Social Media Success May Depend on HR
Posted on 18. Jan, 2012 by Mark Schaefer in Blog, Guest Posts, Mark Schaefer, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social business
Guest post written by Mark W. Schaefer. Mark is a consultant, college educator, and author who blogs at {grow}.
There is a growing gap between the social media “haves” and “have-nots.”
Some companies I visit have embraced social media enthusiastically and are moving into some pretty advanced ideas.
Other companies are simply checking the box. They have a blog and Facebook page… and they view the job as complete.
Still others are paralyzed and have not done anything at all.
What’s the difference between these scenarios?
It’s not necessarily resources, ideas, or a strategic vision. It’s a matter of corporate culture. And that’s why the key to future social transformation may very well rest with the HR department.
For decades, our companies have been conditioned to “manage” the message, broadcast ads and wait for things to happen. Now, companies have to be reactive, employees have to be empowered, and above all, we have extraordinary new opportunities to “listen.”
One of the things I love most about The Now Revolution is that it is one of the few marketing books to acknowledge the critical importance of corporate culture on social media success.
Despite my best intentions as a consultant, I know that there is no such thing as a grassroots cultural change. Social media success ultimately lies with the understanding and sponsorship of the company leaders. They are the ones who own the strategy and the budget. And that’s why real progress in your company may be an HR and corporate change issue as much as a marketing challenge.
What has your experience been? Is HR ready to take on this larger role?
Social Media, Pretend Friends, and the Lie of False Intimacy
Posted on 05. Sep, 2011 by Jay Baer in Amber Naslund, Blog, Jason Falls, Mark Schaefer, olivier blanchard, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social networks
It’s not an illusion. We really are doing more with each 24 hours, as technology enables (or forces) us to interact and intersect and do and consume with unprecedented volume and vigor. We live our lives at breakneck speed because we can, because we feel we have to keep up, and because every macro and micro breeze blows in that direction.
I remember the days before social media when I would get 20 phone calls per day and 50 or 60 emails, and felt exhausted by the pace of communication. Now we’ve traded the telephone for other connection points (I only get 2-3 calls per day), but the overall number of people ringing our doorbell through some mechanism has ballooned like Charles Barkley.
The number of “inboxes” we possess is staggering: Email (3 accounts for me), public Twitter, Twitter DM, public Facebook, Facebook messages, Facebook chat, Linkedin messages, public Google +, Google + messages, blog comments, Skype, text messages, Instagram, phone, voice mail, and several topically or geographically specific forums, groups and social networks. That’s a lot of relationship bait in the water.
The Lie of Opportunity
How do we justify this? How do we convince ourselves that slicing our attention so thin the turkey becomes translucent is a good idea?
We do it because we believe that more relationships provides more opportunity.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
“Social media makes a big world smaller.”
“Linkedin is for people you know, Facebook is for people you used to know, Twitter is for people you want to know.”
All of these chestnuts are passed around like a flu strain because they make intuitive sense. But common among them is the underlying premise that interacting with more people is inherently better than interacting with fewer people. I have always believed this to be true, and in fact have delivered the lines above in presentations and on this blog. But today, I’m no longer convinced.
Instead I wonder, what if we have it ALL wrong?
You Don’t Know Jack
In addition to despair and shock and surprise, what I felt most about the death of Trey Pennington was confusion. I found myself saying over and over “Geez, you think you know someone…” I had a similar reaction when another colleague committed suicide a couple years ago and very few people saw it coming.
The reality is, we don’t KNOW hardly anyone.
I interacted with Trey quite a bit online, and twice spent time with him in three dimensions. Trey was one of the kindest, most interesting, generous people I’ve ever met. He was truly one of the good guys in social media, and his background in theology and storytelling gave him a refreshingly different outlook on all of this. He will be missed, and if the outpouring from the social media community is any barometer, his impact on others was perhaps far greater than he knew.
I considered Trey Pennington a friend. I suspect many of his 100,000+ Twitter followers considered him a friend. Clearly, most of us were not his friends, as his death came as a complete surprise despite the fact that he had a prior suicide attempt earlier this summer, and had been discussing his problems with confidants.
