Confusing Students: What People Learn From Social Media Pros

For all the advice given by social media pros, did you ever wonder how that information is translated by the recipient? I do, every single day. I do, because what is being taught and what is being learned are often two very different things.

To illustrate, I'm paraphrasing a tip list from someone relatively new to social media. He has been following several top social media writers, heard several speak, and read a few books. I don't want to call out the author nor the advisors this time around. The lesson, if any, is meant to serve future speakers, perhaps giving them a glimpse of what people sometimes take away.

What People Learn From Social Media Pros.

• Determine your brand or personal brand and how you want to present yourself online.
• Scan the Web for communities that consist of people you want to reach with your message.
• Join the communities that would be most advantageous for you, even if it is off your site.
• Teach other people in your company to do the same, not just the social media leader.
• Become the image you want to portray and establish a code of conduct you won't break.
• Pay attention to how other people in the community behave and behave like they do.
• Look for people in pain and frustrated to create an immediate meaningful connection.
• Become a more active participant in those communities, saving sales for when they count.
• As you establish authority, introduce value, insight and direction to those you choose to engage.
• Give the people who help you rewards, resolutions, gifts, and shoutouts to increase engagement.
• Earn connections through mutually beneficial collaborations and become advocates for each other.
• Everything you do online should include involvement maps that lead to business objectives.
• Develop programs that make people come back for more and more on a daily basis.
• Become a resource and authority to your community, ensuring they come to you for advice.
• Recognize any contributions and reciprocate, especially among those who are notable.

What do you think? Is this the intent of the instruction? And if not, how do you go about changing it?

I might mention that I've touched on some of these bullet points too, but the echo back is patently strained. I also have some thoughts about how to better align some of them, but it would take considerably more space than a single post.

Any other thoughts I have about this list, I'll include as I have time to address them in future posts. Right now, I'm much more interested in what other communication pros think. If you don't want to leave a comment, drop me an email.

Trusting Companies: Consumers Look To Connect Online

Looking just beyond the drum beat of get social media or die, Siemens Enterprise Communications released a study that consumers are looking to connect with companies via social media platforms. Siemens is a provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure, and security solutions.

Interestingly enough, Siemens says the study shows that both employees and consumers want more social networking, but only about 30 percent of companies are ready to do so. According to the study, one-third do not have any formal policy, do not allow social networking at work, or aren't aware that their company is already being talked about online.

Conversely, despite some reservations about turing social media into a giant ad platform with companies blasting out information, consumers want to find companies online and on social networks where they participate. And, when they do have questions, they increasingly want expert interaction.

Selected Study Highlights From Consumers

• 70 percent of consumers want access to company experts via social media.
• 65 percent say that the online company to customer is a positive experience.
• 59 percent feel company outreach via social media will improve loyalty.
• 50 percent use social media daily or at least a few times every week.

The study may show how far social media and social networking have come since Forrester Research's study two years ago that concluded people don't trust blogs. People are becoming more trusting of the companies they engage online, with that trust clearly dependent on the interaction they provide.

Creating A Social World: Networking 2020

Ask 900 Internet experts about the future of social networks, and its not so surprising that most are bullish on the future. Eighty-five percent say the Internet has mostly been a positive force on their social world in developing personal friendships, marriage and other relationships.

Positive outcomes far outweigh the negative outcomes, according to the new Pew Research Center study: The Future of Online Socializing. The short-term outlook is especially bright, much brighter than the June study that asked the public what they expect to see by the year 2050.

Highlights Show Social Connectivity Makes The World A Better Place.

• The Internet provides a global reach to find people with similar interests.
• Social media has boosted communication, creation, and the cultivation of friendships.
• Many cited personal examples, including meeting their spouses online.
• The continuing press to invent human interfaces, including holographic displays.
• Rapidly expanding bandwidth and security inventions to handle information.
• Trusted storehouses of information that allow for better decision making.

Some of their glimpses into the future are already coming to fruition. Scientists are already to expand their reach through the use of social media. Some nonprofit organizations have increased their ability to raise funds for a fraction of the investment. And in a relatively short time, television will unlikely ever be the same.

Shadows Show Social Connectivity Has An Eventual Dark Side.

Of course, every invention has a darker side, including shallower relationships, time famine, privacy issues, and the self-induced silo effect. On the individual level, they noted a change in how reputations are made, perceived, and remade. On the organizational level, they mean adjusting to the pulse of visible public opinion.

For many experts, privacy tends to be the biggest concern despite their own exhilaration of being able to track public sentiment. Some, not part of the study, freely suggest that paranoia isn't paranoia when someone is attempting to track your every move. Even spookier, perhaps, is the idea that many people willfully give up privacy for the smallest of favors like the moniker of being a virtual mayor.

The Future For The Online Communicator.

We generally lean toward the most optimistic viewpoint, with social media eventually fueling productivity — places that are much more attuned to making mutual progress over mutual popularity. And therein lies the path most firms will be faced with crossing in as little as two years as opposed to ten years.

There are three primary paths currently being employed in social media. One leads toward integrated communication where mass communication is augmented by organic relationships built from mutual respect and validity of ideas.

The second path panders to mutual popularity, which can best be described as a furious back-scratching session of those who hope to propel themselves upward by creating an abundance of shallow relationships based on nothing more than the ownership of cowboy boots.

And the third, of course, is to create the illusion of popularity, buying up friends, followers, and retweets for pennies on the plug.

I don't know about you, but we're stuck on the first one. It takes a little longer to create a following, but the people are real.

Targeting Business Travelers: How Social Is Mobile?

A new survey from Omni Hotels & Resorts found that business travelers ranked adjusting travel plans, making dinner reservations, and hotel check-ins among the applications they use most often during trips. Other activities, such as checking the latest sports scores and looking for the nearest coffee spot, also rated very high.

But what about social? While younger business travelers, ages 25 to 34, update Facebook to keep up with and connect with friends and family (65 percent), the greater demographic tends to be more private, tapping mobile applications for conveniences rather than connections while traveling.

Traveling With Conveniences

• 61 percent say that they surf the Web during travel.
• 49 percent of business travelers would like to pay hotel bills online.
• 48 percent said they they would like to order hotel and outside services.
• 34 percent said they use Skype or other chat services to connect with family.

Traveling With Connections

• 40 percent of business travelers check social networks using hotel WiFi.
• 45 percent of business travelers said they use Twitter during business trips.
• 34 percent of business travelers said they "boast" about trips on Facebook.
• Only 11 percent update frequently during their the entire trip.

Interestingly enough, 70 percent of those who do connect via Twitter and Facebook said that they share positive hotel experiences and incentives such as room upgrades. Sixty-two percent said they are more likely share positive experiences over negative ones.

One specific service mobile users are hoping hotels add is the ability to request hotel car service from the airport. But business travelers are trending toward wanting to make travel easier by accessing every service — ranging from room service to booking lunch — via their mobile phones. In general, mobile tends to be used more for such personal conveniences than personal connections. The survey skewed toward business travelers who stayed in hotels with rates at least $150 per night.

Omni Hotels & Resorts does employ social media incentives designed to encourage consumer promotions. Currently, the hotel chain is offering a 30 percent discount on cocktails to those who tweet about their stay at the hotel. Other incentives include a variety of early adoptive ideas, including 25 percent off a Snapfish photobook.

Closing Out Cows: Final Lessons From A Dead Network

Once upon a time there was an increasingly popular social media network that resembled Twitter. It had a memorable name. It had a lovable mascot. And its member base seemed to have a mission to make it a "Twitter killer."

Truth be told, very few network knock-offs, even with slightly enhanced services, ever have a chance of supplanting popularity. While it may change one day, numbers attract numbers. But even so, we had placed the network on a watch list because the application did have something that Twitter didn't. It had better multimedia functionality.

But then something happened. In September 2008, Utterz changed its name to Utterli. It traded in its mascot for something resembling a Sprite logo. And its members were surprised, and then disgusted, by the lack of communication about the change. It was a disaster and I had no problem calling it as such.

"As much as you might characterize it as a 'disaster,' our customer base has grown substantially since the change - and the growth rate is rising," said Michael Bayer, CEO of Utterli. "That's GREAT! I call that a success."

Bayer went on to say that I was fishing for attention. He said I insulted him. And he insisted that despite community feelings, it was his decision to make. Besides, he implied, my round-up of member feedback wasn't enough. I wasn't a member anyway.

After that, we tracked the steady visitation decline that followed in the six months after its claimed "successful" name change. We almost followed up on the post then too. But it didn't seem worthwhile to re-engage a defensive CEO. So I promptly forgot about it. So did everyone else.

In fact, I hadn't thought about Utterli again until reading Doug Haslam's post that Utterli was dead. In truth, it had died in September 2008. And, almost sadly, a short one-and-a-half years later, Utterli didn't even have time to say goodbye.

As for all those promises that Bayer made about enhancements that would carry the service forward? According to the ByteMonkey Chronicles (which is also credited with the image accompanying today's post), it was very much the opposite. ByteMonkey says even then there was an underlying feeling among the users that the company wasn't quite doing so well.

Lessons For Networks And Participants.

Networks. While seeing what could have been a successful service come and go is never pleasant, there are a few lessons that can be taken away. For network owners, it' simple. I've said it before. Unlike product companies, you are only as successful as your members. And without them, you're nothing.

So abrupt change is bad. Sure, Twitter and Facebook can get away with it nowadays because they've reached a critical mass of sorts with no clear alternatives that support the numbers. But in the case of a brand like Utterz, improper communication with the community is a killer. Never mind what Bayer said in response to my critique on his company's rebranding roll out, the truth was that they didn't do any of it (and if they did, then they did it all wrong).

Add to that knowledge that anything done for investment capital or with the hope of being sold is generally a bad idea until you have the cash in hand. And even then, the guidelines for operating a successful venture after a sale or infusion of cash doesn't replace the community commitment. There are scores of social networks that have failed. And, there are more that will eventually fail or fade away too.

Participants. If you continue to rely on network tactics alone, one day you may find yourself with nothing. As reported by ByteMonkey and Haslam, Utterli isn't just dead. All of the member content and contributions are dead too.

So too is any need for Utterz tips and Utterz tactics that are useless because that community is no more.

In other words, don't fall in love with any network unless you can back up your content. Case study closed.

Looking Forward: Social Migrates To Mobile

Need another reason to keep your eyes on the mobile market? A new study from comScore, Inc. found that 30.8 percent of smart phone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browsers in January.

The number is not static. It's up 8.3 points from 22.5 percent one year ago. And some networks are experiencing even more growth with mobile. Mobile access to Facebook grew 112 percent; Twitter access jumped 347 percent.

"Social media is a natural sweet spot for mobile since mobile devices are at the center of how people communicate with their circle of friends, whether by phone, text, email, or, increasingly, accessing social networking sites via a mobile browser," said Mark Donovan, senior vice president of mobile for comScore.

More than 25.1 million agree. That is the number of people who accessed Facebook from their phone, which means Facebook mobile users surpass MySpace users. Twitter attracted 4.7 million mobile users in January. These numbers do not include mobile consumers who access social network sites through a mobile application.

When combined with another study released by Euro RSCG Worldwide PR today, it underpins the next migration of social nomads. The study might be specific to a small group of teenage girls (ages 13-18), but the numbers are compelling.

• Seventy-eight percent of teenage girls use social media to keep in touch with friends, while three-quarters report being in "constant contact" with friends through texting, Facebook, iChat, AIM or other social media services.

• They show a clear preference for approaching a brand to find out about sales and promotions rather than having the brand approach them. But when they do approach a brand, 40 percent sign up for e-mails.

• Sixty-five percent say when their favorite brand or store has a sale, they want to share the information with friends and family with a preference toward one-on-one communication (texting) over social networks (Facebook and Twitter).

The original release can be found here. Only 100 girls were included.

The trending toward mobile suggests that most social media programs will have to be revamped within two years to include for a greater emphasis in reaching increasingly mobile consumers. Jokes about the product aside, the release of the iPad will likely stimulate an increased emphasis on mobility over sociability as technology gives consumers more flexibility in communicating publicly (one to many) or privately (one one one). Stay tuned.

Integrating Communication: PR-Driven Social Media

There are many ways to integrate social media into organizational communication and any model has a number of variables that would be unique to the organization. However, there is one common denominator. Integration requires thinking different.

In developing a working model to integrate social media into a public relations-driven communication plan*, experience has shown that social media tends to be too cumbersome for most public relations departments (and outside firms) to manage it like another bullet item under the laundry list of services adopted as public relations.

Sure, it can be done. It just doesn't seem to be done well very often.

From our experience, there are several tangible reasons to maintain some separation between the two communication roles as they work in tandem. First and foremost, social media, which mostly consists of two-way direct to public communication, tends to drive public relations away from its core function and world view. The result tends to produce one-way broadcast (spam) communication across social channels, customers being pushed off for lack of "influence," and time management issues related to the ratio of customers/bloggers as opposed to journalists.

*We'll cover other industry-driven models in the weeks ahead.

A Public Relations-Driven Social Media Model

The above illustration isn't theoretical. It was applied to a producer-managed theatrical release and build up to the home distribution release of an independent film by Sony. (For the purposes of post, we've removed the management paths which placed our role over five public relations firms while managing all aspects of the social media program).

In this model, public relations manages the public relations functions and social media manages social media functions, with some obvious areas for crossover communication. For simplicity, I'll break each team's role down to primary functions and then reinforce some shared functions.

Public Relations.

• Managing media relations, which includes press releases, interview pitches, and demonstrations. The function is designed to generate increased exposure. It's mostly one-way communication with journalists vetting information, tailoring content to meet the needs of their readers, and writing opinion-editorial pieces.

• Public outreach, which includes programs and communication materials for special publics (e.g., associations, special interest groups, unions, etc.) as well as direct to public communication and/or publicity. It's mostly one-way communication, with either group leaders informing members or the public receiving information.

• Blogger outreach, which includes either adding popular bloggers within the media relations mix or working with bloggers who have been referred by the social media team because they have special needs that are similar to journalists (such as requesting specific interviews, etc.).

Social Media.

• Maintain, manage, and promote the organization's blog. This may include market intelligence (which is shared with the public relations team), but primarily consists of content development and content distribution that adds value for customers. While blogs are presentation oriented, they do provide for two-way communication.

• Maintain, manage, and develop the organization's social networks. This includes online programs and information sharing that nurtures true engagement and two-way communication in real time. It may also include identifying forums beyond popular social networks where people ask questions that need to be answered. And, in this model, we allowed for advertising support specifically designed to drive customers toward networks where they can be engaged.

• Blogger outreach occurs directly and indirectly as bloggers may source content from the organization's blog or develop relationships with the social media team via any number of social networks. The benefit for the public relations team is that a social media team can determine which bloggers have information requests or require support more like a journalist.

