Proactive Engagement
The explosion of Social Media has prompted companies to limit and, in some cases, actually curtail traditional marketing and focus efforts on social media marketing. This has been beneficial and statistics support this move. People are spending less and less time in circles where tradional marketing has its strongest audience (television and print ads). Instead, people are spending more and more time in social channels (i.e.-Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). However, studies have shown an almost offendedness resulting from large corporations or even businesses in these social channels as these companies have simply gone to advertising in just another channel; online print advertising, if you will.
What those online are most receptive to we’re simply describing as Social CRM. Social CRM is more than just keeping a record of customers and their account or contact information. Social CRM is proactive. Social CRM monitors trends. Social CRM impacts trends. Social CRM changes trends. However, the difference is that Social CRM does so on an indiviudal basis. Let me give you an example from personal experience. I was helping a client with their GoDaddy-hosted website. I had contacted tech support several times but to no avail. I simply tweeted my frustration with GoDaddy tech support (a negative trending tweet). IMMEDIATELY GoDaddy responded via Twitter and suggested I contact them offline. I did so, and within 3 minutes, the matter was resolved. I now speak very highly of the support GoDaddy provides. This change occurred because someone at GoDaddy was “actively listening” that is listening with the intent of making a customer happy.
Are you listening? Are you tracking mentions? Are you responding or are you simply looking at trends from 30,000 feet? I suggest you “land” occassionally and see the terrain at ground level. You’ll not only be helping resolve a customer issue. You just may be shaping your companies trend.
10,000 billion hours. That’s my best estimate on the amount of torture I’ve walked through with clients when launching a new Website. Or birthing a meaningful brand promise. At least that’s how it feels. My goal today is to cut that time in half. For my own sanity and yours.
Here’s a secret I will share with you:
There comes a point in the process, perhaps at hour two billion and seven, where we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. The point is at a fine enough point to start. And launching is critical.
But, Charlie, what if? We only get one first impression. True. And remember, wherever we do start is only version 1.0 and there will be many, many incremental versions to come, thanks to new learning and amazing ahaas that only come after the fact.
Let the process happen, be willing to evolve your story and see what happens. I’ve always found that the ride is amazing, awe inspiring and, dare I say, fun.
The bottom line is your story is always evolving.
A communications golden rule?
I’m gaining some clarity about social media, social networking and social branding. I’m also seeing it all within the context of sales and marketing, advertising and customer service (or CRM).
Today, while sitting at a light on my way home from picking up my daughter from school, it dawned on me. There are basically two types of communicators: those that care about the recipient of the communication, and those that care about themselves, or the sender of the communication. (it may have had something to do with the traffic, or a few specific drivers during the commute, but that’s another post).
Big deal, huh? Well, yes, actually. It is a big deal. When each of us as human beings sends out any form of communication, we fall into one of these two camps. There are only two, and there are no grays in between. We either care about ourselves or the other person.
The significance of this revelation for me personally, was that I actually saw for the first time that the passion I have for communication design, interaction and social branding is actually firmly rooted in my ability, as an artist, to empathize with those who will receive a message. I believe that.
At the same time, I began to see all of the situations and instances where I butted heads with someone else who might have been a boss, a peer or a client, where we basically disagreed on the finer points of a communication platform, a strategy or even a tactic, purely from this distinction. Do we care mostly about the communicator and the message? Or do we care mostly about the target, the audience, the recipient of the message?
It was truly an ah-ha moment today, and I’m actually really excited about the possibilities for elaborating on that significance as it relates to our 21st Century communication modes. Especially with the explosive effects of social communication technologies.
Ever receive a direct message from someone who just started following you on Twitter that went something like the following?
“We are building our list of blah blah blah – if you know any blah blah blah, plz send them to http://me_me_me.com”
Who does “me me me” really care about in this communication? Themselves, right? Do they actually expect me to send them names of people I know? Oh my, it’s worse than I thought. (this was an actual direct message I received today with the identifying details bleeped, to protect the guilty).
Stop it! Stop sending selfish, self-serving, self-centered, promotional, invasive messages. Do send messages that provide service and care about the recipient, and their needs, not those of the sender or communicator. Communicate to others the way you would have them communicate to you. Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s right. It’s time we had a communications golden rule (at least for those that are intentional, and controlled by legitimate communicators and not the spam industry).
Talk with others as you’d have them talk with you, no matter if you represent yourself to one other person or you represent a multinational corporation to one other person. If there are now a myriad of new channels for reaching people with messages, there is also a corresponding measure of empathy that comes with that power.
Don’t abuse your strength in a mission of self-interest (individual or corporate). Empower your fans and critics. Communicate to them that you are there for them, not the other way around. Don’t abandon your customers just because you made the sale. Deliver your promises throughout the customer life cycle. Make them great, and they will reward you with their word of mouth, affinity and co-creation.
Your listeners, friends, customers, clients and stakeholders know who benefits from any given communication. We have all evolved genetically, after the past 50 years of outbound, mass media marketing communication. We all have a built-in BS meter, with a hair trigger. So, stop it! Do the right thing.
Empathize with the recipient of your communication and be a live brand.
Be a live brand
In this new marketing world, it’s about creating a tribe, a collective, a fan base, a team, a movement. Or discovering for the first time that you already have one, and getting to know them.
How do you do that? Make everything you do part of a promise delivery system. Give real people (not made-up ones from Madison Avenue) a reason to find you. When they find you, delight them with how well you know them and their needs. Serve them and support their experiences. Live up to your promises. Give them great things to say about you. Do this often.
Be different. Break through. Disrupt.
disrupt from frog design on Vimeo.
From Luke William’s website: “In a business world of non-stop change, there’s only one way to win the game: transform it entirely. This requires a revolution in thinking: a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. In his book “Disrupt,” Luke Williams shows exactly how to generate those strategies and deliver those solutions. “Disrupt” reflects Williams’ immense experience creating breakthrough solutions at frog design, one of the world’s leading innovation firms. Williams’ shows how to combine fluid creativity with analytical rigor in a simple five-stage process for successfully disrupting any market. You’ll learn why the most unexpected ideas draw the least competitors–and offer the greatest potential.”
At theLiveBrand, the process of creating a turning point is part of LiveVisualization, our V level services. It’s called LivePivot, and it’s a powerful tool for doing the unexpected, and turning your business into a leader.
Let us know what you think about the power of the unexpected in business. We’d love to hear from you.
Do demographics count on Twitter?
A good friend of mine sent me the following table from an article posted at Pew Internet titled “8% of online Americans use Twitter.” He and I had been discussing Twitter the day before, and he had just stumbled on the story.
Click the image to see the entire demographic.
My friend doesn’t publish on Twitter as much as I do, and the gist of our conversation was the usual question: “what is the value of Twitter.”
The table in the article contains all of the demographic groups that classic mass marketing has used in the past for what basically amounts to old school target marketing by gender, age, race, income, education, geography.
When I looked at these groups and this classic demographic model, I couldn’t help but conclude that these numbers and what they imply is basically irrelevant and obsolete in the context of Twitter, and probably for almost all of social media.
Why?
Because demographics are the traditional way we have been conditioned to think about media. Like we need to reach everyone. Terms like spray and pray, shotgun approach and mass media have come to represent the marketing and advertising techniques that have long been dependent upon demographics. That is a mass media construct.
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, where only the people “following” you will see your 140-character post. Though many people on Twitter are trying to use it like a mass media channel, that is not what makes it valuable and useful. Twitter is one of a new breed of social connection media, where people share their interests and topics. Eventually, relationships form with other people who are interested in what you are interested in and conversations take place as replies and even direct messages. Niche, not mass media, is the paradigm of this social sphere.
So, I asked my friend, “do these demographic numbers represent my Followers or whom I am Following on Twitter?” And then I answered my own question, “nope.” My Followers are people who have chosen to follow me for some reason—I like to think because of the value of my information or similar interests, and that is why I follow someone, too. Not because of gender, age, race, income, education, or geography.
These demographic numbers may represent everyone on Twitter, but I say, why do I need to know that? What is the value in knowing that, if (1) I can never reach everyone on Twitter, only my Followers, and (2) I don’t need to reach everyone on Twitter because people find me on Twitter by my subject matter; my content, and everyone is not interested in what I’m interested in.
Even if I could find all the people in exactly “the right” demographic, would I use the old school classic demographic measures? Probably not.
Demographics are becoming irrelevant on the Internet, simply because the Internet facilitates niche as the new paradigm. Niche marketing, as opposed to mass media marketing, doesn’t need to even attempt to reach “everyone,” because niche is about undiluted ideas. Pure interests and passions matter more than a watered-down message that everyone can relate to—which has been a necessary evil of mass marketing to a target audience for decades.
The demographic study is revealing in the sense that it is obvious that Twitter has a ways to go before it will really fit into everyone’s life, if it ever does. In that way, Twitter’s appeal is itself a niche.
The broader theme here is that a lot of us are switching over to social media to augment our ways of connecting with other people and finding the things we are already passionate about and interested in. Certainly, not everyone is there yet. But other studies have found that the over-50 crowd is the fastest growing group on social networks. And Twitter is just one of the first new media forms to offer a unique opportunity to connect and share ideas, one 140-character post at a time.
Let us know what you think about classic mass marketing in the context of new social media. We’d love to hear from you.
Since Twitter has come online, it seems to have divided the masses. Most folks I’ve run into either love Twitter or hate, loathe or despise this helpful tool. These in the latter category are also in the business community many of them are responsible for marketing within their company. It is my assertion that they hate Twitter because they just don’t understand Twitter or are not following the right people. This blogpost is specific to using http://Search.Twitter.com to help grow your business. Seach.Twitter.com is one of the most powerful search engines out there. The search parameters are the same as most search engines out there so you can refine your search and target your search down to the smallest level. It has been suggested that companies/businesses have at least one person spending a minimum of 2 hours per day using Search.Twitter.com to reach out to twitterers. How do you find them and once you do, what do you say? Below are just a few of the myriad of possibilities out there. Feel free to contribute what has and hasn’t worked for you!
- Establish a Twitter account. Set up your profile complete with location and business information and URL. You may wish to add your branding and work on the look & feel of your profile page.
- Begin following those in your industry, competitors, colleagues, retail outlets, previous customers, etc.
- (Here’s where we really start thinking about searching) List your products and your services. Also, list your competitors. List not only what solutions you offer but list the problems you solve. If you’re business is dry cleaning, list stains, stain lifting, wine stains, blood stains, grass stains, etc.
- Go to http://Search.Twitter.com.
- BOOKMARK IT!
- Search for your company or profile name. In Twitter profile names appear directly after an @ sign (i.e. – @theLiveBrand). Review the conversation. Is it positive or negative?
- Search for your competitors. Do they have profiles. See what they are saying and not saying. See what is said about them.
- Enter one of the problems your product/service solves. See what is being said out there in T’ville. Many times folks go to Twitter when they are faced with an issue (i.e. – “Trying to find out if I need a new battery or if my alternator is shot”).
- Engage this person. You can open the person’s profile and all of their tweets in a new window and reply to them.
- DON’T SELL THEM! People don’t like to be sold.
- Offer advise. People value helpful resources. (On a side note: this exercise may provide you topics to blog about and reference in your tweets).
- Don’t be afraid to engage people. They “put it out there” for a reason. Respond and try to help them. Einstein once said, “Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.” Be a valuable resource to them.
Hopefully through Twitter search you will not only convert a spectator to fan but a fan to a player who will tell countless others that they are your customer for life!
Forrester introduced the social technographic a couple of years ago in relation to the groundswell research that was under way. The social technographic classifies people into seven groups according to how they use social technologies. It is also important to note that these groups overlap, meaning that people are not exclusively in one group but rather a blend of a few. In other words, each of us as users of technology have our own fingerprints when it comes to our participation online. It is also pretty clear that each of us also share some in common.
This led me to consider each of these participation groups based upon the latest findings to establish a meaningful application in the design of websites, development of interactions and the creation of social media for various types of users.
Click the image to enlarge in a new window.
I first organized the seven* classes largest to smallest in a series of pie charts showing the percentage of the total, using the latest survey data from Forrester. Since Spectators represent 68% out of a possible 100% for that class of participation in the latest data, and that represents a majority, I feel it is safe to assume that most of us share the trait of Spectator. The same can be said of the Joiners classification, since 59% of us also exhibit this participation online. Those are pretty easy to see if you simply consider that most of the basic participation online involves surfing pages and signing up for the stuff we like.
The next largest group in the survey data is 33% for the Critics class. Critics respond to content from others. They post reviews, comment on blogs, participate in forums, and edit wiki articles. This is obviously more advanced participation, but still quite common if you consider that most of us have probably given something a star rating online at one time or another. But I believe there are also higher level activities in this class that go beyond the pedestrian web surfer. In some respects, this class is getting slightly specialized and may represent a higher level of expertise, such as a professional photographer who has written a review for a sophisticated camera he just bought.
Following this group is the Conversationalist class with 31%. Conversationalists voice their opinions to other consumers and businesses using vehicles like SMS and Twitter. This class would seem to suggest a personality trait for prompting dialog and discussions with their opinions.
Creators are the next largest class with a 23% out of 100% for making social content. Creators write blogs or upload video, music, or text that is consumed by others online. I believe further specialization and knowledge in specific areas of expertise make this a slightly smaller percentage of the online community, yet still large enough to overlap other classes of participation, which I will get to next.
The smallest meaningful group is Collectors at 19%. Collectors organize content for themselves or others using RSS feeds, tags, and voting sites like Digg.com and their knowledge of subject matter is a great asset to the rest of us who are looking for intelligence on specific topics.
Next, I created six user types, with the Spectators and Joiners on top in all of the types for the reasons stated previously. Then I added Critics to three of the types and completed those first three with each of the remaining classes at the bottom. Then I labeled each of these types by the most specialized classes; Critic/Creator, Critic/Conversationalist and Critic/Collector. What this revealed in my mind, as each of the classes overlaps in each type, is that each type could be used as a persona for many business purposes, including strategies for listening, interacting, visualizing and engaging (the four service areas of theLiveBrand).
Each type is slightly skewed toward one of three specialized classes, and therefore would have different needs. For instance, a Creator would need the ability to make something, write something or upload something, and that need would dictate that a successful solution would listen for those actions, provide those interactions, enable those forms of visualization and empower those types of engagement for Creators. The same would follow for the other two types and would yield an excellent spectrum of creative opportunities aimed at a high level of usefulness, usability and desirability.
The next three types are formed of possible combinations without the Critics class with the labels; Creator/Collector, Conversationalist/Creator and Conversationalist/Collector. These also seem viable considering the overlap of the various classes and the nature of participation where there may be no need for Critical participation.
The conclusion for me in all of this is that rather than looking at the Social Technographic as a ladder with all seven classes of participation, it would seem more useful to create various personas by combining them, starting with the classes of participation that all of us exhibit in all of the personas, and then breaking out into specialized types for initial development, as well as subsequent experimentation.
Regardless of how you use the data and the concepts of the classes of participation, it is very clear that it is important to understand the users in both a general and specialized way. Every site of online participation should provide an engaging experience for Spectators and an invitation for Joiners. From there, a deep understanding of the specialized participation of the users will yield an ability to make strategic, educated decisions about what should be developed for Critics, Conversationalists, Creators and Collectors.
For more information on LiveListening, LiveInteracting, LiveVisualizing and LiveEngaging, contact us at theLiveBrand today.
*The seventh class of participation is actually inactive, and since my line of thinking only involves participation, I’m going to leave that out of the discussion.
Twitter for Business Best Practices
Social Media (online conversations and engagement) is a growing phenomenon. You can’t avoid the truth. You can’t dispute the facts. The truth is over 500 million people are now registered Facebook users. It is now not only encouraged for businesses to have a presence in the social media space but it is expected if a business wants to have a greater impact and this includes business-to-business industries as well. All this being said, many companies are simply “doing it wrong.” Those participating in social media immediately see right through print-style advertising in social media. The companies that are seen as authentic in the social media space are those who engage and participate in the discussion. Its not about broadcasting. That is the old way. The new way is to participate in a dialogue. We simply offer a few Best Practices for businesses on Twitter. This is, by no means, the exhaustive “rules of business tweets” but simply a few guidelines to get the discussion going. Feel free to add to our list.
- Establish a Twitter profile for your business (username). It must be unique, of course.
- Customize your Twitter page complete with contact information, a summary of your company, as well as branding and a custom background.
- Plan on tweeting at least once each day.
- Do not tweet only about your company. That is self-promoting and is not appreciated. Tweet what may be helpful to your business’ followers. Tweet news about your industry. Tweet about upcoming events (conferences, shows, deals, advancements, etc.).
- Be transparent. Your company may have complainers. This is understandable and expected. Too many companies try to stifle the objections or criticism. Engage with those of opposite opinions. Some companies are so bold as to tweet about good news about their competition.
- Your business should follow other Twitterers. This is good form and seen as a courtesy and polite.
- Your business should also retweet beneficial information.
- Track company, business, industry and competitors’ mentions. Respond to mentions (BUT DON’T ARGUE with criticism).
- Encourage employees to establish their own professional Twitter accounts.
- Provide guidelines/policies to your employees carefully outlining your corporate stance and clearly defined consequences of going outside of those guidelines.
- Give multiple access to business Twitter accounts if necessary. Imagine if the ONE PERSON who has rights to your company’s account is out of the country on vacation when a PR nightmare breaks out and you have no way to respond.
Have more ideas? It’s polite to share.