I’m always a bit surprised when I see organisational Twitter accounts with less than 100 followers, there’s plenty of them, I think to myself, are they really trying here?

Follower Build:

It’s really not so hard to do, all you need to do is follow some relevant people, a proportion of those will follow you back, those who don’t follow back you stop following over a period of time and then repeat. Pretty soon you have a few thousand.

Content:

Perhaps then a follower build isn’t the main stumbling block, being so easy and all, perhaps it’s a content issue, Twitterer’s block perhaps, faced with 140 characters and not wanting to seem superficial, what the devil do I write. And yet there are limitless options, photos, videos, links to blogs and articles, so it can’t be that can it?

Organisational Politics:

Maybe there’s a concern that their organisation will not approve of the content, or perhaps all the relevant stakeholders cannot agree. In these still pioneering Twimes, anyone with a Twitter account or Facebook page thinks they’re an expert because in the land of the blind, a one eyed tweeter can be king.

Management Buy In:

And then there’s management buy in and budget, all this stuff is time consuming, creative, deft and skillful, really you should either form an in-house dept or better (from my standpoint) outsource to your favourite PR Agency.

And yet, in 2012, only the most pioneering boardrooms see social media as an opportunity to steal a march on the competition.

Scary Competitive Advantage:

Imagine, your Twitter followers = 10,000, your competitor’s = 100, how powerful is that – licence to engage with that audience several times a day.

Hmm, maybe that’s the scariest thought of all.

The Big Cheese won’t take a phonecall, their email is screened, you can’t exactly just turn up in the foyer – can you? Follow them out of the building, effect a chance meeting in Starbucks? No, that’s not sales, that’s stalking. However, The Big Cheese did put their profile on LinkedIn last year, right around the time the company was being taken over and lately they set up a Twitter account, hmm…

Research from B2B Magazine suggests that this little scenario is becoming more familiar to B2B marketers searching for leads – at least in the US. At Feb 2012, 57% said online was contributing the most qualified leads to their businesses. While email is still out in front, social media is now the second most widely adopted strategy.

Weirdly, only 5 percent thought their social media efforts were well optimised though. That seems very low and suggests that businesses are not yet at the point where they will commit a dedicated resource to social media – labour intensive that it is.

Another survey, by Pardot late last year says for B2B marketers in particular, worldwide, LinkedIn and then blogging are the most successful social media tools for lead generation.

Of course, this is all just channel talk, you still need a good proposition and the ability, more than ever to write compelling copy, whether in a blog or a 140 character tweet.

For this, you might fancy some help. After all, nobody takes a sales call any more, do they?

Fast-forward six years, and McDonald’s launches its McStories promotion using Twitter this January. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay heed to how many Maccy D haters there are out here. The campaign became memorable for just how much vitriol people could pack into 140 characters or less.

What both brands forgot was that the greatest perks of social media – a real-time channel where everyone makes their opinions known – also present the greatest challenge for brands.

You’d think brands would learn from the mistakes of others over time, yet just last week Coca-Cola Australia launched a Facebook word-association campaign that quickly descended into potentially brand-damaging schoolboy humour.

The question these tales of failure begs is why do marketers fail to learn from the visible mistakes previously made by others? Fortunately for the smaller, wiser companies there seems to be a pattern to the repeated mishaps, from which we can learn some valuable lessons:

Marketing, PR and corporate communications have to learn to work together with social media functions. Too many companies have paid the price of keeping departments in separate silos, which is when messaging can go dangerously off-target.

Allocate the necessary resources and experienced, skilled people to ensure that social media communications are properly managed. When the chain of command is lost, social media niggles can spiral out of control into epic fails.

Take new social media platforms seriously. If everybody is talking about them, the chances are that they will grow in relevance and influence. Has a day gone by this month when you haven’t heard somebody, somewhere talking about Pinterest? Watch this space, we say.

Take complaints made on social media channels seriously. If you don’t respect your customers and express your concerns quickly, complaints can gain serious momentum and become overwhelming.

