Logic+Emotion

Sponsored Stories Highlight Media Overlap

Earlier this week Facebook announced its intentions to capture attention where it naturally lives--in the stream (or in the case of Facebook, your wall). The move signals what is likely going to become a standard for businesses hoping to become more visible and relevant to their audiences, it blurs three types of media (paid, earned, and social).

Paid:
Businesses will now have the opportunity to "enter the stream" not by force but through association with a participant's behavior. In exchange for the contextual visibility, the placements will need to be bought. This part is a true paid media model. 

Earned:
A business will be mentioned in context with a post so although it has to "buy" its way in, it relies on the participant to take an action related to the business. If a participant "checks" into a BMW dealership for example, that provides an opportunity for the business to "sponsor" that status update. But the business has to earn it through the relevant action of an individual. 

Social:
This model is only possible through the existence and popularity of a social platform, naturally it's associated with "social". However, social behavior can also be associated with the "sponsorship" if conversations and interactions around the sponsored activity occur. For example if "Tom" checks into a BMW dealership and friends "Dick & Harry" both comment and converse, there has now been a form of social interaction and the brand may benefit from it.  

The Risks & Rewards
Facebook aside, this type of social platform monetization underscores that the lines between paid and other types of media will increasingly blur and overlap. While it may sound like a dream to some marketers and potentially intrusive to social network users it does come with a risk that depends on that ever tricky game of sentiment. If "Tom's" BMW check in status says something like, "I've never been treated so rudely" then the sponsored story becomes a dent in BMW's brand instead of a reinforcement. This model will only be as good as the ability to filter positive from negative which without human intervention is very difficult to do. Regardless, we're entering a new era of influence where the the battle for your attention will be fought in the media overlap.

Trust: From Fortress To Wedge

Edelman's 2011 Trust Barometer was officially launched yesterday and as usual it generates a lot of coverage and conversation. I always like to wait a little bit after announcements like this, after the dust has settled to see if there is a nugget which hasn't been covered much. From what I've seen both in the press and social networks, much of the discussion has been around the findings of the US having a generally low trust rating. Colleague Steve Rubel, did a nice job capturing insights around why trust in "friends" is dipping from previous years while trust in experts is rising. Also, a rise in trust (or willingness to trust) a CEO has been widely covered.

But there was less analysis on what I think is truly insightful and that is the shift from how organizations used to try to establish trust and a newer way of looking at it. To me, the above model represents the following:

The Fortress
In this model, an organization attempts to build an impenetrable fortress which is focused on protecting their reputation on their terms. There is a lack of a willingness to engage stakeholders (such as customers or employees), unless it is on the terms of the organization or toward their benefit. The impulse is to control the flow of information from the top down. Only designated spokespeople had the authority to talk to members of the press and when they did, it was from highly orchestrated corporate talking points. The organization protected what it knew at all costs, and the sole focus was on the bottom line. It's a fortress approach because it's defensive and sees not only the competition as a threat but in some cases public opinion which is a necessary evil to be dealt with.

The Wedge
The wedge takes a different approach. Rather than focus on protection of the brand and control of the message (and information flow) it creates a sharp, focused point through radically different business practices. Instead of manipulation, it proactively practices business in a more transparent fashion This doesn't mean it gives away trade secrets, but it becomes more ethical in how it conducts business. It becomes more trusting of its employees viewing them as potential ambassadors verses a workforce full of individuals who are looking to give away competitive secrets. Instead of taking an aggressive and defensive position of shielding itself from attack, it uses the sharp edge of the wedge to go on the "offense" via engaging with its stakeholders. It listens to them and actually talks back. Sometimes in public forums such as social networks. Lastly, it approaches business with a purpose, which in this day and age many businesses should consider. It seeks to profit responsibly and understands that as the business thrives, it has an obligation to give back to society. Think about how a wedge works. It doesn't take on a barrier by force—it finds an opening and starts there. Gradually a wedge can open closed doors.

