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Automating Social Media?

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The “bots” are at it in force, and their victims are the industries nascent in adoption of social media. In a social-media presentation I gave recently to a group of 20 executives who own auto repair facilities nation-wide, someone announced they were doing a three-month trial with a supplier who is going to automate social media.

The man was excited about just approving content – to be written by another company, and watching them publish it on the various sites for him.

Why this is a bad idea is akin to allowing companies to access your bank account for a regularly scheduled debit.

No one, especially those starting out in social media should deliver the entire execution to an outside company. Message, tone, relationship, and content are at risk.

It was only a matter of time before this became the next trend for suppliers to pounce on. I am enduring the very same with those companies who write press releases and distribute them “free” on the Internet.

Executives and business leaders need to understand that social media strategy is part of integrated marketing. Social media is another powerful channel with which to communicate with audiences. Left to the automaters…that’s an absolute dead end.

I say no way to social media automation. What do you say?

Social Media Tips & Auto Repair

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We in social media often forget there are numerous industries and businessess nascent in social media adoption. While we continue to learn the intricacies about new channels, back-end tools, and amplifying our own brands, there are business leaders who still don’t know what Twitter is or why they need a Yelp profile to push local revenue.

This week, I gave a two-hour presentation in Chicago to a 20 group in the auto-repair industry on social media and amplifying brand. To the business leaders who are owners of five to 10 local collision-repair shops throughout the country, I provided the following recommendations to introduce social media and help them tie it in with the core marketing foundation:

  • Engage, for if you’re not engaged you cannot create community, control the message, or build reputation.
  • Re-trench the foundation that includes the brand, the Web site and the core communications strategy aligned with business goals.
  • Execute public relations as part of that core strategy so powerful content can be developed.
  • Cross pollinate all social networking sites with the Web site to drive search engine marketing.
  • Develop a corporate social media policy and select and train a front-line team to help build community, trust, transparency, and reputation.
  • Start slowly; do not tackle all social media channels at the same time. It’s not an all-or-nothing engagement, either.
  • Yelp is a must for local businesses, and a breadth of opportunity exists to take the lead in a region and vertical.
  • Because women 55-65 are the fastest-growing segment on Facebook, create a business page and begin a marketing thrust to create community and a new revenue stream among that demographic.
  • Managing “grudge” emotion is critical to diffuse from becoming an actual complaint or negative comment.
  • Leave Internet marketing to the professionals. It’s too complex to attempt on your own.
  • Respond to social media interactions within 12 hours max. If you wait 2.5 days to respond, you’re losing your community.

In your company and to your clients, are there other tips you might offer to those who are late to the party? We who lead have a ton of opportunity to help executives educate and navigate new media before the online world migrates to Web. 3.0.

Google+: How Social Media Will Fall (Updated)

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This post first appeared July 16, 2010, and what prompted me to head back through the archives to find it again was this post by Antonia Harler about Google — A Successful Road to  Failure. She shares all the write ups about Google + that we all have seen. And, she hit on what I suggested a year ago — no one has more time to develop yet another social network, do we?

See if this resonates from a year ago with you…I felt pretty strongly about developing more networks a year ago; I may be less against it today, but my time is more limited. Share your thoughts!

 

It’s all about community, connectivity and social networking, and people are joining in droves. Apparently, 96 percent of GenY have joined a social network. The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is women 55 – 65 years old.

The more cool social networks, publishing networks, and professional networks that launch to accompany Stumble, Posterous, YouTube, Friend Feed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the like, the more consumers will weary. No one has time to find friends to add to a network. Do you?

I learned today that Stumble requires a network of Stumblers who share cool sites with one another. I’m always interested in seeing cool sites, but I’ve no time to develop a network of connected Web site lovers. When I launched Friend Feed, I thought I could consolidate my social media into one platform (which I can), but it, too, wants friends to connect on the same platform and be networked. On Twitter,  new followers invite me to join them on Facebook. Why? I don’t even know them.

And, that’s it.

That’s the reason social media will fall flat on its pitoot. People cannot spend eight hours a day creating community and populating it with more and more friends. There are only six degrees of separation from all of us, but seriously, folks, who has that many “friends” for real?

Not I.

10 Tips for Social Media Moxie

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This is directed at you — the laggers who are likely NOT reading this blog among my colleagues (who shall remain nameless) who are creeping along outside the action like a voyeur.

I hit a wall this week with the umpteenth public relations and/or marketing peer not engaging in social media with the basics of basics – Twitter. Then there was a fabulous new company launch with a highly creative site from an old colleague with whom I was eager to tweet. Sadly, his last tweet was 20 days ago.

Are you engaging for real, people? C’mon, don’t kid yourself…we both know you’re not.

From a seriously real cross section of colleagues, peers, practitioners of all ages and experience ranges, who are experts in their own right with budding businesses, etc., the writing is on the wall. Marketing and public relations are NOT engaging in social media, and that’s a SAD state of affairs.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT GOING AWAY! SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT A TREND! (Yep, caps on purpose; felt better than boldface.)

I’m here to push you off your derrière and raise your bar. How can you ignore something so incredibly exciting for marketing public relations when clients and employers expect you to be the expert who leads them to social media opportunity?

I own a virtual public relations agency, Soulati Media, Inc.  I can’t find anyone yet (within the confines of my circular engagement) who knows more than me in social media. Why’s that? Because I’ve been busting my chops for the last three years to learn, engage, test, fail, test, and become knowledgeable. (See that “fail” word in there? Painfully, it has to happen to become learned, and then the doors swing open and shut more smoothly.)

This is not about blogging, either. It’s simply about carpe diem. There’s gold in them ‘thar hills, people, and if you don’t go mining, you’re never going to get your social media mojo.

Here are Jayme Soulati’s 10 Basic Social Media Engagement Tips:

1. Launch a Twitter account associated with business. Brand yourself as an expert, but first believe you are one.

2. Expect to fail (failure comes in many sizes) and embrace the pain as learning anything new. You will get through that episode (spoken from my own trial and error).

3. Re-launch the Facebook  account you closed down because you couldn’t handle connecting with high school alumni. Consider it a business venture and make it so with a fan page to fuel your business or expertise.

4. Adopt a mentor, but don’t suck them dry! Be respectful of their time and their own hard-earned pathway to knowledge.

5. Engage, people, really engage. That means post a comment on a blog with your perspective. Make yourself known to the blogger you’re reading who has no idea you exist. Communication is a two-way street.

6. Understand fear and get beyond it. Your fear may be lack of confidence in your own expertise. Get out of your own way, and just do it already.

7. Tackle one new thing every day. This is as easy as tweet five times. Follow five people. Post one comment on a new blog every day. RT someone’s blog post. Explore a new social media application everyone else is so you’re in the know, too.

8. Don’t get left behind! I’ve been tweeting for maybe 15 months now, and it’s the sole reason I’ve met the cool people who are now my new colleagues and friends. It saved me days of boredom through the dark winter because social media takes you to Bali, Singapore, Australia, and South America where peers there seek engagement, too.

9. Set a goal. While I’ve never written goals, they are in my head. Yesterday I had the same number of followers and following on Twitter, 1817. Because I compete, I want to get to 2000, but it’s getting tougher to create a Twitter stream that’s not littered with spammers, scammers, and salespeople.  So, I’ll go for quality over quantity. Don’t let the numbers fool you.

10. Ask for help. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I’m glad to help you get there, too. Post your little question down below, and we’ll journey.

Got social media? Please say “yes!”

Un-Social Media

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Here’s a quickie; just a rumination, really.

At the crux of “social” media are “un-social” people. Our dependence on the next generation device, new gadget, emerging application, competition to befriend the highest number of peeps, linkedins, FB’ers, and the like is causing detrimentally the weakening of social skills.

  • I watch it with the Wii generation of <10-year-olds.
  • We can see it in the very young teens with texting.
  • We learn about it from the high schoolers with sexting (something they’d NEVER have considered doing with a 35mm lens or Polaroid).
  • I watch the Kindlers and soon-to-be iPadders stick a nose in a device (rather than a book) and ignore the socialization happening around them. (Not sure why I think sticking a nose in a device is less acceptable than a book?)
  • I interact with college students who lack the social graces to interview and communicate without technology or e-mail.
  • And, then there are you and I. For at least 15-hours-a-day, we’re plugged in to social media, email, crackberries and i-devices addicted to who’s saying what and when it’s being delivered.  

I do pick up the phone; I do send a “what’s up?” e-mail to friends not in touch; I do send Skype messages to connect with friends in Mexico and Hong Kong; I do (gasp) write letters!

Alas, the rate of return on these efforts to connect when combined en masse is perhaps 2 percent. A sad state of affairs, isn’t it?

We’re smack in the era of mobile tech, WiFi, MiFi, gigs, and RAM, and there’s no telling when it might right itself. Those of us who pre-date the fax machine (yes, I’m seasoned) know of what I speak. Heck, all of us pre-date social media, and I bet you understand what I’m talking about?