Applying social media listening and monitoring to your advertising campaigns will help you determine your campaign effectiveness. You can use it to enhance the campaign too.

Listen for social response to your campaigns. When you do, you can tweak your efforts to better align with your target audience’s needs. The result? Stronger campaign effectiveness. Here are five ways to get there.

Advertising-specific Keywords

You spend countless hours writing ads. Consider the key phrases in those ads and monitor the social web for them. What is your audience saying about your brand, your product and your campaign? Using a social media monitoring tool will make it easier to capture and track these mentions. You can then do an analysis on the data. Is the sentiment positive? What feedback are they giving you? Revisit your campaign and adjust.

Unique URLs

As shared by Econsultancy, a recent survey found that 65% of all UK print and television advertising now includes a web address. Why is it so popular? Perhaps it’s the benefits:

• Increase traffic to your website
• It’s often the easiest way for your audience to respond to ads, since they’re online anyway
• Gives more visibility to your brand URL
• Provides a mechanism to track response to ads

Use a web tracking tool to watch these URLs and see how many visitors come in, how long they stay, what they’re doing, etc. Determine campaign effectiveness based on web visitor activity.

But there’s more. You can also see if your audience is sharing your URL on the social web. Include it as one of your keywords while monitoring.

Trade Show Conversations

Many conferences have their own Twitter handles, Facebook pages, hashtags and Foursquare check ins. Whether you’re sponsoring the conference, speaking at it or manning a booth, find those social connections and monitor them. It’s a great opportunity to join the conversation and direct people to your brand. Consider creating your own Foursquare location at your booth and provide giveaways for those that check in!

#CampaignSpecificHashtags

#CreateACampaignHashtag to track conversations about your marketing effort (see Jenn’s post for successful examples). Share it on your site, via your Twitter handle and even bring the hashtag offline as a call to action. You’ll see all mentions of the hashtag in one easy list on Twitter and can gauge sentiment, interest, number of conversations and more with a monitoring tool.

User Generated Content

Asking your audience to participate in your campaign adds a layer of valuable content to your site. It’s about listening and engagement as well as getting great content from your audience. A great example of UGC is the Doritos Super Bowl ads. The Doritos brand turned over complete control of its Super Bowl air time to consumers, enabling participants to upload their homemade commercials to www.crashthesuperbowl.com (you can check out the current contenders and vote for your favorites!). The user-generated 2009 spot (made for less than $2,000) snagged the number-one spot on the USA Today Ad Meter, beating seasoned ad pros and resulting in a great story for the brand.

Use social media to promote your UGC effort. And if you don’t have the manpower or funding for a custom UGC-gathering website, social media is here to help. Use YouTube for uploading video content or Facebook and Twitter to gather comments, ideas or for contesting.

2012 is the year of awesome campaign development, I can just feel it! Use some of these tricks and ensure to take action when you gather feedback. Revise campaigns based on your audience’s needs and relaunch. When you do, your campaigns will be stronger than ever. Remember, your audience is listening to you, are you listening to them?

Learn more about social media listening in the 30 Ideas for your 2012 Social Media Plan ebook.

Put the hats and noisemakers in the closet and pull out the blogs, Twitter chats and Facebook walls. 2012 is here and it’s time to talk social media. But we’ve got good news. It will be easier this time around. We’ve got the new eBook, 30 Ideas for your 2012 Social Media Plan, a concoction of compiled content that brings forth the most useful and popular topics of 2011. This will gear you up for great social strategy in 2012 so you can go beyond the grab-bag of tactics and craft a smart, integrated plan.

With this arsenal of 2011 content in hand, we’ve pulled out 30 social media ideas for your 2012 plan. Here they are.

Ideas for Strategy

• Idea 1: Socialize your culture, not just your technology.

• Idea 2: Write up a plan.

• Idea 3: Cultivate long-term relationships.

• Idea 4: Automate the boring stuff.

• Idea 5: Calculate the value of your social customer.

Ideas for Training

• Idea 6: Require certification.

• Idea 7: Require extra certification.

• Idea 8: Share the vision.

• Idea 9: Double-check for compliance.

Ideas for Content Creation

• Idea 10: Craft a content strategy.

• Idea 11: Go beyond text.

• Idea 12: Fill in the topic gaps.

• Idea 13: Build community relationships through your content.

Ideas for Listening

•  Idea 14: Pay attention to people talking about your brand.

• Idea 15: Gather competitive intelligence.

• Idea 16: Monitor industry chatter.

• Idea 17: Lead the conversation.

• Idea 18: Generate leads and sales.

• Idea 19: Listen for customer-service opportunities.

• Idea 20: Take the heat off in a crisis.

• Idea 21: Tweak your advertising campaigns.

Ideas for Engaging

• Idea 22: Surprise and delight your fans.

• Idea 23: Crowdsource fresh ideas.

• Idea 24: Avoid common etiquette pitfalls.

• Idea 25: Deal graciously with detractors.

• Idea 26: Stir up a little controversy.

Ideas for Measuring

• Idea 27: Measure Share of Conversation.

• Idea 28:  Measure Adjusted Engagement Level.

• Idea 29: Measure your level of influence.

• Idea 30: Make your data memorable.

If you apply these ideas  —  whether you’re just starting out, honing in on the craft or looking to excel forward — 2012 could be your best year yet.

Interested in learning more about some of these ideas? Check out the eBook where there are details on each and every one. And feel free to share your thoughts here!

Wunderman is a creative agency that truly appreciates and understands the value of relationships. They have been a leader and innovator in the agency space for the past 50 years.

The team at Wunderman knew that social media would be a fantastic resource for their client – Nokia. Find out how the insights they gathered for from listening to app developers around the world as well as to consumers has helped Nokia create a truly remarkable phone.

Social media has been helping travelers solve customer service issues, get questions answered quickly,  and even interact with their favorite travel brands. It is no surprise that many people on the move pull out their mobile devices and seek recommendations while vacationing or traveling for business. Whether asking directly via Twitter, or searching out reviews on apps such as Yelp, today’s travel consumer is looking for that social connection that links them to the experience they are about to have.

For today’s #traveltuesday post, I thought it was fitting to reach out via Twitter and ask for recommendations of my own. As a result, I’ll share three specific thoughts with you. First, let me set it up.

The idea began a week ago as I was preparing for another trip to Las Vegas. (Thanks to Melanie for the suggestion!) I was going to tweet to my followers requesting suggestions of what to do while in Vegas. I knew that someone would be listening. Or would they?

#1: For the Traveler

I kept the tweets fairly simple:

Perhaps I should have used more or different hashtags to be more effective. Although I did get 15 unique suggestions in all, it would have been helpful to be more specific in my requests. Try specifying what you are looking for. Are you asking about the best places to shop? Maybe you are hungry for a certain dish (or beverage)? Of course, it is also possible you are simply in need of lip balm and blister bandages, so turning to social media to find a local pharmacy is also a good plan.

#2: For the Recommendation-Maker

Thankfully, my friends and followers who shared great (and goofy) ideas with me today were not simply doing a Google search on my behalf. When your friends ask for a recommendation, they aren’t asking you to answer for the sake of answering. They genuinely want to hear your experiences. Social media has allowed us to share personal stories. Let your friend run the search engines themselves, and give them your honest recommendation. I got great suggestions from people who either tried something and loved it, or heard of something fun and knew they would like it and felt I may too.

Both @kchipphoto and @j_barrak sent me wandering off to Paris. I had Crepes Suzette at La Creperie earlier in the day…

… and then back for a trip up the half-scale Eiffel Tower at night. The views of the Vegas Strip from the 541 foot tall tower were breathtaking!

Goofy colleagues got in on the action, too! Mark suggested I get married - or have my picture taken with Elvis at the very least. And Mel is big on #halfface pictures and seeing how she has always wanted to see the incredible fountain show at the Bellagio, that was her request.

(The Bellagio picture is also almost a #silhouetting shot, which is another one of our silly community team memes.)

I wish I could have made it to Fremont Street or taken a ride on the roller coaster at New York New York. I also missed out on going to The Chandelier Bar today, although I have seen it before and it IS impressive. All in all, I had great success from my Recommendation-Maker followers. Thank you!

#3: For the Travel Service Provider

Today, I was surprised at the lack of response from random local companies just actively listening for average people seeking fun things to do while in Las Vegas. Without using any direct mentions of brands via Twitter, I did not experience engagement of any kind from anyone who may hope to make a buck off me. This tells me that there are still many opportunities for social media monitoring and targeted listening on the Vegas Strip. Had a helicopter tour company suggested I check them out, or a bar tweeted me recommending their specialty up-all-night-writing-a-blog cocktail, I might have been intrigued enough to listen, share the recommendation and then write about it here. The last time I visited Vegas, I had several interesting companies pick up on my upcoming visit and pitch their product or service to me.

Because you never know who you are engaging with, it is possible that many opportunities to reach a broader audience are missed. A simple place to start would be to listen for commonly used words – such as ‘Vegas’. If you’re a travel company of any type, and are not already looking for ways that you can converse about what you offer just by monitoring keywords, drop your questions in the comment box below.

All in all

I had a great day in Vegas. I took many pictures not shared here, and even visited a few places not suggested via social media, like the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, and Hash House a Go Go for a gigantic breakfast. I think I will watch out for the next few days to see who is asking for recommendations just like I did in the hope that I can offer my experiences to a random stranger. Social media makes travel fun!

What about you? As a traveler, have you sought recommendations via social media for travel tips and ideas? Have you dished out your own advice to friends and followers in need? Or, if you are a travel service provider, is targeted listening and engaging part of your social media strategy?

Jenn Seeley is a Community Engagement Specialist who uses social media for recommendations on sights to see while traveling with Radian6. Tell her why you love social media for travel insight by tweeting @Jenn_Seeley.

