Let's cut our colleagues some slack

It has become very fashionable to write blog posts that are critiques of the way some company has mis-managed a social media crisis. The general premise of these posts is that the social media manager/team has mismanaged things and that if they only had the insight of this particular social media "guru" then things would have worked out perfectly. I'm a little tired of it, and here's why.

There's something missing from these critiques. Reality. 

Most of the time I read these posts I have to think that the person writing has never actually been involved in social media in the real world. If they had then they would know that reality isn't the perfect world they've constructed in their review. Things get in the way of even the most perfect plans. Things like budgets, time constraints, overzealous legal teams and more. Yet to make a "good" review none of these things are considered and it's often assumed that the community manager (or social media director or whoever manages social for the company) has made mistakes in their handling of the situation.

The problem is that even if the social media manager has a perfect plan in place and is ideally situated to respond to whatever crisis may arise, there are always other factors. Perhaps there are posts on your Facebook wall that really should be responded to immediately. But what if the situation is still developing and the CEO has ordered that nothing goes out to the public without her approval? Maybe there's 25 new blog posts about the crisis. Obviously the manager should be monitoring and responding as appropriate. But what if the social media manager is also responsible for talking to the media and is completely occupied with that?

In an ideal world each company would have a huge team of social media and community managers with an unlimited budget and an executive team that totally gets "it." Unfortunately, that's not the case. Yet how often do we see someone pointing out each little flaw in a response as if the person running things was a complete idiot?

Here's what I propose. Stop assuming that everyone is an idiot. Start giving people the benefit of the doubt. In the real world you don't always have time to plan things a week in advance. In the real world there's not always the budget the social media manager would like. In the real world the person (yup, often just one person) tasked with monitoring may be stuck in meetings for a couple of hours while tweets are flying about them.

Even huge companies with entire social media teams have their limitations. The point is the person writing the critique has no idea what's going on behind the scenes.

Yes, I understand that we can learn things from evaluating what others have done. I don't think we have to stop learning and critiquing. Let's just do the community a favor and give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes while we're looking at their response. No, it may not generate the same link bait headlines we're used to but it might lead to a more valuable discussion in the end.

(No, I've never had one of these critiques written about me that I know of. However, I have been involved in crisis management response for an incident that made international headlines and I know first-hand that the text book response isn't always possible.)

What do you think? Am I off base? Do these people deserve to get slammed for their crisis handling? 

Ask not what your community can do for you...

Last week I attended SearchFest here in Portland. There were a ton of great sessions on search engine marketing and social media. I learned a lot over the course of the day but my favorite session was the closing keynote.

Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive in Philadelphia spoke on the difference between what Google tells us will work for search and what actually works. His final point, and the one that really stuck with me was to make a point of helping someone out every single day.

He was speaking specifically about those in your online community but this of course could apply offline as well. He gave examples of help he's received from others and benefits that come back to him when he does something to help those in his community.

There are great benefits to helping people out online. It can help strengthen your position as a community manager, it can encourage others to return the favor and it can make it clear to others that you're a good resource for the community. 

However, I don't think that any of those things were the main point to Wil's presentation. I think the main point was that we should be doing this because it's good for the overall health of the community. When we answer someone's questions or give them advice on a problem it can come back to help that individual but it echos throughout the community. Others may be looking for the same information later and it will serve to aid them as well. Other community members will also be encouraged to pitch in when they see that it's needed. Eventually the group as a whole will be stronger, more vibrant and a better experience for all involved.

This is true if it's a community of SEO professionals as Wil was talking about or if it's on your favorite local forum. I've seen it many times on forums where I've been active. Those that put the most into the discussion boards and helping others out are the ones that reap the most benefits. Those benefits can be visitors to their businesses or in connecting with like-minded people offline. 

But again, the main point isn't about the individual benefits. The best reason to help those around you is to strengthen the overall community. That will come back to help you and everyone else involved.

I'll post a follow-up about a few ways to find people that need help in the next few days.

Great roundup of tools for search and social marketers (not my list)

Last week I attended SearchFest from SEMpdx. It was an awesome day crammed full of all the search engine marketing and social media information my mind could handle. 

One of my favorite presentations of the day was from Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz. He ran through a list of 50 tools to help solve your marketing problems. He's been generous enough to post the presentation, check it out on the SEOmoz website. Check it out, you'll find a ton of great information.

What's the most effective measure of ROI in social media?

Last week I attended a webinar on social media strategy from Radian6. The webinar was hosted by Christopher Barger who is well qualified to present a topic like this with his background in social media consulting and gave an excellent presentation.  

During the webinar Christopher asked the group to give their answer to the question, "What is the most effective measure of social media success or ROI and why?" I was anxious to answer the question because  I don't always agree with the opinions I hear on ROI and because the 10 best answers would receive a free copy of Christopher's new book.

So here's my answer, noncommittal as it may be:

"There’s no one answer, it totally depends on the business and their goals. If your goal is to drive traffic to your blog then the measure is traffic from social referrals and SERP rankings. If your goal is customer service then it’s # of questions or disputes resolved. If your goal is to drive sales then it’s revenue from social contacts. You have to base your measurement on your goals in social media."

In the world of social media strategy we're getting past the idea that value is measured in the number of followers or likes and account has, and that's a good thing. However, there are still a lot of people that are too quick to tell others how to measure their ROI. They'll say that you can measure based on the revenue generated or the number of interactions on a particular social network. Those answers aren't necessarily wrong but they are short-sighted. The point of my answer to the question above is that you can't tell someone how to measure their ROI without looking at their goals for social. 

ROI is important, even (or maybe especially) in social media. There are dozens of reasons to be present and active on various social networks and there are just as many ways to measure ROI. Whether you're there to monitor and steer conversations or drive leads to your ecommerce site the important thing is to start with clear goals and then determine how you'll measure success along the way.

And in case you're wondering, yes, my answer was featured on their blog and I did win a free book. Thanks Christopher. 

Don't Be "That Guy"

A recent interaction on Twitter left me baffled and annoyed. I replied to a user about a link that he retweeted. He responded with confusion and after three tweets he finally figured out what I was talking about. Turns out he didn't even read the link in his retweet. So of course when I wanted to discuss it he had nothing to add to the conversation. Worse still he told me to contact the original poster if I wanted to discuss the link.

It's easy to jump in to social media and start throwing out links and working on increasing your follower count. However, in social media, just as in the real world, you have to be accountable for your actions. You're only as good as your reputation, whether you're running an account for your business or just for personal use. If people learn they can't trust you to be authentic or accountable then your relationship will be over. Sure you might be able to dupe a bunch of people into following you but the relationships that will actually pay off in the social media world won't be there without accountability.