The problem with this question is there is no universal answer. It really can only be answered on a case-by-case basis. Here are a few pieces of advice to think about while searching for an answer.

What are your goals?

• You must first step back and look at the goals you (or your customer) have set for using social media.
• Are you looking for higher web traffic (which would be a very generic goal)?
• Are you pushing sales messages?
• Are you using it to genuinely engage your customers and leverage sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. to start building a real community around your brand?

Social Media is only a piece of the puzzle

There is a HUGE misconception that social media in and of itself is a marketing strategy. The truth is, social media is just a very powerful tool or platform (the ‘what’). Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. give us an amazing opportunity to run contests (the ‘how’), share quality content, engage with our customers, all to build actual human “I care about you” (the ‘why’) relationships that go well beyond the impersonality or faux-intimacy of typical marketing communications.

Numbers mean very little 

Try focusing on a few of the following questions:

• How many times have you ‘@’ mentioned someone on Twitter?
• How many new, genuine friendships have you made?
• How many comments are you getting on your blog or when you share content on your Facebook page?
• Is the content you’re sharing relevant to your audience?

You could have A MILLION followers on twitter and not actively engage with a single one of your followers. With social media, it’s better to be heavy on quality and light on quantity than the other way around.

Google search results are now being directly impacted by the social connections of the person doing the searching. Search results are altered based on

1) If you are logged into Google and

2) Whom you follow via social media.

The reach of your social network and the sharing you do to various social networks will have a substantive, possibly massive, effect on your search traffic.”

This news can be referred to as “monumental” because if you’re marketing something, there’s a direct incentive to build your network as large as possible among your prospective customers.”

It all goes to show that “If you don’t have a presence in social media, you’ll lose your presence in search.”

 It really depends on the stage of the online community or the member.

Content is important because it attracts new users to visit the community and inspires them to join. They see a piece of content they would like to have, they see topics that are of particular interest to them, or they spot a discussion that makes them feel like they have found a peer group.  It also helps to put some killer content on the outside of the community password protected areas so users and search engines can find the community and understand what it is about.

Content is also important when a community is first starting out.  When a community is young, about 60%-80% of the content should be:

Institutional Content (IC); content that is created by the community’s sponsoring organization.

Young communities need IC because it doesn’t have enough members to keep a steady flow of content submissions.

User Generated Content (UGC) which is content that is submitted or contributed by members.

Typically, the goal over time is to reduce institutional content, and increase user generated content.

There are a variety of ways a community can get user generated content (UGC) from members and a lot depends on the nature of the community topics, and the general tendencies of the membership base or profession to be content creators at large.  For example, a community of marketing professionals is likely to generate a lot more user generated content than a community of forensic accountants.

User generated content submission opportunities need to be built into the design of the community – with ample opportunities to invite members to share or upload content. People do not naturally submit articles or content until they are convinced that they will see returns for their efforts such as raising their visibility within their peer group or because they have the audience they seek to engage. Therefore there is a need for the community  managers to actively outreach to members to ask for and solicit content contributions – from message board participation straight through to more time-intensive activities such as submitting a blog post or article to the community.

Over time, the balance of institutional content and user generated content needs to shift to be a more equal balance.  The sign of a truly thriving online community is when more than 40% of the content is driven by or created by the members.  There is often a correlation between the member profile information and the site activity. When members take the time to fill out their profile information they are more likely to use the member directory to find each other, they are more likely to contribute to the community.

Some communities get stuck in the mostly lurker member stage. There are a number of reasons why that can happen… from a weak engagement strategy, to a poorly defined community purpose, to too broad an audience base.  Regardless of the reasons, these communities are difficult to manage when the majority of members never post a message or participate in a visible way. Some communities choose to design their community to cater to the lurker.

And while the lurker is a part of any group – online or offline – communities can benefit by forming an engagement strategy and tactics that accommodate all members and their participation style and endeavor to move the lurkers into participators.  In most cases, there is something missing within the membership assumptions that provoke the deafening silence!

It is important to understand that the shift from IC to UGC usually occurs when members begin connecting with each other. Community happens when members have found each other and have a vested interest in collaborating through content and conversation. At the end of the day, people come for content and stay for community.

Image via CrunchBase

With every social media campaign, there’s always a mental checklist to keep in other to create and implement strategies to ensure goals are focused, measurable and successful.

Here are 10 things to keep in mind as you develop your strategy for implementing social media into your organization’s marketing plan.

1. Social Marketing is not an addition - Well-intentioned broadcast marketers will have you believe that social networking platforms simply offer an additional channel to distribute your message. But there’s more to social networks than this.
2. Everyone’s an expert, no one’s an expert – Many social media experts can talk the talk but not walk the walk! Knowing how to tweet and blog doesn’t make you an authority. Years of productivity, a solid reputation and quantifiable results does.
3. There is no change in basic rules of media – Yes, there’s been a paradigm shift away from broadcast communications and towards engagement but the basic rules of communication, PR and marketing practice still apply. Good old fashioned business ethics continue to rule the day! Knowing who you want to impact, the value your organization brings and understanding the other person’s needs before you get in touch continues to be mission critical in all marketing efforts.
4. Social media is more than Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – While uber-important, social networks make up only part of the social media ecosystem. Email lists, web forums, user groups, photo and video sharing services, podcasts, social bookmarking sites and niche online communities are all part of the social media mix. It’s important to seek out where your customers are socializing and get involved in conversations on their turf.
5. It’s all about building relationships – All forms of marketing is about building relationships. Social marketing offers tools and platforms to get the job done, but they don’t replace the one-on-one interaction necessary for being successful. And, relationships take time. We live by the adage that it’s never about the technology, but always about the people.
6. Social Media has a defined goal – There are many things that social media can do, but it will not cure cancer, right the economy or solve the Middle East crisis. However, with hard work and marketing smarts, social media can certainly help you reach your campaign goals.
7. It’s not one thing you do, it’s everything you do – Our most successful campaigns are those where all program elements work together. Social media, search, email and traditional should all work in tandem. Social should not be stand-alone, rather it should be baked into all campaign elements.
8. Don’t just build a community, engage it - Some organizations are moving away from a destination website mentality and more towards an outpost-focused, community building strategy. While it’s great to set up your brand’s social media outposts on Facebook or LinkedIn, it’s also important to remember that customers and supporters might be involved in other social media and affinity groups as well.
9. Social is not only about return on relationship – Learn to gauge your success by qualitative and quantitative metrics. While awareness, brand recognition and reputation are important, so are metrics that include increasing subscribers. Plan to measure your social media efforts in such a way that you can easily track results.
10. Social media is all about being social! – If you’re a practitioner, it’s also a good thing to be sociable – sharing, listening, learning and laughing! No one wants to socialize with someone who is either a) broadcasting, or b) not socializing at all. Find your social media voice and make it a part of your brand.

Image via Wikipedia

1. A crowd of followers matter: Not really, the work is to create a relationship where healthy conversation is constant. 

2. Making traffic as goals: Traffic can often be misleading. Analyzing the visitor’s site behavior can be given monitoring of your website’s goal. 

3. Same content everywhere:  Will you ever repeat the same conversation again and again to your friends? Spend time understanding user personas; find out where the new conversation is going on.

4. Outsource too much or too little? It’s always better to involve in areas like information gathering, which is the core part of digital marketing. On the other hand, you can push yourself to broaden your service or challenge your thinking by bringing in outside professionals. 

5. Be ignorant of best practices: Other marketers may gain success under specific circumstances, which might not suit your marketing strategies or situations. Create your own best practices and stick to it. 

6. Settling for mediocrity: In the age of superior technology and unprecedented connectivity, settling for mediocrity is a crime. For instance, when direct mail marketing enjoys a 2% conversion rate, how an online marketer will be comfortable with a tremendously low 2.6% conversion rate.  

7. Inconsistent in branding: Branding is not something you should compromise on your marketing campaign. Changing the image of your brand can be a good move at times and also runs the risk of confusing the loyal audiences. Be consistent in branding and build a loyal customer base.  

Justin Bieber

The Power of Social Media

The sub-story around the power of social media for Justin   Justin was just starting out – singing on the street with a guitar case in front of him and entering small talent competitions – when he decided to start uploading some of his videos into YouTube.  When a music producer named Scooter Braun saw these videos, he felt that the talent was worth investing in and started working with him.

Initially, the record labels simply didn’t see how they’d market him and passed on the opportunity to sign him (whoops, big mistake).  As a result, Scooter was forced to take an alternate route – leveraging social media and Justin’s willingness to sing almost anywhere.  A relatively short time later, he had over ten million views on YouTube and was signed by Usher.  After his single “One Time” and debut album “My World” was released, he had over 100 million YouTube Views.

In the midst of it all, @justinbieber embraced Twitter – showcasing how powerful of a tool it can be.  His ability to create a flash mob was demonstrated when an event in NY had to be cancelled when 5000 fans showed up to see him.  He remains one of the top trending topics week after week.  He’s got over 10M Twitter followers and almost 30M Facebook fans.

Scooter and Justin have continued to push the social media envelope in creative ways.  I like this quote from Scooter in an article by Dan Schawbel for Forbes:

“We were in Australia for the first time ever, and everything was shut down. Here we are in Australia and everybody wants to meet Justin, every press outlet, everyone. And we get a twitter sent to me and Justin by @JBSource. The two girls who created it were coming. We know @JBSource because they have over 90 thousand followers. They are one of Justin’s biggest fan clubs. The girl seeks me out. She goes “I’m JBSource, is it possible to interview Justin for our twitter page, and a video interview we can post for the kids.” I went to the label and they said absolutely not. They said “Absolutely not, we’ve already turned down over 100 different outlets; we have no time for these kids.” I said “I don’t think you guys get it, unless they get an interview, we aren’t doing anything because they are the most important interview we’re going to do here.” We canceled some big outlet, and we brought in the kids, with her dad and her two friends. The videotaped an interview with Justin, that he loved doing because he knew who they were. And that’s his favorite thing – communicating directly to the fans. That video was one of the biggest seen videos of that week. That was the video that all the fans watched. They aren’t going on to read some dot com news site. They wanted to go see what the other girl said; she met Justin, what he said to her.”

Never Say Never was released in February 2011 and expectedly used social media to help drive fans to the theatres.  This included a web video campaign through JibJab that generated 2.8 million views and 400,000 personalized videos – breaking their records for the most engaged audience.  Great stuff!

Twitter

Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, is a social media site similar to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, launched by SINA Corporation, China’s biggest web portal, in August 2009. According to Sina, the Weibo microblogging has more than 140 million users and millions of posts per day, and is adding 20 million new users per month.

According to iResearch, Weibo has 56.5% of the microblogging market based on active users and 86.6% based on browsing time over competitors such as Tencent and Baidu. Sina has more than 60,000 verified accounts, consisting of celebrities, sports stars and other VIPs. The top 100 users now have over 180 million followers combined. Furthermore, more than 5,000 companies and 2,700 media organizations in China are currently using Weibo.

The site is maintained by a growing microblogging department of 200 employees responsible for technology, design, operations, and marketing.  The site is currently available in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. (Source: Wikipedia)

Researchers observed that it isn’t that hard for an international company to grow large enough to be a potential challenge to Twitter. MySpace could make changes and being growing again, and Sina Weibo with nearly 150 million total users is arriving in English soon.

The most interesting thing Weibo has done is immediately make it more commercialized. Something Twitter has always had a love-hate relationship with 3rd party apps over.

Sina Corp, Weibo’s parent, has developed features to make it more suitable than Twitter for commercial use. Pictures and videos can be easily posted and re-posted. Re-posted messages form a long thread in which pictures remain visible, and such a conversation makes it much easier for a commercial product or service to go viral.

The Big Opportunity:

In the often ethnocentric world of the west, it’s fairly easy to look at what is out there and assume the well is dry when it comes to microblogging innovation. But Sina Weibo may be watched very closely in other countries. The “lower hanging fruit” that was Twitter for developers may not be so accessible anymore, but it seems like there is still a lot of room for innovation – A good translator is of importance.

Image via CrunchBase

A recent study of college students around the world revealed some information regarding social media, media in general and the word “addiction.” There are posts like:

Twitter is the new Facebook (CNN)…

Facebook tests Twitter-like real-time update feature (memeburn)…

Facebook Growth Outpacing Other Social Media (Marketing Profs)…

Facebook Sees Big Traffic Drops in US and Canada (Inside Facebook)…

Another recent study conducted by the International Center for Media & the Public Affairs (ICMPA) in partnership with the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change.

With a pool of nearly 1,000 college students in ten countries over five continents – including the US, the study sought to witness the effects of abstaining from social media and ALL media for a period of 24 hours.

Here are some of the highlights or lowlights, depending on how you look at it:

The word “addiction” while not clinically relevant was surely on the minds of the students as this word came back repeatedly in responses.

• “I was itching, like a crackhead, because I could not use my phone.” – US student. (The word “addiction” while not clinically relevant was surely on the minds of the students as this word came back repeatedly in responses).
•  “There is no doubt that Facebook is really high profile in our daily life.” – Hong Kong student. (Facebook is the social media “drug” of choice).
• But “Texting is the glue of social life.” “I found it hard not to text my boyfriend as I am so used to doing that as our main way of communicating during the day.” – UK student
• “When I couldn’t communicate with my friends by mobile phone, I felt so lonely as if I was in a small cage on an island.” – China student (A sense of isolation and loneliness come over many).
•  ”I realized that I was having hostile thoughts towards those students who were walking around texting. I was jealous of them and it literally felt like some sort of withdrawal.” – US student  (Envy led to hostility).

Much of this is applicable to ALL social media and media users as a whole. We have become utterly pathetic and dependent on technology, which is what this is all about. Technological advances are now determining factors on what we do. From surfing the net to texting friends to Tweeting to Facebooking to Skypeing and on and on and on!

This goes to show that at least, a part of one’s job requires ‘online’ reference in a myriad of ways. Infact, most people cannot go 24 hours without using ANY form of media, cell phone, PC, etc.

The Dormant Stage

An estimate of 20% of companies show that they are not currently aware of, or using any social media to promote awareness for their company products and services. They can be referred to as the Laggards. This is a very small number when you think the reverse that 80% are users.

So what stage is your brand in? Let’s talk!

The Testing Stage

While most companies are using social media, it tends to start organically in pockets. They describe this stage as ‘distributed chaos.’ To move beyond it, a senior interactive marketer steps up to help coordinate efforts across the organization and then he begins to monitor the effects of efforts put in, as well as audience perception about the company in social media.

The Coordinating Stage

Here the management recognizes the risks and rewards of social media, and then begin to put the resources and governance in place to create consistency across the organization, from ‘distributed chaos’ to a more centralized approach. The risk involved in this stage is managing it to the extent of blocking the individual initiative that social media supports.

The Scaling and Optimizing stage

This stage occurs when firms have already coordinated their social organization and are now focusing on optimizing their social media activities – from improved processes to more advanced metrics to integration with other marketing activity. Monitoring impact becomes essential here.

The Innovators Stage

The Innovators empower their employees. All relevant employees are trained and empowered to use social media – ensuring an organized distribution – though centers of excellence are still needed. Only a few companies understand and have embraced this stage.

At this stage, an easy to use social media awareness tool is provided (such as the Darwin Awareness Engine) to aid its use and spur awareness. The simplicity of the interface makes it accessible to a broad range of employees in different roles. It is designed to aggregate content from multiple sources, including social media. It can significantly reduce the time spent gathering new information to gain awareness about what matters to them making monitoring more manageable.

1. Ensure the latest activity is above the fold on the homepage. If people need to scroll or click to see what’s new in the community, you’re going to lose a lot of activity
2. Start 1 discussion a day about a self-relevant issue. Ask a question that everyone in your community can participate in. Keep it short and simple. Here are a few ideas.
3. E-mail 10 people a day asking them to participate. Participation works on the snowball principle. You need to work to get it started but then it rapidly picks up speed. Focus on getting it started. Start something members can participate in, then ask them to participate.
4. Tweak your notification system. Make sure members are notified when people respond to their comments, vote on issue they believe in. Most open source and white label platforms have this as a default option.
5. Write content mentioning members by name. Write content mentioning individual community members by name. Let them know they were mentioned. Do this several times. Soon people will keep coming back to see if they have been mentioned.
6. Ask members what they want in a community, then offer it. Simple, right? Ask members what they want to see in the community (more activity). Then put the ideas into a poll (more activity) and then ask for their help to turn the idea into a reality (more activity).
7. Pick an issue to campaign for/against. Pick an issue that matters to your audience and campaign either for or against it. Have an enemy, pick your battles, communicate the key dates and plan the actions your community needs to take (down to what individual members need to do).
8. Recruit volunteers for sustaining activity in different areas. Issue a call for volunteers to take responsibility for managing and sustaining activity in different categories of the commnity. They might create content, recruit people, initiate discussions etc…Coach the volunteers to manage their area of the community
9. Use weekly issue/discussion themes. Each week decide on a topical theme and develop content and discussions around it. Let members select the theme if possible. Include content, people that are for/against, a summary at the end of the week.
10. Publish your most topical questions in your newsletter. Publish your most topical discussions in your newsletter. Convey the key points, but keep it short. Alternatively, publish yourunanswered questions as a weekly newsletter piece. This encourages memberrs to try to answer questions that other people couldn’t.