Learnings from the Social Media Leadership Awards #SMLA13

On an incredibly snowy December 10, I started my day with a little social media learning with a fellow LevLane-r, PR Account Manager Tracy Dabakis. Bundled up against the chilly precip, we trekked over to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to hit up the last sessions of the Social Media Leadership Awards' Best Practices Conference. There, we learned from some of the industry's best and most innovative about using social strategies for customer service and community creation/management. Check out the top takeaways from the morning below. If you were in attendance at #SMLA13, let me know what you found most valuable in the comments below!

The Integration (and Separation) of Social Media and PR

The moderator of the morning's customer service panel, The Wharton School's Sr. Director of New Media Stefan Frank, pointed out that 50-75% of social media managers are still part of larger PR and communications teams. From proactive blogger relations to crisis management, PR and social media teams work collaboratively as close partners, even if they are not one intertwined team. Those who work with or serve as part of social media teams will not be surprised by this, but the fact of the matter is that this can be both an asset and a detriment to social media strategies, if not managed properly. While many PR strategies focus on specifically-worded answers to customer inquiries or problems, the canned response is met with disdain in the social sphere.

Still, that doesn't mean that elements of traditional PR fall by the wayside in a technologically modern world. As Bianca Buckridee, VP of Social Media Operations for JPMorgan Chase, explained during the panel, it's crucial for PR teams to communicate with social media teams regarding buzzworthy events (from both a content strategy perspective and community management perspective), as well as anticipating and planning for positive and negative reactions across different media. This doesn't mean latching onto one canned response for the duration of an event, however. Brian Monk, AVP Social Media at Barclaycard US, said that his team often crafts several different ways to communicate the same message, so that customers don't lash out upon being served the same response repeatedly. It seems like a no-brainer, but you might be shocked to see how few brands actually utilize this simple tactic. In fact, those varied and personalized responses are the primary way in which social media and PR strategies diverge when it comes to customer service. Buckridee emphasized that at JPMorgan Chase, they have (and use) brand and conversation guidelines for customer service issues, but the most important thing is that their team members' personalities shine through. They, after all, are the voice of the brand for each customer – and that voice needs to have a human touch. Personalized responses may sometimes require a little background research (and almost-daily coaching and education to determine which responses work best), but the pay-off of having a happy customer is so worth it.

In fact, The Wharton School's Frank pointed out that, "You can delight people the most in a crisis because they expect to be let down." But what do social teams need to do before and during crises in order to delight, rather than dismay? As Dennis Stoutenburgh, Co-Founder of Social Strategy1, explains, it's about using social media tools to anticipate reactions or issues and to communicate with the larger team to proactively reach out or to provide valuable reactions to those issues. "Social care can be the early warning system that helps to create a good coordinated effort." Once an issue has reached crisis-level, American Airlines' Sr. Analyst, Social Communications Katy Phillips, emphasizes three things: honesty about the situation and what it means for customers, delivering timely updates, and (perhaps most surprisingly) knowing when to let the crisis go.

As David Berkowitz, CMO at MRY, put it in a later panel on content and communities, "Real-time marketing [or response, for that matter] is too late." That's exactly what the day's #SMLA13 sessions were all about: the need to anticipate, predict, and respond in strategic, delightful ways for customers and stakeholders, alike.

What was your favorite part of the day? Did anything surprise you? Share your comments below!

Takeaways from PR News' #digitalpr Summit

On October 16, I joined two of my fellow LevLane-rs for a little learning about social media, reputation management, SEO, measurement, and leadership at PR News' Digital PR Summit in New York City. After searching the Grand Hyatt's digital agenda and map to find our conference location, we briefly considered trying to join the Super Bowl's planning meeting before grabbing a quick muffin and our seats in the ballroom. For the most part, the speakers had great experiences to share and insights from which we could all learn. The most important takeaways for me, as a Social Media Manager in an agency, can be found below, in both narrative and infographic. This conference recap is not exhaustive, obviously – I want to be "at the table, not on the menu," as American Traffic Solutions' SVP of Public Affairs and Marketing Communications Charlie Territo so eloquently put it. If you were in attendance for #digitalpr, I'd love to know what you found most valuable. Let me know in the comments!

How to Measure and Communicate Social Media ROI

In this session, EVP, BurrellesLuce Johna Burke cited a rather groundbreaking statistic from Nielsen: In the past, brands had to communicate messages 3-6 times in order for them to really sink in with consumers. Later, that number increased to 8 times. Today, with the message, platform, and product clutter that defines our lives, brands must reach millennials 23 times in order for brand messages to resonate. Whoa.

Get Your Messages in Front of the Right Followers on Twitter

One of my favorite quotes of the day came from Brooke Primero, SVP, PR & Marketing for the Academy of Country Music. She said, "The kiss of death in social media is being a 9-5, Monday-Friday brand." No matter what brand you're promoting, social activity doesn't sleep and it certainly doesn't stop because it's 6:30PM on a Tuesday. The Academy of Country Music's biggest push of the year is for a 3-hour awards event once a year. That's it. So they focused their efforts on building that brand during the rest of the year via social channels. In 2011, they announced their award nominees on TV, reaching 3 million people, according to CBS. In 2012, they took to Twitter to announce the nominees and reached 14.2 million people. Those are some pretty amazing statistics, but the Academy of Country Music didn't stop there. They engaged with key influencers to grow across Twitter and gave them behind the scenes access to content to take them from influencers to brand ambassadors.

How to Engage with the Internet's Passionate Communities

If there's one thing I learned during this session, it's this: some people just don't get reddit. Half of this session was spent listening to the great brand integration stories about reddit, and the other half of the session was spent trying to explain what reddit is. My life, in that moment, was r/reddit. Still, it was interesting to hear Marta Gossage, community operations manager, and Victoria Taylor, director of communications, distinguish reddit from other social platforms: Platforms like Facebook and Twitter show off your "frontstage behavior" (the way you want to portray yourself to the world), while platforms like reddit show off your "backstage behavior" (the way you think and feel when you're eating potato chips by the fistful in your sweatpants, reading the AMA with a guy who lost 300+ pounds through extreme starvation). reddit seems to be a much more authentic platform in that way – and redditors keep it that way. At the table we shared in the back, Gossage described reddit as having its own immune system. If there's a foreign body in there, the community reacts strongly to defend its territory (...er, place on the interwebz). Plus, if all else fails for you on reddit, you can always end a post with "...and here's a picture of my cat" to help you get your footing.

How to Use Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine for Digital Storytelling

If you've been trying to figure out how to build a brand presence on one of the more visual social platforms, this was a great session for you. Amanda Junker, digital director for Shape Magazine, spelled out how to drive better results and greater brand relevancy through SEO on Pinterest. Her tips? Display the "Pin It" button prominently on your web properties, verify brand accounts, complete the "About" profile section, name all pinned graphics appropriately, and create boards that capture long-tail searches. She also recommended infogr.am, which I used to create the infographic below. After her part was over, Allison Robins, Director of Global Public Relations at Zumba Fitness, stepped up to discuss Instagram's power and limits. According to Robins, Instagram is not the best platforms for brands focused on ROI, conversions, and sales. Instead, it's better for brand and relationship building. And if you've been wondering how to upload pre-recorded videos to Vine, Doug Simon, President & CEO, D S Simon Productions, was your guy. Simply edit your video in a program like Final Cut and convert it to an H.264 mp4 file, compress it, email it to yourself, then upload it to Instagram or Vine. It's that easy!

Building, Motivating, and Managing Your Digital Dream Team

Hands-down, this was the most valuable part of the day for me. Gemma Craven, EVP, NY group director, Social@Ogilvy, explained exactly how the growth of digital and social has shaped the creation and make-up of agency and client teams. Some of these teams may be as large as 20 people, handling digital and social creative, strategy, community management, analytics and listening, production, and more. More than metrics, more than C-suite buy-in, this is what I feel is the most important piece of the digital and social puzzle for agencies and brands today.

Did anything surprise you?

Real-Time Social Media: Art, Not Science

Since the early days of social media, brands have sought ways to connect their products and messages with the real-time interests of their audiences through “newsroom marketing.” These attempts to create timely, but tasteful brand content linked to cultural events have landed many brands in the spotlight. While some have clearly missed the mark, others have proven how powerful real-time responses can be.

When the lights went out during Super Bowl XLVIII, Twitter feeds were  suddenly overloaded with bad jokes and misdirected rage from football fans  across the U.S. Brand teams, however, strategically sprang into action. Oreo’s now-famous tweet perfectly placed the brand in the moment: “Power’s out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” Other brands – including Audi, Tide,  NBC, and VW – capitalized  on the chance to connect themselves with an audience now craving both an explanation and Oreos, for some reason.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Since Oreo sparked the surging interest in “real-time marketing” at the Super  Bowl, we’ve learned a lot. The brand and its agency of record, 360i, collaborated to craft that tweet in just a few short minutes. And while some laughed when 13  people were listed in the creative credits for its Bronze Innovative Media CLIO Award, it proved that getting it right takes preparedness, a clear process for assessing and responding to opportunities, and great collaboration on all  levels.

Still, no brand has real-time social media marketing completely figured out. This week alone the birth of the Royal  Baby stymied some and elevated others. Clearly, real-time social media marketing is not a science, but an art – and one that will continue to change as our channels, technologies, and culture evolve. I’m just hoping I never see a branded twerking video.

Originally posted on the Advertising Week Social Club by yours truly here.