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Social Media is NOT an Entry Level Position

I’m shocked at the number of companies who let interns and entry-level employees manage their social media efforts.

They do it because they believe social media is a young person’s game, and not for the geezers in management. That’s got to be one of the worst hiring decisions a company could make.

I was reading a February 2010 post from Chris Kieff on the ROI of Social Media. Chris looked at what happens when social media is handed over to an intern, who is usually working for class credit and no pay.

VP, “Why is everyone doing spending so much time on social networks? We need more productivity!”

Manager, “We are learning about how to use them and starting to see some positive results.”

VP, “What’s the ROI of the time we’ve spent so far?”

Manager, “We’ve… ummm… got the training wheels on and are just starting to understand how to use social media. We don’t have a formal ROI measurement system in place yet.”

VP, “Well it’s clear that all this social media crap is overblown B.S. I’m telling IT to shut down Facebook and Twitter so people can get back to work.”

It’s real simple: managing social media is not for kids. It’s not for rookies. It’s not for 20-year-olds who remembered to delete their drunken Facebook photos two weeks before the interview that landed them their internship.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that interns and entry-level employees should not do social media. I’m not even saying they’re bad people. They just shouldn’t be in charge of it. Think of it this way:

  • You don’t let the new PR associate do media interviews during a company crisis.
  • The marketing intern does not oversee your entire marketing campaign, or even a new product launch.
  • The corporate attorney defending your company in a civil suit didn’t finish law school three months ago.
  • The new HR staffer is not responsible for finding and implement the new employee insurance program.
  • And you certainly don’t let the VP of Finance’s niece, fresh out of business school, make C-level decisions.

So why on earth would you let a 22-year-old college grad handle one of the most public-facing communication channels your corporation is going to have? Other than PR and traditional marketing, there is no other channel that reaches so many people so permanently as social media. And you want to give it to some rookie who can’t use the phrase “in my experience” without cracking everyone else up?

At least with corporate PR and marketing, your professionals have the benefit of years of experience and knowledge. But when you appoint a recent college grad to manage your social media, you’re handing the megaphone to someone with no real work experience or a sense of corporate responsibility, and letting them speak to the entire online community (and beyond) in real-time.

Someone asks a question on your Facebook with 10,000 followers, the social media coordinator answers. The questioner gets a little snotty, so the SMC takes her response up a notch, and the whole thing turns into a pissing match in about 5 minutes, and hits the blogosphere two days later, and the mainstream media a week after that. Do you really want to hand that megaphone to someone who doesn’t even understand message creation, let alone how to handle an angry customer or avoid turning it into an embarrassing gaffe that you can hear about on NPR as you drive into work? (Don’t think it won’t happen, because it has happened several times to other corporations in the last two years.)

I think it’s a big mistake when any business, but especially the large corporations, hires anyone with less than five years of real-world, full-time work experience to manage all of their social media efforts. To be fair, I know some truly brilliant young 20-somethings who could make a corporate social media marketing campaign succeed, but they’re few and far between. The really good ones have their own agencies and are making more money there than they would working for you. So you get to choose from everyone else.

Social media is not just for young people. Social media is not only for the hip and the technologically-advanced. It’s for people who understand how to speak to your company’s customers and shareholders. It’s for people who have gravitas and professionalism. It’s for people who know that social media is an important channel of communication that can reach thousands or even millions. It’s for people who truly understand marketing and PR.

If you’re thinking about social media for your company, and one of your first thoughts is you need someone young to manage it, stop right there. You’re better off avoiding social media altogether than risking a bigger backlash by hiring someone who stares at you blankly when you make an OJ Simpson comment.

So am I offbase? Any workplace veterans — especially marketers and PR folks — who think you should give the newbies the keys to the social media car? Any interns or entry-level professionals who think I’m full of it, and that you have the experience and professionalism to handle your corporation’s social media campaign? Leave a comment and let’s continue the discussion.

Photo credit: Allio (Flickr)

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“My Customers Don’t Use Social Media” and Other Lame Excuses

Fellow social media pro Jay Baer, and author of The Now Revolution, is busting some social media myths with his latest post, Destroying the 7 Myths of B2B Social Media.

My favorite busted myth was “My Customers Don’t Use Social Media”. I hear that one a lot from businesspeople.

“That’s interesting,” I said to a business person once. “How do you know?”

“Well, because I don’t use it,” said this otherwise-intelligent business owner.

