Windmill Networking » internet-marketing

Why Your Company Needs a Social Media Policy and 14 Corporate Social Media Policy Examples

Neal Schaffer — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:05:43 +0000

Yesterday I wrote about how to sell social media to your marketing department, and as a follow-up to that question, I received another email from the same person indicating a big reason why internally their marketing department still doesn’t want to move forward:

“After more in-depth discussions it became apparent that the real concern of our marketing department is protecting our “brand name” while employee’s use social media to, essentially further their own careers and successes. I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective but it does present some challenges.”

The fear of how one’s employees will use sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook is a knee-jerk reaction by those who, once again, might not be new adopters to these tools. But upon analysis, it is clear that there is a natural progression of understanding that needs to take place here:

Why not being active in social media can hurt your brand;
Why your company was never in control of their brand (or the conversations of its employees) ;
Why there is a need for a corporate-wide education program; and
Why corporate social media policy creation is the only way to set proper usage guidelines and “protect” the company.

Using Social Media Helps Protect Your Brand Name

If all of these online conversations are taking place and you’re not active in social media, how can you be “protecting” your brand name from what may already be taking place in the outside world? Rather than a narrow approach looking internally at one’s own employees, what are your customers, competitors, and industry insiders potentially saying about your company? The only way to find out is by monitoring social media conversations, and the only way to truly “protect” your brand name is by being in active on those social media websites wherever your target audience is to proactively manage how others will perceive your brand name.

Companies Were Never in Control of Their Brand (or Their Employees)

What have your employees been saying about your company on the phone or through emails? Do you monitor all of the conversations they have with others at trade shows? Companies were never in control of the conversations that their employees have about their business, so the “brand name” has never been protected. At least with social media, when compared with other types of conversation, the information is public in a good way: Companies can now often see what their employees are saying on the various social media websites which can actually help to “protect” their brand name. Remember: New Tools, Old Rules. This challenge is nothing new.

On the other hand, since a “brand name” is only something that is perceived by others, companies were never in full control of it to begin with, right?

Social Media Use Inside the Company Needs Education

Even if you’ve bought into the argument so far, there is still a missing piece here: How can you be sure that your employees will responsibly use these websites as official representatives of your company? There is a learning curve associated with social media like there is with any other new tool. Posting to a corporate Facebook Page is not the same as sharing your favorite photos on your own personal profile. The only way to overcome this challenge is education. Pick the person inside your company who seems to have the most understanding of social media and could be a role model as a responsible user. One approach some of my customers use is to divide the educational responsibilities up amongst several people: 1 is in charge of learning and then educating others on LinkedIn, another on Twitter, and so on. Find a system that works and educate your employees.

Social Media Policy Creation is the Only Way to Both Set Guidelines and Protect the Company

Now that you have the education piece down, it is time to create internal guidelines for all present and future employees. This will provide the basis to train all of your employees on how to responsibly use social media. But don’t stop there: If an employee sends a public message through one of these social websites that in someway violates an existing contract (for instance, exposing company secrets or NDA-protected content), in some cases the company, not the employee, may be the responsible party. That is why these guidelines, if properly established under supervision by legal professionals, can also help protect your company. These corporate social media policy policy guidelines, combined with education, should go a long way into standardizing the responsible use of these websites inside your company.

14 Corporate Social Media Policy Examples to Help You Create Your Own Policy

Your company is not alone. Every other company, big and small, needs to have a policy in place for practical and legal reasons. While one survey pointed out that only 29% of companies have social media policies back in February of 2010, there is no doubt that this number will increase to near 100% over the next year or two. While a top notch employment law firm should be considered to supervise the creation and confirm the legality of any social media policy, there are plenty of resources out there to help you get started in learning about what to put in your own policy. Here are 14 great examples as well as some links to some famous guidelines that have been released for public consumption by large corporations. After all, if they can control usage of these websites within their own company, any small or medium-sized business should feel confident that they can do the same.

And if the above isn’t enough, here are some people that are putting together more comprehensive social media policy databases that are being regularly updated:

You’ll notice that in this blog post I did not even dwell on the issue of employees using social media to “further their own careers and successes.” After proper education and looking at how other corporations utilize social media through their guidelines, it is only natural that your marketing department will realize that there are plenty of authentic professional uses of social websites whether it be for Human Resources, Recruiting, Sales, Business Development, and, of course, Marketing! Enough said.

Any other points that I missed, additional reasons for the creation of a corporate social media policy, or other excellent corporate social media policy examples that I might have missed? Please comment!

Strategizing Your Social Media Trifecta

Neal Schaffer — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:36:37 +0000

Today’s guest blog post about social media strategy for local marketing utilizing Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare comes from someone I met Windmill Networking on My Blog Guest, AJ Wilcox. I asked AJ to write about the intersection of local Internet marketing and social media strategy, and he surpassed my expectations with this excellent blog post. AJ is the SEO Team Lead over at OrangeSoda, a local Internet marketing firm. He has been in love with Internet marketing for over 3 years, and has overseen over 2,000 SEO accounts. He is married with a 1 year old son and enjoys cars and running.

Your business may be using Twitter, Facebook, or Foursquare to be connected to its customers, but have you considered integrating all three? Each platform has individual strengths that can make your business’s social media strategy more effective, and they have platform integration functions that make it simple.

My expertise is in local, brick-and-mortar businesses, so I’d like to direct my thoughts towards this type of business. As I see it, there are 5 ways to use social media:

Branding/PR
Sales channel
Customer interaction
Promotions
Reputation management

Let’s cover each channel in detail and how they can be integrated for the most cohesive strategy.

Branding/PR

You company has a personality that goes along with the brand. You’ve probably contributed to it for as long as you’ve been involved. Social media can be a great way to establish that brand personality.

If your business is the stuffy, “professional” type, then your Facebook profile page should reflect that. Your tweets and status updates should be professional in nature. Everything coming from you is informational and inspires trust and authority. Yes, even tweets can encourage followers to utilize you as a resource. If your company is the fun, personable type, your Facebook page and tweets should follow suit. It’s all about the personality.

Discuss your company goals and strategy with employees interacting with the public through your social media to keep everything on brand. And I’m not really suggesting it. It’s a necessity.

Use social media to establish brand authority by mentioning industry news and showing you are on top of your game. A company that is involved and active in the industry will be a better place to do business than a company that won’t ever evolve.

Sales Channel

Why did you originally start doing social media for your company? My guess is that it was because you thought that somehow you could use it to bolster sales and build your customer base. This is a fantastic use of social media, and it should definitely be used – but be careful not to overuse this channel. Remember that your fans/followers aren’t following you for the pure joy of being advertised to all day long.

Twitter and Facebook are really the keys to this channel. Did you just start selling a new product? Let people in your networks know. I personally wouldn’t let an advertisement tweet or update go out more than once in 5 or so messages. Foursquare will let you put a sticker in your store window to alert customers to the fact that you’re active, so they can get on and connect.

Remember, the wider your social network, the wider your advertising reach. The more of a reason you give potential customers to follow you, the more effective sales channel messages will be when customers arrive.

Customer Interaction

No matter what industry you are in, your customers are becoming more social-media savvy. Your customers will talk about you or to you on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and just about any other platform there is. Being available to respond to your customers’ questions, inquiries, tips, etc. is a great way to build loyalty. Your audience is putting more emphasis on being transparent, available, and savvy. Now is your chance to be there for them. Be real and don’t do automated responses. No one likes dealing with robots.

Think about it. If one of your customers tweets, “This sux, I went to pick up my order and it hadn’t arrived yet,” how about responding to them—immediately—with, “Sorry about your order! Our driver had a truck issue. It should be here at 3:30. We’re sending along a $5 gift card for the inconvenience.”

The customer would be stunned that you were listening and were willing to explain the issue clearly. They may have had a small inconvenience by dropping into the store simply to be turned away empty handed, but now they know it was because the truck was late. Instead of talking about your business as incompetent and uncaring, they leave a comment about your excellent customer service.

Imagine fielding customer service questions like, “How long is that sale going on this week?”, and “how late are you guys open tonight?” Your customers will feel like they are getting personal attention and will be more likely to frequent your establishment.

Promotions

Twitter and Foursquare are fantastic for promotions. Consider doing a coupon, special, or contest with your social network.

Twitter is fantastic for contests and promotions. You can set rules directly related to your tweets, e.g., retweeting your announcement (and thereby invite their network to the promotion) counts as an entry to the contest. That means that every entry to the contest makes their whole network also aware of the promotion. As retweets fly around the twittersphere, thousands of people will end up seeing your promotion, and it’s a great way to build a larger following.

Foursquare is great for in-store promotions. As customers are checking foursquare in your area, a message will pop up saying that someone in their area is offering a special. Upon clicking, they will see whatever special you have set for your establishment. The best part about Foursquare is that the customer is already within walking distance, and any traffic you can build into your store would most likely be traffic that was not planning on visiting your store.

