In honor of our 1-year anniversary (March 30, 2009) of interacting on Twitter I thought I’d examine the stages of following that we’ve gone through, and our follow philosophy. If you aren’t on Twitter this information will have no value to you, but if you are perhaps it will help you form your own philosophy on following, or strategy on how to manage information overload.

Newbie

We followed anyone we knew, or who came to our attention through top lists or other posts, or who followed us. We were very excited whenever someone followed us, and a bit nervous as to whether we were saying something of value so that they would keep on listening. We were able to listen to everything that each of our followers had to say. We were able to read the bios, last few tweets and visit the website of everyone before following them back. And, we followed everyone back unless they appeared to be a porn or spam suspect. During this stage we found some great people to follow who continue to inform us on new trends and technology platforms.

Novice

We were following enough people that we couldn’t read all of their tweets and had information overload. We wondered, how do you sort through all of this? So we started being more selective in whom we followed back. We only followed back if that person had said something recently that was of specific interest to us. We probably missed out on a few good people here.

Interactor & Realist

We started responding to people via direct message, and having conversations. We realized that there is a perceived value to the number of followers that you have and that following back is a gesture of thanks for the follow. And, around this time Twitter came out with lists. We also discovered TweetDeck (and a few other Twitter tools). Now we could go back to our philosophy of following everyone who found us interesting enough to follow (except suspect spam and porn accounts) and organize the information in a way to sort through it. We do not read every tweet from every person that we follow, but we do read most tweets from people on our lists, and we check the main stream and add people we find interesting to lists as they say something of interest to us.

We discovered that there were some spammers who slipped through the cracks. These people would follow us, not because they were interested in what we had to say but with the hope that we would follow us back. Then when we did, they would unfollow us.  Not nice. So, we found some tools to clean up our lists every week or so. We unfollow and block those folks.

We have attended conferences, webinars and made new connections through those. Hash tags provide a great tool for following conversations and learning from others who have similar interests. It also enables you to revisit a conversation and continue it after the fact.

We’ve shared our knowledge, and gained new knowledge. We’ve also garnered some other random information. I have a new taco recipe that I am looking forward to trying out thanks to a conversation with a fellow tweep.

What will the next stage of our Twitter experience be? What are your thoughts? Have you dealt with following differently? Leave us a comment or let us know at www.twitter.com/KaleidosMktg.

And, just for fun, here the link to a funny list–the 46 stages of twitter.

User Generated Content (UGC) is content that someone outside of your company generates. It is likely generated about your brand whether or not you are aware of it. It is authentic, using keywords that the consumer uses. So why not provide a forum on your website for it and let your users help improve and market your business?

UGC has many benefits:

• Rich keywords for SEO that your marketing department may not have thought of
• Additional and fresh content for SEO
• A reason for users to drive traffic to your site
• Community development and participation chain extension: Users who contribute content to your site have an investment and are more engaged
• Reduction in customer support/ service calls and expenses
• Product development. If you can create an engaged community of users, they can help you improve and develop products.

Types of UGC that can be incorporated into your site:

• Blog comments and conversations
• Twitter/ Facebook streams
• Ratings & Reviews
• Forums (Ask & Answer type platforms)
• Wishlists
• Photo & Video Galleries
• Polls & Surveys
• “Like” buttons

Invite to Pimp Your Blog

A great recent example I witnessed of using a blog (and Twitter) to create UGC and engagement was from someone I follow on Twitter, social media strategist Danny Brown. Danny sent out a tweet inviting his followers to shamelessly promote their blog. I hadn’t read Danny’s blog until he gave me this opportunity. He gained a new follower (probably many) out of the invitation. He introduced his community to each other’s interests and blogs. He drove traffic (and links—key for SEO) to his site and created conversations (172 comments to date) with people. You can see this example at http://dannybrown.me/2010/02/18/an-invite-to-pimp-your-blog/.

Today I had the privilege of attending the Social Business Summit 2010 hosted by the Dachis Group. My brain is still recovering from information overload. The event was at the AT&T Conference Center in Austin, TX. It was jam packed with almost 10 hours of great speakers with very diverse thoughts and ideas regarding social business, that ranged from the philosophical to the tactical.  I think the one thing that they all agreed on was that business as we know it is changing. I am going to need some time to sort through my notes to put together a summary and my takeaways, but wanted to go ahead and put out a little information.

