Should you run a User-Generated Content (UGC) promotion on Facebook or a dedicated microsite?

Here’s the deal. In support of an upcoming campaign, we’re considering a UGC promotion. I’m torn whether it should be conducted entirely within Facebook, or if we should build a microsite to host it.

The market is local (Winnipeg), so broad reach is less important than participant’s social influence on each other.

Desired outcomes include brand awareness, engagement, and viral sharing. The lurkers—people who don’t contribute content, but passively receive it through sharing—are almost as important as the participants.

Facebook seems like fish in a barrel (easier to reach because they’re right there), whereas a microsite seems like fish in the ocean (more of them who travel farther).

What do you think? Is it a better idea to run a UGC promotion inside of Facebook, using the built-in network & functionality there, or would you build a destination to aggregate submissions & let people share from there? Please comment below whether you favour Facebook or a  microsite, why, and if I’m overlooking anything.

Social Objects: branded content, understanding & brandvocacy

In preparation for my new job as United Way of Winnipeg‘s Interactive & Social Media Engagement Manager, I’ve been reading a few of the current SoMe classics, including Brian Solis’ Engage!

I’ve heard Brian reference “social objects” on his blog, and I’d already come to the conclusion that brands will be better understood in the social world by creating and spreading content of their own, as opposed to just listening and participating in existing conversations.

As part of my engagement strategy I’m going to produce simple videos that convey just how important and life-changing the programs United Way supports are to the people who use them. There are a thousand amazing stories out there, and I believe that if people just heard them, they’d be moved to donate—whether for intellectual or emotional reasons.

These stories, in social media marketing terms, are “social objects”—ideas around which people who care can congregate, comment, and share to their networks.

Here’s my conception of a social object creating “brandvocates”—fans advocating your organization’s work:

1] Content is published to the social web. 2] It sparks conversation, creating a perception of the brand in people’s minds. 3] People share the content & their newfound understanding of the brand that produced it.

And here’s a more structured version of Brian’s idea, showing the journey from content to conversation, to enhanced brand perception and brandvocacy:

Perhaps Brian will drop by and tell me if I’ve got the concept down!

Branding is out of our hands, PR becomes the new content nexus

BP’s brand disaster is as large and ill-contained as its oil disaster. The popularity of @BPGlobalPR, a guerilla attack on BP’s lame brand disaster mitigation PR, shines a light on the death of brand in the age of social media.

“Branding” is a strategy to differentiate your product/org. To set it apart through look, experience, and “serendipitous” appearances in news (earned media) and awareness (advertising) streams.

What does “branding” mean when people disregard messaging? It means your product/org is judged based on its actions and public opinion thereof. Client-facing communications—marketing communications, PR, and brand interactions like special events—now need to centre on giving people something good to talk about.

• Offering quality interactions (a great product, a great time, great customer service)
• Inviting people to participate (cool projects that spark the imagination while repaying the community)
• Communicating the successes of the brand (allowing brandvocates to tell their stories)

PR is now being thought of as a strategic content creation and dissemination tool. Shaping the brand through word-of-finger.

A social media crisis of faith

Facebook. I used to love you, but I had to kill you.

Whether there’s a Facebook exodus come May 31 or not, I have really sobered up to the whole MySpace/Friendster/’it was the style at the time’ social network fad issue. I didn’t believe in it until now. I mean, I knew intellectually that once upon a time MySpace got cool and then uncool, but was sure that could never happen to Facebook. They have half a billion users, for pity’s sake. Like 1/16th of the earth. What could happen to bugger that up?

Facebook’s recent PR shitstorm has largely played out among the digerati, and my sense is that the Average User will continue tending their Farmville real estate come the end of May, oblivious to arcane issues of private data and opt-outs and personalization. That may come to pass, but my faith has been badly shaken.

Like a spooked investor, I see the danger of putting all your eggs in one basket. Building a large Facebook following—instead of a more robust social strategy—could be an unfortunate resource sinkhole, should the bubble burst and the massive social network hustle itself right out of business.

Let’s be proactive and pretend, for a minute, that Facebook is on its last legs as a home for brands.

What’s a marketer to do? Here are some ideas for staying afloat in an uncertain social future.

Diversify your assets

If your core contribution is viral content, spread it out. Use Facebook to point fans to content and foster discussion there, but use YouTube and your own blog/site to host the original stuff. If you’ve just been riding the wave so far and not really developing your own content to share, get busy.

Make real friends & find out where else they hang out

You should already be doing this, but be sure to engage your active Facebook commenters to the point where you feel you really know each other. Google ‘em and follow them on Twitter or on their own blogs. Make the relationship bigger than Facebook, which will help make it deeper anyway. Should a new network arise to take FB’s place, these will be the people you’ll refriend.

Host an IRL event pronto

Get your social scene out and mingling for real as soon as possible. If you’re a non-profit, stage a volunteer event. If you’re a small business, invite people over for a (insert product here) tasting or a workshop. Move the virtual to real life now. This capitalizes on the work you’ve done so far. The point of meeting these people online was to take them to the next level of interaction with your business anyway.

Insource the connections you’ve made

Got an email newsletter, a mailing list, an inhouse CRM strategy? Migrate your new bffs to your own platform. Bring them into the fold. Throw them a discount if you can, and try to attach them to your brand’s inner circle. If you’ve got your own communication strategy running parallel, now would be a good time to solidify subscribers drawn from your FB fans. Invite them personally.

Nonprofits & new media: Winnipeg’s Siloam Mission connects with the community through social media

Siloam Mission, a Winnipeg non-profit offering services to people experiencing homelessness, has done an amazing job reaching out to the community through social media.

Blair Barkeley, Siloam’s Website and Social Media Coordinator, has been a “connecting point between the compassionate and Winnipeg’s less fortunate”, and I chatted with him about his experience.

Unfortunately Blair, along with 17 other staff at Siloam, was laid off “due to a 15 to 25 percent decrease in donations and public support”. Today is his last day, and I’m sorry to see this channel of public outreach temporarily lost.

You can donate to Siloam Mission right here.

Q. Siloam Mission is using many social media channels (Larry Updike’s blog, Facebook, Twitter, Twestival, YouTube). Where did that social media savvy come from? Was a it a directive from management that resulted in a social engagement hire, or did a young person with a digital skill set come on board and bring the idea to the CEO? Was there an identified need to engage with Winnipeggers (either in the online space, or just in general)?

Blair Barkeley: Siloam’s social media savvy actually came from both. A web & social media position was created by management for the very purpose to get into the whole social media world and start connecting with new people and new possible supporters. And then I was hired to fill the position.

My job and goal was to engage with people online and starting entering the new social media phenomenon so that Siloam Mission could capture a whole new rage of supporters. Read the rest of this entry »

Cooperation makes it happen. Working together. Dig it?

Early on in the web, the people who made websites were those who were technically inclined and skilled with coding. Once the commercial web was up and running, around the turn of the century (mindblowing, eh?), it became apparent that ecommerce didn’t just need to function – web design was a form of marketing communication, and it turned out the job of designing sites was a graphic design situation. People with an understanding of formal design, communication, and visual persuasion took their rightful place and the UI/UX designer was born. Only now do you see complex coding not in the job description of designers, as employers recognize the distinction between the two skill sets.

Something similar is afoot in the realm of social media. Among the backlash against the glut of gurus, ninjas, and wizards, there is an emerging skill set that has little to do with understanding the difference between an API and an IPO. Enter the socialites.

I’m reading Tara Hunt‘s The Whuffie Factor, and in it she details the physical extent she went to in order to properly market a startup. She moved to new city—a new country, in fact—and her network and reputation there were small. To forge relationships that could be brought online, Tara went out every single night, sometimes to a few places, to meet people in real life. Socializing, if you will.

I’m doing a series of interviews with filmmakers like Melissa Pierce on fundraising creative projects through social media, and repeatedly the story that unfolds is one of real life relationships going online. Face to face, or at least a mediated one to one, making people’s acquaintance and cooperating to do something mutually beneficial.

The social medium is probably finished being the message, except in terms of impressing customers that you’re meeting them on their terms. It’s time to get down to what social media makes so easy: people meeting, expressing interest in each other’s projects, sharing neat stuff, and helping each other out when we can.

This is why social media can never be put on an agency’s deliverables checklist. It takes time. It takes personal investment. It’s a network buzzing around individuals. It’s social capital (the new kind, not the classic kind) that’s lost when individuals leave organizations.

I’ve asserted before that orgs should seek out staff with large personal networks. Influence can’t be bought, only built over time by building trust.

Trust is why we shouldn’t despair that social media is being ruined by marketing. The positive energy required to build community is self-perpetuating and forces companies to toe the line. No one’s going to build a giant network one friendship at a time only to serve them spam when they come over for dinner.

The gurus who totally get Twitter lists can now give way to the friendly, helpful, interesting, genuine people who intuitively understand that cooperation and friendships are the best way to get where we’re going.

Social Butterflies: Adele McAlear on women in social media

Next in a series of interviews with female Canadian social media stars! The premise, which you can read about here, investigates how women act towards each other in the quest to be head social butterfly.

Today we welcome Adele McAlear, a Montreal marketer who’s feminist street cred includes being the founding Executive Director of the Vancouver chapter of DigitalEve International, a non-profit organization for women in technology. She also contributes to Technically Women.

In almost 3 years of working in social media, I’ve had overwhelmingly good experiences with women being supportive and helping each other to get ahead. There have been one or two instances that were a little less than pleasant, but I’m willing to chalk those up to people just having a bad day. (Or perhaps I don’t want to bring down the whole gender for the rare instance where all was not smooth.)

For myself, I will help people, regardless of gender, whom I believe are genuine and who treat me with respect. I won’t  go out of my way to help people when I’m made to feel like I’m simply a stepping stone to get someone else. You know, the people who look through you to the next person up the food chain as they stare blankly with a false smile. But, I’ve had that feeling from both men and women, so I don’t think that it’s gender-specific.

I’ve found fewer instances of the “Old Boys” club in social media, but it’s still alive and kicking. I was trying to think of why more people of both genders follow men and I think it comes down to men being perceived as more influential in business. Like the concepts of fame begetting fame; of men making more money than women for the same job, of why women pay more at the dry cleaners.

That said, I have some great cheerleaders who are men. And I have some who are women. I think that my experiences in social media are really just a reflection of society at large.