Is social media marketing too labor intensive?

Posted on May 28, 2010 by marc meyer

I was looking at a list of clients that I had worked with over the past couple of years and it’s well over 40. It’s not a big number, but what caught my eye was that I had created a matrix of what I had done specifically for each client.

More importantly what struck me was that as much as I had done, in the grand scheme of things, a lot was predicated on how much the company I was working with embraced what I was doing.

It’s easy to assume someone is not working when it seems something is not working…

Some of these companies embraced what I did and others did not, so the results were mixed. In some cases, I made mistakes, which made me better the next time I did it, but it also gave some individuals within these companies the notion that social media does not work. What they needed to say was that, “We needed to give it more time”.

Here’s what’s interesting.

“Doing” Social media can sometimes give you the impression or sense that you have done or accomplished a lot, but the reality is that as a channel, as a stand alone entity, it needs the support of a lot of other “things” in order to truly “work” and be most effective. And then, it works best if it’s in conjunction with all the other activities, marketing or otherwise within your organization or the organization you’re working with.

What do those activities look like? Here is a slight list of some of the activities that were done with my clients and that I do for clients.

Increase awareness of and interaction with a company’s brand through brand mentions and participation in social networks
Create a community for customers and fans
Create new business opportunities or leads through landing pages and targeted email campaigns supported by social media
Create listening posts
Monitor Buzz, mentions and opportunities
Instruct and show companies and clients how to use social networks to sell directly to consumers
Build and create databases
Increase traffic to websites through social bookmarking
Create and manage Facebook fan pages for products, communities and companies
Create microsites using social platform providers
Create and manage multiple blogs
Show and educate brands and companies how to use social networks and how to act on those social networks
Create and Post videos
Create widgets
Create customized social media landing pages to reflect brand
Did/Do a ton of research on clients, their partners and/or their vendors through their social media presence and engagement
Write key word rich/tagged social content to optimize search
Engage brand champions to become consumers, creators and leaders within communities
Measure everything

So as you can see, it’s a lot, and it’s not even a complete list of all the things that I have done or that it can encompass. Funny thing is, that social media can sometimes give you the sense or a business for that matter, as I said, that you’ve accomplished a lot more than you really have. Or at least that might be the false perception of the client. The actuality again, as has been said many times by myself and others, is that social media marketing and engagement is very labor intensive. You just have to look under the hood. How do you feel about that?

10 social media sites, blogs and links you might have missed

Posted on May 26, 2010 by marc meyer

I haven’t done a post on stuff I’ve saved lately, and I love when others share links, articles and sites with me, so here’s a few that I’ve accumulated.

I’ve been writing and talking a lot about Facebook and children and parents lately, and the site Togetherville is at least a step in some direction. I don’t know if it’s the answer but at least someone is doing something.

I came across Tlists when I showed up on one of it’s lists of “The most listed Tweeters on 921 lists about Social Media”. Find the best tweeters on any topic.

When I participated in this innovative Twitter project by Toby Bloomberg is an incredibly smart marketer out of Atlanta, I had no idea she would make it into an ebook, but it’s a great read and was a great idea! – Social Media Marketing GPS: A New Media Roadmap For Creating A Social Media Strategy

What are the top brands on Facebook? What might be a better question is, Are you surprised at who you see on this list? Fan Page List has all the data.

From one of our weekly Tweetchats hosted by JD Lasica on Facebook and Privacy, this link was shared: Facebook Backlash Sparks Transparency Tools which has a couple of really good tools in the article.

While we’re at, have a look at Openbook

I can’t say it any better than this: Where DIY meets WTF..

Turn an email address into a social profile with Flowtown

This has some potential now that Ning has constructed pay walls; Add a forum or social network to your blog with BlogFrog

This last post was so dead on and had me laughing and nodding my head all in the same breath. 8 websites you need to stop building

Got any I might have missed?

Facebook Infographs

Posted on May 24, 2010 by marc meyer

Which one of the following 3 infographs might be the most accurate?

Social Media Marketing:Less of Big and more of Small

Posted on May 20, 2010 by marc meyer

I jumped in on the weekly #brandchat discussion that was happening on Twitter yesterday to answer the following question:

What do small businesses need to be doing less of?

Great question. Here was my answer…

Less of Big and more of Small.

I got an “amen and a hallelujah for that tweet. What did I mean? Hold tight because I’m going to use a couple of baseball references again, but I will keep it short and simple.

The first is this. Did you know that baseball players get paid millions upon millions of dollars to fail seven out of ten times? That’s right. They generally have to hit the ball three times out of ten, and they are considered good at what they do. Why? Because it’s so damn hard to do.

We often overlook or I should say, most seem to think that implementing social media can be done by…

A monkey.

What ends up happening is that folks bail out after a month or so because talking to people, customers, monitoring sites, creating consistent content, is hard and it’s labor intensive. You have to really work at it and be diligent. Sorta like hitting a baseball.

Not everyone can hit .300.

Funny thing is, baseball players who do hit the ball 3 out of 10 times, work very hard at it, constantly. Some are gifted and it comes naturally-the rest, which is most of them, have to work just to get near .300.

Same goes for creating and planning and implementing social media. It’s hard and not for the faint of heart. You have to believe and trust in yourself and your abilities to get it done.

But you know what? Being a singles hitter or maybe someone who hits the occasional double in baseball aint a bad thing. We all can’t be big hitters. Playing small ball is OK.

