Do you know my name?

Do you know I moved across the apartment complex two months ago?

Do you know I inquired about brand X five times before I purchased?

Do you know I purchased because I received a recommendation from another one of your customers?

Do you know that I purchased brand X for myself and gave as a gift to my husband, our two children and my best friend in Dallas, Texas?

Do you know my favorite color is purple because I bought all color coordinating accessories for brand X?

Do you know I shop online on Fridays and only shop or have physical interaction with your organization when I purchase brand Y or have issue Z?

Do you know ME?

Do you know ME whether I shop online, by phone or at your physical location?

Do you know I spoke to a customer service person yesterday via Twitter and again on IM today regarding issue Y?

I know ME and I expect if you have a presence online, offline or both, you should know ME too.

Over the past month, we have talked about forming a solid engagement strategy and how-to engage. But, before you have an exchange with someone, it is helpful to know a bit about them. Monitoring, exclusively, will not give you the insights you need to better know your customer base or community. Actively listening to customers/community will help clarify an immediate interaction, but will not give you a holistic view of their relationship with your organization.

How can you go beyond listening at the point of need to engaging at the point of need, knowing exactly who the customer/community member is and deeper context surrounding their transaction or issue?

What is missing?

The power of observation.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, to observe is:

“..to watch carefully especially with attention to details or behavior for the purpose of arriving at a judgment.”

Judgment is based on data over time. It is essential to learn the language of data to properly extract actionable insights. Do not dismiss the need to monitor or passively listen before engaging with your community. But realize there is an extra step between monitoring and listening. Observing. Use the time while monitoring to understand the people within your community. Just as an anthropologist would, study the behavior of the community in their natural habitat without the direct influence of your organization. Observe their habits, conversations and circles of trust.

Data tells a story. It is your job to observe and find the patterns and connections that matter so your organization can answer, “Do you know ME?”

How do you take the data you glean from online monitoring, observation, and any active listening between you and community and weave this information into existing data infrastructure?

Last Friday, Professor Mihaela Vorvoreanu, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Computer Graphics Technology and Organizational Leadership & Supervision at Purdue University joined Radian6 to host a webinar about social media in the higher education classroom. Judging from the stellar questions and comments during and after the webinar, plenty of folks enjoyed Dr. V’s presentation. I daresay, students and educators, alike were inspired to start this school year off with a bang!

Dr. V discussed the the use of Web 2.0 in a series of undergraduate public relations courses taught at Clemson University. Web 2.0 tools were deeply integrated into the courses. Dr. V explained how each tool was introduced to students and used, the rationale for using it, and presented data about the impact each tool had on student learning, motivation, teacher relationship and career success. Unfortunately, we were unable to record the webinar because the data shared has not yet been published. However, if you are interested in receiving a copy of the study once it has been published, please complete this form.

There is a lot of debate, and not nearly as much evidence, about using Web 2.0 in the classroom. We need to know whether we can we use Web 2.0 in the classroom in ways that actually benefit students. This session demonstrated how one instructor weaved Twitter, social networking, and the blogosphere into several college courses, and presented assessment data about the impact of these teaching strategies on student learning, motivation, and career success.

As Dr. V stated during the webinar, “the world is your classroom.” Learning is a personal experience and just like any health or fitness regimen, there is no excuse not to find the time to make it happen. If it matters to you, take charge of your own destiny, and find the time to keep your brain young and keep learning.

Thank you to Dr. V and to all of you who listened to the webinar! Spread the inspiration. After all, it the future of our industry we are talking about…

Over the past two years, there have been calls to action for public relations professionals and their agencies about the type of work they should handle and quality of it. From one of the professionals in the trenches to a recent Business Week article, there has been a lot of chatter from all ends of the spectrum. What does it come down to? Education and holding the industry to a standard.

But, where can we start?

Social media has made it possible for numerous agency people – whether its PR, advertising, marketing communications or research/analytics – to come together and discuss best practices in their blogs, on Twitter and even publish use cases. We are now connected daily with people that at best, we might have seen from afar at a professional conference.  Some agencies share in-depth client news, and it’s interesting to take what they say as a practice and see where it is applied in that client.

With this type of public information, many agencies seem to worry that they are giving away more information than holding in. In a world of NDAs (non-disclosure agreements), is it practical to ask that we educate each other on best practices and share information? Will it change the new business pitch and how it’s executed?

Content Sharing

We have tools at our fingertips to share content, provide insight and discuss with each other. You really never know who is watching your stream or blog – it could be a client, it could be the competition, it could just be a friend. If we are telling our clients to participate in a certain way, why aren’t agencies? You can be selective with information shared or blogged about. Positioning yourself as an educator and partner to clients needs to be shown in that first impression – sometimes when they just Google you. Are you sharing the content you want to be judged on?

Education

While working in the agency world, I was a part of online “brain trust groups”, which was made up of 3-5 people that would share ideas and discussions related to specific topics. These topics ranged from application, trends and forecasting as it related to our specific fields. One brain trust group specifically focused on breaking down silos, and how each could work together. We never discussed strategy, objectives, new business pitches or how we would use the knowledge discussed.

Call to Standards

At the end of the day, the ones bashing industry practice should be listened to. What they say is important – many journalists and clients have voiced frustration in the past. It’s up to the industry to listen to what is being said, pinpoint what happened and if its accurate and true. We are held accountable for every action executed, and the industries should start at its foundation and create change. Not everyone will. Trying a few different solutions can help.

1. Create a council made up of  five people – one from each professional organization (PRSA, IABC, 4A’s, AMA, SPJ) to review concerns annually, what has been instituted to fix, and how it can be changed. It’s important to not silo the organization, but work together as an agency industry whole.

2. Have a Standards workshops available in webinar form for free – and anyone can access them at anytime. There are new people entering the field daily, and sometimes one just needs a reminder. If rules are set, show how they can be used in the daily workforce. Hold people as accountable as possible.

3. Issue an open invite to all agencies (large, boutique, mid-size) to participate in semi-annually discussions around the state of the industry and best practices at a high level. Dependent on volume, groups would be formed of 6-7 people. They would then post takeaways so that everyone can see what was discussed.

Those are just a few ideas of how the agency industry can work together to be better – whether its in the daily work cycle, how they can improve as an agency or apply to the new business pitch. What would you add? How can agencies engage in the social media and traditional landscape?

There’s a lot of debate about how and where interns should be involved in a company’s social media presence.  Everyone seems to agree that interns shouldn’t be on the front lines of engagement, nor should they be directing the company’s social strategies. The questions are now “Where does an intern fit in?”, and “How can I involve them in engagement, if not on the front lines?”

Drivers Education

For teens that want to drive, drivers education is a mandatory class that they must take before they’re allowed to get their permit. Drivers ed prepares potential drivers by giving them a guided tour of driving. What are the rules (both on the books and off) that they must follow? How should they learn to drive? What are some important things to keep in mind as they work toward getting their license?

In many ways, an internship resembles drivers education.

An internship:

• Begins to teach an intern how to successfully work for a company
• Helps the intern understand a bit about corporate culture
• Gives an intern the freedom to learn with a strong guiding hand
• Provides a taste of what “the working world” is like

The Learners Permit

The moment a teen gets their learners permit is where the rubber starts to hit the road – literally. The teen is responsible for driving the car, but only under the direct supervision of an approved parent or guardian.  For many teens, the year that they spend learning to drive is a lesson in calculated freedom. They can make their own decisions, but any misstep is swiftly corrected. Nothing goes unseen.

Businesses can learn from this concept. The purpose of an internship isn’t to fill your intern’s time with coffee runs and copying duties. Instead, an internship should always aim to teach the intern how to work as an adult, encouraging progress and delivering praise where praise is due, but also keeping a close watch on their duties and behaviors while at work to help correct any mistakes as they happen.

Scott Westerman wrote a thought-provoking post about interns and social media, and some of his key points are included below.

