A brand’s customers represent some of their best resources, yet most brands leave them on the bench

My last post criticized the content that a lot of brands share via social media – the incessant begging for likes and shares, the linkbaiting, and the meme-jacking that brands have adopted in their constant quest for “engagement.” Instead of following some guru’s best practices formula for social media content that will increase your followers, friends, and comments, try to have the conversations they actually want to have. You might be surprised at what you’ll learn and how it can transform your business for the better. The fun, informal banter still has its place, but make sure you balance the small talk with some actual substance. After all, you’re not in business just to amass likes, followers, and fans are you? Next time you’re working on your social media content calendar, start thinking about some of the conversations your customers want to have -

• Your history. Over the last ten years, I’ve talked with hundreds of clients who have some amazing stories about how their organization/brand/company began and how it got to where it is today. You know that boring “About Us” page you have your website? Breathe some life into that content and make it a story. Believe it or not, your fans are interested in hearing about the history of your brand – why do you think brands like Coca-Cola, Porsche, and Mercedes-Benz have created entire museums dedicated to their history? For those brands that can’t create their own museums, Facebook’s timeline feature allows you to share that history virtually. Look at what Manchester United or Ben and Jerry’s are doing with their timelines for an example. Go and talk with people who know your brand’s history. Listen to the stories. Collect old photos and videos. Share those stories with your fans. 
  
• Ideas that didn’t make the cut. Your cutting room floor is a gold mine for social media content. Share those ideas that were discarded and explain why they weren’t implemented. Too expensive to make? Too niche? Too controversial? You might be surprised to find that your fans and followers love them even though your creative department didn’t. Ideas and products that might have been killed before are now becoming alternate ending, hugely successful products, and breakout hits because brands now understand that going directly to their fans are often better indicators of success than surveys, ratings, and focus groups.
• The “why” behind business decisions. Did you just have to lay off some employees? Get out in front of the story and explain why. Talk about the numbers behind the move. Share the long-term view. Be empathetic. But most of all, be honest. Customers understand you run a business and that there are often tough decisions to be made, but they won’t understand why you would be all cloak-and-dagger about it. Talk openly and honestly when the going gets tough and though it might not be intuitive to you, they’ll love you more for it.
• Challenges. Your social media fans are more than clicks, likes, and followers – they’re potentially important team members that you’re ignoring. Got a product or business challenge you’re struggling with? Open up your data and bring your customers into the process. You might be surprised to discover the value they will bring. Interestingly enough, brands can look to the government for guidance on this as Challenge.gov is a great example of how to create content and get your customers involved.
• Your culture. Your customers want to get to know your brand, your real brand, not the one ginned up by marketing, but who you really are and what you’re all about. They want to understand your culture, your work environment, the way you do things. Why do you think shows like Undercover Boss, The Pitch, and Restaurant Impossible are so popular? Why do you think Zappos gives tours of their headquarters? Why do you think virtual tours of company offices are so popular? They pull back the curtain on the brands they buy from.
• New product uses. When you think of the Porsche 911, you probably think of the iconic sports car that rich guys only drive on Sundays. However, did you know that it’s actually a car that thousands of people drive every single day? A car that takes kids to school? A car that has four-wheel drive that you can put your skis on top and take to the slopes? A car that can fit all your groceries and golf clubs? So Porsche went out and asked their customers how they use their Porsche every single day. (disclaimer: my agency created this campaign).
• Requests for feedback. How are we doing? What could we be doing better? What do you love about us? What words come to mind when you think about our brand? What do your friends and family think about our brand? Just like that annoying guy who won’t shut up at the party, most brands never stop sharing content long enough to simply ask their customers for their thoughts. Sometimes all it takes is a “what questions about our products/services do you have?” to get the ball rolling.
• Your causes. What does your brand care about? Customers want to know that your brand is about more than just profits. Go beyond just writing a check and a photo opp. Panera uses their website and social media to tell the story of their passion – feeding the hungry of America. (disclaimer: my agency created this campaign). Does your brand contribute money to a local or national charity? Do they volunteer? If so, make sure you get someone there to capture these stories to share them.

