Social media is not the same as a website, brochure, TV commercial or pay-per-click ad. Instead of simply broadcasting your message, the key is to offer value. This is after all a conversation, and conversations are not one way. The conversation won’t last long if all you do is talk about yourself. Be an expert or industry leader. Offer tips and advice, solve problems, make introductions. This is the value of any conversation, and this will lead to building a network of trusted relationships, which is the goal of social media marketing.

Here’s a simple roadmap for getting involved in social media marketing:

• Define your goals
• Choose your channels and secure your identity(ies)
• Understand the conversation landscape
• Create your communication plan
• Choose your champions
• Start

When defining your goals, think about the process you’d like your “listeners” or “followers” to go through. Will you direct them through your website or blog, or will you encourage them to contact you directly? Or perhaps your purpose is more branding or reputation related. Either way, you must start by defining what the finish line looks like.

Choosing the channels you use will depend on where your customers, competitors and influencers are. For example, LinkedIn is a place for business professionals averaging about 40 years of age. Facebook and MySpace have younger audiences who are principally engaged in leisure activities. You need to choose the appropriate channels based on what you’re offering.

As an aside, something of particular importance nowadays is carving out your online identity across the various social media channels. Whether your plan on using them in the near future or not, securing your brand or identity is important. Just like the domain gold rush of the late 90s, each social media channel has its own fixed set of identities (e.g. Bob’s Fish House, Microsoft, etc.). If you’re particularly concerned with someone “squatting” on your identity, it would be advisable to create accounts in all the popular channels. Using a paid service like knowem.com can automate this process.

Understanding the conversation landscape means understanding what’s currently being said. See how others are offering value and building trusted networks, and take notes.

Your communication plan should focus on the types of topics to discuss, what to avoid, the tone of conversation, etc. This should be designed to present your company’s brand appropriately, and keep you focused in on your goals. Defining the frequency of your involvement is also very important. You don’t necessarily need to post a tweet every 20 minutes. You may decide that a monthly blog post is sufficient for your goals.

Choosing champions is a critical step that most companies overlook, and is one of the most common reasons why they fail. Champions are the communicators. They do the tweeting and facebooking and blogging. They need to clearly understand the communication plan, and be diligent with their conversations.

And finally, the key takeaway: Start. Don’t get paralyzed by over analysis. Take that first step, and get involved. Your customers are already out there, and they’re already talking about you. Your competitors are already out there, and they’re talking to your customers.

Here’s a presentation that quickly goes over the main concepts discussed at the event.

As a result of this presentation we had a great opportunity to talk to some of our existing clients and address some of their concerns regarding the use of social media in their organizations. We will definitely continue running sessions like this one throughout the following months.

To learn more about upcoming sessions feel free to give us a call at (403) 210.3669. Find out more about the LAR Model and let us know if you would like us to help you create a monitoring process for your company.

This post features a couple of recommended readings in plain English that should clarify (read as simplify) the use of social media by businesses.

What tools are being used the most?

Where Your Customers Are: How Facebook, Twitter and Others Break Down by Age

Facebook, the largest social media network, recently reached 300 million users worldwide — roughly the population of the United States. So do your homework before you approach your customers online. Here’s how users on the top social media sites broke down by age in August 2009.
View the graphs and original post at BNET.com

What should you keep in mind when promoting social media in your company?

Eight Ways to Ruin Your Social-Media Strategy

So you’ve set up a company fan page on Facebook and you’re letting your employees fire off messages to the world via Twitter — or you’re at least thinking about it. Well, congratulations! You’re part of the social-media revolution, which can offer unparalleled access to word-of-mouth buzz among those you most want to reach: your customers, current and future.

• Mistake 1: Pretend you can do without it
• Mistake 2: Play down the costs
• Mistake 3: Act like you own the conversation
• Mistake 4: Fear empowering your employees
• Mistake 5: Assume you have little to learn
• Mistake 6: Take negative feedback personally
• Mistake 7: Fret about return on investment
• Mistake 8: Underestimate the power of seemingly small efforts

Read details on each mistake and the entire article at BNET.com

Stop Looking for the Next Twitter

… if you’re in the trenches of an organization, my advice is to stop acting like or listening to pundits. Stop looking for the next Twitter. Why? It’s simple—because the odds are you already have plenty of projects and ideas with proven potential that you need to improve on without worrying about the next thing you’ll start. Here are a few thought-starters based on observations I’ve made about all of “yesterday’s Twitters” that need some care and feeding before you start looking for the next Twitter. Perhaps some may hit close to home for you…

• Your Website
• Your Blog
• Your Intranet
• Your Facebook, Twitter, Community Initiatives etc.

