TechKaraoke SXSW Photo Credit: Wayne Kurtzman @WayneNH

Despite the fact that I completely lost my voice during the conference, I did manage to sing with the help of my pal, Margot Bloomstein, who carried the vocals as we belted out The Violent Femmes “Blister in the Sun” with the live band. Not sure how great we sounded, but it was pretty awesome to have the fans blowing our hair in true “80’s big hair” fashion. Hey, I felt like a rock star for a good 3 minutes!

So, here is the video with Jen where I found out a bit more about her company Pinqued why she colored her hair pink.

Thanks Jen and Kate!

Want to learn more about how USATODAY.com is using social media to connect with its readers and share content?  Brian Dresher presented “More than just the news. A social media case study” during a recent AwarenessInc webinar. The complete recording can be accessed here.

According to OurCompassion (OC), the community, which was launched in June 2009,  is “a place for all of us to come together and get organized on behalf of children living in poverty.”

This is an amazing organization that serves more than 800,000 supporters who are sponsoring more than one million children worldwide. The OC community serves as a place for supporters to share, organize and speak up on behalf of children living in poverty.

During our discussion, Katie shared how the OC community was instrumental during the Haiti Earthquakes as it played an important role in facilitating communication with supporters around the world. Through this tragedy, the community went from being a new, young endeavor into a key player in the grand scheme of Compassion’s social media strategy as it became an integral part of their disaster response approach.  With the community, they were and continue to direct Compassion sponsors to the community for further support and information.

What they also found was that through this, the community naturally displayed new levels of “social maturity” (commonly looked for on social networking environments) as members showed deeper levels of friendship and honesty as they all worked through this tragedy together.  

My video interview with Katy is below. Please take a moment to hear what she has to say about OurCompassion.org and please check out their community for more information on how you can get involved.

If you are also a tea-loving, social media person like I am, then you will definitely want to check out this video interview I did with Marshall Malone of Portsmouth Tea Company (@PortsmouthTea) while attending the NH Social Media Breakfast.

Connections and Eye Contact!

Marshall was kind enough to sit down with me right after he got himself a bowl of Portsmouth Tea Company’s soup of the day (they offer some amazing food there too – FYI). Marshall shared with me some background on Portsmouth Tea Company, which was founded as an online-only retailer of fine teas and has since opened its first cafe located at 475 High Street in Somersworth, NH. He discusses how using social marketing has helped him connect with his customers both online and offline to help establish that “eye contact” that he says is so important in building relationship.

Want to buy a cow?

Portsmouth Tea Company is also involved in a very unique cause marketing initiative with True Sojourners that helps to buy cows that are then given to families in Nepal.  They ask their patrons to stop bytheir cafe and donate anytime; 100% of donations goes to purchase the cow.

I encourage you to take a peek at my interview with Marshall below and to also check out their online store if you are or know anyone that is a tea lover. If you are local, definitely stop by their cafe in Somersworth, NH for some tea and a bite to eat.

A big thank you to Marshall for sitting down with me. Sorry your soup got cold!

During the webinar, Caroline shared with us the top ten operational barriers to social business success as well as the ten best practices for socializing your business. I outlined those in this post for you, but I definitely encourage you to check out the complete webinar below.

Top 10 Operational Barriers to Social Business Success

1. Organizational Silos
2. Command and Control Management
3. Top Down, One-Way Communication
4. Social Activities Not Integrated Into the Workflow
5. Employees Measured on Individual Performance
6. Competitive Culture
7. No Guidelines or Training
8. No Methods for Measuring Social Value
9. No Executive Sponsor
10. No Role Modeling

If a business truly wants to become a social business, they should definitely focus on overcoming barriers #9 and #10 and go beyond just signing up and purchasing social media tools. I refer to this quote from Scott Monty of Ford quite a bit because it rocks and it is very applicable here – 90% of social media is just showing up. What I mean here is that employees typically follow the lead of their leaders and if the upper managment isn’t particpating in social media, what is their motivation to do so?  To truly socialize your business, everyone must participate and incoporate these activies into their daily jobs.

As Caroline pointed out, IDC believes social media is transforming not just how we communicate, but also how we conduct business.  Corporations will not be able to easily adapt to this new order if the CEO is not on board. Social media use by employees for work purposes is coming into corporations, but the opportunity to harness it needs support from executives.

 Top 10 Best Practices for Socializing Your Business

1. Start small – take baby steps
2. Lead With a Corporate Initiative
3. Tie Measurement Back to Core Business Objectives
4. Put your Social People in Front to Champion
5. Establish and Official Framework for Participation (Social Media Guidelines)
6. Provide Incentives for Community Participation
7. Keep HR, Legal, IT Involved in the Process
8. Executive Sponsorship
9. Role Modeling
10. Ongoing internal education, training and outreach

Attendees were also sharing some key soundbites and commentary tagged with #awarenessinc during the session (highlights below), but the one statistic that seemed to resonate the most with everyone was when Caroline shared the results from a national survey of CIO’s by Robert Half Technology which showed that 54% of CIO’s completely prohibit public social networking site usage at work.  This study, as you can imagine, gained a lot of attention because this statistic was higher than many expected. Caroline went on to explain that with social media entering the workplace under the IT radar – the CIO has been put in a reactive position and challenged to address employee use of public social media in the workplace.

 bellatrixr: Ok, so I have baggage w/this: And in whose hands it rests — “Technology is only as good as a user.” (RT @awarenessinc

 karyncooks: AMEN! RT @kayhaswingsNo one should “own” socmed. Shouldn’t be separate dept, should be discipline of entire company. #awarenessinc

dmourey: Need to integrate into biz objectives & empower those who want to bcome cust. advocates, crowdsource ideas, demonst expertise #awarenessinc

 aaroncarter: #awarenessincshould there be a social executive officer? I think this depends on structure and needs of your organizaion.

 tallbonez: #awarenessinc What is the op operational barrier to SM for your company: 31% said getting colleagues to participate

 k8johnson: Technology enables, but doesn’t guarantee success. Culture is a major definer of social & community success via @cdangson #awarenessinc

dmourey: soc media is not just mktg. but across functions- cust. serv., prod dev., recruiting, just mktg limits orgs chance to chg. #awarenessinc

 tomassteele: social media is the discipline of the entire company!! #awarenessinc

 llgraham: Marcomm the lucky “winner” to own social media in recent survey #awarenessinc

 Ignitus: 47.5% of organizations implementing social media do not have published social media guidelines #awarenessinc

 christinelexa: Purchasing social software doesn’t make your biz more social – Amen. So true. #awarenessinc

Have your own thoughts to share? Please continue the discussion here or on Twitter by tagging with #awaressinc and @socialbiz  – Thank you!

What’s Next??

The next Awareness webinar focusing on Social Media Engagement is scheduled for January 14, 2010 at 2pm ET with Katie Paine,CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a NH-based company that provides customized research that measures public relationships and brand image. You won’t want to miss this one! Register Here: http://bit.ly/KatiePaine

We chatted a bit about his passion for online communities, what goes into successfully creating and managing one and why brands should create their own.

Check out my discussion with him for yourself below

Do you “got community?” If so, what makes your community so successful? If not, what are you waiting for??

Rachel Happe of The Community Roundtable

Chris Brogan wrote about the difference between audience and community where he said “The difference between an audience and a community is which direction the chairs are pointing.” Well, I happen to love that statement and believe in it completely. What he was trying to say, or at least what I interpret what he was trying to say (Chris, you can correct me if I am wrong later)  is that slapping up a bunch of content on your site in an effort to attract an audience does not a community make. It’s effective if you want to draw some eyeballs – especially if the content is really great, but you can’t call that community.

So what is community?

In the latest Awareness webinar, Rachel Happe and Jim Storer of The Community Roundtable along with Adam Zawel, XPC Community Facilitator at Palladium Group presented “The Community Maturity Model.”

During the webinar, Rachel brought us through the different phases of The Community Maturity Model while Adam shared his first-hand experiences building and managing Palladium Group’s community.

According to Rachel, community is about the relationships between the people in your community and not just a content-rich website (the “audience” Brogan referred to). It is these relationships that drive engagement, passion and long term relationships. Reminds me of Ford Motor Company and their success in using social media to drive that passion for its vehicles.

