Are you struggling to grow your Facebook Fans ? Or not getting enough quality followers on Twitter? Do a Google search and you will find zillions of articles telling you “10 ways to increase your Facebook Fans” and “5 Tips to Getting more Twitter Followers”. And perhaps following some of these tips may actually help to get some numbers.  However as Social Media matures,  we will see a shift happen from “activity” based thinking to building a “strategic” approach to finding and more importantly retaining Followers and Fans.

I like to the think of a Social Media communication  strategies in terms of 3 concentric circles. Think of the brand as being at the centre.

• Circle (A) is the circle of fans (say on Facebook)  who are already connected to the brand
• Circle (B) is the circle of friends, of all those fans who are already connected to the brand
• And Circle (C) is “rest of the world”

Any Social Media strategy has to think in terms of what to communicate to each of these 3 circles and how to expand A (that is the end objective)

Let us look at circle A.  If you, as a brand, have a  1000 fans on your fan page, you have 1000 people who are willing to receive information from you. How do you keep them engaged?  How do you ensure that they continue receiving your feed? There is always a possibility that a person is your fan but has turned off receiving your feed…..hence you continue to see him in your fan count but he is actually not there.

These are early days, and right now people are going to be joining all  kinds of fan pages, mostly out of curiosity and partly on account  of some tempting promotion or give-away. But as dust settles, consumers will  be more discerning . A consumer does not  want to be scrolling through 10 pages of FB updates on a daily basis. Primarily he want to receive updates from his friends . He wants to know what is happening in their lives…that is his primary reason to be on Facebook. At the same time he is  willing to allow a few brands to send him messages. Hence very soon brands will need to compete for attention from their fans.

In order to ensure that your fan is willing to receive your feed, it is important for you  to occupy some portion of your  fans (consumers) life.  In his daily life, you need to mean something to him. Hence start by identify what part of his life (or his needs) can you fulfil. And this thinking will need to be “outside-in” and not “inside-out”. Do not think “What do I make and how can I get my fan to buy it “. Rather, think: What does my TG (target group) really look for in their day-to-day lives and what part of their needs can I fulfil (which also in some way connects to what my brand stands for). E.g if you are manufacturer of soaps, you can fulfil the need of a beautician in your consumers life. If you are are an insurance company, you can fulfil the need of a financial planner…..and so on. Once you identify what part of your consumers life you can own (and mind you “go thin”. Don’t try to be everything to your consumer. Try to be something very specific…. that will give you the edge), engage your consumer around that.

Note, the word is “engage” not “sell”. While communicating to your fans by way of Facebook updates, follow the 80:20 ratio. 80% of the communication should be about fulfilling the consumers needs, not about promoting the brand.  If as brand, 80% of the time you talk to consumer about something  meets his needs, then maybe 20% time he will be willing to listen to your marketing communication.

This is how you work on engaging circle A and more importantly ensuring that the consumer remains with you and does not hide your updates from his Facebook feed. These are early days and brands that are able to occupy a part of the consumers Facebook timeline, will find it easy to leverage the asset base.

Circle B is the circle of all those people who are friends of  those people who are already your fans. If you have 1000 fans, and each of these fans is connected to an average of 300 people, then circle  B comprises of 300,000 people. And these 300,000 people are most likely the kind of people that you as a brand are looking for. E.g. If you were a medical brand and all my fans are doctors, then who are their friends likely to be ? Obviously more doctors…and these are exactly the kind of guys you are looking for. Hence the key focus for any social media practitioner should be to find ways to convert people from circle B to circle A.

And how does that happen ?  Via people in circle  A.  People in circle A need to be “motivated” to tell their friends in circle B, to join the fan page of your brand. And how does this “motivation” manifest itself :

• Provide shareable content: As someone said “I will not tell my friends about your brand because I like your brand, I will tell them because I like my friends”. So think, what is it that your fans will find worthy of sharing.  A text posting in not shareable on Facebook. Hence good content supported by visual communication (images, videos) will make the content shareable.
• Polls, quizzes, photo tagging, group activities are other methods of reaching out to your fans’ friends
• Facebook applications : This is one of the most powerful tools to leverage circle A to reach out the circle B. Application should be designed in such a manner that is involves your fans getting their friends to participate via the application. Hopefully while participating, lot of them may get motivated  join your fan page.

And then we come to circle C. This is the rest of the 400 million Facebook users (less people in circle A and circle B) reside. This is the biggest circle in terms of size but also one prone to high wastage in terms of rewards-to-efforts.  Ways to reach out to this circle would be by way of

• Participation on relevant Facebook forums and becoming a part of that community
• Creating virals that get forwarded and talked about
• Creating events and contests that can spread by word-out-mouth
• Advertising on Facebook. These are early days and cost of fan acquisition on Facebook is still affordable

A successful growth strategy has to able to create a ripple effect that percolates from Circle A to B and then to C

In my opinion one should focus one’s efforts as  follows

• Initially build  Circle A : Keep them engaged and involved. Ensure they don’t turn off the update feed that you send them. Try to become an important part of their lives
• Then get on to Circle B : This is the most relevant TG for a brand and perhaps the easiest the crack.
• And finally look at  Circle C : As a brand we need them but then this is like finding needles in a haystack. Facebook advertising or viral applications could act as a magnet to pull out the needles in the haystack.

What  is your opinion ?

If voting was restricted to Twitter alone, Shashi Tharoor could have been elected Prime Minister of India! Sadly for Tharoor, it isn’t, and there is life beyond.

Without a doubt, Shashi Tharoor has done more for brand Twitter in India than anybody else! Common citizens, who are far away from using Twitter, also recognize the word Twitter, thanks to Tharoor, and the news he made, with his cattle-class and such tweets!

But the same medium that made him famous, could well have spelled Tharoor’s undoing. And which is where, there are Social Media lessons to learn, for the rest of us. But I am jumping to the conclusion. Let me cut back to the beginning first.

So the Tharoor – Sunanda Pushkar –  Lalit Modi – IPL saga has been enough in the news, for me to repeat the gory details. And this piece is not about who was right and who was wrong, but more about Shashi Tharoor, and the Social Media mistakes he made.

The genesis of his mistakes though, can be understood, if we understand his personality. And M J Akbar does a great job of describing this in his Sunday piece in the Times of India. Couples of key facts pointed out by Akbar are that Tharoor did not leave his high profile and high pay UN assignment to join Indian politics, rather he left it to try and get the top job at the UN. And that for Tharoor, half limelight is better than no limelight! Also that Bush considered him to be immature.

In all of these statements lie perhaps, the explanations for Tharoor shooting off his mouth every now and then, and for his landing into a mess now, which Akbar puts as “writhing between a mistake and misfortune”.

Tharoor through his wild and popular run as the favorite Indian Twitter celebrity account, made an art of creating 140 character copy. Tweets that would be cheered by Indian Twitterati, tweets that would get huge RTs, and which as a consequence, generated huge Twitter following, and a cheering squad, which was happy to get a ‘cool and handsome MP who was tongue-in-cheek, and had a great sense of humor too, and who was so different from the boring Indian politicians of the day’! Tharoor looking for that half limelight could have not asked for more. To repeat the first sentence of this post, he had reached a position where if an election was based solely on Twitter votes, he had reached a position where he would win hands-down!

But the fact was that, Tharoor was just a great copywriter and made tweets interesting. He was not really that cool as a person, and he was not that far from the other politicians he would ridicule so often, in terms of his integrity.

And Santosh Desai, in his column again in the Times of India, explains how Tharoor’s slick language and style got him into more trouble than good, and how in this particular case, it landed him into quick sand. When style comes without adequate substance, such slips happen. And Tharoor slipped, ultimately resulting in loss of face, and an ignominious resignation from the ministry.

As Santosh Desai points out, and I have seen in person, in the twitter stream, and in the Tharoor support forums that have sprung up, Tharoor will still remain a favorite on Twitter. But his political future is another issue.

So what is the key Social Media lesson here?

The one and most important fact that this episode brings to the fore, is that on Social Media, you cannot pretend to be someone you are not. Or in other words, it is not just about words you use, but that you really have to ‘be it’. Take into contrast, another celebrity, Anand Mahindra. In fact, there has been a decent compilation of Anand Mahindra’s Twitter efforts, and how effectively he has used the medium. Now Anand Mahindra asks questions, admits he does not know it all, converses genuinely, and helps where he can. In short, he comes out as a regular human being, even if he is not one another common man. On the other hand, Tharoor came out looking larger than life, which unfortunately he was not!

And this is the last thing you do on Social Media. Social Media in general and Twitter in particular, is very public space. It amplifies conversations, and you create a Social Media brand positioning / reputation for yourself. If this is very different from who you really are, the pretense cannot be kept up for too long. Because Social Media has its own way of circling back, and haunting you, for your inconsistencies.

Social Media is about being honest to yourself, it is about transparency, and it is about being fair to your fans and followers.

As someone pointed out, best practices on use of Social Media are yet to emerge. But in the early days as we are, these are some early lessons to pick.

In lighter vein, Shashi Tharoor could attempt another first on Twitter, if he wants. If he chooses to resign from Twitter as well, he could be the first one to auction off his 700-odd-thousand follower account?!

Internet  came to town a decade ago and change our lives forever. Not only did it change the way we did business but it changed the way we lived life. Email became our primary communication tool and web URL became the primary way to disseminate information. It was OK if you did not have a physical office address but is was not OK if your business card did not carry a URL.

