WordPress posted How to Keep WordPress Secure at the beginning of the weekend to explain this worm’s threat.

If you haven’t already, be sure to upgrade to version 2.8.4 as soon as possible and pass the news along to your clients and communities.  You can download the upgrade or install it automatically through your admin panel.

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This simple question represents a significant change in marketing practices (discussed in more detail in an earlier post). Companies can no longer hide behind artfully crafted marketing pieces and not be willing to engage in a conversation with their customers. Your company’s not providing a forum won’t stop the conversation.  Ask Dell.

For those of you who don’t know the story…. Dell had a few unhappy customers and didn’t provide the customer support they expected, and even worse, refused to acknowledge the unhappy folks. One of the unhappy ones decided to launch a forum at www.ihatedell.com where other unhappy folks came to bash Dell and help each other quickly solve their issues. It didn’t take Dell long to realize that their clinging to business as usual didn’t exactly work so well for the bottom line.

Dell’s solution? They began engaging in a conversation with their customers. They set up their own support forums and blogs and invited their users to ask questions. They in turn answered the questions, posted alerts, and engaged in a conversation with their users. While there are still some unhappy Dell users out there, Dell has made incredible strides in their customer support.

While this story has a happy ending, we can all learn a lesson from it. If  Dell had engaged in the conversation from the get-go, the sites bashing their company and customer service likely would not have gained as much popularity.

I encourage my clients not to approach their marketing efforts with armadillo syndrome (For you non-Texans out there, if an armadillo can’t see you it thinks you don’t exist. Predators sneak up from the sides and behind.). I tell my clients that whether or not they want to listen, people are going to want their voices heard in one venue or another. That conversation is going to happen with or without you.  At least when you have them engaging in your blogs and forums, you have the home turf advantage.

If you’d like to avoid the armadillo approach, you can use Google Reader to monitor what others are saying about any topic. Here’s how you do it:

1. Sign up for a free Gmail account at www.google.com if you haven’t already.
2. Go to www.google.com/reader.
3. Do a search for your name, company, product, competitors, whatever you want (be sure to put multiple words in quotes!).
4. Subscribe to the feed.
   1. Right-click on the RSS feed button and select Copy-Link
   2. Go back to Google Reader, click the add button and then paste in the url.

or

1. Click the RSS feed button
2. Click the Add to Google Reader button as shown in the following graphic.

You’ll want to go to other areas in which you’ll be found to look for mentions of you, your company, or your terms. Some such places could include

• http://blogsearch.google.com
• http://search.twitter.com
• YouTube
• Slideshare

I learned a long time ago that there are often many ways to reach a desired goal. How do you monitor what others are saying about you and your company?

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What should technical communicators be doing to harness the power of social media and social networks? Ninety-nine percent of the Baby Boomers don’t get it; many of the 30- and 40-somethings understand it; and I guarantee you that every one of the under-30 crowd gets it and uses it. So what are you doing to help your company encourage customer contributions to formal product documentation, and how can the concepts of tagging and ratings be incorporated into formal content to improve the user experience with documentation?

Two sessions at the STC Summit in Atlanta GA, will examine social media. On Monday, 4 May, Jenny Redfern and Lori Fisher present Social Networking: Improving Effectiveness and Demonstrating Strategic Value. Find out how Twitter, TWiki, blogs, and other social media matter for managers. Learn how technical communicators can use social networking technologies to improve internal processes and products.

On Tuesday, 5 May, Leonor Ciarlone presents Is Social Media at the Tipping Point? As technical communicators embrace social media and collaboration, we need to provide specific value and ROI to make the business case for adoption. This session highlights recent studies showing that the acceptance and use of social media and collaboration is on the rise.

More details about the STC Technical Communication Summit, 3–6 May, can be found on the STC website. The early bird deadline has been extended to 21 April. The early bird discounted rate is $795, which is $300 less than the onsite registration rate of $1,095. Split payments are accepted. Scholarships are available to members affected by the economic downturn.

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Social Media Marketing Industry Report

Earlier this week, I received a flutter of tweets through my twitter account about Michael A. Stelzner’s hot off the presses white paper: Social Media Marketing Industry Report-How Marketers are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.

Whether or not you’re involved in social media marketing today, you should take a moment to read the paper. Stelzner provides great details and plenty of charts to help you build a business case for easing into this new realm of marketing.

Major Findings About Social Media Marketing

Want to know what you’ll find in the report? Here are Stelzner’s major findings. I found these to be very interesting and spot-on with what I have experienced while working with my clients. In fact, the top three questions are always the first thing questions my clients ask!

Top Three Questions Marketers Want Answered

1. What are the best tactics to use?
2. How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
3. Where do I start?

Marketers are Mostly New to Social Media

• Of those surveyed, 88% are using social media to market their business (author’s note: call for survey takers was sent out through social media, so this is not a surprising number, really).
• BUT only 72% have been doing so for only a few months or less.

How Much Time Does This Take?

• 64% use social media 5 hours or less each week.
• 39% use social media 10 hours or more each week.

The Top Benefits of Social Media Marketing

• 81% reported that generating exposure for the business was the top benefit
• increasing traffic
• building new business partnerships

Top Social Media Tools

• Twitter
• Blogs
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

Social Media Tools Marketers Want to Learn About

• Social bookmarking sites
• Twitter

What are your opinions of these findings? I’m looking forward to learning of your perspective in the comments.

Louellen Coker is President and Founder of Content Solutions, a certified-woman owned business. Content Solutions meets your content needs by helping you create and present your content in an innovative, engaging, and purposeful manner. You can find additional musings on her blogs: Content Notes and Content Portfolio.

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