Indelibuzz

Photo by Travis Hornung

SOCIAL MENTION Grade: A-
Social Mention crawls the entire web to discover, of course, mentions of your brand or products. It will also reveal sentiment, passion and reach. One other key feature – you can configure it to only search ‘within social media’.

A general search also reveals a ton of data that’s unrelated to your brand – since it seeks out all the words in your search. Let’s say you have a brand name that includes any common words like ‘computer’ or ‘insurance’ or ‘jeans’. That means you’ll get results for any mentions of those words.

Advanced search is the way to go. You can enter an exact phrase, and Social Mention will scour the web just for references to your particular company. The great thing is, Social Mention looks at almost every important social network including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Photobucket, Stumbleupon and others. (We noted that Pinterest and LinkedIn aren’t featured.) This is a very easy-to-use tool that provides useful data in real time.

TOPSY Grade: B-
Topsy looks a lot like Social Mention, and to save time you also want to use the advanced search option here. Unlike Social Mention, Topsy won’t let you search for an exact phrase – it ignores the order of the words. So you’re going to have to sort through a lot more results that are unrelated to your brand.

On the positive side, Topsy lets you search within any timeframe you’d like to check – today, the past week, the past three months – you decide. That’s a nice feature for brands getting tons of hits that only want to see what’s very recent. For smaller brands, a longer timeframe will show more activity. Topsy even picks up on FourSquare mentions, which is good for brands with lots of locations.

AMPLICATE Grade: C-
Amplicate says it’s here to tell us ‘what people love and hate on social media’. Of course, every brand wants to show up in the former category and not the latter.

Amplicate works fairly well for established mega-brands like Starbucks or Redbull or Apple – since there’s so much conversation happening around them. But if you’re a smaller brand, chances are this website isn’t going to be of any value. Even when I searched for opinions about a recent film like ‘The Descendants’, I got all kinds of unrelated information about various ethnic groups. Our take is that Amplicate has a long ways to go before it will be useful to most brands.

ADDICTOMATIC Grade: C-
This is a pretty cool site because the results are clustered according to the places they were found. So all the mentions on Twitter are in once place, and likewise YouTube and Bing. But hey, where is Facebook? MIA it looks like.

However, there’s a huge drawback in that Addictomatic doesn’t offer customized search. So once again, you’ve got to sift through a ton of unrelated content to find the mentions that matter.

If you’re ready to step up, there are lots of great paid monitoring services our there as well. We’re partial to Radian6 and HubSpot. If you have your own favorites, we’d love to hear about them here.

ONE: RE-THINK YOUR STRATEGY.
For many brands, there’s still an unwavering focus on fan count (the number of likes) on both Facebook and Twitter. While everyone enjoys having a big community, and growing numbers to report to management, it’s much more important that fans you do have stay engaged over time.

No product or service exists in a vacuum. It’s important to remember that Facebook is the place for your fans to talk about their unique experiences with your product. Why it matters in their lives. Your job is to facilitate that process.

Everything you do on social should inspire evangelists and potential fans to submit more original content. More of their own stories. The greater the level of participation, the more potential customers you create.

TWO: SEQUENTIAL TACTICS.
One area where even reasonably sophisticated brands fail on social is the timetable for tactics. Here’s why: Let’s say you’ve put a good deal of time and expense into developing a cool contest or a new smartphone app. It has to be created, tested, implemented and evaluated. This requires a lot of attention. So once the new tactic is up and running (Thank God, it’s working!) there’s nothing ‘ready and waiting’ to follow it with.

Tactics like custom polls, contests, sweepstakes, smartphone apps and custom Facebook pages will all help build fan count and engagement. However, what really matters is what happens after all your new fans have signed on. How do you plan to keep them engaged over the next six months? What’s in the pipeline?

THREE: REALISTIC INVESTMENT.
Social media may be free for each of us, but it’s not free for brands to take real advantage of opportunities there. Just as Facebook was set up as a way to harvest information that can be sold to marketers, individual brands need well-funded programs to stay ahead of competitors. Facebook advertising is a great value, but not inexpensive.

