Deleted Posts? Lemur-Burgers? Kneejerk Responses Make Social Media Marketers Look Like Idiots

I am a huge fan of pointing out mistakes social media marketers make, not to show up people who may be acting poorly or simply showing bad form (heavens!). More to the point, we should call out “worst practices” lest people think such things are OK and get the actors to answer questions about the questionable (sometimes the answers are pretty good). All considered, we ought to like to learn from and teach each other.

On the other hand, I note that there is a rush to judgment at times. We’re all guilty about it. In the scramble to write up a “lessons learned” post (can we please find another way to say that?), we take what scant info we bothered to half-read and offer our categorical condemnation.

What’s the motivation? Being the first to “thought-leader” the issue? Bragging rights for being a smarty? When did we need online proof to go swaggering and boasting? Bah humbug. Let’s put the journalistic skills most of us never learned to good use.

Komen

The  case of the Susan G. Komen Fondation’s controversy about pulling funds from Planned Parenthood is a week old already as I type this, but it’s still worth talking about. Kneejerk reaction abound, obviously in the political (or was it?) reactions to the Komen Foundation’s actions, and the subsequent retraction (or was it?). even on the facts of the story it’s not easy to pass correct judgment.

More to my point, there was a reaction to the perceived deleting of comments and posts on the Facebook wall of Nancy Brinker, head of the Komen Foundation. I heard complaints, many from friends, that posts were disappearing. When I went to the page, I found the posts in question easily; the default view on Brinker’s wall showed her posts only, but a simple click on the “Everyone” tab showed the missing posts (see screenshots for what I mean).

Does this mean no posts were deleted? I have no way of knowing that, and some friends still insist there were. But the fact remains that hundreds (OK I didn’t count) of critical posts remain on the wall, among less-frequent calls of support and posts by Sprinker et al. Our gut often tells us to expect the worst, even if we disagree- but in this case, many people forgot a simple function of the Facebook wall, which is frankly embarrassing. My biggest fear is that social media keynoters start loading this up into their “These Companies Don’t Get It” presentation decks without checking all the facts.

McDonald’s

Another recent episode was McDonald’s who paid for a “Promoted Trend” on Twitter called “McD’s Stories.” Anyone could tell you such a big brand would attract trolls and haters, especially as not everyone is a fan of fast food. I’ll call myself out here, as I initially knee-jerked some statements that I thought McDonald’s screwed up. I quickly was corrected (for the record, by some friends and colleagues who were screaming about the Komen deletions); more importantly, was reminded that a big brand will always get the haters (I see this every day), but that does not mean the bad posts are the norm (but face it, we love to see fantastic stories about people finding lemur paws in their Big Macs*)

Also, we tend to judge these situations without talking to the principals involved- in this case, a problem alleviated by Realtime Report with this interview of McDonald’s Rick Wion. In fact, those of us who blog, speak or otherwise opine about these situations often do so without really knowing what went on behind the scenes- I have seen enough people do these far-from-complete “this company doesn’t get it” case studies that I hope I don’t ever do such a thing myself (we’ll see about that).

For Pete’s sake- take a breath before popping off about something. Maybe run out for a sack of lemur-burger’s from McD’s. I’ll try to do the same (no promises).

*I made that up

Photo credit: wallygrom on Flickr

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PR Doesn’t Need To Be Objective – Just Ethical

There has been a lot of talk, much of it oblique, about public relations and objectivity- or the lack of it. Much of the most recent talk has stemmed from an active effort to relieve the long-time ban on corporate and agency PR agent participation in wikipedia edits, leading to a Facebook group started by Phil Gomes with much active participation from both sides. A fascinating discussion that I have been honored to be a (very) small part of and more so to simply watch it take place. Perhaps it will lead to some practical conclusions and changes.

At part of the heart of the Wikipedia matter is the notion that public relations people are not, by profession, objective, and therefore cannot be trusted to act ethically. Aside from that being a rather fantastic conclusion (lack of ethics) to draw from what is really a more mundane fact (lack of objectivity), I have always found the line of thought puzzling.

I was reminded again of this topic thanks to a discussion with CustomScoop’s Jen Zingsheim during my regular guest stint on the Media Bullseye Roundtable podcast. At the center was a post by Richard Bailey on objectivity and neutrality. Referencing the Wikipedia fight, he goes on to make a broader appeal to forgive PR’s lack of neutrality on the grounds that PR can still be objective.

I understand that thinking, if you define objectivity as the presentation of facts that cannot be denied. Certainly this is at the heart of the Wikipedia struggle- the ability of partisans who hold first-hand knowledge to be able to correct simple factual errors. However, I think we should take a step back and say: why apologize for not being neutral, for being biased?