Web 2.0 is once again re-defining our lives. It promises to be bigger and have a more significant impact on us than Web 1.0. If Web1.0 was driven largely by Internet connectivity and PCs, Web 2.0 will be driven by the mobile telephony and Social Networking Sites( SNS).

To give an example of the power of this lethal combination of SNS and mobile phone savour the following examples

• Imagine you area at a conference where there are another 100 delegates  like yourself. May be there are some people you know, but there is a larger number of people you don’t know. You pull out your cell phone, take up a position at a vantage point and take a picture of the audience.  Your cell phone software very quickly connects to servers to leading SNS sites, does  image mapping , and in just about no time, the picture reappears on your cell phone, except that this time it has been tagged by names of the all the people in the audience with their designations and company names. You click on a name, and that persons profile is right there before you. Now you the faces that you need to catch up with during the tea break!

Each one of us are now fully “identifiable” at any point of time. It is almost like having a name tag pinned to your Tshirt pocket at all times. Even if one wants to remain anonymous, this combination of a cell phone + SNS sites, ensures that there is no place to hide….not anymore

Let us look at another example of how this cell phone +SNS combination is going to transform our decision making process

• Imagine I am tourist who has come to Mumbai from Delhi. Here I am, at the Hanging Garden, enjoying the sight of Chowpatty. Now I wish to proceed for lunch. Once a time I would need to depend on a tourist guide book or the taxiwalla to guide me.  Now, no more!  I flash my cell phone, switch on the camera and hold it against a view of the Chowpatty landscape. I click a button asking for a listing of restaurants. Promptly all restaurants that are  in focus in  the camera appear tagged on the camera. Now I know that there is Pizza Hut and a Rajdhani and a Copper Chimney in my view. I click on a particular restaurant and I can see the menu card and the price list. I click on yet another button and I can see recommendations.  Best of all, I can specifically see recommendations made by people who are known to me.  Technology needs to connect the restaurant website to the website that carries recommendations to my Facebook page…and I can see exactly which of my friends have made what recommendations for a particular restaurant.  So then who decides where I eat ? No longer the tourist guide book and no longer the taxiwalla. It is my friends who are helping me decide where I eat.

A lot of brands have high consumer touch points. Footfalls, if you please. Literal footfalls, like in stores. Or airlines. Or cinema houses. Coffee shops. Etc, etc.
Or virtual footfalls, like in a popular web site.
Or remote footfalls like in television channels, with high viewer base.

When such brands go on to Social Media, as they embrace the new platforms like Facebook or Twitter, they do start from zero. Usually, the approach remains restricted to the Social Media space, and fan base is attempted to be built organically, or through other means, but by staying in the Social Media space, and creating interesting strategies, or spending money there itself.

Why not integrate the physical touch points, and convert them to be your fans?? Would that not accelerate the growth of fans on Facebook? How about converting those Footfalls to become your Fans?!

Here is a presentation that I made to the Social Media Club in Mumbai, India, about this proposition:

The interesting element to note is the second part of the story, viz. getting those Facebook fans, back into the stores. That is often forgotten or left to chance. However very little business is actually done on those Facebook pages. The money to be earned is in the stores, and not on Facebook.

The key element is to get the fan from Facebook, back into the stores, spending money. And which is all about converting the Fans back to being Footfalls!

What do you think about this? Do you see a closer integration of messaging in the offline space, and the Social Media space, for a brand? I’d love to read your views. Please share them as comments here!

Social Media has been a great enabler for communities. It has allowed people with similar passions to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. This much, of course, we know.

For a brand, these shared passions and the communities formed around them provide an excellent opportunity. By facilitating these communities and the exchange of ideas within them, brands stand to gain a lot. This is being recognized in various sectors – many of which one would not expect to be new-media savvy.

Interested in solder, epoxy flux or metal oxides? Indium Corporation has a host of blogs talking about these very topics. People from across the industry – from within Indium corp. and from without now have a go-to place for conversation about these topics and many more.

Schneider Electric ran a petition campaign to raise awareness about the contribution of building (especially high-rises) to global warming. For a certain group of people, this particular topic is extremely important, and the petition reached its goal of having 500 people signing up for it. This included text and video petitions. Schneider, of course, has a building automation solution which can help reduce the adverse impact which buildings have on the environment – so raising awareness served a direct goal

Fair Enough. Brands are providing platforms on which likeminded people, passionate about a particular topic can gather. But how is it actually helping the brand? In many cases, the benefits are quite direct!

