Use this little scenario as a mental check on your social media activities. Are your tactics meant to benefit your community — or to just manipulate them for your own ends?

So read your plan again with your customer’s eyes. Imagine how Nina would feel if she found out you were …

• erasing bad product reviews
• anonymously trashing your competitors
• artificially swelling your follower counts
• ghostwriting your CEO’s blog posts
• abusing customers’ Facebook data

If you’re doing slimy things like this, smarten up now — or wake up one horrible morning to read your company’s expose on The Consumerist.

Don’t just avoid ethical pitfalls. Your social media plan should fill your fans with anticipation of all the great ways you’re going to make their life more enjoyable this year. Here are some activities you should include in your social media plan:

• passing along helpful information
• publishing useful content
• providing superb customer service
• answering product questions promptly
• maintaining a friendly, human presence
• admitting when you screw up and making it right immediately
• rewarding and honoring your best fans
• delighting your fans in surprising ways
• guiding them to the products and services they actually need

If your social media plan is bursting with ways to serve your community, people like Nina will reward you with their business, their loyalty, and their advocacy. And you’ll never have to fear being exposed.

What social media tactics would make you angry? And which ones really delight your community? Let us know in the comments.

1. Discovering B2B Influencers with Social Media

In many B2B industries, the influencers are known and few, but if you are in a large industry, the discovery process begins with search. Look for people talking about industry keywords that are relevant to your business. Find the ones who have the most followings, but make sure you review how people respond to them and how they communicate with others. Keep in mind that you should focus on the platforms that are most important to your business. Don’t ignore the industries of your prospects and customers, either.

2. Engaging with B2B Influencers

Once you have identified the influencers, start reading and sharing their social media content, from your social media accounts and those of your company. This way when you reach out to them and introduce yourself, you are very familiar with what interests them. If they are in your industry, they may or may not already be familiar with your company. Since you are in the same industry, there should be plenty of common points of discussion. After establishing an online connection, look to further it in person at industry events. Once this relationship is established, ask them if they would do a webinar for your company or agree to be interviewed for your company blog. If you can create valuable content that they will share with their network, it will drive awareness of your company that can be converted to actions.

3. Developing Internal B2B Influencers

B2B companies have always had subject matter experts (SMEs) that functioned within the company walls. They talked to customers in a variety of settings, but it is now possible to scale their knowledge with social media. Encourage your company SMEs to blog on a weekly basis about industry trends, the latest statistics and other general industry information. As they create more and more thoughtful content, others in the industry begin to notice their presence. This building of thought leadership can turn into influence when people start following their advice of what’s next and where they should focus their energies moving forward. This reflects well on your B2B company, because they are your employee, and are creating this content on your site.

4. Measuring Action and Influence on B2B Social Media

Any marketing or social media campaign needs to be measured to determine success, and a B2B influencer campaign is no different. One of the best ways to start is to put some parameters around the campaign. Consider things like time or a specific event or piece of content. Set a goal for its success, based on past experience. For example, if your webinars usually have 250 registrants, your goal can be to double that by leveraging the influencer’s network. Be careful that you hold other actions constant so you can determine if the influencer drove the additional registration. You can also track whether those people eventually turned into sales. So in this example, you can understand how an industry influencer can drive both leads and sales. Connecting those dots together shows the value of your influencer social media outreach.

5. Applying Learnings to Future B2B Influencer Activities

By tracking everything you do along the way, and understanding their effect on your goals, you know where to focus your influencer efforts in the future. It is important to benchmark each campaign against the previous one, but as stated above, take into account anything that changes (amount of other promotions, degrees of influence, etc.) from one campaign to another.

How have you approached influencer outreach using social media for your B2B company? Learn more about working with social media influencers in our latest ebook, Win Over Your Industry’s Social Media Influencers.

1. Ask your influencers questions

2. Ask them to guest blog

3. Comment on your influencers’ blog posts

4. Share their content with your social networks

5. +1 and like influencer posts

6. Link to their content in your blog posts

7. Ask to cross-post influencer content on your corporate blog

8. Make introductions

9. Ask for introductions

10. Give your influencers a shout out on your social networks

11. Invite your influencers to a Tweetup

12. Invite them to participate in a Google+ hangout or webinar

13. Ask them to provide feedback on your brand or product

14. Make changes based on your influencer feedback

15. Provide feedback on influencer content

16. Reward them with exclusive content or offers

17. Host an event to show them your appreciation

18. Give them a sneak peak of a new product or service

19. Thank them

20. Connect with your influencers on other networks

21. Ask an influencer to be your brand’s spokesperson

22. Invite them to collaborate on campaigns

23. Offer to work together to author or co-author an ebook

24. Ask your influencers to host a Twitter Chat

25. Host an event panel and invite your influencers to participate

26. Do a blog or video interview with an influencer

27. Engage with your influencers as people, not prospects

28. Ask them for advice on brand or industry topics

29. Add your influencers to a Google+ circle and share it with your community

30. Create a Pinterest board with your favorite influencer content

These are a few ways to reach out to and engage with your influencers that can easily be incorporated into your existing social media strategy. Start with one or two and go from there to find the approach that fits best with your brand and your community.

How are you currently engaging with your social media influencers? What suggestions can you add to the above list? For more tips on engaging your influencers, be sure to check out chapter 3 of our latest ebook, Win Over Your Industry’s Social Media Influencers.

Note under Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines, any relationship where payment or other compensation is received for an endorsement or testimonial must be fully disclosed. You can read more about full disclosure and what it means here.

Let’s dig into the last week starting with our previous Travel Tuesday (January 31) to February 6, 2012!

Hashtags

I’ve shared previous posts on travel conversations on Twitter, but here’s a bit of a look at the most frequently used hashtags in ‘Travel + Social Media’ according to Insights.

• The big winner: #TTOT – This hashtag, which stands for Travel Talk on Twitter, seems to be #winning with over 17k mentions over the previous week.
• Runners up: #travel and #tni.
• Lesser volume, more niche: #vacation, #traveltips, #hiking just to name a few.

What does this mean, and why should you care? Great question! While there is a huge following of the #TTOT hashtag, and there are a great number of people conversing there your potential audience may also be greater when using this hashtag for your own content. You may want to consider also zeroing and identifying the topic of your content in an effort to gain attention of the people who it will most directly affect.

Filled with #history #art #culture the #European #castles surely have it all : ow.ly/8iXmn #ttot

— culture_jammer (@culture_jammer) February 5, 2012

Most retweeted and mentioned travel talkers on Twitter

Having a look at some of the most retweeted usernames and Twitter users who got mentioned the most in relation to our ‘Travel + Social Media’ profile, I uncovered a few fun people I was not already following. Consider this your #traveltuesday list of who to follow today:

• @TravelDudes is killing it! I think Melvin must be sharing content that matters to his followers, otherwise he wouldn’t be showing up as the number one guy retweeted and shared last week.
• @malloryontravel, @toniwonitravels and @nickhealy are three people who got lots of attention last week, too and they weren’t far behind @Traveldudes!
• @zipsetandrea, @hjortur, & @zipsetrachel are a few more tweet chat hosts who sure do talk travel lots!
• Don’t forget about @lonelyplanet and @msnbc. Their travel content gets shared lots by interested travel folks.

Some of the best of the best

It could hardly be a ’roundup’ if a few links weren’t tossed around and share, now would it? Here are a few highlights from what’s been shared widely (or wildly) over the last week:

• Why Social Media ROI Is Complicated For Hotels – This little gem is brought to us by @AreMorch. I liked what Are wrote regarding his social media strategy stages for hotels. He moves us through ‘reaction’ to ‘realization’ and challenges hoteliers to now jump on board building relationships.
• Kuoni reveals their ‘Travel Trends‘ report for 2012. It just intensifies my desire to trael to Thailand as soon as possible.
• Congratulations are in order for Quirky Travel Guy as he celebrated his one year travelblogiversary 
• And to end a round up with another one of sorts, Betsy A. Decillis thinks you should get to know these tourism peeps.

So there you have it. Whether you’re looking for relevant conversations,  someone new to follow in travel, or a bit of recent news, this is it. Of course, I’ve left a lot of cool stuff out. That’s where YOU the community come into play.

