Archive for May, 2009

Corporate Cultures & Social Media – How to become a Change Agent for your company

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

changingdirection_250x250Thinking about incorporating social media into your company?  This session is a must, if not for the topic, then certainly for the moderator, Geoff Livingston.  Geoff brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the topic of affecting change within organizations related to social media.  He is an accomplished writer, authority and practitioner on public relations and change management within organizations.

 

Just like we know that some people are naturally social, some companies are going to be naturally social.  Some are not.  Is it possible to get an un-social company, well, social?  That is what we will explore today at noon.  If it is possible to get a company social, then how you can get it done. 

 

Description:  How do companies embrace social media? Is it from the bottom up, top down? Is there a strategy? What department handles it?  All of these questions create so much tension that companies simply do nothing.  All along we know that it almost doesn’t matter what department it starts in, who drives it or how long it takes if the company is not willing to change the way they operate, think, culture, etc around becoming interactive with their constituents.

 

Questions: 

  • 1. What are the challenges with adopting a culture suitable for becoming interactive?
  • 2. How can you prove that it works…What are some examples of how SM has positively changed work flows, processes, departments, companies?
  • 3. Source a list of actionable items to help an advocate become a change agent within a company.

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Recap of the Unpanel on listening grids with David Alston of Radian 6

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

grid

Quality over quantity. @jasonbreed and I both agreed that the quality of the comments for each of @davidalston’s questions for this past Tuesdays #socialmedia Unpanel was amazing. The 187 attendees of this Unpanel clearly were thinking about the business of social media and the business of listening, not as lemmings, but as thought leaders in their own right. Here are some of the more choice comments starting with David’s first question of what was the cultural shift that needed to happen today in business in order to accommodate social media? A great question in its own right but in the context of listening, it was an appropriate jumping off point.

-Companies need to be willing to trade control for conversation.

-Usually for people to be on board, they need to 1st understand what “social media” encompasses. Before blasting this at corp culture.

-In large organizations, it takes a change management approach before social media programs can get off the ground.

-Companies need to make sure the right person behind the brand is responding.

-Employees like hiding behind their Brands.  Because it allows them to not be accountable. Companies need to make individuals more accountable.

-Adopt a social media policy throughout the org., monitoring to identify who best person to respond should be within the org.

-Use these individuals for brand advocacy & outreach, the idea is to bring them to the fore front of the org.

-Advocate for making more people accessible rather than fewer. Gives customers better glimpse into brand’s personality. Show that there is a personality!

Clearly, communication, empowerment and dare we say, transparency, coupled with people and organizations capable of and not beiing afraid of “doing” were on everyone’s minds and were the nature of the tweets for the first question. It was interesting to see that everyone seemed to be headed down the same path but all with their own original thought.

The next question David asked concerned what companies should be listening for once they develop a listening culture? A great question and thus right out of the blocks we get the following:

- Listen for opportunity, failure, and ambassadors…

-Listening for brand conversations and the keywords that relate to their brand–that provide the opportunity to communicate.

-You should listen for competitive movements

-Everyone wants to “listen” for detractors i.e. Crisis Communications. How about competitor listening? Or listening for new recruits/champions.

-Showing that your company’s competitors are already using SM can be a pretty effective argument for it too!

-Listen to brand/co. mentions, industry trends/news – listen for opportunities!

-Competition mapping, consumer usage trends, brand sentiments around media releases.

-Expand your listening: listening for your product, the needs your product fulfills, or the end objective that those support…

-Listen for the unexpected

-With listenting, dont forget “The most important thing in Communication is hearing what isn’t said”

-And lastly..Listen so they don’t vote with their feet!

And finally question three; How do we create a listening grid so all parts of an enterprise are involved in listening & engaging?

-The grid needs a leader or point person for starters

-Once the ‘grid’ is set up, It offers opportunities for co-creation. Solving problems,  rolling out new products, etc

-Sales, service, mktg, Product Dev, HR, etc all need listening Grids to start. They then move and evolve accordingly to their needs.

-The grid needs a tip that opens to a funnel. not efficient for all to listen to everything.

-Just avoid the trap of creating a new type of contact center(grid) staffed w/ powerless employees in dead-end jobs, who don’t care.

-Knowing what to listen for in your grid is critical, but also listening on behalf of your org. with its best interests at hand is critical.

-Developing grids need to retain distributive nature. Centralized control could be poison.

-Listening grid could go from front line > department or individual for actions or response to front line

Map the flow of information through your org, streamline it, rinse and repeat. Use #socialmedia to build user generated maps.

In summary, there was tremendous thought and participation on this topic; which just goes to show how important the subject is on every one’s minds. It’s really a credit to David Alston for raising the level of thought from the mundane echo to an actionable knowledge transfer. Big props from us David, big props.

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Develop a Corporate Listening Grid

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

improve-listening-skillsIf you have followed us at all you will know that we are trying to get beyond the traditional social media speak of “The keys to social media, listen and be transparent….blah, blah, blah”.  So when talking to the fine folks at Radian6 you can imagine the excitement when we actually got energized talking about LISTENING.  Listening is important, yet even the most seasoned gurus don’t have a good grasp on how to help companies modify their beings to incorporate an interactive culture beyond the one twenty-something who’s willing to give it a shot.  So let’s set a baseline for discussion:

Companies have spent the last few decades building a corporate veil over their brands and relying on having the few “experts” create the features and develop a voice for the Brand.  That focus on experts lead to knowledge and skills being huddled into only a couple, select employees.  That egalitarian style that was developed throughout the 80s and 90s is now counter-intuitive to the social movement.  This is why companies are having so many cultural problems in allowing more access to people throughout companies with insight that is traditionally suppressed.

On Tuesday, we’ll focus the discussion around developing a fundamental plan for companies to create and instill a Listening Grid of sorts.  A way for executives to plan their way through opening tracks of interactive dialogue with customers, partners, channels, or even other employees.  The three questions will be:

  • 1. What is the cultural shift that needs to happen today in business to accommodate social media?
  • 2. We get listening for the detractors. What are other ways that companies need to listen?
  • 3. Let’s develop a list or chronology of how to create a listening grid within a company.

We are very excited to welcome David Alston as our moderator this week.  David is the head of marketing at Radian 6 and will be sure to add a ton of value as his expertise is an inch wide and a mile deep in this particular topic.  Please join us this Tuesday at Noon EST and be sure to include #socialmedia in your tweets to have your input captured here at www.hashtagsocialmedia.com/live.

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Posted in corporate, Listening, Measurement | 3 Comments »

Follow up to best practices for companies to build their audiences using Social Media

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

Strong opinions and passion. Those would be the underlying themes of the last Unpanel hosted by Scott Stratten. Why those two themes? Well the topic was what are the best practices for companies to build their audiences using Social Media and indeed there were some stong opinions and points of views.

The first question of  what was the process for companies to start creating an audience digitally got things started right away with opinions and comments that ranged from, “get right in front of them in their preferred channels”, to using personal social networks and to work out or expand from there. However, the trick might be to try and determine what channels or networks your audience prefers. The bottom line,  the consensus seemed to be that everyone had to listen first to find and locate the audience that you want to convert. But once they are located, listen passively then participate actively! Give them value above and beyond anything else!

The next question was  should companies automate some, all or none of the process probably generated the most heated and passionate responses. Some said no, need to keep it personal, while others said that if you grow quickly then you might need to automate. Though some were of the mindset that automation kills the process or purpose of connecting with people-which in a sense is the essence of social media. but…

What can large companies do to retain the essence of social media on an enterprise level? Perhaps that is worthy of it’s own blog post?

At the end of the day there needs to be a balance of quantity and quality but with a certain level of engagement. Large or small, you still need to engage, this isn’t about collecting names. Some may treat it like “name” farming but it’s the companies that develop relationships that will win. Suffice it with this, “auto anything on Twitter” for example defeats the purpose of social media and a company thats buying followers, isn’t gaining a sale.

Methods seemed to have been as much at issue here as was the type of engagement but it segued to the last question of the session which was where should a corporation build followers of current and potential customers, and why? a checklist was what were looking for. However the convo lingered on Q2 for a bit longer and that was because of the strong opinions that everyone had on the auto follow debate.

Right out of the blocks came this comment: Sometimes brands create their audience and don’t necessarily find them. Interesting point/observation. This comment came rolling in which someone said, “Define the key themes that resonate with the  brand and then use Social media search tools to discover where & who is discussing them. A great point! Followed by you  can’t be everywhere at one so,”fish where the  fish are swimming”, but have a ‘social home’, create action that drives people to you.

Scott though asked a great follow up in which he poses, If your market isn’t fully on Twitter (or FB), should you build a home on it before they and your competition come? I venture to say yes.

But if companies are going to engage consumers in Social Media, should they request your social media info? Twitter name, etc? Great follow up question by Scott. The answers ranged from; If they have it yes, why not? To,” there has to be a level of trust”.

Bottom line to this very engaging and frantic discussion is this…

As a company you have to be proactive in social media not reactive.

Next week’s host; David Alston of Radian 6

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What are the best practices for companies to build their audiences using Social Media?

Monday, May 11th, 2009

empty-crowd1So what happens if you have a party and no one shows?  Companies of all shapes and sizes have a difficult time imagining themselves being social for a number of reasons.  “Our customers are not teenagers”, “Our customers don’t want to know when our CEO uses the bathroom”,  “We have a call center and actually talk to our customers”, etc.  Ever hear any of that from a company or worse yet your boss in trying to justify not getting involved with social media or wanting to develop digital audiences.

Scott Stratten, the president of Un-Marketing.com, is an industry recognized expert in developing social currency for his corporate clients.  Helping those clients develop strategies for building audiences online and actually executing those strategies with significant results.  You could say he even “eats his own dog food” with one of the largest Twitter audiences out there. 

This week’s event is sure to spur much debate and raise the awareness on real strategies for companies to build their digital audiences.

Topic:  What are the best practices for companies to build their audiences using Social Media?

Q1:  What’s the process for companies to start creating an audience digitally?  

Q2:  Should companies automate some, all or none of the process?

Q3:  Where should a corp build followers of current and potential customers, and why? a checklist

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Follow up to UnPanel #6: How to Win When Your Competitors are Losing, an advanced social media approach

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

A great turnout for this event led by Jason Falls from full service brand agency, Doe-Anderson.  Can’t decide whether to attribute the passionate dialogue to the topic or Jason for challenging the standard response posts.  As a result, this UnPanel created a solid dialogue around the topic of how some companies can grow their businesses even when competitors and their industry is even or declining.  A summary is below:

Customer’s perception: is that companies care more about profits than customers.

How can you overcome this perception?  Assign someone or some people to interact with customers throughout the day/night.  Be free to answer questions whether related directly to selling more stuff initially or not.  Create a personal “face” that customers can relate to.  A theme that came up was that of ” living amongst them” or showing customers that the people of the brand face the same challenges and experiences as the customers.  Create familiarity and relate to your customers at an individual level.

You can’t outsource relationships whether online or in real-life.

One point to this is that you have to humanize that which is inanimate.  Brands are things, people want to interact with humans, not things.   There was some talk about trusting agencies but at the end of the day, the consensus agreed that agencies have a place with developing strategy, guidance, focus, etc but the dialogue needs to come from people inside the company.  Agencies are best when they try to avoid dependency relationships with clients.  Managing their work by not getting noticed.

How do you know as a brand that you have been “accepted” or become in-network?

First, this is not a destination, becoming accepted social as a brand by your customers is a continuous journey.  Certainly when your customers are recommending you to their friends is a good indicator (Apple may win this battle).  That is a much deeper commitment that simply purchasing something and being done.  Make it easy for customers to become advocates.  A great post said when customers start wearing your tattoo, then you know you are operating in-network.  That is a great concept both literally and figuratively.

Once you have arrived, how do you keep your Cred with you customers?

In list format in order of how they came in:

  • Invite interactions offline, meet-ups, invites to parties, events, etc.
  • Consider Mobile interactions as a more intimate way to connect with customers
  • Invite them to help develop new products, innovations for the company
  • Keep evaluating feedback, adapting, changing to the needs of customers. No stagnation.
  • Social CRM as a method to stay engaged and relevant.
  • Buy your own products as your customers would. Discuss your experience with them and improve it with input.

Want to thank Jason Falls again for moderating this topic!

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How to Win When Your Competitors are Losing, an advanced social media approach

Monday, May 4th, 2009

 1st-place-medalIt’s time for companies to begin to think differently, very differently about how they market to and interact with consumers, prospects, partners, shareholders and employees.   Zealots and detractors alike are taking matters into their own hands on things they like and dislike about your company and your Brand.  You can’t hide from your audience.  Consumers have a louder voice, a much larger organizing hand and more access to their friends than you can imagine. 

Along with the complexities brought about by this new consumer, they are, in some ways very loyal too.  The Brands that have made the digital transition and embrace their consumers’ networks are having success in a time that is unforgiving at best.  Consider this recent article by Adweek.

Consumers are still making purchases, how can you make sure they are making your purchases?  Brands that live in-network understand that being on the consumer’s mind is not enough…they must be in their lives.  Companies are attempting to re-formulize how they develop products,  market, engage, build share, etc.  Simply, they want to move from the role of an outsider (making generic pitches at a network of consumers) to the concept of being in-network.

This week’s UnPanel event will spearheaded by Jason Falls who, in his own right, has figured out how to win in this very crowded space to emerge as one of the strongest leaders in the social media industry.  Jason brings a wealth of personal and agency experience to the table in this discussion and will organize around the following questions:

Q1: Assuming you are already listening, How do you get “in-network” as a Brand?

Q2: How do you know when you are “in-network”?

Q3: Thinking outside of our bubble, what are some ways that Brands can stay “in-network”?

Please join us in this discussion and help create some direction for companies to embrace and use.  This event promises to be our best ever, so come ready jump in quickly.  A big thanks to Mr. Falls and we look forward to seeing you Tuesday 12 noon EST.

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