Hi all. Long time no see…

I’ve been very busy lately working closely developing with our clients different social media strategy aspects. One area (at least here in Europe) of a usual concern is the company’s social media readiness!

There are plenty of factors to consider regarding the hows, dos, don’ts and understanding the possibilities and challenging implications around social media. But how do you determine your company’s Social Media readiness? Start with a SWOT analysis.

We all know the SWOT analysis used extensively in business to obtain an overview of the critical businesses issues. It is simply a series of questions asked about your business to assist in determining the business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

The goal here is to audit your current organization in the context of SWOT. Identifying key internal and external issues allows you to more carefully consider and then incorporate them into strategic objectives. The list of questions below is by no means all the questions which need to be answered to complete a full analysis of your business’s Social Media readiness. It is just an indication of the types of questions you should be considering about your business’s capability to thrive in a Social Media environment. Without a SWOT analysis it will be impossible to develop an effective Social Media strategic plan, develop company guidelines and effectively engage your company on the social web.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal conditions, factors or attributes. For example, your recognized expertise in your market space would be a definite strength. Not having a method for employees to collaborate would be a weakness.

• What does your company do well and does not do well?
• Are there people at your company who already use social media in their personal lives
• Are people at your company using social media tools and applications to do their jobs? If so, did management introduce these tools or was their adoption and use more casual and organic?
• In what ways do you currently communicate with your employees?
• Does your company encourage and facilitate collaboration among employees? If so, how?
• Does the company feel comfortable with empowering company employees to interact with customers using Social Media?
• Do you have a happy satisfied work force that your company feels comfortable allowing employee interaction using Social Media tools?
• What role does continuing education and training play inside your company? What methods do you use for training?
• Would you characterize your company as a fun place to work?
• Would you characterize your company as a creative company?
• Do you believe that expertise is understood and recognized within your company?

Opportunities and threats are external conditions, factors, or attributes.

• What do your customers value most about your company? How do you know this? Do you have a way of measuring it?
• What do your customers value the least about your company? How do you know this? Do you have a way of measuring it?
• Do you have customers who already use social media applications in their personal lives?
• Do you have customers who use social media tools and applications to do their jobs?
• In what ways do you currently communicate with your customers? How effective is this communication? Do you have a way of measuring it?
• What lifestyle trends or factors are affecting your customers?
• Do you seek feedback from your customers? If so, how?
• Do you collaborate with your customers? If so, how?
• What factors influence your customers’ decisions to do business with you?
• Do your customers rely on your company to educate them about things? What kind of things? How are you currently doing this?
• How important do you believe it is to educate your customers?
• Do you have a happy satisfied work force that your company feels comfortable allowing customer interaction using Social Media tools?
• What do your competitors do better than you do?
• Have you identified and evaluated the efforts if any of your competitor’s Social Media presence?
• Do your customers rely upon your expertise as part of their business relationship with you?
• Does any part of your business relationship with your customer depend upon your ability to help them have a good time or enjoy their experience with your product or service?

This SWOT analysis is quick way to assess your company’s social media readiness, but is often not sufficient. If you want to take your analysis to another level, I recommend you to perform a ’social media audit’ within a given period (ofthen 30 days) where we assess the volume, frequency and tone of conversations throughout the social web. We can then establish a benchmark assessing the state of your brand, products, communities and competitors. This will as well serve as a metric by which to compare your future activity on the social web.

An example of such a benchmark report is the Fasion UK Social Media Landscape Audit done by 90:10 Group, which an extract has been published on slideshare. Enjoy the reading.

The ability to develop and manage the will to change how a business does business will be a contributing factor the the overall effectiveness of any Social Media initiative.

What will the future of advertising look like?

The answer could be the one painted in this viral ad promoting the upcoming FITC digital and technology festival in Toronto. The ad is set in the future and shows a narrator in a deserted office (preserved as a museum) describing the remains of the last advertising agency on earth. An ad agency which ignored the power of digital and social media.

dddddd

Traditional advertising no longer works. The gap (and break up) between the consumer and the advertiser is growing on a daily basis as shown in this great video.

Eric Clemons a year ago has written in TechCrunch Why the Advertising is Failing Over the Internet. Here is an extract of what he wrote:

There are three problems with advertising in any form, whether broadcast or online:

• Consumers do not trust advertising. Dan Ariely has demonstrated that messages attributed to a commercial source have much lower credibility and much lower impact on the perception of product quality than the same message attributed to a rating service. Forrester Research has completed studies that show that advertising and company sponsored blogs are the least-trusted source of information on products and services, while recommendations from friends and online reviews from customers are the highest.

• Consumers do not want to view advertising. Think of watching network TV news and remember that the commercials on all the major networks are as closely synchronized as possible.  Why?  If network executives believed we all wanted to see the ads they would be staggered, so that users could channel surf to view the ads; ads are synchronized so that users cannot channel surf to avoid the ads.

• And mostly consumers do not need advertising. My own research suggests that consumers behave as if they get much of their information about product offerings from the internet, through independent professional rating sites like dpreview.com or community content rating services like Ratebeer.com or TripAdvisor.

It is time for media owners to innovate – ditch advertising and become a platform.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

As the use of social technologies begins to climb the maturity curve, new skills (until now not widely understood) such as community & conversation management have begun to move to the forefront of discussions within businesses. Most are starting to realize that they have a missing job function in their team. But which job function: a Community Manager, a Social Media Manager, a Traffic Manager or a Conversation Manager.

Considering what Nestlé’s Facebook Fan Page went through a few days ago, it is becoming important for most brands to start having dedicated resources to manage their conversations. But businesses need to understand whether they need primarily a content-oriented person or a relationship-oriented person.

John Bell in a recent blog post described both functions of Community and Conversation Managers as follows:

Community Manager
So,  do they need a community Manager? Here’s how I see the main responsibilities of a community manager:

1. Steward a community conversation amongst a group of people who have come together to interact together presumably over some shared affinity (they all love Dancing With The Stars TV show; they are all moms with grade school-age children; they drive the same car)
2. Help keep order with a soft touch
3. Remain responsible to the community first

Their job is really to nurture and often grow a community of people. Now, the affinity that brings them together may be the brand. That gives the community manager license to participate in the community but certainly not at the expense of the other community participants.

Conversation Manager
A Conversation Manager is a bit different especially as we think about how Twitter and Facebook work. Even with the threaded comments available now in the Facebook Wall posts, These are streams of utterances and brief conversations. More importantly, brands are hosting their own handles and pages which feel more personal and involved. A Conversation Manager’s responsibilities include:

1. Offering fans and followers a steady stream of valuable content and experiences
2. Responding to visitors who want to engage with the brand or need some help
3. Offering a pov as a brand or subject matter expert

Steven Van Belleghem believes (so do we at 90:10 Group) that ‘traditional advertising no longer works. Advertisers need to change their day-to-day working methods. The gap between the contemporary consumer and the traditional advertiser is growing on a daily basis. This era is not the end of the advertising market, though it is the end of the advertiser!‘. He explains to us this change of trajectory from advertiser to Conversation Manager in his recently published book titled The Conversation Manager and following presentation.

What about the Social Media Manager?

Rachel Happe has taken a stab at articulating the primary responsibilities of both Social Media and Community Managers. Here is how she defines the responsibilities of the Social Media Manager:

Social Media Manager:

• Content Creation  (Blogging/vlogging/podcasting) designed to spur conversation/viral sharing
• Responding to conversations about the brand and the content
• Ensuring input/feedback gets channeled to the appropriate internal functional group
• Curating and promoting UGC
• Managing tools – mostly social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) and blogs
• Reporting/measurement

So what do you think? Do you agree that there is a difference in these three roles? and if so, do you agree with how they have differentiated them? If you happen to be a ‘community manager’ or a ‘conversation manager’ or a ’social media manager’ reading this post, please do share with us your views on your job function and the challenges you are facing every day

Other related articles:

Community management: The ‘essential’ capability of successful Enterprise 2.0 efforts

A Community Manager and a Social Media Manager Walk into a Bar…

Community Manager or the Art of Ambiguity: an introduction

Co-creation is a powerful trend in product development that has been around for quite some time. But as I have written in an earlier blog post (Brand 2.0: when crowdsourcing becomes a must…) co-creation has recently started to gain more traction with social media bringing communities together.

Most companies have innovation as one of their top priorities. But many face challenges in innovation management – be it ability to co-create with customers, or utilizing employee talent. To address this challenge, enterprises have to embrace open innovation, co-creation and collaborative innovation.

John Windsor’s recent blog post about his friend who runs a business in the outdoor sports market is very relevant:

He described the paradigm shift we’re experiencing really well.

My friend says that he’s at a crossroads. He currently has his agency produce TV spots to run on targeted cable channels. All in, he’s spending a few hundred grand to reach a similar number of viewers.

It’s all good.

Until he starts looking at what his fans are doing on YouTube. People, who love his brand, are making their own spots by the hundreds. And, they’re popular. A half dozen of the videos have been viewed by over 1.5 million people.

At the end of the day, it comes down to math. It’s either creating TV spots and buying the media for them for a lot of money or getting 9,000,000 viewers at the cost of $0. The decision seems easier than it really is. While the cost of the 9,000,000 viewers is 0, my friend has lost some of the control he had over his brand when he used his agency. The trick is moving from a creation mindset of controlling the message and broadcasting it to a curation mindset of inspiring and guiding the people who are creating and sharing the digital videos.

While most companies understand the power of collaborative innovation, the means to achieve it is not always available. They need an alternative to current ad agencies and crowdsourcing platforms. At  90:10, we have been working on a whole series of products that offer companies the strategic direction, engagement, connectivity, relationship management and ROI.

The following slidedeck gives you more details about our approach.

If you’re interested in the products themselves and how they can create value for your company – let me know.

cc

Related articles:

A definition of co-creation

What the heck is co-creation?

As Facebook has become an incredible online community (more than 120 million users in Europe) and has shifted from being not only a social network for personal use but also as a key platform and medium for brands online, businesses have started to look into spending more time hanging out and engaging with their fans and users, in a legit way.

The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds on teaching staff how to use Facebook.

PBS’s new 102-minute documentary will debut on Facebook before being broadcast on PBS.

Amy Porterfield in her last post says:

When you hear that Facebook is yanking Yahoo from its ranks and inching up on Google’s traffic throne, you can’t help but pay attention.

She shares with us 5 studies, that show how Facebook is undoubtedly a leading online social contender and a key tool that is continually changing the landscape of online engagement and fan loyalty.

To know more about how to promote your business using Facebook Fan Pages, I recommend one of my older blog post and if you want to know how to customize, optimize and monetize your Facebook Fan Page, watch Amy Porterfield’s video.

Another interesting article: How to setup Google Analytics on your Facebook fan pages.

Businesses are increasingly adopting customer-focused processes to gain competitive advantage. But for building a business around customers, companies need to understand them. They need to engage in regular dialogue and conversations.

Research has shown strong evidence that Social Media Engagement correlates to Financial Performance (see report on world’s most valuable brands – Who’s most engaged?). This study emphasizes quality of customer engagement through social media by concluding:

It pays to engage meaningfully in social media. Emphasize quality, not just quantity.

Engagement is more than just setting up a blog or Facebook profile and letting viewers post comments, it’s keeping your content fresh and replying to comments; it’s building your friends network and updating your profile status.

Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest.

To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. You must do something, else risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.

This clearly illustrates the importance of Social Engagement, i.e. engaging customers via Social Media for building trust and loyalty towards companies’ products, services and brand.

Businesses have to shift from marketing products to cultivating customers demands.

But many companies are still reluctant to invest in social media initiatives and programs. This has recently been confirmed by findings of a recent study conducted by Burson-Marsteller: Global Social Media Checkup.

So what are the arguments for businesses to make it happen. Henning Hansen CEO of Conformit in an article from CRM-Buyer says:

- Cement Your Customer Relationships

- Involve the Crew

- Rebuild Your Processes

- Check Your Measurements

- Share Responsibility and Construct a Common Goal

he adds:

Changing a corporate culture cannot and should not be an immediate process, and neither can it be a half-hearted one. Businesses that truly dedicate themselves to building a customer-focused culture can be stronger competitively — and provide better places to work.

We at 90:10 Group, help businesses connect with global communities to discover and engage advocates. We empower those advocates through tried and tested processes, tools and creatives. We believe that the sooner businesses adopt and start using Social Media for engaging their customers, the better for them, else performance of their business will suffer.

A common feature across the Middle East region is that young people make up a relatively high percentage of the population (in some over 50% are less than 21 years old). In most countries the “net generation”, regardless of its geographic location or cultural background, tends to be comfortable with online technologies and prefer the speed and variety of content delivered through the web and mobile channels.

Next 25th and 26th of March will be held for the first time in the region (in Beirut Lebanon), ArabNet 2010, the first international conference for the Arab web industry, bringing together leaders from across the MENA, Europe and Silicon Valley to discuss cutting-edge trends and emerging opportunities.

I’ve been invited (and am very pleased) as a guest speaker (representing 90:10 Group) at the ‘Social Media’ panel, featuring among others, Ghassan Haddad, Director of Internationalization at Facebook and Timothy Bataillie, the MENA Biz Dev Manager of Netlog, the region’s largest social network for youths (14-24). Full program here.

But where does the Internet stands today in the Arab world (source: startuparabia).

• At present there are roughly around 56 million Arab internet users in the Arab world, representing only 17% of the 337 million population.
• More people are getting online in the Arab world, and are relying more and more on the Internet for their news, videos, social interactions and more, but only 1% of all content online is in Arabic, not offering them much choice.
• Online news consumption is gaining ground with 22% to 34% of the people using internet at least as much as print media to read news.
• On average, 70% of the people in the four main Arab markets researched use social networks in some capacity and about 15% use social networking sites at least once a day.
• About 6 million internet users in the Middle East – or about 12% of the total online population in the region – have access to broadband networks.
• People in the Arab world are spending about three hours per day on the internet on average, which is already on par with the amount of time spent on TV.
• About $56 million or 1% of the total media advertising spend is online in the Middle East.
• 8.3% of active Facebook users come from the Middle East & North Africa, representing a 7.9% penetration. The number of users under 25 years of age represent 60% of active Facebook users in the region. Fastest growth in user adoption in the region is in the 55+ age group.
• Among the Arab countries, the top 7 countries in active Facebook user numbers are: Egypt (1,820,000), Saudi Arabia (920,000), Morocco (860,000), UAE (840,000), Tunisia (690,000), Lebanon (680,000), Jordan (490,000).

Last November in Paris, at LeWeb, Joi Ito moderated a panel on the Middle East with Rabea Ataya, Chairman & CEO of Bayt.com and Habib Haddad, Founder of Yamli. Their shared with us (video below) their view and vision of the future growth of the web in the region.

The Arab Media Outlook latest report (PDF) summarizes the region’s opportunity:

Our analysis points to significant opportunities for media companies in the region to use the power of web 2.0 to develop new revenue streams and to maximize the value of both new and existing premium content. Distribution to mobile broadband devices including mobile television will play an important part in this. Another priority area is the development of audience measurement processes for both print and broadcast media. The absence of reliable audience figures makes it difficult for advertisers to target their advertising and to assess its effectiveness, which reduces their willingness to spend.

As far as Twitter is concerned, it is difficult to have any precise figures. Last July, the region counted less than 15,000 users (source SpotOnPR). Since, the growth has been phenomenal, but still difficult to measure precisely its impact on media and brands. Hopefully, I will learn more about the region’s adoption of social media and new web 2.0 start-ups at coming Arabnet conference (25th and 26th of March in Beirut). Promise you to tweet from there and blog as I return to Paris.

There is a great opportunity for businesses to use social media to enable conversations and to create communities that extend their capabilities and engage their constituents in richer ways that results in higher retention, lower risk, increased ROI, and faster operational capacity.

Businesses entering the social media space must first figure out where their audience is (isn’t it the beginning of any type of strategy?). Working with communities of any kind, whether it’s a forum, a fan page on Facebook, or a bunch of people on Twitter discussing a particular subject every week, takes care and time. It involves developing true relationships with the audience by helping community members with information they need or solving their problems. A lot more goes into developing the type of respect, authority, and relationships in communities that generate successful strategies and attained goals for companies.

Chris Pirillo, last November at LeWeb, gave us his ‘original’ thoughts about the essence of ‘community’.  Community …

…lives inside us. Where I go, community goes. We create it based on our preferences, like dislikes and the people we link up with.

…is becoming increasingly distributed, as we distribute our ideas and thoughts across social networks.

…requires tools that can’t be built (so don’t try), ie if its us, we can’t scale ourselves.

…is a commodity, but people aren’t. It’s easy to set up a website or blog, but the people and voices behind it are what makes it unique, special.

…cannot be controlled, but can be “guided”.

…is no longer defined by physical boundaries. You probably have more in common with a geek living on another continent than your next door neighbor.

…grows its own leaders. the best leaders come organically out of a community, and is not an appointed one. It’s crucial that communities grow it’s own leaders for credibility and respect reasons.

…is the antithesis of ego. Community is myself and everyone else, not just me or my Twitter stream.

… is everywhere, inside you. It’s what you share, your passions — and it’s this that will spell success.

If there is one company who recognizes the vital importance of communities is Coca-Cola, who has developed an Online Social Media Principles and has put its fans (consumers) at the heart of its (online) strategy. This presentation by Michael Donnelly, Group Director of Worldwide Interactive Marketing for Coca-Cola, is a great example of how companies should embrace social media and build social communities.

Since last quarter of  2009, we’ve seen companies like FourSquare and Gowalla – companies allowing customers to check into physical locations and earn badges or points, discounts and share/show nearby contacts where they are – gaining heavy traction (more than 1 million FourSquare checkin per week).

So why many thinks that 2010 will be dominated by one theme: location-based social networking companies.

Reasons to Leverage Location

1. Immediacy. Location inherently breeds immediacy and action.  If a consumer is at a location, close to a location, or close to a contact, they’re more likely to purchase (if they’re there), travel to purchase (if they’re close), or meet up to share (close to a contact).  Immediacy enables actionable behavior, and actionable behavior is valuable because it provides measureable results.
2. Measurable results. Using location and proximity to measure effects is easier than measuring what happens when eyeballs read a tweet.   Retailers can use the location-based technologies to further understand their consumers.  When consumers check into a location, data such as when consumers visit, how often they visit, and their behavior before and after they visit becomes valuable.  With added incentives from brick and mortar stores partnering with these technologies, it is valuable through the information they can receive.
3. Laser pointer theory. Think of the world as your company’s target – with no map, you’ll fire all over the globe and hit a fraction of your targets.  This happens in business too- intentional or unintentional displaced messaging is the result of mis-firing and ill-placement.  With location, companies can laser pinpoint and succeed.  Misguided marketing and advertising no longer need to be the standard.  Marketing and advertising are sometimes described as an art.  In 2010, they become a science.

(source: Social Media 2010: The Year of Location)

And I think there’s a further two potentials likely to emerge. The first is for a wikifixing of venues and locations.

says David Cushman in his recent post.

The second is an extraordinary potential to redraw the WHOLE map niche by niche (by each niche and for each niche) wresting control from the centre to the edge. It’s our world, we should map it.

So how Foursquare can help consumers and businesses (by @christuff):