Most business owners and managers of all types of industries  and of all sizes have accepted that social media is not only not a fad, but has become essential to how business gets done. However how it fits in with their business and the work they do and where to start and who should help them seems to be a few of the ongoing nagging questions.

Although the answers to these questions are dependent on each individual’s situation, needs, and goals, below are a few things to think about.

Do I Need This Big Complex Strategy that Agencies Keep Pitching To Me?

What are you are wanting to do with social media? Some of my clients just want to tip their toes into the social media ocean and the best place for them to start is by learning what all the sites do and how they can use them. The strategy can come later. Some clients are building out a business strategy that depends on an engaged community. If they do not start with a strategy they have a very high risk of not having enough resources to meet their needs, upsetting or turning off  the people who’s support they need most, and constantly having to change direction.

Somewhere in the middle of these extremes are the clients that already have a solid business strategy and good processes and want to integrate social media into their business step by step with the ability to create the strategy along the way.

Do I Need to Hire Someone To Manage This For Me? If So, Who?

Do you already have someone handling your communications? If so, social media can and should be integrated with those communications. Social Media should not be seen as an add-on, but as an evolution to what you are already doing. However, social media does open up new doors for sales leads, extends the reach of your brand, and enables you to gain an immense amount of business intelligence. These new opportunities can help you grow your business.  As your business grows your business processes change and your staffing needs to change. These are a few of the things you need to consider as you are building out your social media strategy.

What Should I Expect from My Social Media Efforts?

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

Social Media is about connections and communications. The tools are not magic, the magic happens with what you do with the tools. You get to decide what to expect from your efforts but your effort has to align with your expectations.

A social media consultant who has been around the block a few times can help you set appropriate goals and identify ways to measure success.

There are also a few other things you can anticipate.

1. Social Media tends to act like a mirror. You will begin to see a reflection of yourself and your business as you begin to work your social media channels. This can be rewarding or it can be disturbing. Either way you will begin to get a clear view of what works for you and what doesn’t.

2. There is no comfort zone in social media. The tools you get comfortable with will change or go away. The ideas you think are trendy will prove to be quick fads, and the humans online will continue to be human.

3. You will become more knowledgable about your community, your world and yourself. You will be introduced to new ideas and innovations and be inspired. You will be driven to learn more and more.

“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” – Robert Frost

I am now part of the 1%. Not in the financial world, but in the world of Linkedin.

I received the above email today. I was actually quite surprised. Linkedin is one of my least used networks. But receiving this “honor” only proves what I try to tell my clients often. Something I am sure Linkedin would not like to hear me say, which is “do not pay for Linkedin until you are maxing out what you can do with the network for free.”

I have met a number of people who have the premium membership and they barely get any use out of it. It is a bit like paying for a gym membership, not actually hitting the treadmill and expecting to get in shape, because you are paying that monthly membership. It takes more than handing over your credit card number. You actually have to do the work.

I currently use Linkedin to stay connected  in touch with my connections. It is not about being connected, it is about staying in touch;  reaching out to people when they make a change in their career; reaching out to people you have not talked to in awhile; reaching out to people who you have not met yet when they ask to connect with you. It is about building relationships.

That takes time. Just like getting on the treadmill takes time. But just like the treadmill, doing the hard work does eventually pay off.

One of my 2013 goals has been to improve my use of Linkedin. I have been reaching out to my network, finding new groups to participate in and removing myself from groups that have not provided any value yet. I actually anticipate I will be ready to take my membership to the next level this year. But not until I have maxed out what I can get with the free version.

Thank you Linkedin.

The Internet is all abuzz about Applebee’s being the latest victim of a social media mob. Some call it the Applebee’s social media Meltdown.

I feel like I could be called as an expert witness on this case. I spent 10 years of my life as a waitress in restaurants similar to Applebee’s and the past 7 years in social media (college degrees and other corporate jobs in between).

I should be able to see this situation from all sides, but honestly I found myself scratching my head as I read the account of what happened.

