Marketing on the Smart Web

Good stuff! Explains the essentials of how to approach social media and the mindset necessary to be successful in the long run. As always, tactics follow strategy – an often overlooked fact followed by poor results.

This is an excellent video and goes fare beyond the obviously attention grabbing headline. It’s fascinating to listen to these two executives about their experiences in trying to make this merger work. Levin is to be congratulated for being a stand-up guy and taking full responsibility. More of this should happen across business as he rightly suggests.

Social networking is becoming more important, both at the individual and institutional level. For many, this provokes a negative reaction. It conjures up images of classical networking and schmoozing, driven by individuals intent upon prying business cards out of others and relentlessly expanding their contact lists, manipulatively using their contacts to advance their own interests.

Our focus on social networks has a very different emphasis. In fact we would argue that classical networking approaches tend to undermine rather than support the value of social networks. In this world, it is not who you know, but what you learn from, and with, who you know. Contacts are of very limited value in this changing world — the name of the game is how to participate in knowledge flows.

In a rapidly changing world, the knowledge that matters the most is tacit knowledge — the knowledge that we have all accumulated from our experiences that we have a hard time expressing to ourselves, much less to each other. The challenge is that this type of knowledge — in contrast to the explicit knowledge that can be written down and broadcast to the world — does not flow very easily. Accessing this kind of knowledge requires long-term trust based relationships and a deep understanding of context. Large contact databases don’t particularly help in this quest and, in fact, can subvert our efforts to build the kinds of relationships that matter the most.

Accessing tacit knowledge requires a learning disposition and an ability to attract, rather than simply reaching out. Let’s contrast the classical networking approach with a learning disposition.

In the classical networking approach, the game is about presenting yourself in the most favorable light possible while flattering the other person into giving you their contact information. This approach quickly degenerates into a manipulative exchange where the real identities of both parties rapidly recede into the background, replaced by carefully staged presentations of an artificial self. These staged interactions rarely build trust. In fact, they usually have the opposite effect, putting both parties on guard and reinforcing wariness and very selective disclosure.

A learning disposition leads to a very different approach. Now the effort focuses on understanding the needs of the other, with a particular focus on understanding the biggest issues others are wrestling with. This requires intense curiosity, deep listening and empathy that seeks to understand the context that other person is operating in. It also requires willingness to disclose vulnerabilities, since it is often hard to get the other person to share their most challenging issues without a sense that you are willing to do the same.

Much can be learned simply by exploring the experiences of the other person, but even more can be learned by finding common ground — identifying common issues that you both face. This provides a context to work collaboratively in addressing particular challenges or opportunities that draw out the experiences and knowledge that you both have and end up creating new knowledge. Now we are beginning to tap into not just flows of existing tacit knowledge, but generating flows of new knowledge.

As you both begin to see common issues and gain experience in coming together to address them, trust and the foundations for a longer-term relationship are built. This trust can be reinforced by making an effort to identify other people in your own network of relationships that might be helpful in contributing their experiences and perspectives to the issues confronted by both of you.

In all of these interactions, the goal is to find a context for two-way learning. Unless both sides are learning from the interaction, it is unlikely that the basis for a long-term relationship will be established. Reciprocity becomes a powerful foundation for trust.

This leads to a second difference relative to traditional networking practices. Traditional networking is all about push — identifying people who could be helpful to you and finding ways to introduce yourself to those people. In contrast, the most powerful way to identify promising people is to find ways to attract others to you who have relevant knowledge and a common ground in the sense of similar issues they are addressing. Often we do not know who these people might be so traditional push-based networking techniques offer limited value — we cannot push if we do not yet know who we are pushing towards.

This often requires discussing publicly the issues you are wrestling with so others can become aware of them and seek you out if they are confronting similar issues. This can be very uncomfortable for most of us, because we are reluctant to expose provisional ideas and acknowledge that we are struggling with developing those ideas.

Of course, traditional networking practices encourage building visibility and attracting others to you as well. But these approaches emphasize the need to broadcast your accomplishments rather than the issues that have you stumped. These approaches again foster at best a one-way learning mindset — others are seeking you out to learn from you — rather than creating the foundation for collaborative learning.

So, social networking is becoming increasingly central to our success, but it is a very different form of networking than most business people have practiced in the past. Our ability to effectively participate in the knowledge flows that matter the most hinges upon our ability to master a new set of practices at a personal level. At the institutional level, we need to be innovative in defining the institutional arrangements that will help to foster and amplify these individual practices.

Do you engage in these types of practices? What lessons have you learned in terms of being more effective at accessing tacit knowledge? What could your company do to encourage and support these kinds of practices?

This article outlines a different approach to networking that is required in today’s environment of participation and a welcome change from the old form of exchange more akin to posturing.

This post was written originally for Valeria Maltoni’s

excellent new ebook about marketing in 2010. It includes terrific, thoughtful insights from Shannon Paul, Olivier Blanchard, Danny Brown, Amber Naslund, Jackie Huba, Gavin Heaton, Mark Earls, Rachel Happe, Jonathan MacDonald, and of course Valeria herself. Download it for free right here.

Change Is At Hand

Marketing has changed a lot since an enterprising caveman promoted his arrow points as “superior in every way – mammoths don’t stand a chance.” But, the real-time Web will change marketing more in 24 months than in the proceeding 20,000 years.

That’s because the real-time Web and its social media gasoline fundamentally change the relationship between company and customer. Every marketing shift heretofore has been rooted in the company being able to reach its customer in a more impactful (TV) or more efficient (demographics and psychographics) fashion.

Now, however, the taxonomy of war that defined marketing (targeting, flight, impact) is an anachronism. Campaigns are eroding. In this real-time epoch, every interaction with a customer or prospect is a separate, fluid, and potentially critical marketing initiative.

The balance of power has moved, inexorably and forever, from the company to the customer. When a real-time meme can erode brand trust that has taken years or decades to establish, we as marketers are no longer in control of the asylum.

The good news is that many brands have chosen to embrace the real-time Web and social media as a groundbreaking way to foster customer kinship with the brand, rather than trying to ignore or squelch consumers’ newfound power.

And in 2010, we’re going to move from experimentation to methodology. It will be the year that the real-time Web and social media become operationalized. There are already plenty of companies clearing a path for everyone else, but this will be the year when we all start to get on the same page as to what’s “right” and what’s misguided. I see five key areas where this will occur.

1. What’s the Point?

There is a growing dichotomy between brands that use social media and the real-time Web as an outbound marketing tactic, and those that use similar tools and outposts as a customer service and CRM effort. (consider how Dell and Comcast use Twitter very differently, but successfully)

To date, companies have been able to seamlessly experiment with both approaches, using similar tools, venues, and personnel. This year, however, brands will pick one strategic use (either customer acquisition or customer retention) and flesh it out, or create bifurcated programs to address both – but in separate venues. (Twitter for promotion and a private brand community for feedback solicitation, for example)

We’re going to see best practices and conventional wisdom coalescing around what the best and highest use is for particular tools and platforms.

2. The Marketing-Centric Enterprise

The real-time Web makes everything marketing’s responsibility. It used to be that if you had a problem with a hotel, you’d call the front desk. Or if you really had an issue, you’d call the 800 number, or write a letter and your concerns would be addressed by the hotel’s operations or customer service department.

Now, you can send a tweet, update your Facebook status, write a blog post, or craft a review on Yelp, or TripAdvisor, or Google Sidewiki. Then it becomes the responsibility of the marketing department to locate, triage, and assuage your concern.

This puts marketing at the center of day-to-day corporate existence in a way it has never been historically. Operational shortcomings, customer service snafus, financial mishaps, R&D blunders, CEO peccadilloes. It all has the potential to bubble up in the real-time Web, and therefore it all impacts marketing.

Thus, we’ll see marketing as the binding agent that brings disparate corporate departments together to create cross-functional teams. The real-time Web forces collaboration, with marketing as the quarterback.

3. Staffing and Budget Clarity

Fortunately, the misguided notion that social media and conversation marketing are inexpensive is fading away. The expense is simply shifted from media and production, to personnel.

In 2010 we’ll see the emergence of best practices around real-time Web staffing. What types of employees are needed? Do you need round-the-clock monitoring? What’s the role of the agency, in comparison to the brand? All of these questions are being answered by brands via trial and error today.

While the issue of social media for customer acquisition vs. customer retention will impact staffing decisions somewhat, we’ll see the adoption of social media execution “field manuals” – similar to how corporate social media policies are achieving greater standardization in late 2009.

(Note that my friend Amber Naslund has done some excellent work on social media staffing patterns, and has an ebook about that subject).

In addition to increased clarity regarding personnel and roles, we’ll see social media become a budget line item for a majority of companies in 2010, even mid-sized and small businesses. The resources needed to harness the real-time Web now clearly transcend the “test and learn” method of skimming a few budget dollars from here and there.

4. Rules of Engagement

As Amber said recently in a MarketingProfs Webinar we did with Beth Harte and Ann

Handley, “one negative tweet doesn’t mean you have a brand crisis.” This is true. Except when it’s not.

(photo by freakapotimus)

Because the real-time Web puts all manner of customer communication through the bailiwick of marketing, we need to develop far more numerous, and nuanced mechanisms for engaging with customers, prospects, and critics.

In many companies today, the same people are responding to positive and negative customer comments, on an ad hoc basis, with very little in the way of predetermined messaging, or desired outcomes.

2010 will be the year that the real-time Web forces marketers to act more like call center managers. We’re going to need to create or codify rules of engagement for who and how and why and whether the brand responds to or interacts with consumers.

This will unavoidably remove some of the spontaneity and spunk from social media interactions, but the tradeoff of a more logical, assured communication program will be a worthy exchange.

5. Back to the Future – Social Media in Retrograde

Maybe we’ve gotten a little ahead of ourselves?

In our zeal for YouTube videos, and Facebook apps, and iphone wizardry, and augmented reality we’ve in many cases neglected the many ways we can socially enable the marketing we’ve been doing all along.

In 2010, we’ll retrofit our email marketing, search marketing, banner advertising, even print and TV, to include social components universally. I hope we’ll focus on getting the basics done well before we move forward with the cutting edge opportunities. Because that’s a long-term positive.

Sure, the real-time Web is disruptive and powerful, but it can’t do all the work all by itself. We need to treat social media as a marketing ingredient, not a marketing cure-all, and adding conversational frosting to our historical communication methodologies is the first step toward moving beyond hype and toward operationalizing.

Here’s hoping 2010 is the year that the real-time Web and social media become less special, not more. Eventually, every company will have a social component, and then it will just be the way marketing gets conducted in the modern age. Let’s start down that path together in the months ahead.

What is your #1 priority for operationalizing social media next year?

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This excellent article sums up very well, how attitudes in many companies towards social media will undergo change, as the activities carried out under that umbrella term will become more mainstream. This process will at the same time transform the role of marketing in general. The outcome should be an improved customer experience resulting in positive company results.