“Define exactly what you mean by ‘doing Social Media,’” I replied.

“Define Social Media?” they asked incredulously.

“Yes,” I said. “When you say we need to do more Social Media, exactly what services are you suggesting? Community Management (i.e., manning Twitter and Facebook)? Content creation? Creating social apps? Doing even more sophisticated monitoring and analytics? All of the above? None of the above – something different?”

We went back and forth on it for a bit. My colleague acknowledged that we “do a lot of social strategy and creative social brainstorming for clients” but their team wanted to be even more hands-on.

“In other words,” I concluded, “your team wants to hit ‘tweet’ or ‘publish’ more often? — You’re essentially suggesting that they want to be more tactical, when everyone else in the world seems to wish they could ‘be more strategic.’”

No, thanks.

While I firmly believe that agencies can play a compelling role in Community Management (which is what I deduced the team was looking to do more of), i.e., research, monitoring, content calendaring and creation, analysis, crisis comms, and so on, I also firmly believe that the workaday Community Management stuff is best handled by in-house corporate pros. That’s not to say we won’t do it — we have, we do, and we will, when called on — but it’s not an industry best practice, imho.

I raised this issue on Twitter today, and I think Steve Farnsworth said it best:

@tdefren “We take money from clients to implement a tools based “strategy” (i.e., tweet for them) because they have more money than sense.”

— Steve Farnsworth (@Steveology) May 22, 2012

Just because it’s snarky, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

What do you mean, exactly, when you tell people you “handle” Social Media?

Follow a 70/30 Rule – 70% of content curated, 30% branded.  Why? Because the rest-of-the-world is at least 70% more interesting than your brand; and, promoting external content builds social capital, makes grateful fans of influencers.

All content should be SHAREWORTHY.  Don’t publish junk.  Better to be quiet than to queer the signal-to-noise ratio.

All content should benefit SEO.  Note that search engines increasingly favor Social Signals and Blended Results (multimedia).  Keyword optimize your content whenever possible and appropriate, across all channels.

All content should be digestible.  Big pieces should be readily and easily broken-down into component parts (e.g., a big infographic could be made available in smaller chunks)

Content should be channel optimized (by channel, by device) and distributed synchronously across social outposts.

Earned Media (MSM or fan-generated) is the best media.  (Really? Yes.)  A reputation for credibility trumps a reputation for creativity: credibility today lends authority to the creative endeavors of tomorrow.  And in our overheated media market, credibility comes from third-party influencers and from peers.

Paid Promotion – deployed flexibly, for the best earned media (primarily) or for the best branded content (secondarily) should be used to extend content lifecycle.  Where it makes sense, Social Advertising should tout user plaudits vs. features/benefits: make the customer the star.

… There are more than 7 principles in successful content marketing, of course. And some might argue that these are not even the most important seven.  Let’s hear your thoughts: what are the must-have considerations for success?

I’ll be moderating the panel on “Reputation preservation and enhancement: Use social media to maximize the impact of your brand.”  I’ll be joined by McDonald’s Heather Oldani, Director of U.S. Communications; by Citi’s Jonathan Young, VP of Social Media & Digital Communications; and, by Brandy King, Senior Communications Manager at Southwest Airlines.

Think about that for a sec. I’ll be talking to communications execs from the fast food industry, from Wall Street, and from the airline industry, about “reputation preservation and enhancement.”  Could it be more perfect? It could not.

By the way, my client and pal – the brilliant and gutsy marketer Scott Gulbransen from H&R Block –  will be speaking on using advanced social media strategies to improve consumer engagement on another panel.  That’s another must-see.

Pretty compelling, eh? Register here. And don’t be daunted by the price, cuz I am offering readers of this blog a 35% discount (code: SPEAKER).

See ya there.

Wow, wow, wow. We are busting at the seams over here.  Today the Holmes Group named SHIFT Communications the 2012 Digital/Social Agency of the Year – with “honorable mentions” in the category going to behemoths like Edelman, Ogilvy and Weber Shandwick.

This marks the 3^rd time in the last few years that SHIFT has nabbed “agency of the year” honors.  We were the “Agency of the Year” according to the American Business Awards, and the “New Media Agency of the Year” (again via Holmes) back in 2008.

