Social Media: is there a purpose?

How should social media be used? What is the purpose of social media sites? Feedback. For brands and organizations social media sites are a learning platform where customers should feel comfortable and should be encouraged to share their experience with any given product, service, brand, organization, event etc. Businesses, organizations and the like can now listen and learn from their customers. I don’t see why this is something to be afraid of. I guess if you’re running an unethical business or purposely scamming customers you should be very afraid. That’s fine with me.

Some brands have openly embraced social media. BMW, Rolls Royce, Mercedes, Audi, Southwest, JetBlue, Bergdorf Goodman, Ford, Dell, the American Red Cross, Starbucks and Pepsi are a few that come to mind. Now, not all of the brands that I mentioned are doing a fantastic job, but they have a HUGE head start and will thrive and prosper during the next 12-18months as brands and consumers embrace f-commerce (Facebook commerce).

Brands to learn from on Facebook; BMW, Audi, Dell, Ford and Southwest (feel fee to add your opinion in the comments below!)

Twitter: Bergdorfs, Dell, OscarPRgirl, JetBlue and… (I’m missing several).

You don’t even need to like any of the brands I mentioned. Actually I’d prefer if you didn’t because my point will resonate more. Check out BMW’s and Audi’s Facebook page and scroll through the tweets of @Bergdorfs or @jetblue how do you feel when you read their tweets? Does it sound like a brand or business?

There will be several follow up posts. I wrote this on my iPhone because I want to know what you think. How are you using social media? Why is your brand or business using social media? Please stay tuned for my next post. Feel free to keep in touch on twitter: @aftranch

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A Friendlier, Private, Social Network

The battle for privacy seems to be never ending. However, for an issue that has been such an enormous issue, it doesn’t seem to be worthy of the mainstream media’s attention. People are looking for privacy. Sure  everyone wants to look at their friends pages, but it gets kind of weird when you have 100, 200, or 500+ friends and you’re browsing through all their pictures. Too many people friend people they’ve seen once or because they look hot and people agree to that friend request… For some people Facebook shares too much of our lives. With the launch of GroupMe (and others?), the ongoing privacy issue, and rising concerns of spam links across the social web people will naturally be looking for a safer online environment.

Take the design of Facebook, the pictures, wall, info etc. but make it exclusive. For you and your closest friends, your entourage. Not only will you be able to keep in touch privately, your friendship with this person is now documented, privately. Yes, this sounds very similar to the Facebook Friendship pages that are out there, but it’s not a shared conversation anymore, it’s personal and private. Think about the number of Facebook friends you have, how many of your Facebook friends do you trust enough to let them borrow your car, watch your dog for an afternoon, or shop for you when you’re sick?

A personal network could include feature a news feed, but it wouldn’t show wall posts for example. Using a Facebook wall-like design to communicate is easier than sending individual messages, and it allows for a conversation to develop, similar to texting. I think there’s real potential here. Do you? Would you be interested in joining a private  (personal) social network? Or is this idea the “anti” social network?

Local Newspapers vs. Patch.com

Following my meeting at The Westerly Sun with Publisher Tim Ryan and Managing Editor David Tranchida (yes that’s my pops!), I’m left thinking about the future of local newspapers and I need to figure out how can a local newspaper, with a circulation around 12,000, utilize social media as an additional revenue stream??

Leverage your brand and your location

Local news organizations are the trusted source of town news and events. For this reason I believe there will always be a market for organized local news reporting and local news organizations. Local newspapers like The Westerly Sun have an advantage. First, they already have an established trust among their circulation, so there is a familiarity and a relationship that has developed locally over the years. Recognizing this, local papers need to leverage their current credibility and brand awareness online. By demonstrating their local knowledge and expertise through acts of sharing the information within their local community. I’m referring to answering the question, “What should I do tonight?” “Where should we eat?” etc. A local newspaper can certainly answer those questions. More importantly locals who just so happen to be reporters for the newspaper can address those questions as well.

As I mentioned, The Westerly Sun already has an established fan base with a circulation of nearly 12,000. It’s time to engage your local readers. Who is your circulation demographic? How many of the 12,000 in circulation are visiting your website and reading your Epaper daily? What is the average age of someone who reads the print edition vs. the Epaper? Find the answers to those questions and start thinking about what medium(s) you might use to engage your consumer. Where are they spending their time and why? What pages of the Epaper get visited most often? How many pages and how many minutes does a person spend reading the Epaper?

