Sometimes it takes a grownup, in physical life, to remind us the basics of online community management. Celia Cohn was handling Ambassador duties at the front entrance of the Westin™ Kierland Resort, the official #SMX Social Scottsdale hotel. Her job is to greet guests in the hotel lobby, guide, engage and support.

She greeted me as I walked by, “Mr. Weintraub, how did your speaking go today, or is it tomorrow?” The familiar greeting surprised me, as I did not remember engaging with Celia prior.  Best practice number one: She did her homework. I did not realize until after the conversation that she had scoped out my #SMX Badge, which has my name on it and flags me as a speaker. She also knew that the conference was two days. I was so much more interested in the conversation because she had taken careful notice and engaged me along lines I care about, my speaking. Nice work Celia! This lady executes the basics, really well. (Author’s Note: I think we’ve also proven that Celia is great at link-building, as evidence herein .)

Best practice number two: Celia also engaged with a question. We suggest this to clients all the time, to engage by asking for an answer back.  I ended up talking to Celia for quite a while, quite a fascinating lady. The Westin™ Kierland Resort is lucky to have her.

While SMX Social Media Scottsdale was a fantastic conference, my interaction with Celia offered terrific social media takeaways. After all, we interact with people in social media. Sometimes it takes a mature person, handling community outreach in the physical world, to remind us of what’s important: Research your customer. Engage with a question that matters. Rock on Celia!

For years, the “Site:” search operator has provided a quick method to distill mainstream SERPs (search engine result pages) down to results from a single website or class of websites. The operator works for major international search engines including Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, and others. Concatenate keywords to filter SERPs matriculated by both site and keyword. When focused on identifying conversations in social, the “Site:” search operator becomes a powerful tool indeed.

Read on for a closer look at how this all works.This Google search allowed our community manager to discover a recent conversation that took place on the New York Times Facebook page about wine:

Just think of how powerful this technique can be in the hands of a gregarious community manager, poised to conduct thoughtful person-to-person outreach. She could easily jump into such a themed public thread to participate in conversations with other users she already knows are both interested in specific topics and willing to publicly engage.

Not only can a savvy community manager mine individuals’ interests and participate in the thread, there’s a strong likelihood that he can DM (direct message) the Facebook user(s), dependent on each user’s privacy settings. Since Facebook is famous for defaulting new users to porous privacy settings, which include allowing non-friends to DM, the odds are good. There’s more ways to mine friend-leads. Follow the golden Facebook “Like this” path to find an entire list of Facebook users interested in the topic, whether or not they participated in the thread.

For community managers committed to proactive outreach and finding topically relevant and engaged users, the “Site:” search operator can be a conversational goldmine. It allows the CM to literally make lists of users to “get to know.”

The technique is much more powerful than just Facebook. Check out this “Site:” operator footprint, designed to locate 2011 YouTube comment threads surrounding Syrah-focused wine tasting.

The SERPs uncover a number of options for community manager comment-thread-diving. “Ancient Peaks Renegade Paso Wine” includes a worthy thread and a ton of related videos, several of which have great conversations to join and users to meet.

The “Site:” search operator works splendidly in nearly any language a search engine handles. But keep in mind, not every search engine indexes each publicly discoverable corner of all social sites. For reasons ranging from political (Baidu & Facebook) to business (Twitter fire hose & Google), it’s just not all there in every search engine.  The “site:” search operator is a useful utility for figuring out what parts of what social community are indexed by each engine. Try the “site:” operator in Baidu for Facebook.com or Twitter.com to discover the effect Chinese government suffocating requirements have had on Baidu  -COUGH-

Google’s Chrome Browser includes a deadeye translation tool.  It’s not perfect, but the results are impressive. Check out this Baidu “Search:” query where we search b2b social media powerhouse alibaba.com for activity surrounding the Chinese character meaning “configuration.”

Since I don’t speak fluent Chinese, I’ll use the Chrome’s utility to translate.

Awesome, now we’ve got a starting point in alibaba.com to scope out activity surrounding the concept of “configuration.”

This search for “wine grower” in Russian, returns a sweet “Site:” SERP in Yandex. Using Chrome’s translate function, have a look in English.

It’s not hard to uncover a winery sporting a cool conversation to jump in to.

Yep, there are friends here to make for sure. After all, wine is a universal language!

Take this technique for a spin. Check out renren.com in Yandex to see what indexes, or LinkedIn.com/answers in Australian Google. After all, there might not be an SEO use to optimize public-facing areas of social media participation if the target engine does not index it. Try Russian or Italian keywords and take note of what indexes in Bing for Orkut or Xing.

The “Site:” search operator is a super useful tool to dissemble what parts of social media sites are indexed by search engines around the world. You’ll soon discover that most foreign ideations of Google handle most communities the same way.  The “Site:” operator is also a powerful tool for identifying public conversations underway in various social communities. Leverage it to find users as well, for thoughtful engagement and even to send direct messages to, privacy as their settings allow.

During the summer of 2010, an interesting international client encouraged us to take a look beyond our borders and check out where Facebook was popular in other parts of the world. With Facebook’s 500 million (at the time) users easily eclipsing the total U.S. population, it was clear that the phenomenon was not limited to our country, and we wondered how far it might continue to grow before eventually maxing out. The research project enlightened our team to the massively extending global reach of the still-young social network… and what a difference a year makes, as Facebook approaches 700 million users worldwide, wins a true social search patent, and prepares to launch what may be the definitive cloud-based music service.

While it seems Facebook continues to reign supreme across most of the wired globe, we also got to thinking that it’s not enough to gauge international social media activity by  how much of a population is on Facebook. If you really want to understand, connect with and market to demographics in another country, you have to get familiar with their homegrown channels. What other networks already have a stronghold in each country? Where is Facebook “uncool?”

This post kicks off a series of country-specific social networks overviews, complete with best practices, advertising opportunities, and example demographic targets. Up first under our microscope is the “OG” Google social network, Orkut.

Orkut | General Information

• Type: Social Network
• Founded: January 2002
• Headquartered: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
• Top Countries by Usage: Brazil, India, United States, Pakistan
• Target Users: B2B, Young (18-25), non-U.S. English speakers
• Advertising: Yes – Search & Contextual/Display

Orkut is a massive social network, most similar to Facebook. Users create profiles, post updates, share pictures and video, connect with other users and communicate in general.

Orkut users can also join Communities, which are like profiles, but reserved for Topics, Brands, Businesses, Interests, and other general non-human entities seeking a presence on Orkut. Within Communities, users can post in discussion forums, post video and pictures, participate in polls and be invited to specific community events.

Orkut History Lesson: Google commissioned employee Orkut Büyükkökten to create a social network to compete with Friendster in the early 00’s. Orkut officially launched in January of 2002. Orkut was originally headquartered with other Major Google properties in California. In the summer of 2008 Orkut is fully managed, operated and headquartered in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Orkut | Universal Statistics

Orkut | User Statistics

Source: www.orkut.com

• According to current Alexa traffic data, Orkut is the 12^th most visited website in India
• According to Comscore, in August of 2010 Orkut had 19.9 million users in India.

Anecdotally, there is no single definable user type in Orkut. Users represent a wide assortment of countries, occupations, hobbies, income levels etc. However, most users fall within the 18-25 age range and reside in Brazil or India.

The chart above illustrates that users are primarily interested in Orkut’s social functions. However, there is a large professional presence with these users interacting both in their own profiles and in business focused communities.

Do Businesses Use Orkut?
Businesses can create a branded presence through Orkut Communities (not profiles). Like the early days of Facebook, there are rampant unofficial brand and business pages, many of which have more fans and engagement than the official pages themselves.

There is evidence of many official brands using Orkut, mainly in countries like Brazil and India. Top-shelf brands that actively participate in Orkut include Dell India and Nike.

Best Practices for Brands on Orkut

• Stick with using the Community platform and ads to support your brand. No creating brand profiles!

• Listen to your potential community members before you start, even before you create a community

• Spend time monitoring conversations in other Community forums as well as profiles.

• Understand the special needs and interests of your potential community within Orkut to best advise what you use your official brand Community for once created.

• Optimize your Community for search
  • Having the keyword in title seems to have the biggest effect, coupled with having a large number of community members.
  • It’s not massively personalized like Facebook SERPs, but social elements are important to rankings.
• Spam is a big problem within Orkut. Actively police spam within your community; delete spam discussions in your forum immediately.

• Community engagement can be approached in a similar fashion to community management in a network like Facebook.
  • Community managers in Orkut communities can create and foster engagement through posting interesting content in discussion boards, asking thought provoking questions or learning more about the community through polls.

Tips for Branding Aesthetics

• These tips aren’t much different from Facebook best practices…
  • Use a high quality version of your logo, lay out your community ground rules, welcome people at the front gate and look for ways to create incentives for users that ultimately join your group.

• List your brand community under relevant categories so users can find your page through category browsing in addition to search.

• There’s not much customization you can do to your official community, each has a similar layout, use what is available.

• Some administrators try to customize their communities through text colors and emoticons. While it catches the eye more than plain text colors, it is regarded as somewhat trashy and unprofessional

Don't try to "jazz" up your Orkut community like this

Orkut | Advertising Opportunities
The Official Advertising platform for Orkut is actually Google Adwords. Orkut Ads appear in a few key places across the network:

User Profiles

• Ads appear in the upper right side of user profiles (also their home page)

• Ads can be Images, Video or Text
• Ads can be targeted by keywords on the user’s profile (not just interest buckets) and user demographic information like Age, Gender and Location.
• Ads can also be targeted through use of users interest buckets (like Facebook) in tandem with other information like Age, Gender and Location
• Advertisers can pay on either a CPC or CPM basis

Search Results

• You can also create Search Result text ads that target keywords used in Orkut searches
• Advertisers pay on a CPM basis

• Orkut also has an Organic Advertising platform called “Orkut Promote”

• Promotion was primarily rolled out for users, to share text, video and pictures with friends.
• This is Orkut’s way of igniting organic viral flares at no charge to users.
• Brands can also utilize this space and leverage the same platform, users can also re-promote your ads or trash them if they don’t like it.

Bonus: Orkut B2B Demographic Research Grab Bag

As it happens, Orkut communities are pretty cool. Sure, activity is on the decline, functionality is limited, spam is rampant and users are leaving the network in droves for larger and more robust social experiences. The mass exodus is reminiscent of what’s happened with Myspace groups.

That value of Orkut communities is that the remaining activity is mostly deep B2B-focused discussions, questions and polls from a large non-U.S. audience.  It’s a fantastic place to learn about a highly industry specific, English-speaking foreign audience that may encompass some of your international customers.

A few reasons to tap into Orkut Communities research:

• Colloquial Keyword Research – Do English speaking users in foreign countries have their own acronyms/abbreviations?

• Common Mispellings among Non-Native English Speakers. This is total gold for keyword research.

• Gain insight from anonymous user polls. Get ideas for product solution, services, or even content!

• Popular links, news sources and shared resources. You want to find out what they read, right?

• Common customer challenges and needs not being met for users in these regions

• Customer service issues in specific countries; proactive reputation monitoring and management.

The Demographic Research Grab Bag

Orkut Engineers – India
4,090 Members

Society of Iranian Engineers
4,135 Members

NCDEX and MCX Traders
2,091 Members

Jewelry & Diamond Merchants
1,389 Members

Industrial Engineers
173 Members

Franchising In India
146 Members

Electrical Engineers of India
6,294 Members

Civil Contractors
194 Members

Examining global social networks and user-behavior away from the blue-glare of Facebook has certainly been enlightening for us. We hope you find this overview useful in increasing your awareness and understanding of the greater social landscape. In future installments, we’ll dissect several other major non-U.S. social networks. Stay tuned!

From pharmaceutical mega-corporations, attorneys, and health care purveyors to insurance companies and universities, skittish B2C and B2B online marketing managers operating in regulated industries are still afraid to participate in social media. Other unregulated companies, led by old school PR-adverse managers, self-restrict to a ridiculous extent out of paranoia, misunderstanding or ignorance. Such are the realities of the micromanaged marketer, some of whom need to (literally) get every tweet and Facebook post approved by legal. This article offers proven social media tactics to navigate even the most onerous industry regulations and/or paranoid managers.

Imagine the business phone ringing for years, and not ever answering. If dozens of people loudly knocked on your company’s door every single business hour, would you overthrow your manager for never answering? If compliments, complaints, suggestions, lunatic rants and referrals rolled across your fax machine on a daily basis, would you ball them up unread, shred and recycle? Would it be prudent to ignore incoming email from customers… forever? Not participating in social media is akin to these examples.

So what gives? What first steps can online marketers take to bridge the gap from radio silence to prudent participation? Is there a business case to be made for taking the risk to begin social media participation past monitoring and broadcast-only feeds? Perhaps more importantly, what happens if your business decides not to?

There are a number of safe tactics regulated businesses can successfully undertake, with little or no danger.

Pre-approved “Dialog” Bytes For “Conversations”
This tactic works wonders to help remove community managers from the shackles of rampant micromanagement, whatever the source. Simply build out a big bucket of pre-approved conversational bytes that appear to be spontaneous but are actually canned. Armed with these bytes, hearing: “You are not allowed to say anything else without approval,” from a micromanaging boss is, well, more manageable.

You might be surprised how deeply and flawlessly prefab’ bytes can resonate. Plug these little fishies into most any conversation that arises and take note of how natural it sounds:

• “Thanks, glad you liked it”
• “I understand, thanks for reaching out”
• “What do you think?”
• “What would you like to see happen?”
• “I can tell you’re upset about this.”
• “Great, thanks for stopping by.”

If you make the bucket big enough, this tactic works really well for handling angry people in particular. Think of pre-approved dialog bytes as the mechanism for shepherding pissed off users out of the public eye.  Build out approved verbiage to guide users to the appropriate support channel:

• “I can help you with that.”
• “Our expedited customer support number for Facebook users is…”
• “Here’s the link to submit your claim –> [link]”
• “Yes, there is currently an outage in [City].”

Make Big Fun
One giant misconception, common to executive micromanagers who torture marketers, is not grasping the difference between what is regulated and what is not. For instance, tweeting directions to the parking garage at Mayo Clinic does not fall under the auspicious of HIPPA privacy rules. Providing an amortization calculator for community members who “Like” your Facebook page does not violate insider-trading rules and relegate your financial institution to Wall Street hell.

I love this example from GEICO. In the United States, the insurance industry is one of the more heavily regulated categories. Last time I checked, supporting users in creating fake mustaches does not break any rules!

Pre-approved Mainstream Sharing Sources
This tactic is a permutation of the pre-approved sharing bytes. Nearly every business can point to a handful of online resources that they (A) consider definitive authority sources and (B) won’t get anybody into any trouble.  For instance, sticking with the financial product category, it’s hard to imagine content emanating from the Washington Post’s business/market pages getting anybody into trouble.  If your managerial team is suffocating social media marketing efforts, try getting sources for sharing approved, all the way down to the feed level.

Non-regulated Content & Discussion
Check out the Yahoo! portal or WSJ on any given day, and marvel at the execution of their content strategy. “One-Hit-Wonder Entrepreneurs: Where Are They Now?” is a fabulous example of content that won’t cause any problems. Again, understanding the difference between what is regulated and what is not is the key.

What Can You Do For Your Customers?
At the end of the day, the best social media is all about serving customers better and more efficiently. We’ve all been stuck on hold in a call queue, waiting way too long for the technician to take the line. Often, we stew in our own bile, because the reason for the call is a downed website, malfunctioning phone or other essential matter that is ruining our day. I love the way MediaTemple handles customer support using Twitter for their web hosting service. Contacting MediaTemple via Twitter gives troubled users an edge. The community manager will check your spot in the queue, suggest things to try and offer workaround solutions. The point is that for the Twitter-savvy, help happens now, customer support at the speed of social media.

Making the Business Case
There are any number of reasons to be in social media, aside from the obvious.  For hard core bosses, look to the business advantages.

• Dilute the CPM of Paid Branding: That’s right! Organic networking certainly can defray the cost of making a product or services more known to the masses.
  
• Serve Customers Better: Happy customers often buy more stuff, recommend the brand to their peeps, and come back for more themselves. Measure sales correlated to social media activities.  Ultimately better customer service will result in less people who dislike your company. Reciprocally more people could like your company.
• SEO in Search & Social Channels: There are so many ways that social media participation results in better organic prominence these days. Start with Google and Bing’s socially mashed SERPs and go from there. There’s no question that being present in the contextual flow of channels, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, forums, and FourSquare can result in friends, followers and ultimately sales. Hey, that’s SEO too!

What Happens If You Don’t?
Look, professional marketers know that there are harsh regulations governing how things can be presented in many industries. However, most users are not in tune with regulations that govern many industries’ advertising. Therefore, the regulated marketer faces the challenge of being compared to other unrestricted brands who run social media promotions from conversational tweets to giant contests.

To the prolific Twitterer used to receiving responses from unregulated brands, failure of an insurance company to respond to an urgently tweeted complaint will feel like shouting into an empty cavern. This will likely exacerbate frustration at not being heard.  The YouTube user who did a humorous remix of your brand’s flagship television spot and got 1.2 million views, may be put off at the cease and desist letter or YouTube take-down notice.

We live in an era where a single engaged evangelist could destroy or totally empower a new or established company’s reputation.  Not participating in social media means that seemingly credible but deceptive false information can spread like wildfire, causing untold damage to your firm’s reputation in public and private quarters. Not engaging can mean a cornucopia of missed opportunities to promote your own reputation by propagating the glowing things that users say in support or praise of customer service efforts.

Honor your industry’s crucial regulations, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because there are cannons, laws, ethics, or internal policies that limit what a regulated marketer can say in public, does not mean that businesses must go radio silent.

Related Posts:
One Social Media Tactic Your Business Must Embrace
Nine Essential Tactics For Reputation Management In Social Media
6 Superb First Social Media Tactics For Businesses
Reputation Management Crises? 8 Crucial Priorities
Reputation Crises Management: 8 SEO Triage Tips
The Community Manager’s Guide To Intra-Community Bloodshed
Facebook Community Triage: Do’s & Do Not Do’s
Pruning Facebook Pages: When to Remove Comments & Ban Fans
Cover Your Assets: How To Prepare For Social Community Meltdowns
Conflict or Crisis? The Community Manager’s Dilemma Decoder Ring

Marty Weintraub, author of “Killer Facebook Ads” (Wiley/Sybex 2011), is CEO of aimClear®, an online marketing agency that has managed Facebook ad campaigns generating over 10 billion impressions internationally. Client credits include MarthaStewart.com, Siemens, Second Life, Budget Direct, and other global brands.

Header Image ©Tammy Mobley – Fotolia(dot)com

Well friends, it’s that time of year again.

SMX Advanced means two days jam-packed with top-shelf sessions, but even when the main event wraps up, we’ll rest easy knowing there’s still a ton of awesomesauce in store. aimClear’s Facebook Marketing Intensive Workshop is back on the SMX landscape, and we’re looking forward to hosting marketers for a full day of soup to nuts training in all-things Facebook. From organic optimization hacks to paid Facebook advertising, and harnessing Facebook’s massive online community to achieve KPIs, it’s an all-you-can-eat brain chow buffet. Read on for a closer look at what we’ll be serving up…

With a pulsing user base 700 million strong, Facebook represents a seriously fertile playground for cutting-edge marketers ready to get in touch with their social sides. Unparalleled targeting capabilities and reasonably cheap CPCs fuse together, making this social network an exciting Wild West of marketing and branding opportunities. Our panel of accomplished international Facebook marketers are ready, willing and eager to share hot tips, tactics and best practices for superior Facebook Marketing.

Before we look at our schedule, let’s meet the cast of characters:

Now… onto the agenda.

Demographic Research & Guerrilla Targeting Tactics
Get waist-deep in Facebook’s Ad Tool and discover myriad persona segments for every marketing campaign under the sun. Marty will make sure attendees walk away from this module with a keener understanding of who they’re serving ads to, factoring in careful combinations of music preferences, favorite brands, political views, perversions, afflictions, professions, interests as well as other predictions and affinities. We’ve assembled a sweet pot of bite-sized segments to share while we explore social synonyms that open dozens of new targeting doors. Are you ready to step outside of your targeting comfort zone? Better be.

Establishing Facebook Marketing KPIs
Marketing 101: You can’t achieve goals unless you establish them. Marty will teach how to establish realistic Facebook KPIs (key performance indicators) that encompass external channels such as PR, YouTube, Twitter, search engines, blogs, and more.

“Buying Friends” and Organic FB Analytics
From Search Influence, Will Scott (@W2Scott) will share intensely awesome tactics to target customers and identify authority users, cull deep competitive intelligence on truly engaged friends and use all the info to your benefit. It’s time to learn how to capitalize on this insight for organic friending and aggressive Facebook Ad targeting.

End-to-End Facebook Ads
This is truly end-to-end… aimClear’s Merry Morud (@MerryMorud) will soar through creating ad accounts, tips for compelling ad creative and images, setting budgets, and of course,  hardcore tactics for optimizing ads to help ensure prolonged success.

A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
This mammoth 6-part session will provide anyone in charge of community management with invaluable insight. In fact, this module  is so gigantic, it warrents a bulleted list.

• aimClear’s Lauren Litwinka (me…) will kick things off with content aggregation tools and tactics.
  
• Marty will reappear to share some insanely effective holistic befriending tactics along with Lisa Buyer (@lisabuyer) of the Buyer Group.
• Lisa will also detail a community manager’s typical work day, geo-targeting technology and Facebook Places, the PR side of Facebook pages, as well as branding with Facebook.

• Lauren (… me again) will finish things up with a tour through holistic cross-promotion (integrating Twitter with Facebook), and managing social media crises.

Facebook SEO and Organic Visibility Hacks
Black-box by nature, it seems, Facebook’s ranking algorithm remains a hot topic for many. We’ve got secret-sauce tips for increasing organic visibility in FB search, and we’re ready to share. aimClear’s Matt Peterson (@Matt_Peterson) will offer up a bevy of Fan and Interest Pages, Groups, Events and Apps and learn why they rank so well for topical keywords or… don’t.

Reputation Monitoring in Facebook
Matt will also deliver a crash course in the latest and greatest techniques and tools for keeping track of Facebook buzz, and keep your reputation intact.

Site Clinics
Three site clinics will be interspersed throughout the day for attendees interested in participating. It’ll be lightning round 6 minute sexy social audits for those brave enough to enter the gauntlet. Community Management, Paid Ads, and SEO and Organic Visibility are the options on the table -and we’re ready to dish up recommendations and general feedback.

Sound like your cuppa tea? There’s still room to join the fun! Register today for your ticket to ensure a seat in Mama’s kitchen (you know… the workshop). Already signed up? See you in Seattle . Travel safe, y’all!

Wait, hang on a sec. Before we start talking about weeding user-generated content and uprooting Facebook fans forever, let’s set the record straight. It’s mantra time, fellow CMs. Ready?

Repeat After Me: Not All Negativity Is Bad
That’s right. Under most circumstances, I am a firm believer in not removing comments simply because they are negative in nature. Facebook Pages are created to give brands an online presence in a bounteous social community. If Facebook pages represent brands, by extension, they represent the products, services, or causes provided by those brands. And if consumerism has taught us anything over the last century, it’s that not every brand experience is a positive one.

Guess what? That’s okay! That’s normal.

It’s unrealistic to assume you can please every customer, every time, and vanquish very human sentiments such as disappointment or frustration from the commercial universe. Consumer complaints have been around since the dawn of consumerism.

The thing that gives companies a different kind of willies now is that these complaints aren’t happening over the phone or during afternoon tea for two. They’re happening online, for millions of eyeballs to see. Top that, they’re happening on branded assets (i.e. Facebook Pages), places some companies believe to be sacred temples for positive engagement.

Negative reviews, accounts of poor brand experiences, and consumer complaints in general are not the worst thing to have on your Facebook wall. Why?

• They bring the issue to your attention. Now that you know about it, you can address it!
• They indicate the customer wants resolution. After all, he/she took the time to go to your page to vent.
• They provide an opportunity for your to turn a complainer into an evangelist.
• They make your brand seem… human. Negative reviews can emphasize the legitimacy of positive ones.
• They serve as honest feedback to a community who deserves it: existing and potential customers.
• They can encourage satisfied customers to come to your aide, defending your brand with positive experiences of their own.

In summation, don’t remove comments simply because they are negative.

Okay. Now onto the juicy stuff.

Negative comments can come from let-down customers. They can also come from total wackjobs. Sometimes, they’re aimed at the brand. Other times, fellow community members. It’s important to be able to distinguish a legit complaint from straight up harassment. In the last installment of this series, we explored the Spectrum of People who Complain on Facebook.

Once you discern the nature of the complaint, it’s time to decide what to do about it.

(Tip: Establishing house rules for your Facebook community will totally help with what’s to come. Once you have the rules in place for all the world [wide web] to see, understanding whether a comment/fan should be removed is way more obvious. They either crossed the line, or they didn’t.)

When Do You Remove Comments?
What makes a comment snip-worthy? The definitive threshold should be established on a brand-by-brand basis, taking into account the nature / demographics of the community. Facebook comments containing mild profanity or racy verbiage might be totally okay for Energy Drink Brand X, but not so much for Family Owned Restaurant Z.

There are, however, some general warning signs it might be time to trim the thread, like if the comment(s) contain(s)…

There’s pretty much one clear warning sign to be watchful of when considering fan blockage.

• Fan refuses to acknowledge CM outreach, in tandem with repeated posting of libel allegations, hateful, racist, prejudice comments, and harassment.

If dude/dudette continues to sling invaluable, insulting, harmful content at your Facebook wall and the people who gather there, dude/dudette most likely falls on the far right of our spectrum. The crazy, delusional, mean-spirited side. It’s your right and responsibility to kick him/her out if you see fit.

