By Lance Concannon, UK social media lead at Text 100

Speak to any senior corporate comms exec about the barriers that prevent them from using social media more in their organisation, and I guarantee that the issue of ‘risk’ will usually come close to the top of the list. This raises a couple of questions; what exactly are the risks posed by social media, and how can we negate, or at least mitigate, them?

What if people say bad things about our brand?

People often think that creating social media channels for the brand will add fuel to the fire of criticism, but that really doesn’t make any sense. Almost all brands have detractors, and social media makes it easier than ever for those detractors to share their opinions online and there’s not a lot you can do to stop that.

By participating in social media itself, your brand can at least provide those detractors with the opportunity to come to you with their grievances so that they can be dealt with in a constructive manner. If people are going to say bad things about your company, wouldn’t it be better for them to say those things in a place which you can easily monitor and manage, rather than some other website where you have absolutely no control?
So in this instance, social media does not introduce risk, but enables businesses to manage risk which already exists.

What if our own people run out of control?

In most large organisations there’s a very good chance that employees are already talking about the company in social media in either a semi-official or completely unsanctioned manner. Maybe they’ve set up social media profiles for the brand under their own steam with the best of intentions but haven’t coordinated this activity with the comms department and are not following best practice.

Or maybe disgruntled are employees complaining about the company in channels like Twitter, blogs, Facebook and discussion forums. Perhaps others are trying to be helpful by responding to consumer comments online, but they’re sharing incorrect information or using the wrong messaging.

You manage all of this through robust policies and training.

First of all ensure that you have clear policies in place for how staff are allowed to discuss the company and their jobs in social media; publish guidelines that enable and encourage staff to participate in these channels, but make the boundaries clear and explain why those boundaries have to exist. It should go without saying but you need to make sure that all staff are aware of the guidelines, from the interns all the way up to the directors.

Within any organisation there are going to be social champions – the kind of people who have a natural urge to go online and talk about the business and their work. Find out who these people are, because they are a powerful asset, and give them the training and encouragement they need to act as online brand ambassadors.

What if we get it wrong and end up with egg on our faces?

This fear is not completely without foundation. For all the talk of businesses needing to ‘take risks and experiment’ in social media, the industry loves to trumpet stories about big brands getting social media wrong. If experimentation and risk taking is to be encouraged, then perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more supportive when brands make mistakes in these channels.

The simple truth is that even with the best intentions, sometime marketing campaigns and comms activities in social media can go awry in ways you hadn’t anticipated. This risk can be mitigated by careful planning and research; read case studies and learn from the experience of others to find out what’s worked well and what’s gone wrong in the past.

When you’ve planned out your activity, spend some time trying to pull it apart and pick holes in it. What could go wrong, how could people derail or hijack it, why might it fail? Obviously you can’t predict all potential outcomes, but at least if you’ve already thought about possibilities, no matter how improbable, you can be better prepared in case things don’t go as planned.

If possible, work with an agency which has plenty of experience in social media activity – but before you sign a contract, make sure you check their credentials to see if they’re really up to the task.

While there are certainly some risks involved in using social media as a communications platform for your business, they are far outweighed by the potential benefits. The biggest risk of social media is being left behind by your competitors if you fail to take advantage of the opportunities it offers.

About the Author
Lance is the social media lead for Text 100 UK, where he focuses on helping clients to build better relationships with their audiences through digital and social media channels.

He has worked in digital PR since 2005, developing and executing social media communications activities for world leading brands such as IBM, AMD, Sony Electronics, and Oracle. Prior to this he worked as a technology journalist for over a decade, most recently contributing to Internet Magazine at EMAP as the title’s technical editor for four years.

Lance contributes to the Text 100 UK blog and Text 100 Hypertext blog  discussing emerging and mainstream communications trends and how they are being embraced, challenged and championed. You can also follow Lance on Twitter here.

By Christer Holloman author of ‘The Social Media MBA’ 

For how much longer will we call ‘smartphones’ just that and not simply ‘phones’? ‘Smart phones’ will be the de facto standard in a not too distance future (it’s already the case in certain clusters), the long name will eventually be made redundant. The same will now happen to the words ‘Social Media’.

My first modem was 14,400bps, later we got a 56k one. Today modem speed is pretty much irrelevant; the speed is usually determined by your ISP. My first PC CD-player was ‘2x speed’, we eventually upgraded to ‘16x speed’. Some years later manufactures stopped talking about CD-player speeds, it became irrelevant.

“2012 will be the year social media just becomes a part of everything we do.”

So for the exact same reasons as developments exemplified above, ‘social media’ will also disappear. For the companies that were early adopters, 2012 will be the year ‘social media’ just becomes a part of everything they do and this is why:

1) Social Media Fatigue

If you think of social media as a product life cycle, companies that adopted it early have experienced the launch, the growth and are now moving into a steady state, plateau or even fatigue phase. The new kid on the block is not so new anymore. If the company hasn’t seen any measureable success yet, perhaps due to poor a strategy and/or delivery, without a senior leader that can identify and address the issues, these kinds of organisations will realign their expectations and talk less and less about social media as a separate topic.

2) Social Media Departing From Marketing

There was a time when social media was the responsibility of the marketing department. Now we know that companies that adopt social media, and do it successfully, make it a way they do business across the whole company. As such it is the responsibility of every department; sales, customer service, product development, etc. Increasingly companies assign social media responsibility to a senior person whose sphere of influence covers multiple departments, such as the CIO. This empowers every department to incorporate social media in how they go about their business.

3) Social Media Coming Of Age

‘Social Media’ is a generational thing in the same way my parents still talk about ‘The Internet’. Ask any teenager about social media and you get a blank stare back; for them social media isn’t a set of tools, channels or even a topic of conversation. It’s something so intuitive they don’t need labels but rather just get on with it. The same is true for any modern organisation.

Companies that are still in the early stages of their social media adaptation will continue to separate out social media for a while longer but will eventually catch up.

For more ideas on how to ensure your approach to social media strategy development and delivery is up to date, check out: http://www.socialmedia-mba.com or join the debate at The Social Media MBA LinkedIn Group! 

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What others have said about ‘The Social Media MBA’:

Scott Monty, Head of Social Media, Ford Motor Company

“Holloman et al. provide a very suitable handbook for those who need more than the rah-rah social media talk. From strategy development to execution, with a look at case studies from major brands that are respected in the field of social media, this book will serve seasoned communications and marketing professionals who want to integrate today’s digital thinking into their teams’ efforts.”

Jamie Grenney, VP of Social Media & Online Video, salesforce.com

“Virtually every customer, partner, and employee is engaged on social channels, yet too many organizations have failed to reflect this shift. The Social Media MBA provides the strategy and real-world examples to help transform your company into a social enterprise.” 

Christer Holloman is the editor of the new book, The Social Media MBA: Your Competitive Edge in Social Media Strategy Development & Delivery (Published by Wiley). Christer is Head of Digital Product Development at The Times and The Sunday Times Newspaper.

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Wiley will be exhibiting for the fourth year running at this year’s Social Media World Forum in London. Their stand will feature a range of the latest books in social media and online marketing.  For more information on how to register for this year’s event please click here.

A big thank you to those that attended the Social Media World Forum in New York.

Also a special thank you to all the speakers, sponsors, exhibitors & media partners we enjoyed working with you and look forward to meeting you all again next year!

Greg Cargill kicks off the Social Media Hub with the Fundamentals of Social Media.

Panel Discussion: Examining strategies for using social media for business to business marketing

Chairman/Moderator: Joshua March, Co-Founder,  Conversocial 

 Linette Gomez, Senior Director, Internet Marketing – Social Media,CA Technologies
Jeannine D’Allegro, Marketing Director, Social & Digital Engagement Strategy, Dun & Bradstreet
Price B. Floyd, Vice President of External Engagement and Digital Strategy, BAE Systems

Keynote Panel Discussion: What is Social Reputation and why this should matter for your business

Chairman/Moderator: Joshua March, Co-Founder,  Conversocial 

 Garth Holsinger, VP of Sales and Business Development,Klout 
Ted Rubin, Social Marketing Strategist & Brand Evangelist & Chief Social Marketing Officer,Collective Bias
Paul Papadimitriou, VP + Principal Analyst, Constellation Research
Jason Wellcome,  Head of Digital Group, Weber Shandwick

Networking bar

Social Media Hub chair Greg Cargill introduces Adam Singer from Lewis PR

Exhibition

Some great discussion this morning at SMWF in New York, Ted Rubin, social marketing specialist and social media entrepreneur Pete Shankman hosted an engaging discussion about how the meaning of the word ‘friend’ is being warped by peoples’ use of social media.

