico, for a brief bit) and doing some big thinking with some of the smartest minds on the social media scene.

Seriously, though. There’s something that this event is affording me and some of my colleagues the chance to do that we don’t often: talk about what’s next. What’s real. What all of this means.

Social media is all the rage, and the hype around it can be stifling at times. Overwhelming, and all too focused on the shiny technology. But those of us in the trenches, figuring this stuff out day to day, testing and breaking and experimenting and proving and measuring… well, we see something in all of this that’s bigger than blogs or Twitter or Facebook.

We see a fundamental shift in the way businesses will operate. In the way that customers will connect not just with the companies they do business with, but perhaps more importantly, with each other. We see old ideas of community-centered business clad in fancy technology. We see relationships that used to develop on the golf course now happening across states, countries, oceans – through the power of a vastly networked web of communication and content.

So we’re going to spend a few days chewing on that, discussing it, connecting with our colleagues and figuring out where it’s taking each of us next. For me, and for Radian6, it’s the chance to kick the tires on some of our ideas about the shift in business because of the social web, and the new roles and structures it implies. To connect with folks that help drive ourbusiness as enthusiasts, experts, and contributors to this exciting, fast-paced space of ours.

If you happen to be out on the ocean this weekend, toss a wave toward the water, ’cause I’ll be on a boat. And I know l I’ll come back with lots of great new thoughts and ideas to share with you, the folks that are changing yourbusinesss with social technologies.

How many countless times did you ask your parents for something or to go somewhere and their initial answer was no, but your response was, “Well, everyone has it!” or “Everyone is going!” What was the response of your parents? Or perhaps you are a parent now and have used this response with your children… “Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean you have to. Would you jump off a cliff if everyone was doing it?” Why jump into social media? Because everyone is doing it? It wasn’t a good enough reason for your parents and it won’t be a good enough reason for your organization.

• Set Realistic Expectations – Getting started in social media does not begin with the tools, but with goals, strategies and objectives. Be up front and understand  your motives and align with business goals. Is your organization seeking additional leads leads, increase of direct sales, greater brand awareness, conversions, or brand engagement?
• Address Obstacles – If you are not using social media already, why not?
• Avoid I want! I want! I want! - Shiny new gadgets do not precede strategy. Keep it simple. You don’t have to be on every social network. Find out where your community exists and begin engaging with them there.
• Prepare resources - Human and financial investment is vital. Don’t bite off more than you can chew until you have a sense of where you are going, but don’t fail your social media attempt before you even begin by not giving your objectives legs and commitment.
• Integrate social media enterprise-wide - Don’t just educate your team. This does not mean everyone has to be comfortable participating in social networks, but people will open their minds and business resources a little more if you help them understand the context of why the organization should be in social media.

Getting a foothold in social media does not have to be painful if you have path in place to rise to the top. We will be opening this conversation to you in an upcoming webinar, but I want to get you thinking about what you would recommend to an organization just getting started in social media? Don’t brush off this month’s 101 topic of Getting Started in Social Media as something only those who are new to the space may benefit from…there is room for all of us to grow. What are your lessons learned?

Sometimes Getting Started in Social Media is as easy as following your instincts. That’s what Chuck Hemann did when he first started exploring Social Media about 2 years ago.

Please join us at our Twebinar this Thursday, November 12th at 2:00PM (EST) as we talk with Chuck and ask him how he applied his personal experiences in Social Media to his professional life as the Manager of Research and Online Reputation Management at Dix & Eaton, a communications boutique in Cleveland Ohio. Chuck will also tell us about a client who believes a recent campaign was successful because he engaged in social media, rather than the “tried and true” traditional approach for communications campaigns.

This Twebinar is open to the public so please join us by logging in with your Twitter account on Thursday (no preregistration is required) or listen to the audio on our Engaged Brand BlogTalkRadio channel.

What is a Twebinar?

A Twebinar is a mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion.

How Can I Participate?

Since we’ll be using Twitter, just tweet us your questions with a #radian6 hashtag, include a “?” and we’ll be sure to see them. We’ve built the Twebinar interface so you can see all the tweets and discussion at a glance, listen to the broadcast, and submit your questions as we chat.

Twebinar Tips:

• Once the Twebinar has started, log in and you should hear music or the live broadcast. If you don’t hear the audio right away, please refresh your browser.
• If you login before the Twebinar starts, refresh your browser once the Twebinar begins and the BlogTalkRadio (BTR) interface will show up and start playing.
• To ask a question, simply type it in to Twitter using the #radian6 hashtag and end it with a “?”. We’ll see it.
• Your host for this episode will be @davidalston. Feel free to send him advance questions on Twitter if you like. We’ll also have @vargasl on hand to help gather and answer your questions during the broadcast.
• If you’d prefer to listen to the audio without the Twebinar interface, you can do so at our BlogTalkRadio channel.
• The full broadcast of the event will be posted on our blog after the event is over, or you can always listen to the archive on BTR.
• Any other questions, leave them here in the comments or ask us on Twitter and we’ll do our best.

Head to the Twebinars site to log in and join the discussion (don’t worry, we never see your login credentials; Twitter keeps those). We can’t wait to chat with Chuck, and hope you’ll bring along your questions.

There is a huge amount of energy in the social media space being focused on tools to implement social media objectives and strategies. Let’s not forget the human element involved…the enterprise needing to be educated and the teams who will carry out these lofty new objectives and strategies. The path to social media integration will not always be smooth and definitely, not immediate. The key is setting reasonable, realistic expectations. Now is the time for you to explore, ask questions and put the social media boogieman to rest so you can achieve the dream of social media success.

Focus is on the negative versus positive

Too often, we hear about the less than positive social media challenges and issues more often than we do the success stories. Perhaps that is because each of us defines success differently. To avoid a negative mindset, consider the cultural characteristics within your organization you perceive will be an obstacle in using social media. What are they? Recognize and address these obstacles at the start of your social media planning. Social media tools are new for all, but the underlying cultural values supporting this new space for relationships is not. Be proactive in educating your organization about the good and bad sides of social media, just like any other business practice.

Change is the only Constant

So said the famous Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. Isn’t it amazing what was true two thousand years ago remains so relevant today?

Leading change management thinker, John Kotter, outlines an 8-step change model to achieve success in challenging situations:

1. Increase Urgency
2. Build the Guiding Team
3. Get the Vision Right
4. Communicate for Buy-In
5. Empower Action
6. Create Short-Term Wins
7. Don’t Let Up
8. Make Change Stick

Socializing the enterprise internally and externally is certainly one of those challenging situations. Change does not happen overnight. All of us know this, but do not necessarily act as if we know this to be a reality. Is your organization ready to enter the social media space? Do your homework and find out what you are up against in making social media a reality in its own time in your organization. As you embark on this journey, integrate your findings into Kotter’s change model for a smoother transition. We will help you by addressing on this blog what actionable items you can achieve at every step.

Keep an open mind

“It is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” – O. W. Holmes

If your mind is tightly closed and always ready to criticize you may miss ideas and solutions you were not even aware you were seeking. A lot of chatter surrounds the why of social media but not the specifics of how and the effects, positive and negative, those organizations experienced existing and participating in social media. We need more people willing to listen and share. Last month, we dove into the topic of listening/monitoring, but in this instance, what we are suggesting is cultivating the knack of organizational listening…uncritically. There are a lot of gold nuggets to be found if we can learn from each other and then have the fortitude to act upon those ideas.

…

Social media success is a field of dreams; have courage to chase these successes. As you forge this path, you will encounter obstacles, but may have many other ideas and occurrences blossom that you never intended. Persevere and success will not only be realized for you, but for others. Dreams are contagious. Start inspiring positive success and social media practices today.

