Angels and Demons

My career in the social technology space has landed me smack in a host of debates over the potential evils of the advent of social technology.   It is just another excuse to blame the invention rather than the individuals that are either using it for evil or in a less than smart way.   My typical response is that social technology may in fact enhance a stupid activity or expose a momentary lapse in judgment but it is not the technology but the human... both the messenger and the audience that is making a judgment.

My typical analogy involves other inventions that have changed dramatically the way society has behaved.  The automobile...  it completely changed the way the world traveled, economies (think what the Middle East was before the auto), and business.   An automobile can be used as an ambulance, a delivery truck, a bus for students, a way to see family, a transport for dogs being rescued, and it can kill.   In the wrong hands, it can be used as a deadly weapon.  Do we blame the entire industry for the fault of the car?  NO!!!   The same is true with the airplanes.    They are really effective killing machines even as domestic air travel transportation sadly.   However, they are also used for life flights, help put out forest fires,  and get you home for Thanksgiving.

For the nay sayers, most of them are casual observers I find.   They don't use Facebook or Twitter.  (You know they were the same people in the 1940's taking a horse and buggy to work or thought that email was a fad.)   They mock what they fear or don't understand.  However, I find,  they do use Amazon and pay attention to user reviews.   Anything that is UGC (User Generated Content) is a by product of social networking.   Many charities are using social networking to raise money, get their message out, organize events.

My guess is most of you can relate a wonderful experience that is due to social networking.  We hear about the bad on the evening news.  Heck, what other industry beyond travel agents is more threatened by quantity of news available via social sites than broadcast news?   What are some of your stories of good things that happened as a result of the advent of the social technology revolution?

Look to your Bad Habits to Foster Your Goals

When helping many enterprises wrap their arms around a social strategy, I always try to get them to circle back to their business drivers or goals for embarking on a social roadmap.   If these aren’t in place it will be virtually impossible to arrive at results never mind deploy the correct social technology to succeed!

A blog post on Workshifting.com regarding “7 Habits That Derail Your Goals” by David Baeza really pushed me rethink goal setting process.   The definition of a goal by the Oxford Dictionary is “the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result”.   This is critical in developing a social roadmap.  

My epiphany was: Goals are set to Rectify Bad Habits.   Goal setting, by nature, should be prefaced by a gut wrenching exercise to determine why this is a goal to start.  What aren’t you doing or what are you doing which is preventing the ideal nature of business nirvana?   We all have heard to death that “Goals need to be measureable.” Sure, okay… but does that make them achievable?   Think about a personal goal which continues to show up on the list in January year after year.  Some of the top personal goals every year are to lose weight, stop smoking, spend more time with family, exercise more…  you get the picture.   

Let’s look at this.   On your goal list is:  I want to lose 30 pounds this year.  Okay, that is:

1.     Attainable (given you have 30lbs to lose) with proper management and is less than a pound a week. 
2.     It can be measured by a scale
3.    It can be broken up into smaller goals that can be used as incentives along the way.  I want to lose 10 pounds by March 31^st.

What most people don’t do is look at really why they need to lose 30 pounds.  They may realize they don’t eat healthy or exercise or have an addiction to ice cream.  However, these are still symptoms rather than the root of the problem that is causing the issue.   You aren’t going to suddenly decide fruit is tastier and a craving rather than ice cream.  

Moving this into the professional realm.   Do you want to have better customer retention?  Okay great.  Your social strategy goal is to impact customer retention and increase your percentage by 10% over two years and drive incremental existing customer sales up by also 10%.   Lofty goals, my friend.  Lets put the goal analysis magnifying glass on it.

1.      Attainable: Yes, companies can improve customer retention by 10%
2.      It can be measured.  Sure I have 1000 customers how many of these are still customers in two years.
3.      It can be broken into smaller subsets

Here is the question…  Why are you having a problem with retention in the first place?  Better communication and listening to your customers on a 24/7/365 basis is certainly a step in the right direction just like joining a gym.   However, simply having a place to listen or work out is not going to get you to the goal.  For many, this is hitting bottom.  They have looked in the mirror and decided what is looking back at them isn’t the person or company they want to be in life.   If you are a company leader, is the organization really the best it can be?  Are you finally ready to implement changes that need to happen in order to make your customers more loyal or buy more from you?   Are you cultural ready?  