Clicking on a box does not make us friends, was the gist, and the way the immediacy and ease of connection is ameliorating the term friend had the panellists concerned. “I want 2012 to be the year of taking back the word friend,” said Ted Rubin.

Pete Shankman shared his prediction for the future of the friend-trend. It can’t go on like it is, he said; people he hardly knows are inviting him to birthday parties on the other side of the world, where’s the relevance, where’s the friendship?

In the next 24 months, he continued, the trend will develop to the point where our levels of online friendship are determined not by clicking a button, but by a measure of two peoples’ relevance to each other. The more you interact, both online and in the real world, the more relevant you are.

Whatever platform we use by then, Facebook, Google (Shanklin suggested it could be called FaGoogle), would do well to be able to measure and correlate two peoples’ relevance via online interaction, checkins, emails, messages etc…

Brands need to understand the meaning of relevance, said the panel. Businesses who either deliver irrelevant interaction with their social media connections, or simply strive to generate as many fans or followers as possible are missing the point of the channel, and could be harming their relationship with the very people they’re attempting to engage.

“You’ve got to work your connections,” said Pete Shankman. “A connection is only as strong as the last time you used it.

“It’s easy and quite cheap. What people want to know is that they’re not speaking into the ether. It doesn’t take a lot to interact with people; just the odd comment now and again.”

Follow #SMWF for constant show updates as Social Media World Forum 2011 North America continues today and tomorrow at the Javits Center, NYC.

Companies in the social media space are constantly looking for advice and new ways that they can make sure their efforts in the space are working. While there are no definitive answers, as every company’s goals will require different methods of showing success, there are a few tips that can be followed for guidelines along the way

The following is 10 tips that I’ve learned from the fantastic community that participates in #SMmeasure. #SMmeasure started off as a weekly Twitter chat that I’m fortunate to host. It has since turned into a community that shares interesting articles and ideas throughout the week, but still gather to chat for an hour every Thursday at noon(EST)/9am(PST). This list is the second part in this series. If you missed part one, be sure to check out our first 10 tips learned through #SMmeausre here.

Choose What Social Media Metrics to Measure

11.Friends/Fans/Followers – it’s great that you have people who want to follow your account(s). Without them, no one would hear what you have to say. However, don’t place too much emphasis on this number. Sometimes having a lower number of friends/fans/followers who are more engaged can be better than a large amount of uninterested and unengaged people.

12.Soft metrics – depending on your goals for being in social media there are a lot of non-traditional metrics that your organization may be interested in tracking such as response time, response percentage (how many people spoke to us that we responded to), customer satisfaction and many others.

Make Your Social Media Metrics Easily Digestible

13. Show trending in your metrics.  Not only does it help your case to show before and after social media, but you can use graphs to visually present the data.

14.Use ratios in your data to compare your social media metrics to other campaigns.  Are you converting 0.5% of your social media traffic while you convert 0.25% of your organic search traffic?

15.Show context in your numbers.  Compare what your social media efforts are doing compared to other campaigns.  Use benchmarks with your industry, competitors, or start internally.

Learn from Your measurement Analytics

16.Re-evaluate your social media measurement objectives preferably every quarter.  Don’t be afraid to adjust for the following quarter.

17.Gathering your social media measurement metrics isn’t the end of your measurement responsibilities.  Analyze the benchmarks you have created, evaluate the data you have gathered, look at trending, and revise your processes.  Always work on improving your goals and objectives.

18.Turn your data into action item – did you notice in your data that

things weren’t going exactly as you planned? That may mean it’s time to change up a few things in your plan. Did certain content get a much larger response than others? Perhaps you should focus more content around that subject.

