Archive for August, 2009

Uncovering Your Company's Hidden Assets…Your Social Employees!

Friday, August 28th, 2009

HiddenCompanies have spent decades building out organizational charts that focused on a few select individuals hired as experts.  These experts hold significant knowledge that is typically more Macro is scope.   Their public voices are certainly respected and are typically very rehearsed and linear. 

Today, the new reality is that employees from all corners of the organization are able to  express themselves in many ways across the digital world.  These new voices are also expert in many cases but from a Micro perspectives and equally important.  Some of these employee’s expressions are associated with the company, some are not and this is exposing the public to a new view of the culture of the company.  This new view is having affects that are impacting customers, partners, shareholders & potential new employees in dramatic and often positive new ways.  The companies that are embracing their corporate legions digitally are beginning to uncover talents of their employees that had long gone unrealized. 

Social Media is unlocking a treasure trove of hidden value for businesses with their employees.  Southwest Airlines is promoting the voice of baggage handlers, flight attendants and other jobs that were never before thought of under the traditional guise of Corporate Communications.  The results are significant with real ROI in terms of reduced service calls, increased loyalty, more sales, and widespread digital evangelism (earned media).   So how do you take advantage of employees who have a hidden knack for communicating and can add value to the face of your new digital organization?

We are delighted to get Valeria Maltoni of ConversationAgent for this event!  Valeria is more than qualified to lead this discussion as she is an outspoken expert in new media, marketing and corporate culture on her 3 yr old blog and understands Marketing Communications from a hands-on, practical standpoint.  She will help us understand the following:

 

 

Topic:  Uncovering your Company’s Hidden Assets…Your Social Employees!

 Q1:  How do you find them?

Q2: How can you enable them?

Q3: Do we need to change the skills we recruit for? 

Plan on participating Tues 9/1 @ 12 noon EST by going to the LIVE page or using the #socialmedia tag on Twitter.

Posted in Human Resources, corporate | 1 Comment »

Sponsored Conversations & What It Means for Businesses

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Sponsored ConversationsThis has certainly been the year for discussions around sponsored conversations in social media.  The term of a sponsored conversation is mostly described as paid for blog posts.  While this is certainly one piece of it, it certainly is not the entire scope of paid-for PR/advertising and limiting the conversation to only bloggers does not provide for a well-educated perspective by which to make reasonable business decisions. 

So what does the scope of sponsored conversations look like? Jeremiah does a good job of referencing lists of sponsored initiatives and the companies doing them but still this list is mostly focused on bloggers either being paid or getting free products to “blog” (review, rate, create content, post, etc) about them.  What is often over-looked is when companies hire other companies to create content, product releases, buzz, etc on the client’s behalf.  Finally, out of all of this do we need regulations in the form of government intervention (ala FTC) or a governing body to be the gatekeepers?

For companies paying individuals, the discussion is quite mature but still scattered (IZEA sponsored a report from Forrester).  How much should companies be allowed to pay? Should bloggers be able to make money for producing quality content and garnering a faithful following?  What’s the difference between paying Cris Brogan to stay at your hotel chain and hiring Kevin Garnett to wear your shoes? Heck, I eat entire meals for free every time I hit Costco with the free samples there.

For companies paying other companies it seems that this is either completely acceptable or it simply is not talked about much.  Sure there are examples of some intermediary screw-ups like Edelman with Wal-mart but surely there is more than this re-hashed story from 3 years ago.  Right?  Of course, PR firms are hired all the time to create content on behalf of their client and ghost-write posts.  Interactive agencies are always “taking care” of the content needs of their clients and passing it off as the client’s work.  Then you have Analysts who create reports using paying clients (intentionally left un-hyperlinked ;-) and socially connected Lobbyists influencing entire governing bodies.  Think about the newspaper industry using expert opinions from companies who advertise with them.

This week’s moderator, Shannon Paul certainly has her hands full with this topic but also has the hands on experience to lead us through it.  Working on the corporate side with the Detroit RedWings and now with PEAK6, she has practical experience that is invaluable and being a social media Rock Star in her own right certainly doesn’t hurt either.  This week’s discussion will be:

Sponsored Conversations & What It Means for Businesses

Q:1  What are the challenges / benefits from paying individuals to create conversations?

Q2:  What are the challenges / benefits from paying other companies to create conversations?

Q3:  What type of disclosure is needed and does it require a governing body?

This chat will start Tuesday 12 noon EST and last for 1 hour.  To participate simply use the #socialmedia on Twitter from anywhere.  To follow along more easily simply goto our LIVE page.

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Posted in B2B, Content | Comments Off

Determining the Tipping Point in Social Media

Monday, August 17th, 2009

tipping_point EggThe boss yells in one day that your company needs to “do” social media and would like you to lead the effort, and by the way, can we be up by the end of the day!  Ha, Ha, Right?!?  So you go about securing a Twitter account, setting up Facebook fan page and sneaking in a cute WordPress site on the tail end of your corporate website. 

There, all done!  Then you find out why…the company is announcing an amazing breakthrough product that will change the way people live forever!  Phone banks start lighting up, twitter breaks, you get 1,000,000,000 new fans on Facebook and nothing at this point is manageable.  Now What?

This is a common fear for businesses who are unfamiliar with this whole social thing.  The  “What happens if this actually works?” question. 

This is a question that we often get around developing social strategy for businesses.  Many companies still are trying to get their arms around being social and what it means.  Should their goal be trying to get 30k followers or fans?  Should it be to have 40 “conversations” per day? What if every cusotmer actually uses social and expects an immediate response?  These are all the relevant things that go through executives minds before they sign off on a social initiative. 

So what’s the answer?  The answer in most cases must tie back to strategy and be focused by department.  Your social solution must solve problems for the company not create more.  That’s where our moderator this week takes over.  Connie Reece is beloved by everyone and with her success at New Media Lab, she certainly has the experience to guide companies through the social media maze.  Connie will lead the discussion this week on Tuesday 8/18 at Noon EST.  The questions will be as follows:

Determining the Tipping point in Social Media.

Q1: Can a company have too many friends in SocMed?

Q2: When does quality trump quantity?

Q3: What are the most effective ways of scaling social for Business?

Remember: to participate simply goto the LIVE Page and follow along and post your ideas.  This is an interactive forum using collective experiences.

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Posted in corporate, social media, twitter | 14 Comments »

A Business Guide to Macroblogging vs. Microblogging

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Macro / Micro WHAT?!  Ok, Let’s refer to it as Twitter vs. Blogging.  That should help a little but could still leave a bit of haze for companies still trying to figure this out.  Starting at the beginning:

Blogging:

  • Our definition – ability to self-publish content digitally (usually to the web).
  •  Wikipedia says – A blog (a contraction of the term “weblog“)[1] is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

Now the difference between micro vs macro, or little vs big, or short vs long.  Usually Microblogging tools refer to Twitter, Yammer, or even status updates on Facebook or LinkedIn and has a limited amount of characters that you can use (twitter is 140 characters).  Macroblogging tools refer to traditional blogging tools such as WordPress, Typepad, Moveable Type and does not have a limit to the post sizes.

That is the What, now for the Why.  Blogging (referring to Macro) is a great way to distribute and categorize content.  Like a personal content management system that does not require anything but entry level technical understanding and a web-browser.  Blogging is a great way to express expertise on a subject or product in detail and allow some interaction through commenting.  This type of interaction is usually a bit more delayed.  Microblogging on the other hand, is much more immediate in nature and provides only snippets of information.  Companies are beginning to use microblogging for more than pushing content.  We are seeing great examples of customer service, near real-time direct communications, and others. 

So what should your company be doing?  How should you be integrating these styles of communicating into your traditional mix?  Liz Strauss will help us work through these issues and more this week during the #socialmedia chat.  Liz is adored in the industry and has truly set a gold standard for quality content and interactions at both a micro and macro blogging level.  We look forward to learning from Liz’s wealth of experience and professional insight for companies.  The topic and questions will be:

Macroblogging versus Microblogging

1) Do they require the same skillsets?
2) Are the objectives and strategies the same?
3) Does micro vs. macro work better from dept. to dept. do the same rules apply?
4) Do the same rules that apply to corp. blogging policies apply to corp. twitter policy?

As you can see we have 4 questions this week so we will run 15 minutes per question.  Get ready as this is sure to be a well attended event and will surely go quickly.  Tuesday 8/11 noon EST for 1 hour.  Mark it down, see you there!

Posted in Content, corporate, twitter | 1 Comment »

Content or Conversation. What drives more value for businesses?

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

chicken or eggIt seems this is a chicken or egg conversation at first blush.  Do you need great content to stimulate conversation or can you generate quality conversation around mediocre content?  That topic has been covered ad nausem for the past 2 years and it seems to be circular for sure. 

This chat however, focuses on the value of social media for business.  Are businesses more effective leading with quality content to genereate “buzz” or conversation around that content or are they better off simply being accessible to host any conversation?  A couple of examples:

1.  Was Domino’s video response (content) to the prank video effective?  For a Fortune class company to go from zero to Internet speed in 48 hours was fairly impressive.  The response was heartfelt from the President and seemed to subdue the incident.  They tried to start a Twitter account but had little success from that effort.

2.  I would argue that Zapposdoes not create much quality content, period.  The employees of Zappos, however, are the most accessible in business and the results speak for themselves.  Zappos’ value was created from a solid business model and more importantly great customer service.

As a company today, there are many ways to promote your Brand, improve customer service, address communications issues and generally run your business using social media.  Does it start with content or conversation though?  To help us this week is the Queen of Content, the Diva of Discussion, the Master of Annarchy, Ann Handley!  Ann heads up all things content and conversation for MarketingProfs and is certainly the best person for this job.  This week’s discussion will follow:

Content or Conversation. What drives more value for businesses?

1.  Is social media about the art of conversation or the science of creating good content?

2.  What drives conversion (assuming businesses need to generate profits)? Content or conversations?

3.  Develop a blueprint to sustain either (content strategy or conversation) long term.

This chat will take place Tuesday 8/4 noon EST using the #socialmedia in Twitter or simply following the Live page on this site.

Posted in Content, social media | 3 Comments »