MackCollier.com

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The ROI of giving a damn

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to see a tweet from Mike Myatt about an article FedEx’s Matt Ceniceros had written where he discussed how the company uses social media to connect with its customers.  He added this passage:

“Social media” can seem like a complex world of diverse and daunting technology. But the technology is fairly easy to learn if you spent some time with it. Social media is really just another channel to tell people about your business.  If you read any of the top online influencers like Chris Brogan, Mack Collier or Dan Schwabel they all give insights on how to be “social” and personal online.  They tackle many of the issues we have in face-to-face communication, but how to translate the learnings online.

I really appreciate Matt mentioning me in that context, and especially with Chris and Dan.  Matt’s doing a great job of leveraging social media to connect with Fed-Ex’s customers online, and he’s the only employee of ANY shipping company that I’ve ever interacted with on Twitter.  So he’s got a leg-up on the competition there.

Matt and I have talked on Twitter several times, some times about how companies can use social media, or how his company can use social media, or we’ve even chatted about college football a few times (Matt’s a big Texas fan).

If you’re like many people, and especially companies, you might look at social media and think “Ok how is talking to a bunch of people all day going to help me?  What’s the ROI of being friendly on Twitter?”

It’s a legitimate question, and one that many of us struggle with.  Hell I have to justify to myself the amount of time I spend using social media.

But I don’t ever feel the need to question if there is value in helping others.  In connecting friends, in sharing what I’ve learned.  Case in point; even though Matt and I have talked several times on Twitter, we may never work together, and technically I probably won’t get any direct business from interacting with him.  But because we’ve chatted before, because I’ve tried to help him, we became friends via Twitter, and that’s probably had something to do with him mentioning me in his article.  Which then got RTed several times, then Chris RTed it to his 100K or so followers, and a whole lot of people were exposed to a very positive endorsement by the guy that heads up social media for one of the largest companies in the world.

Not too shabby.

This is why I don’t think companies should obsess about the ROI of social media.  Should they, MUST they see a return on their time and money and effort?  Absolutely.  But if companies view every single interaction and minute spent with social media through the lens of ‘is this going to make us money?’, they are going to miss the big picture.  That social media works best at INDIRECTLY creating value for companies.  It’s not “If we tweet, we’ll sell more stuff”, it’s “If we can create value for our customers via Twitter, then that will increase their trust in us and the brand equity we have with them and then AS A RESULT of that, sales will increase.”

For example, let’s look at #blogchat.  Our weekly chat about personal and professional blogging on Twitter has been growing like a weed for 11 months.  Occasionally, friends will tell me “You need to find a way to get some business from #blogchat, you’re spending too much time with it not to.”  But I didn’t create #blogchat as a way to get more consulting business, I created it as a way for people to come together on Twitter and talk about blogging.  That’s it.  Now as a result of #blogchat I have connected with people that HAVE referred me to clients and that HAVE hired me to do work for them, but that’s been an INDIRECT result of creating the chat.  If I tried to make #blogchat a vehicle for DIRECTLY giving me business, it likely would be a lot less valuable to everyone else, and as a result a lot less popular.  Which means it probably wouldn’t be helping me get any business anyway.

So companies, be mindful of getting value from your social media efforts, but understand that the more value you CREATE for the people you are trying to connect with, the more value you’ll receive in return.

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Audio Post: Defining Online Influence

Hey guys, I wanted to try something different with this post. Lately I’ve been struggling to find time to get new posts up here and at The Viral Garden as frequently as I want. So I wanted to experiment with doing some audio posts like this one. I can do these quicker than writing a post, and if you guys like the format I might do one of these a week or so, and see how it goes. If you don’t like them, let me know that as well.

Thanks guys! And if you have any problem with the player or the audio, let me know!

[audio:https://mackcollier.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Post2-15.mp3|titles=Defining Online Influence]

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So how much will a social media strategy cost?

