It is not enough to simply aggregate content across various social platforms using social media aggregation or syndication tools, content needs to be tailored towards the audience, and content needs to be shared effectively and independently with fans and followers alike.

Each individual social media network has a different set of rules – with its 140 character limit Twitter lends itself to short comments, the non-invasive nature of ‘following’ means you can open conversations with influencers or customers all over the world. Facebook, by contrast, lends itself to longer messages, and is more centered on sharing content, pictures and video. The audience here is more intimate, and brands should be careful about directing sales messages through the platform. LinkedIn should be limited to offering potential employers and clients alike an online CV, and more details about your individual and your company’s collective work experience. Google+ is an SEO tool and another conversation facilitator, allowing you to share great content with a wider audience; YouTube is all about creating shareable video content and driving people to see it. Of course, this is an over simplified summary of the benefits of each of popular platforms, there are other factors that need to be considered – tone of voice, driving traffic and creating meaningful conversations.

Aggregation tools can help you manage multiple social media accounts, draw content from various news sources and syndicate content across all of your networks. True social media aggregation or syndication should be a process of consolidating inbound and outbound content into a dashboard allowing you to create efficiencies in monitoring, responding to, sharing and creating content; disseminating content through the appropriate platforms. It should be about much more than simultaneously updating your statuses.

Friendfeed, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Social Mentions are all popular tools that offer a desktop to help you manage aggregation or syndication of your social networks. Used correctly, and with an effective channel strategy in place, it can help you deliver simple, effective online comms to customers all over the world.
Here are some of the best free services:

Tweetdeck

“TweetDeck is your personal real-time browser, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more…” if you are specifically looking for a desktop app / iPhone app for Twitter, this is one of the most effective tools on the market.

Social Mention

Social Mention is a social search tool that allows you to aggregate searches across hundreds of social networks, blogs, comments, social bookmarking services and more. The service offers email updates of the latest relevant social media results based on your own custom search phrases. Unlike the other services listed here, Social Mention focuses on search, helping you aggregate the topics, people and trends you are looking for.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite helps you manage multiple twitter accounts. You can integrate other social networks like Facebook, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, Twitter and Foursquare as well as WordPress.com based blogs. The interface is easy to use, allowing you to view as many feeds and Twitter searches as you see fit. It was built for collaboration as well, with the ability to create teams, track analytic information and share other information for campaigns.

With social media channel management dashboards like these, efficiency of cross-channel posting is guaranteed. The hard work lies in ensuring you tailor content specifically for each channel so that you generate the optimal engagement with your brand on each.

Lindsey Reaney

Account Manager and Digital PR Consultant, Golley Engage

Customer services on Twitter

More and more consumers are turning to Twitter to complain about poor customer service, particularly when they feel let down by existing channels. However, few companies have the infrastructure in place to manage queries directed via social networking sites. The company will need a specific workflow that feeds complaints made via social media into the traditional customer service process and ensures that queries are resolved efficiently and communicated effectively.

It is important that responsibility for each complaint is communicated internally right from the off, as often the social media manager will not be the person dealing directly with the case, but will need to constructively communicate any developments to the consumer. It seems that at the very least consumers expect a response from businesses when they engage with them through a brand social media channel, regardless of whether that platform is an official customer services outlet. It is therefore imperative that every brand carries out an online reputation audit and highlights any potential hotspots, allowing brand managers to implement processes for responding to consumers.

Mobile enabled site

Just under half of the UK population now owns a Smartphone, and Google’s mobile operating system Android is powering half. Consumers are using mobile internet on the move and so it makes sense for businesses to ensure that at the very least their site and store locator is negotiable via a smart phone device; and that the site or app is compatible with both Android and iPhone technology. Mobile offers brands a real opportunity to be useful to their customers. Using existing technology such as QR codes and near field communication, retailers should look to alleviate consumer bug-bears by helping customers check availability or price compare. Businesses can use advertising as a prompt to launch local store locators, or to fulfil an online order for a consumer who can’t find the right item in store. Businesses are really missing a trick if they do not target customers on the move.

