That was the topic of the panel discussion last night hosted by the

Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association. It was fabulous to see over 250 people there!

The panel included representatives from Minnesota’s largest brands:

• Jim Cuene, Director of Interactive, General Mills
• Brad Smith, VP of eCommerce & Digital Marketing, Fingerhut Direct Marketing
• Gary Koelling, Creative Director, Social Technology, Best Buy
• Jason Kleckner, Manager of Information Architecture, Target Corporation

For social media efforts they are all engaged in efforts to gather Ratings & Reviews.

• Target is utilizing Amazon.
• Best Buy has a loyalty program & are considering what directions to take it in (in addition to sending out periodic coupons). They also have the Blue Shirt Nation program.
• General Mills isn’t involved in Facebook & doesn’t engage with those that are talking about their brand there.
• A comment was made that Circuit City was doing it well

The point was made that social media is a set of tools. Everyone on the panel expressed the same questions:

• How can they offer the personalized experience that customers get in the store of ‘How can I help you?
• How to focus on the relationships?
• How can the company have an authentic voice?

The first thing that came to my mind is how perfectly the Community Manager role provides that voice in a personalized way that creates relationships with the customers.

Each panelist was asked how they’re measuring ROI. It seems that none of them are. One commented that they are considering it an investment in product development by gathering feedback from the customers. They didn’t view it as providing a return on marketing. I guess that I have to disagree. As a Community Manager I’m part of the marketing department & building brand & increasing visibility are very important parts of marketing & PR efforts. There are also many contributions to product development & QA but in our company marketing drives those efforts. Early this week I posted an article on Measuring Social Media efforts that may be of interest.

The panelists were asked how people can evangelize social media? The comment was made that large corporations are traditional & it’s going to be a slow change. I agree that smaller companies can embrace new marketing much more quickly & add it to their repertoire with much more agility. The comment was made that consumers have always owned brands & now it’s just on a faster & bigger scale.

Gary Koelling likened the use of new marketing techniques to the general store. The store owner knows everyone by name & offers services on a personalized basis. He doesn’t have a big advertising budget & relies on word of mouth. Gary recommended trying smalls things in an authentic way. Experimenting with the risk of not succeeding.

** This brings me back to the importance of having a Community Manager. The role is all about offering that personalized service online to whomever needs it. Monitoring brand, responding to positive & negative discussions about the brand & providing excellent customer service is definitely noticed by the customers. The small efforts go a long ways. And of all my experimentation only a couple of items have fallen flat. All of the other efforts have been very successful & grown exponentially.

There was a concern expressed that it’s hard to reach people online other than the 20 year old on Facebook. errr My customer segments range in age from teenagers to way older than average. I have 80 year old women using our software along with professional photographers. My question back is have evaluated where your customers are at? (beyond Facebook?) They’re all over the place & quite active! Many children have given their parents computers & they’re online (including mine! ). My challenge to the panel & you is to find creative ways to reach those people. (Identify where they’re at first, Listen, then participate).

Fingerhut said that they’re creating private communities for their customers. I’m interested to know more about that. I’m curious to know what the reason for making them private is? Wouldn’t it be helpful to have them public & embrace those that happen upon them? The organic growth would be valuable I would think?

Follow me on Twitter @cbensen - and they created @Mima08 (that will also allow you to connect with others that were at the event)

Further reading

Interview with Jim Cuene & Doug Pollei by Lee Odden

Overall it was an excellent event! I had a great time meeting my friends from Twitter - @kevinfarner @albertMaruggi @rickmahn @dougpollei - you guys are the best! And I look forward to the Social Media Breakfast tomorrow morning!

Will you be there? I’m really excited about making the jaunt down for the two events! I live closer to Canada than I do the Twin Cities, but that doesn’t affect my working remotely. I’ve gotten to know people from all over the world, but meeting in person has great value!

Because I’m a connector I’ve been linking everyone to these events, so here’s a one stop listing.

On Wed May 14th, the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association is hosting a panel on DUALITY REALITY: WHO CONTROLS SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE ENTERPRISE?

On the weekend I build out a wiki with a number of questions for possible discussion. Take a look at them & let me know if there are questions that you have?

On Fri May 16th bright & early!

SMB - Twin Cities 3 - Join the Community for future meeting info

Time: May 16, 2008 from 8am to 10am
Location: Concordia University - St. Paul
Street: 1282 Concordia Ave.
City/Town: St. Paul
Website or Map: http://maps.google.com/maps…
Contact Info: 612.298.7289
Event Type: breakfast, SMB-TC3
Organized By: Rick Mahn

Questions? Please let me know. @dougpollei is organizing the first & @rickmahn is doing the 2nd.  And I look forward to meeting all of you! I can’t wait to hear what others from MN are doing with social media.

