JitterJam® Social CRM

In this day and age, staying organized can be very difficult. To maintain productivity and organization, many have turned to Evernote, a multi-platform application that allows users to create and categorize notes in Evernote notebooks. The application’s expanding user base has led to an increasing number of application add-ons and new social capabilities. Here are three features that will help you get the most out of Evernote.

Twitter and Email Integration – By following @myEN, you can setup Evernote to capture all of your tweets with “@myEN” in the body as well as direct messages to the @myEN account. This integration helps users deal with the here one second, gone the next nature of social media. If you see a tweet/link in your stream that you’d like to save, simply copy the text, send a quick DM, and view it later in Evernote. The email integration works similarly. The application assigns each user an Evernote specific email address, and all mail sent to it is converted to notes. Now when you get an important email, forward it to your Evernote address, and you are more likely to remember to respond.

Sharing Notes – Another way to take advantage of social media with Evernote is sharing notes to Facebook. This can be particularly effective within groups because you can target a specific friend segment that the note or task is relevant to (i.e. “Cycling Club”). The greatest value in sharing notes however, is that sharing also creates a public copy of a note with a specific URL. For convenience, you do not have to post on Facebook to share notes publicly, and you can always stop publicly sharing a note from the Evernote interface at any time.

Public Notebooks – Several companies now offer Evernote notebooks that you can download and add on to with your own notes. The content of these notebooks is usually both a resource and a source of inspiration. Examples include recipe books, photography guides, and art collections. Adding your own recipe to a notebook and then sharing it is just one way brand and consumer co-creation can be facilitated by public notebooks.

These three features may help you stay organized, but hopefully they also add some fun to your social experience! Whether discovering new pieces of art from a public notebook, creating grocery lists, or sharing your grandmother’s famous blueberry pie recipe with relatives on Facebook, Evernote has something for almost everyone.

Do you have any experience with Evernote? Let us know how you use it? What are your favorite features, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Many people have already acknowledged that the 2012 elections will be the first time social media plays a large role in presidential campaigns. While Barack Obama was able to harness its power in the 2008 election, use and adoption of social media was not what it is today. Since 2008 the number of tweets sent per day has increased from 300 thousand to 200 million, and the number of Facebook users has jumped from 100 million to 750 million.

This growth has led to a similar rise in social media’s public influence, and has made a social presence necessary for political campaign success. This marriage has proved particularly effective because social users are more inclined to share and engage when they are passionate about something. Politics are an area where strong beliefs and opinions create passion, which sparks social activity. Facebook and Twitter profiles are used to capture this activity, but social media is now also being used in more innovative ways in politics. Here are two recent examples:

Politicians on Plus – As of now, Newt Gingrich is one of only two presidential candidates to have a profile on Google+ (the other being Gary Johnson). While both politicians generally post the same content to their Facebook pages and Google+ profiles, Gingrich is also taking advantage of the hangout feature. He has hosted two hangouts so far, and even posted the video to the first here. These group video chats could help candidates create more personal connections with supporters, and should increase candidate transparency as well. More candidates will probably try this approach in the future, and Johnson has already indicated that he will host a Google+ hangout soon.

First Presidential Debate on Twitter – Following the massive participation in Barack Obama’s town hall, conservatives hosted a presidential debate for Republican candidates with the Twitter handle @140townhall. The debate followed a traditional format with opening statements and time limits for questions dictated by moderators. Twitter has proved to be a great platform to host town hall style events because of the digestibility of 140 character messages, and its ability to reach and participate with an audience. Like Google+ hangouts, we will likely see more of these Twitter events in the future.

What do you think of the way social media has influenced the 2012 elections so far? Have you seen other innovative uses of social media in politics? Comment here and let us know, we’d love to hear about them!

Photo Credit: Twitter

Part I of II: Direct Engagement With a Twitter Contact

This is a “sister” blog post to Idea Spark: Social Marketing Use Case #4-Direct Customer Engagement & Feedback which answers the question, “Okay, so how do I actually do that in JitterJam?” Our Idea Spark blog posts are purposefully tool-neutral; they present best practices, engagement strategies and all types of, well, ideas! JitterJam Tips blog posts, on the other hand, are designed to help our clients transform concepts into practice and to show our prospects what is possible within the JitterJam platform.

