There’s a lot of information out there about setting objectives and strategizing over social media programs. But I see very little about a key facet that is essential to the success of any social media marketing effort: Preparation.

Before your company jumps into social media, you need to understand the demands of the undertaking. Despite its using a digital interface, social media is a time- and labor-intensive enterprise revolving around honest, human interaction that necessitates timely responses on your part. Additionally, there are new technologies that must be learned with their inherent communication streams and protocols. Finally, understand that unforeseen issues will arise because anything that has human interaction at its core will also have some amount of unpredictability. My inner Boy Scout warns you - Be Prepared!

To start, the heart of the decision is how open or constricted your social media communications will be. Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter uses this slide to show three levels of openness and a topline of how they might be organized.

Once you settle on the general organization, however, there are still lots of other decisions. It’s important everyone involved is on the same page regardless of how tight or loose you run your program. Here are some questions to consider:

• Who is involved in the process? They need to be well-versed themselves in social media and have the right knowledge set for your target.
• What will they be communicating? Is it a coordinated effort or is it ad hoc?  Do you want to get the word out on some particular news or a product introduction?
• When should they be monitoring and posting? Will your team members be motivated to write and post on a regular basis?
• How should they comport themselves online? Will there be governance policies regarding topics, language, etc.? How will you respond to comments and media inquiries?

Then there are the legal issues: content ownership, trademarks, copyright and privacy concerns, for example. These are even more important in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services.

As is the case with all marketing endeavors, a great strategy is not enough. Your success in social media marketing will come from being prepared before you execute. Scout’s honor.

What’s wrong with my kids? I spend my days talking to clients and prospects about the virtues of social media marketing. My clients worry social media is all kid stuff—but my kids have no idea what I’m talking about.

Their social lives flow through Facebook. They don’t walk into a restaurant before checking it out on Yelp. They post photos to Picasa. “Social what, Dad?”

They’re on Linkedin to check out career opportunities. One of them is looking to be a mayor on Four Square. Over dinner I learn what’s not to be missed based on their daily (hourly?) Digg perusals. But, do they talk about new apps? Nope, it’s just “now you can do this.”

I try to educate them on the basics of engagement, but do they listen?

A friend of theirs established a Facebook page (Fiesta World) and is tapping into his extended network to validate a marketing idea. But, his eyes glazed over when I tried to talk to him about crowd sourcing.

These kids have no appreciation for the fact that two-way ongoing conversations have replaced one-way message broadcasting. They just don’t get that what they can’t even describe is playing an essential role in extending brands and achieving business goals. That GPS apps are revolutionizing engagement strategies. That whole industries are changing their product development and customer service models thanks to ongoing, instantaneous customer conversations on fan-based or corporate community sites. They just don’t get it.

What’s the matter with kids today?

I heard an interview with Steve Carrell not long ago. He described Michael Scott, his wonderfully pompous, deluded and socially inappropriate character on The Office as being so oblivious that if he really knew what people thought of him “his head would explode.”

How many brands are similarly oblivious? Or, more likely, have some awareness of brand issues, but to quote another great character line, “can’t handle the truth!” Wake up to the reality of social media. Social media has the ability to spread news, information and sentiment about your company like wildfire. That’s just one reason why monitoring the social media channel is an essential for today’s brands.

We use social media monitoring tools to track conversations including video and audio posts. Not unlike the “real” world, conversations can be pretty complex and it takes some digging to see the patterns. Social media monitoring isn’t just about knowing who’s talking trash out there. Here are a few things we‘ve learned as we perform these analyses for more and more clients:

• It’s a big world out there. Many clients post and watch wishing to believe that they are the sole authors of relevant content about their brand appearing online. There’s often something out there they don’t know about.

• What people are saying about what you’re saying. You see the comments to your posts, but you could be fueling conversations separate of direct comments made back to you. Furthermore, those conversations may be occurring among groups you did not target or think would be interested.

• Insight into your category and competitors. Part of our monitoring service is to monitor buzz relevant to your brand even if not about you directly. Beyond knowing how you stack up versus your competition, social media could be the first place you’ll learn about attitude shifts, threats or opportunities.

• The opinion makers. Social media monitoring let’s us know the “whom” in addition to the “what.” In one case, we had a client who was posting just as often as their competitors, but their competitor was getting far more buzz. Why? Because the competitor’s posts were being picked up by people with far larger followings who were extending the conversation to many more people. Why? See my next point.

• Learn what’s interesting to your target. Re the above: our client posted about technical product features that made them “better” than the competition. The competition talked about benefits in a compelling and emotional way that excited people and got them talking.

• Research your target. Social media shouldn’t supplant good target research. But online conversations can certainly inform the process.

• Actionable insights about more than you thought. Yes, you may learn that someone in Ft. Lauderdale is a bit irritated at your customer service, but people will also give you clues and suggestions regarding product innovations, your website, sales process, and more. Bonus tip – we use online conversations to fuel keyword research for PPC campaigns.

• Expanding your target. A social media report for a prospect on facial laser treatment turned up conversations on acne sites. Taking part in that conversation opened the door to a new segment.

• Who to engage and how. If you’re developing a social media program of your own, this is your doorway to finding people to engage with and the conversations to engage in.

Social media is changing the way brands are communicating. People are talking and clients need to listen. You can handle the truth, right?

There are practically as many opinions about social media and its applicability as a marketing channel as there are marketers. But, many are missing a key point.

Anyone with a connection to the Internet, at any time, anyplace in the world is now capable of starting or entering a conversation about your brand, your product, your service, or anything else that relates to your company through a social media channel. Are you ready for that?

I’m not talking about the “let’s put up a company Facebook page” social media. I’m talking about the Dominos, Hertz catastrophes posted online and viewed by millions.

Think these are unique events that couldn’t happen to you? Get your head out of the sand because what you don’t know CAN hurt you. Starting now, you need to be monitoring social media conversations to know what people are saying about you. You don’t want to be the last to know what’s going on with your brand.

But there’s also a tremendous upside. You’ll also gain some truly valuable and actionable insights from the more benign and even positive online conversations you tap into. Just ask Dell or Intuit. Both companies monitor social media and use what they learn to improve many aspects of their products and services. Social media is here to stay. Deal with it and learn from it.

In our May 14 blog entry, Five Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in a Weak Economy, we said mistake number one is to overreact and recast your product or company as a value (e.g., low cost) brand. We recently had a chance to test that premise.

We pitched a client we’ve known for a long time and had even recently done a couple of well-received small projects with them. We gave it our all. The presentation went very well and the client complemented our insights and creativity. But, we lost. Read the rest of this entry →