Next Stop: IAB Think Digital Conference – Brussels, Belgium

The next date on your calendar, especially if you are in Europe next week, should be this:

May 26: Brussels, Belgium. IAB ‘Think Digital’ Conference.

Among the speakers: Rohit Bahrgava, Eric Phu, Ciarán Norris, Alex West, Kevin Slavin, and… this guy named Olivier Blanchard that you may or may not have heard about.

What will we all cover on May 26? Many of the types of strategies and methodologies that brands and their agencies still need a lot of help with. Here is a short list:

– New paradigms of vertical and lateral marketing: brand evangelism and media-aided word of mouth.

– Understanding how to properly blend and leverage owned, bought, and earned media (again, great for brand managers and agencies that understand bought and owned, but don’t fully grasp the earned piece yet). Very important stuff.

– TV & Digital: The next 5 years. Opportunities, methods, technologies, principles and revenue models for brands and agencies.

– Chinese markets and digital: What is going on behind the Great Firewall, and what that means to you.

– The psychology of happiness as it relates to customer acquisition and retention (deeper impact through social recommendations, and stronger loyalty resulting in accelerated growth).

– The new culture of consumer-brand engagement, and what this means to micro and macro brands.

– Don’t just throw money at it: Converting followers and fans into real returns (ROI) for brands and their agencies. (Outlining the social business process model, and answering the why and the how.)

Think of it as a one-day MBA on digital brand, program and campaign management from some of the brightest professionals on the planet, and part 1 of 3  2 such events between now and July in Europe (Likeminds: Paris [Update: Canceled by the organizers] and Social Media Day/Red Chair: Antwerp – coming up in late June, right after the Cannes Lions). Social Media Day Antwerp will combine a 1/2 day Red Chair-style series of workshops on Social Media strategy and integration (including a full hour of open Q&A for attendees) and a pretty solid DJ party afterwards to celebrate the global event.

If you can’t be in Brussels on the 26th, definitely share this link with your boss, peers, clients, agencies… or send one of your staffers so they can take notes for you. The sooner companies learn and get comfortable with these concepts and processes, the faster marketing and digital budgets can start yielding solid results for everyone (brand and agencies). Wouldn’t that be superfly?

>> IAB Think Digital Conference – Main Site, Program & Schedule, Register<< (The most important part.)

See you there.

Oh, and if you haven’t read Social Media ROI yet (every manager, executive and agency strategist should have this thing on their desk by now), check out what people who have read it have to say about it.

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Greenpeace vs. Nestle: How to make sure your Facebook page doesn’t become a PR trojan horse – Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, we did a quick recap of how Greenpeace and hundreds of outraged environmentally-conscious web denizens turned to Nestle’s Facebook wall to air grievances on Friday March 19, and essentially turned the company’s Facebook embassy into a battleground. If you missed it, check out the post (and the comments) here.

Today, we’re going to look at ways that this Social Media management disaster (and PR black eye) could have been handled by Nestle, had their Social Media team (internal or outsourced) been prepared for that kind of crisis. We already covered some of the major points of how to avoid this yesterday (hiring professionals to manage your Social Media outlets, planning for crises, training in crisis management and real-time PR, etc.), so – for the purposes of today’s post – let’s assume that Part 1’s advice was taken to heart and that trained, experienced professionals are now in charge of all of the company’s Social Media properties, including Facebook.

Some comments from nestle's wall

What to do if your Facebook Page comes under attack by an activist organization and/or scores of angry commenters:

1. Be there. You can’t gain control of the situation if you aren’t there, monitoring and ready to take action. So monitor keywords. Monitor channels. Expect attacks and crises to come, and be ready to act. In case your boss forgot to tell you, if you are charged with managing a company’s Facebook presence, you’re N.O.R.A.D. for them on Facebook. Keep your eyes on that radar screen at all times, and have a well-thought-out yet flexible plan of action if you spot missiles heading your way.

Recap: Nestle’s team was painfully absent when its wall was attacked on march 19th, and the result was a bloody trouncing of the brand that lasted not only hours but days. Whomever was being paid to manage that page essentially sat on their hands while it was taken over by hundreds of facebook users with – in many cases – legitimate concerns that needed to be addressed. Not exactly a stellar display of skill, professional savvy, or… presence, for that matter. Someone should have been there to at least try to manage the complaints.

2. Carefully but quickly gain control of the situation. (See 3 to 6.) Why is this here? Because it is important to realize that “response” isn’t enough. in order to be effective, you have to be more than simply reactive. You have to regain control of the situation. You have to regain the initiative. If you don’t, you will find yourself in a defensive position for days, and nothing will get resolved.

3. Introduce yourself. Put a face, name and role to your official presence. Don’t just reply from behind a faceless corporate identity and avatar. Be a human being. Talk like a human being. Feel like a human being. Engage on a personal level with commenters. Look at what Scott Monty does for Ford, for example, and how he does it.

Recap: Nestle’s “presence” on facebook on March 19th was remarkably corporate. This didn’t help establish the kind of rapport needed to begin a real discussion. Even if Nestle’s engagement had been stronger, its faceless approach put them at a disadvantage from the start. Humanizing its presence would have been a great first step.

4. Make a point to welcome the comments. Invite them. Keep it up. See number 3, above. This is important. Popping up with a comment every three hours won’t cut it. Get in there, ask your boss to go on a Starbucks run, and brace yourself for a long day/night. Like it or not, this is where you earn your pay, so strap in and enjoy the ride. Think Marathon, not 5K.

Once you get into the game, be cordial, be kind, be professional, and assume your role as the custodian of facts. Not propaganda: facts. If someone claims something about your company or products that is inaccurate, politely respond to their comment with a link to factual information that will help them reconsider their position. That infant formula comment in the screenshot of Nestle’s wall (the one about no nutrients) should be addressed. Without getting defensive or getting drawn into an argument, the facts need to be stated.

Recap: Nestle’s first attempt at “engagement” seems to have focused on the improper use of its corporate logo in commenters’ avatars. Not exactly an inspired way to get things rolling in the right direction. After a few unfortunate exchanges, Nestle backed off and went relatively silent, allowing a free-for-all of anger and in some case, inaccurate information that is now searchable on the web. This was not the most effective strategy.

5. If you haven’t done it already, create an area for Discussions on the Facebook page. This will give discussion topics their own tab on the page, and a place for people to go to start and participate in discussions that isn’t necessarily the wall.

Recap: Nestle did not have a Discussions section on its Facebook page on March 19th… and still doesn’t. And still doesn’t. And still doesn’t. (Nestle: You still don’t have a discussions tab on your facebook page. FYI.)

Why is having a Discussions area important? Several reasons:

First, it helps move a lot of the traffic and activity off the wall, which isn’t a bad thing – for obvious reasons. (Not all of it, but a good amount of it.)

Second, it helps keep all of the conversations focused. Instead of a mess of anger and random grievances, you can create a discussion thread for each specific grievance. In the case of Nestle, these individual discussion topics could be: Saving Oranguntans. Preserving Borneo’s rain forests. The health impact of using palm oil in candy bars. Baby Formula. Etc. When the mess of noise can be turned into specific discussion threads, the company can better listen and better respond. Now you’ve created order out of chaos for both the company AND the angry commenters. It works for everyone.

This is one of the first tangible ways that you will regain control of the situation: Manage the influx of comments. Organize it. Redirect it. Refocus it. Give the discussions purpose and focus.

Notes on tone, self control, and gaining control of an unstable crowd:

A) DO NOT GET DEFENSIVE. Ever. Don’t get drawn into an argument, don’t argue. Listen. Acknowledge. Treat every commenter with respect. Be professional. A lot of angry commenters just want a fight. Don’t give them one. Offer them your ear, a platform, and hopefully a solution.

B) Don’t be a push-over either. Don’t let the angry numbers fool you: You’re the community manager. You can and must  assert your authority when people get out of line. Do it calmly, do it politely, but let commenters know when they are out of line. Don’t worry too much about the improper use of logos or “rules,” the way Nestle did early in their ordeal. It’s a weak position to try and defend, it serves no purpose, and it may only add fuel to the fire with a mob looking for weakness. (So pick your battles carefully.) That said, threats against company employees, deliberate personal insults, etc. should be met with a courteous but firm response. Example:

C – “Your executives should be hanged for what they’ve done! Baby killers! And you’re a soul-less sellout!”

R – “I understand your anger. I really do. (I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I didn’t care, and if my bosses didn’t care. We WANT to have this dialog with you.) But please let’s keep things from turning into… that. It’s just not constructive. Let’s talk about what we can do to fix these problems: What’s the first thing we should focus on?”

What you have to understand is that an angry mob looks for two things: Strength, and weakness. Show strength and they will respect you. Show weakness and they WILL tear you apart. Any loss of control (fear, anger, not knowing how to manage a Facebook crisis, etc.) is weakness. A calm, collected, confident, patient, open to dialog, knowledgeable attitude is strength.

6. Recruit your detractors’ help in fixing the issues they are angry about. Don’t just give your angry commenters lip service. “Thanks for your comments. We will review your suggestions and share them with management” doesn’t cut it anymore. Instead, ask your audience for advice and suggestions. Right there and then. Don’t wait. They want to express themselves? Great! Redirect their energy: Shift them from anger to deliberate empowerment. They’re angry at your company? There are specific things they want you to stop doing? Perfect. Take the discussion a step further and ask them to give you better alternatives to what you’re doing now. No, really. Do it. Keep probing. Keep asking. Make them think about practical solutions together.

If Step 5 gave the conversation order, Step 6 gives the conversations purpose. Do this, and you’re already half way there.

Why is this important? Several reasons:

First, it refocuses the angry mob’s energy. The passion that drives their anger and outrage is still, at its core, passion. Use that. Remove anger from the equation and channel that passion to a more constructive end. Lead them from the path of anger to a path of passionate, constructive discussion. In a matter of hours, the traffic to your facebook page will no longer be an endless churn of insults and angry attacks, and that’s a pretty important objective to accomplish.

Second, refocusing the mob’s mood and energy further shifts control of the conversation to you, the community manager – and by default to the company/brand as well. How? One word: Initiative. The moment your questions begin to drive the discussion, you’ve gained the initiative. You’re finally in the driver’s seat. You can safely land that previously unmanned 747 anywhere you want. Lose the initiative and you lose control. You don’t want things to go back to a mob of angry comments and insults, do you?

Third, you aren’t arguing anymore. You aren’t fighting or protecting or defending. You’ve potentially turned your enemies into allies. Even if that good will is tentative, it sets the stage for what could come next, and there is tremendous value in that. Very good things can come of it if you follow that path. Plant that seed, prove that with trust and good will, good things can happen, and build on that proof of concept.

Fourth, in the case of Nestle, an army of environmental conservation experts is right there, screaming to be heard. Why not benefit from their combined expertise and their willingness to share? Maybe the mob of activists can provide you with ideas that will help you adopt cost-neutral, sustainable methods and processes that will solve some of your resource management challenges, make your company more environmentally-friendly and improve your position in regards to consumer sentiment. There could be a huge practical win in this kind of dialog.

Fifth, the way your Social Media team turned an explosive and completely chaotic situation around in a matter of hours will not go unnoticed. Instead of being another case study in failure, you could be one of the still rare case studies in “this is how it’s done” success.

7. Follow-through. What starts on facebook or twitter or wherever doesn’t stop when you get to the other side of the activity bell curve. Once the crisis is averted, you have to take advantage of that little bit of trust and collaboration you’ve helped your detractors (and your bosses) glimpse.

Step 1: Once the crisis is over, thank the commenters for their help and invite them to continue what they started. Continue to be a good host. Build the community as a community, not as a fortified brand embassy.

Step 2: Convince management to let you turn the feedback from your new virtual think tank into something a little more formal. Form a team to look into how to take those ideas and make them happen. That kind of review process will identify what ideas have merit, and what ideas don’t. It’s a valuable exercise in that alone.

Step 3: Consider creating a crowd-sourcing mechanism like BestBuy’s Idea-X and Starbucks’  My Starbucks Idea. In the case of Nestle, a specific category, tab, or even separate microsite focusing on sustainable and responsible environmental practices might not be a bad idea. Don’t just rely on Facebook discussions to take care of it. Give solid feedback the home it deserves.

Step 4: Invite your detractors’ chosen experts and think tanks to the table. Recruit their help to propose solutions. This is a more professional and official extension of the crowd-sourcing element of the follow-up, and one that obviously needs to happen at a much higher level than Social Media management. (So yes, this requires real buy-in from the C-suite.)

The idea here isn’t just to pacify your opponents and get good press out of the effort. It’s to leverage their expertise and resources to actually find solutions to the business challenges that were at the root of the attacks to begin with. In the case of Nestle, this would mean inviting Greenpeace and key environmental action think tanks to work with senior Nestle supply chain execs on finding realistic alternatives to current methods of production.

Is there a PR component to this? Of course. You can turn anything into a media circus if you want. (That’s what conferences, summits and ground-breaking ceremonies are for.) But sometimes, less is more: Focus on finding solutions, focus on genuinely doing the work, and let the PR department do its thing. If you do that, it’ll all pretty much work out.

Step 5: Build on the momentum and trust you’ve earned, and keep going.

Is all of this difficult? Does it require A LOT of hard work and tireless effort? Yes. It does. I’m not going to tell you any of it is easy. It’s incredibly difficult to do all of this, and the bigger the organization, the more corporate, the more vertical the hierarchy, the tougher it will be for everyone. There’s no magic pill, no cool new app, no bit of enterprise software that will transform your organization overnight for you. Success requires hard work. It requires dedication. It requires vision, leadership, courage and A LOT OF WORK. But it also isn’t brain surgery. From crisis management to community management to change management, it’s all pretty simple, really. You can map it all out on a cocktail napkin. The trick lies in a) deciding to make it happen, and b) making it happen.

The alternative is… well, going through what Nestle just went through. And going through it again and again and again, until something finally gives. Not exactly a golden plan.

So remember:

Be there -> Monitor -> Introduce yourself -> Acknowledge -> Engage -> Take charge -> Redirect -> Manage -> Follow through.

