Last week, I attended a webinar from WOMMA where WOMMA General Counsel Tony DiResta discussed the importance of disclosure across social media. This conversation normally focuses on brand-blogger relationships but the same best practices and government guidelines may also affect your Facebook Page.

Here are five things to keep in mind about your brand and disclosure on Facebook.

1. Employment is “Consideration”: The FTC requires that any consideration from an endorser be disclosed; “consideration” includes anything that might sway endorsers’ words and this includes employment. Make it clear to employees that posting an endorsement or review on your Facebook Page without disclosing that they are employees is unacceptable, this also includes commenting on other Facebook Pages or Facebook content just as it does commenting on blogs.
2. Video Contests: If you are soliciting Facebook videos about how much fans love your product to be in the running for a million dollar prize treat this the same as you would if you were requiring a blog post about your product as a contest entry. Help fans by requiring that they include a link to your contest rules or a including the contest name in the video description- this disclosure will protect your fans and will raise awareness of the contest.
3. Disclosure in Celebrity Status Updates: Status for Sale is forbidden by the Facebook User Guidelines but do make sure that any celebrity spokes people disclose their relationship with you should they be posting about your products a lot. There is no standard format for this disclosure, the status update might include (sponsor) in the text or the celebrity might list the sponsorship or spokesperson relationship prominently on their Page information.
4. Disclosure of Celebrity Photos: If celebrities and influencers are seen using your products in paid advertisements or at your events it’s understood that these are paid endorsements and no disclosure is needed but a photo of a celebrity using your product lacking any description or context is more ambiguous. To be safe, if you are posting photos of paid celebrities or event attendees using your products make sure to add a note to the album description or under each photo as to where the photo came from.
5. Disclosure in Foursquare: One great question from the webinar was around Foursquare and whether free products or gifts given to a Mayor needed to be disclosed- Tony confirmed that they do. Since many people are now using Facebook and Foursquare together I thought this was worth including.

Remember to use common sense with social media campaigns just as you do traditional advertising campaigns and keep your customers’ best interest in mind. And no matter how much you study this stuff don’t forget the gut check: if you think you might need to be disclosing something you probably do.

A special thanks to Tony DiResta for his input on this- for continued discussion and updates about best practices and guidelines check out Tony DiResta’s blog on the WOMMA website see the full disclosure webinar here.

The day long discussion featured many highlights, starting with a talk from Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong about the power of health based communities online and how important real time information is to improving healthcare and the patient experience. Greg Matthews from Humana shared how a health insurer can innovate internally and use that to improve patient relationships and Jenn Texada from MD Anderson shared how she and her communications team use social media tools to interact directly with patients for customer service. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine presented an innovative new database to help identify unknown pills called Pillbox and Fabio Gratton shared how to build a movement through a case study of the success of the #FDASM movement in November of last year around the FDA hearings. In the “unconference” part of the day, companies such as ReachMD and WEGO Health talked about their communities and content and how they help bridge the gaps between patients, doctors and healthcare providers.

In the final session of the day, I tackled the question of trust. A central issue in healthcare communications, the session posed the question: why don’t people trust us? Or more specifically, what creates the culture of distrust online that so often causes negativity towards some companies in healthcare and what could we as an industry do to combat this? Our aim in the session was to brainstorm ways that healthcare organizations could overcome these barriers and build more trust and credibility. The entire room then selected what they felt the strongest ideas were and I promised to compile the results into a single blog post - which you’ll find below. In the spirit of the unconference, all of us who managed to be part of the great discussion would love to hear your thoughts on any other ideas that we could add to this list too …

