Using social media for niche business - have your cake and eat it

I'm always looking out for stories of niche business using social media to drive customer engagement and/or increase sales, so I was interested to learn via The Marketing Donut of two groups using Flickr to increase conversation around cake making and cupcakes. "Cupcakes!?", I hear you question. Well, yes. And you know what, I can see why social media would work for this product. Indulge me.

Who is using Flickr for cupcake indulgence?

The two groups are Cake Biz UK and Cakes UK Style, set up by Karen Labett of Tasty Little Cakes and Svarna Singh of The Little Cakery. If you check the founders' websites, you'll see that social media is an important part of their business with prominent links on the homepage to profiles.

Why is social media relevant?

Making cakes is fun yet challenging. I know from many hours spent as a kid trashing my grandma's kitchen in search of the perfect fruit cake. It is also a social activity because cakes are made to share and deep down, when cooking most of us want to know we've done well, so feedback and discussion is important.

Unless you're an expert, it's also hard to know the best way to bake a cake, how to blend the ingredients and how to get organised. This is where the advice of a wider community is valuable - we've all got some experience but there's nowhere to access the communal perspective.

Furthermore, when planning what to bake for your next gathering, you want to know what it's going to look like. The aesthetics of cake making should not be under-valued, a good looking cake catches the eye. Inspiration is often hard to come by, so tapping into the creative suggestions of other enthusiasts can be highly beneficial.

So, information gathering, sharing and visualisation are important. This is where social media ticks the boxes and Flickr is the perfect fit.

What value does Flickr add to the community?

The article from Marketing Donut highlights the lack of UK websites to cater for cake making enthusiasts and business owners. What these groups have done is identified a need and built a solution around social media to deliver the following benefits:

• Central location for information sharing and advice
• Discussion threads are supported to encourage participation and problem solving
• Image library helps members share photos and display their skills
• People can share their passion with like minded community members
• A separate groups exists for people running a cake business - this enables business owners to share knowledge and learn from each other to benefit the market

I love this story because it emphasises how social media can be used effectively for niche business and niche discussion. The challenge is to find a need and then communicate this to the right people. Good luck to Karen and Svarna, let's hope their social media activity can influence and inspire other communities.

Thanks to The Marketing Donut for the article.

Wiggly Wigglers gets social networking

Nielsen Online research shows that blogs and social social networks are more popular than personal email and that the audience is spanning the age groups. Facebook has fast become one of the most influential social networks globally - according to Mark Zuckerberg, if it were a country, it would be the 8th most populated in the world.

So, with such a large audience and fan pages/groups to take advantage of, surely every business can reap the rewards of Facebook presence? Wrong. There are Facebook fan pages going to seed because the owners are passive and expecting their potential audience to do the work for them. That is not social media, that is lazy marketing. Ebuyer is the perfect example - their discussion board has not been updated since 30th Jan 2009 - what is the point?

However, amongst the chaff there are some good people building fun communities whilst adding commercial value via networking.

Wiggly Wigglers is a great example of a brand that understands the culture of social networking and the need to build engagement with its customers. Its social presence is driven by the owner, Heather Gorringe, who adds a personal touch to all communication. This is why I think Heather and the Wiggly team have got the mix between strategy and passion spot on:

• Heather's personal brand drives the social networking activity
• Their Facebook presence is integrated with other channels including blogs, podcasts, Twitter and main website
• The tone is relaxed, informal and open - it is not a corporate PR stunt
• There is a genuine warmth and passion for the audience
• There is interaction - comments are listened to and replies made, promptly
• Heather sends a regular (almost weekly) newsletter just to her Facebook fans
• The content in fresh, fun and engaging
• There are frequent personal touches that give you a glimpse into the people behind the company - I love that they've named their choc Labradors Toast & Jam!

And guess what, it's on-brand and incredibly effective and making you want to visit the website and tell your friends about it. I know, I have.

Please share your thoughts on Wiggly Wiggler's social networking presence.

