If you allow a documentary film maker to come into your office, be prepared.

Special thanks to San Diego’s greatest software engineer and Surfrider Foundation supporter, Justin Ricci, for throwing this my way.

First, Keep a Child Alive very much seems like a great charity and this is not a slag on it or its mission.  This is a post about the power – and sometimes over importance – of social media, namely Twitter in this case, and our reliance on influencers.

It’s not rare that brands purchase the start power of athletes and celebrities for marketing campaigns.  We see it in action sports, we see it in CPG, we see it for car dealerships.  But is it worth it?  That’s hard to say.

Not too long ago a host of celebs, including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher, agreed to give up Tweeting until fans donated $1 million to Keep A Child Alive. While they didn’t fail, their success did not come as quickly as some thought it would, or in the manner expected.

(sorry for the lousy pic, the link below takes you to the image)

It turns out that one person donated the majority of the funds, which is great for the charity and the children involved.

But what does that say about celebrities, social media and their influence?  Is Twitter just not as important to these celeb’s fans as we thought?  Maybe these celebs are simply too annoying on Twitter, and even though they’re being “followed”, they’re not really following them?

Or maybe the fans aren’t all that altruistic? It’d be interesting to somehow do a comparison and see if a $10 donation meant you’d receive a signed picture from Lady Gaga, versus helping kids survive in Africa.

Again, it’s great the $1 million was raised, regardless of how. But in this seemingly ROI driven world, think twice before you base your decisions on raw numbers… regardless of if it’s the number of Twitter followers a person has, their Google page rank or the circulation of a magazine. More doesn’t mean better.

We’re not really friends  on Facebook.  Even though technically we are Fans of your brand, we may as well not be.

When you’re working with social media, it’s incredibly important that you don’t judge success based purely on how many people you’re potentially reaching.  You need to take into account a few other metrics and one of the easiest ones to measure is how many people are hiding your Fan page.

Similar to how you can “hide” your neighbor from third grade who you haven’t spoken with in 30 years (and besides a few posts back and forth, you still don’t), brands that engage (and I use that term loosely) on Facebook in ways their Fans (or Likes… or whatever they’ll be called in 2011) don’t deem appropriate, risk being hidden from their Fans’ feeds.  And once a brand is hidden, your posts simply aren’t seen by that particular Fan (by the way – you can’t tell who is hiding your brand at the present time, you can only see the number of people hiding your brand).

How easy is it to hide a brand on Facebook?  It only takes two mouse clicks on your feed.

We would never consider hiding Dirty Birds… this is just an example.

If you’re in PB, like wings, beer or good times, you should head on over!

So how can you ensure people aren’t going to hide your brand?  Start with how you interact with Fans through Facebook.  Here are some basic do’s and don’ts when working out the strategy for your brand’s Facebook Fan Page.  They’re basic, but I see a lot of brands missing the mark:

Do’s

• Build out a schedule for your Facebook and other social media interactions.  You know what ads are running in December, right?  Put the same planning into your social media programs.
• Post about events you have going on.  Realize that you can target posts by geographies, so consider making that UK event UK specific, unless what you have going on will have global appeal.
• Post about new and upcoming products.  But work hand in hand with your PR department (if they’re not already in charge of social media for your company).  You don’t want to cannibalize potential editorial coverage.
• Respond to positive comments and posts.  Depending on how many people are Fans and the size of your team managing the page, you probably can’t respond to everyone who posts.  But respond to a few, the feedback will go a long way.

Don’t’s

• Treat Facebook like a one-way street.  When people become Fans of your brand, they’re opting in.  Engage them from time to time.
• Post more than twice a day, unless you really have something great going on.  Similar to how you hide your friends who post every hour or so about mundane things, frequent posting by brands can lead to hiding more than helping them engage.
• Freak out if you have a few negative comments.  It happens.  But be ready to monitor and address for potentially large-scale issues.
• Post anything and everything.  Just because you have 40 pictures from an event or a product comes in 90 colors does not mean you should post them all.  Edit.
• Post “when you have time”.  Post when your Fans are online.  Figure out what demographics are your biggest Fans and skew accordingly.  If your company makes football cleats, you probably shouldn’t post after school during football practice, because your main users will be offline and practicing themselves.  Facebook gives you numerous free insights into demographic information, so figure out who your Fans are and work posts in accordingly.

These are just basic guidelines.  Similar to other forms of marketing, you don’t always have the luxury that comes with unlimited bandwidth to do everything to its fullest potential.  Do what you can, but try to do it right.