Social Media

How should employees behave as company representatives on social media platforms?

1. Transparency. Should employees acting as company agents identify themselves? Should they use their own names? Should they list their job title? Should there be specific rules that apply their use of photographs or avatars?
2. Confidentiality. What information are employees allowed to disclose? Is this information already public? If not, does it require specific approvals? Who gives permission for release of non-public information? Is the information of competitive value?
3. Financials. How should employees discuss corporate results or financial situation? This is particularly important for publically traded companies where regulatory agencies are involved.
4. Copyright. How are intellectual property (aka IP) issues to be handled? What are the internal procedures? To whom should employees address their questions?
5. Competitors. Since social media forums tend to be open to the public, how should employees treat competitors and their representatives? Are there specific procedures that they should follow?

Teachers can affect our eternity. In fact, it’s hard to tell where the influence stops, even after all these years. Not every teacher has a profound affect, but most of us remember what it was like in P.E.  My teacher was a short, spunky lady named Mrs. Bruno.  I was a cheerleader in high school (I know, you’d never guess it) and Mrs. Bruno’s leadership took us to many championships. The best teachers teach from the heart and these lessons continue to resonate in my world today.

Here are 7 things I learned from my P.E. Teacher that influence my actions today with Social marketing. See how many resonate with you:

1. “Failure is not fatal. But failure to change might be.” Marketing in the Social era is scary.  Many dealers don’t know what to post on Facebook, or blog, or where to even start.  The best thing to do is begin and fail until you succeed.  Hire a mentor to guide you. Whatever you do, don’t do nothing.  You need to be where your customer is, and that place is Social Media.

2. “If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” I hear many companies shouting, “Buy our product and Social Media will be a snap.”  Don’t believe it.  Social marketing takes hard work, commitment, talent and a budget. There are many obstacles but none that can’t be overcome. Once you’re on the right path, you’ll find your sweet spot.

3. “Enthusiasm is everything.” Social marketing succeeds because we are social animals. Sharing great information with other humans is part of our culture. How big a part does enthusiasm play in your overall business operation? Empower your staff to help create content for your Social channels. An enthusiastic team is contagious. Your customers will catch it and spread the awesome.

4. “Teachers teach more by what they are than but what they say.” The same is true for your store’s brand. It’s not enough to advertise what great prices you have or what awesome service you deliver. Others have to be saying it too. Utilize Social Media to communicate what it is about your store that makes it unique – why people buy from you.  Enlist customers and employees to tell your story.

5. “Never mind what others do. Do better than yourself, beat your own record from day to day, and you’re a success.” I see many businesses who put a lot of weight on how many Facebook fans others have and they judge themselves by that. What matters in Social is to have a highly-engaged audience who want to talk about you to their friends. Keep score on yourself. Set goals and measure your progress. That’s how you succeed in Social marketing.

It’s no longer enough to have a sleek website, social-media presence, and consistent brand aesthetic online. The new rules of branding your business on the Web have a lot less to do with presentation, and a lot more to do with interaction. In order to bring you up to speed, Inc.com has compiled nine of the most innovative and ingenious tips from articles, guides, and interviews in Inc. and Inc.com over the past year. These are the new rules of branding online.

1. Don’t just start the conversation.
Be an integral and evolving part of it. “Social media has one very important perspective to share with brand management—the conversation. Like branding, social media is all about the conversation and building effective relationships. They are perfectly suited to one another,” says Ed Roach, founder of The Brand Experts, a brand management consultancy in West Leamington, Ontario, the author of The Reluctant Salesperson, a free e-book available at http://www.thebrandingexperts.ca. The rules for brand messaging through new media versus traditional channels haven’t changed, but “the game sure got better and more interesting,” says Roach. It’s not enough to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, you must participate in the conversation by making regular posts and replying to direct messages from your customers. Ron Smith, president and founder of S&A’s Cherokee, a public relations and marketing firm in Cary, North Carolina, agrees, adding that you’ll want to stay on top of what people are saying about you and your brand online. “Monitoring social media is a must for all companies. Social media has shortened the time frame for company responses to complaints or accusations. These days, companies need to acknowledge any issues and control the messaging in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days,” says Smith. Read more.

