Archive for November, 2009

The Impact of Social Media in Government

Monday, November 30th, 2009

gov20-mediumFor the past 7 months or so, the #socialmedia chat has focused on what social media can do for businesses.  We’ve covered b-2-b and b-2-c, we’ve looked into how social media affects internal departments as well as external communications.  Well, now it’s December.  For the month of December we promised to shake it up a bit and start to take a look from different perspectives on how social media is influencing different sectors and what the future holds (or at least 2010).  For the first day of December we will focus on the business of Government and what impact social media has had and will have.

First, the term being used to associate social media and Government is Gov2.0.  For this purpose, I will refer mostly to gov2.0 in this context for the rest of the post.  Second, why now?  Why is gov2.0 the soup du jour for describing the change needed in government?  Roughly, it started with the Howard Dean campaign for president in 2004.  As an early front runner for the Democratic ticket, he started using the web in very different ways to help run his campaign.  Gov2.0 got a sharp uptick in popularity as it fueled President Barack Obama’s successful run in 2008.  Then in 2009, President Obama issued The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Act) of 2009 offering close to $787 Billion in stimulus funds for agencies.  However, the Act requires an extraordinary level of “transparency” on the part of Federal, State and Local agencies.  While the Act’s intent is to create new levels of transparency at all levels of government, there are no guidelines on exactly how.  Many are looking at the application of social technologies and methodologies to meet the demand for more transparency and inter-departmental coordination.

Today there are few great examples of government using social media to complement its efforts to either better communicate with constituents or coordinate better across agencies.  There are many people who talk about it like Steve Radick from Booz Allen Hamilton who authors a well-read blog and some who are actually in charge of doing it like Jeff Levy who’s the Director of Web Communications from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Then you have Brian Drake from Deloitte saying gov2.0 is not moving fast enough  and on the other side Larry Lessig who cautions too much transparency can be detrimental and all are paving new roads with their work as the Gov2.0 movement is certainly in it’s infancy. 

So how can businesses, who have dipped their toes further into the waters, help Government not have to re-learn all the mistakes that have already been made?  Conversely, government has been dialoguing with their constituents for decades already and what learnings can transfer over to businesses, some of whom are communicating for the first time with their consumers. 

I know you are thinking who in the world would agree to take on this monster of a topic.  Well, with a bit of coaxing, we believe we have the perfect person.  Kim Patrick Kobza is the CEO and founder of Neighborhood America (disclaimer, I work for Neighborhood America and started www.hashtagsocialmedia.com along with Marc Meyer and Terry McKyton as a skunkworks project).  Kim has been bridging the experience gap between government and private enterprises for much of his career.  His thought leadership and actual work is sought after by many leaders in governement, those behind the gov2.0 movement and companies alike.  Kim blogs here and Neighborhood America published a Gov2.0 readiness kit under his guidance here.

Topic: The Impact of Social Media in Government

Government 2.0 is being promoted as one of the most transformative trends in governance. But what does it mean? And what meaningful impact can social media have in the relationship between citizens and their government?

Q1) What does Gov 2.0 mean to you?

Q2) What can government agencies & companies learn from each other’s experiences in implementing social media strategies?

Q3) What do you think are the primary barriers for citizens and agencies in implementing gov 2.0 strategies?

This chat will be held on Tuesday December 1st at 12 noon EST.  The format will stay the same with the first question at noon with Q2 and Q3 to follow in 20 inute increments.  Follow along on #SM36 on on our LIVE site.

Posted in Measurement, social media | Comments Off

Stop Campaigning and Start Conversing The New Marketing Paradigm

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

conversationBuild a relationship, garner trust and a customer will never leave.  Sounds pretty easy!?  In fact we have been talking about it since the dawn of time (social media time anyway) with the Cluetrain Manifesto that started in 1999 and identified that the Internet has forced marketing to be more about conversations than messages.  Since then we have Valeria Maltoni the Conversation Agent (a past moderator here), a great book called Naked Conversations written by Shel Israel (an upcoming moderator) and Robert Scoble and countless other examples.  So why is it that companies still market via campaigns and agencies still win business with this approach?

A classic example of movement for the sake of motion? Possibly.  Consider all the money and effort that goes into concept, strategy, creative, execution of marketing campaigns.  Brands spend all that time creating a pitch to consumers, introducing themselves time and time again, selling stuff to unwilling customers then when it’s done, they see how much product was sold, cut off the pitch to those customers and prospects then rinse and repeat the whole daunting process all over.  So where is the conversation part of this we have been talking about now for at least 10 years?  Not the cordial, “wave to each other at a cocktail party” conversation but the relationship conversation that lasts for months, years or longer?  The conversation where you find out what each other needs and wants (notice I said both), you know, a real relationship not a manufactured one.

