I have been Tweeting on Twitter for awhile and I really enjoyed a recent session on Microblogging and Twitter: who’s using Twitter and for what purpose? What is the business value of use cases?

Some current uses of Twitter from the group:

• Drive Traffic to other web content - such as blogs, announcements, articles, etc. Promotion - PR - push out/ broadcast announcements, events, etc.

• News, breaking news, awareness
• Social Filtering - getting your news via Twitter now - some rely on Twitter now to get general news.
• Communication efficiency - the nature of the brief and frequent posts, its efficient and effective
• Brand Cachet - for those who are currently on Twitter
• Work streaming - updates, status,
• Reports from the field, live messaging
• Member support
• Conversation monitoring/ brand tracking

Twitter etiquette - “Twitiquette”
Things to think about…

• Tweet Formats: A lot of discussion about “is it acceptable to have multiple persona’s on Twitter?” General consensus was yes, similar to having multiple emails.

• Do you Twitter professionally vs. personally? Public persona’s - some people are experimenting with multiple identities in Twitter (personal vs. private). There are examples at companies like Zappos where there are many employees with Zappos in the Twitter name alias.
• What happens when a “fan” takes over your brand name on Twitter?
• When do you use Twitter to broadcast only vs. get into dialog?

I loved Cyndy Aleo-Carreira’s blog post on why we don’t need a social network for every product! I do agree that we don’t need a social network for every product! I always like to view social media from the perspective of the user - and often when I don’t see the value, its usually because I can’t relate to the network, they charge for what I can get for free elsewhere, or the user experience is so poor that I don’t bother.

There are a few social networks that come to mind that I just don’t see the value in: Classmates.com (They charge for what Facebook provides for free) or PMSBuddy (I don’t feel the need to share this info with friends!) - though I am sure I am going to be flooded with emails on why these sites are incredibly useful. I have seen over time that there is a social network for everyone, but personally I don’t want to socialize around every product or topic. Instead what I would like to see is social media tools (comment, rate, send to a friend, RSS, embed URL) become an integrated feature of most web based content.

My favorite social networks include: Flickr, Twitter , Facebook, LinkedIN, Experts-Exchange, Etsy and Pleoworld. Full Disclosure that I am biased when it comes to Ugobe/ Pleoworld - Crimson advises Ugobe on the strategy amd management of the Pleoworld community!

I’ve been working in web for 12 years now - I built my first community strategy for a client in 1996. If there’s one thing that I have learned, it’s that everyone considers themselves to be a “strategist”. Having said that, when you are working on web initiatives of any significant size, you are working as a part of a team, an eco-system of people who all bring something important to the table.

In a conversation with a client we were reviewing just how many different flavors of web strategists there are - and how do clients determine what kind of web strategist they need? Below is a review of many of the common types of web strategists and their respective strengths:

• General Web Strategist - this kind of web strategist has a broad and deep experience base, has usually come from an agency or consulting background… has really “been there and done that” with almost any kind of web project or business model. They are experienced enough to be flexible to work on most kinds of web projects and the best ones have implemented their strategies.
• Web Marketing Strategist - a strategist who is focused on outbound web marketing techniques. They live and die by data and results.
• PR Strategist - a PR professional who leverages social media and web marketing as an integrated part of PR strategy. Could include monitoring conversations, identifying influencers, syndicating content using social media for PR purposes.
• Brand Strategist - usually focused on more of the creative, UI and brand elements of web. These strategists usually come from a creative or agency background.
• Advertising Strategist (Media, SEO, SEM, WOM) Focused on media and online advertising.
• CRM/ Web Strategist - a strategist focused on the customer contact strategy, customer touchpoints and CRM. A sub-set of this can be relationship marketers or database marketers. It will be interesting to see how this role evolves given how social media has changed the touchpoints companies have with customers.
• Web Analytics Strategist - focused on the measurement and analytics of web. Could encompass everything from basic web analytics to rich media, community and social media analytics. Like web marketers, for this strategist - data is king.
• User Experience Strategist - a strategist that looks at the audience in detail and optimizes the overall user experience. Often these strategists come from an information architecture or creative background.
• Content Strategist - plans the overall content in a web site - which could include editorial, third party content or user-generated content. Considerations such as assessing audience content needs, publishing strategy, licensing, syndication of content are all considerations.
• Technical Web Strategist - sometimes referred to as a “Solutions Architect” Looks at the technology and infrastructure needs, technical requirements and informs the development needs. Typically these strategists come from a consulting or developer background.
• Subject Matter Experts - Web strategists focused on a specific industry (SMB), point solution (wikis. blogs) or audience segment (Gen Y).
• Community Strategist - A strategist that understands the complex interactions between community members and the ongoing needs, opportunities and dynamics of online communites. A sub-set of this could also be Community Managers who are very hand-on yet closely tied to the strategy of how to build, grow and manage the community.
• Social Media Strategist - focused on leveraging social media for marketing purposes. In my opinion the best social media strategists are those that walk their talk - they actually blog, they use Twitter, they belong to social networks and communities.

