Lumenatti

What if IBM ran the healthcare debate?

Kathy Baughman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:51:23 GMT

One of the first things that Sam Palmisano did after becoming CEO of IBM was to do a values gut check. Palmisano felt strongly that a refreshed values system would provide a roadmap for operating differently in a rapidly changing market environment and ultimately complete the transformation process.

The biggest challenge? Despite the fact that IBM was emerging from a long, painful decline and was newly prosperous, people were cautious and suspicious of a new vision. The company needed a way to galvanize people around hope and aspiration as opposed to fear of failure. The company also has a massive, global employee base with widely divergent views.

The answer was a highly innovative process that IBM called Jam Sessions. In a nut shell, the first one started with senior management creating a set of values that were vetted and refined through focus groups and surveys. Then, the entire employee population was invited to weigh in on the list. IBM used social media tools to gather input and analyze trends across the input. Each “value” was the topic of a single forum that was moderated by a member of the senior management team, including the CEO. Employees comments reflected the “good, the bad and the ugly.” Instead of running from the bad and the ugly, Palmisano viewed negative input as a mandate for change. Tags helped sort input, which informed the creation of a new mission and values statement. The company eventually held adjunct Jam Sessions to identify operational roadblocks to adoption of the new IBM way.

If President Obama and the United States Congress could outsource the healthcare debate, IBM would be the perfect partner. Imagine if we “jammed’ the healthcare bill. Each major tenet could be debated over a 2-3 week period and include anyone in the country who wanted to learn and participate. For example, one week, the focus could be “cost reduction”. This umbrella topic could be broken down into several sub topics such as “tort reform”, buying insurance over state lines”, “public option” , “pools”, etc. Before jumping into the jam session, the participant could view content that provides context for each topic. A few experts could debate the pros and cons of each topic and then citizens could jump into the session and comment. Following the “open jam” period, comments could be analyzed and used to create a “mission” for each topic. This mission then would be sent back out and people could give a thumbs up or down for each sub topic. Sort of a mash-up between Yelp, Ideastorm and IBM’s jam sessions.

Congress could augment this online debate with town hall meetings held simultaneously around the country in movie theaters. This approach was used by Buisness Week several years ago for its annual two day business conference. Live speakers were at various venues and teleconferenced to audiences in movie theaters around the country. Interactive devices facilitated audience participation and captured feedback instantly. This opens discussion and participation to audiences with no access to or comfort with online social tools.

The integration of on-and off-line engagement is a best practices often missed by marketers. In this case, it also provides a very important choice for how to engage citizens.

Congress would then use this feedback to write a bill that reflects the will of the people. This of course has been one of the big criticisms of the current process: the will of the people has gotten lost in the shuffle. Another drawback of the recent debate has been the sheer size of both the House and Senate bills. A Healthcare Jam would break it down and give people an opportunity to learn in smaller bites, participate and “vote”. What a concept. It’s a little bit like “democracy in action”.

Let’s Jam!

A Social Salute

Kathy Baughman — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:15:20 GMT

Right before the holidays I had the honor of presenting at the All Services Social Media Conference, which was sponsored by The School of Continuing Studies at Georgetown University. The event was part of an ongoing initiative spearheaded by Colonel Kevin Arata to share social media experiences, best practices and approaches.

Lots of smart people and big thinkers presented at the conference. One of the best was Peter Klaus of Fleishman-Hillard’s Digital Media Team. He presented a case study about a program his team put together for the Department of Defense. Called That Guy, it uses an interactive social website as a pivot for a widespread campaign to curtail substance abuse in the military. One device is a set of clever interactive “trading cards’ that help a person self-identify as a specific species of “That Guy”: the comedian guy, the angry guy, the dancing guy, etc. (you know who you are!) The cards list behavior traits, link to video, provide a way to send the card to a friend who fits the description, and so on. The site uses every motivational and teaching device that appeals to its target including humor, games and even a bar calculator for those who are only motivated by their pocket book. Check it out; wonderful program.

Some other sessions were lead by Katie Paine (measurment0, Rohit Bhargava (engagement) and Andrew Krzmarzick of GovLoop.

I led a session about how to plan and build a strategic social marketing plan. The session sparked a lot of audience participation and of course, the interaction and shared learning among the participants was where the real value occurred. Representatives from across our armed services shared challenges that they face in managing and integrating disparate social media programs. I was blown away by the savvy and sophistication of the questions and insights of the group. At ComBlu, we work with a lot of experienced marketing teams of major corporations, and talk to countless others every week. Many of these conversations do not match the social media knowledge or maturation levels displayed by the mostly military audience at this conference.

I should not have been surprised. Look at the social programs the military uses for recruitment, addressing the concerns of parents and other family members, supporting the efforts of military commands, etc.These are just a few examples. There are many command social media sites, user generated communities for parents and families that are not sanctioned but supported by the military, Department of Defense programs, etc.

One observation about all this activity: just like their corporate counterparts, the military social media approach still seems to be one of “experimentation” or what we call “lots of bricks; no building”. Many public and private organizations have yet to create a social strategy mash-up. Our recent research shows that only 20% or so of major corporations exhibit a cohesive social marketing strategy. While this is starting to change, ultimately the full value of social marketing will only be realized when it is integrated and organized in a way that leverages brand value and offers stakeholders a easy, comfortable way to engage.