Please, tell us who you think we should pay attention to. Share with us your favorite recent link. Or even pimp yourself out as an awesome travel voice. See the comments section below? Now….. Go!

Jenn Seeley tweets, talks and blogs about Travel, Entertainment and Leisure. Follow her on Twitterand check out her most recent posts here.

I spoke this morning at the Social Commerce Summit in New York City, hosted by Business Insider. Here are the seven steps I shared.

1. Establish your goals in advance. If you don’t know what you want to do, you’re much more likely to fail. (As in life.)

2. Tie them to your existing business goals (leads, conversions, web traffic, customer satisfaction, sentiment, awareness, employee satisfaction, recruiting). It’s much easier to sell the C-suite on the idea of driving sales leads than getting more Facebook likes.

3. Understand that every department will have a different definition of ROI. A successful social media PR campaign will look different than a social media customer service initiative.

4. Decide in advance how you will measure success. What are the metrics that spell success for you?

5. Focus on campaigns. If someone asked you to define the ROI of your marketing activities as a whole, for instance, that would be a huge undertaking. It’s the same with social media. Break them down into manageable chunks: “We want to use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to get more attendees to our next event.”

6. Make them trackable through your web analytics. You can create a unique landing page to drive your traffic; for instance, a landing page to register for the event. Create a unique URL for each social channel, and your web analytics will tell you how people came there.

7. Understand that, in the end, ROI is a formula and you need all the data to truly calculate it:

Gain – Cost / Cost

How much did the activity gain for you? If its a simple dollar amount like a sale, it’s not too hard. If it’s a new employee, what’s your average cost to recruit an employee through traditional means? And how much did you spend, including the cost of your time?

Any steps I’ve left out? Comment here or tweet us and include #socialcommerce.

	100 Uses of Social Media Monitoring Starting out in the world of monitoring social media can be challenging, so with these 100 uses, you now have a big list of options. Broken into ten categories, the list makes it easy to find your areas of interest. We also created a presentation out of it. And since this is not an exhaustive list, another 100 uses list may not be too far away. Read this post
	30 Ideas for your 2012 Social Media Plan As a synopsis to the corresponding ebook, this post highlights the 30 ideas in a easy-to-grasp list. It’s a checklist to scope out your current and upcoming social media plans. Plus it’s organized into sections to help you find the ideas that fit your needs. Read the post
	The Future of Analytics – Not Everyone is  Numbers Person There are many people who find it difficult to synthesize measurement. And that’s ok. If you’re one of those people, this post might inspire you as the future generation of statisticians and analysts. Or you may just prefer a bedtime story to a pie chart. Read the post
	Training your Company for Social Media This post introduces the ebook, Training Your Company for Social Media, and both guide you through a training outline that will help you prepare your employees, whatever the number, for social media. This includes why training is so important, the steps to take, a training course framework and ongoing education. Read this post
	20 Ways Social Media is Like Your Crazy Ex Both social media and your crazy ex had you enamored at first, and then you realized how much time and effort it was going to take to keep things going. Like any relationship, the ones you have cultivated through social networks and new media require nurturing in order to be successful and stand the test of time. This post pokes fun but reminds you that social business is no joke. Read this post
	The Future of Analytics This post introduces the ebook, The Future of Analytics, whichs dig into where measurement stands when it comes to social media. What is the future of social media analytics? Why is it so important, and how can you start making it an important part of your business objectives? This post answers these questions and more. Read this post
	Dare to Be Different: 3 Ways that Social Media Can Set Your Business Apart Gleaning strong insights about your competitors can help you make smarter and more nimble business decisions, especially thanks to the fast moving nature of social media. But success isn’t always about going head to head with louder marketing. Social media provides companies the opportunity to take a few considered, practical steps toward standing out amongst the pack and providing value for the customers and prospects they serve. Read this post
	Social Media University Dell ensures that each and every employee is a fully functioning and engaged member of their social media strategy. They created an innovative and company wide social media certification program. This post is an interview with Amy Fowler-Tennison, Dell’s SMaC University Program Lead. It includes some great tips on empowering your employees in social media, and why it’s so vital to your organization. Read this post
	Top Ten Enterprise Social Media Etiquette Fails A crowdsourced post, we share examples of the most egregious violations of social media etiquette perpetrated by companies. From not following back to being pushy, this post shares what not to do in an effort to give you some helpful tips about engaging in social media. Read this post
	10 Simple Ways Social Media and Traditional Media Work Together This blog covers a lot of social media content, but traditional media is just as important. After all, those Times Square Billboards aren’t going away anytime soon. This post discusses the different ways to blend the online and offline space. Read this post

We spanned the social media landscape from listening to analytics to crazy ex’s. What posts are helpful to you? What new posts would you like to see?

Here’s a few ways to find those who could influence for your brand and determine whether they hold that influence on the social side.

Top Consumers
Talk to your sales side and gain an understanding of who’s pushing the dollar figures for your product and industry. Engaging with key stakeholders within these organizations may be the right route to gain both influencers and advocates.

Industry Analysts
Though you may not wish to openly engage with industry analysts in the social space, understanding who’s listening to their social channels may give you a pool of people that are interested in understanding your industry more.

Industry Experts
Industry experts are people who have tons of experience in your industry. They might be the people your company has been trying to hire for a top-level position or whom your organization sees as thought leaders. They are likely strong, knowledgeable voices.

Industry Publications
Checking out journals, newspapers or magazines posting intelligent information about your industry can give you a list of authors and interviewers who understand your space and could be writing in a social sense as well.

Once you’ve complied your list of people influencing your business, hop on social media and see if their presence carries over. Connect with these people now. As your industry matures socially, you can gain from the benefits.

What other ways can you find influential people? How does your company currently connect with leaders in your industry?

Looking to learn more about finding influencers? Check out chapter 1 of this month’s ebook!

We dug through the over 6.6 Million social posts and pulled together an overview analysis. Have a look at the report below and let us know what you thought of the social results.

What made this Super Bowl especially social? Here are a few things we noticed.

Defined Hashtag Promoted Before the Game
Keeping it simple with #superbowl makes it easier for fans to engage.

Live Web Streaming
Live web streaming made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to see the game in real time. Plus it had add ons like the ability to select your own camera angles and use replay action.

Shazaam Campaign
Integrating their mobile brand in to most of the ad campaigns, Shazaam created an interactive experience and contest for viewers throughout the game.

Were you using social media for conversing during the Super Bowl? What made you join the conversation?

But we’re not done yet. Here are three more members of our community management team.

Heather MacLean, Senior Community Manager

Working with the Community Engagement Specialists team, Heather brings extensive marketing and public relations experience from both private and public sector organizations. Heather has worked in social media for close to a decade and was the driving force behind Canada’s first electric utility embarking upon their social media journey.

Prior to the world of social media, Heather designed and executed the marketing and communications plan for Canada’s first Airline Travel Bank™. For her efforts, Heather was nominated and a finalist for Canada’s Top 40 Under 40. In addition to the utilities/energy and aviation industries, Heather has worked in the IT, e-learning, aerospace/defense, tourism and news media industries.

Addicted to learning, Heather is working on her third degree in her spare time, loves spending time with family and friends and her Collie, Seven.  Heather’s other passions include the advocacy of literacy as the foundation for community.

Jenn Seeley, Community Engagement Specialist, Resident Travel Industry Watchtower

Jenn has been traveling since she was a little girl. From family vacations at Disney World to educational visits around Europe, she’s happiest when she’s on the go. Take offs and landings never get old. It’s no surprise that she loves her job as a Community Engagement Specialist with Radian6, focusing on travel, tourism, leisure and entertainment.

Originally from the tiny home of the longest covered bridge in the world, Jenn loves any opportunity to connect with people in faraway places. It’s no wonder she loves social media (and is slightly addicted to Twitter).

In her free time, Jenn enjoys watercolor painting, playing the trumpet and pretending she can knit.

Trish Forant, Community Manager

Trish joined the company in February of last year and is coming up on her one year anniversary. Prior to joining Radian6, she worked as a consultant, helping non-profits and small businesses create their social media strategies, as an IT Instructor for ExecuTrain and as an Internet Specialist at Carnival Cruise Lines. If you’ve been on the social media scene for some time, you may know her best as @Dayngr, the founder, president and social media presence behind eMailOurMilitary.com, a charitable organization she created to support military service members through email and new media.