Shared Functions.

• Blogger outreach, as mentioned above, works best with a public relations driven communication plan when the function is shared by public relations and social media. In effect, this approach allows the social media team to meet the daily needs (and recognition) of bloggers while referring bloggers with special needs (such as an interview request) to the public relations team.

• Since social media is its own environment, communication tends to be fluid. Journalists don't alway find stories via press releases or pitches. Story ideas and angles might develop from reading industry blogs, reading the organization's blog, or because most journalists are also members of various social networks.

• Research is also a shared function of both teams. While public relations has an obligation to track and analyze trends within specific markets, publics, or industries, social media professionals also track and analyze trends and sentiment via networks, blogs, and search engines.

Model Summation.

In summation, this model represents an approach to communication that allows for a series of direct and indirect one-way and two-way communication streams and engagement opportunities. The end result of an integrated strategy, assuming the communication is consistent, allows for a message to reach the public from multiple sources, provide multiple opportunities to verify or validate that message, and encourages direct engagement for the long term.

This is a much more powerful approach than traditional public relations models, especially in regard to media relations. Traditionally, companies relied on their brand, the reputation/relationship of their public relations firm, and the objective or biased reporting of a journalist to reach the public. If mistrust occurred at any point in this linear stream, the organization could be damaged for the life of the story or, in some cases, permanently.

I might add that there is a reason I did not add clear management paths to the model. The reason is simple. Social media fits differently for different companies. In this model, social media could maintain its own autonomous distinction, report to marketing, public relations (provided public relations affords the social media team some autonomy as the functions are largely different), or a more complicated model such as the one we worked on last year.

Tossing Salads: Carl's Jr.

"We're just trying to bring all those people into the fold and allow them to have one-on-one time with Kim." — Brad Rosenberg.

That was how Rosenberg, manager for digital strategy and marketing at Carl's Jr., explained the continuing evolution of Kim Kardashian, a socialite best known for her E! reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, as an online spokesperson for its Facebook page.

Except, this time around, Carl's Jr. wasn't looking for 1.9 million YouTube views. It was looking for sales. Customers could only ask questions during the live Facebook "event" with an access code if they purchased a Carl's Jr. salad.

Carl's Jr. says that the premiere event drew 16,000 people who logged on with the code. However, Carl's Jr. also released the code on its Facebook page, allowing more people to ask questions, which precludes the idea that it sold 16,000 salads.

Interestingly enough, capturing some one-on-one time with Kardashian isn't impossible without a salad anyway. Part of her allure is her online presence. You can connect with her on Twitter or read her blog. In fact, most people know you might have better luck reaching her online when 16,000 people aren't vying for her attention over an online lunch date.

Can online personalities attract interest at online events?

It raises an interesting question for traditional agencies attempting to add online personalities into their marketing mix. It makes sense that Kardashian fans would view a new Carl's Jr. commercial. It makes sense that they might like to meet her in person at a Carl's Jr. location. But is there any appeal in connecting with her online when people can already connect to her online?

Unless there is an additional exclusivity hook — such as vetting the "engagement bet" like she did on her blog — it's hard to fathom. In fact, it's more likely Carl's Jr. is introducing Kardashian to its 80,000 Facebook fans (733 of which confirmed their attendance to the first event).

The low response rate is coupled with only about 100 comments on the lunch date tab. Those comments are mixed. They range from Kardashian fans (I love your show) and Carl's Jr. fans (who is she?) to anti-sex comments (love the food, hate the sex ads) and uncensored vulgarity (you'll have to look some of those up yourself).

All in all, it doesn't seem to add up well. While Kardashian is apparently cool online, it doesn't make Carl's Jr. cool to host an event on a network where fans already have access. Much more valuable is simply owning some of her social media real estate, which Carl's Jr. already does.

Carl's Jr. will have to work harder than that to make up for entering social media relatively late in the game. It also seems less likely selling sex won't have as much power for the chain as it did in the mainstream media.

Why? Agencies used sex as a cheap and least creative way to cut through the interruption clutter via mainstream media. It tended to work for Carl's Jr. as part of its brand without ever being perverse (as Burger King comes across).

However, online is different. People tend to look for what they want. And most people don't look for sex when they want a salad or a salad when they want sex. That doesn't mean Kardashian is a bad pick for Carl's Jr. It only means they don't seem to have an agency that can make it really work for them. At least, not yet.

Beginning 2010: The Year Of Integration

One of the most common questions asked by communicators is who should own social media? And, there are all sorts of answers.

Advertising. CRM. Marketing. Public Relations. Social Media Experts. Human Resources. Yadda. Yadda.

Social Media Requires Thinking Different.

I've long held the view that nobody owns social media. Or, perhaps more accurately, everyone does. It requires integrated communication.

The reason is simple enough. Social media represents people and technologies that exist in an online environment. The actions and conversations that take place in this online environment are not limited to traditional communication silos (departmentalized communication functions such as advertising, marketing, etc.).

If it was limited to traditional silos, social media programs would be easy. We could assign social media to a single silo and call it a day.

That's all fine and good until you realize that your copywriter is fielding media inquiries or your public relations professional is producing a video or your employees are irritated because answering customer complaints interferes with playing Farmville on Facebook at home. Or any number of other problems people have asked us to fix over the last few years.

While the graphic above is only a sketch, it demonstrates how strategically driven thinking can help reshape a social media program away from the common view, allowing advertising to produce presentations (videos, advertisements, platform design, creative campaigns, etc.), public relations to manage outreach (groups, media relations, public sentiment, etc. ), and social media consultants to engage consumers (via networks, analytics, forums, blogs, etc.). And even if different elements are assigned to different skill sets, we can probably conclude that there will be some overlap.

The real problem seems to be that nobody can honestly answer "who should own social media?" before the organization has answered "how does social media fit into our communication strategy?"

For example, the question should never be "which department will manage Twitter" as much as it ought to be "does Twitter fit within our strategy, how does it fit and what do we want to accomplish, and who is best suited to accomplish it?" Ask that series of questions and you'll likely draw different conclusion.

Who knows? Maybe you'll find that you have several accounts, some operated by individuals, one staffed by customer service, and one developing relationships with analysts, journalists, and bloggers. Or maybe you'll find that you don't need a Twitter account at all.

Over the next few weeks, we'll share a few organizational models for social media. That doesn't mean any of those models will work for everyone. The reality is that most organizations have very different traditional communication models so it stands to reason any social media program would be handled differently anyway.

In the meantime, take a look at David Fleet's The 2010 Social Media Marketing Ecosystem. I'm not fond of technology-driven flowcharts supplanting communication models nor do I think corporate Web sites need to be placed front and center.

However, Fleet is one of the very few who is moving in the right direction as we've found his type of flowchart is among the easiest for decision makers to understand. It also helps shift the conversation away from ownership and toward strategic development.

Retiring A Deck: Social Media For Strategic Communication

Since my first presentation on social media in 2005, it didn't take long to appreciate that the entire communication field is a moving target. So I've made it a point to periodically retire the decks I've used at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in order to avoid having to teach the same class twice.

Integrating Social Media

View more presentations from Richard Becker.

This version of Social Media For Strategic Communication evolved into 100 slides as the backdrop of a 3-hour open conversation. It was followed with a 3-hour live session, which allowed more flexibility in pinpointing specific applications.

Highlights From A Near Dead Deck

• Slides 1-10: Social Media. Every social media class begins with a working definition of social media, even if the participants are familiar with the term. I prefer the simplest definitions, which makes it easier to understand the complexities of what happens within this environment.

• Slides 11-14: Demographics. This year, more than any other, it seemed important to dispel the myth that Gen Y owns the Internet. The fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population consists of people over the age of 50. Another conversation point that has evolved this year is understanding that while everyone is on the net, not every demographic participates in every network.

• Slides 15-41: Media History. While many participants are surprised how much time I spend on the historic context of media, I've always considered it important to dispel the myth that such a change in communication in new. It's not. The only thing new is the medium and the accelerating speed of adoption.

• Slides 42-47: Declining Media. Some people might consider it stating the obvious, but the rapid uptake of communication on the Internet and decline of traditional distribution models remains a relevant part of the conversation. The additional communication point that has surfaced this year is how increased amounts of information will likely lead to a resurgence of objective content sources.

• Slides 48-64: Applying Tactics. Since almost every class includes people with varied exposure, I do dedicate some time to sharing practical knowledge beyond the conceptual models. This section also included four very different accounts, which allowed me to illustrate how social media is largely situational to each organization.

• Slides 65-73: Social Networks. With the addition of the live session, I didn't include new content within this section, which was originally created in spring. It's important to note that the numbers have changed considerably. BlogCatalog has added 40,000 members since the original slide was created.

• Slides 74-81: Content And Discovery Again, with the ability to offer live session examples, I spent less time on this section, preferring to underscore that the social media environment allows tremendous flexibility in sharing content from the ability to condense our portfolio into a Flickr presentation (and iPhone presentation) to the success story of Does It Blend.

• Slides 82-100: Changing The World While the slides were essentially lifted from our Shaping Public Opinion presentation earlier in the year, walking participants through a Bloggers Unite campaign proves extremely useful in illustrating that communication is fluid and how to better integrate crowd-sourcing (participation input) while providing guidelines that still allow for some sense of a managed communication plan.

What Might The Next Deck Look Like?

Since every deck I develop is tailored to meet the objectives of specific audiences, there might be any number of solutions for 2010. However, it seems increasingly obvious that presentations with case studies and panels, while still important, will be breaking away toward conceptual modeling that spans multiple disciplines and multiple destinations.

I'll be sharing one of those conceptual models tomorrow as an extension of last week's Rushing The Net: Public Relations post. The model illustrates why so many companies are developing limited connections that revolve almost exclusively around their products while the online environment is much more valuable as a means to eliminate degrees of separation.

Other topics I'm especially interested in pursuing in the near future include the loss of content objectiveness in the media, the advent of portable content experiences as they apply to radio, the application of our measurement model on a specific campaign (we're waiting on numbers), and next year's pendulum swing that will place a greater emphasis on expertise over popularity.

The latter will include a comprehensive research study we commissioned with a deliverable on or around SXSW, pending my increased travel schedule that is shaping up to include London, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., among others.

Reaching Mainstream: Social Media And Social Networking

Palo Alto Networks released a new study that pinpoints just how much social media, social networking, and collaborative Internet applications for business has increased in the last six months. What makes the study unique is that it considers organizational usage as a significant measure in determining adoption.

Highlights From The Palo Alto Networks Study

• Twitter session usage grew more than 250 percent since April 2009.
• Facebook usage increased by 192 percent, surpassing Yahoo! IM and AIM.
• SharePoint collaboration increased bandwidth usage 17-fold since April.
• Blogs and wiki posting increased by a factor of 39, with bandwidth increasing by 48.

The study also shows that there is an substantial increase in adoption all applications that are collaborative in nature (social media and social networks) for personal and business use. While employees are likely to use these tools for personal reasons, they also use them to increase business productively. The continued crossover suggests companies increase employee eduction on the subject of balancing authenticity and transparency.

Key Applications To Watch In 2010

• SharePoint grew by 48 percent in usage, compared to Oracle Collaboration Suite and IBM Lotus Notes, which only increased 11 and 12 percent respectively.
• Twitter, despite being limited to 140 characters, experienced a 775 percent increase in bandwidth usage, accounting for more than 184 MB of information per organization.
• LinkedIn was adopted by 89 percent of the organizations surveyed, but bandwidth and usage per organization has declined 42 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
• Facebook Chat, while released in April 2008, has become more widely used than Yahoo! IM and AIM (within the survey sample).
• Blogging by organizations has increased in usage from 22 percent to 51 percent in since April 2009.

The study cites The McKinsey Report on Web 2.0, which reveals that 69 percent of companies have gained measurable benefits in innovation, effective marketing, and better access to information. All of these benefits have lead to lower costs and higher revenues.

It also cites a report from AIIM, which also concluded that the top three business benefits cited by organizations include: knowledge sharing, information gathering, and the increased speed of communication delivery.

You can find the full report, which also addresses security issues, here. Palo Alto Networks specializes in next-generation firewalls.

Based on the Revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle, social media and social networking seems to be well over the mainstream curve with the late majority struggling to catch up. Anymore, organizations without any online presence will likely be left behind.

Dominating Display Ads: U.K. Online Spending

Telecommunications companies in the United Kingdom take social networks seriously, according to a new study by comScore, Inc. which revealed social networking sites accounted for 13.8 billion display ad impressions in August 2009. The study also showed that while display ads skew toward younger audiences, advertisers are marketing to every age group.

Display Ad, Demographic Targeting

• Ages 15-24 29.0%
• Ages 25-34 22.3%
• Ages 35-44 21.1%
• Ages 45-54 15.9%
• Ages 55+ 11.7%

"[This] data suggests that every demographic segment is reached via social networking sites and that no particular age segment accounts for an overwhelming percentage of ads delivered," said Mike Read, comScore managing director, Europe. "Given the overall reach and volume of ads delivered on social networking sites, brand advertisers who ignore this channel may be missing a significant opportunity and enabling their competitors to gain a dominant share of voice in the channel."

While the study was confined to the United Kingdom, it does reveal which industries are placing their faith in social networks. Beyond the study, our research shows entertainment and travel are particularly well suited to content delivery, which allows these segments to rely on display ads less while still benefiting from significant reach via groups and fan pages.

The dominance by telecommunications mirrors major media spending reports, according to Brandweek. The The Nielsen Co. recently released a study that shows marketers in telecommunications were among the handful of industries to spend more on advertising in the first eight months of 2009 then they did in the same period in 2008. Fast food, insurance, lending, and cable/satellite companies also spent more on advertising.

Building A Better Display Ad

For all the increased investment in display ads, some companies still struggle with the medium. One of the most common mistakes marketers make is relying on logo dominant display ads as opposed to ads that make rational, emotional, or visceral appeal. Instead, too many are still stuck on attention-grabbing intrusive visuals with "click here" demands.

The second most common mistake is choosing an appropriate landing page once consumers do click on the advertisement. Most marketers attempt to drive social network participants to a sales page or static Web site as opposed to a social media site or social network page that is better suited to the medium. Online, the more effective solution is to drive consumers to a point of engagement.

For example, Flip Video, which is currently running a display ad on Facebook, drives consumers to a Facebook fan page, which includes uncensored consumer testimonials and product displays. For Flip Video, the tactic makes more sense than driving consumers directly to the store or pitch page.

So what does all this mean? The best marketers are investing more in a recession, investing more online, and investing in social media programs that integrate well with traditional and new media. Is it any wonder more companies have made social media part of the mix? Not really.

Searching Over Socializing: People Online

Chitika, an online ad network, broke down more than 123 million impressions across a 60,000+ publisher network to determine that search engines remain the primary method for people to find information online. The study is signifiant given predictions that social networks — driven by friend referrals — would eventually replace search engines.

Search engines currently provide 97.82 percent of all referrals while social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Digg accounted for only .55 percent of all referrals. Of those, StumbleUpon (and not the more commonly talked about sites) captured more than half of those referrals.

Top Search Engine Referrals

Google — 76.13 percent
Yahoo — 7.34 percent
Bing — 5.2 percent
AOL — 1.24 percent
Ask — .84 percent

Top Social Network Referrals

StumbleUpon — (#6) .27 percent
Facebook — (#17) .06 percent
Digg — (#27) .04 percent
Bukisa — (#31) .04 percent
LuyenChong — (#39) .03 percent
Twitter — (#44) .02 percent

What It Means For Communication

Currently, most new entrants, especially public relations professionals, tend to favor recommending social networks for their clients' entrance into social media. Many of them do so because it is relatively easy to build a network of hundreds or thousands on these networks (assuming they know what they are doing).

Unfortunately, for many companies (not all companies), relying on social networks does not help the company increase its reach. Instead, social networks tend to build groups with varied degrees of engagement — weak when managed by anyone and stronger when managed by professionals or personalities that have an affinity for real time communication.

As it turns out, the expense is often at the consideration of a blog, which is much better suited for developing subject matter expertise and search engine dominance (especially over Web sites). Or, as often is the case, public relations professionals may be recommending the wrong social networks, making decisions based on media popularity as opposed to actual customer presence.

Social Media Development Consideration

Companies that are deciding how to develop social media programs are always better advised to be conducting research (quantified and qualified over Google alerts alone), determining what potential communication assets they may have, and setting clearly defined and measurable objectives. Not considering these steps could potentially derail a program or cause a company to invest resources in the wrong areas first.

For example, I have to give the Frontier Girl Scouts in-house marketing team props for discovering their scouts were much more inclined to engage on MySpace before launching any program. Facebook, where many would assume the girls participated, was much more used by volunteer leaders and funders. (Many experts I know would have assumed Facebook and Twitter were the best networks to engage.)

While the organization doesn't benefit from a blog (to capture secondary search terms and establish a better Web presence) that could help increase member recruitment, the objective is confined to sharing news for funders and leadership skills for volunteers. It's a better than average start.

Social Media Program Conclusion

While all social media programs are situational with no single solution being a catch all for all organizations, the Chitika study goes a long way in demonstrating why social media programs can benefit from blogs, which are best suited for search engines.

Social networks, on the other hand, cannot be dismissed. They tend to be best suited for community development driven by willing advocates (assuming the professionals handling the accounts aren't out friending everyone), unless there is another objective all together.

For example, my own purpose for Twitter is simply to stay connected with and communicate with colleagues within the communication field. Facebook is mostly personal. Linkedin is mostly professional. And so on. How about you?

Considering Effectiveness: Face-To-Face vs. Technology?

According to a new survey conducted by J. Spargo & Associates, Inc., meeting planners believe that technology cannot replace specific benefits related to face-to-face meetings. However, based upon the six benefits meeting planners said cannot be replaced by technology, those surveyed demonstrate that while they are right in general, their conclusions only demonstrate they may not be using technology to its full potential.

What Meeting Planners Said Technology Cannot Replace

1. Socializing and networking spontaneously. Half True. Social networks do provide a social outlet and spontaneous networking built around topical interests and an opportunity to learn more about people on a social basis. However, face-to-face does provide an opportunity for participants to experience something beyond other connection points. Where social networks win out is in the ability to establish more consistent engagement.

2. Helping attendees best put names with faces. False. Actually, social networks and blogs that include accurate photos and full names can be more powerful than meetings. Anyone who has attended any conference consisting of social network participants and bloggers know that when they meet face-to-face, social networking not only makes people immediately recognizable, there is an immediate connection that would require dozens of face-to-face meetings to establish.

3. Allowing more free and open dialogue between attendees and vendors/presenters. Half True. Social networks and blogging can create a free and open dialogue between attendees and vendors/presenters, particularly on networks like Facebook. Where face-to-face might win is often in the depth of the conversation and provide the ability to enjoy a private and candid dialogue (assuming someone won't post it later).

4. Training effectively via live and personal interaction. False. While face-to-face can provide an effective arena for training via live and personal interaction for some skill sets, Webinars and online presentations have come a long way and sometimes provide better retention as the formats require more focus.

5. Paying greater attention to others when face-to-face. False. As mentioned, Webinars and online training can provide more focus on the material being presented as opposed to conducting meetings where note passing/texting/breaks often become more important than the material. Online meetings eliminate the emphasis we place on body language.

6. Engaging in real-time conversation that is not interrupted by technical glitches. False. Anyone who has spoken in enough forums knows that face-to-face meetings that include any audio-visual component have an equal opportunity to be set back by technological glitches. It's why most people never speak unless they have a contingency plan.

Technology And Face-To-Face Work In Tandem

There seems to be ample discussion that centers around the concept that face-to-face and technology can operate independently of one another. On the contrary, they tend to work best in tandem. Here are six examples:

1. Face-to-face provides a greater opportunity to establish corporate culture, with technology providing a means to reinforce it.

2. Face-to-face provides a greater opportunity to conduct impromptu gatherings after structured events to discuss what was learned, and technology (instant message services like Twitter) can be used to help facilitate it.

3. Face-to-face clearly provides a better venue to communicate change, deliver bad news, and provide meaningful recognition, with technology allows such information to recapped, defined in depth, or shard beyond the face-to-face audience.

4. Face-to-face deepens relationships in that online relationships, even those that seem intense, are sometimes turned on/off as easily as a television program. Conversely, as noted, technology increases the opportunity for engagement between such meetings.

5. Face-to-face provides a 360-degree view of how people interact whereas technology tends to provide a glimpse of how people think. Both are equally important.

6. Face-to-face education can provide some tactile advantages in teaching someone how to do something whereas technology provides an ability to review specific sections of the material over and over again. Sometimes, it takes less time.

I always chuckle when someone runs in to me someplace and then follows up with a note that says it was great to see me in "real life" as if online communication is somehow artificial. As communicators, we can serve our clientele better by looking at how to bridge face-to-face and online communication rather than think the two streams somehow work against each other.

Harvard Business Publishing recently released an update entitled "Creating and Sustaining a Winning Culture" by Paul Meehan, Darrell Rigby, and Paul Rogers. In the article, the authors use Sydney, Australia–based St. George Bank as an example, the CEO broke down departmental silos by bringing executives together to jointly define a new culture and then allowed the executives to drive that message into the organization with a singular voice.

Considering this example of effective culture building as it relates to face-to-face meetings vs. technology provides an opportunity to chart an effective approach using both. Had it been available, St. George Bank could have defined the message after face-to-face meetings, allowed the executives to deliver the message, reinforced these messages via online internal and external communication channels, and encouraged cross-departmental interaction.

Turning Channels: Consumers Choose The Internet

If you're looking for more evidence that social media needs to be part of any communication plan, consider that social media is mainstream for more than 90 percent of all Americans. In fact, according to Forrester Research, four in five Americans use a social media platform at least once a month. More than half gravitate to services like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

The Big Picture, By The Numbers

According to Forrester Research, adults over the age of 34 increased their participation in social networks by more than 60 percent. Older audiences have also adopted social media, with 70 percent of online adults ages 55 and older using social media tools at least once a month (26 percent use social networks and 12 percent create social content). Here are more numbers to reinforce the Forrester survey...

