Small business owners and marketing consultants are well aware that they should be paying serious attention to social media as a way to reach customers. But few realize how to really leverage this channel and many screw it up royally.

Some erroneously assume social media is yet another channel to use to push out marketing messages – and many do just that, with nary a strategic thought in sight. But we all know, dear readers, (I always wanted to say that) (it sounds really dorky, though) that this just isn’t the way to go. No way, no how.

It’s all about determining goals and developing a strategy to effectively reach them.

If you and your small business or marketing consulting agency are looking to implement a social media plan, here are few ‘best practices’ that you might want to check out as you set your goals for the coming year, develop a strategy and work to get your social media initiatives off the ground.

From a strategic marketing and/or planning standpoint, there’s a lot to consider and a ton of information out there to wade through. Some of our favorite resources are the smart folks at TopRank and Mashable. Both are terrific and a good place to go for information and how-to guides. Some resources we especially like are TopRank’s Best/Worst Practices Social Media Marketing and Mashable’s Social Media Business Strategy.

Then, once you’ve set goals, and developed a strategic marketing plan, it’s time to focus on the details. The irksome little details that will eat you for lunch if you don’t take them into consideration. But those same details will help convince your clients (or your boss) that you were justified in advocating integrating social media into their marketing efforts. And it’ll keep you in cupcakes.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Educate your client. Set benchmarks when you begin a campaign or social media engagement for a client. Be clear about the goals you’ve collectively set and how you will reach them. And don’t forget how important listening in the social media space is. During the process and as you move forward with your initiatives, be smart and utilize social media monitoring tools and pay close attention to your analytics. For us, the best kind of monitoring tools are those that weed out noise and let us get relevant information without wading through Google Analytics for hours on end. We like Spiral16 – and they’re a client – but we would love their tool even if they weren’t. For analytics, we use Google Analytics (they’re free and really awesome) and also like Get Clicky. We like to use two separate sets of analytics and compare them often. We love numbers. Numbers help us prove the efficacy of what we’re doing. We love numbers (so much it warrants saying it twice). Deal with it.

2. Generate reports. Let your clients know what consumers are saying and where they’re saying it. Show your clients what best practices engagement looks like. If you’re not sure, point them to Starbucks’ Twitter Page or to Cabot Cheese’s Facebook Page. Prove your value. Show them where your benchmarks are at the beginning of your engagement and how they’re progressing. We like tools like HootSuite, TweetReach, Klout, Bitly, Peer Index and Twitalyzer. Don’t expect your clients (or your bosses) to know what you’re doing, show them, regularly.

3. Crisis and Coms Plan. Make sure you have a coms plan and identify a process and a response for consumer comments and complaints. This is critical. Jeffrey Cohen at Social Media B2B provides good tips in this post that will help you develop your own. One of the worst things companies of any size can do is to not quickly and efficiently respond to consumer complaints. Customers reach out because they need help. Social media can often be the quickest, most effective channel to provide customer service and doing it quickly and well can save you many headaches. But you’ve gotta have a plan. And a crisis plan, for when the you-know-what hits the fan. And it will.

4. Act Like Time Is Of the Essence. Because it is. Social media is real time. And an aggravated customer (or an irritated and articulate blogger like Allison Nazarian) can make a lot of waves. Answer customers immediately – you’ll be glad you did. And whether you’re an agency or a small business owner, it’s important to realize that customers need help 24/7. Make sure you have a plan in place to provide that kind of service. If you don’t, you’ll wish you had.

5. Always Be Thinking About Adding Value. We preach a lot about how important it is to find ways to do more for your clients. If you’re handling social media marketing and engagement for your clients, look for ways you can be innovative. If the primary goal of your engagement for social media marketing is content distribution and customer service, do that, but always be on the lookout for ways you can deliver more value.

More value, by the way, often translates in to higher fees and longer engagements because you’re knocking it out of the park and clients realize they can’t live without you. We recently wrote about IBM and the great job they’re doing adding value to their clients’ businesses via social media training. This is a smart way of adding value – learn from it. Be innovative. Don’t just do what you’re asked, look for what you can do to do more. Always.

There’s more. There always is. But this is a good start. Go do it, then let us know when you need help. Or if you discover some tricks of your own that we outta know about.

