Twitter Redesigns Its Bird in Exceedingly Meaningful New Logo

Embodies 'freedom, hope and limitless possibility'

by Tim Nudd

Did you think Twitter chose a bird as its mascot simply because birds make a tweeting sound? Wrong! "Whether soaring high above the earth to take in a broad view, or flocking with other birds to achieve a common purpose, a bird in flight is the ultimate representation of freedom, hope and limitless possibility," the company said today. What's the occasion for this purple prose? It's the debut of a newly designed official Twitter bird, whose intricately concocted shape is also steeped in meaning, according to theintroductory blog post. "Our new bird grows out of love for ornithology, design within creative constraints, and simple geometry," the company says. "This bird is crafted purely from three sets of overlapping circles—similar to how your networks, interests and ideas connect and intersect with peers and friends." There's also this more esoteric note: "From now on, this bird will be the universally recognizable symbol of Twitter. (Twitter is the bird, the bird is Twitter.)" For an airborne symbol, it's all quite heavy. Fly on, you deeply metaphorical vessels of the sky!

Why Successful Branding Still Happens Offline

Does Facebook offer better branding opportunities than word-of-mouth and human interaction?

By ED KELLER AND BRAD FAY

The Facebook IPO has both the financial and marketing communities abuzz, and with good reason. Facebook is the king of the social media hill, and its growth and ability to attract a loyal and highly networked audience is to be admired.

For brands, however, online social networks are far from the Holy Grail of marketing.  The research is increasingly clear and compelling that for brands that want to be social and generate conversation, a far bigger and more powerful force is real world, face-to-face conversation.

It has been said that online social media is “word of mouth on steroids.” Key to that argument is a belief that online conversations will spread to hundreds or thousands of people (and maybe more) with the click of a mouse. But while that is theoretically possible, it is not the way online sharing usually works. Most links that are shared reach only 5-10 people. And the huge legions of Facebook fans, it turns out, are not so actively engaged with the brands they once “liked.” Fewer than 1% of brand fans on Facebook have any type of active involvement, bringing those huge numbers back down to earth.

Meanwhile, our research finds that 90% of word-of-mouth conversations about brands take place offline, primarily face-to-face, in people’s homes and offices, in restaurants and stores, really anywhere people congregate. These conversations bring with them greater credibility, a greater desire to share with others, and a great likelihood to purchase the products being discussed than conversations that take place online.

So if not via Facebook and other social networking sites, what can brands do to get conversations started? It is important to fight the urge to start your marketing strategy with a particular tool or approach. Instead, start a story that consumers will want to talk about. What are the messages about your brand and category that make you talkworthy?

Next, it’s important to tap the right talkers. Who are the consumer influencers in your category, and your brand advocates? When and where do they talk, about what, and why? Often the people who have credibility when they talk are not the target customer. And the places to reach these influencers will not flow naturally from your media optimization plan unless you’re clearly focused on word of mouth as a primary goal. Media with the largest concentrations of influencers will surprise you.

Once you have your message and target in mind, only then does it make sense to choose the channels through which to reach people and to encourage sharing. And it turns out, the biggest and most productive channel to spark conversation is not online social media, but paid advertising. Fully one-quarter of conversations about brands include an explicit reference to ads. In fact, television advertising is far and away the single biggest driver of consumer conversation. Far from being a dinosaur, as some pundits say, television and other traditional media play a key role in today’s social marketplace.

Today’s consumer marketplace is highly social, but not because of particular platforms or technologies. The businesses that will be the most successful in the future are the ones that embrace a model that puts people– rather than technology – at the center of products, campaigns and market strategies. Those who achieve the greatest success will recognize that there are many ways to tap the power of today’s social consumer.

The great social wave is an opportunity that no business can afford to ignore or look at myopically. It’s happening all around us – and to the continuing surprise of many, it’s mostly happening face-to-face.

Ed Keller and Brad Fay are co-authors of The Face-to-Face Book: Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace, to be published in May by Free Press. They are also principals of the Keller Fay Group, a market research and consulting firm.

The Wicked Social Media Backhand

We’re asking companies to listen and use social media but when they do, we question their motives. Or whether they really care. Or whether they’re just responding because someone yelled loud enough or has enough followers. Or whether they’re just going through the motions because someone said they should.

What exactly do we want from them?

I, for one, am happy to see businesses that are starting to change the way they do things to meet new customer expectations. That doesn’t mean every business can overhaul their customer service in the blink of an eye, or resolve every issue perfectly, or prevent every mistake from happening. And sure, some companies are probably getting involved reluctantly or with some initially misguided intent.

But if we’re going to stomp our feet and demand that they pay attention to us and this social media thing, don’t we have the responsibility to offer a little bit of acknowledgement – dare I say commendation – when they do? When they try? When they start somewhere?

When I told people I wanted to lose weight and try a new start at fitness, I got lots of cries of support that included “starting is the hardest part!” and “little changes can equal big results” and all that stuff. Everyone encouraged the change and the importance of the effort. No one would ever dream of disparaging me from not being able to run a marathon in the weeks that I start to jog around my block.

But we do that with businesses. All the time.

We’re asking them to change, but we’re exceedingly unwilling to reward small victories or acknowledge effort. It’s all or nothing. The fact that someone responded to a Tweet just means they’re scared, not that they might actually be trying to deliver better customer service. If someone comments on a blog post, it must be because they’re trying to cover their butt, not because they really are trying to improve their responsiveness and connection with their community.

Heaven forbid a business take a baby step.

I know there are trust issues in business, folks. That’s part of why we’re all here doing this stuff. But if we’re going to be the agents of change, we have to be willing to nurture it, not crush it in it’s awkward and sometimes stuttering beginnings.

Go on being a cynic if you like, or always assuming the worst, or refusing to be satisfied with anything other than perfection. I’m going to be over here giving people a chance to do exactly what we’re asking of them, and doing my best to reward the small changes along the way.

Ramadan! A Brand or a Spiritual Experience

by Bilal Zaiter

Ramadan


A brand or a spiritual experience...

By Bilal Zaiter: communication consultant and managing director of Roumooz for cultural industries and art management



Ramadan's Season

From greeting cards, to drama on television, and from corporate advertising campaigns, to certain services specifically offered in this month, "Ramadan" is becoming a brand. Accept it or not, this is the fact.

A brand with a strong loyalty, and equity. A brand that enjoys a billion and two hundred million potential customers. A brand that whatever your brand is, if get associated to it then definitely will enjoy more exposure, awareness and an impact on the bottom line sales.

Who made ita brand? This is a simple question.

Consumerism culture did. The hard question is how believers allowed it to become a brand. This answer requires a deeper exploration into these believers values and beliefs system in the past 14 centuries. However, the very neat answer is "by being lazy".

Syria hosts Ramadan as many countries with a majority of so called "Muslims" population. It celebrates the event in a colorful way. Different colors of dishes, different restaurants programs, different drama on TV, different contests, and even different ways of calls for prays.

