For example…

In Zarrella’s samples, the circles represent the individual mentions of a piece of content by a single Twitter account. The larger the circle, the more followers that account has.  As you can see, although several popular accounts were instrumental in circulating this particular story, no single account was directly responsible for the story’s ultimate social success. you could remove any mention of the story (except for its initial creation) and it would still be considered popular.

Zarrella includes several similar visual examples in his summary, including many intriguing variations, but none of them relies exclusively upon one central popularity push.

So, what does this mean for your marketing strategy?

Buckshot and the Kitchen Sink

40 years ago, we only had three TV stations.  In those days, getting on TV was an automatic win because ABC, NBC and CBS owned the audience’s attention.  Odds were, 33% of the TV-owning country (give or take) was bound to see your story.

Today, we have hundreds of TV channels competing simultaneously with radio, print and Internet media, often via the same devices (TVs, computers, phones).  Getting your story on TV today guarantees you absolutely nothing in terms of audience awareness or recognition.  And while some media outlets are certainly more popular (and powerful) than others, there’s no more automatic win.

In the past, you could aim for a specific target.  Today, you need buckshot to increase your chances of a direct hit.

In the past, you could craft a single, elegant method of winning over your audience.  Today, you need to throw everything at the audience including the kitchen sink, in the hope that something connects.

In the past, you knew who the influencers were.  Today, every mention counts.

Where will your next popularity push come from?

Want more mentions for your brand? Follow us on Twitter or Facebook!

Image by Diego Lorenzo F. Jose on Flickr, who includes this description:

Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks?

My dad just turned 60 and is newly retired. I got him an Ipod Touch to play with

Diego’s father isn’t alone in his newfound tech habits.

A new study from The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that older Americans (age 50+) are adopting social media in growing numbers.  Among the report’s findings:

• Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.
• One in five (20%) online adults ages 50-64 say they use social networking sites on a typical day, up from 10% one year ago.
• One in ten internet users aged 50+ now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves or see updates about others.

Increased social media use among a wider demographic is obviously a good thing.  But it also creates additional questions for any company that uses these tools to communicate with its customers.

For example:

• Are you actively engaging customers of all ages on your social networks?
• Does your messaging change depending on your intended demographic?
• Is your website — or your Facebook fan page — intuitive for all ages?
• Does your social media strategy include a mature perspective?

And while these may seem like new challenges, this isn’t a new conversation.

Ten years ago, the exact same spike in general web adoption among seniors and baby boomers had marketers scrambling to connect with this “new, non-traditional” audience.  And sites like ThirdAge have been providing baby boomers with topical insights for over a decade.

Thus far, social media has been considered a youth movement.  With this growing number of mature voices and viewpoints, the gender gap is being closed — and this is a welcome opportunity for brands to reconnect with an audience they may not have expected to be paying such close attention.

Want to hear more?   Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!

On Mad Men, the ad execs of the 1960s rely on focus groups and psychologists to understand their clients’ customers.  Today, we have Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

Instead of employing tricks and misdirection to learn what people really think about a product or a brand, we’re now empowered to share our opinions with anyone who’ll listen, 24 hours a day.  But this generational shift from privacy to oversharing has created a whole new problem: we now offer too much input, rather than too little.

Thankfully, the web is loaded with tools to help you understand what your customers (and your competition, and complete strangers) are talking about.

• Wondering what’s on people’s minds? Start with Google Trends, and then dissect Twitter’s Trending Topics.
• Concerned about public sentiment?  Try any of these 25 social media tools for tracking online conversations.
• Have questions? Ask your customers directly with these online survey tools.
• Managing multiple campaigns? Keep track of them with rich metrics analysis from Radian6 or Scout Labs.

As you can see, there’s no shortage of ways to listen to your customers.  And now you can analyze what they say vs. what they really mean, all from the comfort of your laptop.

Of course, what you actually do with all that information is another story entirely — but at least you’ll never be in the dark again about what your customers really think.

Overwhelmed? We can help! Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!

Everybody there is talking to somebody else — some in groups, some in pairs.

All except one guy.

A guy in a suit.

A guy who’s moving from group to group and arbitrarily shouting unwanted information at people, and then moving on.

He doesn’t care if you have questions.