Putting Engagement into Practice

Whether you are using or intend to use social media for building brand awareness, lead generation, customer service, sales promotions, or product engagement and feedback, the tactical steps are pretty much the same! Your numerous and effective JitterJam Social Searches should have plenty of relevant conversations streaming into the Listen•Engage area of JitterJam. It’s fantastic to see what people are saying about your brand, your company, your product(s) and your industry! There are tremendous benefits to having your corporate ear tuned to listen. But this post is about something deeper! To build relationships with the authors of these valuable nuggets, you’ll need to move into the engagement phase.

It’s at this point that you’ll have some decisions to make regarding the approach to use for an initial dialogue and subsequent engagement with these chatty consumers. Your approach will depend on your industry, your current use case for social media and the current perception and awareness of your brand among the community with which you hope to engage. We have a bunch of past blog posts (consolidated in the following list) that will help you settle on the approach that is best for you. Review these and then we’ll dive into the “How-to-do-it-in-JitterJam” stuff.

• Idea Spark: Starting a Dialogue With a Customer
• Idea Spark: Social Etiquette
• Idea Spark: Voice of the Brand Pt. 1—Who Is Talking?
• Idea Spark: Voice of the Brand Pt. 2: What is Your Brand’s Voice?
• Idea Spark: Social Communities

Your engagement tactics will depend on the channel on which a contact was discovered (Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, You Tube or a blog) and how much public social profile information JitterJam found for the contact you hope to engage with. The rest of this blog post is focused on engaging with contacts discovered on Twitter; Part II will cover the other channels.

How To Engage With a New Twitter Contact

A look at a few engagement scenarios …

1. Person-A tweeted that they tried your product and were happy with the results.
2. Person-B just checked in via Foursquare to one of your locations (and used Foursquare to tweet about it).
3. Person-C tweeted that he was looking for advice on selecting a product in the space where you compete!

Your response to each of these discovered Twitter “conversations” should probably be different. Let’s look at the response scenarios.

Responding to Person-A: Brand Mention
You know that Person-A tried your product and took the time to tweet about the positive experience. Because you know this, it is perfectly acceptable to follow Person-A on Twitter.

Using JitterJam:Click on the grey “birdie-bottom” icon near the profile information to start following someone new; the icon will turn blue to show that you’re now following them.

This is your first step of engagement. Following someone on Twitter will add that person into JitterJam’s intelligent contact database. Additionally, you’ll impress your brand presence onto this person when he/she is notified of their new follower (typically by email, depending on the individual’s Twitter settings). Depending on the social media approach you have settled upon, you might say nothing to the contact and let the Twitter ‘follow’ speak on its own or you might respond with a “Thanks” or another equally light-touch response… “Glad you enjoyed it!”, “Nice to hear, thanks for sharing”, etc. Your response over Twitter can also be a re-tweet of the conversation the contact authored about your brand, an @ mention or @ reply, or a Direct Message (DM) IF that person is already following you.

Using JitterJam: The image shows which icon to click depending on your desired action. The response actions available to you in JitterJam depend upon your relationship with the contact. If a response action is not available (e.g. you can’t DM a contact because they aren’t following you), the icon will not be visible.

The most common actions in this scenario are re-tweeting or sending an @ mention (or @ reply) message, both of which are public and therefore visible to some or all Twitter users. The contact made a public statement about your brand/company, and a public, light-touch response is a fine choice. However, if you surmise from reading this contact’s Twitter stream that he/she might be tentative about public engagement on social networks, a Twitter DM might be the better option. You can send a Twitter DM only if the contact is following you and the message is just between you and the contact; it is not visible to any other Twitter user. For more on the various Twitter messaging options, read our past post, Twitter: Mentions, DMs and Retweets (and When To Use Each).

Responding to Person-B: Foursquare Check In and Tweet
Person-B checked in (via Foursquare) at one of your locations and tweeted about it. It might be a bit presumptive to jump right into a dialog with this person and it might or might not be too bold to follow them on a first check-in. Again, this depends on a number of parameters and practices within your industry and the awareness/perception of your brand. However, if you add the contact to the JitterJam database without following them (by clicking on the Add to Database icon in the “Actions” column of Listen•Engage with two people as shown on the previous graphic), JitterJam will track all of their conversations that are picked up by your social searches and conversation topics; you’ll be able to see how often they check in, mention your product/brand/company, etc. Maybe you’ll decide to follow or initiate a dialogue with someone who has tweeted a check-in more than three (3) times. Your social practices are your decision; JitterJam makes it easy to apply them.

