So far in this series we have looked at some major considerations in the development of a social media strategy for your business. These have included, making sure that your business objectives outside of social media are clearly defined, so that whatever you do helps you advance those objectives and that in a social media context they underpin everything you do. Next we looked at the how essential it is to understand where your audience is in the social media space are they on Facebook, Twitter or MixIt? Remember where the community around your business is (or where the people are that you are trying to reach) is where you need to have a presence. Lastly we looked at the need for you to become a social business in order to succeed at using social technologies to help you achieve your business objectives. In essence you need to become digital natives as a business.

In Part 4, we want to discuss another piece of the puzzle. It is very important for you to gain a good understanding of the discussion and conversation that is already taking place around your business or your niche. It’s similar to when you join a conversation that is already in progress. It would be inappropriate to just start talking if you don’t have any context of the conversation that was happening before your arrival. It’s no different when starting or joining an existing conversation that is happening on the social web. Remember the golden rule: Listen before you speak.

Listening into the conversation on the social web can take on many forms some simple and other advanced. Some of the free tools that are available are: Google Alerts; Google Blog Search; Twitter Search; and Social Mention to mention a few. The idea is to use these tools to learn about what is being said about your business or the niche that you are operating in. With most of these tools you can use the RSS feeds available for your searches to have them delivered to you either by email or into a RSS Reader (like Google Reader)

The insights to be gained from doing this are enormous as you can get a sense of what is already being discussed, which will mean you can join these conversations with context on your side and an understanding of the prevailing attitudes which will help you to “talk sense.”

Bear in mind that advanced conversation monitoring software exists, like the product that is provided by Radian6

The idea behind all of this is to listen-in on what is already being said, making sense of that, and then using that information to craft your participation. In fact the information that you gather should be used to help you produce what is known as your content strategy, or as Brain Rea of CaseStudy Inc. likes to call it your “conversation strategy.”

This will be the topic in the next part of this series.

It’s a great privilege for me to be featured in the December 2011 issue of the Oprah Magazine.

As with most of these, due to space constraints and other issues the editors are unable to publish the full interview. I thought it would be a good idea to publish the full interview as context to what was published in the print magazine. So here it is.

Please share a little about your background.

I’m the youngest of three children. I started my career as a Network Administrator for a large IT company. I then moved onto one of my passions, which is being creative – I became a Graphic Designer for an advertising company, but soon discovered that I had an entrepreneurial spirit which led me to starting my own business in coaching & training which later evolved into co-founding Social Media IQ.

How and why did you start Social Media IQ?

My partner and I co-founded Social Media IQ in 2008, it was the natural evolution of our coaching business. We were working virtually with coaches and clients all over South Africa and had to use modern communication tools to stay connected and run our business successfully. Social Media IQ is a leading edge new media consultancy and training company that teaches business owners and entrepreneurs to use social media as part of their daily communication. We believe that the more connected we are as humans the better for the whole planet, and for the first time this is possible through the power of social media. Our intention and desire is to help and empower people to become connected so that they can spread their powerful message, whatever that may be, and in turn grow their business and personal brand! 

Please describe a “day in the life” of Lisa – outline your key responsibilities.

With us it’s all hands on deck – there’s never a dull moment

• Planning and coordinating social media project flow and time lines
• Briefing and leading development team on design and functionality of digital/online spaces, evaluating the end product and proving feedback
• Planning, coordinating and designing of creative elements on social media strategy projects including corporate identities, websites and social media profiles
• Facilitating the implementation of social media strategies
• Research and analysis of client’s target audience
• Training and leading client’s team on the usage of digital spaces e.g. Facebook,  Twitter, LinkedIn, Custom Designed Social Networks
• Community building best practices and online engagement

What is your motto/ guiding principle in the workplace?

Under promise and over deliver.

How many people are in your team/ report to you?

Social Media IQ is owned by my partner and I; however we have teams that we collaborate with to provide our clients with the solutions they need. This makes us really agile.

What do you LOVE about your job?

I love the creative part of what we do, every project that we work on is unique – a different industry, product or service, which makes each project an exciting challenge. We have to come up with creative and strategic ideas on how to help the client integrate social media into their daily business. I also love the fact that I work for myself which allows me to be in control of my career and the decisions I make.

What’s not to love?

Because of the fact that this is an “always-on” industry, it’s sometimes hard to keep a balance. Work can always go with me which makes it difficult to switch off.

Please share one of your biggest accomplishments since starting Social Media IQ.

