Thanks to Forbes.com for this image

How do you feel about this news? I have mixed feelings. On one hand, as a Facebook user I’m the victim of overly broad targeting strategies of companies I have no interest in, and get my feed clogged with ads for personal development courses. On the other hand I manage Facebook pages for brands.

I think that overall that it will be good for Facebook overall –  encouraging more innovation in terms of paid and owned content strategy, and stop over-reliance on contests, app download calls to action and other common engagement attempts. I hope they won’t hide posts that I actually want to see from brands whose pages I have liked for personal reasons.

As someone who was involved in Burning Man for a number of years and also many other offshoot art collectives in the past, I am very interested in the appearance of the ‘Gift Economy’ in everyday life. After all, in the West we have enough ‘stuff’ –  much of which does not desperately need to be monetised – so why not give some of those things away? It also has a strong business case – as per this past argument in Harvard Business Review about how it underpins social media interactions.

We already have this offline – at networking events, we give our contacts – we give things to charity shops or to people on Freecycle, so the idea of using the power and wisdom of the crowd to share things we have in abundance or to request things that are hard to find is ideal for the social marketplace.

Impossible.com is an exciting and visionary manifestation of this concept. Instead of focussing on just things we no longer need, it’s more geared towards people coming together to help create something that doesn’t yet exist in another person’s life. While this social platform has received considerable press –  sparking a debate on the value of gift economics in today’s society, I’ve decided to ignore many of the reviews and just dive on and have a play myself. Within an hour I’ve connected with an expert on some of the more complex aspects of Facebook development, given some content strategy tips to a startup and posted a request for an event speaker. And people get back quickly! So for those who wonder whether it can be used for reasons of value – my experience has been a definite yes. You can see more on this during Founder Lily Cole’s SXSW interview.

I’ve also asked for an invite to Gifteng – which is more focussed on the giving away of actual goods – so an upgraded version of Freecycle if you will. I look forward to telling you more on this if they accept my invitation to review!

An influencer network: Credit: Traackr, a LEWIS Pulse partner

As our media environment changes, there is an increasing need to focus on influencer relations/marketing as a ‘beyond media’ strategy for marketing communications going forward. For agency practitioners it is exciting too, as it involves a departure from business as usual – demanding that we all become digital natives and immerse ourselves into social platforms and start to build relationships with new audiences – from think tanks, to regulators, to industry experts, special interest groups and others.

What’s more these influencer relationships won’t only exist online, taking them offline and actually getting to know these people. When we engaged in relationship building programmes with influencers, we ideally want to know, how we can help these influencers do their jobs more effectively, give them a higher profile, help them promote what they do better or connect with people within our network.

Using this approach can create a ‘triple win’ for brands, influencers and agency consultants as the facilitators of the relationship. Here are some examples of achievable outcomes as a result of moving towards a more influencer-focussed model:

First consideration: Create awareness within new communities

A company’s brand may attract attention in the press and on social media from the general public, but what do politicians think of that company? What legislation is being debated that may affect how the company does its business? Stepping back to think of these larger issues can help to elevate the purpose of your comms activity to more than sharing messages or increasing awareness with current consumers. Where appropriate, connecting with selected members of the political community, powerful lobby groups and think tanks can take a company’s views on the market into account when communicating with their online stakeholders.

Shorter term: build your stakeholder network, educate them, discover new spheres of influence, 

As part of the process of establishing these relationships, you can bring influencers within third party organisations closer to your client’s brand by inviting them to contribute content to a company blog, or attend a conference a company is organising, or to share a panel session. By giving influencers valuable opportunities to build their profile, a valuable side effect of this is that they will become more acquainted with your client’s position in the market, what their views are and so on. It is often the case that analysts and investors will already be being courted in this way – if so, the processes to onboard influencers onto a similar relationship building programme may already be in place. In connecting with these influencers and working with them, you may also discover untapped communities that may be receptive to your clients’ thinking and ideas.

Longer term: Shape the conversation, create behavioural change, discover new customers

As these relationships mature, you will begin to see that some of your initial ‘long list’ of influencers become effective advocates for an idea that those within your client’s company believe in. Instead of trying to get them to talk specifically about your products, focus on themes that are genuinely of as much interest to your influencers as they are to clients. The more your spokespeople own those relationships with the influencers the better. This ‘depth of conviction’ in a shared vision for a given sector, or shared opinion on an emerging, disruptive market trend will travel further than endorsements of specific products.

This shared vision or opinion can also influence behaviours and opinions within online communities, especially if working with relevant ‘heavyweight’ influencers who are both popular and have their content shared regularly. It can also support inbound marketing efforts by drawing out potential customers and partners from within these untapped spheres of influence.

It has been an event featuring some exciting launches – wearables meets virtual reality in the shape of Oculus, Whisper’s competitor Secret.ly launches its SXSW feed, Edward Snowden comes out of hiding to present a keynote plus some chilling reminders about the topic of Data Permanency (read: if you want to be naughty, don’t get caught online doing it). Perhaps Forbes is right… I should have booked my ticket!

Credit: Whisper App

The PostSecret of the Noughties generation! Also a great place for brands who trade on secrecy to ‘leak’ details of parties and events to online communities. Given that it’s SXSW –  cue users sharing details on Gary Vaynerchuk’s secret wine party, and music labels teasing fans with secret gig hints…

Credit: IBN Live

I credit myself on being helpful and being good and providing answers to things, but Jelly has really tested my mettle. From cooking tips for meat I don’t eat to best after hours drinking holes in Mitte, Berlin (sorry I only know Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg) I’ve been scrolling down helplessly all morning.

Remember how ages ago crowdsourcing ideas was all the rage? Well, looks like this could be another outlet for brands to get help in the form of ideas.

Gartner 2012 Hype Cycle

I went to a really insightful talk this week at General Assembly about the business benefits of gamification  –  I run a contests fairly frequently in my line of work, so it provided me with some food for thought to say the least.

My main line of interest however, is exploring where gamifying campaigns for B2B brands can deliver benefits beyond ‘driving awareness’. I stumbled across this report published last year for Accenture that explores its origins, its trajectory and also its relevance to tomorrow’s businesspeople –  namely milennials. Furthermore, as Gamification enters prominence (as illustrated by its position on Gartner’s hype cycle  – pictured above) we see more mainstream conversations about the topic, and how it can be applied where it matters… namely in big business.

One challenge however, is correct application –  I was reminded, during this lecture that sticking a badge on something, or setting up a leaderboard or contest does not mean it will automatically create engagement with your selected stakeholder audience, and it’s not so long ago that Business Insider published a report that suggested a large number of gamification initiatives would fail, despite the massive market potential. And as one might expect a great place to start is with digital campaigns

But does that mean that we should be wary of this trend? Not at all. I’ve attempted to gamify a business process and failed once at this – I was lacking a strong enough incentive and the technology partner I was using faced a few challenges – but I’ve also won at it too. It’s definitely worth revisiting, refining and pushing towards success. I’d like to share the presentation (with the author’s permission) once it’s ready, so stay tuned for an update to this post.

I’ve recently made the decision to invest in my future by taking a Digital Marketing Diploma – despite having a PR background, the changing nature of the online sphere – with the advent of social platforms like BuzzFeed for instance – creates a world where commissioning  co-creating engaging content with media partners becomes just as important as storytelling, SEO and getting your information into the hands of influence. One consequence of convergence is that although it’s great to have something that you are great at – a strong footing across disciplines is becoming essential.

And it doesn’t end there – tomorrow’s workforce will be a technically savvy one, not just socially literate. We’re already seeing a slew of news articles about teaching future generations to code –  even including it in the national curriculum – My personal prediction is that with the new code army will come a new breed of ‘intrapreneurs‘ that will develop tomorrow’s killer apps but owned by brands. After all, why leave all the fun to the entrepreneurs?

Working within a large business gives you access to reams of data –  this information can often point us to problems that need solving. Multinational consumer and tech brands have the structure, the economical might, the global coverage and the brand awareness to fully realise the potential of a promising piece of tech innovation. Could we see the next WhatsApp coming from within the doors of an established consumer tech brand? I think so!

I believe we’ll see a future where brands not only tell their story through the range of platforms that are already available –  they’ll also demonstrate their innovation by fostering and sponsoring the innovative efforts of digital businesspeople that can hack their way through tomorrow’s business issues.

One of the prominent examples of a company that is living out the vision of a social business for instance, is IBM – whose employees, partners, consultants and advocates are legion on Twitter and the blogosphere , and have an established position on social business. Business initiatives of this nature are simply not possible without the support of the C-suite – and especially, the CIO as the driver of an information strategy that encompasses our evolving digital world. The IBM interactive offering represents a new development in terms of enterprise software companies moving into markets that are new to them, leveraging big data to help companies like Coca Cola and Air Canada optimise their digital activities.

For those that may be yet to fully embrace these ideas, it might seem like a tall order; the question  “where to start”may arise – I joined the Business Value Exchange’s CIO social media Twitter Chat in December 2013 and noticed that as well as some bullish advocates for the Social CIO there were also more reserved voices.

Even if the culture of your business does not support such activity at this time, the simplest way to start acting as a social business is to start finding, following interacting with potential valuable prospects on various professional social platforms, as well as speaking with them in person – mixing the private conversations that take place offline with the more general professional chatter that can take place online, thus increasing the touch points between both businesses. As the individuals that often ultimately sign off on social media policies CIOs are well positioned to be knowledgeable about the parameters.

CIOs can take inspiration from markets where the Social CIO message is more mature –  such as the United States. There are already a number in higher education and understandably tech that they can also connect with and learn from.

Depending on the nature of any given business, there can be a strong case for being given the opportunity to make the technological infrastructure of the business flexible enough to enable more social interaction. A good example comes from a prediction that for many businesses has come true – back in 2012 Carol Rozwell, a Gartner analyst suggested that failing to respond to customer issues on social media will carry the same stigma as “ignoring” customer calls and emails – today an active social CRM system is something that many companies today take for granted, as a way to help drive loyalty. Social business evangelist Brian Solis also marks this year as the one where social becomes mainstream in business for other functions such as internal comms, stakeholder collaboration and recruitment.

Social infrastructure providers and consultants are well positioned to support CIOs to help their enterprise make the transition effectively – it needn’t (and shouldn’t try to) be an overnight process. The cultural change processes and training provided will inevitably take time – and can take place at a pace that respects risk management issues, compliance and other sector trends particular to any given sector.

Despite the concerns that may exist it is essential to be aware of the fact that social business isn’t going away –  and a more mobile, BYOD-driven working world may only facilitate this development further. As a result, it’s better to have a framework in place proactively, than to have to react to the trend as it evolves later.

If you have a few moments, take a look at this article I have written for the Guardian’s Women in Leadership section on role models.  Enjoy!