The Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) announced this morning that it has formed a Social Media Council of Advisors to provide strategic guidance on social media trends and issues to the MENG Board and its membership of nearly 2000 executive marketers.
Much to my delight, I will join Mack Collier, Paul Dunay, Beth Harte, Amber Naslund and Joe Pulizzi to form this new advisory group. (You can see their handsome mugs above). All five of my co-advisors are incredibly generous and insightful people that I've been learning from for quite a while. It will be awesome to work along side them and soak in their smarts!
Our duties will be varied…but they will include advising members and the MENG board, doing some writing for the collective and conducting quarterly webinars together (that should be quite the talk fest!) I'm really looking forward to it.
If you don't know much about MENG, it's the premiere international community of executive-level marketers and it provides networking opportunities and the ability to share knowledge and best practices. Members must have reached at least the VP level in their organization. Eighty four percent of members have Fortune 500 experience and 70% have earned graduate degrees.
In corporate America (and probably corporate World), rules get created when people make bad choices. It's how child labor laws came to be and why we now have sexual harassment policies. The few and the stupid are the catalyst to regulation.
Which is why it's not a shock that companies big and small are beginning to institute social media policies. After the Dominos pizza incident and the world famous FedEx tweet — who can blame business leaders from wanting to protect themselves by setting down some rules?
I've put together a long list of social media policy examples for you to use as you create your own. I'll keep adding to the list as I find new ones, so you might want to bookmark the page. You can view/download them by clicking here.
Whether you work for someone else, are a serial entrepreneur or anything in between — in today's world, you can't afford to ignore the idea of personal branding.
A generation ago, employees often stayed with one employer for the lion's share of their career. Today, most professionals will not work for several companies — but they will most likely change their entire profession.
And even in the unlikely case that you do find the employer of your dreams right off the bat — you still want to distinguish yourself by standing out from the crowd.
Enter personal branding.
By the way, I don't think personal branding came about thanks to the internet. It's been around for generations. Abe Lincoln certainly created a personal brand. So did Hitler. But, the internet certainly makes it easier for an average joe or jane to create a credible, spreadable personal brand.
But to do it right, I believe it takes intention.
When I speak to college classes, I warn them. What you put out into the world via Facebook, blogs, Twitter, MySpace, FourSquare and whatever comes next — stays out there. And it's incredibly findable.
Two relevant facts:
No matter what we want to know, we Google it. (So imagine what the next generation of managers, business owners and reporters will do).
Google never forgets anything.
So given those facts…how do you intentionally build your personal brand?
Decide what you're all about.
Note I did not say…create your brand. Just like with a company — a brand comes from your heart and soul. So dig deep and figure out who you are — that is relevant to the world. (We're many things, some private and some for public consumption — your brand is the world's view).
There are lots of ways to figure it out. Write your own obit, do Strength Finders, Myers Briggs or put together your own little brand task force who knows you well and loves you enough to be honest.
Determine what your personal brand looks like — off-line:
No matter who you are or what you do, odds are that you spend more time off the computer than on. So be sure that you can live the brand in your daily life, 24/7. How does it come to life (remember, this is from other's perspective).
If your brand is that you're a developer of others — how would a developer behave? Think of all the touchpoints you have with other people — meetings, networking, on the phone, in an employee review, etc. How does the developer brand come to life?
Evaluate your existing on-line presence:
Google yourself. Does your brand show up? Is it the most prevalent message? Scan through your old Facebook updates. Is your brand there? Are the other themes complimentary to your brand or do they feel off? What types of things are you retweeting? What do your recommendations say on LinkedIn?
Don't just look at the subject matter. Look at language, tone, replies to others, what you do and don't talk about, play, share with others and the online/social media tools you do and don't frequent.
Step back and be as objective as you can. If a stranger Googled you — what would they think and know about you? Does it align with your brand?
And don't forget your traditional old website. It may be the most content rich place for your brand to live. Do you own your own domain (like www.drewmclellan.com). If not — grab it quick if it's still available.
Decide where you need to be online:
Depending on your brand, your presence might be expected on a certain social media tool. Should you be writing guest blog posts for a specific site? Is tweeting resources a part of who you are/want to be perceived to be? If you're the developer of others…how does LinkedIn figure into your plans?
Don't overdo this. Most people do not have the time or patience to establish a deep presence on every social media site, so don't try. Be active where you want to invest the time and where it makes sense.
Live it:
Off line, on line. Be your brand. Think about your choices. If your brand is about being the consummate, buttoned-up professional, should you be playing mafia wars or farming on a Facebook account that links you to your customers?
If your brand is about being very intellectual and deliberate — should you be firing off emotional responses to negative comments on your blog?
If your brand is about being gregarious and generous, should you be the wallflower at the networking event?
Like most things, if you did the prep work — it shouldn't be difficult to live your brand, once you've gotten in the habit of keeping it top of mind. If you find that you can't live your brand consistently or it feels fake — you probably have to go back to the drawing board and dig deeper.
Be consistent and be patient:
This isn't going to happen overnight. The more consistent you are, the quicker your brand will not only rise to the surface but stick. But it takes time to influence opinion and influence Google. Remember…we're living in the age of cynics. Don't try to be something you're not. Don't try to force it.
Your genuine brand will come from within. All we're trying to do is make sure that brand stays in the spotlight so you can do and be all that you're capable of.
Do you have a Facebook fan page? Do you wish you could create an e-newsletter that allowed your fans to get your pages content — but in a way that they could control how often they heard from you?
NutshellMail has just launched an easy way for any Facebook page administrator to create an automated email newsletter campaign. The NutshellMail application adds an “Email Newsletter” tab to your page, enabling your fans to opt-in to receive emails that highlight recent and featured content from your page on a schedule of their choosing (as seldom as once a week or as often as every hour).
NutshellMail makes creating and maintaining an email newsletter easy. Once set up, there is nothing for you to do; NutshellMail simply collects recent activity from your page, organizes it into an easy-to-read email and delivers it to each subscriber per their own delivery preferences. The application also encourages more comments and sharing of feeds from your page by giving subscribers the ability to comment, like, share or post comments back to your page directly through email.
According to Mark Schmulen, CEO of NutshellMail, “More and more organizations are using Facebook pages as a primary channel to reach out to their fans and many are posting content, news and offers that cannot be found on their own websites. We want to make it easy for their fans to keep track of this great content.”
NutshellMail also offers an easy way for users to monitor the latest activity from their Facebook pages that haven’t installed the NutshellMail app. Users just sign up for NutshellMail’s core service, which sends a consolidated email digest of activity from pages. The service also allows users to set up their digest to include all Facebook activity and disable the one-off email alerts that Facebook currently sends.
Not using Facebook — but have created a Ning network? NutshellMail has also released a similar application for Ning, enabling any public Ning network to create an email newsletter campaign for their site: http://nutshellmail.com/ning/
Over the past few months, I have been delivering quite a few presentations on social media to groups (conferences, conventions etc.) of business leaders.
One aspect of embarking into the waters of social media that seems to give most of them some sort of tick is the idea that you have to relinquish some control.
You can't take advantage of the connectivity, reach and viral nature of he beast without also being willing to connect, reach many people and let others share. It's like wanting to enjoy the sensation of flying over the water in a boat at high speed but without the engine noise. It' the "other people" part of social media that provides its power.
Here's what I think of as social media's price of admission:
You have to be willing to spotlight and amplify other people's voices:
Many business owners seem to want to mute their employees and customers. That doesn't work in social media. Not only do you need to "let them" talk but you need to invite it. You have to allow comments. You are the topic of conversation somewhere. This is just about allowing it to happen (and encouraging it) in your digital home.
You have to be willing to be imperfect:
You need to be willing to be imperfect (like Dominos). You need to be transparent and that takes some courage. But let's be honest here. Everyone already knows you're not perfect. And…will actually respect and love you all the more for just admitting it. It's not how or whether you screw up. It's what you do next that matters.
You have to be willing to let others change your direction:
Viral means letting go. It means tossing an idea or program out into the social media space and inviting other people to pick up the ball and run with it. Sometimes, they go where you think they'll go…and sometimes they'll surprise you.
I'm pretty sure the FourSquare folks (a location based social network) hadn't anticipated that Marcus Brown would create the International Day of the Toilet — and encourage his worldwide network of friends to all create "water closet" venues on Foursquare. The interesting thing is — will FourSquare shudder at the news or help promote the idea?
There are plenty of other things you need to do to create a successful social media presence. But…if you can't swallow these three, don't even get started. Social media is nothing if it's not about inviting other people into the party.
As I traverse across the country talking about social media, whether it's with clients one-on-one or with conference attendees from a stage — the "I don't have time" mantra is a common response to the conversation.
I'm with you. I get the time crunch thing. I'm caught between that same rock and hard place. But…I have figured out some ways to create time/time savers when it comes to social media. So, I thought I would share what works for me, with the hopes that you can steal some of these ideas/tools.
I'm not saying these are the only tools out there…but these are my time savers.
Saved Searches:
One of the elements of Twitter that I think most people under-use is the ability to evesdrop on people as they talk about topics that matter to you. To help me stay in touch, I've created some saved searches in Twitter's web interface.
I just check each of the searches once every few days…and I'm always current.
Private, Group Conversations:
When most people first dig into Twitter, they think of it as a very public social media tool. While I enjoy the public banter and resource sharing, for me….about 50% of my Twitter conversations are private or to a small group of people. I can use the regular DM feature on Twitter for one-to-one conversations.
But, when I want to send those DMs to a group of people, I use Group Tweet to set up private groups.
I can post updates to everyone in the group using direct messages. When the group account receives a direct message from me, GroupTweet converts it into a tweet that all followers can see.
Because I usually want to keep those updates private so that only my group members can see them, I just created a special group account on Twitter, protected it, and use that one.
Manage followers
I actively manage and use two Twitter accounts. My personal account (@drewmclellan) and our agency's account (@mclellanmarket). And between those two accounts, I typically get 25-50 new followers each day.
I simply do not have the time, every day, to check out each follower and decide if I want to follow them back or not. And my philosophy on following is — unless they're a spammer or are really foul mouthed or only tweet in Finnish, if they follow me — I'm going to follow them back.
So I use SocialToo.com. I have it set to automatically follow everyone who follows me. Then, about once a week (typically on Sunday afternoons) I click on the following link (right under my Twitter name) and can very quickly scan the people who have been added that week. I just unfollow the spammers, foreign speakers or those who tweet in a language I cannot read…and voila, my following list is updated. It never takes me more than 15 minutes.
I also love SocialToo's survey tool. I can create a poll…and SocialToo allows me to tweet it out and then tabulates the results. Which of course, I can tweet back out.
All of Twitter at a Glance…and Pre-Scheduling Tweets
HootSuite is the key to my Twitter life. It allows me on one screen to see:
My Twitter Stream (what everyone I follow is saying)
Tweets that are talking to or about me (@drewmclellan)
Direct messages to me
Results of searches I have set up
My most recent tweets
Track the stats on my tweets (how many clicks, etc.)
Any tweets I have pending
What? What do you mean, pending tweets? I tend to be a night owl. Many times, I find something I want to share on Twitter around 1 am. None of my core followers are online at 1 am. But, if I wait until morning, I will either forget or not have enough time to tweet it. So I use HootSuite to set up a scheduled tweet for the next morning (or whenever I want it to go out).
See the box at the top of the screen shot? That's where in HootSuite, I type my tweets. I can either just click submit and it tweets immediately, or I can click on the send it later link and choose the date and time I'd like it to be tweeted. As you can see, it will also auto-shrink URLs for me.
Keeping Track of my Twitter Activity
Because I don't just use Twitter for my jollies, but it's both a business tool and I need to understand it so we can advise clients properly — I want to keep an eye on my activity and monitor how I am balancing my tweets etc.
Twitterfriends allows me to see some very useful stats like how often am I being re-tweeted and or how many replies I am sending daily.
I can also compare my Twitter stats like stickiness (mine is 17% and Problogger's is 25%, for example) to other Tweeters. There are also some maps that show relevance, link usage and some other nice tools.
I know this was a very long post for me. I'm hoping it has been so helpful that you didn't notice or didn't mind. Stay tuned…I'm working on another couple of these making time posts.
In my talk on social media, I used this graphic as one of my slides and talked abut my cocktail party rule of social media.
I thought you might find it of interest as well:
Imagine we meet at a cocktail party and strike up an initial conversation. As soon as we introduce ourselves, I begin talking. And talking. And talking.
The topic? Me. And then a little bit more about me. For some variety, I then tell you some great stories….starring me.
You’d be running for cover in about 5 minutes, wouldn’t you? No matter how fascinating I am.
Social media is a lot like a cocktail party. Imagine a large room, filled with interesting people. There are many conversations happening at once. People are talking about themselves, asking questions about the other person and then a common thread is discovered. Something that both people have in common. That’s when the conversation gets very lively and a connection is made.
And yet, when some businesses foray into social media, they are still operating under the old broadcast methods of marketing and communications. I talk about me (sell) and what matters to me (selling you stuff) and pretty soon, you’re tuning out or desperately looking for the exit.
That doesn’t work at a cocktail party and it doesn’t work on Twitter, Facebook, your blog or any other social media venue either.
If you want to be a part of a community or build a community — you do it online just like you’d do it offline. You mix and mingle. You share what you have — interest, expertise, connections, and your attention.
Then, when it’s your turn to talk — they’ll actually be ready to listen.
I prefer to think of us as fools for love. The first two books are a testament to all the buzzwords people so casually toss around when it comes to social media.
Well if you want to see all that and more in action — join us. Become one of the 300 authors of Age of Conversation III.
We invited the past authors a week ago and 137 of the 300 slots are already full. So this isn’t something to ponder for days. If you want in…get in now.
Here’s the drill. All authors, by signing up, agree to sign away all right to their 400 word chapter (which won’t be self-promotional), to let us donate all proceeds to charity and to promote the book on their blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. presence.
Chapters will be due in early November. Each author will choose a “theme” for their chapter among the ten we’ve designed. They’ll serve as sections in the book. We’ll allow 30 authors per section, so the longer you wait, the less choice you’ll have.
I was fortunate enough to be a guest about a year ago and he recently asked me to come back again. So on Friday (Oct 2, 2009), we spent an hour or so talking about social media, community, and how businesses are viewing and succeeding in social media.
Zane’s always fun to chat with…so if you are so inclined, take a listen.
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