Read, Review, and Adopt Best Practices

19. Social media measurement is an evolving aspect of social media.  However, there are many case studies available that outline best practices.  Read and review social media case studies and then adopt best practices that you can apply to your business

20. #SMmeasure – social media is a great place to learn from others and being part of a community like #SMmeasure is a great way to keep up to date on new and best practices (Yes, this last one was a shameless plug, but we want to make sure that you all come back time and time again).

Kyle (Young Eul) Kim, Head of Open Platform/Director for SK Communications – Cyworld has just confirmed that he will taking part in the social gaming panel at this year’s SMWF in Singapore.

The panel will be addressing the Asian online gaming market and how these games can be monetized.  Kyle will be sharing his experience of  the  NATE/Cyworld open platform that he is currently working on.

The panel will be taking place on the afternoon of the first day at 1630 and will cover the points below:

1630    Panel: Monetizing social games & virtual currency

• The world online gaming market / the Asian online gaming market : specificities & similarities
• What is the market for virtual goods and services?
• Challenges of monetizing games – delivering revenues from virtual currency
• What opportunities exist for brands within social gaming?
• The importance of engagement and personalization – understanding users motivations

Since working for Cyworld Kyle has played a significant part in developing Cyworld as a more social platform and is very interested in Social Media, Social Networking, product management and collaboration.

If you would like to be considered as a speaker at this year’s SMWF Asia, check out our speaker submissions guidelines here

Below Huzu asked brands and agencies from the Social Media World Forum March just gone ‘Why Are some brands still reluctant to put spend into Social Media Marketing?’

The Brands’ Perspective

Huzu is a social media technology company. Licensing its white-label social media platform to brands and agencies. Allowing them to provide their customers with an engaging community and reducing the cost of building the technology in – house. The platform is flexible and can be customised for each brand, with functionality that includes profiles, forums, video, blogs, picture galleries, friends network, calendars, instant chat, plus Facebook share and connect, amongst others. Designed with easy-to-use administration and content management tools, Huzu also benefits from fully controllable ad space. TUI, Eircom, Racing UK and Durex have built successful communities using the Huzu social media platform.

Twitter has become one of the quickest platforms for the distribution of the latest breaking news, the “retweet” function allowing instant spread of breaking news.  A ‘tweet’ can be “retweeted” just a few times, yet reach a huge number of users.  This goes further toward strengthening the six degrees of separation theory. That is, the mechanism of the “retweet” has given every user the power to spread information broadly.

The Haiti earthquake disaster is an example of breaking news being announced on a global scale through Social Media.  Within minutes, images and comments were quickly uploaded.

Twitters ability to offer minute by minute or even second by second updates and commentary has meant journalist are quickly realising the power social networks hold.

The question going forward will be how can news distribution channels utilise and maximise this new form of instant information into their platforms and existing channels, to keep their readers & subscribers informed and prevent them using social network platforms as their source of news

To read more on the subject please visit technologyreview.com: Click here

Social Media World Forum Asia is back for 2010!  The event  will be taking place at the larger venue – The Suntec Conference Centre on the 22nd & 23rd of September 2010, before the F1 Singapore night race, allowing people to stay over the weekend and visit the race, and enjoy the parties

New look website launched

The team have been working hard over the last few weeks and have just launched our new look website www.socialmedia-forum.com/asia

The website has a vibrant new look, new content, significant updates and features to provide a more engaging and interactive platform for event attendees to network and connect before and after events.

So who is going to be speaking?

