Key Takeaway: If you aren’t Talkable now, you aren’t going to be without a little change. Get creative. Break your mold. Surprise your customers. Take some advice from Bonnie Raitt.

Watch John’s full series at Brand Autopsy

Key Takeaways from Kristina Halvorson’s WOMM-U Keynote

Content marketing has done so well that there is simply too much content on the internet. Now it’s time to clean it up. And that’s the job of the Content Strategist.

Odds are that any given brand’s content has been managed haphazardly by many hands without any central guiding authority. Content Strategists need to vet at every video, social network, webpage, even every word that their brand has available.

Kristina developed four key components necessary for content strategy:

Substance – What content do you need and why?

Structure – How is the content organized for the user?

Workflow – How is content maintained and appropriately updated?

Governance (This is the biggie) – How do you keep everything on track without everyone trying to add their piece to the pie?

If you pull one of these out, your strategy will not reach its full potential.

Key Takeaway: Content has been a beast that grows and grows. The Content Strategist tames that beast.

Extole recently released a report on the subject. It focused on C2C – Consumer-to-Consumer social marketing. And advocates are the engine that drives the C2C machine.

The Anatomy of an Advocate

Advocates come in all shapes and sizes – some share constantly, some share selectively. No matter how they do it, you should be helping them every step of the way.

Make Referring Easy – Less clicks! Less to write! Easier login! Look at every single step of the consumer journey and optimize sharability.

Increase Participation with Incentives – People like stuff (goods, discounts, points, etc.) but also think about the psychology of advocates. Many want to be seen as experts. Others share funny things. Some are altruistic, simply looking to help those who they care about. Find what they want and satisfy it.

Add Recognition and Gamification – People like to compete and be recognized for their achievements. Think about how your or your advocates’ content could turn into a competition. Then fire the start pistol.

Key Takeaway: There are a million tricks to be more shareable, but the most effective one of all is knowing how to inspire advocates to action.

Download the full report at Extole

Ask yourself…

1. What are you trying to communicate?

2. What does your audience or desired audience want to know?

3. Does your data tell a story?

Don’t know the answer to any of these? Hold off on that infographic until you do. Otherwise, you’ll spend time and money on a poorly planned idea.

Infographics fall into the shiny-new-toy category. They blew up, got attention, and looked like they were a strategy unto themselves. But they weren’t and never will be.

Key Takeaway: Create infographics only if they fulfill your overall strategy.

Read more at Lumenatti, ComBlu’s blog

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Kathy Baughman, President of ComBlu, will speak at WOMM-U, May 7-9, alongside Rishi Dave of Dell about their work on creating B2B content for every step of the customer journey.

The Community Roundtable recently released their annual State of Community Management report. It carefully outlined the four different stages of community growth. They were:

Stage 1 – Hierarchy

This stage is for the pups. Here, you find a lot of unfocused social interaction. Perhaps one of the younger people in the office is “doing the social thing.”

To move beyond this stage, brands need to develop policies, goals and extensive listening. These will lay a foundation that will be sustainable as you move through the other stages.

Stage 2 – Emergent Community

At this point, your community is already started, but is still working out some kinks. As the community grows, take a closer look at risk assessment, engagement platforms, and your roadmap to success.

Stage 3 – Community

You’ve built it. They have come. Stage 3 is more about maintaining and integrating than building.

Momentum can be a tricky thing. What initially attracted your community members may have become less important. Regularly assess how well certain tactics work.

The community should also be integrated with other marketing initiatives.

Stage 4 – Network

The ROI is proven. The brass has bought in. The community is engaged, perhaps even a little self-sustaining.

Stage 4 is all about continuing to find ways for the community to help the brand and vice versa. Internally, no stone (read: department) should be unturned. HR? Recruit through the community. Product development? Use the community as a sounding board or idea engine.

Key Takeaway: Getting from Stage 1 to Stage 4 takes years of dedication. It takes real budgets, real employees, and really smart ideas. They aren’t built overnight, but nothing worth doing is.

Download the 2012 State of Community Management at The Community Roundtable

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WOMMA and The Community Roundtable are producing WOMM-COM Community Manager, a 10-webinar education program. Students will learn essential community management skills, from strategy to long-term management. Instructors hail from Dell, Intel, Edelman, ComBlu, iCrossing, and more.

Class starts May 15.

