This chart shows Facebook’s growth in new users from 2004 to 2010 based on data provided by Facebook.com.  I was looking all over the internet for this chart and couldn’t find one.  I figured I’d just create one and share it so that other people wouldn’t have to go through the search that I did.

Here’s the data from Facebook if you want to do your own thing

The classic “Marketing Mix” created in 1953 by Neil Borden and taught in business schools around the world needs to be officially updated.  Originally consisting of Product, Placement, Promotion, and Price, it outlined the fundamental issues a company should consider when developing a marketing strategy.

PEOPLE - The 5th P in the Marketing Mix

PEOPLE – The 5th P in the Marketing Mix

The social web is now so critical for companies that it’s time to update marketing textbooks, strategies, and approaches.  PEOPLE, and the way the share opinions, recommendations, and personal stories are critical to a company’s success.

The importance of PEOPLE is obvious to most readers of this blog…so why the post?  By looking at how companies treat the other 4 Ps, we can make recommendations on how to treat PEOPLE as the 5th P.

Businesses take action with the other 4 Ps by staffing an organization, investing money, & partnering with other companies.

STAFFING

Product, promotion, pricing, and placement all have large roles in an organization. Entire org charts are filled with PRODUCT Managers, PRICING Analysts,  PLACEMENT Specialists, and PROMOTION experts.  Now it’s time to add Social Media to the organization chart.

Hiring staff focused on the PEOPLE aspect of your marketing plan signals does the following:

• Signals to the organization that PEOPLE are a key piece of your marketing strategy
• Makes the responsibility of engaging the consumer a full time job rather than a side project of an existing role
• Holds someone accountable for executing the strategy and measuring the results

INVESTING

Companies spend millions of dollars on PRODUCT development through R&D. Additionally, major capital investments in distribution (PLACEMENT) technology help get the product where consumers can actually buy it.  Oh and then there’s PROMOTION…you see how much a Super Bowl ad costs nowadays?

Making an investment on the PEOPLE aspect of your marketing plan does the following:

• Improves a company’s ability to execute quickly and effectively on strategy
• Drives results by forcing actions to tie back to Return on Investment
• Signals to the organization that a PEOPLE aspect of a marketing plan deserves as much attention as other functions and projects

PARTNERING

Advertising agencies, distribution experts, retail agreements, and product development firms are all multi-billion dollar partnerships for a reason.  They provide incredible external value to an company looking to specialize in what they do best.

Forming partnerships with agencies, bloggers, social networking sites, and technology consultancies is critical for the following reasons:

• External partnerships help spread best practices to your organization as outside sources typically see a broader perspective of the space
• Outsourcing work to experts is not only more resource effective, it typically leads to better results…Unless you didn’t ask your Social Media Consultants the right questions
• Working with bloggers can increase the potential for earned media and also create a steady supply of traffic and link juice

It’s time to place PEOPLE at the same level of importance as Product, Placement, Promotion, and Price.  What other areas of business can we apply to PEOPLE to drive organizational change?

Photo Credit --> Jim Kuhn via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/takomabibelot/ / CC BY 2.0

Social Media is now on a subject at corporate strategy meetings, executive off-sites, and a part of brand strategy.  Even the most conservative companies are dipping their toes in the water and trying to increase shareholder value through the new web.

Great job everyone…you’ve lived up to the hype of the Social Media Revolution Video…

It’s time to start thinking about what to do next.

Setting Next Year’s Social Media Strategy

As Jeremiah Owyang reasoned, if you like boxes and have a decision to make, use a 2×2 matrix.  They are great ways to organize thinking.  Good strategies have clear business objectives for Social Media and well defined user problem or need.

What business objectives are we trying to accomplish with Social Media?

• Reduce Costs
• Increase Sales

Who are our target users for this initiative?

• Customers
• Employees

NOTE:  Some people will argue Suppliers, and I think there are selective industries where that would apply.  However, for right now, the most benefit for companies is focusing on Customers and Employees.

Social Media Strategy Matrix

Each part in the 2×2 has unique business objectives.  Examples of types of projects can be seen in the box.

Setting Next Year’s Social Media Strategy

• Step 1 – Do a Social Media Audit of all your projects
• Step 2 – Plot those in the box based on their objectives and target users
• Step 3 – Plot where your COMPETITION is focusing their efforts
• Step 4 – Identify the Social Media White Space in matrix
• Step 5 – Pick an executive sponsor or key function
• Step 6 – Research the users and analyze the problem
• Step 7 – Brainstorm and prioritize potential ideas
• Step 8 -  Select and staff the projects
• Step 9 – Use a a portfolio approach for Social Media Governance

Business objectives are the most critical, yet most overlooked, part of a social media strategy.

Now that we’re past the point of early adoption, many brands are citing “Everyone else is doing it” as their business objective  Who is everyone?  Customers? Target Market? Competitors?  Employees? Suppliers?

A poor business objective causes many problems, the worst of which being a social media strategy execution that is vague and generic.

Take this example from Putnam Investments:  The Retirement Savings Challenge. The blog seems well intentioned, but what is this doing for Putnam?

The “About” section says, “At Putnam, we’re starting a conversation about America’s existing workplace savings plans, because we believe they can become a more reliable foundation for our nation’s retirement system.”

Awesome! The nation’s retirement system definitely needs some help, bravo to Putnam for trying to use business to help society.

But…how can you start a conversation about America’s retirement system without a comment field?  I would love to comment on this great post about retirement savings.

Possible Social Media Objectives:

• Brand Preference? Could be, but where’s the tie?
• Brand Awareness? Okay, this might be it, but with a low PageRank how will anyone get to the site?
  • Perhaps from Putnam Investment’s Twitter account?  The tweets are all good PR or Corp Communications tweets, but there’s nothing driving content.

3 Components of Good Social Media Business Objectives

A good business objective should have 3 components

• Business Impact (Speak to Shareholders)
• How (Speak to Employees)
• Consumer Value (Speak to Consumers)

Here’s an example I reverse-engineered from Time Magazine’s Twitter account:

Drive traffic to ad-supported website through timely, simple updates of new articles that are easy to understand, receive, and manage.

• Business Impact:  Drive traffic to ad-supported website
• How:  through timely, simple updates of new articles
• Customer Value – that are easy to understand, receive, and manage

Notice, the word “Twitter” was intentionally left out of the business objective.  The tool doesn’t matter, what matters is that managers understand how they are going to do something for consumers that will give the business value.

Tips on Writing the Business Impact

• Start with a verb.  An objective is an action.
• Think Accounting 101 –obvious connection to revenues or expenses.
• “Brand equity” or “brand awareness” are okay to use, but expect organizational resistance.  If using these, be able to explain how you will measure it and isolate the social media initiative as a variable.

Tips on Writing the How

• Avoid technology specifics, buzzwords, and industry vernacular.
• The test of clarity is that a non-tech or non-business person could easily understand it.
• If you have an obvious technology in mind that fits, don’t be afraid to write the How that leads to it as an obvious solution.

Tips on Writing the Consumer Value

• Read existing research to understand consumer behavior.  This will ground you in reality.
• The value should lead to a benefit.  It’s trickier than it sounds…but think of a benefit as how a consumer would rave about your brand to a friend.

• Photo by lowjumpingfrob

  Would someone pay for it?  It doesn’t matter if you’re going to charge for it, but this is a good test of whether or not you have value.

We’re told by the experts that Social Media is a Groundswell.  It all starts with “ordinary” people, customers & employees, who group together around a common theme.  “It’s grassroots!  It’s organic!  We just need to enable them!”

Well, this is true…but effectively harnessing that power requires resources and coordination.  The fastest way for organizations to get those resources is with senior leadership support.

Credit Ross_Angus

Ironic?  Yeah…I suppose.  These technologies were supposed to change the world!  We’d move from political decision making to a meritocracy.   While this may happen in the future, to prepare your company today you need senior support.

Well, easier said than done…How do you ensure that you get this support?

History should serve as our example.  A public declaration outlining the need for change with a signature of leadership sends a message to others that commitment is real.

• The Protestant Reformation had Martin Luther’s 95 Theses nailed to a door
• The American Revolution had the Declaration of Independence signed by our Founding Fathers

Want to drive a similar change?  Consider asking leadership to sign this document, post it on your intranet, and refer to it often!

Leadership Commitment for Social Media

I ________________________ understand that the Social Web is powerful not because of what WE, as a company do, but by how we enable our customers, employees, & business partners to do.

• I understand that we can not control what people say about us.  I understand that some people will criticize, condemn, and complain about us.

• I recognize that censoring, hiding, or deleting this criticism is a short term solution that does not fully address the problem facing our business.

• I commit to acting rationally, rather than emotionally, to what people might say about us online.  Rather than taking it personally, I will work to solve the problem so that this does not happen in the future.

• I recognize that measuring Social Media activity is not as easy as measuring other parts of my business.

• As an obligation to our shareholders, I will continually challenge our company to measure our return on investment.  However, I understand focusing on ROI can be a distraction since the technology and concepts are so new.

• I recognize the power of the Social Web and Social Media.  I will commit resources (money, time, and employees) to understand the potential these technologies have for my customers, my company, and my industry.

• I understand that the strategies and technologies in this space move fast.  I also understand that they will move faster tomorrow.

• I commit to pursuing business objectives, rather than technologies, to reach our goals.

• From Commenter Kathy Heasley – I recognize that this is the age of integrity and that social media has the power to enable all employees to be advocates for our company and our customers.  I will encourage their participation by establishing standards of acceptable practice so they may use this media with confidence and without fear of reprimand.

Signed _________________________________

What would you add?

You should also try these posts, they’re tasty!

• Twitter Metrics – How to Fool Your Leadership
• How to Manage Your Company’s Social Media Efforts Through a Portfolio Approach
• Matrix for Staffing a Social Media Initiative
  

Driving website traffic is one Twitter’s top benefits for marketers.  It’s a simple recipe, get a large number of followers, write a catchy tweet, publish it at the right time of day, and then measure the conversions.

