Connect, Engage and Share

Social Networking is about the desire to connect, engage and share in conversations. Conversations between people that use a human voice; they are natural sounding and uncontrived. They can range between being a deeply personal exchange between 2 people to a lively debate among many; but they are open and human.

A couple of weeks ago, Stuarte Harris and I had a lively Twitter exchange where we dicussed our opposing views about a book he was reading. As Stuarte Tweeted at the end, it was “great to find it’s possible to have a sustained discussion on twitter BTW thank you!”. No flaming, no rancour, just a human exchange of views. We’ve never met in person, but Social Media gave us a platform for a fun discussion. It really demonstrates the spirit of connect, engage and share.

Organisations Don’t Understand Connect, Engage and Share

Contrast this with the way most organisations try to converse with people whether in their intranet or via the internet. They either come over as being overbearing or they sound hollow, flat and certainly not human. Either way, most organisations don’t understand the requirement to connect, engage and share with their customers.

Although many organisations are getting the message that they can communicate directly with their markets, they often blow it, especially when they enter the customer to customer arena. They need to come down from their high horses and speak with, not at, people.

Command and Control in Conversations With the Market is (should be) Dead

The old Command and Control approach to business was built on heirarchies and fear, bordering on paranoia. The trouble with paranoia is that it kills open conversation. However, organisations are beginning to find that the lack of open conversation is killing companies or at the very least, is causing negativity in the market place. People want to talk with people inside organisations, but are often prevented by corporate “firewalls”. In some cases, you even get a situation where there are 2 conversations going on – one inside the company, the other with the market, both based on attempts to preserve command and control.

Connect, Engage and Share Means an End to Jargon and Techno-speak.

And when organisations do attempt to converse with the market, with us, they hide behind corporate jargon and techno-speak. The language may impress a small section of the press, and maybe the investors behind the company, but they don’t impress the people in the market. And in many cases, the public sector is no better. They forget that the citizen is the client and write in dry, bureaucratic language. This is true at both national and international levels. The language is not user friendly; indeed, I was told by one bureaucrat recently that this is deliberate – they don’t want a 2 way conversation, they want to hide behind “we’ve told you, now it’s your problem if you don’t understand!”

Power to the People!

The key connect, engage and share message that most organisations don’t get is that social media has given much more power to the customer. Existing and potential customers connect, engage and share regardless of the vendor’s approach. And because the internet allows people to solve their solutions far more quickly than before, people are listening to each other and making decisions based on these conversations. They are not waiting for organsiations to catch on, to connect, engage and share with them!

The Cluetrain Manifesto

I’m a great fan of the book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, and  recently bought the tenth anniversary edition. This above is a summary of some of the key messages in the book, as they relate to connect, engage and share.

Before you read any further ask yourself whether you have a client focus or a customer focus? Last week I looked at how to build your business by increasing turnover.  Today I want to  look at the difference a single word can make to your company’s performance and culture.

Definition of Client Focus

Changing from a “customer” focus to a “client” focus can make you tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. Why? Let’s take a look at some definitions:

Customer Focus:  A customer is “someone who receives supplies from you” (Websters online dictionary). So a customer focus is purely based on transactions – sales volume is all that matters, even if it means pile it high and sell it cheap.

Client Focus: A client is “one under the protection of another”  (Websters online dictionary). So a customer focus is based on a relationship, and protection implies that the salesperson will always look after the client’s best interests.

Implications of Having a Client Focus

So, changing to a client focus means you will focus on relationships rather than transactions and will always act in the client’s best interests. It also sheds some interesting light on the motives of sales people.

I sometimes ask clients: “Why should people buy from you?”. Some of the typical answers include:

They need our product/service.
We’re cheaper than the competition.
I am waiting for them to call me.
They like me.

Al of these focus on the company and its products. This is not client focus!

Client Focus – WIIFM?

Having a client focus means  thinking from the client’s perspective; specifically, it means answering the question “What’s In It For Me?” It also means recognising that because of your client focus, you are always looking after the client, giving best advice. Client focus also means recognising when you cannot meet their needs and perhaps pointing to a joint venture partner who can help. Finally, client focus means not wanting a client to go to the competition, not because it will lose you revenue, but because it’s not in their best interests!

Client Focus in Every Interaction

There are many more implications of developing a client focus; for example, it has to be reflected in every hotspot in your company. (A hotspot  is any time anyone in your company interacts with an existing or prospective client.) There is little point in your sales people changing their mindsets and approach to selling if the rest of the organisation doesn’t support a client focus. There is enough pressure from the competition, without your own people shooting you in the foot!

Sales scripts have to be rewritten in order to embrace the move from transactional selling to client focus. Technical departments, as well as marketing, sales and customer service  all need to start thinking about benefits, rather than features. In addition, a culture based on client focus will have to rethink the way the sales force is organised. It’s crazy asking every salesperson to be good at cold-calling, meeting clients, getting a sale and account management. While small companies can do little else, larger ones can make the most of each sales person’s strengths. In that way they can raise their level of client focus even higher.

And there are many more implications than I can go into here, but which soon be included in a book on developing client focus

The little secret is a change of one word but one that leads to huge shifts in culture and results. Pause and have a think about your sales effort – where would you benefit from developing a client focus?

Blogussion
Lots of useful articles on all matters related to succeeding online, whatever that means for you. .

Boomerang
First of all, I love the design of the site. So many blogs (although not many on this list)  look the same: straight out of the box wordpress sites. Not so with this which covers a wide range of topics.

Britopian
Michael Brito is an advocate of using social media for customer advocacy as well as social business and is currently writing a book on his experiences called “Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization.” The book promises to be a little different as it focuses on how organisations are (or should be) evolving into social businesses and the blockages to the changes required. I’m looking forward to the book!

Chris Brogan
Author of one of the best books on Social Media, “Trust Agents”, Chris Brogan has been involved in online communities for a long time. It shows in his writing, full of no-nonsense articles.

Final Piece
Devoted to helping businesses to understand how they can use social media to help their business to grow.

Greg Verdino
This blog looks at trends in media and marketing, as these industries grapple with the changes being brought on by disruptive technologies, new business imperatives and the rise of the empowered consumer.

Idea Launch
Idea launch offers a wide range of content marketing services and solutions. They claim that their offerings are unmatched in the industry and the perfect match for any company, any size. Whether this true or not, their blog is well worth reading.

Instigator (Ben Yoskovitz)
He writes at the top of his site “My thoughts & lessons learned on startups, entrepreneurship, marketing and other stuff”. His thoughts and lessons are spot on, in my (not so) humble opinion.

Lis Sowerbutts
If you are at all interested in passive income, Lis is worth reading. She often reviews software and services and is not afraid to say what she thinks.

Louis Gray
Full of insight and not afraid to say it how it is, Louis Gray’s site is one of my favourites. He’s usually among the first writers to cover a breaking story, emerging technology or trend. His writing gives the impression that he’s been around the industry a long time, though his photo seems to show a younger man. Whatever, he’s a must read.

Mashable
Well, it would be rude to leave them out, wouldn’t it!

Mitch Joel
Author of one of my favourite Social Media books, Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel is an insightful writer and, judging by his site, has a great taste in design. If you haven’t read Six Pixels, I urge you to do so.

Penny Power
The better looking half of the couple that own ecademy, Penny writes with compassion and feeling. She concentrates on the people aspect of social media, and is the author of  the book “Know me, like me, follow me.”

Problogger.net
Tips and techniques on how to improve your blogging. Wonderful site, full of resources.

Seth Godin
Love him or loathe him, Seth Godin is always worth reading. Even if you don’t like his message, take the time to examine how he writes: a simple, straightforward style with little fluff. He proves that you don’t have to baffle people with long words or complex sentences.

SEO Moz
If SEO interests you, seomoz provides a daily blog on all SEO issues plus tips tips, tricks and techniques.

Scott Monty
The personal blog of the head of social media for Ford. Scott shares his personal views on social media. Very practical, even if he does wear a turquoise bow tie!

socialmedia.biz
I’ve only just come across this one so can’t comment too much  but I love what I’ve read so far! And don’t miss the sharing center; lots of free pdfs to download.

Social media examiner
It claims to be “Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle” and does a good job of it. Oh, and another site with a distinctive design. Clearly written articles abound, what more do you need?

Steve Rubel
“There are signs that the companies that regularly innovate in social media seem to be more memorable”. That alone should endear him to the social media world!

The Buzz Bin
Musings and analysis on marketing, buzz and communications.

Thomas Power
The other half of the ecademy ownership, Thomas writes a lot about the applications and platforms that make up the wild world of social media.

UnMarketing
Scott Stratten is very good at pointing out some of the absurdities in social media. A refreshing change of angle.

I‘ve enjoyed assembling this list and hope that at least some names will be new to you!

Great for Social Media

I recently had the chance to upgrade my phone and went to the store intending to get an iPhone 4 as it’s great for social media. I came away with an entirely different phone.

I was not concerned about the recent technical issues surrounding the iPhone’s external aerial – I would be using the phone in a case which would solve that problem.

One of the things that had made me focus on the iPhone was that it was not Windows Mobile, which I have never found to be reliable. The saleswoman did a great job, asking me finding out what my needs are, my likes and dislikes and then told me four things that made me pause for thought.

Firstly, you cannot remove the battery on a iPhone. So, if the battery packs up, or if the phone freezes, you have to send it back to Apple.

Secondly, I would be locked into iTunes, an app I dislike. It’s old technology and there are much better ways of accessing and listening to music.

Thirdly, by the time I had added on the data packages etc that I would require, it made for a very expensive proposition. At the very least I want a good data package so I can browse my favourite social media sites.

Finally, I’m a keen amateur photographer and the camera on the iPhone is not very good.

While these four were not necessarily deal breakers, she offered to show me several other phones. I agreed and ended up with a Sony Erickson Xperia. It runs Android, which I like and I can use any media player I like.

Sony Erickson Xperia – Great for Social Media!

Don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot about the iPhone that I like. But for my personal use, the Sony Erickson meets my needs so much better; camera is better, works great with social media (it has one of its five viewing panels set up for social media by default), I can pull the battery if I have to and it’s cheaper to run than an iPhone with my current service provider – kudos to the saleswoman for doing such a great job!

Social Media is a Different Platform but the Message Stays the Same.

Social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, ecademy, Social Media Tribes are all new. Even if you look at their ancestors, the Compuserve Groups, it’s all a phenomenon that has emerged only in the last 20 years.

As ever when something new arrives and survives long enough to be more than a 5 minute wonder, some of the early adopters become perceived as, or actively seek the role of, experts. But experts of what?

I can happily accept that there are experts in the installation, customisation and integration of the various sociaal media applications and platforms. This blog and its comments are not addressed at them.

Social Media is Nothing New!

What I am confused about are the many people who describe themselves as “Social Media Experts” in their Twitter profiles and elsewhere, offering advice on how to use social media or on how to succeed in social networking. The reason for my confusion? I just don’t get what this “social media expertise” is based on or on what they offer that is new.

Let me give an example. My main sport is hockey. Let’s say I move to a new area and join a new club. I’d connect with people, engage with them share with them and build relationships. We’d have a common interest, the sport, and I’d establish by my actions what I can offer my new club. Perhaps my reputation would precede me but I’d still take it slowly, easing my way in, doing a lot of listening and asking of questions.

When I wrote on a well known business networking site about the keywords Connect-Engage-Share, to describe the stages we go though when using social media to build social networks, this was seen by many as something new and exciting. I don’t get it. They are second nature to most of us, why do we need “experts” to explain how to do it, just because the context has changed from “off-line” to “on-line”.

Emperor’s New Clothes

The idea that there are separate rules for communicating and building relationships on-line as opposed to offline is a modern day version of the emperor’s new clothes. Yes social media is new and the context may have changed, but the core skills have not. In fact I’d go a stage further and say that any distinction between our on-line and off-line lives is at best arbitrary and at worst an illusion peddled by those wanting to make money! For example, the article on 12 tips for clear writing shows quite clearly that the rules are no different on-line or off. Similarly, as Chris Brogan pointed out in his book Trust Agents, when it comes to relationship building, the rules for building trust are the same on-line or off.

Just because I am using different tools doesn’t mean it’s a different “life” or “world”. For example, I may go out into the garden and use a spade, fork or lawnmower. My gardening is not a different life or world, it’s just me doing my thing. How is it any different when I use a PC to go onthe internet and access social media sites?

Social Media has Created Some New Things

There is one way in which social media offers something new: businesses are used to communicating with customers, with staff and with suppliers. Social media opens up a very important new channel: customer to customer. Organisations need to find ways to monitor and respond to the information in this new channel without coming over as being “big brother” or defensive. Another way is the proliferation of  platforms for all aspects of social media. Take, for example, the simple website. It used to require considerable skill to create a good looking and fully functional site. Now, WordPress together with frameworks like Genesis and its child themes mean that anyone can build a great looking site in the fraction of the time it used to take.

Have I Missed Something?

Perhaps I’ve missed something and there is something new about social media relationship skills -  someone will help me to dispel my confusion, anyone?

1. The Social Media World is a Wide One.

Many years ago I was given a great bit of advice: don’t think about what you want to write, think about what the audience needs to read in order for you to meet your objective. This may take deep thought, as the social media audience has a wide range of needs.

2. Plan

It’s so tempting to just open up the word processor and start writing your latest social media masterpiece but even with short pieces, it’s better to spend a few minutes planning. Decide on your objective and list the points you must cover in order to meet that objective. In a longer piece, you can expand the list to include those things you should cover (less important than the musts), and those you could (the anecdotes etc that give colour to the piece).

3. Use short sentences and everyday words

Expertise is not demonstrated by using long, complicated sentences. Rather, short sentences using everday words to decribe complex issues in simple ways is the hallmark of a true expert. Remember, social media covers most of the modern world and not all of you readers will be reading in their mother tongue.

4. Avoid the passive

Keep to the structure subject, verb, object unless you are using the passive to create surprise. If I write “At the end of the conference the President was interviewed by a  school girl”, this creates surprise because of the unusual end to the sentence. Writing “A school girl interviewed the President at the end of the conference” loses the surprise element.

5. Write from your heart

People often tell me that they’d love to get stuck into the social media world but aren’t good at writing. If you write from your heart, with honesty, sincerity and passion, people will forgive you the occasional grammatical error. If you really feel uncomfortable writing, then examine the new kid on the social media block – video blogging.

6. Be careful with superlatives

They are overused and often unnecessary. An occasional superlative is acceptable, peppering your piece with them is not. This applies to another area of social media, internet marketing. I read an advert the other day describing something as “extremely unique.” Unique means one of a kind, you can’t be extremely one of a kind! The superlative is redundant.

7. Make impact at the start

The social media world offers people a lot of choice. If you are boring, they will quickly move on. So find a way to make impact from the start. This will entice people into wanting to read more. If you can’t think of a way to do it, beginning by asking the readers a question is often a good tactic as it draws them into your piece.

8. Be Direct

Throughout social media, I see people writing as if they are trying to emulate Sir Humphrey in “Yes Minister”. Don’t pad out your sentences, it casts doubt in the readers’ minds. Being direct also adds impact to your work.

9. Check your Spelling

Readers know that writing software comes with spell-checking, so use it or you will lose credibility.

10. Use examples the social media world can relate to

It’s usually more elegant to use examples that your audience can releate to than to attempt to write something that is theoretical.

11. Edit your work

When editing, keep the ABC of effective writing in mind; accuracy, brevity and clarity. Cut out unnecessary words, go though the piece again, and cut again!

And the most important rule:

12. Never, Never, Never be boring!

Yes, never! Social media audiences have a short attention span so find interesting ways to put over your message.

13. Model Yourself on the Social Media Rockstars.

Model does not mean copy. You have to find your own voice. It means looking at what works, what doesn’t, what you can adapt to your own style. Find writing you like from the social media greats and put it in your own words.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our work and neglect our personal relationships. For the self-employed, this is a real danger; we spend as much time as we can chasing and delivering work and forget the reasons why we are doing it. It’s so easy to neglect the personal; growth in the business is little satisfaction if there’s no one to share it with, if our “significant others” leave us because they feel neglected.

Do you have a balanced definition of personal success? Take a moment and decide what success means to you – if you achieve all of your monetary goals but you are distanced from your children and your partner has left you, have you been truly successful? Or if after working years and years of 18 hour days, you finally achieve your material goals but you have had 3 heart attacks and are on blood pressure medication, is that success?

From the “Golden Age of Greed”  of the Thatcher years until now, the focus has been on material wealth, consumer greed, living on credit that can barely be afforded. We’ve seen the results of that with the collapse of the financial sector, but it’s time to look at ourselves. From the ancients like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, to the father of modern science, Sir Isaac Newton, our great leaders of philosophy and science thought about the total being: Mind, Body and Spirit.

What are you going to do this week to help your body overcome the excesses of the Noughties, to fuel your Spiritual Needs and most important of all, to tell those important people that you love them and how important they are in your lives?

For example, from my observation of those who are successful at using social mediato network and build on-line relationships, I’ve distilled the following list.

Social Media is 2 Way Communication

Successful relationship-builders make themselves easy to find and to communicate with and happily engage in two-way communication. They recognise that social media is not about broadcasting. They are often very good at asking the right question at the right time to move things on. They believe that it is important to understand a situation or a person before stating their own needs. Gary V, for example, still tries to answer every e-mail he gets, a wonderful example from one of the social media greats!

Social Media is About Giving

Successful relationship-builders are givers first, takers second.  They understand that the key to success in social media is no different from anywhere else; it’s about helping others to meet their needs. In the words of BNI, “Givers Gain”.

Be Positive

Successful relationship-builders know that they will get criticised, that sometimes others just wont accept the truth in what they are saying. They refuse to let other people’s negativity become their own. They know that what they post on the various social media platforms is pretty much there for all time and choose most of the time to accentuate the positive.

Inspirational

Successful relationship-builders have something important to say, believe in their message and can back it up. Their inspiration is contagious, leaving other people highly-inspired and motivated.

Social Media is Not a Sprint

Successful relationship-builders know where they are heading and what it takes to get there – they don’t allow themselves to be distracted from their purpose. They know that building relationships is a process that takes a while, as Gary V is forever saying, social media is a marathon, not a sprint.

No Fast Fixes in Social Media

Successful relationship-builders are not afraid of hard work; they refuse to buy into the concept of a fast fix or a quick buck. There are a lot of scams in social media but most of them will only, at best, give a short term benefit. Long term, Google and the other authorities will find you out. Fast fixes fly in the face of what the social media rockstars know – you can’t scam someone and be a trust agent.

Resourceful

Successful relationship-builders are highly-skilled reframers, capable of looking at challenges from a number of different angles until they find the solution. They will accept responsibility for their actions and will work hard to make something work whilst at the same time refusing to engage in games of blaming others.

Connector

Successful relationship-builders are happy to connect someone with just the right person in their network who has the knowledge, skills or experience to be able to help.

Social Media’s Naked Emperor

If you are looking at the above and think that this is nothing new, that the relationship building skills are the same as they have always been, you are absolutely right. The emperor is naked! Social media may offer new platforms but the skills of networking remain as they have always been.

Social Media offers a huge opportunity for collaboration, for synergy, for output that is far greater than might be suggested by an examination of the individual components. Let’s look at an example from an era before Social Media and examine the lessons we can learn from it.

In pre-music download days, it was usual for a recording artist to bring out a single to accompany the release of an album. It was also common practice for the ‘B’ side to feature a track that did not appear on the album as added value for the fans.

In 1988, ex-Beatle George Harrison had an album coming out and wanted to release a song from it, “This is Love”, as a single. The problem was, he had no B-Side. However, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty were all spending time with him in LA and they quickly put together a song called “Handle With Care” and recorded it in a casual, no-pressure manner.

When Harrison played the track to key people at Warner Brothers Records, everyone realized that this was far too good a track to be a ‘B’-side. They wondered if the same team could create an album of similar quality.

The challenge was that Dylan was due to set off on a long tour in two weeks time! Nevertheless, using a borrowed studio, they wrote and recorded all of the tracks in those two weeks. No time to worry about polishing it, about doing lots of takes. Instead, they just went for it!

They collaborated ideas, arrangements, lyrics, pushing each other hard and just had a great time. The result? An album, “The Traveling Wilburys”, that Rolling Stone Album named one of the “100 Best Albums of All Time”. It’s a mixture of creative genius, distinctive musical voices and relaxed delivery. It’s certainly not over-engineered or polished so much as to lose any distinctiveness!

The lessons for Social Media.

1. When people come together in the same place, they can inspire and feed off each other to produce new and exciting solutions. Social Media can be used to circumvent problems of location, creating virtual groupings.

2. People who are the ‘rockstars’ of their niches can be brought together without ego clashes if a common goal, and a common desire to achieve the goal, can be agreed.

3. You can be really creative and produce wonderful results in a short time without having to over-engineer the solution.

4. There are several Cloud-based applications that allow documents to be shared so that they can evolve organically as people collaborate, bounce ideas off each other and push each other in the way that the Wilbury’s did.

If you use the Cloud for spontaneous creativity, what tips and tricks can you share with others?

Smile at someone - do it now!

How often have you said “I wish I had done that, but I didn’t have the time?” I’ve certainly done it and wrote at length about some of the lessons I’d learned about this in the article 10 Things I Wish I Had Known And Stuck To From Early On. Here are 14 tips to help you to put an end to procrastination.

Have you told that special person lately that you love them? If not, do it now!

Have you set aside quality time for yourself so you can address those issues that are holding you back but are personal? Development requires action, do it now!

Have you given a smile to that stranger who looks sad? If not, do it now!

Have you done something to make the world a better place today? If not, do it now!

Have you organised a special surprise for that special person? If not, do it now!

Have you said a kind word today to your colleague with the low self-esteem? If not, do it now!

Have you said a prayer for your sick friend? If not, do it now!

Have you made a phone call to someone you know is lonely? If not, do it now!

Are you sitting on the couch, hoping everything will turn out right? Take action, do it now!

Are you hiding behind self-limiting fears? Face your fears and do it now!

Have you given a hug to someone that needs one? If not, do it now!

Have you exercised today? If not, do it now!

Have you done something today to nourish the key relationships in your life? If not, do it now!

“But I don’t have time!” Stop procrastinating. Do it now!