On Monday and Tuesday of this past week, I had the pleasure of teaching Introduction to Web Design and Development at Emory. I’ve been teaching the class for over a year, and I’m always impressed by the caliber of students. This class was no exception—as it turned out, I had a local celebrity of sorts in attendance.

Ted Freeman, a student, designed and created an incredible art installation for the Modern Atlanta Week festival in his “spare time”, and called it the Melting Fan. After the installation was built it was placed prominently in the Five Points Marta Station. The placement of the sculpture was celebrated with an unveiling ceremony at MARTA.

Ted was thrilled to have his work displayed at the station, and thought that this would be the extent of it. Imagine his surprise when one of the project coordinators called him to inform him that a photo of his sculpture was featured in the NYTimes, and on their website. Incredibly, the popularity of the photo continued to explode as it surfaced in the websites of the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and YahooNews. It was one of the 14 “pictures of the day” on the CBS Nightline site, appeared on the Daily Mail site, the NPR Radiolab site, and was Tumblr’d over 22,000 times.

Ted emailed me before class on Tuesday and posed the question: how could he leverage the overwhelming press he received for his work? In the social media portion of my class, I opened discussion into how he could best utilize tools such as Wordpress, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter to continue the viral journey of his installation.

Ted didn’t have a website, so he needed to act quickly. Our solution - create a 4-page site via Wordpress, including basic pages such as About, Portfolio, Press, and Modern Atlanta. Wordpress is a free open source blogging platform and it gives users without HTML experience the ability to create and launch a site quickly. Utilizing a blog will allow for comments so the discussion around his art can continue and grow. We also recommended incorporating creative, interactive elements such as a video project in which we go to the station and video the sculpture and record how people react to it. Additionally, he would need to link all of the press pieces to the new website, and contact the various sources to supply them the web address and contact information. To continue riding the social media wave, he’ll need to create a Facebook page to capture fans, a YouTube channel to stream his video, and a Flickr account to house his imagery - all of these outlets will help him gain even more exposure. We didn’t feel like Twitter was necessary at this point because he has to create a following, definitely a consideration for the future. And of course, a PR initiative will be crucial in order to tap into offline buzz as well. Since our classes end on Tuesday, Ted has made some great progress with the creation of his website/blog Creatometry.com.

As you can imagine, it was quite exciting to have a living, breathing, and tangible project to discuss and brainstorm about with the students during class. The students applauded him for his success—with a little help and an aggressive social media and PR strategy, he’ll continue to be applauded and recognized for his brilliant work.

Be sure to stay tuned to our blog as we chronicle the developments of the media project for Ted’s Melting Fan sculpture.

Lil Jon’s “Celebrity Apprentice” stint not only boosted his fan base—it spiked an interest in his charity-of-choice: The United Methodist Children’s Home in Decatur, GA. UMCH called upon us to help them capitalize on the popularity of the show, draw national media attention and increase an interest in the organization through social media and their website.

UMCH was founded 140 years ago, and originally served as an orphanage for post-Civil War orphans. Today, it’s a haven that fosters young children, teenagers and families who need help getting back on their feet.

We began by revamping UMCH’s website just in time for the “Celebrity Apprentice” premiere. Website traffic spiked more than 200% throughout the duration of the show, and UMCH’s Facebook fan base increased 200% as well.

While Lil Jon went to work for Trump in the Big Apple, we hit the media circuit in Atlanta. With the assistance of Lil Jon’s publicist and management team, we secured coverage of Lil Jon’s UMCH connection through various publications and television stations, including the AJC, Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch, AP Wire, News One, 11 Alive News and CBS Atlanta, to name a few.

Lil Jon managed to be one of the last final four contestants standing before Donald finally let him go. Amazingly, during his time on the show, he raised a staggering $80,000 for UMCH. Upon his return, we coordinated a star-studded and heart-warming reception honoring the rapper. The event was held on May 24 on the UMCH campus. We pulled out all the stops, inviting prominent community leaders such as Dekalb County CEO Burrell Ellis, who deemed that day, “Lil Jon Day.” During an initial press conference, Lil Jon was presented with an award for his fundraising efforts by his mom. In a hilarious turn, Jon’s brother, Chris, showed up in a huge Lil Jon mask, complete with gold teeth and dreadlocks.

After the press conference, the good times continued as Lil Jon met with children under the care of UMCH, enjoyed a private lunch and was treated to a talent show. There were plenty of photo ops, and I was able to get in the fun and pose with Lil Jon for a picture.

