Facebook icons are pretty dull and i don’t know about you, but I always struggle when looking for them for my any social media blogs or networks. I usually have to hit the streets searching for a hit of something naughty… just to get me through the painful proceedure of  having to endure such vapid designs for so long it would make the very angels weep blood.

So this time, i took a late high tea, some nice brown bread cucumber sandwiches and a vegan fairy cake to me dirty little den in the basement, and I began another grand quest …………….

“to find a slightly cooler looking Facebook icon that the typical basic blue ones, or those part of a cute collection with Twitter, Flickr and RSS ones that are out there!” and ok.. it was hard as designers just don’t seam to be that bothered with making cool ones, but i hope you (as the groovy social media incrowd) like what i found.

Now this is not a subject i would have taken on a few years ago, although after coming across numerous pitfalls during my time working  in social media, i have come to a number of conclusions.

a) Marketing and digital marketing are quite different, marketing people aren’t naturally technical

b) Digital marketing people aren’t naturally creative

c) Social media sits on the fence of these two skills and so the confusion has always been how each side adopts it

d) The shit storm commences …..

1) Run social networks as the client

This will normally happen if you have a client who is not sure about social media and well, just wants to try it out for as little money as possible. This type of approach might have worked for big brands, but it’s mostly smoke and mirrors, if it’s a clients account then someone who works for the client and who can answer company questions directly should be maintaining it.

Don’t -  Because it’s tedious, it’s wrong and it does not work

Do -  Set-up a twitter account or Facebook account and get all the aspects of any syndication sorted, give the client an understanding of pace and tone, but that is where the relationship must end. You can after a few months give them extra pointers and of course get involved in competitions and promotions via the accounts.

2) Charge for social media on a monthly retainer

Yes i mean it, agencies cannot run social media accounts for clients on a monthly retainer … why? because the very essence of social media is undermined by the very nature of this way of working. This approach gets so messy with clients paying for 2 days a month and then the social media department having to either struggle to get work done within that time, or having to frontload time for one month and being left with no time for the next two months to monitor the campaigns affects.. so let’s move on!!

Don’t – Think that social media will work within your current billing system of SEO and development

Do – Consider social media as a flexible service and invest in a new billing alternative

3) Working with a 3rd party agency on a social media campaign

When a 3rd party agency who have no real experience with social media other than “talking allot about Facebook applications” get’s involved, RUN… and I’m not exaggerating. You don’t want to be any where near that campaign when the shit (that you said you smelt in the beginning) hits the proverbial fan.

Don’t – Let the 3rd party convince the client that their vision is best until you are 100% that it is

Do – Have a meeting at the very start of the relationship to make sure you have all your skill sets defined before progressing any further. A bad idea is always a bad idea no matter how much you try and dress it up!

4) Confuse social media with SEO (pourquoi?)

OK…. lemme just say this once, If SEO and social media tried to get fruity with each other … it would be alot of dry humping but with no real satisfaction on either side. They are not the same species… don’t confuse them.

Don’t -  Call an SM an SEO, it’s upsetting to SEO’s who might thing social media is wanky old bollocks and social media people who think SEO’s are just spammy link heads

Do -Unlearn what you have learned and think of social media as PR and creative marketing

5) Think a social media expert is a magician

Most experts are well connected, after all if they aren’t, they are simply glorified link builders. But if those connections aren’t maintained or misused… then those connections will start to see you (the social media person ) as less of a friend and more of a spammer. A social media person or department needs time and a whole heap of it to maintain these relationships and build more. It is the old moral tale of links vs relationships.

Don’t – Make the mistake of asking the social media department to spam their contacts

Do – Give the new department time to develop new relationships and networks

6) Make every second of the social media departments time billable

A social media department or person, needs time… it is the most precious thing you can give them, and by time i don’t just mean the odd Friday afternoon or 1.34 to 2.15 on every second Tuesday in a month with an E in it. I mean 3 solid weeks back to back to build up a niche network, develop some awesome link bait or an entire two days out videoing content in the local town centre… TIME my friends is the life blood of social media.. it will die without it.

Don’t – Give the social media department strict deadlines as you would give then SEO team

Do – Give the social media department the time to do a better job even if half this time is not billed to the client

7) Don’t run their own social media as an example

This is again down to timing and this happens all over, if a company is promoting a product they should be an example of that product. I can understand with SEO it is a matter of battling against some pretty competitive keywords, but with social media we are merely talking about ‘doing it’ and adopting the principles of it, from making videos of colleagues talking about themselves to giving staff enough time to promote the business.

Don’t – talk about how wonderful social media is until your company is also adopting it in-house

Do – Give your staff the opportunity to express themselves and help build your brand via social networks

Sell it as a technical service instead of PR service

The only difference between the way a social media campaign is run and a PR campaign using social networks is run, is that the PR company can afford champange and oysters and the social media guys get a packed of hula hoops and a topic.

