If brands start with people, great brands start with great people. Not great in the sense that they are wealthy or successful or influential (yet), but great in the sense that ego, self-righteousness and self-serving agendas aren’t part of the equation.
Instead, these people are devoted to a cause. Infected with an idea. Motivated by success measured in other people’s smiles and excitement and ownership of the things they do for them.
Need help getting into that kind of groove? Check out John Moore’s awesome post on Dan Sullivan’s Laws Of Lifetime Growth here. Not super recent, but timely.
I’m serious. Go check it out now. (No, not later, right now.) It’s that good. (Well… it’s really the ten laws that are good, but… same difference.)
Thanks to the awesome folks at Radian6 for inviting me to tag along Wednesday for their “Rock Stars of Social CRM” event held in Boston, Mass – which coincided perfectly with the #e2conf. Watching how Radian6 now integrates seamlessly with SalesForce.com, effectively merging Social Media monitoring and CRM, was kind of a strategic “wow” moment for a Marketing and Social Media geek like me. (Actually, I think my exact words were “Holy $#%&!!!! You can do that?!?!?”)
Having been on the client side of the Marketing and Business Development world for years, this stuff to me is the Holy Grail of apps.
Literally, people: Mind. Blowing. (Not only the fact that you can plug one of the best CRM platforms on the market and Radian6 into each other now, but also how smoothly and seamlessly it all works for the user/manager. Chris Newton is a genius, pure and simple. I’ve been saying it for months now: 1. If you aren’t already using R6 and 2. if you aren’t driving this thing like Speed Racer behind the wheel of a Mach 5, you are seriously missing the boat when it comes to properly managing your Social Media program(s). – By the way, I am not being paid to say this. I am not affiliated with Radian6 in any way. Just stating the obvious about the tool’s impressive, ever evolving capabilities and the super smooth U.I., for starters.)
Okay, so anyway, there’s a lot I didn’t film while in Boston (as much as I love to play with cameras, there’s something a little unsettling about shoving a camera in people’s faces every time you have a conversation with them), but what I did film ended up here. So no, you won’t get to see my very first handshake with Chris Brogan, my first hug with Amber Naslund and Anne Handley, my first laugh with David Armano or any of the really fascinating conversations I had with two dozen super interesting tweeps who also happened to be wicked smart. (Yes, I was in Boston. I mentioned that, right?) But you will see me aimlessly walking through airports, talking to my toothpaste, laughing at snoring travelers, getting lost in parking garages and even goofing off with some of my favorite bloggers on the planet. That should be worth something, right? Today’s is not exactly a business video, but hey, behind the scenes stuff can be pretty cool too. (If it doesn’t work or launch properly, go watch it here.)
I need to start going to more of these conferences. The face-to-face interractions are just phenomenal. How often do you get a chance to have breakfast with Comcast’s Frank Eliason, lunch with Chris Newton and Chris Ramsey, coffee with David Armano and drinks with so many others whose ideas, insights, questions and experiences send your brain into a hundred new directions? Seriously priceless.
… BUT I am shooting video and taking notes, so I have some great stuff brewing for you when I get back to the brandcave.
Meanwhile, if you’re in Boston, Mass. today and want to come hang out, this is where I will be later today:
Go here for details. (Be sure to register RIGHT NOW or you won’t get in. The event is capped and you have to be on the guest list to get past the velvet rope.)
With all this talk of lateral vs. vertical action, depth vs. breadth of engagement, community managers, what Twitter “followers” are and aren’t, the conversation can quickly get a little overwhelming, especially if you are new to the Social Media management world. So while everything we have been discussing here lately is pretty important, take a big step back and relax. Put it all aside. Forget all about measurement, business objectives, strategy and tactics for a little bit…
… and just get out there. Start listening. Start responding. Start participating in discussions.
Find your community and join it. Start getting to know everyone. Shake some hands, pat some back, give out a few high fives, enjoy a hug or two, even. Introduce yourself. Enjoy the company and the interaction.Start showing up regularly. Weekly. Daily. Hourly. Whatever works.
Just relax and get out there.
Don’t over-complicate customer engagement (in the Social Media space or otherwise). This is still, in its most basic and powerful form simply about people connecting with people. Bonding in some way. Building relationships.
I could tell you that a big element of this is to put a human face to a logo, to “humanize” a brand or company, but even that would be too strategic. Too “objective” minded. I don’t want to go there today. I just want you to relax and mingle. Put your fears and reservations aside and just step out into the world.
