For example, social media has been linked to self-esteem issues, cyberbullying, and car accidents. 

Distracted driving is one of the primary causes of car accidents, and yet people continue to use their phones to scroll social media when they’re behind the wheel. We’re learning that the compulsion to scroll social media, even in dangerous situations could highlight the deeper issues of these platforms. 

The distractions of social media sites extend to work and relationships. It’s hard for most of us to be present when there’s the constant pull of social media at our fingertips. 

The Social Dilemma is a buzzy new Netflix movie exploring the topic and opening up many people’s eyes to the difficult truths regarding social media. So what should you know if you haven’t watched it yet?

The Basics

The Social Dilemma is a documentary from Jeff Orlowski, which looks at how things like addiction to Facebook and Instagram aren’t accidental and are rather part of the design on the part of tech companies. The documentary deep-dives into the fact that social media companies are manipulating and exploiting human behavior for profit. 

For example, those push notifications you receive are a way to keep you constantly tethered to your social media. Personalized recommendations are not just using your currently available data but are influencing your every action. 

Through the course of the film, Orlowski speaks with the people who built social media and now are worried that they’ve created a monster in terms of democracy, mental health, and more. 

According to Anna Lembke, who is a Stanford University addiction specialist, social media companies rely on the evolutionary need of the brain to have a sense of connection. 

Interestingly, the documentary combines interviews with fictional scenes of a suburban family dealing with the ramifications of an addiction to social media. 

The documentary looks at former decision-makers in the tech industry dealing with the business models that have led to their power and influence, but perhaps many negative outcomes. 

The ability of social media to play into human psychology and drive behaviors is why these companies have become so staggeringly rich. 

Most of us at the individual level are entirely unaware of how social media is affecting us, and that’s by design. 

The Effects of Social Media on Your Brain

It sounds dramatic, but we are increasingly seeing that social media is turning us into addicts. Social media platforms target the same brain circuits as drugs and gambling. 

For example, consider how you feel if you realize you don’t have your phone with you at any given moment in your day. You may feel panic because if you don’t have your phone you can feel incomplete. We’re entirely reliant on our phones, which is why we find ourselves using them even when we shouldn’t, like when we’re behind the wheel. 

Smartphones themselves aren’t necessarily addictive—it’s what on them. 

Social media lets you carry your social life in your pocket. There are, unfortunately, links between smartphone use and anxiety and depression, diminished sleep quality, and a higher risk of car accident injury and death. 

Even if you want to spend less time scrolling social media on your phone, you may not be able to. This is how an addict feels with substance use. 

Social Media and Dopamine

Understanding the addictive nature of social media relies on gaining insight into dopamine. 

Our brains produce dopamine, and it plays a role in motivation. Dopamine is released when we do something pleasurable, including having social interactions. The dopamine response we have from pleasurable behaviors motivates us to keep repeating those stimuli. The dopamine pathways in our brand are considered reward pathways. In addiction, there is dysfunction seen in these paths. 

Reward pathways in the brain reinforce our feelings of feel-good reward that follows certain behaviors.

Smartphones and social media apps provide non-stop, rewarding stimuli in the form of social interactions. Each time we see a notification on our Facebook or we get a like on Instagram, there’s a flood of dopamine that triggers the addictive reward cycle. 

Consider over the past decade how many more notifications you likely get from Facebook as part of this. You are now getting notifications for interactions you have with groups and for things that you aren’t even directly involved in. It’s those notifications that keep you going back for more and incentivize you to repeat your behaviors and Facebook knows that. 

On Instagram, there’s a trick where likes are withheld on your photos so that then they can be delivered in a larger burst. What happens is that you initially may feel let down because you aren’t getting the responses you thought you would on Instagram, but then your dopamine centers are activated when you get that collection of likes later on. 

So, What Can You Do?

How you decide to handle the information provided in The Social Dilemma is up to you and what your goals are, but research is increasingly showing us that at least limiting your social media exposure can be tremendously beneficial for your mental health. 

Consider a social media detox, or put yourself on a strict timer to only use social media 30 minutes a day. 

What you have to realize is that this is going to be tough if you’re used to engaging with social media all day. 

You have to rewire your brain, and it takes time to do that. You may get frustrated when you find yourself picking your phone up after you just put it down, but if you can be more mindful of what you’re doing, it can help you change those pathways in your brain hijacked by social media. 

Watching The Social Dilemma can provide you with more insight into how social media is affecting you without you knowing it. The film might give you the motivation you need to cut social media out of your life or at least make changes in how you use it, interact with and it, and rely on it.

The post What to Know About The Social Dilemma appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

If you’re feeling like your brand got a little lost in social during the holiday crush, don’t despair – you have options. Perhaps it’s the perfect time to think about trying something new.

Everyone knows about Facebook and Twitter.  Oh yeah, and there’s Google+ too.  And Tumblr.  And we can’t forget about Pinterest. But that pretty much sums up the social media landscape — that’s all there is, right?

Sadly, many marketers seem to think so.

In fact, if you were to ask some social marketers about the platforms they use, you’d be lucky to hear them mention Tumblr and Pinterest at all.