One of the most frequent questions I get about social media is the cost. What will launching a blog/Facebook fan page/Twitter presence cost me? What will a social media strategy cost? The answer is never clear-cut and depends on several factors, including:

  • What are your goals for using social media?  This greatly determines the tools necessary to achieve those goals
  • What are your resources?  Can you handle everything in-house, or will you need to outsource some of the work?  All of the work?
  • What is the length of the project?  Obviously, a 6-month project will cost more than a 3-month project.

From my point of view as a consultant, I am looking at how much work is involved, and what type of work, when I give a quote.  One word of caution; If you contact a consultant or firm about doing social media work, they SHOULD ask you several questions before they can give you a price.  If a company contacts me and asks “Ok, what’s it going to cost us to launch a blog?”, then I can’t answer that question without more information.  And here’s a tip; If you ask a consultant/agency how much it will cost to launch a blog/Facebook fan page/Twitter presence for you and they immediately quote you a price, that is a big red flag.  They can’t answer that question until they know what your resources and goals are for using social media.

Now, I know what you are thinking.  “Yeah that’s great Mack, but give me some prices!”  While it’s almost impossible to give any company an accurate quote without talking to them about the above and so much more, I’ll share some ranges with you to give you an idea of what to expect.  And I will caution you that these are my prices, some agencies/consultants will be more, some will be less, and you should consider this a guide only.

Blog:

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation (including customer interaction) – $3,000-$6,000 a month

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource all content creation at first, eventually take over – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Launch a blog from the ground-up, outsource some content creation till you can handle all – $2,500-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Restructure an existing blog to improve your efforts – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching to improve your existing blogging efforts – $1,500-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Twitter:

Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation and customer interaction – $2,000-$5,000 a month

Launch a new presence on Twitter and outsource all content creation at first, gradually taking over – $2,000-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Restructure an existing Twitter presence to improve your efforts – $1,500-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching to improve your existing efforts on Twitter – $1,500-$3,000 a month for 3-6 months

Facebook:

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing all content creation and customer interactions – $3,000-$6,000 a month

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing most of the content creation at first, gradually taking on more – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-6 months

Launch a Facebook Fan Page from the ground-up, outsourcing some content creation at first, till you can handle all – $2,500-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months.

Restructure an existing Facebook Fan Page to improve your existing efforts – $2,000-$4,000 a month for 3-6 months

Limited coaching on improving your Facebook Fan Page – $1,500-$3,000 a month for 3-6 months

Social Media Strategy:

Comprehensive Social Media Strategy, assuming outsourcing of all content creation through all channels (not recommended) – $5,000-$12,000 a month

Comprehensive Social Media Strategy, assuming outsourcing of most content creation at first, with company assuming more responsibility as project proceeds – $4,000-$9,000 a month for 4-12 months

Creation of a Social Media Strategy, with limited coaching and assistance with execution of the strategy – $3,000-$6,000 a month for 3-9 months

Restructuring of existing Social Media Strategy, with limited coaching and assistance with strategy – $2,500-$6,000 a month for 3-9 months

Limited coaching on improving the execution of an existing Social Media Strategy – $2,000-$5,000 a month for 3-6 months

Social Media Strategy Audit – $2,000-$5,000

Thanks to Anita for leaving a comment that reminded me to include this.  This is a service I offer to companies that gives them an audit of their existing social media strategy, as well as that of their competitors and the marketplace, to give them a suggested course of action for social media, moving forward.  This is for companies that aren’t sure how to proceed with social media, and want to know what sort of resources they will need to use social media effectively.  I have been getting several requests for this service over the last couple of months as companies begin setting their budgets for 2010.

Again, these figures should be considered a guide to get you started.  Obviously, the more work you need, the more the cost.  For example, if you have a team of 10 bloggers that I will be coaching, it’s probably going to cost more than if I am working with 2 people.

One final point: In general I don’t advise companies to outsource their social media efforts.  If you need to outsource some/most of your efforts at first till you get up to speed, that’s fine.  But if you hire someone to create and execute a social media strategy for you and outsource EVERYTHING to them, then you’re locked into needing to pay them big money for as long as you use social media.  And what happens if they are hired by a company?  There goes your social media strategy.

