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Listing my essential social media tools

July 4, 2011 By Emily Leary 4 Comments

Tonight’s #CommsChat (the weekly Twitter-based chat for comms professionals) will aim to identify the best tools out there for monitoring and evaluating social media activity. Here’s my summary of the tools I use every day.

The blurb for tonight’s chat reads: “There’s a huge array of free, freemium and paid-for choices out there – so which ones do you invest your time and money on and why? What are the lesser known tips, tricks or features you’ve found, and which tools don’t cut the mustard?”

So, here are the questions to be posed on the night, along with my top tips.

What are your top social media tools – and why?

For getting a one window view of all the activity on every Twitter profile and Facebook Page I manage, Hootsuite
For spreading the great stuff I read in the morning out across the day on Twitter, you can’t beat Buffer which lets me stack up quality content to go out at pre-set intervals
For identifying the hottest trends in my Twitter stream, StrawberrJ.am is a must
For filtering out a hashtag or keyword if I really don’t want to know the tennis result, Proxlet
For putting some quick (but debatably fallible) numbers to influence on social networks, Klout and Peer Index
For figuring out the behaviour and trends around a particular Twitter user, TweetStats (see also Hashtracking)
For assessing the reach of a hashtag, tweet or even @username, TweetReach.
For getting a quick, free overview of the reach and sentiment of an idea / campaign on the social web, SocialMention.com

Which ones are more hype that happening?

Not keen on Klout’s +K as a measure of ‘expertise’ in certain topics. It measures ‘vote for me!’ popularity rather than true influence and is easily gamed
Paper.li drives me crazy. Billed as a tool to bring you the best of your stream in paper form, it does work, but it’s being overused in a spammy way. Turn off those auto-tweets, people!

From dashboard to dashing about – best tips for tablets and mobiles

For sheer simplicity, you can really beat Twitter’s official mobile app
For managing multiple accounts, and checking on your scheduled updates, HootSuite for iPhone and HootSuite for Android are top quality

Freemium to premium – which upgrades are worth it?

If you have more than one Hootsuite user in the office accessing the same Twitter profiles, you’ll need to upgrade, but it also cuts out the ads and gives you full access to an Outlook-like scheduling calendar, so it’s well worth it
Buffer premium brings you the usual scheduling goodness, plus the option to have multiple admins and unlimited tweets and Twitter accounts
TweetReach only analyses the last 50 tweets it finds in Twitter search, so if you’re looking at a very busy hashtag, it’s worth paying the $20 for a full snapshot

How are these tools helping you with strategy?

Managing multiple feeds is time-consuming. The better the tools, the more time you can devote to actually engaging
Knowledge is power. The more data you can get on how you’re performing, the better honed your strategy becomes

Should tools focus around ‘search’ or around ‘social’?

I guess this is asking, should we look at a) numbers – followers, number of RTs etc, or b) engagement – depth of conversation, sentiment, reach etc?
My answer is a little of (a), a little of (b), but ultimately you’re going to have to get your hands dirty and remember that tools are just tools – nothing automated is going to tell you everything you need to know, or do everything you need to do, that’s what comms professionals are for

The chat takes place tonight (Monday 4th July) 8-9pm UK time. Talk to you there?

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: CommsChat, facebook, Social Media, toolbox, tools, twitter

How to be consistent on Twitter: Buffer

June 21, 2011 By Emily Leary 8 Comments

Do you ever worry that your activity on Twitter seems too sporadic? You’re quiet for half the day/week, then jump on and post a handful of great links/thoughts, have a quick chat, then disappear off again? A new service called Buffer has the answer, and I caught up with one of its founders, Leo Widrich, to find out more.

Let me tell you a story…

About 2.5 years ago, I was just starting out with a new consultancy. As such, I hadn’t filled my client roster, and had some free time to network, learn, and promote myself and my business. So I joined Twitter. I monitored it all day, chatted, posted regularly, and manually made sure I was consistent throughout the day.

But of course, as I got busier, this became more and more of a challenge. I began finding the articles I wanted to share during my ‘free’ time, either at the weekends, late evenings, or very early mornings. These are great time to catch up on reading, but probably not the best times to start a work conversation.

So what is Buffer?

Leo from Buffer

Buffer isn’t the first app to offer scheduled tweeting, but it is the smartest solution I’ve come across so far.

Instead of having to manually decide what time each tweet will go out (a la Hootsuite), you just preset some times each day that you’d like to tweet (e.g. 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm) and then drop all the cool stuff you find into your Buffer, where it queues up and posts out throughout the day.

Add more goodies than can fit it in a day – it’ll buffer over into the next day. Decide you want them in a different order – it’s a simple case of drag and drop.

During the day, you’re then free to use what free time you do have to indulge in what Twitter (and all social media) is really all about – conversation.

In Leo’s own words:

“Buffer is a tool that helps you to tweet consistently every day without flooding your followers. It was an idea that came out of Joel’s use of Twitter [ed: Joel Gascoigne is co-creator of Buffer and an experienced developer with an MSc Computer Science]. He wanted to share more of the great articles he was reading, but without all these tweets in a row. Having a ‘Buffer’ which spreads out these tweets seemed to be the optimal solution.

“The heart of Buffer are the browser extensions. Whichever article you are reading on the web, just give it one click on the Buffer icon and add it to your Buffer. What we found is that many people tweet one article and add the rest to their Buffer. This spreads them out and never floods their stream.”

Why might you need Buffer?

Generally speaking, you might like Buffer if a) you don’t use Twitter much, or b) you use Twitter all the time.

Here’s why:

Leo: “We are seeing 2 groups of people using Buffer heavily at the moment. The first one is Twitter new comers. People told us they are overwhelmed with Twitter at first and with Buffer they come to gradually use it more and more in a piecemeal process.

“Of course another large percentage of Buffer users are Twitter Pros. So people who are very heavily involved in Twitter and also have a business interest. What many seem to appreciate is that they can save time and be more efficient by Buffering, yet still remain a genuine personality and not turn into an auto-bot.

“What I found for myself is that it is often hard to tweet consistently. Yet, only a consistent appearance, similar to blogging, can build trust and help you stand out from the rest.”

Are the spammers circling?

Just as I asked Proxlet and StrawberryJ.am, I had to ask Buffer if they see the app being used for spamming, and what they’re doing about it:

Leo: “We try to fiercely work against that. Our tagline is “Be Awesome On Twitter” and we aim to help everyone to flood users less.

So we basically try to optimize instead of automate. This means we try not to implement things such as pulling RSS feeds in or tweeting the same tweet multiple times.”

Get the very best from Buffer

I asked Leo what his top tips would be to get the best from the app. For him, it’s all about convenience:

Bring Buffer to you: “With our browser extension, you can go to Twitter.com and Buffer Retweets from your native Twitter stream.”
Know the shortcuts: “Press “alt+b” to bring up the Buffer box (again, needs the browser extension)”
Get jamming: “You can Buffer tweets from inside StrawberryJ.am, a Trend based Tweet aggregator”
Grab text for tweets: “Highlight some text and then click the Buffer icon and it will be turned into a tweet.”

For me, the ability to add multiple accounts (if you have a pro subscription) and set different times for each is a god send. So what feature is are other users loving the most?

Leo: “What a lot of our professional users are thankful for are the analytics we are providing for all Tweets that are Buffered. [ed: you can link your Bit.ly account into Buffer] It helps a lot to understand about how well your tweets are doing and if you should change your patterns.”

Plans for the future of the app?

Just like any new app, Buffer is promising, but could be more useful. I’d like to see it go truely mobile, for example, and then extend out to LinkedIn and Facebook. So what’s in the pipeline?

Leo: “We really want to built it out further in the future. One main goal is to allow people to Buffer from anywhere they are. We are currently in talks with many different reader and mobile apps as well as Twitter clients. The integration with Strawberryj.am was fantastic and definitely the route we want to pursue in the future.

An iPhone app is high up on our list and Joel is working away on it as we speak.”

