There was a time long ago when dinosaurs ruled the earth and organizations considered it acceptable to have one person who “got” social media on staff.

This person would be on call to show people how use Twitter, set up a Facebook brand page, and ultimately, be responsible for single-handedly carrying out a “social media strategy” with elbow grease as the exclusive item in his budget.

Meanwhile, his peers managing email, direct marketing, or even the company vending machine got more resources and of course, more appreciation from their colleagues.

“Social media is easy. My niece started her own blog.”

“Social media is something the intern can do. So don’t spend a lot of time on it.”

“We know we’ve got to ‘play in the social space,’ so let’s get a social media guy!”

Unlike his jurassic counterparts, the lone social media guy is a concept that is far from extinct. And the organizations who prolong his existence might be doing so at the risk of prolonging their own.

OK, so this is a bit of an extreme analogy, but here’s why you should consider making social media more of a team effort and less of a solo act:

Social media needs to be a layer, not a silo.

Social should be a consideration as an extension to any other campaign or tentacle of the overall content strategy.

Don’t develop a content strategy in a vacuum and bolt social media on as an afterthought. Incorporate it into the DNA of your strategy. This can only be possible when social is incorporated into the DNA of the people at your organization. Besides:

Many hands make light work.

The most successful social media activations are typically not the work of a lone ranger. You need depth of thought and breadth of experience. The more actively contributing members you have to the cause, the more brains you have available to solve problems and interact with your audience. (Find smart ways to integrate social media into your organization’s real life).

Social media, all too often, is treated like a checklist and not like a tool. In other words, organizations feel that the bare minimum (i.e. “we have a Facebook page!,” or “we Tweet every day!”) are missing the potential impact social can have when leveraged by the entire organization.

Some examples:

Take JCK:

The “official” account is supported by editors who have their own beat within the vertical and are actively engaging. Social isn’t the exclusive realm of web editor Daniel Ford, it’s the realm of every member of the team.

Or take this very blog:

This is not the lone voice of one person (thank God!), but the collective chorus (which sometimes doesn’t sing in tune with itself, and that’s a good thing) of a full team. This brings varying perspectives to the fold and applies more brain power to any given problem.

A social media guy can easily walk away. A social organization would require a full-blown strike to go down.

Warning: This message does not mean “everyone needs to have a Twitter account.”

Some of the smartest content people I know do not have an active Twitter account. But they lurk there and in many other places online. They participate in forums and industry discussions and they pay careful attention to what others are doing in the space.

They may not speak the language publicly, but they read and consume the language quietly, and have context for when strategic decisions are being weighed. They don’t rely exclusively on the social media guy.

Because they’re a social media guy, too. They just aren’t alone.

[Image: Lehigh Valley, PA]

You’ve seen this before: a prominent clothing store knocks off an independent designer’s creation, and the community around that designer cries foul.

That’s precisely what happened with jewelry designer Wendy Brandes, who found her popular “Swear Rings” the target of a cheap knock-off.

This one hit a little closer to home since I’ve become acquainted with the designer; so it was really quite an experience to see the power of social media take control of the situation.

It started with Wendy’s Sunday blog post, after the discovery of Topshop’s eerily similar rings. Not long after, a firestorm of disappointed bloggers and tweeters voiced their support for Wendy, and their voices were indeed heard:

@WendyBrandes This is a clear rip off by @topshop. You don’t deserve to let this go. Big business needs to know better. Or compensate you.

— Em. x. (@boombands) April 30, 2012

To Catch a Predator — @Topshop — they prey on independent designers like @WendyBrandes tinyurl.com/cm6tcrq — stacy lomman (@taffetadarlings) April 30, 2012

Writers: piracy happens everywhere. Show support for designer @WendyBrandes & say ‘no’ to @topshop knock-offs bit.ly/IHARz7 — Dawn Rae Miller (@DawnRaeMiller) April 30, 2012

Vote w/your wallet. Buy original. RT @WendyBrandes I Cried When I saw Topshop’s version of my swear rings wendybrandes.com/blog/2012/04/i…

— Veronica (@duncandesign) April 30, 2012

We are launching #TeamWendy to support @WendyBrandes‘ original version of her swear rings against the ‘other’ ones! #SayNoToDesignPlagiarism

— The Sama Gazette (@SamaGazette) April 30, 2012

Shocked and appalled that Topshop have so blatently ripped of Wendy Brandes’ fabulous F@#! rings! Disgusting…. fb.me/1RMhPVzGk — Reena Rai (@Reena_Rai) April 30, 2012

anyone else having issues with Blogger? I desperately need to write about how po’ed I am that TopShop would knock off @wendybrandes — Vyque (@Fasshonaburu) April 30, 2012

Frankly i am so angry for you, bullying of the highest kind. RT @WendyBrandes: @chicgorgeous8 nah, (cont) tl.gd/h7jih6

— Datin Anna(@chicgorgeous8) April 30, 2012

@WendyBrandes You’re nobody until somebody rips you off.Congrats.Sort of.

— etoilee8 (@etoilee8) April 30, 2012

And those were just the tip of the iceberg. By Tuesday, Topshop had issued an apology to Wendy, both personally and via Twitter, and pulled the rings from their e-commerce website.

The @WendyBrandes style in question has been removed from sale. We apologise for any misinterpretation and its similarity to Wendy’s work.

— Topshop (@Topshop) May 1, 2012

You can read Wendy’s take on the ordeal.

It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Anyone with an issue can access social media platforms and make their case against a brand with the public acting as jury. And the public tends to side with the underdog.

[Image: J.Sanna]

While humanity has come a long way from the grunts and hand motions that turned into fire and food, how much of our potential for personal and professional interaction have we really tapped into?

I asked my Twitter followers and Facebook friends whether they thought people today were better or worse communicators compared to past generations. The replies were mixed, but there was an underlying feeling from everyone that despite the advanced digital and telephonic tools at our disposal, our communication skills were headed in the wrong direction.

That conversation got me thinking about how businesses communicate their message in today’s marketplace. A challenging economy has made many businesses become bruised and battered in the eyes of the public to the point where they aren’t recognizable as the companies they started out being. I wonder how much of that can be attributed to economic factors out of their control and how much is related to poor communication skills.

My day job as web editor for JCKonline.com has given me the opportunity to sift through old jewelry ads stretching back all the way to the late 1800s. Whether watching television commercials or reading an ad in a magazine or newspaper—yes, newspapers still exist—I’ve noticed that the most effective ads are ones that tap into our collective consciousness and bring us back to a place we’ve already been. Shiny, new viral ads are all fine and good, but it’s the ads that are a throwback to a former brilliant idea that truly influence our behavior.

So are businesses today screwed? Have all the good ideas been used up? Are we left with a bunch of companies that are only struggling to see which one can slap together the right combination of pre-existing material to articulate their message?

As an optimist and a firm believer in human potential for growth and reinvention, I don’t think we’re nearing any kind of communication innovation-less apocalypse. But just in case you don’t share my rose-colored glasses, here are some tips businesses can use in order to become better communicators.

Be Simple, Direct, and Honest

Believe it or not, folks in the 18–49 age range actually want to buy things and then have a social media parade telling people how awesome these things are. A company’s goal should be to make that process as easy, clear, and enjoyable as possible in a simple, direct, and honest way.

So far in 2012, I was retweeted and replied to on Twitter by the pizza chain Mellow Mushroom, Oban Single Malt, and the Red Hook Lobster Pound truck in New York City. I was a big fan of all three already—which prompted my tweets about them in the first place—but after the brands engaged me, I was over the moon. None of the tweets were long or involved; they didn’t prompt me to do anything extra; and it gave me something to brag about in the office for five minutes. More importantly, it influenced me to want to influence others to experience each company’s goods and services.

The thing companies should keep in mind though is that there is a limit to a consumer’s desire to be involved in your marketing strategy. Incessant Facebook posts and tweets, lousy and time-consuming surveys and contests with the promise of lame and unexciting prizes, and slipshod ad work done for expediency’s sake are going to do more lasting harm to your message than if you had a bad message to begin with. The author of a recent post on The Atlantic’s website presented a case study of a social media ad for Dove that she felt was counteractive to the company’s main goal—more customers engaging the brand. While she applauded the company’s efforts to innovate, the author pointed out the flaws in their execution. Essentially it boils down to not making the consumer work EXTRA hard for a good that he or she might have been predisposed to purchase before being presented with a lackluster ad campaign. They may still buy the product, but the company may have killed any chance that customer was going to try to influence others on behalf of the brand.

Repeat after me: simple, direct, honest. Got it? Good, let’s move on.

Write Better Press Releases

I can’t tell you how many awfully written press releases I read every day.

Oh wait, yes I can. Zero.

Businesses can’t just be worried about communicating with consumers directly; they also have to get better at reaching writers, bloggers, and opinion-makers who influence what those consumers want. I understand that it is really hard to talk up your business and sound folksy and relatable at the same time. But there is a way to do without making me reflexively toss your release into the garbage can sight unseen.

Explain to me what your product is, why it’s cool, and why I should pass along information to people in my circle or to the readers of my material. Please, don’t use flowery adjectives that are just going to get cut anyway. Don’t use greetings like, “Hope you’re well” or “I don’t want to waste your time, but…” No, no, waste my time—that’s the whole point—but make it time worth wasting.

Remember your three words often as you’re developing your press release. Having a succinct and well thought out mission statement is half the battle. Once you have that, craft a couple of paragraphs, include some eye-catching images, and be accessible to any follow up questions. Follow that formula and more than just my eyeballs will be seeing your message.

Train Your Employees to Use Their Voices Effectively

Press releases, social media, and advertising aren’t the only effective ways to promote your business and spread your message.

Your employees are your frontline soldiers and should be trained early and often on how to use their voices as primary business weapons. PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, flowcharts, sexy financial figures are great, but they don’t mean anything without a powerful voice articulating what you want consumers and business professionals to believe about your company.

Business leaders don’t have the luxury of hiding behind performance fears and anxieties. For those employees that are more shy or reserved, offer Toastmaster classes, have them speak one-on-one with a senior executive to get them prepared for larger groups, and give them an overload of useful information about your business so that they are capable of answering any question or concern. Even better, stage debates between employees about your company that has one person pointing out potential weaknesses in your message or brand. You’ll not only educate more effectively, but also learn where your company is vulnerable as well, which can lead to more discussion and solutions.

Listen

If you want to get your message across, you need to be willing to listen to someone else’s.

As revolutionary, historic, and impressive as your company’s ideas are, they aren’t the only ideas out there. Listening to constructive criticism won’t kill you; it’s only going to make your company stronger. Scour social media to find out what people are saying about your business—both positive and negative. Figure out what works and doesn’t work about aspects of your advertising campaigns.

Listen to what your competitors are saying about your company to better understand your marketplace and your place in it. Are you the industry authority? Are you the feisty new kid on the block with sex appeal? Your identity is tied to how consumers and industry professionals perceive you, so the more you listen to the voices engaging in your brand, the better able you’ll be in defining what it is.

[Image: Cameraman Phil]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I’m in marketing, and I can’t believe I just typed those ridiculously cliché words. But it’s a golden rule, especially when it comes to advertising campaigns.

Here’s another one: Less is more.

Minimalist advertising—told through simple but brilliant imagery—more effectively tells a story than any crummy cliché, catchy tag line or crazy logo ever could.

Here are some particularly smart minimalist advertising campaigns that have caught my attention lately:

McDonalds touts its newest offering—free WiFi—by shaping its famous skinny fries in a very familiar design.

SanDisk plays on shapes, too, by turning its USB drive on its side, and mimicking its shape in a bottle—a bottle that can clearly hold a lot of data.

Coca-Cola always has powerful ad campaigns, but this one is so beautiful it doesn’t even need words—and you have to look twice to see its logo. Is this about international unity? Soda? Who cares? It leaves a good feeling.

FedEx brands the world’s most well recognized statues in its signature colors. This says FedEx has got you covered from New York to Rio—without actually saying anything at all.

Play-Doh goes for scare tactics to tell moms that it’s a safe toy.

Durex makes a simple point.

The “Imagine” campaign for Lego is one of my favorites. It invites you to stare for a minute, and then use your imagination—which is the whole point, right? What do you see when you look at those colorful blocks? What would you see if you were 10 years old? What about an airplane or a tank? How about The Simpsons, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

If you haven’t heard about this new “mobile” thing, here’s the general idea…

The thing about mobile is, mobile has been mobile for mobile mobile, with mobile and mobile leaving mobile with almost no mobile mobile!  Ironically, mobile is mobile, mobile, mobile, and completely mobile, both because of mobile’s mobile mobile, and because of mobile’s large mobile of mobile.¹  With mobile, mobile is simultaneously mobile, mobile, and mobile mobile mobile mobile mobile mobile!  And mobile too!

…Still not convinced??  Maybe you need to watch Luke Wroblewski’s keynote presentation from DrupalCon Denver 2012.  His message is pretty clear: web products should be designed for mobile first.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Each day, 371k babies are born, and 1.5 million mobile devices are sold
• By 2015, there will be more mobile traffic than desktop traffic
• Yelp says that only 8% of their users are on mobile; but 40% of Yelp searches are done on mobile… (translation: mobile users use more)
• All of Facebook’s mobile app usage combined (iOS, Android, etc) amounts to a little less than their mobile web usage.
• At 19:00, see the difference between Southwest Airline’s desktop and mobile sites (and laugh)
• 40% of people will abandon your site after 3 seconds of waiting
• 84% of mobile users use their devices at home
• Design for: one (fat) thumb, and one eyeball.
• Designing for mobile first reminds you to leverage the devices’ awesome sensing capabilities: location, orientation, acceleration, video camera, etc.

Link to video: http://denver2012.drupal.org/keynote/luke-wroblewski

¹Mobile Mobile, PhD (2012): Mobile as a Mobile Mobile: A Mobile of Mobile, from Mobile Journal of Mobile, 59(4), 254-987.

[Image: sagriffin305]

In college, I spent three years of my life sitting in a long, octagon-shaped room reading college students’ papers aloud. This was my school’s Writing Center, and I worked there regularly—helping classmates with the often-arduous process of getting words from the head to the pen.

As an English major at my little liberal arts college, I inevitably came up against a lot of content—from textbooks to novels to pages upon pages of my classmates’ works in progress. There was always a paragraph or a site or a post to sink my teeth into, and—often—that I was required to sink my teeth into. And—as an English major—I learned all too well how completely and terribly agonizing it can be to connect with content.

One of the most heartbreaking things about working in the Writing Center was the sheer amount of kids who thought they were “too dumb” to “get” the things they read in class. Students came in in varying degrees of distress, faces alternating between glazed and desperate, completely wrecked by a paragraph or page—feeling barred from the things they were supposed to understand because of language that just didn’t sit right.

This is a scary thing for a tutor—or even more, a writer, to face. How do you negotiate the line between “unnecessarily complex” and “challenging,” between “thought-provoking” and “mind-boggling,” between “informative” and “pretentious?”  How do you carve out a journalistic, or academic, or literary, or marketing space that shows the reader he’s welcome, but offers him more than just a comfortable fluff read he’ll forget in 5 minutes?

Recently, my co-worker Daniel Ford wrote a post on “dumbing down” content for readers. He argues that, “in an effort to engage as many readers as possible, content managers have gotten into the habit of doing what is easy to generate more hits.”

These “easy” things include using simple words and phrases, avoiding lesser known vocabulary, keeping posts short and accessible to limited attention-spans, and, overall, just making it all too “easy” on the reader.

Daniel challenges content creators to write long posts, “be Shakespearian in your prose,” use words people won’t know, and aim to rise above the wants of “some Internet peon with an itchy mouse finger [who just] wants to click through to the next pop culture apocalypse.”

The problem with Daniel’s manifesto is not the cry for quality, but the dangerous assumption that good work is difficult work—and that every piece of content should be treated with the same gloves. Just like people, every piece of content is different. The demands and objectives of cereal box copy are quite different than the demands of a Twitter account than the demands of corporate website copy than the demands of this blog. Quality is a sticky, permeable concept, and it isn’t measured by page length, syllable count, or how serious you can look while reading a blog post.

Daniel wants there to be a grand pressure on the reader, because as we all know, pressure makes diamonds. And I agree—a challenge is great—without challenges our world would lie listless in a crippling static—but, realistically, one must remember that content creation is a job as well as a relationship—and if we alienate our readers to “prove [our] smarts,” to borrow a phrase from Daniel, we’re failing at our job, and ending relationships principal to our purpose.

Marketing is not just a task, it’s a dedication. I think if we really want to reach people, we have to understand them, and be willing to compromise (as much as we can without diluting our message so much that it becomes slime lining the walls of the well of bad content.) While we owe it to the reader to give our best work, we also owe it to readers to be realistic and understanding. Not everyone has the time or inclination to look up words like “omphaloskepsis” or “eudaemonic,” just like not everyone wants to hang out with the guy who’s always telling you you’re pronouncing “encyclopedia” wrong. This doesn’t mean someone’s “dumb,” just absorbed with other concerns. Merge your concerns with the reader’s concerns and create a healthy partnership.

By all means, don’t just phone it in. But don’t herald yourself over your reader either. I love a good long article, but I’ve read some magical pieces of writing that have hardly taken up my iPhone screen. I love learning new words, but I still get kicks from the meaty goodness of a simple word like “raw,” or the ending punch of “tricky.”

My challenge to content creators would not be to write “harder,” but to write “closer”—with more care, a more intimate understanding of your subject, your goals, your readers. Think, and think a lot. Think about your readers—their concerns, their needs, their wants. Think about your platform. What works there? A sassy joke, a reassuring list, a long-form probe into the history of government entitlements? There is a place for all of these things, and choosing one over the other isn’t “smart” or “dumb,” but merely conscientious.

There is a time and a place for simple, a time and a place for complex, a time and a place for silly. But there is never a time for completely impenetrable. And there is never a time for unfair or demeaning. Because who wants to deal with someone who thinks they are a part of “the most common intellectual denominator?” Writing hard is easy; writing careful is not. 

I’m a sucker for a good meal. Living in Washington, D.C., such an affliction can be a recipe for financial ruin. Nary a day goes by without another restaurant from yet another up-and-coming, as-seen-on-TV celebrity chef.

My girlfriend, bless her heart, keeps a running tab of all the places she can’t wait for me to spend my paycheck. This from the girl who, two weeks after the most extravagant meal of her life, couldn’t tell you whether she ordered tournedos of filet over a bed of wild mushrooms or Chilean sea bass with celery risotto.

But she could tell you what type of cocktails we had. And whether the server was on his game. Oh, and the crème brûlée? Like she could forget that.

It’s more than a meal she tells me one night over a bed of seared diver scallops and a Bourbon Rickey (yes, I said bourbon). Dinner is “an experience.”

Translation: The main course is important, but it’s hardly the only ingredient that matters. For a dinner to be truly magnificent, it’s got to hit on every note, from the first sip to that final bite.

It’s possible I was just hungry, but that was the thought that occurred to me when I read that the editors of The Tuscaloosa News cited reporters’ use of Twitter as one of the reasons the Alabama daily won a breaking news Pulitzer for its coverage of a spate of deadly tornadoes that touched down there last year.

Initially, the news gave me a bit of indigestion. From a journalist’s or an editor’s perspective, the Pulitzers have always been the gold standard of content. As magazines and newspapers shutter international bureaus and nickel and dime investigative units, cutting copy and nixing columns in pursuit of the almighty dollar, the annual recognition is one of the last remaining places on Earth where content wins for being what it should be: eloquent, emotional, effective, good. Often damn good. I’ve never been a big supporter of awards programs. I’ve expressed my disdain for our obsession with them on this blog. But, for an industry whose sweater seems to forever be unraveling, the Pulitzers are more than just a shameless plug.

I’d heard rumors that the selection committee was considering adding a category for social media, perhaps even a subcategory for tweeting. It’s not something I’m ready to embrace—and I use Twitter. A lot. I’m probably writing a tweet about this column as you’re reading this. It’s just that the Pulitzers, in my mind, are supposed to better than that—to hold high the most exceptional works of a dying art (the long-form feature, the investigative report, even the celebrity profile—do we even have Style sections anymore). Creating a Pulitzer category for social media would be a little like offering a blanket to the guy who tried to burn down your house, wouldn’t it?

That’s obviously not how the prize committee sees it. And, after reading more about how the story unfolded in Tuscaloosa, I began to realize it’s not how the reporters there saw it either.

To them, Twitter became simply another tool to report one of the year’s most compelling stories. With mainline power out across much of the affected area, Tuscaloosa City Editor Katherine Lee told Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman that mobile devices were among the only tools her reporters had at their disposal.

“Calls couldn’t get through,” Lee said to Sonderman, “but texts and tweets could.”

It was Twitter that carried some of the initial reports of the tornadoes’ destruction. In its article about Tuscaloosa’s big win, Poynter featured a tweet from education reporter Jamon Smith. “I’m watching fireman trying to dig a girl out of the rubble of my apartments right now,” Smith posted.

Twitter wasn’t the sole reason the committee awarded Tuscaloosa a Pulitzer for its efforts—editors and reporters filed a week’s worth of news and feature stories about the destruction and published more than 300 photographs, according to Poynter—but judges weren’t shy about how heavily the paper’s use of social media played into their decision.

The selection committee “made it clear to all of us who were judges this year for Breaking News that we needed to look very hard at real-time reporting,” Pulitzer jury member Kathy Best told Sonderman. “Were the news organizations that entered taking full advantage of all of the tools they had to report breaking news as it was happening? We took that really seriously and eliminated some of the entries because they waited too long to tell readers what was going on.”

I’m not sure I’ll ever embrace the idea of a standalone category for social media where the Pulitzers are concerned. But Tuscaloosa’s win harbors a valuable lesson about how social media, when used effectively, can enrich and enliven the editorial experience. It might not ever be as good as the main course, but as an appetizer or dessert, it’s certainly good enough to eat.

Bon appe-tweet.

There’s no such thing as a stupid questions, only stupid answers. And any answer to this question other than a resounding “no” is probably going to be one of them.

Faced with pressure to generate pageviews, content managers have gotten into the habit of being a mile wide and an inch deep in their coverage. Trading depth for breadth and playing to the lowest common cultural denominator. We have to, right? Because today’s content consumer is pressed for time and brain cells and will probably only scan your headline and your bolded keyphrases before they will largely blindly like, Tweet or pin your just-another-post-in-the-sea content.

Except that that’s not true. Despite what people might say, society is not getting dumber, we’re getting smarter. We want better information faster.

And when it comes to content, there is no such thing as “too smart.” In an effort to engage as many readers as possible, content managers have gotten into the habit of doing what is easy to generate more visits. Being smart isn’t easy. It takes work and time—two things that today’s culture doesn’t exactly encourage.

So maybe the better question is: Does informed and intellectual content still carry as much weight in today’s marketplace of attention?

The answer should be a resounding yes. You should be rolling your eyes as you read this.

So how do you be a smarty-pants without turning off your audience? Believe it or not, there are ways to be both smart and successful while developing online content. Here are four things to keep in mind when you bring the brainpower in your next offering:

Don’t Dumb Anything Down

A content creator’s mission should be to raise the most common intellectual denominator not sacrifice everything in order to meet it.

Use big words. Make people look up words they don’t know. There is nothing more satisfying then coming across an unknown, taking a moment to look it up, and then say to yourself, “Oh cool, I know that now.” And with smart phones and easy Internet access, the excuses for not doing so are lamer than they have ever been.

Be Shakespearian in your prose. Make the reader work a little bit to get something out of your content. They were smart enough to click the link, so don’t disappoint them into thinking it was just an empty, manufactured headline instead of a post with something genuine to say.

Write Your Heart Out. And Do so at Great Length.

One of the biggest pet peeves of mine is to hear people say, “Oh, that post you sent me was too long, so I didn’t read it.”

Seriously?

I’m actually glad you didn’t get anything out of it because you just proved you didn’t deserve it in the first place.

Long form has a place in our content experience, even in the online world. It serves as a collective deep breath and our wide-angle lens. Some ideas take longer than a Kardashian marriage to articulate, so don’t throw them away and blame it on your short attention span and jammed Outlook calendar. It’s lazy and dangerous for our development as a civilization and we have too much of both in this world already.

If you want to break up your idea into multiple posts, fine. But don’t sacrifice giving it your intellectual all because some Internet peon with an itchy mouse finger wants to click through to the next pop culture apocalypse. Plus, smart readers will set aside your blog for later use and give it the time it deserves instead of dismissing it out of hand.

More thoughts and words, please.

Write About Strange Topics in a Smart Way

You don’t need to write about existentialism or particle string theory to prove your smarts.

People love them some weird. The Huffington Post has an entire page dedicated to weird news.

However, for the love of all that is content holy, don’t crap out three sentences on some cat that has a cult of people believing it is the next coming of Jesus to drive traffic to your website.

Call people. Get reactions. Tie it to your business in some way. People don’t want to read something cool, they also want to know WHY they are reading the 500-600 words you slapped them in the face with.

Smart writing is a drug; get people hooked. Give them all the intelligence you have to make sure they keep coming back.

The Smarter the Content, the More Engaged Your Commenters Will Be

I admit there is nothing wrong with short and sweet. However, there still has to be enough substance in a short post in order for your readers to respond to it with more than just, “That’s nice.”

It takes a lot of someone to get up the nerve to respond to something they’ve read online. I’m a confident guy, and I still feel awkward doing it. However, really smart and insightful online content can give someone an intellectual burning desire to comment.

Recently, I read a blog post on The Atlantic’s website about today’s Internet users that was artfully written and chock-full of smart commentary. I didn’t comment on the post itself, but the author ignited something in me that turned into 900 words on why we need new rules for language and grammar.

Smart content begets more smart content. Online content is this generation’s cave drawings, so let’s make sure we leave an impression worth remembering.

[Image: Brian Hillegas]

There was a time not long ago when the term “social media strategy” amounted to setting up a Facebook account and enthusiastically asking customers to “Like” your product.

In the immortal words of former NFLer and ESPN football analyst Keyshawn Johnson, “C’mon, MAN!”

I know a three-year-old Malti-Poo named Lucky with his own Facebook page (I’m not even kidding). In today’s ever-expanding media marketplace, the old set-and-forget approach is quite literally for the dogs. If your business or association wants to play in the social sandbox it had better be willing to learn some new tricks.

Simply being on Twitter or Facebook or even Pinterest won’t do. Social media, in any form, is but a single layer in a larger plan to keep content fresh, engage customers and readers alike, and grow your brand.

Research indicates that most institutions understand this concept, but struggle with one question: How? The challenge is particularly acute at small businesses and nonprofits, at such places where cash flow and resources are scarce commodities.

In a recent survey of nonprofit organizations conducted by business management provider Sage Networks, 84 percent of respondents participated in some form of social media. What’s more, 75 percent considered social media important to their overall missions. But just 46 percent said they were at least somewhat satisfied with their current level of social media success.

“Undoubtedly, social media has transformed how nonprofits communicate and engage with their constituents and supporters,” said Krista Endsley, senior vice president and general manager for Nonprofit Solutions at Sage in a release about the survey. “No matter an organization’s mission, establishing a social media presence online is critical to both expanding awareness and reach and engaging constituents.”

In reality, establishing a social media presence is just the first step. Being out there is important, but staying relevant and connected is what really matters. And it’s not easy. You have to understand your readers. Who are they? What types of social media do they use? When are they online? How do they interact? The list of questions is endless. And every audience is different.

So what to do?

You could hire someone. In the six-month period from January 2011 to June 2011, Internet staffing firm Onward Search reports that the number of jobs with social media in the title increased by more than 45 percent. Nordstrom has a director of social media. So do Sears and Panasonic. And NBC News. The Associated Press recently elevated a producer within its Nerve Center to oversee its social media efforts. Still other companies are farming these jobs out to public relations experts and content marketing partners.

Whatever the approach, you’ve got to have a person or people who you can rely on to continually feed readers’ social appetites. Firing off timely, well-executed tweets and Facebook posts is a big part of that, sure. But so is growing your readership base, making content easier to find online through search engine optimization, performing necessary maintenance and upkeep on your website, and, more important, evaluating progress to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI), which can’t necessarily be measured in dollars and cents.

To understand more about what makes for a strong social strategy, I reached out to Daniel Ford, a frequent contributor to this blog and web editor for JCK magazine.

Me: At JCK, you use all sorts of social media. When it comes to strategy, what’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you starting out?

Ford: Don’t get overwhelmed with all the social media channels out there. Go with the one that you are the most comfortable with, and put the majority of your efforts into making your brand stand out on that channel. As you get more comfortable, branch out into other avenues one by one. Also, social media is meant to be fun and get people engaged in your brand, so make sure that you’re enjoying the process instead of looking at it like drudgery.

Me: Have you made any mistakes along the way?

Ford: If you’re not making mistakes, you’re doing something wrong. You learn a lot more by failing at something than you do by getting it right every time. All you can do is work to minimize mistakes so they don’t hurt your overall brand.

Me: What social media tactics tend to yield the best results?

Ford: The best way to get results is to be as honest, human, and open as possible. All the best things about your brand should come through in every tweet, Facebook post, or Google +1. When you’re just starting out, directly @ Twitter followers or comment on Facebook friends to jumpstart a buzz about your brand. Everything you do should be a building block for future social media strategies that keep your brand at the top of people’s minds.

Me: When talking about social media, it’s often hard to demonstrate a monetary ROI. How do you know when you’ve succeeded?

Ford: I’m a firm believer that the more engaged your following is, the better chance you have at seeing more of a monetary ROI. It may not happen in high perceptible ways at first, but the faster your social media snowball rolls, the more likely it is to improve your business. Plus, an idea from discussions or comments online may help to strengthen your business plan. People who start believing in your brand will start to have a stake in making it as powerful as possible, so keep your social media ears open.

[Image: Richard Moross]

As journalists, writers and editors, we’re told every day to “think outside the box” and nurture our creative drive. We think of brilliant covers, witty headlines and turn useless jargon into poetic prose.

But what happens when an innovative thought backfires?

Recently, a journalist named Khristopher Brooks was fired before he even officially began a new job at the News Journal in Wilmington, Del. because he manufactured a “press release” using a quote from his hiring letter, the company logo and a few choice words about his arduous job search before graduating from New York University’s literary reportage graduate program. It was posted (and still is) on his very public Tumblr account.

Brooks had previous training in journalism, with previous jobs at the Omaha World Herald, the Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier and as a writer with NYTimes.com and the Associated Press—he’s a Chips Quinn Scholar, which selects aspiring journalists/editors when they’re undergrads to place them in full-time, 12-week internships with big-name papers such as the Providence Journal (where I interned as a CQS), Austin (Texas) American-Statesman or the Tennesseean.

Still, he has little regret, as proven with a recent interview with The Loop 21. But what do others think? I did a quick poll of some TMG editors to see if they thought this viral statement would help or hurt his career, and the results vary:

“I think a firing this public will definitely follow him around for a few years. It’s going to be difficult for him to get a job,” says Emili Vesilind, senior editor at JCK. “What he did showed questionable judgment, and made him seem immature to his new employers. You don’t publicize sentiments from your bosses meant expressly for you. But I don’t think this was grounds for firing. It’s clear he was just really excited about nabbing a job in this horrible job climate. They should have asked him to take it down, given him a good talking-to, and moved on.”

“It’s worth considering that the reasons the paper gave for firing him (those that they could document and make a case for) were not the actual reasons for which he was fired,” says Managing Editor Corey Murray. “Considering his writing, tone and language, it’s my guess the paper’s editors decided they’d made a mistake and that it’d be best to break with this guy before things got worse. I can’t believe how many people on this board are mistaking this as enthusiasm, when it’s clearly a symptom of something much more troubling–at least for a journalist.”

“My thoughts—and this is mostly from the time I’ve spent teaching a journalism course at the University of Maryland: One of the first things we teach budding journalists in entry level journalism courses in college is that a major part of being a journalist involves being transparent when quoting people in articles,” says Managing Editor January Payne.

“I think where Khristopher primarily went wrong was in quoting from his offer letter without informing the editor he’d be quoted. That said, I do applaud his creativity, and I believe he’ll land on his feet. I think he’d probably do well in public relations or marketing because he certainly knows how to create a buzz. It’s a tough lesson, to be sure, but I do not believe it is a career ending one. It’s simply another example of why people should give careful thought to what they post online because you never know who is reading.”

Though the idea of a press release lauding your new gig is entertaining, it’s probably more appropriate for a holiday letter to the family, or a private email to a mentor—and purely as a joke. It’s natural to be enthusiastic about a new job, but had Brooks taken a step back to think about the implications of posting something with such a braggart tone on a public place (and naming the newspapers that didn’t hire him, which looks spiteful), he would have seen this coming. In a world where social media dominates, professionalism is of the utmost importance.

So what do you think? Was his firing justified, or should he have been given another chance?

[Image: David H. Chu]