It's Open - Social Media Strategy Consultancy

Oxford University research fellow Dr Andrew Currah, who specialises in the digital economy, will be talking live from Los Angeles next Monday 14 December to members of the Social Media Leadership Forum (www.socialmedialeadershipforum.org) .

Dr Currah will be giving a webinar exploring the impact that social media is having on traditional media, the influence of blogs, and how best organisations can adjust to the brave new world of social media.

Here’s an example of a previous piece of work carried out by Dr Andrew Currah.

The Social Media Leadership Forum (www.socialmedialeadershipforum.org) is managed by ItsOpen (www.itsopen.co.uk). It is designed to help leading organisations collaborate to create successful social media programmes.

Many companies are struggling to decide on the best ways to engage with social media. The November edition of Harvard Business Review, which I have referred to before, has some suggestions.

The mandate for a company’s Social Media team should, the authors argue, cover the development of a social media policy: to include accountability; accuracy and transparency and lawfulness. It should include monitoring online communities: leveraging tools and mobilising internal team members to source information.  The team’s role should also be to engage with online communities; creating a compelling social media voice; and  reaching out to community leaders.

The authors say that a company’s social media team should act as first responders as some issues require immediate action. The team should acknowledge mistakes on behalf of the company, ward off crises by not allowing unfounded rumours to spiral out of control, and  engage selectively.

It is proving difficult for companies to formulate teams, although organisations like Dell have done this successfully by having community managers who watch, listen and act on behalf of the organisation. Another useful model here is video gaming, where you have community managers watching how new product launches are playing out online and reporting any crucial insights back to their senior managers.

As a social media strategy consultancy ItsOpen (www.itsopen.co.uk) does work with companies helping, supporting and advising them in these areas. However when it comes to actual engagement, there is no substitute for companies talking directly to people themselves through online communities. It is more authentic and carries more weight.

Through the SocialMediaLeadershipForum (www.socialmedialeadershipforum.org) we are looking to tackle these issues.  The world of communications is changing fast; many companies are realising that they could be left behind – and be at a severe competitive disadvantage – if they don’t develop coherent social media policies and strategies for positively nurturing online communities and mitigating the potential negative consequences of social media.

It is also worth reiterating that a strategy involves identifying the most appropriate social media tools to leverage to reach relevant online communities.  But it is crucial to listen to those online communities, seeing what they like and dislike, and what they prefer to read and watch. Simply pushing out content you think they might like could be the equivalent of cold calling someone with an irrelevant proposition which does not match what they are interested in. For a social media strategy to be truly effective, a company needs to spend time educating itself about the culture of social media communications: how stakeholders are using these tools and what constitutes best practice.

The easy accessibility of social media sites/networks does not mean that communicating effectively and successfully through social media is easy for a company. Which is why only a few companies currently standout. These are the ones who have researched this new field and thought carefully about how best to engage.

If anyone is interested in discussing these issues further please give me a call on: 0845 0542299

If individuals and businesses can tweet, then why not towns too? Darlington in County Durham has appointed a “tweeter in residence” whose job it will be to alert citizen followers to what’s occurring in the area. Many towns and cities have artists and writers in residence, so why not a Twitterer, says the Darlington Partnership, the organisation behind it.

A non-essential service? A waste of taxpayers money? Perhaps, but this is a job for an enthusiast, and secondary teacher Mike McTimoney, who has taken the role, is only being paid £140 a year for what he clearly sees as a labour of love.

It should be good for local arts, as well as for building crowds at events organised by charities and public organisations. If it takes off perhaps we’ll start seeing other local authorities following suit.

Found a few interesting stories this morning…

The Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has issued a rare open letter tackling privacy issues, but also stating his ambitions for Facebook. He is underlining the importance of creating a more ‘open’ world.

Stephen Fry is being cited as extremely savvy for using Twitter to build his brand in a post traditional media world…A lot more companies could be using Twitter smartly to build their brands but at the moment they are not really sure how to use the tool.

PR types are split on whether or not bloggers should be paid for favourable coverage. What would happen if reporters on the FT were revealed as accepting payments for favourable coverage? There would be an outcry. of course. How can people trust bloggers if they are being paid to write in a certain way? If they accept payments, they should be open about it in my view. Clear sponsorship, etc, is fine.

Twitter has won praise for supporting World Aids Day. Some commentators are saying that it’s about time Twitter showed some personality as a brand. Interesting thought. I think Twitter is quirky and fun as a brand. It is what other people make it.

Twitter has been declared the most popular word in the English language:

But advertisers are being warned to keep out by Twitter users.

Advertisers have to join in Twitter conversations in an appropriate and relevant way and act as individuals to participate. It’s not the usual one way communications traffic that works with TV, radio and newspapers.