Redefining Engagement to Understand the Future of Marketing

Published in ClickZ on July 15, 2015.

Media and technology are continuing to merge providing business opportunities that will engage customers in new ways.

Digital marketing transformation is occurring within enterprise companies across the globe as they seek to better understand their stakeholders who have infinitely greater control. This is not new, we knew this shift to the empowered customer has been happening for years, but it seems to have reached a tipping point.

Businesses of all sizes are (truly) embracing the concept of customer centricity and understanding that marketing is no longer a department, because everyone (customers and employees alike) has a voice that can be amplified through social and mobile channels. Every interaction with a customer is part of their experience with your brand. It is why companies are focusing on employee engagement now more than ever - employees are the face of the company to the customer.

Effectively tackling customer engagement today can certainly be overwhelming. Look at this list of over 2,000 marketing technology vendors that ChiefMartec.com's Scott Brinker has compiled.

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Above: The Marketing Technology Landscape, January 2015.
Image Credit: Scott Brinker/ChiefMartec.com

And while at VentureBeat's GrowthBeat Summit in Boston last month, Brinker pointedly called out that "the tech is a distraction," but the fact that marketing is changing "in fundamental ways" is what is driving the landscape so radically. We now need to weave a company’s storytelling into digital experience – and digital itself is changing.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) is coming online rapidly. "IoT provides a new channel to reach customers through devices and interaction points", with Goldman Sachs predicting that IoT has the potential to connect 28 billion "things" to the Internet by 2020, ranging from bracelets to cars," says Cynthya Peranandam. This is providing business opportunities to create new revenue streams by effectively engaging customers in new ways.

But let's take a look at some of the near-term changes in the space. LUMA Partners has forecast the top 5 trends for 2015 and beyond are:

• Programmatic
• Mobile
• Omnichannel/personalization
• Identity
• Convergent TV

I encourage you to check out LUMA's "State of Digital Media 2015" presentation to understand these trends in detail and how media and technology continue to merge. Review it alongside Mary Meeker's "2015 Internet Trends" report for a full view into current and future state of how we will engage with customers and each other. I find it helpful to stay informed of these trends as they will quickly be upon us to develop strategic engagement strategies as part of our ever-evolving marketing plans.

We live in exciting times and I can't wait to see the incredible marketing that is created on and from these new insights and platforms!

LUMA's State of the State 2015 at DMS 15 from Terence Kawaja

2015 Internet Trends Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Is Social Technology Making us More or Less Human?

Published on The Social Network Show on May 7, 2015 By Jane Karwoski, PhD

Show Recap

Michelle Killebrew is a “social optimist.” In this episode of The Social Network Show, she speaks with listeners about her conviction that social technology is helping us be more human, rather than less, as many fear.

Ms. Killebrew leads customer-centered marketing strategy for Social Business at IBM. Since earning a BS in Economics at Santa Clara University in the heart of Silicon Valley, Michelle has worked in IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management division, thoroughly integrating Coremetrics analytics into campaigns. She then headed up IBM’s World Wide go-to-market and demand generation organization in the Smarter Commerce initiative. Now she is refining the definition of social business and creating research-based content to guide businesses in embracing it.

Together Michelle and Dr. J discuss whether engagement with online communication seal us off from genuine face-to-face relationships. Whether we are inclined toward optimism or skepticism, it is important to realize that technology can be used for good or ill. Public engagement in debate and analysis of the issues involved, such as privacy, security, social skills, and human empathy, is crucial, while apathy and defeatism is a worse enemy than any of the threats technology presents.

Michelle Killebrew’s talk on this subject, delivered at TEDx, University of Nevada in Reno, can be watched on YouTube and you can visit her website to learn more about Michelle.

Michelle Killebrew is passionate about marketing, especially innovative online marketing strategies that deliver a superior brand experience – from initial acquisition through to loyal customer – and increase growth and profitability. She currently leads the go-to-market strategy for IBM Social Business, where her team focuses on messaging and solutions that define social business and demonstrate how organizations can embrace this next information revolution in the workforce. Previously, she headed up the worldwide go-to-market and revenue-bearing demand generation campaign strategy for IBM’s new Smarter Commerce initiative, where her team was responsible for marketing B2B/commerce and enterprise marketing management solutions to meet the needs of the empowered customer. Michelle has over 15 years of high-tech marketing and holds a B.S. in Economics from Santa Clara University.

You can connect with Michelle on LinkedIn and Twitter, and read her recent articles on ClickZ.

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Jane Karwoski, PhD

Dr. Jane Belland Karwoski is Chief Science Officer of Social Network Intermedia and The Social Network Association as well as the lead host of The Social Network Show. She holds a doctoral degree in experimental psychology and dedicated her early research efforts to combining social, cognitive and health psychology as they relate to the influence of key opinion leaders in spreading best practices.Prior to the availability of formal online social networking tools, Jane developed Genomicus Americus, an e-newsletter connecting North American and South American social scientists studying genetic and genomic issues. She has been a Research Assistant at the Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cardiff, South Wales), an ORISE Fellow with the National Center on Birth Defects (CDC, Atlanta, GA), and a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Center for the Study of Healthcare Behavior (VA of Greater Los Angeles/RAND Health/UCLA). She has held adjunct professor positions in the psychology departments of The University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Excelsior College; and Drexel University.

New Content Economy? What’s Old Is New Again!

Published in ClickZ on February 19, 2015.

As the marketing ecosystem evolves, we can look to our past for inspiration on how to deal with the new challenges we face.

"What will it take to win in the new content economy? The best way for publishers to earn more is to interrupt less. The best way for brands to emotionally connect is through meaningful content. But for the new content economy to thrive, all of these efforts need to happen at scale." - The Rise of the New Content Economy, VentureBeat

I was reading the above article - by now you know I read a lot; philosophically agreeing with B. Bonin Bough’s thought "I'm so scared to become irrelevant so I try to spend time constantly learning what’s new" – and struggling with a massive case of writer’s block for this piece when an epiphany hit: as with most things, we’ve been here before! I actually agree with what is stated in the article, that we, as marketers, need to think through how we properly engage with our audiences given the latest advances in technology. But with that said, the fundamentals of marketing are just that: fundamental. They still hold true even if we think of "modern" ways of applying them.

Recently I had the privilege of presenting at TEDxUniversityofReno. My talk was called "How Technology Can Make Us More Human," focusing on how we, as people and as brands, are leveraging technology to enhance or interrupt our experiences with others. In preparing for my talk, I researched current data points, forward looking global trends – but I also reflected back on past predictions of what our future may hold. I re-read Fahrenheit 451 (written 1953) and 1984 (written 1949) - which, if you haven’t read in a while, I highly encourage you to do so! I’m also adding Brave New World to my "on deck" reading list – and was reminded how our human history is cyclical. Our discovery and re-discovery of how we engage with one another is both fascinating and humorous.

Currently in the headlines as being new and "must execute" trends:

• Native Advertising and Content Marketing: While I’m sure it goes back further, native advertising in our modern world can be traced back to the 1930’s advent of radio soap operas - where the brands were in charge of creating original content with which to engage their target audience: housewives.
• Social Technology: This is really a technological application of our human nature in "word-of-mouth" conversation. Applying this to promote products, brands, and services is as old as time immemorial. Yes, we need to continue to refine our methods of speaking authentically through these channels and yes, tools and analytics can help us do this more effectively, but the concept is not new.
• Relationship Selling: The latest resurgence in building out sales teams is a trend resulting from our over-reliance on technology (marketing automation, etc.) and people’s true desire to seek advice from a human during complex buying decisions. This seems like common sense to me and apparently customers are beginning to demand it, as shown by the business models supporting the headcount to fund for these new teams.
• Print Marketing: I’ve been saying this for a while now - print marketing is not dead. In fact, as we focus more on digital channels, the physical, tactical, and experiential nature of print makes it even more special, and I agree whole heartedly with Tessa Wegert in her recent ClickZ article on the topic.

What can we learn here? As we are faced with new and more complex marketing challenges, we can look to our past for inspiration on how best to use these seemingly new obstacles. Tried-and-true foundational marketing practices can be re-imagined and re-engineered to meet today’s expectations.

I love that that as people seek to engage with one another, they are looking for more "natural" ways to do so, a la Snapchat. "'You know this conversation we just had? Snapchat is just like that. It’s like real life. It’s just between us and you’re left with nothing but the memory.' It sort of puts the fun back in social again; just like when some of us were kids," says Steve Tobak.

So, as we look forward, take a moment to look back – we’re an amazing human race, and we have likely already thought through similar challenges.

PS – I also love that Millennials have this affinity for nostalgia; I consider it a proof point of the above, plus it makes me smile to see the toys from my own youth on the shelves today!

IBM’s Michelle Killebrew Discusses the Growth of Social Content Strategy

Published on CONTENT STANDARD by Skyword on February 18, 2015.

Social media and content marketing go together like peanut butter and jelly. However, creating a content strategy that takes advantage of social media’s growing power isn’t that easy.

In this week’s Innovator Series interview, I speak with Michelle Killebrew, program director of strategy and solutions for IBM’s Social Business arm. Killebrew has spent the last five years at IBM working to improve demand generation and social content marketing strategy on a global scale. Today, Killebrew answers my questions about her approach to social content marketing—as well as how IBM encourages employees to think differently.

Question: What are three ways you know your social content strategy isn’t working, and how can you course correct to see improved results?

1. Listen: The most basic evidence of engagement is a bidirectional conversation with your audience. If they are not conversing with you as a brand, then you are not engaging them in a discussion—you are talking at them through various channels. Be sure to have a community manager overseeing each of the channels that you are interacting in, and arm them with both the tools and policy to effectively respond to your audience. It’s important to understand how your audience wants to be engaged; not everyone uses the same platform to engage brands. And don’t forget to empower your employees beyond those community managers. Your employees can be your best brand advocates, and we all know it takes a village. Encourage all employees to take an active role in social engagement and content creation.

2. Analyze: Look at engagement metrics to see what is resonating. There are many tools and key performance indicators (KPIs) to investigate here; start small and expand to delve into deeper insights. Look at social interaction metrics to see which conversations are resonating, who’s in the conversation, and to determine your share of voice around a topic. Look at site metrics for engagement with the content that you’re driving to. Things like site visits, returning visitors, conversion metrics, sharing metrics can all start to inform how you optimize your content strategy.

3. Think and Learn: Hopefully most of us realize that just because we’ve always done things a certain way doesn’t mean we should persist. Things are changing so quickly that we need to think about why we’re creating content; in the B2B space we’ve traditionally created white papers, but what are we trying to achieve? We’re trying to inform a buyer about something, so we should consider if we can achieve the same goal more effectively with a video, an eBook, or an infographic. Remember that your audience is going to have different content preferences based on things like where they are in the buyer journey, device, learning style, and personal taste. We need to learn from each other. Read trade publications. Be observant of good marketing in action in both B2B and B2C spaces, think about what made it compelling, and apply those concepts to your initiatives. Understand how other marketers are applying strategies around marketing, social, and publication platforms.

Q: How can you improve user experience to surprise and delight your audience?

Understand Your Audience: Think through your audience’s likes and dislikes and create personas and profiles around them. Do you know their major turnoffs and turn ons? Before you even begin designing an experience, make sure you have a baseline understanding of who they are. Blanket campaigns are no longer effective today because we are trying to reach a “market of one.” You need to personalize the experience to their preferences. You should look to your analytics to fine-tune your understanding over time.

Provide Value: Make sure your experience provides the individual with value. You need to truly think of the person you are creating for: What is going to serve their needs? Can you answer a question or entertain them? Can you offer them content to save them time in a way your competitors can’t? People are busy; provide them value—they’ll appreciate it!

Be Beautiful: Literally. Your user experience needs to offer visual appeal and intuitive functionality. In order to compete for attention, your visual creative needs to be distinct and engaging. It needs to capture the eye and pull it in. The design of the user experience needs to be intentional, providing clear calls to action or value propositions for the individual.

Foster Engagement: If your content is good, people will want to share it with friends, peers, other brand loyalists, and, ultimately, the world. When you think about your user experience, part of that planning should be around planned sharability. Make it easy for your audience to share content, engage with others, co-create, and further the conversation, and make sure that you’re part of that conversation, listening to ideas, frustrations, and new opportunities.

Iterate and Optimize: Instrument your digital experiences, look at the metrics, and, more importantly still, take action on the insight! Look at what your audience is gravitating toward and create more of it. Be intentional in your pursuit to understand whether is it theme or format. For instance, is it a high-value microsegment of your audience that you should customize a new experience for? Never stop iterating.

Q: Can you offer some examples of successful IBM content marketing campaigns?

The Rethink Campaign: A demand generation campaign that was created based on the learnings of several years of campaign optimization (from Coremetrics, acquired by IBM in 2010). Thinking through the 11 new audience profiles in eight recently acquired companies we needed to speak to, the value proposition for each, and the type, quality, and quantity of content was the challenge here; its success was based on driving marketing qualified leads (MQL). Ultimately, MQL and sales qualified leads (SQL) were the success metrics here, but along the way we optimized based on conversion and interaction data.

The Economist Social Business Leaders: An IBM-sponsored awareness campaign that co-branded with The Economist and celebrated the achievements of social business leaders in a variety of accomplishments, including internal collaboration, sophisticated customer engagement, philanthropic endeavors, and more. The success of this campaign is based on visibility and awareness: social impressions, site visitor data, and influencer engagement.

Q: What advice do you have for marketers big and small when it comes to social content strategy?

I was asked at a conference recently if a midsize business should split its social channels as it ventured into a new direct-to-consumer model, adding to its bulk manufacturer-to-installer sales model. The product was the same, but the value proposition to each audience was drastically different. In this case, it was fashion versus function. My advice: Split the channels so that you can effectively engage with the audience’s unique perspective (if you can support the channels effectively). We all know that you can’t create a social engagement channel and then not monitor it for interaction, questions, trolls, or worse. If you don’t have the resources to split the channels to ensure that they are unique, develop a content marketing strategy that engages with each audience based on their specific value propositions, especially around key events. As your resources grow, prioritize the most effective channels to support (in a measured way) those audiences.

Q: Are there any in-house mantras for how IBM approaches this discipline?

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One of the (many) wonderful things about IBM is that we truly believe our employees are the best representation of our brand; in fact, it has been said that IBM employees are our brand. To this end, we were one of the first companies to create a Social Guideline for employees to engage and advocate on the company’s behalf. These guidelines were created in 2005 (before Twitter, and only a year after Facebook was founded) by crowdsourcing across the hundreds of thousands of employees through our internal wiki. The intention was to unleash the smart and wonderful people of IBM to engage with users, buyers, inventors, thought leaders, students, and the world.

At IBM, our in-house mantra is “You are our brand: Go out and represent our brand!”

Thought Leaders - Michelle Killebrew at Information Development World 2014

SUPER BOWL XLIX: ADS, TRENDS, AND ENGAGEMENT

Published in ClickZ on February 4, 2015.

A look back at this year's bevy of ads from the big game - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

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Now that the Super Bowl is over, it’s time for us marketers to have some fun analyzing the advertisements. There are lots of articles already talking about people’s reaction to the ads – the fact that many of the ads put a damper on the celebratory mood of Super Bowl parties around the country, and that a few (foot fungus, especially) made people just plain uncomfortable (most of us are eating after all!).

I can say that at my house, we were taking to guessing what we thought they were advertising in some cases. Honestly, I can’t recall a more uninspired Super Bowl commercial lineup (not all, but in aggregate). I had hoped for and expected better. It felt to me that only some of the advertisers had invested in "Super Bowl-worthy" ads, instead running standard ads in the prime spots due to the expense of the placement itself.

All this said, I won’t delve deep into the commentary I already see posted, instead choosing to observe some of the general themes.

In Effort to Be Real, Brands Went Serious.

We all realize that brands are trying to demonstrate authenticity and truly engage with their audiences via storytelling – but I think we may have gone a little far, forgetting the context of the outlet and the mood of the audience. The Super Bowl is an annual national sporting event, a cause for gatherings and parties – a celebration! A show. People are seeking entertainment. For years the Super Bowl ads were equated with creativity, humor, and surprise. Marketers, let’s please remember context!

This year, it felt like the surprise was figuring out the brand and their angle – I’m still scratching my head at the relation between a Nissan Maxima and an absentee father. (By the way, there’s a debate online as to whether this was a positive or negative commercial – to me, if it was meant to be positive, I think they should have rethought the choice of sound track.).

Fewer Hashtags.

