A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Brian Solis speak. He’s passionate and insightful, gives good soundbite, and is able to convey some of the intricacies around social business in a way that makes them natural and easy to understand.
Sadly I wasn’t signed up to the webinar but was able to follow the conversation it created through Twitter and the hashtag #7socialfactors – here are five main takeaways from the thread that seemed to be most popular…
“Outcomes are not Likes, not RT’s…outcomes are business benefits”
“People don’t remember words, but they do remember stories”
“Social media is too important to be left to the marketing department”
“Don’t just do something because you read it on Mashable”
“Social Media success lies in focus on engagement, experiences, relationships and outcomes – not channels”
A lot of the wisdom and thinking around ‘social business’ is usually good business practice requiring a mind-set that doesn’t see using social media for business as complex and uncharted just because the technology is new and emerging. As Brian wrote recently:
Social media = technology Social business = thinking or convictions
We used to talk about internet commerce and internet recruiting, then e-commerce and e-recruiting and now it’s just commerce and recruiting, and the same will go for social over the next couple of years as social business becomes business as usual.
What we really need to make a lot of this happen is common sense and judgement …and as some of the commenters on last night’s thread noted – common sense isn’t always common and judgement isn’t something you can train. As one tweeted:
“Social Media training = what you should do and what you shouldn’t. Judgement is needed in-between. You can’t train judgement”
Maybe common sense and judgement are two things we need to look for a lot more in the hiring process, and also seek to create a social media ‘knowledge hub’ in the business.
After all, social engagement in a business isn’t owned by one person or one department – it’s owned by everyone.
Over the 4 years I’ve been a regular user of social networking platforms for business I’ve heard, and been asked for, plenty of pearls of wisdom to help newcomers, or those looking to get more involved.
Clearly there are far too many to include in one blog post, but here are 10 of my favourites for a start.
Remember, no saying, slogan or cliché (nor speaker or blogger for that matter) can tell you everything you need to know…only by jumping in, experimenting and trying different things can you ever really experience the joys of social media and find out what works for you…
Your brand is what others say about you, not what you say about yourself
You’d think that everyone would know this by now but sadly not. There’s no point broadcasting air brushed messages about how wonderful you are. Over 80% of your potential, lapsed and current customers and employees will trust the experience of a peer over anything you say about yourself so embrace your satisfied customers and employees, make them your advocates, and let them tell your story.
Brands don’t tweet, people do
I won’t try and take credit for paraphrasing Euan Semple’s must-read book but changing ‘organisations’ to ‘brands’ reminds those using social platforms for business that behind every corporate update, every piece of content, is a person…talking to a person. It may also be worth remembering the words of Adobe’s Head of Social Jeremy Waite ‘It’s no longer about B2B or B2C, it’s now P2P’
If you make people use social media they’ll use it badly
Once a business embraces social platforms there’s often a sudden desire to get everyone in the business using them. As someone who has had to encourage employee participation in a business I say Don’t! Identify your internal advocates and influencers who are comfortable using the tools and start with them. Then encourage, empower and enable all who want to use them. As Content Marketing author Jay Baer says “if you don’t love social media you will suck at social media” so go find the passion in your business.
Social Media – It’s Evolution not Revolution
From carrier pigeon and letter, through post, telephone, telegram, telex, fax, computers, email and mobile to social platforms… business always adapts to the way their customers, partners and collaborators communicate. Social platforms are another stage along the business communication evolutionary cycle.
I don’t think you should have a social media policy – what you are saying is ‘we don’t trust you’
This is one of Neil Morrison’s sayings, and is usually likely to cause apoplexy amongst the lawyers. It’s harsh but it’s true. If you can’t trust someone to use a communication platform properly then what are you doing employing them.
Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent
This is one of my favourite one sentence social media guidelines. When you take to the platforms it’s often easy to try and entertain and challenge, but if you’re doing it as part of your business role then remember your duty to that role, to peers and colleagues, your profession…and your friends and family.
