May 2009 Archives - Professional Blog Service

What’s Next for Corporate Social Media?

May 28, 2009 By Erik Deckers

I was at the May Confluence North Network event, at a talk with Jason Falls, who was talking about The Future of Social Media for Corporations, and making predictions about what social media is going to look like in the next few years. (Full disclosure: I’m part of the leadership of Confluence, which hosted Jason, and Pro Blog Service was one of the sponsors).

So what’s next?

Jason said the one of the next big things is that social media is going to be embraced by everyone. (If you want to find out the others, we’ll have the MP3 of the event available for download in a few days.)

Basically, and I’m paraphrasing here, Jason says what is currently the Shiny New Object for all of us in social media will one day be the Shiny New Object for everyone. Then, after a time, it will just become one more tool in the media/entertainment/networking toolbox, like TV, radio, and the phone.

What does that mean for social media professionals?

It means don’t be in such a rush to find the new Next Big Thing. THIS is it. We’re right in the middle of it. The technology we’re using today is still new enough that there’s time to find success (i.e. money) in the social media realm.

Because most people still don’t know about social media. I am still surprised by the number of people who say, “What is blogging? What is Twitter? What’s this FaceSpace?”

The Rogers Curve basically shows how readily and easily people adopt technology. And based on what I’ve been seeing in this industry, the only business blogs are the Early Adopters; the Early Majority are just now thinking about dipping their toes in the water. This means most clients will be found in the Early Majority to Late Majority stages — 68% of the total curve.

So why does it seem like everyone is already doing it?

Simple: I spend most of my day talking to other people who live in the social media world. My friends do social media. People in my networking groups do social media. Our clients do social media. In fact, I’ve met most of my current friends and business associates through social media. So in my worldview, everyone I know is in social media. That means the entire world knows social media, right?

Wrong.

As I talk to people outside my social network, I’m finding more and more people who still don’t know what blogging is, let alone what value it can bring to them.

What’s next for me is not what’s next for them. What I’ve been doing for years is still new to them. Look at the Rogers Curve again. If we’re still waiting for the Early Majority to catch up, only 16% of us are using social media (Facebook might be in the Late Adopter stage, but things like Twitter and blogging are still lagging behind).

Basically, if you’re reading this, you’re already aware of blogs. If you know what “follow me at @edeckers” means, you’re already a Twitter user. But go ask your family, your friends, your neighbors, your bosses if they’re blogging or on Twitter. Chances are, they’re not.

Blogging and Twitter are their Shiny New Objects.

Your friends and family are still in a Web 1.0 world. You and I, as the Innovators and Early Adopters, are in a 2.0 world. Some of us are already talking about Web 3.0 (mostly because we want to look cool), but we’ve got a way to go. Keep in mind that the other 84% of the world is still doing websites, still have an AOL email address, and still think Twitter is the thing in the speakers that produce the high tones.

But that’s good news for the rest of us who do social media professionally. If you start doing it the right way now, you’ll be in great shape when the rest of the world finally catches up. Create your social media presence now, start your business blog now, start learning the “new” technology now, so you’re in a position to succeed when the Early Majority and Late Majority comes to play.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : What's Next for Corporate Social Media? • Keywords : blogging, Jason Falls. networking, Social Media, web 2.0, web 3.0 •

Filed Under: Blogging, ProBlogService, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter, Writing Tagged With: blogging, Jason Falls. networking, Social Media, web 2.0, web 3.0

Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant? Hardly.

May 26, 2009 By Erik Deckers

Adam Ostrow, editor-in-chief at Mashable.com and the subject of many social media man-crushes, recently posed the question, “Is social media making corporate websites irrelevant?”

In a word, no.

Ostrow makes a good point that a website is becoming less important than it once was.

There was a time when having a dotcom was absolutely key to your brand, and once you had one, it was the URL you pointed everyone to in all of your marketing. But with the emergence of the social web, and opportunities to engage with fans elsewhere, is that really the right strategy – or even a requirement at all?

But now we’re starting to see more business cards with a Twitter handle (I’m at @edeckers), bands promoting thier MySpace pages, nonprofits and their fans pushing people to their Causes page on Facebook.

Does this mean that people are turning away from dotcom websites and blogs to interact with each other on social networking sites?

Not really. They’re still spending their time in the dotcom realm. They’re just spending additional time on the social networking sites.

Ostrow cites Vitamin Water as a good example of a corporation that successfully launched a social networking and ESPN advertising campaign — ads on ESPN pointed people to their Facebook page; this will let them engage with people who continue to use Facebook long after the campaign is over — but it’s not a sign that the dotcom era is dead. Just a sign that it’s evolving.

According to Technorati, 77% of all Internet users read blogs. In fact, they indexed 133 million blogs between 2002 – 2008.

Websites and blogs are still the anchor corporations need to drive their clients to, especially if you’re a B2B company or in such a specialized niche that Facebook advertising just doesn’t make sense.

Let’s say you make specialty framing hammers for the construction industry. Where are you going to advertise? Facebook? Maybe, if you can find a bunch of contractors on the site first. ESPN? Only if you want to reach 99.5% of the people who don’t do construction. Pay-per-click? Possibly, but it can be expensive unless you have a professional who knows how to do it right.

The best place for information about your hammers is going to be your own site. There, you can host your own how-to videos, write blog posts about effective hammering techniques, ecommerce posts about the benefits of your hammer, an ecommerce store to sell your hammer, and a forum for funny hammer stories (if any exist).

Not this kind of hammer To be honest, you’re not going to have many hammer fans who flock to your Facebook page, there won’t be a Hammer Lovers social network, and people will not be Twittering about your hammer several times a day. However, you can still drive search traffic to your website by blogging about hammers, participating in a social network for home building contractors, and reaching your customers where they spend a lot of their time.

Your website needs to be the centralized repository of all your information, the place where people can find anything and everything they want. Reproduce that information around the Internet all you want, but make sure it drives people back to your website. Win the searches, and sell your product that way.

Photo; Kyle May (Flower hammer)
Photo: FoxyPar4 (Hammer throwing)

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant? Hardly. • Keywords : blogging, dotcom, Social Media, social networking, website •

Filed Under: Blogging, Lead Generation, Social Media, Social Networks Tagged With: blogging, dotcom, Social Media, social networking, websites

What Absinthe Can Teach You About Business Blogging

May 22, 2009 By Erik Deckers

I was recently asked by our friends at Compendium Blogware to help judge an internal blogging contest they were holding among the employees. I was chosen to be the impartial outside observer (thanks, Doug) to judge the entries.

The rules were simple. Come up with a creative and relevant way to use keywords, use photos or videos to support content. They had their wealth of knowledge about corporate blogging software to draw on.

The idea was a simple one: show business owners why and how to start a business blog.

That’s easy to explain. Blogging is all about search. People search for answers to their problems. Your goal in blogging is to have people find you at the top of the search engine rankings, and recognize you as having the answer to what they need.

Chris Baggott, Compendium’s CEO and co-founder, tells a great story about one of their clients, a small liquor store in Greenfield. The owner will write about different exotic liqueurs and products she gets in from time to time, and talk about different recipes and drinks her readers can make. When she talks about root beer schnapps, sales for the product goes up. When she writes about a particular wine, sales for that wine jump.

One week, she wrote about absinthe, the liquor often consumed by Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, and Pablo Picasso. She only had a few bottles in the store, so she thought she would see what would happen if she wrote about it.

A few weeks later — if I have my details straight — a new customer showed up and bought up all the bottles of absinthe she had in the store (one bottle went for nearly $100). How did you find us? she asked.

The customer explained that he was going to the Indianapolis 500 that weekend, and wanted some absinthe to share with his friends. He did a quick Google search for local liquor stores carrying the stuff, and found the Greenfield liquor store — the only one in the area carrying it. Or at least the only one that showed up in the search engines.

The guy flew into town, landed at the Indianapolis airport, drove east 1 hour to buy the bottles, and then raced to the track. Talk about a blogging success story!

This is just one example of a business who patiently plugged along with their blogging efforts, not doing anything out of the ordinary. She just wrote something new, week after week, focused on what her customers needed. She made sure to employ best blogging practices, and stuck with the fundamentals. As a result, she sold her entire stock of absinthe to one customer.

And sometimes, that’s what blogging is all about. It’s a great tool for search engine optimization (SEO) that leads to some great Long Tail opportunities. That one-in-a-million or even one-in-a-thousand opportunity that comes along only to those people who were prepared for it.