Overall, I noticed fewer hashtags for commercial campaigns than the last few years. My speculation as to why resides in that fewer of the campaigns were made especially for the Super Bowl AND had less entertainment factor (versus the Public Service Announcement aka PSA feeling) and therefore less engagement. Generally, I found it an interesting observation and am curious as to how we’ll see this play out – do advertisers feel they don’t need to add them any longer? However, some of my favorite campaigns did have hashtags: #BestBuds, #Sorta, #500X, #TheBigRace.

New Push for Mobile Game Apps – Paired Up With Celebrities.

One of the few topical areas that felt to me like we were moving forward and not backward with our advertising. Mobile is a growing part of all of our lives, and gaming is certainly part of that. Pairing celebrities with enhanced graphics vividly bringing the games to life made sense to me, especially for this fun-seeking audience.

Squarespace and Wix Went Head to Head.

These ads took a few more steps toward our future, as we evolve from advertising just hosting companies to the design-your-own-website platforms - as we as a nation become ever more digitally sophisticated. I thought both were clever and well done, if not earth-shattering.

Television and Movies Made a Big Push.

This was telling to me, it was further proof of our segmented and multi-device viewing trends. It was estimated that 110 million Americans tuned in to watch the Super Bowl, so this was network TV’s opportunity to showcase their latest series to an audience that consumes content in very different ways than in the past; asynchronously, binge-watching, streaming, multi-device, and without commercials. I was surprised to see so many ads for entertainment, and yet it makes perfect sense given the consumption trends for the industry.

Lots of Car Commercials.

There are always automotive commercials in the Super Bowl, but this year it seemed like more than usual. And the mood of the auto ads were all over the place. You already know my favorites if you’re familiar with the hashtags above, Fiat and Mercedes; they were clever and well-produced. The Chevy commercial was also a standout for innovative attention-getting in tricking Super Bowl fans into thinking their TVs cable or satellite just went out – very clever way to promote their Wi-Fi enabled truck! I thought Dodge’s #DodgeWisdom was a great balance of authenticity and fun – it felt real, connected both to the brand and the audience, but wasn’t a downer the way some of the commercials were.

Nissan, I think was a big miss in execution, though I can see their good intentions directionally. The Jeep ad was trying to promote environmental responsibility, but for me just struck the wrong tone for the day (somber again). Apparently, it is sparking this years’ debate about national pride given the historically American song paired with international images – we’ll see how this plays out over the next few days.

I’m hoping that the sheer number of auto commercials is representative of stabilization in the national economy, as people begin to think of replacing those that they’ve made do with during the down turn.

…and the Super Bowl Wouldn’t Be Complete Without Some Snacks!

The Doritos ads were irreverent and fun – perfect for the Super Bowl. Doritos had run a "Crash the Super Bowl" contest to crowdsource the best ads for their placements. I love this concept – this is true fan engagement, especially leveraging social leading up to the big event! The winner won $1 million and a dream job at Universal Pictures. Mars delivered two spots for Snickers and Skittles; Snickers was great, Skittles was on-brand silliness that was just OK for me. Mars created a clever teaser campaigns leading up to the Super Bowl:

Snickers said it would release the ad early if its teaser generated "2.5 million social media engagements," which could include views, likes, comments and shares on Youtube, Facebook or Twitter.

The brand, which debuted the full spot on NBC's "Today" show on Thursday, told Ad Age that that final results are still in being tallied but the teaser had accumulated more than 2.7 million views on YouTube alone.

- Watch Snickers' 'Brady Bunch'-Themed Super Bowl Ad, Ad Age

So despite a lackluster commercial lineup this year, I found the trends fascinating to observe.

• Brands are struggling to engage with their audiences authentically and appropriately at the same time, but some are starting to get it right.
• Social and mobile continue to push forward in their presence in our lives, and smart brands are finding ways to leverage them in their effort to engage us as consumers.
• Our world is becoming more digital – yes, we know this because this is the world we live in as marketing professionals, but hosting and Web design platforms now have a viable market across the majority of middle America firmly rooting themselves into our (national) new normal.
• Changing entertainment consumption patterns are impacting how the entertainment industry showcases and promotes new franchises.
• And hopefully, we’re starting to get on more stable economic footing across the country.

More Interested in the Game Than the Ads?

See the Super Bowl game stats that tell the story behind the story. As fantasy sports have grown from a niche pastime into a multi-billion dollar industry, sports fans have gotten even more obsessed with statistics.

IBM's Watson Analytics, a new cloud-based platform that finds patterns in data and uses that information to make predictions about the future – giving fans access to similar tools that executives of pro sports teams consult to understand, say, how many yards Marshawn Lynch averages after first contact, or in which situations Tom Brady is most likely to throw to Rob Gronkowski.

- How IBM is bringing front-office data analysis to Super Bowl fans, Business Insider

IBM Social Business for Small-Medium Size Businesses and Enterprises

Video interview focused on "IBM Social Business for Small-Medium Size Businesses and Enterprises". In the video we discuss various business drivers and include a few of IBM's tools that can help any company looking to sell more products, increase customer retention, employee engagement, collaboration, and innovation.

Visit: ibm.com/social-business

Insights for Business Transformation in This 3rd Platform Age

Published in ClickZ on June 11, 2014.

There are many challenges that come when attempting to transform a legacy brand into a modern customer-focused organization. Here are some tips for making the process simpler.

I am lucky to live in Silicon Valley and have the opportunity to be a part of the lively gatherings and discussions that occur as people come together to think through this changing world we are all a part of.

Last week I attended a particularly interesting event that I think you'll enjoy sharing in: The Churchill Club's open forum event "Business Transformation Insights and Strategies: D&B CEO Bob Carrigan with Advisory Geoffrey A. Moore" - two extremely well-known thought leaders who combined made for a fascinating discussion about business transformation. Bob Carrigan assumed the chief executive (CEO) role at Dun & Bradstreet eight months ago; prior to that he was CEO of IDG Communications. Geoffrey A. Moore is a renowned author focusing on market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovation; his books includeCrossing the Chasm and Escape Velocity.

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Geoffery A. Moore and Bob Carrigan at The Churchill Club event at the Rosewood Sandhill on June 3, 2014

The conversation was broadly centered on business transformation and some of the key elements Carrigan is focused on in his role as CEO for Dun & Bradstreet as he tackles the challenge of modernizing a legacy brand of a 173-year-old company into a modern customer-focused organization.

Third Platform Age

Moore explains that there are basically two reasons a company undergoes the terrifying process of transformation: 1) to catch the wave of the next big thing and if we don't transform we're going to miss it or 2) to react to an existential threat and a competitor will take our business away from us. He cites 45 iconic tech brands that he has worked with no longer exemplifying the high stakes of business transformation.

As we all know, cloud, mobile, social, and big data are changing everything from the way we shop to the way we interact - analyst firm IDC calls this the "Third Platform Age" (first platform: mainframe, second platform: client/server). For established organizations to survive and thrive as the pace of change quickens exponentially is a huge challenge as everything become more digital and Internet-based - creating the need to foundationally change how their businesses are run, especially as threats like commoditization and pure-play digital upstarts loom.

Organizational Transformation

After spending time with numerous customers, Carrigan started his tenure by investing in innovation - that isdiverting returns - which can be difficult to explain to investors. One of the (I think brilliant) ways that Carrigan worked with his strategy team to look at investment options was to visualize the decision-making process by setting up a table with poker chips and different investment options. The strategy team physically moved the chips as they considered how to spend their investment dollars for the company, all the while keeping customer needs top of mind. Of course as some budgets are diverted to fund new projects; this raises the cultural issues that surround business transformation as it changes standard practices and the stakeholders who grasp onto the "this is how we've always done it" mentality.

In this modern organization transformation, Carrigan took some of the following actions:

• Creating a more transparent and flatter organization: reducing his direct reports from 13 to six
• Hiring of a chief people officer: someone new to the organization who is an experienced change agent focused on people and talent development, who looked at new compensation models, who was intentionally not "human resources" (this role is one of the six that report to Carrigan)
• Allowing for employee advocacy: their social media policy had been more restrictive than open; they now encourage employees to socially engage inside and outside of the organization
• Hiring the first chief marketing officer in D&B's 173-year history: recognizing that today the "medium is the message," that look and feel needs to be modern and crisp and clearly convey what the brand stands for (this role is one of the six that report to Carrigan)
• "Moving from arthritic to agile" infrastructure: look inside (customer-centric) out, instead of outside (company-centric) in to figure out what should no longer be done so that technology supports the strategy
• Thinking globally: breaking the silos of "U.S." vs. "rest-of-the-world" to address the growing global economy and his client's global growth needs, and the data consistency to support them

