That being said, I have been studying social medias influence on donor-nonprofit relations. Up to this point, I’ve been trying to figure out how the heck to measure it.  As simply put in Social Media Metrics (Sterne): the number of friends/followers is not a measure of success. What is, however, is how many are actually engaged. Sterne goes on to define engagement, since that will be the next obvious question: Engagement is when someone cares and interacts. Ahhhhh…. So how do you determine if they care?

Social media is unlike any other existing marketing tactic so it can’t be measured like we have for any traditional medium. Social media is about a conversation. If you are having a conversation with someone – and hopefully many someones – you are succeeding.

KD Paine’s blog on Measuring Social Media stresses the most important part of a conversation: LISTENING. By listening to what people are saying about you and to you, you can then respond, react, act, improve, change, etc. That’s why it’s a conversation. Rarely is a conversation a one-way street.

Hoffman and Fodor’s article,”Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing,” suggests that you can’t measure the company’s investment … you have to measure the customers investment. This way of thinking is really helping me to set goals for a social media campaign that is measurable. The authors say to measure using four key motivations: connections, creation, consumption and control. These represent “investments” that the customer is making to engage with the brand. It can be a blog comment, registration on a brand community, a tweet or Facebook comment about a company, review, etc. It’s up to the marketer to make these ways of engaging available.

The motivation to become engaged is still left to the consumer. But, it’s a lot like advertising. You can tell them about your product, you can offer incentives to buy it, even hand out free samples and coupons, but in the end, it’s still the end consumer’s decision whether or not he is motivated to purchase. Social media is much the same. You can attract consumers to your social media with cute videos, funny or unique pictures, even interesting content but in the end, they still have to be motivated to want to be engaged. THAT is more the tricky part of social media, not whether to be on Facebook or Twitter or both and how often to post. There must be some perceived value in someone taking time to interact with a brand. Therefore, the marketer needs to identify what that is so the relationship has a chance of growing.

Take for example the American Red Cross. In light of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, becoming a “fan” of a high-profile nonprofit that is clearly taking the lead in aiding Japan in some way, affiliates you with them. As such, you might be looked upon as someone who supports disaster causes, who cares deeply for their fellow man, a compassionate soul.  In some cases, this type of “reward” is worth the interaction.

While it’s hard to quantify “awareness” as an objective using marketing techniques, if you allow awareness to be defined as building relationships and that being accomplished through engagement, you can then quantify and put an ROI on your social media efforts.

If you really want to copy excellence, you don’t have to look much further than Walt Disney. It seems everything they touch is well, magic, even things that don’t seem so magical at the time. A few years ago, according to an article titled “Saving Disney, Activating Publics through the Internet”, by Feldner and Meisenbach, Roy Disney had a mission and it wasn’t to repaint Minnie’s house in Toonland. Along with a few others, he believed the company was not doing as well as it should and that the problems all stemmed from the leadership of Michael Eisner. He wanted him gone. Not being able to convince the Board to make a change, he resigned from the board and launched a website  — SaveDisney.com. He used this platform to garner support from shareholders no matter how small, all over the world, to generate enough “no” votes to get Eisner removed as CEO.

If you weren’t a shareholder of Disney in 2003-2004, you might not have been aware of the campaign. You might not have even known that there was discourse among the Board. I mean, shoot, it’s the happiest place on earth, right? Disney’s carefully executed “call to action” website brought down Eisner and created a new day for Disney. Once again, brands around the world can learn from Disney. Using technology to garner support – even from the little guy – can make a huge difference.

Even if you don’t have the same situation, what’s interesting is that the Walt Disney company just plain ignored Roy Disney’s SaveDisney.com website. If you take nothing away from this lesson, it’s that you should never ignore a website, blog or even a comment that’s about your company. Roy did the right thing: he used the site to generate relationships with other shareholders. The content of the site clearly reflected a very important part of relationship building – control mutuality. His comments and text said “I’m listening to you” to the other shareholders. Even if they had just one share of stock, it was important to him. This resonated loudly with these shareholders.

Blogs, websites, even social media can use this technique of two-way communication to help build a relationship. It’s one of the reasons that these tactics have become so popular with public relations professionals. As noted in Long, Galarneau, Carolso and Bryan’s article, “The Untamed Blog, Public Relations asset or liability,” public relations professionals can use the blog to circumvent traditional gatekeeps, such as newspapers. Plus, it can eventually lead to innovation in the workplace, improve employee morale and even attract clients.

Martin and Todorov’s article, “How will digital platforms be harnessed in 2010, and how will they change the way people interact with brands,” is downright scary. Their advice is simply to figure out how your target audience spends its day and tailor your product’s message around it.  They state: The next generation of interactivity therefore will not just fill gaps but create synergy across touchpoints by connecting activities that prolong the experience across the multiple places where the consumer can engage with the brand.

I don’t know. I kind of feel like the stack of dollar bills from that Geico commercial is following me. Do I really want to have a brand following me around, popping up from my morning newspaper to my email to my facebook page to my tv, on my cell phone, on the radio, etc. etc.??? OH wait, I think we might already be there.

The trick for brands is to make themselves relevant to your everyday life. The authors predict that “the best uses of digital platforms in 2010 will be hybrids of product and service: addressing a need and providing enhanced functionality and access to the better brand offering.” In other words, we will be engaging with brands.

This fits well into the concept of building your own army, as mentioned in the book, Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. If you want to spread the word about your brand, you have to build your own army. If you can get people interacting and engaging with your brand in some way, they will “tell two friends” and so on and so on, to paraphrase that famous shampoo commercial. It can be done, state the authors, and many a brand has done it.  Just look at Disney.

Not many people realize that in 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revised the guidelines for endorsements and testimonials to include bloggers.  So while they were able to talk about products as they wished, now the FTC required them to reveal whether or not they were paid or received products in exchange for the endorsement. In Burns’ article, “Mommy Bloggers Speak Out: Reactions to the FTC’s Revised Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials,” she analyzed the effect of the FTC rule on Mommy Bloggers. Interestingly enough, those interviewed felt that they were fairly upfront and transparent with their readers from the beginning.

What’s interesting about this is not so much the ruling but the fact that the FTC acknowledges the importance of the influence of these bloggers. You know when you see those ads in the newspaper that say “I lost 100 lbs in 60 days and you can too” and in tiny letters above the ad it says “PAID ADVERTISEMENT” so it’s not confused with editorial? Ads like that are what inspired the FTC to set guidelines around transparency. Consumers have a right to know what is truly news and editorial, and what is a paid ad. So, why should we be surprised that this same rule applies to bloggers?

I can’t say that I personally look for or read certain bloggers about a certain items. Even as a single mom juggling two tweenagers, I don’t really feel the desire to follow mommy bloggers. However, I do find user-generated content helpful. The other day, for example, my son told me he wanted a new printer that he could print to wirelessly. The color printer we have is really old and well, it wasn’t a bad idea. So I went online, looking at different stores for what they had to offer. I narrowed it down and then searched just for one particular model. I ran across a site that had reviews on it and wow! I got the real inside scoop on this particular model. It wasn’t at all what I was hoping for and I could easily see how the items they discussed could happen to me.

Now, sure. I’ve looked at user reviews before and ignored some of their complaints. In some cases, the reasons for their low ratings were for situations that I would never encounter (“The camera didn’t work well deep sea diving…”). I also discounted those that used poor grammar, spelling and crass language. To me, a person who honestly reviewed something was a valuable resource.

In Cheong and Morrison’s article, “CONSUMERS’ RELIANCE ON PRODUCT INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOUND IN UGC,” (UCG meaning User Generated Content), they studied whether or not people trusted UGC more than paid product information. Guess what? They found that people trusted OTHER CONSUMERS more than info from the company itself. Wow. Think about that. We really believe the thoughts, opinions, reviews of someone we’ve never met who could be anyone, anywhere? And how do we know they aren’t the competition or the company itself posing as a real user?

So it’s called Social Influence Marketing, or SIM, a term coined by Razorfish, a digital marketing and design agency. They define SIM as “employing social media and social influencers to achieve the marketing and business needs of an organization.” In other words, recognize that your prospects are researching online and in their social circles and figure out how to tap into that process to influence their purchase decisions. The authors say a brand can’t just push out messages anymore. It has to “do” and it has to “engage with their customers” and do so “across every platform, channel and device.”

The findings in their report mirror that in the Cheong and Morrison article. Razorfish offers advice to companies however, including: “(1) brands must socialize with consumers, (2) Brands must develop a credible social voice, and (3) Brands must provide a return on emotion to their consumers.”

Return on emotion?? Yes, in the same vein as Hon & Grunig’s control mutuality, Razorfish says that loyalty is built with a symmetrical relationship, “in which both the brand and the consumer reap equal returns from their relationship.”

