I stumbled across this a few days ago and thought it was well done.

“It’s What THEY say it is”

Tom Davenport raised a good point recently. He cited @comcastcares and Starbucks as examples of brands using Twitter and crowdsourcing for service and feedback but falling short on consistent communications. Davenport’s scenario reflects why some many companies are retooling systems and processes to capture more of the digital conversations happening in real-time.

But capturing those conversations is only part of the battle. You need a process for how customer information is passed through the organization.

You’re seeing the “left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing syndrome” magnified so much more these days. Marketing or corporate communications might be excited about making a connection to an influencer, but it’s wasted if the details of that relationship can’t be communicated accurately and efficiently.

And even when the flow is there, there’s still business processes that need to kick in for event-driven stuff. See Davenport’s example of walking into Comcast’s store — one line of business had no idea what the other had promised. Lastly, before you deem socialCRM as the savior, like other tools, it has more to do with how your business is structured.

Brands have to make sure they have the human infrastructure to transform the way a line of business operates..only then will the supporting tools serve their real purpose – enablement.

blogs.hbr.org

I concluded that I’d rather not be reminded through social media that Starbucks doesn’t really care much about me and my preferences as a customer. What social media sometimes do is make us aware that we can communicate with just about anyone — but it doesn’t mean that the other party will actually listen or respond. I, for one, would rather work with a company that truly cares through a single communications channel — even snail mail — than one that shows its lack of caring through all the latest Web 2.0 tools.

It’s all about the idea. And this is one . . . key for any agency that we were going to be working with: it’s about the idea, being media agnostic and figuring out where do you take that idea to best fit it into the marketplace.

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How can anyone really think using community and curation tools won’t be a boon to media companies and publishers? The ones that get it are already committed to establishing better ways of sharing and collaborating, baking that mindset into every part of the business.

Not so long ago every pundit preached “community” this and “community” that (me included).  Sure that’s a part of it, but in less than a few years, things like Twitter, Google Buzz and a newsier Facebook have forced private and public institutions alike to look outside of their comfy websites and community hubs.  Brands and online publishers realize the conversations happening in other online environments and niches can often overshadow much of the activity taking place on their own web properties.

The BBC’s recent statements underscore much of the shift taking place not only in media outfits but in corporations, where internal and external teams are scrambling for the right mix of engagement and listening.

"For BBC news editors, Twitter and RSS readers are to become essential tools, says Horrocks. Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand."

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It’s easy to dismiss MySpace when folks discuss the big social portals but with the music biz in upheaval and with MySpace’s leverage there, the next six to twelve months could be telling. As streaming takes hold, [video, music] it looks like MySpace is pretty well positioned with iLike and iMeem already in the acquisition hopper.

What’s more interesting will be how the ramifications of Facebook Connect play out as millions of users look to it as the de facto "roving profile" if you will. I did see MySpace is letting users use Facebook Connect, which is smart, but how it handles overlapping apps and services will be challenging. And don’t forget, Murdoch owns MySpace and there’s some big battles brewing over pay walls and monetization.

Think of the implications if Murdoch had some success circumventing Google and yanking his content out from under the Google algorithm. That would make MySpace way more attractive to other media companies and even Bing.

Below is the excerpt I pulled from TechCrunch, clearly amplifying the continued push to focus on its core.

We’re hearing that the cuts are part of a restructuring of technology and product that’s being conducted by Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn and Chief Technology Officer Alex Maghen. Both are still fairly new to the company — Hirschhorn joined last April as part of the massive MySpace top management reshuffle, and Maghen joined in September. Hirschhorn, in particular, has made no secret of his desire to kill off products that no longer fit with MySpace’s core strategy.

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One of the things I like about Ogilvy’s thoughts is how they make it clear that social media isn’t owned by one department or the other. That ownership volley is what costs too many companies precious time. It’s much easier to rally the business units that want to step up and commit resources and budget.

The other thing that stood out is Ogilvy’s Social Enterprise Change Framework. There’s simply not enough frameworks out there to anchor how companies can begin thinking about an interactive strategy. Hell, I still reference Forrester’s POST methodology for some of the sessions I’ve run. What the Ogilvy framework smartly outlines are the steps required for brands to establish “Centers of Excellence” – yes the COE is back. And it actually maps really well to the challenges I see in the marketplace. Without sharing the burden – ok,tasks – companies are easily victimized by the silo effect and just can’t scale social media expertise across the organization.

The “Action” step in the diagram shows how talent needs to be peppered throughout the organization. Which lines of business to start with can often be the most daunting exercise. It’s hard to look inward and admit your customer service sucks needs improvement, although half the Twitterverse probably already knows it.

And while “action” is the right word in this context, I’m seeing companies act with more preciseness these days, as if engagement strategies were planned for long-term sustainability. I know, what a concept, right? Part of it’s from earlier social media war wounds  and part of it’s due to the listening capabilities that are now utilitarian. What the Ogilvy whitepaper also largely underscores is how twenty-ten will be year that social media’s shiny new object affliction is finally cured.

