I am not a fan of basketball.  There, I said it (and here in Kentuckiana, that’s borderline blasphemy).

So hopefully, I can be forgiven for not knowing who Vince Carter is last week, when I was invited to have lunch at his eponymous restaurant in Daytona Beach, Florida.  (BTW, if you get the chance, you should definitely go. Great food, beautiful setting, and the shrimp and grits were to die for.)

Upon getting home, I asked my husband (who is a fan of basketball) about Vince.  He said “At one time, he was going to be the next Michael Jordan.  He was an amazing player.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Jordan couldn’t have been Jordan without his team.  You couldn’t just ignore the rest of the Bulls.  Carter never had that.  Any other team knew all they had to do was shut down Vince, and they’d win.”

So where am I going with this story?

"waiting to play" courtesy sxc

Just like basketball, corporate communications success depends on a solid team effort.   The “Rock Star/personal brand” approach really only works well to build up an individual consultancy (and even in that context, it has it’s limits.)

No matter how amazingly kick-butt your social media manager or online community manager is, he or she is only one person.

Asking one person to be everywhere you need them to be on the social web, and do everything you need done, all while providing sufficient context through monitoring, analysis and reporting to gauge success or failure, not to mention degree of success or failure, is asking too much.

If personal circumstances shut down your star player,  if another team recruits him with a better offer, or if  she goes free agent, what’s your backup plan?   Can your program survive the rebuilding period?

Is it good idea to have a point man?  Sure.  Is team leadership crucial? Absolutely.  Does everyone need the same level of visibility?  Nope, not at all–in fact some people perform better in a lower-profile role.

But there’s a big difference between having a team that features a star player, and trying to get by with a star and no real team.

Can you have a successful social media program without a star? Yes. I know it can be done because I’ve seen it.

Can you have a successful social media program with only a star? From what I’ve seen, all signs point to “No.”

This week, Facebook has officially entered the world of location-based services, with Facebook Places.

VentureBeat.com says Foursquare founder and CEO, Dennis Crowley, told them, “Facebook will help teach people about location and checking in, making Foursquare even more popular.”  Similarly, Holger Luedorf (the head of mobile applications for Foursquare) said Facebook’s entry into the space “validates the market.”

And early indications are, they may be right.  At least in the short term.  Foursquare had it’s biggest day for user sign-ups when Facebook officially announced Places.

What do I think?  I think Lance Ulanoff of PC World expressed it best:

“This is supposed to mean that a nascent product category like today’s location-based check-in-and check-out services now transitions into a full-blown market. What it really means, though, is ‘oh, crap, the 800 pound gorilla just entered the room. Smile at it and play nice and maybe it will let me co-exist for a time before sitting on me.’”

Listening to people from Foursquare and Gowalla brightly extolling what a good thing it is for their companies that Facebook is now doing LBS, I can’t help but flash back to one of my favorite romantic comedies, You’ve Got Mail.

There’s a scene where Meg Ryan’s small bookstore owner is bravely trying to convince herself and her accountant that having a book superstore open a block away would be a good thing for her business.

“You know how in the flower district, there are all these flower shops in a row so you can find whatever you want?. Well, this is going to be the book district. If they don’t have it, we do.”

Unfortunately, there are a lot of businesses that can’t succeed by selling what the 800 pound gorilla superstore doesn’t have.

I tend to think that LBS is one of those businesses.

It’s hard to believe that a few short years ago, online dating didn’t exist.  You had to meet people the old-fashioned way—through friends, in the grocery store, at a social event.  Now, you can pretty much pick-and-choose what you want in a mate and it’s delivered to your inbox.

Not so fast, Romeo.  There’s more to online dating than that.  In fact, some people might argue that online dating sites are a good illustration of the power of social media.  There are few things to keep in mind before you jump into any relationship, including one of the social media variety.

Image by Nho-e..x via Flickr.

 1.       You have to decide what type of relationship you’re looking for.  Are you looking for a long-term commitment or a fun fling? The same goes for social media networks. Having a Facebook fan page doesn’t make sense for some clients, while for others it is an absolute must.

