November 22, 2011

Thinking more in terms of “user” rather than “customer”

There’s a new book out by Aaron Shapiro called “Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business“.  Listening to an interview with him promoting the book, I realized that this is one of the fundamental things that a lot of our clients need to consider.  Traditionally, we always think that it is the customer who determines a company’s success.  And we define it as someone who buys or actively interacts with the brand.  It’s a very specific place on the purchase funnel.  But what about all of the people who are not yet customers?

According to Shapiro, a user should be defined as “anyone who interacts with a company through digital media and technology.”  Combine that with a recent Forrester study that says that 48% of all offline retail purchases are researched or conducted online (reaching 50% next year), and it becomes pretty obvious that the pool of people reading, curating and sharing messaging is much larger than “customers” in the traditional sense.

So when we think about trending analysis from social conversation data, we need to stress the importance of understanding what users are thinking about the brand, its products and its services before they become customers.  What factors drive users to go with our brand over a competitor?  Are there specific forums or sites that people rely on to make decisions?

When it comes to users, it is often more important to see the bigger picture and to understand the drivers of high level perceptions.  By accepting this new reality and analyzing conversations with this in mind, we can be better prepared to provide content and interactions that meets the needs of both customers and users.

 

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November 21, 2011

To engage or to analyze?

Active listening across social media channels and responding directly to questions and comments across these channels is a lot different than in-depth trend analysis which can influence business strategy.  But as we work with our clients, we are noticing that there is a push towards engagement over analysis.  And it makes sense due to the immediacy necessary for responding to customer queries, but it may also indicate a dangerous sign from a governance and leadership perspective.

For the last two or three years, many of the social media reports hitting the desks of the C-level have been cluttered with generic volume charts and a hodgepodge of social media mentions from Twitter and Facebook.  In general, these reports (either developed in-house or by a third-party) do not address business KPIs nor do they help executives understand the parts of their business that social is truly affecting.  With few business metrics to analyze, many executives are forced to take away the operational numbers that they are given: increase in Facebook fans, total posts, total interactions.  But what does a higher volume of fans, posts or interactions really mean, if deep statistical analysis is not performed on the conversations?

Listening and reacting to social media posts is extremely important.  There is no question of that.  But organizations need to begin going through the exercise of defining what they want to see from social media conversations and interactions that are going to drive actions, sales and innovation.  From a trending perspective, you might want to find out how things have changed over time and how that affects your business.  What are people talking about in Q3?  Is it different than Q1?  Do we want to influence the conversation to change it, or are there things that we can learn to make marketing or customer service better?

A tactical approach is necessary to engage with your customers and let them know you are listening.  However, a business focused approach to listening analysis can deliver insights that can be actionable across the long term.  It’s not something that needs to be done daily or even monthly.  But once every two or three months, if done right, an aggregate analysis of social media conversations can provide a view of your customers that is extremely hard to see from the trenches.

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October 13, 2011

The Challenge of Integrating Social CRM Across the Enterprise

For even skilled and innovative companies who are at the forefront of embracing social, there are some aspects of the social CRM process that continue to be difficult to integrate across the organization.  And mainly because social remains siloed into a very segmented area of customer service.

The basic premise of social CRM according to Paul Greenberg is that it is “a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”

But how does this work for a real business?

After recently purchasing a Dell desktop, I ran into a seemingly simple problem trying to exchange the unopened box and computer in order to purchase a more expensive laptop.  As a loyal Dell customer, it seemed like an obvious fix.  But I got trapped in an endless loop of being shifted back and forth between call centers in India (customer service) and El Salvador (returns) with little progress being made.  Knowing that the Dell Social Media Command Center is one of the best among organizations, I tweeted a note to @DellCares about my problem.  The team responded quickly, and they have been extremely helpful and vigilant ensuring that everything goes as planned.

It’s a great example of how social media can help to make the customer experience better, but it makes me wonder about the scalability of this level of service.  Right now, it may be (relatively) easy for the six individuals who are monitoring the Dell Twitter account to triage the problems or requests that come through social channels.  But what happens as volume increases, and complaints become more frivolous?

