When one realizes that we are applying collective intelligence via social technology UPON collective memory in order to EXACT collective influence UPON human society…well, the questions cease orienting around economic issues…and become far deeper. What is it that we are really here to accomplish, fellow sentient beings? ~Nathaniel Hansen, Athens, Greece. July 16, 2011
The following institutes provide core essentials related to leadership, the psyche, technology and the future. If you are able to attend one live event during the next 12 months, do it!
Singularity University is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. With the support of a broad range of leaders in academia, business and government, Singularity University hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges. Singularity University is based at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley. – http://bit.ly/singularityU2011
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The Oxford Internet Institute was founded as a department of the University of Oxford in 2001, as an academic centre for the study of the societal implications of the Internet. The current home in a building owned by Balliol College was formally opened in July 2003. – http://bit.ly/OII_2011
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The Do Lectures. The idea is a simple one— that people who Do things can inspire the rest of us to go and Do things, too. So each year we invite a set of people down here to come and tell us what they Do. They can be small Do’s or big Do’s or just extraordinary Do’s. But when you listen to their stories, they light a fire in your belly to go and Do your thing, your passion, the thing that sits in the back of your head each day, just waiting, and waiting for you to follow your heart. To go find your cause to fight, your company to start, your invention to invent, your book to write, your mountain to climb. The one thing the Doers of the world Do, apart from Do amazing things, is to inspire the rest of us to go and Do amazing things too. They are fire-starters. – http://bit.ly/Do_Lectures2011
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The Esalen Institute was founded in 1962 as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the “human potential,” the world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination. Esalen soon became known for its blend of East/West philosophies, its experiential/didactic workshops, the steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers, and its breathtaking grounds blessed with natural hot springs. Once home to a Native American tribe known as the Essalen, Esalen is situated on 27 acres of spectacular Big Sur coastline with the Santa Lucia Mountains rising sharply behind. – http://bit.ly/Esalen_2011
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Omega Institute. Through innovative educational experiences that awaken the best in the human spirit, Omega provides hope and healing for individuals and society. Founded in 1977 by Stephan Rechtschaffen, M.D., and Elizabeth Lesser, Omega Institute for Holistic Studies was inspired by scholar and Eastern meditation teacher, Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Together, they envisioned a dynamic “university of life” designed to foster personal growth and social change. The name “Omega” came from the teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a renowned 20th-century philosopher, who used the term “Omega Point” to describe the peak of unity and integration toward which all life is evolving. – http://bit.ly/Omega_2011
A COLLECTIVE REALIZATION: Humanity is collectively facing James Hillman’s dilemma in The Soul’s Code, where he says, “I can no longer be sure whether the psyche is in me or whether I’m in the psyche…” The national and personal borders that were so vital to identity are increasingly tested by swiftly advancing uncertainties. At the core is a mass realization by a culture engrossed in materialistic pursuit that perhaps, just maybe, something more is afoot.
“All great civilizations when they were flourishing had a living myth,” Marie-Louise von Franz (in above video clip on her work with Carl Jung).
The most popular films and books are stories centered around beings that have entered human experience from another realm. One only need look at the highest grossing films and bestseller lists to see that humanity yearns to be in touch with powers known by our forebears. Individuals want the pinnacle of Maslow’s pyramid and want it now. Our passage collectively will be via an alchemical and very hot journey, characterized by every emotion and, hopefully, resulting in a catharsis that leaves a handful of enlightened forefathers for successive generations. We will not fly to other galaxies until we plumb the very depths of our own collective memory and discover the wealth of psychological wisdom there.
So we are engaged in some collective projects now:
PROJECT #1: NO BORDERS – HUMANITY MIXES TOGETHER FULLY: The first project that is important in all of this is already well underway. The Internet has established itself as a borderless region, unbounded by national, religious and political obstacles. It has also sprung physical arms and legs, as evidenced in the swift overthrow of governments, politicians and other oppressors. VALUE: We advance beyond rigid religious systems that limit momentum and are violent to individuals, communities and other cultures. We overcome arrogance, ignorance and fundamentalism. There is more than one way to be a human. We are everything AND unique, all at once. In this way, we benefit from the cultural wisdom of others AND weave a powerful enough garment to absorb the heat of successive stages of an alchemical initiatory process. SAMPLE PROJECT: Can humans finalize the globalization of the planet WHILE retaining the unique, delicate and rich spiritual eco-systems of various regions? Can this unified world then identify and achieve collectively desired outcomes? Over and over again?
