“How do I convince management that social media is a conversational medium when they just want to use it to push content?” 

This question, asked by Natali Zheng, at the recent Social Media Breakfast -MSP on community management, ignited a bit of controversy over my answer: “Quit your job.”

My co-presenter, Meg Knodle, answered the question first (more gracefully and logically than I) by sharing that: Data is the best way to sell up (I’m paraphrasing) and that you need to prove value to management in order to get them to understand what happens you talk with people instead of at people.

I completely agree with Meg, and have fought many of my own battles with clients and in organizations about how social media will be used as a tool in a marketing communications plan. I’ve sold up many times and been very successful, but I’ve also been in situations where it is clear that the business culture I’m dealing with is not one that wants to establish a human connection with its audiences, which is what I believe using digital marketing and social media is for. When someone asks a question like Natalie’s, I reflect upon my experiences and wonder how long one should expend energy on the good fight before looking onward to find an environment where passion to foster community among and organization and its audiences can thrive.

“A Culture is made – or destroyed – by its articulate voices.” -Ayn Rand.

Asking questions is something I’ve done since I was a little kid. If something didn’t make sense to me, I’d seek answers – no matter how daunting the task. Whether looking up a word I didn’t know or studying my surroundings to make sense of a complex situation, following the journey to a conclusion serves as an exhilarating experience for me. Simply because, when it’s over you know more than you did prior. You own it and it helps define the process by which you continue to navigate life. There is truly nothing greater. The desire to question – yourself, the things around you and how it all fits within a particular context – is a matter of curiosity. Whatever kind of professional you are this is an indispensable tool to you, it is free and it is yours. Seems obvious, yes? Well, it’s not. This I know because of the many humans I encounter regularly who settle for status quo and operate within the confines they’ve been trained to obey. So, if you’re in the former – right on, and if you’re in the latter – start asking questions about the things you’re curious about and about the constructs in which you live.

*Photo Credit* Marco Bellucci

As it pertains to business, it’s no secret or overlooked fact that we are in a new era. It is the dawn of the connected consumer who has substantially more power than ever before. Power to publish and share with a network [who has a network] in real-time no matter their geography or time zone. With this, comes the necessity and opportunity to examine what we’ve always known with a new lens and make sense of the new by inquisitively walking through it.

Asking better questions was a thread that ran through the content I took in at Blogworld LA over the weekend. In his session, “Drowning in Numbers: Turning Social Media Insight into Data,” Tom Webster did a great job of illustrating how we can seek to make sense of our often information overloaded surroundings as digital communicators. He offered four recommendations to aid in the era of big data:

Know what you don’t know
10% of people create content for people they don’t know. Social media doesn’t give you answers, but it will always give you ammo to ask better questions and draw conclusions. I talk regularly about how many awesome free tools we can use to draw conclusions from data. Some of my favorites are: Google Analytics (understand who comes to your website, what keywords are getting them there, how many of your visitors are mobile v. web based and so on. There is so much there), Facebook (search), Foursquare, Google Places, Yelp (claim your place and get data of who is checking in, how often, what they are saying, etc.), Twitter (real-time data of any search term you can think of – pretty powerful).

Ask better questions
Frosted Flakes was curious enough to turn to the Web to understand user insights about their product. They learned, from tools like Twitter (which offer free real-time data – use search.twitter.com), that people eating cereal for dinner were either drunk, broke or trying to lose weight. Out of these insights, they marketed counter-part Special K as a weight loss cereal, which has been a very successful move.

Prove yourself wrong
Science is about proving yourself wrong until you can’t. We should seek to disconfirm. For example, instead of asking what the best time of day to tweet is, seek to understand what effect tweeting at certain times/days of the week has on your community. Do the work to figure out what’s best based on your own research, not that of what others publish. Data for “content creation” is inherently incurious. Therefore, create content and measure its performance in order to create better content.

Do your own work
A naysayer of Klout from day one, I loved how Tom used it as an example of a tool that is popular because it’s an easy answer for people. Many people, those that don’t question, think it’s legitimate data because we like easy answers. They don’t think to use it with a number of other tools or fact-check if a Klout score is actually representative of influence around a particular subject. Further, Klout’s algorithm for influence is pretty sketchy. Take five minutes to dissect a few people’s Klout scores and you’ll find some interesting things [Klout bashing over]. Tom provided a few factors of influence 1) Relevance of the message, 2) Content of the message, and 3) Credibility of author. It’s good define the end point so you have a framework on how to get there.

