Next week’s guest is Scott Monty from Ford Motor Company.

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Social Pros Transcript For Your Reading Enjoyment

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Jay: Well, here we are at long last. It is the debut, the first ever, the maiden voyage of the Social Pros podcast. I am your host, Jay Baer from Convince & Convert, joined virtually alongside by my trusty sidekick, Eric Boggs, the CEO of Argyle Social. Eric, what is going on?

Eric: Not too much, Jay. Excited to get this rocking.

Jay: We are getting it rocking thanks to the support of Argyle Social for bringing the Social Pros podcast to all of you out there. Other sponsors we should recognize are our good friends at Infusionsoft, who we use to send all of our email and such, and my good friend Jim Kukral, who runs DigitalBookLaunch.com and is also going to be our fill-in host when I am ill or can no longer abide Eric Boggs.

We have an amazing guest. It’s remarkable that this is our very first time doing this and we have a guest of this, not only quality, but timeliness. Our friend Taulbee Jackson, the President and CEO of Raidious in Indianapolis, Indiana, is going to join us a little bit later on the show.

Taulbee’s company put together and is staffing, right now as we discuss this, the Super Bowl Social Media Command Center. They’ve got 652 Macs lined up looking at every single Tweet and Facebook post and Instagram photo associated with the Super Bowl, which is happening just an hour from where I stand at this very minute. The man has a lot on his plate, and he set it aside temporarily to join us on Social Pros. We are very fortunate and looking forward to talking to Taulbee in just a couple of minutes.

Eric: He’s a busy guy. I know he’s got a good story to tell. I can’t wait.

Jay’s Thought of the Week

Jay: Absolutely. We are going to start off the show, as we customarily will, with my thought of the week. Eric, I’m sure you saw this news as well, being in the social media software space yourselves. I don’t get this whole thing with Twitter, this idea that starting allegedly this week they’re going to roll out all these new features to brand pages so that you can install tabs, apps, iFrames and all this other kind of stuff on your branded Twitter page. Is it just me or does that sound an awful lot like Facebook to you?

Eric: It does indeed sound an awful lot like Facebook. We obviously are watching it very closely at Argyle because it’s going to impact all of our customers.

Jay: To me, the whole joy of Twitter, the whole reason for Twitter’s existence, was that it wasn’t Facebook. Whatever happened to the benefit of doing one thing, and doing that one thing well? Instead, it’s, “We’re doing this thing, and now we’re going to do all these other pieces along with it.” To me, I really think it’s the death knell. I think it is the beginning of the end of Twitter as a major player in this game if they go through with this.

Eric: Those are some fighting words, Jay. “Beginning of the end.”

Jay: I really do. I think it’s a colossal strategic blunder.

Eric: I definitely see what you’re saying in terms of doing one thing really well. Twitter to date has been laser-focused on real-time burstable content. They do that way better than Facebook.

I think what you’re beginning to see is Twitter recognizing that it needs to be a business. Twitter a few years ago had this mega- thousand flowers bloom strategy with developers. Over the past 18 months they’ve been . . .

Jay: They put Roundup on all the flowers?

Eric: Yeah. They’ve been encroaching a little bit on their developer community’s turf. You have to think that it’s got to be their business customers and their advertising customers that are pushing this agenda in terms of more interactive, more expansive brand functionality on the site.

Jay: It’s an agenda, that’s for sure. It’s going to be interesting to watch. We’ll get somebody from Twitter on the show here eventually and put it to them straight.

Eric’s Social Media Stat of the Week: Trust in Peers Up 23%

Jay: Eric, as you will do every week here on the Social Pros podcast, you have uncovered and unearthed, with your archeological keyboard, a social media statistic of the week. As we know, everybody who has a calculator is a social media researcher. We’re going to try and shine the light on things that actually do make some sense. What have you uncovered for us this week?

Eric: I’m really excited to kick off this segment of the show and I guess, in a sense, trying to set the stage for why we’re doing this piece during the broadcast. I want to talk about the Edelman Trust Barometer not only because the most recent edition of that is chock-full of interesting data, but it’s also about trust. A lot of the data that floats around on the Interwebs these days isn’t necessarily trustworthy.

If you haven’t already read it, you can get the Edelman Trust Barometer at Trust.Edelman.com. It was released last week. It’s their 12th annual trust and credibility survey. It is some heavy-duty research that asks meaningful questions. I’m not going to go into the methodology, but it’s legit.

Interestingly, in this edition it draws a direct line from the chaos that’s all around us in government and public markets. It draws a direct line from the problems in that part of the world to implications for business. What that really means for you, the listener, and for guys like you and me, Jay that are in the business of marketing, people are becoming more and more skeptical. The executive summary of the trust barometer is 12 or 13 pages long. It’s pretty meaty.

Jay: Can I get a summary of that summary?

Eric: What I think is the best graphic and the best question is they asked the people taking the survey, “If you heard information about a company from one of these people, how credible will that information be” In 2011, 50% of the people that were asked that question said that information coming from the CEO would be deemed extremely credible or very credible. In 2012, only 38% of the people deemed information from the CEO as extremely or very credible.

Contrast that with 2011, where 43% of people deemed information from a peer, a person like yourself, to be extremely or very credible. This year that number was up to 65%. In short, trust in institutions and institutional leaders is on the down, and trust in your peers and regular employees in organizations is on the up. This is good news for social media marketers like you and me.

Jay: It’s especially good news for organizations that are moving beyond a massively centralized view of social and saying, “Look, we can have the official @company account and the company Facebook page, but perhaps we can also get our employees involved, since ultimately we want to do business with people, not nameless, faceless corporations.”

I think that’s going to be a lot of what we see advanced social media practitioners do this year. What we’ll talk about on the Social Pros podcast is getting more and more people within the ranks of your employees involved in a way that is additive to the corporate strategy, not reductive of it.

Eric: Without a doubt. The headline for the entire report is “Businesses can earn the license to lead.” So it really is all about trust and credibility and honesty.

Jay: Awesome. We will make sure that we link up the report in the show notes, which will be out on Thursday. We will find some other fantastic factoid for you next week. If you’ve got an idea of a social media statistic that you would like Eric to bring to light here on the Social Pros podcast, make sure you email us and we’ll make that happen.

Special Guest: Taulbee Jackson, Raidious

Jay: Now, without further ado . . . we should insert a drum roll, but this is the first episode so we don’t even have a drum roll sound effect yet, but we can work on that.

Eric: Let’s pretend like we’re calling Taulbee. “Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.”

Jay: Taulbee, are you there?

Taulbee: Hello? Hello?

Jay: Perfect. On cue.

Eric: He was already on the phone all along.

Jay: Taulbee Jackson, the CEO and President of Raidious, digital and content agency extraordinaire in Indianapolis, and maker and manager of the Super Bowl’s social media command center. Welcome for the very first time to the Social Pros podcast.

Taulbee: Thank you, Jay. It is such an honor to be with you.