Engagement doesn’t have to be a perfectly designed and executed PR program where every bit of interaction is carefully crafted and weighed against all possible outcomes. Let it be a living, breathing, imperfect thing: Wing it a little. Let your edges be a little rough. Respect your community enough to drop the corporate mask and be real with them. Be authentic, warts and all – though it’s okay if you pace yourself a little there. Embrace criticism as much as you embrace praise. Learn from your customers, fans and detractors. Empathize. Learn not to be defensive when they don’t see things your way. Even allow yourself to screw up sometimes and make it up to those you offended.
Just relax and get out there.
People don’t bite. It’ll be okay. Nothing really bad will happen. And what you’ll find is that if you’re real, if you truly open up and embrace engagement for the sake of engagement, people will respect you for it. They will find your courage and candor refreshing.
And they will learn to trust you, marketing ploys and all, which is more than I can say for the scores of other companies still holding on to illusions of vertical-minded message-driven control who still resist real engagement in the Social space.
So while all of the business strategy stuff is great and invaluable to your company, find a way to detach yourself from the complexity of it all long enough to remember that a handshake and a smile will get you a lot further along than too much focus on “earnings per share,” “impressions” or demographic targeting.
Engagement is about people. Don’t forget that you’re people too. 😉
Note: I’m flying up to Boston for a few days, so I may be slow to approve comments. If your comment takes longer than usual to appear, don’t worry. I’ll get to it as soon as I have a few minutes of internet access. I should have some video of my trip and some of the folks I will be hanging out with later this week, so hang tight. (Expect some Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund and Dave Alston sightings – at the very least.)
Oh, and your bonus content today is a little unexpected visit from Chico, the BrandBuilder blog’s mascot (yes, he’s real). Check it out:
So we’ve been chatting about engagement these last few days, and particularly vertical action (essentially brands addressing their communities from the top-down, and creating mechanisms through which their communities can communicate vertically with them using the same channels). When you look at corporate blogs, Twitter accounts and most branded community sites, this is mostly what you see: Vertical engagement between companies and their customers/fans/friends/users.
Likewise, the breadth and depth conversation we had last week also relates to vertical action: Brand managers, Community managers and/or Social Media managers finding ways to engage customers from a brand-to-community perspective. Even when dialog exists, even when the communication channels are truly 2-way, most of what happens is vertical: Brand-to-customer and customer-to-brand. And that’s nice, but it is only half the story: In order to understand the power of the social web, the power of communities and the power of truly engaged fans, you also have to tip your hat to lateral action.
What is lateral action? Simple: Lateral action is simply peer-to-peer engagement that happens within or across communities. A brand or community manager may have planted a seed along the way (a tweet, a blog post, a comment, a promotion, etc.), but once it has hit the community, the message/info/conversation is spread from customer to customer without having to be prompted by any official brand representative.
Another example of lateral action is WOM (word-of-mouth): Peer-to-peer recommendations are classic examples of lateral action. Rumors are examples of lateral action. Community tweetup invitations are examples of lateral action. RT’s on Twitter tend to be examples of lateral action.
Lateral action is what happens when the brand, the company, the official presence of a business gives its community the opportunity to BE a community by taking a step back and letting people share what is important to them with peers.
And lateral action is often the answer to the question raised last week about breadth and depth of engagement: Once a brand has managed to scale its community to several thousand or tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands, even), how can a team of community managers possibly engage so many people properly? It’s impossible, right? (This being the logic behind some Social Media directors’ decision to focus on depth at the cost of breadth.) Truth: Vertical action alone cannot serve the purposes of engagement (breadth mostly, but depth also) in the Social Media space… or even when it comes to fostering vibrant brand-centric communities in the “real” world. Lateral Action is the yin to Vertical Action’s yang. Lateral Action is how community engagement actually scales and transcends any breadth-related engagement limitations.
And though Lateral Action is nothing new, it is not a typical strategic mode of thinking for most Marketing professionals who have spent most of their careers working in traditional media (yes, even in the world of the web). This is why MANY Marketing folks still talk about the challenge of creating “content” even in the Social Media space. This is why advertising, messaging and marketing products are still among the first things marketers try to “plug in” when it comes to leveraging Social Media “channels.” This is all top-down thinking. Vertical Action thinking. And though it has its place here, it cannot succeed in the Social Media space without an equal (and in many cases greater) measure of Lateral Action.
Brand managers, Social Media managers, Community managers – whatever their designation may be – need to understand that their job isn’t just to produce content and constantly stimulate vertical engagement. There is only so much they can accomplish this way. What they must also do is empower their communities to manage themselves to a great extent and generate conversations and motion from within. Community members have to reach out to each other. They have to reach over to other communities. They have to share and discuss and debate and organize themselves. Brand Managers in the Social Media space have to learn how to be good hosts and patrons and supporters without being mother hens 24/7. This lateral action has to be fostered, nurtured, and built into their online and offline communities.
