Unfortunately we often times confuse conventional belief with conventional wisdom, particularly in marketing circles. For example, if you just listen to the masses, social media is still THE top vehicle for marketers. But shift through the noise. Log off Twitter and those annoying #chats and talk to some really smart marketers who are working in the trenches. The conventional wisdom has it that the tried and true practices of marketing are making an enormous swing back into the mainstream. But they have been rejuvenated by the social media assault of 2008-2010.

Direct mail. Email Marketing. Events. And, yes, even advertising, are getting the best results these days.

But today they are done in a smarter and more focused manner. Because of all the social media noise these smart campaigns have become a breathe of fresh air. Certainly creativity and strong content still win the day, but the “old school” delivery mechanisms remain the best way to sell your product.

I’m not trying to write some “social media is dead” post, not in the slightest, but it goes back to something I wrote in January of 2007, when the blog was the highest form of “social”, in the post “Blogs are to hieroglyphics as Scoble is to _______?“:

“Content is still King, the blog is just one form of transportation.”

Don’t be blinded by conventional beliefs that social media is a revolution that you must be a part of or you will never succeed as a marketer. Instead listen to the conventional wisdom and realize that social media is (still) just another fantastic tool for you to use. Use it as a compliment, not in place of fantastic content and creative results-driven marketing campaigns. Always trend towards the wise and away from the believers.

But there was one question I got the most. How did I make the decision on who to keep as a FBF and who to let go. Actually, it wasn’t hard. Before I did anything, I created this decision tree:

Seriously, this is what I did and it made complete sense for me because I’ve chosen to use Facebook to share my personal family life with friends. Your use of Facebook, or any social network, is completely your choice. Nobody can tell you how you should use it. But once you decide your goal for that social network think seriously about who you want in that network and be sure and clean it up once in a while in order to be true to your goal.

Kyle Flaherty on ROI from Tippingpoint Labs on Vimeo.

Plancast is getting a ton of attention lately and being talked about very highly by folks I know and trust. At first glance I too thought it was a fantastic platform for interacting and making plans, but I quickly changed my mind. But rather than turn away immediately I gave it another chance after Aaron Strout told me to give it another try and he recommended:

1. I follow the right people, i.e. be people that I actually know
2. Subscribe to the digest which is essentially an itinerary of cool things to do

This post is my response to Aaron’s challenge:

Firstly I find it interesting that most comments I’ve seen about your podcast center around iPadio, including my own. That tool is efficient, easy to use, helpful and brings something new to the table.

Alas, Plancast is only one of those things (yet). The current incarnation of Plancast is a glorified version of Upcoming and the other scheduling tools available. But lets start with the positive and what I like about Plancast:

• Easy to Use: Plancast is super easy to use and has a nice clean interface (unlike Upcoming). You can integrate it with your other social networks or choose to remain agnostic. This is nice since you can have a Facebook Event also show up in Plancast. Also they make it super easy to add events to your actual calendar and you can already “@” folks in the title of plans.
• Privacy: Plancast is doing a terrific job with privacy concerns, particularly when compared to other social networks. You can easily cancel your account under settings. You have to opt-in to allow others to automatically include you in their plans (hello Facebook photo tagging, are you listening?). You can easily block other users. Even the terms of service are tolerable.
• Responsive: The entire Plancast team are highly responsive, in fact I’ll bet they will respond to this blog post. Check out their community where they tackle user questions, needs, critiques and more. Very impressive. But better yet look at the privacy thread and you can see they are already implementing suggestions from people. Certainly a great example of community best practices.

But now it gets into where I think Plancast is missing the boat and let me first just say what I always do about new tools. These are NEW tools and typically in beta. As someone in the technology industry I understand how this works and empathize. Therefore most of the things I say are probably already being addressed or just as likely Plancast may not be the right tool for me, which is cool too.