2. Either keep your personal brand out of it…
So you have 10,000 Twitter followers. Does it matter to your customers? Tim Ferriss, the entrepreneur behind the sports nutritional supplements companyBrainQUICKEN and author of The 4-Hour Workweek, told Inc.com contributor John Warrillow: “Unless you’re in one of a handful of businesses like public speaking, I think managing and growing a personal brand can be a huge distraction for company founders. I see all of these entrepreneurs trying to collect Twitter followers, and it reminds me of a matador waving a red flag in front of a bull. In this case, the founders are the bull. The bullfighter moves the flag away, and the bull comes up with nothing but air. Steve Jobs has a personal brand, but it isApple’s product design that makes it such a valuable company. He isn’t jumping onFoursquare to develop his ‘personal brand.'” Read more.

3. …or dive in and make all the headlines you can.
Appearing in the media as a source of expertise can go a long way toward building your brand, Inc.’s April Joyner reports. To gain press, identify media outlets that are most applicable to your particular areas of expertise and send them targeted pitches.

Michael Dell simply gets it.  He understands that businesses can no longer afford to rest on their laurels while the digital bazaar transforms the world around them.  More importantly, however, Dell understands that in order to promote change he must lead by example.  No executive has all the solutions to the many questions surrounding the shifting corporate landscape, but at least Dell isn’t afraid to look for the answers.

Using Dell as our model of forward-thinking leadership, I offer these seven traits of what it takes to be an affective social executive.  Fidelman has expertly identified the traits of those executives unafraid or incapable of changing with the times, but now it’s time to seek out the antidote.

#1 The Malleable Mind

Think of the “Malleable Mind” as the counter to Fidelman’s “Short Sleeve Fat Tie Executive.”  Whereas Fat Tie Execs expect to be sole originators of all ideas, cruelly dictating company agenda from the confines of their office, Malleable Minds value the input of their employees.  They aren’t threatened by change—in fact they’re often excited by it, and actively encourage an environment of new ideas and approaches.  Malleable Minds recognize that employee initiative and collaboration are essential cornerstones of the social business, and they encourage their workers to utilize social media and discuss new ideas that might improve day-to-day operations.  Malleable Minds know that you can’t keep a good idea down for long, and see it as their job to absorb information and help put ideas into motion.

Identifiable Traits – Malleable Minds understand that they’re not the only ones with good ideas.  They are unburdened by ego, actively seek feedback on their own initiatives and welcome the opinions of others.  They understand that respect is earned not through an iron fist, but through and open mind.  They may be the boss, but they do not take their positions for granted.

It’s no longer enough to have a sleek website, social-media presence, and consistent brand aesthetic online. The new rules of branding your business on the Web have a lot less to do with presentation, and a lot more to do with interaction. In order to bring you up to speed, Inc.com has compiled nine of the most innovative and ingenious tips from articles, guides, and interviews in Inc. and Inc.com over the past year. These are the new rules of branding online.

1. Don’t just start the conversation.
Be an integral and evolving part of it. “Social media has one very important perspective to share with brand management—the conversation. Like branding, social media is all about the conversation and building effective relationships. They are perfectly suited to one another,” says Ed Roach, founder of The Brand Experts, a brand management consultancy in West Leamington, Ontario, the author of The Reluctant Salesperson, a free e-book available at http://www.thebrandingexperts.ca. The rules for brand messaging through new media versus traditional channels haven’t changed, but “the game sure got better and more interesting,” says Roach. It’s not enough to have a Facebook page or a Twitter account, you must participate in the conversation by making regular posts and replying to direct messages from your customers. Ron Smith, president and founder of S&A’s Cherokee, a public relations and marketing firm in Cary, North Carolina, agrees, adding that you’ll want to stay on top of what people are saying about you and your brand online. “Monitoring social media is a must for all companies. Social media has shortened the time frame for company responses to complaints or accusations. These days, companies need to acknowledge any issues and control the messaging in a matter of minutes instead of hours or days,” says Smith. Read more.

2. Either keep your personal brand out of it…
So you have 10,000 Twitter followers. Does it matter to your customers? Tim Ferriss, the entrepreneur behind the sports nutritional supplements companyBrainQUICKEN and author of The 4-Hour Workweek, told Inc.com contributor John Warrillow: “Unless you’re in one of a handful of businesses like public speaking, I think managing and growing a personal brand can be a huge distraction for company founders. I see all of these entrepreneurs trying to collect Twitter followers, and it reminds me of a matador waving a red flag in front of a bull. In this case, the founders are the bull. The bullfighter moves the flag away, and the bull comes up with nothing but air. Steve Jobs has a personal brand, but it isApple’s product design that makes it such a valuable company. He isn’t jumping onFoursquare to develop his ‘personal brand.'” Read more.

3. …or dive in and make all the headlines you can.
Appearing in the media as a source of expertise can go a long way toward building your brand, Inc.’s April Joyner reports. To gain press, identify media outlets that are most applicable to your particular areas of expertise and send them targeted pitches.

Every couple of weeks, someone will drop a draft of their company’s social media policy in front of me and ask what I think. In most cases, I am delighted that it’s a draft and not yet published.  These policies are usually riddled with “do not” and “never” and “forbidden” language.  It makes me want to launch a performance art project with actor John Lithgow doing dramatic readings of these clamp-down policies.

Now, John Lithgow has a great, resonate, voice-of-God kind of voice. But I choose him specifically because of his role in one of my favorite cheesy 80s movies, Footloose.  As Reverend Shaw Moore (thanks, IMDB) he kept poor Kevin Bacon and his friends from dancing in their little rural town.

It didn’t work.

I don’t believe that the social media policies that focus on the forbidden work, either.  They aren’t realistic and they give the impression that employees’ judgment is no better than your average first grader’s.

Sun Microsystems took a much saner and smarter route in the Sun Approach to Public Discourse. Here are a few headlines from the policy: Don’t Tell Secrets; Be Respectful; Be Interesting, But Be Honest.

Hill and Knowlton also has a straight-forward approach highlighted in this blog post that focuses on disclosure, ethical actions and other topics pertinent to an agency that conducts social media campaigns on behalf of its clients.

The common denominators in both policies are that they treat people like adults and they accept that employees are going to use the Internet in all sorts of official and unofficial ways.  The policies don’t go all John Lithgow on them and try to put a stop to such nonsense; they give guidance toward doing it well, with integrity and in ways that won’t damage the company, the client or the employee.

And you’d be wise to give guidance to employees. In the Social Media/Networking Usage Trends Report prepared by Travelers, only 25 percent of respondents showed any concern that things that they post online could be damaging to them professionally. Forty-two percent said that they “never post anything that reflects poorly on my employer.” What are the other 58% up to?

I am sure that there are other examples of good social media policies out there, and I’d love to see additional examples. Know of any?

PS:  I have no connection to Sun Microsystems (other than having met the delightful Deirdre Straughan who pointed me to their policy at a Communintelligence event), Hill & Knowlton, John Lithgow or Kevin Bacon.  But if you can put me in touch with John about that project…

Barbara Govednik launched 423 Communication in 2001 to helps its clients tell their stories through freelance writing services, coaching and editing services, and employee communication consulting and implementation. Read Barbara’s Being Well Said Blog.

A colleague recently asked for dos and don’ts in partnering with IT. It is a crucial skill in today’s corporate environment. Partnering with all functions in the organization is important, but IT in particular.

We need IT: we need the technology they deploy, good security, openness to new approaches such as social technology, clear, user-centered choices in technology.

IT needs communication too. They need adoption of new technologies, a clear connection to the business, openness to business process change, help leveraging their great solutions into the culture of the business. They need to be seen as not just a consumer of resources, but also a driver of business. All things we can help them with.

The way we approach partnering with IT professionals can make or break it.

Respect their knowledge and capability. Don’t be dismissive or condescending. They know important information – stuff we don’t know – and their perspective is often a good balance with the communicator’s perspective. It’s not that they “don’t get it,” it’s that the lens they are looking through is a different color. We should, however, seek to enlighten them about the role and value of communication.

Be linear, process-oriented thinkers. To work with them, we must become a little more like them. We must be able to connect the dots in a linear process, see the process breaks and bottlenecks. If we move through processes with them we’ll all see the end game together.

Speak their language. Know the basics, terms and concepts. Be able to converse about these with confidence. Doesn’t mean you have to sit down and code an application. I like being the dumb blonde in the hardware store. Working with my IT partners is no time for the dumb blonde routine.

Define roles and responsibilities clearly. IT has specific responsibility for delivering solutions that meet business needs and requirements. Communication should take responsibility for clearly communicating strategy and requirements, helping IT connect to the business goals, ensuring good change communication during rollout, and securing the change in the culture. Use our different areas of expertise to divide, conquer and succeed.

Think of IT as a client. Collaborate and ensure their success. Make them shine – sometimes IT can serve as a pilot and example to the rest of the organization. Give them positive visibility. Seek solutions, don’t take or give orders.

Communicate ROI and drive the business. What every good IT and communication professional wants to do for their company. We are on the same team and we share many of the same challenges and frustrations. Not being viewed as a strategic business driver or trusted advisor, is just one of them. We can help each other here.

IT isn’t gender specific. IT is becoming increasingly diverse with many women joining the ranks. I’ve seen some of my colleagues refer to the “IT guys,” but it’s no longer just a guy space.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

Here at the IABC World Conference (Twitter tag #IABC09), much of the buzz is about “social media.” First of all, a lot of my clients wrinkle their noses at the term. I’ve started using “social technologies” which is not only more broad and approachable, but also less entertainment sounding. Let’s face it, being able to find the right subject matter expert because of a great internal profile, well, that’s not really “media” is it?

I continue to be amazed at the number of people who are talking about social technologies, but not actually using them. It’s some of these who whine: “my boss won’t let us do this or that.”
Some of these technologies have to be tried to comprehend and strategize, not to mention convince others of their value. So, how can you really do justice to the opportunity and potential if you aren’t playing in the space at all? Jump in and give it a try. Read, comment, blog, make friends – just get a feel for it all.

Once you understand what social technologies can do, ask yourself these questions:

1. What business problem(s) are we trying to solve? (from the perspective of the business or end user)
2. What business goal does this initiative support? How?
3. Who are our stakeholders?
4. What do we want to do with our stakeholders?
5. Do we have executive support?
6. How strong is that executive support?
7. How will executives and other leaders be involved?
8. Who needs to be involved, and can they participate enough from the start to ensure success?
9. Can this initiative start small?
10. Which superstars/rebels can be engaged in a lead role?
11. How well is the organization prepared for the impending cultural and organizational change?
12. What legal issues (e.g., privacy, discovery, retention) exist and how will we address these?

These questions will set you on your way to strategic use of social technologies that will deliver business results, as well as, great new communication channels. So, build some skill first, then get serious.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website.

So we thought it’d be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing.

View Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (pdf)

Many organisations face the challenge of deploying an enterprise social network with limited funds. There just aren’t enough free resources — money, headcount and time — to devote to this important task. If you’re about to assume the role of project champion inside a small or mid-sized organisation, you need to be aware of the many different hats you’ll probably be wearing in the very near future.

My old mentor, David Berlo, used to say “selling is lying when you’re doing it to a teammate.”

His point goes to the heart of a troubling trend emerging from the business world’s current fascination – and struggle – with social media. We’re seeing an unsavory mandate coming from corner offices in companies nationwide. Now that they have this way cool tool called a “blog,” they want to use it to promote corporate messages alongside its intended use as a conversation tool for building relationships.

As blogging experts know, of course, once an organization starts down that path, credibility goes down the toilet. Some companies go so far as to use their blogs for posting news releases. You can imagine the reaction from bloggers to that kind of promotional intrusion? You might as well be wearing a neon sign flashing – propaganda.

So what’s a communicator to do?

It’s All About Conversation
Maybe we can make some inroads by reminding executives of the good old days when one of the main forms of “social media” was – consumer affairs. What? Consumer affairs? What’s that got to do with social media?

Some years back, when I headed up corporate communications at the international food giant, Pet Incorporated, consumer affairs was one of the departments that reported to me. We had about half dozen people who spent their days either answering letters or talking with people on the phone – all different types on lots of different topics. But all of those people had one thing common. They wanted someone to talk with them … to hear their stories and deal with their issues. They certainly did NOT want someone to sell them the company line. We worked hard with our consumer affairs specialists on how to have conversations with people – and we steered them away from spouting corporate propaganda.

Resist the Temptation for Promotion
Of course, there’s one big difference between that kind of socializing with stakeholders and what’s happening in the blogosphere. Today it’s not just one-on-one with a few hundred or even a few thousand people a year by phone and snail mail. It’s about connecting with potentially millions of people – in a matter of days or even hours and minutes.

And therein lies the rub. The allure to violate the implicit social media code to converse rather than promote is just too tempting to resist for many promotionally minded managers.

It’s a classic case of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. They’re going to exploit social media until nothing is left of their credibility but a pile of ruffled feathers. So remember these truths:
1. Only the technology for social media is new, not the concept
2. If you use it for promotion or propaganda, you do so at your peril

Valiant communicators may have to fall on their sword for the cause, but those who stand up against the temptation to abuse social media will avoid the trap of “lying to your teammates” – inside and out.

Les Landes, Landes & Associates

Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement

The World Wide Web is still very much the Wild, Wild West when it comes to setting boundaries and defining rules by which participants play. The implications are huge for companies that embrace the Web as an effective way to communicate with everyone from employees and shareholders to customers and critics.

As more companies use blogs and other new social media to interact with audiences, laws that govern cyberspace are just now being tested. The more cautious organizations are waiting to see how things pan out before jumping into the mayhem.

A few weeks ago, Frank D’Angelo, the president and CEO of Canada’s Steelback Brewery filed a $2 million libel lawsuit against Neate Sager, a popular Canadian sports blogger. D’Angelo says Sager damaged his image and reputation with disparaging comments Sager posted on his blog, “Out of Left Field,” between August 2006 and January 2007.

Sager is also a copy editor at the Ottawa Sun, so he is no stranger to laws governing journalism. Sager used especially strong language to criticize D’Angelo, especially the CEO’s interest in buying the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey franchise. And if anything can cause a serious rift between two people from Canada, it’s hockey.

D’Angelo claims Sager’s comments damaged his reputation and character and that D’Angelo had no opportunity to respond to Sager’s strongly worded claims. Of course, the very nature of a blog allows for readers to respond and Sager claims D’Angelo left no comments on the blog.

We’ll watch with interest to see what the Canadian courts say about all of this, but the episode already has a few lessons about the changing nature of communication at work.

First, bloggers might be more cautious about the language they use. The words Sager used apparently were not obscene — that’s not the point. However, they might have been libelous, charging D’Angelo with acts that Sager might be forced to prove and painting a picture of D’Angelo that might not be legally accurate. In the U.S., our First Amendment has been tested numerous times over the years and our courts have tried to strike a good balance between freedom of expression and the rights of citizens not to be unfairly represented by those who have the ability to publish or broadcast.

In the new world of social media, however, everyone is able to publish or broadcast. You think the kids who post videos on YouTube have received any special training? Or every blogger out there is educated in journalism? Think again. Never before have so many people been so capable of broadcasting their opinions to so many others.

Second, companies might be more reluctant to embrace new social media. More companies are publishing blogs, creating MySpace-type pages and using YouTube to connect with their audiences. But the Steelback case is another reminder that it’s a jungle out there. Companies have less control over the messages — and the media to distribute those messages — than ever before. Anybody out there can put up a Web page or post a video, and until the rules are tested it’s still a risky business to engage audiences in virtual conversations.

New social media hold much potential for changing the nature of corporate communications in a positive way. Until that potential is put through the necessary tests, however, it’s going to be bit messy.

Robert Holland

Comments

Words and phrases including “blog,” “wiki” and even “chat room” make some business leaders nervous. They’re not sure what to make of these new social media. The technology seems mysterious and a bit scary to people who are still trying to find their way around the Internet or figuring out how their BlackBerry works.

If the wild world of online media makes you hyperventilate, relax. Take a deep breath. Despite the hype around Skype, behind the stress caused by RSS, it all comes down to a fundamental process as old as humanity: communication.

What really matters is how well you communicate with employees, customers, shareholders, the community and other important people. The methods you use, while important, are secondary to the quality of communication.

A recent illustration of this principle involves computer maker Dell. Unhappy customers took their complaints about Dell’s products and service to the “blogosphere” – that online place where everyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can share their opinions with the world. Despite the outcry over problems with Dell, which quickly reached hundreds of thousands of people thanks to blogs with names like “Dell Hell,” the company resisted joining the virtual discussion.

Apparently, however, the pressure became too much. A few months ago, Dell created “Direct2Dell,” a blog intended to improve communication with customers about issues ranging from the company’s battery recall to new products. The company’s critics considered the action too little, too late and charged Dell with paying lip service to open communication with customers. On the surface, bloggers said, Dell seemed to be improving communication, but in reality “Direct2Dell” represented more of the company line.

Last week, Dell posted a new “Online Communication Policy” and held a news conference to announce it. The policy, aimed at Dell employees, recognizes the value of online communication tools, lays out expectations of employees who use them and states the company’s commitment to “transparent, ethical and accurate” communication. Translation: no more company PR disguised as real, direct dialogue.

Time will tell if Dell’s policy makes a difference, but for now the bloggers are skeptical. “Dell Hell” creator Jeff Jarvis wrote, “Isn’t it always a company’s policy, in any interaction – by blog, telephone, or letter – to be open and honest?” He wondered if Dell’s 500-word policy might have been boiled down to three words: “Tell the truth.”

What can your company learn from all of this? It doesn’t matter if you choose to communicate through blogs, chat rooms, e-mail or good ol’ face-to-face interaction. What matters is that you communicate honestly and as completely as possible. The latest technology won’t save you if your stakeholders feel you’re not being truthful with them.

It’s the quality of communication that ultimately matters.

Robert Holland

This is quite a list, and worth taking the time to scroll through and check out those that you haven’t seen or used.

If social media consultants are doing their jobs, they should put themselves out of business. I speak as one of their kind. Before joining Fast Company last spring, I was the social media editor at the New York Daily News. So I’ll say it even bolder: At some point, Fast Company should fire me. (Just not too soon, please!)

Your company will never be truly social if you silo social activity within a consultant or a staff manager. To facilitate proliferation, your consultant should learn how your company works, then create a strategy to spread social throughout your organization. But in the meantime, here’s what you should be hearing from your consultant:

1 “What’s your goal?” Some social media gurus think the big prize is community. That’s a fine start, but for a business, it’s also a means to an end–which is whatever your company’s larger goals are, whether they be sales, brand awareness, or traffic. Your social strategy should not end with the creation of an online conversation.

2 “Here’s the ROI.” Consultants may tell you that social investments can’t be justified in a quantifiable way. Wrong. The data is out there. If they want you to spend $75,000 on a Foursquare badge, they should explain how that investment will help you reach your goals.

3 “I don’t care about follower counts.” Companies obsess over how many followers they have, and consultants play to that. But Facebook ads and “Like this page” contests often don’t boost consumer engagement. Rather, you should be courting influencers–trusted insiders with engaged followers (such as bloggers, niche celebrities, or active tweeters), who can help spread your message.

4 “Facebook and Twitter are only a start.” Consultants should know which platforms are best for your businesses. For example, if you are a fashion designer and your consultant isn’t talking about collage platform Polyvore, they’re doing something wrong.

Connecting employees to customers and each other through social media channels is a big new trend, and this infographic highlights some of the best examples. See what Dell, Morton’s, Unisys, KLM and ABC are doing.