Social Media and the Middle East: How technology, culture and shifting demographics will change the game in the next decade.

What if 50% of your market were under the age of 25, extremely mobile, social-media-savvy and brand-conscious?

What if you could turn back the clock a couple of years – knowing what you know now – and go back to the beginning of the social media “revolution,” only with mature tools and stable platforms at your fingertips?

Think about these two hypothetical situations and bring them together. How would you blend Social Media and digital communications into your business model? This is the question being asked by the business community in Dubai and the rest of the GCC – a region of the world finding itself on the cusp of a powerful marketing communications shift over the next couple of years, starting right now.

I shot a little video while I was there, just for you. If the video embed doesn’t work for you, watch it here.

The threat of failure: Companies (and their marketing partners and agencies) using social media merely as marketing channels through which to push traditional messaging, marketing offers and other noisy, low traction tactics. Traditional thinking is the enemy of progress in this instance.

The opportunity for success: Blend Social and Traditional tactics without making the same mistakes that companies in the west already made over the last few years. That is to say: Blend and mix social and traditional but do not confuse the two. Make full use of word-of-mouth (lateral forces) instead of relying on aggressive discounting to earn business. Watch where companies in western markets have succeeded and failed with social media (and why) before jumping into the space and making similar mistakes. (The US, Canada and Europe are outstanding labs for regions just now getting into the space. Don’t guess at it. Study what has been done and learn from it.)

Once again, the difference between success and failure rests on simple decisions being made by companies just like yours: Do we think this problem through both strategically and tactically, or do we just throw money at these new channels and hope for miracles? Some companies will reap the rewards of properly integrating social media into their business models while others will waste their time with poorly thought-through investments in the medium and see very little benefit from it. What is beautiful to me about the region though, is that it is still more or less virgin territory: None of these decisions have been made yet. The market is wide open for success. All I see is opportunity, not just there, but across the Muslim world, which constitutes a hefty chunk of the world’s population/markets. That is pretty energizing for someone with my kind of mindset. Yahoo is making big moves there. Most major European marketing firms and agencies were also well represented in Dubai last week. The momentum is building and for obvious reasons: The middle east is evolving fast, the region’s economies are looking beyond the oil boom (Dubai especially since it produces very little oil), and the population is increasingly young, connected, and modern. The shift is palpable when you are there. It isn’t theory or pie-in-the-sky. It isn’t all rainbows and unicorns (it never is), but the middle east is investing in its future, and its demographic profile is going to cause significant changes in its markets over the next two decades.

Eye-opening trip to Dubai on a lot of levels. Amazing place to visit if you get a chance, fascinating region, and LOTS of opportunities for great work to be done in the social space there over the next few years. Food for thought if you aren’t tied into a mortgage, your passport is giving you that disapproving look, and your suitcases have been begging for a little action.

 

 

Yahoo Middle-East's Ahmed Nassef at the Total Marketing conference

 

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Social Media program planning 101: Purpose matters

The Bird Man of Notre Dame - ©2010 Olivier Blanchard

Just a quick note to start off the week: Purpose matters.

Just a year ago, many of us were bemoaning the absence of major brands on the twitternets, myself included. PR departments were too slow to get into the space. Brand managers were still, for the most part, alien to the world of Social Media. Most organizations were at best cautious to enter the space when not overtly reluctant to do so, even dismissive.

Today, as companies and their agencies are finally beginning to dip their toes and even try a few strokes on their own in the deep end of the pool, we seem faced with a different problem: An epidemic absence of purpose.

The thing (social media) has, in many instances, replaced the why.

Instead of hearing executives ask “can we use Social Media to increase our reach, to better manage our brand’s reputation, to improve customer service, to recruit better candidates or to grow our business,” what I still hear most often is “What should our Social Media strategy focus on?” Or, as it where “okay, we have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Now what?”

Wrong approach.

Here is how it works:

Business problem –> Business Strategy to solve the problem –> Incorporate Social Media into said business strategy

Example:

Business Problem: Angry customer voices are impacting our reputation. This threatens our ability to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. We could see a drop in sales over the next 6 to 18 months if we don’t fix this.

Business Strategy: Address angry customers’ concerns. Set the record straight on fallacies, while acknowledging legitimate grievances and promising to make necessary changes.