Not everyone is going to be scrambling for absinthe in the Indianapolis area. In fact, if I were a betting man, I would have bet that no one would ever search for absinthe in Indianapolis. But one guy did, and the liquor store won that Long Tail search.

As a business blogger, you need to focus on winning as many Long Tail searches as you can. Write frequently about topics that are related to your company’s mission. If you’re in the blogging business, write about the different ways people can use blogging and social media. If you’re in the liquor business, write about great liquor recipes. But write a lot, and then measure it.

The key is to write about these topics frequently and regularly. If you just poke around at it, throwing up a post every few weeks, you’ll still be relegated to the dregs of the search results, never to see the light of day.

If you want some ideas for blog posts, want to know how to create great content several times a week, or just want to find out more about how you can get those regular, frequent posts without ever having to lift a finger, get in touch with us and we’ll tell you everything we know.

Photo: Qole Tech

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : What Absinthe Can Teach You About Business Blogging • Keywords : absinthe, business bloging, Business Blogging Content •

Filed Under: Blog ROI, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Writing Tagged With: absinthe, business blogging, business blogging content

Cut Out Twitter Spam

May 21, 2009 By Erik Deckers

My friend Doug Karr’s recent post, Dear Twitter, Please Stop the Following Madness, decries the number of auto-follows that have been plaguing Twitter as of late. Auto-follows are those little scripts that people execute to gain a big number of followers quickly.

I don’t know what compels someone to cheat the numbers to get empty eyeballs. What kind of ego do you need to have to go down that road? I’m not sure but it really irritates me. My 5,000 followers used to mean something. Now I’m well over 6,000… but many of the new followers are auto-follow phonies.

We’ve even written about how building big followers is done, and about the problems with Twitter spam. But it’s not something we condone. In fact, while we do want our clients to build up a big following, it needs to be with people who are actually valuable to them, and can contribute to their success on Twitter and in social media.

There’s no reason you need 10,000 followers when you really only want 1,000 fans.

Let’s say you manufacture marbles (I always use marbles in my examples, because I’m tired of saying “widgets”). Your corporate blog is about making marbles, exciting new developments in the marble-making field, and of course, the results of the World Marbles Championship. As a result, your blog ranks high for anyone searching for information about marbles, whether its the game or the object. (By the way, there really are entire groups of marble collectors. They have their own conferences and everything.)

The same focus you put into your blog needs to put into your Twitter efforts.If you’re a marble manufacturer, you want to follow people whose hobbies are marbles. There’s @GlassMarbles, a glass marble collector, and @GAYM (Got All Your Marbles?), who makes jewelry out of marbles. These two people are worth following, because they would probably follow you back.

Then, check out who they’re following and who’s following them. Follow those people, but be selective about it. A Twitter auto-follower will run a script that will follow everyone in their network. A smart Twitter user will select only those people who a) can better contribute to my understanding of what clients want, and b) are more receptive to hearing from me.

Twitter spammers and scammers are posting all kinds of advice on how to get over 10,000 followers in a matter of days. I don’t follow these people, and will oftentimes even block them. I’ve even begun blocking people who are already following me. Sure it’s going to hurt my follower count, but I’m more concerned with quality not quantity.

Doug pleaded with Twitter to do something about the auto-follow systems, because they’re overburdening Twitter. They’ve already got enough problems with the Fail Whale rearing its happy-but-annoying head, and now the scammers are bringing the whale to the surface on a regular basis.

But it’s not only up to Twitter. As Twitter users, we need to take a stand and stop spammers from clogging up the Twitterverse. There are a few things you can do to help.

Block all spammers, Internet marketers who promise to make you money, and people who post the same Tweets over and over. Check out a Twitterer’s page before you follow back. If enough people block a person, Twitter will take heed and shut them down.
Turn off auto-return follow. Once you start getting inundated with follow notices, it’s tempting to auto-follow, to save you some time. But they’re counting on this. Turn it off, and be choosy about who you follow.
Report spammers. Send a note to with the name of the offending spammer. Again, if Twitter receives enough @spam notes, they’ll shut the person down.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Cut Out Twitter Spam • Keywords : marbles, microblogging, Twitter •

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: marbles, microblogging, twitter

Two Rules for Marketing

May 14, 2009 By Mike Seidle

In marketing there are only really two rules:

Do something (legal).
Do it better next time.