I understand that some companies need to outsource.  But in the long-run, your efforts will be more effective, and cheaper, the more you can handle yourself.  I was talking to a company recently about their launching a blog.  We were discussing if the company had the resources to keep and MAINTAIN a blog.  The CEO said he could that he had a great passion for his products, and the people that use them.  I pointed out that the PASSION was the one area that can’t be outsourced.  I can show you how to craft content that will be more valuable to customers and show you how to encourage interaction, but I won’t be able to match the passion or understanding that YOU have for your business.  That can’t be outsourced.

PS: If you’d like to get a custom quote on a social media project that you are considering, please email me!

NOTE: If you found this post via a Google search, this post first appeared in 2010.  The prices and services in this post have been updated for 2011 and you can find those prices here.

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I really want you to comment on my blog

Don’t most of us want more comments on our blogs?  Even the companies I work with almost always mention ‘getting more comments’ as one of the top concerns for their blog.

And it’s easy to see why we’d want more comments, after all, if our readers leave more comments, it has a lot of benefits for us:

  • More comments means more people will be likely to comment
  • More comments means more people will be reading the post, and spending time on our blog
  • More comments means there’s a greater chance of the post getting more links and retweets and being shared on other social sites
  • All those extra links and retweets means more traffic
  • We just like to know that people like the content we are creating

So we all know the reasons why WE want more comments.  Commenting is one of the key actions we want our readers to take when they visit our blog.

But have you ever asked yourself what’s in it for the reader?  What does the reader get from commenting?  Because if commenting is the action you want your readers to take, you need to give them a reason to.  And when they do, you need to acknowledge them.  Here’s some ideas:

  • Answer as many comments as possible.  It’s not a coincidence that I leave about half the comments written here.  And when I leave comments on other blogs, if the blogger replies to me, that makes me more likely to leave another comment there.
  • Promote the comments that your readers leave.  You can do that in the post, or even when you share a link to the post on Twitter.  I often link to each new post I write 2-3 times on Twitter.  Normally the first link is to the post itself, but often when I tweet out the post the second time, I will point out a great comment that someone left.  If they are on Twitter I might tweet ‘Love this comment by @BethHarte on my post about time management and social media!’
  • Add a Recent Comments plugin or something similar that displays the most recent comments left.  Readers like to see that you appreciate their contributions, and that’s a very simple way to do this.
  • Write posts based on comments left, and point out the reader that wrote the comment.

The point is, you’ll get more comments if you give people a reason to comment.  So don’t look at it as ‘here’s how I benefit from more comments’, but think about what your commenters get from the deal.

How have you increased comments on your blog?

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How high is your bar set?

When I was 11 years old, living in rural Alabama, one hot summer I joined a local football team.  The school where I was attending at the time didn’t have a football program, but a nearby school did, and a couple of my friends convinced me to join them in playing football.

My good friend and I were on the ‘midget’ football team, and my friend’s two older brothers were on the ‘pee wee’ football team.  To be honest, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of playing football for a school where I knew no one.  But my friend wanted to play, and my dad encouraged me too, so I sheepishly agreed.

On the first day, we were lined up and the coaches did a series of drills designed to help them figure out what our skills were.  Who could throw, who could catch, who could run, etc.  I noticed how all the other players were kidding with each other and the coaches.  These were all kids that attended this school together, so they were already friends.  Everyone knew everyone else, and being an introvert, that made me realize that I had no business being there.  No one knew who I was, and as the coaches lined us up for drills, a sense of dread came over me.  What was going to happen when it was my turn to catch a pass from the coach?  Of course I was going to drop the ball, because I was nervous as hell, and then everyone was going to stop and say “Who is THAT kid?  The one that can’t catch?”

Yeah it’s funny how a kid, especially an introverted kid that didn’t want to be there, can overreact.

So I watched as the line in front of me got shorter and shorter.  We were lined up and the person at the front of the line would run down the field, and the coach would throw them a pass.  Four kids in front of me, then three, then two.  Funny thing is, I wasn’t worried about dropping the pass, I was worried that the coach wouldn’t know who I was (how could he?), and that he’d tell me I didn’t belong there because I didn’t go to that school.  So by the time the kid in front of me ran out to catch his pass and it was just seconds away from being ‘my turn’, I was almost scared to death.  All the worst-case scenarios ran through my mind; The coach wouldn’t know who I was.  I would drop the ball and everyone would laugh at me.  The coach would laugh at me.  Who knew.

The coach watched the kid in front of me catch his pass, he clapped and shouted encouragement to him.  Then he turned and grabbed another football, and turned to look at me.  This was it.

Then he did something I will never forget; He looked at me, smiled slightly, and said ‘Ok Mack….go get it!’.  And he winked at me!  The man winked at me!  At that moment, all the irrational fears of an introverted 11 year-old kid in a football practice he didn’t really want to be at, immediately disappeared.

I ran a route that would have made Jerry Rice cheer, and if that coach had thrown that ball 10 feet over my head it wouldn’t have mattered because I still would have caught that ball.  When that coach smiled and winked at me, he was saying ‘You can do this!’.  And I immediately knew I could.

“So Mack” you ask, “what the hell does this have to do with social media?”

I think the lesson is to remember that you sometimes need to lower the bar to encourage interaction.  It could be on your blog, your community site, Twitter, where ever.

Believe it or not, there really ARE people out there that have never left a comment on a blog.  AND some of them are a bit intimidated at the idea.

Laugh all you want, but many of us have been there ourselves at one point.  And maybe it’s because I am an introvert, but I always keep these people in mind when I create content.  Look at my last post about social media rockstars.  I’ll be the first to admit that it’s probably not the most mentally taxing post you will ever read.  But that post  (hopefully) was very easy to leave a comment on.  It got several comments here, and many RTs on Twitter.

The idea is to occasionally (at least), create content that’s very easy for people to interact with.  Making your content more accessible. Because the more people that interact with your content, the better the experience for you, and everyone else.

Try lowering the participation bar, and see what happens.  Try saying “Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!”

That just might be the ‘wink’ of encouragement they were waiting for…

Pic via Flickr user pdubs.94

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I am a Social Media Rockstar

It’s a label that’s like nails on a chalkboard to many people, but one we can’t seem to escape.

The ‘Social Media Rockstar’.

Who is this person?  How do we determine who a ‘rockstar’ is in this space?

Unfortunately, we too often give this label to people that really don’t deserve it.  Too many people look at things like the number of Twitter followers, or Facebook fans, and deem the people that have high numbers to be the ‘rockstars’.  Sometimes these people are indeed among the smartest in this space, but other times, they are simply people that have learned to ‘game’ the system better than the rest of us.

So how do we identify the real ‘leaders’ in this space?  Who are the real rockstars?  Even that is open to intense debate, but if we could talk to the true social media rockstar, here is what I think they would say:

1 – I am human.  I don’t automate my communications, I relate to people as other people.  I value each and every interaction, and understand that the more interactions I have, the smarter I become.

2 – I am humble.  One time I had a person that IS considered a rockstar in this space confide to me that “I seriously hate it when people call me a ‘rockstar'”, and when I asked why, they said “Because I am afraid that someone will believe them.”

3 – I think indirectly.  The people that TRULY excel in leveraging social media as tools to connect with other people get this.   They don’t think ‘What do I get from this?’, they think “What value will my actions create for others?”  This is one of the most misunderstood elements of social media in the business context.  You can’t monetize your social media efforts until you first create value for the people you are trying to reach.

4 – I am a people person.  I love connecting with people, and always have, no matter why tools I use.  I am social with or without the use of social tools.

5 – I find and surround myself with people that are smarter than I am.  This ties back to being humble, but I understand that I can learn something from almost everyone.  And I assume that everyone can teach me something.  The end result is that I am smarter, and can create more value for my network.

6 – I am actually social.  I really use Twitter to talk to people.  I actually reply to readers that comment on my blog.  I make the time to stay connected, even when I don’t have it.

7 – I know I am not a rockstar.  Seriously, being a social media rockstar is about as significant as being the 3rd best hockey player in Ecuador.

What other traits do the real social media rockstars have?