Despite the fact that there are numerous social platforms that marketers can leverage today, many brands operate in a very limited social landscape. Often, Twitter and Facebook represent the full extent of their social media efforts.

A Risky Proposition

But what’s wrong with just focusing on Facebook and Twitter? After all, that’s where the “eyeballs” are. Why should brands even bother going anywhere else?

The short answer is risk. Brands need to think beyond the biggest mainstream social networks of the day because the channel is constantly evolving. The platforms that dominate today could easily be a thing of the past tomorrow. The story of MySpace comes to mind.

Solely focusing on the top social platforms also robs brands of great opportunities. Lesser-known social networks can offer unique experiences specific to the platform. For example: Zocdoc for doctors and Goodreads for authors.  These niche-interest type social networks give you a smaller but more relevant audience.

Moreover, the newest social platforms are worth the effort because they don’t yet suffer from ad blindness. Think of it this way: that “fresh climate” could give your brand a first-mover advantage. (“Another tweet from @McDonald’s?  We get it. You sell cheap burgers!”)

Explore New Social Possibilities

The point is, there’s a lot more out there than Facebook and Twitter. Brands can stay hip and ahead of the curve by exploring new ways of engaging beyond the mainstream social networks.

Granted, upstart social platforms don’t have the huge audiences that the social media giants do, but they do offer interesting opportunities that merit a closer look. So, go out and explore! When you find something new that interests you, figure out how you can play with it in your marketing efforts.  Maybe it’ll be a flop, or maybe it’ll become an amazing tool to add to your digital arsenal and differentiate your brand from the competition.

Below are a few social platforms you should explore, along with a few ideas to help you get started on each:

Reddit

While on the whole, this platform’s community hates being marketed to, that doesn’t mean it’s off limits — you just have to go about it the right way. For example, Degree pulled it off nicely. They had their spokesman, Bear Grylls, do an AMA (Ask Me Anything). This effort produced lots of great video content starring Mr. Grylls, and netted the brand nearly 2 million views.

• Participate in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything):  Find someone in your organization to do a Q&A session with the Reddit community.  From the start, know that you’re going to get some negative response, even if you’re a bonafide Reddit meme like Bear Grylls.  If you approach it honestly, without an overt attempt to sell something, then it’s a win-win: you gain exposure and the Reddit community gets useful insight into your industry.
• Create your own Subreddit:  Reddit is great platform for community building, and subreddits facilitate it. They are basically subgroups that provide a smaller, more relevant audience. You can use a subreddit for a variety of things, such as customer support or for campaigns involving community voting.  Private subreddits are great for internal discussions and updates.
• Answer Relevant AskReddit Questions:  Set-up alerts so you know when a question is posted to /r/AskReddit that matches your area of expertise, then jump into the conversation. Just remember not to spam – in other words, don’t automate your response!  Be honest and try to offer value to the community.

Quora

Quora is Yahoo! Answers for grown-ups. This Q&A site has a lot of fun and useful features (embeddable posts, community voting, topic pages) that could make it a great extension of your current content marketing efforts. Keep in mind though that you have to be a real person to participate in Quora – it doesn’t allow automated responses. That means you should identify the appropriate people in your organization and task them with participating in the platform in regard to their specific area of expertise.

• Answer relevant questions:  Keep an eye out for your brand name popping-up on Quora, and subscribe to industry topics.  If you have a product that’s the answer to someone’s problem/question, there’s no harm in letting them know.
• Share influencer stories:  Encourage influencers you work with to take to Quora on your behalf and share their personal stories with the community. Clients and business partners would be ideal.
• Use Quora to create content:  You can find a lot of interesting information on Quora if you mine it wisely. Whether the information is already there, or you directly solicit input via posting questions, pull it together for a blog post or other content asset. Or, you might decide to answer a Quora question on your website, and then drop an excerpt on the platform.

 Pheed

Pheed could easily be the “phuture” of social media as lots of people are using it, and it seems to skew young. It has a lot of similarities to Twitter, but with a larger focus on multimedia.  It also has upgrade options that allow users to pay for access to premium content. It’s almost like cable television for the Internet if you could own a TV station. But Pheed is not my cup of tea — it uses lots of shortcut symbols that I don’t understand — maybe I’m too old.

• Host a premium live event:  This can be a great supplement to a free event.  Offer “backstage access” through Pheed.  The access fee makes you some money and creates an exclusivity vibe that makes your event seem cooler than it probably is.
• Webisodes:  Share video vignettes that are tied together with some running narrative.  Perhaps, if you sell chicken nuggets, it could be a nugget-filled soap opera.  Or a Day in the Life of Mr. Nugget.
• Use a premium channel for coupons and special deals:  People are happy to pay for a good deal.  If you can offer the community significant savings or freebies, then consider creating a premium channel where users pay a monthly fee for exclusive deals.

 Snapchat

Snapchat offers a lot more than just fancy sexting. It combines the speed of texting with the visual fun of whatever’s around you at any given moment, or your best attempt at a funny face. The platform has an active and mostly young user base — perhaps making it the future of digital communication.  But few brands are doing anything on Snapchat, which creates opportunity for you to be a trailblazer.

