Recap of Social Fresh Portland: Branding within Social Media

I finished my Twitter coverage of Social Fresh Portland (because I was locked out by too many tweets!) with the Branding within Social Media Panel, with Kim Brater of Ant Hill Marketing, Steve Parker of Levelwing Media, Matt Singley of M80im, Kristy Bolsinger of RealNetworks, and Andrew Sinkov of Evernote.  Fortunately, although Singley threatened to liven up the panel by making it "pants optional," the whole panel staye fully clothed as they gave the audience some great advice.

The first question was about how branding is defined in each of the panelists' organizations and translated to social media. Sinkov said at Evernote, they ask themselves, "what is the impression we want to give people?"  Their answer is that they want to be a company that people trust and believe in.  In Brater's mind, your brand is your business.  Bolsinger said that she considers social media channels to be a way to strengthen their brand and make it something "living."  She encourages using the same brand and message across all channels in marketing, including social media.  Social media can also help to define your brand, because through engagement, you can learn what your customers think your brand is.  Singley said that while he promised not to use these buzzwords for the remainder of the panel, it's true that branding is about consistency and engagement.  To make sure everyone was listening, he suggesting using liquor to transition the Old Guard to this new media.  More seriously, he said that one of the main questions he gets about using social media is how you can effectively measure it.  He said that he responds by asking how you can measure the effectiveness of a conversation or a relationship - you can't.  Social media requires a leap of faith.  For bigger brands, this can be a little bit easier because they're used to being sued for being transparent.  For smaller brands, this might be more difficult.  But Singley pointed out that it's more about opportunities lost because of not being a part of a conversation, and those brands that ignore social media will lose.  He did agree that at some point, it's necessary to show the value of social media and Bolsinger said that ROI can be more about what you save the company than what you bring in.  Singley added that persistence and education is how you get people on board.  An audience member asked if there was value in trying to measure the effectiveness of social media. Singley said yes, but he has yet to figure out how.  "Metrics are a necessary evil of agency life," he commented.  Bolsinger commented that if there isn't a lot of differentiation between your company and your competitors, social media can be a way to differentiate.  Depending on your brant/product, you can show how social media has a better return on investment than traditional channels.  For showing how pervasive social media channels are, the panel recommended Do You Know 4.0.  Brater also recommended looking at Olivier Blanchard's presentation on ROI in social media.

The panelists agreed that they're jobs are becoming more like customer service because of social media.  While some people are voicing concern over this, Bolsinger said if your marketing isn't looking at customer service as a benefit of social media, they're missing out.  If you promote great customer service through social media, sales will follow.  Inversely, this isn't as true.  It used to be that great customer service was the key product differentiator, but now it's customer service through social media. 

Someone in the audience asked about translating a company's online voice throughout the whole company.  Sinkov said that for them, they can do it as they grow, but for larger companies, it's a big re-education.  The larger the company, the more disjointed it is. Parker said that it takes time to move everyone forward in social media, but that's why everyone was there attending the panel.  Bolsinger said that although it helps to have outside evangelists, you need to do that inside as well. 

The panelists then briefly discussed the downside of participating in social media.  Brater said the only downside is not participating, because people are talking about you online whether you're participating or not. 

