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A Clear Path To Context

August 11, 2010 By 10 Comments

Context gets a boost this year with the proliferation of location aware devices. The idea of using crowd-sourced information with the added layer of location aware intelligence makes me very excited.  It is not only smart, it also provides the ideal tools for context and relevance. Yet, many remain stuck in the mindset of ‘Get loads of people to sign up and figure out how to make money once we have critical mass.’”

The visible layers of social media can be so shiny that they end up distracting us from their deeper application. We all recognize that ‘overt’ social media is a critical element. If there were no people out there sharing information, participating and making it available to everyone, we would have no crowd to source from.

The deeper layers don’t always get as much attention. The collection of data and its sorting into useful information registers on people’s minds, but it is often overlooked. It’s a case of ‘out of site, out of mind.’

Listening and monitoring are a bit deeper, sure, like the sedimentary versus surface. There are many organizations great at customer service, sourcing and developing leads, discovering new markets and even developing new products by monitoring keywords and engaging.  There is a good level of online conversation around this topic.

We all talk about what’s next for social media. What is going to be the next Twitter or the next Facebook? Is FourSquare going to last? These questions all have some bearing on the future of social media but, for me, these are the wrong questions. The quest for the social media business model involves a combination of the visible, the sedimentary, and a third, deeper level that is seldom seen, but rather experienced.

A lesson I learned many years ago is that the quickest route to a sale, or an achieved objective, is to remove as many obstacles from your customer/audience as possible. Thinking for your customer is key. Putting the information they need in front of them as quickly as possible will increase your chances of achieving the sale. The lesson that followed shortly after was not to expect your customers to thank you or to notice how clever you’ve been (your sales figures are your thanks). Do expect them to notice when you mess up and do expect them to lose interest if you put obstacles in their way.

Using technology to understand exactly who you audience is, where they are, when they are interested in hearing from you, what steps you can cut out and what information to put infront of them isn’t some sort of ideal, it is what smart organizations are doing.  Location based technology, attached to a profile, or connected to an objective or call to action is much bigger than a game, it is a marketers gift.

This is what social media can do for you. This is where you are going to see your ROI. People’s expectations have evolved and we have the technology and tools to meet them. “This is who I am. This is where I am. Serve me up relevant information.”  Get that right and you are that much closer to reaching your objectives.

It may not be shiny. It may not be sexy or achieve as many column inches, tweets or inclusions in the ‘Top Ten viral campaign” blog posts, but it will cut through all the noise, and put you in front of the right people, at the right time, and in the right place.

What’s your next big thing? What do you think is going to be a game changer?

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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

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Social Media, a Vehicle to Organisational Change

May 28, 2009 By 11 Comments

therocketeerAuthor: Alasdair Munn

tcg: The Communication Group

Our shift from the industrial age to the information age has been led through our ability to make better-informed decisions. To achieve a competitive advantage we have had to have instant access to real-time information, harness our collective expertise and intellectual property and ensure we are nimble and efficient when adapting to change. Technology has played a starring role in this transformation, however, we are rapidly realising that the value of technology goes beyond chips, computers or software.

The industrial age was characterised by economies of scale through standardisation, retrospective measurements such as ROI and market penetration through demand creation. The information age has seen a shift, led in part through changing consumer behaviour and expectations. We are increasingly living, working and interacting in real-time.

It is estimated that within a year the amount of digital information in the world will double every 11 hours. This information is largely unstructured and will be produced in a multitude of formats, originating from an ever-increasing number of intelligent devices. To stay informed and nimble we need to change the way we structure our organisations and analyse our data.

Capturing, processing and analysing relevant data so it is seen in context and helps direct and inform decisions is essential. The ability to recognise patterns, to analyse content in motion and present this information so it allows for effective management and decision-making is the new competitive advantage. Managing your content through a permissions based hierarchy so it can inform, grow, have value added to it and be accessed when and where it is needed is an organisation’s new intellectual property.

Social media has an important role to play within this eco-system. The collaborative and real-time essence of social media, be it across open or closed networks fuels the information age. The tools and thinking behind social media, applied in relation to an organisation’s unique business rules and objectives drives this shift.

In this context, social media is not just about brand or reputation management. It is about giving organisations the tools they need to succeed in an age where change is rapid, collaboration essential and expectations are real-time.

Photo by The Rocketeer

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Start at the Beginning

May 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

legoIt is great to have opinions. It is also a good idea to seek out and learn from other peoples perspectives. What is important is to apply what you have learned in a manner that ensures relevance and context.  I used to be an Apple evangelist. I still love Apple and it is my weapon of choice, but I stopped a while ago trying to convert those that use PC. I can see that I was trying to prescribe a technology based upon my own criteria. My own needs, likes, values and learning styles. Really the choice should be based upon:


  • Who you are
  • Your objectives
  • Your needs
  • Your learning styles
  • Your resources
  • Your history etc.

That is not to say Apple evangelists cannot put a case forward for why they like to use Apple products, but it does mean that they need to listen to and accept other peoples decisions and reasons for using a PC. Based on this, if I am asked to recommend a laptop for someone, I need to base my recommendations on their needs verses my own.

I made this mistake in my last blog post “The politics of Followers”. The blog talked about my personal take on the collection of followers on a social network like Twitter. I feel it broke my own rules around discovery, context and relevance.

A personal or organisational social media strategy cannot be pre-determined. It really does need to be built according to the organisations or person’s unique objectives. It needs to understand its audiences and it needs to work within the boundaries of its resources. It is conceivable that an element of an organisations marketing strategy might include manipulating a large twitter following. Perhaps there are instances where they might not gain much from their actual followers, but more from the perception from those outside Twitter that they have a large buy in? Whatever the reason, it is reasonable to assume this is a considered strategy.

It is great to get people’s perceptions on various social networks and to understand how they are using them. Valuable insights and best practices can be learned. The problem arises when people take a prescriptive view of them. Following someone’s strategy to the letter can lead to copycat strategies that go horribly wrong. Context and relevance are key. Start at the beginning, be patient and go through your discovery process.

Photo by Craig Rodway

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Context Rules Social Media

April 22, 2009 By 5 Comments

mazeAuthor: Alasdair Munn

tcg: The Communication Group

“Content is King” You hear that a lot at the moment. Having targeted content that can travel, address different learning styles, grow and have value added to it has replaced the notion that the website is the destination. People are searching for content. To put some context to this think of RSS feeds and Twitter search.

Content no longer sits on a website and hopes for people to come along. It travels. Not only does it travel from the website, smart websites are putting relevant content in front of their website visitors according to their profiles, preferences, searching and navigation behaviour. Social media tools, analytics, CMS, LMS and CRM are being combined to ensure audience and content relevance. The form content is delivered in, video, audio, photo, graphic, text etc. is no longer seen as merely innovative or a gimmick, rather as aligning to learning styles, expectations and delivery mechanisms. Context.

The relationship between content and context is two pronged.

  1. Content is created in relation to the context it will be consumed in
  2. Context directs content.

For content to be relevant it has to be created in the context of your social media strategy. Understanding the following is a great start:

  1. Who are your audiences?
  2. Where they live online?
  3. What are their learning styles?
  4. How they are influenced?
  5. What are your competitors doing?
  6. How can you differentiate yourself?
  7. What is your USP? (Unique selling point)
  8. What should you be doing online?
  9. What are the rules?
  10. What resources and tools do you have at your disposal?

Aligning your available resources and tools to your content goals seems obvious, but so much content is cobbled together in a piecemeal fashion. How many times, for example, have we seen a company start a YouTube channel and not update it?

Context rules social media. Keeping this in mind ensures we prepare, research and create strategies that align our goals with our audiences and resources. Relevant content and content delivery strategies will follow.

Photo by Howard Grees.

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