Read the entire article by David Armano at Harward Business Publishing

Robin did not a see a huge difference between the B2C and B2B ways of using social media to sell products or services. As a result, we’ve got to a point where we agree to the following general process of how B2B companies should be using social media. Here we present the LAR Model (Listen, Analyze, Respond):

Step 1: Listen

• Listening is the key component of any social interaction. People are talking about you, your competitors, your peers and your industry. You need to be aware of what’s being said.
• Some popular tools to help aggregate your listening efforts: Google Alerts, Trackur.com, ScoutLabs.com, Radian6.com, Buzzding.com.
• When you decide to setup a Twitter account for your company, be slow to befriend people right away. Instead, try the following: 1) create an account, 2) listen to what people are saying on topics of interest by using search.twitter.com, 3) analyze what people are saying, and finally 4) start following ones of interest.
• Some topics to try listening to: Vanity (your brand, your URL, your name), industry (influencers, leaders, companies, governing bodies), competition (key terms you compete for, your competitor names, URLs, etc.). More on this topic at FastWonderBlog.com.

Step 2: Analyze

• Once you have gathered information on a subject, it’s the time to look closer into the information you found.
• Consider what people are saying. Is there a trend in what they say about your company? Which events are people talking about? Are there certain people that appear to be “influencers”? What are the problems people experience with your product or service?
• Once you have all these data sorted and arranged in a convenient manner, answer the following questions: How can I solve the problem people are having? Who can I ask for help? Are there any influencers that I could talk to for assistance?
• Finally, you need to choose a champion. Someone (or a small group) who can take ownership of your interaction with social media. If you don’t have the time or desire, a social media or PR agency can help you.

Step 3: Respond

• Now that you’ve come up with a way to address your audience’s issues, you should start the conversation through your social media champion.
• Stick to your plan, but be flexible. Participate in conversations in a consistent manner to establish and maintain the quality of what you’re saying, and avoid confusion.
• Always respond with the assumption that the entire world is listening in. Because they are.

At the end of our heated discussion I realized that we’ve actually moved pretty close to agreeing on things.

In August 2009 two companies, Sysomos and Pear Analytics, partnered to lead a study of Twitter audiences. Below is a great visualization of this study done by InformationIsBeautiful.net

We are not suggesting that this is THE solution to all “Twitter for Business” problems but it’s a step in the right direction of understanding the role Twitter plays.

A great networking event. Robin mentioned that he actually had a very productive evening talking to people from different walks of life.

Panel composition and the Moderator. A few of the guests at the event commented on the uniformity of the panel. I mean the panel was brilliant and we had a great discussion, but the panel composition could be more diverse next time.

• Moderator: Norman Leach
• Panel members: Lynda Brown, Sarah Blue, Roger Kondrat, Manoj Jasra

Major points Social Media and next 500 days covered by the panel and the audience:

• Social media is many different things. We have to be able to clearly define it, as well as its individual components such as social media marketing and social networks, platforms.
• Rene Smid (Executive Director at Digital Alberta) posed a great question about the average time investment required to reach success in social media networks. More in the video that’s coming up.
• Social media is just a new concept with roots in traditional business.
• Social media may not be the solution to every business problem.
• Companies should pay attention to their marketing strategy.
• Social media is about creating conversations and maintaining relationships.
• Social media is about sharing value with your network.
• Social media is here to stay.

The video compilation of the event by Roger Kondrat is coming up shortly, stay tuned!

Edelman urges companies that now is the time act, “otherwise the impression will be frozen in time.” He goes on to state that the use of social media is critical for companies to reach younger audiences. A culture of transparency is building, so it’s up to the companies themselves to start participating in the conversations.

Here’s hoping that some of these oil and gas companies start contacting us so we can help them get started.

Global Village / Global Neighborhoods

Much like Marshal McLuhan with “global village” in the 1960s, Shel talks about the concept of “global neighborhoods” today. Twitter, he says, is a tool that allows us to have small conversations with people of common interest. It’s like talking to your neighbor over the fence. Twitter is simply a tool to create and maintain those short conversations online. As Shel mentions, Twitter is the closest to face-to-face communication.

The importance of telling stories

Much like Seth Godin in “All marketers are liars”, Shel is emphasizing the art of story telling. His book, Twitterville, is in essence a collection of stories about people talking on Twitter and telling stories; something others can relate to. The entertainment component is part of any successful story we read, hear and share with our friends and colleagues. As Dean mentioned in his You don’t know how to blog post last week, telling stories is super important, if it’s not a story, he won’t read it.

Broadcasting Era / Conversational Era

As we are moving from the broadcasting era into the era of conversations and small talks, the value of relationships and value transfer becomes the primary concern. We are no longer pushing the message as it was done for decades by advertising and traditional media. We are engaging in conversations, trying to help people solve their problems. As Shel mentions, the media as a social institution isn’t going anywhere. It’s valuable and will continue to evolve. There will, however, be a transition, and it’s happening already. The key for media outlets is to get through this transition and emerge into a new format of media; a combination of traditional and social journalism.

As a side note, I purchased the last copy of the book at this event. 12 hours later still excited to have it and plan to read it within next couple of weeks before Shel writes his next book