He doesn’t even care if you respond.

He just wants to make sure that you heard what he had to say, because the only thing he’s capable of talking about is himself.

Does That Sound Like Your Brand’s Social Media Strategy?

According to marketing firm 360i’s recent report on Twitter usage, odds are, it probably is.

From the MediaPost summary of the report:

The six-month study from 360i reveals that 43% of consumer tweets are conversational — replies to other people tweeting. Yet only 12% of marketers’ tweets demonstrate active dialogue with consumers.

This means that while “normal people” spend almost half their time actively conversing with their fellow Twitter users, companies are only conversing in 1 out of every 10 tweets they send.

Which, obviously, begs the question…

What Is Your Company Talking About?

Do you use Twitter as a megaphone to broadcast company-wide news?

Do you use Twitter for sales, showering your followers with coupon codes?

Do you use Twitter for lead generation, littering your tweetstream with linkbait in the hopes that unsuspecting readers will click through to your sales page and be mysteriously compelled to give you money?

If so, you’re at the wrong party.

Remember to Put the “Social” in Social Media

If you only had one minute to chat with a complete stranger, would you rather tell her something about yourself or learn something about her instead?

Why can’t it be both?

On Twitter, people value (short) conversations.  The nature of the service lends itself to bite-sized interactions and splintered attention, which actually increases the need for meaningful connections in shorter amounts of time.

Yes, people like to listen. But they also like to talk.

The key is to make time for both.

Is your social media strategy a two-way street?

We drive on a few two-way streets: Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!

And while it’s true that both services…

• Are built around publicly shared “status updates”
• Enable users to “follow” or “friend” each other
• Can be simultaneously updated through third party services like HootSuite

… you’ll soon realize that the audience for each service has very different goals and expectations.

Broadly speaking, Twitter is good for…

• Connecting with peers and industry professionals
• “Water cooler” discussions of breaking news & pop culture
• Real-time information-sharing, research, Q&As, etc.
• Technology-focused and business-driven discussions
• One-way broadcasts, with occasional commentary

… while Facebook is good for…

• Connecting with people you already know “in real life”
• Threaded discusssions (where all comments are collected)
• Personal opinions
• Photo albums
• Videos

Twitter, while offering less robust features than Facebook, is also (paradoxically) considered to be the more professional and business-oriented platform.  Meanwhile, Facebook (like MySpace before it) is the more visually-driven sharing platform among friends, family and acquaintances.

This means that the users of each service have different expectations for their experience on each platform.  And if you’re piloting a brand across both channels, you need to be aware of those differences.  (Dan Zarella writes frequently, and well, about how to do this.)

For example, in December of 2009, we at Creative Concepts were helping The Children’s Aid Society promote their annual Miracle on Madison fundraiser.  Most of the news about that particular event — celebrity sightings, fashion updates and high-end sales — differed from the vast majority of The Children’s Aid Society’s traditional topics (children’s health, education, foster care and family services).

We quickly learned that the charity’s followers on Twitter remained open to the Miracle on Madison messaging, but their fans on Facebook chilled to the idea.  While they may be interested in the actual work being done by The Children’s Aid Society, that must seem at odds with more “commercial” updates about a high society Manhattan fundraising event.

So they made their voices heard – some abandoned The Children’s Aid Society Facebook page.

When we noticed a drop in Facebook numbers that coincided with an increase in Miracle messaging, we followed our instincts and dialed down the Miracle mentions on Facebook.  And when their fans’ behavior subsequently returned to normal, we chalked that up as a lesson learned — and one we believe is worth sharing:

Facebook is not Twitter is not MySpace is not a blog.  You may have one message, but you have multiple audiences.

Listen, and then adjust your pitch.

Want to hear our various voices? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

No matter how great your content is, if nobody knows about it, it’s useless.

Fortunately, the folks at MicroArts have compiled some best practices for sharing links on Facebook and Twitter, including some analysis on optimal dates and times to share  from social media scientist Dan Zarrella.

But while these insights are helpful, they’re also fairly broad.  A “one size fits all” approach may help your messages get seen by large numbers of people, but if you want to ensure maximum connectivity, you need to drill even deeper into what your audience’s habits are telling you.