But by far, the most rewarding experience was to see the impact of our PR and media relations strategy—it was instrumental in increasing interest in the United Methodist Children’s Home and its noble mission.

We recently blogged about our partnership with Peachstate Insurance and our creation of a Toys for Tots video to help deliver hope to children this holiday season. We’ve been promoting the video since the beginning of December, and we’ve had a great response. The more that people view and share the video, the more the word is spread. Please help children in need this holiday season by sharing this with everyone you know.

You can view the video here:

As many of you know, last week was Social Media Week in Atlanta. Unfortunately for me, it happened to coincide with a particularly hectic workweek—but I was able to attend one of the most anticipated panels: Social Media Innovations.

The Social Media Innovations panel consisted of an impressive group of folks:

Dorothea Bozicolona-Volpe – event coordinator and representing PlacePunch
Scott Lockhart, Co-Founder – Regator
Yvett Evans, Business Development – Vitrue
John Beisner, EVP, Client Services – Twitpay
David Rollo, SVP/Director of Digital Strategy – 22 Squared
Aaron Strout, CMO – Powered, Inc.

Each of the panelists discussed their company’s approaches to innovative social media practices. The event represented a great combination of brands and concepts, all of which had inspiring case studies, statistics, and success stories to share.

Scott Lockhart of Regator opened the session and explained how Regator, a small Atlanta start-up, functions. Essentially, Regator makes it possible for people to locate quality blog content. Regator addresses issues of information overload—in other words, how does one wade through all of the online blogs and publications and find truly relevant and useful information?

Regator uses editorial curators, who go out and find great blogs to feature on the Regator site. The blogs are presented on Regator in a very accessible, user-friendly way, and divided by topics of interest, ranging from beekeeping to social media to politics, technology, or even knitting. Regator offers additional tools for tracking and sharing content with friends, creating a truly social user experience.

Interestingly, Regator has an 85-90% rejection rate for submitted blogs, which serves to maintain the integrity of the content. Regator innovates through offering capabilities such as widgets and iphone apps to users.

Yvett Evans of Vitrue was next to take the floor. She opened by explaining that Vitrue is a SMMP—a Social Media Management Platform, and primarily a technology company that builds a platform of solutions for brands and companies to better leverage the power of Facebook and Twitter.
Featured products of the company include Vitrue tabs—a solution that allows you to leverage content management, and Vitrue publisher—a publishing tool that allows you to publish posts on Facebook more effectively. Vitrue Apps is another feature that they’re currently tapping into.
Yvett covered a few hard-hitting social media stats, including:

- Global time spent on social media increased 82% from 2008 to 2009
- 90% of respondents trust recommendations from their friends
- 60% of “Tell A Friend” widget shares come from social media sites, as opposed to 31% from email
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world (currently 500 million + users)
- Average user- 130 friends; 50% of average users visit the site once a day, and spend an average of 55 minutes on the site
- Over 20 million people become fans of Facebook pages each day

She then delved into the subject of couponing, and referenced the recent BBDO study that asked participants what their primary recommendation would be to brands on Facebook. 83% of respondents suggested that brands offer exclusives or benefits. In a 2010 study, participants in were asked what their number one motivation was in “liking” a brand or company on Facebook. Similarly, 40% replied: coupons, benefits, or promotions.

While these statistics weren’t completely surprising to me, I was impressed by the high percentages of folks that simply want to be incentivized to follow a brand.

Yvett continued by presenting a solid case study with Buffalo Wild Wings, a project that Vitrue partnered on with 22 Squared. The agency approached Vitrue to leverage their Facebook couponing technology. Their main objective was to increase sales during an off-peak time period, test the rate of prints and redemptions within a digital medium, and to reward the Buffalo Wild Wings fan base.

Through leveraging paid, owned, and earned media, 22 Squared launched their campaign. It began with a series of wall posts in the form of a coupon, which resulted in a staggering 1900 shares and 67,000 printouts. Virtue’s technology features an easy-to-use interface that allows you to build apps quickly, a deals tab, serving as a landing tab for non-fans, and a coupon creator.

The results:

- 55% of total printouts for the campaign came from Facebook
- 38% were from wall posts
- 63% redemption rate of coupons were from Facebook

Yvette closed by presenting tips on ways to build your own strategy from Facebook, which included:
- define metrics up front
- ensure that you have the proper tools to measure the metrics
- make sure that offer is compelling
- encourage fans to share the promotion
- ensure process is in place for users to redeem

Twitpay’s John Beisner was next up to present, and he opened by describing Twitpay as the first and largest payment service built for Twitter utilization.