• Snapchat coupons:  Use Snapchat to deliver self-expiring coupons, redeemable by opening the Snap in-store.  Users won’t know what they’re getting, unless they have a Snap-saving app that kills the suspense.  Each coupon could include two deals: a surprise deal redeemable by opening the Snap at the register, and a consolation deal redeemable with a screenshot.
• Tell stories:  Why spend money on a fancy TV commercial when you can deliver the same message through a series of Snaps, and for a lot less?  The platform’s new “Stories” feature allows people to share many clips in a row.  Let the creative director in you run wild!
• Get celebrities involved:  Do you have a celebrity spokesperson or are you in negotiations with one?  If so, make sure they’re Snapchatting.  Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to receive Snaps from Justin Timberlake himself?  And if he happens to Snap himself drinking a refreshing Pepsi from time to time, so be it.

 Whisper

The founders of Whisper basically noticed that social media was too positive, and they set out to create a way for people to share the grim truth. While many of the secrets shared on the platform are on the depressing side, it’s evolving into a great platform for anonymous sharing, which is something that Twitter and Facebook don’t offer.  It also has a “Nearby” feature – this could be a great opportunity for local businesses.

• Start a rumor:  Releasing a super-secret product soon?  Announcing a big hire?  Maybe drop some hints through Whisper.  For instance, Xbox could have revealed product features through Whispers containing official, top-secret product photos with text overlays.  Let people wonder if the Whispers are part of a crafty PR stunt, or merely from some teenagers messing around.
• Create content:  Does your product offer a solution or can your company relate to customers’ anguish? Popular Whispers likely shed light on a shared sentiment. Save relevant Whispers, and use them to inform your next blog post or other content effort.
• Local announcements:  Tap into Whisper’s “Nearby” feature to promote your event. For example, did your freezer break and you’re giving away free ice cream to anyone who stops by?  Use Whispers to get the word out!

 Fiverr

Fiverr offers any service you could possibly imagine for only $5. For that reason, it can add a lot of fun and creativity to your social campaigns, and is a great option for outsourcing content creation. It’s like the Subway “footlong” of digital marketing. Speaking of food, Hungry Jack’s (Burger King in Australia) has used it to create a commercial.

• Content:  If you’re a brand on a budget, you don’t have to worry as Fiverr is cheap. Trying to produce a YouTube video? Get all the elements for it from people on Fiverr. You can even hire a Fiverr to edit it all together for you.
• Ideation:  Not sure what to do for your next marketing promotion or content effort?  Need some inspiration?  Browse Fiverr for interesting offers, and find something that would work for your brand.  Maybe you didn’t realize you could use a hula-hooping bikini girl simply because you didn’t know she existed.  Now you do.  Put her to work!
• Pimp out your spokesperson:  If you have a celebrity to do your bidding, why not lease them out for $5 a pop?  Put Neil Patrick Harris in a Dr. Pepper t-shirt and sign him up for a gig to record a video greeting written by the purchaser.

Tonight, as you get ready to “settle your brain for a long winter’s nap,” give some thought to how you might broaden your social media efforts and try something new. Remember, there’s more out there than Facebook and Twitter, and you could be missing out on some great opportunities!

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!” Happy Holidays!

What are some of the newer social platforms you have experimented with? Share what worked and what didn’t! What social platforms do you want to try in 2014 and why?

The post Social Media Marketing: Go Beyond Facebook & Twitter! appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Consultant: “Well, what’s your social media budget?”

Client: “I don’t have one.”

Consultant: “Hmmm… How big is your social media team?”

Client: “It’s just me.”

Consultant: “That’s why you only have 15 likes.”

Part of me would like to tell people like this to just give it up already. But the reality is that many individuals are facing the same problem: they are responsible for social media, but they have no resources for it. Yet these one-person, no-budget, “social media teams” keep at it.

Why are some working against the odds in the first place?  Because management often thinks that social should be free or really cheap, so they don’t invest in it. These captains of industry haven’t figured out that in order to get the kind of results they are looking for, they need to support social with some resources (just like they do for all their other channels). Ironically, they tend to forget about their lack of investment, and wonder why their social efforts are a dismal failure.

That’s not to say you need big bucks to create social media success – you don’t. I’ve seen some impressive results achieved with modest budgets. There are always things you can do to stretch your social media budget further. But expectations should be adjusted to correlate with the level of investment in both budget as well as staffing.

If you are a one-person, social media team struggling with little to no budget, or just looking to get social done on the cheap, the tips below are for you!

#1. Before you do anything else, determine your strategy

Strategy is always important in any marketing endeavor, and I’ve talked before about how it’s often overlooked when it comes to social media. If you’ve got a lot of money to waste, then maybe it’s not such a big deal. Clearly, the brands below didn’t bother to develop a social media strategy. But if you only have a couple nickels and a pile of pocket lint to your name, then strategy is a must-do first step.

For starters, it’s important to know what you want to accomplish from social media. It will allow you to focus what little resources you have on setting your goals and achieving them. For instance, if you are interested in getting likes, think about what kind of likes you hope to receive, why those likes have a business value for you, and what you’ll do with them after you get them.  Otherwise, social media will be a waste of time.

