If you work on a multi-person social media team, you’ve likely encountered issues coordinating responses to online conversations. You’ll spot a mention of your company and reply to it, only to find that another one of your colleagues has already replied, or that there was a reason they hadn’t done so.

Tools like Radian6 accommodate built-in workflow management to help teams to coordinate interactions across multiple platforms. However, they have their shortfalls.

Now we have a new kid on the block. CoTweet, which bills itself as “a platform that helps companies reach and engage customers using Twitter,” is a solution for companies managing teams of employees across multiple Twitter accounts.

I participated in CoTweet’s closed beta testing period, but it recently emerged into open beta meaning you can sign-up and try it yourself.

Some of CoTweet’s key features:

• Multiple accounts – nothing that tools like TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop don’t already offer, but a must-have nowadays for large companies and agency types/power-users like me who need to juggle several profiles.
• Multiple users – CoTweet lets you invite multiple users to Tweet from an account. You can coordinate who’s “on duty” at any time, and assign tweets to other users (which triggers a notification email).
• Conversation threads – one short-coming of some other systems is that they don’t allow for threading of conversations over time. CoTweet rectifies that, allowing you to see conversations between your team and any person over time, see which tweets have been replied-to and ensure you don’t contradict an earlier response from a team-mate.
• Integration with bit.ly – TweetDeck and the like let you use bit.ly to shorten URLs and an even link them to your bit.ly account, but CoTweet integrates the analytics from bit.ly into its interface.
• Web-based – while I have no problem with downloadable clients, there are plenty of people around who don’t have that luxury thanks to restrictive IT policies. CoTweet is browser-based, so there’s nothing to install.
• Cotags - CoTweet defines Cotags as “short signatures that allow you to identify yourself as part of a message while sharing an account with multiple people.” It provides transparency as to who is tweeting when multiple people could be posting. We’ve manually entered “[initials]” for our clients in the past; CoTweets lets you automate that so you never forget.
• Persistent search – TweetDeck’s key feature early-on was its integration of persistent searches into your interface. While CoTweet doesn’t quite do that (you need to go to a search screen), it does provide persistent searches that are fully integrated into the interface.

Overall, CoTweet is a powerful new tool for companies managing multiple Twitter accounts and users.

What are your early impressions of the service? What stands out for you, and what would you change?

Earlier this week, Gartner released its latest Hype Cycle report showing the state of various technology trends.

Some of the trends on the rise at various stages of the cycle include augmented reality, Internet TV, Web 2.0 and corporate blogging.

One noticeable point, however: microblogging is about to cross into the trough of disillusionment. Of course, the dominant player in this field is Twitter.

Twitter is social media’s golden child right now. Recently, Twitter has sat at what Gartner calls the “peak of inflated expectations”:

“…a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations”

It’s hard to argue that Twitter hasn’t been over-hyped recently. We’re about to see that change. The next phase is characterised as:

“Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.”

What does thais mean from a communicator’s perspective? Here are five potential effects of Twitter’s transition into the trough of disillusionment:

• Less breathless media coverage: corporate Twitter use won’t be enough to generate media coverage
• Less snake oil: the field will thin as the opportunistic snake-oil salesmen move on to the next shiny tool
• Maturing use by companies: smart communicators already know that Twitter isn’t a social media strategy unto itself. Twitter will become less of a focus of campaigns and more of an integrated tactic. In more cases we’ll see companies decide that this isn’t the right tactic for them
• Maturing expectations of users: we’ve seen the growth of somewhat unrealistic expectations in terms of response levels and times by organizations. This should lessen, making issues management more… manageable
• Increased focus on measurement: as Twitter moves into the trough, it will become all the more important to measure effectively and for communicators to tie Twitter use to business results and metrics

Make sense to you? What do you think?

If you’re anything like me, you probably find it easy to burn a lot of time on Twitter. It’s addictive – you get into a conversation and before you know it, it’s 10 or 15 minutes later.

One of the ways I get around Twitter overload is by doing a lot of my tweeting from my BlackBerry – heading to and from meetings; when I’m grabbing lunch; on the way to clients and so on.

Trouble is, there are plenty of these applications around. This is a quick whip-through the best three Twitter applications I’ve used:

• TwitterBerry
• ÜberTwitter
• SocialScope

TwitterBerry

TwitterBerry was the first Twitter application I tried for the BlackBerry. It had been a little while since I tried it before writing this post, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the changes I observed.

Pros

• Single purpose app – does what it says on the tin
• Easy to set up and configure
• New user interface lets you reply to Tweets without leaving the timeline view
• TwitPic integration

Cons

• According to reports from other people, TwitterBerry can suck the life out of your BlackBerry’s battery
• Slow to refresh updates
• TwitPic is only available when viewing pictures – can only push to TwitterBerry, rather than pull photos in

ÜberTwitter

From the moment I installed ÜberTwitter, I enjoyed its streamlined interface and more advanced options. Note: ÜberTwitter made a controversial (in some peoples’ eyes) move to introduce ads into its application a little while back, and has now released a paid ad-free version on top of the free product.

Pros

• Scrolling auto-refresh is a nice touch
• Support for multiple Twitter accounts (just one at a time)
• Allows you to take/post photos and to post videos from within the app
• Comprehensive menu options, although it can be a bit overwhelming for beginners
• Search function is very handy
• Ad-free version available for those wanting to avoid pesky ads
• Plenty of configuration options (though see cons for the flip side…)

Cons

• Auto-refresh can get irritating when first loading the application
• Keeps flipping back to the default Twitter account; irritating if you’re trying to stick with one for a bit
• ÜberTwitter can be a big memory suck on the BlackBerry – I found my device crashed or hang frequently, requiring a hard reset. Only avoided by setting the app to not run in the background (nullifying the option to have notifications of new Tweets)
• GPS enabled on posts by default; unaware users may not like this
• Configuration options seem to go on for ever – overwhelming for new users

SocialScope

SocialScope is the new kid on the block. Still in closed beta testing (and tightly controlled – they wouldn’t give me any invites to hand out along with this post), access is limited right now but will hopefully open up soon. SocialScope currently integrates with Twitter and Facebook, but bills itself as “a mobile inbox for your social networks” so I wouldn’t be surprised to see more tools added.

Pros

• Tabbed interface keeps you organized and allows access to screens without needing to use the menu
• Facebook and Twitter integrated in one interface
• Support for multiple Twitter accounts
• Less of a memory hog than ÜberTwitter – my BlackBerry has rarely crashed since switching
• Lets you easily associate a Twitter account with a BlackBerry contact – adds the username to that person’s address book entry
• Replying to messages takes you to a threaded view which lets you easily track conversations
• Search option is useful
• Notification of new Tweets means it’s easy to know if you should check in to view conversations involving you
• Intuitive, context-sensitive menu makes navigation through the app a breeze

Cons

• Facebook integration can be irritating – re-authentication bug means you need to log out then back in rather than just re-entering password
• Only supports a single Twitter account
• Has a habit of hanging while uploading photos, requiring a full (i.e. remove the battery) reset of the device to access the app again
• Access is limited right now during the closed beta testing, but that won’t be the case forever

Conclusion

Each of the applications has their pluses:

• TwitterBerry’s simplicity makes it a reasonable option for beginners;
• ÜberTwitter’s multiple accounts and comprehensive options make it a good choice for power users;
• SocialScope integrates Twitter and Facebook in an easy-to-use application.

For me, though, SocialScope wins the battle hands down. The intuitive interface, the user-friendly layout, the integration of Facebook and the easy access to photos makes it an easy winner.

ÜberTwitter certainly puts up a good fight, as evidenced by the response to my quick Twitter query (below). However, for me the additional functionality provided by SocialScope is overwhelming.

There are lots of other mobile interfaces for Twitter out there – Slandr and Dabr (hat tip: Mathew Ingram) – both web-based interfaces – are two examples. Do you use a different way of accessing Twitter on the go?

What do you think?

Response to question: "What's your favourite Twitter application for the BlackBerry?"

“Twitter” isn’t a communications strategy. It isn’t even a social media strategy. As a company, having a Twitter account doesn’t even set you apart from the pack any more.

