But what if your audience is exclusively retail sales reps? B2B influencers like these are notoriously difficult to reach, and the time and effort it takes to build a community for this specialized audience is orders of magnitude above average.

Still, major brands including Microsoft and Sony Ericsson have succeeded in this tricky space, creating innovative social initiatives specifically focused on sales reps. How? By answering a few key questions:

• How do you build a social funnel to attract an audience that is essentially invisible?
• What are the resources needed to build and maintain a vibrant branded community?
• Which levers motivate a community to do the things you care about?
• How do you connect online community with critical in-person experiences?
• How do you measure and prove the value of the community program you’ve built?

Want to learn more? We need your help to make it possible at SXSW 2012! Head over to the SXSW website today and vote for my panel: http://bit.ly/qjiRPS. I’ll be joined by Bill Bush, marketing manager at Microsoft, and Dan Short, CMD’s director of analytics, as we discuss the answers to these and other key concerns for anyone who’s working in the B2B community space.

But first, the rules

Over the years I’ve developed a bunch of loose rules to follow when I’m doing “outreach,” also known as “posting links to stuff on the Web.” I recently broke one of those rules and that’s what prompted this post. So here they are:

1. Invest in the community. Posting “cold” on a community you’ve never taken part in is commonplace for marketers, but it makes sense do more, and try to participate in a community—especially the ones that are most important to you and your client. That means posting and building up a legitimate history you can point to in case people ever accuse you of being a worthless shill.
   

   The typical forum response to anything posted by marketers

2. The first sentence of your post should state your name and what your intentions are. Example: “Hi, I’m Erik Sebellin-Ross and I’m posting here on behalf of my client, Acme Ink Company, because I think people in this forum might find our newest pen of interest.”
3. No bullshit. If you don’t know the answer, say so and try to get it. If getting an answer is really difficult or not feasible, be honest about it and don’t set expectations you can’t meet.
4. Subtlety is best. The link to your news/product/service should be buried underneath things of genuine value to the community, if you can get away with it. This balances the negative (shilling something is perceived as negative no matter what you do) with the positive (things that are genuinely interesting).
5. Know the rules of the community where you’re posting. This one is really tough to keep track of.

So what rule did you break, Erik?

I broke number five. I was posting on a forum that I’ve been a regular member of for two years—won’t name it because doing so usually brings the wrath of the gods of the internets upon the discloser—about my wife’s new Kindle book. I was immensely proud and knew people on this forum would get a kick out of it. But I couldn’t leave well-enough alone. Instead of just a plain old post, I made it a Q&A. I’d field the questions and respond to them with her answers. And that’s where I fell afoul of the rules—you can’t “share an account” on this forum, and a moderator not only banned me, he also deleted my thread, which was going pretty darn well and had served to generate some sales in a short period of time.

Thus ended two years of work on my behalf nurturing this account. It also deprived me of my history with a community I genuinely enjoyed taking part in and had gotten great results from marketing to in the past. Yes, I could create a new account anytime, but my cachet was gone.

What’s the lesson?

If you’re participating within a community, the rules typically aren’t a big deal. Odds are you’re taking part in threads that others have started and you run no risk of being banned unless you are trolling, or post something offensive, etc. Common sense is a good-enough guide.

But when you’re proactively initiating something with a community—starting a new thread—it pays to go through my list and make sure everything is kosher. And, when in doubt, contact an admin or mod for permission.

New page, new possibilities

A few ways Facebook’s changes have improved the brand and user experience:

• Custom tabs with iframes allow brands to streamline content and pass data directly to a hosting or analytics service. This is a big one, I’ll explain later.
• Admins can set and receive alerts based on fan activity and engagement.
• Brand page layouts are now similar to personal pages—five photos on the top and tabs on the left.
• Both fans and administrators have new filters for the wall that help prioritize wall content.
• Admins can now represent their page when interacting with other pages.

Which Facebook changes will have the biggest impact on marketers?

1. iframes, additional analytics and opportunities to serve up highly interactive content make custom tabs even hotter. With iframes, marketers can deliver more target—based on the user’s location and referral source—and more engaging content than ever before. Add Google Analytics to any tab for a deeper understanding of how users are interacting with its content.
2. The ability to comment or like other pages as your brand page leads to a larger potential audience. As part of your Facebook strategy, consider creating a program of interaction, where you post with your page identity to related pages and groups as a member of the community. By contributing positively, you’re likely to draw potential fans back to your page.

