A continuation of my earlier post about corporate social media engagement.
While there can be lots of positives when corporates actively use social media tools. There are certainly plenty of potholes on the road to watch out for too.
Assume you've started using Twitter and Facebook to engage your customers directly. The number of followers / fans is rising and things are looking up. Suddenly it hits you: an increasing number of customers are starting to use these channels as an alternative to the standard customer service touch-points (CS hotlines, emails, service centres).
Now what?
The ideal situation would be to have dedicated customer service staff monitoring the social media channels constantly (even 24/7, given the nature of social media). This way, a corporate's own customer service team is cued into the issues or concerns that are most relevant to its customer pool, thus allowing for a more proactive approach to managing the issues customers face with a corporate's product/service.
Yet this is likely to be the biggest bugbear corporates face, given the necessity of a bureaucratic (in the Max Weber sense, not the derogatory sense) organisational structure among corporates. Certainly, the inherently chaotic nature of social media makes it highly challenging to monitor and measure the social-media-as-customer-service approach.
Highly-challenging, but not impossible.
If social media is conceived of as a large chat room with many people within talking at once, the answer is clear. Corporates need to invest sufficient resources in customer service to ensure that these voices in the chat room can be listened to and handled with respect and care as expeditiously as possible. Just because social media is chaotic doesn't mean that the usual customer service check lists can't be applied. On the contrary, the offline customer service tools and experiences can be adapted and deployed to social media.
Which brings us to just 1 thing: convincing the boss to sign off on this....
Thursday, August 26, 2010
3 Days Of Creativity And Innovation In New York City
Recently made a trip to New York City to attend a company sponsored training course conducted by WhatIf.
I have to admit, when I was first informed about this, I was highly skeptical. After all, it seems counter-intuitive to think that creativity and innovation could be 'taught'.
Furthermore, the course was pitched as one that's focused on new product development. Given Singapore's small size, it hardly seems likely that anything new will be commissioned from this country. Singapore is used frequently as a test market, but certainly not a breeding ground for new products, at least, not in this company.
So, it was quite a surprise when I turned up in NYC to learn that:
(1) This was the first time anyone from Samsung had been enrolled in this course. In other words, I had the privilege of being 1 of the first 15 in the entire company to be there.
(2) The classroom certainly didn't look like a classroom. In fact, the first thought that struck me was how much it resembled a playroom in a kindergarten back in Singapore.
(3) We didn't have to do the case studies so beloved of other marketing-related courses I've attended. This was a huge relief, since those case-studies tend to be pretty divorced from reality.
In fact, the learning experience was the best I've come across in a long time. Our trainers, Lisa and Gareth, made the effort to break the ice. They taught us about different techniques we could use to cultivate creativity and innovation, all in the context of developing a new product.
And the way it was taught was certainly memorable. Of course, principles were explained and definitions clarified. But throughout the course, there was role-playing, actual field-work, demonstrations and hands-on sessions where everyone chipped in.
And it was during the course of this training that Lisa & Gareth helped me realise that the techniques and tools didn't have to be restricted to new product development. In fact, the techniques and tools could be applied in everyday work, if we took the trouble to do so.
All this certainly made the long trip there worthwhile. And it was definitely s very positive experience to be remembered and lessons to be applied.
I have to admit, when I was first informed about this, I was highly skeptical. After all, it seems counter-intuitive to think that creativity and innovation could be 'taught'.
Furthermore, the course was pitched as one that's focused on new product development. Given Singapore's small size, it hardly seems likely that anything new will be commissioned from this country. Singapore is used frequently as a test market, but certainly not a breeding ground for new products, at least, not in this company.
So, it was quite a surprise when I turned up in NYC to learn that:
(1) This was the first time anyone from Samsung had been enrolled in this course. In other words, I had the privilege of being 1 of the first 15 in the entire company to be there.
(2) The classroom certainly didn't look like a classroom. In fact, the first thought that struck me was how much it resembled a playroom in a kindergarten back in Singapore.
(3) We didn't have to do the case studies so beloved of other marketing-related courses I've attended. This was a huge relief, since those case-studies tend to be pretty divorced from reality.
In fact, the learning experience was the best I've come across in a long time. Our trainers, Lisa and Gareth, made the effort to break the ice. They taught us about different techniques we could use to cultivate creativity and innovation, all in the context of developing a new product.
