Who owns Social Media in a business? #w2e

A very interesting question was asked today at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. "Who in a business owns Social Media"

Presenters Answer:
According to the presenter (Joshua-Michele Ross from Fleishman Hillard)
"Social Media should not be owned by the obvious departments in the business such as Marketing or PR instead it should be owned by the person / department that wants the opportunity.

Why I disagree:
Now this is where I strongly disagree, sure its good passing the buck to someone who wants it, but just because you want the opportunity does not mean you have the necessary experience in both business and in the social media.

Most of the recent Social Media disasters (Nestle springs to mind, see below for related post) was caused by inexperienced business users who thought they are social media experts because they have a facebook page and know what a tweet is.

You need a careful blend of traditional business communication knowledge and informal social language.

Just because you are engaging your users on a social platform does not mean you engage them with the language and attitudeyou engage your friends with

Presenters answer continued:

He then stated that it should be done on a mandate from top management.

Why I disagree:

I am not quite sure if he has ever truly worked in a business where top management still think of blogs and forums as a place you "go to play" after hours.

If you look at the general age of Top Management, most epecially those from established businesses tend to be baby boomers / gen Y.

These are the people who still cant sleep at night because the company's fax number is no longer on their business card.

It is only in 2016 that most of the Top Management will be the gen y's or Digital Natives as Gartner calls them.

In my view, current top management are not qualified to make any kind of Social Media mandate. They just don't seem to 'get' it. They still believe it can be controlled or censored and that it should be about us telling them what we want them to hear.

What business leaders and top management need is 3rd party enducation from a respected peer. Only once they fully understand the Social Media space and implecations can they truly decide the who, what, where and when.

Related post

- Why internal corporate socail media often fails
- Nestle's Social Media Fail

4 Misconceptions when doing Email Branding & Marketing

Email marketing is an art form, not just the creation but also the execution.

It's rapidly changing as new forms of media is introduced and audiences start consuming media in new ways and forms.

As email marketing evolved more and more misconceptions seem to be formed by understaffed over stressed marketeers, who just don't have the time to explore the new media's and technology.

So result driven companies are forcing Marketeers to take leave of their senses, to compete in a market that has changed and they don't understand, just so they can increase inbound traffic.

I've been responsible for email branding and email marketing for a number of years.  With every campaign or branding exercise, I always find the same misconceptions. I have listed a few common ones in regards to email branding and email marketing that I want to address.

1. Disclaimers are not legally binding.

It has never been proven in a court of law that email disclaimers will protect you from liability for the content of an email.

It merely attempts to limit the liability of the senders company.

However this does not mean having an email disclaimer won’t help. If in doubt, include one. 

2. People will not click on your links just because the email is from you.

This is a very big misconception especially from higher up in the business, If anything, business email branding has an even worst click through rate than eblasts.

Primarily this has to do with relevance of the branding, when you receive an eblast you know from the subject line, topline message and content exactly what you are getting.

When it comes to email stationery, 99.9% of the time your branding has no relevance to the content. So unless you actually reference the branding item in your email you have virtually no chance of having someone click through.

So when doing email branding don’t be unrealistic in your expectations, don’t think it’s a quick win lead generation tool.

However, do use it to reinforce your brand. Showcase you awards and achievements, your events, your press. Just because someone doesn’t click through does not mean they don’t visual consume your brand.

3. Impressive graphics does not increases open and click through rates.

I recently received, probably the worst formatted and visually disturbing email. Yet, I read it and I picked up the phone and eventually entered into commercial relationship with the sender…. Why?

The message and content was relevant to what my needs were at that particular stage.

This does not mean I would not have gone with a competitor if their email’s looked slicker. It just means that:

RELEVANCE & CONTENT  trumps design.

I cannot stress this point enough. In today's world we are bombarded by information and if something is not relevant or lacks decent content. It will be dismissed and ignored.
 
4. Measuring open rates is the most important.

Marketeers are quite concerned by the open rate and number of views. Yes this might be a very important metric, however its terribly flawed.

There is not 100% accurate way of measuring open or view rates.

 This measurement is solely based on the recipient ignoring a security warning and selecting "Download images" in their email client. Yes some clients do have this automatically set up, but the moment you doing serious B2B emarketing most companies will have much stricter security policies.

What about mobile users? Images are never displayed on my iphone and by the time I get to the office, I will be ignoring the image laden email because I already read it on the train.

 Unless.... I found the content relevant (see point 3)

Why Public figures should fear Social Media: What the Palin Twitter gaff teaches us.

I've been following the minor storm that erupted after Sarah Palin's recent comment about "that twittering thing". 

Funnily enough I became aware of it thanks to a tweet, after reading numerous blogs, I realized most people seem to have understood the comment as belittling the Twitter community (see her comment below).

“... Just you watch now, too, because somebody will be here with their little Twittering thing, and it’s going to be on the Internet any minute now.”
_{Source: mashable.com}

In fact I think the comment actually is quite the opposite, by trying to marginalize Twitter she has in actual fact shown how seriously she is taking the twitter and associated social media communities.

Forever gone are the days when the media could be manipulated in the favor of the one who has the most money or influence

Now the truth will out, distorted and opinionated for sure, but it will be tweeted, retweeted and commented on by those that do that "Twittering thing" and then spill out into blogs and mainstream media. (as this blog proves)

In 2009 Sky News recognized the fact that news no longer "breaks" via the tradition controllable channels but via social media and especially that "Twittering thing". This means that "Breaking News" can no longer be sold off to the highest or most influential bidder.

Imagine the panic of influential public figures who in the past only needed to make a phone call to their PR teams to make all but the most noticeable gaffs disappear.

Personally I imagine the call between Palin and her PR team, after her comment, to go something like this:

-- Ring Ring --

PR Agency: "Awful good PR agency, how may we help you"

Palin: "Guys this is Palin, I just made a bit of a gaff with this twittering statement, can you please embargo any journalist that were in the room."

-Awkward silence-

PR Agency: "Ah... erm..."

-Whispering in the background-

"You tell her, no you tell her"

-Another awkward silence-

PR Agency: "We know all about it, we just read it on Obama's blog, apparently he picked it up from a friend's facebook status, who in turn read a tweet by someone in India who retweeted the waitress from the catering company at the event"

^{Please note: this is an imagined fictional conversation and is not based on fact}

So you see instead of reproaching Palin, we should thank her for showing us that she believes the social community should be feared.

We are everywhere, we see everything and worst of all.... We have our own opinions that others listen to. Fear the social media revolution.

Do you agree with me? Does public figures fear social media? Has the once powerful lost the ability to control traditional media? Or have they found even cleverer ways of manipulating it? Let me know your views