A few key takeaways were shared by listeners via Twitter. My favorite, of course, is the tweet about the correlation between offline and online building community

• themaria Lessons in community: if you drive a lot of members to a site without prior relationships, it will fall off. (via @rhappe) #awarenessinc
• themaria .@rahppe says she’d prefer a smaller, passionate community than larger community that just languishes, i couldn’t agree more! #awarenessinc
• dltegart (via @rhappe) “managing a community is like making risotto” #awarenessinc
• mightymegasaur love the idea getting members to an in person event, something we are looking at next year#awarenessinc
• karyncooks @mightymegasaur We believe in offline/online building community. Hard to convince clients that offline will drive online. #awarenessinc
• themaria Internal evangelism and education are a huge part of community management. There should be other people helping out #awarenessinc
• karyncooks 1 in 1000 rule: Likely to have one problematic community member in 1000 member pool. Make them adhere to TOS. #awarenessinc
• karyncooks Track community month over month – not any 1 thing that moves the needle that much within smaller time increments. #awarenessinc

You can check out the complete webinar below in case you missed it or just want to watch it again. Slides are also available for viewing here.

So, where does your organization fall within The Community Maturity Model? I would love to hear what you are doing within your organization to drive engagement. Have questions? Share those in the comments too.

What’s coming up next?

Be sure to register for the next Awareness webinar taking place on Thursday, December 10, 2009 with Caroline Dangson of IDC titled “Socializing the Enterprise: Breaking Down Operational Barriers to Social Business Success.” Register here.

The answer is certainly not from corporations. Scott pointed out that according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, it’s certainly not the companies that consumers go to first. In fact the 2009 Barometer revealed that globally, 62% of people trust corporations less than they did last year. And its even worse within the U.S. where 77% of consumers are skeptical of anything that comes from a corporation.

So who do consumers trust to get their information from? The answer Scott provided was that most consumers get their information from third party experts and journalistic sources such as Consumer Reports and Wall Street Journal. But most importantly people trust the information they receive from others like them and with whom they can identify with such as a family member, friend or someone from within their network. Those are the people they will trust and ultimately influence their decision to buy.

Paraphrasing Woody Allen, where he said ”90% of life is just showing up,” Scott shared with us how Ford subscribes to the Woody Allen philosophy of social media which is “90% of social media is just showing up.” Its about being where people expect you to be.  Showing up is easy, its the other part that is hard and is often where the majority of corporations fail. Well Ford is certainly doing more than just showing up. With Scott to guide them, the corporation that has experienced its share of challenges,  is now seeing significant success in their social media efforts through their many campaigns. Proof of this success could possibly be attributed to the company’s recently posted profits of nearly $1 billion in its third quarter.

Twitter was also buzzing about Scott’s discussion as many participants were rapidly sharing some of the highlights and soundbites during the webinar using the hashtag #awarenessinc. Some of my favorites are highlighted below. As you watch and listen to the webinar yourself, what are some of the key highlights for you? I would love to continue the discussion via Twitter (with the tag #awarenessinc) or in the comment section below. P.S. Scott’s slides can be accessed via Slideshare here: http://bit.ly/2I4Mhx

1. C3CreateConnect: RT @awarenessinc: People trust those that are part of their network- friends/family- hose they can identify with – @ScottMonty #Awarenessinc
2. christinelexa: #Ford has been in a tough place recently. @scottmonty wanted to get back to Ford & its roots – the people & innovation. #awarenessinc
3. RonArden: #awarenessinc Connecting with people on an emotional level with your products or services is what we should all strive for.
4. bostonmike: 90% of social media is just “showing up” from @scottmonty #awarenessinc
5. awarenessinc: Who is @Ford Motor Co? “We are a Green, Global, High Tech Company that is improving people's lives” #awarenessinc (@ScottMonty)
6. k8johnson: Technology is not holding us back, it is the behavior & culture change that is… (via @scottmonty #AwarenessInc)
7. GreenSoil: Talk to your customers like human beings – both online and offline #awarenessinc (@ScottMonty)
8. MetroplexTBC: #awarenessinc Measureing SM ROI is like trying to justify why you should put on pants, not doing it will have some serious repercussions
9. jalexander0204: #awarenessinc – understand your business and industry first
10. 14str8: As mentioned by @ScottMonty on #awarenessinc webinar Fathers Day – Mustang Video http://bit.ly/16y5tn