Are you ruining your business reputation?

When it comes to business networking, LinkedIn has been the trusted platform of choice. A large number of members are conscious of the fact that they need to have a professional profile. A further reduced number is making the most of the “Status update” to bring value to their network and drive traffic to good content. Over the last weeks and months, the level of professionalism of the “Status Updates” has dropped considerably. When you were looking for people that said that “hated their job” or “were bored”, you needed to do this on platforms such as Facebook. We all remember the “OMG, I hate my job post on Facebook”.

Well, today you can find similar posts on LinkedIn with compliments of Twitter.  Thanks to LinkedIn Signal search option, these messages now become very apparent and public.  I am even convinced the people who have these types of posts are no longer aware of the fact they linked their Twitter account to their LinkedIn account.  So messages such as below are now regulars on LinkedIn reducing the level of professionalism of certain people.

On another note, we all know the name calling of Facebook, but say welcome to similar expressions on LinkedIn!  Here are some examples.

Do you really want your professional reputation tarnished by these types of comments?  Your co-workers are listening to you on business networks… not to mention your current and future employers.

Though it is simple to connect your social media accounts, you really need to think this through.  Do you really want people to see where you are eating (Foursquare to Twitter to LinkedIn)? What you are doing in the garden or what store you are at?  If you are a frequent Twitterer, the constant status updates will annoy the hell out of your contacts and you will soon be stopped being followed in professional networks achieving the opposite of what you were aiming for.

If you want update your status on multiple networks, consider using tools such as tweetdeck or hootsuite where at least you know where you are posting the messages.  And remember to disconnect all post-through actions.

Can a serenity prayer help social media marketers?

We all know that marketers are a strange breed. I am also one of them.  We are the people with the latest gadgets, following the newest trends and do the fun things in the company.  So social media is like a gift from the gods.  Every day a new tool or platform emerges.  It is hard to keep up with the newest technologies.  Never a sad day again!

We have also discovered that these social media fit our toolbox perfectly. We can get close to our customers; create more visibility for our company; built more interactive campaigns; and send out more messages to the world.

As marketers we know we have to listen to what is said about us.  We soon find out that we are not alone sending out messages about our company, products and people.  These messages also come from our co-workers.  We get upset since we consider ourselves the only one that can speak in name of our company.  We are losing control of the brand and it makes us furious.

Company management also have gotten the fact that people, including their own employees, are speaking about them.  So they are requesting that a social media policy be created to guide the employees when using social media.

The job is often given to HR or IT to come up with such a policy. With a little bit of luck, marketing gets called to chip in (from my personal experience more and more).  However, it freaks us out to live by all these rules.  We feel caged by these rules and they limit our creativity.

Our skepticism stands in the way of us seeing how such a policy can actually help us turn these employees into great ambassadors.  We keep on saying that there should be only 2 rules: “people have to use their good judgment” and “we are the only one to speak about the company”.  But every day we see examples in the newspapers of how people are using their good judgment.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter blunders happen all over the world every day!  We should really understand that we should contribute to a positive social media policy rather than fighting it.

I want to offer the marketers some advice I heard from some self help groups.  We have to accept that there are things we can not change (loss of control of your brand); have the courage to change the things we can change (contribute to a policy); and have the wisdom to see the difference between these two (share our social skills to make our co-workers become our ambassadors).

Trade Unions and Social Media Policies: an explosive mixture

I am looking with a lot of interest at the actions of trade unions when it comes to social media policies in companies.  Over the last months several court cases, which I do not care to mention (just Google “social media policy union”), have made the news and have spread via different media across the world.  It is true that currently most of the controversy is coming out of the US but I am sure in time we will have similar discussions in Europe.

There are 2 points that intrigue me:

• Trade Unions about Social Media policies
• Social Media policy in Trade Unions

I know that I am touching on very sensitive points.  So I think we need to face this topic before more discussions end up as social media cases.

Trade Unions about Social Media Policies

As more and more companies are seriously beginning to look at creating and implementing a Social Media Policy to control their employees, it raises more attention with the trade unions.  We all know that controlling social media is impossible!  So what am I seeing?

• Some companies have realized that rather than creating a strict policy it is better (for company ambassadorship) to provide guidelines to the employees.
• More and more companies are involving different functions and departments during the creation phase of a policy. We see HR, marketing and IT collaborate on such policies.