The incident started when a Pastor who was paying for her part of the meal of a large party, crossed out the automatic 18% tip and wrote on the receipt ““I give God 10% why do you get 18,”  above her signature.

To the witness stand I call the me who was a waitress for 10 years and I would be pissed! But I also realize that this happens at restaurants, it is part of the job.  I actually had a church group that I waited on scam me out of money once.

Another waitress took a photo of the receipt and posted it on Reddit, a community made up of people who will definitely side with the waitress, and so the story spreads with not so nice things being said about the Pastor. The photo of the receipt has the name of the Pastor on it and she is eventually alerted to what is going on and informs Applebee’s.

Alright this is where the me who has advised individuals on social media etiquette takes the stand. Social Media is powerful, and “with great power comes great responsibility.” I see the server taking action against the pastor, but doing so publicly will come back and bite you. I waited tables before  there was social media, or even the Internet. We had our ways to take action against certain guests (this is why you should ALWAYS be polite to your server and tip appropriately), but we did not pour the drinks all over the guest (yes that happened) and then get on the loud speaker and announce what we did. No, the action had to look like an accident or not be traced back to the server. I am sorry, the server who posted the picture was in the wrong in that she did not understand what she does on the Internet is similar to announcing an action or opinion over the loud speaker, which I am sure she would not have done. The computer screen does not shield you.

This is why having a social media policy is NOT good enough….

Here is where I think Applebee’s did some things right regarding their social media program.

From what I have read, they have a social media policy that employees sign which states:

Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE’s happenings that might be considered a breach of privacy and confidentiality…this includes guests….

The way the legal system has been struggling to catch up with social media actions, I do not know if this policy will stand up in the court of law. Employees have a right to complain about their job conditions, but to call out a customer may be a different story. I am glad to know they had a social media policy though.

The waitress who posted the picture was fired for violating the Applebee’s social media policy.

The problem is that the social media mob is not going to emotionally take the side of the Pastor and her right to privacy. Since most of us have worked with the public and have had to deal with people we feel did us wrong, we will empathize with the waitress. So, as the story evolved so did the social media protest.

The second thing that I commend Applebee’s for is responding to the attacks. I believe their responses were professionally written and sincere. I believe they really tried. But they did not understand how to deal with an emotionally charged mob.

Here is what they could have done better.

First of all, I believe that Applebee’s was in the right to fire the waitress and that there is no reason for them to cave into the pressure of the social media mob. But they needed to take a stronger stand against the mob.

As soon as Applebee’s noticed that this story was going to be a big deal on social media, they should have got in front of it and made it a big deal themselves. They posted their responses to the mob within the comments section (you can find the details on this blog). You can tell they were responding in a way where they wanted to keep the issue on the “down low” and make it just go away. That gave them the same result as what swatting a hornet’s nest will give you. Don’t swat at it, take a blow torch  to it. Go big! Post your side of the story as a prominent Facebook status and take steps to own the search results for those who are looking into what the story is all about. Many people will not agree with Applebee’s, but some, like me, will.

Understand that your side of the story is not going to quiet the mob and that responding to them directly is only going to fuel their fire. Let the mob vent. Don’t block them from your page, don’t delete their comments,  let them vent. Ideally, guide their venting to the appropriate status. Currently the Applebee’s Facebook page has 2 posts explaining their situation up with approximately 30,000 comments on them. I think 2 updates plus all their responses within the comments section is a little too much. One update with the facts is enough.

Will Applebee’s lose customers over this situation? Maybe a few, but nothing for them to panic about. Is this a huge social media fail? No. I have seen lots worse where the company behaved as if they did not care about the public. I think in this situation, Applebee’s was trying to care a little too much. They went to a lot of effort to continuously to provide the facts and explain their side of the situation, which was perceived by the mob as being argumentative or confrontational.