Register Here

John Bell, Global Managing Director for Social@Ogilvy, grouped these nine impediments into four solvable categories.

Defining Clear Value

“Inability to prove ROI” and “Lack of budget” are symptoms of a poorly valued program. Up the value with these tips:

1. Get ‘Pretty Good’ at Measurement – Even a few data points on engagement, sharing, and awareness will build a value base. Compare your numbers to competitors. If you’re lacking, you might get some “catch-up” excitement.

2. Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal – Make social resources the solution to long running marketing problems. Want to reduce paid media by 50%? Find a way to replace that exposure with more efficient social programs.

3. Strike a Balance between ROI and Innovation – You can’t sit around waiting for years of data to prove that a program will work. Currently, that would be impossible on platforms like Pinterest or even Tumblr. Base most of your work on measured data, but let your team swing for the fences every now and then.

Read John’s solutions to the three other categories at The Digital Influence Mapping Project

See how American Express created a social program built around ROI

Ogilvy is a WOMMA governing member.

1. Cardio – Surviving a solid Zombie Apocalypse means staying alive for the long run, not a sprint. Build your community for the long run, not one quick dash. Sprint when you need to (e.g. run a campaign), but the day to day should be consistent and sustainable.

2. No Attachments – Just when Hershel’s farm seems safe, it gets overrun with a herd of zombies. Sometimes the obvious choice, isn’t the best one. Communities should be platform agnostic. Go with what works best for you, even if that goes against the grain.

3. Get a Kick Ass Partner – Community problems, like zombies, come from every direction. Another set of eyes and skills will get you out of tight situations. Maybe one’s a good cop, the other a bad cop. Or one person/team handles planning and implementation while their counterpart handles engagement.

For Geno’s four other Zombie Apocalypse/Community Management tips at Brains on Fire

Geno will be at WOMM-U, May 7-9, and will present “10 Rules for your Community to Survive a Zombie Attack…”

Full Agenda

Affect, a strategic PR, marketing and social media agency, published a helpful guide.

Must Dos:

1. Change your Cover and Profile Photo. Odds are, your Profile pic is being displayed poorly unless it’s a square. The Cover Photo needs to be 815 x 315 px and can’t be too promotional.

2. Write your history. If your company existed before Facebook, you should add in significant dates that were previously omitted. When did you start, merge, go global, rebrand, or get bought by Google? Your community wants to know.

3. Forget default landing pages. They’re gone and probably not coming back. This affects promotions and the value of tab apps in general.

Should Dos:

1. Post more videos and photos. The visual appeal of Facebook just exploded with this change. Take advantage of the engagement opportunity.

2. Minimize your tab apps. Only three are visible. Cut your page down to the bare essentials. This will help boost the effectiveness of what remains.

3. Pin top posts strategically. This is your hero post. Choose wisely and don’t let them fester. And don’t just think of it as a banner ad. Nobody will like that.

Read more tips at Affect’s blog, Tech Affect

Affect is a WOMMA member.

Such is content marketing. Eloqua yesterday released a guide about successfully using content in every stage of the sales cycle. It starts with the Suspects (everyone) and ends with the sale.

The Suspects

Anyone who would be interested in your content falls into this category. They like content that is simple and clear – Infographics, simple guides, non-demo-y videos. Once they have their hands on your stuff, push them to the Prospect stage.

The Prospects

They’ve gone far enough to give you their information. Content needs to be tailored to their interests at this point. Think about eBooks, analyst reports and webinars. The key is to show that you know your stuff – that they can trust you with their money.

From there, Prospects get whittled down to Leads, then Opportunities.

For tips on all the stages, visit Eloqua

Eloqua is a WOMMA member.

The main gripe? Impersonal and lazy pitches. He offered a perfect example:

Riveting stuff! It’s hard to imagine the above pitch flying with many journalists, but a lot of PR pros would think it’s just fine. And that’s the problem – a disconnect between who needs what.

Journalists need stories, every day, all the time. Tech startups need press, every day, all the time. To keep everyone happy, the exchange needs to be fair.

Instead of spamming a huge list of journalists, find a small group of people who are highly interested in your news. That builds relationships that get your emails opened and stories written. Otherwise, you get lumped into the spamming crowd.

Key Takeaway: Pitch precisely. The relationships built will make press more reliable, relevant, and effective.

Read the full post at BuzzFeed