I don’t agree with Steve Rubel that the need for these roles will eventually disappear - I think that’s a wishful-thinking PR perspective. I have seen increasing demand in our enterprise client base for web and social media skills. While I do agree that these skills will eventually become required for all marketers, I believe that there is always room for experienced, quality consultants. Jeremiah Owyang did a post on the need for the social media manager and two distinct roles that Forrester sees emerging: the social media manager and the community manager.

Most enterprise marketers are just beginning to experiment with social media and I believe its a long way off before they acquire deep skills. In the meantime, when leveraging the skills of a web strategist, its important to ensure that you are engaging the right kind of strategist to meet your objectives.

Recently, I spent the morning attending an amazing event in San Francisco: The Chocolate Salon at Fort Mason and it got me thinking about how dramatically the promotion of local events has changed in the past few years with the prevalence of social media and Web 2.0 technologies. Its a topic that appeals to both the chocoholic and web strategist in me.

The event itself was fantastic - a chocolatey, gooey and somewhat indulgent day for people who love everything chocolate. I checked out the Chocolate Salon site and hit cacao nirvana when I discovered TasteTV’s “Chocolate TV” video segments!!! On it you can see every imaginable story around chocolate and the event: some examples of chocolate couture, chocolate hairstyles, stories about some of the fantastic chocolate manufacturers and retailers that we have right here in San Francisco including one of my favorite retailers: CocoaBella Chocolates.

How does social media play into it? For starters, like a lot of things I go to these days I learned about the event from both upcoming.org and meetup.com from my friends listing it as something that they were planning to attend.

Here is a list of basic social tools that likely will (or should be used) to promote and report on the event before, during and after:

• Blogging - I’m blogging about it and so are others. (For more info on setting up a corporate blog, see Starting a Dialog with your Market
• Comments on the event sites, blogs, etc.
• Twitter - attendees were twittering about the event.
• Flickr - I uploaded photos to Flickr from the event and many others did too.
• Groups , reviews, ratings and forums were formed in sites such as Yelp
• Video’s and podcasts were created around the event.
• E-Commerce - of course many of the local manufacturers and vendors like Christopher Elbow Chocolates have websites with e-commerce

Then, there is the use of so many “sharing” tools, that are inherent in many of the above, that help to create a viral effect: “send to a friend”, tagging, send a message, get link, get code.

What else could have been done? Social bookmarking on sites like Delicio.us or Ma.gnolia, recipe sharing, links to food or chocolate blogs, a wiki on chocolate related topics, mobile alerts, FaceBook groups …the list goes on and on.

What social tools do you use for events?

With Social Networks trying to monetize their robust member bases, many marketers are still wondering how to best get involved. A recent eMarketer article shows that spending on social marketing may still be considered experimental.

What Does it Mean for Marketers?

1. Spending on Social Networks: One-third of US marketers and agencies surveyed in an iMedia Connection poll in March said that they planned to spend $300,000 or less this year on social network marketing – and one-third planned on spending $2 million or more.
2. Advertising is the main revenue driver: With ad spending predicted to $1.6 billion this year and to $2.7 billion by 2011. There are other sources of revenue: subscriptions, premium services and e-commerce to name a few – but ad models still prevail. Enterprise communities like Experts Exchange who have millions of paid members and an abundance of social tools give me hope that we will one day diversify our dependance upon ad dollars in favor of offering high-value services.
3. Social Marketing is being led by cutting edge marketers, and often at smaller companies who are limited in budget and abundant in imagination. Depending on who you believe, its estimated that somewhere between 16%-49% of marketers are currently doing some form of social marketing. Let’s face it, in our quarterly-driven, ROI based corporate environments its not easy to stand up in front of your company and pitch your plan for marketing domination through social media. For the forward-thinking marketer that is willing to take a risk, social marketing can be both exciting and daunting.

   Marketers like George Wright, marketing director at Blendtec came up with the concept for one of the most noteable campaigns leveraging social media. At Blendtec, a small blender company he decided to experiment with video’s when he saw his product testers using extreme methods to test the durability of their products. He created in house-videos at a cost of less than $100 featuring their CEO blending a variety of fun things like garden rakes, iPod, Tiki torches, Glow sticks, Guitar Hero III. They created a site http://www.willitblend.com/ and posted their video’s on You Tube. They then used blogs and other social tactics to create awareness. Within 5 days the videos had over 6 million views, thousands of comments and blender sales were increasing accordingly.

4. Social Marketing for Enterprise is today is mainly focused on adding social tools to already existing web initiatives, but is slowly expanding to more innovative uses. There are many examples of marketers getting high ROI from use of social marketing, but it requires imagination and an ability to think outside of the traditional corporate marketing box…and in some cases an ability to move forward despite skepticism.

The net/ net: A lot more education needs to be done with Enterprise marketers to see the value and potential of social marketing before we will see adoption rise to mainstream levels.

There has been a lot of talk about marketing budgets and our clients are asking us what they should be doing in the event of a downturn. In general, we aren’t seeing a slow-down in terms of online marketing spending… some areas of interactive may hold up better than others if a true recession hits.