This is a crucial point for all brand managers to understand if they want to be successful in the age of Social Significance and Community Marketing. I hope the video and this post help you understand the difference between vertical and lateral action… and their importance our ongoing discussion of community “engagement.”
Tomorrow, we will bring our engagement discussion to a close with some far less strategic yet much more valuable advice than what we’ve touched on so far. 😉
Have a great day!
Bonus Footage: Oui, en Francais! (For my Francophone readers, a question: Since I can, should I also start shooting videos in French?) And since a few of you have asked me if I would say my name in its original French so you can hear what it sounds like – Two birds, one stone. You ask, I deliver. (And yes, I take requests.) Check it out:
Yesterday, we redefined the term “follower” on Twitter and in doing so, discovered that followers are in fact not hapless little ducklings in search of a mama duck but actually community managers in their own right with a tremendous amount of power when it comes to helping brands gain traction in the social web (and particularly in communities like Twitter).
Now that we’ve covered that subtle yet fundamental topic, let’s look a little more closely at the two main strategies behind engagement: Breadth and Depth.
Breadth and depth are essentially opposite sides of any reach strategy. One focuses on quantity while the other focuses on quality.
Breadth
When it comes to engagement in the social media space (and particularly on Twitter), a focus on breadth looks like a numbers’ game: If having 5 followers is good thing, then having 10 followers is better. If having 5,000 followers is a good thing, then having 10,000 is better. And so on. (Now remember that we redefined the term “follower” yesterday and that we aren’t talking about acumulating points here.)
So in essence, a breadth strategy would look like this: 100,000 people on Twitter mention Brand X on a regular basis. The Social Media director for Brand X sees in these 100,000 people a vibrant yet untapped community. In his mind, reaching out to every single one and getting them to “follow” Brand X on Twitter would be a great thing. By doing so, that community of 100,000 fans would have access to the Brand X feed, have the opportunity to engage with it, spread their love, RT content, ask questions, etc. And that rocks.
But the flip side of that is Brand X only has a team of 3 people managing their online communities, and that isn’t enough to truly engage with 100,000 people. So what ends up happening is: While Brand X has a community of 100,000 “followers” on Twitter, its staff just can’t create deep connections with more than a few dozen of them. So by spreading itself too thin, Brand X might come across as having very superficial “engagement” on Twitter: Lots of followers, but not a lot of meaningful interaction. That doesn’t rock, and it evidently scares a number of companies looking to truly connect with their fans in Social Media.
Depth
The flip side of breadth is depth. On Twitter, a focus on depth looks like a private party: Small numbers, a tiny community, but lots of interraction between a brand and its relatively small numer of followers. The idea here being that engagement is about building relationships and true,lasting emotional connections. Numbers are the enemy here since you just can’t be “friends” with more than a few hundred people anyway.
So in essence, a depth strategy would look like this: Out of 100,000 fans of Brand X on Twitter, Brand X chooses to only truly engage with a few hundred (or a few thousand). That’s a manageable number, and any more than that would get in the way of “true” engagement.So what rocks here is that those folks with whom Brand X truly focuses on are going to feel ultra special about their relationship with Brand X, and that’s pretty solid.
But what happens to the other 99,000 or so fans Brand X chooses not to engage with? Well… hopefully, they can talk about Brand X amongst themselves and be perfectly happy. Better yet, maybe the chosen few will go out and evangelize Brand X to the other 99,000 as… good will agents of Brand X. They have big networks anyway, so why not create a tiered system of influence within Twitter? But see… that doesn’t really work. The reality of having too narrow a depth strategy is that the other 99,000 fans feel disenfranchised by Brand X. They feel ignored. Worse yet, they opt out of following Brand X and engaging with it on twitter because they find no value in what Brand X is doing on Twitter since they don’t seem to be on the Brand X radar anyway.
The result of either too rigid a depth or breadth strategy is a stalled overall engagement strategy. On the one hand, you get numbers without purpose or value. On the other hand, you get an exclusive clique effect that doesn’t scale enough to matter. Neither is a good outcome.
Red Flag Diagnosis:
Too much breadth = 500,000 followers out of 500,000 fans but interactions with only 20 of them per day and zero impact on anything relevant relating to your business.
Too much depth = Only 5,000 followers out of 500,000 fans. Outside of your core fans, either nobody knows you’re here or nobody cares.
(And in some awful cases, you get poor execution in both, which looks like only 5,000 followers out of 500,000 fans, and interactions with only 20 per day. Ergo: Nobody cares, and you blow off the few who do. Double-whammy.)