Take for example Gary Vaynerchuck. The community he addresses is that of wine drinkers. Not exactly a small niche (*hiccup*) – a large number of people are extremely passionate about wines. Gary understood this (his family owned a wine shop) and he utilized Social Media tools – largely online video – to help the community come together. Gary started Wine Library TV – a video blog – in 2006 and it recently crossed its 800th episode. And what has Gary achieved? Apart from being a Social Media superstar it has propelled his wine business to a completely new level. Interestingly, viewers of the video blog (called ‘Vayniacs’) have created the first ever community wine – the Vayniac Cabernet.

What are the numbers like, for Gary? He has over 80,000 viewers on WLT every day, over 847,000 twitter followers and over 24,000 Facebook fans. Essentially, what Gary did, was that he acted as a focal point around which a community could congregate.

Here’s one of Wine Library TV’s popular episodes:

This is a huge opportunity for companies and brands to tap. If your product or brand is built around an idea which people care deeply about, (or if your target audience cares deeply about anything in particular) give these people a platform. Allow them to assemble there, communicate with each other, and share. Be a part of their conversation. Don’t be pushy about your agenda – people will appreciate the fact that this platform is ‘powered by’ you. What is the idea which Gary speaks about, for example? That together, his audience and he are changing the wine world!

What platform can you provide to your audience? What do you think about this whole platform thing anyway? Let us know, in the comments.

Over the last 7 months of 2009, we have been actively participating in the Social Media industry in India, interacting with large number of clients, and that experience of 7 months has translated into this summary of 7 findings from 2009, and 7 wishes that we have for the industry, for 2010.

Our early client (or even agency) interactions were about a concept sale, for Social Media. And there was an incredulous feel as to what were we doing in their conference room, talking about Facebook and such kids’ stuff!

We’ve traversed a long distance since those days.

Of course, it is still early days for Social Media in India, but in a lot of ways, things have moved ahead:

1. Increasingly now, people know that Social Media needs to be a part of their marketing mix, if not yet, a part of their business processes itself. For those who understand the space, they will appreciate this difference. Perhaps by the time we review the space in end 2010, we may see that Social Media has also become a part of the company’s business processes!
2. We do not need to struggle to explain our business. A simple term like “Social Media Agency” is understood by most now. Though we are not strictly a Social Media Agency, we are close to that, and if a simple phrase can generate a close enough recognition, we are okay to let things be there.
3. In case of a few of our clients, we had picked up their abandoned early efforts of a Facebook page, for others we had started fresh ones. Suffice to say that ALL of those clients realize now that the Facebook page, the Twitter account, the blog, the YouTube channel etc. are their digital assets and  that they will not abandon these creations any more. Whether we manage these for them or they choose to do it themselves, their Social Media activities are here to stay. Note that the word “ROI” did not even come up in this! So there!!
4. In the early days, it was easy to get an acceptance to create a Facebook page or a blog or a Twitter account. From a hygiene factor, these were good to have. Things have changed here as well. While we still get many prospects who want to do Facebook and Twitter for the hygiene factor, there are others who have started seeing beyond. We have clients who have integrated Social Media very well with their offline marketing and others who are now asking for stand-alone Social Media strategies, with specific focus. There are few who have realized, that Facebook could be their new Email, in terms of having a regular and direct reach to their customers.
5. It took a while to get clients to accept our retainer fees. A few commented that our monthly fees were more than their annual PR budgets. Valid point, but  an apples vs oranges comparison really. What did that annual PR budget get them? A few print releases / mentions in the papers? With large reach, potentially, but with a blink-and-miss probability and also the life of just that one day for the effort? Whereas, the Social Media activities were an ongoing effort, an all-day activity done for them every day, and which resulted in strong digital assets being established for them, which were here to stay! It needed a different kind of dedicated effort, and produced a different kind of result as well. Thankfully, from clients who are in the know, our fees seem more acceptable and understood now.
6. We are very pleased to see a big shift from our agency friends. I mean, the advertising, PR and media buying agency partners. We have seen hesitation, threat, doubt and fear in the early days, but we are now seeing an increasing confidence in the Social Media space, from many. They have become open to new ideas, and to some extent, they are putting these up to clients, and many are getting through as well. This is going to be the most exciting part of 2010, I believe.
7. We are also happy to see companies looking at Social Media Monitoring as a part of the Social Media activities. Although still a pariah amongst all of the Social Media methods (in India), a few companies have started seeing the potential of “listening” and we are seeing this number go up. Businesses which are more sensitive to customer feedback, are especially concerned about managing their online reputations, and monitoring becomes an integral component here.