Brilliant thinking never comes cheap. Neither do the best smartphone app ideas, social microsites, innovative tactics or even intelligent strategy. New opportunities are happening almost every day to make social work better for your brand. But in order to capitalize on them, you need to hire social marketing pros who are dedicated to staying ahead of the curve.

FOUR: IMPROVE FAN ENGAGEMENT VIA NEW APPS.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: Anytime Facebook implements a new feature, it may look like was designed to ‘improve the site’. But the reality is it was implemented to make Facebook more valuable to marketers.

The buzz for big brands on Facebook these days is all around Open Graph. This is a big step forward because it enables people to connect around topics they’ve already expressed interest in. Amazon was an early adopter, and that was before Facebook added 60 new sharing apps that look for ‘action verbs’ in your newsfeed. Timeline apps are starting to pop up as well, from brands like Ticketmaster, Rotten Tomatoes, Foodspotting, TripAdvisor and others.

FIVE: IDENTIFY EVANGELISTS.
The primary reason why sheer number count is not the be-all, end-all when it comes to social media is only a small percentage of those people are vital to your program. Simply put, your true brand evangelists are doing the vast majority of the work for you – by posting, responding, sharing and informing friends. Smart brands are identifying these individuals, and then creating tactics that make them feel rewarded.

There are a number of tools that have come out in the past several months that make the task of finding your evangelists easier. Here’s a story on Mashable today that features three of these.

SIX: INNOVATE.
The best marketing and advertising has always been done by those willing to try something new. So be brave and shake up the works a bit. ’1984′ by Apple anyone? The same rules apply here. Don’t just mimic. Find someone with real imagination and hire them to create your program elements.

SEVEN: INTEGRATE WITH ALL OTHER MARKETING EFFORTS.
This might seem like an easy one, but you might be amazed how infrequently it happens. Make social a part of all your other communications: Advertising. PR. Collateral. Packaging. And especially your website. And not just the little blue ‘F’ you can put there. Show some content from your customers on your home page. After all, they funded it.

Photo by Masterpari

It also takes significant resources to successfully manage a social community. It’s both an art and a science to curate quality content, post and respond on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Linked In. Then there’s Yelp, Foursquare and a host of newer niche networks proliferating on a monthly basis that may require your attention. If it sounds like a full-time job, that’s because it certainly can be. And for big brands the task may fall to a team with responsibility for multiple brands and programs.

Not all businesses, however, have the resources to do this, which is why many consider handing off the task to an agency or outside contractor who becomes the surrogate social voice, eyes and ears of the brand. Small retail or restaurant businesses with owner/managers who already are wearing many hats may simply lack the manpower and expertise to focus on marketing of any kind. Social media, however, could be their best channel and investing in a contractor to develop and manage their program is a wise move. The same can be said for a wide range of local service businesses from dentists and lawyers to auto repair shops. When even a well-funded company is in the startup phase, it may face similar challenges: the importance of seeding a community and establishing the brand socially with no fleshed-out team to manage the task.

If you are considering outsourcing, keep the following in mind.

1. Stay involved. Assuming that you have hired on a contractor with the skill set to understand and manage your community, you will still need to be available to answer questions, provide guidelines and you should expect regular reporting with recommendations and observations. You certainly will want to log on to your company’s social networks regularly to observe the social conversation.

2. Stay educated. In addition to keeping you apprised what they are learning in managing your community, your contractor should be keeping an eye toward helping you understand the channel. That means giving you enough information to be an informed consumer and know the changes that can impact your business. They should also be monitoring your competitors and looking out for new opportunities to have a greater impact.

3. Stay invested. Ultimately, your social media program requires more than mere day-to-day management — if you want it to help you market competitively. That means that you’ll need to invest in outside expertise to guide a strategy and develop creative tactics, such as contests, polls, custom pages as well as advertising. A well-produced social campaign can geometrically grow your fan base, inspire more participation and expand the pipeline of new customers.

