The 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Comments and discussions must be evaluated for both tone and prominence. Whether you are using technology to identify and evaluate articles based on defined criteria or having individuals sift through the articles to determine their value, it is important to take the tone and prominence into consideration when determining ultimate impact.

Companies need to not only track where and how often their brand is discussed but assign a value based on the importance of the outlet to the organization and determine if the conversations are positive, negative or neutral to get an accurate read of their results.

Discover which platforms and techniques have had the greatest impact and who they have influenced. Use criteria that matters to your company to determine that impact – whether it’s the number of sales opportunities uncovered, leads generated or attendees at an event – measuring results is critical to determining your success with social media. By comparing your activity and effort against results, you can gauge what activities are most effective and concentrate your efforts on the platforms that will give you the maximum return. Use this information to determine whether your current strategy is working or if you need to make changes.

If you don’t track the results generated through social media outreach, it will be very difficult to improve upon your strategy and fully reap the benefits social media can offer.

Finally, don’t make the investment in social media without the commitment. Social media takes time. Establishing your network and leveraging the platforms may not happen overnight, but if you follow your strategy they can extend your reach and get the most out of your PR efforts.

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While you may have created a strategy and identified the spokespeople who will participate in online conversations, if you do not share that strategy with the rest of the organization it will lead to confusion. Social media turns everyone associated with your brand into a potential company representative. Whether you are a large or small company, the nature of social media requires specific guidelines for conduct.

Make sure employees know their role in the discussion. Just as you communicate guidelines for media calls or other media activities, share guidelines on what is and is not appropriate for social media. While many employees are tempted to participate in conversations, giving clear directives on company policy will help you control the message. While 99% of the participation is likely harmless, in some cases, it may impact company brand and reputation.

Establishing guidelines will help you mitigate internal risks to your online reputation as well as potential organizational issues. Technology will help you comprehensively monitor and track social media conversations so that you know when and if your employees are participating to ensure your guidelines are being followed.

• Part 1 – Overview
• Part 2 – Take Time to Listen, Don’t Just Jump In
• Part 3 – Identify Spokespeople, Don’t Dilute the Message
• Part 4 – Communicate the Strategy, Don’t Allow for Confusion
• Part 5 – Set Priorities and Goals, Don’t Try To Do It All
• Part 6 – Provide Consistent Content, Don’t Simply Dabble
• Part 7 – Find Quality Followers to Engage, Don’t Worry About Numbers
• Part 8 – Be Prepared for Success, Don’t Forget to Plan
• Part 9 – Evaluate Impact, Don’t Continue Blindly

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The first step in putting together an effective social media strategy is to understand the dynamics of the landscape. With social media, it is more important than ever to listen to what is being said before participating. What are people saying, how is it being said and where are they saying it?

Using a comprehensive monitoring strategy, it will help you define your online corporate brand identity and help ensure you are engaging with these new platforms effectively.

Monitor the social media platforms for discussions on both your company and the competition to determine the value of the platform and the discussion as well as to help understand what is impacting your brand. Look for the platforms that your customers, prospects and the industry influencers are using. If you find your brand or industry discussions are focused on one or two platforms, you can concentrate your efforts.

Monitoring will not just help you understand which platforms are the most important for your brand, but also the style and tone of the discussions. All social media platforms are different. While some lend themselves to a more formal tone, such as Linkedin, others are about more informal conversation and thoughts, such as Twitter. Both may be equally valuable to your overall strategy but require different approaches.

By listening to the discussions on each you will understand how to best approach the different audiences. Some may be used as a way to promote company activities and others may be more useful in interacting with your customers, uncovering potential sales opportunities and learning more about your industry. Be careful not to use the forum as a means of selling your products and services, some groups may consider this to be a form of spamming.

• Part 1 – Overview
• Part 2 – Take Time to Listen, Don’t Just Jump In
• Part 3 – Identify Spokespeople, Don’t Dilute the Message
• Part 4 – Communicate the Strategy, Don’t Allow for Confusion
• Part 5 – Set Priorities and Goals, Don’t Try To Do It All
• Part 6 – Provide Consistent Content, Don’t Simply Dabble
• Part 7 – Find Quality Followers to Engage, Don’t Worry About Numbers
• Part 8 – Be Prepared for Success, Don’t Forget to Plan
• Part 9 – Evaluate Impact, Don’t Continue Blindly

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Unlike traditional media, social media puts you in direct communication with the public and different company representatives may be better for these audiences. While your traditional media spokesperson may be the CEO, your customers and prospects may be best served by a company representative who deals with more everyday tasks and not the overall company strategy.

As part of your PR strategy, you need to take the information you have gathered from monitoring social media and determine your ideal spokespeople. Identify a spokesperson to respond to corporate questions, customer feedback, support services, sales opportunities and other industry trends. Be sure you spend time training your spokespeople just as you would for traditional media so that they know and can communicate your company message effectively. Be sure to keep the channels of communication open to gauge feedback from your spokespeople. As the business climate changes, there may be opportunities to change your message so that it accurately reflects the needs and concerns of your customers.