If you are a multinational company with global customers, you could have the challenge in social media of understanding who your audience is and what they are talking about. This is especially true if part of your customers are Hispanics or Latin Americans. There are many differences when listening to this audience:

• Most of them speak Spanglish
• Others are bi-cultural but speak only English
• Some just speak Spanish
• Many of them are local to your market
• Spanish has many variations from country to country or city to city

These audiences are not identical, and geographical differences play a big role, including cultural differences. Listening to the Hispanic and Latin American segments should be versioned to the different segments or niches in your social media channels. This means that you need to understand how to listen to their social conversations and figure out which social channels are more effective to reach your Latino audience.

Let’s break this down into three initial steps to understand how to listen to your Latin American and Hispanic customers.

1.) Understand that Social Media is global.

Customers have the option to decide to identify their country of origin or location on Facebook or Twitter. For instance, I could be a Colombian living in Australia and tweet in both Spanish and English. While my Twitter profile states that I am in Australia, I could be a major influencer for key products in Colombia. What about this: A local blogger in Argentina writing in Spanish uses a WordPress blog hosted in the United States (but the configuration is still set in English). Even more, Nancy Ford from Alabama could have a Facebook page promoting Avon products in Spanish but her location setting is not set to a specific country.

As you can see, there is not a specific location structure to know where your customers are; therefore, here are some recommendations to help you understand these conversations (this assumes that you are already a Radian6 user):

• Include United States as part of your list of countries
• Use both Spanish and English but mixed common Spanglish and Internet terms in your searches
• Use “proximity, contains and does not contain” to exclude or include some of the Spanish word differences
• Use different profiles to identify the differences between countries
• Use keyword groups to look for conversations per product or types of conversations
• Use keyword groups to look for both negative and positive conversations including the RSS of the Facebook Pages you want to monitor in your filters
• Use a Conversation Cloud to identify new keywords that should be included in your profile
• Remember, not all conversations for the Hispanic or Latin American markets are on Facebook or Twitter – some of them are in forums, where the customers have more than 140 characters and can be anonymous

Note: All of the above implies that you most understand the nuances of the local Spanish and Spanglish language such as Puerto Ricans in NYC vs. Orlando vs. Puerto Rico, or Mexicans in Mexico City vs. Monterrey vs. Chicago.

2.) Understand the Social Graph of your customers.

Services like data.com can help you understand the social profile of your customers. With the email address of your customers, you can identify the social channels they used. These help in understanding where you can start listening first and adjust your social media strategy accordingly.

One thing that I have found is that many Hispanics and Latin Americans are still active in MySpace – you can find some “tribes” of customers due to their interest for the music and entertainment industries. Understanding the social graph can also help you identify other sites of relevance besides YouTube, Flickr and/or LinkedIn. For example, if you know that some of your customers are on Flickr, you can then identify other similar sites and add the RSS filter to your Radian6 profile. Before using any social profile technology, make sure you have covered any opt-in/opt-out issues with your legal department.

3) Understand your best customers.

If you are already using customer analytics and website analytics, you then need to listen to your analytics data to better understand your site’s visitors and trends of your customers – what are they buying, when are they buying, what words do they use to complain in your call center, etc. Use this data to help you define keywords for your Radian6 profile. If you are already using text analytics, use it to improve your keywords. And if your best customers are on Twitter and you are listening to your customer’s analytics, you can then better understand the nuances and trends of your Hispanics and Latin American customers.

Make sure you have objectives for listening to your customers, not just monitor the sentiment of your brand. Be ready to engage these customers and listen in Spanish, English and in Spanglish. These objectives needs to be measured based on your social media metrics and it is an on-going learning process to understand your customers conversations.

What will be your strategy to engage your local brand efforts vs. your global marketing strategy? Can marketing automation help you? How would you try to identify Hispanic vs. Latin American customers in social media? How does building a social customer profile in your CRM help you?

Jesus Hoyos is Managing Partner of Solvis Consulting, a Radian6 authorized reseller in Latin America. Follow Jesus Hoyos on Twitter at @jesus_hoyos.

Chances are, if you’re regularly reading my #traveltuesday posts you’re a traveler, you’re dreaming of traveling, or you work in the travel industry in some capacity. If you fall into the latter category, you may have wished a time or two that you could somehow see into the minds of travelers in an effort to deliver the very thing they desire most. Sure, research, polls and statistics are all very valuable, but what if you had a crystal ball that told you what would-be travelers and trip-planners alike were thinking this very moment? What if you could wow them with service beyond their expectation by displaying valuable insight? What if I told you, you can?

Let’s start with your current stage in the social media monitoring journey.

• If you’re already monitoring your brand for social mentions, that’s an excellent start to a social strategy
• If you’ve stepped out into monitoring your industry as well and are comfortably understanding your competition on the social web, then I’ll say “good job” once more
• If you’ve begun to pinpoint social conversations with a tighter focus to gain deeper knowledge with your prospective customers, then please be sure and share your comments below as this post is about exactly that

Where do you fit in?

Blindfolds are not your Friend

We know that people take trips, book vacations and fly all over the world. Understanding the motivation of your next guest or passenger could be a ticket to gaining more people looking for the same service. Rather than assuming that there will always be people taking a flight with you or booking your honeymoon suite, it’s best to never assume that you will continue to have the greatest idea for the bulk of the people you are targeting. If you worked in a clothing store, you wouldn’t wear a blindfold while making a recommendation. Being able to see the shopper, judge their style, their shape and size help you make a quick suggestive sell.

But how can you ‘see’ your future guest via social media? You don’t need to look in the eyes of your potential guests to learn what is best to suggest. But you do need to watch for key conversations.

Why Do Travelers Travel?

In this social age, people are increasingly happy to share information. Not only are they putting their itineraries out there for friends and family to view, but they’re offering it without prompting. Many social sharers are just as happy to answer a question about their motivations. While asking is an obvious option, try listening in on the conversation first.

Are friends discussing the need to escape a cold, snowy winter? Are colleagues talking about how they will spend their one free evening while out of town together on business? Travelers have different reasons for traveling and as a result, their needs will vary. Although that 2 for 1 special to Cancun flooding my Twitter feed is a great deal in theory, it may not fulfill my needs. Listen for the need and mix it up a little.

Targeted Listening

Your competitor is happy to know that a family of four wants to take a cruise. They are proud that they found this first-time cruising family via social conversations. However, there are a plethora of keywords to listen for to really outdo your competitor.

Noticing a conversation about wishing to one day see glaciers and breathing in the crisp air of the north is your key to engage in conversation about Alaska. You probably have a cruise that suits the needs of a daydreamer-turned-traveler. Or listening to two friends talk about their amazement with scuba diving may lead you to offer your knowledge on great places for first timers, adding of course the services your hotel offers in conjunction with the local dive school.

Travelers don’t always have a plan to take on the world one passport stamp at a time. Like every other consumer-led industry, even a traveler needs a gentle nudge or inspiration. Why let someone else do the nudging when you know the best kept secrets of a little known beach closest to your most tucked away resort?

No one ever liked a Pushy Salesman

Social media is not an excuse to flood fans and followers with ‘look what I can do!’ Even when listening thoughtfully for a unique way you can help a tourist, remember that they’ll love you more if you just be their friend. Smile at them, laugh with them and take a moment for two-way story sharing if you have the bandwidth. They’ll remember you longer and regard you higher – and be more likely to appreciate your offer for a discount on tickets to that cool new show in your Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Proving that you’re listening and especially that you value the uniqueness of each prospective guest to your services will earn you the attention of planners.

Taking it a step further still, you can ask:

• Is your customer a do-it-yourselfer?
• Do they prefer to have an agent make all of the arrangements?
•  Would they like to plan it with the planner?
•  How active is your customer?
• Are they good with a map?
• Or are they directionally challenged like me?

Understanding the motivations, the needs and the unique desires of potential travelers will help you stand out and hopefully earn the business of the people you engage with when they are ready to book that next adventure.

Travel business: How are you using targeted listening to interact with your guests and reward them with a unique experience?

Traveler: How have you been wowed via social media by a travel company who heard your needs and delivered something that felt especially targeted to you?

Jenn Seeley is a Community Engagement Specialist who uses social media for recommendations on sights to see while traveling with Radian6. Tell her why you love social media for travel insight (or what she should see in Vegas next week) @Jenn_Seeley.

Radian6 is the social media monitoring and engagement platform used by more than half of the world’s Fortune 100 companies.

Learn how we can help your organization succeed in social media by watching this short demo about how a customer like “GNC Live Well” might use Radian6.

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Find out how social media monitoring and listening can benefit your team’s and your organization’s Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service goals.

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Brian Solis from Revolution talks social media and the biggest shift in business in many years with Marcel LeBrun, SVP and GM of Salesforce Radian6. Catch the full episode here.

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Airline customers are social. As the leading social media monitoring and engagement platform, Radian6 can help airlines listen and connect to with their customers on the social web.

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Visit our Social Media for Airlines section to learn more about how Radian6 is helping the industry.

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The foundational element of successful digital programs is listening. For the last several years, this blog and others have espoused the value of listening. It’s a proactive engagement mechanism to be sure, but at its roots, listening is a method for us to gain valuable market intelligence and benchmark our success. Stop me if you’ve heard any of this before. Wait, you have? Guess what? We were saying it a few years ago and it still holds true. The listening we are doing has become more sophisticated, and has begun to expand beyond the realm of PR and marketing.

