Peak hours for attracting click-throughs are 6am, 11am, 5pm and 7pm (read: before breakfast, before lunch, before dinner and after dinner):

Facebook wasn’t left out of the data. Sharing peaks at around noon.

Key Takeaway: These data hold their weight, but be sure to continue experimenting with timing. View these as a guide. Every community is different.

See the full infographic and read more at Ragan and MediaBistro

The folks over at the Content Marketing Institute recently released their second version of The Content Grid.

You’ll see that it is organized by the stage of knowledge and interest a potential customer has against their closeness to purchase.

How to use this: Take an inventory of what you are currently doing. Compare it to the chart and see if you are missing any content opportunities.

See the full chart and read more at the Content Marketing Institute and Eloqua

Twitter answered the age old question of how they’re going to make money with Promoted Tweets. Launched a little over a year ago, many brands have tried their hand at Promoted Tweets. Ant’s Eye View wrote a great POV with many examples of what works with promoted tweets.

From their post:

· See some of the best promoted tweet campaigns and why they worked: #Winning on Twitter: The Top 10 Promoted Tweets

· The Next Web highlights 5 Successful Twitter marketing campaigns you should know about

· If you’re interested in a more detailed look at Promoted Tweets from a campaign perspective, check out this case study from Mongoose metrics on their experience with them.

· For those more interested in harnessing the power of organically trending topics – this Coca-Cola and Pillsbury case study will shed some light on that powerful opportunity.

Read the full post at Ant’s Eye View

Personality matters on Twitter. A recent case study from Nology Media and PEMCO Insurance, both WOMMA members, shows how a bit of tone tweaking can increase engagement. Once PEMCO added personality, some amazing things happened with their community’s tone.

Upbeat language increased 116% (Defined as positive language, exclamatory phrases and assents)

Community connectivity increased 72% (Defined as socially engaged and inclusive language and frequent @mentions and questions)

During this time, interactions with @PEMCO grew by 56%.

Lesson Learned: Be positive and conversational. People don’t want the corporate tone in their Twitter stream.

Read the full case study at Nology Media.

Workshop – Community Management Principles: Consumer Engagement through Building Communities Online

Presented by Suzanne Marlatt, Community Manager and Jennie Averbook, Digital Strategist, both from Edelman

Community management is critical to any brand that wants to engage the public through digital embassies such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like. But this new form of brand to consumer relations isn’t straightforward and requires diligent planning. Before delving into community management, Suzanne and Jennie recommended a digital property audit. Examine where you already are and where your audience is. Listen, listen, listen, then execute. You don’t want to put a lot of effort into a platform that isn’t conducive to your audience.

Once you know where to be, you need to figure out who to be. Developing a brand voice that is consistent with your company and customer culture drives the authenticity of your presence.

“Review twice. Publish once.” – Suzanne Marlatt

Day to day community management is comprised of a lot of content production, community interaction, customer service and constant listening. Procedures and best practices change often, so a fair amount of studying is also required. Several resources were suggested…

Blogs: All Facebook, All Twitter, About Foursquare, OneForty.com

Social user search: Regator, Twibes, WeFollow, Listorious

Search/Analytics: 48ers, BackType, Snapbird, SocialMention

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Session – McDonald’s Secret Sauce of Social Customer Service

Presented by Salena Scardina, Director of Social Media, and Kim Musgrave, Manager of Social Media, both of McDonald’s

McDonald’s has a robust Twitter presence that is used to show the brand’s personality through relevant content and to solve customer problems. The team of three internal tweeters manages customer complaints by keeping close attention to what is said about McDonald’s and their products.

Taking it Offline

Like any major brand, McDonald’s receives a solid amount of customer complaints via Twitter. I really loved how they handled these situations. From what I could tell, there were three steps:

1. Reply quickly and sincerely.

2. Make the conversation personal.

3. Send a handwritten snail mail apology/coupon.

This method often turns a complainer into an advocate. There are ancillary benefits as well. Several of their interactions have led to positive blog posts by prominent bloggers, extending the reach of a single interaction to thousands.

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Keynote – Consumer Privacy – What you Need to Know from the FTC

Presented by C. Steven Baker, Director of the Midwest Regional Office, FTC

WOMMA was built on ethics. School of WOM was ended by a great update from the FTC. The one overriding theme was encapsulated by a great quote from Richard Sears:

“Honest is the best policy. I know because I’ve tried both.”

Before the infamous Sears Catalog, Richard Sears was a bit of a snake oil salesman, albeit a fairly unsuccessful one. When he went straight, it was the birth of an empire.

Mr. Baker hinted at a few new laws that may hit the books in the coming years:

1. A Federal Data Breach Law

2. Do Not Track Legislation

3. An FTC Proposed Framework for Privacy

To stay up to date on everything FTC, read Tony DiResta’s blog, DiResta-the-Law.

1. Customer Engagement – It’s now much easier and way more public. Help desks have been aided by Twitter immensely. Great examples include Best Buy’s Twelpforce & Comcast Cares.

2. Forced Listening – Companies now need to have a few eyes on Twitter in case buzz turns bad, like copying someone else’s design.

3. Marketing Paradigms – Twitter helped bring marketing and customer service closer because the need for dialogue with customers.

4. Word of Mouth – Though the reasons people talk about brands hasn’t changed, Twitter has made billions of these conversations public. Now conversation volume and sentiment are valued KPIs.

Read more about what Twitter has changed at Simply Business.

“Social media has led to a third type of thought: one that you share with a virtual social network instead of those who you may be interacting with in person.” –Rohit Bhargava

Many have cautioned that social media could change from a tool that enables social interaction to one that dominates it. This is something we have to pay attention to as marketers and, quite frankly, as people. The cited article had a great image [below] of the whirlwind of social that never seems to take a break.

Read more about Rohit’s observations at Influential Marketing Blog

1. High engagement can lead to higher follower numbers.

2. The data also suggested that low engagement could also lead to more followers.

3. Users with lots of followers interact less.

These data are critical to know the general behavior or how people are using these tools.

Read more about Dan’s analysis at his blog.

Here are some facts:

1. Twitter has 300,000 new tweeters per day.
2. There are over 200 million accounts.
3. 57% of FTSE 100 companies have a Twitter account.
4. 72% of these have not used their account to contact customers.

Let’s just say these 43% without accounts and 72% who simply don’t engage with their accounts have a great opportunity to improve. Getting social into the budget is worthless without the people and tracking needed to understand where social fits into business.

Read more at TechAffect

This brings into question how community management programs need to be staffed. Global brands clearly need a solid investment to handle the thousands of daily comments, tweets, posts, etc. But smaller brands can’t build fancy command centers. For instance, WOMMA’s community management is really just me and a MacBook. Trends are pointing toward all brands at least having someone at the helm, no matter what size the brand is.

Read more about the community management developments at Fast Company