The Community Roundtable, a self-described “peer network of community managers and social media practitioners” released a report last week based on research and member input regarding the “State of Community Management”.  While the report is written from the perspective of the role of a Community Manager, it contains many gems within its 60+ pages that any organization that learn from.  See a download link at the end of this post.

I consume dozens of reports and articles like this on a regular basis, but this one actually caused me to print it (*gasp*) to read more carefully.

The report content is organized around the ‘8 competencies’ of their “Community Maturity Model”.   Here are a few of the key findings that directly coincide with what we have found in our life as Social Media Practitioners:

Strategy: “Difficulties in developing social media and community strategies often expose issues with core business strategies, particularly as they relate to cross-functional approaches.”  So true.   It’s hard to knit a consistent approach to anything across organizational silos, and a community is no different.  Added to this, community requires transparency, which not all parts of the organization like very much.

Also in Strategy, “Online communities require an orientation around behaviours, particularly group behaviours vs. demographic characteristics.”   The key focus is relationships.  That’s what matters.  And the unique elements which cause them to formulate and grow in online environments.

Leadership: “Relationships can be saved if constituents are complaining.  When they don’t complain, its far more risky.”  Simply assuming all is good because you don’t hear negative feedback, is like assuming kids don’t complain about parents to their friends, or employees don’t talk about their bosses outside work.  And just as risky.

Culture: “Using metaphors is an excellent way to communicate training, guidelines, and models to individuals newly exposed to social technology and new modes of communication”.  We do this all the time, calling it “story-telling”.  And here’s a great metaphor from the report to describe the skills required to participate in a new community: its “similar to that of an expatriate living in a foreign country.”  Nicely put.  We’ll use that one, too.

Community Management: a few good points here…

• “The ‘community’ gets lots of activity when marketing pushes are done but then dies off quickly afterward because no relationships have been established.”  See above: it’s about the relationship(s).  Marketing, especially, needs to understand the critical differences in relationship between on- and offline campaigns
• “The key to managing successful communities is understanding behaviour economics and anthropology vs. focusing on the latest tools and technology.”  Or flaming logos, or dumb videos.  It’s the people.
• “Idle or off-topic chit-chat is a critical part of community…” “…this is actually a positive indication of successfully enabling relationships.”  People talk to each other to gain trust.  Go figure.

Content and Programming: “Before jumping in or out of (all the social media tools & networks) understand who needs to be communicated with, how, and how they use various technologies and channels, then identify the appropriate tools.”  Someone has been reading our Social Media Best Practices, I think.

Polices and Governance: “Legal and/or HR teams are more comfortable when they know what is going on.”  “Legal teams’ concern is often around the unknown.”  You’ve heard the phrase ‘Never blindside your CEO”?  Ditto for Legal and HR.  Involve them up front.

Metrics and Measurement: “Measure as few things as you can in order to track progress effectively,” and these “should fall directly out of your community strategy that should, in turn, be derived from your business strategy.”  Ditto for our Social Media Balanced Scorecard.

Tools (on social media analysis vendors): The tools are also not intuitive and will still require legwork”.  A Fool With A Tool, Is Still A Fool.

As indicated by a Foreword note, the “report provides valuable insight into the real world human dynamics and (organizational) politics, which are instrumental to enduring success in community building.”  The report is graciously offered for free.  You just have to register with an email address.

From my last Leadership Blog, we looked at how Megan and Ted used the Weighted Averages Method to help them make a decision about moving because Megan was considering a new position in a different city. However, both the option of moving and the option of staying were a virtual tie using The Weighted Averages Method. However, when Megan applied The 70% Rule, there was a difference in terms of “gut feel” there was a significant difference between position number three and Megan’s current position. Ted was equally content moving or staying put. However, when Megan thought of staying in her current position, it just didn’t feel right. It turned out that she wanted a new challenge more than she thought she did. Since they lived near a university, they could rent their current house to visiting professors and rent a condo in their new location. This would give them the opportunity to try out condo living and see if they wanted to buy a condo or return to their home when they both retired. This example points out the benefits of using more than one decision-making technique.                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Exercise: Can you think of a time when you used “The 70% Rule”, even if you were not conscious that you were using it? How did the decision turn out? Alternatively, you can try the 70% Rule with an important current decision and see how it turns out.