The Engagement Strategy Trap: Depth and Breadth are not mutually exclusive
Strangely, I still see a good number of companies choosing to focus on either breadth or depth when they should instead combine both. And frankly… I wonder why any marketing professional would ever make that mistake when it’s so clear that in order to really have an impact, you always have to combine the two (not just in social media but in most other areas as well). Unless your brand is about exclusivity (Ferrari, Cartier, Ferre) “engagement” can’t stop at your core customers. Not in Social Media, and certainly not on Twitter.
Without some measure of breadth, depth becomes an exercise in navel-gazing. It becomes an echo-chamber. It goes nowhere.You end up chatting with your clique every day and congratulating each other on a job well done. Great. Awesome. Except… not.
Without some measure of depth, breadth becomes an exercise in scale without impact: You may have an enormous following, but what is it doing for you? Nothing? Ooops. It’s back to the drawing board for you.
So… if you are a major consumer brand with an engagement strategy in the Social Media space and your hundreds of thousands of followers don’t move the ball for you in some way (increased WOM, increased traffic to your website(s), increased conversations or social mentions, increased traffic to your stores, increases in transactions – remember FRY?) then you’re wasting your time “collecting” followers instead of truly building a community.
Likewise, if you are a major consumer brand with an engagement strategy in the Social Media space and in the last 12 months of activity in the space, you’ve only managed to attract 5,000 “followers” out of your 500,000 active fans and customers on Twitter, somebody’s playing too much golf or computer solitaire or something. Your “engagement” program is barely on autopilot.
If your goal is “engagement” and you ignore the majority of your fans , you’re completely missing the boat. First: Whatever you’re doing, it isn’t creating value or relevance, and you are failing in that regard. Second, if you aren’t reaching out to your fans, acknowledging them and making new connections every day, you just don’t understand what engagement is about.
Repeat after me: Engagement without reach doesn’t work.
So the key to successful engagement in Social Media, especially on Twitter is to combine breadth and depth in a way that makes sense, and in a manner consistent with the overall goal of the strategy. Reaching out to 100,000 fans doesn’t mean all 100,000 want to chat with the Brand X team every single day. Some will engage daily. Others will engage weekly. Others monthly. Many more won’t engage at all. They’ll just listen and share and be happy to be part of the community without being particularly active. Some will crave more attention than others. It’s okay. Let your fans, your “followers,” you community tell you how much engagement they need. Let them tell you what kind of engagement they want from you. Every single person is different. There is no cookie-cutter model for engagement that works for every single person who’s a fan of your brand. Don’t sweat the depth vs. breadth. Work on both. Measure both. But most importantly, LISTEN to your fans. Invite them to join you on Twitter. Give them a reason to “follow” you so that you can have that kind of dialogue and feedback. Follow them back. If many never drop by to say hi, that’s okay. Let them dictate the pace and mode of the engagement.
And believe me, they’ll tell you if you’re dropping the ball or doing a great job. 😉
Remember that engagement isn’t about YOU. Engagement is about the value you bring to your community, and the community, not you, decides what is valuable to them. Your community on Twitter is not what you want it to be, it is what IT wants to be. (If it is 500,000 strong, embrace all 500,000 even if it seems inconvenient at first.)
So stop worrying about too much or too little, stop worrying about depth vs. breadth, and just reach out. Set up shop on Twitter, listen to what is being said, introduce yourself to folks who seem to care about you (Brand X), and start there. When people say hi, say hi back. When people ask a question, answer it. When people pay you a compliment, say “thank you.” When they complain about something, try to solve their problem. When you have something cool or valuable to share, share it. When someone wants to talk to you about their cat, count that as a blessing and understand that in that interraction lives the very essence of the bond between you, the brand you are paid to represent, and the person sharing something personal with you. This is invaluable. The conversations and relationships you foster on Twitter don’t just stop with the medium. They cross the digital/real world barrier. What happens on Twitter translates into people’s perception of you in the real world.
So like the old commercial says, get out there and touch someone. Be a courteous, engaging Twitter host, and make your time in social media count for something. You’ll be glad for it.
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Bonus Section: Outtakes from this morning’s failed video shoot.
If you’ll notice, the end of today’s video about engagement is cut off and some of the post’s points are never actually made. Why? because of lawn mowers cranking up in the background AGAIN. The video shoot was aborted and one of the draft/backup vids was used in the post. Pretty annoying, but kind of funny… Kind of like all of the yard debris (pollen, grass, etc.) on my black shirt. Oh, and I hope you’ll enjoy the little background music. It was so awfully generic that I just had to add it in there for good measure. Check it out:
Photo by Matt A.