2.       You will talk to a lot of people, but few will result in long-lasting connections.  Let’s face it—not every person you meet is going to be your soul mate.  As my friend Gwenette says, “You’re going to have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find that prince.”  You might have thousands of followers on Twitter, but how does that relate to the company’s bottom line?  Are people buying your product or service? When you find that elusive brand enthusiast, all the work and effort will be worth it. 

3.       Not everyone is created equal.  Some dating sites have a better success rate than others, and the same goes for social networking sites. There is a ton of competition out there now and we have more options than ever before.  You need to think strategically and what’s in the best interest of your client or business before acting.

4.       Sometimes a “Dear John” letter is appropriate.  No one likes breaking off a relationship but there are times when it simply must be done.  A recent post on Talent Zoo explains this point well.

5.      There’s someone—or something—for everyone.  Though it may not seem like it at times, there is a match for you.  It’s time to explore, try new things, and see what’s most important to you in a relationship.  Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube—they all have their positives and negatives, so it’s about finding the perfect fit for you. 

Has social media helped you write your (brand) love story?  If so, let us know in the comments.

Image by HowToSpeedUpMetabolism via Flickr.

"man made" courtesy csremedy on sxc

My head hurts a little today, mostly from setting up and configuring tools to help me in my role as social media manager.  There are a lot of tools out there, they get major updates pretty frequently, and I get asked fairly often for a recommendation.

So I thought I would ask you guys:

In a perfect world, what would the One Dashboard To Rule Them All look like?

Is it better in your experience to have a One Dashboard, with different views or user levels that correspond to different roles?  Or is chasing that mythical beast a waste of time, and should we just settle on  multiple tools that each are best-in-class for specific roles?

MANAGING IN-DEPTH CONVERSATIONS

I know that when I was doing blogger outreach and event planning for a client last fall, BuzzStream was hugely helpful.  If you’re looking for a tool that can give you a snapshot of a person or website’s visibility, digital footprint, and keep a beautiful record of your interactions with them and the results, it’s great.  Rapportive, the new plugin for GMail, covers similar ground.

These two tools work great for blogger outreach at the activation level, for PR professionals who have added that service to their offering.  They’re also nice tools for an online community manager or social CRM role.

But there’s nothing in there that you could send along to a CMO to let him or her know whether the program was successful or not.  And they don’t touch managing social profiles for a brand.

POSTING TO MULTIPLE PROFILES & ACCOUNTS

Hootsuite and SocialOomph are two tools that do a wonderful job if you need to manage updating multiple social media accounts.  Hootsuite’s collaborative tools and integration with Google Analytics are supah-cool (I love the Tweets/Site Visits overlay).  SocialOomph’s  automation tools allow you maximum posting, following and friending productivity without resorting to thoughtless spammyness. They cover 80% of the same ground, but unfortunately, the 20% that each does better than the other are really the most valuable features.  And using both? Is kind of a pain.

These two tools are great for real-time monitoring of Twitter and Facebook in the sense of “finding keyword/brand mentions.”   Unfortunately, neither one touches blogs, forums or social news sites from a monitoring standpoint.  Neither one touches sentiment.  And while they offer decent point-in-time reporting for your posting activity, the reporting is still woefully light when you’re trying to justify a social media program to a real numbers nerd.

MONITORING/MEASURING CONSUMER MENTIONS OF YOUR BRAND OR INDUSTRY

Over the years, we’ve used Radian6, Attensity/Biz360 and ScoutLabs as monitoring tools.   There were things I liked and disliked about all of them.  None of them seem to integrate with a good posting utility (like Hootsuite or SocialOomph) or do that functionality well as part of the suite.  None of them integrate with Google Analytics to tell you if a bump in social media coverage is affecting your web traffic, or how it’s affecting it.  Yeah, you can manually pull the data from both and do your own comparison, but shouldn’t you be spending your time translating the data into marketing recommendations, not collating it?

This week, I took a look at ConsumerBase, which claims it can not only scrape the social web for brand or keyword references, but understand the context of them and spit it out as passive market research.  Now we’re getting closer to making the C-suite happy, but it has no other utility–they admit straight out that they’re not a monitoring solution designed to support “find and respond in real-time” activity.

