While at Search Engine Strategies in New York last month, Web Pro News did a live interview with me about Social Media Marketing Strategies and what you need to figure into it when you are planning your own.  Abbie also asked me about social media sites that businesses can incorporate into their strategies beyond Facebook & Twitter.  While Facebook & Twitter might really seem like the tactic you should be implementing because they are the “hottest” things in social media right now, you might want to take a deeper look into forums, message boards and even location based social media communities like Foursquare as part of your strategy.

Last week I had the delightful opportunity to present on two panels at Search Engine Strategies in New York City (#sesny).  Beth Harte, my colleague here at Serengeti Communications presented as well, our John Lynch, also of Serengeti Communications was live blogging on both Endless Plain and Take It In House some of the great sessions the conference had to offer.

I get a lot of questions after the sessions, as does Beth, some of these questions pertain to certain aspects of our presentations and we just don’t have the time to bring up the slides again.  So in the effort of sharing some of our knowledge with our audience we like to upload some of our presentations to SlideShare to give you a bit of understanding around the conversations going on in Social Media Marketing.  You can get the basic of understanding from just the slides, but if you were present for the panels, likely these will make more sense and refresh your memory.

Social Media 101 – The Basics

This was a solo presentation I did about the basics of social media.  The who, the what, the how.  Very top level, very 101.  I presented this from the standpoint of the audience knowing that social media is out there, its hot, and its likely something a marketing department should know about.  There’s some do & don’t tips as well as things to keep in mind.  This basic presentation can give marketers an idea of just how involved developing a social media strategy is and it’s not something to step into lightly.

Speaking Geek:  Introducing Your Social Media Ideas to Your IT Department

On this panel it was all about speaking geek to your IT people.  The other panelists took the approach of search and ppc and discussing it to their IT departments.  My presentation was how to approach your IT team about the social media tactics you want to implement.  Bringing your IT department in early is key to success, they can tell you if what you want to do can be done or maybe help you find a work around.

Later this week Beth Harte will be placing her presentation out on slide share as well, and it will be available on our Endless Plain property.

Fear.

Almost every company has it when they take one look at what’s going on in social media. The question is whether you embrace it or run from it.

Fear of the unknown, of what “could” happen stops a lot of companies right in their tracks. It also has them making a lot of crazy decisions when it comes to their own internal social media policies.

There’s two pieces to fear in social media that can really hold a company back from being successful with their online marketing strategies. The first piece is being afraid of what your employees are doing online. This fear causes companies to restrict access to the internet. At Search Engine Strategies in New York yesterday, keynote speaker David Meerman Scott said that 25% of companies restrict their employees access to the internet. Instead of looking at it as an asset, these companies are fearful of what “could” happen.

The second piece is fear of what people are saying in these social media communities, fear of them getting the message wrong or saying something bad. They site this as their reason for not getting involved with social media, or taking an approach of “telling” their customers online things, instead of listening and engaging. They are fearful of how customers are engaging with their products because they want it to be all about those carefully crafted and fine tuned messages they put out.

At yesterday’s keynote David Meerman Scott pointed out one company that wasn’t afraid of “loosing control” during his keynote. Let’s face it, toilets aren’t sexy, toilets are pretty darn boring, you don’t think about them and you really don’t see them in commercials on TV. They are really more like a commodity, they are something you need to have and that’s that.

Toilet manufacturer CWS decided to just “loose control” and have some fun and created a commercial which went viral on YouTube. Not only did it go viral, but it managed to change the perception around their products and it has helped to increase their sales.

If a toilet manufacturer can loose control and find success in social media, I think it goes to show that just about anyone can.  You just need to “loose the fear”.

There is so much buzz and hype around social media, it’s hard to determine if/when social media has real proven  success for a business. Well, we have found the perfect case study for you! Mari Luangrath owner of Chicago’s well-known and loved gourmet cupcake bakery, Foiled Cupcakes, uses ONLY social media to market and, yes grow, her business. [Updated: By the way, check out what Mari's fans have to say about her cupcakes and finding her via social media!]