Get as good as you can be at the platforms you’re already using before you go looking for new ones to try
At every conference, exhibition or event I attend there are always people wanting to know what’s next. Which up and coming platforms are the ones to try out, and what new ways of creating and presenting content can be embraced. My advice is always to get really good on the wagon you’re driving before jumping to a new one. The principles of engagement and reach, content and community, will be the same on whichever platform you try – if you’re not yet good at one then you quite possibly won’t be good at another.
You don’t need to be big to make a big noise
Social media is a great leveller. The big companies may have big budgets but in the land of connect, engage, share and learn it’s the quality of conversation that usually counts. If you’re going to run a twitter campaign for recruitment you’ve got to have good content to put out there, irrespective of size. Check out my coverage of Bromford Group’s #gottalovecake campaign to find out more.
You don’t need 1,000,000 likes. You need 1,000 new customers
This is one of Jeremy Waite’s 80 Rules of Social Media, and one that should never be forgotten. At the heart of your business you need an outcome from social interactions, and producing content that gets liked is only one small part. You need to make sure that what you do on social channels also supports the business objectives. And you should check out Jeremy’s other 79 rules too!
The conversation that never sleeps
Unashamedly this is one of my own sayings and also the title of one of my earliest blogs! Social media, especially twitter, literally is a 24/7 365 days a year conversation and if you’re a global brand, or have an interest in global business or global HR issues, then every minute of every day there will probably be someone saying something that’s deserving of your attention.
Had enough of debating about social media checking and whether we should use it when making hiring or promotion decisions? In the HR and Recruitment online networks we do seem to spend a lot of time talking about judging others by what they say on social media platforms. Whether it’s hiring managers looking to check out candidates as part of the recruitment process, or job seekers researching companies (and individuals) who they may wish to work for, there is always a healthy debate about how we interpret what others say.
Well maybe Air New Zealand have found a whole new use for it in dealing with ER issues.
They fired one of their flight attendants after she took sick leave to look after her sister. She took them to the Employment Relations Authority for unfair dismissal and AirNZ asked to see her bank accounts and have access to her Facebook page for the days concerned. She resisted as the company didn’t have these when they sacked her, and she felt they were private, but the ERA agreed with the company that she should hand them over to support her claim saying they would provide ‘substantially helpful advice’. As yet we don’t know the outcome.
Employment lawyers and employment commentators in New Zealand have been having their say:
“At a time when we think we are behaving privately or at least within a restricted circle of friends, we are actually effectively on trial”
“And the courts see Facebook as a wonderful asset because all of a sudden not only do we have the potential for pictures and so forth but . . . we can see what time statements were made and pictures were taken”
“Because while this is best evidence . . . doesn’t it creep you out a bit? It feels intrusive and just, frankly, wrong”
“Not only can often a picture tell a thousand words, but in disputes about when things happened Facebook quite often has a time stamp”
Social media updates may land you in trouble with your employers but may also be able to either corroborate or disprove whether you’re guilty of misconduct.
Are they ever really private?
And if not then can they be interpreted and used as an integral part of employee relations?
If so who judges context, syntax, intent or meaning?
More list envy on the social timelines last week. The Huffington Post Social 100 created much the same (though less localised and more amplified) shitstorm as the People Management HR Power Tweeters list a few months ago.
These types of lists will continue to be produced – after all it’s the way we create and consume so much content these days – and they do provide a service. To some they’re indispensable.
I’ve written at length before on why they don’t annoy me the way they do others, and the rights and wrongs of producing them, so without wishing to repeat myself, here are the main points…
Lists are usually prepared for people who know no better. They point the curious and those seeking more information and insight in the right direction, leaving room to investigate.
Lists are shared and critiqued by those who think they know a lot better. These are either included in the list (full of humility) or not included (full of indignation at those included who shouldn’t be there, and those not included who should).
A list will only be a snapshot, a guide to encourage the curious to investigate further. Anybody not included on the list will undoubtedly come across the radar of the curious as they begin to interact with those who are included on the list.
A list will be subjective; it will be in the eyes of the compiler. They will have their own rationale, it is their opinion. Someone has either asked them, or commissioned them, to compile it, or they have done so as part of their own content.
There is a difference between HR/Recruitment practitioners who tweet and people who tweet (and share) content about HR/Recruitment. The former do not necessarily do the latter and the latter are not necessarily practitioners of the former.
