7 Rules For Aggregating Brand Content

Brought to you by Carnet Williams

As the CEO of a start-up company creating social media campaigns for some of the world's largest brands, I know that the future of my company is at stake every time a new campaign is launched. While I do my best to educate brands about the power of social media and the benefits of providing consumers an open platform to speak their mind, I know that there are legal and ethical considerations that must be weighed before any campaign is launched.

Following are some best practices that we follow at Sprout to ensure success.

Enter at your own risk
It is no surprise that there are several large companies that do nothing but manage the rules, regulations, and management of contests and sweepstakes. They are big, hairy messes. Rules change all the time and vary from state to state, not to mention country to country.

Even Facebook has realized the risks involved with sweepstakes and contests running on its platform. On Nov. 4, Facebook published a new set of rules that cover what brands can and can't do. You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

Facebook is clearly trying to dissuade brands from using the site as a platform for sweepstakes. In addition to stating that brands must comply with all laws and regulations, contests must be approved in advance by Facebook and must contain language that makes it clear that Facebook isn't involved in any way. Further, contests can no longer be based on actions taken on Facebook, such as updating status, becoming a fan, or uploading a photo.

Unless you're willing to pay a lot of money to a third party or have a large legal team, my recommendation is to find another emotional hook. You would be surprised what people are willing to do for brands they like, or to score higher than friends, or just to take a minute away from work for a bit of fun.

Moderation... in moderation
There is a divide among marketing folks about the need for moderation. Some brands, such as Skittles, have gone whole hog into social media and allowed people to see all tweets about Skittles on the Skittles homepage, regardless of the content. Other brands, such as Juicy Juice, have taken a more conservative approach and have reviewed tweets before they are approved to publish in an ad. My recommendation to our clients is that they moderate content to ensure compliance with the terms of service of the sites where the content will be found, but that they allow differences of opinions. On social networks, authenticity is very important, and brands that embrace the idea of natural conversations with consumers will be rewarded.

Must share well with others
Everyone is looking for the next viral hit. The truth is that all campaigns will not be viral hits, but all campaigns should be viral-ready. When consumers are allowed to share user-generated content, they usually will. Therefore, it's important that campaigns have built-in hooks to the leading social networks to make sharing as easy as possible. At a minimum, your campaign should be Facebook- and MySpace-ready. To really get people talking about what they've experienced or shared, a "Tweet this" button helps drive awareness and virality. Depending on the type of campaign or content you're promoting, Digg, Delicious, and LinkedIn are other possibilities to consider.

If you want to catch a fish, go fishing
While Facebook has 300 million subscribers, brands need to consider their target audience and decide whether a Facebook-only campaign makes sense. For example, entertainment companies find great success on MySpace, since it's a common destination for movie and music news. To get authentic user-generated content for your campaign, make sure your reach is broad. Some of the best fans are found in the most unlikely places. At Sprout, we try to ensure that our campaigns can run anywhere -- on Facebook, MySpace, and our clients' websites as well.

... but fish in the right pond
Having said that, it is important to think carefully about which types of user-generated content to integrate into a campaign, and this goes for choosing your media and social networking channels too. Depending on your particular goals around quality and volume, it's important to get the right mix of quirkiness and unique marketable content with some sort of mass appeal.

The holy grail: The activity stream
It's true that if you want to catch a fish, you need to go fishing. But Facebook's activity stream is still the holy grail for brands attempting to get their campaign to go viral. It's important to make sure that if you're allowing users to create their own content via your campaign, they should be able to share that content with their friends on Facebook by publishing to their activity stream. Once published in their own activity stream, all of those users' friends will see it published in their activity streams too. Those friends should then be able to access your campaign right from the message in their activity streams. For an example of how this works, try Sprout's Holiday Matchmaker game.

The FTC and transparency
When dealing with user-generated content, it's important to ensure that your content contributors follow the rules. The FTC's new rules for bloggers state that any user or blogger who makes an endorsement for a product must disclose the connection he or she has with the seller of that product. The FTC can slap said users or bloggers with big fines if they don't. Note that the definitions are broad here -- the FTC rules basically state that any situation where anything of value is exchanged between company and advocate (blogger or user who's not part of the company) requires total transparency.

There's a lot to think about when you launch a social media campaign. But if you plan well and ensure a healthy balance between authenticity and moderation, UGC and branded content, and creation and sharing, you are off to a great start. I hope these seven best practices help to plan your next great campaign.

Carnet Williams is CEO at Sprout.