Beth Harte:  Mari, you are a successful entrepreneur and on your third adventure with Foiled Cupcakes, a gourmet cupcake bakery serving Chicago. When it comes to marketing your business, how has using social media helped you to brand and grow Foiled Cupcakes? 

Mari Luangrath: Social media fell into our laps, quite honestly. We launched our business primarily using Twitter without knowing a single thing about it. And by connecting with new people who found our story interesting, we haven’t had to use a single traditional marketing initiative yet. All of our business growth has happened organically via word of mouth referrals and online buzz. To date, 93 percent of our business has come from social media leads and we’ve surpassed our initial revenue target numbers by over 600 percent. 

BH: Even though you’re a bakery, you don’t have a storefront. Are you telling us that integrating a website with social media can help companies to still deliver personal service, get delicious cupcakes (AKA ‘product’) in people’s hands *AND* make money? 

ML: That’s correct. We operate without a storefront so we can focus our energy on personal service. I really do believe that’s what sets our business model apart from our competitors. We know every single one of our customers by name. We’ve probably had a good Twitter or Facebook conversation with them before they even call us. We have a relationship with them in which we’re invited to their corporate events, birthday parties, weddings, and girl’s nights. Because community and interpersonal relationships are at the very top of my personal value chain, I can’t imagine doing business any other way. 

BH: You have a bunch of followers and fans on Twitter and Facebook. And just like your cupcakes, I am guessing it’s about quality…not quantity, right? How can we get companies to recognize that? What’s your secret for using Twitter and Facebook? 

ML: It’s absolutely about quality. It’s easy to get a ton of Twitter followers the wrong way. But what good is that if there aren’t any business leads as a result? My personal opinion, based on my experiences, is that interaction with the community is key. You can tweet all day long. You can update your Facebook page all day long. But are people listening? They’ll listen if they know you care about them. So my personal mandate is that I reply to every single tweet and make a comment on every single post to our Facebook page. And once we interact, the community realizes that we care about their thoughts and opinions. And then they become engaged. 

BH: You’re a smart business owner…are you demanding social media ROI? How would you advise business owners to think about ROI in a way that doesn’t snuff the life out of their social media programs? 

ML: That’s a tricky question. There are no standards by which to measure ROI (yet) in social media. That said, I’m not sure there’s a magic formula for results, either. But the great thing about social media is that it’s very dynamic, fluid, and testable. Throw something out there and see if people respond. Like any marketing program, I always try to begin with the end in mind. What do we want to accomplish? Who is going to care about what we have to offer? We identify the answers to those questions then work backwards. And the other thing? We don’t spend a ton of time on it either. A Tweet or a Facebook status update are fleeting moments in most people’s eyes. Spending more than a minute or two figuring out what to write, in my opinion, is just a waste of time. Get it out there and see what happens. 

BH: Who doesn’t love a delicious cupcake, right? But I am willing bet that when it comes to marketing and selling you’ve encountered speed bumps along the way just like any other business. What strategies/tactics are you using to get folks to head on over to your website to order up some shiny happy goodness? 

ML: I’m not a big believer in push marketing. I just don’t think it works. It never works on me, and I’m actually more or less turned off by people who blast their message in my face. For us, it’s all about community. We get involved in conversations around pop culture, shoes, weather, chocolate, travel, music, or traffic. Those tend to be very relatable things across the board. We support other businesses and help bring awareness to charitable causes we believe in. And I’m pretty sure that it’s because we engage in conversations, people know who we are. Over 70 percent of our search words in Google have been “Foiled Cupcakes.” That means a lot, especially since nobody even heard of our company a year ago and we have spent exactly $0.00 on any sort of advertising or brand awareness campaign. 

