5 Steps for Success in Social Media – Parts 3, 4 & 5
Posted by @nheaney in Point Of View, Social media on August 27th, 2009
I am sure at this stage all the hard work to Research how your company is perceived has been done and you now have a gleaming set of goals and objectives to help you measure success. You can no longer sit back, this is your call to action.
3 – Engage
This is the fun part and also the scary part. You now need to start to engage with your customers, your influencer’s and advocates. We will assume that you have all the necessary tools installed and can not only listen to what people are saying but that you also have the ability to talk. This is the stage when you will most likely have to spend some money but it does not have to be huge. It is all about balance and understanding what you are trying to achieve.
You will also need to think about training. training for who? Training for you, your staff, your employees, those who on a day-to-day basis have the chance to interact with your customers and those who buy your products or services. You should think about establishing some simple ground rules and make it easy for people to find the help and support they need.
One important thing to remember when it comes to engaging is that it is as much (if not more) about listening as it is talking. I still use fondly a phrase that was once use on me when I was talking to a member of my team “Two ears, one mouth”.
4 – Contribute
Now that you know your customers, you have listened to them and started to build a relationship with them, it is time to give back. Start to be part of the conversation. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is simply a case of getting a TweetDeck account and replying to everyone who ever posts a message referencing you or your products, it is about more than this.
You need to understand why and why people are talking, engaging with them will give you important insights as to there needs and what your products and services mean to them on an individual basis. You should learn from this and start to give back. In its simplest form you can do this by creating a blog where you as the expert, the producer or the source can share important and valuable insights. You can also consider getting your valued and vocal customers to do the talking. Give them a platform and allow them to create content for you. Remember if you develop the platform then you still control the flood gates.
As you contribute you need to think about how you do it. You may be required to have a company branded voice, as associated by clearly linked to the company voice and in some cases a purely individual and not clearly associated voice. All roles have a part to play with the first two being much more structured and organised than the last. As you continue to contribute so will your community and hopeful your reputation and loyalty and assuming that behind all this you have a company to operate, I think it is a safe bet to expect your sales to increase as well.
One company who I think does a great job of contributing is Zappos. They know how to engage with their customers and provide multiple ways of doing this. At the same time they listen and pride themselves on excellent customer service which is a proven recipe for success and their customer base keeps growing.
5 – Evolve
I see this as a very important step and one that all too often gets over looked and forgotten about. it is no longer good enough to build something, grow a fan base, have people contribute then walk away and assume that you are done. it is important to keep up the good work, continue to add, continue to build new ways of engaging and contributing and be part of the conversation.
you need to keep an eye on the trends and be ready to react when the time is right. To do this will require smart decision to be made during the very early stages of your journey as you will need to develop your solution on a platform that can also be flexible and evolve. of course i am somewhat biased as I believe open source is the only way to achieve this.
So the 5 Steps for success are:
1. Research and Analysis
2. Define your strategy and set goals
3. Engage
4. Contribute
5. Evolve
And as one final and parting thought, maybe this will help
- Social media is about having a conversation, this mean that you talk and do not shout.
- You need to participate, be active and be responsive
- You need to have an identity, be real, be personal
- You need to encourage participation, be welcoming, be supportive
- You need to break down the barriers, be open.
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5 Steps for Success in Social Media – Part 2
Posted by @nheaney in Point Of View, Social media on August 25th, 2009
In the first blog post of this five part series, I shared my views on the need to conduct valuable research and analysis before blindly launching into the world of social media. I am a big believer in thinking big, starting small and moving fast but even still you need to conduct some basic groundwork just to make sure you are moving in the right direction.
Assuming that you have done this, we will now discuss step 2.
2 – Define your Strategy and Set Goals
Measuring Success- courtsey of Jeremiah Owyang, Flickr
So why bother doing this many of you will ask. The reason is simple, unless you are trying to achieve success for recreational purposes then behind all this technology and internet advancement, you still have a business to run. As such, you need to have something defined that you can use as the church barometer, gauge, finish line or yard stick against which you can measure your success.
Based on the outcome of your research in Step 1, you need to think about how you can define a series of clear targets that makes sense for you, your company or your product. If the core of your business is selling a product and you have decided that referrals are worth their weight in gold (which they are), then start by taking some baby steps and perhaps instead of jumping to set a number you intend to reach, think first about getting yourself involved inthe conversation, community, forum or group in which those who can bring referral value to your business are spending there time. In other words try not to be over ambitious when you first set your targets. All too often important and some might say radical initiatives get canned because those who hold the purse strings or the bean counters are looking for measurement that will take longer to happen and gets stifled before the idea has had a chance to bed in and mature.
Remember, the social landscape is changing at a pace that makes it difficult at times to keep up. This does not mean give up but means that you need to be realistic about what you can achieve and build yourself a solution based on a platform that is flexible to this change. If you over engineer the solutions and over complicate the measurement, then the odds are that you will not be successful.
If you are still not sure about the role social media has to play in your organisation, then maybe these stats and those that will follow in the remaining posts might enlighten you.
3 out of every 4 Americans use some form of Social Technology
- Forrester, The Growth of Social technology Adoptions, 2008 -If Facebook were a country, it would be the 8th most populated country in the world
- Mark Zukerberg, Jan 2009 -If facebook were a country, it would be the 4th most populated country in the world
- July 2009 -Related articles by Zemanta
- Facebook Chronicles: Who’s Talking About You? (businesspundit.com)
- The 5 Eras of the Social Web (marketing.blogtanker.com)
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5 Steps for Success in Social Media – Part 1
Posted by @nheaney in Point Of View, Social media on August 24th, 2009
Getting started in social media should be easy. The cost of entry is relatively low yet the fact that there are so many tools and techniques being labelled with the buzz words we all seek to emulate, it is no wonder that many companies struggle with getting started. After much reading, thinking and listening, below represents what I see as the Five Simple Steps for Social Media Success. In this post, I will share my thoughts on the first of these 5 steps and then bring it all together in a final summary.
1 – Research and Analysis
An important thing to remember is that you, or your company, or your brand has its own identity so don’t make the mistake of copying what you see around you and think that you can dust of your hands and be done. it is fine to draw inspiration and look at the competition but copying exactly what others are doing will only make you a replica.
You need to start by understanding where you fit in the eco-system we call the web. to do this, you should speak to those you interact and sell with and start to build an understand of how other perceive you and from their figure out what your place is and how you should fit in and belong.
Get to know your audience better. As an entry point there is almost no cost to achieve this level of status and maturity. Ways of achieving this including getting a Twitter account and then using tools like TweetDeck to search for the key words that represent you. be careful, on first inspection you may be disappointe3d by what is being said, but at the same time be strong and do something about it. You are now able to be part of the conversation.
Figure out the following; Influencers, key contributors, advocates and supports. you may be surprised as to who these people are but they do exist and they can be used to strengthen and promote your presence online. I was talking recently to a Sales person from Denman Brush who told be an incredible tale of a little old lady in Australia who immigrated there in her youth with nothing more than her Denman hair brush and after 80 years of use, contacted Denman for a new one as the rubber handle had finally worn. Some people may look at this and get worried about the cost to replace something sold with a life time warranty. Me, I think it is a story that should be broadcast. Just think what your sales figures would look like if everyone was as passionate about your product as this lady was.
Finally look to see if special interest or fans groups already exist and if so then think about how you can use them. People have always congregated around things that interest them and today’s society is no different. Sure the meeting point may be some virtual world, a blog, a Facebook group, a LinkedIn group but the types of people and there need to collaborate is still the same. if you take the time to know what groups exist and who the members are than you can contribute to their conversation and in doing so have them act as a virtual ambassador.
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Social IT not just a toy
Posted by @nheaney in Open Source, Point Of View, Social media on June 18th, 2009
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Like it or not, as I said in a previous post social media is changing the way we will design, develop and interact with IT systems for ever. For those brave who get it, they are embracing this change early and already reaping the rewards. The problem is that for too many they do not get it or do not know how to do it and as a result they remain in the dark ages (ok a little dramatic but you get my point)
Business that will succeed will be those who change to horizontal business models and use their core skills to help advise and guide clients. This applies to all industry sectors. In an age of mass production and competition, those in developed markets will benefit from shifting what might have been seen as a core function in manufacturing to their core function being advice those who have a need for something to be manufactured, guide them, teach them, advise them and help them get the most of the product. Social media will help companies make this transformation, why it give you the power to listen, collaborate, let those you service tell you what they need and importantly inform you in ways you have not been informed before.
I believe the hurdles for embracing this change are that in the most part, company boards who do not know what IT is anymore. Before Social IT, IT was about giving business the solutions to increase productivity, automate a process, present information and basically give access to systems. This still holds true and is unlikely to change but it now needs to be joined with Social IT which is harder to pin down and therefore embrace. Communities have always been at the heart of society and now they have well and truly made a name for themselves on the IT landscape. Before Social IT products would sell based on reviews exchanged through conversation in the physical world, over coffee, with friends at the weekend. Today reviews are exchanged digitally and there is no end to who can comments and who can recommend. The communities we once spent our time in are no longer restricted by physically space as the digital age has broken these barriers. We now have friends who we now by their short form handle or an avatar.
The FT recently talked about the US car industry and how it might have been saved if those running these organisations had embraced Social IT. I am not saying for one minute that it would have been the magic pill but how might things have played out had they been listening to people ask for smaller, more efficient and cheaper cars. Would they have stopped developing the huge gas guzzlers in response to this sea of change?
Another great example of the power of Social Media and therefore Social IT is that of the most powerful person on earth, Barrak Obama. President Obama realised early on in his campaign that in order to reach the hearts and minds of those with a valuable vote in the presidential election race, he needed to take his message to them rather than find a way of having them come to where he was giving his message. He needed to listen to what people were saying, understood the mood of the people and what they wanted from a President. I have no doubt that having the courage to adopt the use of Social IT had a part to play in his successful campaign to be president.
The secret to success is communities. If you take the time to understand them, give them a voice, learn to listen then you will be tapping into an unending resource pool of information that can help you be successful. Today’s technical landscape is changing at a pace we have never seen before and there are no signs of this slowing. Applications are evolving fast and the cost to entry can be low especially when Open Source is considered. The answer is to get help from those who know how to help organisations make the change, start with something small and then test with your community.
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Social Media in the Workplace
Posted by @nheaney in Point Of View, Return On Investment, Social media, Tocal Cost of Ownership, eCommerce, twitter on June 9th, 2009
Hot on the heels of a very interesting conference organised by Sixdegrees to discuss Corporate Social Networking I am inspired to share some of the discussions points with my own personal twist.
I wanted to start by sharing the behavioural change the majority of web users demonstrate when it comes to searching online. We no longer talk (in the most part) about searching, we say things like, “did you Google it” or “try a Google search”. The point is that when something new comes along and it is good we adopt it. Then when it has a strong following business seems to adopt it as it is now at a point when they feel it is mature and something worth doing.
The same happened with the internet and the same thing is happening today with social media be it corporate or personal networks, it is here, it is established and it is not going away.
With the advancements in today’s technologies and the availability of advice and help from partners who understand what it takes to implement, there really is no excuse for any company to ignore what is happening. The cost of entry is low, the risk is low but the Risk Of Ignorance is high.
Traditional business and decision making is based on understanding the business case and therefore the return you will get as a result. Unfortunately these sorts of facts and figures are not yet available when it comes to embracing social media. I think a more interesting way to look at is it as I have said above, what is the risk of ignorance?
Recently Apple announced the release of the new iPhone much to the joy of their merry band of followers and supporters. In the UK the mobile provider O2 is being hammered by those with contracts about the lack of support they will receive to upgrade to the new device (Twitter #O2fail). This is being talked about on most of the social networks and I wonder if they are listening? What impact is this having on their brand? What risk does this pose to Apple. Therefore, what is the risk of Ignorance?
At yesterday’s #CSNF event in the RIBA, London, we heard from a number of companies who inspired me with the approach they have taken to embrace social media. Adidas and AXA are two that stood out for me. Both of these companies have realised that the way their employees think and behave outside of work has changed and as a result of this and many other factors in life, the way they expect to be treated in work, their working environment and all that goes with it must also change if they are to remain engaged, passionate and productive. Both these companies have embraced this. They have made the change taken what is good and productive about social media into the work place and for both, the cost and time and effort to make this change has been relatively low. I am sure they will now start to measure the successes of their ventures and I hope that soon we will have some hard facts to be able to share with those who still crave and need to know “what is my ROI”.
Now is the time for change, not tomorrow. The fact that we are in a Credit Crunch is in my opinion a good time for change. Those who embrace social media will reap the reward when people, the lifeblood of our economy, start to spend again. Those who have enabled their business to listen engage and start a dialogue with people will find a new breed of loyal followers and friends. They will rejoice in the referrals, recommendations and social power of a community to sell, promote and talk about their products and services. The companies who develop such tools and techniques will have an engaged, passionate and interested workforce who will be happy with their working environment all the ingredients necessary to build a productive, motivated and driven workforce. Can you imagine a job today where you are told you will not have access to the internet? If you see this as a threat or a risk or an opportunity for people to slack off then ask yourself, why is it that your employees are so unhappy that they are looking for such a release? Companies should be looking at networked productivity and not just personal productivity – social tools can help with this. Giving people access to networks and communities both internal an external can help to increase your ambient awareness. This in turn may help you find answers or solutions quicker or help you make better and more informed decisions.
So how do you get started, it’s simple, Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast, Keep Improving.
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Twitter Weekly Updates
- #Optaros gets a Webby Award for their work on the Washington Times – http://bit.ly/SGQCY #
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Will Cloud Computing change how we work?
Posted by @nheaney in Assembled Web, Open Source, Point Of View on March 2nd, 2009
I recently read a blog posting by Charlie Wood which points out that despite the big push by companies such as SalesForce.com and Google to encourage people and clients to adopt a Cloud based approach to IT solutions they still insist that their employees (for the most part) work in the corporate premises.
The point here is that the way we work, the way we interact, the way we shop is all changing based on one underlying fact and that is that the web as a communication mechanism is changing our lives. If this is the case and assuming everyone moves to the cloud then why not allow people to work from home. As long as the work gets done then what are we loosing. We used to make a case that it is only by working in an office that we can share an communicate as well as collaborate. I make the argument that we communicate an collaborate better when we are remote as it forces us to making use of technology which quite frankly is better.
Maybe the time has come to finally ditch the suit (or at least one of them), dust off the old desk in the attic, put the office in the city up To-Let and start working from home.
BTW, I am also writing this using ScribeFire, my latest addition to ease blogging.
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Social Commerce
Posted by @nheaney in Assembled Web, eCommerce on March 2nd, 2009
Last week I attend the first part of a workshop in London hosted by IMRG to focus on driving sales through the use of Social Commerce (checkout their website for further details). The event was very well attended with a number of excellent guest speakers. Below are my observations of what I see as the key take aways and areas for business to consider with respect to this topic. Details of the event and the speakers can be found at the bottom.
Social Commerce is commerce or eCommerce in which users are actively encouraged to participate in the shopping experience and contribute thoughts, comments and reviews. It also builds on the natural social nature we exhibit in our daily lives by encouraging the sharing of ideas and importantly what we like and do not like in terms of products and services we may be in the process of buying.
It also helps companies to market, conduct user research, and try new ideas make smarter purchasing decisions. With this in mind, keys aspects to consider and ponder when developing an eCommerce strategy should include:
- Building search and selection criteria for your online store based on content defined by your customer base Provide the ability to filter results on customer reviews. This has been shown to drive higher conversion and larger order sizes
- Allowing customer a way of seeing what is the “Best” choice based on real user reviews and feedback generally leads to higher conversion and sales compared to the promotion of the latest “hot” deal as seen through the eyes of the seller
Engaging directly with your customers even if the feedback to start off is bad will create content, drive traffic and lead to higher value - Remember, you cannot own what people say about you or your brand and products but you can own the space in which this happens. So, provide people with a voice, go to where they people are and encourage the conversation
- Consider other ways to make your presence aware to customer. Over the past year or so, traffic has shifted heavily to social networks. Facebook at its peak over the Christmas period last year was the source for 1 in every 20 website visits in the UK
- Be prepared to develop small, collect feedback from your users and react to this feedback. Google is a great example of a company who constantly conduct new layout changes on select users and then watch and record their behaviour. Better participation in their case will result in a change.
- People are driven by praise. So allowing your customer to have a voice on your website and recognising them for their contributions and feedback will have a viral effect and drive others inner competitive to contribute and ultimately purchase more.
- Young people are the next wave of consumer for tomorrow’s society and these people are spending a much bigger amount of time online than the keys shopper of today. They also spend the majority of their online time in some form of Social Networking site. As such, retailers need to be prepared to building a shopping experience that will appeal to these types of user, but build it today.
In summary, they way we shop is changing. The web is providing us with an exciting platform to take the social aspect of how we shop in the physical sense in to cyber space. The change has already happened and now is the time to make a move in order to avoid the risk of getting left behind. For help and advice on getting started, why not start with the Optaros Social Commerce Planning guide.
Now, just a few statistics to drive the message home.
- Approximately 75% of active Internet users in Europe are involved in some form of social network
- 67% of teenagers spend the majority of their time online visiting Social Networks.
- A Facebook group mourning the loss of Woolworths had signed up over 18,000 members in just a few weeks and now stands at over 35,000 members
- A year after launching an online community for parents, Mother Care has seen members of Gurgle reach 70,000 receiving over 500,000 visits a month. It has now reached break even.
Statistics provided by IMRG and Hitwise
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What is your Twitter value
Posted by @nheaney in Announcement, Assembled Web on February 24th, 2009
This is the second time I have posted this article but now it is in its new home and I have updated the values of those I first reported on, ah no change, hmmm.
So I don’t exactly know the details of how this is calculated but the claims of it using a PhD algorithm certainly makes it sound interesting. Many people and businesses in the UK and across the globe are on Twitter. Some people may say it is a sign of the times, the increase in popularity of the digital revolution. What ever it is, there is no escaping it’s popularity and it is set to grow for some time yet. Here in the UK having celebrities such as Stephen Fry use, promote and regularly talk about and use Twitter will only aid its growth (I hope he is on some sort of commission). To give you an idea of some of the expected value associated with some of the more popular Twitter profiles I have shown their valuation below. For more information or to simply check out your own ranking, go to TweetValue
Popular Twitter profile Values:
Stephen Fry – $5552, huge! (stephenfry)
Lily Allen – $323 (lilyroseallen)
BBC Click – $2708 (bbcclick)
Barack Obama – $41,150 (barackobama)
Gordon Brown – $392, hmm doesn’t say much. It isn’t even an official profile (gordon_brown)
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IT Focus for 2009
Posted by @nheaney in Open Source, Point Of View on February 24th, 2009
So what is the focus for 2009 and in what areas do we stand a chance of doing some business. After much reading including the popular but perhaps not so accurate analysts, I like how Michael Bullock puts it on CIO.com. Here is his view of the top 5 and I am glad to see that sitting firmly at number 2 is a move from expensive proprietary software and a move to more Open Source.
1. Companies will implement cost cutting measures in 2009 that will provide fast payback and that are transparent to IT operations – with significant gains coming from facilities optimization.
Facilities may be one area but being selfish and focused on IT there are many more ways to cut costs. While this may mean some spend up front I am sure someone out there can be quoted for saying you don’t get anything for nothing!
2. Open source enterprise software will continue to displace expensive royalty-based and seat license-based services.
As it should be. We now live in a world where the development of software is taken seriously by those with a passion for engineering and the desire to make it more readily available to the masses. It is not wrong that they think of ways to make money from this, we do live in an entrepreneurial world. Just as long as they remain true to the ethos
3. There will be a well publicized cloud computing disaster in 2009 – probably linked to security, reliability or service restoration delays.
Agree with the above but this will not be a bad thing. Disasters happen every day and when it is something that is new or challenging, it gets publicised. Let’s not have the inevitable cause a good thing to die.
4. Facing slumping sales, many technology suppliers will try to increase revenue by raising their service fees and trying to force their clients to upgrade to new hardware and software.
I sure hope they continue to try and do this as coupled with point 1 i hope it will turn more people to consider point 2.
5. Companies that have been investing heavily in Gartner “Top 10″ recommendations will put many of those projects on hold in the face of budget cuts and business pressure for a faster
What can I say!
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