Twitter Analytics - Advanced Twitter Metrics

If you’re interested in driving traffic through Twitter, then you probably use measurements like these:

• # of Followers

  • Having Twitter Followers is NOT the most important metric, but having more followers gives you more at-bats

• # of RTs

  • A good proxy of the quality of your tweet

• # of Clicks

  • With reports that Google Analytics and URL shorteners like bitly aren’t matching, it’s best to measure this in as many ways as possible

• Site Activity

  • Segmenting Twitter traffic from Search/Direct traffic and measuring conversions and site activity can help quantify the value of Twitter

You can learn a lot from these metrics, but there is a major variable of Twitter that frustrates those who use it for traffic.

Serendipity Problem and Twitter Metrics

A user sees the most recent update posted.  This “serendipity” is frustrating and makes much of how Twitter functions as a source of traffic a guessing game.

Recently, Twitter announced they were looking to monetize advanced analytics for site owners.  Having the right analytics would benefit both marketers and Twitter.

The benefit to marketers is that many questions about how Twitter works would be answered.  Twitter, of course, benefits from people able to better quantify the value of Twitter for their site.

Here are questions that Twitter Analytics should consider answering:

Search Traffic or News Feed Traffic?

• How many users clicked from their standard feed vs. from search
• If from search, what terms in the tweet did they search for?
• If from the feed, how far down on the feed was the tweet?

Twitter Client Usage?

• How much traffic came from a like TweetDeck, TwitterFon, etc vs. twitter.com?
• Did the click come from a “group” in the Twitter Client?  If so, what was the name of the group?  Who else was in the group?
• What groups are my accounts associated with?

Clicks from Other Users

• What traffic was from users following the account?
• What traffic was from ReTweets or mentions?

Social Media Strategy is a widely talked about topic…but what does it mean?  The final post of this series covers Social Media governance, how to get started, and evaluating your efforts.  The first two posts covered how to create a Social Media strategy and how to figure out what tactics to use in your Social Media Marketing portfolio.

Photo by Blumpy via Flickr

Through establishing measurements and Social Media metrics, avoiding consultants and doing the work yourself, and then experimentation and refinement, a company can better position itself for success.

In this post, I’ll cover how to execute the middle 3 stages of the strategy; the ones most traditionally associated with governance and experimentation.

9 Social Media Strategy Execution Steps

1. Start with Business Objectives
2. Staff a Diverse Team
3. Study Customer Research
4. Structure Problem Solving around Customer Needs
5. Solve Problems Through Brainstorms
6. Create a Social Media Portfolio
7. Establish a Set of Metrics
8. Learn by Doing
9. Learn, Fix, Then Apply

7 – Establish a Set of Metrics

What does this mean?

• Much has been said about the need for metrics, and it is often the biggest roadblock for Social Media practitioners
• Here, you should focus on how you are going to determine which elements of your Social Media Portfolio are working
• Metrics can be thought of as characters in a story; the story only makes sense when characters interact with each other

How to Execute

• Communicate to executive sponsors that in this case, metrics do not mean a “dashboard” with red and green lights
• Explain to leadership that a set of metrics can tell a complete story about how your efforts are meeting customer needs
• Align each part of your portfolio (from Step 6 – Create a Social Media Portfolio) to the Step 1 – Business Objectives
• Write down the answer to this question, “What would indicate that we have satisfied this business objective?”
• Pick 3-5 metrics from the hundreds available that reflect that vision

8 – Learn By Doing

What does this mean?

• Skills and expertise will come from doing the hard work, not through training, delegation, or outsourcing
• Allocating resources and allowing them time to explore and experiment at their own pace
• Setting expectations across the organization that success will not come fast, but it will grow exponentially

How to Execute

• Explain your plan to leadership emphasizing that “failure” is just as important as “success” so long as lessons are learned and communicated
• Assign each team member a primary and secondary tactic so that they have a partner to discuss ideas and lessons
• Start work immediately
• Communicate to the team the need for initial micro-management so that they feel comfortable with the assignment
• Meet frequently (2 – 3 times per week) to share  lessons, frustrations, ideas, and successes

9 – Learn, Fix, then Apply

What does this mean?

• By establishing hypotheses and testing them in the real world, you can better understand how Social Media applies to your brand or industry
• The best lessons come from failure, but this is hard for employees who are trained to win rather than to establish and share knowledge
• Fixing is analogous to rapid software prototyping; figure out what can quickly be fixed then experiment again!

How to execute

• Review your metrics in a group that asks “Why?” about every metric and drill down on the metrics until you get the answer
• Use 3-5 metrics to tell a story about how your tactics performed against your business objectives
• If possible, pull in someone from your Six Sigma department to help you test data against your hypotheses
• Brainstorm ways to make changes that would directly impact the metrics that are holding you back

Having a Social Media strategy means nothing if you can’t actually do it. In the last post, I outlined the need for not only having a plan, but also how to execute a Social Media Strategy.

Photo by Blumpy via Flickr

By addressing these areas, a company can better position itself for initial success and improve its ability to scale a Social Media program.  These 9 steps will be covered in detail across 3 separate posts.

In this post, I’ll cover how to execute the middle 3 stages of the strategy; the ones most traditionally associated with Social Media Marketing Strategy.

9 Social Media Strategy Execution Steps

1. Start with Business Objectives
2. Staff a Diverse Team
3. Study Customer Research
4. Structure Problem Solving around Customer Needs
5. Solve Problems Through Brainstorms
6. Create a Social Media Portfolio
7. Establish a Set of Metrics
8. Learn by Doing
9. Learn, Fix, Then Apply

4 – Structure Problem Solving around Customer Needs

What Does This Mean?

• Anyone can sit down and come up with 999 or so “great ideas” on paper.
  
• But, executing a Social Media idea becomes easier if it’s clear how it solves a customer problem.
• If you don’t understand the detail behind the problem, your efforts in Social Media could resemble a Cure Chasing a Disease.
  

How to Execute

• Organize all the customer research you collected in Step 3 into themes or insights.
  
• Consider doing some ethnographic research to help your team members better understand the problem.
• Create stimuli for a brainstorming session around these customer themes or insights.

5 – Solve Problems Through Brainstorms

What Does This Mean?

How to Execute

6 – Create a Social Media Portfolio

What Does This Mean?

• Social Media is too new to know exactly what is going to work, so try a bunch of ideas on a smaller scale.
• Think of Social Media Strategy as a portfolio of projects, just like a VC firm or a conglomerate.  This helps to spreads risk, improve chance of success, and embed skills across your organization

How to Execute

• Before starting, agree upon who will make the final decision
• Organize the ideas you brainstormed in Step 5 into similar portfolio (or platform) areas.  Examples could be consumer need, emerging trend, or strategic priority.
• Discuss the benefits, drawbacks, risks, and rewards of each portfolio or platform area with a strategic team.
• Feel free to “copy and paste” ideas into other portfolio or platform areas to make the portfolio more robust.
• Balance your portfolio across areas like the following:
  • Business Function
  • Level of Risk
  • Customer Segment
  • Scope and Time Frame
  • Uniqueness and Ingenuity

A Social Media strategy is a critical piece to making sure that your efforts with New Media are helping your customers and your company.  But how do you actually “do” it?  A well defined strategy is nice to have, but without execution, you aren’t going to make your customers or your shareholders happy.

Photo by Blumpy via Flickr

Strategies are tough, which is why many consultancies sell a solution.  But the solution of consultants often doesn’t come with a guide on how to execute.  How do you execute a Social Media strategy and make a tangible business impact?

Below are my thoughts on the 9 areas critical to executing a Social Media Strategy.   By addressing these areas, a company can better position itself for initial success and improve their ability to scale.  These 9 will be covered in detail across 3 separate posts.

9 Social Media Strategy Execution Steps

1. Start with Business Objectives
2. Staff a Diverse Team
3. Study Customer Research
4. Structure Problem Solving around Customer Needs
5. Solve Problems Through Brainstorms
6. Create a Social Media Portfolio
7. Establish a Set of Metrics
8. Learn by Doing
9. Learn, Fix, Then Apply

1. Start with Business Objectives

What Does this Mean?

• Business objectives describe the overall point of what you’re trying to do.
  
• A good business objective is one that would make a board of directors or owners of a company want to give you resources to execute.
  

How to Execute

• Convene top management during strategic planning sessions and figure out what is important to the business.
• Use overarching strategic priorities, like “Grow in new markets”, “Improve profitability through cost reduction”, or “Maintain existing customers” to guide the objectives you set for Social Media.
• Avoid picking a Social Media tool like a Blog or Twitter when thinking about the objectives.  Your discussion should be focused solely on the business at this point.

2. Staff a Diverse Team

What Does This Mean?

The key here is diversity.  Many companies are tempted to align Social Media on an Org Chart within a function like marketing or technology.  This may work for some companies, but it’s not likely to help you achieve all your business objectives.

How to Execute

• Assemble resources from across the company.  The best Social Media teams are ones that have a diverse set of talents and experience.
  
• Don’t underestimate the importance of balance.  You need people that are “Social Media experts“…but you also need people who can influence the organization.
  
• Use “non-traditional” resources like Social Media interns, “rotational programs”, mentees, or any other interested employee that can help.  There’s always more that can be done, and with proper planning you can take advantage of every single opportunity.
• Staff the best resources by providing them with the tools required to execute a Social Media Initiative.
  

3. Study Customer Research

What Does This Mean?

• Study the customer problems, understand what they need help with, and provide content through a technology that helps them.
• This is the easiest way to get a competitive advantage because the customer data exists throughout the organization, but you’re competitors aren’t taking the time to do it.
• This is critical, you are doing Social Media to help your customers, but unless you know how your customers are using Social Media to solve their problems, you can’t possibly succeed.

How to Execute

• Collect and analyze as much existing research from your marketing and new product development group.
• Evaluate a Social Media Market Research Consulting firm and their ability to surface insights from listening to existing conversations.
• Dive into the details of your customers’ needs, problems and frustrations.
• Ask yourself, How are my customers solving their problems?  Are they using the internet or Social Media?
  
• Create a customer experience life- cycle model to prioritize your Social Media efforts.
  

Companies have tons of employees who are Social Media Experts and tons of managers who are Masters at Leadership Influence.  However, rarely are the two skills possessed by a single employee.

Companies should encourage leaders to actively participate in Social Media to “Learn By Doing”, or develop younger talent who have Social Media skills into better management influencers.

Greg Matthews (@chimoose) from Humana tipped me to this in a tweet that read: “Have read this 3x. It’s that good. @katfrench on Social Media Pros: Where Do We Go from Here?

So, I’ve also read this three times and can’t stop thinking about it’s impact on organizations.  I particularly liked this excerpt:

On one side, you’ve got a vision of social media as a way of making business communication more human and more effective, while making the bottom-line results more measurable. In that vision, social media is integrated fully into existing business disciplines. It’s obsolete as a specialization in itself.

On the other side, you’ve got the day-to-day life of someone paid to help clients use social media tools to their advantage—within their comfort zone, within their restrictions, and within their existing business paradigms.

The distance between the two, on some days, seems like an enormous gaping canyon.

It goes back to what I think is the biggest obstacle in adoption, skill set.  Making Social Media work requires two critical skills:

1. Social Media Expertise – Laugh all you want, but you have to know the territory.  Practicioners need to have the skills that come from “learning by doing” rather than “learning by reading Mashable”
2. Leadership Influence – The ability to change the minds of senior leaders by showing “What’s In It For Them”.  Keep in mind that leaders have major financial incentives tied to business performance metrics and because 2.0 is still so new (relatively speaking), it’s hard to see how implementing radical change will affect year end bonus.  This means you need a skilled influencer to convince leadership of adopting technologies.

While most organizations have employees that posess these skills, rarely do the two overlap…which I think might be the problem.  We need experts that can influence.  We need influencers who are very active in social media.

How do we bridge that gap? Is it training?  Is it “stretch promotions”?

Is it a function of age?  I.e. Younger employees are the experts, senior employees have the political skills.

Stock Price is the ultimate metric for a company looking to evaluate a business strategy.  When thinking about Social Media Strategy, a company can choose from many different metrics to evaluate their efforts. Ultimately, we will have to stock price at those companies with good Social Media to understand whether or not Social Media is the management breakthrough we’re all hoping for.

So, does Social Media affect stock price?  It might be too early to tell, but I wanted to see what I could learn.  I consulted some of the “Best of Social Media” lists from Mashable, Forrester, and Groundswell, and came up with these companies.  When people ask me, “Who is doing it right?”, these are usually the companies I’m thinking of (Feel free to add other suggestions in comments, and I’ll compile the numbers):

• AmEx (AXP)
• Comcast (CMCSA)
• Dell (DELL)
• Ford (F)
• Intel (INTC)
• Jet Blue (JBLU)
• Kraft (KFT)
• Nike (NKE)
• Starbucks (SBUX)
• Wal Mart (WMT)

Then, I compared their 1, 2, and 3 year annualized return (CAGR) to market benchmarks (in green) like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, Russel 2000, and Nasdaq Composite.  Below are the results.

Stock Returns of Companies with “Good” Social Media Examples

1 Year Annualized Return

Does Social Media Impact Share Price?

• It’s hard to tell with this data, but it’s encouraging.  Especially when you look at the 1 year numbers which are the most favorable.
• Most companies were still experimenting with Social Media 3 years ago.  Perhaps it’s now that we see the leaders start to take off.
• This is a simple calculation with companies that were subjectively picked.  My prediction is that a good Social Media strategy will soon be a competitive necessity.  In other words, it will prevent you from being below the average.

]]> http://www.benphoster.com/does-social-media-affect-a-companys-stock-price/feed/ 0 http://www.benphoster.com/simple-twitter-101-training-in-140-characters-or-less/ http://www.benphoster.com/simple-twitter-101-training-in-140-characters-or-less/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:13:15 +0000 Ben Foster http://www.benphoster.com/?p=1298

Photo By Dan4th

I believe the best way to learn Social Media is by doing Social Media.  There are tons of great Twitter Trainings already on the web.  My spin on it is to provide the basics in 140 character “bullet points” that you can Tweet through your own account.

Value to Trainees

The value to your trainees is that they can learn about Twitter while using the site, instead of a boring PowerPoint.  This makes the training feel more real and makes you look more creative.

Feel free to use, adapt and make suggestions to this list. I’ll update this document from suggestions in the comment.

Twitter Training in 140 Characters

• What Is Twitter?  Website where people write brief messages (140 characters or less) for everyone to read and share with others
• Why is Twitter Important?  Real time information. For example, Hudson River plane crash was first reported on Twitter http://bit.ly/num4a
• TWEET – A single update(message) from a user is a TWEET. You can TWEET from the web, mobile phone, text message, IM chat, or applications
• FOLLOWER – Someone who “subscribes” to your TWEETS.  Many people consider # of followers an indicator of one’s Twitter influence
• FOLLOWING – People whose TWEETS you “subscribe to”.  To better enjoy Twitter, Don’t just follow everyone, follow people who are interesting
• DIRECT MESSAGE (DM) – Private message that can ONLY be sent to someone following you. Used for privacy or individual communication
• @ Sign – Notifies or Replies to a specific person.  An @ before someone’s name links to their profile & notifies them of a TWEET you made
• @ Sign – You can check who has notified or replied to you by clicking on @yourusername on the Twitter homepage http://twitter.com
• # Hashtag – A “#” helps manage topics.  Many people search Twitter for a particular topic. A # sign helps them find it http://hashtags.org/
• RETWEET – Like “Forward” on email, used to share others’ good messages to your followers.  How to Retweet: RT @username “original message”
• URL SHORTENER-  Make long web addresses smaller to meet 140 character limit. Popular ones http://bit.ly http://tinyurl.com http://is.gd
• How do companies use Twitter? Direct – Marketing; Indirect – Employees; Internal – Share info; Signaling – Listen to customers [SOURCE @rww]
• Direct- Marketing/PR; extension of corp messaging. Credibility lost if it feels like spam.  @delloutlet – $1m sales channel [SOURCE @rww]
• Indirect – Employees tweet building company credibility. Forrester analysts like @jowyang, @jbernoff, & @steven_noble [SOURCE @rww]
• Internal – Share info about projects – Risky because it’s open. Humana (@chimoose) shares meeting notes through #hcoc [Source @rww]
• Inbound – Listening to customers to improve service, develop products, and respond to problems (@jetblue and @comcastcares) [SOURCE @rww]
• Twitter is more http://twitter.com. Through an API (Application Programming Interface), anyone can write programs to extend Twitter usage
• Fun Twitter Programs – http://cotweet.com manage multiple accounts, http://tweetgrid.com multi-search, http://zeitheist.net – guessing game
• Export Tweets – Infinity Plus One Consulting has a great Search & Export tool at http://twitter.infinityplusone.com/
• Trending Topics – Twitter automatically lists “Trending Topics” on the main twitter page.  News often breaks there Http://twitter.com
• Effective Twitter: Quality over Quantity; Share Posts & Ideas; Interact, Retweet, Share; Don’t Spam, Don’t only share personal info
• When you first join Twitter, you can find people you know by clicking “Find People” and then “Find on Other Networks”
• My Favorites @mashable @rww @andygadiel @jowyang @chimoose @simonmainwaring @tw1ttertracker @GHCommunity @cubsticker @scobleizer @vctips
• Beginner Tips – Upload a picture of yourself.  People generally don’t follow anyone with a “default background”
• Beginner Tips – Avoid “what I had for breakfast” tweets; build a following by being interesting and creating fresh ideas
• Beginner Tips – Ways to Search Twitter – http://search.twitter.com, http://twitscoop.com, http://monitter.com
• More training at these sites: http://bit.ly/14nw2A http://bit.ly/1Jua4W http://bit.ly/Aqk4x http://bit.ly/ZxZzU http://bit.ly/ux0C1

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Social Media is new and companies aren’t yet capable of managing it like traditional business processes.  Previously, I discussed how managing Social Media through a portfolio approach can help organizations reduce risk and increase overall success for the following reasons:

Photo By - Librarian Avenger via Flickr

1. Diversification - Increase overall return through multiple small bets in Social Media
2. Focus - Avoid distraction by focusing Social Media efforts on specific business objectives
3. Knowledge Transfer – Apply best practices and lessons learned to improve ALL components of a Social Media portfolio

“Cures Chasing a Disease” – Social Media in Business

Last week at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, I argued that organizations tend to look at Social Media as a “Cure Chasing a Disease”. As practitioners, we become excited about Social Media technologies and we quickly try to apply them to a problem that customers, our business, or our supply chain don’t even have.

Organizational Benefits from a Portfolio Approach to Social Media

• Determine which strategic business objectives are best solved with Social Media tools through narrower scope
• Gain broad Social Media experience through multiple efforts at a smaller scale
• Embed Social Media capabilities throughout an organization by dividing execution from governance

Governing a Social Media Portfolio

Here’s a simple framework to help your organization better think about a portfolio

1. Project Identification and Selection
2. Using Metrics to Tell a Story rather than Evaluate a Project
3. Spread Best Practices and Apply Lessons From Failures

1 – Project Identification and Selection

• Define Business Objectives – Never start with the tool
  • Instead, figure out what you’re trying to do for your business.  It could be as simple as “Promote new product” or “Improve customer service.”
  • The greatest thing about having good business objectives is that metrics become much easier to define.  You don’t have to guess about what to measure, instead you have a clear goal which makes it easy to derive metrics.
• Distribute Social Media Projects – Avoid centralized ownership
  • Recent research from Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang defined a “Hub and Spoke” model for Social Media governance.  Owyang summarizes, “The hub facilitates resource sharing and cross-functional communications (via the “spokes” in the wheel) to those at the edge of the organization (or the ‘tire’)”.
  • Governing Social Media from a central location, rather than claiming full-ownership, helps individual groups apply specific knowledge and detailed experience to the problems they know best.
  • Additionally, it helps leadership see the business benefits as part of a broader effort.

2 – Using Metrics to Tell a Story

• Use metrics as characters in a story – Avoid “One Number to Rule Them All”
  • Raise your hand if you’re sick of hearing this question, “How do we measure Social Media”?
  • If it were as easy as compiling a number, throwing it on a dashboard, and then applying resources to red lights, we wouldn’t need leadership.  If you’re still stuck, Rachel Happe gives a great list of examples of Social Media metrics.
  • Use a variety of metrics to tell a story to your organization.  For example say your business objective is “to improve customer service”.  If you have a high number of pageviews on a customer service portal, but few of them come from search, you can use a story to make a case for investment in Search Engine Optimization.

3 – Share Best Practices and Apply Lessons from Failures

• Share Best Practices Quickly – Use Social Media!
  • A great business objective that can be solved by Social Media is “Disseminate information to employees”.  The job of the governing body is to identify those groups that are meeting business objectives and connecting them with similar efforts across the organization.
  • Organizations are already good at this using cross-functional teams, internal communications, and training/seminars to spread the knowledge.  The key is to identify which functions of the organization need this information.
• Celebrate Failure – Reward Those Who Take Risks
  • A.G. Lafley, CEO of P&G, consistently remarked that he was looking for a new product success rate around 50-60%.  He argued that if you take that any higher, you’re not taking enough risks.
  • The same principle applies to Social Media.  If you’re succeeding 100% of the time, you’re probably not taking enough risk.  So communicate to your employees that failure is okay so long as the entire organization can learn from mistakes and apply those to future projects.

Written By Ben Foster

What can Venture Capital Firms and conglomerates like General Electric teach corporations about Social Media strategy?  By using a portfolio approach, they can increase their overall performance through diversification, focus, and transfer of best practices.

Managing Social Media Risk Doesn’t Mean Moving Slowly

A slow approach to Social Media seems logical.  “Let’s try Social Media out by creating a blog post or two, let’s tweet something cool about our brand, let’s put our advertisements on YouTube.”

But moving slowly is not likely to help your company reach its objectives because most firms in your industry have already done something similar.  While you can increase your chance of avoiding a Social Media disaster, you aren’t likely to make much progress.

Why Businesses Use a Portfolio Approach

Portfolios have been used by mutual funds, venture capital firms, and conglomerates for many years for the following reasons

1. Diversification
2. Focus
3. Knowledge Transfer

• Diversification – Increase chance of average positive return through multiple small bets

  • A diversified portfolio has a balance of initiatives.  Some will win, some will lose.  On average, the gains from the winners will out perform the costs from the losers
  • Mutual Funds and Venture Capital firms increase overall return by offsetting losses from poor parts with gains from great parts

• Focus on Objectives - Increase overall company success by focusing on specific business objectives

  • Too many companies launch a social media initiative that tries to boil the ocean and do everything at once, but Social Media is too new for leaders to fully understand where it bests satisfies business objectives
  • Conglomerates like General Electric use a portfolio approach to focus on specific objectives
    • Consumer Products (Lightbulbs or Appliances) help to improve brand image and provide reliable cash flow
    • Infrastructure helps GE gain a foothold in emerging global markets like the Middle East, China, India and Brazil

• Transfer of Best Practices – Improve component success by spreading what worked and learning from failure

  • A portfolio with separate tactics and focused strategies can provide detailed market-tested lessons to other portfolio components
  • Conglomerates like GE are legendary for spreading managerial knowledge to other businesses
    • Six Sigma was applied first in the manufacturing businesses and then successfully deployed across the entire organization
  • Venture Capital firms learn from the dogs of their portfolio and then apply the market lessons to other businessess across the portfolio

Internal Benefits of a Portfolio Approach

• Try more things – The greatest thing about a portfolio approach, besides the clarity it provides to management, is that it provides the Social Media function with more opportunities in the market

What are some drawbacks to a portfolio approach?  In my next post, I’ll talk about governance strucutres to manage your Social Media efforts.  In the meantime, let me know what you think the disadvantages are to using a portfolio approach versus a large mass initiative.

In my last post, I presented the Customer Experience lifecycle as a framework for companies defining Social Media Strategy and Business Objectives.  This model shows you where consumers are looking for information to meet their needs.

By focusing Social Media efforts on where your customers are looking for information, you can better define your Social Media Strategy around helping customers solve their problems.

To illustrate how the Customer Experience lifecycle is important, the following are examples from the first 2 stages:  Realization and Awareness.  I’ll cover the next four in future posts.

The Customer Experience Lifecycle:

1. Realization - Recognition of a problem or need
   1. Best Practice – FiLife Stacker Tool
   2. Learn From – Motrin Moms Commercial
2. Awareness - Connection between need and your product
   1. Best Practice – Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?”
   2. Learn From – Target Rounders
3. Evaluation - Consideration of you (and your competitors) product benefits and tradeoffs as a solution to the need
   1. Best Practice – Best Western’s On the Go With Amy
   2. Learn From – Skittles’ Interweb the Rainbow
4. Transaction - Money is exchanged for product
   1. Best Practice – DellOutlet on Twitter
   2. Learn From – Belkin’s Fake Product Reviews
5. Consumption - Product is used
   1. Best Practice – Lego’s User Communities
   2. Learn From – Kraft Digiorno Pizza – The Ditcher
6. Service - Post-purchase support for your product
   1. Best Practice – Comcast’s Twitter Account – @ComcastCares
   2. Learn From – Any Company Not Using Twitter Search

Realization – Recognize a Problem

Best Practice – FiLife

• Business Objective: Drive traffic to an ad-driven site
• Tool:  Social Comparison – Through their innovative “Stackers” tool, they allow consumers to compare themselves to others
• What They Did Right:  By seeing “how you stack up”, consumers can recognize a need to do more in a certain area
  • A consumer saving 3% of their paycheck through 401(k) contributions would see that they are in the 10th percentile
  • This consumer would likely recognize the need to save more for retirement
  • And guess what…FiLife is there with a variety of resources and ads to help the consumer solve their problem

Company to Learn From – Motrin

• Business Objective: Increase sales by creating a “new need” for the product
• Tool:  Viral Videos – For the start of International Baby Wearing Week, they promoted videos with a mom describing that carrying her baby is cool as long as she carries Motrin
• What You Should Learn From: They tried to create a need where no problem existed
  • All consumers know pain; all consumers know that pain-killers kill pain
  • Some say it wasn’t tested, but large companies generally do not put out ads without focus group testing
  • But people act funny in paid focus groups.  I’m guessing that either no one spoke up in front of the group or that they wanted to “help” Motrin by telling them what they thought Motrin wanted to hear
  • Viral videos are typically watched alone and without financial incentives.  This behavior led to a significantly different reaction, like these on Twitter

Awareness - Connect Product to Problem

Best Practice – BlendTec

• Business Objective: Drive sales by increasing brand awareness
• Tool:  “Will it Blend?” videos that show the power of the blender
• Why They Did It Right – They created brand awareness by entertaining consumers and showing them EXACTLY what they were looking for
  • Blenders are not exciting and therefore not talked about (especially among friends on the internet)
  • The main (and only?) question facing consumers when purchasing a blender is, will it blend?
  • Rather than adding complexity to the need (like competitors were doing by promoting fancy features), they kept it simple (and funny)

Company to Learn From – Target

• Business Objective – Drive sales using recommendations of friends
• Tool: Facebook Group with Insiders- Created a Facebook group with a set of insiders, Target Rounders, that encouraged people to recommend products to friends
• What You Should Learn From This: You can’t force word of mouth to inform customers about products
  • On the surface, it’s not a bad idea;  Target is a great brand.  How many times have you walked out of Target with more than your shopping list?
  • When people need something, recommendations of friends is critical; but recommendations must be authentic
  • Target tried to force secrecy with emails to Target Rounders that read, “Your Mission: Try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder”
  • No one wants to compromise their reputation amongst friends by being a shill for a corporation

Other examples you can think of?

]]> http://www.benphoster.com/social-media-strategy-case-studies-using-the-customer-experience-lifecycle/feed/ 11 http://www.benphoster.com/are-social-media-metrics-hurting-your-company/ http://www.benphoster.com/are-social-media-metrics-hurting-your-company/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 03:51:40 +0000 Ben Foster http://www.benphoster.com/?p=895

Metrics play an important role in modern organizations because they provide an efficient way to determine process effectiveness.

Are Metrics the Problem? - Photo by batega via Flickr

While we all have an understanding of ROI, a manager can justify a lack of Social Media understanding by simply insisting that measurements are the most critical part of the initiative and that Social Media should be measured like any other business process.

This is why in preliminary discussions about Social Media, managers typically ask, “How are we going to measure it?” This is an important question that should not be overlooked.  However, does anyone fully understand Social Media?  When people say “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, I often think “I can’t measure what I can’t define.”

The ROI of Social Media is Unclear; the Impact of Social Media is Very Clear

Social Media Impact – Word of Mouth Marketing

I can’t tell you all the ways that Social Media will impact your business strategy.  I believe that anyone that says they can tell you is likely a consultant or technology vendor trying to tell you something.

What I can tell you is that your customers are telling your prospective customers what they think about your product.  Marketers have known the power of Word of Mouth for years, but what’s different now is that it is REALLY EASY for prospective customers to find word of mouth recommendations.

So how do you measure this???  You can ask questions in follow-up surveys, but we all know that word-of-mouth is often “hidden” in these types of questionairres.

Social Media Impact – Innovation and New Product Development

Also, I can tell you that your competitors are listening to what consumers are saying about their problems, needs, and frustrations; these consumer needs are the primary stimuli for innovation.  People every day are commenting on blogs, posting their frustrations on Twitter, and offering solutions through platforms that encourage open innovation.

It’s hard to tie metrics, like new product sales, to these insights.  But if you’re not listening to your customers and sharing that feedback with your organization, I can tell you that your stock price will under-perform those competitors that are.

