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There’s a lot of ways to slice and dice the implementation of social technologies – especially when you’re talking about strategies for websites. Recommendations are a dime a dozen and some will cost you just as much. On the other hand, doing it wrong can cost you a heck of a lot more.

Jeremiah Owyang took a look at some of the approaches from some big brands during a recent keynote at the Gilbane Conference in San Francisco. 

What I tell clients is pretty simple. Spend the time to figure out where your customers are and plan your approach around how to interact. The good news is that a lot of the technology that helps you interact online is improving rapidly. With Facebook’s newer integration choices, federated commenting capabilities and real-time Twitter streams, there’s a bevy of options — an a-la-carte for online interactions if you will

And as Owyang points out toward the end, make sure you have some plans to sustain all this stuff. I’d say be vigilant about mapping your resources to the specific outcomes you’re trying to achieve. That’ll force you to look at the skill sets of your employees and match things up effectively. And overcompensate and pad things a bit..you’ll need the extra horsepower because your customers are scaling a lot faster than you are.

 

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One of the things I like about Ogilvy’s thoughts is how they make it clear that social media isn’t owned by one department or the other. That ownership volley is what costs too many companies precious time. It’s much easier to rally the business units that want to step up and commit resources and budget.

The other thing that stood out is Ogilvy’s Social Enterprise Change Framework. There’s simply not enough frameworks out there to anchor how companies can begin thinking about an interactive strategy. Hell, I still reference Forrester’s POST methodology for some of the sessions I’ve run. What the Ogilvy framework smartly outlines are the steps required for brands to establish “Centers of Excellence” – yes the COE is back. And it actually maps really well to the challenges I see in the marketplace. Without sharing the burden – ok,tasks – companies are easily victimized by the silo effect and just can’t scale social media expertise across the organization.

The “Action” step in the diagram shows how talent needs to be peppered throughout the organization. Which lines of business to start with can often be the most daunting exercise. It’s hard to look inward and admit your customer service sucks needs improvement, although half the Twitterverse probably already knows it.

And while “action” is the right word in this context, I’m seeing companies act with more preciseness these days, as if engagement strategies were planned for long-term sustainability. I know, what a concept, right? Part of it’s from earlier social media war wounds  and part of it’s due to the listening capabilities that are now utilitarian. What the Ogilvy whitepaper also largely underscores is how twenty-ten will be year that social media’s shiny new object affliction is finally cured.

Ogilvy Enterprise Social Media v1 0

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One of the other quotes that stood out was John Batelle’s prediction that the microblogging interface would change and “look nothing like a microblog.” I’d guess that has  a lot to do with the interface disappearing in some respects. By that I mean interfaces will be accessed through all sorts of services, applications and embedded widgets. And in a sense I think it’s already changed pretty drastically.

The other thing that almost everyone seems to allude to is how social media will become more entrenched in the inner-workings of companies – from their external communication practices to the way business systems are built, designed and deployed. 

That last part is why you hear so much about “social business,” which is a really tough thing to distill into something folks can understand.

If you stray too far to the technical, toolset, or process side, you sound like a business process re-engineering (BPR) evangelist. Jump over too much to the “social media” side and you quickly run the risk of being categorized as too fluffy or someone trying to socialize things that really don’t need to be social.

2010 Social Media Influencers – Trend Predictions in 140 Characters, by TrendsSpotting

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1. It’s never been more important to have brand consistency by bridging offline and digital. If your online persona is built on trust, you better bring that same trust to  the conference room.

2. Big marketing is still big marketing. The thing that’s different is companies are chipping away person by person instead of campaign by campaign.

3. Not enough  resources are being committed to developing a holistic approach to marketing and word-of-mouth. When you get just a fragment of someone’s work week, the result is a fragmented strategy. Go figure.

4. Practitioners are getting better at building the business case for their initiatives, and ROI isn’t always the anchor. Texas Instruments knew that peer-to-peer collaboration would help its business. Could they tie specific numbers to that interaction before they built their community? Of course not.

5. There will be huge dollars spent in 2010 on understanding influence. We’ll only scratch the surface.

6. I should have put my Twitter handle on my business card.

[Note: For a recap of the Texas Instruments case study presentation at the Word of Mouth SuperGenius conference, click here.]

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• Vertical Response Data: "Small Businesses Look to E-Mail and Social Media"
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I ran across one of Denuo’s recent projects this morning after the agency followed me on Twitter. It’s launched a program called Betacup, with the goal of eliminating the waste of disposable coffee cups. The way they’ve launched it is a living case study of online community and social activism.

They’ve made it really easy to get involved, stay involved and spread the word about something they’re passionate about. I noticed they’re also using a fund-raising platform called Kickstarter, (below) which is nicely integrated into the Betacup site.

It’s great to see a socially responsible effort that’s not just a campaign, but a narrative of what one agency is really doing to spur change. Bravo.

Betacup from the betacup on Vimeo.

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• “Information Wants To Be Free” – The Razorfish FEED report [BBH Labs]
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• Success Factors for Brands on Facebook [ADWEEK]
  "There’s no media cost to setting up on Facebook, but brands often find the quickest way to build a sizable following is through — you guessed it — paid advertising.

  Take Little Debbie. Nearly six months ago the snack food brand set up shop on Facebook with a standard fan page. It posted updates, uploaded old TV spots and waited. Crickets. Then, last Thursday, it rolled out an engagement ad "reach block" that messaged 21-49-year-olds touting a sweepstakes for a Smart car with the option to become a fan. Within 12 hours, Little Debbie’s fan base went from 5,000 to over 125,000. It welcomed people with a message asking their favorite Little Debbie snack. It got over 6,000 comments." (tags: facebook brands social+media social+networks)

• M-Commerce’s Big Moment [BusinessWeek]
  "Yet, m-commerce may finally be hitting its stride. And some analysts who in recent years became more conservative in their forecasts are now having to make upward revisions. In January, consultant ABI Research projected North American sales of physical goods ordered via cell phone would reach $544 million this year, up from $346 million in 2008. Now, Mark Beccue, senior analyst at ABI, is considering updating his 2009 forecast to $800 million. "I thought hockey-stick growth was going to come in 2010, but it looks like it’s already a hockey stick," Beccue says. "Next year, it will double again."
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And according to Nielsen and Interpret Research, gamers have a recall rate of more than 70% for in-game ads.

"Market researcher Screen Digest estimates the global in-game advertising market will reach $1 billion by 2014. The rationale is that people are watching less TV and so advertisers are trying to reach them via new media, including video games. While the recession has hurt game sales, Massive contends people are spending more time playing games. (That means gamers are playing the games they buy for a longer time and are consuming less traditional media). Massive says it can reach 40 million Xbox 360 and PC gamers in 31 countries."

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I pulled this presentation from Burt Dumars’ twitter stream this morning. It’s a presentation that Rubbermaid Jim gave at the recent Social Fresh Conference.

One thing I liked right off the bat was the simple framework (slides 40-43) Jim summarizes toward the end — essentially steps to think about when planning your engagements.

-Understand Your Brand
-Know Your Message
-Pick An Audience
-Have A Conversation

Another thing you’ll notice with brands that have the scale of Rubbermaid is how important its outreach strategies are. That gets back to the point covered about knowing your audience. You won’t see shotgun blasts from Rubbermaid.

What you do see is a precise focus on specifics, from specific audiences to very specific products. That allows them to tailor the conversation and adapt to the needs of the consumer.

Frankly, there’s way too many folks that over-analyze social media. Yes, we have new ways of communicating, but it’s still people that facilitate conversation. The brands that realize that are the ones winning.