It was an impressive week at the annual world’s premier wireless event.  Interesting booths and companies, for me, included Samsung’s Galaxy S (to launch this summer?), Blue Ant’s headset devices, and SkyFiber, from Bryan, Texas, is providing an interesting “last mile” option with optical wireless broadband.

Between AT&T’s Randall Stephenson’s comments on his company’s focus on mobility and being at the cutting-edge of the evolving world of converged communications and Samsung Electronics’ J.K. Shin discussing mobile consumer electronics and their impact on personal and professional communications, it was Geek Heaven in Vegas.

Here is the results of the latest semi-annual wireless industry survey, and some of the highlights are:

• Wireless data service revenues increased 25.7% from the last half of 2008 to reach more than $22 billion for the last half of 2009.
• There are more than 285 million wireless connections.
• More than 822 billion text messages were sent and received on carriers’ networks during the last half of 2009- amounting to almost 5 billion messages per day at the end of the year.
• During the 2009 calendar year, there were more than 1.5 trillion text messages reported on carriers’ networks.
• More than 1.12 trillion minutes in the last half of 2009, up 38 billion from the last half of 2008… and breaking down to 6.1 billion minutes-of-use per day.
• More than 257 million data-capable devices in consumers’ hands, up from 228 million at the end of 2008.  50 million of these devices are smart phones or wireless-enabled PDAs and nearly 12 million are wireless-enabled laptops, notebooks or aircards.

Information overload does not equal knowledge mastery, and sometimes finding the content you need to stay current in your business is like searching for a needle in a haystack.  It’s not easy to know what’s worth your time, and it’s even harder to take the time to wade through it all.

As technology makes it simpler to create content (i.e. WordPress, Blogger, etc.), the problem this produces is scads of people who have no business creating content doing it with complete abandon.  Do a Google search on “marketing” and see what you get.  So, as a busy entrepreneur/executive, marketing manager with a budget, how DO you figure out what is worth reading?  Here’s an easy 3-step process:

1. Start using an RSS feeder account: An RSS reader is simply a site where you can set up your own personal account and choose which blogs and content you would like to follow.  As these blogs are updated, the reader allows you to see these updates and new content without have to go to each and every http://www.blog-I-want-to-check-out-today.com.  It’s all in one place.  I use Google Reader and you can add new blogs as you stumble across them and always have a “home base” to read all the information you need.
2. Follow Blogrolls: Most blogs have a list of other blogs they also read and recommend.  As you start to identify blogs which you find interesting, you can also look at the lists of blogs they read to get ideas for other content you may want to check out.  Chances are, some of the best blogs appear repeatedly in multiple locations, so you can use this occurrence as a metric to determine which blogs may be worth exploring.
3. Subscribe by email to your favorites: Some days are SO busy that I forget to go to Google Reader where I’ve subscribed to over 40 blogs.  Plus, if I skip even one day, I get the joy of opening it up and finding 750+ items on topics ranging from Art to Technology to Fashion to Marketing to Health/Fitness.  It’s just too much and I “declare Reader bankruptcy” by “marking all as read.”  So, to make sure I don’t miss the updates of my favorites, I subscribe to them via email also.  No matter how busy the day is, I’m also on email and you probably work this way also.  As you start to uncover your handful of favorite blogs, make sure you don’t miss valuable information and subscribe to get their updates by email.

Reading blogs for bleeding edge information, news, and topics of conversation offers a convenient form to other types of media you may consume (TV, newspaper, magazine, radio, etc.).  Try not to be discouraged by how many blogs are on the Web and let that keep you from discovering really great new content.  You just might find a blog and information that can be a true source of assistance to your business… real actionable advice that impacts your bottom line is priceless.

“What IS a Digital Community Manager, and do I need one?” a CEO of a small B2B technology firm asked me this week.  My response was, “What is your goal?”

Since almost everyone now is over the hype and hoopla of the newness of social media, the real work is just beginning.  If your company has stayed relatively up-to-date on online marketing trends (i.e. has a blog, regularly updates web site content, and conducts scheduled email campaigns and marketing promotions), then you do have a community of followers/listeners/customers to manage.

Word of caution:  Be careful with the word “manage.”  Think instead words like nurture… encourage… grow.  As a Digital Community Manager, you definitely want someone in charge of shepherding this form of two-way communications with your company who eats/sleeps/breathes brand, messaging, consistency, usability, and conversation.  AND who completely gets your high-level mission and goals.

Be careful to watch your pre-conceived notions about this position.  Check out a few “Myths of Community Management.”  Go ahead and read it… I’ll wait.

Amber Naslund (I’m a HUGE fan of hers, BTW.  Follow her @AmberCadabra.  She’s incredibly smart and has been hands-on in the development and transition of social over the last several years.) correctly points out that Community Management doesn’t just happen online.  Beware hiring a 26-year-old as your Community Manager just because they’re really active on Twitter as this is not a viable strategy for your business.  Hey, I know how to balance my checkbook every night… Wanna hire me as your CFO?  Come on… Please?  Yeah, I thought so.

The most important thing to grasp about hiring a Digital Community Manager is to realize that this person needs to be extremely close to the heart of the action in the company.  They need to have leadership skills.  They should be the point person and collaborate with cross-functional teams… IT, Legal, Creative/ Brand, Product Management, Community Relations, Marketing, Public Relations, etc.  They are your storyteller and image-maker in the digital world.  They also have the ability to smooth things down and react with respect and kindness when customers get really irate online (where the world can see it and WILL eventually find it).  Treat them with respect and you might be amazed at the strength of the community they can build for your brand.

While corporate social media usage is now moving from “Gee, that’s cool!  We need a Twitter page!” to a necessary business practice, most companies have no clue how to measure it.  Plus, there really isn’t one way to measure, and the metrics your business needs to measure may be drastically different from those of your competitors.  Think about measuring:

• awareness
• attention
• reach (fans, followers, subscribers)
• share of conversation
• strength of referrals
• recommendations
• inbound links
• number of social bookmarks
• traffic from shared shortened links
• leads
• conversion rates
• sales
• value per fan/follower
• direct response rates
• web analytics

But, in light of our tenuous economic recovery, let’s touch on what companies are thinking about the most… measuring cost savings.  Because, sometimes the value in a business endeavor isn’t only about what goes up (like revenue), but what goes down (like costs).  Social media can have some very clear efficiencies, most heavily on the customer service side, but also in areas like training or communications.  So, now we’re talking about savings like:

• cost per issue resolution (costs like hardware, software, telecom service, HR, infrastructure overhead, etc.)
• issue resolution time
• cost per dollar raised/earned
• training
• idea generation
• employee education

For measurement to be effective, it has to align directly with the goals you’ve set.  Following the SMART methodology, they should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timed.  Metrics gain meaning when they’re weaved together to help you realize previously undiscovered insights about your customers and prospects… not just data.

There never is a single, concrete process for how to measure something.  There are equation like ROI or ROE that are more or less fixed, but how you derive the elements of that measurement depend on your processes and what you choose to track.

The battle between the need for marketers to be focused on where the community’s conversation organically leads vs. the urge/want/need to “push” company-centered content out on the world is an ongoing struggle.  Here are a few key truths to building and maintaining a successful, thriving community that picks up your company’s “messaging torch” and carries it better that you can, Ms. CMO.

1.  Your community must be owned: Yea, you’re using social media!  But, just who is overseeing it all?  With marketing, sales, R&D and customer-service involved, the task is to get all these teams working together.  Often, a community is launched without any set definitions of who owns what.  In essence, there are three marketing models for social media:

-  CENTRALIZED-  The social media department functions at a senior level, reporting to the CMO or CEO, and is responsible for all social media activation for the brand.  Dangers?  Having a social media head means departments outside that person’s scope might not benefit from efforts in the medium.  I.E., is customer care really being considered if social media is centralized under marketing?  Example of this model:  Ford and Scott Monty, global digital and multimedia communications director.

-  DISTRIBUTED-  In this setup, no one person technically owns social media.  Instead, all employees from customer care, marketing, media, community/media relations and beyond represent the brand and work social media into their roles.  Dangers?  No standardized practices, and social media uncontrolled can veer a brand off-message.  Example of this model:  Best Buy

-  COMBINATION-  Centralized best practices and decentralized execution.  A brand maintains a committee of social media stakeholders to work up its position and voice, which it disseminates to the company at large.  Dangers?  How do you hold departments accountable to a research council?  Also, when a social media program goes sour, who ends up as the fall guy?  Those who build the strategy, or those who implemented it?  Example of this model:  Kodak

2.  You must let your community go: Pay attention to what’s happening in your community and monitor member interactions, but don’t strive to control the conversations and activity that are happening.  Example:  Mountain Dew.  The soda brand took its “Dewmocracy” campaign one step further to find new flavors and allowed skater dudes to take control of its marketing by implementing crowdsourced consumer involvement.  The more you control, the less people participate. It all goes back to trust.

3.  Figure out how to mobilize your community: A community doesn’t just exist within the confines of your online community, and can’t thrive in a silo.  The days when execs made decisions behind closed doors and expected people to rally behind them are gone.  Find opportunities outside your community, and offline even, to continue driving community participation.  When consumers told Mountain Dew they were also looking at and sharing on 12seconds.tv, the brand wasn’t familiar with the outlet.  After investigation, the company started integrating the site into “Dewmocracy.”

Once you’ve engaged your community, you can’t stop.  Make a continuous effort to talk about your industry, ask questions, provide humor at times, and listen, listen, listen.  Let your customers know when you take their advice… and why when you don’t.