The panel included:

• Scott Kiekbusch: Director of User Experience, Digital Influence Group (moderator)
• Janet Aronica: Community Manager, oneforty
• Zach Hofer-Shall: Analyst, Forrester
• Kathy O’Reilly: Director, Social Media Relations, Monster.com
• Ben Boardman: Marketwire and Sysomos

Some of the key takeaways from the discussion:

Your strategy around using social tools should be solidified first before assessing which tools can fulfill your needs. Developing that strategy should first involve a good deal of listening only, and using web analytics to determine where your audience is spending the most time.

When choosing tools, keep four main categories in mind: Discovery (listening and searching for your brand & competitors), Publishing (the platforms themselves: Twitter, Facebook, WordPress…), Measurement (what was your return on investment for participating?), and Database (social CRM). Some tools address some of the needs, but you likely will need a combination of tools to cover all of them.

Keep in mind that a large part of your social strategy will involve educating your internal team (more broadly, your employees). Policies should be in place to guide your team on how they should participate, rather than just what they can’t do. Employees are often your best brand advocates — identify them and make use of their talents, but also emphasize that your brand comes first (above individual personalities).

A plethora of tools were mentioned in this morning’s panel, so to quickly compile them, I’ve hand-selected the best takeaways and links to all of the tools mentioned using Storify (see below). If you are currently using any of these tools within your own group, or would like to examine them, please let us know in the comments or reach out to me directly.

[View the story "#SMCBoston / #SMB22: Evaluating Social Technologies 03/24/11" on Storify]

Image courtesy Intersection Consulting on Flickr / Creative Commons

After reading Beth Schillaci’s post this morning on the significance of followers, likers and subscribers, I was reminded of a discussion I had last week. I was consulting with a team on setting up a Twitter account for their program, and someone asked me, “How many followers should we aim for?” This is not a unique question — I hear it all the time. As a numbers girl, I LOVE to be able to provide concrete numbers that indicate success, and I wish I could say that “followers” is a solid measure of success, but it’s not. Here’s why.

Let’s break this down a bit. Grab a pen and paper (or a blank document), and answer these questions:

- In one sentence, what is the goal of your Twitter account? (e.g., I want to drive more traffic to our application form; I want to generate more interaction between our Dean of Students and the freshman class; I want to react to comments and answer questions from the campus community)

- Based on this goal, who is your target audience? (prospective students in their junior and senior year of high school; the class of 2014; undergrads and grad students, faculty, staff and influential neighbors)

- What are they most interested in hearing about? (admissions guidelines and SAT test prep; summer jobs for college students; free events around campus and the surrounding city)

Now tape that to your monitor. Be mindful of your end goal at all times. Based on these criteria, you can build a solid, meaningful presence on Twitter. Don’t worry — if you don’t know the immediate answer to question #3, go back to #2 and do your research. Follow 50 (or 20 or 100) people you’ve identified in your target audience and listen to them for a week. Talk with them; retweet what is interesting or relevant to you and your goal.

The number of followers you accumulate is nowhere to be found in these steps. As Beth points out, “I would much rather have 10 people come in my store and buy something than 100 window shoppers”.

If you want me to build your followers to 1,000 by the end of this week, I can certainly tell you how to do that, as can many other websites and “social media gurus” (for a price). Will it give you a more engaged community? Probably not. Will it bring you back to your goal and ultimately help you succeed? Probably not. Your goal should be to find your most rabid, loyal fans and get them excited about what you’re up to.

See also:

• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business (Chris Brogan)

• The Numbers Obsession (video) (Gary Vaynerchuk)

• 7 Social Media Truths You Can Ignore and Still Be Successful (Social Media Examiner)

• How Twitter increased my blog’s traffic by 300% in one week (Mack Collier)

(Image courtesy losgofres on Flickr)

Twitter in Plain English: Common Craft’s video is a perfect companion starting point to understanding the basics of Twitter. It explains the way Twitter works in “plain English”, and is a quick way to indoctrinate your team members if they ask you what Twitter’s all about.

Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers: Though I’m always cautious when someone asks me how to grow their followers the fastest (as we discussed yesterday, it’s about quality, not quantity) Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, has some great suggestions. I think the title should be “How to be more interesting on Twitter”. The article is over a year old but every point still holds true.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s Talk and Q&A at the 140 Characters Conference in April 2010: Another great video — Gary’s talk begins about 3 minutes in. His networking skills on Twitter and UStream helped Gary build his wine business into a web sensation, and helped him to get a 10-book deal with HarperCollins. Warning to sensitive souls: he has a bit of a foul mouth.

How to Run Successful Contests on Twitter: Something you might not need to focus on right at the beginning of your Twitter experiment, but once you start thinking about giveaways or other contests for your network, this information will be useful for you. Shortly, we’ll also share our experience with contests toward the end of this past school year.

Grow Bigger Ears in Ten Minutes: Chris Brogan gives some concrete steps to increase your ability to listen to what people are saying about you online — and listening is the whole point of this exercise, right? I highly recommend Chris Brogan’s blog — his thoughts on the purpose and execution of social media are spot-on.

While you’re thinking about Twitter, you also want to think about how your page will look (and tie in to the rest of your brand’s messaging and visual experience). Boston University’s Marketing & Communications group has recently created guidelines for social network icons and backgrounds.

What other articles or videos would you add to this list?