A few thoughts/ quotes published on Twitter #SBS2010:

• Having an exit strategy is not necessarily the goal of having a business @rushkoff
• Real social: not extension of a brand mythology, it’s reconnecting people who care about the product. @rushkoff
• To determine who “owns” social media in an organization, ask who owns the customer relationship. @charleneli
• How do you scale social? You’ve got to create your own groundswell @charleneli
• We are re-writing how our entire company does business at Citi @jpunishill
• Do not underestimate the amount of time you will have to spend evangelizing @jpunishill
• Scientific tests show conforming is more important than correctness @katenieder
• Focus on what you want people to do vs. what you don’t want them to do @KateNieder
• Recommendations from friends; other peoples’ opinions online most trust advertsing @jackiehuba
• Every brand community has 1%’ers – advocates, experts, gurus, mavens – know them and nurture them. @jackiehuba
• Give them something to join – they want to know what’s in it for them…not what’s in it for you. @jackiehuba
• Social media will guide your company if you let it @comcastcares
• Earn the right to sell on social media…. Service must come first” @comcastcares
• The further you get from tech companies the less adoption of social technologies. Yet IT is not actively engaged. @dHinchcliffe
• Counter-intuitive rule of social – the more control you give up, the more you get back @dHinchcliffe
• 80% of shoppers seek out reviews before they buy / 90% of people write reviews to help others @samdecker
• In order to drive change you have to “peacock” and “woodpecker” (verbs) Get their attention and be incessant @samdecker
• Companies never engaged customers because it was too easy to ignore. Today that is not the case.  @SamDecker
• Business thrive on the network when they adapt to the network (not the other way around) @monstro
• Social puts customer service at the front of the business chain @monstro
• Management’s job is not to prevent risk, but to be sure we can recover if/when we fail @monstro
• We need to be building relationships not just conversations @jhagel
• Identify passionate people in your org and put them in the pain points in the business @jhagel
• Move companies from high castle walls to sponges @monstro
• HiPPO “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion @karenmcgrane
• Don’t assume users will do what you want them to @karenmcgrane
• The main reason enterprise social fails is a lack of content strategy. @karenmcgrane
  
• Adding Web 2.0 tools to your Web 1.0 website won’t solve your problems. @karenmcgrane
• The value proposition of Social Business is not being realized by Enterprise because there is no content strategy. @KarenMcGrane
• We use Social Media to acquire new customers and keep the ones we have… Oh, and to make money. @ttaxchristine
• Trust is cheaper than control. @LeeBryant
• Social behaviors are contagious, whether negative or positive @LeeBryant

Slides from the event that are already online:

• Emerging Social Business Strategies in 2010 | Social Business Summit 2010
• “Work like the Network” for the Social Business Summit 2010

Congratulations to the Dachis Group for creating and executing a successful and valuable event! And, my hats off to all of the the phenomenal speakers who managed to pack a ton of information into a short time frame and keep us all engaged and entertained all day long!

Our company is primarily based in a resort community whose driving demographic tends to be more of a inactive, spectator and only more recently joiner target audience. With social media being all the buzz we have had several clients come to us for a social media strategy. Here’s a generic version of the strategy we have recommended for some of these organizations:

1. Start with small steps
   1. Put a website infastructure in place that has a content management system (CMS) and that will allow for growth.
   2. Start a blog.
2. Get a presence
   1. Set up a Facebook page, and a plan for updates to that page that may include a RSS of your blog to the notes page. Facebook recently surpassed Yahoo as the #2 site in the US.
   2. Set up a LinkedIn company page and a RSS feed to your blog.
   3. We have not regularly encouraged implementing a Twitter account because of the time required, but if you have the staff time it should be considered. Recent estimates put Twitter at 75M active users.
   4. There are many other social media platforms that may be appropriate for specific businesses, too many for us to include. You can contact me directly at lmoore@kaleidosmarketing.com for additional suggestions.
3. Promote that presence
   1. Use existing marketing channels (website, brochures & e-mails) to send customers to your social media profiles and to build your follower and fan base. Use social media profiles to send people to your website and add new people to e-mail distribution lists.
4. Monitor & listen
   1. Set up Google alerts to see what is being said about your company, and be prepared to respond when appropriate.
   2. Set a regular schedule to search Twitter, Yelp and other sites relevant to your business for mentions of your business.

With all of this said, there are organizations who we have discouraged from setting up and dedicating valuable time and resources to a social media presence. Anyone can game the system and build up a follower/ fan base. But if those people aren’t real, or aren’t listening then your efforts are a waste. You must have leaders, staff members, volunteers or customers who are at least joiners and wiling to help get the word out.

You also need to understand and determine what your goals of these efforts are so that they can be measured. Do you want to drive traffic to your site, increase sales, bolster your reputation?

Now that we have provided a generic outline, we want to identify organizations that typically have inactive, spectator and joiner demographics who have pulled off more sophisticated social business executions. We have an example to share below and please share any examples you may have with us on Twitter @KaleidosMktg.

Last week we witnessed what we thought was a very appropriate, successful and innovative use and implementation of social media by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In general, classical music has a demographic that falls into a higher age range, and tends to be less active online. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced their 2010/11 season via live webcast. Invitations were sent out not only through social media networks, but also via e-mail to a broad audience. Two media professionals led interviews of the Music Director and Concert Master, while an ASO musician acted as social media moderator and selected questions from Twitter and Facebook to ask interviewees. Classical music organizations have put forth great efforts to lower the barrier between the musicians and audience through pre-concert talks and similar activities. This live webcast with questions submitted by the viewers achieved this same goal. And, I didn’t have to be in Atlanta to participate. I could watch from my home office in Austin, Texas. This was an advanced tactic that integrated social with live streaming. I don’t have inside knowledge of what the goals or success of this event, but do take my hat off to this creative tactic coming from a classical music organization. We hoe it was a success!

Earlier this week I finished reading Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff with Forrester Research. It made the top ten of my favorite business books. My motivation to read it was for further education on Social Business, but I would recommend it for every business leader. User-generated content is taking over the web and you need to at least be listening. It may or may not be right for your company to participate and even if it is you need to determine the right tools for your culture and business model. But if you don’t do an analysis you may miss a great opportunity not just to reach out to customers but to improve your business or products.

The authors define groundswell as: “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than traditional institutions like corporations.” This could be an interchangeable definition with social media, except that social media is not a trend and it is not going away. It is the buzz now, and in five years it will not be the buzz anymore, but rather an integral part of your business plan.

Li and Bernoff go on to classify people into the following technographics profiles: inactives, spectators, joiners, collectors, critics and creators. By determining which profiles your customers or target audience falls into, you can narrow down the social media technologies that may be most useful to your business. There are many technologies out there, and more are being developed every day, so it is important to find the ones that will work best with your culture and business model. These technologies can not only be used to drive business and to improve product development, but also to improve your internal business processes. The book includes case studies and how ROI can be calculated from those efforts.

Businesses who have not yet implemented social media into their marketing plans are wondering why they should and what kind of ROI they can expect. There are some businesses who have had success in quantifying the return of their social media efforts. One such company is Dell. Dell has used Twitter to both improve customer satisfaction and to drive buyers to their outlet store. They were able to survey their Twitter followers to determine what percentage found out about the outlet store through Twitter and using that quantify new revenue numbers. Other businesses are also finding creative ways to do the same for their social media plans. Here’s a great article at Mashable.com with ideas on how to measure the ROI of your social media plan. Note: The slide show in the Mashable article is a good one!

Even Dell could not have known what their results would be before they put forth the effort. There is no way to know prior to implementing a social media strategy exactly what the ROI will be, but if you have clear goals such as customer retention, conversion to sales, engagement or driving web traffic, etc. you will be able to measure the results as your strategy progresses.

Social media is simply a new tool in the marketer’s toolbox. The more time and resources you invest into it and the more creative uses you find for it, the more influential it becomes. You print a brochure and it isn’t just the brochure itself that sells your product, it is also how you use the brochure. Some brochures get thrown out and have no influence and others make a difference in a person’s decision to buy.

But before you head into implementing a social media strategy, you need to have a clear concept of wha

Yelp.com has just added GPS “check in” functionality and will be a contender with Foursquare. Add them to the previous post as a platform that should be incorporated into social media strategy for restaurants and bars. For more information see Mashable.com.

For all of you restaurants, bars and retailer out there, we recommend incorporating Foursquare into your social media strategy. We think that Foursquare has the potential to become mainstream as Facebook has done and if so it will be the hot new tool to drive customers to your establishment.

Here is a case study about how a BBQ restaurant in Raleigh uses Foursquare and Twitter. The model is that users of hand held devices equipped with GPS can “check in” at establishments. As part of a game, they earn points and you know what customers are at your establishment. These customers can be your brand ambassadors. Once you embrace the technology, the idea is really common sense. Wouldn’t you go out of your way to make any regular customer feel welcome? The addition of social media to your strategy does not mean that you are changing your philosophy or business model. This social media technology just gives you some additional ways to reach out to both regular and new customers.

You will want to offer freebies for Foursquare mayors and specials for those who check in regularly. You will also want to monitor tips about your business to see what people are saying.

Want to take it a step further? Turn social media into currency and work Twitter and Foursquare into your customer loyalty program