1. Define what you need
2. Hire with care
3. Fully train them before turning them loose
4. Include them
5. Coach them
6. Celebrate them
7. Fight for them

An internship is an opportunity for both the company and the intern to learn.  Instead of placing an intern in charge of your outreach and engagement full stop, treat the internship as a learners permit.

In lieu of direct engagement, interns can learn how social media works by becoming involved with other areas within an organization during the course of their internship.

• Listening Interns have the unique advantage of growing up in a truly digital age. Use that to your advantage and empower them to listen for important conversations across the web. They may have ideas about what your current listening programs are missing, and they’ll learn how personal conversations differ from business-related conversations in return. They shouldn’t be the only ones listening to what’s going on, but they can provide another ear to the ground and a new perspective. In return, they’ll be able to learn how businesses listen to the social web and pick up a good amount of knowledge about how to use tools that they may have not been exposed to already.
• Planning Campaigns require a lot of planning.  From direct mail campaigns to integrated multi-channel efforts, planning is key.  An intern can help plan the execution and follow-up of the campaign, as well as be involved in strategy and brainstorming sessions.
• Executing Don’t be afraid to let an intern help with execution. Many companies have expanded their editorial calendar to include content schedules for their social outposts including the company blog, Twitter and Facebook.  There’s a large difference between letting an intern create that content carte blanche and allowing an intern to brainstorm some of the content. Let your intern learn how the content is shared and encourage them to watch as conversations develop.
• Reporting An intern can be an asset and used to dig into your measurement tools and pull together the first draft of your regular reports. The intern gets to discover the in’s and out’s of your reporting practices, as well as learn the tools which they may need to use once they graduate. In addition, they’re allowed some guided freedoms with data access, and are hopefully encouraged to use their own initiative to point out new information or create new reports to better support and justify your social media activities.

The Graduated License

Much of what happens to teens when they get their graduated license goes unnoticed by their parents.  They test the limits of the rules and are sometimes met with severe consequences. Others understand the dangers of the road and become responsible drivers from the beginning.

A good internship includes measured amounts of freedom with a large amount of oversight. The companies that hire interns into positions like this gain new perspectives, an employee who is eager to please, and a student who wants to learn. Direct engagement on behalf of a brand isn’t required, and the company and the intern can benefit greatly even if the intern remains off the front lines.

What’s your take on The Great Intern Debate? How do you involve your interns with your social media activities?  Are they involved on the front lines?

At what point in a relationship, do you move beyond the chit chat about the weather and traffic and begin a mutually beneficial two-way dialog? Dialog builds as trust develops in a relationship. Just as in offline communication, trust and conversation must be built up over time. Just because an organization creates a presence on social networks, does not guarantee engagement will commence or that it will occur in the outposts established by your organization. If you build it, there is no guarantee people will come. Engagement begins with an invite.

Your organization is built of many unique individuals. All have personalities and skills that keep your organization humming. As you build an engagement strategy, are you making sure you these people are noticed, so they may help facilitate the relationships you seek? Who is telling your story? A faceless narrator does not invite engagement.

Go beyond the one dimensional avatar

As Katie stated last week, storytelling and engagement do go hand-in-hand. Take a page from a storyteller, and build your organization’s personas as you would characters in a novel. No need to fictionalize your avatars…just look within your organization for those who are not flat and lifeless, but stir our souls to respond. Authors are told to write from life; take the same advice and harness the talents of your real-life workforce to embody the three dimensional character you need to succeed in online engagement.

A one or two dimensional character is simple and does not require or warrant explanation. These characters are not identified as individual people with thoughts or emotions. These characters fall flat because they lack human connection. They are predictable, isolated and lack creditability.

Avoid being the stereotypical organization online with your company logo avatar and legalese lingo. A stereotype is never a three dimensional character. Seek out those in your organization who draw others into their circles, who make the impossible possible, and ordinary extraordinary. Through these connectors, followers will experience your organization’s story and learn valuable lessons.

A three dimensional character goes beyond the one dimensional avatar and demonstrates their internal motivations, desires, fears and ethics while externally displaying their habits, personality attributes, mannerisms, cultural tendencies and style. The three dimensional character is thus believable because of the human attributes (thoughts, emotions and actions) displayed. There is no trick to creating the three dimensional character. Be real.

Thoughts

Characters with no dimension are boring and will be written off. Such one dimensional characters are often found in jokes or fables in which the character serves the single purpose of being the conduit of which the punch line or lesson is related. These characters are a means to an end.

So, if you create an organizational presence online that lacks original thought and only serves to engage the customer or community with the end goal of a sale, this false identity will be seen for what it truly is. Readers or your community will not be able to stomach or communicate with an unbelievable character who has no flaws. People do not associate with faceless organizations, but with people who think and feel like them.

Emotions

The successes and failures do not belong solely to your organization, but matter to your readers, your community at large. A three dimensional character is believable and makes a connection because they have history, feelings, thoughts, strengths, and weaknesses. Your organization has all of these items in spades.

Share these collective and individual emotions with your community so they find it easier to relate and engage. Build a framework with which to engage by sharing the history and personality of your organization and workforce. From this natural fountain, let flow your tone and word choice for engagement.

Actions

No story is complete without action. To add true dimension to your character(s), allow your community to ask numerous and detailed the questions. Why? So you can actively respond and engage! Actions are based upon decisions and responses and asked or requested based upon thoughts and feelings, which stem from attitudes, shaped by individual philosophies. Your community would not inquire or give suggestions if they did not care.

Through your online three dimensional character, show you care by responding and acting upon feedback. Of course, this does not mean you will be able to say yes to every person or prove every suggestion valid, but this engagement will prove you are listening and acting in the best interest of your community.

People connect with three dimensional characters because they have flaws and failings. Do not pretend to be the organization to have all the answers. Be the organization you truly are…one made up of many dynamic three dimensional characters who are eager to share their story…your story.

So, is your organization a one dimensional avatar or a three dimensional character online?

If you’ve taken a read through our social media monitoring and engagement playbook, you’ll notice that it’s almost exclusively focused on our community interaction on Twitter. Twitter is one of the key online channels customers, prospects, and fans use to connect with us, giving us great reason to maintain a framework for our participation.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have reason to venture outside Twitter, though — there’s a fair share of mentions on blogs, forums, and other online outposts that need our attention. We also strive to participate in a number of industry/vertical conversations where mentions of Radian6 are nowhere to be found.

Seeing as there’s much more to the engagement equation than Twitter, how about we chat over some of those additional points here? If there are any questions left unanswered, please feel free to leave them in the comments and we’ll be sure to address them.

Blogs/Forums

Radian6 receives a good number of shout-outs in blogs and on forums. Most often those mentions are embedded in posts lauding the value of social media monitoring, reviews of multiple social media monitoring platforms, and content of that nature. While many of those are passing mentions, it’s imperative that we say thank you for each and every one.

Acknowledging those references to us is part of the Radian6 company culture, so we’ve set guidelines for response that directly accommodate that. This “rule” covers mentions big and small, positive and negative, blogged, forum’d, or otherwise. Who a comment or post is assigned to for response is based on a few factors including depth of post topic and type of mention.

In general, we will not respond to mentions that are posted on forums or sites that require someone to sign up for an account to comment. We will, however, sign up for those accounts and respond if the mention is a complaint or customer support issue.

Facebook

We treat mentions on Facebook similar to those on privacy/account-protected sites. If a comment that pops into our feed is a complaint or obvious need for support, we will jump in.

On our own Facebook page, we get involved in conversation to drive engagement and leave all comments alone unless they’re defamatory, inflammatory, or attacking of others. Pretty simple.

Proactive Industry Outreach

Reactive outreach has been a huge part of the Radian6 engagement strategy for as long as we’ve been, well, engaging. But the company has hit a level of maturity that demands we start seeking out industry conversations and identifying new communities that could be valuable for us to get involved in.

This proactive outreach initiative is tied into our engagement processes. Members of the Community Team have individual profiles set up in the Radian6 dashboard around our niche areas of interest and expertise, to hone in on meaty conversations that we want to dig into. We also monitor a general “social media” feed that picks up a variety of posts that don’t mention Radian6 but are valuable to read through and comment on. We have individual and team goals set around this proactive outreach and have incorporated search and response into our online engagement activities.

Note that these processes truly are a part of our daily work routine. Engagement isn’t optional here at Radian6; it’s part of the company’s mission, and we’re working regularly on expanding engagement past the bounds of traditional thinking, not just for our external community but for our own purposes, as well.

You’ll also see that there’s no place for canned responses in our engagement playbook or guidelines. Say ‘thank you’, say ‘how can we help?’, but say it in your own words — this caveat is invaluable to note and stay aware of. While response and engagement are part of the Radian6 brand promise, so is our human tone and emphasis on individuality among employees. That tone and individuality cross the bounds of social networks and extend offline, too (which you’ll notice when you meet any of us at an event).

For Radian6, engagement process framing was a natural progression because of how deeply steeped we are in the online space. How about you? We strongly encourage you to review your engagement processes and expectations and lay them down on paper. How do you want to see your employees handling online engagement? Do you think you need to set expectations? If so, how detailed do you believe your expectations and processes need to be?

Social media has opened a door to a wealth of information – whether brands are listening in on what consumers are saying; interacting with them on a consistent basis; and even profiling client efforts across personal and professional corporate accounts. Social networks are used not only to converse with consumers, but to push out shareable content such as news, product upgrades and various promotions.

Brands have social media guidelines that include disclaimers. But, brands are also running into how to offer disclaimers and be as transparent as possible when it comes to the agencies that represent them.

Agencies are currently working with brands throughout planning/research, development, strategy and execution. They are sharing client information approved for public consumption, all while providing unique tidbits and facts.

Disclaimers are important to decide on in the planning and development phase because of how a consumer might react. First, evaluate who will be conversing on behalf of a brand, and decide if all employees must abide by social media guidelines. For an agency, you have the added thought process of if you should only disclaim for clients you work on, but for all agency clients as well.

In this stage, make sure to list out:

• Who officially represents the brand
• Who indirectly represents the brand
• Where the information needs to be disclosed
• When the information needs to be disclosed
• Benchmarks for when it will be re-evaluated

Once those stipulations have been set, you can be

gin to flesh out the where, when and why of the agency social media disclaimers. The areas that you disclaim can be broad or specific, depending on the brand.

Social Network Bios

With grey areas in the FTC regulations, it is always safe to disclose the company that you work for.  If you are contributing to a blog that is not your own, you need to disclaim where you work, especially if it’s on a client blog. For Facebook, keep your professional information up to date, and on Facebook Fan Pages, detail out exactly who is talking. This could be in the form of “You’re chatting with Lauren at Radian6″ or “Community Manager Lauren Fernandez” so that it not only a.) humanizes the brand, but b.) let’s people know exactly who they are talking to.

On Twitter, it’s easy to update your bio to reflect @COMPANY, with your title being optional.

Twitter Lists

Twitter lists are great to show which clients you work for and which clients your agency represents. Creating Twitter lists titled “Brands I Work With” and “Brands AGENCY represents”, so that at any time, a person knows who you work for, what clients you work on, and who the agency represents. This information is usually available on a brand or agency Web site, so it’s safe to disclose this type of information.

Some agencies will even put the actual client name in their bio. An example of this is “I work for BRAND, these views are my own.”

[client] [cl] [disclaimer]

A trend across Twitter, Facebook and blogs is to put a small disclaimer at the end of any tweet to indicate that it’s a client; at the end of a status update; or at the end of a blog post as a sentence. For this, many debate on whether it’s applicable to only clients you work on, or all agency clients. On one side of the debate, many believe that if they have a Twitter list, talk about the brands enough, and they don’t directly represent, it’s not needed. Others say that a client disclaimer is always needed, no matter what.

“These views are my own”

Many blogs and bios express this small line. Does this automatically separate a personal and professional brand, or is that depending on the consumer too much? Is there ever any separation between the two when dealing with social networks? These are questions that the agency and brand need to work on in the planning and development stages.

So, what do you think? Which disclaimers would you use, and would you add any? Let’s discuss in the comments.

*Disclaimer: Mullen is a Radian6 client.

Everyone loves a good story.  We voraciously consume the popular novel of the week, share unique videos that tell a good story, retell stories others have told to us in social settings, and write blog posts sharing stories of our own. Storytelling has been around for centuries, and it’s powerful.

Advertisements always try to tell a story.  Perhaps the story is something as simple as how a mom solved a household cleaning problem with a new product, or perhaps it’s more involved – like the stories Levi’s shares with their new campaign. Whatever the case, the power of a good story can’t be denied.

Storytelling is the big picture stuff. It’s the fuel that drives your advertising campaigns, the content that’s included on your website or in your collateral, and the foundation of what your executives share when they talk about your organization.  It’s the stuff that sucks us in, makes us want to learn more, and urges us to share with others.

Engagement is focused on the micro level. It’s the follow-up to the story that was shared, including absorbing and responding to the reactions.  It’s the action of connecting with someone that was affected by your story in one way or another and the potential beginnings of a relationship with that person. Engagement can often unearth new stories, which then starts the cycle all over again.

Teresa’s first point in her recent post brings up a great point regarding engagement and storytelling. “Listen and absorb what people are saying about your brand, products, services, and your general market.”

Listening is the first step for both storytelling and engagement, and these two activities greatly support each other.

The stories are the opportunities, and the engagement is the follow-up.

Gavin Heaton recently posted a presentation he delivered about storytelling for social media, and one of his closing points really struck a chord: “It’s about creating the coincidences that lead to an emotional connection. Something that you can share with the players in your personal playground.”

To continue Gavin’s analogy, it’s like shooting hoops with a partner that always gives you the ball back to try again. Storytelling and engagement combine to form a cycle that never really ends.

Do you have stories to share about companies that pair storytelling with engagement well? Share them in the comments!

When: Friday, August 27th
Time: 11am PDT/2pm EDT
Click here to register.

It’s that time again. The textbooks are being purchased, the classes are being registered for, and the professors are…well, they’re hosting webinars about the use of social media in higher education.

That’s right, our Senior Community Manager and resident higher education expert Lauren Vargas will be hosting Professor Mihaela Vorvoreanu, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Computer Graphics Technology and Organizational Leadership & Supervision at Purdue University, who will be discussing the use of social media in the higher ed classroom.

Professor Vorvoreanu studies the socio-cultural impact of new communication technologies, and will be discussing her experiences weaving social media tools into multiple undergraduate public relations courses she taught during her tenure at Clemson University. She’ll also be sharing her findings on the impact the use of these tools and teaching strategies had on student learning, motivation, and career success.

Additionally, Lauren will be chatting with Professor Vorvoreanu about some of the finer points of her presentation as well as the greater implications of social media use in higher education. Toward the end of the webinar we’ll open up the conversation to our audience to answer any questions they might have.

The maturation of today’s digitally immersed generations makes the research that Professor Vorvoreanu is doing – and the experimentation and conversation surrounding it – an increasingly essential piece of the higher education and teaching framework. So join us next Friday for what’s sure to be an enlightening and valuable discussion!

While social media as a corporate communications channel is gaining ground, it’s still seen as a rather new and novel medium. As a result of this, and because there is a level of uncertainty with regards to its benefits, there seems to be a large demand for case studies and practical examples of corporate social media use.

With this in mind we will be sharing a number of case studies on our Blog over the next couple of months. First up, we highlight how we worked with Kellogg’s UK who were looking to roll out a social media strategy across their business.

To begin Kellogg’s sought to understand, in detail, what was being said about their brand and four of their main product groups; Coco Pops, Special K, Crunchy Nut, and Rice Krispies Squares. Working with 6Consulting, Kellogg’s launched a listening and monitoring initiative. The insight gained through this was then used as a basis for future cross departmental social media involvement. (more…)

Increasingly, companies need to adapt their codes of conduct and employee manuals with guidelines for employee participation on the social web.

While you might have roles that are “officially” social media related, every person in your company is now a potential spokesperson. And if they’re active online in any way at all, you want to be prepared for those inevitable interactions with customers, as well as help people understand what’s acceptable, what’s encouraged, and what’s frowned upon when they’re engaging in social media on behalf of your company.

In addition to thorough and continuous training to immerse your teams in the culture and practice of the social web, having a clear set of guidelines can make things a heck of a lot easier. They don’t have to be complicated (many are less than a page), but they do have to touch on a few key areas.

I’m a fan of having a set of “policies” which are the more rules-y type items, and then a set of principles or guidelines that can help give your teams the spirit and flavor of your participation in social media. While policies by their nature tend to spell out the legal and procedural stuff, the guidelines can talk more about why social media matters to your organization, and all of the potential it holds to get people excited and motivated to participate.

Let’s have a look at the basic elements of social media policies and guidelines.

Policy

1. Expectations

Realistically, you know you’re going to have people contributing to social media. What are your expectations for that, and what should employees keep in mind? This is a good time to point to your code of ethics or code of conduct as a company and reiterate the applicable bits around social media.

2. Disclosure

Help your employees understand the importance of identifying themselves in social media, with something as simple as their name and company in blog signatures or their social network bios when they’re interacting on behalf of your company.

3. Required Training

If completion of education or internal training is required in order to participate in social media on behalf of your organization, spell that out. Also, point employees to resources, a social media governance council, or other people and information that can help them do so properly.

4. Confidential and Proprietary Information

It’s a good idea to remind folks what constitutes confidential or proprietary information inside your company, and that they’re not to share that via social networks or in public online forums at any time. This can be an extension of the policies you lay out in your employee handbook.

6. The Law

As social media goes mainstream, you’ll see more things like the FTC’s Endorsement & Testimonial Guidelines cropping up, in addition to any communication regulations that affect your particular industry. Keep your employees informed about where they can find those, and how they might affect their participation in social media on behalf of the company.

7. Company Time

Can employees blog, tweet, or use LinkedIn on their company time if they’re not part of an official social media team? How are you hoping that they’ll do so, and what are your caveats or conditions? Your employees are likely using social media during work hours anyway, so helping them understand what’s acceptable is a constructive, progressive way to keep everyone headed in the same direction.

8. Account Ownership

If people have social media accounts when they join your company, they’re going to have a reasonable expectation that they still own those when they leave (much like their rolodex or personal email contact list). If there’s *any* gray area here with employees that tweet, blog, or have forum accounts that are for the purposes of representing your company in an official, branded capacity, it’s best to discuss that up front and determine how to transition, close, or amend those accounts should there be a separation of employment.

9. Escalation

If someone runs into an issue, question, or confrontation that they can’t individually or personally handle, what’s the appropriate path for them to take? Is there a contact chart or other procedures they should follow to report that information or take it to another member of the team? Check out the Air Force’s flowchart that helps them assess their online responses.

10. Consequences

Uncomfortable as it may be, articulate potential consequences for employees that violate your social media policy or guidelines so that, in the unfortunate event that you have to take disciplinary action for something, you’ve got that in writing somewhere.

Guidelines:

1. Purpose

Give your employees an idea of why you as a company are participating in social media, and what your overall goals and expectations are for that participation. Giving everyone a shared sense of purpose can help them self-govern their participation, and know whether what they’re doing is aligned with your organization’s goals. Point out what your “official” company social media channels are and where people can find them, as well as what role they serve and what individuals or teams are behind them.

2. Your Social Media Voice

Is your social media participation irreverent and fun, like Moosejaw? Are you helpful and friendly like JetBlue is on Twitter? Are you more official and conservative? Share with your employees the spirit and attitude behind your social media participation, and the personality that you’re hoping to portray as a company. That can help them find an individual voice that feels comfortable for them but that fits right in.

3. Taking Part

If your employees are interested in social media but new to it, help them understand what good contribution and participation looks like. Do you have a team of “social media mentors” they can go to in order to learn about specific tools? If they’re interested in blogging for the company, where are your best posts, and how can they be considered for participation? Are there training courses or education classes provided, and where can they be found?

4. Response Guidelines

Do you moderate comments? Do you respond to every mention, or just those that suit certain criteria? Do you treat Twitter differently than LinkedIn Groups or Facebook, and what are the basics of participating in each of those communities? Do you have guidelines for response times? These questions are usually more suited to your official teams and individuals responsible for social media engagement, but even sharing them with your employees at large can give them more and better information to guide their own participation.

5. Disagreements & Negative Commentary

They happen. Whether it’s a grumpy person that’s having a bad customer service experience to one of the infamous “internet trolls” out to get a rise out of someone, educate your teams about what that looks like, and how you’re expecting them to respond. It’s one of the biggest fears of most social media participants, but one that can be handled well with some teaching and guidance.

6. Responsibility

Explain to your employees about the potential of the web, but why that means that every individual is responsible for their part in creating a positive, constructive social media environment. Talk about everyone being a brand ambassador, and what you’re hoping each person can help your company do and be through their participation. Keep it positive, and full of potential while reminding them that they can and do play a pivotal role all on their own.

7. Idea Sharing

If your employees are enthusiastic about social media, that’s a good thing. Give them forums and avenues to share their ideas, to contribute to something larger, and to feel as though they can make a positive contribution to your efforts. The more you help guide their participation and encourage their efforts, the more likely they’ll be to become a true asset to your social media endeavors.

Want some examples of social media guidelines? Dave Fleet (client) recently posted a list of 57 of the ones he’s found, and Social Media Governance has a long list of policies and guidelines from a number of different companies of all sizes and shapes.

So what would you add? Do you have policies for your organization, and what challenges are you having putting them in place? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

So often, when we talk about the value of customer engagement, the focus is on the value or return for the organization. What’s in it for us (the organization) does not always translate into what’s in it for the customer who engages with us. Participation in community conversation is not a one-off interaction or simply a means to an end (closing the sale). Especially, not to the customer. Begin by understanding the customer decision making process from their perspective.

1. Need/Want Recognition: Consumer identifies problem/desire? If impulsive buy/decision, the cost to consumer is low. Larger buy/decision is greater risk and cost to consumer. Questions You Need to Ask: How quickly can consumer make this decision? What is sales cycle? Consumable product/brand? Impulsive purchase? Who are influencers? Who are adopters? At what phase does consumer adopt this need/want?
2. Information Search: Once the consumer makes the choice to fill need/want, consumer begins to research best choices available. Questions You Need to Ask: Where are consumers finding info on you/competitors? Most frequently used search terms? How does the consumer speak about product/brand? How does consumer relate to product/brand? or experience the product/brand?
3. Evaluation: Consumer begins to filter information gathered and narrow choices. Questions You Need to Ask: Is there any additional information the consumer needs to make purchase/decision? What/Who are the consumer’s filters? Where is the consumer comfort zone?
4. Purchase: Consumer makes purchase/decision. Questions You Need to Ask: Are the consumers getting what they expected upon purchase/decision?
5. Cognitive Dissonance: Often a consumer has post purchase anxiety and will second guess purchase/decision. This is the beginning of post-product relationship. Questions You Need to Ask: How will you prevent and/or counter this anxiety? Do you have a trial period, guarantee and/or warranty options in place? How often will you follow-up with consumer to gauge satisfaction/issues/additional needs and desires? Would consumer recommend product/brand to a friend (NPV)?

Sync this five-step process with the psychological needs driving human motivation to your brand.