JitterJam Tip for Using Foursquare
Set up a social search to pull in all tweeted Foursquare check-ins for your business and assign these social search results to their own JitterJam Topic (e.g. “4Sq Checkins”). This way, by creating a new Contact Search (in Develop or Promote) you’ll be able to isolate all of your contacts who have checked in more than three times, more than five times, never … what ever threshold is right for you. With these contacts isolated you can follow them, apply a tag to them, or even reach out to kick off a dialog!

Responding to Person-C: Asking for Product Advice
It is pretty exciting to see the conversation from Person-C asking for advice on the best widget when you, in fact, sell the very best-darn widget around! However, make a good effort to temper your response so you don’t sound like a snake-oil salesman. Try something like, “I understand you are looking for widgets, ours might fit the bill – care for a demo?” Or, include the url to a review of your widget as you suggest that, “You might check this out: http://…“ Person-C was looking for some guidance; if your tweet provides that without a strong-arm approach it is likely to be well received.

What happens if a person is less than pleased with your company/brand?
This is certainly a possibility and something you should be prepared for. We have covered this topic in our Monitoring and Responding to High-Risk Conversations post. Most importantly, keep a level head and look upon about the situation with a 360-degree perspective.

What’s Next?
Since this post was quite Twitter-centric, I think it is important to point out other Twitter-specific posts we have for you to use as a resource. Here are five great ones … a post on each of The 5 C’s of Following People on Twitter: Customer, Credibility, Content, Community, Competition.

Part II of this topic will cover Direct Customer Engagement & Feedback over other social channels.

Ready to engage? Remember to step lightly and always be respectful.

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. We identified a number of use cases that drive ownership and implementation of social marketing within a business. The third use case in our Creativity Coffee series, Customer Service, focuses on how businesses can utilize social networks to improve the customer service experience for consumers.

Comcast’s @comcastcares is the “poster child” for the successful use of social networks to provide customer service. Frank Eliason (@FrankEliason), who has since moved on to Citi, led a team of 17 people to provide customer care over Twitter. While some companies have followed suit, others are reluctant to provide “public” customer service. What’s clear from today’s Idea Spark Creativity Coffee discussion is that regardless of whether companies address brand issues and sentiment publicly, people will talk. So what should companies do—and expect—from customer service as a use case for social marketing? Here are the ideas and points from our discussion.