PROJECT #2: A GLOBAL MEDIUM & DELIVERY PLATFORM FOR ALL: The next project is also well underway, in the form of social networks and the myriad devices that social content populates. EXAMPLE: The World Wide Mind and THE Conversation Prism are perfect examples of how this rainbow wheel of social properties is animated by and animates human action. VALUE: Streamlining data analysis and action platforms facilitates achievement of the sample project above, namely collective action BY THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY toward COLLECTIVELY IDENTIFIED GOALS.
PROJECT #3: SUBMARINES INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE: The third project is just beginning. Via sophisticated data-mining solutions like PeopleBrowsr, Radian6 and others, as well as a deep understanding of social and human psychology, organizations are plumbing the depth of the collective unconscious.
Carolyn Kaufman describes Jung’s concept: “The collective unconscious is like psychic DNA: it contains “inherited” psychic material that links us not only to other humans in the present but also to our ancestors from the past. According to Jung’s theory, though each of us appears to function independently, in actuality we’re all tapped into the same global mind.”
Nikos Kazantzakis identifies the importance and value of being aware of the collective unconscious, “Myriad invisible hands hold your hands and direct them. When you rise in anger, a great-grandfather froths at your mouth; when you make love, an ancestral caveman growls with lust; when you sleep, tombs open in your memory till your skull brims with ghosts.”
VALUE: The goal of launching missions into the collective unconscious is that we discover what we have forgotten and link this to what we have invented IN ORDER TO reach what we desire.
PLUMBING THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS FOR WISDOM: Again, humanity is collectively facing Hillman’s dilemma in The Soul’s Code, where he says, “I can no longer be sure whether the psyche is in me or whether I’m in the psyche…” Immersive mediums of expression and relationship like social networks clue us into deeper mysteries that CAN BE PLUMBED now and then turned into vehicles for going even deeper into our collective unconscious in search of wisdom, forgotten truth and stories. These in turn feed our evolution like nothing else can. In the old tribes, a teenage boy would undergo a ritual that threatened his life. Upon passing through, he had earned the right to sit around the fire with the men, to hunt with them and to enjoy the pleasures of women and family.
Our planet is undergoing such an initiation now, passing from fear and oppression INTO an era typified by simple technologies that resolve timeless human problems. The storyteller Michael Meade has said, “As nature rattles and culture unravels, mythic imagination tries to return to the world, for endings and beginnings are particularly mythic…myth makes meaning and helps a person find the meaningful path through life.”
Again, we will not fly to other galaxies until we plumb the very depths of our own collective memory and discover the wealth of psychological wisdom there. Do you have a different historical timeline that you like? “To keep the future open to all potentials, alternatives and dissenting possibilities, it is necessary to envisage alternative futures from different civilisational and cultural perspectives.” (Sardar) It may be the only way to get free of the “fate” and “karma” that previous generations are so deeply in love with. We do not need to have an apocalypse just because such a weight of humanity yearned for it…there are other optional endings. Cultivating a Choose Your Own Adventure approach is vital to survival at this point.
It was an honor to speak at Boussias Online Marketing Conference ’11. Athens, Greece. June 17, 2011.
Peter Ecomomides of FelixBNI tells a story of his neighborhood market to illustrate how everything has changed & nothing has changed. Peter talks about conceiving creative & human ways to interact with customers. Applying common sense marketing to social tools (Social Monitoring Tools) & social networks (The World Wide Mind). The importance of adapting social technologies to ways humans have always spent time is vital. We gossip, watch movies, check out photos, listen to music, check the news. The most successful social networks, apps and tools are digital software that serve timeless human actions. This is the beauty of what Mr. Economides recognizes in his statement about “getting back to social”. He acknowledges that social objects – tweets, status updates, photos posted to Flickr, video posted to YouTube, ARE the medium. Mr. Economides writes, “Twitter is not a medium. Your tweets are the medium. Your blog, your Facebook page, etc.”
AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MR. PETER ECONOMIDES OF FELIXBNI
ON CHANGE: You’ve emphasized that “everything has changed and nothing has changed”. What are your thoughts on that today and why is this an important message for those getting into marketing via social networks?
Everyone in marketing was educated BDSM – Before the Development of Social Media. And the marketing we learned was focused on the Broadcast Economy. Mass media. Mass retailing. The consumer as a demographic number.
