Business 2.0: counting what counts

,

This morning before perusing my business mailbox a tweet by the omnipresent tweep @GuyKawasaki struck a chord with me. It’s one of these awesome TED videos that makes one sit back, relax and fully absorb the message.

Bay Area hotelier ‘joie de vivre’ Chip Conley argues that we as business leaders, investors and politicians are taught to only manage the tangible. With a staggering 94% of business leaders believing that the intangibles eg IP/intellectual property, culture and brand loyalty are important to their business, only 5% have the means to measure the intangible.

With 60% of the world’s GDP now made up of services, i.e. intangibles, the call for better measuring the intangible aspects of (business) life becomes even louder.

Speaking of GDP, the now famous example of tiny Himalayan state Bhutan has set a modest yet great trend in motion of looking beyond Gross Domestic Product to something called GNH/ Gross National Happiness. Some 40 countries worldwide have taken up the challenge of counterbalancing traditional, tangible perspectives on their wealth by happiness metrics as well, including France. Bhutan by the way does not create happiness, yet make the conditions for happiness to thrive, a happiness habitat. Perhaps we should rename the title of the dutch managementbook ‘de geluksfabriek’ into ‘happiness habitat’ after all.

With Conley I too wonder: “Why is it that business leaders and investors quite often don’t see the connection between creating the intangible of employees happiness with creating the tangibles of financial profits in their business?”. We don’t have to choose between inspired employees and sizeable profits. We need business leaders who know what to count.

/0 Comments/by

Social Media Marketing ROI – would the CMO settle for anything less?

,

As Forrester researcher Nate Elliott indicates “Interactive marketers know they’re not good at measuring the effectiveness of social media. On average, they rate their own efforts to measure social initiatives at only 4.5 out of 10. Marketers fail because they focus on the metrics that are most easily available instead of the metrics that best correspond to the objectives they’re pursuing.”

Calibrero distinguishes between SMM (Social Media Marketing) events and SMM responses. In this dichotomy, the first category encompasses all kind of activities undertaken by a social community, triggered by or in (e-)dialogue with a brand such as comments, blogposts, (re)tweets, video messages and so on. However valuable this spin-off may be, it can never be an objective in its own right. The latter category of SMM responses comprises those responses with financial impact, i.e. commercial leads that can be nurtured and converted to contracts, into invoices and subsequently into revenue and cashflow.

Setting the Social Media hype aside for a moment and applying a healthy dosis of down-to-earth thinking to this fascinating topic, I wonder why social media bloggers, 2.0 gurus and the like only too often seem to dismiss the proven lessons of marketing and sales. As Forrester’s easy-to-understand POST approach stipulates, (social media) tools should always preceded by a clear definition of target audience (People), objectives and strategies. Yet some social media strategists prefer to talk the language of ‘number of followers, friends, comments’.

Now have a look at this CMO guide to the social media landscape. Granted, it provides a colourful insight into the relative benefit some of the most well-known social media brings, and therefore provides some indication of the weight the Marketing Director or CMO should place on leveraging these tools. Yet, the matrix fails to refer to real commercial objectives such as increased pipeline, conversion rate and enhanced sales. Social Media Marketing is expected to dominate this year — so much so that 81% of CMOs plan to link their annual revenues to their social media investment, according to a recent survey by The CMO Club and Bazaarvoice. I wonder though whether the CMO him- or herself will want to get down to the tool level in gauging the merits of ‘going social’. Furthermore, with this significant intended shift in budget, resources and commitment to occur, the CMO guide should ideally be leading the way to drive a tangible return or ROI.

Perhaps this explains why there’s still little awareness or understanding by senior executives as to the real benefits of Social Media Marketing. As my recent, non-academic and by no means representative (with a modest n= 22) LinkedIn poll suggests, none of the 55 & older respondents expect to benefit from social media this year yet. The B2B poll also suggests there is a relationship between company size and perceived social media benefit. Large companies apparently are represented by the 55+ segment, indicating they see no benefit yet. Mid-sized players expect to gain from social media deployment in terms of better knowledge management and innovation whilst smaller companies place their bets on lead generation thru the power of 2.0. Food for further social media thought.

/0 Comments/by

The Business ROI in Social and Green

You are a B2B company or professional. You firmly believe in outstanding quality and customer intimacy. Thereby staying ahead of the pack. Your glass tends to be half full. At least.

Yet you are apprehensive about your commercial or recruitment pipeline, your ability to innovate or the unconnectedness between marketing & sales or marketing & HR. Equally, you realize that for long term success, profit alone does not suffice. Your customers, employees and other partners are increasingly selective about who they want to connect to. And through their (online) networks will tell the world what companies they admire and befriend (or unfriend). Also, they won’t let you get away with greenwashing – you need to build green credibility too.

At the same time, deep down inside of you ‘going social and green’ to you still resonates very much like non-profit, incompetence and grey-woollen socks. As research by Wharton University’ professor of marketing Cassie Mogilner et al shows, customers typically stereotype Non-Profit and For-Profit firms. They generally see For-Profit organisations as competent and business-savvy and on-Profits as warm and caring. The Wharton research shows that decisions in the end are primarily made based on perceived competence. The researchers conclude there is room for For-Profit organisations to build their social and sustainable reputation, just as much as Non-Profit organisations would greatly benefit from adding more ‘Biz’ to their repertoire.  Time therefore to see the value and connectedness of Social | Green | Biz  in your market too.

Social?
I know. You don’t vote social. Or perhaps you do. Either way, do spend 30 seconds to read on. Tomorrow’s corporate survival, success and impact increasingly depend on today’s insights, ideas, inspiration and innovation. Companies need a social strategy for social innovation as these enablers are all driven by people. People who more and more live and work in their communities of choice. Virtually, these communities are developing as web 2.0, social media networks. In order to connect, organisations therefore need to engage not just offline but in these social media hubs as well. Building better social businesses starts small, within and between teams and between people. Social media can also be leveraged to better listen to customers and prospects out there and (re)connect. Besides a clear social media strategy, you and other executives want to get the best possible insight in the business case & ROI of Social Media Marketing.

Green?
The green revolution is all around. Customer advocacy is more and more dependent on a business’ ability to deliver sustainable products and services. Legislation and public sector appetite also propel the market to go green. Also, as a matter of speech, taking a fresh, ‘greenfield’ approach to business is imperative to guard off new entrants into your marketplace. Green therefore applies just as much to sustainability of products, processes and services as it does to fresh ideas, market innovation and staying ahead of the grey pack. For ‘going green’ to succeed, a better insight in ROI of going Green to the business is imperative. Green marketing needs both tried-and-tested business practices to effectively shape and deliver a market proposition, just as much as the benefits ‘2.0’ brings. The power of social media marketing can help better and more rapidly connect a business to a global (niche) audience.

Biz!
Going social and green therefore increasingly equals doing good to your workforce, the environment and your reputation just as much as it benefits your P&L. Social | Green | Biz more and more are inextricably linked.

/4 Comments/by

Beyond 011010: 121 in B2B

, ,

Online business engagement just about ‘zeroes and ones’?!
On a binary day like today, January 10th 2010 or 011010 in short, it’s perhaps tempting to view the world in digital terms of just ‘zeroes and ones’. As people in the so-called 1st world are increasingly becoming digital citizens (whether born digitally or as ‘immigrants’), businesses do so too. Becoming digital however does not imply business or business(people) want to be treated in a binary fashion. It merely paves the way for authentic human, 1-to-1 interaction.

B2B networking the 2.0 way
My dutch friends, family and colleagues regularly question the value of social media in business, especially in B2B. They argue that building a relationship is done offline, face to face and not in the digital darkroom of Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Nearly all B2B players of some size have recognized the need for BI and CRM. Yet social media still is being frowned upon as the latest fad from Silicon Valley, that is best left to facebook-loving teenagers or Hyves-exploring IT geeks. Others do intend to include social media in their marketing and communications plan for 2010, but quite often seem more inclined to policing their employees in saying and doing the right things on social media. Or merely want to leverage social media to shout more loudly to a wide audience.

Enriching business dialogue by going social
Here is where to my mind the social media paradox lies. In a world that’s drowning in information and data, a sustainable competitive edge increasingly relies on rich content stemming from as rich as possible a customer dialogue which in turn produces enriching relationships. Of course nothing beats good old-fashioned 1-to-1 conversation to really understand a customer’s actual motivation, wants and needs. Yet social media can help to mutually (!) find relevant insights, ideas and new contacts that in turn can be shaped into a valuable business conversation, qualified lead or otherwise. Business Intelligence and Customer Relationship Management will significantly benefit from the realtime, social insights generated by relevant communities. Furthermore, customers increasingly expect responsiveness by their business partners, off- and online. The reward for a quick and adequate response to customer queries and complaints will often be positive customer advocacy and customer loyalty, the biggest B2B pearl to cherish. As the 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study which included 2,384 participants shows,  US-based B2B companies are also even more likely to use brand awareness, prospect lead quality and prospect lead volume as social media success metrics than are B2C companies. I look forward to seeing social media further mature and take shape, especially on this side of the pond. In my next blog I hope to present you some initial findings of my B2B social media poll and would appreciate your input as well.

/0 Comments/by

B2B Social media eVALUEated

, , ,

Valued
As mentioned in my previous post, the buzz around social media is also building a discussion regarding its soft and hard ROI. To my opinion, its measurable and financial value in B2B will further be recognized overtime yet is set to contribute to enhancing at least:

* Market | Customer | Competitive intelligence
* Branding
* Product development & innovation
* Customer support services
* (Open) innovation
* Lead / Demand generation
* Employee related benefits such as enhanced project collaboration and knowledge sharing, employee motivation, (management) development & retention

For political, lobby-intensive or CSR-related organisations social media additionally might bring value in terms of Return on Impact. Social impact therefore in terms of mobilizing citizens’ voice by organisations that target both other businesses as well as consumers such as @350, @WWF, @changents and others. But let’s focus now on businesses that need to satisfy their shareholders.

Speed, transparency & efficiency key benefits
Almost 1700 executives from around the globe took part in a longitudinal 3 year study by McKinsey on social media entitled ‘how companies are benefiting from web 2.0’. 69 percent of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.

Scanning diagonally thru its key results, it seems that bigger speed & transparency as well as reduced (travel & communications) costs are seen as most significant business benefits. Increasing revenue is mentioned by some, yet this is the lowest percentage. Whereas ‘measurable gains’ were reported, the McKinsey researchers unfortunately did not explicitly state whether and in how many cases there actually was a positive ROI in financial terms – dollars, euros, rupiah, sterling or yen.

Me, myself and my community
The McKinsey research distinguishes between the deployment of social media internally to employees and externally to partners, suppliers and customers. Judging by the relative number of respondents as well as the relative biggest gains reported, internal at present seems to be the most popular category. The survey does highlight the relative usage of SM across verticals – not surprisingly high tech and professional services frontrunners – and reports a 35% gain in employee motivation.

With the relative loose connection in most western companies between organisation and employee, this is a significant gain that merits further study. Whilst in many cases the increasing individualization and economic downturn may cause low levels of employee-employer commitment, which in turn results in suboptimal retention – the need to build a powerful corporate community is as strong as ever.

The massive uptake of Facebook, Hyves and other social, friend communities reflects the need for human beings to belong and connect. Why therefore would a corporate environment not try to build a successful, happy community of (professional) employees? To my opinion, this should definitely enhance a firm’s capacity not just to attract, but also to attach the right workers to the right place at the right time. A ‘happiness factory’ – perhaps.

/0 Comments/by