I’m sure you’ve all been in a similar discussion. Last night I was playing poker with my neighbors and someone brought up how frustrated they were with their wife always on Facebook. Another chimed in, “she’s on Facebook while I’m on porn. I’m good with that!” Which you can imagine lead to a series of discussions that took us in many directions:).

With my ”social media advocate” hat on I quickly turned to the Internet on my BlackBerry to see what I could find in the debate – Social Media vs. Porn. To my surprise I came across a number of posts from this June that proved my poker buddies wrong…Social Media has become a more popular online activity than porn! Steven Stark talks about it in his blog post, “Social Media Beats Porn” which references the SearchEngineWatch.com article by Erik Qualman entitled, “15 Social Media Maxims for Marketers” from June 1 citing recent Hitwise data. Although I question the interpretation of the study…I still think it’s a pretty cool stat to throw out as we’re educating folks about social media.

So I suppose we as Americans have now added to our vices? Sex, gambling and Social Media?! I suppose it could be worse:).

As I was participating in #journchat LIVE last night here in Chicago (which was a great event…thanks Sarah Evans!), I realized that many of the topics we were discussing, although important to our chat topic, were really the types of conversations we need to be having with non-marketing folks.

In fact, I just wrote about this subject last week in my post Social Media Advocacy: Stepping Out of Our Silo.

Then I wake up this morning with several voicemails from local media asking me to talk with their business listeners/readers about this very subject. It turns out one of the local papers the Northwest Herald did a piece in today’s paper, “PR firm a Pipeline to social media for firms” . Although I’m very humbled (goofy picture aside…below) to receive this coverage, my vision is that CEOs and general business professionals will realize the value (or not) of social media instead of passing it off to the marketing/communications team.

Sometimes I realize if it’s the “social media” term that throws them off? Perhaps we need to start advocating around “the new word of mouth” – maybe this is a term that is more C-level friendly?

As a marketer and PR professional I am targeted (weekly if not daily) with a new seminar, conference or webinar on various ways I can leverage social media and the various platforms for my profession. A recent example includes a “Twitter Boot Camp for PR & Internal Communications Workshop” hosted by Ragan Communications (a very trusted source in our industry) which is actually being led by two folks I really admire – Allan Schoenberg (CME Group) and Barbara Rozgonyi. In fact, I recently led the conversation for a “Twitter 101″ webinar for PR professionals with CISION, the leading media relations software provider. Over the course of two sessions we had more than 2,000 participants!

I think its great our profession and industry are embracing social media advocacy and I can honestly say that I’ve never been on a call, webinar or attended a conference on this subject that didn’t provide at least some value. Most advice has been pretty solid for myself and I can only assume for the other marketers involved with each…but what about everyone else in business??

I’m a firm believer that as marketers and PR professionals we often operate in our comfortable “silos” (or departments). Some common examples of this are when your company receives media coverage and the marketing team might put a link to such coverage up on the website and perhaps have professional reprints made of the story for the sales team. Instead, shouldn’t the coverage be leveraged and packaged for all of your departments to effectively communicate with each of your targeted audiences? Probably…but we don’t.

I bring this up because I believe we’re missing the boat as social media advocates for business (as a whole). Instead we continue to educate within our own comfort zone, to our own people, and in ways that matter to our profession.

- What about the CEO who thinks social media is a waste of time…as he observes his teenage kids constantly communicating on Facebook?

- What about the Sales VP who doesn’t believe Twitter can generate any sales for her company?

- What about the SVP of HR and Legal Counsel who are trying to figure out how restrict their employees’ social media participation while at work?

I think you see my point. What can or should we do? I’m all ears:).

Jumping on Twitter this morning I was bombarded by numerous updates about the continued love fest for Twitter (for which I’m certainly a part of) including – Adam Lavrusik of Mashable’s, “5 Reasons Why Twitter’s Growth Cannot Be Stopped”  and Erick Schonfeld of Tech Crunch’s, “Twitter Reaches 44.5 Million People Worldwide in June.”

