1. “One Size Does NOT Fit All”-  To noone’s surprise, B2B utilization of social media and networking applications in our customer and prospect outreach and engagement was a HUGE topic of conversation and debate.  This group is savvy enough to know that a business cannot just throw up a Facebook Fan page and call their social media strategy good, so the exchanges around the SMN question were lively and varied.   Every organization presenting or present, from Oracle to Microsoft is grappling with how exactly to write and implement the digital dialogue playbook.   As we at Cubed have been preaching, a cookie cutter approach is not the way to go.   You have to consider your audience, demographic, mission, sales and marketing objectives, etc. etc. and develop and integrated approach to social media; NOT pick the applications and retrofit them to your environment.

2. Customer Engagement Happens Everywhere- As I hinted in my opening, the idea that customer relationships are “owned” by any one discipline in your organization must be eradicated.   Julie Tung, VP Global Customer Programs at Oracle, reminded us that sales, customer support, account managers, etc. do NOT own the customer; our companies do!  If we have not done so already, we must begin to have a hub and spoke approach to customer engagement so that we are mining all contact with current and prospective clients and voices and remaining attentive to all information about our solutions and services and brand.    If we continue to operate out of silos, we are missing out on some key opportunities to deepen and broaden our relationships.

3. Metrics, Metrics, Metrics- As I predicted, how we measure the impact of digital dialogue on revenue continues to be a moving target.    Every presentation and conversation included a component around this challenge whether it was a discussion about corporate YouTube videos or how to calculate the impact of the use of collateral in reference programs.   We seem to be getting better at some of the mechanics…..Rhett Livengood of Intel reminds us to “Tag, Tag, Tag”, but we are still struggling with how we measure the overall effectivness of digital engagement.   What should be comforting to us all, is that the major players, Intel, RedHat, Oracle, etc. are effectively using free tools and applications to demonstrate the impact of their customer reference and social media strategies.   Sean White of RedHat shared their very innovative approach to presenting case studies in the form of our self-service blog and spoke to his use of Google Analytics and some other basic tools.   Laura Brooks of SatMetrix shared some new research into the notion of Networked Promoters, i.e., the quality not the quantity of our key relationships.

4. Digital Conversations must Emulate our Best F2F Practices- Nothing substitutes for the depth and breadth of information sharing afforded by a F2F conference, but we must learn to harness the energies and idea exchange of formal presentation like mechanisms AND hallway/lobby “drivebys” in our digital outreach.  As organizations, we must learn to be present and listening in all venues where our prospective and current clients may be.  Many of us continue to assume that the primary conversations are taking place within the conference rooms rather than at the virtual coffee break areas.  Many of the attendees have established thriving communities but we are all still seeking ways to join other conversations outside of our direct influence.   To really stretch the metaphor, it is no longer sufficient to sit at a roundtable behind our clearly marked name tents.  We must “walk” the hallways, “join” the outside events, and walk up to people; introduce ourselves; and LISTEN to what they have to say.

Thank you Bill Lee for gathering us together again!

Warmest regards,

Lisa

http://www.customerreferenceforum.com/event2010/program_presenters.php

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In a much shorter span of time, due largely to the rapidity with which we can today adopt and reject different technologies and communications metaphors, I believe that 2010 will bring us some readjustment to the adoption and application of many of the social media and networking solutions available.   Businesses, their customers and various audiences, and the technology vendors that support our ability to relate have behaved like the proverbial children in a candy store as they deploy ways of internetworking in their customer relationship, sales and marketing channels.   We have been preaching that adopting and deploying social media and networking applications should be informed by an integrated marketing/sales/customer relations strategy; we should also have been coaching ourselves and our consumer-friends to do the same.   Today, faced with multiple devices and applications on each, all similarly poised to serve my communications needs and curiosity, I see 2010 as the year that some consolidation, re-prioritization, and merger/acquisition will take place due to the constraints of bandwidth, the natural fall-out of the success and failure of businesses who have quickly cobbled together competitive applications, and the maturity of our adoption of the same both in our professional and personal capacities.   With no further ado, but some nervous wincing, I offer the following general and some specific predictions for 2010:

General Trends:

1. Organizations who have been dabbling their toes in social media channels for customer outreach will either be the best practice model or retract their offerings completely.  The speed with which our effectiveness in communicating using these channels is judged by our audience dictates that their is very little-time to privately fine-tune our approach.   Missteps are instantly reported and best practices lauded.   We have been cautioning our clients to strategize first; “Tweet” last and those that have adopted this approach are much more successful, even as they adjust it, than those who jumped on the Twitter, Facebook Page, blog, etc. bandwagon only to find they had little to say or had not developed the infrastructure to support their efforts.   I have been personally “testing” and rating the efforts of some companies in the telecommunications, high-tech, and consumer products verticals and will continue to do so.   Even in the past year, the gap between success and failure has been very black and white.   Those that dabbled without a transparent, honest and open approach to soliciting participation and feedback have dramatically reduced their presence or are gone; those that set strategy and have flexibly incorporated the feedback of their participants are still going strong.   Most importantly as is mentioned in this article, “real time is not fast enough”: 4 Social Media Trends for Business in 2010 (pamorama.net)

2.  A leader in social media measurements and metrics WILL emerge (this may be definitely in the wishful thinking category).   We have played with a number of applications in an attempt to measure our own effectiveness in our social media outreach and our clients and colleagues have certainly expressed this as their biggest challenge and need for 2010.   A plethora of applications and practices have evolved over the past year, but no one seems to have demonstrated the ability to provide service to both the SMB and large business marketplace.   VisibleTechnologies, Radian6, and ViralHeat all offer a  suite of solutions that seem to provide the breadth of measurement for which many have clamored, but we think that a vendor that has the benchstrength of SEO and traditional collateral metrics blended with the ability to monitor the pulse of sentiments expressed in our emerging channels will be a front-runner.   Another key success factor will be their ability to offer a tiered-pricing structure that is accessible to the smaller business.

3. Bandwidth issues will force resolution.   It is clear that the FCC is facing some enormous challenges in the spectrum arena, pushed by our adoption of mobile applications and our increasingly untethered approach to communication and conversation.   The “but of course” piece of this prediction is that the FCC will make a decision about alternative and additional sources of spectrum (for those of you inclined to take a look at the history, see this study: http://www.reg-markets.org/admin/authorpdfs/redirect-safely.php?fname=../pdffiles/working_01_021075290780.pdf The more intuitive piece is that our limited bandwidth and the growing frustration of consumers and business mobile application users must drive our own strategic thinking and prioritation regarding use of solutions that blend the best of our CRM, SFA, and social networking tools on our mobile devices.   Those applications that offer the best-of-breed that shares a piece of all of these will certainly emerge as icons on my Blackberry.

4. Congress will consider additional privacy legislation.   Knowledge service provision is the polite term for the complex data-mining that both corporations and individuals practice as conduct predictive analyses of our consumers’ and networks behaviors and attributes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_market).  Consumers concern for the privacy of their on-line personas (which seems paradoxical) will drive politicians at the local, state, and federal levels to contemplate additional protective measures,   http://www.cedmagazine.com/News-Congress-online-privacy-legislation-061909.aspx.   Most importantly, this concern of our constituents and attention of politicians should drive us as businesses to be ever more vigilant in our transparency and honest expression of our internetworking intentions, lest we suffer backlash from our audience and failure of our attempts long before legislation steps in.

To return to my opening anecdotal story, the plethora of choices that face us as businesses and consumers and the speed with which our internetworking communications are judged and evaluated will drive a much faster shift in applications provision, vendor consolidation and acquisition, and availability of broad content creation, publishing and measurements suites than we experienced post-divestiture.    If a single-bill and customer contact 800 number drove a return to a single telecommunications provider over a ten year period, shrink that consumer reaction and vendor response time metphor by 1/10th and you will understand the core of our predictions for 2010.   Perhaps a more concrete synthesis of this post is provided by my “Going Out On A Limb” prediction for 2010:

Twitter will be acquired by ?. The names of the players may change, but my thinking is that in Twitter we have found a truly facile, effective and immediate channel for communicating with a very diverse and huge potential audience.  The service and its users are self-regulating and successful users are quickly noted and its open approach to associated applications has resulted in a myriad of options for uploading content, measuring folowers, RT’s, etc.   We think that an acquistion by a company who has the content creation, editing, and publishing benchstrength, combined with an understanding of social media and networking measurement challenges will purchase Twitter and embed the channel with some native content and measurement utilities.   The odds-makers are predicting that this will be Microsoft, but we are thinking that the acquirer may be someone that is not in the search engine/networking/social media space but a more traditional collateral application company.   The debate at Cubed Consulting continues as to who this might be but we’d love for your to weigh in with your names!

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For most of us, this is one of our top (if not the top) goal of our Social Media efforts – create a community where members feel comfortable interacting with each other and with your organization.  Why?  Relationships deepen.  Synergies are created.  Information is exchanged.  Customers are engaged.  In short, magic happens.  How do we do this?  This can be a real challenge.

Two things that can make it a lot easier:  Technology and Metrics.  There are lots of options when selecting a community platform vendor.  Conveniently, I have been asked to judge the 2010 Social Networking category for the SIAA Codie Awards and I will be evaluating a few of them.  Without going into too much detail, the first organization that I met with, INgage Networks, has a very compelling offering in this space.  They won this category for the last two years and they actually offer a whole lot more than just a community platform and I suggest you check them out.  (In the spirit of objectivity, as I evaluate others, I will share more information about them as well.)

When it comes to selecting and sharing metrics, you should approach it in the same way that you build your Integrated Marketing Strategy.  You should go in prepared with a firm grasp of your goals.  An old but really good blog post on developing metrics is Tara Hunt’s Metrics for Healthy Communities.  Basically, set goals and objectives and then create metrics that stringently test those objectives.  Keep the audience in mind when selecting specific metrics.  And be sure to consider both qualitative and quantitative metrics.  She lists a lot of great suggestions for specific metrics.  Read her post for the details.

Picking the right platform and creating the right metrics not only sets up for success but implements a method to test and correct your approach, as needed.  I hope this is a thought starter.  I would like to hear your ideas about community building too.  To all of us building or growing online communities, good luck!

(Check out the link below for apply this thinking internally within organizations.  This is exciting and will be another blog post)

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1.  Send your Top 100 Clients a Flip Mino and ask them to record and upload a clip about your services and solutions.

2. Create a YouTube Channel and record holiday greetings from key customer service contact people.  Film people you may not traditionally consider but have important customer contact roles.

3. Offer to exchange audio testimonials with vendors who are also clients.

4. Write a post for your corporate blog that singles out top clients and charitable activities in which they have participated or interesting accomplishments of theirs this past year.  Don’t tie yourself to information that is solely related to their relationship with you:  just acknowledge them.

5. Add rotating refreshed holiday greetings to your email signatures that single out indiviudals, companies, etc. with which/whom you do business.   Create a template that your sales, marketing, customer organization can change out every day throughout the holidays (and then create one for the rest of the year)!

6. Announce your plans to launch a customer community blog with “insider” access to development roadmaps, key technical personnel, your CEO, etc.  Offer a “room” or discussion thread that is not monitored by you.

7. Run a contest asking for videos of the funniest, non-traditional (but appropriate) use of your services and solutions and offer the winner a free pass to your next user conference.

8. Run a contest (with similar rules) offering the winner fifteen minutes of telephone access to your CEO.

9. Offer to include your clients’ corporate charity of choice and information about donation and participation in all of your January 2010 promotional collateral.

10.  Assign a top client to an employee with whom they traditionally do not interact.  Ask your employee to make a phone call or send an email thanking them for their business this year.   This might demonstrate that your entire organization, not just their account and sales representatives, are committed to the relationship.

11. Add thank-you messages to all of your social media channels and make them personal.   We expect that you may have sent our some holiday greetings, but use the global reach of SMN and the ability to personalize to extend this effort.

12.  Take a breath.  Give yourself and your clients a break by promising that you won’t ask them to take any more reference calls or be interviewed for a case study, press release, or anything else until next year! 

 Our sincerest wishes for a safe, relaxing, and joyous holiday season to all of you!

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In an insightful article by social entrepreneur Zenna Atkins in the Guardian online at http://bit.ly/2Eryg5, the author advises against the “big bang” approach to change, in favor of the incremental approach. Atkins argues that it is better to have multiple listening points, both internally and externally that enable an organization to be constantly aware of what is going on. This provides the necessary intelligence that allows the organization to evolve gradually to keep pace with ever changing customer needs. Listening posts might include customer and employee surveys, social media (blogs, customer forums, Twitter etc.), focus groups and direct conversations.

The bottom line – establish listening posts internally and externally. Introduce change in continuous small increments to allow your organization to become accustomed to each new state. Use the same listening posts to evaluate the success or failure of the change. Your customers and employees will be glad that you listened and acted.

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For the rest of us, the recipe is actually simple.  It’s the preparation and execution that can get complex.  We get caught up in all the possibilities that the web and Social Media offer us.  In fact, when you read this blog post, don’t read too into it.  Don’t try to get fancy – just stick to the basics.

1.  Be Genuine – Above all, be yourself (as a person and as a corporation).  Remember, that our customers are very smart and they know when we are not being real.  Our customers connect with us online so they can engage us in a personal, candid dialogue.  Remember, if they want to read the polished Press Release they will pick it up off the Wire.  Give them more – don’t just tell them that you are great (even if you are) but instead show them what makes you so great.  Maybe it’s the great people you have that work with you.  Maybe it’s the high value you put on customers.  Maybe it’s your quirky approach to business.  Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to show the real you.  (I feel like your Mom giving you a pep talk)

SIDE NOTE: It’s also ok to share the bad with the good – it demonstrates candor and establishes credibility.

2.  Provide Value – What do your customers want?  They may want discounts (who doesn’t).  They may want information.  They may want to be heard.  They may want to laugh.  Whatever they want, give it to them and give it often.  More often than not, especially in the B2B space, the answer is not just money.  Trust me, it’s not just about money – it is about a mutually beneficial relationship.  In the end, Value is different for every customer and every organization.  Pair what your customers want with what you can offer but figure this out quickly because, without this, your customers have no reason to engage you and, worse, they have no reason to recommend you.

3.  Interact – We have spent more than a century providing static content to our customers and prospects.  Our marketing message has been one way and we never knew, for sure, if anyone was listening to it.  Social Media is changing all of that.  We now have the ability to engage in conversations with our customers in ways we couldn’t before.  We can get feedback and adjust accordingly in an instant.  Social Media empowers our customers to evangelize our products and services.  The best part of all of this is that our customers actually want to interact with us online.  We, as a people, are spending so much more time in Social Networks than ever before.  Take advantage of this trend and engage your audience and interact with them through the channels that they are already comfortable with.

In Social Media, to be successful, you don’t need a persona, you don’t need to bribe, and you don’t need to be polished – but you do need a plan.

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How our behaviors are influenced by others, is the subject of one of the most fascinating and informative books I have ever read – Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler. In the book the authors present the scientific evidence of how we not only influence our friends, but also those that are three degrees of separation away from us, in other words – our friends’ friends and the friends of our friends’ friends. Their book examines not only epidemics of disease, but also suicides, politics, happiness, sadness and many other human experiences.

The book offers interesting insights, based on real science on how ideas and beliefs can go viral. These insights into human behavior can shed light on troubling events such as asset bubbles or even genocide. It seems that our primeval need to belong in groups (who would want to be an outcast when cannibalism and human sacrifice was commonly practiced) can overwhelm our rationality and our morality with terrible consequences. The good news is that the effect works in reverse also so that positive outcomes such as altruism and social justice can also be contagious. The case in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where 44 Liberian orphans were adopted by various local families is a wonderful example.

In Chapter 8 of the book, the authors describe how our behavior in virtual communities mimics our behavior in the real world. Apparently, attractive avatars in Second Life are more confident than plain avatars – regardless of the sex and looks of the real person who “owns” the avatar. In the popular online game “World of Warcraft”, a virtual disease spread in much the same way as a real disease might spread. These findings offer new avenues of experimentation for social scientists exploring the human condition.

The key takeaway is that each of us has influence over others, even over those that we have never met, but who are within three degrees of separation. If we are depressed, we can depress others. If we are happy we can, with little effort on our part, cause happiness in others. This book should be required reading in schools and colleges. Perhaps understanding our propensity to follow the crowd and the potential negative outcomes, might prevent some of our more destructive behaviors.

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Martell Homes of New Brunswick, Canada is growing their business. That’s right – a Home Builder is growing during a global recession that has been particularly hard on the construction industry. Martell Homes sold 16 units in 2007. They sold 40 in 2008 and hope for 100 in 2009. Martell uses twitter, a blog, youtube and facebook to engage with customers and gives those customers the opportunity to speak about their customer experience.

In his blog article,  Jason Falls of  socialmediaexplorer.com,  describes how Martells success is not simply due to the fact that he uses social media, but that he is using social media to tell a great customer experience story. On his website, real customers tell how Pierre Martell was very responsive to their requests and met his commitments. The messages from real customers are  very compelling and offer a powerful contrast to the contrived marketing messages found on the websites of many larger Home Builders. As Jason puts it …

“The first thing that hits you about Martell is their URL — http://www.themartellexperience.com. And, that, in essence, captures what Martell is about. Hiring them to build your house gives you an experience. “

You can read the whole article at Social Media For Small Business: Martell Home Builders

 The Martell Home Builder story is also featured as a case study at http://jfknet.com/case-studies

@jimmytmaher

The success of the Comcast Consumer revolt has lead to the creation of a new site http://customercircus.net/ which allows consumers to post customer service problems on a variety of service providers including Comcast.

The “Comcast Must Die” campaign really highlighted the new found power that consumers have through social media. Businesses cannot afford to ignore customer complaints and must ensure a positive customer engagement at each customer touchpoint. Angry consumers have powerful weapons at their disposal and are not afraid to use them.

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