A Guest Post By Valerie Simon

• 1990:  I want to go to a new restaurant. I open up the yellow pages, or a copy of a local magazine to find a seafood restaurant nearby. I call two additional restaurants for more information and reservations.
• 2000:  I want to go to a new restaurant. I do a quick Google search and find several Seafood restaurants online in my area. I check out three websites, choose the one I want, and make a call.
• 2010:  I want to go to a new restaurant. I post a status update on Facebook asking for recommendations. Within 30 minutes I have numerous suggestions from friends with comments telling me what to order and even where to sit. I go to the website or FB page for the phone number and call.
• 2020:  I want to go to a new restaurant. I get dressed, hop in the car and  say “Grilled Tuna – $18” into an app on my mobile device and local seafood restaurants immediately respond matching my price, offering discounts and an online tour of the space. I click on the restaurant and see the reviews from all of my connections who have been there. Another click and reservations are set and an online hostess directs me to the parking lot.

Traditional advertising was all about the brand. Today companies understand that it’s about the consumer, and that companies are only important in regards to how they can satisfy customer needs. Until now, the burden of research for a sales transaction has been primarily on the consumer. Assisted by advertising, sales teams, marketing material, websites etc., it has been incumbent on the consumer to seek out prospective solutions. But why?

New platforms like Zaarly, described as the “the ultimate demand engine” by co-founder Bo Fishback, are empowering consumers in new and exciting ways. State what you need, and let others bid for your business. Social platforms like Quora and LinkedIn make it easy to crowd source specific expert advice, and in doing so influence purchasing decisions. And every new customer is suddenly an “expert” with the ability to share his experience with the marketplace;  New research by NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey Company, notes that 68 percent of social media users go to social networking sites to read product reviews.

Building and maintaining customer relationships has never been more important. Earlier today, watching the trailer for Brian Solis’s new book The End of Business As Usual, I was reminded of the harsh realities companies are facing in a new digital culture. A failure to listen to the marketplace, can be fatal, as Katie Paine recently noted, in her analysis of the now defunct VMS.

With such high stakes what steps must brands take to leverage the listening power of these new tools to create and grow brand evangelists?

Strive not to sell products or service, but relationships. At the end of the sales cycle, what have you achieved? Rather than “Always Be Closing” the new mantra should be “Always Be Opening.” Social media presents new opportunities to engage customers outside of specific sales. Find opportunities to open the door for continued conversation and to stay top of mind. Seek to turn your customer into an extended member of your sales team, someone who will be quick to offer  referrals, testimonials, and honest market intelligence.

Location, location, location… The social universe is grand. Your budget and resources likely are not. Carefully consider where your customers/prospects live online, before investing time and money. Extend your search beyond Facebook and Twitter. Those in the fashion and beauty industry certainly want to consider Tumblr. B2B organizations should consider taking advantage of LinkedIn and SlideShare. Seek out the forums and active industry blogs where your customers spend time. And if you cannot find a specialized network meeting the social needs of your customers, consider whether you have the resources to build your own community. Mercedes Benz does, and welcomed their youngest customers into “Generation Benz”, a branded social network that allows Mercedes to interact with customers and solicit feedback.

Implement a social CRM program that puts the customer at the center of the organizations operations Rather than pushing messages to customers, use social networks as a means to listen and converse with customers Listening is not a matter of simply hearing words. Listening requires a concentrated method of digesting the information, and using that information to take action. As this simple example from Fed Ex demonstrates, a strong social CRM program can help you head off potential problems and improve your customer experience.  Identify how customer feedback will be quickly heard and managed by the appropriate member of your organization. How will follow up responses and communications be efficiently managed?

Be on a continuous quest to add value Allow your customers and the greater marketplace to guide you in identifying opportunities to pursue and vulnerabilities to address. Listen not only to those issues that pertain to your product or service as it exists today, but seek to understand the greatest needs and challenges of your customers and in the marketplace.

What will the next level of social media platforms offer consumers? And out of curiosity, how do you think you will go about deciding what new restaurant to try in 2020?