This is the new trust architecture. A mandate to organizations that closing yourself off to the outside world and only communicating when it's to the benefit of your organization will NOT generate trust and goodwill from the people you want to do business with. Each year, the Trust Barometer makes the case that organizations which are trusted, reap financial rewards. This is a good time to think about if your organization can ever move the dial from a fortress mentality to a wedge mindset.

An executive summary of the Trust Barometer findings can be found here:

2011 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global & Country Insights

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Community Manager Appreciation Day

Edelman Digital Celebrates Community Manager Appreciation Day

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Originally posted on Edelman Digital
Community Manager Appreciation Day officially began last year when Jeremiah Owyang declared the fourth Monday in January a day to celebrate community managers around the world. Community managers are problem solvers, relationship builders and the brand representatives engaging on the digital front lines daily. As a community manager myself, I’m proud to be part of this emerging field of passionate digital ambassadors. At Edelman, we have community managers that perform activities on behalf of our clients. We thought we’d turn to these talented individuals for tips and advice for community managers. We also gathered advice from others in the field that either perform community management or champion the profession/activity. Take a look through the advice of our global team and the brand representatives from Boingo, HP (client), Radian6 and many more.

Humans Are The Killer App

Some may have scratched their heads a bit when I announced a little over a year ago that I was joining a "PR firm", especially since I've never worked formally in the field. But I think the recent news of Edelman making the Advertising Age "A-List" and specifically some of Richard Edelman's comments both in the video and article do a nice job of articulating why I moved into the direction I did.

"Marketing is more about the conversation now,...These other types of agencies will eventually set up units to do the things we do, but the question is, can they morph their mentality? We come at it differently and push the consumer experience and two-way discussion,..."

And of course, for me it's much more than marketing but it's the idea of business being prepared to operate in a world where human to human interaction in communications, HR, customer service, research & development and pretty much any business function you can think of, re-calibrates itself as human beings leverage our new connectivity for the mutual gain of customer, business and any group which has a stake in the conversation or dialogue and the outcomes that emerge from it. Turns out that with all the talk about digital, it's really humans that are the killer app.

Quora Underscores Need For Corporate Ambassadors

Unlike Facebook but very much like Facebook Groups, Quora the social Q&A ecosystem is designed to support individual participants, not companies (for now). In either case, it's increasingly becoming clear that this is a place where people talk about companies and brands. As Altimeter analyst Jeremiah Owyang recommends, this is a domain where a business should "monitor and respond". From Jeremiah's blog:

"Businesses Accounts Not Allowed…Yet. Now, If you’re involved in supporting your customers in the social web, either you’re a brand manager, or a community manager, your job is to go where customers are online and respond to them.  While Quora doesn’t currently allow business profiles on the site (see how the Mashable account has been suspended) you should expect in the future that this would be a potential revenue stream for Quora to offer ‘buy outs’ for Q&A just as LinkedIn has done in the past. "

I suspect that there will increasingly be brand and company mentions on Quora like the one pictured above (disclaimer, eBay is an Edelman client). The reason is twofold:

1. Like any conversation ecosystem, people will mention companies that are relevent to their interests.

2. Much like the blogoshphere, Quora is shaping up to be a marketplace of opinions vs. a simple Q&A social network.

Recommendation: Monitor, Discern & Engage Where Applicable

Quora (and other ecosystems such as the blogoshphere & message boards) highlights a key distinction in running a social business. Unlike social marketing, where Facebook apps and bought media (promoted Tweets etc.) require little human intervention, Quora requires a more human touch. For organizations who wish to do more than listen, this means training, equipping and deploying (TED) corporate ambassadors.  For many organizations, this will present a challenge as most corporate cultures are uncomfortable having their employees engage in public spaces unless they are official spokespeople. For the advanced social business who is already busy implementing the TED model, ecosystems such as Quora are merely another destination where envoys for the organizations are to be dispatched.

