@Loic has written a nice piece on how companies can and should communicate in the new "social", connected communications landscape. It is called the "Corporate Social Networking Manifesto". I contend that what is written there is really for Small/Medium enterprise (SME). Larger companies need more research and more context before they do what is recommended in the manifesto. The Fortune 5000 need to work better in social networking to be more responsive, have happier customers, and make more money, but they must plan extremely well. I have copied @Loic's manifesto from his blog and have written my comments and additional recommendations in bold.
1. Listen
Use Twitter, Google blog and
Google Realtime search and see what people are saying about your brand. They
say nothing or not much? Your brand is dead online or not born yet, work on it.
They say negative things? Great, it means people care. Too much to read it all?
Fantastic, just find tools to filter.
This is fine in principle but if
you are a large company there are important steps first. Who in the company is
responsible for dealing with social media and reaching out? It is inefficient
if multiple people answer to the same comments, if there is one clear strong
part of the business that manages this, all of the organisation will know and
customers will also understand who they can talk with i.e. communications, PR,
customer care etc.
Secondly using tools like Twitter
and real time search are powerful starting points, but the time is now for
professional tools. It isn’t enough to create ad hoc reports and have multiple
people using different tools, you need a system that is used across the whole
company and where possible fits into other systems like Business Intelligence,
Knowledge Management, Lead generation, Customer care etc.
2. Answer
Many brands only listen and never
participate because they have old style push marketing habits and scared to
engage users. It's the best thing you can do, engage in a conversation.
Yes company culture needs to
change to be more responsive, more “social”. However think about what you are
answering to. This is maybe a poor metaphor, but imagine all the conversations around
your brand as those at a dinner party. If you hear your name being mentioned
you don’t immediately run over and start talking, you take into context. I’d
say, don’t answer everyone, you don’t have the time, but if there is a campaign
to identify new business opportunities answer those people that write about
that. If your reputation is at stake, respond but in line with what the company
believes, what its mission is. I think companies that respond or answer to
everything are boring and get no medals for listening, careful (affordable) listening
is what is called for.
3. Focus on the negative and
thank people for the compliments
Negative remarks, criticism and
even insults are marks of attention. Answer those first and understand what the
problem is. Follow up when it's solved, explain when you are working on it.
Definitely, negative feedback
should be cherished and companies should embrace it when it is clear that it is
representative. Even the best products and services will have detractors so don’t
lose sleep over one or two negative comments, but get serious when there is a
trend or if those few negative comments point to something that can destroy company reputation.
4. Engage 24h a day
Social software never sleeps.
Hire a team (which can be a team of 2!) in two opposite timezones. It is the
best investment you can make and similar to a PR agency budget. We have at
Seesmic two community evangelists in the
True social media doesn’t sleep,
but responding to issues around your brand should be calculated. Doing it at
1am is very entrepreneurial, I’d say respond to negative trends or issues when
not tired. I would not suggest companies actively encourage employees to
respond like this unless it fits a very tight criteria (someone in danger,
someone hurt by the product)
5. Be as transparent as possible
Don't cheat. If your products
have a problem or lack a feature, recognize it and explain what you are doing
about it. Don't use old "put it under the carpet nobody will notice"
methods, with everyone talking in public on Twitter and Google Buzz there is no
chance it won't go out, in fact it's already out. Go ahead and acknowledge issues
and engage with the users.
Transparency is good (lack of transparency may be illegal) and
acknowledging issues early is good business for both small and large companies.
6. Group the feedback on a site
such as user voice (see ourshttp://feedback.seesmic.com)
We're getting about a mention of
Seesmic every minute, many brands get much more. Difficult to read it all and
all the suggestions, using a feedback site "Digg like" where users
can submit their own ideas and vote on the ones they want the most will help you
and make them happy as they feel they can influence your product roadmap. I
call it our public roadmap. Make sure you close the most requested features
often.