I wanted to say, “You drive a sedan. Does that mean all your customers buy sedans? You have two kids. Do all your customers have two kids?” But I didn’t, because I’m a nice guy.

However, had I known what Jay knows, I would have instead offered some pretty interesting statistics instead:

According to the recent Social Technographics® report from Forrrester, 81% of U.S. adults with an Internet connection use social media in some form or function. Further, last year’s Forrester study of B2B technology buyers found that they use social media nearly twice as much as U.S. adults overall.

In other words, if 67% of US homes have broadband access,, 81% of them are on a social network, or 54.27% of people with broadband access are on a social network.

That’s half your customers, half your vendors, half your competitors. And if social media is so cheap to use, and your competitors are already on there, they’re reaching your vendors and your customers more efficiently, more frequently, and more effectively than you are.

Don’t assume that just because you don’t use social media means that the rest of your customers are waiting to join social networks until you do. Just because you do or don’t do something doesn’t mean your customers will follow suit.

If you want more proof, Jay recommended that you take your customer email list, and see which of them are active on different social media accounts by using Flowtown or Gist.

Another way to see whether your customers are using social media is to do the following:

  1. Create a new Gmail account with your company name or your name. (You should do this if you’re trying Flowtown or Gist too.)
  2. Upload your entire customer list to Gmail. (Don’t worry, your original is still safe.) Merge any duplicates.
  3. Create a Twitter account (Twitter.com) or LinkedIn account.
  4. You’ll be prompted to import your email list to see which of your contacts are on that network. Follow those instructions and connect your Gmail account.
  5. Start connecting with/following anyone in your list.

Those are the people who are using Twitter and LinkedIn. My guess is that at least 25% of your list will be found on those two networks, and possibly more.

So why aren’t you communicating with your customers on this channel? It’s cheaper than any advertising or trade shows. It’s more effective than traditional marketing. It targets your audience better than direct mail. It’s new enough that people are still paying attention to it. And it’s got enough acceptance that it’s not going away.

Basically, if you think your customers don’t use this because you don’t like it, you’re making a big mistake. Social media is not going to go away, and it’s only going to get bigger. People said the same thing about the Internet, computers in the workplace, fax machines, and telephones. But newer, more technologically-daring companies are willing to try these things, and they’re going to leave you in the dust.

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Five Blogging Secrets for Lawyers

We speak to a lot of lawyers about how they can use blogging to help promote their practice without violating their state’s marketing guidelines. Many attorneys are realizing that social media is a great legal marketing tool, and many of them are trying to learn how to use it.

The problem a lot of attorneys have in their marketing is that they are not allowed to use “competitive” language — we’re the best, we’re better, or ranked number one in our field — and they can’t offer guarantees. This means they have to tread carefully on their TV and phone book ads. That’s why you hear/read things like “tell them you mean business,” “we fight for you,” and “we don’t handle anything except personal injury.”

We’ve found that many attorneys are wary about blogging, but that it’s the smaller firms who are quick to embrace it. The larger, older firms are still not too sure whether they want to get mixed up in it, which means the small firms are getting there first, and finding great success in leaving the larger firms behind.

The biggest reasons for lawyers to blog are to show up higher in search engines (many people are turning away from Yellow Pages and doing searches for things like attorneys via Google), and to demonstrate to clients that they have the ability and knowledge to handle their particular needs. (We’ll discuss why attorneys need to blog at a later date.)

Here are five ways lawyers can blog without violating their state’s marketing rules

  • Talk about legal news. Talk about things happening in your state or other states. This helps you keep up with what’s going on in your community
  • Talk about developments in your field. If you work in intellectual property, talk about intellectual property news. If you work in personal injury, talk about personal injury law. This shows that you keep up with developments in your field, showing potential clients that you’re working to stay up-to-date with important information.
  • Write case studies. Check out important cases in the news (not your own, since you have to worry about attorney-client privilege), and do an analysis of the ramifications of that case. This is especially important as you discuss cases in your field.
  • Review basic laws for potential clients. We do this for one client — we talk about local and state laws that might affect citizens of that state, like how local vandalism laws might affect their Halloween pranks, tailgating laws in time for football season, and what to do if you want to start a business.
  • Answer legal questions from readers. Address some interesting or unknown points, teach people a little about the law, and give basic guidance to people so they understand how to pursue their legal questions further. I understand you can’t give legal advice, so it will be important to point out that this is not advice, but is used for educational purposes.

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Not Every Social Media Consultant Knows What They’re Doing

I was tweeting with my friend and fellow social media consultant, Dana Nelson, a couple nights ago about a business presentation she was sitting in, when she quoted this piece of advice from the presenter.

“Posting your business on other business sites is lame – tagging business/ cross marketing does not work.”

Wait, what? Who said that, the business professor from Back to School?

Cross-posting doesn’t work? Creating visible partnerships is lame? Creating a referral network is ineffectual?

Look, there are a lot, a lot, a loooooooot of social media consultants out there. And they don’t all know what they’re talking about. It worries me that these people are spreading poor information out there. It’s like a volunteer sheriff’s deputy telling people you can’t be arrested for drunk driving if you’re wearing your seat belt. (Caution: You can be arrested for drunk driving, even if you are wearing your seat belt.)

And this 16-word piece of misinformation is a doozy, and so wrong in so many ways.

  • It’s a widely accepted fact in search engine optimization circles that promoting a business site on another site is going to give me some big search engine juice. Anyone who understands basic SEO knows that backlinks are what give your site a high search engine ranking.
  • Coke and McDonald’s would disagree with your views on cross-marketing. As would Pizza Hut and Pepsi. Or any movie studio with Happy Meal Toys and Burger King Kids’ Meal Toys. Or BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon. And any sponsors of any NASCAR or Indy Car racing team.
  • People buy from people they like, and accept recommendations from people they trust. If Dana recommends a good restaurant to visit, I’m going to believe her. Why? Because I like her and trust her. It’s the same with businesses. If a business I trust recommends the services of another business, I’m going to believe them. The smart thing for small businesses to do is to team up with allied businesses.
  • There are more business networking experts than there are social media experts (as hard as that is to believe). Nearly all of them will shout the praises of networking, referral sharing, and cross-promoting. And I’ll believe business networking experts who measure their experience in years and decades, not weeks and months.

This is just one of many reasons why you need to screen your so-called social media “expert” before you hire them. Especially if they blather on with inane bits of advice like this.

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5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

For example, Scotland is cutting £2 million ($3.1 million) for the arts. The National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and Scottish Opera are all facing cuts of 10% in government funding.

This all got me to wondering how arts organizations could use social media to promote themselves, and find additional fans, attendees, and donors.

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is one of the largest arts organizations in Indiana.

There are only a few arts organizations using social media, but with social media’s explosive growth, the organizations that aren’t are missing a great opportunity.

While you may think that social media is only for young people, this is a fallacy that has long been disproved. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women, age 50 – 60. If that demographic fits within your core audience, shouldn’t you be trying to reach them? And what better place to do it than where they are already?

Second, if your core audience is people in their 50s and 60s, don’t you want to try to reach a younger audience? Otherwise, your audience will get smaller and smaller as they retire, move away, and die. If a younger audience is using social media, then you should try to reach them in their world, instead of forcing them to come to yours. They haven’t come yet, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

    1. Set up a blog and give readers a behind-the-scenes look at your organization. Your blog should be more than just a press release center. Don’t just make it a place to dump all your promotional information. Post photos of rehearsals. Let staff, actors, and performers post their thoughts on performances. Post diary-like reflections of preparing for an upcoming show or performance.
    2. Create podcasts of musical performances.If you’re a musical organization, create a regular podcast, and make that available to the public. People can listen to past performances and get an idea of what you sound like. But if you think “if people hear us on a podcast, they won’t want to come,” that’s untrue. (Did you know that was the argument by orchestras against selling sheet music, the Victrola, and radio?) The New York and Chicago Philharmonics have shows on public radio stations around the country, and the Indianapolis Symphony has a highlights show on WFYI, our local public radio station, and yet they still get people to attend. If anything, when people hear a performance, it makes them want to see it live.
    3. Create videos of performances. If you are a performing arts organization, try posting videos from past performances on YouTube, and then putting them up on your blog. This is especially true for visual performances, like dance and theatre troupes. This will let people know the kind of thing they can expect when they attend one of your performances. And if they like what they see online, they’ll want to be a part of the experience, and attend a show.
    4. Create a Facebook page for your organization. If there was a single social networking tool that was made for arts organizations, Facebook is it. Not only does it have the largest population of social media users (500 million people around the world), but it’s ideally suited for posting or reposting content from other sites. You can repost your blog content, videos, and photos to your Facebook page. You can ask your members and attendees to join, communicate with them directly, ask them to tell their friends, which will bring in new Facebook friends.
    5. Share your contacts with other organizations. Yeah, I saved this point for last, because a lot of you will think I’m crazy. But think about it for a minute: your biggest competitors are not the other performing arts organizations in the area, it’s television, movies, restaurants, and general laziness. You probably don’t share members, so you’re not competing for the same dollars. But sharing contacts could be a benefit to both organizations. For one thing, you can introduce dance fans to the music that supports the dancers. You can introduce theater goers to dance, another visual art form. And as you cross-pollinate your membership, both organizations will benefit, rather than steal members.How can you cross-promote with another organization?
      • Do a feature of each other in your respective blogs.
      • Promote ticket sales (buy one of ours, get one of theirs for 50% off).
      • Do a joint performance, like their orchestra playing for your opera. Have their chamber quartet play at your museum event.
      • “Like” their Facebook page, and encourage your Facebook friends to like it as well. Ask them to reciprocate.