An audience member asked how to not talk about yourself all the time when building your brand and Bolsinger counseled "be creative."  She said "You live in an entire industry and you can talk about all of that stuff on social media," adding that promoting other people is just as important as promoting yourself.  Parker said that you can also engage the customer in a way that's related to the brand.  The panelists also cautioned that companies shouldn't just get a Twitter account or a Facebook page, but first understand why they want one.  Bolsinger added that someone needs to be held accountable in social media also - who's measuring, keeping you focused?  You need to be monitoring your brand all the time.  This led to a discussion of crisis situations in social media - Bolsinger said that her best practices include having alerts set for their brand on Twitter and having a formal plan in place in case of a crisis.  Singley commented that it matters if its an internal or external crisis as to how it will be handled. He cited an internal example of a bad tweet going out accidentally on Vodaphone's Twitter account (if you're easily offended, you may want to skip checking out what the tweet was, though Singley writes a great post about it).  The company deleted it, but didn't pretend that it never went out. Singley suggested deleting offensive content, and then acknowledging it.  There are also external crises and Singley mentioned the recent Nestle debacle as an example of this, saying that Greenpeace used to have boats - now they have computers.  Brater commented that crises have always been around and they're not going to go away. Just the channel is new, so companies need to take it into consideration in their crisis plans.  She added that companies need to be ready to respond to social media crises immediately and without overreacting.

How does this translate for law firms?

- You've got to think about branding: I know that branding has become a four-letter word in the last few years, but it's really not that terrible - it's just thinking about "what impression do we want to give our audience?"  If you're an attorney and going to be blogging on your own, first talk to your marketing department, if you have one.  While your firm's brand might be different than the practice-specific or industry-specific message you want to send, they can still be a helpful resource for identifying the tone you want to achieve in your blog.  If you're responsible for your firm's blog (as an attorney or a marketer), make sure that the message is the same on your blog as it is in your traditional marketing channels.

- You can be branding without talking about yourself all the time: As Bolsinger mentioned, you live in an entire industry that you can talk about - read what other people are writing, use client alerts in your area of expertise as an opportunity to add your thoughts in a more substantive blog post, talk about other people and what they're saying or doing, write about examples of what other people are doing right.  People will begin to see you as a thought leader, which has a positive impact on your reputation as well as your firm's, and they'll begin to talk about you in their own social media channels.  Peter Shankman gave a great example of how this works during his keynote speech at Social Fresh - he said if he walks into a bar and two women are sitting there, if he walks up to one of them and says, "Hi, I'm Peter Shankman and I'm awesome," she would probably throw a drink in his face.  But if he walks in and her friend says to her, "That's Peter Shankman over there. He's a great guy, and I think you would have a lot in common," the woman would be want to get to know him better.  It's the same in business - let other people talk about how great you are instead of doing it yourself. 

- Social Media is about customer service, whether you want it to be or not: Anyone involved in social media for their companies is involved in customer service.  Even if you plan for your blog or Twitter stream to be dedicated to providing content, there is always the possibility that someone will ask you a question about your firm or about how to handle a case.  Having a plan is key here - decide before they come up how you will handle these situations and who, if anyone, you will refer the person to.

- If you're having trouble getting internal buy-in at your company, realize that social media is not for everyone. But it might be for you: Not everyone at your firm has to "get" social media or use it, but if you want to use it to represent your firm, you have to get their buy-in.  The above video, Do You Know 4.0, is a good starting point for helping them to understand how pervasive it is, but you also have to know why you want to start a blog, join Twitter, create a Facebook fan page and be able to articulate that.  Find evangelists in-house who can support your push for social media.  Identify what you'll be tracking to show value at a later date, but also be prepared to point out that nobody tries to measure the value of a conversation or a relationship.  Let them know that the phone and email can also be dangerous time-sinks in the wrong hands, but you plan to use social media strategically and professionally. 

How has using social media enhanced your firm's brand? What do you see as the unique challenges for law firms in using social media for branding?

Re-Cap From Social Fresh Portland: Corporate Blogging Panel

Another great session at Social Fresh Portland was the afternoon panel on Corporate Blogging with Mike Volpe of Hubspot, Kristy Bolsinger of RealNetworks, and Andrew Sinkov from Evernote.  Starting the panel off with a bang, their first question was "should you, as a business, be blogging?"  The short answer was "yes."  The long answer was "you're an idiot if you don't."  Sinkov said that blogging is an incredibly important part of getting your company's voice out there.  The panel discussed whether blogging should be considered a part of social media, or in its own category, and Sinkov commented that it's a "long form of social media."  Volpe agreed, saying that a blog should be the first step in social media, before Twitter or Facebook, because you're not that interesting without it - it's your social media home base.  They took an informal poll of the room showing that pretty much everyone in the audience had a corporate blog. 