Once you determine who will represent the company, come up with a plan to respond that fits the needs of your company. Depending on frequency of requests and availability of resources, you may decide to designate an initial responder who can identify the needs of the situation and route the inquiry to the appropriate person. While it is also an effective strategy to have each designated spokesperson respond individually, be careful, as too many voices in social media can be confusing to your audience and also dilute your message. Whichever strategy you choose, make sure the company message is very clear both externally and internally.

• Part 1 – Overview
• Part 2 – Take Time to Listen, Don’t Just Jump In
• Part 3 – Identify Spokespeople, Don’t Dilute the Message
• Part 4 – Communicate the Strategy, Don’t Allow for Confusion
• Part 5 – Set Priorities and Goals, Don’t Try To Do It All
• Part 6 – Provide Consistent Content, Don’t Simply Dabble
• Part 7 – Find Quality Followers to Engage, Don’t Worry About Numbers
• Part 8 – Be Prepared for Success, Don’t Forget to Plan
• Part 9 – Evaluate Impact, Don’t Continue Blindly

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What follows are five advanced strategies for small businesses that may already have small online communities and understand how to create an online presence, but don’t know what to do next.

What Is An Advanced Strategy?

The definition of an advanced social strategy is a technique that goes beyond the normal social media presence. It introduces or reinforces a marketing message while pushing a user to another profile or business site. Before moving forward with an advanced strategy, it’s important that your business understands social marketing, has experience engaging consumers, and that you possess a basic understanding of online marketing.

Strategy 1: Multimedia Usage

The term “A picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer. Consumers are now using the web to look for product pictures and videos; they want more information and want to see what they’re considering buying. The good news is that it’s easy for a company to create and publish videos and pictures.

Social platforms each have an ecosystem of their own. What might be acceptable on Tumblr () might be considered spam on Facebook (). A specific style of writing might spread on Twitter () but fail on FriendFeed (). Understanding that each site is different and then customizing your message ensures they do well on each respective site.Not only does customizing messages across sites help the message spread but it keeps users from receiving multiple identical communications. Be sure to maximize your potential by sending a user that follows the business on Twitter and Facebook two different messages, instead of the same thing.

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Strategy 4: Local Social Networks, Beyond Yelp

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For a small business, local search can be a big win. Being visible to consumers looking for a business in their area is extremely important. Make sure your site is included in local business directories in order to help ensure that consumers find you when they need you. Sometimes finding that many sites can be difficult, however.

First, make sure you check your competitors. Where are they listed? Check their inbound links to check for business directories you can add yourself to. Also, make sure your business has been added to Google Maps (), using the Local Business Center.

Take the time to include all the information you can and update any old news. For many consumers, this will be their first interaction with the business.

Example: Bella Napoli in New York

Bella Napoli is a small pizzeria in New York that has done a great job of making sure they appear in as many local searches as possible.

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Strategy 5: Contests and Discounts

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Building a community is only the first part of social marketing. Using that community to drive sales, propagate marketing, or crowdsource operations is the true power of social media. One way to excite the community is to collectively do something to create a contest or offer an exclusive discount (i.e., the contest can create competition between users). Not only does a contest build buzz organically but if contestants need to, for example, publish an article that gets the most comments in order to win, the contest itself becomes viral.

A good social media contest should include some sort of sharing or virality as a requirement for winning.

Discounts are also a great way to connect with your community. By giving exclusive coupons to your social community, you’re rewarding and reminding them that you are not only a brand to engage with, but also to buy from.

Example: NetFirms.com

NetFirms.com decided to make it easier to register a domain by allowing people to do it via Twitter. Those who participated or spread the word by tweeting, were also entered into a prize drawing.

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Conclusion

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Creating a basic social media presence is easy enough, getting your community to actually do something is more difficult. Taking advantage of these strategies can help you build your community, make your marketing more effective, and incentivize buying.

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One major result of this ineffective use seems to be low engagement from followers. Out of the 540 total Twitter () accounts registered by Fortune 100 companies, 50 percent of the accounts had fewer than 500 followers and another 15 percent weren’t being used at all.

Lacking Personality and Tweeting Sparingly

The majority of the accounts from Fortune 100 companies had no personality, but instead focused on brand only. Out of the 540 accounts, 53 percent “did not display personality, tone or voice on their account pages,” according to the report, which judged personality based on whether an account was identified with a personality who posted on behalf of the company or if it was a “faceless” brand account.

However, 32 percent did have personalities that were associated with their accounts, which might be a better approach to creating an account that is engaging and personable for consumers. Personality can also be demonstrated on Twitter via the writing of the actual tweets. The content itself can have a voice without the page being identified with a specific person, but having a name associated with an account adds a more human element that acts similar to a spokesperson representing a company.

Though tweeting sparingly can be a good thing, 76 percent of the accounts had fewer than 500 tweets posted. If the companies were truly engaging their followers and customers, the number would likely be much higher, though certainly could depend on how long each account had been active. Also, fewer tweets sometimes means less exposure in the wider Twitterverse.

Missed Business Opportunities

The most popular use of Twitter from companies using it, is as a newsfeed or for developing brand awareness. But companies seem not to understand how to use the service to increase sales or they don’t believe that it’s possible. Though Dell (33 on Fortune 100 list) has used Twitter to sell millions of dollars worth of products, only 16 percent of Fortune 100 accounts used Twitter for sales, special Twitter offers, coupons or other special offers.

Another effective use for businesses has been using Twitter for customer service. For example, Best Buy (56 on Fortune 100) uses its @Twelpforce for customer service and has some 14,000 followers. However, only 9 percent of the Fortune 100 accounts use Twitter for this purpose. It very well may be that these companies are steering away from customer service because to do it effectively, they would need additional staff specifically to respond to complaints and questions from customers on Twitter.

The Result: A Low Following

Because so many of these companies aren’t using Twitter effectively, if at all, it makes sense that 68 percent of the accounts had fewer 1,000 followers. This seems to indicate that the accounts do not provide much value, which can come from a dialogue with followers, a service the account provides (such as coupon codes or customer service), and the quality of information being shared.

In fact, the study found that half of the accounts did not score well on engagement metrics used by Twitalyzer, which looks at number of links, hashtags, retweets and references. Being engaged and active on Twitter usually translates to more followers because it gives an account more exposure and chances of being retweeted and seen by other users (assuming the information is valuable).

What’s the Prescription?

When these companies do take a look at their strategy and use of social media, they need to realize that the key element missing is conversation. Twitter, and social media in general, is about two-way communication, which is something that all companies need to realize as they constantly evaluate and tweak their social media use. Companies should also reconsider whether to use a person that is identified with an account, which could improve their engagement and build a personable brand.

Mashable’s () Twitter Guide Book offers a comprehensive resource on how to effectively use Twitter.

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Should Businesses Care About LinkedIn?

Of course they should. LinkedIn has over 20 million members. LinkedIn can be used by businesses and departments of any shape and size, and requires little social media know-how. Search Engine Guide’s Jennifer Laycock recommends LinkedIn to small businesses that are looking to start using social media but just don’t have a lot of time to do so. Here’s an HR perspective from Jim Stroud of The Recruiter’s Lounge:
“LinkedIn is a tool recruiters cannot ignore. Recruiters who do not want to be bogged down with resumes turn to LinkedIn to find quality candidates and their peers. On the flip side, some recruiters use it to build up a massive list of contacts that they can use for email campaigns. This of course, is not the intention of LinkedIn, but its a fact of life. LinkedIn is becoming the next “Monster” with more and more recruiters turning to it.

How Do You Get the Most Out of LinkedIn?

The old adage that “it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know” still holds value. LinkedIn takes this thought one step further, making it “who you will know soon to be of utmost importance.” Using LinkedIn, I’ve trained small businesses to spread their wings and get connected with companies that they might otherwise have thought were beyond reach, and to the persons they were looking for in those companies.

So, how do you meet people? Well, you can’t throw sheep or sick your zombies after them. There’s also no chat. And guess what? That’s totally fine. Many who use instant messaging aggregate different chat networks into a single app such as Digsby (), Trillian (), or Pidgin (). So who needs another chat app?

Here are seven features LinkedIn does have that you should take advantage of:

Quick Lookup – Look up who you are having that next business meeting with. You’ll be able to break the ice right away.

Q&A – Post questions to others in your industry. The Yahoo Answers look and feel of this feature has definitely made LinkedIn more active and interesting. A public question can be responded to by anyone that works in really any discipline. Such was the case where Derek Edmond spotted a discussion occurring about the trustworthiness of SEO.

Recommendations – Have clients or co-workers post recommendations, which future employers and clients can view to gauge your skill and level of trustworthiness. Conversely, if you’re an employer, these imply trustworthiness for a potential freelancer or new hire.

Background checks – Look up potential new hires or freelancers. This should be right up there in an HR manager’s toolbelt.

See what your competition is up to – Keep track of what others in your industry are up to. Network updates gives you a feed of recent activity, so you can see who your connections have friended, groups they have joined, and the people they have recommended. You’ll even be able to see when people are switching jobs.

Introductions – Use people you already know to help make introductions. It’s a great way to get in the door with a company you need to contact.

Open Networking – Go out and become a LION! You are an open networker.

What’s Next?

LinkedIn has made a lot of recent updates and additions, including:

Group mania – LinkedIn has been making great strides in the groups area, having added search within groups, discussions within groups, groups you might like, and sharing groups. When you think about how much engagement and adoption groups have brought to Facebook (), you’ll really begin to appreciate these changes.

Profile page – since most LinkedIn users spend a great deal of their time on profile pages, the subtle UI (user interface) changes done to the profile page are a great update.

iPhone app – LinkedIn has a pretty spiffy iPhone app that’s worth trying out.

While I really appreciate these additions, I think it would be great for LinkedIn to tell beginner users more about why to use the service. Similar to Twitter using the CommonCraft show’s Twitter in Plain English, LinkedIn could use its LinkedIn CommonCraft video to make beginner users see LinkedIn’s true value of building connections to help accomplish your business goals.

What are your thoughts?

How do you get the most out of LinkedIn? Tell us about success you’ve had on the service in the comments.

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