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Three steps to saving your company from a social media firestorm!

Last week I was contacted by a company that found itself in an unfortunate position.  One of the products it produces had been failing, and bloggers were taking to the internet to voice their displeasure.  The end result was that if you Googled the company and its product, the majority of the top results were, you guessed it, from angry bloggers.

So what happens if your company finds itself in a similar situation with customers running with pitchforks in hand to their blogs and Twitter to rake your company over the coals?  What’s your plan of action?  Here’s the advice I gave them for correcting this issue, and how your company can handle a similar crisis in three steps:

1 – Fix the problem.  No amount of social media or ANY other type of on or offline communications will help you until your company FIRST fixes the problem.  If you have a defective product, or shoddy customer service, or whatever, you have to first address the ROOT CAUSE of the customer complaints.  And once you have a solution in place for the problem….

2 – Actively respond to customers via social media.  Find the customers that are blogging and twittering and Facebooking their displeasure over your company, and let them know that first, you hear them and thank them for their feedback.  Second, that you apologize.  Third, that you have a PLAN IN PLACE to fix the problem.  Fourth, that you’re here and listening, and invite further feedback from them, and give them a way to get in touch with you.

Last week when Graco announced a recall to one of its strollers, the company turned to Twitter to interact with customers and get them information about which strollers were and were not affected by the recall.  Timely communication such as this also helps stunt the spread of rumors and misinformation, which only makes the company’s crisis management efforts twice as hard.  Additionally, customers loved how Graco was proactive in reaching out to them, and a potentially negative situation for the company became a positive one.

Customers want to know that you hear them, and what you are going to do to correct the problem.  If you can show them that you are listening, that you are taking their criticism to heart and ACTING on it, then that criticism will slowly turn into positive evangelism for your company.  That means those existing negative Google results for your company and product will begin to turn positive.

3 – Start getting correct information out via social media channels.  But your company still needs to ‘tell its story’.  Many people will be doing research on Google for your product before they buy, so you need to make sure they see the correct information about your product and company.  If you have a blog, this is where you can let customers know what you are doing to address the situation, and how you are correcting the problem.  If you aren’t currently blogging, this is a great excuse for starting one.  Dell’s company blog had barely been in place for a week in 2006 when the ‘exploding laptop’ issue ‘blew up’.  But having the blog in place gave Lionel and the rest of Dell’s blogging team a channel to get relevant and accurate information out about the situation, and what Dell was doing to correct it.

So there’s a simple 3-point plan for avoiding a social media firestorm; Fix the problem, Respond to customers letting them know you have fixed the problem, Get the word out via your OWN social media channels that you have fixed the problem.  But again, the starting point is to fix the problem.  If you think that you ignore the core issue and just use social media to ‘push down’ negative Google results, you are setting yourself up for failure.

The only thing worse than a company that doesn’t respond during a crisis is one that DOES respond, yet still doesn’t fix the problem.

Pic via Flickr user chaosinjune

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I’m leaving, and I’m taking your social media strategy with me!

A couple of years ago Ann Handley, the Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs, snagged the @MarketingProfs name on Twitter and started making fabulous use of the site to connect with and engage MP’s members.  Everyone knew that if they had a question or issue with MP, that Ann was the person they could reach out to.

Since that time, several people on MP’s staff have followed Ann’s lead and joined Twitter.  I would guess the virtual company has at least a dozen employees using Twitter every day to connect with its members, and they are a fabulous case study for leveraging Twitter as a channel to connect with customers.

But let’s play ‘What If’ for a moment.  What if a year or two, when Ann was really starting to develop a following on Twitter and as becoming the ‘face’ of Marketing Profs on Twitter, what if she had left the company?  She would not only be leaving MP, but she would be taking MP’s presence on Twitter with her.  Suddenly Marketing Profs would have lost a channel that was becoming a valuable way for them to connect with customers.

Here’s another scenario: Let’s say your company over the last year has been outsourcing all of your social media efforts to an agency, or a strategist, and that person has become the online ‘face’ for your company on social sites.  What if that person is suddenly hired by a larger company, or if that agency suddenly folds?  Suddenly, your entire social media presence will disappear.