Twitpay is primarily focused on nonprofits, and their goal is to allow these nonprofit brands to monetize their investment in social media. It allows them to send out tweets with a call to action, i.e., “please retweet this to make a donation”. Twitpay is facilitating the exponential spread of a message through requests for donations.

John pointed out that when nonprofits feature a call to action on their site that simply requests that users make a donation, it’s just a one-to-one action—there’s nothing social about it. However, through Twitpay, you spread the message or announcement of donation to your donor’s followers. This forces a social interaction, and people like to share the fact that they’ve made a donation. The donation confirmation happens through DM (direct message), and the donor replies yes.

Twitpay focuses on the larger nonprofits, such as the Children’s Miracle Network, United Way, Care, and water.org. Their focus is to bring in the right kind of audience, access new audiences, and train them to make donations. Twitpay’s technology allows nonprofit brands to quickly create donation campaigns. Their process is designed to lower the barriers to donation.

John referenced a powerful case study featuring Malaria No More, who launched a donation campaign that generated 3,969 retweets (one of which was from Bill Gates). Malaria No More’s campaign was implemented for World Malaria Day, and the purpose was to raise money for mosquito nets.

The campaign rivaled the text-to-give activity by bringing in 40% of the funding, while text-to-give brought in 60% –very noteworthy considering that text technology has been around significantly longer.

Caleb Clark from Mobilization Labs, a software company out of Buckhead, described the Wildfire Platform—technology that originated 5 years ago in the political space. However, today they’re in the brand and nonprofit space. They’re focused on mobilizing groups of people behind a brand, and enabling the brand to better understand their behavior, which contributes to their overall ROI.

Wildfire’s technology measures and tracks everything that brands do, analyzes the behavior of their fans, and motivates them to do more. The Wildfire platform takes the list of fans and helps brands to “improve the ask”. One example of this methodology was with the Jonas Brothers brand, which called on Wildfire to solicit help from their fans to help promote the upcoming tour. The top 3 fans that helped promote the band were flown to New York to spend the day with the band.

Another great case study of Wildfire’s technology was with the Spicy Chicken Chick-Fil-A promotion that took place over the summer. Chick-Fil-A is known for their wildly successful giveaways and promotions; however, they were looking for more insight into their fan behavior, in order to pinpoint what and who exactly was driving fans into the door for the giveaway campaigns.

The Spicy Chicken sandwich giveaway was the largest product launch in Chick-Fil-A’s history, so the brand used the Wildfire platform to communicate the promotion to their 2 million + fans. They tied the platform into the reservation system—so fans would print their reservation and pick up their free sandwich. Ultimately, Wildfire was able to capture information on every fan and analyze where they came from, whether it was from Facebook, Twitter, etc., and uncover which fans notified the most people.

In one week’s time, Chick-Fil-A increased their email subscriber list by 50%, and gave away over 1 million sandwiches. Additionally, overall sales increased chain-wide by 50%–and this was with no radio, TV, or other forms of traditional advertising. More importantly, they were able to analyze and understand the behavior behind the fans that took advantage of the offer. By examining the behavioral analytics behind their fans, Chick-Fil-A was able to better understand them, which will undoubtedly aid them in future campaigns and promotions.

Caleb pointed out that while social conversation is important, it’s not as critical as fan actions.

Dorothea Bozicolona-Volpe stepped in to discuss PlacePunch, a location based marketing platform that enables businesses to drive more customers to their venues, build customer loyalty, and gain new insights with their customer base. Their tools and technology integrate with Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and other location based social networks.

PlacePunch helps brands with customer engagement, and assists them in building customer loyalty programs.

Dorothea referenced a PlacePunch case study with IHG Hotel Group, who wanted to create a unique, engaging experience for customers when they checked into the hotel via Foursquare. IHG used Placepunch technology to begin a messaging program, in which Twitter replies were sent to customers when they checked into one of 3100 domestic IHG locations. The messages varied from good will to promotional, and customer response was strong.

Another strong case study was with Concentrics Restaurant, who engaged all customers who were checking into their locations via Foursquare, Facebook, Gowalla, etc., and rewarded them at the point of sale with a free appetizer or dessert.