If you were assuming I was going to say the same thing about measurement, you would be right. Now, it’s worth noting that measuring social media hasn’t nearly evolved at the same rate of speed as listening. There is still a lot of discussion about metrics, processes and challenges to the traditional ROI model. The latter is beginning to fade as the social space becomes more sophisticated, but it’s still prevalent in some circles. Despite not advancing at the same rate of speed as listening, measurement has made some advances. We’re now starting to see measurement approaches that incorporate more than just what you can find in Facebook Insights. We’re also starting to reconcile in our heads that the social media measurement process is not anything different than what we’ve done in traditional PR for years (maybe that’s the problem…for another blog post, perhaps). Again, the line is moving…albeit slowly.

If we can agree that listening and measurement are foundational elements of social programs, and that they’ve advanced significantly over the last several years, how do we take it to the next level? Here are some ideas:

1. Integrated listening – When Ken Burbary and I developed the Social Analytics Lifecycle two years ago, we thought it was time for listening to go beyond PR and marketing. And it still is. We’re starting to move the needle a bit with listening command centers popping up at various brands, but the ability to extend listening beyond our traditional communications functions is still a viable initiative. In fact, you should be doing it in some capacity.
2. Listening resources – It’s about time that more brands realized the strategic value listening holds and invest in human resources. The ideal location for listening falls within the market research function, but that likely requires additional headcount at a brand where market research professionals are still largely skeptical of social data. However, bringing the disparate data sources together can tell a very powerful story.
3. Integrated measurement – I’ve been beating this drum for a couple of years, and I’m hoping if I continue to do it people will see their measurement strategy like they see their communications…INTEGRATED! Companies may be in silos, but the world doesn’t work that way. What happens in traditional, impacts social and what happens in social impacts search. Communications is a cycle, not a stepladder. Stop treating your measurement approach like that.
4. Surveys, surveys, surveys – There’s only so much listening data can tell you. It can help you answer the who, what, when and where, but really only scratches the surface of why. If you’re measuring the impact your social activities are having, you should be surveying your online communities. No, they may not be statistically significant in the truest sense of the word, but the feedback is valuable nonetheless.

Whatever innovations come to social media analytics, it will still be at the foundation of every social program build for the foreseeable future. Here’s hoping some innovation happens so I’m not here two years from now saying the same thing. Go forth, and measure!

Chuck Hemann is currently the Vice President of Digital Analytics for Edelman Digital in Chicago. Over the last seven years, Chuck has provided strategic counsel to clients on a variety of topics including digital analytics, measurement, online reputation, social media, investor relations and crisis communications. Prior to joining Edelman Digital, he was VP of Digital Strategy and Analytics for Ogilvy Public Relations.  He’s also the co-organizer of the Social Media Business Summit Track at BlogWorld Expo and a frequent speaker on the topics of influence, measurement and digital analytics. Chuck can be found online on Twitter and on his blog.

Chris James, Director of Social Media for GNC, joined Sarah Carver for a healthy, half-hour, kitchen table-style Q&A session on the brand’s social media successes. That kitchen was brimming with questions from listeners and it soon became a forum of topics ranging from community to strategy insights to the selection of social media platforms.

GNC’s social strategy has a number of goals including a productive net increase in discussion and questions, having a two-way dialog with their community, and monitoring conversations and questions. But moreover, it’s all about getting their community started on their health and wellness journey with GNC being a part of that exploration. And that drills down to each individual. Community members encompass celebrities, athletes, moms and more. They sometimes include dogs. The idea is to turn detractors into brand ambassadors as GNC partners with individuals on their journey, no matter their mindset. “Social media success equals customer success,” says Chris.

But how does a brand get started? While anyone can create a social media program, having a plan in place upfront is the best way to stand out. This infrastructure is built on listening.

• Listen to customers
• Listen to industry
• Listen to detractors and ambassadors

By listening, you will get a sense of what the community is saying and how and where they’re saying it. This sets the stage for your plan. “We’ll change our plans to address customer pain points,” says Chris. In GNC’s case, while the larger share of voice lived on Twitter and Facebook from a medium perspective, blogs and forums housed the bulk of the customer conversations. The brand needed to be there. As Chris noted, “We are closely listening and engaging as part of our business practice.”

Once the plan launched and the community formed, the individual stories began to unfold. There were stories about weight loss, about beating a triathlon time and moms getting healthy. “It validated that what we’re doing is making an impact.” The brand was sure to engage with the community for better information, customer service and to be an outlet for customers 24/7. “The service doesn’t end when the stores close,” says Chris.

For GNC, social media is weaved into the fabric of their brand. Chis hopes that soon, this practice will not be called “social media” but it will just be doing business the right way.

We thank Chris for his time and to the listeners for their great participation. Don’t worry if you missed it – here’s a recording of the webinar. While we didn’t get to all the questions during the session, Chris was kind enough to take all additional questions and answer them right here. Take a look and if you have any thoughts, feel free to comment!

Ricardo Betancourt: Could you tell us how did you choose the social media websites to be part of? Why Facebook, why Twitter, or other?
[Chris James] The truth is, we went where the party is already happening. Our Facebook & Twitter properties pre-dated me coming to GNC but it was really about following the pack at first. Then, once we used Radian6 to ID other properties (forum & blogs) where people were talking about us, we began to slowly work our way into those conversations.

Kyle Spittler: Are athlete & celebrity community paid or earned endorsements? Examples?
[Chris James] Yes and no. GNC and our vendors have paid endorsers we work with. Others are people we admire or have mentioned us on Twitter or are somehow connected to health, wellness or sports.

@Auctionzip: Do you use the GNC name or ‘twitter account’ or fb profile when answering questions on these niche forums?
[Chris James] We try and keep our branded properties consistent with “@GNCLiveWell” but when we engage elsewhere we like to represent the brand as individuals to enhance our credibility on their site and not come off as spammy.

@donaldbjackson: Have you considered creating a dedicated GNC community forum? Why or why not? When is it appropriate for a co. to consider?
[Chris James] Yes but we are moving away from that strategy based on our successes with Facebook and Twitter. A branded community is only worth it if you have the resources to a) drive customers there and b) keep the conversation on the site fresh day in and day out. Otherwise, consider a corporate blog or avoid it altogether and leverage Facebook, Twitter or some other hot website where your customers spend time.

@donaldbjackson: Which parts of Radian6 service do you use most? Do you supplement with other services? Which?
[Chris James] We use all of it AND we use point solutions for various platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. The vendors or tools you use should reflect the goals of your social media strategy. There isn’t one single template or toolset to get you there.

@donaldbjackson: Can you talk explicitly about how you tie together social media and customer service? Is this handled all by one department?
[Chris James] No, it’s a shared task currently with Marketing being the ones out there and mixing it up every day and we escalate more serious issues to our phone reps on an as needed basis. At some point next year, the reps will also use Radian6 to proactively assist customers with issues.

Jim King: The word “community” is used so much now. What does community mean?
[Chris James] Pretty simple. It just means a group of people with common interests. I can ID at least 5 “communities” of customers we want to target. The challenging thing is that they are all over the place online. I wish there was one site or place they hung out but by nature that’s not likely so we try and go to as many of those sites as possible or influence people in those communities to speak on our behalf.

Vince Tobias: Have you had any unprecedented experience in your community? Say in an attempt to regain customer confidence, the company gave an exception for this one customer. It then created a trend or mindset for other customers to follow suit because this one customer shared his experience in social media. How did you react or what could you recommend to avoid such unwanted incident.
[Chris James] We haven’t but I’ve seen it happen in prior roles at Dell and AMD. The fact is, they will share their experience no matter what. The only thing you can even attempt to do is mitigate how far their opinion spreads. If your brand is out there actively engaged and helpful, a bad incident is less likely to become a “group think” problem than you can’t control. The only way to know what issues are out there or need to be addressed is if you listen first.

Nigel Linnane: Do GNC customers ever ask/wonder how you have picked up on their conversations. you have not started?
[Chris James] A small few. Most get that Twitter, for example, is not private. We draw the line though and don’t respond to specific Facebook posts that did not happen on our page. That would be creepy. It’s a semantic difference but people who share on Facebook expect their conversation to be private even when their privacy settings have it showing to the whole world.

Ghazwan Almoazen: How much do you promote GNC in your posts?
[Chris James] We are actually heavily promotional because we are a retailer and people expect to get deals thrown at them but we try to be conversational as much as possible. At brands I have worked for in the past, it was very much the opposite. I guess it depends on your business and what your customers expect from you. The more likely you are to be personal and conversational, the more likely they will trust what you say. The more you are a shill for your brand & bottom line, the more likely they are to ignore you. Somewhere in the vast middle ground is the balance.

Ricardo Betancourt: How can you measure the social media impact?
[Chris James] That all depends on what we want to “impact.” Sales? Well that’s tough if we doing anything else besides giving them a coupon code. Awareness? Site Traffic? Conversion? Social marketing is capable of achieving a lot of different business objectives but you have to know how your customers use social media before you can know how to market to them and what you will be measuring success against. It’s not a shortcut to revenue or lower costs, but when utilized properly can absolutely help drive those numbers.

Rosemary  Cafasso: How do you define “listening” — does that include the analytics?
[Chris James] I make a distinction between listening and analytics. Listening is the active act of qualitatively assessing what is being said about your brand or products. Quantitative analytics almost always follow a qualitative assessment and are necessary to judge magnitude of conversation or results from a conversation. However, analytics usually come at the end of something and are a reactive process. Listening is active and can even be a proactive process.

Kyle Spittler: What are GNCs specific measures of success in Social Media (likes/shares/clicks/etc.)? Do these vary based on project/campaign?
[Chris James] Yes, they vary based on what the goal of the social activity is and on the measure outcomes available to us. Facebook engagement consists on impressions, likes, clicks, unlikes and page views. The relevant measure needs to be matched up with the goal: maximizing message reach, driving additional customer attachment, driving .com traffic, unsubscribe rate, etc.

Kyle Spittler: Do you find there is enough social media volume to justify being out there?
[Chris James] Absolutely. Good example is in Twitter. We have 75k followers and get mentioned a few thousand times per month. The amount of times just our brand (not our Twitter account) gets mentioned on the web is 10 times greater. Shortage of conversation is not a challenge in the health & wellness industry.

Joel Kelly: Can you talk more specifically about monitoring and your plan for it? Do you have specific teams handling monitoring, or is it a shared role among people in each department?
[Chris James] We have some sharing of the burden across groups but only specific people are authorized to respond on behalf of the brand they must undergo training to have that privilege. We intend to expand that program outside of HQ and into the stores eventually, allowing associates, managers and franchisees to be a part of the conversation.

Keith Huddleston: With Brand in mind how do address customers who are creating negative feedback or legal allegations?
[Chris James] It depends on the nature of content. In many cases, we simply report it to legal or if there is something we can do we escalate it to Customer Service. A response is only made if we feel it can help resolve the situation. Otherwise, we hold our tongues. We have guidelines in place that help determine the best course of action.

@donaldbjackson: I’m looking for case studies on starting communities. Any you can recommend?
[Chris James] Dell and Microsoft have many case studies. Tech has done online communities well over 20 years.

ING Direct is a different kind of bank. They don’t have brick and mortar branches, instead, they interact with their customers by Internet and phone. It should come as no surprise that this bank has truly embraced the social web and the opportunities that it offers their customers.

ING Direct’s THRiVE Chequing Account was developed with this concept in mind: helping customers save money is essential. The bank thrived on customer feedback and sought to make changes to their offerings accordingly. The challenge was how to gather this information in an efficient and timely manner. The answer was social listening.

The bank took a proactive approach to their customer research and started engaging with their customers on Facebook, Twitter and the ING website. They gathered customer feedback about their THRiVE account every step of the way. This has proven to be a great success for ING Direct as it has increased customer retention, conversations and media results.

To learn more about how customer feedback can help increase customer loyalty, check out the ING Direct Case Study. And please join our webinar on September 8th at 2pm ET when we talk with Gloria Chik, Social Media Director for ING Direct, about their customer-focused approach to social listening.

For the last few years, the hottest debates in social media have centered around metrics, and how to prove the value of your activities. Two years ago, we were debating whether or not we should even bother trying to calculate the return on investment (ROI) of our social media activities. Some people argued it was impossible, others that ROI wasn’t the point.

We’ve come a long way in the last two years, and people like Katie Paine, Keith Burtis, Olivier Blanchard and Christopher S. Penn have shown us not only that we can measure the value of our social media activities, but how.

Even so, as with many business buzzwords, there’s still some confusion about what we mean when we use the terms listening, monitoring, measurement, analytics and ROI. Some people, I fear, use them more or less interchangeably. At the MarketingProfs B2B Summit in Boston two weeks ago, ROI was a pervasive topic. I was asked to contribute two imperatives to a list of 10 that would be presented at the final session. One of mine was, “Understand the difference between monitoring, measurement, analytics and ROI.”

(Two things: I’ve since added “listening” to the list of terms, so there’s a bonus for you, dear reader. Second, as an English major, I have a niggling doubt that, grammatically, it should be “Understand the differences among…” But I’ve been in marketing for 20 years, so I’ve learned to quash any qualms about mangling the mother tongue. Extensible. Actionable. Feature-rich. Cross-platform.)

Listening

Listening is the first step in the ladder. I think of listening in social media as the process of learning what people are saying about you and where. People and companies may use free tools like Google and Bing, Twitter search and Google Blog Search to find mentions of themselves, their companies, competitors and topics of interest. If you’re just looking for information, setting up free listening tools may be enough for you. The danger lies in allowing your listening to be passive and inconsistent; especially if your company doesn’t get a high volume of mentions, you might miss the one you most needed to see.

Monitoring

I see monitoring as one step beyond listening. Monitoring adds the 24/7 component to listening and attempts to make sure you capture all relevant mentions. There are free tools like Google Alerts that can help, as well as any number of paid tools that feature monitoring as an essential component. Monitoring solutions can also include alerting as a key function; if something happens at 3:00 a.m. or while you’re on vacation, how are you going to find out about it?

Measurement

Measurement is the first step toward integrating the results of your social media activities into your larger business processes. In my experience, companies set up listening and monitoring first, then inevitably someone wants to know, “How are we doing?” Are we improving, are we ahead of our competitors, are we doing enough? In order to be able to quantify (and justify) your social media activities, you need measurement. That can be as simple as establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) and benchmarks that are relevant to your business. Are we getting more comments on our blog than this time last year? How quickly are we adding Twitter followers?

The danger here comes in getting stalled at this stage and seeing measurement and KPIs as an end in themselves. So, 10,000 people have liked your Facebook page. But what good is that? This leads us to…

Analytics

How are your social media activities supporting your bottom-line business objectives? Does having 20,000 Twitter followers translate into more awareness, more leads, more sales? What’s the value of a Facebook fan? These are not easy questions to answer, despite what some might lead you to believe. Understanding the analytics of your social media activities is no different than understanding the value of your PR or marketing activities; you have to do the hard work to tie your activities to conversions, whatever that means for your business. Then you can see how your social media metrics tie to your business goals. In other words…

ROI

Frankly, I got tired of the ROI debate a long time ago. For the people I’ve had to influence in my career, ROI has only ever meant one thing: how much we spent compared to how much we made. It’s no different in social media. ROI in social media is thorny, in part because some people expect it should be easy to track because it’s online. You can, but only if you do the work of building the connections. That’s why lots of smart marketers are having more luck tracking the ROI of campaigns, rather than their social media activities as a whole.

Suppose, for instance, you wanted to increase attendance at your next event and use social media to help. You could tweet about it, create a Facebook event and write about it on your blog and in your LinkedIn group. But how will you know if anyone signed up as a result? Create a landing page where people can sign up for the event. Create a shortened link to the page. Add a call to action to all your social media mentions driving traffic to that site. Your web analytics will tell you how many people came to that page from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. From that point, calculating the ROI of that campaign is a matter of understanding how much time you spent creating it, how much you increased attendance as a result of the campaign, what the dollar value was of the increase, and how that compares to the value of your time spent creating the campaign.

Trivial? No. Easy? Not necessarily. But in the long run, you’ll probably spend less time building the process to track your ROI than you would otherwise spend trying to justify why you haven’t.

So, what do you think? Have you mastered the metrics muddle? Please leave your thoughts and comments below. And for more nuts-and-bolts information you can put to use right away, check out our Resource Library.

Their goal: No conversation left behind. Their mission: engage with the social web during the 2011 Super Bowl. Yes, Pizza Hut had big plans during the big game day. To make it happen, they devised a strategy as thorough as their pizza, pasta and wings recipes.

The company knew that some consumers felt Pizza Hut was a bit pricey. To change this perception they launched a special deal: any Pizza Hut pizza – size, crust, and/or topping – for just $10. Riding the crest of the $10 pizza wave, they partnered with a listening platform to create the Hut Hub for Superbowl Sunday. This social media situation room was comprised of Marketing, Customer Care and Menu Innovation, also known as the Pizza Hut Big Game Squad. This team listened, responded and engaged with their loyal social following and provided incentives to mindsets across the sentiment scale. This included e-gift cards to counterbalance late deliveries and to reward brand advocates throughout the game.

You can see the Hut Hub in action here (thanks to Jeremiah Owyang).

Due to the extensive game plan on and around the big day, Pizza Hut had more touchdowns than the Green Bay Packers in their 2010 season. 14,000 pizza conversations. 450 assists (from a customer care standpoint). The Super Bowl story garnered more than 32 million impressions, including a segment during the “CBS Sports Super Bowl Pregame Show.” In addition, 70+ stories ran on news affiliates across the country. The overall $10 pizza campaign garnered Facebook results that were monumental: 400 percent increase in impressions per conversation engagement and nearly 200,000 new fans.

The Super Bowl venture, including an ad buy and social media program, was new territory for Pizza Hut, according to Advertising Age, and the restaurant chain deemed it a success. They are continuing their social presence and engagement in the future.

This success can be attributed to some well-played plans.

The Hub Approach

Keeping your brand above water in the sea of social media requires some manpower both from a magic and logic perspective.The magic is the strategy behind the approach. The logic is the execution. Pizza Hut had the brainpower to develop a game plan and the team members to execute the strategy. Their hub was the means to their performance and success.

Joining the Conversation

The social media wave has brought along tons of public conversations that can often be brand enhancing or brand destructing. These good, bad and ugly conversations are occurring with or without brands and Pizza Hut knew this. They decided to join the conversation and service customers in their social habitat. In addition, they responded quickly and effectively, which further enhanced perceptions.

More than Listening

“To truly succeed in the now revolution, you have to create conversations.” — Amber Naslund, The NOW Revolution

When utilizing social media, it’s important to do more than listen and respond. Engaging and creation is key. That’s where the conversations really start incorporating the brand. It’s all about bringing something to the table and creating new dialogue. Pizza Hut spotted the conversations, joined them and worked to retain and enhance relationships with giveaways.

A number of success factors came into play when Pizza Hut stepped onto the social media field. But above all, they were prepared to do much more than hear the conversations.

We would love to get your thoughts on this, as well as on the case study. What’s your game plan to score that touchdown?

Read the full Pizza Hut case study: http://www.radian6.com/resources/library/pizza-hut-scores-big-on-game-day/

Powerful campaigns deliver a message that resonates with your audience – they inspire, motivate and influence people to take action. Campaigns help you raise the profile of everything you do, from launching an application, promoting a product, driving donations to your charity or bringing a community together on your website. Today, a strong social media strategy can help you achieve almost overnight what used to take months in the good ol’ days. And, the tools you use can help place your campaign head and shoulders above the rest – think Facebook, FourSquare, Digg, Twitter, and YouTube.

