I’ve been really angsty of late, worrying about things I shouldn’t worry about. That’s the life of a Jewish mother, I suppose. But it’s also the life of a social media marketer who is valiantly trying to stay on the right side of the law. The FTC law, that is.

No doubt most of you are aware that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulates advertising and marketing practices here in the U.S. They’re the governmental group who has brought us the CAN-SPAM act (email marketing), COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and, more recently, their Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which helped to bring about a more open and transparent level of disclosure by bloggers about their relationships with brands, organizations and events. The FTC is also one of the governmental bodies which regulates Contests and Sweepstakes (others being the Postal Service, the Department of Justice, and regulatory bodies within each of the 50 U.S. states).

I’m on the verge of losing sleep because of the FTC. It’s because I get upset every time I see something like this in a blog post:

What’s wrong with this picture? Well, just about everything. This “giveaway” is actually a sweepstakes and, as such, it violates U.S. and state regulations in about a half-dozen ways, not to mention Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines as well.

The bigger problem? That there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these “giveaways” on blogs each and every day. Don’t you think that at some point the Feds, or one very consumer protection-oriented state (like my own state of New York), are going to sit up and realize that bloggers are mostly doing this wrong? And what’s going to happen to the brands whose stuff is being given away in these “giveaways?” Just as with the Endorsements guidelines, the burden is more likely to be on the brands than the blogger to make sure that every giveaway they are involved with is being run in a manner that complies with federal and state guidelines.

So what’s a brand (or blogger) to do? It’s really not that complicated, you just have to be sure your sweepstakes (or contest) is run according to the FTC and state guidelines. My friend Sara Hawkins, an attorney-turned-blogger, has written a handy post with key points of the sweepstakes guidelines. Based on Sara’s post, this really great post from the Keller and Heckman law firm, and my own understanding of the guidelines, here are the definitions and rules you need to know:

Type of Promotion

A Sweepstakes is a giveaway where winners are chosen at random.
A Contest chooses a winner based on some merit: best photo, funniest tip, etc.
A Lottery is a prize drawing where people pay money for a chance to win. Lotteries are even more highly regulated and brands (or bloggers) should never run a lottery without strong legal guidance.
Thus, most giveaways are actually sweepstakes: a winner is chosen at random based on an entry (like leaving a comment).

Sweepstakes Prize Value

Sweepstakes prizes valued over $5,000 must be registered and bonded in the State of New York and Florida (so don’t offer prizes over $5,000 unless you have the time and money to register and bond your sweepstakes).
Any prize over $600 is required to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). (The reality is that bloggers must pay taxes on anything they receive with value over $25, but that’s another story entirely.)

Official Rules

All sweepstakes and contests must have Official Rules associated with them, prominently available to the entrant (attorneys I’ve spoken to always prefer that an entrant must check a box to say that they’ve agreed to the Rules, though I’ve also been told that if the rules are prominent enough and verbiage says something like “by entering your name below you are agreeing to the Official Rules” you may be covered.
Key points for Official Rules:

• Must state “NO PURCHASE NECESSARY”
• Must include eligibility requirements (age, residence – it’s generally problematic to include entrants under the age of 18 in your sweepstakes, and, given that every country has its own requirements for promotions, it may be wise to limit entrants to U.S. residents only)
• Duration and deadlines (when does it start, by what date must you enter, etc.)
• Entry procedures (Can you also enter by mail? What, specifically, do you need to do to enter?)
• Prize descriptions (very specific – including an approximate retail value of the prize, if no actual retail value is available)
• Odds of winning (this may be “The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning.”)
• How a dispute or mistake will be handled (disclaimers for technical failures or typographical errors; identity disputes related to the winner)
• How and when winners are selected (you must set a date for winner selection and also for how long winners have to claim their prize)
• Right to obtain winners’ names and how to do so, as well as the right to publicize their names and likenesses (if for whatever reason you’re not collecting their name on entry, you’ll want to get their name when you certify them as the winner; at the same time, you’ll probably want to have the right to use their name and photo for promotional purposes)
• Method of distributing prizes not claimed (often something like, “If potential Grand Prize winner forfeits or does not claim the prize, prize will be re-awarded, in Sponsor’s sole discretion.” and “All prizes will be awarded.”)
• Liability release (this holds the company harmless in the event that the prize or sweepstakes in some way negatively impacts the winner; this is often done alongside the certification of winner, where the winner must furnish proof of identity, address and birth date to win the prize, and at the same time sign the liability release)
• Sponsor name and contact information (mailing address at the very least, plus email address and/or phone number)
• Legal venue (in what state or jurisdiction is the sweepstakes being regulated in?)
• Also state “VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW”

Additional Info for Contests

Most of the same rules and requirements apply to contests, with a few additions. If you’re running a contest where you’re collecting any materials from the entrants (photos, essays, artwork, poems), you should state how those materials are to be used and returned (if at all). As well, it may be necessary to restrict photos to images of people over 18 (to stay on the right side of the COPPA laws) and also to state that any inappropriate materials will result in automatic disqualification (be sure to define “inappropriate” for your specific contest).
If you are running a contest, there’s another whole discussion your lawyers will want to have about voting for the winner vs. judging the winner. Go ahead, ask them. Double-dare you. It’ll be a long discussion. The upshot: lawyers don’t like voting on contests. So make the final winner selection based at least 60% on judging by an “expert panel” vs. voting by regular people. Or vote for round one, then have the panel pick the winner out of a number of finalists. There’s too much randomness in voting, which makes it a sweeps vs. a contest. Lawyers don’t like it when lines blur like that, you know.

