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Matt Ridings

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The Trade-offs Between SCRM And Privacy

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There have been a few recent articles like this one in the Washington Post about how companies are gathering relevant data off the internet to combine with their in-house customer databases.  In the social world this is one of the attributes of Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM), which is an emerging but important movement within the social media community.

Given all of the hullabaloo going on regarding privacy right now (Facebook) I'd like to hear from you about where you think the lines should be drawn when it comes to SCRM.  Where is the line drawn in YOUR mind when it comes to collecting data on the web?  There is no right answer to this question by the way (other than crossing a LEGAL line, but that's another topic), it's subjective.  Please feel free to address these scenarios in the comments, but I would very much appreciate it if you took 30 seconds and filled out the related survey questions using the link below.  The survey is anonymous, but there is a optional field for your twitter handle if you want to give it.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

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Twitter Influence - The Easy 5 Step Guide To Making Money With Twitter

Step 1: Figure out what you would do with that influence if you had it.

Step 2: Now think of some other reason because your first reason won't make you any money

Step 3: Great! Now we're talking. Wait, what? Fine, if you insist, but don't blame me when you see the size of your blogs ad check from Google.

Step 4: Be the very best at what you do, and make sure that isn't Multi Level Marketing or pitching Work At Home jobs for gods sake. 

Step 5: Perfect, you qualified your way all to the final step.  Now, since you're the best at what you do, since you can write, speak, consult, and sell at the top of your sector you are obviously already making a lot of money.  Go pay someone to figure this twitter thing out and get back out there making money.

Ok, I admit it, I'm just pissed. I decided to turn on Auto-Follow because I felt like there were some great people I was probably missing out on.  When I did so though my DM box immediately started filling with people pitching MLM and "Easy Work At Home Businesses".  So I'm unfortunately turning that back off.  If I should be following you then by all means send me a message to let me know.

Secondly, I'd be willing to wager that over time this post will see more hits than any other I have.  Which sucks, and is a little sad. But at least those people who come here looking for an easy, no hard work required, way to leverage social media will have wasted their time.  And that makes me a little happier.

Lastly, *I* have the secrets to twitter influence? Seriously?

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

{p.s. - on a side note, I'm not slamming those people who build those *real* lists to try and help people out in social media...only the ones who target the slackers out there looking for a quick buck}
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I Call Bullshit. Outsourcing Your Social Media Voice

I'll make this as straightforward and concise as I can (trust me, I'm completely aware of just how long winded I am)

No less than three separate articles crossed my desk today regarding this topic, one that was written by a friend of mine.  There have been countless others over the last few months as well as a lot said on this topic on the various twitter chats.  The long and short of it is this, they all say "DON'T OUTSOURCE YOUR VOICE!", meaning that you can let outside agencies handle various logistical matters, etc. related to social media, you can let them write those posts that will simply be scheduled and broadcast, but DON'T under ANY circumstances allow someone on the outside to engage in dialog on behalf of your company.

Are you kidding me?  I can see how on the face of it this makes sense.  Social Media dialog can be a very personal thing, and if you best understand your organization you should be the one having that dialog right?  Sure, if you want to.  But it's also fine with me if you say "I don't get it", or "I don't have time for that nonsense", or "I'm a real stick in the mud and have nothing to say".  

Listen closely, just because you are inside of a company doesn't mean you automatically have a clue about how to execute your "brand voice".  It doesn't even mean that you understand it better than an outside agency does.  Hell, I'd wager at LEAST 50% of the agencies understand the nuances of your brand voice better than you do.  Don't forget, it was likely that agency or one like it that you turned over your entire brand to.  They are the ones who spent those days and nights scouring every possible meaning of a line on your logo, the demographic studies, the customer feedback panels, etc.  They are the ones that had to try and explain it to *you* so that you would buy it.  Yes, that brand now represents the way *you* want your company to be represented but you didn't depend on someone internally to do it you handed it over to someone on the outside.  And all of a sudden you can't depend on someone on the outside who has more social media expertise in their little finger than you will ever have to speak on your behalf in such a way as to support your desired brand voice?  Seriously?  Tell me this, if all this is true then exactly why do we hire beautiful, well spoken people with acting experience to do our TV commercials?  Wouldn't the internal person be able to portray your company best?

And yes, before you bring it up, I realize that the above scenarios don't reflect all types and sizes of businesses.  But i absolutely stand by the fact that any company, of any size, can outsource social media if they so choose...and i mean *all* of it.  There is no example of risk in doing so that you can bring up that I can't throw a real world analog with exactly the same risks back in your face.  Feel free to try.

I feel the same way about this as I do all of this talk about "Transparency".  Authenticity I can buy, transparency on the other hand is a load of shit.  But that's another rant for another day.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla
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The Twitter After-Party

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Let's Go Already!

I have trouble using asynchronous tools to communicate now.

I impatiently stare at my screen wondering why an email hasn't been responded to yet, I sent it at least 2 minutes ago for gods sakes.

I essentially don't use Facebook anymore as it just feels so *slow*.  Regardless of the fact that you can make a comment, a Facebook status is not really about having dialog.  They are more like rhetorical statements.  I could use Facebook chat, but the people on Facebook are known quantities to me, there is no sense of open forum.

Rewiring The Brain
If you're not present at the moment that I want to talk my first thought is to just keep moving forward, having to send you a communication *now* that you might not respond to until some undefined moment in the *future* starts to feel like wasted effort.  It's not of course, but my brain is definitely rewiring itself in regards to expectations about how I communicate.  It must be similar to how it was when telephones became commonplace and inexpensive.  If you were just being conversational you didn't pick up a piece of paper and start to write a postal service letter in longhand.  You got on the phone.  If it was more formal, more thought through, or you needed to make a specific point on the other hand you definitely reached for something with a sense of permanence like paper and ink.  

When I need to purge a thought in any amount of detail I dump it here.  This blog has become the equivalent of me on stage giving my presentations.  It's a one way conversation initially.  The blog comments are the following Q & A session where it must be on topic, and there are a limited number of people willing to raise their hand.  And Twitter is the after party where everyone is comfortable pitching in, topics are all over the map, and perhaps I'm given a link to come watch you speak on your stage where I listen, maybe raise my hand during Q&A, and then we repeat the cycle.  Maybe I discover a new friend, a new partner, or a new customer.  Maybe I debate with someone I disagree with.  And maybe, just maybe, I run into those people every now and again who improve me as a person as well.

Serendippity-Do
I hear all of the time that this serendipitous approach to engaging on twitter is fine, but it's not business.  That's ok with me if you feel that way.  There are a lot of ways to utilize twitter as a business.  If you're a customer service rep on twitter, or a big branded account you certainly don't want to go around saying some of the things I do.  But as an *individual* in a business my view is that it's at the after-party where business gets done.  You're not going to approach me while I'm on stage presenting.  You might engage with me in Q&A but only in a formalized focused way to arrive at a specific objective.  But at the after-party you have a group of like minded souls, discussing their lives/work/dreams which will invariably overlap with one another at various touch points in such a way that they can benefit from one another.  That benefit can take many forms, perhaps a job, a project, or a friend.  It may be apparent immediately, or it might not rear its head for years.

Don't Be "That Guy"
And for the same reason that everyone avoids the high-pressure guy with one objective and a stack of business cards at the real life after-party, people on twitter will avoid that same guy.  So relax, and enjoy the after-party.  Keep your objectives, but maybe you should make one of those objectives being open to serendipitous encounters.  If you don't make a little room for it in your itinerary it can never schedule a meeting with you.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

{p.s. - Using words like serendipity gets me about as close as I can get to sounding like a social media treehugger without spewing my nachos across the room.}
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Social Media And The Sins Of Our Fathers

I'm a student of internet history.  I was there, I am there, I will be there.  I've seen us (myself included) repeat the same marketing sins over and over.  Each time of course we felt that whatever new shiny object we were playing with was "unique", that nothing like it had come before, that the rules don't apply.  And each time we miss the fact that while there are some unique aspects to whatever tool or medium we're playing with at the time, human nature has not changed.

So I submit the following for your consideration.

I just came from the Social Fresh conference where we discussed all the different ways that one could find and leverage customers and prospects in the social media space.  One of the overriding themes that comes up in the more intelligent conversations is that of "providing value".  This makes perfect sense of course, if you are going to practice interruptive marketing you had better be bringing value to the table. {side note: I believe this should be "interjecting" not "interrupting" but that's another story for another day}

But here's the thing, has everyone forgotten what it was like when email first came along?  I was one of the people in those original marketing sessions drooling over the fact that all of these people were now accessible to us and we just had to find the right way (value add) to leverage them.  We had to figure out "personalization", "one to one", "relationship marketing", etc. and how to integrate them into an overall effort.  And we did.  We created some incredibly creative email campaigns, and they were really successful.   I went on the road and spoke around the country at conferences about email marketing and how to do it "right".  Does any of this sound familiar yet?