As a business on Foursquare, you also have access to a dashboard to see how often people are checking into your establishment. You also get to see who the Mayor is (the person who checks in to your store most often in the last 60 days), and have an opportunity to reward the mayor with a special offer. The best part of this is that it encourages check-ins by others who want to be the mayor and therefore have to come by more often. Your business profits from the additional traffic clamoring for the mayoral honor.

Reputation Management

It has been said that a disappointed customers will tell 10 people about their awful experience. It is also true that it’s a lot easier to tell more than 10 people over a social media network incredibly effortlessly. Wherever a customer is talking, they will talk about you.

Enter social networks. When your company is being discussed publicly, you have the opportunity to participate in the conversation publicly. Stand up for your business decisions and diffuse angry customers. Remember that the longer a client’s concern goes unaddressed, the more they are going to scream and shout, so address it fast.

There are a wide variety of keyword monitoring tools for Twitter, both free and paid, to help you watch for mentions of your company on Twitter. Be part of the conversation.

Foursquare also allows customers to leave tips to other customers. Watch for negative tips and warnings, and immediately correct the issues that cause negative tips. If you ignore them, they just build up and damage your rep.

Any other social media advice that you can provide for local brick-and-mortar businesses? Please do share your experiences with us. And if you’d like to submit a guest blog post on Windmill Networking like AJ did, please contact me! Thanks!

How Social Media Drives New Business: Six Case Studies (techcrunch.com)
Event Marketing With Social Media | Social Media Examiner (socialmediaexaminer.com)
7 Steps For a Successful Social Media Strategy (socialmediaexaminer.com)

5 Reasons Why Businesses Should Like Birthdays on Facebook

Neal Schaffer — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:25:02 +0000

I recently had the pleasure of celebrating my first birthday on Facebook. Wow, what an experience! If you don’t have your birth date out to display to your friends or you haven’t been on Facebook long enough, you may not be able to comprehend what I experienced. But for those of you who know about this, let’s just say my birthday was made extra special by all of the people who came to my Wall to wish me a Happy Birthday. And I mean lots of people. I am writing this blog post to both thank all of my Facebook Friends as well as to ponder what Facebook Birthdays could and should mean for businesses.

First of all, the thank yous. You know who you are, so let’s just say your thinking of me is greatly appreciated. The interesting thing is that many of the people that sent me a “Happy Birthday!” message on my wall were from “friends” that I had never met before. As you know, I am a LinkedIn LION, and rather than discuss why I am a LinkedIn LION, let’s just say LinkedIn does not provide the same venue for casual communication like the Facebook Wall does. So it was a pleasant surprise to see so many of my virtual network stop by and wish me their birthday greetings. It made me happy that there are so many “real people” embracing Windmill Networking. Thank you all!

How is any of this related to how companies can maximize Facebook birthdays for their business? Let me count the ways:

1) Have you ever thought about advertising on Facebook? I mention this because, unlike Google AdWords, Facebook allows you to advertise according to very specific demographics. In fact, Facebook Ads have an option where you can create a custom ad to display only on that user’s birthday. People are happy on their birthdays…advertise something that has value and is birthday-appropriate and you may have a secret formula for attracting new business.

2) If you are an entrepreneur or a small business, you should definitely be monitoring the Facebook Home Page looking for birthdays of your customers, partners, or suppliers. It will obviously be easier to do this if they are your Friends on Facebook, but if their profile information is public you can also glean this information. Contacting them on their birthday gives you a natural reason to be communicating with them…and since they will be in a good mood, they may take you up on any special offers that you might have! Obviously, depending on their Privacy Setting, this information may not be available to you…

3) Related to this are the Facebook Friends who used the occasion to connect with me and send me greetings on LinkedIn and/or Twitter. We may not have been as connected on these platforms before, so it gave them the opportunity to communicate with me on a new level. It could also provide the same opportunity for your business to get noticed and “followed” on these other platforms as well.

4) Once again, this depends if the user’s Privacy Setting is set on “Everyone,” but if it is, you could create a Facebook Application that actually gathers user’s birthdays with which you could then access to send them a special message on their birthday.

5) If you or your business is able to write a birthday greeting on a user’s wall, it will be seen by all others how come by to wish the same person a Happy Birthday. This in itself could provide your business with free advertising!

