For some reason, however, we often forget these basic social skills in the digital world.

In our most recent webinar, Erik shared examples of brands effectively using social media to promote their business and sell their products. Too many businesses jump into social media and immediately begin selling – pushing messages about their products and brand into an already ongoing conversation. Through what he calls the “social media escalator,” Erik explained the steps businesses should follow to become a welcome member of conversations in social media – listen first, sell last.

Click to enlarge: Qualman’s “Social Media Escalator” urges businesses to listen first, sell last.

Listen. Erik tells businesses to first be quiet and listen on social media. What’s being said about your brand, your products, your industry? See what people are saying before jumping in.

Interact. Join the conversation in a way that adds value. You can’t just start talking about how awesome you are and expect people to engage – you have to contribute to conversations people are already having to gain an audience. Respond to what people are saying about your brand.

React. This is where many companies drop the ball, Erik says. If 70% of people are saying they like something about your product, how quickly are you changing your product to deliver more of what they like? Insights without action are worthless.

The same goes for negative feedback. If people are talking about what they don’t like about your products or brand, how quickly are you working to fix it? For all the companies jumping into social media, most don’t have a plan for acting on what they learn – their social efforts are siloed to a specific department. “Social” isn’t a department – your whole company must be listening and reacting to these conversations to drive any real value.

Sell. If you’re reacting to customer feedback to constantly improve your offering, selling will come naturally.

As you sell, your customers will follow this same model:

• Listen. Customers hear what your product has to offer them, both by listening to what you're selling, and also by listening to each other, on social media and in offline conversations.
• Interact. They’ll then interact with your products, using them themselves.
• React. They’ll react to your product, developing their own opinion of what’s working and what isn’t, what they like and what they don’t.
• Sell. Based on their reaction, they’ll sell for or against you via word of mouth.

If you’ve done your job right – listened to customers, interacted with them, and reacted to their feedback to consistently deliver better experiences – customers will do the selling for you, by sharing their love of your products and brand with their networks, both online and off. And this is where you listen, hear what they think of your business, and the cycle begins again.

Erik shared many examples of brands following these steps well, along with numerous other tips from his best-selling book Socialnomics, in our webinar.

I wanted to hear all sides, so I posed the question on LinkedIn – which city is the “capital” of social media? I got a lot of great responses, but the answers left me with more questions.

What makes a city the “capital”?

“…I guess you'd have to set the context around what makes a city the capital.”
Alicia Benjamin, Social Media Manager at MeYou Health (LinkedIn)

“You'd have as many capitals as definitions of social media.”
Daniel Alfon, trilingual online marketing specialist seeking a new challenge (website, Twitter)

Biggest SM user base? Most integration of social into daily life? Most Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare users per capita? A hub of social-centered startups? Is there even a rubric we can all agree on to evaluate this question?  Based on the varied definitions respondents seemed to create for “social media capital”, probably not.

“Las Vegas, of course. We enable the most social interactions- online and off. C'mon.”
Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President, Marketing, MGM Grand Hotel (LinkedIn, Twitter)

“LA is the capital of social media. It's the center of entertainment-oriented content, a seat of innovation, a denizen of app-crazy dining aficionados and ground-zero for a great deal of lifestyle-oriented communications.”
Barry Berkowitz, VP, Digital Mktg. Solutions @ infogroup Interactive (website, Twitter)

“San Francisco. Since it's social media, it's all about the people, and the Bay Area has literally thousands of very plugged-in people, most of whom work for extremely innovative organizations. Don't just take my word for it…attend a conference or a Tweetup there and see for yourself!”
Todd Castor, Area Director, eCommerce at Marriott International (LinkedIn)

“According to Chris Brogan, Pittsburgh is number one, based on the entire community and tribes crossing over to foster a cohesive community. If you judge by SXSW standards, Minneapolis is number one with the largest chapter in the world of the Social Media Breakfast groups, with Boston and San Francisco rounding out the top 3. Austin may host SXSW but that doesn't mean that Social Media is practiced there more.”
Christopher Lower, Co-Owner Sterling Cross Communications (website, Twitter)

Can there be a capital at all? Should there be?

My favorite comment challenged the question altogether.

“I thought the point of social media, the internet, crowdsourcing, cloud computing, et cetera was that there isn't a capital?”
Matt McCoy, Online Strategy Manager at Volt (Twitter)

The fact that our answers come from all over the country and globe begs the question:  If social media is a borderless world, can there even be a single capital? Maybe there can be multiple capitals, or perhaps social media should never have a capital in the first place. After all, traditional capitals are nodes of centralized power and top-down governance, ideas that seem contrary to the ideas behind social media.

So you tell us: What’s the capital of social media? Can (and should) there be one at all?

See who you know at Bazaarvoice.

Connect with BV employees on LinkedIn, and participate in discussions like this one.

1. Empower male Facebook fans to show their support

According to the report, males are far more likely (52%) to cite “to show others I like or support this brand” than women (34%) as one reason they become a fan of a brand. In fact, nearly one in four (23%) men cite this as their main reason for becoming a fan, compared to about one in seven women (15%). Men are also more likely to cite “being the first to know information about the brand” (29%) than women (9%) as their primary reason for becoming a fan.

To capitalize on this, give your male fans more ways to show their love than just becoming a fan. Enable them to publish UGC on your Facebook page, and encourage them to share this content on their own pages.

2. Give female fans what they want: discounts and promotions

Women, on the other hand, are most likely to name “to receive discounts and promotions” as their primary reason for becoming a fan of a brand. Women indicate this reason more often than males for both Facebook (30% vs. 18%) and Twitter (34% vs. 23%).

Give your female fans what they’re looking for on both social networks. Promotions are also a great way to encourage UGC submission.

3. On Twitter, capitalize on the shared need to be an insider

Men are more likely (59%) than women (43%) to become a follower of a brand on Twitter at least in part because they are already customers. But both men and women on Twitter seem to be driven by a desire to be “brand insiders” – with women seeking discounts and promotions, and men seeking to be the first to know information about the brand. Both genders list “to gain access to exclusive content” as another top reason for following.

Provide your Twitter followers with special content they can’t get elsewhere, and feed their need to feel like an insider with your brand.

What do all of these findings mean for social media marketers? To risk stating the obvious, they mean one size does not fit all in social media. While that conclusion may invoke thoughts of “duh,” take a moment to consider what it means. Coupons and promotions that work well for brands like Venus may not work for brands with even closely related products, like Gillette. Followers on Twitter may want something different from your brand than fans on Facebook.

Asking why your prospects and customers would interact with you brand is only the beginning. To be effective, your messaging needs to appeal specifically to both genders, so be sure to incorporate both sets of motivations into the mix.

Which brands would you say are doing this well? Which could stand to improve, and how?

NRF interviewed Julie Bornstein, Sephora Direct SVP, for the post. Some of Julie’s comments really struck a chord with us, and we’d like to share them here.

Julie discussed the brand’s use of MobileVoice, allowing shoppers to access Sephora’s thousands of customer reviews on their mobile devices. “Have you ever tried to decide which moisturizer to use while standing in front of a wall of options?” Julie asked. “Our customers love to talk about beauty and they love to hear what others have to say.” Mobile access to authentic customer opinions helps shoppers in offline channels – in your stores, browsing your catalogue – find the right product for them.

Julie Bornstein, Sephora Direct SVP

On Facebook, Sephora strives to make sure there is value in being a fan. “We make changes as a result of [fan feedback],” says Julie. “Given that the people who tend to interact with us are our more serious beauty mavens, they really know what’s going on. It makes us realize how in touch our consumer is!” Customer feedback offers brands a chance to interact with their most engaged customers, learning from their feedback to improve products and services and generate effective marketing campaigns. “Use this audience as a focus group to help drive business decisions,” Julie suggests.

Integrating social networks like Facebook into UGC efforts offers brands the opportunity to make this content especially relevant for shoppers. “If the first generation of ‘user-generated content’ was Ratings & Reviews, I think the next will be around filtering that input by your own network and friends,” Julie suggests. TurboTax is doing this with its “Friends Like You” feature, which not only allows shoppers to filter reviews by personal aspects like “bought a home” or “had a baby,” but also allows them to find reviews submitted by their connections on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.

You can read NRF’s full interview with Julie here. To learn more about integrating your brand’s UGC with mobile and social networks, request a demo here.

If you missed it, you can catch up with the event on Twitter or attend the next meeting (held the third Tuesday of each month in the Bazaarvoice offices). For more on the Austin Social Media Club, here’s a message from Mike Chapman, one of the club’s founders:

We are thrilled to share our space with the Austin Social Media Club, and look forward to being its home for the months ahead!

Proven ROI sets social commerce apart from social media. Unlike social media, social commerce explicitly ties together a company’s online, community-based activities with the bottom line. From a financial standpoint, it’s easy to see the benefits of social commerce over plain social media. Putting it into practice, however, can prove more challenging. If your company currently struggles to prove ROI on its community-based, online programs, then know: you’re not alone.

In his blog last month, Avinash Kaushik outlined the 11 barriers to online measurement, which he took from Econsultancy’s recent Online Measurement and Strategy Report. Turns out, most companies struggle with measuring the effects of their online efforts due to a lack of strategy, too few resources, isolation within their organizations, an absence of upper-level buy-in, and an overall lack of understanding. That’s probably not news. We hear about these challenges all the time. What was surprising was that just 9% of companies say they struggle with poor technology, and only 12% reported they struggle with staffing. This supports an insight Jeremiah Owyang published in Forrester’s blog back in June:

“Successful social media marketing is 80% strategy and 20% technology.”

At first glance, Owyang’s comment might seem like an oversimplification — after all, Econsultancy’s report does cite 11 issues. But upon a second read, it seems as though most of the cited issues – no budget, “siloed” organization, lack of understanding, absence of senior-level buy-in – really stem from one, over-arching problem: a lack of strategy. Without a clear strategy, how can a company collect and measure data? Without a clear picture of success, what are they measuring anyway?

To gain buy-in, secure resources, and help ensure the success of social commerce within your organization, you need a clear strategy first. And second? Establish metrics to gauge that strategy’s performance. Such metrics should help a company tie social media to business KPIs — albeit, likely through affecting smaller, departmental goals. This is the best way for a company to develop its online community efforts into successful social commerce with a long-term, sustainable model. So what could such a model look like?

Owyang’s blog suggests there are three common ways social media takes shape:

1.    Centralized — one part of an organization runs all the social media-related activities.

2.    Distributed — individual employees adopt social media-related activities with no centralization.

3.    Hub-and-spoke — an internal team spearheads activities that then, like the spokes on a bicycle wheel, expand out to most parts of the organization.

Like Owyang at Forrester, we believe the third option is the best as it ensures companies receive the most ROI from their activities. Content collected and amplified through social commerce has the ability to affect and inform decisions and finances at all levels of an organization. Only a hub-and-spoke model ensures that vital information can reach the parties who need it most. It’s also the best way to ensure such a program secures the buy-in and financial support it needs to be successful.

So what is your strategy for social commerce? How do you hope to affect business KPIs by leveraging online communities? As you move forward with your online activities, how will you ensure your strategy is working? And who are the influencers who are going to help you? Or, as Seth Godin might ask, “Who spreads your word?”

This is the first of a series of blog posts from Bazaarvoice’s Social Analytics team that will help you answer those questions. Look for the first posts to discuss how to establish a social commerce strategy and gain company buy-in, then stay tuned for discussions on potential performance indicators and on-going measurement opportunities.

And Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed, an online tool that helps users share information with their friends, further underscores the power of friends and other “people like me.”

Bottom line? If you’re on Facebook, you likely care most about what your friends – and perhaps their friends – think. There’s a reason you’re on Facebook, to share information with the important people in your life.

The power of these people is one of the main reasons we created Social Network Accelerators. When you’re shopping – whether you’re looking for a TV, a new insurance policy, or your next vacation – you automatically ask the people you know best. Social Network Accelerators feed into this by integrating with Facebook. When you go to your favorite retailer’s site to browse, you can see reviews from your friends, and even ask them questions from the site.

With our Facebook Connect application, customers can now shop online with their smartest friends in tow, seeing the products they recommend (or don’t), stories, and questions they have asked or answered.

For years, Facebook users have been able to share their published product reviews with their Facebook friends through applications like ShoutIt!, so their friends can see products they prefer. Bazaarvoice’s Facebook Connect solution takes this a step further, showing friends’ preferences while a shopper searches for a specific product – and guidance on what to buy – online.

This is just one phase of the new Social Network Accelerators we’re developing, part of helping our clients gain value from all their social assets. As discussed in our blog introducing Social Network Accelerators, our Facebook Connect application helps distribute user-generated content among a user’s friends, lets profiles drive which content a Facebook user sees at a retailer site, and lets Facebook users participate on retailer sites when retailers enable users to submit stories, answers, and reviews directly through Facebook.

Our new Social Network Accelerator program, announced today, gives brands a blueprint for plugging into social networks in the right way to drive sales. It all starts with engaging users through social commerce applications such as Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, and Stories – and gives brands an integrated strategy to tap into social networks for better distribution, profile information and participation.

Distribution: With Facebook Connect, for example, customers can automatically publish reviews, answers and stories directly to Facebook to share their opinions with their network of friends. Unlike other solutions on the market, we give our customers control of the message. They decide when and if the content should post to social networks, ensuring the content is moderated and safe for the brand.

Profiles: Clients that integrate with Facebook Connect can let their customers automatically see opinions of their Facebook friends, and find out what products they liked best. This will help drive sales and increase engagement with the site.

Participation: There’s also an opportunity for customers to submit reviews, answers, and stories via Twitter or Facebook and automatically funnel back to a site, directly to the product and category pages, where they can directly influence sales, increase search, and more.

In addition to the superior technology of our Accelerator program, we'll also provide recommendations and best practices through our Community Managers. As part of a broader ecosystem, we recognize that our Radius partners will also play a key role in maximizing Social Network Accelerator results for our clients.

This all adds up to help companies broaden their reach, increase engagement with customers, and increase their intelligence about their customers as a whole. And – finally – companies can use Facebook and Twitter to drive real, measurable results. These are just a few ways we’re innovating to drive value throughout all of social.