Advertising the Promotion

If the “giveaway” is to be referenced in any other place besides the actual sweepstakes page itself, there are additional guidelines for advertising that apply. Each reference to the giveaway must state the eligibility requirements (age, location), deadlines, how to obtain Official Rules, and must also include the two phrases “NO PURCHASE NECESSARY” and “VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.”

Children and General Privacy

I’ve referenced COPPA law a couple of times now, and can’t state emphatically enough how important it is to steer clear of the issues related to marketing to children under 13. However, a few states, such as Maine and California, have recently written new laws governing the collection of personal information for minors under the age of 18. Given that state laws vary on this point, it’s far safer to restrict your sweepstakes or contest to those over 18, and to require proof of age for winners upon certification of the winners.

Additionally, your sweepstakes or contest should either include or reference a strong privacy policy which governs your use of their personal information, including whether or not your site collects cookies, and with whom you will disclose or share their information.

Facebook: A Whole New Can of Worms

Facebook adds a whole new additional of complexity to promotions with their promotions guidelines. Sara has a good round-up here; the basics on this are that you cannot use any of Facebook’s native applications to enter people into a contest. Native applications include the Wall, the Like button, photos, videos and using Facebook to notify winners. Meaning, in the really bad example above, requiring people to “friend” someone (or “Like” a page) in order to gain an extra entry into the giveaway is not allowed. This is a topic for a whole other post, and many people have already written it, so I’ll just suggest you Google “facebook promotions guidelines” and you’ll get an earful. Or eyeful.

In short, “giveaways” are nothing to mess around with casually. There is no such thing as a “giveaway,” they are all sweepstakes, and, as such, are governed by myriad federal and state laws to which attention should be paid. If you’re a blogger who runs giveaways the wrong way, I really hope this post gives you pause: please step back, evaluate, and decide if running the giveaways brings you enough monetary value to either a) hire an attorney to help you setup your giveaways correctly, or b) to fight a lawsuit if a disgruntled non-winner (or winner) decides to take you to task for not following the law. If you’re a brand running giveaways via bloggers, it truly behooves you take control of the situation for yourself, and to sic your attorneys on this matter immediately.

Now go forth and giveaway. Properly. This angsty Jewish mother thanks you.

DISCLAIMER: I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV. The information provided herin is not legal advice and is only based on my own experiences as a marketer with sweepstakes and contests, including counsel I have been given by numerous attorneys over my many years as an internet marketer. None of the above should be considered a substitute for you consulting your own legal counsel who will guide you and your company (or blog) in how to create and manage sweepstakes and contests.

This post originally appeared in on Social Media Explorer, where I’m a regular contributor on social media topics.

 
In late 2011 I presented my 2012 social media predictions on Social Media Explorer. I think they’re well worth repeating here.  I did pretty well with my 2011 social media predictions, so here are the five social media trends I think marketers need to be aware of in the next year as we grow and change along with technology and consumer demand.

Content Marketing

Content curation was so last year. In 2012 we’re going broader; we’ll be talking about a marketing discipline called “Content Marketing.” It’s actually not all that new; in fact, some social media pundits have been talking about it for years. But 2012 is the year content marketing is hits the social media trends list and the mainstream, because content marketing is now a concept that executives can finally sink their teeth into.

Content marketing is essentially the same thing that social media gurus have been discussing for quite some time, which is that brands must “be the media.” But “be the media” is a scary concept for a CMO or CEO, because they think that media = expensive. Because corporate execs are finally beginning to understand how writing blogs or creating video can enhance SEO, lead generation, customer relationship management, and more, budgets seem to be loosening to allow marketers to create, as well as curate, content as a marketing strategy.

As such, we will be looking for marketing staff with more and varied skills. We’ll need people with great editorial skills; who can write blogs, white papers and slide presentations; and who can conceptualize and perhaps even edit video. If the marketing staff has those capabilities, the costs for content marketing get absorbed into the department and no longer represent a scary line item.

And if our marketing staff is also our content creating and curating team, we also need to think about hiring for our department in a different way: people who are in social media roles most likely need to be the customer they’re serving, or at least must be able to walk comfortably in their shoes. A 45 year old man likely won’t be the content marketer for breastfeeding supplies. Brands will be looking for content marketers who match their demographic, which may open up new corporate job opportunities to subject matter experts in a variety of disciplines.