I have seen a number of posts about how bad Applebee’s was in this situation. Not one post that I have read has said what the right thing would have been for Applebee’s to do. I suspect many people would like the waitress to have not been fired. But then where do we draw the line on privacy? Can any server begin to post pictures of stupid things their customers are doing? Because I promise you, we all do stupid things that we would not want shared on the Internet.

As I said in the beginning of the post, this one has me scratching my head. It is easy to say that Applebee’s failed in their social media efforts here because obviously they are currently dealing with an angry mob. But what could they have done to avoid having to deal with such a mob, besides not fire the waitress?

What would you have advised?

Facebook is constantly changing and changing fast.  That is actually  the secret to their success.

That means what you were once used to and comfortable with on Facebook will be different the next time you log on. This includes your assumptions about your privacy settings. A little over a year ago I gave up the idea of having any kind of privacy on Facebook. If I want it to be private I don’t post it on Facebook. 

With that said, you are not completely helpless when it comes to managing what you see and what other’s see on Facebook. But with all the changes people often get confused of what they can and cannot manage. This past week a number of my friends posted this in their status update:

Hello, my FB friends: I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don’t want strangers to have access to!!! However, with the recent changes in FB, the “public” can now see activities in ANY wall. This happens when our friend hits “like” or “comment” ~ automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we can not change this setting by ourselves

because Facebook has configured it this way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “COMMENTS & LIKE” and also “PHOTOS”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public. Now, copy and paste this on your wall. Once I see this posted on your page I will do the same. Thank you very much!

This is quite misleading and can be very confusing. So I am going to try to break it down.

The first sentence says:

I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don’t want strangers to have access to!!!

If you do not want your photos to be accessible to the public go to your privacy settings in the top right.

From here you can chose whether or not you want the default setting for your posts to be public or for “friends only” or custom.

Friends: Just people connected to you.

Public: Everyone

Custom: Certain friends only that you have put on a list.

There is also an only me option, but I do not know why anyone would want to only share with themselves….

Here is where Facebook recently changed. You used to be able to chose friends of friends as an option. Meaning if I am friends with you and your friend Sally has set her privacy settings to friends of friends, then I could see Sally’s posts even though I was not friends with Sally because you are a mutual friend. That is no longer an option for future posts, but it past posts remain set that way. That can be changed to friends only in the Privacy setting as well.

The next part of the Facebook status that is going around says:

However, with the recent changes in FB, the “public” can now see activities in ANY wall. This happens when our friend hits “like” or “comment” ~ automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we can not change this setting by ourselves

This is not true at all. What the public can see is activity that happens on public walls.

As I mentioned, my profile is public, so you if post on,  comment on, or like a post on my wall the public will be able to see that activity and your friends may see that activity in their Facebook feed, because it was a public action. This includes any activity on pages. So if you comment on or like something on a political page people will see it, because it was a public activity.

If however you comment or like something on a friend’s page who has their settings as friends only, only her friends will see that activity.

Finally the status says:

because Facebook has configured it this way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “COMMENTS & LIKE” and also “PHOTOS”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public.

What this activity will do is ensure that YOUR friends will not see what you comment on or like or your photos. The people you WANT to share with will not be able to see what you are sharing, but the public will still be able to see your public activity.

Basically what the activity described does is to enable you to have control over what shows up in your feed from your friends. If you have a family member or friend that you feel obligated to stay connected to but you don’t like seeing their updates, you can take them out of your news feed or modify what you see from them. The activity described has nothing to do with what the public can see of your activity.

I hope this makes sense. But once again please keep in mind that whatever you share on Facebook or the Internet can be leaked or copied and shared. Therefore although you can manage your settings, never assume you have privacy, because we all know what assume means (ass-u-me).

Lifehacker also recently posted a great article about the many other ways you can manage your Facebook presence.

We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. At least we hope so.

My Facebook newsfeed is still lit up with political posts. Half of which expressing reasons why we should vote for one candidate or against an amendment, and the other half pleading that people stop with the political posts.