There are so many but let me share the current project that we are busy with. We’ve developed a social media strategy for a large commercial property developer/landlord, The Success Academy Properties, in Pretoria and we’re currently busy with the implementation phase, connecting 100 businesses in their office parks.

What are your strengths (i.e. great time management) and your weaknesses (hate admin) and how do you balance them?

Strengths: Persistent, consistent, dedicated, creative, extremely detailed and I go the extra mile.
Weaknesses: I’m a Perfectionist with a capital P! I strive to do everything perfectly – from looking after myself, my household, my business and my relationships. But I’ve learnt that perfection is a serious burden to carry as you are never satisfied – even if your work is brilliant. I have to prepare thoroughly for meetings, trainings etc, so going with the flow or adapting to a new plan is not always easy. That’s where my partner fills in, as he can adapt quickly and easily to any situation, which makes us a great team!

Who or what motivates you to succeed?

Interestingly the woman who motivates me most is Oprah, a woman who through adversity & personal difficulty built an empire which now greatly assists other people to reach their dreams. What she has accomplished has always been an inspiration to me; to become more, grow, and achieve as much as I can.

I’m a creative spirit and creativity can’t be switched off – it’s there all the time. Creativity wants to be expressed and this drives me every day to do more and be more! I focus on how I can become a better person one day at a time – just being slightly better than yesterday.

What types of challenges do you face?

Keeping a balanced life is the biggest challenge, yes I love running my own business, it’s fantastic to be your own boss and to be flexible enough to plan your days oppose to having to fit into someone else’s plan. But having said this, running your own business is not always easy. I don’t work normal hours, a typical day will start at 5am and end at 8/9pm, and most weekends are spent working. Running your own business requires serious commitment and dedication. That’s why being passionate about what you do is key, because then it often doesn’t feel like work – it feeds your soul and makes you happy!

Tragedy struck me in a big way, as I lost my sister, mother & then my father in the space of 5 years. At first this was very difficult for me to understand and accept, but as time passed it got me to ask the big questions in life: Why are we here? What is our purpose? And how do we live a fulfilled life? The answers to these questions have put me on a spiritual path which I’m so grateful for and have made me realize that each and every one of us have a role to play in the bigger plan. Our contributions, no matter how small or big, make a difference to the whole.

Which practical skills do you employ on a daily basis?

I try to live in day-tight compartments. You only have to focus on living healthy today, being active today, being a great parent today, a loving partner today, a leading business woman today, giving back today and being happy today. You don’t have to worry about tomorrow. When you do this you will feel the weight lift from your shoulders – because anyone can do these things for just one day!

One of Oprah’s guiding principles is “Find Your Balance”. How do you maintain a healthy work/life balance?

Meditation in the morning is important to centre myself and to create an intention of how I would like my day to unfold. Exercise is also key in keeping my energy levels high and my body healthy, I don’t always get this right when we’re busy with large projects, but I try to exercise at least 5 x per week.

One day a week I switch off from the “always on, always connected world” and do something different, like having lunch at a great restaurant with my partner, a picnic in nature, reading a book outside, seeing a movie or having a relaxing treatment at a spa. I’m an animal and nature lover so to get away from it all I connect to the stillness and peace that nature offers or simply listen to the purring of my cats when I stroke them.

Expert Advice:

What are the most important social media platforms for a person in business? Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

The social media tools that you use are dependent firstly on what your objectives are as a business, and secondly which social media tools the audience that you are trying to reach are using. We see so many businesses making the mistake of putting tools before strategy so for example they may open up a Twitter account when their audience is on Facebook. So just to emphasise the tools you use are completely dependent on where your community is.

However having said this it’s important for individuals to be active on social networks in their private capacity so that they can understand and learn the new skill set required to operate in this rapidly evolving field and become digital natives themselves. For that I recommend joining a network where most of your friends or business associates are, so if they’re on Facebook for example be active there.

Please share tips on how each of these can help our readers to further their careers and grow their personal brand or business.

One of the most important things that you can do, is to tune into conversations that are happening on the social web especially around your niche and your interests. This way you can quickly learn how social media is being used by thought leaders in your field.

• Create a Twitter account and follow some industry specific lists. It’s a fantastic listening tool. You can find some great lists on Listorious. Search and follow hashtags to keep up to date with the latest news on a specific topic. (You can even use this for something as practical as traffic updates, I’ve created a list (saved search) for #JHBtraffic and #PTAtraffic so whenever I have to leave the office I check this list to get an update on the traffic.)
• To learn the skills of how to engage online  Facebook and Google’s latest communication platform, Google+ are great platforms for you to learn how to speak digital, create a profile and connect with friends and colleagues there. For example on both these platforms you can create private groups/circles to group different people together, this way you can communicate with each group independently i.e you can communicate freely on a personal level with friends and family and more strategically with your business associates.
• Learn how to use your mobile device to stay connected, the biggest concern that people have with social media is: where do I find the time in my already busy day? When you can access everything from your mobile then you are able to respond in between, while waiting in a queue, or sitting in the boardroom waiting for your colleagues to arrive.
• Use a social dashboard like Hootsuite to aggregate all your social media streams into one place and post to different networks from the dashboard – great tool for time management by not having to visit several different social network platforms to keep up. I use Hootsuite to organise all the different streams that I follow, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, I also follow different industry specific lists from here and I keep an eye on our client’s profiles. You can download the desktop application for your computer, use the web version (which I prefer) and a mobile app (I use Hootsuite’s mobile app on my iPhone – great to stay connected while I’m out of the office)
• Use your real name and a real profile picture on your social networking profiles, people do business with people and not with fake profiles, cartoon characters or company logos. Be real, be human and you will go very far in building your personal brand!

Social media is a lot more complex than having a profile on a popular network, there is much more involved in having a well integrated social media presence for your business! Why not find out how to develop a social media strategy for your business by reading these posts we have done on the subject:

1. Objectives
2. Socialgraphics
3. Culture
4. Listening

In this part of the series (Part 1; Part 2) I will be discussing another major piece of the social media for business puzzle. We have lots of businesses that approach us “wanting to do social.” Here is the thing, a business will never be successful at the use of social technologies to achieve business objectives unless the business first becomes a social business.

That is often not what those wanting to “do social” want to hear and it’s at this point where the separation happens between those who are truly serious about doing this right and those who just want to “add social” and then tick that box. It comes as a huge surprise to many that “doing social” has nothing to do with Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts and viral YouTube videos!

Becoming a social business requires a cultural shift inside the organization and that is the hard part. Once that bridge is crossed, once everything has been put in place to create that shift, the rest pretty much falls into place and you can begin thinking about “doing social” primarily because you now are social. For emphasis: you can’t successfully use social technologies without first becoming a social business.

In my experience a giant leap in the right direction is made when a business breaks its reliance on email as the primary means to communicate internally. So a good place to start is to introduce collaboration software into your work flows. In our case we use Yammer extensively. Basically this provides a real-time communication environment which allows us to collaborate and share information much more efficiently than with email. (Another very good example of this kind of software is Salesforce’s Chatter.)

Getting your team comfortable to communicate internally in real-time is an important step in the right direction. Research has, however, shown that companies that successfully use social media have also done the following before turning on an external social presence:

1. Created social media policies that protect the company and allow employees to participate on social networks responsibly
2. Put a clearly defined process in place to ensure real-time responses to inbound communication
3. Developed an ongoing education programme to ensure teams stay up-to-date in a rapidly changing environment, and
4. Put in place a Social Media Team who’s responsibility it is to make sure that what the business does is properly co-ordinated both internally and externally and that policies and guidelines are adhered to and that the whole initiative keeps moving the business closer to its objectives.

The complexity of this whole process is often underestimated. Changing a culture and doing the necessary preparatory work and training cost time and money. The benefits of giving this due diligence will pay off and will minimise the risks associated with social media in a business setting.

In Part 4 I will discuss the next piece of developing a social media strategy for your business which is developing what I like to call a “Listening Room.”

In Part 1 of this series we discussed the need to put the buzz around social media aside, clarify your 3 – 5 year business objectives and then ask whether social media will assist you in reaching those. If you don’t have a working knowledge of social media in order to be able to answer this question, we suggested up-skilling your team with a workshop on social technologies so they can answer this important question.

In Part 2 I am going to focus on one area that often gets totally ignored by a business wanting to have a social media presence. Here it is: you need to have clear insights into whether the people around your business, clients, potential clients, stakeholders and employees are using social media and if so how they are doing so.

Why is this important? Well the most obvious is that you could spend a lot of time and money setting up social media accounts only to find that the people you want to reach via these accounts are not using them. So for example, imagine pouring all your energy into a Facebook presence when your audience is actually on MXit, or spending all your time on Twitter when the people you are trying to reach and engage with are actually only blog readers. So understanding how the community around your business is using social technologies is crucial to determining where your presence needs to be.