And if you’ve not yet subscribed to the V3 Blog, why the heck not? We’re funny. And occasionally interesting, too. Hit that little “subscribe now” button now.

5 Tips For Implementing Social Media For Your Business is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

@BKMacdaddy

This is a guest post, written by my great friend Brian McDaniel, a designer, social media upstart and all around terrific guy. In addition, he’s prolific in the writing department and one of the people whose content I actively seek out. Read on, you’ll see why …….,

Let me start out by saying I am a Google fan. I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds. I utilize Google Analytics, Gmail, Google Apps, and pretty much anything else they offer. I am in love with my Android phone and all its cool apps. I thought the Google Superbowl ad was brilliant. And the Google Nexus One phone is on my list of geek gadgets I am salivating over. So understand that this post is written by someone who is firmly and happily planted in the ever-expanding Google nation, not your typical hater who jumps at the chance to rip apart the “next big thing.”

Yesterday Google announced their new foray into social media, Google Buzz, which they will be rolling out to Gmail account holders over the next few days. By all reports – and there are quite a few already – Google’s latest release has a lot of features that could make it useful for many. Of course, it also has a lot of similarities to current social media powerhouses Twitter and Facebook. It appears that Google is attempting to take some of the best elements from these two and enhance them with some of their own. One that I am particularly interested in is the geo-tagging ability of your status updates and its integration with Google Maps layers, which could have the potential for more real-life applications and networking. You can read more about all that Google Buzz has to offer by clicking here.

But here is my issue: a few months back Google burst onto the social media scene with Google Wave. It was going to change the way we communicate and possibly replace email altogether. The real-time collaborative functionality was heralded as revolutionary, and anyone who pays attention to these types of things (translation: geek) began impatiently looking for ways to get our Google Wave invite so we could experience the revolution firsthand. Invites were given away as prizes for contests on blogs and social networks, and the mad rush to get yours seemed to consume the online airwaves.

Google chose to roll out this next big thing in, well, waves, sending invitations via Gmail to the chosen few and giving them the ability to invite a few they choose to join them. When I finally got mine, I spent a day or two marveling at the technology and trying to find ways to interact with others in the fresh and exciting frontier. I read everything I could about it, wrote a review or two of my own, participated in discussions and then began waiting for more people to receive their invites.

This is when the problems began.

Although Google Wave had its own functionality problems, crashing on occasion as they worked out the bugs and missing some seemingly obvious capabilities that were added later, the biggest issue was that so few people had received invitations. Yes, they started out giving invitations to a million or so people, but I certainly didn’t know many of them.How do you use an interactive platform when no one you know has access?

Soon the outcry came. Users were wondering when everyone else would be allowed to experience Wave, and those who had yet to receive invitations felt ignored or left out. As the buzz (pun intended) died down, the demand for invitations shifted to a point where people couldn’t give them away. It wasn’t long before I had over 20 invites that I still haven’t passed along because no one is interested anymore!

The media backlash rose to a dull roar and what was once hailed as revolutionary was relegated to a fad that never caught on. Still today I see occasional tweets asking if anyone is still using Wave. I know I’m not.

Not long after the Wave hubbub, Google sprang the Nexus One on us, and the gadget geek world went into a flurry again. The exciting new phone was dubbed a potential iPhone killer, but soon there were complaints about the lack of support, confusing marketing and availability, and outrageous pricing. Yes, I want one. But my own Wave experience combined with the reports I’ve read – not about the phone itself, but regarding surrounding problems – have made me cautious about diving in.

The failure on Google’s part to unveil their golden children in ways that catch on seems to me to be a lesson they are not learning from. Now they are releasing Buzz, and the apathetic response I have witnessed proves this failure to be true. Articles are being published left and right about Google Buzz, touting its cool features and predicting its success or failure. Any way you look at it, success or failure of Buzz could be riding on Google’s past mistakes rather than the technology and its implementation.

