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Broadcasting your Social Media?

August 17, 2009 By 3 Comments

Author: Alasdair Munn

tcg: The Communication Group

sepblogOne-way or broadcast/display advertising and messaging has to rely on creating brand perceptions and reinforcing ideals. Campaigns are built around maximising the power and reach of the message against a set amount of time, or display space.

When this approach is taken out of this context and supplanted into a multidirectional relationship context, setting out to create a perception can be viewed as manipulative or forced. The rules and expectations around messaging and relationships change.

Many big brands are exceptional at creating perceptions and broadcasting their values and messaging. Understanding how people react to language, colour, design, lighting and messaging is a science. Positioning and the use of “trust” figures have become an industry in itself. The business case for outstanding back-up, customer service and client policy is well understood and executed.

Broadcast media works for consumers because we know the rules. We are happy to play this game. Our affinity towards a brand is as much to do with what our association with the brand says about us, as how we perceive the brand.

The challenge for many comes when adapting to building relationships using social media tools and approaches. Apart from the lack of consensus and understanding around the use of social media, an organisation’s inability to move from a broadcast mentality to a relationship mentality will let them down.

There is an unwritten psychological contract between individuals and brands when organisations open themselves up to establishing relationships using social media. We talk about transparency, trust, truth, openness, listening, dialogue and approachability. Organisations are paying strategists to tell them these things. Yet, often there is a broadcast mentality hanging over their approach to these concepts.

“How can we develop the perception of openness and transparency?”

“What colour says ‘approachable’?”

“How do we leverage our social media participation?”

In reality it is much simpler. If you use your social media channels to listen, and you are indeed listening and act accordingly, people will think of you as an organisation that listens. If you tell the truth, avoid half truths and resist the urge to manipulate facts, there is a better than average chance that you will be seen as an organisation that can be trusted to tell the truth. If you are transparent you will be seen as transparent.

The upside to all of this is that your brand, product or service will benefit from being informed, up to date and relevant for its market.

Photo: sepblog

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Are Social Media Strategists Slowing Down Social Media Adoption?

July 11, 2009 By 4 Comments

change

Author: Alasdair Munn

tcg: The Communication Group

People, myself included, like to talk of shifts in ideology and the complexities that go with transitions from an older, more predominant ideology towards a newer, more relevant one. I’m not sure this achieves much other than producing a smug group of self-labelled enlightened ones and a larger group of people who don’t really care and don’t see the point of changing in any case.

The problems with self-labelling are all too evident. A couple of months back there were a plethora of blogs and discussions within social media circles as to what makes someone a social media expert. A great question and one that cannot be adequately resolved as social media is a vast discipline with many nuances and parts. Who can really define what is essentially a fluid ideology, changing faster than it can be documented? Even if we can and do document it, what are we measuring it against?

So it is a bit like getting hold of a pilots uniform, swatting up a few technical terms such as landing gear, flaps, ADF and HASELL check, walking onto a plane and announcing “Good day I’ll be your pilot today”. However in this case we have not completely defined which airplane it is yet. (I agree not the best example but I’m hoping it will paint a picture)

Are we, as self labelled social media practitioners helping to create the problem? Should we be less frustrated with the pace of change and stop waiting for people to catch up? Should we be seeking labels and descriptions that make sense to the people we are selling our services to rather than ones that alienate them further? Listening to them, understanding their concerns and finding out their objectives would be a great starting point.

I just get the sense that not enough is being done by the “enlightened ones” to close the gap. After all, most of the frustration about the slow pace of change originates from the people who are paid to effect that change.

Photo by Darren Hester

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Development Aid’s Bitter Little Pill

May 23, 2009 By 7 Comments

Net Efekt bitter pillAuthor: Alasdair Munn

The West currently lives within a prescriptive mentality. The road to efficiency is paved with check boxes and packaged solutions. Robust and complicated infrastructure props up bad decisions and resources are used like wallpaper to paper over the cracks. Relative excess generally allows people to live well within this framework.

I was struck by two pieces of writing recently. The first was from Dr. Geoffrey Douglas the CEO of the charity HETN (Health Empowerment Through Nutrition). Dr. Douglas in his blog “An Epidemic of Rickets” was commenting on a recent Channel 4 News report on the alarming increase in the prevalence of Rickets in the UK. The news report thought it was shocking that Calciferol; the pharmaceutical treatment for Rickets was in short supply. At no time did the news report mention nutrition and lifestyle. Rickets is increasing in the UK because of a change in diet and attitudes towards exposure to the sun, not because of a shortage of pharmaceutical Calciferol.

The second piece of writing was by TMS Ruge on the website Project Diaspora. In “Celebrity Stunts of Altruism are Killing Livelihoods In Africa”  Teddy argues that the current trend of sending mosquito nets to Africa, while neat and tangible for the giver, is actually doing little to tackle the underlying malaria eco-system.

Neither is saying that pharmaceutical Calciferol or malaria nets do not have a role to play within their relative eco-systems. What they are saying is that effective solutions and understanding come from looking at the entire eco-system, not through a single magic bullet.

When development projects fail in Africa, Africa is blamed for its lack of infrastructure, for its lack of understanding and for not having the right systems in place. By their very definition, developing countries do not have robust infrastructures as defined by the West. They do not have an excess of resources to paper over the cracks. Bad decisions cannot be propped up. A prescriptive mentality cannot work within development projects. Checkboxes, packaged solutions and predetermined paths lack efficiency and relevance in these conditions.

Perhaps the West needs to change its approach? Prescribing solutions based upon their ideals, norms and values has not worked in Africa. Belligerently trying to change the way Africa deals with these prescribed solutions so that she can then develop in a way that is pleasing to the West seems a little crazy to me. Would it not be easier to change the way the West approaches development in Africa? And perhaps a little more effective?

Photo by Net_Efekt

Filed Under: Africa Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

What can Africa teach the World about Technology?

April 26, 2009 By 8 Comments

321px-terrestrial_globesvgAuthor: Alasdair Munn

tcg: The Communication Group

After attending Africa Gathering this weekend, the central key words and phrases I gained were:

  • Relevance
  • Solution based approach
  • Context
  • Understanding your stakeholders.
  • Sustainable (All four cornerstones)

In the West, particularly the US, the most publicised and most visible business model for the development of collaborative and people-connecting technologies have been the social network models.

There is a perception (right or wrong) that the model to replicate is the one that is built on ‘the great idea that takes off’.

  • Have a great idea
  • Obtain funding
  • Build it using smart technology
  • Gain user buy in and critical mass
  • Figure out the business models later
  • New, unexpected business models will appear as you go along.

What these models have proved to us is that there is power in connecting people, in collaboration and allowing people to add value and perspectives. Some amazing technologies have resulted from this and new ways of looking at how we can use these tools have been unexpected by products. There is no denying that these have changed the way we do things, and have a huge capacity to ensure the way we do business changes for the better.

These models came about in a time of comparative wealth and excess. As resources become increasingly scarce, people are looking towards business models based upon relevance and context.

It has always been the case within Africa that development resources have been scarce. One thing the people of Africa understand is how to make the most of their limited resources. AfriGadget, a blog that explores the way in which the people of Africa solve everyday problems with ingenuity illustrates this very well.

In the West there is a tendency to try and replicated what is out there. There is a preoccupation on talking about the various ways in which existing platforms or networks can be best “leveraged”. Hands up those who have not written or read numerous blogs on how to get the most out of twitter?

Technology solutions coming out of Africa are built with purpose, against objectives and within the boundaries of their resources. It is a solutions based approach. It is also a stripped down approach where only the relevant resources and tools are used. Simple works because less can go wrong and if it does go wrong, simple is easier to fix. There is a shift in the way tools and technologies are looked at.

A good example of this is what Ushahidi did in Kenya. Ushahidi is an opensource platform that crowdsources crisis information. They took a widely used and available piece of technology, texting on mobile phones and applied it to a Google Maps mashup. This was built in Kenya using local knowledge and technologists in response to post election violence. This provided a real time map of violence hotspots with an understanding of the types of violence in those areas. The interesting part is they quickly recognised that citizen reporting leads to an overload of incoming information. Using social media tools most people take for granted, or seldom consider outside the context of specific social networks, they are creating a crowdsource filter. Using tools such as rating, both content and people and word, language and phrase filters, for example, sense can be made out of this overload. Considering profiles to have a deeper significance than a means to tell people who you are, real value can be added to content. Check out Erik Hersman’s TED talk here. 

As the West, and the developed world continue to struggle against scarcity of resources, they can learn from Africa’s approach. Shifting the way resources are looked at and challenging old business models are essential. Context and relevance are no longer just buzz words.

I have just found these links to blogs on Africa Gathering thanks to Juergen Eichholz

Filed Under: Africa Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Media is no walk in the Park

April 14, 2009 By 2 Comments

Paul Likes PicsI have just read Chris Brogan’s blog post “Just as Difficult as it Seems”
I posted a comment which I have reproduced here as I think it is relevant to my last few posts on this site.

In Chris’s post, he talks about social media strategies being rather more involved and complicated than setting up a FaceBook page, or Twitter account.

My comment is below.
This comes back to two issues

  1. The myths of Social media
  2. The concept that social media strategies are “bolt on’s”

The myths of social media.
Among others

  • Social media is free. Social media is not free. Some of the tools and external social networks used may not require a direct, upfront fee, or paid up membership, but this does not equate to free.
  • Pushing your brand online does not lead to a “pull” situation. Buy in and relationships are not formed from a few online mentions, links and replies.
  • Using social media tools is the domain of the marketing person. Without organizational buy in, support and alignment, any social media strategy is difficult to maintain and will struggle to gain momentum.

Social Media Strategies are bolt on’s.
This relates to point c above. Running a two week print campaign in The New York Times may be a very good strategy for some organizations. Following this mentality for your social media strategy will not work. A social media strategy has to:
a. Take a long term view
b. Take into account the real time expectations of online savvy audiences
c. Be targeted
d. Be relevant
e. Align with all other marketing initiatives
f. Have metrics and analytics attached
g. Grow, change, adapt, change direction, learn, remain fresh
h. Have whole system buy in
i. Be centred around content that can travel, grow and have value added to it. (UGV)

Pic by Paul Likes Pics

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,