Shel Israel has another great interview this time with Richard Binhammer, Director of Corporate Communications at Dell.

Richard talks about how they had become detached from their customers and suffered the loss of their number 1 position. They have been working hard over the last two years to use social media to help engage with their customer base. They have made mistakes, learnt and come back again the stronger for it. Richard talks about how listening and then acting on customer feedback has reduced negative sentiment by over 50%. Listening he feels is key.

Whilst ROI measurement is needed it is not the only driving force behind their strategy. Having customer communication pipelines via social media tools and knowing who is saying what about you online could be considered basic business needs.

Richard also comments on how they identified, tracked and analysed what the online community was saying about them. Whilst they are looking at a richer set of online reputation tracking and management tools much of it is still 'cut,paste and manually analyse'.  

Shel Israel has done an interesting video interview with Todd Parsons of BuzzLogic. BuzzLogic has a product and service that identifies who are the 'most influential' bloggers and what is happening to an organisations online brand reputation.

As Todd says just at the end of the interview (5.22) ...it is a new gig now. There is a whole section of the public who are influenced by online commentators, reviewers and communities of people. The mainstream media is still influential but the online media is growing in importance.

Todd demo's his companies product. It has a neat interface and gets around the problem of the DIY approach using tools like Google Alerts etc

Great post by Shel Israel as part of the SAP research series on social media and its impact in other cultures and markets. In this case it’s women in Saudi Arabia. It shows even in a culture with what many would consider restrictions and taboos -  social engagement will find a way. In this case using technology….

In the light of recent research from Ofcom showing that 49% of 8 - 17 years are using social media sites in the UK this comment from an interview with Shel Israel is worth companies pausing to consider for marketing and HR...

Question: What is the biggest finding from the many interviews you’ve done on the SAP Global Survey, what’s the one trend you’re finding?

"That’s easy. in every country, youth is driving social media adoption. That means that when the Club Penguin generation comes into the marketplace, most traditional marketing simply won’t work. So companies really need to start understand what SM tools work for them."

Note: Club Penguin is now owned by Disney.

 

A really excellent video interview by Shel Israel over at Fastcompany.tv. Shel interviews Fran Stephenson, Director of Comms at SeaWorld San Antonio and Kami Huyse of MyPRPro on how they used social media communication to successfully launch a new ride.

Their problem was that the ride was due to be ready a month earlier than the original date and so the planned promotion would not help. How could they quickly and effectively market the ride for that gap period?

They decided to use a social media campaign. Kami and Fran explain to Shel what they did to engage with communities that would help influence others. They actively engaged employees in video and text blogging to create excitement and targeted forums to maximise awareness.

What can other companies learn about using social media campaigns from this interview?

• Results can be measured
• Researching and targeting audiences is important (even theme park rides have an established fan base)
• Trying to restrict access to materials (corpororate logo police) is self-defeating (notice that Fran says they were happy for bloggers and forum members to use their materials in anyway they wanted in their own blogs)

Shel Israel is doing some great things with video. Check the interviews out at Fast Company TV

      Jeff Jarvis                        Shel Israel

It is really interesting to see how video is making inroads into citizen and now professional journalism.

Shel Israel has a thoughful post about how he is using video and his 'wisdom of the crowds' editorial control for article accuracy.

Beet.TV has an interesting article on how Reuters is mobile phone video to help news gathering.

Shel Israel has posted that the book he co-authored with Robert Scoble has just turned 2 years old.

You may want to check out my interview with Shel about his book that I did last year.

The book is a great read. It is now showing its age as many more corporations have joined the social networking and blogging community. The initial uptake by companies may have been a bit slower than many thought (including the authors) but without doubt a real momentum is building up. 2008 will see much of what Shel and Robert wrote about come to pass.

(Photo: Thanks to Buzz Bruggeman)

It's only been a few days since the Blog Council annouced its birth. Since then many bloggers have criticised the idea. Others have given it the benefit of the doubt. See Shel Israel (with links through to one of Dells bloggers take on it) and Jeff Jarvis

Founder members announced are AccuQuote, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Wells Fargo.

The Blog Council is a community for official corporate blogs and bloggers that represent major global corporations.

Our mission is to address the unique needs of blogging in a corporate environment.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet, share tactics and advice, and develop best practices. The organization teaches responsible, ethics-based corporate blogging.

The Blog Council CEO Andy Sernovitz is also CEO of GasPedal, a Word of Mouth communication consultancy. He also was a co-founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing.

Having spend a large part of my working life in corporations (25 years) versus agency/freelance (9 years) I can fully understand where the Blog Council members are coming from. Look at the world of corporates - it is full of trade associations. Will it be just be a big talking shop or a 'best practice' forum? Will it help establish a legitimacy for other companies to start blogging? It holds it first meeting in January 2008.