Having said all this, what we would really like to see change some more, are things like:

1. More clients seeing the relevance and importance of Social Media and at least beginning with the reference of the Social Media contact points on their collaterals, their website, their email signature files etc.
2. That clients realize that the challenge for the 0-1000 journey (the first 1000 Facebook fans or Twitter followers, say) is not trivial, and requires their participation. If that means that the client needs to put the Social Media icons and links on their website, on their TV commercial and press advertisements, send out emails to intimate their stakeholders, or whatever else that is required. Same needs to be done! Once a certain threshold level is reached, then the viral aspect kicks in, thanks to content and engagement activities.
3. While we are seeing a few, we hope to see many more of our clients open up to fresh new ideas for Social Media activation, which are in addition to the simple Facebook page, Twitter account, blog and YouTube channel. An activity conceived for and within Social Media itself, and which can bring together a large base of their Target Group. Something of this nature needs a conviction and a larger commitment in terms of time and resources, but the payback is larger, as it breaks the clutter and stands out. It needs bold first mover types to grab such opportunities, and we look forward to seeing more of those, amongst our clients!
4. We are also hoping for more buy-in from our advertising agency partners, to in turn have the conviction to present and sell to their clients, some of these new ideas. They will stand to win awards and we will be happy to stand next to them and get some reflected shine on us too, in the process. We know we have materials that can win awards for them, but we need their conviction to move it ahead!
5. We hope this year, Mouthshut.com and others in the league are able to put better technology in place, to separate the genuine reviews and feedback, from the fraud postings. While the fraud posts impact brands in the near future, in the long run, it hurts the credibility of sites like mouthshut.com, and make them less trustworthy!
6. We don’t really want this to happen to anyone. But it may still happen. A brand-damaging story that starts from Social Media and hits the mainstream media all over, and causes damage to the brand. Much like the Domino’s case in the US, or even akin to the Shashi Tharoor twitter escapades. Because such damage to one brand will open the eyes of all the other brands, that Social Media cannot be taken lightly. Even if a brand does not participate in outreach activities, they need to maintain a watch, and monitor the space, to identify potential PR crisis and plug them, before they go out of control.
7. Finally, we wish for clients to have realistic expectations. No, we do not oversell. At times, the client himself feels a huge surge of enthusiasm about Social Media. Which is perfectly fine, and good, in fact. However if this enthusiasm translates to an over expectation of results, that is tough to manage. The process of growth in Social Media is slow. Especially if done organically. Which is how most Social Media strategies are happening. Done right, the process can be made as efficient as possible. However, benchmarking with the television reach or looking for tens of thousands of fans and followers in double quick time, are all expectations that are bound to fail. A quick look at what other brands have managed, especially in their own segments, and then seeing how good or bad their own Social Media performance is, will be a good starting point to understand the positioning.

The above mentioned experiences are based across a variety of businesses, as from the outset itself, we saw clients from diverse verticals. From chemical engineering companies targeting B2B clients to television channels with millions of viewers, to electrical equipment manufacturers, software companies, hospitals, doctors, electronic device manufacturing companies, educational institutions, etc. We have seen, since then, that the prediction that within 2 to 3 years, everybody will be using Social Media is well on its way to coming true. It’s ahead of schedule actually!

All in all, it is exciting space. We are looking forward to working with many clients through 2010, and we will certainly hope to make a mark with few of our Social Media winning strategies, in course of the year. Watch this space J

There are still many out there who do not understand or appreciate the concept of Social Media Monitoring. For their benefit, just a quick introduction to the idea first.

Conversations are happening on Social Media.

A blog that talks about say, telecom issues.

Comments on that blog, from various people, about the blog, but more pertinently, about their preferences or prejudices, amongst brands, for example.

Or a discussion on a message board, about hosting service providers.

And several posts to the thread, indicating active participation, besides the much larger number, who just look and go away.

Or consider a Twitter stream about Digital Cameras:

Any such discussion can significantly impact your brand, your sales. Say, by driving away customers, on account of some negative conversations, or pushing business to your competitors on account of some flattering postings in their favor, etc.

In order that these events do not catch you by surprise, you are better off to do what is referred to as “Social Media Monitoring”. That process where you keep track of the social media conversations, related to your business. Typically done with a mix of software tools and some manual data clean up, this activity is emerging as an acknowledged and regular business process for many companies now.

And now that many companies are getting into such Social Media Monitoring efforts, we see behavior and response from people, based on their stage of evolution with Social Media monitoring. And what are some of these stages, then?

1. The discovery stage: typically from a company (or person) that has just started doing Social Media Monitoring. There is huge fascination usually, in discovering a host of mentions of their brand in Social Media. It’s almost incredible to them. Most of them did not imagine that people could be so animatedly talking about their brand. Here, the brands do not particularly go about investigating the details of what context the conversations are happening in. The discovery itself is the reward, at this point. That they are in the conversation horizon of people is a reason to feel satisfied.

