While there has been much discussion – including here – how “Social Media is a Conversation”, it is clear that marketers need more concrete and less theoretical lens to view Social Media. Basically, “how does this make me and my boss look good?”

This is Social Media. But which is PR? Or Marketing?

First, we need to cast off the idea of Social Media as some hippie “Joining the Conversation” thing. It’s more of like the behavior of users or a characteristic of a website. But to make it concrete let’s call Social Media a Platform, just like how the Internet is a general platforms from which you can conduct advertising. There are lots of channels/tactics within a platform.

Above is a fairly comprehensive chart of Social Media by Brian Solis, which defines all of the various components that make the Social Media Platform. Understanding the “Social Media Platform” is important, but we also need to start thinking about the next stage:

Social Media. I get it. But what does each Social Media channel do? And who should do it? What’s the goal and ROI?

Looking at the graph, there are only many channels but many ways it can correspond to different areas of advertising. For simplicity sake, let’s focus on Marketing, Public Relations, Customer Relations and Community Building – looks pretty limiting.

In the rest of the post, I’ve sketched out a basic model of how to approach 10 of the channels/tactics – document sharing, link baits to microblogging – but ultimately, you should do the following:

Print out a few copies of Brian Solis’s Social Media Prism chart, bring the PR, Customer Service, Marketing, and Evangelist folks. Go through each channel and brainstorm how it could apply to them and their goals.

To help you guys start, I’ve started jotting down a few thoughts below. There are plenty more Social Media channels to explore and more creativity ways to exploit opportunity in a way that gives you ROI and not just “joining the conversation.”

Social Media Channels: Which One? For What and Why?

1. Widgets on Facebook to iPhones to the Google Homepage
Marketing, Public Relations, Community Building

This is an easy one. Widgets are basically mini-applications so they’re capable of being anything. From sweepstakes, to viral marketing, to letting users get in touch with other users and providing instant reviews on services or products.

2. Blogging: Blog Outreach
Public Relations, Customer Relations, Marketing (SEO Focus)

Blog Outreach is connecting with bloggers to understand their feedback on a product or service, as well as, help spread news (usually via seeding viral content) and for my purposes – SEO. Blog Outreach is something I’ve done over at e-Storm for SEO purposes with some great results for the SEO campaign.

3. Document Sharing – Sharing Online Documents, Presentations
Thought Leadership, Branding

Document sharing communities like Slideshare.net (PowerPoint sharing website) is a perfect place to reach the B2B Audience – other business people who are looking for knowledge in specific areas, case studies, industry trends and presentations from conferences. One can find all sorts of material from Social Media/SEO/PPC presentation from yours truely to Morgan Stanley’s annual report on the Technology Industry.

There is also an SEO benefit as you can use leverage SlideShare.net’s authority to get your content ranked well. Your content will be under SlideShare.net, but it will still be your content in front of users in the top 10 search results.

3. Linkbait – Creating & Sharing Content to Encourage Viral Lift
Public Relations, Branding, Link Building for for SEO

Linkbait – creating content that will be virally picked up and discussed – is basically one step above “viral videos”. It is about creating viral content – videos, tools, content, photos etc – that will be talked about, Digged, Blogged about…and hopefully linked to. As you may know, the more links pointing to a website, the better the chances the website will rank well on Google. Heck even Google says Social Media is great for SEO.

4. Blog Community
Customer Relations (Developer Community/Brand Loyalty)

A few companies, such as Ugobe (former client), which creates a sophisticated dinosaur robot called the Pleo, has created a community for Pleo owners which allow them to exchange their Pleo dinosaur experience with each other through their own “Plogs” (basically, Pleo blogs).

A company that provides a product that customers will have a strong connection to (like Pleo owners treating their robot dinosaurs like real pets) would be an ideal environment for allow users to connect and share via an internal blogging community.

5. Blogging on Corporate Blogs
Customer Relations, Public Relations

The United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to Marriot CEO Bill Marriot now have blogs. Blog are officially the mainstream for interactive marketers and public relation folks. They perform as a non-traditional communication tool – SEC recently declared that you can make official financial statements on blogs – that goes beyond the stiffness of a press release. And more interestingly of all, people are generally allowed and encourages to leave comments, provide feedback, and link to them.

6. Microblogging
Customer Relations, Public Relations, Marketing

Microblogging services like Twitter are a fast paced version of a blog and chat room rolled up in one. As I’ve written on previously, Zappos, HR Block, and Downing Street (UK equivalent to the US White House) have effectively used Twitter as a way to not only “microblog” new happenings but interactive with the twitter community.

Payoffs can be measured as real ROI, as Dell made +$1 million in sales via Twitter, or in terms of branding and reputation where disgruntled customers can be readily and transparent addressed (See Comcast example on the New York Times).

7. Social Networks: Advertising
Marketing, Branding, Engagement

Putting display ads on Facebook is not a Social Media plan. And ditto for placing ads on blogs, that’s still just good old fashioned ads.

It is as innovative as putting a banner ad the iWon search engine in 1999 (You guys remember iWon, right?). While Social Networks are known for having horrible CTR, Facebook SocialAds and MySpace Hypertargeting at the best hope for marketers and those with shares in social networks.

However, Facebook’s Social Ads and other new forms of social network advertising do show signs of promise when well executed as part of an integrated campaign.

8. Social Networks: Engagement
Customer Relations, Public Relations, Marketing

This can be anything from having a Facebook Page that you actually make active or something like the Expedia campaign, which had the lovable Expedia Gnome leaving comments on MySpace users’ profiles.

9. Social Networks: Presence (Creating Profile, Fan Page)
Public Relations, Customer Relations

United States Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome have frequently updated Facebook profiles. The Gavin Newsome staff have used Gavin Newsome’s profile active with news on Mayor Newsome’s upcoming events, videos of recent talks and even updates on his status message (to reflect his position on relevant news stories).

10. Wiki Collaboration
Customer Relations (Developer Community)

Wiki can be an interesting way of “crowdsourcing” a company’s help and support page or at the very least augmenting. Central Desktop, a project management SaaS tool, is one company that allows its users to contribute guides on new ways to use Central Desktop.

Related posts:

1. Moving Beyond Asking “What is the ROI of Social Media?” Countless publications and blogs, including this blog, have been dedicated...
2. Fitting in Social Media Marketing within the Agency For the past few months, I’ve been rethinking what it...

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Along with the tidal wave of Social Media buzzwords hitting marketing and PR departments, “blogger outreach campaigns” is a big one. Blogger Outreach Campaigns are seen as the new “word of mouth” campaign, which is being looked at as a way to virally increase brand awareness and even help drive sales, all at a lower cost than other channels.

Moving Beyond a One-Time Blog Outreach Campaign

As David Wilson pointed out, Social Media Marketing is not a one-time event. David was using a Digg Article submission for an example, but the same applies for Blogger Community Outreach .

Don’t contact bloggers just when you have something to promote. Bloggers will catch to this very quickly. Just as your PR team keeps a steady relationship with reporters, keep a steady relationship with A-List, B-List and Upcoming bloggers and community beyond promotional emails: asking for feedback on your product/service, invite them for small get-togethers dinners, etc.

But companies will say: “But that takes too much resources to maintain blogger relationships, let’s do a one-time campaign”. Sure but keep in mind the following:

1. Blogs are apart of the your Brand’s Ecosystem
   For the brand Spirit Airlines, a blog post with the title “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines” ranks 3 on Google and below it is a blog post on a very damning alleged leak from the Spirit Airlines CEO
2. Restoring a Brand is Difficulty and Lengthy
   According to BtoB, nearly 1 of 5 brands takes 2 years to recover from a crisis affect their brand image, sales or profits.
3. Customers probably Trust Bloggers more than you
   According to Nielsen, 66% of North Americans find Consumer Generated Media, like blogs, as reliable source of news. What are those blogs saying about your brand?

Conclusion: Social Media is Bigger than a Single Campaign

Social Media has opened up a whole new world for marketers and PR folks, which requires a long-term strategy beyond a one-off campaign: Community Marketing & Relation needs to be part of a companies normal PR and Marketing function.

Blogger Outreach campaigns have their place, but they must take place within a larger strategy of maintaining communications with bloggers and reaching out to those discussing your brand on forums, blogs and elsewhere.

See below for more details on those three points

1. The Community is Part of your Brand Ecosystem

When I’m asked by companies, “Why should we talk to bloggers or listen to what they say?” I make it clear that they, their brand and even their CEOs, are already being talked about by bloggers. They can join and help shape the conversation or let it shape them.

A quick search for “Paypal” on Google will show “PayPalSucks.com” as #2 on Google. I believe it was Dave McClure that mentioned that while PayPal was reluctant to promote a forum for their users to talk to Paypal, users were going to the PayPalSucks forum instead.
Stephen Spencer of CNET noted how Bloggers were increasingly present brand search results:

a. For Zappos

In the top Google Search Results, a search for “Zappos” presented “I Heart Zappos” blog post and a blog post by Start-Up Review rank top 10.

First Page Google Result for “Zappos”:
A business blog on Zappos and posting called “I Heart Zappos”

b. For Spirit Airline

Zappos received stunning reviews by the two blogs in the brand search, but not so for Spirit Airlines. A search for “Spirit Airlines” in Google led us to a blog post called “Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines” and a blog that posted an alledged leaked memo from the CEO, stating “Let them tell the world how bad we are” in response to a customer complaint.

A search for Spirit Airlines reveals some severe customer/PR relations issues.

2. Does Your Customers Trust Bloggers More Than You?

Recently, Nielsen conducted a global survey on people’s attitudes towards different advertising channels. Unsurprisingly, Word Of Mouth is king and online banner is second to the bottom.

qasd

3. Your Reputation is at Stake

Dave Wilson recently wrote on a BtoB report that reveal that 57% of marketing executives say they do not have a crisis plan in place in case of any crisis that can lead to negative coverage, declining sales, or reduced profitability. And 53% have experienced such crises.

More telling is how long it took to recover from such crises

• 23% of respondents said it took three months to a year for their brand to fully recover from a crisis
• 13.3% said it took more than two years to recover
• 17.7% said they have yet to recover after two years.

As part of crisis plan, it helps to have the ear to the ground – understanding what bloggers, reviewers on Amazon and forum members are saying – to look out for potential crises and know how to handle bloggers and others when it happens. You need to keep your ear to the community.

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Following up with my last post on the San Francisco Symphony’s Bloggers Night, I’d like to discuss the PR/marketing perspective of the event. I’ll review 1) Quick thoughts on the Bloggers Night; and 2) What I suggest they do different in the next round.
I’ve done a few blog outreach campaigns, but “Bloggers Night” events are an interesting mix of old fashioned PR and social media.

Another Blogger’s Night: By Monster Cable

Indeed, I actually went to another “Bloggers Night” this week held by Monster Cable in the hip dot-com area of San Francisco, known as SoMa near the Adobe and Nokia offices. But more on that, some other time. Pictures of the event, here.

A Marketer’s take of the SF Symphony Blog Outreach

The Bloggers: SocialMedia.biz to MetroBlogging SF

There were approximately 10-15 of us, from Nick Douglas (of ValleyWag fame), Eddie Codel (GE TV), JD Lasica of SocialMedia.biz and some true local events only bloggers from Metroblogging SF and Civic Center.