Rewards

Consumers expect rewards for showing their support of a business or service online. A recent survey amongst consumers who are ‘fans’ of businesses online found that 65 percent of respondents are connecting with brands to take advantage of promotions, contests and games. Whether it’s an offer, a voucher code or simply a free prize draw, if you are looking to extend your brand presence online then it is valuable to offer an incentive. Consumers are used to being rewarded for participating in brand related activity online, and therefore are most receptive to companies that offer useful or entertaining apps, fan pages or online services.

A social experience

The growth of social networking has shown that, given the right tools, consumers will participate in conversations and share with friends. In order to be more social, brands should put the user first – responding to how users socialise online.

When shopping for a new dress online, a customer will search for information from a range of sources to decide what to buy. They may browse fashion websites, ask for recommendations from friends, look at celebrity blogs or pictures or look for advice through Facebook/Twitter. It is therefore important that a brand looks to replicate this process through their online marketing activity. This could include signposting customers to product reviews or allowing them to connect with like-minded individuals through a forum or Facebook community.

Making reviews and opinions an integral part of the shopping experience replicates offline behaviour where users will often seek the opinion of a friend before purchase. It is also important that the brand can be contacted with ease and those questions or queries are resolved efficiently. A major part of the social experience is about opening a two-way dialogue.

[1] Practical Ecommerce, January 2012 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3255-Social-Media-Users-Look-for-New-Products-and-Offers-Survey-Finds

Lindsey Reaney
Account Manager, Golley Engage

The study found that 47% of employers check social networking sites immediately, with Facebook proving the most popular network for stalking potential applicants. Of the 69% who vetoed a candidate based on their social media activity, the most common reason was that they had lied about their qualifications, but inappropriate posts, photos and comments alongside poor communication skills were also cited.

So with unemployment currently standing at 2.57 million in the UK, should we all be abandoning social media in favour of appearing more professional? Perhaps not when you consider Reppler also found that 68% of businesses questioned had employed someone because of something they’d seen on a social networking site; with personality and organisational fit coming top of the table of positives at 39%.

It is no great secret that social enterprise platforms such as LinkedIn are instrumental in connecting individuals with recruiters and local businesses interested in placing candidates. So how should businesses be using these tools to recruit, and how far is too far in the quest for the perfect candidate?

In September of this year, ACAS, the body which helps organisations improve relationships with their workers, issued guidelines designed to help employers to use social media efficiently and professionally.

ACAS warns employers against acting rashly based on information found using sites like Facebook. The organisation insists online behaviour should be judged within specific contexts, as you would offline behaviour. Employers should be clear on what is being monitored, and how employees are being assessed.

The guidelines are also clear about bosses using information gleaned from social networks when making recruitment decisions. In short: if you are going to judge people while recruiting on personal information shared on social networks– declare it.

ACAS is also quick to stress the benefits of social networking sites from a marketing and communications perspective. Blanket bans of specific platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are shortsighted – after all, is time spent on Facebook really any different to making a cup of tea or taking a cigarette break? Facebook and Twitter can be really effective marketing tools, and LinkedIn offers individuals the chance to build business connections and reconnect with old clients, an activity that should be encouraged considering the current industry landscape.

Social Media Guidelines for Business:

1. Employers should issue social media guidelines to make absolutely sure staff are aware of what is considered acceptable by the business. Ask employees to sign and return a usage policy.

2. Equally employees have a duty to ensure that any information they publish online is not confidential, and is already available in the public domain.

3. If you intend to use social networks to screen applicants, ensure you are crystal clear about your intentions. Failing to do so could lead to charges of discrimination under the equal opportunities act.

4. Training and encouraging employees to use social media productively can lead to a positive perception of your business within industry circles, and help to drive positive online buzz about your company.

5. What happens on tour stays on tour, if you wouldn’t discuss it over the watercooler at work, don’t post it on Facebook.

Lindsey Reaney
Account Manager, Golley Engage

Creating a successful social customer service facet to your business is something that requires changes to operations and infrastructure. It is important to have a process set up to manage queries that are flagged through social media platforms in advance of setting up a profile on a network; and more importantly still, to accept that having a presence within this environment will attract correspondence from consumers with a customer services issue. Even if what you set out to do is manage a Press and PR presence or Marketing activity, your business becomes searchable and consumers can therefore choose to engage with you about a range of issues through the platform.