Valerie is an innovative developer of teams, communities, products and communications programs.  Formerly Senior Vice President, BurrellesLuce, Valerie has directed the implementation of new and upgraded services, planned and executed social media initiatives, and used social media to build relationships and sales. She has had the opportunity to work with a gamut of organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to regional hospitals and colleges to help integrate social media channels into existing marketing, communication and outreach programs and demonstrate ROI.  Valerie is passionate about the opportunity social media offers to build communities and business. Valerie is co-founder of #PRStudChat (PR Student Chat), a trending Twitter chat that brings faculty and students together for dynamic discussions with professionals and co-founder of HAPPO (Help a PR Pro Out), an initiative designed to use social media to leverage relationships and help facilitate introductions between employers and prospective employees. Connect with Valerie on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+

Tumblr is certainly growing in popularity.  A recent Mashable article mentioned that according to ComScore, Tumblr scored 13.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in July, increasing 218% from the same time last year. The “blog-meets-social-network service” is experiencing what most are calling explosive growth.   Tumblr has been on my radar for quite sometime having witnessed how our teens use it and rave about it.  However, that doesn’t mean that the younger generation is abandoning Facebook any time soon.  Now, they’re using both networks for similar yet different reasons.

I asked two teenagers (ages 16 & 17) about their passion for Tumblr and Facebook because I wanted insight into their fascination with both communities.  I thought it would help me to understand the difference from a teen’s point of view.  Here’s the interview with teens that were more than willing to offer their raw and youthful insight (unedited and uncensored content):

Q: What’s the difference between Tumblr and Facebook?

-       Tumblr is a blog and Facebook isn’t.

-       Facebook doesn’t allow you to blog.

-       Facebook is a place to connect with friends.

-       I think Tumblr is an anti-social social network.

-       Tumblr is less of a place to connect and is more an expression of myself.

Q: Which do you use more?

-       Tumblr, because it’s better than Facebook.

• I don’t care what people think about what I say.
• It’s easier to update your status on Facebook, but we just don’t care enough to do that all of the time.

-       On Tumblr you can say what you’re doing, but you don’t have too say what you’re doing.

• I don’t want everyone to know what I’m doing.
• On Tumblr, it’s more socially acceptable to not say what you’re doing.

Q: Would you stop interacting on one to spend all of your time on the other?

-       We don’t want to give up Facebook.

• It’s necessary because it’s an easy way to find something out.
• We get homework from classmates and we don’t have to text a best friend to see what she’s doing.

-       Facebook has a connection purpose, but Tumblr is about me!

-       On Tumblr I can relate to others more than I can on Facebook.

-       When you talk to people you don’t know on Tumblr it’s awesome, but you can’t do this on Facebook, it’s really creepy.

-       You can tell so much more about a person on Tumblr because it’s about the individual and not about connecting with other people.

Q: What do you like the most about Tumblr?

-       Personally, it gives me inspiration for the things I like…photography, art, cool images.

-       You can find a blog about anything you love.  I follow a bunch of Lady Gaga blogs … it all comes up on your dashboard and you can fill your dash with things you like.

-       On Facebook you see all the things you don’t like.

-       On Tumblr, you can catch up on the videos, memes and all the funny stuff.

-       We’re learning more on Tumblr about news, information and things about the Internet.  We found out that Osama Bin Laden was dead and all about Libya on Tumblr.

-       I even donated to a cancer cause through Tumblr.

Q: What do you like the most about Facebook?

-       You get to talk to friends, writing funny things on other people’s walls, look at friends’ photos and videos.

-       No games though…I use my phone for games or my iPod.

-       We also like to see when people are single or in a relationship (except when it’s someone you like).

-       There are a lot of people who like to have many friends, it’s not as important to us, but we know people who love the popularity of having a big network. When I had over 1,000 friends, I started to delete them.

-       I like the hide functionality on Facebook because I can hide people and they don’t know it.

-       I play around with the privacy settings so that some people can see certain things and others can’t.

Q: What is missing from either one of these networks (if you could sit in a room and tell Mark Zuckerberg or David Karp to add features, what would those features be)?

-       No changes right now to either network.

-       Both places are perfect for what they provide.

-       I may not ask them to change anything, but if I could sit in a room with David Karp, then I might just ask for him for a hug.