Besides gaining an understanding of what platforms are being used you also need to have a clear understanding as to how these are being used. So for example, what percentage of the people around your business create regular content online? What percentage engage with content, but don’t create any themselves, who are the “conversationalists” etc. The bottom line is that you need to have a crystal clear picture of the “socialgraphics” of your audience in order for you to be relevant to them. Deciding on the tools you will use before having these insights is putting the cart before the horse and will dramatically impact the success of your initiative.

As mentioned, while doing the work to gain these insights, it will be very important not to ignore your employees in this process. Gaining an understanding of how your team is currently engaging online using social media will stand you in good stead as you develop your strategy. Remember your team will play a vital role in the successful use of social media to reach out to your clients and potential clients.

Which brings us to a very interesting discussion, which will form Part 3 in this series – in order to be successful at using social media in a business context your business needs to be a “social business.” How do you go about ensuring this? What needs to happen internally to have a social culture? Don’t miss Part 3!

A few months ago Justin Scott of  The Airport Magazine approached me to write a series of articles for the magazine on what is involved in developing a social media strategy for your business.  I am republishing these here. Here is Part 1 in the series:

There is no doubt that we are in the middle of a communication revolution being driven by the dramatic changes that have occurred on the internet.  The internet, along with its access via mobile devices has become a rapidly evolving powerful communication platform. Everywhere you turn you read and see stories about the most popular social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and the recently launched Google+ network.  These are hard to avoid.  Since communication is a cornerstone of business this revolution cannot be ignored.

However, in my experience I have seen that many companies throw caution to the wind in the race to join the “social revolution.” The likelihood that you will need to integrate social technology into your business is very strong, even if it is just to communicate more efficiently internally. However, it’s very important to approach this integration strategically.

So how should you proceed with integrating social technologies into your business? There are several very important considerations to make and in Part 1 of the series I want to focus on what I consider to be the starting point. My recommendation is to put the buzz around social media aside and re-look at your business objectives for the next 3 to 5 years. Make sure that those objectives are crystal clear and on the table. Also make sure that you clearly understand what your challenges are or will be in reaching those objectives.  With this clarity you can now begin to look at the tools that will help you achieve your objectives. You are now ready to ask “will social media (or real-time communication) help me to reach these objectives?”

In order to answer this question it will be very important for you and your team to have a working knowledge of the popular social technologies and preferably by using them yourself on a daily basis. If you do not have a working knowledge my suggestion would be to bring your team up to speed by possibly attending a workshop or having an in-house programme so that everyone is clear on what social technologies can and can’t do in your business context.  With this information at hand you can answer the question as to whether social media will in fact assist you in reaching your goal or in overcoming the challenges on the way to doing so.

You need to ensure that the tools you use (including social media if appropriate) assist you to move the needle. It would be pointless to invest time and money (and no,  social media is not free) into the integration of social real-time communication into your business is if this does not help you move your business forward.

Now that you have done this preparatory work you are ready to move onto the next consideration which is understanding how the community around your business is using social technologies. That will be the topic Part 2 in the series.

Yesterday I was catching up on some reading and this post by Richard Evensen caught my eye: “Your Company Will Be Disrupted. What’s Your Plan?”

Richard says:

“Disruption cannot be avoided. Today, rapid changes in technology, customer preferences, competitive capabilities, market dynamics, even government regulations, make continual adaptation a requirement to avoid disruption, which can result in market share and even business loss. Can you help your company prepare for disruption? Even more valuable: Can you help your company be the one that has the insights to disrupt its competitors?”

How are you preparing for rapid change? I’ve noticed that many companies are blind-sided by change. It’s not necessary for that to happen to your company. But as Richard says – you have to have a plan in place! What is yours?

The ability to adapt to change or to be aware of the early signs of change is crucial, and the more agile you are as a business the better you do. Agility is a culture you need to develop in your business. So what can you do to improve your agility? In my experience one of the best ways to do this is to break your reliance on the use of email as a way to communicate internally. Email is not a very effective collaboration tool (and most people have email burnout anyway.) Today’s real-time technologies enable your entire business to access information much quicker than ever before. The faster you can access critical information, the quicker you can make decisions.

This is one area that social technologies have really helped business. If you have several in your team who are tasked with staying up-to-date with the leading edge of your industry and then have those individuals share these insights in a collaborative environment inside your organization, you will increase the ambient awareness of your business and will be able to spot and adjust to coming changes much faster.

