What Does It Take To Be Effective In Social Media? 3 Top Performers Share Their Insights

By Andrew Ballenthin January 3, 2010 President, Sol Solutions Biography

Connect.Follow.Network.

In 2009 there was a lot of talk about social media, but how do you know if the people giving advice are competent in the field or theorists? In 2009 this blog I had the opportunity to innovate an event called Blog-Off contests. These were events that offered social media enthusiasts the opportunity to be measured and show they knew how to apply several of the fundamentals critical for social media marketing effectiveness.

This past December Blog-Off II (#BlogOff2) had participants from 6 countries. 3 professionals emerged who demonstrated statistically and qualitatively they were leaders in social media marketing. In addition to the statistics, 7 judges, with strong background in marketing and digital media, volunteered to evaluate contestant's qualitative competency. Meet 3 evaluated social media top performers (for more contest results click here):

1st Place - Sean Nelson
2nd Place - Sam Diener
3rd Place - Tim Ruffner


What Does It Take To Be Effective In Social Media?

Following is what the 3 top performers had to say about how they utilized social media marketing for securing their top positions in the contest. To learn more about their views on what they did to effectively apply fundamentals in social media marketing see online interviews and articles link.

Sean Nelson - "The results I achieved were based on tapping into what I call the 4 C's of social media; Communities, Content, Conversation and Conversion." "When it came to the contest I tapped into my networks and benefited from the credibility of the last two years." Email. Blog. LinkedIn.
 
Sam Diener - "The key to building community is to interact with your readers through your content. Content writers seem to forget that there is an actual PERSON reading their copy. You can't just talk at people... your content has to have a conversation with the reader." Email. Blog. LinkedIn.

Tim Ruffner- "...I tapped into my personal network for input on my writing skills before making it available to my industry contacts. This collaborative process helped me create even more impactful and useful content." Key social networks used included, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Delicious, Stumble Upon and YouTube. Email. Blog. LinkedIn.

While the advice may seem intuitive all 3 professionals backed up their insights with results. Following are the top 5 blogs during December 1-12, 2009. As the founder of the Community Marketing Blog I've worked with over 50 social media professionals in 2009. These numbers are within the top 5% of social media marketing results I've seen anyone produce: in addition 7 judges gave these blogs top marks for value, originality and quality.

Author	Title	Page Views	Minutes Viewed	Total Comments
Sean Nelson	The 7 Worst LinkedIn Mistakes…	6,183	6:17	107
Sam Diener	Why Twitter And LinkedIn Are So Small	2,913	4:36	117
Sam Diener	6 Things SEO Experts Won't Tell You…	2,107	5:55	106
Sean Nelson	Are You A Lion, Turtle, HoundDog…	1,930	5:09	103
Tim Ruffner	Accelerate Your Product To Market…	923	3:07	35

Audio Interviews That Dig Deeper...

Following are a series of online interviews with Blog-Off II winners and the event's founder. A number of communication professionals will be asking them tough and valuable questions on how they get their results and work with social media week to week.

Live Interview - Tuesday January 5th 12:30-1:00pm EST- Audio-video interview on ThatRadio.com conducted by Hugh Reilly. This first live interview with the event founder and contest winners will explore what the event was about why the results are important in an industry crowded with lots of experts but not necessarily a lot of business results.

Live Interview - Monday January 11th 8:00-9:00pm EST - Online audio interview with Game Changing by hosts Jim Love, Allan Hoving and Janet Fouts (see their write-up) with the event winners. The hosts of the show are exceptionally experienced professionals in digital media and will explore the insights Blog-Off II have for listeners in personal branding, community, and social media marketing.

Live Interview - Monday January 18th 9:30-10:00pm EST - Online audio interview with on BlogTalkadio.com by Conrad Hall, who is an author of several books. His current materpiece project is an upcoming compilation of leading names in social media marketing with his book Voices of Influence. Conrad explores why and how social media is highly measurable and what the significance of Blog-Off II is to the industry.

Live Interview - Monday January 18th 12:30-1:30pm EST - Online audio interview with Jon Hansen, acclaimed show host for PI Window on Business and author. Jon will be asking the contest winners about their view on the rise of citizen journalism and the value of social media brand building for businesses (see blog). The PI Windows on Business Social Media Network reaches over 1 million monthly syndicated listeners and readers.

Live Interview - Thursday January 28th 7:00-8:00pm EST - Online audio interview with Stephan Jacob Executive Producer of Voice America, Blog-Off winners and event founder, Andrew Ballenthin. They'll be talking about how social media methodology and measurements are essential for businesses to stop wasting time and start moving towards tangible results.