First I’m going to wish my mom, sister & sister-in-law all a Happy Mother’s day! You guys are the best!  and I know you read my blog, so that makes you even more loveable!

And yes once in awhile my birthday hits Mother’s Day as it did this year. It’s a time for pausing to look back (briefly) & looking forward. What new adventures lie ahead? My life has been been rich because of the people that have helped me become who I am today. And there’s always room for improvement!

A year ago I decided I wanted to work with social media full time & here I am. Since high school I’ve known that I should slow down (ie: double major in college in 3 yrs & working full time ever since). My daughter has just finished her first year of college & I’m so proud of her making the dean’s list first semester. She loves to write too.

As you guys know gifts are hard & I had pondered the usual jewelry. But then one morning it dawned on me! We have this lake that we really should enjoy. So after asking my Twitter friends about canoe vs kayak - it was a resounding vote for kayak.

Now I only have experience with driving a canoe. So shopping for a kayak was fun. I asked to sit in them at the store. (You have to try them out! and the sales guy humored me) We brought it home & launched it under hubby’s watchful eye. The lake is all of 8′ deep.

It’s a totally peaceful serene way to experience the water. And the solitude is blissful. My maiden voyage was at sunset & the loons were making their noise. 

I stayed near shore as instructed & my cat followed. After awhile she was crying & so I went to collect her. She wouldn’t walk out on the rushes, so I convinced her to walk out on a fallen tree. I convinced her to put her feet on the kayak & I brought her in with me. As we headed back for the landing site, she refused to stay down & had thoughts of walking on water! ha ha Ms Sushi kept getting bonked in the head as I oared her back towards land. It’s too bad that this photo was blurry - it was a riot!

When we were about 6′ from shore she chose to use my leg to launch herself to shore & landed with a splash (not trusting my landing apparently! but I still have claw marks). Needless to say our two labs will NOT go kayaking with me. That would be a mess having two wet sloppy dogs…. ohhh I can’t even imagine!

So thanks to everyone who chimed in with your advice! I’m going to really enjoy the new form of upper body exercise as well as the peace & solitude of paddling on our little lake.

I spent much of today building out a wiki for an event next week sponsored by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association. I want to share the section on Social Media Measurement here:

The information is based on a webinar that Jeremiah Owyang gave last January.

Web Analytics provide traditional attributes of page views, unique site visitors, etc. This alone isn’t adequate anymore because customers are talking to each other (& much of it is not on your site).

Attributes that need measurement:

• Attention = time on website (sometimes it’s not yours)
• Interaction = Click, Comment, or Embed
  • Coversation Index: ratio between blog posts and comments+trackbacks
• Velocity * = Distance/Time (Rate of how fast your message is traveling in a given time)  Jeremiah defines Velocity with examples
• Sentiment * = tone, opinion
• Qualitative * = What did they say? 
• Impacts * = What did they do? (influencers)

* Brand Monitoring Solutions - these are helpful with the last four above

Tracking the tone, perception and nuances within online conversations is getting easier. There are a number of solutions available that monitor discussion of your brand online. They offer options to track & create reports on frequency, influence & sentiment.

There are new places to monitor/measure:

• Social bookmarking sites: Delicious, Magnolia, StumbleUpon, Kaboodle, blinklist, etc
• Aggregators: Digg, Techmeme
• Micromedia: Twitter, Pownce
• Facebook groups, pages, Google & Yahoo groups
• Forums (if password required spyders can’t crawl them)
• Competitor’s sites

Methodology for finding new communities (listening is imperative)

1. Find the community & participate
2. What tools are they using?
3. What are they talking about?
4. Who are the influencers?

Examples of things you can measure:

1. Using above methodology to find customers & prospective markets
2. Listen, understand the conversation, then participate
   • Measure the number of conversations
   • Monitor the percentage increase of conversations over time
3. Measure the reduced buying cycle & reduce support costs my encouraging self-support
4. Increased sales due to increased customer satisfaction in product due to involving them in product development cycle
5. Increased efficiency in developing products due to customer feedback at various stages
6. Minimize brand damage by responding quickly to customer’s concerns online

The Community Manager’s role to listen, participate & track progress

     Provide a report on a montly basis

• Ongoing definition of objectives
• Web analytics
• Interaction - Trends in members, topics, discovery of new communities
• Qualitative Quotes - helpful for feedback & marketing
• Recommendations - Based on interactions with the customers
• Benchmark based on previous report

Further reading

• All of Jeremiah’s posts tagged Social Media Measurement - worth browsing
• KDPaine’s PR Measurement Blog
• Update Katie Paine recommends her book Measuring Public Relationships (I ordered it!)
• And here’s the wiki I built out on Web 2.0 for the Enterprise with 10 focus areas for the upcoming Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association event. Lots of questions for your org to ask.

I was excited to find my post on Uses of Twitter featured on Social Media Today! When you become a member you can add your blog feed & editors there choose which articles to publish on the site.

It’s great to have my writing recognized & shared. And the members of Social Media Today are amongst the best in Social Media & Web 2.0!

Social Media Today is a great resource that you should definitely check out!

Yesterday’s webinar, Web 2.0 in the Enterprise, by Rob Koplowitz of Forrester was an excellent presentation that really got me thinking about the various aspects of building community inside the enterprise. Most of my focus has been external but the concepts of working efficiently, collaboration & building relationships applies to the internal aspects too.

Here’s an outline of the main points:

1. Knowledge workers - the next place for efficiency (email isn’t cutting it anymore & elegant web 2.0 solutions exist now that foster internal community building)

• collaboration is being redefined (and it’s traumatic to some)
• it’s about how people work & human activities
• brands need to differentiate themselves & they can achieve that by drawing on their employee’s ideas

I like Forrester’s definition of Web 2.0:

A set of technologies & applications that enable efficient interaction among people, content, and data in support of collectively fostering new businesses, technology offerings, and social structures.

Rob made the point that the first part is the tactical aspect.And the underlined part is what’s causing the ruckus. Digital natives are ignoring IT & wanting to use collaboration tools, information sources & networking options that aren’t necessarily endorsed by the Enterprise. These solutions are relatively inexpensive or open source & the younger generation expects to work in a Web 2.0 environment. The good news is that these tools require little or no support from IT, so they easily be outsourced. Rob provided stat’s that over 50% of organizations are considering implementing collaboration strategies & 25% will be implementing Web 2.0 technology.

He gave an example of how Bell Canada creatively responded to the economic threat of Google. They utilized the long tail to stimulate idea generation from employees by creating an internal blog encouraging idea generation & then the ability to vote. The highest rated ideas & the lowest were championed by the executive level for subsequent strategic planning.

Blogs are a good way to gather ideas from staff internally & document information. Wiki’s are used for collaboration. The value of both is that they build brand inside the organization. They encourage organizational change. Once people get used to using the blog/wiki they enjoy contributing. Both provide a "corporate memory" that is invaluable. And Rob pointed out that new voices emerge from the organization. It puts email back to the purpose it was intended for.

The slide below highlights what Web 2.0 offers. Information becomes artifacts. Down on the bottom left is where IT needs to be involved in ensuring that policies, security & compliance are followed. This removes the risk & allows for more transparency because the purpose of the tool has been reviewed & approved.

How to go about implementing this?

• Assume that the existing compliance, privacy, security & discovery procedures apply
• The organization needs to assess authentication & security.
• Decide on the levels of the policy

What’s appropriate considering the situation?

• Internal versus external information
• Public versus private systems
• Trusted vs non-trusted info sources

Rob listed out things to look for:

• Authentication model
• Security model
• Integration with search strategy
• Policy management
• Integration API’s

He wrapped up his presentation by encouraging the audience to find strategies that harness the new Web 2.0 tools. Building community internally can provide business value today.

I want to make a point that the tools/services are very reasonable for building community internally or externally. We just need to help organizations get over their fears & encourage them to start experimenting!

Please share your experiences. Someone sent me a note with their story & I’m going to interview him & share it with you.

The Community Manager role is becoming more prevalent in organizations. Along with that comes the question of salary (or at least people are asking me about it & it’s one of the highest search terms hitting my blog).

Here are the trends - based on information from the Facebook Community Manager group (which I’d recommend participating in if you’re interested in this area). These are numbers for North America.

• Some are viewing it as a professional position & asking the candidate what salary they’d like then negotiating from there
• Some are placing the position under marketing & paying the going rate for that local area

From the Facebook group, seeing job postings & talking with my peers the salaries range from $60,000 to $110,000.

There are also other factors:

• the role is personalized to suit the organization’s needs so it’s difficult to compare numbers across the board. I think the organization needs to consider what percentage of the position is tactical versus strategic. These positions generally aren’t managerial.
• a factor that I think is very important is how much training does the new hire require? That will require an investment of resources on the employer’s part (even though they can start the person at a lower salary).
• working remotely - I consider the cost to bring me to the home office every 2 months as part of my salary because it allows me to live at a locale with a much lower cost of living.
• working as a contractor - in the US we need to add 15% to cover Medicare & the half of social security that the employer usually pays. That doesn’t really include health insurance costs.

In Germany - $95 k (avg provided by Tom Noeding, community manager extraordinaire)

In the UK I saw one advertised for $80 k

If you want to provide info let me know & I’ll update this post.

There have been many posts on Twitter & tutorials keep coming out. Awhile ago I wrote about how I had to shift my use of Twitter.

When I had only 120-150 followers I checked in 3-4 times per day. And I would page back through everyone’s tweets & open links that I would read later.

But the twitterstorm that @jowyang created disrupted that & my number started growing. It took me a bit to readjust & I started using some new tools.

Now at 750 followers here is how I use Twitter:

• pop in only on breaks (It’s too disruptive to stream)
• chat with my network that is online at the moment
• if I see an interesting comment I may
  • click on the @username for context
  • follow that person
  • put their name into quotably.com to see the thread of the conversation (it works pretty well albeit it’s not perfect)
• use quotably.com to check my favorite tweeters & follow their links
• check replies & respond

My Twitter tips:

If you tweet about a broad variety of topics you’ll get followers of varied interests

Ask questions - crowdsource your followers - they love to help! (today I asked if I should get a kayak or canoe; on another day it was what to do in Paris) It’s also a great place to get tech help (my following is very geeky).

Business related tips:

• Tweetscan.com delivers an email every morning to me with a standing search for:
  • cbensen - for DM’s that are missed - Twitter is prone to hiccups)
  • cbenson (people misspelling my name)
  • acdsee - brand monitoring
  • community manager - I’m connecting with like minded people & I like reading the news as people announce their positions or talk about their work
  • take your tweetscan search & share it with others
    • Here’s an example that I saw Radian6 using
    • *update* Look at what Zappos is doing
      • Public mentions
      • Employee tweets
      • List of employees that Tweet
      • Link to follow the CEO

• If you use that - make sure you monitor it so there aren’t negative tweets on it
• Get creative with it! It’s offered in an RSS feed - where can you embed it? website? blog?

Benefits:

• Networking - I’ve met a large number of people from Minnesota. After getting to know them I’m ready to attend the Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast next week & meet them in person!
• Branding -
  • repetitive - Use your photo as your avatar
  • memorable - Use a representative photo for your home page & people will see it when they check out your profile or go to DM you. This space offers the opportunity to display your brand logo multiple times. If you have questions on how to do it, let me know - I know of some software that makes it easy!

Follow me @cbensen & I’ll follow you back!

Resources

• for the beginner - Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
• more in-depth - Caroline Middlebrook has a great guide
• And there are tons of Twitter app’s out there - Lee Odden lists 5 newer ones & @jowyang has a good list too.
• Ellen has a good resource

Update - an interesting article on Twitter

There are some people with very strong voices & Valeria Maltoni has one that’s worth listening to. Her writing is focused & provides key points on marketing with social media. I’m honored to be invited to join a meme that contemplates where we’re at on the 10th anniversary of the publication of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Let’s take a couple of minutes to talk about The Cluetrain Manifesto because many of my readers are new to social media marketing. It is based on the premise that customers are talking & companies need to start listening & participating:

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

If you’re not familiar with the manifesto take a couple of minutes to read the 95 theses. I suggest reviewing them periodically because at various stages of involvement with social media you’ll find that they take on new meaning.

I really like Valeria’s summary & inclusion about emotion because the New Marketing is all about customers & relationships. She says:

This kind of conversation is a commitment, not a savings account for your marketing spend. When I speak about social media, the tools and dynamics, I often say that they are the container, the context in which you get to:

• engage
• educate
• entertain

The fourth "E" is emotion, the human quality that is memorable because it touches us. While blogs and other social media seem (and often are) extemporaneous, they do allow you to show the personality of your business. Your personality is still what differentiates you from your competitors - and, after years of industrial age treatment, what makes you likeable.

Here is my take on the meme on the 10th anniversary of the book:

1. What does The Cluetrain Manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?

I was introduced to the concepts in early 2006 in the public library non-profit setting. As I have shifted to marketing online the precepts of the Cluetrain Manifesto have become more applicable. They also ring true for me as a customer!

