Social Media Audits Achieving deep im

pact without sacrificing the bottom

line Urs E. Gattiker

Social Media Audits

Achieving deep impact without sacrificing the bottom line

Urs E. Gattiker

C H A N D O S P U B L I S H I N G S O C I A L M E D I A S E R I E SC H A N D O S P U B L I S H I N G S O C I A L M E D I A S E R I E SCPSM

14

Key Features

• focuses on the security issues of social media, specifically in the public sector shows the best practices for mitigating risk in the use of social media

Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Woodhead Publishing Limited www.chandospublishing.com • www.chandospublishingonline.com

Woodhead Publishing Limited, 80 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge CB22 3HJ, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 01223 499140 • Fax: +44 (0) 01223 832819

Security measures can be used by management, IT staff, and users in participatory/collaborative

service provision within the public sector. Security Risks in Social Media Technologies explores this

use. Topics are targeted, and issues raised and lessons learnt are analyzed. This book helps readers

understand the risks posed by relevant Web 2.0 applications and gives clear guidance on how to

mitigate those risks. The body of the book is concerned with social media, the dominant Web 2.0

technology associated with security in the public sector, and is structured into five chapters. The

first chapter introduces the background for the work; the second covers relevant security threats;

the third chapter concerns the security controls applied to the participation-collaboration pattern;

the fourth chapter then considers acceptable use practices; and the final chapter covers parental

participation-collaboration in the context of schools.

Alan Oxley is Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS

in Malaysia. Alan is an all-rounder in Computer Science and has written numerous academic articles

and chapters. Recently he was awarded a research stipend by the IBM Center for the Business of

Government. The research led to the publication of the report entitled A Best Practices Guide for

Mitigating Risk in the Use of Social Media. A considerably more expansive exposition of the topic

is presented in Security Risks in Social Media Technologies. Alan currently supervises two PhD

students researching into Web 2.0.

ISBN 978-1-84334-714-9

9417433481879

Chandos Publishing

ISSN xxxx-xxxx (print)ISSN xxxx-xxxx (online)

Social Media Audits

CHANDOSSOCIAL MEDIA SERIES

Series Editors: Geoff Walton and Woody Evans(emails: g.l.walton@staffs.ac.uk and kdevans@gmail.com)

This series of books is aimed at practitioners and academics involved in using social media in all its forms and in any context. This includes information professionals, academics, librarians and managers, and leaders in business. Social media can enhance services, build communication channels, and create competitive advantage. The impact of these new media and decisions that surround their use in business can no longer be ignored. The delivery of education, privacy issues, logistics, political activism and research rounds out the series’ coverage. As a resource to complement the understanding of issues relating to other areas of information science, teaching and related areas, books in this series respond with practical applications. If you would like a full listing of current and forthcoming titles, please visit our website www.chandospublishing.com or email wp@woodheadpublishing.com or telephone +44 (0) 1223 499140.

New authors: we are always pleased to receive ideas for new titles; if you would like to write a book for Chandos in the area of social media, please contact Jonathan Davis, Commissioning Editor, on jonathan.davis@chandospublishing.com or telephone +44 (0) 1993 848726.

Bulk orders: some organisations buy a number of copies of our books. If you are interested in doing this, we would be pleased to discuss a discount. Please email wp@woodheadpublishing.com or telephone +44 (0) 1223 499140.

Social Media AuditsHow to quickly measure your

firm’s impact

URS E. GATTIKER

Oxford Cambridge New Delhi

Chandos PublishingHexagon House

Avenue 4Station Lane

WitneyOxford OX28 4BN

UKTel: +44 (0) 1993 848726

Email: info@chandospublishing.com www.chandospublishing.com

Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Woodhead Publishing Limited

Woodhead Publishing Limited80 High Street

SawstonCambridge CB22 3HJ

UKTel: +44 (0) 1223 499140Fax: +44 (0) 1223 832819

www.woodheadpublishing.com

First published in 2013

ISBN: 978-1-84334-745-3 (print) ISBN: 978-1-78063-426-5 (online)

Chandos Social Media Series ISSN: 2050-6813 (print) and ISSN: 2050-6821 (online)

Library of Congress Control Number: xxxxxxxxxx

© U.E. Gattiker, 2013

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the Publishers. This publication may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior consent of the Publishers. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.The publishers make no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.The material contained in this publication constitutes general guidelines only and does not represent to be advice on any particular matter. No reader or purchaser should act on the basis of material contained in this publication without first taking professional advice appropriate to their particular circumstances. Any screenshots in this publication are the copyright of the website owner(s), unless indicated otherwise.

Typeset by Domex e-Data Pvt. Ltd., IndiaPrinted in the UK and USA.

v

Contents

List of figures and tables xi

About the author xiii

Preface xv

Introduction 1

I.1 Business context matters 2

I.2 Where are we going? 3

Part 1 – Setting the stage, or what it’s all about 13

1 Looking under the hood 15

1.1 Social media: A workable definition 16

1.1.1 What is digital media? 16

1.1.2 What is social media? 17

1.2 Why context matters 19

1.2.1 Consumer versus capital goods 20

1.2.2 Industry 21

1.2.3 Business size 21

1.3 Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) 24

1.3.1 Looking under the hood 26

1.3.2 SWOT analysis done: Now what? 28

1.4 Your social media purpose 29

1.4.1 Why? 30

1.4.2 What? 30

1.4.3 How? 32

1.4.4 Where? 32

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1.5 Where we stand 33

1.6 Conclusion 34

References 35

Appendix 1a Ropes to skip 36

2 Who is driving? 39

2.1 Social capital 40

2.1.1 Geographical proximity and friendship 41

2.1.2 How the strength of ties matters in social networking 42

2.2 Social sharing 45

2.2.1 Why social sharing could fail you 46

2.2.2 Is anybody listening? 47

2.3 Brand and reputation 48

2.4 Do we blast or engage? 50

2.4.1 Engagement is not scalable 51

2.5 Why social media can fail us 53

2.6 Taking inventory: Skill-sets matter 57

2.6.1 What now: Does our team cut it? 58

2.7 Conclusion 59

References 60

Appendix 2a Avoiding the epic fail: Manage your social media engagement 62

3 Plan your trip 65

3.1 Target audience 66

3.1.1 Why targeting content matters 67

3.2 Improving the customer experience 69

3.2.1 Where can we offer better value? 71

3.2.2 What does the customer value, and why? 72

3.3 Walk the walk 74

3.3.1 What is engagement? 75

3.3.2 Thriving engagement requires a conversation 76

3.3.3 Usability is king – not engagement 77

3.4 What kinds of interactions help clients most? 78

3.4.1 Give me choices 80

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Contents

3.5 Shortened URLs have no shelf-life 80

3.6 The importance of positioning in the purchase cycle 85

3.7 Conclusion 87

References 88

Appendix 3a Starting off on the right foot 90

Part 2 – Driving with better benchmarks: The data game 93

4 Start your engine 97

4.1 Customers can work magic on your staff 98

4.2 Strategy 100

4.3 What is a workable social media strategy? 102

4.3.1 Skills management and training 103

4.4 If necessary, shift strategy 103

4.5 Where are we now? 105

4.6 E-marketing – paid versus earned media 107

4.7 Customers are not always the end-users 110

4.8 Know the conversation – and own it 110

4.9 The strategy: Saving the client time and/or money 111

4.9.1 Static is bad 112

4.9.2 Fulfil a need 113

4.9.3 Going viral 113

4.9.4 Spam 115

4.10 Decide which platforms to use 115

4.11 Set a budget and give your team the right tools 117

4.12 Failure to listen 119

4.13 Conclusion 121

References 123

Appendix 4a Client focus: Seven fallacies 124

5 Drive: Move beyond impressions 127

5.1 What is the purpose of data collection? 128

5.1.1 Purpose drives data collection and analysis 129

5.2 Using a framework: Business analytics 131

5.3 Statistics and type of analysis 134

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Social Media Audits

5.4 Variables needed for measurement 137

5.4.1 How do macro and micro conversions fit in? 138

5.4.2 Developing actionable metrics 142

5.5 Finding metrics that suit our data crunching needs 144

5.6 Is a picture worth a thousand words? 147

5.6.1 Something does not add up: Reporting to management 149

5.6.2 Simplicity is the key to comprehension 149

5.6.3 What if data does not add up because of audience innumeracy? 150

5.7 Conclusion 151

References 152

Appendix 5a Measurement: When less is more 154

6 Quick tune-up 161

6.1 Manage and monitor the process cycle 162

6.2 Monitor process quality 164

6.3 Assess resource adequacy 165

6.4 The magic of good service 166

6.4.1 Quality exit survey 168

6.4.2 Follow up 168

6.4.3 Useful content matters 169

6.5 Assess and review performance 170

6.5.1 Methods of evaluation – putting data in context 171

6.5.2 What is the data source? 172

6.5.3 Customer focus 174

6.6 Improving processes and performance 176

6.6.1 Analysing data before making changes 176

6.6.2 Key drivers: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 177

6.6.3 Implementing and managing the change process 179

6.7 Do the numbers really add up? 180

6.7.1 Managing mistakes, non-conformities, and record-keeping for compliance 180

6.7.2 Benchmarks, accountability, and outlook 181

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Contents

6.8 Conclusion 182

References 184

Appendix 6a Preparing for the Dakar Rally: The monitoring and analytics journey 186

