Practices: Best Practices in Online Engagement

I wanted to share my slides from a "Best Practices in Online Engagement" presentation I delivered last Thursday, October 8, at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Kansas City. I was part of a three-person panel on social media best practices with Virginia Miracle of Ogilvy PR and IBM's Rebecca Butler.

As with many of my presentations, the slides are mostly images that are meant to complement the stories that I'm telling; they aren't always meaningful when viewed in isolation, outside the event. To help, I'm including some of my speaking notes as they correspond to the individual slides. I've also turned most of the slide images above into links.

Slide 2
I knew I had a friendly audience in Kansas City when my remark about the Red Sox cap draw a thunderous applause from several attendees. Sports fandom can be good for business, because it offers an immediate human point in comon. A few hours after my presentation, in fact, I was watching the Red Sox-Angels playoff game with a fellow former New Englander.

Slide 3
So what shouldn't be rocket science about engaging with customers in social media but yet is often forgotten: being genuinely helpful, being around before the sale, not force-feeding marketing messages down someone's throat in an online community or online social network. It's an argument Chris Brogan makes all the time.

Slide 4
Mitch Joel is one of the very best content marketers I know. When he blogs and podcasts, he rarely--if ever--talks about his own company's services and projects. Instead, he serves as a voice and resource for his industry of digital marketing. He becomes the thoughtful, insightful marketer that we want to do business with. This approach has helped Mitch's agency, Twist Image, to grow and thrive in recent years.

Slides 5-6
We don't really talk to brands. We talk to the people who work for those brands. When I want to talk to Ford, I hunt down Scott Monty.

Slide 7
More brands should consider employing or talking to someone like Jeremy Pepper to help them find and express their social voice. A big reason why corporate blogs lie at the bottom of the trust ladder is their blandess and lack of any real opinion. Jeremy Pepper? He certainly ain't bland, and he isn't shy about writing what he really thinks.

Slide 8
Chase Jarvis is a professional photographer who understands the importance of giving back to his community online. This screenshot comes from a "story behind the story" video answering blog reader and Facebook fan questions about how Chases uses a tripod. It was recorded on the set of Chase's recent photo shoot in New Zealand.

Slide 9
How does a brand like Starbucks show that it's really listening to its customers and fans? By reporting back on the progress of suggestions submitted through the My Starbucks Ideas site.  The Mini Starbucks Card was one of the first community-generated ideas carried through to production, and this announcement from Chuck Davidson has become one of the community's most highly-trafficked and interacted-on posts.

Slide 10
eBay (disclosure: a LiveWorld client) runs a program called Voices for some 150 power members in its online communities. These members are included in communications--and their feedback is sought and incorporated--for potential new eBay products and changes to the community. The result? A "small army" of brand advocates, according to our conversations with eBay.

Slide 11
Businesses and brands need to set "house rules"--for their digital properties. These could take the form of a comment policy on a blog or easy-to-find community standards in a destination community and outline what is acceptable/unacceptable behavior/commentary/etc.

Slide 12
What's one option in a community or social channel where long-time members have "poisoned" the well and are unwelcoming and downright unhelpful to newcomers? Firing those members. It's a risky tactic but sometimes a necessary one to ensure the community's long-term survival.

Slide 13
This is Bill Johnston's graphical representation of the "presence framework" that Chris Brogan laid out earlier this year. It indicates the importance of creating a digital "home base" (corporate website, corporate blog, etc.) while also connecting with customers and community members in other distributed social channels ("outposts" and "passports" across the social web) across the social media landscape.

Slides 14-15
The presence framework in action: examples of Chase Jarvis's outposts--his Twitter account (@ChaseJarvis) and Facebook Page.

Slides 16-17
Possible to give back to your community on the most "boring subject imaginable" and generate substantial revenue in the process? Christopher S. Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast has demonstrated that it is!