A game changer

At the moment, I use Buffer for about five tweets a day per account, usually buffered up that morning. But overall, Buffer is only one of the ways I access and manage Twitter, along with Hootsuite, Twitter for Mac, Twitter for iPhone, Twitter.com and Bit.ly, according to my needs. Of course, Buffer isn’t intended to do everything those clients do, but if it keeps on the promising development path it’s on, that list could reduce.

So, have you tried Buffer? Is it working for you? What improvements would you make?

(Hat tip to Sarah Arrow for first making me aware of Buffer.)

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: app, buffer, communications, convenience, pro, Social Media, twitter

Mixing social media into marketing #CommsChat

February 1, 2011 By Emily Leary Leave a Comment

If you’re a regular to this blog, or follow me on Twitter/Facebook, you’ll know that I run a weekly Twitter chat for comms professionals on Monday nights (8pm-9pm UK time) with my #CommsChat co-founder Adam Vincenzini.

Last night, we were honoured to have Beth Harte as our guest mod and the topic was “Integrating social media into the marketing mix“. A healthy mix of new faces and #CommsChat stalwarts took part, with 90+ contributors and 500+ tweets.

Here’s a summary of the questions Beth threw out, and a selection of the tweets each one sparked:

Q1: Have you been using social media for product development?

@juphilpott: Absolutely. Our product IS our outstanding service to our members/cust and content found on #sm platforms help tremendously.
@Jane63C: I see sm as vital to building relationships, communities etc so very much at the heart of a PR strategy.
@DamnRedHead: Using SM in prod dev isn’t necessarily “crowdsourcing,” curation/aggregation can also help dev prods.
@RachAllen: I don’t think products have to be ‘social’ – interacting with customers should be though surely?
@LoisMarketing: Treated SM world as a public focus group — received great feedback, very helpful and supportive participants.

Q2: In regards to social media is it important to give customers the ability to provide their wants and needs? Why (not)?

@NotFromBolton: How can you stop them, seriously. Much better to channel it into something useful surely?
@MichaelWhite1: Customers are your wants and needs. Therefore it is important to provide for them.
@ahhzen: Doesn’t it depend on how responsive you can be? No point asking if you can’t deal with the answers.
@jane63c: Social media is by its nature two way communication so you must allow that engagement to build effective relationships.
@Dan_Martin: You don’t provide them the “ability” to do it; they will do it on Twitter, Facebook etc anyway! #commschat

Q3: If customers (B2B and B2C) were complaining about price via social media, what would you do with that info?

@jane63c: Back to engagement and two way comms complaining via sm is very public can quickly become crisis comms if not handled swiftly would probably add it to the mix of other information I had to help make a more informed pricing decision
@RobertPickstone: Would probably add it to the mix of other information I had to help make a more informed pricing decision.
@NotFromBolton: Learn from it. But if they come to you on price they will leave you on price. There has to be other differentiators.
@MarcSkaf: If they are complaining about price, it is your job to show them that the value is greater than the price.
@BethHarte: Social media isn’t always necessarily two-way. As a consumer, I might complain, but never interact with a brand.

Q4: What about “place.” If you hear via social media that you aren’t selling where people want to buy, what next? For example, I loved Putumayo World Music, but they don’t sell on on iTunes, so I don’t buy anymore. Do you have an example?

@NotFromBolton: It’s all about trends surely. Trends of topic vs outcome. What comments are made are immaterial unless its impacting the outcome.
@ahhzen: Does this become about volume? if enough potential customers SM to request a location then investigate it?
@JonClements: Investigate! And tell people you’re doing so.
@mazherabidi: Online has to be consideration here? Dunno if I can expect physical stores everywhere, but I expect online store.
@TotMac: Is the Beatles on iTunes not a good example of this? Legal wranglings aside, customers wanted it there.

Q5: What companies do you see doing a great job with social media communication?

@Jane63c: I think charities/not for profit sector are really getting to grips with SM, also transformed lobbying.
@MichaelWhite1: Big fan of @XboxSupport as well (no bias, I don’t run it!).

Hungry for more? Read the full transcript here, and join in with #CommsChat next week!

Filed Under: Featured, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: CommsChat, engagement, feedback, listening, Marketing, product development, Social Media, twitter

Proxlet founders interview – can it really fight Twitter noise?

January 20, 2011 By Emily Leary 12 Comments

This week, I was lucky enough to catch up with Aaron White and Chris Ricca, the co-creators of a new Twitter service that promises to ‘fight Twitter noise’.

Proxlet is a way to filter your Twitter feed. Nothing new there…Twitter allows you to create lists, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and the like allow you to manage those lists. But it seems Proxlet wants to take things one step further, and make things simpler. It promises to “block apps, mute users, and filter tags on Twitter” – and it’s getting some high profile attention.

“Proxlet works with Twitter.com & the most popular native clients to fight noise,” explains Aaron. “It can block annoying apps, over-talkitive users, and irrelevant hash tags. Ultimately, we want Proxlet to be the quality control tool for your tweet stream. People who love Twitter, but wish they had more control, are most certainly our target audience.”

The Proxlet system is certainly user friendly, but the list of supported clients could use some work. There’s a Chrome extension, and support for ~~TweetDesk [EL: corrected on Proxlet.com]~~ Tweetdeck Desktop, Twitter for iPhone, Twidroyd, Seesmic for Android and Spaz, but nothing for ~~Tweetdeck or~~ Hootsuite as yet.

Good stock

Aaron White, co-creator of Proxlet

Technically, the Proxlet developers know their stuff. Chris served two years on the drop.io development team and Aaron studied Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. “[I] fell in love with the startup world & hacker work ethic,” Aaron enthuses. “Chris & I met over Twitter, and when we were both publicly ‘kevetching’ about the noise, we decided to take action. Proxlet has been a fantastic learning experience both technically, and in terms of bringing value to a lot of folk.”

Impact on Twitter

So what do the pair think the impact of Proxlet might be on Twitter usage, and on apps like paper.li, known as much for irritating Twitter users en masse as it is for proving visually attractive ‘digital newspapers’?

“Anecdotally, I am seeing people using the service following more people than they did before using Proxlet,” Chris explains. “Which makes sense – we can only bring in so much information during a day, so if I turn down the knob on certain types of information, I can follow more people. In the longer term, I would like to see services be better citizens on Twitter. If they are too flagrant, people will just shut them off.”

A dream tool for spammers?

Talking of bad behaviour on Twitter, my first thought when learning of the Proxlet service was that it was clearly open to abuse. The blurb promises it will “Block apps, mute users, and filter tags on Twitter.” Are the pair concerned that people will use Proxlet to effectively pretend to follow people, just to grow their reciprocal follower numbers?

“I think Proxlet appeals to those folks who are looking to enhance the quality of their stream, rather than ‘game’ the system,” Aaron contends. “Those who try to amass a following via reciprocity tricks aren’t trying to solve a quality problem.”

“Yeah – I’m not concerned with people trying to boost follower counts,” Chris confirms. “You can usually spot those accounts from a mile away, anyway. Above a certain number, every follow is fake.”

Improving the Twitter experience

I’m not convinced that Proxlet won’t be abused a fair bit, but it’s true enough that it isn’t the only tool to make that kind of ‘gaming’ possible. But what of the argument that using a proxy is a needless step – if you don’t like the sort of stuff a person posts, unfollow?

Chris Ricca, co-creator of Proxlet

“We built Proxlet because we wanted more control over our Twitter experience,” explains Chris. “For more casual users, following and unfollowing will probably be enough. But we wanted more options. It has made Twitter useful for me again.”

“I find it very useful to mute folks who are at conferences that I am not interested in,” adds Aaron. “Sometimes, it’s enough to mute the conference’s hash-tag. However, some folks don’t always use the tag, so muting them for a few days can do the trick. Alternatively, if someone is tweeting about a live sporting event, I might throw a quick mute on them. *Especially* if they are rooting for the wrong team…”

Of course, even during the big game, you might not want to ignore people who address you directly. “We’ve tried to be careful with Proxlet to provide control, but not break the social fabric of Twitter,” assures Aaron. “You will still see a tweet if someone mentions you, or direct messages you, even if they are muted.”

The future of Proxlet

So will the developers be using the usage data they gather to help make Twitter a nicer place?

“It would be great if Proxlet could become an early warning system for spammy behavior on Twitter,” says Aaron. “Would love to share that data with folks, and offer auto-blocking features if they were valuable. We’ll be preparing an in-depth look at some of the muting trends, stay tuned! Suffice it to say, you can probably guess the top three apps or so.”

“Proxlet’s plans right now are to learn from our users and improve the experience, and thankfully our costs are low enough to let us do exactly that.”

It’s certainly an interesting proposition, but for now I’ll be keeping it old school and continuing to control the quality of my home feed by choosing who to follow wisely. Then again, those paper.li mentions are indeed incessant, so there may come a day when Proxlet’s (term filter option) becomes irresistible.

Emily

Filed Under: Featured, Interviews, Social Media Tagged With: development, filter, mute, noise, proxlet, Social Media, spam, tech, tools, twitter

Read it and Tweet (#ReadItAndTweet) is born!

January 14, 2011 By Emily Leary 1 Comment

Bit of a diversion from the norm while I continue to beaver away behind the scenes on the blog redesign.

We’re launching a Twitter book club…

A conversation on Twitter between @amandafirepr @Chris_Hall1 @EmLeary @JenAndersson @rebeccataylorpr and @MissBarry, sparked by a chance book mention aaaaaand we’re off!

Presenting….the Read it and Tweet book club – we read books, and we talk about it on Twitter. Simple, eh?

Or in more traditional bio-speak:

“We meet on Twitter every other Wednesday 8pm-9pm to discuss our chosen book of the week, but it’s an informal group, so we also use the hash tag all week long to talk about what we’re reading, and share tips on great reads.”

You can discuss what you’re reading and get updates on what’s happening with #ReadItAndTweet in the following places:

Posterous – we’re over at http://readitandtweet.posterous.com

Twitter – follow us at http://twitter.com/readitclub tweet using the #readitandtweet hashtag http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23readitandtweet

Facebook – join the group at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_118311288241407

Your blog! - review the book of the fortnight (or any other book for that matter!) and add a ReadItAndTweet tag so we can all read your thoughts.

The first book will chosen soon (democratically, of course) and a schedule announced, but in the meantime, feel free to start using the hash tag to talk books.

Filed Under: News, Social Media, Writing Tagged With: books, fun, literature, readitandtweet, Social Media, twitter

We are living in a Twitter bubble…

November 9, 2010 By Emily Leary Leave a Comment

…well, I think so, but my good friend Adam Vincenzini thinks otherwise, which is why we’re putting on our gloves, and coming out fighting.

Here are the details:

Let’s get ready to rumble! It’s a #CommsChat co-organiser special!

Over in the blue (comms) corner is Adam Vincenzini, who lives his life through Twitter. In true fighting spirit, Adam has even pledged to change his blog, The Comms Corner, blue for this week only.

In the red corner is Emily Cagle, comms consultant, blogger, and gadget-obsessed Apple fan. Emily loves Twitter, but she’s not afraid to put it in its place.

Two great contenders, one hour and one hotly debated topic.

Want to be part of the The Big Tweet Off? Here’s the run down of how it works:

On Thursday, 11 November 7.30pm GMT head to Twitter and follow#bigtweetoff

For the first 20 minutes the session will be lead by Adam and Emily who will put their argument forward in 140 punches

Following this, it’s your turn to join the debate – start your tweets with either B (for blue corner) or R (for red corner), state your opinion and don’t forget the #bigtweetoff hashtag

Of course, Adam and Emily will continue to spar throughout the debate

The session will be guided and moderated by @thebigtweetoff which will slap any deviants in to shape – remember, this is a fair fight

We will run a Twitt Poll throughout the session for you to vote on the winning argument

The bell will ring at 7.30 sharp so dust off your boxing gloves and get training!

Here’s what our contenders said:

Adam: With the exception of a few bots, Twitter is a people driven destination. How on earth can real people be living within a fake bubble? They’re human and have feelings whether they’re on Twitter or sitting in the pub sharing a beer. I even met the love of my life through Twitter.

