This is not a post about social media marketing. I’m not here to give you hints on how to increase your friends, fans and followers.

Nor will I say that it’s time for your business to “join the conversation” and I promise not to overuse the word transparency either.

I believe that most brands (large and small) get it.

Friends, fans and followers are important, yes. And brands increase their social equity by engaging in two-way dialogue with their constituency, yes. And transparency is key to these external engagements, yes.

But there’s an underlying challenge that’s not being addressed as it should be.

You see, years ago when Facebook and Twitter exploded and there was an expectation from the “social” community that brands should create blogs and communities; the brands listened.

And what you’ll find today is that most brands are doing a really good job on these channels engaging with their customers.

They’re listening to the conversation using social media monitoring tools such as Radian6 and Meltwater Buzz. They’re hiring community managers to empower and interact with the communities. And, while many still make minor mistakes here and there, they’re becoming more intelligent at adapting to this changing landscape. Most organizations are well on their way to becoming a social brand if they aren’t one already.

Social business is not a trend; it’s a forced evolution.

A social business deals with the internal transformation of an organization and addresses key factors such as organizational dynamics, culture, internal communications, governance, training, employee activation and much more.

Organizations need to get smarter, acquire new technologies, intelligence, talent and motivation to become more open and transparent. They need to create processes and establish governance models that protect the organization, yet empower their employees.

I’ve been fortunate to witness firsthand how organizations are evolving from businesses that merely engage in social behavior into social businesses. There’s a huge difference.

Social business is built on three pillars – people, governance and technology.

The first pillar deals with the people of the organization. It addresses the need to drive organizational change in an effort to break down organizational silos and get internal teams to communicate. It’s also about activating the organization’s most import assets, its employees.

The second pillar deals with governance. This simply means that organizations need to put processes in place to manage the chaos that exists from behind the firewall. Training, social media guidelines and policies are imperative for organizations to monitor and roll out across the organization within different teams and geographies. It ensures consistency; it protects the organization and at the same time, empowers its employees.

The third and last pillar deals with technology. Organizations have to invest in platforms that facilitate internal collaboration. This is essential to ensure proper communication. External campaign management tools like Sprinklr are also essential to scale, especially if an organization has multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Social CRM plays a significant role within this pillar. My definition of social CRM is that it’s just one component that helps organizations fully evolve into a social business. It’s a strategic business initiative that considers technology, intelligence and process; so when organizations communicate with their customers they know what to say, how to say it and when to say it in order to provide a more relevant customer interaction.

What’s not visible to most, unless you’ve worked in the enterprise, is the anarchy, conflict, confusion, lack of communication and organizational silos that exist behind the firewall. This makes the process of becoming a social brand much more difficult and less effective. So this quest to become a social brand and a social business is one of simultaneous effort.

The conversation is happening.

A study back in 2008 showed that 55% of consumers want ongoing conversations with companies and brands. The study investigated how brands and consumers interact and how consumers want brands to engage with them. And the results were awesome.

In addition to the 55% of people wanting an ongoing interaction, 89% of respondents said they would feel more loyal to a brand if they were invited to take part in a feedback group.

A more recent study in 2009 (you can download here) found that 85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media universe.

What’s even more interesting is that those users actually want interaction with these brands. Here are some other data points you might find useful:

Out of the 85% of people who want companies to be present in social media:

• 34% want companies to actively interact with them
• 51% want companies to interact with them as needed or by request
• 8% think companies should only be passively involved on social media
• 7% think companies should not be involved at all

This is all really good data. However, I believe that businesses cannot and will not have effective external conversations with consumers unless they can have effective internal conversations first. And when I refer to internal conversations, I mean much more than a few monthly conference calls and a collaboration forum.

Has your organization evolved into a social business? Please give us some examples in the comments box below.

The growth and usage of Twitter is not surprising. Compete.com estimates approximately 21 million unique monthly visitors, and a quick search on Twitter yields a variety of conversations from music, sports, politics, events and products.

For business however, there’s an art to using Twitter, and the most successful at it follow an unwritten set of rules. The following are 5 important tips to follow on Twitter; all lessons that I have learned while working for companies like HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

#1: Do Some Research

Research is fundamental. I suggest that marketers or small business owners spend a few weeks understanding what types of conversations are happening on Twitter and then formulate a communications plan before actually engaging. This will help drive consistency in the messages shared on Twitter.

#2: Determine Your Goals

Not all businesses use Twitter the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter merely for customer support. Dell uses Twitter to sell products or share company-related information. Often, I see smaller, more local businesses use it to build relationships with their constituencies to drive customer loyalty programs.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to think about what you want to achieve with Twitter before spending your valuable time and resources on it.

#3: Specify Your Twitter Profile

There are many options you can use when creating a Twitter profile. You can create a company-branded account, a personal account or a hybrid account.

Branded account:

A branded account is simply where your Twitter name corresponds with the name of your company, and usually the avatar is your company logo.

Personal account:

A personal account is a little more human and unites your own personal brand with that of the company you work for or own.

Hybrid account:

A hybrid account usually takes different elements from both the branded and personal accounts.

Every business is different, so whichever option you choose, there has to be a level of balance. Branded profiles are great for certain content—for example, industry news, contests, investor relations, etc. Personal profiles are more beneficial if your organization wants to leverage the employee’s personal micro-community or wants to have a more human presence.

When I worked for Intel, I used two profiles to build community: my personal Twitter profile and one I created for Intel. I followed an 80/20 rule that seemed to work perfectly for the community that I engaged with.  On my personal account, 80% of what I shared was conversational (i.e., asking/answering questions, sharing industry-related news, etc.) and 20% was Intel-specific content. The branded account was the opposite—80% of the content shared was Intel-specific and 20% was personal.  This worked very well and click-through rates on links I shared were well above industry average.

#4: Build Social Equity

To be successful on Twitter, you have to build trust and credibility with your community. The end result is an increase in your social equity. That doesn’t always translate to the number of followers, tweets, or retweets you may have either. Rather, it’s more about developing a reputation as a trusted source of information or being seen as an expert in a particular subject.

You won’t succeed in building your equity by pushing out one way marketing messages about your business. Instead ask questions, be personal, and engage people naturally within the community. Otherwise, customers won’t listen to what you have to say and your equity may even decrease.

Buying Twitter followers is not recommended either. There are a lot of companies that will promise you thousands of followers for a very low price. The problem is that many of the followers will never read your content, click through to your links and they’re probably just bots spitting out a multitude of Bit.ly links. Besides, if it becomes public that you did purchase followers, you will be called out by the community and your reputation may be damaged.

It’s not worth buying followers just to increase your “perceived” equity and influence because that’s all it will be, perceived.

#5: Track, Measure and Iterate

Any small- or medium-sized business should invest in a paid tracking service like Radian6 or ScoutLabs to better track Twitter conversations, identify trends, measure sentiment and get a quantifiable snapshot of what’s going on in the social web.

If you want to measure sales, you can simply use a tracking code or coupon code specific for Twitter that will help measure conversions. If you want to measure how much money Twitter has saved your company, you can track how many issues you resolved, leads you gathered, and dollars you saved through Twitter engagement versus traditional channels. If your goal is to handle customer support issues via Twitter, it’s wise to check if there are any decreases in the call volume to your customer support center.

The great thing about using Twitter for your business is that it’s very easy to iterate your metrics and communications plan on the fly. It’s important, however, to remember that your plan should always map back to your goals and objectives so you don’t lose focus.

What Twitter tips would you add? Are you tracking your Twitter activity?  Got a question?  Please comment in the box below.

This article reveals three important tips you need to know to help build and manage communities.

What Is Community Management?

Previously I wrote examined the different roles for those who work with social media in business.   Among the many roles, the community manager is by far the most important because he or she is on the front lines of communication. Here’s how I define community manager:

A community manager usually manages an editorial calendar for a blog/community, a Twitter account and various third-party social media channels like a Facebook fan page or a YouTube account.

A community manager may also be responsible for managing a social listening platform like Radian6 and filtering/assigning conversations to others in the business unit for a proper response.  He or she may even organize in-person events (or town halls) to get feedback from the community. The community manager is the face of the brand.  Conversations are at the core of the job responsibility.

Over the years, I have worked for several big brands and have learned some valuable lessons about community.  When I refer to community, it’s not just a “social networking” site where users are required to login and create profiles. Communities can be built on Twitter, YouTube and even on a blog where the conversations are happening within the comments.

Here are three lessons to consider when managing a community:

#1: Embed within your community.

During the War in Iraq, there were several journalists from various news organizations who would embed themselves within infantry units in order to get access to “front line” reporting.  The result was that viewers were able to keep up to speed with what was going on several thousand miles away.

Community managers must also embed themselves within the community they serve and become integrated with the community.

The result is the collecting valuable data and insights from the community members and reporting back to management. The reporting is usually feedback on how to improve the company’s products, services or business processes.

Community managers will be successful if they are authentic and leave egos at the door.  Community members are smart and can see right through egos and many times they will call you on it. The best tip I can give to a community manager is just to be yourself.

During my time at Yahoo!, one of my core responsibilities was community management. In order to do this effectively, I had to earn the trust of the community. I accomplished this by taking off the mask of corporate America and doing what comes naturally: being myself.  I invested hours a day just getting to know others in the community and engaging in really simple and personal conversations. It didn’t take long for others to consider me a friend and begin to trust me.

#2: Don’t just focus on monetizing.

The biggest mistake a community manager can make is to start screaming “one-way” marketing messages at the rest of the community. The members will do one of two things: they will either leave the community or call you out on it publicly. Both are bad for business and should be avoided at all costs.

Unfortunately, situations like this still happen today. Brands and small businesses create groups, fan pages or Ning communities for the sole reason of monetization.  There may be some sales as a result, but there is little to no long-term benefit, much less repeat sales. Remember the old saying, “It takes more to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing one.”

The most effective strategy to drive revenue for a business is to build the community, earn members’ trust and delicately ask for their permission to market your services, a wise proverb from Seth Godin.

#3: Don’t just listen, get the community involved.

Yes, the hot topic today is “listening” and the tools are just about commoditized with new applications launching every month. Building strong customer loyalty is not just listening but also acting—embedding yourself within the community and becoming a trusted voice there.  However, the challenge for every business in social media is to eventually “become believable.” And that means winning consumer trust.

Here is an example during my tenure at Intel how we succeeded through social media after a big consumer marketing campaign:

In May 2009, Intel launched a “Sponsors of Tomorrow” commercial featuring Ajay Bhatt—the co-inventor of the USB. Check out the video here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLPHrCQr2I

The catch phrase, “Our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars,” aimed to put a human face to the Intel brand.  For a split second, one of the Ajay Bhatt fans in the video rips open his shirt to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with Bhatt’s image.  We were bombarded with requests for the T-shirt on Twitter, YouTube comments and on our blogs.  We then ran a T-shirt contest through Twitter and gave away 100 Ajay Bhatt T-shirts.

Intel now runs an Ajay Bhatt fan page on Facebook where I see the number of fans still growing today.

Do you manage a community?  What other tips would you suggest? I would love to hear your point of view, please comment below.

With Twitter and Facebook updates appearing in Google search results, many businesses are trying to figure if this is good or bad—and what to do next.  Ziff Davis featured this blog post a while back.  It got me thinking about the implications of the real-time web and how businesses can navigate through these rough waters.

The Business Upside to Real-Time Search

Here’s what real-time search means for you:

• Increased reach of your messages:  With Facebook and Twitter appearing in the search results, branded social properties will now have the opportunity to share their messages to a broader audience on the social web.
• Growth in social equity: Businesses now have the opportunity to increase their Facebook fans and Twitter followers by strategically posting at optimal times and authentically engaging in conversation.
• Potential customer acquisition:  Google is a trusted source.  When it lists content on the first page, a lot people click.  It’s a fact. By actively participating and strategically posting content, you’ll have the opportunity to convert and/or upsell via social media messages.

Here is a quick video highlighting real-time search to get you up to speed:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRkYmx4A9Do

Now the Dark Side of Real-Time Search

The business challenges are clear. Not only do brands (small or large) need to be ready to engage online with their constituents in real time, they must also be willing to relinquish some control of their marketing messages.

The good news is you don’t have to give up full control as long as you are willing to participate. Participation can mean listening, watching and monitoring all the activity that happens on the social web, and in this case, Google search engine results pages.

You need to be ready to use Twitter Search to monitor trending topics, branded terms or any other keywords that may apply to your brand or business, and engage in the discussion.  Common reasons to engage include:

• Having something of value to contribute
• Intercepting a ticked off customer and changing his or her attitude
• Correcting false information

The caveat is that the technology today is still not fast enough to monitor live conversations.  Real-time search requires “real-time” monitoring which translates to “boots on the ground” brand participation.  If a brand is highly engaged and savvy with Twitter, it will be ready to respond when issues arise on the fly.

A great example of a missed opportunity is when Motrin released the Babywearing ad (see below); and didn’t notice the negative groundswell in Twitter until it was too late.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO6SlTUBA38

With Facebook updates now appearing in search results, brands must be more strategic when posting messages. It’s going to require marketing and PR to work collaboratively with search engine optimization (SEO) or web teams within the organization. If that’s a challenge, there are tools like Google trends which display how often a particular term is entered into Google relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world.

Use Google Keywords

Another important data source is the Google Keyword tool that will determine the competitiveness of keywords and how many times that term is searched in Google in a given month.

Google keyword data is significant for many reasons. Marketers can use this data to strategically post messages on Facebook that can be indexed and eventually appear in the search results. Take the following as an example of the latest update from the Adobe Photoshop Facebook fan page:

A more effective status update might be to include the keyword phrase “Photoshop tutorial” instead of just “Tutorial” as seen above.

Now don’t get me wrong, this status update is really good. It’s concise; they are providing value to their readership by giving away free tutorials and they are empowering the community to share their work on the wall (disclosure: Adobe is an Edelman client).

However, by simply adding “Photoshop” to this update, Adobe would have the opportunity to have this particular update appear in Google real-time search results when someone searches for “Photoshop tutorial.” A brief look at the data in the keyword tool shows that the term “photoshop tutorials” yields approximately 301,000 monthly searches.

A Few More Concerns

Some may view the indexing of Facebook status updates as a threat of disruptive technology.  And while this may be true in some cases, there are definitely things that brands must think about and prepare for:

• Spam:  Spammers will continue to use Twitter and status updates by placing links within messages in hopes of their messages also appearing in the search results. This happened when the Skittles home page redirected to Twitter search for the term “Skittles.”  See http://www.socialcustomer.com/2009/03/skittles-social-media-experiment.html.
• Increased Facebook participation: In order to capture mindshare and search engine real estate, brands must now use Facebook status updates more often; especially around product launches or important announcements.  It’s just as important, if not more, than traditional website copy and blog posts.  Just be careful not to spam the community as balance is important.

So what are your thoughts about real-time search? Do you see it as an opportunity or a threat to businesses?  Please comment below.