The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking at Social Media Breakfast #14 on the timely topic of “Social Media Overload.” I’ll admit, I was tempted to call my presentation “What the F**K is Social Media Overload?” —but as a marketing genius, I decided it’s best not to play the One Trick Pony card.

I’m sorry you missed it, Diary. It was a spankin’ good time. And since I’d hate for you to feel left out, I’m posting the “transcript” below. Enjoy!

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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT!

Has this ever happened to you?

Or someone you love?

One minute, they’re quietly updating their Twitter status… checking out their friend’s baby shower pictures on Flickr… or taking one of those fun “which celebrity boyfriend would you be” quizzes on Facebook… when suddenly they see a Tweet about a must-see YouTube video and BAM!, just like that, their head explodes.

Truth be told, I’ve struggled with a mild addiction to social networks [and the devices that keep me attached to them] ever since getting on board the Social Media Bandwagon. Sure, things start off innocent enough at first…You think, “I’ll just Reconnect with a few friends, what’s the harm? Maybe build a little buzz for my company?… Get “the scoop”.

Then your husband finds you blogging at 3am in your bathrobe, retweeting Ashton Kutcher and mumbling about a poke war you’ll never win, and you realize… I have a problem.

It’s tempting, once you’ve hit rock bottom like that, to just chuck this whole social media thing out the proverbial window. Go cold turkey. Retreat to the one remote corner of the planet where they still have dial-up. But who are we kidding? This is the world we live in, people. It’s wired. It’s social.

(Bob calls this “Social Media Breakfast”. I call this a 12-step program.)

All joking aside, the fact is there have been numerous ‘cautionary tales’ of both brands and individuals who’ve taken the “I’m not listening” approach to what’s happening online as a result of social technology… and they’ve had their asses handed to them, frankly.

From the Domino’s “gross out” incident that caused a heap of pain for the pizza-maker—and legal action against the not-so-sanitary employees, to the “oopsy” news reporting by CNN of Steve Jobs’ alleged heart attack that sent Apple’s stock price into a temporary tailspin, one thing is for certain: We have no choice but to listen; but to be diligent about what is being said about us, by us, and those pretending to be us.

The good news about all this social media “overload”… is that it’s easier than ever to spy on people (including yourself). The bad news is… it’s easier than ever to spy on people… including yourself.

But don’t fret! I come armed with suggestions.

First and foremost, don’t let fancy pants technology steer you away from the good old-fashioned basics.To name a few:

1. RSS feeds (I like Google Reader & more recently, Feedly)
2. Google Alerts (which you can set up to monitor news, keywords, events, etc “as it happens” or on a less frequent basis).
3. And of course, the always-Improving (at least a little) Twitter search.

Having mastered those basics, move on to the more sophisticated monitoring tools… tools that let you stalk, spy, and snoop to your heart’s content… in real-time, across virtually every social network on the planet.

There are PLENTY of freely available tools that tag, rank, and report on conversations happening on blogs, microblogs, news sites, social networks, video sites, photo sharing sites… and so on. Personally, I think that most of the freely available tools just scratch the surface… for real insight into what all the data means, you’ll want to consider investing in one of the many ‘for-fee’ services. These provide a much more sophisticated view of the conversations happening online—and what they mean in terms of sentiment, frequency, momentum, and dozens of other metrics that arm data-philes like me with actionable information—in real-time.

It’s important to remember that Results May Vary—so experiment! Don’t rely on one single tool to provide the full picture, particularly if it’s a free one. And remember that individual data points are interesting, but it’s performance over time that provides the truly meaningful context for benchmarking and long-term planning.

That’s right… I’m saying you should wrap that rascal! Er, rather… leverage the tools that are readily available to PROACTIVELY care for your brand. Remember those cautionary tales? C’mon… even the social media addicts among us can forget from time to time that conversations are happening constantly—with our without our participation.

And as the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Or something like that…

If you haven’t already don’t so, you might want to use namechk.com to see if your “vanity” user name is still available on the 122 most popular social networks. Or course if its not, you’ll be sad, but at least you’ll know. Ignorance is bliss, until it bites you in the ass… in front of 23 million YouTube viewers.

I’ll end with a quick “reality check” – or rather, the nasty truth that most social media noobs learn the hard way.

This monitoring and engaging business isn’t a once-and-done activity. It really is a daily ‘habit’ thing. It’s an entirely different way of approaching how we communicate, interact, and view our relationships. The boundaries are being redefined and rewritten on the fly. That’s not going to stop anytime soon. At a minimum, we need to be diligent about learning new habits.

Furthermore, social media monitoring and engaging is not just the domain of the marketing or PR dept. It belongs just as much to customer service. To R&D. To IT, operations, and HR. In fact, I’ll posit that social media itself vividly and continuously illustrates the point that we are ALL so very connected. Literally.

So don’t bogart all the juicy good data you’re getting as a result of your daily floss-like activity. Share the love!

Finally, because as I alluded to earlier, dealing with social media overload is much like recovering from an addiction… you will always be in recovery… you will always be monitoring and engaging online… until the day you die.

Or you can sidestep this painful future and hire an agency to do the grunt work for you. An agency like Espresso? Hint, hint.

We’re happy to do the stalking for you.

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The full presentation along with all photo credits is available here