As social media’s golden-child-of-the-moment heads into the trough of disillusionment, we’re going to see more and more people vocalizing the same thing; Jennifer Leggio said it succinctly today: “I don’t care if your company is on Twitter.”

I’ve argued this for a while, but I’ll argue it again – Twitter (or Facebook, or FriendFeed, or blogging) isn’t a silver bullet for your company.

Plan properly

Instead of wondering how best to use Twitter, try wondering:

• “What are we trying to do?”
• “Who are we trying to reach?”
• “How do we best reach those people to achieve those things?”

Sometimes, the answer to those questions won’t include Twitter. Remember – Twitter is just one tool in your social media toolkit, and social media is just one set of tools in your communications toolkit. There are lots of other options.

Have a purpose

Just having a Twitter presence isn’t enough to make you interesting, either. Thousands of companies do nowadays. It doesn’t set you apart. You need substance to your presence, rather than just style.

Look at the companies we often look to as models of how to approach Twitter successfully – each of them uses the tool to accentuate their USP or to add something new to their communications (over-simplifying here to make a point):

• Zappos uses it to shine a spotlight on their great customer service
• Molson and Ford solve the problem of being large, potentially faceless brands by putting people and personalities out there
• Dell uses Twitter to address a perception of poor customer service, while also putting a face on the company (along with sales generation)

These brands aren’t just there because they should be (in fact, they were on Twitter before it was the golden child) – each of them uses it for a purpose.

Stop and think

So, before starting a Twitter initiative, ask yourself:

Are we doing this for the right reason? Is it the right tool for the job?

Your thoughts?

Browsing through my Google Reader feed this evening, a story in the New York Times caught my eye. The story was about ad.ly – a relatively new service that pays Twitter users to insert advertisements into their Twitter stream.

In the piece, Brad Stone gives a reasonable outline of the service, which counts “celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Dr. Drew and the musician Ernie Halter” among its customers. It also includes a quote from Robert Scoble:

““It interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience,” said Robert Scoble, a technology blogger with more than 100,000 followers on Twitter, who says he “unfollows” people on Twitter who send him ads.”

Checking the site, ad.ly also counts Darren Rowse, Jason Calacanis, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis and Gnomedex founder Chris Pirillo among its users.

I’ve made my feelings about advertising services on Twitter known in the past. Notably, I got a little upset when some advertisers started posting misleading ads through a service called Magpie back in April this year.

However, I feel a little conflicted about this story.

Pros

Money on the side

Ad.ly lets Twitter users generate additional income with little effort.

Control the ads

Users have full control over the messages that are posted – they approve every message posted through their account.

Disclosure

Every message, according to the site, is disclosed as an ad:

“The end of every Ad.ly tweet (except tweets for charity) is marked with “(Ad)” notifying your audience that this is an advertisement. In order to ensure authenticity, every Ad.ly Tweet has to be explicitly approved by the Twitter publisher and is disclosed as an ad.”

Cons

Hijacking your connections

People don’t follow you to hear about the services that pay you to broadcast their messages. They follow to hear about the things YOU like. Still, I don’t watch TV to check the ads out there, but I do watch them. That said, I don’t like it.

While I don’t recoil to the same extent as others (Shannon Boudjema outlines her concerns succinctly here), I still feel uneasy about the concept.

Social media becoming unsocial

Ad.ly inserts ads into your Twitter stream. It’s traditional media piggy-backing on social media. There’s a disconnect between the “push” mechanism in use and the two-way nature of the medium.

Gut

Logic aside, something just doesn’t feel right for me. I have nothing to back this up – perhaps it’s because I don’t consider monetizing my Twitter followers often, but it sits wrong with me.

Bottom line

In case you can’t tell, I’m finding this one tough. Most of the solid logic points to the idea being reasonable, especially given that the Tweets are both approved by users and disclosed as ads. Still, I can’t bring myself to consider using it.

The logic is there, but… there’s a but. but it doesn’t feel right for me. I can’t put my finger on this one.

What do you think?

Last week, Microsoft rolled out a new update to its Xbox 360 dashboard. Among other changes, the update added Twitter and Facebook functionality to “Gold” users of its service. CNET tells us that “millions” are already using these new services.

The new add-ons allow users to do the usual things that you would expect to do with Twitter and Facebook – browse profiles, tweet, etc, but they also do one very important and very powerful thing, too:

They allow you to see which of your friends on these services are using Xbox Live.

Why is this a big deal? Because, if you’re anything like me, you’re tired of logging on to spend a few minutes playing your favourite game online and being confronted with a bunch of kids yelling vile insults at you. Thanks to those types, I rarely (read: never) play online with people I don’t know.

The problem with that philosophy, though, is that it can be hard to find which of your friends uses the Xbox Live service, leaving the online experience feeling somewhat empty. With these new features, you can scan your Twitter follower and Facebook friends lists to find your fellow gamers, and quickly and easily connect to them.

It’s another step in the merging of social media and social networking into the things we already do online.

• Mass media websites have incorporated social media tools such as RSS and commenting for a while;
• Movie producers have used social media features during movie and DVD launches (Fight Club is a great example);
• Now, social media is further encroaching on one of the largest entertainment industries around – computer gaming.

My bet: in a couple of years, this kind of feature will be so ingrained that people won’t think of it as a “social media” feature – it’ll just be a given when they turn on their console.

What do you think?

SocialScope, the BlackBerry app billing itself as “a mobile inbox for your social networks,” has released a new version (v0.9.5.81-0) of its beta application.

The primary changes in the new version:

• Foursquare integration (now alongside Twitter, Facebook, Flickr)
• Twitter lists

If you aren’t aware, Foursquare is a location-based social network combining geographic context with gaming elements. I’m fascinated with it thanks to its myriad marketing opportunities, but unfortunately there’s no way to use it on a BlackBerry right now aside from a less-than-satisfying mobile site (there’s an app in closed beta testing right now, but I haven’t received an invite yet).

The new SocialScope app almost negates the need for a stand-alone Foursquare app entirely. Using the Foursquare API, the app accesses your BlackBerry’s GPS functionality to determine your location (no news on how it works on older models) and lets you check-in to places quickly and easily.

(Note the built-in typo in the standard “off the grid” messages)

While SocialScope has supported creating groups of users in the app itself for a while, the latest update also supports Twitter lists, allowing you to display your pre-created lists, add to existing lists or create new lists from scratch.

SocialScope has already won its place as my BlackBerry Twitter app of choice due to its user-friendly interface and easy integration of other social networks, but this easily cements its spot.

Social media can be a compulsive beast. It’s easy to feel a ‘need’ to keep putting out content through your various channels; no-where is this more true right now than on Twitter. I’ve written about that topic before, and I’ve also discovered the importance of unplugging occasionally.

So, what to do when a client feels like they can’t let their account lie dormant, even for a few days?

Todd Defren wrote a thought-provoking  post earlier this week, asking if people thought his company had done the right thing when a client asked them to take over his Twitter account and “tweet” on his behalf. Their reaction:

“Yes, we would tweet from his account, but with the following conditions:

— Prior to the event, he must tweet, “During the show some of my tweeting will be supplemented by our extended team.” We felt that the term “extended team” was appropriate, suggesting that that term covered both internal and 3^rd party colleagues.

— A reminder to that effect would go out, regularly, throughout the conference, i.e., every 10th tweet would remind followers that someone besides the executive might be “at the controls” of his Twitter account.

—When character spaces permitted, we’d add a #team hashtag to denote that the tweet was not published by the exec — but honestly, this attribution fell away more often than not; we largely relied on the “every 10th tweet” approach to cover our ethical backsides.”

Todd asked us, “how would you have handled such a request?” My initial response, posted as a comment on Todd’s post, was that I might have considered disclosing more fully but that in general they seemed to have approached it the right way.

Then, once again, I had a conversation with a colleague that made me think differently.

In one of our social media team meetings, Kerri Birtch suggested that we should really be thinking about a different question: did the client really have to appear to be online all the time?

Why did they feel the need to be online – was it for ego-based reasons or a genuine business need? Could the CEO have simply tweeted that they’d be at a conference and would be paying less attention over the next few days? Could they have posted a heads-up on a company blog for people who missed their Twitter announcement? Why did they not feel it was ok to be less active for a few days?

