Part of an unpublished appendix for The End of Business as Usual…

The mystique of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ causes a momentary lapse of reason where businesses are surprisingly acting first and addressing “the why” at a later point in time, if at all. Without careful consideration and strategy, a great wave of stream fatigue, social blindness or far worse, customer unlikes and unfollows in will befall unsuspecting businesses en masse in social media. It will come down to a vital, but fixable disconnect. Businesses are interacting with consumers to socialize rather than learn about customer expectations to in turn, deliver tangible value, improve product experiences, and invest in long-term relationships.

While many brands are designing editorial and engagement programs to encourage consumers to “Like” and follow profiles, view videos, submit user generated content, consumers are simultaneously struggling to find signal against the noise, grappling with stream fatigue and sometimes an overwhelming sense of over connectedness.

The more discerning consumers are learning that tuning out is merely temporary relief for misdiagnosed symptoms and not a fix to their bigger problems. Once they realize that streams are programmable, that social content and relationships require thoughtful curation, and more importantly, recognize when inbound streams no longer offer usefulness, they’ll find that the only cure rests in unLikes and unFollows.

Consumers, like businesses, are learning how to navigate social streams as they go. As experience matures however, building relationships within social networks will become a quiet, but important art of curation. People will select and fine-tune the relationships they deem worthy to improve the content that flows through their streams. People, brands, products, and apps will come and go. This constant modification sets the stage for an important shift in the balance of power between brands and consumers. In social media, it’s less about caveat emptor and now about caveat venditor, let the seller beware.

This is more true than ever before, especially in light of Facebook’s chatty OpenGraph development platform. Mark Zuckerberg refers to the new movement as Frictionless Sharing. Others worry that it will spark frictionless frustration. As brands and developers experiment with sending automatic updates into the stream, friends and friends of friends will be subjected to a relentless series of action verbs in their News Feeds…

“Sarah Perez listened to Foster the People on Spotify”

“Robert Scoble read Whoops I didn’t mean for you to read this on Washtington Post Social Reader.”

The first reaction on the business side is unfortunately that of excitement. Strategists are huddling right now devising ways to send updates to trigger the social effect to expand adoption, reach, and Likes!

The first reaction on the consumer side is a mixture of concern and annoyance. People are genuinely worried that they’re going to either spam or be spammed and of course the temporary debate about privacy emerges once again.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a bold move by Facebook and executed properly, it will increase interaction around common interests and ignite peer-to-peer commerce simply by sharing or reacting to activities. The first update to many of these Frictionless Sharing apps will be that of a mute button until developers and consumers can find the balance of what’s worthy of sharing and consuming.

Even before the OpenGraph, stream fatigue was already endemic among friends and also their favorite businesses. A friend of mine conducted an interesting social experiment earlier in the year. What Andrew Blakeley wound up uncovering were signs that brands are in fact not considering consumer experiences outside of direct brand engagement. Blakeley assumed the role of a consumer and set out to Like every brand that presented an opportunity to connect on Facebook. Ranging from email requests and web sties to TV and print advertising and real world shopping, Blakeley Liked a total of 46 brands in one week.

Out of the gate, Blakeley observed that only 10 out of the 46 brands offered a reason why consumers should Like them. Once liked, the experience only degraded. Aside from an occasional contest, he felt largely unrewarded. Most notably, he learned that the online experience for consumers was undefined or uncharted, leaving consumers to fend for themselves to find relevance within the engagement without any reinforcement to brand value or story.

Andrew summed up his experience quite humbly, “My week as a social consumer left me tired and confused. It left my Facebook newsfeed so crammed with nonsense to the point that I could scroll entire pages without seeing my friends.”

Andrew experienced stream fatigue first hand and the inability to keep up with the information that populates one’s social stream.

While brands are learning in public, it’s important to realize that earning a Like is far simpler than re-earning a Like once it’s lost. Similar to traditional online advertising, consumers can ignore marketing messages once in the stream. They can merely become immune to updates or worse, they will resort to unLiking and unfriending anyone who is taking away from the social experience.

In a study published by Exact Target in June 2011, the meanings of Fan and Like in Facebook were scrutinized. The company found that while businesses believed that consumers Like brand pages were truly fans of the company, only 42% of consumers agreed that marketers could interpret a Like as such. In fact, 33% are indecisive and 25% disagree that Likes mean that they are fans or advocates of the brand.

May I Have Your Intention Please?

With each day that passes, the social-savvy consumer will start asking brands for their intentions as requests for their allegiance escalates. Accordingly brands will have to give reasons upfront for why consumers should Like or follow them into social frontiers. Customers will want to know what’s in it for them before they open up their stream beyond family and friends. For brands, engagement comes down to understanding how to best deliver value to consumers in social networks.

The reality is that customers can and will cut ties with brands that do not take their best interests into account. Consumers are realizing that they have the power to reduce or eliminate stream fatigue by tailoring the relationships they maintain in each network. This is a new kind of power because in the past, they couldn’t manage/curate these brand relationships in the media they consumed.

Every business will eventually realize that the hype driving today’s social media is only momentary. It’s not a miracle drug that cures the ails of faceless broadcast marketing. Customers are already demanding a more useful and beneficial approach to engagement. The question is, can you deliver it in and around of your strategic campaigns?

#AdaptorDie

Order The End of Business as Usual today…

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Rebecca Lieb, my colleague at Altimeter Group released a new report, “Content: The New Marketing Equation Why Organizations Must Rebalance.” The report helps organizations find balance in the creation of effective content strategies while delivering value to stakeholders and consumers and also the bottom line.

It’s safe to assume that the attention of the audience as we knew it is waning. And when we look at the online and mobile behavior of connected customers, a sense of responsibility emerges as everyday people become media beacons in their own right. As such, they rigorously share and curate for their audience with an editorial-style approach as what was once a static audience is now an audience with an audience of audiences. People are learning that there are rewards for contributing to signal instead of the noise. Those who do not, learn the hard way…that people will disconnect in order to preserve the integrity of their stream.

Such is true for organizations. For those organizations that do not contribute value to social streams will find that content and desired voices will fall upon the severed ties of once captive communities. Rebecca’s report will help companies identify a path for increasing relevance. And, it starts with adopting an always-on approach that extends campaigns through a continuum model. As she observes…

Marketers can serve customers and prospects with content through every phase of awareness, branding, intent, conversion, and customer service. Yet, unlike advertising, content initiatives are continual rather than episodic, placing new demands not just on marketing organizations but also across the enterprise as a whole.

When you study the intentions and architecture of many branded social media campaigns and strategies overall, it’s difficult to not wonder whether social media isn’t an oxymoron in its current incarnation. I’ve written about this on several occasions over the past year, calling for an end to an era of Social Media 1.0. It’s a call for businesses to move from antisocial social media strategies and raise the bar for more compelling and mutually beneficial forms of engagement.

Good friend Tom Foremski recently observed that, “Corporations are being pressured by legions of ‘experts’ to exploit social media as a lucrative sales and marketing channel. This will destroy social media…” His point was that brands used social media channels to push traditional corporate media, exhibiting a collective broadcast mentality disguised as social engagement. He then started EC=MC (Every Company is a Media Company), a movement to help businesses realize the opportunity presented by social for not only marketing, but true storytelling, experiential journeys, and engagement. Also referred to as brand journalism or brand publishing, the idea is that brands can earn greater attention, reach, and results by investing in a journalistic approach. It’s a move away from promotional content to the delivery of useful, entertaining, or meaningful engagement and experiences through new media.

Attention is finite and the competition for it is only escalating. But to entice and capture attention will take more than a new content strategy and a supporting editorial calendar. It will take a new mission, purpose, and culture to unlock experiences and pave engaging journeys through content.

As Rebecca notes…

Content marketing requires a shift in company culture, resources, budgets, partners, and strategy. Rebalancing is critical to achieve these goals. The choice is whether to rebalance now, or later when the battle for attention may become even more difficult than it currently is.

To adapt to a new landscape for effective attention marketing, Rebecca introduces a five-stage maturity model. It details how organizations evolve in the quest to market efficiently with content. Not every company will reach every stage. But as she observes, evolution, direction, and purpose must start at the top…

Yet to effectively market with content, organizational change and transformation must be driven from the top level of the organization. Left to the marketing department alone, success is limited. New skills must be developed and training offered, both in digital technologies as well as in job functions more aligned with the responsibilities found at a newspaper, magazine, or broadcaster, than in classic marketing functions. Content requires more speed and agility than does marketing, yet at the same time it must be aligned with metrics that conform to the business’ strategic marketing goals.

1. Stand: This organization may have dabbled in social media or created a blog, but activity is infrequent and not generally viewed as important within the organization. The marketing department relies almost wholly on “push” communications such as email marketing, direct mail, and advertising.

2. Stretch, Taking the First Steps While Scanning the Horizon: An organization at the Stretch stage realizes the value of content marketing and begins to build the strategy and support necessary to create and publish content.Understanding develops that, while many of the tools and media are free, content requires an investment of resources. An executive sponsor is necessary to lead the program and communicate its value and reach to the organization. This executive sponsor is also tasked with identifying team members to engage with early channels, building basic forms of content, and evaluating potential agency relationships.

3. Walk, Ambition and Forward Momentum: In this stage, content creation and production get a solid strategic foundation organizationally. From channel specific (e.g. “we blog”), content begins to become channel agnostic and is distributed across a variety of channels and platforms. Processes are formalized. This is the stage at which a team begins to take shape, strategy is more fully refined and tweaked, and the team begins to establish governance to scale and shape content processes.

4. Jog, Sustainable, Meaningful and Scalable Content Initiatives: The organization’s strategy is clear, as well as communicated throughout the enterprise at this stage. Focus shifts toward expanding the team and its ability to create experiential, engaging content rather than simply create and publish simpler stories and informational pieces. The processes for producing content are also more fully developed and strategic. Content is created with a view toward being reusable or repurposed across multiple media platforms.

5. Run, Inspired and Inspirational: In this phase, a successful, real-time integration of content marketing and curation is part of the fabric of nearly all aspects of branding. The organization has become a bona fide media company, actually able to monetize innovative and highly polished content that is either branded and/or related to the brand proposition. Content is sold and licensed based on its standalone merit, with content divisions having separate P&L responsibility.

In the report, Lieb also introduces four fundamental steps toward content marketing maturity. These steps serve as important reminders that no matter how sophisticated your program is today, its success is always determined by how audiences with audiences engage and contribute to the dissemination of your story, value, and mission. And in turn, success is measured by how they feel and/or the actions that they take as a result of the engagement.

1. Understanding That Content Marketing is Not Free

2. Implementing Broad Cultural Integration Around Content Marketing

3. Integrating Content Marketing with Advertising

4. Avoiding Bright, Shiny Objects

To get there of course is not an easy task. As noted earlier, it comes down to culture…it comes down to leadership. Additionally, effective content marketing strategies and ultimately the experiences and outcomes that they can deliver require a supporting infrastructure that is strengthened by pillars of new expertise. It takes a different vision for what’s possible, higher standards and supporting metrics, and most important, a new perspective.

- Organizational Structure. The infrastructure that allows content creation and distribution to be fostered and encouraged both within the marketing department and beyond it.

- Internal Resources. Staff roles, teams, and leadership that support and create content marketing.

- External Resources. The extent to which the organization works with outside vendors and service providers including agencies, creative resources, and technology vendors.

- Measurement. Creating meaningful metrics around content marketing, including tying them to overall marketing and sales goals.

- New Skills and Capabilities. Fostering understanding of content marketing, executive buy-in, and ensuring staff can manage, create, and publish content.

- New Mindsets and Approaches. Content marketing is almost never a 9-to-5 undertaking. Creating, managing, and monitoring content outside of normal business hours, often in real time, is essential.

Rebecca’s report includes a self-audit that’s designed to assess where your organization is on the Altimeter Content Marketing Maturity Model. The goal is to help you better understand what you need to advance along the framework and also improve the effectiveness in how content increases engagement, experiences, and outcomes as a result. The case studies provided in the report are eye-opening. I also believe that they will inspire creativity in defining your content marketing goals.

In the end, content is a representation of the sentiment you wish to evoke, the story you wish to tell, the experiences you wish to deliver and the journeys you wish to create. Content though, is a also reflection of your vision, supporting culture, and the intentions that define the social objects you introduce. It’s time to rebalance.

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A key objective for senior executives over the next several years is to use disruptive technology to get closer to customers, to improve relationships, and enhance experiences. It is a considerable move and the result will usher in a new era of adaptive and empathetic business models. However, this is a move that is easier said than done., especially when vision and execution are two sides of different coins. This is a critical path where businesses must not only commit to new technology and goals, but also invest in the methodologies, systems, processes, and people to bring about change from within before it can effectively engage outside.

Like in anything, businesses are measured by actions and words, where outcomes reveal true progress. In 2012 and 2013, businesses will prioritize efforts that bring the organization closer to customers while also performing against the metrics that are constant, including revenue, market share, increased efficiencies and improved margins. The difference now is that today’s company faces a formidable customer that is connected, empowered, influential, and most notably elusive. To earn their attention, their business and ultimately their loyalty and advocacy, the customer journey must be reconsidered, redesigned and individualized.

In a survey of over 1,700 CMOs in 2011, IBM found that the intention of customer engagement was certainly present, but that executives were unclear in how to assess and integrate new technology in managing and leading customer relationships. Of the 13 key market factors below, an alarming 50+ percent of respondents are under prepared to manage all but two key changes, Regulatory Considerations and Corporate Transparency.

Certainly, the model for tomorrow’s business is under development today. What’s clear is that the answers to lead change and chart new directions are unclear. And, this represents both a challenge and opportunity.  Determined businesses will not sit idly while the market is defined by new technology and corresponding customer behavior. Nor will enterprising businesses adopt every new trend that comes along as a way of surfing waves of short-term relevance. Leaders and change agents will develop a process and taskforce to assess new technology against corporate vision, customer expectations, and market direction to prioritize investments in the following areas:

1. Integrated strategy and execution toward business objectives
2. Renewed, unified and consistent branding
3. Organizational structure, alignment and the empowerment people
4. Operations and supply chain
5. Improved processes
6. Collaboration
7. Customer service and engagement in new channels
8. Risk and reputation management
9. Integrated experiences – Mobile/Tablet/Digital/Social
10. Syndicated commerce
11. Metrics and value systems

These areas of focus represent the trends in transformation as expressed through the aspirations of executives who hope to get closer to customers and the expectations of the customers they hope to reach. This is as much about technology and vision as it is about reducing friction, inside and out. In the end, the convergence of disruptive technology, business processes, and customer experiences forces any organization to examine and re-examine everything.  Every effort today carries opportunities for optimization or complete overhaul. The end result is increased relevance, improved experiences, and escalated results.

Some of the key areas of focus for any business in this convergence will include:

1. Big data and the necessary algorithms to make sense out of sheer volume and noise – the net result is intelligence to set the foundation for Adaptive and Predictive business models

2. Social and mobile media as it relates to customer influence, the customer journey, and post-commerce activities

3. Contact centers and the unification of democratized channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and a managed customer relationship system

4. Metrics, ROI, and meaningful outcomes that look beyond today’s limited KPIs that focus on friends, fans, followers, views, etc.

5. The relationship between CMO and CIO and how together, they will need to invest in innovation and scalability for a new breed of employee, consumer, and an unending array of emerging and disruptive technology

While these reflect only part of the trends requiring transformation, they collectively contribute to customer and employee preference and ultimately competitive advantage. This is the year when we must take a step back to cut through the fog of hype and identify the gaps between business objectives, customer expectations,the important technology channels that separate businesses and customers, and the capabilities and prowess to effectively engage and lead experiences across the board.

In further reviewing the IBM CMO Global Study, CMOs are prioritizing new technology investments as it relates to increasing engagement and improving customer relationships and experiences.

As you can see above, the examination of disruptive technology and the exploration of revising internal processes are aligning to…

1. Enhance customer loyalty/advocacy

2. Design experiences for tablet/mobile apps

3. Use social media to engage customers…their way

4. Use integrated software to better manage customer relationships

5. Listen and learn

This list should be viewed as a checklist for leading important conversations that contribute to a strategy roadmap. Where businesses are and where they will be next year and five years from now will not be predicated simply by social media. Customer expectations and the capacity to translate trends into actionable market opportunities requires a syndicated, but integrated approach, one where all channels are considered and weighted based on behavior and educated predictions. The true opportunity for customer engagement and scalable profitability lies in the architecture of not only a more social business, but a holistic enterprise that operates under a united front. But to get there requires the difficult first step, acceptance. Second, businesses need to assemble capable stakeholders who can organize the necessary treatise between social media champions, change agents, and leaders to organize a distributed movement that empowers employees, engages customers optimizes experiences, and adapts to new opportunities for growth and earned relevance.

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In celebration of the 54th GRAMMY Awards, we are debuting a special edition of (R)evolution.  Shot on location in Los Angeles, Evan Green, CMO of the Recording Academy discusses the fusion of two worlds, the social explosion and the increasingly sophisticated expectations of consumers.

In this fascinating discussion, we learn how a 54 year old industry body adapted to the change in how people interact with television, music and one another, shifting from watching the conversation to engaging and helping facilitate shared experiences. More importantly, you’ll hear what it took to get management to see the opportunity for the future and how it changed the DNA of the Recording Academy forever.

“For a minute people were starting to move away from television, now people are migrating back to television in pretty large numbers, but they’re migrating with their devices.” – Evan Green, CMO, Recording Academy

Season 3: Special Edition

A note from the Recording Academy on its vision for the 2012 GRAMMY Awards…

Beyond simply promoting an entertainment event, we strive to feed the digital music conversation, establish a deeper cultural connection with our audience, and seamlessly extend this effort to both second and third screens.  This year’s effort, titled ‘We Are Music,’ takes a more visceral approach to illustrating how music drives us.  Using a dynamic technology called particle art to establish a visual interpretation of music, ‘We Are Music’ focuses on the idea that when we listen to music, we surround ourselves in it…it becomes who we are…part of our DNA…an extension of our personality…inextricably linked with our identity!  Our campaign, like music itself, has a driving pulse, and is infused with energy and movement.

Adele: Promo video

Skrillex: Promo video

The GRAMMY YouTube Channel

We Are Music: Destination

We Are Music App: iTunes

Season One and Season Two on YouTube

Now on iTunes!

Guest post by John M. Bernard, author of the new book, Business at the Speed of Now, and Chairman and Founder of Mass Ingenuity.

Imagine going to work in one of Henry Ford’s factories a century ago, proud that management referred to you a “hand” or a “hammer” or maybe even a “wrench.” The labels reflected Ford’s emphasis on automation and management’s view of laborers as mere cogs in the machine.

Screw this nut onto that bolt; weld this strap to that frame; do it over and over and over again until your brain froze with boredom. Of course, management needed workers to get the numbing, repetitive work done, so they turned to the ideas of Frederick Taylor, a time-and-motion guru and father of so-called “scientific management.”

Scientific management took the “person“ out of “personnel” by exerting rigid managerial control over everything people did on the job. It tolerated no variation, brooked no questioning, and invited no suggestions for improvement. Yet it transformed Ford Motor Company into a huge and hugely profitable enterprise.

Ford’s success with the new Mass Production logic inspired other companies to follow suit. Soon, vast quantities of decent quality and affordable products were rolling off the assembly lines. As workers’ wages increased, they bought ranch-style homes in the suburbs, installed color television sets in their living rooms and parked shiny new Fords in their garages. Welcome to the great new American middle class.

That was THEN. This is NOW.

Times have changed. Nowadays, fewer than 10 percent of U.S. workers work on assembly lines. The other 90 percent work in environments where the old management logic clearly does not make sense (not to say it makes sense any longer in manufacturing). Yet Mass Production thinking still dominates our modern enterprises and even our schools and government.

People no longer accept the “cog in the machine” definition of work. They are independent, curious, quirky, passionate and emotional folks who demand that management put “human” back into “human resources.” They question authority (think Occupy Wall Street) and they want to improve everything in sight

Welcome to the new era of Mass Customization (a term Stan Davis popularized in 1987). It aptly describes today’s economy, where every customer wants what she wants, and she wants it NOW.

The shift from Mass Production to Mass Customization demands a fundamental shift in the way we manage our organizations. Centralized innovation and decision-making, the mainstays of the Mass Production era, simply cannot get results in a world where unlimited choice demands real-time response.

Of course, new technologies and the Internet play a huge role in enabling customization, but real-time value creation also demands human intervention. More than ever, the customer experience depends on flesh-and-blood people interacting with other flesh-and-blood people.

Profits also hinge on people. A Mass Customization economy benefits from a fully engaged workforce. Research by Gallup and other investigators proves that an employee who moves from disengagement to engagement not only thrills customers but bolters the bottom line to the tune of $13,000 a year.

