The issue of who owns social media and how it is best applied is still being grappled with by larger enterprises.  So the SAScon debate on social media on this issues was particularly interesting.

The panel was:

Will McInnes of Nixon McInnes

Phil Jones of Brother UK

Neil Hardy of Co-Operative Travel

Ivan Croxford of BT

And Malcom Coles

I will start with a Phil Jones quote: “Social media is B2me.”

Will McInnes followed with “sustained conversation is expected with social media.”

Quite simple pronouncements, yet many big enterprises get it wrong, perhaps it is years of pushing through messages through mass media channels and not having to interact as much on a one to one basis in their marketing:  Sainsbury’s being one possible example of how difficult larger businesses fail to grasp this.

Maybe smaller concerns are more geared at establishing a one-to-one relationship.

On the question of who owns social media and how it should be applied, well, there was a multitude of answers.

I was surprised, not that I should have I suppose, that customer services was a strong candidate for ownership (as Ivan Croxford pointed out at BT customer services had embrassed social media).

My vested interests said PR.  It could be marketing as well.   But it really depends on the application.

Neil Hardy looks on Twitter as a helpline for instance.  The conclusion surely is that it it is a versatile instrument and will be used as best fits purpose?

Phil Jones again: “Social media should be integrated, should engage and lead to “marriage.”  I agree.

Malcolm Coles: “Social media helps engagement with customers that do not use current channels.”   In this alone is must be seen as essential.

What came out of the debate was a recognition – as you would expect – that social media has to be applied and that its exact role is still developing.

I will leave the last word to Malcolm Coles about the need to experiment to find out social media can be best applied: “Getting it wrong is not a disaster.”

Wow!: a cross between techie, photo-journalist and Sgt Bilko (in the nicest possible way of course – he is one of my TV heroes) Christian Payne, AKA Documentally, gave us an insight into how to get the most out of Twitter.

I thought it might be a run through and at a level for beginners (although Phil Birchenall had of The White Room had tried to describe how amazing Christian is in conveying the power of social media).  It did turn out to be a tremendously interesting hour.

Alright onto business: What did I learn?  Where do I begin?  Let’s see.

Christian is a one man media kit: he carries around a range of items to record photos / video / audio and this content is transmitted with almost immediate unhindered effect to Twitter.  From there an interview, for example, will be re-tweeted from his lists and followers.  The viral effect sounded tremendous, if not a little frightening in its potential.

Christian said that 75% of his activity was through Twitter, which he said was the most powerful and cherished tool he has because:

• Of the feedback loop as alluded to above
• Easy to access (no barriers like Facebook)
• The potential for conversation

If you add the fact that Twitter is growing at 1382% a year (and these figures he quoted are 3 months old) then the potential gets more exciting; Facebook by comparison, if I have remembered properly has 182% growth.

Christian gave the following advice on using Twitter:

• Lists are most important than followers because they help identify your interests and put like minds in contact – so check out your followers’ lists
• Nurture your followers
• Christian was very enthusiastic about using the iPhone, particularly Audioboo, to further how you harness Twitter.  His interviews are conducted through the phone although he puts a prop on it to make it look like a microphone.

And communication technologies to look out for in the future?

• Augmented reality
• Changes in search – but he didn’t expand on this point
• Google deep-tagging for video and audio tagging – if you produce content you will be able to see who has infringed on copyright.

If my piece seems a bit confused, perhaps piecemeal, well the hour was a whirlwind. I think you can only get an insight into how Christian uses social media – it takes a little longer to take it all in.

If I could spend a day with Christian I think I would grow in my understanding of social media techniques at the rate comparable to what I could learn in a month of being self-taught.

Thanks to DMEX and North West Vision and Media for organising.

If the branding and page tool bar has gone on this page please let me know, it could just be my browser.

Heresy!

But there are a few points to back up search a wicked assertion. But it could be that I am being difficult.  And I am doing this without reverting to the boring “140 words is too short.”  Let’s see:

Intonation – Have you been misunderstood, got in trouble because the recipient of an e-mail could not detect the tone / irony / humour of a message?

Well Twitter can be just as bad – be careful!

Comments – a few months ago if you put my name or company name in a Google search you got lots of testimonials, references, blog posts, referrals to blog posts.  Wonderful!

Now I get comments, some blog, many Twitter.  So now every tweet I have to be careful in case it is a prospect researching me.

Just think a prospect looks for me on Google and I come up with some banter that makes me look rude without the context or a prattle on about Man City and it is a rag reading it, no offence.

And all that hard work building an online profile is being replaced by my inane prattling.

Mixing business and personal – If you have one account that tries to combine all facets of your personality and interests it might not really work all the time.

Of course I could make a business connection while talking cricket or football, but equally I might appear dull and irrelevant to followers (especially in the US for the above) that want to know what I am doing PR wise.  It’s hard to please more than one audience.

Multiple accounts might be the best way forward.

Tantrums - You are really annoyed and Twitter is there inviting you to lay the dirt on your employer / employee / shop you have been going for years / business associate and so on.  You update and calm down but its already there: time to back peddle / repair damage / hope no-one really noticed.

I was close today, glad I didn’t tweet in a moment of frustration.

Alcohol – I was at the Chorlton Beer Festival and had my iPhone and so Twitterfon was within easy reach.  Luckily only a misspelling resulted.

The BBC has published an interesting article about a company offering Twitter “followers.”

The “followers” can be bought in batches of 1,000, with 100,000 being the biggest amount available.

All have opted in to be a “follower,” so is it a problem?  All are profiled and those located closest can be prioritised, so it is targeted to some degree.

uSocial, which offers a paid service, estimates that everyone that follows is worth about 10 cents (Australian I believe) a month to a client.

I think even so big companies, indeed anyone that employs such as service, are missing the point of social networking: interaction.

Hard sell or just selling is not social media although there can be a place, from time to time, to sell.

I am sure that if up to 100,000 “followers” can be bought at a reasonably low price then a Twitter campaign could generate good returns on the investment.

E-mail was used in a similar way and I remember a claim in one magazine that as many as 10% of recipients became clients in its early days (mid 90s).  I am not sure I believe that ever really happened unless it was one heck of an offer to a really well researched target group.

Gone are the days when e-mail was ever thought of so highly.  Yet the humble telephone can be highly productive for sales and it is about interaction and conversation.

Yes buying “followers” will work for some, but it is going to become a jaded way to communicate if you only talk and don’t listen.

It never fails to surprise when a big concern like Habitat makes a mess of their social media.

Well maybe a story like this probably was bound to happen at some point soon – somehow some big corporates don’t have a feel for it -  but I am still shocked at how blatantly deceptive and poorly thought out this was.

Habitat are facing the ire of many Twitter folk at the moment after using hash tags inappropriately to drive traffic to a sales offer.  The fact that some hash tags were about the recent events in Iran did not help.

The thing about social media is that is gives the small guy a voice.  And many users see themselves as social media Robin Hoods: you cannot throw your corporate weight around or throw a big budget to get a result – you play by the same rules as everyone else.

Really, social media follows many of the same etiquette as face to face networking and other human interactions, so common sense, manners and a bit of thinking come in handy.  Three simple rules to start:

No hard sales – nothing turns people off you as being sold to, especially if they did not ask to be the centre of a sales talk

Be honest – try to fool people on social media sites and you set yourself up for a backlash

Listen and contribute as much as you speak and take, if not more – giver’s gain

Habitat say they are “sorry” and that this particular use of hash tags was “absolutely not authorised.“  Good so far, but as Habitat declined to name those responsible – in-house or agency – means that this will go on for a little longer than necessary.

Let’s be honest though, how many people enjoy something as big as Habitat messing up?

I think we all have a strategy when it comes to Twitter, well to some measure.

People that don’t I would assume become bored with the concept and fade away – you have to have a reason and an approach.  Without the first you have no motivation and without the second you are not as likely to have satisfaction in meeting your aims.

Of course there are not many users that plan with careful meticulous thought, perhaps write it down, and then incisively and determinedly follow through their objectives.

You could say, and this is probably my approach to networking, that I am more tactical than strategic.

I do think about my networking as thoroughly as possible (face to face and social media) and develop my activity almost organically.  There is a logic behind my tweets, not all the time granted but in general yes.

I come across from time to time the comment that I do not want to hear about “what someone has had for breakfast or what they are watching on TV.”  But even here there could be some logic.  Let me explain:

I go networking at Manchester Business Breakfast Club most Fridays.  One of the members, Nigel Moore of branding agency Flag Digital, delivers his pitch / presentation / 60 seconds in quite an offbeat manner.  He can be funny, obtuse, a little surreal at times.  But if you speak to Nigel when he is at work you know he is very serious and focused about his design work.

One day I asked him why his 60 seconds are apparently haphazard.  The answer was that the members know that he is good at what he does and that he is focused.

Nigel explained that the key for him is that they know that he is approachable, sociable and that they will be able to form a working relationship.  Strategies are not always apparent.

And what is my Twitter strategy?

Well my Twitter objectives are (but not limited) to:

• Follow journalists – spot editorial opportunities and understand their personalities and professional needs and concerns
• Find interesting material about PR and social media
• Improve my knowledge of social media so I can help clients with this aspect of their communications
• Raise awareness of Artisan Marketing Communications
• Not, at present, to find clients even though the last point seems to contradict that
• Be sociable

And from that follows my tweets, my use of Mr Tweet, who I follow derives.

This will develop over time and will change, but somewhere there is some sort of planning, however chaotic.

I have just come across Twibs thanks to PR 2.0 blog of Brian Solis.

Twibs is the online business directory connected to Twitter.  It is essentially, as I see it, an online directory with branding.  But saying that there is the opportunity for extra profile and for those that establish a following it could be useful.

It seems quite easy to interact between Twibs and Twitter, which adds value.

I never thought when I started this blog I would be talking about a Twib.

I signed up to Twitter a while ago.  The time I did it escapes me and I have no recollection of it.

The concept when first explained did not grab me.  Why would I be interested in Stephen Fry being stuck in a lift for instance?  That was one of his latest escapades, good luck to him.

Actually my first experience was concerning the Big Chip Awards for the NW digital media sector.  I had worked on a couple of award entries for SEO experts PushOn.  I was at home on the night of the awards and was following Simon Wharton – the PushON chief – to see if we had won on Twitter.  Well, as the night wore on the Twitters become less frequent as the merriment increased.  At the point of victory it had all gone quiet.

Simon was right though it has a number of real ways that PRs and indeed any enterprise can use to communicate with its audience as listed by Drew B’S blog.  Among those listed are its use in crisis management and networking.

Indeed on the last point of signing up to follow a number of Twitters I had four reciprocate or message me.

The thing about social networking besides giving you a voice it can also give you an audience.  And sometimes a warm feeling that you can become part of a community.