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?

Recap of Social Fresh Portland: Real Facebook and Twitter Results Panel

The first session of Social Fresh, Portland that I attended was "Real Facebook and Twitter Results Panel."  Since I know many law firms are hesitant to get involved with Facebook and Twitter, the comments from this panel might be especially useful for you in evaluating whether these platforms will work for your firm.  The panel featured Justin Kistner of Webtrends, Carri Bugbee of Big Deal PR, Kevin Tate of StepChange, and moderator and panelist Shauna Causey from Comcast. 

After each of the panelists introduced themselves, they focused on their experiences using Facebook and Twitter for themselves and their clients.  Tate said, about starting a Facebook page, that a company can often learn as much from its failures as its successes.  Kistner agreed with this, saying that his company had thought about starting a new blog, separate from their original one, and quickly realized that it would make more sense to leverage their existing web presence and audience, because they already have put their trust in you.  But in addition to thinking about the external audience, when deploying a social media strategy, it's just as important to bring your internal audience in and show them the value. 

Tate used the Travelocity gnome campaign on Facebook as an example of a successful use of social media to engage the audience (the panelists agreed that audience engagement should be a key goal when using a social media tool like Facebook or Twitter).  Facebook users could become a "Fan" of the Travelocity gnome, and were able to interact by voting on where he would go next.  This was very successful and continues to see fan engagement.  Tate pointed out that once people feel that they have ownership of something, you have to be careful about taking it away - an example of this from my own experience was when a Facebook user created a Fan page for the Norwegian curling team's pants.  The page was not endorsed or created by the team, but during the Olympics, it suddenly grew very popular and attracted a lot of fans and activity.  Facebook realized that the page wasn't created by the team (even though they had contacted the user who started it and invited him to their next match) and they took it down, citing their fan page rules.  But because so many fans were attached to the page, they launched a campaign to get Facebook to bring it back.  After a few hours, Facebook relented because of the outcry. So even though the Norwegian curling team didn't start the page, the fans were invested in it and didn't want to lose it.  Tate also pointed out that even when a brand creates the Facebook page, the fans really own it and define the content and interaction. 

Although there have been clear successes like these in Facebook fan pages, Tate mentioned that there is a dark side to fan engagement, like the Nestle scandal. Bugbee cited this as a clear example of the need for crisis management.  She said that when a company has an issue such as Nestle did, it needs to be sent up to the C-suite immediately and not handled by the community relations manager or whoever is responsible for the page.  Not all fan engagement will be positive, so it's important to have a plan in place for dealing with any negative comments or coordinated attacks, like Greenpeace's.  However, this kind of interaction can also be an opportunity.  Causey talked about how crisis management has been effective for Comcast in terms of their customer service - she said they have been working to be proactive by notifying customers through Twitter when they have an outage.  She said that they took an opportunity where a number of people were initially upset by an outage and turned it into a success by keeping them informed and updated, which their customers appreciated.  Using this as an example, Causey said that it shows how our jobs have totally changed - we have to be online and accessible, because the public is and expects companies to be. 

Because social media is so ubiquitous (Social media is now the fourth most popular online activity, ahead of email), companies need to be aware that the conversation about them is taking place online, whether they're involved or not.  Many people feel the same way that Kistner does, that emails make him think that someone needs his attention for a long time, and they need him to spend a long time replying to them, while social media tools allow for more immediate, shorter communications.  But there is also a drawback to the immediacy of this form of communication - people often underestimate how visible they are to everyone all the time, and react to what's happening, instead of carefully considering their responses and posts.

The panelists then talked a little bit about evaluating whether a social media platform is effectively working for you and your company.  Tate said that the acquisition of Facebook fans has become the new metric for customer acquisition, though Bugbee later pointed out that while the number of followers may be important to some people, engagement is key.  Kistner said that the first step is to build an online audience by getting fans/followers and using competitors numbers to estimate where you should be.  Stage 2 is learning how to leverage them.  He suggested giving a coupon out on Facebook or Twitter to encourage them to engage. For law firms, coupons wouldn't be a viable suggestion, but you can identify other pieces of information that the firm could provide to those who sign up for a newsletter or provide their email addresses for a future communication, like a relevant white paper.

The panel gave some advice on how to use social media effectively, emphasizing the importance of doing so by saying that when someone becomes your "fan" or follows you on Twitter, they've given you the right to be in their attention stream.  Causey cautioned not to talk about yourself all the time, but to be generous.  The panel recommended that for every tweet about your blog or your company, you should have 19 tweets that aren't about the blog or company. Kistner said that in terms of Facebook fan pages, you want to keep it simple because having too many pages can be confusing to the audience, who may think they've already "joined" but aren't getting the information most relevant to them.

Someone in the audience asked how the panelists have gotten buy-in from management.  Causey suggested setting them up with LinkedIn profiles as a first step, and then showing them how to use it.  She also pointed out that showing them Facebook ads, and how they can be very targeted, is something that the C-suite can understand and buy into.  When asked about the value of social media, one way to answer is to ask if they've done studies on whether they should use phones in the office, or email. The answer is no, so why question social media's value as a tool?

The panel finished up with some key takeaways including not to fragment online efforts, but to keep them simple and value your followers.  Causey said that social media should be an everyday part of your business, and to get internal buy-in, you can highlight articles written about the company's social media efforts.  The panelists agreed that these tools can be valuable for your company when used and leveraged effectively.