And the way it was taught was certainly memorable. Of course, principles were explained and definitions clarified. But throughout the course, there was role-playing, actual field-work, demonstrations and hands-on sessions where everyone chipped in.
And it was during the course of this training that Lisa & Gareth helped me realise that the techniques and tools didn't have to be restricted to new product development. In fact, the techniques and tools could be applied in everyday work, if we took the trouble to do so.
All this certainly made the long trip there worthwhile. And it was definitely s very positive experience to be remembered and lessons to be applied.
Monday, April 26, 2010
A Paradigm For Corporate Social Media Engagement
I obviously hardly post anything up here (although I really ought to). But this subject has been tossing around in my head for some time. So here's something to chew on.
There has clearly been a lot of talk about this 'new' phenomena called 'social media', and the tricky part where a company is concerned is how to get to grips with this social institution. By and large, most of the talk has seemed to be pretty much clueless about the 'rules and guidelines' of engaging with this 'beast'.
Yet, it is also clear that these 'rules and guidelines' have been derived from the traditional PR model, which is one of controlled messages, style and imagery. To a large extent, it seems the trend among corporates is simply to transplant what has been developed for traditional PR into the social media scene, and leave it at that.
Clearly though, social media is a different creature, and certainly not an animal that can be tamed by using the old ways of communicating with the outside world.
To start off: what, after all, is social media? In the common sense understanding of the term, 'social media' simply refers to people who blog and post comments on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (among others). Yet this can include a lot of people who only log-in to such sites say, once a week, post a couple of updates and leave it at that. Do these people qualify as 'social media' ? Obviously not, at least, not to the corporate world.
Certainly, if corporates were to follow the traditional PR model, such an example as above would hardly be worth the time and effort to reach out to (come now, be honest). And yet, such a person might very well be a key influencer within his or her circle of friends.
So clearly, traditional PR doesn't quite work where 'social media' is concerned. What then?
The answer is simple: corporates need to think of the 'social media' scene as one big (REALLY BIG) chat room that is potentially open and active 24/7. In other words, there is no one set of clearly defined messages / image to be communicated within a clearly defined period of time under a clearly defined set of rules. It is, literally, anything goes.
Corporates, obviously, are uncomfortable with losing this level of control, which explains why so many find it difficult to engage the 'social media' scene closely and with a clear vision. After all, a chat room (remember IRC?) can have multiple people talking all at once about multiple subjects that could potentially fly off in an altogether unpredictable tangent at any one time.
So, what's a corporate to do? Here are some quick and dirty guidelines to follow:
Rule #1
Forget traditional PR, social media should be thought of as a BIG CHAT ROOM that's open 24/7
Rule #2
Loosen up a little. If a corporate is going to do nothing except post the usual PR spin, why bother with social media? Stay with traditional PR. A related point: have a little fun. Even if corporates poke fun at themselves, its hardly going to damage their brand and company image. Quite the contrary, it shows maturity, confidence and a generosity and sincerity of spirit that is priceless.
Rule #3
Know your stuff. The more you know what you're doing (in terms of products, services, marketing etc), the easier it is to engage in an ongoing conversation with 'social media'. If corporates don't know this. Then, again, traditional PR is probably the safer route to take.
Rule #4
Be prepared for criticism, and be sincere in doing something about that criticism. The social media scene can be exceedingly harsh. But the more you try to hide the truth, the more you encourage people to flame and criticise.
Rule #5
Be conscientious about monitoring the what's being said online. Its one thing for corporates to say they are going to engage 'social media', its another thing to actually do it. Doing 'social media' isn't simply a matter of posting some tweets or setting up a Facebook fan page.
Rule #6
Drop the ROI mindset. 'Social media' is currently too diffuse to be tracked with any degree of accuracy. Until the monitoring instruments become more fine-tuned, any ROI discussion about social media is largely a waste of time.
Having said that, some matrices can be used. Typical ones include the number of fans, followers etc. These can, and should be, tracked. Just don't waste time translating this into anything more concrete.
Another caveat: brand perception surveys can and should be continued, since these track the corporate's entire communication spectrum to the world at large.
Rule #7
Social media is fast, so be prepared to make any necessary decisions or reactions equally fast
Rule #8
Respect the social media scene. Just because some people in the social media scene don't write for a living doesn't mean they cannot influence others.
Rule #9
Don't be fixated on simply getting a message out. Social media is an excellent networking / relationship-building tool. Make full use of it.
Rule #10
This is actually an extension of Rule #2, but I've included it as a separate rule for added emphasis: don't be a control freak. If corporates aren't comfortable with giving up 'control', then they have no business engaging social media in the first place.
That's pretty much what's been buzzing around in my head for awhile. Comments, flames, requests for interviews (LOL!) ? Feel free to drop me a note.
There has clearly been a lot of talk about this 'new' phenomena called 'social media', and the tricky part where a company is concerned is how to get to grips with this social institution. By and large, most of the talk has seemed to be pretty much clueless about the 'rules and guidelines' of engaging with this 'beast'.
Yet, it is also clear that these 'rules and guidelines' have been derived from the traditional PR model, which is one of controlled messages, style and imagery. To a large extent, it seems the trend among corporates is simply to transplant what has been developed for traditional PR into the social media scene, and leave it at that.
Clearly though, social media is a different creature, and certainly not an animal that can be tamed by using the old ways of communicating with the outside world.
To start off: what, after all, is social media? In the common sense understanding of the term, 'social media' simply refers to people who blog and post comments on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter (among others). Yet this can include a lot of people who only log-in to such sites say, once a week, post a couple of updates and leave it at that. Do these people qualify as 'social media' ? Obviously not, at least, not to the corporate world.
Certainly, if corporates were to follow the traditional PR model, such an example as above would hardly be worth the time and effort to reach out to (come now, be honest). And yet, such a person might very well be a key influencer within his or her circle of friends.
So clearly, traditional PR doesn't quite work where 'social media' is concerned. What then?
The answer is simple: corporates need to think of the 'social media' scene as one big (REALLY BIG) chat room that is potentially open and active 24/7. In other words, there is no one set of clearly defined messages / image to be communicated within a clearly defined period of time under a clearly defined set of rules. It is, literally, anything goes.
Corporates, obviously, are uncomfortable with losing this level of control, which explains why so many find it difficult to engage the 'social media' scene closely and with a clear vision. After all, a chat room (remember IRC?) can have multiple people talking all at once about multiple subjects that could potentially fly off in an altogether unpredictable tangent at any one time.
So, what's a corporate to do? Here are some quick and dirty guidelines to follow:
Rule #1
Forget traditional PR, social media should be thought of as a BIG CHAT ROOM that's open 24/7
Rule #2
Loosen up a little. If a corporate is going to do nothing except post the usual PR spin, why bother with social media? Stay with traditional PR. A related point: have a little fun. Even if corporates poke fun at themselves, its hardly going to damage their brand and company image. Quite the contrary, it shows maturity, confidence and a generosity and sincerity of spirit that is priceless.
Rule #3
Know your stuff. The more you know what you're doing (in terms of products, services, marketing etc), the easier it is to engage in an ongoing conversation with 'social media'. If corporates don't know this. Then, again, traditional PR is probably the safer route to take.
Rule #4
Be prepared for criticism, and be sincere in doing something about that criticism. The social media scene can be exceedingly harsh. But the more you try to hide the truth, the more you encourage people to flame and criticise.
Rule #5
Be conscientious about monitoring the what's being said online. Its one thing for corporates to say they are going to engage 'social media', its another thing to actually do it. Doing 'social media' isn't simply a matter of posting some tweets or setting up a Facebook fan page.
Rule #6
Drop the ROI mindset. 'Social media' is currently too diffuse to be tracked with any degree of accuracy. Until the monitoring instruments become more fine-tuned, any ROI discussion about social media is largely a waste of time.
Having said that, some matrices can be used. Typical ones include the number of fans, followers etc. These can, and should be, tracked. Just don't waste time translating this into anything more concrete.
Another caveat: brand perception surveys can and should be continued, since these track the corporate's entire communication spectrum to the world at large.
Rule #7
Social media is fast, so be prepared to make any necessary decisions or reactions equally fast
Rule #8
Respect the social media scene. Just because some people in the social media scene don't write for a living doesn't mean they cannot influence others.
Rule #9
Don't be fixated on simply getting a message out. Social media is an excellent networking / relationship-building tool. Make full use of it.
Rule #10
This is actually an extension of Rule #2, but I've included it as a separate rule for added emphasis: don't be a control freak. If corporates aren't comfortable with giving up 'control', then they have no business engaging social media in the first place.
That's pretty much what's been buzzing around in my head for awhile. Comments, flames, requests for interviews (LOL!) ? Feel free to drop me a note.
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