Comments by Jay Deragon Subscribe

On Facebook About to Drop a Bomb on Foursquare?

Nice article :)

The last mile of social media is local. Apple just filed a patent for a mobile location based social networking application.  While all things social enable global reach commerce is local, relationships are local and if we can add productivity to local relations we all win.

The IPad will revolutionize advertising with relevance. Local "connectivity" will add relevance to relationship building. Local shopping with digital coupons and incentives based on user behavior and preferences will add tremendous value.

Facebook, Google, MSN and the small ones currently available and yet to be seen will add the "local" innovation that actualizes "networks" to be more than Mafia wars or virtual games.  Just my humble opinion but what do I know.

 

On The 8 Ugly Truths Behind Social Media

I'd suggest adding a ninth one: Will the executive team enable a complete makeover of the culture which starts with them?

There is a huge wave forming in the distance and social media is fuleing it. The wave is "people's true intents" vs. corporate intents to control and manipulate that which they don't understand.

 Every tried telling an executive "we must change and the change starts with you".  Kind of like saying "Your leadership skills are in question, the people don't trust you, our customers don't believe us put we sure can change things by simply using social media".

Corporations are fundamentally disconnected silos wasting productivity and human capital, all of them. Until leadership can recognize the root of all problems no "social mask" will cover up these problems because the people know better and they are speaking up.

There, I said it. Who would agree?

 

On Re-Purposing Public Relations

Jayme

Thanks for your comments. By no means am I saying PR is dead rather I am illustrating that methods, means and practices are being transformed because it is now "Public's Relations" that have the influence that traditional PR seeks to obtain.

As stated in the post:  The conflict comes when corporations try and use “social media” to extend past “marketing, advertising and PR” practices to manage their “public relations”. These are dangerous practices because the public now influences relations more than traditional PR practices. Subsequently corporations need to not only change their “marketing, advertising and PR” practices but rather the entire ecosystem of the corporation. Why? Because the foundation of any “corporation” rest with what people know.

Hope this helps and thanks again for the comment.

On Social Capital: The Currency of the Social Economy

Could the internet and all things social be emerging into Knowledge Inventories?

 Said inventories current are limited by key word indexes used by search engines.

Today the internet, in all its forms, represents a continuous flow of value contained in text, images and video. The value is created by the context of the information stored in different containers. Social media has accelerated the contributions of value however the value is not connected to anything that creates context to value sought nor is it easily identifiable or accessible.  While we have search engines that primarily index content that is popular.  The relational attributes of these search engines are centric to key words of affinity. Key words of affinity are not enough to create, contribute or sustain a truly functional value chain.

A New Social Media Bank?

When we use the term bank we think of an institution that stores and lends economic value. When we think of the term value many would quickly reference terms of an economic transaction. We create economic value by what we do. We earn money for what we do and exchange the money for other things of value. What we do and the exchanges we make represent “value creation and exchanges” that are and continue to be produced by knowledge assets borrowed, owned or traded between two or more individuals.

Knowledge assets are contained within human beings.  The human bank contains intellectual capital, social capital and creative capital used to create “earnings” that are traded for things we “value”.  We use our knowledge assets and share them with others, organizations, institutions and society at large. We get hired for who we are which is reflective of our knowledge assets. Organizations use and abuse our knowledge assets to their gain or lose. We share our knowledge assets with family, friends and associates. We exchange knowledge assets in the form of conversations, actions and insights.

The #1 influence over economic output is individual and collective knowledge assets of people working together towards a common aim (productivity).  Imagine if our collective knowledge assets were indexed, able to be searched and subsequently used, borrowed, shared and executed more efficiently. Our intellectual, social and creative capital currently sits in silos of information not being used efficiently or effectively. What productivity would be gained? What innovation would be born? What influence would it have on an economy? What currency could be created in the exchanges?

These answers will emerge and instead of talking about "soft" social currency we will be trading "hard currency" and we'll take that to the bank.

What say you?

On Social Media Influence Manifesto

Niall

Great subject of discussion. Here is my two cents:

1. Influence is in context with what you do or enable buyers to do.
2. Influence is not always what you say but more about what you do or don't do.
3. Influence is a measure of enabling people to fulfill an intent. Even if their intent isn't to buy from you the value they can get from you to satisfy an intent creates influence.
4. Influence without value for buyers and effectiveness for suppliers is wasted attempts at influence.
5. Influence is relational not institutional
6. Influence comes from being of service without expecting a return
7. Those who create influence get more influence. Those that have none do not have the character to create influence.
8. other people with Words without actions create a negative influence. Actions that match words stand for influence in a transparent world of people looking for character.
9. How and what people use technology for is the influence, not technology.
10. Media creates influence but without the right people and intent behind the media it can create bad influences

Anyhow those are my top ten input to your discussion. Have at it :)

 

On There Is No ROI From Social Media!

Thanks Skip

All the comments and perspectives have led me deeper into the examination of what "drives" the results everyone seeks.

I have a series of  post going up starting tomorrow and throughout the week examining what I think to be the issues that drives the results. The titles are:

Social “Production” Mentality

Social Producer vs. Conductor: BIG Difference

Social Producer vs. Conductor: Comparisons

Is Pepsi a Social Conductor?

I'd really like to get some feedback on the related issues and hope others will contribute to the dialog.

Thanks again

On There Is No ROI From Social Media!

Thanks everyone for the valuable comments.

My premise "There is No ROI from Social Media" is based on my opinion that social media is nothing more than a communications channel on steroids.

Communications creates attention and awareness but unless the content is in context with the interest of those receiving it then there is no affinity created to the audience of listeners. An affinity is something relational and if the experience created by the content isn't relational and enforcing confidence and trust well then there is little hope for a subsequent action from the audience, a transaction.

 Most businesses jumping into use of social fail to consider the human factors that drive people's interest, attention and behavior. Pushing out marketing messages without meaning, value or truths do not build confidence and trust with the market you aim to serve. Such tactics are doomed to fail because marketers primary objectives are to create business results.  The whole argument about ROI from social media has people consumed with satisfying their bosses demand for results. Such demands reflect management lacks an intent to understand how to produce results over and over.  When management tells their marketing people to get results from all this social stuff the reality is that the marketing staff tries everything they can to satisfy management demands. In other words play every trick in the book, measure anything that can point to a result and show how good we are at what we do.

There are thousands of others writing post, papers, studies and creating tools that are being used to justify use of social media. Have we been brainwashed into thinking that everything must show production of tangible results because of decades of thinking this way? This behavior reflects management methods that stem from the industrial era where "production" was the driver of results.  We have become so obsessed with results that we've failed to understand what, besides production thinking, creates results.

The failure of social is centric to not comprehending the value of intangible things that create confidence and trust with the "people" who influence the "production" of things that create results. In a world of connected relations producing confidence and trust isn't based on measuring a result. It is about "producing the right intents", confidence and trust with people.

Help me understand where my premise is wrong.

 

On An End to the Decade of Reinvention

Enjoyed your summary of thoughts, well done.

It is interesting that you end your post with "it will be interesting to see which sides are chosen -- social media purist vs. social media pragmatist -- among the converts"

I think the marketplace has room for both. It really depends on the "intent". Intentions have and will continue to become transparent with instant responses from the marketplace. When Verizon ran an ad claiming to have a better network that AT&T, AT&T's response was to show Verizon's intent by demonstrating the real story in a slick Ad (red beads dropping off their map.)  On the other side of intent Sub-Ways "$5 Foot long" ad (short, to the point with clear intentions) created $3.6 Billion dollars in sales and the idea for the ad came from a store manager in Florida. 

So both from a purist and pragmatic standpoint Verizon's ad didn't meet either criteria while Sub-Way's ad met both in MHO.

I respect Doc Searl's for seeing the future before the future became reality. Cluetrain was before its time but time and time revealed the vision to be reality. Now Doc will provide us with a new vision with his new book "The Intention Economy" due out in 2010.

