In Kentucky, Democratic primary voters had the ballot option to select “uncommitted”. In Arkansas, President Obama was challenged by a local candidate, John Wolfe.

While the media focused on these stories in their coverage, I wondered what voters on social media were talking about.

Kentucky Primary Review

While President Obama ran against himself on the Democratic ticket, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul comprised the Republican ticket in the Bluegrass State. The trend line below shows how social conversations about the candidates compared against one another.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Mitt Romney is going to become the Republican nominee to run for president and conversations on social seem to reflect this thinking. This trend line is quite different from the early primary contests of Iowa and New Hampshire, when Ron Paul led all social conversations by a wide margin.

Kentucky primary goers from both parties debated issues with one another on social channels. Conversations related to social issues, such as the President’s gay marriage stance, were discussed the most, while economic issues like unemployment accounted for the rest.

Arkansas Primary Review

Similar to Kentucky, the President led the social media conversation in Arkansas, followed by Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Local candidate John Wolfe ran against the president on the Democratic ticket. While Wolfe did not have an official social media presence that I could find, it didn’t stop people from discussing him on social media.

Arkansas voters also took to social media to discuss the issues. Economic issues led political conversations on social media, but conversations related to social issues figured prominently as well.

The Take Away

Monitoring political conversations on social media gives insight into what topics voters are really engaged with. These insights can help political parties identify which conversations their supporters are debating and provides an opportunity to create content that informs voters and advances each party’s messaging.

If you’re interested in reading more about how political parties can use social media monitoring, check out my previous blog post, Social Media Hashtags Become a Political Weapon of Choice.

Salesforce Radian6 works to ensure that your firm is always in compliance with the Financial Industry Regulation Authority (FINRA) guidelines, helping you to get active in the social web while staying inline with industry regulations.

Here are three ways you can use Salesforce Radian6 to stay compliant in your social media strategy:

The Importance of Record Keeping

Radian6’s historical data allows you to view conversations dating back to May 2008, well within the three year range dictated by FINRA under rules 17a-3 and 17a-4. Your results from active profiles accrue monthly, creating an invaluable archive at no additional cost that ensures you’ll have the data you need, when you need it.  Access, analyze and report on your profiles’ entire history and help chart the events and content that have impacted your brand. If you require paper copies of your online engagement, reports are available for download directly from our platform, and include timestamps to ensure you have a record of the conversations taken place, who was involved, and when they occurred.

Free Training for Ongoing Compliancy

Customizable training sessions allow your compliance officers to ensure all staff engaging on the social web understand how Radian6 can serve as a compliancy solution within the Financial Services industry. All users of Radian6 are placed on a comprehensive training path appropriate to their needs, and you also have the option to participate in private sessions. Our initial needs assessment ensures the training staff has a firm understanding of the kind of knowledge your group is looking to gain so they can tailor the class specifically to meet your team’s objectives.

Creating a Secure Social Environment

Radian6’s permission settings ensure that only those who have permission to access corporate social profiles can engage via those channels on the social web. Under the FINRA regulations, one of the largest concerns is monitoring the flow of information – including understanding who is involved in the conversations, where those conversations are taking place, and what’s being said. Our platform helps to ensure no one is speaking out of turn. Super Users are administrators in the Radian6 environment with special permissions –they determine who has access to what content, and who can reply to comments via the Engagement Console. Assign the Super User role to the compliancy officer in your firm and they’ll have the power to guarantee only those who have received proper training are engaging on your social channels, helping you adhere to NASD Rule 3010, which requires firms to establish and maintain a system to supervise the activities of each associated person.

Regulations shouldn’t hold your organization back. FINRA makes it simple to be compliantly social by identifying the regulations for social media and providing guidelines. Once you have a strong social media policy and strategy in place, actively listening to your community will help you thoroughly understand the lucrative opportunities social can bring you.

Have you started your social media journey? What regulations are stopping you from becoming active in social media? For more on how social media can work for your financial services company, download our ebook, How to Create a Social Media Strategy for the Financial Services Industry.

Thanks to Martha Gallagher for her contributions to this post.

One way to view these stages a company can go through is to view it through the lens of the social media champion. This is the person who shepherds their company through each stage of adoption by developing social media strategies and sharing the vision of social media throughout the organization. Note that this may not be the same person through all four stages.

Stage 1: Informal or Grassroots

A likely scenario at the earliest stage is that someone in the marketing, PR or even customer service departments is passionate about social media and wants to start using it for their company. That person could be you. You pitch your boss on the idea and they tell you to write a plan. This plan might include starting a Twitter account or a blog. And no matter what you read about social media adoption, not everyone has adopted these platforms. Only 62% of the Fortune 500 have active Twitter accounts and only 23% of them have blogs.

This initial planning document should lay out the goals and metrics for success. Many companies don’t get traction with their social media experiments because they lack focus. Take a campaign oriented approach and tie your social media efforts to a larger marketing campaign, preferably something measurable. What’s notable in this stage is that efforts are usually driven by passion, not results. Social media does not become a formal part of anyone’s job, but it is bolted on to their other duties. And it can stall out without a connection to solving business problems.

Stage 2: Organized

This next stage is when the company starts to get serious. The experimentation is over and social media has grown beyond the initial shiny object syndrome. Various teams across the company understand the value of social media and can report on metrics that show the benefit, but their efforts still may be siloed. Activities like listening and engaging have grown beyond just responding to direct mentions of your company. The passionate champion from stage 1 now has a social media title. It might be community manager, but it is official recognition that social media is a key part of their job.

This is also where you start considering adding staff to the team. Jay Baer frames the argument about adding social media staff by tying success back to business goals. You can’t convince executives to just “believe you” that you need more resources. You need to demonstrate a business need by connecting it to objectives they can relate to.

Stage 3: Engaged

A social media manager is at the center of an engaged company. They are probably still connect to the original social media owner, either marketing, PR or corporate communications. Do you promote your passionate champion or do you go outside the company for a social media manager? There are benefits to each side of the argument. But this manager drives social media strategy across the organization. They work cross-functionally to make sure that the correct policies are in place and enforced.

In a company at this stage senior leadership doesn’t just support social media, but they encourage it. Social listening is an important part of the company’s information gathering about competitors and the industry, and various departments engage directly with their constituent audiences. For example, customer service happens on the social web as a defined process, not an afterthought. And social media training is provided for all employees, not just those with social media responsibilities.

Stage 4: Fully Integrated

This is the ideal state that every company should strive for. Every employee has been certified in their social media training, and they all have the ability to engage online. This doesn’t mean they speak for the company and jump in with official responses, but employees understand their role and their importance in sharing the company’s content, as well as providing value to their followers with that content. Creating this content is an important part of the company’s engagement strategy, especially since it can be shared so widely.

And what has happened to our champion? Has she become a director, VP or even C-Level executive? She leads the charge of social media across a global enterprise with vision and insight, no matter what her title is. The key really is her reporting chain. While she may still report up through marketing to the CMO, she has responsibilities beyond marketing. Not only does she have the ear of senior leadership, but they too are willingly active on social media themselves. And social media reporting that reflects business goals and objectives is not just integrated into everything that the company does, but the data and metrics from social media activities are used for business planning purposes. This is truly a social enterprise.

Do these stages make sense in the lifecycle of your company’s social media adoption? What would you add to these stages? To learn more about how to plan and grow your company’s social media efforts, read this Social Media Blueprint, which provides a step by step plan for social media adoption.

One brand has taken note of social media’s love of funny images and incorporated a popular internet meme into their own marketing strategy.

This week, Lipton Brisk ran a sponsored image on popular image sharing site Imgur.  With over 2 billion page views per month, Imgur hosts many of the hilarious photos your Facebook friends post to their timelines every day.

Lipton’s venture into memetic marketing is a modified version of “Scumbag Steve”.  Steve is up to his usual chicanery and this time he’s chugged your entire can of Lipton Brisk.  The caption: That’s Brisk Baby! http://www.liptonbrisk.com.

As a frequent visitor of Imgur (and by frequent visitor, I mean addict), I was curious about this co-opting of popular internet culture by a brand and its potential marketing benefits.

Risky Move or Bold Initiative?

Fastcompany’s Joe Berkowitz keenly summarizes both the upside and potential downsides of brands looking to utilize popular memes in an effort to boost their online marketing efforts.

“Considering the enviable viral half-life of most internet memes, and the engagement they tend to inspire, it’s only natural to expect advertisers to attempt to harness their power. But those who venture into branded meme territory are best advised to tread lightly–the audience potential for co-opting a beloved photoshopped image is exceeded only by the likelihood of turning that audience’s peals of laughter into snorts of derision.”

Reaction

Imgur founder Alan Schaaf has noted that Imgur’s audience “has always hated ads”.  With that in mind, what was the reaction to Mekanism’s (the agency behind the image) Lipton/Scumbag Steve initiative?  Looking at Twitter reactions, it appears to have gone over reasonably well.

Great idea. Not invasive. RT @lisaderus: Decent attempt by a brand (Brisk) to advertise to reddit/imgur users. ow.ly/b3w9B

— Allison Babka (@AMBabka) May 21

Genius – Imgur Partners With Brisk And “Scumbag Steve” For Meme-ified Ads buff.ly/Kf1kYl via @techcrunch #HultEComm

— Adam Britten (@AdamBritten) May 21, 2012

Nice job @mekanism! Imgur Partners With Brisk And “Scumbag Steve” For Meme-ified Ads techcrunch.com/2012/05/21/img… via @techcrunch

— sarahjane (@sf_sj) May 21, 2012

Once again, content is king! Imgur Partners With Brisk And “Scumbag Steve” For Meme-ified Ads | ow.ly/b3iEL

— ePrize (@ePrize) May 21, 2012

Ok-for an ad, this is pretty awesome: Imgur Partners With Brisk And “Scumbag Steve” For Meme-ified Ads techcrunch.com/2012/05/21/img… via @techcrunch

— kenjiarakawa (@kenjiarakawa) May 21, 2012

It’s too soon to tell just how effective the branded Scumbag has been, however, word has it that Lipton is planning on launching another branded meme in the near future.

We want to hear from the Radian6 audience, which we know consists of many digital strategists and marketing enthusiasts.  What do you think of this co-opting of memes by brands? Pointless? Genius? Will it become a “thing” moving forward?  Are they other examples of brands co-opting popular memes for marketing purposes? Tell us about in our comments section. For the Imgur community’s reaction, check out the original image here. 

The first ever Food Revolution Day took place on Saturday, May 19. The food festival took place in homes and communities around the the globe, and was dedicated to standing up for and celebrating real food.

With over 2.8 million deaths each year a result of being obese or overweight and 43 million overweight preschool children worldwide (WHO), it is time to make a difference and stand up for real food. Food education is at the heart of making a difference. Having the basic knowledge about food nutrition and knowing how to prepare healthy meals can not only turn your life around, but save it.

We organized Food Revolution Day with the aim to inspire people worldwide to gather with their communities, host real food events, and open the conversation on local food issues in order to empower one another to stand up, promote better food education, and demand better, from schools, governments, and companies. Amazingly, with just a six week lead-in, Food Revolutionaries gathered together in 664 cities across 62 countries and organized over 1,000 real food events!

Food Revolution Team – Pop up pub lunch

Since neither Jamie nor we as a team could physically visit every town and city in every country taking part in Food Revolution Day, the campaign was built strongly on digital resources and social media reach, which allowed us to interact and support people all around the world. At the heart of the campaign was our amazing community of global volunteers who organized, hosted, and attended local food events including dinner parties, cooking classes, gardening tutorials, and farmers market tours.

Having built out the social media for the Food Revolution campaign over the past year, I have realized how important it is to make sure that our online community can talk to us when they need to and for us to be able to connect them with other local revolutionaries, no matter where they are. To ensure that Food Revolution Day was a success, we knew that we needed a special approach to our social media strategy and how we engaged with our community. Radian6 allowed us to do this with great results!

At the beginning of May, a few weeks before Food Revolution Day, Madlen and Rhiannon from the Radian6 team set us up with the engagement console and dashboard and followed up with some training, giving us the ability to engage with our community in a much more effective and efficient way.

Using Radian6, our team was able to monitor all of the conversations and activities supporting Food Revolution Day, from tracking all of the amazing real food events, photos shared, and blogs written, to ensuring that all questions and queries were responded to and accurate resources and information were shared, even when we were receiving thousands of posts by the hour! It also allowed us to keep on top of exactly who was talking about us and how this impacted the number of mentions Food Revolution Day received. For example, when celebrities such as Cheryl Cole, Cody Simpson, Adrian Grenier and Gwyneth Paltrow gave their support, this tended to create more activity in the engagement console.

Radian6 also allowed our team to continually monitor the inspiring actions people all over the world were taking on Food Revolution Day, from food education stalls and cooking workshops in Java, Indonesia to a kids’ education day at a farmers market in Los Angeles, California, we saw communities from Brasilia to Madrid stand up for real food. You can read about how we used Radian6 as a non-profit campaign in this blog post, A Case Study For Non Profits On How To Activate The Crowd.

Omar Niode Foundation & Monchichi Photography - Java, Indonesia Food Revolution

“The first Food Revolution Day has come and gone and what a success! Over 1,000 events in 62 countries and some amazing stories from places like Malaysia, Turkey, Brazil, Canada and Australia – not to mention the USA and the UK. Massive thanks to the Radian6 team for all their help and software – it allowed us to engage directly with more than 10,000 people over the course of the weekend, which is just incredible. Let’s do it all again next year.” – Jamie Oliver

Food Revolution Day 2012 may be over but the movement continues all year. You can find out more about the campaign at www.foodrevolutionday.com and get involved at www.jamiesfoodrevolution.com. Will you join us and stand up for real food?

FB: Food Revolution Community
T: @FoodRev  H: #FoodRevolution
G+: Food Revolution Community
Pin: Food Revolution

At last year’s Women’s Wear Daily CEO Summit, Tory Burch, CEO of the luxury brand of the same name, spoke on how social media has helped shape and grow the Tory Burch brand since its start in 2004.

There are now 68 stores worldwide and the brand has built a recognizable presence on various social media platforms, from Twitter and Facebook to Tumblr and Pinterest, as well as their blog.

Here are some takeaways from Tory’s presentation on their social media journey and how it has played a pivotal role in the success of the Tory Burch brand.

Organic Connections

The brand embraces two-way conversation with their community and sees it as an integral part of their narrative. Tory Burch and her team have built a passionate community with their customers and advocates by engaging and allowing relationships to develop naturally.

Authenticity

As Tory says, “People know when you’re being honest and real.” To create an authentic brand voice, all of the brand’s content is created and managed in-house, and both Tory and her team are spontaneous in sharing content that inspires them, such as photos, quotes, or books.

Being in the Moment

Asking questions and receiving immediate feedback through social media has helped shape the Tory Burch brand. Tory shares the story of going through JFK airport security and tweeting to her followers asking if she should design a line of travel socks. The response was a resounding yes, allowing the brand to identify a customer need that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Transparency

With social media comes both positive and negative feedback, and Tory emphasizes the importance of being open to criticism and handling it in a transparent way. By being honest in acknowledging issues and communicating clearly with customers, the Tory Burch brand has converted detractors to advocates, building trust and strengthening their community.

The Customer Experience

Tory Burch and her team have created an interactive shopping experience for their customers by layering content and creating a narrative around their brand and products. They want their fans to experience what they are experiencing, from sharing behind-the-scenes images to telling the story behind the launch of a new product line.

Curiosity

The Tory Burch brand embraces new technology and wants to be present where their customers are. They are constantly exploring new social platforms and in the last six months, have expanded their social media presence to Pinterest and Google Plus.

Patience

Knowing when the timing is right is critical for Tory Burch and her team. They don’t do anything without purpose and take the time to plan, create, and test content before establishing themselves on a new social network. As an example, they waited until they opened a location in China before launching their presence on the microblogging site Sina Weibo.

Social Responsibility

Tory Burch embraces philanthropy with the Tory Burch Foundation, as well as other efforts. After the Japanese Tsunami, the brand created a special edition t-shirt, with one hundred percent of the proceeds going toward the Red Cross. 16,000 of the shirts were sold globally in support of the relief effort.

If you would like to view the full presentation, we’ve included the video below.

What takeaways from Tory’s presentation did you find most valuable and why? If you are interested in learning how to incorporate social media into your organization, download our ebook, Social Media Blueprint: A Step-by-Step Plan to Prepare Your Company.

To seize the social opportunity, higher ed institutions need a social media strategy to differentiate their organization from the other 20,000 colleges and universities around the world vying for student attention through blogs, Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and other channels.

That’s why we put together Social Media Strategy for Higher Education — to help colleges and universities craft a plan that will lead to increased admissions, better student retention, and a flourishing faculty culture.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 5 to give you a few ideas on ways a college or university can use social media to engage students, faculty and the broader community.

Give a Glimpse of Campus Life

What’s the classroom experience? What’s special about the student union? What are some of the other students like? What makes you different from all the other schools mailing your potential student a pamphlet? Use video to emulate the campus tour to give prospective students an idea of what to expect after enrollment or create excitement about the football team’s Friday night game.

Spread the Good News

As long as you tie news back to a value statement for your community, social media can be a great conduit for sharing university accolades, stories about award-winning faculty, and university research accomplishments.

Ask and Answer Questions

Provide a medium for students, faculty, parents and alumni to provide feedback, and let them know they’ve been heard. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania invites their community to shape their Lifelong Learning Program by submitting and upvoting suggestions about pressing business topics and societal challenges they’d like Wharton to address.

Tell Stories about Student Success

When comparing colleges or head-down in a textbook preparing for finals with no chance of getting any sleep in the near future, a compelling and true success story about an alum landing a dream job can inspire and rejuvenate.

Reward Advocacy

You have students and alumni who are die-hard fans.  They couldn’t be more proud of their school, and they make a point to show it on Facebook and Twitter. Often this rubs off on their peers, and may ultimately influence others’ perceptions. Give these advocates a virtual pat on the back by featuring them on the blog or Facebook page.

Foster Student-to-Student or Faculty-to-Faculty Discussion

Every person’s experience at your college or university is unique, but everyone could benefit from easier ways to find and connect with classmates, peers, extracurricular organizations, or study and interest groups. Consider creating a custom on-site message board, social network or Facebook application to help students and faculty to branch out or share ideas.

Help Students Make Connections

DeVry University is using social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to facilitate conversations between students and experts in their field of study. They also started using LinkedIn groups to help alumni connect with professionals in their field and hosted networking events to help bring these engagements full circle.

Read the whole ebook to glean all the information you need to create or augment a social media plan for your college or university.

Already part of a social school? Share some of your social media marketing insights with us in the comments.

For smaller not-for-profits it can be challenging to attract attention and donations to their cause. With so many deserving organizations competing for the public’s money and time, how do you set yourself apart from larger charitable organizations?

The Scleroderma Foundation is using social media to make connects, create awareness and raise much needed research funds. They have created a great social strategy that has their network of supporters growing and in turn helping the donation section of their site grow as well. Learn more about their efforts and how social media can help smaller organizations make their voice heard in our new case study.

Tell us, how does your favorite not for profit group use social media to share their message and why it keeps you engaged?

Many brands see social media as just another megaphone to blast their marketing campaigns and news releases at their customers and prospects. Then they give up because no one seems to care. Why do they fail? These jabberjaws never stopped to listen.

In contrast, the social media strategies we’ve highlighted in The Guide to Social Monitoring are built on a foundation of attentive listening. These companies know that every social media activity — and indeed every business activity — will be far more effective if you’ve cultivated a deep understanding of the relevant social media conversations.

1. Gauge the Health of Your Brand

Do people love you, are they frustrated by your customer service, is your new product a hit? And does the feedback line up with how you’re positioning and presenting your company to the public? [Read more.]

2. Flag Customer Service Opportunities

Customers will broadcast their complaints on Facebook or Twitter, and expect you to come find them. By listening carefully to your customers and community, you can easily catch customer service issues as they emerge, even on fast-moving sites like Twitter. [Read more.]

3. Handle Your Next Crisis

Being a good social media listener will help you immensely in a crisis, allowing you to respond quickly to the right people with the right information in the right way. A good social media listening program can preserve — and even improve — your brand’s reputation in a crisis. [Read more.]

4. Generate Leads

There is a time when a sales pitch, connection, or outreach is more than welcome. That’s at the point of need, the moment when someone expresses a desire that your product can fill. Listening at the point of need can help you discover opportunities to help by offering information or expertise — without sales pressure — at the perfect time.  [Read more.]

5. Keep Tabs on the Competition

Competitive intelligence used to be limited to expensive reports from business intelligence companies, or whatever information you could glean through your network of acquaintances, friends, and contacts. The social web has brought a new dimension to competitive analysis, and put a wealth of information out there for the taking. [Read more.]

6. Collect Product Feedback

Social media supplies voluntary feedback and product reviews without the toil and cost of focus groups. Understanding what people love and hate about your product can help you figure out how to better satisfy customers and prospects. [Read more.]

7. Track Industry Trends

Resist the temptation to listen only around your own brand. Listen a level above your brand to the discussions happening in your industry. Not only can you understand your share of conversation within the discussions you want to be part of, but you can learn valuable information about emerging trends, crises, or issues of interest to your community and prospects. [Read more.]

8. Identify Influential Advocates (and Detractors)

One of the most beneficial things you can do on the social web is foster strong connections with those who love your brand the most. After all, they’re the people who will vocally celebrate your successes, refer business your way, purchase your product, and even defend your brand in the face of criticism. [Read more.]

Every moment the Amazon of social media flows by, it carries valuable insight into how you can grow your brand, delight your customers, sail through your next crisis, generate leads, surpass the competition, improve your products, learn from industry trends, and win over passionate advocates.

All this from a little listening. You’d be wise to pay attention.

Be sure to download The Guide to Social Media Monitoring, and discover why Radian6 is the perfect platform to help you do so.

In addition to the divide from the brand perspective, there are questions about how engaged Google Plus users really are. While the social network had over 170 million users as of April, these users don’t seem to be as active as those on other social networks.

Despite skepticism, some brands have found a niche on Google Plus, using the platform to share content and engage with their community and build a sizable following. Here some tips for boosting your own brand’s Google Plus presence.

1. Be visual

Similar to Facebook, Google Plus puts an emphasis on visual content. To make your brand stand out, share photos and videos that your community will enjoy, such as photos of your products or a behind-the-scenes glimpse. KLM’s Google Plus content is almost exclusively photos, which consistently generate a high level of engagement from their more than 3o0,000 followers.

2. Offer exclusive content

Google Plus is a unique platform, so reward your followers with unique content. Providing your community with valuable content that they can’t find anywhere else will keep them engaged and make them feel appreciated. Cadbury UK has embraced this with their Google Plus community of 1.2 million, from launching their Dairy Milk Bubbly earlier this year to hosting Google Hangouts on Air.

3. Create a brand experience

As with any other social network, Google Plus is an extension of your brand. Use your content to tell your story and showcase what makes your brand unique, from your history and values to your people to your products and services. Burberry uses their Google Plus page to highlight their products, which are the core of the luxury fashion brand.

Fora look at Burberry’s social enterprise story, check out the below video.

Play

As brands, are you currently using Google Plus to engage with your community? Why or why not? As customers on Google Plus, what would you like to see from brands? For more on content strategy, be sure to download our ebook, Four Steps to Creating Content for a Social Media Community.