But it’s not enough to just create an amazing campaign, not anymore. You need to do things that haven’t been done before or even take an old idea and put a new spin on it. Good strategy is born from research and insights – but how do you get there? Where do you begin?

One of the most important social media skills to exercise is listening – but you know that listening isn’t enough when it comes to social media. Let your brand’s customers, fans and influencers drive the conversation. Don’t ignore detractors or the competition either. If you want to build a better campaign, you’re going to need to take what you’ve learned from your community and put it into action. Your campaign should be a thoroughly researched and carefully crafted plan based on what you have learned – good and bad – from your community and it must be fully integrated throughout your organization.

During our panel Build a Better Campaign: Research, Plan, and Integrate, industry thought leaders Adam Keats, Senior Vice President, Interactive, Emerging and Social Media Marketing at Weber Shandwick; Cat Lincoln, Founder & Principal at Clever Girls Collective; David Wickenden, Executive VP & Senior Partner, Managing Director, Digital Integration at Fleishman-Hillard and Gemma Craven, Senior Vice President, Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide will be sharing their experience on successful campaigns.

You’ll also learn what social tools have helped shape successful campaigns and how communications professionals integrate listening data into their communications strategy. Plus, they’ll answer questions like “How do I identify the right influencers and audience for campaign outreach?” and “What data and metrics are useful, and what could be misleading?”

What else would you like to learn? What challenges are you facing when it comes to creating your campaigns? What questions would you ask these thought leaders?

You can find Adam Keats blogging at Dad-o-Matic http://dadomatic.com/author/adamkeats and Cat Lincoln sharing all things clever at: http://clevergirlscollective.com/blog and you can read Gemma Craven insights at http://blog.ogilvypr.com.

“The best community managers are like a good party host mixed with a fine restaurant host.” Author/blogger Chris Brogan

Community managers are sort of like tonsils. No one quite knows the role they play in your day to day health, but we know they’re important and we don’t rip them out at the first sign of a sore throat anymore. Ok, we’re having a little fun here (community managers are notoriously good humoured – fact). It’s also fact that if you Google “Community Manager” you will find a never ending number of definitions and descriptions for who they are and what they do.

Author Chris Brogan nailed it with his quote above. Party = personal. Restaurant = business. He breaks it down like this – a great party host is the glue that connects, the person who warmly welcomes their guests and makes sure they’re having an amazing time. When the party’s over, said host sends them safely off into the night with a smile and a wave. The restaurant host does much of the same, but since their guests are paying customers, they have a couple of added responsibilities. They must keep an eye on the kitchen to ensure valued guests are getting what they ordered, how they ordered it, and in a timely fashion. Plus, they have to be ready to roll up their sleeves and pitch in with the rest of the staff (waiters, bar staff, busboys) for the greater good of the restaurant. As Brogan says, community managers need “…both skill sets in equal space.”

At Social 2011, we are bringing some of the best community managers together to talk about what they do and how they do it in even greater depth. Rachel Happe, Principal & founder of The Community Roundtable; Jennifer Hughes, Social Listening Manager at Ant’s Eye View; D.J. Waldow, Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory; and Pierre Abraham, Social Media Producer with Beachbody will be digging into how the social web has helped create and define the role of community as an important part of connecting with customers and building business. They are also going to examine how the role of the community manager is evolving, and how you can change up a business strategy to include social media and community.

Whether your goal is retention, awareness, acquisition, or all three, one thing is for certain – your community manager/community team will be a vitally important piece of your social media strategy puzzle.

Do you have anything you would like to add? Do you agree that community managers are key? If not, tell us why. And let us know if you have any questions or comments for our crack team of panelists. As always, we value your feedback.

D.J Waldow muses on all things social at www.socialbutterflyguy.com. Rachel Happe’s thoughts on same can be found here www.thesocialorganization.com. And Jennifer Hughes writes about social media listening on the Ant’s Eye View web site.

We’ve bundled all the sage social media advice from 2010 into nine major takeaways. These rules encompass social media application from the beginning stages of listening and information processing, to the more advanced stages of community engagement. And we’ve organized the rules into the categories of “Listening”, “Measurement”, and “Engagement” for easy browsing and reference.

Undoubtedly, Facebook is one of the hottest topics of conversation around social media, and an increasingly important part of social media in business.

A couple of years ago, it was an upstart social network for college students. Then it was the everyman’s social network, spreading like wildfire to teenagers and grandparents alike. And today, Facebook has taken hold as a significant and important player not just for individuals, but for companies who are looking to interact and engage with their customers online.

As a social media company, we absolutely understand the importance and significance of Facebook for our customers as well as the social media industry as a whole. So we wanted to talk with you a bit about how Radian6 approaches Facebook, and a few things you should know and keep in mind when including it in your listening and engagement strategy.

What We Cover

Radian6′s coverage of Facebook is built on Facebook’s Graph API. In clear terms, what that means is that Facebook provides us with a data stream of:

• public wall posts or status updates
• wall posts on Facebook Pages (or Fan Pages, as they’re commonly known)
• wall posts on Facebook Community Pages.

Also, a cool new feature: Facebook “likes” (from the Facebook Likes “plugin”) are now included in the “Votes and Likes” metrics on your Radian6 dashboard. Our current support is for the Like Plugin embedded on websites external to Facebook.

So if 20 people Like an on-topic piece of content where you’ve got the plugin installed, we’ll count it in the Votes and Likes metric in your dashboard.

(Note: while you’ll see Facebook posts in your search results, Facebook still requires you to log in to be able to view the public individual profile wall posts on Facebook itself.)

As it stands right now, the Facebook Graph API doesn’t include comments on wall posts. So, for instance, if someone posts a link on your Facebook wall and 10 people comment underneath that, those comments won’t be included in your Radian6 search results (even if they include keywords from your Topic Profile). It’s a current limitation, but we’re actively working on adding this capability.

As Facebook continues to build out their Graph API, we’ll continue to expand and refine the coverage that we can provide via Radian6. We’re going to continue carrying out coverage checks and enhancements on an ongoing basis, and we’ll keep you updated on how that coverage evolves.

Measuring Facebook

It’s important to note that comparing exact metrics of brand mentions on Twitter versus Facebook can be misleading, because conversations in open-access areas of Facebook only represent a snapshot of the potential total brand mentions. If a mention is posted in a closed or private area of Facebook, we won’t be able to include it in your results. As a business, it’s important to keep this distinction in mind, because it will impact the way you can measure and account for Facebook results in your monitoring and measurement activities.

A Note About Privacy

Something that’s very important to make clear: if your individual Facebook profile privacy settings are set to anything other than being viewable by “Everyone”, or if your Group is set to Closed/Secret, neither we nor any other search or monitoring provider will be able to see or find anything posted there.

Facebook is only a partially open network by design, which means that what’s visible to the outside world is dictated by the users themselves, and controllable via profile settings and preferences. For individuals, you can find those settings on your profile under Account > Privacy Settings. For Page administrators, you can adjust who can post to your page Wall your admin section, but wall posts on Pages are, by design, public. Facebook Groups can be made Open (completely public), Closed, or Secret, the last two only being visible to group members (and controllable by the administrator).

If your individual profile is private but you post to the Wall of a Facebook Page or public Group for a company or brand, that post will be publicly visible and available to Radian6 and other monitoring or search tools via the Social Graph API.

In short, Radian6 can and will only ever cover items that are classified as public, or that are posted in Facebook’s public areas.

What’s Next

We know how important it is to you that we stay on top of what’s happening in social media, and how important Facebook is to you. We’re listening, and we’re continuing to build out our coverage capabilities daily so that you never miss a relevant post.
Facebook presents a unique challenge in the social space, but we’re up for it. And we’ll continue to keep you posted as our coverage and capabilities for Facebook grow.

Have any questions about what you can and can’t do with Facebook data, or what you’re able to find via listening? Let us know. We’ll do our best to answer.

So you’ve looked at social media, you know there’s value, and now you want to get your business involved. Where do you start and how do you do it?

Listen – Engage – Measure

If you’re thinking of getting your business involved in social media make sure you have a plan. In most cases your plan will include three key dimensions; Listening, Engaging and Measuring.

In the first instance your initial listening or buzz monitoring initiatives will be pivotal in clarifying how your business will benefit and what value you will add when engaging. In addition to this, having an understanding of current conversations will help you to create clear-cut goals which will ultimately feed into how and why you engage online as well as how you will go about measuring your success.

Listening 2.0

There is always a lot of chatter surrounding why companies should listen, but how does it actually create value. This is where engagement comes in and where listening goes beyond simply tracking a campaign, sentiment or ReTweets. Make engagement a natural part of the process as it will allow you to:

1. Understand industry discussion and be a leader in your space.

Knowing how your competitors are engaging and what your customers, prospects or supporters want will help you reach out online to the right person at the right time and in the right place. Beyond the online space, managing buzz effectively can not only help feed into your social media strategy, but can also have enterprise-wide repercussions, helping you to understand your product, your customers needs and the way your brand is received, with much more clarity

2. Engage at a point where you can create value.

This might mean helping your customers with problems, being a thought leader and contributing to the industry discussion while sharing content from others that might be of value. Demonstrate the fact that you are listening and paying attention but be more than just reactive and stay ahead of the curve.

Trial and Error

If you listen first you’re already a step ahead. However, you’re not always going to get it right. As with any new idea, product or initiative you will learn from your mistakes and develop your social media strategy on an on-going basis. Social media is constantly evolving, at a fast pace, so cut yourself some slack and do it better next time.

