The bills known as Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) were created with the intent to stop copyright infringement and protect intellectual property belonging to media makers. While we do not condone using copyrighted material, the legislation seeks to destroy the Internet by censoring sites and content distributed through channels like YouTube, Google, Craigslist and basically any search engine or web publishing tool.

On Wednesday, January 18th, Socialmediaclub.org along with dozens of other sites including Reddit, Wikipedia and Craigslist, ‘went dark’ in protest of some legislation that seeks to strangle our beloved Internet.

We are proud to stand next to organizations like Google, Facebook, Mozilla and hundreds more to protest this legislation and encourage you to contact your local Congressional representative to voice your opinion as well. You can do this the old fashioned way by looking up their phone number and calling them – or you can jump over to Public Knowledge website, fill out their short form and let them do it for you.

Senator John Cornyn

As of 3pm EST on January 18th, the AP reported several SOPA and PIPA proponents like Marco Rubio (FL), Representative Lee Terry (NE) and Senator John Cornyn (TX) were withdrawing support of the bill.

Senator Marco Rubio

“Earlier this year, this ball passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and without controversy. Since then, we’ve heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.”  via Senator Marco Rubio

SOPA and PIPA are hardly over though, we still encourage you to contact your local Congressional leaders to tell them to vote AGAINST PIPA on January 24th!

This post originally posted on socialmediaclub.org

Related articles

• Sen. Marco Rubio drops support of PIPA, a bill he co-sponsored (digitaltrends.com)
• SOPA, PIPA Protests Bring Blackouts For Jan. 18 (business2community.com)
• Censored – Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) (drayspencer.wordpress.com)
• SocialMediaClub.org will ‘go dark’ on January 18th to protest SOPA and PIPA (socialmediaclub.org)
• Son Of SOPA: Senator Marco Rubio Dropping His Co-Sponsorship Of PIPA (tarpon.wordpress.com)
• Congressmen and Senators withdraw support for SOPA/PIPA (boingboing.net)
• PIPA Co-Founder abandons support, death knells ring. (toiletfodder.wordpress.com)
• A Startling Moment in Washington (laf.ee)
• Outsiders Window Protests Against SOPA & PIPA (outsiderswindowmagazine.wordpress.com)
• Do not Scare us : SOPA and PIPA go Away with your cousins across the globe (amarnaik.wordpress.com)

This post is about how to give soaps to a charity can end poverty. Its that time of year to reflect, to make choices and to make decisions! As I look back on the previous year, I want to thank the people who were there for me– who helped me in my journey’s to be smarter, think faster and be a better person — to be all I can be as a person, a colleague and a friend! Part of what I am looking at in 2012 is to help end poverty, homelessness and skid row. How about you?

Short Note to Say THANK U!

Happy New Year to you all! Thanks for being part of my life and this, wonderful journey!

Thanks also for being an inspiration by just being you! Here’s to www.changelives.org and www.invisiblepeople.tv for giving back, for helping America and Los Angeles and everywhere (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18736424) aid in the job search and end the situation with skid row!

How are you giving back this year in 2012? One way I decided to give back- its a small start… is to collect all the soaps I don’t use from the hundreds of miles I traveled speaking and give them to my local Chrysalis Center -www.changelives.org- they put people back to work!

And here’s to a year of making the world a better place!

Here’s where I’ve been:

Oh the Places You Will Go! Dr. Suess Couldn't Have Been More Right! Speaking Badges From Around the World!

Here’s where I am going…  donating time and energy to the Chrysalis Center… It’s a small thing, but as I travel the world, I want to help to change it by being my “best” me, but also by remembering those who are in the process of making their life all it can be and remembering that they need help… and remembering to give back!

Soap, Shampoo, Lotions... Helping to Clean Up America's Jobless Situation!

Thanks to all the hotels I stayed at for their soaps and lotions! They are going to a great cause!

I want to remember and acknowledge the great work that people like Mark Horvath @hardlynormal are doing via www.invisiblepeople.tv He is using social media to make a difference in people’s lives! http://invisiblepeople.tv/

Be all you can be and make a new years resolution that will be remembered and have an impact!
@drnatalie Learn. Share. Grow!

*********************************

More information at Chrysalis:

Mission: Chrysalis is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals by providing the resources and support needed to find and retain employment.

History: In 1984, at 22 years old, John Dillon arrived in Los Angeles to work on Skid Row, assisting the area’s homeless population. What he saw was an emerging crisis and an urgent need to help the homeless. He founded Chrysalis as a food and clothing distribution center, serving men and women living on the streets of Los Angeles’ Skid Row.

As the agency grew, it became clear that long-term solutions were needed in order to eradicate poverty and homelessness. Chrysalis developed an effective and nationally recognized program to help homeless and low-income individuals become job ready so that they may find and retain employment.

Learn about our first 25 years of fighting poverty & homelessness through our digital timeline. Click here to view the PDF.

Philosophy: Chrysalis’ philosophy is that a steady job is the single most important step in a person’s transition out of poverty and onto a pathway to long-term self-sufficiency. Offering a hand up, rather than a hand out, Chrysalis empowers its clients to complete a self-directed job search.