Whether it's observing engaging or both, the opportunities for your organization include the following:

• Business Intelligence
• Reputation management
• Education
• Advocacy

On the engagement front, corporate ambassadors will be essential whether it's behind the current individual profile structure or a future business account. Consider implementing a TED infrastructure if you think your organization is ready to engage directly.

I'll continue to dig into Quora from time to time. If you are interested in following me there, go here.

Your Social Media Followers Are Your Best Customers

The following is a guest post from Joe Chernov. Joe is the Director of Content for Eloqua. Co-chair of WOMMA member ethics panel. You can read more about Joe here: http://www.jchernov.com

If you’ve ever suspected your social media followers are your best customers, your instinct was correct.  The customers who choose to follow you on social channels are considerably more apt to promote your brand to others, at least, that’s what a recent internal study at Eloqua tells us.

Inspired by a conversation with SiriusDecisions VP Jonathan Block, we decided to shift our focus from the number of people following us and instead concentrate on the nature of our followers.  Who exactly are these people who’d gone out of their way to “Like” us, tweet about us and join our online communities?  What are they most apt to talk about?  And, most importantly, are they good for our business?

We looked for patterns in the most recent 500 tweets mentioning Eloqua, the dialogue on our 1,500-member Facebook Fan page, and the chatter in our LinkedIn Groups.  We uncovered some compelling statistics – data that supports the instincts of many social media marketers.

Those who engage with us on social channels have a much higher Net Promoter Score (NPS) – a popular, albeit controversial, measure of brand advocacy – than our “average” customer.  Over all, the NPS for customers who engage with us on social channels is more than 450% higher than our total customer base. We had assumed the NPS for our Facebook Fans would be the highest – after all, the type of content our Fans prefer is more “personal” (staff photos, party updates, employee profiles) than what’s shared on Twitter or LinkedIn.  But although Facebook Fans registered a staggering 700% higher NPS score than our total client base, it was Twitter that stole the show.  A customer who tweets about Eloqua is nearly nine times as likely to be a brand promoter as our average user.

Before completing this post, I chatted with social media A-lister Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group.  Owyang has blogged in the past about NPS and social media, so I figured he might have some insights to share.  He certainly did.  He told me, “NPS doesn't take into account that customers already are making referrals.  To get a holistic view of customer sentiment, referrals and word-of-mouth, brands must also include measuring the organic opinions of customers happening every second of every day around the globe.” 

In other words, NPS tells us if a person says they would promote a brand; social monitoring tells us if that person actually did promote a brand.

Yet having run communications at word-of-mouth marketing firm BzzAgent, I can tell you that most brand-related conversations still occur face-to-face, and no listening platform can (yet) monitor in-person discussions.  So while I agree social media analysis should incorporate sentiment, I still believe the correlation between NPS and social engagement is valuable in that it speaks to the likelihood of brand endorsements in real world conversations as well online chatter.

Certainly, this study only begins to address the correlation between social media and brand advocacy.  It doesn’t touch on causation.  It’s unclear if our best customers engage with us on social channels because they like us, or if the act of engaging with us induced them to favor us.  That’s a question we plan to tackle soon.

What else did we discover in the process of analyzing our social followers?  Lots.  Here are a few gems.

• The company’s blog is the #1 trigger for customer tweets
• Although social CRM and support are, justifiably, hot topics in the media, calls for support account for only 1% of all tweets
• SMB clients are nearly 2.5 times as likely to create online content than enterprise clients
• The more engaged the company is a particular social network, the higher the NPS of the customers who are active in that community

Does this analysis affect the way you will approach social media?  Have you conducted any studies that advance or contradict these indicators?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.  In the meantime, the next time your CEO, CMO or Board asks if any of this social media stuff truly matters, you no longer have to trust your instinct.  You’ve got data on your side. 