For the last year or so Social Media marketers have been working hard to convince brands that they should be on Twitter. Here’s one from this summer: 5 reasons why brands should be on Twitter. Warren Sukernek reported on a survey from June stating 97% of consumers want brands on Twitter. Are these people wrong, and these surveys misleading? Not exactly.  There are many good reasons for brands to be on Twitter and I do believe consumers want to engage brands directly. But in their rush to jump in the pool too many brands have taken a “ready, fire, aim!” approach. Just like any other marketing tool, Twitter needs to be implemented with intelligence. The worst thing isn’t not being on Twitter, it’s being on Twitter poorly. So with that in mind, here are Seven Reasons Your Brand Shouldn’t Be On Twitter:

1. You can’t make the time commitment

I’ve seen it too many times. Five tweets one day, three the next and then silence for two weeks. This is the number one issue for many brands. A brand manager will be asked by someone internally (who has probably never even seen Twitter, let alone use it) to man the Twitter feed. Listening, responding and engaging all take time. They take time today and tomorrow and next week and next year. You don’t have to man the account 24/7/365 but it’s good to go in understanding that you’re probably going to spend more time than you originally anticipated.

2. You don’t know what you want to say

Should you respond to criticisms, push out press releases, send out sales messages or all of the above? Do you metion competitors, include details on who is tweeting or talk about the latest celebrity news? If you don’t have a gameplan before you start tweeting, you’re going to end up spinning your wheels, trying to figure out what you should be saying, to whom and how you should be saying it. You can do a lot of things with Twitter, but you don’t have to do them all (and probably can’t effectively). Figure out how you can use Twitter in a way that maps back to your overall business objectives and stick to that.

3. You don’t know what you want to measure

College kids have plenty of free time and zero accountability, you don’t. If you don’t know what you are measuring, you can tweet till you’re blue in the face and not know whether your efforts are working. This of course requires you to know your objectives. Trying to drive website traffic? Then link click-through and retweets might be a good thing to measure.  Looking to change consumer opinion? Then sentiment and tonality may be more important. Figure this out before you begin.

4. You don’t know what success looks like

This is the other half of the measurement equation. Trying to acquire more followers? How many? How quickly? Without benchmarks you’re in a race with no finish line.

5. Just because your competitor is

I hear this a lot too. “What are our competitors doing on Twitter?” You should definitely be monitoring your competition and the industry in general, but don’t fall into the ‘me too’ trap. Unless you can really stand out from your competitors, Twitter just becomes another battlefield you can’t win,  but are devoting resources to.

6. Just because your consumers are

This is another easy trap to fall into. Your customers are also on Facebook, and YouTube and mobile phones and they blog and they go to movies and baseball games and…  At some point you have to make some hard choices, and “because it exists” is not a good enough reason. Have your customers and potential customers expressed an interest in speaking with you via Twitter? If not, you run the risk of engaging them at a time and in a place where they are not comfortable seeing you.

7. You view Twitter as a stand-alone channel

Twitter is a rich, robust part of a larger Social Media ecosystem.  If you are utilizing Twitter in isolation you’re going to greatly reduce your opportunities and minimize your chance to see real returns on your investment. If your Twitter handle noted in your print ads? What about on the side of your packaging? The best use of Twitter is when you engage in a two way conversation. As a platform, you have to think of Twitter in a two-way perspective as well. Yes, you want to use Twitter to push people to your website or in-store, but how are you using those channels to push people to your Twitter feed. If you’re aren’t, you’re not maximizing your opportunities.

*For 10 more reasons, check out this AdAge piece from April.

About Rick

My name is Rick Liebling, I’m the Global Director, Client Management, for Taylor, a marketing communications agency with offices in NY, LA, London, Chicago and Charlotte. I’ve worked with brands such as MasterCard, Gillette, Yahoo!, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Allstate and Xbox, helping them leverage their sponsorships across such properties as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Formula One. In addition, I act as the Head of our Digital & Emerging Media Group, advising our clients on the best way to engage consumers via Social Media (hint – it starts with listening).

Company: Taylor (http://www.taylorpr.com)

Blog: http://www.rickliebling.com

Thanks to everyone who joined us for today’s Engaged Brand Twebinar with Kodak.

The positive response was outstanding and we really appreciate Tom Hoehn and Jenny Cisney sharing their insight into Social Media and the way it can make business better. There were so many great take-aways from the Twebinar that if you missed it or want to listen to it again please download the Kodak podcast.

Be sure to check out more fabulous Social Media Tips from Kodak where they talk about everything from the landscape of Social Media to some of the current Social Media myths to some of their personal Social Media tactics. There is so much great info in there that you’ll want to read it more than once.

And don’t forget to follow Tom – @TomHoehn and Jenny – @KodakCB on Twitter for any new tidbits they might be sharing or to ask any additional questions we could not get to during the Twebinar.

Thank you for listening and participating!

Technology can be fun. So when I wanted to try out my newest video toy yesterday at the Customer 1st Conference in Phoenix, Vida Killian from Dell volunteered to be the first to be interviewed on it.

The Customer 1st show kicked off with a full day track on social media and how it relates to the role of customer service. Vida’s presentation took us through the efforts at Dell to crowdsource ideas for new products and features using the IdeaStorm platform they created. She also touched on the other social media efforts the company has become known for. Dell is a fantastic partner of Radian6′s and we’ve enjoyed working with them on their social media journey and development of many of the industry’s best practices.

So here is a brief interview with Vida (pronounced ‘Vid-a’ not ‘Veee-da’ – I left in the first part of the video where I finally pronounced her name correctly after multiple takes – one of the few flaws in getting to know someone digitally first is you often train your brain on the mispronunciation for a long time)

She graciously shared a number of thoughts on how social media is moving beyond a single team and is now spreading into the enterprise. She also shares her industry predictions for 2010, since we are coming up on year end and I thought it would be fun to ask.

I also had a chance to speak later in the day on the reasons for companies to be answering the ‘social phone’. Hopefully I’ll be able to share some video excerpts of that preso at a later date but in the meantime here is the deck (uploaded to Slideshare).

The folks at Customers 1st put out a post last night covering the high points of the presentation which you can find here. They also captured a short video clip from the preso which you can find here.

Our focus this November is Getting Started in Social Media. And what better way to get started than to take an in-depth look at how a large company like Kodak decided to create a conversation with its customers.

Please join us on Thursday, November 5th at 2:00PM (EST) as we talk to Tom Hoehn and Jenny Cisney from Kodak and ask them about their social media strategy, how they created a community connection, what they’re tracking and measuring, and how social media has changed their brand for the better.

This webinar is open to the public so please join us by logging in with your Twitter account on Thursday (no preregistration is required) or listen to the audio on our Engaged Brand BlogTalkRadio channel.

For those of you new to the Twebinar format, it’s a mashup between a live podcast/audio broadcast and Twitter as the backchannel for discussion. We’ll be using the hashtag #radian6 and picking up your questions along the way. We’ve built the Twebinar interface so you can see all the tweets and discussion at a glance, listen to the broadcast, and submit your questions as we chat.

• A few Twebinar tips for the uninitiated:When you log in, you should hear music or the live broadcast. If you don’t hear the audio right away, refresh your browser.
• To ask a question, simply type it in to Twitter using the #radian6 hashtag and end it with a “?”. We’ll see it.
• Your host for this episode will be @ambercadabra, so you can send questions in advance on Twitter if you like. We’ll also have @vargasl on hand to help gather and answer your questions during the broadcast.
• If you’d prefer to listen to the audio without the Twebinar interface, you can do so at our BlogTalkRadio channel.
• We’ll post the full broadcast after the event on our blog, and you can always listen to the archive on BTR.
• Any other questions, leave them here in the comments or ask us on Twitter and we’ll do our best.

Head to the Twebinars site to log in and join the discussion (don’t worry, we never see your login credentials; Twitter keeps those). We can’t wait to chat with Jenny, and hope you’ll bring along your questions.

Last month, the conversation here on The Engaged Brand was about learning and discussing the foundations of listening and engagement. This month we tackle how to get started in social media. The question is no longer why should we be involved in social media, but how can we make it happen.

We invite you to join us as we embark down the Yellow Brick Road to Social Media Maturity and chat about how we can ease into social media and socialize in and outside the enterprise. It will not be just the Radian6 team members involved in this conversation…once again we are inviting a host of guest bloggers to help us navigate the social media waters and also, we want you to join in, ask questions and challenge the way things are being done.