In hindsight, the two things that were absolutely critical in helping us gain speed: 

1. Connecting with social influencers on Twitter in our target markets (the only real social networking platform we’ve used in which we’re able to interact with people we haven’t met yet.)
2. Making real life connections in person at networking events. Because refer people to companies they know, like, and trust, networking was absolutely key in making it all snap together for us. 

Final thoughts…All said and done, I think that social media is a great way to start a business. And it’s also a great addition to any business marketing plan. It doesn’t have to be a big time investment, and for the right personality it can be a lot of fun. Just be real and transparent. The community loves people like that.

* * * * * *

Thank you Mari for sharing your social media success with us. Now I want a cupcake!

Mari will be speaking at Search Engine Strategies NY (SES) on The Business Value of Social Media on March 25th. If you’re at SES, be sure to attend the session, it’s sure to please! 

[Images: Cupcakes, Foiled Cupcakes. Mari, ideaconference.org]

With Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York just right around the corner, I thought I’d tap into this year’s keynote David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” (in its second edition already!), “World Wide Rave,” “Cashing in with Content,” and “Eyeball Wars” to get his thoughts on recent marketing trends, marketing ROI (and the barriers it causes) and ‘true’ public relations. 

Beth Harte: MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) has been doing their Marketing Trends Report for three years and this year was the first time you were cited as a top marketing guru and “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” has shifted to a Top 7 resource (from a top 11 resource in 2009). With 70% of marketing executives stating they are planning a social media strategy it seems your message of unlearning traditional marketing practices is finally resonating. And yet, in the same report they cited social media as a top ‘buzz’ word they are tired of hearing about. What are you seeing as causes for this frustration? 

David Meerman Scott: The problem is definition. What does “social media” mean anyway?  

When I was writing The New Rules of Marketing & PR in 2006, I felt as if I was the only person who had identified the idea that marketing on the Web was fundamentally about understanding your buyers and publishing the valuable information (YouTube vides, blog posts, ebooks, and the like) that informs and educates. This was a radical idea at the time the book was released in 2007, and it was not without controversy, especially from traditional advertising people and public relations professionals.  

But then, slowly at first, an understanding started to build about the power of marketing and PR on the Web. Soon the incredible rise of social networking services like Facebook and Twitter created an environment where millions were exposed to what many were now calling “social media.” And then, in 2008, the revolution that is Web marketing and PR went mainstream. “Social media” as an idea was in full-blown hype mode throughout 2009 and into 2010, when thousands of instant-experts started talking about using social media for marketing and public relations purposes.  

The issue is that the self-proclaimed gurus spend way too much time talking about the individual tools (such as Twitter) and not enough about the practical aspects of what the tools can do as part of an overall company strategy. And when people hear about Twitter again and again in the same context as the phrase social media, no wonder they get a hangover. 

So, yes, “social media” is a buzzword that I am sometimes sick of hearing myself.  

It seemed to me that most so-called experts were just hyping the tools themselves. Sure Twitter is important. But what’s fundamentally more important is how marketers and public relations professionals need to evolve their mindset to be successful. Creating a Facebook page or jumping onto Twitter won’t transform your business. Changing your mindset to one of understanding buyers and publishing content on the Web will.  

BH: Marketing ROI is top of mind and yet it’s become a barrier to success at the same time. How can marketing executive and their teams learn to stop being stagnated by ROI barriers?  

DMS: A decade ago, I was vice president of marketing and PR for a NASDAQ-traded business-to-business technology company. We measured success in two ways. Our lead generation programs were measured via “sales leads:” the number of people who requested a white paper or who tossed a business card into a fishbowl at the trade show. Our public relations programs were measured via a PR clip book, a gathering of all the clippings of magazine and newspaper articles written about the company. The book represented a month’s worth of clippings and was usually bound for us by our PR agency. 

Sales leads and press clips were very common forms of measurement accepted by management in many B2B companies. Success—or failure—at a trade show was based on the number of people who stopped by the booth. And in a good month, our PR agency would proudly drop the clip book on a table to hear the “thud factor.” A deep, resonating boom was very, very good indeed. 