Transitional Jobs Program: Since 1991, Chrysalis Enterprises has provided transitional jobs for our clients with the greatest barriers to employment. By providing valuable work experience, Chrysalis Enterprises helps clients gain the necessary skills needed to re-enter the job market. In 2010 alone, Chrysalis Enterprises created over 218,000 hours of employment and generated $2.5 million in wages.

Centers: Chrysalis operates three centers that are located where homelessness and poverty are most pervasive: on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and in the Pacoima area of the San Fernando Valley.

**********************************************

More Information About Invisible People http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/about/

Mark Horvath Interviewing a Homeless Person In Chicago at Sobcon Conference 2011

A Story from Mark:

“I once heard a story about a homeless man on Hollywood Blvd who really thought he was invisible. But one day a kid handed the man a Christian pamphlet. The homeless guy was shocked and amazed, “what! You can see me? How can you see me? I’m invisible!”

It isn’t hard to comprehend this man’s slow spiral into invisibility. Once on the street, people started to walk past him, ignoring him as if he didn’t exist… much like they do a piece of trash on the sidewalk. It’s not that people are bad, but if we make eye contact, or engage in conversation, then we have to admit they exist and that we might have a basic human need to care. But it’s so much easier to simply close our eyes and shield our hearts to their existence.

I not only feel their pain, I truly know their pain. I lived their pain. You’d never know it now but I was a homeless person. Fourteen years ago, I lived on Hollywood Blvd. But today, I find myself looking away, ignoring the faces, avoiding their eyes — and I’m ashamed when I realize I’m doing it. But I really can feel their pain, and it is almost unbearable, but it’s just under the surface of my professional exterior.

For years I’ve used the lens of a television camera to tell the stories of homelessness and the organizations trying to help. That was part of my job. The reports were produced well and told a story, but the stories you see on this site are much different. These are the real people, telling their own, very real stories… unedited, uncensored and raw.

The purpose of this vlog is to make the invisible visible. I hope these people and their stories connect with you and don’t let go. I hope their conversations with me will start a conversation in your circle of friends.

After you get to know someone by watching their story, please pause for a few moments and write your thoughts in the comments section, or maybe email them to a friend and link back to this vlog. By keeping this dialog open we can help a forgotten people.

The invisible guy didn’t intend to become homeless. I didn’t plan on living on the street. Everyone on the streets has their own story, some made bad decisions, others were victims, but none of them deserve what they have been left with, and it is a reflection of our own society that we just leave them there. Please always remember, the homeless people.”

Here’s to GMC for donating a Truck To Mark’s cause as part of Sobcon 2011- Via Liz Strauss’s amazing leadership for her small business conference, Sobcon!! And to Murphy Gas for donating gas to power the Truck! Yeah to Liz, Marla Schulman, Connie at GMC and all the people at GMC and Sobcon who made this possible!

Liz Strauss Paying tribute to InvisiblePeople.tv and Mark Horvath's Work to End Homelessness

Mark Horvath and the Dontation from GMC for his Mission to Help The Homeless at Sobcon 2011

Related articles

• Americans hungry during the holidays (rt.com)
• Broken and Shared: Food, Dignity, and the Poor on Los Angeles’ Skid Row Book Review (sisterrose.wordpress.com)
• 1 in 2 Americans have fallen into poverty (iflizwerequeen.com)
• Meals, toys given to homeless at LA Mission (abclocal.go.com)
• Serving those in need on Christmas Day (abclocal.go.com)
• Another Face of the U.s. Recession: Homeless Children (maboulette.wordpress.com)
• Another face of the U.S. recession: homeless children (ibtimes.com)
• Jessica and Shenae Get Close for a Cause and More! (news.instyle.com)
• ‘Housing first’ is the Pathways approach (philly.com)
• The Chrysalis Of Fear (manoahswife.wordpress.com)
• United Way of Greater Los Angeles Hosts 5th Annual HomeWalk (prnewswire.com)
• From homelessness to an executive suite (thegrio.com)
• Rosa Acosta Feeds The Homeless On L.A.’s Skid Row (bossip.com)
• For the New Year: Journey to a Short Story (darsba.wordpress.com)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes That Are So Great People Repeat Them Over And Over (tyrannyoftradition.com)
• A Journey to Remember (marcotimone.wordpress.com)

If you have been to a lot of conferences and seminars in social media, you might be having the same feeling I am. The content is the same old, same old! I think since we are in a new phase of social media implementation, phase 3 of the social media adoption curve, that people want something more than cheer leading and WOOT WOOT social media. That’s part of why I got interested in what Simon Mainwaring is doing in Feb in 2012.

Today’s marketplace is ruthless – the economy is tough and social technology is changing faster than ever – but it’s also an unprecedented opportunity to MASSIVELY SCALE YOUR BRAND, PROFIT and POSITIVE IMPACT ahead of your competitors.

The We First Social Branding Seminar is different because you walk out with a practical and actionable SOCIAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT, specific to your business, that’s built on the best practices, case studies and bottom lines benefits of the world’s smartest marketers.

