Should You Outsource Social Media?

Posted on August 13, 2010 by marc meyer

This might be the dirty little secret that no one wants to admit. That if they had their druthers, they would outsource their social media activities. Why? Because what they won’t admit is that social media is a big time suck and furthermore, they might not even admit that they are tired of “engaging” every day. Why? because they didn’t know it was going to be like this.

It’s hard to be “On” every day isn’t it?

There is the pretty side of social media, the stuff that you read about every day about how cool it is and glamorous and sexy and blah,blah,blah, but the dark side is that social media is hard ass work. In fact Amber Naslund just the other day, wrote a”be careful what you wish for” post about the down n dirty aspect of social media.

Those of us who have been around know this. I can’t tell you how many times I have bouts of writers block; and then other times, its a magical stream of consciousness that propagates itself in 3 posts in one day. But you see, there’s more than just the blog, that’s the easy part; there are status updates, there are content updates, consuming content, creating content, sharing info, driving traffic, analyzing data, connecting with your peers, finding your customers, making sure your clients are happy, and looking for prospects. All via social or electronic means. Every day and night. Which leads to this- and I know you’re thinking it or thought about it…

“If I could, I would love to outsource some of this stuff in a New York minute.

But is that really wise? To outsource your social media activities. Except for those times when I’m feeling a bit toasty around the edges, I like doing it. I like connecting and consuming and creating.

Have you ever wondered though if there are others doing it? Well I got news for ya. Hell yea and you betcha. Most wont admit it unless your name is Guy Kawasaki. Todd Defren points out in his wonderful social media ethics series that they have been faced with that exact dilemma, and still others are doing it and you don’t even know about it.

The sexy term might be aggregating activities

The fact is, there are a lot of people who are automating a lot of their social media activities and still another group that are completely ceding control of their social media day to day operations to someone else.

Either in an automated fashion, or by merely having agencies do the work for them in the form of ghost writing or status updates or flat out being someone they are not– people and companies are choosing to wash their hands of real life engagement. Some admit it like Guy Kawasaki and still others… You’d never know the difference.

Do you care about who you “think” you are talking to? Brand or otherwise, I do. I don’t like talking to logos and when you say you are Mary, I trust that it is Mary that I’m talking to. Some don’t care and some do- some seem to only care when they find out they are being duped. Some companies seem to think it’s OK to create fictional characters inhabited by multiple people within an organization, I’m not one of them, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

Here’s the point.If you’re going to outsource your social media activities, I don’t care, and I won’t care until I find out that who you are is not who you’re supposed to be. I’m taking the don’t ask don’t tell stance. Why? Because I trust you. Funny thing that trust eh?

But I’m also not dumb.

I think that more and more people or companies are doing it (outsourcing their social activities) than you think. Or they are seriously looking at solutions that can streamline, enhance and speed up the reward of their social activities Why? Because I encounter companies and agencies every day that say they dont have time to do it nor do they care to, they just want to reap the benefits. I know it’s selfish and disingenuous but…

I’m ok with that. Why? because isn’t social media from that standpoint, just an extension of what a PR or ad agency already does? In their eyes it is. It’s marketing and PR. They will say, “What’s the difference”? Just do it for me and we’ll pay you. I’ll do it and get you started, but I’ll train you to do it for your selves and your company. You need to take ownership.

As social continues to grow and grow, some people just don’t want to do “it”, the social stuff, they would prefer that someone else do it for them- and you know what? There are plenty of people that will do it and… Do it well and.. You’ll never know the difference.

The Social Media Pitfall of Assumptive Collaboration

Posted on August 9, 2010 by marc meyer

Last week I was working with a client and we were at a critical juncture of a web development project in which we were discussing the jumping off points for their initial foray in social media. We were doing this by merely adding social elements to the website in the form of a few actions.

The first was instead of creating “a website” we decided to create it in WordPress so that we would have the latitude to “turn on” commenting for starters. let me back up, I just used the word “we” but in actuality the directives were coming from me and the developer. I had suggested Worpress and a specific WordPress developer.

During the development phase we ( the developer and I) decided to make the commenting more robust and so we decided to go down the path of Disqus. Disqus is a great product for those with social profiles who bop around a lot from site to site. It eases log in issues and multiple identity problems. We were on the fence about creating a community but we (the developer and I figured we could roll it out a week or two later). As an aside-let me also add that by doing this, the user would have had to create 3 separate user ID’s to access various parts of the site.

Do you see a recurring theme here? I haven’t mentioned the clients input at all and or their input in the whole decision making process? Well, that’s because at this point, it’s very one sided. As a consultant I was not doing my job. I wasn’t consulting. I was dictating. You could argue that I was doing what I thought was best but I wasn’t really listening to the client.

A big mistake and I should have known better.

