It’s uninteresting to follow a company I care about and only read their replies to their customers. I’m going to generalize and say that we follow companies because we like their products and services, we want discounts, special access to promotions, to get closer to a world view we share as well as a response to our questions.

If the majority of a company’s responses are @ replies, it signifies a company is listening. However, listening alone is not compelling, especially if a company’s responses are not directed at you.

Check it out for yourself. Go to these Twitter accounts and see:

@Starbucks
@JetBlue
@Wholefoods

There is another side to this discussion. If we think of the brand as a person and Twitter its voice, the account consisting of a majority of @ replies is approachable. Customers feel that can ask a question and receive a response, evidenced by the account’s activity. It communicates something real about the brand.

I am in favor of a balanced approachability strategy that signifies you are listening, while also providing engaging content. We track the ratio of @ replies in our tweet stream for clients as a metric that helps us navigate this.

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I’m teaching a course at Emerson College called “Social Media and Marketing.” Unofficially, I’ve titled it “Why Social Media Matters.” I’ve asked 20 industry experts to share with me the most challenging questions they are asked on a regular basis about social media. Their answers shaped our curriculum. Each week the class explores one of the question. Five companies are involved with the class: Cisco, Doink, 8Minute Dating, Zappos and Nokia. Students are working on their real business challenges involving social media.

In the first class, we discussed the meaning of social media, based on its application and various definitions. There is considerable debate on what social media is.
Prior to the class, I asked several prominent bloggers for their definition, many of whom referred me to the Wikipedia definition.
While that’s a good place to start, we shared many other insightful resources:

1. Video: Social Media Revolution
Statistics are persuasive; I wish the sources were cited more fully in this video.

2. Presentation: IAB social media metrics definitions
The Interactive Advertising Bureau offers many concentrated key performance indicators helpful in planning and measuring a social media campaign.

3. TED Talk video: Howard Rheingold
An early and important contribution to defining social media, before the phrase even existed.

4. TED Talk video: Seth Godin on Tribes
An essential framework for brands using social media.

5. Video: Chris Brogan “Don’t be that Guy”
An important reminder of how not to market in social networks.

6. Blog post: Jeremiah Owyang – 50 ways to use social media

7. Blog post: What is Social Media? 23 Definitions

How do you define social media? Why does it matter to you? Share your story on our Facebook Page.

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I just completed an integrated social media plan for a client. The plan will engage and activate their customers on social networks.

Customers that are engaged with the brand are more likely to buy products and services.

And they are more likely to refer.

This helps to establish the business case for social media.

A non-social media example underscoring this point is the way universities interact with their alumni. Check out your latest alumni magazine.

In mine I found 7 examples you can use right now to build a customer community:

1. User generated content. Alumni wrote 75% of the content in the magazine. In what ways can you incorporate customer content into your blog?

2. Icons. Images of new buildings, professors and innovations fill the pages of the magazine making me proud to associate with the community. What images are you sharing with customers in your coorespondence with them: clip art or photos that evoke a sense of identification with your company?

3. Context. On every page the alumni magazine reminds us of the history of the university, which is greater than any individual member. Reading through the magazine I feel a sense of being apart of something greater than me. What values does your company promote, which are bigger than it? Are you sharing those values with your customers?

4. Ceremony. Birth, death, marriage and accomplishments are ceremonies celebrated within the pages of the alumni magazine. What are the ceremonies you celebrate with your customers? (i.e., 1-800-Flowers is celebrating their customer’s birthdays on Facebook).

5. Featured members. The alumni magazine spotlights new alumni each month by honoring them with an interview. How do you honor your customers?

6. Togetherness. The alumni magazine invites fellow alumni to travel together. It encourages those who do to send pictures and features them in the magazine. This creates a sense of belonging that is real. How are you creating a sense of “togetherness” with your customers?

7. The Ask. A purpose of the alumni magazine is to raise money for the university. It does this in direct and indirect ways. Directly, it asks for contribution only once. Indirectly, the more you read the magazine, the more you identify with the community increasing the likeihood of donation. How are you asking customers for their business? And what value are you delivering before they do?

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This semester I’m teaching a course at Emerson College in Boston entitled Social Media and Marketing. If this topic interests you, there are many ways you can participate. The easiest is joining our Facebook fan page, “Why Social Media Matters.” My goal is to contribute to meaningful discourse about the role of social media in our lives and our businesses. Feel free to drop on by and stay for a while. I’m going to blog quite frequently about it as well.

One of the things I love about social media is how simple it can be. Sure, you can make social media complex. You can measure metrics, use social marketing models and chart the growth of communities over time. However, you can also create one powerful idea. An idea that doesn’t require anything but others willing to play along.

Take the idea of Follow Friday for example. Hundreds of thousands participate weekly in nominating their friends to be followed on Twitter. The concept is simple, and the participation is contagious. To play, you just need a Twitter account. What if we applied the concept of Follow Friday to our lives? Maybe we’d call it “Have you met” Tuesdays. And we would share the great people we know with others we cared about.

Why does social media matter to you?

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So much is made of Twitter as a platform for conversation, it’s powerful search qualities are often overlooked.

Twitter provides marketers with the ability to micro-target based on geography, keywords and phrases, subjects referenced, content and even sentiment shared.

The increased ability to search necessitates a deeper understanding of your target audience. It also enables marketers to create an ongoing focus group to obtain it.

Use search.twitter.com, wefollow.com and other tools to find your brand’s target consumers.

If you follow 100 people from your target audience, you’ll notice trends. You’ll see who your target audience really is, what they read, think and share.

Your ability to market to them will greatly improve, too. You’ll stop seeing them as just statistics and more as real people.

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Meet Biba Milioto. She’s the creative inspiration behind the social media fashion campaign that has women chasing hidden bags all over New
York City.

Here’s how it works:

Brooklyn handbag designer Rachel Nasvik is luring New Yorkers to her twitter account and blog offering clues as to where she will “loose”
her next bag. Each bag is stuffed with the essentials for a night on the town including a summer mix of music and a mysterious key. The bag
includes a note to the lucky finder which instructs them that the bag is theirs to keep. Finders are encouraged to log on to the blog and
post the story of how they found it under the corresponding picture of the bag’s location. The campaign has been very successful
in getting users excited and eager to participate in the hunt. It’s a great example of how to use social media creatively and effectively.

1. What was the creative inspiration for the campaign?

A few yards of neon pink leather and a desire to create something that was purely fun, and completely tailored to the target market—something that would delight them and engage them in the story of the Rachel Nasvik brand.

It’s actually two separate ideas that happily fused together, amazingly enough. Rachel and I conceived of the bag-hunt aspect separately from what we’re now calling ‘phase two’ which is launching this weekend.

Michael Hastings-Black of Desedo cooked up this fantastic idea of joining forces with street vendors in NYC and getting the bags to have some full-on street level face time- his inspiration was trying to further tease out the totally dedicated relationship that the Rachel Nasvik brand has with New York City, since the brand is so rooted here, where it was born. I love that it has brought the two separate ideas into one cohesive campaign. It’s been great, great fun.

2.  You mentioned there’s a second phase. What can fans expect to see?

Well- that’s where Mr. Hastings-Black comes in. He conceived of this great idea where we hook up with some street vendors (the guys that sell the knockoffs) and slip some of the Rachel Nasvik bags into the mix. It’s meant to be surprising, funny, and irreverent, and also meant to be a bit of a love letter to New York- so much of Rachel’s brand is inspired by the New York lifestyle. What’s neat about this second phase is that since we’re cutting out the middle man of the retailer, there will be maximum street-level presence. We expect to roll that out this weekend.

3. What results have you seen?

The reaction has been overwhelming- on the first day we picked up about 700 followers on Twitter thanks to some web press from DailyCandy.com- that number has grown to nearly 1,000.The blog we set up www.wherethenighttakesyou.blogspot.com has seen lots of commenting and clicks.  And the media loves the idea as much as the NYC audience does- we’ve had such great coverage, which has continued to spread the word. It seems to have offered everyone a reason to smile and pay attention. We’ve also witnessed girls running down the street to be the first to grab the bag!

4. How have you used Twitter to promote the brand and the campaign?

The Twitter account is the lifeline of the campaign- we use it to drop clues, to ask questions, to post pictures. It’s the bridge that is directly connecting us to our rapt audience.

5.  What is the most surprising aspect of the campaign?

How constantly evolving it is- and how because it’s small and tightly managed, it can change every day to up the ante. If Michael has an
idea, or Rachel wants to try something different, we can just go for it and see what happens. It’s exhilarating, and really gratifying. The flexibility of the web and the immediacy of the Twitter feed has totally changed the game in terms of interactivity.

6. What did you do to make sure this campaign truly represented the Rachel Nasvik brand?

I had worked with Rachel previously when I was the Marketing Director at Ravinstyle.com. So I had a very precise idea of where the brand was positioned, and since I live in New York, where there are lots of RN fans, I usually spot at least one bag on the subway each day (full disclosure- I have a closet full of them myself!). So I know there’s a street style, an edginess, and a spirit that is very specific to her customer. She’s the kind of girl who knows where the get the best cocktail in the city, who peruses the smartest bookstores, and eats at the coolest new restaurant- you know, the one that doesn’t have it’s liquor license yet? She’s also not flashy or showy and appreciates subtlety in design.

So- I knew we had to be fresh and smart and that dreaded word: cool. And cool here in New York has an atmosphere & an address- we figured if we showed up where that girl was, with a gorgeous bag and a neat strategy, we’d embody the essence of the brand perfectly.

7.  You called this an “experiment.” What were you testing?

We were testing the waters of interactivity and looking to see how far people would follow us into the game. Will they trek all the way across town for a bag? Will they use a password and ask for what they want? We were experimenting with removing most of the boundaries that usually exist between a brand an it’s audience—we are directly interacting with them in a way that usually doesn’t happen. I’m happy to say it worked!

8.  Can you provide my readers with any advanced clues to where the next bag may be dropped?

That would ruin the fun of the anticipation! Follow the Twitter feed!

**Recognition: Special thanks to @JennMorales for recognizing the campaign and support all aspects of this posts.

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Most of those sites also consider other factors, of course; Mashable provides a detailed analysis of them.

I prefer to use three other metrics in addition to those tools:

1. Number of retweets: Retweetist
2. Number of times the Twitter user’s bit.ly links are clicked. If you have 200 followers and tweet a link that is clicked 120 times, that’s a pretty good sign your network is listening to you.

3. Offline identity. Hundreds of reporters who are new to Twitter have few followers, low influence scores and Twitter Grader grades. And yet many of them can influence millions.

Influence plays an important role of social media marketing. We live in a world where brands buy tens of millions of impressions to reach the right tens of thousands of people. Online influencers create trends and inform buying decisions, so it benefits these companies to invest time and resources in cultivating them.

Significant literature supports this premise, from Malcolm Gladwell‘s “Tipping Point” to scholarly studies in the Harvard Business Review.

About a year ago, Duncan Watts argued against influencer theory, suggesting trends are a result of society’s readiness for them, rather than the power of an elite group of tastemakers.

“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” he writes. Succeeding with a new product is less about finding the perfect hipster to infect and more about gauging the public’s mood. There will always be a first mover, but the contingent nature of that move makes the person in question an “accidental influencer.”
I am more inclined toward Gladwell’s model than Duncan’s. Regardless of society’s readiness for a new trend, I believe the means and messenger of its introduction shape its impact.

I actually am less interested in influencers themselves than I am in those who influence the influencers. I believe that Twitter offers average marketers, even those without sophisticated tools, a unique ability to find out who is influencing each other. One simple way to do this is to use tweetstats to see who an influencer @replies the most.

No matter what tools you use, the influencer campaign’s success depends on how you relate to the influencers once you locate them. If you intend to launch a campaign targeting influencers, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s site is a must read:

“Influencer programs are, by definition, long-term, multi-year commitments designed to build a relationship; they are not marketing campaigns. Campaigns can augment influencer efforts to help find, activate, or engage influencers in particular activities (like a product launch), but influencer programs need to level out the roller coaster of connections provided by campaigns.”

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A few weeks ago I presented to a room full of litigators at a local law firm. The topic of the presentation was how they can use both social media and interactive marketing to effectively communicate with existing and new customers and grow their business. Around that time, I started following Kara Smith on Twitter. Daily, she posts informative links on social media PR for the legal community.

Prior to starting Karasma Media, she worked in Human Resources at Goldman Sachs and with their Equity Derivative attorneys. She received her MA in Media Studies while working as a marketing manager at TIAA-CREF. Her company, Karasma Media, works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

We spoke with her recently about her perspective on social media for the legal community.

1.   Does a law firm have to have an open culture for social media to work?

If by “open culture” you mean, “have a willingness to be transparent”, then yes. In today’s business paradigm, we as consumers are not longer tolerating hidden or miscellaneous fees, and the anonymity of those managing the organizations we spend money with. Communication is key.  While the legal industry may have considered themselves immune from the expectations of corporate business in the past, clearly this is no longer the case. So, now more than ever before, open communications and transparency is necessary for firms to gain and retain their clients.

2.   What are some common objectives you receive from members of the legal profession regarding using social media?

Quite simply, like everyone else, they want to know how they can use social media to increase their bottom line.

3.   What do you wish more lawyers knew about social media?

1) They had a clearer comprehension of how incredibly important it is for them to be actively using social media to communicate with their current clients, and attract new ones. Using social media, prospective clients who call them will be the ones that they want, and be ready to do business. There’s no better ROI than that.

2) I wish attorneys had a greater comprehension of how social media works. The more they understand how it works, its cost effectiveness and the time saving techniques available to them, the more satisfaction they’ll have on multiple levels. Mastering how to utilize it and being able to attract the kind of clients they want took me years of study and ongoing personal communication. And what I do for myself, I do for my clients.

4.   What makes social media for law firms different from social media for other professional groups?

The most prominent differences are due to the history of the legal industry and the nature of their business. For one thing, lawyers have been marketing their services for the last 100+ years the same way, and until very recently, have been doing so very successfully. Secondly, the legal industry is extremely comfortable using online platforms like FindLaw.com, LegalOnRamp, JD Supra, and Plaxo that are “closed to outsiders” and cater specifically to their industry.  Once they step outside of that comfort zone, social media moves away from being simply a networking tool to being a public relations outlet.

It’s understandable that because their business is law, many attorneys are cautious about making themselves available on a platform that they perceive to be “open to public scruitiny”.  The truth of the matter is, if you are not at the forefront of your online conversation someone else is going to be. Holland and Knight learned that the hard way to be sure.

5.   What is the least intuitive aspect of social media for the legal profession?

It’s important that their target audience be narrowed down as much as possible, and this is a difficult concept for many firms to grasp. Today’s consumer is savvy, very aware of his options, and extremely customer service conscious.  In order to stand out from their competition, it’s mandatory for firms to satisfy information needs, and address concerns directly.

Once the audience is identified, a blog should be created that’s specific to that audience. The blog’s content should be made up of useful information and resources; build relationships and trust, along with positioning the firm’s principals as experts among your target group.

They’ll continue expand their firm’s online footprint using other new media tools such as eNewsletters, online surveys/polls, traditional and new-media public relations, presentations, downloadable whitepapers, YouTube, and article marketing.

In order to be successful, they need to understand that motive matters, these tools need to be used correctly. Also they wont be effective unless they are used consistently.

When other firms are cutting back, there is no better opportunity to pick up new clients, increase your agency’s profile and market share. You can do more online with a fraction of the cost of any other advertising of PR campaign.

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(Image: The fork in the road, by i_yudai on Flickr)

When presenting social media, find out first what matters to the client. This sounds obvious, but sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we assume that the client needs a Facebook page, a blog, a Twitter account, and that assumption comes too fast.

I am also not saying to start with business objectives either. Of course, they want more sales. What I am suggesting is to listen to how the client thinks they will arrive at those sales and to position the social media program to further that strategy. For example:

• If the client believes that sales comes by delivering a message to the press, which in turn informs prospects and drives sales, emphasize social media as a tool to cultivate, refine and deliver messages to journalists and influencers.
• If the client believes that sales comes by delivering a compelling call to action to the right person at the right time, emphasize social media as listening tool to find the right people and discover what call to action will motivate them to act.
• If the client believes that sales will come through the right strategy partnerships, demonstrate how those partners are using social networks and the ways in which they can be reached through them.

Discovering how clients believe they will achieve sales should influence what aspect of social media to present.

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I recently interviewed Nikki Scoggins, the online communities development manager, to discuss Vans’ blog and participation in social networks.
Her fun, candid answers below give us an insight under the hood of Vans.