1. There are three core customer service opportunities.
• Reactive: Response to a direct customer complaint, comment or inquiry. For instance, a customer sends @ComcastCares a message stating, “I can’t figure out how to work this new interactive guide on my DVR.” @ComcastCares responds with a link to their online user guide.
• Proctive: Engaging a customer who has posted a complaint, question or comment about the company, brand or product on the real-time web. For instance, if a consumer Tweets, “I can’t figure out how to work this new Comcast interactive guide on my DVR.” While the remark wasn’t directed at the Comcast customer service group, they respond with an @ message to the consumer with the same link. This proactive approach shows the consumer that they are keenly interested in ensuring a positive user experience.
• Progressive: Engaging a consumer who is is having issues finding a solution to a problem or even having a problem with a competitor’s product and engaging them with the brand. For instance, a consumer Tweets “I can’t get more than 1Mbps of speed on my DSL.” @ComcastCares could respond with, “We’d love to help you solve your issue. What’s your zip code? Perhaps we have a better solution.” This could be a Sales or a Customer Care function.
2. The main barriers for companies to enact socially-focused customer care are fear and “lack” of resources.
• Fear. Fear of “airing dirty laundry” in public could be a significant barrier for a company or brand to enact real-time customer service. However, remember that consumers are going to talk about your brand regardless of whether you are listening and responding to those comments. Wouldn’t you rather have the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one?
• Resources and Planning. Taking a reasoned approach to providing customer service via social networks takes some planning and coordination. How many hours a day will be covered? Who is responsible for coverage? Do those people cover social networks exclusively? Does this effort require additional resources, or can the business start with existing personnel? How does this overlap with sales/marketing? These questions are asked and answers for other customer service channels and should be addressed for social as well. Current escalation procedures, PLUS procedures for escalating critical public issues, should be known and in place.
3. Customer service is a form of Marketing.
• How does thinking of customer service as a Marketing function change the scope of the role of customer service for your brand?
• There is a huge opportunity for brands to enhance their relationships with their customers and develop advocacy through customer service. Comcast was able to change public perception of their brand through the positive public customer service experience. No all problems CAN be solved to a customer’s satisfaction; but the willingness of a brand to show they care about the customer’s experience is half the battle.
4. What can brands do to offer live social customer service?
• Test the waters. It’s more than likely that brands that are socially active are already fielding customer service questions and issues through their social accounts. Brands can begin by actively listening for customer needs, questions, issues, etc. and involving the customer service organization as part of the social marketing process. Those key individuals can be tasked with responding (in a timely manner) to the real-time customer inquiry and problem resolution. There needs to be a mechanism in place for coordination and assignment of social conversations and responses to make this a viable first step.
• Measure value. How does this shift in activity improve customer satisfaction? How has call/email volume decreased since enacting real-time customer service? Has the sentiment about the brand improved? Make sure that you have Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure the effectiveness of the effort. But also make sure that you give the effort enough time TO have an effect.
• Pick the right people. Make sure that you select the right people to provide this type of support. The people chosen should be well-versed in social media as well as your brand/product. The make-up of your work force can drive or kill the opportunity. choose wisely!
• Dedicate. Brands who have successfully tested the waters can take the next step—dedicating resources (personnel, procedures, social accounts) to customer service. But don’t forget that it’s just one avenue for customers to connect with the brand and have issues resolved. Don’t lose sight of the overall value of customer service and satisfaction.
• Be first. Brands that take this step to provide real-time service set the bar for their competitors. They are seen as forward-thinking leaders rather than playing catch-up. Being first in a brand category provides significant competitive advantage (press coverage, brand buzz, etc).
• Crowdsource. Part of the advantage of “public” customer service over social networks is the ability to crowdsource. Publishing useful information and great content to support the customer experience is a great way to have your customers spread the word through their own personal social networks. It’s a mind shift away from traditional customer service towards the development of a customer community. Your customers can help others, and you can point your customers to the community as a resource.

 
Customer service is never an “easy” function, and selling social media as a channel for customer service may be difficult in your organization. While saving money may be one goal, make sure you also think about customer satisfaction (and extending customer lifetime value), retention, developing advocacy and community, reducing the cost of customer acquisition, crowdsourcing and other benefits of good customer service (and good marketing) when pitching a plan to your company. And don’t forget that ALL your employees are your brand ambassadors. Even though they may be home and surfing through Facebook, it’s likely that they are still “on the clock” when it comes to advocating your brand or company. Customer service is every employee’s responsibility, whatever their job.
 
Has your company or brand engaged in real-time customer service? How has the experience changed your company?
 
Photo Credit: thadz

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

In our past discussions, we have talked about how individual initiatives are the genesis of the use of social media / social marketing within a business or a brand, and that these initiatives are usually driven by a single purpose—a use case. We identified a number of use cases hat drive ownership and implementation of social marketing within a business. Our last Creativity Coffee topic—Using Social Marketing for Lead Generation—was the first in a series of roundtable discussions focusing on use cases. We talked about how Lead Generation is a very B2B (or high-ticket B2C) concept that centers around having a sales force or team, and how companies can utilize social marketing to accomplish this task.

This week’s discussion centers around Building Brand Awareness. Many companies jumping on the social marketing bandwagon are doing so with the goal to build brand awareness. From local businesses to multi-national brands, social marketing can provide new ways for the brand to get closer to their current customers and to reach new consumers otherwise unaware of or disengaged from their business. Today’s discussion surrounded how businesses go about developing brand awareness with social marketing. Here are the ideas sparked during our discussion.