The developer and I were not out to just “crank” this project out with all the bells and whistles-well maybe we were, but what we got caught up in, was creating a site that fit our “needs”. The development fit my needs of what I thought the client needed. Me and the developer were on the same page. High five’s everybody! I thought I had a good handle on what the client wanted or needed, I just neglected to educate, provide options and offer suggestions.

So while we were creating this kick ass solution for us, I failed to remember that my client was just getting started with social media; and more importantly their customers might not be very social either.

Luckily, the client, in a stern but understanding way explained to me what was happening. At first my gut reaction was, “What are they talking about”? But then it hit home. My comfort levels were not theirs. My expectations were not theirs. Their level of understanding and comprehension was not mine. I failed as a consultant. I was an ally but I was keeping them in the dark and not listening. I wasn’t asking questions as we were going along.

I was collaborative but assumptive.

The good news? I realized it, thanks to them pointing it out. I backtracked and caught myself and was able to understand what I was doing. I apologized profusely and went back to the developer and we were able to make some things right and simplify some other things. I still have to get them to a level where they understand the thinking, the tools and the platforms that revolve around social media-but the lesson this time, the learning, it was all on my part. Next time, I might not be so lucky.

What happened to the Ah-Ha moment?

Posted on July 26, 2010 by marc meyer

Do you remember the first time you got a blog comment? Or the first time someone followed you on Twitter. Pretty cool wasn’t it? All of a sudden this static world of reading and consumming media changed-overnight. All of a sudden we all had voices.

I remember the first time I connected with an old friend on Facebook. It immediately showed me the power of the platform and it’s infinite possibilities. Which naturally lead to these thoughts- “I can’t beleieve they found me”, “Wow do they look old” and “I wonder who else is on here”? I truly believe it was those 3 thoughts that fueled the desire for more from users who both created and consumed Facebook content. It was like crack.

Depending on your background and skillsets, the early days of social media for a lot of us, were so wonderous and so filled with curiosity. Connecting with new people who were your peers, and then having these really deep discussions through blog posts and comments or tweets on Twitter, took the power of social media for us and elevated it.

We blogged about it. We waxed poetic about it. We told whoever was listening about it, and even those who might not have been listening, how cool and powerful this thing called social media was. We were all evangelists who had Ah-ha moments.

But something has happened. The Ah-Ha moments are diminishing.

Do you remember when the internet first exploded on the scene? How everyone was enamored of it? Or how about when the iPod came along? Do you remember the cool commercials and the desire to have one, how great it was? Is it still like that? It’s not, is it? Why?

The problem? Mass consumption and the expectations of consuming as it relates to creating.

Like any addiction, as you continue to consume, it takes more and more effort to satisfy the craving. In social media your magical moments were created by you, but moreso by your connections. It’s just they were driven to you inversely by your effort.

We want more Ah-Ha moments but…they are just few and far between now. You’re probably thinking well a sage veteran already had their moments, it’s only for the newbies…Really? Is that the way it supposed to be? Can’t we have more?

In the “social media” beginning, your effort to have conversations equaled a great experience because the expectations were so low and there just weren’t a lot of people in the space.

But as social media has evolved and Facebook now has it’s 500 millionth user, the web 2.0 experience has changed what we think, what we know, and how we use it. Our experiences have been dulled and our desire for new and shiny has increased, all because of us. Why us? Because the tools and platforms that make up social media, have allowed us to create and experience things at levels that would have blown our minds 3 years ago. Demand is way up, experiences are way down and expectations have never been higher.

Our social media experiences are just that. They are merely experiences now. Our expectations are getting so high that we’re likely to be disappointed by our experience. I worry that our expectations keep rising not only in waiting for the next big thing, or the next great connection, or great business deal, but also for the type of content we consume. Why? It creates the false assumption amongst creators of content, that what will please us needs to constantly be elevated.

A more potent solution. Bigger, better, faster.

Funny thing is, what really has driven growth and adoption, more than anything else-hasn’t been technology, though it has helped, it’s been about the human element. It has been about the Ah-ha moment.

It’s always been about you, me and them. We are responsible for our Ah-ha moments. They are there. We can have them anytime we want.

The top 10 social sites, links and posts you might have missed this week!

Posted on July 16, 2010 by marc meyer

I haven’t done one of these posts in awhile but let’s get right to it.

1. Paul Chaney shot this out today; Deliver your content to the social web with dlvr.it

2. I loved this post 7 reasons social media agencies are like advertising agencies; 8 reasons they’re not by Rob Petersen

3. If you’ve been living in a digital cave then chances are you’ve been missing an amazing social media marketing awareness campaign being done by Old Spice this week.

4. Watch this interview with Charlene Li and Clay Shirky with Andrew Keen on connectivity. Fantastic insight.

5. As video looms larger and larger, you need to understand the proper mechanics of optimizing your video content for SEO.