Then grade yourself using A (Very Good) through F (Very Poor) in each of the three areas from the 70% Rule:

            Information Gathering                    

            Analysis                                             

            Gut Instinct                                       

What proof do you have that would validate the grade you gave yourself in each area?

What proof do you have that invalidates or does not substantiate the grade you gave yourself?

Ask several peers, colleagues and/or friends to rate you on the three areas.

   Information Gathering                                           

   Analysis                                                                             

  Gut Instinct                                                                    

Do their ratings substantiate the ratings that you gave yourself?

Where do their ratings not substantiate the ratings you gave yourself?

What additional information or data analysis do you need to improve the accuracy of how you rate yourself?

Next, think about another situation where you could or should apply the 70% Rule.

Colour-NL

Colour-NL is a St. John’s-based agency specializing in Marketing and Communications Counsel, Advertising and Design Consulting.

Getting closer to your customer:

At Colour-NL we work smart to provide you with marketing communication solutions rooted in your customer’s reality. We subscribe to the view that in most cases it is not as important what we and the client thinks about a particular marketing or communication issue or challenge, but most important what the recipient of the client’s message thinks.

What is it about your company, product, brand or ideas that they want to ‘buy’? We focus more on what your customer wants to buy from you and less on what it is that you want to sell. The work we do for you on any project, no matter how large or how small, will always be refreshingly original, but most importantly it will be work that works hard with your customer.

The Colour-NL team effectively balances the ability to provide strategic marketing and communications counsel with the capability to get things done on time and on budget. We achieve the best results in partnership with our clients.

Collaborative co-creation:

Colour has considerable experience creating and producing strong brands and communication strategies built on big ideas that will engage and motivate people. At the heart of our approach is getting closer to the people you are trying to reach. Colour works hand in hand in a co-creative way with our clients to ensure our approach to strategic marketing and communications is grounded in the reality of the customer.

What’s different about us helps to serve clients better.

Colour is unique because we start with different beliefs:

We believe:

• There can be better marketing results through collaboration. This is what drives our philosophy of co-creative.
• We believe that people can only support what they help to create. Our approach is therefore to co-create with our clients and our clients’ customers.
• Through a collaborative process with much more transparency, we can: improve on the creative output… better ideas… better execution; and, increase the speed of development, which lowers our client’s costs.

Colour Passion:

• To affect positive change through inspired conversation.
• To be admired by clients for our creativity, curiosity and drive to solve problems.
• To be respected in our community for our contribution in making this a better place to live and work.

Regional Colour resources:

Colour-NL proudly represents the CCL Group of companies in Newfoundland and Labrador. We are an independently managed CCL Group company, however Colour-NL clients benefit from Group resources if and when appropriate.

We take the responsibilities of providing counsel very seriously and if that means we agree with local clients, that in managing their business, it is relevant to ask for help from one or more of our group companies, including Colour teams in Halifax and Moncton, we do what is best for them. Similarly, our group companies very often come to us for assistance on behalf of their clients.

Thus we offer clients fully integrated marketing and communications professional services, incorporating a wide range of expertise, and our in-house capabilities include:

• Branding and strategic planning
• Public affairs, government relations, marketing public relations
• Social media strategy, planning and execution
• TV, radio and print advertising creative and execution in English and French
• E-Marketing
• Media research, strategy, planning and buying
• Event management, staging and promotion
• Video production
• Translation services through Text in Context
• Direct-to-consumer programs

Colour-NL is managed and staffed by a small team of very experienced self-starters and creative-thinking individuals, who specifically choose to live and work in Newfoundland. We are trusted to fulfill numerous marketing and communication functions on behalf of some of the regions most successful companies.

• We value integrity in the way that we conduct our affairs
• We value the relationships that we form and maintain with our partners
• Some of those relationships span more than a decade.
• We always try to do the right thing… even when it’s tough.

Mutually supportive relationships adding effective colour to client communications:

In Newfoundland and Labrador we produce high-quality work that always works hard on behalf on Fortis Inc’s Investor Relation’s team, actively assists with Technip Canada’s staff recruitment campaign, which brings young people home to engineer and live right here, as well as helps reposition Technip as both a topsides and sub-sea supplier to the oil-industry. We provide professional services to Husky, Suncor, ExxonMobil, Vale Inco, NWest Energy, Provincial Aerospace, CNIB and the St. John’s Board of Trade.

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Faced with the management of our respective business we are expected to keep up with the speed of technology in all we do. As my collegue, Andrew Goldsworthy has aptly noted, more and more businesses are succumbing to the pressure of “TGIF”, an idea conceived by our mentor, marketing legend Al Ries.

Apparently, this interesting acronym is now more than just thanking your blessed deity for helping you make it to the end of another work week. “TGIF” has now become a great way to understand the nature of the thinking that is urging the rapid adoption of social media’s acceptance and integration into our personal realities.  

“TGIF” stands for the 4 major ‘network’ channels in web based media that are dominating the thoughts of business owners across North America today: Twitter, Google, Internet, Facebook.  I’m willing to bet that if you are in business then you have at least one of these four ‘network’ channels, if not all four, broadcasting the current status of your business to the world 168 hours per week – 52 weeks a year. Yes – you read that correctly – you are broadcasting.

Have you ever considered for a moment that social marketing is like owning and operating your very own television channel? Like “The Food Network”, ”TSN” or “History” channels. How long would they keep their viewers interest if their shows kept repeating and repeating over and over and never got updated? What would happen to viewers if the updates were out of date too?      

And make no mistake about it – if your use of any of the four TGIF ‘network’ channels is not up to date and relevent then you are doing yourself more harm than good. My advice: stay current consistently – if you cannot -then stop using the channel immediately. At least until you review your promotional strategy and implement a system that guarantees you’re consistently staying current on all the channels you broadcast your business on.

If you examine TGIF you’ll notice the “I” is in the middle between the “G” and the “F”. The “I” stands for ‘Internet’ and is the channel you normally refer to as your ’web site’. I simply cannot stress enough the importance of ensuring your ‘web site’ is designed to attract, qualify, convert, optimize and retain your relationship with your Ideal Brand Customers/Clients (IBCs). Anything less than this is a waste of your time, energy and money. Few are the business owners I’ve met that have this crucial structure in their web site.  

Imagine how fast a television station would tank if they only broadcasted a range of programs designed for all different ages and interests without any FOCUS on who their IBCs are – in this case the buying customers of eager corporations with budgets big enough to afford the cost of national advertising on major TV networks. \

Start right now, if you give still give a damn, and review your ‘Internet’ channel strategy and current web site. Begin with answering these two powerful questions:

1. Who is our Ideal Brand Customer/Client? (IBC)

2. Why?    

This process of identifying and understanding your IBCs will greatly help you focus your message moving forward. Those customers who do not meet the attributes of your IBC profile require you to let them go. 

However, I have found the easiest way to let them go is to stop encouraging them to come back. Change the look and feel of your brand so it appeals more to your IBCs. For example, if you move towards being higher end and more pricey, then price sensitive buyers will tend to stay away. When you consider these types of buyers as your “Less Than Ideal” Customers/Clients (LTIs) you’ll will begin to see how much sense it makes to surrender them to the other businesses in your buying category. 

Bottom line:  Before you jump on the social media wave (if you haven’t already by some freak chance) and start utilizing all four channels of “TGIF’ make sure you have a proven marketing strategy in place that will ensure you attract and retain your IBCs and surrend your LTIs consistently.  Do this and TGIF will rock your world.  Seriously.

BGR8,

Bill Jackman

Employers in NL should have received or be receiving their Assessment notices now. Please take the time to look carefully at this document as your entitlement to refunds is written in the little box underneath your assessment information. We have experienced on multiple occasions situations where clients have been advised by the WHSCC that they do not qualify for refunds, when in fact they do qualify. It may simply state that you have forfeited your refund of x amount of dollars. We had one this week where it stated that the employer had forfeited $96,000.00. It was an error, but I had to call to get it rectified. 

We have been given limited explanations as to why this is occurring, but I wonder if it would have been corrected had we not questioned what was going on? 

Please do not take their information at face value. You need to call and ensure the refund was forfeited and request the reason why in writing as you do have 

the option to appeal. It is alarming to me that the WHSCC would render a decision regarding an employers’ entitlement to a refund and not give the employer their legislative right to appeal the decision. 

How does one get away with this?