Shout About Your Achievements

Ensuring that your social media presence is paying off is much more than just getting the reporting right for your superiors. The metrics will help but it’s really about company buy-in, from the new intern to the COO but this is only going to happen if you’ve got a story to tell. Make sure that you shout about your achievements across the organisation, differentiate yourself from your competitors and be an ambassador for your team, your business or your industry. By using the numbers and KPIs to your advantage you will make the most out your social media engagement and even eventually find your niche within this space.

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?

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!

Are you just starting out in social media? Or is it time to re-evaluate your social media efforts? Make sure you understand the social media best practices to get the most out of your hard work. This free ebook covers the basics of social media and gives you the tools you need to create a social media strategy that is tailored for your business.

Adding social media to your communications mix begins with listening to the conversations happening online around your brand, competitors, and industry. Making a case for this practice can be tough, though, which means arming yourself with the right information to support your initiatives is key for getting buy-in and support as you get started.

Companies can sometimes feel as though they’ve got nothing to gain by monitoring social media because the mentions of their brand are few and far between. However, monitoring social media isn’t just about finding mentions of your brand; it’s also about finding relevant conversations from within the communities you serve and understanding how those impact your business and its growth potential.

Not every conversation or mention of your brand or industry is an invitation to engage. Don’t disregard circumstance, context, and convenience. Someone online might ultimately have an interest in what you’re selling; however, it may not be the priority for them right now. It’s much more effective to determine when they need you and when they may be open to a chat.

As always, we’re grateful for the feedback we get from our customers and community. Why? Because they form the foundation for the updates, enhancements, and feature additions we make to the Radian6 platform.

Many of our users love the power and  flexibility of the Radian6 dashboard, and how much you can customize. But we also realize that getting started can be daunting if you’re new to the platform and all of it’s capabilities. Today, Radian6 has rolled out some key new features available in the dashboard to make it easier to dive into the data, and we’re excited to share them with you.

The Topic Profile QuickStart Tool

What it is:

A quick easy method for users to create new Topic Profiles and set up a Radian6 dashboard. If you’re a first-time user of Radian6, the QuickStart tool will launch automatically, and you can launch it anytime thereafter by clicking the QuickStart icon in your dashboard toolbar. And you can still configure topic profiles in the Configuration section of your dashboard, too.

The Radian6 Quickstart Menu

A series of guiding prompts in the QuickStart will help you set up your topic profile, including easily grouping  your keywords by brand, competitor, or industry. We will also auto-configure your sentiment settings to look for sentiment around the things you identified as “your brand” specifically (company name, product brands, etc.). You can always change those in the Configuration screen as well.

Radian6 Quickstart Tool - Brand Monitoring

Quickly filter by region, media type, or language, then get a snapshot summary of your estimated monthly result volume so you can tweak and refine your topic.

Radian6 Quickstart - Monthly Estimate Summary

Why It’s Useful:

The QuickStart feature makes generating topic profiles in Radian6 a quick and simple process from start to finish, which is helpful for a new Radian6 user, or users who aren’t particularly technical.  New users will be able to get started with their monitoring faster and easier than ever before. And in conjunction with our new Widget Gallery (read on), you’ll have a completely new, streamlined experience for getting started with Radian6.

The Widget Gallery

What It Is:

Also launchable from the Quickstart menu on the Radian6 dashboard, our new Widget Gallery gives you the ability to add any of  44 preconfigured Radian6 analysis widgets to your dashboard with just a few clicks. Simply select your topic profile and date range, and you can choose from our  basic analysis widgets, or more specialized widgets in social media metrics, twitter analysis, brand analysis, competitive intelligence, and workflow and engagement.

Radian6 Widget Gallery

Why It’s Useful:

We’ve reduced the legwork by placing 44 powerful pre-configured widgets at your fingertips without having to learn how to configure them, so all you have to do is point and shoot and get working on the part that you do best: pulling insights from your data that are important to your business.

And of course, the Widget Gallery is just a few of the  hundreds of possible widgets you can build in Radian6, but they’re bound to give you a few ideas of your own. Users can still customize and build widgets as always from the dashboard, from scratch. And we’ll continue to add more and more turn key configurations to the Widget Gallery in the future, so if you have suggestions for widget configurations that you use often, let us know in the comments or with an email to community@radian6.com.

Influencer Widget Enhancements

What It Is:

Our Influencer Analysis widget has gotten a significant upgrade, thanks to your continued input and feedback. Our unique real-time tracking of social media metrics across the web and our ability to set the weightings to calculate influence has been a user favorite.  But all media types were previously mixed together, and weightings would often apply to one media type and not necessarily another.

So we’ve pulled together an enhanced approach to uncovering influencers. We’ve added a handful of new capabilities and views, including the ability to break out all of your influencer data by media type and make use of additional social media metrics only applicable to certain media types (ex: thread size on forums, follower count on twitter, views on videos, etc.)..

We’ve also given you the option to display your influencer results in a few different ways, including new bar graph and conversation cloud options in addition to the traditional grid display.

Radian6 Influencer Widget - Summary View

The new Summary Mode gives you a snapshot of the top 5 influencers in each media type, while the media specific tabs will show you the top 250 influencers for each media type. In bar mode, you’ll see the Influencer Score for each source next to their relevant results.

Hovering over the bar or a term in your Conversation Cloud gives you key influence metrics, and clicking on the source will open a River of News widget displaying the on-topic posts for that Influencer.

We’ve also refined the Influencer EQ area of your Topic Profile configuration to allow you to weight your influencer criteria by media type and make use of new social metrics unique to that media type, for more detailed and customized influence scoring on your on-topic results.

Radian6 Influencer EQ

Note: we’ve also updated the Influencer CSV report to reflect the breakdown by media type. If you’re using this report, you’ll want to update your references accordingly.

Why It’s Useful:

Influence is at the heart of many social media endeavors, and as always, we’re dedicated to helping you view influence through the lens that’s right for your business. That means uncovering the well-known voices as well as the ones that might not be on your radar so that you can better understand who’s driving awareness and engagement for your brand.

Our new slate of influencer views and breakdowns will allow you to do deeper analysis of the entire influencer landscape around your business, and help you see both the high level snapshot of who might be important to you, and the drill down into details on metrics and specific results.

By looking at influencers in a number of ways and through the perspective of several types of data, you’ll be able to conduct more efficient outreach, understand which social media channels are making the biggest impact for you, and strategize about

Need More?

True to what we believe, we’re always listening. Our product enhancements and expansions are based on your feedback, and the way you’re telling us that you need Radian6 to work for you.

If you’d like some deeper overview and training on the new features, we’ve set up some open sessions for you to attend. Sign up for one of the dates below with your Radian6 login info:

• Thu, Feb 25, 2010 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM EST
• Fri, Feb 26, 2010 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM EST
• Tue, Mar 2, 2010 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM EST
• Wed, Mar 3, 2010 10:00 AM – 10:30 AM EST

And please keep the feedback coming; you can leave a comment, send us email at community@radian6.com with your suggestions, or reach out directly to your account and support teams to give them your input. Help us continue to shape Radian6 into the social media monitoring and engagement tool you need it to be.

If you’re new to the platform or just getting your arms around monitoring and measurement, give a look over some of the Radian6 use cases and product applications we’ve outlined over here. From lead generation to crisis management, community engagement and competitive intelligence, there’s more opportunity in listening than you might think.

We’re eager to hear your thoughts. Share with us in the comments and let’s keep the dialogue going.  And there’s more to come, so stay tuned…

Please join David Alston, VP Marketing & Community at Radian6, as he talks about how to engage in social media. He’ll tell you what to listen for, what to say when you engage, and how to measure your efforts.

Date: January 28th, 2010
Time: 2 pm EST
Register Now!

Social media is not media; it’s a two-way communication channel for your customers and your community to reach out to you. And, since it is so easy for customers to express their issues, joys and needs, YOU need to be listening. This is an age where customers no longer line up to reach you. You need to reach out to them because they are talking whether you are listening or not.

The social phone is ringing, are you ready to answer?

We don’t need to tell you that you need to be listening in social media, right? But perhaps you need a bit of help building out a listening program that’s sustainable, actionable, and actually helps you meet your business needs. Here’s a set of steps to take and questions to answer to round out your listening notions into a strategy you can execute on.

1. Decide On Focus Areas.

• Are you listening just for your brand specifically?
• What specific keywords and phrases are most important to you, and why?
• What are your assumptions and expectations for what social media monitoring can help you learn or do?
• Do you need to do competitive or industry analysis as well at this point?
• What areas of the business can benefit most from understanding commentary and conversation on the social web?
• Do you have particular initiatives or campaigns that you will track independently?

2. Articulate Your Goals & Measurements.

• What are you hoping to accomplish with your social media monitoring program? Be specific, i.e. “we want to identify emerging customer service issues in social media and route them to our offline channels.”
• By when?
• What do you know now as a baseline or status quo in that area?
• What constitutes success or forward progress toward your goal(s)?
• What measurements can you track and measure to illustrate progress?
• How do they relate to things you’re measuring in other business areas like customer service, marketing, product development?

3. Consider Resources

• Who is going to be doing the social media monitoring?
• What kind of training will they need? Tools?
• Do you have front-line people dedicated to listening efforts, or are you working it into various job descriptions?
• If you’re breaking it out into different roles, which topics/areas is each person responsible for monitoring?
• How many hours can you dedicate to listening efforts per week? Per month?
• What level of time and effort spent will indicate to you that you need more or fewer resources?

4.  Map Information Flow

• Who needs to know what you’re finding through your social media monitoring?
• How will you document your listening and monitoring procedures and workflow?
• How will you get the listening insights to the appropriate team members?
• What are you expecting other team members to do with that information once they have it?
• How will you allow them to provide feedback to refine your listening efforts?

