Excessive Exuberance is the Achilles Heel of Social Media

Excessive exuberance is the Achilles Heel of social media. We are in an age of experimentation, of learning and growth.  There are few clearly defined rules of engagement and even fewer success metrics that have withstood the test of time. Because of the economic climate, social media is often considered a quick fix and a way to create value with little budget or staff. Too often the wrong definitions of success are celebrated - "We have thousands of followers on Twitter!"  "We just launched a Facebook business account!"  "There are comments on our blog!" Great. Perhaps. But did these "successes" help the company advance in a meaningful way? Who did you reach and what were their impressions and calls to action? Did you yield anything to help the company?

As social media is becoming entrenched in the business world, we must take a hard look at the expectations for social media and make sure they are tempered with the same rigor you would apply to a program that did not involve social media. There are many social media program failures around us, and it is just the beginning. There will be many more before we land at a place where social media is well integrated into the business value chain.

We need to treat social media with the respect and measures of any other true innovation project within the enterprise and stop pinning our hopes and dreams upon anecdotes and wishful thinking. We've seen excessive exuberance cycles before and they are often rooted in technology advancement. Take for example the advent of the web.... Every company sought to create a web site but few knew what they would do with it or how it would benefit their organization. Sure, the speculation was right- the web was and is transformative, but there were many casualties along the way of misguided ideas and silly businesses without a business plan.

Align the business goals with the user needs in order to properly match the features and functions offered with the purpose of the effort. For example, if your company's focus is B2B - then you may be better served by creating an online community to serve your clients and serve as a way to expose thought leadership, product road maps, discover new product and service needs and desires etc. than to create a Facebook business account or launch a blog. In this case privacy and exclusivity matter more than broad reach. After all, do you really care if you have 10K followers if the majority doesn’t represent your audience?

WHO you endeavor to serve needs to dictate the How and the Why for the program. The art of choosing the right interactive model directly impacts its success. Once you can clearly define who you want to serve and in what ways, only then you can begin to identify the proper processes and outcomes of the effort in a measured and accountable way.

What are some of your authentic social media successes?

On Being A Brand Online

Being a brand online is reserved for the brave. The transparency that social media creates is especially demanding on thought leaders who are out in the world trying to contribute value to professional conversations.  There are many doctors, lawyers, and top executives who have personal brands that transcend their workplace.  We know Dr. Oz and his philosophies on healthy living more so than the organization he works for.  We follow the ideas of John Chambers whether or not we are a Cisco client.  For those whose brand is their professional contributions, social media has made it much more difficult to be persistently present as so much of the thought leaders' actions, ideas and efforts are chronicled online and can be played back, measured and critiqued out of context.

Such social-media induced transparency has provoked some thought leaders to retreat to the written word and seek out more controlled (controllable?) venues.  I understand this retreat in many ways. The ever-striving perfectionist in me finds being a brand online difficult sometimes. Sure I give lots of public presentations and my blog is well read but that doesn’t make it easier.  As a fundamentally shyish person, I cringe every time I see a Youtube video of a talk I gave – gosh, I think, that looks awkward or darn, I shouldn’t have eaten that powered donut while wearing a black suit right before show-time as I see the white sugary dust all down the front lapel; I try to not count the number of sentences I wish I said differently on every webinar I play back; I note every typo on my blog with scathing scrutiny.  But I persist in sharing my ideas and point of view on the social channel because I believe in the platform and have a driving need to further the best practice of building online communities for business.  It is harder, however, than in the past, when once a speech was completed it was done - there was no twittersphere to follow the audience reactions!  

 In order to combat or manage the transparency created by social media, many brand-personas have
 refrained from the social environment, or worse yet, have pulled back into cautious declarations and platitudes that are void of humanness.  But it is within the humanness of social media that true thought-leadership can be defined.  Now, I am not advising we let it all “hang out” online as some idea mavens have done.  No, that is not within the decorum of being an effective manager.  But, social media affords us an opportunity to test ideas that are still in evolution, it offers a platform to talking to people with a human voice, and to share information about the things we are passionate about. There are many wise and thoughtful executive bloggers on the wires and definitely room for more. There is much to learn from those best practice examples. 

Social media success lies within the ability to meld a personal voice with a professional platform.  The subject matter expert’s thoughts, opinions and questions have an opportunity to come together into a fugue of ideas that help share a deep understanding of a topic. Social media provides the opportunity to know thought leaders just a little better, to feel connected to people we may not have the opportunity to meet in real-life, and to develop a trustful understanding of their leadership point of view that can enhance our world.

