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!