6. Read this interesting piece on how social media marketers rig the social media machine.

7. Instant messaging anywhere with Beejive

8. You need a QR code.

9. IM, Email and social networks in one easy to use app! It’s Digsby.

10. Check out MediaFunnel. Coordinate and manage your social media presence.

* From Tom Martin we have TweetyMail which seems really really cool!

Social Media Consultants & Companies-The truth can be found in their numbers

Posted on July 12, 2010 by marc meyer

I read an article in Wired’s Epicenter from a couple of days ago titled- Gaming the System: How Marketers Rig the Social Media Machine and the article caught my eye for a number of reasons.

The first reason is that when I first “dabbled” in social media 5 years ago-I was that marketer. I was the one gaming the system. Back then, comment spam and server farms did wonders for text based links and I was all over it. But a funny thing happened. I started seeing the conversations. I started paying attention to what was really happening around me. And it was cool. All of a sudden I got it. I had an epiphany. I now understood the real reason why social media was so dynamic and so transformational. I never looked back.

Here’s the second reason the article caught my eye-it was in the opening paragraph.

Regular users of social networks generally collect friends and followers on a one-by-one basis, then use those connections to share their opinions and links to the latest “Double Rainbow” remix or whatever is making the rounds that day.

A One to One basis…

Let that sink in for a bit. OK, so here’s my bigger point. Let’s say I’m in a need of a social media company or consultant, and that business claims to be all things social. What do you do? What would you do? You check them out right? But how do you vet them?

Before I get to that, let me first offer up that I know that there are lots of good, solid social media consultants and companies who do great work. My problem is I keep bumping into people or companies claiming that they are social media companies or consultants, and yet I have no clue who they are or what they have done; and worse, upon deeper discovery-they don’t even eat their own dog food or drink their own koolaid.

Here’s what I would do to quickly vet someone or some company that claims to “be” social.

Let’s take an actual Twitter account for example with 2500 followers. OK 2500 followers, that seems cool on the surface and would probably satisfy those who glance quickly at numbers.

But wait…

They only have 130 tweets. If you were acquiring and vetting followers and following people with just a modicum of organic effort and due diligence-by the time you got to 2500 followers, your tweets would be in some type of proportion to those numbers- i.e. 2500 followers- following 2500 and < > =4100 tweets

Let’s keep going. Upon further examination, there are zero conversations.The screenshot below is what you see when you click on the @yourtwittername on the Twitter main page of the example account.

There’s nothing there. Nothing. The tweets that are on the page, consist of lots of repetitive links to their blog pages, and or benign tweets/announcements about benign topics. No “ats” to anyone. Which leads to some really obvious questions:

Why on earth would you want a company like this consulting on, creating, and or managing your Twitter program?
If they can’t do it themselves internally, why would they treat you or your company any differently?
Is that really the way to use Twitter?
Is that effective?

All of this information is right there for you to see.

Look at who follows them,
Look at who they follow.
Are they on any lists? What types of lists are they on?
Are they sharing and or promoting others?
What are the nature of the tweets?

One of the lists this particular company is on is called, “Spammers that follow me”…Nice, That’s the kind of promo I want others to see! If they can’t get Twitter right, does this mean that their Facebook strategy and or their blog, or Linkedin strategy will be any different?

Social Media is equal parts strategy, tactics and tools as it is about labor. Shortcuts don’t cut it and they can be, readily apparent. If these companies and people are not investing the effort, attention to detail, and labor in themselves-How social can they really be? How are they going to get you right?

The Intersection of Customer Service and Social Media

Posted on July 2, 2010 by marc meyer

The conversational divide…

I have a couple of quick questions: Does social media allow customers to get their issues resolved quicker than if they were to use traditional means? Does whining via social media move you to the head of the line? In a recent article in Adage the answer may be yes but below the surface there is an easier explanation.

If I’m a disgruntled customer, or just someone that is trying to get something resolved with a company I’m doing business with, chances are I’m going to go the traditional route; Phone, email, live chat, trouble ticket, phone again..It’s what I know-it’s how I am conditioned. Right?

What if I’m getting nowhere? And I know this social media thing might give me any time access to a company to get my problem resolved? Or at least to be heard? I should do it, right? Absolutely!

On the flip side, If the company is listening and monitoring, that company now has a chance because of social media, to get it right or to fix things before they spiral out of control. Right? And let’s face it, all the customer wants is to get their problem solved-that’s all.

But if said company screws it up, or if I’m getting nowhere-what were my options in the past? Does this look familiar? Phone, email, live chat, trouble ticket, phone again..It’s what I know-it’s how I am conditioned.

According to Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services, he thinks that social media is disrupting the harmony between departments when it comes to dealing with irate customers.

I say screw that. That’s their problem, not mine. I’m the customer and now finally, the tables have been turned. Social media is my ally. Treat me right and I’ll tell everyone how great your company is-if you don’t, then watch out.