5. Illustrate Results & Next Steps

• What key information will you report? When should the first report happen after you start your listening program?
• To whom?
• How often?
• Who will review the results and be responsible for drawing conclusions based on the analysis?
• How will you dictate action steps based on the results?

You probably have your own subtleties and specifics as you map out your listening strategy, but the point is to have a solid roadmap that tells you what you want from listening, how you’ll deploy the people and tools to make it happen, and how you’ll gather and act on the information you find.

What have you learned from your listening efforts? Share your insights with us in the comments.

image by judepics

Did you hear about Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Tweet Fleet? You can today.

Join Radian6 Community Director Amber Naslund with Marketing & Community VP David Alston in a Twebinar Today at 2 P.M. EST to meet the people behind the Xbox Elite Tweet Fleet team.

Tune in to Today’s Twebinar at:

• http://twebinars.radian6.com/ or
• http://www.blogtalkradio.com/theengagedbrand

The Elite Tweet Fleet makes customer support “social” using Twitter @Xboxsupport. What’s the benefit to Xbox players? Tune-in, Find out and Join the Conversation Today.

To tweet your comments and questions, use #Radian6 and include a “?”.

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Next Thursday’s Tune-in is all about YOU: Getting Organized and Managing Your Social Media Presence in 2010.

Amber will reveal 9 Guiding Principles to help Make Time Work for You.

Join Amber’s Free Webinar & Learn to:

• manage disruptions
• control information overload
• leverage tools
• use time saving templates
• wrangle task management
• & more!

That’s next Thursday, January 14th 2 p.m. EST

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Tune-in the 3rd Thursday in January. It’s all about Protecting and Empowering Your Organization by Creating Social Media Engagement Guidelines.

Learn the “Anatomy of Engagement” – in this Free Community Webinar presented by Radian6 Community Manager Lauren Vargas with Amber Naslund.

Space is Limited. So don’t miss out!

Thursday, January 21st at 2 p.m. EST

Get Engaged! We’re Listening. Tune-in Thursdays with Radian6.

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.

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

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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/

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

Determine Capacity

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

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

Find your Voice(s)

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

Develop Processes

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

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

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

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

A wise old owl sat in an oak,

The more he heard, the less he spoke;

The less he spoke, the more he heard;

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

Be the owl

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

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

Response is not a chore

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

Through response your organization has the opportunity to:

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

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

Who gives a hoot?

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

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

Additional Resources

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

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

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

Space is limited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Adam

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

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

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

Control, control, you must learn control

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

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

Ignore or engage?

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

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

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

May the force be with you

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

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

***

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

Additional Resources

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

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

Social media is provoking the enterprise to evolve

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

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

Build an organization of proactive collaborators

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

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

Create a safe haven to learn about socializing

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how it works

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

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

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

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

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

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

Create a mind-map

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

Start with your company in the center of the map.

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

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

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

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

Voila! Your prime keywords will reveal themselves.

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

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

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

About Janet

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

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

Social media takes a village

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

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

Think and execute beyond a linear process

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

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

Twenty reasons you cannot do this alone

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

Additional Resources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Rick

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

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

Blog: http://www.rickliebling.com

We’ve posted a few times here about what kinds of conversations to listen for in social media. (Just in case you missed them, you can find them here, here, and here).

But the question that inevitably comes next: What do I say?

So here, my list for you for a few response types you might consider when engaging the conversations you’d like to be part of. They don’t have to be about your brand necessarily – they can be about your industry or relevant trends or just stories of interest. But engaging is a big part of the social media equation, so maybe these will help you with your responses.

Thank you.

You really can’t use this one enough. Thanks for thinking of us! Thanks for mentioning us or recommending us. Thanks for that great bit of information you shared. Thanks for pointing out the typo on our website. Thank you for sharing your viewpoint (even if I disagree). Graciousness matters, and the simple art of thanking someone can indicate very subtly that you’ve been listening.

I’m sorry.

Screw ups happen, and saying you’re sorry isn’t about taking blame. It’s about genuinely apologizing for someone’s frustration, inconvenience, or loss. We’re sorry your stuff didn’t arrive on time. We’re sorry our site was down when you needed it. We’re sorry we dropped the ball and didn’t respond to your email.

Sometimes it’s taking responsibility for something, other times it’s enough to acknowledge that something didn’t work the way it was supposed to. In any case, a simple apology can go a long way toward making a frustrated person more open to hearing what else you might have to say.

Here’s how I can help.

Information is currency. When someone is expressing a need you can fill, taking action works wonders. Looking for the price for that? Here you go. Soliciting ideas for a book on a topic? I’ve got some recommendations. Having trouble with your blog? Let me point you to an expert I know.

Being helpful and sharing your knowledge and information is priceless on the web. The answer doesn’t always have to be your thing/product/service. It’s about being a good citizen of the communities in which you participate, and offering up information you have that can be useful to others, without the expectation of anything in return.

How can I help?

A question instead of a statement, this is one of the most fruitful responses you can offer (just ask Frank Eliason from Comcast). It acknowledges your interest in helping, your availability to assist, and asks the other person to help you by understanding more about their needs. After all, half of talking is about the desire to be heard. And sometimes it can help you get to the bottom of an issue quickly and simply without kicking up a lot of dust.

Yes (or No) and here’s why I think so.

Please don’t be afraid to have an opinion on the web. Opinions aren’t permanent. You can change your mind. But much of the value in participating in online discussions, from Twitter to blogs, is about the ongoing dialogue. If we all band together and deliver one word answers, or follow the flocks in order to not stir the water, we’re going to have one dull internet on our hands.

Even if you represent a company, you can have a viewpoint that you share. Share it with respect and courtesy, but it’s okay to share your thoughts on a topic. Yes, that means you’re open to the feedback and opinions (even dissenting) of others. But humans want, well, humanity in our conversations. Talk to us like people, and let us talk back to you in the same way. We like you when you have ideas and thoughts to share.

What would you add? Those of you out there conversing and chatting, either individually or on behalf of your companies, what shape do your conversations take? What are you learning? Please share with us.

image credit: pinkmoose

It’s a pretty common question: “What, exactly, am I listening to if no one’s talking about me or my brand?”

Companies that are small, new, or just not as plugged in to the online environment can sometimes feel as though they’ve got nothing to gain by monitoring social media because the mentions of their brand are few and far between.

But the “listening” step of social media is important beyond that. In fact, it illustrates a fundamental principle of a successful social media foundation: thinking and participating around and above your brand.

We’ve Got Company

Unless you’re in a super-niche or groundbreaking industry, you’ve got competition. You’re likely not the only game in town, so if someone isn’t talking about you, they may very well be talking about your competitors, and you can learn a lot about what they’re saying.

From insights about what customers love or don’t love about a competitors offering to who’s engaged in the community on behalf of the competitive brand, conversations can tell you a ton. And understanding your Share of Conversation within the larger industry you represent – especially as compared to those competitors – is an important insight.

One thing to note: trolling for your competitor’s customers and fans in social media is a big no-no. It’s one thing to connect with them and build a genuine relationship (good). It’s another thing entirely to be chasing down your competitors customers or engaged prospects and using these channels as an opportunity to poorly butt in and pitch your stuff (bad). Tread lightly.

Finding The Tribes

A key to understanding where to spend your resources in social media is the basic knowledge of where your potential customers are gathering online. Are they bloggers, or do they favor Twitter to have their conversations? Are they using forums to hold discussions? Or maybe they’re not using these sites much at all?

You can monitor for discussions that swirl around your industry at large instead of about specific brands to understand how those audiences are using (or not using) social sites. For example, if I’m a lawn care company, I’m going to be searching for discussions on lawn maintenance, landscaping, and the weekend warriors out cutting the lawn or sharing lawn care tips among their friends. Where they’re talking is where I want to be participating. Instead of a shotgun plan, I’ve now got a focused idea about where my social media outreach should be aimed.

Problem, Meet Solution

Problems, needs, and wish lists from your potential customers or your competitor’s customers are being tossed out to the social web all the time. From product reviews to casual statements about what’s not working right, customers are giving you loads of intelligence about what problems they need you to solve.

Think bigger than your brand, and tune in to conversations that are about the kinds of issues and challenges that your product or service is aimed at solving. If you’re a virtual assistant, maybe you’re listening to people who are drowning in email and learning how to help them to refine your service offerings. If you’re an accountant, you might be putting together a list of the most commonly asked questions from people setting up a small business and doing a podcast about it.

We call this “listening at the point of need” and it’s about understanding how your business solves problems for people, and then connecting with them in a meaningful, helpful way when they need you most. It’s not about a sales pitch. It’s about creating a solution for someone that they’re asking for. And by listening to the feedback from people who aren’t yet familiar with your brand but know your industry, you can learn how to create better and more relevant offerings that address the pain points these folks have and talk about most.

It’s Bigger Than Your Brand Name

Simply put, conversations in social media aren’t just about finding mentions of your brand. It’s about finding relevant conversations from within the communities you serve and understanding how those impact your business and its growth potential. Listening is a holistic activity with great potential to bring you intelligence, insight, and focus for your social media efforts.

What else would you be paying attention to, and how can you be listening above, around, and nearby you brand to improve your business?

One of the reasons we discuss listening and engagement as two sides of a similar social media coin is because they’re so interrelated. And while listening is something you can do passively and behind the scenes, beginning your engagement strategy is something to consider carefully because once you’re out there, reverse gear is hard to find.

I was speaking with someone this last week at IMS Dallas about her company’s social media work. They’ve been listening and monitoring their brand and to their great credit, they’re really on top of the conversations happening around them. They’ve determined that they have distinctive groups of people in their community that they’ll want to talk to, and they know that they’ve got both fans and detractors that they’ll need to address.

One thing they’ve been trying to figure out, however, is how they can engage with select groups of their customers individually and separately. And my answer? You really can’t.

The trick is that customers don’t put themselves in buckets. They look at their relationship with your company holistically, and don’t delineate between what department they should be dealing with or where you park them in your CRM system. To your community, the relationship they’re building with you is universal.

What that means in terms of engagement is that you’re going to have a hard time trying to engage with one “sector” of your community, but not another. Once you’ve opened the door to communicating and engaging with your community, they’re going to want to talk to you, no matter where in your customer segmentation they fall. If you’re talking specifically to your corporate or enterprise clients, your individual clients and customers are going to see that. And they’re going to want to talk to you, too.

If you start a blog, folks are going to leave comments, and the unspoken expectation from them is that you’re going to respond. If you’re reaching out to your customers on Twitter, they’re not going to consider how they’re classified in your customer index, they’re just going to want to talk to you (and have you talk back).

I know that’s hard. Social media *can* be hard. But here’s where the listening bit really helps.

If you spend the time and effort to listen and monitor, you’ll be able to identify trends in the conversation and understand – *before* you engage – what your customers might be expecting from you once you get there. The intelligence you mine through listening becomes the foundation for your engagement strategy, and making the case for getting your entire organization involved – from customer service to marketing to technical support and sales.

So yes, the challenge is that once you engage with your community, going back is hard (if not impossible). Starting that dialogue is an open invitation to your community, and they’ll take you up on it, and expect that you’ll continue – even if that means that you have to learn along the way.

But don’t let that deter you. Use your listening practices strategically. Take the time – weeks, or even months – to inform yourself about all the what-ifs of engagement for your company and how your community is likely to react when you start conversing with them.

That way, instead of being surprised by the influx of people who want to talk to you, you’ll be able to confidently and consistently connect with your customers, wherever they are, and evolve your engagement strategy along the way.

So what about you? Are you listening but not yet talking? What challenges are you facing getting started, and have you been surprised by the response from your community (for better or worse)? Can’t wait to hear from you in the comments.

We’re excited that we’re finally launching a project we’ve had in the works for a while: a podcast! The Engaged Brand is focused on sharing stories, case studies, and best practices from brands who are embracing the potential of social media to connect with and engage their customers online.

We’re just getting ramped up so you’ll see more episodes coming down the pike in the near future, but what better way to kick off the series than with one of the brands leading the charge: Comcast.

Frank Eliason has demonstrated the power of Twitter as a customer service channel, and he’s sharing their successes and learnings at his speaking engagements across the country. His team has grown, their approach and strategy has evolved, and in this interview he shares with us some of the ways that Comcast has tapped social media to create a better, stronger customer experience.

So download the podcast and sit back and take a listen to The Engaged Brand: Comcast’s Frank Eliason, and share your thoughts!

zig, a creative communications agency with offices in Chicago and Toronto, is keeping up with social media thanks in part to monitoring with Radian6.

zig’s Executive Creative Director, Digital, Cam Wykes, says that social media is a moving target, and it can be a challenge for agencies to keep up with the pace.

“Today it’s Facebook and Twitter, tomorrow it’s something entirely new,” he says. “It’s a matter of taking it one site or platform at a time to find a project where you can invest a small amount and carefully track the results. The more you know about how messages and dialogue migrates from network to network and how it manifests itself through that dialogue, the better you’ll be able to harness it and have a greater impact on your campaign.”

With it’s broad coverage of blogs, mainstream news, multimedia like photo and video, Twitter, forums, and other online social networks, Radian6 helps provide agencies like zig with a comprehensive way to track what’s being said online about their clients’ brands.

As Wykes can attest, the word of mouth and networking behaviors of consumers are essential to understanding how products are being received, what’s being shared and why, and what messages are being spread and shared throughout the community.

Armed with information gathered from the social web about buying preferences, brand impressions, and company reputations, agencies like zig don’t have to make assumptions about how consumers are responding to their communications. Beyond just web analytics that can only provide linear and sometimes transactional perspective, social media provides anecdotal and influencer-driven intelligence about what’s driving attention, awareness, and engagement.

“Online audiences are fast moving and savvy, and as an agency, we need to be smart about how we allocate budgets to provide the results our clients are looking for,” says Wykes. “Tapping into social networks and key influencers helps us get right to the people who can make a big difference as to how our message is absorbed and shared.”

If you think your agency might benefit from Radian6′s monitoring capabilities, sign up here for a free online demo of the platform. Have a story about how Radian6 has helped you better serve your agency clients? We’d love to hear from you! Drop us an email here and let’s tell your story.

Powerful data analysis means the ability to segment, sort, and filter data in any number of ways, to any level of granularity at a click. The Topic Analysis Widget (formerly called the Comparative Topic Monitor) now provides you with new metrics and enhanced segmenting capabilities to take your analysis to deeper levels.

Enhanced Segmentation

Now, build your Topic Analysis widget using a selection of keywords, or choose to graph and display results from your entire topic profile. Click on your bar or pie chart (or a keyword segment) and use the menu at the top to segment those results again by language, region, media type, sentiment, engagement level, source tag, or post tag. Keep segmenting your results again by a new metric to drill down into greater and greater detail.

Conversation Metrics

You can also sort your Topic Analysis results by eight different conversation metrics that demonstrate the discussion and engagement around your topic or keywords including:

•    number of posts
•    comment count
•    view count
•    vote count
•    Twitter followers
•    on topic inbound links
•    total inbound links
•    number of unique sources

Want to know which keywords or topics generate the most commenting activity? Which blog post generated the most Twitter impressions? Now you can see the buzz around your topics at a glance, and even set up As It Happens email and IM alerts for even the narrowest slices of your data to keep a close watch on the segments that matter most to you.

Have questions about any of the new features?  Reach out to our customer support team and learn about what’s new and how to make it work for you.

Within the enterprise, listening is more than a linear process. Monitoring social media means not only being able to hear what’s being said about your brand in a stream of information, but understanding what to do with that intelligence once you have it.

You need a listening grid – a system of gathering information, categorizing and segmenting it based on your needs, communicating internally about responses and engagement, and having up-to-the-minute notification of happenings in social media that are relevant to you.

Radian6′s new slate of features and enhancements empowers users within the enterprise to set up that listening grid, managing all points along the path of communication from awareness to engagement, responses, and learnings that can improve the business as a whole.
This week, we’ll be sharing details and ideas for how these new features can create better company wide listening, better engagement through deeper customer insight, cost effective scalalbility of outreach, better internal collaboration, increased visibility for management, and stronger measurement of social media ROI.

The Conversation Sidebar

Radian6 has launched the new conversation sidebar, a streamlined solution for integrating the listening grid within the enterprise. The new Conversation Sidebar enables you to have an internal conversation with team members about each post, and also provides you enhanced workflow and tracking capabilities for each post in your topic profile so you can track responses, and share knowledge across your team.

In addition to your communication team, you can share these valuable insights with customer service, sales, product and executive teams – anyone using the system -  and coordinate your responses to the community.
When you click the hyperlink in your As It Happens email or IM to open the sidebar, you will be able to:

•    Assign posts to team members within your organization
•    Communicate with other team members to collaboratively answer questions or address issues
•    Classify the type of post: lead, inquiry, compliment, complaint, etc.
•    Manually rate the sentiment of an item (positive, neutral, negative)
•    Track engagement level (commented, closed, awaiting reply) and create an audit trail of responses and outcomes

The conversation sidebar also provides the ability to add social tags to each post source, giving companies a method to identify, track, and determine how to handle each post from that source. By sharing that information across the enterprise, you can see who’s driving the conversation about you, provide context for each interaction, and spread the overall knowledge base about your community.

As It Happens Email and IM

Sometimes you’re not working in the Radian6 dashboard, but you’d like to stay on top of a particular topic profile. Now, Radian6 offers the ability for users to get email or Jabber-compatible IM notifications for specific topic profiles at intervals they select.

Alerts are delivered to your inbox or IM client as results are discovered, and include a link to open the alert in your web browser. There you’ll find the Conversation Sidebar and workflow capabilities for team collaboration and response. Once you act on an alert and update the Conversation Sidebar, a new alert will be issued with the updates so everyone stays in the loop about the most recent activity. And if you assign a post to a member of your team, they’ll get an email notifying them so they can act on it.

Now, you’ll be able to get up-to-the-minute notifications when new and relevant posts arrive, and engage with them in a timely and appropriate way. Never miss a relevant post again.

Questions about any of the new features? Feel free to drop a note to our support team or contact your account manager and let us know how we can help.

Sometimes, making the case for social media starts with making the case for listening. If you haven’t seen David Alston’s Top 10 Reasons to listen, or the Next 10 reasons, have a look and I’ll hang out while you do.

Back? Okay, good.

So here’s an interesting perspective that a friend and I were discussing the other day.  Making the case isn’t always about the “why”.  Why is important, and it’s the justification behind what we do. Often, it’s the case that the C-suite needs, because while they’re not steeped in the day to day, they need to understand the rationale behind initiatives.

But the “how” people are equally important. These are the folks in the trenches, day to day, that will be responsible for managing the influx of information you’ll get through monitoring. They’ll also likely be the people that need to answer the “what now” question and figure out what to DO with that information once they have it.

So I’d like to put the question to you, How People. Let’s get into detail about the management of all this…stuff. Here are a few questions I keep hearing:

• Do we have to respond to EVERY brand mention?
• How much time does it take each day to do this?
• What’s the best way to handle negative comments? Ignore or engage?
• How does one person manage all of that information?
• How do we keep track of what happens after someone responds?
• Who should respond to brand mentions? What should they say?
• How will we know if all of this is making a lick of difference?

This is just the start, of course. We’ll tackle some of the above questions in individual posts. But what questions do YOU have about the “how” of listening and brand monitoring? I’d love your feedback.

Photo credit: Claudio Matsuoka