Great content marketing shouldn’t only be about determining what content will lead to the most likes, comments, or followers. It should be about creating and sharing content that tells your brand’s unique story, creating conversations with your customers that lead to greater customer loyalty. You may not want to have these conversations. You may not be ready to have them. You may be scared at what your customers might say. You may not know how to react. That’s too bad because avoiding these conversations is no longer an option. If you aren’t ready to have these conversations, don’t you think that’s telling you something? Shouldn’t this be an opportunity to fix what’s broken internally so that when your customers demand to have these conversations (and they will), you’re ready for them?

Somehow I don’t think these are the conversations consumers are looking for from brands

Fast Company just published another article discussing how customers are no longer satisfied just with good products and services or low prices – they want collaboration and conversation from brands. In another Fast Company article from January, they state that “brands, marketers believe, ought to start acting less like things and more like people, and they should engage traditional humans, their consumers, in dialogue.” IBM’s Global CEO Study found that 88% of CEOs said “getting closer to customers” was the top priority for their business over the next five years. Amazon has 200 books in their “social media for business” category all using the same cliches – have two-way conversations, engage with your customers, be more human, etc.

Finally! Social media is going to change the way business works. Brands will come down from their ivory towers and customers will have actual input into the products and services they purchase. Brands win! Customers win! Social media saves the day! Unfortunately, the “conversations” most brands are trying to have with their customers aren’t exactly the ones so often described in these books, presentations, studies, and blog posts. Rather than co-collaborating on new products, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of current ones, sharing new ideas, and having conversations about corporate issues, brands are asking begging and groveling for likes, shares, and comments. Brands have become that annoying insecure friend who always tries just a little too hard and is constantly looking for affirmation from those around them.

“I texted you 8 times last night but you never texted me back? Are we still friends?

“Pleeeeease come over and hang out tonight…please??”

“I was just calling to see if you got my email asking if you wanted to go out tonight. If you come out, I’ll buy the drinks. You in?”

Ummmm…sure – just don’t forget you offered to buy. Unfortunately, this is the relationship most brands have with their customers in social media – “please please please like me!! If you do, I’ll give you some free stuff.” They beg you to like, comment, and share pictures of cats, ask questions like “what’s your favorite number?“ and jump on the bandwagon of whatever trend they can find (side note: the Condescending Corporate Brand Facebook page is one of my new guilty pleasures). Somehow, I don’t think these are the types of conversations that Fact Company, Harvard Business Review, and IBM had in mind. For most customers, liking a brand in social media isn’t about engagement or conversations. It’s about transactions. If you give me something (coupons, discounts), I’ll put up with your annoying habits (spamming my social media feeds). Instead of using social media to rethink the typical business-to-consumer relationship, they’ve just moved their same old business practices and metrics to a new medium. Instead of actually building mutually beneficial relationships with you know, actual people, marketers have reduced social media to a series of algorithms, likes, and clicks. Harvard Business Review conducted a study last year that should be required reading for every brand marketer and social media guru. In it, they debunked three common social media marketing best practices -

1. Most consumers want to have relationships with your brand (no, they don’t)
2. Interactions build relationships (not these interactions)
3. The more interactions, the better (please, make them stop)

You should go read the whole post, but if you don’t, at least heed this piece of advice when managing your brand’s social media efforts -

“Instead of relentlessly demanding more consumer attention, treat the attention you do win as precious. Then ask yourself a simple question of any new marketing efforts: is this campaign/email/microsite/print ad/etc. going to reduce the cognitive overload consumers feel as they shop my category? If the answer is “no” or “not sure,” go back to the drawing board. When it comes to interacting with your customers, more isn’t better.”

What kinds of conversations is your brand having with its customers? Are you bastardizing social media by begging for likes and shares  instead of deriving some value from them? Brands have all these tools at their disposal to tap into the hearts and minds of their most important stakeholders – their customers – and yet most let that power waste away with pictures of cats and Call Me Maybe videos. Be the better brand. Instead of asking for a like, be the brand people actually like.

My Two-Year Old Daughter, AKA my Social Media Expert

After listening to me tell my wife about the idea in the presentation, my daughter Annabelle looked up at me and said, “why, Daddy?”

Me (dummy): “Well, because they want people to share pictures with their friends.”

Annabelle (social media expert): “What pictures? Like of kitties or doggies? I like kitties.”

Me: “Well, not quite. More like pictures of their products”

Annabelle: “Why?”