Yet again if your brands are
worth millions/billions, for gods sake don’t rely on tools like Digg. Get a
professional tool kit and professionals to help you. Put some budget behind it,
if it is that important e.g. take more money from your traditional market
research budget or journalist relations and put it into social media, it will
have higher ROI and make you more responsive.
Of course it's easier if you are
a software editor than a car manufacturer when time to market takes years. Your
users will notice if you listen to them and adapt your roadmap to what they
request the most and if you release as fast and as often as possible. It is a
good way to create traction around your products (or lose it if you don't
update and listen often enough). It's not taking off? Don't hesitate and move
on, create something else. I changed my entire company mission and vision from
a video conversation product to helping you manage social software after I saw
the video conversation wasn't taking off as expected (it will eventually, we
were too early).
Being agile is very important for
all companies. Crowd sourcing and innovation from the masses is useful as a
small augment to the traditional product innovation pipeline. Most of the wonderful ideas
from Apple come from Apple, ditto Intel, Microsoft etc. Trust that people you
hire make good decisions based on instinct, experience and yes, listening to
what people say in social media, in bars, amongst their friends etc.
8. Change priorities often in your roadmap with the most requested features. To a certain extent of course, look at what is the most popular and deliver just that, your users will thank you.
Sure, this can make sense for
some product areas and companies need to be flexible enough to de-prioritise some
features based on early feedback.
9. Don't forget to innovate
Robert Scoble once
said "if Porsche had listened to its users their cars would look like
a Volvo". Think Steve Jobs too, Apple does not engage much but innovate
and create game changer and genius products like the iPhone. If you only listen
to users suggestions you might not innovate enough and your competition could
take you by surprise.
I don't "get" the metaphor. Volvo has a market for trucks and cars and Porsche is an
expensive sports car, I hope when they were asking for feedback they explained
that to their “users”. Innovation is of course key for large and small
companies, all companies that survive long term have to innovate (Ryanair - price innovation, Apple - product innovation etc.).
10. Create a presence on most
popular social software
You would be surprised by how
users are not the same from one network to another. Create a profile on all of
them: Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, LinkedIn, Ning, MySpace...
Definitely, and get it managed as
centrally as possible, and with similar design characteristics, this simply
mirrors the “distributed web” you don’t only have a central identity (your web
site) now your image is across the web.
11. Create content and share on
all of them
You can either create different
content for every network but it's very difficult, I have chosen to update them
all with the same content except specific interactions to one (exemple @replies
or RT should only go to Twitter) seesmic and ping.fm can help you share on all of them by
just emailing, texting or using an app.
Good advice but yet again, who
owns this in the company? Decide this first before building a response
strategy. Make sure the team knows the objectives and reports efficiently to the right groups.
12. Identify your best fans
Some of your community members
are very active and in addition to liking your products and your company and
team, they tell all their friends, convert them, help evangelizing just because
they like what you do. Identify your best fans and treat them as best as you
can, they are your ambassadors. Read Seth Godin's Tribes, only 1,000 fans can get the word to millions.
True, but be careful. Some of
your fans are in for free stuff, others an ego trip. Do take time to find those
really influential people, who have active and supportive communities around
them (online and offline). When you know who they are, make sure they get
information early and special treatment such as invites to events.
13. Create your own little social
network for your tribe
Your inner circle deserves more
attention from you and will also like talking to each other in a smaller community. Creating a dedicated group on Google Groups, Facebook Group or a
dedicated network in Ning will be ideal (we created teamseesmic.com and often test our products with our
most dedicated users before we launch them).
Once coordinated this is a good
idea. Also create listening social networks with companies like Fresh Networks
or Communispace.
14. love your users, give them
small gifts and special events or products
We send hundreds of stickers
every month to anyone who asks us, we created previews "for teamseesmic"
of our products and special events such as this one. Your users like to be loved.
When you are a big company the
problem with “love” is that some people just don’t know why you don’t love
them. Case in point, I am a huge Eurostar fan and have been for 5 years, they
don’t notice me, I don’t know why as I tweet about them and have blogged
repeatedly etc. (boo-hoo, poor me). At the same time they have loyalty programs etc. I’d say have
simple, generic programs that reward continual use and discounts for people who
give you their address.
