Now you can, thanks to TweetBacks, the Twitter search engine for URLs. Just type in your blog or site URL, and TweetBacks will find all references to it, even if the URL has been shortened or is a specific post within the blog. For example, my first search turned up a reTweet from @AmandaSena I hadn't caught before:

And even more nifty, you can have alerts sent to your email inbox, just to make sure you monitor all mentions of your (or your clients') blogs and sites.

 
And let's not forget to thank each follower individually for the reTweet. It's just good Twetiquette. :-)

"Social media monitoring" may sound complicated, but in truth, it's not rocket science. You don't need a $5,000-a-month PR firm or even a marketing degree to do it. More than anything, it takes a few of the right tools, a fierce dedication to listening and a desire to understand your clientele rather than sell directly to them.

Sound easy? It is.

But lest you cast the task to your lowliest marketing intern, note the word "dedication" in the last paragraph. As Jackie Huba has pointed out, social media monitoring needs to go on 24/7. If an issue, story or event surrounding your brand breaks over the weekend, what if your intern was hitting the slopes? And is that intern trained in crisis communication? Social media doesn't happen without a level of strategy behind it. And as Domino's learned during the recent kerfuffle, waiting even 48 hours to respond via social media channels is the surest way to make sure that the unflattering YouTube video you didn't want anyone to see gets a million hits.

Still, social media monitoring isn't all that tough. You can invest in the fancier tools, like Radian6 or CustomScoop, or you can follow the do-it-yourself method:

1. Set up a Google alert for your company name, field and area of interest. For example, for my client Spoken Communications, (they enable phone self-service to work--shameless plug!) I've set up a Google alert for "customer service," "customer experience," "call center," and "ivr." The first two, I've noticed, give more general, soft-skills articles, while the latter two tend to turn up results more focused on industry news.
2. Set up Twitter searches for your company name, field and areas of interest. In my fave desktop app, Seesmic desktop, searches are automatically saved in the left-hand sidebar, so you can access searches for "customer service" and "ivr" topics and articles there as well. This is also great for reTweeting fodder, if you're the considerate social media type. :-) 
3. Likewise, set up Twitter hashtag searches. Most desktop apps have the option of searching via hashtag and saving the searches, and also, my favorite iPhone app, Tweetie, the "More" option takes you to a screen with a Search option, where you can do a general search (as in #2) or a hashtag search. For example, if you're interested in Tweets being tagged with #journalism, #newsroom or #futureofnews, hit the star button to save the search, which will then show up under Saved Searches. See? Easy!
4. Listen first. After setting up searches, take a few weeks to monitor and evaluate the types of mentions your company and search terms turn up. Is it chatter about your company, or is your company name mostly absent? Is the chatter positive, negative or neutral? What about your competition? Which topics are trending in your field?
5. Participate. Decide on a standard response. Comcast has a great one: "Can I help?" to any mention of "Comcast," positive or negative, on Twitter. What will yours be?

An indication of just how easy social media monitoring is: the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota is taking advantage of it. Remember when I Twittered from a cross-country trip that I was curious about the Corn Palace in South Dakota and debating detouring for a visit? This Tweet followed soon after:

Also, this Tweet below, sent from Sioux Falls, SD, was followed by a quick response from @jenimc with a warm welcome and an invite to check out @VisitSiouxFalls @SE_SouthDakota & @travelsd

And this weekend, when I posted a TwitPic of Mount Rainier, which was visible in the distance, who should begin following but @MtRainierGuides!

The Statue of Liberty has a Twitter, @statuelibrtynp; even well-traveled tourist sites are taking advantage of the ease of social media monitoring to reach out to would-be tourists in the area.

How will you use social media monitoring?

In a recent Telegraph article, BT was named the worst customer service provider. We hear a lot about formulas for good customer service; what's the formula for bad customer service?

