The following is a guest post from Deirdre Walsh. If you’d like to contribute thinking here, please read the guidelines.

An IPO is not just one of the most important marketing events in a company’s history. It’s also one of the biggest tests of a company’s ability to orchestrate and manage communications, internally and externally.

Going public means juggling all sorts of legal requirements, investor sensitivities, and strategic concerns—while still keeping a steady flow of information going out to a public eager for the latest news. The stakes are obviously huge, and the room for error is tiny.

It’s a use case made-to-order for Social Business technologies, which provide a way to centrally coordinate communications, sync up all participants and make a potentially stressful process much more manageable. That was certainly true in our case at Jive Software. When we completed our own public offering this past December, the successful outcome was due in no small part to our heavy reliance on social tools (including our own).

In the hopes that our experience might have some lessons for companies in similar situations, here are some of the ways we applied social to our own IPO marketing. While every company may not have an upcoming IPO, the benefits we received from the use of social technologies translate well to any big marketing campaign or event.

Syncing up internally

An IPO requires tight teamwork among executives in multiple departments, from finance and legal to marketing and PR, as well as outside partners and contractors. Our internal employee community served as a hub for collaboration, allowing key players to brainstorm and keep each other updated moment by moment. Participants hashed out critical decisions in online discussions, shared docs and other content, and quickly located internal experts to answer pressing questions. Just as important, the community allowed for strict privacy controls and permissions, ensuring that sensitive information was shared only with authorized individuals inside and outside the company.

During major checkpoints, such as filing the S-1 statement, our CEO, CFO and Chief Legal Counsel kept staff informed via executive blogs. Every new post was simultaneously available to all of our worldwide employees, who could respond with their own questions and comments, for a kind of quick and informal give-and-take that would have been difficult or impossible using more rigid, non-social communications.

Managing external communications

After an S-1 is filed, companies are subject to a variety of SEC rules, governing both internal policies and external communications. It’s absolutely essential that employees “get the memo” because SEC regulations make little distinction between official company communiqués and casual statements from staff. Everyone has to speak with one voice.

Our internal community made it easy for us to disseminate policies, hold company-wide conversations and collectively train our workforce in the necessary messaging and practices. And that, in turn, enabled us to communicate more consistently and clearly with external audiences, including press, financial analysts, and potential investors.

Tracking social media

Throughout the entire IPO process, we used our social media monitoring technology to track all the relevant buzz on the social web. We monitored social networks and sites for corporate mentions; to identify key influencers and PR opportunities; and quickly uncover conversations impacting our brand.

Acknowledging customers

Our customers were key stakeholders during the public offering. They helped build the company to this point, and were keenly interested in our progress. We kept them informed at every step of the journey with blog posts and other communications in our public-facing Jive community, where customers were also able to hold their own conversations about the IPO. We made a special point to thank them for their support, posting a banner in the community acknowledging their role and displaying customer tweets and videos. And on listing day (December 13), we streamed the opening ceremony live for customers and other community members.

Celebrating, socially

An IPO is incredibly hard work, and when a company makes it to the finish line, celebrations are in order. Since not everybody could be present in New York on listing day, we did decided to bring the event to them in a novel way. We created a unique Twitter hashtag – #jiveipo – and invited folks to join the online conversation. Then we gathered and displayed the tweets on the 7-story NASDAQ building in Times Square as the exchange opened with the new JIVE symbol on the ticker. It was a NASDAQ first, and a fun finale to a process that was social from beginning to end.

If you’ve used social during the road to IPO, we’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you’re about to go through the process we hope our experience can serve as a guide.

Deirdre Walsh is an award-winning program manager with a decade of digital media, integrated marketing, online community, and corporate communications experience. Currently, she is the Sr. Social Media Manager for Jive Software, which brings the innovation of the consumer web to the enterprise.

image credit: gary yim / Shutterstock.com

How Social Technologies Can Smooth The Road To IPO is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

The following is a guest post from Future Buzz community member John Boitnott. If you’d like to contribute thinking here, please read the guidelines.

Pinterest. Pinterest?! Really? Do I have to? That was what I first thought. I’ll admit it. The last thing I wanted to do was add another network to the long list of online communities I was already attempting to participate in.

It’s tough enough just to send out a few tweets, speak in a few conversations on Facebook and update my Tumblr. Now they want me to join Pinterest. Let’s not even mention the mobile apps that have entered into my world. Their number appears to be as boundless as their brothers that exist solely in Internet form. They include Foursquare, Foodspotting, Tiny Review and endless others all competing for my attention.

The bottom line is, the biggest hurdle for a community manager, social media strategist, or any person who tries to leverage their online presence in any way or for any reason is that there’s too much to keep track of and too little time.

The situation inevitably leads to an overarching feeling that you can never get caught up. Most of us are reconciled to the idea that it’s just not going to change and that it’s a fact of life. But *should* it be this way? Is this right?

My answers are no and no…. to an extent. There have to be measures put in place to make the whole thing more manageable, without sacrificing what you’ve built, and what you want to build.

These measures are certainly not going to come from anyone other than yourself. Your boss isn’t going to like the idea of you spending less time leveraging social networks for the benefit of your company (if he or she even understands what you do). The pressure will be on for you to miss sleep and spend all waking moments building your company’s brand online. It’s plain to see that the less effort you bring to the table in any online network, the fewer times the world is going to visit your site or service.

The answer lies in priorities. Set them.

Analyze what networks you’ve been able to find success in for your site. Concentrate on those. The old standbys need their required daily work. But – watch out for the new hotness. (OMG, did I really just say that?)

I was speaking with an employee of an online clothing company. She confided to me that they had always seen great success through StumbleUpon, and in the last 1-2 years, Tumblr. In recent months however, Pinterest arrived on the scene. Pictures of the company’s clothing began to find tremendous success there. There were even ways to spike this, by making sure that the most eye-catching or stylish clothing were “pinned” and “repinned.” Now suddenly Pinterest, a site that is technically still only in ‘private beta,’ began to rival Stumble and Tumblr for referrals.

This meant that the community manager had to shift priorities. She still spent a reasonable effort on Facebook (always one of their top referrers) as well as Tumblr and Twitter. But now, and deservedly so, a new service had come along which demanded a portion of her energy. Embracing new platforms is what we must all be willing to do when the time comes.  You can’t simply stick to your old standbys here.

To an extent, many of us got involved in the online world because of that limitless feeling that comes with it – like the old walls were falling and the old rules were dying. This is that phenomena put into action.

I would make sure to write out a list of those networks that you know you have to participate daily in. Then a list of those that need less maintenance. Keep it by your side. This means constantly reevaluating the success you are finding on these networks.

Is a particularly supportive group of folks forming on Google+? What about Tumblr or YouTube? Let the priorities shift when they have to based on data and results. Try and see if it might be possible to get a new coordinator, intern, or even another employee to help (and of course, train them properly).

Manage your employer’s expectations. Keep them apprised of the latest changes and developments. Show them the change as it happens and make sure they know you’re on it. The number of networks isn’t going to shrink at this point. Try and see if there’s some way you can scale your team to meet it – with your company’s help of course.

One of a small group of social media consultants with a background in the newsroom, John Boitnott consults with a variety of sites and publishers on how to build their popularity on the Internet.  John has worked for NBC and Village Voice. John is currently Vice President of Business Development at Hasai Inc.

image credit: Shutterstock

Priorities: Curing Social Media Overload is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

While I don’t think we suffer from information overload, I actually think we suffer from a more sinister problem. Curator overload.

Not good curators like Robert Scoble or Jason Kottke. Those guys are worth their weight in gold, in fact we need more curators like them: they uncover unique, useful and obscure things before everyone else. And if they do repost they always add something.

I’m talking about curator overload in the form of people taking popular content (usually images, but not exclusively) surfaced on sites like Google+, Reddit, or Stumble and reposting again (as if  it is new and / or they originally discovered it) on a different network or blog, without bothering to credit the original sharer.

I understand that sometimes it is difficult to credit, especially when digging for content on your own. But it is painfully obvious when you belong to multiple networks and see someone basically copy-pasting content someone else has surfaced recently. In essence, it’s different when you’re sharing something you searched for / found, vs. something you’re specifically taking from another.

The alternative repost problem is sharing a piece of content the web already passed around last month or last year (without any new context).

Sure neither of these two cases is always intentional. But I get the sense there are a group of web users who may be new to social sharing and need some ground rules to follow.

For them, following are some thoughts to keep in mind:

1. If you find something via another site or user, credit them

Here’s a quick example. I found an image I thought was clever the other week on Reddit, and decided to share it on Google+. But I noted in my G+ thread that hey, I discovered this via Reddit. So now my network in Google+ who does use Reddit clearly sees I’m noting where I discovered the image and that I’m not simply ripping off the Reddit community and portraying myself as the one who discovered the image.

I get the feeling so few credit because they think it makes them appear less original. But if you think this way, you’re wrong. Crediting is a positive and is always respected, your network will appreciate it – always try to link to / share the canonical version.

2. Don’t just throw images / links into a community, get up to speed

Good web communities have been together awhile. Potentially years, some more than a decade. Yes, there are naturally going to be some reposts but if you post something again that your community shared last week, you’re not really improving that community. You actually only succeed in losing credibility with them.

3. Perhaps stop the curation and consider creation?

Everyone wants to be a curator these days. Tumblr, Google+, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and new sites like Pinterest all support this model by design. Yet, the reasons you should blog, create original web comics or produce your own video continue to increase. This is because the social web has become to some extent a problem in search of a solution. Even today participation inequality holds true: few are creating, far more curating and way more lurking. Insane value in being the one who creates (the solution) for the rest of the web to point at.

4. Media: equally guilty of reposts 

Don’t think this issue is isolated to those curating viral content like images. Media are equally guilty of reposting news that’s already out there. I understand why this is the case, it’s easy to do for pageviews (and sometimes glaring if a media outlet doesn’t cover an issue). Do run the news, but add context and additional insight instead of reposting in a way that’s just differently worded.

5. Repurpose, recycle, remix, aggregate – but don’t repost

You can get creative with old content to make it new again. This is a lot of fun and what the social web is all about.  You don’t always need to be inventing, breathe life into old content creatively.

Why follow these at all? If you’re a perpetual reposter, it becomes apparent very quickly and you’re going to hurt your digital reputation. And that’s worth far more than a few extra likes, +1′s and ReTweets: reputation is difficult to build, easy to destroy.

And for your moment of zen:

images via: quickmeme

Random Thoughts On Reposts is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

The following is a guest post from Future Buzz community member Andrew Hanelly. If you’d like to contribute thinking here, please read the guidelines.

In the past year, social media was the vehicle that drove several high-profile careers off a cliff.

Pro athlete Larry Johnson tweeted a homophobic slur that resulted in a fan petition calling for his removal from the Kansas City Chiefs. He was later suspended.

Gilbert Gottfried lost his gig as the voice of the Aflac duck for making a joke about the aftermath of a devastating tsunami in Japan.

Journalist Octavia Nasr was fired for a controversial Tweet that violated CNN’s social media policy.

But high-profile celebrities weren’t the only “victims” in our era of real-time transparency.

Agencies lost clients.

Businesses turned off customers.

And organizations were embarrassed.

The common thread in all of these social media meltdowns is that the “person” took the wheel and the “professional” took the back seat.

In other words, caught in the heat of the moment, (or in a fit of passion) these people acted very … well, human (in many cases, however, still inappropriately so).

Can we blame them? The beauty of social media is that people are allowed to finally be themselves. Transparency, authenticity and all that, right?

Gone is the carefully planned company line and here to stay is the spontaneous and often unchecked ad-libbed line.

But if this “be yourself” mantra is the driving force behind social media’s mass adoption, then why do we come down with such a heavy hand on those that embrace it?

Because deep down we still have expectations for people who are representing a brand. And as much as we want to say social media is the pinnacle of freedom of expression, if you are tied to an organization, your social media outbursts could bring them down with you. It is, in one word: irresponsible.

Which is why we need to look at this sobering piece of reality: when you use social media, you forfeit the right to truly be yourself with no holds barred. Holds are definitely barred.

Whether you’re managing official accounts or feeding your own, directly or indirectly, you are linked to the company that helps you pay your bills (if you don’t like it, find a new line of work).

If you represent an organization, (and anyone who receives a paycheck from an organization does) you’re going to need to start acting like a profersonal (if you haven’t done the math, that’s professional blended with personal).

The lines are irreversibly blurred between our personal and professional lives. There is no more “privacy” or protected content online. Only content waiting to be found like ticking time bombs we never needed to create.

Here are the new rules we must live by:

Act as if anyone will be able to read what you write, track you down, connect you to your organization, and have chaos ensue. When we look at the example of Detroit Motor city Tweet and also the Red Cross Tweet we see that this excuse was used: “I thought I was sending it from my personal account.” If the Twitter users behind those accounts employed this logic, the mistake never would have happened.

Don’t swear, get political, get preachy or do anything else you wouldn’t do at an all-hands meeting. It may seem disconnected from your work life while you’re ranting from your dark basement, but when the lights come on, everyone can see the proverbial logo you wear.

Have fun, but make sure it’s good, clean fun. The kind you might have with Shrek, not Charlie Sheen. The kind the Bronx Zoo Cobra had back in the day.

Continue to treat social media like a cocktail party. But make sure it doesn’t turn into an 8 day bender where you end up in a Las Vegas suite with a tiger.

I’ll probably be called conservative, scared, and several unprintable names for putting together this shiny, corporate-friendly post. But it’s the truth, and embracing it will be liberating and finally rid us of the false anxiety of thinking that some of our social media content is personal and some of it is professional.

If you have a job, all of your social media activity is both personal and professional. It’s profersonal. It’s the era we live in.

Andrew creates and executes digital strategies for clients at TMG Custom Media.  You can follow him on Twitter and check out his posts on Engage the Blog.

image credit: Shutterstock

The Rise Of The Profersonal In Social Media is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

Must we go through this every year? Social media is still not new. It wasn’t new last year. Or the year before. In fact, it hasn’t been new for well over a decade. The web was social from day one, even if the term was popularized later on.

Marketers and media: if the notion of a social form of media is “new” to you, you’re asleep at the wheel. It might even be time to seek a new profession.

We’ve gone through these arguments repeatedly since we started this site, but let’s go ahead and dig up some quotes as a friendly reminder:

As technology blogger Steven Hodson notes:

Just because we slap a new term and some soothing pastel web pages together it doesn’t invalidate what came before it. It doesn’t change the fact that we have been socializing on the web long before someone invented the marketing term of social media. It sometimes seems though that the tech world has this inbreed need to proclaim something as new and totally different than what came before when in fact this isn’t the case.

In the same post, also cited is a quote from MIT professor credited with inventing the web Tim Berners-Lee:

The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect – to help people work together – and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner. What we believe, endorse, agree with, and depend on is representable and, increasingly represented on the Web. We all have to ensure that the society we build with the Web is of the sort we intend.

So when I stumble upon posts like this recent one by Alfred Hermida at Nieman Journalism Lab it is frustrating to say the least. The author inaccurately proclaims:

Social media is largely still seen as a new, shiny entrant into the world of media.

But is it? Who actually views social media as new anymore? Are there really so many of these individuals left? The author offers no evidence here or links as context other than his own opinion.

I actually think it is no longer OK to proclaim or position social media as being new, or even seen as new. It’s just not a correct statement and is simply making excuses for those not paying attention to the evolution of the digital landscape over the last decade-plus. Or it’s made by those trying to hawk their snake oil software / services as if it’s some marketing or media panacea. It’s not helpful or accurate.

Further, the author’s post itself is interesting, but it is hardly an original observation. I knew I recognized the perspective from somewhere: it’s from Kevin Kelly’s New Rules for the New Economy.

From Hermida (last week)

Technologies reach their full potential when we forgot about the novelty. Instead they become boring and blend into the background. How often do we think about the technology behind the telephone, or the television set in our living room?

With any luck, this is what will happen with social media. Social media tools and services will be so ingrained within our everyday experiences that we forget that they are such recent developments.

Essentially, the technology will become invisible as we shape it to meet our political, social, and cultural needs.

From Kevin Kelly (originally published in 1998)

As technology becomes ubiquitous it also becomes invisible. The more chips proliferate, the less we will notice them. The more networking succeeds, the less we’ll be aware of it.

…Computer technology is undergoing the same disappearance. If the information revolution succeeds, the standalone desktop computer will eventually vanish. Its chips, its lines of connection, even its visual interfaces will submerge into our environment until we are no longer conscious of their presence (except when they fail). As the network age matures, we’ll know that chips and glass fibers have succeeded only when we forget them. Since the measure of a technology’s success is how invisible it becomes, the best long-term strategy is to develop products and services that can be ignored.

Good observations, not denying that. But unfortunately none of it is original or new. Neither is social media …and if it is for you, I wouldn’t go around shouting that. Instead, I’d get caught up: whether you’re on the marketing or media side of the fence, it’s your job to get this stuff and be the ones pushing things, not lost or scrambling to catch up.

If you still think it’s OK to call social media new, you might also think it’s OK for congress to still not understand the internet. Neither are right, both a bit shameful.

image credit: Shutterstock

It Is No Longer OK To Proclaim Social Media As New is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing