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!

We are very excited to have the opportunity to attend the Inaugural Dachis Group Social Business Summit 2010 in Austin next week. This is an invitation only event that includes some of the thought leaders of social business:

• Jeff Dachis, Dachis Group, Opening and Welcome
• Doug Rushkoff, The People’s Business
• Charlene Li, Altimeter Group, Making The Case For Open Leadership
• Jamie Punishill, Citibank, Operationalizing Social Business
• Kate Niederhoffer, Dachis Group, Classic Rocks, Corporate Culture
• Jackie Huba, Ants Eye View, Engaging The One Percenters
• Frank Eliason, Comcast, Social Business and Cultural Change
• Dion Hinchcliffe, Hinchcliffe & Company, Emerging Social Business Strategies in 2010
• Sam Decker, Bazaarvoice, Creating Customer Oxygen
• Rick Maynard, KFC, The Secret Recipe For Social Business Success
• Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction, Work Like The Network
• Karen McGrane, Bond Art + Science, UX Will Make Or Break Social Business
• Stowe Boyd, /Message, Publicy and the Erosion of Privacy
• Christine Morrison, Intuit Turbo Tax
• Lee Bryant, Headshift, Humanising the Enterprise

There should be around 75 attendees, so a smaller group condusive to conversation. The goal for the summit is to provide and engage in creating a composite picture of the “state of Social Business,” i.e. what’s important now and what’s happening next. We will post our thoughts and any insights gained from the event in a blog post after the event. Do you have any thoughts or questions about the current state and future of social business? Let us know at www.twitter.com/KaleidosMktg (@KaleidosMktg) and we’ll do our best to report back on it.

There’s already been some good conversation and previews around Twitter hashtag #SBS2010, and we’ve found some new interesting folks to follow on Twitter. (Thanks @zackolantern!) Hope to meet you all next week!

Over the years there have been several leadership and business books that have stood out and made an impact on my own philosophies. With the transformation of how we do business that is underway due to the growth of social media, I have been wondering whether the philosophies or strategies promoted by these books have been impacted in any way.

Though it was about 15 years ago that I read this, one such book was Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T Phillips. There were two ideas in particular that I took from this book. The first is the philosophy that you should get into the trenches with your team and understand what is going on at every level. The second is the philosophy of surrounding yourself with thought leaders with whom you can discuss ideas and strategies. There are many other keys to leadership included in the book, and upon recently revisiting the book I discovered great ones that I didn’t even remember, but today I am going to focus on those two that resonated with me.

One of the things that social media and Twitter give us access to are the thoughts and readings of some of today’s business leaders. We can follow anyone on Twitter, and many of today’s leaders are on Twitter, posting their latest readings and thoughts for all of us to view. We can also see who they are following and learn a little about their interests though we may not know why. It is not the same as being able to sit down with them one-on-one, but gives us some insight and access that we could never have had in the past.

Though it is not exactly getting into the trenches with their team, leaders can now get a better idea of what both employees and customers are thinking and saying about them. Social networking platforms have given us unprecedented access to thoughts, opinions and people who previously would have been inaccessible to us. Does the access give us the same information and understanding that we would get through in person interaction? I think there are trade offs. We get more information but may miss nuances and emotions that you may pick up on in person. There is a lot of clutter to get through to obtain the information that you are looking for. The more familiar we become with the technologies and the more platforms are built to help us manage this information, the more efficiencies we will see.

There are many great business books out there that were written prior to the advent of social media and it would be an interesting study to revisit some of those books and identify how social media can be applied or provides us with additional tools to achieve those philosophies.