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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

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User Generated Value (UGV)

March 31, 2009 By 3 Comments

honoknanabalansuAuthor: Alasdair Munn

tcg: The Communication Group

User Generated Content (UGC) is no longer news; it is an established part of our lives. We expect to be able to participate, share and create online. Just as having a mobile phone is standard. Do you remember when mobiles were something special? Sure, mobiles are evolving. It is no longer a question of whether you should have one or not, it is now a question of what you want to be able to do with them.

UGC is evolving too. We are producing content online in various forms. The question now is not whether we should be producing it, but how it can be used. Organizations are adapting their business models and taking a serious look at how social media tools and software can add value to their business models. One of the central questions concerns how to deal with UGC.

We know that engaging with and learning from our audience, be they customers, partners, employees or other stakeholders, is important. Who better to tell us what our audience wants than our audience? But we are also aware that the resources needed to continually monitor conversations and act on them can be prohibitive.

The way we view content has evolved. Websites are no longer static, or indeed the destination or focus. What we are all looking for is content. You just need to look at RSS feeds or the way we use twitter search to know that targeted buckets of information are the destinations. From an organizational point of view, these buckets of content need to be able to travel, grow, expand and have value added to them. This process results in User Generated Value (UGV).

UGV differs from UGC in that the content, or the momentum for the content has originated from the organization. This UGV is also distinct in that the value added by the stakeholders or audiences can be, but does not have to be, overt. Comments, blogs, stories and use case are all valuable. As is internal collaboration on content and content editing through tools such as wiki’s. However there are a whole set of tools that can add value to content, without altering its form.

Below are some examples of how UGV may play out.

  • Tools such as rating, tagging and flagging allow organizations to understand how people view their content.
  • Monitoring how a person moves through your website or content can highlight new product connections.
  • Incorporating your website, your intranet and your extranet through a combination of using a CMS or LMS, permissions based profiles and social media tools allows for a seamless experience for your users. This also helps make monitoring, assessing and analysing easier to do.
  • Allowing people to rate a search based upon their search words and phrases for example means that the next time someone uses the same search terms the most relevant result will be at the top.
  • Knowing which products or services are compared or analysed, and in what order gives an organization a unique view into the workings of customers minds.

Integrating social media tools and technologies into an organization goes far deeper than allowing comments and engaging on twitter. Understanding how users can add value to the organization requires an in-depth look at what your objectives are and how you manage your content. Ensuring that the tools you use add value in themselves, and that your audience’s experience of your organization is open, seamless, painless and intuitive will bring the interaction and added value you seek.

Photo by honoknana.balansu

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

The Future of Social Media is Already Happening

March 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

RockWe talk about social networks and how organizations can leverage them to build community, connection, engagement and trust with their customers. Our mission is to convince organizations to start learning how to utilize these resources and shift their attitudes. But, we are coming up against obstacles. What’s all this lark about ROI? Don’t they get social media?

However, while we debate these issues with companies, things have moved on. The technology, thinking and market conditions are ready and ripe for enterprise social software. Social media tools, widgets, and methodologies can be integrated into the very fabric of an organization, pulling together all their disparate elements. Many tools will fade into the background facilitating the connection of conversations and providing online solutions that are intelligent and led by the audience. There is a distinction here between overt user-generated content and underlying user generated-value. We are missing an opportunity if we sit back and wait for people to catch up.

This is not the future, it can happen now and it is happening now. We need to let go of our obsession with shifting the organizational mindset. We have become stuck. We think we cannot move on until this is resolved. We are thinking linearly. Our process often looks a bit like this:

  • First get them to acknowledge the value of social networks.
  • Get them to want to engage with their customers.
  • Teach them that ROI is an old, outdated model.
  • Then, once they have bought into it, show them how social media tools and software go beyond social networks.

But this linear thinking and approach is just as much part of the old world as trying to apply an accounting model to social network interactions.

If organizations are struggling to shift their structures to adapt to using social networks then we must do what any self-respecting new thinker would do: we need to listen to them. We need to ask why they are resisting and we need to adjust so we address those concerns, not through argument or debate, but through changing our approach.

We have misunderstood the ROI debate. This was a cry from organizations for us to provide them with solid business reasons for utilizing social media, and we failed them. Through kicking back and telling them that they were wrong, that they didn’t get it, that only a fool would expect to measure the ROI of social media we have made them more obdurate.

The route to understanding is through demonstrating tangible value. We need to understand what their concerns are.

  • How are their organizations structured?
  • How do they create content?
  • How do they manage that content?
  • Who collaborates with whom?
  • How?
  • How intuitive and effective is their CRM?
  • How is knowledge transferred?
  • What does their intranet look like?
  • What about their extranet?
  • What is their sales process? etc.

Bring it back to the organization. Addressing concerns that they see as real, and demonstrating how social software and a shift in approach will help resolve those issues will make sense to them.

Social media tools and software may well have been crafted in consumer markets, but its value to enterprises lies in bringing it back to their organization and making it relevant to their business goals and objectives

Photo taken byRajeshkunnah

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