Optimizing Your Outreach Strategy

Once you’ve developed a reliable social media strategy, it’s time to start analyzing the results.  For example:

• On which days are your messages most often read & shared by others?
• At what time of day are your links most often clicked on?
• By whom are your messages most often read & shared?
• Do those results differ among Twitter, Facebook, blog readers, etc.?
• Do those results differ among topics or talking points?
• Do your results improve by messaging more often? Or less often?
• Do certain members of your team craft more effective messages than others?

How do different calls to action (i.e., “watch this”, “learn more”, “find out”) play out on different channels, at different times of day, etc.?

Do you regularly reach out to bloggers, podcasters and other journalists?  If so, do you keep track of who actually shares the information you provide to them, and which leads are dead ends (whom you may actually be annoying)?

While you don’t want to become paralyzed by strategy, you do want results.  And the more you know about how your messages are being processed, and by whom, the better you’ll be able to craft messages that work.

Want more great tips? You should follow us on Twitter!

It turns out we were half-right.

Yes, the blog attracted exactly the kind of readers we anticipated. But it also attracted a number of readers we didn’t expect, including teens, men and moms on the go. It also appealed to non-English-speaking readers in search of curly-haired tips, and African-American readers interested in more reliable hair care solutions.

So we adapted.

We helped Ouidad create new blog posts on the subjects their readers asked the most questions about. We broadened the blog’s focus to include tips for men, teens and kids (or, more specifically, their moms). And we now regularly include posts written in (or translated into) Spanish, to better accommodate Ouidad’s multilingual audience.

Our lesson?

Good companies support the customers they already know they have; great companies find ways to accommodate the customers they never knew existed.

Do you know who your customers are?

(Are you sure?)

What’s your favorite way to “discover” new customers? Tell us on Twitter.

We’ll admit it: social media can be overwhelming.

Posting blog entries, updating Facebook, tagging photos, streaming videos, digging, stumbling, tweeting… and we haven’t even mentioned tracking feedback, gauging sentiment, following fans and solving problems.

Who has time for all this?

Well, we do, but that’s what we do every day.  And even we wouldn’t have time for everything we do if we didn’t have a few tools at hand that made everything a bit easier and kept us all a bit more sane.

If you’re trying to wrap your head around scaling your own social media solutions, here are 4 tips that might make everything more manageable.

1.  Social Media Platform Management — The moment you’re managing more than one social media channel at a time, your room for error — or for old-fashioned information overload — multiplies exponentially.  Jamie Beckland compiled a great comparison chart of social media management tools like HootSuite, CoTweet and SocialOomph, so you can find a solution that suits your needs without breaking your budget.

2.  Converge Your Channels — Does your Flickr account link to your blog?  Do you tweet links to your YouTube videos?  Do your employees’ LinkedIn profiles all point back to your company’s website and its Facebook page?  If boosting traffic is part of your social media strategy, make sure your channels are working together, not in isolation.

3.  Get Ahead and Stay Ahead — Not everything in social media happens in real time.  Yes, you need to engage your audience and answer their questions as they happen, but those promotional tweets you need to send about next week’s big sale can be scheduled a week in advance.  And any evergreen content on your website or blog can be referred to regularly, which means you don’t need to lay awake every night worrying about having something new to say tomorrow.

4.  Streamline Your Efforts — As important as it is to be everywhere online, it’s even more important to be where your audience is most active.  They may find you on Flickr, but they might interact with you most beneficially on Twitter or Facebook.  If time is of the essence — and it always is — figure out which of your channels yields the highest return on your investment.  Then, limit your efforts on the ancillary channels strictly to maintenance (unless circumstances change), and pour the bulk of your resources into what’s working.

And if it all still sounds like too much work, start with one simple question:

What don’t people know about your company?

Then, tell them.

Image by Katie W.

See, now that businesses and consumers can use social media to interact publicly, it’s changed the way people judge the brands they’ve spoken with.  Customers notice how often they’re being listened to, and what kind of value is being created for them by the interactions they have with brands.

In other words, now that you can talk to your customers in the same channels where they’re already chatting with their friends, they’re judging your company as a friend.

And, depending on how your brand conducts itself, this may or may not be a good thing.

Are You a Good Friend?

Are you polite?

Are you reliable?

Are you a good listener?

Do you help others learn to help themselves?

Can you tell the difference between “someone who needs advice” and “someone who’s just venting?”

When the chips are down, are you the one your friends can rely on for coming through in the clutch?

Congratulations: you’re someone that the people around you are probably very happy to know.

On the Other Hand…

Are you perpetually late?

Do you always know best?

Are you always talking about yourself?

Do you have an excuse for every mistake you’ve made?

Do you resent the flaws you see in others, and wonder why they can’t be more like you?

When in doubt, do the people who know you realize that they’ll need to look elsewhere for help?

If so, you’re not a very good friend.  In fact, you’re probably the kind of acquaintance most people avoid, and tolerate only when they have to.

That’s not a recipe for endearing yourself to the people you live with.  And when you’re a brand, the people you live with are your employees and your customers.

If you’re a brand that people want to know, they’ll be happy to introduce you to their friends.  They’ll want you to succeed, because they want what’s best for the people (and brands) they respect.

But if you’re a brand that people avoid and ignore, then convincing others of your merit will forever be an uphill climb.  And since you’ll probably complain about that climb, and hold grudges against the people who don’t help you along the way, it’s bound to be lonely at the top… if you ever get there.

Given that disparity, why not be the kind of person — or brand — that people want to help succeed?

And if you need some statistics to help us prove that point, check out what Dan Zarrella discovered about the power of negative tweeting.  (Hint: it’s not good.)

Wrong.

As much as we love the idea of a client being willing to think on their feet and adapt on the fly, there are a number of steps we’d advise any company to invest in before they ever post a blog or send a tweet.

And you might be even more surprised to learn that most of these steps don’t involve a computer; they involve understanding goals, language and intentions.

8 Questions to Ask Before You “Dive Into” Social Media

1. What’s the end goal? Do you want to increase sales?  Improve public opinion?  Raise awareness?  Gauge customer sentiment?  Too many companies create social media outposts and then ask, “now what?”  Unless everyone involved in planning and executing your social media campaign is working toward the same goal(s), you’ll never be able to direct your efforts effectively.

2. How will success be measured? Are you focusing primarily on sales data?  Traffic?  Click-throughs?  Positive press?  Consumer mentions?  As with step #1, if you’re not all looking at the same metrics, you won’t all be able to agree on what’s working — or why.

3. Who needs approval? Will every blog post you write and every tweet you send require approval from multiple layers of management?  In the event of an emergency, is there a streamlined version of that chain of command that first responders can utilize to circumvent a red tape quagmire?

4.  What’s the official voice of our brand? Some companies thrive on being personal.  Others demand professionalism and objectivity in all forms.  Anyone who’s acting as “the voice of the company” needs to understand the range of that voice, in order to avoid statements and phrasing that feel “out of character” for the brand.

5.  How often will data be collected? If you don’t know how your efforts are being perceived and acted upon by the recipients of your messaging, you won’t know what’s working and what needs to be tweaked.  But if all you do is analyze data, you’ll slip into the strategy trap.  Agreeing on an acceptable frequency for data analysis helps keep everyone sane and focused.

6.  How often will we reconsider our process? Some of your ideas will work better than others.  Sometimes you’ll have lucky breaks; other times, you’ll be outshined by someone else’s better story.  Taking the “long view” in analyzing your goals and data will allow you to base your future adjustments on better-contextualized results, rather than your own knee-jerk reactions.

7.  How elastic is the budget? Social media is an ever-changing field.  What works today may not work tomorrow, and the tools you’ve invested in may become outclassed or obsolete.  Likewise, areas in which you’re minimally invested may turn out to bear more fruit than you initially expected.  How much elasticity and discretion will your team have to adapt your plan on the move, or are the decisions you’re making now expected to last until your next budget analysis?

8.  Where do we start? You can’t wake up tomorrow with a fully-functional presence on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, WordPress and Delicious.  Every channel you’re investing in takes time to establish, grow and curate.  Which tools are the most important for achieving your immediate goals, and in which order do you need to get them up to speed?  Because if you spread yourself too thin, nothing works.

Got all that?  Great; now you can start making plans.

Have questions?  Email us; we make our living providing answers.

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