Control: maybe; Domination: No

Today a few of the great people I follow in Twitter independently repeated one of the many “mantras” we have in Social Media; quoting just one of them to make the point (translated):

@jesus_hoyos: “#sfdcmx #mx0609 there is no control in social networks; just conversations”

I want to offer a counterpoint; not to challenge the concept completely but instead to “fine tune it”:

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary one of the valid definitions of Control is: “to exercise restraining or directing influence over”; and a valid definition of Domination is: “supremacy or preeminence over another”.

So here the bait for Brands: Yes, you can have control…. (now comes the switch) however you can’t dominate in Social Networks.

How do you have control, you ask?

You listen, you engage, you participate and you do it open to exercise control as much as have control exercised on you (by those others that participate in the social network as you do). You create the opportunities and spaces for engagement as much as you seek for for and willfully join those opportunities and engagement spaces others have created and chosen to gather around. You control by collaborating and understanding, you control by being open to be controlled.

So Brands: be happy, you can control.

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com

Social Media Compensation Plan?

Compensation Drives Behavior.. this is one of those phrases I have come to believe in; allow me to set up some context to eliminate the materialistic perception:

I understand compensation in the most ample sense; just as unique as humans are is how unique our perception of value and cost is… some of us would consider some things deeply valuable (i.e. the idea that we are keeping the world clean for someone that may not have been born yet) while others consider the concept cute at best; on the other side some would consider some tasks unbearable and impossible to achieve (i.e. the excruciating preparation for and actual performance in an Iron Man competition) while others see in it an element of “compensation” onto itself… to each its own.
My point here is: understanding that we all have a “value” and “cost” schema and that we tend to do what would give us a better “return on our investment” is extremely important in your social media efforts.

Now; there is no recipe here to easily define what is the best compensation plan for your social media efforts.. that will depend a lot on: what is that you are after, who is your target audience, what is the expected life span of your efforts, etc.

• Are you addressing gamers or volunteers? A competition versus joint achievement compensation schema could apply in one case versus the other.
• Are you targeting people building a career versus those trying to build a legacy? Resume building versus recognition schemas could apply in one case versus the other.
• Are you in for the long run, or will your efforts be short lived? (i.e. a support community versus a movie launch campaign..) in one case you can define and implement a deferred compensation schema where the community itself rewards those who deserve it; in the other the reward needs to be as instant as possible and likely included in the action you want the user to perform (i.e. I want you to help me promote this movie; what you get is that you entertain your friends by sharing this clip).

Are you thinking carefully through your “Compensation Plan” in your social media efforts? Pay close attention to the spontaneous behaviors of your target audience in the space you are aiming for, those should give you a hint of what people are willing to do and why.

What do you think?
Filiberto Selvas
Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com

What are people thinking about buying?

Went to search.twitter.com, searched for "thinking about buying", took the last 24 hours of tweets that came up, did some manual cleaning to eliminate common words (imperfect) and applied Wordle .

Here the result:

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.com

Is Social Media is here to stay? What will you be doing next?

I have been asked these questions many times lately; here the way I normally go about answering them: 

The core aspects in which the Social Media phenomena is based are deeply ingrained in our psyche; I know that I am generalizing when I say this but: 

• Most of us seek and like to “gather” with others that care about thee same things we do and for the same reasons. 
  
• We like to help when we can and seek out help when needed.
  
• We love to collect (articles, knowledge, friends, trip memories, etc.) and showcase our collections
  
• We are curious, and we like to browse around (things that find interesting)
  

These are behaviors we had before computers existed, and will be with use long after computers as we know them today are a thing of the past. Social Media is here to stay because its basis were and will be wiht us forever.

The next question I am asked is where do I want to move forward in my professional career, and implied in the question is the aspect that social may not be the center of it for a long time…. here the way I normally go about answering it: 

• I came to Social Media through CRM; as soon as I realized what SM was I understood the potential business value to establish, manage and leverage a set of multipoint relationships in Social spaces where knowledge was created, communicated, curated, etc.
  
• Helping companies to advance / achieve business objectives through the application of the above will always be of value, and will continue to evolve as technology enables more and better ways to do this.
  

What do you think? 

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com

Social Media Gaps

We have gaps in Social Media / Social Networking that need to be addressed; and these unaddressed needs open great business opportunities; some of these gaps are:

• The intranet versus extranet gap: we all know social networking can bring benefits inside and outside the “organization” and sensible, conditional, contextual, rule driven connection among these two worlds (social networking inside and outside the organization) can bear great benefits; I wrote a hopeful post about this long time ago.
  
• The content here, community there gap: companies spend a lot of time and effort creating amazing content; yet their community interaction seems to happen somewhere else and this shall not benefit that (just check GE's Web Site and one of their GE Facebook Pages as an example)
  
• The experience gap: a company / brand embodies a style, a mission, a feeling, a way of being.. and they invest heavily in keeping that style or feeling consistent throughout their presence in the world (Web, Magazines, Stores) Think about Apple and Nike as some of the best examples; yet when it comes to Social Networks / Communities companies face tough choices: Do they accept the experience constrains of the most popular SNs? (check the Apple Ipod page in FB) when the experience they would really like to deliver is much better than that? but how can ignore the incredible number of people participating in those networks? (Facebook Connect and similar efforts allow addressing some of these challenges).
  

I have been in conversations with a company that I believe has a chance to do a lot about these gaps; so I continue to be hopeful about the ongoing and steady progress of social media (the linked post was written over a year ago)

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com

 

Good for them and for you too!

Thanks to @jshuey I came across this exchange where different individuals (mostly developers) were asked to chime in calling out what is that they gained from participation in social networks / communities; it really made an interesting read and here my paraphrased summary of it in no particular order: 

• It helps me stay centered, find others that are better at what I do than I am and allow me to learn from them. 
  
• It allows me to tap into others people’s knowledge and get their help to answer my questions. 
  
• Allows to identify and adopt best practices and proven ways to tackle common problems. 
  
• Helps me learn what’s new, and how it is being applied. 
  
• It expands my horizons beyond what I’d normally use/do at my daily activities. 
  
• It allows me to share my expertise and be thanked/receive gratification for that help. 
  

I don’t know about you; but in my opinion the above are great gains for any discipline and/or profession. 

What do you think? 

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com 

How Does Social CRM look like?

I was recently re reading a great post written by my Friend Paul Greenberg about Twitter and I couldn’t resist the urge to select and highlight a couple key paragraphs within it which he states the need for a Social CRM Strategy and explains how a Social CRM system that supports this strategy would work / look like; allow me to quote: 

On the need for a Social CRM Strategy: 

“With the customers in control of the business ecosystem, companies have no choice but to define strategies for customer engagement.  Twitter is at this point a channel for finding the customers to engage with and to get data from so that richer customer insights can be garnered and problems solved in real time or nearly so.”

On How a Social CRM System would work and how it would relate to channels like Twitter: 

“Twitter's benefit and its relationship to CRM is that it is a location, a community of people who are engaging with their peers in honest open discussions about things that benefit or hurt specific businesses, among many other things. Because there are operational CRM tools and will be new tools that can potentially tie business rules and workflow, processes and systems to communities of prospects and customers who are conversing, then a channel or location like Twitter becomes eminently valuable. The first reason? Because a problem can be monitored, noticed and acted upon. The second reason? Because gathering data on the actual discussions around brands - both yours and competitors is invaluable.”

What do you think? 

Filiberto Selvas

Filiberto.Selvas@Gmail.Com