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.

The SMWF team are excited to announce that the fourth annual SMWF Europe event will be taking place on 27^th and 28^th March at Olympia in London. This year’s show is your chance to experience a packed agenda of interactive workshops, combined with unique networking opportunities, a bustling exhibition space and much more…

New for 2012 we have introduced an updated show format, delivering 6 individual conference tracks, each examining the latest strategies and cutting edge technologies across specifically focussed areas of social media marketing.

One workshop pass will get you access to all the tracks, detailed below, as an event delegate you will be able to mix and match your chosen session, creating your own agenda during the 2 day show. You also gain full access to the exhibition & official SMWF party.    Book your pass here today!

SMWF tracks explained…

This 2 day track forms is the backbone of the SMWF agenda; providing insight into how to strategically benefit from the accelerating growth of social media. Teaching subtle  techniques and approaches which can transform social media from a lip-service add-on, to the cornerstone of your co-ordinated communications strategy.

Whether you have an existing mobile strategy or are in the process of formulating one, the SMWF Mobile Marketing track will deliver a wealth of practical advice around using mobile social media, using apps to promote your business, integrating mobile into your existing marketing strategy, location based marketing and much more.

With the home entertainment landscape on the cusp of massive change, the race is on for operators, manufacturers and platform providers to grab their slice of this potentially lucrative new market. The track will explore the social aspect that is changing the way people interact with the media they consume as part of this new TV experience.

With the social media explosion changing the way customers and businesses interact, perhaps forever, the SMWF Social Business track will examine many of the fundamental issues and challenges you face as company culture is being forced to change and adapt to these new social operating systems.

The SMWF Social Shopping and ecommerce track will analyse how some retailers are truly harnessing the power of social media, allowing brands to create a new forum for conversation and interaction with their customers.

Delivered by our friends at MarketingTechNews.net, this track comprises a series of expert led marketing strategy workshops. It will equip you with many of the basic tools you need to begin planning and implementing your own integrated marketing strategy, tying in advice and insight around social media, SEO, branding, affiliate marketing, mobile, PR, blogging, content marketing, web-design and all manner of integrated marketing communications techniques.    To just attend this free to attend track register for your free expo pass here.

Look out for some exciting announcements about our speaker line up and agenda in the next few weeks!

We can’t wait to see you all again this year, keep an eye on the blog or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

We are pleased to have partnered with both the K West & The Hilton London Olympia to offer all SMWF visitors a discounted room rate for the 26th, 27th & 28th March 2012.

Only a limited number of rooms are available at each hotel, and the rate is only available until 24th February so book today to make sure you have somewhere to stay!

K-West Hotel
Richmond Way
London
W14 0AX

Room Rates:

Single occupancy £95 excluding vat & breakfast

Double or twin occupancy £109 excluding vat & breakfast

To book please contact Georgina Ainsworth on +44 (0) 20 8008 6605 quoting SMWF. Rates are available until the 24th Feb so book early to avoid disappointment, after this date hotels will need to be booked on best available rate.

Hilton London Olympia Hotel
380 Kensington High Street
London
W14 8NL

Room Rates:

Single occupancy £135.00 + VAT per room includes English Breakfast

Double Occupancy £145.00 + VAT per room includes English Breakfast

To secure your discounted room simply contact Agnieszka Stopa on +44 (0) 207 856 1902 or email agnieszka.stopa@hilton.com and quote SMWF before the 24th Feb. This rate will expire on the 24th Feb so book early to take advantage of the discounted rate.

Other Hotels Located Nearby:

Kensington Close Hotel
Wrights Lane, Kensington, London
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8008 6600
Best Available Rates from £99

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.

Following a landmark year for location based services, mobile marketers are looking towards 2012 as the year when location based technology will pervade many of the services available on users’ handsets.

Last year Foursquare reported that over 15 million users and 600,000 businesses had joined the platform, resulting in over a billion check-ins. Location technology is firmly on the radar for many leading brands, and makes up a key part of the agenda at SMWF Europe in London in March.

Last month Facebook confirmed it was stepping up its assault on the lucrative location-sharing market with the acquisition of Gowalla in early December, expected to close as a stand-alone service later this month.

The increasing spread of ever more sophisticated smartphone handsets, combined with the continuing development of apps powered by geolocation technology, like that from companies like Navteq, is crucial to this developing trend, providing a whole new angle of relevance for marketers and brands.

Navteq, one of the leading providers of location data for developers, said:

“Hyper-local mobile advertising can target consumers in a non-intrusive way when they are near a merchant’s location and then guide them to the front door. This effectively transforms mobile into a direct response channel for retail, restaurants, cinemas, petrol stations, and any business that benefits from getting consumers in the door.”

Savvy marketers are now using location-based technology to reach potential customers in the immediate vicinity. Business listings on services like Foursquare, Loopt, Brightkite, and Google Places have become crucial weapons in the marketing arsenal as the industry waits for this trend to explode across the world.

The rise of social check-in apps has added a new dimension to the trend, using reward, word of mouth recommendation and viral to directly influence peoples’ purchasing behaviour. They allow businesses to interact directly with customers, creating communities with an added level of engagement based in real-world behaviours.

This year’s Social Media World Forum Europe will be looking in-depth at location based marketing, covering topics including:

• Harnessing the power of mobile data through location based apps – how to turn location information into consumer engagement?

• Location triggered mobile couponing / deals opportunities for large brands and local businesses

• Analyse of consumer behaviour – who are the consumers of location based services (who, how many, how old), what do they respond to well and how can you most effectively manage your communication / relationship with them?

• Are these social tools going to bring about a mobile commerce revolution?

• Using the mobile presence of facebook to promote deals, sales and encourage on the move purchases

For more information on this year’s event please visit the Social Media World Forum website.

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

Good morning & welcome to day two of Social Media World Forum N. America 2011!  We’ve got another action packed day ahead. Big thank you to everyone who came to the SMWF party last night at Studio 21 and helped make it a night to remember.

In the SMWF workshop this morning kicks off with social media and brand management with Coca-Cola’s Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing, Michael Donnelly. Michael will be giving the keynote Q&A covering building brand loyalty and engagement through social media. Here are a couple of articles you may find interesting.

-          The Next Web – Brand Loyalty in the Age of Social Media

-          Forbes – How to build loyalty in a digital marketplace

Later in the afternoon we a series of interesting panel discussions covering social media and PR including representatives from brands such as LEWIS PR, Hersheys, mBLAST, CNN, New York Times Brandwatch and WIRED.com.

Mashable – How social media pros are using social media for real results 

Social Media Explorer– PR pros must know social media 

In the Social Media Hub today we will be looking at key platforms in-depth with tips and tricks on how to make the most from the leading social media platforms.

-          Social Media Examiner – 13 Facebook marketing tips from the pros

-          Mashable – The top 10 twitter SEO tips

-          Social Media Today -5 top tips for successful social media marketing

We hope you have a great second day, we look forward to receiving your feedback on the event. Don’t forget to tweet any questions you have during the day to #SMWFQ!

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).

Day one of Social Media World Forum North America 2011 is finally here. Over the next two days we’re presenting some of the leading figures in social media for sessions, discussions panels and workshops around harnessing the power of social media.

In the SMWF workshops, we’ll be exploring the broader impact social media is having on consumer behaviour examining the use for this new channel in marketing and PR, as well as monitoring ROI and building online communities. We’ve got some great speakers, with Joshua March, CEO of Conversocial chairing the action.

Here are some handy links to a bit of further reading around the agenda.

The workshop’s keynote panel session, social reputation, will be kicking off the conference at 0910 with representatives from Klout, Collective Bias and Constellation Research.

-          SMWF Blog – Three steps to help manage your social reputation

-          Marketing Tech News – Monitoring your online reputation with social networking

-          IB Times – 10 ways to build your brand reputation online

Later at 1050 we will be joined by top advertising agencies Saachi & Saachi, Ogilvy 360 and Tri-Ultra Media who will be discussing how paid ads fit within social media. Here’s some food for thought before this session:

-          Social Media Explorer – How to integrate social media with traditional media

-          Blue Glass – Paid advertising with social media sites

-          Search Engine Land – How to make paid social media ads effective and engaging 

After the networking break at 1120 it’s straight back to business with the 2^nd session of the day, Communities. Match.com, Radian6, Mashable and Yelp.com will join for a discussion on the best strategies for developing online communities at all levels.

-          Online Community Report – Developing an Online Community Strategy 

-          Mashable – HOW TO: Create a world-class online community for your business 

The afternoon will focus on applying social marketing for B2B business and will feature the keynote address from Tibbr’s CMO and Executive Vice President, Ram Menon.

-          Top Rank – B2B social media, Infographic

-          Social Media Today – Social Media for B2B marketing – how to get started 

-          Clickz – 10 steps to use social media for B2B lead generation 

Closing the SMWF workshops on the first day will be case studies from global brands Bloomberg, Dominos and Diageo covering their experiences in the social world.

- Bloomberg 

- Dominos 

- Diageo 

And of course we have our free-to-attend Social Media Hub which will be over following with top-class social media advice and insight.

We’re starting off at 1015 with our chair Greg Cargill, VP client Services, Social & Media at BLITZ  followed by a 10 minutes speed networking session to help you get to know the people around you.  Greg will then continue with a workshop on the fundamentals of social media providing direct value to all listeners no matter what level of involvement they currently have in social media.

-          The Next Web – Fundamentals of Social Media 

-          Social Media Today – Back to the Basics

Later in the afternoon we’ll be on our best behaviour, when delving into at social etiquette with Sarah Carter from Actiance. Sarah will be looking at the risks posed by real-time communications on social networks and the best practices for mitigating risk.

Techipedia – The Ultimate Social media Etiquette Handbook 

Business Know How – Top 12 Rules of Social Media Etiquette 

So there are some things to think about today… If you’ve got something to add to any of the sessions you see, or harbour a burning question that needs answering, you can tweet it into the #SMWFQ hashtag; our panel moderators will be keeping an eye on this. Or you can earn maximum kudos by asking it directly over the Q&A mic.

Don’t forget about the official show party later this evening at Studio 21 in Chelsea. There’ll be dancing, complimentary drinks, networking, general merriment and special guest, hip-hop rapper Fabolous. Doors open at 7.30, come along: http://www.apps-world.net/northamerica/event-info/networking