Most companies have not capitalized on that new fact of corporate life. According to Gallup, only about 30 percent of the workforce takes action without instruction from the boss (engaged). Of the remaining 70 percent, roughly 50 percent merely show up and follow orders (disengaged), while close to 20 percent dissipate their creativity by actually disrupting the business (actively disengaged).

Management enjoys so many useful tools these days: Lean. Six Sigma. Employee Empowerment. Service Quality. Quality Circles. Team Building. Self-Directed Work Teams. Leadership Training. Management Development. Customer Satisfaction Programs. Employee Engagement Surveys. Suggestion Systems. Profit Sharing. Stock Options. The list could fill a dozen pages. So why, despite all the new-fangled, state-of-the art techniques at their disposal, do managers remain so stuck in the mud, with engagement declining, not improving?

The answer is perfectly simple. To paraphrase George H. W. Bush, “It’s the system, stupid.” The underlying management system determines culture; culture determines the degree of employee engagement.

The new era of Mass Customization demands the right sort of get-it-done culture. And that sort of culture requires nothing short of a fundamental rethinking of the basic management system we use to get things done.

With the shift from Mass Production to Mass Customization, forward-thinking businesspeople must take on the most crucial reengineering project of all, reshaping management’s role in a way that will close the employee engagement chasm.

It will take as much imagination and blood, sweat and tears as it did for Henry Ford to create the preceding era. Alan Mulally who’s running Ford these days, is doing exactly that.

A business that operates in the NOW must build a management system that provides clear direction and a line-of-sight to results for every employee. Such a system must generate true accountability, forge a common business language everyone understands, drive complete transparency, and ensure that everyone enjoys the appropriate resources, tools and skills to do their work spectacularly well. In this NOW world, management must complete its work before that all-important value-creating moment arrives for its inspired employees to thrill the customer and crush the competition.

Chris Silva, my colleague at Altimeter Group, released a useful report today that I wanted to share with you here. Mobile is important and I believe you know this. However, when we consider mobile, we often think about the experience when and where it begins. But, we often miss the opportunity to lead a more meaningful journey as it may travel from small screen to larger screens across laptops, desktops and beyond. And along the way, we must now determine our role in this journey to provide information, shape decisions, and influence behavior.

In Chris’ report, he reminds us that 2011 was the year of the mobile consumer. As he notes

2011 saw a surge in mobile users, but 2012 is the year when smartphone owners become the majority of users, currently hovering just below 50% of U.S. mobile phone users. Tablets, too, take center stage with a near 24% CAGR in adoption.

Indeed. Think about all of the events leading up to this moment today and the role your smartphone or tablet played in helping your discover, share, communicate and learn. You might in fact, be reading this on your mobile device now. The reality is that growth in mobile is blinding as consumers break the shackles of their PCs and expand beyond the reach of wifi to keep them connected to information and people anywhere and everywhere. This is an important moment in the evolution of mobile as it no longer simply about communication or smart communication. Mobile is causing a fundamental shift in society where consumers are evolving into connected consumers. This connected mindset is empowering as people take advantage of on-demand access to not just information, but other people, opinions, shared experiences, and a bevy of apps and resources to help make more informed and efficient decisions than ever before.

In Chris’ graphic, we can see just how pervasive mobile is within our increasingly connected society.

- Tablets comprise 7% of population of all mobile devices owners

- Android users spend on average 1.24 hours daily engaging with the device

- 77% of smartphone users put their phone to work while shopping

58% of adults are somewhat or very likely to make a purchase on their smartphone (this will only become standard one day)

One of the biggest areas impacted by this constant change in market dynamics is of course retail. This past holiday season only proved the point. Consumers scanned barcodes or QR codes to check prices nearby and online. And, before they would consider finalizing the purchase, they would ask for a little help from their friends by taking to social networks or review sites to validate decisions.

In his report, Chris observes…

Retailers, to date, have had mixed success targeting these users. While many have achieved success with mobile, a maturity level Altimeter defines as “flying high” with their mobile strategy, many are in a middle ground of maturity, called “hitting turbulence” and many more are still not yet started and highly immature, or still “on the ground.”

Hitting turbulence is indeed the right metaphor. Some of the biggest retailers were caught surprisingly off guard or rigid in their ability to adapt when consumers would ask customer service managers to match prices displayed on the mobile phone. Small screens caused big ramifications as those consumers would instead leave rather than succumb to aging in store policies that, nowadays, work against the retailer. Think about it for a moment. Consumers willingly abandoned what could be a point of purchase because of a policy that doesn’t apply to today’s standards that are driving connected consumerism. Many times, they would spend their savings in gas to purchase elsewhere or online. If this continues, local retailers will simply become the showrooms of the more adaptive and competitive online retailers. And just wait until mobile commerce becomes disruptive.

Avoiding Mistakes and How to Win

But this is not just about matching prices. This is about shaping and steering experiences. From apps, to in store guides and reward systems, to check-ins to payments and beyond. And as we think through how to engage customers on the small screen, especially within the store environment, walking in the shoes of our connected consumers is now part of the job. We are in fact, the consumers we are trying to reach and as such, we must not introduce strategies that are disconnected from the start.

Here, Chris provides a list of common mistakes to avoid.

1. Mobile for Mobile’s Sake. Major retail brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) and Longhorn Steakhouse are prime examples of brands rushing to mobile with a focus on the medium and not the end goal of impacting the business (see Figure 2 in the report).

2. Missing the Chance to Target Mobile Users. Another common mistake is not targeting mobile users. For example, Amazon launched a campaign on December 10, 2011, to have users scan products in-store using its Price Check app (see Figure 3 in the report).

Instead Chris shares tips and best practices to help brands and retailers better connect with the connected consumer…

1. Align mobile with other key teams. Winning mobile teams are tightly aligned with marketing loyalty programs (if applicable) and e-commerce teams. For example, Starbucks built its wildly successful application not around revenue or loyalty card adhesion, but instead around ease of purchase.

2. Focus on what the user needs. Mobile strategies should be holistic and remain focused on what users are seeking. Informational apps may seem simple in design, but a solid strategy seeks to solve the “information” problem, not just the “mobile” problem.

3. Allocate the resources necessary to make mobile successful. Allocation of the necessary resources at U.S. pharmacy and convenience retailer Walgreens is at the forefront of everything the company does in mobile. The Walgreens app used the mobile device’s camera to scan a prescription barcode to initiate a refill, is an example of “multichannel lite” activity.

4. Mobile means multiple platforms. One of the few retailers profiled that has built a tablet and smartphone version of its app along with a fully featured mobile website, Zappos, worked many processes in parallel to get its application off the ground.

Everything begins with understanding the maturity of your mobile strategy so that you pinpoint areas where to improve in capabilities and ultimately more engaging and productive experiences…with desired outcomes.

 On the Ground. Retailers in this phase of maturity are just beginning their journey into mobile. They’re on the runway, ready for takeoff, but still laying out the groundwork for their mobile strategy in its first iteration. There is much ground to cover, and the potential to fall behind or lose ground to competitors is high.

Hitting Turbulence. Retailers at this maturity phase have jumped into mobile with some of the best intentions but have not realized the revenue or customer interaction gains they hoped to achieve. What is most likely holding them back are that the efforts in these organizations are not clearly focused on serving business needs or actual customer pains.

Flying High. The news is not all bad; we interviewed many successful mobile teams that have attained success with their mobile strategy. Their apps currently provide a positive impact to the business and make interaction and purchasing easier for customers, addressing an actual customer pain.

If 2011 was the year of the mobile consumer, 2012 is the year of the mobile marketer. You are now an architect of experiences that helps the customer journey end in your favor. Use this report to help build a bridge not only between screens, but also to weave engaging, useful and efficient experiences that help customers make decisions in your favor now and over time. Innovation is now an ongoing investment as expectations and device capabilities will continue to evolve in parallel.

Think about the experience and the desired outcome…not just mobile for mobile’s sake. The small screen is a window to decisions, sentiment, and loyalty.

Download it or read it below to learn more about how to deliver remarkable mobile experiences…

Make An App For That: Mobile Strategies For Retailers

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This is it…the Season Finale! And, what a way to end Season 2 of (R)evolution….

In this episode, Yamaha shares what is by far the most expansive view of disruptive technology’s impact on business infrastructure and culture on the show to date. What you’ll see is a genuine discussion with Jeff Hawley and Rick Williams of Yamaha explore how an already successful business is exploring new opportunities to better define the customer experience before, during and after transactions. It comes down to workflow. Nowadays, it either works for you or works against you. Here, Yamaha shares that it needed “to blow up” its existing systems and processes and “start over” to compete more effectively for the future.

I think you’ll enjoy Yamaha’s approach to listen, learn, and engage with customers in their channels of preference. Please watch and share!

Season 2, Episode 16

This episode was recorded during the Salesforce Social Advisory Board meeting in San Francisco. Participants included brand managers from the likes of Disney, Livingsocial, P&G, Nissan, SunTrust, Dunkin Donuts, Get Satisfaction, and VW, we address the need for businesses to not only react to conversations but also lead them.

Season Two:

S2E1: How Mercedes Benz Successfully Uses Social Media to Engage
S2E2: Technorati’s Richard Jalichandra on the State and Future of Social Media
S2E3: Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Enchantment
S2E4: Adly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on the Social Era of Celebrity Endorsements
S2E5: Filmmaker and Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain
S2E6: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 1 of 2
S2E7: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 2 of 2
S2E8: Marcel LeBrun of Salesforce Radian6 on the Future of Social Media Monitoring
S2E9: Our Digital Society in the Next 30 Years: An Interview with John Battelle
S2E10: How Social Customer Service is Changing the Culture at Comcast
S2E11: Dunkin’ Donuts Uses Social Media to Improve Customer Relationships and Experiences
S2E12: USA Today’s Jon Swartz on Disruptive Technology’s Impact on Business and Culture
S2E13: Ford’s Jim Farley on the importance of putting your brand in the hands of customers
S2E14: How Suntrust Uses Social Media to Engage Customers and Comply with Regulation
S2E15: Nissan Embraces Social Media to Improve Customer Experiences and Foster Advocacy

Season One on YouTube

Now on iTunes!

My friends over at bit.ly published an interesting graph that reveals the devices as well as the days/times that people use different devices and how and when they consume information. As you can imagine, it’s across the board, but as you can see, there are waves that every device follows, except the desktop.

Desktops are of course the devices that we can assume people use during work hours. As such, they are most heavily used on weekdays before noon. Interestingly enough, phone traffic peaks at about the same times, but not to similar effects. What’s also telling is that tablets are most often used at Tuesday at 5 p.m.And, gaming devices such as Nintendo DS, Wii, and Sony Playstation spike on Thursdays at 5 p.m.

Also, take a look at the double hump (peak with a small valley before another peak) in activity for phones and tablets. The second plateau is nearly at the same level Monday through Thursday but loses momentum through the weekend. Tablets and gaming devices however tend to be the devices that define after hours and weekend activity.

Additionally, the bit.ly team examined which platforms share similar usage patterns. The chart used to convey these patterns is a bit tricky to navigate. Here are some of the highlights…

1. Windows and Linux users behave similarly in social media.

2. Mac OS X is used more like a mobile device than either Windows or Linux on the desktop. This is of course because iOS devices, iPhones, iPods and iPads drive mobile usage.

3. The Kindle is used in a very different manner to engage with the social web. The majority of Kindle usage occurs later in the evening over any other devices.

So what does this mean?

It means that content, to be shareable to its full capacity, must have shareability (SMO) built-in to convert an object into a social object. As such, it must be introduced at the right time and in the right way for each medium. Here, the medium is very much the message. Additionally, information and social objects should be packaged and optimized for each device to increase engagement and shareability. That’s right. This isn’t a one size fits all approach which many publishers typically design for. Essentially, this means that a one-to-many content syndication strategy across the social web is not scalable nor is it practical across devices. Design for the medium.

I would like to see this data not only for clickthroughs or consumption patterns, but also how and when interesting content is shared and how that plays into resonance – the duration and depth information stays visible in the stream.

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Guest post by Allison Cerra, author of Identity Shift

With the 2012 Presidential election looming, there’s no shortage of polls to help narrow the field of candidates. I find a recent one from Fox News to be particularly fascinating. Among other questions, Republican primary voters were asked which Republican presidential candidate is most likeable and which they would most trust with a nuclear weapon. While Newt Gingrich scored at the top of the heap in earning the trust vote, he scored only marginally well on the likeability scale. The topic was discussed on the network’s “Fox & Friends” morning show where analysts debated: Which is better – trust or likeability?

In the end, both analysts agreed that likeability is the more powerful weapon in a Presidential race. Look no further than to some of the most charismatic presidents in recent history for evidence of the same. Indeed, likeability has been shown to be a potent influencer in just about any life encounter – from friendships to job recruitment to sales. But, as the Fox poll shows, an issue as paramount to national security as nuclear war raises the importance of trustworthiness in the equation. And, while you and I may not spend our days contemplating the chances of a nuclear attack, raising our consciousness toward such a self-preservation issue may certainly tip the scales in how we view the question at hand.

Cast Your Identity

While we only get the chance to vote for President every four years, we cast thousands of votes each day in other ways. We vote with our time for leisure activities. We vote with our attention in the barrage of advertisements to which we are exposed. We certainly vote with our wallets on purchase decisions amidst a sea of competing options. Merchants are aware of these votes being cast each day. They vie to intercept us at the precise moment of truth with a targeted offer we simply can’t resist. And, in the hyper-connected world in which we increasingly dwell, our digital footprint reveals a treasure trove of information to advertisers eager to learn our likes, dislikes and behaviors – if only we felt comfortable enough exposing it.

While it certainly pales in comparison to the threat of nuclear attack, exposing our digital DNA gets at preservation at a different level – the preservation of the identity we seek to create and protect as our lives are increasingly connected in new ways. This leads us back to the same question: Does trust or likeability matter more when contemplating how and when to reveal one’s digital blueprint to others?

Alcatel-Lucent, a global provider of broadband networks, set out to answer this very question. We visited with respondents in 30 homes across the country, observing them for hours in their natural habitats going about their ordinary day. We followed up with a quantitative study to more than 5,000 consumers across the US from teens to mid-lifers to isolate psychometrics, behaviors and values. Our goal was ambitious: How do the devices and networks connecting us each day affect our view of ourselves and those serving us?

Who Are You?

To answer the question, we first had to understand how respondents view themselves in the networked world that keeps them connected. Through the research, we derived the 3P model of identity.

First, there’s presentation, which speaks to the image I attempt to reflect depending on my context. Before the days of devices connecting us in a 24×7 always-on world, life was simpler. Specifically, managing my image was simpler. My presentation at work may have been different from that at home, church, social gatherings or other venues. But, the networked community surrounding us demands a pervasive and constant reflection of who we are. And, I am no longer in control of how I appear, but anyone with an opportune cameraphone or texting fingers is capable of casting my image in the light they see fit.

Next, there’s protection, in which my worldview shapes what I choose to reveal or conceal about myself and loved ones. Protection-centric stories typically steal the headline of the day – whether it be in their scorn of companies that suffer security breaches or some other misstep in infringing customer privacy. Predictably, the public is fascinated with tales that expose how vulnerable we can be in the virtual world that surrounds us. Not all violations are created equal of course; an annoying spam message doesn’t carry the same consequence as a debilitating identity theft crime. In the protection realm, navigating the connected world requires an ability to discern innocuous from more harmful threats – despite not having our more primal, physical sensory capabilities to arm us in doing so.

Finally, preference is a psychological orientation toward targeted products, services and individuals. There is an abundance of choice in a hyper-connected world. Preference seekers long for the targeted offers or opportunities that appear just at precisely the moment they need them. Even better, these individuals crave personalized options that magically materialize even before a conscious need arises. In this space, the constellation of mouse clicks, channel changes and location updates presents a compelling view of who I actually am through my behaviors.

Who is Right?

The 3 Ps exist in each of us simultaneously. While some of us may more psychometrically align with one P in particular, we make conscious and unconscious tradeoffs between all three multiple times each day. Should I post that picture about myself on my social networking page? It depends on how strongly I believe it aligns with a particular presentation important for the unique audience. Should I reveal my location to others through my social networking updates? It depends on how protective I am of leaking such information compared to how strongly I prefer a targeted interaction or service benefitting from the same. Should I opt-in to receive targeted advertisements? It depends on how certain I am that such personalized information will be used to help me, not harm me.

And, here’s where many of us get it wrong. We assume that our dominant worldview is consistent with others around us. Protection-oriented individuals may be tempted to admonish preference seekers; indeed, they may seek to create regulations to protect others from unintended consequence. But, ask a preference seeker if such angst is warranted and he will likely tell you he is not concerned (we heard from several in our study echoing this point). We may mock others who seem too ‘narcissistic’ in their presentation for our tastes. Yet, those ‘narcissists’ have learned the importance of social image in the virtual world — the vast majority in our study agreed that having a good reputation online is as important as having one in the real world. The way I see the world and myself in it is different from those around me. And, at the end of the day, it is I who is ultimately accountable for my own personal outcomes. In fact, respondents in our study are inclined to agree: rather than seek “policing” from companies or government to keep them “safe” online, nearly two-thirds of consumers know they are ultimately responsible for their own destiny.

Who Gets the Vote?

This brings me back to the Fox poll that caught my attention. While online identity may not be in the same category as a presidential contest, the field is littered with potential land mines and gold mines for those seeking to grab one of the many votes we cast daily. And, while likeability may matter more when it comes to presidential picks, when it comes to exposing who we actually are to others around us, the spoils go to trusted providers in the identity race. Specifically, when asking respondents to evaluate brands based on how much they loved or hated them versus how much they trusted them with their personal information (similar to the Fox questions of presidential contenders), companies earning the trust vote had a much stronger correlation with a respondent’s higher willingness to pay for a particular service. Those earning the “love” vote derived virtually no correlation at all.

Like the Presidential bid, this race is just beginning to heat up. We will undeniably see more privacy missteps as the featured headlines of the day. We will experience missteps of our own as we seek to better understand who we are and who we want to be in the connected world. But, as in most contests, there will also be clear winners in this game. Those companies earning the coveted “trust” vote will unlock new services and value chains for a broader ecosystem of marketers, developers and technology companies to partake. And, consumers at the center of the debate will benefit from better management tools and clearer company policies to navigate in the networked-community age. In the end, trust evolves as the intangible currency and the most powerful vote cast in this race. That might just be enough to give players in this space (and presidential hopefuls like Newt) some hope.

About Allison Cerra

In addition to Identity Shift, Allison is the co-author of The Shift: The Evolving Market, Players and Business Models in a 2.0 World and has published several whitepapers and articles about emerging end user broadband trends and market potential for next-generation services.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Updating as this plays out with deeper analysis and links…

Just a few moments ago, Facebook officially filed an S-1  for an initial public offering seeking to raise $5 billion. Here are a few key findings…

- 845 million monthly active users, year over year growth of 39%

- 483 million daily active users as of December, year over year growth of 48%

- 425 million monthly mobile users

- 100 billion friend connections as of December 31, 2011

- 2.7 billion Likes and comments per day during the last quarter of 2011

- $1 billion in profits in 2011

- $3.7 billion in revenues in 2011, soaring 88% between 2010 – 2011

- Profits grew 65% from $606 million in 2010

- Zynga makes up 12% of overall Facebook revenue

- Google posted $961.8 million in revenue and $105.6 million in profit when it initially went public…Facebook’s profits are nearly 10x heading into its IPO

- Facebook 2011 profits were 1.6x that of Amazon, which posted a 45% drop in net income between 2010 and 2011 at $631 million

For press seeking analyst commentary, please contact Altimeter Group at 650-212-2282 or via email.

UPDATE 1: The Hacker Way

Really appreciate the culture of Facebook as mentioned in the S-1 under the heading “The Hacker Way.” Here’s an excerpt:

The Hacker Way

As part of building a strong company, we work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people. We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way.

The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.

Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook. We have the words “Done is better than perfect” painted on our walls to remind ourselves to always keep shipping.

Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: “Code wins arguments.”

Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people.

UPDATE 2: Risks

As a matter of disclosure, Facebook must release risks to caution investors against buying blindly. Here is the full list as pulled from the S-1. I share it here with you to learn from Facebook’s diligence in constant innovation or as they say “shipping.” It’s a healthy form of inspiration to always compete for the moment and for relevance over time.

1. users increasingly engage with competing products;

2. we fail to introduce new and improved products or if we introduce new products or services that are not favorably received;

3. we are unable to successfully balance our efforts to provide a compelling user experience with the decisions we make with respect to the frequency, prominence, and size of ads and other commercial content that we display;

4. we are unable to continue to develop products for mobile devices that users find engaging, that work with a variety of mobile operating systems and networks, and that achieve a high level of market acceptance;

5. there are changes in user sentiment about the quality or usefulness of our products or concerns related to privacy and sharing, safety, security, or other factors;

6. we are unable to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is interesting, useful, and relevant to them;

7. there are adverse changes in our products that are mandated by legislation, regulatory authorities, or litigation, including settlements or consent decrees;

8. technical or other problems prevent us from delivering our products in a rapid and reliable manner or otherwise affect the user experience;

9. we adopt policies or procedures related to areas such as sharing or user data that are perceived negatively by our users or the general public;

10. we fail to provide adequate customer service to users, developers, or advertisers;

11. we, our Platform developers, or other companies in our industry are the subject of adverse media reports or other negative publicity; or

12. our current or future products, such as the Facebook Platform, reduce user activity on Facebook by making it easier for our users to interact and share on third-party websites.

