• Rohit Bhaargava’s posts about the 12 types of social media experts. This was written a few months back and has that quality of timelessness that will make it suitable for printing in a book. Thanks to Rohit for posting this to his Facebook today. This blog post is powerful not only for social media folks, but also for businesses trying to plan for social media. Many busineses want a social media strategy without understanding how many options exist and the nuisances of each. Hiring a community manager yields different results than a professional speaker; hiring a trainer is different from hiring a builder. Businesses would be well served to use this when interviewing social media marketing agencies and prospective employees. Ask them to rank the competencies listed here in order—the exercise will absolutely uncover strengthens and weaknesses.

• Watch this video with LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner. Much respect to Mr. Weiner for consistently correcting his interviewer’s attempts to call LinkedIn something that it isn’t. This is an excellent example of how to stay on message in an interview. It’s also an effective example of a company that knows what business they’re in. My favorite lines:
• Interviewer: You’ve said that your goal is to be a public company at some point.
• Jeff W: Actually our goal is to connect the world’s professionals.
• Jeff W: “People’s personas change despite the fact that they’re the same person depending on the context that they’re in. So the way in which you’re going to carry on with your friends and your family is at times different from the ways you are conducting yourselves in a meeting or within the boardroom.

• Here’s yet another presentation from social media’s dynamic duo, Steve Rubel and Dave Armano. Its beauty comes from its simplicity.



Six Digital Trends To Watch by Steve Rubel and David Armano
View more presentations from Edelman Digital.
• Here are a few points to which I was saying, “amen.”
  • Equip employees to become ambassadors.
  • Quality content and social connections drive digital visibility
  • “Where are you is the new what are you doing?”
• A few of my thoughts:  I’m interested in the idea of whether we are in control of what we share. My interest is with our awareness around sharing—do we realize what sharing reveals about us, and if we did, would we continue to share anyways? Just for fun, pick someone you  admire on Twitter and read their tweet stream, a week of it, in one sitting. What you learn is very different than if you were following along in real-time.

Have a great week.

-Zachary

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Since these documents are a matter of public record, I’m going to quote a few passages directly I found interesting:

“As of July 2010, we identified that 22 of 24 major federal agencies had a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

·       The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) uses
Facebook to inform the public about the developmental and humanitarian assistance that it is providing to different countries in the world. It also posts links to other USAID resources, including
blogs, videos, and relevant news articles.

·     The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
uses Twitter to notify the public about the status of its missions as
well as to respond to questions regarding space exploration. For
example, NASA recently posted entries about its Mars Phoenix
Lander mission on Twitter, which included answers to questions by
individuals who followed its updates on the site.

·      The State Department uses YouTube and other video technology
in supporting its public diplomacy efforts. The department posts
YouTube videos of remarks by Secretary Clinton, daily press
briefings, interviews of U.S. diplomats, and testimonies by
ambassadors. It also conducted a global video contest that
encouraged public participation. The department then posted the
videos submitted to it on its America.gov Web site to prompt further
online discussion and participation.

·      The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) developed a
blog to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on security enhancements to
the passenger screening process. The blog provides a forum for TSA
to provide explanations about issues that can arise during the
passenger screening process and describe the rationale for the
agency’s policies and practices. TSA also uses Twitter to alert
subscribers to new blog posts. A program analyst in TSA’s Office of
Strategic Communications and Public Affairs stated that blogging
encourages conversation, and provides direct and timely clarification regarding issues of public concern.”

While this research addresses opportunities and examples for “web 2.o technologies,” it also highlights its challenges, especially as it pertains the privacy. I believe that the challenges associated with managing sensitive information, records and personal information will drive innovation for new tools, which will introduce new applications for social media. Often in debates about social media, we arrive at the concept of “who owns the message.” It’s a conversation about brand and brand management. I am excited that similar conversations are occurring with the federal government debating how to participate in an environment in which the message is not easy to control.

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Charlie has single-handedly cultivated a vibrant Facebook community of more than 70,000 fans of Cisco’s Networking Academy. And in an innovative twist, people who have no direct connection with the company are allowed to manage the page’s content: with administrative access, these Cisco fans can update the Academy’s page and keep people posted on the community’s doings.

Charlie’s there too. Treadwell, aka CharlieAtCisco, reports detailed analytics — including quarter-by-quarter comparisons of page views, unique views, photoviews, video plays and fan activity — to all who care to see. With such information at his fingertips, Charlie has a solid command of the page’s cultural zeitgeist. He knows when to let it be, when to interject, and when to remove objectionable content. (Ever mindful of Cisco’s fans, he even notifies users before removing their content, carefully explaining his rationale.)

