We’re transparent, authentic, and on Twitter…now what?

November 4th, 2009 by Andrew Swenson in Biz, snark, social media

photo credit: Troy Newell

I think we’ve reached the point at which if you aren’t transparent, authentic, and/or human you’ll be treated like a dirt sucking, crap-eating spammer. I think we have to start talking more about what’s next.

I realize that I’ve regurgitated some of the hackneyed language of social media in Tweets and posts. But now is the time to move beyond those second order concepts like “relationships.” We don’t need any more lists of tips to help us get more followers. We need a strategic understanding of what the real-time web will look like so that we can write our business plans and outline our strategies for community engagement.

What the community is saying: We’re at the bridge

I’m not the first person to suggest that the conversation needs to shift. Brian Solis just wrote an amazing post recapping Forrester’s analysis and projection of the past and future of the social web. Solis claims

…the future of the social Web as I see it, starts to embrace a corporate philosophy and supporting infrastructure that migrates away from CRM and even sCRM to one of Social Relationship Management or SRM.

The speakers at #140conf in L.A. also did a fair share of talking about the future—namely Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) who waxed philosophical for about 7 minutes and 44 seconds, suggesting that while presenters talked a lot about how we interact with the outside world and how we function in the new realm of social marketing, they didn’t talk about core changes in the way we conduct business:

“…we’re only at the start of something, a bridge leading to a dramatically different way of doing business.”

[Consider this also a resounding endorsement of Mack Collier's (@MackCollier) argument that Social media needs fewer rockstars, and more rockstar ideas (although Mark's post deals more with our treatment of individuals than business idean in general).]

How we (get ready to) cross it

To expand Boyd’s metaphor (in a way he may or may not of intended), I believe the bridge to social business is scary, difficult and essential. As many leaders look at the immense flow of real-time communication surging beneath that bridge, it’s easy to resist. “What if we invest all this time, effort, and money and fail?” “What if…”

I think all of these petty “what ifs” are a bit juvenile. Every investment that holds the potential for significant returns carries some risk. And at this point, saying that there’s too much risk involved in negotiating a social media strategy is akin to stuffing your money in a mattress. It just doesn’t make sense. I think we should be done writing about why using the social web is a good idea—we need to start writing about why X or Y practice is the best for engagement in this social space.

I’m not suggesting that we should completely abandon our old ways of doing business. For many customers, the old way of doing things works just fine, and chances are, you’ve got that process down pretty well. I’m challenging all of us to stop the worn debate about whether or not it’s time to move forward.

Because crossing the bridge and making the shift to social business is difficult, we’ll need to collaborate in order to understand how the real-time web is emerging. After all, we are the participants spurring the birth of social business. We own this space, so we must be the ones to re-imagine, reconstruct and realize new social business principles.

Which means we have to stop hashing over the best practices of yesterday. There is a time and place for a conversation about basic social networking best practices (e.g. social media ROI, how to build followers, how to appropriately engage), but those basics have been stated so many times they are probably covered sufficiently. What’s not covered is an understanding of how this is impacting businesses as we move into the next phase of social connection.

After all, when we all set our eyes ahead, then crossing the bridge together becomes less scary and difficult.

What do you think? Please share.

-Andrew

Photo Credit: Troy Newell (nulus on Stock Exchange); original image here

I also have to add a special thanks to Abby Wambaugh (@abbyannette) for spurring this post on…as she said, a piggy-back off her rant from earlier.

Tags: Business, critical thinking, Marketing, progress, snark, social media, strategy, Twitter

If you liked this post, subscribe to get updates via RSS or email

Rich Lazzara

Andrew, good post, thank you. Abby I agree with your comments as well.

One thing we should all keep in mind is that your average user of Social Media tools has no idea who the "rockstars" are. From an executives/business point of view most have no idea who Chris B is. From a users point of view even worse. Not only do they not know, they dont care. As business leaders we too need not get caught up in the players but focus on the game. Good sound principals, good examples of things that are working and others that aren't.

A good quote I heard the other day was "The definition of a Social Media Expert is someone who has been doing it 1 min longer than you." The point is this stuff is in its infancy. Lets point to companies that are utilizing these tools with success and analyze those that are failing.

