blending the mix

Thanks to Steve for this little Gem:

historicaltweets.com: lolcatz meets twitter meets someecards

I’ve previously bookmarked Geoff’s article (Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger) but didn’t really have the time to add anything of value to it. Likewise, Geoff and Beth’s article leaves me with little else to add (or that a few hours of harder thinking than normal may produce!).

If you haven’t read it, please do so here.

What got me with the last article though (as with so many of these lists) is the overwhelming negativity. “How NOT to…10 reasons why you shouldn’t…25 ways NOT to…” you get the picture. That is why I am so pleased that this kind of positive list exists.

2 points of note are these and build on Tara’s point about building social capital/whuffie:

17) Helps and guides clients so that they can understand the benefits of social media and implement it properly (themselves) (example: Amber Naslund)

19) Educates clients on understanding that they no longer own or control their brand and educates them on how to create customer evangelists (example: Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba)

In the UK (especially), although I guess the US less-so, clients need an awful lot of coaching as to what social media is, why it is of use, best practice and how they can implement/integrate it. Clients are already cynical enough about social media, without being hit with constant lists about what NOT to do.

I am privileged to be part of Charlene’s wiki alongside such names as Geoff, Brian and Neville, but if this one list tells us anything, there are very few people who can actually walk the walk (taking me to point 13):

13) Has and continues to work on notable social media projects (example: Andy Sernovitz)

There is an ongoing debate about the value of social media specialists or PR people turned social media specialists, and there are so many valuable pointers in here which any good social media specilaist SHOULD be able to add.

My two-penneth:

1) A TRUE social media specialist is a translator. They can understand your business objectives and translate these into appropriate tools/channels/methods and techniques to maximise impact but in a way which is synpathetic to the needs of the customer.

2) They understand process. As point 20 adds:

20) Won’t act as your social media ‘voice’ or ghostwrite for you (example: Laura Bergells)

A true social media specialist understands how to implement a strategy (although a never-ending strategy at that) and can develop the processes that help you, the client, create content, listen to conversations, understand them, moderate conversations, find interesting content etc.

This point is, for me, perhaps the important of all and is what distinguishes social media users (and wafflers) with true social media specialists who are both users and translators.

There is much more to come on this point 2 when I finally get my content creation and moderation process mind-mapped from Powerpoint.

Related articles

• Social Media Case Study SUPERLIST
  

Greg picked this one up and sent ot through to me the other day. I really like it. Normally, I find that anything with such a dramatic title (and containing lots of scatty images and poorly-cropped screengrabs) is a load of old tosh, but there are some really interesting elements to this presentation.

Enjoy:

Just before Christmas, I had a brief chart with friend and KMP partner Mark Rogers of Market Sentinel. (For those who don’t know, Market Sentinel offer what I believe to be the best buzz and influencer monitoring system in the market - but that’s by-the-by!). Link to the conversation here

We were discussing some ongoing client activity and ventured into the topic of social media measurement, how it can be done and what metrics already exist. Given the difficulty that this presents to social media types, we then looked to see if we can take any lessons or inspiration from other industries, such as outdoor and radio who ended up developing their own montoring systems (POSTAR and RAJAR respectively).

The subsequent discussion we had was recorded and is available here for your listening pleasure. I’d love to hear your thoughts/comments and ideas to put into the mix and we are hoping to make this a regular thing (assuming people don’t get sick of hearing my gruff Northern tones…)

Here ya go: Social Media Measurement

Related articles:

• The Softer Side Of Measuring Social Media
• Measurement metrics still a difficult task

Cool stuff I was readingJanuary 2nd:

• The IAB Social Media Handbook - Below is an introductory ebook about Social Media…what it is, how you can get started. They’ve made a fairly good stab at covering all the important areas and pointers about what to look out for. I’d love to be involved in the next version, I like to think there’s a fair bit I could add to what is already there, so Amy…do get in touch!
• Some Twitter Social Network Analysis | Mediaczar - Bit late to this one. Very interesting though, especially as we see more and more pressure mounting (rightly so) from clients looking for ROI or better justification of social media efforts!
• Wadds’ tech pr blog: UK media and PR industries yet to be convinced by Social Media News Release (SMNR) - Interesting post (and comments) from Wadds about the Social Media Press Release
• IAB UK : Internet marketing : Social Media : Case studies - Social media case studies for ya!
• How to choose a social media agency / we are social - How to choose a social media agency -
• So, you’re a social media agency… - iCrossing -

Below is an introductory ebook about Social Media…what it is, how you can get started. They’ve made a fairly good stab at covering all the important areas and pointers about what to look out for. I’d love to be involved in the next version, I like to think there’s a fair bit I could add to what is already there, so Amy…do get in touch!

Cool stuff I was readingDecember 16th toDecember 24th:

• Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger » The Buzz Bin - Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger
• Ripple6 > the ripple platform - Another platform to have a look at.
• Twittering Toaster Offers Some Tasty Bites | Gadget Lab from Wired.com -
• Finextra: Barclays pilots Microsoft Surface in new flagship concept branch -
• Twitter has made Dell $1 million in revenue | The Industry Standard - $1m dollars in a year and a half - what could YOUR business do?

Cool stuff I was readingDecember 8th toDecember 13th:

• Ackura PressRoom - Ackura PressRoom - the most innovative social media press release on the web
• Social Media Release - Social Media Release
• Social Media Releases from IABC » Blog Archive » IABC assumes Social Media Release leadership role - Social Media Releases from IABC
• PR 2.0: The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases - PR 2.0: The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases
• CrapHammer: Wayne knows what many Word of Mouth experts don’t - Word of Mouth isn’t about clever technology, it’s about using your brain, not tools to talk to people
• Why Twitter Turned Down Facebook - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com - Why Twitter Turned Down Facebook

Cool stuff I was readingNovember 6th toDecember 7th:

• How should Brand Managers approach the Social Graphs of Facebook Connect and OpenID? « Hard Knox Life: A Brand Manager Blog by Dave Knox -
• Play Auditorium -
• Monetizing Content with Social Media | Online Marketing Blog -
• Explode! -
• Google Analytics and Feedburner Reports plugin for WordPress : tan tan noodles - msg free since 2005 -

Ok, this isn’t going to be a heavily political post, but I really want to talk about the Manchester Congestion Charge. Personnaly FWIW, I vote “Yes” anyway. Irrelevant of costs, it can only be a good thing that the charge takes more cars off the road, provides more public transport stock, reduces prices and reduces emissions.

BUT, politics aside, do take a look at the video below. It’s not a new concept, but one which made me stop and marvel. A great use of a great idea to get across a simple message.