So what does that look like and how do marketers break out of the campaign mentality?  Think about the impact of this scenario: A company with multiple brands has a consolidated marketing department focused on customer relationships.  They are in charge of courting the consumer and understanding how they live, work and play.  From that relationship, the company understands what products (Brands) can help that customer and how they add value to that consumer’s life.  Then the Brands become stewards for helping those customers buy the things they need (considering people like to buy things yet do not like to be sold).  The company pours their monies into acquiring a customer once then facilitating their purchases across the various products.  This is very different than what happens today as each Brand pays to acquire the same customers over and over across all brands independently.  This may be some utopian dream to many but the speed of communicating and the ubiquity of access to communicate is forever changing the old norms and customers have left that station.  Companies need to figure out how to adapt and soon.

We are very happy to have Tom Martin moderating this topic on tuesday.  Tom spends a lot of time in this space covering all aspects of branding, marketing and social media and brings a creative approach to his work.  He will help us work through this topic and facilitate a great learning opportunity for all of us.  The topic and questions will be:

Stop Campaigning and Start Conversing – The New Marketing Paradigm

1) What is the difference between a marketing campaign and a customer conversation?

2) How do agencies have to change in order to create conversations instead of campaigns?

3) What are some examples of brands or agencies that have succeeded in making the jump from campaign to conversation?

The chat will take place Tuesday 11/24 at noon EST.  We will use the #sm35 for the event.

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Posted in Branding, Content, social media | 7 Comments »

Twankers, Rock Stars & Gurus – Authenticity In A World of Exploding Egos

Monday, November 16th, 2009

 The term “Authenticity” get played out a lot.  I mean – ALOT!  It gets used to discuss personal branding issues like what kind of avatar should you use and how to disclose if you get paid to communicate a product or experience.  Authenticity is used to discuss ethics in business including can you outsource moderation of your community or what if corp communications manages the CEO’s blog?  Most of the discussion comes down to the distaste for people trying to be posers online.  The fact is whether online or off, people are going to stretch the truth (or outright lie).   It happens.

This week, we wanted to change up the conversation a bit and look at it from a personal perspective.  Authenticity is a way of being and not something that can be attained by following some corporate policies.  While there many people who start out being truly authentic it’s interesting what happens when some get a few wins under their belts.  Somewhere they begin believing everything they hear and their ego gets in the way of what was once rational thinking.  Kind of a “forgetting your roots” scenario.

Then we have the people who stay true to their character despite success or sometimes fame.  Our moderator this week certainly fits the latter description.  Rohit Bhargava is a SVP at Ogilvy 360 Digital  Influence (which he was a founding member) and is the author of the award winning book Personality not Included.  Despite his success, he remains truly authentic at every level.  How does he do it? We”ll find out this Tuesday at noon EST.

Something a bit different this week as we will start out with everyone sharing their thoughts on who, today, exemplifies authenticity whether famous or not.  Then as everyone joins we will start with Q1 that asks an interesting question.  For businesses looking to get established in social media, do you need to task someone who has already built up their own personal brand or can you be successful in building a corporate brand even though your personal brand is not established?  The next question should be a hot one.  Let’s say you have social media success in the consumer packaged goods industry, are you qualified to lead a team from the healthcare industry?  In other words, is social media the same across industries or do you have to specialize.   Then Rohit will tackle a question that centers around the idea that some contend extensive personal branding can detract from a company’s branding efforts.  This week’s topic and questions:

Topic:  Twankers, Rock Stars & Gurus – Authenticity In A World of Exploding Ego

Pre Q1: Who do you feel lives up to being authentic in the digital world?

Q1:  Do you have to ROCK your personal brand in SocMed before you try to ROCK your company’s?

Q2:  Does Social Media expertise transcend industries?

Q3:  Does personal branding compete with or add-to your Company’s market influence?

With Rohit, we are in for a fun chat that is sure the raise the bar for all of us.  Plan on joining us Tuesday at noon EST by following the #sm34.l

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Posted in Branding | 3 Comments »

Social Media’s Impact on Business (and ROI)

Monday, November 9th, 2009

gas_powered_blenderFeeling like stirring the pot a bit this week so we thought a discussion on ROI should do it.

ROI certainly can stir the pot.  But, saying that most of everyone’s conversations on this topic are not actually ROI, rather Impact on Business (IOB), takes the act of stirring and turns it into a blender.  Ahh, much better!

So let’s start by saying that just because it’s “social” does not mean it should be held up to standards typically defined by financial returns whether in business, government or non-profits.  Someone can start a blog or join twitter simply to better understand the tools or to connect with associates they just met at a conference.  This becomes truly social and may at some point have an impact on your business whether financially or some other measure but does not need to be tied into sales goals just because an employee wants to post office pictures so other offices can see how they decorated for the holiday party.  That’s a beginners first step into social computing but not what we are interested for this discussion.

