Q: What’s your best advice to social media managers? A: Stop talking about social media. InShare192 I recently presented at Microstrategy’s iCommerce Summit in Amsterdam on the importance of looking inside to improve how to engage on the outside. Following the event, I was invited to join Peter Gentsch of Big, Michael Buck of Dell, and Andreas Bock of Telekom. The conversation explored the importance of rethinking how businesses approach social media. Rather than driving social media strategies based on just clever ideas, campaigns, soft KPIs, and intangible results, I shared the importance of focusing on the bigger picture. At stake is nothing less than not only the future of social media in your organization, but more importantly, how decision makers recognize and value relationships throughout the customer life cycle.
I’m often asked what advice do I have for social media strategists and managers. Executives don’t think about tools they think about results. Social media and how it saved Wrexham FC. Haydn shaughnessy on banks and ecosystems. Success in a Connected World - Ross Dawson: Futurist, Inspirational Keynote Speaker, Strategy Advisor. Business Should Focus on Sociality, Not Social "Media" - Umair Haque. The Benefits of Social Media for Businesses. The benefits of social media give businesses a new way to interact with customers. It’s no longer enough that a strong marketing initiative will turn consumers into customers. Your business needs to create strategies that link the customer experience with the technologies and systems required to deliver the right content at the right time. If brands want to stay relevant in the digital era, they have no choice but to adapt. Customers are complicated. It’s not just because they’re technologically empowered, but it’s because they’re human.
All businesses, whether big or small, should go to the trouble of finding ways to connect with customers to turn them from passive reactors to advocates. The future of social media offers many exciting, new opportunities for businesses to interact with their customers. Image: mypokcik /Shutterstock.
The Dos & Don'ts Of Social Media For Business. Have you ever engaged in a conversation online where someone bluntly told you exactly what you could and could not do in social media? If so, you know that doing that is a one way street that pretty much always leads to a dead end. I am of course not saying you should abandon your social media manners, I am just saying that if it wasn’t for creativity, we would have social media at all.
If someone goes on and on telling you what you can’t do in social media, it’s probably something you should still investigate to see if you can make it a cleaner approach. No one likes the same message sent over and over again. That’s not what social media is about, especially not social media for business. For a business, social media is a vital part of networking and marketing. However, it would be rude and obnoxious to say that social media is all about marketing. Scan through these simple tips, and get to know them for a while through simple networking on your social media platforms. 62% of 12 to 15-year-olds own a smartphone : infographic. I find it fascinating to look at habits of children who have grown up in the digital age or really now, with social media.
So I found the recently published Ofcom child media usage survey interesting as it looked at the habits children are displaying in terms of their media consumption. The numbers aren't surprising nor is the move away from traditional TV viewing with only 17% of 12 to 15-year-olds saying they would miss TV if they didn't have it. Most parents I know are showing their kids Elmo videos on YouTube and I've scarily seen an increase of pretend laptops, iPhones and iPads, for the under 3s to play with so they don't break mummy's shiny new iPhone 5. Crab Creative have put together this handy infographic outlining some key stats from the report.
Though these numbers are from a UK survey, I still believe they are still relevant to the US marketplace. Are marketers looking this far into the future and trying to tap into the youth market before they become adults? Power of the Journey for Social Businesses. As we embark on the social journey through the digital bazaar, the line between brands, employees and customers continues to blur. Brands understand this is a time of uncertainty, and some have embraced change more quickly than others.
The most alert brands have eagerly jumped into the social branding fray, helping to define exactly what this term means in the process. Social branding has undoubtedly presented new challenges. As more business have come to adopt this practice, they have also come to realize that to build a truly effective social brand they must build engaged communities from the inside out. In short, a company must learn to evolve into a social business by empowering its employees to become effective brand ambassadors. Social Collaboration Successful social branding demands much more from a business than simply pumping countless advertising dollars into digital channels.
Why Employees Make the Best Advocates “Think of a brand as a planet” Roadmaps for the Future. Noodling Around Change Management and Social Media Adoption. Recently, I reconnected with colleague, Joitske Hulsebosch, who I met in 2005 through Nancy White's Online Community workshop. I interviewed Joitske about her work way back in 2006.
I asked for some recommendations on Twitter for the best practical sources for change management. Joitske recommend Learning To Change. She also pointed me to an older post on her blog about one of theories of change in the book based on thinking styles. From the English book review: "In the third chapter, "Thinking about change in five different colors", Caluwé and Vermaak introduce their color model. . * Yellow-print thinking. The book, written in 2002, does not address social media and change management or even technology. I also wondered about the historical context of change management and technology tool adoption, asking on Twitter if there case studies about the adoption of the typewriter in the workplace.
Think about some of the changes reflected by this typewriter, manufactured by E. Paul DiPerna. Becoming a Social Business in 10 easy steps. I was lucky enough to attend the IBM Leadership Alliance conference last week in Boston. This is an annual gathering of a large number of senior IBM execs, IBM Champions, key customers and a some hangers-on like me.
The entire event is covered by a non-disclosure agreement as the IBMers share their product plans and seek feedback on their plans from the audience. One session stuck out particularly for me. It was Sandy Carter‘s presentation on becoming a social business. Although the precise content of her presentation is under NDA I am allowed to discuss the 10 steps to becoming a social business. 1 – Integrate Social into your business processes Establishing an enterprise social network does not in itself make your organization social. 2 – Customize the experience A successful social business solution will be customized to the organization it serves. 3 – Set Governance and Social Policy Rules Amongst the first questions often asked in a new deployment of an enterprise social network are: British Airways apologises after retweeting racial abuse against customer angered by flight cancellation.
Within minutes, hundreds of Twitters users resent the retweet and later more than 160 followers had retweeted the apologyMessage, which contained a term offensive to Asian people, has since been deletedThe company has been ridiculed online by other Twitter users By Amanda Williams Published: 13:00 GMT, 18 November 2012 | Updated: 07:51 GMT, 19 November 2012 British Airways has launched an investigation after an offensive and racist message was apparently retweeted from its Twitter account. The official BA Twitter account, which has 210,000 followers, reposted the message which included extremely profane language and a racist term against Asian people, on Saturday afternoon. After the offensive message was deleted, staff at the airline then tweeted an apology. Racist message: The official BA Twitter account, which has 210,000 followers, reposted a message which included extremely profane language and a racist term against Asian people, on Saturday afternoon.
'Free speech' row after man is ARRESTED for posting image of a burning Poppy on his Facebook page on Remembrance Sunday. Man named locally as Linford House, 19, from Kent was arrested on suspicion of an offence under the Malicious Communications ActThe image of a Royal British Legion paper poppy being held to a cigarette lighter was posted online By Nick Fagge and Ryan Kisiel Published: 11:20 GMT, 12 November 2012 | Updated: 03:15 GMT, 13 November 2012 A teenager who drunkenly posted a picture of himself burning a poppy on Facebook was in police custody last night. Officers arrested Linford House after they received a complaint about the image that was published in the early hours of Remembrance Sunday.
When police called at his parents’ home that evening, the 19-year-old had already taken down the image on a friend’s advice.. A man, named locally as Linford House (pictured right), 19, was arrested yesterday after the image (left) appeared online. The words on the right image have been written on by a third party, who posted it online But he questioned whether it was right to hold the teenager. Inside Story - Death of the super-injunction. Social Business - rethinking innovation, organization and leadership. The future of Social Business: Predictions based on current trends. In this Blog, I will be discussing the future of social business. This blog will attempt to offer opinion and insight into a few perspectives on the possible path social business may take. When attempting to predict the future of social business, one could argue that we must first examine what at which point we currently stand.
If we take the social business process diagram below (Jacob Morgan, social business adviser, 2012), ten clear steps indicate the current operational structure. TR, Zaman et a al,(2010) In a paper titled, ‘Predicting Information Spreading in Twitter’ proved just how effective social media can have on different sectors across a wide range of topics.
TR.Zaman et a al,2010:1 state ; “Determining who is influential in a network or how many people a piece of information reaches is very important in many different fields. For example, online advertisers could use this information for efficient targeted marketing campaigns. Sitaram Asur, Bernardo A. Like this: Cadbury Wispa Marketing Case Study from Fallon. An Introduction to social business. Business is Social → A Glimpse Into the Future. Does social media affect consumer complaints? This post is written by Mirna Bard, a blogger, speaker and consultant. She serves as the social media chairwoman of the Orange County (Calif.) chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners, and she teaches social media at the University of California at Irvine.
SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social-media practices and issues. Last week’s poll question: How do you think social media affects consumer complaints? Social media forces companies to respond, follow up and resolve complaints almost immediately — 34.51%It only increases awareness of consumer complaints — 30.97%Complaining on social sites can elicit a quick response, but not get a fast resolution — 17.70%It gives consumers more control over their message – 13.27%It does not have major impact yet — 3.54% What happens when customer service falls short or customer satisfaction falters because of broken promises?
Why This Facebook Post Could Destroy A Business. What does Social Business mean? Collaborative Enterprise Environments (Enterprise 2.0) Following on from my previous blog about the integration of social media in the enterprise I will now discuss the term Enterprise 2.0 and a recent case involving QUMAS (QUMAS is the leader in Compliance & Quality Management Solutions for Life Sciences) The term “Enterprise 2.0″ was first coined in March of 2006 by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Andrew McAfee in an MIT Sloan Management Review article entitled “Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration.” It refers to the strategic integration of social software and collaborative technologies into an enterprise’s intranet, extranet and business processes and emphasizes employee, partner and consumer collaboration.
Enterprise 2.0 implementations generally use a combination of social software and collaborative technologies like blogs, RSS, social bookmarking, social networking and wikis. This virtualized pharmaceutical environment will Comments, questions, suggestions on the topic are welcome. Sources: Like this: The Rise of Niche Social Networks. The world of social media might be crowded, but that’s certainly not stopping new players entering the market. The success of Pinterest and Instagram this year has shown that it’s possible for relative newcomers to make a big impact. And while Facebook may boast close to a billion users, many alternatives are aimed at a more exclusive audience. This week, it was reported that the Winklevoss twins, best known for their legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook, have invested $1 million in SumZero, a social network aimed at professional investors. Set up by their friends and fellow Harvard alumni, Divya Narendra and Aaalap Mehadevia, it currently has 7,500 members who share trading ideas.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are not the only ones taking a second dip in the social networking pool. Best of All Worlds is an invitation-only site designed to help users find events and contacts. These launches are tapping into a growing trend. Picture credit: Butch Lebo Connect: Authored by: What Does Social Business Mean from IBM And Others. The Connected Company. Got a Complaint? Tweet @askCiti. LinkedIn Study: Marketing to Mindset, Platform and Emotion in Social Media. Mindset Study by LinkedIn – Cover LinkedIn released an interesting study on Mindset Marketing this month, all about the surprising amount of emotion that drives consumer use of social media and business decisions.
If you are like me and have an interest in the psychology behind marketing and business, the findings will resonate with you. If you haven’t taken a dive into the emotional side of business and purchase decisions yet you might find some surprising new insights you can take into your social business mindset. The Myth of the Rational Consumer One of the first key takeaways is the debunking of the myth of the rational consumer decision process. Accepting the Personal and Professional Divide The LinkedIn study refers to this divide between personal and professional expectations in social media and marketing as the emotional split.
Spending Time vs Investing Time Understand Emotional Drivers Understanding these emotional drivers will help you create better content overall as well. The Social Business Log Jam. Working in the social business field has become a frustrating place - the field is littered with examples and advice that should be a distraction but instead has become the focus of the market conversation. What's worse, is that the people who everyone is looking to as the innovators (and therefore experts) don't really get it either. A recent article in The Atlantic, Why the Social Media Revolution Is About to Get a Little Less Awesome, demonstrated this to me in spades. First of all, I do believe Facebook doesn't get part of the revolution that they created for the reasons I wrote about in Facebook's Black Ice. However, to then extend that logic and say that a phenomenal customer experience is antithetical to a successful business model is, well, a bit inane in my opinion.
What is wrong with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and a raft of other social networks and the thinking behind them is that they are focused on scale, not value creation. Mining the social data stream for deeper customer insight. The Social Commerce Timeline: New Infographic Released [Download. How CIOs Can Devise a Social Business Strategy CIO. Move Over Social Media; Here Comes Social Business. 2012 Social Media Business Trends. The Rise of Social Business – Broader than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ Combined. Branding in the Age of Social Business. The First Mile. Zuckerberg: Facebook Is Going Into Search. The Question is: How? Mark Zuckerberg Talk At TechCrunch Disrupt. Give Business a Social life « CharlieGunningham.com. How the San Francisco Giants Hit a Home Run with Social Media. Social_business_benefits_large.png (PNG Image, 678×748 pixels) - Scaled (78%)
Enterprise Social Software: What Businesses Need to Do Next CIO. Enterprise Social Networks Deserve Time, Careful Consideration. How to Succeed at Social Business. Platform.jpg (JPEG Image, 471×280 pixels) Social Media to Social Business. How to Build a Social Business. Collapse Of The Wintel Monopoly. 3 Ways to Embrace Technology and Increase Business Agility. The Measurable Value of Social Business [INFOGRAPHIC] As collaboration goes social, where will it thrive? Social business and enterprise usage: The lessons. Executives Fail to Focus on Social Media Marketing Strategy. Connecting Digital Strategy with Social Business and Next-Gen Mobility. What’s Coming Up in Social Business, CoIT, Open APIs, and More. How Smart Businesses Reorganize For Social - The BrainYard.
Eight Ways to Prepare for Social Engagement At Scale. Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense. Deep flows the River between Social and Business… - BPM Leader. Adapting to the Era of Deep Engagement. Tags - social enterprise. AT&T: Moving from Social Media to Social Business on the Intranet, presented by Blair Klein. Salesforce backs down in the battle for social enterprise. Concept of social business. The Social Media Revolution 2012 Why Social Business Matters. IBM Conversations with Industry Innovators Roundtable with Irene Greif, Andy McAfee and Ted Schadler. Insights from IBM: Chris Crummey on Social Business Maturity Curve.
Insights from IBM: What is Social Business with Alistair Rennie. Insights from IBM: 5 Things About Social Business Successes with Sandy Carter. IBM Social Business Channel. IBM Social Business Leadership Video. Akwyz (Antonio Santos) Chart of the week: How industries are positioned to benefit from social technologies. Chart of the Week: How companies rate Web 2.0/Social Technologies. Why Innovations Are Arguments. What Sells CEOs on Social Networking. Social Business Is People to People Business – The Movistar Story. The business case for social intranets. Now In 600+ Schools And Open To Any Student, Lore Gives Higher Ed A Next-Gen Social Network. Time is ripe for Social Business.
Salesforce 'social enterprise takeover' protest hots up as sector heavyweights join in. Social is now integral to business strategy: report. How to transform a cause-driven organisation into a social business. Breakdown: Social Media Workflow, Process, Triage. Expertise – Social Business Planning. The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies | McKinsey Global Institute | Technology & Innovation. The $1.3 Trillion Price Of Not Tweeting At Work. The Rules of Social Media. The history of social media; how did we get here? (info graphic) Social Business – *The* Ecosystem. Social Business: Where It's Been & Where It's Going.