All in Social Media

Old school marketing tactics are needed to pump up your social media presenceour a brand manager and those non-tech types keep telling you that they want your company on Facebook. They want videos and they want whatever that Twitter thing is.

What they don't know is that their old school mentality is exactly what's needed to get the new school mentality going.

What I mean is that social media isn't a field a dreams. If you build it, they won't come. You need to listen to the questions of the guy in the field, i.e. your audience. Get at the heart of what they're asking for and give them what they need.

However, just like Ray Kinsela (played by Kevin Costner), you have to do your homework and use all the tools in your arsenal to get the people to "show up."

Sometimes you have to put in your boots; somtimes you dont.As PR professionals, we’re trained to think about worst case scenarios and are continually learning and testing strategies and tactics that will help our clients address any crisis situation -- no matter how severe the facts and brand risks may be.

While some of the tactics we employ are just as viable today as they were 10 years ago, including strong, clear messaging, other tactics aren’t, such as relying on traditional media to tell your story.

As counselors, we have to be on our toes more than ever today because of the share of voice and influence that social media channels can create on any given day, at any given time and around any given issue.

Take what’s happening to Nestle for example.

Diss-like Facebook Friends?With 400+ million people on Facebook, it's just a matter of time that segments of your life will intersect. Your friends will interact with your co-workers; your clients will interact with your high school buddies; and, the people you barely talked to in college are all of a sudden BFF's with your family.

So, as 400+ million people will attest to, Facebook is now a potluck of friendships.

I have nearly 600 "friends" on Facebook, and to be honest, I interact frequently with about 10% of that group. I'm sure it's the same for you as well.

With the volume of people we are friending vs. the amount we actually interact with, issues that happen in real relationships can bubble over into online relationships, and ultimately, exposing some ugliness of people you know, you work with, are associated with, etc.

Gmail users are used a lot of little add-ons that make the experience of regular email much richer than other web-based solutions.

At the same time, they are used to the slew of ads that pop up in the right hand side of the page. While blended into the experience, it's still advertising.

Why not remove the ads and replace it with social content related to the sender of the email you're reading?

That's the premise behind a new tool making the social web rounds called Rapportive.

One of the best gigs I ever had was working as a reporter for the Boston Globe. I worked with ton of talented writers and good people. One of them was Mike Dilorenzo, who is now the the NHL's point person on all things social media. He spent some time on the agency side, blogs frequently and is all over Twitter. He and his team have helped the NHL build a stronger fan base with the help of social media tools.

Here is an interview I did with Mike, asking him about their use of social media and the progress they've made from a brand awareness perspective.