Once those questions have been answered The Westerly Sun will be able to figure out its next short-term and long-term moves.

The conversations I’ve had concerning The Sun and social media always return to posting information on a blog or social network with a story brief or summary and link to the full story on the newspapers website. While this may be a temporary solution, it’s not going to work over the long-term. You’ll attract a few new readers maybe, but then the question becomes – what do we do with the print edition and do we charge for the Epaper?

Understand that newspapers generate the majority of their revenue through selling ads on their website. This revenue pays the bills and keeps people employed. However, the traditional newsroom model is fading fast. A new website project funded by AOL called Patch is the new local newspaper. Individual reporters who live within a town in your state will be paid to provide local news coverage specifically about your town. Now, who do you trust more, a local newspaper such as The Westerly Sun who has a history of credibility or the a reporter updating his “Patch”?

The Patch model combines blogging and news and it’s manageable because the “Patch” is specific to one or two small towns. How does The Westerly Sun compete with Patch?

In your opinion, which model offers more trustworthy content?  Would you rather visit Patch.com for your local news or do you have more confidence in paying to read an Epaper published by The Westerly Sun?

How do I link my Social Media accounts?

Tired of opening three browsers to post the same update to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts? Here’s a FREE and simple solution: TweetDeck. TweetDeck is very easy to use. First, I recommend downloading TweetDeck Desktop. Now you can start TweetDeck from your Start menu, dock, or desktop. TweetDeck is compatible with PCs and Mac’s.

My two favorite features (feel free to share yours in the comment section below) are the automatic URL shortener and the scheduled update feature. While the URL shortener allows you to be quick and efficient, scheduled updates help you implement your updates according to plan. I’m currently managing four different company accounts and scheduled updates makes my life so much easier!

You can schedule the following day, days, week, or month of updates!
With TweetDeck open click the little icon that looks like a clock on the right side of the update box to schedule the time and date you want the update to be posted to the account of your choice.

Not only is TweetDeck a must have tool for small businesses to efficiently manage their social media efforts, but its also wonderful for personal uses too.

You can follow trending topics worldwide or in the US and you can also add additional columns to follow along with #hashtags relevant to you or your industry.

TweetDeck is the best FREE attention dashboard out there. However, you don’t have the analytics package that you pay for with HootSuite. I recommend TweetDeck for small and local businesses who are just entering this world of new media. If you’re the only person responsible for managing social media at your organization TweetDeck will be your new best friend.

Social Media and The Westerly Sun

Last week during the election madness I was called in to help out the local newspaper here in the greater Westerly/Pawcatuck area, The Westerly Sun.

I was brought in (at the last minute of course) to help broadcast poll results and election stories using The Westerly Sun’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.

This was a simple fix – I installed the social dashboard TweetDeck. However, the larger problem is that social media has yet to be adopted and used by the majority let alone a ‘large’ minority of employees. One employee, Nancy Burns, is responsible for updating The Sun’s Fan Page and Twitter account. With results pouring in at all levels this can become overwhelming – especially without an attention dashboard such as TweetDeck or Hootsuite.

So, I introduced Nancy to Tweetdeck. The results were immediate. In under 5mins I helped walk her through TweetDeck, explaining the various icons and tools available – she loves the automatic URL shortener.

The question I continue to receive from Managing Editor David Tranchida (yes, he’s my father) is how can The Sun use social media to increase profits? Newspapers depend largely upon businesses to generate advertising revenue. Businesses pay to advertise on the newspaper’s website. The goal: increase traffic to The Westerly Sun website.

Here’s the quick solution: post a link including story teaser to the company Fan Page and Twitter account broadcasting the local news to your followers and fans. By clicking on the link it will bring people to your website and increase the amount of traffic to your website ultimately making it more attractive for businesses to use as an advertising platform.

However, I believe there is more that can be done – especially by local news organizations. A local newspaper is the eyes and ears of the town. In this particular case the majority of The Westerly Sun staff have lived and worked in southern RI or Southeastern CT. These reporters and journalists are local experts and can provide local knowledge to the masses. Now, given the revolution of communication during the past two decades anyone who resides in a town can call themselves an area expert. That is the power of new media. This combination can be used to build a robust community.

The Sun has plenty of content to distribute. So the question now is what topic of content to distribute and how frequently should it be broadcasted?

Social Media @ Plymouth State University

While browsing Facebook I found myself checking up on my a recent post in which I tagged my alma mater Plymouth State University. Looking at the PSU Facebook Fan Page it is clear Plymouth State does not have any social media strategy. I would like to know the purpose of having a fan page that you dedicate time updating daily, but don’t respond to comments or suggestions posted on its wall. So, Plymouth State has 3,390 fans at the time of this post, what purpose – how is Plymouth State University (PSU) benefitting from this fan page at all? It’s not.

Before Plymouth continues with their social media efforts the University needs to understand that social media requires use and cooperation of social media sites and platforms internally across the institution. Simply designating one person to monitor all of your social media efforts is ridiculous (unless you’re a small business).

This is an opportunity for PSU to connect with Alumni and current students, including parents. Using their Facebook Fan Page PSU needs to start by replying to comments people make on the page’s wall. This is critical to building a community because it helps you to establish trust and will naturally (over time) lead to more traffic and more ‘likes’ and ultimately down the road increased admissions and overall enrollment! However, before I get ahead of myself remember this takes time.

Plymouth State University is not the only NPO, business, or government that needs guidance. Failing to have a strategy leads to no results. Designing a strategy is specific to your mission or vision. If your organization is serious about optimizing its social presence it must consider, accept, and understand the following:

1) Social media won’t lead to overnight sales success. Success will take time and will come in increased buzz, referrals, traffic, and yes, sales.

2) Social media can’t be totally outsourced. You have to be involved to make this a success.

3) Social media’s not completely free. It’ll take time and/or money to achieve sustained growth.

Still having second thoughts? Click on any of the following social media businesses or industry experts and they will educate you using a similar message. Brian Solis, Dan Zarrella,  After all, the above “3 warnings” of social media I found on Likeable Local the new branch of Likeable Media which focuses on helping small businesses enter the realm of social media the correct and profitable way.

Radio Twitter?

I can’t stand it anymore. I’m entering into the marketing/advertising game myself, but radio ads absolutely suck the life out of me. They have got to be the worst form of advertising I have ever heard! They’re corny, annoying, and worse off they interrupt the flow of music. So, I want to change the way radio ads are run – I’m done listening to another sales pitch while I’m on my way to work.

Enter the new radio: social radio (what a clever name…). Anyway social radio will either remove 100% of all vocal ads or at least reduce their frequency to something reasonable, maybe 2 mins of ads every 60mins? Using social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook or maybe this would lead to the creation of an entirely new social network regardless the idea is for users to post what songs they want to hear and the DJ or radio station will play your song.

This won’t happen instantly of course, because you won’t be the only person requesting songs. However, it will give more control to users – if radio stations comply. For example, a local radio station sets up a Twitter account, accumulates followers (advertising on their station) and because these followers are encouraged to post songs they want to listen to I imagine this would attract the masses. Anyway followers post the songs they want to hear – one per tweet (possibly reduce twitter characters to fewer than 140 for these accounts?). After a song has been tweeted it can now be voted on using something similar to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button. I realize RT (Re-Tweets) are the currency for Twitter, but adding a polling feature might help make voting easier to track. With that said, RT should be used to measure a songs popularity too.

What about those ads?

Now that the radio station has it’s own Twitter handle small banner ads will be displayed in between tweets. You could throw an ad in between every other tweet, every 5, 10 etc. I realize that radio ads are simple for small businesses to create, little technology is required, this also might be the reason some small businesses are hesitant to advertise online. Yes, to some technology is intimidating, but I know these banner ads can be constructed with ease given today’s knowledge and innovation. Hell, maybe a banner ad has a white background with black letters that’s fine with me. I believe when introducing this to some local business owners is to emphasize the simplicity with which these ads can be built. Once I know they understand and feel comfortable with the new medium I would dive right into ad targeting. OK Twitter doesn’t have an ad sidebar like Facebook does and it doesn’t need one. Only allow the ads to be displayed on the radio stations Twitter account (exclusive ads…lol). As for the ad platform – I would hope to see it be similar to Facebook’s hyper targeting.

Wait, who’s going to profit off of this?

Twitter & the radio station, that’s right, Twitter could charge a hosting fee (monthly, semi annual, annual etc.) and then the radio station receives all the ad revenue it procures; OR, Twitter gets %X and the radio station %Y and presto we have a simple revenue stream that (hopefully) leaves both parties smiling. Of course, it won’t be that easy, but I don’t see why should this be complicated??