Now I understand that many companies are in both of these positions.  You may have one person that really ‘gets’ social media, that volunteered to dip their toes in the SM waters for the company, and now 6 months later has really created a strong social media presence for your company.  Or maybe you decided months ago that you definitely DID want to use social media, but just didn’t have the resources, and needed to outsource your efforts.

But even if your company is in these positions, you can’t completely isolate yourself and your employees from what is happening with social media.  If only one person can handle your social media efforts fine, but if nothing else, have them give you a weekly/monthly report/training session on how they are using social media.  If you are outsourcing your social media efforts, make sure that the consultant or agency handling your efforts keeps you as involved as possible in what they are doing.  For example I offer outsourcing to clients, but we do it on a tiered basis, meaning I handle almost everything at the start of the project, we are splitting the work by the middle, then by the end they are handling almost all the content creation, and are ready to take over for themselves.  But even at the start of the process when I am handling everything, the client is kept aware of everything I am doing, so they know what’s happening.

The bottom line is that if you put 100% of your social media efforts in the hands of one person or an outside group, if that person/group leaves, you are screwed.  If nothing else, when the social media efforts from that one employee starts to bear fruit, start having that employee train other employees on how to use social media.  Ann was smart enough to tell the MP staff that she was really starting to get some traction with @MarketingProfs on Twitter, and Marketing Profs was smart enough to listen, and now the company has a vibrant network of employees on Twitter, instead of just Ann.

So don’t put all your social media eggs in one person’s basket!

Pic via Flickr user andy_carter

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What #blogchat can teach you about building a successful community site

About 10 months ago on a Sunday nite I asked a blogging question on Twitter, and as a bit of an experiment (and to better organize the responses I was hoping to get) I added the #blogchat hashtag to my question.  With that, the first #blogchat was born.

Since that time, we’ve had #blogchat every Sunday nite at 8pm Central time, with the exception of Mother’s Day last year.  It has gone from a couple of dozen participants leaving 200-300 tweets during the first one, to now every #blogchat attracts well over 100 participants and over 1,000 tweets.  Or a new tweet every 5 or 6 seconds.

And I think a lot of what makes #blogchat a hit can also help your company with its community-building efforts.  Here’s some examples:

1 – A community forms when people have a sense of ownership in something larger than themselves.  This is a key to #blogchat’s success.  From the get-go, I’ve made sure that everyone understands that #blogchat isn’t MY chat, it’s OUR chat.  In fact, if you’ve participated in #blogchat, you’ve probably noticed that after the first hour or so, I generally stop tweeting.  This is because I don’t want to dominate #blogchat, and I’ve learned that it’s best to bring smart people together, give them the stage, then get out of the way.  I think this is why people enjoy #blogchat, because they know that they can easily join in and play a role in the conversation that develops.  That’s very powerful, and it’s a big reason why #blogchat is so successful.

2 – Consider the type of actions you want to encourage when you create your community site.  From the get-go, I wanted everyone to feel like they could join in and participate in #blogchat.  As a result, the format of the chat is very loose compared to many other chats.  Whereas many chats have structured points/questions that are addressed every 15 mins or so, #blogchat starts with a general topic that everyone runs with.  As a result, I think #blogchat has more of a ‘coffee house’ feel to it, where everyone is talking about the same broad topic, but each table is discussing a slight variation on the main theme.  So the bar for joining #blogchat has been lowered, and that leads, I think, to more participation and interaction.

3 – Encourage lurkers to participate.  I’ll be honest, when a #blogchat really gets rolling, it’s easy for me to get overwhelmed as 20-30 new tweets come in every couple of minutes.  I can’t always reply to every #blogchat tweet that I want to, but you better believe that if I see someone tweet that it’s their first #blogchat, they’ll get a reply from me!  I will quickly thank them for joining, and encourage them to join in.  Also, before every #blogchat, I will tweet a reminder that #blogchat is open to EVERYONE and that we are ALL coming together to learn from each other.  This simply plays into the idea that the more smart people you get participating, the better and more valuable the conversations will be.  Which increases the value of #blogchat for everyone.