Yes, I’m on some of these lists. It’s my job to be on these lists. As content and social media manager for a large digital recruitment brand, that is part of a top 5 global digital recruitment brand, I’d be doing something wrong if I’m not on the radar of people who compile these types of lists around my sector.
I’ve often observed that influence score deniers are usually people whose score doesn’t reflect how influential they think they really are, and so the list deniers are usually those who think their influence and reach should be recognised without them having to do much to bring it to wider attention.
I’m just back from a week’s holiday during which time I’ve listened to a lot of music. With the next HR Carnival being hosted by Matt Stollack, a man who once named a series of blogs after New Order songs, it seems like a good opportunity to take the old #HRMusicShare hashtag into the blogosphere. After all, he’s left the theme open 🙂
I’ve always been an album person. One of my biggest interview gaffes was to tell the interviewer that iPods were for people who didn’t like music. (Turns out she was very keen on her iPod). My rationale was that they mostly seemed to be used for playlists and shuffle songs…an anathema to an album ‘purist’ such as myself 😉 Times change and I have my own iPod now.
The album format has always appealed to me more for solo listening than random songs as I find them a more complete work – the collection may or may not have a theme, there is almost certainly a reason why the songs have been sequenced in a certain way, there is often a range of styles and playing – are just some of the reasons. And unlike an individual track, an album usually has to be listened to many times to make sense…an investment of time that can bring its own rewards.
So here are my favourite 6 from the first half of 2013…in no particular order. The tracks I’ve used for each one aren’t necessarily my favourites from that album but are illustrative of the type of music therein…
Not really an orchestra, but 3 US/NZ chilled, psychedelic troubadours. Lovely guitars, simple themes with fuzzy, melodic twists give this a laid back, blissful feel. There’s space, and there are beats, some good 60s vibes, even a Sly Stone feel on a couple of tracks.
Probably the name on this list that most readers would never have heard of, so I’ll describe them a bit. They are a labour of love for two 25 year old maverick twin brothers from Southend and almost impossible to characterise as their music is often more soundscape than recognisable songs. (Think Talk Talk’s final two albums, some spacier Miles Davies moments, a touch of Steve Reich and Aphex Twin). On stage they comprise bass, keyboards, synthesiser, trumpet, trombone, 2 drummers and either a fado or jazz singer – on record they are supplemented with orchestral strings and woodwind (particularly bassoon). Vocals are part spoken, part mumbled and part sung atonally…somehow combining with the (often dissonant) music to create eerie, evocative melodies.
Their previous album (Hidden) was more accessible, with the songs usually driven along by militaristic drum patterns. This album is more complex to fully appreciate.
Incredibly accomplished and mature fourth album from a rapidly developing folk artist, who is still only 23! The opening 16 minutes, in which the first 4 songs fit seamlessly together as one magical piece, are her best moments to date…with a further 12 songs showing a lyrical depth (there’s a lot of soul baring here) and musical diversity from which it’s easy to believe that she may yet develop in to her generation’s Joni.
An uplifting country/soul/gospel mix from a new, breakthrough artist (although he’s 30 and has already founded a record label and worked with a number of musicians), combining powerful yet understated (at times almost whispered) vocals with a strong emotional and spiritual punch. The album uses over 30 musicians, including a horn section, string section and 10 person choir. I love this warm, powerful and intoxicating mix.
I wasn’t sure about this band at first. Maybe I got influenced by the online commentary about their Ivy League, preppy origins, but I’ll own up to finding their knowing riff pilfering and name checking more than a little contrived both on record and the one time I saw them live. A kind of Strokes gone afrobeat.
Not so on this third album though. It’s mature, intelligent, literate, exuberant, fun pop music that’s a lot more about modern living than having a hip record collection. More varied influences too – with track 3 owing more than a little to Whiter Shade of Pale.
I was a big fan in the early days, with Josh Homme’s effortless cool particularly alluring when I saw them live. Recent years have seen me less enamoured, though something about this album reeled me in. Maybe it was having Dave Grohl back on drumming duties, with a diverse range of collaborators including Alex Turner, Trent Reznor, Jake Shears and Elton John (about time the queens had a real queen he’s alleged to have said). And maybe it was the early reviews alluding to a Bowie influence – with Mojo magazine even re-creating the Hunkydory album cover using Homme’s face instead of Bowie’s. Can’t really see it myself…though I acknowledge that Kalopsia’s stand out chorus is quite a close relative of Bewlay Brothers.
