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I wanted to share this post by Ben Akin-Smith – originally written for and hosted by Because it’s Good – because it’s good (see what I did there… ahem… sorry). What I mean is it’s full of common-sense advice, just like your mum would give you. And it’s entertaining, too:

‘I’ve done my research, I’ve read the books, I’ve engaged in the blogosphere, I’ve tweeted with the great and good but when it comes to social media my Mum is a guru.

My Mum is a normal Mum, she uses ridiculous phrases like “I Googled it on the internet”, she does not use Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. She has never uploaded a picture to Flickr or watched a YouTube video. She does not own an iPod, 3G Phone or a Wii. To my Mum, Spotify is a medicated skin cream, Internet Explorer is the internet and 600×800 makes things “easier to see”– but I assure you she is a ‘Social Media Marketing Guru’.

How can I back up this claim? Well, first off what is social media marketing? In essence I believe social media marketing occurs when companies take a human approach to marketing by participating in conversations with their audiences. It’s about engaging people in an authentic way to provide helpful information, solve problems and build relationships to achieve business goals, or as my Mum calls it “chatting to people and being useful”.

Maybe it sounds a little simplistic, but she is definitely on to something here. As Confucius said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”. I often talk to people that want to get involved with communities such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, but are put off by ‘digital experts’ who bamboozle them with overly omplicated rules, best practice guidelines and communication strategies. While there are certain things you should be aware of when it comes to social media I think my Mum is right, it’s just about “chatting to people and being useful”.

“You’ve got to two ears, and one mouth”

Chatting is a two way conversation and the best conversationalists are also the best listeners. Or as my Mum says; “You’ve got two ears, and one mouth”. She’s right, if you want to get to know someone you can’t go far wrong if you listen twice as much as you talk. There is more to it than that, ask questions, be interested in the other person and know when the conversation is over – but listening is the most important. If you want to know how to have a conversation – just “Google it on the internet”.

“If you’ve got nothing useful to say, then say nothing”

My Mum said this a lot to me when I was growing up, mainly because I was always trying to get my sister in trouble. I’m not proud of it, but I was a snitch. My input to conversations was solely focused on getting my sister in trouble, I was not concerned with truth or understanding both sides of an argument, therefore I was of no use to my Mum. I provided no value to the conversation so at best she chose to ignore me and at worst she would send me to my room. You don’t want to be ignored (or indeed sent to your room!) so please, when using social media don’t just try to prove a point, or ram home a marketing message, if you’re going to get involved in a social media conversation, be useful, ask questions, reply, provide information and no matter what you bring to the conversation make sure it is useful.

Of course if you listen to the social media experts, they’ll tell you there’s so much more to it than this such as; be honest, be flexible, share stories, inspire people and in a way they’re right, I even have a pretty presentation that talks about the importance of these things. But I think Mum was right, the essence of social media is about chatting and being useful.’

If you haven’t already visited Because it’s Good, do pop over there and have a look – it’s a community blog for people that use digital communications and channels within the charity sector it’s full of useful content and great articles. If you like NFPtweetup, I’m sure you’ll appreciate, and enjoy contributing to, Because it’s Good.

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I’m very conscious that there are no hard and fast rules for social media, and often what’s considered good and bad varies depending on whose opinion you ask.  Sometimes, what might be right in one situation, isn’t in another.  Life’s just like that – hardly anything is black or white, but mostly the shades of grey in between.

The best answer is always to think before you do.  It’s just another one of those things that sounds so obvious that I wonder why I’m saying it, and you might be wondering that too, but there’s a surprising amount of evidence around, across all industries and sectors, that proves thinking is more rare than most people would care to admit.

One place I regularly see lack of quality thought is in the use of hashtags on Twitter (for anyone who’s not come across them, they’re the live linked words in tweets with the ‘#’ symbol at the front).  ‘They’re just a small detail’, you might say, but I know that small details add up to big wins, so they’re worth getting right.  They’re also worth getting right because, with social media, when things go wrong, it can be a bit embarrassing or, at worst, even turn into a PR nightmare.

I see examples of ‘when hashtags go wrong’ all the time.  They’re mostly people using them ineffectually, but fairly innocuously – hashtagging your own charity’s name in a tweet was one example I saw recently, which isn’t going to upset anyone, but is pretty pointless (your charity name is usually your profile name, so will appear in your tweets automatically).

So, when should you use a hashtag?

Well, like I say, there are no hard and fast rules, but in my view, the point of creating and/or using a hashtag is:

• To draw attention to something that you want to create a buzz about – like a new campaign
• To encourage people to retweet your original message
• To aggregate content around that thing – so people can access the stream of others using that hashtag and so you can pull the stream into a widget, another Twitter profile, your blog, a website etc.
• To add a message to an existing hashtag stream, or widely discussed topic, where it’s relevant and the people using the other hashtag/discussing that topic might genuinely be interested in the message

It’s on that last point that the Conservatives dropped a bit of a clanger on Remembrance Sunday.  I didn’t spot it but came across via this post entitled, ‘As we Remember; one charity sticks up for its independence’:

Linking your idea as a hashtag – in this case #BigSociety – into an existing, popular subject, so it’s seen by more people, probably seems, on the face of it, to be quite clever.  But if it’s not relevant, it just looks a bit cheeky and, if the subject is something as sensitive and emotionally loaded as Remembrance Sunday, you can see how it could be perceived badly.  Rob’s post shows the reaction from @PoppySupport, as well linking to another Twitter user who took umbrage at @Conservatives’ opportunism:

I call this ‘jumping the stream’ – insinuating yourself into a hashtagged stream that doesn’t really have much to do with you, when it’s clear to others that you’re doing it to promote yourself or your own message.  It’s a bit like charging into a party and trying to get everyone there to leave and come to your party instead – not a great way to win friends or respect.

Rachel

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