Here’s more details:

Related articles

• What Corporate America must learn from #OccupyWallStreet to succeed in 2012 (Simon Mainwaring’s blog)
• Intro to Research Methods: Collecting Data Through Social Media (business2community.com)
• How Social Media Can Save Your Business, the Economy and Capitalism (multivu.com)
• Stagger Your Social Media Updates (business2community.com)
• 3 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid (business2community.com)
• What Marketers Don’t Get About Social Media Audiences (cmo.com)
• The American Entrepreneur featuring Buddy Hobart – Aug 30,2011 (blogtalkradio.com)
• 9 Social Media Trends to Keep Your Eye on in 2012 (business2community.com)
• 2012 Social Media Predictions: 5 Must-Reads (firebellymarketing.com)
• Margie Clayman’s 100 Favorite Blog Posts of 2011 (business2community.com)
• FEATURED VIDEO: Social Media and Your Exit Strategy (business2community.com)
• 2012 Forecast: 7 New Trends In Social Media (business2community.com)
• Social Media Return On Investment: A Case Study (business2community.com)
• 12 B2B Marketing Predictions for 2012 (business2community.com)

As a Former Forrester Analyst, I attended all the software conferences. Now I only attend the ones that I think are really relevant to my clients. What’s nice about being an independent software and business analyst is that I don’t have to pretend any more to say a vendor is great when they are not and I don’t have to be afraid of speaking the truth.

Why Oracle allowed Benioff to speak at previous OpenWorld’s is beyond me, when they are competitors. But they did. Maybe Oracle didn’t see that they were competitors. I think that they looked down on Salesforce and didn’t see what that the world had changed. It’s not the first time this has happened.

Sometimes even the brightest people don’t-know-what-they-don’t-know. In Joel Barker’s book, Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, he uses the following examples to illustrate how we negate ideas through our own filters or perceptions of the world. When we see the world from our own limited perspective, sound solutions are dismissed or overlooked.

It’s interesting this year that they did what seems to be a last minute change of heart around having Marc speak. What it did is drive all the PR to Salesforce.com, which as we all know, Marc is a master marketer.

I’m not at OpenWorld because there is really nothing new. Oracle’s Fusion has been promised for years. Their customers are frustrated by the user interface, specially when it comes to Customer Service and I don’t think they are leading the social business capabilities that business must have. Their acquisition of InQuira was a good move.  I did attend Dreamforce and I spoke on the ROI of social media and had a great panel with real-world experience of transforming their organizations.

But Social Media is the MOST important thing that has happened to business in 100 years. Companies need software to facilitate this. Maybe that’s why Oracle decided to un-invite Benioff? The handling of this leaves lot’s of room for speculation on why they would do this.

What’s difficult in the connected social network world we live in, is excuses like, “We offered Benioff a different time slot and he choose not to accept it” doesn’t fly in the face of the need for companies to be authentic, genuine and human. This event has been set in stone for a long time. The last minute change up of Benioff’s time slot doesn’t hit the mark with respect to honestly.

It’s a new world we are living in. We are all under a microscope that our behavior as brands gets played out on the big stage called life. And social media is the giant megaphone and broadcast system that reaches millions and billions in a nano-second.

What do you think Oracle should do now? Let it go? Apologize and admit that they changed the time slot because they felt threatened by Salesforce? Make up a different story? Love to hear your thoughts!

Here’s some other articles: New York Times, IT News,

Forbes AllThingsD

Here’s my friend Charlie Issac’s youtube video on Larry Ellison’s speech- that speech may have been the tipping point to the change in the Benioff schedule…

@drnatalie

www.drnatalienews.com

Word Cloud On Netflix from Social Media Monitoring

I teamed up with my friend Jennifer Tyler, @JenHowell4, at Sysomos and we did a little social media monitoring on the Netflix situation. One of the goals of this blog post is to show that data can be used to tell a story. When you tell a story, the audience listens.

A Cause for Pause I hope that this case study gives every CEO, CMO… a cause for pause — to consider social media as well as social media monitoring –to give it a real, hard consideration. Not just because you want to avoid risk, but because you can begin to see that there is mission critical, real-time data that you can use in your business. And so now to our story, aided by the social media monitoring data.

Blockbuster’s Customers Didn’t Like the Delivery System Because It Involved Late Fees If we examine what was being said about Blockbuster in social media prior to bankruptcy, the negative conversation was around late fees. Clearly there was something not working about the delivery of movies. Customers had to come in, rent the DVD and remember to return them on time. Or else the “evil” late fees would consume their positivity around the brand.

But was Blockbuster listening? It doesn’t appear that they were “hearing” the feedback, at least not enough to shift their business model. Here’s a word cloud that can be generated via social media monitoring. It tells you what was being said about Blockbuster in social media. You can clearly see- in the word cloud- that the main jist of the conversation was about late fees. (In word clouds, the larger the words, the more times they are mentioned in social media.)

Social Media Monitoring Word Cloud on Blockbuster

If Blockbuster was using social media monitoring, they could have seen that their customer sentiment was not positive. They could have clicked on the red part of the pie chart to understand what customer’s were upset about. By clicking on the graph they could choose to look at tweets, at blog posts, etc… that pertain to that negative sentiment.

Blockbuster Sentiment Chart in 2010

But Blockbuster didn’t listen — or at least they didn’t hear and shift their business and had to file bankruptcy on Sept 23, 2010. You can see in the word cloud about Blockbuster’s bankruptcy, that Netflix is showing up in the conversation. Clearly something to pay attention to — when the word cloud is supposed to be about your business and your competitor is showing up in the same cloud! YIKES!

Blockbuster Word Cloud Sept 23 1010 Bankruptcy

Social media monitoring can show you what is being said about your company. Below are clips that represent blog posts in social media about Blockbuster’s bankruptcy.

Conversations on the web about Blockbuster's Bankruptcy

And here’s customer sentiment around Blockbuster’s bankruptcy in tweets:

Blockbuster Twitter Conversations About the Bankruptcy

July 12, 2011 Flash Forward to July 12, 2011. Was Netflix listening to their customers? If you look at the graph at the top left hand side, you see a yellow-ish curve. It is pretty much the same height until July 12, 2011.

What you can do in social media monitoring is to click on the peak and then see what that is attributed to. In the upper, right hand corner, you can see the blog post by Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings is what gave rise to the spike in social media and online conversations. The screenshot is of the Facebook post with a link to the CEO’s blog post. There are 81,789 comments. Out of those comments, there are 1,429 Likes. That’s about 1.7% positive responses.

If we do a word cloud on the same peak, we can see what the main topics are. That’s the group of words to the lower right. The key words are: Netflix, price, hike, streaming, dear…. It’s clear what the crowd is upset about. If we look at the lower left screen grab, you can see a buzz graph. The buzz graph tells you what words are being used in association with other words and the thicker the line, the more prominent is the use of the word. Those words are: increase, stream and redbox…

Social Media Monitoring Data on Netflix July 12 2011 Price Hike/ Change

Here’s the actual blog post by Hastings– note that he ends the post with telling customers that they can cancel their services at any time.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Blog Post July 12 2011, With Invitation To Cancel Customer Subscriptions

Here’s some of the thousands of comments to the CEO’s posts, most all negative, about the changes to the Netflix services:

Customers Reaction to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Blog Post July 12 2011

Despite the >23,000 negative comments on the blog on July 12, 2011, Netflix sent out a notice on the price hike on Sept 19th, 2011. What happens when you don’t listen or hear & you act without considering what customers think, feel and know? Customers were outraged… and the press picked up the coverage… If for no other reason than the press looks to social media for stories, companies MUST start taking social media seriously.

Press That Covered Netflix Price Change and Splitting Up the Company

And here’s some of the titles of the articles below. Companies work very hard to get coverage like this. Unfortunately, it wasn’t positive coverage.

Titles of Articles About Netflix

Here’s a sample of the tweets about Qwikster (Netflix’s new offering) – Sept 19th, 2011.

Sample of Tweets About Netflix Qwikster

And the three top words in the Buzz Graph?

 

Buzz Graph on Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

Here’s Doug Gross’s article, from CNN Tech and The Daily Dog’s Report on Netflix:

 

Daily Dog's Story on Reed Hastings and Netflix

And Tom Loftus’s Wall Street Journal story on Netflix and Reed Hastings:

 

Wall Street Journal's Story on Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings

 

And more stories from some great journalists:  

Stan Schroeder, Mashable: Netflix’s @Qwikster Problem: Twitter Account Controlled by Weed-Smoking Elmo  

Ben Fritz, LATimes: Netflix CEO admits ‘arrogance,’ renames disc business Qwikster  Mark Memmott, NPR: Netflix’ News: Signal Of DVD’s Demise?

Scott Cleland, Forbes: Netflix Crushes Its Own Momentum

Matt Burns, TechCrunch: Netflix Stock Erases 12 Months Of Massive Growth, Crashes Through 52 Week Low

Mike Issac, WIRED: Meet Qwikster: Netflix Spins Off Discs-By-Mail from Streaming Video

Austin Carr, FastCompany: Netflix: What We’ve Got Here Is A Failure To Communicate

What was interesting is that I checked Blockbuster’s twitter handle… and guess what I saw? Blockbuster is NOW listening! They are offering 1 year subscription to the people who provide the best reason for leaving NetFlix:

 

Qwikster Tweets

Did Blockbuster cross the chasm of it’s time? No. It’s customers were saying, “We want a different delivery system where we don’t get dinged for late fees.” It didn’t shift with the changes in the marketplace. Did Netflix take their spot. You bet. Did Netflix get arrogant? One would think that after >87,000 comments or 24,000 comments, that if the customer’s weren’t good with what was being proposed, and Netflix went ahead anyways, yes, it appears so.

What could Netflix have done better? Ask the customers what they think before making a declaration. Explain that to keep the company profitable and to keep delivering the streaming services, that there might need to be some changes. Ask, don’t tell is the VERY FIRST things good leaders learn in and out of business school. Asking vs telling would be a paradigm shift for most CEOs.

Netflix announced the deal with Facebook and Michael Drobac, director of Government Relations at Netflix is asking customers to help bring Facebook Sharing to the US. Has Hastings done so much damage that fans and customers will not rise to help? Did the apologies and explanations by Hastings help or hurt the company? Do you think Hastings understands what he did wrong?  Todd Wasserman of Mashable.com reported rumors of Blockbuster to launch a Netflix rival. Is it too late for Netflix?

A Social Media Teaching Moment What can we learn from this? Call it a “teaching moment.” We can conclude that’s its important to listen to our customers. It’s important that executives listen to customers and use that feedback to make good decisions. The information about a company that is contained in social media is real-time and real relevant. It’s your customers, your advocates, your influencers, your ambassadors, the press and your nay-sayers giving you their point of view. And it lives forever, it can go viral and change not only what customer’s think but also what investors think, as well as stock prices. Social media is clearly a medium, that if you don’t understand it, it can get you!

So where is your company in the adoption of social media? If it’s stuck, then perhaps consider social media monitoring. It will give you:

• A benchmark on where your sentiment and share of voice is- especially compared to your competitors
• Assurances that what you are doing is working; fair warning when it isn’t
• Mission critical data to adjust your products and service
• Data to help create a business case for the decisions you are making
• And give you data that can be used to calculate social media ROI.

Where is Social Media Going? Many people are asking me what’s the next phase in social media? They’ve got their Facebook and Twitter handle and they are posting. They have somewhat of a content strategy and interaction plan. And they are trying to drive customers through a marketing funnel and help customers with their customer service issues.

The Third WAVE of Social Media Adoption The next phase, and maybe it should be one of the first phases, is to do social media monitoring. Why? A good case study in this is re: Netflix and Blockbuster situation. Where we are in the social media lifecycle is the Third Wave. Wave One was lead by the Innnovators. Wave Two was championed by the Early Adopters.

The Social Media Adoption Curve by Dr Natalie Petouhoff

For social media to become the business-changing paradigm shift that it can be, it must win over the Early Majority. If that happens, then the business world would be entering WAVE Three, in the Social Media Adoption Curve. (I adopted Geoffrey Moore’s and Roger’s Diffusion Theory thought leadership around this concept.)

So what will it take to get the majority of the business world to buy into social media? The Early Majority are pragmatists. They want assurances that what they are going to do, is gonna work. They want business cases and they’d love to see ROI. One of the ways to show companies that social media matters is all of the above. And one of the best ways to create a business case is to do a little social media monitoring. At least that’s my take!

Don't do the Ostrich

Take your head out of the sand and cross the chasm

What’s your take on where business is in the social media adoption process?

Does this type of social media monitoring data make it easier to understand why someone should invest in social media? Love to hear your thoughts!

The Social Media Adoption Chasm - Don't Fall Into The Gap

@drnatalie Learn. Share. Grow!

Here’s more information to that might help you:

A link to the powerpoint presentation on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/doctornatalie/social-media-breakfast-club-and-sysomos-presentation-sept-22-drnatalie

Link to my Social Media ROI videos: http://www.drnatalienews.com/blog/did-u-see-the-videos-on-the-roi-of-social-media

Link to my white papers on the ROI of Social Media: http://www.drnatalienews.com/blog/roi-of-social-media-white-papers-by-dr-natalie-petouhoff

 

If you are looking for some detailed information and education on social media, then consider the Social Media Club LA sessions! We have a great line-up of teachers with real-world experience! I’ll be teaching social media monitoring and measurement… The schedule is below!

If there is something particular you’d like to see covered under the section I am teaching – social media monitoring and measurement, please let me know! Here’s the discount code for 30% off: SMCLAX Use this when you go to sign up!

Look forward to seeing you there!
@drnatalie

Learn. Share. Grow!

THE SCHEDULE and MORE DETAILS – where, who is teaching, etc…
Sept 9th, 9:00am – 6:00pm

• Building Corporate Social Infrastructure with Sam Fiorella
• Lessons from the Facebook Trenches: Thinking Beyond “Likes” with Matt Hicks
• Online Community Building with Patrick O’Keefe
• Social Business, Holistic Strategy with Chris Heuer
• Social Media Monitoring and Measurement: Understanding How To Turn Data Into Business Insights with Data with Dr. Natalie Petouhoff
• Are You Prepared to Weather An Online Crisis? How to map your brand’s social graph and identify threats and opportunities with Sally Falkow

Here’s a bit about each course….

BUILDING CORPORATE SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE
It’s no secret that C-Suite execs in most large businesses have been slow to acknowledge the social economy or to formalize and fund social engagements across their organizations. But the communication tidal wave that is social media cannot be stopped and many business silos have begun their own individual efforts given the lack of executive leadership in this area.

Be it Customer Service Managers scouring Twitter feeds, HR teams monitoring LinkedIn, Marketers advertising in social networks or PR Professionals engaging social influencers, most enterprises are engaged in social relationships through disjointed efforts initiated by the customer or customer-facing departments. Therein lies the challenge for enterprise leaders; and the opportunity if they accept this call to action.

How does the enterprise adapt to the internal communications changes that are pushing it to be more open? More social? The employee’s adoption of social communication does not translate well to the kind of work groups that are formed in most businesses. So the inevitable introduction of social networking-style communication into an office culture will have powerful implications on how businesses are structured and managed. But you need to understand how to enable it without losing control of your business’ corporate vision. In this session Sam will outline:

• The challenges that social communications will place on your
  workforce and business silos
• The needs, abilities and challenges of generational communications
  within the organization
• Cross-silo methodologies used to embrace and take advantage of the
  changes in how people communicate

Using real examples from the corporate world, you’ll leave the session with a blue print for your own corporate cross-silo social communication plan.

LESSONS FROM THE FACEBOOK TRENCHES: THINKING BEYOND “LIKES”
The power of Facebook for businesses goes beyond the number of people who click “Like” to connect with your Page. It’s about building relationships where people want to engage with and share your content, and it’s about building an authentic persona for your company that talks with people on their terms. This session will explore how to make your Facebook Page and other activities more personal and engaging through a mix of real-world tips, case studies, demos and group exercises. Topics to be covered include:

• Advanced features for managing and setting up your Page
• Developing a voice for your Page and creating the best mix of content
• How to compete for attention in News Feed
• Emerging opportunities beyond the Page and off of Facebook

MAP YOUR BRAND’S SOCIAL GRAPH AND IDENTIFY THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES
79% of business leaders in the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America say they believe their company is less than 12 months away from a potentially serious crisis fueled by online conversations and the 24/7 news cycle. Most expect it to occur with the next year, yet they admit to being totally unprepared to manage and survive a crisis.

Almost half of those polled say they are not effectively monitoring the online conversations. They have no idea who makes up their social graph and how the nodes in a social graph are connecting and influencing one another. They don’t know who the people who shape the conversation in each social node are, or how to identify them. (Source: 2011 Burson–Marstellar Digital Crisis Preparedness Report)

This session will cover:

• What the social graph is.
• How to map your brand’s social graph.
• How to prepare for the Digital Storm Ahead: Find the right conversations to track, Identify the influencers in each node, Identify threats and opportunities, Build a community of supporters before you need them, Reach the friends of your fans and followers, Train your employees.

ONLINE COMMUNITY BUILDING
The question isn’t whether or not you have a community. Your community – the people who love and support what you do – is out there. The question is how you engage with them. In this session, we’ll talk about community management and engagement in spaces you control and spaces you don’t, from Facebook and Twitter to forums and blogs. This is the art of community building on the web, both the good and the bad, steeped in real world experience.

SOCIAL BUSINESS, HOLISTIC STRATEGY
After spending the past 12 years on the top of search results for “holistic business strategy”, Chris Heuer believes the day has finally come for his insights to become part of mainstream management thinking. As the disruption caused by social media reverberates across all aspects of organizational operations and culture, market leaders are turning to social business to transform the enterprise and seize a competitive advantage. The rise of social business is not only the sucessor to eBusiness, it signals the dawn of the post digital era. Today, being digital is expected, it’s the price of entry. If you can’t think holistically, collaborate across traditional organizational boundaries, optimize your organization to act as one and earn the trust needed to truly serve your market, your business may soon be extinct.

Chris will share his insights on how to think and act like a social business along with the perspective from his colleagues at Deloitte Consulting LLP on the dawning of the post digital era.

SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING AND MEASUREMENT: UNDERSTANDING HOW TO TURN DATA INTO BUSINESS INSIGHTS
With Social Media and Digital Communications becoming part of how business gets done, businesses are wondering how should they use social media to enhance their business. When social media first started, companies reacted by putting up Facebook pages, signing up for a Twitter handle and adding a blog to their website and other basic social/digital interactions. Now the game has gotten far more complicated. Without a lot of knowledge or framework around how to make sense of all the social media and digital interactions, professionals from all walks of life—PR, Marketing, Customer Service, Production Development, Engineering, etc… want to know, “How does social media affect my business? Does it:

• Increase Marketing conversion rates and Sales?
• Reduce Marketing and Sales costs?
• Reduce costs for building and maintaining brand reputation?
• Shorten Product Development cycles?
• Increase positive word-of-mouth and awareness?
• Decrease agent-assisted calls in Customer Service?
• Decrease overall costs by reducing items like return merchandise (RMAs)….

Yes, it does. And the question on everyone’s mind is How.” This session will use real-life case studies to illustrate with examples so you’ll leave with tools, tips, strategy and tactical capabilities to monitor and measure the success of your social media and digital communication programs. We’ll cover the how’s, the what’s and the why’s to social media monitoring and measurement:

• Monitoring: What to monitor and why. Who and what to monitor. Where to find the audiences to monitor. Understanding what your audiences want and care about. What free social media monitoring tools to use. What paid social media monitoring tools to use. How to set-up social media monitoring searches to make sure you get what you need.
• Measure: Once you have the data, how to turn it into business value. Secrets to taking data and turning it into insights. What metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs) and measurements you need. How to connect metrics, formulas and calculations. Social media ROI calculations, models and methodologies to show business value.

If you have seen the ROI of Social Media Videos, you may be wondering how the videos were made. So this post is about the creation of the video’s using the RSA motion capture process to illustrate the stories behind the narrative.

We started by outlining a white paper– based on the thought leadership — from both myself and Kathy Herrmann on the ROI of social media.  And then broke the topic into 3 video scripts:
1. How to Get Your CEO to Say “Yes” To Social Media
2. How To Calculate the ROI of Social Media and
3. How Social Customer Service Benefits the Whole Company.

And I headed to San Francisco to rebelunit.com studio’s to meet up with the Salesforce team: Jennifer Stern, Sarah Suwanjindar, Sylvia Lehnen and the artist:

The RSA Social Media of ROI Team

We worked from storyboards that captured information in pictures:

The Story Boards For the ROI Of Social Media Videos

And we sat down with the artist to begin the process of drawing out the story:

The Artist on the ROI Of Social Media

The artist drew the pictures and the video cameras captured the artist’s drawings. We watched on another screen to see how the video would appear on the final cut:

The Video Screen Used to Watch the Drawing Process

I recorded the narrative and the voice and video were combined! To keep everyone’s energy up… we had yummy food and M&M’s!

Feeding The Troops M&Ms

Here’s a short video on the actual process in action:


Here’s a B.I.G. Thank YOU!!! to the WHOLE TEAM! For the great work!

The Troop That Made The ROI of Social Media Videos Happen!

What’s the definition of insanity? Some say…. doing the same thing and expecting different results!

What I love about Simon Mainwaring’s new book, “We First” is that he is suggests that we not only think different, but act and therefore will feel different. In the model of behavior change, that would mean we need to “be” — “do” and then “have.”

Simon’s book is the perfect book to set the groundwork and mindset for the “be” — and also for the other parts of “be, do, have,” but in particular for creating a new conscious awareness of behaviors and treatment of people and customers and business.

The book is about how brands and consumers can use social media to build a better world. The We First community is made up of the individual people who want to make a better world by using social technologies. To quote Simon, “Social media is easily mistaken as an end in itself rather than THE tool to connect emotionally around shared values through powerful storytelling.” What we have learned from Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung is that storytelling is a very powerful tool for learning, growth and transformation. And social media is a way to do that with millions online!

If you want to learn more about the We First movement… you can check out the video…

Here’s the details on what the “We First” stands for…
We First Manifesto
“We First” is a way of looking at the world. It asserts that we now live in an intimately connected, mutually dependent, global community. It recognizes that selfish Me First thinking hurts business, people we care about, millions of strangers and the planet. It embraces the seismic impact of digital and social technology that is transforming our professional and personal lives. It accepts the challenge of millions of consumers who want brands to be a force for change in return for their loyalty, goodwill and purchases.

It believes that this unprecedented collision of global needs and personal wants, of human emotion and social technology, of powerful brands and newly empowered consumers has the potential to transform our world.

That brands that recognize that their best interests are served by helping others. The We First Community provides them with the most effective strategies, creativity and technology to build their brand communities, profits and positive impact. By working at the intersection of social technology and social change we can all achieve our highest business goals and build a better world.

Ten Core Beliefs of We First

* An inter-dependent, global community requires an expanded definition of self-interest.
* The future of profit is purpose.
* Technology is teaching us to be human again.
* Consumers want a better world, not just better widgets.
* Brands must become architects of community.
* Brands must become day traders in social emotion.
* The evolution of revolution is contribution.
* We cannot separate living and giving if we hope to build a better world.
* Life’s necessities must generate the necessities for life.
* Prosperity is not the wealth of a few but the well-being of many.

This is amazing and I’m thrilled to be able to call Simon my friend. He is a TRUE thought leader!

@drnatalie Learn. Share. Grow.

I’ve been asked… a number of times, where can we see these videos that Kathy Herrmann and I wrote? We created them based on our thought leadership with the help and support of Salesforce.com and www.rebelunit.com (RSA) on the ROI of social media… so I thought I would post them here… so that you have access to them at any time!

Video 1: How Social Media Benefits the Whole Company

 
Video 2: How to Calculate The ROI of Social Media

Video 3: How To Build a Business Case For Social Customer

@drnatalie Learn. Share. Grow.

One of the fears of executives is that if they begin to engage in social media, customers will use it to try to take advantage of the company.  While that fear is not unfounded, there are things a brand should consider in this new social media customer interaction world.

Customers Are Talking About Your Brand Whether You Are Listening / Interacting Or Not In working with clients, sometimes they are worried that if they have a presence in social media channels, customers will circumvent the normal channels, i.e., phone or email, and go straight to Twitter or Facebook with a horrible and damaging post. What I’ve seen over the years that I’ve been covering Customer Service, Marketing, PR, etc… and social media is that some customers do use social channels to complain. Whether that becomes a problem has to do with several things:

• Products & Service Issues: Is there something wrong with the products or services you provide that would make customers so frustrated that they’d go to any length to say bad things about your brand? If so, that information has to be provided to the departments within a company that can fix it. Often times we don’t think of Customer Service as an information/feedback distribution center. But what we’ve learned is that customer service and especially social media customer service does provide real-time, often genuine and valuable feedback to a company that they can’t get any other way. A brand needs a way to collect, analyze and distribute that data — and then take the right action to fix the issues so they don’t create brand crisis situations.

• Poor Customer Service Experiences: Is there something wrong with the service that Customer Service is providing? If so, that needs to be fixed. Often times it can be a combination of strategy, technology and execution… Is it that the agents don’t have helpful answers? Address knowledge management, training, cross-channel communication capabilities, etc… Is it that the agents don’t know enough about the customer’s other tries to solve the issue and the experience of trying to get help is blastic-inducing. It could be that the IVR, the website, chat, or that social media interactions aren’t connected to one another so the customer has to restate the problem to each person they interact with.

As customers, we’ve experienced that and we know it doesn’t feel good. If that’s the case, then a company needs to create unified customer interactions, business rules, policies, knowledge bases, workflow and analytics in a common cross-channel platform. Having insight to what a customer has done and experienced across customer touch points dramatically improves the customer’s experience. (And it can drive down costs!)

• Manage Customer Expectations: If there something misleading about the promise the brand is making? Is the marketing not truthful or creating a situation that is a set-up for customer disappointment? Reviewing products and matching brand promises to create realistic expectations is key.  When branding or marketing, don’t over promise and under deliver. It will result in Customer Service nightmare. Often times Marketing, PR and Customer Service groups don’t collaborate. But if they do, you can see where making sure that all departments are aligned — will in the end — not only serve the customer,  but also the company.

Get the Basics Right: If you can say that you are providing the best products/services you can, your PR/Marketing is delivering an accurate promise and Customer Service is deployed in a way that creates great experiences — from the customer’s point of view– then you will be in pretty good shape. Often companies need to address the basics of business. What I’ve found is that when sincere customers go blastic, its because the company is misfiring in one or more of these basic areas.  Lesson learned? Get the basics right.

Beyond the Basics: So if you are one of the exceptional companies that is getting the basics consistently right, then you want to think about how you are going to handle customers who either start or migrate to social media channels to air their frustration. Just like anything in life, there are always the “bullies” who think they can trash a brand in social media to get free stuff, better service, etc.. Unfortunately part of what’s happened is that when customer’s do use social media to complain, companies are providing better service than if the customer used traditional channels of phone, email or chat. Reward behaviors you want repeated.

The Witness Factor: What companies need to realize is that customers are very smart. They figure out very quickly where they can get the quickiest and best results and answers. If your company consistently provides poor customer service in traditional channels, consider that you are setting the company up for bullies to take advantage of the “publicness” of social media.

What I mean by that is what I’ve called the Witness Factor. The Witness Factor is the idea that because something is public — i.e., everyone can see it — that THAT changes how companies treat customers. There can’t be one way to treat customers who call on the phone or email — i.e., poorly  — and then a different way to treat customers who use social channels- better and faster. It’s a clear set-up for bullies to use social media to try to take advantage of the company. They’ll figure that out and use it to their advantage — because they know you don’t want them to go blastic in public.

Know Your Customers: If you have a good system for identifying and really knowing your customers — i.e., contact center solutions, CRM, etc… then you are able to identify who you are dealing with. In researching this topic, I interviewed many clients. I asked them how they deal with these situations. The collective wisdom is that when a company can tell the difference between a real issue and a customer who is using social to take advantage of the situation, they make the better decisions on how to deal with the customer.

Often times companies don’t have good contact center/CRM systems, so they don’t know much about their customers. And they don’t have that integrated with social channels so they can’t connect who the person tweeting is to their contact center or CRM database.  So lesson learned here is to update systems and processes so that you can know and track customers and their interactions for all interaction channels.

Fire Your Bully Customers: One client told me that when they get a customer who consistently complains, they mark that person’s account. They set a limit on how many times they will allow that customer to try to get more out of the company than they deserve. And in some cases, they fire the customer. While that may seem extreme, what they find is that what those type of customer’s want is to take advantage. So rather than trying to please them– reality is you can’t — they decide on criteria that warrants firing a customer. Once these type of “bully” clients realize your firing them, they either leave or they change their behavior.

(Note- I’m not talking about customer’s who really have a problem they need solving. I’m talking about customers who consistently complain to take advantage of a company.) It’s important to identify theses conversations early — so social monitoring your brand is essential. And the second necessity is the ability to take the interaction offline and out of social channels into channels that are less visible to the public. Once you take it to other channels, then discern if the customer’s concern is real or if you have a “professional complainer” on your hands.

Gratefulness is Repaid in Spades: Often times, when customers who do have real issues are helped, they are so appreciative and sometimes even flabbergasted that a company was helpful, that they will return to social channels and will unprompted, they say how amazed they are with your company. There’s nothing like sincere, authentic and genuine compliments about your company in social spheres. You can’t pay for PR like that, especially in a world where Customer Service has now become PR. And especially in a world where social customer bullies are trying to take advantage of the company using social.

Brand Advocacy Matters: The other tip that the companies consistently mentioned was that if you have worked hard to create strong brand advocates, then when a bully starts to go off on a brand, the crowd will do one of several things. If they think its a frustrated customer, they may offer solutions and help to that customer.  That’s great because often advocates or SuperUsers do actually know more that your own agents — they’ve made your brand, products and knowing about them their personal hobby. And if they think its a social customer bully, the crowd will police it’s own social sphere. Often these social customer bullies get a reputation as a brand basher and neither the brand or current/potential clients pay much attention to them — or better yet the crowd calls the bully on their bullying. Creating brand advocates is key.

Let me know if this post has been helpful and please share how you have handled social customer bullies!

Learn. Share. Grow! @drnatalie