Both brands understand the importance of contacting and rewarding customers at the point of engagement, which undoubtedly drives more customer loyalty.

David Rollo of 22 Squared was last to present—he described several important relationships and strategic partnerships that the agency has developed with companies like Vitrue, Blinq Media, and Looxii. By leveraging these outside resources, 22 Squared has been able to enhance their client offerings significantly.

David went on to describe some client social media success stories that were achieved with the help of these partnerships. For instance, they increased Baskin Robbins Facebook fanbase from 458,000 to 1.2 million in just a short amount of time.

Through Vitrue’s technology, 22 Squared is able to better monitor fan conversation and activity through one management platform that offers optimal visibility into fan bases for their clients. It’s crucial to be moderating and monitoring these conversations, especially as spam becomes more of an issue.

Blinq Media is another strong partnership for 22 Squared—Blinq assists them with increasing visibility and fan bases on Facebook, and supports them with building out apps, such as Baskin Robbins Group Scoop app, which offers free scoops of ice cream. Blinq is also able to stretch Facebook advertising budgets much farther than if you were to go directly through Facebook. Blinq also determines CPF, or Cost Per Fan, which helps to pinpoint run rates and ROI, and runs multivariate testing.

Last, David introduced Looxii, a social media monitoring engine that he stated was ”simple, useful and affordable.” He compared them to Radian6, but pointed out that Looxii is well suited for clients on tighter budgets. The platform is comprehensive, customizable, and cross-platform. It measures trends, conversations, and human sentiment. You’re also able to create a customized, branded dashboard for clients for listening.

It was a rare treat to be able to be among some of the greatest Atlanta minds in social media technology and innovation, and I left the session feeling inspired and full of ideas for putting some of the concepts I learned into practice. I think my biggest takeaway was inspired by the thought of pursuing more strategic partnerships with some of the talented companies I was introduced to. I feel that social media is best served as a collaborative effort—certainly, such efforts achieve the best results for clients, which is what we’re all ultimately striving for.

Were you able to make it to the Social Innovations Panel? If so, what stood out for you?

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be conducting a presentation for AMA Atlanta on Viral Marketing, taking place on Thursday, November 4th from 6 to 8PM.

During the event, we’ll walk you through the dynamics of creating a viral campaign from creation to execution, and showcase examples of successful campaigns. We’ll also present our work with Visible Vote, an application that serves as an incredibly powerful way to connect with your legislators, and is creating true transparency in government.

Visible Vote is an ideal case study of the viral marketing process—and this promises to be a unique and beneficial learning experience. For the ultimate interactive experience throughout the event, we’re asking that attendees download the mobile Visible Vote Application here.

AMA Atlanta’s event promises to be an ideal opportunity to network with Atlanta’s marketing community and gain valuable insight on the inner workings of viral marketing.

Location:
East Andrews (Upstairs)
56 East Andrews Dr.
Atlanta, GA 30305

Date & Time
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
6- 8PM

Cost:
AMA-Atlanta members: $20
Non-members: $30
All walk-ins: $35

You can officially register for the event here. We look forward to seeing all of you there!

As Social Media reaches new heights as an important marketing component for organizations and corporations, it is important for them to remember that Social Media offers different values other than targeting brand messaging to various demographics. In a day and age when individuals tweet about the death of Michael Jackson before the actual media picks up on the story, organizations and corporations can use this fast moving medium to their advantage in the case of a crisis. A Crisis Communications plan is a quintessential aspect of any marketing department and Social Media can be used as the first line of defense to dispel any misinformation prior to the media picking up on a story and distorting the facts (something they do well nowadays.) The use of Facebook and Twitter in a crisis situation was used brilliantly by Charleston Yeager International Airport in West Virginia after an aborted take-off of a US Airways flight back in January.
You can read more about the story here. The article gives excellent insight in how vital Social Media can be to an organization such as an Airport during a crisis:
Click Here

For more information on how Social Media can impact your company’s Crisis Communication plan, check out this excellent article from PRSA:
Click Here

I’d love to hear your feedback–what examples of Crisis Communications via social media have you encountered?

How does one capture the essence of Social Fresh in a single blog post? I’m not sure it’s possible, so in order to avoid a potential case of writers block, I’ll keep it simple and restrict my subject material to the ‘aha’ moments that resonated with me the most.

Passion/ Inspiration

Speaker: Spike Jones from Brains on Fire: Word of Mouth Marketing

The theme of Spike’s presentation centered on his belief that people tend to get too caught up in the tools and tactics surrounding social media. He pointed out that 90% of WOM happens offline, so we, in turn, need to begin our efforts offline. Our focus should begin with people. Spike spoke of the power of a movement, as opposed to a campaign. Consider the power of harnessing the passion of a group of people, rather than merely focusing on pushing out campaign after campaign. Movements are centered around belief systems, kindred spirits, and even love, while campaigns fixate on target markets and penetration. As Spike phrased it, movements, by definition, have powerful identities because intrinsically, ‘everyone wants to be part of something bigger than themselves.’

Spike backed up his words with some hard-hitting case studies, and focused particularly on ‘the Fiskateers’, a movement generated by Brains on Fire for the crafts division of Fiskars Brands, Inc. Fiskars called upon the agency to help them overcome customer brand loyalty issues, and Brains on Fire responded by designating four women to represent Fiskars as brand ambassadors. After a thorough training session at Fiskars headquarters, the newly appointed Fiskateers returned home and proceeded to spread the brand’s message, visit storeowners, and build communities.

The results were nothing short of astonishing: the Fiskateers movement caused a 39% increase in online visits, a 600% increase in online mentions, and an overall 500% return on value. Further, the group generates 13 new product ideas a month and creates their own marketing and PR initiatives. To date, there are over 5,400 active Fiskateers.

The most striking element of the Brains on Fire case studies was the way in which these communities developed a life of their own. Granted, the agency planted the seeds by creating and implementing the concepts; but the communities grew organically through good old-fashioned word of mouth and passionate brand advocacy.

I think it’s safe to say that Spike had us all at ‘Everything you’ve heard today is complete and total crap…unless you have a strategy behind it.” And marketing strategies begin and end with people, not tools.

Execution/Implementation

Speaker: Maggie Fox: The Art and Science of Scaling Social Media

Maggie Fox, founder and CEO of Social Media Group out of Canada, coached the crowd on the scientific nature of social media. SMG has developed strategies for major brands including Ford Motor Company and SAP Global Marketing, so Maggie had our full attention. She opened by pointing out that experimentation is a scientific process, and she shared the formula for scaling social media: earned media, amplified by paid media, syndicated through owned channels= scalability. In other words, create remarkable experiences with products or services for digital content production, and scale them through paid media and social platforms.

Throughout the presentation, Maggie reiterated the importance of constantly testing and refining your content. Many people make the mistake of throwing a bunch of content out into the universe and hoping that it sticks. She also communicated the benefits of leveraging user-generated content through social ads or repurposing through various social media channels. This point really hit home with me: why not take full advantage of valuable, credible content about your brand generated by third parties? (To quote Maggie: “You’re a media company–now act like one.”) In doing so, you can reignite/repurpose conversations and maintain a diversified mix of content. For greater impact, you can direct your audience to user-generated material through social and PPC ads. This practice also addresses cost issues in that you’re not constantly starting over.

Maggie urged us to stop wasting time and energy on short-lived campaigns and microsites, and to build our own channels. (As I listened, the adage ‘work smart, not hard’ kept entering my mind.) Conduct audits: where are we? And where is the conversation about us taking place? Find out, pump information about you into your social media ecosystem, and ensure that your audience finds the most credible and holistic picture of your brand/organization.

Last, Maggie touched on the challenge of qualitative measurement in social media–something that machines simply can’t handle. Subsequently, we must appoint people to manage and monitor tonality, semantics, and the natural language of content surrounding our brands. Too often, content is the last thing to be considered, when in fact, the majority of our emphasis should be placed upon it.

Examining ROI

Panel: ROI of Community Building– DJ Waldow (Blue Sky Factory), Amber Naslund (Radian 6), Rich Ullman (Ripple6), & John Andrews (Collective Bias)

This was a session I was eagerly anticipating, and it didn’t disappoint. The ROI of social media is always a hot topic, and we couldn’t have asked for a better panel to tackle it. Here’s a breakdown of the talking points:

- ROI in and of itself is a poor efficiency vehicle. We must distinguish between engagement level vs. hard metrics/leads. Engagement and sales can live together, and as Amber said: engagement begets leads.

- Great point: For years we’ve been cultivating relationships offline– we take clients to dinner; we go on golf outings, etc. We instinctively understand the return on these relationship building practices. Forging online relationships is no different.

- ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’ It’s in our best interest to support our community/industry as a whole. Case in point: when DJ Waldow recommended one of his competitors to a client, the client was so impressed by the gesture he proceeded to refer business to DJ and spread the word about his generosity.

- Question for the panel: ‘How do you recommend getting others involved (internally) with your company’s social media efforts?’
There are almost always employees within an organization who enjoy participating and contributing above and beyond the call of duty. Take notice of the people within your organization who are writing about your company/industry and be a cheerleader for them. Build your own communities internally.

- Amber Naslund on measurement: some organizations have issues measuring social media because they struggle with measurement in general. Companies need to stop and ask the question: ‘What is the ‘I’ in our ROI?’ Is it dollars? Time? Expertise? Amber’s quote: ‘Give me the ‘I’ and I’ll give you the ‘R’. ROI is only one metric that equates to dollars. (Cue cheering…)

- Don’t start measuring after year 1–get a starting point (ideally at ground zero), define your objectives, then establish a measurement matrix for your social media/community building efforts.

- Align your listening practices with your sales database. For example, one case study reflected a situation in which 60% of the company’s online community was missing from their database.

- On overcoming fear of bad social media commentary (i.e. ‘What if they say something bad about us?’):
If people have something negative to say about your company or brand, they’re going to say it somewhere online, regardless of whether you have a social media presence or not. Further, complaints and negative commentary can be a major driver of ROI because they present a huge opportunity for conversion.

Also worth mentioning: Brian Dresher, Marketing Manager at USA Today, made a great point in reference to ROI during the ‘Branding Social Media’ Panel: the ‘I’ in ROI stands for Investment, Interaction, and Influence, and should be measured accordingly.

I have so much appreciation for speakers and panelists within the social media community who slice through the clutter and address the tough questions. Sofresh delivered on its promise to focus on case studies, instigate quality conversations, and provide inspiration.

To hear more about this conference, make sure to take a look at the video interviews that Jason Peck conducted from SoFresh.

And if you attended Social Fresh Tampa, I’d love to hear your feedback on the sessions and/or speakers. What stood out for you?

I recently had the pleasure of attending the SoCon10 event at Kennesaw State University. Now, I’m itching to share ideas, inspiration, and put what I’ve learned into practice– which assures me that I had a worthwhile experience. Granted, it’s virtually impossible not to be inspired with a line-up of speakers that included Carol Kruse (VP of Global Interactive Marketing for Coke) and Dan Siroker (Founder of Carrotsticks and former Deputy New Media Director for the Obama Presidential Transition).

Here are some highlights from their presentations:

Carol Kruse: Inventing new social media strategies to put your brand on the map

• Social Media Marketing is a tactic and should support brand objectives.
• New media platforms and tools change frequently, and can be very disruptive to a campaign/ strategy. (Case in point: Facebook’s ever-changing guidelines.)
• Use the KISS methodology; just because you can use a particular tool, doesn’t mean you should.
• “Viral” is not a strategy.
• Don’t create extra work for yourself– many make the mistake of continually starting over from zero, rather than building from past efforts.
• Clear any potential legal hurdles within your organization first. Legitimate legal questions will arise, and need to be dealt with prior to rolling out social media initiatives.
• Regarding the question of ROI: within this topic, a double standard of sorts exists. One could ask, ‘What’s the ROI of a billboard? How many cases did the billboard move?’
• Repeat visits to a site, or page drive more brand affinity.
• Each new community is an entirely new market, and should be treated as such– what works for some may not work for others. For example, Bebo is popular in China; Brazil uses Orkut.
• Moderation is key– too many try to be everywhere at once.
• Listen first. Identify where the influencers are– then reach them.
• Create sustainable relationships. The ‘everyone loves a puppy’ analogy: Social media is like a puppy. In the beginning, everyone loves a puppy. They’re cute, cuddly, fun, and new– but then the puppy grows up, and it still needs constant care, exercise, and nurturing. The same is true for social media–it’s work. Social media is like a reality show; it’s 24-7/ 365 days a year.
• Interaction is crucial– when you get people interacting, you no longer have to stimulate every conversation.
• Case studies: Expedition 206. Filming Happiness– three ‘happiness ambassadors’ travel the world to visit all 206 countries where Coca-cola is sold. Their mission: to discover what makes people happy around the world. The ambassadors blog, tweet, and post videos of their adventures for viewers.
• My Coke Rewards: Combines customer loyalty and social media.
• Simple, yet true: fish where the fish are. Do the due diligence to discover where your customers and major influencers are online. And– collect (readers), connect (with your audience), and perfect (your message).
• Optimize the existing functionality that social media platforms offer; don’t try to reinvent the wheel. For example, ‘events’ is a great Facebook tab/category that is fairly underutilized.