All this love for Twitter and social media in general reminded me to make a point that I had been meaning to blog about for some time -

“Social Media (including Twitter) and the relationships we develop, massage and foster online are only as good as those we can convert offline.”

What I’m ultimately getting at is that we can get all hung up on the love around Twitter and social media – including these very impressive stats – but unless (as business professionals) we can take these relationships offline (where business really happens) this is all worthless.

I know this is a pretty broad blanket statement, but in general I think we need to realize that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogging, etc. are additional communications vehicles to help us more effectively do whatever it is that we do in our careers.

I’m stoked that Twitter had more than 44.5 million unique visitors in June. It’s shocking and reassuring to see all of the stats around this space we all love (here is a great presentation on that). But none of this really matters if businesses don’t understand how to leverage their social media strategy and initiatives to help accomplish their business goals (shocking…I know). Yet the overwhelming majority of businesses I’ve talked with on this subject don’t have a formal strategy in place.

I’ll get off my soapbox as I’d love to hear more from you about your feelings about where social media is heading for business. Of course, I’ll continue to advocate:).

It’s time to put my foot down and just say it…social media isn’t a savior for businesses. It isn’t going to be that secret potion that pulls us all right out of this recession nor will it compensate for a business model that…well, wasn’t going anywhere anyway. It’s not to say that social media can’t supplement your business communications, marketing, customer service and many other departments. I just want to be clear that it isn’t for everyone BUT if you take the appropriate steps it can be an amazingly powerful move for your business.

It is my belief that most business professionals (or consumers for that matter) don’t fully understand what it means to participate across these social media platforms. As I continue to work with businesses in this space I continue to hear the same song and dance, “we’re using Twitter and Facebook but think they’re a waste of time for our business” – if they’re even on the platforms as most are standing cautious to determine if it is right for their business (which is actually a better move than just jumping in unprepared).

WARNING: If you’re drinking the social media Kool-Aid, you may not like what I’m about to say…social media isn’t for everyone.

I’ve put together a brief checklist of 5 considerations any business professional (or organization) should make before make before moving any time, $ or resources over to social media. Here we go:

• Are your audiences participating: The simple fact is that if your audiences aren’t participating in social media…you and your organization shouldn’t spend time, $ or resources on a social media program. However, if any are there, so should you
• Plan, plan, plan: Quoting the great Paul “Bear” Bryant (former University of Alabama football coach) – “Have a plan. Follow the plan, and you’ll be surprised at how successful you can be. Most people don’t have a plan. That’s why it is easy to beat most folks.” Like anything else in business…without a strategy, plan and measurement your attempt at social media will fail
• Get ready for the good, bad & ugly: If you decide that participating in conversation is important to you and your organization…get ready for the good, bad and ugly. You can’t block negativity within social media (i.e., delete negative comments on your blog), you can only hope to neutralize or if you’re lucky convert them into positives
• Consistency is crucial: The single biggest way to fail at social media and dig yourself a deeper hole than not participating at all would be to start a blog, launch profiles and then have your audiences experience the deadly silence. Consistent participation is crucial
• Gain executive buy-in: Even if you’re ready to make the move into the social media conversations, are your executives comfortable and supportive of your efforts? If not, you need to ensure C-level buy-in before making any next steps

I’d love to hear what advice you provide to business professionals looking to get into or fine tune their social media program or what you practice yourself. In addition, I welcome each of you to join my new Twitter profile (SM4Biz) which will be focused on this exact subject – helping business professionals understand, plan and participate in social media.

This morning I was once again reminded that not everyone truly understands the value of social media – transparency, authenticity, 2-way, personal, etc. Last night I decided to go against the grain a little and visited two of my favorite tools to find people on Twitter – Twellow & Mr. Tweet. I found many that “seemed” to be folks that I should be engaging with. They were in PR or marketing, jouralists, social media hounds, etc. WRONG!

Once again, I was bombarded by many (probably 75% of the people I just started following) who sent me automatic direct messages. I’d list them all here but I’m considering starting a new advocacy site called StopAutoDMs (www.stopautodms.com – not yet mine).

