Getting ready for Explore Dallas-Fort Worth on Feb. 17 has been a lot of fun. Probably one of the best parts of the experience for me is finding great sponsors to bring something to the table for participants. We don’t just want vendors who come in, sell-sell-sell and then follow up with more sales emails and the like. We tried hard to identify companies that were going to bring value to you, not just them.

It was easy to turn to SME clients and partners like Expion and NetBase. We knew them and knew they’d know what we were shooting for. Expion, one of our two Captain Sponsors, has been providing great value at events and with their own contributions to Social Media Explorer’s blog for over a year now. The social media management solution has grown tremendously over the last year (only coincidental that they’ve been a client in that time … I take no credit for their success) and brings not just a software solution to the table, but helpful people like Kevin Magee (who will be speaking at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth), Peter Heffring, Erica McClenny and Dan O’Marra. They’ve got a lot of smarts and are going to help folks in Dallas understand how big brands can go local, but also how smaller brands can potentially go big with a local focus.

NetBase, a Navigator sponsor for Explore events this year, is another partner and client of Social Media Explorer’s. Our soon-to-be-launch market research product is based on their technology. We believe in their tool and them as well. Lisa Joy Rosner, NetBase’s Chief Marketing Officer, is just one of those people you have to meet. Her talk to the Louisville IABC/Louisville Digital Association bootcamp last fall gave a lot of people great ideas on using online analysis to make smarter decisions about their brands.

But then we went out and found more companies and people that will add a tremendous value to the Explore experience. Raven Internet Marketing Tools, the other Captain sponsor with Expion, is a fantastic toolset for both SEO and social media management with a price point that even small businesses are comfortable with. Arienne Holland‘s first response when we started talking about her presentation at Explore was along the lines of, “How can we help the audience do something they aren’t doing yet?” She’ll wow us with ideas on how to monitor proactively, not reactively. Plus Brannan Atkinson and crew are bringing some kick-ass T-shirts for everyone. *LOVE*

Our other Navigator sponsors will also bring some awesome insight and neat people to the event as well. Cision‘s Heidi Sullivan will be there. I gave my first national talk along side Heidi back in 2008. She’s helped reshape the media database company’s online efforts and done volumes to help bridge the gap between marketing/PR folks and bloggers in that time.

Visible Technologies is another sponsor I’m excited about everyone getting to know. They’re a monitoring and insights platform and boy, do they know their stuff. I’m actually working on a webinar with them for the week after Explore Dallas-Fort Worth and have gotten to know them pretty well and see their tool up close. The data it can produce is pretty amazing. Make sure you sign up for “What She Said” on Feb. 21, but get to know them in Dallas, too!

Edison Research is also a Navigator sponsor for Explore this year. I’m excited to be involved with a new project with Edison that we’ll be announcing more fully as the year goes on. Suffice to say you’ll be able to learn more about it at Explore! Plus, when Tom Webster is on the speaking docket for the event (and he was before Edison was ever a sponsor), you’re going to be both informed and entertained.

44Doors is knocking down the doors of mobile marketing and doing some interesting things for brands and companies. They’re supplying some of their mobile magic to all of us at Explore. Each participant leaves with their own mobile landing page for contact information sharing and has easy access to sponsors and speakers through mobile interactions 44Doors is providing. And CMO Tim Hayden will be waxing poetic for us on how to turn passive fans into active advocates through mobile techniques, too.

Our Compass level sponsors are headed up by uberVU, a rising star in the social media monitoring space. We’re excited to have them and let more people know about their solution. But also tap into the intel their company has. They do a nice job of supplying us with interesting insights and advice on their blog, so I can’t wait to learn more from them in Dallas.

The Dallas Business Journal is also a Compass sponsor. Their editor, Lauren Lawley Head, will join our Journalism In The Social Era panel discussion and provide some interesting insights, particularly for our public relations professionals in attendance, on how social media factors into traditional media and news gathering.

And I can’t say enough about MarketingProfs. They’re using their sponsorship to ensure more people know about their awesome resources and their basic, free membership. I’m a MarketingProfs member. You should be, too. Awesome resource for all of us.

Heck, even the local GM dealers in Dallas-Fort Worth are in on the action. I’ll gladly show off the GMC Acadia Denali I’ll be driving while I’m in town. Awesome to have them involved!

Our final two Compass sponsors are the Social Media Clubs of Dallas and Fort Worth. Without them, and their leadership (respectively Mike Merrill and Stephanie Scott, both of whom are speaking/panelists at Explore) we would have had a hard time getting folks excited about this event.

