Back to basics is a theme I’ve seen with many nonprofit organizations over the past couple of years. With the economy slow to rebound, many NPOs have found that investing money in new ideas and new platforms isn’t really the right move for right now. This also means that many NPOs have avoided jumping into social media or expanding on their use of it. The basics are good – it’s what put most large NPOs on the map. The problem is that in the ever changing landscape of business and technology, even the basics have to change a little. NPOs need to embrace this change and learn to innovate the basics. Social media can do just that.

So what are the basics? It’s different for each NPO, but most organizations have a menu combination including some or all of the following: special events, year-end appeals, major gifts, education and/or advocacy programs. Sticking to what we know is good. But we can use social media to innovate all of these platforms to increase revenue and awareness.

Special Events

No matter what type of event has become your signature money maker, social media can help make it better. If you are planning a fundraising walk, run, or bike ride then social media is an optimal place for you to start recruiting. Promote the event on Facebook and Google+, highlight top fundraisers on your blog or Twitter, and make sure your website has a thermometer to keep track of where you are to goal on the event. Hosting a dinner auction? Create weekly posts to show off the best auction items you’ll have to offer. Create an invitation to post in all of your LinkedIn group message boards. Take advantage of the opportunity to sell more tickets online. Try special online sites that help you organize, plan and promote your event like Eventbrite. For more information read Mashable’s article “How To: Plan and Promote Events with Social Media.”

Year-End Appeals and Major Gifts

People give to your organization for many different reasons. But one thing many donors have in common is that they give because it feels good. Being recognized for good deeds also feels good. Take advantage of your built-in audience on social media sites and highlight and thank your most generous donors. You’ll want to get their permission first, but publically thanking people goes a long way to creating an ongoing relationship. For more information about innovating year-end appeals, read my December blog post “Nonprofits and Social Media: Putting the Appeal Back in Annual Campaigns.”

Education and Advocacy Programs

Education and advocacy programs probably aren’t making your organization a lot of money, but it’s key to developing awareness and cultivating relationships. The best press is free press and social media allows you all the air time you want to advertise your programs. Take it a step further and put up fast facts about upcoming program topics on Facebook and Twitter or spotlight a guest speaker in your blog. Post clips of videos from your last program on YouTube or Google+.  Put up links to your website that feature research articles, inspirational stories and other items you think will be of interest to your audience. While broadcasting your cause is important, remember the key to success is creating conversation. For more tips on how to use social media to further your advocacy efforts and promote education, read The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s article, “How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media to Spark Change.”

The basics are good. Innovating the basics is better. Whether you’re just starting with social media or your efforts have just stalled out, there’s no time like the present to get back on track.

Amy Stephan  (7 Posts)

This monthly Social Media and Nonprofits post is contributed by Amy Stephan. Amy is a consultant and non-profit professional with more than 10 years of field experience working in fundraising and development. She provides nonprofits with help in fundraising and major gifts, capital campaigns, board and volunteer development and staff leadership, working with organizations of all sizes to plan, implement and assess social media strategies. While holding leadership positions with local branches of organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the American Diabetes Association, Amy developed a passion for all things related to fundraising and non-profits. In addition to her non-profit work, she is a freelance writer and blogger who has worked as a full-time writer and editor for daily newspapers and magazines.

There is so much buzz lately surrounding the term “Relationship Marketing.”  My friend and social media guru, Mari Smith’s newest book is titled “The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Loyal, Profitable Network Using the Social Web.” In her book she outlines the ways in which people and brands can use social media to build a tribe of influencers and brand ambassadors to help them reach their core audience.

As a lifelong networker and alliance marketer, I find that the fact that these ideas are now getting focus is a bit backward.  Relationships should ALWAYS be the focus of our interactions.  However, I understand the “Mad Men” mentality.  Convincing people to buy through the use of advertisements was the pervasive philosophy back in the day, and worked for years and years.  The ad agency model was one of “give the agency your creative ideas and let them come up with something.” Brands were (and are) reluctant to change, and that’s where they run into trouble.

With the explosion of social media, companies and service providers are forced to adopt a different mindset.  The mind shift I’m referring to is from “convince and convert” to “converse and convert.”  Traditional advertising and marketing on one-way channels was about convincing people to buy your products.  Many times this included cutesy catch-phrases (remember “Where’s the Beef?”) or not-so-subtle comparisons to competitors’ products brands used to convince people to buy.  Today companies need to converse with their audience using the two-way communication of social media. They need to offer great information on ways and whys to use their product, and only periodically turn on the sales spigot.  In other words, brands have to take back the ownership of their voice rather than letting someone else come up with a catch-phrase or ad copy.  Plus, the conversation must continue after the sale to reinforce the relationship with the brand. In today’s world, brand loyalty is captured by continually offering good content, great customer service and responsiveness.

My friend and soon-to-be co-author, Ted Rubin, has been using the term the “Return on Relationship ™” since 2009 when he realized this mind shift.  While so many were looking at the “ROI” or return on investment in the traditional sense, marketers like Ted and I were looking at it from a different vantage point.  While many people were attempting to quantify the “value” of a Facebook Fan or a Twitter follower I felt they were asking the wrong question.  In my opinion, there is no real way to put a dollar value on a bunch of people who “like” or “follow” your product.  The real value is in the people who are the “super” fans or brand evangelists who market your product for you.  Measurements like people talking about you on Facebook and watching for the RT’s and mentions on Twitter (or check-ins on Foursquare) are more likely to give you an idea of value.

