A poll of The Premier Business Leadership Series audience revealed that very few business leaders need convincing that social media is changing the way organizations interact with customers and other stakeholders. The only doubts revolve around how and what to do about it. A panel discussion on the impact of social media on global politics and the economy provided some answers.
The advice of Gerd Leonhard of Swiss-based The Futures Agency was to follow Marshall McLuhan’s advice and look at the frame, not just the picture. Social media is not about technology it is about conversations. It means that in marketing, you cannot lie or mislead any longer, because you will be found out and the damage to your reputation can be intense. So: don’t get into social marketing unless you are prepared to be transparent. It’s all about generating trust.
But there are plenty of good examples of how organizations are using social media to build customer relationships. Hosting the session, Vincent Van Quickenborne showed how Belgian government officials felt empowered by being able to communicate directly with the public via social media.
Steven van Belleghem of InSites Consulting and Verick Management School recounted how KLM built trust by looking for tweets from people at airports. It said “thank you” to 700 passengers who made positive tweets in airports by giving a small gift. The result: one million people commented on the action. “It’s all about word of mouth” he said, “but on a global scale”. More like world of mouth.
New thinking is needed everywhere, it seems.
Today, every brand owner has to be a publisher, and what they publish must be authentic. Perhaps the time has come for a new member of the Board: the Chief Conversation Officer. And preferably, s/he should be someone born after 1987.
2 Comments
I was right with you up to your closing line. It would be a big mistake to assume that no one born before 1987 understands the value of conversation and authentic communication. And it it would be an even bigger one to assume that everyone born after 1987 understands how conversation applies in a business context. (I haven't met Gerd Leonhard, for instance, but from the photo I would guess he isn't just out of college.)
The people who are making the biggest strides in integrating social media into the enterprise have an innate sense of the value of transparency, honesty and integrity, and combine it with the business acumen and experience necessary to support bottom-line objectives. That's not something you're likely to find in a 24-year old.
David, the last line was intended to be provocative but not to be taken too literally.
I agree with you that social media requires a partnership of old wisdom/business acumen and the social media "free love" approach.
You need the latter to come up with concepts like the Zappos business model (mentioned by Gerd) but you also need experience to judge if that model (and other social marketing led models) will fit within a particular competitive environment.
However, on balance, I would say that the board rooms of established businesses are more likely to lack new ideas and new thinking rather than experience.