Social Media has given birth to the Conversation Economy. Massive media which do not broadcast. Messaging has become stream of micro conversations. The consumer now has a highly individual profile.
My point is that this is the way it has always been. Mass, if you think about it, is the aberration. It’s back to village, where conversation and word of mouth rule supreme. It’s just that this time the village is global. And the main road running through it is the internet and social media.
The irony is that the largest medium in the world has taken us back to a world filled with individuals, conversation and word of mouth. But as Gary Vaynerchuk says, it’s “word of mouth on steroids.”
Social media is influencing consumer behaviour way beyond the internet. And this is the most important thing for any marketer to bear in mind. Great marketing rests on powerful consumer insight. And if marketers don’t understand the 360º effect of social media on consumer behaviour, they’re in serious trouble.
I often illustrate this through my local butcher.
I believe that he has the best meat in Athens. Now, I am not an expert. I do not know this, but I believe it. Not because of what he says but because of how he behaves. He does not impress this on me. He expresses it in everything he says and everything he does.
He has not studied marketing. He knows nothing about social media. But he is an insightful human who understands what makes people tick. His reputation has been built entirely on word of mouth. He knows that. And he also knows that his reputation can be ruined by word of mouth. In a flash.
Smart people have always known this. And the best butcher in the village has always behaved like this. Ask your grandmother.
Everything has changed and nothing has changed.
ON TECHNOLOGY AND CONVERSATION: Danny Brown writes, “Every single one of us is connected, from the tech savvy to the Luddite to the in-between. And if we’re all connected, it becomes easier to help. And if we all help each other, maybe there’s just a chance the world might be a better place.” Do you see social technologies as accelerators of helping each other and making the world a better place? What can humans do in the context of social technologies that is different than via telephone, fax machines, and the Pony Express? Is it only about speed or is there something more tactile about social technologies now?
Conversation is the key.
Good conversation is a dialogue that consists of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. In other words, it is dynamic. It moves somewhere. Social media facilitates synthesis in a way that the telephone, fax machine and the Pony Express never could. It’s immediate. It’s massive. And it’s open. It’s like a perpetual town hall debate.
Television? Just thesis. No antithesis. Certainly no synthesis.
ON TWITTER: What is Twitter and why do you use it?
Twitter’s a cocktail party where you are free to drop into a conversation, plant a seed, pick a fruit, shape a thought, learn, share, contribute … and move on to the next conversation. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Twitter is also the most immediate news source on the planet. I witnessed the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year by switching between Twitter and Al Jazeera on my iPad. I was in Tahrir Square through Twitter. Picking up news and personal drama. And I’d see the images a little later on Al Jazeera. No other medium could have done that for me.
The evening news? Forget about it!
ON FACEBOOK: Why have so many people flocked to Facebook?
A market is always built on a great product.
And I think Facebook is a great product.
Easy. Intuitive. Lots of ways to share. And, importantly, lots of reward through the Like button.
But there are a lot of great products out there which do not succeed ….
Facebook’s initial appeal was to the high school and college crowd. Important influencers of the older crowd. Facebook crossed the chasm into mainstream through kids. And once they had the critical mass, the network effect kicked in. One billion users by the end of 2011 … remarkable. But that;’s the network effect in action.
Facebook has played an important role as most people’s first step into social media. But it runs the risk of becoming the “low rent district” of the internet.
EXPLAINING SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY TO GRANDMA: How on earth do you explain social technologies and social networks to grandma? Or the crustiest of CEOs?
Back to the village! And back to my butcher story.
You’ve seen many approaches to marketing over the years. What are two of your favorite campaigns, in the past or now? What could social technology and social networks facilitate that maybe would have been tougher in the past?
I’d rather talk about great brands.
Because a campaign is just a stage in the life of a brand.
Every category has a protagonist brand.
And it should be the ambition of every brand to be the protagonist of its category.
Think of a soft drink. Coca-Cola?
The Coca-Cola of vodka?
The Absolut of computers?
The Apple of beer? The Heineken of sports shoes? The Nike of coffee shops?
Starbucks hardly advertises. But look at the quality of the conversation it has with its customers. In everything it says. And everything it does. Everything communicates.
Starbucks knows what its “Starbucksness” is all about. And so does every barista who works there. That’s the key to a great brand. Consistent behaviour throughout the organization. In everything it says and does.
Great brands have always understood the conversation. Great brands have always understood that they sell product to individuals and not to numbers. Great brands have always “got” what the social media experts are preaching. Nothing is new.