Ogilvy Enterprise Social Media v1 0

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More than 95% of Zappos’ transactions take place over the Web, so each actual phone call is a special opportunity. "They may only call once in their life, but that is our chance to wow them.."

Image by cambodia4kidsorg via Flickr

One of the other quotes that stood out was John Batelle’s prediction that the microblogging interface would change and “look nothing like a microblog.” I’d guess that has  a lot to do with the interface disappearing in some respects. By that I mean interfaces will be accessed through all sorts of services, applications and embedded widgets. And in a sense I think it’s already changed pretty drastically.

The other thing that almost everyone seems to allude to is how social media will become more entrenched in the inner-workings of companies – from their external communication practices to the way business systems are built, designed and deployed. 

That last part is why you hear so much about “social business,” which is a really tough thing to distill into something folks can understand.

If you stray too far to the technical, toolset, or process side, you sound like a business process re-engineering (BPR) evangelist. Jump over too much to the “social media” side and you quickly run the risk of being categorized as too fluffy or someone trying to socialize things that really don’t need to be social.

2010 Social Media Influencers – Trend Predictions in 140 Characters, by TrendsSpotting

Posted via web from George Dearing dot com

1. It’s never been more important to have brand consistency by bridging offline and digital. If your online persona is built on trust, you better bring that same trust to  the conference room.

2. Big marketing is still big marketing. The thing that’s different is companies are chipping away person by person instead of campaign by campaign.

3. Not enough  resources are being committed to developing a holistic approach to marketing and word-of-mouth. When you get just a fragment of someone’s work week, the result is a fragmented strategy. Go figure.

4. Practitioners are getting better at building the business case for their initiatives, and ROI isn’t always the anchor. Texas Instruments knew that peer-to-peer collaboration would help its business. Could they tie specific numbers to that interaction before they built their community? Of course not.

5. There will be huge dollars spent in 2010 on understanding influence. We’ll only scratch the surface.

6. I should have put my Twitter handle on my business card.

[Note: For a recap of the Texas Instruments case study presentation at the Word of Mouth SuperGenius conference, click here.]

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• AmEx Opens Up Data Treasure Trove
  " a new unit that will harness transaction data for its 90 million cardholders to inform both marketing decisions and larger strategic issues"
  (tags: data amex mashups marketing business+strategy financial+services)

• Transforming Software Architecture for the 21st Century
  (tags: web SOA software dion+hincliffe enterprise2.0 enterprise+2.0)

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• Times updates social media guidelines [Los Angeles Times]
  (tags: socialmedia journalism media
• Retailers Dumping More Into Paid Search [MediaPost]
  Consumers continue to buy online, but many are spending less on average per transaction. During the first half of the quarter, conversion rates rose 17% year-on-year, but the average order value declined 27%."
  (tags: research seo search paid+search ecommerce retail mediapost)

  

• Tweets or bleats? Tool measures importance on Twitter [Reuters]
  Tried TweetLevel last week..a few users chimed in and wanted topical breakdowns, alluding to an industry-like List of key influencers.

  

• Coca-Cola Lays Out Its Vision for the Future at 2010 Meeting [AdAge]
  "Mr. Kent said the company will focus on working across many geographies, cultures and channels, targeting the right consumers in a fragmented media environment and innovating."
  (tags: cocacola marketing business brands advertising branding adage coca-cola)
• It’s Time To Clobber Social Media (And Get Down To Business) [Dachis Group]
  Telligent and Dachis Group have a formal alliance. Ping me if you have questions on how we work together.
  (tags: business social dachis+group strategy presentations collaboration social+computing)

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Nice work by ComBlu’s Steve Hershberger and my Telligent colleague Lawrence Liu.

Ten Best Practices For Growing A Successful Online Community

Posted via web from George Dearing dot com

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• Marketing Your Business With Facebook – NYTimes.com
  "“The pages that are most successful,” said Tim Kendall, the director of monetization at Facebook, “are the ones that really replicate the personality of the business.”
  (tags: business marketing facebook social strategy)

You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward
the technology–not the other way around"

The other interesting tidbit so far is the title of Chapter 4, "Create
Twitter-Like Headlines."

Posted via email from George Dearing dot com

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• 5 Ways Design Thinking Can Raise the Collective IQ of Your Business | Cannell | Fast Company
  Be stupid often, but early. — Executives often harbor the unrealistic ambition of being right 100% of the time. A few stupid mistakes can actually make you smarter, in the same way that physical exertion rounds you into shape. For obvious reasons, mistakes are less costly if they’re committed early in the process.
  (tags: business strategy innovation design thinking)

John Borthwick of Betaworks and Steven Johnson, co-founder of Outside-In.com, talk about the real-time web on CNBC. Borthwick describes the internet’s evolution in four phases -  ISPs, portals, search, and now real-time.
And while neither one of them mentioned it by name, the notion of “curation” seems deeply rooted in much of what they’re describing.