Social Media Influence

Influence in 2012 might be defined by Klout, or Kred, or PeerIndex. It doesn’t matter. The point is that anyone who is looking to court customers is wanting to understand who’s who, else they wind up in a morass of names, unable to know whom to court to help them spread the word about their product or service. Influence-ranking services such as those above, as maligned as they are, are merely trying to help marketers cut through the clutter of tweets and blog posts to figure out who they should talk to. 2012 is not going to be the year that a perfect tool emerges, but it will be a year for broad adoption of the ranking tools and lots of C-suite talk about “influence” in general.

Personally, I think the future of social media influence is in a combination of online and offline factors. For example, how do you augment someone’s influence score if they’ve written a book? Or if they’re the president of their kids’ school PTA? Or if they have an extensive speaking career? Any of those factors would indicate that those individuals have opportunities to spread messages to groups of people who likely trust them and rely on their opinions, yet this is in no way reflected in any of the online influence scores. Because of this disconnect between online and offline influence, I’m not putting my money down on any of the influence rankers at this point. I am, however, using them all personally to understand how they work, and selectively relying on them to advise clients, though my rolodex of bloggers whom I know personally is still a far better asset. After all, social media is still about relationships, and there’s no substitute for getting to know the people you are hoping will help you promote your brand.

Convergence of Marketing + Technology + Data

Perhaps the most important of the social media trends to come, tighter integration between marketing, technology, and data is at topic I predict we’ll hear a lot about. New positions like “Marketing Technologist” and “Marketing Scientist” will emerge; within marketing departments people will learn these new skills and take on new roles.

Imagine what would happen if you, the marketer, had someone on staff who could create technology to meet the needs of your content and your promotions, who understood Facebook Connect and maybe even iPhone development, to boot? What if that person were a WordPress expert too? The future of marketing does not include waiting for the IT department to figure out what a WordPress plugin is. Marketers are going to take technology into their own hands and either train or hire people within their own departments who can move much more nimbly and creatively than traditional tech departments can.

I’m also seeing a trend towards marketers who are becoming masters at data analysis; smart marketer Dan Zarrella is one of the best known in the genre of Marketing Scientist. Some companies, like my client (and SME colleague Ilana Rabinowitz at) Lion Brand Yarn, are starting to install analysts within their marketing departments. At Lion Brand they have a staffer devoted to gleaning insights out of Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; they use the data generated to determine what content to provide within each of their platforms, to develop better promotions and events, and to figure out which products are resonating within various consumer communities.

Just as with content marketing, above, smart marketers are going to figure out how to train or hire for the skills they need to make savvy social marketing decisions, rather than waiting for budgets to be approved or for help from other departments internally.

Legal Challenges Within Social Media

Let’s talk for an honest minute about one of the pitfalls of the crazy growth social media has experienced over the past few years. It’s a bit hard these days to figure out who’s shilling for whom and what are the rules, exactly. In order to quell some of the confusion, a couple of years ago the FTC laid out some very clear guidelines for blogger disclosure, and though there’s been continued debate about how to comply (do we really have to indicate a sponsored tweet?), disclosure is now the norm, not the exception. So good on you, bloggers and brands, for making that happen. And keep it up.

However, I predict that in 2012 a new legal menace is going to rear its ugly head, and it’s largely due to the plethora of bloggers who have cropped up and devoted themselves to reviews and giveaways, many of which are created and run in ways which do not comply with FTC and state guidelines. The law and how it handles this new, vast world is going to be one of the most important social media trends we see. In case you missed it, I’ve recently written nearly 1,800 words on the topic of Sweepstakes and Contests in these very pages, and I encourage you to check it out. In a nutshell, it says that most bloggers, and therefore brands, are doing it wrong: there are rules, and they’re not being followed. Ouch.

To be perfectly frank, I admit to welcoming some state or federal scrutiny on giveaways practices because I feel it will raise the bar for participation by bloggers (and brands) and help blogging get back to what it once was: storytelling and resources, not simply crass commercialism. I’m quite sure I’ll hear differing opinions on this score; please bring it on in the comments.

Social Security

Nope, this is not the kind that Congress is endlessly debating. It’s the kind you’re going to need now that your social networking information is being used by all sorts of outside agencies and companies to judge you in ways you never thought possible. Like insurance. And loans. And law enforcement.

Insurance companies are already using social media to validate claims: if you say you were in a car accident one night but update Facebook to say you had a fantastic evening, you may be sniffed out by your insurer. This will go even further in the coming year(s) as your social updates as well as your network may be part of the evaluation when you look for new insurance or apply for a loan. On the law enforcement side, social media can assist individuals and communities in the case of a disaster or accident by monitoring community social activity, looking for calls for help, and evaluating needs as information comes in from across the range of social networks. We also know that cops and agencies are using publicly-shared social media data to help fight crimewhich could lead to challenges in privacy rights and changes in how the social networks protect (or don’t protect) individuals’ data.  Even charities are getting into the act of co-opting individuals who may or may not be entirely aware of how their images and social connections are being used.

While privacy and security concerns have obvious implications for individuals, there are correlating considerations for marketers as well. If you’re selling products or services in a way which could potentially use customers’ social connections to enhance your offering, you’d better get working on it quickly before new startups step in to fill the void. Even if you personally don’t love the idea of using social connections in that way, trust me, someone else out there is going to do it, so you might as well protect your brand and figure it out.

What’s Not Here: Google+

I actually have a sixth prediction: that there will be dozens of 2012 social media predictions posts which include Google+. Yet I’m not really including it here, because it’s simply a platform, not a trend or movement. Brands will use Google+ as well as Facebook, Twitter, blogging, video, etc. to implement any or all of the above trends in one way or another. There is no question that Google+ will likely be a major force for brands in 2012, particularly now that brand pages have been rolled out and it’s seems pretty clear that good SEO for brands in the future will involve Google+ in some way. So keep your eye on this one, but don’t call it a trend, use it as a tool.

So friends, how did I do? Did I get social media trends for 2012 right in your eyes? What major trend did I miss? As always, I’m totally up for the debate and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Image source: flickr.com (Bruce Dupree via aafromaa)

Even if you’re a great writer, you may struggle now and then with how to structure a blog post to make sure your key points are getting across.  In nearly seven years blogging and helping clients with blogs, I’ve learned a few tricks along the way which may help you, whether you’re just starting a blog or refreshing one you’ve been writing for a while.

Keep it short – or only as long as it needs to be

Why struggle with a long post if a shorter post will work?  While some business blog posts average in the 750-1,000 word range, many are quite successful at 300-500 words.  If you can explain what you want to explain in fewer words, do so, and your reader will get to the point more quickly.

Keep posts focused on one primary topic

If you find yourself starting to describe a second or third topic, step back and determine whether you can break the post into two or more posts.  A focused post will have a greater chance of getting read all the way through, so your key content will more likely get noticed.

Use headers, bullets, or other organizing tools to make important content stand out

Posts are easier to read if they have markers to break up the content and help draw the eye to important parts.  Using headers will help to highlight the key points you’re making (as in this post), as well as help search engines to find keywords within your post (if your headers include keywords).  Bullets can be used to similar effect – anything you put into a bullet will be more easily readable and noticed even if someone is skimming through the post.

Include an image near the top of the post

Sonia Simone from Copyblogger says, “Images are steroids for your headline.”  Using a great image will help draw readers in and focus on your content.  Look for images which are either literal – directly related to your content, or evocative of your content with a concept or theme.

Put time into your title – then think about it some more

As the old journalism adage goes, you should put 50% of your time into writing the article and 50% into the headline.  The same holds true for blog posts.  If you get the right title it will draw your reader in and help them to focus on your content – but the title has to match the content.  It can’t be too broad, too punny, or too blah. Additionally, a keyword-rich, focused title will help with search optimization.

How do you keep blog posts focused and help your readers quickly get to your most valuable content? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

img src: flickr (garryknight)

This post originally appeared in a slightly different form at the Creative Concepts Blog, where I’m a regular contributor on social media topics.

As I’ve been slowly transitioning this site and my business from Stephanie Schwab Consulting to Crackerjack Marketing, I’ve been thinking about all of the content I’ve created over the past 15 months. Though this blog is young by my blogging standards (I started my personal blog in 2005), it’s already got a number of “classic” posts which attract fresh traffic every single day. My friend Jason Falls did an analysis of his blog (to which I’m a contributor) earlier this week, and he also found that some of his older posts on key topics consistently generate the most traffic.

So how to optimize all of that valuable, though older content? I recently read a great post from Pat Flynn titled, “10 Ways to Bring New Life to Old Blog Posts.” In it he outlined a number of really smart ideas on how to keep useful content front-and-center and generate traffic and engagement from it. A few of his ideas include:

Link To Older Posts That Are Relevant to What You’re Writing Now

This seems so natural. If you’re using a newer version of WordPress, it’s also really easy. When you insert a link, WordPress asks you if you want to link to an older post. You can even search to find one right there in the linkbuilding window. Go on, try it out – and do more of this in your upcoming posts.

Do a Followup Post to an Older One

Duh. I’ve got to do this. According to Jason, my post on Five Social Media Trends for 2011 is the #2 post of all time on the Social Media Explorer blog. So why haven’t I updated it mid-year? What a no-brainer. I’ve got to get working on that, even if it’s nearly September.

An Oldies But Goodies Roundup Post

Another great idea. In my case, I’ve written a lot on both this blog and on Social Media Explorer about blogger outreach and brands working with bloggers. I’m going to write a post bringing all of that content together here.

