Web Strategy by Jeremiah

I’m starting a new series, called Social Media Frequently Asked Questions. It’s a collection of the top asked questions I hear over and over. I’m putting them here on my blog is a great place to help everyone quickly get educated, convince their boss, or be able to help their clients get over these hurdles, so please, pass them around.

If you’re seeking advanced topics, cruise through the web strategy posts (it goes back pages and pages)

Social Media FAQ #4: How Do I Launch My Social Media Program?

Companies unsure how to launch
Most companies are used to announcing products or initiatives using press releases, advertising, media influence, and even analyst influence. While many companies are toe dipping in the social media waters (The majority still have not, I’ve seen some adoption data from work) so there’s still many questions on what to do once you launch your blog, community site, podcast, etc.

Unlike Traditional Marketing
First of all, the term “launch” is the wrong way to think about this. Launch implies a single effort, getting a program in the air, and letting go, social media efforts are long term, and require a different approach, here’s how to approach it: think grassroots, not big bang.

The first thing to do is to remember this is unlike traditional marketing efforts. Remember that trust is highest between customers-to-prospect, not marketer-to-prospect. The next time you buy an item, think about who you trust more, a friend who has the product, or a marketer from that company. Therefore, the most effective way to announce your social media program is to get those in your community to announce it for you.

Tactics vary
In many cases, companies experiment internally with tools, and then launch a public social media program quietly, and let it build up momentum through natural word of mouth spread.

When a company wants to boost it’s presence, there’s quite a few ways to do this: 1) Link to the blogs, communities in your marketplace, add value from your own social media properties. 2) Join existing communities by leaving comments that add value, be an ongoing member of the community you’re trying to reach 3) For the sophisticated, provide special access to influencers in your market to announce, join, or co-create your social media programs.

Objectives
The goal for this exercise is simple, your employees, using social media tools, is to engage your community by interacting with them, being relevant, and adding valuable content to them (which is often, not marketing content) to your community. The objective is for them to respond to you, and sing your praises on your behalf. We’ll explore more advanced goals in future posts.

While I think good things are going to come out of ebay’s social media effort, to some, going the route of mainstream media to announce a groundswell effort seems counterintuitive.

Thanks to Kevin Werbach who invited me to lead a roundtable at Wharton West (yes, the business school) in San Francisco last night. The topic, “Social Graph for Fun and Profit” was intended to let the attendees engage, shout, argue, and come to agreement on how we can address this new world. If you’re not familiar with the social graph, here’s how I explain the social graph to executives.

I agree with Kevin, there are so many ideas, not everyone agrees with everything. Present were many CEOs, VCs, Analyst, Entrepreneurs, Googlers, Bloggers, Consultants, and quite a few folks from Adaptive Path.

Elliott Ng attended my session, and shared his viewpoints on how the future will be amorphous, layered, interconnected, and fragmented. Rene Blodgett, who loved my clothing choices for the evening, also shared that we’re having a shift with the Advertising & Marketing Sea Change. Ted Shelton posts that his favorite comment was Advertising is transactional. Brian Solis took some great event photos (I’ll add more to this link list as they emerge)

How can the Social Graph by “leveraged” to increase member attraction?
The audience said:

Clean up experience.

Email inbox is shifting to SoNet Inbox.

Members “punish” spammy app devs.

Niches are ok, segmentation better than mass.

Need to prevent site becoming ‘over popular’ so it doesn’t dilute.

Improved Infrastructure (API/Standards/DP)

Option for a premium service sans advertisements

Make ads part of the social experience

Members can define the ads they want (see blyk, which gets good CTR)

Teens may be a fickle audience

How can Social Networks monetize?
The audience said:

Challenging, if it becomes like ‘air’ (like consumer email)

Point: the tertiary parties around the social network will monetize

LinkedIn is a utility, the value add is more than pure social networking

Different ways to monetize:

Advertising

Download media sales

Subscription

Premium Services

eCommerce

Market Research

Specialized Content (Tiered content “NIN”)

Value added services for niche audiences

Marketing Services

Infrastructure (B2B)

What is the future of social networks?
The good people said:

A few big players “the highlander” or

Will be many small niche contents

Digital Lifestyle Aggregation

Focus on ‘people’ –not so much content

Teens drive adoption

Geography and culture shapes communities

Social circles (a different type of culture) shapes communities

Device Dependent Social Networks (mobile cultures adopt differently)

Device “in”-dependent as well.

Aggregated Social Networks with control will occur

If you want to learn more about Forrester’s perspective on the future of social networks, read Charlene’s master post on how Social Networks will be like air.

Conclusion:
We certainly did not solve any industry problems, but plastered quite a few options folks should be thinking about. Not everyone agreed on every topic, so it was a very active ‘live wiki’ type of event.

Thanks Kevin and Wharton for hosting a great event.

Jeremiah: Having been a community manager, I’ve real soft spot to those that are on the front lines, embracing customers using social media tools. Every so often, I hear of really excited folks that landed new jobs, and David thanked me for my blogging and tweeting, which helped him inch toward his goal.

The following is David’s submitted post:

My name is David Peck and Jeremiah was nice enough to ask me to guest blog about how I got my new job as an Online Community Manager for Myminilife.com. If you have not heard of it, Myminilife.com is a virtual world company located near me in Palo Alto, California.

A question that I keep getting is how I got a job in social media. The simple answer is social networking. Yep that’s it. Okay, okay some more details.

I first started listening to podcasts back in 2005. This helped me learn about other social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and such. It was not until I entered Second Life that things really began to change for me. In this virtual world I was able to meet and chat with the people I listened to on podcasts. I got to virtually hang with C.C. Chapman, Chris Pirillo, Jeff Pulver, and Adam Curry among many, many other new media mover and shakers. By doing this I was able to form relationships and get more involved in online projects.

One of the first projects I worked on was for crayon’s Steve Coulson and C.C. Chapman on Coca Cola’s VirtualThirst contest. My task was to help build an online community around the project. Yet, it was not until I discovered Twitter that things really kick in for me.

I went from networking and knowing 25-50 Social Media folk to knowing over 500. I discovered projects, people, places and events I had no idea about. I knew some people’s virtual Avatars but had no idea who they were in the real world. Twitter let me discover that and I got to know them much better. It really is a powerful tool. Everyone should be using it.

From this point I was able to locate freelance work that I had the skills to help on. If potential clients needed recommendations I would turn to my Twitter friends for recommendations from people like Ijustine, Eric Rice & Chris Brogan. In the past year I have worked on new media projects involving UC Berkeley, The Grammys, NPR, & PodShow. It was my being profiled on CNBC for my work in virtual worlds that allowed Myminilife.com to locate me. As their Online Community Manager I will lead incentives to increase membership, run the community blog, help generate quality content that stimulates quality activity and grow traffic on the site. The most important thing about this position though, I get to do something I love and get paid for it.

So yes the secret to getting a job in social media is to use the social networking tools out there to network yourself. Start with Twitter as its one of the best and easiest social networking tools. Where else can you talk to Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington? Heck it was Twitter that let me find Jeremiah and allowed me to be a guest blogger on this site. Oh and don’t forget to add me on twitter!!

David Peck

If this blog has helped you with getting a new job (or getting promoted) in your career, I want to know, send me an email. Keep at it!