Social media is about the people, well at least it should be. Approaching social media strategy with a “platform mentality” is like focusing our attention on the which bike we need to ride when we should be concentrating on our fitness levels to win the race.

Fitness in social media is the ability to understand our consumers. Social media allows us to engage, communicate, question and observe our customers.  This should give us a wealth of information to better understand our customers and better meet their needs. Regardless of the platform, their communication over these platforms should give us insight into their lives, their vales and their needs. Social media opens the door to understanding the new consumer, consumer 2.0. This is what a social media strategy should create, better customer understanding in order to win sales and loyalty.

The path to purchase is too complicated to suggest that social media can be an isolated sales channel on its own. What people see in social media circles often impacts their purchase decisions in a point of sale environment. Consumer opinion online can overpower your offline branding objectives and a physical experience of bad customer service will always impact sales negatively, whether experienced online or offline.

Social media cannot be strategised in isolation to other marketing channels and product design should not take place without researching customer opinion in social media channels. The complexity of social media as an industry is growing to the point that it’s starting to replicate the complexity of a human being. We use forums for formal discussion, search engines and wikipedias for research, micro-blogs for short everyday conversations and we even see business networks realising real return on investment for its users.

People are not social online because of Facebook, Facebook is social because of people.

The new consumer uses the Internet in their own way, the way that makes sense to them, that makes life easier for them. The new consumer does not use all of the Internet, only the parts that makes sense.

So our role as social media strategists is to leverage social media platforms to build communities of people online, in order to listen to, and engage with our ‘fans’. We should encourage those interested towards loyalty and listen to the entire community to learn what interests them. We should stop trying to connect with everyone, and start creating communities of value rather than size. We should start the conversation so that we show our openness to connect and we should be equipped with the ability make a real impact in our customers lives.

1. Making yourself heard

2. Connecting with potential business partners

3. Using Twitter to book meetings

4. Using Facebook to recruit your cheerleading team

5. Using e-mail to connect with potential clients

6. Talk about success

7. Use blogging to force your learning curve

Hope you enjoy the series!

Social Technology (Social Media) has thrown many businesses and industries into a state of flux as they feel the effects of this communication shift.

Barriers to entry, an influx of new entrepreneurs, new platforms and a change in social interactions has business in a spin to keep ahead of the game and protect their competitive advantage.

The fact is that today’s competitive advantage won’t be tomorrow’s. The internet and social technology will make sure of that. Customers are beginning to choose a digital platform (e-commerce, social media or crowd-sourcing and group buying) to purchase from, search for and comment about your company. You can no longer ignore this business shift.

Social Reinvention

A presentation that looks into how business can reinvent its marketing, products, systems and processes to successfully transition to a new world of social technology and social media.

Social Reinvention looks at both international and South African business and how social technology disrupts B2C, B2B and employee communications, business processes like CRM, Recruitment and Training, geographic targeting and business networking. This is done by looking into case studies on some of the worlds best businesses and how they have started to make this transition. These case studies include Deloitte, Nike, Toyota, Tesco, Cell C, Standard Bank, Spar and many more.

After all, perception is reality – at least in the world of marketing. How we are perceived in the market is all that really matters. If we have the best product but no one think we do then we don’t make the sale. Lesser quality products often have better sales purely based on the perception that they are better.

I have heard an argument since the “dawn of online reputation management” that you can use ORM to engage and speak to your customers. While this may be true, I don’t think it is the main benefit.

People who talk about brands are not necessarily speaking to brands. In decades past people could be found talking about your company offerings to friends and family without your involvement and this had an impact on your brand. You were not able to defend yourself then – so should you defend yourself now?

Just because we can does not mean its clever. I could start a band and go on a tour of South Africa but it does not mean that its a clever use of my time.

I would suggest that the best use of online reputation management software is not to defend your brand, product or service against abuse. Rather it should be used as a research tool to identify public opinion of the value you have to offer.

If you are perceived to offer little value levels shift your focus onto yourself and ask if the way you are perceived is true or not. If true, start a process of finding ways to offer value back into the market. If false, then look at a PR or marketing campaign that can correct the general opinion.

Online Reputation Management is hugely valuable and I believe that every business should be investing in it. However the focus should be to use the data collected to improve as a business and not to simply present our case to our customers.

Linkedin have opened the status updates option for Linkedin. This means that Linkedin company pages are beginning to look more like Facebook company pages.

Check out the video to find out more about how this works.

I wonder if they will open up the option to link your company twitter profile to your company Linkedin profile.

The infograhic in this post reveals how social screening is becoming a popular trend in the recruitment industry.

Social screening allows employers to find out information from candidates that is often difficult to discover through the interview process. These discoveries can be both negative and positive.

The positive side of social screening:

1. They get a feel for the personality of the candidate
2. The can verify the qualification of the candidate
3. Creative people often use social platforms to express their creativity
4. Employers can get an idea of the communication skills of the candidate
5. Social Sites like Linkedin can provide further recommendations for the candidate

The negative side of social screening:

1. Inappropriate photographs can raise warning flags about the personality of the candidate
2. Drug abuse could become apparent
3. Bad mouthing previous employers can show the candidates work ethic
4. Identify poor communication skills
5. The candidate may be sharing confidential business information of previous or current employers

Who’s Who on Linkedin in South Africa

Linkedin in South Africa has seen a 83% increase in usership over the last 12 months with agriculture and goverment showing the biggest industry growth. The exciting news is the growth in business decision makers on Linkedin. The age category betwee 35 and 54 years has grown more than double and CEO presence on Linkedin grew 78%.

We hope you enjoy the infographic

Infographic created by DigitLab the social media agency

Copy the embed code to paste into your blog:

<img src=”http://www.digitlab.co.za/files/2011/09/Linkedin-Users-in-South-Africa.png” alt=”Linkedin in South Africa” width=”540″ height=”1026″ align=”center” /> Infographic created by DigitLab the <a href=”http://www.digitlab.co.za”>social media agency</a>

Linkedin is a social network that focuses on harnessing the power of social technology to improve professional business networking. The website had about 600 000 South African subscribers in 2010 and that figure has almost double in the last year to just over 1.1 million professional business people. The biggest industries represented on the network are from the finance and high tech arenas.

So why all the fuss over a website? I mean, isn’t this just another Facebook where people go to procrastinate doing any “real” work?

If it’s I.P.O wasn’t enough to prove to you its value in business lets take a look at a few elements of business that Linkedin is taking on and how this innovative internet business is changing the way we do business.

A new way of building business networks

You are only six degrees away from every person on the planet. Which means that you are possibly less than three degrees away from the people you need to achieve business success.

Social media allows your network to find you in a faster and more direct fashion. Communicating your message on social media platforms enables your peers to easily share your message with their peers. It is this ’sharing’ that often brings interested parties to the table. Especially when this networking takes place within a business network like Linkedin.

This is why Linkedin is so powerful. You can see the network that your peers in business have. Being able to see your ‘extended network’ you can make strategic decisions about how to leverage your network to meet the right people to grow your business. What’s even better is that you can then ask for a recommendation referral over LinkedIn. In essence, you can take control over who your network promotes your business to.

The number one reason business professional need LinkedIn? It helps you take control of the growth and strength of your business networks!!

Challenging the recruitment industry

As the Internet makes a bigger impact on the recruitment industry we are starting to see recruitment agencies enter into a second state of disruption in South Africa.

The first state of disruption that the recruitment industry experienced due to the internet lead to the creation of Job’s Boards and career websites like Career Junction. Some campaniles struggled,  and still struggle, to make this transition in business as their industry started to take on a very digital approach.

The second state of disruption facing the recruitment industry comes in the form of social technology. Recruitment agencies now find themselves in a stage of their digital evolution that forces them to harness social media websites and online headhunting strategies to find new candidates.

I believe that the biggest shift between these two states is the role that digital technology plays in each stage.

Finding and Processing Applicants

In the first state digital technology allowed recruitment agencies to manage their influx of applications for jobs they had on the market. A strong digital presence would also have increased the number of applications for each job. This data was then processed and matched to the job specification criteria. Once the match was made consultants often took the candidate into the interview stages of the recruitment process.

The biggest challenge in this state was the management of MORE. Job boards and the likes, created huge volumes of online applications and instead of more quality, the truth was was that the value often stopped at quantity of candidates. The second state of disruption offers agencies the opportunity to take the recruitment process further.

Head-hunting and Career Management

Social media channels have opened up the landscape for websites like Linkedin to operate. Currently sitting of just over 1 million South African users Linkedin seems poised to make a huge impact on the South African Recruitment Industry.

Social media website allow companies, agencies and entrepreneurs to head-hunt people online to find the right candidate. Today’s candidate are using websites link Linkedin to manage their business networking, personal branding and career planning. They understand by putting their best step forward (creating great online CV’s, collecting recommendations and networking with new potential business connections) they can set the stage for companies to approach them instead of the other way around. In other words social media, if used correctly by the candidate, could create a more powerful negotiation tool.

The Up and Downside

The plus side for companies and recruitment agencies is that they can research potential candidates from a pool of high quality candidates.

The downside for recruitment agencies, and one of the most important disruptions to address, is that these resources are available directly to your clients. In South Africa I have already heard of big business investing in social media websites to improve recruitment practices. In other words, if not dealt with carefully, this new disruption in the recruitment industry could start taking the money right out of the recruitment industry.

The execution is so simple. Life size banners that display supermarket brands with QR codes on each item. Scan the item and get them delivered to your door by the end of the day. The idea was sparked by the need to create more sales without opening more stores. After extensive research into the market Tesco was able to see the opportunity to utilise smart phone technology to increase its online sales potential.

The consumer will take to this idea because the technology is so simple (inSouth Korea at least) for them to use. The concept works becuase it relies on redundant QR code technology to execute it.It also works because it make an intangible internet experience tangible through the physical advert.

This example from Tesco paints a clear picture of the shifts that retailers are going to face in the future:

1. The retail industry can expect powerful competition from online sales channels. Especially if these channels are connecting with consumers in such tangible ways, like in subways while I wait for my train.
2. Brands are still important to consumers. Make sure you make those brands visible to the consumer. Note that there are still a number of juices to choose from displayed on the “shelf”.
3. Convenience is king! Make sure this new buying method fits into my life and don’t let me down. The delevery to my home is important because if I have to fetch the product then I may as well shop at you store – or somebody elses!
4. Shelf space is a concept that does not have to stay in stores or on a website.

Now thanks to the guys and girls at Amazon I am able to manage my recommended readings from amazon and share it with you from here. I will continually update this list with new books about social media, social business and marketing. Hopefully it helps you find new books that will help you come to grips with with this ever changing topic.

You will also be able to click the book and buy it straight from Amazon in paperback or kindle versions.

So here’s my latest version of my recommended reading list. Enjoy!