Dan Siroker: How to raise $300 million using social media and online tactics

Dan Siroker was a product manager for Google Chrome when Obama came to Google to speak. At the time, he was so moved by Obama’s speech that he decided to move to Washington DC to volunteer for the campaign. Eventually he became the Deputy New Media Director, and handled strategic planning for the administration’s internet and technology use throughout the election. Recently, the administration called upon Dan’s team again– this time to optimize the Clinton/Bush Haiti fundraising campaign. (I think it’s fair to say that Dan is kind of a big deal.)

Here is a breakdown of his presentation:

How data won the Obama election:
Mind-blowing statistics: $656 million was raised for the Obama campaign. $500 million of it was raised online.

Dan’s ‘lessons learned’ throughout his experiences:
• Lesson 1:
  Define success and generate quantifiable success metrics.
  Obama campaign example–metrics involved: website>email signup>raise money
• Lesson 2:
  Question Assumptions
  Add a multivariate touch; experiment. Dan shared variations of splash pages and videos his team used during the election and asked us to vote and attempt to guess which models received the best results. Interestingly, very few of us guessed correctly, which emphasized his point: never assume that one model will be the most effective. Always test.
• Lesson 3:
  Divide and Conquer
  To demonstrate this point, Dan shared additional multivariate examples through various fundraising call to actions he experimented with, such as ‘donate now’, ‘please donate’, ‘why donate’, ‘donate and get a gift’, and ‘contribute’. He asked the audience to vote on which call-to-action we felt was most effective, and once again, the majority of us got it wrong. However, he then pointed out that his team took the testing and step further and divided the results into groups of first time visitors, first time donators, and past donators in order to accurately analyze the call-to-action clicks.
• Lesson 4:
  Take advantage of circumstances
  Here, Dan showed a clip of Sarah Palin’s speech that mocked ‘community organizers’. (Palin’s quote: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.”) His team immediately leveraged this opportunity by sending out a mass email to enraged Obama supporters, asking them to retaliate by donating at least $100 to the campaign. The email blast raised an additional $10 million in funds for Obama’s campaign, and undoubtedly serves as rock solid argument for taking advantage of circumstances.
• Lesson 5:
  Always be Optimizing
  This one is fairly self-explanatory: always be experimenting; always be optimizing– when it comes to analytics, don’t ’set it and forget it.’

This was my first SoCon experience, and I’ll definitely be returning next year. To sum up, here’s a great video that Amani Channel from Visual Eye Media produced for the event:

For my next post, I’ll discuss highlights from my latest adventure: the Social Fresh conference in Tampa.

15 Things to Consider Before You Dive In:

Businesses are entering the social media space in throes, and with good reason- the opportunity and electricity surrounding it is palpable. However, in their eagerness to join the new media party, many neglect to ask the right questions prior to jumping in. For the purpose of this post, I’ve collected a list of ’social media tips and truisms’ I believe to be helpful not only to folks who are considering taking the plunge, but also for those seeking direction with their existing efforts.

1. Before you take action, ask yourself the following:
   • Why social media? (It seems an obvious question; nevertheless, it’s amazing how many organizations fail to ask it.)
   • Who are you trying to reach? Who is your target audience?
   • Where is the said audience congregating online?
   • What exactly do you hope to accomplish through your social media initiatives?

   The answers to these questions will serve as the foundation and building blocks for your strategy.

