{"id":515768,"date":"2010-04-05T09:25:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.web-strategist.com\/blog\/?p=6680"},"modified":"2010-04-05T09:25:07","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T13:25:07","slug":"framework-rings-of-infuence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/515768","title":{"rendered":"Framework: Rings of Infuence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I spoke to a crowded room of senior marketers at a CPG retailer, one of the executives asked “What’s an indicator a company is advanced in the social space?”. \u00a0I gave three answers, and one of them was “Developing a thriving advocacy program to fight your battles”. \u00a0The executives, which were used to traditional advertising and direct marketing had a lightbulb go off as I showed them this framework.<\/p>\n

Companies unable to scale into social channels –hindered by traditional thinking<\/strong>
\nCompanies are unable to respond quick enough to the masses of customers complaining on social channels, they simple can not hire enough community managers and Social CRM systems are still being developed. \u00a0The old school thinking of traditional marketing putting the sole focus on voice of corporate communications, and sanctioned executives only. \u00a0Yet now, as social tools are pervasive (take a look at all the people accessing Facebook from their mobile phones) the gateways of public communication have been opened. \u00a0 This gap in ability to scale and traditional t<\/p>\n

Brands must extend their strategy to the outside rings.
\n<\/strong>In order to scale in both time and mass, corporations must now extend their communication strategy beyond just corporate communications and sanctioned ‘company representatives’ to include others in the mix. \u00a0In the following graphic of the “Rings of Influence” I’ve mapped out how other individuals can and should be used in the communications strategy. \u00a0 I’ve worked on trust research at my former employer, and found that in most cases the closer in the rings (corporate) there’s less trust. \u00a0Independent studies, like Edelman’s 2010 trust barometer indicate similar findings, figures 7 & 8 are telling in this PDF<\/a>. Inversely, the further out in the rings (prospects and customers) the greater the levels of trust.<\/p>\n

Framework: Rings Of Influence<\/strong>
\nAs brand embrace the larger circles, the greater opportunity for reach, trust \u00a0–and risk. \u00a0I hope<\/em> you use this graphic in your planning docs and presentations, it’s licensed under creative commons as Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Common. \u00a0Graphic assistance by Christine Tran, @christineptran<\/p>\n

\"Rings<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Role and Description<\/strong><\/td>\nThe Opportunity:<\/strong><\/td>\nWho’s Doing It Right:<\/strong><\/td>\nWhat no one tells you:<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Prospects<\/strong>: Those that are not yet customers.<\/td>\nEngaging soon-to-be-customers during their problem and pain stages and focusing them on your solutions is the goal.<\/td>\nBuild lifestyle communities to engage them in a ‘bigger-than-brand’ discussion such as CVS’s community for caretakers<\/a>.<\/td>\nYou’ll really need to let go of hard marketing styles and focus on what IBM’s senior marketer Sandy Carter<\/a> calls “light branding”. \u00a0Make sure you have a community kickstart plan.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Customers<\/strong>: Existing buyers, some which are super engaged and vocal in the space.<\/td>\nEnabling the voice of the customer has been a mainstay belief for product development, but most companies have not harnessed them for marketing and support.<\/td>\nBuild an active advocacy program that encourages them to fight your own battles like Intel Insiders<\/a>, Microsoft MVP<\/a>, Wal-Mart’s 11 moms<\/a> program. Bazaarvoice enables companies like BestBuy to have ratings and reviews on their site –increasing flow through funnel<\/td>\nCustomers will love and hate you alike. If you harness their voices, expect to let both types of information come through in a strategic way. The trick? Use complaints as an opportunity to show openness and customer response in public. The savvy brands will trigger advocates to deal with detractors, use this checklist to get started<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Employees<\/strong>: Rank and file as well as ‘approved employees’ who are enabled to use social.<\/td>\nRegular rank and file customers that are knowledgeable about products and are close to customers are likely to be more trusted than veneered executives.<\/td>\nGive your own rank and file the opportunity to voice their opinion like Premier Farnell gave many of their employees the ability to publish their own videos on a community like Element 14<\/a>.<\/td>\nEmployees need guidelines, training, and processes. Don’t leave your company or your employees exposed, develop internal training programs, regular communications, and a place to share. See how Intel has created a light weight ‘certification’ program for employees who participate in social<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Corporate<\/strong>: The traditional and centralized communications group and sanctioned company representatives<\/td>\nCorporate comms can benefit from social tools that allow the spread and sharing of company messages, and they can also build a social platform to stand on in order to fend of critics<\/td>\nSee how SouthWest Airlines has built a corporate blog for years, which gave them the standing power to fight back<\/a> against detractor Kevin Smith. Also, see how Domino’s President used online video<\/a> to respond in a human and more trusted way during an employee health crises.<\/td>\nLots of retraining when it comes to rethinking the approach in this space. Stop and breath, develop a measured set of steps a framework, control is not completely lost if you have a balance. This is an opportunity more than a threat.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Harness All The Voices In Your Ecosystem –Not Just Traditional Corporate Voices<\/strong>
\nBrands should stop focusing on the corporate ring alone –and benefit by using all the rings in a coordinated fashion. \u00a0I’ve broken down the roles into subsets in the above matrix, yet there are some key baseline considerations as your deploy, remember to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Recognize that greater opportunity is abound at outer rings –but comes with increased risk. <\/strong>Brands are most comfortable operation in the inside rings, like ‘Corporate’, yet the greatest opportunity to leverage trust and reach happens at the outer rings of influence with ‘Customers’ and ‘Prospects.<\/li>\n
  • Map the \u00a0rings to your existing customer experience timeline. <\/strong>These rings aren’t unlike traditional marketing funnels, except that there’s a focus on role and trust, over cycle. In most cases, prospects are in the outer mouth of a funnel, but customers, employees, and corporate can also participate in every step of the marketing funnel. Analyze which roles are needed in what aspects of the customer timeline –and map your strategy accordingly<\/li>\n
  • Be pragmatic, and develop a roadmap: start with smallest ring and move out.<\/strong> Don’t jump on the largest ring of prospects without first getting grounded. Start at the inner circle and work you way out, building a foundation at the core and building on success and safety in experience. Companies that try to address prospects but lack the internal resources and ethos to deliver may find themselves offering false promises.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    This single graphic represents an entire presentation I’m developing for internal client workshops or keynote presentations at marketing and business conferences. \u00a0I love to share, and want to get your feedback in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Recently, I spoke to a crowded room of senior marketers at a CPG retailer, one of the executives asked “What’s an indicator a company is advanced in the social space?”. \u00a0I gave three answers, and one of them was “Developing a thriving advocacy program to fight your battles”. \u00a0The executives, which were used to traditional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}