I am kicking off my second week of growing Spredfast’s professional services offerings to drive customer success and reduce time to value.  It is a perfect fit for me – I’ve spent the last 10 years in roles on both the brand (Dell) and the consulting (Ogilvy) side helping organizations adopt Word of Mouth Marketing and, later, social in a way that makes sense strategically and can be executed well tactically.   Early in the journey, my time was spent was spent convincing organizations that they needed to start listening and get involved.  Later on, the bulk of my work progressed to actually putting together well-organized corporate presences and campaigns while, in many cases, cleaning up some social media driftwood cluttering the ecosystem.  In the last year, however, we have seen complexity explode.  Now instead of simply trying to stem social voice proliferation, we see strategies where the whole company can truly benefit from more and more parts of the organization being heard.  But how can you manage a proliferation of voices – Continents, Countries, Brands, Products, Regions, States, Reps – and NOT confuse the customers who want to find us in their social spaces?

That’s why I’m here.  2012 is the year to tackle this complexity at scale and Social Media Management Systems (great Altimeter review on the space here) will play a critical role for those organizations serious about being able to get a handle on their social footprint – from governance to real time, rolled up analytics – and be able to prove that they are making progress against social business goals.  Getting to that point, however, takes more than great technology configured correctly.  It takes clear articulation of goals, KPIs and strategy.  It takes savvy understanding of organizational dynamics.  And perhaps most challenging – it requires behavior change.   That’s when the fun begins.

As our journey progresses and my knowledge grows about traits of those brands successfully scaling the social business hill, I’ll update this space with some of the broadly applicable lessons.  I hope you’ll join in – “network learning” will get us all further faster.

Image by John Moore @brandautopsy

On a panel last week for a WOMMA event at Chicago’s Social Media Week, I had the pleasure of sitting with Keller Fay’s Ed Keller, Brains on Fire’s Robbin Phillips, and Social Media Today’s Robin Carey to discuss social media measurement under the heading of “Is WOM worth it?”.  In the context of that discussion, I talked about the siren song of social media counting (vs. measurement) and the trap that we too-frequently see: social media “cases” that end by rattling off 20 different social media metrics that do not track to a meaningful business metric.  To illustrate, I mentioned that no CEO is not banging the table looking for more tweets (which BrandAutopsy riffed into the above), he’s looking for shareholder value – sales, market share, preference, purchase intent and a legion of other measures that can not be ripped off the back of Facebook insights.

So, with that in mind and the voices of my esteemed co-presenters in my head, I put together a list of 4 potential measurement pitfalls that can kill your social media measurement program before the horses have left the stable:

1) Setting the wrong objectives.  This sounds silly, but often an activity or “client brief” will be mis-translated as an objective.  For example, “run a high-impact event” is an activity, but “increase consideration and share of voice among X audience” attending that event is an objective.  TEST: Can it be measured?  If the answer is no, it isn’t an objective.

2) Determine the meaningful (vs. diagnostic) KPIs before you begin:  Chances are, meaningful KPI’s will require measurement techniques beyond simple, spoon-fed social media metrics like likes and shares.  Take a walk through our Conversation Impact(TM) white paper to determine how to craft meaningful Reach, Preference, or Action KPIs.

3) Find where your audience is interacting on a relevant topic: Yes, Facebook has 800 million people and likely some of them are in your desired “audience” but they may not be on Facebook to discuss their mother’s prescriptions or whatever topic that you may have value to add.  The important second step to “going where the party” is already happening is not just determining where your audience is, but how they are using social media for different things – where do they share recipes vs. look for snowboot recommendations?  While they could light up for FB, Twitter, Flickr, etc it will be critical to understand the relevance of those platforms to their lives to put together a measurable strategy.

4) Plan to measure: If you put together a measurement plan after you’ve already begun, you have lost your chance at a baseline and being able to know the true impact of your efforts.  Ed Keller admitted that he often gets calls halfway through campaigns at which point, there are limitations on the types of measurements that can be taken.  The baseline is going to be the key to your “winning” metric such as “Increased purchase consideration by 45%”.  That is the type of metric that CEOs do care about and will keep your social media efforts on strategy and in budget in 2012.

Archisand sculpts the Intel logo at BlogHer '11

Its been a long hot (hottest on record in Austin) summer and its nowhere close to over.

But it has been rich in experiences and inspiration.  The launch of Google+?  The fundamental change in the way we experience earthquakes and hurricanes due to social media?  Interesting enough to get me to follow @irene, but definitely not over the inspiration bar.

This summer, I have had a number of seemingly chance encounters with what I have come to know as “sandsculpting”.  It began when my best friend took her sand work on our annual beach trip just a bit more seriously this year – constructing the “Sand Turtle” still discussed by my 4 year old.  But I don’t think I consciously knew that sandsculpting a professional pursuit until it was out in force at BlogHer’11 (see above).

But it was not the beauty of the creations, but the reasons for pursuing sandsculpting that inspired me to find a renewed love of my own work.  In addition to doing their thing at BlogHer, Archisand had recently built a huge display of scenes from Sydney Harbor at the US Open of Surfing earlier in the week (Video Here).  A colleague who had spoken to them there told me their unofficial story. They were a group of talented architects who got burnt out on what they were using their talents on at work and started making extreme sand castles to blow off steam and flex their creativity.  Eventually some of them were able to turn it into a fiscally responsible pursuit.

This got me thinking about the limiting mindset that much of solid social strategy is “block and tackle”.  The relentless pursuit of relationship and connection can be tedious and exhausting – if we let it.  But good strategy doesn’t have to be “eating your wheaties” alone.  While the basics must be done, it is doing them beautifully that will inspire yourself and those around you.  I have found new inspiration in big, creative sandcastles of ideas (built on the firm base of solid strategy) and insodoing have reawakened my love of my own profession.

If your social strategy has been in motion for a year or more without a second opinion or a new shot of creativity, use your knowledge the weekend eyes of an architect to sandsculpt it into something new that re-inspires you and will be more likely to inspire your customers.

Listen to your compass, not your clock – When Andrea Jung was passed over for CEO of Avon in 19997, it made headlines.  She was offered 2 other CEO positions at other companies.  It would have been easy to feel slighted or embarrassed and hop companies to earn the next checkmark on her resume.  But Avon’s mission of economically empowering women inspires and connects with her.  And staying true to that compass is what laid the ground work for a more meaningful, long term success to flourish.

You can’t reinvent your company if you can’t reinvent yourself -After missing earnings and falling out of favor with Wall Street, Andrea knew she was at risk of being fired in a quarter or 2.  a coach advised her to “fire herself” and walk in the next day as if it was her first day at a new job.  She could then approach and assess the company’s situation with fresh eyes and energy and start anew.

Proceed ethically – As Thomas Jefferson, “In matters of style, swim with the current.  In matters of principle, stand like a rock.”  So many business leaders have found themselves at the core of corporate scandal.  They tend to be shorter lived and their shareholder value returned far lower.

“Communities have never needed companies more” – Choosing to be in the private sector does not mean you are opting out of a live of service.  The public sector can not meet the needs of our country or the world – and it is up to corporate citizens to stand up and do their part for the benefit of all.

Prioritize, and be present – So many working parents are constantly making micro daily tradeoffs about family and work.  They are difficult and constant.  Prioritize, make your decisions and then drop the guilt.  Once you are in the most important place for you to be present, you owe it to your companions to fully be there.

So much of this has direct applicability to our little social media corner of the world:

• Because we’re moving so quickly, career focus often is on quick hops and ticking title boxes instead of finding a company, team, mentor, client, mission or purpose that gives you passion.  Once you’ve found that the rest will follow.
• The WOMMA ethics code is just one incarnation of a way to make sure you are swimming on the straight and narrow of the social media current.
• Social media has brought with it a massive case of divided attention syndrome.  The temptation to live tweet/Facebook/document your life instead of focusing on the humans around you is very strong!  Be present and see what happens…

The promise of Austin turning into Silicon Hills seemed optimistic even to a gullible college graduate, but I have to admit, it has pretty much come true exactly that way.  Stalwart tech hardware employers like Dell, AMD & Freescale spawned many of the entrepreneurs who went on to found & fund here in Austin launching companies like Bazaarvoice, HomeAway, & Spredfast to name a few.  And this success only attracted more like minds to the city.

Ogilvy doesn’t have a current physical office here and yet, you could say the whole city is our office.  We hold meetings at Shady Grove, Texas Honey Ham, learn about new companies at Dominican Joe’s and I can learn more about what is cracking in town at a barbecue or a shopping trip than I could in a month of conference calls.  Beyond the individuals who work for our company alone, we are part of a thriving community of like-minded social professionals who have chosen for one of a host of reasons to make Austin home.

In the words of Kate Neiderhoffer, Quality of life in Austin is simply higher than in the more fast-paced, cut-throat, nail-biting enclaves of the US. Austin is the perfect mix of intellect, athleticism, family-friendliness, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit. And like attracts like: this unique combination makes us the most ripe breeding ground for social business – thinkers and doers. You won’t believe the people you run into at Whole Foods headquarters… People often dream of moving to NYC. Living in today’s Austin makes me wonder whether people will soon dream of someday making it in Austin with the same tenacity.