My recommendation, however, is that you make the trade unions part of your project team to create the company social media policy.  Daring?  Impossible?  Not!  Speaking from experience, it can be done!

Social Media Policies in Trade Unions

Source: Alexwhite.org

Trade Union members are active on social media, let’s not deny this.  While most are there from a personal point of view, some are their as a trade union member.  This brings me to wonder if trade unions have their own social media policy or even social media guidelines since they are a brand too. What guidelines or policies are in place for trade union members to react via social media?  Just imaging how much damage the trade union brand and reputation could suffer from not having these guidelines. So far, I have not found one trade union that has published a policy but it would be interesting to see what their guidelines/policy looks like.

My recommendation is that Trade Unions should create, implement, communicate and publish their social media policy so their members do not hang out the trade union’s dirty laundry.

Conclusion

My business mantra is that you can complain about a problem but you need to come up with at least one solution.  So if trade unions are going to fight social media policies, they need to have one themselves and companies must include the trade unions in their social media project creation and delivery teams.

I would love to hear your comments and feedback.

Not getting recruited via social networking? Do not worry, you are not alone.

The results from a recent survey (September-October 2010) from Executives Online Ltd (www.executivesonline.com) puts a bit of shade on the so much hyped social networking as a means to efficient recruitment. This is the second year the survey was conducted.

Over 1200 senior executives were surveyed and asked about their opinion and effectiveness of social networking in their personal and professional life.  In concurrence with many surveys in this area, including the study done by Mic Adam from Vanguard Leadership of July 2010, LinkedIn was deemed by most professionals as the most interesting social networking site with Facebook coming in as a good second and Twitter as a third.   All these platforms grew in importance over the last 12 months.

As can be expected, LinkedIn is viewed as the most useful platform for recruitment (90%) while the other platforms are struggling to get to 50%.  This is understandable since the audience surveyed is executive level.  Facebook is still viewed as purely private networking while Twitter is a big unknown to many.

With the hype around social media in general, more and more people are resorting to these platforms to find a new job but few have actually succeeded at securing such a position.  I think this really reflects the practice in the recruitment market. The numbers do show a 50% increase over last year’s results which holds a good promise for the future.  Let’s be honest, social networking still has to find its ‘balanced’ place in the mix of tools used by managers and recruiters both professionals and corporate.

When it comes to hiring via social networking sites, the numbers are even lower.  Fewer than 5% of the respondents have actually tried to hire through social networks and even fewer have hired people recruited through social networks.  So the conclusion is that the supply of job seekers far exceeds the demand (job offerings).  However, here too the numbers are on the rise.

Even though there is certainly an uptake of social networking for recruitment, there are some serious showstoppers which hold true for all trades when it comes to social media.  They can be summarized as follows: lack of authenticity, the myth that social networking is for younger and less senior people, and most importantly, the time factor since keeping a social media presence takes time to maintain and follow up.  This is where a lot of falls apart.  Managers and recruiters, just like marketeers, are finding that using social media & networking is a time consuming activity but keep in mind that going to network meetings is too!

Even though these numbers do not seem to live up to the hype, I feel they really reflect the reality of today.  There are,  of course, today recruitment agencies as well as private companies that are getting more than 15% of their new hires through social networking, it is realistic to say that social networking recruitments will be responsible for 10% of the new hires in the future.  The traditional method will continue to exist and possibly regain their strength.

The full survey can be found at:

http://www.executivesonline.co.uk/about_us/reports/social_networking

Do you have a success story and want to share your secret on how to get recruited via social networking,  I would love to hear about it.

Is your social media monitoring flawed?

Once you have stepped through the gate of social media, you realize that social media monitoring is a must.  Having followed several discussions about social media monitoring, I am constantly amazed to hear what people seem to be using as their monitoring tool.

Overview

I think there is a need to explain what we mean when we speak about social media monitoring.  To illustrate what I consider to be the different levels of monitoring, I want to make a comparison to life on and around a golf club.

In the golf club	Translates to social media
Your golf partner talks to you and you listen and engage in a conversation	Messages are posted on your social media profiles and you must respond
Fellow golfers in the club house are talking about you	People are mentioning your company name, product and or people in social media
Everyone is talking about new trends in golfing or great golf clubs to visit	Trending topics, client & competitor mentions

I can hear some of you say that I am missing sentiment analysis.  Though this is important, the quality and quantity of messages are critical and come first.  Sentiment analysis comes second.