Silos are barriers no matter how you cut it

Steve Hershberger — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:51:30 GMT

One day I stopped to ask a farmer why they use silos. After getting the ‘boy are you some sort of igneramous'?!’ look, he answered my question. “Keeps product separated. One goes one place for one price, another somewhere else. Also keeps it safe. You know, dry. No mold, moisture or mice.”

Ahh. A barrier to keep things in and out. Nice and safe and separate. Very good for a farmer who counts on getting the highest price for high quality corn.

While silos in farming are good, silos in business aren’t quite as good but equally real. The problem is that business decisions are made every day using homogenous resources relying on homogenous tools.

Here’s what I mean. A colleague of mine, Chris Samuels, former research quant-geek at McKenzie and Bain likes to use a phrase I think sums this problem up.

Focus Groups are words with no data and polling is data with no words. They are the worst of both worlds. Yet, strategic decisions are made every day by marketing or product teams or knowledge and insights teams or strategic pricing teams or any other of the multitudes of corporate groups that use these types of tools. Problem is, these teams tend to operate independently from one another, each delivering its own ‘product’ that is then locked down and used by somebody else. That somebody else takes the product as gospel. The result is a product or service that is ‘good enough’ without being great or really relevant. More often when something is a hit, it’s as much out of luck as having the right insight, tools and team.

In the end, for organizations to be more relevant and successful, they need to embrace a whole new level of diversity. We’ll never bust down the silos inside of organizations but we can cut holes in them and create bridges between them.

By doing taking a couple simple steps, it is possible to flatten your organization; becoming more nimble, relevant, informed and profitable in the process. A number of organizations have begun this process, with significant results.

So what does it take? A couple of simple steps:

Creation of a virtual team to aid or review your initiatives
Willingness to collaborate as a group on both the initiative and also the ‘product’ each member brings to the table. For instance, if research brings customer profile data; break it down to ensure it is both accurate and relevant, not homogenous or ‘good enough’
Incorporate resources who create the barriers. Legal, compliance, finance, corporate communications, etc. Think of them as team consultants. Not part of the day to day work but there to aid where and when needed.
Identify key customers who you think fit this profile and are part of your core target audience. Incorporate them as part of the team.
Don’t pay them lip service or through pre-packaged material over the wall to them and for God's-sake, don’t survey them to death or force them into an antiseptic focus group.
Integrate the work earlier than usual. Stand your team up in requirement gathering or scope definition.
Socialize your work and your results across the organization. Ask for insight, comments and help. Heck, you may just strike gold.

By beginning this process, you will take the first step in creating a flatter organization that is likely to be a better competitor. It won’t happen overnight but as Confucius once said, ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’.

Technorati Tags: word of mouth,social marketing,marketing research,marketing,strategy,metrics,measurement,operational efficiency,community,comblu,McKinnsey,Bain,Fast Company,marketing strategy,knowledge and insights,WOMMA,best practices,business goals,results

Someone disrupted my schema!

Kathy Baughman — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:34:52 GMT

Vegas is like being at a party in a house with no kitchen.

This statement is designed to startle your brain, which is naturally in a static state. It uses schemas to keep its carbon footprint at the bare minimum. Schemas are mental short-hand for how the world works, or for how the brain believes the world works. They allow the brain to function without exerting undue effort. Interrupting a schema stimulates thought; the brain needs to actively process the “unknown”, which stimulates conversation. Blending two disparate schemas together into a new mental model also creates the same disruptive patterns.

Academia has long embraced cognitive science as it applies to learning and rehabilitation. Now, application of cognitive science is gaining a foothold in the business world. A great example was presented recently by Steve Knox, CEO of Proctor and Gamble Tremor. They are using cognitive scientists to help understand word of mouth and why people talk.

Here are a few of the examples he gave during a presentation at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) recent Summit.

Disrupting a schema: Let’s say you arrive in the UK and rent a car. Yikes. Before you arrived, you knew that you would be driving on the ‘wrong” side of the road in a car with a steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. Yet, you talk about it because it helps you resolve the disrupted equilibrium that happens when you disturb your normal mental model of driving. Eventually, you get used to this new driving pattern and do not have to actively think about it as you drive. But, when you return home, you may have to reset your “normal” driving schema.

Disrupting schemas is a way to potentially stimulate conversation and spread word of mouth.

Conceptual blend. This is where you blend two familiar schemas to create a new unfamiliar on. One of the examples that Knox used in his presentation was the I Phone. It was a phone AND a computer; the combination of which created a whole new category. People talked about it because the very combination of two familiar devices created a disruption.People normally viewed the phone and the computer as two separate, distinct devices. When a brand creates a new blend, it owns the space. It is the epitome of first mover status.

Knox cautioned the group that applying these principles requires deep knowledge of cognitive science and hard work to strike the correct balance. The key is to use the following four questions as a guide:

· What is the foundational truth of your brand.?

· What schemas are at play?

· What would disrupt a schema?

· Are there blends that make sense?

So, why does the first sentence of this post make you stop? First: our mental model of Vegas is decidedly not one of a party in someone’s house. And, secondly, every house has a kitchen, right? These disruptions can take us on an interesting path that epitomizes both the art and science of conversation. The application to the science of word of mouth marketing is interesting and intriquing.

Social marketing takes the whole village

Steve Hershberger — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:13:32 GMT

Who owns social marketing initiatives? Well, the marketing team of course!

Seems like a logical answer but wrong. To do social marketing and specifically community well, it takes the whole corporate village, not just a select few marketers who have window views from their cluster of cubes and have been to a social media conference.

Social marketing, which is really more of a strategy and an aggregation of appropriate tactics needs to be defined by the teams who support both social marketing initiatives, as well as, getting products to market and keeping customers happy.

Let’s think about this for a moment. What is social marketing really? I mean in its simplest form? Let’s break it down. Social marketing boils down to two simple concepts.

Clearly articulating a brand promise, a having a mandate (why are we doing this). You must also have in place mechanisms to deliver and support that promise and mandate.
A commitment to enter into and support dialogue amongst interested individuals, as well as, act on the activity, findings, outcomes and opinions shared…on and offline.

You see, words have meaning and actions or lack thereof have consequences. For passionate and interested people to congregate and collaborate it has to be worth something. You have to provide real, meaningful and measurable value. You have to deliver this in a way that’s useful. Specifically, you need to provide:

Methods to engage that are relevant to their needs (also known as faceted engagement).
Ongoing utility for them.

Let me give a simple example of what I mean.

The big game is on and you are glued to the action. Your child approaches you for advice on how to solve a homework problem. You fail to give your child your full attention and instead help them solve the problem without teaching them how you got to the answer. The next day your child misses several of the same type on a test. That night your child approaches you again for help. You are fiddling with a report you are working on. Your child fails to grasp the concept they are asking you for help with. You get frustrated because the solution is so obvious (to you anyway). Ultimately, they give up and go ask your spouse for help. You return your attention to your report unaware of the events which have transpired beyond the homework problem.

Part of your brand promise as a parent is ‘I am here to help you’.

When approached, you need to provide be aware of the conversation with your child. Not just show them the answer. Teach them. Make sure they understand. That’s two way dialogue. Showing them is one way.

When re-approached, did you help to solve the issue in a way the child could understand-in a way that was relevant to them?

Did you support the value of the interaction with you? Did you provide utility to your child?

What happened? They gave up based on their experience and abandoned you.

Brands are experiencing these series of events every single day. If you have read our recent research report, The State of Online Branded Communities, you would know that a large percentage of brands have Community Ghost Towns. Why is this?

No relevance, no utility for the interested parties. No clear mandate. No pay off of the brand promise and one way communication. Nobody wants something they can’t use shoved down their throat. Lots of tools and tactics, lots of branded messaging, no real value.

Back to the analogy for a second. So how could you as a parent solve this problem? Simple. Take 5 minutes away from the game, give it your full attention the first time. First listen to your child and then help them to set up and solve the problem. Collaborate. Bring your spouse in and have them check the solution, as well as, and listen to your child explain how they got the answer. A team effort. Recognize the success. You have an enlightened, committed and happy child. As a parent, you have a better understanding of their weakness and can keep an eye out for it in the future. Everyone wins.

For brands, like parents, it also takes a village or a team effort to do social marketing and community well. You have to include the product teams, the CRM team, as well as others. Identify who is involved in making your brand and its products and services a success. Enlist members of those teams because those are the people who need to be at the table and involved in collaborating on your social initiatives for them to be successful.

All is not lost even if you see your brand in the analogy I gave. You can still change your approach and your results!

By following the simple approach outlined below, you’ll begin to see the fruits of your labor-more engaged customers, lower operational and support costs, decreased churn, greater customer intelligence, increased loyalty and of course, increased profit.

Begin with a clear objective in mind.
Identify measurable goals and metrics for your online community.
Determine which-if any-communities exist that meet your audience’s needs.
Ensure first-time visitors get an immediate positive response.
Determine ways to use your community in enhancing your online presence. Use this initiative to supplement your marketing and advertising efforts.
Stay committed to growth. Invest in the necessary resources to make your online community-or social initiatives- a success.
Get the ball rolling for your members.
Eyeballs equal answers. Do what you can to get the word out.
Leverage employee and SME (subject matter experts) participation in your community.
Look after your top contributors but don’t ignore the troublemakers.

You can also get a detailed pdf of these guidelines from the Did You Know Section on our homepage. Simply click on the Simple Guide hyperlink to download a copy.

Keep that human teddy bear out of my bed, please.

Kathy Baughman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:52:30 GMT

I thought it was a joke. Holiday Inn in London is offering a human sheet warming service. Apparently, some staffer dresses in a fleece suit, jumps between your sheets and warms them up for you. Really? Like who wants this? They assure guests that this giant Teddy will be out from between the sheets before you pop into bed. Well, that makes me feel better.

In word-of-mouth marketing, the concept of “talkable brands” refers to the parts of the brand’s DNA that naturally stimulate conversation about its products and services. What makes brands talkable can be breakthrough design, a category game changer or just exquisite customer experience. Some brands confuse buzz with a natural innate talkability that some brands posses or work hard to develop. How? By listening to their customers and offering cool innovations or new levels of service that actually resonate.

Holiday Inn’s human hot water bottle has certainly generated buzz. I personally have told tons of people about this ploy. Everyone has gotten a horrified look on their face and thought I was making it up. Many claimed they would never stay at a Holiday Inn again because this was just too creepy. While people are talking about Holiday Inn, the brand is not “talkable.”