But back to the Groundswell book. The authors are all for this type of social marketing interaction but they relate it much like a good diet plan – you can’t expect immediate results. It’s a transformation to shift to social media. You need to take steps that move into a “natural progression.” And, you HAVE TO HAVE executive support. That’s usually the one that trips us up. Letting go isn’t something that executive teams tend to like! In embracing social media and “keeping the customer at the center of your organization,” it’s a necessity. Wanna make them believers pretty quickly? Have a crisis! That always works! Just look at Dell! It sure pushed them into embracing social media plan!

So what does the future hold? We can only imagine how technology will take us further and further into the groundswell. Communication will continue to evolve and. Email, mobile, geo-location, text, IM – we can only wait and see where the people go next.

Surely, Obama’s campaign managers thought of this when they launched his very well-known online Presidential Campaign. In Abbey Levenshus’ article, Online relationship management in a Presidential campaign: A case study of the Obama campaign’s management of its Internet-integrated grassroots effort, she uses the measurements of Ledingham and Brunig’s OPR dimensions of trust, openness, involvement, commitment and investment to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign in developing relationships. He successfully used the online campaign to communicate with more than two million people.

In the article, Empowering Youth: Use of technology in advocacy to affect social change, the author, Rosemary Thackeray, said “Advocates using these technologies can share information at a faster pace, recruit more people and use a variety of tools to implement the necessary action for social change.” While the youth of today are extremely connected via cell phones and Internet sites, they aren’t able to vote. However, they are the future and engaging them now for advocacy issues will prove fruitful when they are older.

In Jensen’s article, Going Green Using computer-mediated public relations to communicate environmental causes, he says that companies that appear to be environmental in their promotions are looked upon more favorably. Now, I don’t know that I necessarily agree with that statement. Sure, that’s great that they’re saving trees but in my eyes, it simply shows that they are using technology to advance their message to their audience. However, the examples in the article talk about how environmental companies are engaging people online. THIS I get.

But now, back to Groundswell… We’re finally to the point where the fun begins. Reviews and comments. We’re energizing our public to talk about us and we go so far as to create a forum for them to do so. But it’s good!! Eighty percent of all reviews are actually positive and the negative reviews can actually help you maintain quality and good customer service.

The next logical step is supporting the groundswell. The example in the book is that of CaringBridge, a free website supported by donations that allows people in hospitals to communicate their latest updates in one place. I have a friend who uses this site and it allows me to keep up with his treatment without barraging him for information. It’s also easier for him to talk about it once, rather than over and over. Like a wiki, content is produced by regular users like you and me. The chapter also talks about forums helping people solve their issues. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used the advice in a forum to fix a computer, ipod or something along those lines. It saves company’s a ton in customer service calls and I can get an almost instant answer from someone who speaks my language (technical and otherwise).

Finally, innovation is the next step. Using the feedback from customers, you can tap into this to create new and better products and services. If you’re listening and engaging your customers online, they’ll tell you what they want. Forget customer surveys and focus groups – the best of the best exists online in your own forum.

What’s the capital of Alaska? I bet you screamed JUNO! People like to help, especially if they are asked. That’s what the groundswell is all about: Making relationships, listening, engaging, supporting and innovating.

This week, I’m reading Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, two Forrester researchers.  They define “groundswell” as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies.” The opening chapters of the book describe how we are using the technology to band together, to get advice, to seek out solutions from others. They used the example of DIGG and the posting of the secret DVD code and how it took the code down and then, thanks to pressure by the users, put it back up. They said “the Internet allows people to draw strength from each another.” A groundswell, they say is the collision of three forces: people, technology and economics.

In the article, Users like you? Theorizing agency in user-generated content by van Dijck, he talks about how the term “users” has come to mean anyone who participates on the Internet. This “participatory culture,” as he calls it, has given rise to an increased economic value of content available on the Internet. But the Groundswell authors state quite clearly (and prove) that “not all users are alike and won’t respond in the same way.” Their “Social Technographics” tool profiles people by their level of online behavior, and puts them into categories such as Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives. The tool overlays this data with that of your target audience to see how to best reach them online.

Because my eventual thesis will deal with reaching donors online, I thought this tool was fantastic. I wish I could get Forrester’s level of research on the non profit market to use that data!

