The Social Customer Manifesto

Convergence in B2B and B2C Mobile Marketing?

(A recent column I wrote for Mobile Marketer.)

On the surface, there are stark differences between business-to-business marketing and business-to-consumer marketing: audience size, volume of sales and magnitude of purchases. But as mobile becomes ubiquitous for connecting with customers, are we starting to see a convergence between the two?

I would contend that the answer is, yes – if we have the courage to think creatively and move beyond the already-tired clichés of mobile marketing such as text campaigns and mobile couponing. 

In fact, with a bit of creative thought, the opportunity for connecting with new customers in both audiences is quite remarkable if we concentrate on the experiences that can be provided with today’s mobile devices.

So what are the ways that we can get creative? 

Let’s look at the root of that word, “creative” for a second. It stems from create.

Every one of our prospective customers – both B2B and B2C – has not just a tiny screen onto which we can foist our message, but now has the ability to create things as well – photos, videos, conversations and relationships.

Let’s look at the taken-for-granted camera phone capabilities.

Again, why not think about how we can bring prospects into the process by enabling and encouraging them to be a creative part of the sale, instead of a passive recipient?

In the B2C case, we can, for example, encourage contests and participation where customers take their photos with the most interesting/scenic/extraordinary usage of our products and submit them to a community site.

Similarly, we can encourage B2B customers to send their sales reps photos of their unique environment/circumstance/prickly problem so that the reps can better understand the situation and propose an insightful solution.

In the B2C case, we could encourage video testimonials to be pulled into a powerful montage.

In the B2B case, we can gather videos of customer best-practice tips to illustrate how our products perform in the real-world and how they are being used to solve real problems in an efficient manner.

But, more important than the technical tools, why not enable prospects to easily connect with the people and information they need to make a decision to buy?

It is all about the connections and the relationships. 

In the B2C case, a great example of this would be making it easy for customers to locate and, after the initial sale, create reviews of their experiences with a product from other customers. 

Similarly, in the B2B realm, this entails providing tools to connect the prospect with other similar past customer references, testimonials, case studies or a knowledgeable sales associate.

The upshot is that for both B2B and B2C we have a real opportunity with mobile: the opportunity to differentiate based on how we encourage, empower and enable active, social customers instead of passive targets.

The organizations that crack the code on this are going to be the winners in using this medium.

So let us use mobile to bring both B2B and B2C customers into the process, instead of simply throwing marketing messages at them. 

Let’s challenge ourselves to start conversations, and enable prospective customers to engage with us and with each other, regardless of what bucket  – B2B or B2C – in which they have historically been classified.

Jeanette Gibson from Cisco on Governance

How Cisco looks at social media from a governance perspective, as presented by Jeanette Gibson (Director of New Media, Cisco Corporate Communications).  The slide reads: Be Respectful, Be Mindful, You Are Reponsible, Abide By The Rules, Add Value, Be Honest, Be Yourself

Smartphones Changing the Network

New post up at SupernovaHub: "Smartphones Changing the Network."  The key bit, from analyst NPD, via Geek.com:

"The smartphone category grew its share of the overall mobile phone market six percent annually, having jumped from 17 percent in the first quarter of 2008 to nearly one quarter (23 percent) of the entire mobile phone market. According to Rubin, this serves as clear indication of the rising popularity of the smartphone category that, by many analysts’ estimates, is already reshuffling the entire market."

Read it.

The Social Media Maturity Model - One Perspective

The folks over at DestinationCRM asked for some initial thoughts on the Social Media Maturity Model.  First, definitely check out Josh Weinberger’s post from June 1 to get the lay of the land. It’s a good guide to the graphic and to the experiment they're conducting.

Next, kudos to Lisa Boccadutre on fitting a whole raft of information into a very small space. The information density on this piece is astounding, in that in two pages there are points about time frames of market uptake of social media, capability changes over a five-year horizon, strategic evolution, treatment of customers and evolving social capabilities.

I do have one primary concern: This graphic seems to imply that the customer will still be on the outside looking in, even five years from now. Not sure I entirely agree with that.

My key question: What does this look like if the customer moves to the center of the picture, instead of merely being a target of an organization’s actions?

So, here we go...

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1p-CoclHwE

Corporate Blogging Roundtable

The folks from the German-American Business Association were kind enough to invite Mark Finnern (SAP), Jennifer McClure (Society for New Communications Research), Vassil Mladjov (Blogtronix), Mark Simmons (SixApart), Mario Sundar (LinkedIn) and myself to participate in a televised roundtable discussion entitled "Successful Corporate Blogging."

Here's the setup:

"Blogs are changing the way companies are listening and reaching out to their customers. This televised panel of media experts is aimed to give insight in how to use blogging as a successful marketing communications strategy.  Sample discussion topics include: What are the elements of a successful blog? How can legal pitfalls be avoided? How can ROI be measured? How can we confront our fear of blogging? What will the future of blogging look like?"

The panel was followed by a Q&A session.

Here's a link to the video.

Bonus factoid: What I learned...it's a bit disconcerting when a person whom you don't know hands you a lavalier mic and calmly instructs you to partially disrobe (in front of a roomful of people) in order to run the microphone cord up the inside of your shirt so it doesn't show up on camera.

Is "Community" a Lie?

Micah (say "Me(ha!)") does some solid thinking about "The Lie of Community."  The thought-provoker:

"The lie of community is that by having users or by creating content, a community just exists. That by being on the Internet somehow we are all part of some global community. There is no global community."

...and the money 'grafs:

"Create the ability for community members to communicate as they want to. Brand managers and most companies want to control the conversation. If your users are truly part of the community, they will do nothing to hurt and/or destroy the community in which they live.

Trust them to make your product better. Trust them to make your community better."

Which brands that you know have the courage to actually trust their community members?  And which ones are afraid?

photo: wvs

The New Maelstrom of Social Media

Some thoughts on social media overload over at DestinationCRM.  The lede:

"Is it time to declare email bankruptcy, delete those 1,000 unread messages, issue a public mea culpa, and start over? With an ever-increasing chorus of “overload,” this social media stuff must be irretrievably broken, right?"

Link to article.
PDF of article.

Who Owns the Social Customer?

Current issue of CRM Magazine is out and up online and asks "Who Owns the Social Customer?"

Just starting to dig in...

Study: Unselfish Individuals Benefit in Social Networks

Nifty excerpt in the Technology Review on altruism in social networks.  The excerpt:

"How altruistic behaviour emerges has puzzled evolutionary biologists for decades. From the point of view of survival of the fittest, the unselfish concern for the welfare of others seems inexplicable. Surely any organism should always act selfishly if it were truly intent on saving its own bacon.

One explanation is that altruistic acts, although seemingly unselfish, actually benefit those who perform them but in indirect ways. The idea is that unselfish acts are repeated. So those who have been helped go on to help other individuals, ensuring that this behaviour spreads through a group, a phenomenon known as upstream reciprocity.

Eventually, the individual that triggered the altruistic behaviour will be on the receiving end of least one unselfish act, ensuring that, at the very least, he or she doesn't lose out. In this way, unselfish individuals actually benefit from their altruism."

Read the Technology Review summary here.

Here's the full paper (26pp.).

Neato.

Texture

Very interesting "open-source business card" project being tested over at Kickstarter from VRM colleague (and NPR innovator) Keith Hopper.  Check it out.  Keith says:

"I discovered that if you power off your iPhone with the camera app running, you'll get an impromptu close-up shot when you next turn on your phone. This is usually a shot of a table surface, the ground, your shoes - many of which provide interesting textural backgrounds.

This phenomenon inspired me to shoot texture shots taken as iPhone close-ups. In order to learn more about effectively framing and lighting a digital shot, I post all photos without edits, cropping, or level and color changes.

If you want one of the first packs of Creative Commons-licensed MOO MiniCards, the money will go to pay for the cards and the shipping for your order. All the photo and edit work to complete the project I'll do for free. Any additional money raised will go towards hiring a graphic designer to design a 100th card (99 photos + 1 professionally designed card). The 100th "credits card" will give photo, design, and support credits to every participant that pledges at least $1 to the project."

Trying a new form of innovation/business exploration? Check.  Art?  Check.  Cool stuff?  Check.

I'm in.