If you’re like many marketing aficionados out there, you’ve probably marveled at the expansive growth of social media and communities.  You probably also think that your company “has it covered”, and why shouldn’t you? You’ve already hired a great marketing manager to oversee your brand across mass media, and he/she’s doing a bang up job there. Hitting the numbers. Reaching the targets. Increasing Sales. All without a hair out of place. Your marketing manager has everything covered, smoothly.

That should include social media, right? Nope.

Wrong. What you need is a Community Manager.

What are Community Managers and Why do I need them?

Community Managers understand how to communicate your brand in today’s changing social environment. They become your ardent ally, coordinating ways to positively affect your company by developing organic web evangelists. They’re skilled and up to date on every latest happening craze, while being strong on the fundamentals of successful social theory. While good Community Managers understand the importance of a measuring success with a variety of metrics, and do so with ease, they also see the value in leaping out of the towers and into the trenches to interact on your behalf. They blog, post, tweet, share and reply to those in need, helping your brand be everywhere it needs to be. They’re marketers, they’re communicators and they’re creative. They’re your first line of defense against negative public opinion.

What Community Managers Mean to Your Organization

Community Managers represent a raving fan, a lunatic for your company, hell-bent on creative means of spreading your brand to other passion-driven social mediates and consumers. Recently, many companies with large marketing budgets have called the Community Manager role, a “luxury”, or even worse, “unnecessary”. Following that decision, they throw $100,000 at facebook ads and wonder why there isn’t consistent growth, retention and positive sentiment about them on the web. Money doesn’t solve the issue of brands needing representation, consistency, excellence and strategic thinking. Community Managers provide a unique opportunity for companies to maximize their social impact.

If you’re serious about marketing your company, which I’m assuming you are, then you need to be serious about this new role that can make or break your online success. Next time you’re looking at a budget sheet with an entry for a community manager, I want you to remember your cool Uncle Bill. Sure, Uncle Bill wasn’t a singular staple of life, and maybe he seemed a bit out there, but anytime the family got together and nobody wanted to see your new art project, Uncle Bill did. When you saw Star Wars for the first time, and your mom and dad didn’t understand “what the big deal is”, Uncle Bill helped you build a model lightsaber, got why it mattered to you and helped you and your friends choreograph fights in the woods. Uncle Bill made Thanksgiving cooler and funerals less sad. Come to think of it, you can’t imagine growing up without him.

Someday you’ll look back and realize, you wouldn’t have made it work in this new world without ‘em.

The Social Media Scene:

::::SCENE BEGIN::::

Business Boss (in gruff voice): My kid tells me that social media is where we need to be.
Underling 1: Yessir! You’re so smart, sir!
Underling 2: I’ve created a strategy as well as accounts for us on all of the social networks and will execute it, sir!
Business Boss: (to Underling 2) Now that’s the initiative and drive I like to see. Underling 1, You’re Fired!
Underline 1: Oh Drat.

The Underlings leave the office…

Underling 1: It was good while it lasted. By the way, good luck executing your plan.
Underling 2 (shrugging): What plan?
Underling 1: You didn’t really have a plan? What are you going to post?
Underling 2: I don’t know, famous quotes or something like that…

::::END SCENE (Performers bow)::::

This is how TOO MANY Social Media initiatives get started.

What we’re talking about is that many companies don’t have a plan, strategy or the expertise to carry out a significant foray into social media. So what ends up being the case is “Garbage Content”. Garbage Content is what stands between really connecting with your audience and understanding their needs. Garbage Content is reliable (as the garbage man is) but it provides little to no real value. Have you been seduced by the phantom of Garbage Content? Stop it!

3 Ways to Abstain from Garbage Content:

1. If you’d be annoyed by it, so would they: Before you share something, ask yourself, “Self, would I be put off if someone shared this with me on a regular basis?” When you put yourself in the consumers seat, you can catch yourself before you post garbage.
2. Care about what they care about: Most brands have a certain demographic of consumer that they reach, and more than likely, you’ve been privy to a marketing plan or are aware of the people you reach. Think about what they care about, and try to meet them half-way (through the voice of the brand).
3. Inspire, Inform, Instruct: Create and share a variety of content that reaches different parts of your user base. Inspire them with hopeful and positive content. Inform them about the value, history and meaning behind your company and it’s culture. Instruct them on ways to better their lives (whether using your product line or not).

The Truth about Connecting

When you create a space for your brand in the social media universe, you have to understand that this is no different than if you were the head of customer service in a retail store. If someone came up to you with questions or was looking around at models (of whatever you sell), would you rapid-fire Zig Ziglar quotes at them, or would you actually help them? Social Media is about humanity and the nature of connecting in real-time. Naturally there will be content that is one-sided (because Social Media is part PR), but at the core of it, people are getting what they need. You’re providing value and that’s the real reason they connect.

The mistake people most often make is not realizing the value of social media. When someone goes into a large PR campaign or a significant media buy, the COST often determines how much effort and time is put into it. Because Social Media is “free”, the due diligence and respect for value of social media is oft forgotten (or worse, ignored)

So, when you post something, how does your audience feel? Are they engaging with you, or are they sensing another visit from the Garbage person?

LinkedIn 2.0?

One of cornerstones of social media is ready to increase their standing as a home for brands. LinkedIn, one of the largest social networks in existence, and far and away the largest professionals social network, is adding a new button that companies can add to their websites for instant interaction. The “Follow Company” button automatically subscribes you to the posts of the company you choose to follow (provided you’re logged into LinkedIn, otherwise it prompts you to login). Many people are speculating what this will mean for LinkedIn, who filed their successful 200 million dollar IPO in 2011.

This news comes in the midst of companies realizing that they’re are going to be challenged by the new guidelines/layout set by Facebook’s “Timeline”, and that diversify their social portfolio. LinkedIn has spend the last 18 months building an infrastructure for companies to possess a significant presence within their network, moving it in the direction of a dual-use network (as much about the companies as it is about the individuals). While LinkedIn has made the features for brands more appetizing, they still lack robust reporting and metrics, especially at a 3rd party level.

It’s obvious with the “Follow Company” button, that Linkedin is moving into new territory, and Mashable reported: “A LinkedIn rep says the new button “marks the first phase of LinkedIn’s follower ecosystem strategy that will unfold over the coming weeks.”

The recent changes to Facebook, Twitter and now LinkedIn is sending shock-waves through the social industry, forcing entrenched social professionals to change the way they execute their business and to be creative on the fly.  It once again proves why Social is still the Wild West. Nothing is sacred. Everything can be adjusted.

So what do you think? Is LinkedIn ready to compete with Facebook and Twitter as a place for Brands/Companies to flourish?

What do you use LinkedIn for and how do you wish you could use it?

Sponsored Blog Posts and Tweets

If there’s one thing we know about the Internet, it’s that almost everything is for sale. This includes blog posts and tweets. Sponsorship and endorsement are nothing new in the marketing world, and their benefits are just as important to consider in the digital space:

1. Add third-party credibility

When an audience is loyal, it will regularly follow and read what the speaker publishes. That loyalty is partly a result of credibility. For example, I find ClickZ to be a credible source, so I have become a loyal reader. I frequently seek out information from ClickZ. If they endorsed a new social network (e.g., Pinterest), ClickZ would become a conduit, passing its credibility onto the Pinterest. With ClickZ acting as a third party, I would become more likely to find Pinterest a credible social network, so I would be more likely to become a loyal user.

2. Increase your reach

Established bloggers and Twitter power users typically have a large base of loyal followers. When bloggers and Twitter users endorse your message, you gain access to their audiences – a sizable pool of potential customers.