An post I recently enjoyed was Forrester's 2009 Awards for best practices. Some interesting use of these tools are highlighted. http://groundswelldiscussion.com/groundswell/aw...

Anyways, good post, keep up the good work and lets keep moving forward together.
Andrew Swenson

Thanks for your comment Rich. I think that you summed it up well in saying that it's important to "not get caught up in the players but focus on the game."

That said though, I don't think we can ignore the rockstars even if the eveyrday user or executive doesn't know about them. I think we must recognize that some of these rockstars are guiding a collective understanding of social business (e.g. Trust Agents is a #1 NYT best seller).

There's definitely some interesting social dynamics going here, and I think it's valuable to understand how influencers got to where they are because after all, it's the power of influence that businesses are after.

So I guess what I'm saying is that we have to acknowledge the players in order to understand the game.

Your thoughts?
Rich Lazzara

No problem Andrew.

I wouldn't say ignore, if your in business, ignoring anyone would be ignorant.

I agree we should acknowledge them for certain. We should look at their influence too. Never stop learning from anyone. In fact you've just taught me to ask questions in the comments section, great idea...thanks.
Andrew Swenson

You're right...ignore is a bad word there. My bad for jumping to the extreme.

And as for questions, I think that's what blogs are all about—fostering a community where people can have a two-way conversation about important issues.

But more importantly, thank you for adding to this conversation!
abbyannette

You have a lot of good things to say here, things that need to be said and were very well said. I think it could have been even more ranty though. :)

I love Mack Collier's argument that social media needs fewer rockstars, and more rockstar ideas. This is where I'm at. Honestly, Chris Brogan pisses me off. There are others as well, but I'll refrain from attacking more people by name directly. What is almost more sad are the people who eat up these rockstars as if they are beef jerky in a sea of brussel sprouts. And the media writes stories about them. Really?!

What I would like to see is less of the regurgitated, seemly obvious material and more about campaigns that don't suck, reporting that is effective, ideas that push the envelope, etc. I would love to post how we do our reporting/monitoring of SM, I'd love even more to see how others do it.

I think at this point it's less about transparency and more about genuine communication (this was the first blog post I wrote, and the idea continues to resonate with me).

What makes me nervous is what we will end up with when we cross the bridge, who is leading the way across, and the fear that some big footed rockstar will cause us to collapse midway. Or that fear stricken, budget controlled CEOs will put caution tape at the entrance. Because more often than not, it is about the money and ROI.
Andrew Swenson

Wow Abby, you've forced me to consider that this scary crossing is being orchestrated by our rockstars, who we've given a HUGE portion of trust.

But what if they're wrong? We need the voices of the community to rise up and place us back on track. I think we all have to contribute to this shift. We cannot sit back and nod our heads every time Chris Brogan or Seth Godin publishes a post. We must also challenge what it meas to be an active participant in this space and what it means to actively do business in the real-time web.

Thanks for challenging my thinking.

Best,
Andrew
abbyannette

Trust agents? ;)
Jason Markow

I can't agree more. The time for talk has passed and we need to start acting. I think it may just be one of those things that takes time. As younger generations enter the workforce (who are more willing to adopt social business practices) the change will occur. It may be subtle, but it will happen.
Andrew Swenson

Thanks for your reply Jason. What's interesting to me though is that Twitter is aging in reverse—it started with older people and now is being apoted by younger people (see this Mashable story http://mashable.com/2009/09/02/twitter-demograp... ).

It's my perception that the leaders of this change are mainly Gen X'ers and may some even older. I think this is due to the fact that although many Gen Y'ers are social media champions in their organizations, they don't have enough pull yet to make sweeping changes (other than Gen Y entrepreneurs of course).

What do you think? How have you seen the social media/generational issue play out?
Jason Markow

Great point Andrew. I did not consider that. To answer your question: I am the perfect example. I am (as you put it) the "social media champion" at my organization, but the only reason I am able to do what I do is because my boss (Gen X) is leading the change because he has the pull to make the "sweeping changes".

It sounds to me like you just defined what it takes to "cross the bridge" together: Gen X being open and Gen Y acting on it. I think you just inspired my next post. Well done.