Me: “Because they want their customers to take pictures of their products and share them with their friends.”

Annabelle: ”Why would they do that Daddy?”

Me: “….”

Well OK then. Aside from considering setting aside some budget to hire a new (very) junior freelancer, I realized that my two-year old asked a question that everyone else seemed to have failed to ask – why? Why would someone share that?

Too many people get caught up in all the hype and hyperbole surrounding social media that they lose sight of what’s really important. Instead of using social media to achieve actual business goals like sales, attendance, or customer satisfaction, they chase numbers like fans, followers, mentions, or likes because those big numbers sound awesome in presentations. Social media becomes the end in and of itself, rather than the means.

As you develop social media strategies and tactics, take some advice from a two-year-old and ask “why?” But don’t stop there. Ask all the questions – ask who, what, when, where, and how too. Force everyone to stay focused on the business objectives, not the big numbers that sounds great in presentations. Following Annabelle’s lead, I’ve come up with a few questions that I now ask my teams all the time -

• Why would anyone share this?
• What’s in it for the customer?
• What does success look like?
• Why are we dedicating resources to this instead of that?
• How will this help us sell more products/services?
• What happens if we don’t do this?
• How does this fit with our company DNA?
• What happens when…?
• Who’s responsible for…?

And the next time you’re listening to some social media expert drone on about some new social media tactic, try acting like a two-year-old and ask a bunch of questions. You might be surprised to discover that no one else has bothered to ask the simplest question of all – why?

As your grassroots community takes the next step to becoming an official one, what challenges will you face?

Way back in 2008, microblogging and enterprise collaboration platform Yammer launched at TechCrunch50. A week later, I became member #1 of the Yammer network at my old firm, a 25,000 person consulting firm with offices all over the country. That started a three-year journey into the world of Enterprise 2.0, including growing our Yammer community from 1 to more than 7,000 when I left, consulting with dozens of organizations and government agencies, managing our official award-winning collaboration community, attending and speaking at Enterprise 2.0 Conferences, guest blogging over at AIIM, and writing a whole bunch of blog posts.

Over the years, “Enterprise 2.0″ has evolved from fringe buzzword to an massive industry. The change agents who risked their jobs and reputations to start these networks a few years ago are being held up as innovators and leaders. Organizations that were loathe to spend any money on something as “soft” as collaboration are now spending millions to create robust internal communities on their Intranets.

But with this evolution comes a host of challenges as well. Official communities that began with large budgets are struggling to maintain their success with diminished resources. Passionate evangelists have left without anyone to take their place. Grassroots communities that sprouted up using freemium versions of these tools are trying to transition to officially sanctioned tools.

It’s these communities – the ones trying to migrate from free, unofficial, grassroots communities to official, integrated ones – that face some tough challenges now. There’s often an influx of new members, unfamiliar with the culture. Community mores and processes that worked with a smaller community don’t scale. Community leaders who emerged are replaced with community leaders who are named by leadership. Senior leadership pays closer attention to the conversations that occur, exposing some of the more frivolous discussions that may take place. And usability may suffer as the technology gets integrated into other systems and secured more than ever before.

As these communities make this transition and start anew, officially, I wanted to revisit six of my old Enterprise 2.0 posts to serve as reminders for those people responsible for these official migrations.

Dance with the one that brung ya. As organizations begin turning these grassroots communities into official ones, there’s a tendency to also name “official” leaders, community managers, and admins. Organizations may hire new people to take on these jobs, or they may move existing employees into these roles. While having a dedicated team and resources to manage the community is undoubtedly one of the benefits of formalizing the community, don’t forget about the people who have brought the community this far.  These are the people who, without a formal policy, budget, or title have acted as referees, mentors, teachers, cheerleaders, and janitors for the community, all while also performing their “real” job. These people built and managed the community because they were passionate about it, not because they were tasked to do so. Involve them. Formalize their roles. Get their support. They’ve built up the community’s respect out of what they’ve done for it, not because they have a fancy title. They evolved from users to community managers to role models.