Naturally, social media open up new opportunities to connect with consumers through thesis, antithesis and synthesis. I wonder about the future of consumer research …..
ON GREECE: You have lived all over the world – in New York, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Johanessburg, Athens. You’ve marketed huge brands like Apple and Coca-Cola. You’ve been in leadership at major ad agencies like McCann and also done your own thing. Now you live in Athens, Greece. What is happening in Greece right now and how can OR are social networks play(ing) a part in this?
There’s a huge conversation going on on Twitter, revolving around current events in Greece. Also a number of great forums on Facebook. But I don’t see much traction. I am working on a public forum in the style of Quora which I hope to launch soon.
GREEK FAVORITES: Who is your favorite Greek musician? Film director? Playwright? Journalist?
Konstantinos Beta (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiuSbj-PrvA)
Costa-Gavras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa-Gavras)
Dimitris Papaioannou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitris_Papaioannou)
Alexis Papahelas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Papahelas)
Find more on Peter Economides at FelixBNI (http://www.felixbni.com).
“We have the conversations now…we don’t need Nielsen…we don’t really even need some of these deep analytics anymore…we have the conversations” ~Jodee Rich, CEO, PeopleBrowsr
“You need someone who can read into the data and say “this is telling me…” @richmeyer
“There are way too many analytic solutions out there & not enough people to analyze the data and turn it into action.” @richmeyer
“Organizations need individuals/teams within to leverage analytics into actionable items that can help meet brand objectives.” @richmeyer
“A “spot-on” CSV of 100 Key Influencers w/social links + a summation of these Influencers’ latest messages/social objects + a graph of who follows them and who they follow.” @Nat_Hansen
“We helped (this brand) find 10,000 followers who REALLY loved them and their click through rate went up significantly…it (stories, conversations, and numbers) absolutely become dollars when it becomes what people are really thinking about us.” ~Jodee Rich, CEO, PeopleBrowsr
MANAGERS AT AD AGENCIES ARE MORE INTERESTED IN THEIR BUSINESS MODEL & MONEY VS. HOW PEOPLE FEEL: Putting a brand-oriented organization like an ad agency in charge of nurturing a community of people within social networks is a mistake. An ad agency’s business model is based on revenues earned from media. They create broadcast messaging for broadcast media. The growth of vibrant social communities is better done by those from WITHIN those same communities, individuals committed to the core values of whatever that particular circle lives for.
If a community is only nurtured for transactional purposes, its members interact differently than if the community has been formed around a passion, a shared interest. Good content-marketing is informed by deep insights derived from conversation snippets within social networks. And most brands and agencies are not staffed with the right people to discover such insights. They are smart but they are bound to their business model.
The best organization to build a social community consists of those who care about and have “grown up” within that community itself…whether it be the community OF THE BRAND ITSELF or a non-branded community that is GENRE-SPECIFIC (in which a particular brand tends to flourish). Additionally, those familiar with social networks and how to use social technologies are the best to train these community leaders. To sum up: Orient towards those who care about people as the ones to initiate AND grow a community within social networks.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IS A TOP PRIORITY IN COMMUNITY CREATION: A number of organizations I am working with now in Europe are dealing with this exact issue. The ad agency for these organizations has been in charge of informing the ethos of the customer-facing materials. But now, in both cases, it turns out that the budding communities forming around these brands need leadership and nurturing. And there is no-one managing the brand or on staff at the agency that truly cares about the quality of the community. The PRIMARY discussion is: how many Likes can we get AND how many of those Likes can we turn into dollars or euros? At the outset of growing social communities, such strong focus on growing Likes and turning Likes into dollars/euros can suffocate the organic growth of a circle of people simply coming together to share a common interest or passion. To sum up: Peter Ecomonomides of FelixBNI says, “social psychology is far more important than economics”.
SCALES OF CARE: I remember consulting to a large sales organization years ago in America. I worked with an I/O Psychologist to assess the 100 person staff within the organization as part of an HR project. The study yielded some interesting results. Of particular interest was the psychological make-up of the COO and the Director of Sales. The tests we were using showed, as one scale of measurement, an individual’s care for other humans…that is, how much concern someone had for another person and their feelings/needs. The COO and the Director of Sales scored 1 and 2 respectively on a 100 point scale, with 100 marking deep care for others. To sum up: Do NOT put Directors of Sales or CFOs in charge of policies related to social communities. This is the vicinity of those in Customer Experience and the customer journey.
Choosing Fun in relation to Key Influencers within the Interest Graph can be very effective. Check out this twitter campaign for a cell phone company in Turkey. Brilliant! Thanks to @helena_chari in Athens for turning me on to this!!
BE CUSTOMER-CENTRIC, NOT PRODUCT-CENTRIC: While it is true that not all COOs or Sales Directors globally might score in the same way, this example points to an important issue for those building social communities. Often the decision-makers in the room at enterprise-level organizations are the CFO (who influences the CEO) and leaders from the Sales division. On one level this makes sense since sales is the life-blood of most organizations and the CFO is the “dutch uncle” (ideally) who maintains efficiency and the books. But a CFO and a Director of Sales are NOT the right people to nurture a social community for a brand, nor to dictate how such a community ought to be created and populated. This is best done by individuals who understand customer-service, who care passionately about user-experience and who have a bias towards giving power to the customer in such forums. And that’s why large organizations globally are gearing more resources towards Chief Customer Officers vs. Chief Marketing Officers. See Harvard Business Review article on this subject here AND here.
STAFFING FOR CONVERSATION ANALYSIS: I recently interviewed a large interactive agency in a major European city. I was particularly interested in discovering to what extent the agency analyzed customer data for the purpose of deriving insight. In other words, aside from receiving metrics and analytics from a social monitoring solution, did the agency employ OR contract with individuals who studied conversations by influencers around a brand. And, if so, what training or background did those individuals have. It turned out that the tool the agency was using showed communities around interests related to a brand along with stats on those who occupied the communities BUT the agency had allocated no resources or staffing toward peering into the conversations. To sum up: agencies and brands MUST staff in relation to customer need vs. product need. Social communities are best served by those who understand the human heart.
ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATION AND STORYTELLING: Something very powerful emerges when one knows what others are interested in talking about. Consider for a moment how powerful it would be for that interactive agency to spend time looking at the last 100 tweets/status updates/blog posts/thread comments OF the top 100 online influencers around its customers’ products. And what if the person studying this messaging had a background in psychology, writing psychological assessments and/or in journalism, feature stories. Agencies MUST consider contracting with or employing such people to do exactly this task. The creativity that emerged from the focus groups of old is amplified in potential with so many conversation snippets now discoverable within social networks around ANY topic. A psychologically-aware storyteller who understands the power of mashing-up content IS the individual ALL agencies and brands should be sending headhunters to find. Non-branded Twitter communities created on-the-fly for research purposes can be very powerful scopes for those with a trained eye and a trained heart. To sum up: Agencies and brands MUST hire individuals or contract to organizations who specialize in community and conversation analysis. Storytellers are vital to community conception and creation.
GOOD QUESTIONS TO ASK: Interactive and ad/marketing agencies should be asking themselves the following questions:
1. Are we satisfied with our process for deriving insight, customer intelligence and stories from our current social monitoring solution?
2. How much time are we spending on conversation/community analysis at the outset of social marketing projects? And on-going?
3. Have we considered hiring individuals trained in psychology and journalism to (a) analyze conversations within social communities and (b) create sticky content from the insights derived from these conversations?
4. Have we realized the full potential of non-branded Twitter communities as a valuable resource in gaining customer insight, gaining competitive intelligence and in our storytelling processes?
CONVERSATION INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS AT SLIDESHARE by THE SOCIALIZERS
RESOURCES:
Research.ly, a solution created by PeopleBrowsr, to create on-fly communities around ANY topic. This is an invaluable tool for market research and social community creation.
Copyblogger – a great resource for those who create content of all kinds.
Oxford Internet Institute Projects – this institute in the UK is deeply interested in the Hows and Whys of the Internet. The research they are doing is fantastic!
The Chief Customer Officer Council – The Chief Customer Officer Council is the first of its kind — a member-led peer-advisory network offering unparalleled insight into the critical issues facing CCOs.
WOMMA – Word of Mouth Marketing Organization – WOMMA is the premiere non-profit organization dedicated to advancing and advocating the discipline of credible word of mouth marketing, both offline and online.
“Wait a moment, here I have it. This: ‘Most men will not swim before they are able to.’ Is not that witty? Naturally, they won’t swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they won’t think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what’s more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown.” ~Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
THOSE WHO KNOW HOW TO SWIM MUST TEACH: We live in times when mankind has bartered solid earth for water. Those who know how to swim, must swim and teach. And those that would survive must be willing to learn and adapt. Such is the case for those learning social networks. Social networks are an outer manifestation in the form of text, photos, video, news and music OF OUR inner lives. Whereas before we heard thoughts from another person over a telephone line or experienced a director’s vision on the television or silver screen, we now have an environment (social networks) where we live WITHIN a constant stream of thought, vision and communication. To speak plainly: those who can find business intelligence, set up on-the-fly networks and aggregate customers quickly WITHIN social networks provide value to traditional businesses seeking to enter these same networks.
THE MEDIUM HAS CHANGED: Sifting through this stream, filtering it, is the primary and initial task that those who work in social networks must do via social media monitoring and community management. And those who introduce corporations and brands to the use of social networks must simplify and translate all of the lexicon that has ballooned around social networks into an easy to grasp language. Many, like Peter Economides of FelixBNI, state firmly that nothing has changed EXCEPT the medium or channel. While this is very true, there is also the reality that a new medium often changes the user or participant. We communicate at the speed of thought now and our “PCs, the Internet, mobile phones, GPS have come together to enable a vast distributed data network of collective memory…a collective stream of intelligence” (PeopleBrowsr). To speak plainly: social networks now provide a new, faster means to create connections, sales and business relationships.
CONVINCING DUTCH UNCLES: So how does one convince a businessman in his 60’s who is used to using the telephone and maybe a fax machine to communicate…how does one convince such a man to use Facebook to see photos and read stories of his grandchildren, to see Twitter as a scope into powerful business intelligence, to view photos of family and peers at Flickr and video of family at YouTube? How does one convince him to look for the breaking news at Reddit or discover the latest market trends at StumbleUpon? How does one convince him to read what his competitors’ team is presenting at Slideshare or Scrib’d? How does one convince him to catch up with his granddaughter’s music at her Last.fm channel or to create his own radio station at Pandora and listen to this on the drive to work? How does one reveal that vital conversations related to the brands he founded are taking place within Disqus communities (communities built around the comment-threads from blogs)? How does one convince him that Wikipedia is a faster route to information on many subjects than Britannica? How does one convince him that Yelp will “save the night” in a new town if that top restaurant is fully booked? To speak plainly: there is a network for every market and many networks contain a slice devoted to specific markets. Use these free venues for connection to your customer and for making sales!
SELLING CRONIES ON SOCIAL NETWORKS: Selling the crustiest, saltiest critics on the power and speed of social networks is rooted in psychology. Changing anyone’s mind, accessing a heart, really depends upon getting to know that person. What motivates him or her? What goals does he or she have? Doing a little homework USING social networks PRIOR to such meetings is one route to engaging in a convincing conversation. When I know what 10 competitors to a brand are doing RIGHT NOW (social monitoring tools) and six months from now (Recorded Future), that can be a great conversation starter. When I know where 50 new clients/customers for a product or service are located and what they are saying, this can lead to some exciting plans for the corporation. When I can show what events led to a shift in consumer behavior that either helped or hurt a brand, that can lead to some important adjustments to the supply chain and perhaps product identity. When I create a simple infographic that visualizes EXACTLY where that gentleman’s customers are conversing in social networks, what they are saying, when they are saying it and to whom they are talking, well, we hope he will see pools of new business opportunity. Will this businessman want his regional sales teams to know about new businesses expected to enter an area during the next 3 years? How would the CEO of a major automaker like to see alliances, business relations, company affiliates or joint ventures related to top global automakers? To speak plainly: When normal business processes are augmented or enhanced by social network data, we can make informed and calculated decisions on where, to whom, when and how to sell online. More effectively, with less expense and faster response time!
TEACHING LEVERAGE: But the next part is sticky, in more ways than one. Because after this classic businessman has paid for market intelligence and a plan to access these pools of customers, his first action is often incorrect. He wants to blast these customers with the digital equivalent of direct-marketing mail pieces from a neighborhood souvlaki joint. He wants to buy TV ads and slap a Facebook icon at the end. He wants to get on the bullhorn and round ’em up to the lot for those shiny new vehicles. And so now we have to show him examples of how brands have leveraged the inexpensive and free social networks to harness the collective strength of employees and customers alike. We have to show him how Best Buy raised up its entire staff via TwelpForce and solved thousands of customer service issues via Twitter. We have to show him how NewEgg put up lots of videos to teach customers how to fix or use electronics purchased at their stores. We have to show him how Starbucks gave their customers a chance to change anything about the stores or products or service through My Starbucks Idea. And even if we heard about these great methods of leveraging social networks years ago at conferences or through friends running those social communities, we have to keep telling the story because it is still so new to so many. Especially the crusty cronies. To speak plainly: Do not assume when selling social network ideas to CEOs that he/she has seen or “gets” what you are talking about. Spell it out WITH examples that include simple math and clear lists of benefits.
SELLING COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT AND CONTENT-MARKETING TO MARKETING MANAGERS: Another tough sell is convincing the Marketing Manager and the General Manager that a new position of Community Manager or Social Media Manager WITHIN the corporation is essential. And that this person will be creating LOTS of regular content and engaging in relationship with the customers and stakeholders of the brand. As Jeremiah Owyang, of Altimeter Group, says, “Agencies should teach their clients how to ‘fish’ rather than do it for them as strategic advisors.” Or as Steve Woodruff writes, “The companies who advance with real personality in their social media endeavors will likely do best.” Content and relationship that works in social networks is born from customers who are passionate about the brand and a Community Manager or Social Media Manager who takes this content and distributes it throughout the social networks to the advantage of BOTH the customer and the brand. Read more on Great Community Management in this interview with Eleftherios Hatziioannou, former Social Media Manager at Mercedes-Benz Global and current Social Media Director at s.Oliver.
It all goes back to psychology and knowing what each person WITHIN the organization wants, what they need, and what the company is ready for now. And then showing how some simple first steps involving Listening, Planning and Executing can lead to great things. As Peter Economides of FelixBNI writes, “It’s about social psychology, not economics.”
A FEW GREAT TWEETS TO CONSIDER:
“You need someone who can read into the data and say “this is telling me…” ” richmeyer
There are way too many analytic solutions out there & not enough people to analyze the data and turn it into actionable data. richmeyer
Organizations need individuals/teams within to leverage analytics into actionable items that can help meet brand objectives. richmeyer
A “spot-on” CSV of 100 Key Influencers w/social links + a summation of these Influencers’ latest messages + a graph of who follows them. Nat_Hansen
Two news updates from Europe on The Socializers.
One: Nathaniel Hansen, CEO of The Socializers, presented at IMH 9th Communications Conference in Nicosia, Cyprus on May 27, 2011. See video below, find the presentation at Slideshare and read more about A Thousand True Fans here.
Two: TheSocializers are very proud of our client winbank and Giorgos Gavril, Director of Interactive in winning top social award at EFMA Online Banking!! http://bit.ly/efma_award2011
“Piraeus Bank was awarded by the International Agency European Finance Marketing Association (EFMA), as the leading presence in Social Media in Europe (Best Approach to Social Media in Europe).
According to the announcement, the award was part of the conference “Online banking: the e-volution” held in Paris and covered the platform “Think Green”.
This platform has created an online community of users who are sensitive to environmental issues and share their news and reflections on such topics. It has presence in the most popular social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr) and has already, after about 2 months of operation, more than 5,000 members.”
The Socializers performed social intelligence gathering related to this project and taught bank leaders from the various silos on the principles of social business and the value of engaging in conversations with customers within social networks.
Discussing A Thousand True Fans with Eleftherios Hatziioannou in Athens, Greece. May 25, 2011.
A Thousand True Fans essay by Kevin Kelly:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php
First, organize 1,000 by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000.html
A DEFINITION:
“A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.” ~Kevin Kelly, The Technium
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“In the entertainment area, there are members of the hardcore fan base.
The equivalent of the guys who will camp outside of an Apple store to get the new iPhone.
On the innovation curve, these are the fanatics.
The more interesting group is the one immediately to the right of the fanatics.
The ones who move you across the chasm and into the mainstream world of the “early majority”
These are the ones who need to be identified.
Because these are the real influencers.
Fanatics are important in the entertainment world.
Is this equally so for other industries?
The fanatics are important …. but the “visionaries” are crucial.” ~Peter Economides, FelixBNI
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“For example, let’s say you launch a Facebook campaign to get 1,000 “likes” for your brand page. You make your goal of 1,000, but what’s to say those people will attend your event or even visit the page at a later date? You have to offer them something of value in order to create a social consumer. That social consumer might then provide feedback on the event and even influence peers to attend. Figure out what your audience wants, and give it to them — over and over. You have to give them a reason to both connect and come back.” ~Brian Solis, Altimeter Group
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How does influence translate into dollars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztUOVVZAxvU
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A PROCESS: A THOUSAND TRUE FANS as derived VIA KEY INFLUENCERS
1. TWITTER SET-UP AND BRANDING: Set up a non-branded Twitter account for market research purposes related to specific customers (ie. – Tourism, Hotel, Restaurants, Art, Fashion). Value: This will be our “window” into the Interest Graph.
2. KEY INFLUENCER IDENTIFICATION & FOLLOW: Identify 1000 Key Influencers using Listorious (http://www.listorious.com) AND Research.ly (http://research.ly). Follow these 1000 influencers in the non-branded Twitter account. Value: Know the Social Influencers related to your vertical market, customers and competitors. Connect to them for realization of sales goals, event opportunities and growing awareness in regions/communities you may not have penetrated. Grow the network around the customer for the purposes of connection, sales and marketing.
3. CSV FROM TWITTER (with 3rd Party Tool): Download a CSV from Twitter (with a 3rd Party Twitter Export tool like Export.ly – http://export.ly).
4. CSV TO FLIPTOP (or other tool): Upload CSV of Twitter account to Fliptop or another tool to discover influencers’ locations ACROSS The World Wide Mind (http://www.theworldwidemind.com). Value: (a) I get to see where my influencers are in other social properties AND (b) I get to hear and see what they are messaging about.
Discussing The World Wide Mind with Eleftherios Hatziioannou in Athens, Greece. May 25, 2011.
5. FOLLOW THE INFLUENCERS IN FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN AND OTHER SOCIAL PROPERTIES: We will translate our findings into actual friends in the social networks and begin the process of connecting with these friends. Value: Influential friends in the Social Graph that we have discovered via the Interest Graph.
6. TWEET CREATION/COPYWRITING: Turn entire corporate site, blogposts and other collateral into tweets. The goal here is to get around 150 tweets for scheduled posting. Also, derive and mash-up content BASED UPON current and trending conversations WITHIN The World Wide Mind. Value: Influencers who follow you will become aware of what you offer and interact with you on this. Note: for a non-branded research account, we can copy-write industry and niche-related tweets.
7. TWEET SCHEDULING: Schedule these tweets in Social Oomph – (http://www.socialoomph.com). Value: This will be pre-scheduled so you do not have to keep tweeting (the tweeting will be automatic).
8. KEY INFLUENCER CONTENT SUMMATION: Summarize what the 30-50 top influencers are saying in the Twitter accounts. This would be “culled” from their latest 100 tweets. Value: This is a very powerful option, that will give branding teams insight into what top influencers are talking about.
9. KEY INFLUENCER ENGAGEMENT: Engage and nurture relationship with Key Influencers. Results sought: (a) Getting the Key Influencer to follow you back (b) Getting the Key Influencer to re-tweet, share or post a message originating from you (c) forming a business partnership with the Key Influencer for mutual benefit and the benefit of the customer (customer-centric business).
RESOURCES:
THE WORLD WIDE MIND: http://www.theworldwidemind.com
A THOUSAND TRUE FANS: http://www.a-thousand-true-fans.com
THE LONG TAIL DEBATE: Long Tail Debate: http://bit.ly/long_tail_debate + Long Tail Keywords http://bit.ly/long_tail_keywords
“Social Network-Weaving” is a digital craft in which two distinct communities are interlaced via technology to form the fabric of a new online network. Humanity needs social-tech devices that hold a selection of social objects (tweets, status updates, videos, photos) “in place”, while other social objects are woven through them. Ideally these will be social objects from opposing communities, like Capitalist and Communist, or Right and Left. The blended communities will reveal previously un-discovered solutions to all manner of conflicts.
RESOURCES & A POSSIBLE APPROACH:
1. Opposing Viewpoints: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposing_Viewpoints_series
2. Input keywords related to opposing viewpoints into Listorious, WeFollow and Research.ly to discover Influencers leading the dialogue online.
3. Extract social objects (tweets, status updates, blogposts, videos, photos) from all shades of THE WORLD WIDE MIND related to the opposing sides.
4. Mash-up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup) these objects to discover similar and dissimilar aspects.
5. Post these mash-ups into threads of the Influencers as a means of instigating debate, pushing current dialogue AND blending opposing realities. Discover “thread-communties” at Disqus. Discover question communities at Quora.
6. Listen to responses in these threads and notice who is pro-active with the content, who is creative, who is a critic. Use Social Monitoring solutions like Research.ly and others.
7. Create new social communities from these threads and populate with content from the debates that have ensued. Invite the most vocal of participants. Use Posterous to create communities fast.