Having been on Government working parties and trade associations I just hope it is one of those that does deliver value. Some of the founder companies are not active in Europe. Others are. I wonder if the multi-national vendors will look at things globally? The good news is that SAP have just had Shel complete a global 'social media' research project. Taking that to the first meeting would be a great first step.

SAP comissioned Shel Israel, the co-author of the top selling blogging book, Naked Conversations to undertake a global survey on the state of social media. Shel is now releasing his findings in a series of posts. In the second one he pulls together his 'take away' summary of his findings. 

Shel Israel has been conducting a global survey on behalf of SAP on different countries attitudes and usages to social media.

In true 'naked conversations' format Shel has published responses online via his blog so allowing participants to compare and contrast what others have said. It is a fascinating process. Check out his blog and participate if you want.

To get the process going Shel contacted a few people direct by e-mail but also used LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media sites to get the message out there.

A real example to marketeers on how to use social media for market research.

Shel Israel, co-author with Robert Scoble of the best selling book 'Naked Conversations:How blogs are changing the way business talks with customers' has just become a fan of Facebook.

Robert is too!

A thoughtful post by Shel Israel on the world of CEO text blogging versus video blogging.

Coming from the world of corporate video and corporate communications I really think it is down to what platform the CEO is happiest with to ensure they really engage with their audience.

I have worked with some CEOs that were not ‘natural’ communicators. They looked uncomfortable and ‘wooden’ on a podium or in front of an audience but they were visionary and inspired and wrote wonderful e-mails, strategic documents and front pieces to the annual set of accounts. Of course with coaching and support they are able to pass muster but it does not feel right. You know what I mean. John Wayne had a flair for cowboy and uniform films. Put him in a modern setting and it just did not feel right.

Equally I have worked with some CEOs who leave all the detail to COO’s or CFO’s. They can ‘wow’ any audience – from VP to office receptionist – seemingly at the drop of a hat without any script. You can see that with politicians. Blair seems most comfortable in front of the TV cameras. Cameron too. Brown may surprise us but I bet he is most comfortable in small meetings and putting reports together. He seems ill at ease compared to others. Davis lost the Conservative party election as he just did not engage with the audience.

From the edit suite I can tell you ‘light editing’ may be possible but only on the basis that for some people we have had dozens of re-takes. They keep fluffing the line. Autocue I hear you say. Don’t be fooled – reading that without sounding-as-if-you-are reading-in-a-script-as-it-rolls-by in a non-monotone-voice is not as easy as it looks. Watch all those professional presenters fluff their lines so imagine what some executives are like. Having been through a few CEO recordings from hell I can tell you video is not for them. They will spend just as much time preparing, rehearsing and re-taking as it would have been to write a blog. Again coaching can help but somehow it often just does not sound or look right.

There is a half way house – audio podcasting. Many senior managers can articulate the message but without the pressure of a camera ‘staring’ at them and it takes them less time to than to write a blog. All they need as an outline topic script to make sure they hit their main points in a structured way. In fact some CEO’s record their blog and have it typed up with a light touch.

I have met Shel personally and had the pleasure of doning a couple of podcast recordings with him. I can vouch that he is a professional communicator – in the flesh, over the internet and in writing (check out his blog and book) but not everyone is so accomplished. CEO’s often need other skills to take them to the top.

CEO text blog, audio blog or video blog. It doesn’t matter. It’s the conversation and feedback that is important. Not having to time for the conversation is what worries me most about some CEO’s excuse for not doing anything.

Looking at all the research showing 50% of UK companies have disengaged employees you wonder if that starts at the top with CEO’s who are just too busy to blog or even communicate regularly with employees.

A very interesting video post by David Brain of Edelman Europe. He interviewed their head of Online Communications about the use of Social Media tools by French politicians in the Presidential campaign. If you watch you will see that two different strategies are being employed. One candidate is using the technology as a message delivery format. They are controlling the content. The other is using it as a conversation or engagement tool. They start a conversation and then participate in it. It remains to be seen who will be successful in the election and if either strategy helped. Shel Israel made similar comments on the US Presidential candidate campaigns recently.

Thinking about David's post I was struck by an issue raised at a HR conference I attended last week called 'Managing the Employment Relationship' held at Westminster Business School at the University of Westminster. Every speaker mentioned 'employee engagement' as a critical key to business success. (For politicians read 'Voter Engagement'). We heard lots of mentions of attitude and satisfaction surveys, line management communication failures and top-down communication techniques but only one passing mention of Social Media tools. This goes to the heart of the issue of engagement. Without interactivity how do I know that people have got my message, have dealt with possible issues and are then fully supporting? How do I know that I have not left them 'undecided' or worse 'not supporting'?

