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It was a rainy weekend in Atlanta, so while catching up on paperwork and other mundane chores, I was watching “Dead Like Me” via Netflix streaming. If you aren’t familiar with this comedy show, it’s about a bunch of grim reapers whose job is to remove the soul of a body before its “timely” death. I say timely, because the reapers are given the name, location and time of death for the individual on a post it note. That said, this one particular episode had a kid daredevil tempting death by preparing to jump off the top of a parking garage onto two mattresses 50 feet below. After the expected conclusion, the grim reaper reminds the newly departed soul that he is dead. The soul’s response, “It’s all transition, what happens next?”
That phrase has been swimming around in my head since. It’s so true. It is all transition, so what does happen next?
Here in America, we are in serious transition mode. We have a relatively new government administration proposing enormous changes to the fabric of business and personal wealth and benefits. We have a global economic crisis which has impacted employment. Because of this, the workforce is even more inter-generational mixed than expected. And those generations like to do things differently.
Social Media is an agent of change in this case. It’s one that can be applied in many different aspects. And while it will evolve over time, the principles behind it remain the same. “Social” business has been around for a long time – it didn’t start with the advent of Facebook or Twitter. The only thing that has changed is the ubiquitousness or cost of entry to applying these business practices on a massive scale. Let’s think about it for a minute… Twenty years ago, did you research an item before purchase? Did you ask other people their opinions? Of course you did. You may have had to wait for that Consumer Reports article, or may have only had one or two people to ask about it. Where now because things are so digital, you can find hundred of opinions and rating s on almost every single item for purchase. When it comes to buying something (especially a service), we would rather work with people we know and trust. Social media allows us to do that with the power of crowdsourcing.
Business is in transition. The customer/client/participant is now in the driver’s seat. The flexible companies/providers will be the ones to thrive in the new era. All it takes is listening skills and a willingness to trust the customer. It’s all transition, what happens next is up to them (and you if you listen).
Today in my e-mail, I found a pre-order announcement for the KISS show coming to Atlanta on October 26. As the faithful readers of this blog know, KISS has been a topic twice now based upon social media strategy.
In the first post, “I want to be KISSED“, I performed a quick social media presence assessment. The results of the assessment showed a few places where the existing social media strategy utilized by KISS, could be improved. The second post, “Oshawa – KISSed, Not Missed!” explored the media backlash toward KISS for not including Oshawa, Canada on the North American Tour even though the city won the KISS fan-routing tour contest. Oshawa is getting a concert and Gene Simmons was a little outraged at the media for spoiling a surprise.
Anyway, I received this e-mail from KISSonline about the pre-sale. This e-mail had a different look to it from previous ones. Hmm, need to go investigate further. Sure enough – at least from a social media site perspective (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, iLike, and Twitter), the sights have a more cohesive appearance. I’d like to think someone over at the KISS organization read my first post (since I did send a copy to them) and take action. At least someone there realized they had a disconnect and addressed it. Kudos to KISS.
Observe, Plan, Execute
Yesterday I was reminded of why organizations need to at least monitor their brand in the social media space, even if they choose not to participate in it. I received a following notice on Twitter from an Id that was representing themselves as a directory resource for a particular city that relies on tourism and honeymoons. Not a bad idea from a social media perspective.
So I go to check it out – especially since they had a large number of followers and numerous tweets. My Oh My… what a surprise… 600 plus tweets of what appeared to be randomly generated tweets which every once in a while created some images of questionable activities with Bollywood movies. I joke not… “committed the sin of Onan with ostensible Hindi movies” and “remembers the halcyon days of grotesque nightclubs” were actual tweets. OK, probably not as racy as you were expecting, BUT how would you feel if these tweets were coming from an account representing your company or posing as your company? Twitter has a new service for “verifying” accounts, however you need to justify your need for these types of accounts right now.
So it gets a bit worse. In Twitter, you can have a web URL in your profile. There was one in this case, so I clicked on it. Nothing racy on the other end, but it was an incomplete website. It looks like someone is attempting to build a directory of businesses in this tourist town. Again, not a bad idea, but what if you are the local government or the chamber of commerce for this town and already have an official site?
This case study gives us two lessons to consider…
First, what is at stake here is the town’s brand. Regardless of your participation in social media, if you have a brand to protect, you should at least establish a program of “monitoring” your brand. This program could range from using Google Alerts to a more robust tool such as those produced by Techrigy or Scoutlabs. All options essentially let you start for free. If you have limited volume, the “free” version of Techrigy or Scoutlabs may be all you need. I personally use a combination of Google Alerts and a paid version of ScoutLabs. I love the graphing capability of Techrigy, but for where my business volume is, Scoutlabs is the better fiscal choice.
The next step of your “monitoring” initiative is to define how you or your company will respond to events that occur. These don’t necessarily need to be “bad” events. You could reward those people who really promote your business. Or you can intervene when needed. Its better to be informed than blind. I call these reactions “Engagement Scripts” and they should be shared with everyone who communicates on behalf of your company. In severe cases, you may need legal counsel.
You may be thinking that I am blowing this case study out of proportion. Maybe the city in question was “alpha testing” some new social media initiatives and they just didn’t have the content completed yet. I can go along with that hypothesis, and I would encourage the company (city in this case) to test things privately. There is no reason to flood Twitter with 600 worthless messages – it still reflects poorly on the brand.
That leads us to lesson two… Plan your social media initiatives. By doing something as described in this case study, you are taking a shot-gun approach to social media programs. What are you trying to accomplish? Who are you trying to engage? Take the time to conduct an assessment to learn where your respective ecosystem is. The Four Quadrant Assessment Methodology (as defined by the Social Media Academy, and my personal preference) looks at where people are in the social web, sentiment analysis, key interests and reflections in the following areas:
- Customer mapping and field assessment
- Brand analysis
- Partner and alliance analysis
- Competition analysis
I’m not suggesting you get paralyzed by analysis. Think of it as clarifying the conversations you want to have and making them meaningful. Shooting fish in a barrel may be easy, but shooting the falls in a barrel is not one of my recommended actions. Do a little homework and planning, then go catch your trophy fish. I look forward to hearing about it.
The world of social media is wide open. There is a place for every type of conversation you can imagine. For example, earlier today a friend of mine posted on his Facebook status that he had converted someone to the joy of real oatmeal. We aren’t talking the instant packet kind. We’re talking about the fine culinary experience of steel-cut oatmeal which takes longer than a minute and thirty seconds to prepare in a coffee mug. Later in the day someone made a comment about how boring it was for people to be discussing oats. Sure – this conversation wasn’t for everyone, but it underlines that there is a place for every type of conversation out there.
And that’s one of the first steps in defining your social media strategy… Identify your customer and where they participate on the social web.
So if you feel like your social media programs or initiatives are a bit mushy? Maybe its time to assess where the conversations you want to be involved in are happening. So take a bite of that granola bar and go find your community!
