Community Building & Management

SEMINAR: Doing More With Less – Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012

September 22, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

We’re excited to be giving a seminar on Tuesday, November 1 from 10am-12pm entitled Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012, taking place at the Foundation Center-Washington, DC!

Promoting your organization and mobilizing your members can be daunting, especially with a limited budget. But it doesn’t have to be that way – social media provides organizations with opportunities to do more with less and make the most of marketing dollars. Presented in partnership with the Foundation Center, the seminar will examine some of the upcoming social media trends and provide you with tips, tricks and tools to help you develop and deliver your 2012 plan.

UPDATE Oct. 22
The morning seminar from 10am-12pm is full, but due to popular demand an afternoon seminar has been added! Register here for the overflow session from 1pm-3pm.

Why It’s NOT Unwise to Outsource Social Media

August 31, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

There, I said it. And not just because I work for an agency. I believe that it can be done in a managed, streamlined and authentic way – a way that works well and is successful for the brands that choose to outsource social media.

The latest opinion trend I’ve been seeing with regards to social media marketing is whether or not it should be outsourced. Particularly, the aspect of social media community building and management – i.e. an agency tweeting on behalf of its brand client. I’ve read posts from those who are for it (such as this one from Jeremiah Owyang) and against it (such as this one from Ken Mueller).

Outsourcing, in general, is a topic of controversy. When corporations talk about outsourcing, it many times results in jobs being lost to a third-party company (especially companies in emerging markets) in order to save on labor costs. But that’s not what I’m here to defend.

We at Tuvel have worked with clients who, under a variety of circumstances, require help with their social media marketing and community-building efforts. Some don’t have internal resources to handle it on their own, others don’t have adequate knowledge on where to begin. In either case, they either want to handle it internally and need consultation, or want us to handle it for them – and we’ll help them in either case. However, in neither case are they looking to replace their own employees with us.

The general consensus against outsourcing social media is that it’s unauthentic, is more prone to mistakes and opens the brand up to backlash. I’m of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with outsourcing social media marketing and community building/management to an agency, if it’s managed properly. Yes, there’s always that caveat. After reading this SocialFish guest post from Maggie McGary, online community & social media manager for the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, I explained this caveat in my comment:

If an association for whatever reason decides to outsource community management, then they still need to be prepared to manage the high-level strategy and the agency that implements it. Just because you’re outsourcing doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with it anymore. This is the only way to ensure the success of the agency’s efforts (and your own success).

This is why we work closely with each and every one of our clients to establish clear communication plans and strategic processes, whether editorial, customer service, reporting or brand representation. Everything we do is in line with our clients’ goals and strategies, and we have regular meetings and status calls to discuss plans of action. We, in essence, become a part of their team. We also maintain transparency throughout the process and let people know who they’re talking to without sacrificing voice and authenticity.

This is how snafus are avoided. Mistakes happen, but don’t be fooled into believing that they only happen with a third-party at the helm – they can happen internally too.

I’ve made my position clear – what’s yours?

How Engaged is Your Community? The 5 Levels of Social Media Engagement

August 17, 2011 by Kari Rippetoe

If you manage social media outposts for your business or organization, then no doubt you’ve heard the word “engagement” numerous times. It isn’t enough for people to simply follow or like you, the goal is for them to interact and participate in a way that keeps them engaged with your brand. But because we’re talking about “social” media, we have to consider and accept that different people are social in different ways. Not everyone will engage in the same way, but you can help them to increase their levels of participation so they are more engaged with your brand in a meaningful way.

How engaged is your social media community? There are 5 levels of increasing engagement we’ve identified through our social media research and campaign work, which will help you to segment your community members:

Level 1: Observing – watching the conversation from a far & simply “lurking” to decide if it’s interesting/valuable enough to join.
Level 2: Following – following the brand in some way, i.e. following on Twitter or Liking on Facebook.
Level 3: Engaging – interacting in a limited fashion, such as clicking through to read your content, viewing a video, or Liking a wall post.
Level 4: Endorsing – actively sharing your content with others, i.e. retweeting, sharing via Facebook, etc.
Level 5: Contributing – actively participating in the conversation and interacting with your brand, i.e. tweeting to your brand, posting on your Facebook wall, or commenting on a blog post.

Notice that the circles in the graphic get smaller as the level increases. This means that the number of people decreases as they become more and more engaged with your brand through social media. This is to be expected, and those Level 4 and 5 folks are the ones you should ultimately focus on building relationships with – they are your brand advocates. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t pay attention to the people in Levels 1-3, because there are steps you can take to move them up the ladder and convert them to Endorsers and Contributors.

What are those steps? Stay tuned…that’s another blog post!