Take a cruise through the new content on The Engaged Brand section of the Radian6 site.

• The Social Media Starter Kit (PDF): A look at some of the more popular social media tools and how to get started with them
• Getting a Foothold in Social Media ( PDF): A guide to some social media strategy basics for organizations of all sizes
• Social Media Time Management: (companion ebook) A guide to managing social media information overload
• Social Media Readiness Assessment (PDF): Some questions to consider as you plan a social media strategy

Never fear, we are not finished discussing listening and engagement. In fact, check out this upcoming Social Media Business Council conference call, 5 November, discussing how Dell and UPS are not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

Don’t forget that you can access our entire content library of PDFs, slide decks, and case studies at the bottom of each page of our website.

We had a great time on the Foundations of Listening and Engagement webinar last Thursday. But if you couldn’t join us, never fear. We’ve got the recap of the presentation for you right here (and for future webinars, we’ll have archive recordings available for you). Below are the slides, and if you download the PowerPoint file, the talking points are right in the speaker notes in the deck.  Also, keep reading for a recap of the live session Q&A.

Foundations of Listening and Engagement: Q&A

Q: In a severely resource-constrained environment, is there any 1 listening/engagement technique you’d recommend as the most valuable?

Definitely the first thing you want to do is see if there’s conversation about your specific brand happening online. If there is, that’s the place to start. Start by looking at any negative conversations first, and address those by reaching out and connecting. Thank folks for any positive comments, and if you have time participate in some larger industry conversations. If there isn’t buzz about your brand yet, I’d start by looking at competitors to see what they’re up to, and then pick 3 or 4 online conversations each day around your industry (pick a specific topic to focus on to keep your efforts very specific).

Q: Knowing you might have people listening who aren’t necessarily the owners of the answers, is it better to reply with a “Thanks for the question, I’ll find out the answer and get back to you” type interim post, or just wait until you have the answer to reply back, even if it means a more delayed response?
I’d definitely recommend the first approach. Most folks are super appreciative about being acknowledged and responded to, and are more than willing to wait for a response that’s accurate. Better yet, tell them you’re forwarding the post to a member of your team that knows the answer, and have that team member engage directly to follow up. Really shows that you’re communicating internally, and that their request is important to you.

Q: What would you suggest the ratio to be between ‘conversing’ and ‘selling’ on the social sites?

First, it’s important to say that blatant “selling” on social sites rarely works well at all. If you’re talking in terms of promotion of your stuff/work vs. talking, it depends on the conversation and the medium. If you’re on Twitter, 85+ percent of your engagement should be just chatting it up with folks, providing information, connecting with your community. When you do present your stuff, it should be information that could be of value to the community, not just sales pitches. On your blog, I’d say keep the promotion to a minimum and focus on contributing valuable insight and expertise (folks can find your “stuff” elsewhere on your site if they want it, they don’t need to be hit over the head with it). On other people’s blogs, never ever pitch your stuff in the comments. It’s a breach of etiquette and largely frowned upon.

Q: You had mentioned business to business practices.  What do you see doing differently in a B&B setting.

Truly, not too much. In fact, B2B is really well suited to social media because of the longer sales cycle and the importance of relationship development, which is where social media excels. B2B conversations are often focused on more “how does this help me do my job better” topics, because that’s the nature of the work. But listening and engaging online for B2B is much like business development, but in an online setting. We’ve been building relationships and doing deals on the golf course for years. Now, we get to know those folks on the social web.

Q: Social media is centered on individuals; how much should companies engaging in the practice expose the individuals behind blogs/tweets/etc.?

As much as you can comfortably do within your legal/regulatory standards. People don’t usually want to make “friends” with logos. The beauty of social media is in giving folks a bit of the behind-the-scenes look at the people that drive the company. That’s where the gold is, and where the long term, repeat relationships are formed. As a customer, it makes me feel like I have a more personal line to that company if I know Bob in marketing, or Sue in customer service. Whenever you can, let the humans behind your company communications shine.

Q: How can social media work on a hyper local or niche environment where the potential audience is smaller? multinational brands have large pool of audience to draw, a small community paper has a smaller group.

The size of the community isn’t where the gold is. It’s all in how engaged that community is, so hyperlocals can definitely tap the potential of social media, even if its for a smaller group of people. Focus on connecting with the individuals, and not how big the group is. Organic growth is how it works best. Plus, there are plenty of larger industry conversations that can be places to get your local folks engaged on a broader scale online, and build awareness for your local efforts.

Q: Can you please talk a little bit more about what to do after you listen? that is my main concern, that people stop at listening.

Indeed, that happens sometimes. Companies are overwhelmed by the volume of conversation, and sometimes don’t know where to start. Listening can provide a great observation point to help find the right entry into dialogue online. The key is to pick a type of conversation and start there. For some companies, the first step is to work to correct reputation problems, like negative comments or posts. For others, it’s just to establish a presence in the communities where their customers are already talking about them, to demonstrate that they’re listening and available. And for those that don’t yet have buzz about them, the place to start is by contributing to larger conversations – the ones they want to be associated with. Listening is what should inform the engagement strategy, but it’s not an end in itself.

Q: What size company do you typically see needing help with listening beyond the free services?

It’s usually much less about size, and much more about available resources and what you’re trying to listen for. In general, you’re ready to graduate to a more robust monitoring tool if you’re spending more than an hour or two a day aggregating and collecting all the posts you’re searching for, and if you’re spending more than a couple of hours a week doing analysis on those posts. That’s time you could be spending gleaning insights instead of doing the manual labor.

Q: How would you marry traditional research data with information gathered from listening (all forms).

If you’re a company that’s invested enough to be doing traditional research, it’s important to see if the conclusions and insights you’re seeing from that research are corresponding to what you’re learning online. See if the trends and indicators are the same about how your customers react and behave. And integrate some questions and hypotheses about online and social media factors in your traditional research to see how they play out. The social web is often an unfiltered source of opinions and feedback, and you might spot some interesting ideas that come out when the community isn’t taking formalized surveys, but is just speaking from their interest and passion.

Looking for More?

We’ll be kicking off November by focusing our content and discussions around Getting Started In Social Media. Learn more over in our Engaged Brand section of the website. And mark your calendars for these upcoming web events:

Thursday, November 5th at 2:00 PM EST: The Engaged Brand Twebinar with Kodak

Join Kodak’s Chief Blogger, Jenny Cisney, as we chat with her about what Kodak is up to in social media, how it’s changed their brand for the better, and what they’ve learning about the importance of listening, engagement, and measurement. We’ll even ask her the dreaded ROI question. Bookmark HERE to join the Twebinar on Thursday.

Thursday, November 12th at 2:00 PM EST: The Engaged Brand Twebinar with Dix and Eaton

Join us as we talk with Chuck Hemann from Dix and Eaton about the evolution of public relations under the influence of social media. He’ll weigh in on how the industry is changing, and what he’s learned as he’s been involved in the trenches of social media. Bookmark HERE to join the Twebinar on the 12th.

Social Media is everywhere these days. It’s talked about, it’s lauded, its criticized. And for a business that might yet be getting started with social media, all of the information, tools, and opinions can be overwhelming.

How Do I Know I’m Ready For This?

There are a number of factors you need to take into consideration when planning a social media strategy. Some of them are operational, like the resources you have available, both in terms of people and dollars. Social media is sometimes less expensive in terms of capital outlay, but it requires long term dedication and plenty of human resources in order for it to be sustainable. You’ll also want to consider what aspects of your business will be affected or impacted by social media, outside of just marketing and PR. Perhaps customer service or sales should be involved, or even product management or HR. If you’re in regulated industries, legal and compliance will need a seat in the discussion too.

Social media is a much a cultural shift as an operational one for many businesses, too. As you lead these strategies, you’ll want to have open discussions internally about fears and perceived risks of social media, the appetite your company has for opening up communication, and how you might need to work on internal communication and processes to make it fly.