The part that no one would could have predicted was the fact that beyond “tech”, Austin would attract and develop a huge amount of social business talent (maybe Silicon Hills was meant to become Social Hills).  I am proud to be part of the next phase of Austin’s growth and development into the World Social Business hub.  And I’m especially excited for the coming week – when the rest of the social practitioners from around the world join us for margaritas, inspiration, and a slice of the Austin experience at SXSW.  On behalf of all of us who have gone “all in” on social & Austin, Welcome Home.

This post part of a blog ring of social business leaders from around town, check the links below for the takes of:

Kathy Mandelstein, of IBM and Austin’s Social Media Club

Peter Kim, Dachis Group via Forrester

Aaron Strout, head of location based marketing for WCG and the “stroutmeister”

Greg “Chimoose” Matthews of WCG

“Turbo” Todd Watson of IBM

And brother Spike Jones, of Fleishman-Hillard

This being cross-posted from Ogilvy’s Fresh Influence blog.

Silos have long been bemoaned as preventing the optimization of everything from enterprise resource planning to cohesive customer experience.  If Phase 1 of corporate social media development is scattered maverick experimentation and Phase 2 is creating integrated strategy, chances are Phase 3 is likely defining silo-based roles & responsibilities.  For example, Corp Comm could own Facebook, Consumer Marketing owns Twitter,  Care runs branded communities, and Recruiting runs LinkedIn (although we often see platform ownership split by business unit focus in marketing as well) .  There is a very real reason for doing this.  Clear ownership assures great responsiveness and allow for organizations to get appropriate social staffing and funding approved.  It is also true that the different social platforms have different audiences and dynamics (what & how you share) that are likely more appropriate for one part of your org than another.  It is safe to assume that this is not going away…so let’s make it work.

Whenever you get to the point of splitting platform responsibility between different departments, you run the risk of creating a new set of silos.  6 months in, you may find your boss praising what you’re doing in LinkedIn and questioning the way Facebook is being run.  You may read something posted on Twitter and realize it would have been perfect for you to capture video around for the YouTube & Facebook audience if only you’d known!  Here are 5 suggestions to systematize collaboration and prevent those silo walls from re-growing around you:

1) Group Governance – If you are not installing a hierarchical leader over your distributed channel plan, we do recommend that governance over decisions like adding channels, brand voice, changing policies, or cross-platform initiatives be discussed at a cross functional steering committee.  This can successfully be done in a somewhat informal manner or highly formal group with a charter, etc.  But the discussion that these decisions will spark can create trust and shared understanding among the partners.  It is likely that your friends from legal and HR should be a part of this as well.

2) Share Measurement - As a platform manager, it is easy to dive a mile deep on your own metrics and have only a glancing understanding of anyone else’s.  Because metrics are guideposts to measure progress on a strategy, they are a great way to re-ground your colleagues in exactly the role your platform plays in your company’s success.  A monthly measurement snapshot that you put together with the rest of your council is a great way to share learnings, troubleshoot issues, and will create a great artifact to be circulated around the company or management team.

3) Collaborative Content Plannng - Managing a social platform means taming the beast’s insatiable hunger for content.  Content is gold and chances are, it is often appropriate across multiple channels.  By sharing conversation calendars – not just at the top of every month but as news happens and circumstances change will be the ultimate show of respect for your colleagues and the customer experience and will futher support the trust you are building.

4) Fight Social Silos with Internal Social Media - Beth Kanter wrote a great post on how silos impact non-profit social media where she expresses the social media mandate to be able to “Work Wikily“.  You may not be able to change your whole organization, but sharing your planning docs and measurement documents on a wiki, discussing ad hoc opportunities on Yammer, or even using a shared document platform to edit the next version of your employee policess help bake collaboration into your working group.

5) Evolve Together – The plan that you created in 2009 or 2010 may no longer be working or at the very least may have room for optimization.  Instead of firing suggestions over the wall, institutionalize evolution around your plan.  Quarterly meetings of your working group that are either offsite to at least lengthier will help you review progress and ask the tough questions about what needs to change and when.  Going through that process together can foster strategic discussion and veer away from channel analysis or criticism becoming a land grab.

Go forth and bust those silos for the good of your customer and your own career!  If you have other tools that you  have seen successfully work, please add in the comments.

Where’s all that stress?  Where’s my to do list with 25 urgent things for to attend to that allow me to NOT think about which are important or not.  The absence of the adrenaline-fueled fever pitch of activity can often create its own type of stress.

The opportunity is to not to absorb this time for regrouping as stress.  With some rest under your belt and a fresh outlook, take time to make a list of what is important to you – creating long term goals for a client project, capturing that experience you had as a training for colleagues, writing an abstract for an upcoming speaking opportunity, or a list of blog posts you’d like to research and write – and keep it next to your desk to attend to at any time you have a moment that is undirected.  If you have goals that those can ladder up to – so much the better.

