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Redefinition of Words for 21st Century Understanding

There is an interesting challenge in convincing a business to get involved in social media, or to "go social".

Quite simply the older school businessman cannot compute the idea of "social" in the framework of business.  Why on earth do I want my business to be social?

However once your business goes social it's the easiest thing to understand.  But how to cross the divide?

If social media were developed from the beginning with business in mind different terms would have been used.  Unfortunately it would probably also have developed as a hard sell, old school marketing medium which would have been terrible.  But because it grew from the ground up through personal interaction it has become the dynamic medium it is today.

So it is far too late to change the words.  However what this means is that it will change the definition of the words.  Words like "friend", "social" and "conversation" have all changed their scope and meaning to some degree in the 21st century.

So in overcoming the challenge of the "why social" businessman we have to be smart in imparting the new definitions. If, of course, we can all agree on what the new definitions are.

What other words are being redefined by Social Media?

Will your bank ever send you a friend request?

Customer service is the bane of the business/consumer connection.

"Relationship" is defined as: the mutual dealings, connections, or feelings that exist between two parties, countries, people, etc: a business relationship. 

"Friendship" is defined as: a friendly relation or intimacy; friendly feeling or disposition. 


Social Media has radically changed everything about how our world does business and interacts. Perhaps the modern conundrum of customer relations needs to be turned on its head and the social medium is the way it will be done. Looking at the definition of relationship above, it's a little cold.  This certainly describes my interaction with say Vodacom or Nedbank. What if customer relations became customer friendships.  Sounds pretty wishy washy but stay with me.

Facebook forever changed the definition of a friend.  It moved from being a very tight association to a lot more loose and fraternal.  It was now possible to be friends with someone you had never met half a world away.  Quite possibly you will never meet this friend but nonetheless you're friends.

On the same basis then, should it not be possible for the same relationship to be forged between a business and its customer?  Of course it's possible and there are some very forward thinking businesses that have done so to one degree or another.

I can communicate with someone on many platforms almost anywhere in the world:  text message, instant chat, phone, email, facebook, twitter.  I am able to carry on a conversation across these platforms - moving a phone conversation to facebook chat or Blackberry Messenger.

Imagine a similar relationship with your bank - you receive an SMS about an insurance offer.  You respond by SMS saying you'd like more info.  The conversation then moves to a facebook chat to get all your questions answered, the policy document is emailed to you for your records.

Sounds terribly fanciful, I know, but it is very possible.

And here it comes..... BUT:

This will require that a business view its customer very differently.  Every division in a business has their own view of the customer - Accounts wants money, marketing wants you to view a value proposition and sales wants you to sign up right now.   In the modern economy every division would have to see its customer as one thing - a friend.

This may well need to mean the death of the call centre or a monumental re-engineering of their culture and practice.

A move in this direction in some form will have to take place as greater and greater demand is placed on  businesses to "go social".

So how about it Vodacom - wanna be my friend?

Leave your thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Internal Corporate Communication: Going Social!

How to communicate effectively with your whole team? A question that has plagued execs since there were corporates.  And the bigger they get the bigger the plague.

Today I sat down with Gerry Skerrit, Managing Director of Dream Team Catalyst,  probably South Africa's premier Team Building company.  With their head office in Midrand they have 20 staff including 4 in their Cape Town office.

I discovered a couple weeks ago that they use a social media platform for their internal social interaction and communication called Yammer.  Since I've been billing myself as a social media expert I was embarrassed to admit that I had not heard of it till then.  But what a revelation!

So much focus of social media marketing and business application of the platform is brand interaction with its customers.  But a major stumbling block in implementing a strategy is how to get all employees and departments singing off the same sheet.  The answer is as obvious as it is profound: Your internal company structure needs to go social!

Yammer is essentially a Facebook type platform but it is only open to the employees of a company.  This is enforced through the company email domain.  Only people with your company email address can join the network.