What questions have you asked today?

Along side Meg Knodl of Hennepin County Library Systems at last Friday’s Social Media Breakfast-MSP, I shared some of my experiences as a community and digital brand manager. For those asking what the hell community management is, this is how I define it:

A business function that endeavors to foster connections with a group of people around a shared interest or topic, and the development and execution of strategy around listening and engagement with members of that community. This function typically refers to online communities (social networks, forums, blogs and other digital media), but should complement other management functions established by an organization’s business objectives .

It was a colorful conversation (more to come about my “quit your job” comment) full of great tidbits of information about this emerging discipline. Pre-event, Meg and I bounced some questions around and of course I wrote out all of my answers like a school girl, so thought I’d share them here. For some solid soundbites from the conversation, visit #SMBMSP on Twitter search.

How do you find people who are talking about Mall of America (insert your brand or business here) online? Are they an easy group to engage?
We use a few different tools for listening and engagement. We use TweetDeck, which is a free desktop application for managing multiple Twitter accounts and other social networks. This tool offers the ability to enter search queries and pull any mentions into a column so we’re able to see opportunities to engage with folks who mention our brand, but aren’t necessarily following or using our Twitter handle.

You’ll see @ mentions, “Mall of America” and “MOA” search. Having a dashboard with notifications by the minute makes it very easy to stay up on what’s going on. In this case, you’ll notice the first comment in the second column is someone counting down to an upcoming visit. She clearly doesn’t know we have a Twitter, so we can reach out and say, “We look forward to having you for a visit, Taryn!” in order to show her we’re on Twitter and convert a follower.

Actively listening online has the potential to teach a brand so much about how people relate to their surroundings and what’s important to them (gee, imagine that) − and information is everywhere and mostly public! Whether a blog post, Yelp/Trip Advisor review, Facebook post or a Tweet – it is silly to not be peeking in on what’s being said about your business. There is endless opportunity here.

When on the go (mobile), we use Boxcar for iPhone which allows for the same exact notifications so we can listen, and engage where necessary, but just pops up as a notification. We use this in tandem with the Twitter app. Facebook for iPhone allows us to manage Mall of America fan pages mobilly (comment, delete spam, etc.). We use the same tools for iPad.

I’m fortunate to work for a brand that people mention often, and that it’s typically relevant for us to reach out and acknowledge a comment, share in guest excitement, solve a guest service concern, and a multitude of other engagement points.

In addition to these tools, we use a Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) called JitterJam. This alerts us of brand mentions across social media and traditional media. Note: We use our SCRM tool to send content to Facebook and Twitter so that we can measure its performance among our community. The problem with SCRM tools is that they’re building products based on other products, like Facebook, whose interfaces iterate regularly, so I caution you to make sure that whatever third party you use, vet it substantially. Make sure your content is showing up and not being penalized by Edgerank (Facebook’s algorithm for how things show up in a news feed).

How do you separate your personal and professional identities (or do you)? 
I don’t believe in this. Just like I don’t really believe in “these opinions are mine and not those of my employer.” I do strongly believe in wherever you go there you are. While I may wear different hats in life, I like consistency and find that who I am is represented in my respective roles (wife, friend, daughter, worker, dog mom and so on). I believe this question asks bigger questions:

Why are so many people so concerned about ‘doing it right?’

What has happened to humanity that we question how to have conversations and connect with other humans; as people and as businesses?

At another recent event, I was baffled by how many people went up to a microphone and asked this very question. I understand social technologies are new, but the fundamental mechanism of it, the conversation, is not. There are a few things at work here.

 We have lost the art of conversation, partly as the result of innovation in technology and mass media. Essentially, people have become accustomed to making a message for a large audience that they never hear back from.

 We, as a people, have been trained to do things a certain way and are so concerned about not doing them right that we don’t move forward and tackle scary things.

May sound like and extreme assessment, but that’s okay with me. I just believe that we are who we are and we bring that everywhere. There’s professionalism and there’s your personality. There shouldn’t be a disparity if you’re in this business.

How do you tell the difficult stories? Store closings, accidents, etc?
This largely depends on the story. Mall of America sees an average of 100,000 people a day, so there is so much to share, positive and sometimes negative. Our number one priority is guest safety and guest experience, so we communicate about on-site issues with mainstream media and via Facebook and Twitter when appropriate. As far as social media is concerned, we usually participate in the conversation if it’s started, but don’t necessarily start it on our own. We let our community dictate that and are happy to give factual information and direct people to the best source to answer questions people may have.  Something important to remember is that we’re the house to 520+ tenants, so sometimes communication comes directly from them. Crisis situations are more difficult due to their unpredictable nature, so those are handled on a case-by-case basis. It is important to note that we have a protocol for digital crisis communication that lays over our traditional crisis communication plan.

For a little more in depth, read “How Community Management Spawned a Social Business Strategy at Mall of America.” What do you peeps have to add?

So, the fabulous Meg Knodl, senior librarian, communications and community engagement at Hennepin County Library, and I are having a conversation (emphasis on conversation; this is not a presentation) about community management with the Social Media Breakfast -MSP crew this Friday. We are coming prepared with a few talking points, but I thought I’d throw it out there to you guys in the event you’re interested in deep-diving into a particular niche of community management.

Please share any must-cover topics or questions you have surrounding community management in comments so we can try to incorporate into our discussion, okay? I look forward to seeing some of you there, and if you live in Minnesota and aren’t registered to come, you should;-) Happy Wednesday!

Working in digital media is never dull. Not because technology changes so quickly, but because of what’s involved in implementing digital marketing communications into business. The strategic planning — determining the why and how to implement various digital touches to enhance key messages that thread throughout our respective businesses — that’s what makes it so interesting. The reality of this is rarely touched on. Instead, we hear social media successes and cases of digital excellence with little explanation of what it takes to be that great company, agency or non-profit doing such amazing work day-to-day.

This was the inspiration of the Community Management: How to Develop a Social Business Strategy presentation Bridget Jewell and I gave at MIMA Summit Workshops last Tuesday. When MIMA contacted me to speak, we were asked to speak about community management activities  at Mall of America, which is a core function of our communications team and social media strategy. Instead, we really wanted share the story of how community management was the impetus for what is fast becoming a social business strategy and practice at MOA, with emphasis on successes as well as how incredibly difficult it can be. Here are a few presentation highlights:

Mall of America Gets Social: How an Online Community Was Discovered
Mall of America entered social media  in a casual way in 2009… literally. Someone in marketing just decided to start a Facebook Group (it can be that simple). After a PR gal (Bridget Jewell) thought that there may be an opportunity for new engagement with a new audience, she sought to bring Facebook (converted to a page) into the corporate communications function. It was quickly realized after 15,000 people liked the Mall of America Facebook page in its first month that it was a medium in which some time should be spent. Between conversations on Facebook, Twitter and the MOA Fashion Sense Blog (now the MOA Blog), the community grew to 75,000 fans, 4,500 Twitter followers and regular comments to the blog in one year. A few things were quickly realized: A) We love helping, talking with and learning from our online community. B) Conversations, connections and power of technology have the ability to transform our business. C) More resources and structure need to be allocated toward this communication initiative.

Culture Is Key
I interviewed for my position at MOA when things were still very unclear in terms of what a ‘social media specialist’ should do for an organization (frankly, it’s still unclear most places). I noticed very quickly during the interview process that MOA leadership was behind and engaged with this function and role 100%. Among the most important questions (and really, requirements) – in addition to a brutal social media test that vetted knowledge and practical application – was that this person love the MOA brand and cultivate relationships with guests, prospective guests and internal audiences online and off.

Social Media Strategy
After getting settled, we embarked on developing the company’s social media strategy. The 20-page document lays over the company’s business goals, and more specifically MOA’s marketing communications goals because, and this is important, social media strategy is not a bolt on or something that should be yet another silo within an organization. It should work to complement everything else, and further, to actually accentuate and enhance it. In our presentation we gave the framework for how this strategy is outlined and examples of our own strategy and how it works from goal setting to measurement. The basics that you need to understand in order to plan anything are (see deck for MOA example):

• Goals – Define the big picture aim; your general intentions
• Objectives – Outcome that represent the achievement of your goal(s); THESE HAVE TO BE MEASURABLE
• Strategy – The action plan to reach the objective
• Tactics – Pieces and parts of strategy
• Measurement – What worked and what didn’t
• See our deck for MOA’s goals and examples of planning.

Internal Communication is Key
Before getting into tactics (the tools you’ll be using for marketing communications), it’s vital to make sure that key messages are aligned among communications, marketing, advertising (sales, customer service, HR, etc.) and hopefully everyone else in the company. THIS IS REALY HARD, especially depending on the size of the company, but if your strategy is buttoned up and internal communication is strong (or even somewhat strong), then the tools you use to execute your strategy will be more far more successful. Which brings me to social business strategy.

Social Media Strategy to Social Business Strategy
Community Management and many other strategic digital initiatives have us working across most departments in the company. As our community grows, we mine more and more information that affects all moving pieces of our business (leadership, marketing, operations, IT, legal, accounting, events, etc.). Our current planning and implementation has us developing a core group of stakeholders in the organization to align earned, owned and paid media functions with the end goal of creating a unified experience, whether you enter the doors of Mall of America, or our doors online.

Here’s our deck and a little recap video courtesy of Minnov8. I’d love to hear your thoughts or any questions. Happy Friday:-).

P.S. I can’t stress enough how amazing MIMA Summit is, with a special shout out to content coordinators Julie Kosbab and Lauren Melcher. It’s one of the most fabulous and well produced conferences in the country. Thrilled it’s in my own backyard. Thank you for inviting me to speak – and to the entire team that produces the event.

“We need to be passionate about innovation and the desire to be better than we were yesterday,” said Avinash Kaushik, Google’s digital marketing evangelist, as he kicked off the 10^th Annual MIMA Summit in Minneapolis yesterday.  That he is, as proved in his keynote where he shared a plethora of digital marketing and interactive practice successes and failures, all examples being Minnesota brands such as Target, Best Buy, Star Tribune, General Mills (Betty Crocker and Wheat Thins), U of M, and 3M. The fact that he did so much research and pruning of our market’s digital assets for his presentation was a beautiful illustration of user-centrism, the central theme of his talk. In addition to this fabulousness, he shed light on metrics we can evaluate in order to scale and create a better [digital] experience for our respective audiences. Most of the sites and brands featured, with the exception of  University of Minnesota (website), Wheat Thins (Twitter) and Red Bull (Twitter), were scrutinized for lack of thought about the end-user in design and content on the web (UX and information architecture), mobile (optimization, mobile enabled websites, use of QR and barcodes, etc.) and social (using as a push, rather than a conversational medium) – so basically everywhere:-). So, how do we even begin to move in the right direction since none of us have a perfect digital strategy? He offered three different  anecdotes.

Accountability
He went after the impression metric right away and classified it as HITS (how idiots track success). “Pure unadulterated crap!” he exclaimed when referring to the person who says, “We’ve touched 500,000 customers this year.” It’s important to actually measure. The bounce rate is the best accountability metric… It means, “I came, I puked, I left.” To drive this one home he called out the Star Tribune, who has 407 links on their home page, to which he said, “Here you go, here’s all this info. Go find everything for yourself.” U of  M, on the other hand, focuses on the person, not page views. A little visit to University of Minnesota‘s website is an experience geared toward the user and focuses on assisting them through its vast house of content available. Definitely worth checking out and taking some notes from. So, we were left with…

Extract insights from everything you do! Deliver delight across digital activities. Be authentic! Don’t guess.

Visitor Loyalty
He used this opportunity to talk about brand destruction. He challenged agencies (and even inferred a bit of doom) to asses data on the micro and macro level, which means helping them to innovate and leave certain metrics (that don’t really tell a story) behind. Give clients data they actually need and can use; that helps dictate new direction or revisit one that’s worked previous. Help clients to see where their audience is and what they need and want.

Influence People in the world
Simple. We’re losing our ability to control the conversation. We are in a human and conversational economy. If you do not understand this, you’re going to have some serious problmes moving forward in digital – and probably life.

FANTASTIC one-liners that sum it all up!

• Don’t pimp yourself! Give your customer what they want.
• If you don’t think about multiplicity in everything you do, than you won’t do great things.
• Think differently and increase innovation in your company.

Four Different Ways You Should Be Measuring
Avinash closed his presentation by sharing four different ways to measure the performance of our digital content in order to truly understand our audience(s), and with that knowledge (hopefully), create a better experience for them through content and conversations.

• Conversation Rate – Number of audience comments or replies per post
• Amplification Rate – Facebook/G+ = # of shares per post | Twitter = # of retweets per tweet | Blog/YouTube = shares per post  and clicks per post
• Applause Rate – Facebook/G+ = # of likes per post, +1 | Twitter = # of favorite clicks per post | Blog = # of +1 and likes per post, video, etc.
• Economic Value – Sum of short and long term revenue and cost savings (per visit goal value). This is a custom metric that needs to be assigned. Much like how we give value (as PR people) to impressions. You set this up in Google Analytics.

In addition to being one of Google’s masters of awesome, Avinash blogs about analytics and digital marketing at Occam’s Razor. Visit Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation, Amplification, Applause, Economic Value for his kick ass blog post that lends far greater detail and explanation of these four metrics.

This keynote did indeed delight this digital gal, and gave me inspiration to continue on my little path of seeking business success by way of building an experience (holistically) for people instead of thoughtless and ridiculous things that people will never care about. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and I hope to share a few more MIMA Summit session highlights in the coming days. God, it feels good to write. I don’t do it enough. Hoping someone enjoys it. Also – a HUGE THANK YOU to the organizers and volunteers of MIMA Summit. Talk about a professional organization who’s crushing it. Way to be an example of the awesome.

Happy Thursday:-)

This whole social listening and engagement thing is becoming common place, or so it seems as I’ve just experienced my second awesome display of online community management outreach in one month’s time. Recently, I shared a social marketing case study oriented post of an interaction I had with Intercontinental Times Square. Based on the popularity of that post, I’ve concluded social media case studies are in demand, so here’s another example of a brand who’s lighting it up.

My husband and I just got back from an amazing road trip to the south. We drove from Minneapolis to Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA last week. The Sunday before we departed, I picked up and watched “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” a 90s film set in Savannah (originally a popular book) to get in the Savannah state of mind.

Much like I enjoy ‘checking in’ to places, I also like to check in to the media I consume with a nifty application called Get Glue. Get Glue hit the market in late 2010 and allows users to ‘check in’ to what they’re watching, reading, listening to, reading, thinking about, etc. You can then upload these check ins to Twitter and Facebook, and use Foursquare if you’re checking into a location and media at the same time.

I checked in to “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” on Get Glue and added “In preparation for our Savannah getaway” as a status and uploaded to Twitter.

Moments later, *literally* I got a tweet from the @VisitSavannah Twitter account that said: “Watching ‘Midnight’ is a great way to get into the #Savannah state of mind.”

Bam! Sunday night and Savannah’s CVB is actively listening and engaging with people mentioning “Savannah” on Twitter. I was impressed, and thrilled as we had been investigating ghost and historical tours on Trip Advisor that day, but weren’t left with a solid conclusion on what to do based on varying user reviews. In my unexpected interaction with Amy Brock, Visit Savannah’s community manager, I was able to quickly establish what to do (some of which was consistent with Trip Advisor, and some was likely insider info, which rocks) and where to go when we arrived in Savannah – something that would not have happened had she not sought me out based on search.

Oh, the simplicity of all of this…
While I didn’t have an extensive conversation with Amy, I was able to establish that it’s a team of a few, with main community management activities falling on her and other staff here and there. We didn’t talk strategy, but my experience with them tells me that their time spend here falls under a goal that looks like this: Seek opportunities to generate awareness of Savannah and its CVB services in order to drive traffic to Savannah and its vendors. Their use of Twitter is just one of many CVB marketing functions I imagine, and one that they are utilizing extremely well.

The act of Visit Savannah monitoring social mentions of the word ‘Savannah’ online, and their subsequent action of engagement was timely, flawless and effective. My mention of Savannah was an opportunity for them to reach out and say hi and simply let me know that they were there. This could have been the extent of our interaction, but instead, I utilized the awareness to ask a few pressing questions about our travel there. In addition, I asked questions when I arrived, which I wouldn’t have known to do had this engagement not happened. This enhanced my experience before arriving in Savannah and my time there.

Freshly back from Savannah, which is my new favorite city in the U.S., I can say that their online brand is representative of the experience you have during a visit to Savannah. The culture, architecture, food, people, history, etc. are beyond hospitable, colorful, enchanting and whimsical – even the ghosts *smile*. I highly recommend you check it out sometime.

As more brands are engaging in social media, and using agencies to help develop strategies and execute on them, there exists the possibility for tension between the two parties. We always like to share the good work we are doing, right? Whether that is on our website, social network or our own personal page, we like showing off.

However, that “want” to demonstrate our work invariably leads to client angst. Nobody is under any delusion that brands do everything by themselves. However, when social media creates an expectation of brand “transparency,” agencies sharing information about work they’ve done from a social perspective can create some tension. That tension is amplified when agencies are overly “ambitious” in sharing what components of the plan/execution they contributed to completing. Here’s a tip – don’t do that!

Case in point: In recent weeks, brand team X put together a really fun online meets offline campaign using a popular social network. It was one that caught on a bit and garnered some media attention, which is always a delightful thing. And then, BOOM, there it was. A representative of the agency brand X has worked with in the past shared the news featuring the brand, accompanied by the text, “Client.” That was it. No clarification beyond client. Just, “Client.” To make matters worse, a few subsequent comments complimented the agency person by saying they would expect nothing less. The agency person missed an opportunity to correct the record.

The brand team was part shocked, part disgusted and part terribly confused how someone senior (EVP of the agency no less) could skew something so much. Yes, this brand and agency have worked together in the past, but really? Because of this relationship, you take someone else’s work and position it in such a way that makes it seem as though you advised this client. (NOTE: The true identities of the brand, agency and agency professional have been eliminated from this post. Similarly, there are some components of the story that need not be shared publicly.)

In essence, the client and agency disclosure relationship has become more difficult to manage as we have begun engaging in social on behalf of the brand. Chuck Hemann, Director of Social Analytics for WCG, and I have been discussing this issue at length offline and thought it would be helpful to have a public discussion about guidelines. For the sake of length, this discussion is going to be split into two parts – brand and agency perspectives – focusing on how you navigate these somewhat choppy waters.

Relationships are king for brands. If we do business with people we like, know and trust, and any of these are compromised, the doing business part comes into question. Ironically, PR people, who are professional communicators, are usually poor at interpersonal communication. This needs improvement in many areas of the world, but if agency and brand folks make their communication a priority, misunderstandings and who talks about what and how they talk about it becomes obsolete.

How to Disclose?

• Check internally to make sure you are able to share client news with an external audience (social media/communications policy).
• Use #client or client when sharing news you’re involved in.
• Know your client’s preferences. Ask if you’re unsure (a good standard in any relationship). If you have clearance to talk about what you are doing with a client, disclose what the project is only. I know we love to embellish, but social is about transparency and being honest with current and future customers. Honesty is the new black, so hop on the bandwagon.
• Know when it is right to share the news about a project. It goes without saying that you probably don’t want to share negative news, but this one is so simple it’s scary. If you have any doubt about whether it’s kosher to share something, don’t. Ask for permission first from your client.
• Curate a unique piece of work (case study, vid, etc.) that highlights your ability to collaborate and execute with a client (per their approval). It’s progressive and shows your excitement and dedication to the brand. If that’s not in the cards, show your enthusiasm for cool projects by saying something like, “So nice to see one of our clients execute this great campaign.” You’d be amazed how far that little sentence goes with your client.

These are just some thoughts Chuck and I had from the brand side. For those of you who have dealt with this in the past, what have you found works well? What didn’t work so well? Please share here so we can all learn.

If you’re looking to read more on this topic, the awesome Arik Hanson tackles Client Disclosure on Twitter: What’s Appropriate? Great post!

(Reminder: Part 2 of this series will be a presentation from the agency perspective. As is the case with everything in life, disclosure is a two-way street).

I’ve had the pleasure to speak to students from a variety of Minnesota colleges and universities as of late. I’ve been delighted by their follow up and requests for informational interviews, one of my most favorite things to do on both ends of the process. A lot of inquiries about my job, how I got here, what I do and requests to come to the Mall to see what it all looks like day-to-day. I’ve scheduled quite a few of these, but thought I’d also post a recent interview that answers some questions about what I do for Mall of America courtesy of the awesome Aaron Landry, producer at Heavy Table and IT manager at Go East… and general online media talent and enthusiast. I’ve only posted the questions not featured in his interview here. The original interview can be viewed here.