You may not realize the core of the problem.  Your customers probably understand it.  Social Technology can be a great mirror.  Painful for some.   Addicting to others.   So when you look in your corporate mirror are you seeing the Biggest Loser when they walk into get on the scale for the first time or at the finale?   Zappos.com, Ford Motor Company, American Express and others are addicted to looking in their social mirrors at themselves.  It is not a bad thing for you and others to like what you see.  

Success is not chance.  It is hard work with a bit of luck around the edges.   Social success is not easy or free.   Companies that are seeing success have dedicated the appropriate resources from a human resource, financial and cultural standpoint.   

Puppy Love - New Milford Dog Park Opens

Puppy Love – Community INteraction


My family has always been invovled in the communities in which we live.  From running for office to our churches to local civic groups.   Since moving to New Milford, CT, I have tried to emerse myself in the community.  One of the projects I have been deeply involved in bring a fenced dog park to the town. 

We were really fortunate to have Kimberly-Clark donate the land for the park next to their plant. For the past year, we have been selling t-shirts, magnets, skate-a-thons, movie nights, trivia nights and “tag” sales (yard sales everywhere else in the country) and a host of other fundraising activities to try to fund a fence around the 1 acre of land. In the spring, we had a bittersweet announcement a former principal of one of the schools, Fran Terry and her family would be our angels and donate the balance of the fence in memory of her husband, Norman Terry. WOW!

On Saturday, August 28th… Over 50 New Milford four legged residents and their humans dedicated and opened “Candlewoof Park at Kimberly-Clark”. It has been the “woof” of the town. Now as a Board Member and a citizen, I have been bringing my dogs to the park to play with existing and new friends. I have to admit getting choked up last week after work when stopping by to give the pups a quick romp. There had to be 25 dogs and their owners. Bark about multi-cultural diversity! There was every type of breed from a toy poodle that had a thing for my Golden to a Mastiff. Their owners were smiling and INgaged in their dogs as well as meeting each other.

Social community exists online and off. Tips and stories were being shared and commented on as the dogs did their own version of social networking… I shed a happy tear. All the hard work was worth it. Hopefully, being part of this wonderful venture has helped me get closer to the quote:

“My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am. “

Community Sandbox ..

Every now and then, I get asked by a perspective customer for a sandbox to try out a “community”. See, this is a typically offering from a technology or software company. They want to be able to play around in the sandbox. My memories of a sandbox stem back to Kindergarten. You know … the place we all learned to “SHARE”? These things you would think would go together.

Sharing |Sandboxes | Kindergarten.

Sadly, in the community space, sandboxes aren’t really beneficial. You see, the mistake is routed in the perspective that it is a technology purchase.

In essence, there is truth in that concept. You are purchasing social technology. However, it is really a business service that is enabled by technology. How can you assess the viability of a technology that is to engage your brand with a targeted audience without the audience? Compare this to a play. Every final dress rehearsal typically has an audience. Movies are prescreened for an audience to get a reaction. It is the same way for a successful community strategy and deployment. Social Technology without the members/fans/customers is flat. It is simply a set without the actors.

Please Please think first about your goals and strategy and then apply technology to achieve them. In other words, get your script right! For enterprises that are being cautious like this, I would first suggest doing a “pilot community” rather than a sandbox. In the theater world, this is called playing to Peoria. Develop your roadmap with a soft launch to a specific audience. This may be for a particular grouping of customers, partners, or around a particular product or service. Learn your lessons here and then expand across your enterprise as the roadmap. Make sure you choose your pilot audience carefully. It must be a big enough group to foster INteraction and attention. You require a valid business reason for them to care to INgage with you on a regular basis. Many times these groups will self identify as requesting a social application to communicate with each other.

Choose a technology partner that will scale with your success. Another pit fall I see enterprises that are tip toeing around a social INgagement strategy make is choosing a technology that doesn’t scale. Once they want to scale … they pay double to convert the existing content on to a more enterprise clad platform. 

So are you ready to play to Peoria? I am interested to understand what baby steps your enterprise has discussed in developing a successful (or not) social technology.

Human Energy grows Social INgagement

One of the best and worst question I regularly hear is … "What is the staffing requirement for managing my customer/employee/partner community" I love this question when I know it is coming from the respect of planning for a successful implementation and wanting to put the best resources and plan in place to see the Social ROI from their efforts. I am not so thrilled when I think it is coming from the perspective wanting the answer that it won't require much attention and if you build it the community will sprout and grow on its own.

I have several ways to explain this to people. There is the comparison to transportation. A horse needs food, direction, and attention. A car needs a driver, gas, and maintenance as well as a good road helps. It comes down to most communities thrive when given the attention a farmer has to his crops. The community needs to be seeded, watered, different treatments based on business weather conditions, and harvested for the rich rewards of the content. The content contains seeds to plant the next batch of rich fruit. It is an on-going love affair with your field. It is an on-going nurturing of the relationship between the enterprise/governmental agency and the target audience. Too much attention (water) and you can get rot. Too little and the community can die on the vine. For every company and with every plot of land, this changes due to conditions. You can have 10,000 members but low content contribution and no need for a headcount. There are the 100 person networks that have a lively posting and contribution daily or questions that are very time consuming to answer. An external influence can immediately blow up your community site and cause a ton of unplanned traffic and additional resources will need to be deployed.

The best answer I can provide without a clear understanding of the individual primary goals is expect that the time and effort put into your community to show in the results. The biblical phrase, "You Reap What You Sow" is very appropriate. The idea that social software (or any software or technology) alone will fix your problem without the careful planning of adoption is a fool hearted investment. Keep this in mind as you are looking at a staffing plan. A good community manager is essential. The manager should be respected within the company and have easy access to content developers or people to tap for help answering questions.

When it comes to outsourcing community management, my own biases are to handle moderation and content planning internally rather than outsourcing it if at all possible. Who knows your company, services/product, and brand better than an internal advocate? This is why I recommend looking internally first for the appropriate individual. Good places to find individuals are in your marketing, public relations, and especially customer care teams. Then, pick a technology partner that will also be resource for your long term strategy and be a mentor for your community manager. In reality, having to add head count to manage the volume of social INgagement should be a positive thing.

What have you seen as appropriate recommendations on staffing levels?

 

BUT WHY????

BUT WHY???

If you have children or have had the luxury of spending quality time with a three year old, you probably have encountered the "Why Stage". Every statement, question, and sentence, regardless of how silly, is answered by a sweet young voice asking, "WHY!??!??"  Enterprises need to harness “their inner child voices” while developing their social strategy  The first rule and milestone to agree upon is the "WHY". This is your primary goal for establishing a multi channeled conversation. This "WHY" will identify also the first audience you also want to impact. It will set the table for some of the milestones and metrics you as a company want to accomplish with this journey.

"WHY?" is a nagging and grueling question. "WHY?" can drive you crazy. One answer is never correct. It is a typical answer from adults… "BECAUSE I SAID SO!!!. You see, this answer, doesn't satisfy the audience. The three year old hates this answer. You can already see the resentment and tears forming in the eyes of the cherub. That cherub is your intended corporate audience. Whether that audience is your employees, customers, prospects, partners, or OEM's… the last thing any company needs is a social effort that brings tears to your stakeholders' eyes. It is crucial to be able sit down and clearly articulate the "Why" in terminology that anyone (even the three year old) can understand. A clear message on why will help:

• Internal staff responsible for the effort to understand their role
  
• Stakeholders understand the purpose and what they will gain from collaboration
  
• Clarify the metrics and the message
  
• Reach the ROI potential
  

Some samples of corporate whys:

• Increase online sales and support our franchise network
  
• Customer support and retention
  
• Increase our place in the XXX listing of our competitors
  
• Reduce product innovation and time to market costs
  
• Improve employee collaboration and institutional memory
  
• Increase fan loyalty during the off season
  

If you are having trouble selecting one or formulating this, it may be time to reach out to someone to assist with this. I encourage you to share either your corporate "WHY" or comment on what challenges you faced determining the "WHY" your enterprise entered the social conversation.

Is Your Company Silo'd or Social ??

One of the largest challenges any company faces in being successful with a Social Marketing or Networking Strategy is becoming a “Social Company”.   For many, this is a huge change to the corporate culture.  It takes a virtual axe to the tried and true chain of command and corporate communications channels.   What most companies fail to fully accept is these types of connections and communications already exist.   The smart company is now choosing to embrace and explore how they can be beneficial to them from a profit stand point.  

Many of the enterprises today candidly admit to having a very silo’d approach to communication and knowledge sharing.   There are invisible force fields around valuable information being shared among employees that do similar jobs but are separated by product line or geography.   The forward thinking institution is thinking about ways to better connect and incentivize employees to collaborate and peer educate.   What can be gained by dropping the force fields?

·         Product Innovation

·         Subject Matter Expert training

·         Leveraging a Successful team to help a new or underperforming department

·         Better understanding of customers by connecting the customer facing staff with support individuals

·         Employee Engagement equates a higher retention

·         Employees armed with knowledge and access to wisdom

·         Decisions made in public increasing adoption support and uncovering potential pitfalls prior to implementation

·         Better sense of corporate pride

·         Employer of choice

What else can be added here?  Whether it is creating a crowdsourcing site for innovative ways to increase sales, new products or cost saving measures or a community to discuss topics and collaborate on projects a socially connected company breaks down the silos and operates at a higher level of transparency and productivity.    There are many out there that think opening up a community will actually decrease productivity as employees’ waste time.    These are the same arguments posed by companies in the late 1990’s regarding email.   Social communication is an evolution of email.  79% of Global Fortune 100 companies are using some sort of social channel to communicate with stakeholders.   Why not what so many say is their most valuable asset, the employee. So, two questions I will leave you with today.  Are you a leader in your industry or a follower?   Are you ready to be a Social Company?

Social Measurement

On the bell curve of social strategy adoption, there are the early adopters and those that want so much proof of a roadmap of success they will forever being playing catch up to their competitors. If you are one of these companies, I ask you to answer this question. Do you know what every customer is worth to you over their lifespan? I am guessing the answer is no. Even with customer loyalty programs and CRM systems, I am positive most rank and file employees do not know this number. 
In a case study in "I Love You More Than My Dog" by Jeanne Bliss, she highlights Zane's Cycles. They know that each customer is worth $12,500 over their life span of purchasing bicycles and associated products. (More in our case given my husband and I are avid cyclists) As a result, they are rabid about service. Ms. Bliss isn't the only one to notice this as Zane's is also a featured business in American Express' OPEN Forum. This is a community targeted at the small business owners with OPEN cards to interact with each other to share best practices. Getting noticed and having the over the top success is a wonderful achievement for Zane's. Let's be honest, they are located in Connecticut. Our winters are as conducive to year round cycling as say a shop in Texas.

If you want to know if a community is going to drive and product ROI, understand the worth of a community member (insert happy customer or valued customer). Also, by understanding what a well educated customer worth to you walking in the door, you can understand the importance of a welcoming and nurturing first impression is to your business. Your first impression is often what they see on the web. Think about how many times you "Google or Bing" a business prior to purchasing an item or walking in the door. A community for your customers discussing your business is a wonderful way to welcome existing and new customers looking to verify prior to trusting you with their hard earned capital.

Let's do some math. I am going to use some base line numbers. A new community is a first year investment of $75,000 - $100,000. An average customer spends $600 a year with you. This is $50 a month. (I drop that easily at a local nail salon.) This means a social community must produce an extra 175 customers to be profitable a year. How is that for an ROI number?


If you are a large enterprise, that is an easy number to commit to achieving. Say your average customer is worth $5,000 a year. That is only 20-25 customers you have to secure. A more realistic target is adding 100 more customers. That is ½ million in gross profit. Have I got your attention yet?


More math (sorry), add this to the number of community members that will increase their annual spend with you or not be as swayed by the competition because of the relationship and value you are expressing to them. Let's get scary… So your biggest competition deploys a robust uber friendly community and lures 200 customers away from you. What is that worth?


If you are looking for ROI, seek no further than the worth of one customer and divide it by the cost of deployment. It really is peanuts. I will ask it again... Do you know what every customer is worth to you over their lifespan?