Utilize a Good Archive Page

I seriously need help here. So when I redesign this site (coming Fall 2011!) I’ll make sure a simple, easy-to-use archive page is part of the build.

Syndicate Your Older Content on Social Media

This is interesting. I tried this for a while and had great results. I was using the WordPress Tweet Old Posts plugin, and excluded all of my old content that was tied to a specific event or timeframe, leaving only “evergreen” content in the Old Posts queue. But I started to get outrageously snarky, even slightly menacing, anonymous comments on blog posts that I tweeted out that way (as well as a few ugly Twitter remarks) from some unfortunate person who has nothing better to do than complain about good content in someone’s Twitter stream. Rather than waste energy taking down the comments (or responding to them, as I tried to do at first), I just deactivated the Old Posts plugin. But you know what? My content is too valuable for that. I’m going back to Tweet Old Posts because I love getting “attagirl” comments on old posts too, because it makes me happy when people find my content useful. So there, commenter. Go back under your anonymous rock.

So there you have it. My plan for increasing the usage of the content I’ve already created – because if I’m going to write for three blogs, I should get the most out of all of that effort.

Are you using Pat’s principles and making the most out of your old content? I’d love to hear what resonated with you.

img src: flickr (10ch)

Related articles

• 16 Digital Marketing Experts Share Their Top Tips, Tricks, and Tools (techipedia.com)
• Why Blogging is Social Media’s VIP (markevanstech.com)
• 7 Reasons Why a Business Blog is Valuable (searchengineoptimizationjournal.com)

This post originally appeared in a slightly different form at the Creative Concepts Blog, where I’m a regular contributor on social media topics.

I recently returned from the BlogHer Conference in San Diego, the largest gathering of women in blogging – at 3,200+ strong, we’re quite the amazing group. With BlogHer, Evo Conference and Mom 2.0 Summit all happening within 1-2 months of each other, I’ve been relying on a bunch of new (and older) tools and platforms to maximize my conference-going and networking. Some of these tools may be new to you, too so I’m happy to share them with you.

HootSuite: This is my go-to app for managing my own Twitter and Facebook presences, as well as those of my clients. The HootSuite iPhone and Android apps and website allow for easy creation of a new stream that searches for the hashtag of the event you’re at – so you can quickly scan to see what everyone else is doing and saying.  I also use HootSuite to livetweet events, with the event hashtag, of course.

Foursquare: Not everyone wants to broadcast their location, but for those of you that do, Foursquare makes conferences a lot of fun, particularly for a conference like SxSW with multiple events happening at once. Seeing where your colleagues and friends check in can help you make a snap decision on where to go next. I also use Foursquare as a simple way to catalog my travels – where I ate, what hotel I stayed at, etc.

Hashable: Available as an iPhone app (or use on the web), this site allows two people to make quick connections via Twitter, which are then augmented with your contact info online.  At the recent Mom 2.0 Summit, a friend of mine made two important connections for me within the space of 30 minutes, both using Hashable.  I love this for its speed (no long-winded intro emails necessary) and ease-of-use via the iPhone app (though the website is just as user-friendly).

QR Codes: This is a bit on the heavy geek-tech side, but it’s a cool icebreaker. Use the ZXing Project QR Code Generator to create a 2-D barcode with your contact information in it.  Then store that barcode as a photo in your smartphone. If you meet people who carry a smartphone, suggest that they snap your QR Code (from the photo) using a QR code reader (I recommend the i-nigma Reader) to quickly upload your contact info to their phone. You can also print the QR Code on a business card (mine has one) but that takes more advance planning!

Group Texting: If you’re traveling as a pack, or want to make plans with people as you go, try out one of the up-and-coming group text services. These apps and services allow one-to-many texting, saving you lots of phone calls and making quicker connections than email. And, at a conference with bad mobile web reception (who hasn’t been in those black-hole ballrooms?), texts will usually get through.

Once you’ve got all your social media tools in place, think about the physical tools you use, too.  Take a Sharpie pen so you can write notes on any business card, even a glossy one – those notes may be really helpful to you when you’re struggling to remember who’s who.

Here’s my special trick for keeping business cards together – thanks to the crafty and smart Tauni Everett for this idea: a binder ring (with holepunch) for all the cards from a single conference. These can sit on my desk together for easy flipping and referencing.

Whatever you do, remember that networking is all in the follow-up – so whether you use Twitter, Facebook or good old-fashioned email, don’t forget to follow-up with your new contacts as soon as possible after the event.

Are you in riding the conference carousel? How have you used (or do you plan to use) social media to help keep it all together? Please let us know in the comments!

This post originally appeared at the Creative Concepts Blog, where I’m a regular contributor on social media topics.

Have you heard of Instagram? I know, I know, there are so many new social platforms and networks, how can we possibly keep up? But Instagram is one you should know. Why? Because it’s visual. And so many businesses are visual. Trust me here…and read on.

First, a few words about what Instagram is and does. It’s primarily a photo-sharing network. It’s become particularly popular because it started as an iPhone app, rather than a web-based network, and so it caught fire because it made it easy to share photos, taken with your phone, instantly with your friends and colleagues. Instagram has its own network and also allows you to post pictures to your Twitter or Facebook followers, or to other networks including Flickr, Tumblr or Posterous. You can also email directly from the app itself. There are other cool features, like slick filters which can make your photo look like it was taken in 1977. Generally a lot of fun.

Brands are already using Instagram in some really cool ways. Check out these examples and maybe you’ll be inspired.

Brisk at SxSW

Brisk invited fans to submit photos via Instagram in advance of the South by Southwest (SxSW) event this past March. They collected thousands of photos, all tagged with the #briskpics hashtag, and selected a few dozen of them to appear on special Brisk Tea cans at the event.

Jamie Oliver

This celebrity chef has amassed nearly 39,000 followers by posting pics of the food he’s serving at his restaurants and places he visits in his travels. Instagram is perfect for any visual business, and food is no exception.

ABC News

ABC has an Instagram account (abcworldnews) with more than 3,000 followers. They’re one of few news organizations using the service, but they use it well, posting pics from events of the day.

Gucci

One of the world’s top fashion brands, Gucci has taken advantage of the visual medium to showcase fashion, celebrities and trends. They have a much smaller follower base than Jamie Oliver or ABC News, but that’s to be expected from a luxury brand. I’d bet that their followers are primarily their shoppers – or those who really want to be their shoppers. Imagine the powerful brand loyalty they’re creating?

There are a slew of Instagram add-on apps and services, including:

• Postagram: a service to turn your Instagram pics into physical postcards (they’ll even mail them for you!)
• Instagallery: An Instagram gallery browsing program, beautiful on the iPad.
• Instamap: Lets you browse photos by location, like when you’re traveling – great for sightseeing and identifying what you’re looking at.
• Plus a whole host of Web-based Instagram apps, including Extragr.am. These allow you to view and share Instagram photos via the web.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth and take pics, and share! And think about how Instagram can benefit your brand.

Related articles

• Instagram hits 150 million photos uploaded, with 15 added every second (thenextweb.com)
• Instagram – the under the radar hot new thing (theredrocket.co.uk)

While it’s nice to think that we’d all finish what we start, sometimes it’s not that easy. You create a Facebook page for your brand because you’ve got a marketing coordinator with extra time, but poof – the headcount is cut. Or you convince your CEO to start Tweeting, and she loses interest after about six weeks. It can happen to any brand….but there’s a right way and a wrong way to bow out gracefully.

The Wrong Way

Just stop posting. That’s what Sears Beauty did on Facebook in June 2010. They currently have 441 fans, but who knows, they may have had more at the time. But they abandoned the page without even a goodbye.

Here’s the completely confused, nonsensical Twitter account of Burt’s Bees.

As you can see, they tweet only once every few weeks, and within the past few months they’re suddenly tweeting as some seemingly random guy, @WalkerUD97. Whoever he is. And they’re not even tweeting properly (using an @symbol at the start of the tweet….that’s a whole ‘nother blog post!). (As it turns out, Steve Walker is the Manager of Environmental Sustainability at Burt’s Bees – but you’d have to search for him and find his LinkedIn profile to know that.) Folks, if you can’t do it right, seriously, don’t do it at all.

You can exit a blog gracefully with a simple post and some information on where else to find your brand (or you). That’s what Jonathan Schwartz, former CEO of Sun Microsystems, did on his blog for Sun (now Oracle). He tells us why he’s closing the blog (the Sun-Oracle merger), where to follow him and that he’s planning to reopen the blog after the dust settles. But the sad truth is that soon after this post, Jonathan was fired from Oracle, and exited via Twitter thusly:

Unfortunately, even with all of his best intentions, his Twitter account became dormant back in September 2010. In this case, while it would have been difficult for a former CEO (or employee, if you’re one of the rest of us) to go back and re-update the blog, it would have been easy to close down the Twitter account in a better manner. Read on for some good ways to exit.

There are probably thousands of examples just like this, in blogs, Twitter, Facebook and any other social network you can name. I’m sure you have some favorites, do share them in the comments.

The Right Way

Jonathan Schwartz was so right in how he exited his blog, it’s too bad he didn’t carry through to exiting Twitter properly as well. The best way to exit is to say you’re exiting. If you’re shutting down a corporate blog, you can say so in a final post, with as much detail as you can give, and then stop posting. However, it’s imperative that you keep the blog content alive, because it’s earned you some search engine friendliness, and you don’t want to lose it.

You can’t shut down Twitter or Facebook, because you risk losing your brand names in those platforms. Twitter has released dormant handles in the past, so you need to be a tiny bit active to hold your place. And on Facebook, once you delete a page, you lose everything on it forever. So the best practice in both of these platforms is to put a placeholder in, indicating where else to find you. Do this every few months or so, until you’re ready to come back to it. Here’s a good example on Twitter from @InboxDollars:

The same principle applies to Facebook – tell people where you’ve gone, why, and how else they can find you.