Social Media and Politics is actually fascinating to me, not just how the campaigns are run, but how much people decide to share or not share with their friends and acquaintances. It seems that people are willing to express their opinions in digital mixed company in ways they would not do in real life. One reason may be because online we have supporting information at our finger tips as opposed to having to rely on our memory and knowledge. Another reason, I believe, is that people really think that their voice makes a difference – not just their vote, but their voice.

Does it?I have taken some informal surveys and found that people are more active and knowledgable about politics because of the ongoing conversations on social media. That’s a good thing. We need more people involved. Of course I have personally found myself having a lesser opinion of someone because of the way their arguments were presented, not for their arguments, but the presentation of them. That is definitely the dark side of discussing politics. I am also sure that business and personal relationships are a bit strained when political opinions are so different. But isn’t someone’s political opinions and how they present those arguments a good insight into who they are? If it was not the political discussion that strained a relationship, surely something else would.

Personally, I  think discussing politics online, respectfully, is not only a right, but a responsibility. We need to talk things out more especially with people of different views. We should not live in our own little silos. And as annoying as it may get at times, it does not mean it does not work. None of us like commercials, but they obviously work. How much more effective is having facts and opinions presented by friends, family and peers.

One thing is for sure, whether or not you think social politics is effective or exasperating, it  is not going to go away.

Provided by: Open-Site.org

The person who initially introduced me to social media waaay back in 2005 just announced  that he is quitting Facebook.

He is not the first person I know who has expressed that the sugar high of social media has crashed. In fact, for the past couple of years I have been going through my own highs and lows. Considering I made social media my career choice I could not just quit. Instead I have been forced to think through what is going on in me, in society, and in business and what I want to do about it.

During a business meeting a couple of years ago I was asked what my contingency plan was after social media peaked. I tried to explain that I was anxiously awaiting for that day to come so we can get down to the real business of social media.

You see, the creation of social media is very much like the discovery of how to make fire. Stay with me here.

I can imagine the first man who figured out how to make fire. To everyone around him, and probably to him, it seemed like magic. Very quickly his tribe recognized that the ability to create fire would change everything. I bet the “fire makers” of the tribe were highly compensated. I can also imagine there were people in the tribe who were afraid of the fire and thought that people should not use fire.

I can imagine the many experiments the tribes attempted with fire. I wonder how many people were burned, and how many fires spread beyond the control of the tribe. It must have been an exciting and dangerous time.

As time passed, more and more people learned how to create fire and fire became no big deal anymore. Everyone moved on. But did humanity stop using fire. Of course not. We just use fire now when it makes sense to. Are there still fire specialists? Yes! They blow beautiful glass creations, cook wonderful meals, or save our property from being destroyed.

Just like fire no longer seems like magic, many of us are no longer  thrilled with the magic of social media. But that does not mean social media is going away. No. We are just going to use the tools that help us do what we want to do instead of expecting the tools to do magic for us.

So where does that leave me as social media consultant? Well there are still many people who are  just learning what all these tools are and I expect that will continue to be the case for at least a couple of years. However, when I show people these tools I get the most joy from seeing their creativity unleashed, new relationships discovered, and newfound courage developed.

I love empowering people and that is how I will continue to use social media and the ever growing number of digital tools. Just like a glass blower uses fire to shape glass I will use social media to help people shape their dreams.

I am observing Social Media at work and it is inspiring to watch. I do not have a clue what the end result will be, but I know whatever form it takes it will be positive.

How do I know? What I am observing is passion, community, and leadership; The qualities that are needed for a successful social media effort, and that are usually missing from the majority of the brands that are giving social media a try.

The Back Story

Project 96 was the last radio station that played hard rock/metal. As a mother of two boys, it was a station I listened to more than I wanted to. Now I had my complaints about this radio station, mostly about the morning show, but at the same time I have many more complaints about the bubble gum, factory made, pop music that is produced on all the other stations.

So it was a shock to me as much as it was to my boys when we discovered that the format of 96.1 had been changed. It is no longer Project 96 but Power 96 which will now play bubble gum, factory made pop music sold to us by the top sales person of the industry, Ryan Seacrest.

What the Project Group is Doing Right

Project 96 has been rocking ATL since 1974 and has built a loyal fan base. When Clear Channel made the decision to change the format, it seems they did not take into consideration that they left this fan base without a home. They kicked out the rock fans leaving them no place to go. The biggest frustration expressed is that the new format is the same as the format on at least 4 other radio stations, and we are not going to take it. These are fans who are tech savvy enough to start a FB page,  which could be a problem. Too many pages and the movement would fail. But from the first night it looks like at least 2 leaders stepped up and began to organize.

Save Project 96.1

Keep Project 9-6-1

The first thing they did right is they did not compete with each other. They liked each other’s pages and started working together.

Both are also posting often, keeping people motivated to act.

Both are giving specific instructions to their followers, from Signing a Petition to posting images to their wall, to going to the pages of Ryan Seacrest, Power ATL, and Clear Channel to express their feelings about the new format.

Both are staging protests offline and clearly getting their followers involved in the organization of the protests.

Both are giving specific examples of what the “Project Family” can do to spread the word this weekend.

Overall, it looks like the very vocal group that was too small for Clear Channel to serve is now serving Clear Channel a good piece of their mind anywhere and everywhere they can.  They are even getting the attention of the local media!

What Clear Channel is Doing Wrong

First of all, they are acting like the big corporation who only cares about money and not about their fans. Supposedly this was their response to the movement that is happening.

Second they are deleting FB comments from the Project Family on the other pages instead of responding to them. That is like swatting at wasps, and it is so much fun to watch.

What could they do to respond to this mess? Well it should never have gotten to this point. The rock station Project 96 did have some serious issues. The morning show was an embarrassment to listen to IMHO- I could not listen to it with my 11 year old rocker in the car because of the sexual content and they consistently promoted that their listeners were dumb rednecks. This is not a good brand for rock. Rock has meaning. Rock and Roll has always been intertwined with social movements. It seems to me that the small audience had more to do with Clear Channel’s lack of understanding of rock music than of the genre itself  - the genre that fills up festivals and stadiums. If there was a lack of following for Atlanta’s last rock stations, perhaps they need to look at themselves and not the music genre.

Also, I am sure they expected an uproar to the program change. Why did they not have a place for people to express themselves, to get answers, some sort of outlet from the start? They are completely unprepared for this. And their top sales guy, Ryan Seacrest should be speaking up too. Show some respect for the fans that I am sure you would like to attract to your other properties. If you would have been prepared to handle the complaints from the start, you would not have to think about deleting comments on the various other pages and stirring up a wasp nest like you are.

My Conspiracy Theory

I do have a small conspiracy theory, which gives more credit to big companies than I am sure they deserve. I am thinking that they already have in mind a new rock station to replace Project 96. A station that I can listen to with my 11 year old son and that can be a part of the essence of Rock and Roll and the best way to promote this new station is to cause an uproar from the Project 96 fans. I mean, I am really impressed of how well and professional these Save the Project FB pages are being handled. Whoever is behind these pages has experience in handling, not just community management, but event management.

If this is not a conspiracy to promote a new station, it is definitely an opportunity for The Clear Channel to make this all work out in their favor.

Possible Outcomes

Finally, the night my boys told me what was going on I tried to console them by telling them everything is going to work out well in the end. Radio stations are dying and they have to reduce their inventory. Meanwhile, good music that does not have to be shoved down people’s throat will prosper online and will lead the innovation that music so desperately needs. I encourage them to look at this not as a loss, but as an opportunity to lead the revolution….because after all, revolutions always start with the music.

9.2.12 UPDATE Power 96 has added another  Facebook page ….which the Project Family quickly migrated to.

What a week! and it is only Wednesday.

When I got started in Social Media I gave myself the title Idealist. I saw a vision of the  many wonderful opportunities the open web was going to bring. That was a long time ago. I have been slapped multiple times with a healthy dose of reality. Especially this past week.