As a customer living in a rural area I’ve long relied on reviews on Amazon to make purchase decisions for three reasons:.

1. Word of mouth influences me: It is easier to purchase electronics in this way rather than rely on college students opinions in stores.
2. Local selection is limited in a town of 60,000. I want to buy what’s best for my needs rather than what’s being mass marketed.
3. Lower price & the convenience of having it delivered to my door - shopping online definitely allows me to purchase at the best price

As a Community Manager the Cluetrain Manifesto provides the foundation for my philosophies & underlines the relevance of my work:

• the customer is first & they need to be listened to - they are networking & influencing each other’s purchases
• conversations are happening everywhere - the company needs to get off their site & join in
  • they need to respect the customers opinions & space
  • realize that the relationships must be nurtured & are fragile
• the conversation must be transparent & authentic - if it is then the customers will embrace it & uplift the brand (as well as forgive it’s shortcomings)
• the conversation isn’t something to be controlled (externally OR internally)

2. Which companies have best implemented The Cluetrain Manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

There are so many examples. There are some excellent books that I list in my Resources page that provide examples & case studies.

3. In thesis 57, The Cluetrain Manifesto states, “smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.” In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

I believe that education/training is imperative in every organization. In my tenure as a supervisor for almost a decade I always challenged my staff & learn & grow in their positions. Change is inevitable & learning new technology is imperative. My staff were always asking for more training & I believe that it’s the organization’s obligation to provide it.

Education can provide the foundation for encouraging employees to do new tasks (including incorporating blogging & the use of social media tools into their routines). The last question asks whether employees should be encouraged or directed? How about if management embraces the concepts first, then ensures training & participates with their employees. That’s a win-win situation & I’ve always thought that management should lead by example.

4. How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

I guess I covered it in question 3. I would recommend that companies:

• Learn about the benefits & commit to participating
• Embrace the concept & plan for it
• Education & train the employees

5. Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?

I don’t think that all do. And I don’t think that it’s everyone’s job. Conversely those that are on the company’s front lines NEED to be not only comfortable with talking with customers but also be well versed in how important word of mouth is. Specific training should be provided to them so that they can fully understand the value of the relationships that they’re creating & the power that can bring.

I also believe that management & the executive level should be participating with their markets online. As I mentioned earlier that will set an example & tone for the culture of the organization. Surely every employee that wants to engage with customers should be encouraged to. Building relationships with the customers will pay off in surprising ways!

Here are other responses to this meme by: RichardatDELL, Michael Walsh, Valeria Maltoni, Jason Falls, Zane Safrit, Phil Gomes, Mack Collier — and John Cass who started it.

Travel has been my dream & in two weeks we’ll be making our first trip abroad! Family & friends ask why I chose London & Paris? My choice was heavily influenced by favorite authors ranging from the Bronte sisters to Catherine Cookson & modern Katie Fforde. And I look forward to visiting Chaucer’s Canterbury. Historical fiction based on Anne Boleyn has intrigued me. In high school I flew thru Tale of Two Cities & enjoyed it! And I still remember the portion of Portia’s speech from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice that we had to memorize:

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed.
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Ok so my literature teachers had a bit of influence! …on to details of the trip:

For me anticipation is most of the excitement! I have been planning this trip for a year. We’re going to be staying at the historic Sanctuary House Hotel in Westminster just steps away from Westminster Abbey. It has just 34 rooms & is located over a pub that serves traditional food. I chose the location because I wanted to be close to everything. On our last trip to Victoria BC we did the same & it was nice to walk & not rely on taxis.

I have a list of  places to visit & we will be using the tube. I have three day trips planned. We’ll be celebrating our 22nd anniversary so that calls for a trip on the Eurostar to Paris. The footage on building the chunnel is fascinating & the idea that it runs at 186 mi/hr thru the French countryside is exhilarating! We hope to visit the Eiffel Tower, the Cathedral de Notre Dame & the Louvre (I have to go see the Mona Lisa!) as well as have some crepes.

The other two day trips will be to: 1) Leeds Castle, Dover Cliffs & Canterbury & 2) we want to go to medieval Windsor & it’s castle.

I’m also VERY excited to have the opportunity to get together with & hear Steve Bridges speak. He’s a Social Media Consultant & Online Community Mentor. His interview at the Buzz Bin is very informative.

And I won’t be taking my laptop so I’ll be offline. My iTouch will provide a bit of connection but I plan on unplugging in the last part of May.

If you have suggestions for restaurants or must-see places in London/Paris please let me know.