The Six Pillars of Influence

Everyone is talking about influence, so I added my perspective (based on personal experience) in my latest contribution to the Harvard Business Review. In the article, I lay out six critical "pillars" (not to be confused with metrics) which I find are significant factors when analyzing influence from both a traditional and digital perspective. They are:

Reach:
The most obvious, this relates to the size and potency of an individuals "social graph", or if you are looking at it from a traditional perspective it's the "platform" an individual has which helps them be heard.

Proximity:
This is likely overlooked with the exception of those who study network dynamics. Proximity indicates the relationships between people and how they are connected. Close proximity or ties typically indicate friends relatives etc, while loose ties have less proximity. Both ties however can be effective in influencing behavior.

Expertise:
Perceived expertise in topics or subject matter establishes influence as well though is difficulty to pin down and measure. There are correlations between reputation and authority here as well. But if an individual establishes themselves as having expertise (validated by trusted sources) this becomes a major factor.

Relevancy:
The relevancy of influentials to their communities, networks or audiences is also a significant indicator which affects how much influence one has the potential to yield within that group or community.

Credibility:
Established by the activities of individuals through their thoughts, actions and what they generate. Indicators of credibility are tied to reputation, word of mouth, referrals etc.

Trust:
Often a result of several of the above factors but extremely critical in the effectiveness of influencing a thought, behavior or action. Friends and peers can be trusted sources in cases while in other cases, known or unknown entities with perceived expertise.

While there are likely other important factors—these are good indicators though some are difficult to quantify (such as credibility). However the amount of times an individual is mentioned by others on a specific topic and the link to how much visibility is generated are metrics which can be measured. So how are you thinking about influence these days?

The Socially Active Business

Just wrapped up a few days with over 400 folks from around the world who either operate franchisees or work directly for Ben & Jerry's. That's Ben to my right and Jerry on the other end. My colleague Libby is to my left (Ben & Jerry's is an Edelman Digital client). One of the things that really stood out about the summit was the vision that Ben & Jerry had at the very beginning of building their business (and brand). Their vision was that of fairness. Specifically, that a company does not have to exploit individuals in order to be profitable. A fair profit, gained from ethical business practices such as fair trade and a way of doing business which allows producers such as farmers to benefit proportionately from their labor and resources. This is how Ben & Jerry's feel business should be conducted.   

Ben and Jerry also believe firmly in the power of community and that a business has the responsibility to give back to it regularly. Call it a socially active and responsible business model if you will--to me it seems that in 2011, amid a near global recession and public skepticism, it's more relevant than ever as trust in institutions erodes. A few days with the folks from Ben & Jerry's taught me several things, the first was an understanding of how rare it is for an organization to operate in a way where the people who are a part of it genuinely align behind the shared values first espoused by the founders. Secondly, I was able to get an inside glimpse of a company that is authentically passionate about the people they serve--"love our customers more than they love us" is the mantra behind the brand. 

And lastly, as all of the attendees descended upon St. Jude's ranch for children to perform a day of community service, I learned that a community is not only to be managed--but also served. So thanks to Ben & Jerry's, the company and the founders for the free sample of your corporate culture and for the demonstration of how a socially active business works

Are Quora Votes A Viable Metric? Influence, Popularity, Expertise, Campaigns & Currency.

As I mentioned in my brief recent post on Quora, I would be digging into it a bit more. First, if you want to know more about the service, here is one of the best descriptions around. I particularly like this part:

"It’s like the community side of LinkedIn, merged with the organic networking of Facebook, smashed up with the informative aspects of Wikipedia, topped with a dash of the “I just can’t see this catching on” from Plurk. With blog comments."