The lessons of the week have been very enlightening. In a short time I found myself explaining the three issues I have with the current state of social media in such a way that I was able to see how these three issue are related and how they are hurting us from truly embracing the opportunities that social media offers.

1. Social Media Has Been Hijacked by Marketing and PR

Social Media was not created to be a channel for marketing and PR. It was created by innovators who desired a way to collaborate with each other. They needed tools and so they created the tools and offered them freely, or mostly free to anyone who wanted a platform for conversation and collaboration. That WAS the dream of social media when I got started. Now the dream is to drive traffic to your website, get word of mouth marketing, make a video go viral, create buzz, and so on and so on.

Need evidence of this? Just look at the latest articles that claim that your social media manager should be under 25. What can a 25 year old do for you? Well they know the language, they know the tools, and they can spit out your message. But they are not the people making business decisions nor do they have the experience to consult with the company about what business changes need to be made based on conversations that are happening online. No, social media does not have the respect that it deserves yet, so it has been taken over by loud mouths, aggressive sales people, and spammers which now vastly outnumber the type of innovators, entrepreneurs, and change agents that gave birth to the social web.

2. FEAR!

Jim Collins was wrong, Good is not the enemy of Great, Fear is!

Social Media is still foreign to many communicators. Some fear the technology, some fear the openness, some fear making a mistake, some fear the idea that people get to talk back. This fear can no longer stop them from being a part of social media. It is no longer a choice. Communicators are being directed to have a social media presence, but having a presence does not mean embracing social media. For many it means outsourcing social media responsibilities to someone else who can be to blamed if anything goes wrong. It means using social media channels to do business the same old way, connecting with media outlets and institutions and avoiding any and all contact with individuals. It means doing as little as possible and then pointing out that their social media efforts are not working as well as traditional messaging. Meanwhile, scrappy little start ups and courageous thought leaders will continue to be disruptive causing more fear and uncertainty among those who are too scared to truly dive in.

3. Left Brain Thinking

My frustration from the beginning has been how often organizations embrace the new technology without considering the new skills and approaches that must come along with the technology. On the flip side, many people I know who develop new technologies believe all they have to do is build a great tool and it will be successful. We have seen enough great tools fail to know this is not true. Look at absolutely every tool that Yahoo! purchased such as Delicious, Upcoming and Flickr. Great technologies that they thought would bring them social media success just because they enabled users to be social. But without ongoing innovation and a nurturing community manager all of these great tools are disappearing. More recently RIM (Blackberry) purchased two of my favorite tools Gist and Tungle. Guess what…Gist is going, going gone.

Why does this happen? I am currently reading the book, A Whole New Mind, which does a good job explaining how our traditional celebration of left brain thinking (engineering, number crunching, logic, SAT stuff)  is starting to lose some of it’s spark as we are starting to realize that we have evolved to a point when beauty, empathy, and nurturing communications is required.

That is what social media requires for us to move forward;  a desire to create, collaborate, and connect. A desire to nurture our right brain in spite of the logic of our left brain. A desire that is strong enough to overcome fear.

Social Media has empowered many people to live a life that was not possible 10 years ago, myself included. It has also forced people to make changes they were not ready for and caused a lot of anxiety. And as we have all seen it has given power to voices who do not know how to appropriately use such power.

It is a messy messy place, but it is not going away. I can only hope that we, as the human race, continue to evolve to a place where we can take advantage of the opportunities that were envisioned when these collaborative tools were created.

Last summer as I was watching The Voice an idea hit me. What if we put teams of people together to compete on developing and implementing a social media strategy. After a few months of bouncing the idea around I teamed up with Jake Aull and Terry Coniglio and The Change Challenge was born.

The Change Challenge was made up of 4 teams of 4 volunteers that supported  4 different sponsoring nonprofits. Led by myself, Terry, and Jake the teams received hands-on training on developing a social media strategy  and integrating social media into business processes. Ultimately The Change Challenge was a competition where each team was judged based on Creative Problem Solving, Goals Met, and a Sustainable Implementation.

