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social media, TaylorMade Solutions

How to Spot a Bad Social Media Practitioner

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I had one of those moments this morning.

You know that exact moment when someone says something, or you read something and your jaw just drops. You can’t believe what you are hearing or reading! Thankfully I was alone when I had this reaction. Not a flattering look I am sure.  And, on top of that, I had some commentary that just slipped out without my filter being turned on. So what made me react this way? No, it was not travesty or injustice for human-kind. I am grateful for that. No, it was more related to my profession, and specifically using social media to communicate and market your product, service or region. So, this inspired me to write this post: How to Spot a Bad Social Media Practitioner.Social Media

Now, let me start by saying that I am sure that the person in question was only doing his job. I am sure that he has processes, procedures and protocols in place. Despite this however, what he was recommending went against everything I believe in, when it comes to communications. His recommendation to people – business people- was to use it in the same manner that people used advertising 15 years ago. It was all about push communications and not REAL communications. Needless to say, the end results, I suspect, will not net the results expected.

So, let;s turn around a negative and look at 5 ways to help you select a marketing/communications practitioner who can actually help you:

1.  Resist the Urge to hire the Person or Company Who Claims to be a Social Media Expert.

Like Malcolm Gladwell said, it takes at least 10,000 hours to become a master. Very few people consider themselves masters in social media, including me – despite having 10,000+ hours into it. Why? The answer is simple, there is more to using social media than meets the eye. Practitioners like myself know that there are many layers to doing it well. Each scenario is different and we have to draw upon many levels and years of experience to make it work.

2. Avoid a Person or persons Who Only Focus on Social Media

This is a recipe for disaster. Social media is not an means to an end. No, social media is tool in the toolkit. However, to effectively use that tool you need an overall integrated marketing/communications plan. Everything must work together to reach an overall goal and objectives that all align to your overall corporate objectives. That is why it is very important to hire either a full-time resource and/or consultant who understands that social media is not a stand-alone. Social media must be part of the larger integrated strategy.

3. Hire Based On Experience/Strategic Abilities – Not Age

I have written about this before. While I fully support hiring new graduates, you shouldn’t expect a new graduate to know how to develop strategies tied to business objectives. Remember, and this is very important, using social media for personal purposes is very, very different than using it for business purposes. If you want to build a quality team, hire a seasoned professional and then let that person build his or her team, which will likely include new graduates.

4. It’s Not About You! Remember That

More than a decade into social media and inbound marketing, I still encounter so many companies that only want to talk about themselves, who they are and what they do. Research, company case studies and results continue to indicate that customers and potential customers don’t really care about hearing about your awards, what your team did last weekend, etc. Your clients/customers and prospects want to be educated. They want to know that if they work with you, they will be getting value for their money and getting benefits from the relationship.

Your marketing, including your social media should not be about you. It should be about your clients/customers and prospects. And, with that in mind, you should be using the channels where they are, not where you want to be. Finally, communicate and engage with them. Your social media resource, whether full-time or a consultant should be encouraging you to engage, not just push messages.

5. Last But Certainly Not Least: Remember Your Audience

Based on all the above, you should always be focused on your audience. Who are you ultimately are you trying to influence? Your marketing resource should always be focused on your audience and doing what is right to reach the audience. A person with real expertise will always want you to focus on your audience. He or she will recommend that you have a persona exercise which will identify who your primary and secondary audiences are. Then you will know what channels to use to reach them and what tools to use  – from online, to traditional to web and everything in between when and where applicable.

For many of us who have been working with individuals and companies for years to build solid integrated marketing/communication strategies that include social and digital media strategies, I have to confess that we should be beyond discussing the need for implementing the basics, but we just aren’t there yet. However, when I work with clients who take the plunge and do a full integrated marketing strategy and start seeing the results, I get as excited as they do!

Want to learn more about integrated marketing strategies and how they can grow your business? Contact TaylorMade Solutions today!

 

Great leaders and all self-help management books tell us that in order to be good communicators, you need to first be a good listen

Canadian Anti-spam Law: What You Don’t Know May Hurt You

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Well, we are now more than a week into the new Canadian Anti-spam Law (CASL) and many people remained as confused, or maybe more so, than before it came into effect.  So, let’s take a high-level look at the What You Don’t Know (or may not know):

CASL: What you don't know can hurt you, heatherannemaclean.wordpress.com

Image courtesy of www.hrlegalist.com

1.  CASL does not apply to personal or familial relationships.

2.  If you have a legal contract with the other party, you are exempt.

3.  Just because a person downloads a document from your website, does not mean that you have express consent to send email.

