Lessons From Topman’s T-Shirt Debacle

This week in the Guardian Woman’s Blog, Jane Martinson wrote about some offensive t-shirts designed and produced by Topman. There are a number of social media lessons that we can learn from this whole event.

5 Social Media Realities in November 2011

Whether you are starting out in social media, or have been using it for some time, here are 5 useful tips that will help you keep ahead of the competition as we come to the end of 2011.

Unfollow Twitter Accounts Properly

Every Twitter user, at some point, should review the people they are following and those that are following them. Following for the sake of following is Twitter’s equivalent of spam emails, and everyone hates spam. Here are some key points to consider when choosing who to unfollow.

13 things to avoid in your Twitter bio

Here are some examples of content that you should avoid using in your Twitter bio, which I came across by scrolling through the followers of my personal Twitter account and work Twitter account (not through the lists of people I am following, as for me a poor bio equals no follow).

Twitter Finally Introduces Web Analytics

For no apparent reason, Twitter has not had an analytics system of its own. For years, those of use that have tried to justify spending time and resources on the platform have had to rely on third-party apps, with a sprinkling of guess-work, to convey the benefits. Twitter analytics will be rolled out to a small group of pilot users this week and then to the rest of us over the next few weeks.

Social Media Sharing Made Easier

This is a blog that centres around social media, so it goes without saying that I use social media networks quite a lot. In isolation, each network I use is fantastic in its own way. I mean, they all have their little quirks. Facebook is annoying, Twitter is sometimes a bit too simple, barely anybody is on Google+ and don’t get me started on Reddit (their link submission tool is a real pain to use sometimes).

What’ll kill off Twitter?

I’ve purposely waited a bit to post this, as I didn’t want people to think I was posting to benefit from adding keywords surrounding recent events to improve search rankings (like Mashable did). It’s taken from a Google+ post I put up a few days ago.

So, is it going to be the death of a celebrity, a catastrophic event or the airing of a popular tv show that spells the end of Twitter?

I really love Twitter. To be honest though, whenever one of the three types of events above occurs, I turn my back on it until everyone gets off their soapbox.

Facebook is the same. Status updates like “Who gives a f*ck about some crackhead when so many people are suffering in Norway” make me want to just delete my account altogether. The other side of the fence is just as annoying, “This is the worst thing to happen to music since the death of John Lennon”. Oh please. It’s devastating, but Lennon changed the shape of pop and rock music as part of the most influential band the world has ever seen.

What I like most about Google plus – Circles

I want to get a couple of things straight before I start singing the praises of Google Plus. First of all, I LOVE Twitter. Absolutely love it. Secondly, I live with Facebook because it is the easiest way to keep up with people I know that are scattered all over the place. For me, Twitter is like eating cake; something I do regularly because I really enjoy it. Facebook is like ironing clothes, something I feel compelled to do to keep up appearances.

So now I’ve set the scene, here is an outline of the feature I like most about Google plus.

Ensure your tweets reach the largest audience possible

Did you know that if you begin a tweet with someone’s Twitter handle (their Twitter name, e.g. @OnlineAStevens), then only people who are following both you AND the account that you have mentioned will see that tweet?

Nope. Neither did I until I watched this video from Gary Veynerchuk, who refers to this process as the @ System.

Can you measure the return on investment (ROI) for social media?

Or, more to the point, is there a fully comprehensive way of measuring ROI for social media?

Well, the conclusion that a room full of marketing, social media and PR professionals, as well as a panel consisting of people from a leading digital agency (@robin1966), retail organisation (@HN_Manchester), major sports brand (@AaronLavery), a digital research and analytics agency (@needleinsights) and a shy and retiring @johnrobb77 was ‘No’.

More to the point though, does this actually matter? In my opinion, the answer again is ‘No’.

ROI of social media

The question of ROI of social media activity is brought up over and over again because, unlike some other marketing tools, it is measurable in some, but not all, aspects. If a marketing tool can accurately be analysed with results linked to it directly (e.g. email marketing), or alternatively if it is widely conceded that accurately measuring ROI is impossible (e.g. motorway billboard), then it will often fly under the ROI radar. Social media doesn’t have this luxury and is very much on the radar. Because elements of it are measurable (number of followers, number of RT, referred traffic – NOT Klout, which is as useful as a random number generator), people are of the opinion that we, as social media professionals, should be able to allocate a pounds and pence value of social media activity.

Social media ambassadors

Rather than finding this elusive reporting technique that offers a solution, I actually believe that social media will break free from the constraints imposed on it by the ROI debate through the education of wider audiences about the true nature and benefits of social media. We need to remember that as a medium social media is widely used, but is still relatively young and widely misunderstood. Your typical internet surfer skims along the surface of online content, barely engaging with brands. Social media, on the other hand, gives brands and content providers the opportunity to distribute content to a deeper degree. Their content is qualified through being shared amongst friends and like-minded audiences along with the opportunity to foster longterm relationships. Do I have a quantifiable scale to illustrate this? No. Sometimes you have to make informed assumptions though. Would I take a safe gamble that an integrated social media strategy will pay dividends? 9 times out of 10, yes.

The way forward

The organisations that benefit the most from social media will be those that fully embrace and integrate it into their marketing strategies. Too many conversations relate to social media in isolation, when it should be integrated as an element of the marketing mix. It is crazy to do otherwise. You can have the best car stereo on the planet, but if you don’t fit it into a car, it’s as useful as…well, Klout (not very). Still we are seeing social media strategies being put into play that are not being integrated into wider marketing strategies, and as a result are working at a fraction of their potential. To be successful, the same amount of care that goes into brand consistency should be applied to ensure that every marketing message has a consideration for social media potential. In many cases a cultural shift will be required within an organisation to properly accommodate truly effective social media strategy, and SMEs will be able to make this shift more easily than larger corporations but, regardless of the fact that the benefits can’t be accurately forecast, if done properly I’d bet my pay cheque that it would offer a good return on investment of time and resources.

And if all else fails, just get Hello There Cupcakes to make you some social media and QR code cupcakes to take your mind off things. Nom nom nom!

Here are the associated tweets for The Feed 2 event.

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