Purist see and shape the future while pragmatist take advantage of what the future will bring and leverage the emerging developments to their advantage. We need both in order to demonstrate value to the marketplace and pull new ideas and example applications that drive further innovation. 2010 will likely see application of both.

Just my opinion.

 

On How “Social” is Your Bank?

Thanks for the thoughtful comments.

I am aware of the regulations and have worked with several large banks. However bank customers are already "engaging" on and off line. Even considering the regulations a process could and should be built which enables more efficient and effective methods of engagement and the bank could merely be the "conduit" by which people and business match up needs, wants and desires with capabilities.

Over 90% of a banks customer base is already on-line somewhere. With the advancements in "social commerce technology" and card based green initiatives banks could provide the means for people and businesses to better "connect" buyers with sellers and create market differential.

The only "recovery" for banks is to increase transactions. The only recovery for people and businesses is to increase transactions. Melding the two needs together facilitates increased transactions for all parties. Seems like the natural social thing to do.

Regulations are parameters. Creativity is usually outside existing parameters.

Just my thoughts

On 2010 The Year of Social Media ROI

Thanks for respond Connie.

 What I find disconcerting is that the world of "marketing" wants to apply old thinking and old models to this thing called "a conversation".  Just maybe the model and methods of "marketing" are under going a transformation and to be successful the thinking must change.

 

Marketing methods of the past reflected the process of deliberately enticing a person to engage in some sort of exchange, buy this. The social web has become the place by which people and organizations try and seduce us into an exchange. The word seduction stems from  Latin and means literally “to lead astray.”

Most people would tell you that the purpose of engaging with others is to converse, learn and get to know one another. That being said just maybe the real value that can be created by using social media is to “converse, learn and be relational”. The problem is that most business mindsets do not think in terms of relational rather they think in terms of results. (Social Media ROI)

On-line and off-line success comes from serving the interest of others. Results come from service. There is plenty of opportunity to serve if you are listening and learning correctly. To serve however we must have a presence which reflects our intent in the marketplace waiting to be served.

How Do You Measure Intent?

Engaging in the marketplace of conversations has become main stream, expected and simply the new market of how markets should operate. Since the process is still new many are trying to apply old methods and old thinking  with the ability to engage with many for difference purposes. Markets are now trying to measure the benefit of engagement and screaming for an ROI on the investment of time and expense.

The irony of current behaviors is that the intent is transparent. Marketers want to produce results from us and don’t realize how transparent their intent is to the new marketplace.  Intent is the real measurement of effective engagement and the measure of intent is reflected by how well you serve the market of interest.

Does this make sense?

On 2010 The Year of Social Media ROI

Great list and I would only add:

 

Thinking and planning will be critical. Planning to serve is the critical factor that has to be woven into everything you do on-line and off-line. An intent to serve draws human nature to the communications which reflect that intent.  The reality is that we have to unlearn everything we’ve learned about markets, relations and creation of results.

 

If you plan includes chasing, forcing and “pushing” for results the intent will be transparent and not considered relational, social or worthy efforts that create value.  Value is created from intent. Intent is reflected in behavior and communications. Today our intent is transparent and when it creates a negative experience the world is listening and learning from others. Stay tuned for Doc Searls new book "The Intention Economy".

 

If we think about leveraging this thing called “social” and do so in context with what we think we know we will not learn what we need to know. Listening and learning is a precursor to thinking and planning by learning what we don’t know but need to know. Only then can we think differently and plan with a new aim, to serve.

Thinking and planning effectively ultimately means things need to change. What will need to change first is how we think about markets, relations, business models and service.  The technology is the easy part. The thinking and planning is the hard part while at the same time the most important part.

 If your travels ever bring you to Nashville I would love to buy you lunch and exchange ideas.

On How soon will Academics Speak on Web 2.0?

Loved your post and ironically have been involved in a research project to see who is doing what in academia.  Lots of discussions but little structured conversations or coordinated efforts.

 

Don't know if you've seen this but it sums up the attitudes of the students wondering where the teachers are.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o