15. help them share about your
brand with share buttons
That's an easy one we don't do
enough, a simple "tell your friends" button to help them share it
with their own community if they like it can help. Don't force them to do so
though.
Absolutely large and small
companies should enable their web presence for sharing.
16. be everywhere and on every
platform
That's a tough one but if you
want to maximize reach you need to be available on Windows, Mac and have an
iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows Mobile app... We're getting
there as it's our mission to build apps, but it's very challenging for brands,
especially since you need to maintain them after... Companies such asmobileroadie can
help you with customizable apps which are already built.
If you are a large company you
can’t afford to do this. Pick your most important media and platforms and have strong
presence there (focus).
17. use social networking
internally
A good way for your team to familiarize
with social networking and the real time web is to start internally with tools
such as status.net, Yammer, salesforce.com, socialtext or bluekiwi. Risk is
very limited.
Yes, this is applicable for large
and small companies. You should be aware that people will need training and a
certain proportion of this will be “change management”, as their behaviours
will need to change dramatically to start updating Yammer or socialtext, they
will need many examples of why this is better for them and not just another tool of corporate control.
18. participate or better,
support by partnering with the events where the social software junkies go such
as SWSW, DLD, Lift, LeWeb (Nespresso got huge coverage on Twitter for offering
great coffee to all attendees), TechCrunch50 or throw dinner or parties at
bigger events such as CES (Ford does it well)
Take time to evaluate if a 10-50K
investment at LeWeb or Techcrunch makes sense – are these events reaching your
core audience i.e. people that recommend or buy your products. No doubt these
events are run well (e.g. Le Web) but make sure sponsoring maps with your
brand/product objectives.
19. Show us real people
Companies being just brands and
products is also a thing of the past. We want human beings. We want to know who
we talk to. See how @richardatdell (Dell) and @scottmonty (Ford) do it.
I like to see real people too.
Make sure there are a few of them as if @scottmonty leaves Ford, does that mean
Ford is doing badly or not treating him well. The company has to be stronger than the personality. I’d say have a group of people
who respond on the company's behalf like many
20. Use video, it's human and
carries much more
Even Apple who does not engage
that much has real employees giving product demos or tutorials in video, they
are much more human and get much more across than text, they can get thousands
of views even if they are not professionally produced, see
how I do itfrom now and then. That video was shot without any
editing or preparation.
Loic looks great on video, he’s
fit and has a nice accent, not everyone has a face or demeanour for video. You
have probably heard the expression “he has a face for radio”. If you use video, train
people, they need to perform naturally and not damage the company reputation
(it took you a while to build it).
21. Be proactive and share as
much as you can. Add value, not just marketing crap.
It's great to react to the
conversations, but think about creating some content each time there is
something important happening. Add value. Ask yourselves how you can help
others. This post for example is probably helpful for some of you even if it's
also an opportunity to talk about my products, helping was the goal, not the
products, but no one will blame you if you help and use your products as
reference from now and then. You won't create any following if you speak like a
press release. Press releases are boring. Would you talk to me like a press
release if we had lunch?
Amen, press releases are boring,
I don’t know why I do them. Still structured communication can be useful for
discipline and agreeing what the message is. Large companies do need to learn to talk “social”, this I
can agree with.
22. Patience!
It does not take weeks or months,
it takes YEARS to establish trust and create a real community around your
organization or action. Don't expect anything coming for free or shortly, it
won't happen. Share, listen, reply and start all over again. Don't get upset
when you get criticized and treat it as attention. Focus on the most active
users who support you they will make you happy and help you continue on the
long run.
Have fun and don't treat it too
seriously, be natural or let your employees be natural, it will just
work.
This is so true, it will take
large companies years to find real benefits and some won’t find any, but
business is risky by definition some will succeed at talking well in a new
social media world others won’t, that’s life, that’s war.
