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That’s it… just pondering a remark some child made in passing. Sometimes genius is in the most simple of things. Hmmm….?

Dec 06th by Shannon

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Mitch Joel, author, speaker and owner of Twist Image (Canadian based agency). He has some smart things to say. He knows SoMe and he believes content is king.

So I’m at an industry event the other night in London UK. If you don’t know Barry Furby, founder of Fresh Resources and the man behind Social Media Mondays, you;re likely to, sooner rather than later. As is the case with most industry events, there is an opportunity to network. So I did. His name is Jonothan Harris of Harrisment - a smart guy with a lot to say. Being sat next to me, he couldn’t help but notice when I flinched through a presentation on SoMe. He inquired as to what I was gasping over… and I told him. I asked him:

Is content king? or is it conversation? and does it change depending on whether you are in a b2b or b2c space?

He thought for a moment and responded – “The content of your conversation is king!”
By George… I think he’s got it. I think Mitch is spot on as well….only I’ll fold it up a different way and lay it out this like this -

Engaging your audience is king.

Be it conversation or content. Both must engage.

But hold up… do we know what engagement means? Me? I had to look it up to be sure to be sure. Some say it’s when you commit to marry. Some say its when gears mesh. Webster defines it as – to attract and hold by influence and power. I like Webster’s take.

Nov 06th by Shannon

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while I move from Canada to the UK. As much as I’d love to be able to juggle the house, the move, the flights, the travel, the job, shipping, selling off the furniture and maintaining my blog while keeping in touch with everyone ensuring all last minute lunches have been set and kept… the reality is, something had to give. I’m choosing to focus on sorting out a few things first before I delve back in to my blog, speaking engagements and coaching. I guess you could say I’ve booked some holidays and I’m leaving the blackberry at home. ok. Not at home… but in the suitcase in the hotel… while I’m down the beach. HAH! If you need to reach me, email or twitter should do the trick.

Oct 04th by Shannon

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I’ve had some great discussions this week past with several socially inclined marketing folk on how, where and if social fits. It’s got me thinking about business, consumers and why I love the socially inclined playground.

Social Media isn’t just for consumers.
Social Media is where technology enables and supports what comes natural to us: socializing. We are social creatures. We learn in these environments, we sell in these enviroments, we buy in these environments, we teach, make decisions, have a laugh, disagree, find love, and more in social settings. Big business invests a great deal in annual off site meetings where their employees can come together to buy into the vision of the brand by day, and socialize by night. Social Media… that technology that enables us to do what we do in real life, can absolutely enable businesses way before the consumer initiatives. Call Centers comes to mind first. It is no longer about call click or come in. It is absolutely about being present in the virtual spaces your customers live in today. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and several other brand relevant sites.

Why the Call Center?
We all know by now that customers have a lot to say about just about everything, including your product, brand, service. We also know that people are having a lot of these conversations online. Furthermore we know that when people really have a bee in their bonnet… they’ll do what they have to to make their point.

Think before you publish!
So, recently, an old skool Marketing and PR type blogged about a fellow colleague criticizing him for the charity work he does, personally attacking him which was a little below the belt and all in all venting after a fairly recent business convo that didn’t go quite how she wanted. The chap who was being blogged about shared the link to the mean post via twitter, his blog and his network. What do you think happened? Well… a load of people read the blog post and went to leave a comment – they couldn’t. So they copied and pasted their comments on post the chap posted in response to the unfounded accusations. 24hrs later and we now have 100+ comments, at least 7 independent bloggers blogging about this and the old skool marketer who originally started it all finally enables comments on her post and tries to mitigate pandora’s box. I’m pretty sure our old skool marketer got a crazy lesson in social media – I wonder if that’s why the posts that started all this have recently been removed.

Traditional Marketing and PR still apply.

Social Media is not the be all and end all. Although it is a piece of the pie, it is just a piece of a much bigger pie. We still need a very clear understanding of business, operations, customer life cycles, acquisition & retention programs, marketing & PR as well as sales strategies. I do believe that social needs to be considered throughout the process not because social media trumps the rest, but simply because it’s being customer centric. I’ve been in the industry for over a decade. I’ve heard every brand, marketer and business talk about being customer centric. I never ever saw that conversation manifest beyond the boardroom. I think social brands to be customer centric… or else!

The social rules of engagement!

Be real. Keep it human. Remain approachable. Of course there are a few other best practices to keep in mind as well. Things like: I believe that a b2c brand, 80 times out of 100, should not build a community and expect people to come to them. They should find out where their customers are online and go to them. Sponsor, enable or create a presence among the customers. b2b is far more suitable for bespoke communities. The other rule? It’s ok if you goof, but you best own it if you do. Ignoring negative comments or worse yet, preventing negative comments to feature
on your corpotate site is a no-no and it will come back to haunt you. See “being transparent”.

Remember the Acquisition Manager!

He just wants to drive sales… doesn’t want to be lumbered with the rest of it. Acquisition Managers want to drive sales. Social absolutely supports this and more. It does require knowing who your customer is and knowing where they live online but you can make the Acquisition guy happy too! Here’s how: you know your customers. You listen to the conversations being had about you. Now engage them in their space on their turf with promotions that are meaningful to them. Think how you can enable them to change the world. What’s it going to take to get them talking about you? Recommending you? Promoting you? What do you have to do to lose control of your message to an audience of fanatics who promote you for you while giving you consistently feedback allowing you to accurately course correct? Easy. Listen to them. They will tell you what it’s going to take. Twitter and 30 minute “tweets of love”, fan pages on facebook, buyer channels unique to social that come with some perk, value, benefit that doesn’t have to be monetary. Could you feature their mug on your change the world website for a week and make a donation in their name?

If the future is Social… then what should we be looking at today, asking ourselves, “what does this mean 6 and 12 months from now?”

I think we are all in agreement that a convergenece is coming, is happening – how will that impact marketing, purchasing and brands? Have brands already lost control of their brand… or just a portion of it?

Sep 28th by Shannon

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