And I don't mean a little, the-rep-you-ended-up-with-was-just-having-a-bad-day bad. This study rates the majority of interactions as consistently unpleasant and ineffective for the customer.

How? The criteria seem to be these:

• Consistently rude staff
• Taking several minutes to get to an agent
• Being passed around to different agents
• Having to repeat one's request several times (lack of communication among agents or between the IVR system and the agents)
• Staff whose accents are hard to understand
• Long hold times
• Having to answer more than one security question

If you're the company, how do you rate with each of these? (Hint: if you don't know, try doing random customer satisfaction surveys at the end of calls. Trust me; they'll tell you how you rate.) If you're the customer, what would you add to this list?

[Cross-posted from the Spoken Communications blog]

AudioBoo is one of the newer tools in the social media storm of late, and some podfaders have gravitated towards it as an easy, on-the-go alternative to the sometimes labor-intensive audio podcast.

Thanks to the likes of Neville Hobson over at For Immediate Release podcast, who has been raving about AudioBoo's ease of use, I downloaded the iPhone app and gave it a try.

What is AudioBoo?
AudioBoo is basically Seesmic for audio recordings, with the added benefit of recording directly from the iPhone via the iPhone app. To get started, download the free app from the App store. The interface is three-button, no-nonsense.

Push Record to record an audio message. This could be a Twitter-like comment or something longer, like an interview, with two people speaking into the application. After reviewing your Boo, just hit upload to post the message, and message posts to the public timeline at AudioBoo.fm.

The site works like most other social networking sites, with a public timeline so you can discover friends with similar interests, the ability to tag posts for more discoverability and the ability to friend and follow others.

Another nice added feature is the ability to create different account and link each one to the iPhone app--great for community managers like myself who might want to post from different accounts on behalf of clients.

The big benefit of AudioBoo is its ease of use, hands-down. If you've discovered that you don't have time to orchestrate a full-on podcast but still want to connect orally with friends, fans and followers, AudioBoo can basically act as an easy, three-button, instant podcast. At the next event, try hitting Record to capture an interview with a speaker or attendee immediately after a session and posting right away.

It's the instantaneous nature of Twitter combined with the more personal connectivity of audio via the human voice. This could be powerful. And yes, it's now integrated with Twitter so that you can tweet your Boos, so no worries about having to manage two micromedia platforms simultaneously. For a more detailed explanation, this video is excellent:

Have you tried AudioBoo? What do you think? More importantly, how do you anticipate using it?

[Cross-posted from the Spoken Communications group blog]

If you go to any seminar on customer service, ask any expert or read any book on the topic, you'll get one basic, rather tired message:

Even a Google blogsearch turns up over 24,00 results. And there are some great examples of going the extra mile, to be sure, but I can't help but wonder, what does that really mean? Who decides what customer expectations are to begin with and what falls into the "extra" category? What if customer expectations are unrealistically high? Or low?

Harvard Business writer Scott Anthony asked this question as part of a 10-part series on customer service. In particular, he addresses the issue of cost-cutting: when a company considers cutting costs for customers, how does it determine what to cut?

In short, when you not only can't go the extra mile, but the company is going to have to stop at 5,000 feet, how do you decide which 280 feet to cut out?

Instead of starting with the balance book, Scott suggests a customer-focused approach: um... ask the customer. It's a crazy idea. Listen to what customers really want and need, not just to decide what new products to develop but also what to cut when times get tough:

(Emphasis mine.) In the social media sphere, we always suggest listening first. We always recommend monitoring for weeks or even months before making any commitments to any type of active social media participation. The same is true for for any type of customer service--even when it's making a decision about cutting down on service. If your customers are rave about your phone agents, don't cut the call center budget. If customers don't like or use the online chat, ask them why or why not; an inexpensive fix might maximize that usage. Or you might discover that your customers just don't like that medium, and it can indeed be cut.

In short, if you can't go the extra mile, don't take shots in the dark on shortcuts based on the balance sheet. Make it a habit to take the time to ask customers what they want, over and over again. Develop that deep understanding of what the customer needs and wants today. And if you're not sure? Ask. The shortcut you take just may end up looking to the customer like that cliched extra mile.

With the explosion of social media into the public space (even my mother has discovered Facebook), there is now a constantly-burning question, especially for those who use social media to highlight their professional accomplishments: how personal is too personal?

HarvardBusiness published an article last month asking the question, What does your Facebook profile say about you? and delves into the constantly blurring line between the personal and the professional. When companies first started blocking Facebook in 2007, business blogger and podcaster Shel Holtz criticized the move, citing (among other) objections the now-emerged trend of work-life integration. He argues against the productivity objection, saying:

And the Harvard article asks the question: why would offer personal information online, anyway?, quickly followed by the salient answer: "Sharing personal information further humanized people whose roles may otherwise make them seem remote or inaccessible." Just look at Frank Eliaison's Twitter team humanizing customer service for Comcast or GM's Fastlane blog to find out how big business can reach out to the public in a real and transparent way and succeed in chipping away at its monolithic image.

Still, this is inevitably the first question I'll field from participants at a Facebook for Business session: isn't that just for your family and friends? And this will be followed by: how much personal information should we disclose? how personal is too personal? is it OK to post pictures of my dog?

Image by zedzap via Flickr

The answer: work and life are becoming integrated. More and more, in the office we show ourselves as complete human beings, with both a passion for our work and a passion for our hobbies and family life. And as "workplace" is becoming defined no longer just as the office cubicle but also as the seat in the airport terminal, the table at the local coffee shop, the iPhone in the car before the meeting, the home office and the Tweetup networking event, the line between the professional profile and the personal profile has grayed as well.

General advice for your Facebook profile:

• Be yourself. Show your hobbies. Post your photography, your dog winning the second place ribbon at the dog show, your favorite campsite at Yellowstone.
• Have an opinion. Whitewashing is for fences. You don't have to be a jerk to give an opinion; if you create a space that invites and engenders informed discussions, you're more likely to build an engaged network than to make real enemies.
• Share your passion for your work (without giving away company secrets). Let your passion for your work show in a real and daily way. Passion begets passion, and as the Harvard article points out, "Seeing a more rounded person can't help but extend and develop professional relationships, furthering the trust that's crucial to collaborative knowledge creation--the lifeblood of innovation"
• Don't post anything you wouldn't want your grandmother, boss or shareholders to see. An open-door policy doesn't mean everyone gets to root around in your closet. Post photos from the company picnic, but leave out the one where the boss looks a bit tipsy. Mention you are enjoying client challenges, but don't mention the client by name. Share video of your family trip to the Poconos, but keep the second honeymoon to Bermuda private.

What about you? What advice would you give to professionals looking to Facebook as a way to reach out and get engaged?

Pictures from the cross-country trek are on Facebook as well as some video. Everyone should see Mount Rushmore in his/her lifetime; glad I can cross that off my list!

For today, a fascinating video I ran across that is a five-minute explanation of Information Overload. It's a cross between Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded and your RSS reader. Annoyed that the question of what it all means is left up to the viewer to decide, but also a bit relieved to know that I'm not alone in the daily battle of organizing and evaluating the tidal wave of information that comes to me via iPhone and MacBook:

Part I, The Tue Value of New PR, is an expanded, updated version of the theses in the Cluetrain Manifesto, laying out the differences between what our clients and audiences expect now versus just a few years ago. The fuzzy lines between journalism and blogging are explored, and the idea that no matter what tools you use to communicate, the most important aspect of PR is the "relations" part--it is (and always has been) about establishing and nurturing relationships with your friends, fans, enemies and consumers:

Brian and Deirdre argue for the aspects of good Web 2.0 we've all come to tout: transparency, engagement, flexibility, openness, communication with not to and speaking in a real human voice instead of in corporate messages. And they support those arguments with blog posts from the best formative voices in social media: Chris Anderson, Erick Shonfeld, Charlene Li, Chris Heuer, Jay Rosen, Robert Scoble, Todd Defren and others.

