Category: Uncategorized (Page 68 of 72)

When you decide to add social media to your company’s strategy, here are some things to think through!

1. Don’t say If we will do social media, but When we do Social Media. “If” implies that you are thinking, “when” empowers people to do something!
2. State your intention. This is why Technology companies announce ahead of time of delivery of the product a roadmap. Be vocal about your Social Vision — perhaps to your team or a cross brand team.
3. Understand your goal. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there! Is your goal new customers? Better support? New product requirements? Make sure you know your goals before you kick off a social media planning!
4. Collaborative Social Media Plan. Step 1 for me is to set up a Social Media Council. I did this at with my IBM SOA team. We had a cross functional team that brought forward case studies, ideas, and passion. This council for me was a virtual group. The council can assist in setting the roadmap!
5. Be students of the game. Learn daily. Post best practices of social media in a WIKI or an internal blog. Mistakes should be expected! Experimentation in Social Media is easy and a way to learn! Experimentation is good (and necessary) but remember that it’s a scientific process – you should have an expected outcome/framework!
6. Listen! You need to be listening to conversations! I just did a presentation with Maggie Fox. I loved her quote of “DON’T ignore negative chatter – it matters, and things move quickly”. If you don’t listen, you will miss 50% of the value of social media!
7. Approach End to End! Approach things from a holistic perspective .. you want to make sure your brand is viewed end to end. That it constantly supports your vision and your goals. For example, a message on LinkedIn and Twitter needs to be the consistent .. perhaps even in your taglines, and naming of your group.
8. Solicit your customers to be your “brand army” of enthusiasts that make your success their cause. We had customers post videos to YouTube on why they loved our products. They became our advocates. RackSpace does an amazing job of this as well! Acknowledge and harness their goodwill to generate insight and return on your investment. For example, we took those videos that our clients did and learned how they discussed our products and used those words to talk to other potential clients.
9. Hybrid Rocks. Don’t forget this is about leveraging social media to supplement your real-world events and experiences. Face to face is still the most meaningful interaction!
10. Digital crisis plan. Have a digital crisis communications plan – being caught flat-footed can do lasting damage. You need to move super fast in this new world be ready. Example of Domino’s Pizza who had employees post pictures of employees sticking cheese in their nose before they put it on a sandwich. Domino needed to move fast!

For your social media strategy, have you set your goals? Explored how to reach them?

And then tried to change ?

Capture the results.

More later!

I’d propose this defnition of a dialogue.

Voicing — explaining, sharing, your thoughts.
Listening — hearing what others have to say on the topic.
Reflecting — thinking through others point of view
Challenging — Discussion the ideas and pros and cons

What do you think of as a dialogue? What did I miss?

Listening is a lost art. Today we are hungry to be heard. We like to talk, tweet, blog a lot. But listening and exploring questions that matter makes a difference.

Think about it. We had 4 women at a table. They each talked on what energized them.. Wendy, the hippie chick, Ann where boundaries are gone, Sandy, empowering others and creating something new, and Trudie working from a challenge into energy. The conversation was great. It was like weaving a new cloth.. each conversation being one thread .. a cloth that will never be woven again.

Interesting how listening does that. Do you do that with your family, with your team, with those in your friend group, or your connections.

When was the last time you listened and reflected? What cloth did you weave?

I am at my Harvard Business School Reunion. It is so great to see all my friends again and catch up!

But we also get to attend great classes by Harvard Professors. One that I find intriguing today was by Charlie Collier on the Practices of Flourishing Families.

The highlights included:
— A discussion on what it takes to be a member of your family (do you have a set of family values, and a mission?)
— How do you encourage your children to lead their own lives yet stay connected to the family (tough one that we debated for a while!0
— How do you influence your child to be the best they can be (The discussion was around leading by example)
— We also discussed how you discuss money and prepare your kids to manage money (his theory was that we do not spend enough time educating our kids on how to manage their money)
— And we discussed how to raise a child to give back!

We discussed at length these questions and he ended with 6 questions that you should ask your parents and video tape to show your kids.

The 6 questions were:
1) What was the turning point in your life?
2) What was a high point in your life?
3) What was a low point in your life?
4) Who were the most influential people in your life and why?
5) What is your biggest regret?
6) What is the unifying theme of your life? Your legacy?

I think I am going to do this exercise — for my in laws, my parents, and me!

What do you think?

Great news!

My SOA marketing organization has received 5 Hermes Awards, as follows:

Platinum Awards:

Impact 2008 (Event Marketing category)
Smart SOA Widget (Electronic Media/Other category)
IBM Smart SOA Newsletter (E-Newsletter category)

Gold Awards:
Smart SOA World Tour (Integrated Marketing/Other)
World Tour “Get Smart” Videos (Viral Marketing category)

Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production, web and free-lance professionals. The Association oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges and sets standards for excellence.

The home page for Hermes Creative Awards links to the winners’ list.
http://www.hermesawards.com/

The CICS team has been leveraging social network marketing to prepare for IMPACT and beyond. It is catching steam – with active twitter followers, facebook group participants, regular followers like Steve Baugh – a popular blogger – who further broadcasts the message – and expand the reach in the marketplace in new ways.

Here’s recent interview w/ with Dave Andrews.

The viral communications afforded by these new media are providing interesting ways to get the word out to new audiences that CICS has some exciting things to offer – the CICS community is delivering robust solutions in increasingly new and innovative ways. Great given the stereotype for a CICS user!!!

Some examples!:
I ♥ CICS
I Love CICS Facebook group
Youtube

Recently, Hostbridge, an IBM Business Partner joined us on facebook – posting information about one of their webcast events on our facebook group to extending THEIR usual marketing reach, driving additional attendence and awareness for this activity. Mike O’Neill and Susan Henderson of Hostbridge, felt this was a very positive extension of their usual marketing efforts and have since worked on a number of co-marketing activites with us. Hostbridge was so impressed with the value of using facebook as a way to establish community contact that they started their own facebook group.

We also had a joint webcast with Hostbridge and IBM – and leveraged all these social networking tools to broadcast registration information and we had a 10x registration rate!!!!

The facebook group is a tool to promote other co-marketing work we cemented (CICS Spotlight articles, webcasts, etc) and extending our reach to other facebook groups that are maintained by various CICS user groups, Mainframe communities, Academic communities, etc.

The viral effect is shown as other bloggers pick up the feed. For example, The Master Terminal actively promotes the I Love CICS facebook group and our recent Youtube clips – extending the usual marketing reach – as are many other bloggers and user groups on facebook.

The more we do to connect the communities….the broader our reach..and that of our partners.

Our facebook group membership accelerates and goes more global, Youtube views are getting picked up faster – as new ones are introduced- reflecting an active and interested community is engaging with our social networking efforts.

Who would have thought for the mainframe community! GO CICS!!! And thanks to Diane Johnson for her leadership here!

I have such excitement from the announcement of INNOV8 2.0 at IMPACT in Las Vegas!

Did you see it– if not click me!!

The early results from INNOV8’s eNurture campaign shows that our click through numbers are exceedingly above industry average: 77.8% compared to an average of 25%.

In addition, since using opt-in registration is a barrier to public score posting, our use of tailored emails worked well where the content mirrors the gamer’s scenario interest really works!

Although it is still early, this has been a most excellent pilot for us to explore how we can use games to not only Train but to Persuade, thus showcasing IBM as a thought leader.

Social Media Guru at IMPACT 2009!

I got to know Jeremiah at a Social Media thought leadership event in the Valley. He is truly a leader and visionary in this space. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremiah and wanted to share what he has planned for IMPACT 2009!

Sandy: How has the economic downturn changed the way people leverage social networking
Jeremiah: Our Technographics Research shows an increase in adoption of social tools from 2007-2008, in fact some pretty large jumps in behaviors. Basic common sense and logic tells us that social media usage for consumers will go up during a recession. Why? People will want to connect with others during crises, build personal brands, learn new skills by reading blogs. Also those who are in between jobs will have more time and certainly need to connect with others to find new job opportunities. Furthermore, we’ve found that 53% marketers have decided to increase their social media spend during a recession on social, however it’s important to note we’re not talking about sizable budget amounts, these are still small potato budgets –all things considered.

Sandy: Is social media superficial branding, or does it truly change the company?
Jeremiah: Sadly, many companies are slapping social features on their corporate websites or launching blogs –yet they are not walking the talk. Many brands don’t truly live an open an transparent workstyle, and as a result, customers see right through it. This research is telling, corporate blogs aren’t trusted by consumers.

Sandy: What is the biggest finding from the many interviews you’ve done with corporate social media teams, what’s the one trend you’re finding?
Jeremiah: Many companies are starting to get organized and are appointing key roles, such as the social media strategist and a handful of community managers. These specific roles, while often perform other traditional marketing tasks, are key to delivering true social media programs to the market. Why? Like all business programs, internal champions are still needed for success –especially new mediums

Sandy: On a lighter note, what’s your take on the Ashton Kutcher @aplusk and CNN @cnnbrk race to 1 million followers?
Jeremiah: While silly and trivial, this is a true milestone that Twitter and other social tools are about to go mainstream with media coverage. This however, doesn’t suggest they are mainstream tools, as they don’t have mainstream adoption.

Sandy: How do you feel about celebrities using Twitter? Oprah has 92,000 followers before she ever posted 1 tweet, are celebrities changing the way Twitter is being used and any lessons to be learnt by companies?
Jeremiah: Expect celebrities to monetize this microblogging tool far faster than Twitter themselves. They will extend this tool to help their sponsors reach new audiences, pimp their own shows and content, and use it to broadcast content. Most celebrities won’t understand the true dialog opportunities and will use it like their other tools –broadcast. As a result, early adopters of Twitter will move on, and create a new community that hasn’t become saturated.

Sandy: You will be at IBM IMPACT in Vegas next month talking about the importance of social networking for today’s commerce opportunities. Would love to get a sneak preview on this session.
Jeremiah: Social Network adoption is one of the highest participated social activities by consumers –as a result, brands want to be there. In my session we’ll talk about what works, and what doesn’t. I’ll have some practical examples and best practices, and will make it interactive. I hope folks show up, and Tweeting is certainly encouraged!

Gang, come and see us at IMPACT. We have some great social media adventures planned like blogger box seats, Paint your Facebook, and more! Sign Up Here!

P.S. As everyone knows, Jeremiah’s puppy is famous and no blog would be complete without a picture!