If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen! In fact, don’t walk into the kitchen in the first place.

If you’re pulling out the stops and taking the leap into social media …be aware that you are opening pandora’s box and you need to be prepared to take on anything that comes out of there!

This is what any experienced online community or social media manager would tell you based on their experience if you’re still watching by the sidelines and wondering whether to engage with your market via social media channels or opt for the safer traditional one-way marketing communications medium where “control” is possible. Taking the social media leap involves being ready to jump into a new world where people don’t give a hoot about the traditional rules of engagement that many business have shielded themselves with. Expecting old school PR and marketing communications methods to be applied to your social media interactions will get you nowhere soon. You see that form of PR and marketing communications had the following attributes:

• Every message that went out to the public was carefully crafted and engineered to strike a certain nerve or reaction.
• The image of the business is always portrayed in good light. Messages always portray how good things are, how well the organization is doing, how nothing is our fault, how there is always only good news etc
• Negative feedback, events, bad news, weaknesses should be hidden from the public eye and anyone catching sight of such aspects would see vulnerability.
• Messages need to be diplomatic so that they don’t come across too direct. There are a list of things which simply can not be said.
• Whatever goes out on behalf of the organization needs to be analyzed, edited, re checked, re-edited, follow a long drafting cycle and then be released for everyone outside.

Social media may be a new medium of PR and marketing communications but it works on a different set of rules contrary to the old ones:

• It’s anything but a one-way communication channel. It’s always a conversation so if you put something out there expect honest and free feedback, comments, love and hate in equal amounts. Be prepared for replies because they will follow anything you say via the free web.
• It’s not about crafty messages that took months to draft. On the social web, the audience appreciate honesty, human interactions, transparency, openness and all those other things that were taboo with traditional business communications. If you can’t openly express the good, the bad and the ugly and feel the need to filter and suppress every message that goes out from those within the organization, then social media is not a good option for you.
• Be spontaneous and be yourself. Web audiences are not fond of ‘official statements’ from the organization nor do they connect with those messages your specialists took 3 months to release. They connect with the business via people within your organization who can express themselves freely and seem accessible and human online whether it’s on the blog, Facebook page, Linkedin, Twitter or anywhere else.
• People rule the web. Give them the benefit of the doubt and let them decide what they think about what you’re trying to express as a brand or organization. There will be those who appreciate you and those who don’t. The key lies in being able to address the concerns of those who don’t and leverage the support  of those who do.

In short social media has it’s own rules which need to be understood well before you take the leap. When you do take the leap, embrace this new web culture and don’t hang on to the old policies and you’ll do just great! You’ll eventually see the pros far outweigh any fears you may have had going in. As long as you go in with a flexible mindset and keep the ‘human’ persona of an organization at the forefront you’ll take on anything thrown at you with ease.

No surprise because sharing is a cornerstone for the social web and at the heart of it all. People share things all the time. Sit on a long bus ride and the guy next to you may talk about his recent work trip experience, what he thought about last nights basketball game or what he thought about the mid-term election polls.

That’s how you get to know people. That’s how you start relating to people. That is how relationships are built! They share. The ones you don’t know much about and can’t connect with are the ones who won’t or don’t share.

It’s easier with people. Perhaps that’s why so many people have successfully tied into the social web, strike conversations with others, interact with others and find it easy to carry their offline personalities with them to their online persona and interactions with others. Not all companies and businesses on the other hand carry their personalities as well to the online world as they do in the offline world.

Let me tell you what I mean by that. Just the other day I walked into the office of a prospective customer and had a discussion with a bunch of people from their office who were extremely personable, like-able and easy to relate to. I learnt about their interests, how they got started with their business, what they’ve been up to in recent days and it turns out they were a great bunch of people. Definitely a company I would love to work with. Truth be told, that’s not the impression I had going in that day.

My first impression was formed by their website. I checked the ‘about’ section and most of the standard information you would when you go to a website. I then looked at the blog and press releases. Both were not updated often and had some content loosely related to the industry but from what I read, they were a very serious company, stated facts needed and quite “dry” or plain vanilla was my guess. The people who made up the company were however, anything but plain vanilla or dry….they exuded passion for what they did. They celebrated small victories and took challenges seriously. They had opinions on a lot of different issues within their sector and often brainstormed on how to offer something better and stand apart. Yet, none of that was reflected on their website, blog, Twitter account or Facebook page. If you have never met them personally, you would never really know them for what they are…a great business that you or I would enjoy engaging with.

Businesses need to humanize when they decide to go social.  They need to reflect a personality that people can relate to. On the social web, people like interacting with other people. Not with inanimate entities like a corporation or a limited liability firm or whatever the legal entity is. A number of businesses owners and managers we’ve spoken to over the last few months have registered or sign-up accounts on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress blogs, Flickr, YouTube and other social sites. They have remained inactive since the first sign in because they couldn’t figure out what “The Company” wanted to say everyday.

Sharing is the key to humanizing a business to fit in with the social web. Share experiences, share interesting things the business has learnt, share photos of last nights team dinner at the steak house, share updates on little victories, share what happened at the office today, share challenges and upsets the business faced, share what the business is excited about, share opinions your people have on something current….keep sharing. Thats when you come across as more than just a company name and develop a personality that other people can relate to. Let people know and relate to the emotions and personality of your business. Thats how relationships will be built and that’s how a businesses social online persona can start reflecting it’s real world persona.

We’ve just concluded a very enjoyable 2 hour session on “Getting Started With Blogging” and making the most of the WordPress platform here at Open Space. The lively audience which consistently grew as the session continued participated and interacted with their questions on the basics of blogging, getting started and tips on how to become an active part of the blogosphere. It was a pleasure interacting with people from various walks of life and discussing how they could use blogging to their advantage whether it was to create awareness for their nonprofit organizations, their college projects, businesses or personal passions and made for a lively session. We hope the workshop will help inspire them to kick-start their own blogs really soon!

The session was arranged by Open Space which is a brilliant initiative by the Centre For Communication and Development Studies which follows a mantra of Talk -> Think -> Act for change. The Open Space centre in Pune leverages literature, cinema, theater, music, debates and several forms of communication to create discussion on issues that impact society, build knowledge, skills and initiate change. For more on Open Space and the work they do check out their website www.openspaceindia.org and their publication www.infochangeindia.org

We look forward to being back!

Sure….the quiet kid at the back of the class who wait’s his or her turn to speak may really end up being a brilliant student and perhaps a great friend if you get the chance to know who they are but you always know the ones who are always talking since…they are always talking.

When marketing a brand or business online you’re seeking attention. You want to be that noisy kid in class who everyone knows because you can’t be ignored. The social web is a lot like this classroom and publishing content through the blog, through the social networking sites, on twitter and other communication channels is the noise that’s going to get you noticed and have everyones attention. If you need others around to know you and know you’re around then you have you need to be talkative through online media. The difference being you’ll be required to deliver valuable content (not just heckle the teachers) in order to create more than just a ruckus in class. The more actively and frequently your media arm can publish valuable content, the more you’ll be “known” among social circles.

You know how you were always told not to be the noisy one in class? As an online marketer, it’s time to forget this and be that kid! After all…. everyone knows the noisy kid in class!

1. No Time: The contributors to the blog prioritized writing new content during the initial stages but as other tasks and duties catch up with them they find they can’t commit the time it takes to research, come up with ideas for posts, draft, check and publish them on a regular and consistent basis.
2. Out of Ideas: A plan was defined for the kind of topics which will be covered on the blog and after a while one finds themselves at a road block where coming up with fresh articles or posts within the defined topic scope was so difficult the writing stopped happening.
3. No Takers: The regular publishing was happening but it seemed like it was all pointless since there seemed to be no readers, no comments, no feedback. As a result motivation to continue died out and the blog froze in time.

At the end of the day, a blog where activity from your end has died out is not going to work. It needs consistent and work before the blog starts working for you. It needs fresh content, new ideas, regular updates, replies, changes in direction, promotion, distribution and more.  Once you’ve determined what’s slowing your blog down here are some quick tips on how to overcome those causes and revive it:

• If there’s no time, you have to find the time or the bandwidth to commit and make it work. Re-allocate it to someone within the company who can dedicate the time to post. Developing a successful blog takes time and patience. It’s never instant traffic magic and one needs to dedicate time over several months to keep at it and getting it to work. Alternatively, (and pardon my being so outright salesy) hire us to manage the blog for you!

• If you find yourself out of ideas, look around at other online publications within your area and look for inspiration (don’t ever copy, it just works against your objectives). Also try re-focusing your topics and content to cover a wider scope and still be engaging for your target audience. For example, a business that sells “designer light switches” for homes and offices doing a blog on “designer light switches” is bound to run out of topics soon and runs the risk of getting boring.  Re-focusing the blog to cover articles on “interior decor ideas for homes and offices” widens the scope, keeps the content interesting and reaches out to the same target audience which would be interested in the switches.

• If there are no takers and it appears no one has read your posts, you have to make it happen. Blogs don’t gather subscribers and regular readers overnight. It can take a long while. Till then, you need to promote every post, bookmark them on social sites, share them on social networks, tweet about them, link them and push it out to the first set of readers while hoping they in turn will share them with others. Push your content out to others and over time, they will come to your blog.

If your blog has been stagnated for some time now, have a closer look into what may have caused it, re-focus your blog outreach plan and revive it. If you stick to it, it will start working for you.

The blog is a diary-like online platform to post a personal opinion or account of daily events so that others can read right?

…..Wrong! And this is what turns off many who think to themselves “What am going to post everyday and how will that help bring customers?” A blog is a highly versatile publishing platform. It can be what you want it to be and is only limited by one’s creativity. While some use it effectively to publish a daily account of events, others use it just as well to turn it into a learning resource with informative articles and some can adapt it to publish an online magazine with content that’s of interest to it’s readers. What you choose to publish depends largely on one’s business and more importantly their customers.

A very niche high tech company which needs to attract a very no-nonsense technical audience may need to publish more along the lines of technology publications maintaining a more serious tone and ensuring it’s valuable to the readers. A business targeted towards a younger audience may choose to publish a more rich media based one with a lighter first person tone to strike a chord with their readers. Finally the objective is to create a real social connection through the blog and develop a valuable online resource for your target audience.  That’s how your customers will discover you. How do you decide what kind of publication your business could use and how to leverage a blog? Simple….

• Define your target audience and customers (what kind of audience would you like your publication to draw?)

• Now put yourself in their shoes for a while and think about what kind of an online publication would attract your attention and have you go back for more on a regular basis? (What kind of content? What kind of tone? What are their current favorites? What can you learn from them? How could you make your publication even better?)

• Execute! Start working towards building that dream online publication  and spend some time every day thinking “how can I make it even better?” , “what would a reader like to see here?”… and make your publication the best there is.

Virtually every industry, business vertical or interest area including the niche one’s have successful online publications in the form of blogs, journals, portals, news sites and magazines. The blog as a platform is perhaps the most versatile marketing tool we’ve seen in a while. Use it well, and with a little effort you can also have one of those publications your customers value so much.