In the end, you’ll be saving some brand face, helping your most loyal fans, and making it easier for your team to reinvigorate those accounts somewhere down the road. We’ll talk more about bringing social media accounts back from the dead in another post, soon.

Do you have thoughts about how to mothball a social media account? Please share in the comments!

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This post originally appeared at Social Media Explorer, where I’m a regular contributor on the topics of public relations and social media.

Social media policies are on the minds of most business owners these days. After all, nearly everyone we know uses a Facebook account, and lots of people are blogging about their families or uploading videos from last weekend’s party to YouTube. So how do you protect your business when your staff are loose on the social web? The answer is not to lock down Internet access at work – after all, your employees can access Facebook right from their smart phones at their desks. Smart businesses have social media policies which govern the actions of employees in social media – whether on behalf of the company or while on their own time.

Most policies are crafted primarily with company protection in mind.  I’d argue that an equally important goal of your policy should be to eliminate confusion on the part of employees, making it safe for them to engage in social media without constantly asking for guidance (or fouling up). Therefore, a good social media policy needs a number of key elements in order to make it easy for employees to follow and clear for HR and executives to interpret.  Even if you already have a policy, perhaps it’s worth checking to be sure you’re covering the following points.

1. State who is approved to speak on behalf of the company in social media. This could be anyone, or it could be only those people who have been specifically certified or trained to do so. You might consider social media as similar to traditional media – after all, you probably wouldn’t allow just anyone to do a TV interview on behalf of the company, so why would you allow anyone to tweet for the company? And by “approved to speak,” you probably mean in any instance – even the most basic of customer service issues may need to go through your approved social media team.
   

   flickr: walknboston

2. Make it clear who is authorized to create social media accounts for the company. Although you have likely already established your Facebook page and other social presences, someone in your organization might have a notion down the road that their branch or product line needs a Twitter account of its own. In order to keep things coordinated, perhaps state that all new social presences require approval and specify where that approval must come from.
3. Set some boundaries for personal content. You probably don’t care whether your staff tweets about their kids or their knitting, so help them to see where the line is between work content and personal content. Some policies suggest that as long as employees are not talking about company-related topics, everything else is fair game.
4. However, realize that staff do want to talk about their work – after all, they spend a lot of time thinking about work topics and it occupies a large part of their day. But you don’t want your employees to be seen as “astroturfing” – pumping up the reputation of your brand without full transparency into their relationship with the company. So give them some guidelines on how to incorporate industry or company information into their own conversations without running afoul of the policy. This could mean that they have to state their company affiliation in their social profile (but that their opinions are their own), or that they should indicate (employer) in their tweets or personal blog posts.
5. Do you want your staff to amplify your social messaging – retweeting your content or posting your blog posts to Facebook when it’s appropriate for their audiences? if so, clarify this point and help your team to do so. But be wary of requiring this of staff; it’s really not appropriate to ask people to use their personal profiles for business, and it could reflect badly on your company if it looks like you’re making your staff spam their family and friends with your corporate messaging.
6. Some content may be totally off-limits for any employee posting anywhere. This probably includes confidential information, posting anything negative about a competitor, or posting anything that could infringe on intellectual property laws, at minimum.  While this may all seem obvious, put it in the policy anyway.
7. Give employees an outlet for passing along information they see in social media that they feel should be responded to. At the very least, providing an email address to the PR or customer service department within the policy will be a valve release for employees which may prevent them from trying to respond on their own.
8. Remind everyone about the importance of professionalism and respect for others. This seems to go without saying, but why not put it in writing, just in case? Those videos of the company holiday party with the boss in the lampshade probably won’t be good for your corporate image.

A good  social media policy does not constrain your employees’ personal self-expression, but makes it obvious for them where to draw the line. Review some examples of corporate social media policies, work with HR or legal as necessary, and codify something that relieves the stress of “should I or shouldn’t I” for your staff, while providing you peace of mind.

Have other thoughts about what a social media policy should include? Please share your ideas in the comments.

Related articles

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In a previous post, I outline a few of the ways that companies are organizing their staff and structure for social media. Let’s now look at how individual departments can use social media.

Public Relations

Have a new product or service? Have exciting plans in the works? Social media makes it easy to spread the word. Start a buzz and encourage others to help you promote your products or services. Request reviews and testimonials and make sure everyone gets to read the great things people are saying about your company. Often, people who would be utterly disinterested in yet another new site or product are eager to check it out when someone in their network recommends it.

Other PR uses of social media include using social media to find, communicate, and develop relationships with journalists and bloggers; and monitoring what key journalists and bloggers are writing about and staying informed of their current topics of interest.  You can also deepen customer understanding of your company or product by producing online video and sharing it through your corporate site as well as YouTube and Facebook.  Some companies are also successfully supporting their corporate cause marketing programs by using their social presences to draw attention to their supported charities or causes.

Marketing

Social media and marketing are a natural fit.  Social media allows marketers to engage with audiences – providing valuable content, interaction, tools and tips which engender customer loyalty and attract new fans to the mix.

Increasingly, social media marketing is dependent on creating and curating a steady stream of quality content which becomes an entertaining or helpful resource to customers and potential customers.  In order to become a trusted resource for your fans, be attentive: listen to what your market wants and then offer it.  Use your own original content and curate from smart, non-competitive sources.  Provide 90 percent value and 10 percent sales/company information – or go even lighter on the company info.  This content mix works for Twitter, Facebook, your corporate blog or any other social platform.

Other ways marketers can socialize their efforts include announcing new products and services and giving community members the first chance to try or buy; posting special coupons or offers to fans and followers; promote marketing events through social platforms; and generating casual marketing research through polls, Twitter chats and blog comments.  Business-to-business companies use whitepapers, webinars or blogs to drive leads into their pipeline, and support that content with social network engagement.

Customer Service

Many organizations now use social media as a way to manage customer service concerns.  I tell clients that “Twitter is the new 800 number”  – customers expect to connect to your company using whatever platform they use the most, and they don’t care if you personally don’t understand Twitter.  Why?  Because social media allows customers to feel connected to your organization, by giving your company a more personal face. Use social media to answer questions related to your products and services, solve customer problems, and monitor customer issues before they get out of hand. Use the feedback you obtain through social channels to enhance the customer experience, plan for the future, and revise policies.

And whether you like it or not, people discuss products and services online, both before and after they purchase them. They share the good, the bad, and the ugly; not privately, but out in the open for fellow customers and prospects to see. By being engaged and responsive, you can enhance your company’s image and build customer loyalty.  And if you build your loyal social media following before the crisis breaks, they’ll be much more likely to help out when you really need them – versus trying to rally people after the fact.

Recruiting Talent

Social media tools make it easier to target talent from various geographic regions and attract tech-savvy candidates. Use social media to mount and enhance employee referral programs and to attract talent that isn’t actively visiting employment boards but is actively using social networking.  Post jobs (try using Twitter hashtag #jobs) and search for talent on popular social media sites, but don’t forget the importance of personal networking using social media, too. Your former coworker might just refer you to a top-notch candidate, and they could be just a Facebook message away.

Other Departments Using Social Media

The R&D or merchandising department might want to jump on the social media bandwagon too, to listen to the conversation about products, packaging and pricing.  Social might have bubbled up from your search marketing department, or maybe IT – or they could be important partners in your social media efforts. Internally-focused departments like HR or training may want to use it for social media to motivate and engage with employees.

There is no “right” way to structure or deliver on social media.  Every company is doing it a bit differently, and you should feel confident to forge your own path, knowing that there are lots of good examples out there of how companies are setting up their social media organizations to meet their needs.  What’s working for you?  What are you struggling with? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Related articles

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Image via Wikipedia

Just where does social media belong in an organization? Is it a marketing or public relations tool? Is it owned by customer service? Is it in a category by itself?  And – is it even important to put social media in a category? The answer is yes and no. You can implement social media strategies and enjoy success without choosing a classification. But classifying it may prove critical when you are creating social media policies and planning across the organization.

Many companies, and social media practitioners, would have social media live in either PR or marketing. And its easy to see why. Social media has been proven time and time again as an important corporate communications tool, as well as a solid marketing tool.  And it’s clear that the length of social media’s arm and the receptiveness of online audiences make it an optimal tool for public relations departments. But social media is so much more. It has also become an important tool for R&D, customer service, and even employee recruitment.

Each company may have a different strategy when it comes to deciding which department owns social media, but more and more are agreeing that it should be owned by everyone and therefore it may be classified as an organization-wide endeavor.  However, when ownership of social media is spread throughout an organization, communication and collaboration are key. Various departments must work together to coordinate the use of social media tools and ensure that the organization’s goals are met and everyone is on the same page. Internal communication and collaboration is critical for avoiding brand confusion and ensuring consistent implementation of cohesive strategies that benefit the organization overall. Many companies have established “social media councils” for this very purpose, bringing stakeholders from across the organization to regular meetings and online collaboration communities to work together on the company’s social media efforts.

Another school of thought is that social media should stand on its own as its own department. When social media is used across a variety of departments, some assert that it’s better for social media experts to hold the reins, communicating and planning strategies with representatives of the organization’s other departments. Others believe it’s a better idea to gradually spread ownership out over a range of departments as long as one department holds the reins initially. In this case, a department – say public relations – may explore social media and create strategies before moving on to educate other departments on the use of social media tools.

How is your company structuring social media?  Do you think it’s in the right place for the long-term or do you see changes coming in the near future?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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