Engagement Is The Business Goal

As companies begin to explore whether or not social media is a viable channel for them, a relevant question skeptics often rightfully ask is "What is the point?"  How can using social media help the business, sell more services, or better a product line?  This is a good question - and one that should be asked strategically before starting any social effort.

The business goals of social can vary somewhat from company to company but the underlying driver for social is to increase engagement with ones customers and prospects in order to increase awareness of the business, understanding of the offerings through the experiences of its customers, and create a relationship that can lead to sales.  As buyers, we feel more comfortable giving our dollars to someone we know or something we understand.

Engagement offers companies an opportunity to connect with their buyers.  This is why companies hold marketing events, sponsor seminars and participate in conferences - in order to meet customers and prospects face-to-face and shake their hands.  Through social media engagement, there is a new playing field available on the digital channel. While certainly not as meaningful in many ways as playing a round of golf with someone, social media offers a better opportunity to reach more buyers and prospects and start a dialogue with them. 

Some companies choose to engage on existing social channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter where there are a large number of people, thus increasing their odds of reaching more people.  Others find value in creating their own communities where they can bring the buyers to them and have greater ability to inform, educate and engage.  There are benefits and drawbacks to both options and they are not mutually exclusive as a company can run a successful online community for clients and use the public social channel to drive awareness and membership.  In any event, however, a business driver for using social channels is to engage.

Here is how the Engagement Cycle works:

A client or prospect has a question, an issue or a problem. They reach out to a community of people in search of an answer.  Through the interaction with either the company or with another client or prospect they get a problem solved or an answer to their question.

As humans, when we are assisted by another we naturally feel gratitude or appreciation.  Typically we have a tendency to reciprocate a good deed.  Often times, the feeling of gratitude plays out as need to help another person or share the information we just received.  Therefore, we share the information (often in the form of a retweet on Twitter, or a discussion group post in response to a request for help) or seek an opportunity to help another person.  We now feel connected to the person who helped us - and in many cases in a business context, it will be either someone from the company or a client of the company.

Once the information flow begins, other people are assisted by the information they have seen online and they too experience connectedness.  They also often make a contribution within the social channel about the issue and share the information they have or recount their experiences.  This persistent information flow creates a robust body of work about the product, service or company.  When it is positive or informative, the company benefits, and when it is negative, the company suffers especially if they are not well represented in the information flow cycle.  In other words, a company who is getting negative attention through the channel but does not respond is more likely to continue to experience negative information flow.   

In any case, the engagement cycle is critical piece of the information flow. When a company becomes involved in the engagement cycle they can ensure accurate information is shared in a timely fashion.  They can create nodes of connectedness with buyers, increase the impact of the relationship with the company and potentially heighten the likelihood of being considered when a buying decision is underway.  It is important to remember the fundamental rule that people buy from people, not companies. 

Find your Company's Twitter Voice for Business

I have been as excited about Twitter as I have been about the advent of the fork or the football - I'm not intrigued by the thing- only the application of it.  Twitter is a utensil that provides a single basic function with stylistic differences that are determined by the user's agility with the tool.  Now, before all the Twitter "gurus" get up in arms - the definition of a utensil is "any instrument, vessel, or tool serving a useful purpose" so it is indeed relevant.   To play out my football analogy - that pigskin in one guy's hands is a silver bullet and a mudball backyard game in another hand.  In fact,  I am a tweeter myself and in this great Haiti tragedy, when the search began to find Haitian who are close to me and my family, we turned to Twitter as the fastest channel to get information.  This was the first time my Leader Networks persona and my personal voice have blended online. 

In thinking about Twitter for business, more and more clients are bubbling up a desire to get a twitter channel.  Predictably, as a curmudgeonly strategist, I repeatedly ask "What do you want to accomplish?" and "What are your business goals for use?" to help figure out whether it makes sense or not, as taking on a Twitter account for business is no small task and in *many* cases not a good idea for the company to begin with.  Sure it's free to get one, but the need to maintain it, staff it, monitor and respond to interactions can be quite costly from a staffing perspective.  After all, the point is to engage so the better you get at Twitter, the greater the accountability.

The next step after determining the business rationale, is to figure out what is the most appropriate Twitter Voice for the company. There are many compelling voices on Twitter - personas, companies, expert sharers. Some focus on connecting and others serve as information channels.  Most successful twitter business voices are both consistent, persistent, and useful to the audience in some way. 

Too many organizations just open an account willy-nilly and see what happens, or learn about an account that some well-meaning employee opened months after its been in operation.  Good sometimes, bad often but definitely not strategically ideal.  A better approach is to think through the strategic intent and voice of the twitter stream - what will it do for your company? Who will be in charge of it?  What is its main goal? What is the Twitter Voice and how aligned will it (should it) be with the company voice?  In some cases, a more human Twitter voice can serve to take the "edge" off a company's opacity.  In other cases, it can help a large company seem more responsive.  It can demonstrate thought leadership. It can be witty, and charming and wise. But, it is best practice to make an informed choice and not just inherit the voice that happens to come out unintentionally as your company is speaking to potentially millions of people!

Here are some examples of effective twitter voices for consideration:

1) Product-Centric Voice.  In this strategy, the business humanizes the corporate voice by giving an identity to the channel.Using the example of Dell, they have broken out the different channel products into distinct twitter channels as a way to streamline interactions and make them most productive and relevant. This strategy is particularly well suited for larger organizations with multiple product lines.

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2) The Voice of the CEO (or other notable spokesmodel).  Often ideal for SMB or those with a particularly gregarious spokesperson, the Voice of the CEO often blends personal and professional information in the twitter stream. This strategy allows the company to grow closer to its customers through the blending of information styles and by creating opportunities for customer intimacy and (the perception of) relationship building.  One great example is Richard Branson, Virgin's CEO who is a delight to read due to the personality of the stream.

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3) Customer Care Online Voice.  By bringing customer care online to the twitterverse, companies can often be more responsive to their users and buyers in a 24X7 environment by sharing information of interest to customers and fielding customer care issues online.  This is a "traditional" use of a new customer service tool.

This twitter voice is in some ways the easiest to implement because it clearly is a shared endeavor between a number of customer service representatives and can be staffed accordingly. Because it is clearly a group account, there is no need to have a witty voice or a consistent persona, as is the burden when some of the other twitter voices are outsourced.  A great example is Orbitz's Twitter account.

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These are some examples to consider and there are many more out there to learn from.  But the moral of the story is there is a place for Twitter in business - sometimes - as long as the goals and outcomes are well thought out, there is a clear plan and approach to the twitter strategy and an operational plan that is well suited to achieve the goals of the effort.  Twitter can be a viable business channel for some organizations but does require a strategy, tactics and staff.  

Internal Communities Have An Image Problem

Internal knowledge networks or online communities within a company intranet often suffer from an image problem that drastically undermines their wide-scale adoption.  Too many of us of a "certain age" remember the knowledge repositories of yesteryear. Intranets were those awful, clunky intranets that managers forced employees to upload content to during the dot.com bubble so that they could "knowledge capture" during a time when employees were fleeing fast to the many start-up companies promising fame and fortune to all.  Those systems were difficult to use and were entirely one-sided - offering value mainly to the company and little to the employee who participated. 

Now, however, due to the modern collaboration tools, company intranets are a completely different animal.  When well done, they can serve as an interactive go-to network of peers-in-the-know and best practice content and discussions of important trends and issues that impact a knowledge-worker's ability to do their job well.  They can be easy and even fun to use and serve to support a company culture in an ongoing way. But, we are scarred from the past and often avoid using these internal social tools like the plague.

Often times, one of the greater obstacles to adoption (provided that we are talking about a good implementation that has clearly defined business goals, adequate staffing, viable technology and a staffing model that is appropriate) is overcoming staff perception about them.  Yet it is the rare company that applies the principals of effective marketing strategy and tactics to help staff see the value.

If you have a new or underused intranet consider working with the marketing group to create an internal marketing and awareness campaign to help evangelize the community within the organization.  Make participation fun and rewarding - it can be professionally-based but rewards systems for contributions can go a long way as can scavenger hunts and deadline driven participation events.  Ensure key stakeholders are actually visible on the community as those in authority are often the last ones to engage online and this sends a negative signal to employees who are being asked to participate but see no senior footprint.  Consider creating positive performance incentives to support ongoing participation - make it part of team MBOs on a weekly or monthly basis and not just at the end of the quarter where folks will just upload a bunch of stuff so they can report executing the objective.

And finally, make sure the programs and collaboration efforts on the internal community are truly useful and well aligned with helping staff solve business problems.  Launch discussions and knowledge exchanges that mirror issues and information needs that are often expressed verbally or informally.  If the internal community is useful, usable and engaging - they will come and they will stay.

Three Keys To The Secret Garden: Credibility, Selectivity and Balance

Credibility, Selectivity and Balance - these are very important parts of gated online communities.  My work at Leader Networks often focuses on building online communities for business - private, confidential, executive-level communities or those that deal with the exchange of sensitive information. (For example, we are very excited to be building a huge online community for federal, state and local law enforcement officers but more on that another day!)

Often I read advice on the twittersphere or on blogs about online communities and social media - publish your membership names!  Tweet about top discussions!  etc. and I cringe - not because the information is bad or wrong - but because it wasn't couched as consumer facing advice. Such practices would be absolutely detrimental to a private community.  Often the best practice issued for B2C social media is dialectically opposite B2B best practice. About two years ago I put up on slideshare a presentation about the core difference about B2B and B2C that has been pretty popular but that doesn't begin to touch upon the behavioral differences between the two types of communities.

Credibility, Selectivity and Balance are essential ingredients for member engagement on private confidential communities.


Credibility- the community has to exude credibility in order to attract the members it seeks to serve. That is why they are often best created by a notable company or authoritative association.  Prospective members will need to sense credibility in order to join the group know that, upon joining the community, they will be in a safe space and treated respectfully, that their privacy or information exchange is safe.  In interviews with exclusive membership bases, one of the criteria for tacit trust among members is the belief that the brand or company's reputation is "buttoned up" enough for them to protect their brand and keep members safe. Another aspect of credibility happens within the community wall.  The information shared about the members is ample enough so that the members know who else is in their virtual "room".

Selectivity - notice I didn't say exclusivity, as that is a different intention than selectivity in membership.  Selectively in members can be effectively created when you think about what the information exchange should look like.  Spend time, actually lots of time, defining what the ideal membership mix should be to accomplish the mission of the community and be able to articulate it to others clearly.  This will help immensely when the time comes to vet who is allowed into the community.  Think about the functional roles that are valuable to decision-making, think about external experts or thought leaders, think out of the box and don't get hung up on title only, as idea exchanges often benefit from a diverse portfolio of ideas.

Balance - this is the third important element to successful gated communities or those created to support confidential information exchange.  Decision-makers are more comfortable being knowers than not-knowers. So, in the design of the member engagement, it is most productive to create a balance of information giving and taking.  The more a senior practitioner is able to share what she knows, to demonstrate expertise in a particular matter, the more likely she will be to ask a question or raise an issue.  In the social design of the community - which is absolutely critical to get right! - be mindful of balance in how the members interact with each other, with ideas and concepts and with the community sponsor at large.

Active Readers On Online Community- Do They Matter?

Every online community or social networks has lurkers- people who read messages but never post, who join groups but never participate.  This is a common aspect of online life.  I too am a lurker on many occasions online. I read, I think about what has been posted and on many occasions, I compose responses either in my head or on the screen, but never push the send button.  There are many reasons for this behavior - in some cases, the idea of responding is too challenging - maybe my ideas aren't good enough or  my point of view isn't salient enough for prime time?   Perhaps, as a senior professional, a CEO, I feel the need to refrain from exposing what I *don't* know, and therefore don't participate (which I suspect is a common condition in professional networks).  Other times, the pure logistics of the day prevent participation - a phone call or interruption prevents me from completing the task of posting.

The role of the lurker has often been examined in research about online communities- but it has mainly been to quantify the numbers of lurkers but not to explore their value.  I believe they are an often overlooked style of member.  One of my first publications in 1995 (!) was "Active Readers--What Benefits Do They Gain from an Educational Telecommunications Network?" where my colleague Gloria Jacobs and I studied what lurkers – or what we preferred to call Active Readers – did offline with the information and ideas they found online.  We specifically focused on those elusive community members who visited the community frequently, spent time regularly on the community but were silent members.

Much to our surprise, we found that the Active Readers are a vibrant and engaged group of community members.  They often took the concepts they read online and brought them into their professional lives - in real life.  They shared information in meetings, talked about what they learned and even referred people to join the network or community even though their participation was never traceable online.  Active Readers often considered themselves a part of the online fabric of the group and were often more engaged than those who posted or participated on occasion. They frequently brought value to the community and helped considerably in extending its reach.

As the rush is on to assign ROI to the professional communities so many companies have created, it is important to consider these people when factoring the benefits and reach of the communities.  Current social media tools can't even begin to track or trace impact of the Active Reader when capturing the data about the members at large. Therefore, I believe it is important to reach out to the Active Readers to find out about their participation experiences, include them in redesign efforts, find out what their needs are  – accommodate them as much as those who are visible. In other words, value them and treat them as an important part of your membership base. 

Fifteen years after my first exploration of this topic, I am pleased to see a resurgence of interest in this group - the lurker, the silent member, the Active Reader because they matter.  A fellow community builder just launched a new blog called Lurkers Anonymous that will be dedicated to exploring the topic in depth and worth a read, even if you don't comment!