1. Social media is a set of tools.

Social media is not a singular or solitary communication method. It’s simply a set of online communication tools that people use to share content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself. Social media facilitates conversations and interaction between groups of like-minded people. These tools include blogs, message boards, podcasts, micro blogs, bookmarks, networks, communities, wikis, and vlogs.

2. It’s more than just Facebook & Twitter.
Facebook and Twitter are the big ones in terms of usage numbers. But don’t neglect the secondary ones, especially if you are a B2B business. When it comes to social media, you want to go where your prospects go to talk about your product. Spend your time and effort in the most targeted places where you can find your perfect customer. LinkedIn, Merchant Circle, Fast Pitch are great for B2B companies. To find other niche social sites, visit: http://www.Traffikd.com

3. You can measure social media ROI.
Sure, tools are still evolving, and there is no end-all, be-all measurement standard for social media YET. However, there are multiple metrics you can use to measure the return on your investment of time and money. There are the obvious ones: website traffic, number of fans & followers, etc. But what about newsletter subscribers, average sale, overall sales volume, exposure value vs. marketing cost, conversions, coupon code redemption, sales event traffic (in-store or online), ebook downloads…the list goes on. If you truly want to measure ROI, you have to do a little work. Start by taking benchmark measurements of your business today. Then map out your marketing efforts into a schedule and plan. Track your metrics every month and compare them to your marketing and social activities. Use tools like unique URLs, coupon codes, landing pages and unique phone numbers to segment response from various sources. These are basic marketing measurement tactics, and they do work in social media.

4. Strategy makes you successful.
Almost 60% of social marketers say that their campaigns don’t generate new sales or help their company’s bottom line, according to a recent study conducted by R2integrated, an Internet marketing strategy agency. The report showed that companies seeing a bottom-line boost from their social efforts were almost twice as likely to have crafted an official social strategy. Bottom line: In order to move the needle, you need to plan how you will move it, and how you will measure it. Otherwise, you are just shooting in the dark. Think and ask yourself: What do I want to happen AFTER I get a visitor or fan on my social page? Where will I send them? What do I want them to do after they get there? Then tailor your message and content around that, keeping in mind that you must provide value for the consumer.

5. It takes time and effort.

A fairly comprehensive social media program takes roughly 30-40 hours per month to operate successfully. And you should expect to be building your initial audience of followers for 6-12 months before you get any decent interaction or monetization from it.

6. It’s not free.

You spend your time and sometimes money to make it successful. Time is money, is it not? Social media can be done without hard costs like advertising, but you will still invest your time. That’s time away from other business duties. There are great tools out there to help you organize your efforts, monitor your impact, and save time, but these tools frequently cost money. Social media pages (like Facebook) grow faster when there is advertising sending traffic to them. So the costs of social media certainly are not free.

7. Social media did not kill traditional media.
Social media made traditional media work harder. Integrating your social media into your traditional marketing will make the impact that much more significant and measurable. Each one should feed the other, and with every marketing piece (whether social or traditional) you should ask yourself, “how can I turn impressions into audience members?” Think about including links and unique URLs in your email, print, TV, direct mail, etc. to send those eyeballs to a place where they can interact with your company and subscribe to more info from you.

8. You can use it to sell stuff.
There are those who say social media is only for conversation and not for conversion. We don’t believe this to be true. We’ve seen companies convert followers into sales and you can too. Just don’t overdo it. You want to keep people engaged, so they keep following you. They won’t likely stay engaged if all you do is bombard them with marketing offers. But they do expect the occasional offer peppered in with the discussion. So don’t be afraid to ask for their business once in a while.

9. One hard and fast rule: Provide value.
People stay subscribed to your messaging if you give them a reason to. As consumers, we spend a good majority of our time dodging marketing and advertising messages, and actively seeking useful information from various sources. Be an information source and you will capture their attention and loyalty. Think like your customers. What do they wonder about? What do they need help with? What is of great concern to them? Answer these questions with content and they will keep coming back to you for more info, and eventually your product.

10. Social media is a cost of doing business.

A recent poll showed that 90% of consumers believe a company should have a presence in social media. Like a website, phone and email contact methods, social media is a cost of doing business today because it is the preferred contact method for many of your customers. Even if it’s just a basic profile on a couple sites, you need to have a presence in this space. And on Facebook and Twitter, you should sign up even if it’s just to claim your company name…before someone else does!

Do you have any truths to add to the list? Share them please!

Mashable.com. If you do not know Mashable, you need to. Just the absolutely definitive source of social media and technology information. If you use one source for your research and news, this should (and could) be it.

Social Media Graphics Blog. Cool blog with constantly updated, visually interesting infographics. Just a great resource for meaty, usable info and stats.

Social Media Today. Awesome source of news and research on social media. Especially useful at identifying good tools and social media tactics.

TechCrunch and eConsultancy. I visit them less often, but still have good info–it’s definitely worth subscribing to their feeds.

Do you have any favorite sites for social media or digital marketing statistics? Please do share!

Now that’s out of the way. Let’s talk–like so many others–about the branding and PR implications of this oily mess. So many are saying they should “go dark” on the media messaging and posturing. I agree. Rumors are swirling about a BP breakup. I agree that’s a possibility. But after the gaffes from CEO Tony Hayward and their complete lack of focus on the singular effort of stopping oil and saving life in the water, air and land, it is clear to me what BP is going to have to do to preserve not only their image, but their very company.

There needs to be a fundamental, monumental change in the DNA of that company. Every oil-leaking day that goes by, they lose more credibility and more respect…and they don’t have much more left to lose. They need to stop saying the “right” things and start doing what is right or no amount of PR will ever help them. To survive, they need to show the world the profound impact that this catastrophe has had, at every level of the company. They need to change the company philosophy, right down to the mission statement, to refocus on protecting the environment, whenever and where ever they conduct business. They need to do something BIG–not a publicity stunt, but something that shows their seriousness on environmental issues, no matter how it impacts the bottom line. Something like…shutting down their other deep water oil rigs. (Because obviously, they haven’t created any feasible contingency plans should there be an explosion or leak on one of them.)

BP is running ads saying they “will make it right”. How? Exactly? Cleaning up isn’t making it right. And they couldn’t possibly clean up everything. The beaches are one clean-up. What about the water? How will they make right the thousands or maybe millions of fish, dolphins and other underwater creatures who will die from exposure to the oil? They can’t very well construct a big strainer to scoop up all the underwater wildlife so they can all be cleaned up. Or can they? $50 million might build a hell of a strainer.

What do you think? Can BP survive this from an image perspective?

1. Lie. This should be obvious, but there are many folks who think they can stretch the truth, dabble in the gray, or fudge the numbers.  The content you put out in social media is forever.  What you say here could come back to haunt you, so save yourself the headache and backtracking. Just be honest.

2. Pass the Buck. Every now and then a company makes a mistake. Own it. Admit it.  No one wants to read your whiny post about how it’s not your fault. Social media loves companies that own up to their missteps and tell us how they will be corrected. If you are open and honest your followers will be more interested, more engaged and more forgiving.

3. Bash Your Competition. Social media isn’t a place for you to trash talk your competition.  Share what your team does well, explain why your product is superior, but don’t bash your competition or you might risk people considering your blog–or worse, your company–as nothing more than a sales pitch wearing a costume.  But one of the great things about social media is the interaction that can develop between your customers, your brand ambassadors, and the negative posters. If you have built an engaged audience of followers, they will come to your rescue when someone decides to vent. And that’s far more credible than you defending yourself.

4. Oversell. At the risk of sounding unoriginal, I’ll use the cocktail party metaphor. Have you been to a cocktail party where some bore won’t shut up about his business/product?  You are polite, and listen as long as you can, but the next time you see him coming you beeline for the taco dip. It’s the same in the social media world. No one wants to hear “me, me, me” all the time. Your audience is not stupid–they already know what you do. If you put your product/service in the context of a conversation that is engaging, they are more likely to listen and respond. Treat them like a friend, and they will probably do the same for you.