• As reported by USA Today, 250 million people are now members of Facebook, spending 13.9 billion minutes on the social network.

• About 30 million Facebook members already access social networks through mobile devices. ad:tech estimates mobile marketing is expected to grow over $24 billion worldwide in 2013 from $1.8 billion in 2007.

• According to comScore, Twitter users spend 66 percent more dollars on the Internet than non-Twitter users. They invested 300 million minutes on the site in April.

• LinkedIn has more than 365,000 company profiles. More than 12 million small business professionals are members of LinkedIn.

• More than 1 million small businesses and individuals promote their goods and services on MySpace. This is despite its steady decline in usage.

• The fastest-growing segment on the Internet is over 35, representing more purchasing power than any single traditional medium can deliver on its own. Even television is being outpaced by the Internet in terms of time invested, which is why most networks are migrating online.

Digital Media, By The Numbers

According to comScore, 158 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during this month, making it the largest viewing audience to date. More than 21.4 billion videos were viewed.

• 81 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

• The average online video viewer watched 500 minutes of video, or 8.3 hours.

• 120.3 million viewers watched 8.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (74.1 videos per viewer).

• 48.2 million viewers watched 518.6 million videos on MySpace.com (10.8 videos per viewer).

What It Means For Businesses

Forrester Research has been a long-time proponent of integrated marketing approaches, conducting several studies that indicate traditional media's broken business model and fragmented audiences have disrupted traditional strategies. But beyond typically measured growth trends — numbers of members and time spent online — there are several key trends companies will have to consider as they integrate social media into the mix. Here are five:

• The average person will only follow or support a finite number of products and companies, making the social media program just as important as the product. People do not want constant updates as much as they want added value and original content.

• While the largest services — Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace — are current darlings, several social networks have sparked and then sputtered as policies change, services change, and companies are bought out. The social media space is constantly changing, making long-term strategy more important than short-term tactics.

• The chances that customers will seek out companies, products, or services on social networks is remarkably slim. Agencies and public relations firms that attempt to bill friends and followers as the ultimate measure are short-selling clients as many people join groups or follow companies and promptly ignore them. Measurement doesn't end with a connection.

• Media-Internet convergence means an increased need to consider mobile marketing. With new portable products coming online in the months ahead from Apple and others attempting to follow them, every company ought to be thinking about digital content not based on singular devices (phones, computers, etc.), but based on scalability and portability.

• Companies that engage people online have already seen an average increase in revenue by 18 percent, while those that did not saw a decline in revenue by 6 percent over the last year. Eventually, companies that ignore social media tools will fade away, much like those that didn't adopt the telephone years and years ago.

Going Green: Free Iran

While most people have heard that social media has played a role in the post-election results in Iran, the consequences of immediate communication and online conversation have an impact that is equally compelling to on-the-ground coverage.

While Valeria Maltoni sees the potential for crowdsourcing to surpass CNN news (it can), we also see it as an interesting division. Whereas traditional media has been tending to cover the sentiment of the elected, social media tends to reveal the sentiment of those who elect. And that is making the elected take notice.

Mass Influence Over Influencers

Even in the United States, President Obama has been compelled to step up his stance on Iran. Originally, he hoped to avoid commenting about the democratic process of Iran over concern for future diplomacy with a country known to be developing a nuclear program and backing militant organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. However, his initial hands-off stance had been largely viewed as timid and unrepresentative.

Yesterday, that changed. President Obama, who now says he was moved by the protest images, has called for an end to the violence while advising those who govern that they ought to lead by consent over coercion.

It's equally likely he wasn't moved on his own. Overwhelmingly, Americans have helped make the Iranian elections two of the top ten stories on the Internet — the election itself and the State Department asking Twitter to hold off on scheduled maintenance in order to ensure real-time citizen reporting.

News that used to die in a day isn't so easily forgotten. People all over the world want resolution.

BloggersUnite Hosts Spontaneous Event

BloggersUnite.org, which is a nonprofit platform that encourages bloggers to do good and raise social awareness, has launched an initiative that asks bloggers and network participants to use their blogs and accounts to do exactly that. They are asking bloggers and network members to continue their efforts, drawing even more awareness to the Iranian election and related atrocities in Iran through June 29.

“When we host organized campaigns, they are usually 90 days in the making,” said Antony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com and founder of BloggersUnite.org. “This time, the crisis is now, the need for action is now, the initiative is now.”

The event has already received praise by Amnesty International USA, which has its own action page condemning the violence and repression over the elections. Amnesty International says it is important for people to keep Iran in the public spotlight until it ends restrictions on freedom of expression and association, which includes the freedom to receive and impart information and ideas.

Bloggers and members of the media are asked to contribute to the Bloggers Unite for a Free Iran campaign by making it a dominant social media issue once again on June 29. Others are asked to participate by leaving supportive comments on participating blogs, sharing links to posts about this important effort, and/or by turning all avatars green in honor of the campaign. Bloggers who have already posted on the subject are asked to add their links to the BloggersUnite.org event page and post again on June 29.

Managing Messages: Seven Fs

One of the best contributions Joanna Blockey, ABC, a communication specialist for Southwest Gas Corporation, lends to my class every year is the seven Fs of employee communication. I found myself thinking about them yesterday as they related to the Twitter misfire and other communication failures in social media.

While some people might wonder what social networks could possibly learn from employee relations, it seems clear enough to me. Participants engaged in a social network develop a sense of community. And, like any community, they aren't just users, customers, consumers, or participants (even if we use those words as descriptors). They are stakeholders. They are much more closely aligned to employees or residents or investors than loosely connected customers casually using a service. (Even if they use it for free.)

Social network members shape the communities in which they participate.

They invite people to join. They promote the network. They keep people engaged. They drive the conversations. They report the violations. They develop unique ways to expand the intended services. They make investments. And, they deserve the same seven Fs that Blockey prescribes for internal communication.

1. First. Be the source of information for your community. Report any news first.

2. Fast. Respond to feedback quickly, effectively, and in a timely manner. Share information fast.

3. Fair. Not all news is good news, but even bad news can be fair. Empathy remains one of most often missed ingredients in communication.

4. Focused. Attempting to sidestep pressing issues in favor of the frivolous is not much different than AstroTurf. Communication deserves to be prioritized.

5. Friendly. Sarcasm is sometimes warranted, but mean-spirited personal attacks never resonate. It doesn't resonate with those attacked nor anyone watching.

6. Factual. Make sure the information is factual. Sure, sometimes things change, but they tend to change less when facts are reported in the first place.

7. Follow Up. Communication is warranted until the stakeholders are satisfied. If they have more questions, answer them and offer time lines for updates.

This might seem overly simple to some, but the fundamentals are sound. After all, whether you call them tribes or communities or online customers, they don't follow as much as they develop relationships that some even define "like a family."

Killing Community: Graham Langdon, Entrecard

Graham Langdon, self-described as a 23-year-old college drop out intent on making money, has it all figured out. In 2007, he adopted the business model originally developed by BlogRush, which is best described as a defunct throwback to “Web 1.0″ affiliate schemes.

His solution was to develop Entrecard, which was originally a free "business card" ad swap network based on a credit system. The model has recently undergone dramatic changes after several failed attempts to secure venture capitalist funding and no takers when he attempted to dump the company for $100,000. (Several buyers told me the latter was more of a publicity stunt to establish equity than a serious intent to sell.)

The new model attempts to monetize what once was a free service by exchanging the credit system with real currency, and with Entrecard keeping 25 percent on the blogger's side of the transaction. Ever since, not all has been well in the land of Entrecard.

Trading community in for cash.

If there was any reason Entrecard survived BlogRush, it was because, just below the surface of what seemed to be a junk traffic site, there was some semblance of niche communities, especially among mommy bloggers and craft blogs and personal bloggers. No "A list" bloggers, mind you, just regular people who blog.

The new cash model trades down that community, because advertisers do not have to reciprocate with Internet real estate. It is much easier to spend $25 without any participation whatsoever than to participate under the new rules. That is, for now. At the same time Entrecard is opening the network up to advertisers, it is imposing rules on the original community that made Entrecard viable.

Dropping quality ad real estate for fairness.

Originally, the first placement rule was that the Entrecard widget had to be placed "above the fold" until the decision was reversed after push back. Not to be deterred, however, Entrecard launched a variation of the rule based on the pretense of "fairness." Unfortunately, crowd sourcing "fairness" is only as good as the most intelligent participants. In this case, none of placement restrictions consider the obvious; the program can never be "fair."

• Quality sites will always benefit advertisers with more traffic than inferior sites.
• Less ad competitive sites will always benefit advertisers more than ad heavy sites.
• Load time is much more signifiant than where an advertisement is placed.

Ask most media buyers and they'll tell you that it's better to own a page toward the bottom of a fast-loading quality site than for it to appear at the top of a slow-loading low quality site filled with ads. However, some suspect that there is another benefit to imposing the rule all together. Entrecard can now exempt many members from a cashout service, which would allow them to covert old credits into cash.

The service, which is being delayed until after the rule is imposed, presents several logistical nightmares in that Entrecard is attempting to justify exempting members from the service under the old Terms Of Service, while deleting their accounts for violating a rule created in what will be a new Terms Of Service. And, since Entrecard has since placed a cash value on credits, some consider its actions theft or, at minimum, another taxable event to go along with the credit to cash conversion.

Communication breakdown is commonplace.

In terms of communication, the entire conversation continues to be grossly mishandled. Most Entrecard participants had no idea the rules would be changed until they received a warning that they would be suspended if they did not comply within 72 hours. When members complained, the network pointed them to a post on the Entrecard blog, as if it was required reading.

What did not occur, like many network developers forget, is that most members do not read the network blogs. Communication, especially when it involves changes to Terms of Service (TOS), requires being proactive instead. And, in the case of Entrecard, its own TOS states it's required: "Entrecard reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of this Agreement. In such an event you will be notified four days prior via the email address associated with your user account."

This is not the only time Entrecard has broken its own rules. Advertisers were recently surprised to see the service arbitrarily double ad rates overnight. The only notification advertisers received was after the fact, with the justification that the network doubled the cash balance listed in everyone's account (and here we thought only the government could create money).

Add to this all the other problems associated with the program, and its anyone's guess what will happen next. One thing for certain: some advertisers are miffed to learn that the promise of targeting a specific category does not work. Currently, if you select a category on Entrecard, the category selection is confirmed, but advertisements are placed network wide.

Sustainability seems to be in question.

The net result of Entrecard's quest for cash seems to be aggravating an exodus of better bloggers. The departures began approximately six months ago.

While Langdon claims traffic has never been better, the truth is that Entrecard is becoming what people labeled it to begin with: a junk traffic site. Except, you have to pay for it. He doesn't mind. After all, bad publicity is good for business he says.

"A lot of people have this crazy misconception that bad publicity is actually bad for internet sites. Why just yesterday, we got a slew of bad publicity when we banned an Entrecard member for harassment and trolling," wrote Langdon. "Everyone was twittering about it and blogging about it, and tons of people were coming to Entrecard. Look at what happened to our blog’s traffic ... It doubled!"

Right. And more people will look at you on the road after an accident. Just ask Domino's.

What other members and former members are saying:

WTF, Entrecard Pt.II at Simply Saying

Entrecard Hoolabaloo at Vinallaseven

They’re Takin Your Booty Mates at Recycled Frockery

Entrecard Announcement at The Dirty Shirt

No More Entrecard at The Sofia Valeria Collection

Releasing SME 14.0, Beta: Copywrite, Ink.

For the last several months, Copywrite, Ink. has been working with a former Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) developer on a side project to take social media to the next level. We call it SME 14.0.

That's right. Rather than plod along from Social Media Expert 1.0 to 2.0 then to 3.0, we've leapfrogged right over all those cool and catchy numerals to Social Media Expert 14.0. And, for today only, you too can become a Social Media Expert 14.0 (SME 14.0) beta tester. (If you like Hunch, you'll love SME 14.0!)

Social Media Breakthrough: SME 14.0 Highlights

Virtual Followers. Everybody knows that social media is all about numbers. The more popular your blog, profile page, or social network account becomes, well, the more popular it becomes. With virtual followers, you can forget the early social media stages and jump right to "Mr. or Mrs. Popularity" because they come built in with every blog or page you create! Just pick a number — 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 followers — and real people will automatically want to follow you.

Even better, with virtual followers, you have even more reason to ignore those pesky critics. After all, who cares what real people think when you have hundreds or thousands or millions of virtual followers praising your every move!

Automatic Retweets. Inspired by Mack Collier. For anyone worried about their Twitter strategy, worry no more. Automatically set your Twitter account to Retweet everything specific people say and gain popularity, influence, and authority. That's right. Never miss an opportunity to Retweet select real people so they Retweet you!

When combined with the power of virtual followers, your message could be Retweeted 10, 20, 20,000 or 20,000,000 times as quickly (or throughout the day) as you want. With 10,000 Retweets per tweet, nobody will ever question your authority again.

Predetermined Crowd Sourcing. You know and I know it too. As Josh Catone said back in 2007 "a million idiots are better than one Einstein." The only problem is that crowd sourcing and clients don't always mix, until now!

We've fixed the paradigm with SME 14.0. By planting thoughts in the crowd with Jedi mind trick technologies so each and every crowd will be predisposed to agree with whatever you or your client thinks. You can forget manipulation because SME 14.0 sticks whatever outcome you want right inside their mushy little cerebellums.

Don't believe it? Just ask us for our short list of alpha testers and see for yourself. One of these early adopters even convinced you to invest what might amount to $75-$125 billion in failing companies!

Automated SEO Posts. No time to blog, but you want SEO like only Mr. Web Guru can do? Problem solved. With automated SEO posts, you can pick a subject and have it mashed up with all of the hottest search terms today. Here is one real life headline example...

"Jennifer Garner and Paris Hilton Tickle Obama On Google For Taskbar News and SME 14.0!"

Not only is it vetted as powerful a SEO headline, but it's proven to please your virtual followers after predetermined crowd source testing! Organic disruption of the Web has never felt so good.

Total Transparency. Sure, I know what you're thinking (seriously). Doesn't SME 14.0 game the system? Is it really authentic? How about transparent? Well, it absolutely is all those things and more!

You see, last December, we took Geoff Livingston's post about Pew/Internet research to heart. It said “The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.”