Part 3 – With traction and insight, everything is obvious 189

7 Case study - Bakery 195

7.1 Purpose of social media use 196

7.2 Define your target audience 197

7.2.1 Social media inventory 197

7.3 Sometimes, rules are meant to be broken 199

7.4 Accelerating the learning curve 200

7.4.1 Launching Twitter 200

7.5 Strategy and key drivers 201

7.5.1 Get a test group 202

7.5.2 Learn, adjust, and roll out fully 202

7.6 Assess and review: You cannot beat free 205

7.6.1 Rewarding regulars while attracting new clients 205

7.6.2 Free to try, pay to play 206

7.6.3 Twitter banter to increase engagement and improve service 206

7.7 Actionable metrics 207

7.7.1 Presenting findings to management 210

7.8 Quality management and improvement 211

7.8.1 Visuals 211

7.9 Conclusion 212

References 215

Appendix 7a Learn to walk before you sprint 216

Appendix 7b On successful social media use 219

8 Case study – Hospital 221

8.1 Social media audit: Inventory 222

8.1.1 Business context 222

8.1.2 Inventory: Communication 224

8.1.3 Beginning to create and share content 225

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8.2 Reviewing customer experience and performance 227

8.3 Improving process and performance 228

8.3.1 Learning from best practice 228

8.3.2 Improving findability 229

8.4 Honing relevance for better social sharing and engagement 230

8.5 Improving impact 231

8.5.1 Give me the numbers: Actionable metrics, anyone? 232

8.5.2 Why are social media and social sharing so slow? 233

8.5.3 Is Facebook working for us? 234

8.6 Improving the process: Many quick steps make a difference 238

8.6.1 Social sharing 240

8.7 Conclusion 242

References 245

Appendix 8a Making sense of data and improving social media use 246

9 Conclusion 249

9.1 The ropes to skip 250

9.2 Talking the talk without walking the walk 255

9.3 Doing homework improves performance 257

9.4 How to avoid being the next social media screw-up 260

9.5 Social media brings increasingly demanding customers 264

9.6 Conclusion 266

References 269

Appendix 9a Context matters 270

Appendix 9b Social media crisis management: A no-nonsense guide 273

Index 281

xi

List of figures and tables

Figures

I.1 Managing the process: Social media and marketing 4

P.1.1 Setting the stage 14

1.1 Sharing is caring 31

2.1 Join the conversation: Sharing usable content that helps others save time 56

3.1 ‘Til death do us part 70

P.2.1 Driving with better benchmarks 94

4.1 E-marketing 108

4.2 Earned media 114

5.1 Constructing your data-set 130

5.2 Micro and macro conversions 139

6.1 Monitoring and improving the process 163

P.3.1 Now everything is obvious 190

P.3.2 The maturity model 192

Tables

I.1 Making sense: Some answers and definitions 5–9

3.1 Content’s social impact: Word of mouth & viral sharing 83–4

3.2 Purchasing cycle: Preparing content to fulfil customer needs properly 86

4.1 Client focus: Signs of missing the mark 118

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5.1 Business analytics: Gaining insights 132

5.2 Gaining insights with business analytics: Examples 133

5.3 Business analytics: Gaining insights with the right statistics 135

5.4 Business analytics: Descriptive, univariate and multivariate statistics 136

5.5 Business analytics: Different data results in different data types 138

5.6 Developing workable and actionable metrics for social media activities 140

5.7 Eight principal steps for developing workable and actionable metrics 141

5.8 Business analytics: Using the best statistics for each variable and data type 145

5.9 Business analytics: Data crunching with variables that matter 146

5.10 Spreading content for impact: Going viral through Social Sharing 148

P.3 Engagement and social media: Business cases 191

7.1 Key parameters and drivers 202

7.2 Fine-tuning data collection 208–9

7.3 Fine-tuning the social media program 214

8.1 Key parameters and drivers 223

8.2 Three well-established channels 225

8.3 Blog(s) and micro-blog(s) 229

8.4 Social Sharing on social networks 231

8.5 Developing workable and actionable metrics for social media 233

8.6 Calculating the ripple score: SSimpact and WOMimpact (Social Sharing impact and Word of Mouth impact) 241

9.1 The path to success: Seventeen tips that make a difference 251–3

9.2 Social media officer (SMO): You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk? 256–7

9.3 Doing your homework helps improve grades: Monitor, Acknowledge, Summarise, Ask, Reply (MASAR) 259–60

9.4 Reputation management: Managing a social media crisis 263–4

xiii

About the author

Urs E. Gattiker is the CEO of CyTRAP Labs, a company that specializes in social media and marketing metrics. He earned a Ph.D. in business administration with a focus on informatics and industrial psychology from Claremont Graduate University (United States). He was Professor of Technology Management and Innovation at the University of Lethbridge (Canada), and also taught at Stanford University, before serving as Chairman of Entrepreneurship at Aalborg University (Denmark), to name a few.

A pioneer in the study of computer-based communities, he is the author of such titles as The Internet as a Diverse Community (2001) and Social Media Audit: Measuring for Impact (2013). His findings, writings and work have been featured in the Financial Times, Le Monde, the Wall Street Journal, Tages-Anzeiger, Focus Magazine, The Australian and many other publications around the world.

He lives in Zurich, Switzerland, with his wife and the younger of his two children. For more about Urs’ work, or to analyze your blog’s footprint on the Internet with tools from this book, visit http://BlogRank.CyTRAP.eu.

Urs E. GattikerCyTRAP Labs GmbHRöntgenstrasse 498005 ZurichSwitzerland

Email: measure.for.impact@gmail.com

Additional book resources: http://ComMetrics.com/ http://info.CyTRAP.eu

Measure for impact: http://BlogRank.CyTRAP.eu http://HowTo.ComMetrics.com

Measure for impact: Achieving social media nirvana

xv

Preface

Always set a high bar for Social Media (SM) excellence, not by critique, but by expecting that if you have a creatively inspired idea that advances current knowledge, and the requisite rigour and passion for it, you achieve excellence.

Thank you for giving this book a chance. If you are reading this, you are probably at least thinking about purchasing a copy, and if you do, you will doubtless find something wrong with it despite my, and my publishing team’s, best efforts. Nevertheless, I believe you will also find it an enjoyable way to spend a few evenings/weekends or commutes to and from work. Best of all, you will probably learn a few things along the way.

This book grew out of an introduction to social media assessment and benchmarking problems presented in various chapters previously published elsewhere. During our work and research at CyTRAP Labs GmbH, I began to develop a template for doing a social media audit, which evolved and became what is now part of our CyTRAP Social Media Audit Toolkit (CySoMAT) (see Chapter 1 for reference on Gattiker, 2013). This book is the culmination of many varied efforts, including field studies, assessments conducted, and audits, as well as library work.

The writing of this book would not have been possible without the support of several people. I would like to thank my colleagues, near and far. Special thanks to Stan Albers, Karen Dietz, Mark Leinemann, Bryan Peters, Jeanny Schmid, and Christiane Stückelberger for offering thoughtful suggestions, asking questions that needed clarification, encouraging me to write down my thoughts, and being great ‘virtual’, as well as real-life, colleagues and friends.

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Thanks to Jonathan Davis, George Knott, and Ed Gibbons at Chandos Publishing (imprint of Woodhead Publishing) for taking this project on and making the process a bit easier. Also thanks to my editor Melanie Gattiker, whose skills played a significant part in bringing this project to a fruitful conclusion.

Finally, thanks to my wife Verena, for putting up with my many quirks and long hours, particularly during the writing of this book.

Zurich, Switzerland Urs E. Gattiker

1

Introduction

In a study of 2400 Harvard Business Review (HBR) readers and newsletter subscribers (54 percent from North America, data collected July 2010, study not dated, http://www.sas.com/resources/whitepaper/wp_23348.pdf), 12 percent stated they felt they were effective users of social media. These respondents were most likely to work in companies that deployed multiple channels, used metrics, implemented a strategy for social media use, and integrated their social media into their overall marketing operations.

By 2013 things may be different, especially since platforms come and go, resulting in the emergence of new opportunities (e.g., Facebook advertising, Google Maps, Siri, etc.), while others vanish. This constant state of flux makes it hard to keep up with it all while ensuring one uses social media smartly.

This book is primarily written for managers who do not feel they are sufficiently effective users of social media tools and techniques – no surprise when we consider that changes in social media occur fast and furious all around us. However, as Gene Spafford has pointed out, showing people how to put sugar in a gas tank does not teach them much about auto mechanics.

Accordingly, this book teaches people about the mechanics of social media without getting so technical that we lose half our readers. It focuses on helping managers use social media more effectively by presenting ideas, examples, cases and so forth that illustrate the material, thereby helping readers successfully transfer what is discussed to their work context.

Topics addressed include:

– What is happening in the area of social media, mobile and e-commerce?

– What is causing these interesting developments?

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Social Media Audits

Answers to the above two questions will help you better understand how some things can cause or correlate with others, such as higher sales or more visitors to a webpage. Armed with this information, we can then proceed with asking predictive questions to understand and prepare for future events, such as:

– What do we want to have happen or occur?

– What actions must we take to achieve desired outcomes or set objectives?

Answers to these questions help us achieve our goals with social media marketing, which is the overarching objective we cannot stray from.

I.1 Business context mattersSome very interesting books focus on large companies, including the Fortune 500, but small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of a country’s economy. Fully 99 percent of all companies in the EU have 250 or fewer employees, while 96 percent of all companies in the US have 100 employees or less (see Gattiker, August 23, 2011 for statistics and links to sources about this). Realistically, learning from big global brands like Coca-Cola, Carnival Cruises, Whole Foods, and Vodafone, who are the digital pioneers, is a bit out of reach for most.

By 2010, Coca-Cola had more than 120 social media experts called associates. In contrast, many firms do not even have one staff member focusing on social media full-time. For instance, in 2011 a study revealed that only about 20 percent of the 400 Swiss companies responding (mostly large ones) had a dedicated social media expert.

Accordingly, learning from global brands’ social media blunders – in the areas of crap customer service, plain dumb marketing or simply being caught short in a crisis – does not provide valuable lessons for SMEs from which to shape future corporate communication policy. Instead, your situation might be similar to Zweifel Chips AG, a company with around 400 employees that claims to have 70 percent of market share in Switzerland. How successful SMEs can leverage their customer service, social media marketing campaigns or manage social media disasters effectively is the backbone of this book.