4.  Implied consent expires in six months if a prospect doesn’t become a client; and in two years if an existing client doesn’t buy something new or doesn’t renew their subscription, loan, account or contract. (source:  Deloitte)

5.  If recipients voluntarily disclose their email address, and don’t state that they don’t want to be emailed, you have consent.

6.  This law applies to companies outside of Canada.  If you are in the United States, the United Kingdom, or elsewhere, technically you are supposed to adhere to the new law. No one is quite sure how this will be enforced, but it is the law.

7. Think it only applies to email?  Think again.  Any electronic message with the purpose of performing a commercial function is subject to CASL. Of course there are exceptions, like BBM messaging and InMail.

8.  You can send email or other commercial electronic messages outside the country, but you are supposed to ensure that you comply with that countries laws.

9.  Even if you have express consent, you still need to add your mailing address, contact information and an unsubscribe in all email.  As soon as someone unsubscribes, you have lost express consent.  There are exceptions of course.  For example if you have a legal agreement, you can still communicate.

So, these are just nine things that some people don’t know about CASL.  We will continue to watch as CASL unfolds and people begin to challenge the process. We will keep you updated as we learn more.

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4 Easy Marketing Tips for Nonprofits

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If you have ever worked for or with nonprofits, you know that resources are tight! They have some of the best people working for them and they wear many hats. With that in mind, marketing is often something that is a nice to have, but not always at the forefront of activities. Resources, while talented may not also have the necessary training or knowledge in marketing. No need to worry however, here are 4easy marketing tips for nonprofits:

4 easy marketing tips for nonprofits, taylormadecanada.com, heatherannemaclean.wordpress.com

Image courtesy of eventespresso.com

1.  Consistency in Branding

This might seem an obvious one for marketers.  For people staffing a nonprofit this might not be top of mind.

Why it is important:

Having a consistent message, imagery and overall brand is important to position your nonprofit in the minds of not only employees, but also sponsors, donors, and members. If you don’t have a consistent message or brand offering you will confuse your stakeholders. Have you ever gone looking for a website or social media site for a particular organization and wonder when you get there if you somehow selected the wrong one? If you have experienced this and you were on the right page, this is an example of brand confusion. You believe the brand is one thing, but their marketing channels don’t portray that same thought.

2.  Know Your Audience

While the big brands might have lots of different tools at their disposal, nonprofits should really focus on a few tools and doing them well.

Why is it important:

Knowing your audience will guide you in determining which tools to leverage. For example, Facebook is still a good tool for nonprofits. Unlike for profit business, Facebook can still reach vast audiences. However, if your stakeholders aren’t using Facebook, using this tool is wasted effort. Asking your stakeholders what they use for communications tool and/or what influences them is a very simple and effective way to understand exactly what where to focus your efforts.

3. Focus on Quality Versus Quantity

Your organization has taken the plunge and want to do a blog for example. You have read that frequency is important for your blog to be successful. While that is true, you also need to be realistic. What can you realistically achieve with your blog. Is it 5 posts a week or 15? Producing 15 great blog posts is doable, but even brands with many resources don’t tend to put out that much content. If you can successfully produce 5 great blog posts in one week that help your achieve your overall objectives, then that is what counts.

Why it is important:

Too many organizations look at blogs and content as a box that they need to check off.  If you really dissect what you want a blog to accomplish, it is about results.  Things like increased brand recognition, more members and more donations.  These are the things that are important.  So, remember to develop your content and content calendar with the end-results in mind. Pushing out content that is not quality will have the opposite effect.

4.  Partner

One of the areas that I see most underused is the prospect of partnering. Looking for and finding partners, either other nonprofits or for profits, can be a great way to position your organization as forward thinking and resourceful.

Why it is important:

Often times, particularly in recessionary times, getting funds or monies from people and other organizations can be difficult. By partnering you might get funding that you would not otherwise have gotten. You might have to split it, but again remember it is monies that you might not have gotten.  Also through partnering you might be able to support each other and provide services to each other that can reduce your costs.  The sky is really the limit.
These are just four easy tips. What would you add?

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3 Tips Smart Content Marketers Can Learn From Downton Abbey

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If you haven’t heard of Downton Abbey by now I am not sure what you have been doing.  I dare say that each of us who work in content marketing would love to have the audience that Downton has achieved.  In fact, according to Entertainment Weekly the Season 4 premiere on PBS was up 22 percent over premier of Season 3.  So, what is it that makes this show so riveting?  And, are there lessons to be learned?  There are definite lessons that content marketers can learn from the success of Downton.  Here are 3:

Image courtesy of www.26.org.uk

Image courtesy of www.26.org.uk

 

 1.  Be a Good Storyteller

This is probably the most consistent message you will hear about content marketing.  Some marketers are better at it than others. I continue to work at this.  Sometimes I hit the mark.  Sometimes I do not.

We can all take some tips from Julian Fellowes.  Just watching the show has given me ideas.  It is enough of a break from the same-old-same-old that my mind can think about new and fresh ideas.

2.  Don’t Blend In

In a sea of so-called reality TV of Housewives, singing contests and storage/pawn-a-thons, Downton Abbey is clearly different.  The characters are actors being actors and not people pretending that they aren’t following some contrived storyline.  The characters have depth versus one-dimensional and predictable personalities.

When creating content we all follow the prescribed approach don’t we?  Create a list – just like I have done here.  Ensure that it relates to something timely and topical – just like I have done here.  However, we to stop there.  We don’t  think differently.  Fellowes really demonstrates that being completely different from the norm or the expected, resonates with the audience.

3.  Create Suspense

This might be the biggest challenge for content marketers.  We tend to write independent stand-alone pieces.  We only have your attention for a short time after all.  However, if done well, this might be a great opportunity.  This could be the best way to shake up your audience and you certainly won’t blend in with the rest.  This will be an area that I explore.  How can I create suspense?  And, will I be successful?

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These are just three areas that content marketers can look to Downton Abbey for inspiration and learnings.  What would you add to the mix?

Marketing Challenges of 2014: The Influencers Weigh-in

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If 2013 taught us anything, content marketing is not going anywhere.  Nearly all leading companies finally have content strategies.  With this in mind, tactics have had to change.  What do brands do to stand out in a sea of content that flows freely in every digital space that can possibly exist?  Good question!    Thankfully you have come to the right place!  I asked 5 of the top influencers what brands should be doing in 2014 to stand out. Let’s see what they have to say:

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1.  The Return of Good Writing (Tweet this)

@marketingprofs’ Ann Handley thoughts focus on the words you use and how you use them.

“Next—in 2014 and beyond—content grows up, and with it comes the notion that good writing is the foundation of all good content, whether that content is a 140-character tweet or the product pages of your website or your content marketing infographic…..Increasingly, organizations will realize that words matter. Your words (what you say) and style (how you say it) are your most cherished (and undervalued) assets. In other words, good writing is the basis of good content that gets noticed, no matter what form that content ultimately takes. What’s more: For businesses, good writing is a mirror of good, clear, customer-centric thinking.”

2.  Being Uniquely Creative While Being Authentic (Tweet this)

Radian6 and IntroHive Co-founder David Alston (@davidalston) knows from experience that in order to stand out, you need to be unique.  After all, Radian6 did this with their Community Strategy and won the hearts and minds of a fantastic community.

“Content marketing and social media are mainstream so the big thing in 2014 will not be if you use them, but how creative your brand will be. Just using each no longer let’s your brand stand out. How you string them together and how you tie them into other platforms and processes creatively will help make your brand shine in a sea of noise.”

3. Focus on the Customer First – Before the Technology (Tweet this)

Influence Marketing Co-Author Danny Brown (@dannybrown) believes there needs to be a return to actually understanding what our customers want.

“…without understanding what your customer wants, and at what stage of the buying cycle they’re at so you can prime your message for that exact moment, it doesn’t matter how cool the technology is, or the channels we use, or the implementation of a tactic. We now have linguistic mapping tools that allow us to segment customers, who they connect with, what they’re looking for, and archival history with our brand’s core business or competitors. 2014 will see us, as marketers in the social space, truly take advantage of that technology and deliver on the ROI approach that 2013 saw us begin to implement.”

4.  Become Superior Short Form Storytellers  (Tweet this)

Digital Veteran and HBR contributor, David Armano (@armano) believes that if you want to be successful in standing out, remember that people have short attention spans.

“Short form storytelling in the form of Vines, Snaps, Instavids etc. and short stories on YouTube [will be key]. Brands need the ability to tell a meaningful “story” quickly, sometimes in seconds or other times through a series of images. Stories that have “sharing power” built into them or where you can become a part of the story (think hashtags on Vine where people do their own Ryan Gosling video etc.). So in other words, small is the new big and short is the new long.”