What’s Happening with B2B Marketing Budgets? A recent survey by B2B Magazine taken at the end of Jan 08 shows that the majority (58%) of B2B marketers are not revising their 2008 budgets. Of those marketers (29%) that are reducing their marketing spend, the biggest cuts are not surprisingly in print (-45%). At the same time 12% of marketers are increasing their budgets and online marketing is the largest area of increase (+48%).

What About Social Media? Last week Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff stimulated a lot of discussion with his post on Why Social Applications will Thrive in a Recession and his report on Strategies for Interactive Marketing in a Recession where he predicts that social applications could actually thrive - note: Social Applications - not social media in general. The main point being that the first online marketing efforts to be cut will be mass-media awareness building marketing - while social applications (blogs, community, social networking sites, word-of-mouth marketing) engage the audience in the consideration phase and are relatively less expensive when compared to traditional marketing or PR.

What this means for B2B Marketers:

1. Focus on Social Applications - At a minimum, get involved in communities and social networks where your customers are already engaged. If your budget allows, include outreach to key influencers and optimizing your content and social applications for syndication.
2. Focus on a few things and do them well - the desire to experiment in social marketing sometimes leads to the temptation to just throw together some initiatives and see what sticks. Marketers would do better to focus on a few strategic initiatives that will drive their objectives and make them successful.
3. Invest in Social Metrics - all of your social initiatives should have clear measurement and payoff. Many of the social influence tools can also be used to help marketers identify influencers and buzz which can in turn help you to optimize your social marketing. At Crimson we have been using BuzzLogic and Buzz Metrics with our clients with great success. Having said that, most of these tools are still fairly new and the reporting is of most value when overlayed with more traditional web metrics. Picking the right tool will depend on your objectives - and as with any online marketing metrics tool - analysis, insight and refinement are key.

My colleague Glenn Gow recently posted on Five Tips for Marketing in a Recession. I believe his points about Spending Smarter (showing clear ROI) and Fighting for your Resources are critical for B2B online marketing - and are very closely tied. Showing clear ROI will make it much easier to make a business case for retaining your marketing budget and resources.

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester, just released a report on Online Community Best Practices. It’s one of the most comprehensive and practical reports on building community that I have seen in a long time.
 
From my experience, the biggest challenges with online communities is to get a critical mass of traffic and consistent activity momentum amongst the members. I like his conceptual model of “Life Process of a Successful Community” (depicted above) and would add that the hockey-stick growth isn’t always so consistent. Instead, most of the high-activity communities that I have helped to create have been more of an upward growth with large spikes of activity that were in direct relationship with major product and/or marketing initiatives. Often, communities are unprepared to deal with increased community activity spikes and all of the associated needs that accompany it (site performance, moderation needs, spammers, increased support, etc).

I’ve seen many a community effort fail because of a belief that “If we build it, they will come”. Successful communities require ongoing planning, management and MARKETING! So many companies underestimate the need for community marketing. In addition, some tolerance for trial and error until you optimize a good balance between the engineered platform experience and the organic member experience is required. As the report suggests - when building a community its important to plan and take a phased approach….and to conservatively drink the “kool-aid” in terms of forecasting growth. At the same time at Crimson Consulting we counsel our clients to plan marketing activities that will help to fuel community activity and be prepared for the increased management necessary to support growth.

In a recent 2007 Holiday report released by OneUpWeb they profiled 10 of the hottest products of the holiday season and how they are using social marketing. Pleo, the robotic dinosaur is a client that Crimson has been working with for some time to help create a vibrant social community that has resulted in their inital product inventory being completely pre-sold online and a lot of buzz about the robotic life form. Pleo is a great example of excellence in social marketing that has some lessons for marketers:

Key Take-Aways for Marketers:

• Leverage social tools. Use forums and blogs (or in Pleo’s case - Plogs!) to give enthusiasts a platform for expression. This creates buzz and demand for your product.
• Embrace the influencers. Every market has its online influencers, embrace them, get in the dialog with them and - most importantly - listen to them.
• Be transparent in your communications with customers. When Pleo’s release was delayed, Ugobe was transparent and open in its communication with customers through the community and as a result they built trust and loyalty with early-adopter enthusiasts.
• Offer product owners some exclusive benefits. An exclusive “owners only” section of the community will offer some unique benefits including a social network for Pleo owners and the ability to download sounds and behaviors.
• Embrace User-Generated Content. Even though the product is just hitting the market, Pleo enthusiasts have created videos, songs, cartoons, poems and even custom clothing in anticipation of this robotic life form’s arrival! This creates tremendous excitement and fun around your product.

Next week the Crimson Interactive group will be out in full force at Online Market World in San Francisco. I will be moderating the opening general session on the Future of E-Commerce and participating in a panel on Social Media Best Practices. My colleagues Rich Julius will be in a panel on Understanding the Business Customer and Esther Lim will be participating in a panel on Turning Customers in to Brand Advocates. If you plan to be at the conference - please let us know, we would love to meet with you!