Need a hand thinking these things through? We’ve put together a Social Media Readiness Assessment for you that can help you with the questions you need to be asking as you get started.

What Should my Priorities Be?

First and foremost, a listening strategy is the foundation for any social media program. If you aren’t already monitoring the landscape for your brand in social media, that’s where you’ll want to start. Check out some of the materials in our Foundations of Listening and Engagement library for tips and advice about what to listen for and why.

Once you’ve got listening down, you’ll want to consider some of the other aspects of a social media strategy. If you’re a small or medium business, start by checking out our e-book on Getting a Foothold in Social Media. Even if you’re a big business just getting started, we’ll guide you through a few of the fundamentals of listening (including some ideas for free tools), building a social media presence, and measuring your efforts.  Need some more specific guidance on how to use some of the more popular social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and blogs? Read up on the Social Media Starter Kit.

And if information overload has a hold on you, have a look at this slide deck on Social Media Time Management and this companion ebook for some tips on resource allocation, and how to avoid splintering your attention across too many channels.

What Am I Aiming For?

As you begin establishing your social media presence, it’s good to have an idea of what a mature social media organization looks like. From passive listening through initial engagement, all the way through contributions and content marketing within your established community, our CEO has a whitepaper that outlines the Yellow Brick Road to Social Media Maturity, and what each step entails.

It’s important to understand your aspirations as a social business in order to gauge, measure, and adjust your approach along the way. Even if you start with baby steps, keep in mind where you’re headed so that each effort you undertake can build upon the last and move you toward those goals.

What other questions are on your mind about how to get started in social media? If we can help, fill out the “Need More” form below and let us know!

Most of us have heard some version of “Social Media/Twitter is like a Cocktail Party” and while this is hardly a new meme, a party is not a party is not a party and social media is not community – even though it may share many of the same characteristics.  To me it is like saying a cocktail party is not a dinner party – most people would agree.  I like both as an individual but one represents my circle of acquaintances and the other represents people with whom I have more intimate relationships. For business, that is very similar to a marketing funnel – and depending on what type of business you are in, one may be more important than the other. In particular, if you are marketing to businesses rather than individuals, the deeper relationships engendered by “dinner parties” are critical to your marketing efforts.

There are a few characteristics of a good dinner party that make it special and different:

• The food and wine are typically more elaborate and sophisticated
• Your attention is focused on a small set of guests all evening
• The music is mellow to allow for in-depth conversations
• Guests are introduced to other people they are likely to enjoy meeting
• The host or hostess mixes things up, ensures the conversation keeps moving, and draws out their guests
• The host put out their best dinnerware

Done well, the host of a dinner party makes their guests feel welcome, comfortable, interesting, and desirable. It is a pretty good ‘tool’ for establishing closer relationships with people and making them want to stay friends with you.

What can businesses learn? Sure, throw a lot of cocktail parties (i.e. use social media tools), you have to get your name out and chat with the crowd… but make sure you also throw some fabulous dinner parties – or get invited to them – because those are the events that allow you to have a richer conversation. Niche communities are where people will trust each other, participate in deeper conversations about their needs, and really get to know you. Setting up a community to serve the same purpose as a dinner party requires:

• An appealing location (even if that location is virtual) that encourages conversation and connections
• Good content that will encourage the conversations you want the group to have
• A community manager who facilitates introductions, highlights content, and keeps the conversation going
• Participation of experts and thought leaders that people want to meet
• Something special that members can’t get anywhere else

You can throw the dinner party, which may cost more but you get to decide who gets invited, or you can work on being a sought-after guest – someone that helps hosts provide good content and/or energy. But beware: It is all to easy to provide an appealing location, invite people over and assume they will form a tight knit community. But think about throwing a dinner party, having people come over and then spending the evening in another room – maybe yelling out to them every once in a while. Awkward, no? People would chit chat a little but the conversation would be stilted because there they are, sitting in your living room… waiting for you and the food, eventually leaving in disappointment and annoyance.

Communities are a phenomenal way of developing relationships with prospects and customers… but don’t think they will effortlessly develop. Want to understand them a little better? Go home and plan a dinner party.

About Rachel

Rachel Happe (@rhappe) is a Co-Founder and Principal at The Community
Roundtable and has over fifteen years of experience working with emerging technologies including enterprise social networking, ecommerce, and enterprise software applications. Prior to The Community Roundtable, Rachel served as a product executive at Mzinga,
Bitpass, & IDe.  In addition, as a technology analyst, Rachel initiated IDC’s enterprise social software practice where she wrote groundbreaking research including The Power and Passion of Organic Communities: How Technology Can Be Used to Increase Discovery, Engagement, and Productivity;  The Social Enterprise: How Social Networking Changes Everything; and U.S. Social Networking Application 2008-2012 Forecast: Enterprise Social Networking Takes Hold. Rachel started her business career at PRTM as a Business Analyst focused on helping technology companies understand and improve their product development operations. She writes at The Social Organization.

You know social media is not a passing fad. The question facing your organization is not why we should listen and engage in social media, but how do we do this? Social media affects all areas of your business and different skill sets are necessary. The enterprise must socialize internally, but how do you determine who represents the organization externally?

Determine Capacity

To succeed, social media must be owned by the enterprise and not stashed in a silo or with a Gen Y intern. An organization may not have dedicated resources to communicating online (aka community response team). In this case, internal research may yield who in your organization is already using social media for business and personal efforts. Tap into their existing passion and voice. These folks may already feel comfortable in participating in social media and communicating on behalf of the company. Ensure all facets of your organization are represented on the social media frontlines or in the behind-the-scenes response workflow.

It is important to note, when a person becomes a voice for the organization, they are always on. Earlier this year, a customer service issue was elevated in Twitter to the Best Buy CMO, bringing to light that formal elevation of customer response does not necessarily exist in social media. Those who are representing your organization online must be prepared for this new reality and be able to field issues or know who to delegate issues to depending on the delicacy of the customer interaction.

Find your Voice(s)

The formal voice and legalese you may use in offline communications is not received well in social media. A more informal and approachable voice is better for response and relationship building. Remember, you are having a conversation. Would you rather have a conversation with a dry, faceless human or a person with identifiable characteristics and personality? No matter who is responding, don’t pretend to be anyone other than who you are. The human element can never be underestimated!

Develop Processes

The uncontrollability factor of social media gives the impression that the space is messy. Your action or response does not have to reflect the disorganized zig-zag of conversations across multiple channels. How can you ensure your organizational voice(s) convey the right information and messages, regardless of channel? Developing a listening grid is a step in the right direction, but to avoid visible disconnect, a comprehensive communication (to include social media) strategy is required. Mike Manuel outlines a six step plan to help develop engagement processes.

Avoid limiting yourself to a social media only strategy because you further a silo response. If social media requires enterprise wide support, an integrated strategy of on and offline engagement should be created and executed. Developing social media processes does not have to be like reinventing the wheel. Take a page from customer service and marketing communications…how are they already addressing customer response? What can you learn from their interactions? How can you incorporate social media response into an already existing CRM program so the customer profile reflects a true holistic experience?

Do you already have a team, voice and processes established? Please share how you implemented these listening and engagement necessities and the pros and cons upon execution.

Our Radian6 team is growing and we are able to participate in more exciting conferences like this one: Fuel for Thought-The Growth and Innovation Series, 5 November. The conference is complimentary to marketers. Our very own Craig Comeau will be speaking about why you should be listening to social media. Please join us at the conference if you can and be sure to say hello to Craig!

Have you heard the nursery rhyme, A Wise Old Owl? It goes something like this:

A wise old owl sat in an oak,

The more he heard, the less he spoke;

The less he spoke, the more he heard;

Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?

Be the owl

First things first, you must identify, acknowledge and understand the why before you recognize the how or if of response. People do not engage in social media to connect with brands or organizations, but with each other. Why is your company being mentioned? Why not? Listening first will help you determine the sense needed to filter out relevant conversations and respond where appropriate.

