What does it mean to be the disc jockey spinning the greatest hits of your brand?

I believe any brand page on Facebook and any company account on Twitter needs a manager who knows and loves that company and its products. (When I ran social media for a Fortune 50 company, we had separate people tending Facebook and Twitter, so we could concentrate on each platform and community a little more closely.) Over time, that person can build a meaningful relationship with the fans and followers. As I've said in the past, that person can be like a disc jockey playing the greatest hits of that company. But what exactly does that mean, and what does it look like in practice?

Content, as has been said many times during the Web 2.0 craze, is king. Unique, original, bite-sized content that can be used effectively in social media channels does wonders for your brand. These are the greatest hits the disc jockey can play. Examples:

1. A How-To video on YouTube that you can embed on Facebook and link to from Twitter instructing fans on the use of your product.
2. A pithy press release (is that an oxymoron?) on your company site touting a new innovation by your company. You can quote this on Facebook and link to it from Twitter.
3. A recipe you can publish in full on Facebook.
4. Historic company photos.
5. Fun trivia related to the company.
6. Photos fans send in of themselves with their products, or testimonies of their good experiences with the company.

These small pieces of content are perfect for social media because they are easy to share and link to. A blogger can pick up the press release and write about it. A fan can share the recipe with his sister.

Here's why its important to have a DJ who knows and loves the company: An outside content manager can sound very false to loyal fans. (Imagine a country music disc jockey suddenly showing up at a dance club.) And someone from outside the company can have a specific agenda that isn't really concerned about the fans. Sharing the duties within the company can lead to territorial squabbling, and prevent the voice of the account from really establishing a style and intimacy.

And having one disc jockey who has control of the mike means someone can say, "Your song sucks," when one part of the company is pushing content that the fans won't like. This happens. One person who owns a channel comes to know her audience well, and can objectively evaluate the content you put out there. She can experiment with posting photos, discounts, trivia. She becomes an expert in how your company interacts with customers, and can consult and advise the rest of the company. This last chunk of content is important: This disc jockey is more than just a voice of your company. She's also the ears. She's in touch with the fans. And the fans aren't the only ones who should listen to her.

How many fans, followers, friends do you have? Ugh. Aren't we past that yet?

Your Facebook brand manager should be like a disc jockey spinning the company's greatest hits to an engaged audience. Not a high school kid desperate to be popular.

How many fans does your company Facebook page have? How many followers does your personal Twitter account have? Let me ask a similar question: How many kids signed your high school yearbook?

The popularity contest of social media is as inescapable, ego-based and shallow as high school social games. But I play it. I'm guessing some of you do, too.

A friend, who happens to have the most Twitter followers on any non-celebrity I know, deplores the numbers game. "Some of the most influential social/emerging media thought leaders I know have <300 followers," he tweeted recently, after we served on a social media panel together and discussed this topic. Quantity, we agreed, does not indicate quality. A big restaurant is no more likely to better than a small one. In fact, the opposite is often the case.

(It would be really nice if, someday, social media platforms gave us the option to hide our fans and followers numbers, rather than sticking them right under our pictures.)

A PR person recently reached out on LinkedIn to ask what was the minimum number of users a Facebook app would need to have in order for me to write about it. The answer is: zero. I'd love to be the first person to discover something great. Even Angry Birds had no users at one point. The key is the quality, and that's where some companies might need to do some soul searching before they pitch a story: Is it really great, or are they playing that popularity contest, and just looking for a reaction to something the company hasn't really invested in?

Quick: What's the most successful brand on Facebook? Texas Hold'em Poker with its terrifying 43 million fans? (Who, yes, get to gamble on Facebook.) Justin Bieber? Coke? Nope. They all have huge fan bases, but for real success, try a much smaller fan base. Try Audi. The carmaker's engagement is through the roof, and 10,000 likes on a post are not uncommon. (OK, so maybe that's a different numbers game. It does show engagement, however: quality rather than just quantity.) A recent study by the digital marketing analytics firm Visibli showed Audi is the most engaged big brand on Facebook. It's easy to see why: Its posts are gorgeous multi-media with rich, unique, original content. Adding that kind of content to the social media stream does wonders for representing your company.

And the Audi Facebook folks clearly know their community.

The person who runs your brand's Facebook page should be like a disc jockey spinning the company's greatest hits. That means knowing and loving the company -- and building a real bond with the fans. That means not forcing that disc jockey to play the same old song, but giving them good content. That means allowing that community to thrive in an organic way, rather than twisting or turning it to meet an artificial demand for ROI.

You know those rich, valuable conversations you have with your real friends? The talks that linger and add value to your life? Could you have that type of engagement with a huge group you don't really know, but whom you're connected with solely to pad the number of friends you have?

Build out that rich content. Add to the stream. Connect in meaningful ways.

Still need a number to work on? How's your cholesterol?

Who should win the 50 bucks in our limerick contest?

Here are the finalists in our Limerick Day contest on Twitter. The winner gets a $50 gift card from Amazon. @charlottebeer didn't hit the button on his entry, so it came in late. I say we cut him some slack.

Vote in a comment below -- or leave it up to me! (Click on image to see larger.)