I asked Gerry how this has benefited the Dream Team. "Everyone feels a part of the team.  Our Cape Town office often felt isolated because they didn't always know what we were doing.  With Yammer they are in the loop constantly.  And being an instant platform there is no lag in information." There is a Yammer smart phone app which is what makes it instant so even when staff are on the road they can interact with their colleagues and be informed and, of course, engage themselves.

Gerry emphasizes that it is a fun platform where staff can interact, post pictures and poke a bit of fun at each other.  I was amazed to learn that they have been using it for 18 months - that's some impressive forward thinking.

When I asked him why Dream Team went this way his answer was also blindingly obvious - being a team building company he says "we realise that the medicine we dispense [team building] is also good for us. We must have a good sense of ourselves as a team and Yammer has made this easier."

Although they do still make use of an internal email system for "chunkier" communications Gerry is very definite when he says that going social internally has revolutionised the company's communication and there is no going back. The longer they use it the more it has become an integral part of the every day workflow.

The vibe of the Dream Team office reflects this socialness. It's easy going and people appear to be enjoying their work.  This may have a lot to do with Gerry's infectious jovial nature but the focus on social engagement in the office must surely help.

But what about a company that has a far greater workforce?  In a few weeks I will be interviewing someone who is implementing Yammer in a company that has 6500 employees across the country. It's an old established company and she took the cowboy approach of setting it up without the proper clearances.  So far 10% of staff have joined the network. I can't wait to see the waves of change that is generating.

Does your company have any kind of internal social media platform? What have been your experiences?

South Africa's 10 Most Popular Company Facebook Pages

I just read a blog by Jeff Bullas covering the world's 10 most popular Company Facebook pages. That lead me to thinking which are the top 10 pages in South Africa.

It is very interesting to note that there is only one company that features in the top 20 overall in South Africa.  The rest are all musicians, celebrities or sports teams.  I was stunned to see that Cell-C didn't make the top 10, languishing with just under 5000 fans. If the list tells us one thing it's that there is real estate to be claimed by companies and brands that think quick and act social. Where are the big tech companies? Vodacom just makes it in while MTN lags far behind.

Here we go, from 10 to number 1:

10. Vodacom (34,452 fans)

Vodacom has a huge community (40+ million customers throughout Africa) and are definite contenders one feels that they would have done a lot better building their Facebook presence. Their landing page presents a great call to action with the possibility of winning a Galaxy Tab.

9. Mr. Price (38,439 fans)

This page is doing well considering they have no "call to action" buttons on their page.  Their landing page is the wall, not necessarily a bad idea but the first thing I saw were complaints about rude staff.  To their credit Mr. Price responded quickly.  It would be a better idea to land visitors on a page that presents a better idea of what they offer. Being in retail they could do a lot more to encourage engagement through incentives.

8. Blackberry South Africa (38,864 fans)

With Blackberry's domination in the South African smart phone market it is not surprising that they would be up there. There is very little in it for the last three places in the top 10 with just 4000 fans separating these three. 

7. Discovery Vitality (45,467 fans) 

With this many fans they must be doing something right.  However there is no clear indication when you get to the page what you are supposed to do with it.  The landing page is the wall with posts from numerous customers - both compliments and complaints. There is a "tell us your story" tab which has a image that links to their website but no clear "Call to Action" buttons. 

6. www.rentaskilldirect.com (46,558 fans).  

I wasn't even sure that this one should count.  I had never heard of it.  It's basically a place to list (advertise) your skill and hopefully get work.  More power to 'em. 

5. Doritos South Africa (47,335 fans) 

This is a fantastic page - great call to action with a competition on their landing page.  Their wall is filled with customers engaging with the brand. 

4. Woolworths (72,431 fans)

There are only 13,000 fans separating the top five. But in 4th position Woolworths is 25,000 fans ahead of Doritos so they've done something very right. Great page, great incentives and great engagement. 

