Blue Helm

In honor of Presidents Day I have to give props to President Obama for doing so well in the social media realm. Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or somewhere in between, you can’t deny that the man has done wonders in reaching out to The People via social media. As I’m writing this he has over 7.5 million fans on his Facebook page and close to 3.3 million followers on Twitter. No one else in the political arena has anywhere near as much online support. Sarah Palin, who seems to be the next most popular political figure on Facebook and Twitter, has just over 1.36 million fans on Facebook and barely 80,000 followers on Twitter. The number of her supporters pales in comparison to President Obama’s.

In addition to having large numbers of supporters on the major social networks, Obama has done a great job galvanizing his fan base. Outside of his official pages, there are thousands of groups, profiles, YouTube videos, websites, forums and blogs supporting his cause.

Obama has proven himself a worthy campaigner. Edelman, one of the top independent PR firms in the world, wrote a great report on how Obama used social media to win the 2008 Presidential Election. Click here to read the report.

A warning to all politicians

President Obama isn’t the only one who has used social media effectively to influence elections. A more recent example can be seen in Scott Brown’s surprise victory in Massachusetts. As of Jan. 1, Brown had over 70,000 fans while Martha Coakley had just over 13,000. Click here to read this Wall Street Journal report for more telling statistics about the Massachusetts election.

If you want an idea of who may or may not win their elections this upcoming November, just compare how the candidates are doing in the social media race.

Politicians beware; do not ignore social media!

One day when I was in the third grade, one of my classmates showed me that trick where you hold a pencil and shake it to make it look like it’s rubber. You know the one. At the time, I thought that was the coolest thing any human child had ever done and possibly would ever do. I mean seriously—the pencil was wobbling as if it were RUBBER. Unprecedented. I showered praises on my talented peer and so did most other kids sitting around me. He did the trick for a while, until some other kid sitting near us shouted, “Hey look at me! I can do it too!” We all looked and witnessed his sorry attempt at the pencil trick, paling in comparison to our other friend’s feat. We severely berated him, telling him that he was just trying to copy what was already done to look cool. He was a wannabe.

Today I experienced a remarkable sensation of déjà vu….Google Buzz is that wannabe kid.

Now let’s be clear: I love Google. I love Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps, Google News, Google Wave, Google Earth, Google Everything. But this new attempt to jump on the social media bandwagon is lame at the very least. Why does Google even think its new social network can compete with Twitter or Facebook? It’s too closed up, too walled-in. With Google Buzz, you can only share information with other Gmail users. It also sends every Buzz update to my Gmail Inbox, which infuriates me to no end. And it’s just a ripoff of Microsoft and Yahoo’s previous attempts to integrate social media with email.

I’m not opposed to new, innovative and creative social networks that compete with Facebook and Twitter. Competition is healthy, even in a saturated market. But Google Buzz offers nothing new and only succeeds in annoying me.

Am I missing something? Do you love Google Buzz? Will Google prove me wrong and dominate the social network market? Let me know what you think.

Coca-Cola’s new “Happiness Machine” video is viral genius, plain and simple. Released earlier this month, it topped one million YouTube views this week, and was almost entirely shared through social networks like Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

Social media and viral marketing is about people, not products. Coca-Cola gets that, and successfully produced a compelling, entertaining and human campaign that connects with the consumer in a deeper, more memorable way than a traditional advertisement might. Ravi Sawhney said it perfectly in his Fast Company blog post yesterday:

“How can designers create these special moments–this magic? And not just ‘viral video’ magic, but that everyday life magic of the emotional connection that bonds people with your brand. Can we conceive of the complete story and lead people down a path of creating smiles?”

If your social media campaigns aren’t cultivating inspiration, motivation and smiles, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Activate the masses through social media

It’s been a busy few months for us here at Blue Helm. We’ve worked with some exciting new clients –from leading financial advisors at Northwestern Mutual to community education experts at Utah Valley University to the ambitious health food company, SunDrenchers. By far the group we’ve collaborated with the most over the past several months, however, are the folks over at America’s Freedom Festival at Provo, who work tirelessly to organize and promote year-round patriotic celebrations throughout the state of Utah.

The Freedom Festival sponsors one the nation’s largest (if not the largest) Independence Day extravaganza every year called the Stadium of Fire, located in LaVell Edwards Stadium on the campus of BYU. Last year they invited the Jonas Brothers, SHeDAISY and Glenn Beck to perform. And the year before that was Miley Cyrus and Blue Man Group. Big stars like that, in addition to thousands of other dancers, singers, volunteer performers and a trillion pounds of fireworks, make this quite a show. Needless to say, this is no humdrum July 4th celebration, and the Freedom Festival needed a social media campaign to match this colossal patriotic performance.

We strategized here at Blue Helm for a while and decided that the Freedom Festival needed an online campaign that not only energized its thousands of fans, but activated them. How could we use the Freedom Festival’s existing social media platforms to galvanize its fan base into doing something, thus enhancing the admiration, loyalty and passion they have for the organization? What could we do to attract other members of the community to its cause? How could be grow its social media fan base, all the while galvanizing and motivating its existing fans into taking positive action?

To make a long story short, we organized Vote the Voice—a three-part campaign that invited people to vote for a future Stadium of Fire performer. You can read more about the campaign (and the viral stir it caused) here. We promoted the campaign extensively, utilizing Facebook, Twitter and the local media. But the response to Vote the Voice was more than we could have ever anticipated. Over 75,000 votes were cast, some from as far away as New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. Blogs and news sites from across the United States picked up on the story, and we were overwhelmed with thousands of comments, links and wall posts on the Freedom Festival’s social networks. Even now that the campaign has officially ended, fans continue to send us votes and comments saying who they want to see perform this summer.

Moral of the story: Choose a social media campaign that mobilizes your fans and prompts them to do something. The Freedom Festival’s fans are now expert lobbyists, motivating (sometimes begging) other fans to vote for their pick. And it turned out to be a PR coup for the Freedom Festival as well.

Activate your Facebook, Twitter and blog fans. Posting random updates that don’t ask your fans to do anything will result in a lower level of fan participation, thus undermining the point of using social media.

These sad employees aren't allowed to use social media at work. Could their boss help them use it to be more productive?

A recent survey reveals that social media remains a challening obstacle for employers and employees to tackle. Who’s surprised? According to the survey, “half of companies have not set out a specific policy for workers’ online social networking activities.” And one-quarter of the 800 professionals surveyed claimed their organization has had to discipline an employee for activities on social networks. Yucky stuff.

So what’s to be done? Employers, here’s some advice:

1. Throw out your draconian internet rules. Unless legal or other rare circumstances require it, don’t completely prohibit your employees’ access to Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networks simply because you’re afraid they might use them for nefarious or time-wasting purposes. Social networking can be used to grow your business (if your employees are educated how to do so).

2. Use social media (and your employees’ attraction to it)  to your advantage. Brainstorm with your staff and find out ways to use social media in your marketing or sales campaigns. You could require your employees to connect with at least one potential business client on LinkedIn each day, or have a couple workers update and maintain your company’s Facebook page twice a week. Don’t be afraid of social media. Use it.

3. Talk to your staff openly about your company’s social media expectations and requirements. It’s fine to make rules about Facebook or Twitter usage and formulate effective company policies that protect your business from rogue or irresponsible employees that misuse social media. But banning social media outright is like banning email or phones. Not smart in the 21st century.

Now, some words for employees:

1. Do not, do not, DO NOT waste your company’s time, money and talent by surfing your social networking sites during business hours–especially if it’s not for business reasons.

2. Don’t post stupid pictures of yourself or offensive/inappropriate/creepy comments on your social networks. If you must, learn about the privacy settings, and learn them well. Also, don’t EVER post your company’s private or confidential information on the interent.

3. Keep brainstorming about what you can do to help your company grow using social media. Maybe you can volunteer to create or revitalize your company’s blog. Or you can create a company Facebook, Twitter or YouTube page. Present some ideas to your boss and work with him or her to use social media for your business’ advantage, not for its self-destruction.

What do you think? Do you agree with my advice? Disagree? Do you need some help thinking up ideas on how to use social media to help your company? Let me know by commenting below.