The Socializers | social business intelligence

Companies can also arrange themselves differently, to better learn from the world outside. ~Karl Heiselman, Wolff Olins

SUMMARY: Faced with the challenges of an increasingly segmented digital landscape, community managers must know their customer, know their content, and know their internal team. The following three trainings apply to these needed areas of know-how.

1. SOCIAL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE 101: Covering the full range of social media monitoring options and market research training. This workshop trains staff how to creat social network analysis reports and generate insights and recommendations from social data. The course is highly focused on actionable intelligence, INCLUDING how to apply social business intelligence to the practical needs of running and growing a business.

RESULTING CERTIFICATION:
• Use of social media monitoring tools. Knowledge of different options available and hands-on training in the various tools.
• Market research skills basics, including social data research report writing, how to segment data into specific categories relevant to business needs, and how to derive insights from aggregated social data
• Strategy creation, including creating recommendations based upon customer/competitive insights.
• How to present findings in a concise fashion to the various silos at a brand headquarters, to agency staff and to the directors of a brand.

…………………………………………………..

2. CONTENT MARKETING 101: Covering the complete set of content in the Content Grid v2.0. This workshop is a complete training in how to create and place every single content piece in the Content Grid. A particular focus is placed upon practical step by step production of each content piece, along with tactics for where, when and why to use each piece of content.

RESULTING CERTIFICATION:
• Full understanding of the Content Grid v2.0 and how to create each social object on the grid.
• Training in the social channels related to specific social objects. How to set up these social channels, when to post the social objects, how often to post the social objects, how to schedule automatic updates to social channels using social management software (HootSuite).
• Each student will work on a specific set of social objects and learn how to produce each of these important communication vehicles.

…………………………………………………….

3. SOCIAL BUSINESS 101: Covering internal culture change related to doing business within social networks. This course teaches managers and corporate leaders how to adapt their business processes when entering social networks. Every silo of a business is covered and trained in the benefits and uses of social networks. A particular focus is placed upon elevating internal collaboration and software/process related to weaving the silos together as a team.

RESULTING CERTIFICATION:
• Training in the various methods used by the Chief Collaboration Officer to facilitate conversation between the silos in a major corporation.
• Training in how to promote and grow on-going conversation between the silos at a major corporation or brand for the purpose of presenting a unified message in social networks.
• Training in how to involve the Compliance Department in cross-silo decisions related to messaging in social networks. Further training in how to present reports and udpates to the Compliance Department so that speedy decisions can be made AS RELATED TO on-going messaging in social networks.
• Training in proper risk assessment PRIOR TO launching a full-blown social presence for a brand.
• Training in how to handle typical customer and internal objections to basic social media marketing practices such as the use of Twitter, the value of on-going monitoring and the use of social project management tools like HootSuite and BaseCamp/SalesForce.
• Training in the basic social business software suites, who the vendors are and the comparison between these vendors. Training in how to present this software to senior management and how to begin cross-silo set-up of social business software (example: Jive Software).

ABOUT C.O.I.N.S. – A CLOSING THOUGHT:
COINS or Community of Interest Networks, ARE essential venues for product and service innovation, as well as customer relationship building. A community of interest is definied in Wikipedia as “a community of people who share a common interest or passion. These people exchange ideas and thoughts about the given passion, but may know (or care) little about each other outside of this area. Participation in a community of interest can be compelling, entertaining and create a ‘sticky’ community where people return frequently and remain for extended periods. Frequently, they cannot be easily defined by a particular geographical area.” This describes precisely what we are seeing in social networks like Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook with specific groups and lists.

No-one can contest that we currently live in an era of massive “COINS” presently via online and in digital social networks. Brands and corporations now recognize the value of orienting their core Business Process Management (BPM) around social business sensibilities. Community Managers are an essential bridge to the customer base and stakeholder community in a Community of Interest Network. Community Managers facilitate conversation, growth and listening within these social networks. Community Managers are the core individuals in charge of fostering unity in groups, lists and forums online.

“If Social CRM deliverables can yield measurable lift in sales for businesses, then we are beginning to provide real value.” JP Lind, SVP of Giveo.

Humans are very excited to share personal thoughts & inspirations on social networks. Brands with personality and a living spirit can do this too. And the nexus point of this excitement is where a relationship between brand and individual takes off. Identifying possible nexus points of connection and “spark” between brand and individual is a core function of social business intelligence.

How to do this? Themos Kalafatis accurately points out that “the answer to true Social Media Intelligence is the use of Predictive Analytics (Data & Text Mining) applied to Social Data.” (SOURCE) Mr. Kalafatis is a global pioneer in this work, applying his data-mining expertise in such countries as Serbia and Greece, two very difficult languages in which to apply text-mining methods. The lessons he has learned through this work are fascinating and available at his blog.

The corporate conversation: Ed Fullman, CEO of Reunify (formerly Incentica), says, “At the end of the day it gets down to who is asking about who.” Reunify is focused on scoring traditional CRM using, in part, social data (amongst other identifiers). Business strategist Dion Hinchcliffe writes, “Having the big picture today means connecting internal business data to external information streams, live & without delay.” Connecting the internal conversation at brand/agency HQ with the external conversations in a market niche continues to be a very valuable action, yielding challenging questions to company leaders and agency strategists. Additionally, connecting conversations in social networks WITH actual buying behavior visible in the back-end CRM is a core action by social business intelligence practitioners.

Real-time observation affirms archetypal truth: Conversations and communities in social networks flesh out the “archetypal” pillars of customers that have always congregated around specific phenomena. The particular ways in which this consumer behavior is cloaked is defined by the times one lives in. And it is this flavor that marketers are after in their research. Social data gives us this flavor and data from CRM confirms campaign efforts. While the CFO says, “I would rather pay for qualified leads derived from a social CRM process than insights & trends from ongoing social monitoring,” the CMO says, “We’d like to see those insights and trends available via social business intelligence.” Both are important.

Different types of customers orient around specific archetypes, which we can associate with specific brands. Click here to see the image in a larger format. (Image: Mapping the Organizational Psyche by John G. Corlett & Carol S. Pearson, CAPT Publishers, Gainsville, FL. 2003)

Different types of customers are at various stages of considering a product/service. These stages can be associated with specific content. Click here to see the image above in a larger format. (Image: The Content Grid 2 by Jess3 and Eloqua Agencies.)

A parting question for brands and agencies: Have you matched your CRM with content-pieces organized by type of buyer? Imagine matching content within THE CONTENT GRID 2 CHART (above) with your CRM (customer database). That’s an essential and powerful action of social business intelligence.