News Coverage - January - The Wall Street Journal This Morning - Online radio interview with Gina Cervetti and the event founder, Andrew Ballenthin. They'll be talking about what Blog-Off II means to businesses and why so many organizations aren't getting social media results. The Wall Street Journal This Morning reaches over 140 radio stations across the US. (Event link to follow) 

Video Cast Coverage - February - yourBusinessChannel.com will bring you an exciting capture of the 1st place winner's views in personal branding and how social media can help small businesses. With access to over 400 syndicated news centers yBC reaches millions of international professionals and provides them with the best advice from emerging and proven leaders. (Event link to follow)



Blog-Off II Media Mentions

Huffington Post - Greatest Hits of the Community Marketing Blog-Off - excerpts of several posts this keen eyed journalist found of interest during the event. Full article. By Lucia Brawley. December 10, 2009.

YourStory.in - see our news release from the Community Marketing Blog featured on YourStory.in  January 4th home page by Shradha Sharma, site founder and Editor in Chief. Full Article. January 4, 2010.

Technorati - Blog Off Event Gives Social Media ROI Tangible Results. "...the competitors achieved over 27,700 page views, 110 posts, 1,262 new comments (which demonstrated not just volume but quality of engagement), and a page visit time of 2 to 6 minutes. Full article. By Conrad Hall. January 4, 2010.

PR Web - Mindeliver Media Launches 5on5 Expert Blog Series "...BlogOff II Contest, successfully raised the bar to what is possible on LinkedIn. Full article. By Heidi Rataj. January 4, 2010.

Blog Critics - Social Media ROI Is For Professionals Only "Competitors from Blog-Off II have shown you can engage people in conversations through your blog. The key to being successful at it is talking about something that interests your audience." Full Article. By Conrad Hall, January 5, 2010.

Quebecor Newspapers and Online News Sites - Majority Of Social Media Ad Campaigns Fail  "...Sol Solutions, recently wrapped up a blog-off competition with a $40,000 prize purse designed to improve social media strategies among entrepreneurs." Full Article. By Stefania Moretti. January 6, 2010.

Mindeliver - Community Building, Branding and the Winners of BlogOff 2 "What I think is so exciting about this contest is the community building it generated and how the prizes were donated mostly through the LinkedIn community." Full Article. By Tami Magaro. January 6, 2010.

Marketing Vox - 8 Tips for Hiring a Social Media Expert "That point was driven home last December when Ballenthin put together Blog-Off II, a 12-day, seven-judge contest to test participants' qualitative and quantitative effectiveness in social media marketing fundamentals." Full Article. By Erika Morphy. January 19, 2010.

The Yaffe Group - Here's One Way to Find a Social Media Marketing Expert "But how can you tell if an expert truly knows what he or she is talking about...  Finding out who really knows their stuff and is capable of creating measurable ROI was the idea behind Blog Off II - a contest that pitted bloggers against each other for 12 days in December." Full Article. By Mike McClure. January 19, 2010

Comments

[mlm companies]

Great information about marketing thanks for share it.

[Custom Social Networking Software]

Great post! The audio interviews were fantastic, it's always nice to "hear" how different a blogger sounds than the way you have "heard" their voice in your head.

[JackSheppardio]

Who knows where can I download desktop virtual girls from here - VirtuagirlHD for free?? Is it possible? I've heard it is.

[Andrew Ballenthin]

Hi Catherine, that's a great point and I agree whole heartedly. I' have caveat that shifts the metrics and "response rate" - it's loyatly/engagement. The greater the loyalty to a social media leader, the more dramatic the response rate and engagement in the call to action. The price to get there is the cost of developing human relationships, valuable content, relevance, effective distribution channels and more. The pay-off rewards the organization depending on the goals they were seeking which often include brand loyalty, customer retention, referrals, publicity, SEO optimization, etc.

[Catherine McQuaid]

What does it take to be effective using Social Media?

This is the $million question and exercises like Andrew Ballenthin's Blog-Off are helping answer it.

What I observed is the usual ratios of attention to action that marketers are always trying to boost. If 1 in a hundred leave a comment and 10 out of a hundred respond to an invitation to take a look at something, reaching large audiences is still the name of the marketing game, no matter how dedicated fans might be.

Economics of Attention is one of the laws of the web.

[Sue Leonard]

This contest was a great experience, and the winners have a clear command of using e-marketing in the most effective manner. The contest was well run, and Andrew Ballenthin was so responsive to my questions as a participant.