Humorous but true: 10 Questions for the Social Media Expert

Case Studies of Social Media – a collection by Peter Kim. [Master list # 3]

SMB companies are finding that they are losing money on social media because it takes much longer than they thought. (see WSJ article)

On B2B Social Marketing: ‘Asked to rate the effectiveness of specific social media sites in their marketing efforts, more than one-half of respondents said that Facebook was “extremely” or “somewhat” effective. Somewhat fewer said the same of LinkedIn, and just 35% considered Twitter effective.’

Bonus: 48 Guerrilla Marketing Tips.

I have clients that like me have a blog here, a website or 3 over there, a twitter account or 2,  a Facebook fan page and personal account, and some other online properties. Whatdo you do with all this online marketing?

Here are the Top 3 Online marketing Assignments

1. Have an overall plan for the entirety of your online marketing.

2. Have a plan of attack for each platform.

3. Execute by scheduling time.

In some ways, all of your online messages should be aimed at one theme. An editorial calendar to let you know that in January you will be talking about this one subject or charity or purpose all month in some way across the online world. In February or in the second quarter, it can be another theme or subject or case study. Or it can be the same one all year long.

Note: You want to be speaking about the same keywords across all platforms to tie you to that keyword. (Usually we call this SEO, search engine optimization).

When you have disparate internet properties – more than 1 domain name for example or you blog on wordpress – you have to find a way to tie the properties together. Maybe it’s a blog roll box, a contact page, an about us page, a where-to-connect box, etc.

Note: This is linking it all together. Your theme based on keyword(s) will tie it all together.

Many companies want to be everything to everybody. That’s fine if you are GM, Subway, Nike, Coke or McDonalds – and have their marketing budget. But you don’t. So the more finely tuned your message is, the better.

The more targeted your message is to a very specific audience, the cheaper and easier it is to market to that niche.

What’s a social media mercenary? Someone you hire to blog, tweet, facebook, or otherwise be your voice on social networks.

I ended up coining this term during a twitter discourse with Jim Alexander (@tweetmaker) about whether or not this practice was good or not, and whether it should be transparent.  The point about social media that I like is that it needs to be both authentic and transparent.

Apparently, many companies hire tweet-makers like Jim to do all of their social media for them. If it is not disclosed, when (not if) it comes out, you will have lost some integrity.

Consumers understand that press releases are written by a firm.  Customer service can be done by an outsourced company – as long as the company is actually delivering service (which today sadly doesn’t happen enough). There are other tasks that can be outsourced.

But the conversation that you have with your customers, the dialog that builds a relationship, should be authentic. And by that I mean, it needs to come from a stakeholder – an employee, an owner, a shareholder, even the owner’s spouse. That’s the voice of the business.

When the CEO hires someone to blog for him, why bother?Just issue press releases. It’s about the same idea. The good blogs from executives offer insight, a story, a look inside, a personal touch. A good example is the Bear on Business blog from Zayo CEO Dan Caruso.

Do you think that Steve Jobs can hire someone to do the Apple presentations? Nope. The Mac-heads would freak out. Their relationship with Apple and Jobs is what gives the company that cult-like feel.

Do you think that Tony Hsieh at Zappos could have outsourced his social media and still built a $1B business?

Dell could probably have outsourced their Outlet twitter sales, but I bet it wouldn’t have worked as well or been tracked as accurately.

Can Rubbermaid outsource its forums and blogs? Probably not because it’s the tone and voice (and continuity) of the blog that keeps readers coming back. They come for the story from the storytellers that they know.

There’s the other side of the coin: companies complain that they don’t do social media because they can’t control the message. How do you control the message by outsourcing it?

I will say that in relationship building, it would be difficult to outsource. And the relationship would be damaged when it comes out that the conversation wasn’t with the manager at company X but their social media mercenary. And it will come out. We live in an age where privacy is disappearing more and more every day. It’s just a matter of time before that brand gets damaged due to a lack of transparency or authenticity.

And for Jim who says that his small business clients can’t find the time: I call bull sh!t. Employees are on social networks all day anyway. As a SM mercenary, my job is to get them all to spend 15 minutes per day on social networks for the good of the company. That’s a little harder than just doing it for them, but you can fish for someone or you can teach them how to fish.  (Of course, there’s more money in just fishing for them).

At the very least, these social media mercenaries need to be transparent. There needs to be a disclaimer that it is the agency not the actual company.

Would you hire someone to go to a business networking event for you? “Hey, Jim, here’s $40, go to the Hotspaces event and meet people for me and collect business cards. Hey, give them my card too.”

Would you hire a stand-in for a cocktail party?  These are the analogies I hear for social networks – cocktail parties and online networking events. How do you substitute?