Anyway, so these different levels of people are defined by their levels of involvement. The top of the list, Creators, are posting content to blogs, editing wiki’s, etc. They’re really involved. At the end of the line, you have Inactives, who are just that – inactive. Understanding where your audience falls will help to target them online with tools/activities that will engage them how they wish to engage. BRILLIANT!

Backing this up is also noted in Daugherty’s article, Exploring Consumer Motivations for Creating User-Generated Content. He cites Katz’s functional theory that states “that attitudes serve various motivations, depending on the purpose, such that one’s behavior becomes a function of their attitude toward that behavior.” In other words, if we want to know WHY someone does something, we need to understand what MOTIVATES him to do something.

Think about your friends on Facebook who are most vocal. What motivates them to post their status on Facebook? I have friends who only post when they want to brag, friends who only post when they have something important to say, and friends who post their every waking moment. I don’t understand the motivation of the latter.

Daugherty’s article analyzes the ego-defensive and social functional sources that contribute to a person’s online behavior. The ego-defensive function “compels people to protect themselves from internal insecurities and external threats.” By creating content, this helps “consumers minimize their self doubts and feel a sense of community.” The social function is kind of just like it sounds: “an opportunity to associate with friends.” Why? To engage with others, connect, feel important, etc.

An article by Jeff Howe, The Rise of Crowdsourcing, talks about how the Internet has taken user-generated content and literally brought together a “new pool of cheap labor.” iStockphoto, which has thousands of stock photos online for about $1 each, has just about replaced the average professional photographer.  Instead of contracting with a corporation to shoot pictures, they’re forced to shoot pictures and post to iStockphoto with the hopes of making money for their work.

The most interesting example in this article is under “The Tinkerer” which talks about how companies are outsourcing their difficult projects to anyone in the world. The website, InnoCentive, connects engineering geniuses to companies who have R&D problems. A guy with some smarts can make a lot of money just “freelancing” the work on this site. Again, BRILLIANT!

Since the day I first logged onto AOL in my tiny New York apartment all those years ago, a lot has changed, and it’s not just the technology. People are swarming to connect on the Internet. They’re engaging, posting, commenting, friending, following, and otherwise, participating, even if just monitoring, online. According to the Groundswell authors, our emotional motivation for this is simply a need to connect. Well that sounds almost human!

One of the things I found difficult in reading Shirky’s book is the tools he mentioned are either gone or morphed into something else. He also doesn’t place much emphasis on some of the tools that are wildly more accurate in explaining his theories on group interactions and forming. For example, in chapter 9, he talks about the Small World network, which, in short, is the six degrees of separation theory. So what social tool do you think of when I say that you connect with a few people who “function like ambassadors, creating links between disparate populations in larger networks”? LinkedIn, of course! But Shirky doesn’t mention the site at all. He instead talks about dodgeball and how using this site helped him to meet someone at a bar that he didn’t know but that his friend, who wasn’t there, knew. I had never heard of dodgeball so googled it to find that it’s now called FourSquare. Sure, I’ve heard of that but still, I think LinkedIn is a better example.

A while ago, I came across a company looking for my expertise. They listed the job description on LinkedIn. While viewing it, I saw that one of my connections, good ol’ Fritz Eichelberger, was a connection to the man who was listed as the contact. I asked Fritz to connect me with this person and in doing so, he also provided a recommendation of my work. Now that is a social tool that illustrates the Small World pattern!

But back to the Anti-Crime symposium. One of the very first observations presented at the symposium was the concept of Collective Efficacy. This term meant that if people felt comfortable in their homes, with their neighbors, they would have a sense of community and would thus translate into sustainability. This is very much an offline version of social capital. When you build either, you end up with people supporting one other, a good aspect for both online groups as well as real communities.

I find it interesting that Shirky spends so much time talking about Meetup. If you were to ask 10 people on the street what’s Meetup, I don’t know that you’d get more than 2 people who know what it is. It is still alive and there are plenty of users, but it’s not as widespread and popular as Facebook, something Shirky devotes almost no time discussing. But, he spends a lot of time talking about how Meetup succeeds because it lets its users decide what’s important and if the group fails, it’s ok because that’s what happens. Many people join a group or start a group and then abandon it. Few succeed. His concept is that as long as it didn’t cost anyone anything in terms of real time or money, it’s ok, no love was lost.

It kind of reminds me of that saying, “Dance as if no one is watching…” because he spends a great deal of the book discussing how for-profit organizations literally squelch the possibility of new ideas and innovations because they must analyze the risk vs. possible reward. There are many examples, such as the open Source coding of Linux, that show when there is no one organization at risk, or no money changing hands, great things can happen in a collaborative sense. Think Wikipedia. As Shirky says, “Open source doesn’t reduce the likelihood of failure, it reduces the cost of failure; it essentially gets failure for free.” He says, “…anything that raises the cost of doing something reduces what gets done.” Isn’t that the truth!

Overall, the book summed up its contents in one sentence: The ability of people to share, cooperate, and act together is being improved dramatically by our social tools.” Social media tools have already made significant changes in the way we communicate and assemble, and more change will occur as more people adapt these technologies and more such tools evolve.

I don’t think we need to worry so much about future generations. They’ve grown up with computers in their hands, phones, ears, and shoes (think Nike). We even microchip our dog! They have no idea what a map is, thanks to MapQuest, can’t understand how we never talk to our friends from high school, credit Facebook, and why we would ever have owned a set of encyclopedias! I know this to be true as just the other day, my 12-year old posted on Facebook that using a tool, she was able to determine that she spent over 5000 hours on Facebook in 2010. Divide that by 24 hours and that’s equivalent to 208 days!!

In Demerling’s article, “Twitter me this, Twitter me that: Marketization of brands through social media sites,” she talks about how brands are using social media to understand their market better. She also talks about how consumers are led to believe that they are co-producing the products they buy through their comments and feedback. While I tend to agree to some extent, I will argue that while I probably don’t spend as much time on Facebook as my daughter does, I do “friend” several brands. I have yet to tell Lipton to make their tea differently or to tell Pepperidge Farm to change the color of their goldfish. I will say, however, that I have friended Muvico theatres in order to get the coupons for a free small popcorn.  But down the road, as social media meshes into daily life, those growing up with it might have a better influence or care to be heard by the brands they follow. She is right however, in her closing paragraph, stating that the world of advertising as we know it – or for us older folks, knew it – will continue to fragmentize as brands shift to advertising on social networking sites.

Hobsbawm’s article, “Brands 2.0: Branding in a digital world,” he supports her views. I love this article – he talks about how tv and radio allowed Coca Cola to “teach the world to sing” in 1971 – who remembers that one? I have it going through my head now. I wonder if social media will be able to create memorable moments as much as tv commercials have. Think about the SuperBowl commercials of the past, and those you will see this year. How many of those you can recall and remember when you saw them. Now, think about viewing the Annoying Orange or perhaps the youtube video “Charlie bit my finger.” Same thing, or different?

According to Hobsbawm, the world is “splintering into niches.” It’s no longer just the daily paper – there are national papers, local papers, community papers, industry papers. The same for magazines. Then radio went from local to national to syndicated to satellite programs. TV, once a mere five channels that went “off the air” at midnight every night, now has hundreds of channels from a variety of services, with unique niche channels. It’s almost impossible to reach many people with one media buy. The choices are endless.

New digital media is becoming major media owners. Take Google. What hasn’t it bought up lately? Hobsbawm says, “These new media are interactive, immersive, socially connected and radically different from the old media archetypes.” And now, modern marketing, he says is now a global conversation. So if you loved the Coca Cola commercial in 1971, the only way Coke knew it is if you started buying more Coke. You might talk about the commercial with your friends, but likely, they saw it too as there were only so many channels and so many programs to choose from. Now, you can blog, tweet or post directly to Coke and someone, somewhere will pay attention to what you have to say.

“We are living in an age when more information has been generated in the last three years than in the previous 40,000.” (Hobsbawm). These are amazing times. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds.

Let’s take this Lifetime TV deal. First of all, I sent out the release on my client’s new book via a wire service. This wire service (erelease.com) promises to deliver to the major media outlets as well as their Internet counterparts. Check! That’s one less thing I have to do! I also write my releases using search engine optimization so the release can pull hits from its keywords.

Lifetime likes what they see, and visits the client’s website. On the site is a blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. It also has several videos embedded that also live on Youtube. Liking what they see, they then call me and ask questions about the book, my client, etc. During our conversation, my contact there (Special Guest Coordinator) tells me that they look for guests who will actively promote their appearance on the show (“The Balancing Act”) with social media. We talked a bit about the social media and how that would be done.

