Sensei Blogs

3 Ways to Manage Risk in Social Environments

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last week I argued that social media is creating bad customers. The post was designed to open people’s minds to the reality that social media channels create high degrees of risk for brands based on a number of factors. It detailed how social media enables poor customer behavior as easily as it enables good customer behavior.

For those that delved a bit deeper, you realized I was using bad customers as an example of risk within social channels. Bad customers will always exist and always try to game the system. Good companies will manage them effectively while poor companies will struggle. Such is life.

Social Risk and Uncertainty

Not many people are familiar with the concept of uncertainty in business, particularly its relationship to risk. If you’ve ever studied military history, you would recognize that uncertainty creates and/or amplifies risk. I will give you a simple example.

You can plan the hell out of an outdoor event, managing all the obvious risks such as theme, food quality and quantity, timing, supplier readiness and delivery, entertainment and A/V, invitations and registration along with the hundred other details that are managed by a good team and good plan. But you can never be certain of the weather, not even a week before. It will always retain a level of uncertainty adding that element of risk to the event. Do you get the big tent? Is parking going to turn to mud? How will rain impact attendance?

In this simple example, the weather uncertainty creates risk; risk that jeopardizes the event’s success and how you may choose to plan it. If it rains heavily attendance could be low. If it’s beautiful and sunny, attendance will be high.

So how is risk identified?

There are two forms of risk within social channels every marketer needs to be aware of and plan for.

Calculated Risk: Calculated risk is risk we can see, touch and smell. It can be identified, analyzed and planned for. We can see it coming but standard engagement policies are good enough to manage it. This is the stuff that our project planning typically takes into account and a good organization usually deal with this type of risk easily.
Risk Due to Uncertainty: Due to the public’s growing presence in the social space, risk created and/or amplified by uncertainty has become more prevalent. Uncertainty in social media is constantly present and can come from anywhere, at anytime and from any source. It is highly unpredictable and therefore capable of creating risk. Being difficult to spot or predict, it requires vigilance and a solid early warning system (excellent escalation process and good technology framework) to manage it.

Methods for Managing Risk in Social Channels

These three key tactics will aid you in identifying and reducing social media uncertainty and thus improving your ability to mitigate business risk.

A. Curate Knowledge from Other Parts of the Enterprise

I cannot stress enough how much insight and value can be gained from sharing knowledge across the enterprise. Sales, customer service, tech support, finance, HR, operations, product development, etc. all have knowledge of the customer and the market that will help you reduce uncertainty and manage risk. But you can’t rely on others to do it for you however; you must be willing to take a leadership role and curate this knowledge otherwise it simply will not get done.

B. Identify Trends and Patterns

The danger today is directly related to Big Data – or the likelihood we’re getting tangled up in it. We are so focused on what has transpired, we miss what’s coming. We need to stop looking at data for data sake. This is an intuition play, it’s about looking for emerging trends and patterns that produce uncertainty and amplify risk. Social data in particular can deliver some big insights if we look for greater patterns rather than focusing solely on sentiment around our brand.

C. Build a Defensible Position in the Social World

I advise all of my clients to take this three-pronged approach to social. Combined, they create an adaptable structure to identify and manage risk before it becomes a big issue.

Internal readiness: develop and build a work force comfortable with social and how to manage it effectively for your company. This requires an internal support network and enabled, outwardly connected employees.
Customer Communities: separate customers from the Great Unwashed Masses (GUM), engage, recognize and enable them. Customers will become one of your greatest early warning systems for impending risk as well as valuable allies in managing it.
Public Presence: Keep your social presence simple and focused on easily actionable measures that channel customers quickly to other parts of the enterprise – sales, service, support, HR, PR, etc. The public presence is about expedited service, not just saying thanks.

The Best Approach is the Strategic Approach

In the end, everything boils down to how well you have developed your strategy and how adaptable your organization is at managing risk. What is certain is that without a strategy in place you have eliminated your ability to reduce uncertainty and manage risk. The inevitable result will be a social program mired in issues that delivers little value to anyone.

Is your strategy designed to identify uncertainty? Do you have a risk management component to your social strategy?

Jeff Wilson - Sensei

Social Media is Creating Bad Customers

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Do you remember the disaster called #McDStories? The now famous story of how McDonalds was hijacked on Twitter by people tweeting negative stories on their hashtag. Poor planning combined with outright naivety about the their own brand perception quickly attracted a growing, “angry” mob of real customers and trolls who completely derailed the whole McDStories campaign.