Fast forward to 2010. The Web gives everyone—not only B2B companies but also consumer brands, consultants, nonprofits, and even rock bands, churches, and colleges—a tremendous opportunity to reach people and engage them in new and different ways. Now we can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an e-book, a Facebook page.  

Those measurements, which seemed so great in an offline world, are wholly inadequate online. But what should we do instead?  

First of all, ask yourself: “How’s business?”

Next, forget about sales leads and ignore mainstream media clip books. Instead, focus on spreading your ideas. Here are some questions that can help you learn to measure: 

1. How many people are getting exposed to your ideas?
2. How many people are downloading your stuff?
3. How often are bloggers writing about you and your ideas?
4. (And what are those bloggers saying?)
5. Where are you appearing in search results for important phrases?
6. How many people are engaging with you and choosing to speak to you about your offerings?
7. Is revenue and profit growing?
8. Are customers happy?

BH: Somehow along the way PR professionals have lost sight of what ‘true’ PR is and have set their focus on the media. What quick steps can PR pros take to get back to the public relations roots of created mutually beneficial relationships with all of their publics (shareholders, stakeholders, communities, employees, etc.)? 

DMS: To paraphrase the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), definition: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”  

Nowhere does this description mention the media!  

Somewhere along the line “public relations” became the same as “media relations.” What people need to realize is that these are different activities. Media relations, or working through journalists, is fine. Hey, who doesn’t want to be quoted in an important outlet? 

But there are so many other ways to hear attention.   

PR is about reaching your audience. There are many more ways to do that than just via the media: YouTube vides, blog posts, ebooks, charts, graphs, photos, a Twitter feed, a presence in Foursquare and so much more. 

* * * * * * *  

I’d like to thank David for his time to share his thoughts with our Social Conversations readers! I am a big fan of David’s, so it was an honor to get some of his time.

For many years David’s books, ebooks (FREE!), videos (also FREE!) and blog posts (still FREE!) have been an on-going inspiration and source of education for me as a marketing, PR and digital marketing professional. If you haven’t tapped into David’s books and generosity (all that FREE stuff I mentioned! Hint, hint…), I urge you to do so because it will change how you look at your current business, marketing and PR strategies – and I promise…for the better!

(Pssst!! See how that works?! David educates me, I buy his stuff, and then I evangelize him to others who in turn get educated, buy his stuff and then evangelize him. The cycle continues on and on and… Pretty simple, eh?)

Trust us when we say, that bite is truly avoidable! How? Understand your market (from their viewpoint) and plan well. 

It’s not enough to ‘think’ you know your market. While primary and secondary research tends to give marketers insight often both can be skewed or biased by asking questions that the researcher knows (in advance) will provide the answers required internally to make a case for releasing a new product, service or campaign. As for secondary research, we urge you to ask yourself two questions before using the findings: “What was the methodology and is it sound?” and “How do these research findings help the company sell more of ‘their’ products and services (i.e. is it self-serving)?” At the end of the day, the key is to understand your audience, especially where they live on-line and why/how they interact. Doing so will provide you with a true sense of the culture and community that might have developed.

Why plan? Well that should be obvious, but a lot of marketers still struggle with planning. In the social media space knowing the audience first and planning accordingly should be your top two priorities.

We have seen over and over examples of companies that may have missed the mark in both areas and as a result may have felt a bit of a social media bite (Southwest Air,  Tropicana, Pepsi, Motrin and more).

In time organizations will learn, hopefully, that doing social media to be cool or to push messaging just doesn’t work. Using social media as a channel is a legitimate marketing endeavor and it’s important to understand that the channel is full of people who hear you and talk back.

Now, I know what you are thinking… Social media might be dangerous for your brand. But in reality, you can’t stop people talking about your brand online. At the end of the day is a negative reaction in the social media space truly a bad thing? It’s can be an opportunity to turn around a situation that without social media you might never have known about. In the past you would have just lost a customer or ten (word of mouth is just as powerful as social media!).  If getting feedback helps a company learn what their market wants, identify their true evangelists and perhaps even develop new products/services is it worth it? Forrester thinks so.

What do you think? Time to take a few steps back before diving into social media without audience research and a smart plan?

[Image: www.natgeoprogramming.com]

I try not to be one to jump on band wagons, which is why I’ve totally left the whole Google Buzz nonsense alone. That said, when I think there are other points to be made about situations involving companies, consumers and social media, if its a band wagon that’s rolling by then I’ll gladly step on, even momentarily. Such is the case with SouthWest Airlines, Kevin Smith and what we’ll have now forever refer the situation to as “FattyGate”

Does Size Really Matter?

Does the size of your Twitter following account for anything (1.6 million +)? How about the fact that you not only tweet, you blog and you even have a podcast? Add on top, you’ve acquired a cult following, write screenplays, produce and direct movies and even act in a few of those movies. Let me introduce you to Kevin Smith, the guy even owns a comic book store in Red Bank, New Jersey. I’ve been a huge fan ever since I found out he was the guy behind the movie Dogma – any guy that has the kahunas to cast George Carlin as a Catholic Cardinal and Alanis Morrisette as God, has one heck of a sense of humor in my book. I follow this guy on Twitter, read his blog and occasionally listen to his podcast. I do have to say though, I refrained from seeing Jersey Girl, too much Ben Affleck for me.

Now does the size of your Twitter following (who you actually converse with), number of fans on Facebook, and comments on your blog posts account for much? How about the reposting of your videos, and links to stories about your great customer service encounters, and ranking #1 in the airline industry for a slew of ‘good things’? Let me introduce you to SouthWest Airlines. I’m a huge fan of them too, ever since the weekend my father died and how well they treated me, SouthWest Airlines won me over.

I state all this in this manner to show a few points:

1. I like both of the parties involved
2. Both parties involved are extremely social media savvy
3. Both parties involved have very avid, emotionally attached fans.

This Isn’t About Kevin Smith Being Fat …. Or Is It?

Lets face it, we all know, heck even Kevin Smith knows, he’s no 136 lbs. Michael Jackson skinny.   That’s really not the point here, and Kevin even points it out in his blog, that it isn’t about him being over weight. This is more about being consistent and truthful with your policies. Here Kevin Smith has a point.

He also has a point about how all of this was handled. If your policy states the arm rests come down, you don’t impinge on other people’s space and you aren’t in need of a seat belt extender, then, why pull the “people of size” policy card?  Whether he originally purchased two seats or not, doesn’t matter at this point if you were claiming he is being pulled from the flight because of his size and but yet he’s passed all your ‘tests’ that he’s not in violation of that policy.

What would have been a little bit more wise on SouthWest’s part was to not put him on that flight because he had originally purchased the two seats, and they wanted to accommodate those two seats again.  Kevin claims to buy the two seats so he can avoid talking to strangers, not for weight reasons.  I’m sure SouthWest would have wanted to accommodate that wish because of who he is and understanding that maybe he just wants to be left alone at times, had they really thought this through.

What “FattyGate” Really Exposes…. SouthWest Airline’s Inconsistencies

What’s at the real root of the issue here is not the two blog posts blaming Kevin Smith for the incident (sorry SouthWest, but that’s how it comes off), but what they were admitting they were wrong with, the “person of size policy” and how it was handled.  Immediately after Kevin Smith started tweeting and posting his picture that he got on the next flight and wasn’t thrown off because he was fat, his fans, and other SouthWest passengers who’d heard about the situation started posting other pictures.  These were pictures that were showing passengers that looked twice the size of Kevin Smith, without the “two seat” rule and SouthWest not enforcing the policy.  Inconsistencies can be a real problem for anyone in social media, and now SouthWest knows that from experience.

Admitting Fault is Good Public Relations, Asking For Help is Golden

When you admit you are wrong, truly wrong, people are willing to forgive you.  When you ask for help in trying to correct what is wrong, people are even more willing to assist you.  When you admit your wrong, but yet say in a very round about way,  “we’re sorry, but it’s really your fault because you are fat“, by posting your policy at the bottom of the post that’s suppose to be an apology, that really isn’t a good way of winning over those people who you want forgiveness & help from.

Why SouthWest just doesn’t say, “you know what Kevin, you are right, we’re not consistent with our policies, this was our mistake we’d like your help to fix it,” is totally beyond me.  The guy has likely bought hundreds of tickets by now on the airline – anyone could see that in their system (i.e. he was a loyal customer).  They guy has a following.  They guy knows how to use social media.  Why not recognize this and work with it?  If anything, SouthWest has consistently been social media savvy, not stupid, so this really makes me wonder who’s steering the boat over there?

Hiding your inconsistencies by trying to push blame elsewhere isn’t wise in social media.  Any form of denial only brings a much larger magnifying glass into every thing else you are doing wrong and makes you the media’s next punching bag.   It will even get you on the front page of CNN for all the wrong reasons.

Situations like these have to be seen as opportunities, especially if you are in or planning to be in social media, other wise they’ll eat you alive.  Solving problems like these with the help of your audience or those who feel wronged, makes evangelists, rather than enemies… which would you rather have?

*Airline Passenger Photo Credit:  ButtonMonkey

A Candid Interview with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights (Part 3)

With challenges, lessons learned, and strong social engagement experience under her cap, Pauline Ores shares with us the future of social media including issues, truths and where to place social media focus when it comes to business objectives.

1. Where are you heading with social media? 

Speed of adoption attests to quantity and breadth of social media value. Most people would agree by comparison, the value social media as a modified push marketing tactic is negligible. That said, as desktop publishing transformed the field of graphic arts, I have no doubt social media will transform the field of marketing― even if firms elect not to participate.  More and more consumers expect, if not demand, companies pay attention and stay in sync―in terms of product development, customer service, business strategies and models and more.

Personally, the is the aspect I find most interesting are the new interactions social tools and services enable―so in some ways, I’m less focused on social media then most. An unusual pursuit perhaps, but well supported here, as IBM has a long history of exploring problems from a variety of perspectives. At the same time I would never want to give up working with colleagues on the execution of near-term social media tactics and research, as that helps ensure longer-term plans add value.

2. There is a lot of wrestling between PR firms, digital agencies, and the new “social media” agencies about which of these firms are more equipped to offer strategy, research and execution services.  In your opinion, who should do what?  From the client side perspective, which pieces belong where?

Like any other engagement, the key is who, not which―it’s about who you will be working with at these firms vs. the types of firms. 

In terms of execution, my personal preference would always be to work with a team that has actual community building experience, a team that can point to a community or social platform they built―demonstrating they truly understand what it takes to people to join and actively participate. Too many people assume if their vendor understands social applications and platforms, and have personal experience using it themselves, i.e. their own blog, they have what it takes to build a community, which is not necessarily the case.

For strategy, I would lean towards the team that can deliver a social media strategy centered on business vs. social media activities. One that would articulate how an investment in social engagement program furthers the overall business strategy, delivers on the brand promise and helps the business evolve. This suggests a consultative-focused engagement, so their ability to closely collaborate with their clients would be another important factor.

3. What are some of the biggest issues in social media today?

What we might define as issues today stems from social media marketing’s need for a variety of supporting elements evolve―marketing, funding, business processes, resources, internal skills, etc.  Social engagement programs have different requirements but are of course, executed in an environment almost exclusively optimized for traditional marketing. For example, it is not uncommon for marketing programs to have a defined beginning and end, and be funded quarter-by-quarter whereas, in some instances you’d have social engagement programs that, ideally, never end.