The same applies to your community site, if people are lurking, that means they are somewhat interested, but they don’t have that spark to move from lurking to participating.  A great way to encourage this switch is to lower the bar for their participation.

4 – Crowdsource ideas for community improvement from the community.  I’ll be honest, often I am so busy with client work that I really can’t spend as much time on developing new topics for each week’s #blogchat as I would like.  So what I will often do is reach out to #blogchatters and ask them what topics they want to see covered!  This helps me by setting the topic for the chat, but it’s also empowering to participants, because it shows them that they have control over the direction that #blogchat takes.

One week a couple of months ago I was totally swamped with work and didn’t even have time to make #blogchat.  But I definitely did NOT want to cancel #blogchat for that week because I was afraid that I would be disappointing a lot of people.  So I decided to take a risk, and made that particular #blogchat ‘open mic’, meaning there was no set topic, and everyone could talk about whatever they liked.  Somewhat to my surprise, the open mic format was a big hit, and many #blogchatters said they wanted it to be a regular occurance (but not EVERY week, they clarified).  So listening to their feedback, I changed the schedule so that the last Sun nite of every month is now open mic.  And this ties back to the first point of giving participants a sense of ownership in the community that’s being created!

5 – Know your limitations and work around them.  As I started crowdsourcing ideas for #blogchat topics, I ran into a bit of a problem.  #blogchat users were asking to discuss some topics that I really wasn’t the best person to lead a discussion on.  One example was many #blogchatters wanted to talk about improving your blog’s SEO efforts.  So that gave me the idea of bringing in experts to co-host certain #blogchat topics.  For example, @leeodden co-hosted the #blogchat about maximizing your blog’s SEO efforts, The Red Cross’ @wharman schooled us on how nonprofits can utilize social media, and @amyafrica told us how you could generate sales for your company via your blog.

Bringing in these experts not only addressed a shortcoming of #blogchat, but in the process it gave these experts the incentive to promote their involvement with #blogchat to their own networks.  So the quality of the content created at #blogchat was improved, and the  reach of #blogchat was expanded as well!  Not a bad way to turn a minus into a plus, eh?

6 – Realize that not everything is perfect.  Even though #blogchat is a very popular chat, not everything goes well and some people are critical of the chat.  Some people don’t like certain topics.  And while some people think it’s thrilling how fast-paced #blogchat can be, it simply overwhelms some people.

But this feedback is valuable, because it lets me know what’s working, and potentially what isn’t working.  And you have to dig for that criticism, too.  I’ve learned that if someone wants to complain about #blogchat, they are more likely NOT to do it in a reply to me.  So I have to constantly monitor the #blogchat stream for that feedback.

And at the same time, I have to weigh that feedback against what everyone is saying.  For example, last week the topic of #blogchat was dealing with how social media consultants should use social media themselves.  Some people publicly voiced their displeasure that they didn’t think the topic was blog-centric.  But at the same time, people were sending me DMs as well as publicly saying that they enjoyed the change of pace and appreciated a broader topic.

So as with all aspects of social media, don’t fear or run from criticism.  It’s valuable feedback that can help you improve your efforts!

7 – Be grateful.  I am honestly humbled and eternally grateful that people enjoy reading and participating in #blogchat.  I make sure that everyone understands that THEY are just as responsible for the success of #blogchat as I  am, and this goes back to sharing ownership of a created community.  No one creates a community by themselves, and communities usually aren’t driven by people that focus inward instead of outward.  Yes, saying ‘Thank You!’ still matters.

So these are some reasons why I think #blogchat is working, and I think that each of these examples can help you improve your own community-building efforts!

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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creating a Social Media Strategy (But Were Afraid to Ask)

RSSWorldIf your company is using social media, it is VITAL that you have a strategy and plan in place that’s guiding your efforts.  Not only will your efforts be much more successful, but it will save you a ton of time and money since your efforts will be focused.  And it will be much easier to measure the effectiveness of your efforts.