The fact is, even journalists, as objective or neutral (I have a harder time than Bailey distinguishing between these two terms) as they try to be, always have a point of view. It can’t be helped. It behooves the audience to know what they can about the author, editor, contributor, correspondent or publisher and make determinations about the trustworthiness of content by considering the source and adjusting to that.

Public relations? No need to be neutral, objective or whatever you want to label it. PR is partisan. Ethical is good enough.

Photo Credit: joelogon (Flickr)

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Why Aren’t We Experimenting More?

If you bother to check out my blog regularly (thank you), you’ll notice a couple of odd posts recently. The first was in some ways an accident. Being a smartass, I decided to react to some random subscriptions to both of my Posterous blogs with a post telling people not to subscribe there. There’s no point. Of course, my hope was that some people would subscribe anyway, despite the complete lack of any benefit- in fact, the explicit promise of no benefit at all. Why? Because it would amuse me. What surprised me was that the post all of a sudden showed up in my RSS feed; for this blog. I forgot I had set up automatic cross-posting, but was reminded of my penchant for experimentation.

The more recent post was a Storify experiment that I decided to demonstrate live in front of colleagues as an easy way to post to your blog. By George, it was in fact quite easy!

I feel that someone doing social media for a living should experiment. Often. Most of us who do this (come on, admit it) have blogs and other social media channels that are not meant to be polished business honey pots, but are repositories for our thoughts which are brilliant at best, a strange hash of trails at most times, and only a failure when it lies empty. Too many of us either do very little in social media because we either don’t want to be public (there are ways around that), or feel too much pressure to make our blogs look professional all the time, because, damn it, we are potential book authors or professionals.

Are either of you types of folks kidding? This is the place to experiment, to go out and  figure out the possibilities of tools and of raw content. What types of posts/topics/titles/words/calls to action, for example, get people to respond to your blog over other types? We should be doing more, not less, shouldn’t we? Why are some of us polishing our blogs into tepidity (though I do understand that some folks are in business for themselves and use them to show their polished, professional sides), and others letting their blogs and other channels lie empty?

Empty, you say? In 2011, I published about half as often here (42 posts) as I did in 2010 (85 posts). That disappoints me.

My publishing on this blog has been less frequent for a number of reasons:

• Work keeps me busy. Though I absolutely hate the “I don’t work on my personal brand because I’m doing billable client work” excuse- it is true from a “note enough hours in the day” standpoint.
• My most interesting thoughts are too closely attached to current client work, and there’s no way I’m going to reveal the inner workings of things, especially when that would require permission (and might better reside on the Voce Nation blog anyway)
• I write for other blogs (primarily Voce Nation), but not really that much. That’s pretty weak.
• I can’t write the same opinions about the same social media topics as everyone else. That’s kind of weak too, but I do get topic fatigue and have no desire to be a “me too” social media marketing blogger any more.
• I can’t write the abstract “advice” or “state of mind” posts about strategy and how to live your life or think or blog or whatever. At this stage in my life they come off as the blatherings of someone trying be sound smart or inspirational, rather than actually just being smart (and it looks like that in all the other blogs I read- is that mean? Too bad). Also, admit it; the title of this blog post made you throw up in your mouth.
• I took part more voraciously in private discussion groups rather than publishing longer, more one-sided screeds like this.

So, why not more experimentation on this blog rather than feeling a need to be controversial, relevant, brilliant, or topical every time out, or failing to do so because I don’t want to tread water in my writing?

Why not indeed. Far from a promise to do things, it’s a thought I would like to follow up on. I may need a few more kickses in the pantses.

Or should I just pile on and write about whatever, like I used to? Feel free to yell at me in comments. 2012 is a new year.

Photo Credit: Mavis (Flickr)

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TEST POST I’m the Mayor of Voce’s Winter Haven Office

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Don’t subscribe to my Posterous

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Social Media: From Status to Stories, We’re Entering a Whole New World of Shiny

I am newly tempted to rename this blog “The Long View” because I find it painful to see people get whiplash as they turn to see the new shiny objects of social media whip by. I wonder if I get tagged as an angry nerd (ok, I have) for not being too quick to embrace the latest and greatest. The truth is, I am aways suspicious of new platforms being declared “The Next XXX ” before it has had a chance to mature a little and give users enough chance to figure out how the platform is going to work for them. Google Plus has been a prime example, making some folks giddy before most people – especially businesses – we’re able to use it, a direct before it was even complete. Not that I don’t think it will make a huge impact, but if the train is leaving the station, say, in eight months, don’t line us up on the platform today.

