You know when I come out of my blogging hiatus, it has to be for a damn cool reason.

And it is.

First, some background: Back at my old employer, a lot of my time was consumed by educating the higher ups on exactly what social media was, how it was impacting the larger consumer market, and how we could harness that. And, as anyone who’s been in that position before knows, that means – regrettably – lots and lots of powerpoint presentations.
But there was always one source I knew I could turn to, to inspire slides when needed… and that was the Universal McCann “Wave” research, tracking the impact of Social Media. Seriously, it’s gold.

So it was with much excitement that I learned that Trendstream – headed up by Tom Smith, who was the lead market researcher at Universal McCann during the “Wave” series – were releasing a “lite” version of their Global Web Index – a tool that, as Trendstream puts it, “provides anyone with the free of charge chance to view and play with the GlobalWebIndex data, and more importantly to start developing unique insights on social media.”
You can play around with it below.

Now, of course some may question basing strategies on information gleaned from tools such as these; but I see the value here as coming from another direction. Not unlike the Forrester Groundswell tool, the Trendstream data is a veritable goldmine for those looking to take the “bullshit baffles brains” approach to convincing the “higher ups” to release the money to test your ideas out.

So play around with the figures, and see if you can get the data to say what you want it to… and when you finally get the budget you’re after, make it count.

If you’re on… well, any number of social channels, really… you would have noticed the “Nestle” furor over the last few days. If you somehow missed it, here’s an executive summary:

• Greenpeace target Nestle for their involvement in the deforestation of orangutan habitats through the sourcing of palm oil, which they use in their products. This includes a video on youtube, which Nestle have removed, but which (rather obviously) pops up all over the internet and whips social media users in a lather. This then spills over onto Nestle’s Facebook page, which protesters making their voices heard.
• Nestle responds badly, with rather rude, dismissive comments. They refuse to accept dissent on “their” page.
• This pours oil on the flames.
• Social media “experts” rub their hands with glee, and start crowing about how “Nestle don’t get it”.

Ok, that’s the executive summary. But this isn’t another piece about how Nestle got it wrong, because – quite frankly – there’s enough of those.

This is a piece about how social media experts let Nestle down. Badly.

Over the past week, I have been amazed at how eagerly social media commentators have pounced on this story and trumpeted it from the mountain tops… (here’s the kicker) without offering any constructive criticism.
In the Australian crowd, I saw this over and over again. Two examples that stood out:

• The folks over at SmartCompany put out a piece discussing the “bungle”, and I see it retweeted a few times. The article discusses the events that led up to (and including) the Facebook revolt in detail. But when it comes to the advice that they offer, by way of James Griffin, chief executive of online reputation management group SR7? Here it is:
  

  “Griffin says many businesses don’t understand how devastating the consequences of a failed Facebook campaign can be, and suggests Nestle needs to shape up its marketing practices and take online reputation management seriously.”

  Oh, well done everyone. We know more than they do. Let’s not offer any constructive criticism in specifics, let’s just talk in generalities.

• The other example came from a bunch of guys who I actually think are super-friendly folk over at FrankVizeum. They went wild on their Twitter page, holding on to the issue like a dog ravaging its chew toy, pointing out and sharing every negative post that talked about the debacle. But I never once saw them link to anything that added constructive criticism). (Update: when I started this post in my head, that was the case. However, when I went back this evening to check their Twitter link, I see that they have… a bit late though lads).
  And, again… they were lobbing a few jabs at Nestle with tweets. And as I’ve discussed on my personal blog a while back, it’s easy to throw out “insightful thoughts” in 140 characters… but if you want me to take them seriously, then follow up and elaborate on them. Don’t just throw out a tweet with one or two buzzwords.

Why do I think this is a problem?

Well, we’re the folks that are always saying how “brands need to stop ignoring social media”, right? But put yourself in the shoes of a brand who is thinking about testing the waters. If they’re on the fence, and they’ve just seen how we all reacted… well, you can bet your bottom dollar we just scared them off, and cost ourselves a future client.

We really, really need to stop doing that.

In the interests of eating my own dog food, I want to point you towards two posts that, I felt, looked at the issue from a constructive point of view.

• Olivier Blanchard over at the BrandBuilder blog took, what I feel, to be the most balanced, pragmatic look at the whole affair that I had seen. I love the way that Olivier acknowledges that Nestle have – gasp – shareholders that they need to report to. This might be a foreign concept to a lot of the social media folk that I’m talking to in this post, but sometimes big brands can’t do whatever they want.
• I also loved this post from Tom Cunniff. It’s my first exposure to his writing, but after reading the post, with its line of “Some of the snarkiest anti-Nestlé voices are from self-appointed social media experts” made it clear that we see eye to eye on a few things.

We need to wise up guys. There’s no point in scaring off our clients by laughing at them when they get it wrong. Let’s offer our help, and show them how to get it right. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a new client out of it.

What do you think? Am I way off base here?

Image credit: friedtoast

There’s an important issue that any organisation needs to take into account when entering into social media, and that’s the effect engaging in social media will have on their employees. It’s dangerous. Why would I say something like that, especially in light of the fact that I offer social media marketing services? Well, I have a reason.

Let’s dive in.

A bit of background…

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: before you start talking to people on social media channels, you first of all need to listen. Listen, listen, listen. There’s a variety of reasons behind this:

• You need to listen to find out where the conversations are taking place that are relevant to you and your brand. After all, there’s no point jumping into a conversation that isn’t relevant to you, is there?
• You need to listen to get the lay of the land. Now, generally all you really need to bear in mind is “don’t be an idiot”, but it’s hard to deny that different social media channels and networks have their own etiquette… so you’re better off learning the unspoken rules before blundering in and breaking them.
• You need to listen to what your customers are talking about. What needs do they have that you can fulfill?

