Member-to-Member

Organizational Identity in the Age of Social Media

I’m very late in picking up a conversational thread with Ben Martin that I dropped in Feb(!) about how organizations can and should participate in the social web. I need to set the record straight if nothing else that Ben and I are in strong agreement on the problem – if not the solution.  

In short, Ben and I agree that, as he says so eloquently, organizations are becoming "conversationally impotent in today's marketplace" to the extent that they don't let their employees and customers champion them in personal and individual ways from within the social web (and in the real world as well). Where Ben and I may not be in agreement is that I do not think the solution is to send these employees and customers forth unprepared, unmonitored and unchecked to shape the public image of the organization according to their own personality because there are very real downsides to the organization in doing this, and because some of the potential upside may be missed as well.

This fundamental dilemma - how to enable an organization's broader audience to carry forth its identity while still maintaining some level of control over the dialog and "company line" is the essential challenge for strategic marketers in the days, months and years ahead; and how we handle it will render us either essential or irrelevant to our organizations' success in the marketplace. Personally, I plan to be on the side of "essential."

It's the Community...

I have a good friend who I give marketing assistance on a pro bono basis. I've convinced her to blog, set up the blog for her and turned over the keys and she's blogging, but we still get into discussions about "why do people do this social media thing?" Recently, she helped me rediscover an obvious truth as we discussed why some social media is just not worth participating in.

"It's the community, Stupid." (My words, not hers.)

As I prepare to set up the B2B Expert's Forum, it's something I need to pay attention to all over again.

Yes, I'm still here....

I've been scarce on the subject of social media lately, but I have a good excuse! I'm launching a new business commercializing my work as an adjunct professor of Marketing at George Mason University's School of Management, Technology Management Program. My partner, Marybeth Fraser, and I have launched B2B Marketing Excellence - a professional development resource for career marketers in the B2B and B2G space. We're offering training courses (first one on Corporate Brand Strategy, May 8, 2008 in Arlington, VA), a B2B marketing blog, and a social networking community called B2B Expert's Forum. If you're a B2B or B2G marketer, come join us!

Bottom line is that I'm going to be running my own social network for professional marketers soon, so I should have lots of insight into the ins and outs of setting it up. I'll probably blog on the "behind the scenes" stuff here for those who like to hear how sausage is made. I'm just getting my toes wet on the technology we've chosen (a .NET nuke module) and can already see many challenges and custom development in my future.

Wish me luck, and send any of your B2B/B2G marketing friends our way too.

And just for fun, I took this unofficial quiz to plot myself on the Forrester/Groundswell Social Technographic segmentation scale. I think it pegged me - unofficially, of course. I do quibble with one conclusion it draws about my personality, which is that I'm a good target for social media marketers. I'm so busy "creating" I don't have time to read/view/absorb nearly as much as I'd like to - which includes ads and marketing aimed at me. Oh well, can't have everything.

Discover Your Groundswell Social Technographics Profile Your Result: Creator   With all the blogging and video making you do, I'm surprised you had time to take this quiz.  Whether podcasting or maintaining a website, the amount of content you create makes your Groundswell Social Technographic group a valuable target for social media marketers.  As a creator, you join an elite 18% of the US online population. Now turn off the computer, your family misses you.
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Discover Your Groundswell Social Technographics Profile See All Our Quizzes

I do encourage anyone interested in the Intellectual Property issues associated with social media to read Josh Bernoff's post and to follow this discussion about this quiz.