Creating an online strategy worthy of that name can be an arduous process for many small businesses that often do not have access to an online strategist. Thanks to the creative genius of Vancouver social media entrepreneur and blogger Mark Smiciklas, we now have an attractive visual guide that covers the essentials of building an online presence from scratch that will allow any and every small business to become an active participant in the social web and market their products or services effectively.

I have converted this essential presentation to Scribd and would like to share it here with you all. It is worth reading and re-reading even if you consider yourself an online or social media marketing pro.

The SMALL Picture – Online Strategy Guide for Small Businesses

© Oscar Del Santo for THE ONLINE STRATEGIST, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Mark Smiciklas, Online Strategy, small business

Communicate Magazine from London recently published a fascinating and timely debate between PR heavyweight Abigail Harrison from thebluedoor and her SEO nemesis Andrew Girdwood from bigmouthmedia about the pros and cons of using either a PR or a SEO agency to assist a company in their social media strategy.

I do not believe there is currently a more urgent or pressing debate from the point of view of online strategy or online reputation management.

The arguments used by the two participants are the ones we might have expected from the PR and SEO camps. See if you can guess who said what:

• “PR, like the web, has always been about people. SEO is intrinsically and historicaly linked to Google bots and algorithms – not people, and certainly not reputations“
• “I don’t think we have seen any evidence that the PR agencies have caught up with, or overtaken, the digital natives“
• “I feel that SEOs… get in the way of the strategic thinking required for meaningful PR“

And yet there were some gems to be found in the crossfire, like Andrew’s adroit assertion that “Social media is a discipline which requires online communication skills, alongside technical skills and analytical skills. A deficit in any one of these three key areas is a threat to success of the campaign.”

Quite, Andrew! Bull’s eye! This is indeed what I have been arguing for quite some time: that SEO and PR are inextricably linked in today’s social media realities, and that any agency that is deficient in either is competing at a serious disadvantage. Which in turn explains why the more enlightened agencies are favouring a cross-pollination of digital and communication skills for new key roles – the likes of online reputation manager or social media strategist.

Indeed, the leading agencies of tomorrow will be integrated communities where technical and communications staff work together seamlessly under the ovearching leadership of the online strategist, a professional whose qualifications and interests must encapsulate the best that the worlds of SEO and PR have to offer.

I look forward to hearing your views on this fascinating and timely debate in the comments section

© Oscar Del Santo for THE ONLINE STRATEGIST, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Online PR, Online Strategist, Online Strategy, SEO, social media strategist

“It’s the buzz; We have to jump onto the bandwagon; All my friends are in it; Our competitors have this brilliant Facebook page; It’s free advertising …”

These are some of the most recurrent reasons why we professionals are called to the rescue of many a decent-sized company eager not to be left behind and ready to implement some kind of half-concocted social media strategy in record time – which usually entails having a modicum of a presence in the social networks to begin with.

Happy as we are to be of assistance, the reasons above denote a lack of understanding of the new realities the company or organization will be facing as it joins the social side of the Web 2.0 that should set our alarm bells ringing. ‘I want to join the social networks to have a better communication channel with my workers, customers and the community’ or ‘I want to be able to offer information of true value to my customers’ are reasons I have never come across in pre-sales meetings. Little surprise if events take a disheartening but expected course after a while.

Time and again I have seen the same story unfold. The pros are called in; the strategy is implemented; all the IT applications and the web design & development phase is completed; the company builds up a budding presence in the social networks … and then, after a few months, interest dwindles, enthusiasm wanes and no one is able to name any tangible benefits in return for the time and the effort invested in the first place!

I want to argue here that we professionals are often to blame. The single, most damaging mistake that internet consultants of every guise make when implementing any social media plan is this: lack of previous adequate training beyond the technical side of the initiative.

As Jennifer Korell noted in a recent article worth reading in full, the social media means that “dialogue has replaced monologue and narrowcasting is replacing broadcasting online.” And yet companies are still operating under the old marketing and PR tenet of “remaining on message” and using the novel social platforms as just another means of monologuing and broadcasting. Unsurprisingly customers (and even staff) fail to be persuaded and tune out once the novelty wears off.

This sad state of affairs is to be expected unless we expose our clients to ‘the new rules of marketing and PR’ (to use David Meerman Scott’s felicitous phrase). Any project undertaken without previous training in the new philosophies of transparency, optimized content generation, soft and viral marketing, online democracy, etc. is doomed to failure – no matter how slick or glossy the application or network in question. The shift in perception needs to predate the actual implementation phase and must engage all the parties directly and indirectly involved.

I am a strong advocate that, whenever possible, training should reach the whole company in one way or another. Engaging outside stakeholders is a risky enterprise unless enough critical mass has been reached at home. We want employees of every department to understand what increased transparency is going to mean to their everyday working lives, we want them to become evangelists for their company in the social networks, we want them to generate enthusiasm and exchange ideas and even constructive criticism via blog comments and other means beyond the official line. And we want everyone to be of one mind when it comes to editorial and content generation policies.

My advice to my fellows and my clients is straightforward: never implement a company-wide social media policy without securing as much as this is practicable company-wide training in the philosophies that are being embraced. Training should come at the start of the project, and be particularly thorough for anyone remotely involved in the key areas of communication, marketing and PR.

It has been stated hundreds of times and it bears repeating: a Social Media Plan is not an IT issue. It is a company-wide issue where the involvement and the sharing of values by all according to established guidelines will be of true and lasting benefit. 

I look forward to hearing your experiences with social media plans, social media implementation and training in the comments section.

© Oscar Del Santo for THE ONLINE STRATEGIST, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Online Strategy, Social Media, social media training