UPDATE 3: Facebook’s Friends or Who Owns Facebook

Ken Yeung over at bub.blicio.us found this interesting graphic complied by Learnvest based on data published by The WSJ and The Guardian. It’s a visual look at the distribution of Facebook stock. Some interesting pre-trading numbers reveal just how big this IPO is worth to the market, employees, investors, and partners.

UPDATE 4: A Letter from Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg urges understanding before investment. This is an approach that conditions investors for a long-term play rather than a quick and profitable turn. As important, is the focus on culture and values. Facebook invests emotion and aspiration in its mission and purpose, something I think more companies should consider to effectively connect with the human network (you and me).

Here are some highlights…

Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

Zuckerberg believes that personal relationships are the fundamental unit of our society

Facebook’s 5 core principles are 1) Focus on impact, 2) Move Fast, 3) Be Bold, 4) Be Open, and 5) Build Social Value.

The Facebook team is inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information.

Facebook hopes to strengthen how people relate to each other.

Even though Facebook’s mission sounds big, the company is focusing on starting small — with the relationship between two people.

Facebook is building tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.

Facebook has already helped more than 800 million people map out more than 100 billion connections with a goal of accelerating this “rewiring.”

Facebook seeks to improve how people connect to businesses and the economy.

The company believes a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services.

Facebook observes that as people share more, they have access to more opinions from the people they trust about the products and services they use. As a result, the global social network strives to makes it easier to discover the best products and improve the quality and efficiency of their lives.

This quote by Zuckerberg really captures the spirit of Facebook’s mission, “Today, our society has reached another tipping point. We live at a moment when the majority of people in the world have access to the internet or mobile phones — the raw tools necessary to start sharing what they’re thinking, feeling and doing with whomever they want. Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries.”

More data available at SEC.gov.

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To those of you who lead “the Pinteresting life,” you’ve contributed to a phenomenon that is certainly putting its clicks where the hype is. By that I mean, Pinterest is a two-year old cultural sensation that is borderline causing dependency among its users and the rabid audiences they’re developed. This rapid fire network has pinned itself to a rocket with estimated unique viewership ascending 429% from September to December 2011…and I’m not even sure if the sky’s the limit here.

For those who are unfamiliar with the fledgling community, Pinterest is a effective marriage of social bookmarking and visual curation with an extremely fervent user base. Essentially, people create a series of pinboards for areas of interest where they pin relevant snapshots with commentary to serve as both a reminder for later reference and also as a tour guide for visitors to learn more about each object.

Many consumer brands are also experimenting with Pinterest, using pinboards to present complementary products, ideas, and imagery to inspire consumers to visualize and remix new possibilities. From fashion to interior design and home to retail to entertainment, brands are using Pinterest to thoughtfully assemble a curated lifestyle. And, they’re packaged for the social and mobile web and optimized for driving actions as part Facebook’s new frictionless sharing ecosystem.

Some initial brands to watch include:

- Whole Foods
- Martha Stewart
- Better Homes and Garden
- Real Simple
- west elm
- Bergdorf Goodman
- Today Show
- Travel Channel
- HGTV
- Nordstrom
- Gap
- Birchbox
- AMD

In addition to soaring traffic, Pinterest is also rising as a bona fide referrer of notable Web traffic. According to a new report published by Shareaholic, Pinterest drove greater traffic than LinkedIn, Google Plus, Reddit, and Youtube…combined. Additionally, Pinterest was just .01% shy of tying Twitter for the 4th spot and .02% behind Google, which currently sits in 3rd place.

It should be noted, that Facebook is clearly the dominant player here, accounting for 26.4% of all referring traffic with StumbleUpon sitting far behind, but firmly in second position.

No report can be fully appreciated at face value. The data as packaged is extremely flattering. Shareaholic based its findings on the aggregated data from over 200,000 publishers that reach 260 million + unique monthly visitors. Publishers using Shareaholic are not reflective of worldwide internet web trends or everyday activity, but they do provide a relevant snapshot of the digital lifestyle within the social web.

What’s most remarkable is that Pinterest is still an invitation-only network. This of course lends to its desirability and mystique. Certainly, as anticipation builds coupled with creative and compelling use cases that continue to emerge, Pinterest shows only signs of remaining #pinteresting and relevant to visualized + curated storytelling and driving meaningful clicks for some time to come.

So what are your thoughts? What do you love about Pinterest? Are you a brand finding success or looking for guidance? Share your stories, experiences and questions below…

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I was recently asked to join a group of experts to contribute thoughts on trends driving the evolution of CRM over the next five years. I must say, that it’s a group of individuals whom I not only respect, but also am lucky enough to know in the real world.

- Ray Wang, Principal Analyst & CEO at Constellation Research
- Brent Leary, Owner at CRM Essentials
- Esteban Kolsky, Principal & Founder at ThinkJar LLC
- Denis Pombriant, CEO at Beagle Research Group, LLC
- Paul Greenberg, Owner at The 56 Group, LLC

SoftwareAdvice‘s Lauren Carlson led the discussion under the banner of CRM’s Next 5 in 5. I’ve included some of the highlights here to give you a glimpse of what each expert is tracking. Of course, take a moment to read the full post for a deeper perspective…

Ray Wang: In the next five years, we will see tremendous growth in context services and the data they provide. A key source of this context data will be from mobile devices. Context services are subscription services that help add context during engagement. For example location, relationship, roles, business process, and other sensing technologies.

Esteban Kolsky: We still don’t have the analytical tools to make sure we can deliver value in the instances described. We need to build the infrastructure to make sure there is value in the technology. Analytics and Cloud are leading the charge there.

Paul Greenberg: We’ll see more technologies like SAP HANA, Hadoop and other in-memory and distributed technologies deliver radically faster information processing capabilities. Real-time customer intelligence will become a reality. Technologies around unified communications will be not only hot, but game changers.

Denis Pombriant: Virtual interaction increases the need for enhanced content management systems, as well as spur demand for video production tools that lightly-trained people can use to create animations and conventional “talking head” broadcasts. We will also probably see CRM systems evolve to track these virtual interactions.

Brent Leary: Near Field Communication and the impact it will have on person-to-person and machine-to-machine information exchange will have a big impact on CRM in the not too distant future. I’d also throw in connecting the TV to the mix of screens companies will use to create better customer experiences When people are at home with access to a big screen, they will want to leverage that for their interactions and rich content experiences. Companies that begin developing engagement strategies with this in mind should be in line to see some competitive advantage in terms of customer engagement.

While only some of thoughts made the cut, I didn’t want to lose the other ideas that were swirling in my mind as a result of this exercise. I needed a place where I could park the other important trends I’m following…

1. In 2012 and continuing into 2013, I believe businesses will start to explore new dynamics of CRM beginning with the Customer Influence Factor (I.F.). Services such as Klout, PeerIndex, and Kred are by default creating a social customer hierarchy that introduces influence beyond marketing, to now include service and sales professionals.

2. The second trend is the development of CRM systems that integrate I.F. data into the mix. This will help the front line prioritize engagement, personalize engagement, while providing a more comprehensive view of the social customer and their needs and expectations.

3. Naturally this introduces complications and new parameters in how businesses engage and develop relationships with customers. This will by default necessitate the development of new rules of engagement and supporting metrics to convert leads, solve customer issues, and improve experiences.

4. Next, we will see gamification extend beyond marketing to improve loyalty through integrated social rewards programs, social graph data, and a more community-focused effort on expanding the company’s reach through influence and advocacy programs.

5. Finally, the convergence of marketing, service, sales, and business intelligence will set the stage for businesses to build a more holistic front and experience through traditional web, social and mobile networks. Integration signals not only technology frameworks and connected systems and processes for collaboration, but more importantly, a mission, purpose, and charter to meet and exceed customer needs and expectations.

Where do you see CRM headed?

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In this episode of (R)evolution, Nissan’s David Mingle, Director of Customer Management and Erich Marx, Director of Marketing join me for a refreshing conversation about social media’s impact on business transformation, customer experiences, and building an adaptive business model to learn and evolve based on new opportunities.

We explore Nissan’s approach to new media for not only marketing, but also how the company uses social media to invest in and shape the customer experience over time. Having both David and Erich on the show offered a 360 view of the customer and also demonstrates how organizations must rethink the customer journey before, during, and after transactions to ultimately define and lead it. I must say that I appreciate the honesty and full transparency in this discussion. It shows why Nissan is on the road to successful engagement.

At one point at about 1:54 in the discussion Erich Marx shares how the pact between leadership, customer management, and marketing at Nissan is creating a culture of exploration and innovation, “…understanding that we’re defining as we go what our ability is to play and play effectively in this space, a willingness to talk about what’s possible, a willingness to invest…to me, that’s leadership in the space right now…and, a trust that we will deliver ROI and value to the company.”

Season 2, Episode 15

This episode was recorded during the Salesforce Social Advisory Board meeting in San Francisco. Participants included brand managers from the likes of Disney, Livingsocial, P&G, Nissan, SunTrust, Dunkin Donuts, Get Satisfaction, and VW, we address the need for businesses to not only react to conversations but also lead them.

Season Two:

S2E1: How Mercedes Benz Successfully Uses Social Media to Engage
S2E2: Technorati’s Richard Jalichandra on the State and Future of Social Media
S2E3: Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Enchantment
S2E4: Adly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on the Social Era of Celebrity Endorsements
S2E5: Filmmaker and Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain
S2E6: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 1 of 2
S2E7: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 2 of 2
S2E8: Marcel LeBrun of Salesforce Radian6 on the Future of Social Media Monitoring
S2E9: Our Digital Society in the Next 30 Years: An Interview with John Battelle
S2E10: How Social Customer Service is Changing the Culture at Comcast
S2E11: Dunkin’ Donuts Uses Social Media to Improve Customer Relationships and Experiences
S2E12: USA Today’s Jon Swartz on Disruptive Technology’s Impact on Business and Culture
S2E13: Ford’s Jim Farley on the importance of putting your brand in the hands of customers
S2E14: How Suntrust Uses Social Media to Engage Customers and Comply with Regulation

Season One on YouTube

Now on iTunes!

Guest post by Scott Forshay, creator and editor of mobi.luxe. Following him on Twitter @mobiluxe

Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful, productive relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance through scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ valuable time and information. Without the perception that value has been exchanged for value, the relationship becomes essentially one-sided and unrequited attempts at interaction on the part of the consumer will spell the end of the relationship – perhaps permanently.

In the early stages of mobile marketing, the value exchange was almost exclusively defined through promotional-based marketing. Consumers were asked to share their mobile numbers in exchange for coupons. While seemingly primitive by today’s standards, text back couponing remains an effective behavior stimulus for many brands and retailers, but for luxury brands discounting flies in the face of the intrinsic value of the brand. The challenge for innovative prestige brands is defining how best to create a true value exchange with their most loyal advocates while remaining true to themselves and not cheapening the brand in the process of attempting to deepen relationships.
Any value exchange requires the exchange of currency. Whether the currency is monetary, emotional, or informational, it establishes the parameters necessary to define a successful exchange and secures a commitment to future exchanges. With this in mind, an analysis of the efficacy of any value exchange must be measured by the mutually beneficial exchange of mobile currency.

Affluent loyalists of prestigious brands seek greater intimacy with, and priority access to, the brands they most covet. In exchange for priority access, the affluent consumer will exchange premium monetary currency. A mobile campaign touchpoint that directs the consumer to an optimized landing page or microsite featuring a product exclusive to mobile subscribers effectively plays marionette with the heartstrings of affluent consumers by exclusively engaging a prestigious audience with exclusivity and access to product available only to a select audience. Tactics such as these create a successful value exchange whereby a monetary commitment is made by the consumer in exchange for priority access to the brand and the prestige associated with exclusive ownership.

The essence of any coveted brand is the story it conveys. And as Brian Solis believes, “the aspiration it evokes.”

The rich heritage and tradition of the brand is infused with creative vision and continued innovation as the brand narrative unfolds across mediums to engage consumers and create a vision of a lifestyle to be aspired to and desired. Traditionally the brand narrative has been told in a unidirectional fashion through artfully produced photography and film, but the consumer was only capable of experiencing the story in a disconnected way. Mobile, as a medium, is innately transitive in nature, serving as a persistent interface for consumers to navigate an ever-evolving digital ecosystem of retail touchpoints and become, themselves, players in the storytelling experience. Strategically dissecting the brand narrative to take on an episodic form allows the brand to engage audiences in the on-going drama, create desire to see where the story will lead, and create deeper emotional connections in the process. Whether bringing still imagery to digital life through QR codes or augmented reality, targeting desired audiences and engaging them with rich mobile display advertising, or consistently communicating emotional currency via SMS marketing, the mobile value exchange is successful in the exchange of permission to communicate with highly-valued consumers in return for deeper levels of involvement and engagement with the brand.

Regardless the strategies or technologies employed, successful mobile marketing relies heavily on a fair and evenly balanced value exchange between consumer and brand. Given the intensely personal nature of smart devices, coupled with the fact that the device is nearly always within arm’s reach, it is more important in mobile marketing to avoid being intrusive and irrelevant. Consumers will not give up their valuable information in exchange for clutter or noise. Focus on an understanding of the currency of mobile marketing and utilize it to create an exchange that delights both the audience and the brand that value them.

Scott Forshay is a Luxury and Premium Brand Marketing Consultant and Mobile Strategist who’s been featured in PSFK, Luxury Daily, Fashion’s Collective, Business of Fashion, and The Wall Street Journal.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Following the official roll out of its new Timeline, Facebook is introducing Actions, a series of new applications that change how people interact with apps, content, brands, and each other. The new apps will extend Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of frictionless experiences based on Facebook’s Open Graph platform, where apps introduce new ways to share your actions with your friends either implicitly or explicitly. With the new Open Graph platform, developers will introduce new Actions and Action buttons that extend the functionality of sharing beyond Likes to now include a dictionary of suggestive words such as “Want,” “Own,” “Read,” etc.

As Facebook states, “Apps bring your Timeline to life.” Two of the first frictionless Timeline apps I experimented with were Spotify and the Washington Post Reader. These apps, with my approval upon installation, automatically sent updates that share with friends what I was listening to or reading. For example, “Brian Solis is listening to ‘Love will tear us apart’ on Spotify” or “Brian Solis is reading ‘Talking with Aung San Suu Kyi’ on Washington Post Reader.” These updates are designed to pique curiosity and motivate people to either click through to the source and ultimately, install the app for themselves.

With the new Open Graph platform, Facebook is going live with over 60 Timeline App partners including, Ticketmaster, Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, RunKeeper, among others. These apps will extend the interests, activities, and accomplishments of people beyond the moment, to create a more engaged ecosystem around you and your interests.

The Achilles Heel of any social network is the state of engagement among users. In-network sharing and interaction combined with external integration between outside sites, Facebook, and the people who share and engage, are critical to the sustenance and growth any network, especially one that is approaching one billion users. The Like button is far too limiting to fuel ongoing discovery and interaction in a maturing social economy. Expectations grow as complacency perpetually looms.

Frictionless experiences are merely the beginning. Facebook is empowering developers to think beyond the Like button. Yes, you read that correctly. Actions are now going to open up a new genre of buttons that share your accomplishments and desires with your network. Initially, developers will introduce action buttons on their Websites to alert friends to a greater variety of interests and achievements.

In the example below, you can see how Recipe Box is experimenting with two words, “Cooked” and “Want.” Clicking either one connects the Website with Facebook, distributing the action, intention and the destination to the Timeline, News Feed and Ticker. Before, a visitor would simply “Like” the recipe, which might invite a reaction back on Facebook. Certainly, it would require a much more manual approach for someone sharing it to say, “I want to try this.” Now it’s as easy a clicking a button.

As a developer or as a brand manager or marketer, this is your time to rethink not only web design, but the entire click path and experience. It’s not just the button that will trigger shares, it is the page, the design, the words, and consideration of the psychology of sharing. Why would someone want to take this click to action? What will the thread of engagement look like? Those who think it through will find greater engagement, reach, and ultimately adoption of the app. Here are additional insights into the Open Graph platform for developers.

Facebook’s Open Graph invests in what I refer to as the Egosystem, a network in which each person is at the center of their own universe. Each app now extends the persona of each individual, where they tell their story through updates and actions and tailor engagement based on what they do and say. Facebook is simplifying the sharing process for doing so. The idea is that we strengthen relationships through interests and foster conversations based on our actions and intentions. As such, Facebook is investing in the quality of our relationships through technology where the social graph, people we know, slowly transforms into an interest graph, people with whom we share common interests.

Surely our timelines will be riddled with irrelevant updates for a short while until we are compelled to experiment with filters. Of course privacy concerns will one again percolate as people learn how to master their settings. There is physical work required in the migration from social to interest graphs. But, the reward is an improved Timeline, Ticker, and News Feed that matters to you and those who orbit your Egosystem. Here are some tips to get you started via AllFacebook.

This is a positive move for Facebook, developers, and also for brands that hope to invest in consumer engagement and experiences. Effective engagement is an art and science. Those who introduce apps based on the Open Graph platform must be mindful of what it is that is shared frictionlessly and also manually and how it adds value to:

1) The individual sharing and experience,

2) The interest graph, and

3) The developer.

A thoughtful approach inspires meaningful interaction. This comes down to what I refer to as A.R.T. of engagement, it must prompt Actions, Reactions, or Transactions. Each contribute to the quality and caliber of engagement and when designed accordingly, encourages people to share experiences that foster productivity. These should be viewed as pillars for application development. The goal isn’t to trigger frictionless updates. The objective is to inspire noteworthy responses and experiences…or significant actions, reactions and transactions.

Think about this for a moment. Facebook and social media in general is powered by shared experiences. The Open Graph is an invitation to develop applications that stimulate engagement and can and should influence outcomes. This is only the beginning however.  The Open Graph will increase and improve discovery and interaction. Over time, it will also help users refine relationships and the interactions between them.

I have to say with all puns intended, I do like Facebook’s new direction.

Here is an organized list of the initial Open Graph applications courtesy of TheVerge.com:

Travel

Gogobot
Airbnb
TripAdvisor​
Wipolo
Where I’ve Been

Food

Foodspotting
Cookpad
Snooth (wine)
Urbanspoon
Yummly
​Foodily

Shopping / Fashion

Pose
Pinterest
Polyvore
Oodle
Fab.com
eBay
Giftrocket
Payvment
Livingsocial

Fitness

MapMyRun
Runkeeper

Entertainment

Rotten Tomatoes
Dailymotion (French video site)
Cinemur (French video site)
Metacafe (videos)
Ford (game)
Wooga (Bubble Island, Diamond Dash)
OMGPOP (Draw My Thing)
Zynga (Words with Friends, Castleville

Giving

Causes
Fundrazr
Artez.com

Additional Open Graph Apps

BranchOut (job search)
Monster (job search)
Color (photo and video sharing)
Courserank (education)
Grockit (education)
Foursquare (location)
Goodreads (books)
Kobo (books)
StubHub (ticketing)
Ticketmaster (ticketing)
Ticketfly (ticketing)
ScoreBig (ticketing)
Appsfire (app discovery)
Artfinder (art)
Autotrader (cars)

Please see other perspectives of the significance of Facebook’s news by my Altimeter colleagues:

Lora Cecere: A New Technology that should Push Your Buttons

Susan Etlinger: Facebook Apps for Timeline: Three Implications for Business

Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+

Order The End of Business as Usual today…

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Part 16 in an ongoing series that serves as the prequel to my new book, The End of Business as Usual…

It’s a new year and a new set of predictions to set goals and expectations for 2012.  I won’t bother you with the top 10 emerging social networks or apps to focus time and resources. Nor will I gaze in the crystal ball to reveal the five secrets to viral marketing and user/customer acquisition. Instead of adding my forecasts to the endless sea of debatable prophesies, I chose a more aspirational path.

2012 is the year of transformation as digital Darwinism threatens rigid and traditional practices everywhere. Regardless of industry, digital Darwinism is a phenomenon when technology and society evolve faster than the ability to adapt.

Indeed, this is a time when organizations will invest in change to better adapt to emerging market opportunities, to more successfully engage with customers, employees and stakeholders, rethink systems and processes, and ultimately, revive the company’s vision, mission and purpose. The result is an adaptive culture that signals an end to business as usual. Without doing so only expedites the inevitable journey towards irrelevance.  For 2012 and beyond, the following trends serve as beacons for not only survival, but leadership.

Trends for Transformation

Leadership: As technology continues to evolve & permeate work and life, behavior, expectations and communication evolve. Someone must look ahead, see where we need to go and lead the way to relevance. Leadership is something that must be earned. Without a top-down charter toward a direction everyone can march behind, leadership is relegated to operational management. In the age of empowerment, those who march blindly will follow a path not unlike what Steve Jobs envisioned in the infamous Apple Lemmings commercial.

Vision: The stated outlook of organizational direction needs review. When’s the last time you read your company’s vision or mission statement? If you did read it recently, would you Tweet it proudly? In a time when brands are not created, but instead co-created, if vision is unclear or underwhelming, alignment, community and camaraderie will prove elusive.

Strategy: With new media and emerging technology creating a groundswell of customer empowerment, new strategies must focus on the alignment of objectives with meaningful experiences and outcomes. All too often, emerging technology is confused with either disruptive technology, where is impacts how companies work or how customers behave, or that of yet another channel or platform for traditional marketing or selling. Far too much emphasis, budget, and time is placed in new media channels without an understanding of why or what it is that customers expect or appreciate.

Culture: This is a time of change, which requires coalescence and solidarity. We can’t change if the culture is rigid or risk averse. We can’t innovate if those who experiment are not supported. Organizations need to focus on cultivating a culture of adaptation rooted in customer- and employee-centricity and more importantly, empowerment. Culture is everything. It is and should be intentional. It should be designed. Those companies that invest in the development of an adaptive culture will realize improved relationships that contribute to competitive advantages.

People: The 5th P of the marketing mix, “People,” will take center stage. Organizations that embrace the spirit of intrepreneurialism will empower employees to experiment through failure and success to improve engagement and morale. And, by embracing customers, insights will inspire relevant products, services and processes.

Innovation: The ability to recognize new opportunities is perhaps the greatest challenge rivaled only by the ability to execute. Emerging and disruptive technology is now part of the business landscape and customer lifestyle. Innovation, trends, and hype is not going to stop. In fact, it will only amplify. The capacity to identify and consider new solutions and responses is critical. It must be supported by innovative collaboration and decision-making processes and systems to assess and react. Innovation must be perpetual.

Influence: Digital influence is becoming prominent in social networks, turning everyday consumers into new influentials. As a result, a new customer hierarchy is developing forcing businesses to identify and engage to those who rank higher than others. There is no future in any business model that is cemented in reactive engagement. Organizations should identify and engage all connected customers to extend reach outside of problems. Businesses must engage when touchpoints emerge, during decision-making cycles, when positive experiences are shared, or to proactively feed the results who search for insight and direction.  Contributing value to people and investing time and energy into networks of relevance will also earn any organization a position of equal or greater influence.

Localization: For global organizations hoping to connect with customers around the world, localization & contextualization are king in any engagement strategy. This is also true for any engagement strategy regardless of local. Many companies are jumping on every bandwagon imaginable, syndicating content, thinning resources, and investing no more in each network than what’s necessary to maintain a pulse. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Foursquare, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora become broadcast channels for one-to-many strategies and programs that do very little for cultivating dedicated and engaged communities.

Intelligence: One of the biggest trends in 2011 was the development of social media command centers. At the heart of these sophisticated data gathering silos were conversations and tools that allowed community managers to listen, respond, and promote engagement within the company. While social media is introducing the art & science of monitoring to marketing and service teams it is the organizations that invest in technology, teams and processes that will translate activity into actionable insights.

Philanthropic Capitalism: Customers expect values to match their own core values. What used to be a necessary checklist of community focus, such as corporate social responsibility or CSR is now rebooted. Philanthropic capitalism is a business model where companies contribute to worthwhile causes on behalf of customers as part of the transaction. Additionally, customers are expressing that they will also invest in companies where employees are “treated well,” pledging trust and loyalty as a result. The empathetic business model on the horizon requires charitable and sustainable decisions as part of everyday business where customers naturally become stakeholders.

These pillars will serve as the foundation for an adaptable business model where opportunities are readily assessed and innovation is regularly practiced. The reward is relevance, affinity and advocacy. As Leon C. Megginson once said in paraphrasing Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

#AdaptorDie

Order The End of Business as Usual today…

Part 1 – Digital Darwinism, Who’s Next
Part 2 – Social Media’s Impending Flood of Customer Unlikes and Unfollows
Part 3 – Social Media Customer Service is a Failure!
Part 4 – I think we need some time apart, it’s not me, it’s you
Part 5 – We are the 5th P: People
Part 6 – The State of Social Media 2011: Social is the new normal
Part 7 – I like you, but not in that way
Part 8 – Are You Building a Social Brand or a Social Business?
Part 9 – CMO’s are at the Crossroads of Customer Transactions and Engagement
Part 10 – From Social Commerce to Syndicated Commerce
Part 11 – You can’t go back to create a new beginning, but you can begin to change the ending
Part 12 – How to Make Customer Service Matter Again Part 1
Part 13 – How to Make Customer Service Matter Again Part 2
Part 14 – Long Live Blogs! The State of the Blogosphere 2011
Part 15 – Going Global by Going Local: Why localization improves engagement

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Financial institutions are bound to rules and regulation than other companies experimenting in customer engagement, specifically in social media, can ignore. Over the years, SunTrust has stood out as one of several examples that understand how to use regulatory boundaries to inspire a new generation of customer engagement. The result is finding balance between risk and reward to meet customer expectations and improve customer experiences now and over time.

As I’ve always believed…constraint forces creativity.

Bianca Buckridee, AVP of Social Media Engagement at SunTrust shares her story with us on this episode of Revolution.

This episode was recorded during the Salesforce Social Advisory Board meeting in San Francisco. Participants included brand managers from the likes of Disney, Livingsocial, P&G, Nissan, SunTrust, Dunkin Donuts, Get Satisfaction, and VW, we address the need for businesses to not only react to conversations but also lead them.

Season Two:

S2E1: How Mercedes Benz Successfully Uses Social Media to Engage
S2E2: Technorati’s Richard Jalichandra on the State and Future of Social Media
S2E3: Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Enchantment
S2E4: Adly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on the Social Era of Celebrity Endorsements
S2E5: Filmmaker and Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain
S2E6: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 1 of 2
S2E7: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 2 of 2
S2E8: Marcel LeBrun of Salesforce Radian6 on the Future of Social Media Monitoring
S2E9: Our Digital Society in the Next 30 Years: An Interview with John Battelle
S2E10: How Social Customer Service is Changing the Culture at Comcast
S2E11: Dunkin’ Donuts Uses Social Media to Improve Customer Relationships and Experiences
S2E12: USA Today’s Jon Swartz on Disruptive Technology’s Impact on Business and Culture
S2E13: Ford’s Jim Farley on the importance of putting your brand in the hands of customers

Season One on YouTube

Now on iTunes!

Guest post by Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel. She was recently elected to serve on the Board of Directors of Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Follow her on Twitter

With the growth of social media and all the two-way channels of communication open to organizations, brand identity is potentially stronger but more at-risk than ever. Losing control of your brand’s ‘voice’ can be hugely damaging. And companies who have been brand-jacked, that is, had their brand hijacked, often move quickly to shut down the problem. But brand-jacking doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Companies that have learned lessons from the feedback it has given them can grow from the experience. Let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly of brand-jacking.

Cultural awareness

Writers who long for their characters to take on a life of their own would give their right arm to see their creations appearing on Twitter with their own profiles. Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, Frodo Baggins and Edward Cullen all tweet regularly. Some accounts are more flattering to the original creation than others, and at some point brand managers have to decide how far they are comfortable in letting these unauthorized versions take the joke. AMC famously blocked the unofficial (but character-faithful) Twitter accounts of the Mad Men characters, only to backtrack when fans complained. AMC may have realized too late that social media character-jacking can be a sincere form of flattery and the ultimate proof that your fictional creation has made the transition to cultural relevance.

Identity jacking

Twitter-jacking isn’t limited to fictional characters. When your name is also your brand, this can potentially be very damaging. Celebrities and politicians have had their social media accounts hacked, and there can be multiple fake accounts for high-profile individuals at any one time. While Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus have all been victims of malicious hacking, some fake accounts are more amusing than malevolent. Many are so obviously fake as to not cause offense. Some are created for a satirical or surreal purpose.

Bad PR

The creation of malicious fake Twitter accounts can be equally detrimental to companies and organizations. There have been many examples of Twitter accounts being hijacked in protest to a company’s unpopular policy or handling of an event. Oil companies Exxon Mobil and BP have both been victims of Twitter impersonation, and following BP’s handling of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, the satirical @BPGlobalPR has attracted over 160,000 followers.

While this can be seen as a brand disaster, a company wishing to engage in some positive PR could use the feedback such channels offer to gauge the public’s perception and respond accordingly. Contrast the endless examples of companies who delete negative blog and Facebook posts with the policy of the @virginmedia team. The company makes a point of responding to every customer online mention whether it is positive or not. In one case, a woman tweeted that her Virgin Media connection wasn’t working and her two year-old daughter was upset at having to miss her favorite TV show, Peppa Pig. Not only did Virgin send an engineer immediately, he was carrying a Peppa Pig toy for the little girl. Think what this type of response can do for your brand perception, loyalty and preference!

Fake Amazon reviews and tags

Following the popularity of the Amazon ‘The Mountain Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee‘ prank, protesters have begun to use Amazon’s open review and tagging model to highlight unpopular products or issues. The pepper spray used in the UC Davis Occupy incident has been given over 360 tongue-in-cheek reviews on its Amazon page, as well as satirical product images and tags such as ‘tools of fascism’, ‘oppression’ and ‘police state.’ Note, the product is currently listed as unavailable. Similar cynical additions have crept into otherwise serious product pages, particularly books by controversial public figures or products by companies with disputed ethical practices.

Aspirational branding

One problem facing aspirational, luxury brands is when their product is adopted by an undesirable demographic, which can lead to the alienation of their core customers. This occurs most commonly with name-checking by rappers or in popular culture although it is rarely a serious concern.

A more serious predicament is when the product has such an identifiable design that a mainstream take-over can have a disastrous effect. This happened in the 1990s in Britain to Burberry when its iconic tartan pattern became popularized by soccer players, then adopted by working-class fans who wore cheap imitations to such an extent that its customer base abandoned it in droves.

Image: goodhumormarketing.com

Knowing where to draw the line

Brand managers are always going to want to deal with a negative image but sometimes an over-reaction can lead to more bad publicity than simply doing nothing. The recent attempts by Stella Artois to move away from their ‘wife beater’ stereotype. For those who don’t know, the beer’s high percentage of alcohol was allegedly linked with violence and anti-social behavior in Europe. When the company attempted to make changes to its Wikipedia page to remove the ‘wife beater’ reference, it backfired when the deletion was traced back to its own lobbying group. Given Wikipedia’s ethos of user-generated material, this led to a backlash that was quickly picked up in the press. The references were restored on Wikipedia, but the negative publicity had already reached a far wider audience than the original Wikipedia article.

The good side of brand-jacking

But image hijacking can work the other way. Corona was originally marketed in the USA as a Mexican beer for Mexican people. Then, it was adopted by surfers in the 1970s who identified with it as a ‘beach beer’. They helped to popularize Corona among the wider population and by the late 1990s, it had overtaken Heineken as the number one imported beer.

Customer evangelism

It can be difficult for companies to let go of their tightly-controlled image and allow fans to steer the direction of a brand. But the enthusiasm of fans can be instrumental in popularizing products or media. Coca-Cola’s fan-created Facebook page was the second most popular page on Facebook in 2009. Company representatives asked to partner with them rather than demanding to take it down, realizing the power of fan-driven social media. Many brands choose to create an official page alongside unofficial ones knowing that heavy handed attempts to block fan pages can lead to a damaging backlash. Although, there is always the problem that a site’s popularity can be potentially damaging if it publishes unfavorable news or views about the company to thousands of followers.

Conclusion

The rise of social media has given customers unprecedented access to brands. This can be a double-edged sword: companies are able to communicate with customers in more ways than ever, but brand managers need to be aware that communication is a two-way process. Customer expectations have risen accordingly and they are willing to act against companies who don’t meet their expectations. Managing communications successfully, however, can be enormously valuable to a company that recognizes the importance of its customers’ voice.

Registered Image: Shutterstock

About a year ago, I was asked to testify as an expert witness in a celebrity case where the celebrity in question had Tweeted a negative assessment of a particular service provider. The service provider sued claiming that the said Tweet caused significant damage to their reputation, which ultimately contributed to an unrecoverable loss in overall sales. I turned down the opportunity because in my research, I couldn’t substantiate with confidence that the Tweet caused the amount of stated damages…or anywhere close to it. Naturally, that made my testimony undesirable by the attorneys representing their service provider client. The celebrity eventually lost the case and as a result, paid a hefty sum. This case now serves as precedent for any and all case that will emerge as people seek restitution against potentially damaging status updates.

Ever since that suit, I often think about the value of a Tweet, its reach, and ultimately the worth of an account and its followers. The same is true for any social media account. In recent news, there is a developing case that is prompting me to rethink value once again as well as the importance of putting into place measures for responsible social media communication and overall management.

The situation this time around involves PhoneDog, a popular interactive mobile news and reviews resource, and a former employee by the name of Noah Kravitz. Before leaving the organization, Kravitz helped bring the organization onto Twitter, creating an account with the company name in his handle. @PhoneDog_Noah was an account he created on his own accord to engage with customers and promote the company. He also used the account for personal interaction. Upon his departure, Noah states that he informed management that he would be taking the Twitter account with him and changing the name from @PhoneDog_Noah to @NoahKravitz. Now, according to his side of the story, his management was more than fine with this change. As he asserts, his management casually asked for him to update the account with PhoneDog related information “every now and then.” I should also point out that the @PhoneDog account remains in the possession of the business.

Now, either in a turn of the tides or simply protecting what it believed it owned all along, PhoneDog is suing Noah Kravitz for $170,000 in damages it claims were caused by Kravitz not turning over the account. That’s $2.50 for every one of the account’s 17,000 followers for the 4 months Kravitz has not transferred back account management to the PhoneDog team.

This is a good moment for pause and reflection.

$170,000 is not a trivial amount. Noah most likely does not possess the means to pay these damages should he lose. In a recent interview, he projected only the utmost confidence that he was in the right and that he believes this case has no merit. He states that his employer was not interested in the account at his time of departure and because he made it a point of conversation during his exit, that he pursued reasonable measures to communicate his intentions.

More importantly, $2.50 is on the block to become a precedent in the assignment of value to Twitter followers. It’s a number that’s difficult to fathom as it’s practically arbitrary.

So who’s right in this case? Noah? His employer?

They say possession in nine-tenths of the law. In this case, it comes down to intention. We do know that Noah created the account with good intentions. But he did create the account to help his employer earn relevance in a new and important media channel. Chances are that he managed the account and grew its following during business hours, which can be considered an “invention” during his course of employment. As a result, this can be considered property of the organization because they have a vested interest in its development and Noah was compensated for his time.

In Noah’s defense, he claimed that he presented his intentions to take the account to management and received the blessing to take official ownership of the account. This can represent a form of negotiation that protects Noah from damages. He did not however, receive this approval in writing and as such, all impressions and statements are challengeable.

Another angle to examine here is that of the Twitter followers in question. Do they remain loyal to Noah or to PhoneDog? Using an automated engagement platform such as PeopleBrowsr, all 17,000 followers can be asked via DM whether they would like to remain a follower of Noah’s, unfollow Noah and now follow @PhoneDog or follow both.

When British TV journalist Laura Kuenssberg changed stations from the BBC to ITV, she struck a deal that allowed her to take her 60,000 followers. Her last BBC tweet read, “@ITVLauraK Laura Kuenssberg Thanks you for all your messages excellent followers! My last tweet as @BBCLauraK – shortly to become @ITVLauraK.”

While the results of this case will play out in either court or arbitration, businesses and employees should take this time to communicate intentions and expectations. Additionally, companies should invest in the development of clear policies, guidelines, and compliance processes and systems to protect employees and intellectual property (IP).

If we look at email as precedent, it’s largely understood that the email account and all communication remains company property when an employee leaves. The contacts made during employment are exportable. But, businesses already possess proven rules that govern the engagement of employees and past employees in regards to how contacts can be engaged post employment, how, and for what duration. For example, a sales person is typically not allowed to make contact with business clients during a fixed period of a year or longer.

There’s one other angle to review here and it is worthy of serious consideration and ultimately new internal rules and procedures. If we use Noah Kravitz as an example, at some point he will join a new company and start a new career. With his 17,000 Twitter followers, Kravitz boasts a notable personal brand. This brand can be of great value to the organization of course, but it is his brand to cultivate. Additionally, Noah would need to treat his personal brand and any presences that he manages as an employee-owned carve out. In his HR file, it would then be noted that these accounts are his personal assets. However, businesses must now consider policies, rules, and procedures for managing a personal brand without disrupting the employees role, focus, or the employer’s brand.

I took a moment to speak with Joe Chernov, VP of Content Marketing for Eloqua (an Altimeter Group client). He believes that communication and regulation are key, “I am concerned both as the architect of my employer’s social strategy and as a hiring manager. The two questions on my mind are Will an eventual decision require me to forfeit my personal following? And, how can I ensure the organization maintains rights to relevant follower lists should we onboard additional social media personnel? The battleground for employees and employers alike may shift to employment offer negotiations, when each party has an opportunity to assert rights to intellectual property. Employers may wish to add specific language requiring that all social media handles, followings and content be transferred completely and exclusively to the Company. Meanwhile employees interested in developing and protecting their own “brands” might push back against the same with specific exclusionary language to ensure they may take their tweets with them upon termination. Of course, these battlegrounds can often be avoided by thoughtful dialogue.”

Social media is new and at the same time the laws that should govern account management, customer engagement, and community development are already established.

Like in any customer or employee facing account, the rules of engagement must be defined, articulated, and accepted. Additionally, these rules of engagement should be observed through compliance practices to ensure brand integrity and employee performance through training, improvement and also reward.

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In 2011, the digital landscape underwent a significant shift that will have profound effects on business in 2012.

The challenge is that hardly any business leaders noticed. That’s not their fault however.

Although the impact of technology on business and consumer behavior was widely reported, in-depth reports on what to do next or how this will affect their business specifically were scant at best.

I’m sure you heard it from experts everywhere, “You need a Facebook brand page! Why are you not on Twitter yet? Have you checked-in on Foursquare? Hurry up and get set up on Google+. If you don’t get on social media, you’re going to go out of business!”

And, here you are…still in business. But like any keen business leader or entrepreneur, you’re avidly thinking about your next move. You already know that running the show in a mode of “business as usual” is not only limiting, it’s terribly complacent. But if you are to change, you need to better understand exactly how technology is influencing the behavior of your customers and why.

The truth is that you can create brand pages on every social network you can imagine and you won’t succeed unless you know whom you’re trying to reach and where, what it is they expect and value, and how these channels represent a meaningful opportunity for you and your consumers to connect. You first must answer what’s in it for them and what’s in it for you.

What the social media gurus aren’t telling you is that the landscape for business isn’t changing because of social media, it’s changing because consumer expectations are evolving.

Your customers are empowered through technology where social media becomes only part of the disruption.

Your job in 2012 is to not embrace new technology with arms wide open, but instead understand it and learn which disruptive technologies separate you from existing and potential customers.

What’s unique about “connected” consumers is that they find and share information differently than their more traditional counterparts. They make decisions differently than the everyday consumers you’re used to engaging as well.

But keep in mind, the connected do not displace your traditional customer, they simply expand your opportunity to grow your business.

How you’re marketing, selling, and servicing customers today is largely missing this new breed of consumer, and thus limiting your overall opportunity for growth.

To reach the connected consumer, you must first walk in their footsteps. It takes research, not guesswork. It takes understanding, not skepticism. And it takes a dedicated, not generic or approximated, approach.

Why? Because while your traditional consumer relies on tangible media such as TV, radio, newspapers, direct mail, email, Google search or static websites, the connected consumer is not blindly seeking information, they are reliant on the right information finding them, in the right places.

For example, your new prospective customer lives on their smartphones and tablets. They network with friends, family and the businesses they support in mobile and social networks.

They check in to locations to signal to people nearby that they’re in the neighborhood and to alert businesses that they’re ready to interact live.

Consumers install apps to better make decisions and to broadcast those decisions to their social networks.

What’s more, they research products and services based on the experiences of their peers in real-time, and in turn, share their experiences with everyone else to shape and steer the experiences of others.

In doing so they expand the idea of “audiences” to something far more efficient and expansive — an audience with an audience of audiences.

While it seems foreign or dismissible to those who are not actively embracing or even dependent on disruptive technology, connected consumers are only growing in size, magnitude and influence. Ignoring them is a step toward digital Darwinism.

Today, no company is too big to fail or too small to succeed. Simply knowing your customer is one thing. But, understanding how they make decisions and participating in that process influences behavior while building meaningful relationships.

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Originally published on Monster.com