5. Abandon Your Audience. You aren’t going to have a ton of followers right away.  It’s going to take some time to develop them, and the best way to do this is by providing them with regular content that is engaging and valuable. Ideally, you want to create habits within your readers, training them to return to your site because of the excellent information. Don’t be discouraged if it takes a while for the momentum to build–that’s normal.  Once you have followers, reward them regularly with more and better quality content.  They are telling you that they like what you offer, so give them more.  If you slow down or stop, it’s going to be twice as hard to get them back to you when you need them.  There’s no finish line with social media; it’s all about building and maintaining relationships.

What do you think? Do you have anything to add to the “never do this” list?

Consumers aren’t stupid. They understand that you are running the same campaign across media channels. In fact, it makes more sense to them to see a consistent message everywhere. It gives them multiple opportunities to understand the value proposition, and more importantly, the multiple exposures they need to act on it. Remember back in the old days when we ad guys and gals lived and died by the rule that a customer needed three exposures to remember the message and act? News flash: it was true in the old days and it’s true today. And this absolutely includes social media.

Social media marketing isn’t just throwing a few tweets or blog posts out and calling it a day.  Or worse, throwing a social media profile up, operating it separately from all other marketing programs, and expecting a steady stream of new prospects from it. Just like traditional media, social media needs to have a thorough strategy for each level of the campaign in order to be successful. And each component should support the overall message that you are trying to deliver. Social media isn’t a separate campaign, separate message or separate brand–it’s a tool to help support your overall marketing efforts.

Think of your advertising campaign as a cake.  If you ate the flour, vanilla, or baking powder individually, you probably wouldn’t enjoy it very much.  Each ingredient works with all the other ingredients, and the outcome is delicious and addictive and something everyone wants a piece of. (Can you tell I love cake?)  The same goes for your different media channels.  Social media alone is not going to produce great results, but when it supports the other ingredients, like print or TV, the result is pretty sweet and your customers will eat it up.

Is your current marketing campaign cooking, or are your ingredients still in separate containers?  Are all of your ingredients working together or are you eating flour expecting it to taste like cake?

And why the heck shouldn’t she be? Like most of the musicians who are in the spotlight today, she will fade out. So why not make a few bucks now so she can spend her golden years sipping mango mojitos and shopping for crazy plastic clothes with her aged gay friends on South Beach? Without veering off into a talent discussion on “musicians today,” I have to say simply: They are all for sale. See also: Every American Idol contestant ever. Even the great King of Pop hocked Pepsi back in the day.

Image from Yahoo Musictoob

So she’s a big sell-out. Not surprising and who cares anyway? For me the more interesting question relates to branding. How does attaching your name to someone like Lady Gaga affect your brand long term? She’s no one-hit-wonder, but she’s weird, and controversial, and incredibly risky in my opinion. Especially for brands that aren’t specifically targeting the young club-going set, like Hewlett Packard, Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip. Normally when you look for a celebrity spokesperson for a brand, you want to select one who embodies the voice and personality of the brand. Lady Gaga and Wonder Bread? I don’t see it. In fact, it’s downright strange.

Thoughts on how this will play out?

My favorite part of his post:

“This becomes, in my judgment, the slippery slope that we saw when the Internet was new. Some of the best-known companies took their print ads and literally moved them onto the web. PLOP. Just stick it on that page. When that didn’t work, some fired their web teams because it became clear that you could not sell on the web. Enter Amazon to prove they were wrong. Not just a little wrong, but really, really wrong.

I see companies making the same mistake, especially with content, usability, and metrics. Some are cramming their sales in social media channels but are missing the larger point. Customers want to have a conversation with the company, or perhaps just a question answered. The new world demands accessibility and not just pasting your big Photoshop ad on a small cell phone screen. Sure, branding and maintaining a recognizable look and feel are important, but you need to remember how the media is being used, how people are interacting with the content and what they expect as an outcome.”

Essentially: Old tricks. New dog. I had a front-row seat to this in my last corporate job.  Without naming names, I will say the entire organization was rife with persistent, infectious and highly dangerous “me too” disease.

“Everybody’s doing it, so should we.”

