David and I have both been traveling quite a bit.  First, to BlogWorldExpo to sharpen my saw as a social media strategist, and then to SEMA on behalf of our client, Optima Batteries, to put those skills into action on a very cool social media program.

So I’m just now getting to catch my breath a little, and peruse ye olde Google Reader to see what I’ve been missing in the social media fishbowl for the last month.

As it turned out, this was an excellent day for me to pop my head back into the conversation.

Monday, PR guy and fellow highly-caffeinated person Jeremy Pepper posted a few thoughts on using bloggers as a means, not an end unto themselves.  I’d encourage you to bop on over there and read it if you haven’t already, but the part that was swirling around in my head in particular was the part about “blogger junkets,” the “pay me mentality” and what might be, for lack of a better and less touchy-feely term, a sustainable model for brands and bloggers to work together.

Right now, we have a few different models, none of which seem to really work all that well for either side.

We have the “shell out for some banner ads on my site because my audience is your target, and I will talk up your brand because I love my sponsors” model.

We have the “send me freebies, and I will love you and say nice things about you because I love free stuff” model.

Let’s be honest.  Both of these models are the modern day equivalent of Lucille Ball giving you a :30 commercial, in character, in the middle of I Love Lucy.  Only in 2009, no one is naive enough to think that Lucy is motivated to say those nice things by anything other than a paycheck.  Wasn’t the point of WOMMA that people don’t trust old school advertising anymore?

But public relations-ish approaches aren’t much more evolved than advertising-ish approaches.

We have the “bad blogger outreach” model, where PR people treat bloggers as just another media outlet to spam with press releases and other potential “content sources.”

We have the “better blogger outreach” model.  I think Jeremy’s blogger junket falls somewhere in the neighborhood of this model–where at least bloggers are receiving the same respect and “journalistic cred” as traditional media members.  It’s not entirely awful, but it’s also not really scratching the itch fully for either party.

All of this is made even more convoluted by the fact that bloggers themselves have trouble coming to agreement about what’s ethical, fair and reasonable.

And don’t even get me started about the FTC…

There’s another model, though, that I think bears more thought:  treating bloggers as creative talent. Hiring them to provide high-quality content, and using their social promotion talent, on a brand-owned website.

To a certain extent, this is what Crayon and Panasonic have done with their recent “LIHD Insiders” initiative.  It makes sense from both sides.

What do you think?  Where is the best value for both sides? Paying for eyeballs, or paying for talent?  Other thoughts?

I’d love to hear from you.

img Accordion courtesy SXC

5 Vital Questions to Answer Before You Jump

1. What are your business goals?
2. What goods, products or services are you currently offering your consumers?
3. What would be the purpose for the consumer to have your app?
4. What advantage would the app give your brand?
5. Are your consumers using iPhones?
6. Is your current site optimized for mobile?

Often times, a good way to segment into a full blown iPhone app is to optimize your current site for mobile. Check out the Canadian Broadcasting Channel for a simple and well built mobile web site. You can even check out this site (thesocialenthusiast.com) on your mobile device to see it optimized for mobile.

The mobile site is a good way to allow your consumers to gather information, engage with your content and even purchase your products from your current web site. Some of the more popular content management systems have plugins that will optimize your web site to be viewed from a mobile device. With a little programming it can have the same branded feel as your web site.

While it would great to unveil your new iPhone app, you may want to start with a optimized mobile site. Monitor and measure your mobile activity and then build from there. After watching how your consumer is engaging your content from a mobile device, you can take that data and use it to plan the development of your iPhone app. 

What do you think, mobile app. or mobile web site?

Let’s say a group of these brand enthusiasts wanted to hold a party to celebrate your brand, or what it stands for. Let’s say they contacted you and said "Hey, we’d like to have a big party with a few thousand people who thing your company is just great. We’ll come up with the entertainment. We’ll promote it. We’ll get as many people as we can to attend." Would your response be "That’s great. Tell us how it goes."?

Or would you tell them they can have their party at your headquarters?