Christina Kerley states, social media monitoring is not sexy, but a necessity. “You see, a key value proposition of social media is that the tools not only give people a way to express, share and connect around ideas, but the tools also give companies the ability to identify new markets, new opportunities, potential risks and needed improvements.” I think the wise old bird would agree.

Response is not a chore

There are no one-size fits all social media solutions; however, there are some general rules of thought and direction that maintain true no matter the size or amount of buzz around your organization. The real question is, why shouldn’t you respond to all relevant brand mentions?

Through response your organization has the opportunity to:

• Spark deeper conversations,
• Set a message straight,
• Perform online reputation management,
• Distinguish self from competitors, and
• Increase web presence by leaving a breadcrumb trail to company site and information with every response.

Don’t look at response as something you have to do (like a kid viewing chores), but as something that adds significant value to your organization.

Who gives a hoot?

As we discussed in last week’s post about responding to negative comments, embrace and allow your customers and fans to speak on your organization’s behalf so you don’t have to respond to EVERY brand mention. Credibility of peer recommendation speaks volumes.

In this same vein of thought, it is important to note, that when you do engage in response and open up a dialog, you hold the potential of creating a long term relationship. Don’t pretend to be anyone other than who you are and don’t try to change opinions or over hype your brand. Listen to what is being relayed to you. Build a conversation and build a relationship.

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

UPDATE: We will be posting the slides and recap of Q&A here on the blog. Stay tuned!

We have spent this past month discussing the ins and outs of listening. Please join us next Thursday, October 29th at 2:00 PM (EST) as we discuss the different types of listening – brand, competitor, and opportunity – what types of conversations to listen for, and some simple tips for basic engagement and response in social media. Join Amber Naslund, Radian6′s director of community, as we talk best practices, examples and take your questions.

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://ww2.gotomeeting.com/register/675506547

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

We can’t wait to chat with you, so bring along all of your stories and questions about listening and engagement!

We’re still all a flutter with the concept of “social networks.”  Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr generally get the most attention.  They’re well known and are the household names that even your mom knows.  Last night I watched an episode of Numb3rs that referenced the famous Seti@Home project.  For those that don’t remember SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  It’s a volunteer based social computing project that launched in May 1999.

There are all these conversations taking place in space.  Some are simply noise, but some could be evidence of life beyond this planet.  Someone needs to make sense of the noise.  It takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to sift through and make sense of the information.  For years special large super computers were used to analyze very narrow band radio frequency from outer space. Relying on just the limited number of super computers was a slow time consuming approach.  The Seti@home project was designed to eliminate that problem.

By  downloading the Seti@home software any computer anywhere in the world could help make sense of the noise coming from space.  In essence the Seti@home project combines the power of all the computers participating in the program to decode the data from space faster.  The more people who download and participate, the faster we’ll discover life beyond Earth.  Talk about joining something for a higher order of reason.

I remember when Seti came on the scene.  I was working at Fallon and learned about it from a colleague.  He explained to me that every person who signed up for the program was helping to find Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  He demoed the software for me and I was hooked.  I downloaded the software and started trying to convince all my friends and family to do the same.

To date the Seti@home project has over 5 million members in more than 200 countries.  This is amazing considering the original goal for the program was between 50,000 and 100,000 members.  In total this community has contributed over 19 billion hours of computer processing time.  Unfortunately, the project hasn’t uncovered any Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, but it has identified several candidate targets (sky positions).  In 2004, the astronomer Seth Shostak indicated a conclusive signal from Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence would happen some time between 2020 and 2025.  That’s an amazing amount of progress for a program that’s only 10 years old.

Brining this back to social networking, the buzz topic du jour.  The Seti initiative has all the underpinnings of what a defines a great social network:

1. Limited barriers to join
2. Gender and age agnostic
3. A real reason for joining – a greater good
4. Sense of being and purpose
5. Like-minded individuals
6. Connected to a common goal
7. Constant feedback
8. Measurable results
9. Authenticity…
10. …and yes even Transparency
11. The ability to opt out easily

This isn’t to say that Seti@home is perfect. In truth, it’s a social network that’s showing its age. In today’s new and ever evolving landscape where we’re all hyper-connected to the internet it seems like they’ve passed on serious opportunity. For example, how hard would it be to have an iPhone app that leverages the 3G network to compute the information a Facebook/iGoogle widget that basically is the software? Given all the people we’re connected with and the ease/efficiency to grow networks today, why haven’t they invested in leveraging those connections?

As the web evolved the program remained virtually stagnant…trapped in 1999. If ever there were an initiative that could really harness the power of today’s social web this is it. Seti I want to help. Let’s talk.

About Adam

““Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda, Star Wars

(Pardon my geekiness for a minute…I always hear Yoda’s voice in my head when I am talking about social media angst.)

We can’t talk listening and engagement without addressing one of the biggest fears – negative comments. The worst nightmare for anyone managing a blog or community response is when (not if) negativity will strike. Do not let this fear paralyze you from not engaging the non-ego boosting commentary.

Control, control, you must learn control

Here is some tough love. I know you have heard everyone say you have no control of what happens in social media. That is not entirely true. You cannot control what others will say about your organization, but you can control your actions. Do not use the myriad of social media channels and conversations as an excuse to ignore the negativity. If you ignore, the ant hill may become a mountain before you can blink. I am not trying to use this as a scare tactic to get you to jump into social media conversations; welcome to the new reality of business-customer relationships.

Responding to a negative comment by thanking the person for their feedback or requesting more details and context offline can greatly change the tone and direction of an unfavorable comment that could quickly spiral out of control. YOU control the response. If you respond with hostility or act defensive, be prepared for your actions to be mirrored and replicated. Keep your cool.

Ignore or engage?

Olivia Hayes of Ignite Social Media, shares how to handle negative comments. I strongly agree with Hayes that “A few negative comments are not going to be the undoing of your company, and in fact, can be a strong opportunity to prove yourself.” This list of tips is great, but I would also add:

• Thank the responder - especially if the comment resides on your site, blog or community space. People no longer have to take their feedback to the organization…they can and are having the conversations elsewhere. Look at the situation from their perspective. If they took the time to comment about your company, they care. Care about the relationship you have and could have with them in the future if you just thanked them for their feedback and let them know they have been heard. Then, if possible, go one step further and act on their feedback. That will really speak volumes.
• Request additional feedback – don’t close the gates once they open. This is a brilliant opportunity for you to gather further insights into the context of the issue and if the issue is isolated versus widespread. Do not just say you have an open forum, demonstrate that you do.

You were chosen to guide your company through the social media frontier or perhaps you are just following your own natural curiosity to learn more about social media, but one thing we have in common is that we have passion for what we do and the organization we represent. It is easy to let the adverse commentary offend or hit a bit too close to home that we become defensive. I ask you, again, keep your cool and take some time to reflect before response. In fact, if you don’t take the advice from me, take it from Jason Alba who wrote a guest post on this very topic on Chris Brogan’s blog.

May the force be with you

There are some battles you will never win. Over time, you will discover there are those commenters that are just in the space to stir the pot and are not seeking resolution or relationship. It will take time to identify these folks. They are few and far between in the larger scope of your community, but they do exist. Do not lock horns and engage in a battle of personalities. Address the issues and move on.

Do not forget that you are not alone in the social media space. In lieu of taking a defensive stance or addressing every issue, experiment by allowing your supporters to take up the flag and address the commenter or unreasonable negativity. These evangelists are a force to be reckoned with. Of course, this does not mean you can ignore and not engage all negative comments, but be aware that there are people who have got your back.

***

Do not allow fear to strike down your social media initiatives. Fear can fester and lead to a much less desirable environment than one where you control your actions and gain valuable feedback from your community. Look at negative comments as an opportunity to learn more, tell your story and build long lasting relationships.

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

If you hung out on Twitter or the blogosphere over the weekend, or if you happened to be at BlogWorld you undoubtedly heard some of the buzz around the #beatcancer campaign throughout social media. It was great fun, and Radian6 was glad to be part of such an amazing event and cause.

