Five, no Six Types of Social Media Integration

In John Bell’s recent article “Five Types of Social Media Integration,” he identifies five key ways that companies need to integrate their social media activity within the organization. Integration is important because, ” to get the most out of social media, brands need to integrate it across the enterprise.” While many have noted this in the past, few have identify key elements of such integration.

Five basic type of integration:

1. Paid, Owned, Earned – Combining the power behind your own Web site and Facebook page, with some purely social strategies like engaging influencers or inspiring a community to share with sympathetic advertising geared to increasing reach and presence you will have a more successful program.

2. Global & Local – Big multinationals in B2B and B2C often split budgets between the corporate center, often called ‘global’ and the local market.

3. Across the Enterprise – HR, IT, Legal, Finance and Product Development are just three examples beyond the marcom and customer service units that are increasingly affected by social media.

4. Inside & Outside the Organization – Addresses what does the staff at the brand do and what do their agencies do.

5. Inside Every Job – Brands need to work hard to deliver the training that will help grow proficiency and confidence.

I could be wrong, but there might be one missing integration point, or at least one that could be more transparent:

6. Throughout the Value Chain – The value any company deliveries to its customers is the result of a complex set of inter-connections up and down the business value chain. Their products come from supplies, which in turn are customers of someone else. No company is an island in that they can not truly do it all themselves. As such, it becomes an imperative to integrate, if not merely coordinate, social media through the value change. At a minimum, this process reduces message conflict, and at best, adds real value to all consumers.

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Gartner’s Top Ten Enterprise Social Media Success Factors

Tom Austin, an analyst at Gartner, has just released the results of a multi-national client-based study on success criteria for social and collaborative investments. While not necessarily scientific in nature (e.g., meeting the strict definition of necessary and sufficient criteria), it is hard to argue with the practicality of the final results.

Here is a summary of Austin’s top ten rules:

1. Define what constitutes success in using social media.

2. Get agreement with the business lines on success/failure criteria.

3. Study existing work patterns and add value selectively – lessons learned from others pay big success dividends.

4. Ignore “siren call” of social and infrastructure merchants.

5. Evaluate the culture(s) in your organization and work within your cultural constraints.

6. To make progress with the new, it needs to be 10x better than the old in order to be adopted within your organization.

7. Not everyone is an expert! Build a variety of skills (what is done) and capabilities (how well it is done).

8. Users will go outside the social media model if you make it too difficult for them to understand and work.

9. Minimalism is to be revered – less is more.

10.   Be organizationally inclusive at start – involve cross departmental groups like legal, ops, security, etc.

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Coexistence – Human and Artificially Intelligent Tweeting

I had planned on writing a comprehensive article on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Tweet world. It had been a while since I had looked into the viability of the field and I felt a lot had probably changed over the last 12 months, much of which had probably not been well documented. Well, I was half right.

During my research, I came across an article “Automating Twitter: Can Humans & Robots Tweet in Harmony?” by Lauren Litwinka. Lauren does a great job at covering all the basics, so rather than try to rewrite what has already been written so well, I thought it best to just share and point out some of the hightlights.

If you are planning to use social media as part of your corporate marketing program, then developing a Tweet Bot strategy is essential for your success. It is impractical to think we humans can keep up with all the necessary activities associated with an effective tweet-based social media program. Scan for tweets, understanding their content, managing account, looking for effective followers, etc., overwhelms our limited ability. A human based tweet-oriented social media system will not scale on the backs of human. Think I’m wrong, just ask JetBlue or Starbucks.

An effective tweet-oriented program requires you to think about:

>> Leveraging Automation to Help Building Relationships

>> Leveraging Automation to Help Manage Your Account

>> Leveraging Automation to Help Enhance Your Tweets

>> Leveraging Automation to Help with Tracking & Monitoring

Lauren gives several solutions in each category, so check out her well written article. With this as a basis, we now need to address the question of whether these solutions have some meaningful return on investment; that is, can we capture value as well as they create it? This is the basis of my next article.

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Corporate Tweets – Rubber Meets the Road

Tweeting in your social media network can be a challenge, one complicated when you look to use it for more corporate marketing activities. Not only do we have the traditional 140 character limitations, but crafting that right message that is both interesting and professional is more art than science.

Folks have written at length on some of the necessary (without them you fail) and sufficient (done in large numbers you might succeed) characteristics of social media-based tweeting. Victoria Akers, in her “Mastering the Art of Good Tweet to Promote Your News” article, lays the foundations for seven necessary tweeting characteristics. John Kremer goes even farther in his eBook, Twitter Mania Manual, by discussing over 151 ways to tweet and other sufficient tweeting characteristics. All-in-all, good advice from everybody.

At some point, however, the rubber needs to meet the road and theory needs to be turned into practice. You have to take that blank white page and begin to craft words that work. Cognitively, this is the most difficult time for most people, since humans are better critics than creators.

To get over his hurdle, I suggest the time tested method of “just doing something.” Putting that first test tweet on a blank page will get the eyes, brain, and hand feedback process working. Studies have shown that right after that first brainstorm sentence, 5-9 nine others will immediate follow. Remember, it’s easier to correct than to create.

When looking at those early tweets, consider the following characteristics in your maturation process:

>> Not say what they are doing, say why.

>> Be kept simple – no fluff.

>> Be personal – use first person (I, he, she) language.

>> Use hash tags (#) – make more search friendly

>> Leave room for others to retweet – 120 characters, at max.

With this preamble as a basis for discussion, here is a real example from a current client.

Client: Large producer of whole house media (audio and video), lighting, and control systems.

Program: Increase sales of a popular whole house audio systems that streams personal content as well as cloud-base music (e.g., Rhapsody).

Social Media Component: Being one of many components, prospects will be giving a chance to tweet their discovery of this new whole house audio capability.

Goal: Create a series of tweets that can auto populate “Tweet Now” buttons presented at the end of a registration process

Candidate Tweets:

1.

Strongly recommend you checkout #theProduct; life will be great when I can listen to #music throughout the #house. <<shorten url to website>>

2.

Had it with limited ability to listen to #music throughout my #house. Considering buying #theProduct. <<shorten url to website>>

3.

Don’t know how they do it yet, but #theProduct will let me listen to #music throughout #house. Check them out. <<shorten url to website>>

4.

I want to do it throughout the house! Considering #theProduct as a way to listen to #music everywhere. <<shorten url to website>>

Shorten URL:

tinyurl:  http://tinyurl.com

So, what do you think? Are they effective? How can they be improved? Would like to see your thoughts and suggestions.

 

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