As we look forward, organizations will need to address to major organizational issues around their approach to customer service: full social CRM integration and call center empowerment.

Full Social CRM Integration – Anyone who touches the customer should have the ability to see his or her social profile as well as any complaints.  The reason that Dell has no customer service phone line in the US is because it is cheaper to do it in India.  If that’s the case, then why are those call centers not monitoring and responding to customer service requests?  That too would be cheaper and more cost effective.  Organizations need to begin outsourcing social media tickets to handle requests and respond more timely as volume increases.  It’s a step that should be well tested prior to becoming a necessity.

Call Center Empowerment – The reason that this is not possible today is that individuals working in outsourced call centers typically are not given the ability to make simple decisions that could benefit the organization.  Most call centers today are equipped only to answer questions in a structured manner, but as the business-customer relationship becomes more balanced and transparent, these call centers will need to adapt.  Why should someone in the Social Media Command Center have a greater ability to help me than the manager in El Salvador simply because I tweeted out a message?

These are hard problems to address simply because they require major strategic and organizational change within the enterprise.  It is no longer about just monitoring or responding timely to conversations on social media.  But it needs to be done, and these things can only move quickly when they come from the top of the org chart.

If you have thoughts or examples on how this is being implemented (or not) within your organization, I would love to hear about them.

 

 

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September 7, 2011

Making a List and Checking it Twice

After recently finishing Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto, I’ve started to think about how checklists can help improve things that we do in work and personal life every single day.  Clients are always looking to find better ways to manage social media, and I could not think of a better way to ensure success than through the structure and completeness of a checklist.

“Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success.  There must always be room for judgement, but judgement aided – even enhanced – by procedure.”  Think about how complex social networks are, along with the various ways that people interact online.  Whether social media is practiced by a team of one or twenty, simple procedures can make the task of managing millions of possible interactions that much easier… and really more effective.

But procedures are cumbersome and often added bureaucracy… or at least that’s what we would all like to think in order to avoid having to create them.  Gawande describes a situation where he asks a World Health Organization (WHO) official “whether the organization had a guidebook on how to carry out successful global public health programs.”  To which he got a look that essentially said, “It’s a cute idea but idiotic.”

Eight months later, he had improved compliance to 100% around a specific appendicitis surgery.  All with the help of an “cute yet idiotic” checklist.  And his point was that smart people know that they should do, but often a checklist can help people remember what they must do so that it doesn’t get forgotten in the midst of working on other tasks.

Let’s face it, there are a lot of items on the plate of a social media practitioner.  Use your brain to do the creative things, and leave the stuff you should be doing religiously to the checklists.  As social media practitioners, we know what we should be thinking about when creating posts and engaging. But when you are creating content multiple times per day, how do you maintain structure around what you are putting out there?

So the next step is creating a list that works.  First, “the checklist cannot be lengthy.  A rule of thumb … is to keep it to between five and nine items.”  And of course, deciding on the type of checklist you need, which Gawande calls DO-CONIFRM and READ-DO checklists.  DO-CONFIRM lists basically require an individual to do a larger task, stop, and the confirm that all of the items were done properly.  READ-DO lists go step by step like a recipe.  In the case of social media engagement, I think it is often easier to use a DO-CONFIRM list.  Write your content, and then make sure that the five or six conditions that you have on your list are met.  It’s that simple.

“When we look closely, we recognize the same balls being dropped over and over, even by those of great ability and determination.  We know the patterns.  We see the costs.  It’s time to try something else.  Try a checklist.”

Below is a sample list that I use when developing content.  Would love to hear more about what you use, and how checklists can help in social media.

1. Is the content messaging consistent with the overall story that we are telling?

2. How shareable is the content?  Can I eliminate another 5 words?

3. What’s the call to action?  Is it easy to do?

4. How will I conclude that this was a successful piece of content?

5. Check through the content one more time and send it off.  Onto the next task :) !

 

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March 20, 2011

Set the Needle, and Watch It Move

Last Friday,John Hagel, the New York Times bestselling author of Power of Pull and founder of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, gave a “fireside chat” to the Bay Area TEDx group on “Measuring the Impact of Collaboration”. As the title of his talk indicates, many of the lessons focused on collaboration, however the key driver behind his examples was that organizations need to think about business goals and metrics before jumping in.

Metrics that Matter
Rather than entering social through an ad-hoc or under the radar approach, organizations should take a step back and think about how social technologies can help achieve and improve current business metrics. Often these metrics vary by audience, but broadly speaking, the three outlined are: Financial (C-Level), Operational (Mid-Level) and Performance (Field).

Think about what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) within your organization can be improved by having frictionless two-way communications between those parties, and that’s where social can have the greatest impact.

Social Media is about Change Management not Technology
As social becomes more accepted as a form of communication integral to doing business, we need to begin recognizing that social technologies, when done right, can change the internal workings of an organization. Eleftherios Hatziioannou, Social Media Manager formerly of Mercedes-Benz, recently said that “social media flips organizations upside-down”. There’s a hyped-up piece to this, if we’re just talking about “going viral on Facebook”, but it becomes real when social technologies tie directly into business objectives.

To illustrate organizational metrics as a reason for social, John provided a case study in which a Municipal Transit Authority had asked his team to come in for a social media assessment. Essentially, they were looking to put together a social media strategy that would integrate the usual suspects (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.). After understanding the core business, the team recognized that the part of the business that could have the greatest impact through social was not this external facing piece. Rather it was internally focused between mechanics and bus drivers.

Buses were coming in, and mechanics were taking a long time to find parts because of a lack of collective knowledge. The Deloitte team implemented a simple internal forum that helped mechanics across the region collaborate to gain access to parts faster while keeping buses on the road until the parts were readily available. Having defined the organizational metrics (opportunity cost of buses off the road, time spent working on a vehicle, cost of finding parts, etc.), the Transit Authority could see the impact of social and actually measure it by watching the needle move along these factors.

Quick steps:

  • Define your current business objectives in terms of relationships (for example, mechanic to mechanic, supplier to distributor, customer to retail, etc.)
  • Reflect on how communications within and between those relationships can improve through social technologies
  • Start with an easy, but impactful initiative that can demonstrate results
  • Watch the needle move on the metrics you set

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March 18, 2011

Social Media lessons from the campaign trail

For the majority of traditional marketing campaigns of most products and services, there often isn’t a definitive beginning or end. Many times one product or service line grows from another, and it can be hard to attribute success and failure solely on the basis of isolated marketing efforts. The beauty of a political campaign is the ability to see things within a defined and compressed timeline, and Rahaf Harfoush does a pretty good job of teasing out some insights from her time on the Obama campaign in Yes We Did.

It’s worth reading the book to get deeper insight and illustration into many of the concepts outlined, but the campaign’s success boiled down to a couple simple ideas: focus, consistency, bite-sized requests, and leverage. As companies look to figure out engagement and content strategies on social media, there are some real lessons to take away here.

Focus – From the very beginning, the campaign setup a clear mandate on what it would achieve by mobilizing supporters through social media. Coupling this with an understanding of the needs of the community, the campaign was able to provide a singular vision that people could rally behind: Hope. Although many organizations have grown their social media presence organically and in often unstructured ways, this is the time to bring strategies and social media assets under one roof. Only by thinking through the business objectives of the organization, can a company truly take advantage of what focus can bring to a campaign, whether presidential or for the latest cup of tomato soup.

Consistency – Rather than focusing on an arbitrary metric (1,o00 fans by August, 10 posts on Twitter a day, etc.), the campaign addressed consistency through “rituals”. The campaign set expectations with their community about engagement across social media, and they promised to meet them. This allowed supporters to know when certain things would be expected, and the supporters, in turn, were more engaged. There is often a fear of needing to constantly contribute and engage on social media, but it does not have to be in real time all of the time. This fear may be why so many social media assets with large corporations are inconsistent and unstructured in their nature from business unit to business unit. Set the parameters that your entire organization can achieve, tell your customers what they are and then be consistent in your ability to meet those guidelines.