Part II covers more theory on this art of reaching out within the social media space, starting with language and attitude and covering how to reach out to bloggers and create a social media press release. (Corporate blogging is in this section, too). Their advice on creating a profile for a social networking/media tool:

For approaching social media in general:

With respect to blogger relations, Brian and Deirdre argue against shooting only for A-list bloggers and advise targeting instead the more relevant influencers, the "magic middle":

They define the "magic middle" as blogs with 20 to 1,000 inbound active links and argue that these are the bloggers that inspire real people to try new products.

If you write press releases, read chapter 8. Your recipients will thank you.

Part III dives into the how of participating in social media, beginning with the exortation that "technology does not override the social sciences." That's right; you still have to be real, sincere and human. Participation in tools like Facebook and Twitter are in this section, BTW.

Part IV looks into the future of PR 2.0, including the new title Community Manager (yes, that's me!), the customer service possibilities with social media and metrics.

And finally, Part V (I'll admit I haven't got to it yet) speculates on the future of PR.

Overall, this book is a useful resource, whether you're in PR or just looking at starting a corporate blog or Twitter account. It's been incredibly valuable to me as I've been making the arguments to clients for starting a corporate blog or taking the time to participate in social media at all--rich in sources and case studies, it gives me great ammunition to make the case for social media in the business world.

Let's face it; a lot of customers will never call in and tell you they're disappointed in their product. Unless they're absolutely furious and want their money back, most customers are too busy to worry about being a bit disappointed. They're more likely to tell their friends the product wasn't that great.

And that's the point: as Cluetrain Manifesto pointed out back in 2000, conversations about your product are going on with or without you: markets are conversations. And tools like Twitter and Facebook are just that--tools that consumers use to share their ideas, opinions and complaints about products.

It's what I did. When Sweetwater called a few weeks ago to ask how I liked the Zoom H2 I'd purchased six months before, I let them know honestly that I wasn't all that happy with it. The Zoom tends to pick up a lot of background noise, and when I plug in my Giant Squid dual lapel mics, the Zoom wasn't getting any feed from them. And finally, when I plug the Zoom into my MacBook via USB, every few minutes, the signal would record deafening distortion, both in my headset and on the recording.

The representative was great--he transferred me to a tech person to solve the second issue (the mics need a trickle of power, so under Menu, choose "Plug-In" and set "Plug-In Power" to on) and gave me a link to download a patch for the latest Mac OS to try to fix the third issue. (From what I can gather, the Zoom H2 just picks up an extraordinary amount of background noise, so that issue remains unadressed).

However, the patch didn't work, so I emailed Todd, the tech support representative, to let him know, along with a test recording showing the distortion. Apparently, the Zoom folks didn't respond to him, and a few weeks passed. The next time I tried to use the Zoom and it didn't work well, I Twittered the experience.

Zoom (@zoomfx) jumped right in:

 
And Sweetwater (@sweetwatersound) did, too, leading to another phone call and Zoom and Sweetwater working together to deal with the issue:

In the end, I got a call from Sweetwater. It seems the distortion issue baffled both them and Zoom, so Zoom agreed to send me a new unit, and I'll send the old one back. This led to this Tweet from me:

And the positive conversation continued on Twitter as well, with others sounding in:

Could this service have happened without Twitter? Possibly. But it didn't. When email and phone calls fail, I, along with many other users, turn to Twitter to express my views on a product. Using new social media tools like Twitter won't replace your existing customer service. And if your customer service is bad to begin with, using Twitter most likely won't improve it (or at least, not much).