Me: “Yes, but what is the goal of our social media program?”

“Goal? What do you mean?”

Me: Sell product? Increase email subscribers? Improve customer service?

“We can’t service our customers in social media. The call center people would be really upset.”

Me: Wow. Do you know anything about social media?

“I know everybody’s doing it. So should we.”

Please, please, don’t be this company. Without goals and a thoughtful strategy, you will fail in social media. I promise. You may not fail right away. You could build thousands of followers and fans. But trust me, when corporate accounting comes looking for their ROI, you will fail to produce it. Because you failed to identify how you will measure it. Because you failed to set goals. And you didn’t really understand social media to begin with.

Here are what I consider the 5 Best Facebook Pages from the list we’ve compiled so far:

Best Buy: Few brands will ever come close to the social media success of Best Buy. Tons of info. Effective, quick customer service interactions. They are selling product on Facebook. ‘Nuf said.

Coca-Cola: This should come as no surprise, since Coke is basically the recognized Master of All Things Branding the world over. The Page is beautiful–interactive graphics, cool Boxes–they’ve created a place where people worldwide come to play.

Anthropologie: This nichy, chic women’s retailer (one of my favorite places to shop) does a lot right. They have a cool music track that resembles the hip, underground European music you hear in their stores. They have fantastic photography, and above all, ENGAGE on a daily basis with sales and style discussions. Love them.

Audi: Great use of video and their content is ultra-current. Their Facebook Status feed on the front page keeps the conversation going perpetually and they use Justin.tv for live video feeds. Love the unique layout.

Pringles: Clean professional, branded Fan Page that makes great use of video. Their content is kept very current also. (Olympic sponsorship stuff). On a side note, we love parent-company P&G’s new tagline “Proud Sponsor of Moms.”

Agree? Disagree? Any other great ones I missed? Sound off, people!

It confirmed for me, once and for all, that whoever is handling his PR and crisis communications should be fired immediately if not sooner. Although he did finally break his silence–which he should have done MONTHS ago before the press and his many mistresses had a big party at his brand’s expense–he put on The Tiger Show. He controlled the message, he controlled the conversation, the stage blocking, and of course didn’t take any questions that might put that carefully crafted scene in jeopardy.

Tiger & PR Team: you could learn a lot from the social media evolution. Ever heard of it? The rest of the news media and PR world has realized that people see through the corporate-crafted message B.S. and want–nay, demand–a two-sided conversation. The media is not a bulletin board for corporate messages anymore. We’ve always defined ‘brand’ as a relationship. That definition rings true and literal today more than ever. Consumers, fans, influencers don’t want to be played to, they want a part in the play.

Come to Jesus–er, Buddha–Tiger. Your fans (who buy the products you endorse), the media, the world, want you to join the conversation. You could have done it months ago and seriously diminished the backlash and retained the support of your fans by simply talking with them. You have 1.3 million Facebook Fans who probably expected a nugget or two, but instead haven’t heard a word from you since November. And a Twitter account with 3 tweets, all promoting yourself.

Perhaps your communications team would benefit from one of our full-day social media 101 workshops.

I don’t envy the job their corporate communications team has ahead of them to restore public trust. In an effort to mitigate some of the backlash against the brand, Toyota is running some goodwill TV spots, like this one:

But they missed a HUGE opportunity to engage disenfranchised owners through social media. While I commend them for creating a special page on their site for recall news, I think they missed the boat on a number of accounts.

First, they could have created a microsite, or at least a unique URL, so folks could go right to the recall information, rather than promoting the corporate URL. Now, there is a giant graphic on the Toyota homepage directing users to the recall page. But once there, there are no links to Twitter or Facebook, both of which could effectively be used as major customer service hubs for concerned Toyota owners. The YouTube videos relating to the recall–there are several–are nice and all, but really just corporate fluff.

People are over corporate fluff. They want to engage with a brand, especially when their safety is a concern, or a high-ticket item is in question. Not to mention the call center time/money that could be saved by answering questions via social sites. Toyota missed a big opportunity to engage and shine in social media despite a major crisis.