Capitalizing on Your Social Capital
Christian BuckleyChief Evangelist at BeezyFounder of CollabTalkMicrosoft MVP
Christian BuckleyChief Evangelist at Beezy, Founder of CollabTalk
www.beezy.net@buckleyplanet
www.buckleyplanet.com
Beezy is the Intelligent Workplace for Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint, extending the feature set and improving the user experience for on-premises, cloud, and hybrid deployments. We are on a mission to transform the way people work, and to help employees be more connected, innovative, and happy. Learn more at www.beezy.net or @FollowBeezy on Twitter.
Launched in January 2012, CollabTalk provides community outreach and discussion around all-things collaboration, producing tweetjams, podcasts, videos, and events that focus primarily on the Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365 ecosystem.
CollabTalk also provides independent analysis and research in partnership with the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University.
Follow us on Twitter @CollabTalk Like us on Facebook at /CollabTalkFind us on LinkedIn at /company/17924231
Understanding the “Brand Effect”
"If your brand walked into a bar, what would it start talking about?"
Lisa Moretti, Gartner
Social Influence ≠ Popularity
Social influence and popularity are very different things The technical SME is rarely the loudest voice There are different “tiers” of influence Patterns of influence can shift and change
http://www.traackr.com/faces-of-influence
Patterns of influence can shift and change due to
organizational structures,
available tools, and roles.
A common mistake is thinking that your corporate branding – your logo, tagline, and chosen color palette – constitutes your brand.
More than any design elements, it is you, your company culture, and the reputation of your front-line employees that define your brand and level of influence.
Your Logo
Most companies do not understand who the influencers are within their customer communities, and how to tailor their messages to those influencers.
Even more elusive than a strategy for external influencers is a plan for internal influencers, and yet these people are often the eyes and the hands for an organization.
Just because something is difficult to measure does not mean that it does not have value.
Whether you have someone dedicated to building out your corporate brand, like an evangelist, or you take the time to ensure each customer interaction provides the right branding message, the secret is to at least try to measure the outcomes of influence.
Influence can gain early attention, but long-term success can also be gained through consistency of message and activity
https://hbr.org/2013/05/what-would-ashton-do-and-does-it-matter
“Because the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer, the business enterprise has two—
and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.
Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”
Peter Drucker
Mistake #1: Focusing too much on brand
Mistake #2: Relying too much on metrics
“We have a deep-seated desire to quantify the
world around us so that we can understand it and control it. But the world isn’t behaving. We must consider the possibility
that if we can’t measure something, it might be
the very most important aspect of the problem.”
It is compellingly seductive to try to predict the future
as though it were a quantifiable extrapolation of
the past. Doing otherwise lays us open to critique and ridicule. People are far more
likely to subscribe to our view of the future (next
quarter’s sales) if we can quantify what we are
saying. Hence the need for more data and information. But this can be an addictive
toxin: More information merely creates the demand
for more information.”
“The notion that ‘if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t
count’ is flatly false. You can manage through fear
and intimidation, role modeling, love, random
eccentricities, or mantras. None of those require
measurement. We’re so in love with quantitative
ideology that we’ve quite forgotten what it was
supposed to measure in the first place.”
“Many executives have a love affair with spreadsheets. I am not one of them. In fact, I encourage my team
to approach spreadsheets with a healthy dose of skepticism, and I caution everyone else to do the
same. Spreadsheets are no doubt very useful tools, but too many
executives view them as the be-all and end-all for their planning. They
manage from the spreadsheet, viewing it as an oracle, rather than
as the map that it actually is. Ron Shaich, Panera Bread
Mistake #3: Standing still when you
should be moving
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development.
Modern organizations are (or try to be) agile, opting for iterative development and “scrums”, with increasing emphasis put on change management and governance best practices
“Management’s job is to optimize the whole
system.”W. Edwards Deming
Mistake #4: Failing to have a plan
Message
Delivery
Volume
= Strategy= Influence= Amplification
Building Social Capital
Build Tip #1: Be authentic
Be authentic
http://www.authenticbrandindex.com/
Build Tip #2: Develop trust
Consider & BuyCompanies overemphasize this phase, allocating more resources to awareness through traditional advertising and encouraging purchase with “retail” promotions
Evaluate & AdvocateThis phase has increasingly become relevant. Marketing investments that help consumers navigate the evaluation process and then spread positive word of mouth are as important as building awareness and driving purchase
TrustIf a consumer’s bond with
a brand is strong enough, they may repurchase without cycling through the earlier decision-journey stages, and influence others in this same decision
The Consumer Decision-Journey
Build Tip #3: Be an evangelist
Build Tip #4: Be a broker between networks
http://observer.com/2015/08/the-no-1-predictor-of-career-success-according-to-network-science/
http://observer.com/2015/08/the-no-1-predictor-of-career-success-according-to-network-science/
http://observer.com/2015/08/the-no-1-predictor-of-career-success-according-to-network-science/
In an article by Forbes contributor Michael Simmons (Why Being the Most Connected is a Vanity Metric), he shares some further insights from Ron Burt:A key insight from network science is the power of brokering, the act of
moving information from one group to another. Burt explains, “What a broker does is make a sticky information market more fluid. Great ideas will never move if we wait for them to be spoken in the same language.”Network brokers (i.e. – connectors) have three advantages:
• Breadth. They pull their information from diverse clusters.• Timing. While they may not be the first to hear information, they
are first to introduce information to another cluster.• Translation. They develop skills in translating one group’s
knowledge into another’s insight.Combined these three advantages give an individual an overall vision advantage to see, create, and take advantage of opportunities.
Build Tip #5: Constantly refresh your network
Finding Value by Providing Value
A Balanced Approach Personal Value Business Value Community Value
Building a Social Capital “Engine”1. Love what you do2. Give your time3. Be honest about what you know and don’t know4. Create great content5. Become an advocate for your local community6. Provide product and platform feedback7. Keep competition in check8. Get creative9. Recognize others10. Constantly expand your knowledge
Next Steps
Building a brand is hard. You need to be authentic. You need to be consistent. You need to be have a message and be passionate about what you’re doing. And you need to be there, week after week, month after month, year after year. That’s how you build the trust. Showing up is 95% of it.
http://amzn.to/2f32HME http://amzn.to/2fz8UnJ http://amzn.to/2f2Zqgo
For more on this topic, be sure to
download the ebook (no form)
bit.ly/TapIntoSocial
Christian BuckleyIN/christianbuckley@buckleyplanet
Thank you very much!