• “Lots of followers” doesn’t necessarily equal “lots of engagement.” The list of the top 100 most-followed brands differs quite a bit from the list of the 25 most-engaged brands.
• “Posting a lot” doesn’t necessarily equal “lots of engagement,” either. The 25 brands with the greatest volume of tweets were not the same as the 25 most-engaged brands.
• What does lead to lots of engagement? Posting consistently. The two brands with the most consistent volume of content, #1 Notebook of Love and #2 Disneywords, were also the two most-engaged brands.
• Another factor in engagement is the type of content you tweet. Visuals rule the day here: more than three-fourths of the most-engaged brands’ content was photos. The second most popular type of content? Videos. Links and status updates made up a miniscule portion of their tweets.
• The day that the most-engaged brands were most likely to tweet was Wednesday, and the time of day when they were most likely to tweet was 4 p.m.

What do these findings mean to you? Should you start tweeting Wednesdays at 4 p.m. religiously? Not necessarily. What works on Twitter varies depending on your industry. However, this report provides lots of data you can use to compare yourself to your competition. In fact, if you go to smo.infinigraph.com, you can look up competitors in your industry and run a report to see what they’re doing on Twitter.

Ask yourself:

• What kinds of content are they tweeting, retweeting and sharing?
• What kinds of responses are they getting?
• How are they responding to followers’ tweets?
• What are they doing that you’re not doing?

As with most things in life, it’s not the quantity but the quality that counts. A well-planned, well-executed Twitter strategy works better than throwing a ton of tweets out in a frantic effort to be heard above the noise.

Part of quality is consistency. Your followers need to know what to expect, and that they can rely on you. Have you ever followed a Twitterer who started out strong and then disappeared? It’s better to start small and build from there than to start with a volume of tweets that you can’t maintain.

Keep in mind, too, that what works on Twitter will change over time, so following your competition and learning from what they do is the best way to stay on top of trends—and to modify your strategy so you can continue to grow your customer engagement.

What can you learn from the most engaged brands on Twitter? How can you improve your social media strategy to more successfully engage your customers?

This of course plays into the fears of executives who do not understand the value of social media nor its place in our modern society. “We can’t respond to them,” I hear executives declare. “If we do, we’ll invite more complaints and questions,” they’ll contend in defense of their position.

This isn’t as uncommon as you might think. I recently presented at a corporate conference where I received a question from someone in the C-Suite that gave me pause. The question went something like this, “Customers will complain on social media because it’s a natural thing to do. We know more people will say negative things than they will share positive experiences. What’s a company to do? What’s the point? How do we change behavior?”

The future of branding is shared experiences

The reality is that people will share their experiences at every step of the customer journey and throughout the customer lifecycle. In every moment of truth, touch points open and close and it is what they ask and find in each moments that decides the fate of their decision and your place within it. Among connected customers, websites may or may not play a role in providing guidance to prospects or resolution to existing customers. What will factor into every moment of truth however are the shared experiences of their peers and those who appear in blogs, review sites, communities, YouTube, and in the responses during real-time engagement across social networks and customer-facing apps.

The expressions that come back in those moments represent the real world, and they’re only amplifying in volume and magnitude. See, those experiences don’t disappear. They stay online forming a collective repository where expressions shape impressions. People trust experiences of their peers, whether good or bad, and without your engagement, you are the victim of a digital game of grapevine. Perception is reality. This is why now is the time to take part in shaping the experiences your want people to have and share. And, that takes an investment.

So how do we change behavior?

It starts by changing our behavior first.

Become the change you wish to see

Customers don’t’ see the roles and functions that define a business. They see one brand and therefore everyone who touches the customer must work together to deliver a consistent experience. When it comes to social media, customers are for the most part, only getting a glimpse of the brand, usually the lens of the marketing or communications department. This assumes that customers only want to connect for marketing or entertainment purposes. When you consider the multiple dimensions of the customer lifecycle and the expectations in each moment of truth, businesses are rather antisocial in their social media approach. It’s rather absurd that businesses think that social media is yet another channel for traditional marketing guised in a social promise of engagement and transparency.

Changing behavior takes understanding

We know that customers take to social media to share experiences for a variety of reasons:

• Because they can.
• Becase it’s cathartic and validating.
• Because social media tests and rebuilds relationships.