Just this morning I checked to see if I had received my invitation to try it out, only to feel that same disappointment when it was not there. I also used my phone to try Buzz Mobile, which is readily available for anyone, but I was shocked to find out that it only works on iPhones and Android 2.0 operating systems, which my T-Mobile myTouch 3G has yet to have the ability to be upgraded to! The inability of Google to take into account the effect its rollout methodology has on the mindset of the consumer is a glaring oversight. I’ve spoken with others who have expressed their desire to try out Buzz and the consensus is one of feeling “left out”. Inferior. Overlooked. What does this do to the consumer base that Google hopes to build?

Lately it is almost impossible to spend any time online without hearing about something that Google is doing. The search giant’s attempts at world domination – search, email, telecommunications, operating systems and now social media – could be resulting in an online oversaturation that backfires, crippling their desire to make everything Google.

Google is already a household word. It’s one of the few organizations whose name has become a common verb (“Just Google it!”) Is it really necessary for them to become everything to everyone?

As I said, I am a Google fan, and will continue to be. But I have lost a little respect for what seems to me to be a somewhat desperate attempt to conquer the world of all things geeky. I am not going to walk away from Twitter or Facebook to give my attention to Google’s next plaything, nor do I believe the masses will choose to do so. Perhaps Google should slow down a little bit and focus on what they do really well, while taking some time to learn from their mistakes. The products are fantastic, and I believe could be very revolutionary if handled correctly. But I fear they may become victims of their own hype and we will miss out on what could have been.

Are you using Google Buzz? Is anyone else you know? Do you plan to try it out, or pass it off due to recent other Google experiences? Please share your thoughts on this latest development in the comments below.

You can check out the brilliance that is @bkmacdaddy by visiting him here. And, for the record, I agree with absolutely everything Brian has said here – his experiences mirror my own. As such, I am not at all interested in exploring Google Buzz. For me, Twitter and Facebook work just fine.

Will Google Buzz Become A Victim of Online Oversaturation & Marketing Mishaps? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

One day, I noticed that I had some tiny cans of apple Juice in the pantry that I’d forgotten about.  My kids aren’t much into juice, but I pulled them out, thinking they might be good bribery material.  Sure enough, in no time, an occasion just right for bribery presented itself, and the Twinlet Twinkies were aptly rewarded for doing my bidding with a little can of apple juice.  I opened the cans, handed them out and went back to whatever earth-shatteringly important thing that I was doing.

I later found the empty apple juice cans (probably in the middle of the floor somewhere) and was immediately struck by the fact that they had, imitating their dad, also turned their pull tabs – in exactly the same way he does.

What does all this have to do with anything?

In much the same way that kids are watching their parents, consumers are watching brands. And in today’s world, consumers are empowered.  Brands who are not what they say they are, instantly run the risk of being found out.  Manufacturers who make faulty products will be, without question, called out, publicly – and quickly.  Consumers are no longer content to buy crappy products and live with the injustice if they happen to have fallen for a lemon.  The old saying “caveat emptor” is actually turning around and, in my opinion, given today’s world of new media, the power is surging into the hands of the consumer.  Nowadays, instead of the buyer needing to beware, brands need to beware.  If they do bad things, make crummy products, misrepresent themselves, behave unethically, treat customers poorly, etc., the ability to be a bad guy and the ability to hide are both things of the past.

In today’s world, transparency is a word to remember – and a concept to take to heart.  If you make a product or provide a service, know that just as my children watched their father turn the pull tab on his soda to the right, your customers and prospective customers are watching every move you make.  And, if you misrepresent yourself in any way, promise something you don’t deliver or provide bad customer service or a faulty product, it will, without question, come back to haunt you.  And is that really such a bad thing? Aren’t consumers entitled to good value for the money they spend on products and services?

The lesson here is to listen and pay attention. Always.  If you aren’t already monitoring what’s being said about you in the social media sphere, you’re taking a big risk.  People are talking about your brand, whether you realize it or not.  There are great monitoring tools out there – so, whether you opt for Google Analytics, Spiral16, Radian6 or a myriad of other “listening tools,” do yourself a favor and make the transparency of today’s new world of marketing today work for you. Conduct yourself ethically, pay attention to what people are doing, pay attention to what people are saying, and always be ready to provide unparalleled customer service. After all, isn’t that what makes good brands great?

People Are Watching – Every Minute of Every Day. What is Your Brand Doing About It? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency