(1) Rawn Shah – Social Business Strategist at IBM and Forbes Blogger
Follow @Rawn

(2) Dion Hinchcliffe – Executive Vice President at Dachis Group
Follow @dhinchcliffe

(3) Sameer Patel – Partner @ Sovos. Enterprise Social & Collaborative Strategy and Technology.
Follow @SameerPatel

(4) Chelsi Nakano – Writer, CMSWire
Follow @chelsi

(5) Mark Yolton – SVP, SAP Community Network
Follow @MarkYolton

(6) Sandy Carter, VP Social Business Evangelism at IBM
Follow @Sandy_Carter

(7) Olivier Blanchard – Author, Social Media ROI
Follow @thebrandbuilder

(8) Haydn Shaughnessy – Writer for Forbes
Follow @haydn1701

(9) Matt Ridings – Co Founder & CEO of SideraWorks
Follow @techguerilla

(10) Maria Ogneva – Head of Community At Yammer
Follow @themaria

(11) Jeremiah Owyang – Analyst at Altimeter Group
Follow @jowyang

(12) Chris Perry – Head of Digital, Weber Shandwick
Follow @cperry248

(13) Esteban Kolsky – Analyst & Social CRM Expert
Follow @ekolsky

(14) David Armano -EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman
Follow @Armano

(15) Marcia Conner – Blogger, Author
Follow @marciamarcia

(16) Rachel Happe – Founder, Community Round Table
Follow @rhappe

(17) John Bell – Head of Ogilvy, 360 Digital Influence
Follow @jbell99

(18) David Christopher – Social Business Leader for Oracle EMEA
Follow @davidchris

(19) Matt Dickman – EVP, Social Business Innovation at Weber Shandwick
Follow @MattDickman

(20) Mark Fidelman
A Social Business GM at harmon.ie. Writer for Business Insider
Follow @markfidelman

(21) Dave Gray – Author and Partner at Dachis Group
Follow @davegray

(22) Brian Vellmure – Blogger and Social Business Consultant
Follow @BrianVellmure

(23) Amber Naslund – Co-Founder, SideraWorks
Follow @ambercadabra

(24) Chris Carfi – Social Business Consultant at Ants Eye View
Follow @ccarfi

(25) David F. Carr – Editor of Information Week’s ‘The BrainYard’ Community
Follow @davidfcarr

Opening the doors behind the firewall to external people and being open to feedback is certainly one attribute of a social business along with operational elements like communication, connections and culture as Peter mentions.

I have always had this philosophy that a social business enables a brand to communicate more effectively with customers, partners, employees etc. and as Peter says “scale” programs such as Ford’s initiative earlier this month. That being said, a natural conclusion of Ford being a social business is that their external engagement initiatives are second to none.

However, a recent report by Visibli, a real-time analytics platform shows otherwise. Visibli analyzed  the top 5 auto brands to see which one of them is most engaging on Twitter, and how they do it. Some of the findings include:

• Honda is more engaging on Twitter than Ford and rest of ‘big auto.’
• Honda does it by targeting the right followers — 45% of their followers are interested in auto-related content, higher than any of the other brands
• Contrary to popular ‘best practice,’ almost 100% of Honda’s tweets are auto-related. Zero variety … but it works!

Other than owning a Honda Civic many, many years ago, I have zero visibility into Honda as a company. Are there social business initiatives happening behind the firewall? Are teams collaborating and engaging internally? I really don’t know and I don’t know anyone who works there. But here are a few considerations:

• This is one study from one vendor; and one could argue that a retweet is not an accurate measure of engagement OR at least the the only measure of engagement
• Perhaps Ford is still early on in their journey of social business transformation per Chris Carfi from Ants Eye View.
• It could very well be that Honda just has a stellar marketing team (or agency) and utilizes real-time analytics to provide extremely relevant content to the community – the right content, at the right time, in the right channel to the right customer.
• Increased customer engagement is only one output of a social business – other outputs include an increase in employee engagement, increase in employee productivity, efficiency and sales; innovation, collaboration, etc.

Image: StockFresh Speedometer

Before an advocate program is launched, a decision very early in the planning process needs to be made about which technology platform to use in order to manage and communicate with advocates. Many companies use private LinkedIn and/or Facebook groups to manage back and forth communication. This option is free but brands have to work within the technical capabilities of such platforms and customization is a non factor. Others use private communities built with very scalable  applications like Jive or Lithium. This option give more flexibility to match the look/feel of a corporate website as well as integration with other sCRM or online monitoring technology suites.

