When it comes to creating a social media strategy, there is one, often overlooked piece of the puzzle that falls through the cracks. The who is doing what piece of the puzzle.

I work with clients to create communication plans and digital strategies that usually include some form of social media. I often get an objection when the social elements of the program are introduced. Something along the line of “we tried a blog but it wasn’t a success” or “we have a Facebook page, but it isn’t doing anything for our business.”

Who’s Doing What?

Digging deeper into the failure, many times it is because the business did not understand who is doing what. The blog was a failure because posts were not written on a regular basis. The Facebook page was a failure because they were not engaging their audience, they were just collecting names. As my colleague Jay Baer preaches, social media is not about collecting names, it is about activating your fans. That can only happen if you know who is doing what.

It can get complex depending on the size of your social media program, but here are some tips to help make sure you’re managing social operations appropriately:

• If you are blogging, create an editorial calendar. You don’t need to know the what, just the who and when.
• Again with the blogging, make sure your blogger or bloggers want to do it, if they are forced into it, you won’t get your posts on time.
• If you have a Twitter account, set up a CoTweet account to help manage interactions, and define who is responsible for interaction.
• If someone asks a question in a social space, make sure you have an expert on hand that can answer the question if it gets too technical for the day-to-day social listener.
• If you are being badgered by someone that continues to post off-topic or negative comments in your space, what is the plan to engage them, and who is going to do it?
• If you have a Facebook page, know who is responsible for engagement. Who is responsible for adding content? Photos? Videos? It might be different people for each task.
• Who is monitoring social spaces where you don’t currently have outpost? There are tons of free and paid tools out there that help you to monitor the conversations taking place.

Take a look at the Social Media Responsibilities Worksheet we use at the Flint Group. Hopefully it will help you figure out who is doing what.

Social Media Responsibilities Worksheet

Photo by hotmayo on Flickr

To print or not to print? That is the question.

I had an interesting conversation with a client last week regarding a very successful digital campaign. Successful and measurable. Bonus.

We started talking ROI, future campaign budgeting, and the hazards of completely moving away from traditional media. This particular client has seen solid success and increased sales by largely focusing on digital media with a strong emphasis on social media. But, the audience for the product is very niche, easy to segment, and prone to online, super-savvy digital consumers.

We’re hearing it loud and clear. The temptation is to shift traditional media budgets from broad-based awareness activity, to very targeted, segmented and measurable non-traditional media. So what’s the answer? It depends on the objectives of the campaign.

I like digital media. I like the fact that I can see exactly how a campaign is performing in real time. I like that prospects and customers can interact with a brand. However, there are many things that impact that interaction. Typically there is a certain level of awareness and trust that precedes an interaction. That is where traditional media continues to make a powerful difference. Basically, you have to look at the entire scope of the campaign, consider the integration and determine the points of interaction. We want to lead consumers down a path to purchase by using an impartial media mix.

It is smart to always consider print, television, radio, billboard to possibly play a part in a campaign. Think about how you personally look at brands and receive messages. What are you subconsciously picking up as you drive by a billboard? What magazines do you browse through? How often do you read the newspaper? And at what point do you go online when considering a purchase? When you do go online, what are you looking for? Is it product information? Product reviews? Specs? Options? Pricing?

That experience and the timing involved vary by what you are purchasing, how large of a purchase it is, how long the sales cycle is, etc.  In order to reach you, different mediums need to be leveraged at different stages and tie back into the objectives.  It’s the same with every product or service we promote. It’s the blend of outreach that gleans the best results.

With every channel, measure, evaluate and adjust as you go. Because we have more opportunities to look at campaigns in real-time, we want to use that information to our advantage.  We shouldn’t be thinking of digital at the expense of traditional media. Instead, think of how the two work in tandem.

I encountered a billboard posted by a reputable national insurance company that said, “For all your insurance needs.” My immediate thought: “Really, that’s the best you can do?”

The statement, “For all your [insert term here] needs” is overused, ignored, and irrelevant yet multitudes of businesses continue to use it. To prove a point, out of curiosity I ran a Google search for the term, “For all your needs.” 1.15 BILLION results! So by using the term, you essentially are saying you are just like 1.15 BILLION other businesses out there… no big deal.