Don’t take the social out of “social media.” Social networking has always been and will continue to be a vital part of any organization, whether it happens online or on the softball field. People who work together don’t just talk about the work they do. Sure, that constitutes the bulk of the conversations, but people also talk about the game last night, share war stories about their kids, or complain about having to work late or the parking situation at the office. All those interactions build up over time, eventually creating trusted relationships among people who work closely together and often leading to more effective collaboration. Social networking platforms just allow us to extend those relationships to more people than ever before. The sooner managers realize that, the sooner they will recognize the benefits that such tools can provide.

Embrace the LOLCats. If you want to create a vibrant culture of collaboration, you need to be OK with pictures of LOLCats, posts about the NFL playoffs, arguments about Apple and Android, and criticism of company policies. What will follow is that these stupid, silly, foolish discussions will lead to relationships, questions, answers, and finally, very cool innovations, products, and solutions that will save you money, win you awards, and really and truly create a social business.

Don’t overthink the tech. Once an organization decides to go from freemium to premium and dedicate actual resources and budget to creating these internal communities, there’s a mad rush to start implementing all the cool features that weren’t available before. Integration with existing systems! Advanced administrative controls! Mass distribution of invitations! Before you get all worked up over all of this cool new tech, remember the three most basic rules – make it fast, make it accessible, and make it reliable. Get your newfound IT resources using the tool themselves so they can identify potential bugs, glitches, and feature requests first, before they negatively impact the rest of the community.

Temper the passions. As you move from an unofficial to official community, there will be a mashup of “stars” – the champions who became the unofficial community managers and those who will be designated official community managers in the new community. These stars and their passions bring both positives and negatives to the community. While these active champions will be responsible for a majority of the content, answering questions, posting content, editing pages, and creating topics, they can also skew the content to suit their own agenda and create a chilling effect on opposing viewpoints and topics. Left unchecked, they do have the potential to take over the community – its members, its content, and its discussion. The key is in channeling their energy and enthusiasm and focus it on helping grow the community as a whole, to include topics other than social media and technology.

Remember that this is about change management, not technology. Getting people to change the way they work takes time. To maintain the momentum, make sure you clearly communicate what problems the community is helping people solve. Help users see how the community will help them in their day-to-day lives. Get senior leaders to lead by example and engage with the community directly using the tools they’re already supporting in their emails and Powerpoints (even if it means occasionally being wrong). Provide meaningful, useful content every day, to every single user. Design the technology for the end-user, not for the IT department or for some senior leader. And finally, evolve the community based on the community’s feedback. Allow them to see how their feedback is shaping the future of the community.

As these organizations make the transition from unofficial, grassroots communities using free platforms to officially integrated communities on expensive, licensed platforms, some will succeed in scaling that sense of community to better the organization as a whole. Other organizations will see bureaucracy and old ways of doing things destroy the very communities they’re trying to scale. To avoid the latter, remember that this is still a community you’re building, not a new IT platform. Sure, it may sound great to talk about the thousands of users or the 90% adoption rate in conference presentations and blog posts, but that’s sacrificing long-term benefits for short-term gains. Stop chasing the numbers and stay focused on your business goals. Slow and steady wins the race.

If your organization is going through this process, what other challenges are you facing? What other strategies and tactics have been helpful in maintaining that sense of community?

You wouldn't sign Peyton Manning to run the triple-option offense, would you? 

You wouldn't hire Tony Stark but tell him he's not allowed using your tools, would you?

Then why do organizations continue to hire social media specialists, managers, and coordinators, but then handcuff them with outdated policies, processes, and technology? 

I've seen it time and time again – an organization realizes they don't have the talent, resources, or bandwidth to manage their social media efforts so they go out and hire someone. These gurus, ninjas, strategists, and rockstars often come into this new organization with high expectations ("oh, you're the new social guy? Boy do we need your help!"), low resources ("you're all we could get approved for this year"), and an unclear place on the org chart ("well, you'll technically report to me, but you'll be working with Suzie down the hall most of the time as well as being a dotted line to Tom in Marketing").

Not only that, once they get to their desk, they realize that Twitter and Facebook are blocked, their company-issued Blackberry is prohibited from downloading any apps, and even when they do complete all the request forms to gain access, they're told that any and all social media content needs to be approved by legal and compliance. They've got the experience, the skills, and the knowledge to do the job, but they've been handcuffed by their own organization's legacy practices. 

Before going out and hiring that person to handle your social media, take some time to set them up for success.  

Provide a clear job description. Are you looking for someone to be a community manager for online communities that already exist or do you need someone to create those communities? Are you looking for someone to come in and join the marketing team or are you looking for someone to help you integrate social media across the entire enterprise? Do you need a social media manager to simply create and post content or do you need an experienced community manager who can build an integrated strategy that will increase sales, retention, etc.? Are you looking for a do-er or a change agent? As the hiring manager, you have to have to be able to articulate what exactly you need this person to do because the skillsets required to be the day-to-day community manager are substantially different from those needed to create an enterprise-wide social strategy. If you aren't sure what you need, you probably need someone with to help you figure that out, and that's going to require someone more experienced than you think.

Update your processes. If you're going to hire someone to manage your online communities, be a brand advocate, increase brand awareness and interact with customers, make sure they're actually, you know, allowed to do that. You can't expect someone to succeed in this role if your process requires every post, Tweet, and status update to be approved by the Legal team. If your newly hired social media manager is unable to respond to customer service inquiries because "those are handled by the folks over in customer service, not us," you're setting yourself up to fail. Using social media successfully is fundamentally different from every other approval process at most organizations. If you aren't sure what processes need to be updated or how to even do that, refer back to #1 and hire someone with the skills and experience to make those kinds of changes. 

Have an end goal. What does success look like? How will you determine if he/she is doing a good job? Will that be determined by the number of fans, followers, comments, members? Or by sales, lead generation, and traffic? Maybe it will be based on their ability to create and implement a strategy? Whatever it is, make sure that your new hire understands what is expected of him or her.  

Make technology an enabler, not a roadblock. This should go without saying, but make sure that your social media manager actually has access to social media. An easy way to start this new relationship off on the wrong foot is by forcing your new hire to complete request forms to access to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. 

Brush up on social media yourself. You're going to have to evaluate this person's performance and you can't do that effectively if you still think you don't need to understand Twitter because "you're too old." If you're going to be managing someone who's responsible for social media, you better know a little about it yourself. Look at similar organizations and see what they're doing. Keep up with industry trends. Ask your new hire to meet with you each week and help educate you if you need to. You can't effectively manage someone if you don't understand what they're working on. 

Be their advocate. Your social media manager is likely going to have to work with people from across the organization, many of whom will have more experience and tenure than they do. They're going to need to quickly establish respect with their colleagues and the easiest way for them to do that is when you make the introductions, highlight their work in leadership meetings, and give them the top cover to do their jobs. Don't hire them and walk away. Stay involved and keep them motivated. 

You can’t half-ass your social media efforts. If you’re going to make the investment in the time, people, and resources to use social media, make the investment in getting yourself and your organization ready to make the most out of this new talent. Spend a few more weeks now setting him/her up for success or spend a lot more time later trying to find another social media manager to replace the first one who quit after two months. 

You want to get really excited about PR? Check out my budget spreadsheets and staff forecasting tools! Join me as I write a statement of work and analyze row after row of statistics! Excited yet? Maybe you'd rather stay at the office until 8PM writing a performance review? 

The best PR pros do a lot more than Tweeting, drinking with press contacts, and attending events. That might be what got you into the industry, but if you want to move up the ladder, you better sharpen these ten boring PR skills too. 

