Still, today when responding to @tomswift’s tweet, I found myself wondering aloud about how long social media will have such power.  Will there be a point at which there are so many people saying so much about a company that individual issues will go unserviced, perhaps even unheard–as now is often the case with overloaded email boxes? 

I know that today, if I were to send an email to the company I was wanting to address my customer service complaint (if I could even find an email address of a real person), the likelihood of someone actually having the power to address my concern and then actually doing something is very small…because there are too  many email and customer service agents are often unempowered. 

Right now, hiring social media managers is all the rage.  Right now, companies realize the importance of social media to their reputations…but at what point does one person’s broadcasted complaint via twitter stop getting the attention that it currently does?  At what point will it take a larger number of similar complaints before a company responds?  Is social media getting more attention because it is the newest form of customer communication?  While the email and phone complaints are not any less important, they often don’t garner the same level of attention…and one must consider the question: at what point will social media complaints become similar?

One could argue that the very medium of social technology changes the dynamic and therefore companies will continue to address social media comments and concerns.  After all, social media is about community and engaging with customers, having conversations with them, right?  But aren’t phones conducive to conversations?  Didn’t we used to have conversations (or sometimes still do) via email threads?    For all of those involved in social media, consider the question…and then, I would love to know your thoughts.  Or if you don’t want to comment, feel free to take the quickpoll: click poll.

So, why is social media and job seeking finally getting it’s day in the sun? I think there are a couple of reasons: 1) the economy may be rebounding a bit, but job loss and unemployment continue and for those who have been unemployed for awhile, they really need to try something new; and 2) people finally “get” social media, at least more than they did two years ago. Twitter is commonplace and people are finally understanding that it isn’t about tweeting what you had for lunch, but networking. Yes, networking. And since job seeking is all about networking, social media tools like Twitter can have a real effect.

So, hear this, job seeker: you have a much larger networking scope than you thought! The social web is yours to dominate! Go ahead – tell the world about your skill sets and your expertise, the projects that you ROCKED throughout your career, the things that make you get up in the morning because you are really, really good at them! Tell the world through social media!

And in case you aren’t sure how to do that, I’ve got you covered. I put together a whole presentation with step by step instructions on how you can use social media for your job search. And I’ve posted it on Slideshare. And if you don’t know what Slideshare is, no worries. Here is a link to the presentation: Social Media & Your Job Search: Yes, Really.

If you take the time to walk through the steps to creating your professional online identity and then network with and through it, you will find doors that you didn’t know were there…and a few of them will begin opening for YOU.  Work the NEW system (social media) and Keep the Faith, Job Seeker.  Your new opportunity IS out there!

You might ask why, when social media is still in its infancy, would social media need a clean slate?  How do you start fresh with something that’s still barely out of the shoot?  Good question.   One thing I know from all of my years crafting something from nothing is that the best time to shape and form/reform something is often near the beginning, before it takes on too much of a life of its own and starts down an unexpected path.  For social media, the best time to shape and reshape is now: while the tools used by the majority are still few (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) and still gaining in both acceptance and functionality.  I have a few ideas about how this might happen, in general and more specifically.  And I have a nice role model we can use, too: Marky Mark (aka Mark Wahlberg).

Mark Wahlberg is the king of reinvention, of starting over, trying something new.  If you remember his days with The Funky Bunch, then you know what I mean.  Mark was once in prison and after he got out, he became Marky Mark of early white boy rapping fame.  But Marky Mark wanted more.  Or different.  He moved on to modeling.  Then acting.  Then directing.  And he started a family.  Now, the kid who was once eating three squares behind bars directs some of the hottest shows on television: Entourage and Boardwalk Empire among them.  So what can social media take from Marky Mark’s reinvention story in the new year?  Here are a few:

• Risk It. What the heck does that mean?  Well, when things are new and being established, that is the best time to try something new.  What do you have to lose?  Mark was in prison, so he had nowhere to go but up.  Social media is still the wild west—the frontier as far as the virtual eye can see.  So you think you have an idea for an app or a tool to connect people virtually?  Build it! Test it!  I have a couple of friends who have done this in the past year and are gaining some recognition.  My friend Scott developed a social karaoke app…like karaoke meets foursquare called Bar Star (www.playbarstar.com).  My friends Axel and Marita developed an app for having all of your social media info in one place.  It’s called Xeesm.  It has some powerful business functionality to it as well.  www.xeesm.com.  Remember also the Field of Dreams: if you build it, they will come.  It isn’t always true, but don’t you wish you had thought of (and developed) Groupon??

• Niche It. Marky Mark found a niche in the 90’s as a clean and sober white rapper with a pop vibe.  Now that was a niche in the grunge rock of the day, but it found broad appeal.  As social media become more pervasive, different apps will find different audiences.  Find your audience.  Love them.  Give them what they want and they will love you back.  One idea of this is focused twitter feeds.  Right now, it is one way to drink from the firehose that is Twitter.  What about some apps that will do that in and of themselves?  Radio used to be all kinds of music on one channel…but now we have specific types of channels for specific types of content. The same is true of TV.  I think the same will eventually be true of twitter or other types of social media apps and communities.