The company will need a specific workflow that feeds complaints made via social media into the traditional customer service process and ensures that queries are resolved efficiently and communicated effectively. It is important that responsibility for each complaint is communicated internally right from the off, as often the social media manager will not be the person dealing directly with the case but will need to constructively communicate any developments to the consumer.

Best practice dictates that your social media manager should be equipped to direct concerns to the correct part of your business and communicate progress to the consumer. These processes – classifying complaints, creating workflows and responsibilities – take time, and for many businesses it may not make sense as there may only be a small number of complaints. However, as the Maritz study demonstrates, the customer’s response is likely to be overwhelmingly positive when tweets are dealt with efficiently**.

The team at @virginmedia respond to everyone who mentions the company online regardless of how negative or inane the comment. One regular online critic of their cable TV service was invited to come down to their office for a coffee – he declined the invitation, but stopped posting further criticism.

It seems therefore that at the very least consumers expect a response from businesses when they engage with them through a brand social media channel, regardless of whether that platform is an official customer services outlet. It is therefore imperative that every brand carry out an online reputation audit and highlight any potential hotspots, allowing brand managers to implement process for responding to consumers. The biggest customer service company in the world, Teleperformance, knows this. With a glut of experience supplying companies with big contact centres full of personnel manning customer service helplines, they are now finding an ever-increasing demand for social media customer care channels.

Where the complexity of your business model or your product excludes you from solving customer service problems directly through social media channels, it is vital that at the very least you acknowledge the problem and equip the consumer with the correct way to access the information they require. Social media is empowering consumers to broadcast their concerns, and by opening up a dialogue with your customers, these tools can help to empower your business too.

Lindsey Reaney
Account Manager, Golley Engage

*http://www.bizbuzzsocialmediaconference.com/70-of-companies-ignore-customer-complaints-on-twitter/
**The Maritz study found that 83% of complainants who received a reply liked or loved the fact that the company had responded to them.

One of Twitter’s first customers for Promoted activity is Sky. Sky is using the full suite of Promoted Products to increase awareness as the popular teen TV sensation ‘Glee’ returns to our screens for a new series. The @gleeonsky account and #gleeonsky hashtag were being promoted, whilst several Promoted Tweets were run simultaneously with brand new clips from the series.

Promoted Tweets are not entirely new, Twitter started putting them into your timeline earlier this summer but you would only see a Promoted Tweet if you followed that brand already. As a follower you’d see those Tweets anyway, it just meant that brands could create ‘sticky’ tweets that would stay at the top of your timeline until you had read them. The key difference now is that everyone will start to see promoted tweets in their timeline, whether they access the platform through a mobile device, their PC or smartphone.

This is the first example of a viable marketing product from Twitter. For a long time the platform sat gathering new users, building its profile and being quoted in the media and yet offered no outlet for brands to harness the power of the network for promotional activity. The Promoted activity is Twitter’s first advertising model, and marks a move into territory that Facebook and Google have been exploiting for quite some time. The problem is that users have got used to Twitter without invasive advertising techniques and so the Social Media giant will have to tread carefully to avoid upsetting fans.

It seems the initial bout of advertising activity has done little to discourage people from using the platform. Twitter has posted some impressive engagement statistics earlier this month. Compared to the beginning of 2011, 110% more tweets are being sent every day now; the number of active users the service expects to add by the end of the year – that is, in the next four months – outranks the total number of users it added between 2006 and 2009.

So far, the companies Twitter has partnered with for the initial launch of its U.K. advertising platform include Eurostar, BT and Paramount. Brand or activity awareness is really the KPI to track with Promoted activity, which means that it is not right for every campaign, and Twitter will struggle to compete with the increased functionality of a platform such as Facebook or YouTube. It really remains to be seen whether Promoted activity will be successful, or whether the changes to Promoted Tweets will annoy users. One thing is for sure, it will be the first of many products that Twitter roll out to better serve its business objectives. They will learn from Promoted activity, and one or two brands will be cited as success stories for the platform, but the real crux of the issue is still the same – Brands have to produce interesting, engaging content on social media to EARN traffic. Paid-for activity can only achieve so much, and brands will face the same challenges with Twitter that they do with Facebook and YouTube. You have to post videos that people want to watch, and content that people want to share. Different platform, same challenge – and that is not about to change.

