The Social Customer Manifesto

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.