Second in a series about the mass migration to smartphones, recorded on a smartphone.
With reference to David Brooks’ column in the NY Times today, “What Data Can’t Do.”
More emotion is involved in the use of smartphones and the more people use them, the more emotional content there will be. How do we – and will we – measure the value of this?.
The first of a hands-on series of reports shot using an iPhone with KitCam and other video apps.
In this video we learn that I can’t rely on sunglasses forever, that 2 minutes goes by both really fast and terribly slowly, that a script may be in order and that moving a 2-minute video to YouTube and my blog is a 5-minute operation.
When an idea goes viral, it becomes a meme, and when two memes are associated for long enough to be part of a trend, a portmanteau is created. Websters defines it as, “a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (as smog from smoke and fog)” Thus, “socialytics.”
Deloitte’s John Hagel introduces this term in an article titled Helping Make the Invisible Visible with Socialytics, He’s describing “the integration of social software and big data analytics to create insight from unstructured information.”
We all try to make sense – especially business sense – from social interaction, relationships, interests, demographics and location; there’s plenty of data to be run through whatever data management mills are being invented, but until recently that social data provided only a foggy picture of the business value that most CEOs and managers require.
In his article Hagel describes a study Deloitte performed on a business with 6,000 employees in Australia. Looking at social patterns, the company assumed that teams that were highly integrated and connected internally (“insulated”) would perform best. But after applying socialytics, they found that the highest performing teams “were very highly integrated outside of the team as well. In other words, high performing teams had a high number of connections beyond the team.”
Socialaytics, Hagel says, “systematically track what kinds of interactions lead to high performance and what kinds don’t.” That’s valuable stuff and is just one example of how we’re learning to better analyze relationships and human interactivity. Hagel’s interpretation of these findings also recommend greater engagement and knowledge sharing, establishing relationships that enhance overall performance in the company.
“Success can increasingly depend upon our availability to participate effectively in a diverse set of knowledge flows. By participating fully and socially and applying socialytics to create connected outcomes, we have the opportunity reimagine relationships and make the invisible visible.”
And it’s not a budget either. It’s not a means to prove ROI. A social strategy on its own is “the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns.”
A short article in the Harvard Business Review blog – Don’t Let Strategy Become Planning by Roger Martin – brought this distinction home to me this morning.
I like to think of myself as – among other things – a social media strategist. I understand the tendency to closely associate “strategy” with “planning,” as in, “To implement social media successfully, you must come up with a strategic plan.”
Not so, writes Mr. Martin. Strategy stands on its own. Sure, the budget needs to be considered, but what many managers create as strategic plans are “simply budgets with lots of explanatory words attached.” This is especially so when the strategy involves social relationships where old paradigms of “the cost of a customer” are still being applied. A social strategy is first about winning hearts and minds through appropriate changes in business process. Budgeting and revenue generation only come into play when a solid, practical strategy is in place.
Adapting the list of five strategic questions offered by Martin, these should all be answered in the process of building a social strategy:
Planning for initiatives, investments and budgeting can be done once an agreed-upon strategy is in place. For an outside social media consultant or an in-house social practice champion, the answers to these questions will clarify what needs to be done to realize the full value of the social strategy.
For those who insist on bundling strategy with planning, each of these answers would be assigned a cost and the total cost alone might cause the CFO to sink the whole idea, strategy and all. A purely strategic approach, on the other hand, could frame the five answers in the context of the company’s overall strategy and the subsequent budget could, in like fashion, be drawn in part from existing existing cost centers..
Strategy unencumbered by planning and budgeting, Martin writes, is not only a better business practice, but it should be simple. He maintains that the answers to each of the five questions should take up no more than a page. If it takes more than that, go back to your drawing board.
Are you involved in social media strategy? I’d like to know what you think about this perspective.
There’s a numerically useful infographic below, titled Power to the People, but I’m going to preface that with some thoughts about how you can be proactive with customers without any power in the equation. Let’s think of this part as Friendliness to the Customer.
It’s a lot simpler than it seems, at least the behavioral part. There are countless ways of describing the same thing, whether they be tips that fit in a tweet or entire books about relating to your customers. We all know this, so it sometimes looks absurd that we contort ourselves so painfully to reach a goal that matters more than strategy, technology, product design, marketing approaches and customer service.
Treat people like you like being treated. Say it again and repeat 100 times on your way to work.
Even the most upset and frustrated person responds to honesty and kindness. Even customers complaining with justification that your service or your widget stinks up the planet can be brought to taking a deep and relaxing breath by the conciliatory word and assurance that their case will be made good.
This is not news and the only reason this is being written and published is to remind us that there is something internal that we can tap into that tells us what to do in social situations, whether online or not. I’m not a psychologist by profession but I know that everyone brings baggage to their jobs – feelings and moods not necessarily born in the workplace, but influencing behavior across an 8-hour workday. Add some irritation from the boss, the company, co-workers and your gun is cocked, ready to go off on the first personal attack reaching you through the Web or call center.
Don’t lay your trips on the customer. Invoke your internal Golden Rule and leave him or her with the most favorable and satisfying impression possible. This kind of result affects every parameter that feeds into social ROI. Without behavior that builds good will, none of the other essential elements in a social media strategy count for diddly. Many presenters at conferences and book authors describe the “customer-centered company,” but this must be broken down further into customer-centered behaviors and habits.
In fact, it seems important to me that the CEO and other C-level company officers partake in these direct relations regularly. How else can they direct the rest of operations? How else can they appreciate the effort that it sometimes requires to turn upset customers into company advocates?
The technology for touching customers need not be complicated as long as it’s reliable and easy to use. Just make your company one where the Golden Rule trickles UP through the ranks. Then tell your story.
Courtesy of MyCustomer.com, here are more incentives for treating your customers well.
Influence on others is something to strive for, whether you’re looking to make changes in the world or marketing a business. No one has yet found a reliable way to measure influence, but there are two important qualities you can work on to build your influence. Without either clout or credibility, you probably have no influence on your target audience or market.
Let’s forget for the moment that those krazy kids have created Klout and Kred to stroke your social media ego and self-confidence. Let’s ignore the fact that I was recently informed that I rank in the top 10% in Kred. (Really?) Let’s consider, instead, the C-words.
Don’t clout me, bro’!
“Clout” was, many centuries ago, a verb. It meant “to strike, especially with the hand; cuff.” One did not have clout, one clouted others. Over time its predominant usage transformed into a noun connoting persuasive social power. If you have clout, you’re more likely to get your way. You’re a mover and a shaker. The President has clout. Jay-Z has clout. The Pope has clout. Individuals with clout in the social media world can start up new companies with no revenue model. Evan Williams helped fund Twitter because he’d gained clout from inventing and selling Blogger.
Larry Ellison
People with clout can impact others’ behavior. They can get the maitre’d to seat them at the best table in the fancy restaurant without a reservation. Clout gets you in free to conferences. It influences people via power, not information. It has limitations, usually affecting a limited community or subculture, because clout primarily serves its possessor. Larry Ellison’s tremendous clout, for instance, does not influence me at all.
Cred, in case you missed it, is shorthand for credibility. If you’ve earned cred, people are more likely to believe you, to trust what you say. One earns it by compiling a record of truth telling and correct judgments. Street cred is earned through doing and learning. You don’t have to have been right, but by being wrong, you’ve learned how things actually work – you’ve paid your dues.
Betty White
If you have cred, people buy your books, invite you to present at conferences, listen to and learn from you. You can be an authority on a topic without having any clout. If you have cred in the social media profession, people take what you say as the truth, whether or not they act on it. Your opinions are respected even by people who don’t agree with your viewpoint.
So which of these attributes fit you best? Would you rather aim to influence others through exercising the power you’ve accumulated, leveraging your wealth or position to affect others’ behaviors? Or would you rather establish yourself as a trusted source, a subject matter expert, an authority or an honest brand?
The authors of the Clue Train Manifesto wrote about the self-evident truth that “markets are 
conversations,” and influenced the thinking of millions of Web users then and to this day. Steve Jobs invented and brought to market the iPad, putting his clout behind a new device that, rather than serve an existing need, broke the ground for whole new channels of communication. He gained credibility by following one instinctive success with another and another.
So, returning to K-land, you can look beneath the surface of Klout and Kred and see that simplistic metrics of one’s association with others through social platforms is not necessarily reflective of your influence. Influence is best indicated by what others do and think after hearing from or about you. Ask yourself who has influenced your behavior in the past and is doing so in the present See how that matches up with your connections in the social world of the Web.
To get social media to work in your favor, you or your brand must have clout or cred or both.
I work online in social media. I’ve done so daily for most of the past 27 years. I’ve envisioned and fostered online communities, advised on social strategy, edited and curated writings on the subject and I’ve written tow books on Web community and on knowledge sharing in the organization. Though I’m as much an expert on this stuff as anyone, I’ve never felt like I graduated; I’m still and always will be in school. Human beings are complex, not only as individuals but in groups. Collective behavior can exhibit strong patterns and then fly off into the unpredictable. Technology only adds new wrinkles to that.
I haven’t kept a blog for quite a while. My lame excuse: I didn’t have enough to write and make it interesting. Now I’m ready to start anew. I don’t believe in dragging a bunch of old virtual stuff around, so my previous blogs have pretty much lost whatever following they had. As I re-launch myself as a social media analyst and blogger, I hope to have some impact on how social practices and mindsets can be accepted by large organizations who can certainly benefit from changing their cultures and patterns.
This is a reset, a reboot, a renewal. You’re welcomed to follow along.