Since only about 20% of companies have a blog, the vast majority of companies are breaking rule one. Of the 20% that do have a blog, rule 2 is a problem, probably because it’s hard to get posts online with a full business schedule. One key to getting long term ROI from your blog is to focus on continuous improvement. Here are a few places you can look to improve:

Repeat Visitors: Is the number of repeat visitors going up or is it stuck? Repeat visits are key to building traffic, and with traffic comes leads and sales.

Engagement: What percentage of your visitors make a comment, email you or share an article? Are they just reading or are they participating?

Links: How often are your articles referenced by other bloggers and mentioned on social networks and forums? Links are critical to getting traffic and higher rank on Google because they show your site is a trusted authority.

Quality: What grade would an English professor give your posts? Are you getting straight A’s or not?

Conversions: Are you consistently getting leads from every article you post? Is that number trending up or down?

Topic Effectiveness: Look at how well your blog performs based on the topic you write about. Eliminate under performers.

What do you think the most important metrics are to help drive continuous improvement on your blog?

Filed Under: Blogging, Business Blogging Content Tagged With: blog, blogging, business blogging

9 Things Government Agencies Can Do To Improve Emergency Communication

May 12, 2009 By Erik Deckers

I was sitting in a local restaurant a couple weeks ago when I saw the news that a swine flu outbreak had been confirmed in Mexico and California. It was the news I had been afraid of for the last three years, after spending more than a year as the Risk Communication Director at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH), training for a flu pandemic, and learning how to communicate to the public during a major crisis.

So I waited for an official response from the ISDH, since we had worked on this for so long. And I waited. And waited.

I didn’t hear anything until Sunday, and after that, I didn’t hear as much as I had hoped for. I got most of my news from the national news outlets, and occasionally the Indianapolis news stations and Indianapolis Star. I saw barely a blip on social media, and a Google search for local information showed that more information was coming from the county health departments, rather than the state one.

It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback, but as a professional communicator and someone who helped develop the ISDH’s crisis communication plan, I can see where there is room for improvement. So, these are nine tips any state agency, or even large corporation, can use to communicate during an emergency or crisis.

1) Jump out in front of the communication wave. When the first news of the swine flu — excuse me, H1N1 — hit on that Friday, there was no news from the state until Sunday afternoon, 48 hours later. After that, they seemed to spend the rest of their time playing catchup, rarely pushing news out to the media, and letting the local health departments get their news out first. As the state’s voice for public health, the ISDH should have been the primary source for the news, not the locals.

The core principles of CERC (Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication) are Be First. Be Right. Be Credible. They’re the guiding principles anyone trained in crisis communication understands and practices. By missing out on the first one, the ISDH never had the chance to be the other two. (You can download a PDF of the CDC’s CERC – First 48 Hours Checklist here.)

2) Create a series of communication and press release templates. Or at least a formula. Most of the initial communication in any crisis is pretty standard. You can guess what the situation is going to be (“swine flu has been found in the state; this is what we know; this is what you can do to prevent getting it”), create a basic press release with some fill-in-the-blank answers, and fill them in when the crisis finally hits. This will save time in trying to write one in the heat of the moment. If you just have a formula, you will at least know what information should go into the press release, and can write it with a minimal effort.

3) Call the emergency what other people are calling it. People and the media started referring to this outbreak as “swine flu,” and it was only financial concerns from the pork industry that made the news people change their designation to “H1N1.” Calling it the “North American Human Influenza” strain will not improve your search engine rankings, and will only confuse the public. At the very least, stick with “H1N1,” so people in the news media recognize what you’re talking about. Use the language people use, not the scientific jargon the scientists are using.

4) Set up a Twitter account for only one agency. The ISDH and the Department of Homeland Security (IDHS) split up an account, which made it unclear to the public who was actually controlling the message, and who was the best resource for information. As a result, nothing was posted very frequently, and the ISDH missed out on a valuable communication outlet. Twitter would have been a valuable tool in the communication toolbox, but it was used improperly and too infrequently, and thus, they missed a huge opportunity to counter public misperceptions and misinformation.

