Brand Ambassadors

Social Fishing Rods: The W’s of Social Intelligence Gathering

The W’s of journalism can be a great starting point for asking questions in social intelligence projects. See below expansion of the W’s for social intel, business intel and general social media monitoring work.

Note that the trend in 2011 will be towards integrating “action buttons” WITHIN social intel panels so that community managers can take meaningful and potent action on real-time intelligence.

Another take on this is that actionable tools like BuddyMedia will integrate increasingly powerful business-related intelligence within their already robust metrics panels, informing pre-campaign strategic process and whole-campaign adjustments. Research.ly is an example of a tool where one receives real-time intelligence from social networks and can act on that intelligence using a Twitter posting field.

Punchy insights from real-time data will inform strategic thinking AND the functionality of “social action” buttons used by non-analytical/non-technical Community Managers. Social Intel Tools will merge with Social Management Tools.

▪ WHO:
•Who are your current followers? Who follows them? (GIST)
• How can I take all of my connections established using social media + my contact database, and visually map out a path from my organization to those individuals/companies that will be beneficial to our initiatives?  How can I clearly identify the connection paths, labeling what type of connection it is, and the role of the individuals? (PeopleMaps)
•Who is talking about your brand/product/services/employees? (Social Listening Tools)
•Would any of these individuals make good brand ambassadors, community managers, or customer advocates?
(WeFollow, PeerIndex, Klout, Listorious, Research.ly)
•Which of your current followers are already key influencers in your niche or a related vertical?
(WeFollow, PeerIndex, Klout, Listorious, TwitterGrader, Research.ly)
•Who influences them? And who influences those influencers?
(WeFollow, PeerIndex, Klout, Listorious)
•What Twitter lists are these influencers on or following?
(Listorious)
•How influential are those people in your niche?
(Klout)
•Which of these influencers receive tons of comments?
(ConvoTrack, Technorati, Listorious, CoComment, Backtype)
•Which have tons of followers?
(Listorious)
•Who are the top influencers for your niche?
(WeFollow, PeerIndex, Klout, Listorious)

▪ WHAT:
•What are your stakeholders/fans/allies saying about you?
•What questions are they asking? (Quora)
•What are customers feeling about your brand/product/services/employees?
(One of the world’s greatest experts in the field of discovering sentiment and feeling – Life Analytics)
•What reactions do these stakeholders/fans/allies have about your brand/product/services/employees?
•How can you engage your followers/key influencers beyond a passing mention of the brand/product/services/employees? (Consume Brian Solis and Seth Godin material).
• How can you engage your employees/team members in more effective collaboration and gain insight based on collaborative feedback? (Spigit, 37 Signals)
•What percentage of the conversations are positive, negative or neutral?
•What are the actions of “peers” or the circle of customers around the brand/product/service in social  networks?
•Are your customers/typical purchasers active in social networks? What is the ethos of their online culture?
•What are useful resources to research your brand/product/services/employees/vertical/niche? (Social Tools, Twitter Tools, The Journalist’s ToolBox, TwentyFeet, SproutSocial, Research.ly)
• What apps might provide access to my ideal followers/customers/fans/influencers? (AppData)

▪ WHERE:
•Where are your stakeholders/fans/allies located in social networks? (Flowtown, IntroMojo, GIST)
• Where do I stand in relation to my competitors in terms of traffic, share of voice, engagement? (Compete, Alexa, Klout)
•In which of the following are the conversations happening about your brand/product/services/employees?:
-Twitter (Listorious, Twitter Search, Twazzup, Topsy Search)
-Facebook page-threads, Facebook groups, Facebook Key Influencer wall-threads (Facebook Insights, All Facebook Page Leaderboards, Booshaka
-blog threads (Social Tools, CoComment, Backtype)
-forum threads (Social Tools, CoComment, Backtype, Board Reader)
-web communities (Joongel)
-top-of-mind comment threads (Board Reader, Social Tools, CoComment, Backtype)
-video comments/shares (YouTube Keyword Tool)
-photo comments/shares (Flickr Advanced Search)
-presentation comments/shares (Slideshare search window, Scribd search window)
-LinkedIn groups/comment-threads
-location-based networks (4sqSearch)
•Consider the relative merits/benefits of joining a well-followed conversation vs. creating one.

▪ WHEN:
•What time of day are people talking about you?
•What time of the week/month/year?
•Are the conversations event-driven?
•Are the conversations cyclical/seasonal?
•How do you keep the conversation going during the off-season/non-event times?

▪ WHY: (beware of analysis paralysis on this category!!)
•Why are there spikes in conversation around your brand/product/services/employees?
•What events occurred, what specific words were said, what personalities were involved?
•The answers to the above questions can inform the broader WHY question.
•Create the BIG picture with a Montage (FuseLabs Montage) or hashtag/@-sourced/RSS-sourced real-time publication like Paper.li. Publish all of your findings as a report. (How to Write and Publish an eBook).
• Leave where you are and begin something new. Learn how at Startup School, at Seth Godin and through Tim Ferriss.
• Stay where you are and make a change. Same as above + read Charlene Li’s Open Leadership book + Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategist blog.

Firmly within a renaissance of expression

The logos of the soul, psychology, implies the act of traveling the soul’s labyrinth in which we can never go deep enough. ~ James Hillman

Social networks are images of this labyrinth and virtual activities are just a fraction of the myriad activities occuring within the intangible fabric of the collective human psyche. Humanity has increasing evidence through the sheer volume of content pumping through social networks of the vastness of the imagination and the soul. The physical size of our Earth is minute compared to the endless worlds contained within the human psyche. Even spending one day searching various videos, photos, songs and events, one may find incredible variety. We ARE firmly within a renaissance of expression.

THE ADVENT OF GOOGLE TV, as one example, opens a fantastic new territory for ANYONE to make money from advertising RELATED to their video content. The major studios ought to run contests in which the world votes who gets to use their equipment to make movies, based upon viewership on Google TV and YouTube. The same goes for music. Humanity IS running itself, thanks to the fantastic inventions now in place for content distribution and collaboration.

It remains to be seen what humanity will orient around. Now that we have Google TV, LinkedIn, GIVEO and Facebook, a catastrophe like the BP Oil spill could be cleared up very quickly simply by harnessing the precision of these tools to (a) spread awareness, (b) identify the experts best suited to solve the issue, (c) garner support for getting the clean-up paid for and (d) following up with prizes and celebration!

THE TABLET REVOLUTION: In the coming 12 months, consumers will see a rapid acceleration in content for both Kindle-type and iPad-type tablets BUT iPad-type platforms will see the fastest climb due to multi-valent, holographic experience possibilities.

What is a holographic experience in the context of tablets and the social fabric of the internet? An example of such an experience in the social fabric of the internet could be as follows: Every tweet and Facebook status update is a blog post title (WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, Tumblr), every blog post a chapter in a digital book (eBook) populated by media, including (but not limited to), photos (Flickr), video (YouTube), music (Last.fm), and footnotes (Slideshare), every digital book a community (Ning), every community contains the full range of archetypal characters (The Conversation Prism), and each of those characters introduces your material to their tribes through tweets, blog posts, etc.

Simply put: BOOKS, AUTHORS, FILMS AND SONGS ARE COMMUNITIES.

The FUTURE OF BOOKS involves dynamic, interactive communities oriented around text as a jumping-off point into worlds upon worlds, all searchable, all monitorable, all monetizable. For examples of how this is true spend an hour reading about the fabulous successes (and failures, which often are the best pre-cursors to success).

So, what does it take to develop such a community? Content, an audience, and the appropriate networks within the social fabric of the internet. Engage in the following important steps for proper social business integration. At each stage, employ appropriate Researchers (Analysts), Producers (Graphic Artists + Writers), Conversationalists/Community Managers (Brand Ambassadors) and Problem-Solvers (Strategists/Techies/Programmers).