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."

Influencers - Dynamics Thereof & Whether We're Learning Anything New

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for once again highlighting research being done into the dynamics of influencers in his blog post today. There is this debate out there in the blogsphere about who really counts - the highly connected influencer or the regular guy or gal who knows a bunch of people and talks to them on a regular basis? New research, by Duncan Watts and now CNET, is challenging the "traditional view" that a few highly connected influencers hold the key to market opinion. The research seems to show that there's more to it than that.

Hello? Duh.

Social Media Press Release - Why stop there?

I wrote at the end of January about the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) and how it provided a vehicle to exert some amount of "control" over a fundamentally uncontrollable business asset - our marketing messages - in the highly transparent Web 2.0 world. Since then I've been thinking about the SMPR and trying to connect it to some other dots in my mind about the role of social media commentators, including "A-List bloggers," a debate about which was spun up on Guy Kawasaki's blog a while back. In the end, I've come to the conclusion that the SMPR's potential goes far beyond the press release, or even public relations. Some dialog from Geoff Livingston on The Buzz Bin has begun to confirm my thinking. The bottom line is that I think Social Media Group (SMG) and others out there developing these social media communications formats have really stumbled into a new kind of promotional web site. Jeff Falls calls it the Social Media Resource (SMR), and I think he's on the right track, though I prefer "Source" to "Resource."

A Social Media Source Site (SMSS) would be different from an SMPR in that it would be designed to go beyond mostly one-way multimedia presentation and engage the A-List commentators directly with The Subject. An SMSS would become The Source Site - on behalf of The Subject (i.e., a brand, a product or an abstract concept like an advocacy agenda or campaign) for official information and relevant unofficial dialog. Because it contains both the official story and the most relevant unofficial dialog, it has the potential to become the (implied, single) "Source," instead of a (implied, one of many) "Resource," on behalf of the Subject.

As the Source for everything about The Subject, an SMSS should do extremely well in watching and interacting with A-List commentators as well showing up high in Google rankings, guaranteeing ongoing exposure with the people most interested in what The Subject is all about. A boon to Word of Mouth in Social Media (or, WOMiSoM), an SMSS could be the next generation web site, particularly well suited to big ideas and campaigns.

So read on for thoughts on how the SMPR could become the SMSS and why I think it's important to engage A-Listers in a similar way we do journalists.

Social Media Press Release - "Controlling" the Message in a Web 2.0 World

I hear it all the time when the subject of social media marketing comes up with executives, particularly in the B2B (business-to-business) space, "but how do we control what people say about us?" The answer is, "You don't, but you can influence what they say if you're smart and play by the same rules your audience is playing by." Of course, i usually don't have a nice pithy comeback when queried on just what "rules" I'm referring to - Web 2.0 being hardly about rules at all - but now I have an actual example I can point to to explain what I mean!

A new tool called the Social Media Press Release demonstrates a sophisticated way to shape what others say about you without controlling anything. I suppose some would argue it's not that new (first introduced in 2006 by Shift Communications and now updated by Social Media Group's Digital Snippets), and perhaps not all that revolutionary (being primarily a web page not unlike PR Web's press release format) but the concept of the SMPR provides insight into how marketing in the era of social media and networking is evolving.

Branding in the Era of Social Media

Pundits and hacks alike have been pondering the impact of social media on the mysterious yet powerful discipline of Branding. I am no different and am cooking on a truly brilliant theory of my own (really, I am - stay tuned) about this multifaceted subject. But before I get to brilliance, I wanted to point to a dialog going on among ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership members on its marketing list serve because - thanks to Ben Martin and his insightful blog response to the discussion - it illustrates a specific and yet important example of what modern 'brand police' are having to deal with.

Associations: Leadership and Missed Opportunities in Social Media

"Why would I want to read blogs and learn about what some high schooler had for breakfast?"

I've heard this too many times from professional colleagues who seem to take Andrew Keen's view in The Cult of the Amateur, that all that blathering from anyone who wants to speak isn't necessarily a good thing. And as those of us who watch social media know, organizations far and wide have responded to the scary no-one's-in-control reality first surfaced by the Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) with trepidation and concern. [Cluetrain Wakeup Message to Organizations: No organization or individual is in control of their marketing conversation anymore now that customers, employees and whackos can blather very loudly in cyberspace and can influence anyone who likes what they have to say, regardless of its veracity or tact.]

Despite their hesitation, however, anecdotal evidence in my corner of the world points to the fact that organizations are beginning to experiment with models for how to move beyond the "control paranoia" to leverage the power of social media for their stakeholders. Nowhere does the potential for social media seem as great as in the marketplace for trade and professional associations, yet association executives are generally as conservative, if not more so, than other business execs when it comes to their comfort zone on sharing the megaphone. And it's for this reason that I give ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership, credit for helping take a leadership position with their members to help them figure it out. This month's ASAE monthly magazine includes a special Social Media supplement which has some excellent articles, including a cover story article by Keen himself.

[In the rest of the article (1722 words) I discuss Keen's article and look at what Associations are doing (and not doing) in social media adoption.]

B2B Social Media - Real World Research

I attended the New New Internet conference last week in Washington D.C. (Tyson's Corner, VA actually - we here in D.C. are trying to create a regional feel to the large but fragmented tech community). I had the good fortune to see a presentation by Janet Hall, CMO of TMNG Global on some qualitative research they did into B2B uses of social media. As serendipity would have it, I had been introduced to Janet virtually the week before and so this week I followed up with her in person to discuss some of the more detailed findings, including the importance of companies' Return on Engagement (ROE) and some actual examples of how companies are beginning to experiment with social media in a B2B context. First, Janet's summary of the "so what?" on B2B social media.

"Why should online communities matter so much to the B2B sector? For one thing, the opportunities from social media offer a perfect alignment with the key objectives B2B marketers cite most often: transforming customer relationships, expanding brand identity, and lead generation. Secondly, the ability to leverage the collaboration and participation in online communities – which is at the heart of what Web 2.0 is all about, after all – is becoming a critical differentiator in the B2B marketplace and is likely to define a successful marketing strategy in the future. Customer collaboration, a form of user generated content (UGC), is the ultimate value-added data for a company; harnessing that data is the Holy Grail for the marketing department. It’s as much about knowledge management as it is about marketing."         

-Excerpt from Janet Hall's TMNG GLobal blog entry Why Social Media Matters

Behind the link, I've summarized some of the other interesting findings from the research, and provide a link to the full study.