Charlene Li, and Josh Bernoff are two of my favorite Social Media Experts. They published “Groundswell”, a book I strongly suggest and recommend to anyone looking to utilize social technology in their business strategy. Here are my notes:
Key roles and their Groundswell objectives:
- Research
- Marketing
- Sales
- Support
- Development
Charlene talking about specific applications that accomplish these objectives:
Del Monte community, invitation only, has conversations with their customers. Del Monte asks their customers questions like, “What does your dog eat for breakfast” and gets responses back from the customers. Then, more specific questions are asked, and a conversation is started. This information is hard to measure in a focus group, but can be gathered via a Groundswell.
Now Charlene’s talking about tampons. What, don’t like the subject? Neither do most people. P&G had this same problem, and created the social network, “Being Girl”. No branding of “P&G” on the site. In articles, adds things like, “Brought to you by Always pads”.
Brides.com: Allows the bride-to-be to create a count-down calendar on their Myspace page. Widget shows the countdown, and offers a challenge to get the widget. When a user clicks to get the widget, they go to brides.com to get the widget. With widgets like this, your fans are doing the selling for you.
Starbucks: Suggestion boxes. All suggestions are public, and can be voted by the community. Management talks back to the community and responds to their feedback!
Keys to success for pragmatists:
- Start with your customers
- Choose an objective you can measure
- Line up executive backing
- Romance the naysayers
- Start small, think big
Pragmatists bring companies and the groundswell together. Objectives are the key to successful social strategy. Use POST to frame your strategy. Think big, but start small.
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