So this was an eventful week leading into a holiday weekend. First I got hit by a car, then there was a boat ton of work and the last two have been a blur with little time to catch my breath. How about you? Any big weekend plans? If so be safe. Here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

Are you creating social media scorched earth? – this post truly inspired me as many companies see a new shiny toy with a low entry point in terms of cost as a quick win. This risk vs. reward for companies often overlooks the long-term bond with customers in favor of a quick win. This can burn bridges and result in the scorched earth. Will you help your company avoid this?

The Spirituality of Social Media – Now while spirituality usually elicits thoughts of religious establishments, this post does not do that, but rather looks at the people connection aspect of social media. Connecting with people is the driving factor of social media spirituality.

Social Media Etiquette for the typically sarcastic, snarky or rude – Are you any of the three mentioned in the title? If not, it’s OK to lie to yourself, but you should check it out in case your “friend” is one of those people.

Washington Post suspends columnist for Twitter hoax –  I want to feel sorry for Mike Wise here. He is a good guy who was trying to make a point – we’ve all been there. Problem is that when you are a top NFL reporter, you can’t throw things out like that haphazardly. Hopefully everyone learns a lesson from his suspension.

Nevada regulators probing MGM resort – Back in the day I used to sneak into the horse track in New Jersey and bet on the ponies before I was of age. It was a thrill and we were always scared to get caught – my how times have changed. Nevada gaming regulators are now investigating MGM Resorts after a tweet from Michael Jordan’s 19-year old son tweeted that he spent $35K at the casino. Now he may say that he wasn’t thinking and all kids make mistakes, but seriously man, come on. It is no secret that Twitter is open to the public. We get it, you are Michael Jordan’s kid and you can blow cash as quick as his buddy Charles Barkley, no need to brag.

Image – GapingVoid

I recently read a blog post from Dave Fleet that really put words to
something that I had been pondering for a bit. The piece was entitled Are you creating social media scorched earth? It focused on companies that burn bridges with customers with one-off social media accounts.

There is no question that social media is the hotness for the 2010-2011 fiscal years for companies. Communications and customer service folks have been utilizing tools and building communities and brand awareness while driving revenue as a secondary benefit. The dollars brought in from people who are generally not seen as revenue drivers has given marketers a set of green blinders. You know the ones, where money clouds one’s thoughts, especially when the entry point into a medium is virtually free and is a direct outlet to customers.

Common Misconceptions

When many marketers look at social media platforms, they are immediately drawn towards the audience of the site. Facebook for example, has over 500 million users on the site. These users can be targeted with pay per click ads and if a person becomes a fan you can directly market to them without fear of the CAN-SPAM act.

As Fleet mentions in his article many companies are also making one time use accounts for specific campaigns. The thought process is that fan page for product X can be tested against product Z as to who generated more fans or followers. The sheer focus of these campaigns is acquisition and does not factor in the long-term connection with these people or other areas of the customer lifecycle.

How do we fix this?

In general social media is a lot like public relations and customer service – a support for the business channel. Much like the previously mentioned established mediums, social media touches every nook and cranny of the business.

So with that in mind, companies should aim to build a lasting impact and relationship with customers using social media. Instead of looking at the shot-term wins, the focus should be on building lifetime value and keeping customers in the company’s loop.

Doing so takes everyone’s help starting with the initial transaction or contact with the company. After the sale, offer customers ways to keep in touch with the company that they are comfortable with – email, blog, text, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.  From there it is about keeping lines of communication open and pumping out great content.

Sounds easy right?

Like all forms of communication, social media requires a two-way conversation to be sustainable and mutually beneficial for customers and brands. This is a shift away from the old guard of positioning offers through tried and true marketing efforts and passing news via press release, which was the classics one-way street. Brands should not abandon these methods, but will need to evolve and create a more holistic customer cycle to thrive in the social Web that we currently live and play in.

Instead of treating customers like an anonymous mass that are bulk marketed to, companies need to look at customers in a different light and segment them by their preferred platform.

For example, CoTweet recently put out a research report, Twitter X-Factors, which showed some pretty interesting numbers when comparing regular Twitters users to all other consumers. Seventy-two percent of Twitter users blog compared to 14 percent of the rest of consumers and 61 percent of these users comment on blogs forty points higher than the rest of consumers.

Given the audience’s pension to blog and to rate and review companies and products, this is a perfect group to pool for product reviews or a refer-a-friend or loyalty program. On the flip side, if you anger this group be ready to hear about it in your Google Alerts.

Tapping into these active users on your social accounts also builds a personal connection with the brand along with offering your company real-time insight into customer behavior, likes, dislikes and potential customer issues. The only commitment is committing time to building the bridges.

But then again you can stay the status quo with a bridge to nowhere.

Usually when I think of statistics, I think of a faceless number that a company uses to prop up a product or service. We have all seen them and usually dismiss them. However after this weekend, I am glad to be a statistic.

Over the weekend, I was in an accident on my bicycle. A woman opened her door without looking and then I was hit by a minivan. My head hit the ground and the moving car, while my arm got run over.

In the aftermath everyone from family members to EMTs, hospital professionals and the police mentioned how I was lucky to be alive. Good luck aside, my fare would have been a hell of a lot worse if I were not wearing a helmet.

So today I am happy to say that I will gladly lend my face to the number of lives and serious injuries saved by wearing a helmet. I am also happy to say that Bell Helmets has gained a customer for life.

In closing, ride safe and be sure to share the road while driving.

For a short week, it seemed like this week lasted forever. Despite being in meetings and away from my desk, I feel like the week was a very productive one. I am also glad to say that Scott Stratten‘s book Unmarketing came out this week and I am featured in it talking about Vistaprint’s social media strategy. A book review is coming in the next few weeks, but if you want to check it out for yourself, click here to get it for less (Amazon affiliate link). How about you? How was your week?

Here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday:

Bengals WR Chad Ochocinco fined $25,000 for using Twitter during game – Say it with me, No Fun League. Chad Ochocinco has probably been the number one poster boy for fines relating to on-field antics. This fine breaks the commissioner’s no social media rule. Despite being fined 25K, the talented wide-out gave great responses to the fine. My favorite was this one:

The Most Hated Man on Twitter – Everyone always wonders the power of social media. This campaign against Alabama gubernatorial candidate Tim James from Daniel Tosh shows how much of an impact a Twitter mob can have after a segment titled Is it Racist?, focusing on this video. The candidate’s Twitter account was bombarded with venom and taken down after Tosh urged his audience to tweet their thoughts to the account of James.

How Social Media Is Helping Public-Relations Sector Not Just Survive, but Thrive – I love how AdAge highlights another benefit of hiring a PR agency. Social media is something that an entire organization hold stake in. It is a support the business channel and needs a communicator to lead the way. Hopefully this trend continues in the future.

Android Mobile Web Use Up 400% in Q2, Outpacing Apple & BlackBerry – I find these numbers interesting, but it makes sense as the iPhone is only on AT&T. What is interesting is developers gambling on excluding the medium for applications. While there are fewer applications for the platform, its growth can’t be ignored.

How Much Can ‘Jersey Shore’ Cast Really Do for Marketers? – Now this one makes the list to show how far our culture has degraded. While the $5M that these reality stars can gain per year is great for them, think about the damage that one fist-bump to the face could cost a major brand?