If you want to be a Social Business you need to think of Social as "Infrastructure"

This post is based on a great Article published by McKinsey titled "How 'social intelligence' can guide decisions"

Here for a great example on how for Businesses Social Media / Social Collaboration / Social CRM is "Infrastructure" and the key to obtain value from it comes from its application to specific use case scenarios:

What are the phases - steps involved in using Data to inform a Company's strategy? And how do they differ in a Traditional versus a Social Enabled Business?

Phase	Traditional Approach	Social Enabled Approach
Data Identification	Research sources for Public Data (i.e. Census, publicly traded companies) and Proprietary Data such as primary research, analyst studies, etc.	Identification of public, vocal and influential subject matter experts, Advocates or Fans and the locations where they like to exchange / have the opportunity to influence others.
Data Gathering	Acquisition, assembly and normalization of data	Engagement of the groups identified above and tracking of the actions and reactions
Insight, Information Extraction	Traditional Statistical Analysis, Benchmarking, etc.	Data mining, sentiment analysis
Insight Delivery	Generation of huge comprehensive reports leaving it to the recipient to find and act on the gold nuggets	Subscription based micro delivery of insights in friendly and easy to share formats that facilitate discussion and action.

For Data Identification the Social Enabled Business:

• Is always monitoring the public locations where their area of interest is being discussed. 
• Is always identifying key participants in those conversations; particularly those that display the Maven, Connector and Leader traits. 

For Data Gathering the Social Enabled Business: 

• Is always Engaging the individuals identified above and tracking / measuring the actions / reactions those individuals have to their engagements as well as the Engagements from the competition. 

For Insight, Information Extraction the Social Enabled Business: 

• Is always mining the data, identifying deviations / new trends.

For Insight Delivery the Social Enabled Business: 

• Is continuously evaluating the micro insights extracted from the data, identifying new trends and discussing potential implications and generating action out of this. 

Clearly the above is only possible with a Business wide infrastructure that facilitates data capture, tracking of key customer (and non customer) relationships, programmatic delivery of messages, automated measuring of actions/reactions, data capture and mining, subscription based delivery of insights and content centric collaboration. This is only feasible if "Social" is an infrastructure level capability across the business and not individual appendages for silo units. 

What do you think? 

Filiberto Selvas 

In defense of the technology aided customer - company relationship

I have thought about this topic frequently; it is very common to see negative comments regarding the “mechanization of the customer relationship” among those that write about the Social - CRM - Digital - Advertising space, particularly with the recent onslaught of attention for “Big Data” and its value for business.... I’d like to offer a contrarian view.

To get it out of the way let me state upfront that I vehemently believe companies should seek and manage real relationships with their customers, I just don’t believe that this is at odds with technology aiding and facilitating these relationships. Lets think about CRM for a few minutes from a systems perspective: these systems came into existence to ensure companies had a collective and accessible memory of a customer’s relationship and this memory was used systematically to inform, drive and improve any future interactions (and those future interactions would continue to inform the record of the relationship of the customer with the company). It is clear to me and you and many others that CRM has not necessarily being used this way all the time (indeed many companies have dehumanized their customer relationships with their implementation of CRM systems); however the “tool” is not at fault here, it is the “implementation of the tool” that had issues. What is a true relationship anyway but making sure that we have a memory and understanding of those that we care for, and we use that memory to provide what they need or want?  is the relationship with my wife any less real because I used an scheduled reminder and a pre-paid service to ensure I had flowers in hand the day of our anniversary? isn’t the fact that I cared to set up the reminder and purchase enough to validate the honesty of my intentions? Technology was simply an aid to ensure proper execution.

Our life will continue to move online, the digital signals of our daily activity will become richer and more comprehensive and the tools available for companies to use these signals (with our permission) to provide us with better service will continue to improve. We should not fear or even resist a technology aided company-customer relationship, we should simply demand “honorable intentions”, respect to our data sharing choices and excellence in execution.

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

Quick draw: Mobile is about understanding the person, not the technology

Just a quick post to capture something said by Tim Hayden, SVP of Mobile Strategy for Edelman Digital in this FORBES article that I believe is extremely important:

The value of mobile isn’t about its technological bells and whistles, says Hayden. Instead, “it’s understanding the utility the device brings and how someone’s life is made easier. It’s more efficient in terms of finding a place to drop off my dry cleaning, or the best place to get a burger in Boston. You have to understand the person before you understand the technology.” Too many companies and agencies still think of mobile as a tactical add-on. But that won’t get you far, says Hayden: “Mobile now transcends everything, and you have to take into account that behavior – how it disrupts things or can be leveraged.”

What do you think? 

Filiberto Selvas

We are the opposite of monochromatic

In a conversation with my friend Jesus Hoyos from Solvis Consulting I was reminded of how much work is yet ahead of us to fully address the convergence of Social, CRM and Digital Marketing at large from a platforms perspective... the scenarios Jesus is helping his customer’s address in Latin America are in some cases so complicated and comprehensive that dealing with them require a composite arrangement of platforms (which may crank up the cost to a prohibitive level), or ad hoc and manual labor intensive solutions that are not reusable and / or scalable.

Here an example of the kind of scenarios Jesus is dealing with, paraphrased and names obfuscated to protect the innocent:

Take a company that has an extensive product portfolio: Candies, pre-packaged kids lunch, Geriatric nutrition complements, pre-packaged weight control meals, Athlete nutrition products, etc. This company is extremely CRM savvy and understands that managing a multi channel, multi brand, multi persona relationship with the individuals that buy / are interested in their products is of the utmost importance.

Take Sandy (made up persona); Sandy is (like many of you) someone that uses many hats through the week:

• Sandy is a mother with little time to spare but no shortage of love for her kids; she is extremely deliberate about choosing what to pack for their lunch at school and carefully considers her friend’s advice in this topic, normally that advice is exchanged / offered over email and social media sites.
• Sandy is a concerned daughter that helps mom look after her health; mom is elderly now but still living at her own home and very much self sufficient but set in her own ways (she is going to cook the same thing she did 60 years ago); Sandy is looking for unobtrusive ways to help her complement her nutrition without requiring a drastic change in diet; the advice of nutritionists (subject matter experts) weighs heavily on her choices in this space.
• Sandy is an accomplished professional with little time to prepare and pack lunch; yet she carefully looks after what she eats. She likes to buy pre-packaged foods that promise to help her control calorie intake and shamelessly follows the recommendations celebrities offer through TV programs and advertisement.
• Sandy is a human and like many of us every now and then makes impulsive decisions; maybe grab a chocolate bar as she is waiting on the cashier’s lane or maybe making an exception and buying chocolate cookie dough to pamper her family with the smell and flavor of freshly baked cookies and a glass of milk tonight. Brand awareness aided by advertisement, friends mentions, her kids pledges, etc. help determine her impulsive decision.

Think about this company; think about this multi-faceted customer they cater to..

• This customer does not fit in the standard lead / prospect / etc. categorization..
• This customer requires different interaction, different approach to lead her to make a favorite decision towards this company depending on the context (in some cases it would be social media, in others advertisement, in others subject matter expertise, in other celebrities, etc.)
• Tracking the effectiveness of the different tactics will require a comprehensive set of tools (brand awareness surveys, coupon redemption tracking, loyalty rewards, etc.)
• Allowing the different business units of this company to address this customer individually is a terribly missed opportunity that will rob the company of a comprehensive understanding and relationship with her (equivalent to the blind men and an elephant story)

Think about the platform that is required to support such relationship(s).. can you name one from the top of your mind that doesn’t necessarily require a 7 digit number and lots of consulting to get going? Lots of work ahead and beautiful problems to tackle! 

Want to read the Spanish version of this post? Click here!
What do you think?

Influence, lets not forget what it is and why we pursue those that have it

I have always subscribed to a very simple definition of Influence:

Influence: The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

“The capacity to have an effect on the behavior of Someone”

So lets remember: we care about influence and pursue those that have it because they can have an effect on the behavior of our current and prospective customers.

The “marketing noise” that surrounds us is deafening, our brain reacts as evolution has taught it when under such distress: filter out, tune out the overwhelming signals (otherwise it would have to shut down). This means that cranking up the frequency, volume, color intensity of our standard marketing efforts will simply continue to have diminishing returns..

(Before I proceed I should state for the record that I am not one of those that thinks traditional marketing is dead, I do think the portfolio of Marketing tools is ever evolving though, and there is an overdue shift of marketing budgets to more effective marketing strategies)

So what is a marketer to do? what if you have an amazing product? how do you cut through the noise? Maybe something you should consider is to have a programmatic effort to identify and enlist for your cause those that have the capacity to have an effect (buy, renew, upgrade your product) on the behavior of your current and potential customers.

What type of “influencer” you pursue depends on the nature of your product, industry and current-potential customers.. in the context of Social CRM I care particularly about that influencer that is not a celebrity and is not an industry subject matter expert (the former are very important influencers, just not the type I care about from a Social CRM perspective). I call this influencer the “Peer Influencer”, a couple examples to bring it down to earth:

• You meet with a friend at a bar he suggested, x brand of beer has plastered their image all over the place: posters, coasters, table tents, etc... it doesn’t matter, it takes one word from your friend for you to order a different brand.
• You are traveling overseas, your friend just visited the same city you are going to... her recommendation has more sway than any amount of advertising and tantalizing offers hotel chain x may throw your way as you book the airplane tickets, you will ignore all that and go straight to the hotel she recommended.

I believe identifying, facilitating the relationship, prompting for action, measuring impact for peer influencers is a key marketing use case scenario for social business platforms.

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

in Vino Veritas and Excellentiam Social CRM!

Let's not “bury the lead”: VinTank is the Social CRM platform (of those I know) that is closer to what I deem the ideal dream to be; clearly good things happen when you work under the influence of Wine! (Wine Industry, that is)

Imagine a Social CRM Platform that:

• Monitors horizontal Social Networks but also Industry Sites (Social and Not) that are important and and relevant for your company and products.
• Is industry and Product Type aware, allows you to “dial” up or down the filter level to ensure relevancy of what is detected and brought to your attention and also permits to “educate” the system on keywords, phrases and online properties that are important to you.
• Identifies Author, Media Type, detects Sentiment and Disposition, allows easy classification (tagging) and facilitates in situ interactions (say the Author is in Twitter, through this Social Platform interface you can interact with this Author in Twitter)
• Captures and presents industry standard influence measures that account for depth, reach, relevancy but also the social ecosystem of the Author (people associated with this Author talk and interact around the industry and product type that you care about)
• Complements the above with a proprietary measure of the value and relevancy of any given individual Author that is ecommerce slanted and considers recency, frequency and purchase style.
• Tracks and stores the history of the Mentions and Interactions with every Single Author
• Allows for easy segmentation and aggregation of Authors (Tagging), these segments can be used as Analytics filters and as Campaign Selectors.  
• Through its integration with location aware and real time services is itself location aware and can facilitate customer interactions in real time.

Through a conversation with Paul Mabray I learn that VinTank gives you this and much more, what can you do with this amazing Social Platform?

• Understand your Social Media rank in the industry in terms of awareness, engagement, organic and triggered mentions and see all of these benchmarked against your competitors.

• Execute tactical efforts to increase this rank and monitor the results, learn from that so you can optimize and “rinse & repeat”

• Identify who among your customers is in the position to influence others; not only because of the reach, relevance and propensity but also because those around this customers resonate with the product / industry that you care about.
• Facilitate programmatic interactions with these key influencers and measure the impact and results of such programs. (not quite today, but is in the horizon)

• Drive Real Time, Geo Fenced tactics: are customers that I care about due to their propensity to buy, level of influence or both somewhere in the vicinity of my location? reach out to them, engage, drive to my property, get them to purchase and tell others about it.
• Leverage rich media content generated by these customers to re-engage them at an emotional level and encourage them to “come back.

• And so much more...

I am excited about VinTank and look forward to keeping in touch with Paul Mabray as they continue to make progress and expand into other experiential industries.

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas

BatchBlue (BatchBook): A Company with Soul

How does it feel when you touch, witness or are in the presence of something or someone that has “Soul”?   It is difficult to describe, but you know when it happens... there is a sense that you are in the presence of strength that comes from conviction, passion and understanding of a mission...  I was lucky enough to experience such a thrill last week through a phone conversation with Pamela O’Hara, CEO of BatchBlue Software; my conversation with Pam centered on BatchBlue Software and their main product, Batchbook. 

After the call ended a quote by Charles Handy came to mind:

“”The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world -- not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.”

Below snippets of my conversation with Pam:

Q: How did BatchBlue came into existence?

Pam: We didn’t set out to create a CRM system, all we had in mind was to create something useful for those small business and startups and we knew that the most important thing is their customer base, we wanted to give them a holistic view of the relationship with their customers. Small business such as music teachers, financial advisors, small retailers, niche manufacturers are passionate about what they do and who they do it for and we wanted to give them technology tools that would enhance and facilitate those customer relationships, not automate them.

Small business need help understanding who their customers are, how the relationship with those customers evolve and what are the common traits that distinguish the most beneficial relationships, how to get more of those, how to be more efficient at approaching these customers... Batchbook allows our customers to capture and track their customer relationships, look across all that information and get to “Look at that...” realization moments.

Q: What is your take on Social CRM?

Pam: It is very early yet; Social until now has been focused on listening, responding quickly, engaging and promoting brand building activities. I see Social switching from “defense” to “offense”; Business need to include their customer’s social activity as part of that holistic view of the relationship, the systems that support them need to take advantage of this information and account for it to help identify the most beneficial customer relationships and leverage social as a powerful channel to manage the communication and collaboration.

Q: Where is Batchbook today?

Pam: We are in a really good place; in our most recent version we built the mechanics to integrate with partner products allowing the information to flow; we have identified partners that provide valuable functionality and added value to our customers and we are beginning to roll out those integrations.  

Q: Are these the same partners that joined you in The Small Business Web?

Pam: mostly yes; these are a group of companies that share our passion for small businesses and have joined forces to serve and increase the numbers of them benefiting from SaaS services; there is a lot of work to do to bring small businesses to the cloud and by joining forces we can do for small businesses what the likes of Oracle and Salesforce have done for major enterprises and even more; the diversity of needs among small businesses is amazing and a single company could not satisfy those, instead we are building this association of companies with agreed technical and business philosophies which will result in a richer solution set to satisfy those diverse needs. So far The Small Business Web has been a loosely organized group but we are taking steps to make it easier for a small business that uses one of our products to adopt and benefit from another member product; this is good for the small business as they achieve more with less effort and it is good for us as it has been shown that customers that use more products are more likely to remain loyal.

There was much more; it is energizing when you come across someone like Pam that truly is in business to benefit her customers, I expect to see even more wonderful things come from Batchbook and The Small Business Web

What do you think?

Filiberto Selvas