What is the return on the relationship measurement?  Simply put the value that is accrued by a person or brand due to nurturing a relationship. ROI is simple dollars and cents, whereas ROR or (#RonR) is the value (both perceived and real) that will accrue over time through loyalty, recommendations and sharing.

I realize many marketers don’t want to invest the time in the philosophy, but I have learned (and so will they) that the time investment is well worth it.  There have been published studies that show the recommendation of a “friend” or “follower” is far more valuable than traditional advertising.  I’m not sure why there is even a need to write and speak about this; personal recommendation has always been by far the best way to generate buzz and positive sentiment about a brand.   Social media makes it more visible and easier to share and disseminate, so people are more likely to do it.  If they have to call ten friends or stop then people on the street they are less likely to spread the positive message.  But the average Facebook user has 130 friends—so sharing positive (or negative) information about a brand can be viewed and shared much easier and at a much faster rate.

How do you measure the value of a relationship?  You see it in the engagement you receive.  There are also tools that measure brand “sentiment” that can help you see the #RonR of your efforts. Search.twitter.com can give you snapshot, other tools like SproutSocial and Radian6 are paid tools that give in-depth analysis of consumer brand sentiment.

Here are some #RonR tips you use to foster better relationships with your clients:

1. Listen – any social media campaign I begin for customers begins with a listening campaign.  What are people saying about you, your brands and your competitors?  Formulating a Return on Relationship game plan is much easier when you know the players and positions.
2. Find out what your constituency wants – whom does your product or service serve and how does it serve them?  When you flesh this out it is easier to figure out what your market wants to hear about from you.
3. Figure out where your market lives – don’t try to be everywhere.  If your target market lives on Facebook and Twitter, spend 75% of your time there and 25% of the time on other channels.
4. Learn the landscape, jargon and etiquette of the tools you use — For example: Please, please, do not post using hashtag (#) symbols on Facebook. The hashtag symbols are exclusively used on Twitter, and since most Facebook users are NOT on Twitter, it looks totally out of place and could alienate your audience.
5. Be consistent and communicative — Many of the larger brands I work with still think that tweeting three times a week is a good strategy, or that posting on Facebook twice a week will get them engagement.  Use the tools properly.  Also, be responsive; some bigger brands still require me to run every response through their legal department.  Many times it is several days before I am able to get an answer to a question. This is not how social media works, and those who use it will not get the return they desire.
6. Have disaster communication plan –  You cannot please everyone, so take the time to figure out what you are going to say and how you are going to say it when the inevitable negative comment is written about you or your brand.  Do not assume ignoring it will make it go away.
7. Measure, measure, measure — Don’t just measure numbers of fans and followers; measure the number of comments, shares and retweets that your messages are receiving.  Look at the demographics of your fans and followers.  Are you reaching your target market?
8. Tweak your efforts — realize that while a magazine ad or TV advertisement lasts weeks or months, you may need to tweak your social media strategy as much as daily if your message is not resonating. Thankfully, the immediacy of social makes that task much easier.

So tell us, what are your thoughts about the Return on Relationship™ philosophy? Do you have any #RonR tips to share?  Be sure to include your Twitter handle in your comment so we can tweet it out.

Kathryn Rose  (1 Posts)

Kathryn is an author, social media and marketing keynote speaker and trainer specializing in alliance and relationship marketing. Kathryn is the CEO of the Social Buzz Club the world’s first online marketing collaboration and content syndication system. Prior to her career in social media marketing, Kathryn was a top Wall Street sales executive, responsible for over $100m in sales per year. She used her collaboration skills to partner with salespeople from other companies to form a lucrative referral network. Kathryn is the author of 6 books on social media marketing available on Amazon.com.

Kathryn Rose  (1 Posts)

Kathryn is an author, social media and marketing keynote speaker and trainer specializing in alliance and relationship marketing. Kathryn is the CEO of the Social Buzz Club the world’s first online marketing collaboration and content syndication system. Prior to her career in social media marketing, Kathryn was a top Wall Street sales executive, responsible for over $100m in sales per year. She used her collaboration skills to partner with salespeople from other companies to form a lucrative referral network. Kathryn is the author of 6 books on social media marketing available on Amazon.com.

I recently changed my main Twitter client (more information on that below) and decided to create a new LinkedIn Poll for Groups in my Social Media Strategies for Business LinkedIn Group to find out what others use. I asked my 2,500 group members: What Twitter client do you use for business? Statistically speaking, the results can not represent the entire user base for those who tweet, and I only gave the poll readers a choice between 5 popular clients: Twitter.com, HootSuite, TweetDeck, CoTweet, and SproutSocial. The leading client in the poll as I write this blog? SproutSocial.

Cibo, a digital agency based in San Francisco, saw my tweet and responded as follows:

@NealSchaffer Interesting poll, a quick query of 5,000+ agency accounts and 1.5M+ tweets shows that HootSuite leads. twitter.com/cibostudios/st…

— CIBO (@cibostudios) January 15, 2012

I am assuming that Cibo pulled in this data directly from the Twitter API, so I believe these results are a good enough sampling to be pretty indicative as to the top 20 Twitter clients being used in 2012. Chances are you are using one of these, but with the changing social media landscape and your potentially shifting objectives and ways in which you and your business use social media, I thought it was a good idea to do a short review of the top clients in hopes that you might want to try a client or app you may have never heard of before.

1. HootSuite is a web-based social media dashboard designed to manage a whole slew of social media platforms above and beyond Twitter — Facebook, Linkedin, and have even begun limited support for Google+ — and multiple social profiles in one interface. It also offers the ability to produce reports based on custom analytics to better track brand awareness, follower growth and other pertinent demographic data. Initially built for internal agency use, we can now say that HootSuite is the most popular Twitter client in 2012. Needless to say that if you haven’t tried HootSuite yet, you owe it to yourself to sign up for a free HootSuite trial!

2. The “web” entry refers to those who send out a tweet from  Twitter.com, which underwent improvements and now sports a new interface, is still a relatively simple and elegant approach to tweeting, searching and discovering. If your business only has one account for tweeting, Twitter.com is still an option, and even if you use other clients listed here, you still might be finding yourself coming back here on occasion.

3. Tweetdeck, which was acquired by Twitter last year, is a social media dashboard application for managing Twitter and Facebook accounts, and it is safe to say that it was the leading client outside of Twitter.com before the emergence of HootSuite.  Once only available as an Adobe Air application, it is now compatible with several operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Chrome OS and Linux and is also available for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future to this application, which is another good reason to search around for alternatives just in case…

4. Twitterfeed is a utility that allows bloggers to “feed” their blog posts or other RSS content to Twitter, Facebook and other platforms thereby enabling publishers to reach a wider audience and while receiving real-time data. Yes, that’s right: The fourth largest client for tweeting is an automated one…

5. Facebook features the ability to sync one’s Twitter account to his or her Facebook page. This allows your Facebook posts to be automatically tweeted and retweeted on your Twitter account. I’m personally usually not a big fan of cross-posting from one social media website to another, where hashtags mean nothing and the @FacebookUsername don’t translate to @TwitterUsername.

6. The Tweet Button is a small widget that can be embedded into websites (such as online magazines and news sites, including this blog) which gives viewers and readers the ability to share articles of interest to their followers. It is fascinating to see the amount of sharing of content that internet users do on Twitter. This means that if your website doesn’t have a Tweet Button, you’re missing out!

7. Twitter for iPhone is the official app that is compatible and can be downloaded to an iPhone, iPad or an iPod touch powered by at least iOS 4 or later. Twitter developed this application by purchasing the creators of the best client for the iPhone at the time: Tweetie.

8. CoTweet is a social media management tool that allows teams  to manage one or more Twitter accounts by offering such capabilities as tweet assignments, notes, and on duty status. Similar to a HootSuite or a TweetDeck, I praised the “archive” functionality in CoTweet and announced that it was one of my Top Twitter Applications in a recent blog post. However, CoTweet’s parent company, email marketing software company ExactTarget, announced just recently that the free edition of CoTweet will no longer operate after February 15, 2012. While ExactTarget will be releasing a new social media management dashboard called SocialEngage to replace it, I have already switched to a new client (keep reading!).

9. Twitter for Mac is a desktop application designed specifically for the Mac. It is a sister app to the official iPhone and iPad apps that was originally known as Tweetie. Amazing how many Mac users are also heavy tweeters!

10. The web service dlvr.it allows bloggers to publish, distribute and syndicate their content across various social media platforms. Dlvr.it has become popular recently as a TwitterFeed replacement in that it gives you more robust filtering and analytical capabilities. Once again, though, this is a platform for automation.

11. Paper.li enables people to publish online newspapers based on twitter topics — stories and articles — that they like, giving their readers fresh news daily, automatically, like a personalized broadcast. If you thought you’ve been seeing a lot of Paper.li tweets recently, you’re not alone. As a source of tweets Paper.li is now a huge player, and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues – and how it evolves.

12. Originally known as Tweet Later, offering the ability to back then a cutting edge way of scheduling your tweets to post in the future, SocialOomph is a service, both free and paid, that offers productivity solutions for social media users. Among its many features are the ability to manage many accounts, post scheduling and blog integration. I know many Internet marketers who are still heavy users of SocialOomph, but I don’t know how many enterprises have adopted them.

13. I was happily surprised to see another app that I regularly use and highly recommend, Buffer, make it to the top 20 Twitter clients in 2012. Buffer offers a smarter way to schedule your tweets.  Plan out all your tweets for a particular day, fill up your Buffer with your desired tweets, then Buffer schedules them for you. While not a true client per say, Buffer is a perfect complement to help you schedule your posting on Twitter and on their recently added support for Facebook.

14. Tweetie for Mac was designed originally for the iPhone and later made available for desktop, but after being bought out it is only available now as the official Twitter client. I assume that these are the diehard Tweetie users who have yet to upgrade to the “official” client for whatever reason, but this obviously isn’t an option anymore for you or your business.

15. Echofon is a client that this available for iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Firefox. It has the ability to automatically sync unread tweets between a computer, and iPhone and other devices. While Echofon has always been a popular Twitter client for the iPhone, it now supports browser and PC environments as well. I was honestly surprised to see it make the top 20, but apparently a lot of you out there are using them!

16. Twitter for Blackberry is the official app specifically for use in Blackberry handsets.

17. Twitter for iPad is another official app that was developed after the release of the iPad and is a sister application to the official iPhone and Mac apps.

18. MarketMeSuite is a social media tool and software created for social media marketing and management. Its creators aim is to turn one’s followers into customers via better online engagement. Once only used by Internet marketers and social media enthusiasts, MarketMeSuite is now used by more than 20,000 businesses. To be honest, this is the one tool on this list that I’ve been looking to spend more time investigating, so if you’re a user, please share your impressions in the comments. Thanks!

19. SproutSocial is another social media management tool for Twitter and Facebook, but this one offers contact management, competitive insight, lead generation and more unique functionality. Since SproutSocial also had the killer archive feature I was looking for, and was also available for the iPhone, I switched over to using SproutSocial as my main social media client early in 2012 and am not looking back. If you haven’t, sign up for a free SproutSocial trial - and discover what you might be missing!

20. The web service bit.ly is a tool that helps collect, organize and shorten links and URLs. It is available via web or mobile. Many users use the bit.ly bookmarklet to easily create tweets with shortened links which they can then analyze the results for later.

When you analyze these top clients and realize how many are for mobile, iOS, automation or are or will be discontinued, it is safe to say that the top Twitter clients in 2012 for any business to consider come down to:

• HootSuite
• Twitter.com
• TweetDeck
• SocialOomph
• Echofon
• MarketMeSuite
• SproutSocial

For any business that tweets, however, they are undoubtedly using Facebook and are looking for a cross platform social media dashboard. Those 5 clients in bold above are what you should be investigating if you are looking for a new client to use in 2012.

I find that active tweeters often have very deep and passionate relationships with their social media apps, so now it’s your turn: What do you use for your Twitter client and recommend to the world? Any surprises in the above results?

Neal Schaffer  (346 Posts)

Although social media enthusiasts would be quick to encourage you to outsource social media as soon as possible, that type of investment doesn’t always fit within your organization’s budget. Like most marketing activities, timing the outsourcing of your social efforts just right will improve your results. Any of the following opportunities are perfect times to explore this outsourcing for your company.

You’re just getting started with a social program.

If your company has barely established a social presence or is just beginning to consider participating with your clients on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, time with a social media consultant can be a valuable investment. Your consultant can help you set objectives for your social efforts. Oftentimes companies will jump into social without a clear plan, benchmarks or strategy. This is a waste of time, waste of money and can be detrimental to a brand.

By outsourcing social media strategy, your company can set goals for each channel with the advice of an expert. An appropriate consultant can also help your team members understand the best practices for each channel. They’ll have clear targets to shoot for, know how to reach them and understand how to measure success.

You’re disappointed with your social results.

Social already has a proven track record for most industries – so if you’re disappointed with your results, it’s time to call in the pros. Social media outsourcing can help you discover exactly why your efforts aren’t paying off. With an expert consultant on your side, you can zero in on the techniques that are wasting your time and your resources.

For example, you may have been putting all of your efforts into Twitter marketing because you’ve read a few white papers and are excited about the medium. However, if your results have been lackluster from Twitter, outsourcing to a social media expert can help you see why you’re getting those results. They will also help your company explore other alternatives that may be a better fit for your goals.

You have a new team member in charge of social implementation.

Outsourcing social media services at this point in time might seem counterintuitive. However, unless you’ve hired a specialist, your team member will benefit from professional assistance. A social media consultant can set your team member on the right path and ensure that your accounts are handled professionally moving forward. This can also help your company smoothly make a transition from one team member to another as the new team member takes over the accounts and the “voice” of your brand.

You’re shifting focus and appealing to a new market.

Different target markets speak languages all their own. If your company is expanding its services or product offerings it’s worth an investment to engage a social media provider who is well versed in that language. You can either find a expert who has experience with the new target market, or you can work with a consultant who can help you formulate a strategy to approach this new market. This can include targeting social media content and reaching out to key influencers.

Outsourcing social media and strategy isn’t likely to be a one time occurance in the life of your business. If you time your outsourcing right by looking for these four times, you’ll get the most out of the process and have more success with your social presence.

Courtney Ramirez  (2 Posts)

Courtney Ramirez is a content marketing consultant and SEO Copywriter. As owner and head copywriter at Six Degrees Content she creates optimized web pages, blog posts and other online content pieces for companies in both B2B and B2C industries.

Courtney Ramirez  (2 Posts)

Courtney Ramirez is a content marketing consultant and SEO Copywriter. As owner and head copywriter at Six Degrees Content she creates optimized web pages, blog posts and other online content pieces for companies in both B2B and B2C industries.

Mine existing gold in the hills and strengthen PR value propositions for your partners and clients

Many businesses working to become “social” devote resources in virtual isolation, trying to build their presence and figure out how to garner illusive followers, fans and “positive sentiment” conversations.

Presumably the marketing strategy (if it’s actually been explored at the front end) is to augment profile and enhance reputation (“social capital“), with an objective to increase sales of products or services. Or in the case of not-for-profits, raise funds or attract volunteers, etc.

In scenarios where companies have dedicated social media (community) managers, generally I’ve observed a focus on measuring quantitative, “What can social media do for the company?” (the “ROI”), vis-à-vis interacting with existing, potential or past customers and other stakeholders that search out the properties.

This includes garnering feedback and letting the self-identified “community” know what the organization has to offer, including short-term campaigns and promotions—often highlighting how people have taken advantage of the offers or championed the company’s efforts (on Twitter and Facebook or in endorsement blog posts, etc.), resolving one-off customer service concerns and so on. It’s not surprising (or bad) as a marketing strategy, but it’s somewhat limited, mainly relating to B2C commercial social relationships.

It appears the less-rarely-asked public relations-oriented questions and considerations include:

• “What can we do for the social media profiles of our existing partners or clients?”
• “How can we increase our stakeholders’ value proposition through social if we institutionalize practices to recognize them?”

Instituting social media practices and profiles of partners and clients appears to be a “virtually” untapped resource in public relations programs.

There’s tremendous value in a “PR strategy” that works to mine online gold in the hills of existing relationships, particularly in the B2B realm. Yet hardly any companies seem to be doing it! I explored some ideas in my earlier Connections Byte column, but now I’m suggesting more formal and ongoing “institutionalization” of the process.

Where’s the value?

The quality and breadth of products or services sold to end-user companies (and by extension their employees) is complemented when you highlight—through social media—a contracted or ongoing affiliation of B2B.

It’s a newer way of thinking in augmenting relationships, one that both gives and receives more value.

As an example, rather than hand-selecting a few clients or test drivers to write “glowing testimonials” regarding a media monitoring company (traditional or social)—always a bit suspect, as who writes a bad testimonial?—endorsement is implied by an agreed-upon willingness to profile the online accounts of multiple partner affiliations. I was pleased to see my colleague, Bob Geller, highlight a similar concept (from a content marketing perspective) in his recent column; see the section on “Leverage Social and Influencer Equity” (towards the end).

A need to shift practices and widen the focus

Let’s examine the prevailing practice of vendors, service suppliers, associations with corporate members, even subscription-based industry publications. Many organizational relationship builders and content providers (or community managers) are intent on developing reputations as curators of online information (e.g., providing or endorsing relevant blog posts) and/or influencers of opinion, which they share on the company’s social media properties. Generally, it boils down to a newer mode of broadcasting and gated publishing.

Often one person or a few are given organizational authority to make a subjective judgment as to who/what will be invited to write, be profiled or endorse something. And we’re seeing the same handful of people, usually with non-existent or tenuous relationships to organizations (i.e., not regular, paying clients or partners) getting selected for the bulk of the profiles and endorsements, repeatedly.

This results in the sameness to the curation and organizational endorsements in multiple places, often of “Internet famous” social media consultants or principals from boutique agencies. It’s the rare time the representative comes from a large corporation. And too often the connections seem to be a matter of personal liking or fandom from the social media or community manager, rather than a true value proposition for the company or its clients regarding content being highlighted.

This is not an indictment of well-known personalities, who usually are in this position because of being early adopters in social media and producing a consistently good body of work. Rather it relates to the suitability of numerous businesses highlighting the same subject experts, especially when the main driver appears to be their all-purpose (or untargeted) ubiquity.

From whence did this value-proposition concept stem?

Recently I completed research for an NGO group (a unique and laudable blend of the arts, communication skills and at-risk-youth outreach) on relevant social media properties (targeted and local) existing in the sector. My recap report included suggestions for creating a social profile and initial steps for:

• sharing information
• relating the organizational narrative; and
• engaging with stakeholders and known and unknown publics

Rather than starting from scratch in building social relationships, I recommended the principals determine if existing stakeholders and champions had established social media accounts, even if they were personal ones (i.e., made no reference to this organization).

That’s part of the social capital equation: implied organizational endorsement and public relations because of existing connections.

At this stage I recommended the NGO directly inquire and collect account information to share on its website, etc.

I thought my next-step recommendation was common practice, but when inquiring around to a number of colleagues, it did not seem to be the case.

It was to:

• Redesign any existing application forms for the various roles to include a section that allows stakeholders to supply professional or personal social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Or online photo accounts where they’ve shared past [X company] photos, etc.

Are you asking your clients and partners to share this information on the initial contract or application form? If not, consider incorporating it, soon.

When registering for the third annual Social Media Week Toronto, I noted the request to provide my Twitter account. I don’t remember this being on the application form the first two years, so I’m very interested in seeing how this information will be used.

(Side note: the most consistently popular PR Conversations blog since it was published is our joint-author post, Using Twitter for PR events.)

Also influencing this Social Capital Byte…

Around the same time as writing the NGO report, I read and commented on a post by Valeria Maltoni (one of Neal Schaffer’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs to Follow in 2012 and a personal thought leader and influencer for me), Does Sharing Mean Endorsing?

Ongoing sharing of existing or past partners’ social media accounts seems like an authentic, no-brainer endorsement of the relationships. Just be sure to get opt-in permission, so it’s not perceived as unauthorized “scraping” of social capital!

I think often of the response in his PRoust Questionnaire by Italian PR guru and thought leader, Toni Muzi Falconi, to the question, Who do you think has great public relations?

“In most cases successful organizations do not have overt public visibility. Or, when they do have a high profile, they don’t betray their anxiousness or obsessive need to be liked.”

But if it’s the vendor (or other B2B company) that initiates an offer to profile the business, objections aren’t likely to be raised. After all, what is being proposed is cultivating a public relations culture of meritocracy, not mediocrity, by institutionalizing the parity process and offering up some online real estate space to clients.

I believe this would be a tremendous, creative use of social capital for all parties. And the quality of the information (or not) will be reflective of the quality of the partners and client organizations.

Four implementation suggestions for social capital and partner parity

1. For display on your company’s website or blog, institute an (agreed-upon) running feed of affiliated (partner and client) Twitter business accounts. Monitor the feed and RT/endorse the most relevant and useful client tweets and links from your own corporate account.

2. Consider hosting regular Twitter chats focused on your core business areas; directly invite clients each time to participate in the chats. Maybe even invite your star partners—i.e., those who have an existing affiliation—to guest moderate. Alternatively, let your client organizations’ representatives determine (by consensus—maybe an online poll) whom they want to see moderate and/or topics to cover. Build in a formal, institutionalized process for both, including a way to nominate moderators and topics. (For examples of Twitter chats targeted towards business needs, see 50 Best Twitter Chats for Business Students.)

3. Establish a corporate LinkedIn Group and invite your clients and partners to join it. Make it an Open or Public Group, but be proactive in having your existing stakeholders involved at the front end (e.g., I was personally invited by their “owners” into Social Media Strategies for Business, Solo PR Pros and the Art Gallery of Ontario LinkedIn Groups at the launch stage). Also, continuously monitor and remove overtly promotional postings of unrelated content, especially from non-affiliated organizations or consultants.

4. Institute a wiki where partners and clients can voluntarily share best practices (traditional or online), particularly when there is a correlation with the product or service your company provides. So the wiki serves more like a partner intranet and is not spammed by non-affiliated marketers, it’s best to share directly the URL, publishing instructions and suitability guidelines. For the most part, wikis appear to fly under the radar of spammers.

I continue to muse on how the primarily personal use and/or B2C social media platforms such as Facebook (Like us!) could best be used to highlight and endorse partner businesses, instead of merely the hosting company. With its highly developed SEO aspect, Google+ does holds promising possibilities for public relations programs, especially as an “anchor” vehicle in cases where client companies do not have their own blogs–but I haven’t ascertained all ingredients yet for a creative +1 “secret sauce” for consistent public relations to highlight B2B partners.

Do you know of any case studies or have any ideas for extending this concept of two-way B2B public relations in social media properties? If yes, I would appreciate hearing about them in the comments section.

Conclusion

I’m of the opinion that direct public relations in social media with your business partners and clients comprises a relatively unexplored area of creativity, possibilities and opportunities, meaning the success stories are waiting to be written.

I do know that when working in-house, I gained organizational profile, PR reciprocity and goodwill (not to mention enhancing my personal reputation), by turning the thinking around from “What can our partners and stakeholders (or the media) do for us?” into “What can we do for our affiliated partners that they can’t get anywhere else or where they aren’t getting the same opportunities or profile?”

Exploring social capital by ensuring parity in your B2B relationships really is an exciting PR2.0 value proposition.

Judy Gombita  (5 Posts)

This monthly PR column is contributed by Judy Gombita. Judy is a Toronto-based public relations and communication management specialist, with more than 20 years of employment and executive-level volunteer board experience, primarily in the financial and lifelong learning nonprofit sectors. She is the co-editor and Canadian contributor (since 2007) to the international, collaborative blog, PR Conversations.

Judy Gombita  (5 Posts)

This monthly PR column is contributed by Judy Gombita. Judy is a Toronto-based public relations and communication management specialist, with more than 20 years of employment and executive-level volunteer board experience, primarily in the financial and lifelong learning nonprofit sectors. She is the co-editor and Canadian contributor (since 2007) to the international, collaborative blog, PR Conversations.

So you’ve followed the sage advice of savvy social media experts like Neal Schaffer, telling you why you need to have your business on Google+, and you’ve created a business page for your brand.

Now what?

Obviously (I hope it’s obvious!) the worst thing you could do is just let your page sit idle. So let’s set some priorities and get to work making your page effective. The recent announcement by Google that G+ is now heavily integrated into Google search makes it all the more important that you optimize your page and start your involvement on Google+. G+ is still young, but it’s growing rapidly. Early adopters of any new social media outlet gain significant advantages over the competition, and it’s not too late to claim that space in Google+.

Where to Start on Your Page? Set Priorities

Google+ Business Pages offer unprecedented search ranking advantages, so make optimizing your profile for both regular Google search and G+’s internal search your first priority. Next you’ll want to make sure your profile “sells the follow.” Does it capture attention and say, “You’ll want me in your circles!” in those few seconds when someone takes their first look? Once your profile page is in good order, you’ll be ready to start posting great content and engaging to build your following.

Those priorities in mind, let’s get started with the five first things you should do with your Google+ business page:

1. Optimize Your Page for SEO

As I said above, one of the most powerful features of G+ is Google search. You’ll want to take advantage of that to make sure your business page is likely to be found, both in Google+’s internal search and in Google’s regular search engine. Perform the steps below to make your page attractive to Google’s search bots. (Hint: to edit your page, select the profile view and click the “Edit Profile” button, then click in the area you want to edit.)

• Verify your page with Google. Unlike your Twitter handle, there can be any number of pages with the same name as yours. The good news is that Google has provided a way of verifying your page as the “official” page for your brand. Verified pages will get priority in search ranking over non-verified pages, so this is the best way to protect your brand. Follow these instructions to set up page verification.
• Add a carefully crafted subtitle. Unless you’ve set up a local business page, Google+ allows you to place a subtitle or tag line under your brand name. Only the first 10 words you enter are visible in the page header, and only the first 21 characters are shown in the pop up that people see when they roll their mouse over your page name. Make it descriptive and use your most important search keywords (e.g. “Premier Lower Manhattan Luxury Hotel”).
• Write a complete introduction. Not only is your introduction important to sell your brand and Google+ page to visitors, it’s the prime spot on your profile page to build your page’s SEO power. Use keywords that you want to be found for in search, but use them sparingly and naturally. The introduction section has a rich text editor, so include links to your site using good anchor text.
• Add Recommended Links. Use the “Recommended Links” sidebar to link to the major sections of your web site. Also link to your other social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). If you’re a sophisticated analytics user, you might want to tag these links (and those you put in the introduction) so you can accurately track traffic from your page.

For  more tips on optimizing your business page profile, see my “Complete Guide to Optimizing Your Google+ Brand Page.”

2. Upgrade Your Page’s Visual Appeal

90% or more of the “job description” of your brand page falls under “first impressions.” Most people will only come to your page once, to evaluate whether you are worth circling (the Google+ term for “following”). And on average they will only spend a brief time there, so you want to do as much as possible to grab their attention get them to click that “Add to Your Circles” button.

• Make creative use of the top-of-profile “Scrapbook” photos. The most eye-catching examples use the five photos as a single banner. Here are some great examples, and here is a guide to how you can create that effect.
• Take advantage of the rich text editor. When in edit mode on the Introduction section of your page’s profile, you’ll see a bar with several formatting tools. You can format text in bold, italic, and underline, create bullet and numbered lists, and anchor-text links. If your introduction is long, use bold subheadings to break it up. My agency’s Google+ page is a good example of using these formatting tools.

