People frequently tell me they plan on taking on an intern to manage their social media. An inner part of me cringes every time I hear this because I know I have failed to explain the importance and power of social media to them in a way they can understand.

Yes, I am a biased opinion. I am convinced though that social media is one of the most effective ways of reaching a large audience. Additionally, social media represents a new twist in Marketing… everything said on social media is permanently archived forever in an easy to search manner. Talk about what a PR nightmare it could turn into! Every piece of content said is permanently attached to your brand image.

When I hear people say they are excited that they found an unpaid intern or low-paid intern to manage their social media and help them get into the 21^st century, I know it is already too late to educate them on the dangers this provides their business. The primary question I wish I had the opportunity to ask them point-blank one month prior:

When you think about your company brand that you’ve worked so hard to establish, how do you want to continue it? In a concentrated professional manner, or in a haphazard way that might occur with a low paid (or free) intern who might leave you in a few weeks. Most companies say they want consistency of message and of delivery.  They want to be confident that the words that go out about their company are well-thought out.  Because social media is quite new to a lot of companies, many don’t know that there is no “undo button” in social media?

How much do YOU want to risk?  With SMCPros you can be confident every move is planned and focused on making you look good to your customers and prospects.  Our methods are tried and proven successful. We are way past guessing what works.  So I ask again: How much do you want to risk?

Having said this, please, be careful.

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Over the last two weeks, both Twitter and Facebook held their developer conferences, Chirp and f8. Both of these events had announcements that turned the social world on its head.

Chirp

Chirp, Twitter’s developer conference, brought several things to light. It first shed more light on the announcement that came the day before, about Twitter’s “Promoted Tweets”, their advertising mechanisim. This service places tweets at the top of search results, which function like tweet despite being sponsored by a company. At first, this service is only open to a few select companies, with more being added in phase 2. Additionally, the ads may make the move to a user’s timeline sometime in late 2010.

Chirp also came after many Twitter 3rd-party developers were in outrage with their acquisitions of Atebits, makers of Tweetie, an iPhone Twitter client. They viewed this as Twitter trying to push them out of business. Twitter’s platform manager, Ryan Sarver, posted on the Google Group for the API that they were not making “official” applications, but rather trying to make it easier for a new user to find what they are looking for. Many users looked in the iPhone app store, but could not find a client that looked “official” and gave up. The purchase of Atebits, as well as the partnering to create a BlackBerry client, was to ease this issue. They are not blocking developers, and actually use the exact same API’s; keeping developers on a level playing field with the company itself.

Twitter also rolled out a few new technical features-@anywhere and the new Stream API, as well as a new developer website. @anywhere allows people to make Twitter interactions on any website, such as following someone, tweeting, and getting information about a user. For an example of this, look at my tech analyzing website, where I implemented it. The stream API is to get more low-latency updates for applications, allowing for better access for Twitter. The new developer website simply provides a homepage for developers, bringing together several disparate sites under one umbrella.

f8

Facebook announced several changes that rocked the social world  (whether someone wants to admit it or not). The biggest announcement was about a “like” button for the entire web. Using their tool, any website can have a “like” button, and use it to see engagement by users/viewers. In some cases, such as IMDB, this allows users’ profiles to have their interests updated when they like a movie. Several people, including myself, commented that Facebook is trying to own the entire web with this move.

Facebook also announced several new API’s, all of which make it easier to interact with Facebook, and allow applications to know more about a user, their interests, their connections, and their social graph. This has led to several people panicking over privacy concerns since 3rd-party apps have even more access to information than before. (If you are concerned about this, the settings you need to change are in Facebook’s Security Center).

Facebook also launched these API’s with several high-profile partners, such as Pandora and CNN.

What does this all mean?

The question that I spent most of Wednesday night losing sleep over is “What does this all mean?” These changes certianly changed the social media world, but in what way?

These moves show a concerted effort by Facebook and Twitter to extend their influence, and data-collection abilities, beyond their own domains. Now, you can interact with Facebook from everywhere, not just a site you are connected too or a main domain. For businesses, this means that you now can have even more insight into your customers, their habits, and what they care about.

Advertising is now more accurate, since people are able to update their interests and likes with much less friction. This data is what Facebook uses to display ad results, making it much targeted, meaning your dollars are being used much more wisely.

If you are interested in implementing any of these new technologies for your business, please contact us!

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Numerous marketing approaches are being used nowadays, how do you know which one is the most appropriate for your organization?

We usually start by breaking down each approach before analyzing and making a decision as to which route to proceed with.

Ask yourself not only what your target market is, but also WHERE they are at. Are they on social media platforms? Are they listening to the radio, watching tv or perhaps just reading the newspaper? Any campaign you decide to run with needs to be carefully thought through. Brainstorm your objectives and set your direction.

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I watched a TED video this morning. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Wine Library TV, reminded me once again that everything we do today is digitally recorded. Our children and grand-children are going to have access to so much about our lives. When I think about what I know about my great grand-parents, I know their names and I know the few stories I have time to hear from my grandparents. But my children are going to have access to what I said on twitter even today, March 15th, 2010. They will be able to see that I missed the last 3 episodes of 24 because hulu broadcasts that.

Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, spoke at an EO event this past week at the James J Hill library on the topic of Social Media. He also stressed the importance and power of the web. As technology evolution continues to accelerate, more and more of what we do is going to be digitally recorded and archived. In the near future, life will be video-recorded and broadcasted everywhere we go (as it already can be). What does this mean in the privacy debates, speed of life issues, the ADD surge in young people? I don’t know. But technology is quickly and gracefully macro-evolving the way life works.

I am very interested to know your thoughts on whether these things concern you, excite you, and what you plan on doing with this.

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If you don’t use Twitter on a regular basis you might be wondering why certain words in tweets have the # in front of them.  This is called a hashtag and it is used to help ease the search of a topic or keyword.  When people on Twitter search for things or try to keep track of a topic, they search for a word with a hashtag in front of it.

A good example is a conference such as social media breakfast. The Minneapolis social media breakfast uses the hashtag #smbmsp. Most of us Minneapolis social medialites have a search column on our Tweetdeck and of course we use the hashtag.

When I tweet about an auto-manufacturer or any company, I always use the hashtag in front of the name.  These companies are searching for their names using the hashtag.  You can even make a hashtag out of nothing.  For example, I have made a hashtag out of #GoodDay simply because I was having a good day.

Something to keep in mind, you have to make it all connected with no spaces in the words.  People are used to reading the hashtags and figuring out the words.  It is usually not hard.  Overall majority of the people you follow are likely using hashtags in  tweets and you can view them as examples.

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Twitter has launched its first value-add to the location sharing function of its application.  Now, when you share your location you can get local trending topics for a limited set of markets in addition to the national trending topics.

Minneapolis wasn’t on the list of local markets, so I chose Chicago and there weren’t any topics yet.  We’ll update this post when we find more.

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Using the Direct Message feature on Twitter (aka DM) is an easy way to message someone privately.  You are still limited to the 140 characters imposed on regular public tweets. However, this type of message will not be visible to anyone other than the person it is directed at.

The catch22 with direct messaging that many people aren’t familiar with is that you can only direct message someone that is following you.  One way to overcome this is by @replying someone publicly asking them to follow you. This is an acceptable method that many people use on a daily basis.  The person might follow you merely long enough to receive the message and then unfollow you but you at least get to message them.  Some people will not respond to you or follow you even when asked through an @reply.  It differs from one individual to another.

In sum, Direct Messages are an effective way to communicate within the Twitter platform with people that follow you privately.  A tool that should not be taken for granted but rather utilized.

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Many people have been  predicting what social media marketing will be like for 2010, we here at SMCpros have put together some thoughts of our own on what to expect for the New Year. Here are what the employees had to say about what they saw coming for the online world next year:

Mitchell Hislop:

• Businesses will learn that they need to leverage the internet with more than just a static website.
• Humans will experience a shift in how they naturally communicate.
• Companies will become more transparent.
• We will see several networks close their doors, get sold, or merge with other networks.
• We will see legislation passed regarding social media.
• There will be a greater connection between social media and IRL events.
• Twitter will be fully mainstream, not just a joke.
• Either LinkedIn will cement itself as a top network, or a new startup will round out the “Big 3″.
• There will be major discoveries in the way humans interact with data and the internet.
• We will discover even more than we already know about social media. I am of the opinion that there is no way we are using its full potential, and am constantly searching for what these full potential are.

Joel Feder:

• The term “Social Media” might transform into something else.
• SEO will become less important as search engines become more sophisticated.
• Google Analytics will be much more advanced.
• Twitter will evolve and add more features.
• Twitter will become highly profitable.
• Foursquare will either evolve or die out.
• Gowalla will burn out.
• Facebook will continue to make more changes and users will find fault.
• Traditional advertising will fall even lower on people’s priority lists.
• Twitter applications (Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc) will become more advanced.
• We will see more cross pollination between platforms/sites.
• Apple will release a new iPhone and also a new tablet. They both will sell like hotcakes.

Adam Maikkula:

• Businesses will begin to adopt social media as a complement to their existing business initiatives.
• Social media will begin to be seen as a necessity rather than a “what kind of ROI do I get?” conversation.
• The ROI discussion will fade as businesses realize that social media was built to be social…Why do you think individuals started using these sites in the first place; let alone the early adopters who happened to be (guess what) college students who like to socialize.
• Platforms evolved because of the millions of people who wanted to be social outside of their immediate environment – just like AOL Instant Messenger was big when I was in high school.

It wasn’t until businesses saw the potential energy lying dormant within all of these virtual places that they started trying to make social media adapt to business, but it should be business that adapts to social media.  No intelligent business would ever walk into a movie theater or a play and start shouting with a bullhorn all their great specials, promos, or how awesome they are.  That would not be appropriate…They would, however, figure out how to adapt to the environment (platform) by leveraging the resources available to them (think running a traditional ad on the screen before the movie, or product placement within the actual movie).

My primary point here is that it all comes down to the social aspects of social media.  Those who lack social skills will have a hard time fully leveraging these products.

My projection for 2010 is that business will learn to adapt to social media in order to avoid polarizing themselves from the users who are at the heart of the sites.

Tim Barsness:

• LinkedIn will become useful.
• Twitter will earn money.
• Interoperability between big players (FB/TW/LI) will increase.
• Tweetdeck will become web based.

Sarah Shehata:

• Facebook will continue to upgrade their platform and add more features.
• LinkedIn will be used on an even more professional level by businesses. The direction it is heading in is not necessarily advertising their services/products, but rather more along the lines of building brand awareness and showing their level of expertise within their industry.
• Twitter will be used as a live tool for instant questions, answers and quick research.
• A new platform will compete against the current ‘big 3′ social media platforms.

Tyler Olson:

• Twitter will start charging for upgraded accounts.
• Geo-location social media tools will begin going mainstream towards the end of the year.
• ROI track ability applications and integration will increase significantly.
• SMCpros starts rocking to a whole new level!

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Yes, this video may be 10 months old, but it is still one of my favorite video explanations about the amazing growth behind Twitter.  Take a look at the video when you have a second.  I’m confident you will learn something about the evolution of Twitter no matter how advanced or amateur your usage is.

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