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.

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.

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.

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.

The Power of Infographics

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

A picture is worth a thousand words. In the digital age, the saying has never been more relevant. To cope with the daily onslaught of information we’ve become content grazers, skimming headlines and post descriptions for the promise of bite-sized nuggets of information.

As brevity becomes more important, infographics present brand journalists with a great opportunity to deliver knowledge, ideas, solutions, etc., in a manner that can be quickly consumed, understood and remembered.

Robin Richards, Information Design Director at the creative firm JESS3, says this about infographics:

“The public’s collapsing attention span has given rise to a relatively new content format: the infographic. Infographics – a visual representation of complex data – have emerged as one of the most popular and shareable forms of social content.”

In doing some research for a recent presentation I delivered during Social Media Week in Vancouver, I came across a staggering statistic regarding the growth of infographics on the Web.

A Google image search for the term “infographics” returned 978k results. Four months ago the same search mentioned in Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post about the need for infographics to evolve returned 570k infographic images. I don’t profess to be an SEO expert or pretend to understand the complexity of the Google search algorithm, but there has to be something going on when 40% more infographics show up on the web in such a short period of time.

Popularity

There are a few factors that might explain why infographics are so popular:

Easy to digest – There is less friction when it comes to consuming information that is (well) presented visually. It requires less time to read, absorb and get the gist of information.

Infographics are easy to share – Even if you’re not a visual thinking geek like me, you’d likely agree that this content format can be a pretty cool way to present information. Their uniqueness and compact nature can prompt people to readily share them.

Learning style – The Visual Teaching Alliance states that approximately 65% of people are visual learners and that the human brain processes visual information about 60,000 times faster than text.

R.O.I.

Infographics are popular amongst web users for all the reasons stated above, but they are also in vogue with organizations because they can add business value. Some examples:

• Brand Awareness – The Content Grid, created by JESS3 on behalf of Eloqua, has been one of the more popular infographics published in the last year. Here are some awareness metrics published by Eloqua regarding this infographic: 1168 tweets, 722 inbound links, 58 blog articles mentioning the infographic and 3003 offsite views.
• Signals – Infographics are one way to create signals in a sea of internet noise. Signals result in conversations … and the right conversation lead to business opoortunities. I’m personal proof that it works – the infographics that I’ve published have helped fuel conversations that have lead to a contributor gig here at SME, sitting on a panel with Jay Baer for the Vancouver NOW Revolution book tour stop, guest lecturing at the University of Toronto and a few consulting projects. If I can do it, anyone can!
• Improved Results – Visual thinking impresario Dave Gray shares a great example of the power of visualization and how it adds tangible business value. During this interview he talks about how a large hotel chain used visual tools across different business phases to added incremental revenue by cutting 5 months off the time required to launch a new property.

5 Types and Uses

For many people the thought of infographics is synonymous with data visualization. For others it represents a form of idea art. Whatever your perspective, infographics come in many different shapes and sizes and can be used by organizations to manage knowledge/information presented to both internal and external audiences.

1. Statistics – One of the most popular infographic types is data visualization. Nothing is more difficult to consume and absord than reems of statisctical data – If your organization is presenting company information and/or industry research consider using infographics to present findings or highlight insights.
2. Concepts – My favorite infographics are metaphors for ideas. These are great for use in illustrating though leadership or organizational philosophy. These conceptual visuals can also be very effective in teaching/training situations.
3. Models – These type of information visuals help describe process. Organizations can use these to explain complex business procedures, workflows, distribution channels, service offerings, information flow, etc.
4. Cartoons – Purists might not agree, but I feel humorous illustration, particularly in a business context, classify as information graphics. Cartoons are an effective way for organizations to transfer information about ideas, scenarios and culture to their target audiences.
5. Information Resources – These infographics effectively aggregate useful and relevant information into a format that adds value. Organizations can use infographics to create industry resources, specifications guides, “cheat sheets,” product comparisons, etc.

Getting Started

You don’t have to be a graphic designer to start creating effective infographics. Here are few tips to get you started:

1. Explore new ways to inform – always be thinking of your audiences information needs and better ways to help them learn. Think about all the content your organization has – what are some ways to restructure it and present it visually?
2. Record your thoughts – Use a journal, smart phone, sticky notes, etc. to keep track of ideas for infographics. I get a lot of inspirartion from the blogs I read and find it helpful to use a bookmarking tool like Delicious to keep track of concepts for future exploration.
3. Process and refine ideas – Invest some “thinking time” to give those rough ideas a chance to morph into more polished thoughts and designs.
4. Create and publish – Execution can be the toughest part of any project, infographics are no different. Don’t get to attached to perfection – if you do you may never end up publishing anything. Put stuff out there and let it evolve.

If you’re not into the DIY model think about these other ways to get your infographics created and published:

• Use an existing resource – If your organization has an in-house designer or preferred vendor you use for other projects, consider collaborating with them to create infographic content as well.
• Outsource to a pro – If you have the budget consider hiring a design firm that specializes in creating infographics.
• Partner with an art student – develop a mutually beneficial relationship with your local art school. You get infographics at a fair price, the students get real work for their portfolios.

A few things to remember…

Keep it simple – Some infographics are becoming just as hard to consume as text content. If you have a really complex idea, concept or process it might make more sense to break it up into a series of infographics.

Try to tell a story – Think about the objective of infographic. What one thing do you want your audience to gleen from your visual? Keep this “tagline” in mind when your presenting data or an idea.

Make sharing easy – I highly recommend not gating your infographic content. Use a Creative Commons license to make it easy for people to share infographics on their blogs and websites.

Ideas rule – It’s not about your skill level as an artist or the software you use. The important thing is being able to convey information relevant to your audience in a way that’s easy to consume and remember.

Just do it – Again, invest more time making sure your idea makes sense and less energy obsessing about creating the perfect piece of infographic art.

What are your thoughts about the business of infographics? Has your organization used infographics to share information or knowledge? What were the results? The comments are yours.

Over the last couple of years strategies for using Facebook to connect with your audience, market your business and manage your brand have evolved beyond simply posting content to your wall.

Here’s an old school look at the Dos and Don’ts of managing your organization or brand’s Facebook page.

Roll the dice and see where you land – and please feel free to drop by the comments and let me know your thoughts on what squares you would add.

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

Relevant marketing communication offers your community value.

Optimal communication takes place when when a marketer can deliver the a relevant message to a relevant audience in a relevant location at a relevant time.

How can you become more relevant?

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

As digital communication continues to explode more organizations are recognizing its importance within the marketing mix. In order to develop strategy and allocate resources business leaders need to understand the effectiveness of their existing digital initiatives. A great way to do this is to conduct a digital audit – a study of your brand’s digital presence (on its own and in relation to your competitor set) across six key areas: Reach, Architecture, Content, Conversion, Integration and Measurement.

Before launching the digital audit it’s important to establish basic criteria with respect to rating status, structure and performance. To help guide next steps set up a simple decision filter that will aid in prioritizing your findings. One simple way to do this is to assign a color coding systems as follows:

1. Green – Continue your current course. Monitor and look for incremental improvement.
2. Yellow – Pause and assess. Adjust based on priorities and capacity.
3. Red – Stop and fill gaps. Change strategic/tactical direction based on objectives and budget.

Reach – Organic and paid exposure across digital channels

• Use tools like Rank Checker to measure how well you rank (organically) on branded and category/industry keywords and phrases across major search engines
• Do you have an email marketing program in place? What are your open rates, click rates, etc.?
• Do you have a presence on social media channels relevant to your organization? Measure potential reach via likes, followers, subscribers, channel views, video/image views, etc. More importantly, measure % effective reach per channel by adding engagement activities such as likes + comments + shares and dividing by potential audience size.
• Are you running pay per click advertising campaigns, display advertising campaigns or mobile ads? Measure impressions and click through rates per ad channel.

Architecture – Channel design, structure and functionality

• Assess website usability. How are graphic elements used? How effectively is information presented and consumed? Test things like loads times, link integrity, navigation, etc.
• How well are your social media channels set up? Are profiles, descriptions, tags, links, etc. optimized?

Content – Process and assets

• Do you have a content strategy in place? Do you have content creation workflows in place? Is there a mechanism to measure what’s working and what isn’t?
• How strong are your content assets? What formats are you using? Text? Video? Photos? Audio? Applications?

Conversion – Activation of visitors

• Are your digital channels designed with a conversion funnel in mind?
• Do you have any forms on your website, Facebook, blog, etc? What is your rate of form fills per visitor? What is your form abandonment rate?
• Do you have clear calls to action on your web pages, Facebook pages, blog, etc?

Integration – Connection of all online and offline touch points

• Are social media channels accessible from your website?
• Are you cross linking from one social media channel to another? Are you linking back to your website from social media channels?
• Do your offline activities connect back to digital channels i.e. print ads, trade shows, etc.

Measurement – Digital objectives, metrics and performance

• Do you have objectives in place for awareness, influence, engagement and action?
• What metrics are you using to gauge performance?
• Do you have reporting protocols in place? What is the frequency of measurement and reporting? Are there feedback loops in place? Are reports analyzed and acted upon?

Assess these audit areas internally and benchmark your performance against your competitors where possible. Has your organization conducted a digital audit recently? Were the findings helpful in advancing your digital strategy? Is there anything else you measured?

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

Looking under the microscope, what behaviours, policies, best practices, cultural initiatives, etc. form the cells of a successful social organization?

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer