Strategies for Social Media Revolution

Charlene Li of Forrester presented thoughts on enabling companies to participate in the Social Media revolution taking place without their consent. She focused mostly on blogs and good examples from Blendtec (the ‘Will it blend’ YouTube series that cost $50 to produce); Ernst and Young’s college recruiting via Facebook (something for R+K to study for our own use); and Dell’s path from the Dell Hell blog to effective PR with the flaming laptops and collaborating with cutomers to design new product.

Fulfilling the role of good consultant/analyst, she presented a memorable acronym, POST, for structuring the idea of using social media. P is for people, O is for objective, S is for strategy, and T is for technology, in that order. The order is important, if not also the most obvious. The best analogy I can come up with on an empty stomach is ‘vehicles are not ideas’…

Also included was this comment: “Making revolutions stick will require frameworks and processes”. Go BCM team!

Covered the Ladder of participation…Inactives, Spectators, Joiners, Collectors, Critics, Creators…as a description of behaviors. I favor the simpler ‘Receiver<—>Seeker<—>Provider’ descriptors since a critical notion is that we can move from one behavior to another in an instant online.

How to find and support revolutionaries:
-People most passionate about developing relationships with customers
-Educate the executives…the benefits
-Put someone important in charge…
-Define ‘the box’ with policies and process…
-Make it safe to fail…

Summary of success factors:
-Revolutions require frameworks and process
-Start small, think big
-Make social strategy the responsibility of every employee
-Be patient…culture change takes time.