• Level Up. Okay, so maybe you’ve developed a social media app – or a business built on social info or a strong social community.  Now it’s time to take it to the next level.  That doesn’t mean scrapping what you’ve got, but capitalizing on what’s good.  Make incremental moves – like Mark in his acting career.  He didn’t become an executive producer before he knew what it was to be an actor…but once he figured out what kind of film appealed to him and what he was good at, he took it to the next level.  Leveling up requires persistence and hard work because you want your move to the next level to be not only sustainable, but successful.  Like Mark.  Ask yourself: what does the next incremental level of my social media project look like?  How can I get there?  Then, get to work.

• Remember Your Friends.  While Mark is now a superstar, he still hangs with friends he’s had since pre-fame days.  He still visits—and continues to invest—in his old neighborhood.  Mark knows the value of loyalty.  In the world of social media, friends are important—Facebook and Twitter can attest.  As you build, niche or level up with your social media work, interact with your social media community of friends—get their input, hear their critiques and their praise, listen to what they want, how they think things could be better, or different.  Your friends will be honest with you and will help you succeed—so when you do, go back and invest in them, too.  There’s nothing like having (and building and investing in) a (virtual) neighborhood full of people who know you.

While Mark Wahlberg has said he will never again tour with The Funky Bunch, the long tail of his career has left us with some encouragement for our own 2011 transformation: “Now the time has come for you to get up/The rest had you fed up, but ‘yo I won’t let up…/I wanna see motivation/come on now, feel the vibration” (Good Vibration, Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch, 1991).  Risk it, Niche it, Level up and Remember your friends this year in your social media pursuits and you will make it a good year…one worthy of a Wahlberg.

I often find that with unexpected friends, we meet in some casual way, like standing in the hallway waiting for a new class to start.  Or sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.  Or even sharing the same mirror while shoe shopping.  I’m not at those places to make friends or network, and because of that I’m probably more open to just chatting without expectation.  I’m a firm believer that having unspoken expectations around relationships can be disappointing more often than not, especially if you are anything like me and live you life with high expectations for yourself.  Such expectations for self tend to bleed into expectations of others or events. For example, networking events are full of expectations about who we might meet, what opportunities might arise, how we might seem to others.  Unless you have those expectations in check, it’s not a great place for being authentically open–and thus, not such a great place to find an unexpected friend.  I’m also not expecting that I’m going to connect in some real way with the person I’m chatting with at the shoe store –so when there is mutual interest, like faith or family, or even a personality click–it’s a surprise, the nice kind.

I juxtapose the unexpected friendship with maybe those that we might build based on a  group that we belong to, the friends that we make because we are in the same sunday school class or the same mommies day out group or on the same  committee for the women’s business organization.  We make friends in those places and those moments because it seems natural, an extension of the activity we are involved in.  Usually we expect there will be a few women we will be drawn toward.  The friendship may never move out of a deeper level of acquaintanceship, and if it does move more into a friendship realm, such relationships are often fostered by more regular care and feeding–and may tend to falter without it.

What I love about the friend I’m meeting today is that our similarities are a foundation for our friendship, they were not the thing that we have focused on.  It was like we knew we were similar in ways and that part was almost taken for granted–a known jumping off point for us to build something deeper–and often grounded in our differences.  In fact, it is our differences that I find creates deeper conversations, ah-hah moments of learning that I take with me into other areas of my life.  It’s been five years now that we’ve been friends and while she has moved twice since then in addition to a stint in Africa, I have been living in the same place.  (I used to have the life like that, so find it fun that the other person I’m friends with has that life, now.)  I have seen her so few times in the past 5 years–and tend to think that most “new” friendships wouldn’t survive that.

This is what I find about unexpected friends–they stick with us.  They are the ones that seem the most unlikely to weather distance and change, and yet are often the most hardy.

They are also the friendships that I tend to keep investing in–letters, notes, book exchanges, tips, encouragement.  Over time the investments make a difference–more of a difference than the face-to-face distance.  The difference becomes additional, not subtractional. (yeah, I know it’s not a word.)  Unexpected friendships are sometimes stronger because the initial connection points are stronger–and thus our desire to invest the energy in deepening the friendship beyond the surface happens naturally and often in short visits or through the dialogue letters or phone calls.

I find with unexpected friends I am more candid, less guarded because I don’t question the foundation of the friendship–it was mutually chosen and we are headed in the same direction in the friendship, if not our lives.  My unexpected friends are often very independent people, with interesting lives and perspectives–and I’m comfortable with sharing my life with someone who has something of their own to bring to the table.  I have to say that Facebook, for all it’s craziness, has allowed me to reconnect with people I knew when I was young–before we could be truly ourselves.  And I’m finding unexpected friends there, too.

Today, my friend and I will go for a walk toward a lunch place, probably spend a couple hours total catching up.  Not long, but long enough to renew the connection and breathe a bit of fresh autumn air into our ongoing conversation.  She will then head back to New York and I will head back to my office and work.  I will be thinking about the things that we talked about or the things that remained unsaid, but expressed.

So, I’m thankful to those friends who didn’t expect me in their lives, either.  I’m thankful for the moment of reconnect with my unexpected friends–between flights or babies, over a good book or out of a heartache. Thanks for taking time to call or jot a note, encourage my work, call me out on crap or question the ways in which the problems of the world are being solved.  You’re amazing, and you are valued.

Do you have friends in your life that you would consider “unexpected”?  Let them know you value them today.  Write a note in your gratitude journal about how they enrich your life. Heck, have a conversation with a stranger…you never know where your next unexpected friendship will come from.

Ring bell for service

I recently returned from staying at a 4.5 star luxury resort in Orlando, Florida for a long weekend with my husband.  It was a much needed break for both of us. The facility is large and our room was well-appointed. The resort boasts one of the top golf academies in the country and has several gorgeous courses, pools and a lovely spa.  Unlike most hotels in the area during spring break, this hotel was not chock full of college students, but mostly business travelers and those attending conferences or meetings at the hotel.  From the sleeping late to the spa treatments, golf game and floating down the lazy river at the pool, our stay was great–until we tried to check out.  And this is where all good things up to that point began to fade quickly from our memories as our experience took a nosedive.

Most companies seek the “Good to Great” scenario–improving upon their current performance.  Still, sometimes things go wrong–and they become teachable moments, touch points for future excellence.  The following scenario should be one of them–a story of how things went awry and SNAP! Just like that, a business has someone ranting about them on a blog post.  And if the ranters are valued customers, that’s not good.  In my case, the customer service meltdown occurred at the heart of where hotels interface with customers: the front desk.

From Good to Horrific

Checkout is like the easiest part of travel, right?  You do express check out or head to the front desk for a quick review of the final bill.  Sometimes you need to change a few things or clarify a couple of charges, but within minutes you have your bill and you and your roller bag and are on your way.  That’s in a normal scenario.  In a high touch, service oriented, luxury resort, you might even expect things to be a bit smoother – an extra smile or courtesy, people to move with a bit more efficient grace than usual.

Nope.

That was NOT our experience.  Here’s what happened to us:

As we left our room, we called for the valet to pull our rental to the front.  While our bags were quickly loaded, my husband said he would just run inside to check the final bill and move some personal charges from his business card to his personal account.  I stayed in the car to use the few minutes to check email and voicemail.  After responding to email and voicemail, clearing out my email box completely, checking twitter and updating Facebook, I realized that my husband had not returned.  Was he lost?  Was there an emergency business call he had to take?  It had been 40 minutes.  FORTY MINUTES.  I texted my husband: “hungry…sitting in car…” just in case he forgot where I was and that we hadn’t had lunch yet.  “Still at desk.  Still no bill.  Incompetent staff.”  I decided to go inside.  I shut off the car, grabbed the keys and smiled nicely at the valet guy who really didn’t want me parked in the loading plaza.  “Your front desk has taken 40 minutes to check us out and is still not done.  I have to leave the car.”  The valet guy smiled, apologized and offered to keep the key in case they needed to move the car in an emergency.

Inside, I found my husband, irritated, having been standing at the front  desk for 45 minutes.  The front desk clerk was new and unable to get anyone to help her reverse charges and put them on a different card, he tells me.  Pretty simple, I say.  He nods.  Silently.  He is not one to make a fuss, and although I prefer no fuss, I believe in customer service.  For heaven’s sake, the man has been standing here for near on an hour.  And I was waiting in the car.  Clearly, someone needed to be communicating through this issue.  “What’s going on?” I ask the clerk.  She barely meets my eyes and says she is working on it.  “It’s been almost an hour, ” I say.  She doesn’t respond.  “Is there someone who can help you?” I ask.  No response.  There is one other clerk working but he has a constant line of people he is checking out.  It’s the busiest hour at the front desk,. the hour the hotel as deemed as the imperative check-out hour.  “She’s been back three times to find someone to help her,” my husband tells me, his tone controlled, signaling his irritation.  “Well, I’m going to the concierge desk,” I tell him.  “Perhaps they can move this thing along.”

I walk across the white marble floor to the concierge desk, where two concierges are standing at the ready.  “Are you a concierge?” I ask the woman behind the beautiful carved wooden desk.  “Yes, I am,” she assures me with a smile.  “And your job is to help people?” I ask.  “Yes it is,” she says confidently.  “Well, I need your help,” I tell her.  I explain that my husband has been “checking out” of the hotel for going on an hour and the clerk is new, unable to handle the minor bill changes and unable to get assistance.  The concierge looks at me, no longer smiling.  “We were in a bit of a hurry, and thought if someone could help out, perhaps it would be you?”  By this time, her colleague concierge was listening and without an additional word, picks up the phone to call the back office.  Two minutes of ringing, no answer.  The woman concierge goes to the other phone to call another office.  In the meantime, my husband walks over.  “She left, ” he says.  “What?”  Who left?” I ask.  “The clerk.  She just walked away.  She didn’t say where she was going, she just left.” “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say.  “I’m going to go sit over there,” he says, pointing to a comfortable looking chair across from the front desk area.  “Hopefully, she will return and we won’t be stuck here.”  The two concierges who have been on the phone without luck now both reconvene.  I ask what is going on.  “The managers are unavailable,  at lunch,” I’m told.  “All of them?” I ask, surprised.   “Let me go see if I can find someone in the back office,” the concierge says.  “Well, maybe you can find the clerk, too, as she has left the desk without a word to my husband as to where she went or why.” He hurries off.  I tell the woman concierge that I will be sitting next to my husband when they find out, but before I walk away, the other concierge returns, informing me that the clerk and an assistant manager are working on the bill in the back room.  I tell him where we will be sitting.  My husband asks me to find some sustenance, since we haven’t had breakfast or lunch.  I go in search of Starbuck’s and a muffin, anticipating that upon my return, all will be sorted.  Nope.  We sit.  We wait.  We drink coffee and share a muffin.  I am thinking that I really wanted a nice salad and some soup.  “How many charges did you have them change?” I ask.  “Three,” he says.  “Three single charges?” I clarify, thinking that maybe it was some huge transaction that might in some way garner an hour-long check out and a special backroom pow-wow.  My husband looks at me and nods quietly.  “She reversed them and credited them to a different card and then couldn’t figure out what to credit and debit to which cards.  She’s provided me with three different bills–all of them wrong.”