Bite-sized Requests – Knowing how and when the campaign would interact with them, supporters were more apt to engage or at least read about the campaign. But the campaign needed their supporters to go from being passive to active. Rather than ask them to provide a large donation or full day of their time, the campaign tried to make the initial effort as painless as possible. Even a few dollars would help. Phone banking didn’t mean calling a hundred people. The campaign only asked for five calls. And they asked a lot of people for both… which turned into a lot of money and phone calls. As organizations think about how to leverage social media to market products and build brands, we need to start figuring out ways to get people from being passive to active advocates. The “Like” button is start, but it may still be a little too passive. Ask three-question surveys with promotional prizes. Have fans post about a new product and send over a discount code. Make it so damn easy for your customers to do something for you that it would seem absurd not to do it.

Leverage - Once the campaign knew who was the most active supporters, they gave those individuals the authority to lead and work with other supporters. These individuals were given prominence within the campaign community as well as their personal communities. It pushed strong advocates to work harder, and encouraged others to join the campaign or become more active. Leveraging influencers is something that is said in social media circles all the time, but it is surely not an easy task. Ford did it with their Fiesta campaign, and there are many other creative companies and agencies doing similar things. Organizations need to start finding the right influencers, providing encouragement and leveraging their enthusiasm to help bring other friends to the company’s brand or product.

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February 28, 2011

How Fast Can You Move?

Yesterday, after the Oscars, the general news media from CNN to the New York Times began speculating on the way that micro-media like Twitter could change the way that national broadcasts are produced. Richard Robbins, the director of social innovation at AT&T, was quoted from a tweet as saying, “In future, live show producers should have contingency plans to make on-the-fly changes when social media chatter shows trainwrecks.”

It’s a great pie in the sky idea, but let’s face the facts. Most businesses do not move at this speed, and probably should not move at this speed anyway. It may even be a little short sighted to make strategic decisions for a television show (… or a product or service) on the fly. Just In Time (JIT) businesses like Zara and Toyota are quick to meet consumer demands, but they are not that fast. Reportedly, Zara takes about 2 weeks, compared to the traditional 6 months, to develop a new product and get it into stores. But it may be unrealistic to think that businesses can provide valuable product at the speed of thought.

One of the problems with over-hyping social media is that many companies are ignoring some of the most valuable parts of this form of communication as a result of these unrealistic ideas. It may be a safe bet to assume that next year’s Oscar telecast will not include a contigency plan for negative feedback from social media, but we are finding that this often leads companies to ignore aspects of this data that could help them.

After a major event, campaign or product launch listen to the conversations leading up to the launch and right afterwards. We would advise the Academy to figure out what messages the overall conversation conveyed. Not just single posts, but the WHOLE conversation. Segment those trends and volume reports across different time periods and for different aspects of the event (presentation, red carpet, nominees, etc.). From these segments, the Academy can begin to understand what works and what does not.

For the next event, campaign or product launch, use learnings from the previous analysis to start out on the right foot. Social media is about experimentation, and the second experiment should be better than the last. Analyse the whole conversation again three months, two months and one month before the next launch, and continue to change the way you market and to whom.

Navigating social media marketing can be difficult and unknown territory. If individuals are talking about your organization on these channels, they are providing something valuable. But social media is not a one-size-fits-all type of medium. Match the speed of your business with the level of data you collect. Not only will the task become more manageable, but strategies will be more coherent within the context of your business.

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February 23, 2011

Listen. We want to help you sell more.

For most of our clients, social media is a no-brainer. Let’s face it. Even the mom-and-pop deli below the office has a Twitter and Facebook page. But what is scary is that companies with millions/billions in revenue, multiple locations and many more employees are often not taking their strategy much further than Mr. Kim who makes kimchi tacos on Battery Street.

In Mr. Kim’s case, he gets feedback from his customers everyday. He’s not marketing on billboards or sending out flyers. He is communicating with his customers, and they are telling him what they like and what they don’t. They tell him by generating revenue at his deli, and they also tell him verbally that they wish he would make a kalbi burrito with two eggs instead of one. It’s a two way method of communication (sounds like social media, doesn’t it?).

It’s been said more than one, but social media is only a communication tool. Since the customers of large enterprises cannot necessarily show up in the “deli” to hear their customers, social media is becoming the next best thing. Of course, people will still send complaints and feedback through email, phone, and maybe even… mail. It is not only about marketing, but it is also about understanding what the customer wants out of your products and services. And there is a lot more data flowing through the pipes now. Not just through your own Facebook, Twitter, and other user generated channels, but ALL social channels. We’re talking about more than 9 billion pieces of content created everyday. And it’s growing.

What we find is most often missing within companies is the organizational structure to pass along messages to the right business units which can actually act on questions, feedback or complaints. Mr. Kim knows that he only needs to go home and tell his wife that they need to buy more eggs for burritos, but are your community managers telling your product guys that there are tweaks that would be great on the next redesign? Do you know that people are asking why the new cinnamon twists taste strange? Are you getting messages from prospective buyers to your sales team?

Regardless of the volume that your organization is seeing outside of owned channels, this is the time to put together the workflow necessary to pass messages along to the right people in your company. Audit the types of conversations that are occurring today, and begin to categorize how these conversations should be addressed as they occur in real time. Insightful ideas are floating around in the ether, and if your organization doesn’t listen to them, someone else will.

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February 18, 2011

Positivity trumps defensiveness

A recent article in the Economist about how companies should fight rumors may turn out to be pretty pertinent to our clients as they begin to engage… and fear the consequences of social media. We have heard many ways to attack social media rumors, and this study may throw things for a bit of a loop. The article cites the studies of three business school psychologists: Derek Rucker and David Dubois, of the Kellogg School of Management, and Zakary Tormala, of Stanford Business School who argue that companies who directly address a rumor may actually be doing themselves harm.

“Instead of denying false rumours, a company should put out a stream of positive messages about itself,” state the authors of the study. It sounds a lot like broadcasting doesn’t it?

While we do not necessarily think the psychologists mean to completely ignore rumors, there are parts of this advice that would serve a company well in social media engagement. Rather than perpetuating a rumor by restating it, we recommend creating content and messaging that counters the rumor without explicitly mentioning it. The more a rumor is repeated either in its defense or to propagate it, the more likely the rumor will stick.

Passivity is not an option, and neither is denial. A strong positive stream of content can go a long way.

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February 3, 2011

The Value of Broadcasting

After last week’s post on using longer format social media channels for insight, we started hearing from our clients. What is broadcasting, and should we be encouraging it?

First, a definition on “broadcasting” from a social media perspective -

Broadcasting is the act of redistributing content without the addition of incremental value.

It is sharing with the least possible effort, and Brian Solis recently wrote a thought provoking article about the balance needed between creation and consumption that can perhaps get the juices flowing.

So then is this really valuable to the enterprise,especially if it is basically just passing along a message? As we look to our clients, there is clearly a benefit to having fans, followers and customers who “broadcast” content about a company. Granted, the value of that shared content becomes more valuable when someone adds their own ideas and thoughts to it, but increasing the conversation volume around your company, product and service can only help raise the visibility of the brand across the web.

The other great thing about broadcasting from an enterprise perspective is that content created by bloggers or evangelists is generally positive or optimistic in tone. Except for the occasions where there is a PR crisis or a set of complaints, broadcasting helps most of our clients to spread the word about what they do in a relatively cost effective manner.

So what happens over time? As people filter out the “noise” and try to keep out broadcast messages, the effectiveness will be diminished. I think two things will happen here. First, people who broadcast will try to keep messages fresh by adding their own twist (they are after all trying to keep their own audience engaged). And second, companies will have to provide interesting and engaging content that does not lean too far into marketing, in order to allow their followers to quickly think of ways to make the re-tweeted content more applicable to their audiences.

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