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The Social Media Advocacy Model

February 21, 2012 By 5 Comments

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

In theory, as social media becomes more common place, organizational audience engagement objectives, strategies and tactics should evolve past acquisition towards advocacy. I’m sure some consumer brands are heading in this direction but, in my experience, many companies and agencies still seem to be focused on driving audience awareness and using “likes” and “follows” as success metrics.

To spark some discussion on the topic I thought it might be helpful to present an encapsulated view of advocacy. This infographic aims to present advocacy at a glance, explaining where it sits on the audience relationship spectrum while visualizing the steps organizations can follow to move connections towards becoming advocates.

Here are a few notes on the process:

Listen – The first step involved in moving passive social media connections towards some level of engagement is to understand their information needs. What type of content do they want to consume? What conversations do they want to have?

Publish & Participate – Designing a content strategy that make you relevant is very important. Part of this publishing plan should include active participation on behalf of your organization. Don’t just broadcast.

Identify – Set up Boolean searches using tools like Hootsuite to monitor your social media channels and flag your most active fans. Also, consider using more advanced tools like mPact or SocMetrics to find possible influencers.

Activate – Be proactive. Reach out, communicate and build relationships with your advocates. Don’t wait for them to come to you.

Nurture – Offer intrinsic/extrinsic incentives to help make advocates feel special and an extension of your brand or company.

Empower – Help them help you spread brand messages through the use of services like Zuberance or BzzAgent or Fancorps.

I’d love to get your thoughts on The Social Media Advocacy Model infographic, the rationale behind it and what might be missing. The comments are yours.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Integrate Buffer and Google Reader

January 28, 2012 By 2 Comments

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

One of the most powerful dynamics of social media is the democratization of information. The more you can read, learn and share, the more value you should be able to extract from various digital channels.

Tapping into Web 2.0 to stay educated and informed is a labour intensive proposition. The tools are free but your time comes at a cost, so the more efficiently you can mange the process the better. If you subscribe to a lot of blogs (and other RSS feeds) and invest time in sharing useful content with your audience this workflow will help you streamline the process.

Before getting started there is one important caveat I need to mention. This is a broadcast tactic that will help you become more efficient at scheduling and sharing information. It’s one small piece of digital communication puzzle. To get the most out of social media you need to make connections and build relationships by engaging in real time. Enough said, let’s proceed.

CONFIGURE BUFFER APP

Buffer is a great tool that helps you schedule posts on Twitter and Facebook. Essentially, any given time you are online you populate Buffer with the content you want to publish and the application schedules your posts based on the days and times you configured.

After setting up Buffer you will need to adjust the publishing schedule for each Twitter or Facebook channel based on your objectives. Buffer will pre set the same times daily but you have the option of adding, deleting or editing to meet your needs.

Note: The free version of Buffer App allows you to connect one Twitter account + one Facebook account and store a maximum of 10 posts in your “buffer”. I use the Pro version ($10.00 per month). This upgrade allows connectivity to a total of five accounts and 50 posts in your buffer.

ADD THE BUFFER BOOKMARKLET TO YOUR BROWSER

BufferApp offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari so you can add posts to your Buffer from any web page, including right from inside Google Reader.

Step 1: Click the “Goodies” tab followed by the “Install” button on your browser of choice.

Step 2: Click the “Install” button on the respective browser guide page

When your extension is installed the Buffer icon will show up in browser window.

Step 3: Go to Google Reader, open a post to preview it. Click the BufferApp icon in your browser to add the post to your Buffer.

Click “Add to Buffer” and your post gets queued for publishing as per the schedule you configured.

ALTERNATIVE: ADD BUFFER TO GOOGLE READER

For those of you that don’t like to use bookmarklets or have challenges loading them in your browsers i.e. work computers that block add-ons, etc. there is still a way to use Buffer right from inside Google Reader.

Step 1: Click the “Options” icon in Reader (top right corner)

Step 2: Click “Reader Settings”

Step 3: Click the “Send To” tab in the navigation bar

Step 4: Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Create a custom link”

Step 5: Enter the Buffer parameters in each field (see below)

Enter the following in each field and click “Save”:

  • Name: Buffer
  • URL: http://bufferapp.com/add?url=${url}&text=${title}
  • Icon URL: http://bufferapp.com/images/logo_icon_small.png

SCHEDULE POSTS FROM GOOGLE READER

The next time you open up Reader you will find Buffer as an option in the drop down under the “Send To” tab at the bottom of each post.

When you click to share via Buffer a new page will pop up in your browser containing the tagline from the blog post. At this point you can select which network(s) to schedule to and also edit the contents of the message.

When you “Add to Buffer” the post gets queued for publishing as per your configured schedules.