3. Increase your social reach

As those reached directly by your sponsored blog posts and tweets begin to share your content, your reach increases. Your message begins to travel through an expanding social graph. Some refer to this socially influenced reach as “going viral.” The end result is that as your content flows to new readers, its value increases while the cost per impression decreases.

4. Start multiple conversations

By using sponsored tweets and blog posts, you open your message up for added conversations. No longer is your content limited to your existing audience. With the increased reach and social reach of sponsored messages, your content can become the centerpiece to dozens, even hundreds, of separate conversations that otherwise may not have happened.

5. Target your audience

By using trusted partners, like Sponsored Tweets and SocialSpark, you can narrowly target your sponsored content to the most relevant audience. With proper management, you can ensure that your message is delivered to the right people and in an appropriate context. So if you’re selling baby strollers, your message can be targeted to moms who read mom blogs.

6. Measurement and track results

Sponsored messages are just as trackable as other forms of paid online media. From impressions to clicks and conversions, a well planned and executed sponsored campaign can demonstrate ROI for your brand.

These Comments Brought to You by You

What are your thoughts and experiences with sponsored blog posts and tweets? What other benefits have you seen?

Types of Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are set to change at the end of this month, which means it’s a great time to review the current and future ad opportunities on the social network. Most of the changes apply to bigger budget advertisers – typically those spending at least $2,000 per month on Facebook Ads.

Facebook Premium Ads

The revised Facebook Premium Ads will be generated from content you publish from a Business Page. This means that not only will your fans see new posts (including status updates, links, photos, videos, events, and questions), but so will any non-fans you target. Or, if you have separate teams managing your Page posts and your media, Facebook’s Ad Ops will help generate ad-only content. Regardless of the content, all Premium Ads share the same basic anatomy (see figure at right):

1. Sponsorship: This area indicates that this an advertisement.
2. Context: This area provides a social context for the advertisement, such as “John Bob and 34 other friends like MindComet.” This context makes your ad more relevant to the user. It’s like an endorsement and is a primary benefit of social ads.
3. Message: This is a reformatted version of your page’s post, often automatically truncated and resized to fit the ad area. It also includes your brand page’s profile picture in the upper left and your brand name at the top.
4. Conversation: The top bar allows the viewer to Like or comment on the sponsored post. Or the viewer can read the ongoing conversation below. This allows you to start and monitor conversations from within your ads.

Facebook Ads

Many businesses have lower budgets than required for the Premium Ads, so they instead opt for the standard ads. These appear on the righthand sidebar of inner Facebook pages. They have a similar anatomy to the message portion of Premium Ads, but instead of being generated by Page posts, they are manually constructed in the ad dashboard. These ads only contain a small 110×80 image, a headline, and a small amount of copy. They can direct viewers to a Facebook Page or external URL (although keeping visitors within Facebook is typically more effective than drawing them to another site).

There are advantages when directing viewers to a Facebook Page. Selecting this destination allows you to promote a specific Page post or to enable liking directly from the ad. So if your campaign goal is to increase community size, it may be beneficial to include a like button on the ad itself, which removes an extra step for the viewer (clicking Like on the ad instead of first going to the Page and then clicking Like) and can improve conversion rates. Additionally, a context element appears next to the ad’s Like button indicating which friends already Like the Page.

Brands place bids on their ads, either with a focus on gaining clicks or impressions, depending on the goal of the campaign. Facebook calculates a range of suggested bids based on targeting and other factors. A bid is the maximum amount a business is willing to pay for each click or 1,000 impressions (CPC and CPM bids, respectively).

Sponsored Stories

Sponsored stories are built in the same manner and with the same targeting and bidding options as the standard Facebook Ads. However, these ad units are used to solely to promote a Page or one of its posts; they cannot be used to promote external URLs. If promoting a Page, you are able to select a destination tab – very useful if you’re running a contest or promotion.

And instead of appearing on the sidebar of inner pages, these ads appear in the News Feed among organically generated stories. This is of particular importance, as Facebook users spend more time on the News Feed than any other single page on the site.