Social media and presentations - the speaker backchannel

Earlier this year I attended an event at which one speaker used Twitter to gather audience questions and then answer key themes at the end. He did not allow this to interrupt the presentation but it was made clear that questions would not be a 'hands up' affair. More and more speakers are now aware of and monitoring their presentation 'backchannel' (a new marketing buzz word for the bingo card).

Yesterday, I read an interesting article from Jeremiah Owyang outlining how speakers should integrate social into their presentation. Whilst I don’t agree with all of Jeremiah’s points (I will elaborate), I think speakers need to be aware that the penetration of social apps on mobile devices is making real-time commentary increasingly relevant.

What is the presentation backchannel?

The backchannel is the discussion about you or your presentation that takes places in other media, whether that is online or offline. The most direct channel where this is happening is on social networks like Twitter.

This backchannel is real-time. Social media has expanded event dissection from the general hubbub of physical event networking spaces into online communities.

I have direct experience of this. At Internet World, when I was not on the exhibition stand or attending seminars, I tweeted live from the event. I talked about the organisation of the event as well as the content of presentations. Included was constructive criticism of issues that made the event experience less than ideal. So, is this backchannel part of the future of presenting or is it a passing obsession of the attention deficit nation?

To read more on my thoughts about the relevance of the speaker backchannel and what you can do, please join in the debate on my blog on the Econsultancy website.

I would be interested to read your comments.

Do websites need a social media landing page?

Social media is all the rage. Everyone and their dog is on Twitter, even if over 50% of profiles are ghost towns. The older generation is growing on Facebook more rapidly than the teens and content sharing has become a la mode. If you're not bookmarking (AddThis, Stumbleupon, Digg etc) then you're so last year.

However, it is dangerous to assume that just because your website now has a social media angle, your customers will flock to it and engage like never before. Wrong. Why would they? Just because they use Facebook doesn't mean they automatically want to join your fan page. The world is crammed with stuff to do, networks to join, content to read, links to follow. If you want yours to get to the surface, you need to give your customers a compelling reason to join in.

With this in mind, I started thinking about how landing page optimisation could benefit social media activity. I don't mean the main page of your community section or your Twitter account background, I mean a page on your main website that communicates your social media presence and explains how customers can interact.

The logic is clear - social media is marketing, so to drive conversion (Twitter follow, Facebook fan page sign-up, YouTube views etc) you need to target customers with a relevant landing page. That landing page then needs to be optimised over time to drive click through and conversion. If you want the benefits of social media then be serious about marketing it to your customers.

What content do I think sits on this page?

• Explanation of what you are doing and why - convey your passion
• List of benefits to customers e.g. If you have a customer service query, use our Twitter account to get a faster reply
• Bio of each social media profile you manage - what, where, why, how, who etc
• Links to each profile
• Integrated into your analytics package - track links and page performance to enable benchmarking & optimisation
• Main navigation back into core pages of your main website - keep consistency

Take away thoughts:

• Get your customers excited about following you via social media
• Clearly communicate the benefits
• Ask for feedback
• Encourage people to get involved and share their thoughts/ideas/content
• Enable people to bookmark your pages and share your content easily
• Look at the stats - how does the page perform?
• Test different ways to improve the page and keep asking your customers' advice

What do you think? Is landing page optimisation missing from social media presence? Do you know a company doing this well?

Please share your comments. Thanks.

BT using Twitter as a customer service support tool

Twitter is becoming increasingly popular amongst retailers as a customer service tool. The likes of ASOS and Debenhams have embraced this angle, the former having a dedicated ASOS account for customer enquiries. This adds another feather in the bow of the micro-blogging service when it comes down to challenging the criticism that Twitter offers no viable commercial value.

This week I was nodded in the direction of @BTCare by @GeoffreyB, Marketing Director at BT Retail Solutions and someone whom I follow on Twitter. So, I took a look round....

First impressions are good - @BTCare has a branded backround and has added some key profile info such as web address and location. The bio could do with some work though, very friendly but says nothing about who/what BTCare is and who is behind it. Nice links on the left to other BT Twitter accounts, good to see joined up thinking.