When she’s not engaging on behalf of Radian6, you can find Trish blogging about her life in sunny South Florida, being a mom to the Dayngrous Duo and her eldest son who recently became a Marine. As an active philanthropist, she’s passionate about using new media for good and is a founding member of Mom Bloggers for Social Good.

What’s your tip for successfully working with a social media community?

Heather: The main thing to remember is that you are working with people.  People like to be listened to, valued, respected and know that if they have a question, they can seek answers.  Working in social media is no different.  It is all about people.

Jenn: The travel industry is very mature in social media compared to other vertical markets. One might think this makes my job easier, but in fact it becomes more difficult to really find the best conversations to jump into, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed. My advice? Be patient, find the conversations that are the most interesting and do your best to be helpful. Sharing is caring!

Trish: Be yourself, let your personality shine though and be as social as possible. In many ways, working with your community across social platforms is like working at the counter of the small town general store, but on a much larger scale. Get to know people by name, let them get to know you and treat them with the same respect you’d want them to treat you.

You can reach our team at community@radian6.com, or click on Heather’s, Jenn’s or Trish’s name for their Twitter handles.

How to Prevent a Hashtag Fail

What better way to deal with a hashtag fail than preventing it in the first place? Here are some points to consider before you hit the tweet button.

Do Your Research

If you tweet a hashtag without doing your research, your brand could find itself in a lot of trouble. You don’t want to step on anyone’s toes or inadvertently involve yourself in a conversation where you don’t belong. Before you decide on a hashtag for your campaign, look it up on Twitter to see if it is already being used and in what context.

Be Wary of Trending Hashtags

While it might be tempting to include a popular hashtag to get your campaign noticed, don’t align yourself with a topic that doesn’t fit with your brand or that is sensitive or controversial. For a great example of how to incorporate trending hashtags successfully, check out this tweet from the Red Cross.

We may not collect #tigerblood, but we know our donors & volunteers have fierce passion for doing good! #RedCrossMonth

— American Red Cross (@RedCross) March 2, 2011

Timing is Everything

Even if you’ve carefully researched your campaign hashtag, consider the timing. If your company is already going through a difficult situation, an ill-timed hashtag could cause more problems. Consider how the hashtag could be perceived by your community and anticipate all possible reactions. If you have any doubts, postpone your campaign or take another course of action.

Be Consistent

Keep your brand messaging and tone consistent for your customers. Before you launch a hashtag campaign, ask yourself if it is in line with your brand identity. Likewise, make sure the tone of the hashtag fits your brand. If your brand is known for being more on the reserved side, a silly hashtag might not jive with your community.

How to Handle a Hashtag Fail

You’ve launched a hashtag campaign and it isn’t going as planned. While you can’t take back your hashtag, here are some strategies to deal with the situation effectively.

Be Quick to Respond

The longer you go without taking action, the worse the situation will be. Decide if and when you will stop promoting the hashtag and implement your backup plan. Also, acknowledge the reaction of your community, both positive and negative. You can respond individually or send out general tweets, like Qantas Airways did in response to feedback around its #QantasLuxury campaign.

Wow! Some very creative tweeps out there. Keep the entries coming #QantasWeHearYou

— Qantas Airways (@QantasAirways) November 22, 2011

At this rate our #QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge.

— Qantas Airways (@QantasAirways) November 22, 2011

Apologize

If you have caused distress or offended your community, an apology is necessary. Be clear on why you are apologizing, be sincere, and don’t make excuses.

Find the Lesson to be Learned

You’ve heard the expression “every cloud has a silver lining.” As stressful as they might be, hashtag fails can give you valuable insight into your community and the areas where you can improve as a brand. They also present you with an opportunity to engage with your detractors and potentially turn the situation around.

Hashtags can be a valuable addition to your marketing campaigns if used wisely. While nothing can guarantee you won’t find yourself in an awkward or downright unpleasant hashtag fail situation, the above pointers and some common sense will help with your peace of mind.

What are some of your suggestions for avoiding the hashtag fail? How do you think brands should react when a hashtag campaign goes awry?