Archive for October, 2008

Twitter Spotlight: Engagement is Key

Published October 31, 2008 Strategy Leave a Comment
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I was cruising around on Twitter earlier this week when I ran into the following account:

http://twitter.com/sqftqueens

As you look at this account, you’ll see a few things wrong:

  • Lack of URL or profile
  • URLs not tracked (Services, such as bit.ly, provide tracking to one extent or another)
  • limited by small number of followers
  • no personal engagement

This is for a New York real estate broker of some kind. For those of you not familiar with this market, it’s insane (perhaps not as much with the economic downturn) and anything to help differentiate yourself from the competition is critical.

How can this be fixed?

  • Complete your profile. Who am I dealing with? Do you have a Website I can find more listings on?
  • Use a URL tracker to find out what works (when to tweet, descriptions, et al)
  • Engage with users!!!

The lesson here is to leverage the platform to the greatest extent possible. Just because Twitter is free doesn’t mean you should disregard effective practices.

Associations and Social Media

Published October 23, 2008 Marketing , Operations , Strategy 2 Comments
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I’m attending an event at the ASAE Executive Education Center in DC today. The subject: “What Associations Must Know About Social Networking.” Themes for the seminar:

When to have resources open or closed

When to have hands on or off

When to integrate with other tech

Speakers:

Rob Miller, EVP of Avectra

Andy Steggles, Risk and Insurance Mgt Social Networking & Social Media Association

Theodore (Ted) LaBarra, Web Editor, Association of American Advertising Agencies

Maddie Grant, Blogger, Founder of Social Fish

Maddie Grant gave an overview of social media — there were some glazed eyes in the room, not having to do with her presentation tho (imagine if you just heard about Twitter for the first time). She mentions that socmed is a tool for engagement. Yes folks, it’s not tech for tech’s sake – Get started by defining goals. Grant gave many examples across the socmed spectrum: blogs (American Anthropological Association), NTEN (Twitter) and The Association Social Media Wiki. Integration with the Web site is driven by the platform (MOSS — sharepoint for you Luddites:P)

Ted LaBarra discussed the aaaa.org Web site — built on sharepoint and integrated with AMS (association management system). Future projects (now under development) include community blogs, wikis, video, book corner (ratings of books of interest) and networking/collaboration tools. Some internal resistance to Web 2.0 concepts — long standing groups within the organization. Closing a network was driven by antitrust concerns. Issues: who is blogging, what are they saying.

FS: However, what about the potential impact to membership and current monetization? While socmed proponents want to make it all open, should it be?

Andy Steggles established a line between a group and association. Associations are formal (by laws, dues) while groups are informal and are more nimble. He also defines engagement -

  • Traditional Metrics (Chapter participation, annual conferences, educational events, volunteering, members) – synchronous
  • Social Everything (Blogs, Wiki’s, eGroups) – asynchronous

What guides both sets of metrics? Member-to-member interactions. Social-related enagements are much more efficient. Give instance resource (by categories) a value on a 10-point scale. Member activity is assigned a value as well (blog author gets more points than a commenter)…. this can tie in to member rewards. Wikis are ranked by the number of characters added. All activity is dropped into a point bank — points are earned for MVM status = Most valuable members. Aside from this level of recognition, one could also offer renewal credits.

Andy indicates the importance of differentiating between members and non-members! Blogs should be public, but social media tools must plug into a site and be available to members. Members may also define access to content, ranging from private to public; adopting member moderation to this vertical is outstanding. Who can be engaged?

  • Speakers
  • Authors
  • Exhibitors
  • Chapter Leaders
  • Officers
  • Blog Authors
  • All members

Of particular note is Steggles comments about platform: select one that wil integrate with an AMS and is not tied to one in particular.

FS: Andy hits the association value proposition extremely well — although I disagree with an automated point system for a wiki (e.g. if someone adds content of great value, but not a lot of words, this is an exception to his approach).

How to promote social features to members (especially those who may not be tech-savvy)? Put it in terms that they can understand! Instead of Wiki, call it a glossary. Use collaboration in place of social media or Web 2.0. Make things easy for the user — not only in the labeling and description, but in what is rolled out and offered to members.

The subject of monetization came up — Andy Steggles gave a great example. The focus was on email advertising in listserve/forum traffic – $1K per day. The use was described as non-intrusive. Initial advertising content is focused on organizational products and services and evolved to sponsors. Another example offered by Steggles was putting organizational advertisements before each uploaded video.

