A few months ago I read a nice post by Adam Cohen on when social media is right for your business and when not; it was entertaining and conversational as well as quite truthful. So, based on my own experiences in social media marketing, I wanted to post a few notions that I think are still largely misrepresented in a number of organizations.

Any other ideas?

This year Covisio had the opportunity to run a number of social media listening campaigns for our clients worldwide (please note that our clients are primarily in the high technology sector). As we are rapidly approaching the end of the year, I wanted to share a few real-world cases that we came across and I think are quite useful to show what can happen (or not happen) in social media monitoring programs.

So here are our most telling stories:

Disgruntled user group on Facebook. One of our clients was operating under the not-so-uncommon assumption that: “Our firm is not yet doing anything on social media, so there shouldn’t be anything on us out there, right?” Unfortunately, wrong! For this particular client, there were a number of LinkedIn groups of current and ex- employees, a few product and promotional videos (that our client did not know they even existed) on YouTube, and at least two groups (with memberships at the thousands) dedicated to complaints about the client’s product on Facebook. A very basic listening campaign picked all that up and helped direct and prioritize our client’s social media efforts to remedy the developing bad reputation.

PR agency miss. One of our clients was very proud of one particular feature of their product that differentiated themselves from their competitors in the marketplace. A leading US newspaper published an article on the impact this particular feature had on the market and invited our client’s top competitor to comment on it (without even mentioning our client in the article). Our client’s PR agency completely missed this opportunity both before and after it was published. Now, the newspaper also published a post on their technology blog about their article, which our listening campaign picked up. Based on this information, our client had to revisit their relationship with their PR agency, but, more importantly, they were able to post a comment on the newspaper’s blog with their own view on the particular feature, which it turn generated some excellent traffic on their own blog where they discuss in detail their differentiating functionality.

New sales opportunity. Our listening campaign picked up a blog post of a CxO that was explaining in detail their immediate need for a specific product that one of our clients provides. The blog post included a thorough analysis of requirements and a good qualification of the opportunity in terms of influencers, competitors, and timeframes. Our client was able to jump in the opportunity and they are now in the final shortlist.

Sensitive material on YouTube. Actually, something that’s very common. Our listening campaign revealed a couple of product demo videos on YouTube with sensitive information about the technology of one of our clients. The videos were posted by an implementation consultant with the best of intentions, but our client was uncomfortable with the information disclosed, so the videos were quickly taken down in agreement with the consultant.

Competitive intelligence. A wealth of information here:

• Figuring out what blogs from our client’s competitors are working and what not. Examples: We came across a competitor blog with tremendous engagement level and we learned a lot from it. But we also came across a competitor blog that does not allow commenting (which, in general, is against what we consider best practices) and we learned a few things from it as well.
• Uncovering “black-hat” SEO techniques our client’s competitors were using by publishing duplicate content in multiple social media outlets just to build links to their site.
• Discovering aggressive and unsolicited tweets from our client’s competitors to infiltrate conversations on Twitter and blatantly promote their product.
• Identifying new competitors in our client’s field based on their activity on social media.

PR pickup on Twitter. How many followers did our client’s press release reach via tweets and re-tweets? Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands? A useful number we have been able to benchmark against on behalf of our clients.

SEO hints. One of our clients is providing a technology solution in an emerging market. Despite a well-coordinated SEO effort, our listening campaign found out that some of their keywords were not used in the context that was initially assumed, so they had to be reevaluated.

Positive mentions. This is an important one. Our listening campaign for a specific marketing program of one of our clients found out a number of ongoing positive mentions on blogs, Twitter accounts, forums, wikis, social networks. It made a huge difference for our client to be able to identify these mentions and thank people for their feedback.

Conversations spanning multiple media. A very influential blog post generated a tremendous amount of discussion in the form of comments, additional posts on other blogs, new topics in forums, and opinionated conversations on social networks. The ability to consolidate all this information and get a global understanding of the issue at hand and all the different stakeholders involved was very valuable for our client to decide on how and when to engage in the conversation.

Inside information on industry events. Before, during, and after major industry events there is a lot of activity on blogs, social networks, and Twitter. Although part of this activity is mainly for event attendees to connect to each other and socialize at the event, we have found some great insights about the topics covered in the event for one of our clients that was not able to attend.

These are actually true cases we came along throughout year and not theoretical scenarios. Feel free to share your own social media monitoring stories from 2009.

I was speaking to one of my clients about a potential podcast series as part of their social media initiative. He informs me that he knows of a great vendor who produces podcasts – and, at $3,000 a pop, they are a total bargain. My first thought: are podcasts lux items now?

I think podcasts are a great thing. They provide a terrific way for vendors to tap industry experts who are almost always willing to share their insights to produce a high quality piece that will bring value to their target market. That is my theory anyway, but perhaps I am wrong because podcast after podcast that I download from technology vendors, I notice a couple of things.

1. The production value of a Ryan Seacrest-like voice coupled with a slick instrumental techno music intro usually outweighs the value of the podcast content.

2. Podcasts are most often used as direct sales tool rather than a knowledge tool that shares subject matter expertise to build brand and reputation.

The point here is not to belittle the value of podcast producers or to diss that great interview with your product manager about the features of your company’s new widget. The point is to stop thinking of podcasts simply as audio collateral but rather as a valuable tool for your social media initiatives to generate conversation and engage your audience.

Paul Dunay, one of my favorite bloggers, recently posted 5 Tips for Optimizing your Facebook Marketing. In it, he recommends the syndication of your podcast series as a way to provide rich content to your Facebook Fan page. The pity with that great post is that he put the most salient point at the end:

“While the costs of social marketing are low don’t let that fool you. The true cost is found in the creation of content. And your key to success will be the consistent participation and willingness to engage your customers you can create by using great content.”

I have another client who had absolutely no budget for their podcast series. My advice to them: great, let’s get going on it then. Podcast tools are free. Great content costs time, effort, motivation and the open-mindedness to do a few things that may seem counter-intuitive:

Find people your audience wants to listen to: In most cases, this means going outside your organizations to find those industry experts who are generating conversation. Smart people understand the value of sharing their expertise and in more cases than not, you will find willing participants.

Talk about hot button issues: This means letting go of that need to directly promote your company and its products. Let the participant choose the topic he or she wants to discuss, even if it has nothing directly to do with your offerings. Smart vendors are part of the conversation; they don’t use the conversation for blatant promotion.

Be prepared: This means knowing who you are talking to. Study your participant’s blogs, articles, presentations etc. and prepare thoughtful insightful questions. There is nothing worse than an interviewer asking simplistic, high level questions and being unable to engage once an answer is given.

Understand that it’s not about you (yet): Just forget about promoting your company. Instead, promote the podcast subject matter and its participant. Give a killer intro and explain why and how your participant brings value. Close by providing links to the participant’s blog, notifying the audience of the participant’s books or publications, asking the audience to connect with the participant via twitter, letting everyone know where the participant will be speaking next, etc.

Web 2.0 enable your podcasts: Think of your podcast library as a blog and set it up like one. Make the most out of your efforts by allowing your audience to easily find, share, bookmark, comment, and subscribe to the available content.

Set your priorities straight: With today’s slashed marketing budgets, think wisely about where you want to spend your limited dollars. It’s tempting to want to put your podcast in a glossy wrapper, but is having your podcast take place in a sound studio with original music really adding any value to anyone?

We are sitting at the dawn of 2009, a year that’s expected to be one of the most challenging ones in recent history. A year that is likely to redefine social and economic structures worldwide with drastic effects on our lives and businesses. Can we be optimistic?

Some say that things can only get better. But, let me add, only for those organizations that put the extra effort, have the right strategy in place, and persevere with a focused execution. This is especially true to web 2.0 enterprises for a number of reasons:

• With an overwhelming loss of confidence in corporations and their messaging at large, social media – that promote the voice of end users, objective reviewers, hands-on contributors, and diligent collaborators – will get even more value amongst participants in B2C, B2B or B2E (Business-To-Employee) settings.
• With budgets under scrutiny across the board, web 2.0 marketing, customer support, knowledge management, and product development will be true levers of growth and innovation in the face of limited resources.
• With more and more internet users starting to feel comfortable to contribute knowledge, share experiences, and actively participate in valuable web 2.0 initiatives, the tipping point for social media will be unavoidable.
• With social media communities growing both in quantity and quality, the value organizations and individuals derive from such communities will also grow in terms of specific and tangible results.

Businesses that have made an investment in putting in place solid social media strategies in 2008 to reach out to their target audiences will start reaping the benefits of their efforts in 2009 with potentially increasing returns. Businesses will use their initial web 2.0 investments in a more aggressive way to drive their competitive advantage against their rivals in the marketplace. This means greater buzz in the marketplace, better brand equity, more engaged prospects, shorter sales cycles, more loyal customers, …, in other words, greater value creation for the company and the marketplace as well. However, businesses that have not yet put in place such strategies will likely fall more and more behind in 2009. Maybe this growing gap in value creation is a form of “social media divide” between organizations whose social media footprint is already established and organizations that are just starting to explore this space just now.

Yes, we can be optimistic for 2009. There are certainly tough challenges ahead of us, but also tremendous opportunities. And as we know, opportunities turn to realities by those who dare to think outside the box, whether it’s via web 2.0 or anything else.

With participation numbers and interaction levels in social networks soaring, it comes as no surprise that business schools are starting to pay close attention to these new groundswell phenomena. I was especially happy to see Professor Soumitra Dutta and Dr. Mathew Fraser from Insead recently publish an excellent book on social networking (“Turning social networking on its head: where horizontal and vertical networks meet”), offering some great analysis on how Web 2.0 is changing not just our work but our lives too.