Cheers,

Olivier

Update (25 March, 2010 – 21:15GMT) : For a similar perspective expressed in white-board “war room” format, check out Jeremiah Owyang’s Social Warfare Analysis here. (image) Really nice exercise that, remarkably, touches on many of the points we discussed in parts 1 and 2 of this feature. Consider it a solid “second opinion.”

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The Strategy Trap: Why focusing too much on strategy could be killing your ability to execute.

“They were worried that I would get bogged down in wanting to do things, not just create strategy.”

– David Polinchock / @lbbinc

One of the topics covered during the #LikeMinds Summit this past weekend was precisely this: The chasm between strategy and execution, especially as businesses struggle to understand how to leverage, integrate and operationalize Social Communications (what you do with social media platforms) in the coming 6-24 months.

Unfortunately, because the C-suite tends to look to itself when it comes to “strategic masterminding,” the focus too often shifts from execution at the customer level (the most important thing a business should be focusing on on) to… being the guy who came up with the game-changing strategy that will secure more funding and increase influence within the organization.

When this happens, strategy becomes a product, and that’s bad. Strategy isn’t a product. Strategy exists mostly in support of execution.

Any idiot with a powerpoint deck can deliver a “Social” strategy:

“We’ll create a facebook fan page, a twitter account, a LinkedIn Group, a YouTube channel, a blog, and a Flickr account too! We’ll convert all of our customers who participate in social networking into fans and followers, and we’ll engage them with content at regular intervals throughout the day. We’ll embed hyperlinks into our tweets and facebook updates so we can pull them to our website to increase traffic there. We’ll get lots of extra clicks. We’ll gain mindshare by being there with them on their favorite social platforms. When they talk to us, we’ll respond. We’ll monitor sentiment and mentions. Our social media strategy will be a success.”

Um… yeah, except… no.

Sometimes, companies focus so much on developing and implementing strategies that they forget to focus on what’s important: Focusing on the customers. That’s priority numero uno. As a consumer, I don’t give two shakes what a company’s latest strategy is. I really don’t care. You want to gain 4% market share in the next quarter? You want to dominate the tablet PC market? Okay. Great. What’s that to me? All I want is for you to improve my life. How are you planning on doing that? How does your strategy actually make anything happen on the ground? Have you thought about what happens when your theories actually touch the real world?

The gap between high level strategy and ground-level execution can usually be summed up this way: Do you understand the tactics and ground level dynamics enough to ensure that your strategy will turn into something more than just an inspiring powerpoint presentation? Yes = small or no gap. No = huge gap.

On the ground, in the real world, what does your grand strategy do to make me want to spend more time recommending you to my friends? Spend more time wishing I could fill my garage with more of your stuff? What’s your strategy to make my experiences with your brand outclass and outshine my experiences with every other company? What’s your strategy to be awesome?

Don’t just look at strategy from the top down and the inside out. Also look at it from the outside in. How does it play in terms of influencing customer perceptions and behavior? How does it differentiate you or increase preference?

Let me illustrate the difference between tactically-agnostic strategy and tactically-savvy strategy:

What could you do TODAY that would change the way customers feel about you?

a) Give them a 10% off rebate that may take 30-60 business days to process. (We’ll worry about eroding margins and loyalty later.)

b) Knock their socks off with incredible customer service. (Smiles are free and being helpful makes customers come back.)

– or another choice –

a) Try to nickle-and-dime a guest with a $10 bottle of water in their hotel room (hey, going after that incremental revenue looks genius on Excel. Let’s charge extra for everything! We’ll make billions off premium pillow mints.)

b) Slap a note on the bottle that says “It’s water. Of course it’s free.” (The repeat business, loyalty and recommendations are worth more than the odd begrudged transaction.)

Which hotel chain is more likely to get repeat business and earn recommendations?

Which of these options do you think a disconnected top-down strategy might have generated? a) or b)?

Strangely, few companies have an “awesomeness” strategy. They have growth strategies, sales strategies, reach strategies, campaign strategies, pull strategies… all of which include a lot of content creation, content distribution and push/pull schemes created and directed from the top echelons. Great stuff, don’t get me wrong. But also lots of wasted energy working its way down to customers through less than fluid “channels.” Lots of energy wasted encountering friction and resistance on their way to the customers. Encountering snags and problems.  That’s the execution gap. That’s the part of implementation that too much emphasis on strategy, coupled with an operational chasm between the “strategists” and the “doers” creates.

So, your company isn’t short on strategy. You have dozens if not hundreds of powerpoint presentations to prove it. The quarterly deluge of strategic plans and “bullet points” and budget proposals to prove it. Social Media-related or otherwise. How’s that been working out for you?

Social Media – as it relates to Brand Management, PR, Marketing, Business Development, Community Management, recruiting, internal collaboration, product innovation and crisis management – isn’t about developing the winning strategy. There’s no “win” in developing or delivering a strategy.  Any strategy. Ever. Anywhere. I mean, yes, you’re smart. We get it. Thank you. That’s wonderful. But now what?

The reality here, the nugget, is this: The emphasis on top-down strategy is completely wrong for Social Media and Social Communications. The way to truly make Social Media and Social Communications WORK for business requires a focus on enablement, not strategy. Strategies don’t generate revenue. Strategies don’t win market share. Strategies don’t make customers loyal. Strategies are bullets on a slide, ink on paper, words across a conference table. They’re essentially worthless until you can use them to move a needle.

The disproportionate investment in strategy vs. implementation and execution is at the heart of why “Social” works for so few companies right now.

1. What are we trying to improve? (What should we be trying to improve?) <– Start with customer experience. Always.

2. What will it take to make that happen?

3. Does Social fit in?

4. If so, how?

5. What can Social help us improve?

6. What will it take to make that happen?

That’s it. Those those 6 questions. Start there. Stop talking about it. Move towards something your customers will be able to grasp, enjoy, value and convey.

Next time someone wants to sell you on a strategy, tell them to come back when they can show you exactly how they plan to implement it. Always make the strategist responsible for the execution. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches, and things will get done a lot faster.

Cheers,

Olivier

PS: The upcoming Red Chair double-workshop in Portland, Oregon (PDX) on March 11 and March 12 focuses on precisely that: How to actually put all of this into action. How to make it work. One session is designed for enterprise space management and executives, and the other for account management and Social Media for small business. It would be lovely of you to help spread the word, even if you can’t attend this time around. 🙂 For registration and information, click here.

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Red Chair PDX: Social Media Training for Managers and Executives comes to Portland, OR on March 11 and 12

Those of you who have been asking for Social Media training for the C-suite and other management layers are about to get your wish: Red Chair is finally launching in the US. First stop: Portland, OR on March 11 and 12. (Details below.)

Before I go on, let me be super clear about what Red Chair training is and isn’t:

What it isn’t:

Red Chair is not another FaceBook or Twitter 101 seminar.

Red Chair is not a shady Social Media certification course.

Red Chair is not the latest “me-too” Social Media conference, a business pitch by a team of consultants, or the same old rehashed Social Media cheerleader content you’ve already seen a dozen times.