But if you’d asked me yesterday morning, I would have said Trey was a friend. Social media forces upon us a feeling of intimacy and closeness that doesn’t actually exist.
I met Amber Naslund on Twitter and we wrote a book together. But, I’ve never met her daughter.
Jason Falls is one of my closest colleagues in social media, but he’s never been to my home.
Mike Stelzner and I have collaborated on many projects, but we’ve never had a private meal.
I consider these people (and many, many others) to be friends, and I’m thankful that social media has brought them into my life. But in comparison to my pre-social media friends (many of whom I’ve known for 30+ years), I know almost nothing about them.
Is that what we want – spending considerable time building large networks of shallow connections, potentially at the expense of deepening a few cherished friendships upon which we can truly rely?
I recognize this is not purely an either/or scenario, and relationships that began with a Twitter exchange or series of blog comments can flourish into treasured real-world ties. Mark W. Schaefer was a real friend to Trey, and had tried to help him through this difficult period. Mark and Trey met on Twitter, and Mark describes the impact of this connection in his excellent book The Tao of Twitter. (Mark also has a tremendous post about Trey’s death, and Olivier Blanchard’s tribute to Trey is moving and important).
But those situations where we “meet” someone through social media, have the opportunity to interact in real life, and then develop a relationship that creates true friendship are few and far between. And as social media gets bigger and more pervasive, this chasm becomes even more difficult to cross. As my own networks in social media have gotten larger, I’ve ended up talking about my personal life less, because a large percentage of that group don’t know me, or my wife, or my kids, or my town, or my interests. I don’t want to bore people with the inanities of the everyday. (Facebook is the one exception, as I’ve always kept my personal account relatively small).
To some degree, I think this explains the popularity of Google + among people with very large followings on Twitter and/or Facebook. Google + provides a chance for a do-over, to create a new group of connections that are more carefully cultivated.
But that’s just medicating the symptoms, not curing the disease. Fundamentally, technology and our use of it isn’t – as we’ve all hoped – bringing us closer together. In fact, it may be driving us farther apart, as we know more and more people, but know less and less about each of them.
Trey gave us a glimpse of this in his last tweet:
and Trey’s friend Jim O’Donnell underscored it with his message on Trey’s Facebook page:
“To my friend Trey Pennington, one of the worst things about social media is we can be surrounded by so many and still feel completely alone.”
Making Friends Out of Connections
Maybe we should be focused less on making a lot of connections, and focused more on making a few real friends? I’m going to try to work on this, to identify people (including the three above) with whom I want to develop real friendships, and make a concerted effort to do so, even if it means answering fewer tweets and blog comments from a much larger group of casual connections.
We have to take at least some of these social media spawned relationships to the next level, otherwise what’s the point beyond generating clicks and newsletter subscribers?
You think you know someone, but you don’t. And that’s social media’s fault. But more so, our own.
Customer Stalking – When Is Your Twitter Response Too Fast?
Posted on 18. May, 2011 by Neicole Crepeau in Blog, Gini Dietrich, guest post, LiveFyre, Mark Schaefer, Neicole Crepeau, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social crm, social media customer service, Twitter
Guest post by Neicole Crepeau, an Online Strategist at Coherent Interactive. She blogs at Coherent Social Media.
The other week, I was participating in Jay’s hashtagsocialmedia.com chat on social media. (It takes place every Tuesday at noon EST.) The exchange is below:
@jaybaer #sm107 BONUS Q4. How important is speed of response on Twitter? And can a company be TOO fast = creepy?
@neicolec: Q4: If support problem, no reply too fast. If I made a comment, a fast reply creeps me out. #sm107
It’s true. I get creeped out when a brand on Twitter replies quickly to a comment I just made. Probably a lot of people do. It may seem inconsistent and fickle, but we don’t always like a fast response to a brand mention on Twitter. In some cases, it might be best not to respond at all.
The key to deciding how fast to respond is to take off your business hat and put on your person hat. Think less about your business and more about appropriate behavior in a social situation.
Eavesdropping With A Purpose
The circumstance where I definitely do want a fast response is when I’m having a problem. I’ve had several companies respond quickly to conversations I was having with others about their products. Livefyre responded when I complained to my friend Mark W. Schaefer that my comment on his blog wasn’t uploading. And just last week, Triberr’s Dan Cristo helped me out when I told Gini Dietrich that I didn’t understand how to use Triberr. I was happy to have them eavesdropping, and happy to have them offer assistance.
In this circumstance, no response is too fast. Presumably, the customer has tried to figure out a solution on their own. By the time they reach out, they’re frustrated and maybe angry. They just want the problem solved now. (in fact, ExactTarget’s research on Twitter found that most customers turn to it as the third option, after they’ve been dissatisfied by a company’s phone and email response).
That’s one of the benefits of real-time monitoring and response—you may be able to intervene before the customer gets to the boiling stage. If someone is complaining about a problem, they are almost never going to be upset that you overheard, stuck your nose in it, and solved the problem.
Business hat: I’m monitoring conversations about my product. Someone just said they’re having a problem with it. I’ll provide good customer support by asking if I can help solve the problem right away.
Person hat: Those two tourists are looking at a map. Oh, I just heard one of them ask how to get to the market. I know just how to get there. Let me go over and help them.
It works in either scenario. If you were lost in the real world and someone offered to help, you’d feel grateful. (Except if you’re a New Yorker, in which case, mind your own business!)
Customer Service vs. Customer Stalking
Most of us who are digitally savvy know that we are being served online ads based on information that Google, Facebook, and others collect about our online activities. Many of us accept it as the price we pay for so much free content.
Still, if you visit Ford’s website, and then every ad you see for the next two days is for Ford, it kind of creeps you out. It’s like you’re being banner ad stalked. Maybe you know in the back of your mind that advertisers are watching you, but you don’t want it to be so obvious!
This effect is even worse on social networks. When you’re on Twitter and someone @’s you, you know that a person is talking to you. Even if it’s a branded account instead of a personal one, with a logo instead of a person’s photo, you are still very aware that it is a person tweeting to you. So, when someone tweets about the great deal on Wii’s at this or that store, just after you’ve made a comment that you’re thinking of buying a Wii, it feels like stalking. It feels like that person was spying on you.
Business hat: I’m monitoring the real-time conversation for opportunities. Someone just mentioned they are thinking of buying a new minivan. That’s a prime sales opportunity—at the point of decision. I’ll tell them we have good prices and give them a link to our site.
Person hat: I’m talking with a friend at a party about buying a new minivan. The sleazy guy at the buffet table behind us leans over and says, “I heard you mention you want to buy a minivan. I have great prices at my dealership. Here’s my card.”
Yuck.
Even something less spammy can be creepy. Let’s say I @ a Twitter friend in response to a question. I tell her that she should try Livefyre for her comment system. And then @Livefyre immediately tweets, “Let us know if you have any questions!”
I’m sorry. That’s asynchronous and icky. Livefyre might just be trying to be helpful, but it feels like they are spying on a private conversation, and are a bit too eager to please. Even though I clearly like the product and am suggesting it, I don’t like them intruding into my private recommendation to a friend.
That’s ridiculous, you might say. The conversation isn’t private. You’re on Twitter, for goodness sake. And it’s hypocritical. You didn’t mind them intruding when you had a problem.
It doesn’t matter if it’s hypocritical, though. People aren’t logical, and social rules are subtle and can seem capricious. Still, when they’re broken, we know. I may have a hard time explaining why that gentleman is standing too close when we’re out here on the street, even though it would be acceptably close in a crowded elevator. Nevertheless, if he’s standing too close, I’m uncomfortable.
So, let’s try our hats on again for this last situation.
Business hat: I’m monitoring the real-time conversation. Someone just recommended our brand of luggage. I’ll make sure they know we can answer any questions, and that they have my contact info.
Person hat: I’m on the subway talking with my friend about her travel plans. I recommend this great travel bag I bought. The guy behind us leans over the seat and says “I’m a sales rep for that luggage. Do you have any questions? Here’s my card.”
Creepy. You want to just brush him off. Chances are my friend is going to throw away that business card, even though she wants the luggage.
The next time you’re wondering how fast to respond to someone’s mention of your brand, take my advice: put your person hat on first.
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