Social Media

We often get calls from communications directors and managers asking us to come in speak with them (and often their senior executive) about what they “should” be doing when it comes to social media.

When we meet, our discussion always begins with a few questions:

What do you want to achieve?
What are you doing currently to meet your objectives?
Who is your target audience or community?
How do they want to connect with you?
As you can see – there’s not a question or directive about any of the social media tools until we understand more.

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There has been much talk (online and off) about how Kayne West created a scene at the Video Music Awards recently. Apparently, Kayne stormed the stage when Taylor Swift was accepting her award for video of the year, grabbed the microphone and announced that he thought Beyonce should have won the award. You can read more about the incident on Rolling Stone.

Then, ABC news reporter Terry Moran tweeted that, during an interview with his network, President Obama called Kayne a “jackass” for his outburst. Turns out, the part where (allegedly) Obama called Kayne a “jackass” was off the record. ABC quickly pulled the tweet down, but not before it had been picked up by Politico.com. You can read a piece on it here and see the tweet here.

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We have had some very interesting discussions here at AHA about the blurring of lines between friend, colleague and boss on social media network sites. It’s a hot topic right now and everyone has their perspective on it. I believe that my business partner Paul and I have a pretty good working relationship with everyone on our crew. Each of the communications professionals who work here are just that – professionals. They come in to each project and each client interaction with their “A game.” It’s not just something that we as the owners expect, it’s something that comes from within each person. This commitment to excellence shows and is rewarded.

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There is a very thought-provoking blog post by Lauren Fernandez that created some interesting discussion here at the AHA office. At the heart of it is the question – do we conform to social media standards or should they conform to us?

The challenge that Whole Foods is facing is an example; social media became a big part of this issue. Thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other tools, more people learned about the letter and could weigh in, making their opinions known.

Should the CEO of Whole Foods NOT have written the letter to the editor because it could create a backlash, especially online, even though this was how he felt? Is the personal opinion of the CEO inextricably tied to the brand? Does “authentic” mean different things to different people and would keeping his opinion to himself, because of the risk to the brand, mean that the CEO isn’t authentic?

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Doug Schumacher has a good piece on iMediaConnection that showcases how valuable social media can be. He wraps it in the context that social media is safer than you think. I am not so sure that safe is a word I would use for social media, although he does make a good point about it.

Social media provides your organization with the opportunity to engage people that are interested in your brand, your services, your products, and in what you do for your community. It can create a solid support system from your followers and fans, but these are people with opinions and ideas that might not necessarily mesh with yours. Doug writes from an advertising/marketing viewpoint, so perhaps this is where we view the meaning of “safe” differently.

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