3

Introduction

I.2 Where are we going?Figure I.1 outlines how this book is structured and how each chapter builds upon the next to further develop our insights regarding this topic. Chapters 1 through 6 set the stage for this book.

Chapters 7 and 8 will be case studies that illustrate how the steps outlined in Figure I.1 and chapters 1 through 6 can be applied in different organizations. Chapter 9 addresses risks inherent to social media and how to manage these risks, even in the midst of an unfolding social media disaster, as well as some conclusions.

When it comes to social media and its use, most organizations’ management focuses on strategy. Unfortunately, this is outright wrong – at least when we start with the process as outlined in Figure I.1. Instead, one must:

– determine the purpose of using social media;

– assess (according to purpose) what social media skills, talents and know-how are already available in-house.

Nobody would design a product without having a clear idea of what purpose a client would use it for. Unless the service or product solves a problem or services a need of the client’s, it is unlikely to do well in the marketplace. Social media is similar from the perspective of marketing strategy and the tools we want to use to get there. Once we know the purpose (e.g., better customer service by…), we can assess whether the skills and human capital needed to succeed are available. If not, the necessary skills upgrading and/or hiring of talent can be initiated.

Unless we know what purpose we want to achieve with social media activities, it will be difficult to develop a strategy for the organisation’s target groups. Based on the definition of those target groups, it will become clear whether micro-blogging makes sense. For instance, Dell has different Twitter accounts for different target groups (e.g., small businesses in Canada, small businesses in the US, investors and so forth). For a small business, limited resources may dictate offering only one Twitter account, but focusing it on content the chosen target group perceives as valuable and can use in their work.

Our purpose and strategy define the target groups we need to reach. Therefore, the company might decide to participate on some platforms (e.g., LinkedIn), but not others (e.g., Facebook). Part 2 of the book focuses on defining the key drivers (e.g., product returns) and how these key drivers could be influenced by the organisation’s social media

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Social Media Audits

Figure I.1 Managing the process: Social media and marketing

� business context and culture

� brand, reputation & social capital

� nail down customer experience and retention� define, design and create added value

� develop an insightful plan of action

� develop actionable metrics and KPIs� find the meaning in all that data� test fast to fail fast

� monitor quality of process� walk the talk, talk the talk� focus on loyalty and customer experience� improve and upgrade

� set budget (money, skills and training), and acquire tools

� chart your course (i.e. the next eight months)

� Identify and communicate a story that interests your target audience

� do we ‘blast’ or engage?� do we have the right team?

Managing the ProcessSocial Media and Marketing

by CyTRAP Labs GmbH Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

1 Under the Hood

2 Who is Driving?

3 Plan Your Trip

4 Start Your Engine

5 Drive: Move beyond impressions

6 Quick tune-up

� where we stand� social media purpose� Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportuni- ties and Threats (SWOT)

Figure I.1 The number one reason why social media strategies fail is that people start with a plan, without fi rst having looked at a map (type of terrain we are dealing with). In other words, given the economic situation in Greece in 2012 or Cyprus in 2013, a small- or medium-sized enterprise (SME) has no chance of copying Procter & Gamble’s social media strategy.

Words must be converted into action, meaning social media activities are linked to key drivers, such as customer return.

These key drivers affect key performance indicators(KPIs), such as sales or costs. Showing how social media relates to these KPIs ensures that management will be interested.

5

Introduction

Table I.1 Making sense: Some answers and definitions

Question DescriptionWhat is social media?

Social media encompasses any tool or service that uses telecommunication technology, including digital media, to facilitate production and exchange of data / information and action, including conversation.

Social media empowers content consumers to become content producers relatively quickly and easily, without having to be geeks.

Social media can shift communication from a broadcast model of few-to-many to a model of many-to-many, as well as many-to-few (i.e. everybody wants to share, but few might want to hear).

More info: http://info.cytrap.eu/?p=176&http://commetrics.com/?p=17331/#

What makes a blog similar to a website?

A blog or website is where a person or a team of employees write and share content that is relevant to their target audience (e.g., friends, customers, suppliers, shareholders).

Blogging software includes a content management system (CMS), meaning it can be used to manage a website behind the scenes without the visitor’s knowledge. Some companies use blogging software to run all their websites and/or blogs (e.g., Drupal, WordPress).

More info: http://howto.commetrics.com/?p=2594/#

What makes a blog different from a website?

The content is usually organized chronologically, with the newest appearing first, and by category. On a static website, things are organised by content instead.

The biggest difference is that blogging software offers the option to allow readers to comment. The author is then expected to reply, which in turn may trigger another reply from the reader. In short, a kind of conversation can occur between author and reader.

Blogs also tend to get better search engine results. In fact, some people joke that “blog” stands for “better listings on Google”. Content syndication, and social sharing of your content on other sites such as Google+ and Twitter also help improve search listings of content. Moreover, back-links from other blogs or websites to your content play to Google’s algorithms. The result is a better listing for the company blog than for its static website.

By the way, blog posts can also be embedded on a Facebook page (using a plugin) or on a LinkedIn page.

What makes a micro-blog (e.g., Twitter, SinaWeibo) different from a blog?

A micro-blog like Twitter allows you to send out tweets with 140 characters. To save space, a URL-shortener is used when including a link in the tweet.

Of course, there is no way to go into depth on Twitter as you might in a blog post of about 800 words. Nevertheless, Twitter is great for spreading news fast to your followers, who might re-tweet your content, thereby exposing it to more people.

More info: http://commetrics.com/?p=18426/#

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Question DescriptionWhat are services like paper.li and scoop.it good for?

Paper.li is best known for displaying and publishing incoming information according to your preferences, i.e. automating the curation process. Accordingly, it helps broadcast views from a group of people.

After linking your Twitter account to paper.li, you select which #hashtags, trending topics, keywords, lists and other Twitter users to look out for. Paper.li uses these filters and preferences to create an interactive newspaper, tailored to your interests, complete with articles, research papers, multimedia, tweets, blogs and so forth.

The risk is that things may get published without you seeing them first, potentially forcing you to remove something from your stream after the fact – like trying to un-ring a bell.

More info: http://paper.li/bisculm

Scoop.it helps people publish outbound media by means of curation. As a curation tool, some have argued it is best used on an individual basis.

Both paper.li and scoop.it can also be used as internal communication tools for departments, project teams and various business-to-business (B2B) channels, but only scoop.it offers a ‘white label’ product that can be deployed behind a firewall and used for internal communication and sharing purposes.

There are many more such products that automate or mechanize curation to a certain extent, such as Twylah, best known for displaying one’s outbound tweets.

More info: http://www.quora.com/Paper-li/What-are-Paper-li-competitors

However, the impact of such services when it comes to reaching your target audience is questionable. It is hard to look through such a page, and its shelf life is less than 12 hours (see Table 3.1). What was published yesterday does not appear on your front page and is not easily found by visitors to your page.

Instead of using the above tools, SMEs should try to unlock the value of social media efforts and curated content that focuses on priorities, by producing useful content and providing value for your clients through your corporate blog and/or website (see Figure 1.2).

What is the difference between Posterous and Tumblr?

The focus of these platforms is on easy, quick sharing of content with a group of peers or “followers”; hence, they fall between a blog and a micro-blog.

The main difference between Tumblr and Posterous is that Tumblr gives you advanced blogging tools, a nice interface, and customisable themes. Using Posterous means sending an email to post@posterous.com and getting it published to your un-customised blog; some people manage and do very well (see example below – Angela Dunn @blogbrevity).

More info: http://blogbrevity.posterous.com/

Table I.1 Making sense: Some answers and definitions (Cont’d)

7

Introduction

Question DescriptionWhat is the difference between Pinterest and Flickr?

In short, not much. Flickr was arguably the most distinct image-sharing platform until Pinterest arrived on the scene.

Both platforms allow users to upload photos, graphics, and infographics, and share them by tweeting about them with a link, broadcasting the content to one’s followers on Pinterest or Flickr. Of course, content from both platforms can also be embedded in a website or blog with a back-link.

Like Flickr, Pinterest allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections (baking, furnish new apartment, etc.) when sharing photos. Both platforms allow posting anything and everything to your account, even images taken from other websites. Copyright concerns continue to arise, and Pinterest is trying to address them.

Pinterest currently serves a more social, “brag about myself”, human interest than Flickr seems to.

More info: http://flickr.com/measure-for-impacthttp://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why-flickr-pinterest-need-each-other.php

So what about LinkedIn, Viadeo and Xing?

Most professionals have their profile on one or several of these services, depending on where they live (e.g., French-speaking Switzerland is on LinkedIn, most of German-speaking Switzerland prefers Xing).

Simply put, your connections on these networks are your virtual Rolodex, allowing you to reach out to them even if they change employers, since they surely update contact information on their profile.

Of further note are various groups that might be helpful in reaching out to those interested in discussing issues and sharing insights. Search robots can index Xing content if the group moderator opts to make the group open (usually if it has an RSS feed), but unfortunately, LinkedIn groups are not indexed on Google.

What is Slideshare?

Slideshare was launched in 2006 and taken over in May 2012 by LinkedIn (see above). By that time it boasted 29 million unique visitors and hosted about 7.4 million presentations, which are embedded on more than 1.4 million domains.

Though uploading movies is also possible, PowerPoint presentation slides are the most common upload. The content can easily be embedded in a corporate blog that runs on WordPress, for instance, enabling the reader to flip through the slides without having to leave the blog or download anything.

Slideshare also allows uploading of reports, and some people also show their content on their LinkedIn profile or embed it on their Facebook page. The site’s content reflects the fact that it caters to business people.

More info: http://www.xing.com/net/smmetrics/costs-and-benefits- roi-483455/linkedin-roi-quo-vadis-36912740/40629119/#40629119

By the way, you can even include Slideshare presentations on your main page on Word Press (see example: http://shawnetuma.com/).

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Social Media Audits

Question DescriptionShould we use YouTube, Vimeo or another video platform?

These are a few among many sharing sites that allow people to upload videos. Most can easily be embedded on a blog (e.g., WordPress) or an organisation’s website, or uploaded to a Facebook page or LinkedIn profile, allowing people to watch the clip on your site or go to the video portal, if they prefer.

Some videos may be little more than a short narrative of a product and its features or an event. Most successful videos are around 2 minutes, ensuring that people stay and watch. Videos that manage to capture the emotion of a precious moment are more likely to be shared with others.

How are Facebook and Google+ similar?

Both are platforms that allow people to share text, images, audio, video, etc. with their friends and/or business associates.

Platform owners make the rules and decide when to change them or add features; users have little choice in the matter.

While both represent gated communities or fenced gardens, Google+ is more accessible simply because Google’s search engine increasingly can and does use Google+ content.

What is the difference between Facebook and Google+?

Facebook is used to share things with friends and family – having a conversation with a brand is rarely on people’s minds.

Google+ is the other destination that allows the Google search engine to keep a finger on the pulse of social media. Linking author profiles on Google+ with blog posts helps improve Google search rankings, as does sharing your content on Google+ (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/cytrap/7102056107 and http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/7478438578).

The effects of linking Google+ with the search engine on search results is probably the biggest reason why people started using Google+ in addition to Facebook.

Why does language matter?

For starters, if you write something in English it will take about 25 percent fewer characters and spaces than if you write it in another language. It gets even more complex when translating to languages that do not use the roman alphabet, such as Arabic or Chinese.

The expected formality across social media also differs depending upon language, making it extremely important to find the right tone to reach out to your audience.

More info and charts: http://commetrics.com/?p=18770/#

Table I.1 Making sense: Some answers and definitions (Cont’d)

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Introduction

Question DescriptionWhich platforms or services should we use?

Wrong question.

As discussed in Chapter 1, the key is to determine the purpose of your social media use. Once you have set the goals, developed the measures to assess performance and demonstrated how this could link to micro- and macro-conversions (see Figure 6.1), it will be an easy task to decide what you shouldor should not use. See Figures 5.1 and 5.2 for further details.

A SME’s resources are limited, so instead you must try to unlock the value of social media efforts and curated content that focuses on priorities, by providing useful and practical content wherever people want it, whether via Twitter, Google+ or your blog. Still, you should probably limit yourself to three channels, so choose wisely.

Why does efficiency and effectiveness matter when we measure performance?

The effectiveness of a particular social media metric is determined by whether it achieves its stated purpose.

The above requires a business or individual to spell out, what should collecting a particular social media measurement or social media analytic accomplish (see also Figure 5.1)?

Efficiency means the desired results are worth more than the resources required to achieve them: measurements collected and insights gained from them must be worth more than the effort and money needed to collect them.

What about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefi ts?

Many of the above do not provide Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefi ts, since they use no follow on any links you place (e.g., Pinterest uses a piece of code to ensure that search engine spam does not positively or negatively affect a site’s search engine ranking).

Nevertheless, a link from LinkedIn or Facebook or one placed in the description of a video or presentation on YouTube or Slideshare to your site or blog post can bring additional traffi c from those interested in the topic. This increases the chance of achieving a micro-conversion with this visitor (see Figure 5.1), whereby people may subscribe to your content or leave a comment again helping to increase levels of engagement, and potentially, trust.

By the way, you have to use the right URL shortener service to get SEO benefi ts, as explained here: http://commetrics.com/articles/2011-tip-nr-1-url-shortener-service/

Note. The above list gives an overview and puts blogs, website, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. in a greater context. It explains where they are similar and why and how they differ.

For more information about what platform might work best for you, see this infographic: http://www.cmo.com/social-media-guide/2012/

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Social Media Audits

activities (e.g., helping customers online through chat, email or a frequently asked questions page).

When we drive in an unfamiliar place, it’s possible to take a wrong turn. If we think this is the case, we either ask for directions to get back on track or drive back to the place where we went wrong. Social media is similar: try fast to fail fast. Try things for a few weeks, see how it works and if your clients do not want to consume your offering or the platform ceases to exist, cut your losses and move on. Like checking your oil, you need to check your performance, assess possible weaknesses and improve where possible and feasible.

Figure I.1 suggests the cycle we describe here might occur over the period of a year. Nevertheless, once changes are made it is useful to return to the beginning and start back at stage 1 again. Remember, in 2011 many had not yet heard about Pinterest, but in 2012 it is a completely different story. The year 2014 might bring us something we do not know about today, and thus are unable to include in Table I.1.

Table I.1 addresses some issues and defines some terms that will be used throughout the book. Table I.1 is a reference point for you to refer to while you read subsequent chapters. Basically, people and organisations can share photos (e.g., Flickr or Pinterest), videos (YouTube, Vimeo), their professional presentations (e.g., Slideshare), use professional networks (e.g., LinkedIn) and be entertained (e.g., Second Life).

The challenge is to neither choose the wrong platforms nor spread oneself too thinly. Hedging one’s bets is critical, because platforms that were popular yesterday might not be today (i.e. Bebo was overtaken by another platform, Facebook). Managing this risk requires that one’s website and/or corporate blog be thriving. These are the areas one controls and makes decisions for, such as content to post and downloads to offer (see also Table 9.1).

With all these developments, a big challenge is the increasing fragmentation of the market we might want to reach. To illustrate, in the late 1970s many Americans watched one of the three major networks’ nightly news broadcasts (ABC World News, CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News), but this started to change with the creation of CNN, Fox and many other networks. Therefore, people are informed differently according to what news channel they choose. Moreover, some now watch on their mobile device or via the Internet on their home computer a few hours after the newscast airs.

The same goes for social media and social networks – an increasing number of choices are available, so your target audience could be on each of these channels or, hopefully, concentrate on just one or two. On

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Introduction

top of that, it is becoming an increasing challenge to reach out and engage customers or your target audience as potential clients. Just because somebody Likes a Facebook page does not mean they even see the next update we post. Data suggests that people see far less than 10 percent of Facebook updates from their friends and corporate pages they Like. Many fair-weather Facebook fans are those for whom having a Facebook conversation with a brand is not a top priority. They may have Liked a page for a specific reason, such as getting a discount coupon or being able to participate in a sweepstake. Once they get what they came for they do not intend to come back to consume the latest content you so carefully prepared.

In short, this book focuses on such issues as:

Why should your company use social media?

What strategy is best for your organisation?

How can the strategy be implemented cost-effectively?

What tools should we use to monitor, watch trends, and implement changes that will help improve performance next quarter?

Keep the above material handy and refer to it throughout the book, since it provides some basic insights that will help you grasp concepts outlined in subsequent chapters faster.

Part 1 – Setting the stage, or what it’s all about

“Social Media is the thief of time.”John Wilkinson – message to author via Xing network, 2011-02-28

This section includes:

Chapter 1 – Looking under the hood

Chapter 2 – Who is driving?

Chapter 3 – Plan your trip

Setting the stageThis part of the book introduces the reader to some concepts and ideas that are currently emerging in the field of social media.

Considering limited resources, any organization, whether a company, not-for-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), or government agency, must ensure that its purpose for using social media is defined succinctly, is supported by management, and that the strategy developed makes sense. Moreover, how user engagement should be managed properly has to be discussed and agreed upon. Figure P.1 outlines this in more detail below.

Chapter 1 addresses social media matters and why an organisation must figure out its purpose in order to take advantage of possibilities offered by social media, such as a weblog.

Building of social capital and how, with the help of its staff, the company can build its own or its brand’s reputation is outlined. As the first circle on the left of Figure P.1 suggests, what strengths and

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Social Media Audits

weaknesses the company must deal with should be considered when taking the baseline – where we are today (e.g., do clients use smartphones, and if so, would they want to engage with us via smartphone?). The risk of focusing on platforms like Facebook that may be popular today, but not tomorrow (e.g., Second Life), or even be closed by the owner (e.g., Aardvark by Google) should also be considered.

Chapter 2 focuses on better identifying the target audience and what types of activity and content these individuals perceive as adding value. How to set the strategy or policy objectives regarding social media marketing and what types of risks must be measured are also discussed. More precisely, the core of this chapter explores distinguishing between those who use content provided on your social media channels (e.g., subscribers to your blog, people who Liked you on Facebook), and those who pay for your products and/or services. At this stage, your organization will also want to determine the skills available in-house to do or improve social media marketing.

Chapter 3 prepares things in such a way as to empower you to tell a great story for your target audience (see Figure P.1). Packing content in a way that is useful to the target audience and helps them solve problems, use products better, or prepare for new regulations is a time-consuming exercise. The focal point is which communities the organisation may concentrate on.

Taking thebaseline:SWOT

Reputation,engagementand skill-set

Addingvalue:Telling agood story

Part 1 Setting the Stage

Figure P.1.1 Setting the stage

Figure P.1 Learning more about the organisation’s workings and structure in order to better succed with social media. the context determines what works where (e.g., Who uses which tool), and a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and treats) analysis could reveal important new facts. Doing an inventory first can also be of great help with the SWOT analysis. While work mentioned in circles 1, 2 and 3 is best undertaken in that order, insights gained during the process may suggest re-visiting an issue that is categorised in a previous circle.

15

1

Looking under the hood

Budget constraints, and our reasons for purchasing a car (e.g., commuting to and from work) will influence what we buy.

Abstract: Chapter 1 puts the spotlight on defining some terms to clarify matters, thereby facilitating further discussion. In particular the focus is on context, such as industry or size of organization, which has a distinct effect upon what is, and what is not, feasible using social media.

Keywords: context, discrete context, inbound marketing, omnibus context, purpose using social media, social media marketing, strategy, SWOT analysis

Before we embark on a road trip across the country, we will probably check under the hood of our car that everything looks okay. Of course, we may also have to consider other things depending upon the time of year, including ensuring the air conditioning works and deciding whether snow chains need to be installed.

The same type of check is needed before one launches an inbound marketing project or social media marketing campaign. This allows the organization to better understand where it is now and whether current business conditions, legislation and other things are conducive to the proposed project. Even if social media is already used in some departments, assessing the situation allows management to get a better feel for the landscape and how the situation may evolve over the next 12 months (e.g., consumer prices, unemployment, marketing budget).

This chapter addresses the following questions:

What is social media?

Why does context (e.g., industry & culture) matter so much?

What do we hope to accomplish with social media?

1.

2.

3.

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Social Media Audits

1.1 Social media: A workable definitionAs with every new field of inquiry, before we can dive into the matter at hand we must all be using the same vocabulary and have the same understanding of terms and concepts. In other words, the word apples must indicate the same food item to all parties, while oranges should mean the citrus fruit. To illustrate, ask anybody at work to define what social media entails, and you will probably get as many different definitions as the number of people asked. Clarifying these issues beforehand will make understanding subsequent concepts, strategies and tools or techniques easier for the reader.

1.1.1 What is digital media?

In short, digital media encompasses all of the various different platforms on which people communicate. Digital or online marketing covers digitized content (text, graphics, audio, and video) that can be transmitted over computer networks, both internets and intranets.

More specifically, digital media are various types of technologies and applications that users take advantage of. In the late 1980s, that might have been the bulletin board people connected with by dialing a local number and then posted a message to. Today, it is more likely a person’s Facebook wall or organisation’s webpage. A few years ago it might have meant Ford maintaining a virtual showroom on the Second Life platform (Gattiker, March 26, 2008). In fact, opening an embassy on Second Life was all the rage in Spring of 2007 (Mauritius opened the first, Sweden the second), but today companies, embassies and even some Consulates are more likely to have a Facebook page that is regularly updated with content (e.g., Swiss Consulate in New York, http://info.cytrap.eu/?p=4195). In addition, or instead, associated personnel might maintain a micro-blog on Twitter (e.g., US ambassador John V. Roos assisted with the evacuation of 80 hospital patients after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster through tweets, see http://commetrics.com/?p=14978).

Digital marketing uses digital media to share digitized marketing messages. As defined below and with a different spin, social media uses digital media and its tools to engage with clients and prospects, instead of broadcasting the marketing message directly.

These days, people see digital media as a tool to accomplish what they need to, such as finding another job or completing another sale. Therefore, we also need to define what social media and social networking entail.

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Looking under the hood

1.1.2 What is social media?

As an extension of the above discussion, it seems appropriate to infer that social media is a more specialized method of applying digital media (see John V. Roos, above). Specifically, social media helps foster the exchange of information, data, images, video, etc. between individuals using various tools of digital communication.

While the above makes sense, things can get really murky if we leave it all to marketers. For instance, I came across a tweet that stated:

“More than 64 percent of respondents in a Sheraton Hotels & Resorts study said they use social media to make their travel plans.” (@SocialMediaDeal – 2011-02-01, http://twitter.com/SocialMediaDel/status/ 32363800397086720)

The reported findings seem very interesting, if not exciting, indicating a trend that people increasingly use social media. But if we step back, we need to ask, Didall the respondents have the same definition of social media? The key question asked was:

Do you use social media whilst being on a business trip?If 64 percent answered yes, what would they define as social media?Would their instant messaging program, such as Skype, which offers

text chat, voice-over-IP or internet telephony, and video, qualify as social media, or only Facebook? A bulletin board or just email? Most importantly, would this change the findings, and therefore, the interpretations of data collected?

I doubt respondents were even aware of the definition we use for clarification:

Social Media encompasses any tool or service that uses telecommunication technology, including digital media, to facilitate production and exchange of data/information and taking action, including having a conversation (see also Table I.1).

Social media empowers consumers of content to become producers of content relatively quickly and easily, without having to be geeks. For instance, one can share information using an instant messaging tool, posting it to one’s Facebook wall and/or tweeting about it. One need only be willing to invest the time in producing whatever content one wishes to share, such as writing a comment to a blog post. The more insight such content provides to the interested audience, the more it will be perceived as valuable.

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Social Media Audits

In part, social media shifts communication from a broadcast model of few-to-many to a model of many-to-many, as well as many-to-few (i.e. everybody wants to share, but few might want to know).

Social media means interaction (e.g., answering questions, replying to an email), through the exchange of opinions, information, feelings and emotions that hopefully result in better understanding. Unfortunately, as we have discovered using data from My.ComMetrics.com, even bloggers have difficulty answering those who comment on their blogs. One reason why people have difficulty listening to and joining the conversation is that too many items come across your smartphone screen. It could be your Twitter feed or your Facebook friends’ updates. All these add to a never-ending stream of data that is so big, there is simply not enough time to do everything justice.

Accordingly, it is difficult to use social media effectively, considering how many platforms we may try to use to engage with our friends and associates, such as:

social media networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing, etc.);

video and photo sharing websites (i.e. Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo);

blogs, both corporate and personal (self-hosted, or hosted by Tumblr or WordPress, et al);

media outlets encouraging comments on their content, for example The Guardian (UK), New York Times, and NZZ (Switzerland);

micro-blogging (e.g., Identi.ca, Naijapulse.com, SinaWeibo or Twitter);

wikis and online collaboration tools (Wikipedia, Quora, et al);

forums and discussion boards (for example, Google or Yahoo groups);

video on demand (vod), interactive video technology and podcasting (i.e. a 5-minute mp3 file with a news alert);

online multiplayer gaming platforms (World of Warcraft, Second Life, etc.);

instant messaging (GoogleTalk, Microsoft Messenger, Skype, et al);

geo-location services and geo-tagging of content (for example, Four square or Facebook);

customer review sites (writing a book review on Amazon, commenting on a seller on eBay, etc.);

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Looking under the hood

bookmarking (e.g., Delicio.us) or archiving content such as articles (e.g., Evernote or Memonic) or else several parts of content (e.g., Keeeb.com allows users to archive one sentence out of an article, a video and graphic all in one file online for later use); and

collecting information from tweets of those you follow and extracting content summary to publish and curate daily (e.g., using Paper.li to publish online).

The above was influenced by the smaller list prepared by the Victorian Department of Justice (March 2011 – see definitions of social media– http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/socialmedia). The various names and brands of these tools and their parent companies may change (e.g., Skype is now owned by Microsoft) or be closed down (e.g., Aardvark was taken over by Google and closed soon after, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/6237231742). Clearly, how we use social media can change, as well as on which platform, though a company’s blog(s) and website(s) generally stay put.

1.2 Why context mattersConsidering what social media is and the many methods by which we can take advantage of it, context matters. For instance, the above platforms change based on the country you are in. Though less dominant in 2009, by 2012 Facebook was the number one social network by number of users and amount of web traffic – except in Russia and China (see also http://info.cytrap.eu/?p=3541). So while we may maintain a Facebook presence for our European customers, we might create something completely different to enter the Russian market.

In abstract terms, context is the set of circumstances in which phenomena (e.g., events, processes, or entities such as organizations) are situated. Practically speaking, context might range from differences in labor legislation or consumer protection to broad economic features such as tax regimes that differ between-countries. Johns (2006) proposed a framework that distinguishes between omnibus and discrete contexts.

Omnibus context is broad and encompasses dimensions, such as location, industry, and legal framework (e.g., taxation, labor laws, etc.).

Discrete context refers to specific situational variables (e.g., management practices, size of organization, process management).

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Social Media Audits

Of course, contexts operate by shaping opportunities and constraints companies experience when launching a new product or service, and using social media to engage with customers (e.g., answering questions, discussing product features, helping clients find their way on the website) (Griffin, 2007).

Of importance here is the discrete context, such as industry and size of company, which affects what can and cannot be accomplished with social media. For instance, a business-to-business (B2B) organization might be less likely to use social media for customer engagement than the local bakery. And a large global brand such as Nespresso or national retailer such as Tesco may use different social media platforms (e.g., online community and Facebook pages) for various purposes, while the local store may focus on only using one or two platforms (e.g., corporate blog and Twitter account).

1.2.1 Consumer versus capital goods

As mentioned above, for organizations the discrete context requires addressing how its customer relationship management will be influenced by the use of social media, and how social customer relationship management (sCRM) can help the bottom line. It is obvious that a consumer shopping at a favorite retailer considers different factors when shopping for groceries, such as milk, toilet paper, and rice, versus purchasing a household appliance, such as a computer, TV, or washing machine.

Moreover, an industrial buyer goes about shopping for the above differently than most consumers would. Because price and quality are not the only things that matter, they may look for three different offers when securing the company’s annual supply of computers. How the supplies will have to be paid for (e.g., in advance or 30 days after delivery), as well as how quickly the order arrives, may be deciding factors.

When restocking toilet paper, consumers may either shop for their favorite brand or choose the least-expensive brand at the time. Similar to purchasing bread at the bakery, buying household staples requires little decision-making. However, shopping for a white good such as a dishwasher, dryer or oven is a little more complicated. Things get even more complex if the government opens a public infrastructure project for tender. Apart from the contract being worth millions of dollars, many issues must be taken into consideration before deciding which bid wins.

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Looking under the hood

For instance, when Italotreno purchased high-speed trains for its new rail service between Milano, Roma and Napoli, negotiations with the supplier, Alstom, were intense and took months.

Of further interest is the eyeballs issue. For a wash detergent, getting the message to the largest possible number of eyeballs is critical in order to reach current and potential customers. In the case of a capital good such as high-speed trains, however, one need reach only the small number of people involved in the decision-making process.

1.2.2 Industry

Distinguishing between consumer goods and capital goods is important in maintaining focus when discussing social media. Another important discrete factor of context is the type of industry being considered. We can probably agree that in the construction business, things are slightly different than for the local luxury couture boutique owned by a friend. A bricklayer working as a jobber (piece worker) is paid according to the number of bricks assembled in an hour. I rarely, if ever, see one of these guys taking the time during the workday to check their Twitter or Facebook updates on their smartphone.