For each step, identify all channels (traditional and social media) where actions are being taken by consumer/community along the customer buying/decision process.

Now from that list, identify appropriate channels and tools you will employ to facilitate customer buying/decision process. (Go to where the customer/community already exists!)

If relevant, this is how you begin making the case for using social media! Set the criteria.

Participate/Engage/Execute in every step of the customer buying/decision process. Always tie back to Step #4 and repeat business. I am not advocating being in the position of always making the sale. Not appropriate. Just be aware of where you and the customer are in the process at all times! The goal is to keep the consumer moving through the process to purchase/decision, maintaining relationship for repeat business/interaction (rinse and repeat) and acquiring new customers into the process through consumer recommendation.

Here are some ways to foster engagement that is valuable to the customer:

• Follow: An organization with zero followers but has a profile on every social media channel does not have a presence. A presence is created through interactions. Do not be afraid to follow people back. Avoid only following back current customers/evangelists, you never know when the opportunity will strike for those who are following you to become a customer or in the position to recommend your organization to a friend.
• Mention: Recognition will make anyone feel special. When appropriate, respond personally or highlight a lesson learned from someone within your community.
• Incorporate: If you’re ready to monitor and actively listen for feedback, your customers will tell you what they love, hate, want and need. Demonstrate your organization is not just letting the feedback go through one ear and out the other. Tell customers what changes are based on their feedback.
• Crowdsource: With the above steps in mind, why not form a panel of highly engaged customers to help steer product development? Focus groups can provide you with ideas that you may not have considered. While the Internet may not be indicative of your entire customer base, communities across the social web offer instant feedback and may indicate trends not yet visible in offline feedback.
• Share: Avoid pushing your organization content and messages exclusively. Learn from other businesses and individuals in your community and share their lessons learned and experiences with the rest of your community.

What are other ways your organizations uses to foster long-term relationship building engagement?

For all that people in the weeds of social media talk about how simple online engagement is — be authentic, intelligent, and responsive and everything will be fine — there are a number of industries that must double up their planning and strategy efforts to accommodate government regulations and guidelines. For verticals like banking, pharmaceuticals, and alcohol, social media engagement presents additional regulatory challenges to overcome.

While much of this engagement path is still being paved for regulated industries, as much as there are still some growing pains to get through, there are ways to make the most of social media while adhering to your industries outlined regulations. To make social media work in a regulated industry, though, takes awareness and education, creativity, and transparency.

Awareness and Education

Fact: It is impossible for regulated industries to make the most of social media if firms within those industries aren’t A) abundantly clear on the regulations and guidelines created by their governing bodies, and B) prepared to thoroughly – and I mean thoroughly – educate their teams on proper social media use for regulated business purposes and individual firm processes.

To that first point, any team within a regulated firm that’s preparing to use social media needs to work with their legal teams to get clear on major, relevant regulations, and to devise any necessary independent policies and/or procedures recommended or required by their industry’s governing body.

In the case of the financial industry, FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, has detailed in its social media guidelines the need for its firms to adopt policies and procedures that dictate who can engage on behalf of the firm, and what those folks need to accomplish prior to engagement that makes them fit to do it on behalf of the business.

While FINRA provides suggestions within their policies for firms to adhere to, it’s up to the independent firm itself to create a properly tailored policy that caters specifically to its internal processes while remaining consistent with larger regulations.

Creativity

Because of the heavy and seemingly hard-to-overcome regulations certain industries face, social media use takes some real creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to be successful. Viewed from a positive perspective, regulations give businesses the chance to be truly innovative with their engagement strategies.

Pfizerpedia and Intellipedia, and internal wiki for Pfizer and a private wiki for the U.S. Intelligence Community, demonstrate the depth of possibilities social tools present for truly beneficial engagement and collaboration.

Transparency

One of the largest barriers for regulated industries to overcome in engaging in social media is the real-time, fast-paced nature of the social web. If you review the communications policies in these industries, you’ll find that all communications take approval. All of them. That necessary approval inevitably creates a delay in response that people tend to believe is unacceptable on social media channels. So how do you jump this hurdle? By being as clear as you can with your customers and greater audience about your processes for social media engagement.

Take Bank of America for example. Bank of America provides customer service support via Twitter (@BofA_help). If you click through to the company’s Twitter profile page, you’ll see that the @BofA_help team’s hours of service are openly stated in the company bio, and you’ll also see that the background image on the profile has been customized to include an “Important Notices” section on the lefthand side of the page.

By being honest about its engagement procedures on Twitter, Bank of America has set clear expectations for its community and is openly adhering to regulatory guidelines. No one is caught off guard.

These are just a few pieces of the social media engagement puzzle for the regulated business world. What else would you add to the mix? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Social media has turned communication into a real-time, instant reply medium. Traditional public relations had a bit more leeway and time to decide on an appropriate course of action when a crisis struck. Now, replies and statements are expected to come quicker.

Crisis communications will throw a person into pure adrenaline, and sometimes borderline panic. The key to keeping a cool head is to focus on specific tasks, and only release information that is 100 percent factual. Even stating that “This is a matter we are aware of and we will keep you posted” is better than silence. It also will ensure that you have a bit of time to investigate what occurred, create a correct response and understand how to execute.

But, how can you prepare for crisis communications? It’s easy to state that you need to issue statements of information in a timely fashion, as accurate as possible. The five areas below will help to prepare for a potential crisis and outline the type of engagement needed. The agency-client dynamic should work together to decide what part each sector is active in.

Create a Crisis Communications Plan

A crisis communications plan is vital to any branded organization. It should include what constitutes as a crisis, members of the crisis communications team, phone numbers, legal team information, 1-sheeter on organization facts, responsibilities, example statements and a team lead. The team lead is important because it’s the person with the “checklist”: Checking that each step is met; Checking that all team members know their duties; Checking that the next step is correct; and generally checking in with C-Suite. All crisis communication plans are laid out differently.

Example Statements

In a crisis, time is everything. Most statements, before hitting any medium, will need to go through an approval process. Having blanket beginner statements approved will give the team time to issue it quickly, then work on evaluating the situation and issuing a response. You won’t have all the time in the world, but acknowledging awareness at the first is imperative.

Once news hits, its possible that it will be RT’ed, blogged about or discussed on forums. Instead of linking every single person to the statement (copying and pasting) post your statement, with updates, to all channels. If the volume isn’t high, you can alter the beginning statement to each individual.

Example of beginning statement:

“We are aware of *INSERT SITUATION*. We are currently looking into the situation and will provide information and answer questions as soon as possible.”

A beginning statement will let consumers, stakeholders and media know that this is a top priority and that your brand wants to provide factual information. When a statement is not released in the first few hours, speculation will start, taking the wheel out of your hands.

It’s also important to have sample statements regarding negative chatter at brand and how to handle incorrect information.

Review the Plan every 6-12 months

With how quickly the landscape is changing, the plan also needs to be reviewed and kept up-to-date. Some organizations review and update their plan for every large event they host. Find a review time span that is specific to your brand, and what makes sense. Reviewing the plan at least annually will keep the plan up to date, on par with organization facts and easily understood by crisis team members.

Monitor your brand

Knowing what chatter is out there can help identify the type of situations that can occur, what is being said and who is saying it. Monitoring can also pinpoint when a crisis happens, sometimes before even the media catches wind. Although monitoring can pull in a lot of chatter about your brand, it’s important to identify what qualifies as an actual crisis (needing a plan) and what requires just a response with follow-up. Detailing out these instances in your crisis communications plan and in strategy will make it easier to monitor/alert when a crisis hits. The small hurdles can also be great practice for engaging with a consumer or media when negative hits.

Practice scenarios

It might seem silly to do, but practicing the actual scenario and how you will respond to different questions can help. Take the crisis communications team once a quarter and split them into groups. Give each team a card with a different scenario on it, one that is pertinent to your brand. Give them 30 minutes to craft a plan based on the general crisis commmunications plan, detailing out: team lead, responsibilities, sample statement, sample negative reply and brand response, sample media pitch and response, and if the situation requires the legal team to review or not.

