Why Your Business Needs to Be Focused On Social Media: Unlocking Potential and Avoiding Pitfalls
Background
We are in the midst of a social media revolution. Like the Arab Spring uprisings, where revolutionary leaders used social media to create widespread awareness, support, rapidly communicate with and mobilize supporters, social media is now enabling organizations to do business as never before. It is increasing collaboration and breaking down barriers between internal organizations and the external world. It is also fundamentally changing how work is performed and how organizations operate.
Today’s organizations are faced with a business environment that is increasingly global, competitive and fast paced and where disruptive innovation may render existing business models obsolete. If they do not act quickly and adapt to these changes, they may not survive. Such was the case of Borders who failed to adjust to the onset of e-books, unlike their main competitor, Barnes and Noble, who came out with the Nook. Barnes and Noble is still operating while Borders recently shuttered all their stores. The choice is not whether to adapt to change and implement social media in organizations; rather it is how to best implement it in order to survive in the rapidly evolving business environment.
The influx of digital natives, the increased presence of virtual employees and the prevalence of virtual global teams has made organizations adapt to new labor market realities. At the same time, social media use is climbing. With around 800 million people around the world using Facebook, more than 25% of all Americans spending time on social media sites, and the majority of the Fortune 500 implementing social media programs, it is clear that the “social media phenomenon” is not just a fad.
Social Media and Organization 2.0
Organizations are learning how to adapt their cultures to employees who can and want to work differently as well as customers who want to buy and be serviced in more inclusive ways. These changes have impacted all aspects of organizations including recruiting and selection, rewards and incentives, job roles, leadership, and training and development. It has also become clear that different skills sets will be required to meet the evolving organizational paradigms. And as employees have more external touch points, employers recognize that new guidelines, polices and training programs must be put in place.
While social medial media has enabled many positive outcomes, such as new approaches for marketing, branding and communications, opportunities for thought leadership, recruitment of hard-to-find skilled candidates, increased employee engagement and better customer service, it is clear that it has changed expectations of participation and created a loss of employer control. It requires more transparency and a reframing of employee personal versus public communications.
The Upside and the Downside
Brands take on new meaning in the age of social media. Employees can be a visible and positive force in this environment and serve as brand ambassadors. Companies like IBM have been very successful in utilizing their workers to aid their brand. They demonstrate brand values and deliver upon brand promises and expectations. But, judgment must be used on social media and there are many cases of employees hurting brands by writing inappropriate things and embarrassing their employers. Recently, a Philadelphia high school teacher was suspended with pay after she wrote a blog in which in which she spoke harshly about her students saying, “They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners.” Similarly, an Albuquerque police officer was placed on desk duty after listing his occupation on his Facebook profile as “Human waste disposal.” Other examples include a police woman posting inappropriate Facebook pictures alongside police insignia, waitresses writing negative things about their customers, and employees defaming supervisors. And, even a member of Congress, Anthony Weiner, had to resign after tweeting lewd pictures of himself to a young woman.
Without proper training or guidance, employees can unintentionally or maliciously damage organizational reputations, resulting in the loss of customers, revenue and intellectual property. This behavior can have a negative impact on employee morale, create management difficulties and the inability to recruit top candidates, as well as cause legal issues. That is why smart organizations are being proactive and trying to understand the readiness of their organizations with respect to social media. They realize it is critical to have metrics that allow one to understand existing usage among employees, guidelines awareness, etc. This way they can assess how effective any planned social media implementation will be or measure how successful existing ones are.
The Solution
The solution we developed is PSMOTM – a Program for Social Media Optimization – that is designed to measure the organization’s current status as an entity in the social media context, identify and solve for any competitive weaknesses and optimize its functioning to produce employees who act as brand ambassadors in the social media cultural milieu. 
The PSMOTM process assesses the eight (8) specific factors that comprise organizational optimization regarding employees’ social media behaviors and brand advocacy. The assessment process involves quantitative survey research and in-depth qualitative interviews among the organization’s leaders (policy-makers) and “customer-facing” employees. An organization’s PSMOTM profile is used to determine specific strategies and tactical programs that can be implemented to achieve a more effective set of social media policies to drive better employee selection, retention, leadership, and branding.
