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Presentation from “Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012”

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We gave 2 seminars today at the Foundation Center-Washington called Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012 – the first time they’ve held 2 sessions on one of their technology seminars in one day. The attendees were very inquisitive and we had some great interactions with them! In fact, a few of the questions that were asked will make for some interesting blog posts – so stay tuned for those in the very near future.

Here is the presentation we gave, including a full appendix of tools (with links) we discussed. Big thanks to everyone at the Foundation Center (Pat, Laura and Jereme) who helped to make it happen!

 

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

Why It’s NOT Unwise to Outsource Social Media

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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.

Outsourcing Social MediaWe 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?

Search Drives Word of Mouth, But Don’t Discount Social Media

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Today I came across a resource site called Think with Google, containing digital marketing information, trends and insights and recently launched by (one guess)…Google. I excitedly dove into the wealth of information it provided, starting with Word of Mouth under its Think Insights section, thinking of the treasure trove of research, articles and posts about WOM, social media, digital marcomm. What I got was a treasure trove of Google-centric research about how search (Google) is the #1 spark of WOM conversations, how search (Google) is more likely to result in a purchase, and how search (yes, you guessed it) far outpaces social media sites as a resource driving WOM conversations.

No, I’m not surprised about this, for 2 reasons:

  1. It makes sense that search drives most WOM conversations, since that is the one place people will go to find information about a company or product. No, they don’t go to Twitter or Facebook, they go to search. Search has been around for ages in Internet years, far longer than social media, and it’s ingrained into our brains to go straight to Google (or your search engine of choice) to research a potential purchase.
  2. Why should I be surprised that a digital publication called “Think with Google” wouldn’t be Google-centric? It’s like Oprah’s O Magazine – she’s on the cover of every issue.

So the takeaway here is that companies should be focused on search marketing when it comes to generating WOM conversations, right? Well, yes – but the reason why I’m writing this is because I don’t want people to discount social media and its role in the WOM landscape. Search is, always has been and always will be an extremely important (if not THE most important) part of any online marketing strategy; but everything else you do online feeds into that.

  • Information shared through social media sites is included in search results (take a look at the Discussions tab the next time you search on Google).
  • The Twitter-to-Google firehose may be off, but retweets still impact how content is indexed on Google.
  • Sharing through Google+ will most certainly have a greater impact on search over time.
  • Social sharing impacts the creation of content that is then indexed in search results.
  • Building a strong social media network increases the likelihood that your content will be shared, therefore impacting how it’s indexed in search.
  • Relationships built through social media can lead to outside content-creation or linkbuilding opportunities.

So don’t think about how search is more likely to impact WOM conversations than social media, think about how your social media efforts impact your search marketing efforts to drive WOM conversations.