It has been a very eventful and educational year at SMCpros.  Tim, Tyler, and I launched SMCpros a year ago this week with the vague premise that we could ‘help people understand and use social media’ (however that would pan out).  True, it was a very simple vision at that time (and probably sounds a little naive to outsiders and traditional business minds), but how the heck else could you approach such a thing as social media? At the rate at which things change in this industry, you really have to just play it by ear and be confident enough in your abilities to adapt, multi-task, fix, jerry-rig, bend, break, scrap, sketch, wait, ignore, test, exclude, A/B test, and extinguish fires with an ounce of charisma and a pound of foresight.  Remembering that we have no control over the development, execution, and support of third party platforms and applications allows us to maintain our sanity in a world of what seems like quarterly planned obsolescence…Not to mention that most web 2.0 products lack the same partner services that other IT and Enterprise IT companies provide to organizations interfacing between consumers and their products.

When the three of us came together to start a company, we each had very diverse backgrounds and interests that all hovered around a common interest in the web 2.0 space. I think what has really allowed us to differentiate ourselves is that we came to the table with no pre-conceived notions of what a social media company “should” look like…We simply started with one client, then two, then three, and so on — continually growing along the way. Each new project challenged us to figure out how to effectively ‘nail jell-o to the wall’ long enough to explain, educate, and train clients how to start at step 7 rather than square 1 (considering the rate at which an already overwhelming industry changes directions).

The ultimate question that we had to solve was how to remain relevant while not watering down social media so much so that clients wrote it off as a trend, but still maintain a level of technicality that would ensure that the market would respect the importance it needed to place on making social related decisions. (LOL) If you can effectively learn, experiment, problem solve, analyze your ‘in hind-sight discoveries’, and simultaneously teach others how to do it along the way, then a career in social media is right up your alley. It’s kind of like asking an artist to analyze the affect their art will have on viewers as he/she creates it on the fly.

There have been a few realities that exposed themselves over the last year. 1) There will always be an aspect of experimentation involved in any social initiative.  Social media is social because it involves people.  People are very social and people are very complex; making it a double whammy. Regularly, you are trying to shoehorn solutions together based on limited information and changing features/capabilities of said platforms and tools.  In the planning process, a feature is appealing, but by the time execution time arrives, the technology slightly changes and the critical aspect of the tool which had persuaded you to move no longer functions with the breadth you’d become enchanted with.  Rather than scrap the entire project, you scramble to figure out the ripple effects of the changes, adapt your game plans, and move forward aware that more changes will arrive in the execution process – (read: expect the unexpected).

Over the past year, a few common questions have remained at the forefront. I for one have learned that you truly have to do different to be different. It all starts with your actions.  All too often, people tell us that they ‘do not want to touch it’ and would rather have somebody else deal with all of their social media. But, this is missing the point. That’s like saying you would rather have somebody else exercise on your behalf for your benefit (Well, duh. Who wouldn’t?).  As ideal as that would be, it just is not physically possible.  You have to get in there and do it yourself to be most effective.  Fortunately, just like exercising, you do not have to be the most knowledgeable, motivated, or experienced person in the gym as you can always rely on others to motivate, educate, and guide your exercise routines.  It is those people who provide the training, coaching, and guidance over time to keep you on track.

As social media continues to grow, there will be a learning curve as late adopters try to hop onto the scene.  From a cultural studies perspective, the thing that fascinates me is that social media will just be an innate form of communication for future generations (just like past generations stepped right into telephones and AIM).  In the interim, questions will continue to arise, tools will continue to evolve, and problems solved.

Thank you to everybody who has helped us along the way. What started as helping people understand and use social media has grown into strategic development, implementation, advertising, training, monitoring, reporting, and many more services.

Who knows what day 730 will look like? Thanks for reading!

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Having taken a break from blogging, I am flooded with all of the cool things I could possibly write about.  Everything from f8, Chirp, Google I/O, Facebook Privacy issues, “Pants On The Ground”, and the new Ford Explorer Fan Page campaign all come to mind.  Considering all these more well-known items, I think I’m going to point out some of the less popular social media insights I’ve gained this spring; each cool nonetheless!

Did you know that you have to be a partner of YouTube to get a custom background?  It’s true.  Did you know such partnership entails spending at least $10,000 in advertising dollars or having a bajillion (yes) video views (read: be a video superstar). Want that custom background? Spend some money or go viral…

Did you know that you can hyper-target Facebook advertisements to people who work at specific companies? Yes, you can do that!  Imagine wanting to advertise your product to everybody working at a major retailer to 1) get exposure and possible customers and 2) attract a following at said retailer with the hopes that they contact you to carry your product in their store(s)..! Yes, it’s plausible – and fairly inexpensive (if you do it right).

Were you aware of the ability to have a customized landing page on your Fan Page?  The programming language is FBML (Facebook Markup Language — from HTML fame) and it allows you to create rich, graphic intensive and custom branded tabs for fans and prospective fans to view.  With a little ‘magic’, you can even have it set up to immediately display the custom welcome tab to anybody who is not already a fan of your fan page.

Lastly, did you know that I have an Evo? Yep! That’s true as well…and I highly recommend you getting your hands on one.

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While you watch tonight’s Super Bowl game, keep an eye on your favorite television ads.  I bet you will see many of them mention Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, and FourSquare within the ads.  This is a great way for companies to direct a lot of consumers to quickly connect with them through social media.  I’d also keep your eyes peeled for actual sites being used or poked fun at in commercial parodies.  With this many people around the world watching television tonight, you can bet those who are social media savvy will be chomping at the bit to let the world know they have Fan Pages and Twitter accounts.

…Go Colts!

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This week’s (January 30th – February 5th 2010) issue of The Economist did a special report on Social Networking. Reading through a few of their special report articles helped me realize that no matter how much time we at SMCpros spend in social media, it is still such a young piece of global culture. Reading through the special report also helped prove to me that there really is a clear generational gap between those who get it and those who are still trying to bend social media to fit an old model. I hope that people read this report and continue to participate more in social media until they realize that social media is revolutionary enough to force the world (business and social) to adapt to it (and not vice versa).

Here are a couple of interesting articles regarding social networking and business from The Economist’s special report. Check them out when you have a few minutes:

Profiting from friendship

A peach of an opportunity

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Who’s ready for some Vikings football Sunday night?  I know I am!  For a shorter blog post this week, I thought I would point out some of the players’ social media sites you might want to follow. Keep an eye on tweets coming out of New Orleans before and after the game. This should get you started:

Sidney Rice
Bernard Berrian
Bryant McKinnie
Visanthe Shiancoe

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In December, I donated $5 to Alicia Keys’ Keep A Child Alive foundation by texting “ALIVE” to 90999.  Making the donation was really easy since I could use my cell phone to donate and have the $5 added to my Sprint bill at the end of the month.  The texting process was very straightforward as I texted “ALIVE” to 90999 and immediately received a text asking me to confirm a one time donation billed to my cell phone.  Once I confirmed my intention of donating the money, I received a ‘thank you’ text.

Last week, I received my Sprint bill and wondered how my text message donation would appear.  Beneath my phone number, I read the details of my donation from 12/21/09.  The one time donation was listed as:

“www.MobileGiving.org: Donation – 90999 KpChldAlv Dona – 12/21…$5.00″

As a consumer, it was great to see that my text donation was legitimate and that Sprint correctly billed me the proper amount.  In all honesty, considering the total Sprint Surcharges and the Government Taxes & Fees, the $5 donation was nothing for me to be worried about (it was the least I could do).  It was a pleasure to help the Keep A Child Alive foundation.  I encourage you all to check out one of these text donation services for yourselves.

If you have been active on social media at all this week, you should have noticed the ‘”text ‘HAITI’ to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti” status messages going out.  As a previous user of this 90999 service, I just wanted to let readers know that this is a legitimate service, and as you can see from my Keep A Child Alive experience above, it is a great way to support humanitarian efforts in a matter of seconds.

Social media has really helped the “ALIVE” and “HAITI” initiatives raise awareness, increase donations, and encourage public awareness by making it easy for campaigns to virally spread across the internet.  It is one thing to receive a “Please Donate Money” letter in the mail, but it is an entirely different experience when you receive status message updates from many of your friends showing their support for one of these causes.  For many people, it is far easier to get behind a cause if they know their friends are supporting it as well.  Also, it is much easier to donate money when NOT being aggressively asked to do so.  A tweet, update, or picture is often more effective than an aggressive “just give us money” communication. Remember, even if you do not wish to donate money yourself, you can help raise awareness by copying and pasting the messages above to your own social media.

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Asking questions to your connections, fans, and followers on social media is a great way to increase engagement by creating some easy conversation starters.  I recently posted a question on my Facebook profile and my Twitter account asking people what their first job was, how old they were, and what they learned.  Unexpectedly, my question received responses from 18 different people in the course of a few days.  Not only did I learn some useful information about my connections, I also had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends that I had not talked to in a while…I also had the opportunity to make a new connection on Twitter who stumbled upon my tweet and felt like participating in my “#firstjob” conversation.   Those who responded to my question felt inclined enough to help me with my survey that they took time out of their day to publicly post their answers as tweets or Facebook wall comments.  It was great to see such a response to what seemed as such a simple question.

Take some time to think up your own questions and start posting them to your social media sites.  I’m confident you will not only learn a lot, but you should also begin to see the true value of social media.

Starter questions:

What is the funnest thing you did over the holiday break?

Where is your favorite vacation spot?

What new hobby would you like to take up in 2010?

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Continuing from where I left off with last week’s Social Media Spotlight post, I would like to highlight a few of the different ways Keep A Child Alive uses social media. Depending on the responses I receive, I may go in-depth on each of these in my next blog post.

Website:

You will notice that Keep A Child Alive displays social media tabs (hyperlinks) to their various social media sites under the Get Involved section of their website.

Leveraging the ShareThis feature encourages viewers to distribute web content to their own friends, fans, and connections.

Fan Page:

One of my favorite parts of the Fan Page is the content they share in the Info tab fields.  The information is very informative and describes how Fans can participate in the “Text ‘ALIVE’ to 90999″ campaign.

By keeping the Fan Page wall open, Keep A Child Alive allows and encourages its Fans to engage with them (and other Fans) through Facebook.

Causes:

Providing an in-depth description in the About section of their Causes profile has helped them receive 13,198 members and raise $5,945 through the Causes application.

Twitter:

Using a custom profile background helps influence viewers and followers to participate in the “Text ‘ALIVE’ to 90999″ campaign and makes the profile page feel much more personal.

Distributing various types of content within their 737 tweets has earned Keep A Child Alive 3,908 followers and placed them on 161 lists.

YouTube:

Most importantly, the organization leverages the YouTube Non-Profits profile to set themselves apart from typical users and gives them the ability to receive donations on their site using Google Checkout.

Posting new videos (18 so far) to their channel, Keep A Child Alive has collected 387 subscribers with 26,272 channel views…making them the 93rd most viewed non-profit this month on YouTube.

MySpace:

You will quickly see that they have incorporated the “Text ‘ALIVE’ to 90999″ campaign into their MySpace profile which also provides items available for download (wallpaper, photos, and logos).

A PayPal integration is provided to allow MySpace users to donate directly on the profile page.

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12 – time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys is Co-founder and Global Ambassador to Keep A Child Alive, a global foundation dedicated to providing anti-retroviral treatments and support to children and families within Africa and India affected by HIV/AIDS.

In 2002, Alicia visited Africa on behalf of an invitation to perform there.  While in Africa, she saw and experienced conditions for herself and has since continued to raise awareness for the fight against AIDS.

Leveraging the power of technology and social media, Alicia and Keep A Child Alive (KCA) have developed a fundraising campaign inviting global citizens to text “ALIVE” to 90999 to make a one time $5 donation to KCA via their mobile phones.  In addition to supporting KCA with a $5 donation, those who donate are entered into a drawing to be 1 of 5 people selected to join Alicia on her upcoming visit to Africa.  Winners will spend 5 days in Africa with Alicia.  So far, 250,000 people have donated $5 to KCA via the “ALIVE” campaign.

Integrating the fundraising campaign with their Facebook Fan Page, Causes profile, Twitter account, YouTube channel, MySpace account, and website, KCA is successfully gaining exposure and improving the affects of their fight against HIV/AIDS.

What I like most about the ALIVE campaign is that they are fully leveraging Facebook, Twitter, Causes, YouTube, Myspace, and their website to spread the word and communicate with their supporters.  In addition to having a presence on these sites, KCA leverages products like ShareThis and also uploads videos and pictures to communicate visually with and engage their supporters.

Visit Alicia’s personal website and the various Keep A Child Alive sites to see how they are successfully using social media.  Try to see if you can spot the important parts of their social media efforts and compare them to my next blog post.  Next week, I will do a follow up blog post highlighting various parts of their social media. Comments are highly welcomed!

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Visit YouTube’s non-profit channel to find out how your non-profit organization can leverage YouTube’s video platform to raise awareness, reach millions of viewers, and increase fundraising efforts. Leveraging YouTube in conjunction with Causes can drastically influence your non-profit’s online reach by integrating with the most popular social media platforms used today.

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