THE MISSING PIECE: TYING IT ALL TOGETHER AND CONNECTING IT TO MEASURABLE KPIs

Also note, from a cost standpoint, I’m not even mentioning the most expensive, enterprise-level tools.

I know this post is ridiculously long, but management, monitoring and measurement of social media is where I live and breathe every day.  I feel a little like a carpenter who is making do with a mix-and-match set of hand-me-down tools.  Can I get the job done with them? Yeah, but it sure makes doing master-quality work a challenge.

I read a ton of business-related books.  If it has to do with branding, retail, or Starbucks, there’s a good chance I’ll read it.  A friend of mine recently recommended that I check out “The Trump Card,” Ivanka Trump’s first book.

To be clear, I’m a huge fan of Ivanka.  I admire her professionalism and passion for the real estate industry.  Many people will argue that her privileged upbringing undoubtedly helped her in her career, but I’m a firm believer that you are in charge of your own destiny.  After all, you have to be pretty darn intelligent and disciplined to get into Wharton.

So eagerly, I picked up “The Trump Card” at the local library one afternoon.  I enjoyed many aspects of the book, particularly the chapters that discussed the important of building relationships.  This is a subject Ivanka is clearly well-versed in, and I commend her for making the most of her connections.

She’s also not afraid to get dirty…literally.  In fact, if you follow her on Twitter (@IvankaTrump), she often posts pictures of herself at various job site locations.  In “The Trump Card,” Ivanka discussed how she always knew from a young age that she wanted to build things, so it’s no surprise that she’s now spending her days wearing a hard hat.

The cover of "The Trump Card." Image via Simon & Schuster.

I started thinking about how these principles could be applied to social media and public relations.  If you’ve worked in PR long enough, you know it’s not a glamorous field.  In fact, a lot of time is spent “blocking and tackling,” (a phrase we often use at Doe-Anderson) reaching out to reporters and bloggers, staying on their radar and keeping them up-to-date on what’s going on with our clients.  And yes, sometimes, we even have to roll up our sleeves and get a little dirty. (If you’ve ever put together hundreds of media kits, or worked at a special event, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Cultivating relationships, in my opinion, is what social media and public relations are all about.  This isn’t an easy task but with a little time and patience, you can start to build those important connections.  The old adage “You get what you give” rings true as well.  We often tell our clients that they’ve got to communicate with their customers and engage in conversations with them.

Good, old-fashioned hard work never goes out of style and is certainly the key to having a successful social media or PR campaign.  And like Ivanka Trump, you can be professional and polished while doing it.

Image taken from Ivanka's Twitter account.

Remember the old Hans Christian Anderson story, the Emperor’s New Clothes?

Foolishness is exposed, more often than not, when we refuse to admit what we don’t know or see clearly.  Or to put it into a 21st century cultural context–our Poker Faces often as not end up exposing us.

All this is a pretty elaborate set up for a post on something fairly simple, that I continually hear people mumbling, privately, that they’re not quite sure how to do right: setting up a client’s Facebook page.

We don’t do a lot of “Social Media 101″ posts here, because lots of people cover that ground well.  This is less a “Social Media 101″ post than it is “covering a topic that no one is willing to admit they haven’t figured out” post.

I can’t really blame people for not knowing the best way to do it–”Facebook Help” is pretty much an oxymoron, and they change their UX about every three months, adding things like “Community Pages” that seem like a pointless duplication (pretty much because…they are a pointless duplication).  Also, I have a big problem with the way Facebook walks you through setting up a Page, because it’s pretty much designed to discourage you in every way possible from doing it the right way.

First, they threaten you with “violating the terms of use” if you create an alternate account.  Here’s the facts, Binky.  If “social media” is anywhere in your job description, you will have to have access to multiple accounts.  In any business case I can think of, tying all your clients’ Facebook accounts to your personal Facebook account is a bad idea.

Second, the language they use to explain “Business Accounts” is deliberately misleading and scary.  It’s designed to make you think that using a Business Account to set up a Facebook Page is going to hobble the Page.  It doesn’t.  It creates an administrator profile that can’t be used as a personal profile and can be easily reassigned to someone else.  Which is exactly what you want.