The critical thing to know about all these sponsors is that we wouldn’t be able to bring such great content to Dallas-Fort Worth without them. And we’ve asked them to bring great content, too. Sure, they’d love to talk to you about their thing. But they’re there to help you as much as any of the speakers are, too.

We do a pretty good job of screening the companies we work with, endorse and put in front of you at events like this. I can honestly say every one of these folks is going to be useful to you in whatever way they can next week.

If you haven’t registered yet, sign up now. We’ve got spots left and don’t want you to miss out. We’re not live streaming this thing, so you have to attend to get all the goodness. Plus, the networking alone is going to be worth the cost of admission.

Head on over and register. Use the code ILOVESME to get a pretty nice discount off the full day’s price. We’ll have breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception for you, tons of networking and lots of great learning. See you in Dallas next Friday!

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by Samantha Peters, an avid blogger who writes about social media, digital marketing, and online communications.

When we talk about blogs and websites these days we often use phrases like “SEO,” “page rank,” and “web statistics.” We pay close attention to our click-throughs, our inbound links, and the way we incorporate advertisers. In short, we approach our sites from a marketing angle and take every opportunity we can to increase and maximize our exposure.

Amidst all this positioning, many bloggers and site managers overlook the most important element of their job: putting out quality content. No measure of marketing or SEO will bring traffic to your site without a degree of content that interests new visitors and makes old one desirous of coming back. A good site will almost always put out good content. An improving site, along these lines, is one that can increase its content quality even while pursuing SEO and other marketing means.

So how can one boost the content quality on his site? Certainly, you can diversify your focus and create more content – but, of course, more isn’t necessarily better. Or you could go in the other direction and narrow down your content, target a more niche audience, and hope that your blog is more unique as a result. But we’re going to assume here that you already have something unique to say. You don’t want to change your focus; rather, you simply want to boost the quality of your output.

Here are a few ways to go about making this happen:

Bring In Contributors

Many bloggers and website managers hesitate to bring in outside contributors, worrying that such contributors would be mediocre writers with uninspiring ideas. While this is certainly a concern, with the proper screening and discretion you can likely find quality contributors that offer a diversity of ideas and opinions – a diversity that can translate into your blog’s content. More writers means more opinions, and more opinions yield a greater variety of content. Quality can only be boosted as a result.

Be Provocative

A topic that you write about is probably not unique on its own. What makes your content interesting and worthwhile, then, is the opinion and argument that you put behind it. This does not mean that you should write angry and offensive posts in hopes of boosting content. Instead, try to be more engaging and persuasive by adding a strong, unique flavor to your content. This will force your readers to think and increase your content quality in the process.

Research More

Many writers and content creators come up with a topic they’d like to discuss, conduct a minimal amount of research, and then quickly turn that research into content. For some people this works just fine, but for others it means that the content they produce is lacking in depth and sophistication. This can be corrected through research. Specifically, you can take a few more minutes to gauge what people think about your topic, consider the topic as a part of larger trends, or to communicate with someone who is an expert in your topic’s field. Your readers will undoubtedly appreciate the added quality this can bring to your content.

While the best way to jump-start the quality of your site is to be creative yourself, these ideas can help fuel those ideas and give you something to fall back on when the juices aren’t flowing. It’s key to know not to push the “publish” button if the content doesn’t stand out. Doing so is almost worse than not publishing anything at all.

What about your ideas? How would you recommend approaching the need to improve the quality content on your blog or website? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

Samantha Peters is an avid blogger who enjoys writing about that latest developments within social media, digital marketing, and the online communication space. Sam lives in sunny San Diego, California where she lives with her dog Leona and frequently writes for The Tech Update.

A study by The Center For Marketing Research declared, “blogging declines as new media rules.” Based on results of a survey sent to the Inc 500, the article states, “there is clearly a shift in how these nimble companies are communicating.”

If it is true that blogging is on the decline, then I’d say these companies are more fickle than nimble. Throwing over — or not starting a blog because it’s easier to use Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest is short-sighted and risky. A blog may be an “old” form of social media but it has five benefits that the newer platforms can’t touch.

Ownership

Unless the internet disappears, a blog is the one platform you know you will always be there when you log in. The equity you build is yours to keep. What guarantee do you have that the time and effort you put into building relationships on Facebook and Twitter will not evaporate one day five years from now? And based on how fickle marketers are, who knows what platform the next social media craze will drive everyone to?  Are you willing to bet 100% of your social media efforts on platforms you don’t control?

Insight

Image via Wikipedia

The data you get from your blog through Google analytics is deeper, more detailed and more valuable than anything you can get from the other platforms. You have the opportunity to test and learn at will on your blog.  Facebook insights are about as good as it gets on the other platforms, yet even that data pale in comparison to the information that Google analytics provides.

SEO

If Google loves your blog, why wouldn’t you? The Google algorithm prefers your blog to your website because it is fresher, and has (hopefully) valuable, original content.  If you’ve been using best practices on your blog by keeping up with it, offering helpful content, writing to your customers’ needs,  in the language they use (using keywords they are looking for), then your blog posts are helping your SEO. Individual Facebook posts or tweets don’t do that for you.

Space

On your blog, there are no limits to the number of characters, image size or overall length.  On a blog, not only can you take as many words and as much space as you want to tell your story, but you can use your blog to extend the space that you have on the other platforms.  Where will you sent thad Pinterest link?  Do you need your Facebook post to link to a story with an image or video?  The blog is the perfect spot.  While you may want to keep certain conversations within the Facebook and Twitter platforms, the blog provides endless opportunities to create landing pages where you can offer your communities on other platforms the opportunity to visit you in your permanent home.

Trust

Trust is what builds your business and your brand. Nothing establishes trust, thought leadership, and authority like a blog. It takes more than 140 or 255 characters to make a point, tell a story, or build a reputation. And it takes the ability to look back and read the history of what has been written to grasp the entire story or the depth of knowledge that a company brings to the table. You can’t look back very far on Facebook and Twitter.

Blogging has such value that virtually all of the most influential social media marketers are bloggers. Seth Godin, who is one of my marketing heroes, uses blogging as virtually his only digital form of marketing.

It’s easy to have our heads turned by the next shiny object in social media and in fact, many of the latest “crazes” are innovative, addictive and at least seemingly, effective. We want to test them, move to them and because we can’t do everything, abandon something else. That’s the definition of being fickle, not nimble.  I’m not sure how to deal with all the new opportunities in social media.  I do know that jumping from one thing to the next because one is easier, even if the other is more solid can come back to bite you later.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

Social media has certainly given the power back to the consumer. But sometimes the consumer doesn’t do nice things with that power. While it could be a matter of perception (the overwhelming sentiment of most brands in online conversational analysis is positive), it certainly seems like the only time we take note of brand mentions online is when someone is whining or bitching about them.

AT&T is one brand that gets unnecessarily beaten about its head and face a lot online. I’ve never quite understood this, perhaps because I’m A) Practical in nature and understand technology messes up sometimes; and B) A fairly happy customer.

Last week, I had two opportunities to experience AT&T. A button on my AT&T U-Verse television remote is not working, so I hopped online to see if I could get a replacement. Within a minute or so of browsing around, I found the live support chat for U-Verse, offered up my problem, answered a series of questions and was told my remote was on its way … no charge.

Separately, I went to my local AT&T store to have my wireless modem replaced since the new operating system with my MacBookPro doesn’t agree with the old one. Michael, the sales associate who greeted me, recommended I upgrade to a MyFi unit which would not only give more than one device access and save me $10 per month on my bill, but it came with a $50 rebate. When I left the store, I got this email:

Personalized, relevant and useful. It even includes the personal contact information for Michael, the actual guy who helped me. I haven’t seen that from many retail stores before. Nice touch.

I’m sure plenty of people have had bad experiences with AT&T, as well as with other brands. But why do we rush to the Twitters of the world when we’re pissed, but aren’t apt to do so when we have a good experience?

My mother used to tell me if you can’t say something nice about someone, you shouldn’t say anything at all. Of course, I seldom heed my mother’s advice, but in this case it might be appropriate.

Certainly, as consumers, we have a right to bitch. But we should also take the opportunity to not.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

You see it everywhere. Management teams and marketers desperately want to understand how social media is delivering to the bottom line. Marketers are getting tons of pressure from their management teams and are desperate for a way to prove their strategies are working. With so many chomping at the bit to get at true return on investment (ROI), how has it remained so elusive? Has social media become the marketing channel that we know we need to have, but can’t demonstrate why?

What if Social Media ROI was really simple, but we let a bunch of excuses get in our way of measuring it? Unfortunately, I think our judgment has been a little clouded because we’ve seen social media experts give one reason or another as to why we can’t measure social media ROI. To be successful we have to separate our ability to measure ROI from our personal views on whether or not we should measure social media ROI. So let’s take a look at some of the excuses that are being used to convince us that we can’t or shouldn’t measure social media ROI and remove our preconceived notions to determine how we can get the metrics we need.