SM Integration: Monitor conversations in digital channels. Respond to positive and negative comments and mentions. Track changes in sentiment over time (manually). Establish discussion zones on appropriate social networks and via adequate social web platforms – This will help funnel topics and showcase the way we respond to the crisis. Use the space to ask for suggestions and ideas – This will help turn negative comments into constructive recommendations and a portion of angry customers into strategic assets. etc.

See?

Here is how it does not work:

Social Media is the new big thing –> Get into Social Media –> Develop Social Media Strategy –> Wait… what?

Every program or campaign an organization funds supports some kind of business objective:

Acquiring net new customers.

Retaining existing customers.

Attenuating a PR crisis.

Managing a company’s reputation.

Amplifying the reach of a particular message.

Selling more stuff.

Gathering business intelligence.

You name it. There are dozens upon dozens of possibilities. I am not even talking about R.O.I. here, but outcomes in general: Business outcomes. The types of outcomes which serve a purpose.

Wondering what an organization’s Social Media strategy should be is very much the same as wondering about what its telephone strategy would be: It is the wrong question.

Furthermore, as we will discuss later this week, if hiring a Social Media Manager serves the purpose of driving a Social Media strategy, then the purpose of the Social Media strategy is to drive… what? A Social Media Strategy? (No.) Strategies are driven by objectives and objectives are driven by purpose.

Before jumping into the Social Media pool (and you should), consider the why of it. As an organization, why do you want to be active in Social Networks? What will your activity there aim to drive for your business?  What is your purpose for being there?

To engage more? To participate in conversations? Okay. But why? Those are activities. They are not purpose.

Before launching a program or assigning resources to a new Social Media program, figure out where you want to go with it. Think about purpose and results, not just emulating your competitors.

Cheers,

Olivier

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In Washington DC for Smartbrief and SocialFish’s #Buzz2010

No blog post today as I am in Washington DC for this summer’s final #Buzz2010 event. Here is the link: http://www.buzz2010.org/

The event takes place on the morning of the 18th, so if you read this before then, it probably isn’t too late to register. My predecessors this year were Groundswell author Charlene Li, nationally syndicated columnist Alexandra Levit, American Red Cross Social Media manager Wendy Harman, and Mark Story – adjunct professor of public relations at the University of Maryland and director of New Media at the S.E.C.

In other words, the smart kids went first.

I will speaking about… you know it: Social Media R.O.I., but this time with a twist. We’re taking the R.O.I. bit into the realm of non-profits, which should be interesting.

If there’s still time on the clock, find out the details here, and feel free to register.

See you in DC.

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Greenpeace vs. Nestle: How to make sure your Facebook page doesn’t become a PR trojan horse – Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, we did a quick recap of how Greenpeace and hundreds of outraged environmentally-conscious web denizens turned to Nestle’s Facebook wall to air grievances on Friday March 19, and essentially turned the company’s Facebook embassy into a battleground. If you missed it, check out the post (and the comments) here.

Today, we’re going to look at ways that this Social Media management disaster (and PR black eye) could have been handled by Nestle, had their Social Media team (internal or outsourced) been prepared for that kind of crisis. We already covered some of the major points of how to avoid this yesterday (hiring professionals to manage your Social Media outlets, planning for crises, training in crisis management and real-time PR, etc.), so – for the purposes of today’s post – let’s assume that Part 1’s advice was taken to heart and that trained, experienced professionals are now in charge of all of the company’s Social Media properties, including Facebook.

Some comments from nestle's wall

What to do if your Facebook Page comes under attack by an activist organization and/or scores of angry commenters:

1. Be there. You can’t gain control of the situation if you aren’t there, monitoring and ready to take action. So monitor keywords. Monitor channels. Expect attacks and crises to come, and be ready to act. In case your boss forgot to tell you, if you are charged with managing a company’s Facebook presence, you’re N.O.R.A.D. for them on Facebook. Keep your eyes on that radar screen at all times, and have a well-thought-out yet flexible plan of action if you spot missiles heading your way.

Recap: Nestle’s team was painfully absent when its wall was attacked on march 19th, and the result was a bloody trouncing of the brand that lasted not only hours but days. Whomever was being paid to manage that page essentially sat on their hands while it was taken over by hundreds of facebook users with – in many cases – legitimate concerns that needed to be addressed. Not exactly a stellar display of skill, professional savvy, or… presence, for that matter. Someone should have been there to at least try to manage the complaints.

