PR- SOCIAL MEDIA INNOVATOR LAUNCHES RADIO SHOW

“We wanted to create a program about social media that everyone could relate to — a show that informs, educates and entertains”, says Walter Schwabe, the show’s host.  Guests on the debut show include Chris Moore, Chief Information Officer of the City of Edmonton, and Chris Heuer, founder of the Social Media Club out of San Francisco.  The show will also be archived and streamed from www.fusedlogic.com.

Yardstick Software, a leading provider of online training and testing systems in North America, stepped up to sponsor the first 6 shows, which will air through September. “ We liked the premise and thought that there was a nice fit for Yardstick in the program.  We’re very excited”, says Greg Kurelek, Yardstick’s VP of Sales and Marketing.

For inquiries, please contact Walter Schwabe at radio@fusedlogic.com 780-640-9339

Social media is not for interns

There was a time not long ago when so called “experts” talked about how easy social media was to operate.  ”Huck an intern on it.” After all it’s only a twitter account, Facebook fan page and/or blog.

Today’s organizations should realize that assigning the responsibility of social media to an intern does a few things that are not necessarily great for their brand.

1.) Puts front-line communications of the brand message in the hands of the inexperienced.  If you wouldn’t position your intern to pitch your biggest client in a lead capacity, don’t put a mass communications tool(s) in their hands either.

2.) Puts inexperienced intern in a position where they may be forced to make a critical “judgement call” decision publicly and in real-time.

In both cases, serious damage could be done to the brand “when” the situation is mishandled.  Often it’s a matter of time, not if but when.

Here’s another perspective.  Assign a value to your brand. Once you’ve estimated the financial value of your brand – $10M, $100 million dollars, measure that against how old your company is.  Then realize that it can all be negatively and dramatically impacted with an ill-advised tweet, video, blog post or photograph.

Sure many executives today are social media rookies, however, they should know what’s critical to communicate about their businesses and they have the authority that comes with their positions to back it up. In many cases the simple fact that the executive is the one communicating builds credibility, credibility that could lead to business.

Social media is not a place for interns to learn about your business via real-time interactions with your customers.

Your top line executives cannot afford to be “too busy.”  The world is a different place today for business and organizations, if your CEO, VP Marketing, VP Communications are not prepared to operate in this space to some degree and they’re not prepared to learn more about social media, your organization is at a severe disadvantage.

How would you like to wake up one morning as the CEO of a publicly traded company to find out your stock “allegedly” lost $180 million dollars in value?  The result of a song that went viral on Youtube.  You didn’t see it coming because you were “too busy.”

The above blog post link refers to the “cost of inaction,” I would offer an alternative to that – “cost of ignorance” could actually be proved in many cases.  Ignoring the implications of social media on your business model and its frontline communications or subsequently handing this important aspect of business communications to an intern is in my opinion foolish.

Digital brand experiences

Many organizations want to engage in the social web and yet are not truly ready.  They determine ideas, budgets, timelines all without considering critical social media dynamics.  This of course is often the reality because the organization has little if any deployment experience in the first place and doesn’t know where to turn.

Our work and experience suggests that many brands struggle with understanding the dynamics of how consumers might interact with them via social media ahead of time.  That lack of a social media calibrated plan then leaves them to find this out publicly while they put their brand at risk.  If crowd-sourcing was the plan from the start that’s one thing.  Evidence present within the project itself would demonstrate key elements had been considered prior to launch.  However, the truth is typically the brand is ends up with an unintended result and it’s not always positive.  Evidence that the brand was not properly prepared internally to address changes in consumer digital behaviours and left unchecked could continue to produce poor results.  Here are a couple of links of public social media failures many of which you may already be aware of.

Social media campaign failures:

- A list of well known failures on thoughtpick

- Another great one by Jeremiah Owyang.

It could be said, the social web is not about brands so much as it is about the “individual.”

That is simultaneously it’s power and also the pitfall for brands operating within it.  Has social media impacted how the consumer interacts with brands?  The short answer is yes!  In my continuing research to learn more about this issue I found a great study which I’d like to share with you…

2009 Digital Brand Experience Study by Razorfish is very interesting. Here is an excerpt:

- 65% of consumers report having a digital experience with a brand that either positively or negatively changed their opinion about a brand.  Of that group, a nearly unanimous 97% say that their digital experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased a product or service from that brand.

 

Razorfish concludes – Digital is not only a place to build a brand: it can also make it or break it.

This study suggests that consumers will hold a digital dialogue with a brand especially if there’s a deal at the end of it.  These interactions online should further be supported by the ability to personally interact when requested.  Your brand must have personality, a human side if you will.  Why is that important?  Because “connected consumers are now the new mainstream.”

I hope you found today’s post helpful and the study itself as interesting as I did.  If you have thoughts about this or would like to express something about your own digital brand experience I’d love to hear about it.

A social media chuckle

Are you frustrated because your organization is observing massive emerging and transformational trends and waiting until things progress so far down the road that there’s nothing left to separate you from the rest of the pack?  These same folks are the brilliant minds who currently think the “button-fly” is now primed to revolutionize the clothing industry.

There are many different characters and organizations in this massive theatrical play we call the social web.  Below is a fun, tongue-in-cheek look at some of these audience types.

Here’s a few main categories of how organizations break down where social media is concerned:

Totally oblivious – these living in the stone age, status-quo critters are asleep at the wheel and heading for the ditch.  You mention “facebook” and they stare back at you as if you’ve just said something in original Klingon.

Frady cats – believers that the risk of leveraging social media is so high, it’ll be catastrophic and all perceived barriers are impossible to overcome.  They’d rather just stick to the “prudent” traditional course of action.  The order of the day is to remain void of any innovation or change in process until such time as all the competitive advantage is sucked dry out of the opportunity.  All of which makes their unimaginative brain trust jump for joy, exclaiming that being last to the party means zero risk.

The cynic – they’ve heard it all before and they’ve seen it all before. There’s nothing, not a single thing new here to learn.  Social media is old hat, you’re just selling to customers afterall.  They believe the newspaper delivered every day is actually the perfect portable content delivery device.

Today’s expert – this group has taken in a presentation, workshop or attended a conference.  They’ve loaded Ubertwitter on their blackberry and  launched a blog.  They now profess to explain the virtues of social media to anyone who’ll listen.  They know just enough to be dangerous and produce little of value beyond pleasantries and idle digital chit chat.  Real world experience delivering social media within their organization or anywhere else equals zero.  That said, if someone was to say otherwise they wouldn’t stop them and that’s because they know enough buzz words that the “totally oblivious” see them as the social media second-coming.

Innovators – these guys push limits, they are looking for one thing – separation from the competitive pack and see the social web as one key way to achieve their goals.  They recognize that true innovation is a collaborative effort and love the mass-collaboration possibilities within the real-time web.  They’re not afraid to take action, commit budget and resouces.  Making mistakes will happen and they celebrate failure as a chance to learn.  These dynamic people move fast and expect everyone except their competitors to keep up.  However, they’re smart enough to realize that competitors will eventually follow too which just fuels their fire even more.

Cautious learners – this group sees some potential within social media and are open to learning more about it.  Unsure as to specifically how they may engage they intend to take their time to observe, study, listen and learn.  This suits them just fine as things move slow in their culture.  They are in no hurry regardless of the potential upside and frankly should they engage in social media it would be like an experience driver behind the wheel of a Model T racing a F1 Ferrari.

Quiet observer – organizations here are keeping themselves informed within the social web and participating only to the point of having a presence.  They produce little if any content and hardly if ever respond publicly.  There is no clear plan or strategy to emerge from this state and despite accumulating vast amounts of data they have no idea how that knowledge may be turned into a competitive advantage.

Digitally-engaged – this digital citizen uses multiple online technologies, not for the benefit of the organization, rather it’s all about them, their interests, opinions, ego and life.  Should you interact with them you simply provide them with more validation and perceived credibility.

Rogue evangelist – receiving little to no support they branch off on their own skirting the parameters of their job, hoping not to offend the decision-makers.  Looking to generate some small social media win via their efforts in the hopes of one day getting the call to launch a well-funded campaign with increased responsibility.

The committed – this organization sees opportunity and they’ve decided to ensure they take advantage.  The proper planning and implementation is their goal and they are ready to move.  A common sense and progressive business style comes to the table with them from the very beginning.

The groupie – this person or organization hopes to draw attention to themselves by attaching their brand to an individual or audience type they feel will make them look the most savvy by association.  Having no history in the industry and not interested in learning or really driving business results, their perfect day includes being attacked by the social media paparazzi.

Johnny come lately – Yesterday they sold something else, today they sell social media marketing.  A few changes to the website list of services and they’re all set.  Sticking with the technology and adding a profile here and a group there, these guys sell the rest of the enterprise or industry a bill of goods that they know what to do and how to do it.

Non-believer – Facebook is a fad, there’s no way to prove any of it works and this is simply a matter of media hype.

Genuine – Always striving to be a trusted source in their particular industry, continually learning and experimenting.  This group recognizes that there is no such thing as an expert in social media yet, only people striving to keep up and make sense of it all.  Not out for a quick buck this is where sound business building and top customer service meet a new level of human dialogue and potential for growth.

If you’d like to add another category please feel free to leave a comment and join the fun.

Socializing Brand You!

I’ve been invited to be the keynote speaker as part of a speaker series at Edmonton’s MacEwan School of Business on September 17th and I’m really looking forward to it.  Here’s a point form outline of what I’ll be speaking about over 45 minutes.

Socializing Brand You!

• What is “brand you?”
• What is the value of engaging in social media?
• Required “brand you” skills.
• How Twitter is a “brand you” amplification machine.
• Understanding and leveraging “micro-tribes.”
• Integrating social media into business processes.

I look forward to meeting more MacEwan students and faculty at this event and will look to provide as much value in my presentation as I possibly can.  I’m expecting some great questions from the audience and as always I’ll be referring to live Internet case studies and examples.  Also, no seat is safe in the house, I’ll be inviting direct audience participation and could call on anyone at anytime…

See you all next week…

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