And chances are you probably don’t have a lot of time for social media to begin with. In fact, if you represent the total social media team, just keeping up with several different social networks can often seem like an impossible task. Knowing what you want out of the channel will help you prioritize your efforts and save time. It can even help you decide which social networks to sacrifice if needed. For example, let’s say you have no time for Tumblr this week. If Pinterest is better suited to deliver on your goals, why bother with Tumblr in the first place? Put what little time you have into Pinterest!

If you create a strategy with clear goals, then you can rely on one or two networks to get the job done, and not spread yourself so thin. But it’s important to choose your social networks wisely. Knowing which social networks are best aligned with your target audience is half the battle. The infographic below provides a good general summary of social media demographics.

Of course, it would be great to have some resources, right?  Well, if you can show ROI for your social media efforts, then maybe you can convince the boss to give you some.  But to do that, you’ll need to have goals and a strategy built around achieving them.

#2. Put some efficiency into your process

Maybe you don’t have a process.  That’s understandable – you probably don’t have time for one.  You just tweet when you have the chance. Well, it’s time to fix that.  Establish a process ASAP.  Simply schedule a time each day that is dedicated to routine social media maintenance.

The great thing about doing something regularly is that you tend to get better at it.  You’ll find natural efficiencies, and come to develop certain instincts about what works and what doesn’t.  You’re effectively training yourself through familiarization.  For example, the more you use Google+, the more you’ll understand the crazy interface and then it won’t take you as long to check out a few Communities and make some meaningful posts.  Let social media become second nature to you – call it social media muscle memory.

Tools will help boost the efficiency of your social media efforts. There are many free or inexpensive tools on the Web that can streamline your process, especially in regard to using the channel for listening. Google Alerts, Hootsuite and IFTTT are great tools for monitoring key terms and alerting you to take action. There are also tools like Twuffer that allow you to schedule updates. They let you make posts around the clock without having to work around the clock!

But be careful about automating posts.  Be sure to proofread them and never automate responses to users. Learn from the Dominos mistake below.

The smartphone is the greatest tool today to aid your social media process. Mobile social media apps allow you to easily post to any platform from anywhere, and receive important notifications right on your phone. Thanks to smartphone technology, you can get a social media alert and respond to it immediately. Spend some time setting it up to work well for your purposes. Add the appropriate apps, place shortcuts where you can easily find them, and customize your notifications so you’re not bombarded with meaningless updates.

#3. Develop quality content efficiently

Tweeting can be hard work. If you tweet multiple times a day, every day, you could be writing the equivalent of a short novel each year.  And that’s just the text.  But sometimes your audience might demand additional content, like images and video. While such content is highly engaging, it can be difficult and expensive to produce, especially when you have little to no budget or staff.

If you can get your hands on a few dollars, you might want to consider crowdsourcing content creation. It can help you efficiently put many people to work creating your material. With even a small budget, you can use a service like 99designs to make fun graphics to share with your followers.  Or use Text-Broker to generate enough tweets so you don’t waste hours of your own time trying to come up with something pithy.

But if you have zero budget dollars, you still have options! Try Animoto for easy video creation, and find free images on Flickr or Wikimedia Commons.  And be sure to leverage the free video and photo editing apps available today, like Snapseed.

But if none of these options work for you, don’t fret.  With any luck you’re already sitting on tons of content that is just waiting to be repurposed.  Take inventory of the material you have to work with, but keep in mind that it may not all be digital. Be sure to include content in the form of brochures, product descriptions, product images, company memos, customer thank you notes, etc.

#4. Get the word out

Spending millions of dollars on Facebook can easily get you a handful of likes.  But if you don’t have the funds, you’ll need another means. Your employee base is the first place you should turn. Employees are an untapped resource you can use to greatly expand your social efforts. Turn them into brand evangelists! Encouraging them to amplify your social media presence is a great start to an inexpensive promotion.

Your customers can also help you get the word out. Since these people do business with you, chances are they like the company, and they would be willing to engage with it in the social sphere. Considering that, be sure to remind them about your social presence. For instance, let them know about your Google+ page when you send out your next email blast.

A burgeoning online community would be the best way to get the word out, but building one without an advertising budget can be difficult.  Fortunately, plenty of communities already exist.  Consider joining a few instead of focusing on building your own.  But keep in mind that these communities don’t want you to spam them.  You’ll have to put in some time to learn their ways and how you can best provide value to the community.  I highly suggest you give Reddit a shot.

Build upon your successes, no matter how small

It would be great if you had the budget and staff you needed to make social media a big hit at your company. But don’t get disheartened by the lack of either or both. Remember to build upon your successes, no matter how small. If you can create social media success without a budget, then you should easily be able to knock it out of the park when you finally get one!

Are you doing social media with little to no budget? How have you done social on the cheap? Share your success tips here.

The post No Budget Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Like it or not, social media is about popularity contests — that which is popular is shared, and consequently, discovered.

Because of that, many brands approach the channel as a mere numbers game. Rather than focusing on content that will deliver the best user experience, they push material that will generate the biggest engagement numbers. This thinking makes me want to scream at times!

Creepy?

Unfortunately, the popularity contest driven climate of social media has caused many brands to rely on some shallow tactics.