After 30 minutes, have each group present. As a collective team, break down what is right and what could have been done better. Each quarter should have different scenarios.

What do you think? What does your brand/agency do to prepare for a crisis situation? What role does the agency and brand play?

We’ve been talking a lot about various aspects of engagement over the past few weeks on the blog. Lauren Vargas wrote a great post about adding social aspects to your CRM strategy, and her point below really stuck out for me.

Before adding social to the mix, you must ensure your organization has a sound infrastructure in place to receive social data and connect to transactional data. Social media elements must be an extension of the CRM infrastructure and the data presentation must not simply be slapped on top, but flow seamlessly into the design.

Earlier this week Teresa Basich detailed 5 ways that engagement is more than talking, and  I was similarly struck by point #3 in her post:

Making the customer experience easier/more pleasant/quicker/all of the above. Does this include talking with them? Usually. But not always. Improved engagement in this case can also mean bumping up the usability of your website. Does your site allow folks to find what they need easily? Does it pique their interest? Does the flow of information on your site allow visitors to navigate through it quickly? This is just one example, but do you see where I’m heading here?

What am I leading to here? I’m leading to the point that companies need to stop thinking of engagement as something “the marketing team handles” and start thinking about it more how my colleagues describe it above. It’s an activity that goes on across all parts of the organization. We call it “answering the social phone” internally, and that phone ideally sits on everyone’s desk and allows all employees to better understand how the conversations that are happening on the social web affect their job.

Ford Motor Co. has been leading the charge in the auto industry with their innovative campaigns for a few years now.  Many of us remember their Fiesta Agents challenge, and many more tuned in to see the reveal of their new Ford Explorer via Facebook. The Awesome Blog wrote a great review of the reveal, and noted:

Ford needed to connect with their potential consumers, generating excitement about the new model and ensuring buyers were armed with in-depth knowledge about the vehicle. Fortunately, Ford tapped the full potential of Facebook in order to create a truly engaging and interactive conversation about the new Explorer, and their approach is worth breaking down for any brand considering a Facebook campaign of their own.

Ford has been out there engaging with their community for years, and the insights that their community provides aren’t just data points limited to marketing. They’re insights that can be used across all business units. Case in point? A tweet yesterday by Ford noting that they’re passing product feedback over to the design team.

There are plenty of examples of companies breaking out of the “engagement is for marketing!” silo, and I wish I had time to share them all. To add two more into the mix, what about Comcast’s great use of service-related engagement, or the Red Cross’ social media disaster relief and notification efforts?

For companies that limit engagement to their marketing departments, the question becomes something similar to what Lauren described above – how can you connect social to transactional data across the enterprise? In other words, what internal channels do you need to create or open up to let everyone take advantage of this feedback? What parts of your organization would benefit immediately from being on the front lines, and how can you put them there?

I’m interested to hear your opinion. What other examples jump to mind of companies that have broken out of the “engagement is for marketing” silo? Share them in the comments!

* Photo provided by CraftyGoat

As advocates of listening, we talk a lot about “listening at the point of need” in order to support business development and sales efforts, and be sure that you’re supporting and responding to potential customers when they’re in the market for what you offer, or expertise that you have. In other words, expressed needs online give you a great point of entry to introduce yourself, say hello, and offer help. (We wrote a little PDF about it that you can download here).

But it’s important to remember this: there’s a difference between a mention and a need. And that distinction can be the difference between making a welcome and well-timed introduction, and coming off as interruptive, opportunistic, or at worst, like a spammy used car salesman.

So, how do you do this effectively and in a way that’s likely to engender the response you want?

Here are 4 tips for responding to true needs rather than just jumping on passing mentions.

1. Look for questions or requests for input or advice.

A phrase like “looking for someone to recommend a great insurance agent” are much more open invitations for response. If you’re an insurance agent, this can be a great moment to introduce yourself and offer to be helpful (that’s the key word here). The door is open in this situation, but tread here like you would an in-person encounter, and be gracious, polite, and simply offer a hand. It’s up to the person posting whether to accept, but the overture will at least be relevant and well timed, and help express that you’re listening and paying attention.

2. Don’t just respond to keyword hits for your competitors.

If you’re Toyota and someone in a forum thread is talking about how much they love their new Honda, they’re likely not in the market to reconsider their purchase based on you jumping in and asking them to take a look at your newest model. Or, if someone’s Facebook status says that “Microsoft Windows 7 rocks!”, that’s probably not the time to try and convince them that they’d be better off with a different operating system.

Some folks make the mistake of simply pulling up a Twitter or Radian6 search for keywords about competitive brands and responding to each one in turn (more on that response below). But context is everything; a mention does not always a need make, and it’s important to recognize when someone really might be looking for some information, or when they’re just chatting aloud, talking to friends, or even expressing their contentment with a competitive offering (you can’t win them all).

3. Personalize your responses.

If you’re going to respond, stock doesn’t usually cut it in social media. Go back through some of the brands you know on Twitter, and see what their point of need responses look like. Are they all the same, or are they really seeking to respond to the individual questions, concerns or needs of the person talking?

Take a few moments to customize your engagement and outreach, and let your potential customers or those meeting you online for the first time feel like you really care about them personally. If they feel like they’re worth an extra few moments of your time to reach out, they’re more inclined to believe their business will matter to you in the long run.

4. Be gracious and patient.

If someone’s unhappy with their current product or service provider, there *can* be an opportunity to help point them to your own solution. But tread lightly here.

Sometimes, they love the company or product, but they’re just having a challenging moment, and what they really want is help from the provider or brand, not someone ready to pounce when they smell blood. A better approach is often to sit back a bit and see when or if the company responds to their customer and offers help. Or, if you really insist on reaching out immediately, think instead about framing your approach as a question or something helpful, like “Hi Bob, saw you were having a bit of trouble with your email provider. We’ve got some tips on our website here that might help?”

It’s a bit softer and requires a bit of finesse, but helps you make yourself visible and present to that person without pushing a pitch at them in their moment of frustration.

So what else have you noticed? Have you been on either end of this kind of scenario and what do you think? And how would you encourage companies listening in social media to understand the difference between a mention and a need?

Looking forward to your comments.

There’s no doubt that social media has had a big impact on customer service. We’ve seen companies exceed expectations by being proactive and going out of their way to answer customer queries quickly and effectively. These recent developments however have also raised our expectations and we’ve seen customers end up thoroughly disappointed while tweeting their issues at a dormant corporate account in vain.

In anticipation of National Complaints Day, Foviance is organising a roundtable event on August 12^th to discuss exactly what impact social media has had on customer service. The likes of Warren Buckley from BT, Paul Hopkins from Thomas Cook and Rob Skinner from PayPal UK will be speaking alongside our very own Sullivan McIntyre who will share some of the insights we’ve gained over the years in working closely with large corporate customer service departments implementing their social media strategies.

The roundtable discussion will explore how companies are working towards effectively integrating social media channels in customer service. In addition, speakers will also share some of the challenges this has posed and look forward to what the future might hold.

If you’re interested in what companies are doing on this front and our own experiences in this field, follow the discussion on the day: either search #ncd2010 on Twitter or download a full report of the findings through the National Complaints Day website.

Happy National Complaints day!

Do you recall the Aesop fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Oftentimes, we create our own drama in response to the tweets or posts we monitor for engagement. If we cry “wolf” with every alert/mention, our teams/organization would tire of us and not pay attention to us when we do identify an escalating issue. Not every tweet or post is of the same value and not all require a crisis mode approach. For this exact reason, we released a version of the playbook our community team uses to dictate our engagement.