5.   Become More Effective – Rather than More Intrusive (Tweet this)

The Age of Context Co-Author, Shel Israel (@shelisrael) believes that for the first time in decades, marketing and communications professionals will focus on effectiveness and finally concede that being intrusive is not working.

“This will be accomplished by using the contextual technologies outlined in my recent book with Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer), where we talk about how mobile, location, data, sensors and social media converge to allow sellers to understand where people are and what their intentions are. So marketers will begin to be able to just make offers to people who might actually be interested in what they are being offered. We call it Pinpoint Marketing.”

And what do I think?  I agree with all of these thoughts.  I would add that mobile continues to be a significant challenge and opportunity. With the increase in mobile adoption , as Marketers we need to embrace mobile and make it easy for our customers and prospects to purchase via social.  After all, I believe that 2014 will be the year of mobile.

What do you think?  Will content marketing change?  Will it be replaced by something else?  What is the next “thing”?

3 Tips to Fix Your #Failed Mobile Marketing

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According to a 2013 Pew Internet study, 56% of Americans own a smart phone and 35% own a tablet.  Research from Canalys earlier this year predicted that tablet sales would increase by 59% this year.  In fact in Q3 of 2013, over a quarter of a billion units shipped worldwide.  So getting your mobile strategy right has never been more important for sales.  The C-suite no longer accepts applying outdated tactics that net poor results. (Please Click to Tweet)  So, here are 3 easy tips to fix your mobile marketing and sales now:

Image courtesy of businesstocommunity.com

Image courtesy of businesstocommunity.com

 1.  Understand that Most Mobile Device Use is Not Really Mobile

That’s right, the biggest mistake that marketers are making is NOT understanding how people are using their devices.  A joint study released by AOL and BBDO revealed that 68% consumer mobile phone use occurred at home.  Yes, they are using their devices at home!

Marketers need to have a two-pronged approach to reach the ‘at home market’ and the ‘on-the-go market.’  They have different needs.   There is an added level of complexity when understanding the use of tablets versus smart phones.  Marketers who succeed in mobile will be those who establish different strategies and tactics for each.

2.  Mobile Phone Use Does Not Equal Tablet Use

According to Pew, the demographics for those using tablets most include:

  • Those living in households earning at least $75,000 per year (56%), compared with lower income brackets
  • Adults ages 35-44 (49%), compared with younger and older adults
  • College graduates (49%), compared with adults with lower levels of education

In order to effectively reach tablet and smart phone users requires different approaches, particularly when it comes to advertising.  It is not a one size fits all approach.

3.  Advertising on Mobile?  Know Thy Device!

If you are still using the old “push” model of broadcasting messages in your  advertising, you are likely failing.

Marketers need to focus on micro-targeted “pull” campaigns that effectively result in the customer accepting messages. In addition to pull, Marketers need to forget banner ads.  While somewhat annoying to computer users, they are even less welcome on mobile.  They just aren’t scalable to mobile and therefore completely ineffective.

Finally it is important to know that those succeeding in the mobile market and netting sales have built relationships with customers.  Through these relationships, they have learned customer  preferences, including real-time location information.  They offer deals that result in real sales.  Starbucks for example leveraged mobile by offering a $5 credit to those who joined My Starbucks Rewards program.  This resulted in more than 500,000 downloads of the mobile app in its two-week trial period.

Take-Away Lessons:  

  1. Don’t push information.  Pull Information through offering something up to your customer or prospect.  What are the chances that someone who redeemed that $5 spent more than the credit allotted to him or her?  Probably pretty good.
  2. Understand how customers are using different devices and use appropriate tactics.
  3. Don’t annoy prospects and customers with annoying banner ads on mobile.  Be creative and delight your customers with real offerings to PULL them into your store or location.

If people thought that social media changed everything, mobile is like living inside a snow globe that someone continually shakes.  What changes are you making to your mobile strategy to accommodate for this different world?

5 Ways Small Business Can Leverage Social Media for Real-time Market Research

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As a small business owner and a professional Marketing and Communications Practitioner, I know the value of market research.  When I worked for large organizations, we often hired agencies to provide specialized research services. However, we smaller business owners just don’t have the luxury of the big budgets that the larger organizations enjoy.   We also don’t have a lot of spare time.  So, I wanted to share 5 really easy ways that small business can leverage social media for real-time market research:

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1.  Maximize your membership in existing groups like Facebook, Linkedin and blogs to gain valuable insight into what topics are hot. By being an active listener you can find emerging themes.  You can learn quickly what, if any, conversations taking place about your brand.