So far? My favorite news story of the year.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Goes Social

Brian Costea — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:19:11 GMT

Microsoft has officially released the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta to the public and I could not wait to install it. After all, ComBlu did put together a private community for Microsoft advocates to beta test and collaborate around the new suite. So let’s just say that I had some insider information on what this puppy could do. After playing with it for about ten days now, I discovered that Microsoft has done a pretty good job of incorporating some social aspects into the product; particularly in the areas of feedback and social networking.

Feedback

Microsoft has made it extremely easy to provide feedback on their beta product. When you see something you like, you just click on a smiley face in your task bar, and when you find a bug in the product, you click the frowny face.

Then just enter your kudos or a description of the bug and click submit. You can even include a screen capture.

Social Networking

Of all the enhancements to the new Outlook, I like the “People Pane” the best. At the bottom of every e-mail, you can see all activity related to the sender.

The coolest part, is that very soon you will be able to add social networking sites to your contacts, so that you can get all of their status updates without ever having to leave your email client. Great job, Microsoft!

PS – If anyone is having problems getting Outlook 2010 to connect to Exchange using HTTP over RPC please comment on this post and I’ll help you out.

Eating the social dog food or “I wish I knew …………..I already have that report”

Kathy Baughman — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:07:33 GMT

Imagine that you are charged with launching a social media program for your product group. You ask your agency to develop a campaign. You think through the risks and rewards and go for it. Now, consider your counterparts in the other lines of business (LOB) in your organization who are doing the same thing. At any given point, each LOB may be thinking about or executing:

· Best practices

· Listening tools and campaigns

· Social media guidelines

· Outside and inside resources

· Platforms and social assets

· Research

· Advocate identification and activation

· Measurement

In fact, here’s the scary scenario: each LOB may be going down these paths separately and independently. At ComBlu, we’ve seen this over and over, and this practice is almost as prevalent today as it was during the wild, wild gold rush days of social media. Let’s think about what this really means.

· Scenario One: Group A wants a listening program and goes out and gets a license for a tool and trains some people to use it. At the same time, another group, licenses an entirely different tool and assigns one person to be the “chief listener”. Yet another group hires an agency to listen and respond for them and a fourth LOB contracts for a huge “listening study”. Yikes!

· Scenario Two: Now, these same four groups all decide they need social media guidelines. They each either develop their own or hire someone to do it for them. The result: four separate, sort of similar guidelines across four different LOBs.

· Scenario Three: Three out of these four groups all buy the same study from Forrester or another respected research firm

· Scenario Four: Two of these groups each buy a different community software platform and later decide they want to integrate their community experiences..

You get the picture. No standardization. No governance. No cost sharing. No knowledge sharing. No Center of Excellence (COE).

Many brands have Centers of Excellence for shared services and resources across their organization. A marketing department might have a COE for interactive, research, experiential, etc. And, a few are starting to add social marketing or social media to the COE approach. They are creating and sharing guidelines for listening and social media interaction, standardizing to a single community platform and listening tools, buying research once, and so on. Some are even meeting regularly to discuss best practices and parse their individual experiences with a vender, campaign or tool. But, here’s an interesting observation: they are not eating the social dog food. For the most part, the COEs are not using social tools to facilitate sharing and conversation about experiences, resources and approaches. They aren’t using rating and ranking systems to review venders or to get a view into planned programs that might provide insights or leverage between divisions, geographies or LOBs. They aren’t creating UGC or aggregating thought leadership information. They aren’t saying: “we’re in the early planning stages of research about XYZ that might benefit others. Let’s form a group and plan and co-fund it.”

One of the missions of ComBlu is to help organizations socialize their business model and supporting operations. We think brands would be better served by taking a COE approach, and using social tools to accelerate and facilitate adoption. The prize? Efficiency, effectiveness, bandwidth, cost savings and

Best practices in measurement released!

Jennifer Voisard — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:49:23 GMT

I sit on the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) Research and Measurement Council. Over the last year we had the very important task of defining key measurement models fundamental to determining Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) impact and ROI. I am happy to report that the first version of the guidebook was officially released at the WOMMA Summit held in Las Vegas on November 18!

Metrics run the gamut from:

· Conversation volume and share

· Reach

· Sentiment analysis

· Advocacy

· Influence factor

· Cost per conversion

· Marketing mix modeling

· Ratings and reviews

· Conversation value

· Social marketing metrics

· A special section devoted to program ROI

· Cost deflection

The Metrics Best Practices Guidebook contains definitions, key considerations, real case studies, application models and a slew of resources from industry experts, thought leaders and respected academicians. We clearly defined the role of social media and where it fits under the WOM umbrella, recognizing that WOM has many forms – both on- and off-line. My contribution focused on ROI attained through Cost Deflection.

We hope that this becomes a useful tool for both brands and agencies alike. Devoid of bias, the book was written with the intent that all marketers and businesses, big or small, can learn and benefit.

Download your FREE copy here and let me know what you think!

Technorati Tags: WOMMA,ROI,measurement,cost deflection,social marketing,WOM,metrics,best practices,sentiment,advocacy,influence,conversation,reach,analysis

What happened in Vegas got put into a podcast

Steve Hershberger — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:32:46 GMT

Recently, the marketing executives interested in word of mouth marketing, viral marketing, social media and [insert your favorite term du jour here] met in Las Vegas to ponder the state of the industry and learn a few things about how to engage with customers more effectively.