Then I read this great post from Mike Doyle at ChicagoNow.com entitled, “Four Reasons Why Bloggers on Twitter Shouldn’t Pimp Facebook.” It reminded me of a post I made back in March entitled, “The New Era of Template Personalization.”

Perhaps I’m a little set in my ways about this, but I just think there is a black and white way we should be acting here on social media. Do you agree? Disagree? As always, I’d love to hear from you on this one!

One thing is for sure, the Twitter train has left the station for businesses…are you on?! I’ve been doing a lot of Social Media Boot Camps for businesses recently and I’m consistently asked the question – is this really worth it for business (both B2B and B2C companies)? Then I’m reading USA Today on Friday as Jon Swartz pens a story entitled, “Businesses get cheap help from a little birdie.” The story of course about how businesses such as Comcast, Dell, JetBlue and Starbucks are benefiting from Twitter’s “popular communications technology.”

I think it’s important to stress that I’ve created the following list looking at 5 reasons businesses should CONSIDER Twitter. The reality is if your targeted audiences aren’t participating on Twitter…neither should you or your business. The one caveat to this argument is that someone who isn’t your “targeted audience” might still benefit or add value to your business…always true. Personally I wouldn’t advocate for a business to launch a Twitter strategy if they don’t have a major (influential) audience already actively participating in conversation on Twitter.

So, here goes my 5 Reasons Businesses Should Consider Twitter:

1 – Monitor Your Brand: If you decide that Twitter isn’t write for you to allocate time or budget towards a solid strategy for your business, at least consider monitoring what others are saying about your company.  Here is a great story from Robert Scoble in Fast Company earlier this year on this subject;

2 – Join The Conversation: To the USA Today story, many businesses are successfully creating brand champions as well as mitigating major customer service issues through engaging with their customers on Twitter. Don’t just push out your information…add some value and respond directly to your customers;

3 – Its Free: Okay, so time = money…and it certainly takes time to execute an effective Twitter strategy for your business.  But, with the right time management tips and tools you can optimize your time on Twitter while still effectively delivering on your set strategy;

4 – Supplements Traditional Marketing Program: One of the main reasons I like and recommend Twitter to so many businesses and organizations is that it does a really great job of leveraging many of the traditional marketing tactics you are already implementing.  For example, when your company appears in the New York Times you should leverage your audience on Twitter to share the story;

5 – Innovate or Die: Okay, so maybe not so extreme, but the reality is most brand leaders have leveraged Twitter and social media to their advantage – just look at the Blog Council members as a case in point.  Perhaps Bill Gates said it best, “Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.”

I’d love to hear your additions or edits to this list…thanks!

I’ve been doing a number of different workshops around helping businesses understand the importance of developing a strategy around their social media efforts. As I continue to tell others, I am not an “expert” but just an advocate like many of us practicing in this space. 

One of the platforms that I believe makes sense for ANY business is a corporate blog. I’m amazed at the amount of useful information and guidance there is for anyone looking to create such a blog for their organization. Last week, I received a great list of tips from A Brand New Way who was sponsoring the BlogPotomac in Falls Church, VA. They provided a list of “5 Tips for Corporate Blogging” which did a wonderful job summarizing some quick tips.

Whenever I’m referring to blogs, I like to share our “4 L’s of Blogging”:

• Lead the conversation – This is a place to start the conversation but you do need to show your expertise when doing so;
• Link, link, link – Like any good traditional media story, a blog post should have multiple links (sources) to further establish you views and topic as credible;
• Less is always more – People don’t want to read a book as they are often reading multiple blogs in addition to many other news items.  You should limit your blog post to 350-500 words and always try and list or bullet out your points;
• Let others contribute – You should let and encourage others to contribute to your blog and conversation. Without such dialog, your blog is just a bulletin board.

What advice would you give to others looking to jump into corporate blogging? As always, I’m anxious to continue the conversation!

Scott Monty is head of social media for Ford Motor Company – here is his blog. 

Notes from session with Scott Monty at BlogPotomac (mainly direct quotes from Scott):

There is no greater crisis than for the auto industry at this time (how about that for a conversation starter…). Any good crisis is about taking a negative and turning it into a positive. 

