It’s World Cancer Day — and the fourth anniversary of the diagnosis of my wife’s breast cancer recurrence. As readers of this blog know, Tami has tapped the power of the Internet to empower herself and others as they live with advanced-stage cancer and life’s other challenges. Her book, From Incurable to Incredible: Cancer Survivors Who Beat the Odds, continues to gain momentum and her blog, www.miraclesurvivors.com, draws readers from across the globe. 

Today, I want to give a shout-out to a new website called Breast Cancer Answers. Tami was invited to share tips on the site — in part due to her ranking as one of Cision’s Top 10 Most Influential Breast Cancer Bloggers. Todd Hartley of WireBuzz recorded the YouTube video of Tami using Skype. He was great at prepping her for the interviews, taped on a day when Tami was encountering a major scare with her cancer. (That’s another story.)

I am in awe of the way this site pulls together so many elements to empower patients. It includes expert advice from the likes of Dr. Jay K. Harness, a past president of the American Society of Breast Surgeons and Breast Surgery International. E-patients such as my wife offer tips based on their real-life experiences. There are lots of interactive elements. Social media are sprinkled throughout the site, such as links to the LinkedIn profiles of Dr. Harness, Todd Hartley and project manager Amanda Wible, and other relevant resources.

Here’s the writeup about Hartley in the About Us section: ”After Todd’s step-mom developed breast cancer, he called his friend Dr. Jay Harness and together they developed the first social media show. Their goal, provide a free service where women around the world, regardless of economic status, could ask a breast cancer question and the get the answer. Todd Hartley, the president of WireBuzz is a digital marketing innovator, creator of the first video medical encyclopedia on the Internet, who once led Internet marketing projects for seven of the largest national talk shows. We are happy to report that Todd’s amazing step-mom is now in recovery and back to living life on her terms.”

And here’s a summary about the site: “Discover, what every newly diagnosed breast cancer patient should do to improve their chances for survival of breast cancer, how breast cancer diagnosis has advanced, where the cutting edge for the treatment for breast cancer is today and what breast cancer medical terms really mean. Breast Cancer Answers covers a wide variety of information. For example, if you have symptoms for breast cancer, like a lump in breast, pain in breast, or you simply want to know what breast cancer is, please send us your question. It’s our mission to help patients understand breast cancer carcinoma, the most effective breast cancer treatment strategies, the latest breast cancer technological advances and help improve the lives of women living with breast cancer. If you would like to increase breast cancer awareness, please click on the Save Lives link.”

I encourage you to check out Breast Cancer Answers — an example for all of us in healthcare PR, a best practice from which we can learn… and, even more importantly, a website that can help many!

 

• Posted By Mike Boehmer
• No Comments Yet

Operationalizing social media across the organization is perhaps on of the most challenging aspects of social media for companies and brands. Too many look at social media as a consumer-facing communications channel and forget that departments from HR to research and development and even internal collaboration among divisions can all be helped by social technologies and strategies.

We’re addressing that issue at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth in several discussions, one major one led by Zena Weist, Vice-President of Digital Strategy for Edelman. Her experience at brands like Embarq, Sprint and H&R Block, plus the brands she’s working with in her current role, gives her a unique and experienced look at how to incorporate social across the organization. She’ll share not just advice, but case studies on how to do it.

I caught up with Zena recently to get some good information from her before the event and for those of you who may not be able to attend. I asked her why companies funnel social media into a consumer-side communications channel, how we can get our organizations to move that thinking to internal and cross-silo mechanisms, how marketers can be in front of policy issues and more.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Zena has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. She’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Brian Clark from Copyblogger, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, Tim Hayden from 44 Doors, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception is $400, but let’s see if you’re paying attention! Register and use the code “ILOVESME” and you’ll get the early-bird price of $250, no matter what! Can’t be that! Go reserve your spot!

Event management for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth powered by Eventbrite

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

• Posted By Jason Falls
• No Comments Yet

By now, many social media managers have realized a hardnosed reality: Most subject matter experts within the corporate walls don’t have time (or the skills) to blog. So you have two choices:

• Write/edit their blogs for them (and give up the rest of your life since writing is very time consuming)
• Hire a specialist or “real writer” to write for them.

That would be a journalist or professional business writer. (I use these interchangeably, even though there are some solid business writers who were never journalists.)

Hiring a good journalist has huge advantages — this is what they do. Journalists are trained to research, report, and write. They’re skilled in the art of connecting with targeted audiences with compelling, relevant content-and they’re storytellers which separates them from the rest of the corporate pack.

But the key is you want to hire the right writer, one that will deliver solid, compelling content and is a good fit.

I’ve been on both sides of the fence, in senior editorial positions hiring writers for big tech companies, and more recently, developing content for corporate clients as an agency. My first advice: look before you leap. A weak or ill-fitted writer, or one just learning the corporate ropes, can slow you down. They can even wreak havoc, forcing you to spend extra time managing them and cleaning up their messes.

In most of these cases I’m talking about typical corporate bloggers (vs. senior executives) who just need a writer or editor’s support. They’ll spend the time to share their detailed thoughts with the writer and work closely with them on story angles. The final result should be their “voice” even though it was written/edited by a professional. This isn’t that far from speech writing, but for some reason the social media purists have a problem with ghost writing for corporate bloggers.

So look for the following when you go to hire a writer:

1. Solid industry experience - They need to have a record of solid achievement. Check their references. What subjects do they write best about (industry expertise)? Did they deliver on time? Were they reliable, accurate? And if there was an issue, did they quickly take care of it? Would their former bosses hire them again?
2. Good fit - You don’t want a fashion writer writing about high tech. Still, a good writer can quickly adapt as long as they have solid business writing experience. Better to focus on getting a great writer than the perfect specialist, which is nearly impossible in some B2B and niche areas.
3.  Editorial skills - Blogging is a different style of writing than magazine or newspaper writing. Can they write in short bursts? Is it catchy, engaging? Are they good storytellers? How do they develop their stories (through use of personal anecdotes, etc.)? Don’t forget the basics either: They need to be very detailed in checking their facts and very accurate. If a blog blows up, it’s likely going to land in your lap.
4. Web knowledge - Good writers know the online world and how to connect with key audiences, but some are better versed than others. Query them about how their web knowledge and how they write to connect with their audiences. How do they do their research (Google alerts, Twitter, LinkedIn groups, etc.)? Are they socially active?  Do they have a Twitter following, are they active on Facebook, Google+, etc.? None of these are mission critical, but certainly can indicate how much lift you may get from their connectivity.
5. Communications skills - Journalists are trained to question the status quo, look under rocks, charge ahead in the pursuit of truth, etc. This often goes over like a lead balloon in the corporate world, so look for a well-rounded writer who is comfortable in this environment and knows how to work closely with your key stakeholders and bloggers.
6. Proactivity - You want a writer who’ll not be just an order taker. They need to proactively come up with story ideas and fresh angles to help you feed the content machine. Before you hire them, ask for some suggested topics: “How would you handle this subject?”
7. The “right” personality/attitude - This can be tricky. Like any other profession, some writers have better personalities and attitudes to fit the job. They need to be able to “sell” themselves and their ideas, and be versatile. Amazingly, some writers push back on doing multi-revisions and/or resist on being heavily edited (personally, this was beat out of me years ago at Business Week). Set expectations early on with agreements over how many revisions can be expected and what type of blogs the writer will be dealing with. If you have one that’s particularly difficult (i.e., multiple rewrites), put it on the table. In fact, setting clear expectations across the board on deadlines, quality of writing, meetings and so-on is critical.

Personality and values that sync with yours can be as important as editorial skills and experience. Once when I was at Intel, my partner and I hired a writer to help us ghost-write our family computing book for a division of Random House (referred to me by a personal friend). The guy had some decent clips, but turned out to be difficult to manage and would go off for days following different research trails. The result was mountains of barely relevant material we’d have to sort out. Even worse he was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to directions, even arguing with us. We finally let him go.

Another time several years ago we hired a senior writer to work on a four month editorial project for us for an ample fee. He did a good job. But when we came to near the end of the time frame, we’d exhausted the budget but still had several loose ends we needed help on (mainly proofreading materials, double-checking facts, etc.), basically asking him for a favor. He refused to budge, arguing he’d used up his hours, and we were out of money. We scrambled to get it done and meet the deadline. Writers have to make a living, but much of business is about being flexible and bending a little to help the client and get the job done; but this writer wasn’t into trade-offs or building good will. Needless to say, we never used him again.

The point is a good writer needs to have more than strong editorial skills. They need to be able to navigate through the corporate jungle and deal with various personalities. You’ll never find a writer with 100 percent of all of these qualities. If you do, send them my way. A good writer is hard to find, even today.

What about your perspective. Have you hired writers or bloggers for your company? What else would you add? Tell us in the comments.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

 

• Posted By Mark Ivey
• No Comments Yet

prblog posted a photo:

Great to see folks skipping the F icon and simply using the thumbs up.

Makes sense as its a clear call to action. In fact, Facebook changed the Fan action to Like because twice as many people would click Like.

And now we will be seeing similar actions offered on Facebook. It's a move to create more "lightweight user actions" on Facebook and create an environment of frictionless sharing.

It helps their advertising for one. But it also makes it easier to participate on Facebook.

• Posted By prblog
• No Comments Yet

prblog posted a photo:

Great to see folks skipping the F icon and simply using the thumbs up.

Makes sense as its a clear call to action. In fact, Facebook changed the Fan action to Like because twice as many people would click Like.

And now we will be seeing similar actions offered on Facebook. It's a move to create more "lightweight user actions" on Facebook and create an environment of frictionless sharing.

It helps their advertising for one. But it also makes it easier to participate on Facebook.

• Posted By prblog
• No Comments Yet

prblog posted a photo:

Great to see folks skipping the F icon and simply using the thumbs up.

Makes sense as its a clear call to action. In fact, Facebook changed the Fan action to Like because twice as many people would click Like.

And now we will be seeing similar actions offered on Facebook. It's a move to create more "lightweight user actions" on Facebook and create an environment of frictionless sharing.

It helps their advertising for one. But it also makes it easier to participate on Facebook.

• Posted By prblog
• No Comments Yet

prblog posted a photo:

Great to see folks skipping the F icon and simply using the thumbs up.

Makes sense as its a clear call to action. In fact, Facebook changed the Fan action to Like because twice as many people would click Like.

And now we will be seeing similar actions offered on Facebook. It's a move to create more "lightweight user actions" on Facebook and create an environment of frictionless sharing.

It helps their advertising for one. But it also makes it easier to participate on Facebook.

• Posted By prblog
• No Comments Yet

It’s the question that social media evangelists, speakers, consultants and practitioners begrudgingly have to answer. Sometimes, they have to or their jobs are in jeopardy. What is the ROI of social media. While I have my own perspective on that, there are many ideas and opinions on the issue. Part of what we plan to provide with our Explore events this year is a better understanding of the ROI question for all who attend.

Nichole Kelly, who not only writes for us here at SME but is so passionate about return-on-investment she named her company Full Frontal ROI, will be tackling the topic of ROI from a no fluff (read: no bullshit) perspective in Dallas on Feb. 17 at our first Explore event of the year. Kelly has a strong brand-side background and specializes in translating social media analytics and metrics to executive teams and C-level folks so they “get” what we’re doing. Her talk is going to be of great value to all who are in Dallas.

I caught up with Nichole recently to ask some questions about why companies struggle with the ROI issue and what they can do about it.

Be sure to check out Nichole over at her blog and assortment of writers at Full Frontal ROI.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Nichole has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. She’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Chris Baccus from AT&T, Adrian Parker of Radio Shack, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The first 100 registrants spots are filling up quickly! Register now and get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! After the first 100 seats are gone, the price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

Event management for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth powered by Eventbrite

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

• Posted By Jason Falls
• No Comments Yet

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest post from Jordan Viator Slabaugh, Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management solution provider and SME client.

Using social media for business requires companies to embrace social channels to satisfy the needs of their customers, prospects and networks. This can mean many different tactics for various types of companies, but content is always at the heart of this activity.

On the heels of Community Manager Appreciation Day, it’s worth noting that Social Fresh found “community managers, surprisingly, spend more time on content creation than any other task.” In his latest report on managing social media, Jeremiah Owyang lists developing a content strategy as one of the key steps every social media strategist needs to undertake. And Beth Kanter recently wrote about the debate between creating versus curating content, highlighting a checklist from the Content Marketing Institute on creating valuable content.

Developing and executing a content strategy is one of the most time consuming tasks for most strategists. But with proper planning, this crucial area of focus can ensure better and more relevant content for your network while also making sure your company is sharing the most important messages from a company stand-point. One of the sections of the new whitepaper “The 7 Sessions Every Social Strategists Needs to Have”, a practical framework for how to approach and plan for this includes:

Planning out Content Proactively

You don’t sit down to write and send email messages and new webpage content in real time to send to your entire customer base, so why would you do the same for all of your social content. Using a centralized editorial calendar, strategists should be planning out social content before it’s actually being published. It guarantees your social channels won’t go silent due to team members having a busy day in the office, and it helps multiple people have insight into what is being planned and published.

Repurposing Content for Social Media Channels

You share the same or similar content across all your other communication channels. Why would social media be any different? It’s true that social media shouldn’t be used to spam your network by cramming marketing messages down its throat, but these people are also interested in hearing about company news, discounts, product updates and new content available. If you’re not thinking about what content you already have that can also be shared with your social networks, you’re doing extra work and missing opportunities to provide value.

Centralizing Content to Be Accessed Easily

Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common.

If you have more than one person active in social media for your company, you know how complex it can be to stay coordinated. Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common. Have you considered creating a content library where all team members can find sample Tweets, Facebook status updates, links to new content or responses to common questions?

Build Social Activity into Campaign Plans

Social doesn’t exist in a vacuum (or at least, it shouldn’t). In the same way you assess what content you have in existence to share in social, you should assess how social media is an integral part of every campaign you launch or run. How can you use social media to launch your new product? What social media elements can be integrated to help amplify your latest marketing campaign? Or what content can help satisfy overarching customer care efforts?

Assess and Adjust Course as Needed

Content strategy is an ever-evolving aspect of social media. Your networks grow, your customer base changes and people’s interests vary. Tracking things like what content receives the most impressions, clicks, engagement and shares can help your social media program flourish over time. It also helps make sure you stay as relevant as possible to your network.

Content is one of the key aspects to a successful social media program. If you’re  not already thinking of this from a higher level, the time is now. Ann Handley of Marketing Profs said it best “In 2012, businesses will rise about the din of mediocrity and retool their content efforts to create a sustainable, workable model that produces stuff that has merit.”

How are you planning on creating your model?

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

Jordan Viator Slabaugh is the Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management system for enterprise companies and agencies.  She leads the company’s Marketing and social media strategy, as well as consults with clients on using social media to help achieve social business goals. She tweets at @jordanv and writes about social business best practices and trends on the Spredfast Social Business blog. 

• Posted By Jason Falls
• No Comments Yet

I have been thinking about the value of Facebook fans lately, and how they stack up against other types of online and digital marketing payoffs. The problem with getting to an answer to the value of a fan, and what many small business owners face when trying to sort out what square to place their marketing dollars on, is the array of mismatched direction.

Small businesses aren’t very good at increasing their Facebook fan base. So even though they may be following all of the “rules of the Facebook road,” they aren’t seeing much if any return on their effort.

A Bigger Fan Base is Better

Ultralinx posted an article titled The Importance of Having a Fan Base, which included a cool infograph illustrating their point.

With the explosion of Social Media, businesses and brands have found a new way to advertise. Advertising through Social Media has a lot better ROI than most other types of advertising and can help build relationships between businesses and their customers. Building relationships with people fosters loyalty, as a result, loyalty has the potential to increase profit.

According to Ultralinx, the benefits of having a fan base include:

• 50% of small business owners reported that they gained new customers through social media.
• Ning, a social network platform, found that it only takes 20 people to create an online community.
• 64% of Twitter users say they are more likely to buy from a brand if they already follow it. 51% said the same on Facebook.

So, one would think that investing time and money building such a digital platform is the proper direction. And, as with your checkbook balance, bigger is better right?

Wait, Only 1% of Facebook Fans Engage with Brands

Just as we were  convinced to start ramping up our digital assault, we read a contradicting article, this from AdAge, that Not Many Fans Are Engaging; What are we to believe?

 For a few years now, brands have been touting frothy Facebook “like” numbers as evidence of their social-media acumen. But how many of those fans are actually bothering to take part in conversation with brands?

Not too many, as it turns out.

Slightly more than 1% of fans of the biggest brands on Facebook are actually engaging with the brands, according to a study from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, an Australia-based marketing think tank that counts Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and other major advertisers as its supporters

Is Facebook for Business Overrated  

The point here is that  you can find a blog, an article, a video and multiple consultants to support either side of the equation. What is best for your business? It wasn’t long ago that I too was a bit skeptical and thought that Facebook for Business is Overrated. I have changed my mind, but with a qualification, only after you have built a Fan Base large enough to matter. If you aren’t willing to do what it takes to create a space for a “community” to gather around your brand, and grow that to a size large enough to matter then leave your Facebook chips at home. Size really does matter.

We have since placed a disproportionate amount of our marketing resources on that bet and Doubled Down on our Facebook Fan Page for our boutique apartment business. I am glad we did, as it is producing a steady stream of rental leads for us. However, not much of anything happened until we got close to 10,000 Fans. Prior to that, we were mostly talking to ourselves.

That raises another question, What is the Optimal Facebook Fan Base size to see a return?

It has taken some time to build a hearty, Hyper Local Fan Base, and a lot of work, trial and error. Patience was required. And, we didn’t know what the right size was either, until finally we started to experience a sharing of “Likes” and engagement. It has sort of been an obsession around our office for the last 24 months or so, but it looks like it is beginning to create a nice return.

What are your experiences — Especially those of you in small businesses? How many fans did you have before you began to see responses, leads and even sales or conversions? Where was your double down point? Let us know in the comments.

• Posted By Eric Brown
• No Comments Yet