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by Marliss Weber
Photography by Michael Morrison

Sidebar: How to Keep Productivity Up While Social Media Rises

Click here to find our Twitter list of all the people featured in our suite of social media related stories in this month’s issue of Alberta Venture.

Jillian Kaliel, 36, owns an upscale spa on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton. In the nine years she’s been in business, she’s watched Studio J grow from a small esthetics studio on an Edmonton backstreet to a large full service spa in a prominent location.

The road to success hasn’t been without its bumps and bends, though. In addition to having to keep up with the trends within her own industry, Kaliel has also had to keep pace with the broader world of technology, one that continues to reinvent itself at an ever-quickening pace. “There was a time,” she says, “when I didn’t even think I’d need a website, let alone an e-newsletter or a blog or a Facebook fan page. But these days using social media for business is a must, even though I admit that I’m having trouble keeping up.”

It’s a fear that a lot of business owners share, says Adam Rozenhart, social media specialist at Calder Bateman,a large Edmonton-based advertising agency. “The technology is changing fast. Twitter is only three years old, but it’s already become an important communication channel for a lot of people, and although blogs and Facebook are slightly older, the technology and the network are getting stronger every day.”

Kaliel feels she should be making more use of these social media tools. “I mean, they’re free, which is important to me as a small business owner. And there’s potentially a huge market just waiting there for my message. But honestly, with the day-to-day operations of my business, and the learning curve I’d need to overcome, I wonder if it’s worth investing my time, or my staff’s time, in using social media? Can it really help me?”

According to many experts, the answer is yes. “Social media is here and it’s here to stay,” says Scott Baird of McQ Design Strategies, one of the founders of Calgary’s social media breakfast group. “It’s quickly become engrained in our culture, and it has excellent business applications. By embracing it, businesses position themselves as dynamic and forward-thinking.”

Social media use is on the rise, with nearly a billion users worldwide, according to the European research firm, InSites Consulting. By March of this year, Facebook surpassed Google as the most-visited website in the U.S., and Twitter handles more than 600-million search queries every day (http://socialmediaatwork.com/category/statistics/). With that kind of saturation, is it any wonder that many organizations, both small and large, are jumping onto the social media bandwagon, anxious to get their brand recognized in the online social sphere.

Social media has quickly become a very powerful tool in an organization’s arsenal,” says Walter Schwabe, CEO of Fusedlogic, a Sherwood Park-based social-media engagement firm. “The key difference between social media and other forms of communication is interactivity. Social media has the ability to reach a huge number of people, but its strength lies in the relationships it fosters. That’s how it’s different from mass communication: It’s intimate and personal and is an excellent way to build trust and brand loyalty,” he says.

To the extent that the “social media specialist” is becoming a sought-after commodity, many employers, such as Shaw Communications and the University of Alberta are looking to hire their own in-house social media experts in order to harness the ever-growing power of the social-media machine. Peter Bissonette, president and director of Shaw Communications, says that his company is looking to bring a social-media specialist on board because the social web is an integral part of their external communications strategy. “Facebook and Twitter are great methods of reaching our target market,” he says. “They are superb conduits for information, and they help us to build trust and position ourselves as leaders in media distribution. So of course we’re going to use new media to communicate that message.”

But what do organizations, large or small, really need to know in order to use social media effectively? “Organizations need to think carefully about the ways social media can shape their business,” Baird says. “They need to set goals and develop strategies, rather than setting out a lot of rules about social-media use.”

According to Baird, rather than focusing on policies governing who uses Facebook on an organization’s behalf, or restricting the amount of time employees are allowed to spend on Twitter, businesses should instead focus on developing and implementing social-media strategies. “Sometimes businesses think these policies and rules constitute their strategy, but they’re missing the point,” Baird says.

Schwabe agrees. “The most important thing to remember is that in order to use the tool well, you need to root your social technology in a philosophy. Without this kind of directed implementation, time spent on social media will not be an effective use of your resources.”

Rozenhart likes the two-way dialogue of social media. “By participating in social media, you not only have the opportunity to listen to what people are saying about your brand but also to respond proactively. This is one of the best business applications for this kind of media. It gives you the chance to address concerns about your product or service as well as to hear honest feedback.”

But what about fears associated with losing control of your brand? With all of the interactivity online, isn’t it possible for your brand to be misinterpreted, taken out of context or misused? “Anyone who thinks they can control their messaging with an iron fist is seriously mistaken,” Baird says. “Even before social media, this was nearly impossible, and now, the only way to have any kind of control over your brand is to participate in the conversation about it. Because that conversation is going to take place one way or the other, so isn’t it preferable to be a part of it?”