The upshot: folks across the social web tagged their Tweets, comments, blog posts and such with #beatcancer to raise awareness and money for cancer research during a 24-hour period that coincided with the BlogWorld Expo, one of the biggest social media events of the year.

In collaboration with EVERYWHERE, a social media marketing and content development firm, Radian6 helped provide the tracking and analytics for the #beatcancer campaign, which took place from October 16th at 9AM to October 17th at 9AM. Sponsors eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors Brewing Company donated money for each post tracked during the 24-hour window, and Guinness World Record recorded the campaign volume to set a new, sign-of-the-times record for the most widespread social network message in a 24-hour period with over 209,000 posts.

The best part? The event raised over $70,000 to benefit cancer charities.

The money raised will be donated to four different non-profit cancer organizations including SU2C (Stand UP to Cancer), Alex’s Lemonade, Bright Pink, and Spirit Jump. For more info on the campaign, check out beatcancereverywhere.com, or see the press release here.

At Radian6, we’re super excited about the increasing demonstrations of using social media for social good. The very nature of social networking – rapid connections, gathering among common interests, and the unlimited geography – make it a beautiful and powerful fit for social causes of all kinds. As a company, we believe very much in giving back to the communities and causes that power the human networks around us. Stay tuned to hear more about how we’re hoping to harness and support social causes like the #beatcancer campaign in the near future.

Special thanks to EVERYWHERE, WhatGives, Slash7, Sarah Evans, the team at BlogWorld & New Media Expo, Guinness World Records, eBay/PayPal, and the MillerCoors Brewing Company folks for putting together an exciting and noteworthy event, and for allowing us to be part of it.

Social Media can be a bit spooky, even to those who have participated in the space for some time. Actively listening and engaging in social media is a necessity. We have all seen examples of businesses not responding to a negative issue with a resolution before the situation spiraled out of control and spread across the Web. Conversely, not identifying and amplifying praise amongst your fans can also damage your organization’s online relationships. There are a lot of conversations to juggle.

Social media is provoking the enterprise to evolve

In the Five Challenges Social Media Will Bring to Business, author, David Armano lists integration, governance, culture, human resources and measurement/ROI as being the top challenges every organization should be planning for right now. Indeed, all of the challenges Armano lists are opportunities for how an organization can proactively improve their listening and engagement.

Managing the conversations can be a bear if you do not have responsibilities, workflow and engagement guidelines firmly established throughout your organization. Only a fraction of conversations are visible. Organizations are being pulled into many dynamic conversations requiring the research and response of more than one department. Tools are only part of the solution. The enterprise must socialize.

Build an organization of proactive collaborators

Integration and governance can only take hold in an organization if the culture is ripe for evolution. How do you get your organization to that point? Education and literacy. Fear is what is holding many companies back from implementing social media outside of a silo. Empower those on the social media frontlines and those working diligently behind the scenes with the knowledge they need to actively monitor issues, frustrations and recommendations and be able to solve these issues in real time.

The tool is not the platform for sharing information, it is the people. You can automate the tools and streamline the collaboration, but the intelligence of the organization is best provided by the individuals powering the enterprise. The tools may show the collaboration of the on and offline conversations, but give those speaking for your company the context around why they should listen and respond and how to engage.

Create a safe haven to learn about socializing

Here at Radian6, we have started hosting internal webinars focused around the same monthly topics we are discussing online with you. Not everyone has the same comfort level for participating in social media, so we are promoting a safe place to discuss the issues, impart knowledge and deliver context.

How are you breaking down the department barriers and learning to socialize for the improvement of answering external communication through internal channels? Perhaps start with a monthly brown bag lunch discussion or internal webinar like us? Tracking and responding to multiple conversations does not have to be a fright with the right tools and a confident team with varying skill sets. Share your ideas on how you can assist socializing and empowering the enterprise.

When you’re getting ready to listen to the social media stratosphere there are probably a few keywords that come immediately to mind. Your brand, your product your founder or CEO but that’s just the beginning. People don’t always search for what you might want them to. You need to get outside of the company for a moment and think about what someone who has no idea who you are or what you do would type into a search engine to find you.

What other names could be used to describe you? Is there a string (a short list of words or phrase ) that people might use to find you?

Some people will argue that they look at their analytics reports and see that people are already finding them with the company name and the name of the CEO and that means they are being effective. Let me just point out those people knew you so they knew what to type into the search field.  What about the ones who don’t already know something about you?

I’ve started using mind-mapping tools to sort out the keywords for a particular website to good effect. A mind map is a radial diagram of words, ideas or relationships linked around a central word or phrase. In this case it’s you. These can be drawn out on a whiteboard, a piece of paper or through software. They help you get focused and really think about what keywords pertain to you and whether or not your messaging is really delivering those keywords.  Think of this post as a how to listen and SEO lesson all wrapped up together.

Here’s how it works

I know this is going to sound silly, but do this off-site. Even being in the office can keep your head in the corporate box.

Try to put yourself into the position of someone who is looking for a product or service you provide and do a stream of consciousness download of those words onto a piece of paper or document.

Don’t think about it at all; just spew out everything you can think of.  Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense or if you’ve got bad grammar, sentence fragments or bad spelling. Nobody cares. Worry about that later.

When you get tired of that do the same thing with a clean slate about your competitor. Don’t be nasty. Really think about every positive attribute or search term anyone could use to find them.

If you still think you’re not getting far enough from the already entrenched keywords it can be hugely useful to call a client, a friend or do man on the street interviews and ask people what it is your company does, what the product is good for and how they would use it.

Now comes the fun part Take the entire list and compile them in one document. See where the duplicates are and put them at the top of your list. Don’t think about the rest yet. That’s in the next step.

Create a mind-map

I use a site called Mindmeister for this, but there are several tools you can use online or purchased software that can quickly create mindmaps. If you don’t want to do that draw it out on a whiteboard or piece of paper, but be warned to do it in pencil. You’ll be moving things around a LOT!

Start with your company in the center of the map.

Now create nodes for all of the keywords you came up with in the first step. Throw them up any old way around the center of your universe–your business.

As you go you’ll start to naturally group things together.

Once you have all your keywords up connect the ones that go together into clusters. Make sub clusters if necessary.

When all the clusters have formed then you can link them to each other and to your business in the center.

Voila! Your prime keywords will reveal themselves.

This is an over-simplification of course and there should be lots of discussion over which words would really be used, which you’d like to avoid etc. That’s the point. Thin them out through discussion and distill your key message down until you have 10 or 15 words that are the main focus.

You may find you need to make separate maps for a product line or division of the company, and that’s fine too. All are useful before you start doing anything like search engine optimization or setting up listening tools.

Go ahead, give it a try, and be sure to let us know how it worked for you, or if you developed and even better way to suss out the right keywords to listen for.

About Janet

Janet Fouts is a social media coach, helping individuals and corporations make sense of social media tools and create an effective social media strategy that meets their needs. She shares her advice on her blog- Social Media Coach, on Twitter as @jfouts and in her new book, Social Media Success!

Simple answer…one person cannot manage it all. Take that back-you can do this alone, but not well. Social media is not an add-on to any one department and requires commitment and responsibility across the organization.

Social media takes a village

A village cannot exist without the skills of the butcher, baker and candlestick maker and various other contributors to the village wellbeing. Social media is comprised of several online villages, each made up of numerous communities. A butcher may be able to bake, but he will not do so with the expertise and finesse of the baker. Just like the butcher/baker example, your social media listening, engagement and measurement will require the expertise of several departments across the organization.

One of those village communities is your organization. How do you bridge your organization from being a hermit to being an active member of the village? Your organization exists because of the skills of those in customer service, communications, human resources and a plethora of other departments. Take advantage of those skill sets and personalities. Bring them into the fold of social media and see the expertise and finesse spread across your organization and permeate into your listening and engagement strategy.

Think and execute beyond a linear process

You may only have one individual on the social media frontline and not a team for listening and engagement, but that set-up does not prohibit streamlined, behind-the-scenes collaboration with those of vital skill sets throughout the organization. Not only are you being able to process and answer questions you could not have done so within a silo, but you are building social media buy-in enterprise-wide with the collaboration and creditability of social media sharing.

