Series: Social Media « — Social Media Directions

The Irony Of Social Media

by Jay Deragon on October 4, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Social Media

Conversations come in many forms. Whether 140 characters, a long article, a skype chat or a phone call conversations are the foundation of commerce. Commerce comes from building market relations through numerous forms of media. Media provides the means of awareness, attraction, affinity with specific audiences that relate to your business and decide to act on your media.

The cost of communications is reflected by the effectiveness of technology and how your business uses the technology to provide relevant and relative communications. Today communications technology is exploding at profound rates of change. The changes in technology provide the pathway for any business to increase its ROI from communications. The ROI is largely determined by whether a company knows how to effectively communicate using every technology available to do so efficiently and effectively.

What Is Your Return On Chatter?

A recent article explored new new research showing the success of live chat services in improving B2B sales conversions. Meaning that when potential leads were inquiring about a product online and had the option to have a live chat the follow results occurred according to Forrester:

305% ROI from proactive sales chat with a payback period of 6 months (when using paid chat services)
120% ROI from customer service chat with a payback period of 6 months (when using paid chat services)
Chat assisted application completion rates 138% higher than self service

Social media regardless if it is Twitter, a blog, or something else aims to solve problems and build relationships and that is what live chat does as well, so it seems pretty easy to connect the dots.

Social Media = A Ironic Transparency of Knowledge or Lack Thereof

I use Google Alerts to track numerous conversational topics throughout the web. In the last year the rate of interest in social media topics has gone up over 500% according to the rate of change indicated by my Google alerts. This rate of change is indicative of a rate of interest relative to topics surrounding this thing we call "social media". The threads of news, blog post, video's, Twitter chats, Power Points and articles in major publications grows daily. The irony of all the content in all these threads is the context is the same, how people are using social media for multiple purposes.

Irony is defined as meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an or between what one says or does and what one means or what is generally understood. Irony is a mode of expression that calls attention to the character's knowledge and that of the audience.

Given this definition the irony all these conversations about using social media are ironic because the very nature of social media is relational while much of the content around social media is aimed at a channel to market messages, media and a mesh of non relational content. Those that use social media for whatever purpose are expressing themselves which calls attention to the character's knowledge and that of the audience. In other words in most cases the use of social media is expressing the characters lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding the audience.

How would your spouse feel if your communications reflected a lack of understanding of the relational issues that bond you together. If you don't have the knowledge to understand then you are likely to create stress in the relationship. The same rules of engagement apply to use of social media with your audience.

What say you?

Tagged as: Advertising, Barack 2.0, Brand awareness, business social, conversational currency, Convertising, Paradigm Shift, Social Capital, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Directions, social media irony, Social Technology

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Are There Social Media Directions?

by Jay Deragon on October 26, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Social Media

The word directions means several things including: guidance or supervision of action or conduct : an explicit instruction : the line or course on which something is moving or is aimed to move or along which something is pointing or facing : a channel or direct course of thought or action : the art and technique of directing a group of people to accomplish an aim.

The marketplace is filled with thousands and thousands of individuals, organizations, products and services all claiming to help other people and organizations with directions on how to use social media. The problem is that not all directions will take you to the place you want to go.

Where Do You Want To Go?

Many businesses jump into social media without knowing what they want to do, where they should do it, who do they want to reach, how will they reach them and why the market may choose to engage with them. Instead too many businesses simply look at social technology as just another channel to "push" out offerings hoping they will catch a few transaction. The market fails to recognize that 96% of all online advertising doesn't get the audiences attention and thus no engagement is accomplished.

In order to get anywhere efficiently people and businesses need to first know (knowledge) of "where" they want to go and "how" (by what methods) they will get there. Today the marketplace of conversations is "what" attracts the masses to the medium. Why? Because conversations offer new knowledge, sharing with relevant and relative content that the market consumes and uses to create value for others. Today's road map of social media contains networks (roads to travel) and content (the vehicle) to take you "where" you can engage your market. However, like in the physical world, the quickest way to get somewhere isn't always the obvious route. Unless you've "traveled the territory" the shortest routes won't always show up on your "goggle maps" if you know what we mean. Distance on the internet is irrelevant. Time and productivity are elements you must know (knowledge) "how" to use in your favor. Consider:

It is easy to build thousands of connections or followers but not so easy to build relevant and relative relationships unless your providing content that is in context to your markets interest.
You can spend hours doing the wrong things and doing them wrong only to waste time and productivity
You can write great content but if it isn't showing up "where" your market is it won't produce the results you want.
"How" to use social media isn't about the technology rather it is about where, when and what conversations add the most value to your market.
If you don't know "why" your using social media then there is no need to have clear directions aimed at taking you somewhere. A system without an aim produces nothing.
Understanding the lay of the land, the roadblocks, traps, traffic patterns, new roads and where they take you is something that requires knowledge and wisdom. Copying and following doesn't require either.

There Are No Quick Answers

Most business leaders want quick answers. When is comes to effectively using social media to accomplish specific objectives to get you where you want to go there is no quick answers rather their is only knowledge to either find or create. You can find knowledge within the marketplace of conversations. You can also take existing knowledge and create new knowledge which in turn will pull the market to you. Either way it takes time, talent and knowledge to find the answers to the questions that relate to the directions you need to follow to get to where you want to go. Get it?

What say you?

For a copy of our white paper that covers the who, what,where,when why and how to find the right answers to the right social media questions click here.

To join in the discussion of the emerging strategic directions of social media follow us at www.socialmediadirections.com

Tagged as: Advertising, Brand awareness, business social, conversational currency, Convertising, Paradigm Shift, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Directions, social media irony, Social Technology

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Your Culture Is Naked

by Jay Deragon on October 28, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Social Media

The "voice" of an organization is indicative of its culture. Organizational culture is an idea in the field of Organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization."^[1]

Notice the definition emphasizes that culture controls the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization. Interaction between people is largely a function of communications. Communications is reflected by attitudes, actions and the tone of conversations. Now the attitudes, actions and the tone of conversations has become "open source" given the influence and power of social media. Open source communications reveal an organizations culture for the world to see and experience.

What Does The World See?

The market of conversations seek value created from an exchange of communications. Value is reflected by relational attributes and the context of content that creates an affinity to a market. The affinity creates an open source culture driven by trust fueled by shared experiences. The culture of social media is described as the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural values) of people connecting with like minded "crowds" who offer free value exchanges. There is no one individual or organization trying to control the way they interact with each other.

Social media affords the crowds to interact without the oversight or control of any one organization. Perplexed by this phenomia traditional organizations jump into social media not realizing that their own culture will become transparent and the market of conversations will expose the character of their culture. If the organizations culture isn't "open" then it cannot reflect trust and value to the market of conversations. Subsequently the market will not engage because the culture of social media rejects any attempt to control or manipulate the conversations.

Magnifying The Need For Change

Organizational cultural change has been evolving for decades. Studies after studies prove the value of an "open vs. closed" culture and evidence abounds from those organizations who have made the shift. Awareness of an organizations cultural attributes is fueled by communications. People share their experiences with other people. People are the essence of any organization and unless they are empowered they will feel powerless.

Empowered people represent enormous power. Unified for a cause, a mission or a common goal people can and will do uncommon things. Uncommon things are relative to achievement of the impossible, unexpected and not planned but realized. On the fringes of uncommon things is innovation. Innovations comes from creating ideas that solve common problems and subsequently creates new solutions that serve a market.

Social media affords the means for people to unite and exchange ideas, knowledge and creates solutions for the "crowds". For any business to succeed they will need to learn and understand why this happens, how it happens and who makes it happen. Doing so is the solution to the creation of innovation which markets will consume and create new capital. However unless business leaders can first change their own culture they cannot tap into the "open source" culture of social media. Attempting to do so without fixing their own culture is a direct path to failure. Get it?

What say you?

Tagged as: Advertising, Barack 2.0, Brand awareness, business social, conversational currency, Social Capital, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media Directions, social media irony

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Do You Know Why?

by Jay Deragon on October 29, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 4 of 8 in the series Social Media

The question of why about anything indicates and interest in understanding why. Young children ask a lot of "why" questions because they are curious about everything. Adults then ask their children "why did you do that?" and when others ask us why we want to know "why do you ask?". In organizations success is influenced by a common understanding between people as to "why" things are done the way they are and why do we continue to do things that simply don't work or matter to anyone.

Learning the answers to "why" about everything is a life long journey of experience and study. Unless people know the answers to why they cannot apply the right knowledge to the right circumstance and subsequently responses and actions may not yield the right result. Ever wonder why you don't get the right answers? Just maybe it is because you are not asking the right questions.

The Right Questions About Social Media

In an earlier post we discussed "5 Things You Must Ask About Social Media" in which we addressed some fundamental issues to consider before using social media. Additionally we've created a "How" series which begins to address what,when,where,how, who and why questions which we should never stop asking. The relevant questions are proposed collectively in a white paper titled "Social Media Directions" available here.

As more and more individuals and organization continue to use social media effective results will be realized by those who know "how" to ask the right questions and subsequently never stop seeking the answers. What is today's answer to market needs can change at the click of a mouse as consumers find more relevant and relative answers from their "friends" on a daily basis compared the ones you provided yesterday. The science of social technology accelerates consumption of answers to questions the market has relevant to anything and anyone. Your answers can become irrelevant unless you are monitoring the relative questions that consumers are asking. Worse yet is that if you are not engaged in "the market of conversations" then you are not likely to even "know" what,where, when, who, how and why the market is conversing.

Back To "Do You Know Why?"

Not knowing why social media is so powerful means you won't know how to use it effectively. Not knowing "how" means you are likely to use it out of alignment with "what" your market wants. If you are communicating out of alignment with your market then your market isn't likely to know "who" you are "when" you communicate. If you don't know "where" your market is then you are not likely going to reach them. If social media isn't working for you then you must ask the question "why". The answer to this question may not have anything to do with social media rather it has everything to do with "how" well your people relate to the organization, your processes, products and technology.

Fixing your organizations "connectivity" to your internal and external market requires you to ask the same questions but in a different context than social media. The answers to those questions will lead to why social media doesn't work and why it does. Get it?

What say you?

Tagged as: Advertising, Brand awareness, business social, conversational currency, Convertising, Paradigm Shift, Social Capital, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Directions, social media irony

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Social Technology Is Changing Business

by Jay Deragon on October 30, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Social Media

The impact of social technology on business as usual is and will continue to be profound. Profound in that social technology fuels never ending change caused by the markets of conversations. These markets represent intelligence that is transparent, fluid and engaging by crowds of suppliers, employees and consumers.

Change is now fueled by the rate of interest and the rate of change caused by interactive conversations from everywhere and everyone.

Instead of the old model of change, from the inside out, the new model of change is from the outside in. Markets are shifting at the speed of a mouse click. These markets represent the rate of interest change (both economic interest and consumer interest) and the interest is changing based on the consumption of information and knowledge.

The voice of the customer used to be analyzed based on old feedback mechanisms and survey's which were poorly designed and time consuming. Today the voice of the customer is instant, transparent and designed by the content and context of open and transparent conversations. The new world of instant communications controlled and influenced by the end consumer is the outside force fueling organizational changes and businesses must adapt if they wish to thrive or survive. However, the pace and strength of these outside forces is changing the very change models previously used by the leading management consulting firms and guru's on organizational change.

McKinsey, one of the top management consulting firms in the world, is even changing their own approach to the creation and implementation of organizational change models. The video below illustrates their commentary on changes fueled by the current technological revolution. The irony is that the current rate of technological change is not static but, as they indicate, revolutionary. The irony of a "revolution" is that is is not only fueled by change but its outcomes create even more change and it doesn't appear as though the rate of change and interest in new technology will ever become static.

Organizations will have to face the fact that change is now a permanent process and the only thing that can be managed is the rate in which you adjust to it. Not adjusting or accepting that change is permanent means you'll be left behind by those that do. Get it?

What say you?

Lenny Mendonca: How Can You Make The Most Of Technological Revolution?

Lenny Mendonca

Chairman, McKinsey Global Institute

The chairman of McKinsey Global Institute analyzes how technology is catalyzing business successes—and failures.

Tagged as: Advertising, Barack 2.0, Brand awareness, conversational currency, Convertising, Paradigm Shift, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media Directions, social media irony

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How Do You Explain Social Media?

by Jay Deragon on November 5, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Social Media

How many times have you been asked "Can you explain social media to us?" Then you have to think about how to explain the entire (r)evolution of the internet and its present state. Try doing that and you'll lose most people's attention.

It has been said that "pictures speak a thousand words". As a consultant I have always found that if you can provide a picture illustration and a simple story to explain something very complex then you have helped a client understand something they need.

Given the consistent questions we get asked we decided to try and provide pictures that hopefully convey the message and help people "connect the dots". The illustrations in this post and the following dialog are aimed at explaining why the web is critical for business success.

The Story And The Illustrations

Everyone seeks solutions to problems. Problems represent opportunities for businesses whose product or service provide solutions to problems. When people have a problem or desire to fulfill where do 95% of them go to find the solutions? On the the web or to friends and family for advice and recommendations.

Every day of the year there are over 250 million searches done on Google. In other words people are looking for solutions that address a multitude of issues. The greatest library of solutions is the web. If you are in the back of the library you are not likely to be found.

So when people seek solutions if they can't find you they are not likely going to consider you as a solution to use, whether a product or service. If your web presence is weak (not properly built) and worse if your content is anti-social you are not likely to not only not be found but to be considered clueless if found. Last but not least if you are not engaging the market with relevant and relative conversations (content) then those seeking solutions will not find your value because no one is discussing it (peer to peer).

Thus the critical path to commerce is to be found and be noted as a solution provider or an organization whose products and services people talk about. However, in order to do so you must understand what all this social stuff is about. Using social media (the internet) effectively demands mind-sets and capabilities that are unfamiliar and sometimes even counter intuitive to previous management, marketing and advertising methods.

David Gillespie writes: If both the web & media are inherently social, & if business must have a presence online, then business must have a social element. To not have that is to fore go both logic & opportunity.

Now your challenge is figuring out the how, what, where and who you want to reach and providing them value they can use and share with others. The consumer market has shifted from mass media to media that provides the most meaningful value. Meaningful value is relational while traditional mass media is not. For your business to survive and compete it must learn how to build relational value and use the internet to propagate that value effectively.

So What Should You Do First?

The first step for any business is to learn and apply new thinking about its relationship with the market it aims to serve, both internal and external. To learn one must have relevant and relative data that provides insights as to how well your business relates to the market it is trying to serve.

The illustration on the left outlines critical research that must be conducted in order for your organization to gain an understanding and learn the critical skills and thinking needed to better serve your market. In other words first you must listen to understand before you try and engage with any market.

Without having the relevant data concerning how, where, who and what are your markets interest, needs and desires you cannot effectively provide a reason as to why the market should pay attention to you.

Once you have this data and insight you can then begin to learn what meaningful value you can create for the market and give them that value for free. Use free to pull the market to a higher value proposition they will pay for. Giving free knowledge that is meaningful is considered meaningful, valuable and relational.

If the knowledge you give is in context with your markets interest then you just increased the probability of a transaction which is what you ultimately want. The difference today is how you get what you want is by giving others what they need, when they need it and enabling them to find it at the click of a mouse or from their friends. If they can't find it or their friends aren't suggesting it well then you lose.

The internet has now become the place to be found and to create value people are seeking. To not understand and use it effectively is akin to saying "I don't care how our market behaves".

How is that for an explanation?

Tagged as: Advertising, Brand awareness, conversational currency, Convertising, Paradigm Shift, revaluation of social media, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media Directions, social media irony, Social Media ROI

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Which Learning Curve?

by Jay Deragon on November 9, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 7 of 8 in the series Social Media

Learning about how to use social media depends on the reference point and knowledge the learning is grounded in. Today the market seems consumed in following what others are doing and creating "benchmarks" of what is or isn't working for the current market. While it may seem that this is a good basis from which to learn it may in fact be the wrong basis to build knowledge aimed at creating innovation. After all innovation is something you create from knowledge and doesn't usually come from existing practices that others are following.

Business.com — the Web's leading ally for busy people interested in making more informed and effective business purchasing decisions – unveiled results of its 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study. Based on insights from 2,948 professionals across North America, the study provides extensive information on how businesses and business people use social media in the workplace.

Both companies and employees are scaling a massive learning curve with social media.

The average company in this study was planning, developing or running seven different social media initiatives; 65% of respondents staffing those initiatives, and 71% of companies themselves, have less than two years of experience with social media for business.
Building brand awareness and brand reputation are two of the top social media success metrics, but nearly two-thirds of companies focused on these metrics have little to no insight into performance via standard or easily accessible reports.

Notice this statement "the study provides extensive information on how businesses and business people use social media in the workplace. Both companies and employees are scaling a massive learning curve with social media". Information put into proper context can lead to knowledge. However information about how businesses and people use social media today may not be the right context if the aim is to go beyond today's value proposition.

If the context of learning is based on what are current social media practices what will the market learn? The market will learn what the crowd is currently doing rather than knowledge of what an organization could and should do to stand out from the crowd.

Where Do We Find Valuable Knowledge?

Information can lead to knowledge but information alone is not knowledge. Knowledge is defined as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.
Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organisational processes or practice.

Knowledge Management efforts typically focus on organisational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, and continuous improvement of the organisation.

The Business.com report suggest "Building brand awareness and brand reputation are two of the top social media success metrics, but nearly two-thirds of companies focused on these metrics have little to no insight into performance via standard or easily accessible reports." Social media's impact on an organizations brand awareness and reputation reflects the quality of the organization.

Just maybe businesses would be better served to gain the knowledge necessary to understand and improve their organizational quality first before that "quality" is exposed to the market via social media. What would your organizational quality report look like?

Just an opinion, what is yours?

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Shifts Within Social Media

by Jay Deragon on November 29, 2009 · 0 comments

This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series Social Media

I started examining the phenomena of social technology in 2006 and have watched it shift through different phases. Each phase has brought new meaning and as more and more people engage the dynamics have changed. With rapid adoption and interest people and businesses are learning what,where,when, why and how different markets segments are finding utility and value in its use.

From the early days of chat rooms, Prodigy, "You Got Mail", Compuserve, Netscape, Instant Messaging, Napster then networks like MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin to blogs and micro-blogs like Twitter and the explosion of mobile technology we the people have just begun to experience the power of being unleashed to connect and communicate like never before. The pull of millions and the early success stories has entire markets trying to figure out how to harness this thing which today is called social media.

What "Shifts" Have Occurred

Shifts represent a systemic change that impacts the behavior of people, industry, institutions, governments and society. A change in behavior creates a demand for change in people, processes, commerce and interactions with markets aiming to serve the demand for change. When the behavior of a market changes everything tied to the market must change or be left behind clinging to the old ways. When the behavior of a market changes suppliers to the market have to adjust to the changes. When change becomes dynamic and frequent markets react rather than think about the implications of the changes and what is likely to happen next. Strategically speaking dynamic and frequent market changes create chaos for the uninformed.

Thinking Ahead Of Change

Before you can apply critical thinking about what will likely change in the future you must put past changes into perspective. In an effort to put past changes into perspective we will provide the following ten summaries:

Market consumption has shifted away from mass media to conversational media
Commerce is moving towards conversational currency and away from traditional market currency
Meaningless and irrelevant chatter is shifting to meaningful and valuable conversations that create the most value
Cultural changes are fueling market changes. The culture of control has shifted to individual control by preference and privileges to communicate
Economics are being disrupted and redefined by the influence of digital economies. Digital economies are fueled by innovation created by the exchange of ideas and collaboration of the many rather than the few.
Business as usual is rapidly being replaced by the unusual. The unusual is driven by participation, freedom of choice and peer influence rather than control and command structures that steal joy of work and experiential learning.
Advertising and marketing methods of the past are no longer relevant. Signs (mass media) are being replaced by conversational influence. Convertising will replace advertising. Trying to converge the old with the new is a waste of time, money and reputation.
Knowledge is in demand. Information overload is clutter. Value creation enabled by knowledge shared is the currency that attracts markets to engage. Pushing your information that is not in context with your markets interest is considered anti-social.
Smart vs. dumb technology is the route to efficiency and effectiveness. Knowing the difference and how to use relevant technology separates the leaders from the followers.
Having and being able to quickly change strategic directions in alignment with the market changes requires a change in strategic thinking. Strategy provides the direction for everything. Not knowing how to think about strategy differently and subsequently being able to execute efficiently means you cannot provide effective organizational direction. Without clear directions in alignment with the market you end up going in the wrong direction.

Each of the ten points above summarizes current shifts that fuel more change. Change in now a constant that is being fueled by the market of conversations. Not grasping these changes and learning to get ahead of them means you cannot find the right directions to get you ahead of the market. Make sense?

What say you?

Tagged as: Advertising, Brand awareness, business social, Chat Rooms, Compuserve, conversational currency, Convertising, Critical Thinking, Instant Messaging, Left Behind, Linkedin, Mail, Market Changes, Markets Segments, Mass Media, Media Commerce, Mobile Technology, Napster, Netscape Instant, Paradigm Shift, Phenomena, Prodigy, Rapid Adoption, Social Capital, social commerce, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Directions, social media irony, Social Technology, Systemic Change, Twitter

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