Archives for corporate social strategist

Selecting the Best Social Media Management System

In one of my a previous blog posts, 7 Keys to Choosing the Right Social Media Monitoring Tool, I spoke about the importance of listening tools in helping companies find relevant online conversations. This post is all about the engagement platforms or Social Media Management Systems (SMMS).

These are communication platforms where users take action and can respond, engage, interact or communicate directly on social networks, including Twitter, blogs, Facebook, forums, etc…These are real-time, highly customized dashboards and often offer multiple accounts, a shared workspace for many users and the ability to respond in multiple places with one click.

SMMS differ from social media monitoring (SMM) tools in that they are primarily where activity occurs rather where one analyzes activity. Unfortunately, there isn’t a comprehensive solution that incorporates in-depth listening capabilities with a robust engagement platform. Spredfast probably comes closest but its still has a way to go to utilize both.

Here are some key considerations when choosing your SMMS (via Socialtext)

Confidence in Adoption Rate

The phrase “build it and they will come,” usually doesn’t apply to these platforms so make sure your social media team and community managers are willing to embrace the new platform. Thus, don’t force adoption unless you receive approval from the users themselves.

It Fits the Way People Work

Make sure that your SMMS tool can be integrated with e-mil, mobile, SMM tools and other third party sites. Many times your community managers are on the front lines with customers and prospects, thus they need fast access to information and engage people.

Aggregates Sources

SMMS tools need to provide visibility to all staff and advocates involved. A user should be able to search across all the workspaces to which they belong, by key word, page title or tags. People should be able to create links that lead to pages on other workspaces or external sources. People use a variety of information sources to do their job. For example, they may use emails and calendars from Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes, lead records from Salesforce.com, documents stored on their computer, or in a system like SharePoint.

Low Cost of Ownership

Every software application requires human labor to administer and support it. The cost of the people services can be the most significant cost in the total cost of ownership calculation. According to Gartner, the cost of the people services to own and manage a licensed software application can be 4X the cost of the software license per year. Make sure your SMMS solution is simple as well as effective.

Below is a list compiled by the Altimeter Group sorted by alphabetized order by parent company, not in priority or capability. I added a few that were missing but please feel free to add.

  1. Argyle Social: Provides features to publish and schedule, manage a social inbox, measuring tools, and white label solutions.
  2. Awareness Networks, Social Marketing Hub an enterprise class community platform has launched their own tool that has Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and of course connect with their own community features. In particular, this is an existing enterprise class vendor (previously I’ve published thorough research report on them) which bodes well to their level of potential levels of service, support, and market viability. (they’ve briefed me)
  3. Buddy Media: Has a set of management tools that help brands with Facebook, Twitter, and monitoring and reporting.  You’ll find iterations for both brands and agencies.  They have case studies from large brands and media on their site.
  4. Constant Contact: Purchased Nutshell Mail which has keyword monitoring systems that can empower small business owners to receive alerts about their social networking accounts.  On Feb 28th they acquired SCRM company Bantam Live which has some SMMS features, for sales and marketers. (hat tip to Dan Ziman)
  5. Context Optional offers management tools for moderating Facebook pages
  6. Conversocial: Offers solutions to help managers to  plan updates and learn what type of content resonates the most with your fans and followers in social networks like Facebook and Twitter
  7. CoTweet was recently acquired by ExactTarget.  They provide Twitter integration tools, scheduling, workflow, listening tools, multiple author management, and management dashboard tools
  8. Distributed Engagement Channel by DEC   Their system offers the ability to publish content, moderate UGC submissions, and track and optimize channel performance.  They also have features such as ID integration, media handling, and reporting.
  9. Engage Sciences: Allows marketers to launch social promotions to engage customers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and corporate websites, whilst aggregating, filtering and storing streams from across the social web to allow companies to easily showcase the voices of advocates.
  10. Expion Expion allows large Enterprises to publish and aggregate social media conversations that can scale to hundreds of local based Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels, etc. The tool has the ability to listen, publish, manage, respond, govern, and glean intelligence across these channels.
  11. Hootsuite Integrates Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Whereas before you could update Facebook and LinkedIn through Ping.fm functionality, things are different now. Facebook and LinkedIn accounts are treated similarly to Twitter accounts: you can create columns from these social networks, read your friends’ status updates, and update multiple Facebook accounts. Facebook integration offers in-line commenting.
  12. MediaFunnel offers integration with Facebook and Twitter. They have several permission based workflows that include a variety of roles such as a contributor, administrators, publishers.  This is not unlike traditional editorial processes used in CMS systems.
  13. Moderation Marketplace Provides Social Media Management and Content Aggregation solution designed to be delivered to your clients under your brand.
  14. Mutual Mind offers brand monitoring, permission based workflow as well as reporting tools.
  15. Objective Marketer provides managers ability to structure their messages by campaigns, features include User Management with roles and permissions and workflows, scheduled content, integration,  analytics and reporting.  The tell me their current client makeup  is 60% Enterprises, 30% Agencies and 10% Bloggers / Independent Consultants.  (in Jan 2011, Objective Marketer was acquired by Email Vision)
  16. Postling allows for individual clients or brand to manage assets like blog, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account, and Flickr accounts from a single management system. There is also comment aggregation as well as workflow between teams.
  17. Seesmic. Seesmic offers support for multiple Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Ping.fm, Foursquare and Google Buzz accounts. Also offered on iPhone,  Android wp7 and Blackberry.  Languages translation support includes: English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish and more.  Seesmic has received investments from Salesforce and has an integrated offering with Chatter.
  18. Shoutlet offers a multi-user application that helps global brands, small businesses, and marketing agencies build, engage, and measure all of their social media marketing communication via one platform.
  19. SocialVolt Provides STUDIO which is a complete social media management platform that integrates all the tools a company needs to successfully engage with their clients on the social web.
  20. SpredFast is an up and comer who recently briefed me, this Austin based company offers the core features and claims to have a 40% enterprise customer base. They have partners with Convio, Radian6, Crimson Hexagon, Sysomos, Trackkr, IBM, Porter Novelli, Sierra Club, HomeAway. They position their product as collaborative campaign management and offer features such as scheduling content, features that integrate with events and social stream like features similar to Friendfeed. (they’ve briefed me)
  21. Sprinklr offers social media management tools, it’s interesting their website has a strong focus on listening first, before the publication.
  22. SproutSocial is a recent low cost SMMS tool that is great for non-profits and small businesses.
  23. Strongmail, a traditional email marketing platform offers platform that tracks the multi-stage sharing activity of the campaign all the way to conversion, analysis on reach, sharing activity, CT’s, feedback on Facebook fan page wall posts.
  24. Syncapse (formerly SocialTalk) provides integration with Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and MoveableType, this management tool provides governance, workflow, scheduling and other features.
  25. Vitrue: Offers social media management systems, that has integration with Facebook and Twitter, they offer scheduling features, and the ability to link multiple Facebook pages together.
  26. Wildfire: Offers features for social sweepstakes that promote word of mouth as well as ability to manage and publish from their platform to multiple social networks, with analytics.

For an interesting take on how these companies are trying to differentiate themselves read: Social Media Management System (SMMS) Lack Differentiation in Positioning, Confusing Market.

How to Hire for Social Media Positions

With more and more companies looking to social media to drive business goals  many are having a difficult time hiring for social media positions.  Their desire to ramp up a social presence is outpacing their ability to hire the proper staff to do the job effectively.  This, combined with the myriad of people with varying degrees of social media expertise, is creating confusion among executives on who to hire, what compensation level is appropriate and what title to bestow.

Many companies are going for the quick fix in hiring the young marketing coordinator or intern who definitely knows the technology but doesn’t necessarily understand the business aspect and the role social media needs to play in an overall marketing strategy.  This can create frustration on the part of executives, who may have trouble grasping why social media is important and are looking for ways to prove its ROI.

Two distinct positions are becoming prominent with forward thinking corporations; the community manager and corporate social strategist.  Many companies are looking to fill these roles with one position but it’s quite apparent that these two roles require very different skill sets. Here’s why:

Community Manager

Community managers are on the front line in a customer facing role and are the ones trusted by your audience. They’re the people that are the voice of your brand and are having online conversations with your potential customers every day. They have a passion (or should have) for the organization or brand and this shows in their discussions.  The strange thing is that this person usually is not working in the marketing or PR department.  They may be in customer support or a regional manager or cashier or may even be the janitor.  They point is they have a passion for the brand, they know it backwards and forwards and when they speak to people about it their passion shows through.  Finding the right person who has the online skills plus the passion is a critical component to a brand’s social strategy.  (see Duluth Pack)

Altimeter Group

Corporate Social Strategist

This position is responsible for the overall social media program and is focused on deciding which listening and engagement platforms to use, educating executives on why social is important, integrating a brand’s social presence with customer service, marketing, PR, partners,  stakeholders and most importantly delivers on the ROI question.  A social media strategy won’t get off the ground without measurement therefore it’s important to find someone who has business experience who can tie in a brand’s social media efforts to overall business objectives.  The difficultly lies in finding a person who knows the business side of things but also has a deep understanding for social technologies. Aim high when hiring for this role as it’s critical to your brand and customer relationships.

For a deeper dive into hiring for this position check out this article: Career Path for the Corporate Social Strategist.

The truth is that until social media begins to play a larger role in a company’s overall business strategy, these roles will be wrapping up into one job or is a part of an existing position. However, this won’t be the case for long as corporations are planning significant increases in social media staffing and platforms for 2011.

Altimeter Group

Standards for Hiring

So how should a company move forward in hiring a community manager or corporate social strategist? One social media’s thought leaders and the one I admire most is Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group who’s done a great deal of research into social media strategy and how companies can ramp up their social media presence.  I combined his suggestions with some of mine in laying out standards for hiring and supporting the community manager and corporate social strategist:

Community Manager

  • Find someone who has a genuine passion for your brand, organization or industry.
  • Look for someone who’s fun, creative and has an engaging personality
  • Stay away from anyone calling themselves a “Ninja” “Guru” or “Rock Star”
  • Ensure a cultural fit, as the community manager will be the voice of your brand
  • Scrutinize how they have used social media in the past
  • Find a natural born connector – both internally and externally
  • Life experience trumps youthful enthusiasm so look for the former

Corporate Social Strategist

  • Hire a program manager rather than a social media “Ninja” “Guru” or “Rock Star”
  • Seek candidates with a track record of early technology adoption in their careers
  • Seek backgrounds that demonstrate the ability manage dotted-line resources and agency partners
  • Look for a corporate entrepreneur,comfortable with “calculated risks”
  • Ensure a cultural fit, as the social strategist will tack change management
  • Find a natural born connector – both internally and externally
  • Celebrate those risks by enabling them to “fail forward,” while clearing their obstacles
  • Enable them to connect to peers and invest in their knowledge and career growth
  • Protect your investment by providing new challenges, and compensate well – they are highly coveted
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