So if I “expect great things” from Kohl’s, it’s only because they themselves have set the bar so high. This is why I was disappointed to learn about the lack of transparency exhibited by one of their marketing executives and an agency exec on Kohl’s Facebook Fan page.

Based on his activities in Kohl’s Facebook community, Ed Gawronski seems to be a big fan of Kohl’s. Two weeks ago he noted, “Less then 4 hours to get a great deal at Kohls.com. I just hit the jackpot and saved 30% on some ASICS sneaks. Cost me almost nothing.” And a couple days later he had another scoop for Kohl’s Facebook Fans: “make sure to give your email to kohls.com. I think they give you $5 when you give it in. The deals get even better too. I’ve seen special online promotions every week.”

You might think Ed is just a helpful guy and a big supporter of Kohl’s, except a visitor to the Facebook page outed Gawronski as a Kohl’s marketing executive. In a reply to one of Ed’s posts, the anonymous visitor notes, “Interesting. Ed Gawronski is the VP of marketing for Kohl’s. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ed-gawronski/8/b1b/875 Masquerade much?”

Marketing executives certainly have a right to post about their organizations on Social Media sites, but the first rule of Social Media participation is to be completely and totally transparent. This means being honest and disclosing any relationship to the brand. Gawronski, with his chummy recommendation that others furnish their email to Kohl’s and his boast about his shoe savings, attempts to pass himself off as a helpful consumer when in fact he is the Vice President of Digital Marketing at Kohls.

Gawronski isn’t the only Kohl’s stakeholder posting to the Kohl’s Facebook wall without full disclosure. In the last two weeks, Marjorie Sklar Corbett has shared a couple of deals on women’s apparel and praised Kohl’s for an environmental honor, saying “It’s so important, I’m glad Kohl’s is getting the recognition for all the good they do!” While I can’t be sure Marjorie works with Kohl’s, she is a Group Director at McCann-Erickson, Kohl’s ad agency; at best, the relationship between her employer and Kohl’s ought to be revealed.

Social Media is no longer new, and we’ve seen enough embarrassing transparency mistakes to know better by now. In 2008, a Burger King exec was caught using one of his daughter’s online accounts to spread rumors about critical labor advocates. In 2007, Whole Foods’ CEO was embarrassed to be found praising his own company and bashing competitors via an anonymous alter ego on finance boards.

There are two primary reasons to be transparent and to completely reveal business or financial relationships when blogging, posting, or tweeting. First, getting caught being anything less than authentic is damaging to the brand. It is embarrassing, reflects poorly on the brand, undermines trust, calls into question the objectivity of others participating within the community, and discourages participation by the very consumers whose involvement, influence, and praise is desired and necessary in our increasingly social world.

But being transparent in Social Media is more than just a good idea–it’s also the law. The FTC has always discouraged false or deceptive practices. Its advertising guides have long required that “When there is a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement, such connection must be fully disclosed.”

The FTC is currently considering changes to its guides to demand even more transparency and disclosure in today’s more social environment. In a recent MediaPost article, Michael Lasky, senior partner at Davis & Gilbert LLP, suggests, “Agencies and clients, especially those working in the social media space, must understand that the FTC’s efforts to address deceptive practices can create liability and exposure.”

Gawronski and Sklar Corbett’s failure to disclose their relationship to Kohl’s isn’t likely to result in significant brand or legal harm, but they are failing to live up to consumer and FTC expectations in Social Media. They and other Kohl’s employees are certainly welcome to participate in the Facebook discussion, but only with full disclosure about their vested interest in Kohl’s success.

This is a lesson everyone must learn throughout the organization, from the top of the marketing career path to entry-level customer service reps and sales associates: Anything less than total transparency in your actions on Facebook, Twitter, or other Social Media communities can result in very serious, costly, and embarrassing consequences. The way employees and stakeholders should learn this is in explicitly stated and written rules of Social Media engagement and not by being outed in embarrassing and public fashion.

It all sounds so wonderful, but when did it become fashionable to be associated with a crowd? We used to want to “stand out from the crowd.” There was a time we hated to “get lost in the crowd.” And when we said “Two’s company; three’s a crowd,” it wasn’t because three people was the desired state.

Of course, Crowdsourcing–the act of organizing large groups of people outside an organization to collaborate on tasks that might otherwise be done within it–holds terrific potential, but it also can be dangerous. To effectively tap the “wisdom of the crowds,” it is vital the task be carefully chosen and defined, all possible outcomes foreseen, and appropriate limits and guidelines implemented.

One danger of crowds is that they’re prone to be affected by passionate minorities. Stephen Colbert has proven this several times already. In 2006, Colbert asked the viewers of “The Colbert Report” to vote for him in an online poll to select a name for a new bridge in Hungary; within two weeks he had earned 17 million votes–7 million more than the population of the country of Hungary. (The bridge was eventually named Megyeri Bridge, a name that didn’t even make the second round of polling.)

Colbert is back in the news because he urged his viewers to vote for him in a NASA poll to name a new space station module. NASA offered four names of its own but permitted write-ins, which created an opening for Colbert’s highly engaged fans. When voting ended, “Colbert” beat the most popular NASA name, “Serenity,” by 40,000 votes. As noted in the Associated Press article, “NASA’s mistake was allowing write-ins”.

You might think that NASA covered it’s bases since it “reserves the right to choose an appropriate name.” In this case they’re probably safe, since although Colbert and his fans might howl in protest when NASA passes over the comedian’s name, it’s still all in good fun. But what if a different set of passionate people had hijacked this exercise in crowdsourcing?

As a hypothetical example, what if instead of Comedy Central fans, it was a vocal set of opponents of California’s Proposition 8 that had targeted the NASA voting campaign? Such a group might have mobilized folks from across the country to have the space module named “Milk,” after the gay politician who was the subject of the recent award-winning film “Milk.” In this case, even with the stated right to choose an appropriate name, NASA would’ve been caught between a rock and a hard place–on the one hand conservatives might have objected to the politicizing of the space station, while on the other hand activists would’ve accused the space organization of homophobia and bias if NASA overruled the popular vote.

This example demonstrates several considerations for organizations looking to mount a crowdsourcing effort:

• Consider every possible outcome and ensure the worst-case scenario is one that can be accepted.
• Setting the rules so that the organization can make the ultimate decision regardless of the group’s wishes does not mitigate every risk. Consider again the worst-case scenario in order to determine if the control retained by the organization is real or imagined. Recognize the danger inherent in publicly nullifying the will of the group after having asked that group for their time, consideration, and opinion.
• In many cases, open-ended tasks may furnish an opportunity for a passionate minority to overwhelm the majority. It may be better and safer to allow participants to choose from a set selection of options or to otherwise constrain the thinking and activity.
• Put limits in place that prevent or reduce ballot stuffing. While it may be difficult to obstruct all manipulation of a crowdsourced program, many sensitive situations can be avoided by setting appropriate rules and implementing technical restrictions such as requiring registration and limiting participation based on email address and/or IP address.

Crowdsourcing furnishes tremendously exciting ways to gather knowledge from stakeholders, increase loyalty among customers, mitigate risks with fresh thinking, and provide a unique perspective from outside the organization. If you execute and manage a crowdsourcing program with the appropriate foresight and care, you’ll find yourself agreeing with P.T. Barnum, who said “Every crowd has a silver lining.”

Of course, I’m not suggesting brands ignore Social Media. Quite the opposite: Integrating Social Media into your marketing and operations is an absolute imperative. This is why the challenge isn’t how your organization can get into Social Media but instead how Social Media can get into your organization. The former implies the company can continue to operate as it always has; the latter demands consideration for how processes and responsibilities must change to leverage the transformation Social Media will bring to business operations in the coming years.

Too often nowadays I am hearing of marketers who seek to “get into Social Media.” Having a goal of “getting into” Web 2.0 makes no more sense than a goal of “getting into” television advertising, Out of Home, or the Web.