As I hang up with my new friend, Steve, I’m thinking hey, I just made a deposit in my “social capital” account! I now know someone at Lifetime TV whom I will likely work with with this client, and will have the ability to call up at a later date to talk about another client. According to Hazleton, Harrison-Rexrode and Kennan in New Technologies in the Formation of Personal and Public Relations, “social capital is the ability to form and maintain relationships to facilitate goal and objective attainment.” In public relations, this means relationships.  A great deal of it also has to do with trust. If I give my new contact good information that helps him, my social capital increases.

It’s getting to be so simple to do PR that I sometimes wonder if technology will kill the PR professional. In Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody,” he talks about how scribes used to be so prestigious because they were the ones who made books. They were skilled, knowledgeable and held the keys to literacy. Then, movable type came along and wow, they were out of a job! The PR professional is not too far from a scribe. Where it used to “who you know” that projected you to the top ranks of the PR world, now it’s simply how well can you use technology to get the story told. I like this way better!

What’s the worst punishment you can think of for a human being? According to Shirky in his book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations,”it’s solitary confinement. I know, you might have been thinking death by monkeys or some sort of water torture but it’s really quite simple. Humans are social creatures. A lot of tasks we take on might seem like individual tasks but we work with one another to get things done. We actively seek out others who think, act and believe like we do. Since the dawn of time, this has been true.

So it’s really no surprise that we’ve come to embrace social media the way we have. What easier way to connect with one another than using technology? There are no meetings to attend or RSVPs to make, just log on and communicate, 24/7/365/from anywhere on the globe (with Internet access, of course!)

A good definition of social media comes from Boyd and Ellison’s 2007 article, Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship:

“We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.”

You might think that social network sites came into existence very recently, but that’s not the case. Thirteen years ago, in 1997, SixDegrees.com emerged as the first. Although profiles (such as on dating sites), friend lists and instant messaging already existed, this site was the first to put them all in one place (Boyd and Ellison). What happened to SixDegrees? Well, according to Boyd and Ellison, it “failed to become a sustainable business” and closed in 2000. Some said that it was just before its time.

I think back to that time and we still had telephone cords running up and down our hallways and everyone used AOL. It’s no wonder it didn’t catch on. We were all “newbies” to the internet and really didn’t know where to look for such a thing!

And now that we’ve figured it out and have spawned such giants as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and other social network sites, the next logical step comes from the advertising world — how can we use these groups to sell more products! According to Pete Cashmore of Mashable.com in the Social Marketing Playbook, Brands are becoming our “friends” and therefore, they need to become good at storytelling. This is what gives the Brand a voice very much like any other person you might talk to, and is necessary for success.

You might notice a lot of ads on tv now integrating their facebook page or even directing viewers to the page. Just when you thought social media would replace traditional media, this is not the case. Just like when TV came out and radio shivered in its boots, there’s plenty of room for social media. As Jeff Pulver of Pulver.com points out in the Social Marketing Playbook, “Old Media and New Media need each other, and have for a long time…When Old Media and New Media become catalysts for each other, amazing things can and will happen.”

Shirky says in his book, “When we change the way we communicate, we change society.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. We are living it right now. Email, cell phones, smart phones, Internet tv, social networking sites, instant messaging, text messaging … they are definitely changing the way we communicate. Society, look out!

But here’s why I encourage Facebook Fan Pages and why I push companies to get on board:

1 – Ego. Gosh darn, it feels good to see people hit the “like” button and become a fan of your page! It’s like running for class president and getting all the votes! It feels good! If not for any other reason, have a fan page just to walk around saying, “They like me! They really like me!”

2 – Customer Feedback. Want to ask your customers/prospects what they think of something? Don’t have time/money/staff to do a statistical survey or focus group? Oh, I’d say you could have a pretty good indicator in about 2 hours on Facebook. Yesterday, the TV show Glee asked its fans what they thought of the previous night’s episode. In about 2 hours, there were over 1000 responses. Some loved it, some hated it. Some thought it was just ok. Some thought it was the best episode ever. But here’s the key, they all said WHY. You can’t beat that for instant feedback.

3 – Awareness. I have a client that holds regular electronics recycling collection events. I know this. Yet, it wasn’t until I saw their post about their collection the coming weekend that I went around collecting my electronics and made a plan to attend the event. Yeah, I could have thought about it and checked their website but I didn’t. People are lazy. If you put it out there to remind them and it’s less work for them, they’re happy (note: I’m not saying I’m lazy, right?)

4 – It’s FREE! Hello, I said FREE! If I told you I had this great publication that literally hundreds of thousands of people read EVERY DAY, several times a day and you could find people directly interested in your product or service — no matter what that is — you’d beg me to let you PAY to be in it. But no, this is a freebie, friends. Take advantage of 400% growth every 6 months. GET ON BOARD! It’s FREE!

5 – Foward-thinking. Maybe you say that your audience isn’t social media saavy. Maybe you think they’ll never join a fan page. Think about this. The FASTEST growing segment on Facebook is the 35+ market. The younger generation is already online. They expect to find everyone and everything on social media. And if they don’t, they forget about you pretty darn quick. Prep for the future generation. You gotta be in it to win it.

And that’s just my top 5. There’s no reason WHY you shouldn’t be online. If you say “Oh, I’ll do it as soon as I have someone to manage it.” Then you need to hire me. I’ll write your social media plan and execute it, building your fan base and interacting with your audience. But if you don’t, that’s ok. Your competition will.

Me: Hi, I’m calling to confirm my dog’s hair cut today. I can’t remember what time. I think it’s 2:30, 3 or 3:30 pm today.

PetSmart: OK, what’s your last name?

Me: Luongo – L-U-O-N-G-O.

PetSmart: L-O-N, what?

Me: No, L- U – O – N – G – O

PetSmart: What’s the dog’s name?

Me: Trooper.

PetSmart: Pinker?

Me: No, Trooper. I think the appointment is sometime around 2:30 or 3 pm today.

PetSmart: Hold on.

PetSmart: Ms. Luongo? Has your dog been here before?

Me: Yes, many times. I think I called on Thursday to set up this appointment. I’m sure it’s in the afternoon.

PetSmart: What kind of dog is he?

Me: Havanese.

PetSmart: I’m looking at the entire week and I can’t find him. I see a Tanner but that’s a collie.

Me: Can you look in his records to see if they noted the appointment time there?

PetSmart: That’s just it, I can’t find a record for him ever being here. How do you spell your last name again?

Me: L-U-O … N-G-O.

PetSmart: I’m just not finding anything that even looks Chinese here.

Me: WHAT? CHINESE?

PetSmart: Or Japanese, whatever.

Me: Um, my dog is a HAVANESE. It’s a breed of dog. My name is Italian, if that’s what you’re guessing.

PetSmart: Oh, here it is. 3:30pm today.

Me: Really? REALLY? Thanks so much.

Friends, it doesn’t end there. I get a voice mail a few minutes later.

PetSmart: Ms. Luongo, I show that Trooper’s rabies expired last year. Please call me back. The phone number is … (voice in background telling the number)…

Now, I know his shots are up to date so I call the vet and confirm. Yep, sure enough, he’s all up to date. So, I call back.

Me: Yes, I’m returning your call about Trooper’s shots. He’s all up to date. Doesn’t expire until May 22nd.

PetSmart: Oh, really? OK. Just bring the paperwork with you.

Me: Well, PetSmart always just calls the vet and confirms and they said that if you wanted to confirm you could call.

PetSmart: Ok, what’s the phone number?

Me: Really? Is this your first day or something?

PetSmart: (pause) um, no.

Me: Wow, ok here’s the number.

IN the 3 years I’ve had this bundle of fur, I’ve never once had to bring in anything from my vet. They have ALWAYS called and confirmed any questions directly with the vet. Also, his records ARE up to date because I just had him in there not too long ago for boarding. I’m sure of it. I’m not sure what this rocket scientist of a clerk thought she was reading but it wasn’t anything about my dog. The Chinese, Japanese Whatever dog breed.

So, here’s the point. Make your fancy ads and hire your big gun PR and Ad agencies. Make your stores pretty and have some fun with social media but please, don’t hire idiots. Spend some time getting everyone — even the brand new person in the dog grooming salon — on board with corporate policies, philosophies and messaging. This experience today couldn’t have been more of a trainwreck and in the hour that it has happened, I’ve put it on Facebook, Twitter and now this blog. You can bet, I’ll tell at least 5 friends today at some point too.

Poor PetSmart. One person, one clueless person who was allowed to answer the phone, is giving them all the negative publicity they just don’t want. Sad part is, when I tell my friends, they’ll inevitably share a story of their own. To think, all of this could have been avoided simply by TRAINING this person. Take a lesson from PetSmart’s mistake. Make sure everyone in your company lives and breathes your mission, goals and messaging. If not, they’re not worth having on your team.