Think lawyers are expensive? Maybe so. But it’s cheaper to bring them in before you have a problem. This common wisdom holds especially true for your corporate social media strategy, which is why your social media team should have a legal representative as well.

It should be a requirement to make legal professionals part of your team from the inception. Bringing them in on the back end to clean up a mess is never desirable. Plus it doesn’t make for a great collaborative relationship, because you messed up and you now need legal’s help. And solving legal problems on the back end is never pleasant. It’s far better to know and establish legal rules of the social media road before you’re entering into and engaging in conversations on social media sites. Let’s face it, corporate social media activities are really public relations (PR) in the new social networking space. Therefore it makes sense

Part of the POST method, your new media team should, at a minimum, get legal involved in the O (Objectives) and S (Strategies) phases. At a generic level, legal can help you stay out of trouble, guide you in all policies relating to news media and customer-facing communications. Legal can also provide you with guidelines on what an employee can and cannot (or should and should not) do in the social media arena. Here are some specific roles of legal participation within the social media team:

• Social Media Policies. Comments, backtracks, discussions on and off of your site. This covers locations both within your own websites, blogs forums, and on other websites, blogs and forums. It also controls how your employee(s) should start new topics, and how to resolve complaints and negative feedback. Legal can provide guidance.
• Authorized Corporate Bloggers. If you’ll have just a few key individuals actually doing the engagement with the outside world, establish rules for them to follow. Otherwise if you encourage a wider employee participation, then have a different set of rules applied to all. The key words here are guidance and coordination, not hindrance. Legal can help establish rules.
• Social Media Interaction. We all know that the Internet is always open, and with the global reach that it provides, the corporate social media team (and therefore your company) is also always open. Consumers worldwide are active in the social media space all the time (and especially after work within their local time,) your social media team must be ready to engage at any time of day, within reason. This is especially critical when a potential issue (positive or negative) about the company and its products is going viral. So you’ll need to be involved early. Legal can help define the dos and don’ts.

With all these guidelines in your pocket, you are now ready to go all out and promote your company, products and services. They will protect you while you’re out there engaging, supporting and solving your customers’ problems.

So go ahead. Build your social media team. Select the best and sharpest marketers, PR people, and technologists. Just don’t leave out the legal rep.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Creating a Social Media Strategy? Don’t Forget the Legal Team

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool for managing many aspects of your organization’s online marketing. One of the least use of SEO, but also one of the most important, is online reputation management.

A simple search for your name and keywords associated with your name and products will reveal things about your company that you may not be aware of. There will be things that you can easily fix, while others are harder to resolve, but more often than not, all can be managed. If you’re already doing SEO for your website, then the technique is directly applicable for reputation management. The only major difference is normal SEO is a marketing and sales function. When applied to reputation management, you add public relations (PR) to the team.

Here are few ideas to get started. 

• Know what’s out there. Do a thorough search of terms related to your business name, products and services, like you’re doing a keyword analysis. Be sure to pay attention to the blogosphere and social networking sites. These are the places where you’ll find people discussing and sharing their own experiences about your products and services, both positive and negative.
• Know your battlegrounds. You may find sites and blogs where your reputation is being discussed in positive or negative lights, and you’ll also find sites and blogs where there’s no discussion about your name and products at all. These are both valuable sites to get involved in, as your team will need to not only create marketing and PR campaigns to deal with (or take advantage of) the conversations, but also to create presence where there is lacking.
• Know your online social etiquette. Whatever your campaign goals are, you must adhere to proper social networking etiquette and mind your online social manners. Be yourself, be truthful, be honest, be helpful, and above all, be respectful and understanding of the public’s viewpoints. There are many ways to tell your story, and it’s much better to take the join-and-conquer approach instead of going in with your guns blazing.
• Know where the action is. If you can join a discussion to tell your side of the story or to do damage control, by all means do it. This will allow you to head off a problem straight on, or prevent an issue from blowing out of hand. By doing this, you’ll be seen as part of the solution, as you are actively managing your reputation at the same time. Additionally, you’ll leave a trail of written communication representing your company’s viewpoints around the web. This means when these discussions are found in search results, then your company is also found. This is effective SEO at work. 
• Know your first rule of SEO: content. Applying other SEO techniques such as writing keyword-rich content in comments, responses, blogs, forums and chat rooms will further help get your story found in relevant search results. Make it a habit, no, a policy, to always be helpful to the group with good and useful information about your company, products, services and industry. Doing this without being and sounding pushy will get your content found by your potential customers.

Actively managing your reputation through SEO and social networking will bring back immediate and measurable benefits. Reputation management should be an ongoing process. Don’t wait until you really have to manage your reputation, but manage it before you need to. Your name, and the reputation tagged to your name, is so important, you need to start managing it with the utmost urgency. After all, if you don’t care about your reputation, why should your customers?

So what are you doing to manage your reputation, online and offline? Whether you have a campaign or plan in place, try adding SEO and social networking to the mix. And don’t forget to share your experience with us in the comment below. We need all the help we can get. Thanks.

_{»crosslinked«}

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

SEO and Social Networking as Reputation Management Tools

How does an organization implement social media? A better question: How do you implement social media with resources at your disposal or do you go outside for help? The answer lies in who owns social media in an organization.

Ownership of social media can cross several organizational lines, at the same time it may require specialization in new sets of skills and disciplines. The line of responsibility is fuzzy at best and confusing at worst. As Jason Baer writes over at the MarketingProfs in an article called “Who Wins the Struggle for Social Media Control?” there are four combatants who may rightfully claim social media ownership. Although the article looks at the struggle between outside agencies or specialists rather than that within a company, I think the struggle is just as valid for internal departments. The 4 combatants are, in Mr. Baer’s words:

• Advertising. Because social media often requires making stuff, and can impact overall brand perception, advertising should be in charge of social media. The rising importance of video within social media also favors advertising types.
   
• Digital. Because social media is (at least for now) an online construct, the Internet marketing agencies should be in the driver’s seat. Plus, social media has major SEO implications in some cases, and most SEO is still handled by digital specialists.
   
• Public Relations. Because social media is ultimately about conversations, and is non-linear, public relations is best equipped to manage social media efforts. Especially so given the demise of traditional journalism, the importance of blogger relations, and the blurring of the lines between customer and reporter.
   
• Client. Because social media is ideally an extension and manifestation of the brand’s operations and culture, and requires near-constant vigilance and engagement, the client is best able to oversee social media. Comcast is a good example of this philosophy.

In closing the article, Mr. Baer advocates that public relations should be the gatekeeper for social media, but admits that PR still has a long way to go. To me this is a valid conclusion, but I would go a few steps further to clarify the issues and offer more realistic solutions that enable successful corporate social media thrusts.

Social media itself can have variations in definition depending whom you talk to. As Wikipedia defines it,

Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

The key words to take away here are: sharing, discussing, communications, social, human beings, interaction, Internet and mobile-based, communities. Social media was clearly embraced by the public/consumer. Millions are already participating in “social media” activities as a way of life. All this while corporations are still trying to figure out how to get involved.

The answer is to keep it simple. From a corporation’s viewpoint, social media should really be part of marketing and PR, but the rules are really set by the consumers or the audiences. So you’ll need to get in the game, provide the resources to do so, and make sure you follow established rules of the game and not insist on pushing your own rules. If you’re talking about a specialty agency, then I think it’s still about marketing and PR, and the rules are still set by the consumers or the audiences. The only difference is what you want your agency to specialize in, in the same way that advertising agencies decide to specialize in print, radio, TV, Internet or a combination of these.

Either way, there is a final critical element to the answer of who owns social media in corporations: leadership. Corporate leaders must understand what social media is, what it’s for, why it can be a powerful tool, and how it can help. Alternatively, entrust it to and empower someone who understands it. This is important because only with informed knowledge comes informed decisions; deciding not to pursue social media because you don’t understand it is really an uninformed decision. Social media is already an important communication tool chosen by the consumers. Therefore it must be a part of corporate marketing and PR tools used to reach those consumers. There just is no other way.

There are still a few outstanding questions. Companies, by competitive nature, have been very aggressive in bringing messages to the consumers using whatever new communication tools to get an edge on the competition. And marketing and PR, by definition, are very creative groups of people. So why is social media, as a communication tool, not being looked at as another important tool for marketing and PR? Are we sleeping at the wheel, or what’s really holding us back? Is the social media concept so difficult to grasp that we’re still scared of it? Share your opinions and comments.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Social Media: Who in Your Organization Should Own It?

Cuong Huynh advises businesses and individuals on marketing communications, social networking, and new media strategies.

Specialties:

Marketing Communications, Brand Identity, Social Media & Viral Marketing, Trade Shows, Press Releases, Public Relations, Marketing Metrics and ROI, Advertising, Marketing Plan, Client/Vendor Management, Creative Services, Art Direction, Search Engine Optimization, Web 2.0, Blogs, Web Applications, Graphic Design, Marketing Video, Desktop Publishing

View my presentation: Social Media Marketing: Creating Cost Effective Marketing Channels For Small and Medium Businesses.

If you need to talk to me about your social media marketing strategy, please contact me via the Contact Page.

View my profile on cthmedia.net. And if you haven’t done so,  subscribe to my RSS feed.

Also follow me on Twitter
@CuongHuynh
@LovingPho
@CleanCarTalk
@BlockbusterFilm
@SoccerUSA

Enjoy my other blogs:

• Vietnamese Pho Noodles
• Clean Car Talk
• Airport Hybrid Rentals

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

About Cuong Huynh