SUMMARY

As someone who subscribes to a number of blogs (~100) and actively shares links I find this workflow to be very efficient. I like the fact that maintaining a consistent publishing schedule for the content I share doesn’t have to be in sync with days/times I check Google Reader. I also find the flexibility of being able to post directly from one platform to be a real time saver.

I have found the Google Reader/Buffer integration to be more time effective than using a tool like Hootsuite and having to go through multiple clicks in order to schedule each post. That being said, individual scheduling will give you more flexibility, however, if you invest a few extra minutes during the Buffer configuration process you can set up a pretty robust publishing schedule. It should also be noted that Buffer allows you to go in and change your schedule as required.

Finally, to reiterate the caveat from above. This workflow is great for reading and sharing but you still need to carve out some time for real time social media interplay – that where the magic happens. In addition to Buffer I also use Hootsuite and Sprout Social to monitor, respond, RT and jump into conversations.

What do you think about this workflow? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Also, feel free to share the social media process that helps make you more efficient. The comments are yours.

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5 Ingredients for a Tasty Content Strategy

December 21, 2011 By 4 Comments

 

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

A good content marketing plan contains a number of different elements including theme, audience, tone, publishing channel, etc. But how do all of these components come together to form a cohesive strategy?

After reading 6 Layers of Social Media Content Strategy by Jeffrey Cohen over at Radian6, I was inspired to create a visual metaphor that assembles all these content marketing ingredients.

Although I agree with the layers discussed in Jeffrey’s post, I have a slightly different view about what makes up the ‘meat’ of an effective content strategy. Check out the inforgraphic and read the Radian6 post.

Which strategic components do you think are most important? The comments are yours.

 

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A New Way to Look at Facebook Contests

November 28, 2011 By 2 Comments

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

There seems to be strategic flaws with many of the ‘voting’ contests hosted by brands on Facebook. On the surface, promotions are often deemed successful based on buzz and ‘likes’.

But what about relevance? Awareness and acquisition are meaningful, but only if they are tied to the right audience.

THE STATUS QUO

There are variations in how brands manage voting contests, but two models are prevalent:

  1. Awarding a prize to the person that collects the most votes for a photo, video, entry, etc.
  2. Drawing a prize from a group of people that have garnered the most votes i.e. top 20 vote getters.

In addition, many brands ‘fan gate’ contests so visitors need to like a page in order to participate. From a marketing perspective this makes a lot of sense:

acquire new fans >> provide them with relevant content >> fuel engagement >> prompt activation

But what’s the value of these fans if most of them aren’t really that interested in the brand?

Enter vote exchanges – Forums, websites, and Facebook pages that facilitate the trading of contest votes. As a result of vote swapping your brand ends up building an audience consisting of people (or fake accounts) solely there to vote in your contest so they can get votes in return. These fans are likely never going to truly engage with your organization.

I would argue that voting contests based on popularity actually erodes business value. By rewarding high vote counts brands open themselves up to diluting their core audience and hampering their ability to effectively benchmark and measure ongoing engagement. So what is the alternative?

CONTEST ACQUISITION

My theory – by lowering the barrier to contest entry i.e. 50 votes and conducting a random draw, brands can build a participation ‘long tail’ that:

  • prompts more people to enter because there is a reasonable chance of winning vs. having to compete with contest pros that buy/exchange votes.
  • helps create business value by prompting brand communication with real people and fueling genuine word of mouth – with a low barrier to entry fans will likely share contest details/expose the brand to friends, family or colleagues. The low barrier of entry discourages users that participate in voting groups.
  • creates an even playing field for participants and minimizes acrimony – the contest is deemed to be fair, doesn’t get overrun by people exchanging votes and mitigates negative dialogue.

There is much more value in having a slower rate of acquisition and building a fan base that has the potential to be engaged … rather than rapid growth created by smoke and mirrors.

VOTING CONTEST BEST PRACTICES

In addition to embracing a low barrier/random draw contest model, consider implementing some of the following ideas in order to build a more relevant following and improve the contest experience for your audience:

  1. Enhance your contest terms and conditions – be clear to state reasons for disqualification i.e. no voting groups, no vote buying, IP stipulations, etc.
  2. Implement options like Offerpop assured voting when using third party contest apps – Facebook authentication vs. IP tallying allows you the opportunity to audit the validity of Facebook profiles.
  3. Budget time to monitor the contest – most brands invest time communicating with contestants via their Facebook contest app but it’s also important to spend some time monitoring and auditing entries.
  4. Use Facebook Insights – large numbers of new fans from ‘out of ordinary’ regions might indicate vote exchange is taking place.

 

 

 

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced running voting contests on Facebook? What other suggestions do you have to make the contest process more strategic for brands? The comments are yours.

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