Recently, First Monday, a monthly publication from the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce, ran a story written by Costa DeVault’s Director of Public Relations, Heather Whaling. In the article Heather presents “The Business Case for Social Media,” including how it can help your business, as well as a few tips. Check it out here.

The evidence for companies to establish a social media monitoring program keeps building up. The most recent is the latest study from England’s Institute of Customer Service, which shows that dissatisfied customers are turning to social networks to complain about companies – before complaining to the companies themselves.

Think about that for a moment. Customers aren’t even giving companies a chance to fix poor service before telling their Facebook friends, Twitter followers and blog readers about how their expectations weren’t met. The study even says that only a small minority of dissatisfied customers bother going to the offending organization at all.

Without a social media monitoring program in place, how is a company to know this situation even exists? Odds are, they won’t. And that presents a serious problem.

The study did have a bright side, though: Individuals who are vocal about their criticisms are also likely to share positive experiences. That means companies who are keeping an eye on their online presence have the opportunity to turn complainers into happy customers – right in front of their networks’ eyes.

Check out PR Cog’s response to his experience with the lack of one company’s social media monitoring, over on Sarah Evans’ blog.

So, what are you waiting for? If you have questions about monitoring programs, where to start, online tools, etc. – ask away in the comments!

I would like to thank Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek for his article “Beware Social Media Snake Oil” and for saying what a lot of us in the profession have been thinking for some time. I am a big social media fan, but it sure sounds like all the “experts” are saying the same things: “Be transparent, engage with your customers, break down silos.”

Providing good counsel requires in-depth understanding of each individual client. One size does not fit all.

While perusing the Consumerist yesterday afternoon, I stumbled upon an example of brand ambassadors in action and thought it might make for interesting discussion.

A Consumerist reader wrote about an experience she had with Trader Joe’s. If you’re not familiar with Trader Joe’s, it’s a specialty grocery chain in a handful of states across the country. The reader wrote a letter about how her local store replaced a 20-lb turkey she’d purchased there … for circumstances that were not their fault … at no charge. As you can imagine, the reader was overjoyed.

This in itself is a good example of a brand ambassador. The reader wasn’t just calling her best friend, talking about it at lunch to coworkers or chatting to one random stranger about it. In fact, with this one letter, she was telling the tens of thousands of people (maybe even more) who read the Consumerist every day about her positive experience. Talk about word-of-mouth.

While this in itself is good – especially for Trader Joe’s, which doesn’t do much with social media – it gets even better. In the article’s comments, people are talking about how much they enjoy shopping at the store. When comments questioning the brand surface, people respond, defending Trader Joe’s. In fact, there are some comments where individuals are worrying that the store will be ripped off if people decide to dishonestly copy the writer of the original letter to Consumerist.

One of the questions that frequently arises when companies get into social media is, “How do we deal with negativity?” It’s smart to have a company policy for responding to negative comments. But, if you’ve built a strong relationship with your brand ambassadors, they may address the issues before you get a chance.

Any other instances of strong brand ambassadorship? How would you encourage someone to build brand ambassadors?

The other day, Heather Whaling (@PRtini) and I were developing a presentation on social media she was to deliver at an IABC event. Instead of your run-of-the-mill Microsoft PowerPoint slideshow, we were venturing into unfamiliar territory with Prezi, a unique presentation tool we’d seen Sarah Evans use at IzeaFest last month.

If you’ve never used Prezi, it bills itself as “zooming sketches on a digital napkin.” It provides you with a digital canvas, where you can place images, videos and text wherever you want, and string together a presentation. Cool, right?

I didn’t realize how badly I was set in my PowerPoint ways until both Heather and I were staring at her Prezi digital canvas … and neither of us could figure out where to go from there. We had content bouncing around our brains, but for the life of us, we couldn’t figure out the best way to get it on that screen without the familiar headline/bullet point/photo framework.

At that point, it struck me that this is probably how many people feel when they first experience social media. They have an idea, company, product or cause (even if it’s themselves), but they can’t figure out how to translate it into an unfamiliar medium. How do you tackle something when the rules you’ve come to depend on no longer apply?

Is this how you feel/felt about social media? What advice would you give someone who feels this way? Speak up in the comments!

P.S. The presentation turned out nicely. What do you think?

The divide between media outlets continues to grow over social media policies and guidelines. Understandably so. It is difficult for many to navigate the ever-changing and chaotic social networking waters. And, it isn’t getting easier anytime soon.

On September 25, The Washington Post distributed its new social networking guidelines to its staffers, which included restrictions on the use of Facebook and Twitter. The Post’s underlying concern was that the opinion-saturated nature of social media does not mix well with the intended neutrality of a reporter’s job.

While reactions to The Post’s new policies were mixed, many wondered whether this was another traditional newspaper being overly stressed about staffers expressing personal opinions.

On one hand, employees need rules and guidelines. On the other, why not proactively conduct social media workshops and training sessions, helping reporters use readily available tools to engage readers and take their reporting to new, heightened levels – especially when covering breaking news? Maybe it’s fear. The fear of not knowing … not being able to fully manage the ambiguity associated with communicating via social media mechanisms. Many of us are thinking along these lines. It would be interesting to know how media outlets, companies and professionals in various industries are dealing with this sort of apprehension. And, with what sort of outcomes?

On October 15, NPR took a different route from The Post when distributing a set of tailored social media guidelines to members of their News Division. The company indicated that social networking sites are valuable newsgathering and reporting tools when a common-sense approach is applied. Additionally, NPR encouraged staffers to get out there and connect with audiences via social media. NPR’s new rules were more flexible than The Post’s, but only time will tell which outlet has a better strategy. What do you predict?

Regardless of the outcome, it might be a good idea for media outlets to provide ongoing guidance about how to use social media sites, especially considering their pivotal role as information gatekeepers. Many members of the media appreciated the guidelines, indicating that navigating the personal and professional blending that occurs through social media isn’t always easy.

We’re all starting to think more about the potential ramifications of what we say, write, publish, print, Tweet, post, blog or e-mail, and that’s a good thing. We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out in the media world, but in the meantime: What employee policies and practices do you think companies should institute when it comes to social media?

When I first saw this Cingular commercial in early 2007, my first reaction was: “Give me a break. Nobody actually talks like that.” A grammar fanatic at heart, I was still stubbornly writing out and correctly punctuating text messages. Not yet on Twitter, I didn’t even understand the term “character limit.”

Fast forward to yesterday, when I actually said “NBD” in a verbal conversation (meaning, “no big deal”). I was instantly embarrassed, but the person I was talking to was nonplussed. This got me thinking – how acceptable is “netspeak” in everyday communication?

There’s been a great deal of talk about this question, but this morning via BoingBoing, I saw an informal study on OKTrends (the blog of OKCupid.com, an online dating web site) that hammered the point home for me.

To find out how to write the most effective “first message” to someone, OKCupid analyzed more than 500,000 first contacts made on their site. Among other conclusions (Atheists get the most responses, “How’s it going” is the best greeting), the analysts found that the five worst words in a first contact are all a form of netspeak. Messages containing the following had the lowest response rates:

• ur
• r
• u
• ya
• cant

It’s not the most scientific study, but the “no-netspeak” trend was dramatic enough to make a point: Bad language is a turnoff in a first impression.

What do you think about the results of this study – do they surprise you? Share your thoughts about netspeak in the comments!

Photo: futureatlas.com