5) Follow the public on Twitter. The ISDH_IDHS Twitter account only follows 21 people, while it has 500 followers. The 21 Twitterers they were following? News sources — some local, some national, including the Associated Press, New York Times, and a health reporter. Problem is, the AP has had no updates that I could see, the health reporter rarely uses Twitter, and the New York Times is, well, in New York. What this tells me is that the ISDH is getting their news from the news sources, not the other way around. Meanwhile, I created a group on TweetDeck for people talking about swine flu in Indiana. I answered questions, referred people to resources, and countered bad information. Something the ISDH should have been doing from the outset.

6) Use social media to communicate directly with the public. It’s important to use traditional media, because they’re still an important way to reach people. But newspapers are failing, there are too many radio stations, and TV news is not always on at a convenient time, while people use social media all the time. They use their computers throughout the day, when they can’t watch TV or listen to the radio, and newspapers are only published the following day.

7) Create a website specifically for the event. An issue-specific website will contain updates and much-needed answers, and it becomes the information clearinghouse for everything related to the issue. The Indiana State Health Department (ISDH) created a website at http://h1n1.in.gov, but it doesn’t have very much information, and usually points people away from the site to sites like the CDC. In essence, it says “we’re not the experts, everyone else is.” So much for “being credible.”

8) Get an issue-specific domain name. If possible, purchase a domain name with the issue and your state or city: www.indianaswineflu.com, www.fortwaynehepatitis.com, etc., and send everyone there. An issue-specific domain name helps with name recognition and search results.

9) Use a blog. Seventy-seven percent of all Internet users read at least one blog, so these things are here to stay. They’re a great way to create short, quick updates that don’t require five levels of editing and committee approval. Post press releases, figures and statistics, and answers to frequently asked questions. Tie that domain name into the blog, and you’re all done. Blogging can be done in 200-word posts that can be done quickly and easily, by anyone who has a modicum of writing skill. In the crisis communication model, a single writer can work with a subject matter to write a post and be done with it. Or in some cases, write one paragraph updating the number of confirmed cases and tagging on the boiler plate language of prevention and flu hotlines, and you’re done. Takes 10 minutes tops, and the public and the media now has a source for news they can rely on.

Another CERC principle is to create the communication plans and procedures NOW. Don’t wait until the emergency is on you to start these things up. The relative weakness of the swine flu was a shot across the public health bow. And for the most part, public health responded admirably. While the number of cases are growing, we’re not facing a raging outbreak, because of the extensive planning and response by the CDC, the Public Health and Emergency Response, and the local health departments and hospitals. We’re not out of the woods yet, and there’s still a lot to do, but it’s not too late to respond to this threat, and there’s plenty of time to get ready for the next one.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : 9 Things Government Agencies Can Do To Improve Emergency Communication • Keywords : CERC, crisis communication, social media, government, first responders, H1N1 •

Filed Under: Citizen Journalism, crisis communication, Facebook, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: blogging, CERC, crisis communication, first responders, government, H1N1, Social Media, swine flu, twitter

Are Your Customers Talking About You? Five Ways to Find Out

May 7, 2009 By Erik Deckers

In our last post, we talked about how Twitter helped start a revolution in Moldova, and how the ruling Communist party was caught unaware that any protest was going to begin until it actually began.

People are talking about your organization, whether you know it or not. The Communists were not following any discussion on Twitter or social media, and were completely caught off-guard by the protests. The best way to find out if someone is talking about your company on social media? Use social media.

So how can you find out whether people are talking about your company or not? Can you even measure it? There are a few basic ways that any social media practitioner uses:

Plain ol’ Google – We’ll start with the most obvious one. Just type in your company name, product name, or even your name, and see what comes up. If you’ve done nothing else online, hopefully your website and a Google map came up. If it didn’t, learn search engine optimization and start blogging super quick and fix this.

Google News Alert – If you like what you see in your Google search (i.e. not “nothing”), you can set up a Google Alert to let you know whenever your name, your company, your product or industry have appeared in a news article, website, and even blog. We use Google Alerts to monitor issues in our industry, see what our clients are up to, and to even see where our own names are appearing (we’re very needy that way).

Twitter searches – We use Twitterment.com, TwitterFall.com, and of course, Twitter’s own search feature. Twitterment does a keyword search, especially in a Twitter bio, so you can find people based on their background or interests. TwitterFall lets you search for keywords and then drops them on a website page for you to see (TweetDeck’s search feature will do the same thing, but without the clunky web interface.), and Twitter search will look at every tweet for your search term.