Prof. Dutta and Dr. Fraser characterize traditional business networks as vertical (e.g. based on an individual’s position within a corporation) and social networks as horizontal (e.g. based on an individual’s contribution to a dialogue or project at hand). They then go ahead to describe how these new virtual networks are driving change not only within business environments but also in individual lives and across societies at large. The authors agree that the current economic climate is creating a widespread insecurity amongst professionals and this further leads to record membership growth in social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and others.
The numbers certainly support their arguments. Facebook is closing 2008 reporting stunning numbers:

• More than 140 million users worldwide.
• Each user has an average of 100 friends.
• Each user spends an average of 20 mins per day on Facebook.
• More than 70% of users are outside the US.
• More than 52,000 applications and widgets are available on the Facebook platform.

LinkedIn also experienced record growth in 2008 and it currently counts more than 30 million users worldwide. In October 2008, Nielsen Online reported a year-over-year growth of 193% for LinkedIn and of 116% for Facebook. Expect these numbers to go up in 2009.

Social media initiatives such as blogging are long-term strategies that function cumulatively, gradually building the author’s (and/or firm’s) reputation via quality interactions and boosting search engine rankings via organic links that are far more valuable than any paid links. Corporate blogs, rather than promoting products or rehashing the latest sales pitch, should aim to make serious, constructive contributions to the body of industry knowledge online. They should also encourage and facilitate reader participation via constructive comments, meaningful links and trackbacks, social bookmarks, collaborative tags and so on.

However, aside from opinion blog postings (that most corporate blogs do generate in abundance), there’s a set of other, less well-known blog tactics that contribute to the success of a corporate blog … tactics that encourage two-sided communication by demonstrating the ability to both listen to and talk through the company’s blog:

• Digest-style posts: These posts provide a valuable service to readers by giving them a snapshot of a particular space and supplying links to information they might be interested in. By pointing readers to smart stimulating content, their enjoyment of it is transferable to the site that sent them to it, building goodwill that results in more bookmarks and incoming links.
• News aggregation posts: Given the plethora of industry news in the technology space, these posts serve as a guide to the latest happenings. They are a useful service for technologists – even if they’re competitors – and will raise the site’s online profile over time.
• Dialogue contributions: These are essay-style posts about implementing a product, a new industry report or trend, or a long response to a thought-provoking post on another blog. They are critical for adding to the conversation in the blogosphere. These posts are often written by subject matter experts and hit on the industry’s most relevant topics.
• Comments / questions: Social media is a two-way street and a key element here is strong contributions to well chosen, relevant blogs. These are not leading questions or comments written to target search engine keywords. Rather, they are questions or comments of general interest and engagement to provide feedback that is of high value to other authors in the space.
• Blogrolls: A strong blogroll (list of favorite and relevant blogs) serves as a valuable information referral service. Therefore, careful consideration should be applied when building a corporate blogroll. In the technology space, blogrolls usually include a mix of technology, industry and educational (how-to) blogs.

Firms using blogging in their marketing arsenal need to understand the opportunities – and potential pitfalls – of welcoming interaction with readers. Web 2.0 isn’t simply tossing your opinion or casual posts into the blogosphere. Rather, social media requires careful consideration, planning and execution if these strategies are to successfully enhance more traditional – and proven – marketing initiatives.

I love del.icio.us. Personally and professionally.

On the personal side, it’s easy, but let’s discuss what we are doing on the profesional side with del.icio.us and our clients.

Now, one of the ways we use del.icio.us for our clients is to consolidate relevant news articles from our RSS feeds, social media monitoring tools, Google Alerts, manual searches, and other bookmarking sites; tag them with search terms; and provide notes about why we think the information is valuable. I thought this was a truly spectacular service. I thought our clients would shower us with praise and gratitude for saving so much of their time and arming them with such powerful information. Actually, most of them barely glance at it.

I was disappointed, but I thought there should be a different way to make this information useful to these clients that barely glance at our bookmarks. As it turns out, we were recently writing a whitepaper for one of these clients. For me, the thing that takes the biggest chunk of time is not the writing, but the external research to complement and validate our client’s internal knowledge and our own industry insights. Unforeseen by me, our daily 10-15 minutes of bookmarking created a complete gold mine when it came time to churn out compelling content. Sure, we had the paid research from Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. But what del.icio.us provided us at the end of the day was the ability to find the needles in the haystack – those golden nuggets of information that can make a great whitepaper a truly spectacular one. At our fingertips, we suddenly had references to facts, figures, and stats that are hard to come by. We found powerful and quirky quotes. We had a plethora of real world examples. We had links to free research we didn’t know was available. We even had a couple or really terrific sound bites to leverage. The best part – we got to watch our client bicker over which one of their execuives was going to get the authoring credit for the whitepaper.

Yeah, I love del.icio.us. Anything that’s free and makes our clients – and, ultimately, us – look this good is a winner.