Total Transparency solves the first part of the Pew/Internet challenge. With Total Transparency features, what you "think" is precisely what is posted across all your social network platforms. That's right. No more sugar coating. You think it, say "post with SEO," and SME 14.0 automatically transmits from your brain to the board.*

*Warning: SME 14.0 is not responsible for outcomes thought in a water closet, on a nude beach, or other potentially distracting environments.

Ethics Checker 1.0. SME 14.0 also solves the second part of the Pew/Internet research statement with Ethics Check 1.0. Just prior to posting your thoughts direct, Ethics Checker 1.0 springs into action.

Want to give away a K-mart gift card or provide people the inside scoop on a duck without the push back? Now you can!

Ethics Checker 1.0 rates your "thought post" just prior to letting it zoom across the Web. This built in bonus program rates your post for potential ethical impacts on a scale of one (nice halo, baby) to ten (red tomato moment).

If you think that is impressive, next year SME 14.1 will come pre-installed with Ethics Checker 2.0, which includes a little man who looks a lot like Malcolm McDowell. Any time you have a "thought post" rating higher than a five, the little man will slap your face, eventually curbing you of unethical behavior once and for all.

Ultimate Fan 32.5 Add On Enroll as a beta tester for the SME 14.0 right now, and you'll also get UF 32.5. UF 32.5 was designed for all those people who have no original thoughts whatsoever! No thoughts? Never fear, UF 32.5 is here!

Now you can follow your SME 14.0 favorites in style. UF 32.5 automatically RTs, comments, writes praise posts on everything they say and do. Pick from plenty of options "Your best post ever!" to "I'm a mindless follower of >Blank< and you ought to be too!" Amazingly accurate and loads of fun, UF 32.5 is the ultimate tool to kiss some serious SME butt. In fact, over time, the UF 32.5 even helps you think, dress, talk, and post like all of your favs and peeps do!

Here's an actual testimonial from an UF 32.5 alpha tester...

"I used to talk about Jeff Jarvis all the time until my friends got sick of me. But now, thanks to UF 32.5, I am Jeff Jarvis and everybody loves me! The tag line says it all 'Who cares what Google would do when you can be a Jarvis too!'" — Jeff Jarvis, formerly Daniel Sheehan, and soon to be Robert Scoble.

SME 14.0 and the bonus program, UF 32.5 is not for everyone. It's only intended for people who use the Internet. Some restrictions apply. Not currently available in France. Beta testers also receive new program announcements more frequent than Ragan updates. Advanced training sessions coming soon: "The Lazy Person's Guide To Linkbait," "How To Fake Read A Post And Still Comment Like You Care," and "How To Post On SlideShare When You Don't Know What FAQ Means."

Important Disclaimer: Using these products will in no way assimilate you, to the best of our knowledge. Any similarities between the Borg and SME 14.0 packaging are purely coincidental and meant for entertainment purposes. It is also a healthy nod to the upcoming Star Trek film, despite no appearances of the Borg in this upcoming film.

Understanding B2B Blogs: Case Abstract

While there is always plenty of buzz surrounding social media, an integrated approach to marketing and communication still works best to drive companies forward. And as long as companies understand that social media is a flexible tactical tool rather than replacement strategy, they will see results.

Despite substantial limitations, we recently completed a startup blog for a niche green-solution engineering company in about 90 days. The initial focus, after market analysis (listening), was to establish a blog capable of capturing the interest of clearly defined audiences: manufacturers and regulators in the short term; environmentalists over the long term.

Why blogs work as a niche B2B solution.

In as little as three months, visitation grew from 0 to 600 visitors per month (outpacing the company's Web site by as much as 4-to-1), with five subscribers and frequent return visitors. While that might seem insignificant for people who focus on traffic, traffic was inconsequential. What was important was that one weekly post succeeded in capturing interest from a very specific niche audience, with the medium length of every visit around five minutes.

We also knew they were the right audience based on analytics alone. In addition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, South Coast Air Quality Management District, State Of California Air Resources Board (among others), the majority of visitors included major engineering firms, manufacturers, food processors, and universities. As an additional footnote, the blog initiated direct contact with two environmental reporters and one congressman, specifically interested in EISA Section 471.

Based on the company's median contract rate, the program could eventually return as much as $50 to $1 hard return on investment with one contract and a significant return on communication (ROC), long term, assuming the company followed through on recommended integrated marketing tactics. There was also a high probability it would take a industry expert position in 180 to 240 days, given its area of expertise was an underserved and underreported niche within the engineering industry.

Specifically, their audience is searching the Web for content that nobody else was providing. At least, for now.

Blogs aren't ends unto themselves. They are beginnings.

Of course, blogs alone do not necessarily generate direct results. As noted, it takes an integrated approach.

Given that, in this case, the company could identify visiting companies, it could have looked up the most appropriate contacts, mailed informative value-driven marketing material, and then followed up with a introduction call. Even in cases where the material might not reach the exact visitor, the dual contact points could eventually inspire dialogue within the targeted prospect.

Specifically, by creating impressions with different people inside a targeted company, the communication will eventually converge as needs in this area arise. And, when combined with additional programs already in place (such as trade shows, workshops, and targeted advertising), a niche engineering subcontractor could easily become the focus based on the quality of its shared content, the frequency and diversification of its impressions, and the potential demand generated by the passage of green energy grants with the recent passage of the Stimulus Package.

Long term, the engineering company can still expand its social media program to social networks, with an emphasis on those based on monitoring and, more specifically, blog reader information. (Not always, but often, our readers ask us to join or try out specific social networks, groups, etc.) In other words, they could become the hub of the existing niche interest.

Early results demonstrate momentum, despite limitations.

What struck me as especially significant about this case was the steadily increasing interest despite severe limitations. Limitations included:

• An incomplete and fragmented Web site without coherent organization (which likely diminished the positive impressions created by the blog).
• The lack of a clear connection between the startup blog and Web site (e.g., a RSS feed or widget would have increased its site traffic by including the blog content on the site).
• The lack of time availability from the company's engineers, even though the commitment could have been as little as one post every three months from each, supported by related content in between, as outlined by the initial program plan (e.g. other than two contributions from myself, the most popular entries were written by the engineers).
• The missed opportunity in promoting trade shows attended where the company was an exhibitor (the point designer claimed they didn't have time to provide basic information, such as booth number).
• The undervaluation of how related content (e.g., how the fluctuation of natural gas prices indirectly increases the expense of a prospect's operations) by one party could position them as a solution-driven company, much like EISA Section 471 posts did.

Going forward, the company can address these limitations and better formalize its integrated marketing approach. The point here, however, isn't to focus in on these as deficiencies as much as it is to demonstrate that despite such limitations, the blog still managed to capture the interest of the desired audiences.

So, as long as company staff maintains the program until these areas are fixed, they still have a successful though slower growth rate program that has a high ability to capture organic traffic and niche audience interest. Further out, long term, the recommended path would be to build out into other social media areas based on niche audience participation.

Small companies sometimes underestimate marketing.

One of the reasons this was a short-term program was because of a common challenge among small companies. Often, they claim to become too busy to be concerned with marketing but not busy enough to sustain a marketing budget. Years ago, I was guilty of such deficient thinking myself. Nowadays, I know better. Marketing not only is a priority, it is the lifeblood of business. Without it, companies eventually fade away or fail outright.

Where social media is especially successful is it helps maximize B2B marketing efforts while reducing the overall budget. And even if it is not integrated, it can, at minimum, capture more interest than a static Web site because content adds value and connections increase engagement over time. It not only makes sense, it's common sense.