MAD Perspectives Blog

In a discussion with a former HP colleague I was reminiscing about the "old days" of open communication, sharing of ideas, encouragement of career shifts and the "can do" exuberance that was prevalent in the company's New York area offices. I hadn't traveled to the west coast, at that point in my career, to experience the HP Way on any larger scale. Bill and Dave were still alive and their influence was pervasive, even though they weren't actively involved in the day to day running of the company.

As I thought about this conversation later, I realized that what made HP a special place to work at that time (the mid to late 80's) was its culture of curiosity and humanity. By humanity, I mean

     - a respect for individuals

     - a hunger for new ideas or processes

     - a desire to delight the customer 

     - a high level of integrity

Aren't these the same elements that make social media so compelling? In their book, Humanize, How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in Social Media, James Notter and Maddie Grant reflect on organizations have become mechanical and the importance of making organizations more human. Consumers and business people alike are attracted to social media because of its openness and honesty. Those companies that learn to communicate as if in a one-to-one conversation rather than in scripted, sanitized, bland corporate speak stand to benefit. They will earn customer loyalty, feed product innovation, 

As I communicate in a post-corporate world, I think about how I talk to my peers, my friends and my clients. Their feedback has been extremely helpful as MAD Perspectives has evolved. The words most commonly used are courage, passion, commitment, honesty and clarity. I keep these comments in mind as I communicate here in my blog or on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. I hope I sound human.  

I believe that the best corporate social efforts are those where the individuals are empowered to speak candidly about their experiences. It is frustrating when the social networks seem to perpetuate corporate speak. I appreciate those status updates that add personal insight regarding a newsworthy tidbit. I enjoy the comments that reveal the individuals personality, likes and dislikes. I learn from those blogs that share real world application of complex ideas or technologies.  

It comes down to being human and remembering that social media has evolved as a way for people to communicate with people. Social media networks and platforms are simply the medium that have reminded us that we like to talk as if we were leaning over the cubicle wall to share a new idea. As companies continue their social media forays, I believe those that will succeed will remember to be human.  

What's your perspective?

I was recently in a meeting with a client when the marketing manager stated that all social media updates are reviewed by her or her team before being posted externally. After a bit of probing, I came to understand that her concern was about maintaining the company brand and the unintentional sharing of intellectual property. These are fair concerns, but they raised alarms for me. 

To be clear, my engagement with this client is not specific to social media.  They have hired an agency to help them with their efforts.  My concern is that with too much control, their social media communications will be flat and uninspired. Regardless of who helps them develop their social media plan, they will need to think about the company culture.  Her comments made me realize that this company does not have a culture of empowerment. They have been through many acquisitions and spin-offs, and the culture has been impacted by the continual shifting of leadership and ownership,

Like a symphony orchestra, each individual brings a unique tone to the overall production.
Social media is about being transparent and authentic. If the director, stifles the soloist, the performance seems lacking. The role of the director is to infuse his musicians with and understanding and passion for a particular piece of music. Companies should consider a similar model.  If companies are concerned about their employees sharing inappropriate content, they should inform and educate their employees on the company goals for using social media, provide guidelines for content and ramifications for employees if they show poor judgement.  A company's culture and organizational structure can provide two of the biggest hurdles to social media success.  Take the time to understand your company's culture and the impact on communication style and channel, is critical when initiating your social media efforts. 

Recommendations for addressing these challenges include strategic planning to align the use of social media with clear goals and metrics, employee education, organize a hub and spoke social media team and constantly listen, review and assess.  Everyone I have talked to about social media shares that their experience has been trial and error.  It's ok to make a mistake.  Own it and move forward.  Your goal should be to orchestrate the efforts of your organization in such a way as to let individual personalities emerge and shine.  The content they share will reflect positively on your organization

How are your social media efforts proceeding?  What are your biggest challenges?  I'm interested to learn from you!

What's your perspective? 

I was in Silicon Valley meeting with various companies, two weeks ago, to talk about their social media strategies (or lack thereof). I want to share my learnings from two of these companies as they both reflect the importance of having executive support. I will not share the names of these companies as I do believe that I may not have the full story in either case. However, each left a lasting impression.

I met with the VP of Marketing for Company A, a provider of video delivery solutions. I had casually met him at an industry event and was connected to him on LinkedIn. However, I pursued the meeting via the VP of Sales for one of their divisions, as I had a very strong relationship with this individual. The VP of Sales clearly understood my goals to discuss the value of the customer insight that is found through social interactions and other online behavior. Company A has grown through acquisition over the past few years and their customer base is growing as enterprise companies produce and distribute increasing amounts of video content. 

The VP of Marketing has a very busy schedule and was kind to give me some time to discuss their use of social media and how social media can provide them with competitive intelligence. It was an interesting discussion where I found out that the company does not integrate social media into their marketing plans.  They feel they already know who their customers are and what they want. Their only goal is to streamline the sales cycle. This company is monitoring the social networks using Radian6, yet they are not actively participating. Monitoring tools like Radian6 are dependent on selecting the most relevant keywords.  Pursuit of this discussion to understand how they selected their keywords (I was thinking about the importance of long tail keywords) was a deadend. In summary, this VP of Marketing is currently unimpressed by social media's value for B2B companies. He is concerned about the investment of people resources to manage any social media agenda. Thus, for now, this company will not officially pursue a social media marketing strategy.