In the social media world, there are a lot of choices and sites and things that you can do so that you or your client can be seemingly everywhere. That’s really tough and can lead to some serious social media burnout. But here’s a better idea. Quit trying to be a home run hitter. Play small ball. Be really good at hitting singles and the occasional double. Meaning? Be really good at blogging. Have a solid Twitter strategy. Be honest about what each piece of social engagement is going to bring back. In the baseball world that’s the equivalent of knowing you cannot hit a curveball. Know your limitations and be really good at what you can be really good at.

The payoff? A really long career and a happy client.

On Trust and Children in Social Networks

Posted on May 10, 2010 by marc meyer

So I’m at my 12 year old daughter’s softball game last Friday night and as the game is concluding I reach for my cellphone and I see a text from my wife it reads:

Your daughter is on Facebook”?

I text back

She better not be”.

As I’m waiting for her to emerge from the dugout, I decide to call my wife who is in Ohio for the weekend for my nephew’s first communion. The first words out of her mouth are that her sister Terry tried to “Friend” my daughter on Facebook. I was shocked and stunned. But there were some legit reasons why. Here’s 4 of them.

1) Not 2 weeks prior to this happening, I was on television and in front of a live audience, as well as members of the school board, explaining why I did not see the point in children (freshman to sophomores on down) using Facebook, let alone a social network at all. They’re too young.

2) I had explained to those that attended, how important it was to monitor your childrens online activities.

3) I had outlined how important it was, to explain the implications of privacy and what can happen when you are “out” there to your children.

4) My daughter saw the event on television

Apparently I suck at drinking my own koolaid. I did not do a good enough job of monitoring my child’s online activities. I took for granted that my straight A’s student, great athlete, daughter would never violate the trust that I thought we had. She had asked previously if she could get a Facebook account and I said no and I explained why.

Here’s the cautionary tale.

First off, I felt completely betrayed by my daughter,
Facebook has no idea of the challenges that parents face.
Even “good” kids will do what their ‘friends” tell them to do and what their parents tell them not to.
My daughter knew she wasn’t supposed to be on, but her friends told her to set up an account.
As smart as my daughter thinks she is, and yes she is, she still set the account up wrong, but luckily she had not put “that much” info out there.
There were dozens of other “friends” waiting for her to “friend” them back. Dozens.
Those other “friends”, were no older than 13, but the majority were younger than 13. That means that they worked around the so-called age limit to join Facebook.
Children have no clue what privacy settings are and how to set them up on Facebook.

So what’s my point? I supposedly was monitoring my daughter’s online activities. I live, eat, breath and sleep this social media stuff, and yet she did it while my wife and I were down the street trying to hit tennis balls.

The parents of the others that I saw on there? Chances are, they do not live, eat and breathe social media. I bet if I were to at least look at the privacy settings of those accounts, 90% of them would be wide open. That’s a problem. One of many.

As social networks and mobile phones continue to evolve, and as the age of innocence continues to evaporate, and entry into owning a phone continues to be lowered-issues about content, behavior, ignorance, and privacy on social networks are going to continue to escalate and magnify. Take it from me, or maybe not…

17 Tweetchats for Social Media, Marketing and PR folks

Posted on May 7, 2010 by marc meyer

Yesterday I threw out a tweet about 125 twitter chats worth checking out on Google Docs. I thought I might condense it a bit and focus not only on Tweetchats that I was familiar with, but also those that would benefit the Social Media, Marketing and PR folks out there, and which also had solid participation as well. If I have left any out, please drop me a line and include it in the comments section.

1) Hashtagsocialmedia-#socialmedia Of course I’m partial to the one I co-founded with Jason Breed Advancing the Business of Social Media every Tues noon EST. New topics & new industry thought leaders and A-listers host the tweetchats. Great discussions. all archived and easily searchable

2)#4change is a monthly tweetchat on how social media is helping to create change

3) #b2bchat is a weekly conversation for B2B marketers; Thursdays 8 pm Eastern.

4) #Blogchat is a chat on Sunday nights from 8-9pm CT that was started by @MackCollier to discuss blogs and best practices.

5) #Brandchat is a discussion between experts, strategists, and those interested in learning more about personal branding and managing their personal brand.

6) #Hcsm The Health Care Communication & Social Media community hosts a weekly Twitter conversation about communication and marketing practices by Health Care organizations, including use of social media

7) #Innochat A Tweetchat on innovation

8. #Journchat Conversations between journalists, bloggers and public relations folks started by Sarah Evans

9) #Kaizenblog Discusses using kaizen in *business strategy* Started by Valeria Maltoni

10) #pr20chat PR 2.0 chat for conversations about PR related issues and SM implications, started by Beth Harte

11) #SEO411 Weekly chat to collaborate with colleagues and other marketers about their questions and ideas about SEO.

12) #SMCEDU Discussions about Social Media / Higher Education

13) #Socentchat A monthly discussion on social entrepreneurship, focusing on a particular topic or field each month, eg. Mobile Innovation; Fostering Soc Ent at universities; Support Women; eHealth; etc.

14) #Socpharm Weekly chat on pharmaceutical marketing and social media.

15) #Solopr Open discussions that serve as a companion to the SoloPRpro.com blog, designed for independent PR and MarCom pros – and those who’d like to be. Active hashtag throughout the week, with chats taking place on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET, Started and run by Kellye Crane

16) #TNL TNL is TalentNet Live. the #1 monthly hashtag chat for recruiters on Twitter that takes place the last Wednesday of each month at 9pm Eastern at #TNL. Login at RecruitingBlogs.com

17) #U30pro The chat that focuses on issues and trends surrounding young professionals. All ages welcome and encouraged to join.