2. Carefully but quickly gain control of the situation. (See 3 to 6.) Why is this here? Because it is important to realize that “response” isn’t enough. in order to be effective, you have to be more than simply reactive. You have to regain control of the situation. You have to regain the initiative. If you don’t, you will find yourself in a defensive position for days, and nothing will get resolved.

3. Introduce yourself. Put a face, name and role to your official presence. Don’t just reply from behind a faceless corporate identity and avatar. Be a human being. Talk like a human being. Feel like a human being. Engage on a personal level with commenters. Look at what Scott Monty does for Ford, for example, and how he does it.

Recap: Nestle’s “presence” on facebook on March 19th was remarkably corporate. This didn’t help establish the kind of rapport needed to begin a real discussion. Even if Nestle’s engagement had been stronger, its faceless approach put them at a disadvantage from the start. Humanizing its presence would have been a great first step.

4. Make a point to welcome the comments. Invite them. Keep it up. See number 3, above. This is important. Popping up with a comment every three hours won’t cut it. Get in there, ask your boss to go on a Starbucks run, and brace yourself for a long day/night. Like it or not, this is where you earn your pay, so strap in and enjoy the ride. Think Marathon, not 5K.

Once you get into the game, be cordial, be kind, be professional, and assume your role as the custodian of facts. Not propaganda: facts. If someone claims something about your company or products that is inaccurate, politely respond to their comment with a link to factual information that will help them reconsider their position. That infant formula comment in the screenshot of Nestle’s wall (the one about no nutrients) should be addressed. Without getting defensive or getting drawn into an argument, the facts need to be stated.

Recap: Nestle’s first attempt at “engagement” seems to have focused on the improper use of its corporate logo in commenters’ avatars. Not exactly an inspired way to get things rolling in the right direction. After a few unfortunate exchanges, Nestle backed off and went relatively silent, allowing a free-for-all of anger and in some case, inaccurate information that is now searchable on the web. This was not the most effective strategy.

5. If you haven’t done it already, create an area for Discussions on the Facebook page. This will give discussion topics their own tab on the page, and a place for people to go to start and participate in discussions that isn’t necessarily the wall.

Recap: Nestle did not have a Discussions section on its Facebook page on March 19th… and still doesn’t. And still doesn’t. And still doesn’t. (Nestle: You still don’t have a discussions tab on your facebook page. FYI.)

Why is having a Discussions area important? Several reasons:

First, it helps move a lot of the traffic and activity off the wall, which isn’t a bad thing – for obvious reasons. (Not all of it, but a good amount of it.)

Second, it helps keep all of the conversations focused. Instead of a mess of anger and random grievances, you can create a discussion thread for each specific grievance. In the case of Nestle, these individual discussion topics could be: Saving Oranguntans. Preserving Borneo’s rain forests. The health impact of using palm oil in candy bars. Baby Formula. Etc. When the mess of noise can be turned into specific discussion threads, the company can better listen and better respond. Now you’ve created order out of chaos for both the company AND the angry commenters. It works for everyone.

This is one of the first tangible ways that you will regain control of the situation: Manage the influx of comments. Organize it. Redirect it. Refocus it. Give the discussions purpose and focus.

Notes on tone, self control, and gaining control of an unstable crowd:

A) DO NOT GET DEFENSIVE. Ever. Don’t get drawn into an argument, don’t argue. Listen. Acknowledge. Treat every commenter with respect. Be professional. A lot of angry commenters just want a fight. Don’t give them one. Offer them your ear, a platform, and hopefully a solution.

B) Don’t be a push-over either. Don’t let the angry numbers fool you: You’re the community manager. You can and must  assert your authority when people get out of line. Do it calmly, do it politely, but let commenters know when they are out of line. Don’t worry too much about the improper use of logos or “rules,” the way Nestle did early in their ordeal. It’s a weak position to try and defend, it serves no purpose, and it may only add fuel to the fire with a mob looking for weakness. (So pick your battles carefully.) That said, threats against company employees, deliberate personal insults, etc. should be met with a courteous but firm response. Example:

C – “Your executives should be hanged for what they’ve done! Baby killers! And you’re a soul-less sellout!”

R – “I understand your anger. I really do. (I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I didn’t care, and if my bosses didn’t care. We WANT to have this dialog with you.) But please let’s keep things from turning into… that. It’s just not constructive. Let’s talk about what we can do to fix these problems: What’s the first thing we should focus on?”

What you have to understand is that an angry mob looks for two things: Strength, and weakness. Show strength and they will respect you. Show weakness and they WILL tear you apart. Any loss of control (fear, anger, not knowing how to manage a Facebook crisis, etc.) is weakness. A calm, collected, confident, patient, open to dialog, knowledgeable attitude is strength.

6. Recruit your detractors’ help in fixing the issues they are angry about. Don’t just give your angry commenters lip service. “Thanks for your comments. We will review your suggestions and share them with management” doesn’t cut it anymore. Instead, ask your audience for advice and suggestions. Right there and then. Don’t wait. They want to express themselves? Great! Redirect their energy: Shift them from anger to deliberate empowerment. They’re angry at your company? There are specific things they want you to stop doing? Perfect. Take the discussion a step further and ask them to give you better alternatives to what you’re doing now. No, really. Do it. Keep probing. Keep asking. Make them think about practical solutions together.

If Step 5 gave the conversation order, Step 6 gives the conversations purpose. Do this, and you’re already half way there.

Why is this important? Several reasons:

First, it refocuses the angry mob’s energy. The passion that drives their anger and outrage is still, at its core, passion. Use that. Remove anger from the equation and channel that passion to a more constructive end. Lead them from the path of anger to a path of passionate, constructive discussion. In a matter of hours, the traffic to your facebook page will no longer be an endless churn of insults and angry attacks, and that’s a pretty important objective to accomplish.

Second, refocusing the mob’s mood and energy further shifts control of the conversation to you, the community manager – and by default to the company/brand as well. How? One word: Initiative. The moment your questions begin to drive the discussion, you’ve gained the initiative. You’re finally in the driver’s seat. You can safely land that previously unmanned 747 anywhere you want. Lose the initiative and you lose control. You don’t want things to go back to a mob of angry comments and insults, do you?

Third, you aren’t arguing anymore. You aren’t fighting or protecting or defending. You’ve potentially turned your enemies into allies. Even if that good will is tentative, it sets the stage for what could come next, and there is tremendous value in that. Very good things can come of it if you follow that path. Plant that seed, prove that with trust and good will, good things can happen, and build on that proof of concept.

Fourth, in the case of Nestle, an army of environmental conservation experts is right there, screaming to be heard. Why not benefit from their combined expertise and their willingness to share? Maybe the mob of activists can provide you with ideas that will help you adopt cost-neutral, sustainable methods and processes that will solve some of your resource management challenges, make your company more environmentally-friendly and improve your position in regards to consumer sentiment. There could be a huge practical win in this kind of dialog.

Fifth, the way your Social Media team turned an explosive and completely chaotic situation around in a matter of hours will not go unnoticed. Instead of being another case study in failure, you could be one of the still rare case studies in “this is how it’s done” success.

7. Follow-through. What starts on facebook or twitter or wherever doesn’t stop when you get to the other side of the activity bell curve. Once the crisis is averted, you have to take advantage of that little bit of trust and collaboration you’ve helped your detractors (and your bosses) glimpse.

Step 1: Once the crisis is over, thank the commenters for their help and invite them to continue what they started. Continue to be a good host. Build the community as a community, not as a fortified brand embassy.

Step 2: Convince management to let you turn the feedback from your new virtual think tank into something a little more formal. Form a team to look into how to take those ideas and make them happen. That kind of review process will identify what ideas have merit, and what ideas don’t. It’s a valuable exercise in that alone.

Step 3: Consider creating a crowd-sourcing mechanism like BestBuy’s Idea-X and Starbucks’  My Starbucks Idea. In the case of Nestle, a specific category, tab, or even separate microsite focusing on sustainable and responsible environmental practices might not be a bad idea. Don’t just rely on Facebook discussions to take care of it. Give solid feedback the home it deserves.

Step 4: Invite your detractors’ chosen experts and think tanks to the table. Recruit their help to propose solutions. This is a more professional and official extension of the crowd-sourcing element of the follow-up, and one that obviously needs to happen at a much higher level than Social Media management. (So yes, this requires real buy-in from the C-suite.)

The idea here isn’t just to pacify your opponents and get good press out of the effort. It’s to leverage their expertise and resources to actually find solutions to the business challenges that were at the root of the attacks to begin with. In the case of Nestle, this would mean inviting Greenpeace and key environmental action think tanks to work with senior Nestle supply chain execs on finding realistic alternatives to current methods of production.

Is there a PR component to this? Of course. You can turn anything into a media circus if you want. (That’s what conferences, summits and ground-breaking ceremonies are for.) But sometimes, less is more: Focus on finding solutions, focus on genuinely doing the work, and let the PR department do its thing. If you do that, it’ll all pretty much work out.

Step 5: Build on the momentum and trust you’ve earned, and keep going.

Is all of this difficult? Does it require A LOT of hard work and tireless effort? Yes. It does. I’m not going to tell you any of it is easy. It’s incredibly difficult to do all of this, and the bigger the organization, the more corporate, the more vertical the hierarchy, the tougher it will be for everyone. There’s no magic pill, no cool new app, no bit of enterprise software that will transform your organization overnight for you. Success requires hard work. It requires dedication. It requires vision, leadership, courage and A LOT OF WORK. But it also isn’t brain surgery. From crisis management to community management to change management, it’s all pretty simple, really. You can map it all out on a cocktail napkin. The trick lies in a) deciding to make it happen, and b) making it happen.

The alternative is… well, going through what Nestle just went through. And going through it again and again and again, until something finally gives. Not exactly a golden plan.

So remember:

Be there -> Monitor -> Introduce yourself -> Acknowledge -> Engage -> Take charge -> Redirect -> Manage -> Follow through.

Cheers,

Olivier

Update (25 March, 2010 – 21:15GMT) : For a similar perspective expressed in white-board “war room” format, check out Jeremiah Owyang’s Social Warfare Analysis here. (image) Really nice exercise that, remarkably, touches on many of the points we discussed in parts 1 and 2 of this feature. Consider it a solid “second opinion.”

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What’s next: Operationalizing Social Media. (Huh? What?)

Speaking at SMiB in London

The current state of conversations in regards to Social Media and Business

Okay, look. I don’t mean to step on anyone’s toes here, but how many times do business managers hungry for real Social Media know-how have to suffer through another “Social Media is what’s next” presentation before someone actually decides to help them answer real questions and solve real problems?

Yes. We get it already. Social Media is the future of now. It’s the answer to all of your old-school marketing problems. The holy grail of business growth. It’s all about people and conversations and relationships, don’t you know. Okay, fine. So now let’s get on with it: How the hell does a company actually put Social Media into play?

Before I go on, if your answer includes any of the following words, I may have to reach across the internets and smack you upside the head: FaceBook, Twitter, Blog, YouTube. (No, no, no and no.) Let’s take a giant step backwards here, because if your idea of developing a Social Media program for a company of any size essentially consists of creating a series of embassies on the most popular social platforms on the web, you haven’t just put the cart ahead of the horse, you’ve pretty much squashed it like a bug.

Let me be as clear as I can be about this: Having a Facebook fan page, a twitter account, a YouTube channel and a blog aren’t forward thinking. This is the default position now. The absolute minimum. If you aren’t already here, you’ve already shown that your business is grossly out of touch with the rest of the world (and dare I say, your market?). And by default, so are you. You’ve fallen behind. And if your company does proudly display those little social badges, if indeed you do have a presence on Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube and the blogosphere, congratulations: You’re doing the same thing everyone else is, which is to say that you are merely here.

Having a Social Media presence nowadays is merely the equivalent of what being listed in the yellow pages meant ten years ago. It simply isn’t enough to be there. And if you believe it is, you have seriously underestimated the situation.

Don’t get me wrong: The vast majority of business managers and C-suite executives still need to be shown that Social Media isn’t just a silly fad. That it is a legitimate business discipline worthy of not only investment but special attention. And perhaps most importantly, that by not understanding that Social Media fits in their business toolkit, they will begin to lose increasingly large chunks of market share (among other things) to their smarter, more strategically-minded competitors as early as H1 of 2010. These are realities and facts that still need to be conveyed to decision-makers in the business world. No question.

But the message has already reached a good number of them. So now what? You’ve convinced them to focus on Social Media, but aside from “get on facebook, twitter, youtube and blogs and start engaging,” you haven’t really given them a whole lot to go on. For the benefit of those folks, why don’t we switch gears and meet them where they want us to: In the real and complex world of “how the hell do we actually build this in our own organization?”

Let’s inject a little structure and order into the Social Media for business discussion:

First, let’s get a couple of things straight about the nature of Social Media when it comes to operations (yes, actually “doing” instead of just talking about how great it is):

1. The idea that Social Media professionals are one-size-fits-all needs to disappear. Understand that despite what you may have been told, Social Media practitioners aren’t all community managers and engagement aficionados. Some are data analysts and others are business strategists, while some specialize in operational management, market research, marketing communications or any number of commonly found business functions. Yes, that’s right: Social Media practitioners probably aren’t social media experts at all. They’re simply professionals who use social media because they understand its value to their job and organization.

The topic of incorporating social media know-how into existing organizational roles (rather than creating new layers of superfluous social media expertise to piggy-back on existing functions)  is one that we will revisit often in the coming months.

So the lesson here is that if your organization seems to a) suffer from a knowledge gap when it comes to Social Media, and b) filling that gap with dozens, if not hundreds of new employees seems daunting, don’t fret: Focus on training and development first and foremost. Don’t worry about trying to hire a bunch of unemployed marketeers with “social media” roles strategically added to their resumes in the last 18 months. That will get you nowhere fast. There’s a better way. (More on that in a minute.)

2. Effective, sustainable, scalable social media programs all have a basic underlying framework (hinted at by the X-Box Live avatars assembled in the image above.) At its simplest, you are looking at four major building blocks and operational elements:

• Social Media program development (a strategy-heavy function)
• Social Media program integration (almost exclusively an ops piece, especially in the enterprise space)
• Social Media program management (the broadest of the three, basically dealing with the execution of the program itself. Some examples of management functions are listed in the image above.)
• Social Media program measurement (an analytical function which requires little explanation given the amount of time I have already devoted to explaining FRY, ROI, and non-financial impact).

When you start actually building the structure of a Social Media program, especially for a large/enterprise space organization, things get complex fast.  But let’s learn how to walk before we start running marathons, okay? Not everyone here is ready to graduate from “isn’t social media just another marketing channel?” so we’ll move slowly out of respect for them.

First things first: Recognizing that in order to build a proper Social Media program within an organization, you must first start with the understanding that these four core elements need to be present in order for things to work properly. Just having a Social Media director and an engagement team won’t cut it. All you’re likely to end up with is a decent management piece with perhaps some light strategy,  completely accidental integration thanks to an IT guy or two, and some made-up measurement based on whatever metrics seem to be popular on the Twitternets that week. Sorry but that’s not good enough.

If a half-assed DIY-style Social Media program appeals to you, your boss and your customers, by all means, have fun with that. But if you are the type of manager or business leader with even an ounce of vision,  professionalism (and sense of self-preservation), you already know that winging it isn’t really going to produce the results you are expected to deliver.

The alternative is to try and do it right: Actually building an effective and sustainable social media program within your organization by integrating social media (embedding it, even) into every department and business function – and doing so with purpose.

That’s all fine and good, but what if you need help? (No worries. I have you covered.):

So where can you turn for help? Unfortunately, that can sometimes be hard to tell. On the one hand, you have the thousands of self-appointed Social Media “gurus” selling everything from rehashed presentation decks and derivative white papers to stale webinars about essentially nothing. (Thanks for charging me $650 for information I could have gotten for free just by reading Mashable for twenty minutes a week. Great.) And don’t even get me started on the hacks who shamelessly steal my work and that of others and try to pass it off as their own. (We know who you are. You aren’t fooling anybody.)

So how do you tell the good ones from the frauds? Experience. Luck. Savvy. In fairness, you could actually get lucky and find one who knows how to do this (with enough money and enough time, who knows,) but the odds aren’t in your favor.

You could also keep hoping that the operational knowledge you seek will emerge from the various social media conferences you keep attending. And to some extent, yes, over time, you will pick up enough nuggets to become dangerous. No question. But it could take a while. Industry conferences have their value, but real operational training isn’t usually on the menu.

And of course, you could partner with a reputable consulting firm whose team of of experts will guide you every step of the way, from choosing the right measurement tools to the way you should develop engagement strategies. If you ‘re ready for that, have found a partner you know you can work with and have the budget for it, it’s go time. But not everyone is ready or able to go that route quite yet.

A fourth option is to let those of us who know how to do this teach you how without asking you to break the bank or further burden your schedule. We aren’t talking about “boot camps” here. (The idea isn’t to throw as much information at you as we can in a few hours and see how much of it you can retain.) By the same token, you don’t want a training programs to be so light that you walk away from it with solid theoretical knowledge but no practical knowledge. There isn’t a whole lot of value to training if you can’t actually put that training to good use.  And to be honest, there’s only so much ground you can cover even with a full day of training. So a group of us put our heads together over the last few months and decided to create something to fill that gap for you and do it right. (Which is to say, do it exceptionally well.) The objective is then to blend training and consulting in a way that makes sense for everyone.

Enter the Red Chair Group:

There will be plenty of time for me to get into what the Red Chair Group is, who will be involved and what types of services we’ll offer in the coming weeks. For now, all I can tell you is that our official launch is scheduled for December of 2009, that our primary objective will be to provide expert level assistance to businesses in need of strategic and operational program management, and that geographically speaking, we will cover a lot of ground. (I haven’t been this excited about a project/venture in a very long time, so it’s pretty hard for me to keep from spilling the beans.)

To that end, one of the first things the Red Chair Group will be launching is a series of executive training programs specifically designed to teach C-suite execs, business managers and agency directors how to develop, integrate, manage and measure social media programs (what we have been talking about in this post). These trainings will be carefully structured day-long events held in major cities around the world. We are currently in talks with partners in 20 key cities to bring Red Chair events to your doorstep.

(I forgot to mention: The whole idea is to bring these training events to you so you don’t have to come to us. This is yet another way we thought we could keep your budget as intact as possible.)

Cities already being added to the 2010 schedule:

• Chicago
• San Francisco
• New York
• Seattle
• Atlanta
• Boston
• Portland
• Philadelphia
• Paris
• Houston
• Sydney
• Hong Kong
• Charlotte
• Orlando
• Toronto
• Brussels
• Tokyo

(If you want us to add your city to the list, let me know. We’ll chat.)

The first Red Chair event will be held in London on December 4th of this year. (Yes, in just a few weeks.) Click here or on the image below to register. For this venue, A+G‘s Scott Gould (of #LikeMinds fame) will be joining me to cover some key topics and learning points. To provide the best possible environment for the event, we’ve secured a space at One Alfred Place, perhaps London’s coolest (and my favorite) business club.

Our schedule for the session on December 4th is pretty heavy, so we plan to promptly begin with introductions at 9:00 am and be well into the program by 9:30. To make things easier for everyone, we’ve set up some group and agency discount packages in case some of you want to buy your tickets together. I strongly encourage that companies with an interest in this level of training (especially enterprise class organizations) consider sending more than one individual.

A note about registration: Though typical Red Chair events are designed for up to 40 attendees, our London launch is limited to only 20 attendees. Since our registration process is first come-first served, you’ll want to register quickly to secure a spot. With our schedule the way it is, it could be a while before we’re back in London.

One last thing: Anyone who registers for Red Chair London will automatically be enrolled in our registration referral program. The way it works is simple: Once you’ve registered, you will be given a special discount code to give friends, colleagues and clients. If they in turn register for the event using your code, they will get 10% off their ticket price and you will get $100 back. Nice, huh? Yeah. We thought you’d like that.

I will let you know as soon as the Red Chair website is up. (We’re building it as we speak.) In the meantime, you can access Red Chair London information via EventBrite by clicking here (or the image below).

I look forward to sharing more about how the Red Chair Group’s plans to help companies of all sizes operationalize social media. I am usually a pretty quiet guy (no, really), but I have to admit that I am having a hard time containing my excitement about this: To know that businesses are finally going to be able to cut through the social media noise and BS in part thanks to Red Chair makes me feel pretty good. 🙂

2010 is definitely going to be a fun year.

Cheers. 🙂

PS: Let’s give credit where credit is due. Special thanks to Kristi Colvin and Doug Cone for the amazing work they are already doing on the Red Chair Group’s branding and website. You guys are already producing outstanding work.

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Best Practices For Social Media: The Basics of Program Planning

Now that we’re hopefully beyond the “what is social media and why does my company need to understand it” phase, let’s move into some practical thinking.

First things first: The four principle components (or building blocks) of any social media program, each with its very own management imperatives. They are (yes, in order): Development, integration, management and measurement. This is important to point out because it lays the foundations for structure and the assignment of specific roles within the context of Social Media. (Hint: A Social Media practitioner isn’t necessarily a jack of all trades. Some are strategists. Others are communicators. Others still like to play with numbers, not people. In other words, you need to realize that just because someone is a Social Media practitioner doesn’t mean they are suited to perform any and all Social Media duties your organization requires.)

In an upcoming post, I will outline some of these types of roles, but for now, let’s take a very brief look at the four building blocks of any well structured Social Media program, especially in the enterprise space:

Development is basically the strategy behind your Social Media program. The build. The framework. Someone at a Director or C-level has to put the strategy together. That someone has to ask the macro questions:  How can Social Media help the company? What are we trying to accomplish? How can we build a program that will accomplish these objectives? Who will be the principal players? Where will the funding come from? What should the program look like? What should be its macro components? What time-frame are we working with? What and when will the milestones be? What needs to happen in order for this program to happen and be successful? What tools will we use? How will we gauge success?

Integration is the plugging-in of the program into the organization: Training staff. Recruiting staff. Working across silos to incorporate the social media program into the company’s current activities. Working with HR to develop social media policies, guidelines and training. Working with PR to coordinate corporate communications. Working with customer service to embed Social Media into existing customer support initiatives. Working with IT to make sure the company’s Social Media ecosystem is swift, painless, and secure. And so on. You get the picture. The integration piece requires someone with operational leadership experience. Someone who knows a) how Social Media fits into every department’s world, and b) how to actually work with department heads and key staff to smoothly embed Social Media into their processes.

Management is the day-to-day execution of the Social Media program. This can look like a multi-layered management structure (most likely for an enterprise-space company) or it can be a one-man show (small business or business in its first year of dabbling in Social Media). Types of activities that fall under the management umbrella are things like community engagement, customer support, business intelligence, market research, content production, publishing, monitoring, etc. This is hands-on work. We’re outside of the realm of strategy here. This is pure execution. Where the rubber hits the road.

Measurement is… well, you know. Someone has to measure success, failure, even stagnation. Incidentally, measurement doesn’t just involve overall financial impact (ROI) and non-financial impact. It also involves the performance of individual departments based on their specific goals and objectives. (The Customer Service team is certain to use a very different set of metrics to define success than, say, the Public Relations team.) Certain campaigns may also require separate measurement independent of the entire program.  And drilling deeper still, measurement also involves individual performance: If, for example, a community manager is evaluated on their ability to grow their community by x% and respond to a minimum number of daily queries, then measurement lives there as well. In other words, in addition to the macro components to measurement that we usually talk about (like ROI), don’t forget the layers of micro components as well.

As you may have guessed, one person probably shouldn’t handle all four elements of a Social Media program unless they absolutely have to. There are three basic reasons for this:

1. Most people, no matter how talented and hard-working don’t have all the skills required to do it all (or do it all exceedingly well). Some people are analytical by nature (measurement), others are fantastic strategists (development), others – operational superheroes – see how all the pieces fit (integration) and some are natural charismatic “get it done” powerhouses and avid consumer advocates (management). Rarely do you find strong analytical, strategic, management and integration skills in just one person.

2. Even if you do find that one person, s/he probably can’t handle that complex and involved of a workload for very long without suffering a spectacular burnout. Even the most multi-talented social media manager/director can’t do it all. Try to integrate a social media program across several departments AND be an effective community manager AND be responsible for program measurement to senior management. Good luck with that. Spread the load.

3. Community managers and customer service representatives probably don’t need to worry about silly things like R.O.I. What they need is an environment that allows them to engage with the public without having to worry about measurement and strategy and integration. Some things just don’t go well together. If everyone can just focus on what they do best, everything will flow much more smoothly. Specialization isn’t a bad thing.

If this all seems like common sense, you’re right. It is. But how many Social Media programs, even among the world’s top social brands actually have such a structure in place already? (Don’t worry. You don’t have to answer that.)

Just food for thought. Again, this might not work for every company… but it probably does.

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Engagement Paradigm: Focus on Lateral Action

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:

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