How Facebook Ads Work

All types of Facebook Ads work essentially the same way. Brands set budgets and schedules and create the ads (either with the help of Facebook Ad Ops or within the ad dashboard). The real power behind Facebook Ads is the targeting. Businesses can deliver ads as broadly as the U.S. or as focused as females in Clermont, Fla., between 35 and 37 with college degrees interested in wakeboarding and aren’t already fans.

Targeting parameters include location, age, education, broad interest categories, precise interests, expanded precise interests (interests that are very closely related), fan status, connection, gender, and more.

Reporting options and metrics include ad impressions, clicks, cost, CPC, community growth, likes, and comments.

Your Brand on Facebook

With all the creative flexibility, measurement, and social context, nearly any business can benefit from Facebook Ads – especially when paired with Facebook community management.

How does your brand plan to use Facebook Ads in 2012?

Well, it happened. This week, Facebook announced that all fan pages would be converting to Timeline-style pages on March 30th. This gives us one month to prepare, so let’s figure out the most important ways your brands and organizations can stay relevant.

The Profile Picture

We’ve been used to a longer profile picture surrounding the page, but it’s being replaced by the Cover Photo. With that in mind, your profile picture will also need adjusting. Your new profile picture needs to be a square image 180 pixels wide, and you should make sure it compliments your Cover Photo, which is one of the most innovative focuses of the new Facebook layout.

The Cover Photo

The Cover Photo is a beautiful billboard for brands and an opportunity to utilize premium real estate (852 wide by 315 high). Your Cover Photo is the first significant step toward successful conversion to the Timeline lifestyle. If you have a large brand awareness, realize how expensive this ad placement would be in the long-run. Develop a strategy for the Cover Photo, whether seasonally, monthly, or weekly. Use your resources to develop beautiful images that speak your brands meaning and purpose without a single word. Community visually.

The Scrapbooking Revolution

Facebook’s new design layout lends itself to appear more like scrapbooking than a typical social network. In fact, there’s no doubt that Facebook caught onto the craze of things such as Pinterest, with you able to pin certain items higher on your timeline or more prominently, viewing your world like a social bulletin board on steroids. What does this mean for you? Better images will mean higher conversion rates. The power of the visual has caught up to the monopoly that is status updates. Spend as much time choosing your images that accompany your content as you do on your content.

What about my Tabs

Your tabs/apps will still exist, and the first 3 will show with image boxes (111×74), and right now it appears there is a limit of 11 apps. (Shoutout to GC for that info)

Change of Focus

Facebook (as many other networks have) has long been based upon the daily content and activity of users, so much so that they developed the newsfeed in a way that made it more like Twitter and in turn, made Twitter more like Facebook. Now, Facebook is giving its attention to the visual learner, the one that doesn’t read long diatribes on FB, but prefers a powerful image. In fact, as we’ve seen, people are now using images to update their statuses (you’ve probably seen the 99% or 53% -photos of people holding up notecards). Users are spending time on imagery in a way nobody expected (again, the rise of Pinterest). Facebook wants you to communicate visually in this new world.

The NEW Admin Panel

If you’re an admin, you’ll be able to see your page’s activity at a glance, including recent likes, recent activity (and the members involved), insights, and messages. Users can also send you private messages now, and you can request a name change for your page if your company, brand, or business has be altered.

The Challenges:

There are a number of questions that arise, including:

Have we seen the end of default landing pages? How about Custom tabs? How will this effect contests, opt-in offers and like-gates? These answers remain to be discovered, but as soon as we have a firm answer, we’ll share it with you.

Have you found anything we missed?

Here’s a list of Facebook Timeline Examples that show early adopters of the new format.

Social Endorsement Layer

You can find socially enabled ads (or social ads, for short) all across the web. For example, have you seen the +1 buttons next to Google paid search ads? This tiny icon presents a huge advancement in online advertising. It turns ads from one-way messages into points of conversation. If I +1 an ad, my endorsement becomes public to all of my contacts. It turns a standard PPC ad into word of mouth – the most effective means of promoting a product or service.

Social Integrated Banners

In addition to social endorsements, companies like Flite have integrated Twitter into banner ads, allowing users to interact and engage with the ads in meaningful ways other than clicking through. These types of banner ads bring with them sets of more relevant and accurate metrics to gauge effectiveness.

Social Ad Opportunities

Yet not all brands have fully embraced social ads. That presents a huge opportunity for brands willing to experiment with these powerful layers and integrations. Here’s why your brand needs social ads:

1. People don’t click on banner ads. It’s been a growing problem since the first banner ad. You need new metrics that more accurately measure the banner ad’s role in branding. With a social layer, you can better gauge this role by including measurements both within the ad (e.g. +1’s and tweets)
2. Find the balance between rich media and static ads. Social ads more eye-catching and dynamic than static or animated banners, but not as annoying as characters walking across the page.
3. Leverage the power of social endorsements. Let your brand ambassadors add to the impact of your advertising. Receiving a +1 on your ad is just like a friend saying, “Hey, have you tried these out yet? You ought to.”
4. Influence your influencers. With a well defined social media plan, you will already know who your social media influencers are within your social media communities. But what about when your influencers aren’t spending time on social media site? As ad viewers interact with the social ads, measure and monitor their influence on the social communities. You may find that some influencers are more responsive to paid messages, which can greatly impact your overall digital marketing strategy.
5. Gain additional insights from users. Social layers and endorsements can help your brand perform a virtual focus group. For example, endorsement split testing can help you evaluate which copy better resonates with your audience.
6. Reach new social users. Display and paid search ads can reach virtually everyone online – including users who aren’t already in your social communities. Adding socially enabled ads to your media mix can help you reach these users.
7. Grow social communities. By reaching users outside of your social communities, you have the added opportunity of growing your presence. While a user may not necessary seek out a brand to Like or Follow it, if they are presented with a social ad in a non-social context, they can still contribute to your community growth.
8. Be effective beyond impressions. While impressions should give you an indication as to how many eyeballs saw your banner ad, the beauty of social ads is that their impact extends beyond their 300×250 container. They can generate conversations, collect user generated content, and much more.
9. Users don’t have to see the ad to get the message. For example, the conversation generated in a Twitter integrated banner are visible across the web – to many millions of users that may never even see the banner.
10. Have staying power. Just because your campaign ended and your ads are no longer generating impressions doesn’t mean your conversation has to stop. In this case, the ads serve as a catalyst, while your social media continues to fan the flames.

What are your thoughts on socially enabled ads?

Marketers commonly focus their Twitter metrics around softer numbers like number of followers, number of retweets and @ messages. While these soft metrics are important and should definitely be part of any Social Media monitoring and engagement program, it’s important to have a metric that has some teeth — dollars.

Quantifying the Value of Positive Twitter Mentions

Positive Twitter mentions can be quantified in dollars if you think of them in terms of display ads and apply a CPM to each mention. As an example, imagine a brand that had 1,000 Twitter mentions in a month and 99 of those were positive. Using a tool like Radian6, you can calculate the total number of followers of those accounts which posted the positive mentions — in this case let’s suppose the total reach of those tweets was to 200,000 people. Using a very conservative CPM of $5, those mentions were worth $1,000 to that organization. The CPM can be adjusted to fit your industry.

What do you think of this method?

Check out this video blog post from Jeremy Hilton as he talks about his wishlist feature for Facebook that could enhance the Newsfeed experience. If you’re interested in learning more about EdgeRank, check out Jeremy Hilton’s post on SocialFresh.com or visit the EdgeRank Checker blog — these guys really know their stuff. Lastly, your comments and feedback on the video are welcome!