Given that in four days I will have officially been at my current job for three years – god, has it really been that long? – I feel it’s only appropriate to start ramping up this blog again after almost a year of neglect.

And let me tell you, a lot has happened in this past year.  For starters, my company is almost entirely under new management.  Most important to me was the induction of a new VP of marketing back in, oh, May of this year, and from that, the creation of a proper marketing “team,” the likes of which I hadn’t seen in quite some time.  With others handling the stuff that used to take up much of my time – organizing trade shows, for example – I was free to nestle into my role as the company’s Online Marketing Manager.

Some of you might recall a few of the posts I wrote last fall (1 | 2 | 3) that dealt with the ever-present problem of companies not taking advantage of all that social media has to offer.  Quite frankly, while back then I was definitely pushing for the creation of a social media plan, I found myself falling into the same scenario to which Paul Chaney alludes in his post yesterday, entitled “Social Media in Organizations: What Happens When You’re the Only One Talking?“  That is to say, my social media efforts did more to boost my own personal brand than my company’s.

Buuut … things have changed now.  Our VP of marketing is very, very open to the use of social media as a marketing tool, and I presented him with a plan for the next six months that includes, among other venues, current statistics, strategy going forward, and metrics for our company website and blog (yes, we finally have a blog after months of me yipping about it!), Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and so forth.

Look for a string of posts to appear in the next few weeks regarding social media marketing best practices.  I’m looking forward to getting this show back on the road!

From the early days of the ‘Net and its accompanying social media outlets, people have had an avid interest in status messages.  Let’s face it: people are nosy and want to know what others are doing.  This in turn led to the influx of blogging, which was a means of answering the “what are you doing” question in a much more wordy format.  In this day and age, time is much more of a luxury for most people, and Twitter has taken its position as the mid-way point between, say, a Facebook status message and a LiveJournal post about a wedding one just attended.

For those of you who are still unaware of what Twitter actually is, think of it as a micro-blogging tool by which you can write whatever you want, to be seen by your “followers,” in 140 characters or less.  For many people, this is merely a prettier way of saying, “Oh, man, I ate the most wicked meatball sub today at ABC Diner in Philly,” but for others, it has become one of the foremost networking and information-sharing outlets available today.

Because of the latter, companies are beginning to jump on the Twitter bandwagon as a means of marketing their products or services.  Each of these companies takes its own tailor-made approach to its Twitter efforts, which tends to utilize a mixture of four specific methods.

Broadcast company news and events.

This is the most “marketing-esque” of all the methods mentioned, plus the most transparent, so I’m mentioning it first.  You’ve seen the type: @mycompanyname posts one or two tweets per day with a press release headline, an upcoming seminar the company is hosting, a new service offering, etc.  For people already emotionally invested in your brand, this is reason enough to follow your company on Twitter.  For others, there is little incentive to follow if this is all that you do with your account.

Provide customer service/support.

By utilizing search.twitter.com, Twitter’s internal search engine, as well as sites like Twilert, which sends you daily digests of tweets written that day with your chosen keywords, companies can track everything being said about their products or services on Twitter.  Because of this, a number of companies have jumped into Twitter as a customer service outlet.  JetBlue and Comcast are great examples of how to do this appropriately.  Both Twitter accounts offer quick responses to customer inquiries without being too marketing-esque, and, as a result, have each acquired 6000-plus followers.  An randomly-chosen tweet from JetBlue is below, and I think it’s a great example of how to quickly and effortlessly appease one’s customers.

JetBlue @cyclelicious @Hops11 The cost for checking a bike is $50 domestic and $80 international, and must be in a proper case: http://is.gd/bdne

Promote new offers/discounts/sales.

Some companies rely heavily on tweets that advertise upcoming sales, online-only discounts, and new products.  The primary mission here is to earn money more rapidly than one would if he or she ignored this particular methods.  Dell has a number of Twitter accounts, including @DellOutlet, @DellHomeOffers, and @DellSmBizOffers that only include tweets about sales and offers, which is perfect for those potential customers who want to find good deals on new products.