For more information about the PSMOTM program, feel free to contact Andrea Goldberg, Ph.D., President of Digital Culture Consulting, LLC. (http://www.digitalcultureconsulting.com/)
On-Line Influence Metrics: Three Actions You Should You Take
Having influence in the digital world is one of the main goals of social media. As off-line, people are influenced by folks they trust, those that they like or those they believe to be have specific expertise. Social media, however, provides a forum for referrals on a scale not possible off-line. Viral videos, retweets, etc, can create buzz, over night sensations, drive sales or destroy reputations.
Many individuals and companies, either by celebrity, word of mouth or break out marketing are perceived to exert influence on-line. Businesses invest in social media to increase brand recognition and drive sales. One way they do this is to encourage those whom they perceive to be influential to promote their brands, products and services. The challenge has been to quantify who, are in fact, influential and to determine what the true value of this influence actually is.
While there are a number of entries in this space, Klout has emerged as the measurement leader. Klout takes data from public social networks or other network connected to Klout, and provides users overall quantitative scores from 1 to 100 based on their level on-line influence.
But is Klout actually converting digital influence into an actual business value measurement? Klout appears to equate transactions and number of followers with actual influence. A more recent entry in this space, Kred, measures a person’s online influence and level of engagement or outreach and provides two different scores. Influence is defined as the ability to inspire action by others such as retweets, replies, etc, while outreach focuses on people initiating conversations or interacting with others. Kred also integrates off-line awards and recognition. PeerIndex, another metric, measures social media influence at an individual level, but looks at a person’s level of authority on a specific subject area.
Klout initially gained prominence because it was a convenient short-hand to identify those who could best promote one’s business. Klout continues to evolve their tools and recently revised their scoring method to somewhat mixed receptions. Clearly, over time there will be new entrants and existing players will refine tools and algorithms. Until these measures come closer to assessing things such as trust or strength of relationships, they will fall short of the mark.
Although these metrics still do not adequately capture all aspects of influence, one should care about their scores. Those with higher influence scores are simply more likely to have their tweets, posts etc viewed by more people. Three actions steps one should consider are:
- Determine what your Klout, Kred or PeerIndex scores are. These metrics are free and it could be valuable to understand how influential you are perceived to be. If you are dissatisfied with these scores, you can then develop a plan to improve them.
- Find out how influential your competitors are perceived to be. Scores are generally not private, so this information should not be that difficult to obtain. If they are rated much better than you are and you are concerned, simply assess what they are doing that you are not and plan accordingly.
- Understand which of your best customers have high scores and figure out how to engage with these individuals to your best advantage. Having influential folks write good things about your business can be very beneficial!
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Please contact me here or on-line on Twitter @dccTips or Facebook at dccUpdate.
6 Questions to Answer Before Engaging In Social Media Marketing
With so much hype around social media, many business and marketing executives are rushing to use social media platforms for their organizations. They are putting up Facebook pages, getting Twitter handles and brushing up their LinkedIn company profiles. Unfortunately, many of these executives are going straight to executing tactics without putting sufficient effort into creating the right strategy for their businesses. While these initiatives may succeed, often they miss the mark. Before engaging in social media marketing, it is a good idea to first address the following questions:
- What are your objectives? Why does your business need to invest in social media? Do you want to improve your brand, find new customers, gain market insights or simply improve relationships with existing customers? The choice of platform and tactics wll differs depending on the answers.
- Who are your target audiences and how will you attract them? Even if you build something great, you will need a way to get the right kinds of people to engage.
- How do social media initiatives tie in with your other marketing programs? Social media needs to part of an integrated strategy. It should complement and reinforce your other communications and branding messages. It might have a slightly different tone and target audience, but should not fight against other communications.
- Do you have the resources or a plan in place to not only create social media vehicles, but to care and feed them and keep them current? You may need to hire a community manager or assign someone to focus on this.
- What metrics are you going to use? You need to measure whether you are achieving what you are trying to achieve. You may want to adjust your actions based on what the metrics are showing. The sooner you can figure out what is working and what is not, the faster you can achieve success.
- Have you engaged with your employees and solicited their help? Remember that whatever you put out there your employees, as well as, your clients will have access to. Employees can be powerful brand advocates if properly trained and motivated.
Social media can be a powerful tool for your business, but you need to approach it thoughtfully and thoroughly. Having a social media strategy in place, before you act, is usually a very good idea!
10 Tips on How to Handle Social Media Policies
Social media is not just for large companies and can be used by companies of all sizes to create on-line presence, monitor brands, and improve customer service. Small companies have found success leveraging Twitter and blogs and others have grown exponentially based on well crafted or viral YouTube videos.
Organizations are also using social media to improve employee engagement, locate hard to find candidates, improve communications, promote virtual work and remove geographic barriers. There are benefits to having employees participate in social media, but to maximize success and avoid embarassing employee actions, business leaders need to:
1. Recognize and reinforce the positive role employees play in shaping a company’s on-line brand. They can serve as brand ambassadors, promote core values and new products.
2. Communicate to employees what is expected and how they should engage in social media.
If employees are not aware of what the company brand stands for, they might inadvertently hurt the brand or alienate current and future customers.
3. Understand how social media can be misused by employees and develop the appropriate social media guidelines and policies.
4. Train employees and managers on what the guidelines mean and the specific actions they should take or not take.
5. Implement and monitor. Reward those who comply and punish those that don’t.
If you are writing a policy remember:
6. If a social media user is not an official company spokesperson they should add a disclaimer and state that the opinions and positions expressed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of their company.
7. Social media users need to respect their audience and not use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any conduct that would not be acceptable in the workplace.
8. Guidelines need to address sticky issues such as whether managers should be allowed to friend their employees and vice versa.
9. Guidelines should be specific, policies that are too broad can be misinterpreted
10. Protect your company and brand. Ensure employees do not disparage employers in public.
What are your concerns about having employees engage in social media and how have you addressed this? Please share your comments on Twitter @dccTips or Facebook at dccUpdate.
Is social media good or bad for organizations and for society? The debate rages on. We hear stories of revolutions being enabled by individuals who now have an outlet to share their grievances and the ability to organize across distances, as well as gratified customers who are able to get instant feedback to their questions and concerns. On the internal side of organizations, there are stories of how social media has enabled employees to participate in organizational strategies and collaborate with peers in remote locations. These cases extol the virtues of engagement and recognize the value of enabling individuals and employees to have a voice. It would appear that social media is a tool for good and a way for all of us to be heard.
Yet, we also hear stories of misuse, such as a policeman in Albuquerque, New Mexico listing his job on Facebook as “human waste disposal” or an angry teacher in Philadelphia writing about her students that “They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners“. Of course, these displays are not limited to those in the public sector. There are plenty of stories of employees being disciplined and or fired after writing negative comments about their managers, employers and customers on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. We scratch our heads and ask, what were they thinking?
Should we be surprised at what appears to be in many cases a lack of judgment? Aren’t these tools new and aren’t many still experimenting? Or, perhaps many are still a bit giddy with their ability to publish and be heard. Some, I am sure, are mislead by the intimacy that is created as they sit alone with their computers. They might not think about how things have a way of being retweeted or going viral. Clearly, Congressman Anthony Weiner learned this lesson all too well.
So what should we do to protect folks from themselves or our employees and companies from being embarrassed or put out of business? The simple answer is to develop social media guidelines, train folks on them, implement and monitor them and reward those who comply and punish those that don’t. But, unfortunately, there is nothing really simple about doing this. This is probably the reason that only about a third of American companies currently have social media guidelines in place.
One of the lessons many companies have learned in developing and implementing social media guidelines is that one size fits all guidelines do not make sense. Social media guidelines need to reflect the industry one is in, the organizational culture, the existing structure and represent the needs of multiple stakeholders. They cannot simply be created as an HR owned exercise or developed by an isolated committee with good intentions. If management or employees do not understand what they mean or how to implement them, the actual guidelines will not do any good. Like all change, there will be resistance, so getting those that are impacted engaged in the process is critical. And, since this is about communications, one must make sure marketing and communications professionals are included and actively involved.
Employees play a large role in shaping a company’s brand. They can serve as brand ambassadors and help promote core values or new products. But, it is important that they know what is expected of them, and how they should engage on both internal social media platforms and external ones. Otherwise they may inadvertently hurt the brand or alienate current and future customers.
It is wise to take advantage of those organizations that have learned how to do this well. Many have learned the hard way what works and what does not. For starters, check out IBM’s, Intel’s and Kodak’s guidelines. They are on-line and all you need to do is Google them. But remember this needs to be the start of the process, not the end. Social media is a tool and like all tools the instructions for use are critical. Social media can be a source of good or bad…the key is to recognize the value of using the tools correctly and the danger of doing things poorly. If you think your employees are not participating in social media and you do not need to do something about this, you are probably wrong. I can almost assure you that they are indeed talking about you!! But, if you do not have the skill or time to do this yourself, have no fear, you can always hire a consultant (hint hint)!
The Capacity to Change the Discourse
In the aftermath of the Tucson shootings there has been a lot of discussion about the need for civility in the political arena. And although there has been some dialing back of the rhetoric, not all that much has changed… yet. And, while I truly doubt that things will ever revert back to the way they were before we had targeted media outlets and social media, I do believe that we are still experiencing growing pains when it comes to our communications options. I believe that over time we will learn to behave differently. For it is not simply that we have 24 hews cycles that demand content, it is that we have the option to only listen to folks we already agree with and to join our own communications sub-cultures. Long gone are the days when unbiased newscasters like Walter Cronkite spoke and a good many of us listened to the “most trusted man in America”. No one holds this position anymore, whom you trust depends on where on the political spectrum you sit.
I say these things as a self proclaimed media junkie. Like many others, I have my biases. I get most of my news on-line, although I read the NY Times and watch cable news as well. Of course, my favorite source of news is John Stewart and the Daily Show. He definitely holds up a mirror to what tends to pass as political discourse and we see the hypocrisy and subterfuge reflected back at us.
So why am I optimistic? I remember the early days of e-mail when we struggled to get the tone right. We knew how to write business correspondence and we knew how to effectively negotiate a business call, but this new medium was different and somewhere in between. It was informal, yet it was in written form. I remember recoiling when emails I sent were totally misinterpreted or forwarded to folks that I never intended to see them. But, that was a long time ago and the business community and I did learn how to handle email and to be appropriate and effective. I believe we are now in a similar transition period with social and other new media.
Social media enables conversations. Yes, it can be the source of vitriolic rhetoric and help stir partisan crowds, but it can also serve as a forum for discussion and an exchange of ideas. I submit that we are still learning how to use these forums, as well as learning what privacy is and should mean, as well as what we should and should not post. The consequences of our actions on-line are starting to become more and more apparent and I predict that there will slowly be a shift in behavior. This will not happen overnight. There will still be subcultures and inappropriate pictures on Facebook. But, more of us will start listening to each other and behaving responsibly. I do believe we are capable of learning and reflection. None of us want to see an innocent child shot down by a crazed killer. Fortunately, there are still some things we all seem to be able to agree upon and that, at least, is a start!
Profiting from Effective Social Media
I was recently interviewed by Adela Ondruskova, Director Professional Training, marcus evans, in preparation for a social media training session I am running for them in December. The questions focused on how to capitalize on ROI driven social media marketing campaigns and the need for effective social media strategies and implementation. Attached is the interview.
Q: Andrea, can smart social media strategy be considered a powerful source of competitive advantage? How? Are current corporations aware of the potential?
A: Yes, smart social media strategy can definitely be considered a source of competitive advantage. By allowing companies to effectively and inexpensively reach new markets, create new brand identities, develop and test new products, provide superior customer service and better understand customer and market needs, companies that use social media can definitely have an advantage over those who don’t. I believe many companies are aware of the potential but have let resistance to change or fear hold them back.
Q: Why do you say that it may now be a requirement? What has changed?
A: The stakes have definitely changed. When television was first introduced, companies transitioned ads from radio to the new medium. When Internet commerce was first introduced, consumers and organizations discovered a whole new way to buy and sell. I think social media represents a similar transition. The old ways will remain, but a new and powerful way of doing business has emerged. To ignore it will put companies at a disadvantage and may relegate them to failure.
Q: In your opinion, can social media improve your online reputation?
A: Social media has the power to both improve and hurt reputations. Not being aware of what is being said about one’s company is problematic. There are many examples of companies who were hurt because they did not know how to effectively counter negative publicity in a world where things can go viral and anyone can publish. On the other hand, a well crafted campaign that fully utilizes the potential of on-line communities and networks can work wonders for a brand.
Q: What are some of the concerns that companies have as they implement social media solutions?
A: Unlike traditional forms of marketing where the power resides in the hands of the marketers and their carefully crafted messages or programs, social media shifts the power to those receiving the messages. It is not a passive medium but is about participation and collaboration. Companies need to be comfortable giving up control. In addition, organizations need to understand that their employees can be powerful brand ambassadors and that they too are participating in social networks. Employees need to have training and social media guidelines need to be in place so that employees have an understanding of what appropriate and inappropriate behavior is in this context.
Q: What are the main advantages of the current “digital culture”?
A: I believe we are entering an era in business where boundaries are being broken and communications are shifting from one-way to two-way. From a product development perspective it allows for more creativity and collaborative innovation. For customers, a digital culture allows their voices to be heard and for them to get the kind of service and support that rarely exists anymore. And for employees, a digital culture provides them with greater participation, access to decision makers and thought leaders and hopefully results in greater satisfaction and loyalty. A digital culture is the antithesis of the traditional bureaucratic organization where power, information and control are invested in the hands of a few.
Q: What do see as the “next big thing” in terms of social media?
A: I think the whole area of mobile computing and location based services will take social media to the next level. We have already seen the popularity of sites such as Foursquare and Gowalla and with Facebook getting in the game, it is clear that there will be an explosion in the use of these capabilities for product promotions, contests, etc. In fact with the exponential growth in smart phone usage, I think phones will soon become the primary way most of us access social media sites.
Q: Do you see any downside of this explosion in social media and mobile communications?
A: Social media is a tool, and like all tools it can be misused. I think it is important to have privacy limits and make sure that there are not abuses. There will always be unscrupulous individuals and organizations that do the wrong thing. I believe we will see governing bodies emerge so that this is monitored and punishments are levied. The good thing about this medium is that it is open, so when things are not done properly complaints are raised quickly and loudly. We have seen both Google and Facebook stumble and correct themselves and I am sure there will be many others who attempt do to objectionable things and get quickly chastised.
Q: What is your unique perspective on this?
A: I have a fairly unique perspective in that I have worked cross-functionally, holding leadership roles in Human Resources, Communications and Marketing. This has enabled me to understand the complexity of introducing this type of change in organizations. I have also spent the majority of my career in technology and have worked on cutting edge strategies that have fundamentally shifted the way business gets done and messages are communicated. While, I understand the traditional way marketing, communications and advertising operate; I also recognize the benefit of introducing new capabilities into the mix. My perspective is holistic, with a focus on integrated marketing and end-to-end organizational strategy. Finally, while I understand the current environment, my work on future trends has also given me the insight into where things are heading.
Q: What are the key areas you will cover in the training course? What will be the main takeaways for the training attendees?
A: Participants will learn how social media is changing business, communications and marketing and will understand what works, what doesn’t work and why. They will learn how to improve brand perception and manage online reputations, better target marketing efforts, gain insights into customers and competitors, leverage YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social network channels and understand mobile applications and how they are changing the game.
And You Think You Can’t Live Without Your Phone Now!
If you are like me, you actually managed to live a good part of your life without the benefit of a cell or smart phone, yet, looking back, you have a hard time imagining how you managed to do so. The ability to have constant communications ability and full access to voice and email seems like a requirement, not just a nice to have. It is hard to believe that we did not have access to this service in the old days when stuck in traffic or late to important appointments.