There once was a blogger named Jeff

whose preferences here brought great heft

If his readers don't choose

then someone could lose

he could give the prize to himself! ; )

Vote!

Help fix ASNE social media best practices -- don't just bash on Twitter

A few days ago, the American Society of News Editors released a best practices for social media document. The reaction by journalists online was critical. In the case of some, like author and social media advocate Jeff Jarvis, the reaction was comical, but might have actually validated the charges by many old school journalists that Twitter should not be taken seriously.

But the snarky tweets, and even the more thoughtful blog posts, such as a reasoned and detailed analysis by Steve Buttry, may have overlooked a key point:

Social media is collaborative.

These were not stone tablets handed down from Mt. Sinai. We, as journalists and social media professionals, should contribute to, reshape, and help revise this document. Otherwise, we're still treating legacy media as the authority figure who lays the ground rules. Today, the conversation, ongoing and wiki in nature, is the authority. To this end, I've created a Google Doc and marked up the ASNE's original with my thoughts. I intend this as a contribution, perhaps a small one, and look forward to seeing the contributions of others. Please, rip mine up. This is a public document, but you must sign in to edit it. I would also hope the Storify docs that have sprung up could be harnessed, and social media as a whole could be used to develop these thoughts more broadly. (The irony of an essentially dead-tree model being used by the ASNE to discuss social media is not lost here.)

The ASNE's original work, penned by James Hohmann of Politico, is at times haughty, outdated, and vague. But it is also valiant, necessary, and constructive. The reactions online by many journalists, to attack like a swarm of piranha, then move on to the next victim, is not journalism or social media at its best. In this evolving time of communications, constructive collaboration is important.

Our Limerick Day contest on Twitter could win you $50

May 12 is Limerick Day. What forum on earth could be better suited for limericks than Twitter?

Yes, 140 characters is a challenge. But what's the fun of no challenge? Poetry itself is a challenge, as is writing a great tweet. After all, the great Robert Frost said writing poetry that doesn't rhyme is like "playing tennis without a net."

Ready to play tennis with a net? It's this simple:

Write a limerick on Twitter. It must include either #limerickday or @jeffelder so I will see your entry. Entries must be received by midnight Pacific time. You must retweet our original tweet announcing the contest:

Today's #LimerickDay. Lets have a contest OK? Pen top limerick tweet. And this pls RT! One $50 top prize we'll pay. http://www.jeffelder.net

I will round up the best entries and post them here Friday. With your help, we'll select one as the winner. I'll email the author a $50 Amazon gift card.

So, you better get rhyming/they say it's all in the timing/if you top #LimerickDay/our prize we will pay/& your Twitter fame will b climbing

Why you should pay for social media

Want a free T-shirt? Sure you do. Free is good. Here ya go. Put it on:

LIPOSUCTION DRIVE-THRU
Get sucked behind the wheel!

Don't worry about the message. It's a FREE T-shirt! It's a little scratchy? That's because it's a new fabric made from used cell phones. Cool, right? Oh, the shirt's a small and you're a large? Don't worry about it! You look great! And the tight fit goes great with our liposuction message. What do you want? It's a FREE T-shirt! ... Hey, would you mind walking back and forth in front of the TV camera at the boat show? ... Hello? ... HEY, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

Free is not always good. Especially when it has to do with getting your message across, your way. One size does not fit all.

The most dangerous thing about social media is that there is no barrier to entry. We were reminded of that recently when a Consumer Reports study revealed that 7.5 million Facebook users are 13 and under. Anyone can launch a Facebook page. Do you want just anyone launching yours? The nephew who "really gets this stuff"? The intern who you'll never see again after the summer? The friend of a friend who has some cool ideas you don't quite understand?

There are people who actually know what they're doing on social media, and there are tourists who wander into it. A new study by Cornell and Yahoo! shows half of all tweets are created by 20K power users. Also noted in the study, Twitter reports that it has 175 million users. Yet 90 million of those accounts have exactly zero followers. In other words, lots of people give it a shot, give up, and junk their accounts by the side of the road. Is your business's name on some of those accounts? That's the equivalent of having a dilapidated billboard on the side of town. Doesn't look good.

The accounts that do stay active can be even more dangerous. I recently contacted an NBA franchise to ask if marketing leadership knew what was being tweeted on the team's official account by a fan who'd been placed in charge of it. No one there knew the account manager was using the account to root on his favorite team in the NFL playoffs. (Sports marketing agencies will tell you that one of the main problems for the NBA is generating interest in the regular season while the NFL playoffs are going on.) This is the kind of thing that happens when you delegate your social accounts to just anyone.

This stuff is no longer "new." Social media is not where it was a year and a half ago, when return on investment was unprovable, metrics were in a nascent phase, and few communications professionals had credentials. This is a real industry now, with excellent tools, like Radian6; real measurements, like sales directed from social media platforms via Coremetrics links; and real credentials, like experience guiding companies on social, and directing campaigns for agencies.

You get what you pay for. If you want professional social media, you need to pay a professional to do it. There is a paradox (I'm biting my tongue not say "hypocrisy") among business people who simultaneously scoff that social media companies and campaigns don't make money -- and yet refuse to invest any real resources or manpower in those areas. If you want to make an omelet, you've got to break some eggs.

How do you find good, qualified social media people? Ask. We are a talkative bunch. We will tell you that here in Charlotte, longtime PR and web guy Brandon Uttley and social media search guy Roy Morejon have just launched a promising and polished digital marketing agency, that enlightened ad man Jim Mitchem runs a great virtual agency, that Dani Burns and the Social Media Charlotte crowd help to organize social expertise in this town, that the Blumenthal's social media is excellent, that WCNC meteorologist Brad Panovich is tops in media on Twitter, that Queens U. prof Mac McArthur "gets it" from the academic side, that local product Jason Keath takes his Social Fresh events national, that hardworking Genevieve Jooste does right by her clients... (I told you we were talkative.)

And we will also tell you what we think about the Charlotte-based sales guru who is suddenly making a lot of noise on social media, the digital marketing franchise using pyramid sales techniques, the social professional who poaches other people's clients out from under them, and the old-time agencies trying to act spry by adding a young person to do social.

First, take off that FREE T-shirt. Let's get you something that fits, with your message on it.

Blogwell attendees, you might not need that pricey CRM platform

I'm off to the Blogwell conference in D.C. (gamely typing this out on my iPad in the Charlotte airport), and I'm reminded that I far prefer going to a conference when I'm neither buyer nor seller. So it is today: As an independent consultant at this social media for business conference, I ain't pitchin', and I ain't catchin'. So I can be objective about what I see and hear.

Here's an objective opinion about what we're sure to see pitched today, CRM platforms -- Customer Relationship Management. I'm not a fan. Let me explain why, drawing from my experience running social for a Fortune 50, and with the use of a quick metaphor:

I recently stained a deck, and when I bought the stain, I asked the person at the store's paint counter if I should get a whiz bang roller with a cool attachment. "I wouldn't," he said. When I asked why he wouldn't get this cool-looking new product (I wanted it), he replied, "You're still going to need a brush."

That's the way it is with a cool-looking CRM platform: You're still going to need an employee with institutional knowledge about your company who can listen and respond to customers. When I ran social media for a Fortune 50 (until April, when I opted to go out on my own), I had several bad experiences with basic CRM tools, like scheduling tweets and providing standardized responses to complaints. In short, customers could tell they were spam. When we provided human responses, customers could tell that, too. When those human responses were informed, patient and attentive, the customers (who often showed up on our social accounts irate) were delighted.

We used the free version of Cotweet and native Facebook functionality (simply making our customer-service reps admins), and provided all customer relationship management with those free tools. I'm not saying CRM platforms aren't worth using. But as someone who is neither buying nor selling, I can objectively say:

You're still going to need a brush.

May 1, 1945 vs. May 1, 2011 -- How news spread of the deaths of Hitler and Bin Laden

May 1, 1945: The world learns that Adolf Hitler is dead.
May 1, 2011: The world learns that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

These must have been very different news cycles, right? After all, the news of Hitler's suicide in a Berlin bunker had no Twitter, no Facebook, not even TV for almost anyone. Whereas news of the covert operation to kill Bin Laden in a Pakistan mansion must have flown much faster, with better details and more clarity.

Wrong. What's striking in looking at these two historic stories is how similarly the news traveled. For one main reason: Twitter isn't faster than radio and they both deliver a brief headline well.

At 10:25 p.m., May 1, 2011, Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tweets the news that Osama Bin Laden is dead, setting off a chain of tweets spreading the news. CNN urges patience as the president prepares his statement, but the succinct headline "Bin Laden dead" simply outpaces the televised address. By the time the president makes his address, he is not breaking news, but making sense of it as a statesman. The following day, newspapers and their Web sites give the details, the backstories, the analysis.

At 10:30 p.m., May 1, 1945, Berlin radio announces the death of Hitler, setting off a chain of radio reports that quickly travel across the world. You can hear the first BBC announcement here. Note the BBC newsman says German radio "has just announced" that Hitler is dead. U.S. officials are wary of the unconfirmed news, and Winston Churchill is so reluctant to comment that he simply says the war situation is "definitely more satisfactory than it was this time five years ago." But in America, where Eastern time is six hours behind Berlin, radio stations broadcast the brief, immediately understandable news, which is then spread by word of mouth as Americans leave work. In the evening they gather in their living rooms to hear details on the radio. The next day newspapers, some with HITLER IS DEAD blaring over half of the front page, make the news official.

There are, no doubt, many differences in how these stories unfolded. Many did not know the details of Hitler's death for more than a month, and rumors that he was alive persisted for years. But that was in large part because of the circumstances of Hitler's death and the many aspects of the war, and not due to limitations of the media.

The brevity of the news is key here. Celebrity deaths, such as Michael Jackson's, have always been fodder for viral spikes on Twitter -- and the stuff of great radio news alerts. In the end, a news flash still is defined by the old newspaper criteria: If you can yell it in a crowded bar and the listener understands what you're talking about, it's a valid headline.

The brief news that a villain is dead travels fast, in 1945 and 2011.