For example, if you own a restaurant you can learn about trends that are happening in food preferences.  If your customers and/or target market are discussing local organic foods as being important, you could start promoting the local fare that you have on your menu.  Alternatively, there might be an event – perhaps a beer festival – that you would want to promote and create a menu pairing for the various types of beer being featured at the festival.

2.  Use Twitter Lists to organize key stakeholders, customers and Influencers.  Using lists saves time when you want to focus on specific information and/or people.

For example, if there is a specific vertical that you want to penetrate, make a list and add the people you see Tweeting on the topic. You can then easily learn who is in that space.

3. Conduct Facebook surveys to reach out to your followers and ask them specific questions — keep the same questions so that you have consistent data. One of the benefits of doing this type of research versus a focus group is that neither the facilitator nor any other members of the focus group will unintentionally influence the participants. You can have your survey be anonymous or with a customer name attached to it.

For example, if you are uncertain about carrying a new product, you can ask your community.  You can develop a simple questionnaire that you can send to all your followers/subscribers or those who have “Liked” your Brand Page.  By reaching out to your customers you are demonstrating that their opinion matters.  You are getting a first-hand account of what they think about the product.

For more information on how to set up your survey, visit Facebook’s survey page.

4. Use Pinterest to determine what photos are being pinned from your website.  This can be an invaluable tool. Learn what is popular and by default, what is not.  Learn what is resonating with your customers through your visuals.

It is quite easy to do: simply go to your browser and type:  http://pinterest.com/source/YOURWEBSITEHERE.com/.

5. Use Twitter Hashtags to search and track relevant conversations.  You can use hashtags to monitor conversations about competitors, different product lines, events and more.  You can use existing hashtags or set up your own.  They are simple to use.

For example, if you are hosting a user-group and you want to know what the buzz is both leading up to and during the event, you could create a hashtag specific to your event.  Once you do this, be sure to share it with your organizers, sponsors, delegates, etc.  It could be as simple as #CustomerSpeak2014.  By simply searching your event hashtag, you can monitor all the chatter.  If you notice a problem emerging, you can be proactive and take action.  You can then share the solution using the hashtag, letting your delegates know that you were listening.  You can also use the hashtag to monitor post-event conversations and use that intelligence for lessons-learned.

These are just five examples of how you can use social media for real-time market research.  What are some other channels that you use and what have been your results?

5 Tips for Small Business Owners To Pick a Content Marketing Expert

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Content marketing continues to grow and for good reason. It enables businesses to leverage their expertise in a real and demonstrable manner, at a relatively low cost. So, why aren’t more small businesses taking advantage and implementing content marketing? The answer is simple.  They just don’t have the expertise or the time.  The good news is that there is help.  There are many excellent marketing practitioners who live and breathe content marketing.  At the same time, there are many people who profess to understand content marketing and do not.  Here are 5 tips for getting started when seeking your content marketer:

Content is King

Image courtesy of doublelinx.com

1.  Think Strategically

One of the first things that a content marketer should ask about is your strategy.  Good content marketing consultants will interview you about this and ask thought-provoking questions.

2.  Develop Personas

In order to curate content, it is essential that your content marketing professional be able to develop personas, should you not already have them.

 3. Act with Integration in Mind

Content should not be created only with social in mind.  An integrated approach must be taken.  Be sure that your marketing consultant has the expertise to leverage and implement an integrated marketing approach tied to your strategy.  Don’t be dazzled by someone who knows how to set up a Facebook Page or Group.

 4.  Execute Based on Best Practices

Be sure to ask questions to determine if your consultant knows how to make use of the right channels at the right time.  For example, recommending to post updates to Facebook at the wrong times with the wrong content will result in poor results.  This also applies to quality over quantity.   Always look for consultants that focus on quality first.

 5.  Focus On Long-term Results

As tempted as we are to want things to happen immediately, marketing is something that takes time.  Your consultant should be prepared to guide you through the process and make adjustments as needed.  Remember we are dealing with consumer behaviour and influencing behaviour takes time.

These are just 5 starting points to get you thinking.

Looking for more tips for small business?  Check out:  25 Cool Online Resources to Grow Your Business.

BOOK REVIEW: Danny Brown & Sam Fiorella’s Influence Marketing

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I love that I get the chance to meet really smart, interesting and inspiring people and in the process read great books and do book reviews. Danny Brown is one of those people. Sam, hopefully we get to connect soon too! As I get ready to do my PhD on Digital Influence, I was pumped to read Danny’s and Sam’s book: Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage, and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing. After all it is a bout Influence!

Both Danny and Sam are well known for their marketing prowess and have really developed the conversation around influence. When done well, we don’t even realize that tactics of influence are being executed on us. As expected, this is a well written book chalk full of information.

From the Book’s synopsis:

Influence Book

“Today, you face a brutally tough, maddeningly elusive new competitor: the “wisdom of crowds.” Social media gives consumers 24×7 access to the attitudes and recommendations of their most engaged peers. These are the views that shape buying decisions. These are the views you must shape and use.Influence Marketing won’t just help you identify and enlist key influencers: it will help you manage the influence paths that lead consumers to buy. By sharing empirical evidence of hard-won lessons from pioneering influence marketers, Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella provide a blueprint that moves influence marketing beyond simple brand awareness and into sales acquisition and customer life time value measurement. They integrate new tools and techniques into a complete methodology for generating more and better leads—and converting them faster, at higher margins. 

• Put the customer—not the influencer—at the center, and plan influence marketing accordingly
• Recognize where each prospect stands in the purchase life cycle right now
• Clarify how your consumers move from brand preference to purchase
• Identify key micro-influencers who impact decisions at every stage
• Gain indispensable insights into the context of online relationships
• Recognize situational factors that derail social media brand recommendations
• Understand social influence scoring models and overcome their limitations
• Re-engineer and predict influence paths to generate measurable action
• Master the “4 Ms” of influence marketing: make, manage, monitor, measure
• Transform influence marketing from a “nice-to-have” exercise into a powerful strategy

Additional online resources can be found at www.influencemarketingbook.com”

Now, My Review:

This is one of the most comprehensive books on Influence Marketing that I have come across. From defining what Influencers are to understanding the emotion and logic that drives Influence to role of social media to exploring the shift of power from the brand to consumer and more, Danny and Sam have this exciting topic covered. They even go one step further and offer case studies to reinforce and support their topics.

What stood out for me most? Well, it was really the discussions around Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Net Promoter Scores (NPS). This section of the book, like the entire book, was well thought out and got me thinking a lot about how to better measure Influence and the need to incorporate different measures than what have been discussed. This will be an area that I explore much deeper thanks to the authors.

Finally, another part of the book that I particularly liked and will draw upon to support initiatives is the definition of Influencers. As Influencer Marketing becomes more and more the topic du jour, helping people understand who is an Influencer and who is an Advocate, for example will really make a difference in developing ones strategy and tactics to use in an integrated marketing plan, that includes Influence Marketing.

So, you are looking to get an A-Z understanding of Influencer Marketing, I would get this book.

The Ostrich Effect

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In my last blog posting I spoke of people, in general, having a fear of social media. The question is why?

The answer could be as simple as “it is human nature”, but that would be letting me, and you, off the hook way too easily! We need to dig a little deeper. For this posting, let’s look at the issue from the perspective of an organization or institution.

Thanks to research presented earlier this year by Nancy Bain, we know that 75% of all Canadians are now on-line, that there are some 18,620,000 Canadians on Facebook and that the time that we spend on Twitter is up 3700%.

These numbers can be daunting for businesses or institutions. These numbers are significant and it means that decisions makers have to take a hard look at actions that will involve the use of new communications’ tools, new technology and very open and public discussions. This is a frightening thought for many.

The questions that immediately come to mind are: how will we learn to use these tools effectively? Who will train us? Do we need training? What are the full ramifications if we choose to not use these tools and resources? What are the ramifications if we do? Do we need new policies? Do we need to staff 24/7? And most importantly, what if something unsavoury is said about my organization? What can I do? This last question is probably really what would keep managers awake at night. Earlier this year Eisner Amper conducted a survey of Boards of Directors asking them what they felt was the biggest threat to their respective organizations. The result was a clear and decisive statement – reputational risk!

So, we know that reputational risk is a huge concern. That being said, why exactly would so many decision makers choose to not engage in social media? The reason – is what I like to call the Ostrich Effect! If one chooses to bury his head in the sand and therefore cannot hear what is being said on social media, it doesn’t exist, right? Wrong!

The fact is that there are many communications professionals that can assist organizations and institutions navigate the social media waters and prepare a social media strategy that meets your specific organizational needs. We are just a click away! What are you waiting for? Organizations and institutions need to be proactive. Waiting for a crisis to emerge is not the answer.

In my next posting, I will look at crisis communications and how social media can work to your advantage.