Some of the speakers already confirmed include:

•             Blake Chandlee, VP & Commercial Director, EMEA, Facebook
•             Lito S German, Marketing Director, BMW
•             Jeremy Khoo, Deputy Director, Marketing Communication and loyalty, NTUC Fairprice
•             Derek Yeo, Head of Corporate Marketing & Ancillary Finance, Tiger Aviation
•             Argha Sen, Head of Marketing & CRM, Toys R Us
•             Laurel Papworth, Social Network Strategist
•             Shalabh Pandey, Author and Founder, Chasingthestorm
•             Nicki Kenyon, Vice President, Digital Marketing APMEA, MasterCard Worldwide/APMEA
•             Reynold D’Silva, Global Brand Marketing Manager, Unilever
•             Damien Cummings, SMB Online Director – Asia Pacific & Japan, Dell | Consumer & SMB
•             Ranjeet-Shandu Singh, Digital Project Manager, Ogilvy One Singapore

Speaker Submissions & Suggest a Topic

We are looking to create a cutting edge, thought provoking, interactive conference line up covering the advances of Social Media in the dynamic world of online marketing. In true Social Media style we want to hear from you guys, on your thoughts, ideas and views to ensure the event provides a fully educational and inspiring experience for all our delegates SMWF Asia 2010 will take place on the 22nd & 23rd Sept at Suntec Conference Centre Singapore.

Speaker submissions will open online shortly

New for 2010!

‘SMWF networking lounge’ – a place to network before, during and after events to enhance your conference experience and to increase your ability to meet and build relationships.

‘Your Event, Your Questions Answered’ -  Sometimes you get out of an event, what you put into it – and we want to help everyone of our delegates attending our events learn the key areas that they want to get covered.

‘SMWF F1 Networking’ – With the Social Media World Forum taking place alongside the Singapore F1 night race, we will be arranging some networking trips to the F1, allowing people to stay over the weekend and visit the race, and enjoy the parties. Tickets are going to be limited so it will be on a first come first serve basis.

Get Involved?

If you would like to get involved with SMWF Asia, as a speaker, sponsors, exhibitor or media partner contact Richard(at)sixdegs.com

Joe Hughes, Research & Insight Manager,Yomego

A large brand said to us recently that it wasn’t considering a social media strategy, because if you “get the product right, the rest will take of itself”. It was taking a ‘trust to luck’ approach, relying on spontaneous word of mouth recommendations to drive users of its product.

In one way, it has a valid point. If a product is good enough, people will recommend and promote it to each other – whether they talk about it online or offline. Equally, if the product isn’t up to scratch, no-one will buy.

But social media isn’t just about one-way promotion. The scope for customer engagement, and actively building reach, positive reputation and loyalty is huge. Social media is driving customers to consume more offline. Burger King created a Facebook app encouraging users to prove their love for the Whopper by sacrificing 10 Facebook friends in return for a free burger. (Facebook blocked the application, but not before users had deleted 233,906 of their contacts on the site – and generated a huge amount of publicity on the back of it.) Dell has notoriously used Twitter to engage with customers, attributing more than $6 million of sales to promotion through the channel. It’s not just big brands getting involved – The Albion Bakery in London users Twitter to broadcast when a fresh batch of bread or cakes are ready.

But what is the impact of these activities, and can it be measured? The answer is it can, and it should. Social media should be measured like any other marketing activity, against clear marketing objectives and as part of an integrated campaign. If a brand measures the success of marketing campaigns by reach (as for print and TV ads), the same CPM metrics can be attributed to social media spend. Many brands will also have a value attributed to a customer visit to the brand’s website.

Site visits and coupon redemptions generated via social media channels can be tracked so a financial value can be assigned to each campaign. LinkedIn and Twitter can be used as direct sales channels: a brand will normally know how much it costs to generate a sale via telesales, for example, so the cost and value of leads can be viewed in context of other activities. Some brands creating their own social media platforms to connect with customers (such as eircom with its eircom connect customer site), which can reduce the burden on customer service teams.

But the most important thing we can track on social media is a brand’s reputation. Stats on their own don’t provide any context or insight to inform future strategy. But it is possible to measure a brand’s reputation by combining automated and human analysis of reach and sentiment (and comparing it to the performance of competitive brands), and correlate this to performance in sales. Tracking reputation like this can also show what impact other marketing has had – an advertising campaign, for example – and so feed back into the planning process for future campaigns, or even into product development programmes.

All our experience shows that an increase in a brand’s social media reputation brings about an incremental increase in sales. ‘Trust to luck’ strategies may work for some, but smart brands are choosing to track their reputations in social media.

Joe Hughes, Research and Insight Manager, Yomego