I met Jen at a search conference this past March in the Big Apple, and was immediately struck by killer CM instincts, down-to-earth nature, and infectious smile. On the advent of #SMX Advanced, aimClear had pleasure to share a casual Q&A with Ms. @jennita, who is set to speak at the Seattle-based summit on the intersection of Twitter and classic SEO. Read on for Jen’s two cents on community management– from crises to tools– as well as what SEOmoz’s Roger the Robot is really like…

| aimClear: Usually, I start off these interviews with a “Howdidja end up in the industry?” type-question. But your SEOmoz bio eloquently points out it was a fusion of web development experience & educational background in journalism that lead to a career in SEO. So then… what drew you to community management specifically?

JL: Long before Social Media was something “official” I used to spend hours each day on IRC, Yahoo! chat (where I met my husband) and other social sites, chatting with people all over the world. I spent my time organizing online events, introducing people from different cities, keeping up with friends in other countries and so on. So although my work background has been focused on web development and SEO my personal hobbies have revolved around communicating with people online. Being a Community Manager seems to have always been in my blood, it just didn’t have a name before.

I started at SEOmoz as an SEO Consultant and really had never thought about community management, all I knew was that the SEOmoz community was thriving and I was proud to be a part of it. When we left consulting to focus on SEO software, I decided I wanted to take a larger role in the community and created this position. It’s been by far my most enjoyable and rewarding job yet (and I’ve had a lot of them!). I love the mix of SEO, Social Media, Customer Service and writing all rolled into one.

| aimClear: Right on. Community management, of course, can be totally rewarding. But, as I like to say, it ain’t all sunshine and pussycats. In your professional experience, have you incurred nasty online community backlash or brand damage stemming from social media? If so, how did you handle it? If no, you’re one lucky @jennita .

JL: But of course. While the SEOmoz community is a pretty positive and helpful bunch, we get our fair share of criticisms. This can happen on our blog, on other blogs, on Twitter or Facebook… anywhere really, and it’s my job to know it’s happening, then decide what the next step is.

It’s difficult to say exactly how I handle it as it differs with every scenario. For example if it’s a tweet and the person cusses at us for something, I ignore it. I simply am not going to engage with someone who can’t be professional. This is often someone who I could never make happy anyway. So I ignore, but watch, to see if anything else needs attention.

However, if someone has a complaint or criticism (and isn’t cursing), they will almost always get a response. Often times when someone complains on Twitter, all they want is to know you’re out there listening. I try to take it a step further though, I want them to know we’re not only listening but that we want to help, take action and fix issues as well. The entire SEOmoz staff is fair game to getting emails from me that start with, “Hey, we got this tweet today, can you help me figure out… ” Whenever possible, I’ll email people directly about issues or criticisms as well, I find it’s easier to have a conversation through email than on social sites. Sometimes your message doesn’t come across quite right in 140 characters.

In general, I like to help facilitate, but let the community members manage themselves. I don’t always jump into the hot seat. In fact, I like to only speak up when it’s necessary. As an example, I may not directly comment on a controversial blog post, but I will read all the comments, edit as necessary and even email people directly about their comments. It’s often a smart approach to stay in the background.

| aimClear: I can dig that. Ninja-style management. As a CM, what are the top 4 tools you couldn’t live without?

JL: I’d say the top 4 tools are CoTweet, Facebook, Google Alerts and email. CoTweet is essentially my twitter inbox for the @SEOmoz account. Within CoTweet I can tag tweets, assign them, reply to them, archive them, email them to others, and so on. I check CoTweet constantly throughout the day and try to reply as quickly as possible to tweets. I have a number of searches set up also that I track… pretty much I know what people are saying about us at all times.

Although I could manage Facebook through CoTweet, I find that I actually prefer to be on the Facebook page instead. After CoTweet, this is my second tab open in my browser. I get emails notifying me when someone has commented on our page, then I jump over and respond as necessary.

I check my Google Alerts throughout the day as well to see if anything has popped up for our brand or several other keywords I track. Normally though I find out if there’s a post written about us via Twitter, faster than it comes across in Google Alerts. But I like to stay on top of it anyway. With these three tools, I’ve pretty much covered what is going on within the community outside of our site. I check them throughout the day so I can stay on top of what’s happening.

Finally, email. I have a love hate relationship with email though. However, it’s a necessary evil to get the job done. I email community members all day long about YOUmoz posts being published or that need work, responding to questions, getting more information about a tweet, whatever the case may be. I couldn’t do my job without these four tools. You can also get a more in-depth look at the tools I use here.

| aimClear: What’s your favorite part of being Community Manager for SEOmoz?

JL: Most definitely the people that I work with and meet. I spend my day talking with people over Twitter, Facebook, IM, email, PRO Q&A, comments on the blog, etc. and I couldn’t do it if I weren’t talking to amazing people every day. This pertains to not only the greater community but to my coworkers at SEOmoz as well. I’ve had many jobs in my life, but never one where I felt so connected to the team and community as a whole.

| aimClear: Onto the real dirt: Is Roger the Robot as adorably awesome in real life as he seems on the interwebz? Or has all that fame gone to his… steel cranium?

JL: Haha! Best interview question ever?? Roger is an amazing guy but let’s be honest here, women love him… children love him… and even men love him… it’s definitely going to his head. In the office you’ll often find him eating bon bons with his feet up on his desk. I’ve even seen one of the developers fanning him before. I guess that’s what happens when people start tattooing you on their body. Ok, ok, I’m kidding. In fact, Roger really needs a vacation. He’s one of these guys that works 24×7. Whether he’s watching over Twitter or making sure the Linkscape crawl is going ok, he’s always working.

| aimClear: In every way possible, that exceeded my expectations of your response. On Day 1 of SMX Advanced next month, you’re set to participate on the Yes, Virginia, Tweeting Is SEO panel (which I must admit, is one of the coolest-titled panels ever). Can we readers get a glimpse into what you’ll be speaking about?

JL: I’m quite excited about this panel and honored to be speaking with such an amazing group! My focus will on “The SEO Mind vs. The Social Mind” and how it’s necessary to meld the two in this day and age. This is a topic I’m quite passionate about since my background is really a mixture of the two (along with the technical side). With Social having more and more of an impact on Search, it’s important for Community Managers, Social Media specialists, etc. to understand what’s important from an SEO perspective and vice versa. It’s time to make sure these two mindsets are working together toward the same goals.

Bonus Question from Marty Weintraub (@aimClear):

| aimClear: You’ve been really up front with our community about your battle with cancer. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned, and how has being a professional community manager impacted the experience?

JL: At first when I was first going through everything I stayed pretty quiet about it. It was during MozCon last year, I was supposed to speak but just couldn’t deal with it at the time. Lots of people started to ask questions about what was going on, why I didn’t speak and why I wasn’t around much during the conference. On the day of my surgery I thad this overwhelming feeling come over me that the community would care to know what was happening. So I sent a short tweet, then headed to the hospital. The next day when I checked Twitter again, I couldn’t believe all the messages of encouragement. Still to this day when I think about I get choked up about it.

The thing is, I don’t just “manage” the community, I’m a part of it. I would want to know if someone was going through a rough time and our community was the same way. When I got back to work and started going through my emails, so many community members had written to encourage me and tell me about their personal stories. I spent one whole day responding to those emails and thanking them. It was so touching to feel like a part of something bigger. I have an amazing family and some of the best friends a gal could ever want, but I’m also a part of this bigger, caring community. Who could ask for anything more?

So what have I learned? I’ve learned that you simply have to live life and not be afraid of it. It sounds cliche to say “live life to it’s fullest” because honestly there are just some days when I feel like crap. But on those days where I feel great, I take the bull by the horns. Right now I’m still getting chemo treatments once a week through September. During that timeframe, I’ll have spoken at at least 6 conferences which is more than I’ve done total up until now. My family is much closer and stronger than it’s ever been before and in general I’m a much happier person. Who would have thought that going through something like this could make me actually smile more?

| aimClear: Well you’ve certainly got me smiling over here . Big thanks for your time today, Jen. Looking forward to kicking it with you in Seattle!

Is your business listening and responding appropriately to those who reach out? Last February our post, 6 Superb First Social Media Tactics For Business caught some buzz and conversation. We discussed the importance of listening and offering unconditional service to new friends and customers, when they obviously seek to engage

The more I travel the world, broadcasting experiences as I go, the more this basic tenant resonates. I’m always surprised by who’s listening and who’s not.  In the last 36 hours, I’ve had revealing experiences with two iconic Minnesota brands, Mall Of America and Mayo Clinic, that illustrate this crucial social media fundamental splendidly. One brand got things really right, the other was not listening. No matter whether your customer’s channel of choice is Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or a lesser known community or forum, answering the call of users who want to engage is key.

This version of the ah-hah moment started innocently enough. Visiting the Mall of America, I tweeted a picture of the 2 story Lego robot on my way to find some pistachio ice cream.

After a few minutes, I was happily surprised that a MOA community manager reached out in thanks and offered more information about the Lego sculpture. Cool!

My first reaction was professional. I wanted to understand the social media monitoring and community manager corporate structure that led to such a terrific and welcoming response.  When customers reach out in mainstream channels expressing a willingness to engage, businesses must be there to listen and respond or an opportunity is lost.

I love way the Mall Of America Twitter profile is wired. The avatar is a picture of the MOA building and the handle is transparently @mallofamerica. The community manager goes by the initials -lg. There’s no way to determine whether it’s a woman or a man. Because I’m me, I read female into to conversation. Wonderful! Great business avatar concepts are fully transparent in their commercial intent but, like a great song, leave users enough space to build their own human inferences into empowering experiences. Maybe during the week the CM is -MW or -EF, it does not matter. I love it…great concept. MOA community managers are interchangeable and human-feeling, without compromising transparency. 

Then it hit me: This CM person, was ready to support.  At the time -lg engaged me, I was unsuccessfully looking for pistachio ice cream.  Hmmm

I reached out.  I was curious as to whether -lg would be politically correct and suggest several MOA ice cream shop options, or give me a true read on what ice cream is best in her/his opinion.

He/she did not disappoint. Looking around I saw that I was right in the vicinity. My mouth was watering. Paciugo was straight ahead, walking out the mall door of Macy’s.

I headed on over.

There it was, blessed, creamy, tasty ahead. MMM, pistachio almond gelato in all its twitlicious splendor.  I tweeted that I thought a blog post would come out of this, andsome darn good frozen treats.

It was a little taste of heaven in the mall. Of course, I tweeted a picture.  The CM engaged again. That was smart. When customers engage, keep the conversation going as long as they want to continue so long as the timbre is appropriate and sentiment positive. After all, the customer is advertising your business for free.

When Brands Don’t Listen
Then this morning I was at Mayo Clinic for my annual checkup.  I was taken by the magnificent architecture of the famed Gonda Building, and tweeted a picture in the early morning light.  I love Mayo, as 5 years ago they saved my life. However, every time I return to Mayo, moved, broadcasting, the incredible art collection, thoughts about their blessed mission, Mayo’s brand, heartfelt, they ignore.

Maybe some attorney told Mayo that the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which provides federal protections for personal health information, somehow applies to answering a guy like me broadcasting grateful pictures of the hospital.  That sounds like bunk to attorneys I’ve talked to. There’s no private information here being transmitted here. What are they thinking, that they can’t reveal I’m here? Dude, I tweeted first! How difficult would it be for @mayoclinic to simply welcome tweeting visitors to the campus and wish them the best? #FAIL.  That’s no way to make friends.

Brands that don’t listen come across as deaf. Broadcast-only is not social media. Social media is about being social, two ways.

Maybe now that Mayo is opening an outpost at Mall of America, they’ll get into the swing of things. Are they going to ignore social media users broadcasting about the new Mayo mega mall satellite?

It’s always surprising who’s listening and who’s not.  Social media best practices certainly means to monitor mainstream and salient niche’ channels and being there to respond, as appropriate. Those are the basics we all learn in kindergarten. Here’s sending out a hat tip to @mallof america and a sad, was-almost-nice-talking-to-ya’ to Mayo Clinic.

Is your business listening?

Greetings, fellow Community Manager!

So far in this series we’ve scoped out The Community Manager’s Dilemma Decoder Ring (one free in every box of CM Puffs), a how-to look at deciphering between a manageable social media conflict and a more serious, red-level social media crisis. We also explored the tactics for preparing for social media meltdowns, to help ensure smooth sailing when the social-seas get rough. This post will look at what to do when complaints, conflicts or crises crop on your brand’s Facebook Page, and it’s up to you to deal with them. Let’s get started. Welcome to Facebook Community Triage: Do’s & Do Not Do’s.

First Thing’s First: Discerning The Intent
Negative brand sentiment, like ice cream, comes in many different flavors. Before you act, address, or eliminate negative posts on your brand’s Facebook page, you should (read: really really really should) discern the intent of the post. Is it a legitimate complaint from a frustrated customer? Is it a poor review as a result of a poor experience? Is it spewed nonsense from a repeat troll offender?

Maybe your company’s policy is to remove everything negative. Or, maybe you choose to leave legit negative reviews up for the sake of transparency. In the last installment of this series, we took a look at establishing “House Rules” for your Facebook Community. Without a clear-cut code of conduct, Facebook’s like the wild freakin’ west; but with house rules on your side, the questionable grey areas (“So… duhhhh… do we remove this comment or not?”) becomes a little less fuzzy. Regardless, best practice is to have a real understanding of what motivated the post… before you act.

“The customer’s always right,”… right? Wrong! With a caveat.There is a noteworthy spectrum of people out there, in case you didn’t notice. Even if someone is/was a customer, they could also still be “missing a screw.” Hypothetically speaking… a customer could, feeling personally slighted, cheated, and swindled when truly no monkey business occurred, go on a ranting rampage and make it her/her sole mission to destroy your brand’s FB page by way of irrational accusatory comments. Discerning intent (and frequency of contributions from said commenter) is a helpful step to understanding if the customer = or ≠ right.

Actually, let’s run with that hypothetical scenario. As we charge forth to the Do’s and Do Not Do’s, we’ll lean on the situation of a Facebook Promotional Contest Gone Wrong.

Close your eyes. Imagine this: a small crew of sore losers, collectively code-named Fan X, crops up after not winning a photo contest on Facebook. Fan X leaves a barrage of comments on the Wall, claiming the contest was rigged, that Brand Z conducts shady business, swearing to never buy from Brand Z again. After assessing the situation, Brand Z decides  to craft and post a succinct statement on Facebook that addresses the issue at hand. Did we mention you’re the Community Manager for Brand Z? Well, you are. So…

What do you do? Also… what do you not do?

Addressing the Masses: Do’s

This week, we’re tackling ways to prep for potential fracas by establishing a Code of Conduct for your social community as well as a Crisis Protocol for your in-house team. Knowing what’s fair vs. foul, and having a solid plan of attack just in case are two surefire ways to not only lower your blood pressure, but make for smooth sailing in cyberspace. So whether you’re a newbie on the CM social frontier, looking to sharpen your crowd control  samurai sword set chops, eager to batten down the hatches before the snot hits the fan, or recently recovering from intra-community bloodshed, saddle up and let’s march onward. This is Cover Your Assets: How To Prepare For Social Community Meltdowns, Facebook edition.

Facebook community member freakouts are like Lady Gaga’s Oscar attire: pretty dang unpredictable. But just because you can’t forecast the keystrokes of a Facebook fan or the reaction to an inquisitive FB poll doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared for the worst. One of the best ways to arm yourself against unruly UGC on your brand’s Facebook Wall is to set the record straight before shiitake even goes down.

Cover Your Bases: Establish A Code of Conduct
Get together with your crew (keep the C-suite in the loop, if one even exists). Brainstorm, compile, and publish an approved code of conduct for all your FB community to see. Include all of none of the following: expectations, invitations, words of encouragement, clarification, caution, disclaimers, etc. There’s no cookie-cutter template here. Pick and choose the elements you want to comprise your code of conduct, make sure that they reflect your brand in form and content, craft them to speak to your community.

Ideas & Tips for Crafting Effective House Rules: