Are you ready to make your company more social?
What defines innovation? Non-dogmatic thinking that others interpret as risky? Ditching conventional ideas in favor of learning from failure? Willingness to explore? As we reach past the recession and out of a landscape littered with foreclosures, layoffs and lawsuits, innovation has become the DNA for survival. Those who fail to innovate, die.
It’s time to embrace “The Now Revolution” with Jay Baer and Amber Naslund as your tour guides.
Jettison what’s broken and innovate
There’s a saying that not moving forward is the same as moving backward – because your competition is advancing at an alarming rate. The Now Revolution explores the new business landscape on social media and how companies are redefining success.
Traditional press releases and canned corporate communications are no longer an effective way to share information (if they ever were). Customers are online searching and demand answers – immediately. Supplying those answers and being ambassadors of the brand is now the responsibility of all departments and everyone within those departments.
Welcome to the new way of doing business: transparent, fast and smart. In short, if you’re not on social media, you’re not only losing day-to-day business – you’re losing market share.
But Nasland and Baer go beyond the typical cheer of “you NEED to be on social media.” They map out a strategy. From breaking down silos to spreading accountability of customer inquiries to every employee, The Now Revolution offers easily implementable solutions.
“Once upon a time, customer contact was centralized around the switchboard, and the phone was the preferred method for communication between companies and customers,” says Marcel Lebrun, CEO of Radian6 in Chapter 4 of The Now Revolution. “When it rang, you answered because it was likely a customer or a potential customer on the other end of the line. Now the calls are coming through online, via the social phone.”
Create an ecosystem of creativity
Knowing you need to be on social media and actually figuring out how to do it can be as overwhelming as a transcontinental flight. The Now Revolution takes readers through a 7-step process of breaking free from traditional (and quite frankly) stodgy ways of doing business to communicating faster, smarter and more socially.
The authors remain true to one core belief throughout the entire book – everyone in the company must be involved. It’s a cultural transformation:
- Engineer a new Bedrock. The new now is about instilling confidence and the belief that accomplishments and failures are shared through every level of an organization. Strategy is collaborative so those execute can both learn from and educate those who plan.
- Find talent you can trust. Since every person within the organization is a brand ambassador, finding and keeping employees should focus on cultivating strengths that contribute to shared goals, vision and purpose.
- Organize your armies. “Social media guidelines and policies will serve as a roadmap for individual and team participation and will help mitigate risk and uncertainty while giving everyone the confidence and freedom to contribute.”
- Answer the new telephone. Who is answering the call at your company? Talking to customers on social media is quickly becoming a function of Sales, PR and Marketing, Customer Service, Research and Development, Human Resources, Executives and Management.
- Emphasize response-ability. As your ability to find and contribute to conversations sharpen, so will the strength of your employee force. You’ll start talking to customers in ways you’ve before considered possible – which will help you grow stronger internally as well as externally.
- Build a fire extinguisher. When a crisis arises, your teams will know who to contact first and where to put the information for consumers. And when the crisis passes, you’ll have a clear view of what worked and what needs improvement.
- Make a calculator. “Keeping score matters. And you’ll know and embrace that some of the most powerful results of social media aren’t easy to tuck into a spreadsheet…you’ll count not just the clicks, but the anecdotes, amazing examples and compelling stories that illustrate how social media has built a bridge between your customers and your company.”
Whether you read The Now Revolution from cover to cover and embrace the power of this paradigm shift or pick out chapters for what you’re currently struggling with, this book will change how you look at social media. What’s more important though, is that it will change how your business approaches social media, making your efforts more effective and strategic.
Want to win a copy of The Now Revolution for yourself? Leave a question or comment for Jay or Amber and you might be the lucky winner. Winner to be announced on March 22, 2011.
To learn more about The Now Revolution, visit their site: Now Revolution.
Got social media questions? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn – I’m always on.
Question for Jay and Amber:
What advice do you have for Non-Profits that are trying to make an impression online? Do you find there is a big difference between For-Profits and Non-Profits?