Listening is much more than monitoring, but about processing the data you receive into actionable insights and enabling the right connectors in your organization to engage in relevant conversations. We recommend developing a listening grid – a system of gathering information, categorizing and segmenting it based on your needs, communicating internally about responses and engagement, and having up-to-the-minute notification of happenings in social media that are relevant to you.

Twenty reasons you cannot do this alone

Take it from someone who has gone down this path as the sole person responsible for listening/monitoring and engagement, you cannot do this alone. Case in point, take a look at the presentation below outlining the Top 20 Reasons to Listen. Would you be able to handle the monitoring and response for every situation listed? True, not all twenty will happen at one time (hopefully not), but several will happen concurrently and your organization must be prepared to retrieve and act on all for the betterment of your company/customer relationship.

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

One of the first questions we encounter when organizations decide to invest in monitoring (listening) and engagement in the social media space is, how much time should we spend listening?

As we discussed recently, there are different types of listening and each require various amounts of energy and resources. Passive listening is monitoring for mentions of your brand, competitors and industry. Active listening is participating in the conversations surrounding your brand, competitors and industry. Many organizations begin by monitoring the conversations as they build a knowledge and comfort level for engagement.

Listening is not an option, but a necessity. Don’t be discouraged, but there is no one answer to the time question. Sometimes, to answer a question, you must begin by answering additional questions.

What are your organization’s objectives and strategies?

To get where you are going, you must first know how to get there. Jumping into the stream of online chatter can be extremely overwhelming for any organization. There is a lot of noise. Monitoring and engaging with all aspects of your brand, competitors and industry is a lot to digest. Whether you are passively or actively listening, you must filter the conversations to those relevant to your objectives and strategies.

What is your organization’s experience with listening?

Let’s face it…if you aren’t doing such a swell job of listening offline, no matter how spectacular your online efforts may be, they may not be enough to salvage the customer relationships with your organization. Take note of how your company is currently listening, recording and engaging in conversations. What can you learn and do different to bridge the offline and online conversations to strengthen the overall customer relationship?

Check out this wicked new animation about our friend King Brand who spent all his time shouting and not enough time listening to his people. This tale is a lesson in listening. Which kingdom are you a part of?

So, the real question is…how much time are you willing to invest to ensure the growth and prosperity of your organization?

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we are tackling a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

Social Media monitoring is a terrific tool for marketers, allowing them to listen in as consumer’s chat, debate and discuss their brands. A recent study by Penn State University determined that approximately 20% of Twitter activity is linked to brands.

A key element of Social Media monitoring is parsing out the sentiment, or tone, being shared by consumers. Now, not only do you know that people are talking about your brand, you know if they are speaking about it positively or negatively.  The benefits of being able to identify this level of detail are as obvious as they are potentially impactful.  Now brands can pinpoint with laser accuracy those consumers who are brand evangelists, quickly mobilizing to harness the goodwill, enthusiasm and credibility of these people, looking to turn them into brand ambassadors.

On the other end of the spectrum, Social Media monitoring also can work as an early warning detection system, sussing out negative sentiment and enabling a brand to identify the source of a potential problem and take action before it gains traction. The examples here – Motrin Moms, Dominos Pizza – are all well documented.

While highlighting these extremes puts sentiment monitoring in sharp relief, it doesn’t necessarily provide the clearest lens through which to view Social Media monitoring.  Looking only at very positive and negative comments frames the conversation like a barbell, with two heavy ends and little in-between. This creates a false dichotomy that overlooks what you aren’t hearing – the neutral majority.

Certainly some products tend to polarize, with many consumers have a strong opinion one way or the other. Certain beer brands, electronics, music groups all quickly come to mind.  But the majority of products are more likely to produce a classic bell curve rather than a barbell, with most consumers neither loving nor hating the product, but certainly aware of its existence.

This, to me, is where Social Media monitoring really earns its keep. Before the web, consumers still had ways of voicing their displeasure with a brand – boycotts, picketing, letters to the Editor, etc.  And those who loved your brand made themselves identifiable as well – branded apparel, fan clubs, love letters to HQ, etc.

But how could you identify those who knew of your brand, but would give their patronage to a competitor who made them a better offer? In other words, those people in the middle of the bell curve. That’s’ a group well worth spending time, money and effort against, and now you have the ability to more easily identify them.

Sure, you want to reward loyal consumers, and yes you want to avoid major PR nightmares, but think about the ROI and effort involved. A consumer who is already a fan will be hard pressed to spend more, even with your increased efforts, and turning a consumer who has antipathy for your brand into a neutral, let alone a fan, is time consuming work with no guarantees.

But doing something as simple as acknowledging a consumer who has mentioned your brand can help slide her from the middle of the bell curve towards the positive end. Now, that won’t happen magically, you have to embrace the notion of Commitment Marketing and keep the engagement going.

Social Media monitoring shouldn’t be merely wielded like a blunt instrument. Take the time and care to study the nuances of the conversation as well as the hyperbole and vitriol.

About Rick

My name is Rick Liebling, I’m the Global Director, Client Management, for Taylor, a marketing communications agency with offices in NY, LA, London, Chicago and Charlotte. I’ve worked with brands such as MasterCard, Gillette, Yahoo!, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Allstate and Xbox, helping them leverage their sponsorships across such properties as the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Formula One. In addition, I act as the Head of our Digital & Emerging Media Group, advising our clients on the best way to engage consumers via Social Media (hint – it starts with listening).

Company: Taylor (http://www.taylorpr.com)

Blog: http://www.rickliebling.com

Does everyone have on their listening ears? Remember when your parent or teacher would ask this question before announcing important information? Listening and monitoring across the web is the foundation for any solid, scalable social media strategy.

When we communicate with another person, we do so to fulfill an emotional need. When the other person receives the message, the process of decoding or interpreting it into understanding and meaning begins. Effective communication only exists when both the sender and receiver interprets and understands the message in the way intended. Easier said than done; especially in an online environment where verbal and non-verbal signals are often crossed.

“Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.” – Frank Tyger

There is a time and place for both active and passive listening, but staying passive in the online communities talking about your company or brand does not assist in verifying information, guarantee understanding, assist building relationships or any produce empathy with the sender. When you are ready to engage in the conversation, start off on the right foot by actively listening to members of the community. Active listening requires interaction with the sender, seeking clarification to ensure both sender and receiver fully understand what is being said.

“Opportunities are often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be listening.” – Anonymous

Active listening is a powerful, complex process and learned skill. Recognize the importance of this skill and revitalize your community participation. Listening requires work, desire and self-discipline. The words “hear” and “listen” cannot be used interchangeably. To actively listen is to understand what is being communicated. So, how do you begin to actively listen?

Conduct a Reality Check

Prove your understanding by asking for clarification or restatement. Failure to retain information is not the problem; it’s failure to comprehend.

Common summarizing phrases include:

“Help me understand…”

“I hear you saying…”

“It sounds like you think…”

Focus

What is the speaker really saying? Invest time to become thoroughly familiar with the topic and speaker. Separate a speaker’s primary ideas from supporting material. Not every tweet or blog post is of equal importance. Identifying the intent and motive helps reveal the implicit. Listen to the cadence of the words and observe tale-telling body language for additional insights.

Take Notes

Do not be a stenographer. Regurgitating a speaker’s words is not the act of comprehending. Paraphrase and reword notes so you understand.

Resist Distractions

In an effort to increase efficiency, convenience, and mobility, are you sacrificing intelligent listening? Are you doing all the talking? Spend more time listening for information and solutions. Do not blame freedom of technology for shortchanging our memory and learning abilities.

Be Respectful

Keep an open mind. Harness intense emotions to avoid arguing with a speaker. Avoid anticipating next words and interjecting your thoughts. Think before you speak. Hear out the speaker then prepare your response.

Life is so much more interesting because each of us have our own opinions and beliefs. Foster trust, honesty and intimacy by following the Golden Rule of Listening: “Listen unto others as you would have others listen to you.”