Volpe pointed out that blogging is not about you or your company, it's about your customers.  And if they segregate, you should similarly have separate blogs.  Bolsinger cautioned that from an SEO perspective though, they should all be on the same site.  Sinkov added that the more content you put on the blog, the more you see spikes of people coming to it.  So as soon as you have good content, put it out there, don't wait for it to stack up. Bolsinger said that in her case, she does have a calendar of certain types of posts, which helps to get people coming back and set audience expectations.  She suggested Outspokenmedia.com/blog as a great blog to be reading to help audience members learn how to blog better. 

An audience member asked how people find blog posts and Sinkov said through Twitter, Facebook links to the post, and media outlets who come there for news.  He added that it's important to find out where your audience is and engage with them there.   He went on to say that Evernote's blog has become a way for the media to get information from them because they don't do press releases.  Bolsinger said that 16% of the visitors to their website also visit their blog, saying that they track everything that happens on their blog.  Sinkov said that blogs have more content, but if someone acts because of a tweet that they've seen, then that's great.  He doesn't think blogs are "better" than Twitter or Facebook - he's happy with any engagement with Evernote users.  Bolsinger keyed in on the word "engagement," saying that 100,000 visitors to your website doesn't do you any good unless they're being converted (or your website sells advertisements).  Sinkov said that the people who are reading your blog and following your tweets are the people who want to buy from you.  He also mentioned that "blogging is the gateway drug."  Some of those tweeting from the session disagreed with that metaphor, saying that it implied there was something bigger out there, but it seemed that Sinkov was suggesting that once you get started with blogging, engaging through Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels is quickly the next step. Volpe cautioned not to wait too long to get into social media, because those who do are not always as successful. If you wait for a case study in your particular industry, you're too late.  One of the fears that established companies have that keep them from jumping in is the idea of "getting it right." But Sinkov pointed out that there is no "right" when it comes to social media.  He said companies have to try, and they will probably make some mistakes.  Bolsinger added that companies should never let the fear of failure prevent them from trying to get it right in the meantime, but they should have a plan for when mistakes are made.  Volpe agreed, saying that you're better off doing something, screwing up, and learning from it.  The great thing about social media is that when you screw up, it doesn't hurt as much or last as long as it used to.  Sinkov did advise that because not everyone is a great writer, there needs to be editorial control.  However, having a diverse community of voices within a company is great. 

For those who are afraid to jump into blogging, Volpe said that 1) blogging is easier than you think, 2) fame is a great motivator, and 3) companies can make it a job requirement.  If you have the opportunity to change the culture of your company with new hires, you can make social media a condition of employment. 

But with more than one person participating in social media for a company, an audience member wanted to know, how do you bring them all together into one blog voice?  Volpe said that his company isn't concerned with one corporate voice, so they publish under their individual names.  He added that people understand that companies are made up of individuals, so they don't feel that they have to edit for voice or tone.  Sinkov said that attribution is important, because different posts under one "voice" can be confusing.  Bolsinger said that different people will relate to different authors, and compared having multiple blog authors to an orchestra with different insruments playing the same song. 

An audience member asked about automatically allowing comments on posts and how to handle positive and negative comments.  Bolsinger said it's a necessity to allow comments. In her opinon, blogging is part of social media, and in the social world, everyone preaches conversation and engagement.  Without comments, you're saying that what you have to say is important and what the audience thinks about it isn't.  She said not to delete negative comments, but to let them say their piece and address it in a classy, professional and appropriate manner publicly.  She said she does review and approve the comments before posting them, for language and spam only.  Volpe said that they automatically approve comments to avoid delay, especially for small businesses.  He felt that delay because of moderation can lead to a loss of good debate in the blogosphere.  He said that they go back and review them later, and delete any ugly or offensive ones at that time, and added that this can also be done using spam software.  Volpe said that small businesses should hug anyone who comments on their blogs - and I must admit, every time someone comments on a post I write, I do want to hug them!  The panelists were in agreement that if a blog doesn't allow comments, it's not really a blog - Bolsinger used Seth Godin as an example, saying "he's not always right." 

Someone asked about whether or not blogging about company news should be done. Sinkov said that they asked their users if they wanted to see news, and they said no - another clear case of getting to know your audience by asking them what they want.  Bolsinger said that taking something that someone else has said on their blog and adding your spin on it in a post can be useful.  Posts can be inspired by a number of different things, from email listserv comments to industry changes to great conversations you've had with colleagues. 

Darcie Meihoff summed up the panel perfectly on Twitter - "Lots of opinions on how to manage a blog but bottom line, there's no 'right' formula. Do what's right for your company/brand."  As Nancy Myrland said the other day in a blog post when talking about what's the right social media strategy for your law firm - "It depends."

So what lessons are there for law firms?

- Blogging is important.  Whether your firm is doing it or not, your clients are.  Start by listening to what they're talking about and engage with them through comments or offline to show them that you care about their company and their business.  Use this process to think about what you might like to write about in your own blog - are there posts that your clients are writing that you'd like to explore further through your own writing?  Do you regularly write articles on industry happenings within your practice area?  Search out some attorney blogs within the area you'd like to write about and see what they're saying.

- Blogging is not that scary.  Of course there are questions over who's the right person to be blogging for a law firm, and potential confidentiality issues that may come up, but taking the time in advance to create a smart strategy, a crisis communications plan for social media, and identifying the right people to be the firm voices will take away a lot of the questions.  There's so much out there that law firms can be talking about and sharing with their clients, potential clients, and legal industry influencers that it's worth taking the leap.  Don't worry about "getting it right."

- Allow comments.  As the panelists said, a blog is not a blog without comments - it's all about engaging.  There's always the likelihood that someone will try to engage with you in a negative way, but that's where advance crisis communication planning comes in handy.  If you're unsure of the possible scenarios, talk them through with your firm's marketing department or talk with an outside PR consultant.  Identify what you would do in each case.

Blogging is an excellent way to highlight your reputation as a leader and expert in your field and it boosts your awareness among the clients/potential clients and influencers in the industry you're targeting.  If you're thinking about starting to blog, what questions/reservations do you have?  If you're already blogging, what has your experience been?

Re-Cap from Social Fresh: Keynote: It's Not Social Media - It's Simply Life with Peter Shankman

One of the sessions I was most excited about at Social Fresh Portland was the keynote speech by Peter Shankman of HARO - "It's Not Social Media - It's Simply Life."  Shankman's speech had a lot of great takeaways, and focused on the four rules he follows in business and in his life: 1) Transparency 2) Relevance 3) Brevity 4) Top of Mind.  He started by saying that the smart ones are all saying the same thing - social media isn't going away; it's entering the lexicon. 

Shankman learned some valuable lessons at the start of his career, which he shared with the audience.  In 1995, when AOL was "the internet," Shankman was working with them and helped to found the AOL newsroom by asking "is there a better way to solve this problem?"  He said that they would go into work every day and try something new - if it worked, they did it again. If it didn't work, they didn't do it again - a lesson that's applicable now in social media. Shankman commented that learning to constantly ask - "is there a better way to solve this?" - has served him well. He said that one of the best things you can ever do is to find a better solution to a problem, because if the solutions that everyone already had already worked, it wouldn't be a problem anymore. 

These lessons have obviously served Shankman well, because in two years, he has created a social media company that's actually profitable, with 110,000-115,000 members and $1.2 million in ad revenue.  He made the interesting point although people always tell you to make a back-up plan in case you fail, they never tell you to make a plan for when you succeed.  Would you be prepared?

Shankman then got into his four rules - number 1 is "Transparency."  He said that your audience, clients, and buyers are the ones that really control your company and all you can do is react to what they want, citing Amazon's move from being a bookseller to selling a variety of products.  Information wants to be free, to get out, so we no longer have true control over it, or as Shankman said "Social media is a laxative. You can no longer hold in what you want to keep inside."  He added "Tweet that," for the legion of tweeters in the room.  Because information is so available, it's necessary to be transparent, which he joked "is the new black...or opaque." Someone will always find out about an issue, so you need to get in front of it before someone else does. 

Shankman's second rule is "Relevancy" - how do you become relevant to an audience who gets their information a million different ways? Ask them how they want their information.  He used himself as an example, saying that if you call his phone, his voicemail will pick up and tell you to text him.  If you send people information the way that they want to receive it, you empower them to be "finders."  A "finder" is a person you trust, who you want to receive email from.  Those people get access and approval to be in people's inboxes immediately.  People love to be finders - they're social media's version of the "cool kid," because they get access.  Shankman illustrated his point by showing a video for Pedigree dog food - the people who "find" this will think it's cool, and will send it along, therefore, doing Pedigree's public relations for them.  If you give your audience permission to forward your items because they're relevant and cool, they'll similarly end up doing your public relations.

Shankman touched on Twitter to illustrate his third rule, "Brevity", saying that 140-characters did not originate with Tweets, but with text messaging.  He observed that 9/11 and American Idol were the two things that got Americans to understand text messaging.    Because Twitter was borne from text messaging, Shankman doesn't see it as being that useful - he said that adoption of Twitter is not happening with kids and older people.  He added that T3-colored glasses affect the way that we see technology and until Twitter makes money, they are Pets.com waiting to happen.  He encouraged the audience to embrace the concept of short messaging, not the Twitter brand. 

Although not his fourth rule, Shankman had another valuable lesson to teach the audience - "Learn to write."  He said that we're asked for our attention roughly 16,000 times a day - so how do you reach people? Learn to write.  95% of all communication for a call to action comes through the written word, which shows why it's essential to learn to write well.  Shankman gave a great example for why this is important - a few months ago, he received a resume from a soon-to-be college graduate. She was incredibly well-qualified, and he was hoping to work with her. Until he got to the end of her cover letter, where she wrote "I'm really looking forward to working 4 u."  Her lack of understanding that in a professional context, it's not appropriate to abbreviate the words "for you" was the reason that Shankman didn't hire her (he did send her a letter to explain).  Emphasizing the importance of good writing to the audience, he said "Stop hurting America. Learn to write!"

Shankman's fourth rule is "Be top of mind," because that's how you generate business.  He pointed out that every day, we talk to only roughly 1% of our network, so when you consider that your audience is only paying attention to the top 1% of their network, it's essential to figure out how to get there.  Shankman commented that Facebook doesn't understand relevance yet, in terms of networks, but they're moving towards it.  We haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg of social media.  Shankman observed that in the next 24 months, he believes that everyone will be part of a single network, mentioning pokens (basically a social business card) as a tool for this.  In the future, how relevant someone is going to be to you is how relevant they are to you in your network. The more touchpoints you have, the more relevant you will be to each other and the more connected you will be online.  He added that the fewer interactions you have with the guy who plays Farmville all day long, the less he will show up in your Facebook stream - unless, of course, you've already learned how to hide him. 

When we move towards one network and listen to what's being said, our customer service will be generated by people who trust us.  Social media is a broadcast channel for the people who receive and then spread your message.  For the first time, information is flowing from inside the network out.  Newspapers are failing because people are more likely to trust the people in their network rather than a publication they don't know.  An audience question finished up the session - someone asked where we should be "living" in social media while there are still so many networks out there. Shankman recommended that we find out where our audiences are and go there. 

Recap of Social Fresh Portland: Social Media for Small Business - A Fresh Conversation

The third session of the day for me was "Social Media for Small Business - A Fresh Conversation" moderated by Ryan Lewis of Bonfire Social Media.  He took an informal poll of the room, which was made up of mostly small businesses, with some agencies.  Since the format of the session was a roundtable, we went right into questions from the room.  An audience member asked, for a small business strapped for time, how do you find a balance between hiring an outside consultant to handle social media versus doing it in-house.  Another audience member responded with a success story of how doing social media in-house has really worked for them, with their preferred medium being Twitter.  There has been a lot of debate recently about this very issue, and I also fall on the side of doing social media in-house - when people engage with someone on Twitter, Facebook or other social media channels, even when they are engaging with a brand, they want to be talking to someone who represents the voice of that company, and knows the company well.  There's an implied sense of trust that comes along with following or becoming a "fan" of something, and if those clients/customers find out that they're dealing with a consultant and not someone from the company, that trust can be broken with serious consequences.  I talked about this issue in a little more depth with respect to ghostblogging.

Another audience member asked about who is using Facebook applications, adding that there's huge success there for those who are.  Someone commented that Facebook adds a layer of demographic targeting that can be extremely useful, though it's sometimes necessary to test different advertisements to find success.  Another audience member wanted to know if there was an average price point for the products that are selling, using tools like Facebook. He's found that social media tools are better for branding, because he sells an expensive product.  He wanted to know if a company would be throwing money away if their product is expensive and so they're only using social media for branding.  The room seemed to agree that the answer was no - even if the sales process is not happening through these tools, developing a reputation for a certain expertise is useful in leading to an offline sales process.  (*Applicable to law firms)

The group then talked a bit about whether Facebook or Twitter was a more useful tool for companies.  Someone commented that Twitter is a great tool for communications, but for indexing and critical mass, Facebook will become a much bigger player.  It was suggested that companies incentivize their fans to join their Facebook pages, which we'd heard in the previous panel.  Incentivizing them to become a "fan" of your company and product is one step, but leveraging this group to build a database is what's really important.  HubSpot was mentioned again as a company who does this very well.  To get "fans" to sign up their email addresses and information with a company, an audience member suggested reserving some content for release when they give you this data.  Another audience member cautioned that some small businesses think you go right from getting someone to become a "fan" to getting a sale, and said that it's important to remember to build the relationships further first.  (*Great lesson for law firms)

Another audience member commented that his company wants their employees to develop personal blogs that will be used to express the corporate voice.  He was concerned about blurring the line between a personal and professional voice.  I voiced my thoughts that I think the line is already pretty blurred and that there's utility in giving your brand a personality.  As we hear so often, people want to buy from other people, not companies.

The group then moved on to discussing LinkedIn and everyone agreed that you can do a lot more with groups on LinkedIn than through individual profiles, including emailing members of a group directly.  An audience member suggested that companies start with their email list of clients and then find out where their critical mass is - is it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, maybe even mySpace?  Another audience member also mentioned meetup.com as a great social networking site, though they pointed out there is a cost to form groups on there.

Lewis commented that traditional media isn't bad, it's just overpriced, which led to an audience member to wonder if companies think that because social media is "free" that it can't be good.  Someone else countered that social media isn't free, because it involves an investment of time and creativity.  The group also agreed that social media is not a replacement for other tools, but is just another set of tools. Marketing is an "evolution," not a "revolution" so companies should take pieces of what they're already doing and amplify these with these new social media tools.

An audience member asked how to deal with people in a company who are afraid of social media and have objections to using it.  I suggested using case studies and another audience member recommended showing the results of Google searches after 60-90 days.  Somebody else commented that they thought the real issue is that people want to keep their jobs, so they don't want to be pioneers.  I feel that the opposite is true - in this current economy, showing yourself to be a leader by understanding and adopting these tools and leveraging them for the good of your company can make you indispensable.

The final thought from the roundtable was that there needs to be a cultural change in companies for social media to work - they shouldn't just hire a college intern to handle their social media.

Recap of Social Fresh Portland: Social Media B2B Panel

The second session that I attended while at Social Fresh Portland was the "Social Media B2B Panel," with Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory, Jason Peck of eWayDirect, Adam Holden-Bache of Mass Transmit, and Schneider Mike of Allen and Gerristen.  A lot of great information came out of the panel, starting with the first comment that "social media doesn't just happen."  The panelists agreed that companies need to put a smart person behind the tools, and get buy-in from everyone in the company, not just the executives.

For B2B companies, their goal is to make their customers more successful than their competitor's customers.  To identify what they want from a specific social media strategy, they need to start with the bottom line in mind.  Cangialosi commented that social media is just an extension of every other area of the company, but that it's largely happening out of marketing departments.  The panel advised that the marketing department should lead with their messages, but customer service should be involved as well, and whoever is responsible for CRM, for a more complete strategy.  Peck added that B2B companies need to have communication skills and subject matter expertise to effectively deploy a social media strategy.

Cangialosi said that the true promise of social media is when you can engage with people, which the legal marketers I know in social media would agree with.  When engaging, it's important to be transparent in social media channels about why you're there. If you're not planning to use it for customer service, let them know, but expect people to ask questions anyway.  The panel also suggested working with a public relations team in advance to forecast out what prickly issues could come up.

Someone in the audience asked how social media can help companies get to B2B decision makers. Peck said that it connects people who can connect you to them.  But it's important to be there before the sale. The key to getting to decision makers is to provide good content.

As was mentioned during the last panel, many companies measure their success in social media by the number of followers that they have. But the key is in engagement.  One of the benefits of social media is that when it comes to lead generation, you can now see very clearly who you're dealing with because of social data.  Schneider pointed out that while everyone is talking about engaging with their audience, they shouldn't forget that they want to sell something.  They still need to ask people to buy.

Another audience member asked what tools, from a content standpoint, work best for companies and Holden-Bache said "Blogging, far and away."  This seems to hold true in the legal market as well, with many lawyers able to build their reputation for having a certain area of expertise through their blogs.  The panel used HubSpot as an example of effective blogging because they use their posts to invite further engagement in webinars, white papers, etc.  Cangialosi suggested other companies should similarly use a call to action at the end of every post.  The best way to improve awareness is by generating dialogue and interaction from the blog content and then getting others to spread it.  An audience member pointed out that just because someone writes content doesn't mean that anyone will necessarily read it.  Schneider also cautioned that it's still important to take the online relationships offline.  Instead of running "campaigns," companies should think about building relationships.  That way, even when the platforms change, the relationships live beyond the tool.  Cangialosi added that the database is still king though - social media may drive customer signups, but you never know which networks might disappear.

Another question from the audience was about what place Facebook has in B2B marketing.  Schneider said that it's a great place to test media and can also be a conversion point.  Someone else asked about timing messages to appear during business hours, and Schneider agreed that timing matters, but suggested that companies find out what works for their audiences first - do your clients read blog posts at 9am on Monday morning or at 6pm Tuesday evenings?  Audience member, Nicole Donnelly, said that her company is beta testing a program called Big Ruby which can measure what time of day works best for your audience.

The panelists metnioned that companies who are doing social media "right" include Kaspersky, HubSpot, American Express, Sales Force, and Direct TV.

So how does this translate for law firms?  As I've been hearing so often lately, the message was that it's all about relationships. But the panel takes this one step further to say that it's important to know your audience, what they want, where they're involved and to engage them in ways that are useful to them.  This will vary from firm to firm, and for client to client, but if you identify these things as part of your social media strategy development, it will help your firm in becoming more successful in using social media.