3. Fill Your Post Stream with Quality Content

Even before you get your first follower, I recommend getting at least three or four posts up. By default visitors land on your posts tab first. So your posting stream is the real first impression-maker, seen before your About tab. Seeing “XYZ Brand hasn’t shared any posts yet” isn’t exactly a good “circle us” call to action. Your first posts should be superstars, showing off the kind of great, interesting content people will get if they follow you. This article isn’t about good content creation, but at least do the following in your posts:

• Use Google+’s formatting options. Even though you won’t see the rich text editing bar that appeared when editing your profile’s introduction, you can still do a certain amount of formatting using special codes while creating a post. To bold text, *put asterisks around it.* To italicize, put _underscores around it_. For strikeout, -use dashes around the text.- These are pretty rudimentary, but they are way above anything available on almost any other social media platform. Use them to create posts that look like blog posts.
• Use photos and videos. Try not to post anything without at least a photo. Google+ won kudos from its early adopters (and loyalty from many of the world’s top photographers) for the beautiful way it displays photos. A photo or embedded video appropriate to your posts topic catches the viewer’s eye and makes you post more likely to be read.

4. Begin to Attract Followers

Now that you’ve got your page optimized for search, you’ve made it visually appealing, and you’ve begun to post quality content, you’re ready to open the doors and do business. But as in any social media outlet, there is no “build it and they will come.” You have to attract early adopters of your page and then utilize them to build a following. Getting that snowball rolling takes a little more work on Google+. For one thing, to prevent spam following, Google+ restricts brand pages from adding anyone to their circles until that person either has added the page or link-mentioned it in a post. In addition, unlike Facebook, Google+ doesn’t (yet) have ads that you can use to bring new people to your page. So how can you begin a following?

• Promote your page on your other social media channels. More and more of your followers on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere are trying out Google+. Post in those places to let them know you have an outpost on Google+. Where possible, put links to your G+ page on your other social media profile pages.
• Promote your page on your own website. Put a Google+ badge on your site. Google has provided a tool to create a custom badge linked to your profile.
• Leverage personal profiles to promote your page. If you have willing and able people in your organization, have them create personal profiles on Google+ with which they regularly link to posts from your brand. Notice I said link to posts, not directly to your brand page. It’s not that they should never just post a recommendation link to your page. But the most effective “selling” of your brand page will be making visible the interesting and useful content you’re posting. In order to expand your reach, these personal profiles should take advantage of Google+ search to find and follow people interested in what your brand is about. Unlike brand pages, personal profiles can follow anyone. If your personal profile is properly filled out and your posts stream has good content, many of the people you follow will follow you back, and you’ve begun to build an audience to whom you can market your page. Of course, don’t spam! Be real, vary your posts, don’t make every post about your company and its posts. The goal is for your personal profile to become respected as an authority in your field, so followers will gladly want to follow your company as well.

5. Engage!

Once you’ve got a base following, establish a good cycle of posting and engagement.

• Post new content regularly. On Google+ my experience has been that you almost can’t post too much. The early adoption crowd on this network appears to be very ready to engage and hungry for content. Just make sure you’re adding value.
• Follow back those who circle you. When you add followers to your brand page’s circles, they get a notification that you did so. This is an instant signal that there are real people behind your brand page who will listen and interact. That’s a strong reinforcement to someone who already took the time to follow you.
• Create Engagers & VIP circles. When you notice someone who consistently engages with and promotes your content, put them in a special circle. These are people you want to “stroke” from time to time. Engage and reshare their content, which will encourage them to continue to do the same for yours. Also keep a circle for any “VIP’s” who happen to follow you (celebrities or others who are very influential on G+). You’ll want to cultivate relationships with them.
• Regularly monitor your stream and comment, +1, and reshare follower’s posts. Such engagement seems to be more valued on G+ than on other networks, and will induce your followers to do the same for you.

Just as engagement is key to good EdgeRank on Facebook, so it seems it will be a strong force in the amount of influence your page has in Google and G+ search. Just having a profile and posts centered around good keyword strategies is not enough. If two pages are otherwise equal in a keyword area, Google will give the boost to the one that has more G+ reach and engagement.

Conclusion

Especially with the advent of Google Search plus Your World, G+ business pages offer an exciting opportunity for even small brands who have never had much of a voice on social media. We are still very much on the “ground floor” of this fast-growing network, especially for marketing. Those who build their pages and content carefully and invest now in posting and engagement should reap big rewards down the road.

If your brand already has a Google+ page, share with us what has worked for you.

Mark Traphagen  (1 Posts)

Mark Traphagen is Director of Social Media Marketing for Virante. A former teacher, Mark has worked directly in Internet marketing since 2005, but has been involved in social media and online community formation since the mid 1990s. When not helping Virante clients improve their online presence, Mark participates in competitive storytelling, plays with a Dixieland street band, and (surprise) spends more time on the web.

Mark Traphagen  (1 Posts)

Mark Traphagen is Director of Social Media Marketing for Virante. A former teacher, Mark has worked directly in Internet marketing since 2005, but has been involved in social media and online community formation since the mid 1990s. When not helping Virante clients improve their online presence, Mark participates in competitive storytelling, plays with a Dixieland street band, and (surprise) spends more time on the web.

In the many public engagements that I’ve been invited to present at as a social media speaker, people often ask me to recommend which social media conferences and events they should go to, both for networking and educational purposes. I’ve observed that lately, more and more companies are staging and/or sponsoring social media events, and I attribute this phenomenal growth to the maturity of social media and it’s acceptance by major businesses as well as adoption by industry after industry.

With that in mind, I’m glad to share with you what I believe are the best conferences and events social media practitioners should go to this year, all in the United States (sorry but I don’t know enough about events outside of the United States to be able to offer my international readers any advice). Each event has garnered a lot of praise from its past participants, with sought-after speakers and expert panels in attendance discussing the most relevant social media topics of the day.

Some of these events, like Blog World, have multiple events where they have not announced dates and locations for their conferences later in the year.  Make sure you check back here for updates.  And feel free to add other social media conferences that you recommend in the comments. Thanks!

BlogWell – January 24, 2012, Dallas, Texas; March 27, 2012, San Francisco, California; July 18, 2012, Chicago, Illinois; September 25, 2012, New York City, New York

BlogWell is a unique event where 8 great case studies on the best social media programs at large companies are presented to audiences. Staged by SocialMedia.org, a community of social media leaders where members help each other by sharing ideas, best practices, and solutions. Held in 4 locations in 2012, BlogWell speakers will present case studies from many well known brands, including companies like AMD and Farmer’s Insurance who have been blogged about here before.

iStrategy Conference – January 31 – February 1, 2012, San Francisco, California

iStartegies missions is to spread passion for existing and emerging digital media throughout the world, where each event offers original experiential learning opportunities for participants. It is for senior executives who espouse the belief that the success of their business requires a solid digital strategy. While the concentration is on digital, there is more than enough social media content to keep you satisfied, including an emphasis on “results-oriented social media strategies.” Note that iStrategy also holds international events, with London and Sydney conferences slated for later in 2012.

Social Fresh Conference - (East) February 6 – 7, 2012, Tampa, Florida; (West) August 20 – 21, 2012, San Diego, California

With a distinct focus on social media for business results, the Social Fresh Conference is staged with the end goal of inspiring marketers to create social media strategies that produce tangible results. Social Fresh may not be as well known as other conferences here, but they have a solid track record of delivering successful social media conferences throughout the nation. The keynotes for the Tampa event are from the cream of the crop of social media speakers: Scott Monty of Ford, Jay Baer, and Chris Penn – and these are balanced by case studies presented from corporate social media strategiest from AOL, Nordstrom, and RadioShack.

Online Marketing Summit – February 6 – 9, 2012, San Diego, California

The Online Marketing Summit puts education first. Beyond the usual conference and tradeshow set-up, through lab sessions with experts, thought-leadership presentations and peer-to-peer collaboration, OMS’s focus is providing direct, hands-on training workshops that are personalized and one-on-one. A four-day event traditionally about online marketing, there is a healthy dose of social media marketing content for those in attendance.

The Social Media Strategies Summit 2012 – February 7 – 9, 2012, Las Vegas; April 18 – 19, 2012, Chicago

The Social Media Strategies Summit has been designed in such a way that learning objectives are spread across six tracks, each outlined to focus on a particular industry – yours. So while sessions are focused on specific categories that are tailor-fit, such as case studies, ROI and tools, and legal risks & strategies, participants are free to move between tracks based on their own learning objectives. Note that the Social Media Strategies Summit also has an event in London as well as Miami. The Miami event is not listed above as it is focused on social media in Latin America.

Gravity Summit - February 22, 2012, Los Angeles, California

Held annually, the Gravity Summit event in 2012 is where leaders from the realm of sports and entertainment discuss social media marketing trends, innovations and tools and how these are reshaping the industry and audiences alike. The event is perfect for those involved in broadcasting, entertainment and sports. Created by the co-authors of The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing, Gravity Summit always promises unique and high quality social media content.

Inbound Marketing Summit – February 28 – 29, 2012, New York City, New York; June 12 – 13, 2012, San Francisco, California; October 24 – 25, 2012, Boston, Massachusetts

The Inbound Marketing Summit is one of the leading national conferences for digital and social media marketing professionals. Featuring inspirational speakers coupled with cutting edge content and real-world case studies, IMS is where innovators from media and marketing meet their peers, engage in lively and productive sessions, and broaden their networks – all in two power-packed days. The upcoming Boston event features the following tracks: Inbound Marketing, Mobile Content, Content Automation, and Convergence.

SocialTech 2012 – March 29 – 30, Seattle, Washington

Sponsored by one of the largest online marketing communities, MarketingProfs, SocialTech is the leading social media conference that focuses purely on B2B social media marketing. The first day will feature workshops on Content Marketing and Social Media Measurement while the second day will feature quality speakers on relevant topics such as “Using Gamification to Captivate Your Customers” and “Social Media Guidelines for Highly Regulated Industries.”

BlogWorld & New Media Expo - June 5 – 7, 2012, New York City, New York

BlogWorld is undoubtedly the largest in scale and longest running social media event on this list. Originally for bloggers, BlogWorld now includes enough social media speakers and workshops so that I can say that if there was only one event you could go to in 2012, this would be the one I recommend. With past speakers that include tech guru Guy Kawasaki, you can be assured of high-impact exchanges plus the chance to meet and collaborate with fellow practitioners and innovators. BlogWorld is also held in Los Angeles late in the year.

Content Marketing World 2012 – September 4 – 6, 2012, Columbus, Ohio

Dubbed as the largest gathering of content marketing professionals in the world, CMW is where content marketers converge to tell their stories. Covering topics that include Managing Content Marketing and the ROI of Content Marketing, Content Marketing World is the brainchild of the “Father of Content Marketing,” Joe Pulizzi, and his Content Marketing institute.

Have you been to any of the above events? Which ones are you the biggest fan of?

Neal Schaffer  (346 Posts)