1. Why does Vans blog?

We blog to give us another way to connect on a casual level with our customers & fans. It’s a way to tell people about Vans-related phenomena (like sneaker customization) or random happenings that Vans actually has nothing to do with, but we find interesting. People do it on their own. Also, through the blog, Facebook, MySpace, & Twitter people can talk directly with us about their likes & dislikes….events & happenings in their world. I mean, people are online all the time anyway in social networks. Why not go where the people are, right? And anyway, of course, blogs are a great way to further our knowledge of how our products are being used. If a guy builds a giant chair made out of our sneakers I wouldn’t exactly put it on the front page of vans.com. It’s not the place for it. However, posting it on The Vans Blog and asking the artist why he felt he needed to make a giant chair out of Vans- getting the story about the person- is what I find most interesting and makes the best material to write about. (Is there really a giant Vans Chair? No, not yet. I am seeding. I need to see one. Haha!)

2. Who reads the Vans blog and why?

As far as I can gather, there’s not any particular type of person who reads the blog regularly.  I’ve connected it through all of our other networks so the range of person isn’t targeted at one audience. Certainly the majority of traffic is US, followed by Canada, the UK & France, but hey, I gotta give a big holler at my one reader in Azerbaijan, too. (I know where you are. What up, Google maps!) Some people could think that writing a blog about Vans would be boring and too restricting. You’d run out of content. In fact there’s so much out there, when you consider how many people wear Vans and have an emotional attachment to them, oftentimes I can’t keep up with all the material. Also, picking one topic & elaborating on it for more than a year certainly helps to understand the nuances of the culture behind it. I guess that’s why people keep coming back to it. It’s like looking under the hood of Vans.

3. How do you measure whether the blog is a success?

Ah! That’s a perfect follow up to the last question. I measure the success from two perspectives: connecting the people at Vans with the public & providing a conduit for the public to us. When people in my office learn something new about what one of our fans is doing with our product, they get excited.  When a fan feels more connected to us because we blog about DIY projects or something going on in their town, they get excited. That’s a success. That’s not supposed to sound all crazy altruistic, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

4. What’s your favorite Vans blog post?

Well, they aren’t terribly popular ones, but I really love finding the homemade commercials by kids on YouTube. They’re so sincere. They make up songs about Vans. They write bitchy skits about how nerds wear Sketchers and cool girls wear Vans and by wearing Vans you magically become Cinderella-awesome. Haha! I know I’m a sucker, but I used to make videos like that when I was little. It’s nostalgic.

As far as ones that readers like?

The Alexander Hamilton Vans

This one here where rapper Gata makes up his own slang

and the Coachella poloaROID RAGE! Study

5. In your “about” section on the blog you show a lot of personality. Do you feel free to be yourself on the blog?

Absolutely. The only things I stay away from are politics and religion. (I’m a Southern girl. That’s just not proper. Haha) Other than that, I am pretty down for whatever. Like I mentioned before, blogs are casual places. I can’t claim that I’m a versatile writer. I’m not about to win a national book award in my spare time. I write how I speak, but sans F-bombs as constant placeholders. Most people get my humor. Come on, I literally wrote about waffles this week. Occasionally, some people take me seriously. A while back I wrote about how a guy in a Facebook commercial for iPhone wouldn’t be my friend. Over the top sarcasm all over the place, right? After I’d written the post, I ended up exchanging emails with the guy in question. He works at an ad agency in Santa Monica, CA. We were quipping back and forth in the comments section, joking about adding each other on FB. Seriously, I wrote, “OMG LOL LMAO MAO ZEDONG” in the comments, so I figured it was pretty obvious that we were joking. Anyway this woman writes me back a long, “you need to respect yourself, honey” comment. It was hilarious! The moral of the story? Some people just don’t get it.

6. Have you used the Vans blog in any of your marketing efforts? If so, how?

Oh sure. Like I mentioned, it’s all part of our relationship marketing. When I post something, it goes on all of our networks. The Vans Blog is just one arm of the social networking program that I’m helping to build at Vans. No, I’m not making an ad, but I think the blog is something that rings true with our consumers. It comes from a sincere place.

7. What are a few blogs you personally enjoy?

For skate news: Skate Daily

Fecal Face’s NYC blog – Bryan Derbally & Todd Seelie are fantastic photographers. It lets me know what I’m missing and makes me want to move back east.

Design Sponge - Hooray to making things

Inspiration Resource

Music blogs: ah yes, the walrus & day trotter.

refinery 29’s blog

and of course I love the biggies like Gawker, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Mashable, and Cool Hunting is def a favorite.

Connect with Nikki on twitter.

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