I'm enjoying Steve Woods's post today on Digital Body Language, on the ways Marketing departments can and should be "doing" social media. I want to take a deeper dive on a few of Steve's points, because they speak to my own experience as a Marketing Manager, and they conveniently tie in with our recent new white paper, How to Create a Content Strategy for B2B Nurturing Campaigns.

Steve describes the reasons that the Marketing people and the Social Media people are, well, separate people in most organizations: in short, because Marketing thinks in terms of lightning-strike campaigns, and Social Media requires a slow steady drip of content originated from subject-matter experts. My own experience, because of the very things Steve describes, is that Marketing as we know it and Social Media require two entirely different personalities.

• Crusaders: The term "marketing campaign," not coincidentally, ties it to major efforts of politics and war. The most successful marketing campaigns I've been involved with were led by charismatic project leaders. They were kicked-off at the beginning, and celebrated with champagne at the end. At their best, they were more than campaigns, they were crusades. They even had names.
• Shepherds: Managing social media requires constant watchfulness, vigilance, and even the herding of subject-matter experts and the content they produce. If I may mix metaphors, the notions of "herding cats" and "time to make the doughnuts" apply here. There might be a kick-off to a social media campaign, but there is no cause for champagne if they end (die).

Despite this stark difference in personalities, the Crusaders and the Shepherds can get more done when they come together, as Steve's recommendations suggest:

• Crusaders like to launch ads. Advertise the content the Shepherds are rolling out.
• Shepherds create a steady stream of content. Launch Crusades for that content, too.
• Engage the subject-matter experts that the Shephers have herded; bring them into the Crusades, too.
• Use the search budget not just to herd traffic to the blog, but to crusade for the marketing campaigns as well. (This one might seem obvious, but I suspect that the divide between Shepherds and Crusaders prevents it from happening as much as it should.)

At the end of the day, the Crusaders (for all their swagger) can take an important lesson from the Shepherds, and this lesson is discussed in the white paper: it's really all about the buyer, not the Crusade itself. Buyers don't care about the project, the kick-off, and all the hoopla around a marketing campaign. They have their own problems to solve--and they are solving them by having an ongoing conversation with the Shepherds.

So if Crusaders want to reach buyers (and aren't Crusaders the ones counting leads?) don't they need the Shepherds? I'm interested to hear stories of successful ways the two personalities come together.

I'm frequently approached by writers looking for work, and the first thing they want me to see is a sample of their writing. In ten seconds, I can tell whether a writer can put a decent paragraph together. But writing is only the first of many skills needed to produce content for an enterprise.

Some of these additional skills sound "soft," but there would be hard consequences to building a large body of content without them.

• Research and interviewing: Web content writers are usually responsible for gathering the raw information from which they write, from interviews with subject-matter experts (each of whom has their own style of communicating), previously written material, and the web.
   
• Project management and workflow: Content writers require an understanding, and respect for, the approval and review process. In one large project, we have 5 writers on our team, who are working with 25 people on the client side: subject-matter experts, reviewers, marketing managers and other stakeholders. Our writers are managing a project plan of interviews, reviews, and intermediate milestones.
   
• Version control and reviews: The number of documents in a large project, multiplied by the number of versions that go back and forth, is daunting. We use Basecamp to manage the review process and version control; Basecamp also provides a portal for our clients.
• Content management systems: The tools of the writer have evolved--not just from pen to typewriter to computer, but to Word, WordPress, Drupal, and a variety of other content management systems. Writers must be adept with these tools--and be ready to lear new ones, since there are so many.
   
• Brand management: Although a project requires multiple writers to complete on schedule, the body of work represents our client's single voice.Our writers must understand how brand extends into the copy they write. They use and contribute to style sheets when the project requires it. And they collaborate with each other to achieve a common voice.
   
• Search engine optimization: This topic is already exhausted, but suffice it to say that although content management systems automate many SEO basics, real SEO skills are required to optimize web content.

All these skills require an attention to detail that we do not take for granted on our team.  We're fortunate to have process-oriented writers with broad experience who understand enterprise content management: how these projects work, and how to work them.

Last week’s AdAge poll posed a fascinating question:

As someone employed in marketing, advertising or public relations, would you work on the BP account in a professional capacity at this point?

The consensus leaned slightly toward “Yes,” 46% to 42%, with 13% responding, “It depends on how much I’d be paid.” But many of those who left comments on the poll’s web page would take on the challenge gladly. Here’s a sample:

The question is not whether an ad agency can turn public opinion in BP's favor, it's whether you can ever tell a compelling enough story about the response to make it OK in enough consumers' minds to fill their tanks at a BP station. If BP allowed me to do an HONEST campaign? Yes, I'd take it on in a heartbeat. It'd be one helluva ride. [PowerFliteGuy]

The commenters who say they would take on the challenge would do so if they have access to management—and management was ready to take their advice. Armed with that, the creative possibilities for transforming the brand are enticing to these professionals.

Last week, Paul tweeted a MarketingProfs article about a study saying that PR, not marketing, is gaining control of social media, because PR is accustomed to communicating through dialogue, not monologue—dialogue being more suited to social media.

Sounds like the dialogue must not only be between the company and its public, but also be between the communications professionals and their management—especially when the brand needs rescuing, and the message is the hardest to communicate.

I took part in an interesting discussion today regarding how much effort and resource organizations should put toward developing and "owning" unique creative terms. Every marketer wants to be the Jerry Maguire that is associated with "show me the money," but the internet rewards the common and most commonly searched terms: "images of money?"

Of course, this is just another question in the ongoing debate between the more creative elements of marketing organizations and those that are more process oriented. But it does make you wonder if United Airlines would be happier being associated with the "friendly skies" or "cheap Florida vacations."  The former is a more memorable, longer lasting marketing asset, but the latter is more tangibly associated with current revenue--as long as the SEO budget remains strong, that is.