The Way Forward

Like many organizations in this Third Platform Age, D&B sees its future in the power of data. It is moving forward by holding on to its foundational value for its clients in the "DUNS Number" (the unique identifier in its global commercial database) and coopting data from other sources - like social data and interaction data - combining structured and unstructured data into system that can be leveraged by predictive analytics capabilities. Carrigan sees the company's evolution forward as a goal of "liberating content" (data) - making it more accessible to their customers: in the cloud, through easy API integration, and data feed services. They are hosting hackathons for API development and strategically acquiring companies (and with them "aqui-hired" talent) to support that goal.

As a professional immersed in these strategic changes around cloud, big data and analytics, mobile, and social daily as I approach my work, I found it fascinating to hear how a company with such a long history is transforming itself to compete in this hyper-competitive, digital landscape. I'd like to thank Bob Carrigan and Geoffrey A. Moore for an insightful conversation and The Churchill Club for organizing it. You can watch the full exchange here on YouTube.

Rethink Social Media War Room Strategy

Published on ClickZ on March 19, 2014.

As a former email marketer, I love a good subject line, and just today I saw one that got me thinking: "Time to rethink social media 'war rooms.'" The email was for a short video interview, but it was the subject line that sparked my thoughts. This is a topic that we have discussed internally quite a bit, because we believe that social communication is about people-centric engagement and not about war with or through media. It is certainly not about command or control of social conversations. So I'd like to spark some thoughts for you around how you approach your dashboarding and interaction.

By thinking strategically through engagement beyond just listening, we looked to the types of dashboard information that can help provide deeper insight and meaning around people's intent and our success in delivering to that want or need. We dug into our own tool bag and utilized a number of the key solutions we have that provide detailed analytics into real-time conversations and listening, sentiment, behavior, and even psycholinguistics.

To begin our journey, we have brought a large physical "center" to key events. It's made up of multiple large touchscreen monitors that allow attendees to interact with the data that is being captured live about the specific event. The engagement is both physical and specific and carries out to the socialverse.

Response to this type of visualization of people-centric engagement has been overwhelming. I believe it's because we're getting beyond the basics of social media and are really looking holistically at how people are engaging by examining a series of powerful analytics. Analytics that can help us serve people better. Analytics that can help us create real, valuable insight for the business. Analytics that can help impact the bottom line. We are bringing to life this insight with powerful visualizations that people can make sense of and react to-drill into for deeper understanding.

So what are some of the things that you should think through as you approach the creation of a center of engagement for your brand?

• Social listening - for customer service, sentiment, product innovation, trends
• Web analytics - to understand behavior, ensure customer experience, measure interaction and revenue
• Real-time benchmark data - so you know how you are performing against your peer competitors
• Cognitive analytics - for powerful personality profiling that will help to better serve customers based on their personality traits to improve conversion rate, acquisition rate, revenue, and profit
• Business intelligence - for deep comprehension and analysis of how the above translates into bottom-line business results, and insight into trends over time
• All including visualizations to help drive rapid insight and action from your engagement response team

At the end of the day, to think strategically you need to put your prospects',  customers' and peoples' needs front and center. You need to listen and watch to the cues they are giving you. The tools to do this are changing rapidly. But please remember that your intent should not be to wage war with media or to command social, it should be to engage with people. After all:

  "Social media and technology are not agents of change. They are just tools. We the connected people are the agents of change."

                 - Stuart J Ellman, President of 92Y at Social Good Summit 2012

Social Business is More than Businesses Using Social Media

Published on SmartBrief for Social Media on March 13, 2014.

SmartBrief on Social Media, the daily snapshot of social media news and insights, has relaunched as SmartBrief on Social Business. This new focus reflects the broad changes to business in the social media era, from marketing to customer service to revenue models. As part of the relaunch, we’ve asked industry leaders to give their thoughts on what it means to be a social business. Today’s post is from Michelle Killebrew, strategy program director for IBM Social Business.

In September, I wrote a commentary for ClickZ on what it means to be a social business and how it’s different than just being a business that uses social media to interact with customers and prospects. My thinking has evolved in this rapidly advancing area, but I still see social business as focused on “people-centric engagement,” including consumers, employees and citizens.

Social media continues to mature as both a channel and a market in its own right. It’s even becoming an agent for social change. Technology made it possible for us to connect, and now social media has made it possible to do it in a more organic, human way. Facebook and LinkedIn are each coming up on their 10th year, and Twitter is now six years old. Together, they’ve fundamentally changed how we engage with each other online. Millennials who grew up in a social world are entering the workforce and becoming active citizens. What happens next? Social business.

I believe that social business is the next step in the evolutionary process in the day-to-day functions of digitally enabled enterprises and governments. Much in the same way that the Internet revolutionized how we all work in the era of e-business; social processes, technology, and mindsets will revolutionize how people in organizations connect, collaborate, and share knowledge.

A social business is a connected organization where the expertise of the individual is accessible to all because of the ability to collaborate. Internal and external social communication fuels the development of new product and service development by employing social listening and analytics. It’s the application of the new communication medium that was introduced by social media into the very fabric of how we work and interact.

A social business creates a digital ecosystem that enables the easy transfer of ideas from inside the organization to outside the organization (and back again).  We see crowdsourcing becoming increasingly mainstream, and we all know that ideas spark further ideation and innovation – it’s a wonderful snowball effect.  This collective concept can be applied to virtually anything, from internal policy creation to new product innovation.  It fosters workforce collaboration, and it also extends into customer experience.

By creating these dialogs in the digital world, we leave behind footprints of data that can help us further understand our constituents both as unique individuals and groups with common interests. This data is immensely valuable in providing us the means to appreciate intention, motivation, and sentiment, and it makes it possible to optimize experiences for our employees, customers and citizens. As we become more sophisticated at mining this information, we’ll be able to streamline interactions and better serve people’s needs – both online and off.  (As my colleague Wyatt Urmey put it, “boundary workers” who sit right at the boundary of knowledge workers and service personnel, will “take us from ‘the coffee is on aisle six’ to ‘the coffee is on aisle six, but I see here you like dark French roast, and we have that on sale this week on the end cap of aisle five.’” Social and mobile technology is making it happen.)

But all of this doesn’t come without a price. All of this wonderful, transparent collaboration and all of this amazing data is valuable, but we need to think through how we protect people, data and our intellectual property.  As we adopt social business practices, we need to think through how we empower people to become involved in sharing ideas. We also need to provide guidance as to what constitutes oversharing outside of the organization.

At IBM, we did this through a crowdsourced policy creation that identified what was appropriate to communicate via social media. The policy is public and can be leveraged for your own guidelines. Additionally, as we consider the world’s ever-increasing reliance on the massive amounts of data we all create, cyber security will continue to be a focus for all organizations — especially those seeking to optimize digital experiences for their customers and constituents.

It’s simple. Social business is much more than just social media. Social business is about people-centric engagement. Socially enabled organizations will flourish and out-perform their competition by providing better experiences. They’ll also be better-equipped to retain the top talent, the most valuable customers, and the most engaged citizens.

Finally, we need to remember that social business is more than just business — it’s about people.  It’s about a young girl in Boston who recovered from a serious illness and provided insights that helped doctors treat another girl thousands of miles away. Watch this video to hear Dr. Jeffrey Burns of Boston Children’s Hospital share a remarkable story that features the powerful combination of collaboration, and knowledge sharing in action. It will not only touch your heart, but it will demonstrate the promise of social business — for all of us.

Michelle Killebrew is passionate about marketing, especially innovative online marketing strategies that deliver a superior brand experience — from initial acquisition through to loyal customer — and increase growth and profitability. She currently leads the go-to-market strategy for IBM Social Business, where her team focuses on messaging and solutions that define social business and demonstrate how organizations can embrace this next information revolution in the workforce.

Previously, Michelle headed up the worldwide go-to-market and revenue-bearing demand generation campaign strategy for IBM’s new Smarter Commerce initiative, where her team was responsible for marketing B2B/commerce and enterprise marketing management solutions to meet the needs of the empowered customer. Michelle has more than 14 years of high-tech marketing and holds a B.S. in Economics from Santa Clara University.