Jay: That’s not, in fact, true yet, but we do appreciate your time, especially under the circumstances. The details of what you have wrought up there is really sort of mind-blowing. Can you give the listeners and Eric a little sense of what your surroundings look like?

Taulbee: Sure. The Super Bowl Social Media Command Center is a facility that was purpose-built for the Super Bowl. There are about 50 staff members and volunteers working here over the course of about two weeks, last week and this week. I’m actually live at the command center right now, so that’s exciting. There are about 2000 square feet. There’s well over 100 square feet of monitor wall in the facility. Twelve 27-inch iMac Touchdown Stations, six producer stations, a conference room, a reception area, a game planning station that overlooks Meridian Street, and about 300 square feet of whiteboard space. It’s a sight to behold.

Eric: Jeepers. That’s a lot.

Jay: This is, as I understand it, the first time that a command center has been built of this nature, not only for the Super Bowl, but really for any singular major sporting event. Is that the case?

Taulbee: To my knowledge, yes. I’ve not been able to find any other instances of anything quite like this. We’re excited to be a part of history. It’s pretty cool stuff.

Jay: What is the rationale behind the command center? There have been 45 previous Super Bowls. Of course, many of them were before the age of social media, but not all of them, and this is the first time this has been tried. Why has this not been tried in the past, and how do you hope to manage the Super Bowl differently as a result?

Taulbee: I’m not sure why it hasn’t been done in the past. Maybe it has something to do with the proliferation of social media in general over the last few years. Just like with any marketing program, sometimes it’s the last thing that people think of.

We had the benefit of being involved very early on with the Host Committee. They asked us to come and help them with their strategy starting in 2010 and things progressed from there. There’s been a lot of planning from a strategy perspective and a tactical perspective and all of those things, well before the idea came along to build out this facility to manage all of this stuff.

In terms of what we’re hoping to accomplish here, we’re here in Indiana and it’s all about Hoosier hospitality. That’s one of the things that we were tasked with. The mission of the committee is to make sure that everyone has a great visitor experience when they come here to the Super Bowl. It’s not a typical marketing-focused approach like you might see from other social media campaigns. It’s more about safety and service and coverage, and letting people know what’s happening where and amplifying positive dialogue, and things along those lines.

Jay: The idea is that you scan a wide variety of hashtags and keyword usage across primarily Twitter, I presume, but I’m sure you’re monitoring other social outposts as well?

Taulbee: Twitter has obviously been where most of the activity has happened for us, but we are seeing stuff come in from blogs and bulletin boards and places like that all over the Internet. It’s very much listening first. We have a group of about 300 different keywords that we’re monitoring for and have been for about the last year to try and understand how to respond to statements or questions that we see online to help people do things like navigate the city and find parking and generally have a good experience. If they don’t know where the Super Bowl Village is, we want to help them find that area. It’s a very service-focused approach to this particular initiative.

Jay: What’s fascinating about that is since the Super Bowl has never been in Indianapolis before, you’ve got to create the answers to those questions for the first time. How often do you have an answer at the ready, because somebody has said, “All right. We know what to say in the scenario.” How often do people post something in social media and you and your team have to go find the answer?

Taulbee: That’s a great question, and in the last year we’ve done a few different pilot programs. One was around the NCAA Big 10 men’s football championship. One of the things we found out in the course of doing that pilot and just doing our day-to-day client work here at Raidious is that when people need help, they don’t necessarily ask a question. Furthermore, even if they did, there are so many different ways to ask the same question that it’s almost impossible to figure out what to listen for.

We took that back to our friends at ChaCha.com. If anybody’s familiar with that service, it’s a Q and A service and they’re actually headquartered here in Indianapolis. We are leveraging the ChaCha database of questions and answers to understand all the different questions and all the related answers to those when we see something pop up online.

Jay: What’s the workflow? Is there an escalation path, to the government institutions or public service institutions in Indianapolis?

Taulbee: Not for most of what we see. We’re actually connected to two other control centers here in Indianapolis. There’s one that is kind of a central command which is all of the logistics that have to do with running the event. Then there’s another one that’s outside of the downtown area, about 10 or 15 miles, that houses Department of Homeland Security, NSA, FBI, CIA, all of the alphabet soup agencies that are concerned with security around an event of this magnitude.

We do have an alert system that goes to all of those different command centers from one central area. If we pick something up in monitoring, we can push that to the command center for evaluation, and if there’s an action that needs to be taken, they push that action back out to us. But in terms of day-to-day governance for things like, “I need to know where the Hard Rock Café is,” those are answers that we already have, and related questions to those all in the ChaCha database.

Jay: You’re a guy who runs a company that’s very metrics and results- focused in social media and content marketing, and rightfully so. How do you put a success equation around this kind of initiative?

Taulbee: It’s a challenge, to be honest. Again, the mission of the committee is to make sure that there’s a positive impression and a positive perception about the City of Indianapolis. One of the things that we’re looking at really closely is sentiment analysis. That’s turning very positive so far, at about 3 to 1 across the board.

We didn’t really have a baseline because I think one of the problems that people have had with this particular event in the past is just the level of volume around the Super Bowl. The whole world is talking about it at once; it’s 5000 or 6000 tweets a second. How do you listen to all of that and make good decisions about what to respond to and what not to.

Our approach being very locally-focused has been different than anyone else’s. The volume and the monitoring that we’re dealing with are all happening on a geo-targeted basis in a 50 mile concentric circle around Indianapolis. We’re filtering out the large majority of the noise, but it also means we’re kind of establishing a baseline for events like this moving forward at the localized level and not at the national or global level. We don’t really have any metrics to compare to.

Jay: What are the tools that you guys are using to ingest all the content and process it?

Taulbee: Lots of different ones, actually. The main tool that we’re using, and my apologies, Eric, but we’re actually using the Awareness Networks social hub.

Eric: They’re good guys. They’ve got a good product.

Taulbee: They really are, and to be totally candid, we had been using a different social media management platform in 2010, and those tools change so fast and the teams that are working on them just keeping making them better and better. We have a standing six month review that we do for all of our clients, for all the work that we’re doing for our team internally to make sure that we’ve always got the most up-to-date, the best options that we can have.

At the last six-month review we looked at about 60 different platforms and wound up changing from what we had been using for the last couple of years to this Awareness Network’s tool. Their technology is great but the support team there has been fantastic to work with, even though they’re all Patriots fans.

Jay: That’s too bad.

Eric: That is too bad.

Taulbee: So we’ve been using that. Basecamp has been huge for us. That was one of the first companies that we spent money with as Raidious, and we’ve continued to use it. It scaled up great for us to manage all of the workflow and content gathering and project management behind the scenes.

We’re a Google Apps shop so all the documentation that we’re using is real-time documentation that you can collaborate on, so we’re actually sharing a Google Doc with the other two command centers that multiple people can be logged into and typing on.

There’s a tool called Geckoboard that we’re using that displays lots of different data feeds for us. Let’s see, I’m trying to think of what else. Social Mention is a nonprofit sentiment trend analysis visualization tool called WeFeelFine.org that we’ve been looking at up on the big board.

So, lots of different tools, and we’ve actually collaborated with Ball State on a data visualization application as well which we are going to be sending some screenshots out for probably later this week.

Jay: Who are the people on your team? Is it your agency or is it volunteers?

Taulbee: From our team at Raidious, all we have here is content people so it’s writers, reporters, editors, and producers. We don’t have media buyers or creative directors, or the typical ad agency staffing. We’re set up just like CNN except all we report on is the brand.

We’ve got our team functioning in a editorial capacity and in a producer capacity and a leadership capacity, and then we’re back- filling for scale with students from the David Letterman School of Journalism, the Center for Media Design at Ball State University, students from Butler University, and students from IUPUI here in Indianapolis. So there are about 16 of my team and about 30 volunteers working two shifts, 15 hours a day.

Jay: Sounds like the world’s greatest internship program with beer and nachos and football.

Taulbee: Yes. It’s pretty awesome. I think the kids are having a good time and they’re learning a lot. And we’re hiring, so that all works out.

Jay: Exactly. It’s only a two-week gig, right?

Taulbee: That’s right.

Jay: You are going to be one tired cowboy come Monday.

Taulbee: Yeah, I think so, but not nearly as tired as Ryan Smith or some of the other guys from my office that are actually out there doing the day-to-day. Ryan is our VP of Production and Brian Wyrick, our Head of Operations, is actually the guy that concepted and built out this whole facility. Those two guys have just been working their butts off. I wouldn’t be able to be here talking to you if it wasn’t for them.

Jay: We’ll make sure to add some links to some of the graphics and the tools, and some of the resources that you guys are bringing to bear for people who check out the podcast that will be good information for them.

Eric: Who’s your pick for the game, Taulbee?

Taulbee: Oh, you know, I want the fans to win. That’s been my stock answer and I’m going to stick with that one because I don’t want to upset anyone from Boston. I really hope the Patriots don’t win but I think they’re going to. It’s a strong team and whether you like Tom Brady or not, the guy can play some ball.

Jay: And he can win Super Bowls.

Taulbee: Yeah, they know a thing or two about winning Super Bowls there.

Jay: I’m predicting Giants. I think it’s a Giants victory. I really do.

Eric: I was so happy. I think it was 2007 that they played. What an incredible play. That was such a great game.

Jay: It was. That was epic. That was when they played in Arizona, where I used to live.

Taulbee: Oh, okay. Awesome. The Super Bowl just follows you around.

Jay: Seemingly so, but I never get to go. In fact, I was going to go, of course, this year, but I managed to book a speaking gig for myself in New Orleans on Super Bowl Sunday. That was brilliant. It never fails.

Work It Out

Jay: Let’s move into the final segment of the Social Pros podcast, Work it Out.

Eric: We need some Work it Out theme music, Jay.

Jay: We do. We need some Olivia Newton-John kind of track, something like that.

Eric: I just realized that. I’m going to work on that as soon as we wrap up here.

Jay: We’re going to work it out on the Work it Out sounder. Work it Out is a section where we take a request from a podcast listener about their social media program, and the three of us try and give them a little help in two or three minutes. Since we don’t have any listeners yet, I made one up, which is this.

Taulbee, obviously you guys are listening almost around the clock. I know you’re sleeping in the wee hours, but you’re almost doing round-the-clock, seven days a week monitoring and response. Is that necessary for all brands or for some brands? If you, as a customer, are on social media and midnight, is it a fair assumption that the brands that you come into contact with will be online at that time as well?

Taulbee: That’s a great question, and we actually have several clients that we monitor multiple shifts for, for lots of different reasons. Whether it’s a fair expectation or not, I think has to do with whether or not the brand sets that precedent and whether or not the brand communicates that and manages those expectations.

That’s something you can do really easily as a retailer or as a CPG brand. It gets a little bit more difficult when you get into something like health care. We do have a healthcare client that we work with who we monitor for in multiple shifts. I don’t know that if I was sick that Twitter would be the first place I would go, but some people do that.

Jay: I’m too weak to do anything but tweet.

Taulbee: Yeah. Or maybe it’s late at night and they’re in the ER and they’re having a bad experience, and they want to share that with people. There are all kinds of reasons for healthcare organizations to be listening at all hours of the day and night.

A lot of that has to do with volume. One of the retail clients that we work with has, I think, over 950,000 Facebook fans at this point. There’s a lot of chatter going on that they need to be able to respond to. They have a really interesting scenario where their audience actually changes from basically the day to the night. Between the hours of 3:00 and 5:00 their audience goes from being 35 or 40-year-old to 16 to 24-year-old as kids get out of school. There’s this whole other need from a content perspective and from a monitoring and moderation perspective for that particular audience at that particular time. It really depends on the brand.

Jay: I’m glad you mentioned expectation management. It seems to me that very few companies do that well today. If they aren’t monitoring double shifts or weekends, perhaps you ought to acknowledge that.

One company that actually does that well is Xbox. Their Twitter account @XboxSupport actually has in the bio the hours that they respond on Twitter. I think that’s a best practice for a lot of brands.

Taulbee: Absolutely. We just had that happen with Super Bowl where last week we were 9:00 to 7:00 and this week we’re 9:00 to midnight. There was some confusion around that so we had to update our Twitter page and let people know, “This is when you can expect us to be here to help you.” It’s part of expectation management, just like having the hours for your customer service line or any other function along those lines.

Jay: Having a sign on the door of your deli.

Taulbee: There you go. Absolutely.

Jay: And it seems like, as you mentioned, volume is a driver of this. If you’re a B2B company that gets four tweets a day, to say that you need to staff that nights and weekends is probably not worth the additional expense, but you never know. Something crazy could happen at 10:00 and you wish that you were listening at that point.

Taulbee: It could happen.

Eric: I think for a B2B, Jay, it’s also interesting that one of those four tweets could potentially be worth tens of thousands of dollars versus a B2C company with a million fans and followers. Those may be transactional or maybe the people are just buying the Coca-Cola off of the grocery store shelf.

Jay: That’s why we always say even if you’re not actively listening, you need to be passively listening and set up alerts, and have somebody in your company who can at least take a quick peek before they go to sleep or something like that.

Eric: I think email alerts address a lot of the issues. But yeah, you’ve got to draw a line.

Taulbee: Another thing that we talk about to our clients a lot is understanding the impact of influence. Is that person that’s speaking to your brand at 10:00 at night somebody like me, or is it somebody like Jay Baer that has a bazillion followers and a very high level of influence that you need to take note of.

Jay: Eric, what’s the best tool for doing that? Can you set up alerts that are defined by ripple on the pond?

Eric: There are a lot of ways you can address that. Google Alerts are free and fairly powerful, often full of clutter and noise. That’s a place to start. A lot of social media management tools provide a mechanism to ingest content, run some analytics over the text or the person that has produced the content, and then set off rules- based emails based on different people in your organization.

I would remiss if I did not say that my company software does just that, but I do know that a lot of tools make it easy to be on call but maybe not be in front of your computer all the time.

Jay: Perfect. Excellent. Well, let’s wrap it up here on the debut episode of the Social Pros podcast. Thank you for being here, Taulbee. I know you’ve got a lot going on. It’s really exciting to see what’s happening with Raidious and the Super Bowl Social Media Command Center and the Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. I am a proud Hoosier right now, as are you. Congrats on everything, it’s going great. I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Taulbee: Likewise. Thank you so much, Jay. It’s been an honor to be your first guest.

Jay: My pleasure. Eric, we did it. We managed to pull one across the finish line. Looking forward to making this happen every week.

Speaking of next week, Eric and I will both be at Social Fresh East in Tampa, Florida, giving speeches to the crew out there, and our guest is going to be Scott Monty, international head of social media for Ford Motor Company. We’re going to try and do it live, so the three of us will grab a quiet corner somewhere and we’ll try and do the Social Pros podcast face-to-face in only Episode 2. We’re going off-script in the second episode. It’s crazy.

Eric: Cross your fingers for us. It remains to be seen how we’re going to be able to do that live, but we’ll figure it out.

Jay: Do you know what? That’s why we have our trusty producer, Tristan. He’s going to figure it all out for us.

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in and for all your support, your tweets, your reads, your shares and your listens. We really appreciate it.

I’m Jay Baer from Convince & Convert, joined by our sidekick and erstwhile sponsor, Eric Boggs of Argyle Social. Thanks also to Infusionsoft and Jim Kukral. Taulbee, thanks a lot. We’ll see you next time.

I was ready to jump back into the fire in 2012, with a nifty new topic, interested publishers, and a plan to use this new book as a real springboard to the future. But sometimes, life conspires to make you focus on the present.

On January 6, my life got shaken up like a snow globe. My little brother, Jeff Baer, died in his sleep of a heart attack at age 39. Jeff was my only natural sibling, and even after the services and paperwork and craziness, it’s difficult for me to process and accept that he’s gone forever. As I said in my eulogy, he was a bon vivant. A raconteur. A scallywag. Everyone who ever met Jeff remembers him, and that’s a rare quality in this world.

(Many thanks to the dozens of friends and clients who donated to the scholarship fund in Jeff’s memory. With your support, my parents and I are endowing two, full-tuition Jeffrey A. Baer Memorial Scholarships to the new Arizona State University – Lake Havasu City campus that opens this Fall)

As you might have surmised if you’ve read this blog or followed the progress of Convince & Convert, I’m a hard charger. Type A. Overachiever. Whatever label you want to put on it, you know the deal. And until Jeff died, I had never intentionally done less of anything. But something like that will force you to take a long look at what you’ve wrought.

As my Dad said to me at lunch a few days before the memorial service, “Jay, what are you trying to prove?” I’d never been asked that – even by myself – and the fact that I didn’t have a good answer was telling. It’s not that I’m ungrateful for the life and extraordinary career I’ve cobbled together over the past 20 years – much less my amazing wife and smart, perfect kids. I even have a cool dog, Mr. Cheeto. It’s not so much that I take all that for granted (although I often do). It’s more that I am wired to believe that good enough is not enough. That within my field there is no reason I can’t sell books like Godin, pack the room like Vaynerchuk, and build a large consultancy like Dachis. Maybe it’s ego, or hubris, or folly, but I’ve just never put psychological constraints on what I can accomplish. 

I still believe I can do those things, but I’m going to tackle them at a more modest pace, leaving me more time to focus on my health and my family. And that’s where the book comes in. From experience, I know that if you have a busy day job, the book writing happens at nights and on weekends. Once the book is published the real work begins, which is promoting it. Very few business books sell themselves. The authors make them sell, hence the tour Amber and I undertook last year.

So, I’m not going to do it again. Not yet. I’ve got to use my time a bit more wisely for now. Even before Jeff, I had every single genetic and behavioral risk factor for heart disease and so forth (except smoking, which I quit 11 years ago). The last time I worked out with any degree of rigor and consistency was 1985. Yes, Reagan was President the last time I lifted a weight. I’m no expert, but that’s probably a sub-optimal fitness regiment. I have been a recent member of the Bacon-of-the-Month Club….and without irony.

Play time is over for me. I have a personal trainer. A nutritionist. A dermatologist. A new doctor. My payroll is increasing in inverse proportion to my waist line. But it’s worth it – or it will be. I’m joining the ranks of Brogan, Falls, Shankman and others who have decided that paying attention to your health is a worthwhile endeavor.

So, I’m not writing a book this year. I’ll still be plenty busy, of course. We have a ton of great clients at Convince & Convert. A new podcast – Social Pros – that debuted last night. A ton of speaking gigs (just not 65 cities’ worth). And a family that will hopefully see more of me.

I wasn’t always the best brother to Jeff, and that makes me sad – and always will. But I loved him, and he knew it. And he loved me, and I knew it. He gave me countless gifts through the years, especially laughter. I’m hoping his greatest gift will be this one: a wake-up call. 

I’ve done a little podcasting in the past, and quite a few interviews here on Convince & Convert, and I’m thrilled to be adding Social Pros to the array of high quality content we create every week.

Tell Me More. What is Social Pros?

With your help via the reader survey I published a few weeks ago, we’ve designed a podcast that will be worth your time each and every week.

Social Pros shines the spotlight on social media practitioners, people doing the real work for real companies.

Each episode includes:

1. Interview with a leading social media strategist, manager, director of community, or similar working for a corporation or organization.
2. Social Media Stat of the Week, discussed and ratified or debunked by me and Eric Boggs of Argyle Social.
3. Work It Out, where our weekly guest, Eric, and myself attempt to solve a listener’s social media issue in five minutes or less

You don’t have time to waste, and neither do we, so every episode of Social Pros will clock in under 25 minutes (ish), so you can listen on your commute, during a reasonable jog, or while your spouse is watching some crappy half-hour reality show that you can’t stand.

Also, every episode will be posted at Convince & Convert with a full transcript, because we know first-hand that sometimes you subscribe to podcasts, but then let them pile up in your iTunes.

Awesomeness! When Does It Start?

Now! Our first recording is tonight, featuring Taulbee Jackson, CEO of Raidious. His firm built and is managing the Super Bowl Social Media Command Center in Indianapolis (about an hour from Convince & Convert headquarters).

Barring any technical issues (fingers crossed), you’ll be able to listen via iTunes late Tuesday, and the first transcribed episode will appear on Thursday. We’re shooting for a Monday record, Thursday transcript schedule, and we’ll stick to it best we can, given travel schedules and guest coordination.

Who Should I Thank For This?

Argyle Social is the presenting sponsor of Social Pros, and in addition to the Social Media Stat of the Week segment, is handling much of the production work. Thanks guys! (for more on Argyle – the social media management tool I use personally – see this blog post about them).

Social Pros is also sponsored by our friends at Infusionsoft, who have an all-in-one email and CRM system that’s purpose built for small business. (for more on Infusionsoft – the email tool we use – see this blog post about them).

Digital marketing genius Jim Kukral whose new company Digital Book Launch helps authors market their books, is also assisting with Social Pros, and will be your guest host when I’m unavailable.

Can You Help Me? Can I Be On The Show?

If you have a social media issue you’d like me and a guest to tackle, or if you’d like to be a guest yourself, please fill out this form to send a quick note to our managing editor, Jess Ostroff, and we’ll do our best to make it happen.

How Can I Spread The Word?

Thanks for asking! It would be delightful if you’d consider tweeting, sharing, +1′ing, or buffering this post. Also, please subscribe to Social Pros- Real People Doing Real Work in Social Media in iTunes (soon), and check out (and share) the transcribed post on Thursday.

Let’s get this party started with a bang, shall we?

Thanks as always for your support of me and Convince & Convert. We have some other new surprises coming soon!

Last week, the group convened to learn more about the Super Bowl festivities – which have a breadth almost unfathomably far beyond the football game. (see the killer mobile app) In addition to a briefing by the host committee, we were exhorted to help make Super Bowl 46 in Indianapolis the “most connected” Super Bowl ever. What that means in practice was (and remains) a bit murky.

The original plan was for the participants in the Social 46 who created the most chatter to receive special prize packs for their social diligence. This idea was scrapped by attendees who almost universally expressed a desire to help shine the light on Indianapolis as proud residents, eschewing game mechanics.

Generally, the group has taken to the cause like a crafter to Pinterest, with dozens of tweets, photos, blog posts, and more popping up daily – and the game isn’t for another 10 days. Former reporter, now PR guy Tom Spalding is chronicling the blow-by-blow with regular Storify collections from the Social 46 trenches.

Personally, I’ve done very little on the Social 46 front other than live tweet the initial confab. There are three reasons that I’ve been on the sidelines:

• I’m a new Hoosier, having moved to the state in August 2010. I don’t have as much of a connection to it as others in the Social 46.
• I live in Bloomington, not Indianapolis. I’m about 75 minutes south, and still get lost in downtown Indy where the festivities are taking place. I don’t have a lot to offer in the way of insider tips.
• My “influence” is not Indiana-based. 4% of my Twitter follower are Hoosiers, according to Peek Analytics (which I love for in-depth examination of persons in social media). This compares to 84% for Tom Spalding, for example.

I’ll do more next week, when I’m visiting the official Super Bowl Social Media Command Center (run by Indy social/content agency Raidious), and checking out Super Bowl Media Day, the Super Bowl Village, and NFL Experience with my family.

Shooting the Super Messenger

For now, however, I’m more interested in the burgeoning kerfuffle (a great band name, feel free to steal it) around the Social 46 itself.

Social 46. Instagram shot from @meggiehd

In exchange for lending our time and personal networks to the Super Bowl cause, the host committee plied us with a laptop bag, a Super Scarf, a beanie hat, a time-specific ticket to the NFL experience, a ticket to NFL media day and the “right” to use the #social46 hashtag (which of course anyone could use if they want to do so). By my estimation, total value of $150, max.

Am I grateful to receive these gifts? Sure. The scarf is toasty. The media day ticket saved me $25 out of pocket, and who can turn down the joys of a special hashtag? But do these items influence how, why, or whether I participate in this program? Not really.

However, it concerns me that the host committee did not instruct any of the Social 46 on how to disclose that these items were provided for free, potentially putting the host committee and all participants in violation of FTC disclosure guidelines. A quick (albeit cursory) check of content created by the Social 46 shows that disclosure is mostly absent (good job by Bob Burchfield!). I have addressed it below through cmp.ly (which I love, am an investor in, and very much wish the host committee would have adopted).

(EDIT: Ashley from Klout reminded me that on the Web page where you accept Klout Perks (all, not just this one) is a note about making sure you disclose promotional items. Thanks for pointing that out Ashley. FTC does state thought that the party responsible for compliance is the brand or the organization, not the blogger. Thus, I’d still argue that the committee probably should have mentioned it at the meeting. Could have been just a 10-second aside, but would have been a good CYA.)

Beyond the fact that the host committee dropped the ball on disclosure, there is a truly extraordinary amount of vitriol within the Indianapolis social media “community” about who was (and who was not) asked to participate in this Social 46 program.

Some of the complaints are simply misguided – like this post from local communications consultant Allison Carter – who seems to believe that companies and organizations should be required to publicly state how they determine who to include in outreach programs. I’m sure Wal-Mart will gladly publish their blogger outreach criteria. Ford too. And Dell. Just ask. Maybe a Wiki? Should companies also publish the rationale every time they send a targeted coupon in the mail to high efficacy consumers based on past purchase history? Ridiculous.

In other cases, the ire is downright nasty, with all manner of name calling and reputation questioning occurring on Twitter and elsewhere. I guess I’m fortunate that none of it has involved me personally, but I’ve never been happier to NOT be part of the Indianapolis social media “community” which is making that label look more and more like a misnomer.

As Ms. Carter states in her post:

And I’ll be honest: I would have loved to have been chosen. But this isn’t about me. This is about helping our city come together to show the world what we have. However, this program is causing divisions, cliques and confusion. I hope this program is a smashing success and Indy becomes a social media darling. Social 46? Prove me wrong.

If your objective is to “show the world what we have” then why do you give a hoot about a free ticket, a silly hashtag, and a goddamn scarf? Is the subtext that unless you’ve been selected and anointed as part of the Social 46, that you are not eligible to help visitors enjoy the game? Where’s the community spirit in that? If you want to help, help. By tying reward to the behavior so intrinsically, you are supporting the very construct you rail against.

As Ricky Gervais says, offense is taken, not given. And the participants in the Social 46 didn’t request to be included. They were identified by a computer and/or by members of the host committee. To tear them down because someone – for reasons algorithmic, altruistic, or otherwise – selected them versus you or anyone else is the ultimate shoot the messenger scenario. If you’re not happy about being “left out” of the uber-prestigious scarf giveaway, take it up with Klout or the host committee.

Long ago, when I was a political campaign consultant, I learned a maxim that seems particular apt in this case: The smaller the stakes, the bigger the fight.

Klout Kan’t Win

I’m on record as liking Klout, and not just because it keeps me ensconced in beanie hats. (see my post: 3 Reasons critics of Klout are missing the big picture) Does its methodology have flaws? Of course it does. But you know what else has flaws? Having PR interns surf the Web to semi-randomly click on blogs and Twitter accounts to put together murky Excel spreadsheets of “influencers” that are then sold to clients as “research.” At least Klout provides half-truths with a side of mathematics.

And the reality is that whether it’s Klout or something else, companies and organizations WILL continue to make liberal use of social scoring data. It’s a shortcut, a way to find the trees in the forest. We are entering an era of bespoke relationships, whereby your real-time interactions with companies will be dictated (at least to some degree) by your purchase history, “influence”, location, and other factors. It’s the Delta SkyMiles program on steroids, and unfolding second-by-second. If you don’t think companies are going to start routing social customer service inquiries to different teams based on Klout score (or similar), you need to wake up.

Do I wish we were all treated equally? As a human being, yes. But that’s not the way the real world works, and it’s certainly not the way we’re headed in an era where every behavior is tracked, and Big Data can be used to filter and segment and optimize.

The Lesson of the Sneeches

Most Klout perks are of the product variety, or are national in scope so that the recipients and non-recipients aren’t personally acquainted. Do I bemoan the fact that I’m not eligible for free RoC Deep Wrinkle Night Cream? I guess, as I’m not getting any younger. But I don’t begrudge those who can use their Twitter habit to smooth their crow’s feet.

In the case of the Social 46, the psychology is altogether different. Because the participants were selected to be signal amplifiers and adjuncts of the host committee, there is a perception that we are “representatives” (albeit reps that are unofficial and untrained – as Ms. Carter wisely pointed out in her post, which was not wholly without merit). And conversely, that those not selected are not “worthy” of being representatives.

The reason people are bent out of shape (far disproportionate to the reward, I’d say) is that the “haves” and “have nots” are public. This is the lesson of the Sneetches, as delivered by the sneakily wise Dr. Seuss:

If the star belly Sneetches got their stars via email; or were notified 1:1 by Sylvester Monkey McBean when they logged on to his website; or just got a star shipped to them via FedEx, the Sneetches without stars would never have known about it, and wouldn’t have put up a fuss.

If you’re going to use Klout as a sorting and identification mechanism, think twice about doing so in a local or regional market (or any other closely knit community online or otherwise). And if what you want your group to do is shout about their participation publicly over a short time frame, be prepared for blowback.

That’s my view from ringside. What’s your takeaway from the Social 46?

(EDIT: I want to make it perfectly clear that I believe this to be on the whole an excellent program, and a darn fine idea. Was it perfectly executed? No. But that’s why it makes a good case study for others to learn from down the road. Viva Super Bowl.)

Clinton Bonner is an Open Innovation author/blogger, futurist and Marketing Manager at TopCoder – a global Open Innovation platform and community.

Look no further than a very recent post by the purveyor of Convince and Convert and you’ll notice something remarkable. As Jay lays out 4 Nearly Guaranteed 2012 Social Media Predictions, what do you notice? Have a quick look at his 4 predictions:

1. Multi-Media Soars – Jay is speaking about video and photo apps that enhance social media, draw more users off of the likes of Facebook and into new channels driven by mobile app technologies.
2. Reading Tea Leaves – Jay is speaking about the emergence of Big Data. Social is fantastic at collecting the data, but to date, many, with the exception of IBM and Google, do not understand how to begin to leverage this data. I would personally add to Jay’s list and confidently state that 2012 is the year “Big Data” starts to make sense as consumerization ensues.
3. The Year of Mobile – Seriously – self explanatory and nice nod to the emerging NFC (Near Field Communication) chips headed to a mobile phone near you – NFC as a platform will be tremendous.
4. Staffing and Resources – Having the right talent on the business side of the equation to drive all of these initiatives.

OK, so the pop quiz becomes: What trend do you see in Jay’s predictions? Assuming the Jeopardy theme song just ended in your head as well, let’s see your answer.

Why Marketers are Now Technology Geeks?

If that was your answer, you are correct. There is a sincere convergence happening between the creative genius that stems from top marketing departments and the technology expertise needed to bring these things to market, where they actually create value for the business. It’s important to recognize how we got to this point.

15 – 20 years ago: IT (and the IT side of the business) ruled the enterprise. Websites needed constructing and the only people equipped with the skills to bring it live were of course in IT. Conversely at this time, marketing is “stuck” in the final days of traditional advertising print-radio-tv era and valuation for all that spend is fuzzy at best.

10 years ago: Blogging becomes much more popular and powerful and the consumerization of IT begins. IT departments worry not, blogging won’t really have that much of an impact! Marketers begin to see potential beyond the traditional web.

5 years ago – Present day: The consumerization of IT is rampant fueled by the mobile smart-phone and the app culture that is born on top of this new platform. “Suddenly”, (quotations because of course the very most things are neither sudden nor surprises) there is a remarkable power shift inside the enterprise. IT who was king only a decade previous is now the one struggling to define their value add. Security and “keeping things running” doesn’t quite cut it anymore. Today, value is driven in scores by those on the business side, much of that value stemming from marketers (encompassing those in social media) who are envisioning new user experiences and finding ways to bring the idea to market in the form of applications and creative digital assets.

This comical comment below comes from a very recent article on Wired.com entitled: 2012 Will be the Year of Apocalyptic Reckoning for CIOs. The comment sums up the sentiment many have with regards to their IT department.

Congrats, You are the Driver… Now What?

As value shifted inside the enterprise, so has the power to drive technology decisions. As 2012 gets nicely underway, marketers find themselves empowered and wanting to prove that they indeed deserve this new found responsibility and can routinely deliver value back to the enterprise with it.

No Man is an Island – Technology is hyper-fragmented. Look no further than the current state of mobile/tablet devices and the various operating systems they must run upon. The emerging web 3.0 – and I mean literally emerging as we speak – will make today’s fragmentation look minuscule. Those who can truly drive enormous value for their companies will learn that they are no longer “First Seat Clarinet” and instead they are the composer of an entire symphony of value creation. What does this mean?

Composers of grand value will seek out and find new ways to get an enormous amount of innovative work accomplished. One such vessel is clearly Open Innovation and specific Crowdsourcing platforms. They enable people with vision and ideas to bring them to life without having to know or own in-house, the specific talent needed to develop the particular technological want. The 21st century employee – the successful ones that emerge as force-multipliers and create a tremendous amount of value for their organization – will understand how to wield knowledge platforms in order to produce extreme value outcomes.

Marketers are in the pole position. You have budget, you have big ideas and now – thanks to mature global innovation & productivity platforms – you do not need to “own” the talent to bring the idea to market. But you do need to understand your new role as a technology driver for your organization.

You are no longer just in marketing. You are a technologist, you are a social enterprise creator, you are a consumer co-creation strategist, you are a User Interface architect, you are empowered to drive value for your company through non-traditional means, technologies and innovation platforms. You do not need to know how to expertly play every single instrument. But you better be certain you are prepared to conduct. Going forward, this will separate the good from the exceptional.

In a recent podcast, Mitch Joel interviewed Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question 2.0, and creator of the Net Promoter methodology. Fred made a statement that has stuck with me in the several weeks since I tuned in:

“You can’t be the best place to buy, if you’re not the best place to work.”

As social business moves from the toddler stage to youth stage, it’s becoming accepted wisdom that the best and most social organizations transform from the inside out. Whether it’s Charlene Li’s Open Leadership, The NOW Revolution from Amber Naslund and me, Humanize from Maddie Grant and Jamie Notter, Smart Business, Social Business from Michael Brito, or Olivier Blanchard’s Social Media ROI, there is a chorus postulating that people make your company social, not tools and technology.

Does Being a Good Place to Work Impact Social Business?

Last week’s release of the 2012 FORTUNE list of 100 Best Companies to Work For got me thinking about whether being employee-centric inherently impacts the social business aptitude of the company.

To search for a correlation, I turned to the Dachis Group Social Business Index, which ranks companies in near real-time based on the ongoing social media conversations about them from internal and external audiences. For each of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, I matched up their Social Business Index ranking (where applicable).

Social Business Comparison

Observations on Social Business and Employee Centrism

When starting this investigation, I had no idea what I’d find. I recognize that this is not an apples to apples comparison, as many of the companies (especially smaller ones) ranked as Best Companies to Work For are not in the Social Business Index at all. Also, some of the companies that are Best Companies to Work For are in industries (finance, healthcare) where outward facing social participation (as indexed by Dachis Group) is sometimes still in the embryonic stages, with growth often stunted by a diet of regulation and fear. And of course, the methodologies of the two rankings are massively different.

Even with the analytical shortcomings of this approach, however, the findings were surprising to me:

• Among the 100 Best Companies to Work For, 40 are ranked in the top 900 companies in the Social Business Index
• 29 of the Best Companies to Work For are ranked in the top 400 companies in the Social Business Index
• Among the top 100 companies in the Social Business Index, 11 are also Best Companies to Work For in 2012

There is a growing gap between the social media “haves” and “have-nots.”

Some companies I visit have embraced social media enthusiastically and are moving into some pretty advanced ideas.

Other companies are simply checking the box.  They have a blog and Facebook page… and they view the job as complete.

Still others are paralyzed and have not done anything at all.

What’s the difference between these scenarios?

It’s not necessarily resources, ideas, or a strategic vision.  It’s a matter of corporate culture.  And that’s why the key to future social transformation may very well rest with the HR department.

For decades, our companies have been conditioned to “manage” the message, broadcast ads and wait for things to happen. Now, companies have to be reactive, employees have to be empowered, and above all, we have extraordinary new opportunities to “listen.”

One of the things I love most about The Now Revolution is that it is one of the few marketing books to acknowledge the critical importance of corporate culture on social media success.

Despite my best intentions as a consultant, I know that there is no such thing as a grassroots cultural change. Social media success ultimately lies with the understanding and sponsorship of the company leaders. They are the ones who own the strategy and the budget.  And that’s why real progress in your company may be an HR and corporate change issue as much as a marketing challenge.

What has your experience been?  Is HR ready to take on this larger role?

Guest post by Marcus Sheridan. Marcus passionately speaks and writes about business and marketing on his blog, The Sales Lion. Make sure to download his popular, 230-page FREE eBook—“Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy”

‘Transparency’

Ahh yes, one of the most over-used words, yet under-utilized actions, in our society today.

• News stations, despite their incessant claims, aren’t close to being transparent.

• The folks in Washington DC, on both sides of the aisle, couldn’t be any less transparent.

• And as for businesses small and large, this void of true transparency is the M.O. of the majority.

Everyone has an angle. Everyone is biased.

Alas…

The Opportunity is There

But the reality is this folks—This dearth of transparency in modern society is also giving folks like you and me a tremendous opportunity to stand up, stand out, and brand ourselves into something exceptional.

And with powerful tools like social media and blogging, there has never been a better platform for what I call “Transparent Marketing”.

Jay brought up a similar subject as the one I’m going to describe here in his recent article: 6 Stages to Exposing Yourself with Content Marketing. Upon reading that post, I could only laugh at the end when he asked what stage each of us were in with our marketing, because my answer was blatantly obvious—The Full Monty, or as Momma used to say—‘Naked as a Jaybird’ (full pun intended Mr. Baer )

Transparency in Content Marketing

You may be asking yourself what ‘Transparent Marketing’ actually is, and so that’s exactly what I want to talk about in this article. Specifically, I’m going to focus on blogging and the subjects you can address in your company’s content marketing efforts to not only completely stand out from the crowd, but also generate more leads and sales than you’ve ever done before.

I used to be a ‘pool guy’. In fact, I still own a company in Virginia where we install inground fiberglass swimming pools. The reason why I so passionately write and speak about inbound and content marketing today is because in 2008, when the economy crashed, my company was literally on the brink of closing its doors. We had a massive infrastructure to support yet with the housing-market collapse, the number of potential customers to sustain that overhead was very slim.

It was during this time of incredible stress and frustration that I was forced to change everything I’d ever done to market my business. By March of 2009, we had jumped head-first into the new world of blogging, and our strategy for success was very plain and simple:

Address every question we’d ever heard from our customers.

Like I said, not too complex, right? But the truth is, most companies in today’s world don’t want to answer consumer questions well. They don’t want to be great teachers. They shirk away from telling the truth (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and instead lean on pretty ad copy to garner sales and ‘close deals’.

Such a strategy is not long for this world my friends, and we can thank social media and blogging for it.

To help you see exactly what I’m talking about, here are 4 articles that we’ve written on our swimming pool blog that are everything ‘transparent marketing’ is all about. Also, with each article I’ve listed how many times the page has been read, as well as the inbound links coming into that post. When I said there was power in transparent marketing, hopefully you’ll see exactly what I meant by that here:

1. How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost?

Why is it transparent?

Most companies refuse to talk about and address the subject of pricing on their company website. Considering ‘cost’ and ‘price’ questions are always one of the first queries of a prospect, why would anyone refuse to address it? And remember, addressing a question doesn’t mean you have to answer it specifically, but you should at least be willing to give your prospects a feel as to what they can expect when it comes to cost and price. If you do this, not only will it earn you respect from potential customers, but it also may do very well in terms of SEO. (Google the phrases ‘fiberglass pool cost’ or ‘fiberglass pool price’ to see the results of this post.)

Final Results: 124,000 page views and 1,529 inbound links

2. Top 5 Fiberglass Pool Problems and Solutions

Why is it transparent?

Why would a company that sells fiberglass pools talk about the problems that some consumers have with fiberglass pools? Ahh yes, good question. But the answer is very simple: Fiberglass pools are not for everyone. They have limited sizes and shapes. But they also have other benefits to consider. When a customer reads this article, they immediately get a factual take on a subject that is often times of great concern to a potential customer. And not only that, but their trust in the author for being so transparent goes through the roof. (Google the phrase ‘Fiberglass Pool Problems’ to see the search results of this post.)

Final Results: 46,000 page views and 428 inbound links

3. Small Fiberglass Pool Design Awards 2010

Why is it transparent?

Have you ever considered complimenting your competitors before? How about positively mentioning them in a blog post? Well, that’s exactly what this article does, a strategy that is very against the grain when it comes to marketing. (Google ‘small fiberglass pools’ and ‘small pool designs’ to see a few SEO results with this post.)

Final Results: 18,400 page views and 196 inbound links

4. How to Winterize a Fiberglass Pool (Video)

Why is it Transparent?

Each year, our company winterizes hundreds of inground swimming pools. Notwithstanding, we show a video on our website teaching pool owners how to complete this task themselves. And instead of losing business because of this video, customers watch it and realize they’d much rather have us out to winterize their pool than doing it themselves, something most of our competitors would never consider based on this need to ‘hide’ their services and thus great teaching. (Google ‘How to winterize a fiberglass pool’ to see the search results to this post)

Final Results: 1,700 page views and 8 inbound links

As you can see, all of these posts (plus many, many others I’ve elected not to mention) have done quite well in terms of reads, links, and keyword rankings. But this was all made possible because as a company, we were willing to show our cards and be very transparent in terms of the content and subjects we addressed.

So that’s my challenge to you my friends. Are you willing to address every question you’ve ever heard from your customer base? Are you ready to tackle subjects that no one else in your industry will consider? If your answer is ‘yes’ to these questions, and then you consistently produce such content, I can assure you that your web visitors will increase, your brand will explode, and your company sales will be affected dramatically.

Your Turn

OK, lots of conversation opportunity here folks. Why do you think so many companies are afraid to be transparent when it comes to their marketing efforts? Also, do you adhere to my rule of ‘if they ask it, you address it’, or do you think there are consumer questions that should be left unanswered? Finally, can you think of a time you or your company was very ‘transparent’ with content and it paid big dividends?

1. Possess a smart phone
2. Download a QR reader app (or other format like Microsoft TAG)
3. Have the phone nearby and usable when you encounter a QR code (easy in a magazine ad, perhaps less so for QR codes now appearing on highway billboards)
4. Be motivated enough to actually perform behaviors 1-3

While nifty, QR codes are often not the easiest and most convenient method of information retrieval, and when utilized to convey data that could be more seamlessly delivered in another format, they become downright head-scratching. This is the case with the increasingly popular use of QR codes in place of Web URLs.

It hasn’t been all that long since URLs began to appear on advertisements and other communication components. I vividly remember debating whether we should use www.internetdirect.com or http://internetdirect.com on a series of ads my first online company ran in PC Magazine, Net Guide, and Internet World in 1994. Now, however, all but the most brand-driven and obtuse ads include a URL, in the way that the prior generation of marketers included a phone number, and before them, a street address. So to replace a perfectly good URL with a QR code requires changing behavior that’s pretty well established at this juncture.

I’m not so sure people are ready to abandon written URLs. After all, with URLs you don’t need a smart phone (or a phone at all), or an app, or a data plan or anything whatsoever other than a modicum of short-term memory. Thus, unless you are in the pharmaceutical marijuana trade, I believe replacing a URL with a QR code falls into the category of ordering pizza online – doable, but more trouble than it’s worth.

When QR Stands For “Quite Realistic”

So where then does the QR code fit? When should it be used? In short, QR codes should unlock information, not a destination. I recently stumbled upon a terrific use of QR codes, at Scotty’s Brewhouse in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana. Scotty’s is a 5-store chain of sports pubs rightfully lauded for their social media prowess, burgers, special hot sauce, and for generally having their act together in every respect. In fact, owner Scott Wise recently won the MIRA Award in Indiana for new media excellence.

I love this use of QR because it unlocked information that was contextually important to me at the time I encountered the code. I cannot overstate that characteristic enough. People need to stop what they are doing and in the absence of any other activity, grab their phone, turn it on, open the app, point the camera, wait for the code to register, visit wherever it takes them, and then decide what to do next. For all that, there better be some immediate payoff, and an extensive beer list qualifies.

Scotty’s of course still has printed lists for patrons who are not on the QR express, but they are printing far fewer than before (green! sustainability!) and because their beer offerings change frequently, it’s easier to keep the electronic list current (just-in-time data!). Perhaps even more impressive is the 32-page takeout menu which is also available via QR code at the front counter, and once snapped is stored on your phone.

Of course, as I wrote about in “Does QR Stand for Quasi-Ridiculous” and “Using QR Codes for Instant Sampling,”, it’s a requirement for what lies behind your QR codes to be perfectly formatted for mobile devices, as both the beer list and takeout menu are in this instance.

3 QR Code Must-Dos

1. Unlock information, not a destination
2. Lead the user to information that’s relevant immediately
3. Perfect mobile formatting of the information delivered

Bravo Scotty’s.

Illustration by Joelle Leung

Guest post. Harrison Kratz is the Community Manager at MBA@UNC, the new online MBA degree program from the University of North Carolina. Harrison sticks to his entrepreneurial roots as the founder of the global social good campaign, Tweet Drive.

Like anything in social media, the need for evolution comes pretty fast and furious. Time and time again, we become enamored with the latest trend, buzz word, or tools and focus on it incessantly until something else comes along or that topic isn’t just no longer bright and shiny, it’s just dull. Being a “social entrepreneur,” it worries me that Social Good is approaching that saturated status.

While it is inspiring to hear all of these different causes and advocates under the umbrella of social good, I feel that often we misunderstand the meaning of social good. While everything remains in good spirits and rarely absent of good intentions, I think there are a few issues to be addressed and solutions that will keep social good on a healthy track and continue to be an engine for positive change not only throughout the world but throughout the social media atmosphere.

Social Good is More Than a Twitter Campaign

Yes, Twitter campaigns have raised millions of dollars for causes around the world and will continue to do so, but a social good campaign is much more than “For every tweet with said hashtag, so and so will donate a dollar.”

Social good is about a social impact that enhances the life of a cause or agenda in addition to just raising money.

Yes having people donate in the form of tweets is great, but we need to start thinking outside the box and understand how we can use these tools to – as Jay says it – not just have social but to be social throughout the cause.

Social Good Cannot Stay Online

I founded Tweet Drive, a social good campaign that brings together social media communities around the world to collect toys for children during the holiday season. When I started this in 2010, I envisioned a campaign where everything would be done through Twitter and our online presence would be the measure of success.

Over 4,000 toys later, we’ve realized that the social in this social good campaign didn’t really mean Twitter and Facebook. It meant bringing together people in real life to meet their social communities and participate in giving back during the holidays.

Yes, we may start online, but to make a difference and understand what it is to be social, we have to understand our success isn’t measured in followers but the change we inspire through these tools.

Social Good Isn’t Simply Charity Work

Most people think that social good means charity work in the digital space. I disagree. Social good is the process of using social media and and social-focused communities to create a positive impact on your surrounding environment. Paying it forward through digital, if you will.

This can mean mentoring young professionals or students. From my experience with MBA@UNC, it can also be changing the way we receive our education. Social good is filling a void by using your social tools and voice to solve a problem or improve the lives of others – that extends much further than generalized philanthropy.

Take Social Good Beyond the Buzzword

Social Good is on a tipping point where it could become much more than a buzzword and a mainstay in our daily lives or it can remain a buzzword and lose momentum because rather than a lasting idea it stays a digital trend. It is up to us to evolve social good to the concepts that we use every day when being social through our brands and businesses, to ensure that it continues to evolve and bring social communities together both and online and off.