Lessons Learned from Corporate Social Media Experts (Blogwell)

Jonny Thompson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:07:26 +0000

While the conference was titled Blogwell, the broader idea was about social integration on the web from the corporate view. Having a social presence on the web is rapidly shifting towards a necessity for corporations. Your audience is out there waiting to engage and if you don’t engage with them, your audience will do it on their own. From the great speakers of Blogwell, the message seemed clear – social media is still imperfect and you will make mistakes. The lessons you learn from your mistakes will ultimately define your success. Here are some great lessons from the corporate social media experts:

Find a Purpose – this can be pretty obvious to some but can be more difficult for others. At the very least figure out what you’d like to accomplish. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out measurable goals right out of the gates. A simple purpose can help you develop your measurements along the way.
Keep Learning – you don’t need to have all the answers to social media before you jump in. Have some goals and ideas ready (or a purpose) and then jump in (almost all the speakers expressed this idea). Build your strategy as you go and maintain the understanding that it needs to be an ongoing learning process. Constant measurement and evaluation is crucial for planning and honing your strategy. Much of social media is trial-and-error. Don’t be afraid to make some mistakes.
Where to start? Internally – it’s amazing how much you can learn by the example of your own company base. Before you bust into an external social media strategy, launch your strategy internally and observe. This benefits by helping you build knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. In the grand scheme this will also help promote social advocacy by internal employees.
Be Transparent – not only is this ethically right, but it’s what the groundswell expects. Lack of transparency in the corporate social media can lead to low acceptance and can sometimes have some harsh negative effects. Disclose your intentions, never pay for endorsements, and make sure your ads look like ads. “I work for ____, and this is my opinion”
Humanize Your Company – by giving your social media team their own image and allowing their own opinions you create a more approachable environment. People want to engage with people (examples: Matt Cutts – Google; Jeremiah Owyang – Forrester Research). There are times when you can’t please everybody, but respect and trust is gained when the message is geniune and from the people.
Listen > Participate > Lead – your audience can make you or break you, so you must pay attention and listen to them. Participate as much as possible with your audience to gain trust and acceptance. Finally, once trust is established – lead the message.
70/30 Rule – try to develop an equation for how you engage with your audience. In this case, the 70/30 rule means 70% of your content should matter to your consumer while no more than 30% should be about (or promoting) your company. This can vary based on your business, but the key point is to put the focus on giving back before you receive.
Build Content from the Users – the best kept secret with social media is that if you play your strategy correctly, your audience will naturally build out the content and spread the word for you. Once trust is gained, you just need to create the channels for your audience to engage with. Some prime examples are with Ford’s Fiesta campaign or the Betty Crocker community.

8 Techniques to Get Your Creative Blogging Juices Flowing

Jonny Thompson — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:46 +0000

Blogging is something I wish I did more of. Finding the time to write always turns into an easy excuse not to. I’ve come to realize that if I want to accomplish a blog post in a timely manner then I need to be completely prepared – all the way down to organizing my workspace. Concentration and focus is critical in getting my creative writing juices flowing. With that said I’ve laid out 8 of my favorite techniques for achieving creative blogging bliss.

Evernote (your scratchpad for note taking and research)
If you haven’t heard about Evernote yet then you’re gravely missing out. Evernote allows you to collect information for your own repository from the web. It’s a great tool for research and information gathering. The more I work with it, the more I love it. Let it be your quick snippet information repository and reference it when you can’t quite remember where you heard that great tidbit.
Tip: don’t get stuck trying to organize your notes, focus on gathering.
Delicious (your online bookmarking)
This was a big jump for me. For the longest time I’ve used the built-in browser bookmarking utilities – FireFox uses “Bookmarks” and Internet Explorer uses “Favorites”. After years of bookmarking things my bookmarks have turned into something emulating my college dorm room from freshman year (disclosure: picture knee deep dirty clothes strewn everywhere). Delicious is the remedy for this painful occurrence and the best part is that it resides on the web so you don’t have to worry about losing anything when you switch computers. You can share bookmarks too – check out my Delicious bookmarks.
Tip: again, don’t get caught up in trying to organize all your bookmarks. Stick with the default tags provided by Delicious and utilize the search feature for finding bookmarks.
Popurls (your eye on what’s hot in the news)
I’ve grown to love this web site and I check it religiously a couple times a day. Popurls states that it is the “Mother of All Aggregators” and I would totally agree. While it could be geared more towards the the social media power user it provides a great mash-up of all the latest news and trends from all the big web sources. Great for getting a quick snapshot of what’s hot and generating ideas.
Tip: Popurls works great with the iPhone and mobile phones.
Alltop (your favorite feeds)
Just think of Popurls but you have control over what feeds are shown. Great tools for creating your own mash-up of your favorite feeds. Check out MyAlltop page.
Tip: Browse the topics from the homepage that you are interested in to find great feeds.
Twitter (your audience)
I consider Twitter to be my best judgement of my blog audience. Use twitter to keep an eye on what your audience is buzzing about and how they’re reacting. Your followers are following you for a reason and believe it or not some like what you have to say. Use this to your advantage and find out what your followers are buzzing about.
Tip: Pay attention to the users who Re-Tweet or engage with you.
Google Reader (your deep research tool)
There’s just so many blogs and feeds out there. Whenever I come across a blog that’s enticing and shows promise of good content, I add it to my Google Reader and categorize it appropriately. While the reader is great, the most under-rated feature Google Reader has is its search feature. Now that my feed base is pretty well established (297 feeds) I now utilize the built-in search feature for collecting good information around a topic.
Tips: a couple of my favorite feeds that I enjoy reading are Problogger (focuses on blogging and writing) and Chris Brogan (all things social media).
Google Documents (where you start to compile your blog posts)
Where you write your blog post is important. I use Google Docs. Prior to utilizing Google Docs I used MS Word and the actual blog WYSIWYG. The problem with MS Word is that the documents live in one location (probably on your computer). The problem with using the blog WYSIWYG was that it distracted me from the writing component. Styling and imagery becomes an obsession. Instead, use Google Docs to focus just on the writing and when you’re ready transfer your post to the blog WYSIWYG to focus on the styling and imagery. The best part is that you can access Google Docs from anywhere.
Tip: If you have a guest blogger or co-contributor, utilize the share feature for collaboration.

Yakiji (Yah-key-jee) » Blogging

Lessons Learned from Corporate Social Media Experts (Blogwell)

8 Techniques to Get Your Creative Blogging Juices Flowing