So why don’t more people have a social media strategy in place? In most cases, they simply aren’t sure how to create said strategy.  This post will hopefully help with this ALL too common problem.  So if your company is using social media and ‘winging it’ without a plan, please share this post internally.  If you have friends that are trying to get social media efforts off the ground at their company, please pass this along to them.  We will not see REAL growth from companies using social media until more of them get SOLID plans in place that are guiding their efforts.

Let’s get started on making that happen.  Here is a framework for creating a social media strategy for your business.

First, think about what you are wanting to accomplish with social media.  What are your goals?  Here’s some examples:

  • Build awareness for your company
  • Increase sales
  • Increase customer leads
  • Establish thought leadership
  • Use social media as a customer service platform
  • Provide product support for customers
  • Collect feedback on existing or potential products and services
  • Build a place where customer evangelists can connect

Second, think about who you are wanting to reach.  Is it current customers?  Potential customers?  Industry sources?  Potential clients?  Who is your ‘target market’?  Creating a simple monitoring system will help you determine the answer to this question.  By monitoring online mentions, you can get a good feel for where the online conversation about your company is happening, and how active it is.  Want to jump on Twitter?  What if no one on Twitter is talking about you?  Monitoring will help you determine this.  You can use premium tools such as Radian6 or Techrigy, or if you are a smaller business it’s probably fine to go with free tools such as Google Alerts and Twitter search.

Third, what are your resources?  What’s your budget for social media?  How many employees are available to work on your social media efforts?  Will you have to outsource some of your efforts at the start?  Will you have to outsource all of your efforts at the start?  How much time can you devote to social media?

Answering these questions will greatly determine which tactics (blogs, Twitter, Facebook) are best for helping you achieve your social media strategy.  Let me state this again; Getting on Twitter is NOT a social media strategy.  Twitter is a tactic used to execute a social media strategy.  You first need to answer the three questions above and THEN decide that Twitter is the right (or one of the right) tactics to help you achieve your goal(s) for social media.

So let’s say you’ve answered these three questions.  Your goals are to use social media to build awareness and increase sales.  That means you will primarily be targeting new and potential customers.  Now let’s also factor in the answers from the third question about your resources.

On the surface, a goal of using social media as a way to build awareness for your business and increase sales sounds like a great opportunity for your business to launch a company blog.  But a blog carries with it unique time and social media skillset requirements.  That’s why you also need to factor in your resources.  Do you have enough time and people available  to ensure that the blog will regularly have fresh content available?  Do you also have the people available to spend time connecting with readers and potential customers on and off your blog?  If not, do you have the budget to outsource some or all of these efforts?

That’s why you must consider all three questions at once.  And after you have answered these questions and now have your strategy in place, and have decided on the social media tactics you will use, now you have to figure out how to measure the effectiveness of your strategy.  At this point, don’t blindly assume that more traffic or followers or friends is best.  Make sure that the metrics you measure tie back to your social media goals.  If your end goal for your blog is to sell more widgets, should you measure number of comments per post, or number of referrals from the blog to the widget product page on your website?  Does it really matter that you have 10,000 followers on Twitter, if only 10 of them are potential customers?

Put your metrics on trial.  Make SURE that whatever you measure makes sense in the context of what you are trying to accomplish with social media.  More traffic is great, but what actions are those visitors performing once they arrive at your blog or message board?  If you are adding 100 fans a week to your Facebook page and still can attribute no additional sales from Facebook fans, so what?  (BTW this opens another can of worms, but it could be that your Facebook fans ARE driving sales, but you don’t know that because you aren’t tracking them correctly, or at all)

At the end of the day, you have to have a strategy guiding your social media efforts.  And I know that some CEOs hear the term ‘social media strategy’ and immediately get nervous because they think it means a lot of $$$ and a big commitment.  What it means that you are going to ORGANIZE your social media efforts and make them more efficient.  Just because an intern got you on Twitter and Facebook doesn’t mean you need to be on either site.

Once you get a strategy in place, you’ll save time and money.  You have a strategy driving your other marketing efforts, why should what you are doing with social media be any different?

Thanks to Esther for suggesting this post!