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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.

The quote below from Harris Diamond reflects a few things.

While most brands are implementing social communications programs using one or two social platforms, only a handful are thinking holistically about managing communications across all media and touch points.

1. PR is increasingly taking the reins of interactive media strategies. Their DNA is founded in communications..social media is online media and the latter requires the same best practices as the offline world.

2. The touch points Diamond refers to stress how organizations are hard-pressed to scale engagement. Right now, brands are bulking up customer service teams just to respond..and they’re learning as they go along.

3. There’s a tug of war going on between the best way for brands to harness and reach customers. Do you build a hub. Do you fish where the fish are? Because the answer is of course a resounding yes to both, it becomes a question of who can lead the charge long-term. You have to wear customers down (with substance) with the value you provide and that takes time.

Too many see the “social” elements of media as a quick fix.

Shiv Singh, a VP at Razorfish, had a post this morning entitled “Owning the brand. Employees & Customers,” where he discussed ways certain brands typify the notion of being “social.”

It made me recall a recent post from Tom Davenport that cited Starbucks’ crowdsourcing site and its apparent lack of responsiveness to actual requests.

It also made me think of Starbucks’ sponsorship of BetaCup, an effort whose goal is to reduce the amount of coffee cups in landfills. If Starbucks is such a “social brand” how come they rejected a recent recycling effort brought up by 11% of their shareholders?

Here’s Tom Davenport’s quote on Starbucks’ My Idea site.

“When I checked the My Starbucks Idea site, I found out that I was not alone — there were 70 or so comments about the lack of lemons for tea. I was reminded that the tea selections at Starbucks are generally pretty lousy (only one mediocre black tea, for example) and that several times I (and apparently my fellow tea lovers as well) have been told that tea of the kind I like was unavailable. (Does that happen for coffee?) And I remembered some of my previous research on idea and suggestion sites, which found that you shouldn’t ask for ideas unless you are prepared to implement them.”

The other thoughts that came to mind were some from Umair Haque and his assessment that corporations don’t need social media strategies, they need social strategies — that is — real agendas outlining how they intend to business in our communities. The point is, brands can put every employee they want on the global stage and give them a voice, but you if you don’t provide a level of substance beyond “buy my shit” then it’s just noise. I don’t need more noise.  If these brands are leading the way, as Singh suggests below, I’d be licking my chops as a competitor.

As we move through 2010 and figure out how to leverage this hidden asset, the question is when how do you manage your brand in a world where employees can (and I believe should) be your brand advocates. Is this even possible? Does it run the risk of doing more damage to your brand than you can handle? I don’t think it does and nor does retail brands like Best Buy and Starbucks. Both are brands that I discuss in my book as ones that are leading the way with the creation of social voices – real people that speak authentically on behalf of the brand. Developing social voices has had another wonderful unintended consequence – the brands themselves have become social at the core or as I refer to them, they’ve become social brands.

Tom Davenport raised a good point recently. He cited @comcastcares and Starbucks as examples of brands using Twitter and crowdsourcing for service and feedback but falling short on consistent communications. Davenport’s scenario reflects why some many companies are retooling systems and processes to capture more of the digital conversations happening in real-time.

But capturing those conversations is only part of the battle. You need a process for how customer information is passed through the organization.

You’re seeing the “left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing syndrome” magnified so much more these days. Marketing or corporate communications might be excited about making a connection to an influencer, but it’s wasted if the details of that relationship can’t be communicated accurately and efficiently.

And even when the flow is there, there’s still business processes that need to kick in for event-driven stuff. See Davenport’s example of walking into Comcast’s store — one line of business had no idea what the other had promised. Lastly, before you deem socialCRM as the savior, like other tools, it has more to do with how your business is structured.

Brands have to make sure they have the human infrastructure to transform the way a line of business operates..only then will the supporting tools serve their real purpose – enablement.

blogs.hbr.org

I concluded that I’d rather not be reminded through social media that Starbucks doesn’t really care much about me and my preferences as a customer. What social media sometimes do is make us aware that we can communicate with just about anyone — but it doesn’t mean that the other party will actually listen or respond. I, for one, would rather work with a company that truly cares through a single communications channel — even snail mail — than one that shows its lack of caring through all the latest Web 2.0 tools.

Umair Haque had a rallying post today, challenging organizations to move away from pushy messaging and corporate-speak and do some good.

And what great timing. It’s becoming clear to me that most organizations have put to rest the “newness” notion of social media. It involves people, it involves tools, and it’s a two-way street. Got it.

What’s more important as I explained to a business partner recently, is seeking out projects and work that make a difference. I don’t want to help companies that are just consumed with moving more widgets.

Let’s talk about what you’re doing to change things or for my community and for my family. Haque described that a while back as scaling ambition rather than things.  And I’m not trying to be a moral highbrow, it’s just time social strategy started to impact things besides making big companies bigger. I’ll let Umair cap it off below.

It fits most organizations to a T — from Wall Street to Detroit to Big Pharma to Big Food to Big Energy. Our research suggests that 95% of organizations are unable to offer socially useful stuff that creates meaningful value for people, communities, and tomorrow’s generations.

Yet, most "social media" strategies have one or more of three goals: to "push product," "build buzz," or "engage consumers." None of these lives up to the Internet’s promise of meaning. They’re just slightly cleverer ways to sell more of the same old junk. But the great challenge of the 21st century is making stuff radically better in the first place — stuff that creates what I’ve been calling thicker value.

Organizations don’t need "social media" strategies. They need social strategies: strategies that turn antisocial behavior on its head to maximize meaning. The right end of social tools is to help organizations stop being antisocial. In fact, it’s the key to advantage in the 2010s and beyond.

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How can anyone really think using community and curation tools won’t be a boon to media companies and publishers? The ones that get it are already committed to establishing better ways of sharing and collaborating, baking that mindset into every part of the business.

Not so long ago every pundit preached “community” this and “community” that (me included).  Sure that’s a part of it, but in less than a few years, things like Twitter, Google Buzz and a newsier Facebook have forced private and public institutions alike to look outside of their comfy websites and community hubs.  Brands and online publishers realize the conversations happening in other online environments and niches can often overshadow much of the activity taking place on their own web properties.

The BBC’s recent statements underscore much of the shift taking place not only in media outfits but in corporations, where internal and external teams are scrambling for the right mix of engagement and listening.

"For BBC news editors, Twitter and RSS readers are to become essential tools, says Horrocks. Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand."

I didn’t set the DVR last night for this PBS segment, but I’ve embedded some of it in this post. Robert Scoble commented a few days back that he’d seen the program and said it was quite good. Nice job by PBS making things so easily embeddable.

Two Thousand and Ten Digital Marketing Outlook

Image by George Dearing via Flickr

• List of Social Media Measurement KPIs on Flickr
  (tags: socialmedia metrics analytics roi socialmediameasurement kpi)

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