I don’t know the answers to those questions as I don’t have the context, but Kerri’s thoughts really highlighted a question we all need to ask of ourselves and of clients more often:

Why?

Twitter sent an email around to users yesterday, giving four suggestions for getting the most out of Twitter in 2011:

1. Follow your interests: Follow the people who share your passions
2. Get specific: Follow your favourite leagues, teams, players, writers etc
3. Don’t panic: Search for hashtags and relevant accounts during emergencies to stay informed
4. Return to Twitter: A call for lapsed users to return to  a service that apparently now has over 200 million user accounts

Four suggestions seems a little thin to me. I often get asked why people should use Twitter; here are 25 ideas for ways you can get value out of Twitter, with a mix of business and personal focus:

1. Stay in touch – Find your friends and use Twitter to post and read micro-updates on what’s going on in your lives
2. Meet new people – Get to know friends of your friends and widen your circle
3. Network professionally – Follow and get to know other people working in your industry
4. Find local events – Watch for interesting events that your connections are attending. Take advantage of the opportunity to take online connections offline
5. Research destinations – Travelling somewhere? Search for what people are saying, and poll your network for pointers on your destination
6. Get recommendations – Looking for a vendor, at home or at work? Ask your Twitter friends for recommendations on who to go with
7. Grow professionally – Identify the leaders in your industry. Read what they post; follow who they follow; learn from their activity
8. Fuel your passion – Find people who share the same interests as you, and geek it up! Let other peoples’ passion for your interests fuel your own
9. Influence the influencers – Get to know the people with influence in your field, before you need to ask them for anything
10. Stay on top of news – Follow news-related accounts, both traditional and non-traditional – to stay up-to-date with news in your area and your industry
11. Get to know journalists – Whether you post or you just lurk, follow the journalists in your field, learn what they read and what they like, and get to know what will be helpful for them
12. Research competitors – Follow your competitors. See what they post; see who they engage. Learn from their successes and their mistakes
13. Gain insights – Solicit feedback from your connections on ideas, products and services
14. Filter your reading –  Rather than fearing drinkin from the Twitter firehose, create a list of people who consistently post things that interest you and let them generate your reading list. Bonus: you’ll find stories from sites you don’t normally check
15. Generate ideas – Whether it’s through case studies other people post, ideas sparked from conversations or reactions to your posts, let your connections help you to generate new ideas
16. Organize meetups – Found yourself with some time on your hands? See who else is around. Planning to be somewhere at a certain time? See if anyone wants to meet up with you
17. Boost your reputation – Post your own content or curate others’ to build your own reputation in your chosen area
18. Inbound job hunting - Network with peers in your industry, build relationships with hiring managers, develop your own reputation and watch the number of job offers you receive rocket
19. Outbound job hunting – Follow executives at the companies you want to work for and keep your eyes open for job openings
20. Stay on top of trends – Identify the thought leaders in your industry and stay on top of trends by listening to what they’re saying
21. Drive conversions – As a business user, point people towards your points of conversion… but don’t do it too often, and make sure it’s something people will find valuable
22. Engage with your community – Don’t focus all of your company’s posts on pushing content; try to make a majority of your posts more conversational
23. Solve problems – Monitor for problems with your company’s customers, and solve them
24. Re-purpose content – Have something interesting on one of your other online properties? Let people know where to find it
25. New business generation – Get to know people at companies you want to work with; watch for requests for help from people looking for your services; post/curate content that generates inbound demand

I’m sure you can think of a tonne more. Let me know what you’d add in the comments below!

Ever have one of those frustrating conversations with your colleagues during an emerging issue, where you’re trying to figure out whether acknowledging an issue online will defuse it or spread it?

You know, the one that goes something like:

A: “Have you seen all the chatter about this issue online? We should get out there and let people know what’s going on.”
B: “No – it’s only a few people – if we post about it more people will know there’s a problem.”

People have a natural reluctance to admit something is wrong. That’s all the more so online, where people can talk back and potentially ask uncomfortable questions. So, unless there’s someone with enough authority to stick-handle a response through the objections, this is often where a stalemate is reached.

Even if you do manage to convince people of the need to communicate, the time it takes to do the convincing often means that you miss the boat on getting your response out there in time for people to see it.

That’s why I was really interested to see a note from Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions on the Social CRM Pioneers group, pointing to some interesting research by Microsoft and Psychster on the effect of companies acknowledging issues via Twitter on the actions and perceptions of customers.

The white paper, entitled “Using Twitter to Reassure Users During a Site Outage,” looks into the effects of a company informing people – or not – of an outage via Twitter, and the varying effectiveness of different approaches to doing so.

The conclusions provide some useful ammunition for those who advocate for a more proactive approach to managing issues via Twitter:

1. Any kind of acknowledgement online will result in lowered negativity and improved perceptions, and may lead to fewer people calling your call centre
2. Companies need to think about who posts the information, not just what is posted – a trusted community manager may be better than an executive or an anonymous company account
3. Companies can improve the effectiveness of their acknowledgements by explaining the nature and cause of the issue

It’s particularly interesting that the study identified that the acknowledgements do more than just change perceptions; they also decrease the likelihood of people calling your call centre.

During a panel on online support at SxSW this year, Frank Eliason explained that he was able to calculate the tangible benefit from his team at Comcast by looking at the cost of their team, the number of people they helped and comparing that to the cost of those people calling their call centre.

Even the most math-averse person can tell that if you reduce the number of people calling you for information, and do it in a cost-effective way, it should be an easy sell.

What’s more, this is a two-pronged benefit – communicating via Twitter can lower your support costs while simultaneously improving peoples’ perception of your company. So, you’re not only lowering costs, you’re also potentially generating revenue in the long-term.

Win-win.

Every so often you stumble across a report that contains so much insight that it’s futile to try to digest it all in one sitting. The latest annual Internet Trends Report from Mary Meeker, venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, is one of those, and it’s a must-read for those of us in digital marketing.

Mary Meeker

I spent a chunk of time digesting some of it this weekend, and I know I’ll be spending more time over the coming days. It’s a triumph of substance over style.

Key early themes for me (from the first third of the deck):

Decline of desktop: The number of desktop PCs shipped continues to decline, while mobile is accelerating. Tablets, meanwhile, have significant growth ahead and are showing exponential growth – currently shipping more units than PCs ever did. Meanwhile on the paid side, mobile shows significant room for continued growth while print ads remain “significantly over-indexed”.

Digital communications continues to shift: Change remains the constant. “Over the top” messaging systems (WhatsApp, WeChat, Shapchat, etc.) have acquired more than one billion users in under five years. Visual social networks are accelerating. “Invisible apps” such as Foursquare Swarm and Runkeeper Breeze – which only open when you know they “explicitly have something to say to you” are growing. The trend is away from platforms like Facebook, which have become mass communication vehicles, and towards smaller 1:1 interactions.

Industry disruption continues: Local industries (accommodation, food delivery, transport) are being disrupted by startups (Airbnb, Amazon Fresh, GrubHub, Uber). Bitcoin is disrupting the very meaning of a local currency. How can technology disrupt your sector?

Hat tip to Mitch Joel for drawing my eye to this.

This afternoon I was pleased to have the opportunity to present at Sprinklr‘s Social @ Scale event in Toronto, as part of an impressive lineup of speakers featuring Mitch Joel, Keith McArthur, Di Gallo, Mathieu Legace and Tara Hunt.

In my presentation – entitled The Power of Loyalty in Social Media – I posited that social media presents an opportunity to drive significant ROI through customer loyalty. That means shifting from one-way advertising to focusing on customers.

I focused on several insights:

1. Social media is a two-way channel, but over the last ten years social media marketers have increasingly shifted to focus activities on one-way interruption – applying old techniques to new channels, which is exacerbated by updates on networks like Facebook. We need to not only promote, but also protect brands in social media – which means reassessing the advertising-only approach.
2. Communities form post-purchase, but most marketers are focused pre-purchase. When you force a community to act as a new acquisition channel in that way, you dilute the community.
3. There is a significant opportunity to drive post-purchase loyalty, advocacy and re-purchase through social media.
4. The potential for ROI through loyalty is significant and the opportunity is present, as responsibility for functions that drive loyalty are increasingly falling to the CMO.

If we accept these insights, we have an imperative to re-assess our approach to social media:

• We need to focus our on-channel social media activities on our existing customers. That means:
  • On-channel content – both planned and real-time – should focus on the community of people who are generally existing customers
  • Community management – at scale – becomes a priority with a view to protecting  both the brand and customers’ connections to it
  • Social media support becomes more central to an organization’s social media activities, and shifts from a cost centre to a strategic marketing tool

At the same time, I emphasized there is a place for sales in social:

• Off-channel content (again, real-time and planned) via paid (posts promoted outside brands’ communities)
• Couponing and contesting (still key reasons that many people connect with brands)
• Re-purchase and new product launches

This is a shift from the way that many companies are approaching social media nowadays. This is a challenge to marketers to think differently and shift away from business-as-usual.

What are you seeing in your role – is it time to shake things up?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending my seventh Edelman Trust Barometer launch event in Toronto. This year’s results are some of the most interesting I’ve seen, highlighting a disparity in trust amongst what we call the “informed” public and the mass population, and the ongoing failure of businesses to live up to the expectations that people have of them when it comes to societal good (you can see the full results on SlideShare).

One of the interesting notes in this year’s Canadian Trust Barometer results was that trust in social media has fallen over the last year. In fact, social media was the only one of the five media types we examined to experience a decline in trust.

This might seem strange, given the various media scandals that Canada faced over the last year (Gomeshi, Roberts, Lang) – yet despite this, trust in traditional media still rose from 2015. Meanwhile, trust in social media fell by six per cent. Why?

Here are a couple of theories from my end:

Less social, more media

The last year has seen Facebook – as the dominant social network – continue to monetize its platform. This aggressive push led Facebook to become less and less about communities of ‘people like me’ and more replete with brands advertising to users. While the personalized 1:1 experience is there, the ability to stay in touch with communities of interest is much diminished, and there’s a saturation of brands pushing content “at” people, with a focus on sales vs helpful, interesting information.

The gradual decline of Twitter

Twitter has declined somewhat in popularity over the last year (I know I’ve gone from it living on my desktop and being constantly open on my phone, to being a more occasional user). This is significant, as Twitter was the primary social channel when it came to finding out information (does anyone ever actually go to Facebook to see what’s trending? It’s more of a secondary ‘I happened to see that’ side-effect, whereas people often specifically search Twitter for news). Twitter is still a force in this space, but the trend is notable.

Movement from broadcasting to 1:1 communication

There has been an explosion of growth in high-profile social media channels that are less-focused on news/information gathering and more on personal information-sharing – both in terms of visual content (e.g. Instagram, SnapChat – although the latter has become more publisher-friendly) and one-to-one communication (WhatsApp, etc.). As such, more and more people may think increasingly of snackable media than of more informative channels when they think of the term ‘social media’.

The growth of fake news

We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of hoaxes/’fake news’ stories online in the past year, whether it’s satire or just plain fake. Caitlin Dewey had a great piece of commentary in the Washington Post on the state of things and why the Post ended its column on fake news. At yesterday’s event, CPPIB* CEO Mark Wiseman suggested that it was because people are tired of fake news and untrustworthy sources, and are seeing through them. On the other side, Thomas Friedman had an interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday on lessons from social media’s role in the Arab Spring, with this quote from Wael Ghonim (one of the instigators of the uprising):

“…we don’t know how to deal with rumours. Rumours that confirm peoples’ biases are now believed and spread among millions of people.”

Either way, given that social media is often a conduit to other forms of online media (not unlike search; the difference being that discussion remains on the social channels and that search algorithms attempt to weed out the poor quality sources), the growth in untrustworthy news sources in general may be having a negative knock-on effect on the place it is increasingly shared – social media.

Social still matters

Regardless of the results, there’s no doubt that social media plays a significant role nowadays – it remains one of the top three most-consumed media sources and “a person like yourself” remains one of the top three most-trusted sources of information.

Still, we should pay attention to these results. The desire for something other than one-way shouting by companies is part of what prompted people to embrace business presences in social media in the first place (remember Dell’s heralded efforts back in 2005). We need to be wary of falling into the increasingly tempting trap of turning social media into a pure broadcast channel. We need to avoid being just another company pumping out the same noise as everyone else. For people to care, we need to ensure that we are helpful and honest, not purely promotional.

* Disclosure: CPPIB is an Edelman client

We live in interesting times in the digital agency world – a time of constant change in our business landscape that provides both immense opportunity and a real threat to the survival of agencies that fail to adapt.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this landscape over the last year or so. I’ve spoken with team members and peers in Canada, and with senior colleagues across our global network. As I’ve done so, I’ve highlighted five key landscape shifts that are changing the way that agencies and teams like ours need to operate:

1. Newly (re-)accelerated change in social networks
2. Less “social”, more “media”
3. Decline of community management (in some areas)
4. The (actual) year of mobile
5. Ubiquity of rich media

1. Newly (re-)accelerated change in social networks

As I look back at the last decade, often parse it out into three phases.

The first five years – 2006-2010 – were catalysed by constant change. This was the period when the current platforms all launched, and it felt like there was a new social media tool or network emerging every week. It was such a time of change that I would come into work early each day and block off time to catch up on the latest social media news. Companies realized the opportunity presented by engaging with their customers through these new channels, but we were still in a time when simply creating a Twitter or Facebook account would make headlines. Social media monitoring emerged as an important activity for companies during this time, and we saw a number of ground-breaking collaboration initiatives launched (Dell Ideastorm, My Starbucks Idea) that spoke to the power of harnessing two-way interaction.

Between 2010 and 2013 (or so), we saw things slow slightly. The dominant platforms then were largely the same ones as the previous five years, and while the evolution of those platforms required adaptation (Facebook introduced its news feed early in this window, for example) it didn’t feel like the same relentless barrage of constant landscape change. In the agency world we were focused on optimizing how we operated on those platforms – we got into heavy analysis on things like real-time activation, word choice, tone, character counts, day-parting etc.

For the last couple of years we’ve swung back into another window of innovation, driven in a significant part by the rise of smartphones and tablets, and by the major platforms monetizing following their IPOs. We’ve seen new platforms emerge – visual platforms Instagram and Snapchat, messaging platforms like Whatsapp, WeChat, etc. – and quickly amass enough users to significantly change the social media landscape. Meanwhile, the nature of others has been significantly changed by their shift from a focus on community to one on profitability.

The difference with this new wave of innovation is two-fold:

• Social media is no longer a niche phenomenon – it is actively building and shaping brands. While social platforms themselves aren’t highly trusted, we continue to see that “a person like me” remains one of the most trusted sources of information.
• We’re in the midst of a difficult economy – particularly in Canada, where the weakness of the Canadian dollar is driving costs up and profits down for many businesses. Budgets are tight, and there aren’t a lot of innovation-focused dollars to go around.

This means that in the midst of this rapid change, it’s harder and harder for both clients and agencies to innovate and stay up with the latest wave of technology without spreading already stretched budgets even thinner.

2. Less “social”, more “media”

Facebook Zero has impacted more than just the world’s largest social media platform – it has also paved the way for others to follow as they themselves push to monetize. Twitter just rolled out a new “while you were away”-type feature that shows top tweets at the top of your feed (while it’s opt-in now, it will soon be opt-out). Instagram reps have been telling brands for a while not to bother building their own organic followings, which is likely a signal that they’ll eventually follow Facebook’s path (they don’t even have a follower-building ad unit).

This has led to three key changes for agencies.

Social media is quickly pushing brands in the “media” direction and away from “social” – the thing that attracted many people to want to connect with companies in the first place. While the changes have in many ways benefited users – who are gaining increasingly personalized experiences – they are challenging for companies that want to connect with fans from a loyalty and retention standpoint. They cater to a media-buying model that is based much more in the traditional ‘interrupt and amplify’ world than that of community and connection.

(Side point – this may be leading to an erosion of broader trust in social networks)

Companies have re-focused on their own digital properties. We predicted this when we saw Facebook’s about-turn on organic reach, as some large companies debated whether to pull back on their social media activities given the unpredictability of the platforms in which they were investing and Facebook’s perceived bait-and-switch. As it turns out, two other trends piled on top of this: the growth in mobile and – in Ontario, at least– the impact of accessibility-focused legislation – did drive a spike in owned media programs over the last couple of years, as companies shifted some budgets towards those properties.

Lastly, this shift is also leading to a new agency dynamic, as different types of agencies find themselves competing in the same space. The blurring of the lines is nothing new (I wrote about this as far back as 2010), but the changing platforms mean these dynamics are continuing to shift. As a result, we’re seeing an ongoing cross-pollination of talent as between media, creative and PR agencies as people move ever more frequently between them and each looks to compete effectively. Depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the agencies in question, this may be net positive or negative for their competitive position.

3. Decline of community management (in some areas)

As push-focused marketing gains more traction on social channels and as social platforms limit brands’ abilities to organically reach the people who have shown affinity for them, many companies are shifting dollars away from community management and into media dollars. While there’s a strong case for social media as a customer service and loyalty platform, the shifting of dollars to media buying is entrenching many companies’ worldviews around social media in the pre-purchase phase of the customer lifecycle – the phase where, much as purists in the early days of social would hate to admit it, community management is ineffective as a results driver.

This shift is particularly noticeable in the consumer goods space, where economic factors and the overall health of the sector are coming into play:

• Marketing budgets are shrinking
• Low-cost content production is gaining traction
• Corporate acquisitions & efficiency plays are causing companies to in-source community management work

In some cases companies are even ceasing to fund Canadian-focused programs at all, instead shifting to consolidated programs across North America. Traditional arguments about Canada’s multicultural – and multilingual – landscape aren’t stemming the flow – Canada is just too small of a market in the eyes of many multinationals to warrant separate investment, so they play the law of averages and bank on enough of their generic North American digital content being relevant to gain some benefit to match against the cost savings. Sorry, Quebec.

This isn’t happening across the board – we’re still seeing community management as an important activity in customer service-heavy industries (e.g. consumer tech companies) where people look online for help, regulated industries which are finally beginning to explore social media and which are required to monitor conversations, and service industries where responsiveness/premium experiences are vital.

In those sectors where it is having an impact, the onus is on agencies on two fronts – educating client organizations on the importance of looking at the full customer lifecycle, and figuring out alternative means of achieving client objectives.

4. The (actual) year of mobile

If you look at any trends deck over the last five years (including my own), they’ve all cited “the year of mobile” pretty much every year.

2015 was actually the year of mobile.

• The emerging social media platforms are overwhelmingly mobile-first; many are mobile-only.
• Mobile use dominates on the older social networks, too.
• Mobile and location-focused services are enabling a new wave of industry innovation.
• Mobile commerce is on the rise.
• On Google, mobile search surpassed desktop search for the first time.
• Google actually tweaked its algorithm to punish non-mobile friendly sites.

Mobile is challenging us in new ways – to plan differently, to design differently, to personalize differently and to track & measure differently. It requires new skill sets, new technologies and new ways of thinking that agencies haven’t needed before. It requires a whole-scale retooling of the agency skill set.

5. Ubiquity of rich media

Another factor that isn’t so much a trend as just a pervasive reality, the days of text-only content are well and truly over. Facebook has long since made the switch to put visual content first. Twitter is following closely behind. Instagram and Snapchat are visual-led. Periscope, which is beginning to gain traction as Twitter integrates it further, is the same.

The implications of this reality are two-fold.

Firstly, the breadth of content required means that gone are the days of community managers commonly handling everything – a modern social channel requires graphic design, copywriting, video production and community management skillsets (not to mention analytics and paid media). While you may be able to find the occasional unicorn who can do all of the above, it would be hard to find someone who can do it all well. Further, as PR agencies onboard skillsets from creative and media agencies, those skillsets are often spread amongst multiple teams. None of this comes cheaply, but that’s increasingly the demand from clients.

Again, this isn’t new – ad agencies have always operated this way, and it’s not new on the PR agency side either – I remember breaking content creation out from community management on a global client’s social media account back in 2012.

Secondly, this exacerbates the tension around shrinking budgets and the focus on nimbleness. Companies are forced to wrestle with the trade-off between high-end, polished content and low-cost content production, and with the increasing importance of native advertising on social media, it’s not a trade-off that comes lightly.

The net impact of all of this is that agencies are again challenged to do more with less, and in more complex environment.

Your mileage may vary

As I mentioned, I’ve spent the last year thinking a lot about these kinds of landscape shifts – these aren’t trends that will affect your next campaign, but they are significant shifts that so much trends as broad-sweeping contextual changes that have the potential to shift agency strategy.

While I can’t share how we’re responding to these shifts at Edelman (that part is my day job), we’re certainly thinking about them and they’re at the forefront of our minds as we look ahead to the next few years.

If you’re not already thinking about shifts like these and their impact on your business, now may be the time.

Butch Vig is a legendary musician and producer, who has had a huge impact on the music industry. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in alternative music (he produced Nirvana’s Nevermind, Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, etc.) and himself is a member of the successful band Garbage.

I recently listened to an interview that Vig did on the Nerdist podcast (which is consistently excellent, by the way), where he discussed some of the challenges he’s faced in his role, and it got me thinking about some parallels with the digital space – and in particular about resiliency. This is a topic that I’ve discussed a fair amount over the last couple of years as digital and social continues to evolve at a lightning pace, so I thought I’d capture those thoughts here.

Get comfortable being uncomfortable

One of the things that people in the digital space often wrestle with is the inherent instability of such a fast-moving environment.

When Vig was working with artists like Sonic Youth, Nirvana and the Pumpkins in the early ’90s, the Grunge movement wasn’t ‘a thing.’ He knew that the music they were producing was different to the other popular types of music around that time (electronica and 80s hair metal), but didn’t realize they were on the edge of a movement. As Vig said in the interview, “When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t know where things are going.”

The digital space isn’t all that different right now. Things are changing rapidly and it’s anyone’s guess as to where they’re going. We can all make educated guesses on where things will land, but there’s a new development every day and no master plan by which the platforms are playing.

Lesson: To work in the digital field, you need to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

You need a team around you

Vig told a story about a song off Garbage’s latest album (I believe it was “Even though our love is doomed”). He’d been working on ideas for the song for a while and just couldn’t get it right. He worked on a few different demos for the band, with different styles to the song but eventually got frustrated and set it aside. A little while later, Shirley Manson – Garbage’s lead singer – asked him what became of the track, which he’d mentioned to her previously, and pushed him to pick it back up and to come at it from an acoustic angle instead of one of the others he’d tried. He did so, and cracked the song within minutes.

I’ve found this myself over the years – whenever I try to go off on my own and do something solo, I struggle much more than when I enlist the help of others.

Lesson: Don’t try to be a one-person show – you can’t know it all.

Flexibility is key

Vig reflected that his original plan for an album would change near-daily as the artists he collaborated with had their say. Needless to say, he has worked with some strong personalities over the years so the way he responded to those moments was key and he learned to be flexible with his approach as a result.

The analogy here goes beyond purely digital reflections. Marketing is equal parts art and science, and much of it can at times be subjective. As you work through programs, you will encounter people with different perspectives on the work who may push you from your preconceived notions. Sometimes that will be a good thing (ideas that build or course-correct can be helpful); other times less so (we’ve all worked with clients who inflict death by a thousand paper cuts on every program).

Lesson: Balance the resilience to ensure that program objectives remain intact, with flexibility to incorporate good ideas that build to a better outcome.

Sometimes you just need to step away

Lastly, Vig noted that sometimes his best efforts weren’t enough, and he just hits a block. His advice: step away, sleep on the issue and come back to it tomorrow. More often than not, the problem looks different in the morning.

Lesson: Know when to take a breather and approach a problem anew later.

One day after the U.S. election and the dissection of the reasons for the outcome is well underway.

Richard Edelman, in a thoughtful town hall meeting with our global team today – and now captured on his blog – laid out a communications-focused lens on what happened, as well as some well-reasoned ideas on what businesses should look to do in the wake of the results.

“Twitter Triumphs over The New York Times”

One piece of Richard’s analysis got me thinking: his statement that “Twitter Triumphs over The New York Times.” In essence, Richard argues that while Hillary Clinton took a top-down, hierarchical approach to communication (via the mainstream media), Trump’s use of social media enabled him to go direct to his base and to communicate without the filter of the media. Richard correctly argues that companies can learn from this and, by adopting similar approaches, can derive similar benefits from reaching their stakeholders directly through digital channels.

This got me thinking on some other lessons and reminders we can take from this election. Here are a few thoughts from my perspective.

1. Echo Chambers Prevail

There is plenty of discussion on this topic right now. If you’re not familiar with the phenomenon, the top social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – all allow users to ‘follow’ other people whose content then provides the basis for what they see when they log in to those services. Given that most people tend to connect with people and organizations that share their views and values, it leads to people largely being surrounded with people who share their perspectives on things.

This was clearly illustrated by the WSJ’s Blue Feed, Red Feed visualization that showed what a Liberal supporter might see on Facebook, versus what a Conservative supporter might see. If you haven’t already, you should check it out.

This self-curation creates self-reinforcing echo chambers and narrows the perspectives to which we’re exposed online in a way that wasn’t present in the pre-Internet era. It’s why I continue to make a point of staying connected with people who I know don’t share my views on things, and why (until Google shut it down) Google Reader provided me with a regular dose of new perspectives – what Chris Brogan once termed the “Serendipity Effect”.

Implications for business: Get outside of your own bubble. If your social media team is just reporting on what people are saying to you online, request that they also help you understand what people are saying about you. You may find that there is a significant difference.

2. Corporate Social Media ≠ Personal Social Media

Those of us working in the digital space have witnessed the shift by social networks over the last few years. Social media has gone from focusing on earned conversation, to paid reach and a narrowing gap between social media marketing and traditional advertising – “less social, more media” as I’ve written previously. Community management has become increasingly commoditized in a number of sectors as marketers – who generally control the budgets – pushed social media activities higher in the funnel (whereas most community management tends to happen in the post-purchase phase).

Thus, with the exception of companies that recognize the power of social media for issues/crisis management or customer service, social media has become increasingly one-way in recent years.

Meanwhile, individual people continue to use social media as they did previously – sharing and talking about things that interest them… and, despite the relentless media attention placed on Donald Trump’s Twitter handle, there was a startling lack of attention paid to what the general population was expressing online.

This week was a useful reminder that the reality within the marketing industry does not mirror the reality of the average person.

Implications for business: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the shift towards one-way communication in social channels means that people aren’t talking to each other – or talking back. Sentiment and conversation trends matter. Pay attention.

3. Analytics Drives News

In recent months I’ve had a number of conversations with colleagues regarding the growing importance of analytics and measurement in our industry. This week’s result reminded me that marketers aren’t the only ones using analytics to drive our programming.

Traditional media has always been driven to some extent by the news that people react to. Digital media, however, has enabled them to take that to a new level. In a world in which news is increasingly consumed online, stories are given prominence based on their click-through rates and stories are increasingly assigned based on how similar stories have performed in the past. We’ve seen it time and time again in our work, and given the financial state of the industry it’s not likely to be a trend that changes any time soon.

So, when people bemoan the mainstream media missing the mark in their coverage of the mood of the nation, or the volume of coverage dedicated to one candidate over another, consider: those stories were running because those were the stories that people were asking for – perhaps not explicitly, but implicitly through their actions.

Implications for business: Pay attention to the content you produce that performs well, and learn from it. Meanwhile, pay attention to the mainstream media stories about your organization that perform well (most news sites show a leaderboard of their top performing stories) and learn from them – they may foretell a long-standing storyline (positive or negative), or give you an insight that helps you land that key story down the road.

An Opportunity to Learn

The results of this election were surprising to many people on both sides of the political aisle. Regardless of your perspective, there are lessons we can learn on any number of fronts. I’ll leave it to others to postulate on the very real and important societal challenges that have been revealed in recent months. However, there are also some useful reminders here that the technology that has changed so much of how we communicate still continues to present its own challenges.

Want to try uncomfortable? Our team turned a streetcar into a concert venue.

Seven years. It’s a long time in the agency world. In an industry where 25% turnover is (sadly) often the norm and you can seemingly measure tenure as you would ‘dog years’ – it’s a lifetime.

Over the last seven years at Edelman I’ve gone from leading a local office team of a dozen or so, to leading a national, multi-office team of more than 50 people across Canada. I’ve been here long enough that almost everyone on our Canadian Digital team has joined while I’ve been at the firm, and I’m happy to say that the team we have now is as strong as it has ever been during my time here.

A lot of people ask me what has kept me at Edelman for this long, and I tell them all the same thing: the people. While this applies to my colleagues broadly in the organization, it is especially true for the people on my team.

They’re people who keep me on my toes, who force me to keep learning and who make me uncomfortable — in a good way.

What does “uncomfortable” mean?

We should all strive for some level of discomfort in our professional environments.

In this context, this means working with people who aren’t afraid to challenge ideas and to push our work – and me – to be better. It means working with people who have new skills that I may not yet have, and bring to the table ways of thinking that I may not bring. It means working with people who are so smart, I’m fairly sure one of them will be my boss at some point down the road.

Riding the emotional rollercoaster

Seeking out the uncomfortable is not simple or even easy. “People” aren’t just something that happen at a company – they don’t just suddenly show up one day, out of the blue.

After seven years at Edelman, I’m now at a point where everyone on the team has joined while I’ve been here – and I’ve had a hand in hiring most of them. I take pride in this as I firmly believe that one of the most important parts of my role as a leader is building the team around me.

This has been a significant focus over the last few years. Our team has undergone a significant transition to broaden our capabilities from our historical core strength in social media into additional digital marketing areas. As our business evolves, so has my approach to leadership. This shift has meant bringing new types of people with new skillsets on board, and pushing outside our comfort zones.

Stop looking for people who are like you.

We naturally gravitate to people like us, but a homogeneous team isn’t the path to great work – it’s the path to staleness. I deliberately push myself to resist hiring reflections of myself and my skillset, and instead aim to hire people with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.

Hire people who are smarter than you.

A team member mentioned to me recently that if they found they were consistently the smartest person in the room, they would know they were in the wrong place. I wholeheartedly agree – and I think this is especially important in a leadership role. As a leader, you don’t need to be the smartest person in the room – you need to put the smartest people in the room.

Take satisfaction from the team’s wins.

If you truly want to build a high-performing team, you need to be comfortable with their success. Remember that if they succeed, you succeed, and don’t allow their success to make you feel threatened. I found this tough at first – it’s hard to go from being the one in the spotlight to enabling others to be in that place – but it is critical, especially as a team scales in size. Now, I look at things differently.

For example, for several years we incubated a specialty group within our Digital team. When we eventually spun that group into a stand-alone team, it would have been easy to feel challenged by that shift. Instead, I celebrated it as recognition of a job well done. The same applies to awards, new client wins and all the other moments that you get to enjoy when your team is performing well.

Get used to being challenged.

If you’re truly committed to building a high-performing team, get used to them challenging each other – and you. In fact, foster and encourage an environment that embraces challenge. It can be uncomfortable at first, but in time encouraging that kind of constructive conflict can be immensely beneficial – and can help to avoid group-think.

Learn to manage your discomfort.

There will be times when you find yourself reacting to the tension that surrounding yourself with high performers can create. This one was big for me. As a stereotypical red-head, one of the most useful skills I’ve learned over the years is to recognize my own ‘fight or flight’ response when it kicks in – a physical reaction that I came to realize was unhelpful in most workplace situations.

Nowadays, I’m more self-aware and have a variety of coping mechanisms that I can immediately apply to allow the constructive dynamics on the team to play out.

It’s not easy to put this into practice. When I say my team makes me uncomfortable, it’s not in jest. Still, one of the pieces of advice I give to aspiring team members is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That discomfort is something that has kept me in place for seven years (or 49 dog years) and counting, and I aspire to seek out that feeling for as long as I can.

How about you?