1. The initial Brand Awareness use case is to get out there!
• Many brands just jump in with a Twitter account and a Facebook page. But without some sort of ongoing commitment, policies and goals, the accounts become dormant and whatever effort was put into the accounts turn into negative impressions. It’s estimated that only 25% of brands with Twitter accounts are active!
• Some brands who haven’t jumped in may be suffering from analysis/paralysis—the need to get every policy and procedure in place before embarking on social marketing. Policies NEED to be in place; you don’t want employees representing your company or brand’s voice in an unfavorable way; but you also need to not let fear keep you from getting engaged in social marketing.
2. Brand awareness, impressions and mentions are used as core metrics.
• Brand awareness is a metric that has grown out of traditional media and has been applied to new/digital media. Brand impressions are a key metric and is usually equated to predicted sales based upon prior campaign performance. For example, X media will provide Y impressions and will generate (on average) Z sales.
• Companies use brand mentions on social networks as a core metric not only for measuring social media but general brand awareness. Counting brand mentions over time shows how much buzz there is about a brand and how that buzz changes over time, correlates with other media buys, etc.
• Brand mentions are often used to see how new messaging has spread through the social public. For instance, brands may track how many people have been using their old messaging to discuss or describe their product, how many are using the new messaging and how the conversation shifts over time.
• In some cases, agencies are driving these metrics as part of their overall branding strategy for a company. But are agencies prohibiting companies from doing more? Traditional agencies AND their brand customers know and rely upon standard metrics; how can they move towards using new media metrics to show value? And SHOULD they manage their clients’ social “voice;” does it matter to consumers that an agency is the “man behind the curtain” for a brand’s social account? Food for thought.
3. The use case for Building Brand Awareness = Consumer Engagement.
• Social marketing should be about engaging people; the ‘awareness’ starts with that initial light touch; for instance, following someone on Twitter who mentions an interest that pertains to your market, a competitive brand, the use of a product in your category, etc.
• Brands can take that initial awareness further and engage consumers more deeply. Social networks provide so much more opportunity than just brand awareness and impressions. Brand awareness is a good start as a use case, but social marketing affords so much more. We’ll talk about other use cases in driving consumer engagement in a later discussion.
4. There ARE solid proof points, but direct ROI is still elusive.
• Bank example: An agency’s bank customer saw the average age of their customer drop by 4 years after they launched their Facebook page. Since there was no way to track “clicks” through to account sign-ups, there was little direct ROI data. But that demographic data was very telling.
• How do you measure goodwill? Social marketing helps to build goodwill between the brand and current and potential customers. Sentiment analysis and brand mentions can help showcase more positive attitudes amongst consumers…but can a business measure the ROI for goodwill?
• Engagement CAN be viral. Traditionally, if a consumer had a positive experience with a brand, he/she would tell people on a one-to-one basis. With social media, that positive experience can turn into a viral brand bonanza. If brands are NOT engaged in social marketing to build/monitor brand awareness (and conversation) that can turn into a brand nightmare as well (look at United Breaks Guitars, for example).
5. Social marketing is not a lone channel. The use of social marketing for brand awareness works in conjunction with all other channels, media and messaging.
• Social marketing should be used in coordinated way to drive brand awareness. It is not the only available method to drive awareness, nor is it the RIGHT channel for EVERY situation. E.g. email is a primary preferred channel for receiving deals/offers/promotions today while social is seen as “conversational”. Both have their value–and their place in a brand strategy.
• One last thought: Make sure you understand individual consumer preferences for communication with your brand and strictly adhere to them!

How is your brand using social marketing to drive awareness? Let us know!

Twitter has been rolling out a new web user interface, dubbed #NewTwitter, to groups of its users. Part of that new UI is a distinct shrinking of the background areas to the left and right of the Twitter stream and profile information. Many users have been upset because the branding “real estate” they’ve been using for people who visit their Twitter pages has shrunk considerably. While it’s clear that there’s less branding opportunity in the new Twitter interface, there still IS the opportunity to create a customized background that can be seen by your visitors. Here are a few tips for creating a branded presence.

1. Keep it simple.
• Our old background had a paragraph describing what we do. Given the limited real estate, I simplified the background to drive brand identity and to give people who find our Twitter page to the information they need to find our website and our people. That’s it.



2. Right side real estate is a “bonus” area.
• Depending on your visitor’s screen resolution, any graphic placed on the right side area of your background may/may not be visible. If you do place something on the right side, make it as dark/bold as possible. The Twitter right-hand side bar is not completely opaque; if your graphic is covered, it might still be slightly visible through the Twitter side bar.
3. Size matters.
• Our left side branding is about 132px wide. It gives us a little buffer if the screen resolution is smaller than the 1440×900 I typically use on my Mac. I also made the branding image about 550px tall and provided some ample space below for smaller/clipped windows.
• I made the full background (green hills) a bit bigger than most screen sizes/resolutions to allow for differences between computers.

You can have lots of fun designing your own background for your Twitter page. Mashable also posted some fabulous tips a few weeks ago, including some great details on the sizes for your final background image and using other tools to create backgrounds and developing a color scheme.

I hope you have a lovely and FUN weekend.

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

During our previous Creativity Coffee, we continued the discussion about online communities by drilling down into the Voice of the Brand—Who is Talking to determine whether or not it matters if the actual person behind a brand’s social account(s) matters to the consumers who are interacting with the brand.

In this week’s discussion, we continued the conversation by going even deeper and discussing what the voice of the brand should be. What is the tone and personality of a brand’s social “voice” via their Twitter, Facebook and other social accounts? How do they determine that voice? Here are the ideas that came out of our discussion.

1. The brand’s voice is not necessarily a reflection of the company culture—but it could be.
• A brand is trying to appeal to the demographic of its target customer. That demographic may not be reflected in the demographics of the company’s employees or its environment and culture.
• However, some brands are very tied to their corporate culture (e.g. Zappos). The voice of the brand is very personal to that culture (Tony) and therefore is driven by that culture.
2. Brand voice is closely tied to social strategy.
• Is the social strategy tied to a particular campaign? A brand image that already exists (mascot, spokesperson)? The social marketing strategy for the brand and the purpose of the particular social account should drive the way the brand approaches its voice. Is the strategy to drive content? Is it to engage in social discussion? Provide customer service? All these approaches may require a different voice—informative, friendly, professional, funny, helpful, provocative, evocative—and a different account for the particular purpose/use.
3. Personalizing the brand versus personifying a brand.
• Personalizing. Brands that are the most successful on the social web are speaking TO individuals. They are humanizing the brand and bringing the discussion to a one to one conversation. They are making consumers feel, “They care about me…they listen to me…they make me feel special.”
• Personifying. This is very different to attaching a personna to the brand; that is, identifying a specific person to a brand’s social identity (Dunkin’ Dave). As we discussed in Part 1 of this conversation, this can be disadvantageous to a brand if/when that employee leaves the company; the social equity that the particular employee has created walks with that employee.
4. How should a brand determine their voice and tone?
• Marketing Strategy. The brand voice should support the mission of the company and/or the brand marketing strategy.
• Social Role and Strategy. The brand voice for each social account should reflect the role and goals of the account (customer support, deals only, specific product, etc.) as well as the social and marketing strategy for the brand. Is the point to inform (e.g @breakingnews)? Engage individuals (e.g. @starbucks)? Provide better service (e.g. @comcastcares)? The voice used to communicate needs to reflect that strategy and role of the account to the brand as well as the voice of the consumers the brand is trying to engage. @comcastcares will have a different voice than @burtonsnowboard.
• Brand Identity. The tone of the brand’s social voice also needs to be in line with the overall brand identity. It can be driven by a particular marketing campaign (e.g. @crunchiscalling) to promote brand messaging and overall brand impressions. But how does this impact the brand in the long term? Is brand impression enough?

Our next Idea Spark Creativity Coffee covers the larger issue of Who Owns Social Marketing in a Company? Is it Marketing? PR? Customer Service? If there are multiple accounts and owners, how do they interact? Who drives the strategy? Please join the conversation!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

Don’t Create Social SPAM

For businesses and brands, interacting on the social web isn’t easy. While individuals see social networks as a place to voice their opinions, post random thoughts, hold conversations or shout and rant, businesses who are trying to engage current and potential customers must tread carefully. Social networks are public venues, and any public communication could become a PR coup or a quickly escalating PR nightmare.

Given the thin ice that businesses and brands skate on in the public space, what rules do they follow to ensure that they are not creating social SPAM? Here are a few ideas that came out of our Creativity Coffee.

1. There’s a different expectation of privacy on Twitter versus on Facebook.
• People on Facebook have a greater perception of privacy even though their settings might make them more public than they desire. They believe that what they post is accessible by their friends (or network) but is not in the public domain.
• On Twitter, unless your tweets are protected, there is no expectation of privacy. The service in itself is a public forum for social commentary and communications.
• Brand outreach and engagement on Twitter is going to be a bit easier for “new” contacts due to the public nature of Twitter and the open environment. Facebook’s closed networks and less-than-public updates make it a difficult platform to use for “discovery” of new brand fans.
2. Example: A brand mention on Twitter vs. Facebook and the brand outreach possibilities
• A consumer, Mary, updates both her Twitter and Facebook status with “I love my Mazda.” Mazda does not have a prior social relationship with Mary. What can Mazda do to engage her?
• Twitter
• Mary’s tweet shows up on Mazda’s social search. Mazda is not following her and she’s not following Mazda.
• Mazda follows Mary. This is generally acceptable.
• Mazda retweets Mary’s comment. This is generally acceptable. The consumer may even notice the retweet and start following Mazda on Twitter.
• Mazda @ messages Mary with a “thank you”. This is generally acceptable.
• Mazda @ messages Mary with a promotional offer. This is very questionable. Mary has no prior relationship with Mazda, and she might see this as social SPAM and block Mazda from future communications.
• Mazda Direct Messages (DMs) Mary with a promotional offer. This is unacceptable. Mary has no prior relationship with Mazda and has not opted to receive promotional messages from them. This is social SPAM. Don’t do it.
• Facebook
• Mary’s Facebook status update shows up on Mazda’s social search. Mary is not a fan of Mazda’s Facebook page.
• There’s not much that Mazda can do from an outreach standpoint here. Any message sent directly to Mary (assuming that she is open to non-friends sending her messages) could be construed as SPAM. Messages sent by Mazda would actually be sent by the Mazda page administrator’s Facebook account to Mary, not by the Mazda page. Facebook was not created as a business-focused network, and the ability for brands to market TO Facebook members is limited to their page fans (I can’t say “likers” without snickering).
• The Mazda page administrator could try to “friend” Mary, but Mary would most likely not know this person and have no reason to friend the page admin.
• Mazda CAN use sophisticated tools to find out Mary’s social profile and try to contact her in a manner that is acceptable to her (perhaps Mary is on the Mazda email list and is open to offers). The best Mazda can do at this point is to understand what Mary is saying about them on Facebook and try to get Mary to Like their Facebook page in another way.
• Twitter is a much more friendly network for brands to discover new voices. However, Facebook DOES have advantages over Twitter as a gathering place for engaged consumers.
3. Permission is the key.
• You need to use the same kind of opt-ins for social marketing as you do for email marketing.
• You want to ensure that you don’t alienate a current/potential customer. It’s critical that you ask them to opt-in to receive promotional messages from you. If they don’t, do not send them promotional messages (DMs, Facebook messages).
• DMs are self-regulating. If you blow trust with your contact, they will sever their connection with you.
4. You need to be mindful of not only WHAT you say, but how often you speak.
• With Facebook, a your wall posts/updates will show up on your fans’ walls and will create a brand impression to all those who are friends with your fan. However, if you post to Facebook constantly, your fans may tire of the constant chatter and “unlike” your page. Make sure your content is valuable and not annoyingly frequent.
• Twitter is a little more forgiving, but your brand impressions may be less frequent due to the higher instance of chatter.
• In both cases, note that your status updates are fleeting; they pass by your fans and friends and may not register at all.

Facebook has lots of advantages for the brand once you get consumers to engage (“Like” your brand’s page). In this coming Friday’s Creativity Coffee, we’ll talk about Facebook Etiquette. Please join the conversation!

Do you have policies and procedures in place for your public social networks? What are you rules for social etiquette? Have you had an instance where your social outreach backfired? How did you handle it?

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

Have you ever searched through Twitter to find conversations about your brand, your product, your market? How about Google? How many conversations did you find? Too few? Too many? Too many irrelevant conversations? How do you refine that search to find the true voices talking about your brand, your product, your market?

One of the biggest challenges in searching for conversations about your brand on the real-time web is creating effective search criteria. Twitter complicates this even more with its 140 character limit, and when you’re using the same criteria over multiple channels, it gets even more challenging to filter out the noise and bring back only relevant conversations. Here are a few tips to increase the relevance of your search results.

1. Search is a trial-and-error process.
• You probably won’t get it right the first time, nor should you expect to!
• Conversations are very fluid. A search that works well today may not work work tomorrow. Make sure you’re checking your results and trying new search criteria often.
2. Your brand, product name or company name is (just) the start.
• Try different combinations of keywords to hone in on chatter surrounding your brand.
• Using keywords to exclude conversations is just as important as keywords to find/return conversations.
• If you have a name that is associated with more than just your brand/product/company, your challenge is to filter out everything but the conversations that focus on your business or market. Look at the recurring keywords in the irrelevant results and use them to start narrowing your search.
3. Try different search criteria for different social channels.
• While it might be tempting to try an all-inclusive search across all available channels, you have a great deal more flexibility in searching for relevant blogs than relevant Twitter posts and can utilize more keywords. If your results are too broad, try tailoring the search for each social channel type.
4. Focus on finding your target market—not just chatter about your brand.
• Find out what people within your target market are talking about (trending topics). A good place to start is your current base of Twitter followers. Use this “target market” search to find relevant people rather than just conversations around your brand or market, and then start engaging those who are talking.
• Find events that to your target market and join in on the chatter about that event. This is also a way to identify events that you may want to participate in or sponsor in the future.
5. Think of different ways that your product or brand can be described and search using those descriptive keywords in your search. Let’s use a snack food with a brand name of “CrackerX” as an example.
• By alternative name or title. Search for people who want a “cracker, snack, munchie, or food.” Look for people talking about alternative types and brands of product in the market as well—”chips, popcorn, Doritos.”
• By description. Search for conversations about “crunchy, fun, healthy” with “snacks, food, munchies, treats” to narrow the search to your product’s specific category.
• By timing. Use events and timing to search for chatter—”game-day, BBQ, after-school, party, tail-gating” and more.
• By people, demographics. Look for a way to identify groups that your target market identifies with—a social object, a “tribe” to which they belong (or is a fan of). “SMU, UCLA, Patriots, Celtics, PTA” and more.
6. Marketers (and Agencies), you’ve already done the homework! Use what you already know!
• Use the psychographic and demographic profiles that you’ve created in defining your target market(s) to find core keywords for your searches.
• Bring your search engine keywords to your social search as well!

These are just a few ideas to help you refine your search. Do you have any special tips or tricks? Post them here!

Want to find relevant conversations on the real-time web and start engaging those who are talking? Try JitterJam and see how it can help your social marketing efforts.

The word “Networking” sometimes makes people think of a room full of people in suits exchanging business cards. That was how Networking used to be perceived, but with the extension of online social networks like Twitter and Facebook to live events, Networking today includes both social and professional events and enables people to connect on many levels.

You can find any number of events happening on a given day if you know where to look. From hobbies to education, professional interests to just simply meeting new people, you can readily find an event that will suit your tastes and interests. Here are a few sources for you to find your next event.

1. Meetup
• Meetup was created as a way for people to organize event, list them, and attract others to attend the event. It’s free to join and sign up for different groups. Organizers pay a subscription fee (starting at $12 per month) to utilize the site for their group/events. They may charge a fee for people to attend their events, but that’s independent of the Meetup site.
• There are over 7 million members attending events hosted by over 76,000 Meetup groups around the world. If you don’t see a group that interests you in your local area, it’s easy to start one.
• The events are categorized and subcategorized to help you find what you’re looking for. You can easily search by topic AND city, so you can even find events in areas where you’ll be traveling to in the future.
2. Eventbrite
• Eventbrite is a site focused on helping organizations sell tickets to their events. There is no fee to create and promote events, so many organizers use Eventbrite for easy registration and promotion of their free events.
• The benefit to you is that there are a number of great events to choose from, and finding them is pretty easy. Eventbrite has a great search engine that lets you put in a location and begin browsing events. Once you have a list, you can narrow the list down by relative date (today, tomorrow, etc.), location, topic, cost (most of the events are free) and/or perform a keyword search. And like Meetup, registering for the Eventbrite site is free.
3. Tweetup
• While there’s no website that lists these events, a relatively new phenomenon is the Tweetup. A Tweetup is a live Twitter meet-up (not to be confused with the Meetup.com site). It’s generally promoted on Twitter. People generally announce local Tweetups on their Twitter streams. Some of the events are very impromptu, and others are highly organized. Regardless, the events are fairly well-attended by those involved in social media (how else would they hear about them)?
• How do you find out about Tweetups in your area? Do a location-based Twitter search of people near you using the keyword “Tweetup” and start following the links to local events. Don’t forget to follow the people who announce and spread the word about these Tweetups—you’ll be able to find out about more events in your area through them. (Of course, JitterJam does all this!)
• Tweetups are often listed on Meetup and Eventbrite. Use those sites to search for events and bookmark the recurring events. You can also find new people to meet and follow through the registration lists!

I hope these tips will help you find a networking event that’s fun, interesting and educational! Happy Fun Stuff Friday!

Image credit: FOTOCROMO