Posts Tagged Technology
Goal: Build a Community – Simple, right?
Posted by umangshah in Customer Experience, Integrated Marketing Strategy, Social Media Marketing on January 28th, 2010
The term Community has changed quite a lot in recent years. Jimmy had a similar point with Social Networks a while back in his post about the Three Degrees of Influence but I want to discuss it more in context of one of our primary marketing goals. For most people, the term Community refers to an online forum. This is very limiting and really doesn’t do it justice. Community managers probably resent this, which, I am sure, is one of the reasons Jeremiah Owyang is trying to institute a Community Manager Appreciation Day.
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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Welcome Lisa Hoesel
Posted by umangshah in Customer Marketing, Integrated Marketing Strategy, Social Media Marketing on December 21st, 2009
Cubed Consulting (@cubedconsulting) is proud and excited to announce that Lisa Hoesel-Peters (@lhoesel) is the newest member of the Cubed Consulting team. Lisa has over twenty years of customer relationship, reference and technology strategic management, consulting, and execution in verticals as diverse as financial, technology, and non-profit. Lisa’s keen insight into the variety of ways that businesses can create compelling and sustainable conversations with clients, prospects and other audiences is informed by the breadth and depth of her experience as much as her avid and enthusiastic participation in social media and networking activities and analysis. Lisa’s expertise in the Small, Medium and Emerging Business markets will be a welcome compliment to Cubed Consulting. Lisa’s will serve as Director of Social Networking Strategy and can be contacted on lisa@cubedconsulting.com.
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SAP UK Study finds that Customer Engagement is Key to Surviving Recession
Posted by Jimmy Maher in Customer Experience, Customer Marketing, Integrated Marketing Strategy on May 27th, 2009
The following appeared in an article posted at …
http://tinyurl.com/qrmxru
“Recent research by software provider SAP UK found that over 50 per cent of respondents are looking at a number of different technology channels to increase revenue.
A similar amount also claimed that focusing on customer engagement will be the key driver to surviving the downturn. “
Like most organizations, your company is likely engaging your customers through multiple channels, formal and informal, across different departments. This can cause the customer experience to be erratic and disjointed. Remember that the customer does not view your company as a collection of individuals or siloed departments, but very likely experiences your organization that way. Great customer experience requires a company wide strategy for all customer touchpoints. Based on the findings by SAP UK, many organizations are realizing this.
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2009 CRF Keynote – Laura Ramos on Social Media
Posted by umangshah in Customer Marketing, Integrated Marketing Strategy, Social Media Marketing on February 23rd, 2009
Let’s start at the beginning. Day one, after some networking meet-and-greets, Laura Ramos‘ presentation, titled “Move Beyond Customer Reference Programs To Engaged Communities”, to the Customer Reference Forum attendees was spot on. Most of what Laura shared with us was not a huge surprise to me but it really helped to have it laid out like she did. I hope her presentation changed some mindsets on using Social Media in the B2B environment. Here is my take and the overview:
- Customer Reference Programs are growing and being asked to more with less.
- Organizations need to recognize the value of Web 2.0 – yes, even in the B2B space.
- Community Marketing is the future. Follow the POST (people, objectives, strategy, technology) methodology to successfully create a social media strategy.
- 95% of business decision makers and influencers are active in social media (to varying degrees)*
I need to stop here and stress how important that last bullet is. 95%! I can not count how many times colleagues have balked at the idea of using Social Media to reach customers. Those days should be gone. This is all the proof we need. The other point to stress here: take your time and develop a solid strategy. Do not underestimate this step. Forget the technology until you have a solid strategy. As you implement you will constantly refer back to your strategy to make some key decisions. That said, there are things you can do now to prepare. Laura’s presentation dovetailed perfectly into the workshop I presented with Rhett Livengood on Thursday. I advocate the same basic process in developing a Social Media Strategy. This can take a little bit of time, so in the meantime start preparing. None of us have the budget to go out and create loads of new content. The content you have now is not bad, it is sort of invisible. Start by doing an inventory of your current library of collateral and refresh the content and, by all means, tighten it up if you can. Then make sure it is meta-tagged and indexed so when you do start posting it, it reaches the largest audience possible. In the end, we can build tremendous credibility with our customers and prospects by meeting them where they are active online. It’s not always easy but it always pays off. Questions, comments, need help? Let me know.
*Source: Forrester Research, Inc. global survey of business decision makers and influencers, Q4 2008, 1217 respondents.
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