1. Listen to and implement ideas from the community. Being part of a community or interacting with individuals is a great first step, but the real trust that can be built from this comes when people see some sort of action come as a result of the participation in a community. It is not the act of listening, but the impact of that listening which makes it real.
2. Have shared values on good health. Often the distrust in healthcare organizations stems from a belief that priorities are mismatched. Our priority as a patient is to get healthy, and their priority seems to be offering more medication or delivering care in a more “efficient” way. In order to build trust, it is crucial that people feel our ultimate goals are aligned toward making them healthier. We need to focus on prevention instead of promotion.
3. Answer your patient’s or customer’s concerns directly. With social media tools, people have the ability to broadcast their thoughts and desires. Often they are doing so because they are seeking a response. Having a smart listening program that can help you find these queries and a strategy for responding goes a long way towards demonstrating that you care and truly want to help.
4. Aggregate or curate useful information. Sometimes the problem isn’t a lack of information online, but a dearth of it. When information is scattered all over, it can become very confusing about what is credibile and which things to trust. One of the simplest roles for any healthcare organization to take is that of a curator of great content. By doing this, you can create resources for people that will be useful and demonstrate your commitment to their needs.
5. Serve as a resource or guide for the community. One of the things that many organizations neglect is actively using the experts that you may have internally. When it comes to marketing and communications, part of the role should be to unlock the best voices from within an organization (many of whom may not necessarily be in the marketing or PR departments). By bringing these voices out and encouraging them to share information, you can connect patients and customers to the individuals who can truly bring insight and deliver thoughtful and useful information.
6. Set expectations on what you do and why. Lack of trust can be based on a misunderstanding of motivations. There are times when people may assume that a policy or practice is done simply for financial reasons or because of legal motives when actually there are other concerns they don’t know. Being as transparent as possible about your decision process and thinking can go a long way to remove this misunderstanding.
7. Focus on setting a clear mission for employees. The most trustworthy organizations often are the ones that have a very specific and defined vision that everyone is working to implement. When the message coming from employees is consistent, it goes a long way towards establishing a belief in the organization from outsiders because they know what the group stands for.
8. Communicate results and outcomes. Large organizations in particular are often good about communicating outcomes or results in financial terms on a quarterly basis or some kind of cost related metric, but not as good about communicating impact of their efforts in human terms. To inspire belief, it is often the results in human terms that people respond to far more than the financial ones - so refocusing on how that story is told becomes vital.
9. Recognize both sides of the issue or data. Many people inherently believe that data and reports presented by many healthcare groups (and pharma in particular) is delivered with a strong bias towards whatever is most self serving for the group. When information is not presented in a more balanced way, the likelihood that people will not believe it is entirely credible goes up.
10. Build trusted long term relationships. Beyond all the other suggestions, the one thing that establishes a foundation for everything you do are the trusted relationships with influencers and individuals that you build online. You need a group of people who know enough about what you do and the real philosophy and thinking behind your actions that they can serve as vocal advocates for your brand if needed.

Q: Can you tell us briefly what the Shanghai World Expo is and what it may mean to China, its government, business leaders and even the people there?
A: Shanghai Expo has been billed as one of the largest events of its kind in China. While people outside of China may not have heard of the event, the organizers expect a extremely large domestic audience.

Q: You did a unique survey of what the Chinese people were saying online via social media about the Expo, what surprised you most?
A: One of the biggest surprises about the discussions online was the intensity of discussion taking place more than three months before the event began. While you might expect sponsor and the government to speak about the event, it was interesting to see the level of discussion going on among China’s netizens.

Q: Can you tell two of the insights in the survey?
A: The report gives insights into how individual citizens and companies are already gearing up for the Expo. In terms of Chinese citizens, the report shows that they are concerned about ticket prices and taking action. Among the initiatives are group purchasing of tickets and rural citizens asking for advice on how to buy tickets.

Q: How could brands engaging in the Expo use this survey to their advantage?
A: By understanding the concerns of consumers looking at the Expo, companies can find ways of offering value to those who may visit the Expo. One interesting example in relation to the ticket prices is one company, , that is offering tickets to Expo at the original price. The promotion costs them very little - the difference in ticket price is very small - but the publicity and discussion about it has been fairly extensive. As we follow the Expo with these publicly available reports, companies will be able to see possible hooks for their own Social Media strategy.

How can brands leverage social media to drive sales and lead generation?

While social media spending is on the rise for both B2B and B2C companies, many brands are still realizing the full potential of online engagement for business development and lead generation.  Next week, I’ll be presenting ideas to the Silicon Valley Capital Club on how brands can best leverage the social web to drive word of mouth buzz and, ultimately, sales opportunities.

Below, I’ve provided a sneak peek into the insights I plan to cover, however, I’d welcome your feedback and stories as to where your organization experiences the greatest online business development success:

1.      Listen first – What does this really mean in terms of lead generation?  Essentially, it’s absolutely critical to know where your customers and competitors live on the social web what issues are most prevalent in your space.  Read blogs that are relevant to your space, look for webinars about key issues and use Google blog search to understand what trends are most discussed among your customer base.

2.      Set clear goals as to what you want to achieve – Start with one or two measureable objectives that are attainable within a specified timeframe and build from there.  It’s okay to begin with a pilot project, allowing you to easily retool your plan if your objectives are not tracking toward success.

3.      Add value to the online conversation – After listening to what is being discussed in your space, be ready to offer something more than a “quick hit” opportunity to buy your organization’s products or services.  Share insightful content, develop webinars, offer product demonstrations or training, create live events and answer questions.  Be viewed as an industry resource and seek to establish rapport and validation within your targeted audience.

4.     Empower employees to tell your story – Intel (disclosure - they are a client) published their social media guidelines as a best practice and several organizations have done the same. Intel’s policy clearly states that employees should “stick to your area of expertise and provide unique, individual perspectives on what’s going on at Intel and in the world.”  Who better to tell your organization’s story to the world and add a human element to your brand than your own employees?

5.      Paid and Organic Search – Ensuring your content can be easily found is absolutely critical when there is so much competition for eyeballs on the social web.  Investing in paid search and ensuring your web properties use consistent keywords/metatags to assist with organic search results are both instrumental.  Google Trends and Google’s keyword tool are free resources that help identify the search strings that will work the hardest for your digital content.

6.      Make your corporate website relevant to the sales process – Too many brands miss opportunities to capture attention and add immediate relevance to the customer once the customer finds them online.  I’ve listed some ideas on how an organization’s website could immediately strike greater engagement possibilities:

• Develop a blog and use it as a sales tool/testing ground. Posts should be brief, incorporate photos and/or videos that help in telling a story and speak in a conversational tone.  Be ready to respond to comments and questions in a timely fashion, noting which topics have the most traction for your prospects.
• Analyze where people are clicking, use trackable URLs (bit.ly offers metrics) and regularly review the metrics
• Offer Q&As with happy customers and how the product offering is being implemented, using both video and text
• Socialize the press area and more visible areas of your site, ensuring content is shareable and interactive
• Incorporate product and service reviews via third-party applications that live within your web platform

7.      Broaden your digital footprint and develop a content calendar – While it’s critical that your organization’s website offers relevant content, it’s also a good best practice to allow your content to live beyond the confines of your organization’s web platform.  Posting engaging content on LinkedIn, Facebook brand pages, YouTube and Fast Pitches can only help extend your reach and produce better search results for your brand.  Additionally, ensuring that content is produced on a regular basis and is timely (i.e. teases a tradeshow presence, product demonstrations are scheduled with product announcements, etc.) can offer a much richer experience for your potential customer.

8.      Don’t neglect Twitter as a business tool – It’s fairly easy to integrate Twitter into your sales strategy without much effort.  By using a management tool like TweetDeck or Seesmic to track specific keywords/lists, organizations can hyper-target those who are most interested their space.  Twitter can also be very powerful as a customer service mechanism, for introducing special offers and for answering questions about products and services.

While there are a number of ideas I haven’t covered here, I’m hopeful this list will generate some additional thinking on how organizations can best leverage social media for sales and lead generation.  What are your thoughts?  What’s worked well for you?

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Bangalore for a Brand Summit event that featured many marketers, communicators and even a Bollywood star talking about the future of marketing in India as country goes through what the conference termed as the “era of discontinuity.” With a ballooning population, growing Internet penetration, arguably the largest mobile phone market on earth and an entrepreneurial culture - India is at once a bewildering and maturing market for all things social. On the streets of India, word of mouth marketing and old school lessons are actively driving commerce. In businesses, the hot topics are similar to what they are in the US or elsewhere … how can your brand reach consumers who are increasingly placing their attention elsewhere and getting progressively better at ignoring you.

On answer that has risen to some level of prominence in India is the use of celebrities in marketing. You could argue that celebrities are popular everywhere in the world, but in a country that release more films in an average week than most countries do in an entire year, the rules are slightly different. In India it is not uncommon to see a Bollywood star’s face on everything from facial tissues to pens. Celebrity is used to connote trust, and in a culture with many different socio-economic classes (they even have names), the only way that marketers can often reach across these levels is with celebrities that many people recognize.

In an illuminating panel filled with journalists, filmmakers, marketers, creative directors and one celebrity (Bollywood Actor Vivek Oberoi) the conversation turned to a in-depth discussion of the role of celebrity in marketing in India and whether it was indeed a necessity, or whether it has become a “crutch” for the lazy marketer who doesn’t want to do any real work so they just hire a celebrity and consider their marketing efforts complete. Here were some of the biggest takeaways that the conversation raised for me:

1. Understand the difference between talent and celebrity. When you hire an actor to play a part in an ad, you are hiring them as “talent.” When you get a celebrity, you are hiring them to bring their personal brand to your product or service and serve as a spokesperson of sorts. The first key is to know the difference and not confuse the two.

2. Start with an idea, not a celebrity. Often a marketing strategy starts by selecting the celebrity the team will work with and then an idea is built around that choice. This method is backwards and results in marketing that lacks strategic vision and often fails to resonate. To do better, you need to have a strong creative idea … then find the celebrity that best fits that idea.

3. Build on the personal brand of a celebrity. Vivek Oberoi raised many intelligent points about the celebrity point of view when it comes to marketing (something we don’t often hear). He understands his personal brand and what resonates positively or negatively with it. As a result, he chooses personally not to do tobacco or alcohol related advertising. Many other celebrities lack those same principles and simply go where the biggest dollars tempt them. The best marketing will be something builds on the personal brand that a celebrity has built, instead of ignoring or countering it.

4. Use real people too. Thankfully, the point did emerge from the panel that there may be times where you don’t NEED a celebrity. There is a power of real people to connect with one another that can be missing with celebrity focused campaigns and for a growing number of brands in India taking this real approach is working well and shouldn’t be discounted.

The panel featured Amy Jo Martin, head honcho of @digitalroyalty (the folks who did, among other things Random Acts of Shaqness),  Peter Robert Casey ( the first ever media accredited micro-blogger, he covers St John’s basketball here: @Peter_R_Casey), Jim DeLorenzo (a VP at Octagon, the guys who have developed Twackle, a sports tweet aggregator), and Jack Dorsey* (founder of Twitter and Square).  Three sports/marketing folks, and one guy who hand in inventing (or popularizing, depending on how you look at it) micro-blogging. A serious panel indeed.

After some opening words from Howard Jacobs, Sr VP Marketing & Ticket Sales for MSG Sports**, things kicked off with intros and powerpoints from the panelists.  Somewhat of an unusual start, and one that I didn’t personally care much for in truth (I would have preferred that they get straight to the discussion), but the assembled peeps were certainly left in no doubt as to the credentials of those on the panel.  With that out of the way we got into the meat of the event: a spirited and lively discussion on the state of social media in sports and beyond, and the Knicks’ plans for the future.  Although I was a little critical of the first half (it felt like a missed opportunity to me to have that expertise without maximizing the audience’s interaction with them), it was pretty cool to see how engaged everyone was once the panelists got chatting.

Jordan (he of @thenyknicks) did a really good job moderating the event, and there were some great and varied questions from the audience.  It’s very clear that the sports industry is starting to embrace social media, and the Knicks are without a doubt one of the teams leading the charge. Kudos to the organization for having the guts both put on such an event, and to embrace change with such gusto. Nobody has all the answers just yet, but the Knicks and the folks on their panel at #NYKTweetup are certainly helping get us there. It’s going to be interesting to see how it continues to develop in this most unique of areas: sports fans are like no other audience. We know everything, are rarely happy, and are never short of opinions.

My 2 cents on where things are going in this space: social is in no small part about empowering individuals and any brand that chooses to engage needs to be prepared to relinquish a certain amount of control, so it will be particularly fascinating to see how an industry that is perceived to so much about control (ticket prices, contracts, restricted free agency, broadcast rights and so on) adapts to this new world. Fans are going to require more than behind the scenes access, we’re going to want to be heard, and to be given a meaningful stake in the team we support.

Congrats to the NYKnicks for having the guts to dive headlong into it, and on hosting a great event. Looking forward to the next one

@PhilCatelinet’s pics from the event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catelinp/sets/72157623523695882/

@amandarykoff‘s pics from the event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandarykoff/sets/72157623399427947/

Panel discussion ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5061506

*As a sidenote: I also got to see Jack’s new venture, @square in action, and it’s absolutely mind-blowing. Effortless & elegant, it’s a real game changer imo.  More on that here.

** ‘lil edit/correction thanks to @digitalroyalty.  Thanks Amy

Aside from the growing magnitude of the player base for social games like Farmville, a recently released Information Solutions Group / Popcap study also suggests that these games are reaching a broader and more diverse segment of the population than one might expect.

Here are some of the US-specific findings about social game players from the study*:

- average age is 48

- 90% reported the same or increased game play over the past 3 months

- 27% and 25% reported less time spent reading (mag, book, newspaper) and home TV/movie viewing respectively

- 43% of the time, game players log into social networks specifically to play games

- friends’ recommendations are the #1 factor influencing social game selection

- 35% have purchased a virtual gift while playing a social game

- among the specific games studied, Bejeweled Blitz and Farmville were more popular with women; Mafia Wars and Texas Holdem Poker were more popular with men

Here’s a recent Appdata list of the 15 most popular social games.

*the study also surveyed UK players

This Facebook Friday is dedicated to the Little Guy: the one-man communications team, the small business owner, or the intern for a non-profit who just got assigned Facebook (I’ve been there). So here’s to you, Little Guy, and because you make Facebook awesome, here are six easy and (almost) free tips for your “little” Facebook page. And you Big Guys can learn a thing or two as well.

1. Promote In-Venue- For most local businesses, your customers only know you offline so it’s the perfect place to start your efforts. Post a flyer, print some stickers, make a poster… just let your customers know that you’ve got a Facebook page and let them know where to find it. Local businesses like Primal Surf Shop in New Jersey can keep update local and also keep in touch with tourists and summer visitors who might only be in once or twice a year but who are spreading the word about the shop to their networks through interactions with the page.
2. Put Facebook Forward Online- Whether or not you’re planning to promote in-venue make sure you grab the low-hanging fruit of promoting Facebook through your online presences. Add the URL into your e-mail signature, place a link on your personal Facebook page or local chamber of commerce site, and add a Fan Box to your own website so visitors can become a fan right there. The Fan Box is also an easy way to update a static website and bring a little social into it, like this site from West Des Moines Leadership Academy.
3. Network- Small businesses are great at networking and you can do this on Facebook too. Local DC restaurant Marvin does this well; they often host local artists and musicians and not only create Facebook events on their own page but also post and link to the artists’ page and Facebook content such as photos or poetry posts. Non-profits can do this too; on National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Know Stroke page they list other stroke-awareness pages and partners in their Favorite Pages and Links section.
4. Buy Targeted Advertising- You can purchase Facebook ads from amounts of $5-$500 with any credit card or Pay Pal. Facebook ads can target by age, gender, hometown, current city, relationship status or interests. One ad that caught my eye recently was from Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, a coffee shop in my hometown of La Jolla, California. I’m now a fan and even though I’m miles away I check the page frequently and comment on photos from the owner, Chuck, and his trips to coffee farms all over the world.
5. Go Mobile- Not having a desktop at work is no longer an excuse to slack on Facebook. Curbside Cupcakes is a mobile cupcake shop that uses Facebook and Twitter to let fans know when they’ll be in the neighborhood so mobile updating is perfect, it’s also a great solution for those on the sales floor during business hours who want to keep customers coming in from 9-5. Facebook offers four options for updating on the go: e-mail, text message, mobile browser, or iPhone application. Get more information here http://tinyurl.com/FacebookPagesMobile
6. Be Patient- This final and critical tip come from Charles Nelson, owner of Sprinkles Cupcakes in Los Angeles. He told the New York Times last year that part of his tip was, “Be patient. Technology is about the network effect. It takes time for those connections to build.”

Do you have other tips and tricks that you’ve seen or have a local business you love to follow online? Share below and good luck, Little Guy.

Update: Facebook also posted about local businesses and tips for using Facebook (#kismet)

All of these are great ways to extend the event but why not take coverage to the next level with a live broadcast? Creating a live show from an event is a great way to engage consumers and maximize your reach.

Solutions from Livestream and Ustream allow mobile broadcast stations to be set up from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. No Internet access? No problem. The Livepack from Livestream is a turnkey hardware solution for wireless live streaming at HD quality. This makes man on street coverage much easier as you can literally point the camera and go.

Recently we live broadcasted from an event. The concept was a behind the scenes sneak peak of a show with exclusive interviews from campaign spokes people and attendees. Our goal was to create new ways to extend reach of the event, engage with consumers not able to attend and drive action by getting people to tune in.

The results were excellent by comparison. The brand micro-site saw its single largest traffic day since it launched in November of 2009. Visitors tuned in for an average of 10 minutes, which is five times longer than an average day.

Not only did people tune into the broadcast from over 20 countries, 70% of them explored at least three additional pages within the site. The live coverage of the event coupled with active monitoring and engagement on twitter proved to be a great recipe for extending the event experience.

Before plugging your camera in and going live here are some tips for a successful live broadcast.

• Create a “Show” not a stream: Fully develop the story you want to tell with a mixture of live coverage and pre-recorded video. This requires more up front planning, pre recording of videos and more tightly incorporating segways to pre-recorded video.
• Promote across channels to build awareness of the show: Using email, social channels and engaging with online influencers played a huge role in the success of this online event.
• Encourage viewer participation by bringing them into the “show”: Another way to engage viewers in the live broadcast is to in create points of interaction with event goers and online viewers via twitter, Facebook or chat. A simple example of this would be a Q&A with attendees.
• No wifi – No show: In situations where you rely on a wifi connection it is essential to test each physical location the broadcast will air from. This will ensure there are no dead spots. For venues that do no provide wifi/wired capabilities you can also have lines dropped or secure a rental of the LiveStream Livepack.
• Poor lighting and sound can ruin a great effort: Having the right equipment can make or break the experience for your viewers. Plan ahead and be prepared to bring additional lighting especially if you are broadcasting indoors. The use of microphones will also significantly increase the audio quality for those tuning in.

Live broadcast are certainly not for every situation but can be a great way to maximize the investment in offline events.

So come for two reasons:

1. To learn from your peers in a very intimate setting. There is actually an intensive summit the next day (Saturday) which I would encourage many to explore and attend. Orange, the Guardian, Kodak, BSkyB and my friends from 1000 Heads will all be there.

2. To meet with me and help me find 2 talented Digital Influence Strategists to hire into our UK/EU operation. I coudl really use your help as our team keeps expanding in UK. You can get the skinny on our blog and lets talk this Friday (I arrive Thursday PM) in Devon