Remember that inviting participation via crowdsourcing opens paths of communication along which anything can happen. McDonald’s, Chevrolet and Coca-Cola all learnt the hard way….

…will you?

Here are three efficiency measures that will make every minute devoted to social activity work harder for you:

1. Use Buffer to share links

Time waster: One of the biggest time drains in social marketing activity is content sharing. When you stumble across something so relevant and cool you need to share it across all your networks, productivity and focus take an immediate hit.

Solution: Set aside a dedicated chunk of time first thing every day to select the worthiest, most interesting pieces of content in line with your social media strategy. Then use Buffer to automatically share them via your chosen social networks at pre-determined, optimised times throughout the day.

2. Create a ‘stalker’ list

Time waster: There’s little point in interacting with those who don’t move in the right circles or have any influence within your sector.

Solution: Be more selective about who your target with social activity. Begin by creating a list of the 20 people you most want to interact with in social media. Create lists for these people on Twitter and Facebook, and a circle for them on Google+. You should bookmark their blogs, where applicable, subscribe to their feeds and find them on LinkedIn.

Find relevant and intelligent ways to interact with these people on a daily basis (such as commenting on their blogs) and you should significantly improve the quality of your social contacts. Repeat this list-making process every few months.

3. Don’t get obsessed with case studies

Time waster: While trying to weigh up whether social media will have measurable effects on your business, it’s tempting to read as many case studies as possible for research purposes.

Solution: One of the biggest problems with case studies is that they are often strategically irrelevant. Companies in different sectors face a completely different set of KPIs, business goals, customer personas, budget constraints, social media goals and so on. Worry less about what other companies are doing and worry more about working out a coherent social media strategy for your company.

Over to you

As if to prove my point, I’ve run out of time to mention the plethora of other time-saving techniques out there, from logging into LinkedIn Today (for a trusted, valuable summary of daily content) to using Google+ to engage with professional networks more efficiently and succinctly.

What time-saving tactics do you use to get the most out of social media activity?

1. Real-time data mining

The first and most obvious benefit of a social media monitoring system (SMMS) is real-time data mining. Careful listening, monitoring and gauging can provide a goldmine of information, especially when implementing online PR.

Responding to negative commentary before it escalates can be a real challenge. Armed with real-time data and intelligence, online PR practitioners can successfully correct misinformation and take appropriate action.

This can be pivotal in, say, developing a crisis communications strategy, when a brand will need to track everything being discussed about it in the digital space as it happens.

Brand monitoring (tracking all positive and negative mentions of a brand online) has a range of instant benefits that help with gaining that all-important competitive edge. Companies can discover their brand advocates and influencers, as well as any brand detractors, and act accordingly.

2. Long-term focus

Blogger and stats whizz Tom Webster of Edison Research spoke last week about the two-pronged role of the SMMS. As well as harnessing real-time intelligence, he cautioned that marketers should incorporate data into the bigger, longer-term picture or risk missing a trick.

Watching and monitoring slow data is really useful for determining trends. A long-term focus is a vital part of any social media strategy. Listening out for topics being widely discussed about a brand and monitoring public perception over time provides information that can be used widely across the business, from marketing and PR efforts to product development and customer service training.

This form of data mining requires a lot of work and understanding: companies may want to listen beyond brand mentions to monitor everything being discussed about their industry. Long-term listening and monitoring can unearth industry trends and help brands to establish themselves as thought leadership authorities, for example by creating blog content on key issues.

Furlong PR’s final thought: Implementing social media activity without a SMMS is a wasted opportunity. Track and listen carefully to what is being said about your brand to gain a competitive edge, both immediately and in the long term.

The first useful finding is that Facebook is still king in terms of active users, with a staggering 95% of 16-20 year olds accessing the site within the last month. YouTube ranks second behind Facebook, with half (50%) of all UK internet users using the site within the last month, followed by Twitter (23%), Windows Live (14%), LinkedIn (13%), Google + (12%) and Spotify (10%).

