Comments by Vanessa DiMauro Subscribe

On The 20 Minute Social Media Professional

Good question! There are so many social networks and online communities on the web, I drew largely from common examples.  I also left out Bebo, many of the asian social networks which are in many cases larger than the US based ones, as well as the many many gated online communities that tailor to specific subject matters.  If I were to be all inclusive or exhausive in my examples, the post would have been too long and likely unfocused!

I debated including Facebook for a bit and decided to leave it out.  Since personal and professional interactions are often blended on facebook due to the nature of the medium (we look at friends pictures and endorse a brand all in the same fell swoop on Facebook) - I think it is sometimes a difficult platform for new social media users to start to develop a social media habit due to it's complexity. 

But the primary reason was I couldnt possibly list them all so I drew upon examples that I think would be best suited for the jump start emersion program.

On The 20 Minute Social Media Professional

And, yes I completely concur that taking 20 minutes a day to participate in social media will not yield mastery of the skill.  Like anything in life, you get out what you put into an activity.  But the idea of 20 minutes a day is about behaviour change!  Many people are reticent to begin and havent developed the habit of participating online as the perceived and actual hurdles of doing something new can be quite daunting.  Easier to remain static than to endeavor to change.  However, rooted in learning theory, a commitment to *just try* something new is often a gateway to change.  Just as no marathon runner ever started their first foot journey with 27 miles, no social media participant starts with hours of effort.  And if they do, most likely there will be frustration and fatigue.  The idea behind 20 minutes a day is to socialize and expose a new social media user to the experience so that they can choose to scale over time, or not. But at least they have a reasonable starting point with a clear direction in mind. 

On The 20 Minute Social Media Professional

I acutally times this based on low effort- Of course a person can take much longer expecially with a salient post or comment, but for the beginner just getting started this hopefully provides a guide to a quick way to get started.  And yes, I am a fast reader :)

On The 20 Minute Social Media Professional

Glad it was helpful!

On The Future of Online Community

There are two types of integration - social and technical - by social I mean behavioural and technical is well, technical.  Social integration is always a good idea.  And, it is another site to manage. But, how they get managed will need to align to the tools they choose based onthe intention for the channel. For example, it is unlikely they would try to use Twitter to hold deep conversations with their clients on product strengths and weaknesses, whereas the community is well suited for that activity. On the flip side, it is probably not a good idea to try to use community to reach a wide audience if they intentionally have a closed, gated community as the goal is not scale.  At the end of the day, one's community is everywhere online and companies should use the best channel to reach them in the ways the tools supports. Hope that helps.

On What It Means to Be An Influencer... Online.

Thanks for your comment.  How would you define in one line what it means to be an influencer?

On Why You Shouldn’t Outsource Social Business Activities

Thank you both for taking the time to post a comment - this inspires productive dialogue that helps to shape our industry! Much appreciated for kicking off this conversation thread.

There are two points to be discussed here;

• The first is whether or not social media should be outsourced or not as a strategic best practice.
• The second- perhaps a subpoint - is whether social media and social media marketing are one in the same.

 I will start with the first thesus "whether or not social media should be outsourced or not as a strategic best practice."  My point in my post about why social media shouldn't be outsourced is rooted in the present common behaviour of many company's perception of social media as a non-core, rote function that organizations can get someone else to do - and never look back at the byproducts or outcomes of the social experience.  Just like companies often outsource production materials, an outside group does it, and then they take the output as job done, organizations often think they are being social just because they can lay claim to a twitter account.  This is not best practice and limiting the impact that social can have.

While there are many excellent social media marketing and online community moderation outsourcing companies, the buck doesn't and shouldn't stop with their work.... that is just the beginning of the relationship with clients and the data they generate. The organization needs to work with the outcomes of the social experience and look for oportunities to make changes within the product and service set based on customer feedback, seek new ideas and innovation oportunities in the data, use the social channel to market test thought leadership ideas, help existing and prospective clients explore the breadth and depth of their service offering in order to service them better.

Point in case, here at Leader Networks, we have an B2B online community managed service offering and many clients use our moderators to help run their online communities - but involvement can't stop with us. While we can bring our expertise to the community moderation function, the organization can't turn a blind eye to their online community. We believe it is important to teach the company how to make the most of the community and teach their staff how to get involved.  Moreover, is more common for an organization to get involved in their customer community outcomes than the they are to leverage their twitter or facebook presence. That is where they often walk away from accountability.  But what they do with the info is as important as how well it is being done. This is the stuff that successful social business is made of. Companies often  truncate the value when they give it over to another group to run with sans a plan to integrate the information back into the organization and make a real impact on operations!

The second point that we are dancing around is the question/notion that social media is social media marketing.  I agree that social media marketing is in fact a form or subset of marketing.  In fact, I estimate that in a few years time even the term social media marketing and the term marketing will merge as there will not be marketing with out social.  However, social media marketing is just one single aspect of social business but there is much much more below the water line in terms of social's impact on the larger organizational strategy and execution of that strategy. Organizations often confuse social media in its richness with a subset of marketing activities as it has the potential to bring a great deal of strategic direction to all aspects of the business and not just to the (important) marketing dicipline. The goal of social media can and should be so much more than only to "get people to buy from you" it is to serve the strategic objectives of the organization in ways described above.  It just so happens that marketing is leading the social charter in most organization.

This is a great conversation, and I believe an important one to have especially here on Social Media Today as we are the ones carrying the social flag into our respective organizations and clients. We are the brave pioneers :)

On Designing Metrics for Online Customer Communities

Thank you so much for taking the time to share the important and wonderful addtion of "commercial results" to this framework. I agree wholehartedly with that inclusion. In many ways commercial results is the underpining of the entire framework but it would benefit from being called out explicitly!

On Social Business Readiness: 5 Questions for Legal Executives

Quite possibly! if you are involved in the social media aspects for your organization, one of the greater change agent activities you can do is create a program to help educated and inform people about the the usage and impact of social media and social business.  from simple lunch and learns to reverse mentoring programs to involving LOB executives in the social media committee are all productive steps to inclusion.

On Social Business Readiness: 5 Questions for Legal Executives

Hi Skennedy34,

Good question... it has been my experience that Legal needs to be involved in the creation of the social media policy - perhaps not the first draft but they definitely need to review it before it is dissemenated to all staff to check for legalities.... So they need to do more then by-in the need to approve the policies.  

Now the social media Marketing strategy - which is vastly different than the social media strategy at large as one deals with marketing and the other deal with business impact, typically needs to be explored together.  An organizations risk tolerance and industry (ie are they in a regulated industry etc) will help determine the tenor of both the policy and strategy and they will likely go hand in hand.

Did i answer your question?

Best

Vanessa

On 10 Social Media Promises: Can Your Company Keep Them?

Thank you both for the comments - and for posting the pledge at your firm! that is fantastic! 

and certainly I am sure there are a few that can even be added to the list so lets have a go at it as well,

best to both of you

Vanessa

On 10 Social Media Promises: Can Your Company Keep Them?

Thank you both for the comments - and for posting the pledge at your firm! that is fantastic! 

and certainly I am sure there are a few that can even be added to the list so lets have a go at it as well,

best to both of you

Vanessa