Emily: Want to meet like minded people? Twitter is the place to do it. Why? Because we’re kinda geeky, pretty friendly, we like our tech and we aren’t afraid to share, chat & debate online. Twitter’s great, but it’s not representative of the population as a whole. A Twit Poll tells us what tweeps think, not what people think (oh I met the love of my life on Twitter, too).

To understand the background of The Big Tweet Off, visit our launch posthere. Feel free to shout any questions to @thebigtweetoff, @thepaulsutton or@beth_carroll.

Got an opinion you want to fight out in public? Let us know and you could be next in the ring.

Now I don’t want to sound overly confident, but I think we all know who’s going to win. Come join in the fun and be sure you’re in the RED corner.

Filed Under: Featured, News, Social Media Tagged With: #bigtweetoff, battle, fight, fun, Social Media, twitter

Why should I be on Twitter? (The Student Perspective series)

September 27, 2010 By Emily Leary 3 Comments

This guest post from Lauren Gray is part of The Student Perspective series – a set of posts contributed by future stars of the comms industry.

A few college students and professionals, or at least ones I’ve talked to, have been asking the question:

“Why should I be on Twitter?”

Twitter is an excellent resource for many things. For example: I’ve often asked questions on Twitter about which phone to get, how to get in touch with an organization, what non-profit organizations students have interned with, and many more topics. Twitter is a social network of millions of people and they are here and willing to help you.

Reasons you NEED to be on Twitter:

Networking with professionals: Thousands of professionals in your field of study are on Twitter. They can help you with resumes, cover letters, asking general questions about the field, etc.
Networking with students: Thousands of students in the same field of study and students that are taking the same classes as you are on Twitter. Other presidents or organizations are on Twitter. You can talk to other students and bounce ideas off each other for your classes, homework, organizations, etc.
Research: You can create polls via websites, like WordPress, and broadcast them across Twitter to get information about a subject you are researching or just ideas about a topic you are researching.
Twitter chats: Twitter chats are the best way to get involved on Twitter. You talk to other professionals, students, etc. via a chat, like #PRstudchat, for about an hour, answer questions and discuss topics you are interested in.
Personal branding: Once you start getting involved on Twitter, you create a following of people who know you and know what you are interested in. People begin to rely on you for information and for discussion.
Talking to businesses: I recently had a bad experience at FYE and tweeted about it, the next thing I knew @FYEguy was sending me a $20 gift card in the mail. Brands/businesses want to hear about good and bad experiences. You can always tweet with them.

Make sure you are taking advantage of every opportunity available on Twitter. Be involved and start engaging! Convince your friends to as well!

Changing your Twitter handle: choosing “Brand You”

September 23, 2010 By Emily Leary 1 Comment

This is a guest post from Heather Townsend, business consultant and founder of The Efficiency Coach.

On Twitter, Heather holds considerable sway among UK SMEs, so when she announced she was changing her handle on the site, I asked her to write a few words to explain her decision, and how it fits into her plans for her personal / business brand.

Why have I taken the drastic step of changing my Twitter name?

I’ve spent the last eighteen months building up the brand, The Efficiency Coach on social media. This week I took the risky step of changing my name on Twitter to @HeatherTowns rather than @EfficiencyCoach. Like many people you may be thinking, “Why…? Is she throwing the baby away with the bath water? Is everything OK…?”

The Efficiency Coach is going from strength to strength and has been bigger than just me for the last eight months. In fact if I am going to grow the business to its full potential, I need to remove myself from ‘being’ The Efficiency Coach. I’m still the same old me, but my five year vision and plan needed me to have a strong personal brand as ‘The Professional Expert your firm needs to talk to’, rather than piggy-backing on The Efficiency Coach brand. I need to build up a personal brand as writer, speaker, coach and consultant – who happens to run both ‘The Efficiency Coach’ and ‘the executive village’, rather than ‘The Efficiency Coach who is writing a book and co-founded ‘the executive village’. Does that make sense?

I was finding that everyone was introducing me as ‘The Efficiency Coach’, whereas, if I am going to fulfil my personal vision, I needed to brand myself for the job I want, rather than I have. Still being openly referred to as ‘The Efficiency Coach’ is going to scupper my attempts to build up the brand as the professional services expert.

You look at any of the experts with a household name, such as Ivan Misner, Dan Schawbel, Chris Brogan, Guy Clapperton, Andy Lopata, Brad Burton, they all have a strong personal brand rather than hiding behind their business’s brand. (It is not a co-incidence that I have spoken to all but one of these people in the last three months, to interview them for ‘The Financial Times Guide To Business Networking’)

Phew, announcement over. I can now blossom fully as myself again and come out from the shadow of ‘The Efficiency Coach’.

Is your personal brand constraining you?

Heather Townsend.

Filed Under: Guest posts, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: brand, brand you, Marketing, Social Media, twitter

Let’s not forget the importance of honesty in social media

September 16, 2010 By Emily Leary 2 Comments

This is a guest post by Mazher Abidi, a marketer and blogger based in Manchester, UK.

Social media (and social networking in the broad sense) could prove to become one of the greatest applications of Internet technology bar none.

As with any community, there are unwritten rules by which its members live by. For example, there are etiquettes related to tweeting and retweeting, recommendations when it comes to selling vs. conversing, conflicting schools of thought when it comes auto vs. personal posting…all of this before anyone has even touched on the thorny subject of sharing Farmville and Mafia Wars stories.

Yet the one common view that appears to transcend all debates is that social media users MUST be honest. This was plainly revealed on August 9^th by all the participants in the weekly #commschat on twitter (every Monday 7pm GMT, 8pm BST hosted by @EmilyCagle and @AdamVincenzini from @CommsChat), where the subject under discussion was comms confessions.

Social media users and communicators, both personal and business, appear to need to live by this mantra online or risk being marked out as social media outcasts by their peers, seeing their flaws globally retweeted or (in the ultimate symbol of social media displeasure) being unfollowed and unfriended.

From the discussion, here follows a list of the top 5 reasons why you NEED to be honest on social media:

1. We can see through it

A community of highly intelligent and communications savvy users has formed on social networks, whether as a function of the presence of the tech aware innovators and early adopters or mass uptake. But whoever they are, they all have an opinion; and there are some serious social media influencers out there that have the kind of credibility some offline influencers can only dream of.

They cannot be fooled, nor can they be placated when they feel wronged. There are genuine multi way conversations taking place on social media and ideas are being shared every second.

Spin now has no place in social media and modern communications. Should your message be uncovered as somehow dishonest, a mistruth or a blatant lie, these people will know about it, and the message will spread due to the lack of…

2. Control

The Internet in general and social media especially has spread at a rate that even the word exponential doesn’t quite cover. 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and in just over 5 years the twitterati have racked up 20 billion tweets.

It stands to reason therefore that once your message is out there in the socialsphere, it ceases to become solely your message. For this reason, it needs to be pitch and content perfect, or you run the risk of serious damage to your…

3. Reputation

Increasingly, social media is being seen by organisations as a key part of their PR strategy. It makes sense considering it is a direct route to consumers, key decision makers and influencers within B2C and B2B markets.

PR, as defined by the Charetered Institute of PR, is “the establishment and maintenance of goodwill between an organisation and its publics”. Such goodwill cannot be maintained without the truth.

Reputations can be shattered through social media; witness the way Apple (for example) was forced to take notice and react to antenna-gate on the iPhone4 thanks to the huge swell of opinion against it on social media.

The best way to avoid this? Be honest.

Of course this does not only count for reputation in the here and now. It is also a concern for…

4. The future

The amount of information held on the web does not even bear an attempt to quantify. The consequence of this is that messages, files, images…anything that appears on the Internet – stays on the Internet. Forever.

Companies AND individuals cannot afford for anything they perceive as negative to be on there, even on page 4 of a Google search. For if it’s out there to be found then it can and will be found, more often than not at the least opportune moment.

The picture from the stag do 4 years ago could resurface in a job interview. The accidentally posted press release that was only online for a day could be found on an archived version of a website.

Making sure what goes online is an honest reflection of you or our business will safeguard you for the future.

5. Why not?

Finally, if there’s nothing to hide, there should be no need to hide it!

Filed Under: Featured, Guest posts, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: honesty, Marketing, pr, Social Media, twitter

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