-       I might ask to visit Mark Zuckerberg’s new house

Q: Do you think you will stay on Tumblr and Facebook or if something better comes along you will jump ship?

-       I wouldn’t leave Tumblr … but I might leave Facebook.

-       We left MySpace, which was a crappy combination of both Facebook and Tumblr.

-       Now we just like that Tumblr and Facebook are two individual and separate networks that both make a lot of sense for us.

There you have it…the feelings of teens about their likes and dislikes when it comes to engagement preferences (or lack thereof).  The strongest opinion comes down to expression and individuality, and not necessarily connections. It should be interesting to see how Tumblr and Facebook continue to grow and what these communities offer to the teens that have very strong convictions about why they participate on two very different networks.

My 16 year-old-daughter first introduced me to Tumblr when she told me that she wanted to start her own blog.  She used to spend countless hours on MySpace checking out bands, on YouTube sharing funny videos and she used her Facebook profile to keep in touch with many of her friends after we moved from North Jersey to Central Jersey a few years ago. I would say that YouTube and Facebook are still among her favorite social sites. However, Tumblr has come onto her radar and clearly captured her attention.  Based on her behavior, Tumblr is her new social media habit.

For those not familiar with Tumblr, it’s an easy platform to express your thoughts and share information through a variety of formats including text, photo, chat, links, audio and video.  Tumblr is recognized today as a platform somewhere in between a WordPress blog and Twitter stream, which lets you share media in short form or as “media snacks.”

I’ve been investigating Tumblr to see exactly what it is that makes the platform so special.  Here’s what my 16 year old has to say about Tumblr:

• Tumblr is a place where you can express what you like and how you feel.
• Tumblr is about yourself, above everything else … it can encompass all that you do and what you want.  Although, some people might criticize, there are so many more supporters; the community is generally supportive of what you post.
• You can find a lot of people with similar interests. When someone reblogs a picture that I like, I look at their blog to find other things that interest me.
• Tumblr is better than Facebook…anyone can have a Facebook, but with Tumblr it goes deeper into your personality.
• I’m on Twitter too. Although my Tumblr is linked to my Twitter, I spend more time on my Tumblr dashboard.  It’s all right there for me, and it’s so much easier to use.
• Tumblr is the more complex version of Twitter, yet, at the same time, it’s easier to use and manage.
• Twitter is something you do when you’re out…”eating with my friend …” It’s what’s happening now and Tumblr is your online journal.
• Twitter is like a memo pad and Tumblr is like a daily journal.
• It’s the most addictive thing ever!

Here is a quick snapshot from Compete comparing Posterous (another short form blogging platform) to Tumblr, with respect to unique visitors and visits to the sites:

Unique Visitors:

Source: Compete.com

Monthly Visits:

Source: Compete.com

As you can see, there has been a significant increase in traffic and unique visits to Tumblr over the past year.  As communications professionals, it’s our job is to understand the market and to identify where various audiences congregate.  Tumblr is definitely a place of interest and focus for the Millennials.  Based on the information from February 2011 (see chart below), Tumblr is poised for growth as a simple microblogging platform.

Source: 1WD.CO

A best practices approach to social media begins on the inside of the organization, with education and training for employees. In a recent blog post, “Internal Social Media Education and Collaboration,” I highlighted a few social platforms including SharePoint, Socialtext, Grou.ps and Ning, which can be used for educating employees, internal collaboration and innovation.  Some of the key features I discussed in the post included:

• Internal communications tools available (i.e., messaging, discussion and chat)

• Sharing capabilities available (i.e., links, resources and documents editing)

• Subgroups and/or forums available to users

• Hosted platform or installed on a company’s network

• Data ownership and whether or not the social network claims any ownership rights in your code, content, or network data

• Ease of set up and use; the selection of a platform that’s easy to manage and upload content

• Ease of customization; a platform that enables employees to add designs, photos and maintain the brand’s identity

• Price (enterprise software vs. a social networking platform)

Here’s a helpful chart with the different platforms mentioned above, comparing their key features and benefits (click on the chart to enlarge):

Of course, this chart only gives you a basic idea of the functionality available.  You will need to research the platforms further and demo each, prior to determining which one will suite your company and your employees’ needs.

Are there any platforms that you’ve researched for internal collaboration and education that should be added to this chart?

I’ve been writing about the subject of influence, looking at it from the perspective that influence increases when your peers are personally involved in the rating process.   In order to build your own influence and in order for someone to influence you, certain behavioral characteristics must be evaluated.  These characteristics range from Trust, Passion and Motivation to a Winning Attitude, the Give Factor and a Network of Social Champion Supporters, which can all be scored on an index.  I named this index, the Influencer Characteristics Index or ICI.  After developing ICI, I realized that if we can rate ourselves, and if our peers could rate us, then cultivating specific behaviors, would enable us to grow as influencers; to be more tuned into our peers’ needs.

This is the part of influence that hasn’t really been covered. The numbers don’t always show the personal side of how someone influences us, on what level and how that influence makes us behave a certain way.  And, the numbers don’t necessarily show you what behavioral characteristics you need to cultivate to be a better influencer to your peers.

Two different posts, one based on Rating Your Own Influence and another on Rating Your Peers, produced a new approach to Influence. As a result, I’d like to introduce to you to PeerRatr, a tool to evaluate influence on a different level.  When it comes to influence, only you can determine how your peers influence you and only you can make your influence grow.

PeerRatr is an application that allows you to rate yourself and/or your peers on different topics, by using a set of meaningful criteria.  With all of the different ratings and scores that surround influence, PeerRater takes a unique approach and involves you and your peers directly in the influence process.  PeerRatr digs into individual characteristics that motivate influencers to grow their influence, in a more meaningful and personal way.

Enjoy PeerRatr, and I hope that this tool helps you to grow your own influence and helps your peers understand how they influence you.  PeerRatr is still in Alpha testing, so any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated!

Please contact us regarding site issues at @PeerRatrSupport or support@PeerRatr.com.

I’ve been writing about the social media audit process, uncovering what an organization learns when they go through this exercise.  My last post “The Social Media Audit: Five Common Missing Pieces” mentioned the fifth missing piece as “Training and Education.”  This piece is a crucial part of your social media program.  Brands are finding out that social media focus should start from the inside out. If your internal champions are not on board, on the same page and working collaboratively, your program may suffer with its external social communications and not engage as effectively with the public.

If you know that you need to set up a training program or educate your employees on social media, here are several of the features you should keep in mind when deciding on an internal social platform:

• Social networking capabilities (with the ability to set up a profile)
• Internal communications tools including messaging, discussion and chat)
• Sharing capabilities including links, resources and documents editing
• Subgroups and/or discussion forums
• Data ownership and whether or not the social network claims any ownership rights in your code, content, or network data
• Ease of set up and use; the selection of a platform that’s easy to manage and upload content
• Ease of customization; a platform that enables employees to add designs, photos and maintain the brand’s identity
• Price (there’s a big difference between enterprise software and a platform for creating social sites)

When you review different platforms, make sure to keep your company’s culture in mind and select a platform that is intuitive, simple to navigate and one that offers some type of training (i.e., video tutorials). Moving from a traditional communications infrastructure to an internal social platform is a tremendous shift, so you want to ease into the change with a platform that is hands on and easy to use.  A few platforms that we’ve reviewed are SharePoint, Socialtext, Grou.ps and Ning. Of course, it’s important to do a comparison and demo each platform to see which one is the best for your organization.  Remember, when you’re finally up and running, it’s also really important to set up benchmark measurements to gauge employee adoption and participation rates.

What platforms would you recommend for internal social collaboration and learning?

When you’re in your social media planning phases, an audit is critical to the success of your social communications program moving forward.  The social media audit is usually conducted to identify any of the challenges or problem areas within a brand’s current program, as well as to pinpoint genuine opportunities and what’s been working with respect to participation and engagement in the social media landscape (to move the best of your program forward in your strategic plan).

One key part of the audit is to identify and evaluate all of the existing social media properties, with respect to the following:

• Type and size of community (size may be used as a benchmark for growth).
• Brand guidelines in terms of proper logo usage, colors, accepted imagery, etc., on each social profile.
• Engagement with constituents on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highly engaged in two-way, meaningful interactions.
• Strategy or purpose of the social profile, whether your social site is for awareness, customer service, research and/or to drive people to a brand’s website.
• Frequency of the conversations, which could be hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or sporadic sharing of information.
• Types of content shared including links to news articles, blogs, videos, photos, events, notes, widgets, applications, etc.
• Tracking and measurement, which may include free tools for monitoring and/or paid platforms. with monitoring capabilities and charts/graphs for reporting analytics.

If you’re tasked with an audit of your brand’s social media properties, here’s one approach. You can set up an audit spreadsheet, in order to begin evaluating your program (this is a fictitious company, XYZ):

Download a copy of the XYZ Co. Audit

By analyzing all of the information in the audit, you will quickly learn where there are clear differences in your properties with respect to brand guidelines, coordination of content, measurement that is not tying back to your objectives/goals and whether or not your audience is interacting with your brand, or each property is just another marketing channel with one way communication (which should not be the purpose of social media).  At the same time, you might also discover certain social properties that are outpacing others based on sharing habits and the ability to offer information that is a key issue or touches on a community’s passion or interest.

The audit is a good way to evaluate and fix what’s currently wrong with your social media program. It’s also an excellent way to capitalize on the great efforts that may already be in place.  Are you auditing your social media program during the planning phases to make a stronger program every year?

The key to building an effective social media policy is to customize the guidelines to meet the needs of your organization. A well developed policy will guide your employees in the many ways that they engage in social communications. The best practice approach requires that your organization invest the time, resources, and effort to plan and build a policy that empowers the organization, allows people to understand the value of social media and helps them to see how they can better participate as internal brand champions.

I had the pleausre of working with PRSA to assist in the development of their social media policy, which was rolled out today. It was a great exercise because of the intricacies of an organization that serves more than 21,000 members. It’s a comprehensive policy, one that sets the standard for social media participation, gives guidance on engagement, and offers social media best practice resources to employees, volunteers and leaders. PRSA’s policy will grow and evolve as the organization extends its social footprint.

A best practices approach to creating the PRSA social media policy included the following steps in the development process:

• Finding a champion (in this case the PR manager) to spearhead the effort, corral the team and manage the process from start to finish.
• Building a coalition or core team that developed policy objectives across the organization so it would not only guide employees, leaders and volunteers, but also PRSA chapters, sections and districts. The coalition consisted of PR, marketing, executive leadership and the PRSA legal team.
• Conducting an in-depth audit to evaluate the current state of PRSA social media and to help standardize and promote better brand guidelines connected to social media participation.
• Encouraging participation and not stifling communication, going well beyond just the do’s and don’ts of social media. The policy also carefuly reviewed situations specific to the Society, and focused on where the organization needed to convey stronger messages, including legal concerns like privacy, intellectual property and disclaimers.
• Covering employee participation on behalf of PRSA, as well as including a statement on personal use. Understanding that employees will participate during their work hours and their own free time, it’s important that employees know the type of representation, responsibility and respect they must have for PRSA at all times.
• Considering several key areas in the policy, including access, account management, acceptable conduct and the rules of engagement, content, security and legal issues.
• Introducing leaders and members to the draft policy, asking them to evaluate usefullness by participating in a survey prior to launch. Feedback from the survey was incorporated into the social media policy to create an even stronger set of guidelines.
• Including other organizational policies — the PRSA Code of Ethics, the PRSA Branding Guidelines, the PRSA Style Guide and the PRSA Media Policy — fully integrating these policies into the social media policy, as they now relate to social outreach.

This is only a starting point for PRSA and its new social media policy. The Society’s policy will continue to evolve as the organization grows its social media presence and identifies increased opportunities for engagement.

It’s critical that the process of policy development continue throughout every phase of social media planning. PRSA will continue its best practices approach by implementing an organization-wide social media plan that allows departments to tailor it to their goals and strategies;  re-evaluating its policy during the strategic planning phase each year; and sharing the direction of its own social communications with leaders, volunteers and members.

What is your best practice approach to social media policy development and how has the overall process helped to create a strong set of guidelines for your organization?