Bonus Facebook Tips!

• Not all likes are created equal. Just because someone likes you doesn’t mean they’ll consistently see your updates and posts. Facebook uses a complex algorithm to display posts on news feeds. Ongoing engagement with followers is critical to get value from your likes.
• Facebook ads are easy to manage, and with careful messaging and targeting can be very effective at drawing people to your page or your website.
• Post questions, activities and cool content. Try to put some type of link in your wall posts. The more interaction the fan has with your posts, the better.
• Facebook likes are now crawled by Bing. Your search results are likely to be influenced by what people are saying about you on Facebook. Here’s a peek at CMD on Bing:

How are some of your favorite brands using the new Facebook page design? What innovative ways are you using it? Tell us in comments.

It was also about social media with a good helping of marketing thrown in. Most of the panels I attended were valuable and the ones that weren’t had one thing in common—the panelists talked about things that were not on topic. #protip: stay on topic.

I can’t cover every fantastic panel I saw, but I want you to promise me that if you ever have a chance to see Kris Krug speak on photography, you will run, not walk, to whatever room he’s in. Promise me.

The panel I do want to highlight was “Ethics and Social Media.” Brandon Eley, Jason Baer, Jeremy Wright and Patrick O’Keefe rocked this thing. My favorite takeaways involved building relationships with bloggers and the permission bloggers and social media users are granting or not.

The panelists encouraged the audience to be mindful of the power of symmetry of relationships and the social friendship scale. Social media is opt-in and once it’s not, the power becomes asymmetrical and you wind up with an unhappy blogger.

The social friendship scale is a process by which we think connecting is okay. First we @reply someone on Twitter, then connect on LinkedIn, then finally on Facebook. If we leapfrog over these steps, we do so at our own risk.

Forums, message boards and groups were also a hot topic. They seem a bit like shooting fish in a barrel for a PR person. “Look! A whole group of people talking about something my client profits from!” But groups and message boards are essentially a dinner party, not a candle party or Tupperware Party or a Naked Lady Party. They’re places for people to meet up and communicate without being hawked a candle, plastic container or old clothes.

Patrick O’Keefe gave the audience Patrick’s Pyramid of Permission for approaching communities.

Step 1: Observe community norms

Step 2: Read community guidelines

Step 3: Ask staff for permission to post or for clarification

He said that we should always reach out to the community manager before posting. When we do that, we build up social credit with the manager.

The panel wrapped up with the five characteristics of ethical social media marketing.

1)      Always disclose

2)      Be honest

3)      Get permission

4)      Use only the data you need

5)      Respect the space you’re in

We’re in PR because we thrive on the thrill of the kill—grabbing that big hit before the next guy does. And these tips are a great reminder that social media is still about humans talking to other humans. Not humans talking about our clients. Even though we really, really want them to.

Turns out, there was a lot of great stuff that I hadn’t seen on my feeds. Now I’ll share it with you in hopes of widening your news feed view for the week, too!

• A rant from Seth Godin about those of us who are deliberately uninformed. Sherman Andrus, an account director at CMD, thinks Godin should rant more often.
• From Erik Sebellin-Ross: A great article from The Daily Beast about an experiment to determine how Facebook decides what updates you see from friends. Now this is good stuff!
• The interwebs are all abuzz with Sears’ Zombie Halloween promotion and it’s certainly on the radar of Michael Fofrich, a CMD graphic designer.
• A post from TechCrunch on the first Foursquare check-in from outer space caught the attention of Sarah Biedak. For Sarah, this Foursquare example further solidifies the idea that location-based apps can be great tools for both traditional and guerilla marketing tactics.
• Darcie Meihoff shared a New York Times article about the growing popularity of blogging tools like Tumblr and Posterous. I have to say, I’m a pretty big fan of Posterous.

Did I miss anything? Add to my list if something else recently caught your attention.

To get the inside scoop on some recent CMD video activity, I caught up with Associate Creative Director John O’Connell, who shared two recent projects with me that show the breadth of ideas that come out of the agency, and how clients are wanting their creative content to reach audiences in nontraditional locations.

Let me recap the spots briefly before jumping into some deeper insight:

1. For Microsoft’s Zune HD initiative, CMD produced a commercial that is shown on all United Airlines international flights on seatback and main cabin monitors. The campaign includes a print ad running in United’s Hemispheres magazine.

“The spot works well with or without sound and conveys the product message regardless of a viewer’s native language,” said O’Connell.  “The commercial was shot on a RED camera and the goal was to show the Zune’s main features in a vibrant, stylish format and demonstrate that the product is a premium portable entertainment experience.”

You can see the spot here: http://preview.cmdpdx.com/video/Other/Zune_HD_Footage/index.html

What really amazed me is that the time from concept to completion for the Zune HD commercial was only six weeks.

2. A recent spot for ASUS running in movie theatres visually tells a story about the product’s clean lines, and the music is pretty powerful, drawing the viewer in. Shot in Portland, the bamboo theme is simple, understated, and relevant with today’s environmental messages.

Bamboo was part of a larger campaign created through a joint marketing program and was leveraged through online banners, a microsite, YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Watch the ASUS video here: http://preview.cmdpdx.com/video/Other/ASUS_BAMBOO/index.html

So what makes a good commercial these days? Here’s what the video experts at CMD are seeing in the industry:

• High production quality: DIY video is so prevalent on the web, particularly on YouTube, that standing out from the crowd today requires top-level quality.
• Quick: Traditional 30-second spots still are the #1 format to capture the viewer’s attention, get the point across, and tout a call-to-action.
• Unique channels: Clients are exploring new ways to reach audiences using commercials that are nontraditional. Cinema and airline advertising are just two examples.
• Affordable: Everyone is watching budgets; commercials don’t have to be expensive to be good.
• Multipurpose: Quality commercials can do more than double-duty when their use is extended as fresh content on social media channels, websites, and at trade shows.

What do you think?

We really want to emphasize taking a fresh look at your resume and ensuring it communicates what you do, and perhaps more importantly, who you are. Your accomplishments and identity simply need to jump off the page at hiring managers if you want yours to stand out among the flood of cover letters.

Here are a few choice examples, taken from real-life resumes that have passed through my inbox.

“… experience including writing, content creation, media outreach”

OK, that’s a good start describing the basic skills that I may be seeking for a job opening, but I really want to know what the outcomes and successes have been as a result of doing these things in the business world, or in blogging life. Here’s what catches my eye a bit more:

“Writing for client pitches in a variety of voices from a ‘playah’ to a women’s rights activist.”

Now that tells me this is a skilled writer who can research and adopt the appropriate tone for various target audiences and then get down to the business of networking with them online. What would make this event stronger would be to articulate the outcome, such as, “secured a client interview with top-tier blogger reaching an audience of thousands.”

Here’s another example of going beyond “event planning.”

“Grew audience from a forty-person gathering in a crépe shop to sold-out theater crowds.”

Now that, I like. Who doesn’t want to bring on a team member with this kind of gumption? This is also the type of detail that helps you get the interview and builds up an identity–the perception of who you are–prior to that interview taking place.

Do you need a translation service for your resume? If you have a quick description that needs a brushup, post it in the comments below and we’ll throw you a few thoughts by return.

The amount of product giveaway at BlogHer is somewhat obscene–you should have seen the women vying for the chance to take home the Toy Story Mr. Potato Head toys!

So when 2,000+ women bloggers come together for the annual BlogHer conference, what are brands doing to stand out in the crowd, attract attention and tap into bloggers’ collective online influence? Check out these examples of a few of the brands and event sponsors that stood out to me:

Shine from Yahoo! – The Shine booth was a nice example of gathering user-generated content from an event. They asked women to share their story of reinvention–be it a new career, weight loss, love, etc. Women who had compelling stories were selected to tape video interviews complete with hair and makeup pampering. The videos were not only uploaded to Shine, but also were available to the bloggers to embed on their own blogs. I noticed a few other brands, including Walmart, used similar concepts.