That said, here’s the way we’ve found, through trial, error and much hair-pulling, is the best way to set it up.

First, what NOT to do:

• Create the page using your existing, personal Facebook account.

Why not? Because removing the Creator (not Admin, but Creator) of a Page is a giant, massive PITA. I know–I had to do it on a major client when the employee who set up their Page left our agency.   Neither the client nor the former employee was comfortable with their Facebook account still having admin privileges to the Page, and it took weeks to get Facebook Support (yet another oxymoron) to even admit they could disconnect the two accounts.  Frankly, if the client hadn’t been a really well-known brand with potential ad dollars to direct at Facebook, I’m not sure it would have ever gotten done.

If you’re an independent consultant, accept that you and your client may not have a forever love connection.  And they’re not going to take it kindly when they realize that divorcing their Facebook Page from your personal account is roughly as complicated and time-consuming as executing a literal divorce.  Okay.  Point made, moving on.

Another thing not to do:

• Create the account using a “client@yourdomain.com” or “dept@yourdomain.com” email address that gets forwarded to multiple account stakeholders, an entire department, etc.

Why not? Because an even marginally successful or popular Facebook Page generates a heck of a lot of transactional emails.  You can either turn off all the transactional emails (which can hamstring the actual administrator of the Page) or get used to hearing a lot of complaints from people who don’t appreciate getting an email ping on their Blackberry at 2AM when a Fan simply needs to post a soliloquy on your client’s Wall.

Again, something we learned the hard way. We’re not above admitting our missteps.  We’ve being doing this a while, and that means we didn’t have a map in the beginning.

Here’s how to do it right:

• Create a special, unique email address for that Page only (or that client’s collective social media profiles). It’s okay if it’s on your domain, not the client’s.  Sometimes getting client IT to create a new email address can be a pain.  If you set up the Page properly, you can change that later if you need to.  It does have to be an email address that actually exists and that you (or whomever the FB Page administrator will be) can actually access.  Ideally, you’d auto-forward this email address to the FB Page Administrator’s primary email.
• Log out of Facebook. Go to facebook.com and click “Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business.”
• Go with the “Create an Official Page” option. Ignore “Community Pages” for now.  Ignore Groups.  
• Create a Facebook Account. Go with “I do not have a Facebook Account.” Yes, I’m telling you to lie to Facebook.  It’s okay.  Really.  Trust me.  If they didn’t want people to lie to them, they shouldn’t have set up their Terms of Use to be directly in conflict with all laws of common sense.
• Use the unique email address you previously set up as the basis for the Business Account you’re creating to set up the Page, and populate it with your personal information (birthday, etc.)  That can be changed later, if staffing changes (something apparently Facebook never heard of) make it necessary.
• Activate the account and set up the Page. Add your personal account and any other accounts necessary as additional Admins.  Go to “Edit the Page,” look at the lower right column for Admins and click “Add.”  You’ll have to use the “Add by email” option, since your newly-created business account will have no friends.

So there you have it.  If you’re an agency social media manager, and your career eventually takes you elsewhere, or if the client eventually moves the business elsewhere, it’ll be okay.  You can change the email address and personal information associated with the Creator Business Account, and remove any Admins who will no longer have a business relationship with the Page.

You’re welcome.

I have always thought that social media marketing lends itself to right-brained “grammar geeks.”  Mainly, this is because social media marketing requires continually-generated, mostly-text, content.   Copywriters, public relations peeps, and bloggers can generally churn out the verbiage as-needed.

On the other hand, web analytics seemingly leans far to the left side of the brain, in the territory of the “numbers nerds.”  The ability to look at numbers and see trends and patterns is pretty key to being a good web analyst.  Not to mention the ability to rock a pivot table in Excel.

The problem with handing over the reins of your social marketing program entirely to the grammar geek squad is that sometimes, writers can fall in love with their own voices.  Without some kind of objective analysis of effectiveness, there’s no accountability on the creative/executional end of things.