Check out Cisco Networking Academy’s Facebook page to learn from Charlie’s best practices. You’ll notice:

* A significant number of comments from fans unprompted by a moderator
* Fans answering each other’s questions with thoughtful feedback
* Detailed and thorough answers from the Cisco Networking Academy team (employees and community ambassadors)
* Fan video submissions in the video tab
* More than 450 discussion topics ranging from VLAN configuration to job posts

The most remarkable aspect of the page is that it has a life of its own.
The conversations are initiated and sustained by the community with thoughtful moderation.

To learn more about Charlie, follow him on twitter – @CharlieatCisco

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Understanding what you hope to gain from Twitter will help you have a rewarding experience. My favorite benefits are using Twitter in the following way:

1. As a personal classroom. Follow people who teach you. Place them into lists and use TweetDeck to keep track of them. These are there lists I created and an example of someone I am following in each list.

• Poetswriterslifelovers (@MargaretAtwood)

• WorldChangers (@NickKristof)

• BusinessHeavyHitter (@Tom_Peters)

Everyone on the list teaches me something every day through the articles, quotes and commentary they share.

2. As a search engine on steroids. Run your Google search on search.twitter.com for real-time results. Use the advanced search to specify tweets based on location, whether they contain links, and more.

3. As a behind way to get behind the scenes access to personalities. (@alyssa_milano, @andersoncooper)

4. As a way to get shopping benefits. Get coupons, discounts and special access from your favorite brands (@bestbuy, @nordstrom)

5. As a way to make new friends and business contacts. Demonstrate you care by paying attention to your followers, respond with comments and over time, you’ll create meaningful relationships.

6. Getting closer to existing friends. Follow your friends for the every day details of their lives. You’ll feel closer to them – or decide to unfollow them! (@slarkpope)

The purpose of Twitter is yours to find. These points may make it easier to see why so many people love it.

Happy Tweeting

- @ZachBraiker

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LinkedIn matters.  Your profile appears in Google search results. Clients, colleagues, prospective employees, partners, press, and shareholders are among those using it to assess your credibility. And people use it every day for new business development and relationship building.
Your positioning on LinkedIn informs how they perceive you. Does it communicate:

• “Just doesn’t get it”?
• “Trying too hard”?
• “Too salesy”?
• “Out of work”?
• “Boring”?

Or does it communicate:

• “That’s my kinda guy”?
• “We should really meet with her”?
• “Lets invite him to speak”?
• “You should interview him for your article”?
• “Now this is someone I can do business with”?

Before reading further, go to your LinkedIn profile. What message is it communicating?

By reviewing examples of LinkedIn profiles, you can more easily identify the message you want to send. Recently, I reviewed hundreds of profiles. Here is what I’ve found:

1. Writing a profile is easy. Deciding what you want to communicate isn’t. Use these tips to guide you.

• Which three qualities have your colleagues noticed about you, which you are most proud of?
• Which of these business personalities do you want people to associate with you?  LinkedIn Title. The most common option is to state your title and company. Other options include

2. Job title / company  (i.e., CMO – Pepsi); (Author – book)

• Who you are (i.e., “that guy”)
• What you do (i.e., International business expert, rainmaker, brander, marketing professional)

3. Profile picture = your visual brand

• A professional head shot is most common.
• I’ve seen fun action shots like the Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi NY listening to music, Alex Bogusky Co-Chairman of CP+B with his bike, the forehead of Ray Longoria, creative director at GSD&Ms, Steve Weinreb, CIO of Global Technology Solutions at Metlife in front of the Great Wall of China, or the CTO of Cloud Solutions at Novell Moiz Kohari’s profile picture with his young son.

4. Summary = your story

An effective summary section shares your personal brand. Leaving it blank leaves the reader to infer your personality based only on where you’ve worked. Unless you’re Warren Buffett; then you can leave it blank.

Industry norms differ with summary sections. I often see clients in financial services that want to leave theirs sparse, whereas creative directors are inclined to write narratives.

Here are a several examples of professionals using summary sections to share their personal brand.

- Sir Richard Brandson writes a short narrative in the first person, “In 1970 I founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer…”.

- Guy Kawasaki’s LinkedIn summary shares his personal mantra “empower[ing] entrepreneurs,” with unpretentious language, “When all is said and done, I’m a marketing guy.”

- Sandra Nielsen, Chief Software Systems Engineer at Boeing, uses the LinkedIn summary to share her personal mission statement, “tomorrow’s solutions today.”

- David Radeke, VP at J&J, uses a more traditional approach that summarizes his background with factual language.

- Vance Strader, Chief Engineer, at Harley-Davidson Motor Company, also summarizes his background. His language is passionate with phrases like “Driven to create a compelling vision of the future”.

- President Obama’s summary section uses his personal profile as a springboard to discuss collective responsibility.

- Business author Marshall Goldsmith’s summary reads like a script for someone introducing him at a conference.

- Bill Gates writes with a sincere, personal style, starting his summary with “Melinda and I believe that every life has equal value.”

Key take away: Write your LinkedIn profile to communicate your personal brand, not your employment history.

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I attended a discussion from Michael Slaby the Deputy Director of New Media then Chief Technology Officer for Obama for America. Doc Searls, David Weinberger and others were in attendance in a room of 20 or so. Michael approached the discussion with candor and the type of reflective knowing that comes from someone who had worked on the campaign for 603 days while taking only 5 days off.

A few key points below with my thoughts in italics:

• The campaign’s success came from its authenticity and values rather than tactics. This means that the team acted from a place of values rather than simply memorizing tactics.
• Empower supporters to become your best advocates: “People trust other people about you than you about you.” This works with social media marketing with businesses as well. Provide customers with the tools and context to recommend you.
• Giving away control means you have to teach your values. How do you ensure your values are being properly understood?
• The thing that was impressive wasn’t our millions of Facebook supporters but more importantly somewhere around 50% of our supporters did something offline. Excellent point – and connecting online activity to offline action is the million dollar question (or in this case, the billion dollar question).
• Tell a good story – narrative matters. It’s not about writing one email, rather writing an email program that crafts a relationship with someone over the course of two years. This is an important reminder that engaging people’s interests through narrative will not only form long term relationships, it will also enhance conversion rates.
• A candidate’s time is the most valuable thing on a political campaign. What is the most valuable aspect of a social media marketing campaign: what the brand responds to?
  

For an informative summary of the discussion, see Ethan Zuckerman’s blog.

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Boloco, a regional chain of offering “inspired burritos and smoothies,” shared a useful social media tactic with David Gerzof’s social media class @ Emerson College today. As reported by Jeannie Hannigan and Matt Karolian on Twitter through the #ESM hashtag, Boloco retweets negative tweets about their brand to galvanize fans to respond on their behalf.

Advantages of the tactic:
*The fan base responses on your behalf adding credibility
*RTing negative & positive enhances the accounts builds trust by demonstrating objectivity

Disadvantages of the tactics:
*Some negative feedback requires an official response from the brand directly
*Followers unaware of the greater context for the comment may only take away the negative details

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Check out their update below using crowdsourcing asking fans to write their next wall post.

This gets fans involved with Odwalla and sparks creativity in their comment thread.
However, asking the crowd for their opinions is only part of crowdsourcing.
More important is determining how these opinions can be used constructively.

Before providing suggestions to enhance this their technique, lets review a few facts. At the time of this blog entry:
* Odwall has 15,169 fans
* This post received 2 likes and 23 comments
* Odwalla did not moderate the comment thread
* Odwalla did not offer an incentive to those who participated
* Their next several wall posts did not reference the suggestions that their fans created

Here’s a few ideas for how to take this one time status update and make it more impactful:

1. Celebrate fans and use their content. For example, “Our fan Myche Worth writes: don’t be an ODBALLA – drink ODWALLA! Thanks Myche! Create a rhythm using ODBALLA and ODWALLA. We’ll feature one on our next update.”

2. Create a tab entitled, “great ideas from our fans,” and showcase your favorite responses. Remember that attention is an incentive – you don’t just have to give away free products.

3. Moderate fan comments. Ask questions. Play along. Encourage. Insert fun brand facts.

4. Raise the stakes. Lets fans name a drink or suggest a fun idea for the Odwalla team implement.

5. YourWalla day. Turn this one fan post into a reoccurring feature by making every Tuesday YourWalla day.

These five points demonstrate simple ways to extend a simple wall update into meaningful community feature. If you’re not currently a member of their community, I encourage you to join. You’ll see many more creative examples of fan updates like the two listed below:

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I like this Facebook ad by Maier Advertising. The message is simple, and they smartly included in their phone number in the ad. Since they’re paying most likely on a cost per click basis, including the number in the ad is one way of saving money.

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