I work a lot with senior managers and executives, helping them improve their communication and presentation skills for live audiences and via podcasts. They care passionately about the audiences perception so we work with them on the message structure, use of ‘power words’, body language, voice pitch, tone and pace and personal image. Some are starting to use Social Media tools such as blogging and podcasting but most still rely on traditional surveys, focus groups and other 'non-interactive' forms of feedback. 

Some business leaders are happy to 'brainstorm' but most want it controlled and managed. Just like politicians (think party political conferences or debates) they seem to fear direct feedback. The danger is that the publics (and employees) attitudes are changing. Looking back at social history we see that each successive generation is more independently minded than their parents - almost like a right of passage.

Today's digital generation (15 - 35) is more inter-connected than ever before. Even older generations are getting comfortable with IT. My father, sadly no longer with us, was 78 when he went on a computer course to learn how to use the internet and e-mail so he could keep in touch 'with the world and my grandkids' and the biggest responders to Number 10’s e-Petition on road charging were the over 50s. Bill Gates and most of the early IT pioneers are now 50+.

Many people are using social media tools to communicate, share ideas and content. If business people (and politicians) are not using the tools in a way that the audience wants and expects they risk disengagement.

Over on Shel's blog he provided some thoughful suggestions on how to make your blog more effective.

Wise words and worth applying.

Check out our podcast interview with Shel Isreal. Shel is the co-author with Robert Scoble of the book, Naked Conversations - the top selling book of corporate blogging.

In the interview Shel compares progress in the US to Europe. In the US the take up of blogging has not been as fast as they both thought but he does point out that in whilst in February 2006 only 2 Fortune 500 companies were blogging - by October 2006 that had grown to 36. But this still means that over 90% are not blogging.

He sees traditional marketing and communication practies as the causes of delay but feels that the pressure from consumers will force a change of attitude.

Seems Shel Israel (co-author of Naked Conversations with Robert Scobel) has re-ignited their 'words' with CTO of Amazon over the value of Corporate blogging.

Yesterday I spent an hour or so chatting with Anita Yaa Agyeman who is organising the European Podcasting Summit in March 2007. She has spent the last couple of months talking to podcast production companies like ours and end users who are actually using them to help their business. Seems many corporates are still carefully considering the first step. Anita said the feedback she had was - many corporates are looking seriously at podcasts but are:

1. Struggling to find an ROI model to use
2. Want to clearly understand what content will attract and retain a business audience without damaging the brand
3. Worried if they start do not know where it will end.

This pretty much mirrors what Shel and Robert found. All I can say is that in a recent podcast with Shel he said corporate blogging faces the same arguments. But he stated that in February of this year only 2 companies in the Fortune 500 blogged. 9 months later this was 35. A massive increase in only a few months.

For the second time in a week I have had the same conversation with some Corporate marketeers. They say they understand the opportunity and power of blogging but they will not be doing it. They give two reasons:

• Fear of negative comments (or a 'Ratner Moment')
• Unclear of the ROI benefits

Having served my time in Corporate Marketing I can fully relate to the first one. When you have had to face a class action suit because a senior manager has said something 'off-script' you can get very nervous of uncontrolled comments from within a company. I have spent many hours with the finance, legal and PR teams in the past preparing scripts for senior management to use at earnings announcements or press interviews. An off-the-cuff remark or response to a questions can have a massive impact as Gerald Ratner and his company - and the shareholders - found to their cost. Many in the blogging community, quite rightly, champion transparency and openness. The converse is the risk of legal liability. Can a company avoid legal liability by putting a 'not company view but personal' on every blog post and distance themselves?

The other comment has been - 'looked at it but too much effort compared to the benefits'. Without understanding the company ROI model it is not easy to comment but from the conversation it seems they are looking at having people 'police' the blogs and issue and maintain policies and that are just too much management time and effort compared to the 'small number of people blogging'. But have they considered the advantage of 'early warning' it can give on issues consumers maybe having about their products or services? When a crisis hits every hour is important. As the saying goes 'A stitch in time saves nine'. Blogs can help. Companies spend vast money on market research. Blogs are a great two-way communications tool that can be used to get feedback on all sorts of areas including operations and product development. Blogs can also be used to supplement call centres which increasingly seem to be areas of mounting frustration for customers.  Have they factored is these areas to their ROI models? Maybe they would do well to read Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel to see how some organisations have been using blogs.

Corporates who have looked and made a decision to not go ahead will do well to keep monitoring the situation. Blogs are here to stay and will keep growing in importance.