What about the level of engagement and content?

This impressed me. There are a lot of replies to individual users, with a positive and helpful tone. There seems to be a genuine desire to help, it certainly does not come across as a “me too” attempt to leverage Twitter’s popularity. The #followers is testament to this – currently at 1,978. Yes I know that BT is a huge brand with a customer database of millions but I think the follower base is a reasonable size.

Without approaching BT with a genuine customer query/complaint, it still looks like BTCare is doing a good job as a customer service channel. I love replies like “@edwardlamb I do not think we can gain the information you require, however if you DM us your account details we can have a look for you!”. The tone conveys knowledge but also offers to investigate the enquiry further. This communicates authority, reliability and genuine care. I really like this.

And what of the commercial benefit to BT?

Using Twitter as a customer service channel can help answer queries in real time. This will encourage customers to use Twitter, reducing the demand on other inbound channels such as email and the call centre. We all complain when faced with a complicated IVR: we don’t want to wait, we don’t want to press 1 then 2 then 1 etc, we want a real person immediately. If this is what we want, then we should start to embrace Twitter as a communication channel and be grateful that retailers are putting the resource into providing this service. It is not a right, it is a bonus.

There are other benefits too such as raising brand awareness and managing negative comments.

What do you think of BTCare’s uses of Twitter? Do you have examples of other retailers using Twitter as a customer service tool? Please share and leave comments.

How social media can support your affiliate program – a concept

I’ve been putting together a proposal this week for affiliate management services. At the heart of the proposal is my belief that affiliate management revolves around communication and relationships. Yes, strategy and delivery is important but without the relationships your strategy will not be implemented effectively. This got me thinking (the mice have pushed the wheels!) about how social media could play an important role in building sustainable partnerships with your affiliates.

In its Internet Stats Compendium 2009, Econsultancy estimated the UK affiliate market @ £3.82bn in 2008 (22% year-on-year growth) with an estimated £227m paid out in commissions. According to the UK Affiliate Census 2009 (in association with Affiliate Window), 13% of merchants claim affiliates generate at least £600k in revenue per annum. That level of revenue makes Directors pay attention and the commission potential excites affiliates.

However, at the same time, many affiliates feel that merchants need to be more open and honest in their communication and flexible when dealing with problems, such as commission queries. The most significant reason for promoting a merchant is the quality and quantity of links and marketing support they provide to their affiliate partners. With 34% of affiliates doing this as their full-time job, it is obvious that they will focus on the merchants who give them the best chance of generating revenue.

Communication is king. You need to keep affiliates updated with product/service developments so they know what they should be promoting. Then you should identify top performing affiliates and give them a bonus scheme that rewards their support of your website. Don’t see them as reference numbers on a report, see them as an extension of your marketing team, people who can positively influence your end customers and grow your business. Make them aware of the rewards you offer them. It is a numbers game and your ‘super affiliates’ need to understand what their potential is – talk to them, encourage them and tell them what they could earn with a little more focus – send them projections to whet the appetite. Then give them the collateral and promotions to achieve this for you.

How can social media play a role?

Twitter

It is not practical to be on the phone all day talking to your entire affiliate base. Twitter can provide a direct communication channel, enabling affiliates to post questions and requests that you can respond to quickly. This could help reduce your inbox burden and enable affiliates to support each other with answers/suggestions, increasing engagement with your program.

If you set expectations for response times from the start, you could find that your affiliates get value from the Twitter exchange. There are spin off benefits – other potential affiliates can find you from your Twitter activity and every tweet with your company name builds brand conversation.

Social Networks e.g. Facebook

A closed Facebook group for affiliates would enable you to update your affiliate base with information and enable them to discuss your products/services amongst themselves. The more enlightened affiliates will see the benefit of sharing tips with others to learn from experience and help each other increase conversion and revenue. They will also identify common problems and flag them up for your action.

Ratings and reviews

Why not ask your affiliates to post reviews of the promotion and campaign collateral you provide? The best way to find out why campaigns are working/not working is to get feedback from the website owners using them. This could help your strategy and planning.

If you offer customer reviews on your website, send affiliates a weekly list of the best rated products to help them promote these on their websites. Research proves that products with reviews have a higher conversion rate (Argos experienced 10% increase), so get your affiliates shouting about them as well.

Take away thoughts

Affiliates feel that communication from merchants is limited – social media can provide one tool to help address this sentiment and increase the level of engagement across the program. If affiliates believe that you take them seriously and are working with them in partnership to benefit both parties commercially, they are more likely to promote your campaigns ahead of their other merchants.

My key thoughts are:

1. Use social media to increase discussion with your affiliates
2. Use social media to inform affiliates of product/service news and latest offers
3. Reduce the need for phone & email support by offering customer service via social tools
4. Promote your top rated products to your affiliates
5. Increase conversation about your brand to attract new affiliates
6. Give affiliates the tools to become brand advocates

Not sure your affiliates will embrace social? Ask them. Start with the big players and gauge the level of interest.

What do you think? Will social media play a role in your affiliate program? Let me know your thoughts, would be interested to develop this idea with your input.

Investment in social media needs to be measured and not treated with kid gloves

Over the past few weeks I’ve been asked the same question by different people, assuming it’s not the voice in my head again. The question is, “How can I prove that social media is profitable?”

I don’t like this question – what do you mean by profitable? Do you mean net profit after all costs (including labour) have been deducted? If so, how do you calculate the involvement of all the departments in your social media activity, such as the Customer Service team that fields an email/call centre enquiry generated off the back of your Twitter updates?

I much prefer the approach of measuring the impact of social media investment on your commercial goals. How you measure success will differ to other companies, so you need to establish your success criteria and then learn how social media works in conjunction with other marketing channels to support them.

Establish goals and measure outcomes

What I do advocate is defining your success criteria and then putting the tools & processes in place to measure outcomes against goals. At the heart of this has to be a web analytics tool (Google Analytics, Omniture etc). Behind this has to be a carefully constructed tracking program that ensures that every link that appears anywhere across your social networks includes a relevant tracking code. These tracking codes need to be logically segmented to ensure you can evaluate the impact of Twitter v blogs v forum presence v social networks etc. An example would be to set a goal in Google Analytics that targets increasing revenue for Category X on your website – monitor what % of the revenue increase is contributed from social media activity via the tracking codes.

Understanding sales attribution online

Another important step is to ensure your campaign stacking is working. What do I mean by campaign stacking? The ability to see which campaigns have influenced the final click. Your last click secures the sale but earlier clicks influenced it. Very much like raising brand awareness via TV advertising, a sale generated by email might have its origins in PPC or Affiliate. Prior exposure to your brand could have driven email sign-up and subsequent conversion when the time was right. Multiple channels working together to drive your revenue base. Therefore, you need to ensure your analytics reports can deliver the granularity of reporting needed to identify these interactions; otherwise you will end up making the wrong investment decision based on partial information.

What should my success criteria be?

You tell me! I am a strong believer in setting both financial and non-financial goals. Why? Very much like a holistic PPC strategy, there is the short and long tail impact of social media. The short tail is activity that immediately generates website traffic and purchases, such as a special promotion to your Twitter followers (Accessories Online does this very effectively). This can be measured by key metrics like visits / orders / revenue / average order value / conversion.

The long tail is the increase in customer engagement that builds brand loyalty and drives elements like newsletter sign-up and word-of-mouth. In the long-term, these elements can lead directly to generating new orders and driving incremental revenue. An example of this is using the Facebook fan page tabs to incorporate a newsletter sign-up option for your main eCommerce website. What monetary value do you assign to a newsletter subscription from your social media presence?

Measuring social media is never 100% accurate

Why? You can’t track everything. For example, just before Christmas I found a tweet from a fancy dress/jokes/games retailer about Space Hoppers. We loved these at school, so I posted the link to my Facebook wall using Add This. Next time I met up with some school mates who live locally, Jimbo brought up the post on Facebook and we started talking about how cool Space Hoppers (and other things like Pogo sticks!) were. A few of them shared the link with other contacts in their social networks. I turned up at Jimbo’s New Year fancy dress party in my Superman outfit and was handed a surprise gift. Inside was a brand new Space Hopper! He had gone direct to the website but he did not use the original Facebook link to click through.