Now, I’m not a big believer in social media on the best of days and this type of story adds more weight to my argument – Social Media is Creating Bad Customers. Why? It’s simple… because people deep down are bullies or at the very least indifferent to bullying. Add to this how easily the social media public is influenced by a mob mentality and you get recipes for McDStory after McDStory.

Social Media provides the average person with 4 factors empowering bad behavior, particularly against companies.

No Guilt. There is no remorse about bullying a brand. It’s much easier to do because no one gets “hurt”.
The Mob. Lots of other people are doing it. Whether they are the instigator with a real story or a troll making them up, its easy to find others who will join you.
Relative Anonymity. Anonymity strips many people of fear. “No one will know if I say this” is the common feeling and easily overwhelms any feelings of restraint a person might normally have.
No Accountability. Probably the most significant factor is the sheer lack of accountability in anything said in social media. Without accountability as a “natural check” on actions, you get an environment devoid of any punishment.

Proceed with Caution

My first two questions to companies that ask me about social media are:

What are the risks?
What is the compelling reason for you to use social media? (And please don’t say because my competitors are…)

For me, it always boils back to risk. The more risk you have the less likely you are to succeed. Most organizations are ill prepared for customers they already have let alone a new group of social media empowered customers. Social media creates risk even in a docile customer base because it can change the natural state of behavior in a single person or group of people. A social media environment provides fertile ground for unrest and poor behavior.

More McDStories are waiting to happen. Are you one of them?
How will you manage the bad customer social media is creating?

Jeff Wilson- Sensei

Customer Experience is Influence

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Closing out my series on the YinYang of Customer Experience (CX) is a brief argument that your best form of influence on new and existing customers is your business' customer experience. Well designed, relevant and executed with decent timing, you exert tremendous influence over the decision-making cycle of your customers.

The issue most enterprise’s have is that their CX is schizophrenic and fractured; at any time delivering from a terrible experience to a great one at each stage of the lifecycle. The resulting dysfunction leads to poor influence and ultimately a crap shoot for customer business.

So how do we fix this? How do we create an influential experience that drives positive results for the enterprise and the customer?

The bonus here is that a good experience is far more likely to create a customer advocate than anything else.

Well Designed

The biggest challenge to influence within CX is that it is designed tactically, not strategically. How do you design excellent event, web, or social experiences in isolation from each other and from other departments tasked with continuing the experience past marketing into sales, service, and support?

Strategic. Big picture design with tactical experiences woven into it to create seamless CX across enterprise.
Integrated. Integrated not just with other tactics, but with business process and goals embedded to ensure easier management and sustainable results.
Aligned. Alignment with the customer decision-making process rather than forcing them to align with your selling process.
Customer centric. Based on their needs and preferences, not yours.
Flexible. Able to shift and adapt according to changing customer, internal and market situations.

Relevancy is Situational

Last year I wrote about how situations are the most powerful form of influence we have been able to recognize. A situation drives urgency and decisions more so than any other form of influence. The more we can identify and align our CX to situations that are affecting customers, the more likely we are to benefit from them.

Identifying situations early. This means not just keeping a vigilant watch on the market, but also on the world around the customer.
Creating adaptive “canned” situational experiences you can quickly deploy. In my article I refer to them as umbrella, shelter and ark experiences that are designed to answer to specific customer situations.
Scenario building is critical to quick and accurate deployment.
Organizational alignment between customer-facing departments to ensure the customer gets that seamless, positive experience.

Good Timing

Just like comedy, selling something is all about good timing. You have poor timing you risk being too early or late with the punch line and that matters even more than ever now. So how does timing factor in to influence?

Timing is the key to relevance. Execute too late and you’ve wasted your time and resources.
Situations ebb and flow therefore a constant finger on the pulse of a situation enables you time to prepare and understand your role within the customer’s life or business.
Always be prepared. Preparation eliminates confusion and resource allocation issues.
Executive support of a strategic plan ensures you have overcome a key challenge to proper execution.

What Are Your Goals?

If your goals are near term sales and that’s it, then continue business as usual. If however, you have an eye to the longer picture and realize that now, more than ever, customers are the key to long term success, then it’s time to take a hard look at the influence power of your CX.

There is no doubt that a good to great CX creates far more customer advocates than a medium to poor experience. And of course customer advocates create more and better customers.
The great thing is the power to influence them has been in your hands all along. All you need to do is start to action upon it.

Meaning of Life or Life of Meaning?

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT

For centuries, scholars, philosophers, poets and adventurers alike have quested after it. Movies have been made about it, both serious and not so serious and some point in their life every person asks the question … What is the meaning of life?

To be clear, my discovery started with answering the question, “Are we asking the right question?”