Both times we were psyched.  But this win feels extra special.

Let’s face it, the PR industry is moving in the Digital/Social direction moreso than ever before.  We’ve stayed on top of this trend from the get-go, vying for opportunities (and even winning sometimes!) versus agencies that are 10X our size.  In the process we’ve evolved a vision for the role of earned media and content marketing that we’re excited about … and for which this recognition is truly gratifying.

Here’s a link to the broader Holmes Group report, and below is the excerpt announcing our win… which I will be committing to memory for engraving on my headstone, right after the bits about “loving husband and father” …

Digital/Social Agency of the Year: Shift Communications

Shift’s investment in an integrated offering that blends paid, owned and earned media reaped rich dividends in 2011, spurring growth of around 15 percent. The firm’s digital capabilities encompass typical social media solutions, along with ecommerce, design/build and a content marketing facility that has proved a true differentiating factor. Shift leveraged this offering to land some impressive new business, including assignments from McDonald’s, AOL, Salesforce.com and H&R Block. And there was plenty of eye-catching digital work, for Overstock.com, Zeo, Everbank and, perhaps most notably, a crisis brief for Applebee’s that offers a model for crisis communications in the social media era.

Honorable mention: Edelman, Ogilvy PR, Weber Shandwick, Zocalo Group

If I’ve ever impressed ya as a nice chap, or helped you in some way, or made you think a little differently about marketing concepts, do me a favor and give us a tweet about this news?  All of my colleagues are so psyched and I know they’d appreciate it.  Thanks!

We originally parted ways, very amicably, because they had reached a degree of success that no longer warranted as much proactive effort (and, being a startup, they were wisely watching their burn rate).

During our catch-up session, this company representative described a newfound fever within the company to get more – and more awesome –  mainstream media recognition.

“We want to be on the cover of a business magazine.  We want to be a talking head on the business news channels.  We want to be interviewed on the radio about industry trends. Etc.”

Even though they publish loads of content. Even though they have great SEO.  Even though they already get a fair share of coverage.  Even though they have a large and active social graph.  Even though they have all that manna from heaven, they want more “old school” media coverage.

It’s an important lesson for those marketers who have become so enamored of the social stuff that they now pay short shrift to the bread-and-butter marketing tactics that still prove so effective at awareness-building, credibility and lead-generation.

Paid content is awesome. Owned content is awesome. Shared content is awesome.  But earned content is extra-special awesome, cuz it can serve as a central spoke for those other media strategies.

You do something great. The mainstream media picks up on it.  That’s a version of Earned Media that you can syndicate (paid), create an advertisement around (paid), post with special commentary to your social channels (owned/shared) — all of it predicated on the fact that you earned credible 3^rd party endorsements of your great offering, activity or product.

Also, it’s more impressive to your mom.

Do you want to know what corporate PR departments really want from their agencies, and how important agency relationships are in the eyes of chief communicators? So did we, and have now published a comprehensive set of findings on the state of the public relations industry. Our research team recently surveyed 620 senior communicators and compiled results of the seventh biennial Communication and Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices (GAP VII) study, intended to provide practitioners with useful information to better manage the communication functions in their organizations.

Some of the findings indicate a shift in corporate-agency relationships. As an example, agency-of-record (AOR) relationships are vanishing. In 2002, more than 50 percent of public companies reported an AOR relationship. This number decreased continuously and now has shrunk to just over 15 percent. At the same time, the number of agencies individual corporations engage with continues to increase. This may mean more agencies are getting the opportunity to pursue more clients, many of which previously had AOR relationships. It may also be attributed to demand for specialized and/or regionally focused agency services, or, it could also be the result of increased competition and bidding for individual projects.

GAP VII also offers insight into why and how companies engage with agencies. Corporate respondents listed “additional arms and legs” as the primary reason. However, they also said that they retain agencies for purposes such as providing a unique perspective, offering market insight and a strategic point of view.

A deeper look into the motivations for corporate use of agencies reveals two clusters of PR departments: those that primarily use agencies for tactical purposes, and those that engage strategically. The data show a significant relationship between strategic agency use and higher scores on variables indicating success (e.g. the PR department’s recommendations taken seriously by management, and a positive view on how highly CEOs regards the PR function). Conversely, low strategic use and high tactical use are associated with the weakest scores on multiple success indicators.

The message to corporate clients: if you engage your agencies strategically, you’re more likely to be successful.

Other topics covered by GAP VII include areas of responsibility, budgets, trends in social media, reporting lines, integration and PR’s contributions to business goals.

Key findings include a steep rise in budgets allocated measurement and evaluation, more mainstream use of social media, and expanded responsibility for customer relations and internal communication. Marketing/product PR is on the decline.

Additionally, the study found that PR/Communication (finally!) has “a seat at the table.” In nearly 60 percent of responding companies, PR/Communication reported directly to the C-Suite (chairman, CEO, COO, etc.), reflecting today’s increasingly transparent, communication-intensive environment.

The GAP VII study report is available for free download at the USC Annenberg Strategic Communication and Public Relation Center’s (SCPRC) web site.  The same location hosts the GAP VII Insight Base, a comprehensive online catalogue of detailed findings, where PR practitioners can gain insight into specific topics of interest to their organization.

The essential message was to “do awesome stuff and people will ‘like’ you online.”

And that’s true, as far as it goes.

But there’s another message that marketers need to hear:  “Not everything you do will be awesome.”  And that’s okay.

The rapacious need of the interwebz to produce ever better/sillier/cooler content won’t mellow.  To attempt to keep pace would be foolhardy.  But that need not mean you never publish anything that isn’t “awesome.”  After all, the ping is half the battle.   You need to be in the mix.

So, sometimes, just curate other folks’ awesome stuff.

Sometimes, just publish something that’s low-cost to produce, yet which might be helpful to your audience.

Sometimes, rant.

Sometimes, be quiet for a little while.

Sometimes, go balls-out and hope for the best.

That’s the other half of the battle.

Caught this via the NYTimes.  Remember this post about “Why Social Media Is The Future of Public Relations”?

Look out your window.

See that guy drinking espresso while fiddling with his iPhone?

Maybe he’s writing a Yelp/TripAdvisor/Angie’sList/Glassdoor/Amazon/Twitter/Facebook review of your company or product… which will be indexed by Google… which will be excerpted in a mainstream media feature… which will get picked up by a blogger… which will impact the purchase decision of your next customer.

That guy drinking espresso while fiddling with his iPhone may be as important to your success as a NYTIMES reporter.

Think about those concepts again, after watching this video.

Yea. I know, right?  It’s coming.

If you’re human, the answer is likely “never.”

You never log-on to your favorite social media sites to interact specifically with brands.  The brands “just happen to be there,” as you read the news, peruse celebrity gossip, check Gmail, stalk old high-school flames, etc.

When we create content, we’re aiming for a level of attention that very few people want to give us.  When we aim for earned media hits, we’re hoping for a level of credibility that very few people are willing to ascribe.

We aim for crashing waves when we should aspire to never-ending ripples.  The crashing wave makes a lot of noise; the never-ending ripple carves out canyons.

That’s why you’ve heard me say, over and over (like a never-ending ripple, even): “campaigns don’t create relationships, but relationships can make campaigns exponentially more powerful.”

What is the takeaway?  Be ever-present. Be a resource.  By all means, create branded content, and shoot for the moon when it comes to earned media.  But in all cases know that your best-case scenario is to be a part of the social stream.  Throw a rock in a raging river and watch how quickly those ripples are subsumed by the greater powers of the current: that’s what you’re up against. 

The point of marketing in this environment is to create the types of jetsam and driftwood that our users can grab on to; find purchase on; point-to in passing … and move on.  Don’t worry, you get credit along the way.  It builds up.  Eventually you’ll have built an indomitable ledge of stone.  This is branding.

If you buy this premise, you start to think differently. 

You may find yourself willing to move more quickly, on more stuff, often more cheaply, and with more stomach for failure (because they’ll at least be “fast failures”).  You won’t be stupid or inappropriate –  but you will find yourself further towards the edges. 

It’s more fun there, by the way.

All aboard!