But what is Ramadan and what is supposed to be ?

The Ideal vs. the Reality :

Ideally, "Ramadan" is supposed to be the month of "Radical positive change", it is meant to help the "Believer Muslims" realize how change is adoptable in life. Over one night, people adopting "Ramadan" need to change their eating habits, their wake up and sleeping time, their words – they can not fight with anyone if you are fasting- their love practices –they can only practice love after sun set until sunrise -.

Ideally, it is supposed to be Lust controlling space, a model example of how easy people can change their lives – only if they want to –

Ideally, it is supposed to mean a physical rewarding experience, where weight control, poisons releasing out, They also experience additional prays after the dinner so that they end up feeling light and not lazy. They should not seem lazy, angry, or weak.

If they have health problems, then they can quit Ramadan. And pay to feed needy poor people.

To ideally complete Ramadan, "Believer Muslims" need to pay their "Zaka". Money that purify them as their religion tells. This money should go to in-need people before the celebration "Eid" morning so that these poor people can buy some food, sweets and clothes to celebrate like their neighbors.

The point . Ideally. Ramdan is a positive change.

But within years, and due to lazy mentalities, back warded mentalities, money-oriented and consumerism culture we live, "Ramadan" is not what it is meant to be anymore.

EATING

"Believer Muslims" take two meals in Ramadan. One before sunrise and another after sunset. Calculated simply, this mean a decrease in food consumption by one-third.

Reality has another story to tell.

Increase in weight, more food consumption

Contrary to any sound human logic might find out. Statistics show that a 40% increase in food consumption happen in "Ramadan".

Although "Ramadan" is the month of fasting, where those who fast are supposed to make an advantage and get in shape, weights increase after "Ramadan".

Once again this is because we are approaching Ramadan technically, with our inherited behavior rather than our own developed one.

It is enough to know that additional "1000" calories a daily can increate our weight by "1 Kg" a week , which means "4 Kgs" a month.

Prices increase:

When demand exceeds offer, we will definitely notice an increase in prices. Statistics show that demand for food increase %40 during "Ramadan".

Reality bites, many sellers run to their homes when the sun sets. They are (Muslims). Such manipulations in prices strongly contradicts a very critical another pillar in command in "Believer Muslims" code of ethics, the "fair trade".

Such sellers reflect to market demand by increasing prices. Accordingly, such anti-trust trade practice get countered governmentally by many attempts to enforce law. This is one of the very critical examples that reflect the religion/state dilemma. We can not accept religion as a community ruler. It has to do with people's beliefs, but what if these people are not adhered to ethics, or values systems.

Rush hour!

People rush to their homes before dinner time. In a city like Damascus, it become a dream to find any transportation medium to pick you home if you are too lat. Even with you private time, you need to be aware. People drive in a very reckless and careless way. Thinking "I want to be home" this "I" amplifies when we are starving and thirsty. Because it is the social practices followed blindly, and peer influence that are leading our actions during fasting time, not the spiritual orientation .

It is so much normal to see people fighting, screaming, shouting, and even insults at while driving down the city. The crowds add to the unbearable conditions of hunger and thirst.

It is so much normal to see the previous days practices by Taxi-drivers repeated during "Ramadan". Although the counter tells that we should pay amount "X" the taxi driver always not satisfied if he didn’t receive amount "X+". and I am not talking about tips. By all means tips are a voluntarily appreciated and well respected action, but if a passenger does not want to pay an added value for the service she/he has just received then it is up to her and him. What happens is that we see the same practices during "Ramadan" by thirsty driver, meaning by "Muslims"

The evening – The TV

Right after taking their dinner, " Muslims" sit to TV or leave to another small meals outside. With a proper consideration to hard economical situation to majority, along with a lack in entertainment facilities, TV become an affordable entertainment.

The Arabic drama production has witnessed within the past five years a booming. Although Syrian drama this year had deceased 50% of last year's production, but the numbers of TV series are still striking.

Initial announced numbers state that the number is approximately 100 TV series. The average number of TV series watched during Ramadan by Syrians is two. Meaning two hours. This is not a high rate, although the daily routine is to start watching TV from like 20:00 till midnight. And the question goes far behind the striking quantity. It is a qualitative question. What are we watching, the advertising industry, and the industry itself.

It is well understood that TV stations can not buy such TV productions if they can not cover the costs, and generate profit. How they usually make such purchases feasible, is through advertising insertions. Many brands prepare themselves to "Ramadan" they know they will enjoy the highest viewrship rate, and accordingly brand exposure. That's where branding comes again to the scene. Brands in Ramadan or better said Brand Ramadan.

The quality of drama by itself is to carefully be considered, yet this is not relevant space. However, one example worth citation. The series that was best rated by audience last year based on a research I did to assess Syrian drama.

"Bab Al Hara", a Syrian TV series that was broadcasted during Ramadan 2006, and then had another part "Bab AL Hara 2" again in 2007. Many people thought it was a worthless, undeveloped and humiliating series. The reason is mainly about the way it portrays women but was not that the case in that period, was not that our history. Then, what about the other promoted values?" I can not turn a blind eye to the full part of the glass. Such TV series approach masses. Definitely the middle & lower social-economical classes (SECs), and many of the A class too. It is will be so much hard to ignore the values such series are trying to seed. Courage, self-denial, and forgiveness. As many can realize, our society is losing virtual values. We are paying such values for nothing. A reminder about such values could be helpful. Although once again I insist that dangerous messages need to be monitored carefully not to promote false, negative, distorted and destroying values at the same time while sending out positive ones.

Although it is very good that "Ramadan" is becoming a good opportunity to see these good works on our screens but the crucial question is why not in other times but Ramadan.?

The evening - The Tent:

Whether being a nostalgia to desert life, or a complete ignorance about its meaning to refugees, the "TENT" has become a vital element of "Ramadan".

Another commercially feasible invention, another marketing gap that was realized by some hospitality people, and rendered into a smart product.

Today it is very rare to hear about coming "Ramadan" without getting exposed to tens of advertisements inviting us to enjoy our time in one of these tents.

A tent is a covered space where you can have one of your two meals in Ramadan, dinner or "souhoor". This means that a tent is a restaurant . however this invented term is meant to relate the brand Ramadan to its origins, the desert. Surprisingly enough, people enjoy this. They attend these tents with high rates occupancy. They pay a lot and they eat a lot and they sleep before the sun rise. They never follow the ideal routine. They follow the consumerism mandated routine. We worship the BRAND Ramadan rather.

The compass:

I am not here to condemn "Ramadan" as much as I am not here to post a note about "Brand Ramadan", and its "consumers". I am here to raise a critical issue that has to do with technical/strategic mentalities.

It is the moment led mentality rather than the visionary mentality that is distorting the beauty of our cultural practices.

Sailing in life with a spiritual compass is rewarding. It helps us set our anchor point whenever there is a storm.