lunch is served?

At that moment, the young clerk, clearly flustered, walks over to my husband with the bills – one with his personal charges, one with his business charges.  While they clarify yet again, I check my watch.  It’s been an hour and a half.  Not completely satisfied that he won’t see crazy charges on his cards, my husband agrees that this will do. I tell the clerk I’m glad that it’s been figured out but perhaps the hotel might want to feed us, since we’ve waited an hour and a half during lunch?  The clerk laughs nervously and without a word, walks away.  My husband and I look at each other.  “Oh no, she di’int!” is what is running through my head.  I stand up and walk over to the concierge’s desk.    “It’s been sorted,” I say, “but it’s also taken an hour and a half of our time in the middle of our day.  I asked the clerk if the hotel might want to buy us lunch and she laughed and walked away–but I was serious.”  I stop and wait.  The concierge looks at me and says that they don’t have the authority to do that, but that he would ask a manager.  I wondered if he would have any better luck finding a manager for this task than that of sorting our bill.  I told him where I would be sitting.

After a few minutes, a young woman walks over and introduces herself as the assistant manager and tells us that she is not the manager–that the manager is at lunch.  She says she is glad they were able to help the clerk sort the bill.  I agreed (although was thinking that her tone was a bit self-congratulatory about a job that was expected the resort should do in the first place and which they turned into a bungled mess), but reminded her that we had waited for an hour and a half and thought that since it was lunch and we had waited, famished, perhaps the hotel could pick up our lunch?  “Sure,” she said, she thought they could do that.  She told us what we should tell the restaurant in order to comp our lunch.  As she started to walk away, I stopped her. “Do you have a card?”  I asked.  She went back to her office to get one.

Where’s the Beef?

If this were a business class in college, we might now ask the class where the hotel went wrong and what they could have changed, given the service failure taking place.  If this was a one or two star hotel, we might expect the class to offer maybe a couple of ideas on how to make it right.  But we would remind the class that this is a 4.5 star resort that touts itself as a luxury product for high-end customers.  Service is key to their competitive advantage in a city that houses hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms.  Service is their “beef”: along with beautiful amenities and a world-class golf course, service is the meat of what they offer their customers.  And in the end, the class should also be reminded that the story is real and not at all academic–as should be the remedies.  Here are a few of my ideas:

1. When the clerk realized she was over her head, she should have clearly communicated that to my husband.  Transparency breeds trust.
2. After he had been standing there for over a half an hour, she should have apologized profusely and asked if he wanted to sit down, since this was going to take much longer than she expected.  He should have been offered a coffee or a drink. Ask if his wife would like one, too  (oh yeah, and if she’s in the car, perhaps get the valet to communicate the issue and escort her inside to share a coffee with her husband.  The customer’s needs should be paramount.
3. AT THE FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE, turn your attention to your customers comfort and needs and after your customer is comfortable, THEN go back to solving the problem
4. As a general rule, if checkout is one of the busiest times at the hotel front desk on a weekend, the manager should not take lunch during that time.  And if lunch is taken, someone with authority and know-how should be available to help front desk staff.
5. Why would you ever leave your NEW clerk to handle a weekend check out rush on her own without supervision or back up?  This is a recipe for disaster. Was there no pager?  No manager cell phone?  No other managers who could step in?  This is a resort, people–I know there was more than one manager at the resort that day.
6. The assistant manager should have come out to communicate her apologies at the point she took over.  Um, in this story, the manager wouldn’t have come out to communicate anything at all if the customer hadn’t requested a free lunch.  The assistant manager should have proactively apologized and offered some consideration for the service failure. Frankly, I think lunch was the least they could do.  They should have comped the spa charges, offered a free nights stay, something that recognized the value of the customer and specifically, the value of the customer’s time they had wasted.
7. The customer should never have to ask for an apology or compensation for a service failure.  At the point the customer is asking for such things, an apology is too little and too late.
8. Finally, knowing the customer was still dubious about the final charges, the assistant manager should have offered to call him and follow up on the charges the following week and them put it on her calendar to review and to call, ensuring follow-through.
9. The assistant manager should have offered her card and contact information without ever being asked.

I am sure there are more examples, but these were a few that my husband and I came up with as we mulled over the incident over our free (albeit forced) lunch.  I told him I would be writing a letter.  He said we should bill them for our hourly rates for our time (since we are both professionals, this would have set them back much more than lunch or a spa treatment).  I said I would be tweeting about it first.  And I did.

Business Beware!

You’ve heard the phrase “buyer beware”, where a buyer is basically buying a product “as is”, with all defects and problems.  Even in the age of social media, the buyer may have to stomach an “as is” situation (like we did), but because of social media we have an amplified voice.  I remember seeing a tweet from @michaelhyatt about a local restaurant that we often frequented.  He had tweeted that he had gotten a bad meal there and would not be returning.  To this day, we have not been back to that restaurant.  I know several others who did the same thing, based solely on the credibility of one person tweeting.  (Considering the source is an important note here–and I would call both my husband and myself  credible sources for assessing customer experiences based both on our own extensive personal experiences coupled with our extensive professional backgrounds.)  Social media truly gives all buyers megaphones (to paraphrase Chris Anderson).

can you hear me now?

While I sat at lunch, I tweeted the following messages to the resort:

Will be writing a letter to @omnihotels for our 1.5 hour checkout disaster at #omnihotels orlando at championsgate. Wow. 2:03 PM Mar 21st via Twitterrific

And then I thought there were a few service lessons that perhaps I could pass along to the resort via twitter–and see if they were listening.  Following are 5 specifics that service companies should not only consider but should incorporate into their operating procedures.

A few things service oriented companies should consider: 1-unhappy customers have a voice beyond letter writing (Twitter) #omnihotels 2:13 PM Mar 21st via Twitterrific

A few things service oriented companies should consider 2- making things right is often as easy as accepting accountability #omnihotels 2:17 PM Mar 21st via Twitterrific

Service oriented companies should consider: 3-lifetime value of the customer is critical. Repairing yr service reputation key. #omnihotels 2:27 PM Mar 21st via Twitterrific

Service oriented companies should consider: 4-Repairing yr service rep after bad customer experience may b as easy as an apology #omnihotels 2:31 PM Mar 21st via Twitterrific

Service oriented companies should consider: 5-customers shouldn’t have to ask for an apology. Be proactive to repair svc issues #omnihotels 2:33 PM Mar 21st via Twitterrific

I will report that I did get a tweet back from @omnihotels, and this was our exchange:

@AdrienneCorn Please feel free to email tweetme@omnihotels.com and we will be sure to get your letter to the appropriate people. Sorry! 7:33 AM Mar 22nd via HootSuite in reply to AdrienneCorn

@OmniHotels you might want to check out my other tweets with #omnihotels from yesterday. Preview of my letter. 10:48 AM Mar 22nd via Twitterrific

@AdrienneCorn Thanks. I did see them and shared w/ the hotel mgmt team first thing this morning. We look forward to receiving your letter. 12:34 PM Mar 22nd via HootSuite in reply to AdrienneCorn

I am not sure what type of response a letter will get (since it will look quite a bit like my blog post!) but note to all readers: my social media activity got instant response.  It may not be instant satisfaction, but it’s at least communication and, in the service industry, that’s at least moving back in the right direction.

That said, businesses beware – consumers have instant power with the most powerful form of marketing: word of mouth.  You might want to consider the kinds of words about your company that you want coming out of your customers’ mouths–and then do your best to make that a reality.

Last night on the Grammy’s, the president of the Recording Institute made a public plea for the consumers of music to pay for it.  Literally.  He posed this question (paraphrased),” if someone said they like the work you do, but then told you they didn’t want to pay for it, what would you do?”

Well, what would you do?

Most of us can’t imagine that scenario. Truly, if our bosses decided they weren’t going to pay us for the daily grind then most of us would find another job.  If we loved what we were doing, we might consider doing it for free, but on the side, in our off hours.  Many people consider those things hobbies, since they love to do something but know that doing that thing won’t financially support them.  So, how is that different for music?  Well, it probably isn’t.  Most musicians DO work at their music in off hours, after a job or between shifts–trying to make a go of it.  Then, once they “make it”–they get a recording contract, start touring, sell their songs and start making money, they quit their day jobs.   So, why the plea to Grammy watchers to keep paying for the music?  Clearly we are paying for peeps like Beyonce, since she’s making $80 Million this year alone.  It seems to me that what we have here is a failure to communicate about VALUE.

This problem really cropped up because of the shift in how music is provided.  The medium for music changed from something tangible that cost money to produce and which could then be controlled through its physical distribution and thus priced and sold based on that control.  Now, music can be created on your Mac, uploaded and within an hour distributed to thousands of people because of the ability to digitize it.  If music hadn’t gone digital, I swear to you I wouldn’t be writing this. The recording industry –not musicians–is dying.  The record execs  have failed to communicate THEIR value in the digital era.  You can beg people for money because you need to survive, but most people want to know where the value resides.  It isn’t enough that I pay you to survive–the question is Darwinian: why should you survive? What value do you bring? Until the recording industry can articulate the value they bring in a way that the public understands it (given the digital shift which is here to stay), the recording industry will continue to become irrelevant because people won’t pay to feed the machine that no longer controls their content.

Here’s my thought on it:  Service providers have been facing this very issue from the get-go. A service is intangible.  It is only seen once the service is provided.  And often, the service being provided is a back office function of some sort.  So how are service providers able to sell their services?  Do they whine about it and tell the public they MUST pay?  Not the good ones.  The good ones offer potential customers a solid value proposition, so the customer doesn’t just see blue smoke and mirrors, but can clearly understand how the service will impact their bottom line.  The value proposition–a good one–becomes the tangible in an economy of intangibles.  And what we all know is this: people will pay for value.

So, how does this apply to social media? Well, social media is a medium.  How it gets used and why is just now being defined by corporations the world over.  If you are consulting in social media or doing social media work within an organization, you need to tie what you are doing to something people can relate to–like dollars.  Social media tools have come a LOOONG way in a very short time and the tools to measure social activity–what people are doing in a digital sphere–are everywhere, and becoming smarter and more user friendly every day.    So, when offering suggestions for a social media plan for a company, don’t whine and expect them to pay you because you need the money to survive (like the recording industry), show them what you are going to measure and how those measurables tie back to the company’s bottom line.  Be clear about the value your proposal  bring to the table.  Make it beefy–because everyone wants something real to chew on, especially  in a digital economy.

Here are a 5 suggestions for proposing value in Social Media:

1. Determine what the company values and tie your plan into those things.  If the corporate culture is about innovation or their vision is based on customer loyalty, tie your social media proposal into those values.

2. Measure it. Show how each suggestion in your proposal can be measured–the how and the why.  If you aren’t familiar with the tools to measure social media, get familiar with them.  Radian6, Techrigy, ScoutLabs–these are only 3 of the companies that measure social media.

3. Show solid ROI. Specifically, tie measures back to dollars to company will save or make.  Don’t fudge this – be sure your ROI (return on investment) is a solid number that you can jump up and down on.  Will they save money in marketing or advertising?  Will they create revenue streams via social media exposure, interactive sites or some other thing you are proposing?

4. Show comparables. People don’t typically like to be first–so show your customer who else, like them, is doing what you are suggesting.  Show the benefits those example companies are reaping and how.  This will create a comfort level with your customer that what you are proposing really is valuable industrywide and not just in their instance.  Comparables (or comps) will validate your proposal.

5. Get paid for your value. In the end, if you show value, you should reap value – in dollars and in reputation.  Both are important!  Be sure your price makes sense and then stand by it.  If you have done your homework and created a true value proposition, you won’t have to worry about lowering your fees.  People pay for real value.

We should all take a lesson from the recording industry: if you wanna remain relevant, don’t whine about survival–create and offer real value to your customers in a way that THEY recognize.

But, even now, you’re just not feelin’ the twitter love…should you keep tweeting? And why do people quit following you? And how do you get rid of all those annoying bots and porn followers? Where do I get to the good info that other tweeters rave about? Can twitter really work for me, much less my business?

Nielsen reports that 60% of twitter users quit after the first month.
Does this describe you?  Were you hoping for more but stopped using twitter because of unfulfilled je ne sais quoi? If so, read on. This post is for those who are beyond the basics of sign up and want to become more “tweetsmart” (If you haven’t really gotten on board yet, you should read the initial Twitter Primer here: http://bit.ly/lPtke)

In order to get the most out of your twitter experience, I’m going to lay out some key points:

1. What’s Your Purpose?
   

   Why the heck do you want to be on Twitter anyway? I ask because being on Twitter can be like—let’s say—walking into an airport. Everyone is there for a reason, but most people’s reasons differ from yours—meaning there are only a planeful of people going to the exact location you are at the exact time. And even then, those people probably aren’t going there for the same reason you are. Still, you share a seat next to someone and you have a conversation and turns out you have a few things in common. So you exchange business cards and perhaps you get in touch at a later time. Now, let’s apply that analogy to Twitter. You need a reason to be on Twitter – otherwise it’s just a big exchange terminal for information you probably won’t find useful. Perhaps your reason is related to your career or your expertise. For example: I am on Twitter to connect with people in HR and Social Media and Education. This is my reason for being on Twitter. It doesn’t have to be super specific, but a general reason. For the sake of this post, let’s say your reason to be on Twitter is to connect with people in Marketing and Sales, because you are in marketing and sales. And let’s say that you sell tractors (it’s okay—I don’t know anything about tractors, either. It’s just our little example for the sake of learning.) So, you now have a reason to be on Twitter. You want to connect with key people in marketing and sales and even more specifically those who work with tractors, sell them, manufacture them, tweet good information about them that you can use.
   

2. Who Do You Follow?
   

   Following people is tricky. You should only follow people that are giving you the kind of information you genuinely value and/or you feel you want to develop a twitter relationship with. Following people for the sake of having them follow you is useless, because people can be fickle and decide one day to follow you and the next day to drop you—and you’ll waste all your time managing follows and unfollows instead of interacting with solid colleagues you’ve found on Twitter and exchanging good info on sales and tractors. So, once again, DO NOT FOLLOW PEOPLE FOR THE SAKE OF GETTING THEM TO FOLLOW YOU.
   

   Think of building who you follow like building your very own business. What kind of colleagues do you want to interact with? What do they bring to the table? Can you learn something from them? Can they contribute to your world of marketing and sales or tractors (it’s our example again, remember?)? Not everyone you follow will follow you. That’s okay. The value proposition of Twitter IS NOT that it’s a popularity contest (although for some people, it is—but most of those are people who peaked in high school), but that it is a place to build a community of valued colleagues and exchange information.
   

   How do you find those people to follow? Try using hashtags. If you haven’t used hashtags (#), then you should. They are the greatest way of keeping track of stuff on Twitter, and thus researching stuff on Twitter. So, if we want to follow people who know lots about sales and tractors, we might type #tractor into the search space on twitter. And there are all sorts of people tweeting about tractors. You will need to sort through, pick and choose among people who you think to be valuable tweeters on the subject of tractors, but then you follow them.
   

3. Why Should People Follow You?
   

   There are a few things to consider here. 1) How you’ve branded yourself and 2) Whether you are a solid Twitter citizen. Both of these matter if you want to build a solid, interactive Twitter community. Let’s start with how you’ve branded yourself. What does your profile say about you? What does your photo or avatar say to people? Be sure you include in your profile why you are on Twitter—in the case of our example, you might say: Marketer/Sales of Tractors. Then, because we know you must be more than that, you should tell people something interesting about you that makes you human. Maybe you like Skittles. Or have 2 kids in high school. Or white water raft on the weekends. Don’t be snotty and elitist. No one likes that. Not even snots and elitists.
   

   Now that you are sure your brand is authentic and interesting, let’s examine the kinds of things you tweet about. I suggest that you break out your tweets so that about 30% of them are retweets of other people’s good info, 30% is info YOU find and tweet about (so you are adding to the conversation, not just regurgitating what others say), 30% is conversation with other tweeters—where you are responding to their tweets, etc. and 10% is you thanking people for their retweets, recommending them for #followfriday and acknowledging their mentions of you in their tweets. You don’t have to be exact with this breakout, but it is a nice way to ensure you are mixing it up, being a good citizen in your Twitter community. If you have a good brand (interesting/professional) and are a solid tweeter (at least 5-10 quality tweets a day), then people will likely follow you. I’m sure there’s a ton of research out there on how to get good followers and retain them, but sans the research, this is what works for me.
   

4. 
   Managing your Tweeple (aka Followers)
   

   Okay, here is where you are really empowered. If you have been somewhat hurt or felt slighted when someone doesn’t follow you back OR follows you for awhile and then UNfollows you, then you need to get familiar with the tools that help you manage your twitter followers. Personally, I like refollow (www.refollow.com) because it allows me to see who I follow that doesn’t follow me and then I can decide whether to keep following them or not. Others include Social Too and Twitter Karma. Basically, these tools allow you to monitor your growing Twitter community and make sure it’s remains a quality place for you. Check out these tools and just play with them a bit to get used to them. Generally, I get rid of people who don’t add value to my world—and tend to block all bots and porngirls (after you block a ton of them they tend not to follow you anymore).
   

5. Nope, That’s it.
   

   I don’t have a fifth point. If you do the above, you should find that Twitter is really helpful. There’s more research out there that shows people who have a solid community of tweeters in their chosen areas of interest (and you CAN have more than one reason to be on Twitter—and thus follow people from various strains—and manage them all in lists on Twitter—but more on lists later) actually spend LESS time randomly searching the web for info. This is definitely true for me. But more importantly, I get critical information about my industry and my interests faster than anyone else. I do have an iPhone twitter client (Twitterific) which helps with the fast part…
   

So, now that you have a few more tips on how to use Twitter, try them out and let me know how it goes! And be sure to follow me on Twitter if you think I can add value to your world!

But how does one use such prestige?  To sell one’s product?  To tweet about other people’s products?  To influence?

Although my philosophy is that Twitter shouldn’t be about random followings in either direction (I believe in a functional, community oriented use of twitter – on which I will elaborate in another post), what is of interest with the number of followers is the very power of people–random and not so random–to be influential in a quick, broadcasted way to hundreds of thousands of other people.   Let’s be clear: The bulk of social media isn’t about telling people what you ate for dinner last night, and Twitter is one example of the power of social media as word of mouth influence on large numbers of people about products, services and brands.

Legitimate business tweeters are recognizing the power of Twitter to get their message out…not through spamming ads but by tweeting with resources in their areas of expertise such as links to solid blogs, community sites, research, etc.   There is an awareness among companies that social media might have some relationship to brand awareness and loyalty, but the dots haven’t all been connected yet–and believe it or not, there are quite a lot of brank marketers and ad agencies that are still reticent to help connect those dots for their clients.

One tweeter, understanding the power of social media for word of mouth and viral marketing, asked why anyone, given twitter, would invest in traditional media outlets for communicating their message.   My husband was doing a presentation for a potential client on shifting their marketing dollars to online media (one step closer to social media!) and showed me a table that listed barriers to entry into social media adoption by brand marketers and ad agencies (eMarketer, 2009).

What was interesting to me about these statistics was the seeming skepticism and lack of knowledge about social media by ad agencies and brand marketers.

How about the reticence signaled by brand marketer and agency answers to these questions:  “Social Media is not a proven/tested strategy” (granted, this question could have been better worded) in which 31% of ad agencies surveyed feel social media  isn’t proven, 28% “don’t think there is an established way to measure the effectiveness of social media”, while 31%  claim they really “don’t know enough about it to know where to begin” and don’t have the time to figure it out (17%)! And based on the follow up questions,  the reticence to adopt social media isn’t because they are worried about the legalities or that there are barriers to social media use for brand management.

What’s the Issue?

We’ve all heard the song “video killed the radio star” by The Buggles.  (If you haven’t, you can see the video here: http://bit.ly/7Kkl )Released in 1979, the song pays homage to what was deemed a game changer for music: the advent of the music video.  (If they had only known about the digital revolution that would really kill radio and TV as we used to know it! )  In a similar vein, social media is doing much the same thing to brand marketers and ad agencies–shifting the conversation–and if the research is any indication, it doesn’t seem that they like the shift.

As someone really on board with social media I had to ask “Why not?”  Don’t agencies and marketers GAIN by ensuring their future contracts with clients who DO recognize the shifting conversation about their brand and want an agency that can guide them into that future?  Wouldn’t agencies want to be the thought leaders around a new and powerful medium for brand recognition for their clients?

The truth is that this is about the democratization of  what ad agencies want to hold onto–the management, the message, the conversation about brands.  Ad agencies make money on brand management.  Twitter is free.  And there’s the rub.

Gonna Wash that (Ad) Man Right out of Your Hair?

Still, the smart agencies are recognizing that social media is here to stay and are getting on board – beginning to use the analysis tools that have been developed to help companies understand how their brands are being talked about, what people like or don’t like and using that real time information to help their clients truly manage their brand also in real time.  Many of these tools are free, such as Techrigy, but there are hundreds of them currently available and more of them being developed every day.

For those that embrace these tools, there is money to be made because there is real data on which to base recommendations for how to position a brand, which conversations to be a part of, how to get into the social media space as a brand.  The money is still there to be made–but now, its made on smart, real time information rather than reliance solely on surveys and focus groups.

The question is whether the old school mad men are going to get on board or risk losing their clients to the new school agencies that understand the power of social media for the brand management–for now and in the future.

If you want to know what tools are out there, how to use them and why, be sure to sign up  ”Tools Week” presented by the Social Media Academy in November.  You can lean all about it here: http://bit.ly/179bs7

• Is all this social media stuff just more internet noise?
• Is there anything of value in social media?

In February, I conducted a survey on attitudes and utilization of social media in relation to its use in finding jobs, its use by HR departments, and perhaps most interestingly, whether social media information reflects people’s identity.

This is some of the first quantitative research available that examines social media and identity.

The full survey report can be found here: http://xeeurl.com/A01825

As a quantitative researcher, I study identity and occupations.  As a business person, I have a company that focuses on career pathing, development, organizational fit and persistence, so this survey was of great interest to me personally.  I am finding it is also of interest to many of my colleagues in business–whether in marketing or HR.  So, I asked the questions in the survey which was a random sample of 100 respondents from a panel.  The entirety of the survey results are interesting–but only the results for the area of  identity in social media–or “virtual authenticity” as I call it– will be covered in this blogpost.

“Virtual Authenticity”

Does your online identity truthfully reflect your physical identity?

An important area of interest is whether social media gathers useful information about people: does the social media information reflect the actual person using the social media tools? How do people represent themselves online, specifically in the social media spaces of interest?

If the information people use on social media sites is fictitious, then it cannot serve corporate purposes in either sales and marketing or HR.

However, if people engage in social media’s virtual spaces in an authentic way that reflects who they are and their personal values and preferences, access to personal social media information becomes valuable. To validate whether people’s interaction in social media spaces contains what I will term “virtual authenticity”, respondents were asked to rate how accurately the social media information available about them actually reflects a) who they are, b) what they value, c) their communication style and d) the types of people with whom they normally associate.

Identity: Who I Am

One of the key issues with using social media information within an organization, and specifically in an area such as HR is knowing whether the information in the social media arena accurately represents the persons who may be of HR interest.  If the information in that space does not accurately reflect actual people, then there is little reason for HR to delve into the social media arena.  And in fact, the issue of true identity is a common reason offered for why social media information is not more readily utilized within organizations.

A person’s identity is complex, and depending on which discipline is defining it (psychology, sociology, etc.) is a culmination of multiple variables, some of which may include written representations of self, conversation or dialogue, photos, actions, values preferences, family, economic and educational history and the like.

Rather than define identity for the respondents in the survey, the respondents were asked simply whether the social media information found on the websites they use is an accurate portrayal of who they think they are.  If so, then the social media information one could gather would provide HR with either initial or validating information on persons of HR interest.

We have authentic info!

73% of respondents agree that social media info accurately reflects who they are.

Almost one-third of respondents strongly agreed that the information they provide online is an accurate portrayal of self.

Taken together with the percentage of those that agreed (41%) the total of people who agreed that social media information accurately reflects their identity is a significant 73%.

Out of the 27% remaining, only 9% of respondents disagreed that their information is a reflection of their identity. The remaining 18% neither agreed nor disagreed, which could be attributed to, among other things, not providing a definition of “who I am” for the respondent to agree or disagree with.

Given this information, companies can begin using social media with the knowledge that the people interacting within the social media spaces are doing so as themselves.

Additional, more detailed information on the extent to which social media information reflects specific areas of identity such as communication style, networks and associations and values, please visit the following site for the full report:  http://xeeurl.com/A01825

Download a complimentary copy of the survey report’s executive summary here: http://xeeurl.com/A01826