What’s going on with Ford? – EX: last december – Ford was here in DC last December to show that we are all interconnected – “I was doing some serious digital hand-to-hand combating” – trying to add value on my end (Ford).  This really wasn’t any way to support our initiatives.  About 10 days after – www.therangerstation.com (a user site) – said that Ford was suing this site…$5,000 and hand over URL. Scott sent off emails internally to help gain an understanding – “I always turn to Twitter to pulse the first line of response” – just after the Motrin moms incident.

We obtained the facts and used a number of different tools and platforms to communicate these “facts” – I sent an email to the owner of the fan forum (www.therangerstation.com) – had a 20 minute conversation with him to make sure we understood our individual needs.

Lesson 1 – you have to monitor these platforms. Not every brand has this issue, but it is very important.

Lesson 2 – you MUST respond and invite them into the process to come to a conclusion with you – leverage this community.

Lesson 3 – have a digital hub where you can quickly post updates…and link to as many of the platforms as possible to help spread these updates.

What we did in early December we developed www.thefordstory.com. Constantly evolving and always under construction – this is our social media hub. A combination of Ford produced content and others content. What people are saying about you and your brand is so important.

Never before have such conversations been public. We know that people are going to go to other sites vs. ours (i.e., via Google). We want to make sure and capture others comments.

[Scott provided a great example of this with the Fiesta Movement example.]

I’m one person at Ford – finally hiring #2, we’ll see how that works out. 

The tools are irrelevant – they will always change – give people guidelines and a process to let people get out there and speak on behalf of the organization.

We have an online communications policy – our ethics statement: I will tell the truth, write accurately, correct mistakes promptly, never delete posts, stay on topic, disclose topics of interest, keep issues private…that are private (I’m sure I missed some of this…but you get it).

The goal – humanize Ford & our brand – we are trying to put faces to the blue oval and connect people with Ford employees and others with our initiatives.

Q&A Summary (Highlights):

Without senior-level support…any SM program will fail. It’s been an easy sell at Ford. I was used to doing the up sell but they were incredibly open to allowing me to do my thing. I’m within Corporate Communications but it shouldn’t sit there. You should apply this across all organizations, departments, geographic areas, etc. Show them how it is done & do it.

Become the world’s leading social media brand in auto – accomplished. Now our goal is to become the world’s leading social media brand…period.

I’ve often referred people to GM, Toyota, etc. It’s about providing value – not to sell cars.

Story: the desk was placed in the middle of the workplace for everyone to see whenever others were using this new technology (this was from the 1930′s and was the telephone). POINT: corporations have been resistent to change (technology change) since the telephone – email – Internet – and now social media.

Follow the stream of conversation about Scott and his session from Twitter here & here. Enjoy & please join this conversation!

Shel is kicking of BlogPotomachere in Falls Church, VA – the unconference (i.e., no PPT, etc.).

The following are notes from Shel’s session:

We’re talking about “social media policies” – is it right to manage control around your company’s SM.  Those who are giving flexibility to their teams seem to be doing the strongest on this front.

Who owns SM? The leadership teams within should be driving the strategy and allowing all divisions to contribute where appropriate. Shel provided @zappos as a great example of a company using SM very well…across the organization.

Heard a quote from someone at a recent conference – “We need to drop the whole ROI and move to SOI – Spirit Of Influence” – good idea but we need to still be able to execute with the C-levels so this doesn’t really fly in the board room.

Summary: Shel had a whopping 10 minutes to talk here so he was really focused on the barriers of entry within SM – session title “Integration Challenges.”

Cultural barriers are a real challenge within the organization – especially with something so new as SM. Internal communications need to be about understanding the business’ communications strategy and how your employees can effectively share with their audiences.

Interesting question – “isn’t blogging ineffective since there are so many people doing it?” – Shel: “No” – most of what he reads comes from Twitter and he believes that every company should have at least one blog because of RAPID RESPONSE.

Here is a good stream on Shel’s presentation via Twitter.