However, engaging customers and users in the social media space can help with the ones who might otherwise slip through the cracks. Zoom and Sweetwater followed up via Twitter when traditional modes of communication failed. They joined the conversation where it was taking place: on Twitter. And because of that, an issue that otherwise would have gone unresolved got adressed in a positive way. And a product that would have gone unrecommended now has a bit more positive press.

If you don't have time to be on Twitter constantly, here's a tip: set up Twitter searches for your company and product names so that you can be alerted to mentions of your products as they occur.

Other advice you'd give to companies considering using Twitter for customer service?

[Thanks, Amy, for verifying the facts of the original delivery!]

The Domino's Pizza kerfuffle that blazed its way across the blogosphere and Twittersphere last week had hordes of social media folks asking why Domino's didn't respond sooner--or at least select a less clunky Twitter ID when they did. And the rapid awareness of "Boogergate" will undoubtedly be a case study for months to come.

But here in Chicago, one Domino's operator gets its. Ramon, who uses the Twitter ID @dpzramon and operates Domino's Pizza joints in Chicago at 3103 N. Clark, 2455 W. Fullerton, 2231 N. Lincoln, 4039 W. 26th, 1234 S. Canal, and 143 W. Division, jumped into the Domino's kerfuffle in Chicago by replying to local Tweets and directing Twitter inquiries to Patrick Doyle's YouTube video (once it was created). And he's not new to social media: his Twitter profile sports links to his blog as well as to his YouTube, Viddler, Facebook and Flickr accounts, all with content dating back months, not days.

But that's not all. When Amy Korin (@interactiveamy) called one of his Domino's stores and waited nearly two hours [correction: over an hour] for her pizza [addendum: that was not the pizza she'd ordered], she Twittered about it. And Ramon didn't just respond; he responded via Twitter. And he did her one better: he contacted Junior, the manager of the Lincoln Park Domino's that delayed Amy's pizza. Together, they posted a video to make a personal apology for the delay:

Domino's national, take a lesson from Ramon. Note that he apologizes for taking an hour to respond to her Tweet; that's the immediacy expected within today's social media sphere. Response  is measured in hours, not days. Also note that Ramon looked at the camera and spoke from his heart without a script. He spoke directly and personally to the customer, taking the first steps to forge a relationship.

And what a step it was! At last night's Social Media Club gathering, Amy reported that that Viddler video had been embedded nearly 12,000 times. Keep in mind that refers to embeds, not views--12,000 bloggers embedded the video in their own post, just like this one. And to do her one better, Ramon provided Domino's pizza for last night's entire Social Media Club gathering--that was over 350 people!

This is where the power of social media lies: in immediate, personal response bent on building a relationship with others.

A while back, I wrote up a post on Best Practices for Twitter, both for those starting out and for those who've been Twittering for a while but perhaps wondering why their following is growing so slowly. In the wake of the Domino's Pizza kerfuffle (now affectionately known by some as Boogergate) and the Ashton Kutcher/CNN race and Oprah's Twitter debut, a few more practices have come to light for the list:

• Complete your Twitter profile with a photo that looks like you. Don't put a photo of an umbrella or of your pet. You're expecting folks to relate to you, so post a photo of you. It doesn't have to be professional; a flattering webcam shot is fine.
• Complete your Twitter profile with a link to your website. If you follow someone, make it easy for her to find out who you are and whether you are worth following back by providing a link to your best/most representative website on your profile.
• Download a Twitter app to your internet-enabled phone. Using a mobile device to Twitter will enable you to live Twitter from events, which gives your followers the feeling that they are there, having fun and learning with you. (Try Twitterfon, Twitterific, Twittelator or Tweetie for the iPhone; my current favorite it Tweetie for managing multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously.)
• If you are Twittering as a business or corporation, specify the human being who is Twittering under that auspice. When Domino's created @dpzinfo two days into the recent kerfuffle, it was useful, but it would have been better if we'd had any idea who was doing the Twittering--was it one marketing guy? A team? Were the Tweets one person's opinion that we could relate to and form a relationship with, or were they all corporate-approved? Your followers need a "who" to relate to. So, for example, when Kristen Taylor Twitters for @knightfdn, she specifies that she (@kthread) is doing the Twittering:

• Please don't use all caps anywhere, ever. It's just not user-friendly. Who wants to read this?

• Don't use automation to thank your followers. Either thank followers individually by hand, or just don't thank them.
• Don't put a link to your money-making, life-changing website in your auto-thank message. It's just tacky, as if someone came to your party expecting a great converstion, and you greeted him at the door by trying to sell him a timeshare. 
• Use TwitPic to Twitter photos of the people you're with, the speakers you're hearing, the conference you're attending, the funny sign you saw, even the lovely sunset you're witnessing. Bring us into the moment and into your life.

I'm sure there will be a Best Practices for Twitter, part trois. In the meantime, what would you add to these lists?

Nielsen has just release a new report, this one on how the economy has affected use of the internet, including video viewing, internet ads and social networking sites.

It's probably not too much of a surprise that Nielsen reports use of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are up 73% over the last year; 883% since 2003. The San Francisco Gate  quotes Charles Buchwalter, a senior vice president with Nielsen Online, as saying that "the research shows is a fundamental shift from shopping directories and search tools as people seek more 'personalized relationships' when they go online."

In short, what social media hawks have been saying for years is true: people are yearning to connect with people like themselves. They are yearning for real conversations with real human beings. They want to be engaged, and they want to spend time in online communities both for the information exchanged and for the sense of community provided. (Did I manage to use all the social media buzzwords for that one?) People are no longer using the internet just to buy a pair of shoes; they are joining communities to find other shoe enthusiasts; they are finding shoe-shopping buddies; they are subscribing to feeds to find out about the latest shoe styles; they are Twittering about shoe news and sales; they are forming Tweetups with their shoe community buddies.

And very little of that interaction and engagement is actually about buying shoes; it's more about finding, creating and participating in a community that shares a person's interests.

Buchwalter continues, advising internet marketers to online marketers to "create more meaningful relationships with customers."

That's right. It's no longer enough to market to customers; we want to be engaged with as human beings in a living, breathing community.

In a YouTube video (what else?), Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank tells more:

In it, he reflects on the impact of the economy on the online media landscape. He reports:

• while categories like auto and financial services are spending less, pharma and others are increasing spending
• he challenges the industry to change the way the internet uses advertising
• YouTube doesn't cannibalize television; both TV and YouTube viewing trends are going up

The good news seems to be that marketers and advertisers have more options and more chances to engage consumers than ever before online. Question is, will they?

My good colleague and friend, Susan Mernit, has some great news to share. She has been awarded one of the eight 2009 New Voices grants awarded by J Lab with Knight Foundation support this year! Considering the grants fielded applications from over 300 applicants, she is thrilled to have gotten this two-year grant support.

So what's the funding for? It's to kick start Oakland Local, a new site for Oakland. Says Susan, "Oakland Local will be a daily-updated web site and mobile service with a focus on environment, climate, transportation, housing, local government and community activism in Downtown, Uptown, North Oakland, West Oakland, Fruitvale, Lake Merritt, and the Dimond District."

She plans to have an editor, a publisher and three paid part-time reporters who will produce content, along with community contributors. And of course, the site will be mobile-friendly as well, given current trends towards news distribution via mobile devices.

The site will also geotag content to an XML data map, encourage users to interact via cell phones and employ a range of social networking tools to surface, share and make discoverable so much of the amazing organizing and activism in Oakland.

Susan says:

Susan co-created New Jersey Online with Jeff Jarvis back in 1995 and, with this new project, hopes to offer an opportunity to provide so many groups working on issues in Oakland an opportunity to have their work and views be heard and seen.

This is a very exciting project to those of us interested in the gaps in information needs on a local level. Personally, Susan, I wish you the best in this new endeavor!