Likewise, the problem with analytics being owned entirely by the number crunching crowd can be loss of context.  The temptation to let quantitative data (easy to get) dominate the qualitative data (usually a lot harder to get) to the extent that we fall into the trap of measurement for measurement’s sake.

Now, let’s take it to the C-Suite.

At the management/client level, there’s often a disconnect between the numbers nerds (who approve budgets based on whether the social media effort is being effective), and the grammar geeks who get their knickers twisted at the mere mention of the word “measurement.”

As a consequence, an unfortunate amount of the social content manager’s time is eaten up providing a convincing narrative explanation of the program’s value to CMOs who may or may not ever feel comfortable allocating budget based on a narrative with no supporting data.

They have to be the “social media expert” who has to continually keep selling and re-selling the program on the strength of their own conviction that it works, bolstered by case studies from other companies that may or may not apply.

Can’t we all just get along?

Ideally, the sticky peanut butter of content creation should be surrounded by the delectable chocolate of actionable insights.

If the person in charge of analytics goes beyond “monthly data dump,” and is capable of providing actionable insights to continually improve the response the social marketer is getting, they become the person who can make the social marketer look better.

[And since all of us social marketers are raving narcissists, that makes Mr. or Mrs. Analytics our good buddy.]

If the social marketer is willing to trust the analysts’ insights, and let the analyst provide sufficient qualitative and quantitative proof of concept for the social media program; then he or she can step back from the mission to constantly justify his or her existence.   The payoff for agreeing to be held accountable is freedom. The social content manager is then free to focus all his or her attention outward, on building fans and ambassadors for the company/client.

Can such an ideal scenario exist in the real world? What do you think?

I’ve been a home improvement enthusiast since I was a teenager.  I admit to being a longtime fan of decorating guru Christopher Lowell, whose show on Discovery Channel was one of my favorites for years.

His theatrical background (and personality!) appealed to the theater geek in me, and his ideas and suggestions were creative, fun and usually affordable.

So while I was on vacation last week, I nostalgically picked up a copy of his book, The Seven Layers of Design at my local bookstore.

In the introduction, Christopher shared the story of how he went from a guy with a failing retail decor store in the Midwest to an interior design expert with his own successful show.

The turning point for him came when he realized that fear was inhibiting his prospective customers from expressing their creativity in their home’s interior design.  He immediately changed his retail space into an education center, and began offering classes in Decorating 101.

Lowell recognized that instead of competing with other retailers for the limited pool of professional decorators, there was a richer, deeper pool of potential customers out there if he could give homeowners the CONFIDENCE to decorate their own spaces.

So how does this relate to business blogging? Simple.  A business blog can be wildly effective when it’s not about tooting your own horn, but about building up your customer’s confidence.

When you use blogging as an educational tool to create better, stronger, smarter customers, you create a relationship between your business and their own self-confidence.

If you can manage that, then you’re already on the first step of creating your business’ army of enthusiastic brand ambassadors.

Growing up in south central Indiana, summertime meant many things for my family:  delicious watermelon from Jackson County, the 4-H Fair and yard sales.  My grandmother, who is one of the best bargain shoppers I’ve ever met, would take me “yard saling” all over our town.  She had a knack for finding treasures in everyday trash.

Coincidentally, my friends and I are hosting a yard sale this weekend. While it’s been a lot of fun planning the event, it’s been a good deal of work.  And the more I started thinking about it, the more I realized there are many similarities between social media and yard sales. 

Many times, I’ve stumbled upon some neat piece of equipment or gadget at a garage sale that has a too-good-to-be-true price.  But alas, I don’t really know how to use it, therefore making it worthless to me. Unfortunately, social media sometimes falls into this trap.  Many clients want to take advantage of online networks and sites because they perceive it to be a high value for very little investment cost.  While this can be true, a big part of social media is knowing how to operate the its tools properly. 

Part of the fun of shopping at garage and yard sales is scouting for bargains.  But that being said, you’ve got to be educated enough to know when you’ve found something of real significance.  For example, I know of a woman who found a rare Hummel figurine for a few dollars at a non-profit organization’s sale several years ago.  She showed it to some local collectors, who told her it was worth hundreds of dollars.  Cha-ching!