3. 5FM (87,301 fans)

5FM have been defining youth culture since I was a youth and so they continue. They have used social media very well but I am surprised they find themselves behind #2 on the list.  I have a suspicion that this has got to do with fears of diverting traffic from their very well developed website. A well thought out strategy of tighter integration between their website and their social presence would soon get them challenging the number one spot. 

2. Huisgenoot (140,487 fans) 

Beating third position by a whopping 53,000 fans Huisgenoot has capatalised on its large and loyal readership and extended it's community very well onto Facebook. 

1. Nando's (568,333 fans)

The out and out winner by a lap or three is Nando's.  They've always made great use of their marketing spend and I'm sure it is their adverts, which are featured on their page, that have drawn the fans.  However one complaint: They have allowed the page to be hijacked by spam postings and there doesn't seem to be very active engagement - a posting every few days.  Perhaps they're waiting or their next big campaign. 

Which companies do you feel are conspicuous by their absence? Let me know in the comments. 

Source: www.famecount.com was the source for much of the information in this post.  However, for reasons I couldn't decipher Vodacom was not listed on this site. This means there may well be discrepancies. Please let me know of any. 

The Dog Ate my Observation

Businesses, both large and small, are at an interesting juncture in South Africa with regard to social media.  There is a sense of anxiety about it.  Businesses are aware that they should be "doing" social media - the numbers are just too overwhelming to be ignored. But all too often there is a knee jerk reaction to it - slapping up a Facebook page, opening a twitter account and working desperately to rack up the followers and 'likes'.

After a rush of excitement the pages go stale and the Twitter account lies dormant. Or worse, negative sentiment takes over and sits unresolved. (Examples are SAA'S Facebook page and @AltechAutopage's Twitter account)

Like any failed plan the homework was left at home.

Before any business can implement a social media plan that will actually be sustainable there has to be a period of observation - listening to the conversation that is going on.

What crowds are talking about your industry, your brand, your competition?  Where are they having these conversations?

Only by having the complete picture can you then make the best use of the appropriate tools.  These days social media tends to be synonymous with Facebook or Twitter.  Yet there are so many platforms that focusing on those is like trying to see the entire room through a keyhole.  There are blogs (and there are at least 4 major blogging platforms); video sites, group buying and many more.

As when we were at school it always home work that ruins the afternoon. Often we would leave it for later only to be frantically scribbling on the bus the next morning to school.  The result was generally the same. Trouble. The most obvious solutions often tends to be ignored.  Do the homework and then spend a worry free and fun filled afternoon and evening doing what you want.

And so it is.  Doing your social media homework can be tedious and it can't be rushed.  Patiently searching and looking and noting results.  Over a period of two weeks, or even a month the picture emerges.  You will know where you are.  And only once you know where you're located can you figure out how to get from there to the destination.

Without this step you are squandering your investment in this platform.

The results that will come from proper observation will be clear.  Before long you will have built a community that is engaged enthusiastically with your product.

LISTEN. OBSERVE.

Ryan Hogarth - Talking to the Crowd

On the 22nd of February 2001 I delivered a presentation entitled "Talking to the Crowd: Your Business and Social Media".

I have included here a few clips from that presentation which will hopefully give a sense of what this presentation is about.

Autopage Cellular: Unavailable at Present?

A week ago I read an article by tech journalist Ben Kelly on a sequence of dreadful customer service he experienced at the hands of Autopage Cellular after being robbed in his home.  The article really upset me.  I've never dealt with Autopage Cellular but I have experienced the sheer frustration that Ben describes in trying to get something done by a seemingly faceless corporate that won't talk to you.  And we've all shared similar stories around a braai or at dinner with friends.

The bigger the corporate the worse the engagement seems to be at times.  How is this is possible in the social media age?

I thought I'd take a quick look at how Autopage is working to engage its customers.  Unfortunately the short answer is that they are not.  They have a twitter account @altechautopage.  Take a look at it.  They've tweeted 46 times spread over 4 different days between September last year and 20th Jan (no tweets since then).  All tweets are advertising a phone or contract.  In short, no conversation but old school shotgun advertising which has no place on the social web. They did submit a response to Ben Kelly's article - standard corporate stuff that did nothing to mitigate the obvious problems.

And sadly that's the sum total of their social engagement - no facebook page, no blog. I made an attempt to contact them through their website but their contact form didn't seem to work - at any rate I've had no feedback from them since filling in the contact form yesterday. A search on twitter for "autopage" shows some very unhappy customers and I sent out multiple tweets on the matter, yet they are oblivious to the conversation taking place without them and a light year from responding to it.

Close to a billion consumers worldwide are today engaged through social media and we now demand personal engagement with the brands and businesses who want our money and loyalty.  The digital artillery exists that we can and should cease being apathetic about horrible customer service and make businesses feel our frustration and pain.  Bad service should go viral wherever it exists and companies that treat us like individuals and talk to us should get all the support we can throw at them.

So pull out your tweets, your status updates, your blogs and your Foursquare tips and do not allow disengaged corporate South Africa to get away with ignoring us.  Let us drag them screaming into the conversation.

What are your views on how to get corporates talking to us? Give me your thoughts in the comments.

Professional Speakers Make for a Positive Disposition

From Monday the 21st to Wednesday the 23rd Feb I was at the Meetings Africa Expo, Sandton Convention Centre.

During these 3 days I had the privilege of listening to some amazing speakers - Andy Rice (Death of Advertising); Helen Nicholson (the Art of Networking); Donna Rachelson (Branding and Marketing YOU); Gary Bailey (Leadership); Debora Patta (Why South Africa is the best place to live); Gerry Skerrit (21st Century Team Building); Robin Wheeler (Being Yourself for a Living); Justin Cohen (What's Your Story?); Iain Johnston (Searching for Customers); Justice Malala and a number more.

Having listened intently to all of these presentations I learned much about being a public speaker (my original intention in sitting through the presentations).  However what I took away was so much more valuable.

To keep it short I learned that we are living in an evolving world - so much has changed about how we go about life, how we interact with life and how we should be interacting with life - in business in particular but also personally.

Through the information imparted I see that in general there is an awakening in business that human potential is vast and that an individual can contribute so much more to the greater good if they are just allowed to.  And as individuals make up the greatest assets of business it makes perfect sense to empower, encourage and just allow people to grow.

Business is slowly coming around to the idea that just maybe they are not the be all and end all to human civilization but rather a conduit, through it's people, to making a better world.

And lastly I came away from all of these discussion with a real sense of excitement about my life and my future and the future of this fabulous country.  All presentations had this positive sense of the future and I'm glad to be part of it.

Thanks to all who presented.

Talking to the Crowd

We hold the power of the world in our hands through Social Media - But we must have a plan!

"Talking to the Crowd" is the subject of my 45 minute keynote presentation as well as the focus of my interaction with business and enterprise.


Here are a random sampling of facts which illustrate why your business is out of touch with the modern economy if you are not connected and engaging in Social Media:

• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users, it took the internet just 4 years.  Facebook went to 50 million in 3 years and then to 350 million in less than 24 months. 
• Social Media users spend 17.5 hours a week on social media sites.
• The 100 million businesses in the world are only generating 20% of the data on the internet.  The remaining 80% is being generated by consumers (your customers) in personal engagement.  Now THAT is a conversation worth being part of!
• 5 of the worlds top 10 most visited sites are social networking sites (with Facebook at # 1). 
• These figures will grow exponentially as access to the internet becomes faster, easier and cheaper.

In short social media has become the dominant form of communication and because of this consumers have formed tight networks of people that they consider to be "just like me".  And those networks are TRUSTED.  Business and government are not. 90% of consumers say they trust social media recommendations.  Only 14% trust advertising. 

Consumers are hungry for engagement with your company and your product and the modern economy demands that you be there. 

To say that "crowd sourcing" is the future of business is to state a fact whose time is already here.  The good news is that this is the easiest train to catch.  It is not difficult to catch up - all it requires is a start and a little guidance and before long any business or enterprise will be among the crowd with the best of them. 