1. Define importance: Begin by building an escalation chart (as shown on Page 18 of Community Playbook). Supplement your chart/playbook with examples of what constitutes a high, medium or low alert. You can spot a rising issue quicker if you have already identified what it looks like.
2. Establish Issue Resolution Time: Our rule of thumb is to respond to a Twitter alert within 10 minutes and blog posts within an hour of being found. Trying to compare media types can get a bit sticky, so having different time expectations for response allows us to give the alert our full attention without saying one media type is more important than another.
3. Communicate with Team: Issues will be resolved in a more timely fashion if your listening grid has good communication amongst each other. Clean up your internal communication and your external communication will follow suit.

Your organization may not be able to control the conversation, but you can control your response. Despite having defined response times, these are just guidelines and you need to remember to step back, breathe and understand the issue before responding with something that will cause additional problems. Know who you are talking to, what they are talking about, the different ways you can offer to help and clearly identify the person who will be taking ownership to resolve the alert.

Engagement takes an investment of time, tools and human capital. Is your organization willing to allocate the resources to manage the engagement expectation, or are there alternative solutions? What type of social media engagement is right for your brand? Only your organization can decide. There is no cookie cutter approach, but the framework of a community playbook will put you on the right track.

(A special thank you to our Community Analyst and Traffic Operator, Genevieve Coates, for helping me draft today’s post.)

To even begin understanding how to engage online, we need to understand what engagement truly is, right? How is engagement defined in the context of the social web? What does it mean? How does it differ for individuals and brands? What does it mean to our brand?

These questions are essential to ask when you’re getting ready to take on social media, but it’s rare that organizations take the time to do just that – they latch on to a general definition of engagement and just hop to it, failing to take the time to understand exactly what the term means to them.

And all too often you’ll hear a general chatter that says something like, “Hey, at least they’re doing something.” I’m contesting that statement: If you’re going to invest time and resources into social media programs, do the necessary front-end work to get it right. In that same vein, if you’re going to engage, take the time to define engagement in a way that suits your company’s goals, brand(s), and culture.

Engagement Means Talking? Not Always.

At first glance, a company might think engaging on the social web means just being there. “If you build it, they will come.” That’s just not so. If you run a quick Google search for “social media engagement,” for a definition of the term, you’ll find a good number of great resources that map out some of the details of engagement, or even help you map out those details yourself.

While engagement is most often defined as talking with — not AT — your customers, there’s much more to the equation than just talking. For example, engagement can also entail:

1. Listening and absorbing what people are saying about your brand, products, services, and your general market. That absorption bit right there? That’s big. Here at Radian6, part of the Community Team’s purpose is to pay attention to the ebb and flow of conversation happening in our community, which includes customers, prospects, fans, and the general social-media-for-business-use community. And not only do we pay attention to that ebb and flow but it directly impacts our larger company programs and initiatives.
2. Creating and sharing useful content with your audience. I know, that “content” word is kind of buzzy right now, but buzzwords come about for a reason. Offer up a bit of knowledge to your community that helps them solve their problems, achieve their goals, or feeds their curiosity. In this instance, engagement is essentially an act of giving and demonstrating that you care not only about what folks are saying, but also about how they’re faring.
3. Making the customer experience easier/more pleasant/quicker/all of the above. Does this include talking with them? Usually. But not always. Improved engagement in this case can also mean bumping up the usability of your website. Does your site allow folks to find what they need easily? Does it pique their interest? Does the flow of information on your site allow visitors to navigate through it quickly? This is just one example, but do you see where I’m heading here?
4. Creating opportunities for your audience members to connect with each other. This falls in line with showing you care about how your people are faring — developing an environment for folks to chat openly about their problems or successes offers up a chance for those people to help each other (and possibly reduce customer service costs for you), and it also shows that your company recognizes the value of personal connections and validates the concerns of your community, as well.
5. Broadcasting. The stickiest of wickets. BUT, if an organization is open and honest about using a particular social channel to broadcast, say, in-store sales, product price reductions, tidbits of insight about products and services, or other pieces of information that it has found resonates with its community, then by all means, it’s welcome to broadcast. Should an organization broadcast on every social media channel it owns? No. But is there some room for this sort of behavior? Yes, there is. It’s clarifying the intent that’s most important here.

Now here’s the bite-sized bit of brain food you should really take away from this post: Engagement is more than the sum of its obvious parts, should be as personal to your company as it is to you as an individual, and flies outside the bounds of direct customer chat. Engagement is truly what you make of it.

What does engagement mean to you? Do you identify with the concept that engagement is more than just talking with people? Why or why not? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

In the world of traditional agencies, brands rely on them for copy, press releases, statements, marketing to consumers and more. Rarely do we see a PR agency make a statement at a press conference or be quoted in a brand release; on the flip side, rarely do we have an advertising agency give final approval on brand positioning.

So, why has that changed in the social media space?

There have been proclaimed “turf wars” when it comes to who “owns social media.” Advertising, marketing and public relations agencies are all jousting each other to be proclaimed winner. For agencies to make social media work for their clients, they must utilize an integrated approach for planning and strategy.

Corporate and Agency Sectors present at the Integrated Social Strategy/Planning Table

• Public Relations
• Advertising
• Marketing
• Customer Service
• Management / C-Suite

While numerous agency sectors have a spot at the social media strategy and planning table, should they be the ones to execute the campaign? There are definitely two sides to the argument.

Transparency and trust are the two areas a brand should focus on when making the decision on execution. Once strategy and planning has taken place, decide who will respond, when they will respond, if it’s a collaborative effort between the agency and client, or if the execution falls solely onto either party.

Here are some best practices if a brand asks you as an agency to execute the social media campaign:

• Make sure to identify who is representing the brand, whether it is in the bio, response or comment.
• In responses to complaints, ask, “I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help? I will get someone to reach out to you shortly” or “I understand your frustration with ABC’c customer service. I help ABC with these types of issues to make sure every issue is responded to quickly.  I’ll reach out and help get this issue resolved.”
• Have an approval process plan in place for responses. Once you reach out to a person to get more information, how will you handle responding? Do you take it privately and email your client contact? Or, does the client reach out directly?
• Have a social media crisis communications plan in place with initial responses and what each person’s responsibility is.
• Educate the client on different responses, conversations happening about the brand and suggested tone.

It is also up to you as the agency to provide education throughout the process, so that once the brand is comfortable, they can either collaborate on execution or handle.

A question that brands and agencies need to ask in the planning process is, “Do you think opinion and trust would be swayed if a consumer was talking to an agency hired, rather than the actual brand?”

If a brand executes the social media campaign, agencies can still be involved in the execution process. They can assist in wording responses, planning campaigns, assisting with what should be pushed out and providing education/advice.

What it comes down to is consumer trust and what they take at first impression face value. This will vary depending on goals, objectives and what overall strategy is.

What do you think? Should agencies execute campaigns or not? Let’s discuss.

It’s no big secret that the Old Spice campaign has been a success. News outlets and blogs including the Financial Post, AdWeek and Mashable covered it, thousands have tweeted about it (myself included), and millions have watched the videos posted on YouTube.

I happened to stumble upon Jason Falls’ post while wandering across the Internet doing some research for this post, and his definition of engagement really struck a chord.

What successful engagement means to me is this:

Did you get something from your audience that can make your business better?

That can mean profits. You sold stuff = Successful engagement.

That can mean ideas. You got feedback on your product or service you can use = Successful engagement.

That can mean referrals and recommendations. You got customers to tell other people you’re cool = Successful engagement.

That can mean digital merit badges. You got people to link to you, follow you, Re-Tweet you = Successful engagement.

We’ve been trained to expect certain outcomes. If we Tweet about a company, they may respond back via an @ reply or a DM. If we write a blog post, we’re used to seeing comments. Many businesses send gifts to their top customers around the holiday season, and many customers have been conditioned to expect these gifts to arrive as the year comes to a close.