2. The first stage of investigation: this is when the company goes beyond the fascination of discovery and probes a little deeper into the nature of conversation. And this is usually followed by a few rude shocks. When it is found that many of the conversations are critical about the brand. Yes, people share good experiences with fewer people, but bad customer experiences are broadcast to many. Also that, most people who “write” into the social media space have a kind of ‘activist’ profile. And they pick up the smallest of your mistakes and amplify the same via Social Media channels. This is when companies often get upset, ask for opinions about how to “shut these guys up”, or “is there a legal recourse to stop such postings”, etc.

3. The stage of understanding: here is where now, the company really gets serious about looking at the data that is coming out, and converting it into actionable pieces. Conversations can be about a variety of things related to a company’s brand. From quality issues, to customer service, to price, to product details, to wish-list for new services, to competitor comparison etc. Each of these needs a different handling, perhaps from different people in an organization. So now is the stage when a company starts tagging the conversations and distributing these to the right teams and people, and also starts figuring out a response mechanism, which is consistent across the organization, because finally, to the outside world, it is that “one company” only.

4. The final stage (as of now – this space is changing!): this is when the company has now got a real good picture of the social media conversations and their impact. That many a times, the mention of their brand is inconsequential and needs to be ignored. Sometimes there is a negative mention, but it is on account of some personal reasons and can be settled offline. Or that there is conversation that they are quite familiar with, and in fact, stems out of their own press releases, for example. But then to pick those few, which are from the real ‘influencers in the space’ and which give them new and very relevant information, and which they need to act upon, is the ultimate objective. This is the “smart” way of monitoring social media, and putting it to use. It takes a lot of effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, but this is indeed, the real thing.

I am sure, there will be even more sophistication that is evolving, but the above stages largely capture the experiences of most companies, currently dabbling into the space of Social Media Monitoring.

Questions, other thoughts, experiences? Please feel free to share below.

Over the last approximately six months that we have been in business as a Social Media Agency, we have notched around 20 client engagements. Very interestingly and without intention, the clients are very diverse, from business vertical, size, geography as well as business focus (B2B vs B2C). In the process, we have had the singular good fortune to work on a variety of assignments, and have that rich experience being built.

But today I wanted to share with you, the diversity of attitudes of these clients.

What is the common factor amongst all of these clients, is that they are all early adopters. For almost none of them, was Social Media “necessary”. In the sense that today, their business would have had little impact whether they were engaging on Social Media or not. The reason then, that they ventured out and decided to get into Social Media, was because they thought bolder, they thought for the future, they are truly visionary as individuals. And we are glad to be associated with many such clients.

But other than being early adopters, in most other respects, the clients are quite different from each other.

There are few who have total trust in us. They are happy to hand over the reins (which means, the complete Social Media presence for their companies) to us, they are happy to let us run it. It does put a HUGE responsibility on us, to handle their brands with a lot of care. And perhaps, in that responsibility, we are obliged to handle these brands most diligently.

Then there are clients, who are large brands, and who know that a single wrong step could cause a lot of brand damage. Working with these brands involves vetting every single word that goes out into the Social Media space. The process is slowed down to an extent. Even after the material goes online, there are occasional corrections or changes. Sometimes we wonder if it is a bit too much. But then we realize that there have been such large investments that have led to these brands reaching the positions that they enjoy. And they can only err on the side of caution, and hence we do not mind the scrutiny!

Then we have this absolutely wonderful brand. A very prestigious brand with extremely high stakes. They have given us an elaborate set of dos and don’ts. From the language to the tone, everything has been specified. But at the end, we have been given a very categorical message. That they are convinced that we know more about Social Media than they do, and that they will like us to challenge them whenever we find them not getting it right, from the Social Media point of view. Extremely gracious and heartening.

A recent example with another client convinced me about how it is really early days in Social Media, still. And this is nothing personal, and I hasten to add this, since she may also read this blog! But I believe that a lot of folks in many organizations are grappling with the very same transition challenges that we experienced with her.

We have been working with this client for a while now. And doing the routine Social Media deliveries like Social Media Monitoring and their Twitter and Facebook accounts, but under their guidance, most of this has been restricted to a minimum level of engagement. When we recently suggested to her that Social Media is about mingling with customers, and where a brand needs to come out looking very human, and in that respect, we need to be a bit more open and more candid, perhaps even sharing the company picnic photos, or those birthday celebrations once in a while, she was hesitant. She was frank enough to let us know that while all of this may be true, she is yet to reach a point, where she can be comfortable about opening up in this manner. Or about mixing the official face with an internal more personal view of the company.

These may just be the transition challenges. Of going from the traditional world, to a ‘new’ world, or going from traditional communication channels to the new media challenges. And this may well be the hump to cross.

Different clients, different attitudes, different concerns..

Businesses are learning – nay, grappling – to cope with the realities of Social Media.

What about your company? Where do you see yourself fit? Or if you are an agency like ours, where do your clients fit? Would love to know your thoughts.

I have many good friends in the traditional advertising world. A few clients as well. And many prospects. And I have a lot of respect for their work. They are among the most creative folks I know in life.

So I want to assure that this post is not meant to be critical of them.

There is a perspective based on observation and experience, about how traditional advertising agencies are finding some aspects of Social Media to be challenging, and which is shared here.

As an opinion. And looking for other opinions, in fact!

Over the few months that we have been in business as a Social Media agency, we have pitched directly to clients as well as via advertising agencies. In doing so, we have had good experience interacting and working with both types of prospects.

Having seen this at close quarters, I observe few fundamental challenges, for advertising agencies to adapt to Social Media that easily:

1. There is a ‘campaign’ focus: Agencies have traditionally been involved in campaigns. Those that may demand a lot of hard work, high creativity, long hours, but which are finally one-off shots (whatever be the length of that one-off shot).

Social Media is not quite like that. Social Media is an ongoing process, something that needs to happen all day long, day-in-and-day-out. This is unfamiliar territory, in principal, for the agencies.

2. Intuitive and smart writing is required, need not be masterpieces: Agencies have the best creative talents, no doubt. Especially copywriters, who create that magic, with the use of few words that get on to billboards or on print ads or the script on the TV ad. They may work on several iterations before they get those 4 words right, but those 4 words then, are very right and work wonders in an advertisement.

Such excellent copywriting would work very well on social media. Except that it is unaffordable. And perhaps not required. Each tweet does not have to be the masterpiece copy that comes on ads. Each Facebook update does not have to be discussed and debated in a creative brainstorming session.

Social Media is about being ‘just right enough’ on the creative front, being more intuitive and natural, and being almost casual in your content. Whether it is on Facebook or on Twitter or other formats.

The extremely creative copywriter of the agency can do this, but her presence for each tweet or each FB update, will not be affordable then. And anything less might not do, or may not be available in the agency team!

3. There is huge effort in getting it right, and then getting it ‘out’. As mentioned earlier, agencies work hard to get the ad right, and for which long hours and very hard work is the norm. But it all culminates at the point, when the campaign is pushed out, after all the final approvals. And that’s it. After that the team can relax, as it is then, for the campaign to deliver. Or not.

In social media however, there is no one ‘out’. Social Media is about conversations. About dialogs. Once you put your message out, you will get responses. And you have to respond back. And it goes on. And each time, you need to put your best foot forward. And the ‘campaign’ does not really ‘end’ at all! This again is something to get used to, for agencies.

We have seen many a social media initiative of agencies falling into the ‘campaign’ slot. Most times, it also continues to be a ‘broadcast’ as against a conversation.

While we do not agree to it being called a ‘social media strategy’ then, we have ourselves worked with agencies on such initiatives. Considering at our end, that we are participating not in a true social media effort, but rather, in an advertising campaign, where a blog or a Facebook page or Twitter is serving as a media, and we are delivering the content for that advertisement.

This is really the type of Social Media involvement that we are seeing a lot of, from advertising agencies.

We hope that agencies get convinced about the “real” social media. The type which involves long term and ongoing engagement with your customers. The type that creates relationships and not just one-off branding or sale opportunities. Where the brand truly mingles with its customers, and becomes their very approachable friend.

Once agencies are convinced about this opportunity, and then they can convince their clients too, perhaps we can see a shift in the approach.

However it does appear to be a steep mountain to climb, from where we are at this time. There are a lot of old learnings to be given up, and new ones to be learned. And in that, amongst other things, the agency revenue models may also get challenged. And which is the biggest status quo that no one wants to disturb.

As long as the current situation prevails, agencies may keep doing advertising and using social media platforms as advertising media. While others, including agencies like ours, will strive to convince clients about an alternate approach. One which is the true social media.

Yes, I might have ruffled a few feathers here. And so I am open to be corrected.

Do you think agencies are changing faster than I give them credit for? Or is their current approach the right one anyway? Your opinions are welcome, in the comments below.

The title of this post might sound like it’s from a Dale Carnegie book. And sure it makes all the sense to listen well, in life. But here, I refer to the concept of listening in to the Social Media buzz. And the ample opportunity that it provides, to any brand, any company, any individual, today.

In our presentation (our own Social Media 101), we emphasize that the first opportunity for businesses on Social Media, is the opportunity to “listen”. It is an opportunity akin to eavesdropping the homes of your consumers, legitimately too

Listening enables you to get insights about your brand that you may not be aware of.

Listening can give you new product ideas, as you hear about the consumer’s wish list.

And many benefits of the kind.

And yet, as we speak about this, at events and to prospects, we have been asked questions like:

“Is it really worth it?”

“What do we do after listening?”

“Will it not be just too much conversation to manage and digest?”

“Are there such conversations happening, really?”

And after voicing such doubts, marketers return back to look at their advertising budgets, and decide to spend some more, just to make up for their diminishing returns on the earlier budgets! The low-resistance option. The option where you can buy yourself one month, or maybe three, to figure out why sales are down.

While all the time, the reality is there in front of the eyes, but the choice is made to ignore the reality, as it might just demand a lot more work.

Like a lot more analysis. “Those four conversations that were extremely negative about the product quality – how do they extrapolate to the larger quality challenge?” for example.

Or to figure out the real impact of a tweet recommending a competing product, from someone who has 5000 followers. What is the real “reach” of that message, and can it cause damage to your market share??

Say you find a thread of a complaint against one of your salesperson at one of your outlets. Do you ignore it and wish it will disappear or be forgotten? Or is it a PR crisis about to blow in your face?

All of these are tough questions, really. And there are many more of the kind.

It is easier to get them off your mind, and sit with your Excel spreadsheets, and figure out more media buy and more budget allocations. And hope that, in doing all of that, there is salvation. And a recovery of sales and of market share.

The fact is that you cannot wish away reality.

That the game is changing. And changing rapidly.

Increasing amount of purchase decisions – be they products or services, be they B2B or B2C – are being influenced, if not actually being made, via Social Media.

“Which phone should I buy?”, “Can you recommend me a good lawyer?”, “What’s your opinion of brand xyz?”, etc. are questions that you see all day long on Social Media.

Likewise, it just needs a few tweets or a particularly critical blog post, or a ‘caught in action’ video to pull a brand reputation down. One which had been built at great cost and one which will take even more cost to recover!

There IS real virtue in listening. Listening to the Social Media buzz. Listening to conversations about your brand, your company, your vertical, your competition.

Yes, these will take effort. To go over. To classify. To figure out the genuine from the junk. It will need time to understand the game, to come up with methods and strategies for this new reality. But you need to start somewhere. And the more you put off that start, the more difficult it will get to catch up.

To answer a simple question that someone asked us, “do such conversations happen, really?”. Okay – what kind of conversation can you expect to see on social media?

Those kind that you’d have with a friend over a drink.

Those issues that you discuss at a Parents-Teachers meeting.

The watercooler ones.

The chat that you have with your golfing mate, as you walk on them greens.

That chatter that is typical at a party, or at a dinner with friends.

The calls that you make to seek advice – on anything!

In short, any conversation that was natural to do offline, will now find its way on to the Social Media space. So go figure! Does your brand get discussed offline at all? Then, you can be sure to find such conversations on the social media space.

And then you can find some more.

“Because in my offline network, I might have not had the necessary expertise for say, those exclusive, high-end speakers that I was considering to purchase, or that piece of European art that fascinated me, or about a particular University in Ottawa that my child was planning to go to.”

Where the offline network stops, the online one is still accessible and alive.

And then to answer the other questions, “Will there not be too much data? How do I find it? How do I manage 1000s of conversations that come up?”

Well, this is where tools and service providers come to help.

Take for example, the SM2 Techrigy social media monitoring tool. Available in a Freemium model, it is something that you can immediately experiment with, and it can give you interesting insights in next to no time. Put in a set of keywords / phrases, tweak it with some conditions (language, geography etc.), and it starts pushing back to you, conversations from blogs, message boards, forums, video sites, social networking sites, twitter, etc. etc. that match your conditional requirements.

AND it does more. It gives you a basic sentiment track on all the conversations, it identifies the ‘influencers’ from the set of conversations, it enables an actionable workflow where you can assign the conversation to a team member. And many other such interesting features.

And in case you do not have internal team resources to manage this, or you want a higher level of value addition, there are service providers who can offer you that. In fact, our company provides services of the kind, where we do a manual read of all the conversations, do a more accurate sentiment tagging, and further tag the conversations around your areas of focus, such as quality issues, price issues, competition, product features, etc. That way, when you see a report, it is immediately actionable, no matter the quantity of posts that have been generated around your brand.

A few case studies of such social media monitoring work have been showcased earlier, on this blog.

In conclusion, I must share a job post that thrilled me no end, earlier this week. Even as we have been working hard to convince clients about the benefits of “listening to the social media”, we were happy to see Kodak announce a position of Chief Listener! That is amazing foresight, and acceptance and understanding of the new ways of doing business.

Whether you appoint a Chief Listener or decide to outsource your listening effort, do make a beginning. You will not regret, I assure you!

So are you already there ‘listening away’? Or what are your views / plans on the same? Would love to hear from you.

Disclosure: Social PR Outsourcing Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of Social Wavelength, is an authorised reseller for the SM2 Techrigy tool, for India.