This may help keep you on track and feel even more accomplished the next time the annual look back/look forward ritual takes place, but at the very least could reduce some of the anxiety around turning this particular calendar page.

Now, 5 years later and in a mainstream social age, very little inspires me to email something to a friend.  I might post something on Twitter to my work peeps or on Facebook to my more personal network of family, friends and colleagues, but very that I receive in my Gmail – largely for promotional e-commerce emails, would inspire me to email.

Austin’s own “Waxing Studio” sent an email a few weeks ago that bucks that trend.  The subject line read “Free Longhorn Vajazzle Only Through Saturday!” (I’m sad to say – the deal has expired).  There are so many things I love about this.  The silliness of that word, the false urgency of the timeline, and the concept of bedazzling lady parts with the University of Texas’ famed logo.

I almost snarfed my coffee.  I had to share the joy of this silliness with a few girlfriends.  Then with a few UT alums.  Then with some other WOM marketers (how inherently WOM-worthy is this?).  And goodness knows, it makes business sense as its an add on to their famous 15 minute Brazillian – their highest margin service by far.  By the time I was done, I had forwarded an email to 14 people.

Lo and behold, I did end up going to this local business during the time of this fantastic limited time offer and got to ask them about uptake.  While they had only had ONE taker to this offer, the sheer remarkability of the offer did spark a lot of long time clients to call and book (more boring) appointments.

This strikes me as akin to the restaurants that offer a $75lb hamburger or David Burke’s famed Lollipop Tower – you aren’t going to get rich selling them, but giving your customers something to talk about – and FORWARD – is priceless.

(Disclosure: Ogilvy is a Governing Member of WOMMA)

The folks at Whale Shark Media were kind enough to invite me to join the esteemed Dr. Kate Niederhoffer in engaging some of their partners around how to get the most out of social media.  This sounds like an average assignment right up until the moment that I tell you Whale Shark Media is “rollup” of affiliate sites like CheapStingyBargains, Deals.com and CouponShare and that everyone in the room was an affiliate channel manager in many cases not on their brand’s “social team”.   Not your typical day at the office, but who doesn’t love a challenge?

When I last touched affiliate marketing (providing special, limited time deals to coupon aggregators), it was a 100% siloed channel that the brand never pointed to for fear of cannibalizing their own channels.  This is actually very similar brick & mortar strategies of forcing outlet malls 20+ miles out of cities to not hurt the sales of their full-priced stalwarts.  Additionally, it was 100% transactional – no conversation or insights beyond what triggered transactions.

In preparation for today, I learned that social media has forever changed what it means to build a relationships with a brands deal seekers (who are not necessarily the same as your brand fans).   While there is a whole spectrum of approaches, Kate & I summed them up as follows:

Branded, but Separate: Some brands choose to host separate, branded presences laser-focused on deals.  Dell hosts both a separate “Dell Deals” Facebook fan page for limited-time deals on new systems and  @delloutlet for deals on refurbished equipment that rarely interact with the rest of their social footprint.  Similarly Gap has set up a separate @gapoutlet handle and Facebook fan page for the Gap Outlet brand.  These have the opportunity to not just spew deals, but create content about what their brands deal-seekers potentially care about – “promotions, ideas from our stylists and budget-wise tips” – even if that differs from the motivations of the rest of their buying audience.

Integrated with Primary Brand Presence: Retailer Best Buy has both @BestBuy and @BestBuy_Deals.  The Deals flavor hosts straight deals and no engagement (correctly stated in bio), but the difference  here is that @BestBuy will intermittently point to and promote what is happening in the Deals handle.  This only works if you are comfortable shining a light on your sweetest deals and nodding to the fact that we are all “deal-seekers” in the right context.

Deals Shared by Third Party Voices: The deal sites themselves also have a personality and a knowledge of their users to bring to the table.  Brands who create offers for deal sites and trust in the site’s ability to cultivate their community have much to gain in uptake on their deals.   Who wouldn’t want to chow down on this?

Stuff your face with greatness tonight! Print a coupon for free chips and queso from Chili’s here: http://bit.ly/bvrtrt (@cheapstingy)

As brands go farther and farther into social media and presences proliferate, the need for clear missions, roles and responsibilities will continue to heighten.  The fact that there is no sole “best practice” should be a call to experimentation and optimization for all.  Hopefully the challenge of mixing media aimed at different parts of the funnel will not hold it back.

If you’re interested in the “5 Traits” that we have identified, please check out this brief video of me walking through the explanation that Arun shared on his site: