Tag Archives: Social Media

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Social media opens a ton of possibilities and new ways to share and connect with customers. Many organizations have discovered its incredible power at mobilizing support and political change. We've seen it's impact in:

  • 2008 Presidential Campaign electing Barak Obama
  • Revolution in Egypt
  • Getting Betty White on SNL

At Spartan, we're strong supporters of using Social Media for communication, business development and engaging and rallying people online. While a few years ago, many organizations assumed that simply hiring a young kid out of college who "understands this stuff" was a way to capitalize on this medium, it is no longer the case. No matter the campaign, there are always potential hiccups that can arise. These absolutely require the expertise of a business professional with the ability to foresee all possible results.

This is the tale of one social media campaign gone horribly, horribly wrong...

(We should note, our opinions about this situation are unrelated to the political and personal issues attached to the issue it surrounds).

The campaign was started by NARAL, with the goal of creating an online petition. Their campaign announcement can be found on their site (http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/get-involved/stupak-on-steroids/war-on-women-photo-petition.html)

The plans to mobilize support are summarized as:

  • Print a page from their website
  • Take a picture of yourself with it
  • Send that picture via email to an address
  • That picture with automatically be posted to the flickr account

I can almost see the conversation in the conference room in planning this.

Marketing Person: We need a way to use this social media thing!

Bright-Eyed Intern: We could start a facebook page.

Marketing Person: But won't we have to constantly fill the page with content and info?

Bright-Eyed Intern: Yes, but doing that would get people to "like" us on facebook.

Marketing Person: Sure, but we'd have to pay someone to constantly monitor the site, add pictures, news, etc. We're not going to spend that kind of money. There's got to be a way we can just let people share their voice themselves.

Bright-Eyed Intern: Sorry, I wasn't paying attention, just saw something on my smartphone... Oohh, I know, here's what we can do. We can let people post pictures of themselves directly to our page on Flickr. So, we just get an announcement to everyone to send a picture to our account - with just an email address - we can have the pictures automatically appear.

Marketing Person: Well, I'll let you sort out the details - but since other people can just post what they want and we don't have to pay someone to monitor it, it sounds good. Plus, we can tell the execs that we're using Social Media!

Bright-Eyed Intern: Great - I'll have it up by lunch!

The mock-conversation is clearly fictional, but we can all probably relate to many of the sentiments it satirically portrays.

There are some good elements to the plan:

  • Makes the barrier to entry low - it is incredibly easy to participate
  • There was no cost - it uses widely used and free tools

Unfortunately, some very important elements that would have been obvious to an expert in the field or any seasoned business professional were missed.

  • The photos are immediately loaded to the page they control
  • The viral nature of the program means everyone - including the "opposition" - know about it
  • Opposing groups can mobilize their Social Media audience and flood the page

So, what happened so far?

  1. The campaign was reported on an opposing organization's website (http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/whats-that-naral-put-a-face-on-the-debate-you-say-you-got-it/)
  2. Another group- one started and run by a youthful organization - caught wind of the campaign.
  3. This group urged their fans and followers to flood the campaign with their own support and campaign images (Facebook-LiveAction

When it first began, there were a few thousand images posted by supporters of NARAL - roughly under 3,500. When the above action was started, the manager of the Flickr Page spent a few hours trying to keep up with deleting the images that weren't in line with their goal. As far as we can tell, at about 5:00 PM, the deletions stopped - either because the person when home or realized the onslaught wasn't going to stop.

As of this morning, at 9 AM Eastern, there were over 40,000 images in the photostream. A quick scan shows that almost all of the additions were not the intended type of images. As of 9:45 AM Eastern, there were around 36,000 images, meaning someone must be trying to delete them once more.

In addition, the page announcing the campaign by NARAL (linked above) has an automatic stream of the Flickr account - meaning there are thousands of Pro-Life images streaming through their page...

What everyone can learn from this

  • Be ready for anyone to post on your social media presence, and have a plan to address it
  • Weigh the things that could happen along with what should happen
  • If your plan is to delete/remove things you don't want - be ready to stay late at the office
  • Just because something can be done "automatically" doesn't mean it always should.

We're interested to see how this continues. As a Social Media expert, there is no good way out of this situation for NARAL, and I am glad to not have to solve this problem now. At Spartan, we would have solved it by foreseeing this and having proper plans in place to prevent the issue.

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Are you confident in your Social Media strategy? I've found that people tend to answer this question in two ways. A large segment of the online businesses will report "Definitely Not". The other largest segment, although a very small total, indicate "Yes". In reviewing the actual programs and campaigns of those segments, there are two overwhelming observations that bubble to the top.

Businesses who are not confident in their social media strategy are well positioned to succeed.

  • They know what they don't know, therefore making them open to change.
  • Their hesitation to jump in opens an opportunity for a strong start.
  • They are watching market trends to identify the best place to start.

Being involved with these companies is a very exciting opportunity. They recognize the tremendous potential the social media channels can offer, and strive to be strategic about their interactions. Many of us would simply laugh at the idea of starting a business with no product to sell, revenue to gain, or plan to get there. Yet, hundreds and thousands of businesses have a "social media strategy" that entails nothing more than having a page or group on Facebook.com or a Twitter.com account.

Businesses who recognize the immense potential of reaching over 120 Million monthly visitors (according to compete.com ) on Facebook requires careful planning. This week, I was speaking with some folks from a great agency located in Michigan, DDM Marketing & Communications. They are an organization that understands the potential of social media for business, and are actively working to set strategies for clients that meet the clients' business needs. To quote the Principal, "Anyone can create a Facebook Page in 15 minutes, our smarter clients understand it takes more than just a page". Exellent observation, which unfortunately is overlooked by many.

What makes a good Social Media strategy that inspires confidence in the business?

  • Understand Social Media is a commitment, not simply a campaign.
  • Align the strategy with the business objectives.
  • Invest time, resource and money into growth.

Businesses who are confident in their Social Media strategy are most often missing trememdous opportunities.

Simply having a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. doesn't mean your strategy is solid. It means only that you've started something.

Measuring your success based on the number of followers, connections, fans or "likes" is an equally unvaluable metric. This only suggests the pool of prospects more readily available to you.

Understanding the visitors, conversions, leads and comments from your social network outreach is a step in the right direction. These often are the start of an effective engagement and monetization strategy, they are only valuable when aligned with the business strategy.

Are you confident in your social media strategy?

If you've read this entire page, you probably realize the expected answer is "no". Regardless, your success online depends on making sure customers and prospects can locate you, wherever and whenever they want.

Contact Spartan today to find out how you can dip your toe in the water in this wide open ocean of opportunity.

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Well, that sure is an easy question to answer...

Why Not?

Seriously, there are some considerable benefits to blogging, as a company. Sure, we all likely have one (or two, or three...) blogs, as well as a personal facebook profile. Many also have a LinkedIn profile in the unlikely event of a change in the economy... However, very few businesses have realized the power of a blog from their company.

Creating and maintaining an open blog for your company will generate additional revenue.

Perhaps difficult to believe, but in my experience, this is entirely true. A number of factors prove this to be true, but the highlights are:

  • Producing online content in a blog offers another opportunity for your site to appear to web searchers
  • Blog content is more readily available for others (including search engines) to drive traffic to your site
  • Blogs can more easily be syndicated to additional sites online expanding your reach
  • It really is the customers who make a difference - and making a personal connection takes your business a long way.

First, this chart from emarketer's recent report shows the clear trend in increased corporate blogging. Notice the rapid growth of the trend. Of course, just because everyone else is doing it isn't necessarily the best reason to jump off the bridge, or blog wagon...

Here are just a few examples to prove this point.

More chances to be seen

Provided your blog is posted at a different domain than your main site, and does a good job of linking between itself and your marketing and e commerce sites, you can gain extra visibility. Blogs tend to have more content than your promotional site, and tend to be updated more regularly. Therefore, by hosting a blog, more content is posted more regularly, improving your chances of discovery.

Smart Web Users will see you quickly

The past few years have given rise to continued enhancements and new features in search. Many smart business owners are using basic web tools for reputation management (more on this some other time). Posting content in a blog almost ensures more visibility through those notifications.

By way of example, I personally use the "Google Alert" program to monitor several specific queries and types of content online. In the tool, Google sends an email (or RSS message) when content matching the parameters is posted. This is a great way to keep tabs on competition, customers, or trends in your market.

A few days ago, a post went up on this site linking to, and discussing, the website DailyGrommet.com. Since Jules and her team are on the ball, they very quickly saw the post, and proceeded to comment on the article. You can see the post and comments for Sneaky or Smart. (If you're watching, thanks again Jules for such a fine example!)

What's the point here? Those who run the website have their act together, so likely have little need of my help or expertise. However, merely by posting a blog with a mention and link to their site, they stumbled upon the site, engaged, and opened a conversation which otherwise wouldn't happen.

Open to syndication

Because most blogging platforms rely on fairly basic functionality, they have some built-in features that are prime for standardization. Most blogging tools (wordpress, typepad, blogger are all best bets) all include basic RSS functionality.

Let's not scare ourselves with RSS - Really Simple Syndication - it happens automatically as a part of these tools. The value in these for this discussion is simple. Each blog post you make generates a new entry in the RSS feed.

This means by blogging, you can instantly have a universally usable file of your blog content to send to another website as free content (in trade for acknowledging and linking to your site).

Customers Love You

Gone are the days of one-way conversations where businesses, magazines, experts, etc. speak unidirectionally and we poor consumers take their word for it. The advent of social media, user ratings, etc. forces honesty in business. As a pleasant side effect, it gives us a direct connection to our consumers.

A client of ours recently noticed in reviewing her website activity something that surprised her. The articles, posts, images, etc. that were most often clicked, shared or commented were those showing her personal travels and experiences. We all like to drink from the fountain of our own wisdom, yet consumers who look to us gain far more trust in us... not only our products.

Not sure how to get started with your own blog platform or strategy?

Contact Spartan to learn some options today.