Just like candidates on the campaign trail, brands are out stumping in hopes of winning our votes in the form of likes and tweets. They shamelessly play the social media game with obvious pandering — using shallow, transparent, and contrived tactics to win the popularity contest.

Worst still, some of these approaches are kind of creepy – they are designed to prey upon our ego, need for attention, and other human traits.  In other words, brands pander to our weaknesses in order to win our hearts, minds, and money.

Yikes! Watch Where You “Stoop”!

But resorting to such tactics only makes brands look like they’re playing the “lame game” instead.  In fact, there’s a great Facebook page that lampoons brands for their weak efforts. It highlights popular “winning” tweets such as “Retweet if you love bunnies!” and “Long weekend ahead. What’s your plan?”

In the same way, brands also pander to their audience with “ego-baiting.” This tactic allows them to capitalize on the human need to show-off.  The use of brain teasers is a good example of this. Brands post such challenges, but they make the puzzle easy so they can stroke followers’ egos! After all, they don’t want to make them feel stupid — we humans are vain and fragile creatures!

But many brands are willing to stoop much lower  – they turn to pop culture! The fact that a trending topic has zero relevance to their brand is of little concern to them. Their approach seems to be if you really want to boost your brand engagement metrics, take whatever dumb fad you just heard about and relate your product to it in a totally meaningless way! And it’s okay if you’re four years late to the party — you’ll score nostalgia points!

You’ve Been Warned!

While such tactics are shallow, they are also considered effective. So, who can blame marketers for using them if they actually produce results–especially since it’s the users who reward and encourage brands by engaging with such trite content in the first place.

Courtney Seiter of Raven Tools refers to some of these shallow tactics as “Yellow Light Social Media” – they can be effective when done right, but potentially damaging if you fail or miss the mark.

I agree with her assessment, but recommend they be used with caution. It seems that failing isn’t scary enough for some brands. That’s because they don’t perceive the risk for serious damage, so they aren’t motivated to use these tactics in a dignified manner. From their perspective, a best case scenario would get them a bunch of random engagement. In a worst case scenario, they get a handful of random engagement and maybe one jerk calling them out for it.

Monsters, Zombies, and Pop-Tarts, Oh My!

If you want to get more out of your social media efforts, be original and relevant. That’s all it takes. You don’t have to knock it out of the graveyard with every tweet. Just have something original to say/share that is somewhat relevant. A little honesty helps too – it can help to humanize your brand .

When you see true social media success, you may notice some of these tactics at play. For example, while Old Spice was definitely pandering and ego-baiting with its hugely successful campaign — The Man Your Man Could Smell Like —  they did it in an original way that was relevant to the brand’s personality.

Pop-Tarts plays the social media game too, but they do it their own way by adding cute drawings for their fans to enjoy. Some might think they’re wasting their time, money, and effort; however, they are mostly likely fostering a lot of quality engagement. Remember, if you make a commitment to provide quality original content to your fans — without being patronizing or desperate – you’ll reap great rewards, as the engagement you get will be far more memorable and meaningful.

Freaked Out? Here’s 5 Tips to Do Social Right!

If you want to foster better engagement and get more value from your social media, follow some of the tips below:

1. Stay away from generic messages. When you want to say how great summer is, you can do a better job than “Summer is so great!” If you find yourself writing a message that any brand in the world could get away with posting, then it isn’t right for your brand. Add your voice to the message. “Sweet chunky monkey! Summer is here and we sell ICE CREAM! This is our moment!”
2. Make challenges challenging. If you want your fans to play with you, give them a game worth playing – something that really engages them. But remember that on Facebook, everyone is going to see the correct answer to a question in the first comment, so it might be best to keep it on Twitter instead. Or better yet, why not send your fans on a challenging scavenger hunt, and get some user-generated content and photos in the process?
3. Give away stuff. You sell stuff. Chances are that your fans like you because they like the stuff you sell. You can turn them into brand advocates by giving them some free stuff. And if they don’t like your stuff, then why did you waste money buying these followers in the first place?
4. Think visually. Sure, you can Hipster-filter an image and throw some text on top of it, but it still looks weird. You need to invest in content production beyond text. Be mindful that the Web is a multi-media channel —  you also need to be producing quality original graphics and videos.
5. Avoid pop culture. Everyone is talking about Miley Cyrus because they have nothing better to do. That spells opportunity — give them something better to do! Don’t be a part of the “circletwerk” — we don’t need another brand parroting what everyone else is already saying. Unless you have an original perspective or some interesting content to add to the discussion, stay away from it! “Retweet if you also saw that thing that everyone saw” doesn’t cut it.

Don’t Be Lame

You can ignore all my advice and still kill it in social media as generic messages with no creativity actually work. But, they also make your brand look pretty lame. This is bad. Instead, make an effort to be smart, original, and creative, and use social to generate some real engagement with your audience.

Do you think popularity rules social media? Do you find yourself howling with laughter at some brands’ weak efforts? Got any social media tips to help brands avoid being lame?

The post The Scary Side of Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Unfortunately, none of these scenarios are happening very often at most organizations. And it represents a huge missed opportunity in social media.