Now, lets get to the business of dissecting an interesting detail about the service. Let's say someone asks a question about the company you work for or a brand you really like. More specifically, the question itself could itself be unflattering or could be resulting in answers that put the company/brand/product or even issue in a negative light. But you may have information which answers the question credibly, adding value and depth to the topic. While you may edit answers and even the question itself, one of the best ways to "be seen" on Quora is to have your answer "voted up" by others. Think page one of Google or getting voted up in Digg. Now this is one specific scenario to illustrate a business case. Quora is ultimately a search engine play, meaning that while it is a network, it is not a walled garden and what gets said about you can be found, tweeted out and shared on any popular network including facebook. In my opinion, getting "voted up" much like a re-tweet, Facebook Like, is an emerging metric. I would not overstate it's importance since the service is in its infancy, but I'd watch it. So with that, here are a few factors to chew on.

Popularity
Many will say that getting lots of votes that pushes your answer up on a page is about popularity. And this is partially correct. As someone who has a considerable network, I find that it's easier for me to get votes without ever having to ask for them. People read my answers and my popularity gives me broader distribution therefore increasing my chances.

Expertise & Quality
Others will say that it's a quality answer or one that adds value & expertise that gets votes. This is also true in my opinion as many of the answers I see with votes are often simply good answers. Despite my reach, several of my own answers have not gotten lots of votes. This has something to do with variables in both the question and the answer, but it discounts popularity as being a sole indicator.

Lobbying & Campaining
A third viewpoint is that Quora's social system can be gamed. Gaming a system in this case may not be the most accurate description here while it's true that many social systems can be gamed. For example, there are services which increase your Twitter following. In the case of Quora and getting voted up on a page—a more accurate way of looking at it is campaigning. Anyone can e-mail their friends, mobilize co-workers or campaign for votes either in public or private however this makes a statement. For example having employees vote up an answer that is favorable to their company leaves a trail and can send a message that either someone conducted a campaign or that the employees are genuinely motivated to engage. In other words, it's a gray area.

Social Currency
A fourth POV is that participants could use votes as "social currency". In other words, you vote mine up and I'll vote yours up. Again this is merely another proof point that Quora is a social system. In other social systems such as the blogoshphere, links are often traded as currency. Favors are simple a staple of social interactions.

Why It Matters
There are reports of journalists beginning to use Quora and sourcing opinions from there. And as I mentioned, Quora may indeed be something Google ends up integrating—it certainly has the potential to show up in searches on the open Web. Participants can share questions and answers with their social networks so it has social amplification built into it. This is why I believe that the placement of an answer on a page could affect your business. But beware, that much like all social media—unsavory or unethical campaigns to alter information tend to come back to the person/company who tries to influence outcome in a way that isn't accurate, credible or is misleading.

Five Lessons From CES 2011

I spent a few days at CES 2011 doing some work with our BlackBerry client, a few panels and taking in some sights. If you're interested, here are a few thoughts based on my experience there.

 

Build It, And They Will Accessorize
Obviously CES is known for giving a visitors a sneak peek into what's going to be hot technology wise in the year to come. I also thought it was interesting to see that so many of the displays focused on the accessories of technologies. iPad accessories for example seemed to be ubiquitous. Think about how this translates to platforms as well. There are usually multiple versions of mobile apps for the most popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The big lesson here is that when you build something of value, more value is created from it.

Give Them Something To Talk About
From what I could tell, BlackBerry (client) had one of the most packed booths. I'm not just saying this because we work with them, but it was pretty impressive both due to the scale, the design (which I thought was on brand) the attractions (which included some celebs) and most notably the presence of their tablet in development, the Playbook which was being demonstrated by RIM folks as they worked through the crowd. As tech influencer Robert Scoble noted, it was "getting a lot of attention".

Relationships Are The Ultimate Technology
Much of my time was spent meeting, greeting, and making introductions with people informally. CES like many events is a great reminder that relationships are started over dinners, a cocktail or a cup of coffee. Despite the high tech nature of the event, good old fashioned networking was still the heart of it.

It's Time To Get Down To Business
One of the panels I participated on had Jeff Hayzlett former CMO of Kodak and Angela LoSasso formerly of HP and now social media manager at RIM. I unexpectedly found myself challenging Jeff on a few things. Specifically, I think I was reacting to some of the broad language being tossed around. It's not enough to say we need to be "transparent" anymore—or to toss out a soundbite about fax machine comparisons. I found Jeff's comments more useful when he talked more about his significant experiences at Kodak, setting up their war room for example. Please, let's talk more about that and less about the book you just wrote. We're past the generalities now.

What Happens In Vegas...
Lastly, it's worth noting that Vegas is probably the perfect town for a show like CES. It can handle the scale of it and the overwhelming sensory overload that comes with a show of this magnitude. The two seem to be a perfect match. The blinking lights of gadgets combined with the blinking lights of the Vegas strip. The two make quite a pair.

I'm sure other write-ups will cover more tech announcements, but from my perspective, these were a few things that stuck with me as I recovered from the activity on my flight back home.

Seven Reasons Why Quora Will Be Bigger Than Foursquare

I'm late to the party on Quora (hey, it's not when you use it but how well you use it). I'll do some more in-depth analysis later, but after a few days of active use I see tons of potential. Here's why:

1. People will always desire to build their profiles off what they know. Quora does this.
2. People want answers to their questions from friends, peers and those with expertise (Quora is building this)
3. People want digital services to work well across multiple platforms (Quora is off to a good start)
4. People like to show off what they know (check)
5. People feel satisfied when they know they've helped someone else. (double check)
6. People like when they can share across other social platforms (triple check)
7. People put value into systems which give value back.

I really did not want another network to feed. No way. I resisted. But this one while no replacement for Facebook or Twitter may have a future in the niche of sharing expertise, knowledge and a slightly new way of getting information. Or put it this way; we all got excited about the idea of checking in and earning badges, turns out that expertise and getting help could be more useful.

11 Actionable Trends For 2011

Eleven Digital Trends to Watch in 2011

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One of the most interesting parts of my job is working wirth each January to curate what the firm sees as the key trends that we think our clients and teams need to think about in the year ahead. This is the second time Steve and I collaborated on this effort. What I really like about our 2011 effort is that we don't just gaze into the crystal ball but we provide actionable insights along with recommendations on what you should be doing.

For this year’s installment, we identified eleven trends. The first five are Steve's  and the remaining six are mine. If there’s a common theme that runs through it all it’s that there will increasingly be a lot of information coming at us, yet the same amount of time to digest it all. This, as Auggie Ray from Forrester notes, will make standing out more challenging.

In the deck above you will find the same recommendations we are sharing with our clients and helping them bake into their strategies. Client examples in this deck include eBay, HP and Qualcomm. The others are best practices from around the industry.

The 11 curated trends are summarized below:

 

• Attentionomics - Marketers begin to realize the value of attention and not just reach in driving conversion

 

• Digital Curation – The plethora of content will give rise to digital curators who can separate art from junk

 

• Developer Engagement – Marketers typically don’t try to court developers, but that’s all about to change

 

• Transmedia Storytelling – If there’s one constant it’s that humans crave stories. Technology creates new expectations

 

• Thought Leadership – Companies recognize they must activate credible individual expert voices who can create content

 

• The Integration Economy – Social media efforts can no longer exist in fragmented, non-formal initiatives. They begin to integrate

 

• Ubiquitous Social Computing – As competition heats up mobile devices, consumers closer to being socially connected anywhere

 

• Location, Location, Facebook – If 2010 belonged to solely Foursquare, it’s likely that Facebook will rain on their parade in 2011

 

• Social Media Schizophrenia – Social overload is no longer a problem for tech mavens, but a broader population

 

• Google Strikes Back – Google proves that the best way to beat Facebook & Twitter is to do what they do best: index them to pieces

 

• Viva La Social Web Site – Businesses realize that integrating social functionality into their existing web sites is what users now expect

Deconstructing Your Social Business Plan For 2011

It's 2011 and as you gear up for planning initiatives for the new year, it's the best time ever to take a step back and think about what needs to be done before you take action. But before even doing that, you may want to think about how you've approached initiatives in the past. Here's a simple framework to consider:

Implementation & Execution
If you've launched anything—whether it be a Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube, or an internal communication/collaboration platform then you are to be congratulated because you have executed. However, many organizations who have jumped into the social waters now find themselves dealing with new challenges. Large organizations who operate globally may have scores of digital embassies which do not coordinate or exist within any defined architecture. Departments may have launched pilots as rogue efforts which initially were successful but are difficult to scale. Marketing, customer service, HR, IT, and a host of other operational groups may be in turf wars over who runs what. Your business partners may be engaging in their own turf wars. In short, getting something executed and maintaining it is a great place to be in, but it also creates new challenges which require formalization as the space matures.

Digital & Social Channel Strategy
Above any execution should sit a sound strategy. As touchpoints in the digital world become seemingly infinite and the need for integration becomes more important, organizations are often forced into taking a strategic approach at the "channel" level. This means taking a look across the enterprise at all social initiatives and how they should work. What should a company's Facebook presence be leveraged for primarily: Marketing? Sales? Customer Service? How do the social touch points integrate with other off domain and on domain properties? What type of content is generated? How does this integrate? How should any digital embassy represent the brand? These are all strategic efforts which help inform and direct tactical execution and implementation.

Social Business Planning
In my opinion, this is where you may want to consider starting if you are really serious about scaling and integrating across a large enterprise. Social business planning is the infrastructure that comes before you even begin to work through your strategies that drive your execution. It impacts three core areas which you can think of as the "3P's" if it helps:

• People
Hiring, re-org, training, corporate culture, writing new job descriptions, policy or in short anything that involves the human capital which is needed to power social initiatives. Specifically, how they need to function or work with partners in order for the business to ensure that social initiatives will be more genuine, valuable (to all of your stakeholders) and integrated.

• Process
The rise of social media and your organization's response means tweaking, re-inventing or coming up with new processes for doing things. From updating engagement guidelines to workflow models to integrating process between existing business units and re-calibrating them for social media. Process acts as a road map for any organization looking to operationalize and act at scale.

• Platforms
From social platforms which your external stakeholders use to the internal platforms which your employees leverage—your technical infrastructure must be planned for growth and scalability. This requires a complete assessment of what's available now, what's coming in the future and what types of platforms can be used to manage others (social CMS) for example.

For a real world example of how all three come together, consider Dell's social media command center. People are required to run the center, a process is needed for how the people share and communicate the data/information and platforms are used to extract the social data (then back to people to make meaning from it). This all had to be planned in advance for it to operate. The bottom line is that all three steams are essential for best results. It's likely that you've already begun one or two, but this is the best time of year to consider how all three can work together. If the decision were mine—I'd say start with social business planning and get the right infrastructure in place but don't stop there, be flexible enough to tweak your social business plan as your integration matures.  

 

It's Time To Move The Needle

If your business is being impacted by "social" in some way shape or form, then this should be significant goal for you as you take on the challenges change brings. We're past the theory now. Teaching still plays an important role. Strategy is not optional. Implementation is where the rubber hits the road. Everything you plan on doing this year should move the needle somehow. Moving the needle can take various forms:

Something launched
Consensus was achieved
Money was made
Money was saved
Time was saved
Time was well spent
Innovation happened
Something was built
Opinions changed (for the benefit of your business)
Good things were said about you
People were helped
A situation was improved
Your product shipped
You changed the industry
You changed yourself
You made a difference
The difference you made mattered

Think about what you need to move the needle this year. Hint: it's bigger than Facebook followers and Twitter retweets. Good business means doing something valuable. You only know this if you've moved the needle and others have felt the effect of your efforts.