Any believing process starts by setting our values system. If we don’t have values, if we do not want to work on them, then we can not expect to elevate spiritually.

Ramadan the Brand in this sense becomes a space to experiment more types of food, more prices manipulation, and more TV drama marketing. Nothing more.

While Ramadan the spiritual practice, is supposed to be a great opportunity for the believers in it . An opportunity to experiment with radical changes in life, body and soul purification and harmony.



Ramadan is still a festive event. The country get muted at the dinner time then life get into the veins again. People stay out late in streets buying their things, specially in the second half of the month, getting prepared for Eid.

TVs are turned on and the majority of population are watching several TV series where they get the chance to discuss during their days.

What is still untouched about Ramadan being a brand or a spiritual experience is that it is the a cultural experience when people get closer. It unifies in a way or another, people eat and stop eating at the same time. People watch same TV series. People eat similar types of food, fatoush, soap, fatat, and the main courses. Not to mention the sweets. People forget about their diets.

Ramadan unifies. In this is sense it is still a vital cultural feature of Syrian's lives. They only had to keep its spiritual ideals vivid and awake.

http://www.khtt.net/page/1433/en

Has Ramadan become just another brand to be exploited?

This article was published yesterday in The National in the UAE.

This weekend, like many millions of Muslims around the world, I will be making my preparations for the Islamic month of Ramadan. The month’s ethos is one of spirituality, centring around 30 days of fasting from dawn to dusk, during which time eating and drinking is prohibited.

Food does, however, remain important throughout the month, and iftar, the meal that breaks the fast at the end of the day, is a time for thankfulness, togetherness and sharing.

The natural result is that preparations include shopping for food to stock up cupboards in anticipation of delicious meals shared with friends and family.

And so it is evident that even while trying to navigate the frugality of Ramadan, that Muslims, too, are consumers – people who hand over money in exchange for goods that meet their needs.

I’m an advocate of the needs of Muslim shoppers being given as much attention and care as any other consumer. After all, Muslims need to buy products – including food. And their specific needs and aspirations are just as important as those of any other consumer. And the money of Muslim shoppers is just as good as any other money.

When it comes specifically to Ramadan, the commercial world has been quick to make money out of a seemingly untapped commercial opportunity. Already, TV soaps, produced to last the exact 30 days of Ramadan, are extremely popular and lucrative. And Eid has become an increasingly commercialised celebration, starting to head towards the same kind of gift-oriented festival that Christmas has become.

Even in Britain, one of the demographic segments that Tesco’s “World Foods” product line specifically targets is Muslims. In catchment areas with a sizeable Muslim population their stores carry well-laden “Ramadan” aisles. Is this is a helpful service by Tesco, being sensitive to the needs of its Muslim consumers and finally recognising their commercial worth, or is Tesco, like many companies and traders round the world, guilty of the commercial exploitation of the month of spirituality?

Has Ramadan become the ultimate brand to be exploited? And will companies do anything to get a share of this lucrative market?

Roy Michel Haddad is the chairman and chief executive of the Middle East and North Africa region for JWT, a global advertising agency. He is clear in his mind that Muslim consumers are just as varied in their needs and aspirations as any other consumer. They just happen to be Muslim. In fact, in his opinion, “There is no Muslim consumer, just a consumer who we have to respond to his wants, needs and desires.” He adds that anyone who looks at Muslims as a commercial opportunity must be wary of assumptions that Muslims can be blanket grouped together.

In Haddad’s mind, however, there is one clear exception where all the vast diversity of Muslim consumers becomes unified – Ramadan. In fact, he asks provocatively, “Does the Muslim consumer exist beyond Ramadan?” And it’s true that Ramadan is exceptionally unifying throughout a diverse Muslim world. There is a cohesiveness of purpose, timing, and behaviour, which rarely exists at any other time.

You might be cynical and argue that using Tesco as an example of a company that sees Ramadan as a commercial opportunity is not relevant because it is a brand that is not Muslim, and therefore doesn’t understand the communal and devotional spirit of Ramadan. Your cynicism might lead you to state that while such big brands as Tesco couch their products in the cuddly marketing language of “meeting customer needs” and “being sensitive to cultures and aspirations”, at the end of the day they are just interested in growing their bottom line.

But what about those companies around the Muslim world that appear to be acting in far more exploitative ways?

Holy Ramadan, Batman! It's the deal of a lifetime!

Earlier in July, Al-Riyadh, the Arabic newspaper, reported that two trading companies in Saudi Arabia had amassed stockpiles of key food stuffs. According to Khaled Al-Homaidan, an economic consultant, the aim was to “hoard essential commodities [and, thus] create an artificial price rise in the Saudi market in the coming weeks prior to Ramadan.”

In Karachi, the prices of sugar, pulses, red chilli, and ghee have climbed ahead of a meeting between the government and wholesalers to fix rates for the month of Ramadan.

Despite the fact that Qatar has ordered fixed prices for the second year running during Ramadan across 156 food and non-food items, the Peninsula newspaper reports that people fear that retailers may increase the rates of other commodities to make profits. In addition, they are concerned that prices will rise gradually before Ramadan to ensure that the frozen price is already high.

In Bangladesh, the commerce minister has asked MPs to keep a watchful eye on profiteering during Ramadan by monitoring how goods are distributed from the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh to local dealers. But the risk is that this simply gives politicians the power to decide which dealers gain access to stocks, which, of course, is not without its dangers of corruption.

In the UAE, the Ministry of Economy is warning that it is consumers themselves who must be vigilant against price manipulation and hoarding. This is despite the fact that it has warned suppliers they will face legal action if the price of basic food items is raised.

That shoppers need to exert their commercial power is a constant theme across countries where companies and brands seem to be taking a profit-oriented approach to Ramadan.

According to Al-Homaidan, the customer can play a decisive role in combating greedy traders. “Consumers should be more selective and should boycott products whose prices have increased exorbitantly,” he said, adding that they must increase their vigilance in order to protect their rights and be careful not to become victims of such exploitation.

And people power is important in upholding the spirit of Ramadan. When the Malaysian tourism minister announced “the first ever Ramadan Summer Festival featuring food, shopping and other fun-filled activities” to attract Middle Eastern tourists, the Consumers’ Association of Penang was “outraged”, adding that Ramadan “is not a tourist product but a sacred month of spiritual enrichment”. They called on the tourism ministry “not to worship tourist dollars”.

There is certainly a line to be drawn between companies and brands truly serving the needs of Muslim consumers, and those that are out to exploit them. And this is a line that Muslim consumers themselves must patrol.

Defeating commercial exploitation is about using the weapons that hurt commercial entities the most – by hitting their bottom line, by holding them to public account and by threatening the reputations on which their brands are built.

Only if Muslim consumers truly believe in the spiritual values of Ramadan and work hard to uphold them for at least this one month of the year, will such abuse come to an end. Otherwise Ramadan will become victim to the very exploitation and material obsession that it sets out to eradicate.

Has Your Brand Been Googled?

How often do you Google yourself or Google your organization? I hope you do so often. If your brand does not appear high in the number one search engine rankings then your brand does not exist. In the past several years I have become much more search conscious and hopefully becoming more search savvy. I understand the value of placing high on the first page of Google.

I bet that if you go to Google right now and type in words Brand Champions or Brand Champion this blog appears number one. That is the place I want to be. High on the first page. Especially when people are doing research about a topic related to what I do. I consider myself a brand champion and the work that my organization does for our clients to help them recruit and retain brand champions. We are brand champions helping brand champions recruit and retain brand champions.

If you want to learn more about how this incredible brand called Google came to be and how it can benefit your brand, I encourage you to take a look at Ken Auletta's book, Googled. He does a great job of telling their brand story for them.

Rex Whisman

Brand Champions Blog

BrandED Consultants Group

Creating an Internal Brand Strategy Through Facebook and LinkedIn

For over a year now I have fed my blog posts to Facebook. During that time I have had many people comment about those posts on my Facebook wall. Thank you. At first I was a bit frustrated that people were commenting there and not on the blog itself, because those who landed on my blog would not see those comments. Shortly thereafter a light went on for me. Who cares?

I realized that most of the people who go directly to my blog are those who land there after doing research on sites like Google. This blog is most likely to appear as the first listing when someone goes to Google and types in the words brand champions. People doing so may end up being champions for my brand, but that relationship will take a while to develop, or never will. My current brand champions are those who are my friends on Facebook or my connections on LinkedIn, where I also send my blog feeds.

As social network sites like Facebook and LinkedIn continue to evolve from personal to business communications and marketing channels, we need to think about our audience. The content needs to be relevant to them and enhance our brand essence. This approach in many respects is an internal brand strategy for you and your organization. The people there usually share your mission and core values so why not engage them in your brand development process? Be happy that they are posting on your wall!

Rex Whisman

Brand Champions BlogBrandED Consultants Group

Brand Champions Are Your Fans, Favorites, Followers & Friends, Not Your Target Audience

Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others provide great opportunities for brands to connect with fans, favorites, followers and friends. These online resources and other digital communication channels like mobile texting, allow people and organizations to build their brands by creating communities of champions for their brand. Everyday I am amazed at how I am found, or how I find someone else who shares the same passion for brand. Many of whom will be lifelong advocates of our respective brands.

Those of us who take advantage of these resources understand that they are simply a keystroke or two away. Most often the only expense is time, and a technical glitch now and then. Let's compare that with another scenario. We hire an advertising agency to create an advertising campaign and then hire a television network to show our campaign to people who change the channel when our ad is about to be shown to our "target audience." Target audiences are not brand champions.

If your organization has not yet done so, you need to take the time to develop a digital communications plan that supports your brand. You will soon find the value in connecting to your fans, favorites, followers and friends. In other words, recruiting and retaining your brand champions.

Rex Whisman

Brand Champions Blog

Brands and Blogs

Brand Cafe

Blogs were one of the first social networking media to find their way online. Short for web logs, blogs started off as online journals, often a place for people to rant. Those days are mostly in our rear view mirror, and today just like other platforms including facebook and twitter, blogs have become one of the most effective online marketing channels to build brands. From the benefits of search engine optimization to positioning yourself as an expert in your field, blogs are one of the greatest returns on brand investment. Blogs are rapidly supplementing, and even replacing traditional web sites. At the next meeting of the Brand Cafe, ask questions, share experiences and make recommendations for brand building with blogs. Welcome to the blogosphere.

Denver, CO 80203 - USA

Monday, December 28 at 4:00 PM

Attending: 10

Details: http://www.meetup.com/Brand-Cafe/calendar/12004316/

Top Ten Things a Brand Must Be to Go Social

Simon Mainwaring's Blog has a great piece on the top ten things a brand must be to go social. It's a question that is consuming more and more marketing companies as online spending increases, and Social becomes the next big thing.

Mainwaring's top ten include:

1. Be Defined

2. Be Simple

3. Be Human

4. Be Inspiring

5. Be Consistent

6. Be Alert

7. Be Interesting

8. Be Surprising

9. Be Brave

10. Be Gracious

The 'Be Simple' bit is what fascinates me. How can we define a brand in a way that is easy to grasp, share, and live? Collectively? The brand models of the traditional agencies, some entirely proprietary, most very complex and procedural, are certainly not the way.

Visit the Mainwaring Blog for the full story and add your thoughts.

http://www.distility.com/Rebranding-Branding/

The Unspoken Role in Community Management

The more I immerse myself in my role as a community director, the more something has become vastly apparent to me. I know I’m speaking from my own perspective here, but maybe this sparks some ideas for you.

Typically….

When we talk about community management roles, we’re often talking about the customer facing aspect. The idea that you are there to shepherd your clients, prospects, customers, and community at large to build a better relationship between them and your business.

All that is true. It’s the customer service role blended with sales and communication, both internal and external. I often refer to it as the bridge between a company’s community or potential community, and the business itself.

But there’s more.

I am more clearly focused than ever before on the idea that social business is what we’re striving for. The media is just the carrier. The set of tactics. The mechanisms behind the intent to connect. But that’s all on the surface, and if we leave the idea of Chris Brogan’s “human-shaped” business languishing at the front lines and dicker about whether it’s PR or customer service or marketing or whatever, without taking it to the foundations of an organization and engineering a new bedrock, it’s all going to fall flat.

I am also learning that as a communicators at our essence (part of what I think makes people like us suited to our roles and so passionate about what social media illustrates), we are uniquely positioned to help build that framework inside our company, and help other companies learn what that looks like.

So as community-minded people….

Think about your role as an internal communicator as well as an external communicator, no matter how officially that fits into your role. What can you bring to the core of your business, what can you make happen inside your own walls based on what you learn “out there”? How can you be the bridge between those silos in your organization, or the catalyst for conversations that no one has had before (but might desperately want to)?

There is opportunity hiding in routine. Even yours. Even mine. Even if it’s never been done. Even if community isn’t your job description, but it’s your passion and something you understand.

When we are embarking on new lenses through which to view business of all sizes, we have the chance to question what’s come before, and establish things that have never been.

Can community intent inform your actions?

I know it’s not always easy to change the mechanisms that have been in place. I’ve worked in bootstrapped non-profit organizations. I’ve worked in corporate environments, both rigid and more open, and both have their sets of challenges. Established brands and new ones. Change isn’t easy.

But one thing remains abundantly clear.

As a relationship builder, connector, communicator, it’s my responsibility to take on the challenges of immersing my company in that however I can. Small steps or major innovations. I am a communicator. It’s what I do. Communication is the very essence of community building. Of all the social networks we love so much but are trying so hard to understand. It’s what separates misunderstanding from clarity. Ignorance from education. Stagnation from innovation.

I don’t deny the challenges. I don’t deny that we have work ahead of us. I don’t deny that the very foundations of business truly are shifting under our feet, and that paralyzes people with fear. I don’t deny that there are charlatans and shiny objects and fear and misunderstanding in our way. And I don’t deny that we will leave some lost causes behind.

But as communicators, as those with the deep-seated notion that a community mindset can bring the best out of a business, we can be the change-makers. We can form a gathering point for those ideas that need a place to take root. We can be the bridges. We can retool what we know, one bit at a time, by shedding the verbal shortcuts and excuses and using our skills to untangle the most thorny of challenges and the laziness of jargon.

If that scares you, if you’re focused on why that won’t work instead of how to jump the gate, stop now. Find an easier battle to wage. Focus on guaranteed “wins” based on safe ideas. There are plenty, I assure you. And many of them will live long lives and give you comfort and job security.

But for the rest: This isn’t marketing. This isn’t PR. It’s not customer service. It’s elemental business. So, why not us? And why not now?

image by colros

The Unspoken Role in Community Management

7 Deadly Mistakes in Selling Social Media

Many of us understand the idea that in order to have a successful social media or community program, you need some executive- or senior-level buy in for the long term. You’ve got to make a case to the executive team as to why this is important to your business and your customers.

(I’m a big believer that renegade ideas from grassroots places can win, but we’ll save that for another day).

But getting that buy-in demands that you present your ideas and plans from the perspective of a business leader. To do that, avoid the seven mistakes that are sure to kill your plan before you get started:

1. Thinking Departmentally

You have a job description, and you’re likely part of a vertical area or department of your business. But presenting a social media plan from the insulated perspective of your job description or singular area of responsibility ignores its potential impact on the rest of the organization.

Instead: Be sure you consider the implications of your plans on all areas of the business, both customer facing and not. How will this affect customer service? Sales? PR? Product management? IT? The executive team cares about broader business implications as well as just how it’s going to improve or impact your world.

2. Skipping your Homework

There’s nothing worse than showing up for a meeting unprepared, and the executive team isn’t going to walk you through all the considerations you need to make. When you decide you’re going to pitch a social media initiative, come prepared to answer questions that go broader than your strategy or tactics.

Instead: Ask questions and do research ahead of time to understand the global goals for your business, from sales to growth to product and service innovation, and be prepared to discuss how social media may or may not align with those things. Know what your competitors are doing in the space, and discuss what they’re doing well and where they’re leaving opportunities on the table. Understand the state of your industry overall as it relates to social media, and be prepared to present a case for why trends or opportunities exist for you to lead or join as an organization.

3. Speaking In Tongues

“Join the conversation”. “Be human”. “Return on Influence”. “Build relationships”. Too often, we try and sell our bosses on the idea of social based on our passion points and phrases we’ve become comfortable with. The trouble is that few of those phrases have any meaning in a hard business context whatsoever.

Instead: Skip the jargon. Avoid social media lingo and all the verbal shortcuts we use to sound smart or line up with what we read. Use real words, business terms that have meaning and substance, and say what you mean. Know the true definition of ROI and use it properly. Understand the difference between impact, correlation, and causality when you’re justifying strategy. If you want to discuss qualitative metrics, that’s fine, but keep them away from fuzzy emotional ideas and tie them to qualitative business goals like awareness or customer loyalty and satisfaction.

4. Forgetting Dollar Signs

Social media people recoil sometimes at the notion that sales and commercialism can be part of what we do. That the connections and conversations we’re facilitating are driven to enhancing nothing more than the bottom line. So instead, we talk of furry cuddly things, of relationships and people connections. Those do matter. But:

Instead: Sales are the ultimate success metric. The notion is that better relationships, better communication, more people that like us all eventually drive dollar signs. That’s okay. That’s why we’re in business after all (and even if you’re a non profit, this counts for your donations, too). Make sure your social media strategy explains how you’re going to help the company ultimately get its bills paid and make the shareholders happy, even if it’s not a direct revenue channel itself. The relationships and conversations and openness along the way are catalysts for growth.

5. Lacking a Blueprint

Hypothesis is good when based in research, but it’s important to back up your educated assumptions with a true, well thought out plan. You don’t have to (nor can you) guarantee results, but you do have to craft a blueprint that minimizes the variables to getting there. If you walk into the executive offices with nothing more than “everyone has a Facebook page so we need one too”, you’re going to get laughed out of the office. Trust me.

Instead: Build a plan, even if it’s simple. Include elements like goals and objectives, risk assessment, resource planning for money, people and time, costs (both soft and hard), training and education plans both internal and external, measurement and reporting.

6. Overlooking Plan B

If you’ve got a goal, there’s more than one path to get there. Don’t make the mistake of presenting a plan that’s the one-shot deal, or one that doesn’t have any alternative paths to success.

Instead: Create contingency plans. If your blog doesn’t take off as expected and your goals aren’t met in six months, what then? Outline a strategy for assessing success or failure, and illustrate what you’ll do with the learnings when you have them. Demonstrate flexibility in your plan that allows you to optimize it as you go.

7. Greenwashing

No really! There’s no downside! It’ll be fabulous! People will love it! Everyone’s doing it! Your boss doesn’t buy that, and neither do I. If you’re selling a plan, don’t make the error of presenting it as though it’s infallible, or that there’s no potential downside. There’s no such thing as bulletproof.

Instead: Do a solid risk assessment. Consider worst case scenarios for your plan and walk them through, including recommendations for how to deal if something does go wrong. Be honest about execution challenges, like unpredictable resources or measurement that’s hypothetical to start with. Lay out reasonable expectations for goals you can achieve instead of what you think the boss wants to hear.

Ultimately, you CAN sell a solid social media plan into the executive suite. But you need to speak their language, and consider that what you’re presenting is a business plan. Your boss wants to see that you’ve thought it out thoroughly, given it broad consideration, and mapped out clear goals, strategy, and tactics. Demonstrated responsibility and accountability can go a long way to ensuring that your plan gets the attention it deserves.

So what would you add? What have you done successfully to make the case for social media? Or if you’re brave enough to share, where did you fall short so we can learn from you too? The comments are for you.

7 Deadly Mistakes in Selling Social Media

Social Media Time Management

Yesterday at the fabulous Blog World Expo 2009, I did a session on social media time management. Lots of great feedback and questions from the session, and the slides are embedded below (though not all of them are particularly “useful” in the traditional sense of slides). Feel free to use and share as you will.

In follow up, though, lots of folks didn’t get to see the session, and you’ve asked on Twitter and Slideshare and via email if I have any notes from the session. So instead, I’ll post as a series here on the blog and walk through what I covered in the session. I think it’s too much for one post, but maybe three or four will do.

Does that work for you? What questions do you have about social media time management that I can be sure and answer during the series?

Thanks as always for your support, interest, feedback, and enthusiasm. I’m really glad you’re here.