What it is:

1) (Day 1) Training specifically developed for CEOs, CMOs, Vice-Presidents, PR managers and other senior level executives on how to properly plan for, integrate, manage and measure Social Media programs.

2) (Day 2) Training specifically developed for mid-to-account-level managers on how to properly manage and grow Social Media programs (Example: Customer Service, Marketing, Business Development, PR, Brand Management, Advertising, Online Reputation Management, HR/Human Resources, Legal, Consumer Insights, etc.)

3) If you have serious questions about HOW to use Social Media for your organization and how to both operationalize and integrate it properly, Red Chair is probably what you have been looking for for.

4) If you manage an Ad agency, PR firm, or Marketing firm and want to know how to build a suite of Social Media services, we will cover that in the program (in-depth on Day 1, and outlined on Day 2).

To increase the effectiveness and specificity of the training, Red Chair divides instruction between senior roles (C-suite on down to VP and Director level executives) and junior roles (Department managers on down to account-level managers). The Portland event will thus be divided into two sessions, one held on March 11 and the other on March 12.

Day 1: (March 11) – “Red Chair: Executive” is a one-day course specifically designed to teach CMOs, CEOs, executives, Agency principals, VPs, Director level professionals and senior-level consultants how to properly build, integrate, manage and measure Social media programs across their organization. The full day session will teach key decision-makers how to properly deploy Social Media across large organization by focusing on four key areas: Program Development, Program Integration, Program Management and Program Measurement.

Though “Red Chair: Executive” training touches on complex business topics, an advanced understanding of Social Media management is not required to attend. The training will fill all of the gaps for attendees by mid-morning to get everyone caught up.

Executives who attend the full day session can expect to return to their organizations equipped with the instruction, framework and insights necessary to properly begin integrating Social Media into every facet of their business in support of their business objectives.

Day 2: (March 12) – “Red Chair: Studio” is a half day course specifically designed to teach professionals in more junior roles how to build, manage and grow specific social media programs based on their specific departmental needs. This session caters to Department managers, account-level managers, junior consultants and university students looking for valuable training they will need after they graduate. This session also offers a solid training base for small business owners looking to start plugging Social Media into their business activities. The half-day training will focus on program planning, program management and program measurement at the departmental level, rather than across a complex organization.

The idea behind Red Chair training is to teach companies how to properly integrate social media into their mix of activities from both a strategic and an operational perspective rather than just from a theoretical one. From planning and integration to management and measurement, the course touches on every step of the program building process. Aside from the instruction itself, Red Chair training provides a detailed blueprint for Social Media integration and management for organizations of any size.

Red Chair training programs are being co-developed with the help of executives from Coca Cola, Best Buy, Michelin, The Home Depot, Sungard and Microsoft and constantly adapted to follow rapid changes in the Social Media space. The Portland 2-day event is being co-produced by our Portland partner Ant Hill Marketing, with the collaboration of Webtrends and 52Ltd.

“Red Chair: Executive” will be held on Thursday March 11 – tentatively at the Oregon Executive MBA facility located downtown Portland, though we may move it to a smaller venue depending on registrations, while “Red Chair: Studio” will be held on Friday March 12 at Webtrends’ headquarters on 6^th Avenue.

Specific venue details are listed on each session’s event registration page, and attendees will be notified of any changes and updates. Registration for Red Chair Portland sessions is open to everyone, so sign up quickly: Seating for both events is limited and spaces will go fast. To sign up, click here.

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Register now and save BIG:

To help speed up the registration process a bit (hey, I’m a procrastinator too) we are running a pretty sweet early-bird price cut. The promotion will only last for a few days, so save yourself (or your boss) some cash and register before the prices go back up to the full amount. (And no, I am not telling you when the early-bird promo ends. It would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it.)

Get all the information you need by clicking here.

Register Now by clicking here.

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Back by popular demand: Is Your Social Media Director Qualified?

You guys asked for me to re-post this piece, and your wish is my command. Share this with hiring managers, your CMO, and everyone looking into considering either creating or filling a position requiring Social Media management skills:

Tip #1: Social Media Directors should know how to do their jobs without having to ask for help every five minutes:

So I look down and the (twitter) DM reads: “Hey, can you help me out? Not sure how to do this. How do I use Twitter to gain traction for my company? Thanks!” I stare at it for a while and decide to blow it off for now, not because I have better things to do (which I do) and not because I don’t really have time to build a Twitter business plan for this person right this second (which I don’t), but because that DM comes from a newly minted Social Media Director at a fairly visible company who basically just asked me to help them hold on to a job they obviously didn’t deserve to be hired for.

I slide my Blackberry Storm into my back pocket and find myself flashbacking to 11th grade: It’s final exams time and I am in hour two of IB Biology. The essay section. One of the kids in my class is behind me, gently kicking my chair, whispering, begging me to move my scrap/notes where they can read them.

And I am almost tempted to do it.

That same conversation starts taking place in my head. I’m in a position to help someone in need. But wait… cheating is cheating. Don’t do it. But still, I feel that I should help. Arrrgh…

I reach for the blackberry, launch Twitterberry (which is not my favorite app, by the way), and respond: “Wait… You got the job, right? Don’t you know how to do this? Isn’t that why you were hired?”

For hours, no response. And then it comes. “Yeah, but I’m in a little over my head. I’ve never worked with Social Media in a business context before. ;)”

Again. This from a Director-level individual now working for a pretty well known company.

Not cool.

I suffer through similar exchanges weekly now, and I am not happy about it. What does this trend say about what types of people are going after Social Media management jobs – and landing them with alarming frequency these days? At the very least, I am worried about how this is going to end up hurting Social Media’s legitimacy in the business world. (Watch the video for my reasoning on this specific point.)

If the video doesn’t launch, you can go watch it here. Thanks, Viddler).

Tip #2: There are three types of people currently vying for Social Media Management jobs. Be very careful whom you consider for this key position:

With this disturbing development weighing on me more and more these past few months, I’ve been thinking long and hard about what is going on in the Social Media “management” world, and I’ve basically come down to two conclusions: The first (which we’ll get back to in a few minutes) is that the qualifications of Social Media Directors may not be entirely clear to the folks interviewing and hiring applicants for those positions. The second is that as a result of this, confusion, we are now looking at three distinct types of Social Media Directors/Managers scampering about in the corporate world, some good, some okay, and some really bad.

The first type is the best type: These folks are super smart, talented, experienced in a broad range of disciplines, have an established footprint in the Social Media space (through blogs, Twitter, Ning, various communities), are recognized as thought leaders (or as emerging thought leaders), and are unquestionably passionate about what they do. Folks like Chris Brogan, Frank Eliason, Amber Naslund, Mack Collier, Beth Harte, Valeria Maltoni, etc. These are folks who are truly writing the book on how to build social media practices and smoothly integrate them in the organizations they work with.

The second type isn’t quite as savvy, but it isn’t lacking in talent, smarts and enthusiasm. These are people who basically don’t know how to be Social Media directors yet, but are learning fast. And most importantly, they are completely open about the fact that they are still in that learning stage, which means that their employers are okay with it. In spite of the fact that they are still very junior, the companies they work for saw in them a lot of potential and decided to hire them toward that end. (I dig people like this a lot.)

The third type is what I would call the bad type. Not bad as in cool, but rather… bad as in unethical, inept and unprofessional. These are the con artists. The shams. The hacks. The folks whose egos and selfishness led them to a moment in their lives when they unapologetically took a job they knew they weren’t qualified for. And now here they are: Social Media Director for Company ABC, soon to move over to Company XYZ, and so on. One position validating the next, one impressive brand on their resume justifying consideration by the next, and so it goes: A perpetual daisy chain of high profile Social Media management job built on unadulterated douchebaggery and thinly-disguised mediocrity.

(Ironically, this third group tends to be the same one that perpetuates the notion that Social Media ROI either doesn’t exist or is “unwise” to try and measure. Yeah. Convenient, isn’t it?)

Note: Having been a Social Media manager for a major brand doesn’t mean jackaloo. Don’t fall for the old name-dropping trick. Even if the applicant was indeed “Social Media VP” for superbrand XYZ, what did they accomplish while in the position? What did they actually do? Hint: You don’t want to be some idiot’s next unfortunate employer. Don’t let someone’s previous job title dazzle you. We’ve already established that any idiot  with a little game can be a Social Media Director these days. Be careful.

Tip #3: Before we go on, here are some red flags to help you identify deadbeat Social Media Directors:

A) Every time you see a major global consumer brand engaging with less than 5% of its active (vocal) customers on a popular Social Media platform like Twitter after 8-10 months of activity, you can bet that their Social Media Director belongs to that third category.

B) If every time you walk into your monthly status meeting with your new Social Media Director and ask them for the latest, they either talk to you about Google analytics, confuse you with endless spreadsheets or launch into a “Social Media takes time” monologue, chances are that they belong to that third category.

C) If you ask your Social Media Director why their efforts aren’t scaling very fast or producing the numbers you expected and they give you a story about engagement not being a numbers game, chances are that they belong in that third category.*

D) If when you ask them for real business metrics, impact analysis and (god forbid) ROI and they either give you a blank stare or explain that these things don’t apply to Social Media, they probably belong to that third category.

E) If they measure Social Media effectiveness mostly in terms of “engagement metrics” and after six months, you still don’t understand what or how they are measuring “engagement” (most likely through some arcane equation that magically merges followers, the media value of a tweet and number of blog comments), guess what: Third category.

F) And when you ask them how they plan to integrate Social Media into customer service, Human Resources, Public Relations, Marketing, Business Development or any other silo in your organization and they schedule a later meeting to address that instead of answering on the spot, guess what category they probably belong to.

The thing about that third category is that they’ll never admit that they don’t know something. Because they get by every day by producing massive amounts of bulls**t, they will automatically default to making something up on the spot or deflecting questions with well crafted excuses. That’s their most damning trait, and what gives them away every time: They always know, and they’re never wrong (except… they don’t, and they are, and now you’re wise to it).

* Simple test to prove or disprove a “depth before breadth” response:

First – On Twitter, look at the number of brand mentions vs. the number of your brand’s account mentions. Big difference? Ask why. Then ask your Social Media Director what they are doing to raise awareness for your presence in the space. Breadth matters, no matter what your overpaid hack of a Social Media honcho tells you.

Second – Look at the number of comments directly aimed at your account. 20 per day? 50 per day? Now look at how many of these requests for attention were acknowledged with some sort of reply. 100%? 80%? Less than 25%? If your Social Media Director claims that they are focusing on depth of engagement instead of breadth, yet they only respond to less than half of the handshakes thrown at them daily, maybe it’s time you found out what he/she actually does with his/her time.

Tip #4: What should you be looking for in an applicant interested in becoming your next Social Media Director ? (The only Social Media Director requisition primer you’ll ever need)

I could go on with my indictment of poser Social Media Directors all day long, but I would rather put this post to a more productive use: Since so many of these hacks are getting through the recruiting filter, why don’t we focus on helping interviewers distinguish good applicants from bad ones, starting with some traits and skills they want and need in a Social Media Director. Think of this as a checklist for would-be Social Media Directors, and please feel free to add your own suggestions by leaving a comment.

• Applicant has developed and managed marketing programs before. Not just campaigns but programs.
• Applicant has had a continuous professional presence in the Social Media space (via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Ning or other platforms) for at least one year.
• Applicant has managed a business blog and/or business community for a minimum of one year.
• Applicant has built or managed a community for longer than one year.
• Applicant has at least two years of experience managing projects and working across organizational silos.
• Applicant has managed a brand or product line for more than one year.
• Applicant has demonstrated a strong ability to forge lasting relationships across a variety of media platforms over the course of his/her career.
• Applicant understand the difference between vertical and lateral action when it comes to customer/community engagement – and has working knowledge of how to leverage both.
• Applicant demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the Social Media space, including usage and demographic statistics for the most popular/relevant platforms as well as a few niche platforms of his/her choice.
• Applicant has managed national market research projects.
• Applicant demonstrates a thorough understanding of the nuances between Social Media platforms and the communities they serve. (Example: MySpace vs. Facebook or YouTube vs. Seesmic)
• Applicant understands the breadth of tools and methods at his/her disposal to set goals and measure success in the Social Media space. (Applicant’s toolkit is not limited to Google analytics.)
• Applicant can cite examples of companies with successful social media programs and companies with ineffective social media programs. He/she can also argue comfortably why each was either successful or unsuccessful.
• Applicant has been active on Twitter for more than 8 months.
• Applicant knows who Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang and Peter Kim are.
• Applicant is comfortable enough with business measurement methods to know the difference between financial impact (ROI) and non-financial impact. He/she also knows why the difference between the two is relevant.
• Applicant demonstrates the ability to build and manage a Social Media practice that works seamlessly with PR, product marketing, event management and customer support teams within the organization.
• Applicant has managed a work team for more than one year. He/she was responsible for the training and development of that team.
• Applicant has spent at least one year in a project management role outside of an ad agency, PR or other Marketing firm.
• Applicant can tell a personal story involving either Digg, Seesmic or both.
• Applicant has been responsible for managing a budget/P&L.
• Applicant demonstrates a high level of proficiency working with popular Social Media platforms and apps such as FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Ning, Seesmic, YouTube, FriendFeed, WordPress, FriendFeed and Tumblr.
• Applicant is capable of mapping out a basic Social Media monitoring plan on a cocktail napkin.
• Applicant is more excited about engagement, building an internal practice and finding out about your business’ pain points than he/she is about firebombing you with the full scope of their Social Media skills’ awesomeness.
• Applicant already has the framework of a Social Media plan for your company before he/she even walks through the front door, and thankfully, it doesn’t involve setting up a fan page on FaceBook.
• Applicant actually knows how to use Twitter to help your company build brand equity online and offline without having to DM people like me for newbie level help.

Your turn. What do you think is missing from this checklist?

Let me know if this is helpful. Please, please, please, for the love of puppies, STOP. Don’t hire “that guy” because his resume says he worked with Brand XYZ in Digital or Social. It isn’t enough. (Who hasn’t?) Dig deeper. Get knowledgeable about this space. Don’t get suckered into hiring an unscrupulous hack job looking for another free ride off an unsuspecting company.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

One last thing: Will this topic be covered in Red Chair executive trainings (the next one is in Portland, OR on March 11)? You bet. To register for the Portland event, click here. (The first 5 registrations get $100 off, so sign up fast!)

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Finally delivering the Social Media playbook

Building a Social Media program is about more than presence, community management and engagement. And in spite of what some “experts” may have told you, it certainly is about more than having a Facebook page, a twitter account and some videos on YouTube.

The reality of the thing is that it takes more than that to plug social media into your business. Much more. That intern managing your tweets right now doesn’t have the experience or the skills yet. That PR superstar you just hired out of LA or New York or Boston can do some good, but no matter how hard they try, they take your social media program so far. Just like your customer service manager and your CMO and your Director of Digital Media. No matter how smart they are, they only have some of the pieces of that puzzle… and so much time to try and figure out the rest. (Not exactly a master plan, is it.)

Truly plugging Social Media into an organization – into the enterprise, even – is a complex endeavor. It isn’t purely a marketing function, nor is it purely a customer service function or a community management function or a business intelligence function. There are lots of moving parts to this, some strategic, others operational. Some analytical, others tactical: HR and Legal need to be brought up to speed on several levels (especially now that the FTC has released its guidelines for blogging and social media use), the C-suite needs to clearly understand both the opportunities and the risks associated with Social Media in order to make appropriate decisions regarding the future of their companies. Vice Presidents, directors and managers need to understand how applying certain Social Media strategies and tactics to their existing activities could yield solid results in the quarters to come. And on and on and on.

Frankly, if you haven’t worked in the enterprise space, if you haven’t spent years closely working with sales managers, marketing managers, customer service managers, product managers, engineering managers, HR managers, if you haven’t spent years reporting directly to a CEO or at least a Senior VP – in other words, if you haven’t had real experience building programs within enterprise space companies and managing brands hands-on, working across silos, even with all the blogging and tweeting experience in the world, I don’t see how you can hope to know how to build, integrate, manage and measure a 360 social media program for a company. And certainly not in the enterprise space.

It takes a very unique background and skill-set to be able to deliver this kind of thing, and very few people can actually blend 1. a deep understanding of the social media space, 2. real enterprise-class program development and management experience, and 3. 360 brand management experience, from product ideation and development all the way to end-of-life-cycle marketing communications.

People who know how to do this in the US, I can count on the fingers of one hand. There aren’t many of us yet. And given the need for companies to understand how to properly plug social media into their business (and start enjoying positive results fast), that’s a big problem.

If my “fingers of one hand” remark seems like an exaggeration, go back in time just a few months and ask every social media “consultant” or “expert” in your address book to briefly shed some light on a few random (and simple) components of a Social Media program… like how to tie R.O.I. measurement into Social Media activities, or how to structure an enterprise-wide Twitter presence. Until those few of us who know how to do this came along and spelled it out for them, it seems that the vast majority of these “experts” didn’t have a clue. Scary, considering these types of things are among the most simple components of any social media program’s structure.

To address that problem, I am partnering with a pretty solid group of experienced marketing and PR directors, Director-level social media practitioners, management consultants, business managers and other experts to bring businesses exactly this kind of knowledge in 2010, not just in a consulting format but in a training format as well. The training specifically is what I want to bring up here today because it’s the most accessible of the two – both from cost -effectiveness and timeframe perspectives. This video should help explain what we’ve been working on:

As the video explains, we’ll soon have a website, a full schedule of cities (and countries) where our full-day trainings will take place throughout 2010, along with a ton of valuable information you’ll want to check out.

Perhaps the most important component of the training program will be the content of the program itself: Essentially a social media program development, integration, management and measurement playbook. As attendees, whether you decide to take copious notes (which I suggest you do) or simply watch the presentation decks over and over again, you will essentially walk away with everything you need to build a social media program for your organizations (or your clients’ organizations for that matter).

Pretty solid, right?

As mentioned in my previous post, the plan is to launch Red Chair trainings ahead of schedule in London on December 4th instead of waiting for 2010 as originally planned. It’s a little short notice for a lot of businesses in the London area (not a whole lot of time for decision-makers to a) find out about it and b) make plans to attend), so we’ll play the schedule by ear. If we can fill up the training by then, great. If not, we’ll go back to the original schedule to give the London business community time to fit it into their calendar. No big deal. One thing I should mention about the December 4th event, however: The group discounts are insanely good. Take advantage of them now if you can. (I doubt the group discounts will be as good in 2010.)

If you want the December 4th event to happen, make sure you sign up asap. Beg your boss, call a friend, invite a client or two, whatever works. Definitely take advantage of the 1+1, 1+2 and other discounts. Click here to sign up now, or click on the image below.

Update: After receiving numerous requests for Red Chair London to be held in early 2010 instead of December 2009, we  have decided to move the event to a date that will accommodate everyone. Thanks a lot for your feedback. You guys rock. I look forward to an even bigger Red Chair event in London just in a few months.

Cheers.

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UK Businesses: Two events you want to add to your calendar right away

Conferences are great. You learn stuff, you meet people, you go back to work all jazzed up and energized… But let’s be honest: There are some things you just can’t get from a conference, like real training and “how to” knowledge.

From my perspective no matter how much clarity I bring to topics like R.O.I. and social media measurement, building and managing social media programs, brand management in the era of the Social web, etc. at conferences, there is only so much I can teach you in an hour, or thirty minutes (and even 10 minutes, in some cases).

Based on feedback from a pretty big number of conference attendees over the last year, it became clear that something was missing from the picture: Think of it as a gap between the short conference format presentations and high-commitment 3-8-month long consulting engagements.

That’s when my mind flashed back to the courses I used to take from the American Management Association (AMA): Full day trainings on just about anything you might need to increase your value to your organization, from Best Practices in to “how to” courses. The format was simple: One day out of the office, learn everything you need to learn from an expert in the field, come back with copious notes, and get back to work with a valuable new skill.

Bonus: The playbook you bring back with you in the form of notes and course content. That’s yours to keep. Forever.

I loved those things. They made me smarter about the world, better at my job, and payed off in major ways – both for me and my employers… which is probably why they didn’t mind paying for them several times per year.

The single-day AMA trainings I was sent to typically used to cost my employers about $2,000 between registration, airfare, hotel and food (about the cost of going to a conference these days), which I always thought was a little steep. (Multi-day trainings went up from there.) Different value than attending a conference, sure, but in the back of my mind, I always knew the model could be streamlined and the costs made more accessible.

Long story short: It’s obvious that business managers increasingly need real social media operational training, not just neat case studies and presentations about social media tools, so I am launching a series of AMA-style trainings to address that need.  If you’re a business manager or social media practitioner and you need to learn how to better develop, integrate, manage and measure social media programs, this is for you. Though the official launch will take place in early 2010, the very first of these trainings will take place in London on December 4th:

Event Number One: Red Chair London

The course I will teach in London is designed for C-level business executives, Marketing and PR directors, Agency honchos and Social Media managers wishing to deepen their operational understanding of Social Media.

The course is designed for decision-makers and managers looking for real training on how to actually plug social media into their organizations and make it work. Not just from a strategic angle, but also from operational, tactical, and analytical standpoint. (Yes, this is what you guys have been asking for. I am finally bringing it to you.)

The day will be divided into four sessions:

1. 9:00am – 10:30am           Social Media Program Development (Strategy)
2. 10:45am – noon                 Social Media Program Integration (Operations and Planning)
3. 12:45 pm – 2:45pm          Social Media Program Management (Execution)
4. 3:00pm – 4:30pm             Social Media Program Measurement (Data analysis, benchmarking, ROI, etc.)

We will break for morning tea/coffee, lunch, and again for afternoon tea/coffee. (All included with your registration.)

Red Chair London is being kept purposely small (20 seats)  to foster a roundtable-style atmosphere for participants in which all questions will be answered, no matter how technical or complicated. I can handle it.

Registration is only £650 per person (about $999 US), and we have created some pretty awesome group discounts to make it easier for companies to send more than one manager (or client) to the event. (My advice: Pool your resources and buy group tickets instead of just individual ones.)

The best part is that attendees don’t have to fly anywhere or book a hotel. If you work in and around London, you can swing by your office early that morning, spend the rest of the day with us, and go home when we adjourn.  No flying, no hotels, no extra expenses. Simple, painless, convenient.

Although seats should go fast (we’re limited to only 20 seats), I am all about treating my readers well, so here’s a treat for you. (This isn’t on the eventbrite registration page.) The first 6 people to register using the keyword “paddington” will enjoy a special BrandBuilder discount off their ticket price.

Red Chair London will be held at the posh One Alfred Place business Club, which is the perfect venue: centrally located, beautiful meeting rooms, awesome food, providing just the right mix of business focus and comfort. If you aren’t familiar with One Alfred yet, you’re in for a treat.

All that’s left for you to do now is either register or pass the information along to your peers, bosses, colleagues, friends and clients. (Or your marketing, PR and ad agency partners if they don’t seem to know how to take your social media presence to the next level.)

Seriously, if you know someone who should attend, be their hero and send them this post’s hyperlink. Red Chair may not come back to London for quite a while. We have a lot of cities to cover in the next 12 months. Get a jump on the competition.

While we’re still putting the finishing touches on the Red Chair website, you can go register for the London training here.

Event Number 2: Like Minds Immersive

If you can’t make it  to Red Chair London or prefer a lighter version of that type of training, check out December 3rds’ Like Minds Immersive instead. (Hey, not everyone wants or needs to get a Masters in Social Media Operational Management just yet. Baby steps, right?)

Some differences:

1. It’s in Exeter, not London.
2. It’s on Thursday December 3rd (the day before Red Chair London)
3. It only lasts 3 hours
4. It’s a little easier on the finances (Only £200)
5. The content is designed to be more accessible to junior managers and folks not yet fluent in Social Media management than Red Chair London.

Who should attend Like Minds Immersive?

• Devon area business people who can’t make it to London on the 4th.
• Anyone looking to advance their strategic and operational Social Media management skills but isn’t ready for a full day of advanced training yet.
• Managers and business owners looking for structured, step-by-step how-to social media training they will be able to apply to their business right away.

You can register for Like Minds Immersive here.

Now spread the world, ye of internet fame, and help me finally bring real Social Media wisdom, best practices and savoir-faire to the world.

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What’s next: Operationalizing Social Media. (Huh? What?)

Speaking at SMiB in London

The current state of conversations in regards to Social Media and Business

Okay, look. I don’t mean to step on anyone’s toes here, but how many times do business managers hungry for real Social Media know-how have to suffer through another “Social Media is what’s next” presentation before someone actually decides to help them answer real questions and solve real problems?

Yes. We get it already. Social Media is the future of now. It’s the answer to all of your old-school marketing problems. The holy grail of business growth. It’s all about people and conversations and relationships, don’t you know. Okay, fine. So now let’s get on with it: How the hell does a company actually put Social Media into play?

Before I go on, if your answer includes any of the following words, I may have to reach across the internets and smack you upside the head: FaceBook, Twitter, Blog, YouTube. (No, no, no and no.) Let’s take a giant step backwards here, because if your idea of developing a Social Media program for a company of any size essentially consists of creating a series of embassies on the most popular social platforms on the web, you haven’t just put the cart ahead of the horse, you’ve pretty much squashed it like a bug.

Let me be as clear as I can be about this: Having a Facebook fan page, a twitter account, a YouTube channel and a blog aren’t forward thinking. This is the default position now. The absolute minimum. If you aren’t already here, you’ve already shown that your business is grossly out of touch with the rest of the world (and dare I say, your market?). And by default, so are you. You’ve fallen behind. And if your company does proudly display those little social badges, if indeed you do have a presence on Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube and the blogosphere, congratulations: You’re doing the same thing everyone else is, which is to say that you are merely here.

Having a Social Media presence nowadays is merely the equivalent of what being listed in the yellow pages meant ten years ago. It simply isn’t enough to be there. And if you believe it is, you have seriously underestimated the situation.

Don’t get me wrong: The vast majority of business managers and C-suite executives still need to be shown that Social Media isn’t just a silly fad. That it is a legitimate business discipline worthy of not only investment but special attention. And perhaps most importantly, that by not understanding that Social Media fits in their business toolkit, they will begin to lose increasingly large chunks of market share (among other things) to their smarter, more strategically-minded competitors as early as H1 of 2010. These are realities and facts that still need to be conveyed to decision-makers in the business world. No question.

But the message has already reached a good number of them. So now what? You’ve convinced them to focus on Social Media, but aside from “get on facebook, twitter, youtube and blogs and start engaging,” you haven’t really given them a whole lot to go on. For the benefit of those folks, why don’t we switch gears and meet them where they want us to: In the real and complex world of “how the hell do we actually build this in our own organization?”

Let’s inject a little structure and order into the Social Media for business discussion:

First, let’s get a couple of things straight about the nature of Social Media when it comes to operations (yes, actually “doing” instead of just talking about how great it is):

1. The idea that Social Media professionals are one-size-fits-all needs to disappear. Understand that despite what you may have been told, Social Media practitioners aren’t all community managers and engagement aficionados. Some are data analysts and others are business strategists, while some specialize in operational management, market research, marketing communications or any number of commonly found business functions. Yes, that’s right: Social Media practitioners probably aren’t social media experts at all. They’re simply professionals who use social media because they understand its value to their job and organization.

The topic of incorporating social media know-how into existing organizational roles (rather than creating new layers of superfluous social media expertise to piggy-back on existing functions)  is one that we will revisit often in the coming months.

So the lesson here is that if your organization seems to a) suffer from a knowledge gap when it comes to Social Media, and b) filling that gap with dozens, if not hundreds of new employees seems daunting, don’t fret: Focus on training and development first and foremost. Don’t worry about trying to hire a bunch of unemployed marketeers with “social media” roles strategically added to their resumes in the last 18 months. That will get you nowhere fast. There’s a better way. (More on that in a minute.)

2. Effective, sustainable, scalable social media programs all have a basic underlying framework (hinted at by the X-Box Live avatars assembled in the image above.) At its simplest, you are looking at four major building blocks and operational elements:

• Social Media program development (a strategy-heavy function)
• Social Media program integration (almost exclusively an ops piece, especially in the enterprise space)
• Social Media program management (the broadest of the three, basically dealing with the execution of the program itself. Some examples of management functions are listed in the image above.)
• Social Media program measurement (an analytical function which requires little explanation given the amount of time I have already devoted to explaining FRY, ROI, and non-financial impact).

When you start actually building the structure of a Social Media program, especially for a large/enterprise space organization, things get complex fast.  But let’s learn how to walk before we start running marathons, okay? Not everyone here is ready to graduate from “isn’t social media just another marketing channel?” so we’ll move slowly out of respect for them.

First things first: Recognizing that in order to build a proper Social Media program within an organization, you must first start with the understanding that these four core elements need to be present in order for things to work properly. Just having a Social Media director and an engagement team won’t cut it. All you’re likely to end up with is a decent management piece with perhaps some light strategy,  completely accidental integration thanks to an IT guy or two, and some made-up measurement based on whatever metrics seem to be popular on the Twitternets that week. Sorry but that’s not good enough.

If a half-assed DIY-style Social Media program appeals to you, your boss and your customers, by all means, have fun with that. But if you are the type of manager or business leader with even an ounce of vision,  professionalism (and sense of self-preservation), you already know that winging it isn’t really going to produce the results you are expected to deliver.

The alternative is to try and do it right: Actually building an effective and sustainable social media program within your organization by integrating social media (embedding it, even) into every department and business function – and doing so with purpose.

That’s all fine and good, but what if you need help? (No worries. I have you covered.):

So where can you turn for help? Unfortunately, that can sometimes be hard to tell. On the one hand, you have the thousands of self-appointed Social Media “gurus” selling everything from rehashed presentation decks and derivative white papers to stale webinars about essentially nothing. (Thanks for charging me $650 for information I could have gotten for free just by reading Mashable for twenty minutes a week. Great.) And don’t even get me started on the hacks who shamelessly steal my work and that of others and try to pass it off as their own. (We know who you are. You aren’t fooling anybody.)

So how do you tell the good ones from the frauds? Experience. Luck. Savvy. In fairness, you could actually get lucky and find one who knows how to do this (with enough money and enough time, who knows,) but the odds aren’t in your favor.

You could also keep hoping that the operational knowledge you seek will emerge from the various social media conferences you keep attending. And to some extent, yes, over time, you will pick up enough nuggets to become dangerous. No question. But it could take a while. Industry conferences have their value, but real operational training isn’t usually on the menu.

And of course, you could partner with a reputable consulting firm whose team of of experts will guide you every step of the way, from choosing the right measurement tools to the way you should develop engagement strategies. If you ‘re ready for that, have found a partner you know you can work with and have the budget for it, it’s go time. But not everyone is ready or able to go that route quite yet.

A fourth option is to let those of us who know how to do this teach you how without asking you to break the bank or further burden your schedule. We aren’t talking about “boot camps” here. (The idea isn’t to throw as much information at you as we can in a few hours and see how much of it you can retain.) By the same token, you don’t want a training programs to be so light that you walk away from it with solid theoretical knowledge but no practical knowledge. There isn’t a whole lot of value to training if you can’t actually put that training to good use.  And to be honest, there’s only so much ground you can cover even with a full day of training. So a group of us put our heads together over the last few months and decided to create something to fill that gap for you and do it right. (Which is to say, do it exceptionally well.) The objective is then to blend training and consulting in a way that makes sense for everyone.

Enter the Red Chair Group:

There will be plenty of time for me to get into what the Red Chair Group is, who will be involved and what types of services we’ll offer in the coming weeks. For now, all I can tell you is that our official launch is scheduled for December of 2009, that our primary objective will be to provide expert level assistance to businesses in need of strategic and operational program management, and that geographically speaking, we will cover a lot of ground. (I haven’t been this excited about a project/venture in a very long time, so it’s pretty hard for me to keep from spilling the beans.)

To that end, one of the first things the Red Chair Group will be launching is a series of executive training programs specifically designed to teach C-suite execs, business managers and agency directors how to develop, integrate, manage and measure social media programs (what we have been talking about in this post). These trainings will be carefully structured day-long events held in major cities around the world. We are currently in talks with partners in 20 key cities to bring Red Chair events to your doorstep.

(I forgot to mention: The whole idea is to bring these training events to you so you don’t have to come to us. This is yet another way we thought we could keep your budget as intact as possible.)

Cities already being added to the 2010 schedule:

• Chicago
• San Francisco
• New York
• Seattle
• Atlanta
• Boston
• Portland
• Philadelphia
• Paris
• Houston
• Sydney
• Hong Kong
• Charlotte
• Orlando
• Toronto
• Brussels
• Tokyo

(If you want us to add your city to the list, let me know. We’ll chat.)

The first Red Chair event will be held in London on December 4th of this year. (Yes, in just a few weeks.) Click here or on the image below to register. For this venue, A+G‘s Scott Gould (of #LikeMinds fame) will be joining me to cover some key topics and learning points. To provide the best possible environment for the event, we’ve secured a space at One Alfred Place, perhaps London’s coolest (and my favorite) business club.

Our schedule for the session on December 4th is pretty heavy, so we plan to promptly begin with introductions at 9:00 am and be well into the program by 9:30. To make things easier for everyone, we’ve set up some group and agency discount packages in case some of you want to buy your tickets together. I strongly encourage that companies with an interest in this level of training (especially enterprise class organizations) consider sending more than one individual.

A note about registration: Though typical Red Chair events are designed for up to 40 attendees, our London launch is limited to only 20 attendees. Since our registration process is first come-first served, you’ll want to register quickly to secure a spot. With our schedule the way it is, it could be a while before we’re back in London.

One last thing: Anyone who registers for Red Chair London will automatically be enrolled in our registration referral program. The way it works is simple: Once you’ve registered, you will be given a special discount code to give friends, colleagues and clients. If they in turn register for the event using your code, they will get 10% off their ticket price and you will get $100 back. Nice, huh? Yeah. We thought you’d like that.

I will let you know as soon as the Red Chair website is up. (We’re building it as we speak.) In the meantime, you can access Red Chair London information via EventBrite by clicking here (or the image below).

I look forward to sharing more about how the Red Chair Group’s plans to help companies of all sizes operationalize social media. I am usually a pretty quiet guy (no, really), but I have to admit that I am having a hard time containing my excitement about this: To know that businesses are finally going to be able to cut through the social media noise and BS in part thanks to Red Chair makes me feel pretty good. 🙂

2010 is definitely going to be a fun year.

Cheers. 🙂

PS: Let’s give credit where credit is due. Special thanks to Kristi Colvin and Doug Cone for the amazing work they are already doing on the Red Chair Group’s branding and website. You guys are already producing outstanding work.

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