16. Step 7: Become a Social Conductor

So, What Is a Social Conductor, Exactly?

A social conductor is a brand ambassador who knows how to leverage the power of social media through Cross Platform Promotion (CPP)—as we introduce in Chapter 17, “Step 8: Introducing Cross Platform Promotion”—and the use of social media tools to build a structure of social media integration that unites the various platforms to unify a brand message.

In essence, we can look upon a social conductor as the conductor of an orchestra, ensuring that each instrument being played comes together at the right time and with the right intensity to create the perfect symphony.

How to Conduct Your Social Media Traffic

Now that you’ve set up your platforms and are learning the tricks that will set you apart from the competition, it’s time to fully maximize the traffic you receive to ensure that all your hard work is viewed and appreciated by as many potential customers as possible.

A great way to help you achieve this is to use traffic-boosting tools such as those provided by Digg (Digg. com) and StumbleUpon (Stumbleupon.com). Also known as submit tools, there are hundreds of different options out there, and positioning them correctly will enable you to become a true social conductor. Unfortunately, none of us have the time to be an active member on more than just a few social media sites, and trying to target too many of them by adding countless buttons and widgets to your blog will only make it cluttered and ineffective. So be selective in your choices and stick with the tools that have the most clout and which we talk about in this chapter.

Among social media sites, there are a huge variety of audiences, types of content that’s popular, amount of traffic that’s sent to popular links, and so on. Most experts in social media agree that the quality to traffic of your platforms is more important than the quantity. In terms of linking from your blog, the quality of traffic that you receive from social media will largely depend upon finding the right fit in terms of the tools you employ on your blog to direct your readers to your other social media platforms and entice them to spread the word about posts they have enjoyed. So experiment with a few and find out what works best for you.

The Five Elements That Make a Great Social Conductor

The conductor model as defined by Jay Deragon in 2010 leverages five elements of interaction with the marketplace, and we discuss each of these individually in the following sections.

Attention

Great social conductors do things that create attention from the marketplace. However, the things they do draw attention to people’s ideas, wants, desires, and needs rather than direct attention to themselves. They build social capital by doing things that people can participate in and benefit from. They provide content that is in context to people’s intentions rather than the intentions of their organization. For example, the Pepsi Refresh social media campaign (Refresheverything.com) has given millions of dollars in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods, and education. The campaign has resulted in it conducting thousands of new visitors to its Facebook page and its blog, which have translated into many new customers for the brand.

The Pepsi campaign continues to draw the right attention, not just for one event, but works to conduct traffic 24/7 and 365 days of the year (see Figure 16-1).

Figure 16-1. The Pepsi Refresh project continues to conduct traffic a year following its conception.

(Source: Refresheverything.com)

Awareness

Social conductors draw attention to people and things that are social. Such things could be anything that people desire, want, or need; the conductor enables people to easily access information that is in alignment with their intents. By raising awareness of issues that are important and relevant to society, conductors are in fact raising awareness of their brands. Mainstream media and the participants are likely to discuss the Pepsi campaign mentioned earlier, and the blogosphere will explode with commentary surrounding it for a long time to come.

Affinity

Social conductors create affinities in people by enabling them to interact, support, and communicate relevant information that is important to their wants, needs, desires, and intentions. By creating such affinities, social conductors are indirectly creating an affinity to themselves for the value created by the experience and interaction they enable.

Audience

By creating attention, awareness, and affinity, social conductors build an audience who relates to the actions, intents, and values created on their behalf.

Call to Action

The social conductor enables people to act on their desires, wants, needs, and intentions to become the enabler of action on behalf of the audience. As a result of being the enabler, confidence in the conductor grows; something that every brand and individual aspires to accomplish.

Campaigning for Votes

Some traffic-boosting sites, such as Digg, display a post’s or link’s popularity through the number of reader votes and views it receives. It can take well over 500 votes for yours to make it to the front page, whereas smaller alternatives such as Sphinn (Sphinn.com) might require many fewer views to take your posts to the top of the list. Obviously, larger sites like Digg tend to have more users, so in some ways it can be easier to get those all important views and votes. Still, this is something that you should consider as part of your social architecture.

Traffic-boosting sites will also provide widgets and plugins that you can embed into your blog, which allow users to vote for their favorite posts. Your blog software will also have widgets available, allowing you to share your posts to a variety of other platforms and sites.

Employ an Influencer

Some traffic-boosting sites, especially Digg, are impacted by who submits the link. Certain “power users” have hundreds or thousands of friends who follow their submissions and vote them up. So the profile of the submitter can play a large role in the success of the submission, and it can be hugely beneficial to find influential users to submit your content on a regular basis.

Find out who’s popular on the traffic-boosting sites in your particular sector by doing a search for those topics where your posts might best sit, and then make a note of the submitters’ names who come out on top again and again. These are the influencers you need to integrate into your connections.

How Long Will the Traffic Last?

Social media submit sites are notorious for sending a quick rush of traffic and then nothing at all. With most social media submit sites, popularity doesn’t last long. StumbleUpon is one of the few exceptions. With StumbleUpon, you can still be getting trickles of traffic for several months or longer. You should additionally continue to rework your stories, posts, and links to regenerate interest and conduct continued traffic to your platforms.

Using these techniques to socially conduct your platforms will enable you to blend your online content into one perfectly polished symphony that will maintain its appeal for your audience.