12 days of a Social Media Christmas

It’s coming to the end of the year and press and blogs are all looking to do wrap up posts. In my case, it’s not so much a wrap up post as a look a the type of activities that you may have included as part of your digital and buzz marketing activities.

• 1 CEO blog. Does your CEO, or anyone on your board, have a blog. It’s more and more common amongst smaller companies (especially tech start-ups) to do this but the bigger companies are still reluctant. Maybe the formation of the ‘Blog Council‘ may change that but I have a feeling that it will make little difference.
• 2 Interactive Billboards, You don’t have one of those? They’re a common tactic when you want ‘engagement’ and have probably been mentioned in nearly all experiential or PR plans at some point as something to engage the customers. Times Square, Piccadilly or whatever the local big bustling tourist place is are common placement targets. The challenge now is to come up with something that has not been done – send your picture, give your votes, text your message, all common. So what’s new?
• 3 Twitter Accounts. Or Jaiku or Pownce. Small microblog tools that can be used to broadcast your message, drive people to your sites or do some direct action. Forgetting of course that the beauty of these tools is often more about who you follow and what they say instead of what you can bray into the ether.
• 4 Community Managers. Who looks after your customers? Who interacts with them on the message boards and blogs. Who thinks of ways to get involved in the community that has developed around your product (that’s if you are lucky and you have a product that people want to share experiences about). It’s better that this is someone on the team, not just an agency person, as they are going to need to develop long term relationships
• 5 Employee blogs. If your board does not blog do you let your employees blog about the company, to say who they work for and to talk about the product they love (or at least work on). These are your first line marketers, not your marketing team and the passion they share can often go as far as an advertising campaign and can have a longer lasting effect. Remember though, make sure you have a blogging policy and some education to ensure what is said does not break any laws (all of those financial and trade secret issues)
• 6 Customer Forums. Do you provide them on your site? Be aware of some of the accountabilities that doing so may entail. If they are taking place elsewhere then how are you joining in, adding value to the conversation without just selling. One good example is getsatisfaction.com, forums for products where the employees join in. Do you even know where people are talking about your stuff? Search the message boards and make sure you know what they are saying.
• 7 Viral Videos. Everyone wants one. Few succeed. Study the guidelines and decide your path.
• 8 Make your own advertisement Definitely a trend this year, taking advantage of the ease and low cost of producing video. Even if the customers are making the ads, you still need to make sure they fit the bigger picture of the brand by getting the briefing right.
• 9 Flash games. There seems to be only so many templates for the little time-wasting games – racing things, shooting things, throwing things – and it’s all down to the design values and game play quirks that can win a following.
• 10 Blogger Programmes – do you have one. Is it part of your PR and outreach? Where possible they’re better off tied into the community managers and the development of relationships. But if you are going to be just doing tactical campaign outreach make sure you know the rules or expect to be ignored at best or ridiculed at worst. Ogilvy PR have a good starting set
• 11 Social Media Press Releases. Urg…horrible name but the intention is good. Press Releases in a human, not PR voice, with links and usable assets. Put them out there for people to use but don’t spam the bloggers with them.
• 12 Social Networks. MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Ning, etc etc etc. Whatever the current hot network is, you can be that it won’t be the same in 6 months, so be careful how you plan your media spend. Straight forward advertising is one way to reach people, even better is they can be relevant ads if the network lets you access data about the users, but you never know what your advertising is placed against and how it can affect you. Advertising is essential and a necessary evil for the networks as it is usually the only revenue stream, whether banners or paid profiles. But for effectiveness, you need to be doing more, providing more utility, engaging with the audience and having an active presence. It’s not just design and leave – it’s design and keep adding, whether the addition be goodies and information or engagement and conversation.

So what’s in line for next year? No idea, the change of pace in the world increases and ‘new’ changes all the time. Video, relationships, utilities, 2 way conversations, I think all of those will build their importance but the names of the sites involved and the hot executions are still on the drawing board or sitting in the background ready to leap when the current leaders do something silly. But have fun speculating and planning.