So if companies aren’t investing in cultivating positive experiences, they are by default investing the active exchange of grievances and speculation.

According to a recent report published by SimplyMeasured, almost 99 percent of businesses in the Interbrand Top 100 Brands maintain a social media presence on Twitter. Yet, only 30 percent have a dedicated customer service handle.

Among the top 10 brands as measured by engagement, with dedicated customer service handles, response times ranged from 40 minutes to 20 hours.

Yes it’s a new expense. Yes it’s different. But we know that it works. Improving the quality and quantity of “word of mouth” starts with changing perceptions. Martiz and Evolve24 found that when people seeking help or expression discontent were engaged on Twitter by the brand, 32 percent and 51.5 percent loved it or liked it respectively. Of course they did! And you know what? It changed how they feel in that moment and over time.

A Risk-averse leadership leads to a complacent market

Does engaging customers on Twitter invite more complaints? Hardly. Research shows that people take to social networks to vent because their attempts at seeking resolution through traditional channels already failed. People are seeking solutions; if not from you, from anyone.

Shared experiences are powerful and they don’t always have to be negative. The solution is positive reinforcement or positive conditioning. People are busy. They ask questions or voice frustration in the moment because there’s usually something in it for them. The same could be true for positive reinforcement. If you want people to share their honest experiences, and you believe them to be true, then you must proactively foster the behavior you wish to see.

Positive reinforcement applies rewards to induce or encourage desired behavior. To work, it must be individualized and then promoted to greater audiences to demonstrate your good work.

Earning good “carma”

When Ford launched its 2013 Fusion, it understood that people would share both praise and displeasure. However, the company believed that in order to incite social acclaim and positive experiences, it would need to proactively invite and reward the desired behavior. To do so, Ford introduced “Random Acts of Fusion” to thank fans for essentially saying nice things.

From customized “thank you” baskets to pop-up car washes to test drives to having comedian Reggie Watts remix customer Tweets, Ford was loud and clear in its intentions. As evidenced by its hashtag, #backatyou, people were at the center of this campaign and reciprocity was the takeaway. Ford’s random acts of kindness weren’t really random at all. Everything was not only cleverly planned but also promoted across social media far and wide. The company found that in addition to expanded reach and priceless PR as a result, positive conditioning works. And over time, Ford’s continued investment in positive engagement will eventually contribute to a more meaningful, co-created brand where people and their experiences define what the blue oval means to them and their peers.

Behavior change is just the beginning. If you want people to share positive experiences and accolades, you have to intentionally invite and reward them to do so. Additionally you must alter the negative experiences of those in need. The old adage, you reap the seeds you sow, has never been truer. In a social economy, happy customers will tell a few, and unhappy customers will tell thousands. It’s up to you, your imagination, and your intentions to shift the balance and change the equation to your benefit now and over time.

The future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created. #backatyou

In each network, and across multiple social streams, you’re fed a visual buffet of travel, food, fashion, and celebrations. In assemblage, they tell the story of life well lived, or at least a life well curated. At the center of each of these experiences is the person living and sharing them in real time.  Every day that passes, it seems that a growing network of our friends, family, and colleagues are charmed with this picturesque life.

But who are we kidding? We described those in our social networks, but we might as well be talking about ourselves.  It’s a social world after all, and shared experiences are the epicenter of a growing majority of engagement. As such, we’re introduced to a new law of social physics, if you will, where for every action there is an equal or greater reaction. The truth is that social sharing is part self-expression and also part provocation. People share to communicate who they are or who they want to be, while concurrently hoping to incite a reaction that validates or substantiates their intended online persona.

This phenomenon may seem like a personal discussion, but I can assure you that it has everything to do with your business.

I’d like to officially introduce you to your connected customer. I believe it’s about time we get to know the connected set to better understand how to engage them in social and mobile networks now and throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

It’s all about you and me…but mostly me

If you’re reading this, then you’re most likely the very person you’re trying to reach. You’re connected, always on, unabashedly multitasking, and living across multiple screens each and every day. You live a digital lifestyle and without realizing it, you and others like you, are gradually exhibiting slivers of narcissism. Believe me, I say this with the utmost discretion. You can’t help it of course. These networks prompt you to share your world, your way, all day, every day. And each time we do, we contribute to our “egosystem,” where we are the center of our own digital universe. Experiences and engagement represent the orbits that bring us together.