Social media has driven momentous change in the business world over a little more than a decade. It has changed the way companies communicate, the way they operate, and the way they connect with people.  However, as we look towards 2018, social media itself has changed drastically since its inception and it is a far cry from the relationship-focused utopia that many people imagined at the outset. This raises a question: is that change a good thing?

“Uphill, both ways, in the snow…”

I’ve occasionally been known to go into an old man-style “back in my day…” rant, bemoaning the diminishing over time of the attributes of social media that once drew many of us old-timers to these channels.

When social media first came on the scene it represented a dramatic shift from one-way communication to two-way communication online. Suddenly people were connected to each other in seemingly intimate ways and early adopters found a sense of community amongst fellow adoptees.

As individuals flocked to these platforms, brands realized that they had an opportunity to connect and close the gap with their customers. People like Lionel Menchaca and Richard Binhammer at Dell, Frank Eliason at Comcast, Zena Weist at H&R Block and others paved the way for large companies to use social media to connect with customers directly. Importantly, they built relationships with people that were different from the one-way marketing tactics seen in other channels.

But the platforms only lasted in this state for a short time (rapid change is normal in any emerging space). Before too long, we started to see traditional marketing approaches re-emerge as social media companies began to look for ways to generate revenue.

Say goodbye to the honest campfire circle. Say hello to super-sized bonfire, complete with branded logs and paid pyrotechnics.

As money flowed in to the platforms, marketers began to look to apply the same tactics that had been traditionally executed elsewhere. Everything from low-end contesting to flashy creative to interruption focused advertising became fair game on social platforms. At the urging of the platforms themselves, we also saw companies downplay the importance of community management – and customer engagement – in favour of reach and frequency with audiences.

Those of us who have worked in this space for a while have felt this shift acutely. For me, the opportunity for businesses to connect more closely with their customers was what drove me to embrace social media when it first emerged – and the shift towards an ad-driven approach pained me as I saw the industry move away from that mindset.

Change can be good

It would be a mistake to assume that all of this change is bad, though.

The reality all along was that connections-focused social media alone was always going to struggle to justify itself once marketing became a focus – particularly in the case of consumer-focused brands. For most of the companies used to targeting millions of people in any given national market, the scale just wasn’t there to move the needle – and 20 likes on a Facebook post was meaningless to people looking at the bottom line.

It would also be a mistake to say that the shift towards a more advertising-driven social media landscape was all negative. The ability to more effectively deliver content to people based on their interests, for example, allows for more relevant and meaningful interactions than a ‘spray and pray’ approach – and social media provides that contextual targeting in spades. We consistently see social channels out-perform others in many campaigns – so something is working.

From a user’s perspective, if we accept that platforms need to make money and therefore advertising is inevitable, this targeting should make the experience more relevant and less jarring for users of the platforms.

Lastly, we should acknowledge that communities of (non-corporate) interest remain vibrant in social media. For example, my wife and I have found enormous value in Facebook groups for new parents in recent months as we prepared for the arrival of our baby. The ability to connect with people through social channels is clearly still there – and still very much in demand – for individuals.

What’s next?

One thing is certain: Social media isn’t done changing. Not by a long shot. New platforms and technologies continue to emerge. Many current trends nod towards the original engagement and connection-focused nature of social media, while keeping business realities top of mind.

Recently I’ve been pleased to see more companies returning focus to their existing customers – a practice that harkens back to the early days of social media and recognizes that social media provides a unique opportunity to manage customer service issues at scale. These companies are bringing a renewed emphasis on community management and online support, and integrating this with business systems in a way that was not possible ten years ago when social media first took off.

Several brands are also creating Facebook groups for their most passionate and valuable customers and partners. These companies are recognizing the value in engaging them 1:1 versus the customers who are simply complaining that they didn’t like the font on a package they saw at the grocery store.

Meanwhile, while some initial hype has died down, we’re also seeing an ongoing evolution of technology that is allowing companies to scale their engagement with customers and handle common queries quickly and easily. With messaging platforms continuing to outpace other social channels, technologies such as chatbots are likely to become increasingly relevant in the year ahead.

While some people hold tight to the idealistic virtues of social media, the reality has changed and as an industry we need to change with it. As businesses head into 2018, my hope is that more ‘mature’ organizations will embrace the revolutionary opportunities that these platforms present, while keeping sight of social’s roots in building connections and relationships with customers.

If they do, then perhaps “back in my day” won’t be so far from today after all.

Building a successful team is one of the most important things you do as a manager, but it is also one of the most challenging. People are hard – and interviews aren’t always the best ways to get a real sense of the person – but in many cases that is what we have on which to base our decisions.

At the beginning of this year we set out to fill a senior role on our Digital team. Every role is important to an organization but as the National Practice Lead for Digital this one especially was important to me – as part of the leadership group on my team this role would help set the direction for the ongoing evolution of our digital practice and would be an important partner for me in the years ahead.

As we interviewed people for the role, a surprising challenge arose. Often hiring managers wrestle with finding people we think will be able to succeed in a role, but this time we were inundated with qualified applicants. And not just based on experience – many of them had unique qualities or aspects of their portfolio which would have made for exceptional team members. With our list down to 10, we knew it was going to be a challenge to whittle it down to a final shortlist, and eventually to just one.

So, when you have the best of the best, how do you choose “the one”?

Satisfying the business need

First things first, we always must solve for what the business needs from a skill and capacity perspective – and that’s the info that most often goes into the job posting. It’s the appropriate level of experience, the knowledge and expertise – all the skills to get the day-to-day job done. For example, in the case of this role, we looked for strong digital-first client counselors, people who had exceptional backgrounds in digital strategy, and who were also new-business hungry, with the right mix of sector experience for the market in which they were hired.

Key to this – but also, frankly, throughout the whole process – is building a strong partnership with HR. I make it a priority to brief our recruitment team in detail, and provide similarly detailed feedback on candidates so we end up in lock-step on what we need for the role. If you put in the effort to establish that alignment up-front, they can become an invaluable partner and sounding board for the remainder of the process (shout out to Sylvia and Daniel!).

Fulfilling the human need

Behind every job posting, there is an untold human story that needs to be addressed too. There are team members that will rely on this person to have the right mix of interpersonal skills to meet their needs. Culture fit is a huge deal for us, so this has a lot of weighting in our consideration when we hire. As our HR lead put it to me today, “A job is a job and skills are skills but if the fit to the company’s values aren’t there, they won’t last six months.”

This goes beyond just fitting in with the corporate culture, though. It’s about finding someone who will show up in the right way each day for the people they work with – yourself included – and it means something different to everyone. In this case, for me, I knew I wanted to be able to trust a person to get the job done to an exceptional level with a good level of independence, who could make me uncomfortable by challenging me, and be a true partner – even when it isn’t easy to be one.

The clichéd X-Factor

This one is tough to explain because it’s different all the time. There have been times that I’ve been sure that the person would not only be a fit but be a star in their role after just five minutes of the interview. At times, it’s a unique approach the person has taken in their career and their self-awareness of how it would apply to the role. Other times, it is the inquisitive nature of the candidate and how they just seem to know the right probing questions to ask. Sometimes it’s as simple as a feeling; a gut reaction.

Perhaps it’s a biproduct of knowing this person can fulfil both the professional and personal aspects of the role I mentioned above – but whatever it is, it can make all the difference.

Striving for the vision

Filling a role because there is the capacity or need to do so is just the beginning. Importantly, we need to ensure that new hires will not only help us achieve our vision of who we want to be now, but also who we want to be in the future.

This part – aligning to a vision – can be the hardest aspect to find in a person. Before we even go in to the interview process, we need to think carefully about the person we need to set ourselves on the right path and how that person is going to help us get to our destination.

In the case of our most recent senior hire, this piece was what helped us narrow down to our shortlist. All of our long-list candidates met our business and human needs, and many had that “X-Factor.” As I worked through the list of candidates, it came down to a combination of that and how we could see each person contributing differently to our vision.

Ultimately, while these decisions are rarely easy, the combination of these four areas made a very difficult decision much easier to make.

I recently had the honour of speaking at Seneca College‘s “Make it Happen” event for about 400 of their marketing students. I was asked to talk for a few minutes about my own career path and achievements, but there are few things I’d like to hear less than someone like me droning on about my accomplishments. Instead, I shared my story through five lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

Lesson #1: Have a vision

I saw a video recently that resonated with me. In it, Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about the importance of having a vision for what you wanted to do. For him it was moving to the US and being a movie star. For me, it’s evolved over time… but it really started with social media.

I started my career in the early heyday of the Internet. I was lucky that my first internship – back in 2000 – turned into an opportunity to take on the role of webmaster for a division of Hitachi in Europe, and I parlayed that into a second internship doing web development for a bank in the UK. I loved the idea that companies could use these new online technologies to anticipate and serve the needs of their customers. I remember writing a report in university on the potential for an early eCommerce retailer to better optimize their journey planning to anticipate customers’ purchasing behavior based on their past activities, and serve products to them accordingly. Essentially the type of thing that, a few years later, Amazon started doing through its product recommendations.

When social media first emerged, I found it absolutely compelling. Its roots back in the mid-2000s – and the early business use-cases – centred around building communities and solving problems. I loved the idea that this two-way technology could help to narrow the gap between companies and their customers.

That became my passion. I didn’t want to just ‘do’ this stuff, I wanted to be amongst the best in the world at it. For years I’d work a full day in the office, then go home, read up on trends for a couple of hours and then write for a couple more. I’d write about whatever was going on with social media – new tools, new platforms, new developments… and as I did, people started to listen. I got to the point where I had thousands of readers of my site, where I was on a first-name basis with the thought leaders of this space, and was going toe-to-toe with them online, and where I was flying around North America talking about this stuff.

That vision drove me. As social media evolved, I found that my passion for that specific thing waned, but I still get excited about using data and technology to connect faceless corporations with the people who care about them, and in doing so make them more relevant. For the last few years, I’ve focused on evolving my team to focus on this challenge and find creative solutions for it.

Find the vision that motivates you, and work relentlessly at achieving it.

Lesson #2: You need to create your own luck

I’ve used this quote so many times over the years that I’ve lost count:

“I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.”

This is often attributed to Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson, but as far as I can tell it actually came from an author named Coleman Cox, who wrote this in 1922. Nearly a hundred years later, it has been the foundation of my career.

I’m rarely the smartest person in the room. I’ll get to that more later. What success I’ve had has come from hard work, from keeping my eye on the horizon and from recognizing opportunities as they arise.

I moved to Canada in 2003 and soon after landed a temp gig with the Government of Ontario. That was supposed to just be for a few weeks, but a week or so in, something went sideways on a project. I was still new, but – as I’ve heard it recounted to me – while everyone else was panicking, I figured out what needed to be done and just started doing it. As a result I was recommended for a contract in another department, and eventually I landed a permanent gig. I worked my way up in the government for nearly five years.

I talked about social media earlier. When I got into that space, there were no college or university courses on it. Twitter was new. Facebook was an emerging thing. Foursquare didn’t exist yet. Blogs were still emerging. When social media was getting big, I was still working for the government, but I thought there was really interesting potential there, and I grabbed onto it. No-one handed me a career in the social media space; in fact, there weren’t that many careers in it at that point. Few companies were throwing serious money at it at that time, but I could see there was something there. I spent hours – every day – working to learn about it and build some kind of profile for myself.

Eventually it paid off and I landed a job focused on social media at an agency named Thornley Fallis Communications. The work didn’t end there; it began there. I worked my ass off ensuring everything was as good as I knew it could be. Over my next two years there, we won clients including Rogers, Atlantic Lottery Corp, Allstate and more. Terry Fallis – whose name is on that agency’s door – remains a good friend and mentor to me, and I look back fondly at my time there and with gratitude at the opportunities that Terry and his business partner Joe Thornley provided to me.

Now, I take Coleman Cox’s comments with a pinch of salt. If you’re working 70 hours every week – and I’ve been there – it’s not good for you, your family or your colleagues. Don’t do that. But when you ARE working, be present. Be attentive, and focus. Your career will benefit from it. Leave your title at the door, and come to every meeting with a learning attitude. Ask smart questions. Raise your hand for opportunities, and earn a place at the table. When opportunities are offered to you, take them. Lean in.

Lesson #3: Life is like a box of chocolates

I’ve spent the last two lessons focused on the early days of my career. This lesson spans from day one, to this day.

Your career isn’t likely to be a straight line. I went through University sure that I would be a management consultant – which was ‘the thing to do’ back then.

Then I discovered the internet, and that moment started me in a new career trajectory which brought me to Canada and to a gig in communications, and that turned into five fulfilling years learning about social media.

Enter Edelman. I joined the agency  in 2010 and that’s when things got really interesting. My eight years – so far – at Edelman have been a roller-coaster of change. Three months into my stint leading the Digital team in our Toronto office, I was asked to join an account full-time to help address some instability on that file. That turned into another role, and then another, and eventually I found myself leading a global project on a high-profile tech product launch, with a team of 140 people. I didn’t ‘sign up’ for any of that when I joined Edelman, but when the opportunity arose I took it.

The moral of the story is that you never know what is going to come your way. Don’t shy away from unexpected opportunities… and don’t shy away from challenges, either.

My current boss – who I have worked with for nearly eight years – talks about there being two types of people – those who jump off the train when it starts to veer out of control, and those who jump onto it. I’ve made my career on the back of moments when I’ve jumped onto that train. When things go south, stop, think through what needs to be done and get to it.

You’ll be amazed at the opportunities that emerge when you throw yourself into being part of the solution, rather than dodging the problem.

Lesson #4: Follow leaders, not jobs

Over the course of your career, you will have a lot of career choices to make and – if you’re good – opportunities presented to you. Some may have big dollars or big titles attached to them. Some may be more high-profile.

I offer one piece of advice here: follow the leader. I have yet to regret following a strong leader, versus a shiny new role or a big paycheck.

I talked just now about my time at Edelman. When the big global tech client left us in 2013, I had a number of potential paths in front of me.

One put me onto another global client, in a more senior role, over in England. The person I would have reported to had a reputation as being difficult, but the role was another step up the career ladder.

Another potential role had me working full-time on a video gaming client – as a big nerd, this was pretty attractive. However, on meeting the account lead, I could tell we wouldn’t click.

The final opportunity involved staying in Canada, and leading a part of the regional team. It was relatively close to what I’d been doing before the big account, and involved less ‘adventure’, but it had one clear leg up over the others: a person I’d worked with for several years and who I respected greatly, who had recently taken on the role to which I would report, and which I now hold – that of National Practice Lead.

In the end, I chose to remain in Canada and instead follow a leader. Five years later, we’re still working together and I haven’t regretted that choice once.

Lots of things may get your attention, but beyond the initial attraction, it’s pretty hard to get out of bed every day knowing that you aren’t going to enjoy the day. If you like and respect your leader, though, everything is different. I won’t pretend every day is full of roses, but I look forward to coming to work more often than I don’t.

Lesson #5: Never stop being a sponge

I mentioned earlier that I am rarely the smartest person in the room. A lot of people scoff when I say that (those who know me would likely agree…), but I genuinely believe that it’s true.

Michael Dell once said, “Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people… or find a different room.”

When you’re first starting out, my best advice to you is to be a sponge. Listen more than you talk, and when you do talk, ask smart questions.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a point of view or add value – you absolutely can. However, far too many people see graduation as the end of their learning, not the latest step on a long path of growth.

I got my first ‘adult job’ 18 years ago. Since then I’ve risen to the top digital role in Canada, at the world’s largest communications marketing firm, with a team of more than 60 people. I’m still not done learning.

I see my most important job nowadays as being that of continuously surrounding myself with people who are smarter than me. Doing so means I’m always learning, and maintaining a constant feeling of being “new”.

To this end, I have three final pointers for you:

1. Constantly search out alternative points of view. Don’t just seek to validate your thinking.
2. Hire people that are smarter than you to keep you on your toes, even if they make you uncomfortable.
3. Once you’re the boss, ask your team what they think is the right approach before you tell them what you think it is.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with advice I consistently hear my friend and manager Tristan Roy give to teams at Edelman:

Work hard and be nice to people.

What lessons would you add to this list?