Radian6 – A social media measurement service that actually seeks out and tabulates social media conversations people are having on Twitter, blogs, and other social networking sites. It’s a subscription-based service. We use it for some of our clients here, and have been able to not only find conversations about their topic, but find out who started it, how much of a social reach they had, and determine what the potential impact a positive or negative message could have on them.

Bloglines – Search blogs and get the results emailed to you. It works a lot like Google Alerts, but delivers the results to your home page and RSS feeds, rather than your email (Google Alerts can only send results to your email).

So what did you find? Are people talking about you? Are they saying mean and nasty things about your horrid lack of customer service, or are they singing your praises because you deliver more than you promise, you’re on time, and provide a great value?

Or did you find nothing? If you’re a glass-half-empty kind of person, that’s great, because no one is saying anything bad about you.

On the other hand, if you’re a marketer, this is awful news, because no one is talking about you! You are NOT the subject of anyone’s conversations. You have barely made a dent in the mindshare of your market. And you’re probably destined for more of the same until your company shuts down, which may be any time now.

If you want to jumpstart a conversation about your company, now is the time to start blogging and participating in social media. Read this blog, read Kyle Lacy’s blog, read Doug Karr’s blog. Or you can even give us a call.

Just start doing something right away.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Are Your Customers Talking About You? Five Ways to Find Out • Keywords : google analytics, Social Media Analytics •

Filed Under: Blog ROI, Blogging, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: google analytics, social media analytics

If Twitter Can Topple a Government, Think About What It Will Do to Your Business

May 6, 2009 By Erik Deckers

Corporate Twitter Haters, take note: Twitter may be responsible for toppling the Moldovan government.

Okay, not directly responsible. I mean, they’re not even making a profit, so there’s no way they can foment unrest in a small foreign government. But someone sure did.

In April, in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, angry protesters descended on the city square, believing the latest elections were rigged to keep the Communist Party in power.

They’re calling it the Twitter Revolution.

It started when some of Moldova’s progressive youth got, as political pundits around the world put it, “wicked pissed” that the Communists won again. So six young people in a Chisinau café decided to do something about it. They called up a flashmob and spread the word with Twitter and Facebook.

In two days, 10,000 – 20,000 of their closest friends –– roughly 1.5% – 3% of Chisinau’s population –– descended on Piata Marii Adunari Nationale square (#PMAN on Twitter’s trend searches). Windows were broken, buildings were stormed, including the Moldovan Parliament, and people were just generally unhappy.

If nothing else shows the power of social media, think about this fact again: Six angry people grew to 20,000 in two days.

The government tried shutting down the cell phone towers in the square, a trick they learned from the Ukrainian protests, but the protesters ran outside the no-coverage area, or –– get this –– used the free wifi at a nearby McDonald’s. (I won’t even go into the fairness of free wifi at a Moldovan McDonald’s, while we have to pay for it here.)

No one is sure what will happen in Moldova. The riots are over, the Communists have promised to look into allegations of impropriety (“let me guard the hen house,” said the fox), and there is an uneasy peace over Chisinau. But if things don’t get fixed to the protesters’ satisfaction, don’t be surprised if it starts up again.

So what lessons (warnings?) can American companies apply to their own business?

People are talking about your organization, whether you know it or not. The Communists were not following any discussion on Twitter or social media, and were completely caught off-guard by the protests. The best way to find out if someone is talking about your company on social media? Use social media.

People will find a way to talk about you, even if you try to stop them. Whether you moderate comments on your blog (you shouldn’t), or you have the Legal department write all kinds of nasty letters to people who talk about you (don’t bother), people are still going to talk about you. Only then they’ll have two stories to tell: the thing that made them angry, and you trying to stop them from talking.

Your employees will find a way around “no social media” rules. The Moldovan government shut off cell phone towers in the PMAN square, so what did the protesters do? Ran outside the coverage area, sent their messages, and went back. Your employees will continue to use social media, only they’ll do it after work, they’ll do it anonymously, or if you’re particularly draconian, they’ll go do it for someone else instead.

If you piss off enough people, you’ll be replaced. Forget revolutions and mutinies among your employees. What about your customers? If you can’t solve their problem, or don’t give them a place to air their grievances, they’re going to replace you by buying from your competition and then dissing you online.

Word of mouth has been replaced by social media. Sure, it’s still called word of mouth, but we called it that before there was ever an Internet, because that’s how we spread the news. If you had a bad experience with a company, you’d tell a few people. Now, with blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, our mouths have gotten bigger. Now, you can tell a few thousand people. And if those few thousand people are suitably connected, they can each tell a few thousand people too. And pretty soon, you’ll have 20,000 angry protesters descending on your square, making life a little uncomfortable for you.

Filed Under: Blogging, News, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: Moldova, revolution, Social Media, social networking, twitter

Your Company Should Not Use Social Media. Ever.

May 5, 2009 By Erik Deckers

Okay, maybe your company should, but not some of the more. . . tightly-clenched companies we’ve seen.

(Yeah, I realize we just pulled the social media equivalent of “SEX! Now that I have your attention. . .”, but this article truly is about social media.)

BL Ochman, over at the What’s Next blog, wrote a great post about why certain companies shouldn’t be on Twitter. A few reasons include “every Tweet has to be approved by Legal,” and “you are not going to respond when people direct Tweets at you.”

We see this a lot at Pro Blog Service. There are companies who want to enter the social media realm, but they shouldn’t.

With apologies to BL Ochman, here is our own list of reasons your company should not be doing social media.

You have to deal with Legal or Regulatory Compliance issues. Ochman may have said it, but it bears repeating. A lot. I’ve had to deal with Legal departments in the past, and at best, they’re mild annoyances. But when they feel they need to actually dictate the marketing message, they become a roadblock to everything. That’s when the Marketing Department either needs to turn control of marketing to Legal, or ask for the rights to edit and rewrite all legal briefs. Then point them to Alexander Kjerulf’s post about BMW’s latest ads about how bureaucracy sucks.

You don’t have the time to invest in it.We tell people all the time that you should spend at least 1 hour on social media per day. Every day. Week in, week out. Yes, you can take a break once in a while, but don’t let that break turn into a regular pattern of not doing anything. An abandoned blog or rarely-used Twitter account will wreck any social media goodwill you have gained. People will believe that you can’t stay committed to anything, whether it’s social media, or even customer service. (And yes, people do make this illogical leap, and then tell their own social networks about it.)

When you’re in the middle of a crisis. Let’s face it, if you find yourself smack in the middle of a crisis, you’re too late. Domino’s learned that the hard way, after some employees posted a gross-out video on YouTube on April 13. Domino’s had a YouTube video and Twitter account ready to combat the negative fallout. Two days later. That’s right, Domino’s didn’t react to this PR nightmare for nearly two business days. Long enough for 1 MILLION people to see it on YouTube. Long enough that Google searches for “Domino’s” brought mention of the video up in 5 of the first 12 results. The time to set up social media is now, before a crisis or emergency hits, not after it does. Still, better late than never, so if you find yourself embroiled in a crisis, grab the closest recent-college-grad, plunk them in the PR department, and put them in charge of your social media response.

You don’t want to track the ROI. Actually, this isn’t a bad thing, but measuring ROI is something we take seriously in the social media world. We measure things. We determine its effectiveness. We leave un-measurability and the “we’re just building the brand” excuses to PR and billboard companies. But not tracking the ROI often leads people to believe that 1) social media is not working, or that 2) something else resulted in the increased sales. If you want to be sure, measure it.

Your IT department has a stranglehold on what websites and services the entire company can use. This one isn’t a deal-breaker, but when it comes a showdown between your department and the IT department, you’d better hope IT blinks first. Most IT departments take a Theory X “if you have fun, you’re not working” view of the rest of the company, and won’t allow anyone access to anything not directly related to work or occupational torture. For example, several months ago, one state government agency’s commissioner released an important public service announcement through YouTube, yet no one in the entire 900+ person agency was able to see the video, because the IT department blocked all access to YouTube, except for the one person who was able to upload it. If you want to get past the IT roadblock, make sure you have buy-in from someone with enough authority and firepower to make IT do their bidding.

Author : Erik Deckers • Content Location : Indianapolis, IN • Headline : Your Company Should Not Use Social Media. Ever. • Keywords : Crisis Communication, Domino's, google analytics, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, Twitter •

Filed Under: Blogging, Lead Generation, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, Social Networks Tagged With: crisis communication, Domino's, google analytics, Public Relations, Social Media, social media analytics, twitter

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