Of course, acquiring Facebook fans or Twitter followers is a different story for a wash detergent manufacturer (i.e. consumer product), power plant (i.e. capital good), or company providing advisory or consulting services. While the consumer product manufacturer might hand out discount coupons to new fans or run a sweepstake, the local carpenter who regularly stocks up at your hardware store is unlikely to engage in this way.

1.2.3 Business size

Besides distinguishing between types of industries, another discrete factor we need to focus on in order to assess context is the size of the business. Size of business is a discrete variable that refers to the specific situation of the organization. However, size can also matter in the omnibus context, as the 2008 financial crisis revealed, and continues to teach us (e.g., Cyprus 2013). For instance, in May 2012 the world learned that JPMorgan had lost US$2 billion due to a defect in one of its key risk management tools. The issue at stake partly revolves around the thorny question of size. It became obvious during the financial crisis that some of the world’s largest banks were not just ‘too big to fail’, but also ‘too big

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Social Media Audits

to manage’. Worse, while regulators pledged to clamp down, the problem has gotten worse; JPMorgan has actually gotten bigger and become more dominant in key markets since the financial crisis, not less.

Organizations themselves also have to address the size issue and how it might affect markets, since small-and medium-size enterprises (SME) do not have the same amount of financial resources or personnel to put into their marketing efforts as large companies. The following statement has been attributed to a rather smug Philip Gladman, Diageo’s head of white spirits marketing for Western Europe, at an advertisers conference:

“We figured it takes a community of a million on a brand to even start paying back on a social platform.” (as quoted by Andrew Hill, May 15, 2012, page 12)

Of course, he is right in principle. As he notes, Procter & Gamble had to spend millions to get its Old Spice “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign to go viral (Gattiker, Sept. 22, 2011).

Unfortunately, the above also illustrates why large companies have different issues to address than SMEs do. For starters, most SMEs lack the financial resources to first test the waters when embarking on a new media campaign. Accordingly, how such large-scale examples of supposed success should help a cash-strapped micro enterprise (i.e. one with less than 10 full-time employees) remains a mystery to most of us.

Nevertheless, most upcoming social media conferences and events feature the usual suspects as speakers, all or most representing marketing savvy, if not social media savvy, enterprises such as Unilever, HSBC, Nike, McDonalds, the Gap and so forth. They will gladly tell you how this campaign worked and that one might not have panned out as well, but a small business cannot copy a global brand’s social media strategy without some serious adjustments to take a comparatively tiny budget into account.

1.2.3.1 Small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs)

Discussing context helps clarify what can be done and what might be impossible for a SME, given the smaller pool of resources that can be put in place to make a strategy succeed as it may have for a global player. Managing means making tough choices and scarce resources means not having enough for every single activity staff may want to undertake in the quest to improve profitability.

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Looking under the hood

As we have pointed out, the cases presented at conferences involve the usual global brand culprits such as Pepsi or NASCAR. However, unlike Coca-Cola, which might have several hundred people directly or indirectly using social media on behalf of the brand around the globe, SMEs make do. Starbucks, Timberland, Dash, F1 motor racing and so forth have resources available that small organisations can only dream about.

In the US, the Office of Advocacy defines “... a small business as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees.” In fact, 99 percent of all employing businesses fall under this category – excluding the self-employed – and fully 90 percent of all US businesses have fewer than 19 employees. The data breaks down as follows:

– 60 percent of all businesses that employ people other than the owners have 1 to 4 employees,

– another 20 percent have 5 to 9 employees; and,

– a further 10 percent have 10 to 19 employees.

Also of note is the fact that women own nearly 40 percent of small businesses in the US.

The situation is not that different in the European Union (EU). Micro-, small-and medium-size enterprises are socially and economically important:

99 percent of an estimated 23 million enterprises in the EU are categorized as SMEs.

They provide around 75 million jobs.

This number represents a whopping two-thirds of all employment.

SMEs contribute up to 80 percent of employment in some European industrial sectors, such as textiles, construction and furniture (see Gattiker - January 23, 2008, updated May 1, 2012).

In short,

– 99 percent of all companies in the EU have 250 or fewer employees, while

– 96 percent of companies in the US have 100 or fewer employees.

Also, depending upon the country and industry, 20 to 30 percent of the work force may be self-employed (i.e. only the owner works for the company). While this may not be by choice, it could be due to an omnibus factor. For instance, the country could be in recession, an

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Social Media Audits

industry may be laying off thousands of workers in a particular region, or public schemes that make it easier for the unemployed to start their own businesses might come into play (e.g., Germany’s Hartz IV, see http://www.spiegel.de/thema/arbeitslosengeld_ii/). If the cost of entry is relatively low for a particular business (e.g., little infrastructure required), and the person has the necessary skills and contacts (i.e. a carpenter with a good reputation), social media might be a great way to engage with more clients and potential customers (i.e. target audience).

Clearly, SMEs and the self-employed play an increasingly important part in most economies. However, much of the analysis regarding effective social media use has focused on companies that sell consumer-type products such as books, wash detergent or smartphones. In addition, the challenges usually experienced by SMEs due to limited resources available for social media are often overlooked. For the above and many other reasons, this book tries to shed some light on how SMEs producing capital goods and consumer products or white goods can address those issues surrounding effective social media use and the opportunities inherent therein. A company with less than 20 employees regularly makes some tough choices about what projects and initiatives to fund. To better hedge the organization’s bets while managing risks smartly and facilitating the decision-making process, we discuss the concept of SWOT below.

1.3 Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT)Every organization, whether a business, government agency or nonprofit, will have certain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). However, the specifics of an organisation’s SWOT will depend on its individual situation and context.

Smaller companies will often point out that they have a small chain of command, making them agile and able to respond quickly to changing customer needs. Weaknesses could be financial or a lack of some skills internally.

Opportunities might include further developing the product while threats could be an omnibus factor, ranging from changes to the taxation regime, to economic downturns or currency exchange rate fluctuations. To illustrate, the Euro dropped from about 1.40 against the Swiss Franc to 1.20 over several months in late 2011. On September 6, 2011, the Swiss National Bank began a policy of halting rate rises of the Franc against the

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Looking under the hood

Euro, meaning any shop exporting to Euro countries experienced a squeeze to their profit margin. Even being big and global does not always protect one from downturns: Volkswagen’s biggest market in terms of sales volume is China, which accounted for a quarter of units sold in 2011. Of course, this means any economic slowdown there may cause investors concern.

What might a SWOT analysis reveal, then? One of the great social media truths is rather self-evident and neatly summarises Figure 1.1. It goes something like this:

“The right content, at the right time, to the right person, [on] the right channel.”

How is a self-employed person or SME supposed to interpret that? Can they supply the right content on the right channel? If we are discussing no more than one or two channels, they probably can. Will they be able to reach out to and communicate with their prospects? This is hard to say, since there are so many more demands on an entrepreneur’s limited time. For example, a bricklayer may not want to engage a smartphone while doing piecework on a construction site, since the more bricks placed within the hour, the more the pay.

Nevertheless, we do not necessarily have to throw in the towel at this early stage (see also Chapter 3 – defining your target audience). Knowing one’s target audience and understanding whether they are willing to engage on certain platforms or through certain channels (e.g., getting an email newsletter) is crucial to effectively using social media. In fact, if we carefully figure out what we need and why, we might have a very good chance of reaching out and touching someone – or a few thousand someones – with our social media content.

Of course, this is not easy, because a definite weakness is that many small companies cannot afford a dedicated expert to monitor and solve social media threats and opportunities. Nor do they have enough staff to be able to monitor social media channels 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year (also known as 24/7/365). While being unable to monitor so thoroughly represents a risk, that risk can certainly be reduced to acceptable levels through management. Most risks such as this one, or currency fluctuations in key markets, are just another area requiring careful management to prevent disaster.

What is most important is that we understand these limitations, and do not communicate differently when going public, or the results could be embarrassing. For instance, citizen M hotels group tried to portray itself as a social media savvy organization with activities monitored

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24/7/365, but this is the same organization with an impossible-to-find contact form on its website. Sending it off does not trigger a reply within even 72 business hours, at which point one begins to question the seriousness of the organisation’s efforts and how well their people understand social media. Bragging about monitoring is the easy part – providing varying levels of customer service for requests sent via the online form versus social media is bad practice (see http://commetrics.com/?p=19267). Worse, though not directly related, the entire site violates several best practice rules regarding design and usability.

As the above suggests, to make this all workable the organization has to decide which channels it wants to focus on to be able to engage clients and targeted audiences. Put differently, my customer may be on Facebook to exchange holiday pictures with friends but not be interested in discussing supply chain issues with me, her supplier or one of her colleagues.

1.3.1 Looking under the hood

When we consider purchasing a used car, we use various means to decide which car to purchase, such as resale value. In the US and Canada, it might be helpful to have a look at Consumer Reports’ annual review of vehicles, which focuses in part on repair and maintenance costs. Naturally, this will eliminate any models that have high repair incidents and running costs. Even if this yields a prime candidate, we want to reduce the risk further. One way to do this is to have the automobile we want inspected by our favourite mechanic. This work might also tell us what repairs could soon become necessary (e.g., valves or shock absorbers need replacement after a certain number of miles or kilometres).

The same needs to be done before we embark on our social media adventure or implement a new strategy. In other words, we need to have a check up done, a similar process to what we do before buying a car. A basic review regarding content might reveal that the company has plenty of relevant content on its website, including Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). It might be useful to draw attention to this resource by discussing the FAQ in a blog entry, and adding a picture or video.

A tweet for a blog post about the FAQ might also garner more interest from your followers if it includes a picture or graphic. Additionally, adding the post’s shortened URL (e.g., http://twitter.com/ComMetrics/status/212592363279880192) makes getting to the source that much easier for the interested reader, helping to increase traffic. Alternatively, the image tweeted might raise people’s interest a bit or convey all the information they need.

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It is important to review the content already available, including images, graphics, brochures, etc. Not only that, but these should be adjusted to make them more suitable for the mobile phone user or impatient social media aficionado.

We should also keep in mind that we tend to read an item word-for-word when it is printed on the page, but scan online material first before deciding whether we want to know more. This reaction to online content follows a Weibull distribution (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/6144860226):

People leave bad pages within five seconds so do not use graphics or media that load slowly (i.e. pictures that load fast and illustrate things are ok).

Good pages, including those with a high first impression score (see http://howto.commetrics.com/?page_id=3413) and a good headline (see http://howto.commetrics.com/?page_id=71) are more likely to entice people to stick around.

Therefore, content must be prepared and presented in such a way as to entice people to spend time consuming it. Only then is it possible that a visit will result in a micro-conversion, such as the reader subscribing to the company’s newsletter (for more details, see Figure 5.4).

The above illustrates that text published online must be structured differently to something printed on paper, using shorter sentences and paragraphs, as well as more titles and highlighting portions of importance.Even a press release about a new team member joining the company will be done twice:

– once in the traditional format, before it is

– re-drafted following the above rules before posting to Google+, Facebook or the company blog (see http://securl.de/12-2-CyTRAP-Newsletter-Weibull-effect).

Additionally, it is worth considering that most journalists will not print your traditional press release, but read it directly on the screen, instead.

The same consideration must be made with printed versus electronic books. The book you are currently reading will likely sell more electronic than print copies, so I have used more figures and graphics, as well as shorter paragraphs, allowing for better scanning of content.

Finally, quite a few members of staff may already blog privately or comment elsewhere on topics ranging from hobbies such as skydiving or

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river rafting to a client’s blog post. Any and all such activities provide staff with skills that could come in handy (see Chapter 2) when you decide to chart out the social media strategy and set the targets you want to reach for your organization.

1.3.2 SWOT analysis done: Now what?

For smaller companies, the positive side of the SWOT analysis is probably going to tell the team they are doing a few things right. In some cases, the organization’s structure might be helpful, whereby the communication from top to bottom is only one or two layers. This helps get the top involved and garner approval, and can even be quick, if you can get the boss to sit down and immerse themselves in these issues for an hour to make some informed decisions. Unfortunately, managers are not always easy to pin down, and the SWOT work will likely reveal that the company has already dipped a toe in the water and tried out a few channels.

In a few cases I have come across SWOT analysis results that succinctly spell out some weaknesses, such as how things were done due to lack of people with the necessary skills and/or finances. The insights gained from a SWOT analysis should be used to get outside help to limit risk exposure or rectify the problem next time someone new is hired.

The SWOT analysis might also encourage the company to speak with employees and learn who uses which tools and platforms, allowing for the creation of synergies by taking advantage of skills they already use privately. It might make a lot of sense to involve staff regardless of their job duties if they have used certain platforms like Facebook for a while. These staff members most likely know how to use the technology, might share some insights and have ideas on how the company can best reach out. In addition, they surely have their own connections and networks. These can again be used for sharing interesting content as it is published on the corporate blog. Of course, things have to be carefully balanced in order to not make employees feel forced to do anything, such as sharing a blog post or a checklist with their social network. Their Facebook connections may not be at all interested in hearing about their work.Some have pointed out that:

– Facebook users get news from family and friends, while

– Twitter users get news from journalists and/or content curators (e.g., corporate bloggers).

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As the above illustrates, an employee’s Facebook friends want to share pictures and stories about their last night out or last weekend’s two-day hike; sharing business-related content may not be at all appropriate. Nevertheless, such insight may suggest that the company invest its resources elsewhere in the hope of finding an audience more open to active engagement.

1.4 Your social media purposeThe purpose social media has for you is the single most important factor that influences whatever you do with it. Similarly, when in the market for a used car, why we need it is a deciding factor. Gas mileage and dependability are important criteria when choosing to buy a used car for our daily commute.

In the case of social media, the company may want to use it to help improve the customer experience with the product. The firm may also want to make it easier for clients to get support, if necessary. Whatever the overriding purpose behind your purchase, it will greatly influence what product you select. Similarly, if your overriding purpose is offering clients useful and helpful content through social media, that purpose will drive your use of those tools (see Figure 1.1 below). Yes, it helps and is important to spread your name, and build brand recognition, etc. Nevertheless, the single most important factor is helping your customers. Moreover, online sharing is based on caring, meaning we must be polite as we acknowledge and reply to requests, and so forth. We may have to provide three times the content, or even more, to get one acknowledgment or piece of feedback. However, ignoring the client, not acknowledging them or not replying to their request for information is not an option. The only viable alternative is to reply politely, promptly and thoughtfully.

Figure 1.1 demonstrates that, for an organization wanting to use social media, it is about offering value and usefulness in the eye of the recipient, customer and target audience. Moreover, people must be treated with respect, while having their contributions, such as a tweet mentioning your brand or comment on the company’s blog, acknowledged. Your caring is the other person’s reward for making the effort to comment on or Like your post. Not saying thank you is just impolite and will not encourage the other person to do it again in the near future. Put differently, what goes around comes around and because once something is online you can never take it back, that Facebook or blog comment will be there for everybody to see for years to come.

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1.4.1 Why?

We graphically outline how to determine what social media is used for in Figure 1.1. Quadrant 1 establishes that the why could encompass three or more reasons. For instance, one might want to use it to reach out to current and potential customers, and build the company’s reputation as a fair and reliable partner that provides value.

Another purpose would be to use social media to give clients a better way of giving input and allow them to participate in various ways. For instance, user groups can discuss possible upgrades or product improvements. Another forum may provide a platform for users to help each other solve product issues, while the company monitors and interjects if it has a better answer.

Another possibility for using social media could be to meet the customer who wants to engage with the company online. This way one can inform the client of new developments, exchange information or help them solve a problem. For instance, I recently had an issue making a graphic using a software package. I chose to leave a message online and got help within a few hours, making this a good way to get the help I needed quickly and easily.

As Figure 1.1 also suggests, from the client’s perspective, social media has value if the content or service is useful, practical and helps save time (e.g., checklist, FAQ, instructional video). For instance, one should only follow a Twitter account if one wants to read that person’s tweets, and we only read someone else’s content if they provide intelligence (e.g., a URL to an interesting story) we would otherwise not have:

@ComMetrics does not tweet all the time, but when he does, he usually links to really interesting articles about strategy, marketing and social media measurement.

The beauty of social media is that I do not have to reciprocate every connection: in order to manage the huge information flow, we will either selectively choose whose updates we want or start ignoring most of them.

1.4.2 What?

Even if we have defined why we want to use social media, we still need to discuss what we will use it for. For instance, we can offer our target

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audience(s) valuable and informative content (articles, infographics, etc.), which they will be more likely to share with others if it provides necessary information and entertains to a certain degree.

Of course, a good graphic (more popularly termed infographic) is worth more than a thousand words, but preparing one takes time and effort. Often, they manage to confuse the important information they are supposed to communicate, rather than offer clarification.

A similar logic applies to producing truly useful two-minute instructional videos. Talking for less than 1:45 while screen-capture software runs six slides from a presentation you gave is not easy. Just listen to yourself and hear how many times you stopped and added other words or noise that do not add anything helpful to the content you are trying to present.

Similarly, sponsoring an event is not enough to get people talking, because the public, and your clients in particular, want something of practical value. This could be anything from a free app or music to a free consult, and sometimes a freebie is useful for all parties concerned. To illustrate, Ärztefon (the ‘doctor phone’) offers free medical advice from

Offering con-tent withoutconversation

Stayingsilent

BroadcastingSuch as lots ofbuy-my-stuffoffers insteadof real help.

Wanna-be so-cial ex-perts

The Apple methodAd-hoc anduncoordinated

“Social”Experts

HighHigh

High

High

High

Dialoguing(share usable content thathelps others save time)

Quadrant 8 – notvisible belowQuadrant 5:

High

5 6

4 3

7

1 2

Sharing(give morethan youtake)

Low

Low

Low

Low

Low

Low

Low

Social Capital(reputation,trust, etc.)

Being socialAnsweringquestions,commenting,contributing todiscussions.

Lady Gaga/Justin Biebereffect

Figure 1.1 Sharing is caring

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trained professionals when a family member is sick, especially outside business hours, which might help avoid unnecessary visits to the emergency room. In Zurich this service is a collaborative effort by general practitioners and health insurance companies, whereby the latter pick up the tab, especially because the savings far outweigh the costs.

Of course, scalability definitely becomes a challenge if you have hundreds of freebies.

1.4.3 How?

Quadrant 3 of Figure 1.1 focuses on how we should communicate using social media. For instance, communication starts at the point of sharing relevant and valuable information that is of interest to the receiver, whether a current or potential client.

The aim is to help people by providing the right information, which in turn earns their attention long enough to create an attraction. Being too forward or just broadcasting another press release might not create the necessary appeal. Only earned attention helps form an affinity to the sender.

Engaging people with quality information, whether internal or external, is the beginning of inherently valuable actions. Providing Facebook fans or blog readers with answers to help solve problems or issues that are pertinent to their work helps engage an audience of followers who respect and desire the value you and your organization offer.

However, we also want to be acknowledged when we reply or comment on things that came our way. In other words, if a reader comments on an email newsletter, they wish to get at least an acknowledgement, or better yet, a reply that adds valuable insight. This is the beginning of a conversation and the building blocks of trust and respect for one’s expertise and professionalism.

1.4.4 Where?

Quadrant 4 of Figure 1.1 outlines the where of the sharing equation. Where you share on social platforms and which kind of platforms you participate in is important (see also Table I.1). As an interior decorator, you may want to share images, so you participate on Pinterest and/or Flickr.

Inviting others to share their insight on your website or blog, as well as offering to post on other sites helps build your reputation. It also helps

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spread our ideas to an audience we might otherwise not reach. If interested, they might consume some more content on the company’s website or blog. Moreover, guest bloggers bring some of their readers to the organization’s website and, as importantly, provide clients and current readers with quality content and different perspectives.

Finally, having staff join offline events that clients might also be attending helps round it all off. Nothing helps an online relationship more than expanding it offline. In fact, many people connect on Facebook only after they have first met offline (e.g., Wilson, Gosling & Graham, May 2012).

1.5 Where we standOnce your organisation has completed the above steps as also outlined in Figure 1.1, the company will have a pretty clear idea of where it stands. For instance, the SWOT analysis will have illuminated the potential threats to be mastered, such as new regulations and for what purpose the firm intends to use social media. Of course, the latter will be largely affected by the context, such as size of the firm or industry (see also Figure 1.1).

Nevertheless, we should not forget that things might be different in our part of the world compared to yours, depending upon industry, country, culture and language. This might sound obvious, but do not make the mistake of believing it is. For instance, next time you come across another news item or infographic that suggests you post your content between 14:00–16:00 hours, and 20:00–1:00 hours (early morning), ask yourself, “Does this mean Eastern US, Shanghai or some other time zone?” (see http://www.bitrebels.com/social/the-best-time-to-get-pinning-on-pinterest-infographic/).

Accordingly, you want to post when your target audience is most likely to see it. Maybe the above times suggested by author Richard Darell are great also if you take GMT +1 for Europe – maybe not. After some testing, I found that early morning tweets were best for our European folks, while the early evening (GMT +1) is more advantageous for the US (i.e. early morning in Los Angeles). Additionally, early Facebook posts (GMT +1) ensure that some of your Asian readers receive your content before they hit the sack, meaning you just have to try a few things and see what works best for your particular target audience (remember, try fast – fail quickly). Finally, I found out that to

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get the school principal’s attention in Switzerland with an e-mail newsletter works best just before lunch hour. They are more likely to open it within the hour (i.e. when most people will either open or forget your message) than if I send it before 09:00 hours or around 16:00 hours (late afternoon). Hence, test and find out when your social media updates work best for your target audience (i.e. your clients or those that might purchase from you).

1.6 ConclusionAt the beginning of this chapter I raised three important questions:

What is social media?

Why does context (e.g., industry & culture) matter so much?

What do we hope to accomplish with social media?

The chapter starts off with a short discourse regarding some term definitions, such as digital media and social media. Using social media effectively also requires keeping context in mind, such as the type of industry and business size. Figure 1.1 then focuses on determining the purpose of our social media use – why, what (i.e. provide valuable and practical content), how (i.e. to add value by engaging with clients), and where (i.e. creating synergies for conversations offline and online) matters a great deal. In principle, if content or activities (e.g., such as webinars) provide your clients with important facts, news, tricks, case studies and so on, they will consume it. Accordingly, if content or activities are useful for saving time or doing a better job, your customers will most likely look at what you have to offer.

Completing these basics helps prepare us for mastering the never-ending changes that require quick adjustments. While having an app for your Android device or iPhone might have been a competitive advantage yesterday, today it is simply expected or another one people do not want. Therefore, we do not offer our clients one. Instead, our newsletters, blog posts and so forth are set up so they can be viewed and/or read on a smartphone device (i.e. with one’s browser).

Worse, people do not use apps for more than 60 days after download unless they are indispensable (e.g., getting times for public transit for your daily commute). Unfortunately, your newspaper or bus stop ad asking people to download an app to view a video no longer makes the

1.

2.

3.

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grade (i.e. I do not want another one-time use app) (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/6341095238). In most cases, people only use about 10 apps regularly, while the rest just require storage space.

Finally, usability in the eyes of your clients, both of content or activities you support, is much more important than engagement. People might only ever engage with a brand on Facebook if they have a serious problem. Happy customers rarely want to chat with you, but love another checklist that helps them be more effective, such as Appendix 1a. If you are lucky you get a comment, thank you note, or re-tweet. Even better, you might get another order next time you talk to them on the phone or see them at an offline social event.

ReferencesGattiker, Urs E. (January 23, 2008, updated May 1, 2012). European

Commission: Defining the term SME [Blog post – ComMetrics]. Retrieved June 22, 2012 from http://commetrics.com/?p=16.

Gattiker, Urs E. (March 26, 2008). 4 Lessons we can learn from Mercedes-Benz, AOL and Wells Fargo. [Blog post – ComMetrics]. Retrieved June 12, 2012 from http://commetrics.com/?p=9.

Gattiker, Urs E. (September 22, 2011). Going viral or selling product: ROI anyone? [Blog post – ComMetrics]. Retrieved January 19, 2012, from http://commetrics.com/?p=16696.

Gattiker, Urs E. (2013). Social media audit. Measure for impact. New York: Springer Briefs in Computer Science. Retrieved March 15, 2013 from http://www.springer.com/business+%26+management/book/978-1-4614-3602-7.

Griffin, M. A. (2007). Specifying organizational contexts: systematic links between contexts and processes in organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 859–863.

Johns, G. (2006). The essential impact of context on organizational behavior. Academy of Management Review, 31, 386-408.

Hill, A. (May 15, 2012). A Twitter set-to as old as the Old Testament. Financial Times, p. 12. Retrieved May 16, 2012, from http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b6553d02-9b77-11e1-b097-00144feabdc0.html

Wilson, Robert, E., Gosling, Samuel, D., and Graham, Lindsay T. (2012). A review of Facebook research in the social sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 6–8. doi: 10.1177/1745691612442904 Retrieved

June 27, 2012, from http://psych.wustl.edu/robertwilson/

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Appendix 1a Ropes to skip

Work through the following nine points to learn whether your organisation might be making some critical mistakes.

1. Starting without a clear objective.One should never embark on any social media activity (e.g., creating great content) without an objective (e.g., helping customers). The objective will have to be linked to the strategy and key drivers, and must be measured.

Using social media without a clearly defined objective, such as knowing to begin with what its purpose is, does nothing but squander resources.

2. Doing a SWOT analysis without regard for context.SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis is a fundamentally flawed framework, unless we carefully consider context (e.g., omnibus context, such as economy, or discrete context, such as size of firm). For instance, is Apple’s relatively high level of vertical integration a strength or weakness? What about BMW’s highly trained but expensive workforce? The answer is, it depends on your product.

Similarly, having highly trained people might make it easier to use social media effectively (see also Figure 2.1). Factors such as location, industry and so forth will also influence the answer, so we must understand what matters in the markets where we do business. Is it the law, logic or maintaining relationships?

3. Trusting without verification.Ensure you audit and investigate whether users follow social media guidelines. Conducting an anonymous survey that asks staff how their

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Looking under the hood

managers handle social media training can help establish whether organizations practice what they preach.

It is not about just talking the talk, but also walking the walk. Using the right buzzwords does not automatically guarantee that your social media officer knows how to run things properly.

4. Not putting resources where they are needed most.Conduct a risk analysis and audit regarding social media use, such as the corporate Facebook page or sharing company news using private Twitter accounts. This helps assess where employees, agents and suppliers are most likely to perform well or ignore social media guidelines (use the checklists in here for a small or in-depth audit: Gattiker, 2013).

5. Forgetting to monitor.Track calls and emails to the social media helpdesk to spot systemic issues and problems.

6. Not setting the tone from the top.Lead by example. If the CEO is clear about social media’s use and feels it is a priority, middle management will follow. However, if the sub-text is ‘social media is for kids,’ those wanting to use social media for the company’s benefit stand no chance at all.

7. Managing risks – every word comes with its own metadata.Across cultures, or even across languages within the same country (e.g., French vs. German in Belgium), every word comes with its own metadata that indicates different things in different cultural settings.

It might be as simple as the term to indicate the end of a sentence – Americans use the word period, while the Brits use full stop. However, it

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is often much more subtle, ranging from humor to how you greet a business partner when you meet for the first time.

Accordingly, one must be specific and never assume one has been properly understood without checking for potential misunderstandings. Even colleagues, Twitter followers, or Facebook fans that speak the same language may understand your tweet or status update and its nuances differently.

8. Do not treat social media marketing as a separate activity.Do not leave social media marketing to the marketing, sales or communication folks. Investigate ways to integrate social media marketing into all operations – your staff members already do so in their private lives. Provide support and encouragement to allow them to spread the message and story you have to tell (see Chapter 3).

9. Do not think LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo, et al. are sales tools.Make sure that your clients share your understanding of these platforms. Do not think that sending unsolicited sales messages or emails via these platforms will win you any friends or positive replies.

Unfortunately, there are more people who want to sell their wares than there are buyers. Still, these places are great for posting job openings and contracts open for bids. It is amazing how many qualified small companies need more work and will reply, but do not expect the same if you hustle your contacts for getting another job or contract (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/7874404344)!

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2

Who is driving?

Which mix of stars and skills is best for the team as a whole?

Abstract: A highly skilled driver and pit crew will be able to get more out of a race car than a less gifted team. Finding and successfully managing the optimal mix of team players and stars is not easy. Nevertheless, one must balance the benefits of continuity against the advantages of renewal. Chapter 2 focuses on issues regarding what we bring to the table, such as social capital, human capital and corporate brand.

Keywords: brand management, content sharing, context, corporate brand, employer brand, engagement, human capital, joining the conversation, scalability, skills, social networking, social capital, social skills, reputation, weak ties.

Chapter 1 addressed how the wider omnibus context, such as economic situation, taxation system or industry might influence how the company plans for the future. For example, if the diffusion of mobile devices with Internet access is high (i.e. many use it extensively), mobile apps could be important. The discrete context, such as the size of the firm or industry it is part of, both play a role; industrial buyers might not be so interested in the company’s Facebook page. However, sound engineers in the music business might be frequent Facebook users and therefore responsive to a supplier’s presence on this platform.

Based on the above, the company could be in a situation where its brand is well known and several of its departments (e.g., customer support) use various social media platforms to serve clients’ information needs (e.g. London’s Public Transport Authority – http://www.tfl.gov.uk/socialmedia/ – provides updates on delays through a Twitter feed for each line, such as: https://twitter.com/piccadillyline). Each feed is of