This scenario reminds me of Twitter and Facebook, specifically the “followers” and “fans” aspects of each network. It does you very little good if you don’t have the right people clued in to what you’re promoting.  If you’re not reaching your target audience, I don’t believe you can grow your brand effectively because others won’t truly understand the value of what you’re trying to accomplish.

So while many clients view social media as “bargain hunting,” it’s our job to show them the real merit of these tactics. After all, you just never know when you’re going to uncover a treasure. 

Image by edwardkotun via Flickr.

We all knew “social media,” as a buzzword and a stand-alone job title, had a limited shelf life.

As I predicted a year ago, “social media” is cooling off just as “mobile” is building a nice head of steam, in the same way that “social media” picked up on the tail end of “web 2.0″ and “viral video.”

Are people still making “viral videos”?  Sure.  Just ask Rhett and Link.  Or Old Spice.  But “viral video” has lost its new car smell, and I predict “social media” will be looking for a hanging tree air freshener soon.

I think I find buzzwords and their evolution, obsolescence and replacement fascinating because language says a lot about a culture and the general headspace of people and industries.  It says something about what we value and the way we perceive things.

If I got to pick what we call blogs, forums, social networks, podcasts and the whole shebang next, I wouldn’t divide it along lines of the technology (blog) or lump it all together (social media).  I would divide it into personal media, passion media, and professional media.

Because really, that’s how the whole conglomeration is shaking out.  We get it: creating media is something almost anyone can do now, thanks to technology.  Sharing media on a global scale is something almost anyone can do, thanks to the proliferation of connectivity. That’s the old news that is exactly that: old news that we really don’t need to keep puzzling over.  If  this month they’re creating it on an iPad and sharing it on Foursquare, and six months ago they were creating it on a laptop and sharing it on Twitter, so what?  If WordPress is a better simple publishing platform than Blogger, or Vimeo is a better video platform than YouTube, who cares?

What we’re still figuring out (and just might be forever) is why people create media, and why people consume it.

You’ve got lifecasters and social networkers and personal diarists who are creating personal media.  Whether you like it or not, some people think the details of their lives and their inner monologue is fascinating–and some of them are right.

You’ve got people who create entire vast communities around silly vampire novels, or balsa wood airplanes. They write dissertations supporting their favorite “ship” on a television show (and other people read them!)  They craft detailed videos layered with music and graphics as homages and labors of love.  This is passion media.  While it would be great if they got paid to create it, the truth is, they would pay others so they can create it, because they already do.  They already pay for the domain, or the hosting, or the laptop, or the broadband connection.  Passion is a reason to create and consume media, and production values aren’t a reason not to, when the barrier to entry is low enough (and it has been for a while now.)

I’ve watched with interest while the mainstream, traditional, professional media has had to figure all this out again. They used to have resources and distribution on their side (and they still do).  But for too many of them, they saw the high barrier to entry that existed before the social media revolution as their Great Wall of China, keeping the Mongol hordes of “amateur” content creators safely at bay and their revenue streams safe.  They owned eyeballs and attention, big companies would pay for those eyeballs and attention.

Now, what I’m seeing is a merging between the best and brightest of the personal media and passion media creators, and the most agile of the traditional media into a richer, more vibrant professional media ecosystem with an exponentially wider spectrum of cost, quality and subject matter.

It’s not 200 channels and nothing’s on.   It’s 2 million channels, and there’s always something that you as an individual can lose yourself in.  It’s a beautiful mess.

As a consumer of media, I love this because I can now feed my attention with thirty-one thousand flavors.

As a creator of media, I love this because it forces me to clarify why I’m creating, and helps me prioritize.  Some outlets are for attention, some are for love and some are for money.  And that’s okay.

As a professional marketer, I love looking at media this way because it draws meaningful lines in the sand around my interactions with the new media ecosystem, because I know what they want.  Offer attention to personal media creators.  Offer resources and new ways to  connect with the object of their affection to passion media creators.  Offer cash money and acknowledgment of legitimacy to creators and organizations who genuinely meet the bar for professional media.  Pay them for their hard-earned eyeballs and attention.

What do you think?  I’d love to hear your take in the comments.