Would you give them some cool party favors and invites?

Would you do what you could to make sure it was easy for them to find as many other brand enthusiasts as possible?

If you’re an affinity brand (or if you want to be) you have brand enthusiasts. These are people who are passionate about what you do or the things you make. They appreciate the effect you’ve had on their lives.

These people make up your community—and trust me, in 2009, they’re online. That’s where they congregate, find each other and share their interests—including your brand.

Are you leaving them homeless? Are you saying, in effect, "We know you love us… but can’t you just love us from afar?"

Many companies hear the term "online community" and automatically think "website build." Sometimes that’s a good idea, and sometimes it’s not. That’s not what this post is about.

The point of this post is that if you don’t declare a place that is "home base" for your online community, you’re being a bad friend to the people who you should understand are your best friends. These are the people who are going to save your bacon as trust in traditional advertising and overall brand loyalty continues to plummet. At a minimum, you owe them acknowledgement, an open channel to communicate with you (within the bounds of respectful conversation). If you’re smart, you’ll go beyond that and provide them with the best possible place and resources to have their party on your behalf.

If you can’t justify the resources to set up and manage a Facebook Fan Page, or a Twitter profile, or a blog, or some kind of human-powered touchpoint, then you’d better be prepared to increase your advertising budget considerably. Because it’s going to take a lot of media-buy shouting to drown out your silence in response to their digital love notes.

I know, I know–I’m a sad, sorry excuse for a social media manager.  

There are a number of reasons that blogger outreach is considered the slogfest of social media work.  One reason is that it’s a fundamentally awkward process.  

Journalists and other traditional media members expect to get calls and emails from media relations reps.  they may not always like it, but it’s a known part of their job.  There’s a built-in context for that relationship.  Do some inexperienced or just plain bad PR reps sometimes mess up that natural relationship? Sure.  But I’m guessing they rarely get a shocked "How the heck did you get my email/number and who the heck are you?" as a response. 

Blogs began as strictly personal communications tools.   Many of the billions of blogs on the web today still are personal journals–even ones with a very wide readership.  So calling or emailing a blogger and pitching a story can be a bit like asking someone "Would you like to write about us in your diary?"  

It can be a little weird and messy.  

That said, many bloggers are consummate professionals.  They’ve worked hard to build up their audience, with the expectation that their visibility on the web will get them access to exclusive information and other opportunities.   Working with a problogger is effectively the same as working with a traditional publisher.  Even the FTC now understands that.  

In a lot of niches and verticals, the most prominent online influencers are often somewhere between the "you found me where?" guy and Darren Rowse.  This is where blogger outreach can get really dicey.  The rules of the road are still not set in stone even for probloggers, much less for the "semi-pro" or "ranking amateur" class blogger. 

Still, here are a few helpful tips I’ve picked up lately in performing blogger outreach for my clients.  

1. Be clear about who you are and what brand you represent.  Typically, you’re reaching out to bloggers whose interests likely make them fans of the brand you’re representing.  Or if not, they’re people who will naturally be very curious about that particular brand’s product or service.  If they’re not–you’re probably pitching the wrong person.  

2. Get very quickly to why you’re contacting the blogger… which is usually something along the lines of "We discovered your blog and think it’s full of awesome."

3. Do your homework before you contact them.  It would be lovely if most bloggers could or would fork over their analytics data to show how many visitors they get, what their average time-on-site is like, etc.  That’s usually not the case.  Poke around on Quantcast or Compete to get a rough idea of their traffic, and do some searches on social media tools to get a gauge of the value of their network.  It’s unfortunately not an exact science, but the more information you have going in, the more you know how important it is or isn’t to get this particular person on board your brand’s love train.  

4. Understand that you may not be able to see the full scope of their network. Sometimes, their online footprint is just the tip of the iceberg.  Or for some really savvy social media guys, the part of their online footprint that’s viewable from outside it is the tip of the iceberg. Their personal social network could be as vast and untrackable as an organized crime syndicate, and just as powerful–but if so, it’s up to them to prove it to you.  