Lindsey Reaney
Social Media Consultant, Golley Engage

Consumer adoption is integral to the success of a social platform, and there is no doubt that Facebook and Twitter are right at the fore, but what of the loyalty of other platforms such as FourSquare and Groupon? With consumer adoption so intrinsically linked to obtaining buy-in from brands, and branded offers key to incentivising users to spend time using the site; Golley Engage’s Phillippa Holmes asks, which comes first – mass market appeal or big brands?

In July 2011, FourSquare hit 10 million worldwide users, and celebrated the occasion by publishing an infographic with heaps of interesting facts about the social network and its consumers.

And, there are certainly some FourSquare marketing success stories. The History Channel ran a geo-location campaign through FourSquare which offered trivia and discounts to users checking in at over 600 historic sites across the UK. Within a month of the campaign’s launch, ten thousand people had unlocked History’s badge – equating to the 40,000 check-ins needed in order to achieve those badges. Before the UK campaign launched, History had 110,000 followers on Foursquare – mostly in the US. That figure rose to 130,000 thanks to just one month’s worth of activity in the UK. Brands such as McDonald’s also rate the platform, Social Media Director Rick Wion likened a check-in on FourSquare to an actual visit to one of the fast-food giants’ restaurants which is of significantly more commercial value than affiliating oneself to a brand on Facebook or Twitter.

The real value of geo-location, truth be told, lies in the retail space. By offering discounts to consumers for regularly using your restaurant/store you are effectively recreating the loyalty card experience online, and even the least tech-savvy executive can recognise the value in that.

However with many users, particularly in the UK, frustrated by the lack of deals available as an incentive to check-in, and Facebook Places threatening to flex their muscle, it remains to be seen how the geo-location landscape will develop. What is certain is that newbies such as Loopt and Gowalla have their work cut-out, and if I were a betting woman our money would be on Facebook dominating the UK space. They are best placed to crack this market by growing their portfolio by linking geo-location to their existing marketing packages.

Phillippa Holmes
Golley Engage

In the battle of the ratings, television companies are doing what they can to fight back, and with Twitter they might just have found the answer. By creating a third online dimension to television, networks are hoping to tempt viewers away from watching television on Sky+ or catch-up TV and back to scheduled air times.

Hashtags are making it easier for production teams to aggregate conversations about a specific programme and to help them to trend. We have seen this happen most recently with XFactor returning to our screens on Saturday night and Celebrity Big Brother monopolising trending topics during its daily highlights show. What we are now seeing is this phenomena driving viewers back to their televisions, as tweets signpost them to something ‘unmissable’.

A recent survey by Yahoo and Nielsen found 86% of mobile phone users are playing on their phones whilst watching TV, with 40% specifically using social networking sites. A further 53% of those surveyed are actively using their computers to check sites like Facebook and Twitter whilst tuned in to a TV programme.

So, as marketeers, what can we learn from this shift in behaviour? Well according to the research one in five 18- to 24-year-olds will buy a product because they have seen it on TV. This means it is the third most powerful factor driving purchase amongst this demographic. Product placement during popular TV slots and clever social media optimisation in television advertising and sponsorship idents could pay dividends for big brands as long as they remain sensitive to viewers. Too flagrant a plug could result in backlash from viewers who find branded activity intrusive.

Want to know more about Twitter #tags and the way they are used at Primetime? Check out the following video:

http://blog.twitter.com/2011/05/watching-together-twitter-and-tv.html

Lindsey Reaney
Social Media Consultant, Golley Engage

In our experience, we see many companies adopting a blanket approach and duplicating the same content across all channels. We also see far too many companies sending out messages that are of little, if any, interest to the consumer… brands are simply pushing out content because they understand social media is important but are not sure how to use the differing platforms effectively.