1. Manage Upward. Do you know how to pitch new ideas and get fast approval to try them? Can you manage your boss and his/her time so they don't become a bottleneck? Learn what makes your boss tick. Learn how they work so that you can expedite getting things done when you want to try something new. Gain their trust so are empowered to take risks and know they've got your back. 
2. Manage your time. How many hours does it take you to write a press release? Do you know how to estimate how long it will take you to do something and then manage your own workload to get that job done on time? One of the best skills a junior person can develop is the ability to accurately estimate how long it will take them to do a job. 
3. Give feedback. Do you know how to give honest, constructive feedback to a colleague? To your boss? Learn how to give both positive and negative feedback. This goes beyond saying "good job" – it means giving feedback so that people are motivated to do better. It means giving feedback so that they learn from their mistakes without feeling like an idiot. 
4. Analyze statistics. Do you know how to make sense out of a mess of numbers? Can you comb through a bunch of spreadsheets and tables to find something meaningful? Learn how to analyze data, but even more than that, learn how to distill it down to laymen's terms. 
5. Build and manage a budget. Do you know how to allocate $10,000 to get the job done? How many hours do you need? How many hours does your Assistant Account Executive need? How much of that should be allocated to hard costs like giveaways or vendor fees? Learn about hourly rates, profit margins, and scopes of work. Learn how to adjust on the fly and reallocate costs as needed while still staying under budget. 
6. Delegate. You aren't scalable. You may think you're a hard worker and that you'll do whatever it takes, but at some point, you're going to realize you can't do it on your own. Learn how to delegate work to other people. Learn how to accept that other people may do things differently than you, but that doesn't make them wrong. Learn how to leverage your team's strengths and understand their weaknesses so that you use everyone's time most efficiently. 
7. Develop and manage a project plan. Can you break up a big project into small tasks, assign them deadlines and then manage to those deadlines? Learn how to create a project plan that integrates deliverables, interim deadlines and costs and how to manage against that. This goes for small projects and multi-million dollar accounts. I've used project plans to help plan my work for everything from website content to huge accounts with multiple workstreams. 
8. Work remotely. Can you be productive from your couch? How about on a plane? In line? Learn how to maximize your productivity when you're not in the office. I'm not just talking about using technology like wireless cards, cell phones, and video conferencing. I'm talking about knowing how to manage your work so that you're able to take an early weekend because you know you've scheduled your conference calls for while you're on the road. I'm talking about using your time on the plane to write your blog posts or catch up on your RSS reader.
9. Ask for help. I don't care how smart you are or how hard you work – you're going to need someone's help at some point. Maybe it's because they've got a skillset or experience you need. Maybe it's because you're on vacation and need someone to handle a client crisis. Learn that you don't have to do everything on your own. Learn how to ask for help before it's too late. 
10. Write a performance review. Sooner or later, you're going to have to write someone's performance review or at the very least, contribute to one. Many organizations have implemented 360-degree reviews where you may be responsible for collecting feedback and writing a colleague's review. Learn how to objectively solicit feedback about someone else, analyze that data and write an objective review of that person's work.  

What other "boring" skills would you add to this list? The opportunity to pitch an idea to the producers of the Today Show or to go bar-hopping with the editors of Maxim may be what got you interested PR in the first place, but those opportunities only happen once someone has done the dirty work first. Someone has to build the strategy, develop the project plan, allocate the resources, manage the budget, and get someone to sign off on the idea before you're going to get the opportunity to make that call. Learn these boring skills now so that you can contribute to the entire process, not just the fun stuff at the end. 

"In Pinterest’s early days, Silbermann gave out his cell-phone number, attended blogger meet-ups, and personally composed weekly emails that were sent out to Pinterest’s tiny, but growing, community. "It’s like you’ve built this little city with nobody inside of it yet," he says. "And you want to fill it up with the right kinds of people who are going to teach future people what they should be doing when they move in." Most Silicon Valley types look at early users as viral marketers; Silbermann saw them as role models. (Until recently, Pinterest’s welcome email advised users to "pin carefully" because "your pins set the tone for the community." The site bans nudity and discourages users from posting images of too-skinny models, otherwise known as "thinspiration," after the phenomenon became a problem.)"

What if PR and social media community managers stopped worrying about targeting the influencers with the most Klout, the highest PeerIndex score, or the highest Empire Avenue share price, and instead worried about identifying the people who are best equipped to create and maintain a healthy community? What if we looked for qualities like good taste, helpfulness, and compassion instead of followers, pageviews, and likes? What if we focused our efforts on the people who will become the community leaders, rather than simply the people with the loudest mouths?

If what we're doing is truly building online communities, shouldn't we first recruit the people who will actually be you know, building that sense of community and modeling the behaviors you want to see from all members?

Silbermann's tactic of starting his community with role models isn't new. This is a tactic that I've used when building online communities behind corporate firewalls. In those closed communities, the first members weren't the VPs or the corporate comms people – the people with the most influence – they were the people who were most passionate about the community. These individuals felt a deep sense of responsibility for the success of the community. They shared the same goals and philosophies. They were the ones who modeled the behaviors that we wanted the rest of the community to emulate. They were the ones who would tell the boss he was wrong so that it would be ok for others to do the same. They may have only brought in 50 new people, but that wasn't their purpose. They were recruited because they were the ones to create that strong sense of community among the current members so that when new members joined, they joined a community with an established culture and purpose.