In terms of execution, investment for new social media programs involves shifting funds from marketing activities that can demonstrate ROI, on the assumption the new social media program will provide more value, however social media rarely provides comparable measurements. We’re all faced with a similar challenge – measure marketing ROI and the unique value only social engagement programs can provide, with few if any social media measurement applications and standards.

In B2B arena prospects, clients and partners see great value in engaging employees, so locating subject matter experts and growing internal involvement can quickly become a bottleneck―not insurmountable, but again, specialized processes and applications would help.

Longer term, to be truly effective, as large scale social media programs are rarely contained in single department, we’ll need scalable systems capable of coordinating activity across different roles, departments, and divisions.  This system will need to manage the massive amount of ‘outside-in’ dialog, route this to the right teams, and help track value of both the internal and external contributions. Challenging, yes, but not impossible.

Taking a ‘helicopter’ view, this is the same lag in development we’ve seen time and time before.  As social media marketing teams discover and clarify their requirements, it is inevitable that marketing teams, agencies, and developers will spring up to address them, just as they did for search and web marketing. New organizations like the Social Media Advertising Consortium, SMAC.org, are working with clients, vendors, and agencies on common vocabulary, practices and metrics.

Thank you Pauline!
Pauline, it was great to be able to spend time with you and get a peek into how IBM is leading B2B companies with their enterprise social media development! No doubt we’ve all learned how it is possible for large companies to successfully implement social media in an effort to connect employees to each other and employees to customers. Thank you.

A Candid Interview with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights (Part 2)

Pauline shared with us yesterday how IBM is strategically and tactically addressing social media. Today we’ll learn from Pauline why:

• Larger companies might just have an easier time implementing social media;
• Being a talented traffic controller is important;
• Basic training isn’t enough to ensure success; and
• A market researcher can help you take the garbage out.

1. How difficult is it for a company the size of IBM to implement enterprise social media development?

We are a very large firm with nearly 400,000 employees worldwide, but the advantage of a social approach is that size becomes an asset rather than an obstacle―as more members join and help develop the program, we get a more and more valuable contributions. The more teams join the easier it is for our enablement teams to understand how to best support, mentor, and guide their programs.  Having played such a large role in defining the program participants don’t need to be sold and furthermore, help spread the word.  So contrary to what you might expect, getting many different teams to collaborate speeds up the process.

2. What are some of the key challenges?

For us, beyond delivering actionable insights we have to ensure research results flow to all the right teams.  Obviously we share the resulting insights with teams that commission the research but there is potentially even more value to be gained by sharing these same insights with other departments. So our next challenge is to develop communication channels and connections to ensure we inform a variety of roles and teams, which as you can imagine could easily become a major air traffic control issue.  Ideally we can also track the impact these insights help deliver, demonstrating the value of our social media research and execution investments.

Social media has much more to do with who you are, as individual or a company, than what you do― it makes the boundaries around firms translucent if not transparent. IBM has a strong values-based culture and is committed to its clients―so for us, social media tools enable our teams to respond more quickly.  If your firm doesn’t have clarity in terms of brand values and/or doesn’t encourage staff to put customers first, I would suggest social media should be the last, not the first, step of a much longer process.

3. What advice can you give on internal skills development for social media?

Invest in and adopt social media and collaboration tools internally―they enable employees to quickly provide the much larger and more detailed responses external social media interactions often demand, as well as provide an internal sandbox where, assuming they’re new to these tools, they can learn and practice.

Realize that a few quick ‘101’ application tutorials, how to use Twitter, isn’t enough, as it’s not the tools that make it happen, it is what some refer to as ‘social engineering’ or community building practices. Having even a few resources with community building and engagement skills will ensure you have a program that delivers value for both internal and external participants―which again is key to success.

If you don’t have that expertise in-house seek outside help, but make sure any agencies or consultants can walk the walk and provide references of pointing to communities they built vs. pages, sites or applications. I can’t stress strongly enough how critical community building and engagement skills are to success. Locate the resources you have or hire in, then have those people mentor others to grow your corporate skill set.

4. How mature is the market when it comes to research tools (often called “buzz monitoring” or “listening” tools)?  What is the sophistication level of what is out there?

Not sure if you are referring to sophistication of the tools, processes or clients, but all three are evolving.  For clients, I think it’s important to realize social media research tools today are market research tools, and having market research professionals involved in the process provides value. Secondly, clients should realize the tools themselves are not a panacea, it’s very much GIGO― ‘garbage in, garbage out’―process, great results require a lot of upfront work and planning, which again is something a trained market research professional can provide.  IBM’s best-of-breed Market Insights team played a large role in increasing the value we get from these research tools.

Social Media are just tools, right? Wrong. Pauline shares why tomorrow.

In tomorrow’s final post Pauline will share with us why companies need to stay in sync, why social media is more than tools, and why the ‘who’ is more important than the what. HINT: Not all agencies are created equal.

A Candid Interview with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights, where we discussed her role at IBM and where IBM is heading with their social media endeavors.

In this three-part series, Pauline will discuss the social insights practice, strategies and tactics, insights and lessons learned, how their employees are the core of social media, and the future of social media.

1. What is your role at IBM?

I’m focused on what IBM can do to accelerate and amplify the growing number of IBM employee-led social engagement programs, ensuring they benefit all participants, inside and outside the firm.

On a day-to-day basis I’m involved in two related but different activities. Tactically we’re defining how social media research should be used to inform measure and in some cases coordinate cross-IBM social engagement. We also consult with marketing teams helping them integrate social engagement approaches into their larger marketing activities―which isn’t to say we have all the answers, often it’s a matter of introducing teams who then help each other.  Strategically, I am focused on understanding how social media will transform the field and practice of marketing and communications.

2. Why is social media important at IBM?

Our strategy is to lead in the market with our employees―put our employees first as the ambassadors of our brand. Our role in marketing and communications has shifted from being the channel of communications to better enabling our employees to be the face of the company.

As you know, IBM has been researching and developing technology and solutions in the social computing space for decades―ranging from advanced text-analysis of unstructured content to collaboration software. The earliest adopters of social media were IT programmers, and in many ways they defined many of the basic tenets of today’s ‘Internet culture,’ and so we’re fortunate as it is an integral aspect of how we work with each other, as well as with clients and prospects.

3. What approach have you taken to enterprise social media development at IBM?

Personally, I’m a big believer in the ‘near and far’ approach―iterate quickly as a means of arriving at a working solution and, at the same time, reflect on how to best define the problem. Having been involved in the launch of several new fields, I’ve learned problem definition and scope, a ‘meta’ consideration that is all too often assumed, has an enormous impact on outcome.

Say for example, you set out to produce Wikipedia’s three million plus English articles―and by default, you rely on the same hierarchal, linear process used to produce print encyclopedias. In retrospect, it seems obvious this process won’t scale, but if Wikipedia didn’t exist, an unreflective ‘execution-driven’ approach would have started down that path, presumably cutting off any thought of such a large, living resource. My point here is that Wikipedia’s open and highly collaborative methods of production are an integral element of what it achieved.

Thinking about the best approach for an enterprise social media research and enablement program, we realized anything other than a social approach would quickly hamper development. We settled on a federated model, one where teams would retain control of their own funds yet benefit as a member of an enterprise-wide program.  The result: more teams than we imagined wanted to participate, which in turn has accelerated the program’s value in terms of research, collaboration and peer-to-peer education.

So, how did IBM implement social media across the enterprise?

Be sure to stop back tomorrow for part two of this interview series to find out! Pauline will share how IBM has addressed and implemented their enterprise social media development approach. HINT: Larger is sometimes better!