Companies that use social media effectively engage regularly and have a clear and defined channel strategy. They are not adopting a one-size-fits-all approach and have developed content strategies appropriate to the various owned media channels. Opening a two-way conversation with consumers is a process that many marketeers are still unfamiliar with, but with the right strategy in place and effective boiler plate responses in place it needn’t take vast amount of time or expense.

Golleys top five tips for effective engagement are:

1/ Develop a channel plan, not all platforms are appropriate to every brand
2/ Agree a relevant and engaging content plan
3/ Decide upon and endeavour to maintain the frequency with which you update your owned media channels
4/ Monitor and review channels on weekly basis, analysing which stories have worked particularly successfully and look to replicate the tone/structure in future updates
5/ Evolve your channel and content strategy over time to ensure that content is fresh and meets your current objectives.

Lindsey Reaney
PR Account Manager & Digital Consultant

On the Saturday morning I was asked to do an interview with BBC Wales Good Morning Wales about the 4am Project. My fellow interviewee was Karen Strunks, professional photographer, blogger and founder of the project – it was she who inspired me to get involved.

I saw her speak at the Talk About Local 2011 conference in Cardiff a few weeks ago. She told us how she started taking photographs at the ‘magical hour of 4am‘. The time between night and morning when you can pretty much have the streets to yourself.

I was drawn to the creative idea of looking as something so familiar in such and unfamiliar way. But also by the idea that you can do something individual and very local while taking part in a global event. In more than 40 countries, thanks to the power of Karen’s web and social networking efforts, people have been getting up at 4am to take pictures.

As Karen was giving her talk, I tweeted a few things and immediately had a response from New Zealand – they were looking forward to taking part on 24 April. Karen hadn’t even got to that bit in her talk yet and here was someone on the other side of the world excited to see more people getting involved.

I tweeted that it would be good to do the project in/about Roath, my local area in Cardiff. Journalist and blogger Ed Walker agreed and set up Facebook and flickr groups. Fairly quickly there were 50 Facebook members.

The radio presenter this morning thought it might all look a bit dodgy – groups of people roaming the streets taking photos!  In the end four intrepid souls braved the early morning start.

For me, the most interesting part of the project in many ways was seeing first hand how a great idea has spread itself through the various channels.

Karen uses her blog, twitter, flickr and the website to run the project – but also goes to speak to groups that might be interested. I was at the conference because I saw it on twitter and it was tweeting that got me involved – showed me it was global and also that there were people interested locally.

Ed set up the Facebook group, we both tweeted about it and he blogged about it over the Easter weekend (as did I). The Guardian Cardiff blog gave it a mention and has integrated it into its own photo sharing project for the month. And I then did the radio interview.

How did the BBC know about it? People in the newsroom there had picked it up through twitter and thought it sounded interesting.

It’s been interesting to see the combination of web, events, traditional media, social networks and blogs working together to make the project happen.

Check out the pics from Roath here; the whole 4am Project is here and here’s a post about the event on the Guardian Cardiff blog. I’ve blogged a few thoughts about it here too.

More than ever, social media sites have opened the door for the general public to become columnists in their own right.  The internet has given your target audience a much bigger platform from which they can voice their opinions, share information and experiences and post recommendations. 

The breadth of conversations taking place on the internet on any given subject is immense and yes, in case you’re wondering, your brand, business and service is a topic of conversation too. 

The fact is you can’t choose not to be involved in social media.  You may not have allocated any of your marketing spend to it, but internet users are having these conversations about you whether you like it or not.  

If you have been marketing your brand or service, especially using the discipline of PR, then it doesn’t have to be a daunting prospect.  It’s a case of adapting your skills and messages to suit the medium.  Like all PR it can’t be fully controlled but it can drive trust and credibility in your brand or service. 

According to a Nielson online survey, 78 per cent of people trust the recommendation of other consumers before any other form of marketing while 68 per cent trust opinions posted online.  These are persuasive statistics that re-enforce the need for a strategically robust PR and social media campaign to be part of your overall marketing plan. 

You need to engage your consumer, help shape the dialogue and be a part of the conversation.  After all, it is about you.

Claire Rushton, Head Of Office (Leeds & Newcastle)