Connect The Rise of Customer Communities: What the Social Media Explosion Means to Reference Programs April 10, 2007 Connect Connect with the audiences.

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The Rise of Customer Communities: What the Social Media Explosion Means to Reference Programs

April 10, 2007

ConnectConnect with the audiences and

influencers who matter

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[Social media tools enable customers to share with prospects, creating both disruptions and opportunities

for customer reference programs]

Questions to Answer• What is Social Media? • Why does it matter to Reference Programs? • How to understand and overcome the coming disruptions. • How to harness the coming opportunities. • Actionable next steps.

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Experienced Practice Leader

• Web as Career: Exodus, Cable and Wireless, World Savings, Hitachi

• Manager, Online Communities at Hitachi Data Systems

• Synched with Customer Reference Program

• Director of Corporate Media Strategy at PodTech

• New Media: Blogger, Video Blogger, Streaming Video,

• This is a case study, based on a single blog post

…to social media consultant

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Why is Consumer Generated Media (Voices of the people) Important?

http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/cgm.asp

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What is Social Media

Examples of Social Media• Blogs• Forums• Podcasts• Rating Sites• RSS• Wikis• Social Networks• Instant Messaging• Live Web Streaming

…tools that easily let people share and be found

They matter because:• The Trust factor• Impacts Google Results• Word of Mouth travels fast• Different than Broadcast Marketing

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The way it was…

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Social Media Disruptions

1. Customer References Content is selective2. Customers can easily publish their customer experiences on

Social Media tools3. Google makes finding opinions easy4. How Prospects can find Customer Opinions

1. Social/Network Ratings2. Blog Search Tools3. Sentiment Mining Tools4. Social network Search5. What’s next

Customers and talk directly to prospects bypassing a corporations, marketing and customer reference programs.

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Where it’s heading…

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The Future

• 1) Expanded Scope– There will be an overlap between the Customer Reference

Program and Community/Social media programs at many corporations over the next year.

– Community Marketing is designed to foster word of mouth.– Turning detractors into advocates

Customer Reference Programs will expand in scope or overlap with other corporate programs:

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The Future

• 2) Listening Toolset– Customer Reference Programs will use Social Media tools to find

customer opinions.– Customer References will be created organically.

Customer Reference Programs will be more efficient

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The Future

• 3) Authenticity– Effective Customer Reference programs will integrate negative

comments and opinions into it’s program for great trust and authenticity with the market.

Customer Reference Programs will have a change in voice to stay authentic:

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The Future

• 4) Conversational Toolset for Publishing– Customer Reference Programs will use Social Media tools to help

tell “stories”.

Customer Reference Programs will use new tools:

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What you can do:

1. Partner up!1. Community Manager and Social Media Programs

2. Start to Monitor and Listen to what Customers are Saying1. Listen in: Use tools like Google Alerts, Technorati, and Feedreaders

3. Engage and Harness Customer Feedback1. Engage2. Build from detractions

4. Reuse these references in other ways1. Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, and What’s next

5. Best Practices as Social Media1. Learn the rules of engagement, authenticity, transparency

6. Customer Reference Programs to use Social Media– Organize internally– Publicly recognize opinions – Capture and encourage those voices– Video shares human stories

Actionable Next Steps

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Questions and Challenges from Survey:

1. Avoiding reference burnout– Reuse content using other tools such as Podcasts, Blogs, Video

2. Developing customer communities (CABs, online communities, user groups, etc)– Consider “Joining” rather than only “Developing”

3. Integrating with sales– Three things I learned about Social Media for Sales

1. Living White Paper2. Rapid Response Tool3. Conversation Starter

4. Need for better reference management system and infrastructure– Marketing is not limited to the corporate website– Distributed on Web, learn how to listen and use

5. Making better use of customer intelligence– Use Blog Search tools to ‘listen in’

6. Creating collateral that has a clearer impact on sales and revenue– Story Telling with Social media

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Questions and Challenges from Survey:

Open Ended Questions:1. Social Media: How do people use Facebook, Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn and

MySpace.• 70% of Internet users use Social Networks

2. Social Media: How is it managed - outsourced vs. in house– Varies on situation

3. How are others using podcasts– Think “best practices” vs “customer testimonial”

4. How are other ref programs using blogs and wiki's?– Create a best practice blog– Jeremiah’s Industry Wiki

5. According to survey, some are monitoring blogs, and some have internal blogs– Air Traffic Control Tower

6. Getting customers to speak to media– Social Media can help, as it can be recorded and repurposed

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[Customer Advocacy Programs that integrate unfiltered opinions of customers will increase

trust, and accelerate the word-of-mouth network]

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Q&AFind me at:

Jeremiah Owyangweb-strategist.com/blog

Director, Corporate Media Strategy, PodTech.net