Don’t -Sell a service to the technical director of a company and then wonder why we cannot push on creative ventures

Do -  Promote the service to the head of marketing

9) Let clients dictate their social media campaigns

“Yes Mr client, you are absolutely right that using 3 days to find influential people who could market your business for you and help build your brand is ridiculous, lets start off with an hour a month and see where that takes us” ……….. (nowhere is the easy answer)

Don’t – Back down under pressure from a client who does not understand and limit social media campaigns possible impact

Do – Enforce the social message and make sure that you are talking to the right people

10) Think that social media analysis is a one stop shop!

The statistical side of social has been raised as the holy grail time and time again, but to be honest it’s not all that difficult. You simply find your goals and try to reach them… there are 100+ of free tools out there to help and yes they take time to plan and get right, but they work and they work well.

Don’t – Expect miracles within the first few months in the stats and expect it to work like SEO reporting

Do – Make time in a budget for a social media department to collate this data, take time to understand the processes and view the data in a more creative way

Well, if i haven’t lost you by now.. thanks for reading and i would love some feedback of what you would like digital agencies to consider… you don’t have to give your name so you won’t get into trouble x

Bye folks

Foursquare, for those that don’t know, is a location service-based social network-come-game and has been tipped at being the Twitter of 2010.

It sends you updates of where your friends are and what their tips on a certain cafe, bar or activity is, for example; try the soya latte it’s out of this world, or ‘don’t eat here, the waitress has crabs.

It’s like the love child of Google Latitude, Qype, Facebook and Twitter and also manages to squeeze in a points game system too. For me it has got my lazy ass out of the house, by offering cute badges from Newbie up to Superstar,and points that make me feel warm inside.

It also makes me Mayor of pretty bizarre places such as ‘my workplace bathroom’, ‘West Worthing station’ and cooler places like ’9 bar’ in Hove. It also makes it really easy to cheat, as it’s brand new and the geo targeting isnt exactly working yet, so you could be sat on your loo in Stratford and be “checking-in” that you are sipping cocktails in Soggy Dollar Bar in the British Virgin Islands.

Due to this glitch, i believe that Foursquare can be used for evil and i thought i would share a first hand account of this so that no one else has to suffer. Mr Flufflebums who was an earlier adopter of the Foursquare application, wanted to share this with you his experience and hopes that is will help others avoid going down this path to evil. (Will add the downloaded version later, this version takes a few ticks to start, it’s worth waiting we think)

GoAnimate.com: The dangers of using Foursquare by killerbunnie

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It’s free and fun!

If anyone has been affected by anything they have seen in this video, please download foursquare.com and become mayor of your own garage.

How companies go about turning influencers into advocates

Social media is basically anything online that enables conversations between people. Marketing within these realms should therefore be 100% focused on the individuals behind all of these conversations. This is very important and this is what alot of PR and marketing agencies are getting wrong.

Some of these indivduals are more influential than others, meaning that a message carried by them, has a much greater impact than one carried by another similar user. This might be a blogger, a facebook page administrator, a Twitterer, a forum poster, an established YouTube user, a Digg user or a Flickr account holder.

influencers given treats

But, the thing to remember about this is that it is all relative. Everyone online these days has influence in one way or another. Just because one Twitterer has 2,000 fans and another has 200, doesnt mean that the one with 2,000 has more of a voice. What is important is how trusted that voice is, and how many of those global followers are online at any one time. The same goes for a blogger, a video maker or a podcaster. Even if they have a small audience, it might be a very loyal audience, so this is something that you must keep in mind when considering your influencers.

DONT GET DISTRACTED BY THE NUMBERS!

So how do you find these influential individuals online? after all, social networks like Facebook have over 350 million users, so how do you find the ones that you need?

Influencers are given types in traditonal media so lets stick with these types to make it easier;

• Activists -these guys get involved most likey raise money for charities
• Connected – They have alot of followers, readers and fans
• Impact – They are trusted by their followers, readers or fans
• Active minds – They have a wide range or interests and are creative in all of them
• Trendsetters – these are also called early adopters (the first people to join facebook or twitter for example)

The things you need to look at when finding influencers are;

• Reach – how far reaching is their message, do they have the abilty to reach a large audience?
• Veiw Point – Does the influencer have a specific point of view such as , religious, political, ethical or ethinic?
• Frequency of message – How active are they online?
• Experts – Are they an expert in what they do?
• Persuasiveness – If people ignore this persons advice, do bad things happen?
• Complete control – How much affect has the influencer on their followers lifes?

The easiest way to find social media influencers, is with tools. Mostly of these tools are free and enable you to find exactly what you need. Tools such as those that track stats of usage can be  used to assertain an individuals influencer score;

http://facebook.grader.com/user/search
http://klout.com
http://twitter.grader.com/search

Search tools that show you what a user has been saying, posting, sharing online;

http://socialmention.com/
http://www.samepoint.com/
http://www.whostalkin.com/
http://addictomatic.com

If you are researching a blogger you can find out more about their blog reach by using;

http://www.quarkbase.com
http://www.sitemention.com

Of course these tools only go half the way, the thing to understand is that whom ever you choose, they must be relevant to the content you wish to promote, or else it really won’t work.

ie: a celebrated fashion blogger isnt going to be as niche as a mommy blogger if your content or campaign is focused about Fashion for pregnant women.