5. Even if things don’t work out as planned, leave ‘em smiling.  Sometimes, as much as you might want to work with a blogger, or he/she wants to work with you, it just doesn’t work out.  Blogger outreach is about establishing relationships with smart, influential communicators.  Don’t get so focused on today’s pitch that you forget there will be other opportunities down the road.  Make it clear that you value the relationship, not just the post, video or link.    

Blogger outreach may be awkward, but it’s the foundation of any solid social media marketing program.  Very few folks are great at it from the beginning, but it’s definitely a skill that is worth mastering.  

Got any funny or embarrassing tales of blogger outreach attempts you’d like to share? Unburden yourself in the comments.   

img courtesy ajmac on sxh

What do those three things have to do with social media? Let’s see.

Social media is, after all, still social. It’s always going to be important to have a human face and name representing your organization on the social web.

That said, social media has matured past its “wild frontier” days. A few years ago, the biggest concern was having a guide who was knowledgeable about the territory. When there is no map, the guide you pick is all-important.

That was the case in corporate social media for the first few years. Often the most experienced guides were, by necessity of the demands of breaking new ground, somewhat larger than life: heavy on personality and significantly lighter on process. To be fair, at that point, not getting killed was a significant accomplishment. So if they were able to lead innovative, non-risk-averse companies into social media at all, that qualified as success.

Now, enough people have navigated social media as a brand and as individuals that we do at least have some reasonably accurate maps. Those maps should augment a social media marketer’s personal experience. Case studies, research and white papers can provide a rich set of resources for companies to use to set realistic expectations and get a feel for what the space has to offer their organization.

In part, this has contributed to the large number of “social media experts” and gurus with little to no actual experience doing real work on the social web for clients. While maps are good, you’re still traveling in a foreign country. You still need someone who speaks the language and knows the local customs.

You wouldn’t consider getting back to Des Moines from Rome safely and in one piece a “successful” trip to Italy. Just getting clients to engage in social media is no longer an automatic point in the “win” column. Successful social media initiatives get organizations to their desired goals and destinations. It’s the equivalent of the tour guide who makes sure that you see the sites that make a difference to you–whether that’s the Sistine Chapel, or the best gelato place in town. Because there is no “standard tour.”

When it comes to social media marketing, process is about figuring out your budget, your timeframe, and what objectives are “can’t miss” to define a successful trip. It’s even more important when you consider that the social web is where customers are now. Any business initiative into social media is less a vacation than a relocation scouting trip.

You may not be moving away from your current marketing footprint, but you can ill afford to not have a “second home” on the social web. You wouldn’t go into planning a vacation without a process for making sure you got the most value for dollars spent. You wouldn’t dream of opening a new business location without a process for site selection and for determining success.

Ultimately, a tour guide or a real estate agent who has a fantastic personality, but no process for helping you get where you’re going, is not going to be much help at all.

(Featured post image courtesy stock.xchng)

As disappointing as that can be, bear in mind the 90-9-1 rule of social media:

• 90% of people in social media will be consumers-only (meaning they’ll never post or comment)
• 9% will comment on others’ content
• 1% will produce original content (and that would be you, my friend.)

So if your readership is in the hundreds or lower, it’s not unusual to have posts that go un-commented.  Still, there are things you can do to encourage your readers to respond.

First and foremost, ask.  It sounds simple, but often just making a clear request for people to comment in your posts will make it clear that you welcome and appreciate it.

Second, don’t always complete your thoughts.  It’s a hard habit to break for an English major, but sometimes it’s better to not finish the story–leaving things open-ended and asking some leading questions can be a way to motivate readers to comment and fill in the blanks.

Last, give them an incentive to comment.  Run a contest where the entry is a adding a comment to the post that announces the contest.  If you’re on WordPress, add plug-ins that reward comments, like CommentLuv (which posts a link to the commentor’s most recent post) or a do-follow plugin that provides links with greater SEO value to commentors’ blogs.

If you try all these tactics and you still aren’t getting any comment love, you might consider doing a poll through PollDaddy (or a similar service) to find out why.  Sometimes readers who won’t comment on a post will anonymously click an answer in a poll.

As a final note, this wouldn’t be much of a post if I didn’t take my own advice.  Got any other suggestions for increasing blog comments?  Share your wisdom by dropping one.

What about a discussion forum or message board?  Or a corporate blog?

Many times, businesses get locked into a certain model or mindset when it comes to thinking about online community sites.

The truth is, there are many different models for adding a collaborative, community-building element to your brand’s web presence.  It’s important to consider several different factors when deciding how to begin building your brand’s online community.

What’s your primary purpose for building community? Are you looking for a cost-effective customer support channel?  Then a message board might be the best fit.  Need a tool to educate consumers while providing them the opportunity for direct feedback? You might consider a corporate blog as a logical starting place, and use comments and user-profiles as a starting point for community-building.  Want to build brand passion? A branded social network might be the way to go, but you might also be surprised at the flexibility of options available.   Regardless of what you choose, if you’re completely clear about your purpose, you can be equally clear in defining success.

What are your restrictions and resources? Maybe in a perfect world, a message board would be the best option–but a message board could require an investment of time in moderating and responding that you can’t support, if it’s successful.  If you don’t have the budget for a major website build, then it might be worth considering starting out on Facebook.  Are you in the spirits industry? Then forget about Twitter–you’ll be subject to a DISCUS violation right off the bat because of the service’s inability to filter by legal purchase age.

When it comes to cultivating your brand’s online community of enthusiasts, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.  On the other hand, with enough thought and research, you’ll find that there’s almost always a solution that will fit out of the many options that are out there.

That said, I ‘m still hearing a lot of questions about the basics of corporate Facebook use.   So here is a quick tipsheet to get you pointed in the right direction and clear up a few common misconceptions.

Page or Group? This question has been com

ing up for a while, but since people still ask me about it on a pretty regular basis, it probably bears repeating.   If you’re a for-profit business, you’ll want to go with a Page (also called a Fan Page).   Most of the time, even if you’re a non-profit organization, Pages are still the right choice.  Groups are really intended to be founded by groups of individuals around a particular topic or activity.  Think book clubs, community watch programs and canoeing/kayaking enthusiasts.  Pages are intended to be tools for businesses and organizations to transparently connect with Facebook users.

Business Account or Personal Profile? A business account is intended to enable people to manage corporate Facebook activity (Fan Pages and Facebook Ads) without creating a personal Facebook account.  Business Accounts have more limited access and priviledges than personal user profiles, so a personal profile is probably the preferred choice most of the time.  Technically, it’s against the Terms of Service to have both a business account and a user profile.

Acquiring Fans? A Facebook fan page can’t send friend requests to individuals (this would be spamming and probably wouldn’t be appreciated if you did have the technical capability to do it).  There are a number of ways that you can increase the number of fans for your page.

• Facebook Ads:  You can run a Facebook ad campaign to drive users to your fan page.  Facebook ads work similarly to paid search ads: you can target geographically, demographically and by keywords included in their profile.  You can choose a CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions) payment model, but either way it’s a very affordable way to get attention to your page.
• Recruiting Fans Elsewhere:  You can drive your brand’s fans to the Facebook fan page with a banner ad on your own website, or by using email marketing or other techniques to let them know they can now connect with you on Facebook. Once people start becoming a fan of your page, the page’s popularity has the ability to spread virally as their recruitment shows up in their friends’ news feeds.
• Content Marketing:  As you begin to develop a fan base on Facebook, providing useful and interesting content will keep those fans engaged.  Videos, photos, event announcements and short status updates provide opportunities for fans to comment or like your content.  That activity also shows up in their friends’ news feeds.

These are the answers to some very basic questions about starting a Facebook engagement effort for your organization.  If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to drop them in the comments or contact us, if it’s a lengthy question.