The second company I met with, Company B, is in the enterprise content delivery space.  Again, I was introduced to the VP of Marketing through the VP of Sales.  We had spoken several times in 2010, but his social media efforts never materialized.  He was open to discussion when I indicated I would be in the bay area.  We had a fascinating conversation.  His challenge, in developing the marketing plan for this small technology company, was a CEO who was watching and second guessing every decision.  He was unable to put a comprehensive marketing plan together, that would have included social media, due to lack of empowerment.  As a result he chose to focus on a narrow scope that proved to be challenging yet successful in increasing industry awareness and perception of the company as a market leader.

As Company B's market expands beyond large enterprise companies, they do understand that traditional offline marketing efforts may not be enough to broaden market awareness and understanding of their solutions.  Fortunately, there has been a change at the top and the new CEO is supportive and empowering of the VP of Marketing's efforts.  It's challenging in a small company to find and align resources, but now there is support from the "top" and they will tip-toe their way into social media.

I share these experiences as you may be facing similar challenges in your company. It is critical to have management support for your social media efforts. There is a strong focus on the ROI of social media in 2011.  I have ambivalent feelings about ROI as numbers can be manipulated to appear to meet goals. That said, it is important to understand your business goals and how social media can help you achieve them. For example, Company A wants to streamline its sales cycle. It would be important to understand what information customers need that would allow them to make a buying decision more quickly. Could influence be established via a social network?  Possibly. Do potential customers seek advice from other buyers and seek casual interactions to uncover their experience with Company A?  Possibly. Establishing a plan, really thinking through the activation and delivery of the plan, and taking the time to understand and define meaningful metrics will keep efforts focused.  And, given the right time frame, results will follow. 

Winning executive support is a must for entering the B2B social media space. Social media takes time and people. Without clear direction and understanding of the rules of engagement marketing, customer support, sales or product teams cannot engage to drive awareness, customer satisfaction, revenue or innovation.   Are you facing challenges getting executive support for a social media strategy? Let me know your challenges. We can all learn from each other!

What's your perspective?

As part of goal to share social media experiences at B2B companies, we are releasing a new case study this week.  Compuware has been providing software, experts and best practices to make your applications work and delivery business value for 25 years.  Compuware also embraces employee empowerment. 

Compuware's approach to integrating social media into their overall marketing strategy reflects this commitment.  Some key takeaways include:

     - Empowerment - Trust your employees.  You hired them because they possessed certain qualities which includes their ability to represent your company.

     - Collaboration - The ability to interact with fellow employees is as important as the ability to interact with business partners and customers.  Great solutions come from great conversations.

     - Culture - The culture of a company is a key element for prospective employees.  Social media allows companies to showcase all sides of their corporate culture.

Learn more about Compuware's use of social media by requesting the case study at:  http://www.madperspectives.com/contact .

What's your perspective?

Last week, Nigel Fenwick, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester spoke in a joint Forrester/ NewsGator webinar.  The topic was Boosting IT Productivity with Social Technologies.  However, Nigel validated several thoughts that had been bouncing around in my brain. He speaks about the influence and shifts in mobile devices, social technologies, pervasive video and cloud computing.  Each of these converge to enable a more intelligent and influential customer, the empowered customer. I have been thinking about the shift from a focus on customer satisfaction to customer experience and how this has changed, dramatically, with the usage of social platforms.  While I often talk to clients about employee empowerment to use and leverage social technologies, I had not thought about the flip side – that of empowered customers.

Thanks to the social web, customers have access to more information than ever.  It is not just information developed and distributed by various corporate marketing teams.  It is information from individual employees, customers, business partners, competitors, supply chain vendors and anyone else who may interact with that company, its products or employees.  The online customer support forums of the early millennium have evolved to include live online discussions (by text or VoIP) with support staff and interactive chats with fellow customers.  If we are not satisfied with the support we receive, we tweet or Facebook immediately – and usually get some kind of attention from the company’s support team.

Thanks to the social web, prospective buyers can research, investigate and analyze products, services, reputations, ethics, roadmaps and competitors.  They come to you, the vendor providing their product or service of choice, armed with intelligent questions.  They are ready to make decision, but have perspectives based on the information that have gathered and interpreted.  These perspectives will influence their discussion with you (and others!) regarding features, functionality, delivery and pricing.

Thanks to the social web, your company and its employees can also be empowered. Your employees can access the same information as your customers.  As mentioned by Nigel in the aforementioned webinar, they use social technologies to get ideas for their job, to research key topics, to collaborate externally to solve a problem.  Your company may say that they already provide them with the tools to collaborate and investigate.  If they do, this is great, but are they using the tools and the platforms that your customers are accessing?  Can you as an employee gather the same kind of insights so that you can understand the customer’s perspective? Tthe ability for employees to understand a customer's motivation can only help them represent the company to its greatest advantage.

Companies used to control the message.  Subsequently the need for employees to participate and monitor online activities was limited to specific initiatives (i.e., customer support).  However, the social web has changed how information is shared.  It is still shared on websites, but customers are seeking authentic insights and finding them via blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn Groups, Slide Share, and Scribd.  If your company is just getting started with social technologies, empower your employees to learn in the same fashion as your already empowered customers.

What’s your perspective?