Social Media - Generation II: The Social Business Archetype

Something immediately pops into your mind when you hear the term “social media.

But your definition might differ from that of your boss, or your neighbor, or Seth Godin. The fact is that social media is far more nuanced than most people realize. This topic is near and dear to my heart, and I’ve been preaching about it for the last year – "social business."

Now it’s time to bring it all together. <cue music>

Social Media - Generation II: The Social Business Archetype

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Most people consider social media to be the handful of channels they hear about in the mainstream media. Because of massive adoption or socially relevant trends, marketers and business people "feel" that those top-tier touch points are important because everyone else is doing it.

This is the wrong reason to adopt a social business model.

However even a misguided social model is a step in the right direction. With the experience and momentum garnered from managing a company Facebook page and Twitter account, the strategy begins to evolve. Savvy businesses take what they learn from social media and implement it across the board to other marketing channels. They apply a social meter to the effectiveness of almost all processes to determine if they are optimized. 

All this means we're on the cusp of Social Media 2.0. Moving to Gen. 2 means the proverbial nuts drop and people finally understand it’s about more than numbers on the evening news or something your hip friends do. It's a discipline that's worthy of staffing and focus.

Therefore I intend to bring you up to speed with what will be the hot topics in social media over the next few years:

SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGING

This should come as no great surprise. You're probably doing it now in some context. But are you doing right?

Well that depends on your goals and whatever measurement you've assigned to yourself or your team. Typically it's more or less about people still using the medium for "push" messaging, notifications, basic PR, and some semblance of conversational implementation. Nevertheless, I maintain (at least up until the date of this post) that if your objective here is to increase sales – you will not get the ROI claimed by the pundits.

“NATURAL” SOCIAL CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT

People frequently confuse conversation and messaging. Think of messaging as someone telling you they're open for business or greeting a customer with, "How can I help you?" Whereas natural engagement is the ensuing conversation launched from the first message.

I joke in my speaking engagements that you'd never scream "BUY NOW! TWO FOR ONE! EVERYTHING MUST GO!" at someone who walks into your store. You would simply introduce yourself and find out how you can help them. Adopt that same approach with social.

For marketers you would construct campaigns around the design, development, deployment & optimization (DDDO) in creating messaging to thereby seed conversational engagment. Don't confuse the two, they're very different.

SOCIAL PRODUCT & EDUCATION

Social product and education means using the channels at your disposal to interact with and educate the consumer. Jason Eng runs Sony Pro USA's social channels, and he uses a mixture of education and conversation about the massive product mix Sony has in its arsenal of toys. They advocate feedback and engage in discussions while continually showing products in use.

The byproduct of this is passionate feedback and discussion from Sony Pro’s growing audience base. The company understands that while their product set is complex, especially to a novice user, they can still create a massive brand impression by simply being approachable and responsive.

"At Sony Professional, we're trying to engage our users as much as we can so that we can take their feedback and use that to deliver products that they want. We're also trying our best to educate our fans and anyone interested in Sony about all of the quality products and solutions that we have to offer. Engaging in conversations through social media avenues helps us to accomplish this goal." ~ Jason Eng – Marketing Specialist & Social Media for @SonyProUSA

SOCIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

Anyone who says they're only concerned about the customer who picks up the phone and calls will be left in the dust as social customer service hits its stride. From the customer’s perspective, a Tweet, post, upload, rating or comment is the current equivalent of what calling customer service was just a few years ago. They expect to get your attention by expressing their opinion through a wide variety of channels.

Your customer also has a trusting base of friends, fans and followers awaiting your response. That extended group’s trust in your product, brand or service is going to be affected regardless of whether or not they are an existing customer. If Sears screws over my best friend and doesn’t fix the problem – it’s like the same thing happened to you! 

SOCIAL COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

Now that you've created your posse, keeping the members happy is the next step. I've written a number of posts about community management, but what you need to understand is that you've won the trust of these followers – at least temporarily.

Treat that loyalty and conversation as sacred. The honeymoon is over, and you must keep people engaged through myriad methods. It's important to treat your community like an extended family. And don’t overlook their power when it comes to things like crisis management. They often will control an issue independent of your intervention due simply to their feeling of belonging and ownership.

SOCIAL TRAINING, EDUCATION AND ENCULTURATION

A mature approach to social media should include serving your internal customers as well. Things like group education and enculturation can be more easily distributed, managed and incentivized using preexisting tools. HR and senior management can use groups and private, community-based tools to communicate in a way more conducive to conversation, and thereby encourage feedback from employees. 

There is a growing understanding that the collective thought power of your group is more than the sum of its parts. The old-fashioned "suggestion box" has come a long way. But you have to harness that power, and then use the knowledge to revise your legacy processes.

Examples:

• Put all your SOPs and employee documentation in a socially accessible location.
• Continually advocate staff participation in company decisions, surveys, questionnaires and internal focus groups.
• When developing customer-service initiatives, actively perform due diligence from within.

"Trainers should believe the use of social media as an extension of the classroom, whether face-to-face or eLearning (synchronous or asynchronous), should be considered priority one for those who are training multi-generational learners.  Millennials are a generation who will seek information quickly and will expect that it is easy to find. Furthermore for businesses seeking it for internal training, the use of portals for forms, documents, online paystubs, etc. are becoming commonplace for HR departments." ~ Shauna Vaughan - Curriculum Quality & Instructional Systems Design Manager - The Institute of Internal Auditors

BRAND PROTECTION & CRISIS MANAGEMENT

I've spoken repeatedly on creating a dome of brand protection simply by listening to your audience. Most businesses do this too passively and still view the practice as a tedious time-sink – which it is. But the rewards that come from immediately engaging your consumer are second to none in the real-time world. Integrated agencies, and companies staffing social efforts, need to remember that nothing is more important than listening to the pulse of conversation and sentiment toward the brand.

If the above is done properly, than a crisis is often seen as an opportunity to make impressive waves over your competition by quickly servicing the issue in a way your community shouldn't perceive as firefighting. No matter how bad a situation looks on your screen, it will get worse if you let the digital bacteria fester. Treat it immediately with a defined crisis management SOP and well-trained contact points.  

SOCIAL CUSTOMER RETENTION

The next generation of customer retention will look far beyond the simple “pre, during and post” customer-service surveys. Successful models will include a continually passive conversation steeped in an attitude of, "what can we do better?"

Businesses presume they have to continually feed the customer base with a backhoe in order to show up on their radar. But if marketers continually use social touch points effectively and truly "act" on the conversation, customers will reward them with undying loyalty.

<tangent> SIDE NOTE: Nothing tickles me more than corporations that pay focus groups to get a “real” opinion about their product or service. Yet they seem reluctant to tie into the active social conversation that offers both positive and negative feedback. I will never pay for another focus group again. Not when I can create a private “group think” environment and randomly invite people into a forum where their voices are heard. </tangent> 

FUTURE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

When you can harness the power of your actual customer/user/fan base (your "F3" - friends, fans and followers), you have an incredible opportunity to develop future products and applications in a far more efficient way then you have before. Surveys can help you better understand the mindset of your current customers. Then seek out the best-in-class friends, fans and followers to create micro think-tanks for various initiatives.

Here's where it breaks for people. Someone inevitably asks, "Would they really want to help us and not get paid?"

This statement is as old as, "Why would anyone who isn’t a paid writer want to post a blog?" The point is simply that if you have an active community, it's your duty to harness it. Forecasting, prototyping and accessing objectives are things many smart companies do via social media. Are you one of those companies?

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

Don't ignore the countless tools at your disposal to aggregate all the social data we're talking about within this post. There are so many ways to tap into your audience and monitor your competitors. Never before have we had the ability to make such strategic marketing decisions with real-world data. Sadly, most of this data still goes unused while many of our peers continue making marketing assumptions using ineffective techniques from the past.

The world is changing, and the future of all marketing will be bound within the strategic directives created throughout the life of any given campaign. It's not enough anymore to simply see a positive return at the end, when a campaign (if progressively optimized with social intelligence) could have produced an exceptionally higher ROI.

"…basically, what's happening in social media is real-time focus groups and media planning. The data that is being generated by consumers, is moving at a pace that companies, agencies, and even technology can't keep up with. However, once platforms are in place, and companies/agencies are willing to throw out the old models, we should be able to automate much of our advertising to be extremely well targeted and relevant. Well, at least for all the non-emotional advertising." ~ Iain Lanivich - Group Creative Director, Interactive at Campbell-Ewald

BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST

This post was written as a way for me to spotlight what I see coming at this given moment. For me, social business is already here – it’s just not firing on all cylinders. Businesses are not taking all the potential parts of the giant social robot and putting them together correctly.

How do I define “correct?”

It's ever-changing. Today's social SOP is tomorrow's punchline (640K ought to be enough for anybody! ~ Bill Gates ) at Starbucks when we joke about, "Can you believe we even did that?" But that's what makes this interactive, real – and really valuable.

Businesses of the world, hear me: Your competitive edge is ready and waiting. It’s time for you to execute! Give me your take on Social Media 2.0!

Social Duels and the Guide to Fighting with Etiquette

Or: How I Learned to Stop Being a Victim and Love the Battle 

Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the University of Central Florida's COMM DAY, which is a personal-development event for students transitioning into the real world. I was a little concerned that they just wanted me for the “after” example in a before-and-after comparison, but it turned out the whole thing was legit. The students from UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication were a fantastic audience, and even a slightly older dog like me learned a few things.

UCF graduate Heissam “I’m In” Jebailey was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and shared many core truths about becoming successful. And I immediately connected with the incomparable Luke Sullivan, who gave an inspiring keynote speech.

Then there was the beautiful moment when graduating student Karen Acevedo approached me and posed a great question: “You talk a lot about being cordial with brands,” she said. “But what if I want to debate or call out a company for something I'm displeased with?" 

A social duel? A debate? A fight?

Yup – I get the point here. I talk a great game about how it's best to "make nice" and keep an even keel in your social graph. But the side-effect can be that you end up living in a squeaky-clean walled garden that might unfortunately position you as a bit of a spineless kiss-ass.

OK! So you want to start a riot?

Are you sure you want to unleash me? Unleash me ... LOL.

Then let's do this!

Step one: First research your opinion (AKA: bitch, rant, issue, criticism, WHATEVER!) to find out if it's already being addressed in an online forum, and if "they" are doing anything about it. Nothing's worse that showing up late to the party and trying to be cool by piggybacking the conversation.

Step two: If there's no pre-existing social conversation about the issue, or the issue is specific to you (there's a dead roach on my bed and the sheets are not made @hotelnamehere), then you can move forward with said issue.

Step three: Be sure when "Tweeting it up" or posting to your chosen social touch point, that you do so with enough information for “them” to pursue a resolution. If you say "HILTON CAN SUCK MY RUMP!" – then you don’t leave much room for Hilton to react. Therefore, you will be better served with a tweet such as [@hotelname just go to my room #175 at your Orlando branch (truncated web link to property) to find a dead roach and unmade bed – please resolve]

Step four: Give them time to resolve. In the case of a dead roach, I wouldn’t wait at all to get another room. But you owe them some amount of time to make it right. The more complex your issue, the more time it could require. But THAT BEING SAID: If they have not pinged you back within 24 hours of your post, they lack [real] customer service and you can move on to ...

Step five: Begin by writing an intelligent, thoughtful, well-researched post about your situation or position. Outline your issue, and explain that there was no contact or resolution after a reasonable amount of time. Include photos or videos if they are relevant, and all pertinent details. Then publish the post and link to it from all your usual touch points. Refer to the professionalism outlined in step three, and maintain it throughout the process.

Step six: Let the stew simmer. Await feedback.

Ideally by this point the wheels are turning, someone is getting back to you and all is hunky-dory. If not, you may continue to post on the topic no more than once a day to "update" your friends, fans and followers. If you continue to post in a civil tone and maintain your professional decorum while waiting for a response, you will get more buy-in from your social collective as they follow your lead and turn against the brand.

Step seven – best-case: Issue resolution. This is the part we all forget about and brands pay for dearly. If they fix the problem, they deserve public recognition for it. You need to go back and write about what they did to scratch your itch. If the company went above and beyond for you, then make it clear to your friends, fans and followers that your brand loyalty is intact. It's not enough for you to simply get your way, even if it was their fault. You must be humble enough to show great customer service – that's just as much your job as it is theirs.

Step seven – worst-case: Issue never comes to resolution. You have to walk away at some point regardless. It's a waste of time for you to keep going on about one bad experience. Think of your time as money, how much are you willing to spend before it's simply a waste of your effort? Typically, I post publicly that I'm no longer persuing the situation, and thereby am no longer going to purchase, use, buy, etc. said "thing." 

Start professionally and end professionally, and you will be bulletproof.

It's safe to say that anyone who initiates conflict should do it with the intention of finding a resolution. This is important because anything south of that reeks of hostility and misplaced spite. I personally have no room in my heart for that kind of behavior. I want my issues to be FIXED, not simply heard.

That said, the next and MOST important point I can make is that you must understand the best outcome from this type of engagement is the byproduct of truth that should emerge from the debate. You need to be human enough to learn from the process. And if it doesn’t work out in your favor, you must graciously accept defeat. Then return to your social forums and wrap up the saga by writing about the education you received in the process.

Paula Berg, former head of social for Southwest Airlines said their M.O. was to take "real criticism" and post it publicly in a PDF after it was resolved. The document included things said by both sides, along with an outline of what Southwest learned and what the airline intended to change going forward. This, ladies and gentlemen is crisis management at its finest.

We can wrap this up by taking a page out of the Eminem playbook from his final rap battle in the movie “8 Mile:” The best solution is to neutralize your opponent’s ability to attack by going to the core truth of the situation and exposing it before it becomes a problem.

The ideal way to diffuse an issue is to turn it into a non-issue. So how do you resolve issues with social media? Let me hear you!

When It's Best To Socially Expand Your Brand

From time to time I look at a client’s audience and realize it is far too broad for just one social channel. This often happens with travel, destinations, trending products and seasonal variances that can attract a broad demographic.

Frequently, the solution is to pursue a multi-channel strategy. But much like the AMC Gremlin or a “Saved by the Bell” reunion, brand fragmentation typically has a negative connotation. Mention the term, and an army of marketing hipsters will unleash their commentary about "extraneous silos" and "over-compartmentalization.”

Let’s say you’re hosting a party in one room for two different sets of friends. You plan on keeping your “cheese platter and wine” friends on one side of the room, and your “chicken finger and craft beer” friends on the other side. As you spend the evening running from one side to the other, you have to continually re-think your conversation topics and brand pillars.

You might also want to consider an antacid before going to bed.

A similar problem happens in social media when you try to connect with disparate audiences through a single channel. You publish a lot of half-assed communication that never truly engages either side. Then you end up at the bar after work, crying into your craft beer and wondering why no one recognizes your genius.

Off the top of my head, here are a handful of the incredibly varied audiences you might speak to: 

• Lesbian and gay
• The elderly
• Pet owners
• Children
• Extreme sports
• Tweens and teens
• Business travelers
• Luxury travelers
• Time-sensitive, trend-based products, events or seasonal directives

If you can get all these cats in the same bag and speak cohesively, you're either a GOD or completely fooling yourself into drinking far too much of your own Kool-Aid. 

You might remember that we recently talked about how social channels can be like the bar scene. Each of the segments listed above has its own unique scene, content and social structure. As you construct a RICH social graph for your potential audiences, it's important to create the best environment to nurture that conversation. And you can easily create a unique Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest Board, YouTube channel or Google+ page to speak to each collective.

I'll be the first one to tell you that if you can service all your audience with one location  – you’re golden. But the fact is that many large brands risk losing part of the conversation by trying to get everyone to like one another. 

When you launch your multi-channel strategy, I recommend introducing the concept slowly (or launch with your audience defined), and with a great deal of buy-in from your existing community. Make it special. Invite people with similar interests to participate in more appropriate conversations based on their likes and interests.

Seems fair, right?

What you don't want is to simultaneously deploy a dozen channels that no one uses or understands. OR WORSE – overload yourself with too much conversation (as a community manager) that you cannot handle.

Therefore, you should plan for both scenarios during an expansion rollout. And don't give up on a channel just because it doesn't turn into gold within the first 24 hours. Remember how long it took for people to simply adopt your social messaging within your current graph. As you grow, it will take time AND unique content in each new channel.

Good luck! I can’t wait to hear about your successes with multi-channel social. And I’m also waiting for my invitation to your party. Don’t worry about me, because I’ll be comfortable on either side of the room.

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