I have seen several tools vying for “next big thing” status lately, but rather than fitting these for crowns, I see them – and others – fitting into a larger trend, whether they succeed or not.

Pinterest: Wowie-wow-wow has Pinterest gotten a lot of buzz lately. It’s very compelling in that it provides a simple visual way to organize links, visuals, products, or other items. You can see my first Pinboard here (photos of my son playing sports) and there have been several wonderful examples of organizations and companies putting up some nice Pinterest pages; the most recent I caught was the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market in New York City. Many of my friends are caught up in and addicted to various Pinterest pages. Frustratingly, many more can’t interact with Pinboards the way they ought, as Pinterest is an ivite-only beta product. That will pass, but it shows how quickly people will jump on a bandwagon – before it has all its wheels. The question is for brands is, is this something good they can’t already build easily on their existing websites and blogs? It’s worth asking.

Path: this was presented to me as a new way to separate your closer group of friends from the rabble on Facebook. But can’t you tier friends online, Facebook? Certainly you can using Circles on Google Plus. Also, it focuses on “journaling,” to my main point buried below. Yet, Path gains users, so it’s worth watching.

Instagram: As an Android user, this one mystifies me. How can an iPhone/iPad only app be haied as a next big thing? Love Apple all you want, but that app environment hardly constitutes Everyone. Sure, my making fun of Instagram photos as people purposely denigrating their photography to resemble 40-year-old Polaroids is probably missing the point. Also, the Android problem will be solved shortly. I’ll be eager to see what the fuss is about, as that fuss seems to be centered on the interactions among the network of photo sharers.

Storify: This one seems to be more of a slam-dunk. The ability to curate other sources easily and assemble them into a story is attractive. If you can insert that into your own platform, into your own site or blog, all the better. Makes sense, it’s just a matter of how many people or companies catch on.

Overall, what I do see? Storytelling is the new focus of social media apps. We see this in Facebook’s new Timeline. We saw it in Gowalla attempt to differentiate as a location-based service before it got sold. We saw it in the much-hyped Color (is that one still happening?). Social tools are moving beyond status updates, what we are doing, and towards telling stories, filling get in the gaps of what we have done, what we are doing, and what we want to do. My main question is, did social network users ask for this? As for the overall community, I’m not sure. Facebook seems to have forced Timeline on us rather than asking. This change to “stories” rather than “status” is far from complete, but has been openly attempted numerous times. It’s where we’re going right now, like it or not.

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Finding Influencers and Collecting Data? Tools Help, But It’s Nothing Without Hard Work

Cross-posted from Voce Nation

Recently, I had a discussion with a local (Boston) technology professional about finding influencers via social media. Additionally, I constantly have discussions with clients, colleagues and peers about measurement. Why mention these two facts together? These two topics have a lot more in common than they might seem to on the surface, at least when it comes to the practical applications in social media programs.

Photo by Martijn vdS on Flickr

First, both “influence” and measurement come with a variety of tools designed to help us find and analyze. These tools, whether they be Klout, PeerIndex or Traackr on the influence side, or Radian6, Sysomos, Spredfast and any number of tools on the monitoring/metrics/analytics side, all have their plusses. They all have their minuses too. Are they too unsophisticated or broad, too complicated to use, missing pieces, too expensive, lacking tech support? There’s always something.

Which tool a given program uses isn’t all that important, it turns out. However, let’s assume that having some tools to help you harvest information is necessary. The reality is that most social media professionals have to have at least some familiarity with a variety of the tools, as different clients, or even departments within a company (probably a separate discussion there), use different tools.

OK- we have established that we need tools, but we are limited. That sounds like a nightmare, no?

Well, yes and no. I believe it’s healthy to believe that the “magic bullet” tool that finds the best influencers for any specific program, or covers all your metrics needs, will never exist. It’s also healthy to believe that just about any tool, despite any public criticism, will help you in some way.

Great; so what?  

Even as these tools become simultaneously more sophisticated and easier to use (good luck with that) the need for what I like to call spade work does not go away. The spade work is divided into two categories:

• Figuring out what to ignore: Good tools mine everything. That’s almost as bad as having nothing, as a large chunk of the work in analyzing info is figuring out what not to include. How do you sort for the things that only affect your goals? How do you find people who are not merely “influential,” but are specifically relevant to your program? How do you filter monitoring data only for the things you need to see- and how do you determine which metrics are the one you need to see? Great tools filter further. Klout does offer some categories of influence, for example, and most monitoring tools allow you to tweak and adjust search terms. However no matter how good or great the tool manual sorting is necessary; not just due to a lack of complete trust in tools (Klout categories, to keep using that example, can yield some head-scratching results, such as the marketing expert who was, hilariously, deemed to be influential about “sheep”), but because every program, every campaign- and every data source- is unique
• Goals: Actually that should be first, but I’m being counter-intuitive. I was also tempted to write “Program goals” to distinguish from campaign oriented goals, but it is important to find influencers for and measure campaigns as well as the ongoing program. As hinted at in the previous paragraph, your goals determine which of the endless metrics and influencer types you need to focus on, to the exclusion of all else that lacks relevance, beyond the limited extent of any tools.
• Analysis: The value any social media professional brings to a program is in the analysis- I don’t mean sifting and sorting data, as anyone can learn to do with the tools, but in figuring out what it all means. At the beginning, it’s applying thought to the types of influencers that matter and what criteria count most. In the end, it’s applying meaning to the program data. For example, what does that decline in Facebook Page comments mean? Why were there fewer clicks to the Website from Twitter vs Facebook? How did a surge in blog publishing frequency this month affect subscriber numbers- or even product sales?

Tools are necessary. But making them worthwhile is hard work. Anyone who thinks differently is not using them (or their social media team’s brainpower) to their full capabilities.

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Pan-Mass Challenge: 2011 Fundraising Overview

UPDATE: I am officially signed up for the 2012 Pan-Mass Challenge: to sponsor my ride (and make these graphs prettier next year), please go to http://bit.ly/pmcdoug to donate. Thanks!

Last year, after riding in my third Pan-Mass Challenge (an annual two-day bicycle ride/cancer fundraiser), I thought I had enough of a track record to look at fundraising trends. In that post, I saw the rise in overall fundraising, number of sponsors and average donation amount as the progression of an improving fundraising effort and the expanding reach of my social networks. This year, the numbers were different but still interesting. First, the fundraising total shrank for the first time:

While an organization may see this as alarming, I should add that I once again surpassed my goal; after 2010′s success, I upped my goal from the minimum ($4,200) to the “Heavy Hitter” line ($6,300), and actually had little problem making that mark. I see the $9,000-plus total from 2010 as somewhat of an aberration– not in success, but in the amount of it, as several one-time sponsors donated late last year in memory of my father-in-law’s passing (the family had actually steered people to the PMC in the obituary, a fitting tribute). Despite the “one-time” donations in 2010, I still saw a sharp increase in sponsors from 2010 to 2011, the most encouraging number in the bunch. The message of the PMC’s cancer-fighting cause continues to spread:

Repeat sponsors was a bit of a mix, but again no surprise: more “repeats” donated this year, with the falloff in percentage a factor of the ever-growing total number of sponsors. I can probably do more to keep current donors involved and perhaps get the repeats up over the 50% next year.

The average donation fell off, close to 2009 levels. The major reason for this was that several of my “corporate” donors, people representing organizations that generally donated in the $500 range, did not repeat this year. The median donation was still $50, meaning that individual donors were not giving less, as this number might indicate and for the short-term that will continue, I suspect. So, the drop in average donation is not so alarming, though if I were a non-profit organization I would be concerned about the corporate sponsor drop-offs (and would certainly welcome them back, hint-hint).

Putting the numbers in perspective: I am happier with the increase in people sponsoring than I am disappointed at the lower dollar amounts. If I were an organization I would have some concern about the dropoff in larger “corporate” donors, but as those have been outliers in my case rather than the primary targets I cannot be totally surprised.

For 2012? I will target getting more repeat donors while continuing to increase my base of generous sponsors as well as my overall fundraising target. I hope the look at numbers does not make my PMC fundraising seem too clinical- as I sincerely appreciate each and every sponsor, as well as others who support me in various ways.  On to 2012!

Posted in Cycling, Pan-Mass Challenge | 2 Comments »

2012 Social Media Predictions From a Grump Who Hates Predictions

Flickr photo by tgkohn

I have much antipathy - make that hostility – toward any kinds of predictions (see my 2011 social media predictions post  for the only explanation I will give for that). Despite that, I was honored to be asked my 2012 thoughts by the folks at Awareness for their eBook “2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions.”   There are some great thoughts by several folks in the industry smarter than I, but I thought I would take the opportunity to expand on my thoughts that were included (in case anyone holds me accountable).

Below are the e-book topics for which I provided predictions, and my further comments on each.

The Biggest Social Marketing Developments

What I Said:

“More companies will move to the next stage, having a more innate understanding of what they need to do in social media, and being more specific about where they allocate budgets within social media. Google+ will make some inroads, enough to add G+ more formally to the debate over how to split resources among existing social media platforms.”

A Bit More:

I noted in the last year or two that more companies of all sizes seemed to understand they needed to do include social media and brand publishing somewhere in their communications plan – selling the very idea of social media is over. Next is developing a more ingrained sophistication about what and how to do it. And yes, the patience I have preached regarding Google + is still needed, but will probably pay off soon as companies (and their consultants) figure out the best use for this social network.

A bit more about other social networks: it seems that many companies are jumping onto social tools specifically geared to arranging certain types of media– there has been a lot of noise about Instagram and Pinterest lately, for instance. That’s interesting, to the extent that these tools might differentiate themselves from what web developers will do for companies’ owned channels.

The Role of Big Data in Social Marketing 

What I Said:

“All data will be important. Responsible agencies and marketers will be measuring their programs with anything available to them. As for databases, merging CRM and sales databases with social outlets will get more intense. Sales people and departments need to get on board, and that means deciding once and for all how social sits in your organization. That may take more than a year.”

A Bit More:

2011 saw a lot of talk about “Social CRM” and “Big Data.” I think communications professionals are still figuring this out. We will see more flesh put on these bones, but complete understanding and utility is beyond the grasp of 2012.

Key Technologies to Impact Social Marketing and the Role of Mobile (I combined two since I talked about mobile in the first)

What I Said:

“Smartphones will continue to spread, especially Android, and tablets, still led by iPad, will only proliferate more. Figuring out the easiest way to interact with people via mobile will get more attention. The ones who succeed will be the ones who actually make apps and mobile sites that don’t break.”

“Anything mobile will be big. The only difference between B2C and B2B will be the scale and depth of how they deal with the customer on the go. If they treat their mobile channels (and many companies have both B2C and B2B) as they treat all other sales and marketing channels, then they have their baseline strategy right there.”

A Bit More:

Anyone can say “mobile” – so I did too. Neener-neener. The fact that I actually bought a tablet recently (an Android by the way) says a lot about the affordability (or willingness to pay the price) coming to a larger market. We need to continue with “mobile” as part of our thinking, but I think we’ll see more use. Aren’t you using your mobile devices more? What apps we rely on vs what we are used to from our PCs and Macs will also change as a result. What is easy to use and what translates to the primary “experience” (web site, document format, what-have-you) will be the most interesting to me.

The second answer seems a bit convoluted as I read it now. Essentially, don’t let new channels (mobile or whatever) drive your strategy and goals. As ever, it should be the other way around.

Top Challenges for Social Marketers

What I Said:

“Focusing on what works and not being distracted by shiny new objects, while making sure they don’t miss the shiny thing that actually becomes the next ‘what works.’ Measuring programs and linking them to business goals will become more important and more recognized.”

A Bit More:It shouldn’t be new to caution against chasing shiny objects, but people still do it, so there. Measurement has been a standard par tof the programs I lead at Voce, but too many people argue about the “warm fuzzies” aspect of social media, leading me to believe that more people need to be kicked upside the head regarding measuring their efforts. Even the fuzzy stuff and the unicorns (you know, I am an expert in Unicorns according to Klout, http://klout.com/#/dough/topics so listen to what I have to say).

Top Trusted News Sources

What I Said: 

“The grapevine, wherever it may grow. Currently it’s some combination of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ from peers in the industry.

A Bit More:

Total copout- but still true. Did you really want 19 people all to say “I read Mashable?” Follow people you trust, and they will lead you to good news sources.

Thanks to Mike Lewis of Awareness and Lora Kratchounova for forcing me to say something about the coming year. I expect it all to come true. Every last thing. Except the bits that don’t.

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The trouble with ROI and measurement is not that you can’t do it

Flickr Photo: lalunablanca

Is it “talk about ROI” season now? I have seen several posts online lately about social media ROI, ranging from “it doesn’t exist” to “here’s how you find it.” It makes me think about my own current thinking in the space. As with many things, I fall in between the two extremes, if you can call the latter an “extreme.”

A few thoughts about the ROI question:

• If corporate management is asking for a Return on Investment, then saying “there is no ROI” will be the end of the program.

• A measurement program is not necessarily an ROI metric

Just a few thoughts on ROI from someone in the trenches. And no, I do not always see ROI figures from programs, nor am I 100% certain they are always called for (or is that just being lazy?). But it does exist and it probably should be asked for. What are your thoughts?

Posted in social media | 4 Comments »