While this is from 2009 it still tells an awesome story about how Social Media changed the face of Comcast. Sadly Comcast could never got to a point where the positive front end was igniting more change in the back end of the company. A pattern we see in many very early engaged companies who never actually introduced a comprehensive social media strategy and stood kind of still at the experimentation level.
Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
We blogged about this project before and I thought I give an update. For those who don’t know: The European Commission in Brussels initiated a program called “Digital Agenda Europe” and within this initiative 8 focus groups of which one is Social Media. Based on the overarching goal of a program called “Europe 2020″ we created the following objective for a Social Media Strategy proposal which we will present to the EU Commission June 21 in Brussels.
Objective
Stimulate small and medium size businesses and innovative start-ups across the EU leveraging social media to create a sustainable growth, additional jobs and being able to compete in a global market. Specifically we want to double the number of businesses, actively engaged in social media who created new jobs, year over year till 2016
Continue Reading →
We all hear people saying “companies” do that or don’t do this. Companies don’t care about customers, companies don’t understand social media and on and on. I feel it would be helpful to change terminology towards the team of company X does this or fails to do that. The management of company X and so forth….
Companies are legal bodies – nothing but an entry in a register. Companies can’t use social media, but their teams can. Companies can’t create a better customer experience, but their teams can. Companies don’t ignore the changes in our society but executives may do.
This is not about semantics – it is about addressing people not walls of bricks and mortar behind teams and managers are hiding.
I believe if we change the way we address companies, the teams and managers would feel much more responsible for what is going on behind those walls. Today I can hide and say “Well, it’s how this ‘company’ works”. But if instead of the company wasting energy and polluting the air – we address the team that “the team is wasting energy and polluting the air”, woooh what a difference. If instead of the accusing a company providing a bad customer experience, we accuse the team providing a bad customer experience – again aaaarrrrrg - that maybe ME :(
1) I wonder what we could do to make that shift in the way we communicate?
2) What would be a good approach to introduce that?
3) How could we explain the benefits? – without having an epic story like this ;)
Thanks for any thoughts
How can you build a trusted network without spending hours and hours each day? How is it possible that some high ranking executives from Billion Dollar companies spend time in the social web while somebody working in the trenches cannot? Why chose other executives with equally big organizations to not participate at all – still wondering why they are just not as successful? How can people out of the blue just raise up the trust ladder and grow an enormous follower-ship all of a sudden? Today it looks like this is just a random pattern with no structure and all coincidental. But it is absolutely not. In this PART 1 I will talk about some fundamentals of Social Media Time Management.
Social Media is NOT a technology play
By accident I came across an older blog post defending the creation and even focus on developing a USP . Ironically that sparked a series of thoughts leading me to the believe that the USP is indeed dead.
The picture of the unique Apple which is clearly different and immediately stands out of the crowd of all the other apples made the point. I would just NOT buy that red apple. Now you may say well this is just a symbol for being different maybe exaggerating the situation. Is it really? I think it is a perfect example. And here is why:
If you are different you need to explain the difference. The more different you are the more explanation is necessary. In times where nobody is listening to a vendor or producer but only to recommendations from early users, trusted friends etc. the producer just doesn’t have that voice or marketing power anymore. Now consider a very large organization – take Procter&Gamble for the sake of the discussion. You would think they have infinite marketing power. Well – a) today even they don’t, given a 3 Billion consumer market around the world and b) about 1 billion of the three billion share their stories in the social web – there is no company big enough anymore to overshadow the voice of that 1 billion people.
Whether you like Darwin or not, but one discovery is very interesting: It is not the outstanding leader that survives long term but the average and very adaptable species. If we look for green apples, we may still look for the nicest of them but would not want that outstanding, different red apple. If we look for a piece of software, we want that easy to use and just practical tool that many already recommend and not that USP loaded super duper tool that is all different.
The game changer in the USP discussion however is Social Media. If you have a product where you need to survive based on a one or more USPs, it is probably not going to cut it since all the people who use that product need to be able to communicate all the differences and it is not likely to happen.
Now – obviously there are those types of products that stand out but they will either be pretty quickly mainstream or live in a difficult niche market. Apple lived quite a while in a difficult niche market. Now the iPhone stood out for a while but quickly became the mainstream product that everybody has to have :)
Obviously this thought may spark very different and very controversial discussions – but I guess it is worth thinking about.
I guess you all rationalized that Social Media projects are typically difficult to close and painful to execute if executives are not well aware of the impact of Social Media to their business. The single biggest problem is that most executives do not speak your language.
Getting your or your client’s executives to understand Social Media has become for many the single biggest obstacle. Even if you have a good story, they may not trust you – but they may trust the Social Media Academy. SMACAD is trusted by executives from ADP, Dell, Salesforcce.com, SAP and many others. Based on our own experience dealing with world class executives, we created this brand new executive program: “Social Media Business Essentials” for executives and top executive consultants http://bit.ly/smacadsmbe $395 incl. certificate Continue Reading →
This is a great case for a social media strategy on some of the highest levels
The EU is committed to invest Billions of Euro specifically into the digital advancement of EU Member countries and their respective businesses. The EU Commission fully comprehended that the digital infrastructure is the next most important investment of a developed nation. Clean water supplies, transportation infrastructure (Water, roads, air traffic), radio communication, and now Internet and Social Media infrastructure is the pathway to a successful and globally competitive nation.
The purpose of the Social Media Strategy Europe
Helping small and medium size businesses and innovative start-ups across Europe to leverage social media to create a sustainable growth, additional jobs and being able to compete in a global market. We want to empower 25,000 business owner in the EU to leverage social media with a measurable positive impact on their business growth which created new jobs by 2016. Continue Reading →
We talked to several people, business owner, marketing manager, social media practitioner what they would really love to see down the social media road. We then tried to draw a trajectory from where we are, what people dream of, and where it may go. This post is the beginning of a story that we plan to continue. Where are we going? This is the beginning of a new Social Media Academy Research Project and you are invited to add to it.
All in all, here is the single biggest change Social Media is bringing to our society: We no longer can say “I have no influence”. It’s no longer true that you as an individual can’t make a change. It evolves to the opposite situation:
Change will only be possible if most of us wants it.
Is this really positive? I don’t know yet to be honest. But that is the most probable development.
If you are listening to 1,000 social media practitioner you get 1,000 different ways and ideas how to deal with social media. Typically just tactical ideas, most of them start with how you can use certain tools and a variety of other inputs.
Once you get in touch with more experienced consultants they will tell you stop the experimentation and think strategically. Most will tell you to start with a well defined goal or objective. Continue Reading →
Silicon Valley remains to be a phenomenon when it comes to technology innovation and startups. And Social Media is no difference. XWeek is an initiative from XeeMe Inc. helping users around the world getting a view into those technology boosters before they become as well known as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or lately Pinterest. Every other week users will be introduced to a new technology or new product, being able to hear from entrepreneurs what the vision of their company is and where the industry is heading.
XWeek also helps startups to get additional exposure to the market and to people they may not know.
This week XWeek is introducing Twylah
a very interesting summary and publishing tool to re-purpose your Twitter content