Our initial conversion rates were wholly dependent upon the message, the creative, the value add, etc.  In other words, we were in control of our destiny.  If we were really good at what we did then we'd see really good returns.  Over time that ceased to be the case.  The returns were dropping precipitously and we were struggling to find more creative ways of continuing the dialog, but no matter what we did the rates kept going lower over time.  Have you figured out why yet?  Spam.  The four letter word of the online industry.  We all despise it, and there are entire software sectors built around trying to keep it out of your inbox.  What you have to realize is that the only difference between what was valuable one day, and spam the next is the volume in which it occurred. 

There is a distinct break point of diminishing returns when it comes to the equation of "value" vs. "volume".  At a certain point it makes no difference if what you are communicating is valuable or not.  If you send me one thing a week that I find valuable I'll excuse the fact that you weren't invited into my life.  If I receive 100 items a day you are a nuisance, no matter the value of the individual items.

So what does all that mean?  It remains to be seen, but I made a prediction on the record the other day that within 12 months Twitter (or a twitter client) will make it simple for the users to restrict anyone from communicating with them that they haven't explicitly approved.  If/When that occurs all of this dialog about how to talk to social media prospects in an interruptive fashion will be a moot point.  We'll be back to having the next stage dialogs of "permission marketing" and "opt in".

The problem isn't the individual marketer, they hopefully are smart enough not to do overdo their communication cycles...it's the fact that there are hundreds of those individual marketers all after the same thing.  And then those without moral compasses will begin peddling their wares as well.  People will not be bombarded with unsolicited information and allow it to continue.  That will not change whether it's door to door sales, email marketing, or social media marketing.  If you're smart you'll start working on permission based strategies now and be ahead of the game when the fences start being erected.

When this happens, and I'm convinced it will, it will be a shame because part of the magic of twitter is its openness.  The thought that the tide will turn from being able to block the sporadic person, to explicitly *allowing* selective persons saddens me.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla
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Does twitter customer service scale?

I should start this by saying that I have used Charter ( @Umatter2Charter ) many times on twitter, and watched Comcast ( @comcastcares ) customer interactions. In addition I’ve been engaged with Frank (Comcast) in various Social Media discussions, and Erik (Charter) in various personal discussions as well.  In all cases they’ve been helpful, insightful, and in general just good experiences all the way around.  But from a customer service perspective, I simply don’t buy it in the long run.  My argument has always been that it simply does not scale effectively.   I don’t mean that it can’t scale like any other customer service contact point (phone, chat, etc.).  I mean that it will scale *exactly* like any other customer service contact point.  In other words, ending in a experience that is no better than what we have right now (which in general isn’t very good).

 

What makes getting customer service on twitter effective today (for those few companies doing it right) is that you are essentially getting “special attention”.  The ratio of of questions to answers is very low, the people providing the support are more experienced than most, have access to resources more than most, and are out to prove to the bosses that the decision to move onto twitter was a good thing….or in some cases that PR can get some mileage out of the fact they are there.  So basically you are getting VIP treatment.  Which begs the question, how do you scale the *experience* that exists today?  Do you really believe you can provide that same level of service if the volumes on twitter looked anything like call center volumes?  You could however do it just like you do online chat, which in turn means wait times and script reading flunkies on the other end who simply create a ticket for anything more difficult than “yes, I already tried turning it on and off”.  Who needs more of that? Who would want to answer inane questions in 140 character bursts?

 

I love twitter customer support at the moment precisely because I’m one of the few people using it.  It’s personalized by its very nature.  I know that Erik from Charter cares, that he is on top of his game, and gets results.  But that sentence says it all.  I know *Erik* cares, I know *Frank* cares.  The moment the volume is such that it’s just another nameless face behind the screen that represents a company vs. a person I’m right back where I was yesterday.  Unlike online chat however, the moment that customer service starts becoming a bad experience, the experience itself is viewable by millions of others.  The public twitter timeline *is* your chat log.  There is no place to hide.  A significant risk in my opinion unless you’ve somehow already come to grips with the huge budget increase required to try and maintain todays twitter customer service experiences tomorrow.

 

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

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Twitter chats. If I hear one more parrot I'm going to scream.

I participate in a few twitter chats surrounding social media (and a few other topics).  For the most part they’ve been useful for opening a dialog, for finding a few nuggets of wisdom, etc. but lately I’m becoming more and more disillusioned with them.  As the quote mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare would say, “Let me count the ways…”

1.       Regardless of the host, the question being asked, or even the topline subject of the chat, the conversation inevitably devolves away to whatever the last chat topic was.  Why? Because that is what a lot of the attendees feel educated on enough to regurgitate.  The notion of actually prepping beforehand by seeing what the upcoming questions are, the hosts view on that topic, and what (if anything) you have to add to that discussion appears to be virtually nonexistent in many of these chats.

2.       There are a group of people who attend every chat, on every topic, even superficially related to social media….and proceed to say the same things in every one of them.

3.       There is a great deal of whatever the latest buzzwords are being thrown around, without a lot context or practical application to the point at hand.  “Be human”, “Be transparent”, “Listen”, “Look before leaping”, “Have a strategy”, “Define the ROI”, “ROI doesn’t matter”, ….. I could go on and on.  But these quick snippets don’t solve complex problems.  There is a great deal of company bashing going on, or anti-company viewpoints to attempt to either look smarter than the company or to look like you are “customer-centric” (another buzzword).  I’d love to cut and paste from a lot of these chat transcripts and show you exactly what I mean in a very explicit way, but have no desire to embarrass anyone.

4.       The signal to noise ratio is becoming difficult to bear.  I’d almost prefer to be “talked to” at this point with a sidebar chat taking place like traditional web chats than try and have a meaningful dialog in some of the current twitter chats.

5.       The main driving factor to all of the above is that these chats have become more a way for people to network vs. learn & debate.  That dictates saying something so that you’re seen, making it seem like it’s an intelligent statement, etc.  I’m all for the networking aspect, but not at the expense of the dialog quality.

6.       I’ve found myself doing a few of the above items myself, and I’m not cool with that.  It won’t be long before the format of these chats will need to change, the kum ba ya ideals of “everyone has a voice” will inevitably fall to filtering and moderation of some kind.  It must, it’s a necessary evil of scaling for capacity, get used to it.

Gotta run, Polly wants a cracker.  But feel free to let loose with both barrels in the comments below.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

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Social Media is for all businesses? I say you're wrong.

There’s no long article here for me to convince you why all those experts who disagree are wrong.  Instead, I invite those experts to convince me they are right.

I am certainly willing to be wrong.  But I have yet to hear a convincing argument that doesn’t assume the fact that there aren’t *better* things certain businesses could be doing with their money.  Statements like “but it’s where some of your customers are, at a minimum you better be listening” sound great, just like “if you don’t your competitors will” does.  But do they really hold water?  I can leverage anything through this line of thinking.  Driving around the country going door-to-door is also a way to listen to my customers, but I would never suggest that my client will fail if he doesn’t do it.  And if my competitors want to do that, I’d be more than happy to let them while I spend my time fishing in more fruitful waters.

So here I am, convince me.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

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Community Matters - Be a neighbor

My neighbor informed me today that her relative would be coming to live with her because he's been diagnosed with cancer and has anywhere from a few months to a year to live, won't be able to fully care for himself, and has nowhere else to go.

This is the part of the story where you expect me to ask you for money, but you'd be wrong.  I thought about what I would want if i was in that situation, closed off from my ability to get out into my physical world and access my real life community.  Or how difficult it must be on those occasions when you do actually get to meet someone to have to deal with the 'pity response', the side glances at your appearance, and so on.  And what struck me was just how cathartic a tool like twitter would be, at least for me.  Just that sense of being able to communicate my thoughts freely.  Not about my situation per se', that's up to every individual how they handle that, but just life in general.  Experiencing that sense of what others are doing at that very moment, and sharing that with them.

I could be completely wrong about this, it's not like I've gone out and asked people who know about this kind of thing whether or not it's a good idea.  But I'm thinking I'd like to get the guy a laptop, and it's right next door so he can piggyback off my internet connection, and then show him how to use twitter.

Here's the part where you come in.  When I hand him this laptop I want to let him know that people give a shit, and that there's a community out there who want to hear what he has to say.  So I've setup a twitter account. @community4u . And I want you to follow it.  That's it.  Easy peasy.  Hey, he could be a complete asshole.  He could say thanks but no thanks.  He could look at me like I'm nuts.  I have no idea. But he could also be that person who changes your life.

I'd appreciate it if you'd retweet this.  And for those who don't know me and think this is some kind of scam/stunt/otherwise please talk to those people who do know me.

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

 

{Post Edit} - This may sound a bit odd, but assuming this is something he wants to do another thing I'd like some feedback on is the notion of "passing down" this account to someone else in this situation afterwards? I just kind of like the thought that the words never go away and gain their own story, that the next person carries on.  Then again, I can see where some might find that morbid I suppose.  Thinking out loud here and it's 1am in the morning so perhaps one of you has some clarity you can bring to this while I go get some sleep.

{Post Post Edit} - To me, *this* is the power of social media.  This visceral human response to connect and protect.  I don't know what will become of this little attempt of mine, but I do know that it solidifies my belief that contrary to what mass media portrays the spirit of "humanness" is alive and well.  I can stand on stage and talk ROI all day long, I can make companies successful, but did I really make a *difference*?  I'll selfishly keep cashing my checks, I have no plans on joining the peace corp or sitting around the campfire singing kum-ba-ya.  But I hope from time to time I can slip in a little mitzvah here and there.  Your feedback has completely overwhelmed me.  {ack! I've combined hebrew and southern colloquialisms in the same article, now I've done it all}

 

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Social Media Isn't Free - A Rant

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So I've been catching a lot of grief lately, particularly from my associates in the social media consulting industry.  They're telling me that my recent posts and twitter comments make it seem as if I'm against social media for business usage.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, lately I've been inundated with spiels touting the "ROI" of social media, and in virtually all of them they represent social media activities like twitter, facebook, etc. as being free.  Free?

 

Let's get a couple of things straight right off the bat.

Nothing you do in your business is free.  I don't care if you are a multinational company or a one-man basement operation, your time has a value.  I disagree with the old saying however that "Time is Money", it should be "Time is Potential".   

 

Let's take an activity like twitter.  It's a free medium to use right?  But, where did the time come from to use it?  Where are your marketers stealing time from so that they can be active on twitter?  What was the value of that other activity? Was someone hired to cover that function?  And hopefully you didn't just jump on twitter and start typing right?  Hopefully you spent *time* planning your usage, your tone of voice, your objectives, individuals responsible, usage guidelines, etc.  Hopefully you established tracking mechanisms and baselines ahead of time so that you can actually prove that what you're doing is worthwhile?  Oh yeah, you may need other content to push people towards as well, you know, something of value that makes following you worthwhile.  Guess you'll need to go spend time digging that up as well and forming opinions around it.  

Wait, this is starting to sound an awful lot like traditional marketing planning isn't it?  Do you consider all of that time free?  Ah yes, but let's not forget, unlike a traditional marketing campaign this one will never end, and it's done in realtime.  You won't have 3 revision cycles for getting your copy just right, one big screwup here and you could cost the company bigtime.  Oh, did I just say cost?  There can be quite a bit of it buried in there.  In larger companies it can be even more disruptive because these organizations are used to outsourcing much of the advertising and marketing spend and focusing instead on big picture program management...but social media is more likely to be kept in house and some of those big picture roles are going to end up doing very hands on tactical work.

 

I'm not a fear mongerer, but I'm also not going to make ridiculous pitches to my clients telling them that these things are free simply so that I can make it easier to display a "ROI".  Website traffic, brand mentions, positive reviews, etc. are all wonderful things.  But they are NOT a return on investment, they are the *potential* for ROI.  Social media sits somewhere between the traditional worlds of advertising and marketing.  Advertising is generally about creating potential, Marketing is generally about realizing that potential through some call to action.  Social media can play in both worlds, but be sure your client understands what they are buying and more importantly, its true cost.  The only way to do that however is to build a platform to truly measure its effectiveness, and that scares the hell out of some consultants.  If you're one of those I suggest you either get over it and become confident in your ability to deliver for your client or get the hell out.

Harsh? Maybe.  But consultants making these quick sales based on poor upfront strategies and preparation will only serve to produce failed executions.  Those failures will cause organizations to doubt the power of social media, and especially doubt those consultants who are espousing it.  And that dear reader can do nothing but harm to those real consultants out there trying only to do best by their clients.  So am I against social media for business use? Of course not.  I'm against the current vagueness surrounding social media being used to exploit businesses for a quick buck, or inexperienced parties calling themselves experts in social media yet not having an ounce of business strategy in their backgrounds.  Understanding what something is, does not mean you understand how best to apply it.

Soapbox surrendered, you can now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

Matt Ridings - @techguerilla

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