Here is an example of what this kind of collaborative software is used for in a business setting:

Image by: domeheid

So between the projects we are working on and a visit to France, Google launched Google+ To be honest my workflow had settled into a really nice grove and had become almost second nature. Until the Google+ launch

After spending lots of time on the platform learning the features and connecting with people and conversations from around the world I realised the need too reevaluate where and how I spend my (finite) time online and where I find the most value for the time spent.

The first area I looked at was how I was using Facebook. Prior to the launch of Google+ I was adding most people who requested friendship (basically because there was no alternative.) This in my view was not how Facebook was intended to be used. So with the launch of Google+ I will be using Facebook for family and close friends and people that I have met in person or engaged with on Facebook prior to the G+ launch. However, I am not accepting requests from people I don’t know any longer. I also brought my friend numbers down based on this criteria.

For those who would like to connect with me on Facebook who don’t fit the above criteria, I am encouraging to connect either on Social Media IQ’s Facebook Page or on my Google+ profile (and if you require an invite I have several invites available here.

Twitter has now essentially become a platform where I follow industry news and other niche interests I have using the platform’s list feature. The 140-char limit is good for that and I see this staying this way for some time. It’s my real-time RSS feed. Prior to Google+ I used Twitter to engage in some conversation but conversing in 140-char is challenging at best.

Google+ has however quickly become the network where I can connect with the world at large. I am finding massive value from being on the network. The ability to interact with industry leaders and to engage in conversations which happen in a stream (as on Facebook) is very efficient. Add to this the fact that Google is beginning to surface public updates made on Google+ into their search engine makes this an environment not to be taken lightly. Once Google opens business pages on Google+ I see that businesses will find massive value from having a presence here both from a social and SEO perspective.

My social media time-split looks something like this:

• Listening (Google+; Google Reader; Twitter) 30%
• Google+ 60%
• Facebook 10%

How about you? Where are you spending your time online?

Google has just introduced the Google+ Project here is an overview of each of the elements – this is one of Google’s boldest attempt to get social right. It also illustrates that this stuff is not easy and requires some serious thought to get right. If you have a Google Profile you can request an invite.

What do you think?

I was meaning to publish this post on Friday but was distracted by events in Cape Town – which may have been a blessing in disguise as I have had some time to reflect on Day 2 of the programme.

The programme on Thursday was packed with case studies from companies like Nike, Deloitte, JSE, Groupon and Associated Magazines to name a few.

It was interesting to see how each business had essentially reached the conclusion that any social media initiative cannot be done in isolation but should be integrated into all business functions from marketing to research to sales to customer support.

This is the course of wisdom.

Edelman’s CEO Richard Edelman is credited with what is called “The Media Cloverleaf” which highlights four distinct spheres of media which should all be utilized by a business or brand to engage the public on a regular basis.

Steve Rubel EVP of Global Strategy and Insights for Edelman described these as follows at a Mashable Connect event recently:

• Traditional media encompasses the big media companies that have “survived and thrived.” This includes radio, TV and print media outlets.
• “Tradigital” media includes “digitally native media companies that are largely blogs, sometimes niche-focused, sometimes horizontal.” These outlets are characterized by having high social amplification, SEO sophistication and sometimes a blur between advertising and editorial.
• Owned media was defined by Rubel via a quote from Andy Heyward, former President of CBS News: “Every company can be a media company.” This is the idea that every brand can create valuable content.
• Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are driving increased engagement with brands and increased traffic to the other media spheres.

For me the presentations on Day 2 highlighted that unless businesses look at the big picture (ie how this relates to everything else the organization is doing) when integrating social media then dealing with the business can feel incongruent. As Steve Rubel pointed out “Consumers see these media channels as one, not as four distinct areas.”

Kemi Benjamin Brand Manager of Nike (pictured here below with us) also explored the concept of outsourcing social media and explained that outsourcing often impacts the speed of response and the ability to translate insights from social media into business insights which is why Nike has their social media “leaf” in house.

To me Day 2 could be summed up with: 1) consider the “cloverleaf” when integrating social media into daily business functions to ensure that the story you tell is congruent. 2) ensure engagement on social platforms leads to insights that help you evolve your business. The closer this engagement is to the people in your business that make those kinds of decisions the easier it will be to use the insights to make the necessary changes and 3) “superficial” use of social media is not an option.