The retailer could not have associated that sale with their Twitter activity. They could run a post purchase question for “What brought you to the site today” – still no guarantee it would be filled in accurately or you could effectively cover all options.

My summary

From an evaluation perspective, treat social media the same as any other investment: define your goals and success criteria, implement a measurement program and regularly evaluate performance and fine tune your program to focus on what drives the most value (however you define value).

But do me a favour – make sure you enjoy it. Social media is more than brand marketing, it should be exciting, fresh, engaging and most of all, you should have a real passion for this, not just treat it as the next great thing for online marketing. It’s not a toy, it’s a community waiting for your involvement, step in and say hello!

How can your business start to make sense of social media?

I woke up on Thursday morning with a nagging question in my mind. I don't know why, perhaps it's because my mind has a mind of its own. The question that snapped me awake was how can a business make sense of the seething metropolis that is social media? I've been guilty of adding to the commentary and not putting enough suggestions to paper. I've tried my best but I do tend to get distracted and add my thoughts to the latest story, albeit in an attempt to add value and insight.

So this week I'm going to put down a simple plan with the sort of questions you need to be asking yourself and the actions you need to take. This is not an authoritative and exhaustive list, it is simply my recommendation to help you get started and not simply sit back and drown in information. It is written for someone who is new to social media and has had no experience of working with it and struggles to understand how it works alongside traditional marketing.

Below are my 9 steps to getting started:

Step 1

Define the goals and objectives of your social media strategy?

· Why are you investing time & money?

· What do you want to achieve?

· Create SMART objectives and ensure that any activity is tied back to at least one of these objectives

Step 2

Plan the resource requirements

· How much time can you afford to dedicate to building your social media presence?

· Who needs to be involved and how does this need coordinating?

· Define how you will respond to feedback (positive, negative, general enquiries etc)

· Establish what tools you will need to use to monitor your presence effectively

Step 3

Understand the culture of the social networks you wish to explore

· Evaluate competitors and other companies using the networks and learn from what they do

· Immerse yourself in the social media and get to grips with the etiquette and how people interact

· Read relevant industry blogs and articles to improve your knowledge

Step 4

Create a measurement plan

· Define what your success criteria are – are they soft or hard targets, are there financial objectives?

· Define how you will measure each success criterion

· Set-up the tools that you need to measure these (web analytics, voice-of-customer, call centre etc)

Step 5

Understand your customers' needs that do not relate to a purchase

· What will make people interested in what you have to say and engage in conversation with you?
What information will satisfy the needs of online researchers who don’t want a sales message?

· What subjects areas related to your products & services drive the greatest conversation?

· What knowledge base do you have that you can communicate to add value to the community?

Step6

Create an integrated communication plan

· Define how you will use each channel to promote both conversation and sales orientated messages

· Define how your social media presence will work with your other marketing channels

Step 7

Build relevant content – content is king

· Plan what content you can produce that is relevant and adds value to your community

· Integrate this content with your primary website to ensure that your traditional customer base benefits as well

· Integrate content creation with your SEO to ensure content is optimised and beneficial to site visibility

Step8

Identify brand ambassadors and key contributors

· Monitor your networks and identify people who get involved the most – talk to them, find out more about them and encourage them to become brand ambassadors

· Use other people to spread your message – give them the tools to share your content across their networks

· Engage with them directly using more personalized 1-2-1 communication

Step9

Monitor, evaluate, respond, adapt & evolve

· Social media is not a fixed entity, communities are evolving every day as people’s needs and desire changes – make sure you stay in touch with the mood

· If your audience is shifting to other social media sites, move with them; if they are demanding more interaction, learn how to satisfy this

· Regularly evaluate performance against the objectives and goals you set – how are you doing?