Think your business is unique enough to get away with it? Think again. You can search for pretty much ANYTHING with the, “For all your needs” statement and find millions of results and other businesses just like yours using it to generalize their services… and scoring no points with customers along the way.

How about, For all your fertilizer needs (10.4 million results). Or, For all your filtration needs (7.8 million). Or Logistics (19.8 million), or Catering (10.5 million), or Zoology (7.5 million), or Votive candles (What are votive candles anyway? Seriously, 1.3 million results for all your votive candle needs!).

I once worked with an esteemed copywriter who would bristle whenever he saw or heard the term, “For all your needs.” He would flat out refuse to include it in anything he wrote. He would say, “How do they know what I need? It’s impossible for them to have everything I need!” He had a book where he kept examples of ads that used the term and as you would turn page-after-page the statement would become more and more irrelevant. A wasted opportunity to share a meaningful message with a customer.

Every business is built on some point of differentiation, be it price or quality, service or product line, convenience or style. Every brand stands for something, so let your communications be about your differentiation. In most cases you have likely invested significant time and money to cultivate a point of differentiation for your business, so let it show. Communicate it clearly in everything you do. In your service, your marketing, your direct communications and your advertising.

Make your message meaningful and memorable. Your customers will appreciate knowing what makes you unique.

Colin is a senior strategist for The Flint Group. Follow him on Twitter @colinnclarke or on Facebook at Facebook.com/cnclarke.

Social media usage by businesses in Fargo, Duluth, St. Cloud, Grand Forks and Anchorage is increasing everyday and rightfully so. It’s a great way to connect and engage customers and prospects. And having a solid strategy to do so will allow you to move the needle and help you reach your goals and objectives for your social media program and your business.

With this increase in usage, however, HR directors are scrambling to govern social media activities by employees. This has led to companies large and small creating social media policies for their employees.

Mike Volpe from Hubspot takes a different look at social media policy development in his post Why Social Media Policy is Stupid. In his post Mike states “… the best “policy” is to hire smart people, give them the right coaching and training, set the correct culture around customer interaction, and then punish those who misbehave.” Although we have a social media policy for employees at Flint Group and have helped many clients develop social media strategies and social media policies, I kind of agree with him.

So what do you think, do businesses need a social media policy?

As social media strategist for Flint Group, I’m often asked how I can keep up with the rapid pace of social media. By myself, I certainly can’t. So besides relying on Josh, Andy, Jen, and the rest of the Flint team to help me stay on top of the trends, I rely on my Google Reader full of social media blogs. Let’s take a peek inside my nerd arsenal:

Convince and Convert • Social media marketing
These days you can’t throw a rock at the Internet without hitting a blog from a social media “expert.” But among the so-called experts, Jay Baer stands out from the crowd (and I’m not just saying that because Flint Group works with him). On Convince & Convert, Jay lives up to his promise of being a “hype-free” social media consultant with brilliant insight into social media strategy. Not to mention, he’s a really nice guy.

Nielsen Wire • TV and online statistics and reports
I started my advertising career in the media department, so I have a deep respect for numbers and metrics. Nielsen Wire regularly publishes useful statistics, from the top TV shows to the leading websites.

Mashable Social Media • Social media news and marketing
As the most all-encompassing social media guide online, Mashable is not where I’d send beginners to get an overview of social media. However, it’s an excellent place to search for specific information, and they have written a wealth of case studies, guides, and how-tos. Looking for a conference or social media event in your area? Check the weekly Mashable Social Media Events Guide.

Advergirl • Advertising and branding
Leigh Householder (better known as Advergirl) doesn’t post often, but when she does, it’s worth reading. She pumps her blog full of thought and insight, especially the series she has written on Getting Interactive, her Social Manifesto, and Advice for Newbies. Leigh contributes to What’s Your Digital iQ, which specializes in digital healthcare marketing. She’s also an incredibly kind person.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics • Statistics and commentary on all things digital
Dirk Singer of Rabbit keeps this blog full of the most recent social media news and statistics, along with commentary about why they matter. I especially appreciate the mobile/smartphone data he posts, and the commentary on news articles such as Time’s inclusion of Foursquare in their “worst inventions” issue.

Smart Brief on Social Media • Social media headlines in daily e-newsletter form
I guess this might be cheating, since it’s not actually a blog. SmartBriefs deliver the headlines daily to your inbox. A few seconds of headline skimming alerts me to trends and new campaigns from major players.

I also regularly read The Social Path, Social Media Explorer, Dim Bulb, the New York Times Media & Advertising, AdAge, AdFreak, and over 100 others. What are your blog must-reads? Please post in the comments.

This year Bill and I will celebrate our 32^nd wedding anniversary.  It was a big year for weddings among our friends and family, but not all of these marriages survived. So every time I hear of the relationship between a communications firm and a client referred to as a marriage, I have to agree. There are great days, good days and bad days in a marriage. But the relationships that endure are those built on mutual trust and respect.

That was a point in a discussion that I had yesterday with Roger Reierson, Flint Group CEO and fearless leader. He had handed me an article printed in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail that he had kept entitled “In praise of older relationships” by business columnist Simon Houpt. Houpt’s article was in reaction to the news that Chevrolet had dropped Detroit-based Campbell-Ewald as its ad agency after a 90-year relationship. Frankly, long term relationships of that magnitude are rare in our industry, but at the Flint Group we feel blessed that we have bucked those industry averages. Many clients have been with us for more than a decade and several go back to our beginnings in the 1940s.

Houpt interviewed multiple clients and agencies for his article. Like several agency heads he talked to, we’ve lost clients that focused on the next hot agency (he called them the shiny new object) or because we didn’t give them “what they want” without questioning the positioning, the strategy or the impact on the brand. But inevitably their new relationships seem to fail as well.

The article and our discussions internally focus on the same truth, that the best creative work – and the best results – come out of deep, earned trust between an agency and the client. That kind of partnership is about working together, day in and day out. Much like a marriage. Don’t you agree?

Long before I was seduced by marketing’s vivacious curves, I spent the better half of my academic years studying organizational communication and culture.  I had the pleasure of rekindling this crush at the Silverpop Client Summit where the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, gave a keynote presentation on his company’s core values and keys to success (Hsieh sold Zappos to Amazon last year for $1.2 billion dollars). The man is brilliant, and if you get a chance to see him speak or read his book “Delivering Happiness”, do it.

For this post, I thought I would share a few of his corporate culture beliefs I know you’ll fall in love with.

1) Company culture trumps customer service

While delivering “wow” in every customer service interaction is a hallmark at Zappos.com,  Hsieh admits that company culture is the number 1 priority for Zappos.com.  In fact, when hiring, regardless of how impeccable a candidate’s work ethic or knowledge skill set may be, it is character that is always the deal breaker.  Hsieh credits “hiring for culture” is the single most compelling reason for his success.  “We interview people for culture fit.  We want people who are passionate about what Zappos is about—service.  I don’t care if they are passionate about shoes.”  As we have all experienced, it only takes one person to poison a positive culture so each candidate’s attitude and character is scrutinized above all else.  Once hired, to help influence culture, each employee goes through 5 weeks of standardized training (as I recall, I had around 5 hours).  Every new employee is given a culture book, a twitter account and, regardless of position, spends 2 of those 5 weeks on the phone taking customer service phone calls. Finally, to ensure everyone who is hired is there because they truly want to be, each new team member is offered $2,000 to quit at any time from their first day of training up to a few weeks into their job. Now that’s bold!

2) Inspiration trumps motivation

While managers are looking for someone who is motivated, Hsieh argues that what we really should be looking for someone who finds inspiration in their work.  Motivation ebbs and flows depending goals, projects, and deadlines but those who are inspired by their company and their job will consistently work more passionately and with more purpose.   Hire for talent and let them apply that talent every day.  Additionally, inspiration can grow through the vision and culture of a company.   A culture that lives those core values in it’s practices, procedures, and trainings is catalyst for organic grown inspiration.

3) No core values. No strong culture.

In order for a company to have strong culture, Hsieh claims a company must have committable core values, whatever those values happen to be.  They need to be more than a banner in the office or a card pinned up in a cube.   Check out this list of traits he looks for in prospective hires:

1. Deliver WOW through service
2. Embrace and drive change
3. Create fun and a little weirdness
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble

These traits line up to the type of core values and company culture that Hsieh desires and they may be completely different for you.  The bottom line is figuring out what your company values are and then committing to them, meaning that you are willing to fire and hire people based on those values.

Are company values as important to your organization? Do you think he places too much emphasis on values?