This is when common sense comes into play, if they are a blogger, do they have lots of comments, do they comment on other similar blogs. Whats their social presence, are they active on niche areas in social sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

You also need to know what type of influencer you need, if you are wanting people to ‘create a video’ for your campaign, then you need to be directing your message at ‘creators’ people who will pick up a camera or phone and make a video for you. So you need to know who these people follow, who they listen to and what drives them?

If its a slightly risky or controversial news article that you want to promote and gain traffic to your site, then you should be looking at targeting ‘collectors’, such as those on social bookmarking sites like Digg or Reddit, creators like bloggers and Joiners like Twitterers to push out the content out to their audience.

So how do you organise all of this?

There are a number of ways, but my favourate way is to create a community map using a tool called http://www.spicynodes.org. This free tool allows you to create a living, breathing, floating map for the target areas that you are going to search to find your influencers. You can add links, content, images and videos to these nodes and they are all hosted by spicynodes so you can look at your node map later via a tailored URL

But what do you do, when you have found your influencers?

Firstly, you need to treat them with respect. These people are now unpaid members of your workforce. They should be considered priceless, invited to launches, allowed to try out new products, given first access to any product news before the press and LISTENED TOO.

If you are lucky enough to find a group of people who love your products, you need to listen to them. Their ideas should be displayed publicly, voted on and if chosen they should be given the acknowledgement they deserve.

Crowdsourcing is something that i will go into indepth in another post, but using your influencers to develop products for you, isnt a bad idea.

1) They know what they want
2) They know what the product is lacking
3) They will buy the product after
4) Their enthusiam will be infectious

Check out these companies that not only embraced targeted influencers but empowered their own customers in the process;

Sony BRAVIA “Amplify through influencers”

http://www.iabuk.net/media/images/SonyBravia-Paintcampaign_3550.pdf

“As a brand it is very flattering to have an audience take so much interest in our advertising. This year we are looking to return the compliment by giving the online audience even more content and access to what is happening during the shoot.”

David Patton / Senior Vice President, Marketing Communications, Sony Europe

DELL IDEASTORM “Giving customers what they ask for”

Dell, an old example but a good one. this is ideastorm where DELLs customers and their influencial fans can vote on what DELL should do with their products. The most popular suggestions go into manufacre. Simple.

THREADLESS “Crowdsourced design”
threadless.com
these guys are masters at including their customers, the community votes on the top designs that have also been supplied by the community, then the top designs are made and sold.

STARBUCKS “ask customers what they want to drink?”
Starbucks are allowing customers to come up with ideas for their products, from anything from free pastry day to Gluten-Free cakes.

ComScore reported that the social network Facebook is becoming uncool for the younger demographic

Talk of this has been dragging on for around 6 months now and it was even raised in a conference call i was in last week, when trying to convince clients that social media doesnt actually just mean Facebook and Twitter.

The question went a little bit like this;

• Angry PR lady: “So what do you think of the current news that young people feel Facebook is uncool and are leaving”
• Me: “Well Facebook hit 350 million users this week and the shift is mostly on time usage”
• Angry PR lady: “Yes but we need to know we are targeting our customers in these networks”
• Me: “If the campaign is depended on 18-24 yearolds then we can target them where ever they are, Facebook or some other place”

So the recent news of Facebook’s younger members are waning really worry the  those who like to talk about how evil and misguided social media is. Speculation as to why the younger demographic are going else where is heating up also, with many saying its simply that 18 yearolds find the medium uncool now that their parents are also on it and others putting the blame squarely on parents policing of their childrens time online.

BEWARE OF THE STATS!
comScore recently released a report that triggered nothing short of a sky is falling media panic. Led by Adweek asking if Facebook is getting uncool for the 18-24 year olds, the media is speculating as to whether or not a mass exodus is underway with much of the blame focusing on parents ruining the party” for younger demographics.

youngsters say bye bye to facebook

On the subject of whether Facebook is cool or uncool coming down to the time users of a certain age spend online, Brian Solis said;

Adweek asks if Facebook is becoming uncool among 18-24 years olds. I suppose its an interesting question when the basis for documenting cool and uncool is rooted in the amount of minutes you spend within a social network. Facebook proudly states that more than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide). And, with the recent news regarding Xbox, how many of the two million gamers fall within the 18-24 age group?

via www.briansolis.com

via www.briansolis.com

Brian also wrote that “Mindshare surveyed 1,200 consumers in August 2009 about their social-networking habits. 51% of the 18- to 24-year-old respondents agreed that “social-networking sites like Facebook are diluting the quality of relationships.” 40% of that group said they now visit social networks that are based on particular interests, such as TV, music or movies.”

Do old people really know what young people want?

OK, so i’m 35 and most of the people i read about and follow their opinons are older than me. So instead of just reading whats on Mashable, Brian Solis or Chris Brogan i thought i’d have a look on YouTube for any clues as to why “some teens might hate facebook”, instead of trying to second guess, so here are some teens talking about why they hate facebook?