In an column in Ad Age this past August, Michael Scissons said this: “Run your brand’s community management in-house and hire someone to do it right. Outsourcing your brand ‘voice’ is not a viable long-term option. Stop pretending you don’t have the budget for headcount — you’re likely spend millions on media. You can spare some to maintain relationships with your best and most influential customers.”

That’s good advice for CMO’s of global brands, and not always practical for plenty of organizations that should be making their mark on the social landscape. In the long run, however, it’s a worthy goal. Because you simply have more control, agility and insight when your day-to-day social media is tasked to a qualified insider.

Photo by oXane

But that’s changing. As social marketing evolves, marketing pros are realizing the necessity of looking beyond the numbers to see what’s really happening. Here’s one current example: Fathom Analytics is now using four equally-weighted factors to determine something they call the ‘Facebook relationship quality index’ or RQI.

The four factors are: 1) Momementum – How quickly is the brand acquiring new fans? 2) Fan Engagement – How often do fans post or interact on your brand’s wall? 3) Emotional Quality – How much positive emotion is being expressed in comments? And 4) The number of likes (yes, it still matters).

What’s interesting about using four factors rather than just one is that many brands don’t rank nearly as high as they would otherwise. It takes long-term strategy and innovative tactics to keep fan engagement at high levels over time, and engagement is paramount.

However, all kinds of consumer brands haven’t figured this out yet. So they’ll do something like run a big contest that adds lots of fans for a month or two. Then they follow that with… nothing. Which means all those potential evangelists have no reason to return to the brand’s Facebook wall, or even to allow its posts to show up on their own walls.

So how do you show the love to your fans over time – so they’ll return it? First, give them a discount. The number one reason people visit brand Facebook pages is in order to receive special offers. Second, entertain them. Create humorous videos or other types of content they’ll enjoy enough to pass along. Third, create a fun game around your products or brand. This is really just another form of entertainment, but games have incredible power for building share of mind. Fourth, create a cool new mobile app. One that’s based on what your evangelists really like to do.

Now here’s the caveat. All of these tactics require an investment of time and money. Games and apps are not cheap. Funny videos require exceptional ideas and ample production dollars. Which leads to this conclusion: If you really want your brand to excel in social marketing the days of low-cost, intern-managed programs are behind us.

Smart, ahead-of-the-curve brands are leading the way. Perhaps you’ll be one of those, too?

Haven’t heard about Open Graph yet? Rest assured, you will. That’s because it’s a true paradigm shift in the way brands can take advantage of Facebook. And just like all major leaps forward in social marketing, brands that are ahead of the curve have already put Open Graph to use. And yes, it’s still in beta form right now.

Open Graph was introduced in September at the f8 Developer Conference. It allows for much deeper engagement with your brand community. Here’s the primary difference: With ordinary FB pages, a fan can ‘like’ your page, app, picture or video. But with Open Graph, all the members of your community get to see what other people are interested in – and in real time. It immediately goes much broader than standard FB interaction.

Perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate the power of Open Graph is to look at how Amazon is using it right now. You can see the app they’ve developed on the right side of your ‘personal recommendations’ page on Amazon. Once you’ve allowed the connection, it takes you to a new page that’s really quite remarkable – and one important thing to note – it’s not on Facebook! (Instead the new page keeps you on Amazon’s website.)

Here you’ll find friend birthdays, popular book, movie and music purchases made by your friends, reading and film recommendations from friends and even shopping recommendations based on what you and your friends enjoy. This is a type of community-meets-your-brand interaction that has simply not been seen before. And the potential is substantial, to say the least.

Let’s say you have a travel company. You could create an Open Graph app so people in your community can compare trips, hotels, destinations, or even the weather in Bali right now. Or maybe you have a winery that wants to stand out from the pack. An Open Graph app would allow people to compare various wine and food pairings, varietals, vintages, and recent events they’ve attended where they loved the wine that was served.

Now here’s the tricky part. Open Graph is not for the faint of heart. This is not a plug-and-play application. You’re not going to want to try and create this in-house. It will require a budget and an outside marketing resource that is both creative and capable. Facebook has laid the groundwork, but it will take a savvy team to bring it to life for your brand. Unsolicited endorsement: we’d love to be that team.

