Those of you that know me understand that I have a reputation for building my house on a rock. This means that before diving into any business-sales-marketing initiative, I conduct primary and secondary market research where possible and leverage existing research. Building my house on a rock enables me to "see the future that has already happened" (Peter Drucker), and gives me a better understanding of the current market conditions. In the next series of posts I will present research and examine the definition of the social customer, their personalities and characteristics and discuss the impact of my newest acronym, the Social Media Peer Group (SMPG).
An SMPG is essentially a Web 2.0 enabled community of interest around a specific topic and/or business. Such groups have already formed within the mega sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. The most recent example of a business focused SMPG that I know of is the Palladium Group's XPC, Execution Premium Community, which is only a month old. This SMPG has gone global in a hurry. XPC is community for performance management professionalsâ€"those responsible for balanced scorecards and other business strategies related to managing the performance of a corporation and/or organization. What is amazing to me is how fast these communities can go global. Learn from this.
At the Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco earlier this year, I vividly remember both Charlene Li and Jerimiah Owyang telling the audience that you needed to build individual SMPGs for each country. Wrong!
This month I had the pleasure of attending the Society for New Communications Research conference (SNCR) and according to research presented there by Nora Barnes of UMASS there has been a huge jump in the use of social media, blogging, and video since 2007-2009. For many of us, this is indeed "stating the obvious." High-growth small businesses in the US have been quick to realize this, and many of them are now leveraging this trend; however, many large companies are still measuring success through hits and page views. Does this make sense? More importantly, they are not going to where the customers are! Here are my top-ten takeaways from her excellent presentation. I will elaborate on some actions that will help you get closer to the social customer.
- Company websites are losing value.
- Social networks are increasing in usage.
- Social sites are now the primary tools of journalists.
- Journalists are monitoring sentiment and voice in Twitter and in social network networks, especially in blogs.
- Twitter's ranking increased significantly over last year.
- Only 16% of the Fortune 500 has a corporate blog.
- Charities, nonprofits and higher education are way ahead of the Fortune 500.
- Video is the fastest growing in 2008 and 2009.
- Social networking is growing faster on LinkedIn and also MySpace.
- 51% of INC 500 have Twitter accounts
Actions
Takeaway 1: The fact that company websites are losing value represents a major behavioral shift for the Internet and signifies the coming of Web 2.0. This is very significant overall, as many companies large and small think that the customer is going to come to them and they don't realize this. Company websites are generally not easy to use, not globally or culturally fit for most users, and are fraught with antiquated assemblages of content.Action: You must go where the customers are; don't expect them to come to you!
Takeaways 2-4 are simply stating the obvious.
Action: Keep a close eye on what is being said about your company. Journalists are always digging for dirt and the negative, and now it is easier for them than ever.
Takeaway 5 is again stating the obvious, although some recent reports indicate that Twitter membership may be slowing, but that doesn't account for interaction levels.
Action: Monitor your customers on Twitter and set up your account and tweet.
Takeaway 6 demonstrates that most of the Fortune 500 don't understand social media or the importance of Web 2.0 technologies. When they feel the pain, they will react accordingly.
Action: Use the Web 2.0 platform and social media to gain competitive advantage over your laggard competitors.
Takeaway 7: Charities, nonprofits and higher education are all community-oriented organizations and are leveraging social media to great advantage.
Action: Learn from their experiences and participate in their communities.
Takeaways 8-9 are again stating the obvious.
Action: We are a visual society. Leverage YouTube and other rich media platforms within SMPGs to build brand and understand customer needs.
Takeaway 10 is somewhat curious in that 50% of the fastest-growing small businesses have Twitter accounts. But who in the company has the account?
Action: Look closely at your customers on Twitter and more closely at whom they are following; that is your influence base.
Social networking is changing the face of human interaction and communications globally, and there is a strong link between social networking and global anthropology, particularly how this is changing the interactions and interrelationships between cultures. This is certainly an area that needs to be researched now and in the future. What will the impact of social media be on cultures and behaviors in the millennium? What do you think?