What we are looking for here is to better define and understand what we sometimes mean when we refer to ROI as a verb instead of referring to ROI as a financial metric.  The real definition of Return on Investment (ROI) is: gain from investment minus cost of investment, then divided by cost of investment.  Business books are written, classes are taught, and undergrad studies are derived from this very straightforward metric.  When I talk about ROI, I try to dumb it down a bit into either: 1) increase revenues, 2) decrease costs, or 3) increase in shareholder value and that assumes a financial investment of course.  So why then, does the term ROI get thrown around so much in the context of social media when no financial gain or costs saved are referenced?

Impact on Business (IOB) is the actual term that should be used when discussing things like: # of followers, brand awareness, mentions, impact, conversations and what ever else you can think of that is not related to a financial calculation.  The impact of an employee being nice on twitter is great.  The fact that the customer decides to continue service (Retention) as an indirect effect does not make the time that employee spent on Twitter an actual case for ROI.  It is however, IOB. Olivier Blanchard actually was the first that I know of to begin this discussion a few months ago here.  Companies all over are using social media to have an impact on their business like Kodak measuring Smiles or any company promoting their Facebook fan page.

Many industries discuss IOB like fast food, IT, or big box retailing and it affects every company’s business in some way or another.   You can even consider different departments of a company and the impact of HR, Payroll, PR, Sustainability, Operations play in a company.  Although often not connected directly to revenue, a company would have a difficult time without those departments.  Impact is easier to measure if you don’t have to tie it back somehow to ROI and ROI is much easier to measure if you don’t try to include calculations of impact.  To lead our discussion this week is Jacob Morgan, a principal at Chess Media Group, who focuses on Social Media ROI.  Jacob is well versed in this type of discussion and brings a lot of expertise to the table.  The questions will attempt to progress the discussion from ROI as a catch all phrase to the differences between Impact and ROI for businesses and how to align them.  They are:

1.  Whether Impact or ROI, what “Investments” could be measured to prove out value in Social Media?

2.   How can you prove value from Impact or ROI to executives to continue or try Social Media?

3.  What are some examples of businesses attaining true ROI from Social Media?

Plan on joining in this discussion Tuesday 11/10 at noon EST.  To join either follow #sm33 on Twitter or follow our LIVE site.

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Posted in Measurement, ROI in Social Media | 4 Comments »

The Value of Twitter for Businesses

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

rainbowFrom its beginnings in 2006, Twitter has come light years in some ways, yet the service is vitually the same as was when it started.  The same can be said for users who saw 2009 as the year Ashton’s users surpassed 1,000,000, but to what avail?  And businesses are trying to market, service, sell, and befriend anyone who wants to engage albeit mostly as simply just another channel for companies.  So with all of this activity, news and chatter about Twitter, where’s the beef?  As still a very new service in a new vertical and still a new age of communications for everyone, we are still trying re-imagine a life with Twitter and other new means of engaging in personal and business communications.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of interesting uses of Twitter that are changing many facets of life including political upheaval (Iran‘s Protests), grassroots organizing (tweetups, Obama campaign), breaking news (USAirways flight 1549), and more.  While there are some innovative uses of Twitter in business including the usuals: Comcast Cares, Dell, Starbucks and Zappos this is certainly not the norm and, I would argue, most examples of innovative uses of Twitter are more lip service than measurable ROI (I measure ROI with either increased revenue, decreased costs or increased equity).

So with all the chatter, where is the real value of Twitter for Business?  That’s a great question and one that only a real professional could handle for this chat.  So we’ve enlisted the help of the Social Media Explorer, Jason Falls.   This is the first time in 32 weeks that we have had a repeat moderator and Jason is certainly worth getting back.  His no-nonsense approach to social media marketing and useage for businesses has earning him a premier class reputation in the industry.  The chat will cover the following:

The Value of Twitter

  1. Why Twitter is important for business today?
  2. What has Twitter influenced to date?
  3. Where does Twitter go from here?

As usual, the chat using Twitter of course, will take place Tuesday 11/3 at 12 noon EST as usual.  This week is seeing a number of firsts.  We realize the #socialmedia has gotten very popular recently and it is sometimes hard to follow along through all the noise.  We have figured out how to maintain the integrity of the chat and record a different hashtag(#).  So this week we are oging to still promote via #socialmedia, however the actual chat will use #SM32 which equals how many moderated chats we have organized.  So be sure to use #SM32 at noon to follow along and participate in the chat.

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Posted in Listening, twitter | Comments Off