· Use all sources of information to identify ways to improve your engagement

· Above all, monitor your brand reputation and act when there is conversation happening that you can both influence and add value to – never stop listening.

Have I missed anything obvious? I am not claiming to be an 'expert', I don't believe in that word. These recommendations are based on my own experience of using social media. Please share your comments and suggestions.

Social media is pervasive

This week's blog is a short response to an excellent article about the power of social media for individuals v business, posted by Dan Greenfield on Social Media Today. I am not going to repeat the content, Dan does an excellent job so please read his blog for an insightful analysis.

In summary, a musician had his guitar damaged by United Airlines' baggage handlers and this was witnessed. Following months of wrangling, United Airlines failed to provide compensation. Frustrated, the musician set about using his music to broadcast this shocking customer service via social media sites such as YouTube. This led to an outbreak of negative PR as the online community took umbrage at the disregard for the customer.

What does this tell us? Well, it clearly demonstrates that social media is pervasive. By that, I mean that its reach is extensive and one action can echo far and wide very quickly. You don't need to be a business leader or celebrity for your voice to be heard, shared and embraced.

I think this is wonderful. The internet is fast becoming a social vehicle whereby people can have their 15 minutes of fame and effect change. The power of the online community to chose what it believes is important is exciting (for some concerning, perhaps). One individual can influence millions of others simply by providing relevant content that is then shared across networks.

What does this mean to business? It means that monitoring brand conversation is more crucial than ever in order to protect and enhance your brand reputation. It is arrogant to dismiss channels like Twitter as worthless fads that offer no commercial value. If your company is being criticised and you do nothing about it, that will damage you commercially. The challenge has been set and business must take online reputation seriously. Read Dan's blog and follow the links to find out just how quickly a story can go global. Can business afford to be so complacent?

What do you think? Is this a great development that will help make business more accountable for its mistakes or do you find social media too pervasive and open to abuse?

All comments welcome. Thanks.

DM drives more web traffic than online marketing - how can this benefit social media?

A new survey by Pitney Bowes has found that 60% of UK consumers believe offline direct marketing is the most likely to get them to visit the website of a company they have not bought from before. You can read the full Internet Retailing article here.

Ok, the survey only covered 10,000 people but that is a significant number and gives a good inidicator of the general mood of consumers. How much value should retailers place in this finding? Do they need to rethink their marketing mix to cater for the impact of offline media on online performance?

I started to think about this in relation to social media. Let's take the example of customer reviews. Argos made a bold and logical move at the start of 2009 by integrating online reviews into its print catalogue, with a reach of over half the UK households. That decision instantly put user generated content in front of their main audience and highlighted both the service availability and the value of independent comments. This raises the question of how effective user generated content can be in driving traffic and sales from offline media into the online store? I have not seen any follow up data from Argos or Bazaarvoice on this subject and would welcome any info.

The research from Pitney Bowes indicates an age and gender bias to the multi-channel effect. Women are more likely than men to be influenced by offline media and those in the 25-34 age group are most likely to consider buying when directed from an offline message. How does this tally up with the general usage of social media? Interestingly on networks like Facebook, it is the over 35 segment that is increasing usage quickly and there is a female bias, though us chaps are catching up quickly, especially on Twitter.

So, if there is a prime social media audience that will respond to offline messaging, is there a bigger opportunity to engage people via offline media to improve online website performance? Beyond incorporating customer reviews into catalogue and other media such as advertising, how else can retailers leverage social media across their offline channels?

I would start by testing some low level activity because you don't want to throw all your eggs in one basket and find out the effort has been worthless. With customer reviews I would be interested to see the impact on response rates to adverts using unique URLs for the online click. Perhaps radio ads could position top rated products to increase engagement and response?

Then there is the question of social network profiles. How can you promote your community presence on sites like Facebook & You Tube or your micro blogging on Twitter? Perhaps these can be incorporated into catalogues and adverts to test whether they can increase your audience participation?

Of course, you need to balance the testing of the new with the impact on your existing marketing activity. There is no point increasing Facebook fans if you destroy your direct response at the same time. However, with a sensible testing strategy I think retailers can play with this multi-channel marketing story and learn more about how the channel interaction affects customer engagement.

I would be interested to hear what you think and give me examples of retailers already doing this well......

Marketing Donut shows how to get people talking on Twitter

It's Tuesday 30th June, 2009 in Maidenhead. It's 9.30 am and my eyes are still stuck together and my brain desparately trying to work out why i'm not in bed and in my happy place. I'm sat at my desk, logged in to Twitter and just typing my first tweet using the hashtag #mydonut.

Why? My thoughts exactly. The reason is both intrigue and genuine engagement with a new brand, the Marketing Donut. The Marketing Donut is a new venture aimed at the SME market, sponsored by the brute force of Royal Mail and Google, to provide advice, guidance and discussions to benefit business. It is a fantastic idea and really well delivered online. Behind the Donut is a team of editors and marketers who are responsible for different elements of business, from marketing to law.

The twitthusiasts (twitter + enthusiast?!) at the Donut organised a Twitter conference on Tuesday and encouraged their contacts to get involved using the hashtag #mydonut.

Did it work?

Well I don't know what their success criteria were but it certainly had a resounding impact. Over 1,800 tweets were exchanged (not just in the UK) and the hashtag trended to the #4 spot. This also generated wider interest as those following the trending topics got stuck in to question what the hell #mydonut was about.

From a personal viewpoint, I benefitted. I gained 40 relevant new followers whom I can now engage with and exchange ideas. I also accessed information that has enhanced my knowledge and god knows, I need it!

For more detail you can check out the Marketing Donut blog.

What could have been done better?

Perhaps there could have been some goals set for the conference and these shared with all participants to focus the discussion. There were a lot of useful conversations but these were slightly disjointed and many people were simply RTing the same comments. Maybe there could be set discussion points that then generate multiple conversations and you can listen/join in to those that are relevant?

I have a vested interest in encouraging engagement with @MarketingDonut: I am one of their expert contributors, offering advice and info for online marketing. You can find my profile here. Please do drop by and take a look around the Marketing Donut website, you could be pleasantly surprised!

So what do you think? Was Marketing Donut's move inspired genius or symptomatic of people having too much time on their hands? Please leave your comments.....

Habitat - not a natural fit with Twitter!

Unless you have been hiding, you will have read about the Habitat Twitter storm that has been exciting the masses. To keep a long story short, Habitat begain tweeting using irrelevant hashtags, one of which centred on the scandal around the Iranian elections. The Iranian hashtag was trending strongly as the global twitter community started to engage with what is a truly frightening and depressing scenario. Habitat (some would argue shamelessly) cashed in on the rising trend to grab awareness to their unrelated sales tweet.

What ensued was inevitable - the twitter community reacted negatively and with speed. Negative comments streamed in against Habitat, criticising them for their 'black hat' efforts. A swift retraction of the tweets followed but general silence from Habitat HQ as to why they did this. After a few days an apology surfaced, more comments were generated and the storm in the tea cup gently eased. Not before the news had reached mainstream media with the story breaking on the Guardian and Sky News.

For me, this is a good example of how much impact conversations within social communities can have on mainstream media. Twitter has been derided by many as a fad, novacaine for those of us with attention issues and nothing to do (something I have always aspired to!). However, if you can put this one-dimensional view to one side, you will discover that Twitter is a powerful communication tool that throws up stories and spreads them like wildfire. The viral impact of breaking news is impressive; Habitatgate has seen coverage on Sky News which has extensive reach (nope, no idea how may million viewers!).

You can follow the original story (and the outbreak of comments - some rather fuelled with vitriolic rage!) on Social Media Today. A follow-up story was then posted after Habitat contacted Social Media Today to ask them to publish an apology - read it here.

So what do you think? Should brands be taking brand monitoring in social communities more seriously? Is managing your social media personality more important than ever? Do you need to define rules of engagement before starting, or does that go against the culture of social?

Love to read your comments so don't be shy!