One company that I have been keeping a close eye on is Fancorps. Fancorps is a customer advocacy platform which enables organizations to activate and reward customers for word of mouth recommendations and reviews. – essentially transforming them from a friend, fan or follower to an advocate.

Here is a quick review of their back end platform:

The dashboard is a quick snapshot or representation of the community environment. It allows brands to quickly gauge the “who, what, where” of the program.

With all the hype about gamification and how it drives engagement, Fancorps has built a significant gaming experience within their platform via a leaderboard and advocate tracking interface.

The Fancorps platform can gauge how involved and influential each advocate is with Activity Points, Store Credits and Klout Score; and then rewarding the advocates based on these currencies for their time and effort.

Fancorps allows brands to manage and assign tasks to advocates.

Sort/Assign tasks based on demographics and Klout score

What this means to me is that the backbone of social business transformation has to be grounded on behavior change (culture) – not technology, not social media, not process. In order for effective change to become an epidemic, a certain level of trust needs to manifest itself within an organization through behaviors, actions and communication. And trust only gives birth when business leaders not only talk the talk, but walk the walk as well (or, begin to change their behavior).  This is one reason why I often write about IBM and the great leadership they are taking in this space.

There is certainly change happening in many organizations today but it’s usually within small pockets of teams led by various change agents with little to no coordinated effort to move the organization collaboratively with one vision.

Here are a few indicators to determine if your company is beginning to evolve:

• Company leadership mandating that internal teams collaborate across functional business units, geographies, product organizations and channel partners (they also have to be collaborating themselves not just telling others to do it)
• CEO and/or executive teams using social technologies to communicate internally & externally and encouraging employees to do the same
• Global/functional teams sharing best practices frequently; organizational silos dying a slow death
• Social behaviors become engrained in the everyday fabric of employees’ workflow, processes and job functions
• Social business initiatives becomes a consistent line item in marketing, operations and IT budgets
• Human resources adds “social media” type of behaviors in job descriptions and employees are then held accountable

Now the question is .. what are you doing to change your behavior?

Image: BigStock Paper Lunch Bag

It saddens me that social media can be used to provoke behavior like this.  A case WAY TO CLOSE TO HOME in Livermore (20 minutes away from my house) has opened my eyes to the problem with social media in the educational environment. Unfortunately, it had to take the arrest of a Livermore teacher in a child molestation case to have school officials re-examine the social media policy between teachers and students. Investigators say 40-year-old Marie Johnson’s relationship with a 14-year-old boy began with text messages, Facebook postings and instant messaging. Video below.

This is not an isolated case either and I am sure there are hundreds more! In fact, several recent cases in West Michigan, people in authority — teachers, staff members, etc. — have been accused of sending inappropriate messages on social media sites to students.

In business, it’s about co-creation, collaboration and making sure that the entire organization is helping drive the business forward together. And in some isolated cases, social business initiatives are gray in terms of ownership, governance etc. There is no real black and white.

But in situations like this that involve children and an institution that I pay taxes to, it is black and white. There should be absolutely NO contact in social media between teachers and students under 18. No collaboration, no conversation, no negotiation, no committees and no center of excellence needed to make a decision. There are enough problems with the world we live in and with the educational system; and adding this to the mix won’t help parents, teachers, school officials, students and everyone else involved.

What do you think? Am I way off base? Jumping to conclusions?  I’d love to hear from some teachers and understand your points of view.

Here is my attempt at reviewing Dr. Wu’s book, The Science of Social.

Chapter 1 is really about a brand needing a deep commitment to community building. Dr. Wu starts of the chapter highlighting 7 myths:

• Myth 1 – Being there is enough: a brand needs to do more than just “be there” for the sake of “being there”. Community building is a commitment to listen, to engage, to act – just like a marriage.
• Myth 2 – Social channels are an opportunity to broadcast direct, outbound marketing campaigns to a massive audience: most brands start off with this mindset but learn really fast that broadcasting marketing messages is grounds for community abandonment, lack of trust, and complete failure in social media.
• Myth 3 – OMG, going social means I have to make every customer my BFF: finding a small set of “superfans” or advocates is the key to driving community growth and meaningful conversations.
• Myth 4 – I am the authority on my company, products and services: the recent issues with Netflix, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless prove this time and time again to be false.
• Myth 5 – If we go social, we must be on every channel: brands need to be smart and prepared to scale before they create a multitude of social channels. Listening to the online conversation will help determine which networks a brand should spend time in.
• Myth 6 – Influencer campaigns don’t work: they do work if they are a part of a meaningful community
• Myth 7 – Social media are all the same: social media encompasses more than just Twitter and Facebook; and Dr. Wu breaks down the difference between communities and social networks.

Chapter 2 is about cultivating superfans and influence. Much of this chapter explores what makes superfans tick; and the underlying nature of influence, trust and relationships. According to Wu, superfans account for 1 – 2% of the community and can create real business value:

• Lower support costs by answering questions from the community
• Helps a brand scale and manage a multitude of fans
• Helps with marketing because superfans will serve as evangelists and tell others
• Contribute to ideation, co-creation and constructive feedback
• Spend time with the brand, in the community (essentially becoming the brand)
• Generate content on the site (articles, tutorials, Q&As)
• Quantify ROI

Dr. Wu continues to analyze the 1% (or superfans) and examines their behaviors, the way they interact, act and influence others to act. He then goes into detail about the six factors of influence:

• Domain Credibility
• High Bandwidth
• Content Relevance
• Timing Relevance
• Channel Alignment
• Target Confidence

And, he points out that it’s not enough for someone just to be popular. It’s not even enough to have a big, influential, talkative following. Someone who is truly influential for the brand needs to have all six factors listed above.

The chapter concludes on the basis of trust and Dr. Wu even cites Richard Edelman, “Trust is no longer a commodity that is acquired but rather a benefit that is bestowed.”

Chapter 3 is about gamification and motivation. The biggest takeaway for me was that people buy products and services.  But they crave experiences and that’s what gets them to come back time, and time and time again. Throughout this chapter and the entire book, Dr. Wu gives quick nuggets and case studies that validate his thinking.

What also stood out for me was the concept of motivation; and Dr. Wu’s explanation that the goal of dynamic gamification is to create lasting engagement. And, that the job of game mechanics is to reliably, predictably and repeatedly drive customer behavior.

Chapter 4 is about a deeply engaged community. This is where Dr. Wu starts to bring all the points from the previous chapters together in one cohesive thought process – the power of the 1%, what motivates them and the altruism principle.

Dr. Wu also illustrates the characteristics of a well designed community:

• prioritizes and ranks good feedback
• acknowledges the most useful contributions
• allows anyone to earn a good reputation
• awards privileges to community members who have provided value to others within the community (i.e. writing blog content, early visibility into new products, co-creation of products, processes, etc.)

On the contrary, Dr. Wu also illustrates the problems with siloed communities:

• offers little incentive for members to engage with others
• decreases overall participation levels
• prevents the influx of superfans

This book was very enjoyable to read. It’s full of insights, wisdom and key learnings that will help marketers, support professionals, executives or anyone else wanting to learn how to create meaningful communities on the social web. Dr. Wu is the ONE social media scientist and yet too humble of a man to even admit it, much less put it in his Twitter bio.

I highly recommend reading this book.

The goals of the program are to help students:

• understand the tenets of a smarter Social Business through the use of social networking software;
• build business skills and real-world experience by assessing the social business capabilities and business challenges of an IBM partner organization;
• develop teamwork and collaboration skills;
• better understand how to use IBM social networking technologies;
• deepen relationships between faculty, students, IBM, and IBM business partners.

Here is a video of SJSU students discussing  social business and the skills they have developed through this program.

This initiative is a part of IBM’s, The Great Mind Challenge, a global academic initiative focused on providing students with an opportunity to develop their collaboration and problem-solving skills while working on real-world business challenges submitted by global corporations, entrepreneurs, community leaders and nonprofit organizations.

Now here is the cool parallel.

Starting this month, I will be working as a part time Adjunct Professor at San Jose State teaching an evening class on social business to journalism and public relations students.  The class is also open to business students as well.  I will be using my book, Smart Business, Social Business as the course text book and the curriculum (which I am still developing) will focus on:

• Organizational culture, design
• Technology adoption
• The social customer
• Social CRM
• How to create a social media strategy
• Analytics

The reason I decided to pursue this opportunity (thank you Professor Bob Rucker) is because there is a disconnect today in college curriculum. I interview several candidates every week coming straight out of college and the lack of social media/social business proficiency is obvious. I am hoping to change that, starting first with San Jose State.

More IBM Social Business News.

Image: Big Stock Photo Professor

Fast forward about a decade later and the same thing happened (and still happening) with social media. A quick search for “social media expert” in Google reveals some interesting trends. Consultants, agencies, bloggers (many of whom who have roots in SEO) are all vying for the number on position in Google, both paid and natural. Today, the “social media expert” comes a dime a dozen and the market is surely over-saturated with them. But the truth is, “social media marketing” is now a commodity skill set. Every digital and PR agency and even the traditional management consultancies all have in house social media expertise at some level or at least trying to establish themselves.

However, the current state of business is calling for something different.  Social media marketing has actually caused a bit of chaos behind the firewall. Companies are now trying to figure out and work through several challenges that social media has caused within their organizations.

Marketing is trying to be relevant, build community and scale globally.  Messaging, content, multiple social media channels, and measurement continue to be a struggle. Customer support is trying to solve customer problems online and not doing a very good job at it.  Operations wants to improve business processes to be more efficient. HR is hiring, firing and dealing with employees who have a hard time behaving on the Internet. Supply chain wants to get their products to market faster.  IT is pissed because they have to deal with “rogue” micro-sites and technology decisions made by marketing. Both PR and marketing want to control the “social media” job function and the list goes on. And to top it off, there is zero collaboration between of these people.

Enter the Social Business Expert.

Of course, the battle for social business thought leadership is well under way.  Many digital and PR agencies are now offering “social business” types of services to their clients. Others are writing books, blog posts, publishing white papers, infographics, platforms, etc. Over the last few months, I’ve been monitoring “social business, socialbiz, socbiz, social organization) in Twitter, and the feed doesn’t stop.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing.

It’s good because many of these discussions will continue to drive the industry forward with new concepts, frameworks and methodologies being established. It’s good because meaningful discussion usually gives birth to thought leadership; and what’s the point to social media-blogging-tweeting without sharing what you know with others. It’s a good thing because the “snake oil” experts will most likely wither back under their rocks because they lack real world, practical experience; and will eventually run out of things to talk about.

Don’t be surprised if we see an over-saturation in the market of social business experts, social business white papers, social business blog posts, social business tweets and social business conferences. Given the Altimeter study just released yesterday, it’s clear that there is a need for this type of counsel, education and learning.

Wait … before you hire an agency or a social business consultant. 

It doesn’t matter if you hire a PR agency, a digital agency or a traditional management consultancy. And, don’t spend too much time reviewing LinkedIn profiles examining their educational background. Here is one piece of advice for those who are seeking help with social business planning and initiatives. Choose wisely, ask questions, seek recommendations and hire people, consultants, agencies that have real-world, practical experience working for or in the enterprise. The business is at stake, not just a marketing campaign.

More specifically, what I found interesting are the five use cases that Altimeter identified for social media management. The use cases are also opportunities for companies that are unsure of how to use social media to connect with customers. They are the following (descriptions are in my words):

Intense Engagement: The social customer is highly influential. A quick review of the recent  events with Netflix, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless prove that social customers are forcing business to change. Much of that change involves engaging in two way dialogue i.e solving customer problems, engaging with influencers and advocates, managing online crisis, or just listening to the vibe of the conversation.

Social Broadcasting: While I don’t necessarily agree with the term “broadcasting”, having one central CMS to post to multiple social channels is certainly a scalable advantage. Many of the platform vendors listed below all have similar capabilities like the ability to schedule posts, real time analytics and a content library, which is good for global teams.

Platform Campaign Marketing: The ability to customize a Facebook experience is excellent, especially for product launches and marketing campaigns. Many of the vendors listed below allow users to create customized Facebook tabs that can house various content buckets like RSS feeds, images, videos, contests, etc.

Distributed Brand Presence: For companies that have multiple teams globally, in various geographies and in different languages (also a franchise), governance should be a focal point with customer engagement.  Vendors like Hearsay Social, Spredfast and Sprinklr have built in compliance capabilities that allow for content to be approved prior to being published.

Tailored Customizations: There are many companies that have internal CRM systems that require very specific customization to bridge the gap between external social data and internal customer data.  Having a vendor not only with open APIs but the ability to customize their product is important.

The following is a matrix of the social media management systems/vendors in the report broken down by capabilities of the above criteria and their ability to support small business or the enterprise.

Other interesting findings from the Altimeter Study include:

• While 70% of respondents said that their social media programs map to overall business objectives; only 43% of them have a documented plan of record
• Only 26% of respondents offer social media training and educational services to employees

Here is the full report for you to read, download, embed, print and share.

Photo Credit: Big Stock – Social Network