Jason
@jasondyk
Thanks for posting, Jason!
Hi Jason. Thanks for the question. I don’t know that it’s a huge difference, but non-profits have a huge opportunity to grow volunteer marketing armies. Ultimately, I’ll participate in your non-profit if someone I know, like, and trust asks me to do so. And the fact that THEY asked is way more important (within reason) than the actual cause or organization.
The key for non-profits is to get as many people in the organization: employees, volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, etc all tapping their own social graphs for a common goal.
Thanks so much for responding, Jay! I think non-profits need to begin thinking of themselves as brands and operate as such. I agree that the potential for growing volunteer armies is huge – knowing who your competition is and asking for help are key for reaching past the clutter.
Julia
Thanks for the reply Jay and Julie, I agree that they need to start “acting” like a for-profit agency, I think a lot of them are frightened about what some of their funders will say or react to transparency. Thanks to both of you!
Jason
@jasondyk
What is your best tip for dealing with negativity in social media?
For jay only. Where did you get the name Annika for your daughter? I know where my 12 year old got the name from. Spelled Anikah though.
Awesome questions, Chris! I think negativity is something we all struggle with and I’m hoping Jay has some good suggestions. You can follow @jaybaer on Twitter as well – just in case his book tour prevents him from posting here.
Love your second question – very sweet 🙂
Julia
We talk about in the book that social media doesn’t cause negativity, it just makes it discoverable. That said, the same way you would answer a negative phone call or email, you should “answer” the social telephone, even if it’s negative. It ensures that the rest of the community knows you’re listening, and that you care. That does not mean to get into a tit for tat flame war. The best approach is to encourage complainers to email you to discuss the details.
My wife and I went to school at University of Arizona. When we were there Annika Sorenstam was the star of the golf team. My family is 25% Norwegian, 25% Danish, so we were looking for a Scandinavian-ish name, and we named our daughter Annika based on that inspiration. Subsequently, I’m really happy that Mrs. Sorenstam became an amazing champion without ever a hint of scandal.
When I’m able to move a complaint or negative discussion to email, my next step is to make the call. Nothing replaces a heartfelt discussion on the phone. Talking person to person is still the very best way to overcome barriers and get to a solution faster.
Thanks again, Jay!
We got the name Anikah from the same place. I think we discussed that via Facebook before. I know we touched on the name at least.
Thanks for the answers.
Answering the new phone:
Who is answering: Sales, PR and Marketing, Customer Service, Research and Development, Human Resources, Executives and Management, but who is really taking the lead and integrating and coordinating with all these business functions (or silos)?
When to answer: In the lightning speed of social media, how do businesses make sure the issue is addresses in time to solve problem and satisfy customers?
What to answer: business want the engagement, where I’ve seen more of RT’s than actually providing answers, where is the transparency? How to ensure it won’t fall into black hole?
Sara (@InfoSara)
Hi Sara, great questions! I especially like the last one – especially in light of so many businesses venturing onto social media. Ensuring we don’t slide backward is a big concern – or at least it should be!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your questions for Jay and Amber!
Julia
In terms of who answers the phone, it really depends on the organization. From a real-time perspective, usually customer service or community manager apparatus, because they have the most answers at their finger tips.
To be able to answer problems appropriately, you have to operate your business and your teams with one mind and one heart. That’s the point of the 1st and 2nd chapters of the book, that to be real-time you have to have talent you can trust, and they have to know how to play the cards without asking for help.
The problem with most businesses is that they want to “engage” via social media (especially Twitter), but don’t want to put the considerable effort into it to actually be helpful. Finding conversations where your company can truly educate and inform (and maybe entertain a bit too) and tactfully participating in those conversations is the key. RTing typically doesn’t meet that standard. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t RT, but it’s almost literally the least you can do.
Thanks to everyone for taking time to read and comment on Jay and Amber’s boo, The Now Revolution. We’re happy to announce Jason Dykstra as the winner. Jason, I’ll send you a Twitter DM for your mailing address – you’re going to love this book!
Julia