Welcome to another edition of 5 Question Friday! Today I sit down with Phil Hunt, Flint Communications Copywriter. We manage to discuss his work, what inspires him and the trials of writing music for his band. Happy viewing!

This is the story of a blog post that I wrote a while back, and 2 big takeaways for us all.

It is easy to put the blinders on and tell yourself that your content is reaching your audience because your blog had some views, the link in your tweet was clicked or your group has lots of followers. Purely looking at the numbers at a high level won’t really tell you what is going on. You need to dig deeper into what the numbers mean, and who is making up those numbers.

I wrote a blog post called “Automation vs. Humanization” that was posted on our Flint-Group website. A few months later, I created an account on Social Media Today, and decided to submit that post to them. It was picked up and turned into one of the top posts of the day.

After watching the views rise quickly, I decided to compare the results. Here is what I found:

Views on the Flint-Group blog: About 200
Views on the Social Media Today blog: Over 3,200

Tweets from the Flint-Group blog: 2
Tweets from the Social Media Today blog: 82

Are you talking to yourself?

Purely looking at the high level numbers will also be deceiving in regards to “who” is reading your content. I work at an agency, and it is pretty typical for several co-workers to read my post after it has published. That’s great, but if your goal is reach and thought leadership, which will ultimately lead to new clients down the road, those internal views are essentially like talking to yourself. Removing your internal traffic from your analytics will tell the real story.

It’s not just blog posts though. The size of your Twitter following is sometimes used to measure the reach of your message. Quite often I hear people say something like “I can reach over 4,000 people through Twitter” because that is how many followers they have. Yes, you are posting it out to 4,000 people who have the opportunity to see your message, but how many of them are actually logged on to Twitter at the time of your post? Even if they are logged in, how many of your followers can keep up with every tweet that comes through? It is easy to get caught up in a dialog (Twitalog maybe?) and think that thousands of people are listening in, but the reality is, they just aren’t.

NOTE: If you are smart enough to make a tool that can tell how many of your followers actually were logged on to Twitter at the time of a tweet, or logged in after the fact and scrolled back to the tweet so it appeared on the screen, that would be helpful. Extra credit if the tool can actually guarantee that the tweet was read. GO! (and good luck)

When developing marketing communications plans and materials there is always the crucial “approval” phase where the decision is made to proceed. One significant challenge at this point is managing the personal subjectivity that tends creep in. Time and time again, great communications concepts and ideas are tossed aside based on personal choices, at times undermining the potential impact of a tactic helping achieve a communications objective. Some of these may sound familiar:

• I talked to a few people around the office and some didn’t like it.
• I had my spouse look at it and s/he didn’t like this part of it.
• I showed my Dad/Mom/Grandparent and they don’t understand it.
• “I” just don’t like it.

The issue with placing credence in the above objections is often times your “audience of one” is not a true representative sample of the target audience the communications is seeking to reach. Many factors are considered in plan, campaign and tactic development including demographics, interests, product use patterns and more. In order to get the best possible evaluation on your marketing communications concepts and ideas you’ll want feedback from a solid segment of your target audience.

Focus on your audience first. Here are some points to help guide you:

• Don’t assume that your target audience uses communications tools the same way you do. For example, you may not use RSS feeds and feel the need to crush a concept using RSS, but your audience may find great value in it.
• Sit on the other side of the table when evaluating. Try not to think of the concepts and ideas from a company standpoint. Think of the concepts from your audience member standpoint. Remember, in most cases you are not the target audience.
• Stay away from people’s opinions other than your target audience. Unless your co-worker, parent, spouse or friend is solidly a part of your target audience, don’t seek their opinion as you will simply get a subjective, reactive response.
• Find means to engage your audience in the approval process. Focus groups, panels, test markets and other means are available to find out the true response of your audience to certain concepts. And new digital tools are making this easier and faster than ever before.

Bottom-line: You may be close to the work and close to the market, but don’t assume that you will react the same way as your target audience. They are often more astute, connected and discriminatory than you might give them credit for. Make the most of your marketing communications by reaching out to your customers for involvement and approval early. The impact at launch time will be well worth the effort.

Have you ever been surprised by a customer unexpectedly liking something you didn’t? If so, please share. It’s always great to learn from others.


Colin is a senior strategist for The Flint Group. Follow him on Twitter @colinnclarke or on Facebook at Facebook.com/cnclarke.