Practically

I have been running a number of social media monitoring tools on 3 types of information:  my name (mic adam), a small business (multiple companies including vanguard leadership) and a generic term.  Tools include software such as Google alerts, Socialmention, Tracebuzz, Backtype, Tweetdeck,  Engagor, and many more.

Listening to your own accounts is simple but a lot of time forgotten by companies as has been demonstrated by research by Wildfire PR and Vanguard Leadership in their social media monitoring research.

Monitoring social media for company or product mentions is a different animal all together.  Today, there are a lot of tools available from free to paid services, but…

The results are baffling and lack every sense of consistency.  I would like to demonstrate this using the generic term “social media policy”.  The daily results over a period of 5 days are summarized in the following table:

Tool	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A	300	158	259	87	81
B	124	149	149	163	99
C	15	33	13	20	15
D	0	0	0	1	1

Where is the consistency in this?

Another thing I noticed is all the tools do not pick up the same messages.  Even worse, some tools pick up incorrect messages (even after tuning).  Social media is really a form of business intelligence and as a user you are dependent on the quality of the data warehouse your supplier delivers.

Conclusions

• There are different tools available that accomplish different things.  Tweetdeck might be great to monitor your own accounts, but may be less appropriate to monitor keywords
• There is not ONE  tool that will provide you all the information.  You need to implement and use several tools to have complete view.
• When running different tools you need human intervention to review and aggregate the results as well as the sentiment analysis.

Do you have similar experiences? Know of a great tool that does everything and is affordable? Want to give feedback?  I love to hear from you.

Are you checking in into your hospital?

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a Belgian journalist (Peter Backx, editor of the Artsenkrant) asking if I had any data on whether the Belgian hospitals had any presence in social media. I was intrigued by the question and did some research which I will discuss later on in this blog.

The first question that comes to mind when such an inquiry pops up is whether and what hospitals are doing anywhere else in this world. Hospitals are mostly risk and discussion averse which completely opposite of social media. New projects are meticulously planned and kept under good cover. But still it seems that in the USA hospitals are embracing social media big time. From Facebook over Twitter to YouTube! Hospitals are finding their way to applications to increase their customer service, training (both patients and nurses), PR and crisis communication. There are several great examples around (Mayo Clinic, University of Maryland, etc.). A source of information is slideshare where there are some great presentations available on the subject.

Looking closer to home, Lucien Engelen recently noticed a significant increase in the social media presence in Holland. The number shot up from single digits to 30% presence in different types of social media. Similar to the USA, Dutch hospitals are uploading videos on YouTube, tweeting or posting messages on both Facebook and LinkedIn. One reason might be that hospitals are for profit and consider their patients potential clients (instead of just sick people). Another reason is that the effort of joining social media is headed up by HR which hopes to find new employees.

But what about Belgium? It is safe to say that the social movement has not hit our Belgian hospitals. There are some that are starting but a limited amount has social media profiles on LinkedIn (25), Facebook (even less), Twitter (single digits). Most of the social media is driven by individual contributors that are not acting on behalf of the hospital which could in term lead to some confusing and misleading representation and will have to be addressed by a social media policy.

So what is the next step? Since more and more patients are using social media to diagnose themselves before going to any care provider, hospitals should join the movement, know what is being said and actually contribute to the knowledge.

There are 5 steps that must be taken:

• Creation of an overall strategy which includes social media

• Create a social media policy and guidelines to help streamline the social media efforts

• Create the necessary profiles

• Take active part in social media (conversation and not just outward communication)

• Monitor social media

By being proactive they will be able to become a more trusted partner for the patient.

Contact Centers disconnected!

This week I had the pleasure of sitting in a panel at the Belgian national conference for contact centers.  Since the theme of the conference was “look who is talking”, it seemed appropriate the discussion touched on social media.  To my big surprise, social media seems to be an unknown and much feared topic within the contact centers environment.

Will virtual communities replace contact centers?

The biggest fear seems to come from the fact that people are going to switch from a contact center to virtual communities to get their questions answered or to find information.  To a certain degree this is true but I am convinced that there will always be a place for these contact centers.  Not everyone is online and some of us rather talk to a human being via the phone. Some companies are using Skype-like solutions to talk with their customers as Rabo Bank from Holland demonstrated.

Conclusion 1: Customers will use the channel that fits their needs and behaviors to find information.  After the hype, a new balance between will established and social media will be part of it.