I’m glad I did investigate though. It’s a sexy, glammy, sleazy, funk and grind of a hard rock album with sharp guitars, sharp hooks and a real sense of fun…not to mention a title track ballad that’s crying out to be the next Bond film theme!
So there you have my fave albums of the year so far – why not share yours in the comments…or maybe blog about them…
Today started with a business leader on breakfast TV talking of how they had ‘tidied up’ a subsidiary that had made losses. There was something almost Hitlerian about this – part of this tidying up would have been restructuring and redundancies. That’s people – their expectations and ambitions, their commitments and responsibilities – being cleared away in the tidying up.
Then there were a couple of recruitment commentators in my timeline promoting the fact that more businesses were talking about increasing their use of flexible resources in the next 3 months. That’s people they’re talking about, now a flexible resource. People with dependants and responsibilities, plans and hopes, expectations and ambitions, people with full time commitments but now getting part time, flexible income.
A ray of sunshine appeared when Tim Oldman of Leesman Index talked of workplace design being a people business not a buildings business.
The language of business seems seriously skewed at the moment. It’s depersonalising and dehumanising jobs, driving a race to the bottom for the value and self-worth of those who do the work. And it’s self-defeating as those with precarious incomes live precarious lives, which benefits no-one in the long run.
Tomorrow I’ll be joining a bunch of fine HR folk in London for the 5th ConnectingHR unconference. The topic is Brave HR.
Maybe re-humanising and re-personalising the language of business would be a brave start.
Following my recent blog on the barriers to embedding social media within an organisation, I made the offer that anyone who wanted to share their story, and maybe give a different view, could do so anonymously on this blog.
Here’s a guest post from an HR professional telling a slightly different story to the one that I did…
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‘It’s just so superficial’. Said the MD to the HR type. ‘I don’t see how it is relevant to us’.
Yes, you’ve got it; this conversation was about social media. I’m writing this blog anonymously, mainly to avoid being fired. I have a big mortgage you see.
This is the story of my so far futile attempts to convince our C Suite of the benefits of social media to them as leaders, to them as individuals, to our business. So far, I have heard every dumb reason why we don’t need or want social. (Klaxon alert).
It’s only going to interest younger employers.
I haven’t got time for it.
It’s intrusive.
I don’t see it as a main part of our internal communications. Newsletters and roadshows are better for our sort of employees.
Yammer is a security risk.
If we give people access to social media sites then they will time waste.
Social networking is for personal not work. If it is social that is what it means.
I wrote a blog once before and it didn’t work.
If we give people access to twitter then they may tweet inappropriate material about our company. Said by our IT DIRECTOR.
And here is my current personal fave:
It’s irritating.
So I think that is pretty much the complete list, don’t you?
I’m guessing that the readers of Meryvn’s blog won’t need to have the benefits of social media explained to them. If you’re reading blogs and tweets you get it already. But how do we get other people to see it? Right now I am taking some inspiration from Doug Shaw. I am proceeding until apprehended.
We got Yammer up and running by just launching it, although the IT department aren’t speaking to me because we didn’t ask their permission. Everyone now has access to Twitter and LinkedIn, although Facebook is a battle for another day. And yes, I did have to throw my teddy out of my pram to get this. I had to point out the absolute obvious. If you want to tweet something rude about your employer, you can do it on your smartphone. If you want to go on Facebook you can do it from your smartphone. If you want to time waste you can do it on your smartphone. At your desk, in the canteen…even in the toilet if you want to. Deal with it. Or deal with the individual. You think your employees don’t want it? So why did we get 200 of our employees joining Yammer in a matter of days? Perhaps you should go over and take a look at what they are talking about.
We now have a blog too, and a Pinterest page, and a twitter account. No one has actually contributed to the blog yet, and the twitter account only has 63 followers. But we are getting there, we will get there, one new Yammer comment at a time. As Mervyn himself said in a recent blog, it’s evolution not revolution.
So here is the rest of my rant to the C Suite. You don’t have time not to do it. You are missing a massive opportunity to talk directly to the people that work for you. Turning up twice a year with a PowerPoint presentation with the great strategy from on high isn’t internal communications. It is talking at people. Communication implies dialogue. You want to know what your people think? Get on twitter, write a blog, post on Yammer. It will give you a little bit more real time information than that annual survey you get your wallet out for every year. If none of those interest you? What about staying in touch with your industry, making contacts, your personal brand, improving your job prospects?
Or maybe I’ll just do what Perry Timms does when they say they don’t have the time for it. Just wish people well in keeping up to date in their careers without it.
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…Is this similar to your experience?? Share in the comments…or offer your own guest post, either named or anonymously…
Here are some comments from Twitter…
..and try this excellent graphic about Alexander Graham Bell from Jane Bozarth, author of Social Media for Trainers, if they still need convincing…
The above is a piece of artwork that the wonderful Simon Heath created for me. I’ve been lucky enough to have recently been the subject of 3 pieces created by him…the other two are below. It was created in response to some joshing on Twitter between myself and Perry Timms about my ‘pointing’ avatars and Rodin’s The Thinker.
The three pieces I’m using here just scratch the surface of the range of artwork he can produce – you can see a lot more of his work, both the professional and the fun reactive pieces, on his blog Work Musing.
He is a very talented illustrator, animator and cartoonist who works with businesses on communications artworking. I have met him once and found him to be warm, considerate, intelligent and very giving of his time, and I want to bring to your attention something that he is doing to help raise money for the mental health charity MIND.
You can read the full background on his own blog here – inspired by Jon Bartlett he is going to create a piece of unique artwork for a blind auction. Jon has recently blogged for MIND and his January post for Alison Chisnell’s guest blog series started the HR for Mental Health initiative.
Here is Simon’s offer, in his own words…
“I have been inspired by Jon to create something unique to raise money for this wonderful charity and I want someone to have the chance to determine what that is and to own the result. You can find examples of my cartoon work elsewhere on this blog. The premise is simple. If you would like a bespoke cartoon (no larger than A4 in size) created to your specification, you should email me at sjheath@live.co.uk with your bid. The auction is blind so you will not be aware of the value of other bids. The bidding period will last from the moment this post is published until midnight (British Summer Time) on Friday 14th June 2013. On Saturday 15th June, I will contact the highest bidder to notify them that they have submitted the winning bid and to find out what subject matter they would like the cartoon to cover. With their permission I will announce their name and chosen topic both here and on Twitter on the same day and also to publish the final artwork here for you all to see. I will of course need to see proof of donation”
I urge all regular readers to get involved with this initiative.
I’m not joining the auction as Simon has kindly already created these pieces of bespoke artwork about me…in recognition of which I will make my own donation to MIND.
Can’t wait to seeing the winning artwork in a couple of weeks!
You may have picked up some of the online chatter around the new NatWest advert. If you’ve not seen it then it’s quite a nice ad, you can watch it here…and it ends with the call to action
The main message is that they say yes to 9 out of 10 mortgage applications (based on applications submitted over the last 15 months and excluding buy to let). And if you want to find out more you just ‘Search NatYes’
Clever, huh! Simple and punchy.
Except in 2013 if you tell people to search NatYes that’s exactly what they’ll do. On Google, Bing or whatever their search engine of choice is. And when you do you get…
That’s right, one paid adwords ad. Try the domain names natyes.com and natyes.co.uk – and they’re available! D’oh! So no real further information. Nothing in the general listings.
I noticed something else about it too. The print ads show a graphic of a mouse with NatYes next to it….so they are telling you to search it from a computer as a way of connecting with the campaign. Except that all you’ll get is a Google ad, which I suspect is quite expensive. No other form of digital or social engagement to back up the campaign.
When I blogged about HMV earlier this year it was to highlight their failure to grasp the evolving digital and social landscape, and tellingly the failure to understand changes in consumer behaviours, and with NatWest here’s another case of a large brand failing to do the same. Or maybe it’s their advisers who are being remiss. I’m sure NatWest have a digital marketing team…were they consulted?
You see, the image of the mouse gave the game away for me…they are thinking of office desktop computers. How many people will ‘search NatYes’ using a mouse? Very few I would think.
If the call to action is at the end of a TV ad, and on newspaper ads, then the device for doing the searching is likely to be a smartphone, tablet or laptop. In fact they didn’t need a symbol at all! Merely the word ‘Search’ tells people what they want to know. The ad is aimed at a demographic that don’t need to be told to search.
So is the mouse a giveaway? Millions spent on a campaign, but a telling failure to understand consumer behaviour in the most important call to action.
The message is you’ve got a 90% chance of getting your mortgage approved…the call to action of ‘Search NatYes’ appears a gratuitous, or ill thought out and planned, one.
In the way that ‘Go to work on an egg’ was probably pitched with the sentiment ‘Look, no-one is literally going to believe you can travel to work on an egg’ maybe ‘Search NatYes’ was pitched with ‘Look, very few are literally going to do a search for it’
Clearly the readers of this blog like social media – my last post became my most viewed of the year within 48 hours, and the second most viewed is this one on social media judging.
I did get messages from those who wanted to agree with me but couldn’t publicly, and I also had some DM conversations with people who felt that it was the C-suite who were the barrier in their organisations – again they were unable to say so publicly. If anyone is up for it, I would be really keen to publish anonymously from any guest who wanted to write about their experiences.
One question that I’m often asked at conferences and events is how to get employees using social channels for business. It’s one thing getting buy in at either C or management level and sometimes another to get people using it effectively.
I gave a presentation at the recent Social Media Results Conference on some of the ways to get user generated content, with a particular emphasis on internal involvement.
My advice is to keep it simple and keep to the 3 E’s…Empower, Enable and Encourage.
Empower
Pretty much everyone in your organisation has some kind of digital footprint. Without going generationalisationist I think you can pretty much guarantee that any Millenial, Gen Y, Gen X type (and older ones too, now) will have a Facebook page as a minimum. Anyone in a client facing role or a specialist area – sales, marketing, finance, technology, HR, customer service – will almost certainly have a LinkedIn profile too. So don’t tell me that there’s no social capability in the company!
They know the tools to use; they just need the green light to use them. So let them! Remember its guidelines not policies, and conversations not targeted conversions. And make twitter accessible too.
Enable
Of course, there’s a big difference between posting a picture from this morning’s dog walk, or adding something to your key skills section, and sharing something about what your company does. So in addition to giving people the green light to use social channels you need to up-skill them too. In a way that makes it easy and fun, not a chore.
The last thing you want is for people to get the impression you’re increasing their workload so this has to be natural, let them have the tools and have some fun with it.
Encourage
It’s not a test with a right and wrong answer. People won’t always get it right at first, which is why you need to encourage. Most early tweets can be embarrassing, so let people develop their own voice and style. Nothing will turn someone off quicker than being told they’re not doing it right…immediately it will feel like a measurable task , and if it isn’t in their job description then they won’t want to do it!
And, finally…
Be social to get social
I hold a monthly lunch – the Social Lunch – and get a group of colleagues together who want to find out more about social networks and how they can use them. I get some pizzas in and we talk about social, particularly how the can use it for themselves. Everyone is keen to know more about Twitter, so that’s where much of the focus has been. Some months we get someone else along from the business to talk about how they use the networks. We’re creating a blog too that everyone will contribute to.
It’s been going for a year and we have a loyal group that, crucially, keeps getting added to. People are talking about being the twitter champions for their teams, and more people from their teams want to find out what’s happening.
The pizza element is important. It needs to be fun and social, and there needs to be something in it for them, else it becomes a missable training session. Remember…
‘Is that cheese, tomato and lettuce on malted brown? I’ll have one of those please’. Said. No-one. Ever.
‘Is that a Chicken Supreme with extra mushrooms? I’ve never tried that before, I must have a slice’. Says. Everyone.
So make it fun and sociable and everyone will be keen to help share your message.
After all, your employer brand is what your past and present employees say about you, so why give them a bad experience of using the channels through which you need them to communicate it?
Talent Trends & Insights 