Chevy Volt – Just like at SXSW, Chevy Volt sponsored the event’s Internet Cafe, a place where bloggers could charge up their laptops, netbooks and smart phones in between conference sessions. I thought this was a great example of connecting the brand to its key messaging while also serving as an excellent conversation starter among the spokespersons and bloggers in the room.

Ubisoft Just Dance 2 – Standing out in the crowd can be challenging, but it’s much easier to do when the crowd is at your booth! Ubisoft set up a stage for a dance-off to showcase their new Wii game, Just Dance 2. This served as an excellent product trial experience not only for users, but for the many spectators, too.

White House | Black Market – At an event like this, the value of swag cannot be overlooked. And the swag bags from White House | Black Market were seen everywhere! So much so that event attendees were using these bags more than the tote bags provided by the conference itself. It’s the high school clique mentality here–if the cool kids have the cool stuff, everyone else wants it too.

P&G – The “booth” for P&G was actually a 1500-square-foot house (larger than my apartment!) built on the show floor with each room showcasing a different household product. There was a lot going on in this house … product giveaways, contests and more. Despite the cool factor of this display, the product messaging from each room was lost on me by the time I left the booth.

The relationship protocol between bloggers and brands is still being defined, and questions abound regarding these cultural rules as the relationships between the two evolve. But for now it’s clear that brands are taking full advantage of getting their products in the hands of the stereotyped mommy bloggers.

As @juliey and I gear up for our Wordcamp Portland presentation in September, we’re focusing equally on the quality of our information and the quality of our presentation. Here are some tips we’re keeping in mind as we prepare:

1)      Dump the notes.

Granted, reading notes is a great way to avoid the audience, but it does not make for a dynamic speaker. If you must have notes, just write out a few bullet points and leave that paper on the podium.

2)      Know your ending.

The worst thing a speaker can do is go on too long. Know where you’re going to end, and end it there.

3)      End before the time limit.

See above.

4)      If you mess up, say, “Oh, I messed up.” Or, “I forgot to tell you this.”

The audience wants you to be human. Even though you’re the expert, they still want you to be real. They want a connection. Nothing makes you seem more human than humility.

5)      Listen to the audience.

Pay attention not just to what they’re saying, but also how they’re acting. Are they shifting in their seats? Gathering up papers? Chatting to one another? These are all signs that you’ve lost them. Time to change tacks. Try asking for questions or begin wrapping up.

6)      Have fun.

Smile, relax and enjoy yourself and the audience.

Are you ready to get on the mic? If so, leave a comment and let us know some of your favorite speaking tips or some great speaking opportunities in your community.

Here in Portland, we have some terrific opportunities for users of social media to meet up. My favorite is the weekly Beer and Blog that happens every Friday from 4 to 6 at the Green Dragon. This ostensibly began as an opportunity for people to get help with their blogs, but it’s transitioned into a group of people getting together and chatting. They have guest speakers and often people sponsor that day’s beer and french fries (bless those fine people). New people are always welcome and for old-timers like me, it’s a great place to catch up with friends.

We also have Ignite Portland, and any number of un-conference-camp camps. The faces become familiar, and over time, the people walking into these events must feel like Norm felt walking into Cheers.

People aren’t using social media just to meet casual friends. According to Marta Kagan’s deck, What the F**k is Social Media NOW?, one in six marriages last year were between people who met through social media. Conversely, the London Telegraph says that one in five petitions for divorce cited Facebook. Social media hath given, social media hath taken away.

I love the variety of people you can meet through social media. As a kid growing up in San Diego, I listened to radio station 91X. Robin Roth was the voice of 91X and my personal hero. While helping a client grow his Twitter following, I stumbled upon Robin’s Twitter profile, added her as my friend and before I knew it, we were making plans to hang out when she comes to Portland. Robin Roth was the closest thing San Diego had to Siouxsie Sioux. I still freak out when Robin @replies me.

As social media becomes more prevalent, our personal and professional networks will expand. We’ll have the opportunity to meet more people, make more friends and broaden our own interests.

Oh, and get married. Though I’m not married yet, when the day happens for my boyfriend and me, we’ll comfortably fit into that one in six that Kagan’s talking about. Thanks, Twitter!

What about you? What real life relationships have happened thanks to social media?