As the years go by and this industry matures, people are getting smarter and common sense becomes more pervasive.

As I sit here on Sunday morning writing this prior to heading off to what I am sure will be another glorious Indianapolis Colts victory (sorry, had to get that in), I have reflected on the culmination of events of two weeks ago. I purposely chose not to write about the event immediately afterwards for two reasons:

1. I was a bit cynical. I always am after these events. As good as they are, we have loads of work still to do. Still, too much focus is placed on the tactic and the tool, instead of when to use the tactic and how to engage the tool, as well as, effectively measure its effectiveness. Strategy, program integration and business based measurement (which would hold up to the glare of any qualified COO/CFO still remains elusive). It is better though…loads.

2. I wanted to see what bubbled up in the echo chamber post event. I was sort of shocked to see what I had hoped to bubble up didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, the WOMMA event set a new standard in depth, clarity and sophistication of content, as well as, crowd size and engaged users. We are light years from where we originally began.

The the things I had hoped to see more of included:

-Multi-channel and consistency of program integration

-More focus on long term CRM driven marketing initiatives which drive profitable engagement

-Engagement beyond lead gen. Engagement around support and feedback.

-More focus on lessons learned and mistakes, work-arounds and sustained results

-More focus and attention on the new FTC guidelines. This is a topic that a lot of marketers are glossing over and would wish they hadn’t. For this conference, I truly wish more people had paid attention to this very real new set of guidelines….guidelines that have teeth and very real consequences if ignored.

I was thoroughly excited with a quiet little event that occured during the conference though. One that I think will see greater visibility in the future. Socializing Media: The Podcast is a twice monthly show that I host with Blake Cahill of Visible Technologies, Jonathan Salem Baskin of Baskin Brand and Sean O’Driscoll of Ant’s Eye View. Thus far on the show we have had Fortune 200 CEO’s, CMO’s, best selling authors, best-practice leaders in community management and industry leading analysts. Furthermore, last week’s show had one of the best minds on CRM I have met in a while. Not bad for an under-funded, cottage produced podcast.

At WOMMA, we taped the podcast from just outside the event rooms. At any given time we had quite literally some of the best minds in the space, representing numerous disciplines, sitting around the table at the same time talking about meaty issues. No fluff, no hype no singing to the choir. It was an amazingly valuable discussion. Some of those who stopped to listen into the show (live) took notes. Most, however, missed the whole thing. It is worth listening to or watching highlights of.

I am not going to give an executive summary here in this post, because you won’t watch or listen. I think you should, so I won’t give you the same immediate gratification sought out by many. As Lauren McCadney of CDW told me recently, most marketers seek the Miracle of Doneness. Meaning the expectation of being finished quickly and easily trumps the end result of doing it right…which is usually longer and harder than most are willing to sign up for.

If you chose to sign up and listen or watch this podcast or others, and can put up with some of the technical glitches we continue to experience (hey, we are not professional podcasters), you will get something very worthwhile….insight on how to do social media, social marketing, customer engagement or whatever you want to call it better.

I hope you either watch the highlights or listen to the show. Enjoy and maybe it’ll prompt you to come to the next WOMMA event and ask some tough questions yourself or possibly extend your social marketing efforts to be one of the best practice standards.

Technorati Tags: womma,socializing media,podcasts,IBM,Intuit,Chiel,Barak Libai,Pauline Ores,Scott Wilder,Emauel Rosen,Sean O'Driscoll,Ian Baer,John Moore,Walter Carl,ComBlu,Steve Hershberger,Blake Cahill,Radian 6,Visible technologies,Microsoft,Dell,Cisco,Community,Social Media,Social Marketing,Twitter,CRM,Community Platform,marketing effectiveness,marketing communications,roi

I’m tired and my head hurts……

Kathy Baughman — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:07:46 GMT

But not from the usual Vegas reasons: staying up late, losing money and drinking too much. I did none of those during the three day WOMMA 2009 Summit in sin city. My excuse is too much information and so many great conversations with little down time to process. So now, I’m in the air heading home with a little time to reflect.

Summit 2009 content was heavily focused on case studies, social marketing techniques and measurement. In fact, WOMMA debuted it’s newly published “Measurement and Metrics Guidebook”, a collaboration of some of the best thinkers in social metrics. Check out ComBlu’s chapter by Jennifer Voisard on cost deflection. I moderated a session on “Community: An Important Driver of WOM” with panelists Dawn Lacallade , chief community strategist at Solar Winds and Bill Johnston chief community officer at Forum One.

And, Steve Hershberger helped lead the live “Socializing Media” podcast which featured a conversation with some of the best thinkers in word-of-mouth. In between hallway chat and keeping up with crucial projects, I attended a half dozen sessions. Here’s some of my favorite take aways.

Measurment Keynote. WOMMA’s chair of the Measurement Council, Walter Carl, PhD, presented highlights of the above cited tome of best practices in measurement. One interesting factoid was the impact of word of mouth marketing (WOM) on revenue vs. traditional marketing communications channels. Turns out the latter does a much better job of generating short term customer acquisition and revenue generation, while WOM yields higher customer lifetime value through longer, deeper customer relationships and a significantly higher referral rate for new customers. (1.7 per traditional channels vs. 3.8 for WOM).

Anatomy of Buzz Revisted. Author Emanual Rosen gave an address on what not-for-profits can teach commercial enterprises about generating buzz. Core to his examples is the concept that human beings want to share what they create. If you give them an opportunity to co-create with you and other stakeholders, they will spread their interpretation of the activity. I think this basic tenet of self-expression as an engagement model has been forgotten in the gold rush of social media and the bright shiny object syndrome.

The View, only with academics. Keller Fay principal, Brad Fay deftly led a panel of academics who all study various aspects of engagement, influencer identification, measurement, etc. You’re thinking this was deadly, right? They were great. Here’s the line-up.

Socializing Customer Service. Sue Sunday, Microsoft, Ed Billmaier, The Scotts Company and Marie Shubin The Gallo Winery, talked customer support. These were from wildly different industries: software, wine and fertilizer yet offered a common thread: the use of customer service professionals to become the voice of the company in social platforms. The rationale: many companies that start listening programs or solicit comments through online forums and communities often get quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of conversations. The solutions: repurpose customer service representatives from call centers or email support. Not only will they be able to handle a larger volume of customer support episodes through the online platform, but they typically can offer marketing three magic things: human resources who already have deep product knowledge and are steeped in the legal, privacy and compliance imperatives of their organizations.

Cognitive Science. Another potentially deadly topic that turned out to be the absolutely best presentation I heard. This one was lead by Steve Knox of P&G’s Tremor Group. He laid out how human’s think and a process for disrupting normal perceptions that serves to get people’s attention. Using this disruption model or combining two unrelated schemas can lead to the magic that we all seek: cutting through the clutter and getting consumers to notice, buy and tell others. This is highly over simplified, and definitely worth digging deeper. Who knew 45 minutes about schemas could mesmerize!

I’ll provide more learning about some of these sessions in upcoming posts. ComBlu also previewed our research report, “The State of Online Branded Communities” which we’ll also dive into in the weeks ahead. Now that I’ve gotten these ideas out of my head, the seat is going back and I’m snoozing the rest of the way home.

Talk is cheap.

Steve Hershberger — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:49:28 GMT

I have been thinking about the best way to open this blog post now for over a week. Frankly, I struggled. Every example I came up with was flat as week old Coke. Until 3:27am this morning, when I awoke with the perfect lead in.

Prior to this brilliant lead in, let me give you the gist of why this was so important. This last week I was speaking at the Word of Mouth Marketing conference in Vegas. The subject of the conference was ‘Talkable Brands’. Throughout the conference I listened for insight on what makes brands talkable. Moreover, I had more conversations than I can count with smart brand leaders and marketing professionals on the topic. On the flight home I was able to recall more than 30 such conversations that touched on this topic, as well as, seeing a few presentations that paid this question off.

In reviewing my three days in Vegas, here’s what I came up with as the big ah-ha. Oddly, it has very little to do with social media, viral marketing or any such thing.

Brad Fay, COO of the Keller Fay Group stated it best. I am going to try and summarize what he said here as best I can. Seventy seven percent of all word of mouth occurs offline. Brand discussions fill the gaps in conversations. Starting a conversation around a brand is an easy way to engage or move the topic of a conversation.

Couple this with the presentation made by Kathy Baughman (ComBlu), Bill Johnson (Forum One) and Dawn Lacallade (Solarwinds) where the topic was essentially be honest, be engaged and be consistent.

As I hope we all know, brands are most talkable when they deliver on a promise, which should be tied to a need. Today, there is a huge chasm between the marketing departments who create the messaging and the other departments who are tasked with delivering products and services. Marketing campaigns, while sexy and clever, more often than not, set the rest of the organization to fail. They fail because the hype isn’t aligned with their ability to deliver.

So with my set up done, here is my opening.

In the 5th inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs with two strikes under his belt, Babe Ruth called his shot. He pointed to the outfield and indicated the third pitch would sail into the outfield.

It’s not that he pointed. It’s that he delivered on the promise. He said, then did exactly what he said he’d do. He pointed because he fundamentally believed he could smack the cover off the ball.

What if somebody else promoted Babe calling his shot without asking Babe whether or not he could do it. Imagine, to sell the game out, marketing creates the promotion, ‘Come see the world’s greatest hitter do the impossible….call his shot.’ Yep, people would line up in droves. What if Babe, upon learning this said such an attempt was impossible and refused to do it. Worse, what if he never found out he’d been promoted to do this and went through the game blissfully ignorant of the promotional promise. What would happen?

Understanding this simple linkage between the brand and the business enterprise is more important than anything else marketing can create or do; more important than pity new ads, sexy new websites, shiny new apps and widgets.

The magic bullet for customer engagement is consistency. Only then will customers want to engage with you….consistently (see the connection?).

Consistency in performance across the enterprise that balances the marketing promise, whatever it might be and the businesses ability to deliver drives customers to return the favor creates talkable brands.

Doing it is harder than it sounds, I know. Which is why I am still shocked to see so few people attending WOMMA who are responsible for activities beyond marketing and communications. Why no cross-functional teams working to learn how to do this? Customer engagement and word of mouth is NOT something owned by marketing alone contrary to popular belief.

Here’s an example. Recently, I was to attend my YPO’s forum group retreat in Miami. We were leaving on Friday and coming back on Monday. We booked through Orbitz during our forum group meeting. One person joked that we all needed a little TLC. So we selected Orbitz to book.

Later, several of us needed to move our Monday flights up until Sunday. After 2 hours on the phone throughout the week trying to get this done (ok, it was a complex transaction…booked by one YPO member with 8 tickets paid for with another YPO member’s credit card). One of us ended up simply abandoning the ticket and repurchasing a new $500 seat after only 20 minutes of hell. I kept waiting on the TLC, which never came. I ended up, tweeting the blow by blows to, partially to see what happened and partially as a frustration valve.

Sure enough, Orbitz sent me a tweet offering to help. I sent them my email address in the clear. Got another tweet that they had found my record but that was it. Nothing else. In the end the CRM team transferred me around, getting my problem out of their cue and eventually dumped me onto Delta and ran fast. Yep, things got worse from there but hey, no longer Orbitz problem! I now belonged to Deltaaaaa.

I ended up so frustrated that I canceled the trip and forfeited my tickets and hotel deposit. That’s how chaotic, unorganized and disjointed the experience was.

Turns out that the Orbitz TLC tagline doesn’t mean ‘Tender Loving Care’. Instead, it seems to stand for ‘The Lowest Cost’.

If you do a Google search for Orbitz TLC, what comes up first is a paid link. Orbitz states that with their TLC program, every customer is a VIP! However, if you audit their materials (from ads to their on hold recording to twitter to their online properties, things get confusing. Twitter, the call center on hold and some of their branding is about a better experience (TLC) and a VIP experience. Elsewhere it is ALL about price. Lowest, lowest, lowest.

Either value proposition or even both is ok. But deliver on what you CONSISTENTLY promise. Either VIP service, low price or the best service possible at the lowest price available.

Hey folks, coach is still coach. Don’t spin the threadbare seats in the back of the plane as luxurious. A confusing and at-odds marketing program will ensure a bunch of people have their expectations missed. Say what you mean, mean what you say, be truthful and be consistent. Southwest does a masterful job at delivering this promise. Take a lesson.

I decided to provide a set of tips to get started, one that if tried I bet would yield greater results than any 50 million dollar ad campaign at 1/100th the cost.

Here it is:

Define your objective.
Figure out what your brand promise is and what it means (be simple and clear), as well as, how it supports your objective.
Have every department head ask his or her direct reports to write into their job description what their specific role and their role’s contribution to that objective and supporting promise is.
Ask them to measure their performance daily and report monthly on how they did. (Simple daily yes and no’s will work at the start. Did you? No, I had an instance where I couldn’t. What was it and why?)
Ask them to identify monthly the barriers within the organization that caused them to not deliver on their contribution.
Focus on work-arounds and solutions to these barriers, tasking the employees themselves to identify the solutions.
Implement and report.
Weave your objective and promise into everything.
Create marketing messaging directly tied to the objectives and performance.
Integrate voice of the customer UGC directly into marketing and product venues (on and offline).

I am picking on Orbitz not because of a bad experience. No company can deliver everything flawlessly or meet every customer’s wacky demands. I am picking on them because they are not consistent in what they say and what they do.

In fairness, Orbitz recently removed the TLC branding from their online venues (I can see why) but the phrase still prevalent through many touch points from paid search to on-hold recordings.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether, like Babe Ruth, you step into the batter’s box and point to the outfield fence; only that you step into the batter’s box and follow through.

Technorati Tags: social marketing,WOMMA,word of mouth,social media,Southwest,Orbitz,marketing,ROI,brand messaging,brand value,conversation,CRM,customer service,ComBlu,Forum One,Solarwinds,Kathy Baughman,Bill Johnson,Dawn Lacallade,YPO,customer solutions,communications,PRofitability

No News Is Bad News!

Kathy Baughman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:18:45 GMT

Our firm, ComBlu, hosted the Midwest regional judging of the WOMMy Awards a few weeks ago, which are sponsored by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). A group of judges from agencies, not-for-profit and big brands got to determine the bronze, silver and gold winners in the engagement category. It was very interesting to see the state of the art of word-of-mouth engagement programs. The entries ran the gambit from internal stakeholder engagement to big brand extravaganzas. The winners will be announced at WOMMA’s Summit in Los Vegas in mid-November so I can’t say much more about the entries or the winners.

One of the best parts of the day was meeting our fellow judges and hearing their perspectives and different takes on the entries, the industry and their own campaigns and programs. One judge was from a local university and mentioned that they had launched a community for parents a few years ago. She relayed how much they had learned over the past few years and talked about how their skills and point of view had morphed to meet the needs of this new social medium. She told a story that occurred early-on when a colleague commented, “There’s no activity in the community this week; isn’t that great?” We laughed because in this instance, of course, “no news is bad news.”

The whole point of the community is engagement with the parents, helping them have a great experience with the university and to feel secure that their children are in good hands. A great mission for a university-sponsored community. Her colleague was applying old school thinking to a new media solution. In the past, no interaction with the parents was equated with no complaints! In the community model, however, they want action and reaction. They want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly. They want to improve parent/university relations and learn from these constituents in real time. It’s a smart strategy; these parents will have a great story to tell other parents in their networks whose kids are considering this choice for higher ed.

This judge’s story was interesting; more so than some of the entries! Not all of them really had a lesson to teach, which I think is at the essence of what an award winning program must do. Award winners should model best practices against a defined business challenge as well as demonstrate exceptional ROI. They also need to be strategically brilliant and stun us with their creativity. Not necessarily their creative, but their creative execution of a well thought through strategy.

Many of the entries did just that while others are still representative of early efforts to give social marketing a whirl. Nothing wrong with that, but I was heartened to see how far the industry has come. Many of the entries demonstrated solid business results and used some tried and true techniques in unusual or new ways. That we have tried and true techniques alone speaks volumes of the growth and evolution of this marketing discipline. I can’t wait to hear about the winners in the other categories. I’ll share more insights from our group after the awards ceremony on November 18^th.

What community platform should I use?

Brian Costea — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:22:19 GMT

In the past 6–8 months, I’ve been asked the same question about a dozen times from clients and colleagues. What platform should I build my community on? This seemingly harmless question can spark hours of discussion and debate. If you’re planning on starting an online community, here are a few pieces of information that you should know prior to asking this loaded question.

Know your budget. These days, community platforms can range anywhere from free open source solutions or spending up to as high as $250K. On the low end, free or low cost options will give you bare bones functionality that will leave you having to customize the look and feel, as well as configure a hosting environment. High-end platforms will provide a set of tools that will allow you to customize your community. Some even include easy content management systems so non-technical personnel can maintain the community. Knowing how much you can afford up front will help cross some names off of your list and save you time during the evaluation process.

Brush up on your company’s data policies. In today’s online world, data integrity, data security and customer privacy are at the top of most companies concerns when launching an online community. Bone up on what your company’s data and security policies are before beginning to compare platforms. If your company does not allow data to be hosted by a third party vendor, that will eliminate the software as a service (SaaS) providers.

Start small. With all of the sexy, cool Web 2.0 functionality that’s out there today, it’s easy to go overboard during your requirements gathering sessions. Remember to take a step back and vet the functionality against your core community objectives. For example, a support community might not need a tool that allows you to view members in your location. However, it definitely needs a simple to understand Q&A tool. By narrowing your list of desired functionality to only the most relevant, you may find that the more expensive platforms may have lost some of their original appeal.

Look and feel. A brand’s online community presence should match the look and feel of its other Web assets. Make sure that you sample a few different examples of communities built on the same platform so that you can get a feel for how flexible the platform is. Some platforms allow you to create custom themes or skins for your community, while others allow you to only adjust base colors and copy. Be sure that you can live with the “template” look and feel before you commit.

Know your environment. Let’s face it. More often than not, the budget for an online community is going to come from somewhere other than IT. Marketing often foots the bill. If you are a marketer looking to build an online presence, remember to check with IT on the specifications of your current environment to be sure that they meet the basic requirements. It never hurts to have someone from IT with you while reviewing platforms to provide you with a sanity check.

To host or not to host? That is the question. There are several viable SaaS models out there that will provide both hosting and development of your community. If you decide against a SaaS model, remember to ask yourself two important questions before purchasing your platform:

1. What are the additional overhead and maintenance costs associated with hosting it myself?

2. What are the additional costs for using a third party vendor to host the community for me? In addition, what is an acceptable service level agreement between my company and the vendor?

Deciding on which platform to use isn’t an easy one to make. However, with a little due diligence before you get started, the process will go a lot smoother and hopefully, save me a phone call ;).

Community: More social science than computer science

Kathy Baughman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:57:27 GMT

We’re about to release findings from some research ComBlu conducted to gather insights about the state of online community marketing. Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, let me share one observation after diving deeply into over 125 communities that were built by 45 different brands. Many companies are still taking a computer science approach to community building vs. a social science orientation.

Here’s the big insight: only a slight fraction of the brands we reviewed show any evidence of a cohesive strategy. Many seemed to still have a “build it and they will come” mentality and left the community to its own devices. This epitomizes the computer science orientation: get a platform, throw a community out there, and hope for the best. This flies in the face of using communities as a core engagement strategy.

Those communities that were high performers typically exhibited lots of best practices. This is a very important point given that the best practices are almost all some flavor of an engagement tool. And, that’s where the social science comes in. Brands build communities because they want to engage with customers and other key stakeholders. The whole point of having a branded community is to have purpose driven conversations about topics that are of genuine interest to both the company and its customers. This requires the brand to really think through how to provide multiple, meaningful paths to engagement. The brand needs to be an active participant in the community and interact in ways that resonate with members or visitors.

Conversations are two-way activities; it’s essential that the community sponsor exhibit signs of life. It’s imperative to have a strategy for what to do with feedback, ideas, and insights. One of the worst practices we saw was a community that solicited input and then used an automated response that told the person to contact customer service. Ouch. The community IS customer service! That’s what is at the heart of engagement: knowing customers and using that information to serve their needs.

Another aspect of engagement is modeling behaviors and organizing activities that make each person feel affinity with the brand. In essence, taking a social science approach to community building provides the gestalt of engagement. The community sponsor needs to unite elements in such a way that the ultimate experience can not be derived from a simple summation of its parts. It is a symbiotic bond that spawns new experiences and deepens engagement from the collective life force of the community. In the process, all parties learn and grow.

So, it’s no real surprise that those communities that offer multiple ways to engage scored high in our research. What is shocking is the number of brands that go to all the trouble of building a community and then neglect it. Instead of building a significant asset, these brands are simply using a social platform in a very tactical way. At best, this represents a huge missed opportunity; at worst, It just doesn’t do the intended job.