I’m always amused by the savage beatdowns that are meted out to firms who are perceived to have failed in social media (see this page on Nestlé and Facebook for a recent example). What do people expect? At the end of the day, it’s one person doing the Tweeting or the wall-writing. They’re at work, not relaxing at home, and they’re obliged to ‘be the brand’ online. It can’t be easy. And if you push them far enough, they’re bound to snap.

Personally, I welcome it. At least we know they’re human. What’s the alternative? Everyone loves to flame the failures, but would we really be happier with a smoothly oiled PR machine, trotting out relentlessly positive, shallow responses to critical tweets, like a politician?

Although social media has a diverse user base, there’s a recognisable ‘SM personality’ that seems to predominate: young (or young at heart); generally positive; informal; chirpy (bordering on facetious); marketing and new media literate. When people berate companies for having the ‘wrong’ social media voice, they usually mean that the company in question has taken a tone that’s too far from this norm. But if your firm’s true ‘personality’ doesn’t conform, should you affect a different tone of voice to fit in?

Many firms have struggled to find their voice in social media. Some have rather stiffly adopted it as a purely ‘push’ channel, conducting a monologue rather than a dialogue. Some, like Habitat, have been hauled over the coals for underhand techniques. And some, like ASOS, are blessed with enough photogenic, web-savvy, Twitter-literate staff to give them all usernames and let them loose (see @ASOS_Amy, @ASOS_Nat and others).

A while ago, I blogged on the topic of honesty in marketing: the idea that by promoting a message that accurately reflects what the organisation is really like, we can be more congruent, more confident and (I believe) more effective in terms of reaching new customers. So why shouldn’t firms’ negative character traits come through in their social media? It may not fit the rigid stereotype of ‘engagement’, but perhaps it’s more honest in the deepest sense.

• This is a guest post from Louis Venter of search marketing specialists Mediavision as part of Be My Guest month.

In my opinion, one of the key areas of concern within SEO circles is the enormous amount of SEO fodder that is being pumped into the internet to influence search rankings.

This doesn’t seem to be stopping either, with new services being launched to “rewrite” vast amounts of articles and distribute them online becoming almost mainstream.

At SES London recently the content was described as “not Pulitzer-prize winning”. I would go as far to say that a great deal of it is complete and utter crap that does nothing to build a client’s brand or reputation.

Now while I don’t believe that all of these articles currently hold the same value within Google’s algorithm, I do think their search quality team will attempt to address this problem as quickly as they can. The main question, though, is how.

My gut feeling is that they will use a social footprint to establish whether or not to count the link love to the destination website. They already have deals with Twitter and Facebook to crawl their posts in near-real time, and with these two platforms being two of the primary sources of content sharing at the moment it gives Google a fairly accurate picture.

Google will obviously have to address Twitter spam, which seems to be rife at the best of times. Given their early attempts at real-time search, they clearly don’t have a handle on how to measure social influence accurately, but these are early days after all.

Which brings me round to Buzz. Despite the obvious privacy issues, Google has placed a lot of resource into Buzz and this shows their hand a great deal in my opinion. I would not be at all surprised if Buzz was aimed at delivering a social footprint for the search quality algorithm. One obvious use for this data would be to separate the signal from the noise in online PR.

What should SEOs be doing to counter this?

Well, firstly, the rules of PR haven’t changed. Write great informative pieces of content that will attract links on their own. Make sure that these pieces of content are easily shareable and Tweetable and promote the content in the same way as you would promote your client’s site. Understand that everything you do is online PR and not just writing. The PR aspect of that is key.

If you manage to do this successfully, and Google do manage to clear out the noise, you will be sitting very pretty indeed.

Twitter certainly has its drawbacks. In some ways, it’s a reputational Ponzi scheme, with followers as the currency. It’s compulsive and addictive, perhaps unhealthily so. It fragments awareness and scatters mindfulness. It’s got delusions of grandeur (e.g. over Iran). It’s an informational Ouroboros, eating its own tail through endless retweets. And it’s awash with banality.

But I still use it. A lot. Over time, I’ve realised that it’s a powerful tool when used wisely, and that, in a sense, its limitations are its strengths. So instead of dwelling on the negatives, I thought I’d use them as a starting point for considering what a fully-grown social media might look like…

• It will be real-time. For better or worse, this is what we now demand. In the future, we’ll see Twitter’s incredible ‘nowness’ combined with Google’s power to discriminate and filter information, giving us a window into shared thoughts that’s (hopefully) unpolluted by spam. But, at the same time…


What might this rudimentary bird evolve into?

• It will be persistent. Twitter trends come and go, but their residue is a bit chaotic. In the future, collaborative trains of thought will be captured, preserved and refined. We’ll be able to create and control our own social-media hubs, and enhance them by adding supporting resources. Google Wave will probably be the first manifestation of this, and Kosmix is a parallel in the world of web search. And as a consequence…
• It will be integrated. The ‘walls’ between Twitter, Facebook and future SM services will be softened or erased. A powerful, simple front end will bring everything together elegantly and hide the ‘workings’ from the user. Once we taste it, we’ll never want to go back to joining individual, isolated communities. And that will mean…
• It will be friendly. Through this new front end, some kind of semantic search will let casual users get involved without knowing what a hashtag is. Images, sound and movies will be seamlessly integrated. The whole social-media experience will be smoother and easier. My money’s on Apple to get this right first, just as they have done with music and phones. Which highlights the fact that…
• It will be more corporate. Just as they make it their business to own generic search terms through affiliates and brand-bidding, big brands will dominate social media. They have to, or they won’t be big any more. But know-how is always for sale, and they’ve got the brand assets, so they’re in pole position. They’ll make sure they guide the casual or novice user to their front door, regardless of channel. (They’ll also monitor our content so they know about every relevant conversation.) Dell is a trailblazer in this area. And after a while…
• It will be nothing special. In the end, every brand will have a softer, less formal tone of voice in social media. Big corporates will find and exploit the optimum balance between control and individual expression. And small firms and individuals will always be able to offer a different experience – just as they can in any other area. But at the same time…
• Credibility will out. The number of ‘expert’ SEOs, affiliate marketers, social media consultants and, yes, copywriters on Twitter is just ludicrous. It’s so easy to build a presence, and followers come cheap, making everyone look authoritative. But in the future, the cream will rise to the top, just as it did in web design and e-commerce following the internet boom. As in search, Google (or someone) will help us separate the wheat from the chaff. And after a while…
• Things will settle down again. Just as everyone sells online, everyone will do social media. It will be just another channel. The buzz over Twitter as a customer-service medium boils down to a simple truth: customers want prompt, individual attention. And that’s not news. There are new ways to reach customers now, but they won’t always be new. They will be understood, analysed, documented, and best practice will be established.

So what should we do? I say ‘do it, but don’t sweat it’. There’s much to be said for being a fast follower instead of a leader – not least, you can learn from others’ mistakes. So relax, get Tweeting and just enjoy the ride.