Conclusion 2: Contact centers should add the social media channel to their product offering to be more attractive to both the company and the customers.

Contact centers are not connected to social media while their clients and employees are.

My quick research and market study project confirmed that less than 50% of the members of the Belgian contact center association (90 companies strong) have a social media profile.  Of those who do have one we can safely say that they operate in an international environment.  Checking some of the monitoring, the results are in line with my previously published study (40% twitter response and less than 5% Facebook response)  Keep in mind that most of the companies that replied are international companies.

The main reason for this disconnect seems to be the fear of the negativism.  Contact centers do have a “bad” reputation and they are not looking for yet another channel to get bashed.  Plus there are not that many public success stories around social media in contact centers.  The fear of the unknown and inexperience are a close second and third in terms of why contact centers are not on social media.

Conclusion: It is safe to state, that these most of the companies are not connected to or do not even monitor what is being said about them in social media.  It is certainly not a service they offer to their clients. An opportunity lost? Or a unique selling point for further business?

Modern media and technology require a super agents in the contact center.

Here it becomes really clear that contact centers underestimate the qualities and skills of the people they hire.  They forget that most people (and there are over 3.5 million Belgians on Facebook – just to name one) are taking part in social media before or after working hours. I am sure that some even take part during working hours through their mobile devices.

Conclusion: What is really needed is a good code of conduct, call it is a social media policy, and some advice on how to behave correctly on behalf of the company (language, tone of voice, etc.) in the same manner they get when they are behind a phone.

What is next?

In the new balance of contact channels, it is clear that social media will find its place.  It will not replace the contact center but it will help further redefine their operational model.  Contact centers should embrace social media to both serve their client companies as well as find new employees that understand fully this medium.

Implementing a social media policy and monitoring tools should be at the top of the agenda of priorities for 2011. These are going to be key to the success and level of professionalism of the contact centers.

There is no way around it, join or lose customers!

I would love to hear you your feedback, experiences and comments.

Mic Adam

Is Obama checking in into the White House…

Using Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places?  Or does Sarkozy at the Elysée? The Queen at Buckingham Palace?  Or even closer to home, Yves Leterme at the Lambertmont #1?  We are sure of one thing: Bart De Wever and Elio Di Rupo are not using it to plan their “secret location” meetings to form a government.

What is this all about?

Location based social network applications are among the fastest growing sectors of the digital world and getting a lot of attention.  Where as Facebook answers the question “What is on your mind?” and Twitter “What is happening?”, location based software answers the question “Where are you?”.

Foursquare and Gowalla are today’s leading players.  They have quickly understood that check-ins need more than just telling people “where” you are.  They are offering badges and mayorships to maintain competitiveness and keep users interested.  Facebook is now also joining the race with the introduction of Facebook Places.

Today, location based social media is a narcissistic tool focusing on bragging rights tied to a leader board, number of check-ins and mayorships. But the business potential it holds is enormous.  Just image that when you check-in at a store on the high street, you can get an 10% extra discount on the spot if you show them the message you get back from the software.

Personal implications

Location based services are a great tool to bring the old and traditional networking back to life. Whenever you check-in using this type of service, you will get a list of friends in the neighborhood – as well as their location – inviting you to go and see them.

Of course, with every upside there is a downside.  When you are checking in, you are making your location public and wave the right to privacy.  Linking this update to your other social media profiles amplifies the reach of this message.  When you check-in, you tell the world you are not home and should keep in mind that there are people in the world that will take advantage of this piece of information (www.pleaserobme.com).

Business implications

Attracting clients to a retail business might be fine, but in a B2B environment the benefits are more difficult to demonstrate.  Yes, you can get clients to come to your booth at a show, get info on your client’s preferences, etc.

Mentioning the clients where you are might be great advertising (you think), though checking in at these clients might not be the best practice since other people might be listening in and finding new prospects. On another note, you might be violating your client’s confidentially or they might not want their name mentioned in connection to you.  Personally, I feel that you should not mention client and project names and this should be clearly stated in your social media policy.

But what about me?

Let me take you back to the mid-80’s when I had to spend 7 weeks in the USA for a product training.  At that time, I made the decision to never go and eat twice at the same restaurant.  I ended up after those 7 weeks with a document of restaurants which I had rated.  My list became a hot ticket for the people in the training department since they were able to advice their trainees on different places.