How do you measure this?  By the time an idea makes it into a marketplace, so many functions have made changes through countless iterations of the product development lifecycle.  Additionally, many companies can take 12-18 months to bring a product from concept to reality making it hard to directly correlate to a Social Media Insight.

Relative Benchmarking for Social Media Metrics

If you’re struggling with metrics, try starting with ones that you can directly compare to other initiatives.  Here are a couple ideas:

• Alexa’s Traffic Rank Metric – Transparent and publicly available, this metric is based on a combined measurement of reach and pageviews which makes it objective and easy to explain to leadership.  Also, you can put a plugin in the bottom of Firefox that gives you INSTANT feedback as to how you are doing.
• Twitter Followers – I understand that there are ways to cheat this metric, but it’s rapidly becoming the currency of influence in the Social Media space.  Showing your leadership that your brand has more followers than your competitors can be a wonderful “win” for your group.

Metrics are Important, but different for Social Media

This is a sticky issue; I don’t want to downplay the importance of metrics.  The point here is that measuring Social Media in the same way you measure long-standing business processes will delay action.  Social Media is too new and not fuly understood enough to determine the “right set of metrics”, but you

What did I leave out or forget to include?

Posted by Ben Foster

There are 6 Principles or Laws of Communication that are critical to Social Media Strategy.  I introduced these as part of my presentation to the Chicago Chapter of the Scleroderma Foundation, a non-profit looking for guidance on how to get started in Social Media.

Earlier, I covered the first 3 laws:  1) Open and transparent communication is best 2) Two-Way Conversation and 3) Listening is more important than talking.

Here, I’ll cover the final 3, but first, here’s the list:

The 6 Laws of Communication Critical to Social Media Strategy

1 – Open and transparent communication is best

2 – Two way conversation

3 – Listening is more important than talking

4 – Everyone has a different style of communication

5 – Adding more people to the conversation requires more organization

6 – The message is impacted by the method

Law 4 – Everyone has a different style of communication

• In the Real World
  • A sad admission…I am more familiar with the preferred communication style of my co-workers than I am with their spouses’ first names.  I know who responds to emails fast, who prefers voicemails, and who likes it when I drop by to say hello.
  • I know this because knowing how people communicate is critical to helping me get things done.
• Social Media Strategy Implication
  • Your customers all have a preferred style of communication and to execute your strategy, you must be able to adapt your methods.
  • The ability to embed video, burn feeds, and even use Twitter to micro-communicate are all tools to give your customers content they can more easily digest.
  • Additionally, allowing your customers to communicate how they want makes it easier to listen; see Law #3 – Listening is more important than talking.

Law 5 – Adding more people requires more organization

• In the Real World
  • I enjoy meetings.  Complaining about them is a cliché because so many people are bad at organizing them.  For me, meeting with my co-workers is the best way to solve a difficult problem.
  • However, too many people in a meeting increases the chance that you will go off topic and get nothing done.  Large meetings require a rigid agenda, timing, and facilitator to control disruptive people.
• Social Media Strategy Implication
  • The dream of Social Media strategists is to have large numbers of consumers discussing their problems, talking about the brand, and recommending it to friends.
  • But just like in large meetings, too many people can lead to distracting conversations that don’t get anything done.
  • For example, I love that more people are joining Twitter, but the potential value of real-time search is harder to see than it was mid-2008 because of all these extra people.

Law 6 -The message is impacted by the method

• In the Real World…
  • To illustrate this law, let’s deliver 1 message in two different ways:
    • Message:  “Great job on the presentation, we’re going to take your recommendations to the Board of Directors.”
    • Method 1 – Email from your boss to all members of the team
    • Method 2 – Your boss says this at the end of your presentation in front of the rest of leadership
  • Same words but a tremendous difference in impact.  The method by which you choose to deliver your message has more of an impact than the message itself.
  • This is obvious…but how often do you spend crafting the words versus crafting the RIGHT PLACE to deliver the message so that your words have the most impact?
• Social Media Strategy Implication
  • Same exercise:  Let’s deliver 1 message in two different ways
    • Message: “Thanks for recommending us to your friends, we appreciate your business!”
    • Method 1 – Email blast to all customers who have recommended business
    • Method 2 – @Tweet to customers who have recommended business
  • The words don’t matter!  But the thought you put into using a personal method to communicate your message to your customers is infinitely more valuable to them.
  • You now have more ways than ever to reach customers and build a relationship.  Don’t be lazy, do it right!

So those were my 6…what did i miss?

Has anyone else heard this from management the past couple of weeks?   “Now that Twitter has jumped the shark, what technology should we move our social media resources towards?”

On one hand, this is great because it shows forward thinking…however, we know that it doesn’t really matter what technology is next.  Chasing technology doesn’t meet business objectives, better communication through Social Media does.

Social Media Technologies are another set of solutions to strategic business problems.  But, if you don’t fully understand the problem you won’t apply the right solution.  When evaluating Social Media strategies and business objectives, I evaluate them based on these 6 Laws of Communication.

I covered these as part of my presentation to the Chicago Chapter of the Scleroderma Foundation, a non-profit looking for guidance on how to get started in Social Media.  Recently I’ve found a renewed need for these and thought they’d benefit from further explanation and discussion.

In this post, I’ll cover the first three and follow it up on Thursday with 3 more.  Here’s the list

The 6 Laws of Communication Critical to Social Media Strategy

1 – Open and transparent communication is best

2 – Two way conversation

3 – Listening is more important than talking

4 – Everyone has a different style of communication

5 – Adding more people to the conversation requires more organization

6 – The message is impacted by the method

1 – Open and transparent communication is best

• In the Real World
  • As Social Media Strategists, we can all relate to a story about “hidden agendas”.  Have you ever googled for a way to find out who was BCC’d on an email? Or had the sense in a meeting that someone wasn’t giving you the full story?  Yeah…it feels crappy.
• Social Media Strategy Implication
  • The Open and Transparency principle is fundamental.  It’s tempting to hire bloggers to write about your products like Wal*Mart or to sell your soul on twitter by paying people to tweet for you like Apple, Cisco, Stub Hub, Fat Cow, Skype…. But the risk is not worth the reward.
  • Bloggers make their living finding examples of companies doing this and you will lose tons of credibility.

2 – Two way conversation

• In the Real World
  • We can all quickly name the one friend that we have that talks about himself without listening to anyone else.  In the “real world”, you handle these types of people by just ignoring them.
  • Also, we all have friends that we absolutely love to engage in conversations.  These people build on your thoughts and offer you great nuggets to expand your thoughts upon.
• Social Media Strategy Implication
  • We can also all quickly name the companies that both talk and listen.  For me, it’s Best Buy.  I am surrounded by Best Buy ads on the TV, the Web, and in my Mailbox.
  • However, when I go into the store, it becomes a conversation between me and the associates who help steer me to a video game or TV show based on my likes and interests.

3 -  Listening is more important than talking

• In the Real World
  • Nearly every introductory manager training course talks about active listening, or the ability to extract insights from communication in real-time.  Great leaders know that talking effectively comes from listening to your employees.
  • On the other hand, bad leaders talk about themselves the whole time which causes their employees to ignore them.
• Social Media Strategy Implication
  • Think about what happens when your consumers choose to ignore your Social Media efforts because you are talking about yourself the whole time.  Sure, they may not visibly complain, but they will not invite you to discussions they are having.
  • The inability to listen obviously prevents you from learning today.  But more importantly, the inability to listen will prevent you from being invited to conversations in the future.

Posted By Ben Foster

Photo by adpowers via Flickr

Summer interns are one of the greatest traditions of capitalism.  Each summer, notoriously ambitious interns join companies eager to make an impact and deliver results.  For the Social Media Strategist, interns can provide a fresh perspective to companies looking to embrace Social Media.

At the dawn of E-Commerce (way back in the 1990s), GE executives gathered for a now infamous strategic session called DestroyYourBusiness.com.  Realizing the threat facing GE from the thousands of start-ups thinking differently, Jack Welch had his managers pretend to be one of the many Dotcoms trying to destroy GE’s existing business models.  This exercise helped GE’s leadership think about how the internet could quickly exploit a company’s weaknesses.

Here’s an adaptation of GE’s classic management idea for a meaningful 12-week summer internship.  Not only will your interns love the challenging and exciting assignment, this can also provide your company with fresh strategic thinking.

Weeks 1-2 – Industry and Competitor Assessment (2 weeks)

• Objective – Develop a detailed understanding of industry adoption of Social Media through assessing competitors
• Tasks for the Intern
  • Analyze the competition and document the best uses of social media
  • Support findings with external validation of competitors’ strategies from secondary sources
  • Develop a ratings scale to score industry players on dimensions like traffic, customer conversations, revenue impact, and scalability
  • Interview managers to develop 5 orthodoxies, or “The Ways Our Industry Always Does Things” that could be overturned by Social Media

Weeks 3-5 – Discover Customer Needs, Problems, and Frustrations

• Objective – Act like a Social Media Market Research consultant to study what conversations are occurring on the web about your brand
• Tasks for the Intern
  • Identify the top sites where consumers are talking about your products or services as well as your brand
  • Compile a database of customer quotes about their problems and how they are using products and services from your industry to solve them
  • Categorize the quotes into topic areas for a qualitative analysis
  • Create findings from categorized quotes to identify customer needs that could be met through Social Media technology

Weeks 6-10 – How would a Start-Up Disrupt the Industry Business Model?

• Objective – Take the role of an entrepreneur and create a business plan ready for a Venture Capitalist that could radically alter the industry
• Tasks for the Intern
  • Identify the vulnerabilities of the current business model used by your company and competitors
  • Develop a hypothetical business plan that a start-up could present to a VC that would radically change the industry business model
  • Analyze 5 start-ups that are already pursuing this model and what the company should learn from their early results

Weeks 11-12 – Create a 12 Week and 12 Month Plan for the Organization

• Objective – Highlight quick changes that can be made to lead the organization to a long-term change
• Tasks for the Intern
  • Identify hypotheses that could be tested through experimentation and prototyping
  • Test these hypotheses by building an implementation plan for quick-fixes that could be made in 12 weeks
  • Brainstorm longer-term ideas that could be implemented in 12 months with knowledge gained from the 12-week experiment

I think this could be a very interesting business school project or paper.  Thoughts on how to adopt this for the classroom?

Of all the firms rushing to provide Social Media consulting services, I’m most interested in the potential in new Market Research methods.  If executed perfectly, Social Media Market Research will solve many problems with traditional market research:  1-Expense, 2-Bias, and 3-Confusing Data.

But, we’re not quite close to perfect execution yet.  In fact, even though a Twitter Search is an easy way to find quick insights, quickly poll your Market Research leaders to see if they’ve done it.  Chances are, they haven’t done much with this tremendous data set.

Bring in the Consultants

As any good manager knows, if you don’t have the talent, hire some brains (read: consultants).  It’s easy to find a list of these firms, but to me, they all feel the same.  Social Media is too new for any firm to have an established track record and most web sites and informational decks are going to look the same.

It will be tough to find the market leader in Social Media Market Research until we can better highlight clear results.  Until then, you’re going to have to trust the consultants giving you the pitch and really question them to find the right partner.

Questions to Ask Social Media Research Consultants

Here are questions I think can reveal the expertise of Social Media Research Consultants.  As always, watch out for answers at the extreme.

• If my competitors have access to the same data, how can I turn this research into a competitive advantage?

  • Bad Answer: We’re the best consulting company in this space so it’s our consulting output and a Non-Compete Agreement that provides the advantage
  • Good Answer: This is a new approach that will be standard in the future.  It’s best to build and embed capabilities now while the approach is in its infancy

• How do you match and prioritize my business objectives to this research?

  • Bad Answer: Social Media solves everything so we’ll customize the research to meet your business objectives
  • Good Answer: We’ll consult with you to refine and select business objectives that can be fulfilled through Social Media Market Research

• How will you help us research a certain demographic?

  • Bad Answer: We can provide great detail on micro-demographic segments because Social Media is so awesome at defining people
  • Good Answer: Social Media Market Research can provide higher quality insights on specific demographics by combining them with traditional research methods

• Is your research quantitative or qualitative?

  • Bad Answer 1: We only focus on quantitative data because qualitative data is so subjective
  • Bad Answer 2:  We only focus on qualitative data because quantitative data is not rich enough
  • Good Answer: A good insight comes from triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data to explain the contradictions and inconsistencies between them

• Which functions within my organization will benefit from your insights?

  • Bad Answer: Social Media is so awesome that it impacts ALL parts of your organization
  • Good Answer:  It depends on your customers.  If your product or service is information rich, your marketing or service department is going to benefit.  If your product is highly technical, your engineering department will benefit from understanding customer dialogue.

Posted By Ben Foster

photo by llawiet via flickr

The first 30 days in a new job is stressful and it’s hard to be able to think quick and act even quicker.  I recently talked about some myths I always believed about corporate strategy jobs and ways to think about selecting a job.  What follows are thoughts on starting a new job off right:

The Fine Line Between Smart and Annoying

I always want to sound smart in initial meetings, however..I don’t want to be the guy who talks just to hear the sound of his own voice.  Here’s what has worked for me:

• Culture of Meetings  - Does the most senior person talk first?  If you’re concerned about something, do you ask a question… or make a statement?  Wait for Q&A… or chime in when needed?  
• 15 minute rule – I once received advice that said if you don’t speak within the first 15 minutes of a meeting, people have already forgotten about you.

Try for Personal Introductions

If your to-do list says, “Ask Greg about ___”, it’s tempting to want to send Greg an email.  You’ll probably save a lot of time… but is it worth it?  I’ve always respected someone who talks to me in person or phone before an email.  Seems much more real.

Read Everything You Can

It’s hard reading what you don’t “have” to read.  But I’ve found great nuggets by absorbing as much as I could find.

Internal Materials – There are going to be a lot of “decks” forwarded to you to “bring you up to speed.”  However, I’m always amazed at what you can discover by clicking on every link on your corporate internet.  It’s a great way to learn the initiatives and acronyms of other functions and how those all fit together.

External Materials – Over-subscribing to content and then weeding it down to the best seems to work here.  Here’s what I try to do:

• Subscribe to every blog covering your space.  Don’t know where to start?  Try AllTop for a directory
• Listen to what your customers are saying through a Twitter Search for your company and competitors
• Google News Alert works really well for keyword searches.  My  ”content strategy” search has turned up great stuff
• Forward the best your team – nothing beats being the first person to the link!

Photo by llawiet via Flickr

Now that businesses are starting to embrace Twitter, there have been some fascinating examples of great customer service.  Ford Motor Company is helping customers find parts, solving problems with accessories, and escalating customer service requests.  Comcast appears to be the Gold Standard with their Comcast Cares account which is solving customer problems with equipment, answering questions about service features.  Bloggers are also helping companies by raving about great experiences.

Photo By CarrotCreative

Can we scale it?

• Be Prepared For A Flood – We all know Twitter is growing very rapidly, and as more people learn about great Twitter customer service, you can count on more requests for service.
• 24 Hours; 7 days – Companies that don’t have this staffed around the clock with clear processes and control will suffer as customers rush to the site.

Who will own it?

• Not the Social Media Team – The Social Media team often start this process and are stuck with owning it as it grows.  Good customer service over Twitter depends on fast responses to customer problems.  But, because the organization considers Twitter to be “social media” (read:  confusing), the responsibility for managing these usually falls to the team handling social media.
• Integrate into Customer Service - Ideally, customer service should own the process, staff for it, and tie metrics to it.  Ideally, this means 24 hours, 7 day a week coverage, a dedicated team of individuals, and clear metrics integrated with the rest of the customer service.

Can we handle the truth?

• Get Ready for Negativity – Every executive will tell you that they are ready and willing to hear what their customers have to say, until they actually hear it.  By committing your business to open customer service through Twitter, you are tying your name directly to negative customer feedback.
• Manage Your Brand – Tying your brand to both positive feedback and negative feedback can aggravate your Brand Managers.  The millions of dollars spent on advertising and promotion can be compromised by a  few snarky Tweets and a well-written blog.

It doesn’t surprise me that many major companies like Microsoft aren’t fully using their Twitter accounts.  Sure, it can be powerful, but if not managed correctly, 140 characters can destroy years of successful marketing.

Photo By Carrot Creative from Flickr

BusinessWeek’s March 23-30, 2009 issue focuses on Smart Ideas for Tough Times which describes how managers are trying new things to weather the downturn.  The most interesting part of the series covers 11 management ideas that are the basics of any business education, but were quite revolutionary at the time.

This 4 part series (See Part 1 here, See Part 2 here, See Part 3 here) will examine these ideas alongside social media to see if we are witnessing a world-changing idea, or just another management fad.  First, here is the recap from BusinessWeek:

Some of the most powerful and lasting management methods were launched during tough times, when companies needed new ways to manage costs and grow. Here is a look back at some of the biggest ideas over the past 100 years.

1910 – The Assembly Line – Explanation

1920 – Market Segmentation – Explanation

1931 – Brand Management – Explanation

1943 – Skunk Works – Explanation

1950s – Lean Manufacturing – Explanation

1967 – Scenario Planning – Explanation

1973 – 360 Review – Explanation

1987 – Six Sigma – Explanation

1989 – Outsourcing – Explanation

1990 – Reengineering – Explanation

2000s – Open Innovation – Explanation

#11 – Reengineering

The Breakthrough: Radically redesign business processes to make them more efficient by removing functional silos and focusing resources on end to end processes.

The Question: Can Social Media help businesses effectively organize resources around complete processes to make them more efficient?

The Answer: Yes, empahtically!

• Cross-functional teams are at the heart of reengineering, and these teams often suffer from poor communication and unclear responsibilities.  Creative applications of Social Media will help cross-functional teams more quickly and easily share information that is relevant and accurate.
• Organizing a business around processes requires suppliers of the inputs to be well aware of the needs of the customers of the outputs.  Social Media improves the communication at all levels of the supply chain allowing for problems to be quickly solved.

#12 – Open Innovation

The Breakthrough: Companies should look beyond their R&D departments to customers, suppliers, and even competitors for innovative ideas.

The Question: Can Social Media help companies discover ideas while still allowing for control over Intellectual Property rights?

The Answer:  Probably Yes

• Open Innovation uses many of the same technologies that launched Social Media.  It follows that Social Media will help Open Innovation succeed because they both allow for increased information distributed to the people who will find it most useful.
• The problem is whether all companies can adopt the concept.  Open Innovation works for Starbucks because a competitor would have a difficult time implementing an idea without the huge distribution network Starbucks has.
• Other industries, like Hedge Funds or Restaurants, will never completely adopt Open Innovation because they can gain no competitive advantage they could protect from competitors

BusinessWeek’s March 23-30, 2009 issue focuses on Smart Ideas for Tough Times which describes how managers are trying new things to weather the downturn.  The most interesting part of the series covers 11 management ideas that are the basics of any business education, but were quite revolutionary at the time.

This 4 part series (See Part 1 here, See Part 2 here) will examine these ideas alongside social media to see if we are witnessing a world-changing idea, or just another management fad.  First, here is the recap from BusinessWeek:

Some of the most powerful and lasting management methods were launched during tough times, when companies needed new ways to manage costs and grow. Here is a look back at some of the biggest ideas over the past 100 years.

1910 – The Assembly Line – Explanation

1920 – Market Segmentation – Explanation

1931 – Brand Management – Explanation

1943 – Skunk Works – Explanation

1950s – Lean Manufacturing – Explanation

1967 – Scenario Planning – Explanation

1973 – 360 Review – Explanation

1987 – Six Sigma – Explanation

1989 – Outsourcing – Explanation

1990 – Reengineering – Explanation

2000s – Open Innovation – Explanation

# 7 – 360 Review

The Breakthrough – Employees get a better perspective from feedback collected from their supervisors, peers, subordinates, and customers/suppliers

Question – Can Social Media provide a more candid, well-rounded assessment of one’s performance?

• Answer:  Yes, with limitations
  
• Social Media greatly improves the ability for managers to assess their talent.  It is now easier to reach more people that can provide feedback as well as reduce the time it takes to collect the feedback – the major complaint with 360 Review
• Because the technologies make it quicker to communicate, employees can receive feedback in real-time, making it more relevant and more actionable
• However, 360 Review feedback requires anonymity which, if not managed properly, can take away the benefits of reach and speed

# 8 – Six Sigma

The Breakthrough: Quantifying processes through statistics to improve and control their outputs

Question – Can Social Media improve business processes through identifying defects and improving outputs?

• Answer:  Nope, not even worth it
• Six Sigma removes subjectivity and boils processes down to data and statistics.  There is no room for interpretation in Six Sigma, and this is important because it is used to make jet engines, medical devices, and nuclear technology
• Social Media is most successful when it facilitates the exchange of ideas and information between people who share the same interests.  It works best when it’s open to interpretation

#9 - Outsourcing

The Breakthrough: Identifying partners who specialize at performing complementary tasks for an organization at a fraction of the cost

Question – Can Social Media provide more opportunities for companies to focus on the tasks they do well and pay for tasks that are not a differentiating part of the value they bring to customers?

• Answer:  No, value comes after the fact
• A company should outsource tasks that distract from their ability to improve product value.  This is why most companies outsource processes like Benefits Administration, Facilities Management, and – interestingly enough – Customer Service.  Many brilliant leaders have weighed the value these provide and determined that profit maximization comes from hiring these outside.
• With Social Media, you can learn the impact of these decisions through a richer discussion with your customers.  Social media allows you to better listen and quantify the level of customer dissatisfaction associated with the outsourcing decisions your are making.

BusinessWeek’s March 23-30, 2009 issue focuses on Smart Ideas for Tough Times which describes how managers are trying new things to weather the downturn.  The most interesting part of the series covers 11 management ideas that are the basics of any business education, but were quite revolutionary at the time.

This 4 part series (See Part 1 here) will examine these ideas alongside social media to see if we are witnessing a world-changing idea, or just another management fad.  First, here is the recap from BusinessWeek:

Some of the most powerful and lasting management methods were launched during tough times, when companies needed new ways to manage costs and grow. Here is a look back at some of the biggest ideas over the past 100 years.

1910 – The Assembly Line – Explanation

1920 – Market Segmentation – Explanation

1931 – Brand Management – Explanation

1943 – Skunk Works – Explanation

1950s – Lean Manufacturing – Explanation

1967 – Scenario Planning – Explanation

1973 – 360 Review – Explanation

1987 – Six Sigma – Explanation

1989 – Outsourcing – Explanation

1990 – Reengineering – Explanation

2000s – Open Innovation – Explanation

#4 – Skunk Works

The Breakthrough – Lockheed Martin organized an autonomous, high-performance team separated from bureaucracy to develop a plane in 143 days.

The Question:  Can Social Media improve productivity by minimizing the organizational need for bureaucracy?

• Answer:  Somewhat, but not completely
• We like to complain about bureaucracy, but it has a purpose in organizations.  Don’t believe me?  Well look around and talk to people in the world’s largest organizations.  If bureaucracy were not a competitive necessity, it would not be present in ALL of the world’s largest firms.  Skunk Works was a success because it gave TOP TALENT the ability to work around the controls required to make a large organization run efficiently.
• For non-Skunk Works teams, made up of Typical Talent where control and oversight are necessary, Social Media can streamline the governance process through more timely communication.  It can allow teams to break from painful state-gate cycles to move to an environment of more iterative, constant feedback.

# 5 – Lean Manufacturing

The Breakthrough: From Toyota, an approach to efficiency that allocates resources only to those processes that create value for the customer.

The Question:  Can Social Media identify and improve those processes that create value for the customer?

• Answer:  Not really
• Social Media is all about communication which is more art than science.  In order to improve communication skills, you have to practice.  Practicing communication has a fuzzy connection, at best, to creating consumer value
• There’s a soft argument around Social Media democratizing communication to allow front-line employees to identify processes, but most modern production facilities have processes/systems in place already to do this.

#6 – Scenario Planning

The Breakthrough: Shell Oil improved strategic planning by creating scenarios, or possible outcomes, that take into account the combined effect of many different possible factors.

The Question:  Can Social Media improve strategy by offering a better view of the possible future?

• Answer:  Yes, emphatically
• Good strategy is hard evaluate because it can only be measured in hindsight.  Bad strategic decisions are is easy to justify because you can always tie a bad outcome to something not considered in the strategy.  Social Media can offer exponentially more points of view on the future than currently used by strategy managers and consultancies.
• Social Media can also improve the quantification of probabilities of possible outcomes through technologies that can collect and measure the perspectives of millions of people.  These technologies are in their infancy, but will scale rapidly as more data is collected and analyzed.

BusinessWeek’s March 23-30, 2009 issue focuses on Smart Ideas for Tough Times which describes how managers are taking innovative approaches to weather the downturn.  The most interesting part of the series covers 11 breakthrough management ideas that are now the basics of any business school education.

This 4 part series will examine these breakthroughs alongside social media to see if we are witnessing a world-changing idea, or just another management fad.  First, here is the recap from BusinessWeek:

Some of the most powerful and lasting management methods were launched during tough times, when companies needed new ways to manage costs and grow. Here is a look back at some of the biggest ideas over the past 100 years.

1910 – The Assembly Line – Explanation

1920 – Market Segmentation – Explanation

1931 – Brand Management – Explanation

1943 – Skunk Works – Explanation

1950s – Lean Manufacturing – Explanation

1967 – Scenario Planning – Explanation

1973 – 360 Review – Explanation

1987 – Six Sigma – Explanation

1989 – Outsourcing – Explanation

1990 – Reengineering – Explanation

2000s – Open Innovation – Explanation

#1 – The Assembly Line

The Breakthrough: Ford dramatically lowered labor costs through standardized parts.  This made an expensive technology cheaper and therefore increased mass market demand.

The Question:  Can Social Media make expensive technologies more affordable for the Mass Market?

• Answer:  Probably Not – Social Media makes communication faster and more relevant through online social networks.  This makes knowledge workers more productive than in the past.  However, big industries that rely on knowledge workers (pharmaceuticals, software, finance) can profit more from using this information to increase features, and therefore price.
• Additionally, while collaboration is now less expensive, globalization and other technological improvements have already made streamlined labor costs a barrier to entry in most industries rather than a competitive advantage.

# 2 – Market Segmentation

The Breakthrough: GM divided customers into groups based on their unique needs and focused their products on meeting those needs.  This decreased competition and cannibalization between their brands.

The Question:  Can Social Media allow companies to better identify and meet distinct consumer needs?

• Answer:  Absolutely Yes  – Tremendous amounts of data are being created by users of social networks and organized by marketing-savvy companies.  A company’s biggest challenge is how to make sense out of all thea data that is out there.
• Eventually, managers will have the tools to micro-segment their consumers and offer highly specialized products that do not contain features that would compete with other products they offer.

# 3 – Brand Management

The Breakthrough: Organize brands into “mini-businesses” that must differentiate themselves from both internal and external competitors to survive.

The Question:  Can Social Media allow organizations to more effectively align their resources to maximize total profit?

• Answer:  Sometimes – Social Media can extend the communication and collaboration ushered in by the first generation of internet technologies.  Larger organizations with many brands competing for internal resources will benefit from improved information flow, but this will be a one-time, medium-size improvement rather than a radical redesign.
• However, the majority of the benefits from improved internal communication have been realized through the adoption of first generation internet technologies.

Photo by ChrisL_Ak

Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta write an ambiguous, bland, and wrong piece on Forbes.com about the need for CEOs to use Social Networking technologies.  Their seemingly decent argument cites Web 2.0 Evangelists (no one particular, just the “evangelists” in general) who apparently claim the following:

Web 2.0 evangelists, on the other hand, argue that social software can be used to boost productivity. They say it can facilitate an open-ended corporate culture that values transparency, collaboration and innovation. Most important, it can be an effective way to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction.

Of course all this is true, but two of the examples they use, Blendtec CEO’s “Will it Blend” series, and Zappo’s CEO Twitter Feed, feel like a simple marketing channel.

Simply put, CEOs make a lot of money because they are good at managing talented people.

Average CEO of an S&P 500 company was $10.5 million in 2008

Say whatever you want about executive pay…but CEOs have unique skills and are therefore highly compensated.  At $10.5 million a year, and assuming no sleep, that’s about $1,200 an hour.  Shareholders demand that CEOs should focus on what they do best…

CEOs Would Need to Spend Many Hours Building Social Media Skills

It takes a decent amount of experience to use this technology authentically without sounding artificial.  And, the only way to do this is “learning by doing”.  So, if anyone says, “It only takes a couple of seconds to Tweet”, remind them that the best Twitter users are ones that have practiced writing pithy updates.

Johnathan Schwartz is the rare example of a CEO who can do this, but I suspect there is some ghost-writing behind this blog.

The Best CEOs Hire People Who Are Smarter Than They Are

Find a social media expert, apparently they’re everywhere.  But hire them and have them communicate to you like any other functional leader in your organization.  Find a strategic thinker who can drive change at all levels of the organization to impact your business objectives.  Don’t have a CEO spend their valuable time learning Social Media skills when they are experts in the much rarer skills of Management.

Download Slides Here

Diversity of skills and experience is key to making a Social Media Initiative stick.  Many companies rush to staff a social media initiative by assembling a diverse team across functions, experience, and interests.  However, companies need a balance of skills to succeed and often sway to the extremes by staffing either ALL social media experts or ALL organization insiders.

This matrix can help you staff your team by identifying skill gaps, both in social media and in organizational change, that can help you fill key roles in your initiative.

When you are done, ask yourself this question:   “Does this look like a winning Bingo card?”  If yes, then identify your gaps and look to bring in Subject Matter Experts to help strengthen your initiative.

Download Slides Here

Organizational Change Skills

Influences senior leadership

• High – Has relationships that can be used to influence change outside a presentation setting
• OK – Presented compelling arguments to senior management

Deep industry experience

• High – Has 10+ years in industry and deep relationships with suppliers and partners
• OK – Has 5+ years in industry and contacts with suppliers and partners

Creates new metrics and communicates their importance

• High – Developed metrics beyond revenue/profit for a new business initiative
• OK – Has used new metrics to inform business decisions

Empathizes with customers

• High – Conducted customer ethnography to develop actionable insights
• OK – Customer facing experience in a sales, service, or marketing function

Rapidly iterates technology projects

• High – Led a major technology initiative requiring quick implementation to requirements changes
• OK – Participated on a technology team to define enhancements and changes

Leverages experience in a corporate change initiative

• High – Has led a major corporate change initiative like Six Sigma or Innovation
• OK – Has participated on a corporate change initiative team as a Subject Matter Expert

Social Media Skills

Understands the details of good content

• High – Has a high traffic website
• OK – Writes content 2-3 times per week

Analyzes qualitative data to determine audience needs

• High – Developed insights from qualitative consumer data
• OK – Collected and understands limits of qualitative data

Surfaces diverse information from online resources

• High –Gathers information from diverse RSS feeds
• OK – Familiar with getting information beyond “Google

Exhibits patience with community detractors

• High – Manages an online community with 100+ members
• OK – Has added to discussions of controversial topics in an online forum

Turns virtual connections into real-world connections

• High – Participates in real-world “meet-ups” of online communities
• OK – Has developed REAL relationships with people met online

Creates buzz through pithy writing

• High – Has a high number of followers on a site like Twitter
• OK – Can write headlines that catch your attention

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I’ve seen a couple tweets pop up from managers recognizing employees for a great job. Rochelle Grayson started some thoughts back in May of last year, that I thought should be built upon.

First and Foremost, It SHOULD NEVER replace the handwritten note made famous by Jack Welch, but for quick “atta-boys” or “atta-girls”, it can go a long way

1 – Quick – 140 characters, bam.  It’s a perfect medium for quick recognition for a job well done.  I’ve seen so many managers get nervous and hesitate to properly recognize their employees…but this is a overwhelmingly easy way to give quick feedback.

2 – Public – I would love for my followers to see that I did a great job at “making a coherent argument for an idea in a meeting…”   A simple @benphoster, and I’m working nights to come up with better arguments.

3 – New - As of right now…no one is doing this.  Show your team that you’re one of those “forward-thinking” manager types that they’ve been hearing so much about.  Set up a #tag for your team to allow the group to publicly see the motivation.

BUT NEVER LET IT REPLACE A HANDWRITTEN NOTE!

I’ve heard of Social Media being aligned in a bunch of different functions across the organization.  In a perfect world, Social Media is its own function with the leader reporting directly to the CEO.  But…we’re not quite there yet.  TheSocialOrganization.com had a great post about corporate initiatives being staffed in its own “function”, but until we get there, here are 3 common approaches and their pros/cons.

Marketing

Pros

• Easier to tie results to key business metrics (revenue, profit, brand awareness)
• More natural fit for organization makes it easier to gain stakeholder buy-in

Cons

• Can limit potential – initiatives focused on increasing sales
• Customer perception of spam – lame company attempts at Twitter

Information Technology

Pros

• Easier to iterate/change technology applications
• Employees with more experience in the space

Cons

• Over-engineered solutions that complicate content
• Many tech departments aren’t known for being user-friendly

Strategy

Pros

• Provide longer-term, “big-bet” focus to the initiative
• Able to apply value to multiple organization functions

Cons

• Can be focused too focused on “great thoughts” instead of quick action
• Often balancing multiple strategic initiatives which could divert attention from Social Media

Download Slides Here

A great post at davefleet.com outlined eight questions to ask Social Media experts.   Josh Peters at shuaism.com gave some great answers.  Almost as common as Social Media experts are Social Media teams in organizations.  I thought this excerpt was very relevant:

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing people sign up for Twitter, follow ten thousand people (many of whom follow back) to build a substantial following, then start spouting advice as though followers equals expertise. Some of them are experts, for sure. Others, however, seem to have little beyond a big mouth to back their words up.

Almost as annoying, but just as dangerous, are the hordes of traditional practitioners that have realized they need to include social media in their pitches nowadays, but have no experience whatsoever using those tools.

Every company is starting a Social Media group/team/initiative, here are 6 questions to ask your organization’s Social Media team:

1 – Will the team have access to any tool, technology, or website they want?

• Watch for any hesitation towards full and complete access
• Probe for the process required to get access from tech admins and compliance teams
• Sounds like a ridiculous question, right?   It’s not, if admins don’t trust their social media teams, chances are that management doesn’t yet trust them either.  You’ll be surprised how many times you hear “well, we just don’t support Firefox.”

2 – What is your “VPV” – Visitor Value Proposition?

• Watch for any answer that could be translated into “Build it, and they will come”
• Probe for specific examples on why this improves upon the current solutions available to potential visitors
• Many otherwise brilliant senior leaders expect the love they have for their organization is common….but unless you are providing visitor-driven, stunning content, no one cares about your company.

3 – How does the organization deal with negative feedback?

• Watch for a sugar-coated answer that is too good to be true
• Probe for examples of leadership acceptance and response to negative feedback
• Social media teams are trained to expect negative feedback but rarely does management understand the true essence of negative comments that customers, partners, and employees post.

4 – What is the biggest regulatory/compliance restraint facing the social media strategy?

• Watch for answers at the extreme, positive or negative
• Probe for the ability for the organization to respond quickly without bureaucratic constraints
• Every organization faces regulatory constraints.  An answer like  “we’re free to do whatever we want” is naive.   However, some industries simply can’t maximize social media’s potential because of their industry regulations.

5 – Who does the social media team report to?

• Watch for organizational layers without a direct reporting structure to top management
• Probe for the strategic objectives of the function that Social Media is most closely aligned
• I’ve heard of social media groups in marketing, strategy, technology, innovation, and even customer service.  Ideally, the social media team will be it’s own function with a a direct report to the CEO to make management buy-in quicker.

6 – What metrics are management using to measure success?

• Watch for a direct answer with narrowly defined metrics or an ambiguous answer with little thought
• Probe for measurements in other functions that tie to social media objectives and for a set of metrics that work together to measure progress
• Social media has multiple ways to impact the bottom line, but the answer here shows strategic thought given to the business model.  The metrics don’t matter as much as the thought process behind them.

What are good answers to these questions?  What else would you include in this list?

Social Media is a hot topic in the corporate world, but many employees are skeptical of the value it can add to their business.  By viewing Social Media in the context of two recent corporate initiatives (Six Sigma and Innovation ), leaders can learn from a historical management perspective of how to implement the radical change taking place around us.

1 – Six Sigma

• Organization Ability to Understand Difficult Concepts – My three favorite Six Sigma companies, GE, Motorola, and Amazon spent tremendous resources, financial and human, to embed Six Sigma capabilities across their organization.  While the low hanging fruit ripe for Six Sigma may be gone, there is no question that the focus on fixing defects that annoy customers will continue to be critical to organizations.  Just like Six Sigma, Social Media isn’t the easiest concept for people to understand (ever try explaining the value of Twitter to someone?)  Not every employee needs to understand regression analysis but Six Sigma forced all employees to look at their work in the context of a business proces….which brings me to my next point.

• Business Process is a Common Language between Management and Employees – Leadership doesn’t have the time to understand the details behind every function in the organization.  But, Six Sigma tied the day-to-day work of front-line employees to metrics and results that leadership understands and wants quantified.  Businesses will always benefit from effiicient processes, but Social Media strategy execution requires rapid iteration and an almost wiki-like approach to the details of the execution.

2 – Innovation

• Solving Unarticulated Customer Needs – Since the dawn of capitalism, economic value has been created by those who can recognize a customer problem and solve it profitably.  It used to be a competitive advantage to have an innovation focused strategy, but it is now a strategic necessity because most companies have adopted a disciplined, consumer-driven approach to developing new products, services, and business models.  Social Media strategies and execution must follow the same process in place at innovative companies:
  • Ability to Surface Unarticulated Customer Needs – No one specifically said to Twitter, “I need a way to share 140 characters of text in as many ways as possible.”  Rather, the founders listened to people who wanted simplicity in communication and openness in idea sharing.  Social Media teams benefit from a member who knows advanced market research techniques (like ethnography) to surface customer data.
  • Skill to Quantify the Breadth and Intensity of Customer Needs – Just because someone says they need something, doesn’t mean you have to solve it.  Social Media teams must spread their customer insights across the organization to solicit feedback and perspective.  It’s not always a hard number that measures the need for a solution.  But through a diversity of opinion, you can separate customer insights into those that are interesting and also relevant to your business model.
  • Generating Ideas that Solve Problems – The IBM commercials made this concept famous.  But, a simple ideation session can yield a high number of ideas, few of which have staying power because they don’t solve a customer problem.  Social Media teams are prone to adopting fancy technology ideas that aren’t necessarily the solution to a customer problem.  However, they can learn from Innovation’s structured ideation sessions that focus creativity on real problems
  • Focus on Execution over Ideation – Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article shows historical examples of simultaneous discovery like calculus and the telephone.  Simply put, ideas aren’t the magic bullet.  A Social Media team needs to understand that tradeoffs between the idea and reality will be required.  Execution is typically a function of hard work, so as long as the Social Media team can immerse itself in the details required to execute their solution to an unarticulated consumer need, success will not be lost along the path to realization.

• Strategic Risk-Taking over the Long Term – Innovation requires “big bets” often without an immediate payback to the organization’s goals.  Leaders are trained not to argue with the “big bet” principle, but true innovative companies are those that adopt risk-taking and measure management on the ability to take smart risks.  Social Media teams should seek to understand management’s commitment to patience and constant re-calibration of goals and objectives based on findings from constant iterative customer feedback.

For Discussion:  What other hot-button  ”management trends” are relevant to Social Media teams?  How can you leverage past organization-wide initiatives to better suceed in your goal for change?