So what are the top social media tools, and how do you apply them effectively in business?

“Social media needs to be used in an integrated strategy,” Rozenhart says, blended with such elements as conventional media coverage, advertising and branding strategies, in order to be effective. As for the technologies themselves, he says, “Let’s look at the biggies. You’ve got Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Each kind of media is different, and each one is going to serve your business differently. And not every business necessarily needs to be on Twitter, or have a blog. It’s a matter of determining your business’s needs, and then integrating the tools appropriately to fulfill those needs.”

“Facebook is primarily about building consensus amongst existing networks of people,” Baird says. “If you’ve got a loyal clientele, then Facebook is a good place to be developing an online community. But if your followers are a bit more diverse, then Twitter may be a good option. Twitter is about being provocative and getting people interested in following you. Your followers may have broad interests, but you serve as a connector. It can be a very useful tool as a conversation-starter, and as a brand-awareness tool.”

Case in point: “WestJet uses Twitter really effectively, in my mind,” says Rozenhart. “They do a great job of communicating their corporate culture to a very broad audience which reinforces their branding as this cool, fun, maverick company. They do things like ‘Wing Wednesday’ where they encourage passengers to take photos of their wings and post them on Twitter, and people love it and really get involved.”

Now, these kinds of tweets may sound a little inane to the uninitiated, but Rozenhart truly believes in their effectiveness. “They get people talking. They get people participating in the WestJet brand, they get buy-in from their customers and get their non-customers talking. It’s a brilliant use of the medium.”

Of all of the social-media technologies, blogging has been around the longest, and in some respects is the easiest to buy into, as it’s a more familiar communication style, bridging the gap between journaling and journalism. “If you’re a business that’s writing a blog, then that’s your owned media,” says Rozenhart. “You can take control of it and craft the message you want to convey. The trick is getting people to visit it.”

Which may actually be easier than you’d think. “Blogs are eminently searchable,” Baird says. “They’ll often pop up higher in a search engine than your own website, so they’re a great way of getting noticed, and of branding yourself as an industry leader or expert.”

“A setback to blogging, however,” Rozenhart says, “ is if you keep your comments open, you’re opening yourself up to that potentially negative sentiment, and the unfortunate phenomenon of ‘trolling,’“ he says, describing those individuals who take it upon themselves to inflame and insult, rather than adding constructively to the conversation. “And unfortunately this can happen a lot. But that doesn’t mean businesses should avoid the blogosphere. You just have to be thick-skinned about it.”

There are success stories about using social media to influence the masses. Bob McInnis is a social-media enthusiast and has used it to great effect in his position as executive director of the not-for-profit agency Brown Bagging It For Calgary’s Kids. And as a proud grandfather, he’s in a demographic not commonly associated with Facebook or Twitter, but he proves the social media game isn’t just for cyber-phile millennials.

“I’ve been using Twitter for work for about the last year,” he says, “and I can directly attribute around $75,000 towards donations raised through tweets.”

McInnis can see how his charity has benefited from social media in ways other than financial as well. “I use Twitter as a means of getting to know people, which leads to building relationships and trust, which is crucial in branding a non-profit. Twitter has raised our profile, it’s really been a rallying cry. It’s helped people to get to know about us, and to care.”

But McInnis is anything but all-work-and-no-play when he tweets. “I go out of my way to be provocative. I don’t just talk about work. I’ve found it to be very successful when I simply engage with other people, in as interesting a way as I know how. I try to listen and share and communicate, not to just flog my point or my product.”

McInnis loves to tweet and is an avid blogger, but he has less faith in Facebook. “I suspect Facebook may be on the way out,” he says, citing security issues as a primary concern. “Not to mention the rumours that they may start charging $3.99 per month. That will be the day a lot of people stop using it.”

But these concerns don’t shake McInnis’ faith in social media as a whole. “Social media has really brought home to me how connected we all are to each other, how important a sense of community is, and how we can use this technology to foster that interconnectedness. It’s about generosity of spirit, and I like it.”

Is spa-owner Kaliel ready to follow in McInnis’ footsteps and join the “largest cocktail party on the planet?”

“Yes,” she says. “I know it’s a powerful tool, and I’m willing to do whatever I can to put my business out there, and to be noticed.”

July 2010 Contents