How do we handle information overload?

In order to figure out how to use social media for your benefit, one of the best starting points is understanding how you can discover, listen to, and cultivate social media into something you can act on.

This leads us to the idea of creating a social media dashboard: a visualization of metrics and limitless data that needs to viewed through very specific types of business viewpoints.

The following articles cover both strategic questions and tactical recommendations. They’ve been tweeted over 1000 times and shared to hundreds of people on Google, Facebook, and Linkedin.

I’ve covered everything to why you should be doing it and what tools you can use to get it done regardless of whether or not you have a budget of $1 or $1 million.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Creating a Free Social Media Dashboard
Social Media Dashboard Design
Creating Social Media Dashboards
40+ Social Media Dashboard Tools for Tracking Stuff

BONUS READING: What is Social Business Intelligence?

On that note I want to draw your attention to cases from the acting general counsel of the U.S. National Labors Relations Board.

While the NLRB has a very broad goal, its various rulings regarding existing social media policy and regulation is interesting. The most recent report (dated January 25, 2012) covers 14 cases that examine whether or not employer based social media policies where too broad and had proper legal justification.

As I read through the entire 35 page document I noted that while this is an important footnote for social media policy it doesn’t address the concerns of a global organization (it only deals with U.S. Labor Relations) and it also does not address any aspects of management, training, or executive oversight for social media within an organization.

If you are looking at developing a social media policy, these cases provide a good foundation of understanding and help identify some of the policies you should have in place.

The existing social media policy reports from the NLRB also don’t address the ramifications of monitoring, tracking, and managing employee groups with consistent frameworks. This is disturbing from my viewpoint as PII (personal identifying information) and identify theft has been a trending issue the past 18 to 36 months. A majority of employees are unfamiliar with the tools, processes, regulations, and civil rights that govern PII.

Important Social Media Policy Docs

Discharge for Facebook Comments & for Violation of Non-Disparagement Rule

Dishcarge for Facebook Comments was lawful, but policy was overly broad

Work Rules Overbroad, But Discharge was Lawful as Post Were not Protected

Social Media Policy Overbroad, Facebook Comments Were not Protected

Portions of Employer’s Communication Policy Were Overbroad

Initial Social Media Policy Overbroad, but Amended Version Legal

Drugstore Social Media Policy Withstands Scrutiny

Social Media Policy – Unlawful Employee Discharge

Employees Facebook Postings Were Protected Concerted Activity

Facebook Postings Regarding Supervisor Still Protected

Facebook Postings in Healthcare Still Protected

Trucking Employee’s Posting Not Protected

Criticism About Supervisor was Not Protected

City, State, Federal Perspectives

Keep in mind that the above findings are U.S. based and may change. There is still a lot of ground breaking hearings on employee and labor related law and how social media roles are playing into longterm employment, recruiting, and civil liberties here in the U.S.

The reality of the request is that most of the people want a “canned solution.”

The general reasoning goes like this:

They have a problem.
They need it fixed.
They want to buy something off the shelf to fix it.

Unfortunately when it comes to corporate social media training, nothing exist on the shelf.

There isn’t a single cookie-cutter item that can be universally applied to a corporate footprint that doesn’t cause more problems than it is worth.

Typical examples include Facebook 101 and Twitter 101.

Sounds easy right?

No way!

Some core problems:

1-  Facebook and Twitter change so many elements on a quarterly basis that entire sections of ’101′ material change with them. If you haven’t included a process for tracking, managing, and evolving employee usage you can’t even know how far past the expiration date your employees are.

2-  The basic 101 coursework feeds into social media policy and social integration tactics.Many organizations don’t have any social media policies or holistic integration plans in place. If I’m trying to help you train a team to understand social media I had best point out there isn’t a roadmap to follow.

3- The social media training request is probably marketing oriented. There is typically little understanding to connect social business concepts across the entire organization. This core problem limits ROI from a training program and sets different teams up for failure.

4- The organization doesn’t understand who internal and external social media influencers are and what is happening behinds the scenes. This means that there is little validation for people ‘doing it right’ in the industry when they could in fact, be doing it wrong, illegally, or immorally. Sometimes the most popular names in social media are breaking all the rules (and those rules can get you in really deep trouble.)

5- The business cogs driving the underlying need for the corporate social media training have not been identified. The larger the corporation is the more business consideration points need to be integrated into the social media training regiment.

Understanding Distributed Teams

As you look at thousands of employees and an equal number of partners, vendors, consultants, clients, and prospects you begin to see dozens of silos that need to address specific social media training issues.

A cookie-cutter approach being applied to the entire group of partners, vendors, consultants, clients, and prospects creates ineffective and generalized curriculum that is off-topic and out-of-date.

This issue continues to escalate as you detail executive, management, and workforce layers within each national, regional, and departmental silo.

 Applying basic models of Social Media Training

I typically recommend an evaluation of internal and external marketplace assets to create social media training and management processes.

A basic three step process:

-          Identify mission critical business impacts (opportunities / risks)

-          Identify social media savvy users
(executives, employees, partners, team members, community)

-          Create best practices and training framework

The overall breakdown of social media training also works from a top down and bottom up perspective based on getting the right detail to the right level of the organizational pyramid. You need to weigh the training cost and personal development budget against the value of the employee and business impacts they mange.

• Leadership and executive team (private training)
• General management (policy and process group training)
• Workforce (large presentation training / webinar / on-demand)

Integration

In many cases marketing or public relations controls the ‘social media steering wheel’ in an organization.

During the business impact portion for opportunities and risks you need to define…

- what elements marketing/PR teams are doing.

- the types of organizational tools they currently have.

- what best-in-class platforms they need.

- what action indicators/budget impacts need to be monitored.

- what project overlapping project time frames are

Assessing adoption

Once a not-so-basic training structure is setup and the proper business impacts are noted, the goal of social media training is the ability for team members to make more effective business decisions with less effort. This includes enhancing basic awareness of the proper tools, the reduction of risks across the organization, and the ability to grow revenue opportunities.

I typically add an additional article about once a month to this list in an effort to create a holistic resource to raise the common understanding of what ‘social media’ is and is not. This series of social media training documents is also a go-to list of ideas when I am researching client projects or developing tactical plans.

If a ‘social media’ whitepaper, platform, or strategy cannot address how the following elements interact with my current business environment, I have to undervalue the holistic portion of the new elements I am considering.

My overall statement:

As a business professional I don’t support, endorse, or recommend the various “light and fluffy” whitepapers and reports that can’t appropriately address fundamental business impacts.

I also don’t appreciate it when someone is led down the ‘path of no return’ without having an idea of where they are heading first.

With that said…

The following documents were written to help give you a holistic idea of multiple elements and advance your understanding of core building blocks that can be used to strengthen an affective digital business model.

I hope they help you ask the right questions that will lead you to the answers you need.

•  Different Media Types, creating a guide and map
• Media Influence, the Elements of Media
• What is Transmedia?
• What is Syndicated Media?
• What is Hyper Media?
• What is Earned Media?
• What is Bought Media?
• What is Owned Media?
• Social Media Infographics – Consolidated Media
• Understanding information spikes around live events

 If you find any of the articles interesting and helpful,
please remember to like/retweet/share!

To help with that I’ve collected some of my thoughts in a free whitepaper that highlights some of the critical areas of impact you should be thinking about.

You can read through the list of questions I’ve covered below… but will need to download the whitepaper to get some of my value-added thoughts.

Some questions to think about…

• How much does this cost?
• What forms of social media will reach our business goals?
• Are there any “low cost” benefits?
• What are we really trying to accomplish?
• How long will this take?
• Do you have any formalized goals or reports in place for your new media projects?
• What is the internal budgetary support of the new venture?
• If I don’t have budget, where can I reallocate resources from?
• Do you know what section of your online pipeline is causing problems?
• Does someone within your organization “get it?”?
• Have you identified organization leaders that can support new initiatives?
• Who within your company has ultimate responsibility for online communication?
• Who will maintain our social media presence?
• Do you have a trusted, executive champion?
• Do you currently know who is engaged in conversation about your business?
• What groups and individuals are responsible for current online media activities?
• Is there a formalized internal social media policy in place?
• Have you talked to legal?
• What platforms do you currently have a corporate digital presence?
• What platforms do your employees currently have digital presences?
• Do you have a method for tracking and coordinating social media efforts?
• Do you know where your customers spend time online?
• Does your company have an online voice?
• Are there any users of social media that produce content?
• Have current information assets been evaluated in a digital asset context?
• Do you know what new communication tools your customer want to use with you?
• Do you gather competitive intelligence from the online marketplace?
• Do you have a method for focusing on actionable data?
• Is human resources having difficulty retaining or attracting top talent?
• Do you have a sales plan in place to take advantage of sudden online news?
• Do you have a method of grading your social media efforts?
• Do you understand the value of intellectual syndication?
• Have you created any effort to mobilize and encourage your company supporters?
• Can we take our time?
• Can we take advantage of opportunities in timely manner?
• Is there information is out there that we aren’t tracking, that we should?
• Can your business highlight accomplishments and involvement?
• and three more bonus questions…

At first glance it sounds like a relatively simple problem and is usually summarized by a question like “what is the best mobile app for us?”

If only it were that simple for a company.

The mobile trend is accelerating faster and faster.

It isn’t a question of if someone is connected,
but how, why, and when they are connected.

As a business professional there are dozens of reasons to use different mobile technologies ranging from 3g/4g wireless access, tablet applications, QR codes, GPS services, photo sharing, and content management systems.

There are also a variety of technical questions revolving around IT infrastructure, HR training, and on-going business integration.

Some basic questions I would have for any company looking to offer a mobile experience-

Basic 101

• What areas of our business could benefit?
• What is the most practical and results oriented project?
• How will I define, track, and improve my results?
• Who else has done something like this?

 Who is the audience?

• Is it internal or external?
• do they represent revenue or cost savings?
• do they use iPhone/iPad?
• do they use WIFI?
• do they use offline apps?
• do they need push verification?
• do they need SEO?
• do they publish content with high volume storage needs (large video files, etc.)
• does this audience have active social media channels?
• does this audience have an active online or offline community?
• do they utilize GPS or geo-location data?

Mobile specific questions

• does the mobile idea support revenue/cost savings?
• does the mobile idea attrition or undermine current revenue?
• does the mobile idea use a native or web delivery?
• what is the overall budget of the entire ‘web experience’?
  (you don’t want to blow your entire web site budget on your app…)
• what is the overall app marketing/user acquisition strategy?
• what is the method of deployment and training?
• what is the method of service and support?
• what is the product lifetime of the mobile idea?

The nutshell you need to crack

The idea around mobile media training isn’t that mobile ideas are either good or bad…. but that most mobile ideas are half-baked.

Costs, efficiencies, and revenues need to take multiple impact points and coordinate and effective business projects.

For large businesses this means that multi-disciplinary teams need to work together to distribute costs and maximize a collateral effort. Singular departments looking for singular efficiencies will miss opportunity areas and education savings.

Smaller businesses need to focus on retaining and growing current revenue using mobile technologies, as this goal is often far easier to accomplish than trying to generate new customers through mobile media.

One of the core elements we continue to discuss is the social media policy frameworks for what is acceptable behavior for different types of industry communications.

As part of the social media policy goes, there are A LOT of areas that management and workforce personnel should give some thought to.

It boils down to questions…

Rather than focus on where we see market trends a going, sometimes the most effective way to figure out where the boat is sailing is by asking the crew what they think. In many cases the messages being sent from ‘the top’ are often misunderstood by the team of people who need to accomplish the tasks at hand.

This often leads to confusion, lack of focus, and sometimes mutiny. The 10 most common questions employees had about corporate social media policy in 2011 (results from personal client surveys through-out the year)

• Who do I ask about what is okay?
• Who owns things I contribute on social media sites?
• When am I officially ‘off the clock?’
• Should I friend my boss?
• Can my boss tell me to friend them?
• What information should I keep away from my employer?
• What if I access sites using my personal smart phone?
• What happens if I quit / get fired?
• How do I report an employee for bad behavior?
• Can I contact colleagues and clients?

The Biggest Employee Question

A critical and often overlooked component of social media policy is addressing 

‘What is in it for me?’

Employees are not ignorant of the fact that company policy and internal documents are often written in the best favor of the employer brand.

Taking the time to craft a valuable set of social media policies and guidelines allows employees to properly consider how they can best work with the company to help them, help the company.

These are some of the most recent social media training articles I’ve written on my personal blog over at BarryHurd.com

Some of them are a little more casual than articles I write here on 123socialmedia, but they all have some great tidbits you can learn from and apply to your own business challenges.

So without further wait, here are four articles from this month at BarryHurd.com.

• 40+ Social Media Dashboard Tools for Tracking Stuff
• Social Media for Sales (why social intelligence rocks)
• Competitive Intelligence with Social Media Monitoring
• Social Media Analytics and Tracking Points of Market Impact

One of the biggest problems facing business leaders is that society at large has adopted the mindset of open dialogue and personal opinion. I personally believe that this has led to some great changes, but the downside is that very few people keep up to date on changes in technology, legal regulation, social trends, and  the business impacts.

Someone in your management group gets to be the voice of common sense…
and the messenger sometimes gets to be the bearer of unpopular messages.

While the message of social media policy is generally not the most popular topic, the combination of open dialogue and personal opinion weighed against the need to be held accountable and drive a profit often reside on contradictory ends of the spectrum. There are very important and long-term benefits that need to be considered by everyone in your audience.

• To say that social media policy is complex would be an understatement.
• To say that social media policy is simple would be idiotic.

Yet business owners, employees, investors, and consumers all have to find a way to have common ground when dealing with each other. Instead of jumping into the legal abyss of what your social media policy should or should not contain, try to absorb these five tips that will help get you in the right mindset for the situation at hand.

Being human.

The essential starting point of any management document is to relate with the team who will be impacted both positively and negatively through policy. If you lose this relationship with your team, any worthwhile leadership benefits will trickle away. As a leader you should focus on gratitude, humility, and collaboration. If your new social media policy makes you hesitate personally, you should rethink your viewpoint.

The best intentions should matter.

Social media ventures into a vast unknown territory of personal expression and social interaction. The fact that technology is often involved only means that both elements have an economy of scale and the rapid ability to multiply. It is rare that someone does something on purpose for negative reasons, and your management of any given situation should be guided by your professional respect, personal accountability, and leadership of the team.

What if my employee does something stupid?

Your social media policy won’t help you from a team member doing something stupid. Even the best people occasionally have bad days and make a genuine mistake. This is an important item to think about when setting the tone of your social media policy. If you treat talented and trusted professionals like children you can predict a few employee memos in the resulting backlash.

What if my employee steals my client list?

This is an important consideration to think about, but isn’t necessarily connected to your social media policy. If you have a client, vendor, or employee list that is a valuable asset for your organization it should be protected by proper non-disclosure, intellectual property, and non-compete contracts. These types of documents are not exclusive of social media (but social media often provides easy access to some very portable list.)

Who owns it?

This is a very complicated topic that can be influenced by factors before, during, and after employment. It can also vary depending on whether the employee was on-the-clock, was required to do it as part of a job function, or if the account was created on behalf of the company.

If you consider a typical corporation, you could easily have multiple accounts on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkined, Youtube, and industry blogs that serve as the face of your organization. You could also have ‘celebrity’ employees who spend an large portion of time cultivating online audiences for your business. To gauge the importance for your organization you simply need to ask the question: what if you suddenly had access to one of these services revoked or permanently disabled, what types of business impacts would it have?

Hopefully these give tips give you some good food for thought.

Always keep in mind that your team not only works for you, but with you. While a drab social media policy may provide you with the proper legal structures to manage your team, a great social media policy can aid you in motivating your team as a leader.

While our crew is often working on a number of projects, some of the ideas simply don’t make it to this blog. Here is a recap of ideas on BarryHurd.com and TradeShowSocialMedia.com that shed some light on some pretty tactical questions.  Take a few minutes to browse around some of the other topics and put your thinking hat on to ask “how can I apply these tactics to my situation?”

Social Media Analtics and tracking points of market impact

Event Hashtags – a guide to using them

Social Media Security – is your event social and secure?