Build a community around your brand.

One of the premier reasons for using social media in your marketing activities is to build a community around your company’s products and/or services.  In one of my previous posts, I emphasized some of the top things a company must consider while setting up its social media marketing efforts, a few of which are:

• It’s called “social” media for a reason.  Have a conversation.
• Remember what your parents told you about the importance of sharing.
• Scratch their backs, and they’ll scratch yours.
• Honesty is the best policy, and, no, they don’t all like you.
• Provide valuable, useful content that is going to attract a targeted market.

I elaborate more on each of those points and the others in Building the Social Media Marketing Foundation, but it’s important to note that they do apply in the case of Twitter as well.  Building a thriving, vocal community is the holy grail of social media marketing, and it’s probably the hardest goal to achieve.  Ensure your tweets are a healthy mixture of the aforementioned three points, with many, many conversations with your Twitter followers thrown in.  Remember: it’s not all about your company.  Be objective sometimes; mention a blog post that applies to your industry as a whole and perhaps doesn’t even mention you but which applies to your target audience, for example.  Answer questions asked by people who don’t follow you, and don’t insist that they follow you once you’ve given them that information.  Once you’ve mastered the art of projecting an image of honesty, caring, and usefulness with your tweets, your followers will come, and your company will be well on its way to a successful marketing effort with Twitter.

• 16 Examples of Huge Brands Using Twitter for Business
• Building the Social Media Marketing Foundation
• List of 10 People to Unfollow on Twitter

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that many of the executives I’ve met just don’t get the whole social media thing.  Their concerns range from fear of the unknown, to discomfort with potential and current customers being a little too candid, to hesitation with creating something whose ROI they can’t measure in the typical black and white manner.

I don’t know if this is a typical attitude for Generation-X’ers, but in the midst of a tumbling world economy and a transformation from old forms of advertising to new, social media is more important than ever.  And it might just be you who needs to prove that to your bosses.

Have specific goals in mind.

You have used integrated marketing campaigns in the past; what were you trying to achieve with those?  Do you want to simply increase web site traffic?  Do you want more conversions on your web site?  Do you want your name to show up in major online publications?  Figure out what you want to achieve, and plan accordingly.  Then show the boss your ideas.

Be one step ahead of your boss.

I was recently asked about the potential for a blog on our web site, which is based in Java and therefore is not compatible with standard installations of Wordpress, for example.  Instead, I had chatted with a colleague earlier to find out about open source, Java-based blogging platforms, and was quick to bring up Roller as an option for us.  By having an option already in your back pocket prior to speaking with your boss, you save your boss from hemming and hawing about how your company “wouldn’t know where to begin,” thus delaying things further.

Stress the low cost.

I’m not saying that social media is free.  One must consider the fact that social media marketing, if done right, can be extremely time consuming – and in this day and age, time is money.  But many bosses are more concerned with specific dollar amounts, which is where social media really shines.  As far as finance is concerned, if you aren’t spending large amounts of money, you’re doing a fine job.  And in this poor economy, not spending money is going to sound pretty darn good to your superiors.

Give real-life examples of how social media has worked for other companies.

You know the value of social media for business; otherwise this wouldn’t be an issue for you at all.  But you can’t very well expect to convince anyone of the many merits of using social media as a marketing tool if you have nothing to back it up.  If you’re in the food industry, cite Coca-Cola’s use of Mentos in YouTube videos to send its sales of Diet Coke skyrocketing.  If you’re in the Internet services industry, refer to HubSpot’s fast-paced growth over the last year thanks to its blogs, webcasts, and “Grader” toolset.  Dell has an entire island dedicated to its products on Second Life, and Starbucks has both Facebook and Twitter pages to connect with its community.  It is important that your boss sees success stories with regard to companies in your particular sector or industry to further bolster your arguments.