The intention of this blog post was not to spook people out about Facebook-related privacy issues. Because more personal information may be available to the public on Facebook rather than other social networking sites, as well as the fact that Facebook allows businesses to utilize this data in advertisements and applications, businesses could come up with some pretty creative social media marketing campaigns that could only be possible on Facebook. In terms of social media marketing, it gives businesses a unique opportunity to leverage this information on Facebook that can’t be done on the other major social networking platforms.

If, on the other hand, as a user you are worried about this, please ensure you check your Privacy Settings and confirm that you are comfortable sharing what you might have on your Facebook Profile. If you have any questions about how to do this, please post your question in the Comments below.

Finally, thanks again for all of the “Happy Birthday!” greetings!

Do you have similar Facebook Birthday experiences? How about utilizing Facebook for birthday-related advertisement? Do let us know about what your experience has been!

7 Better Ways To Wish Someone Happy Birthday On Facebook (allfacebook.com)

6 Reasons Why Your Twitter Account May Be Restricted (Without Your Knowing It)

Neal Schaffer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:59:14 +0000

An example of how periodic retweeting got significantly additional clicks. (image by Guy Kawasaki)

Twitter is starting to slowly grow up. Now that Fortune 500 companies are starting to recruit on Twitter and social networking sites like LinkedIn and search engines like Google and Bing are partnering with Twitter, it was only a matter of time before Twitter took steps to root out spam as well as those who are using Twitter to broadcast instead of share. And it fundamentally changes the way in which many in marketing will be using Twitter going forward. If you haven’t searched for yourself or your company on Twitter recently, you may want to confirm that your tweets are being shown in the search results. If not, here are the reasons why your Twitter account may currently be temporarily “restricted” without your knowing it:

6 Reasons Why Your Twitter Account May Be Restricted

1) Repeatedly posting duplicate or near-duplicate content (links or tweets)

As a micro-blogging platform, why would you ever need to repeat yourself in your tweets? You’d be surprised: you may want to introduce everyone to your company or product or blog and want to do so more than once. For instance, I often retweeted a new blog post the day after I originally tweeted about it because not everyone may have caught it the first time. Guy Kawasaki posted a famous blog post about this just three months ago entitled “How to Drive Traffic with Repeat Tweets.” In this fantastic analytical article, Guy shows how repeating a tweet can get significant additional traffic. The analysis is simple: not everyone is looking at Twitter all of the time, so by repeating your tweet you are increasing your chances of getting noticed. Twitter thinks otherwise: Post repeat tweets or repeat links and your tweets will no longer show up in Twitter search results. You won’t even notice that this has happened until you try searching for your own tweets.

2) Abusing trending topics or hashtags (topic words with a # sign)

HabitatUK comes to mind as the famous story of a company abusing the trending topics hashtags. You shouldn’t either. Every time you place a hashtag at the end of your tweet, be forewarned that Twitter is watching to ensure that you are properly classifying your tweet. Don’t try to cheat the system to be found…otherwise you won’t be found anymore!

3) Sending automated tweets or replies

If you are using a 3rd party software application or service to send automated tweets or replies, beware, Twitter is watching you! If social media is about being authentic and transparent, it leaves no room for automation, no matter how bad you want to get the message out. And if you are thinking of doing some guerilla marketing by sending out automated replies, your days are numbered…

4) Using bots or applications to post similar messages based on keywords

There are sophisticated Twitter services that allow you to post messages based on keywords that show up in the Twitter timeline. As sophisticated and attractive as these services might be to some Internet marketers, Twitter is even more sophisticated at finding you!

5) Posting similar messages over multiple accounts

If you have multiple accounts and are trying to market or broadcast the same message from multiple angles, please stop. If you don’t stop, Twitter will force you to stop!

6) Aggressively following and un-following people

I am assuming that this is the reason why most people have their Twitter account restricted. I don’t think an explanation is needed here, but Twitter has its limitations on how many people you can follow in a day. In addition, if you “aggressively” unfollow people in order to follow more people, Twitter will restrict your account. ”Aggressively” is an abstract term, so as long as you are doing periodic follows and unfollows I assume you will not have any issues here.

The above 6 reasons why your Twitter account may be restricted aren’t issues that I made up: they actually come straight from the Twitter support article on Best Practices. Twitter is definitely getting serious about the “quality” of Tweets, and if you aren’t equally serious, you will be removed from search results and lose the benefits of being able to use Twitter.

The common point for all of the above is just to be “natural.” If you use Twitter in a real and authentic way without over-relying on 3rd party applications or tools you should be O.K. Should you use any programs to completely automate your activities, use with caution!

Have any of you faced these restrictions before? Did your Tweets come up when you searched for your name?