Let’s visit planet Facebook and its orbiting moon Instagram for a moment. Facebook is now home to over one billion digital denizens. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly about 12 percent of planet Earth. Instagram is a fledgling digital society in its own right. At 100 million residents and counting, a culture of sharing one’s experiences is further enhanced by the ability to instantly enhance them with a creative filter, broadcast them across multiple networks, and earn the attention and reaction of a boundless and seemingly idle audience.

The question is, if everyone is busy sharing content, then who is consuming it? This is also the law of social attraction. It’s a reciprocal relationship where to earn reactions, one must equally or progressively react. How do you do that if the real-time web moves in real-time?

The age of prevalence

Understanding digital behavior has never known greater importance. As it evolves,  we need to appreciate its velocity and impact. For example, on Facebook, conversations lose momentum in an hour, give or take. The reason for this is because people consume until they create. As they create, expectations shift as characteristics of narcissism take over. What about Instagram? Allow me to share some revealing behavioral stats that will make you say “Wow.”

Statigram is a third-party tool that tracks activity on Instagram. According to a fascinating article in pdn (Photo District News) written by Kathleen Hay, Statigram tracked the number of photos tagged “selfie,” social slang for self-portrait (yes, that’s a thing.) At 11 p.m. PST on December 28, 2012, the number of selfies numbered at a noteworthy 5.5 million. The egosystem wouldn’t be the same without the “me” in social media. At the same time, photos tagged ‘me’ completely eclipsed “selfie” with a staggering 72.6 million self-portraits. Added together, you start to get the picture of just how prominent the egosystem is becoming.

In the article, Hay introduces us to Dr. Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology and author of Generation Me and co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. The titles alone convey that connected consumerism is nothing like the conventional customers you once knew. To better understand the crux of selfies and the digital “me,” Twenge explains that at the core of narcissism is this invention or aspiration that people are better or more important than in reality. In the digital realm however, perception is reality.

Agree or disagree, this is your connected customer. And in many ways, you and those you know are among them.

How can you re-imagine your engagement strategies to align with and inspire the “me” in social media? How does — or how can — your brand evoke an experience that elicits self-expression? And how will your brand become part of the egosystem and create a gravitational pull for others to orbit?

Brian Solis is the author of the book, The End of Business as Usual. He is also a principal analyst at Altimeter Group. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.

This perception needs to change. For many small business owners, social media is still largely an unknown quantity. Here are a few basic reasons that businesses of every size should invest their marketing resources in social media.

Five reasons social media marketing is important

1. It’s cheap.

Ultimately, the concern of all small businesses is getting the most bang for their marketing buck. Depending on how you approach it and what platforms you use, marketing through social media will either be free or very cheap. The biggest expense, at least initially, is likely to be time. Establishing a social presence doesn’t happen overnight, but it can create a wealth of opportunities for your business once it gets rolling.

2. It builds community.

Much more so than large, nationally recognized companies, small- to mid-size businesses are often deeply connected to the communities in which they’re located. Consumers like to add local businesses to their social media feeds, and platforms like Facebook continue to make it easier to filter news feed results by location-based criteria.

3. It expands your reach.

While your primary consumer base will inevitably be close by, social media offers ways for any business to broaden its borders and sell its products in the online marketplace. In social media, your community members double as your brand ambassadors. All they have to do is share some kind words about one of your products, and all of a sudden, you’re getting interest everywhere from Albuquerque to Dubuque.

4. It builds thought leadership.

One primary duty of businesses using social media marketing is sharing relevant content. Part of this process involves passing along useful content from others in your field, and part of it means creating your own content, whether it’s a blog, video, podcast, etc. By constantly sharing information, you will demonstrate that you are aware of the trends in your industry, connected to other important minds within that industry, and contributing new ideas to the conversation.

5. It gives customers a voice.

Every business owner at one time or another wants to know what their customers think of their company. Aside from things like surveys and comment cards, however, small businesses didn’t really have an affordable option to get customer feedback. Your customers will freely volunteer details of their experience through social channels—often without even being prompted. Sometimes negative feedback will sprout up as a result of this process, but the good news is that you will have a direct line to your customer to try and sort the issue out.

