Sensei Blogs

Get Off Your Ass; Identify Your Own Influencers

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

It’s becoming clear that social influence scoring is not going away anytime soon – or ever – and so the debate over the validity of such scores and the businesses that provide them rage on. I know I’ve contributed my fair share of thoughts, dialogue, and rants on this subject and I have to say I’m rather tired of the same old debate. I’ve yet to read an article that satisfactorily explains how any software-generated score in isolation accurately dictates the real influence of an individual to measurably impact the decision-making of an audience based solely on their activity across a few social networks. Yet the providers of these scores remain in the spotlight; in fact they’re multiplying across business silos and industry verticals.

So what have we learned or accomplished?

Nothing. People are still gaming online engagement to increase their scores, marketers and HR professionals are still basing decisions on these scores and brands are still distributing product samples to those with high scores. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

So maybe it’s time we change the focus?

Can we change the public discourse from what a social influence score is or isn’t and, understanding that this virus is incurable, focus on how to successfully use it to our advantage? What would that look like?

We know, for example, that “social celebrities” who work the digital channels to get a lot of attention for their heavy social chatter and activity are popular – maybe even famous – due to their many thin connections that rank them highly by social influence scoring platforms. So if you define “influence” as the ability to amplify a message across social channels, then I guess you can call them influential and we can close the book on this discussion. However, from experience these amplifiers don’t impact short-term decision-making, which is true influence. Is there something the score can tell us anything that is important?

Can social celebrities have real influence? Of course they can. I consider bloggers who elicit many reactions as witnessed through thoughtful commentary, phone conversations and subscriptions among their audience, real influencers. There’s a dramatic difference between these two. Someone with 50,000 Twitter followers, lots of retweets and blog mentions but with little to no engagement on that blog is less influential than someone with only 5,000 Twitter followers, fewer retweets and blog mentions but consistent and meaningful debate among a targeted community within his or her blog. Most social scoring platforms – as they work today – would elevate the former with a higher score and deem them more “influential.”

Mapping Influence Marketing

What’s missing from the ongoing debate around the value of social influence scoring is the potential value in mapping the many degrees of social connections and relationships. Some are thin and vanity-driven; others are deep and meaningful, as is also the case in the traditional media and offline realms. Understanding the degree of relationship between individuals and groups is key to understanding the nature of the influence they might exert.

For example, I often tune into the Fox News broadcast when travelling though the US or watch it online when out of the US. I tune in enough to be one of the people that they claim to be a “regular viewer” and a data point in the rating statistics they use to sell advertising space. However, while I consider myself a “conservative,” the reason I tune into Fox News is the same reason I sometimes tune into America’s Next Top Model or slow down to gawk at a car wreck. I’m fascinated by the spectacle, the ugliness of humanity. I don’t tune in to educate myself or seek information in my decision-making but to gawk, a sick guilty pleasure. Fox News data crunchers and advertisers consider me someone they influence but do they? Maybe, but certainly not in the manner they intend.

Analyzing the Data

Until factors such as degree of relationship, context of engagement and sentiment of commentary are successfully interpreted and analyzed by software, the onus is on YOU to do the work. Does this make social scoring platforms worthless? No. Can they measure the nuances required? No. As I discovered in an interview with Andrew Grill from Kred.com, progress is being made. In the meantime, get off your ass and do the work.

Look for companies like Jugnoo or Kred that provide the raw data around audience engagement and use it as one metric among others you collect, vet and analyze to understand who has true influence over you target audience. I’m talking about the power to influence a purchase by a prospect, not the power to amplify a generic message to a loosely identified group of people.

Mama always told me “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” She is one smart lady.

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

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

The Business of Socially-Powered Boycotts

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve experienced, seen or at least heard of the many boycotts being waged against corporate brands. Currently, we’re in the throes of a campaign against Chick-fil-A, an Atlanta-based fast food restaurant for comments made by owner Dan T. Cathy that supported the “biblical definition of the family unit”…essentially speaking out against gay-marriage rights.

