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What Social Media is Teaching Us (Again)

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Social MediaSocial media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and all that – burst onto the scene only a few years ago. Because of this, we’re still learning daily how these tools are impacting and influencing attitudes about companies and brands … as well as the propensity for people to buy products and services as a result.

But some aspects are coming into pretty strong focus now. One of the interesting insights I’ve drawn from social media is that it spotlights the “disconnect” that exists between marketing and sales personnel.

This disconnect has existed for decades, of course. In my nearly 35 years in business, I’ve heard a common refrain from sales folks. It goes something like this: “I have no idea what those people in marketing do all day long!”

On the flip side, the marketing pros have a few choice words for the sales personnel as well: “All they ever think about is the next order. Unless it delivers instant hot prospects who are ready to buy immediately, they’re not interested in any of our marketing programs.”

This is why so many B-to-B companies have tried to cross-pollinate between marketing and sales by moving staff back and forth between the two areas.

But what company is inclined to gives up its star sales performers to marketing? What happens more often is that the underperforming sales people are the ones who end up in marketing … where they then achieve only middling success there as well.

Conversely, so many of the best sales performers aren’t “God’s gift to strategic thinking” at all … while the marketing people who are so creative and insightful when thinking about markets are woefully inadequate when it comes to keeping up with a Rolodex® full of dozens of sales contacts.

Another part of the problem is the approach to metrics. Marketing personnel have historically been focused on reaching wider audiences. To a salesperson, things like “creating awareness” and “building a brand” are frustratingly fuzzy. Instead, salespeople focus on individual customers, sales quotas and other quantifiable information – real “bottom line” figures.

Today, social media is bringing all of this into sharper relief. To be most effective, social media demand that marketing and sales personnel work together. It’s no longer possible for the two groups to employ different approaches, different interactions and different metrics for success.

To my view, it’s going to be harder for marketing and communications personnel to get their heads around new expectations for metrics and analyses when compared to the sales folks. There are many new analytical tools to be mastered – and that’s probably a source of fear for many a marketer.

For salespeople, who live and die by facts and figures, this is duck soup by comparison.

And if you really think about social media, it’s about audience (customer) engagement in a direct and personal manner. Who’s been doing that for years? The sales force, of course.

So does it make any sense to “silo” social media activity and content development within the marketing department? Generally speaking, no.

In fact, many sales personnel have already embraced social media activities because they see it as another useful tool to leverage customer engagement. This is an environment they already know well, because they’ve always been in the business of building relationships.

So the times demand that marketing and sales team up as never before. For marketers, that means opening up the social media initiative and structuring it to include sales personnel as well the marketing staff. Redlining these tasks won’t work.

And here’s another idea: Have the marketing staff hang around with the sales force. Put them out there at trade shows and other industry events where they are forced interact with customers and behave like … salespeople!

[This is especially true if a company’s marketing staff comes from collegiate or administrative backgrounds – a common weakness in many mid-sized B-to-B firms where the most lucrative upward career paths take employees through engineering, R&D or sales, not through marketing and communications.]

Social media reminds us, once again, that the key to success in business is “mixing it up” with customers and prospects. We need to make sure we do the same inside our own companies.

The End of Privacy

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An article by technology author Steve Lohr published last week in The New York Times caught my eye. Titled “How Privacy Vanishes Online,” it explores how conventional notions of “privacy” have become obsolete over the past several years as more people engage in cyber/social interaction and web e-commerce.

What’s happening is that seemingly innocuous bits of information are being collected, “read” and reassembled by computers to build a person’s identity without requiring direct access to the information.

In effect, technology has provided the tools whereby massive amounts of information can be collected and crunched to establish patterns and discern all sorts of “private” information.

The proliferation of activity on social networking sites such as Flickr, Facebook and LinkedIn is making it easier than ever to assemble profiles that are uncanny in their accuracy.

Pulling together disparate bits of information helps computers establish a “social signature” for an individual, which can then be used to determine any number of characteristics such as marital status, relationship status, names and ages of children, shopping habits, brand preferences, personal hobbies and other interests, favorite causes (controversial or not), charitable contributions, legal citations, and so on.

One of the more controversial experiments was conducted by MIT researchers last year, dubbed “Project Gaydar.” In a review of ~4,000 Facebook profiles, computers were able to use the information to predict male sexual preference with nearly 80% accuracy – even when no explicit declaration of sexual orientation was made on the profiles.

Others, however, have pointed to positive benefits of data mining and how it can benefit consumers. For instance, chain grocery stores can utilize data collected about product purchases made by people who use store loyalty cards, enabling the chains to provide shoppers relevant, valuable coupon offers for future visits.

Last year, media company Netflix awarded a substantial prize to a team of computer specialists who were able to develop software capabilities to analyze the movie rental behavior of ~500,000 Netflix subscribers … and significantly improve the predictive accuracy of product recommendations made to them.

To some, the Netflix program is hardly controversial. To others, it smacks of the “big brother” snooping that occurred in an earlier time during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, when over-zealous Senate staffers got their hands on movie store rental records to determine what kind of fare was being watched by the nominees and their families.

Indeed, last week Netflix announced that it will not be moving forward with a subsequent similar initiative. (In all likelihood, this decision was influenced by pending private litigation more than any sort of altruism.)

Perhaps the most startling development on the privacy front comes courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University, where two researchers have run an experiment wherein they have been able to correctly predict the Social Security numbers for nearly 10% of everyone born between 1989 and 2003 – almost 5 million people.

How did they do it? They started by accessing publicly available information from various sources including social networking sites to collect two critical pieces of information: birthdate, plus city or state of birth. This enabled the researchers to determine the first three digits of each Social Security number, which then provided the baseline for running repeat cycles of statistical correlation and inference to “crack” the Social Security Administration’s proprietary number assignment system.

So as it turns out, it’s not enough anymore merely to be concerned about what you might have revealed in cyberspace on a self-indulgent MySpace page or in an ill-advised newsgroup post.

Social Security numbers … passwords … account numbers … financial data. Today, they’re all fair game.

Companies are Concerned about the Risks of Social Media

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As blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media tools have moved into the mainstream in a big way, managers at many companies are responding with interest … as well as concern. On the “interest” side, social networking is seen as having great potential for enhancing relationships with customers and promoting brand affinity. But there’s also “concern” that social media has the potential to damage a company’s reputation through the dissemination of information that is unflattering, taken out of context, or simply wrong.

Now, thanks to a July 2009 national survey of nearly 500 management, marketing and HR executives conducted by Minneapolis-based firms Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, we have a more quantitative idea of the collective corporate thinking about pluses and minuses of social media.

Four out of five respondents in the Russell Herder/Ethos field research believe that social media can help build a company’s brand. In addition, nearly 70% see social media as a viable employee recruitment tool, while two out of three recognize its potential as a customer service tool.

But the survey also found that over 80% of respondents believe that social media poses a corporate security risk. Similarly, half of the respondents consider social media to be detrimental to employee productivity.

These findings show that senior company managers are somewhat ambivalent about social media. They see its positive potential … but at what cost? On the other hand, is shutting the door on social media a wise response (or even a viable one)?

One solution to this dilemma is to be found in dusting off an old standby – the employee handbook. In many companies, policies have evolved over the years to cover pretty much every kind of issue – from what constitutes approved and non-approved workplace activities, attendance policies, and conducting personal business during office hours to policies regarding alcohol consumption, gender/age/racial discrimination, and sexual harassment.

Why not incorporate new guidelines outlining the company’s philosophy toward social media and what constitutes appropriate company-related social media activities on the part of employees?

While it may also be a very good idea to conduct meetings or training sessions on social media as well, this a good first step that will give employees a sense of the “boundaries” they should observe when commenting on company-related issues in the social media realm.

The alternative is a “Wild West” atmosphere in which a problem is destined to arise sooner rather than later. And when that occurs, if no formal social media policies are in place, the company will have no cause for defending itself in the court of public opinion – as well as little recourse for disciplining in addition to counseling the employees involved.

Recruiting New Employees in a Web 2.0 World

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Facebook has overtaken MySpace and other sites to become the largest and most popular social networking choice for young and old alike. And while LinkedIn still maintains an edge over Facebook as a professional networking resource, Facebook has done a very effective job in blurring the lines between personal and professional social interaction on the web.

The latest development that proves this is the increasing popularity of company “fan” pages on Facebook. Anyone can start a fan page showcasing a company they know and love … and many employees have taken the opportunity to create pages for their own organizations. My own company, Mullin/Ashley Associates, is no exception. Currently, Facebook offers more tools for uploading interesting content such as photo galleries and video clips, along with providing a great platform for news updates, wall postings and chat.

Going further, some companies have elected to turn Facebook into their vehicle of choice to promote themselves to prospective employees. Posting videos of employees talking about their positive work experiences … including pictures of the office environment … showcasing employee events … all of this brings a company to life far more effectively than just by advertising open positions on web job boards such as Monster.com.

The beauty of using Facebook in this manner is not only that companies can make a bigger and better impression, but they can do it without having to incur any significant cost. And if it’s done particularly well, it might even result in lower costs, as fee-based recruitment ad placements can be reduced or even eliminated.

Increasingly, people are being connected through social networks, and this phenomenon will only grow in the months and years ahead. In such an environment, companies that champion “content, creativity and community” will be the winners. That goes for hiring, as well.