In 2009, no one would say, “We have to get into the Web.” Instead, we recognize the Internet as a multifaceted platform with an endless variety of strategies, tactics, features, and channels that permit brands to build awareness, preference, loyalty, and influence. Marketers today don’t “get into the Web” but instead develop and deploy strategies that encompass viral marketing, search engine marketing, banner advertising, virtual worlds, microsites, casual games, email, and other Internet technologies that achieve marketing goals. And, of course, the Internet isn’t merely a marketing tool but is utilized by and has impacted every business division (and every single employee) in the enterprise.

While today we understand the breadth and complexity of the Internet medium, the same was not true in 1995. In the early days of Web 1.0, some brands and marketers got it, and some didn’t; some organizations “got into” the Internet, and others drove the Internet into and throughout their organizations.

Those who didn’t get the Internet were quick to dismiss it (”flash in the pan” was a common refrain), diminish its reach (”for kids and geeks” was another common criticism), miscategorize it (”it’s like TV” or “like magazines” some people said), and most importantly treat the Internet like a marketing tactic they could choose to use in their own sweet time. Meanwhile, those who “got it” recognized the Internet would fundamentally change communications, expectations, and habits, and they began to reorganize their business strategies and operations to create Internet-enabled organizations.

Jeff Bezos got it. He began Amazon with a vision for how the Internet would change the way people gather knowledge, share information, and shop. More than that–he realized these changes would suggest (and eventually demand) new ways for business to operate.

Bezos launched Amazon.com from his garage in 1995 at a time when Borders and Barnes & Noble owned the bookselling business via hundreds of stores across the country. Bezos didn’t merely see the Internet as a medium for commerce but developed and executed a vision for how it would change both consumers and business. This vision allowed Bezos to create an Internet-enabled organization that set a benchmark his larger competitors soon struggled to reach. Jeff Bezos didn’t “get into” the Internet; he assertively created a business model that allowed the Internet to “get into” every aspect of his concern.

So, how is your organization approaching Social Media? Does it see Web 2.0 as something to “get into,” or does it recognize Social Media as a sea change that will transform the enterprise? Does your company view Social Media as an interesting marketing tool to explore as time permits, or is your organization preparing innovative approaches for conducting business in a new, social, highly-networked, more transparent world? Is your approach to Social Media more akin to B&N or Amazon circa 1995?

Those who approach Social Media with a vision for how it can change their business will gain significant advantages over those who treat is simply as another tool in their marketing toolkit. Jeff Bezos “got it” and today he is the 68th richest individual on the planet with a personal net worth of $6.8 billion. The combined market capitalization of Barnes & Noble and Borders is a little over $1 billion.

So, should your organization “get into” Social Media? Or is it time for Social Media to get into your organization?

What happened? Work at my company Fullhouse picked up as clients and prospects made their 2009 plans. Time and energy was required for the busy retail season by the stores owned by my wife and me (Metropawlis Pet Boutique and JustPetStrollers.com). But more than anything, life happened–my inner musician urged me to spend more time with my keyboard, good times were shared with family and friends, games were played, and media was consumed (movies, television, and online series such as the terrifically entertaining “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long.”)

This experience provided me a fresh perspective on Social Media. No, I have not had my confidence shaken; I still firmly believe Social Media will continue to change the way humans communicate, share information, and form relationships (with each other and with brands). Rather, my break from blogging has caused me to appreciate the diversity and richness of Social Media because in that eight-week period, I didn’t give up Social Media; I just gave up blogging.

While I was silent on ExperienceTheBlog.com, I was still eagerly making noise on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. I didn’t stop sharing information, links, music, movie and book reviews, news, opinions, and observations; I just didn’t find three- to five-hour chunks of time to research, compose, proofread, and post to my blog.

Because blogging has been around for so long (and because companies love the control of blogs), it is often the first thing that comes to mind when conversation turns to Social Media, but blogs and Social Media are clearly not one and the same. Blogs are a part of social media but increasingly are a smaller part of the Social Media pie.

Back in the late 90s when the term “blog” was first coined, Social Media consisted of a few product ratings, some personal Web site tools, and a couple infant Web log services such as LiveJournal and Blogger. Today, the concept of Social Media includes documents (Scribd), video (YouTube and Break), music (Blip.fm and imeem), Social Networks (Facebook and MySpace), livecasting (qik), and most notably in the past two years, microblogging (Twitter). (For an easy visualization of the breadth of Social Media, I highly recommend Brian Solis’s terrific “Conversation Prism“.)

The point is that I stopped blogging, but I didn’t stop sharing, communicating, and networking. Blogging satisfies a set of needs for me, and I found these needs were ones I could set aside when other priorities and demands required attention. But there were other needs that could not be put on hold, and I found no matter how busy I got, I always had time enough to participate in other aspects of Social Media.

What I learned firsthand is something I’ve been writing about on this blog for some time: Social Media isn’t a single cohesive thing–it doesn’t satisfy an individual or even small set of needs for people (or brands)–and woe be to the strategist or marketer who oversimplifies the complexities, nuances, and diversity of Social Media.

With the launch of a new year, I hope to continue to find time to explore the way consumers experience brands in a new social world. As always, your input is appreciated–after all, this blog isn’t “social” if it’s just me doing the talking!

Popacular.com is hosting a Tweet counter called GigaTweet. According to it, the number of Tweets surpassed one billion recently. Sounds like a lot, but popular IM platforms handle more than this number each day. Again, this statistic makes it sound as if Twitter (and all microblogging) remains a Social Media service with narrow appeal.

But TechCrunch thinks Twitter is having its “hockey stick” moment–so called for when a site sees a sharp rise in visits and usage akin to the bend in a hockey stick. As noted by Erick Schonfeld:

Since January, Twitter has experienced a 16-fold growth in the U.S. And that is just visitors to Twitter.com. These numbers don’t count all the people who send and read Tweets from other Websites, desktop apps, or their mobile phones.

I suspect TechCrunch is correct–Twitter is in the process of going mainstream–but the microblog tool has a long way to go to get there. The chart below demonstrates the number of visitors to MySpace. Facebook, and Twitter. The Twitter line is so small it’s hard to see the phenomenal growth, and according to Compete.net, Twitter traffic will need to grow 1500% to equal Facebook’s traffic.

Twitter fans may object to this comparison and point out–with merit–that Twitter can and is used by many people who do not visit Twitter.com. Still, with the number of Twitter users south of 3.5 million, it’s clear that Twitter won’t achieve mainstream status for quite some time yet. I have no doubt it (or another microblogging tool) will do so, but it may be a bit premature to tag it “mainstream.”

So what might the future look like? It certainly won’t be the jumble of independent, overlapping, and unreliable tools that we have today. Let’s imagine a Social Media future and then consider how we might take actions now that will better prepare us for this future.

The year is 2021. You park your flying car and arrive at a street with three unfamiliar restaurants. At which should you dine? Back in 2008, you’d have gambled and selected one based on its name, signage, or appearance; but here in 2012 you’ve just been fitted with the latest in contact lens displays. Within moments, you are provided with just the information you want because your personal, portable, and essentially invisible computer knows exactly the data to extract and provide for your consideration.

You may care that one restaurant was rated best overall, another was rated most romantic, and the third was rated best for families. Or perhaps you care about service a great deal, so you are provided with past diners’ ratings of the waitstaff for the three restaurants. You can even access data from your network of friends to learn which one is rated best by the people you know, and in doing so may discover a couple of friends are presently dining in one of the restaurants. Based on the objective feedback and information culled from others, you can make an informed selection using the criteria you most value.

If this is the prospect we face–Social Media ever present and integrated into consumers’ daily lives–how might we prepare today? If it seems too soon to prepare for this Minority Report-like future, consider what you and your organization might have done in 1995 to prepare for the Internet of 2008; what advantages could you have gained and which mistakes might have been avoided?

I believe there are two broad categories of actions that marketers should take now to pave the road to future Social Media success. The first is to execute the traditional best practices that create and strengthen brands. The second is to begin to embrace the new era of Social Media and create relationships by engaging consumers.

Strengthen Your Brand

A strong brand will be perceived better and thus generate more positive Word of Mouth; in addition, stronger brands will be less affected by negative Word of Mouth.

If today your brand is not a strong brand–the kind of brand that people would miss if it were gone tomorrow–you have two choices to prepare for the changes ubiquitous Social Media will bring. You can continue to be one choice among many and constantly struggle to keep up with shifting consumer tastes and competitive offerings. Or you can create a brand to which consumers feel affinity beyond the value of your price, services, and product features.

The following is nothing more than Marketing 101, but it never hurts to consider the power of a strong brand:

• Build your brand with emotion: Based on the restaurant example, it may be tempting to think that consumer decisions in the future will be based purely on fact and logic, but successful brands have always found a way to appeal to the right brain as much as the left. The growth of Social Media will make it more important than ever to nurture a brand that creates emotional bonds with consumers.  A while back I revisited the famous story of New Coke. Even though studies conclusively demonstrated consumers preferred the taste of New Coke over the original recipe, people still rebelled against the new product and forced the return of Original Coke. The lesson? Humans are emotional creatures and no matter how much we may wish to believe our decisions are made on fact and logic, the truth is that emotion trumps reason. Social Media will especially threaten those brands that lack an emotional connection and instead compete solely on low price, product features, or execution.
• Maintain your knowledge of what consumers want: A common problem for brands is marketing myopia; most of us in business consider ourselves experts on our own products and consumers, and we become pretty convinced that we understand what consumers want. Business textbooks are full of examples to the contrary, but the lessons we learned as students are quickly forgotten in a business environment that values decisiveness, fast results, knowledge, and experience. Knowing that many organizations do not gather sufficient intelligence from and about consumers, now would be a good time to assess and improve your consumer research. In a hyper-competitive and transparent world, the brand that understands consumer wants and needs will be best suited to meet them.
• Create a unique position: In our restaurant example, there is room on the street for many restaurants to succeed, provided they serve different needs. One can provide a romantic experience while another may offer the right venue for family dining, but in a future where brands cannot hide from the positive or negative opinions of its customers, there is no room for an establishment that attempts to do both and fails. The key isn’t to be the best-rated restaurant on the street (although it doesn’t hurt) but to be the best-rated for a certain need state and consumer.
• Create memorable experiences: For some low-engagement brands, the best experience is simply that the product delivers on its promise every time. For other brands, delivering consistent positive experiences can help create affinity while providing excellent experiences can turn affinity into influence in Social Media.  Creating a memorable experience can be done in many ways. It might be proactive service offered via Social Networks. Or marketing that doesn’t interrupt consumers but instead enhances their lives. Or hiring and training employees who convey the brand and a superior level of service at every touchpoint. Or violating consumer expectations in an unexpected and delightful way. Or, perhaps it is all of the above, because in a transparent world, the experiences you create will either make or break your reputation and your brand.

Engage Consumers in Social Media

Being prepared for the Social future will take more than having a unique position and communicating it in traditional advertising channels. Increasingly, success will also depend upon the engagement you have and create with consumers. We can’t know all the ways Social Media will grow and evolve in the coming years, but here are some things you can do today:

• Monitor Social Media: The importance of maintaining consumer knowledge was noted above, and Social Media provides new ways for brands to gather intelligence. According to AdAge.com, brands such as P&G and Unilever are leveraging the power of Social Media for research purposes.  Some brands will create private networks, but you don’t need to launch an expensive customer network (a la My Starbucks Idea) in order to listen to consumers. Tools such as Twitter Search, Technorati Search, and Google Blog Search furnish a means to hear consumer rants and raves right now.
• Step away from the blog and engage consumers where they are: Blogs are a fine Social Media tactic, but in many ways they aren’t that different from typical Web sites–blogs offer content provided by the brand within the brand’s own private and branded domain. Consumers will rarely feel able to share their honest feedback within sponsored blogs, and frequently if negative opinions are conveyed these are deleted or omitted by moderators.  A glance at Brian Solis’s brilliant Conversation Prism demonstrates that blogs are just a small portion of the Social Media realm, and as Social Media grows the vast majority of consumer dialog will occur outside of blogs. It isn’t too early for brands to be part of social networks (Facebook and MySpace are already popular for marketers) and Microcontent tools (of which Twitter leads the pack) and to begin testing the waters of social documents, pictures, video, service networks, and the like.
• Communicate the brand internally: Social Media will require more employees to communicate with larger groups of consumers than in the past. Controlling the message and conveying a consistent brand will be very challenging with so many people representing your brand across a variety of channels. Now is the time to make sure those within your organization understand what makes your brand different, the personality it wishes to convey, and the ways its voice can be communicated in Social Media.

Social Media will bring many opportunities and challenges as it evolves in the coming years, but it’s never too early to concentrate on marketing fundamentals while testing the ever-changing tactics made possible by Social Media. You could wait to see what happens to Social Media and to your brand, but it might be worthwhile to consider Jeff Bezos. Bezos recognized the changes the Internet was bringing to business and launched his online media store two years before long-established powerhouses Barnes & Noble and Borders. Today, Bezos is worth $4.3 billion while the combined market capitalization of B&N and Borders is less than $2 billion.

Brands don’t need to be on the bleeding edge–after all, Bezos wasn’t the first to sell books online–but brands that proceed too slowly will be missing opportunities and threats as Social Media becomes more intuitive, more common across consumer groups, and more powerful in shaping consumer perception and actions.

Campaigns are, by definition, short-term in nature, but brands are not. Neither are the relationships brands wish to foster with consumers. The best brands foster the best relationships–ones based on lasting emotional and practical bonds that yield long-term value for both consumers and brands.

I’m not suggesting campaigns don’t have their place. They certainly do, even (or especially) online. A great current example is VW’s RoutanBabymaker3000. This interactive widget provides consumers the ability to upload photos of a man and a woman in order to see what their child may look like. It’s a terrific online interaction that supports VW’s Routan TV ad campaign quite well. It has all of the hallmarks of a great digital component–it’s fun, intuitive, involving, and invites sharing from person to person. And it is temporary–part of the Routan campaign which will soon disappear from television screens and, probably, VW.com.

But while campaigns have their place online, much too often marketers make the mistake of approaching the Internet and Social Media with short-term thinking. What if Wrigley’s Candystand.com, a site filled with entertaining casual games that support Wrigley’s brands, had been just a short-term campaign idea? The site is about to change–after 11 years, Wrigley’s recently sold Candystand to a third party who will operate it as an ad-supported game site. But prior to the sale, it was Candystand’s consistency that allowed it to become a destination that delivered nearly 10 million visits per month with an average time per visit of 13 minutes. That is the kind of long-term value that doesn’t get created with a series of three-month campaigns.

As we continue to see the growth and maturity of Social Media, it will be even more important for marketers to consider the long-term implications of short-term campaigns. Earlier this year, Disney closed the Virtual Magic Kingdom (VMK), it’s online social media and virtual world for Disney theme park fans. The company had intended the VMK to be a short-term site in support of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary, but users who engaged in the site came to have different ideas. As consumers created their online personas, developed relationships, and paid for virtual goodies, the VMK became an online representation of the consumers themselves. The end of the VMK was met with much the same reaction and emotion that would happen if tomorrow Facebook disappeared, along with all the content, connections, and value the site represents to consumers.

Before a brand considers whether a campaign has what it takes to succeed online, they may first wish to consider if it’s a campaign they really want. If so, then it’s important to plan not just for the launch of the campaign, but the end of it, as well. Doing so will help to prevent mistakes, identify the resources needed throughout the campaign, and allow the brand to consider ways to not merely promote the campaign but also set consumer expectations for the obsolescence of any valuable sites or tools upon which they may come to rely.