The Politics of Social Media ROI

Excuse #1: Social Media Lacks a Standard Framework for Measurement

Surveys have shown that marketers believe they lack a standard social media ROI metric. We’ve decided that social media is new and different than every other marketing channel and therefore we have to measure it differently. We are struggling trying to show the ROI of every conversation or think the experts who tout social media measurement have a secret formula. We’ve created way too much work for ourselves here.

All companies already have a standard framework for measuring business success using three core metrics: sales (units), revenue, and cost. We’ve figured out how to correlate almost every other marketing channel into its impact on these three metrics, but are trying to keep social media separate. We don’t need a standard framework for measuring social media; instead we need to show how social media impacts the standard framework for measuring business success: sales, revenue and cost.

Excuse #2: We Don’t Measure the ROI of (insert something)

I’ve seen this argument all over the place. We don’t measure the ROI of email, our phones, even our pants so why should we have to measure the ROI of social media? The argument is that measuring social media ROI is hypocritical because we aren’t measuring the ROI of other types of business tools, platforms, or technologies. While we may not measure the ROI of email or our phones, in actuality, companies are measuring the ROI of other marketing channels like TV/Radio advertising, public relations, online advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO) so why wouldn’t we use similar metrics to measure the ROI of social media?

The truth is we can actually leverage the metrics we use in these marketing channels to demonstrate the value of social media while we are collecting the data points to ultimately calculate an apples-to-apples ROI comparison.

All of the metrics can be effectively collected and calculated for social media and compared across marketing channels to see where social media is delivering value.

Excuse #3: We need to Redefine ROI for Social Media

There have been some really intriguing posts written about trying to create new metrics for social media like Return on Influence and Return on Engagement that more accurately demonstrate where social media is delivering. I have a huge amount of respect for marketers who are trying to find ways to measure social media in an innovative way. The challenge is when we create “new” metrics we have to spend a lot of time and energy educating our management teams on what these metrics are, how they correlate to existing metrics and ultimately what they mean for the bottom line. Therefore, I recommend that you focus on using metrics that have history in the organization first.

If you are spending your time trying to train an executive on what a “follower,” “fan,”  or “retweet” is you could be wasting valuable time that could be focused on conversations about how to scale and grow the results you are seeing from social media. Compare this conversation to other marketing channels. Can you imagine trying to explain the intricacies of trying to increase search engine rankings by unraveling the pieces we think impact the Google algorithm to your management team? You would definitely see a lot of faces that look like a deer in the headlights, right? If you can transform your dialogue with social media to how it impacts the bottom line you will be far more successful in getting new projects and investments approved.

Excuse #4: Tools Don’t Exist to Measure Social Media ROI

There is a lot of confusion between measurement tools and monitoring tools in the social media space. This is further confused as monitoring tools are saying they measure social media ROI in their marketing materials. I’m a huge fan of monitoring tools and use them for clients. However, I haven’t seen one that provides end-to-end measurement. Why? Because social media is only one marketing channel, but its impact has to be measured across other marketing platforms. There are four pieces that need to be connected to measure the full impact of social media: the social media channel, the company’s website, the email platform, and the customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Sound impossible? Instead of looking for the answer in a social media tool, look at the tools you already have. What do you use to measure web analytics, online advertising campaigns, your email campaigns and revenue? Then ask how you can incorporate social media into the data these tools provide. This is my social media measurement recommendation for under $20 a month. It’s not perfect, but it gets you really close and is the best value I can find on the market.

Excuse #5: ROI Doesn’t Demonstrate the True Value of Social Media

Again, there is a difference between the ability to measure social media ROI and deciding whether or not it demonstrates the value of social media. I would agree that the financial metric of ROI may not tell the full story, however it is a metric that management teams live, eat and breathe. While it may not show the whole story, it certainly can tell a compelling one.

Keep in mind that you can’t measure social media ROI unless you can show the impact on revenue. Connecting to the CRM system is the missing link that is required for true ROI calculations. Companies who collect revenue through an e-commerce system will find it easier to get to revenue than other companies, however it isn’t impossible and I’ve done it with as few as 8 development hours. However, while you are finding a way to connect to revenue focus on costs. Social media typically costs much less than other types of marketing efforts and cost metrics will show a positive impact to the bottom line, while you build the connections you need to demonstrate traditional ROI.

What are your thoughts on social media ROI? Do you find yourself getting in your own way to measuring? What other excuses have you seen marketers use to avoid ROI? Please leave a comment and let’s start a healthy debate on social media ROI.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. (Including me!) AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

Related Content:

• No Fluff Social Media Measurement: Social Media Measurement Boot Camp
• 6 Ways to Track the Impact of Social Media on Public Relations
• How to Integrate HootSuite with Google Analytics Campaign Reporting
• 8 Social Media Metrics You Should be Measuring

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Emily Eldridge, Senior Vice President of Pure.

It’s tempting to think that employees’ online discussions about your company should be curbed.  Most company policies in the modern workplace exist to protect us from lawsuits – and to ostensibly protect employees from themselves.  While it’s understandable to want control over our corporate image, this fear dimishes our employees’ ability to communicate.  A stronger approach is to empower our staff to be brand advocates.

Advocate for Your Employees

Companies should decide whether their employees are advocates or people to censor.  If you help your employees understand what’s confidential and why, they will be able to make wise choices themselves.  True opportunity lies in giving them something to talk about, so they don’t feel constricted – just directed.

As a company, if you are at all worried about proprietary information or your reputation, you should have an online reputation management strategy in place.  Within that, all mentions of the company and its essential keywords should be tracked and analyzed to ensure that corporate communication is monitored and updated where necessary.

Image via Wikipedia

From the time we are old enough to exercise free will, hearing “don’t” instinctively makes us want to try what’s off-limits.  While we mature and learn from others, this instinct never entirely goes away.  For an organization’s employees, the brand is part of their identity.  This is who they get out of bed to work for every day, and this is who provides compensation in return, keeping food on the table.  They’re passionate about that brand.  As such, when a company says, “Don’t talk about us,” it is detrimental toward the morale and the feelings of inclusivity within the corporate family.  It can also lead to further issues, including making the employee question whether or not the company is honest with its employees or values their participation.

In addition to how the employee feels, think about this scenario.  Your employee attends an industry meeting in which a peer says, “Heard about ___, such a shame.  What happened there?”  If the employee is not included in communications and does not keep track of every mention of the company, he will have no clue what the person is talking about.  In minor cases, this can be laughed off.  But imagine how much more organized the company would look if every time the company was mentioned in such a setting, the employee would at least be familiar enough to say, “It was unfortunate, but we are making progress with A, B and C.”  Knowledge is power.

Worst-Case Scenario

In the worst cases, employees create separate accounts to distance their personal and professional lives.  Pretending to be something he isn’t for the sake of your company means that he either shouldn’t be working there (i.e., his personality doesn’t fit your culture), or that he’s a bad person (i.e., he’s a criminal and freely chronicling that online).  Each person’s online presence should be a reflection of his life. Sure, you’ll emphasize different subject matter depending on the audience, just as you emphasized your awesome professors to your mom – and your parties to your friends – when you were in college.

If employees set up two accounts, it’s likely that one won’t include real names.  That makes it much more difficult for you to track and rectify miscommunications.  Maintaining separate accounts is not the answer; awareness and filtering should be all employees really need.

Get Your Employees to Advocate for You

It’s important to define advocacy.  You’ll have some employees who will be base-level advocates, which means you’ll provide them with basic guidelines and information on “things to talk about.”  They probably won’t mention the company much, if at all, in their day-to-day social media activity, but at least they know what they should talk about.

Then you’ll have what I call “advocates,” those people who want to actively participate in discussing brand-oriented things online.  You’ll also have “super advocates,” who will be able to champion specific causes, do research, and really engage, creating community around a topic related to your business objectives.  These are the people you will invest heavy strategy in.

If your corporation doesn’t have a current policy, scour the web.  Find out which people within the company are already proactively talking.  You may be able to identify super advocates this way.  You should also recruit people by simply asking, “How do you feel about talking about our company online?”  For those who indicate they will rarely talk about the company, put them at the base level.  Those who say they’re interested, but would only occasionally post, are advocates.  People who are excited and ready to get started should be deemed super advocates.

You have three groups of people; now you’ll engage in segmentation.  Everyone should receive something, giving them the option to post about the company and equipping them with the right material.  Advocates and super advocates should receive additional information, as well as suggestions on circles in which discussion on the topic would be appropriate.

Give the best brand advocates a subject to speak on over time; this can differ from person to person.  Notify them when important corporate announcements are going to be made, and give them instructions on how they can assist in getting the word out.  Even better, give them in-house communication responsibilities relevant to the subject they’ve been assigned.  This will ensure that they are doing their due diligence on the subject matter, and it ensures that other people within the organization are aware of important information.  It’s critical to keep your internal team as informed as your key media contacts or PR agency.

While it’s easy to reject the idea of employees as the face of your organization, it’s also dangerous.  The people you entrust with your success in the office are the same people you should entrust with your reputation online.  Empower them to talk about you, and they’ll only have good things to say.

Emily Eldridge is Senior Vice President of Pure, a membership-driven resource network for marketing agencies, and co-founder of The Agency Post. As SVP, Emily’s job is to extend member agencies’ capabilities and capacity by bringing together valuable services, products and information to create internal and client-related strategic solutions.

It’s no secret to many of you — it-getters in the sense that you at least read Social Media Explorer and are likely bought in — that social media marketing can have a huge impact on your business. But we still see more case studies from major brands playing in the social channels than we do small businesses. With the fact that 44 percent of small businesses don’t even have a website, much less social media efforts, it’s no surprise that there’s a gap between success cases in small versus medium and large businesses.

Small businesses typically face one critical battle when thinking about social media marketing: Time. They don’t have time to think about marketing, much less social media marketing. Often, a small business owners is also the janitor, the store clerk, the accountant, the donut maker and more. Who has time, or energy, after all that, to write blog posts, Tweet or engage with customers on Facebook?

Fortunately, there are smart people out there like Mike Merrill, who spend a good portion of their time thinking about how small businesses can leverage social media marketing in effective and efficient ways. That’s why he’ll be joining our roster of awesome speakers at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth on February 17. (Yes, that’s ONE WEEK FROM THIS FRIDAY!) I caught up with Mike recently to talk about the plight of the small business and what they can do to get social:

You won’t want to miss the business insights Mike has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. He’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Nichole Kelly of Full Frontal ROI, Tim Hayden from 44 Doors, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception is $400, (the video says the first 100 get in for $250, but those sold out already). HOWEVER! Let’s see if you’re paying attention! Register and use the code “ILOVESME” and you’ll get the early-bird price of $250, no matter what! Can’t beat that! Go reserve your spot!

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

Operationalizing social media across the organization is perhaps on of the most challenging aspects of social media for companies and brands. Too many look at social media as a consumer-facing communications channel and forget that departments from HR to research and development and even internal collaboration among divisions can all be helped by social technologies and strategies.

We’re addressing that issue at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth in several discussions, one major one led by Zena Weist, Vice-President of Digital Strategy for Edelman. Her experience at brands like Embarq, Sprint and H&R Block, plus the brands she’s working with in her current role, gives her a unique and experienced look at how to incorporate social across the organization. She’ll share not just advice, but case studies on how to do it.

I caught up with Zena recently to get some good information from her before the event and for those of you who may not be able to attend. I asked her why companies funnel social media into a consumer-side communications channel, how we can get our organizations to move that thinking to internal and cross-silo mechanisms, how marketers can be in front of policy issues and more.

The full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception is $400, but let’s see if you’re paying attention! Register and use the code “ILOVESME” and you’ll get the early-bird price of $250, no matter what! Can’t be that! Go reserve your spot!

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

By now, many social media managers have realized a hardnosed reality: Most subject matter experts within the corporate walls don’t have time (or the skills) to blog. So you have two choices:

• Write/edit their blogs for them (and give up the rest of your life since writing is very time consuming)
• Hire a specialist or “real writer” to write for them.

That would be a journalist or professional business writer. (I use these interchangeably, even though there are some solid business writers who were never journalists.)

Hiring a good journalist has huge advantages — this is what they do. Journalists are trained to research, report, and write. They’re skilled in the art of connecting with targeted audiences with compelling, relevant content-and they’re storytellers which separates them from the rest of the corporate pack.

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But the key is you want to hire the right writer, one that will deliver solid, compelling content and is a good fit.

I’ve been on both sides of the fence, in senior editorial positions hiring writers for big tech companies, and more recently, developing content for corporate clients as an agency. My first advice: look before you leap. A weak or ill-fitted writer, or one just learning the corporate ropes, can slow you down. They can even wreak havoc, forcing you to spend extra time managing them and cleaning up their messes.

In most of these cases I’m talking about typical corporate bloggers (vs. senior executives) who just need a writer or editor’s support. They’ll spend the time to share their detailed thoughts with the writer and work closely with them on story angles. The final result should be their “voice” even though it was written/edited by a professional. This isn’t that far from speech writing, but for some reason the social media purists have a problem with ghost writing for corporate bloggers.

So look for the following when you go to hire a writer:

1. Solid industry experience - They need to have a record of solid achievement. Check their references. What subjects do they write best about (industry expertise)? Did they deliver on time? Were they reliable, accurate? And if there was an issue, did they quickly take care of it? Would their former bosses hire them again?
2. Good fit - You don’t want a fashion writer writing about high tech. Still, a good writer can quickly adapt as long as they have solid business writing experience. Better to focus on getting a great writer than the perfect specialist, which is nearly impossible in some B2B and niche areas.
3.  Editorial skills - Blogging is a different style of writing than magazine or newspaper writing. Can they write in short bursts? Is it catchy, engaging? Are they good storytellers? How do they develop their stories (through use of personal anecdotes, etc.)? Don’t forget the basics either: They need to be very detailed in checking their facts and very accurate. If a blog blows up, it’s likely going to land in your lap.
4. Web knowledge - Good writers know the online world and how to connect with key audiences, but some are better versed than others. Query them about how their web knowledge and how they write to connect with their audiences. How do they do their research (Google alerts, Twitter, LinkedIn groups, etc.)? Are they socially active?  Do they have a Twitter following, are they active on Facebook, Google+, etc.? None of these are mission critical, but certainly can indicate how much lift you may get from their connectivity.
5. Communications skills - Journalists are trained to question the status quo, look under rocks, charge ahead in the pursuit of truth, etc. This often goes over like a lead balloon in the corporate world, so look for a well-rounded writer who is comfortable in this environment and knows how to work closely with your key stakeholders and bloggers.
6. Proactivity - You want a writer who’ll not be just an order taker. They need to proactively come up with story ideas and fresh angles to help you feed the content machine. Before you hire them, ask for some suggested topics: “How would you handle this subject?”
7. The “right” personality/attitude - This can be tricky. Like any other profession, some writers have better personalities and attitudes to fit the job. They need to be able to “sell” themselves and their ideas, and be versatile. Amazingly, some writers push back on doing multi-revisions and/or resist on being heavily edited (personally, this was beat out of me years ago at Business Week). Set expectations early on with agreements over how many revisions can be expected and what type of blogs the writer will be dealing with. If you have one that’s particularly difficult (i.e., multiple rewrites), put it on the table. In fact, setting clear expectations across the board on deadlines, quality of writing, meetings and so-on is critical.

Personality and values that sync with yours can be as important as editorial skills and experience. Once when I was at Intel, my partner and I hired a writer to help us ghost-write our family computing book for a division of Random House (referred to me by a personal friend). The guy had some decent clips, but turned out to be difficult to manage and would go off for days following different research trails. The result was mountains of barely relevant material we’d have to sort out. Even worse he was stubborn and wouldn’t listen to directions, even arguing with us. We finally let him go.

Another time several years ago we hired a senior writer to work on a four month editorial project for us for an ample fee. He did a good job. But when we came to near the end of the time frame, we’d exhausted the budget but still had several loose ends we needed help on (mainly proofreading materials, double-checking facts, etc.), basically asking him for a favor. He refused to budge, arguing he’d used up his hours, and we were out of money. We scrambled to get it done and meet the deadline. Writers have to make a living, but much of business is about being flexible and bending a little to help the client and get the job done; but this writer wasn’t into trade-offs or building good will. Needless to say, we never used him again.

The point is a good writer needs to have more than strong editorial skills. They need to be able to navigate through the corporate jungle and deal with various personalities. You’ll never find a writer with 100 percent of all of these qualities. If you do, send them my way. A good writer is hard to find, even today.

What about your perspective. Have you hired writers or bloggers for your company? What else would you add? Tell us in the comments.

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

It’s the question that social media evangelists, speakers, consultants and practitioners begrudgingly have to answer. Sometimes, they have to or their jobs are in jeopardy. What is the ROI of social media. While I have my own perspective on that, there are many ideas and opinions on the issue. Part of what we plan to provide with our Explore events this year is a better understanding of the ROI question for all who attend.

Nichole Kelly, who not only writes for us here at SME but is so passionate about return-on-investment she named her company Full Frontal ROI, will be tackling the topic of ROI from a no fluff (read: no bullshit) perspective in Dallas on Feb. 17 at our first Explore event of the year. Kelly has a strong brand-side background and specializes in translating social media analytics and metrics to executive teams and C-level folks so they “get” what we’re doing. Her talk is going to be of great value to all who are in Dallas.

I caught up with Nichole recently to ask some questions about why companies struggle with the ROI issue and what they can do about it.

Be sure to check out Nichole over at her blog and assortment of writers at Full Frontal ROI.

You won’t want to miss the business insights Nichole has to give at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. She’ll be speaking there, along with an all-star lineup that includes Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Chris Baccus from AT&T, Adrian Parker of Radio Shack, DJ Waldow from Waldow Social and more. The event will also feature a number of excellent software providers and companies to help you navigate the waters of digital marketing. They’ll bring their knowledge to share as well as their products. This is a must-attend event, so register now!

The first 100 registrants spots are filling up quickly! Register now and get the full day’s content, breakfast, lunch (by Wolfgang Puck Catering) and a cocktail reception for just $250! After the first 100 seats are gone, the price of the event is $400, so save $150 now and reserve your spot.

Explore is a five-city conference event series from Social Media Explorer and presented by Expion and Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Learn more and sign up for email updates for the city nearest you at socialmediaexplorer.com/product/events.

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is a guest post from Jordan Viator Slabaugh, Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management solution provider and SME client.

Using social media for business requires companies to embrace social channels to satisfy the needs of their customers, prospects and networks. This can mean many different tactics for various types of companies, but content is always at the heart of this activity.

On the heels of Community Manager Appreciation Day, it’s worth noting that Social Fresh found “community managers, surprisingly, spend more time on content creation than any other task.” In his latest report on managing social media, Jeremiah Owyang lists developing a content strategy as one of the key steps every social media strategist needs to undertake. And Beth Kanter recently wrote about the debate between creating versus curating content, highlighting a checklist from the Content Marketing Institute on creating valuable content.

Developing and executing a content strategy is one of the most time consuming tasks for most strategists. But with proper planning, this crucial area of focus can ensure better and more relevant content for your network while also making sure your company is sharing the most important messages from a company stand-point. One of the sections of the new whitepaper “The 7 Sessions Every Social Strategists Needs to Have”, a practical framework for how to approach and plan for this includes:

Planning out Content Proactively

You don’t sit down to write and send email messages and new webpage content in real time to send to your entire customer base, so why would you do the same for all of your social content. Using a centralized editorial calendar, strategists should be planning out social content before it’s actually being published. It guarantees your social channels won’t go silent due to team members having a busy day in the office, and it helps multiple people have insight into what is being planned and published.

Repurposing Content for Social Media Channels

You share the same or similar content across all your other communication channels. Why would social media be any different? It’s true that social media shouldn’t be used to spam your network by cramming marketing messages down its throat, but these people are also interested in hearing about company news, discounts, product updates and new content available. If you’re not thinking about what content you already have that can also be shared with your social networks, you’re doing extra work and missing opportunities to provide value.

Centralizing Content to Be Accessed Easily

Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common.

If you have more than one person active in social media for your company, you know how complex it can be to stay coordinated. Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common. Have you considered creating a content library where all team members can find sample Tweets, Facebook status updates, links to new content or responses to common questions?

Build Social Activity into Campaign Plans

Social doesn’t exist in a vacuum (or at least, it shouldn’t). In the same way you assess what content you have in existence to share in social, you should assess how social media is an integral part of every campaign you launch or run. How can you use social media to launch your new product? What social media elements can be integrated to help amplify your latest marketing campaign? Or what content can help satisfy overarching customer care efforts?

Assess and Adjust Course as Needed

Content strategy is an ever-evolving aspect of social media. Your networks grow, your customer base changes and people’s interests vary. Tracking things like what content receives the most impressions, clicks, engagement and shares can help your social media program flourish over time. It also helps make sure you stay as relevant as possible to your network.

Content is one of the key aspects to a successful social media program. If you’re  not already thinking of this from a higher level, the time is now. Ann Handley of Marketing Profs said it best “In 2012, businesses will rise about the din of mediocrity and retool their content efforts to create a sustainable, workable model that produces stuff that has merit.”

How are you planning on creating your model?

Have You Registered For Explore Dallas-Fort Worth?

Don’t miss a day of intensive learning with some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in the digital marketing and social media marketing space. AT&T’s Chris Baccus, Radio Shack’s Adrian Parker, Copyblogger’s Brian Clark, Edison Research’s Tom Webster, Edelman Digital’s Zena Weist and more headline one of the leading digital and social media marketing events of 2012, next Friday, February 17 in Dallas, Texas! DON’T WAIT TO REGISTER! Seats are filling fast! Reserve yours today!

Jordan Viator Slabaugh is the Director of Social Media at Spredfast, a social media management system for enterprise companies and agencies.  She leads the company’s Marketing and social media strategy, as well as consults with clients on using social media to help achieve social business goals. She tweets at @jordanv and writes about social business best practices and trends on the Spredfast Social Business blog.