Social Media Time Management

View more documents from Amber Naslund.

Social Media Time Management

Humans Don’t Scale

One of the important points I often make about social media, engagement, customer experience, and anything related to human connection is that we, as individuals, don’t scale. Singular human touchpoints and interactions have limits. Period. It’s a reality of physics and the space time continuum (or something).

You cannot and should not be everywhere nor available to everyone. Diluting yourself across the breadth of everything means that you will ever merely touch an experience or a person, and you’ll never absorb anything in depth. When it comes to this, personal accountability is important. You have to employ filters and do the work to determine what’s working and what isn’t. Ditch the stuff that isn’t. Do more of what works. And when it comes to business, sometimes the only answer to creating more connections is to have more people to do the connecting.

If you’re sucked into the habit of chasing every opportunity for fear of missing one, you’ll surely lose the bandwidth to actually act on the ones that are alive in front of you.

And if you’re dissipating your energy in micropieces so that you can give everything a moment, you will shortchange the established relationships you have invested in, the rich opportunities on the table in front of you, the work that’s paying your bills right now, and the important moments of freedom that you must reserve in order to evaluate, plan, and move on what’s next.

Where this gets messy is in dealing with the people – the human beings themselves – on the other end of all of these things.

The very nature of today’s open, velocity-rich and utterly accessible communication means that we – all of us – are increasing our expectations for access, responsiveness, and attention accordingly. We are demanding that people mirror the technologies through which we connect with them, asking them to be continuously available, democratically responsive, and utterly open-source with regard to their knowledge, expertise, and time.

But it doesn’t work that way.

We are not machines. We have networked and mechanized the nerve centers of our worlds, but we are not automatons. We have got to stop expecting that of ourselves, and most importantly, we have to stop expecting it of others around us simply because the tools have made connection possible.

Community, access, and sharing are beautiful things, but they are not implicit. They are earned. They are reciprocal. And while we ask others to understand and sympathize with our own human-based limitations, we often do a crappy job of respecting the limitations and humanity of others, even in a business sense.

So I’m putting this to you as I think about it myself. It applies to our personal interactions, and to the humanization of business as we’re trying to build it.

While we have so readily embraced the potential of limitless surface connections, let us remember that the nodes on these massive, interwoven networks are the very humans we want to find. Allow yourself filters, priorities, and limits. Respect that others have filters, priorities, and limits of their own, and that you may not see or be privy to them all.

And understand that if we are truly seeking connectivity between people and not machines, we must employ some tolerance and acceptance for the imperfections of humanity that come alongside.

photo by adactio

Humans Don’t Scale

Social Media Time Management: Getting Organized

This post is the first in a multi-part series on Social Media Time Management, intended to supplement the content of the presentation I gave at BlogWorld Expo 2009. Click here to see the collection of posts in the series.

Information overload is real, but it’s something that’s in your control. Managing your time in social media is first and foremost about deciding where to spend your time and why, and that requires a little bit of organization to start with.

What Are You In This For?

If your goal is to be engaged in social media for pleasure or just for personal connections, your approach is rather simple. You’ll choose the tools and sites where you find folks with common interests, and you’ll tuck the time in outside your other responsibilities.

But if you’re in this for business, at least in part, you’re going to need to think through some clearer goals than that.

Here are five sets of questions to ask yourself:

1) Realistically, how many hours do I have to spend in social media each day? Do I have resources/people other than me? What can I expect of them? (Note: if you’re serious about doing social, you need to find an hour a day to start with, at least.)

2) Which 2 or 3 tools and social networks make sense based on my listening efforts? What is my goal for participation on those sites? What is the culture of those communities and how will my participation line up with that?

3) Have we evaluated our current online and offline communication efforts to determine what’s working and what we might supplement or replace with social media? Am I going to need to add this on to my existing responsibilities in order to prove its value before making tradeoffs?

4) Has our leadership bought into this idea already, or am I establishing a presence so I can build a stronger case? Is time I spend on social media going to be viewed as an investment or a time sink? How do I make the case for the former?

5) What does success look like? How about failure? How can I measure both, even simplistically? (Hint: Objectives you can’t measure against are going to be really hard to celebrate or adjust, since you won’t know how you did either way).

These are just a start, and you’ll think of more. But managing your social media presence and time means having a crystal clear idea of what you want out of it. The goals and objectives will help dictate the path and resources you need.

Personal Vs. Professional

You’ll hear lots of takes on this one, but here’s my short answer about whether you should be participating as yourself or as your brand:

The web is a vast, intertwined thing. If you’re participating in social media, you cannot keep your personal stuff from touching your professional stuff, even if you think you’re separating them by imaginary lines. The dots can always be connected, and you’ll do well to keep that in mind for the long term.

For the most part, as connections and colleagues, we don’t draw distinctions between you, the “personal” account and you, the “professional” one. You are you, with many facets. We think of you as a whole person, with many parts.

That said, you *can* create a separate blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page to foster conversation with a business purpose. I’d advise against participating solely as a logo; if you have a central corporate page/account, please let the voices and participants be intensely human and contribute as such. Whenever possible, provide names and faces to go along with the people on your team. Give your community people to associate with your company, and a sense of who they are. Allow them to converse outside rigid messages and corporate topics and be personable and approachable. That is, after all, the point of all of this.

And remember. If you’re using your personal account in hybrid (like I do, and the approach I prefer), whatever you post has a long shelf life. If you don’t want internet content about you personally to reflect on you professionally, keep it off the internet. There are no shortcuts to personal accountability. And good judgment doesn’t come with an owner’s manual.

Next….

We’ll cover time allocation for varying social media tasks like listening, responding, content creation, and measurement. Stay tuned tomorrow.

Other questions you’d like to cover about social media time management? Let me know in the comments.

image by allyaubry

Social Media Time Management: Getting Organized

Social Media Time Management: Resource Allocation

This post is the second in a multi-part series on Social Media Time Management, intended to supplement the content of the presentation I gave at BlogWorld Expo 2009. Click here to see the collection of posts in the series.

Organizations that are embarking on social media are going to be at different levels of maturity. That’s okay. What’s most important is that you recognize where on the spectrum you sit, so you can plan your efforts accordingly, and focus on how to get to the next level. Here are a few models you can consider:

Passive

Passive organizations are in observation mode. You’re getting the lay of the land. Listening, paying attention, absorbing what’s happening around you. The goals here are to learn what conversations are happening around your company, competition, and industry, where they’re happening and how often, and start laying out your approach in line with what you learn.

Responsive

Responsive companies are taking the first step in engagement online. They’re still listening, but they’re also making forays into responding to the active dialogue. Usually, that means basic responses to company or brand mentions, but it can also mean contributing to industry conversations on social networks that are of interest and strategic focus.

Engaged

At this point, your company is ready to not just participate in existing conversations, but to start a few of your own. That can be anything from starting a blog to foster home-grown dialogue, to initiating conversations on your community or social networks like Ning, Twitter, or a Facebook page. The point here is that you’re leading the conversation, not just following where it goes.

Creating

Creation is a step beyond engagement. It’s more than just conversation. It’s the generation of meaty, useful and valuable content for your community and potential community. Blog posts are the beginning, but here we’re looking at a full content marketing strategy that includes development of independent content designed to be distributed and shared for the purpose of establishing a thought leadership position in your industry.

So – how much time does that take?

Here’s my take on it, from a generalized perspective (and your mileage will and should vary). Listening will always, ALWAYS be the biggest chunk. It’s how you know where you’re going and where you’ve been.

click to enlarge

You’ll note the top two levels have an asterisk; it’s how I’m telling you that if you’re serious, you’ll need more than one person (however well intended) to do it well. The last level I even break out into two lines of responsibility, one for content creation and one for engagement and outreach.

What about people?

If you’re an individual or a small business, this is how I’m suggesting you might break out your team. I understand that it’s often one person, which means you have to make choices about which pieces of this matter most to you and create the most value. Listening and measuring can sometimes coincide and overlap, and content can be repurposed and re-engineered for the web. But for this size business, auditing your online efforts to make social media an OR instead of an AND is really critical.

click to enlarge

If you have a larger organization and are looking to develop a team approach, here’s what that might look like. You’ll need to think about how to create workflows in your organization to get information throughout your team and into other areas of the organization that need it in order to inform business decisions.

click to enlarge

As an example, you might have a few folks on the front lines collecting, routing, and assigning posts for follow up. You might have one or two exclusive “behind the scenes” content creators that help seed your libraries and outposts, and select people that handle the bulk of the visible engagement and outreach activity. The measurement folks and the listening folks are often one and the same, dividing time and processes with input from the rest of the team.

Ideally, you’re growing into an organization that has point people on this team from each department. You’ll have customer service, sales, and community folks on the listening and engagement side. You’ll have marketing, PR, and community people building content. You’ll have HR, product, finance, legal and executive people on the reporting and communication pipeline so they stay plugged in even if they’re not actively participating. Your workflow will be very individualized, but think it through globally, not just in the silo of your department.

So, that’s a high level view of what your resource allocation might look like, and the time commitment it’ll take to do it well. Is it easy or fast? Heck no. No one said it would be. This is a business model. Not a tactic. What’s your take? Does this make sense?

Next….

In the next post in the series, we’ll explore some of the tools you might consider for listening, engagement and measurement. And later, we’ll talk through some tips and tricks on wrangling the social media time suck and making sure your efforts are focused.

Social Media Time Management: Resource Allocation

Social Media Time Management: Selecting Tools

This post is the third in a multi-part series on Social Media Time Management, intended to supplement the content of the presentation I gave at BlogWorld Expo 2009. Click here to see the collection of posts in the series.

When you’ve planned and are ready to actually start engaging in social media, selecting the right tools can go a long way to helping you manage your time.

Remember, the tools you select should reflect what you’ve learned through your listening efforts, and help you accomplish the goals you’ve set.

When it comes to social networks or types of social media, select two or three. Don’t try to be everywhere or do it all. That’s an inevitable time sink, and you’ll do nothing well.

When it comes to the tools themselves, avoid shiny object syndrome and pick the ones that get you to your goals, and no more. Low tech is okay. Some suggestions for the varying areas of focus are below.

Listening and Monitoring

If you’re bootstrapping and on the DIY track, look into tools like Yahoo Pipes to build yourself a nice little aggregation environment. Or, try putting together a dashboard using NetVibes, and pull in the RSS feeds for your searches from sites like:

• Twitter Search


• Technorati


• Google Blog Search


• Backtype.com


• BoardTracker and BoardReader


• SocialMention.com


• YouTube


• BlogPulse

Or, if you really want to start with some basics, tap your search terms into a site like Addictomatic or IceRocket and get the pulse of what’s happening around you.

Disclosure: I work for Radian6, a social media monitoring company. I am, without question, biased in favor of our tool in terms of paid monitoring solutions. So if you have some budget for a listening solution, I’d recommend learning more about Radian6.

There’s a huge case to be made for investing in a monitoring tool. Once you’re spending more than a couple of hours in a day aggregating posts and information, and more than a couple of hours a week doing analysis on the data, it’s time to look at graduating to a solution that can help automate some of the work and free you up to actually discover the insights that can move your business forward.

Responding, Initiating and Creating

The number of social tools and sites available to you as a business are seemingly endless, right? The thing is, the only ones you need care about are the ones that are hosting conversations you want to be part of. That’s where the listening bit comes in. That’s how you know where to be. It’s never about what cool new toys and sites “they” are talking about. Dig?

I’ve covered a few of the most popular (and useful, in my book) social sites and tools in an ebook called the Social Media Starter Kit. It’s free, and it goes into detail about Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and LinkedIn and a few tidbits about some of the productivity and content creation tools that I’ve found useful. That should give you a start. (And by all means, if your industry is still chatting it up on forums and such, be there.)

Also, please don’t forget about “legacy” tools like email. Coupled with solid social media outreach and engagement, well crafted email newsletters and communications can be an essential part of what you’re doing, and help you cross pollinate your communities.

If you’re blogging, please do yourself the favor of using a platform like WordPress. The plugin resources and development community alone make it well worth the investment (you can get a snifty blog, built on WordPress, customized and prettied up for as little as a few hundred dollars. This beats the pants off of a lousy website). And get yourself a Google Reader account to stay connected with the blogs that matter most to you. Spending time commenting and contributing on other blogs is most likely an important piece of your engagement commitment.

Measuring

First things first. Have a spreadsheet program? Good. Calculator? Good. When it comes to measurement at a basic level, you really can get by with these things (though it’s going to take time, yes). The key is knowing WHAT to measure (which is a whole different post series, but for a start, here’s a presentation I did recently on social media measurement that might offer a few suggestions).

Deciding what to measure is super straightforward if you have clear goals in place. For instance, if your goal is to increase your overall awareness in social media across the next 12 months, you might track metrics like Share of Conversation, overall on-topic post volume (posts that are about you or mention you), and your specific share of posts in your selected social media types over that period (watching how your volume increases or decreases over time on, say Twitter, forum posts, and blogs.).

Benchmarking is crucial. You can’t track progress against something you aren’t measuring in the first place. If you want to increase customer loyalty, you need to know what indicators you’re tracking that point to that goal (repeat activity or purchases on an account, number of referrals from that source over a set period of time, increase in average purchase size, etc.).

For each objective, pick no more than three metrics to track. More than that, and you’re in the rabbit hole of measurement. The win isn’t that you measured. It’s that you measured something that provided an insight into your progress toward business goals. Choose wisely, and stay focused.

Some tools you might consider:

• Social media measurement and analytics: Radian6 (Again, I work for them, and I think it’s a superior paid solution)


• Twitter Analytics: HootSuite, Twitter Analyzer, TweetStats


• Web Analytics and Tracking: Hubspot, Google Analytics, Compete.com


• Blog Analytics: PostRank, Google Analytics (try the Social Media Metrics plugin, but it’s not perfect by any means)


• URL Shorteners like Bit.ly


• Facebook Ad analytics and Facebook Lexicon

When it comes to time management, selection of tools and resources is important, but it needs to be done with an editing eye and with a systematic approach. Random and haphazard tool selection leads to similar results. Do your homework, and the tools you need will often make themselves clear. Ignore the rest.

Next….

To close out the Social Media Time Management series, we’ll talk about some tips, tricks, and helpful hints to stay focused and on track when you’re navigating social media. Has this series been helpful to you? Please leave your feedback in the comments.

Social Media Time Management: Selecting Tools

Social Media Time Management: 9 Guiding Principles

This is the last in our series on Social Media Time Management, but you’ll really find that these are less ideas about managing just social media and more ideas for managing online life in general. It’s a balancing act. And ultimately, you’re in the driver’s seat.

1) Manage Disruptions

The key to managing disruptions is to have daily priorities. Sounds simple, but isn’t. Pick three things that you have to get done today, and focus relentlessly on those. (Hint: they should always be tied into your bigger picture goals, or you’re wasting time). If that means you have to say “I’m blogging for an hour”, do that, and let nothing but emergencies stand in your way.

Realistically, unexpected stuff pops up. Document it, find a home for it so you can address it later, and give yourself permission to forget it until the time comes where it makes the priority list. If you have to address it now, take note of what you’re working on and come straight back to it when you’re done.

2) Control Information Overload

Stop trying to be everywhere. Just stop. In social media, information overload is yours to own and manage. Pick your two or three social sites and, unless your JOB is to spot the next big things, stick with them. Adopt new tools or strategies only when there is a compelling business reason to do so.

Subscribe only to the blogs you read, and unsub from the ones you don’t, without apology. Delete email you aren’t going to respond to (be honest), and never use your inbox as a to-do list (see #6). Turn your IM off when you’re trying to work. Lots of ideas getting in the way of execution? Create a parking lot for them so you can capture them and get them out of your mind. Visit this once a week, and see if any ideas on the paper warrant a move to reality.

3) Leverage Tools

Use a desktop tool like TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, CoTweet or HootSuite to streamline your Twitter use. Blog using a fluid tool like WordPress that has a suite of plugins to make your life easier, and use the scheduling function to write posts in advance. Make folders in Google Reader so you can prioritize your blog reviewing depending on how much time you have available.

However, resist the urge to automate your interactions. Automate and consolidate everything you can up to that point, but the engagement on social sites needs to be you, not a robot. THIS is where you need to spend the time.

4) Annotate and Share

If you don’t have one already, get a Delicious.com account and use it for your bookmarks. I say bookmark freely, even if you never get back to reading it. If you want to find something, it’s easier to go back to it. If you don’t, your links can be a valuable resource of information to others (and you can send them to your specific tags if you get repeated requests for the same information).

Use sites like Slideshare.net to share your presentations, and get ideas or frameworks for ones of your own. Try Flickr Creative Commons for sourcing images and sharing your own. Get to know and love the collaborative power of Google Docs or Zoho, so you don’t have to send stuff around in emails. Leverage your intranet or project tools like Basecamp to share information. The less time you spend looking for stuff, the more time you have to DO stuff.

5) Sometimes Templates are Okay

If you’re asked the same question several times a day in an email, write up a little framework of a response that you can personalize for each recipient, but that contains the bulk of the information you need to share. Same with Twitter. No, this doesn’t mean an autobot, this means having a set of standard links on hand or responses to common questions that you can respond to as needed without having to recreate it every time.

Build an FAQ page on your site to point people do. Create sharable documents that contain frequently requested information and have them on ready five in a folder for easy access. Build your tags in Delicious so that you can send people there for broad categories of related information, like statistics or case studies.

6) Wrangle Task Management

When you’re processing email or items in social media, every time a task pops up, you need a place to put it. I use Things for Mac, but there are lots of programs that will work, even the (gasp) task list in Outlook.

When you’re overwhelmed by what you’re supposed to do (say, the notes from a seminar you just attended or the volume of stuff in your inbox), process one thing at a time and ask yourself “What do I need to do with this as a next step?”. Whatever that task is, create an item for it on your task list and archive the rest of the information for later reference. Bonus step? Tag the items on your list that are doable in less than five minutes so you can take time each day (say, 35 to 45 minutes) to plow through a handful of those.

7) Communicate Expectations

Sometimes, you don’t have the answer. Sometimes, you don’t have the time to get to something right now, but you will at some point. Honesty and humility go a long way to helping manage expectations for responsiveness online. Try these:

• “I’d love to get that information to you, but I need 48 hours. Will that be okay, or do you need it sooner?”


• “I don’t have the answer to that, but I’d like to send your request to someone who does and have them respond. Is that okay?”


• “Hey there, I got your note but need a little time to respond. I’ll be back to you within the day.”


• To your boss, perhaps: “I’d like to complete this project, but here’s the information/resources I’m missing to get it done…”

This is another reason why it’s crucial to infuse some humanity into your conversations online, so folks know that you’re just a person over there, not a superhero or a robot. You need time to spend with your kid, feed the dog, spend with your spouse, read a book. Yes, you should still do those things. Being sure that folks know you’re responsive in a reasonable fashion but not going to be able to handle things ’round the clock is super important.

8 ) Establish Routines

If you have regular tasks and tactics to focus on, you’ll want to try and carve out time for them. Some examples:

• Blogging


• Reviewing and responding to email


• Listening and Monitoring (unless you have a dedicated staff person for this)


• Reporting and Analysis


• Checking in on social networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Forums, Community sites

If you set aside specific hours in your day, turn off other distractions. (Yes, it’s okay to close your email program). Put your phone on Do Not Disturb or let it go to voicemail. Even 30 minutes of focused time on a single task, on a regular basis can ramp up your productivity. It is NOT “inauthentic” to set times to interact on your chosen social networks. It’s all a matter of balancing priorities.

9) Unplug.

Please. Get offline. Go outside. Take a bath. Play with your kid. Go to the movies. Or go to an in-person event or Tweetup. There is nothing that will derail your social media efforts more than never walking away from them.

You need perspective from an unplugged view so you priorities stay in focus. You need time to scribble your goals on paper, or just think. Productivity isn’t always about how many balls you’re juggling. Sometimes, it’s about very careful editing of how you do – or don’t – spend your time.

So, I’m sure you have tips and tricks for how you manage all of your social media efforts. Where do you draw the lines and say enough is enough? How do you prioritize, and are you allowing yourself to set realistic limitations and goals? I’d love your thoughts in the comments.

image by st_a_sh

Social Media Time Management: 9 Guiding Principles