How did you get started in this career and how did you start with Mall of America?
“When you were little, you were far more interested in people than in toys,” says my mom of me. That has never changed, and I as I ‘grow up’ my fascination of people, their behaviors and motivations only intensifies. My life-long love of people and appreciation for story telling originally placed me on the film studies path in college, which eventually turned into a love of the social sciences, interpersonal communication and PR.

I graduated from Metropolitan State University with a bachelor of arts in public relations. When faced with my senior capstone project, I thought it only appropriate to conduct my research on how online social networks were effecting the public relations discipline. This was a fascinating project, paired with research and writing internship I occupied at the time, which included a significant amount of MySpace (yes, I just said MySpace) and Facebook brand engagement.  I landed in an integrated marketing agency in the Twin Cities and found that I mostly enjoyed working with the online marketing group on integrated marketing communications campaigns. I was then recruited to a small B2B (business to business) sales training company where I did in house PR and marketing. Important here to give a nod to my extensive experience working in fine dining restaurants through college, which will teach you more about a lot of different things that you could ever hope to know, namely fluency in exquisite customer service (something beyond vital in today’s business marketplace). Through all of this experience, I concluded that I belonged in and wanted a digital communications/PR hybrid role, so when Mall of America posted the position, I hopped on it.

During the day, where do you spend most of your time?
This is a difficult question to answer and varies on any given day. Community management (monitoring online conversation, curating content and engagement with folks) is a large piece of the pie on a day-to-day basis. In addition, developing systems and implementation of social media strategy into the organization is in strong focus. There are many other things touched on a daily bases and sometimes your day takes a completely different direction than your to-do list originally dictated. The Mall is a very vibrant place, full of constant activity, projects and opportunity. I try to spend as much time upstairs, as I’m able to see the faces of our guests and understand what joys they experience, as well as any challenges or obstacles to achieving that joy.

How do you work with other companies and other entities inside the mall? With all the stores with Foursquare specials and deals on Twitter, how do you curate what gets pushed on the Mall of America feeds?
Among my responsibilities is to develop social media strategy for the Mall, of which the first tier is education, which has many moving parts. Specific to tenants, we are in system development mode. In the interim, we have communicated to tenants what we are doing and how we are supporting social efforts at this time. A large piece of this is actually connecting with 500+ tenants, not including outside partners and prospects, to understand where they’re at and what they’d like to achieve specific to leveraging Mall social media tools. At this time we are reserving our Retailer Promotions and deals (hosted on the MOA Fashion Sense blog) to a weekly post on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, we tweet about Foursquare specials and other promotions when relevant. We have not yet decided our exact plan of attack on educating our communities about MOA Deals, but are getting close to having some notification systems for guests and other interested parties.

We have a handful of pioneering retailers offering LBS (location-based service) specials (with use of LBS tools like Foursquare and SCVNGR). Among those playing in the LBS space are Gap, Express, Rosetta Stone, Crave, Noodles, Steve Madden, American Eagle, 77 Kids, Hot Topic, Game Stop, Journeys, Famous Footwear, Payless and Radio Shack.

I noticed a lot of buzz around “Mall Cops: Mall of America” online. What part did the Mall of America take in helping fuel the enthusiasm about the show online?
When the show began airing, Bridget Jewell (my partner in crime and project manager for production of Mall Cops) and I assigned monitoring times and tasks during show times. In addition, we set up searches for Mall Cops: Mall of America and other terms on Twitter, using Google Alerts, Radian 6 and other monitoring services. Based on search results, we helped answer questions and participate in the enthusiasm that viewers were sharing online. The Mall of America Facebook  page was used to alert our fans about each week’s episode and served as a place for comments. Due to interest and a high volume of conversation around the show, it was decided that Mall Cops: Mall of America should have its own page, which grew to more than 4,000 fans very quickly. In essence, it was our goal to be present when the conversations about Mall Cops were happening and engaging where appropriate.

There’s a lot in between all of this, so if you’re still here and interested, bop over here to read the rest. A big thanks to Aaron for his interest and the interview.

When I came across the criteria for the SobCon2010 “Blog it, Earn it”contest via Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker, I was elated with not only the fact that I could win and all expense paid trip to SobCon2010, but more importantly that I could address how a person online has made a difference in my life; how they’ve made my life easier, better, smarter, more productive and more meaningful.

There are a lot of people online (and off) that make a difference in my life because of the content they share, the conversations we have, and the connections we make, but rarely do I articulate in writing how these people have impacted my daily life (I try to tell them all in person).

While there are many, I want to share one that has and continues to make difference. That person is Brian Solis. Note: I could have written about this without the incentive of winning a trip, but being a relatively new blogger, I wasn’t prepared to write a random post about why I have a purely professional crush on Brian . The following is why I dig Brian:

As a young public relations practitioner that has a knack for establishing mutually beneficial relationships between an audience and its publics in a more human relational way, I believe Brian truly encapsulates and demonstrates superior insight and knowledge to the discipline of marketing communications and far beyond.

Upon entering my first agency job I took a lot in, as is to be expected. I love public relations and the foundation upon which it was built, but in the agency setting I found myself at times wondering why PR could seem so impersonal and contrived. My capstone project in college had addressed the question of how social networks were impacting the public relations industry, so naturally I began to gravitate to the online marketing group’s side of business in the agency (where social media was housed). The unfortunate thing about the agency was that the synchronicity between practice groups was more of a fight than a collaborative effort. Who owned the social media piece of an account (PR or online marketing) or who got hours seemed more of a priority than getting down to business and developing sound strategies of how to provide clients with the best means to reach the folks they were trying to reach.

During this time I began to read Brian Solis’ blog then called PR 2.0, now called Defining the Convergence of Media and Influence. Additionally, I got my hands on “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,” a phenomenal book coauthored by he and Deirdre Breakenridge.

Brian’s thought leadership surrounding communications and how technology and new media are profoundly influencing a firmly rooted discipline(s) has fascinated me since discovery. Brian has a very simple way of articulating some very difficult things. Essentially, he has managed to take existing silos and present ideas, concepts and realities that are influential in breaking those silos down or at the very least allow people to look horizontally through them, instead of just vertical.

Finding his content and position early in my career has given me confidence in my view of the public relations profession, which is that PR is far more than news releases, media relations and getting someone to write a story that reflects your client in a positive light for the sake of it, even when that may not be the case (a one-way dialogue between an organization and its publics). It’s more about truly connecting a group of people to an entity for the right reasons and can be done in a really personable way instead of the old oiled and typical public relations engine, which at times may be nothing more than a relationship with a reporter or follow protocol that in my humble opinion is a small piece of the true PR puzzle. Among my favorite posts from him are those concerned with the Conversation Prism. The idea that “I hear you. I’m listening to you. I understand you,” as a means to create a community for your entity instead of the illusion of such.

The Conversation Prism: The Art of Listening, Learning and Sharing (Creation of Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas)

I’m not saying that traditional means are not important or profound in their own right. Without our foundation, the new could not exist. What I am saying is that there are far better ways to connect people to what they need and what will make them loyal to your client, company, etc. that serve everyone better, and yes, will probably require more work (a two-way dialogue). It is this that makes me so excited about public relations and communications.

Brian’s contribution has allowed my excitement about things such as this to grow, given me the tools to be a better practitioner, brought me cutting edge approaches to a field I love and ultimately the inspiration to continue on my path. I thank Brian for helping me be a better, smarter, more productive practitioner by the content he shares and the hard work he does to produce this content. It certainly makes the PR discipline more meaningful to me.

Brian does a really great job making himself accessible to interested parties, despite being very busy all the time. He responds to his blog comments, tweets back and forth and engages with a lot of people regularly (basically, he practices what he preaches). It’s nice to know that if ever I had a PR 2.0 challenge, I could ping him and he’d do what he could to help out (I don’t know that this will ever happen because he writes about everything before it becomes a problem – for me).

I was lucky enough to meet Brian for a small second and exchange a hug at Blogworld/New Media Expo in 2009. I hope to have a better chunk of time with him someday to chat about his evolution through this discipline, life and what’s next – really just get to know him a bit.

I look forward to his new book, “Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web,” which hits stands any day now and can be pre-ordered over at Amazon.

Thanks to Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker for presenting the opportunity to chat about how Brian’s contributions have impacted my life. Hope to see you at SobCon2010!