I would think by now that the majority of marketers are beginning to understand the dynamics of social media.   With all the published case studies, surveys and data available, one would think that marketers would invest more in creating a framework that facilitates conversations between a real-person-of-a-brand and a consumer. In my mind, this is the true nature of social media.

A study back in 2008 showed that 55% of consumers want ongoing conversations with companies and brands. The study investigated how brands and consumers interact and how consumers want brands to engage with them. And the results were awesome. In addition to the 55% wanting an ongoing interaction, 89% of respondents said they would feel more loyal to a brand if they were invited to take part in a feedback group.

A more recent study in 2009 (you can download here) found that 85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media universe. What’s even more interesting is that those users actually want interaction with these brands. Here are some other data points you mind find useful:

Out of the 85% of people who want companies to be present in social media:

• 34% want companies to actively interact with them
• 51% want companies to interact with them as needed or by request
• 8% think companies should only be passively involved on social media
• 7% think companies should not be involved at all

This survey alone tells me that marketers should pay a little more attention to their customers and less on spitting out traditional one way messages.

Hat tip to Ray Hartjen (twitter/blog), my previous boss at Sony for reminded me about the Fish! Philosophy. Ahh yes, so what is the Fish! Philosophy you ask. Well, it’s actually a pretty cool book. It’s an easy read and it’s inexpensive; but the lessons learned are valuable and can be applied to building strong communities. The FISH! Philosophy includes four very simple, interconnected practices:

Be There is being emotionally present for people. It’s a powerful message of respect that improves communication and strengthens relationships.

Play taps into your natural way of being creative, enthusiastic and having fun. Play is the spirit that drives the curious mind, as in “Let’s play with that idea!” It’s a mindset you can bring to everything you do.

Make Their Day is finding simple ways to serve or delight people in a meaningful, memorable way. It’s about contributing to someone else’s life, not because you want something out of it, but because that’s the person you want to be.

Choose Your Attitude means taking responsibility for how you respond to what life throws at you. Once you are aware that your choice impacts everyone around you, you can ask yourself, “Is my attitude helping my team or my customers? Is it helping me to be the person I want to be?”

Building a successful community is more than just being transparent or authentic. Yes, these are two very important virtues but in order for a brand to make any impact at all in the social web, they have to be believable. That means “being there” and learning, listening and having real life conversations with people (some call them customers). It means being able to “play” and have fun with the people that you care about and that also care about you. It means “making their day” or I would prefer to say “delighting your customers”. There are numerous ways you can delight your customers and it could start with simply saying thank you publicly. “Choose your attitude” is a no brainer. Be positive and outgoing; attitudes like that have a tendency of rubbing off on others and when your customers are happy, you will stay happy.

Another way to think about it is what I have written on my linkedin profile which I try and live by daily:

I believe that marketing is good; and if you love your customers they’ll love you back and tell others about it. I believe that business results are critical but should not be the driving force behind connecting with people. I believe in being real, authentic and human. I believe that consumers are real people with real passions. Let’s start treating them that way.

Relationships are hard, just ask my wife. There will be ups and downs and pokes along the way. Your customers will not always be happy with the decisions that you make. But if you have invested time and energy nurturing the community, that level of trust will never be broken. So when you say, “hey customer, you have to try this new XYZ product. It’s awesome and you will love wearing it” … well, your customers will be listening, just may believe you and then maybe, just maybe go out and buy one.

At the core, social media is about a direct relationship-conversation-engagement-dialogue-poke-nudge-reciprocal-follow between a brand and a consumer. In my mind which has been wrong many times, community management serves as the execution arm of social media in most cases. I am probably oversimplifying it a bit but I think you catch my drift.

There are several other job functions that also fit beneath the social media center of responsibility. Here is the way I see it:

Social Media Strategist: This person is responsible for defining a global strategy which includes training, corporate blogs, community applications & capabilities, Youtube, etc.  They are responsible for providing guidance to other marketing groups and geographies; specifically to managers who wish to employ a social media program or initiative. They may help execute in some cases.

Community Manager: A community manager usually manages an editorial calendar for a blog/community, a twitter account and various third party social channels. They may also be responsible for managing a social listening platform like Radian6 and filtering/assigning conversations to others in the business unit. Sometimes they may even organize in person events (or Townhalls) to get feedback from the community. They are the face of the brand.  Conversations are at the core of their job responsibility.

Social Media Manager: This is a hybrid role; and may define strategy as well as execute. They own marketing campaigns and probably manage an agency or vendor.  They may also be in charge of buying media within social media channels like Facebook, Digg, etc. They may work closely with community managers to leverage/integrate the conversational elements into each campaign.

Public Relations: In many organizations, PR serves as a pivotal role in social media. They usually blog and use twitter. They also have relationships with external bloggers; and may attempt to seed stories to influencers.

Social Media Metrics: I don’t know what an official title would be; but this person would be responsible for defining a social media metrics framework (both on and off domain) and reporting the results back up to management. They may even make specific, data driven recommendations about a given campaign. In some organizations, metrics may be the responsibility of any of the above positions.

Legal: Usually a lawyer, duh; but the responsibilities of one working to support social media would involve keeping up to date with FTC guidelines related to blogging and user generated content. They may also read/review terms and conditions when employing social media capabilities on a corporate domain.

Privacy/Security: This position is vital and they usually work closely with legal.  At Yahoo!, we called them the Paranoids.  They are interested in not only protecting the privacy of corporate assets, but they also ensure that marketing organizations abide by privacy laws on the Internet.

Customer Support: Depending on the size of the organization, there may or may not be a dedicated resource from the customer support group that manages social media opportunities. Essentially, the role would be to find opportunities on the web that may run a sour situation into a sweet one; and delight customers on the web.

Ad Sales: I am a little torn on this. I am not completely sure if this would be a social media position or a sales position. Nonetheless, if this person is selling ad space at Yahoo, Digg or similar site, they will need to fully understand the dynamics of the communities they represent, which would require some level of participation.

Employees: Some organizations empower their employees to participate in social media on behalf of the company. Of course, this participation is done above and beyond what their normal job responsibilities entail.

Also, in 2009 I wrote a post about how to build a social media team. Much of it is still relevant today.

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Today, Mashable highlighted a Forrester report that forecasts budget spend in social media to “grow at an annual rate of 34 percent – faster than any other form of online marketing and double the average growth rate of 17 percent for all online mediums.”

The report doesn’t go into specifics on what exactly that money will be spent on; and whether the investment will be used to talk AT the conversation, IN the conversation, or both.

Talking at the conversation is basically a media buy aimed at social media channels (i.e. Federated Media or social ads in Facebook). In this case, budget would be spent in a more traditional sense – CPM, creative and CPC in some cases.

Talking in the conversation requires human capital. In other words, hiring community managers, training them properly and empowering them to engage online is where the substantial investment would go. In my opinion, talking IN the conversation exemplifies the true essence of social media; and Twitter is a great tool that facilitates that dialogue.

Talking at the conversation should not be discounted though. Buying media in Facebook that will drive traffic to a Fan Page where community managers are ready and waiting to engage would be ideal.

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