Mike Hickinbotham

A virtual Head of Social Media

Why credentialing your social media skills is like found money

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The Paranoid Knowledge Worker

Having worked in the social media space since 2008, I’d classify myself as a ‘paranoid knowledge worker’.

Early in my corporate social media career, the struggle was to maintain relevancy in a medium that was rapidly evolving.

With paranoia acting as my career Sherpa, I scaled three distinct development paths at Telstra and Westpac:

  • Organic social – learning how a corporation can adapt to a two-way, real-time medium.
  • Content strategy – creating original video content designed to support the consumer in making a purchase decision.
  • Paid social – managing paid ad campaigns and rallying traditional marketers to invest above the line campaign budgets into paid social campaigns.

Discovering you had the skills and experience to earn a data analytics credential is exciting, but maybe not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory exciting. Photo by Pete Wright on Unsplash

Working as an independent consultant

In 2015, I made a move to become an independent consultant.  I quickly found myself adjusting to the harsh realities of operating outside the corporate bubble.

No longer was I afforded the luxury of building relationships and earning the trust of colleagues and decision makers over an extended period.  Nor did I have direct access to corporate, agency and social network resources and insights.

To adapt, I analysed social media pages and ad campaign data to inform strategies that aligned with the client’s commercial goals.  I earned the client’s confidence by being transparent and using their data to build strategy they were confident to implement.

To execute my service offering, I relied heavily on data analytics.  I quickly recognised my need to upgrade my data analytics toolkit.

I directed my attention towards learning Tableau.  Using Tableau helped me develop the following methodology I continue to refine:

  • Establish the client’s objective.
  • Document the client’s campaign hypothesis.
  • Traffic the ad campaign.
  • Visualise the paid social ad data.
  • Interpret the results with the client.
  • Develop iterations for the next campaign.

At the end of 2017, I was looking for opportunities to have my data analytics capabilities recognised.  I considered online courses such as edX and Coursera. Through my Feedly account, I came across DeakinCo.’s micro-credential program, backed by Deakin University.

Photo by Negative Space on StockSnap

The program offers applicants the opportunity to have a recognised third-party (industry and Deakin academic assessors) verify your skills, work and experience.

You can choose to apply for a range of credentials at three levels (think low, medium and high) of expertise to have your capabilities assessed.

Applicants are required to produce a written reflective testimony including evidence and participate in a recorded video testimony. Applicants are required to pay a fee to apply.

Disclaimer – When I reached out to DeakinCo., the program had just kicked off.  As a way of promoting the program, DeakinCo. asked if I would agree to share my thoughts/experience in return for the ($495) fee to be waived. I agreed, and this post is my experience.

Even though the fee was waived, I was hesitant to go through the credential application process.

I feared I was going to put much effort into an application that was likely to be rejected.  Unlike social media, data analytics was not a significant part of my professional self-concept.

In the end, I applied for and earned a credential in Data Analytics Proficient or AQF 8.

Found Money Feels Good

The moment I learned I received my credential felt like the moment you unexpectedly find money in your coat pocket.  While the money was always there, discovering the money is a pleasant surprise.

In fact, through the credentialing process, I realised I am working on an emerging fourth career development path.  I am working on projects that have a data analytics outcome using social media data.

Recognising this emerging development path has encouraged me to seek opportunities to broaden and deepen my data analytics knowledge beyond social media.  I’ve since applied and accepted an offer to study the Master of Data Analytics at Deakin University (Cloud Campus).

Disclaimer – I will be paying the school fees out of my own pocket.  Thanks to me, the DeakinCo. micro-credentialing outreach campaign has already achieved a positive ROI.

Lacking the expertise of a super-forecaster, I won’t attempt to predict what I’ll be doing in 2028.  Although I do hope my paranoia continues to prompt me to answer the question ‘what next’.

Three strategies to demonstrate social media’s value

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shutterstock_158869706 copyOne of the best business-related capabilities a corporate social media manager can have is demonstrating the value of social media marketing to internal and external stakeholders.

As long as social media is considered ‘opt-in’, social media managers have an uphill battle to attract sufficient resources that enable campaigns to scale at mass.

Here are three tips to help social media marketers build the case for business support for social media.

[Read more…]

Four steps to build a Dark Social strategy

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Dark SocialIs this social media’s opportunity to move beyond the social networks? Image: Shutterstock.

From responsive social marketing to viral videos, Dark Social is one of the developments to occur in social marketing that I have been most optimistic about in recent years. I’m optimistic about Dark Social because it could expand social-led thinking from beyond the social networks into the sphere of Customer Experience.  By doing so, social media marketing can have a greater (measured) impact on the path to conversion.  In particular, the consideration phase.

What is Dark Social?

Dark Social is the “social sharing of content that occurs outside what can be measured by Web analytics programs. This mostly occurs when a link is sent via online chat or email, rather than shared over a social media platform, from which referrals can be measured.”

Dark Social first appeared in The AtlanticAlexis Madrigal from The Atlantic defined the term in his article.  Pulling together examples from The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and Facebook, this post highlights four steps agencies and client-side social media teams can follow to build a Dark Social strategy.

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Crafting an Organic-Paid Social Media Marketing Strategy

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Recently I was asked to speak before a very engaged audience at the meetup.com Sydney Online Marketing group. The presentation was titled ‘The Transition from Organic to Paid Social Media Marketing’. I’ve embedded the presentation at the bottom of this post. Proceeds from the evening went to dronation.com, to support earthquake relief efforts in Nepal.

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My three key messages were:

  1. The social networks unrelenting drive to generate ad revenue is redefining the Social Media marketing landscape.
  2. Marketers need to understand and embrace the opportunities provided by Organic and Paid Social.
  3. Media attribution can reveal the hidden value (and ROI) generated by paid Social Media.

Here’s a brief overview of the thinking behind the presentation:

 

Marketers need to clearly understand the distinct objectives that Organic and Paid can achieve. That requires understanding the elements that define Organic and Paid as distinct forms of Social marketing. [Read more…]

If Doctors were Social Media Strategists

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I was asked to speak before a class of University of Sydney medical students about building an online presence. It was an intriguing offer as I usually speak before marketers and other social media strategists.

Only to be used when helping people make an informed decision.

Only to be used when helping people make an informed decision.

In preparing for the presentation, I spent a lot of time reviewing the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency (AHPRA) advertising guidelines.  AHPRA’s advertising guidelines are built to support the principles of the profession such as provide care for people.  An example, is how the guidelines champion the benefits of advertising.  The guidelines state “advertising can be a useful way to communicate the services health practitioners offer to the public so that consumers can make informed choices”.

Social Media can be an effective channel to support consumers along their path to making a purchase decision.   But what if businesses adopted medical inspired guidelines to form Social Media marketing strategies?  Here’s some ideas what it could look like if Doctors were Social Media Strategists. [Read more…]

My three takeouts from ClickZ Live Toronto 2014

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Any opportunity to lift your head out of the daily grind and access new perspectives is always a welcomed opportunity.
Looking up at the CN Tower on a misty and rainy night.

Toronto is plugged in.

I had that opportunity when I attended the ClickZ Live Toronto 2014 conference. ClickZ Live is the evolution of the SES (Search Engine Strategies) conference and positions itself as an opportunity to ‘engage customers and increase ROI by distributing your online marketing efforts across paid, owned and earned media’.  Here’s a quick overview of the three concepts that resonated with me.

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Should nearby corporations shared #BarangarooFire images on social?

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Twitter has a quadrant chart that profiles content as Planned / Unplanned and Always-on / Tentpoles.  The Oreo cookie Super Bowl blackout tweet was a great example of content that sits in the Unplanned / Tentpole quadrant.

social media

View from the 28th floor of the Westpac Building – Kent Street, Sydney.

In the Sydney CBD, fire broke out in the basement of the Barangaroo building site. Barangaroo is positioned as ‘a vision that embodies all of Sydney’s unique harbour city character – the perfect place to work hard, do business or simply relax and enjoy the view.‘

Right beside the building site is KPMG and Westpac Bank.  I work at Westpac on the 28th floor with a clear view of the Barangaroo building site.

 

 

Therefore I found the following tweet from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Managing Director Mark Scott particularly interesting.

I think Mr Scott’s assertion was that brands participating in social media should have a process in place to create, produce and publish content that fits in the Twitter ‘Unplanned & Tentpole’ quadrant. [Read more…]

Five signs a brand is serious about content marketing

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The challenge of focusing on both quality and quantity isn't restricted to content marketing.

The challenge of focusing on both quality and quantity isn’t restricted to content marketing. (Image source: Shutterstock).

One of the biggest challenges a brand has participating in social media is maintaining an engaging and relevant presence.

It’s reasonable for a large brand to publish 3000 times a year across many social platforms (scroll down to the end of the post to see my assumptions).  Achieving both quality and quantity is a massive challenge.

For brands trying to improve quality levels it needs to effectively track the performance of its published social content.  That means analysing post types, content themes, audience engagement and the direct / indirect impact on corporate priorities (ex: brand awareness, product consideration, customer service etc).

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Three reasons why you need to integrate search and social marketing

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While SEO and Social Marketing are very different, they need to be the best of friends.

While SEO and Social Marketing are very different, they need to be the best of friends.

Search and social marketing need to become more interdependent as digital marketing matures.

As Chair of ADMA’s (Australian Data Marketing Association) Search and Social Expert Group, I posted ideas  on ADMA’s blog highlighting the importance of aligning an organisation’s social and search activities.

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Why Australian social media marketing must change – Part 2

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PSY, sequel

The follow-up is always the toughest.

Social media marketers find themselves in a precarious position.

As highlighted in Why Australian Social Media Marketing Must Change – Part 1, social marketers are under great pressure to justify their share of the digital marketing budget and to earn the attention of their target audience.

So what’s next for Australian social media marketers?

What’s the follow-up to a network centric social media marketing strategy? [Read more…]