Talk It Up!

Content Marketing 101

Had a blast sharing a content marketing overview and best practices with the students at Seattle's Foster School of Business graduate class.

Ain't it great to influence young minds? :-)

8 Things I Learned from 8 Years in Podcasting

Secrets from a podcasting geek

I am very much looking forward to this afternoon's talk on podcasting at the Emerging Media Conference! Thanks to the fabulous Jenn Matthews for inviting me to speak on one of my very favorite topics in the world: podcasting, that most intimate and enduring of social media. A sneak peek at my mini-keynote talk for this afternoon:

Inside the social media mind

Yup, it's been a while! My position at the rapidly-growing startup Spoken Communications leaves me very little time to indulge in writing up blog posts.

However, I'm still quite actively coaching and speaking, and today, I had the honor of speaking to a group of OS developers at the Hewlett Packard brown bag lunch.

I have to admit that I was nervous: what could I teach developers? In my experience, these are some of the smartest and most creative thinkers on the planet. When I asked Mark Atwood, my friend who made the speaking invitation, he said, "We just want to know what you people do all day."

Ah, yes! Because, like developers, we make it look easy. So the talk is focused on what social media marketers care about more deeply than anything else: relevant content, engagement and measuring success.

 

What does your business card say about your brand?

What message is your business card sending?

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Branding can be a powerful thing. Your branding can send an unconscious messge to everyone who encounters it. So is it the message you want to send?

Every talk I give on social media begins with a high-level view of the company's current branding, including the brand promise, brand personality, the brand's unique value, and key influencers. Social media begins and ends with the brand.

Last week, a lovely woman came up after a talk on Facebook for Non-Profits and asked for my card. As a matter of course, I spread out an array of quirky Moo cards and asked her to choose: a face photo, colorful ducks or black and white modern art. The reasoning for this is simple: instead of the card exchange ending the conversation, it launches it. Usually this question will spark a brief interaction in which the person is actually engaged in making a conscious decision about how she wants to remember me and my brand. She will pause, smile, and even mull it over out loud: "hmm... I want to remember the face, oh that's a good one... the ducks are cute... nah, I want one with your face, oh black and white is nice."

Last week, I was asked if offering a selection of photos diluted my brand message. On the contrary, it reinforces it. First, all the photos are by me or of me, not designed by a marketing company. My brand is personable without being too personal. Second, the brand is professional yet fun and a tad whimsical. Sure, social media is a lot of work and involves a lot of time pouring over analytics, but that doesn't mean it's not fun and human. Third, I don't offer cookie-cutter answers. Each client will have a different approach and use different tactics, because every strategy is tailored to the organization. Much like some people will prefer the professional face card while others will select the neon ducks, each strategy is tailored to the client's brand promise, influencer circles and budget.

How do your business cards reflect your brand?

Hoover's Boycott: genius social media or bogus PR?

Hoover announced on its Facebook Page that it would be pulling all of its ABC advertising to protect the network's cancellation of two popular soap operas.

This week, ABC announced it would cancel two of its popular soap operas, All My Children and One Life to Live. When Hoover marketing executive Brian Kirkendall heard the news, he decided to do something about it. He made the executive decision to pull all of Hoover's ads that run during the shows in a boycott intended to support soap opera fans. The announcement was posted on Hoover's Facebook page on Monday:

 
From the AP article:

"I'm not trying to be a martyr," Kirkendall said. "I'm just reacting to what our consumers said."

The gesture seems relatively sincere.  Communication strategist Amber Avines' reaction was my first reaction, too: what a brilliant way to show you really understand your fans' true passions by supporting a part of their lives that they love, even if it has little to do with your actual product. It's a brilliant way to engage fans and show commonalities. When I speak of acting like a person, not a brand, this is exactly the kind of communication I'm referring to:

One of the things that makes companies successful when it comes to social media is finding out what its customers are concerned about. Do Hoover's customers want to know the best vacuum to get pet dander out of the carpet? For sure. But, just talking about vacuums all the time doesn't make for great social media. What does, however, is remembering that customers have other interests, too. And soaps, well, those are a big part of everyday life for many stay-at-home moms, seniors, college students, and other people who have dirty carpets! --Amber Avines

The show of solidarity reflects exactly how brands should operate: promote your own products, sure, but make the effort to understand your users and engage with them on topics that they care about.

There are other sides to the coin, however. Consumer Reports reports that Hoover is slipping in its reliability ratings and is no longer the top choice for upright vacuums in terms of product reliability. The article's title reveals what CR believes to be the motivation behind the announcement: Hoover vacuum's soap-opera saga could boost sales.

Likewise, BNet posits that the move is mostly a hollow, bogus gesture, albeit an act of "PR Genius." Jim Edwards points out that Hoover's overall ad spend on ABC is only $353,000 out of a total TV budget of $2.5 million. "That’s such a tiny amount for television most marketers would consider spending it on a less fleeting medium," he reports. Perhaps I'm not quite as cynical, but cutting 7% of the advertising budget overnight in order to support the fans' passions sounds fairly dramatic to me. OK, maybe it wasn't the hugest sacrifice in the world, but it was a sincere action that rallied and engaged fans.

What isn't in dispute is the amount of fan engagement Hoover is being showered with on its Facebook page. The number of people Liking Hoover on Facebook jumped from around 7,000 before the announcement to over 13,000 fans as of this morning. Additionally, a Soap Opera Digest columnist asked its fans to make this coming Friday "Buy a Hoover Day" to support the company's boycott of ABC.

Also of note is that Hoover's first Facebook post about the soap cancellations garnered 51 Likes and and 59 Comments, while the announcement that it would pull its ABC advertising garnered 669 Likes and 349 Comments. A clearer indication of fan engagement you could rarely find: Hoover fans support and admire the decision to pull advertising from ABC. Detractors aside, the results speak for themselves. These fans are engaged.

 

A brief cartoon history of social networking

I used to describe my work as a tradeshow and user conference presentation specialist in the following way: "I take things that sound complicated and make them simple, easy and fun."

And that's exactly what PeopleBrowsr, a social analytics company, did when they created a magnificiently brilliant presentation on a cartoon history of the social web (illustrations by Adam Long). For a textual description, they've elaborated in a blog post here.

What is remarkable about this account is not only that they hit the key events but also that they hit the key trends, including such shifts as the growth of residential high-speed internet access, the rise in popularity of user-generated content, and the creation and growth of the Community Manager position in the job market.

And never underestimate the amount of skill it takes to take a long and complicated history and transform it into a beautiful and compelling story. Adam Long did a fantastic job with creating simple, gorgeous illustrations that told a remarkable tale.

My only complaint about the deck is that I'm not the one who was smart enough to create it.

PeopleBrowsr Presents A Brief Cartoon History of Social Networking 1930-2011

View more presentations from PeopleBrowsr.

"You Tweeted WHAT?" : Legal Risks of Social Media

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I know I'm not supposed to play favorites, and truly, I love all of Social Media Breakfast Seattle's speakers equally.

I just believe that Kraig Baker really kicked butt with his info-laden but not jargon-laden talk on the legal risks of social media yesterday morning. Clear, thought-provoking and funny, he walked us through defamation, copyright infringement and even told us the biggest real risk organizations face.

My favorite tidbits:

"Everybody has a free, non-legal remedy [to conflict]. It's called a Twitter feed."

• Before worrying about the liability of social media engagement, ask yourself the question, "Why are you there?" The reason for social media participation should come before the details.
• If you defame someone, it doesn't matter what platform you used to do it. It's still defamation. And BTW, defamation is fact (not opinion) about a living, identifiable person or entity and substantially false.
• Not everyone thinks a viral hit is valuable - driving traffic to a site is not a valid defense against copyright infringement.
• Just because content is posted on the internet or on a social media site doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it. Copyright still applies.
• Be careful about making promises. A promise by an enthusiastic employee can create liability where none would have existed previously. And even if you don't have legal liability, organizations might experience huge PR headaches and ramifications.
• Nothing will protect you against stupidity - there's no expectation of privacy apart from home and work.
• The NLRB calls Facebook "the new water cooler" and has fought and won against firing employees for work-related negative comments on that social network.
• And more wise words: "Don't confuse not getting caught with being legal." How many of us broke laws just getting here today? That doesn't mean you can't get caught or sued the next time!

Slides of Baker's info-rich and example-rich talk:

You Tweeted WHAT?!: Legal Risks of Social Media

View more presentations from SMB Seattle

But it's really not the same without the video, is it? Every social media pro NEEDS to watch this!

 

Does social media make us less social?

Does social media make us less social?

I owe a big thanks to Mike Whitmore for voicing the sentiment that has been banging around in my head for a while. I am definitely not in the camp that posits that social media is all peformed by introverted geeks who would rather type in a dark basement than talk to a live human being. (Or shower.) But as the career takes off, I find myself frustrated that I don't seem to have enough time to be as social as I'd like. In fact, my big luxury these days is a retreat from being social: a Friday night at home with my couch, cat and DVR.

What's up with that? Does social media convert extroverts craving connection to introverts craving isolation?

I think that Whitmore is on to something. The tools that got us here require a time investment, and once you reap the rewards, it's more difficult to find time to carry on the same level of social interaction. Once you get the clients, the frantic Tweeting, blogging and podcasting have to be moderated simply because there are only so many hours in a day. The never-ending stream of Tweetups, happy hours, Social Media Club, Tech Café, Tech Karaoke and not-for-profit benefit events can easily consume all a geek's free time and leave no time to actually implement the exciting social media projects on the table!

Ever been too damn busy to blog about all your nifty ideas? I'm there.

Social Time Graph

And what does a geek do when faced with a challenge? An analysis. After Whitmore and I talked last week, I took a closer look at my own work-life balance and made a spreadsheet. I have about 15 waking hours a day, from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM, and for one week I tracked how I invested my time. I discovered that, apart from my exciting position as Chief Conversation Officer at Spoken Communications, the next two big chunks of my time go to social media and volunteer projects, travel/commuting time, and attending social media events. Dating is the next chunk, and I see the source of the frustration: only 3% of my waking hours are invested in spending time with friends. (FYI, "Miscellaneous" is defined as time spent showering, cleaning, cooking and eating breakfast, etc.)

 
The chart was quite telling about my priorities. Most of them are spot-on; my awesome job at Spoken and my volunteer social media work are very important to me. But the chart also tells me how I went from a relaxing vacation to overbooked in two days flat: I am trying to increase that time spent with friends, but I'm not willing to give up anything else in order to do it.

I'd encourage everyone who feels she is less (or more) social than she'd like to make a social time graph. This showed me exactly where I was putting my time and energy and gave me ideas on a strategy for the priorities I'd like to shift.

For example, if I work from home one or more days a week, I gain valuable time that would have been spent commuting, and I can invest that in lunch or an early evening drink with a friend, before the evening festivities begin. Or I can limit myself to two social media events per week, which gives me an additional evening for dating or connecting with friends.

Also, one last tip: don't compare yourself to Chris Brogan or Shauna Causey. Not everyone is an Energizer Bunny, and we just need to accept that those guys were granted supernatural powers and will do more before 7:00 AM than the rest of us do all day.

And I'm OK with that.

 

Top 10 Social Media Ideas of the Year

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I'll admit it; I love summary, end-of-year posts. I love the idea of taking stock, looking back, seeing what we've learned and looking forward. In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: "Let me 'splain. No, it is too much. Let me sum up."

By traffic, this blog's top 10 social media posts of 2010:

1. Why no one clicks on your Twitter links A lesson in discovering the value of automation in social media. And it didn't hurt that Guy Kawasaki posted the link to Alltop as well.
2. Social media won't help your customer service  An insight decrying social media as a panacea for ailing customer service departments
3. Why podcasting is still cool  Even though podcasts are no longer as shiny and exciting as they were in 2005, they are still one of my primary tools for consuming long-format content on social media and PR. In a way, podcasts are a refreshing way to drink from the fire hose.
4. A newbie podcaster's dream  I have a soft spot for podcasting, which was my gateway drug into the realm of social media. This podcasting solution really blew me away with its affordability.
5. Social Media strategy for dummies, part 1 A quick review of my method for approaching social media strategy for brands and corporations, large and small
6. Popularity does not equal influence  A big trend in 2010, the need to separate sheer numbers (popularity) from real influence and capacity for engagement
7. The Internet IS for p0rn: Social Media Lessons Learned from Avenue Q This is what happens when geeks get together at BarCamp Seattle. Throw in a few muppets, and you've got social media gold.
8. Solving Filter Failure A look at Paper.li, a free tool designed to combat filter failure by creating a Twitter newspaper by topic, list or hashtag
9. Five steps to being a human even when representing a brand  A great guide for maintaining a human voice even when charged with representing a corporate brand online
10. Facebook fans want to show public support of your company  A fascinating study showing that, in fact, many people don't fan a brand on Facebook because they want discounts or coupons; they actually want to publicly show support of that brand to their friends

While I covered topics involving experimenting with new social media tools and tactics in 2010, I also noticed the trend toward more strategic and analytical posts. Of course, coming from a pedagogical background, there will always be a lot of how-to in this blog. However, 2010 was a year to supplement the how-to with the why and analyze what does and doesn't work. What about you? What types of posts did you read more of in 2010?

Six Social Media Tools I'm Glad I Discovered in 2010

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As a social media geek and content curator, I'm always trying out new toys and apps. There were a lot of remarkable tools that became available in 2010. To cap off the year, my top six:

1. HootSuite This Twitter app turned social media curation tool has grown dramatically in the past year. I use both the web interface (on my laptop) and the iPhone app. Not only does it enable posting and tracking of multiple streams for multiple Twitter accounts, the owls over at HootSuite headquarters also added Facebook status update posting as well as posting to any Facebook Page that you have administrative rights on. I became a fan of its scheduling ability, as I tend to take an hour each morning to schedule the day's Tweets and posts for the various entities I represent, and when HootSuite added the bulk Tweet scheduler tool this month, I thought I'd died and gone to social media manager heaven. In fact, I even pay for the Pro version so I can manage six different Twitter accounts, five Facebook accounts/Pages and LinkedIn to boot. More than worth it!

    

   

    

2. Google In-Page Analytics This is a nifty visual report available from the Content section of your Google Analytics reports. It enables you to visually analyze your website pages in order to assess how users interact with those pages, and helps you to analyze click patterns at a glance. For visual learners like me, this little tool helps me to see at a glance whether the visual layout is working or not.

   
   


3. SEOMoz's Open Site Explorer is a link popularity and backlink analysis tool, perfect for those of us who want to optimize the sites we manage without spending all day delving into the murky world of SEO. Enter a site and see an analysis of up to 10,000 links as well as page and domain authority and linking root domains.

    

   
   
   

    

4. Twitalyzer is a Twitter analysis tool offering "serious analysis for social relationships." It offers graphs and analysis not only of the Twitter account's Klout and influence, but it also drills down into analyzing the level of influence and reach of the account's friends, reTweeters and influencer types. Likewise, the free service offers a plethora of insights into Tweets, tags and sentiment as well as attractively graphing the user's activity by hour, day, week or month.

    

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   
   

   
   

5. Poll Everywhere (hat tip to Shauna Causey for turning me on to this!) is an audience response system that uses mobile phones, twitter, and the web. This is a fun tool for kicking off a live presentation with a quick audience poll and viewing the real-time results, live, on your slides. Responses are displayed in real-time on pretty, real-time charts in PowerPoint or Keynote.




6. KnowEm Handy service for securing your name or brand across every social site where it is available. Just starting out? Select your consistent brand ID and find out every site where it's available. Got a few accounts but want the freedom to expand? Go here to see where your brand ID is still available.
7. And a bonus... Zippo iPhone app Not as earth-shattering for social media management, but a lot of fun all the same. I've used this app in countless movie theaters, karaoke venues and other live events, and it's always fun to hear the giggles cascading through the smoke-free audience as I sway with the music. :-)

What about you? What are your must-have tools of 2010? Any apps, analyzers or content management tools you can't live without this year?

Know where your SEO bread is buttered

Rand Fishkin on search and social at SMB Seattle

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Last week, Social Media Breakfast Seattle hosted our one-year anniversary event with guest speaker Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz. And as a special treat, Social Media Breakfast's worldwide founder, Bryan Person, was in attendance.

The topic was "Search + Social: How to Get More Action from Organic Marketing."

Ever timely, Fishkin avoided the broad, sweeping philosophical overviews and nailed down specific strategies and the results garnered from them. I love a man who says, "Check the data" before giving advice!

The content was so rich that I found myself taking notes in addition to Tweeting. My favorite gems:

• While others (including me) philosophize be generous and humble, Fishkin points out that you must at some point Tweet your own content if your goal is to drive traffic
• Additionally, Tweet relevant content. For example, Fishkin's Tweets don't have to be about SEOMoz but do have to be about his field of expertise, SEO.
• He has discovered that the more on-topic his Tweets are, the higher the clickthrough rate.
• He also discovered that shorter Tweets got higher clickthrough rates (but for both, your results may vary, so analyze before changing behavior).
• A good social media/SEO strategy: invest everywhere a little bit and then determine where the best value comes from for you (in his case, it was question sites such as Quora, Formspring, etc.)

Best takeaway quote:

"Our bread is buttered in the place that sends the conversions."

I interpreted this to mean that in order to determine the value and success of any type of SEO or social media participation, you must first determine what "success" means to you. That could be traffic, CTR, new visits, newsletter subscriptions, conversions, or something else. And throughout the talk, it became clear that Fishkin's approach is motivated not by philosophy but by data. "The answer is in the data," he said, pointing out that Facebook and Twitter can drive traffic, if that is your goal, but generally not as much as Google--at least not yet.

First Touch Attribution

Fishkin shared his own methods and results, including segmenting out search (SEO) and social (media). In his case, his analytics showed that as of yet, no one from a social source had resulted in a sale. However, he pointed out that that being said, first touch attribution was of ultimate importance in determining the value of social. That is, we realize that it takes about seven "touches" or points of media absorption or interaction before someone will purchase. Most companies attribute the last touch point before someone becomes a customer, but the first touch point is rarely known. Until now.

It turns out that by adding a few lines of code to Google Analytics, marketers can discover the potential customer's first touch attribution. Thank me for that later. ;-)

Or rather, thank Fishkin for the great info and for taking the time to share his world of expertise. What was your takeaway?

SMB Seattle Podcast Ep. 8: The SEO Landscape in 2010

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What impact do real-time search results have on brand awareness and consideration?  More importantly, how have mobile, Google and Bing changed the landscape in the last year?

This week, before Rand Fishkin's formal Social Media Breakfast presentation (plug: Thursday, December 2nd 7:30 a.m. at Weber Shandwick; register here), I sat down with Fishkin for a more informal chat to uncover his take on the ever-changing world of SEO.

SMB Podcast #8: The SEO Landscape

Show Notes

2:30 Would you write a book again?

3:45 What has changed in SEO in the last year; how Google Places and Google Instant affected SEO

9:00 What is the biggest trend affecting the SEO landscape this year?

11:00 In the age of social networks, personalized Twitter papers and opt-in information streams, are people still even searching?

15:25 What are the rising stars and trends in SEO?

• Yandex
• Blekko
• Stack overflow
• Quora

18:30 What about social search and curated content? Naver, hybrid model in South Korea

19:50 How is mobile affecting search?

23:05 What's om the horizon for SEOMoz?

For more free Social Media Breakfast Seattle podcasts, visit the SMB Seattle LibSyn page.

Five steps to posting personably (even when representing a brand)

How to post personably in social media while representing a brand

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The buzzwords "transparency" and "engagement" are thrown around a lot when users of social media ask how to effectively represent a brand online. And typically, not a lot of specific detail is given as to how to avoid being opaque and disengenuous. And many users of social media run across this challenge when they find themselves in the position of wanting to speak as a human being but being tasked with representing a brand.

Instead of listing general principles on posting as a human being, even one representing a brand, let's try this: let's look at an unsuccessful example of a person unsuccessfully masquerading as a brand and rip it apart to show how this social media user could come across as more human and engaging while still effectively representing the brand.

This is an excerpt from a comment left to a post on a professional LinkedIn group I'm a member of. What is wrong with this comment?

Top performing Call Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through superior hiring tactics. Finding ways to hire better quality Call Center Agents is consistently placed as a priority by senior management. Deploying tools that give you better insight and more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of Job Candidates would perform up to, or beyond your established standards contributes most significantly to increased productivity – and to minimizing your dependency on a rigorously followed script...

XXXX Software is sold on an Unlimited Usage License basis - there are No "per Test" Fees - "Annual Renewal" Fees – or any other User Fees whatsoever. Technical Support for the XXXX Software is free & unlimited as well. XXXX Licenses are also sold with a 6 Month, 100% Money-Back Guarantee of Satisfaction.

For more information – or to find out about a Free Trial of XXX Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software: [web link]

It reads as pure spam, doesn't it? In fact, when the poster duplicated the comment on the company blog, I deleted it and marked it as spam because it appeard to have been generated by a bot. I was actually surprised to see the same comment replicated with a human face next to it in the LinkedIn group. Why? What makes this type of post come across as insincere and corporate instead of transparent and human?

Why this reads like a corporate robot

1. Buzzword bingo. Using buzzwords such as "deploy," "minimize," and "superior" come across as carefully chosen for their marketing impact and actually serve to dilute the content and create the feel of a corporate ad rather than a human leaving an honest opinion.
2. Sentence length. Real humans don't cram this many perfectly-massaged marketing messages into one sentence. Instead, we tend to alternate short, summary thoughts with longer, explanatory ones.
3. Random capitalization. For some reason, spammers love to capitalize random words for no apparent reason. Perhaps they think the words can't speak for themselves?
4. Gratuitous quotation use. Again, I've never really understood why, but spammers and those who hand-letter signs along the highway have an affinity for putting quotation marks around words and phrases that are not being quoted by anyone. For more fun on this, check out this great site documenting unnecessary quotes in hand-lettered signs around the world.
5. Obvious sales pitch. This almost goes without saying... except that it doesn't, since some folks still seem to think that a conversation with a stranger is the right place to jump in and make a sales pitch. If you're not sure what is appropriate in a conversation, hint: "Buy my stuff now!" isn't. Never has been.

How to post as a personable human

1. Write the way you speak. There is a time and place for formal, lengthy, perfectly-massaged messages. A blog or discussion group isn't it. Do your readers a favor and use conversational language for your online writing. With the fire hose of information today, most visitors are skimming for key concepts; if intrigued, some will slow down and read the entire article. Don't obfuscate with marketing speak pre-approved by the PR department. Just be yourself.
2. Don't be obtuse. Use spoken language as your guideline for sentence structure. Alternate long and short sentences, and don't add independent clauses where you would normally start a new sentence. If you're unsure, say your response out loud. Then transcribe it and write it up. Again, it's a conversation, so write the way you talk.
3. Follow capitalization rules. Just because you want to shout about your product doesn't mean you don't have to follow standard rules of grammar, mechanics and usage. Listen to this Grammar Girl episode on capitalizing proper nouns. Understand that capitalizing common nouns, such as revenue, performance, or job candidate as we see above, is patently incorrect and will make you look like an illiterate spammer. Or worse, an SEO marketer.
4. Don't put quotation marks around anything that isn't a direct quotation. If you can't cite the source, don't use quotes. If you absolutely must emphasize a word (and you probably don't need to if you're being authentic), use italics. For more information on the correct use of quotation marks, check out Grammar Girl's episode on the topic.
5. Contribute to the conversation. The value of participation in a community is not direct sales; for that, we can go to your website. Discussion boards exist for conversation, and many even monitor and enforce no-selling and no-promotion rules quite strictly. The value of the discussion lies in the engagement and communication among its members. Instead of selling, try adding something useful to the conversation. If the discussion sparks an insight, try blogging about it in more detail and then linking to the blog post with the comment, "Hey, this was so interesting that I wrote out my thoughts in more detail on my blog [link]. Would love to know what you think."

A more engaging version of the post might be:

In my experience, the best call centers hire the best agents--and that means agents with some creativity. You might want to consider a review of your hiring practices to see if they are affecting the issue. In order to see which agents would be least dependent on a rigorously followed script and more capable of working from script guidelines, you might try taking a step back and look at how you evaluate agent qualifications overall.

Of course, I do have an ulterior motive here. :-) We have some nifty software that can do just that, if you'd like to take a peek. If you're interested, DM me and I'll set you up with a free trial.

Either way, thanks for a very interesting discussion on call scripting.

Now that sounds a bit more like a human being you might want to continue the discussion with, n'est-ce pas?

Two left feet: six social media tips from the dance floor

What can ballroom dance teach us about social media engagement?

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I've had the unfettered joy of late of returning to a passion of my youth: dance. I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer, and I've always enjoyed a good two-step, salsa or swing to boot. I've never understood people who can hear the opening strains of Sing, Sing, Sing and not want to jump up and spin onto the dance floor.

But dance takes knowledge, strategy and practice. (Sound a bit like social media engagement?) One has to learn the basics, and one has to be flexible, willing to take risks and willing to make mistakes. As I was dusting off my dance shoes last month, I began to see a lot of similarities between the mindset and skillset required for dance and that required to embark into social media.

For example:

1. Before you dance, observe. It's a good idea to hang around the dance floor, just observing first. See who is new, who is a pro, who's enthused, who's a regular, who's an instructor and who is just fun to dance with. Social media is the same: see who the influencers are in your industry and how they communicate with others.
2. Dance with everyone who asks. The leads may vary in strength, style and experience, and some might not be to your taste, but never turn down a chance to dance. It's polite, and it will help you learn. People change, and you can learn as much from them as they can from you. Same is true of social media: engage with everyone before you decide who your key influencers are. And then engage with the key influencers, but continue to engage with everyone else.
3. Watch the flashy ones, but don't imitate them. The flashy ones with the professional moves might be something to aspire to, but don't be in a hurry to get there. Just start with a lesson, get to know your fellow dancers, and you'll find your path. The same is true of social media: your strategy should fit you and your community of interest. There are no out-of-the-box social media solutions. It's all custom, baby.
4. It's more fun when it's not a competition. Competitive ballroom dance can be fierce and a little crazy. I know; I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer. It sucked all the fun out of it for me. Same is true of social media. Sure, it can be fun to compare Twitter followers and count reTweets, and of course make sure you measure your results. But when you get started, remember to ask: are you and your community having fun out there on the social media dance floor? If you're having fun with your community and trying new steps, you'll see good results.
5. Learn the basics first. There are some basics to dance that you simply must know before you can improvise and make it your own. Same is true of social media: read some blogs, listen to podcasts, hire a consultant and get down some of the basic principles before determining your strategy.
6. Learn by doing. The best way to learn to dance is to practice a lot with a lot of partners and work it into your daily and weekly routine; make it a part of your life. The same is true of social media: practice, review, learn and question technique on a regular basis.

The reason for the similarities is clear: dance is unapologetically social, and there are established guidelines for participating in the space. Unfortunately, there aren't yet clear cultural guidelines for participating in the social media space, and most social media blunders come about because practitioners don't realize that social media is social, and they choose to treat it like an advertising or self-promotional space. Then they wonder why they can't gather followers and ask "how do I get more people to fan me on Facebook?" Wrong question. You can't ballroom dance by yourself, and no one will reward you for being a self-promotional jerk, whether that be on the dance floor or on Twitter.

 

Engaging in communities of interest: doing the work

Holly Browns shares with Social Media Breakfast Seattle  how to engage as a brand in communities of interest

This week, Holly Brown, Chief Innovation Officer of R2 Integrated (and former strategist for MRM Worldwide, Ogilvy and Mather, Microsoft and Disney) offered insights at Seattle's Social Media Breakfast on a burning marketing challenge: in the age of social networking and peer recommendations being valued over that of corporate representatives, how is a well-intentioned brand supposed to communicate with its fans and detractors? That is, how and where is a brand supposed to engage?

It was a packed event, and I'm happy to say that Brown shied away from easy answers, tips, tricks and tools. Instead, she focused on insightful questions that marketers can use to determine the best approach for their brand. My best takeaways:

The state of the social web

• Marketers are facing now the same issues in the new social media space as when the internet was new: who, what and how to engage there.
• A shift has occurred in marketing; so let's acknowledge it. Companies used to control the message. With social media, customers control the message.
• The web is a buying engine, and communities of interest (such as forums, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, etc.) are where the action is.
• What is unique about social networks in comparison to the original internt (Web 1.0) is that the create a situation allowing for serendipitous discovery of information. 

Configuring an engagement strategy

• When determining which communities of interest to engage in, the number one qualifier should be the relevance of discussion and participation happening therein. "Fish where the fish are."
• Social Media is integral and foundational; it's not to be tacked on to an existing strategy. Social media participation is the hub not the spoke.
• And if you're not convinced yet, the best idea for having research and a rationale for your engagement strategy: in the marketing world, solid rational equals budget. 
• Many ask how to build community. Don't. Don't "build community;" instead figure out how to become an invited guest in the social space.

And Brown's final word of advice: when you implement, keep in mind that automated tools can't do everything. Measurement is all well and good, but there is no replacement for getting into the community, listening and engaging to make qualitative decisions and evaluations.

Missed it and want to hear more? Listen to Holly's podcast interview here, or her slide deck below:

 

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