Should facebook, linkedIn or another resource be the single social community? No! Steggles indicates that this is important to have in place as a placeholder for the community at your site. By bringing members to your site, you can avoid issues where the aforementioned are blocked by corporations. You can also define the engagement with your members.

Forrester and the social technographics came up — I’m glad that this is the center piece of my own recent product plan.

Powerpoint and survey provided after the seminar — very nice. This type of followup is often missed by presenters. (none that I’ve seen lately:-)

The Problem with Social Media

Published October 19, 2008 Operations , Strategy 2 Comments
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Business use of social media is coming into fashion. Leaders like Dell, Zappos and Comcast have embraced the highly-social Web to drive value for their organizations and shareholders. Countless others now sport a blog, tweet, stream video and look to engage their customers. What’s wrong with this picture?

For most organizations, this activity is not tied to strategic goals and is not adequately measured in a meaningful way.

Proponents of social media proclaim things like:

Social media/networking offers high ROI & business value, individual or organization; traditional organizations can’t see it.

The value of good press and reputation helps, but shareholders want to know more. Let’s start with strategy – most organizations don’t try to connect activity to goals. I read an article in a leading legal marketing publication that proclaimed the value of social networking. Maybe the author should have checked if user behavior makes this a good move — and if pushing such a measure would actually connect users to an organization’s goals. Next, measurement. This is another important step people may forget, but what to measure is perhaps more important than the act itself.

Valeria Maltoni @ Conversation Agent makes a distinction between short and long-term measurement:

One is the micro measurement you use every day – how many community members, how many readers, how many visitors. This is akin to the strategy partially attached to Web sites. Web sites, newsletters, email copy are still important for conversion. Blogs and social media are important for conversation – there is also a viral component to them in addition to the community dynamic.

The longer term measurements are about engagement and impact on retention. These take up to two years. Is the company brand seen as relevant, for example? These are movements in awareness and they need to be tied back to the activities you have undertaken and the value of those activities to customers.

I even found an ROI calculator. On a side note, I like how this was put together, even if a usability headache.

So what’s the problem?

  1. Most social activities lack focus. Organizations with a board of directors, shareholders or strategic management groups publish endless documents addressing important segments. Social activities must be mapped to these goals in order to maximize value for an organization.
  2. ROI calculations – even the long term concepts mentioned above – need to be established after the critical jobs and activities are identified. Social media is based on intangible assets – skills, knowledge and values of employees. Defining jobs aligns activity to strategic goals.

Tom Davenport, in a recent post on HBR, directs his attention on the “2.0″ vapor:

And that was even before Web 2.0–a platform for everyone to share their ideas, opinions, favorite tunes, and relationship statuses with each other. It was all a lot of fun, but I occasionally wondered whether it was really good for economic productivity.

He’s right to the extent there’s a lot of clutter and fluff. As budgets shrink, executives will look for value in social media. The good news is there is a way to determine value, starting with strategic alignment.

Change Management: Law firms must drive value

Published October 7, 2008 Law , Shameless Plug , Strategy Leave a Comment
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One disclaimer: This post addresses a project I’ve been working with; if you’re looking for impartiality, keep on going.

The meltdown in the markets have touched every segment of business. It used to be said that law firms can profit in any environment… there is after all, restructuring, litigation and a host of other issues that arise during difficult financial times. Conversations I’ve had with unnamed colleagues at biglaw firms indicate the ride is over.

As I worked on the ACC Value Challenge, it became clear that law firms must change their 25 hour day billing practices and focus on providing clients with value. During my time at Skadden, I had heard about client grumblings from senior partners. Perhaps it was the stories on Above the Law about foolish summer associates.

Now that the economy is tanking, several firms actually have to provide returns from their marketing and business development efforts. A host of legal marketers, several of whom garner my respect and admiration, focus on SEO, blogging and improved site development. Not to diminish these important tasks, there is a fantastic tool to help market your firm and differentiate yourself from competitors: provide value!

I had a conversation with Michael Roster (formerly of MoFo, Golden West Financial and Stanford University) concerning alignment of outside counsel with corporate needs. What a concept! As a managing partner or business manager, wouldn’t you look to cut overhead and recruiting costs and return better results for your clients? I spent a lot of time at various agencies; one of my key mentors, a former litigator, hammered into my head the importance of service. Perhaps profit-per-partner clouded their business judgement?

Future posts will cover how (imo) law firm’s can change their model, be profitable and market themselves based on value-driven reputation.

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