A couple of weeks ago The 2011-2012 Change Challenge volunteers celebrated their incredible journey with an awards breakfast.

A special thanks to our judges:

• Dr. Naveen Donthu, Department of Marketing Chair, GA State University
• Jeannie Ericson, Executive Director, Integrated Media Association
• Cindy Cheatham, VP Consulting Services, GA Center for Nonprofits

Volunteers from The Change Challenge had the opportunity to present at SoCon12 and will be presenting at the CXO Forum and the GCN Summit.

Congratulations to the Trees Atlanta team for winning The 2011-2012 Change Challenge. 

Comments from the judges:

• “Goals were well defined and met.”
• “Their focus on a content calendar was key to creating a sustainable implementation.”
• “Everything they did seems very creative but logical and well thought-out”

The Change Challenge Trees Atlanta Team

Trees Atlanta team included: Abby Schwimmer, Kent Jones, Sara Cheshire, Elyse Klova, and their nonprofit sponsor Bethany Clark

Pictured below is Ashlee Lindo from the Adpative Learning Team and Tori Vogt from the Atlanta Mission Team

“I applaud the team for persevering through all their challenges. Their flexibility and creativity kept the idea alibe.” Judges comments related to the Atlanta Mission Team. 

“A lot of good came from the project in terms of understanding what kind of effort must go into a real social media campaign.” Judges comments related to the Adaptive Learning Team

Pictured below, the Emory Center for Injury Control team: Michael Mumper, Kirka Mugo, Dan Schlossberg, Kristina McInerny

“Really thought through where you want to go and the opportunities to expand” Judges comments related to the Emory Center for Injury Control Team.

This was an incredible experience and I sincerely appreciate and am still in awe of the dedication and hard work from everyone that was involved.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

Last week, all through my Google Alerts I kept seeing articles from around the web praising Gap’s social media guidelines as the model to follow. I saved a couple of the articles so that I could review them this weekend, take notes, and help my clients model the success that so many thought Gap had found.

I just read through Ragan’s highlights and learned that the actual policy is not public for me to review. However what Ragan is celebrating as the success of the policy is exactly what I tend to tell my clients does not work.

If you have heard me speak, you may have heard me tell this story, but here it goes again.

Throughout college, which took me 8 years, I worked at Bennigan’s as a waitress. Many people who are younger than me do not know what Bennigan’s is, but if you have seen the movie Office Space, this was me…

We were told that if we served alcohol to people who were under-age, the restaurant would get fined and could be closed down and we could lose our job.

Now let me relate that message to one of the messages in the Gap guidelines…

“These guidelines are important—because if you don’t follow them a few things could happen: your posts can get deleted, we could lose customers and investors, we could get in trouble, or, worst of all, you could even lose your job … So do the right thing, stick to the guidelines.”

Similar, right?

Here was the problem. As servers we got really busy. We were working for tips. And overall we were not real loyal to our company. So if we were too busy to check an I.D. we did not check an I.D.

In any corporate job your employees are looking out for themselves, trying to solve their problems, and more often than not seeking to establish their own voice online. They are not loyal to your brand.

So what should you do?

Stop thinking that your social media policy should focus on your corporate brand and start helping your staff consider their own personal brand.

In Florida, which is where I worked as a waitress, they decided to make each server individually licensed to sell alcohol. We each had to go through a certification training and if we were caught selling alcohol to someone under age or anyone who should have been cut off, WE as individuals could get fined, go to jail, and lose our license to sell alcohol.

We all started taking the time to check IDs which in turn benefited the restaurants.

If you focus your policy and training on helping your team to protect their personal brand and not focus so much on your corporate brand, your team will pay attention to what you have to say and will even appreciate your willingness to look out for their best interest. I call this the “brand you” campaign. I have been saying for years, and repeated it just recently, but if you want to protect your brand in the age of social media you have to go beyond your social media policy.