Is your small-to mid-size business engaging customers on social media? Share your experiences in the comments.

Cheryl Burgess (@ckburgess) is a digital and social brand consultant, blogger, and speaker. Her knowledge of business strategy, passion for creative expression, and marketing technology helps businesses achieve the remarkable. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.

On Monday morning, we arrived at the bottom of Heartbreak Hill (roughly 5 miles from the finish line) to watch Kendra run the home stretch. Two members of our party were in the VIP stands at the finish line. We were all receiving official text messages alerting us as to her progress every 7 miles or so.  We also exchanged our own. I was surprised at how mobile communications not only kept us in touch with friends, but also took the guess work out of finding our runner in the crowd.

Meanwhile, Marathoners sped by — runners costumed as sandwiches and Easter bunnies, soldiers shouldering 40-pound backpacks walking to honor those who’d served.  We were honored to slap their hands as they went by shouting, “Great job! Keep going!”

When the text came that Kendra was near, we enlisted people in the crowd to hold up our signs and cheer, which they happily did.  She jogged by – weary but holding to her target time. It was awesome.

Triumph turned tragedy

Triumphantly, a group of us walked back to the house, while others remained in the VIP stands to watch more runners finish the race.  And then the news came: “There have been two explosions — turn on the TV!”  We did; this New Yorker saw images evocative of 9/11. Chaos. We quickly called our friends back at the VIP stands.

We reached our friend Lindsey.  Through the phone we heard her gasp frightened but reassuring words:  “I’m ok.”

We heard mayhem in the background. She was now just two blocks away from the blast and said she had to go.  Then cell service went busy.  We texted furiously, and were all relieved when we confirmed Kendra was okay, too.

The value of information in a crisis

We started texting and emailing relatives — information, like meteors, shooting across screens on various devices. It was Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts, and our communications devices had become modern-day Minutemen, informing and calming us in the face of danger and confusion. Looking back, I’m struck by the notion that with technology, more could be done for these kinds of events to keep local crowds and the world informed in instances of danger:

•  In order to avoid overtaxing the network, perhaps family and friends could track each other by GPS or cell tower triangulation in emergency situations. I have heard so many stories of people trying to find each other in the confusion. If the amount of calling, texting, posting to social platforms overloads the mobile network, this can lead to more anxiety and calling and texting from friends and family everywhere.

• An interactive map combining police and emergency personnel reports along with the position of individuals by mobile device number could help quell the havoc. Machine-to-Machine (M2M) apps like this use little network bandwidth, keeping it less congested for those who need to place calls.

Moving forward

The vision of race runners upended by a crowd running for safety, lives ended and changed forever, relatives and friends in lock-down at nearby locations, screen after screen recounting the tragedy — these are sights I hope never to see again. Nevertheless, the advances made to our warning and response capabilities since Paul Revere’s day dazzle and I’m certain our responses to crisis will continue to improve through new understandings and technology to help those affected.

Editor’s Note: The thoughts and prayers of everyone at AT&T are with those affected by the tragedy in Boston. Join us in supporting One Fund Boston by texting BOSTON to 80108 to give $10 to those affected by the tragic events. The donation will be charged to your monthly AT&T bill.

Let’s take a look at some of these features, and how brands of any size can unleash their power.

Boosting your presence with Google+ Communities

The objective behind Communities was to create a platform within Google+ where individuals, organizations, and businesses could meet and engage based on shared interests and passions.  The 235 million active users on Google+ have quickly shown an affinity for the Communities platform, using it to discuss topics of all kinds—from hobbies to pop culture, politics to business, and everything in between.  This video perfectly demonstrates its ability to connect large groups around common interests.

Communities is ideally suited as a virtual space for meeting and engaging customers and prospects.  Aside from offering an accessible front-facing platform where you can join in dynamic conversations with your client base, Communities makes it easy to share multimedia content as well.  Sharing a new video tutorial about your products or how your brand is positioned in the industry has never been easier.

Of course, the other great benefit of Communities is that it offers users a two-way street for engagement.  The most proactive small businesses will take advantage of this knowledge by asking questions, creating polls, and finding other innovative ways to get their community members off of the bench and into the game.