This came just off the heels of another social boycott campaign that erupted after Kraft Foods posted a Photoshopped advertisement of an Oero (“America’s Favorite Cookie”) stuffed with rainbow colored layers and the caption: “Proudly Support Love”. Both came on like unexpected tsunamis and quickly became the main topic of conversation across social media, television and newspapers as well as at both boardroom and kitchen tables across North America.

Boycotts are quickly becoming the weapon-of-choice for groups seeking to further their political or social agenda by targeting national companies who already have mass public attention. Social Media is simultaneously the fuel and the battleground for these wars and a new reality for businesses.

During the #bizforum Twitter debate on this subject last night, by referencing the granddaddy of all boycotts: the Boston tea party, Ric Dragon suggested that boycotts are not a new reality for business at all.

He’s right of course, boycotts are not new but they are certainly a strategy that has had new life breathed into it. Social Channels have facilitated boycott “Flash Mobs”, where almost overnight lines are drawn in the sand and tens of thousands of people line up on one side or the other. Worse, most jump on the bandwagon without any real fervent support for the cause but for peer-pressure or the entertainment value.

Today, more than ever business must anticipate the reaction to every nuance of every act, statement and belief of their employees as well as their companies. They must possess more intuitive insights into the political and cultural environment they, their government and their customers engage in or risk being on the wrong side of a social mob.

Businesses are just getting used to the idea and impact of a few public tweets about their brands and now they’re faced with the reality of socially-powered boycott threatening to take them down.

An Ounce of Prevention?

The reality is that most boycotts today are rooted in political or social beliefs and not direct opposition to the quality of a specific product or service offered by the company. Opposition to a product or service is easily managed.

Preventing political or socially-based boycotts is next to impossible unless you make it a policy to never speak or engage the public for fear of offending someone, somewhere. However, the congregation of people in communities through online social channels has forced businesses to engage these groups on social, political and emotional levels in exchange for their loyalty.

Aligning a business’ values with that of its customers is a sure fire way to generate diehard fanatics but also creates a volatile environment from which these Flash Mob boycotts can erupt.

Should businesses be taking these socially-charged boycotts seriously? Social media has become known for its short lifespan so is there any real long-term threat? Remember, cable news created the 24-hour news cycle, which social media turned into 24-minutes.

As Fred McClimans argued in last night’s debate, even if the boycott is short-lived the digital footprint of the event – and the impact on the brand’s reputation – Iives on.

Two Sides to Every ~~Debate~~ Boycott

The “same-sex kiss-in” created by activist Carly McGehee , which sparked the recent Chick-fil-A boycott was met with a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day”, sponsored by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum joined the fray by rallying his 200,000 Twitter followers to support the chain.

When Kraft Foods posted its Oreo Cookie Gay Pride support advertisement on Facebook it garnered 157,000 likes with 40,000 shares. Yet of the20,000 comments many were negative and called for a boycott of the cookie.

Convention dictates a business avoids such controversies yet many national brands seem to court them. In honor of Pride month, Target launched a line of gay pride t-shirts and Ben & Jerry’s renamed it’s apple pie flavor “Apple-y Ever After” in the UK. Given the precedents set on Facebook and other social channels, why are these businesses not afraid of the Flash Mob boycotts? What do they know?

Is it possible that boycotts are not a punitive tactic used by the activists but a modern tactic used by savvy businesses to leverage political discord in hopes of solidifying fervent loyalty from “the other side”?

Are boycotts really a business strategy, not a political weapon?

I’m turning the debate over to you now. Should businesses ignore, avoid or embrace flash mob boycotts? Share your thoughts below. Also, check out a sampling of the arguements from last night's #bizforum debate on this issue.

Sam Fiorella - Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

Blogs are Thought-Provocation Not Thought-Leadership

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT

A trend is forming in our collective online engagement: less is more. Some maintain that Twitter’s ever-growing popularity is championing this phenomenon: build it and people will speak in headlines. On the other side of the spectrum, you have those who argue that micro-blogging sites have formed in response to our jam-packed lives and the resulting need to communicate more efficiently.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did technology force communication brevity or did technology simply evolve to address the need? Answer: It doesn’t matter. The force that brought us here is irrelevant; the fact is we’re here. We’ve become a society that demands more and more input across more and more channels, which has fuelled our collective information Attention Deficit Disorder.

Following suit, most bloggers are increasing their production with shorter, pithier and more headline-grabbing copy, which I will argue makes it near impossible to provide true thought-leadership. In fact, pundits claim that “thought-leadership” has become such a buzzword or business jargon that it – and the channels that claim to provide it – lack any true value.

The term was coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief for Strategy & Business magazine. The concept was to illustrate business leaders and their innovative ideas or business theories. Traditionally businesses and scholars have attempted to share thought-leadership through whitepapers, books and/or seminars, which required a thorough deep-dive into specific practices. Their goal was to educate the audience and impart the earned wisdom of the practitioner. This term and concept used to be reserved for people with years of proven experience. Fast forward to today and the term “thought leadership” is thrown around like barbeque sauce at a county fair Rib Festival.

Have Blog, Will Provide Thought Leadership. Or not, whatever.

Recent studies show that there are over 164 million blogs on the Internet and over 123 million people who read blogs. See where this is going?

Image Source & Stats

The greater the data sources provided the more we seek to absorb, regardless of the quality or content. As a result, there is less quality being shared and more headlines in an increasing array of formats. We blog, we tweet, we pin, we share, we podcast. We give thumbs up, bumps up, and rate our virtual high-fives across a dozen devices connected to our homes, cars, offices and body parts.

Businesses are quick to capitlize on corporate blogging but, it seems, with an eye towards brand awareness and customer acquisition. Using blogging for true thought leadership would require a greater investment research, writing talent, and real-life experience testing the theories promoted. More importantly, it requires a bigger time investment on the part of the prospective customer, which current trends indicate is a price they're not willing to pay.

With so much emphasis on volume, speed and brevity can a blog truly provide thought leadership anymore? Have blogs been relegated to thought-provocation instead of leadership? Is that enough? What say you? Join the debate; Agree/Disagree?

Sam Fiorella – Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

Competing With Your Employee for Consumer Loyalty

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This week I’ve been exploring the conflict between employee and corporate brands here on Sensei Blogs and during our weekly Twitter debate. The discussion has taken many twists and turns touching on HR policies, corporate risk, brand strategies and even customer service; however, during this week’s #bizforum chat there was one issue that really captured my imagination. It’s the question: at what point does the brand begin to compete with the individual employee for customer loyalty?

Many marketers are working towards humanizing their brands, which has included allowing employees to actively engage with the public through social streams. In many businesses this is a group of people rather than an individual including community managers, customer service reps, marketers and/or executives. Some firms ride the coat-tails of of media-savvy personnel they acquire to represent them and whose personal brands becomes that much more influential as a result. More often than not, an employee becomes “socially-famous” while engaging the public on behalf of their employer. Whichever scenario built up the reputation of these individuals, there’s an inherent threat in their brand-sanctioned social activism.

Question: When does an employee’s brand become too powerful for the employer?
Answer: when customers become more loyal to the personality than the business or its product.

Allowing employees to shine on your business’ behalf demonstrates that you only recruit and support top talent, which in turn, reflects on your brand and values. The corporate brand benefits from association and the earned media garnered through their social engagement. Some even argue that it promotes employee loyalty and retention. So it’s a win/win right?

The Loyalty Tipping Point

Not so fast; as Stan Reeser argued this week during the #bizforum debate: a strong employee brand is antithetical to a corporate brand. Successful corporations demand loyalty to the brand or product not the employee; employees are agents for the business. They’re hired to assist the business achieve its goals. A business’ goal is to operate profitably today and establish a foundation for continued profitable operations into the future. Yes, a successful business ensures that the employee’s goals are aligned in the achievement of the corporate goal, but never forget which one is on top of the food chain.

When an employee’s performance, service or even personal habits become a hindrance to that corporate mission, corrective action must be taken. When such efforts yield no change, the individual must be terminated. When customers become more loyal to an individual than the brand, the employee becomes a potentially disruptive force to the future of the business and its ability to meet future profit goals. The risk is that the employee accepts higher remuneration or position with a competitor, causing customers loyal to them to also move the competitor.

You can argue that this was the case before social media and so there’s no real difference but there is.

1. Social Media’s intensification (maybe surprisingly) engenders greater trust and loyalty with the social personality than in the traditional employee-customer relationship. Call it the celebrity-factor; Social Media popularity broaches star-status, which is more powerful than admiration within smaller personal circles.

2. Social Media’s amplification creates loyalty in non-customers by delivering human-like connections and trust. Non-customer loyalty is evidenced when customers who would have purchased your product, end up buying from the competition because the personality they trust are representing them now.

Brand Trust Is Transferable

Kenny Rose argued this week that this is a problem of integrity, not branding. While this may be true, as he stated himself: “there’s no template” for a solution. The threat goes beyond employee integrity. It’s not even about the greed of employees. The most genuine and well-intentioned employee has personnel conflicts with their superiors, gets bored or experiences life/family changes; any of which are reasons for jumping ship. And even the most honorable person can’t stop loyal customers from following them. In fact, they seem to earn the most loyal followers.

Brand Trust – a factor decreed critical to customer acquisition and retention – is transferable when trust is given to an employee and not your brand. Trust follows its target not the brand that employed him or her.

Businesses cannot ignore Social Media engagement, so what’s the solution? They cannot encourage employees to perform poorly in order to regulate the loyalty they earn. Further, to remain competitive businesses require a good measure of such employee advocates and influencers to propel their brand.

It might be as simple as redesigning customer development strategies to safeguard brand loyalty by ensuring high-profile social employees create emotional connections between the consumer and the product - not themselves. Social Media is channel that promotes vanity. The lights and fanfare directed towards those who have earned celebrity status is blinding. Customer development strategies must be reinvented to leverage these social personalities and not be held hostage by them.

My recommendation for business strategists: focus on creating a unified customer experience across all touch points of the business. By generating fanaticism for the experience of using the product, paying their bills, receiving customer support, engaging in your community and so forth, loyalty to an individual – regardless of how durable it is – becomes just one of many equally solid connections between the customer and your brand. The risk of competing with your employee for customer loyalty is mitigated when this customer experience balance is established across your customer touch-points and you’re free to embrace social-celebrity employees.

What tactics can be deployed to mitigate the risk of socially-powerful employees stealing your customer’s loyalty?

Sam Fiorella – Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

BizForum Debate #58 - The Collision of Personal and Corporate Brands

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Should Corporations Fire Personal Brands?

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier this week I posted When Personal and Corporate Brands Collide, in which I outlined a case study of corporate egotism rearing its ugly head in the face of an employee’s personal brand and public recognition.

The “personal brand” phenomenon is quickly becoming problematic for c-suite executives, marketing, PR and human resource departments alike. Neither the business’ size nor its industry negates the influence of this force on the business’ overall branding efforts and potentially, their bottom line. Every business is (or will soon be) dealing with this issue and so the pertinent question really is: can a corporate brand coexists with a personal brand?

The real issue for business managers is that personal brands are not always calculated employee campaigns designed to elevate their public personas. We can’t simply weed out social influencers and social personalities because not all are seeking to increase their popularity at the expense of – or on the backs of – the corporate brand and payroll. Many are truly uncalculated or well-intentioned and frankly, benefit the employer.

Technically, a personal brand is instantly created whenever an employee sets up a public profile in any social network or begins blogging. It becomes a matter of degree.

An unlikely social media star is born

Many employees wade into the social stream solely for their personal entertainment or simply for curiosity’s sake while others choose to engage socially for their personal education and information. Some use social networking as means to keep in touch with friends and yet others do so to keep abreast of local and world news. The point is, not everyone begins a “social existence” under the guise of personal brand building. And in most cases these profiles were established or existed in some form before they joined their current employers. Along the way, for one reason or another, their engagement style, content or point of view strikes a chord with a large audience and they become “famous”.

The vast majority of employees have what I call low-impact personal brands, meaning they’re either not high-profile enough to interfere with their employer’s corporate branding efforts or there’s no discernible connection between the individual and their employer. It’s those in the minority, with high-profile personal brands that are a cause for corporate concern.

For the sake of argument, let’s agree that businesses should embrace these individuals and even encourage them to continue on their social popularity trajectory. Is this a sustainable business model for the enterprise? Some may argue that doing so retains top talent, builds employee loyalty and creates a ‘social business’ culture that increases efficiency and productivity across the board.

A case for killing the personal-brand within the organization

I’m not convinced one way or the other that corporations should embrace or encourage high-profile personal brands but for the purposes of this post, I’d like to put forth this argument. Consider:

1. Employees are not permanent
We no longer expect “lifer” employees who spend their working career climbing the ranks of one business as the Traditionalists and many Boomers cohorts did. Investing in the coordination and education required to keep these high-profile personal brands “on message” is simply not a sustainable model.

2. People are not predictable
We can’t control individuals the way we control our marketing and PR strategy and spin. Business already has to deal with the unpredictability of consumers’ reaction or response to social engagements that throwing in individuals personalities is simply too high a corporate risk.

3. People are selfish
While not necessarily a bad thing, people are selfish. We all want what’s best for ourselves and our families. We want to earn a good living and enjoy “the American Dream” of more, more and…oh yes, more. Accepting or encouraging high-profile personal brands within the ranks is simply advertising top talent to your competition.

4. Individual aspirations
Let’s face it, individual aspirations don’t align with corporate aspirations. Leadership strategists claim that successful business endeavor to align employee goals with that of the business but how often is this really achieved in the workplace? People have different pressures and realities than their corporate employers. Business doesn’t have the emotional baggage that weighs employees down so real alignment is just a myth that if perpetuated, only serves to distract the business from real progress.

5. Individuality is divisive
While every strong business requires leaders and followers, too many leaders in the kitchen spoil the proverbial broth. There’s no limit to the number of high-impact personal brands a business can adopt or have imposed on it and frankly, there’s no way to regulate it. Eventually, the individuality of the personas will divide and conquer the brand’s efforts and negatively sway forward momentum.

6. Cross-silo collaboration is a fairy-tale
If we’re to accept a value in retaining high-impact personal brands as employees, we must look past the how of managing them to who is managing them? Corporate-personal brand conflicts in the enterprise’s social streams necessitates greater collaboration and group decision making across multiple departments within the organization from the C-Suite to Marketing to Sales to PR to Human Resources, which we know is a near impossibility in larger corporations.

Is the corporate risk of embracing high-impact personal brands simply too high? Is it even possible to sustain a corporate brand with multiple high-profile personal brands within the organization? What say you? Join the conversation below while I prepare an argument for acquiring and developing high-impact personal brands in my next post.

Related: Part 1 in this series: When Personal and Corporate Brands Collide

Sam Fiorella – Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

The #bizforum Twitter debate will challenge business leaders to argue the pros and cons of this very issue this Wed Jun 20^th, 2012 between 8 and 9 PM Eastern. Join us by following #bizforum in your Twitter steam or by following www.tweetchat.com/room/bizforum.

When Personal and Corporate Brands Collide

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This past week I was introduced to another case of personal branding colliding with corporate egotism; an increasingly common fender-bender in our over-connected world where the line between personal and corporate personas are becoming thinner and thinner.

Last week Dave Reynolds, an extremely popular DJ at 99.7 The River in Campbell River, British Columbia (a Vista-owned radio station) was nominated and received a “Coastie” award (Campaign of the Year). It was awarded in recognition of Mr. Reynold's personal social media campaign to leverage his social graph to draw attention and donations to his employer's Christmas Food Drive. Now the station has little-to-no social presence and apparently, no social media strategy. His personal efforts drew global support and attention, which aided the campaign to surpass the Food Drive’s goals AND generated an amazing about of earned media for the local radio station.

Win/Win right?

However, on the day of the award ceremony, 99.7 The River’s parent company issued a cease and desist letter to the award committee demanding they change the nomination and award from Mr. Reynold’s name to that of the radio station. Upon his return to work after accepting the re-named award, Mr. Reynolds was terminated “with just cause” and little other information Read more here.

My personal disgust for the corporate egotism displayed aside, this post is really about a question that has been bubbling under the surface of many conversations I’ve had with executives planning “social business infrastructures”: can personal and corporate brands coexist?

The Rise of Personal Brands

From the day of the first business incorporation, “corporate branding” has been a priority for marketing departments and corporate executives. Corporate Branding by its strictest definition is the practice of using a company's name, logo or other visuals as a product brand name. Then there’s Individual Product Branding where each product has a unique brand name and the corporate name is not promoted to the consumer. With each, the general goal is to create an emotional connection through instant recognition of the business or product names and their associated iconography or personel. In some cases, brands hire spokespeople or chose individuals within the company that they elevate to brand spokesperson. Key point: each is in the control of the business.

Modern social media channels and their fervent adoption globally have now given rise to a third brand that businesses are being forced to deal with: the personal brand. But first they must first learn to understand it and more importantly, to not fear it.

Individuals, without the marketing and brand strategists afforded big businesses have seen their personal brands evolve simply by engaging in social communications with their family, friends and colleagues. By design or by accident, personal brands can become bigger than life – and certainly bigger than many of their employer’s brands, which in my opinion was the case with Mr. Reynolds.

The Corporate-Personal Brand Conflict

Through various social streams, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Dave and, along with his hordes of followers can attest to the unselfish nature of his fame. His popularity has risen as a result of his honest desire to be friendly and engage with others on a personal level unlike many other media celebrities who engage in calculated social conversations for the purposes of elevating their status and persona. Should such honest engagement or even a little self-promotion to be celebrated within a brand when it ultimately drives the exact result that the corporate brand strategy is striving to achieve?

While all the details surrounding the dismissal of Mr. Reynolds from 99.7 may never be released, the one public fact remains: he was fired on his first day back to work after receiving a personal social media award earned for a personal campaign to support a business fundraising effort…an award that his employer forced the awards committee to change from a personal award to one in their name. It begs the question: can a strong personal brand coexist with its employer’s brand? Or is the corporate ego simply too fragile?

If the employer’s brand is weak, can it or should it support strong personal brands from within its ranks? If an employer does not have strong social media awareness or presences, should it support or quash personal social media efforts? Is this an HR issue or Corporare Risk issue?

Question: Can a personal brand coexist within a corporate brand? Should corporate brands actively discourage and punish them, “manage” them to subordinate positions, or actively promote them?

Related: Read part two of this series: Should Corporations Fire Personal Brands?

Sam Fiorella – Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

McDonald's Choose Risk Mitigation Over Customer Development Innovation

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

It was reported today (see here) that McDonald's Corp voted down a proposal to assess its impact on public health, particularly childhood obesity. The proposal was brought by consumer watchdog group: Corporate Accountability International.

The group requested that the McDonald's board "issue a report within six months of the 2012 annual meeting assessing the company's policy responses to growing evidence of linkages between fast food and childhood obesity, diet-related diseases and other impacts on children's health," according to the McDonald's proxy statement.

The proposal was voted down; only 6.4% voted in favor.

Problem or Opportunity?

Many of us groan when we see yet another blog post on the importance of public accountability and the increased power of the consumer due to social media. It’s certainly a worn out theme. Yet, this message seems to be falling on deaf ears when it comes to most corporations who choose to stare down the public and draw a line in the sand.

McDonald’s responded with this statement: "while these are global issues that require actions that go well beyond what our company or any other provider of prepared foods can take on its own, we are committed to being part of the effort to address the relevant issues underlying these concerns."

In other words, it’s not our problem.

Imagine the impact of McDonald’s accepting the offer. Imagine that the results illustrated childhood obesity was strongly linked to their marketing practices and their menu. If we’re to believe the social media marketing mavens, this would be the perfect opportunity to be “open”, “transparent”, “authentic” and every other overused buzz word they claim is required to become a market leader in our socially-connected world.

Yet, McDonald’s plays the shell shuffle game and hides behind well-crafted PR spin. Mr. Skinner pontificated about the company's improved sustainability tactics and operational improvements such as store remodels in his response. Look! A squirrel!

What are they afraid of? That the results will in fact implicate them as chief culprits in the child obesity pandemic? That their “Happy Meal” marketing and toy incentives are subliminally changing the way kids want to eat? Or is it the fear of implicating themselves in future law suits?

Depending on the results of the survey, each of these fears might have been realized but what an opportunity to take a leadership position with an honest “mea culpa” and demonstration that it would remodel its menu and marketing practices to help care for our children.

The public is incredibly forgiving of honest leaders who own up to their mistakes; Nine-times-out-of-ten they will rally behind such businesses with unprecedented loyalty and advocacy. Customer development is not about covering your ass-ets but doing what’s right for your customers. Yet this take courage from leaders and a corporate culture that encouages genuine concern for customer. Something McDonald's and its executive clearly lack in spades.

What are your thoughts? Is the risk too great? Was this the opportunity for McDonald’s to radically change the fast food game and cement itself as the untouchable leader in the industry?

Get in on the debate. Post your thoughts below.

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

Brand Ideology in the Age of Disruption

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

The latest posts here on Sensei Blogs have been inspired by our insights into businesses that have been living through the age of disruption, which references the interruption of a business’ outbound communications (branding, public relations, marketing and brand messaging) by consumer messages.

In this series:
The Courage of Passion Brands and Leaders
Stop Measuring Customer Service
Changing the Rules of Engagement

Where savvy marketers used to be able to dictate consumer preferences and create a brand's image through recency (reach and frequency) of media placement, today these attributes are formulated by the wisdom of crowds.

More worrisome to business executives is the fact that this phenomenon, beyond the disruption in marketing and PR messaging, has disrupted their ability to dictate the public's perceived value in their brands. They understand the power in perceived value and are taking notice that it's not as easily manipulated as it once was.

Democratization of Brands

Social technologies have led the way in this power shift. Some argue that “social media” has inspired consumers to take a stand but that is an oversimplification. It has given a bigger voice to existing public opinions previously limited to those in one’s personal proximity and ensured those opinions are shared and viewed for a longer period of time. This alone has changed the dynamics in the power-struggle between marketers and consumers.

What social technologies have really created is a next-level bandwagonims. Opinions shared socially seem to congeal into blobs and form new entities of their own. Advertising has been usurped by community dialogue and so a brand is now elevated or dismissed, empowered or disenfranchised by the prevalent group-think paradigm, not by the marketers pen and wit. And public opinion is fickle.

How much your brand is liked is the new barometer of how much advocacy it will generate. The new rules of social SEO are co-conspirators in this new social-world order by elevating (or not) a brand's listings by contextual, social commentary within your social graph. This doesn't render the quality of your product irrelevant but it can't be relied on soley for business success.

Business products and services can no longer be “just a little better”. Because of the momentum that is carried through socially-charged bandwagonism, brands must strive for radical changes in their products as a way to stand out from the crowd. Truly an upward battle in an increasingly competitive and fluid marketplace.

The Rise of Brand Ideology

Successful businesses must now stand for a great idea, not just a great product. Products, no matter how great they may be, are commodities. The need for a product or the value it has in the consumer’s life is too easily dictated by public opinion – to its benefit or its detriment. Business leaders looking for an edge must create another point of differentiation: the brand’s ideology.

Brand Ideology is that almost mystical association a product or business has with the aspirations, beliefs and lifestyle of its target market. It sparks the imagination of the public instead of simply providing a utilitarian tool. Religion and politics have learned to harness this power; a lesson that business can learn from.

Where a product or message can be easily commoditized or disrupted by the public and competitors, ideology is more sticky…it elicits a passion that even great products simply cannot match. Brand ideology creates Passion Brands, which attract the strongest, most loyal and most active advocates.

Businesses can reverse their fortunes in spite of the brand disruption. Instead of having their product strategy enslaved by “wisdom of crowds", create an ideology association that can surf the media to build advocacy. Make advocacy your business strategy.

Share your thoughts - pros or con in the comments below. Are affiliations more powerful in the public eye than accomplishments? Is advocacy a business strategy?

Sam Fiorella - Sensei
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

Join us tonight on Twitter for the #bizforum weekly debate where you can join your colleagues debate the merits of a “brand ideology” business strategy over traditional product marketing. #bizforum occurs every Wednesday night from 8 to 9 PM Eastern Standard Time.