      By combining your social media efforts, you can double your efforts, introduce a whole new audience — who is already predisposed to appreciating the performing arts — to your organization. The result is you’ll be able to add new audience members to each organization, and strengthen both.

What is your organization doing? Are you using social media, or do you want to try using it? And if you’re not in an arts organization, how have you seen other organizations using it?

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Rules for Being a Media Blogger

This was originally posted at the DeckersMarketing.com blog on May 28, 2009.

I was really honored to be selected as a media blogger for the Indianapolis 500 this year (I’m covering it at my Laughing Stalk humor blog). I’m sitting up here with a lot of local talent, although there are a lot of empty seats right now (I’m in Dennis Neal’s seat from WLW radio in Cincinnati).

I learned a long time ago that there are a couple of unwritten (and written) rules for media people. And if you’re interested in being a guest blogger for a sports team or major event, you need to follow these rules. They’re the same ones the big-J Journalists follow every day. (“Big-J Journalist” implies that these people are serious journalists who make their living writing and producing important work. These guys look down on bloggers, because we’re not serious or well accepted in journalistic circles.)

  1. Never geek out. You were probably invited because you’ve got a passion for writing and for the team you’re covering. However, you’re the media now. You’re not a fanboy who bumped into your favorite player at a McDonald’s. Play it cool, be mature, and don’t try to be their buddy. You’re there to get a story, just like the real Journalists (see, I even used a big J), so act your age and get it done.
  2. Never ask for autographs or photos. My friend Amanda, who writes Red Hot Mama, the Cincinnati Reds/National League Central fan blog, said she once tried to get some media credentials for a Reds game, and was told it would never happen. It seems the year before, they allowed a blogger into the locker room, but the guy geeked out and asked for autographs and photos with the players. The guy turned into a total fanboy and gave the PR staff the only reason they would ever need to not invite bloggers to cover the team again. Now, we can argue the Reds are missing some great PR and coverage, but until that PR director leaves, he’s willing to give it up to avoid the hassles and headaches.
  3. Blogging is not big-J Journalism. And it never will be if you don’t act like it. Sure there are writers like Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, and even political writers like Matt Drudge and the Daily Kos are all professional bloggers and speakers. They take their reputations and brands seriously, and work hard to make blogging an accepted form of media. If you’re going to be a serious blogger — and maybe we should start calling ourselves big-B Bloggers — write your blog as if you have a serious brand to promote.
  4. On the other hand, you’re not there to write fluff either. Don’t feel like you have to be the company yes man on anything. I was eating lunch today with a reporter who had also been a blogger for his newspaper. He wrote a not-so-nice post about one of the racers and his wife last year, and was griped at by the racer’s staff via email. While he is no longer blogging for his paper, he is still employed by them. He still writes critical pieces if he needs to, and realizes he’s not there to be the PR mouthpiece of the racers or their teams. The takeaway: if you find or see something that could be seen as negative, write about it anyway. Do it respectfully, and treat it like a big-J Journalist would. Write the facts, keep your opinion out of it, and be a professional.

Bloggers are still getting a bad rap from most of the mainstream media as being an unreliable source of news. And it will be, until we change our reputation and quality of work. That, and when the newspapers all go out of business, and network news is replaced by cable news and, well, blogs.

Until that time, as you grow your reputation and reach as a quality Big-B Blogger, practice journalistic techniques. Read books on newspaper writing (it’s still the gold standard of writing quality and ability), use Associated Press writing style, and study as many newspaper writers as you can.

But most importantly, for the love of God, don’t geek out.