The Socializers | PeopleBrowsr

We have the conversations, we need people to analyze and synthesize what customers are saying

admin June 8, 2011 No Comments

“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

Conversation Analysis AND Insight. Nathaniel Hansen, CEO, The Socializers

View more presentations from 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.

The Socializers presenting at Boussias Social Media Conference March 22, 2011

admin March 30, 2011 No Comments

It was an honor to present on Business Intelligence via Social Media Data: Insights and Recommendations at the Boussias Social Media Conference, March 22, 2011. I had a blast working on my presentation with the fabulous artist Ana Foureaux Frazao, who created Guy Kawasaki’s “Enchantment” presentation for SXSW 2011. Her description of the artistic process behind the Greece presentation is fantastic and may be found here: http://bit.ly/axzbism

Business Intelligence via Social Media Data: Insights and Recommendations – PART 1

Business Intelligence via Social Media Data: Insights and Recommendations – PART 2

More on Business Intelligence derived via Social Media Data here: http://bit.ly/bizintel_via_socialdata2011

Soul Monitoring: Peering into the collective for meaningful connections

admin February 21, 2011 No Comments

What if we saw image AS experience? One may use social intelligence tools to discover a community surrounding an image. NOW!

“It helps to regard soul as an active intelligence, forming and plotting each person’s fate. Translators use “plot” to render the ancient Greek word mythos in English. The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge of different myths to gain insight into our epic struggles, our misalliances, and our tragedies. Myths show the imaginative structures inside our messes, and our human characters can locate themselves against the background of the characters of myth.” ~James Hillman

What if we saw the social networks as a soul-making exercise, one intended to train the human community in depth of experience? What if we saw image AS experience? What if we saw one aspect of our consciousness as follower and one as leader? And what if that leader was like a very clever Market Research Director using social intelligence gathering tools like Research.ly, Sysomos, Radian6 and the like? What if this leader in our psyche was peering into conversations within and deciphering meaning, finding insight and plotting direction?

James Hillman goes on to say, “Character is characters; our nature is a plural complexity, a multiphasic polysemous weave, a bundle, a tangle, a sleeve….I like to imagine a person’s psyche to be like a boardinghouse full of characters. The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night. An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts. ”

Social monitoring tools give Market Strategists an opportunity to hear the voices within the culture and plot direction for the collective psyche. Ideally, digital engagement offers a bridge to both spiritual AND flesh encounters. Social networks like Meetup.com offer physical engagement with those who share a passion.

Imagine a person dreaming in his bed. He/she lives within a scene. The scene is distant, yet close; powerfully enwrapping the dreamer in another life, another place. We now have the ability to wake up, switch on our laptop and search the collective consciousness/sub-counsciousness using keywords in tools as simple as Google and as complicated as Radian6, Research.ly and Sysomos.

One may use social intelligence tools to discover a community surrounding an image. And within a very short amount of time, one may be with these people in the flesh, in that dream scene in the flesh. This experience, this journey, from image to flesh, from passion to experience, from my tight inner circle to the outer world, IS one of the greatest gifts social networks offer.

James Hillman writes, “The character truest to itself becomes eccentric rather than immovably centered, as Emerson defined the noble character of the hero. At the edge, the certainty of borders gives way. We are more subject to invasions, less able to mobilize defenses, less sure of who we really are, even as we may be perceived by others as a person of character. The dislocation of self from center to indefinite edge merges us more with the world, so that we can feel ‘blest by everything.’ ”

We now live in times when we can “dislocate from center” and be “blest by everything”. That’s the journey of the seeker in social networks. And no set of tools could be more effective than those that search the Interest Graph. Twitter is the Interest Graph, a place where individuals and groups have grouped themselves into lists and are sending out byte-sized messages with links to information related to niches. Jodee Rich, CEO of PeopleBrowsr, has said, “The trend I’m seeing is that the world is evolving from a social graph towards an interest graph.” Susan Etlinger, consultant at Altimeter Group, says, “I see social graphs and interest graphs converging. FOr example, people into fashion conecting online and going to events together.” Etlinger identifies here that movement I referred to earlier concerning the journey from searching online to meeting in the flesh.

When one realizes the potential of powerful social media monitoring solutions to connect one to one’s dream, the world changes dramatically.

Dreamtending/Collective Consciousness Research/Creative Exercise:

1. JOURNAL AND MEDITATE: Spend an hour before bed journalling and meditating on what you want out of life, what you want in your career, what you desire in a relationship.

2. DREAM PREPARATION: Tell yourself prior to sleeping that you will dream about this. Put a journal and pen next to your bed.

3. DREAM RECORDING: Upon having a vivid dream and waking, write down the dream.

4. SEARCHING THE COLLECTIVE: Go to your computer and use social media monitoring tools/social intelligence gathering solutions, to search the collective consciousness/unconscious using keywords from your dream journal.

5. CREATIVE EXPRESSION AND FLESH CONNECTION: Create a Kickstarter creative project or Meetup flesh-group based on this research AND your own creative process.

Weaving the Omega Point…Asking the Last Question

admin February 9, 2011 No Comments

A single voice, a single sentence, a single video, a single photo now has the potential to influence the entire fabric of humanity via social networks and its tendrils. But what is it that we would want to collectively manifest? What is the experience we would want to collectively actuate? We are unerringly arrowing toward an Omega Point as a collective community and asking our best questions in the process!

The Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to denote the state of the maximum organized complexity (complexity combined with centricity), towards which the universe is evolving.

“Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come to being. This is no metaphor; and it is much more than poetry. Whether as a force or a curvature, the universal gravity of bodies, so striking to us, is merely the reverse or shadow of that which really moves nature. To perceive cosmic energy ‘at the fount’ we must, if there is a within of things, go down into the internal or radial zone of spiritual attractions. Love in all its subtleties is nothing more, and nothing less, than the more or less direct trace marked on the heart of the element by the psychical convergence of the universe upon itself.” ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Again, I ask, what flavoring, what tenor, does humanity want to give its Omega Point? What question do we want to answer?

Asimov writes about The Last Question:

“Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

And there was light—-“