What are three or four things social media marketers should do, and explain why they’re important.

1. Listen to your market and customers using tools like Twitter filters, Google Alerts and LinkedIn searches. This is free research that complements your existing market intelligence and provides real-time insight on what people are saying about your company and your market.

2. Identify the social media channels that your customers use – if any – and stake out at least a basic presence there. You don’t need to be active on every social network, but you do need to understand the culture of the ones that matter and you do need to respond to customers when they ask questions or talk about you there.

3. Have metrics in place to measure results. These metrics should be meaningful to the business, not just page views and visits. Look for engagement metrics like downloads, registrations and subscriptions. You need a way to determine how your activity and social channels is translating into business results.

What are three or four things social media marketers shouldn’t do and why?

1. Don’t lead with a sales pitch. Your principal goal should be to help people solve problems and make smarter decisions. Be helpful and sales will come. A good rule of thumb is to make about 90% of your contributions relevant to your audience’s needs, regardless of whether they promote your products or company. The other 10% can be self-promotional.

2. Don’t be silent. Social media is a conversation. If you’re going to play, be aware that people will ask you questions and they will expect answers. If you fail to respond, you’ll just look clueless. Better to stay away from social media entirely than to use it recklessly.

3. Don’t blast. Even though there are tools that make it possible to post the same message across multiple social networks simultaneously, I urge you not to use them in that manner. Each social network has a different culture and style. On a practical level, they also have different length limitations. Speak in the language of the community. Facebook is fun, LinkedIn is business, Twitter is rapid-fire news.

4. Don’t treat social media as a marketing channel. Recent research has shown that people are twice as likely to interact with companies over social media for customer support purposes as for marketing. Look at social networks as a way to connect with your constituents, regardless of whether they buy from you, sell to you or partner with you. Anyone in the organization who can benefit from that kind of engagement should be trained in the tools and protocols of social media.

Can you provide a specific example or two of a company that’s doing it well, and perhaps one that could use a little improvement?

Since my main focus is on B2B, I’ll stick to that.

Indium Corp. created a constellation of technical blogs written primarily by its engineers, with each blog title optimized for a desired keyword set. Indium serves a very small and specialized group of customers, and there aren’t many places those professionals can go to get solutions to their problems.

Indium uses the blogs to provide those solutions and also to capture contact information for sales purposes. When sales representatives contact a customer who has just been bailed out of a jam by an Indium technical professional, they are often received with gratitude. Indium’s sales leads grew 600% in the year after the program was launched.

CME Group (the former Chicago Mercantile Exchange) has amassed the largest Twitter following of any B2B company of which I’m aware. CME Group saw Twitter as an opportunity to become a news source, and it has positioned itself as an indispensable resource for commodities traders. CME Group works in a highly regulated industry, but that has not dampened its enthusiasm for experimentation with these new media.

Finally, Constant Contact has used Facebook and Twitter to deliver a constant stream of useful information to its small-business clientele about how to better market their companies. Only about 10% of its content promotes Constant Contact services. The other 90% is informational and advisory. Over the last two years it has grown its following on those two social networks nearly tenfold.

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Wikibon founder Dave Vellante is clearly having the time of his life, and they’re making money, too. Conference organizers and sponsors pay for the coverage. Here they are at this week’s IBM Edge conference in Las Vegas, where TheCUBE is at the center of the action and the interviews are playing continually on screens around the conference floor. Congratulations to Dave and John Furrier for a great and well-packaged idea.

“You gotta see this! lolol bit.ly/ZUT…..”

I haven’t been fooled since, but I’m sure plenty of people are fooled every day, particularly when the come-on is from a person they know.

The difference between the Nigerian princess plea, the PayPal password reset email and other famous online security scams we know and love is that social networks make it appear as if the requests are coming from your friends. How can you not stop to help out a friend who’s marooned in an overseas village somewhere after his wallet and passport were stolen?

Digital Defense,a security assessment and software firm, has published this free guide to the most common security dangers in social media. While experienced netizens know that you never click on a link without first checking out the URL, for the vast majority of casual users don’t know how to do that (hint: hover over the link). This free download is worth sharing with the people you work with, and any IT organization should make it required reading for users.

Note, you have to fill out a registration form to download it, but the company doesn’t ask for much. Also, I received no compensation for this post.

Time Inc.’s party at the White House Correspondents Dinner

With the specter of the Boston Marathon bombings still looming large in the rear-view mirror, the lack of security at last night’s White House Correspondents Association dinner surprised me.

My host for the event – Thomson Reuters – had prepared me for a gauntlet of checks, and the Washington Hilton was indeed swarming with Secret Service and hotel security personnel. However, when it came to gaining access to the parties where dignitaries had gathered, I found that little more than a printed invitation was involved.

I mean an invitation printed from my office computer. Thomson Reuters told me to bring a photo ID and said an invitation would be sent under separate cover. However, that cover turned out to be an e-mail attachment. I simply printed out the image and stuffed it into my pocket.

To enter the area where the media organizations were holding their parties, I simply presented the printout to the security personnel. There was no pat-down, no metal detectors and no one ever asked for an ID. Once inside, I was free to traverse the parties being hosted by Thomson Reuters, the Washington Post, Time Inc., ABC News and other media organizations, which competed fiercely to stuff the rooms with celebrities from government, entertainment and business.

The dinner itself (which I was not authorized to attend) was considerably more locked down, and President Obama and other top officials entered by secured back entrances. However, there were plenty of important people in the parties outside. I was within five feet of Thomson Reuters CEO James Smith and Washington Post CEO Katharine Weymouth, as well as numerous show business celebrities, television personalities and business executives. While the security measures would have prevented a criminal from smuggling a backpack into the parties, small explosives and firearms would not have been a problem, at least from what I observed.

Fortunately, everyone was there only to gawk and schmooze. The parties were a blast, and I’m grateful to Thomson Reuters for making it possible for me to be there. I just can’t help feeling uneasy that in this age of terror, at a party in our nation’s capital, there wasn’t more being done to prevent a tragedy.

Thomson Reuters, which is my host, is offering to try to set up interviews with its other guests, who are listed here. I’ll have my video camera ready. Question for you: Who should I ask to meet? Give me some suggestions in the comments area below, and if you’d care to suggest questions, that would be even better.

Dan Stevens (left) – English Actor best known as “Cousin Matthew” in Downton Abbey
Fred Armisen – Actor/comedian best known for Saturday Night Live & Portlandia
Jamie Wyeth – Artist
Jeremy Renner – Actor best known for The Hurt Locker, Bourne Identity, the Avengers
John Baird – Canadian Foreign Minister

Kathleen Turner

Kathleen Turner (left)- Actress/Activist, best known for Body Heat, Romancing the Stone
Madeline Stowe – Actress/Activist, best known for Revenge, Last of the Mohicans
Mariane Pearl – Freelance Journalist, widow of Daniel Pearl, Writer at Glamour magazine
Mark Carney – Governor, Central Bank of Canada
Mary Jo White – Chairman, Securities & Exchange Commission

Victor Cruz

Michael Corbat – CEO, Citigroup
Pat Llodra – Selectman, Newtown, CT
Ruth Porat – CFO, Morgan Stanley
Steve Zahn – Actor best known for Treme
Victor Cruz – Wide receiver, New York Giants
Several Top Chefs from Bravo TV Show ‘Top Chef”

Brill was a longtime product manager for IBM’s Social Business products, where he fought an uphill and often public battle against Microsoft. Brill’s barbs were notable because IBM’s buttoned-down culture had historically discouraged direct public engagement. How did a product manager get away with poking a stick in the eye of a major competitor?

The fact that he did get away with it is one of the sub themes of Opting In, Brill’s new book about social product management. “Only twice did someone ask for me to be fired at the chairman’s level,” he jokes. That seems funny today, but at the time it was a bold test of new management principles that challenged IBM’s 100-year-old prohibitions against individual expression.

Brill’s engaging and readable book is aimed at product managers, those corporate jacks of all trades who fret about everything from market research to customer support. Product managers are the ones who ultimately take the credit or blame for a product’s performance in the marketplace, and Brill sees social media as their ally at almost every level. Opting In covers everything from Google Alerts to Pinterest, and Brill not only outlines the unique utility of each of these tools but usually provide stories to support his points.

Telling Stories

For me, the benchmark of an enjoyable business book is storytelling, and Opting In has stories aplenty. They include detailed accounts of some of his more notable confrontations, such as a 2004 dustup with the influential Radicati Group and a 2010 challenge to a controversial Gartner report. Conventional wisdom holds that you don’t pick fights with these influencers, but Brill went to war and lived to tell about it. The explanations of his reasoning behind these actions are valuable competitive intelligence for any product manager.

Ed Brill

Most of the tales in Opting In are more upbeat. For example, Brill tells how a single tweet on a trip to Sydney led to a meeting with a local follower and fellow foodie and a friendship that has lasted for years. Social media is about more than business, he emphasizes. Those glimpses into your experiences, hobbies and interests create touch points that lead to meaningful relationships.

Product managers will learn much from scrutinizing Brill’s insight on topics common to the profession. He introduces the concept of “progressive disclosure” as an alternative to the traditional Big Bang product announcement, with the idea being to use social media to build awareness and buzz leading up to the communication of the news.

He describes how Lotus has increasingly moved toward open product development as a way to integrate user feedback into the process and even shares a story about how his group handled an unforeseen customer backlash to some changes that everyone expected to be a hit. Fellow product managers will relate to all of this.

Opening Up

The hero of the book is IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines, which get a full appendix entry of their own. Brill frequently praises these rules, which are often cited as a model of social media policy, for giving him the courage to take on some of his more notable battles and to continually give voice to his opinions.

The guidelines, which were first drafted in 2005, have changed IBM fundamentally. To dramatize the scope of that change, Brill recalls how he was slapped down by corporate communications in 2003 for identifying an employee in a blog post because, “we don’t have celebrities at IBM.” Less than a decade later, IBM was running ads celebrating individual employees.

“The guidelines…signaled to employees, clients and the market that IBM would stand behind its [people],” he writes. In a day when corporate loyalty seems almost a quaint historical curiosity, the kind of faith must be pretty empowering.

Full disclosure: I have a consulting relationship with an IBM subcontractor.

Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum ,2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bill Gates is getting bashed over comments he made that are critical of capitalism, and I think he’s getting a bad rap.

Wired reported on comments Gates made in London last week in which he complained that more funding is directed to male baldness research than to malaria vaccines because the wealthy people who write the checks are more concerned with their own problems than bigger humanitarian issues. He said governments and philanthropic organizations have to take steps to correct this ”flaw in the pure capitalistic approach”.

Reader comments on Wired are a bit more thoughtful than the ones on the U.K.’s Mail, but the criticism in both forums centers on Gates’ implied criticism of capitalism, which made him one of the richest people on earth.
For one thing, Gates didn’t trash capitalism in general. What he said was that there was a “flaw in the pure capitalistic approach” that created funding inequities. Most people would agree that capitalism in its purest form creates imbalances that lead to lead to things like the Great Depression, and that’s why some regulation is needed. It’s the best economic model humans have yet invented, but it isn’t perfect.

I also think Gates’ image needs revisiting in light of all the good he has done over the last decade.

If you read the rest of the Wired story, you see that Gates has his fingers on the pulse of some huge humanitarian issues, and the Gates Foundation is doing some of the world’s best work to address the problems of the desperately poor. I now believe that the Gates Foundation – not Microsoft – has been Bill Gates’ life goal for a very long time. Microsoft was his way to make the Foundation real.

Back in my technology media days I had the chance to interview Gates on several occasions. I once asked him why he continued to accumulate so much wealth. Did he ever think about scaling back and enjoying the fruits of his success (This was in the early 90s, when he was worth only around $8 billion)?

Gates’ answer surprised me. He said he planned to give away most of the money eventually and that he was in the best possible place to generate the maximum amount of wealth for that purpose  While the Gates Foundation didn’t have a name at the time, it was clearly a goal in his mind.

Since leaving Microsoft in 2008, Gates has all but disappeared from the industry he helped create, devoting himself instead to his foundation. He has thrown himself into that task with all the energy he brought to crushing Microsoft competitors, only this time has goals are perhaps more commendable. Microsoft stock has languished for a decade. Gates cashed out his winnings when there was nothing more to be gained, just as he told me he would 20 years ago.

I think we’re seeing another side to Bill Gates, and I hope it’s part of his legacy. While he is a brilliant and often ruthless competitor, he’s also capable of great compassion. I think it’s a shame that Steve Jobs, who gave away very little of the wealth he accumulated, is viewed more positively than a man who seems determined to spend the rest of his life tackling some of the world’s toughest health and humanitarian issues.

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I’m not an SEO expert by any stretch, but I’ve learned a lot by osmosis. For those who are mystified by Google magic, this deck will get you up to speed. If you’re already a guru, skip it and head to more advanced sites like Search Engine Land, SEOmoz, TopRank or Biznology.

Thanks to Mike Moran, HubSpot and McDougall Interactive for permitting me to steal from them.

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• Several of these experts see a strong year for Google+, while most believe Facebook is in for slow growth or even decline. I agree completely. The more I use G+, the more I like it. In contrast, I think Facebook is increasingly a place for backslapping and trash talking without the means to sustain meaningful conversations. In other words, I think the novelty of Facebook is wearing off. BTW, Pinterest and Tumblr also draw a lot of praise.
• There’s a strong subtext of the need to make interactions more meaningful and personal and for brands to unleash their people to speak as themselves. Stop using social media as another kind of fire hose and start using it for listening, which is its most basic value.
• There are some good quotes on context and sourcing. Basically, stop throwing content against the wall and start making it more meaningful. Geoff Livingston’s comments on creating trusted content are particularly good.
• A couple of the interviewees call for more civility online, which is something I think we can all support. I like the way Shel Israel phrased it: “It seems to me that that people on social networks were adversely influenced by the…recent presidential campaign. They feel the best way to be right is to demean people who disagree with them.”
• Lee Odden’s passage on hash tags is a riot: “#lets #just #stop #with #the #hashtagging #of #every #word #in #a #tweet #OK? #You #keyword #spammer #you.” Completely agree.

Here’s the embed, which links to the document on SlideShare.