There will be dozens of smart new uses of Open Graph by leading brands in the months to come. They will exponentially increase interaction and depth of engagement among fans. And remarkably, this can all take place on your web site again – and not on Facebook. The only question is, are you going to be a leader with Open Graph, or a late-to-the-party follower?

Are you getting interested?

Looks like the name came from a combination of ‘picture’ and ‘interest’. Pinterest appears to provide the missing link from Flickr, and that’s community interaction. Unlike Facebook, this isn’t a place where the focus is on an endless stream of chatter. It’s more of a virtual bulletin board that’s been divided into themes. The homepage is a potpourri of everything and anything. But if you explore a bit, you’ll find that there are 32 separate categories there ranging from ‘weddings’ to ‘geeks’. There are some pretty terrific images on all of them, and lots of comments, too.

The inevitable question of course is, who has time for this? Evidently, just like during the early days of Facebook and YouTube, young people do. And lest we forget, it was the younger demographic that brought these networks to life. Even though mom & dad are of course on Facebook today, they were nowhere to be found in the beginning.

So just how big is Pinterest right now? The SFGate says the site is getting ONE BILLION monthly page views. And naturally, that amount of traffic has generated some early interest from marketing managers who want to be ahead of the curve. Here are four brands that have established an early presence: Real Simple, Nordstrom, Land’s End and ShopItToMe. The ‘followers’ and ‘following’ numbers on these brands are remarkably low right now. But then again, I also remember when Starbucks had less than 5,000 fans on Facebook.

So is your business right for Pinterest? If you’re in retail, there’s no doubt the answer is yes. But here’s the broader rationale: If you have a product line that photographs well, and could use more exposure, why not arrive sooner rather than later? Yes, it will take some time for your social team. But other than that, it’s hard to see a downside.

Photo by Rofltosh

If you want to rise above the competition you owe it to yourself and your brand to ensure you’re not only taking advantage the newest social networks, but also optimizing those you’re currently using.

Google+
While Google itself is a well-oiled machine, it was still a surprise to many that Google+ landed in the top ten so quickly – and is at #6 right now. The main idea behind Google+ is to allow users to have all the same features of Facebook, but to provide much greater ability to customize your experience through ‘circles’. In addition, it has Google’s excellent built-in chat functionality and better ease of sharing photos and videos. While currently unfriendly to brands, early Google+ has many important features that will make it increasingly popular from a marketing standpoint, including real time analytics tool Google Ripples.

All of this is why you should take 15 minutes right now to create your brand’s Google+ page, and start paying attention to a social network that’s going to get huge. Grabbing a +1 button for your website (similar to a ‘like’ widget) is also a no-brainer. Guides like this from Read Write Web can help.If you need further inspiration, it’s always good to see what the top brands (61% of which are already on board) are doing on Google+.

Linked In
Of course you’re using LinkedIn and it’s likely the majority of people in your company are, too. But is your brand using it effectively? If you are a B2B brand, it’s an essential tool for talking to customers. However, even consumer brands and non-profits benefit from the opportunity to position the expertise of their staff. When key personnel respond to questions, they develop credibility that reflects positively on the company. Have you created a company profile page? Is your sales and marketing team using Linked In to target customers? If you’re in ‘default ‘mode with this critical social network, it’s time to take charge by starting here.

Twitter
Twitter has finally jumped on the ‘brandwagon’ with smart features that make marketing on that network far more effective. Among enhancements are customizable header images that allow better visibility of  your brand name, logo and tagline. In addition, brands can now use ‘featured Tweets’ to highlight promotions.

Brands will now be able to respond and monitor tweets far more effectively with the ability to separate @mentions and @replies. For the many thousands of brands using this social network for customer service, this is a major improvement. After getting some guidance it’s time to start better taking advantage of Twitter.

Back in the days before social, it was a lot easier. You could spend a lot more time on the message, because the medium wasn’t constantly changing. Because of the sheer speed and volume of change in this channel, we’re continually educating our clients.

The fact is, most busy marketing leads simply can’t allocate the time to become social branding experts, or they don’t have the resources to hire a staff member for that purpose. One thing is clear: However, you manage it, the rewards for staying ahead of the social marketing curve are too great not to make it a top priority for your brand.

Photo by garryknight

One: The need for smart strategy will become much more apparent. Competition for the attention of fans is causing brands to re-evaluate their social programs. If one car dealership on the block is offering to wash and wax your car just for dropping by, that’s where most people are going to go. Likewise, the social sites offering the most engaging tactics are going to draw more fans in. Simply posting about what’s happening at your company, and responding to fan posts is not going to cut the mustard anymore.

Two: It’s all about fan engagement now. In the beginning every brand simply wanted as many FB fan likes as they could get. But capable marketing directors know that what really counts today is engagement. It’s one thing to get someone to like your brand. It’s quite another to have them drop by your FB page 4-5 times over the course of a month to contribute original content. That’s when you really start to build share of mind with all of their friends. That’s also why you need strategy and tactics that help build fan engagement over time, and not just people who click ‘like’ and never return. Inspire your fans. Take risks. Make them laugh. Motivate them. Or someone else will.

Three: Good works that your fans want most. In order to build a vibrant online community in 2012, you’ll need to demonstrate that you’re in business for something other than just… profits. Thanks to social, this is how the world works today. If you want people to ‘like’ your brand, it’s a heck of a lot easier when you’re donating 5% of purchases to say, Doctors Without Borders or LiveSTRONG. However, just about every major brand has jumped on the charitable bandwagon by now. Which means you’ll do better when you let your evangelists tell you what they care about most. All you really have to do is ask.

Four: Videos will become even more important. It wasn’t all that long ago when sluggish Internet access speed created stutter when you tried to watch streaming video. Thankfully, those days are behind us. People love to watch funny videos. They always have, and my guess is they always will. So if you provide truly entertaining content on your Facebook page, that’s what people will pass along. And it doesn’t have to be humor without a selling strategy either. Samsung’s new spots that make fun of iPhone users manage to do two things: 1) make you chuckle and 2) seed the idea that their phone just might be better than Apple’s. These commercials are currently doing quite well on the viral video charts.

Five: Social will take a larger chunk of the marketing budget. As brands continue to get a better handle on the importance of integrated social marketing, more dollars will support these efforts. It’s one thing to understand that engaged fans are the very best kind. It’s something else to create innovative, imaginative tactics that will help them get engaged. A great current example is Shopycat. Surprisingly, it’s not from a cutting-edge brand, but WalMart. Shopycat is a cool, last-minute holiday shopping app that uses friend and family information on Facebook to make gift recommendations. How smart is that? But of course, this app wasn’t cheap to develop. If you want to make waves on social sites, you better bring your checkbook. Use it to hire some very creative marketing talent outside your own organization.

Six: Content for mobile devices will continue to grow in importance. This one’s a no-brainer. Just take a walk down any city block and watch what people are doing.

Seven: Social content will become more sophisticated and better managed. As competition heats up on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, those interns you hired for next to nothing aren’t going to be able to give you what you need. There’s an art to posting and responding on social sites, and it’s not as easy as it may first appear. Fans want transparency at all costs, and they also tend to ask difficult and sometimes complex questions. To succeed, you need a well-trained team (or at least person) to be the voice of your brand. The hallmarks of smart social are: kindness, prompt responses, product knowledge, intelligence and availability seven days a week.

Eight: Social will become more integrated throughout the organization. Some are calling this the ‘social transformation’ of business. Years ago, Zappos led the way here by insisting that every employee maintain a company Twitter account. What did they wind up Tweeting about? Customer service questions. Brands that were early adopters of social are recognizing that there’s potential beyond the marketing and PR departments. CEOs can (and often do) have blogs that reveal a much more human and creative side of a company. As the transformation from pushing out information about your products to harvesting what people are saying about them continues, social will only become more important – throughout every successful organization.