Value Check

Make the speaker feel heard. In addition to asking questions, give feedback beginning with positive observations then constructive criticism, if necessary. Look for positive and negative aspects in every verbal exchange. In the words of Plutarch the Greek writer, “Know how to listen and you will profit even from those who talk badly.”

Additional Resources

Take a peek at the new Radian6 site and The Engaged Brand. Every month, we will tackle a new topic area in and around social media, complete with articles, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, videos…all to help you get a handle on industry best practices. This month we are focusing on the foundations of listening and engagement. We have a lot of stuff to share with you! Snack on the items on the newly designed site and keep checking back here for more on listening and engagement from the Radian6 team and featured guest bloggers.

We’re so excited to announce that Microsoft has selected Radian6 as a social media monitoring tool supporting their Central Marketing Group. As a brand that is mentioned in 6% of all online postings per month, Microsoft has been paying close attention to user generated content for several years. Particularly to listening to and understanding buzz around their company and their products as well as engaging with customers for support, events, and product launches.

And at Radian6, we’re poised to help take them to the next level, delivering some broader and deeper listening capabilities to their core marketing and product teams.

Why Social Media?

Aaron Lilly, a Sr. Marcom Architect at Microsoft, explained that Microsoft sees immense value in the social space, because it helps the company connect more deeply with customers, prospects and enthusiasts on their terms and wherever they are online. This improved connection allows Microsoft to share the news and information on the company or products that their customers are asking for, where they are asking for it.

“Radian6 helps us discover where important conversations are happening online, so we can be part of them,” Lilly explains. “There’s a huge value in being able to have a rich, real-time dialog with customers across our diverse businesses.”

Lilly says Microsoft’s involvement in social media is both proactive and reactive. They’re proactively contributing to the dialogue about Microsoft by sharing information and providing access to the company through social channels like Facebook and Twitter. But they can also be responsive to the issues and conversations that happen around and about the company and their products, often helping to clarify a misunderstanding or offer quick and valid direction from the source.

Whether it be questions around the Bing search engine, or chatter about how Office is impacting the way people work, those discussions give Microsoft lots of opportunity to better understand how their community views their brand, products, and business, and lets them use those insights to inform future strategy.

Why Radian6?

Given the breadth and diversity of Microsoft’s businesses, and the volume of online conversations, the central marketing team needed a tool that could work alongside their existing tools and processes and that could not only handle the volume of buzz but also make sense of it all in a business context. As Microsoft builds out internal capabilities in social media through tools like Looking Glass, Radian6 provides global scale and depth capabilities today and integration opportunities for the future.

“For brands like Bing, Office or Zune, we have large inter-connected marketing and product teams,” says Lilly. “It’s really important that we’re all looking at the social conversations through the same lens. Radian6 provides both breadth of coverage and the depth to analyze and respond.”

We at Radian6 are excited about the possibilities working with the teams at Microsoft, and helping them make the most out of their social media strategies. Thanks to the Microsoft crew for bringing us on, and stay tuned as we share more about our work together in the future.

We’re so excited to relaunch our website, chock full of goodness on social media listening, engaging, and measurement. You’re here, which means you’ve found us, but let me point out a few places you should check out while you’re here.

1. If you’ve always wanted to know a little more about the ways to listen and measure with Radian6 and how it applies to your business, we’ve put together a few examples here in our Product Applications section.
2. Want some case studies? Head over to our customers page, and check out the links on the left, and read about how some of our customers are making the most of their listening strategies.
3. We’re building a big resource library, called The Engaged Brand. It’s all about education, information, and helpful stuff around social media and getting your brand or your clients’ brands more engaged with the community. We’ll have videos, webinars, podcasts, whitepapers, slide decks…you name it. Each month, we’ll focus on a new topic. And if you’ve got ideas for subjects you’d like us to tackle, drop us a line and let us know.
4. Ready to cut to the chase and get started? Sign up for our live, web-based product demo and get the grand tour with one of our awesome team members.

We’ll also be posting lots more stuff here on the Radian6 PowerShift blog, including guest posts from our incredible community, posts from our staff and community team on lots of different topics, and content on the social media subjects you’ve asked us about. Please take a moment to subscribe via RSS so you don’t miss a post!

Thanks to all of you for being a part of the Radian6 community, whether you’ve been with us for a while, or whether you’ve just found us for the first time. We’re looking forward to being a resource to you, and learning how we can help you make the most of your listening and social media engagement strategy.

IZEAFest

Orlando, Florida
October 1-4, 2009

IzeaFest is an interactive event designed to educate, inform and connect social media enthusiasts. You’ll meet the world’s foremost social media experts in a collaborative, fun and open setting. Say hi to Amber Naslund when you’re there.

Inbound Marketing Summit

Boston, MA

October 7-8, 2009

Radian6 is proud to once again be sponsoring New Marketing Labs’ Inbound Markeing Summit series, this time in Boston, MA.

The Inbound Marketing Summit is where the online marketing community gathers to solve today’s marketing and business communications challenges. Your event features the brightest minds in the business, including world-renowned authors and practitioners, as well as leaders from some of the companies already using the new tools and strategies. This fast-paced and information-packed event is your check-up on your existing business communications strategies, and your prescription for the coming months.

Bay Area CIO-IT Executives Meetup
October 13, 2009

Join Radian6′s Amber Naslund as she meets up with the Bay Area CIO IT Executives Meetup Group to talk about measuring social media. About the session:

It seems that Social Media is the latest darling of corporations. Wherever you turn, a new Twitter or Community is popping up, or a Facebook page is being deployed. The speed at which is all being released leaves almost no time for the important work of strategy and measurement. The end result is either unsatisfied expectations due to poor or no measurement, or utter confusion as to what metrics are important and how to track them. We’ll talk about it at this event!

The BIG Conference
Portland, ME
October 13, 2009

Join Radian6′s David Alston as he speaks on The Social Phone: Are you Ready to Answer? with this fun, lively Portland crowd. A bit about the event:

Most social media events are either “how-to” workshops for technicians or highly theoretical. Not The Big Conference.
On Tuesday, October 13 come hear some of the brightest minds in the social media arena including authors, practitioners and business professionals successfully using social media tools and strategies.

BlogWorld Expo
Las Vegas, NV
October 15-17, 2009

Radian6 is proud to be a sponsor and exhibitor at the 2009 BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas. Say hi to Amber Naslund (and be sure to catch one of her sessions),  Marc Whitchurch, and Tom Hasselman while you’re at the event.

About BlogWorld:

The 2009 BlogWorld & New Media Expo will take place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, beginning with the exclusive “Social Media Business Summit”(TM) conference on October 15th and continuing with the BlogWorld & New Media Expo and Conference October 16th-17th. This is first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of new media including: Blogging, Podcasting, Social Media, Online Video, Music, TV, Radio, Gaming, Entertainment and Communities. In addition to the only industry-wide new media industry exhibition, BlogWorld & New Media Expo features the largest new media conference in the world including more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from iconic personalities on the leading-edge of online technology and internet-savvy business. If you are currently blogging, podcasting, vlogging, producing other forms of new media content, entering the new media industry, or researching ways to leverage new media for your large or small company, then you need to be at the only comprehensive new media convention–BlogWorld & New Media Expo. Located in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center at: 3150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, NV 89109

MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer
Chicago, IL
October 21-22, 2009

Radian6 is excited to renew our sponsorship of this exciting MarketingProfs event. We’ll have a booth to show you what we’re made of, and Amber Naslund will be hosting a discussion around social media measurement and metrics. Stop by and say hello!

About the event:

The Digital Marketing Mixer brings together email, search and social media in an intimate setting. You’ll grab tips and expert insights to fire up your digital marketing strategy this fall and beyond! It’s an interactive event that’s:

1. Relevant—so you can focus on 3 critical areas: search marketing, email marketing and social media
2. Intimate—allowing you to mix with speakers and peers in a lively setting
3. Productive—helping you solve your digital marketing problems at lightning speed
4. Integrated—Showing you how all this digital stuff integrates into the overall game plan