While this may seem like a strange mix, I think it was the right mix though I wish I knew the “who” and “from where” of the Bloggers Night guestlist. Blogs that cover local events, Metroblogging and Civic Center, are the obvious “first tier” choices. But as the Symphony is looking to extend its current audience, it is worth going long and expanding from local news coverage in print to online blogs

Blog Outreach: Losing Control or Gaining Exposure

I spoke to several of the Symphony PR people, specifically Oliver Theil and Gary Ginstling. I asked them why they decided to do blog outreach.

1.All of them were very knowledge about what is going on in social media, citing blogs to Yelp.com as an alternative means by which a good portion of people (especially in the Bay Area) get their information.
2.Social Media will not replace the Symphony’s needs for coverage in the local newspaper, it will supplement it. People gather news in different ways. Some via Yelp others from the local Sunday paper.

“Tag” the Event, So You Can Track the Conversations

Something that all the bloggers asked Kevin Smokler, one of the key organizers, was “what’s the Technorati and Flickr tag for this event”. It sounds like an obvious issue, but the Monster Cable event had no such tags. No tags means it’ll be just a little harder to track conversations generated from the event.

Building a Better Bloggers Night Experience

1. Foster a Sense of “Community”

The word “community” is a tired word, but it is still an appropriate term. All of us bloggers were brought to the “Green Room” at the Symphony without introduction and honestly, I think some of us felt like an awkward random bunch.

A quick informal round of introduction would be appropriate, where all the bloggers could introduce themselves to each other and to the Symphony press team.

2. Build a Retention Program: Follow-Up, Feedback, Discounts

It would be interesting for the Symphony folks to do a simply follow-up with the bloggers. Not just a simple question, but also links to photos of the performance, online program materials – stuff would further make it easier for bloggers to post something up.

Also, I’m not sure if anyone who has blog posted on the Symphony has been followed-up or contacted by the Symphony folks. It would be nice for them to offer comments/feedback on our commentary on the Symphony experience.

Perhaps even offer discounts for bloggers who decide to go to the Symphony on their own?

3. Educating the Bloggers on the Product (Or in this case, the Music)

While I love Bach’s violin sonatas, I don’t know classical music as much as I should. I think a quick 5 minute education by Symphony folks would be much appreciated – nothing complicated, but a simple context as to the concert program (e.g. “why is this song famous?”) and its history.

This would help set the blogger’s expectations and understanding; hopefully, a positive enough effect to help further encourage enjoying and blogging about the event. Plus, we’ll get to sound smart when we write about it. :)

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Bloggers’ Night at the San Francisco Symphony

Last week, I was one of the few lucky bloggers who were invited by the San Francisco Symphony to their first Blogger’s Night for their “Classical Romance” program. See all the photos from the SF Symphony here.

I’ll post first about the music and follow-up with a review of how the SFS Public Relations team conducted their blog outreach later. So if wish to learn more about my experience as a audience member at the symphony read on, otherwise wait from my follow-up on the PR/marketing perspective.

Fellow Bloggers in the SFS’ Press Room

The Music: James Gaffigan, Gabriela Martinez and Rachmaninoff

First off, I was very surprised how different classical music sounded in an actual symphony hall compared to listening to HD-CD on a high-end stereo. Yes, I know it was going to be different – but not this different. The music was warm and textured with the audience members easily getting carried away with every note, the musical sway of the orchestra, and every turn of James Gaffigan’s (the conductor) baton.

The symphony began with Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo & Juliet” and Strauss’ “Don Juan”. Both two very recognizable classical numbers, which sadly has been long abused and overplayed in popular culture. While I enjoyed the aural experience of the music, I wasn’t too fond of the songs themselves because they were so overplayed.

Q&A Session with James Gaffigan (middle) and Gabriela Martinez (right)

Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Gabriela Martinez

The Symphony finished with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, known for the demanding technical skill and endurance required on the pianist to perform.

Gabriela Martinez (yes a MySpace link), a 23-year pianist from Venezuela, took to the piano. She recently graduated from Juillard in May and rehearsed Rachmaninoff only once before. Martinez stage presence was incredible as her ability to play; indeed, Rachmaninoff’s concerto sounded like something that required a creature with 3-4 hands and the endurance of a train athlete to perform. During Q&A, Martinez mentioned she drank 4-5 Gatorades before in preparation of performing.

The chemistry between James Gaffigan, the young and spirited conductor, and Martinez was obvious and endearing. Gaffigan and Martinez has a readily apparent chemistry throughout the performance, with both of them casually making eye contact and smiling at each other.

Conclusion: Go check out the Symphony

While I got the tickets free this time around (hurray for blogging), I would love to come back to the Symphony again. Maybe for some Bach violin sonatas or Shostakovich. I don’t know what it’s like at your local symphony, but while I did have the initial apprehensive feeling of “oh no, I’m in a stuffy symphony” – the atmosphere was far more casual than I thought and had none of the Old World pretentiousness that I feared.

Disclosure

Yes, the fine folks at the San Francisco Symphony did give me two free tickets to the Symphony, and the same goes for other bloggers present that night. While blogging about the event was strongly encouraged, there was no demand for us to blog or to blog positively about the experience. Indeed, some bloggers that night gave a mixed review. Also, they gave us free milano cookies. ;)

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Following-up on the Social Media Club round-table discussions on Blog Disclosure (EM’s roundup here), Chris Heuer has encouraged me to participate in a the “Disclosure Cafe” discussions at the Web 2point2 Unconference in San Francisco (November 9-10).

It will be held in a “World Cafe Style Format” (See PDF here), which is a very effective way of creating small, but dynamic brainstorming groups that share gained knowledge among each other. Its like a group, offline-form of P2P networking.

Cafe Questions: Agency Responsibility

As part of the “Disclosure Cafe” discussions, I’d like to focus on the issue of the responsibilities of the agencies (marketers like me and our PR cousins) and by extension WOMMA (which is the professional face of this segment of the industry).

I believe WOMMA has pushed this issue off to a good start with the “Ethics 20 Questions” draft guidelines on blogging, but there’s a lot of room for discussion. Here are the questions I’d like to propose for the Disclosure Cafe:

• Educational Outreach: As a member of the blogosphere, what should an agency/company/WOMMA do to help educate the general audience to assess blogs intelligently?
• WOMMA Training: What training or certification should help WOMMA provide to agency and company employees? Regular re-training like CPR?
• Blog Disclosure Policy: If every corporate website has a “Privacy Policy”, why doesn’t every agency or corporate run blog have a “Blog Disclosure Policy”?

I’m looking forward to getting overall feedback from Chris on this and hopefully I’ll get his overall approval and adjust were needed.

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Introduction: Social Media Gentrification? Or Maturing Market?
Commercialization of any new frontier is usually something between ambivelence to protest by the first movers into any space. The Internet is not different.

But as the dot-com mantra that “Content wants to be Free” has shifted from Google’s “Adwords and AdSense All Content”. And so the same is happening with Social Media.

Instead of greeting it with disgust, this is the time to shape what’s a viable busniess plan, while also asking what’s the acceptable and ethical standards and what is not.

Let’s take a look at what’s been going on this past year:

Pay for Digg (or any other social media-based publishing site):

Via Search Engine Journal: “A site dubbed User/Submitter is taking the manipulation of Digg to higher levels with a service that pays users $.50 for 5 Diggs, and charges its ‘advertisers’ a base fee of $20, then $1 per Digg.”A site dubbed User/Submitter is taking the manipulation of Digg to higher levels with a service that pays users $.50 for 5 Diggs, and charges its ‘advertisers’ a base fee of $20, then $1 per Digg.

A site dubbed User/Submitter is taking the manipulation of Digg to higher levels with a service that pays users $.50 for 5 Diggs, and charges its ‘advertisers’ a base fee of $20, then $1 per Digg.

For-Pay-Bloggers:
At SES San Jose, there were attendees who spoke of making a living via “pay per blog posting”, which included undisclosed endoresements and writeups of products. Basically harking back to the days of early onlin Guerilla Marketing.

This has finally grown into a “network” of for pay blogger at PayPerPost.com:

Via TechCrunch: “You guessed it, it’s a marketplace for companies to connect with bloggers who are willing to blog about a product – for a price. The companies can set guidelines for their requests such as whether a picture must be included and whether they will only pay for positive blog coverage. There does not appear to be any requirement that the payment for coverage be disclosed. There is a requirement that PayPerPost.com must approve your post before you are paid. ”

Second Life:
I’ve covered Second Life various times and the growing roster of big name brands on Secodn Life: Starwood Hotels, Toyata, CNet, Wells Fargo, American Apparel and others. But now, Leo Burnett Worldwide, founded by the man famous for the Golly Green Giant, has become the first agency to establish presence on Second Life. Once a few daring established businesses and their agencies start appearing on Second Life – you know it has a chance of hitting mainstream.

Leo Burnett Office:

FaceBook’s Sponsored Stories:
Via MarketingVox:

The new ad unit, called Sponsored Stories, will occupy the third position within a News Feed, either as a small banner-like placement or as a video clip, writes MediaWeek (via MediaBuyerPlanner). When users click on the ad, the user’s entire network of friends is alerted, and they can then interact with the ad. According to Facebook, the ad will allow advertisers to harness the site’s social-networking dynamic and leverage social-networking behavior.

MySpace and YouTube
MySpace and YouTube are the two names that describe the mainstream social media and web 2.0 companies. There’s really no need for me to give an overview of the commercialization efforts here but here are some links:

• 5 Brands Make Their Mark on MySpace – Nanette Marcus
• NBC, YouTube Create Alliance – MediaWeek
• YouTube has also become a repository for commericals, music videos and the like, which should be treated as alternative channels of distribution (rather than copyright violations)
• Warner Takes The Lead In Dealing With YouTube – TechDirt on YouTube and Warner’s revenue creative sharing deal

If I miss anything major, let me know and I’ll add it.

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Bounds goes through the whole online marketing landscape in a relatively quick ~3,700 words, covering: Online PR; blogging for buzz: Google AdWords; “organic” seach marketing (oddly, never calls it SEO); doing podcasting; using flickr and del.icios.us; and, word-of-mouth marketing. This is a tall task given the need of explainations of the terms and use of real-life examples and other antedotes.

Covering the Power of Blog Marketing (with social media optimization):
What’s interesting, to me however, is that Bounds covers the power of online PR/blog marketing so very well. Here’s an excerpt regarding the Hollywould website:

Ms. Dunlap, in fact, was seeing results — just not so much from the PR firm. She had begun penning a diary on her Web site, www.ilovehollywould.com, chock-full of juicy details about her personal life, from late-night keg-party revelry in her downtown Manhattan boutique to boozy jet-setting jaunts through Europe….As Web-site traffic grew, so too did sales.
…
After five months, Ms. Dunlap cut loose her PR firm, betting the Web site could do more to build her company’s image. Today, she spends roughly $700 a month on Web maintenance and commands an average of 20,000 visitors a week, a figure that can triple when her site is mentioned on other Web-site trend leaders such as DailyCandy and Gawker. She sends weekly email blasts to “VIP” customers who registered online, profiles a customer each month and doles out fashion tips.

“Our best PR,” Ms. Dunlap says, “comes from people who are mentioned or featured on our site and forward the link to their friends.” Ms. Dunlap estimates sales of $6 million to $8 million for 2006 for Hollywould, and her wares are now sold in Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Harrods of London, among others. (Empahsis mine)

Miss Dunlap is conducting a very interesting form of “online PR” using her blog to empower those she blogs about (via an ego boost of being mentioned) to further her blog and her brand.

While this doesnt apply to many websites, having people spread your blog (and thus brand) by playing on their ego (e.g. “guess’s who got mentioned? me!”) is another form of “Social Media Optimization” that’s better than any “Add to Del.icio.us” link.

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