• Too Much Noise: Just like Aaron I subscribed to the “right” people; my friends. And not “friends” like Facebook’s definition, but people I had actually met and value their opinion on events and plans. The homepage’s “upcoming” stream is not helpful because it is being pushed down the page by the “What are you planning to do?” box and then the listing of events are very noisy, particularly by the few friends who like to post every single thing that they do to Plancast. There is too much emphasis on the pictures of people attending the event so that I can’t easily scroll through the page, find an event I like and then expand to find additional people. The same thing can be done for the planning box at the top, or better yet put a “Make A Plan” button on the left-hand nav and save me some space.
• Filters: This is a corollary of the above since it is very difficult to actually find plans that would be useful to me. I’ve tried the search functionality to no avail. But I’d also like to see the ability to create filters by geography and even user list. For example, most of the people I’m subscribed to are in Austin. I’d love to make a list of just these folks and get a quick glimpse at what is going on in my town with my friends. Taking that another step, I travel a lot and am subscribed to people in San Francisco, Chicago, London, Boston and other locales. Can I have a filter or list for those geographies so I can check out what is happening the week of May 5th when I’m in Boston? Currently I go to the site, I scroll down my list of subscribers and I leave. I’m not getting anything out of the experience because it is not useful as currently created.
• Count Me In: With a click of a button I can put my name down on the list for a plan. One issue though is if the plan was created in Facebook…it won’t pull my RSVP through to Facebook. I’m guessing that this is something that could be addressed when the API is available, and it should be. But I’d also like to see it extend beyond Facebook to any network you have linked in including, well LinkedIn.
• Speaking of LinkedIn: As I’ve said on this blog before, I’m much more partial to LinkedIn than Twitter or Facebook, mainly because it brings me more value for my day job. Plancast seems like it was made for social media people and marketing consultants, not for people doing actual business. Perhaps this issue gets answered in my call for filters because it would be really nice to easily find plans that have something to do with my work.

And here is what it really comes down to, Plancast is for two main people:

1. People who want to plan social events with their friends that might run the gamut across multiple networks.
2. People who want to make sure everyone knows that they have social plans and hope that others will join them in those plans.

I need a planning site that is going to help me find events that are important for my job and my life, I’m not interested in using it to meet up with people at the Apple store. Ultimately the way I make social plans is on my actual calender, not on Facebook, Twitter or Plancast. Social networks are just ways for me to find out about events, not to RSVP or mange a plan. If I want to open up my socialization I use Gowalla; if I’m out and open to meeting up with folks in my extended network, presto I can make that happen. Obviously it is more in real-time, but that is the way I socialize.

Ultimately I think that Plancast has a significant opportunity to address the needs of people like me who are looking for great events that help them with their job and their lives, not just when the next tweetup is happening. From what I’ve seen on their forums and Twitter they are receptive to making changes, so my promise to them and to Aaron is that I’m going to stay on the network through the year and keep checking back to see if it has become a tool that I’ll put in my belt.

Therefore I was really thrilled when Jeff asked me to sit (actually stand) down for an interview during SXSWi and I wanted to share:

Download the SXSWi Bingo Card.

To produce a thorough but easily readable document that provides all employees a practical guide on how to interact within the context of social networks realizing that they are employed by said company.

Let’s break those down a bit further.

Thorough

• The social media guidelines should include as much of what people SHOULD be talking about as what they SHOULD NOT be talking about.
• The guidelines should take into account all facets of social media ranging from blogging and Twitter to posting online photos, audio clips and geo-location services.
• The guidelines should have some language approved by your legal department, but it should also be vetted through HR, sales, marketing, PR, exec leadership and others. This is a document for the entire company.

Easily Readable

• This may read as “short” to you, but that is not necessarily the case. It could also mean it is designed well or broken into well thought out chunks.
• Social media guidelines should be easily accessible to all employees.
• You do not have to publish your social media guidelines for the whole world to see. It is not frowned upon, but don’t think you have to reveal everything to everyone.
• Think about providing your guidelines in other formats such as video, audio or cheat-sheets to tack to cubicle walls.

Practical Guide

How to Interact

• Be respectful
• Be honest
• Be helpful

Social media guidelines are not rocket science, but they should provide people with a clear guide on how to participate in social media.

Thanks to Jim Storer for the inspiration needed for this post.

Mark Amtower, the author, is a B2G marketing consultant and his resolution for 2010 was to be connected to at least one person, preferably three, at each of the top companies listed by Washington Technology by the end of March. Aggressive, most certainly. But Mark is a smart man obviously because he understands how to harness the interconnectedness of social media. Just head to the end of the article and presto, a hyperlink to Mark’s LinkedIn profile.

Nothing amazing at this point though, right? The magic actually didn’t happen until I connected with Mark on LinkedIn, that is when the addition of resourceful content, as usual, made it’s mark.

Within minutes of connecting with Mark there was a personalized response to me in my inbox. How do I know it was personal and not a really great form response? Pam had connected with Mark about an hour before and the emails were completely different. Nice touch. But here comes the move that I found to be brilliant; two invites to join groups that Mark had set up on LinkedIn, both extremely focused and full of resources.

Mark had gone from a random contact to a source of information in minutes and someone I was really looking forward to talking with and probably talking with about his services. Ultimately that was his goal through his resolution and he is making it happen by using some of the social media principles we have discussed here on the blog. But let’s rehash:

1. Be Accessible–Include links to where people can find you.
2. Integrate Social Media–Make sure you are integrating social into your byline articles, events, emails, etc.
3. Be Personable–There is a strong connection built quickly with personal communication.
4. Provide Resources, Not Promotions–Mark didn’t push me to a website that touted his skills, he introduced me to groups that can help me with my job.

Content is king and social media is the way to spread the word. Let’s all use Mark’s example as a social media best practice, whether for B2C, B2B or B2G.

Oh, and you can connect with me on LinkedIn too.

• According to the BtoB Magazine results, 60% of the respondents said they will increase spending on “social media”.
• In the same BtoB Magazine survey 60% of respondents say they will use social networks to generate thought leadership, while 50% will use social networks to generate leads.
• The Visible Technologies/SiriusDecisions survey reported that 25% hope to use social media to generate awareness.
• Additionally in that survey 31% used web traffic/response rates to determine ROI on social media, while 12% used revenue to determine ROI.

Interesting and concerning from my point of view. Let’s start from the top.

60% of the respondents said they will increase spending on “social media”

In 2009 how much money did you spend on “social media”? In 2010 how much money do you plan to spend on “social media”. Excluding salaries, if you answered anywhere above $1 you are spending too much on social media. The reason is simple; social media is not an item to be bought or sold, rather it is a strategy of communication and engagement within marketing, as well as throughout your enterprise. Certainly there are tools that you can buy that help you with social media, but those are tools to use across the board in communicating in a more social manner. These tools help proliferate marketing campaigns that are focused on lead gen, email, web and even direct marketing. Therefore the spend number should fall into those categories and not one that determines social media spend. Don’t spend money on social media, spend money on marketing and communications tools, then proliferate social media into your communications DNA.

60% of respondents say they will use social networks to generate thought leadership, 50% to use them to generate leads

What? Hold on now. This is a study of B2B marketing leaders correct? I’m not arguing with the first number, that is a smart way to look at social networks. Your role, however, as a B2B marketer is to generate business and business comes from leads. 100% of all B2B marketers should be using, or at least figuring out how to use, social networks to generate leads. It might not happen, but if someone ever asks you what your primary goal is for any B2B marketing campaign, lead generation better enter the equation.

25% hope to use social media to generate awareness

This stat stumped me more than any other, and unfortunately I do not have access to the full report so I’m working a bit blind. However, if you look at the list of reasons why B2B companies use social media the “generate awareness” garners the most at 25%, followed by customer engagement, analyst/influencer engagement, market products, monitor and respond, competitive tracking and other. What is missing in this list? Lead generation and/or revenue building! I’m not disagreeing with all the other reasons, they are certainly needed, but how do you not at least have lead generation as one of the main reasons you would use a social media marketing strategy?

31% use web traffic/response rates to determine ROI on social media, while 12% use revenue to determine ROI

Again, revenue should be used much more than 12% of the time to determine ROI of social media. Let us reiterate that social media is a communications strategy within your marketing campaigs, and the vast majority of marketing campaigns you run should have a revenue goal attached. Therefore it is one of the only sure fire ways to measure ROI, and truly the only way that your CEO wants to see it represented. As for web traffic/response rates, I’m also surprised to not see this a bit higher. Perhaps it was the wording of the question and the fact that most good marketers now realize that web traffic means little to nothing, whereas web activity and analysis is what is truly important.

Surveys and poll numbers can be shaped however you want them to be shaped, obviously, but some of the numbers that came out of these studies certainly see the recognition of social media as a certifiable strategy. The challenge in 2010 is going to be educating people that it is a strategy, that it can bring in certifiable revenue and that you can truly measure the ROI of your social media strategy.