Now, if your goal is to simply get a million Facebook likes or sign up two million users to your branded community, then by all means, pay Lil Wayne to Tweet your URL to his 8 million followers and watch the numbers stack up. You can trot out your pageviews and member numbers to your boss all you want. Just don't expect those thousands of people to actually do what you want them to do. On the other hand, if you're looking to build a vibrant community of brand advocates who will buy your products, share your messages with their networks, give you honest, constructive feedback and build other brand advocates, then you should instead look for people who will model those behaviors. These people may not have the biggest names or the most "influence," but they're the ones who will create the foundation for what your community will be.

I'm not suggesting that I'm no longer excited about social media. I'm not suggesting that social media is dead (imagine that link bait, though). Quite the opposite, actually. Social media is not only not dead, it's so alive that it's become ubiquitous. There are Google+ master classes. You can read multiple books for marketing your business on Pinterest. You can go out and get a social media certification. You can buy thousands of Facebook likes. There are more than 125K social media experts on LinkedIn. There are more than 5,000 books on social media marketing. If you're looking for a job and you don't have the words "social media" on your resume somewhere, you aren't even trying. Social media is where it's at man. Everyone's doing it.

And maybe that's the problem. Everyone, from the government to big brands to schools to my parents, feels like they have to be using social media. And there are all too many social media experts, ninjas, and gurus ready to help them get on Twitter, start a Facebook page, and check in on Foursquare. When I first started using social media professionally back in 2006, it was because I recognized that these new tools could fundamentally change the way organizations communicated and collaborated. Back then, using social media in the government was like being among the first cavemen to discover fire. I was part of a small group of people who recognized this and committed to using this newfound knowledge to help the government become more efficient, more open, more transparent, and more collaborative. It was not only fun, it was incredibly rewarding as well. We were helping change the way government worked. We were effecting change that people said wasn't possible. We just happened to be using social media to do that.

Obviously, things have changed since then. Where I used to have to fight tooth and nail to get my clients to use social media at all, social media is now viewed as the first option. Social media has become almost a cure-all for an organization's problems. Suffering from negative media coverage? Start a Twitter account! Poor Q1 sales? Get on Pinterest! High employee turnover? Create an internal blogging platform! Whatever problem you have, social media will be there to solve it! And, there are literally thousands of social media experts out there ready to provide that solution to you (at a low low price if you sign up right now!).

I love getting a senior-level client up and running on Twitter or Yammer, not because I'm getting paid to do it or because these tools are just sooo cool, but because most of the time, it represents the first time in years that he or she communicates with the public without a PR or legal or compliance filter. I was able to give them the confidence, knowledge, and tools to actually talk with people – their customers or employees – like a human being. The only thing that made me happier than seeing a senior executive read an unfiltered feed about their organization and start participating in the conversation was seeing those conversations manifest themselves in actual changes in how the business operated. Now, all that's given way to marketers, consultants, and gurus whose only goal is to get people using social media.

My goal is never to get someone blogging or Tweeting – that's just the means to help them understand how to better communicate and collaborate. Simply using social media should never be the goal – social media is just the means, not the end. For years, clients have been asking me to develop "social media strategies," and for years, I've been telling them that they don't need a "social media strategy." What they need is strategy to help them solve whatever business problem they're looking to solve. Maybe they'll need social media, maybe they won't. I guess it was never about social media after all. It was about what social media enabled people to do, and increasingly, the only thing it's enabling is jamming the same old business practices into Tweets, blog posts, and status updates.