Narrowing your focus with Hangouts

While Communities are excellent for facilitating public exchange, sharing ideas over a broad network, and meeting new prospects, Hangouts is more of an invitation-only gathering.  As such, Hangouts allows small business owners the opportunity to make more direct, customer-specific contact.  With this feature, your brand can host online video chats with as many as 10 people. This tool is invaluable for hosting meetings with associates, clients, or prospects spread across the globe, and it’s easy to set up.  Just get your webcam ready and pick your participants from your Circles.  If Communities is the best place for a business meet-and-greet, Hangouts is where deals get done.

Targeting your content with Circles

No platform makes narrowcasting as easy and part of the experience as Google+.  Let’s face it: social platforms have become busy, crowded places.  While it’s important for you to get your message out, it’s equally important not to intrude.  By targeting your posts to specific Circles, you avoid crowding others’ newsfeeds with useless information.  Circles perfectly demonstrate the new maxim that one-size-fits-all marketing simply doesn’t have a place in social media.  By segmenting your message to prospects and clients at different levels of the buying cycle, you will sustain a higher level of interest in your brand by always presenting the right kinds of content to the right kinds of people at the right time.

Please share your experience using Google+.  Are you using Communities, Hangouts, and Circles to connect with your customers?

Mark is a digital marketer, social brand strategist, speaker, blogger and educator. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.

Today, I see a lot of social media activity that looks like a sledge hammer going through butter.  Is your program one of them?  In my opinion, here are a few elements of a social media sledge hammer at work:

1. Extreme cross-linking automation:

A tweet or post on one platform automatically sends the same message across several platforms.  Yes, some automation can be helpful, but when you take it to the extreme it looks and feels like spam.  If you want to improve your strokes turn off some of the automation.  After all, how many different ways do you intend to pound your social audience with the same update?

2. Direct message automation:

This can also lead to problems.  Yes, it’s tempting to send an automated message that thanks someone for following you.  It’s also tempting to suggest they check out your blog, “like” you on Facebook, or connect on LinkedIn.  As tempting as it is to declare total efficiency by throwing your social media program into marketing automation mode, don’t do it.  Automated messages that thank people for following may seem like the polite thing to do, but it’s really just a non-value-add annoyance.  In addition, think hard about whether or not services that generate automated direct messages such as TrueTwit are worth the splashing they give your audience.

3. Extreme posting automation: 

This is another marketing automation temptation.  Preloading canned tweets and sending them out on a scheduled basis definitely lets you check the efficiency box.  You might even argue that it allows you to check the effectiveness box because you can send out tweets based on time zones across the world.  But what happens when someone replies with a question or comment to your tweet and you’re not there to respond?  The answer? You get dunked by losing the opportunity to engage your audience in real time conversation.

When a great swimmer is moving quickly through the water they seem smooth and powerful—almost effortlessly.  During Plebe Summer, I eventually learned that rhythm, timing, and stroke rate are critical to becoming a proficient swimmer.  If you’re not careful, automation in relation to your social media program will actually create drag and slow you down.

Now, at this point you may believe I have it out for the marketing automation folks.  I really don’t.  I use automation tools like TweetAdder to help me target, follow and unfollow profiles on Twitter, and I’ve been happy with the results.  The key is to find a balance between efficiency and effectiveness that doesn’t leave you exhausted and your audience soaked.

Have you experimented with social marketing automation? Have you gone back to some manual practices based on results? Share your experience in comments.

Alan See is the Chief Marketing Officer at Alan See CMO Temps, LLC. He has written this guest post for the Networking Exchange Blog.

Imagine if Bell was alive today.  He advocated “leaving the beaten track” and “entering the woods” writing that “you will ..find something that you have never seen…. one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about…for all really big discoveries are the results of thought.” What would Bell  say about the radical transformations taking place in communications? The big question: how would he advise CIOs to harness the full potential of social?

Here are 4 tips I believe are worthy of Mr. Bell’s legacy of leadership and innovation:

1. Be the chief velocity and change officer.

AT&T’s slogan, “Rethink possible,” is perfect for today’s landscape as companies reinvent, collide, and expand at breathtaking rates. Challenge yourself to embrace social innovations, self-disrupt, and build communities with customers, partners, and employees— even machine to machine (M2M) or across industries.

The telephone was one of the first tools for virtual engagement. But today, we’re in a world on social steroids much like my transformative era in terms of scale. Industry leaders and analysts estimate that there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020 and we’re seeing a dramatic increase in social channels, business models, processes, and new entrants daily.

To lead change in your enterprise, you will need to assume the mantle of chief change and velocity officer of this brave new hyper-connected world.

2. Lead the revolution across each line of business.

Social will transform your business channels: customer care, marketing, sales, product development, you name it. Social tools and processes like social analytics and PR command centers, social commerce, crowd sourcing, and mobile only (the growing adage of Gen Y’ers)  will transform how you do business in every way.

Begin with a careful analysis before you develop a strategy and game plan, I always say. Each business area will differ in terms of its social needs and readiness. Firms such as Gartner, Forrester, and others have introduced social maturity materials and tools for completing quick self-assessments.  Once an assessment is performed, determine how to capitalize on social media’s opportunities and develop game plans, marrying needs with optimal strategies, tactics, and technologies.

3. Build a team of mavericks.

To harness the potential of social, build the strongest possible social IT team. Leverage change management principles, and make sure that your team becomes adept in the social technologies of this world.

Encourage IT personnel to socialize themselves by leveraging the new channels. They can even function as social Jane or James Bonds, sharing observations about the ways in which colleagues, friends, and family members are engaging in the social sphere. These mutigenerational insights can lend tremendous value to your business and help you to stay on the cutting edge of this transformative force.

Continuous learning and experimentation helped fuel my innovations.  Encourage your team to work closely with many different business areas to experiment with new social tools and tactics, attend industry conferences together, and take courses live and virtually.

4. Tap into the biggest killer app of all – the human cloud.

You know what excites me the most about this new era? It’s the ability to leverage the collective intelligence.  Thousands of brains worldwide can deliver far more ideas than those within your walls.  Champion the use of gamification, social collaboration, cross functional committees, and brand ambassador programs. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and many others have launched robust crowd sourcing engines for product development.  And it is paying off. A McKinsey Global Institute study estimates that leveraging social technologies and platforms including co-creation could improve productivity rates by 25% and contribute up to $1.3 trillion per annum across four commercial sectors. We’re just at the beginning of the social juggernaut, just as I was at the beginning of telephony.

Today’s world is far more competitive and meteoric than mine. But one thing is certain. Success will go to passionate people who align themselves with “like-minded birds” and persist until they harvest the potential of new ideas.

 What are your tips for the Social CIO?

Answer: Stop talking about social media.

Type “social media” into a Google search bar and you’ll find roughly about 4.7 billion results in .30 seconds. Next, try “social media conference.” You’ll see something along the lines of 1.2 billion results in .25 seconds. Social media is important but I’d argue we aren’t celebrating it for the reasons we should. Instead, we are forcing social media to conform to traditional thinking and processes rather than adapting business philosophies and supporting methodologies to meet new opportunities.

Every day, I hear about how social media strategists and managers are frustrated with the lack of executive support. Yet, many aren’t doing themselves any favors. Executives don’t speak the language of social media. They speak the language of the C-Suite and their audience are shareholders and stakeholders…not necessarily customers or employees or “people” in its most human sense.

So, in the face of skepticism or fear, the best advice that I can offer you is to learn the language of the C-Suite when making the case for what it is you believe is the right thing to do. Making the case for social media has less to do Facebook or Twitter or “likes,” views or “retweets” and more to do with using these networks to glean or introduce value. To earn the attention and respect of the C-Suite and ultimately customers is the ability to connect the dots to the very things that every stakeholder values and communicating it in a way that is approachable and appreciated. This takes a thoughtful approach to rendering value in a contextual means that hits home with different people their way.

Social media alignment

Altimeter colleague Charlene Li and I conducted a series of research interviews and surveys over the last year on this very topic…how social today’s social media strategies align (or do not align) with business goals. We shared our findings in a newly released report, “The Evolution of Social Business Six Stages of Social Media Transformation.” Needless to say, we found a significant gap And, it is this gap that makes communicating value to executives difficult if not impossible.

Charlene and I found the following interesting results:

• Only 34% of businesses felt that their social strategy was connected to business outcomes.
• Just 28% felt that they had a holistic approach to social media, where lines of business and business functions work together under a common vision.
• A mere 12% were confident they had a plan that looked beyond the next year. Perhaps most astonishing was that only one-half of companies surveyed said that top executives were “informed, engaged and aligned with their companies’ social strategy.”

The value of take-aways

In the early days of social media, emergent networks changed how people connect to one another and the information that’s important to them. With each update, shared experience, and event, the world shrank. People were and are becoming increasingly connected and as a result they are more informed. With information and connectedness comes the reality of increased customer expectations. Value, engagement, entertainment, personalization, people must take away something meaningful from the exchange otherwise there can be no relationship. A relationship is after all a mutual exchange where all parties believe that connectedness is beneficial.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and every network thereafter are merely communities, ecosystems, and platforms where information is exchanged and relationships are formed and abandoned. How you make the case for engagement and how to deliver or extract value isn’t directly tied to the nature of the environment as much as it is the facilitator of the way and the weight that value is defined, expressed, and measured.

If we’re not providing solutions we may in fact be contributing to the problem. See, social technology isn’t the answer; it’s part of the answer. Yet social strategists are often caught up in a socialized ecosystem of catch-up and that’s part of the challenge and the test. There’s always going to be a new network or another shiny object. There are always new case studies or expert theories flooding blogs, conferences, and books.

Again, the best advice I can give you is to stop talking about social media as a means to an end and start thinking about how social media becomes a means toward triggering meaningful activities or outcomes that align with business priorities or objectives and customer expectations.

This is the time to get back to basics. This is the time to take a step back.

Social media is not the crux of you argument. It is an enabler.

What are you doing to lift the conversation from tools to value? Are you prepared to translate the promise and opportunity of social into customer engagement that aligns business goal, social media strategies and customer value?

Brian Solis is the author of the book, The End of Business as Usual. He is also a principal analyst at Altimeter Group. AT&T has sponsored this blog post.

While it’s often said that discounts and deals are the driving factors in consumers “liking” or following brands on social media, Rhythm found that loyalty to brands was an even stronger factor in customers’ engagement with companies. The study reports that 51.9% of mobile social media users follow brands on Twitter® and 55.9% like brands on Facebook® just to get deals or discounts. However, 60.7% say they follow companies on Twitter and 57.6% like brands on Facebook simply because they want to show their support for and loyalty to the brands.

Here are a few other interesting stats from the study:

• Getting exclusive content or updates about a business was cited as a reason to follow brands on Twitter by 51.1% of respondents and a reason to follow brands on Facebook by 39.8%.
• Customers are using mobile social media to engage with businesses in growing numbers. Nearly three-fourths (74%) use Facebook, and almost two-thirds (63%) use Twitter on mobile devices more than once a day. In addition, 68% have “liked” a brand on Facebook and 56% say they follow brands on Twitter.
• Although consumers use both smartphones and tablets to access social media, smartphones still predominate, with 62% of Twitter users and 74% of Facebook users saying they usually access the social media platforms on their phones.
• Companies are responding to the trend by increasing their mobile social media presence. Nearly one-fourth (24%) of marketers have mobile social media campaigns—a whopping 430% increase from the prior year.

What do these survey results mean to your business?

Pay attention to the mobile social marketing trend.

With the growth in this area, your business could get left behind if you don’t at least explore the idea of launching a social mobile campaign (which Rhythm defines as a mobile ad campaign that taps into your social media presence).

Make it easy for users to engage with your brand.

If you do launch a social mobile campaign, consider including social media buttons within the ad itself. Rhythm found this boosted user engagement by 36%, but less than one-third of marketers currently do it.

Don’t rely on discounts and coupons alone to drive customer engagement. A customer’s desire to support your brand simply to show loyalty means that what matters is your whole relationship with the customer. In other words, social media support is just one part of the whole package. Make sure your products and services deliver, your customer service is stellar, and that you’re constantly staying in touch with your customers to learn what they want and how you can improve. By creating a well-rounded customer experience, you’ll build raving fans who want to support your brand on social media—and offline, too.

How are you using social media to engage with your customers? Beyond offering discounts and special deals, how are you planning to increase your social media presence in the year ahead? We’d love to hear about your plans and your results.

Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media company specializing in covering small businesses and entrepreneurship. She has written this guest post for the Networking Exchange Blog.