Prove it.

Especially if you work in a small company, there is no harm in doing some small-scale experiments to prove to your boss that social media marketing really can work.  If you don’t have a PR team or communications pro that is accustomed to doing so, take it upon yourself to respond to blog posts about your company.  Digg or Stumble articles that reflect your company favorably.  Start a Twitter account that allows you to deliver and intermix objective articles about your industry while slipping in an invitation to a company webcast here and there, for example.  Once you have something going, something solid, you’ll have a lot more pull when you finally talk to your boss.

For those of you who do use social media marketing in your company, and were the champions of such an act, how did you sell the idea to your boss?  Did you address his fears (consumers with not-so-flattering things to say about your company), or did you focus on his practical side (cutting costs)?

Special thanks to @RichBecker, @ChristySeason, and @candyhog for their feedback!

• Building the Social Media Marketing Foundation
• Should My Company Join the Social Media Revolution?
• Social Media and the Marketing Opportunity

I opened the new issue of Wired today to an article, the title of which caught my attention immediately:

Kill Your Blog

The author, Paul Boutin, seems to be under the impression that blogs are, well, so 2004.  Now, apparently, “the blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge.”

One could see this as true.  He references Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs, all of which are corporate and/or professional blogs making a tidy yearly sum from advertising.  The era of personal, one-writer blogs may appear to have been pushed aside in favor of blogs that have multi-person staffs working twenty-four hours a day to deliver the most valuable content to their readers.

But to be completely honest, I’m not convinced.  I rarely visit the sites that have 5+ posts per day.  Why?  For one thing, I just don’t have the time to keep up with all of it.  Who with a full-time job and a personal life does?  Additionally, the information provided seems less valuable to me than that in single-person shops.  Some of the biggest blogs in the world spit out content constantly, making them, essentially, online newspapers.  I can set up Google alerts for the headlines on any particular topic without having to trudge through paragraphs of news.  No, I find much more value in poignant, thought-out posts from individuals who a) know and honor their blog’s focus and b) take the time to research, ponder, and analyze what they are about to present to the world.

For me, as a marketeer and young professional, this is why luminaries such as Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, and Penelope Trunk keep me coming back.  They don’t spew out superficial content, but rather provide information combined with references and anecdotes … the kind of juicy stuff you don’t get with these money-grabbing assembly lines.

I do not think anyone should go out right now and disband his or her blog.  Ignore your Technorati rank for a second and look inside of your community.  Do you have “regulars,” or people who continue to return to your site?  Are many people subscribed to you via RSS or email?  Is your comments section a haven for discussion, arguments, and debate?  My goal would be to answer all of those questions with a yes. This is the value for me as a blogger.  My aspirations as a blogger – and I realize I’m very, very early in the game here with this particular blog – is not to earn $75,000 per year because of some well-placed advertising.  I’m happy knowing that I give people something to think about, whether they agree with it or not.

Twitter is heralded in the Wired article as being “to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004.”  One cannot deny its influence on the Internet and, specifically, the Web 2.0 world as we know it.  From Barack Obama to Britney Spears to Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco, ‘tweeting’ has become a great means of communicating with particular communities because it’s so fast.  It takes a fraction of the time to write a thought that is 140 characters versus putting together four or five paragraphs for a blog post.  I love Twitter.  I think it’s a brilliant tool to connect with one’s community as well as to follow others who provide you with ideas that you find useful.

But it won’t stop me from reading blogs, and I don’t think it will render blogs obsolete.  As much as people say that information-gathering needs to be quicker and briefer to compliment the fast-past life in which we all live, someone will always find a need to go a little deeper into a thought, an idea, or a concept – and that’s where these speciality, individual bloggers come in.

Keep it up, guys!  Boutin may not agree with it, but I’m still reading … and if you got this far, apparently you are too.