Now, the OldSpice campaign was certainly successful, but what really struck me as the most important lesson is this: How can your business use the power of the unexpected to “wow”?

OldSpice did it by recording video responses to Tweets and uploading them in rapid-fire succession to their YouTube page for viewers to watch, enjoy, and share. It may be just one example, but it’s one that worked to help increase sales over 50% in the last three months alone (according to Brandweek).

Going back to Jason’s definition of engagement – here’s the question to answer. How can using something that’s a bit unexpected help your engagement?

Starting off by defining what engagement means to your business is a necessary first step. From there, things become a bit more clear as most will already know the expected path to achieve those goals. The trick is how to put a twist on them to make them work for you and your brand.

So the next time you’re responding to a Tweet, writing an email, writing a blog post, or planning your next marketing campaign, try thinking of ways to incorporate something a bit unexpected into the mix.

I’m curious about your favorite examples of companies that have done this. Share your examples and thoughts in the comments!

Although there is not a domestic bone in my body, I am a huge fan of the Food Network Challenge! cake competitions. You know it is going to happen…someone’s cake will be lopsided or a cake tier may crash in the process of moving the cake from the kitchen to the judging table. It will happen because the chef was too busy worrying about the tactical elements of the cake and not the strategy of building the cake structure. Building a cake creation is both an art and a science, very similar to your organization’s CRM platforms and execution.

Last week, we spoke about the five social media topics to keep on your radar, to include social CRM (SCRM). We refer to social CRM as answering the social phone, but for those of you following the dynamic conversations exploding on the social web about social CRM, you may be familiar with Paul Greenberg’s stake in the ground definition:

“CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.” (short version)

With this definition in mind, does your organization have a CRM philosophy and business strategy in place? I am not talking about just having a CRM platform, but a plan for how this data is integrated and used across the enterprise. Before adding social to the mix, you must ensure your organization has a sound infrastructure in place to receive social data and connect to transactional data. Social media elements must be an extension of the CRM infrastructure and the data presentation must not simply be slapped on top, but flow seamlessly into the design.

Does this remind you of building one those wild cake creations? First, you must have a level base. As you start adding tiers, each pillar must also be level and working together to provide the support required for the next tier. One miscalculation and your cake or CRM strategy can come toppling down. So, what can you do to avoid this catastrophe?

• Define clear, measurable business objectives.
• Establish executive level shared vision of what defines customer relationships.
• Set relevant expectations with organization management and customers/community.
• Create a change management strategy.
• Review existing processes and establish what fits with the new vision.
• Ask the customers/community what they expect.
• Avoid software as a solution strategy and focus on building abilities and skills of your workforce.

Once you have your cake built and balanced, your organization can then add the trimmings. It is essential to understand that SCRM is not replacing CRM, but changing and strengthening the connection between the organization and customer/community. Each of us may have gotten to this point in time taking a different route, but all of us have the same goal. A cake that makes it to the destination site intact, while looking fabulous and tasting great.

The Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 Index highlights the 100 most capitalised companies publically listed on the London Stock Exchange. These companies are widely considered to be the most influential and are revered across the business world. However, success in business does not always equate to success in the mind of the public.

Achievement in the public sphere is difficult to quantify. While revenue, profit and volume of employees are all solid and commonly accepted measures of business performance, these figures do not correlate directly with success in the public’s eye.

Companies should be aware of how the public perceive them in social media: conversations online can go viral and tarnish a company’s reputation over the long term. Large corporates’ reputations can be quickly impacted if they have no effective social media strategy in place to protect them.

While traditional market research can be used to gain a degree of insight into the public consciousness, it is time consuming and never perfectly representative. Social media monitoring tools such as Radian6 allow for the collection of data in real time, enabling analysis of large volumes of relevant public conversations.

The 6Consulting Solution

6Consultings Professional Services Team analysed mentions of five FTSE 100 companies in social media for Q2 (1st April through 30th June 2010) in follow up to our earlier work on the FTSE 100. The number of mentions of each company in social media was measured using Radian6. Mentions of the major corporations made up the search terms, rather than subsidiary companies or products. Sentiment analysis was manually assessed by 6Consulting’s social media analysis team to provide insight into the public perception of the chosen companies.

The following companies were chosen for monitoring due to their involvement in recent media stories:

• African Barrick Gold - Recently added to the FTSE 100
• British Airways – Suffered at the hands of striking cabin crew
• British Petroleum (BP) – Criticised for the Deepwater Horizon oil leak
• British Sky Broadcasting Group (BskyB) – Rejected a buyout offer from News Corp.
• The Royal Bank of Scotland - Recently posted improved year-on-year financial results

Through sentiment analysis, a Social Net Promoter Score (SNPS) for each company was calculated.  This single figure metric devised by 6Consulting highlights public attitude towards an organisation expressed through social media and has evolved from the Net Promoter Score methodology.

The Results

Unsurprisingly, BP had the largest number of mentions in social media of the five companies, being mentioned 1,831,873 times over the monitored period. This is an extraordinary level of mentions for a single company. However, large levels of mentions and revenue do not mean public sentiment is necessarily positive:

Fig 1: Table showing the five companies in order of their SNPS (revenue figures from corporateinformation.com)

The above table highlights that although Africa Barrick Gold has the lowest volume of mentions and revenue of the five companies; it is more positively regarded in social media compared to the other companies. Much of African Barrick Gold’s positive sentiment was generated though buzz surrounding their addition to the FTSE 100 index.

The terrible score achieved by BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil leak is the worst of the five. However, note that three of the five companies attract more comments from detractors than promoters: BP’s situation as a large corporate struggling in the public eye is not unique.

British Airways and The Royal Bank of Scotland both attract criticism from social media users. The airline suffered due to sympathy expressed towards striking cabin crew, while RBS was still attracting negative sentiment after its near collapse in 2009.

Sentiment expressed towards BskyB was 90% neutral. Social media users spread news of the company without expressing much sentiment towards the broadcasting corporation.

Fig 2: The five companies in terms of revenue, SNPS and number of mentions

The above chart further highlights a rough correlation between high revenue and criticism in social media. The size of the bubbles relates to the number of mentions the company received, the position along the horizontal axis represents the company’s revenue, while the SNPS of each company determines their vertical position.

High grossing companies on the FTSE 100 index should take stock of what is being said about them online as social media continues to grow in importance and influence. The continued growth of social media suggests it will ultimately play a role in the success of a company. Public reputation is difficult to salvage as The Royal Bank of Scotland has discovered, a year on from its near collapse.

How was everyone’s July? It flew by, didn’t it? Ours was packed full of listening and engagement, both in the context of our external community, but also within our own walls. With some great conversations and learnings supporting us, we’re diving into August headfirst and wrapping our brains – and yours – around the details of engagement strategy, policy, and guideline development.

To kick things off this month we’ve published our internal social media monitoring and engagement playbook for you to take a read through. Seeing that this is the actual playbook we use to achieve Radian6’s listening and engagement goals, much of what you’ll find in these pages is tailored to our initiatives and incorporates the use of our own monitoring and engagement platforms. Keep that in mind as you flip through our playbook, and please let us know if you have any questions about it.

Throughout August we’ll be walking through some meaty discussions surrounding engagement – what “engagement” really means in the context of social media, what to include in your own engagement guidelines, the outlying bits and pieces of an engagement strategy that really round out your connection with customers, and what engagement means within the agency and regulated industry worlds, as well. And we’ll be doing our best to share some great ideas from outside Radian6 to support our conversations here on this blog.

We’ll also be walking through our playbook to discuss some of the finer points of our engagement strategy and answer some of the inevitable questions that are sure to surface from it. Before we do that, though, please share with us your questions and thoughts on what engagement means in the world of social media. How does your company define social media engagement? Have you created guidelines and policies for your employees to follow in the online social space? If so, what do those guidelines include? We’d love to hear from you and hope you’ll continue to join us in August to add to this discussion.