Understanding the problem

Businesses everywhere are making the same social media mistake: they are failing to leverage their employee base to amplify their social media efforts.

Have businesses entirely missed the boat on this? Yes! They have this incredible resource at their fingertips, but fail to capitalize on it. Somehow, they are oblivious to the fact that every employee has the potential to be a brand ambassador, and that each one represents an extended network.

What makes the situation even more amazing is the fact that many brands drop serious money on social media advertising to fuel their success, yet they don’t capitalize on the employees who are easily within their reach.

Why is this happening?

Many organizations rush into social media without even a basic strategy in place, so it’s hardly surprising that they are overlooking the opportunity to involve their own employees in their social media efforts. But what’s behind their blindness?

Part of the problem is that in most organizations, social media is an isolated endeavor — usually associated with the marketing department. This type of structure is inherently limiting. It reinforces the notion that social media is a promotional activity and “someone else’s job.”

The key to change

With a little investment, corporations can easily make employees the cornerstone of their social media efforts. But to do so, they should embrace social media at the corporate level. Ideally, they should make it part of their culture.

Fostering a social media friendly workplace will encourage employees to participate in the conversation happening online in their professional capacity. Doing so will not only extend the brand’s reach, but also contribute to the development of employees.

But keep in mind that some key people in your organization may not be as knowledgeable — or enthusiastic — about social media as others. To avoid alienating them, consider a reverse mentoring program that pairs-up veteran executives with junior employees with social media skills. They both will get a lot from the experience.

5 Tips to get started

Below are a few tips to help your organization tap into its employees to boost its social media efforts:

1. Assess employee social media knowledge

To best leverage your employees to amplify your corporate social efforts, you first need to find out what they know about social media. Conducting a social media knowledge survey can be a good place to start.

Your survey should begin with baseline multiple-choice questions about various social platforms, such as “How many characters can a tweet contain?” or “What’s the best way to use LinkedIn?” or “What is a subreddit?” Then progress to more advanced inquiries.

Ask subjective questions as well, such as “How often do you use Tumblr?” or “Have you liked the brand’s page on Facebook?” And include open-ended questions too. For example, if your employees aren’t following you on Twitter, you might gain some insights from a “Why or why not?” follow up question.

Ensure that employees can respond to the survey anonymously, and strive for 100% participation – no executive exemptions! Remember, it is critical to gain an understanding of the knowledge base across ALL levels of the organization.

2. Teach them a thing or two about social

The findings from your social media knowledge survey should tell you a lot about the state of social media at your organization. It will also help you identify knowledge gaps so you can develop various training programs.

As you put together some options, work with an industry expert and strive to develop a curriculum that meets the different needs of your audiences. For instance, be mindful that not all employees encounter social media as part of their daily work.  In fact, not all employees are even expected to be able to use the Internet proficiently. But taking some time to teach employees these skills will help them and your organization too.

In addition, expect some resistance. Believe it or not, some employees might be fearful and/or suspect of social media. Remember, this is a common reaction to the unknown. Be encouraging and try to reduce their fear. Helping employees demonstrate their knowledge and expertise usually helps them overcome their apprehension.

3. Cultivate a social media friendly workplace

Embracing social media at the corporate level can really kick-up employee participation. But the shift won’t happen overnight – it’ll take some cultivation. Encouraging departments to take some time out each week for some social media fun in a group setting can be helpful.

For example, some colleagues and I started up a Twitter chat called #SEOpub that happens every Wednesday from 3:00 to 4:00pm ET. Those of us at the office participating in the chat often grab a conference room – and maybe some milkshakes too — and put on some music while we discuss SEO with people all over the world via Twitter.

The chat itself is industry-focused, which allows us to engage in the discipline outside of the limited view of client work.  However, I’ve noticed an interesting side effect:  many of the employees who participate in the chat, but who were not previously active on Twitter, have started using the social network far more often, and not just for the weekly chat.  It seems a little positive peer pressure and camaraderie could be a great way to involve those in your organization who might ask, “Why do I need to tweet?

4. Communicate

Getting employees in your organization to embrace social media takes more than training. To be successful, you’ll need to communicate regularly and with various means.

For instance, do your employees know about the company Twitter handle? Well, did you ever tell them about it?  Simply add a “Follow us on Twitter” to your CEO’s regular company-wide emails.

Or maybe put social media in the spotlight at your next company meeting by including shout-outs to folks for their recent social efforts.

You can even use social media to communicate…get this….socially! Tweeting a “Nice job on that TPS report” or other encouragements as public recognition for a job well done is a great motivator. Just don’t assign work tasks via Tumblr asks.

5. Set ground rules

Sometimes employees are simply afraid to blur the lines of personal and professional on social media, so they avoid it. For instance, if an employee doesn’t know whether their online actions are “okay” from a corporate perspective, they may be reluctant to share a company blog posts or include their job title on their profile. But having a social media policy can help mitigate this fear and encourage employee participation.

A good social media policy clearly outlines the organization’s rules and expectations, along with consequences for employees. It is also shared with staff on a regular basis. That way, employees know what behavior they’re expected to have online, and the risks if they don’t abide by the policy.

Try to create a social media policy that is unambiguous and encourages personal expression. But remember, the more legal mumbo jumbo in it, the more your employees will avoid revealing their professional identity online.  At the same time, the “don’ts” should be clearly listed out, no matter how obvious they may seem.  Talk to your legal team, but try to give your employees as much freedom as you can.  After all, you don’t want them to just shut down online — that won’t do anything for you.

Don’t be oblivious

More and more organizations are spending lots of time and resources on social media every day. Yet they seem oblivious to the key element that can impact their success the most: their employee base! The organizations that figure out how to use this important resource will surely gain a competitive advantage. Is your organization tapping into its employees to boost its social efforts? If so, how? If not, why?

The post The Biggest Missed Opportunity in Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Social media has been the next big thing for several years. And now brands just like Kate’s are increasingly throwing lots and lots of money at it. And why not? It’s become quite popular.

Unfortunately though, most of their investment is going down the drain. Why? Because many brands treat social media like a shiny new toy:  it’s different, fun to play with, and most importantly, everyone else has one.

But the problem is that social media rarely has any strategy or business purpose behind it. (Hint: getting as many Facebook likes as humanly possible is not a social media strategy!) As a result, social media typically benefits nothing more than corporate vanity.

In many ways, social media has become the latest status symbol for brands. Seemingly obsessed with their mission to achieve social media success, brands continually try to outdo their competitors and maintain their social media “top dog” position.

Ignorance Drives Fear and Desperation

This mentality forces brands to throw the kitchen sink at social media while completely bypassing strategy.

Why is this happening? It might simply be ignorance. Many brands do not really understand social media. And because they are so busy trying to achieve social media fame, they really don’t have time to step back and learn about its true power.

Their lack of understanding often produces an underlying fear that leads to desperation. All they know is that the competition is doing it, so they damn well better do it too. More often than not, their pursuit is fueled by some executive rant: “Gobias Industries has one million Twitter followers and we only have 30,000!  This is an outrage!!!” This mentality forces brands to throw the kitchen sink at social media while completely bypassing strategy.

It also creates false pressures. In their quest to achieve social media fame, brands tend to latch-on to certain success metrics, such as Facebook likes or Twitter followers. Some even use these metrics to assess the individual performance of brand managers, and require them to achieve some arbitrary number.

Understandably, those interested in job security often interpret the KPI as “You need to acquire 500,000 Facebook likes this year, or you’re fired!”  How exactly is a brand manager supposed to get 500,000 likes?  Are there really that many people excited about dishwashing liquid?  Probably not. But somehow management overlooks that.

Consequently, brands have to reach as broadly as possible in order to hit those numbers. Instead of defining a strategy to reach their target demographic, most resort to running Facebook Ads or giveaways. In other words, they basically bribe people to like them.

The Irony of it All

What brands fail to realize is that this approach isn’t going to build a very loyal following. In fact, when your social media audience is full of people who don’t actually care about your brand, they’ll easily get annoyed when you post an update, and quickly defect.

Social media teams are soon reluctant to post anything at all, never mind something promotional. A manager at a social media agency summed it up best: “Every time we tweet, we lose four followers.” Apparently, brands are spending a tremendous amount of time and money to build a massive audience, but avoid communicating with it for fear of losing it.

The Key to Making Social Media Pay Off

If you want your social media efforts to pay off, you need to realize that it is a marketing channel,  not a shiny new toy.

If the above approach sounds familiar, you need to take a step back and ask yourself WHY you want these likes or followers in the first place. Besides having more than your competitors, what’s your objective? If you don’t know, that’s not a good sign. You should have a clear answer, just as you would for any other media channel.

For example, you wouldn’t advertise during the Super Bowl just because the number of viewers is huge. You’d be looking to get a return on your big investment. To do so, you’d still need to have  a message and a clear objective. That’s where real strategy comes into play, and where many social media experts are dropping the ball.

If you want your social media efforts to pay off, you need to realize that it is a marketing channel, not a shiny new toy. Given that, it should be held to the same standards as other media channels. That means it’s time to have an actual marketing strategy for your social media channel, and think about how it fits into your purchase funnel.

5 Ways to Build Your Social Media Strategy

An effective strategy is defined by clear objectives and measurable goals. Below are five objectives you can use to help support your social media strategy:

Awareness

If you want to create awareness, social media can definitely help. However, it can be tricky in this realm as it usually means intruding and putting yourself where you aren’t wanted. Typically, it is achieved with the various promoted options available on social media platforms, such as Sponsored Stories or Promoted Tweets.

Other non-paid tactics for generating awareness via social media include hijacking trending topics, a.k.a. news-jacking. Or joining a relevant group, like Google communities, and becoming a valuable member.

While the efficacy of these tactics varies, you can improve their chance of success by putting some strategic thought into them. Who are you targeting with your social advertising?  If you’re running a social media based contest, is it going to draw the right eyeballs for your brand?  Does your tweet on a trending topic add to the conversation?

Consideration

Social media has some serious power in the consideration step of the conversion funnel because it can help you build social trust in a variety of ways.

