Groundswell… Winning in a world transformed by social technologies Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff shed some light on the most powerful force to hit the business world…

What is the Groundswell? And why should I care? The groundswell is: A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations. Comes from the mingling of three factors –People –Technology –Economics Offline allows business to create loyal customers that do not change their mind Online customers change their mind often –Constantly changing their mind and looking for a better deal or product Online Traffic = Money Don’t try to avoid the groundswell –Embrace it and you may be able to thrive in it

Digg… Digg is basically a website where you can “digg” certain news articles. The most popular stories become featured on the website 09 F –The encryption for the “uncopyable” high definition DVD format had been broken The lesson learned… Don’t try and take something off the internet, it will only draw more attention to it

Jujitsu and New Technologies Groundswell thinking is like the martial art, jujitsu –Harness the power of your opponent for your own advantage Important groundswell technologies –Blogs, user generated content, podcasts People creating –Social Networking People connecting –Wikis People collaborating –Forums, ratings, and reviews People reacting to each other –Tags People organizing content –RSS and Widgets Accelerating consumption

The Social Technographic Profile Like demographics or psychographics but based more on technology behaviors –Grouping people on the amount and what type of groundswell participation 6 groups… –Creators –Critics –Collectors –Joiners –Spectators –Inactives

An example of the profile, and MTV Majority of young people in the US are joiners, over 60% have a facebook. Over 600 groups on facebook about MTV Plenty of collectors, critics, and creators among the group so MTV should use blogs, forums, and videos to attract their audience

POST Post is a systematic series of steps for creating your groundswell activity plan –People Find out how your customers would engage in one of the groundswell activities –Objectives Define your goals. What are you going to use the groundswell for –Strategy How do you want the relationship with your company to change –Technology Which of the groundswell technologies should you use

Five successful objectives companies pursue Listening (research) Talking (marketing) Energizing (sales) Supporting Embracing (development)

Listening Two strategies –Start up your own private community –Start brand monitoring Six reasons why you should listen –Find out what your brand stands for –Understand how the buzz is shifting –Save research money; increase research responsiveness –Find the sources of influence in your market –Manage PR crises –Generate new product and marketing ideas

Talking… not shouting Traditional marketing shouts (repetition) Talking with the groundswell –Post a viral video –Engage in SNS’s and other user created content websites –Join a blog –Create a community Ten ways to start talking on a blog –Start by listening –Determine a goal –Estimate the ROI –Develop a plan –Rehearse –Develop an editorial process –Design the blog and its connection to your site –Develop a marketing plan so people can find your blog –Blogging is more than writing –Be honest

Energizing the groundswell Word of mouth can spread brand benefits everywhere with no cost to the company It succeeds because… –It’s believable –It’s self reinforcing –It’s self spreading Word of mouth is the most honest form of marketing

Help the groundswell support itself Traditional support can be annoying for both parties, as well as costly People are much more willing to trust each other over a company Participate in support forums and talk with customers Activity creates content, which creates traffic and links, which boosts search engine placement, which drives more traffic, etc… Monitor the online communities

Two examples of the groundswell supporting

Embracing the groundswell Making customers an integral part of the way you innovate with both products and process improvements Makes things get done faster –Customers don’t take long to tell you what they want –Your making continuous improvements, so innovation happens quicker Embracing takes a balance between humility and skill –Use the humility to listen, then use your skill to fix the current problem and make improvements

The groundswell will change your company Will make your company more innovative –Become quicker and more accepting of new technologies –Be able to adapt quickly To succeed with the groundswell your company must… –Start small –Educate your executives –Get the right people to run your strategy –Get your agency and technology partners in sync –Plan for the next step and the long term

The groundswell within your company Use the groundswell to get insight from the whole company –The bigger the company the harder it will be to do so Information flows down the management level Use wikis and SNS’s –Use the groundswell to allow creativity to flow among the people that know how your business works best, the employees Internal groundswell is all about creating relationships Encourage participation Management must listen Internal social applications need more trust –More at stake for employees Inactives are a bad thing –Slow participation and do not allow the idea generation to pick up speed

The future… Lessons that will prepare you for the future of the groundswell –First, the groundswell is about human to human communication and interaction –Second, be a good listener –Third, be patient –Fourth, be opportunistic –Fifth, be flexible –Sixth, be collaborative –Seventh, be humble

That’s all Any questions??