Social Fresh - What Did I Learn About Social Media?

Today, I attended one of the Social Fresh conferences, which took place here in Portland, Oregon - for those of you wondering what Social Fresh is, it's a conference about social media, focused around case studies, and it takes place in some "underserved cities," as the conference website describes them.  Although it's not a conference focused around the legal field, I felt that broadening my social media education to find out what other companies are doing and what works for them would be useful in my own professional social media efforts, as well as for the law firms we work with.  

Like LMA 2010, I'll be posting re-caps of the valuable sessions that I attended today over the next few days, but I wanted to get a quick post up about my thoughts and the key takeaways from today's conference.  

The theme that I took away from today's panels and presentations was two-fold - 1) know your social media objectives and 2) know your audience.  In terms of the former - it's not just enough to jump into social media, to create a Twitter profile or a Facebook fan page (in terms of your company or firm's brand - I still think there's utility in experimenting for yourself to learn about the tools).  You have to ask yourself why you're on there, what you want to get out of it, and what you're prepared to do with it - have a strategy.  There were a lot of comments that although marketers may be handling a company or firm's social media efforts, customer service is still a large part of the job.  So even if you enter into social media for the purpose of getting content out there, you must be prepared to answer questions and deal with customer service-type issues.  This is true even in the legal industry - for law firms getting involved in social media, you have to be prepared to deal with questions coming up that border on a client-attorney privileged relationship, possible issues with complaints against the firm, etc.  The overwhelming answer on how to deal with these issues today was "have a plan."  Before entering into social media, decide who will be behind the efforts, what happens if a person or group starts flaming your Facebook page, what steps are taken if a crisis arises - think about the possible issues that may arise before they happen.  Everyone agrees that social media is just another channel for the same types of marketing that companies and firms have always been doing, so some of this will just be an extension of an existing crisis communications plan your firms have, but it's essential to discuss strategy and possible roadblocks before releasing a corporate social media strategy.

In terms of audience, this was another topic that was mentioned again and again today.  Speakers emphasized finding out about your audience to determine what social media channels make the most sense for your firm to participate in.  The way to find this out is by asking them.  One speaker used the example of an animal rescue organization that he had donated to - following his donation, they sent him a lovely coffee table book.  Unfortunately, he had no use for this, since he doesn't own a coffee table.  He commented to them that it would be useful for them to follow up with their donors and ask how they would prefer to receive future communications.  They initially said that they already knew their audience, and because of their age and make-up, they knew that they preferred to receive things like the coffee table book.  But they took his advice and started to follow up with donors - an overwhelming number said they preferred email communications, and the organization ended up saving $500,000 in printing costs.  The message was clear - no matter how well you think you know your audience, talk to them anyway and find out what works best for them.  If they're overwhelmingly on Facebook, create a fanpage.  If they prefer LinkedIn, develop a group.  Connect to them.  If they're on multiple channels, connect with them on all of them.   

Some firms might be concerned about getting "out there" on social media because they don't want to deal with the conversation that's happening about their firm or their competitors - but the point was made today that the audience is talking about them whether they're involved in the conversation or not.  So finding out where your audience is and getting involved in the conversation by listening and engaging (make sure you have the right people in these roles) is key.  

There may be those out there who see social media tools as only a flash in the pan and everyone's interest in them akin to "shiny new toy syndrome."  But social media is not going away, and will only become more and more ingrained in our everyday lives.  It can work for law firms as easily as it does for other companies, with the right planning and execution that takes the legal field's special characteristics into account.  Social media is the fourth most popular online form of communication - AHEAD of email.  There was a time when many people believed that email wouldn't catch on, and now we can't imagine our lives without it - social media is the same.  It's evolving, but it's where conversations are happening and great opportunities still exist.

Ghostblogging - The Death of Social Media?

One of the important messages in terms of social media that came out of this year's LMA Annual Conference is that "you cannot be a proxy for someone else's relationship - the lawyers have to do it themselves."  But in the busy world of attorneys, where time is quite literally money, what about ghostblogging? 

For the uninitiated, ghostblogging is much like ghostwriting, where someone else is paid to blog posing as you or your company.  Aside from the usual concerns about liability, which I would say are magnified when discussing the idea of having someone else pose as an attorney, it seems to go against the very idea behind social media, which is to use these new technologies to form personal relationships with people, sometimes for business and sometimes not.

Reading "The Death of Social Media" this morning, I had to agree with Mitch Joel when he asked "Can we stop the madness?"  He says:

"I'm being naive (I know), people will say, 'someone writes the speech for the President' or 'if people like it and connect to the content, who cares who writes it?' I dunno, I do. People have lost faith in marketing (just like they have lost faith in those who serve the public office and celebrities). We allow things that shouldn't be... to be. Saying that ghostwriters have been around for years doesn't make it right or authentic. Times have changed, and these platforms are (or should be) celebrated for the human and real side. Can you imagine that some Blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds that you follow are not the real person, but the musings of someone else who simply interviewed the person you thought that you were following? Sure, there's a place for ghostwriters, but maybe Social Media isn't one of them? If we keep heading down this road, doesn't Social Media become nothing more than a boring, traditional mass media channel?"

I'm curious to hear what those in the legal community think about ghost blogging, and how lawyers can manage the balance between their valuable time and pursusing social media (Disclaimer: I'm a strong believer that lawyers spending time creating relationships through social media and then taking these offline is a valuable use of their time.)