If there is such a thing as a laboratory for studying how retail businesses are using Twitter, we have a pretty good example. Two months ago Dean and I launched Breaking Napa Valley News, which is part of the Breaking News Network, the brainchild of Domus Consulting Group. The site’s content is fully fueled by live, scrolling Twitter feeds from 151 Napa Valley businesses.

I comb through the site a couple of times a day, looking for the best of what’s happening in Napa Valley to share on our Breaking Napa Valley News Facebook Page. And you know what? More often than not, it becomes the proverbial hunt for a needle in a haystack. While I see a lot of social messaging going on, there is a huge lack of “call to action”—that invitation that asks me to take a step towards fulfilling your business goals.

I’m not talking hard sell here. This is about educating me or getting me interested in what your business has to offer, so that as our social networking relationship continues to evolve, I stay aware of all the ways I can patronize your business.

7 Call to Action Examples:

1. Send me an invitation with a money saving incentive.
2. Share links to valuable tips that I can use and associate with your products or services.
3. Invite me to read spotlights or view photos of other customers experiencing your products or services.
4. Make me aware of events associated with your products or services.
5. Ask me for feedback on how you can make your product or service offerings more appealing.
6. Invite me to share how your products or services are playing a role in my life.
7. Educate me on how your products or services are helping others.

The bottom line: Message with purpose. Before you hit that magic “share” button, ask yourself if the message supports your business goals. Time is money.

I often share how much my direct marketing background influences how I approach social media marketing. It has given me a framework from which to view social media marketing as a discipline. Yes, I know that social media is about being authentic, yet being authentic doesn’t mean you have to show up without a plan or strategy. Yet this is exactly what most companies do.

To be an effective social media marketer, you must:

1. First get clear on your goals
2. Deliver messages that are designed to inspire responses that align with your goals
3. Understand what kinds of messages produce the results you want

These 3 keys require you think ahead before you deliver your messages and that you look back to see what they produced. Showing up to play in the game is not enough. Just because the tools are free doesn’t mean you can afford to waste your energies messaging at random.

How to avoid random messaging:

• Develop a messaging plan
• Develop a messaging schedule

If that sounds like too much effort and structure, then you’re not taking your social media marketing seriously. Believe me, a little disclipine sees the difference between a swing and a miss and a home run. Which would you prefer?

(Courtesy Carpentry Wiki)

Which social media company:

• Is funded by venture capital
• Has yet to turn a profit
• Has yet to showcase a business model to date
• Was recently sued for patent infringement
• Is the target of ever increasing service interruptions
• Is one of the biggest targets for hackers
• Is the tool for people to find out about events, as they are happening, all over the world
• Is the tool for people to use in order “to have a voice in countries where having an opinion can be illegal”
• Is being adopted by conservative old school mass media sources to distribute and report news
• Is a critical communications tool used by police and fire departments and other government agencies
• Is used by businesses around the world as a lead generation tool                                                       
  
• Is used by businesses around the world as a customer relationship management tool
• Is used by worldwide brands to engage consumers
• Serves as a massive moving research repository
• Is one of the most misunderstood and under utilized social networks to date

Social Media Strategy: Understand and Know Your Network

These are 15 snapshot facts about Twitter. Do you research the social network you are about to use for your business? Do you understand how to plan, roll out, and execute your marketing initiatives within each social media network you wish to use?

“A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.” –Wise man of the villiage to the boy who cried wolf

Many companies have no Twitter strategy nor an idea of the damage they do to their brand on a daily basis on Twitter. They spam and fill their Tweets with noise in a manner reminiscent of the old fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. In that fable, a boy tasked with guarding a flock of sheep decided to amuse himself by crying out “Wolf-Wolf” so that the villagers would come running to his rescue.

After falsely crying wolf a number of times, the boy did encounter a real wolf. When he cried out for help he was ignored by the villagers and his flock of customers er sheep ran away.

Where is the Strategy?

A vast majority of companies utilizing Twitter have no strategy and are simply wading into the network without a clue. Some of the most common mistakes:

• Name Holder: Companies that simply establish an account to hold their name so url squatters will not steal it. This is a lazy and simple excuse for doing absolutely nothing
• Mixed Signals: Companies that claim on their Bio their purpose for being on Twitter is to engage, communicate, and connect with their audience–then the company never does engage, communicate or connect with their audience
• About Us: Companies make everything from their tweets to their responses, if they get any, all about their products, services, and proclaimed greatness

Signal to Noise Ratio

Here are some simple steps to fix the problem of tone and noise in a company’s Twitter strategy:

• Signal: For every 10 tweets, 7 tweets should be valuable information (with links) that will help your audience & information that is not about your company
• Noise: For every 10 tweets, 3 should be about your company, they should give value, and they should be informative in nature

• No Hard Sell: NEVER tweet the hard sell, act desperate to sell, or attempt to create (old school) urgency for your audience to buy anything
• Mix: After repeating the formula of 7 signal to 3 noise, your next 10 tweets should be about recognition
• Connect: In this set of 10 tweets, 5 tweets use @company-individual to recognize their work, engage, network, or ask to collaborate
• Recognize: In this second set of 10 tweets, 5 tweets use RT (Retweet) to recognize someone’s writing, open lines of communication, and network to meet companies or individuals

In 2005 social media and Web 2.0 forefather Tim O’Reilly compiled a definition of Web 2.0: now a prophetic warning to the print media. O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 definition:

“Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

Warning to All: Print Industry in Trouble

In a microcosm example, the “April issue of Portfolio magazine set a dubious record. With 106 total pages and 21 ad pages it is the slimmest monthly issue ever published by Condé Nast.”

According to eMarketer.com’s “Magazine’s Run Online”:

• In the US 525 magazines were shut down in 2008
  
• In 2009 87 more titles have folded
• In 2008 consumer magazine print ad spending down 7.1% to $13 Billion
• A 2009 ad spending forecast predicts that ad revenue will drop -16.2%

Paradigm Shift: “Architecture of Participation”

O’Reilly’s mantra within his Web 2.0 definition should be the rallying cry manifesto for every entrepreneur, small business, and corporation: Creating network effects through an “architecture of participation.”

Us vs. Them

For companies like Intel, American Express, Clorox, and HP the power of blogging and social networks produces:

• Brand recognition
• User participation
• Measurement of message, products, and services
• Viral opportunities
• Reputation management
• Breaking news opportunities
• Communication and engagement with their audience
• Crowdsourcing for new ideas

Conclusion: The Have Nots

For companies without a social media strategy, with no participation in social networks, and for those companies that do not publish a blog your time is coming. Your De-Evolution will take place as your competitors that are social media Web 2.0 first adopters and the second wave of adopters will fill the vacuum and void left by your lack of participation.

Worse yet, the consumer population looking for your brand online, within these social networks, will assume you don’t care about them or their concerns.

These consumers, made up of your current audience-clients and potential consumers, will hold conversations about your products and services. Some will compliment and evangelize your company-but you will never know it. Some will slam your brand, tell stories of dissatisfaction, and rant about your lack of participation-but you will never know it.

The blinders will remain a comfortable fit.