Your employees are going to have to spend time doing this, if you want them to be effective communicators for your brand on social media channels. And this process takes a while. Are you aware of that? Make sure you go into this process knowing that, or it could lead to tension between you and your employee.

And it gets worse…

Once you’re ready to join in the conversations, your employee is going to be interacting with people online. A lot. Because social media is not a one-way street. Once you begin to talk, people will expect you to listen. And part of that listening means letting people know that you hear them. This means that, in most cases (I say most, because there most certainly are the exceptions), but in most cases… it’s not enough to simply push out your marketing messages. You need to take part. This means responding to other people’s interests. It means showing that you’re not only interested in yourself.

And yes. This means that not every interaction your employee will have online during work hours will look – on the surface – to be directly affecting your brand. The problem here is that everything your employee does online will eventually affect the brand. That conversation he just had with that guy online that wasn’t overtly work-related? Yeah, that guy will remember his name. And who he works for. And he’ll make that connection. Not all the time, sure. But it happens.

And this is where things get murky…

… because now we’re entering the realm of personal brands within employees. And it is one tricky, tricky line. The fact is that any company’s strength is its employees. But in the world of social media, that’s taken on a whole new meaning. A company that empowers its employees to build up their personal brands online will always be able to trade off that, and use it to their advantage. As an example of this, when Scott Monty joined Ford as their head of social media, he not only brought with him his insights, but also his personal brand, which he leveraged to Ford’s gain. In his post looking back at his first year at Ford, Scott wrote: “I went so far as to leverage my own personal brand – not because it was convenient, but because I believed so firmly in the direction of the company, and because that’s the network I had build up before I came to Ford. It seemed natural to extend it.”
But yes, this comes with risks, namely:

• What happens if the employee leaves? We’ve just paid them to build up their own personal brand on our time!
• We’re paying them to sit online and talk!

And both of those are valid concerns.

Which is why it’s a dangerous line to walk…

… because, ultimately, it needs to come down to trust. An employer should not charge its employee with the task of engaging in social media on the brand’s behalf unless there is an enormous amount of trust.
Because – if it’s a good employee – when they’re helping someone out online with a question, even if it’s not directly related to your brand… they’re working.
When an employee is building connections and networking with people online, they’re working.
Heck, even when they’re tweeting, they’re working.

Why? Because they’re building connections. They’re creating personal relationships. And these relationships can be leveraged for your business. For example… if you have a new promotion coming up that you’re hoping to spread through social channels: you’re going to have a head start if you can leverage your employee’s social capital. It sounds underhanded, but it’s not. When you employ someone, you’re employing their network. And, if you’re doing things right, that employee should be happy to meld their personal and professional networks. Again, looking back on the Scott Monty reference before, he was happy to leverage his personal brand because he “believed so firmly in the direction of the company”.

But it can’t work without trust. So make sure that you’ve built that up within your company culture before you even think of tasking employees with social media work. Because if you’ve hired good people, and if your employee loves their job and believes in the company, everything they do online will help your business. If you haven’t and they don’t, then they’ll just be using your trust to spend their time on social networks.

And without trust, you’d never know the difference.

So create a culture of trust before asking your employees to enter into social media on the brand’s behalf. It’ll save a lot of heartache and tension later on.

Image credit: chego101

Q: When is a viral video not a viral video?
A: When Tony Richardson says so.

Ok, that may seem a snide comment. But this post over at Mumbrella from Tony Richardson really does seem a denial in the face of reality. While you should visit the Mumbrella post to read the full argument, the executive summary is this:

Coke releases their “Happiness Machine” video, which you can watch below.

Tony Richardson calls it “possibly the lamest viral ever”, as it breaks three “cardinal” rules. In his own words, “Coke broke all three viral rules and probably more. Too much branding, shot too professionally, strange fake story with people who are obviously acting. Then they titled it ‘Happiness Machine’. Ouch.”

The problem with Tony’s stance.

The problem with Tony’s post, as well intentioned as it may be, is that – at the time of writing – Coke’s “Happiness Machine” video has been viewed over 1.3 million times. And, with an average 5 star rating from over 5000 votes, it’s fair to say that the video has been received fairly favourably. So, is it really fair to say that – just because the video breaks rules that “social media video experts” have decided should apply to viral successes – the video itself is not a viral success?

I’m going to claim that the numbers speak for themselves.

The bigger problem.

This post isn’t an attack on Tony; from what I’ve been told the man knows his stuff, and the rules he outlines really are helpful. But I think the post points towards a larger issue within the “digital marketing & social media community”. One that’s bothered me for quite some time now, and one that I’ve mentioned countless times in the past.

We are not the target audience, people.

Within the digital marketing crowd, things can get a bit insular, and we seem to forget that we are not the target audience. By our very profession, we are often not representative of the average user out there that a particular brand is talking to.

Consumers do not care about our so called “viral rules”. They only know what they like.
It’s the reason the “happiness machine” is being shared around. It’s the reason that not every brand needs to run their twitter account according to what “social media experts” may tell them. It’s the reason I cringe when I hear “digital marketing experts” spouting “transparency and engagement commandments” to any and every company, regardless of whether it applies to their vertical or not. It’s also the reason we need to forget about rules.

Don’t go with what “experts” tell you is right. Go with what works.