But as I write this, I realize that most people are still unaware of the full range of possibilities of mobile technology. As the thousands of I-Phone applications attest to, the appetite for mobile services is out there and there are many companies eager to exploit this. And, of course, the social media world is right there capitalizing on this and providing tools for folks to interact. Have you joined Four Square Yet? I have. And recently when I went to Yankee Stadium I was one of 56 people who checked in. Given the size of Yankee Stadium this is not that great a number. But watch this space. The future will be upon on us sooner than we think!
Everyday there are new and exciting applications for mobile technologies. AT&T recently ran a contest on Gowalla co-sponsored by TOMS shoes which required folks to check in at an AT&T outlet or a TOMS shoe outlet. Over 5500 folks entered to win the grand prize. SCVNGR is a location-based social game that launched in 2010. At the time of launch it had already signed over 1,000 locations in the US who were willing to offer freebies and discounts to users. And they are growing rapidly, adding about 25 new enterprises per day. Recently SCVNGR teamed up with Columbia Pictures to have a EAT,PRAY, LOVE game tied in with the movie. This game spanned 26 cities and provided both challenges and special edition badges.
Another location based platform, Whrrl boasts of over 300,000 users. Whrrl has a somewhat different model, focusing on Societies and creating content devoted to these specific groups. Businesses can create Societies and target certain types of individuals that check in to particular types of venues. This is a very effective way to segment an audience and reach folks where they live!
As someone who remembers that much of the early content of the Internet were games, chat rooms and yes, pornography, it is not surprising that the early entrants in the mobile space are in the business to consumer world and have a large element of fun connect to them. But, as we saw with the Internet, the potential for business ties-ins is huge and will continue to emerge. If your business is not considering this space, they should be. Because 10 years from now, I would not be surprised if many businesses felt the same way about mobile that I feel about my smart phone. How did we ever get by without this?!
The Wild Wild West Of Social Media
I recently completed a course on Web Analytics. And, although I have been working in the social media field for a while, after spending the time to really understand the full range of tools that are available, I was struck by just how much information can simply be gleamed directly from the web about buyer behavior, one’s own company and one’s competitors. As a marketer and market researcher, I am thrilled by all that I can learn on-line and the diversity of things I can monitor or listen to. But, I have to admit that sometimes it does give me pause.
I remember how much time and effort it took to get data using traditional market research methods. Perhaps one of the good things about that world were that the people we surveyed knew they were being questioned and their answers used for research. Similarly, the people that came to our focus groups knew they were being watched behind the mirror. While this may have been a negative in that we sometimes witnessed contrived behaviors or heard socially desirable response, we erred on the side of informed consent. The world of social media is much different. We observe behavior in a more natural setting. It is almost like we are sitting in someone’s living room just listening in. In the era of reality TV, this does not seem strange. But, the folks in reality TV, for the most part, understand that there are cameras pointed at them. Does the social media using public understand the power of web analytics…I suspect not.
The ability to track behavior and monitor the online conversation is probably greater than most people realize. We gladly accept free Gmail accounts from Google. Do we realize that by doing so we allow them to search through what we are writing? Similarly, we gladly accept free accounts on Facebook and in turn allow ourselves to be searched, advertised to and content analyzed. While we do need passwords to enter our accounts on Twitter and LinkedIn, do we actually expect them to be private.. or do we simply not think about it?
In the direct marketing world, opt in and opt out rules have prevented some of the abuses created by spamming and other practices. I wonder what type of guidelines or laws we will see going forward pertaining to the gathering and use of social media data? Privacy is already a big issue online as the reaction to a recent move by Facebook attested to. I suspect this area will continue to evolve. It will probably take only one malicious high profile action to create a very public call to action. In the era of viral messaging, it does seem that no bad deed stays hidden for too long.
What I hope to do going forward is to use this blog is enlighten folks not only about wide array of marketing and research tools that are out there, but also about the rules or best practices that are evolving over time to bring some structure to the often chaotic social media world. It is not quite the Wild Wild West, but then again, I am not sure all the accoutrements of civilization have arrived either. Please watch this space and let me know what types of things you see on the horizon. I am listening!!
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