Of course, I use location based software today, however my social media policy the guideline says that I should never mention the client or their building on this service.  So, when giving away my location, I tend to name the restaurant or hotel in the neighborhood where I have lunch, coffee or a break.  My connections get the benefit of where I am, but my client’s privacy is protected.

The future?

More and more devices will have built-in location aware technology and this will fuel the growth of this software application area.  I even want to go so far as to say that the location based software will become the front-end to most of our social media platforms.  Where B2C will initially rake in the benefits of this technology, B2B will soon follow. I wonder how fast the evolution in this field will be..

BTW, The Answer…

To the question posed at the beginning of this article is NO.  Obama does not check in at the White House, nor does Sarkozy or the Queen at their work residences.  Even Yves Leterme doesn’t.  But who does?  People looking for their 15 minutes of fame!

Mic Adam

Social Media Policy Creator, Vanguard Leadership

Originally appeared in De Tijd in september 2010

Making your company more visible

The company website is the main point of activity for most companies.  But since this is a somewhat static environment, companies are joining social media in the hope that they will be able to get closer to their customers and create a two-way conversation.

From research done by Vanguard Leadership in Belgium and Wildfire PR in the UK, companies are creating social media profiles but few make them public on their website.  Only 25% have such links on their website and are thus loosing opportunities to direct their customers to their social media sites.

Why do companies not advertize these profiles?  One could say that social media is not part of the company’s strategy; others will say that IT does not want to put this on the website; even more others will just say they do not care but the main reason is that no one thought about doing this!

So once you joined Social Media as company, here are some tips for you:

1. Claim your social media profiles in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others.  Do not let others squat your social media names and pages.
2. Display your social media links on your landing page – highly visible!  Do not hide them somewhere in “Links” or “Contact us”.
3. Why not add social media profiles of your staff (especially when you are in recruitment).  Professionally looking LinkedIn profiles will be great image builders for the person and the company.
4. Give people reasons to sign up and follow you on social media.
5. Add a “Share” button to your website to encourage further sharing
6. Use email signatures to promote your company’s social media profiles.

Increasing your visibility and it will eventually lead to new opportunities and increased sales.

If you have any comments, you can post a comment or contact me by mail at adammic@vanguard-leadership.be

Are companies listening to their social media accounts?

Social media is growing at phenomenal rate.  The popularity of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs, Video and Photo platforms together with the ease of use of technology is now making social media a great tool for companies and their marketers to get closer to their customers.  So many companies are taking steps towards social media.

However, social media implies two-way communication (interaction with/engagement of the customers) and presents therefore a number of new challenges for companies: visibility, monitoring and engagement.  When these 3 elements are ignored, a lot of opportunities are lost.  It also demonstrates that social media is not integrated into the company strategy.  The market study looks at all 3 areas.

Limited visibility.

Many companies (71%) do have some kind of presence in social media meaning a business profile, but less 1 in 4 (25%) make that visible on their website.  LinkedIn seems to be most popular social media platform where companies have such a profile.  Facebook and Twitter are still not much used by companies.

Are you really listening?

When it comes to listening, there are 3 types that should be covered: (1) What is said in the “cloud of social media platforms” about the company, its brands and its people; (2) What is posted on the social media platforms/profiles of the companies (opportunities to engage) (3) What are your own employees posting on social media platforms .  The research revealed that companies are not listening… Twitter is the best monitored social media platform, while Facebook is really used as additional advertising channel.

No, Lack of engagement!

Social media platforms are mainly used as a marketing tool and messages left on company pages are a lot of the time left unanswered.  Only 45% of all Twitter messages were responded to while less than 5% of the messages on Facebook were answered!

Individuals responsible for corporate social media accounts – if companies have appointed them – treat the company social media profiles with far less respect and professionalism than their own personal accounts.

This research is the result of a market study done by Vanguard Leadership in August 2010.  In this market study we have used social media and the internet to build the dataset.  We have analyzed 540 websites of companies (from Bel-20 over Trends Gazellen to general companies across all sectors).  Monitoring was done by posting messages on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to check the monitoring behavior and response of companies.  The complete report and the presentation can be found on slideshare (report: http://slidesha.re/cN7RF9 or http://scr.bi/9LrqbO – presentation: http://slidesha.re/8XeWhg or http://scr.bi/cxifMV).

Contact:

Mic Adam

Social Media Policy Creator/General Manager

Adammic@vanguard-leadership.be

Phone: +32 478 50 41 35