1. "What do you think?" Your boss should value your opinion and contributions and frequently ask for your input. He/she should understand your unique perspective and solicit it often. This isn't done just to make you feel better, but because teams function a lot more smoothly when everyone feels like they're contributions matter.
2. "I'm sorry." Just because you're the boss doesn't mean you're without fault. Be honest. Be transparent. We all make mistakes (well, I assume we do – I sure as hell have). Your boss should be self-aware enough to know when they're at fault and why. And guess what? If you're the boss and someone on your team messes up, your first inclination to should be to look internally – it's your team. You're responsible for their success and their failures. If they mess up, is it because you didn't provide enough direction? Because you forgot to pass along a key bit of information? Because you didn't read an email they sent to you? Own up to it. Apologize and move on.
3. "Are you having fun?" My very first boss at Booz Allen made this a habit to ask this question of everyone on her team at least once a month. While she was always focused on meeting our deadlines and staying under budget (she was a PMP, after all), she also realized that there was often more than one way to do that. She made sure that everyone was also enjoying their work because she understood that more (and better) work got done if people were having fun doing it.
4. "How can I help you?" Despite what your job description and place on the org chart may say, you aren't employed to simply ensure your boss's success. It's a mutual relationship. One of your boss's most important jobs is to ensure your success as well. One of the first things I told my account supervisors when I took my current job was that I wouldn't be successful unless they were successful. Just like you should be proactively asking your boss what you can do to help, he/she should be asking you the same thing.
5. "Go ahead – I got your back." Sometimes, the best thing your boss can do is to give you the top cover to take a risk. To do something innovative. To challenge the status quo. One of the reasons I really enjoyed working at my last job was because my leadership always encouraged me to push the envelope and empowered me to do what I thought needed to be done. Even when they didn't agree me every step of the way. My boss once told me, "I don't really get what you're doing, but you seem to be passionate about it and I trust you know what you're doing so go for it." And if I stirred up a political battle or wrote a controversial blog post, my bosses were right there behind me to step in and negotiate those difficult conversations. Employees need to know that their boss is behind them 100% and will go to bat for them whenever, wherever, and with whomever is needed. Employees with this freedom and encouragement can do amazing things.
6. "Here's what's going on…" One of the most common complaints in pretty much of every organization that I've worked with has been internal communications. The C-suite gets frustrated when they tell their senior leadership teams something and it doesn't cascade down through the organization. Middle managers get inundated with messaging and don't have the time, or the incentive, to take time away from their projects and budgets to share anything with their teams. Operations staff feel like their just cogs in the machine because they have no idea where the company is going. Junior employees get frustrated because they don't see a path forward for their career. A good boss will take the time to sit down with his/her team and pass along the information they receive that their teams may not be privy too – either because they're not on the same distro lists or in the same meetings. Your boss should be filling in those details for you and letting you know where you fit into the bigger picture.
7. "This isn't going to work for me. Here's why…" Being able to provide candid, timely feedback is a lost art among many managers. They try to sugarcoat their feedback or they avoid the confrontation altogether and fix everything themselves. If I create something that totally misses the mark, I want my boss to take the time to tell me that, help me understand what I did wrong, and how I can do it better next time. If your boss doesn't give you that feedback, how can they expect you to do it any differently or any better the next time?
8. "You did a great job." As a manager, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day deadlines, budgets, and client demands. You become so focused on what needs to get done that you forget to share positive feedback as well. Your boss's feedback should always include a mix of positive and constructive feedback – while it's certainly important for you to clearly understand your mistakes (see #7 above), it's also important that you understand what you did well and why.
9. "Here's what I'm looking for." I used to work for someone who was notorious for giving very cryptic direction on new projects. In some cases, she wanted you to follow her direction to a tee – your role was to simply regurgitate her exact words into a PowerPoint slide. In other cases though, doing exactly that would only cause her to throw out everything you did because you took her too literally. You can imagine how confusing this was to her team as they were constantly guessing what she was really looking for. Your boss should be able to clearly articulate exactly what he/she wants you to do…even if sometimes, that means, "I don't know what the right answer is – see what you can find out and bring me a recommendation."
10. "It can wait until later." Have you ever worked in an environment when everyone is seemingly "putting out a fire" or "handling another fire drill?" No one likes working in that kind of job. Guess what? Not everything is a fire. Not everything needs to be done ASAP. Make sure your boss is helping you prioritize what needs to be done today and what is truly important. If you don't need that report until next week, make sure you're telling your team that so they don't spend 10 hours at the office on something that you aren't even going to look at until next week. I don't think bosses realize how stressful an environment they create for their teams when they make it seem like everything is a priority all the time.

How many of these are you hearing from your manager on a regular basis? If you have a good manager, what other things are they saying to you that you appreciate? If you're a boss, are you saying these things? Why or why not?