Spotify’s rising popularity points towards a new breed of social media channels (while primarily a music service, Spotify recently added social media functions) which offer something of purpose beyond communicating with peers.

Backing this up, we see that consumer financial advice website moneysavingexpert.com, now has as many active users as Twitter. Alongside expert articles on financial issues and products are tools for users to create profiles, leave comments and interact in ways not a million miles away from those on the more obvious social networking sites.

YouGov’s study also reveals that almost half (47%) of consumers object to brand advertising on social networks based on their networking activities, claiming that “social is not always the advertiser’s friend”. Just under half (44%) of the UK population surveyed claim they wouldn’t be more likely to buy a brand’s products if their friends promoted it on social media, while 43% felt it was unlikely that they would talk about a brand on social media.

What YouGov’s research reveals, much in line with recent posts on this blog , is that the social media sector is maturing. Savvy brands are now responding by thinking beyond buying adverts and chasing likes, fans and followers to create a far more compelling presence on social channels.

YouGov’s Media Consulting team surveyed 1,275 UK respondents. To discuss how to reach and engage the new breed of ‘bored’ online networker for better results from your social media marketing, call us on 0845 053 6855

Anybody still not convinced of the value of social media marketing should refer to data released at the beginning of the year by eMarketer.

The study revealed that social media campaigns can create immediate improvements in brand advocacy and purchase intent levels, and significantly, that these effects can be long-lasting.

Highlights of the study (which focused on US consumer packaged goods brands) are:

· Exposure to social media campaigns immediately increases brand advocates’ likelihood to recommend a product, from 39% before exposure to 61% directly afterwards.

· 55% of brand advocates were still more likely to recommend a product one year after exposure to the social media campaign.

· Brand advocates’ own purchase intent soared from 38% pre-campaign to 69% afterwards, where it remained for three months. After one year, brand advocates’ own purchase intent remained as high as 61%.

These are impressive results, indicating the profound effect that social media marketing can have on word-of-mouth recommendation and purchase intent. Armed with this knowledge, companies that are already participating in social media will want to ensure their social media strategy is optimised to last, and here’s how:

1. Develop clear overall goals

Unfortunately it is not enough to simply post content, even if that content is excellent and uploaded regularly. Keep your brand’s overall goals in mind and evaluate how each individual social marketing activity is geared towards achieving them.

2. Integrate social with other marketing activities

Social media campaigns should be timed to run throughout the year, coinciding with other offline and online marketing efforts to ensure maximum exposure and impact.

3. Make all campaigns meaningful

The most successful social campaigns are those that are meaningful enough to be remembered and shared. Naturally this requires creativity, and can include giveaways, competitions and encouraging user-generated content across social media channels.

4. Measure and monitor all campaigns…

Measuring campaign performance is vital to proving social media’s ROI, and also one of the greatest challenges. Data is invaluable, yet it is only the starting point of analysing the impact of social media activity.

5. …but don’t rely on number-crunching alone

As yet, there is no one-stop tool that proves the impact of social media efforts on the bottom line; what is needed is a multi-pronged approach. Track conversations over time to glean the most valuable insights. Don’t just ask, “what is the ROI of social media?” – instead ask “what is the ROI of each specific activity we engage in via social media?”.

Creative resources can be scarcer at small businesses without big social media budgets, and Facebook does have a somewhat static format to work with. Yet it needn’t be costly to come up with some great landing page manipulation, and here are some tips that should offer some inspiration:

1. Use a large call-to action

The most obvious and relevant call to action is to invite visitors to click on the ‘Like’ button of your Facebook page. BMW has consistently used this tactic on its landing page, always updating the look and feel of the graphics in line with its current messaging. ..see BMW Facebook page

2. Create an interactive, user-oriented page

Depending on who your target audience is, encourage interactivity with suitable competitions, games and interactive video. Disney Pixar has done just this, framing activity on its landing page around its latest Disneyland project, John of the Jungle. Also observe Disney’s use of joined-up activity on YouTube, where visitors can upload photos to a competition…see Disney Pixar Facebook page

3. Keep it clean and simple

It may be tempting to equate creativity with flashiness, but the results can end up being overcomplicated. A clean and simple design that presents users with only a handful of options like Harley Davidson’s can still be visually impressive…see Harley Davidson Facebook page

4. Promote a cause

Facebook is an ideal setting to promote any charitable tie-ups, as Heinz Ketchup is currently doing with its Wounded Warror Project partnership. Its landing page uses clear, striking calls to action, which perfectly fit Heinz’s distinctive branding. Conducted correctly, philanthropic tie-ups can have remarkably positive effects on engagement, but be aware of the risk of coming across as self-serving…see Heinz Facebook page

5. Encourage a user journey

Visitors landing on Oxfam GB’s page are presented with a clear and colourful series of options that direct them to relevant areas of specific interest. A useful tactic for organisations with lots of content and resources to share, this is an enticing invitation to journey on with a brand. Notice also Oxfam’s prominent placement of a call to action to sign up to its email list…see Oxfam Facebook page

Bonus Tip: Note that each example within this crop employs unique tabs, created within the company pages, that act as fixed landing points for the user. The results are instantly more engaging and sticky than arriving at a standard Facebook Wall.

Facebook marketing may be a no-brainer for global brands like Coca-Cola and Nike, but for a law firm specialising in divorce, nobody is likely to publicise their personal situation by ‘liking’ your company page. It may be more useful to create expert video advice on how to prevent divorce, or steps to finding the correct lawyer if separation is unavoidable. This video could then be posted to your own website, and adapted into a company blog post to be shared on Twitter.

These steps will help anyone from a reiki healer to a bookkeeper establish which platforms to make part of their social media activity:

1. Discover and investigate your target market by searching Google, Facebook, Twitter Search, YouTube, LinkedIn (especially the Groups and Q&A sections) and niche specific forums.

2. Look at competitor websites and social networks to see what is working and what isn’t.

3. Contact your target market directly, perhaps using your existing email marketing list, to ask them where they engage online.

4. Once you have established which platforms to use, create a strategy to create regular content and cross-post that content for maximum exposure. For example, if you post a video to Vimeo, remember to repurpose the content as a blog of tips, for example, and post related pictures and enticing screenshots to Flickr, linking back to the full video.

Every business ultimately wants to attract loyal customers and drive sales, but each has a unique offer and specific target audience. It is perhaps time to look beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ social media fix, and with each platform comes a new way to share your unique content with the right people.

One word of advice: avoid setting up presences on multiple platforms if you won’t be able to maintain them with great content. It is preferable to have one or two lively, regularly updated social presences over six empty ones.

Some 70% of marketers cited social as their top priority for 2012, followed closely by content marketing, cited by 59%, according to the State of Social Media Marketing: Top Areas for Social Marketing Investment and Biggest Social Marketing Challenges in 2012 report by Awareness.

Most encouraging is the approach that marketers plan to take in the coming year. Having already established and grown their social presences on the major channels (Facebook and Twitter), they now plan to extend their social media strategy to include previously overlooked sites such as YouTube, foursquare and Tumblr.

Content is playing a major role in the growth of social. Pairing both channels has enabled businesses to boost interactivity on their sites with social sharing buttons, with shared content proving ready-made fuel for social marketing efforts.

Along with this enhanced approach from companies comes a fresh focus on active social media management to improve lead generation and sales from social media.

Said Brian Zanghi, CEO of Awareness: “We expect less-experienced marketers to follow their visionary peers, adopting established practices as they move along the maturity continuum.”

Staffing remains one of the key challenges, according to the report. Most of the 320 businesses surveyed employ between one and three people to monitor their social media marketing campaigns, and nearly half (45%) claim to struggle to find qualified talent to manage most of their new media activity.

We’d love to hear if these findings fit with your own experiences and plans for social media activity. Is your business planning to ramp up its strategy this year? Will you be making any additions to your social media team, or are the company purse strings still restrictively tight? Please post your comments below.

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