Facebook - why resistance is futile

My mother finally got onto Facebook today and I was her first confirmed friend.  This was no small event in my family but she still distrusts it intensely.  It was her arrival into the second biggest nation on earth that inspired me to write this short piece.

Facebook is unstoppable.  250 million people signed up last year and the total population will top 600 million in short order.  To call it a juggernaut is an anachronistic irony but it does express the idea of its unstoppable momentum.

Despite the furor early last year on it's privacy issues and numerous attempts at mass resignations Facebook has become this generation's standard for interaction and communication.  And it's not just Facebook for it's own sake.  Facebook is the biggest representation of the social media society.  It pretty much defines human civilization in the 21st century. Of course there is resistance - there always is to change.

Reasons for the resistance vary - I've heard a few: "I don't trust the bastards"; "I don't have time for it"; "It's voyeuristic"; "It's narcissistic" and "people should interact in person".  All of these are variations of "I just don't understand the modern world".

All the rules are changing - how we view the world; how we do business; how we see each other.

Those who are connected to the internet but who refuse the world of social media will increasingly find themselves isolated and disconnected. The same thing happened with email, the same thing happened with mobile phones. It becomes impossible to interact with a world when it doesn't recognise the way you are interacting with it.  If you sent me a personal letter in the mail, chances are I'll never see it.  I only empty my postbox when it can no longer fit any mail in it and then it gets dumped in a basket in my office where I'll one day make my way through it. Similarly for business, your customers will understand you less and less if they aren't engaged socially.

And as access becomes cheaper and faster and easier so you will see this steam train gather momentum.  Already almost 30,000 people a day are finding their way to the nation of Facebook.

So whether you like it or not we will all be swept away in the wave. And if you don't like it the best way to get that message out is to sign up, log-in and post it as a status update.

Resistance is indeed futile but instead of resigning oneself to it, find you're voice and embrace it.

Foursquare - The Unrealised Promise for Retail

We as consumers are driving the world more and more social. As we do business is under more and more pressure to embrace this brave new world.  Any business that does not know each of it's customers is flirting with the danger of becoming irrelevant.

On new years eve I had a very expensive dinner at Rich Bar & Grill with some friends.  As has become our routine we all checked in with Foursquare.  My good friend Daryl was delighted to be informed that he was now the Mayor of the eatery and we held a mini celebration at the table in honour of his achievement. However I was struck by the fact that the owner (who was there) had no clue - no one rushed up to offer him a free glass of bubbly or a pat on the back.

With a little more thinking on the subject I have concluded that Foursquare provides massive promise for retail stores.  South Africans live in a mall culture.  I don't have international stats but I would be willing to bet that we are more mall-reliant than most nations in the world.  This makes Foursquare the perfect tool.

In the example of the restaurant above, here are a few things they could do to generate a bit of loyalty.  An in an age of almost unlimited choice loyalty is on the most endangered of endangered species lists.

- Firstly and most obviously be on Foursquare themselves and be aware of who is checking in and what "tips" they are leaving.
- Encourage customers to get on Foursquare and check in and leave their tips. Offer specials that make it attractive (every 50th check in gets 10% or whatever).
- Instantly correct negative tips.
- Offer a special for the Mayor.  Make him or her feel like the Mayor.  Make them an ambassador for your brand by encouraging customers to compete for the Mayorship with due reward!

The above are probably the simplest of the basics but this would already start generating a little buzz around their brand.

I did a little checking around the world, just for coffee shops.  The average Star Bucks in LA has over 2500 Foursquare check-ins.  Mugg & Bean at Eastgate has 1.  At Bedford Centre it's a little better at 64 (my wife just became the Mayor - not that they know or care). So clearly there are gaps in the market that could be fantastically worked by a socially aware retail brand.

I'm sure that within a few months of this writing the space will become crowded which will leave further gaps for innovation and inspiration.

What a world we're living in!