While I am far from being done answering this question, the ambiguity is gone and my path of discovery is clear. As is often the case, this revelation has given me fresh eyes and renewed vigor on old problems in regards to my unending quest to improve the customer experience; to enable more meaning in the life of the customer.

Life of Meaning and the Customer Experience

It really boils down to who you want as the centre of your universe – you or your customer? The reality is that for the vast majority of businesses, the centre is the brand; the corporation. Everything is built around it, supports it and enables it. But this geocentric corporate thinking limits our ability to connect with others and may actually limit growth in the new social business paradigm; an evolution being forced from without and within the enterprise.

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act V, Scene I, ll. 203—6

It has become a critical time to invest in the customer experience. Moreover, it may be time to rethink the nature of the customer experience we do deliver. While we are aware of the value of being customer-centric, the vast majority of brands limit the customer experience to how the customer can more easily and quickly buy our products and services. This is important of course, but its short sighted as the most powerful customer experience we can deliver is one that aligns to the values of the customer and enables their life.

But can a customer experience help them to experience a more fulfilling life of meaning? Value alignment is relatively easy, but meaning? I believe it can be done and that the financial benefits of doing so can be extraordinary. It boils down to enablement and relevance.

Enabling a Life of Meaning

The biggest mistake we make in business is to think we are actually important in the lives of our customers. So what if instead we focused our customer experience on making the customer more important in the lives of the people they care about or care about them? Integrating customer enablement into your CX means a re-positioning of your brand to one of enablement rather than leadership. A CX that supports a life of meaning helps the customer:

- Express their personal brand within their social community “This is who I am”
- Connect to meaningful communities of interest
- Involve the brand in their life beyond the product/service
- Improve their quality of life

Relevancy Fuels Meaning

Corporate hubris - this is the failing most of us make. Our perception of ourselves as brands is that we are relevant and continue to strive to be even more relevant. However well intentioned this may be, the customer perception is often quite different or seen as shallow.

True relevancy goes well past a surface need that may drive a transaction; the thing we all focus on. The real gold mine lies in much deeper connection within the life of the customer and understanding how our brand fits in with every other brand within the customer life. The recipe for creating deep relevancy is part knowing our place (and being content with it) and part knowing the timing of when we are important.

What is Your Life of Meaning?

Without the ability to see into the future, it’s a difficult leap to accepting such a radical change in thinking about how we interact and engage customers. Do we risk more by embracing new, more social ways of thinking or by holding onto old ways?

Maybe it starts with understanding our own life of meaning and how the brands we choose to deal with currently add meaning to us? The answer is usually there waiting for us if we are brave enough to ask the right question.

Thanks for reading.
Jeff - Sensei

The YinYang of Customer Experience

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Over the centuries, philosophers, scientists and poets alike have tried to capture the definition of an inexplicable force that governs much of our existence.

Via theory, formula, and verse, their attempts to give it some form we could all begin to understand took shape in powerful words that describe a natural force that affects kings and queens as equally as it affects us lowly peasants.

Whether you call it Karma, fortune, fate or Yin Yang – it purpose is to bring natural balance. Its definition is elegant, powerful and simple…

“Yin and Yang are not opposing forces (dualities), but complementary opposites that interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects as light cannot exist without darkness and vice-versa, but either of these aspects may manifest more strongly in particular objects, and may ebb or flow over time.” - Source Wikipedia

When we open our minds to the possibility that this force exists, we must also accept the notion that it is part of and affects everything. For the purposes of this article I want to suspend the notion of a moral dimension (good and bad) to Yin Yang and stick to the Taoist definition of natural balance.

Over the past fifteen years I have explored and mapped out this theory into a methodology. During this time I have discovered many sets of balancing forces that ebb and flow through the customer experience.

Take the following set of factors which affect how and what we engage with and what we measure within a customer experience.

Emotion and Logic – The most powerful balance of YinYang in any customer experience. As human beings, we are governed by these two factors in every single relationship and every single decision. Ultimately the resulting balance of these two factors dictates whether they become a customer.

Touch – How and when we engage is critical in the overall experience. The balance here is the situation that drives the customer to us and we have enabled them to access us.

Reference – How did they come to find about us is determined by a mix of personal experience and the experience of others; the foundation of Word of Mouth Marketing.

Measurement – How and what we measure is critical to improving the sustainability and potency of our customer experience. While numbers and scoring tell us much, it is only half the story.

While balance may seem easy to comprehend and at times implement, it is the combination of many sets of balancing factors that create a complex, multi-tiered customer experience. Some of the other sets of balancing factors are:

Adding to this complexity is the quotient of each at any given stage in a customer experience. For example, when is it best to invest heavily in emotion or logic within a customer experience? Weighted poorly you can drive a customer away, delay a decision indefinitely or even worse create vocal brand critics.

CX without Balance

So what happens when one of these factors, say a Yin is missing and we only have a Yang? We effectively create a gap in the customer experience, a weakness in the forces that govern the overall experience, determine actions or lack thereof.

Take an experience with no emotional design and high logic; a common occurrence for many B2B companies who believe they are selling to businesses rather than people. Without planned emotional design or the Yin of emotion, you have lost the ability to effectively guide your customer fully through the customer experience. Moreover you risk unplanned or negative emotional responses and the delivery of a poor experience.

Looking Forward

There is much still to discover and share on this methodology. I will be continuing to explore this methodology in a series of articles over the next several months. The next stages of our journey will delve into…

- The YinYang of emotion and logic in the CX and how we can design to promote faster decisions and higher conversion.
- The role of influence within the customer experience, including creating and managing the many influencing factors in and around the customer.
- The value of the employee experience and how it can ruin or create a high quality customer experience.

I hope you will join me as we continue to map out what it takes to create an exceptional and well balanced customer experience; one that can improve both conversion and value of the customer relationship as equally as it can establish the foundations of long term brand advocacy and improved share of wallet.

I look forward to your comments and thoughts.

Thanks for reading.

Jeff – Sensei

Should We Get Executive Buy-in for Social Marketing?

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There is an old saying “It’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission”. In the realm of marketing, that is both sound and dangerous advice depending on the organization you are in. More innovative, customer-centric organizations embrace the likes of social for its potential value to the brand while more traditional business is highly reluctant proceeding more out of fear of being left out than value to the brand.

In an age of increasing executive and financial accountability results are everything. To that end, does social have the track record or level of accountability that would appeal to an executive sponsor? To be sure, social marketing is largely unproven in its ability to deliver to bottom line profit, especially in B2B sectors. But its potential cannot be denied.

Then there is the risk…

The list of spectacular failures is getting pretty impressive. McDonald’s #McDStories is the most recent but in the last two years major consumer brands have dealt with their own social nightmares including J&J, Coca Cola, Wendy’s, Chrsyler and Nestle.

At the same time we have some great successes out of the likes of Dell, Starbucks, Ford and Zappos. So obviously, when done right, social marketing can be highly valuable.

But do executives agree?

On one side of the coin, if we try to get sponsorship and fail we lose the opportunity to integrate potentially powerful social elements to our existing marketing mix.

On the other side if we don’t get approval and then fail, we risk not only the company’s reputation but our own jobs.

Are the risks of social worth the rewards if we by-pass executive approval?
Do executives understand the value of social enough to make an informed decision?
Does social carry too much of a negative reputation for executives?
Can we “boil the ocean” around the executive team to help them see the value of social?
What do we do if we ask and support is refused?
Are certain organizations and executives more likely to embrace or refuse social?

Share your opinions and challenge others tonight on #bizforum at 8pm EST.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Jeff - Sensei

Content Pandemics and the Impetus for Enterprise Content Curation

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The age of ferocious mediocrity is upon us. Like a virus slowly evolving and afflicting greater and greater portions of the population; mediocre content has been infecting every medium it touches. Not only has it overwhelmed and made scarce good content but it has reshaped our perception of what good content is.

It is, in fact, what I refer to as a content pandemic.

Classically a pandemic refers to a virus that has attributes like passing from species to species, affecting wide spread regions, and having an aggressive evolutionary lifecycle which makes it difficult to treat.

We can look at mediocre content the same way. It started with reality TV, then to massive sharing online with sites like You Tube, prolific blogging, and today’s major social platforms. Essentially it kept jumping channels or “species” and spread globally.

When we made the tools available to self-broadcast, we let the Genie out of the bottle. We took editorial and content quality control away where before it was in the hands of editors, media networks, and professionals whose specialized training ensured a level of quality in content regardless of medium. Now however, those controls are gone and professional media and corporate publishing is struggling against a content Tsunami.

But what does this mean to the enterprise? How do we find or create good content for our many stakeholders?

On Wednesday Feb 22 edition of #Bizforum Twitter chat, we debated the Role of Content Curation in the Enterprise. The debate was excellent and showed the enormous gap in understanding on key issues around content curation – even the need for it.

For Sensei, we believe content is the lifeblood of the enterprise - web, social, mobile, intranets and extranets, and email the veins through which it flows and the editorial team is the heart that pumps it.

There has been no more urgent need than now for enterprise to adopt professional-grade content curation to be or remain globally competitive.

Quality content is a sustainable competitive advantage

I have often discussed with peers and clients that the ultimate goal of your online presence should be to become a “Go To” source of information that your stakeholders log onto with increasing or sustainable frequency. Once achieved, the differentiation this status gives you becomes widespread generating respect, appreciation and business from both new and existing customers.

We often perceive this end goal as difficult, if not impossible to achieve, given the depth and variety of content required to deliver to an enterprise audience. But in the grand scheme of things, content curation is an essential part of carving out a position for your brand.

Here’s the kicker, it doesn’t always have to be content from your organization, they just need to be able to access it through you. Let’s be honest, creating enough content to fulfill demand is a daunting task. The best strategy is to aggregate and create content that best meets the need of your stakeholders.

It’s about being known for something and if that something is just making it easy for people to access great content then you are a step ahead of almost everyone else.

Key question: Is your company perceived as a “go to” source for content or are you just part of the pack?

Content curation delivers value to everyone, not just prospective customers

Content curation, much like everything else in the enterprise, needs to be strategically focused to deliver value. The current thinking around content curation is incredibly myopic and misses the majority of the value it can deliver. As an example, I have created this high level diagram (below) to show how a content curation program would work (roughly) inside a large enterprise company.

Ideally content curation should be viewed as a horizontal layer within the enterprise with the ability to pull from all departments and push into all departments. The rationale is that great knowledge and content resides in all corners of the business – from research and development, to operations to support and sales. Each department can, at the same time, benefit from the content created from within and better deliver value to customers and prospects alike.

Key question: Are you enabling employees with good content to better enable customers or are you leaving employees high and dry?

Professional content curation enables better organizational performance

Much like the rest of the enterprise functions, content curation is based on simple, powerful processes to make it efficient. In this case, we improve collaboration between content creators (thought leaders, executive, product development, R&D, marketing) and content consumers (service, support, sales, product development, etc…) to better serve external stakeholders such as customers, prospects and channel partners.

The results, while hard to measure, can be felt across the organization.

- Sales: Sales people and account management not having to hunt for material to woo new clients or improve relations with existing customers

- Exec team: Arm execs on critical issues and emerging trends to improve strategic positioning

- Product Dev: Gain new/timely insights into customer/market needs and tap into feedback.

- Channels: Align channel partners closer to brand/arm them with understanding on need, not just product/service.

In the end, if you can’t track it, you can’t measure it. Process allows us to track and measure how effective our content is both internally and externally thus enabling proper accountability back to enterprise goals.

Key question: Can you track the effectiveness of your content inside and outside the enterprise?

Content curation enables the social business

Let me connect the dots here and see what you think of this. If we believe content curation is an enterprise wide service and that it is a collaborative process then we have the makings for a key element of the social business. It all boils down to how we distribute or share the content and how we gain critical feedback.

A key distribution and feedback channel are social platforms. For the enterprise, we are talking the likes of Yammer, Jive and numerous other great tools that allow company wide sharing.

What’s missing most of the time is the incentive to be social. What is the best incentive?

It is the ability to contribute in a meaningful way and be acknowledged for that effort.

Content creation, content curation and the ability to give meaningful feedback on it effectiveness is a highly engaging way to involve hundreds, if not thousands of internal staff.

A great example is the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) where thousands of professionals volunteer hundreds of hours of time to create standards for everything from hockey helmets, to vehicles, to plumbing. Why do they do it? Meaningful contribution to something they are passionate about and acknowledgement of their efforts.

A recent McKinsey Quarterly article titled “How leaders kill meaning at work” (requires free registration) sheds light on how meaningful contribution raises performance and lack thereof impedes performance.

Key Question: Would your employees see meaning in contributing to the health of your content curation program? Will you recognize them for that?

Does the end justify the means?

Is content curation worth it in both the short and long term? It’s easy to say one way or the other depending on where you sit in the enterprise. The costs, in enabling technology, content acquisition and people resources can be significant. If it is implemented or managed poorly it becomes a cost without any measurable benefit – with the risk of actually hurting the brand rather than bettering it.

Done well however, it can assist in creating a more defensible market position, improve customer acquisition and improve share of wallet and loyalty from current customers.

Thanks for reading and please share your thoughts.

Jeff - Sensei

Investing in Customer Acquistion

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This is one half of a framing post for this Wednesday’s #bizforum debate on Twitter, which pits Sensei’s Jeff Wilson and Sam Fiorella on opposite ends of the Customer Acquisition vs. Customer Development discussion. Below are Jeff’s arguments for investing in Customer Development. Read Sam’s post on investing in Customer Development here.

Today’s CMO is under constant scrutiny and pressure for measurable return on marketing investment. According to a Forester Report titled “Navigating B2B Tech Marketing” the top 3 concerns of a CMO are:

- Quality of lead

- Measuring return

- Marketing and Sales alignment

Now while the report highlighted tech executives, they are the same priorities for marketing executive. It is marketing’s singular focus to acquire new market share and in so doing, build a brand that will inspire loyalty and repeat business. The rest of the work is up to sales, support, and service departments that perform different roles within the customer lifecycle.

Here are three compelling reasons to focus on Customer Acquisition as the only focus for marketing that all serve to meet the top 3 priorities of any marketing executive.

1. Improving lead quality improves the overall customer

Improving lead quality starts with better targeting. Not every customer is the right fit for the brand and winnowing out those that don’t fit not only improves lead quality and conversion but ultimately leads to a better, longer lasting relationship with the customer.

2. Easier to measure return on marketing investment

Accountability is everything. Customer acquisition enables a marketing executive to better measure “what they control” rather than trying to work with other departments to measure customer engagement and return out of their control. Failure means budget impact, scrutiny and in worst case scenarios unemployment. Self-preservation and measurement go hand-in-hand.

3. Internal silos prevent collaboration

It’s difficult enough to work with sales, let alone work with support, service, billing, and other departments involved in the customer. In order for inter-departmental collaboration to really be effective, it needs to be simple and focus on aligned goals. Sales is the most obvious alignment

In the end, it boils down to this… focus on the fewest things to achieve the best results.

You can’t do both customer acquisition and customer development well and the organization relies on marketing for customer acquisition.

What's your opionion? Let us know in the comments below and join us Wednesday, March 7^th from 8 to 9 PM EST on Twitter by following the #bizforum hashtag on your favorite Twitter client such as TweetChat, Hootsuite or Tweetdeck.

Jeff ~ Sensei

Sensei 2012 Marketing Predictions

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year dear friends!

I apologize for my lengthy absence but I have been dabbling with cryogenics. Now several large scotches later and a lengthy thaw I am ready to lay waste to liberal marketing sensitivities and share with you my particular perspective on the coming year.

The world, she is a changin’…

But before we get into the 2012 predictions, let’s take a look back on my 2011 predictions to see if I am yet another talent-less hack with a keyboard or was if I was able to stare into the abyss long enough before the madness took me…

So here are last year’s predictions:

Social CRM will be a huge failure: sCRM is rapidly spiraling down into just yet another “nice to have” in existing, much larger CRM and ERP systems. Maybe not a huge failure, but a shadow of what it was prophesied to be. Check out what Bob Thompson of Customer Think has to say on this…
Customer Loyalty, not Customer Acquisition will Become the Big Social Play for Smart Companies: The shift is certainly there as many large enterprise realized that using social means to attract new customers was harder than it seemed. Add to that some big time public blunders and you get a re-focus on the devil they know. Me, I’d watch companies like Jive for where this is going.
The Rise of Social Risk Manager and Social Experience Designer as Specialized Marketing Roles: A little ahead of myself, but the trend is there. Social risk became a huge concern for almost everyone, but not much was done to specialize a role to deal with its complexities with a typical lateral pass to legal departments for the most part. On the Social Experience, many, many people recognize that social may demand its own version of the customer experience, particularly due to the dynamic nature of the social channels. But a role? Nope…
The Employee Revolution: Was the Arab Spring a sign of a greater pattern of change? To me, it verified that all change comes from within. Social introduced new means to galvanize employees at the same time giving them new found, yet untested power to drive change in the enterprise. Has it begun? Yes, but in its infancy still. This will be a growing concern for may leaders; for other more visionary leaders, it will be one of the greatest opportunities they will ever see.
The Awakening that Social Media is NOT a Big Deal, but Social Relationships ARE. I don’t know what to say on this one. The majority of the buzz is still all about social media, but the leading minds are saying otherwise. My accuracy on this is entirely subjective depending on which of the above you are.
The Real Role for Social Media is Lead Nurturing: Again, its highly subjective. For customer acquisition, it provides constant touch which is vital to building the trust necessary for a customer relationship. But is it SM’s true role? My context was vague to going to give myself a red “X”.
The Rise of Mobile Marketing: Dead on. Mobile, particularly in emerging economies and Europe is rising rapidly. Could we have imagined a world where we could reach the consumer every hour of the day no matter where they were and what they were doing? Mobile is that answer. Mobile marketing is still young and finding its feet, but as the devices and technology improve, mobile will dominate.
Social ROI Measurement is a Waste of Time: Okay, okay… so its not a waste of time, but its also not the Analytics Messiah it was made out to be and far too many marketers waste far too much time on it. A dear friend of mine who could track a polar in a blizzard, reassures me you can track and measure anything if you know what you are doing and see the big picture. I still believe, on its own, it’s a waste of time because it lacks relevance back to anything the enterprise measures. But when taken into account as a part of the whole, not the whole itself, it adds value and understanding not available in traditional measurement. There, I said it. But big red “X” none the same.
The Beginning of the Great Social Mergers: We did see some big M&A in 2011, most notably Skype by MS and Google’s solid venture into the mobile space. Facebook continues to narcissistically believe it needs no one else (oh the folly of youth) preferring to build rather than acquire, Apple, like Google, has been smartly focused on content acquisition to bolster its own very strong device presence. I think I deserve a small check mark on this one and we will see more M&A by the giants this year.
No One, and I Mean No One, Understands What Influence is or How to Measure it. Nail? Head? Hammer? Yeah… with the Klout revolt still kinda fresh, I can’t help but giggle at how little we have learned in a year. Like a missionary entering a remote tribal village, we had no clue the god of which they spoke was a false idol. We believed because we wanted (desperately) to believe we were more than we were. I still firmly believe that no one understands it, but many explorers have emerged asking better questions in the hopes of unraveling its mysteries. As for the “measurement of influence” its still all smoke and mirrors.

So, in the grand scheme of things, I did reasonably well… somewhere between a gypsy fortune teller and a TV evangelist.

As for the 2012 predictions, I promised my colleague Sam would break up my posts into more bite-sized chunks, so I will outline 4 posts to follow closely on this one; one for each prediction.

Four Predictions for 2012

Prediction 1: The Age of the Amateur and the Impetus for Content Curation

The age of ferocious mediocrity is upon us. Like a virus slowly evolving and afflicting small portions of our society; it has been infecting every medium it touches. Not only has it overwhelmed and made scarce good content but it has reshaped our perception of what good content is.

It is, in fact, what I refer to as a content pandemic.

This prediction will highlight how social channels have enabled a content pandemic and how Content Curation holds the keys to the future inside and outside the enterprise.

Prediction 2: Customer Experience Becomes Critical

Everything an enterprise does that touches a customer, without exception, delivers a customer experience. Customer experience shapes perception and ultimately drives “value” of the brand in the global market.

The role of customer experience in the enterprise has been set aside over the past couple years by shiny objects such as social media. Smart executives managing a global audience of dozens of different types of stakeholders a customer experience transcends marketing and when done well, can improve bottom line results and help control costs across the enterprise.

This prediction will highlight how a properly architected, executed, managed and measured CX becomes one of the company’s greatest assets in good times and bad.

Prediction 3: The Acceptance That Influence is Much More Than Online Scores

Influence, is still one of the great unknowns. While some have planted their flag by defining influence via online tools we will see a reckoning that these tools really have little to do with understanding or identifying influencers and the true nature of influence itself.

The signs are there… Klout, the self-declared standard for influence, has seen a dramatic dip in users and many tough questions about its validity. Now Klout was the shameless at hawking itself to the masses, but how long until the other “influence scoring” companies face the same questions.

This prediction will explore how influence and the quest to understand its business impact will propel the evolution of its understanding and how it works.

Prediction 4: Mobile Engagement Takes Center Stage

From mobile commerce, to QR codes, to location-based marketing and mobile tv – the mobile device for both personal and business use is the ultimate connector and the first time we can constantly touch a customer.

It is simply the most powerful and adaptable medium we have ever known.

We will take a close look at the huge shifts taking place as consumers and business people alike continue to drive the need for more information and engagement from companies via their mobile device.

Bring it 2012!

As my time on this post draws to a close - which happens to neatly coincide with an empty scotch tumbler - I can say that 2012 will indeed be a year of change and balance.

Over the next two weeks we will explore each prediction and hopefully learn something along the way.

Many thanks and I leave the final words to Nietzsche…

“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a

given time is a function of power and not truth.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Jeff - Sensei

The Darker Side of Social

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Today all manner of ghosts, goblins and terrible things wander the streets looking to fill little loot bags with yummy treats. It is the only “holiday” to celebrate the darker side of our nature; a time when the lines blur between the living and the dead according to the ancient beliefs of the Celts.

I enjoy this time not just because I have three young children who love dressing up, but also because it reminds me that all is not always what it seems. Allow me to illustrate through a short tale from when I was but a lad…

Since I was a boy, I have been a huge fan of horror movies. I absolutely love them. One very memorable time, I remember sitting up with one my friends late one Friday night watching the 1970s version of Dracula.

Picture two ten year old boys making Lego crosses and putting them up around the room, making our very own version of “holy water” in our squirt guns and begging his mum to make a whole loaf of garlic bread. We were ready for any vampire that tried to come at us.

The family room, now adorned with strategically positioned Lego crosses, was large and held a giant sofa. A large set of closed double doors behind the sofa lead to the rest of the house and we sat dead centre, watching, terrified and loving it. At about the scariest point in the movie, where the heroes are about to stake a girl Dracula turned into a vampire, my friend’s Dad burst through the double doors behind us roaring like a mad man. Screaming like a three year old girl, I stood, turned, and gave a mighty swing of the broom stick I was holding as if my very life depended on it. I missed of course and fell backward landing on my back sending his dad into gales of laughter. I had never been so scared.

As I grew older, I carried that experience forward with the realization that sometimes, the threat we believe is in front of us is actually somewhere else… watching and waiting.

Fast forward 30 years and that lesson takes on new meaning for any executive looking to boil that ocean called Social Enterprise.

Whistling Past the Social Graveyard

Having gone through the dot com years and witnessing the group delusion of investing in businesses without business plans, revenue or leadership, I learned to look at the world through a bit of a cynical eye when it comes to the “next big thing”. In my mind, the great social movement is suffering from its own form of grand delusion; an overwhelming belief that social is all good; that it is a be all and end all.

I disagree.

What I do know after over a decade of studying human behaviour is that people are capable of all sorts of terrible, selfish things. Change a situation on a customer group and you could turn them from rabid, flag-waving, brand advocates to blood thirsty villains bent on your utter destruction. Just look at Netflix as an example.

In my opinion, the Netflix customer had it too good so that when Netflix changed their model to become more profitable, their customers grabbed pitchforks n’ torches and headed out into Social to lynch Netflix. There is no doubt that Netflix was stupid to do what they did, but ya know what, its still a good service, even with the new pricing. But do Netflix executives believe social is a boon to their company right now? Did they ever foresee the social backlash as a result of their poor decisions?

How about Klout’s recent “upgrade” to their algorithm? Customers are enraged because their scores dropped. Now anyone who knows me knows that I think Klout is utter tripe and preys on human self-esteem issues and addiction. But the customer reaction to this free service is just absolute selfish garbage. Are you really upset because your score dropped? Or are you upset because you’re just not as important now apparently? But just look at how social has put Klout at the mercy of its customers - You better give me a high Klout score or else!

By the way, if Klout was part of your strategy to get hired, then that was your own stupidity, not Klout’s. Maybe, just maybe, you should take some accountability for your success in life instead of shifting blame to Klout for losing that primo community manager job.

As an industry, we seem to be actively ignoring the imminent and real danger inherent in social; a danger amplified by the very nature of the human condition. It is human nature to promote self-preservation and the personal gain of wealth, reputation and power.

Life is harsh and cruel as much as it is pleasant and good. Social media is way too far to the left in its thinking, design and application. What companies need for their social strategy is a good dose of Hobbes or Machiavellian-type thinking to bring balance.

Age of Empowerment or Entitlement?

Let’s face it, there are a lot of people out there who do not have good intentions. But the talking heads in social media seem to go on the premise that everyone is a good natured drone that buys into the social strategy and would never abuse such a shift in power.

I say that social has ushered in the Age of the Entitled Customer and it is going to be a nightmare for many companies. Entitlement. Remember that word - because that’s where your customer is going. That is the dark promise of social.

A company that has not prepared itself to handle the growing demon of customer entitlement will quickly find themselves in a whole new world of risk.

Revealing the Dark Side

Anyone who still thinks that social is all group hugs, bubbles and double rainbows is clueless and witless. So my goal is simple - arm my readers, peers and clients with a perspective from the darker side of human nature and understand the hidden risks of social and people within social environments.

Social has been and will always be a double-edged sword equally capable of building and destroying a brand from within and without. I firmly believe that most enterprise companies are not capable of being social, not yet anyway. In fact their very nature is anti-social – a position reinforced by a strategy, business processes, culture and technology that is all take, no give…

Not that there is anything wrong with that!

So dear reader I leave you with these final thoughts…

Beware the illusion of social; all is not always what it seems.
Great evil can come from the same place as great good; every customer is capable of each.
Everything needs balance; darkness would not exist without light.

In the end, social for anti-social companies creates more risk than reward. While the potential of using social to gain new or satisfy current customers might seem real, for many companies, it is a mirage.

Plan well and know the capabilities of your organization and you can achieve your objectives. Plan poorly or over estimate your capabilities and you will be that kid sitting on that couch staring at a television while the real horror is sneaking up behind you.

Happy Halloween

Jeff - Sensei