BIZTECHBUZZ in the world of social, cognitive, IoT and startups

Month: September 2011

Social Business Scenarios – Very tactical #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibm

 

Yesterday, I was in Phillie for a B2B Conference on Social !  It was an outstanding group of folks and lots of good deep dives on practical use cases and tactics.

I had a few companies ask me for some use cases based on their work. I’ll share those here and tell me if they help you as well!  If so, I’ll blog a few more!

Scenario 1;  Acting on Insight = Hearing Consumer Feedback

 

1 – Hear the Buzz

2 – Actionable Insight

 

3 – Agile Supply Chain

 

4 – Smarter Promotion

 

5 – Consumer Communication

 

6 –Measurable Outcome

 

•A professionalwoman and active mother creates a negative “buzz” about a reformulated classic shampoo

 

•The manufacturer product manager receives notice about the buzz via social media analytics

 

•The product manager confirms that the company is still able to make the “original” version – and asks to make aspecial run

 

•The product manager re-launches the original product formulationwith joint promotions local to the home of the mother and her friends

 

•Sales of the two products in the Bay Area rise 50%

Scenario 2:   Acting on Insight = Building a Brand Fan Base

 

1 – Hear the Buzz

 

2 – Actionable Insight

 

3 – Agile Supply Chain

 

4 – Smarter Promotion

 

5 – Consumer Communication

 

6 –Measurable Outcome

 

•The sports fans are going for food and a drink at a new place – There is Buzz – about the location

 

•The product manager at the Beer Co spots the Buzz

 

•He confirms that Beer Co Distribution have made a delivery with the New Product and can support an off trade “Fans Pack”

 

•Product sales rise 50%

Singapore Airlines is becoming a Social Business! #socbiz #ibm

I just left Singapore — sad to leave.

From a Social Business perspective,  the country is moving ahead on Social Business.   Janet Ang, IBM’s Country General Manager,  is an avid Social evangelist in the country and it shows.

Case in point is Singapore Airlines, my fav airline in the WORLD as they have amazing service (see below as I left my plane and the team took pictures with me as we chatted on Social around the world!)

Singapore Airlines turned to IBM to Empower its geographically distributed workforce, leveraging IBM Connections for communities in marketing and human resources.    With this expansion, the airline has started to strengthen their global communications.       (Read their press release here:   http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32535.wss )

Its clients want it to be a great brand online as well as offline.     I loved this blog of suggestions to Singapore!  Its message…As of last month, there were 191 airlines on Twitter. Of these, only 85 had actively been tweeting. And only 28 provided 80% of all tweets! Singapore Airlines has been a great offline brand. My hope is that this doesn’t become the case of too little. Now, they need to make sure they don’t get lost in the crowd of 191 airlines on Twitter, and create a brand on social media that’s just as lovable

http://simpliflying.com/2011/welcome-to-branding-2-0-singapore-airlines-now-what-twelve-tips-to-do-social-media-right/

Social Business Jam Camp – Germany Oct 10-18! #ls11 #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz

Hey!   I am heading to Europe in October!   Our Social Business Jam Camp has 3 parts: a bus tour, JamCamp, and developer headstart.

First, it starts with the bus tour Oct. 10 – Oct.18. We are going to visit customers, publications, universities, and business partners!We will be live tweeting, blogging, videoing during the tour. And our fun event — our wine tasting 2.0. Together with Cordelia Krooß from BASF, we are selecting a wine village, which is using social media to promote their vines.

The second part is the JamCamp in Frankfurt on Oct. 19 and 20. The JamCamp is again a combination of a conference with fixed agenda and an Open Space event. So we will 1-2 tracks during the event, where people can vote on. In the agenda we are having you kicking the event off. We have many great client speakers like Kurt De Ruwe, the Bayer CIO, Cordelia Kroob from BASF on connect.BASF, with AIIM Ambassador Hanns Kohler-Kruner on the AIIM Social Business Roadmap, with the German Compliance guru Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer on Compliance and Social Biz, with Claudia Pelzer on crowd sourcing (she is running the German Crowdsourcing blog), with Martin Meyer-Gossner on the web site of the future!

The final part is a developer workshop day on Oct. 21. We have the Social Business developer workshops and we are repeating a ‘How to become a Social Business’ workshop with Prof. Joachim Niemeier, René Werth and Peter Schuett.

The hashtag for the event is #jamcamp. The event page is online on  ibm.com and we are leveraging our German BM Social Business channels and pages on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for promotion.

I can’t wait to see you all there!!!

The Phillipines is a TOP Social Media Country? True or false?

I am in the Phillipines this week at the Social Business Asian Tour! And TRUE the Phillipines is a TOP Social Media Country!   They have not applied all the work to Business yet…but wow — their personal use is truly amazing!

According to comScore Media Metrix, January – April 2011, the Phillipines is the #1 country of Facebook penetration with 93% participation from online users!  And they have the highest % of time on Social Networking worldwide.  And they are #9 in the world on their usage of Twitter!

 At present, the Philippines continues to hold the top spot for Facebook penetration and also ranks highest in share of time spent on social networking properties across the world, making it the most social media-addicted market globally. Of the total time spent online in April 2011 by the Philippines’ online audience, 41.3 percent was spent on social networking sites.

I am here this week with the MAP group speaking with the CEO of MySpace about Social!    Did you know that the FIRST IBM product here was a Clock and the retired IBMer who made it still maintains it for free?!

Check out our GREAT team here in the Philipines!

Social Sales motivation with Badges!

Team:  I wanted to share this best practice with you on Social Selling!

Since Aug 15, IBM sellers can compete for over 40 merit badges, used to recognize and promote identified social accomplishments and behaviors.

For example, we have a badge that sellers can “win” if they join Twitter, or exceed a certain threshold for followers, or install the latest version of software on their own personal workstation.

That way we know our sellers are living social, and also we are sure that they are using and demonstrating the latest/appropriate versions of our software.

This strategy is a gaming type strategy to motivate the sellers to have the highest skills possible!

Stats at a glance:

  • Individuals from thirty-two countries have received 1,000 badges
  • 60% of badges go to people outside the US.
  • 51% of applicants receive the most popular badge.
  • 71% of applicants receive more than one badge.
  • 22% receive more than 10.

The program has been open for business for four weeks.

First two weeks it was word of mouth; resulting in about 200 badges. We purposely has a “soft opening” so we could build a groundswell or early adopters who would microblog about it.

Such a ‘soft launch” is a best practice for launching any kind of new social program — give yourself some time to build a tipper network for it.

In week three, I formally announced it via email, and badge requests have quadrupled & exploded, to exceed 1,000.

Here’s a view!  What do you think?

 

Is 302 the Magic Social Number?!

I was delayed last night traveling and read about a study in Psychology Today while waiting for transportation.

 

According to this study, 302 is the optimal number of Facebook friends. Why?  Psychologically, people with over 302 friends are viewed as being too focused on the “number” of friends vs relationships. 

Quite intriguing! 

 

Mobile is Social’s Little Secret!

 

Social networking has had a profound effect on society. Couple this with the explosion of mobile devices makes this the right time to move from the hands of teens to business!

 

Consider these facts:

 

– There are more than one billion mobile users

 

– 86 percent of business people now use social media to help them make business decisions, according to a recent report from the Renegade firm.

 

– Sales of smartphones and tablets have surpassed PCs;

 

– 72 percent of firms surveyed by Aberdeen Group say they allow employees to use their own smartphones or tablets for work;

 

– A recent IDC survey said that 95 percent of workers have used technology they purchased for themselves for work;

 

– Global mobile data traffic is projected to grow 26 times over the next five years, according to a Kleiner-Perkins slideshare presentation.

Due to this Mobile Explosion, I thought I’d share the recent Social Business press release on this topic!

Check it out! 

Social is Sales Caffeine! Get Bold!

Get Bold!  Use Social To Drive Up Your Sales Results!

Social media is changing everything.  I don’t have to tell you (or Jeff Gitomer who wrote Social Boom!) that Social media will change the way we live and work.   It is the 5th business transformation that will impact every aspect of business.  

On 9/15/2011, Get Bold! will be released on Amazon.com.  It is filled with over 70 case studies, and a framework to help your business create their own Social Business Agenda. Order it here! 

http://www.amazon.com/Get-Bold-Social-Create-Business/dp/0132618311/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314717843&sr=1-1

It is a Must Read because:

  1. It shares advice from a business leader who has leveraged Social Media to drive ROI in her businesses.
  2. It has an actionable framework to help you do something, not just read something. The Social Business Agenda has been used in over 64 countries for business success!
  3. The story is told with over 70 case studies from companies in B2B, B2C, small, medium, and large, and every industry and country. 
  4. It is about real ROI.    Did you know that on average adding Social into your sales process increases your sales by 15% according to a McKinsey Study?
  5. It recognizes that transformation takes more than luck, technology or prayer.  It takes a culture.  Afterall, Culture eats strategy for Lunch!

Adding social to your sales process makes you more competitive.

As an example of what you will learn in the book, read this real case study!

In IBM, our ibm.com team must attract a high volume of leads from a new set of customers.  Since Social has become a tool for getting information on products and services, we wanted to explore how to leverage word of mouth.   For instance, after a Twitter search or deeper conversation in a LinkedIn group or forum, potential buyers might ask companies for more information, but they also often turn to their peers, other clients and trusted advisors.

So our ibm.com team decided to go social.  Our inside sellers drove prospects to their Rep Pages –- personalized ibm.com pages that play a “virtual business card” role for inside sellers. These pages have relevant information to clients, enhance the relationship, and give clients one-click access to interact with their reps.

After training on how to engage and nurture potential clients, the ibm.com team built Twitter profiles to establish a presence in the social networking world. The ultimate objective of this pilot was for sellers to use social media to add value to conversations and build a pipeline of leads.

We (IBM) also worked with an outside firm to identify the most prominent influencers in the our space, so sellers could then follow them and comment on or retweet their posts and learn and connect.  We developed a unique engagement strategy for each influencer, based on their activity and what they were saying.

To make it easy to maintain their Twitter presence, sellers also have a social message calendar, accessible via the feed reader function within Lotus Notes. The calendar features time-sensitive messages reps can tweet, with enough content for three tweets a day.

Over a 7 month period, these ibm.com teammates increased their Twitter followers by 5X  

In the first two weeks of this effort, sellers’ Rep Page visits rose by 106 percent –thanks to a systematic pattern of Twitter mentions. The sellers reached 1.9 million contacts.

As we move ahead, social selling success will be reflected by the rep’s Klout score,  which gauges influence in the social world, an increase in the number of direct Twitter followers, and relationships developed with key influencers.

I’d love your comments and feedback on  “Draw Up Your AGENDA,” provides a showcase of complete Social Business AGENDA case studies with a summary on each workstream your company will need to complete.   Here are my top 10 tips for your Social Journey!

Many thanks to Jeff Gitomer for his mentorship on writing this book!! He is SUPER!