Category: Blogging

Conducting Your Social Media Symphony

elaine gantz wright8 Comments

Elaine Gantz Wright is a speaker, writer, and social media strategist. Contact her at elgantz()yahoo.com.

A client  told me last week that he hired us to “do” social media so that he would not have to be involved.  What!? Really? Would he ever consider having a storefront without a sales staff? This is the essential conundrum we have been wrestling with in recent weeks.  Businesses, particularly small businesses and nonprofits, are running lean and over-tasked—especially in this rocky economy. Therefore, it’s difficult for many of them to even conceive of adding a litany of new online tasks to their already maxed-out agendas.

And yet, a thriving, organic social media presence is critical to practically every business’ success in our new-media marketing universe.  From texting to tweeting, we recognize the value of involving customers and empowering word of mouth online, but the question is — What is the best way to get it done? How do we manage it all?

It seems to me it comes down to two options — coaching or doing. Should you hire a coach or consultant to train you and/or your employee(s) to blog and work the key social media platforms? Ideally, strategy and daily activity must work in concert to achieve best results.  A post here and there does not a social media campaign make.  The other option is t0 hire someone outside of your organization to “handle it” –posting, responding, blogging, monitoring, driving, and analyzing.  What is most productive?  How will you optimize ROI? How will this outside person or team integrate with yours and the unique needs of your operation?

Here’s the rub — we are trying to force social media into a traditional public relations and advertising paradigm.   Hire an agency; produce some ads; run the ads; hope for good response, and move on to the next campaign. However, social media defies the typical one-way, sequential marketing communications models. It requires ongoing attention, 360 degree tending, focused involvement, authenticity, transparency, systematic monitoring, creative energy, and a real persona. Thus, we need an entirely different delivery system and process. But what will that be? How does that look — parsing together so many pieces:

1. Blogging
2. Promoting your blog
3. Driving and participating in conversation on your blog
4. Commenting on other related blogs
5. Monitoring and responding to Tweets
6. Tweeting and responding with value opportunities
7. Driving Twitter crowdsourcing campaigns
8. Facebook product launches
9. Facebook “like” campaigns
10. Facebook applications and lead capture
11. Driving Facebook conversation
12. Integrating social media in email and website
13. Promoting social media connection in your store.
14. Rewarding Foursquare or Facebook checkins
(Just to name a few.)

Of course, the program will vary in size and scope –whether you are Best Buy or Frank’s Nail Salon, but the realities of execution  may not be that different. For many retailers, it’s all about customer service – an inside team that monitors and responds to customer comments and complaints. For others, it’s about launching new products via Facebook, for example, or running limited-time discounts and deals. Regardless of the content or appeal, the relationship-building objective probably surpasses the importance of the final tallies of coupons redeemed or contests entered. It’s not realistic to think you can have a “social media department.” It should be woven in to the fabric of your operations.

So, maybe we need to think of “doing” social media more like conducting an orchestra in real time, as opposed to, say,  downloading a series of iTunes.  An orchestra needs a conductor to keep time in real time, indicate when to come in and when to stop – or know when to staccato  or to legato. Like an orchestra performance, a social media campaign can be led by a “conductor.” But for maximum effectiveness, the organization’s actual players (the musicians) should be directly involved in making the music. They listen to each other, sense the audience’s reaction, drive the melody, layer the harmonies–and know the score.

What do you think? How are you managing you social media efforts? What has worked and what has not? What are your biggest challenges? Share your stories.

The Latest Blog-buster

elaine gantz wright3 Comments

I have been pondering Jason Falls’ presentation at the Dallas Social Media Club meeting last Tuesday. (Sorry, been a busy week.) He was jolly, open, and authentic. I liked what he said about the business of blogs. He asserted that his most recent research indicates that the largest segment of blog traffic comes from first-time visitors—debunking the common myth that blogs appeal primarily to a devoted cadre of repeat visitors. Instead, based on Jason contends we actually should approach the blog as we would a standard marketing piece—core marketing messages.

Jason advises that the blog’s primary business purpose should be to “win search results,” so SEO/keyword strategies are mission critical. Most visitors find your blog when they are looking for information. Doesn’t that really help clarify the whole blogging conundrum, that question I hear all the time—What should I write about? Fuel your blogging journey with topics that resonate with your target audience. Develop messaging in an informative style that will trigger comments and engagement. The bottom line—deliver information-rich, intriguing content that promotes what you sell.

On Jason’s own blog, 69% of traffic comes from first time visitors—perhaps from the search term, “social media.” Falls surveyed 300 blogging companies, and for B2B respondents, 65-68% of visitors had landed for the first time. For business-to-consumer blogs, up to 80% were virgin clickers.

As in the traditional marketing world, knowing your audience is what it’s all about. So, the essential question is, “Who is reading your blog?” It may not be your enthusiast community or virtual cult of personality you imagine, but it merits your attention. Jason’s Social Media Explorer is considered one of the most prominent voices of the social media chorus.

He’s a such a teddy-bear sort of guy’s guy—so unpretentious. In fact, after seeing Falls and Brogan in action, I’m noticing a trend. It’s interesting to me that the pioneering minds of social media seem to be these affable-bro types. Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Giovanni Gallucci, and even Clay Shirky (with some professorial polish) are the kinda guys you expect to see gathered around the big screen at the neighborhood sports bar—just regular guys. I don’t know what I expected, but I wonder how it evolved this way. Maybe it has something to do with the “cool geek factor” of the technology side.

Why does social media leadership seem to be such a boys’ club in general—when women are instinctively wired to find and nurture social relationships. Men, hunter/gatherers. Women, nurturers of home, hearth, and connection. Aren’t women the original social networkers? Could it be that social media is blurring these gender lines of communication? I pursued this a little further to discover that only about 12 of the approximately 63 “featured bloggers” on Social Media Today homepage appear to be women.

I think about my best gal pals from my early career, college, and high school. Many of them have resisted diving into Facebook much longer than the guys I know. They said they just didn’t have time—perhaps because they experience the same social engagement achieved online through their in-person activities, such as work, book clubs, PTA meetings, Saturday afternoon soccer, Sunday school, and Bunko groups. I think about my own entry into this wacky social media world. It was quite by accident. I joked in a recent job interview that I earned an “independent study” Master’s degree when I went to work for YourCause.com, which is now a distant memory for me. Beth Kanter has been forging the cause-focused social media trail much longer than I have, so I suspect the message had more to do with our involvement that the medium.

I wonder if this is because women really do know how do to make connections innately, and this new media frontier gives the “bros” an easier, less intimidating way to bond and relate. Hmmm. Interesting notion.

What do you think?

ElaineGantzWright’s blog is for people interested in using the Web and online marketing to drive social action. Elaine covers social media for education, nonprofits, philanthropy trends, online giving, cause marketing, random life musings, and more. Contact her — elgantz @yahoo.com