While people don’t usually decide which brand to purchase based on who has the most Twitter followers, your Twitter presence could help them make a decision. For example, it influences me when I book flight reservations. I know that airlines with an active customer service presence on Twitter will be much easier to deal with should anything go wrong.

Brand trust is also achieved via online reviews as many people ask their family and friends for suggestions before making a purchase decision. We even factor in strangers’ opinions!  Such reviews can be extremely helpful to people in the research phase. Given that, strive to use social media to help cultivate reviews and word-of-mouth (which touches on advocacy – something we’ll get to later), and put your brand in the best possible light.

You can also build social trust by using your social media profiles to showcase product features that put you ahead of your competitors. For example, Samsung Mobile uses their Facebook photos to highlight many of its phones’ features. While these mostly go to current fans of Samsung, it still provides powerful visuals for someone researching the brand. And social activity on these photos could expand their reach far beyond Samsung’s audience.

Pulling in the social trust factor is important. Be sure to put a Like Button on your homepage (or every page) that displays a user’s friends who already like the brand. Use social media plug-ins to enhance the consideration power of your website and product pages.

Conversion

By now you’ve probably heard the claim that social media can’t convert. But don’t believe it! You CAN use social media to convert. Here’s a simple example of exactly how:

I saw this tweet from @BurgerKing: “How many soft serve cones can you carry? They are only 50cents!”

So, I left the office and walked over a block to grab one. (It was hot out, and the cone was cheap!) Clearly, BK’s social media effort drove that conversion.

Sure, it can be difficult to tie the social media effort to the conversion, but it’s not impossible. One way to do so is to plan to use special codes or printable (or smartphone) coupons in your social media promotions. Even a simple “mention Facebook and get X% off” initiative can be tracked at the register.

You can also drive conversions through social media by monitoring the chatter online. For instance, people love to complain about all kinds of personal problems on Twitter, and it could spark ideas for new marketing efforts. Who knows, maybe it was people complaining about the heat that spurred the Burger King ice cream cone promotion.

As you listen to the conversation, keep in mind that your product solves a problem (hopefully). For example, let’s say you sell shoes. Do a Twitter search for “need new shoes” in New York City. Now you just tweet your store’s address at these people, and maybe offer them a small discount. They need new shoes. You sell new shoes. No need to go door-to-door. Instead, just monitor Twitter to boost conversion.

And speaking of Twitter, these new Lead Generation Cards could be a game-changer for social media conversions.

Loyalty

To truly foster loyalty with social media, strive to create meaningful engagement points and provide ongoing service to users.

Social media experts love this goal. Why? Because it’s a catchall for pretty much everything they do. It can also help them mask the fact they have no real strategy.

From their perspective, every retweet, like, mention, follow – or whatever — counts as loyalty!  It doesn’t matter the context. It doesn’t matter what comes of it, or what the message was. Their claim is that this was a brand engagement, and therefore, the customer has loyalty to the brand now!

But do they really? If you tweet a cat meme and I retweet it, that just means I’m loyal to cat memes. Your brand may not even be on my mind at all. And if I do associate it with cat memes, what good does that do?  Well, if you sell kitty litter, maybe it does a lot of good. But if you sell people deodorant… maybe not so much.

To truly foster loyalty with social media, strive to create meaningful engagement points and provide ongoing service to users. For instance, a car manufacturer could let people sign-up for important maintenance reminder tweets, or a makeup company could send out free samples of new products to its Facebook fans.

Advocacy

Considered the Holy Grail of social media, advocacy can really help you multiply the return on your efforts. It takes all of the above to a new audience and leads to word-of-mouth, online and offline.

Considering that, you should make achieving advocacy a core component in your social media strategy. Always be thinking: How can I encourage advocacy?  How can I make it easy for users to advocate for my brand?  How can I provide a service that is so good that people will want to talk about it?  This mindset will help guide you.

So what tactics can you use to achieve advocacy with social media?

• Give them what they want: Creating valuable and easily shareable content can boost advocacy. This can be achieved in various ways, such as simply posting product feature photos on your Facebook page.
• Keep it relevant: Your engagement points should be relevant and add value. Before you tweet that cat meme, think about whether it will result in brand advocacy. “You should definitely buy a Honda — they tweet funny pictures!” said nobody, ever.  
• Show you care: Having a responsive customer service presence in social media can add a human element to your brand, build trust, and improve customer satisfaction.
• Be generous: Rewarding people with some social media acknowledgement can make them feel valued, and in turn, increase advocacy. Give users positive feedback when they actually do what you want them to, and you’ll condition them to do it more often. For instance, I love fried chicken – from a variety of restaurants — but I tend to tweet about KFC more often because I know they’ll respond, and maybe even retweet me.

Get Serious With Social Media

What’s more important to you: Using social media to accumulate more likes than your competitors? Or actually making social media pay off?  It’s time to stop wasting money on meaningless likes, and start getting serious with social media. That means having an actual marketing strategy. Only then will you be able to effectively use social media to achieve business objectives. Otherwise, that massive audience you’ve gathered is just a big, fat waste of time and money.

What’s your approach to social media – do you have a strategy? Is your social media strategy paying off for you beyond meaningless metrics?  

The post Social Media: Why it’s a Big Fat Waste of Time and Money! appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

]]>