2. Resist the temptation to scramble to grab any and every bright and shiny new media tool that crosses your path.
   Think carefully about how a particular social media platform will serve you, and decide whether it’s relevant to your audience. If you’re undecided on a specific service, it’s okay to experiment– as long as you resolve to put forth a fair and sustained effort throughout your decision-making process. As you become acclimated to various social media, devote the first few weeks to listening and observing. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the vernacular and etiquette specific to each service.
3. Align your social media strategy with your PR, traditional media, and advertising efforts.
   Ultimately, social technology should not be the quintessential element of your marketing endeavors. It should work in conjunction with your existing PR and communications programs, as well as with any direct, online, or other various traditional forms of marketing and advertising you have in place.
4. Don’t go it alone– social media should be a team effort.
   Twitter applications such as CoTweet do a great job of facilitating a collaborative approach, and Facebook allows you to set up multiple administrators for fan pages. Further, setting up a rotation for employee blog posts will diversify your content and keep it fresh.
5. Understand that adopting new media is a significant shift in how you handle your business.
   Communicate the importance of your entrance into this space to your employees. Depending on the size of your organization, you may want to consider implementing a set of social media guidelines/policies. You can reference a good list of example company guidelines here.
6. Don’t be a ‘dabbler’.
   Truly commit and adhere to your social media calendar and/ or schedule. Generate an editorial calendar for your blog, and structure a plan for how often you will tweet, post to Facebook, participate in LinkedIn discussions, and upload videos to Youtube, for example.
7. Be patient.
   Realize that social media is a process, not an event. It takes time to build a quality following. Seth Godin explains this in his concise style here.
8. Creativity is key.
   One creative idea has the power to take on a life of its own and reach millions. Many of you are familiar with Blendtec’s ‘will it blend‘ viral campaign, as well as the Bensons for Beds ‘Mattress Dominoes’ Youtube video that landed nearly a million views. Both concepts are simple, creative, and entertaining.
9. Reveal your personality– this is your opportunity to touch your audience and remind them that there are humans behind the website.
   The Mayo Clinic demonstrates this point exquisitely in this video. In it, an elderly couple playing the piano is captured on video in the atrium of the Mayo Clinic. To date, the video has over 5.5 million Youtube views, and the couple was featured on Good Morning America. As a whole, the healthcare industry is slow to embrace social media, but medical facilities like The Mayo Clinic and Emory Healthcare understand the importance of humanizing their brands through these channels.
10. Combine your SEO efforts with your social media strategy.
    When Google and Bing announced that they would incorporate social platforms into search, it was a major turning point. Now it’s easier to be found organically via blog entries, facebook posts, Twitter updates, and bookmarking sites, creating an even more compelling argument for social media.
11. Integrate new media tools and make it easy for people to find you.
    The most effective social media strategies have a streamlined flow; for example, your blog readership should be able to find you on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Your Facebook fans should be able to find you on Twitter, and vice versa. Additionally, seize any and every opportunity available to post your social media handles. Consider including them in your email signature line and on your business cards.
12. Acknowledge the power of new media for B2B marketers.
    Many people make the false assumption that social media marketing is effective in the B2C arena alone. According to Forrester Research, a staggering 91% of B2B decision-makers are utilizing social media, and 69% are leveraging it for business purposes. Christina Kerley, a well-known new media B2B marketing evangelist, created this informative slideshow that I reference often in B2B marketing discussions.
13. Recognize the inherent beauty of social technology: with it, consumers are empowered, engaged, and valued.
    Today, consumers are increasingly adept at tuning out broadcasted methods of advertising. John Greening, a professor at Northwestern University and 27-year veteran of advertising, has a simple yet poignant saying: the market has moved from “find me, sell me’” to “know me, help me.” The most successful brands talk to their audience, as opposed to talking at them. Coca-Cola’s Vitamin Water is a prime example of a brand that understands this paradigm. Their interactive, crowdsourced Facebook ‘flavorcreator‘ campaign invited fans to create and submit their own Vitamin Water drink flavor; the winning flavor will be released in March of this year.
14. Don’t fall into the trap of duplicating your website content through social media platforms.
    Remember that this presents a valuable opportunity to build relationships and convert listeners and readers into participants. When your audience knows they’re being heard, they know they’re being valued. When they know they’re being valued, their relationship with your organization transforms; they become true proponents of your brand.
15. My favorite topic: “What’s the ROI?”
    Whether your business targets businesses or consumers, social media offers an unprecedented opportunity to connect, converse, relate, and engage with your audience. Still, some remain skeptical and fixate on the question: “What’s the ROI?”
     
    I could tear right into this subject and talk about how ROI isn’t necessarily the best way to measure your social media results, but I’ll expand upon this topic in a future blog post. For brevity’s sake, I’ll ask you to take a few minutes and watch this video titled Socialnomics: ROI by the author of Socialnomics, Eric Qualman. It provides great case studies, statistics, and comments on ROI as it relates to social media:

And now I’d love to hear from you– have you embraced social media in your business? If so, what experiences have you had thus far? If not, what’s holding you back?

*Emory Healthcare is a client of SolDesign Company.