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What do you mean by “Activate”? The house that Twitter built

This post is a preview of a section of The Social CMO Book which I’ve been asked to write (just a section, not a book), about activation and what that means. Coincidentally, the story of #saveteecycle seems to me to play right into this topic. Consider it a work in progress.

What do you mean by “Activate”?

To activate something means to set it in motion, to make it active or more active. In chemistry, it means to accelerate a reaction in something, as by heat. That is exactly what we’re talking about here. Once you have established a social network and begun to engage, you need to determine ways to set it in motion, light it on fire, add catalysts. In other words, get it actively working towards your goal.

To illustrate the concept of activation, I’d like to share a story.

This is The House that Twitter Built

On July 22, 2010, torrential rains hit Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the USA, flooding neighborhoods and destroying homes. One family that lost its home was that of Tim and Jess Cigelske and their baby, Clara. For more backstory, here’s Tim’s original post with the story of their loss, The (Not So) Great Milwaukee Flood of 2010.

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Fashion with Compassion Ready to Roll in Toronto

Canada’s Next Top Model, Meaghan Waller, will headline a unique show of Fashion with Compassion at the White Cashmere Collection 2010 at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Wednesday, September 22 in Toronto.

An awareness-raiser for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, the international award-winning show, now entering its seventh successful year, features Cashmere BT (bathroom tissue) Couture created by 15 established and emerging Canadian designers. The exclusive Media and VIP Fashion Show will be hosted by Canada AM anchor and Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation spokesperson, Bev Thomson and will reveal breathtaking designs inspired by the courage and strength of women affected by breast cancer, all crafted in 100% pure, soft and luxurious Cashmere Bathroom Tissue, Canada’s best-selling brand.
Conceived and produced by Strategic Objectives, the high-fashion collection features limited-edition Pink Cashmere. Specifically-designed to raise funds for the Foundation, twenty-five cents from the sale of every package of Pink Cashmere goes directly to the Foundation. A unique, socially-engaging fund-raising initiative will be revealed on the Cashmere Facebook Fanpage, at the event.

Canada’s Annual Celebration of Fashion with Compassion

One of Canada’s most-anticipated annual fashion events, the White Cashmere Collection 2010 is curated by Serge Kerbel, Fashion Director of LUSH Magazine, and features an astounding array of BT Couture ranging from eveningwear to swimwear.

Event attendees will be the first to see this year’s White Cashmere Collection photography by international fashion photographer Christopher Wadsworth. The photos, starring Canada’s Next Top Model, Meghan Waller, will be posted on Cashmere.ca and on Facebook.com/whitecashmerecollection to celebrate October Breast Cancer Awareness Month, following the show on Wednesday, September 22. Check out the White Cashmere Collection 2009 video on You Tube.

Deborah Weinstein

Social CRM: Thinking Outside the “Call Center” Box

If one studies history of automobiles, the first cars powered by internal combustion engines running on fuel gas appeared as early as 1806. But early autos were little more than horse drawn carriage fitted with an engine. It was not until 1889 that Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach designed a vehicle from scratch to be an automobile, rather than a horse-drawn carriage fitted with an engine (for more on history of the automobile, see this link).

Something similar is happening with respect to Social Networking technology today when it comes to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Instead of modifying and re-engineering their CRM business processes to take advantage of unique characteristics of Social Networks, companies are fitting “Social” engine to their existing CRM carriage and are expecting great results from it.

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The Spirituality of Social Media

Sure the social web is filled with rants and quacks, but I’ve also been thinking about how the science and technology of this channel lifts people up, and perhaps even makes us better in a deeper, spiritual way. Here are a couple of personal observations. I would love to hear what you think!

Spiritual touchpoints

I was feeling kind of bitchy this week and wrote a bitchy blog post to go right along with my mood. It was supposed to run today. Then I read Danny Brown’s post on leadership which reminded me that sometimes we need to think bigger about ourselves and the world. I decided the universe didn’t need another bitchy blog post and that I could do better. So I trashed it.

I experience these tiny tugs of hope, optimism and encouragement every day. Little social strings between me and others, pushing, pulling, inspiring me to do better, to think bigger about my social media community and the world. I am evolving in positive ways because of it.

Have you surrounded yourself with these spiritual touchpoints too?

The communion of community

Recently a woman in my city lost her 18-year-old son in a tragic and violent drug-related death. Her pain was exacerbated by questions about how police handled the case, which played out in a public forum.

I really don’t know this woman, but I have children too and the agony that came out on her blog posts touched me and probably thousands of others like me. We were a community of strangers united in grief. We connected through Twitter, through comments, through prayer for her family.

I’ve seen this same kind of communion of strangers after the Haiti earthquake and the Nashville flood. People used technology for a higher purpose, to commune with the needy, displaced and heart-broken. This gives me so much hope.

Igniting Passion

I’ve just read the “Brains on Fire” book (recommended – no affiliation other than profound admiration!). The agency by the same name preaches that the social web is an opportunity to create not just “conversation,” but movements. Watch this short video they created for Love 146. I dare you not be outraged, shocked and moved.

Love 146 works toward the abolition of child sex trafficking and exploitation. Brains on Fire created a movement by igniting passion through stories, images, even music and art. This is work that is measurably changing the lives of forgotten children. This is the social web — and the human spirit — at its best.

Love one another

There are people I have met on the social web who love and care about me.

That is probably the sappiest thing I have ever written but it is undeniable and true so why not say it? The Internet now allows you to find your folks wherever they may be, to establish your personal movement.

Does this sound weird to you? I think it can happen for anybody if you give it a chance. The social web is spreading love from country to country and server to server, to laptops, smart phones, iPads and people. It’s amazing to think about.

More love in more places around the world has gotta be a good thing, right?

A global heartbeat

I am in daily contact with people who inspire me from Sweden, Malaysia, Jordan, France, Australia, Russia and many other nations. Perhaps you are too.

Pause for a moment and realize that you and I are experiencing a milestone in human history. A profound and spiritual milestone, I think. For the first time we have access to free, real-time, global communications. The ability to make these connections were not available to us just a few years ago.

And this is just the beginning. Sure, Facebook is the home to Farmville and about every other inane concept known to man. But don’t dwell there. This platform alone is providing an opportunity to unite hundreds of millions of people. Hundreds … of millions … of people. Doesn’t that take your breath away?

Twitter enabled a revolutionary movement in Iran. It failed … this time. The power of technology to connect, nurture, and teach will eventually out-run the technology that is trying to control and contain it. We WILL be connected and then there will be one global heartbeat pulsing through the social web.

Look through the silliness, cut through the drivel, ignore the hate. There is a core light of hope streaming above it all with the potential to unite us, heal us, and inspire us no matter who or where we are.

Mark Schaefer

Mark is Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions and CMO of Freesource Inc. You can find him on Twitter at @markwschaefer and on his blog {grow} at www.businessesGROW.com

Going Beyond Social Media Reach

We’re a little too focused on collecting humans like marbles.

Our fans. Followers. Subscribers. Impressions.

Once upon a time, numbers like gross circulation mattered a bit more, because the available channels and paths for information were somewhat limited. So by putting yourself visibly in one of them, chances were pretty good that you’d actually be seen, and command a fair bit of someone’s attention, at least for a few moments.

Now? Not nearly. Clicking “follow” or “like” is a fleeting, non-commital moment. And just as easily, that attention is off and elsewhere. (How many pages have you liked – whether sincere or just out of support for a friend – and never revisited?). It’s the equivalent of someone picking up the flyer and tossing it in the next trash can. Veneered attention is so easy to give out, because it doesn’t take our time, our effort, or even our brainpower. We simply need to click. And move on.

Is that really the only way you want to define success?

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Introducing #Link4Lunch ~ A New Way of Sharing!

Always thinking about methods of encouraging and improving the productive sharing of quality information on Twitter, this week I have come up with the #Link4Lunch Hashtag.

It seems that many folks around the world are now are foregoing reading a paper at lunch and instead are looking at what others are posting on Twitter on a relatively random basis while scarfing down their sandwich or tofu & avocado salad.

So the concept is quite simple and aims to improve this user experience of casual lunchtime Twitterowsing through utilizing #Link4Lunch. What I am suggesting is that each tweep interested in participating in #Link4Lunch select what they think is the BEST and MOST INTERESTING link they have come across in the last 24 hours and post it between the hours of 12:00 noon and 1:00 pm using the hashtag #Link4Lunch.

I would suggest that each person only select and tweet one link each day and ensure that it is of GREAT quality to be their #Link4Lunch tweet. And honestly if you don’t have something you think is a great post, article, pic, comic, news story or something else then DON’T tweet a #Link4Lunch that day.

So here was the very first #Link4Lunch tweet I made today at 12:20pm and I plan to do the same everyday with the BEST link I find to share with all of you in the Twittersphere who follow @TheSocialCMO

To make it easy to follow everyone’s #Link4Lunch contribution each day I have already established a page on WhatTheHashtag http://wthashtag.com/link4lunch so that you can easily watch the #Link4Lunch stream without getting any mustard on you!

So I hope you all will give #Link4Lunch a go tomorrow between 12:00 noon & 1:00pm and we’ll all see where this one goes!

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

What shape is your funnel?

Put random folks in at the top and loyal customers come out at the bottom…

A billboard leads people to a website, which gets some people to subscribe via email which drives some folks to respond to a promotion which leads a few to come back for the stuff that isn’t onsale, which leads to someone who can’t live without you.

That’s the obvious path of outbound marketing. Most people you pour into the funnel hop out long before they become loyal customers.

The thing is, some funnels are more efficient than others. Expose your idea to ten of the right people and it catches on with three of them. Other ideas or offers need to be exposed to far more people (and go through more steps) before they’re likely to convert someone.

The mistake we often make: thinking that the problem is that there’s not enough people starting the process, not enough people being exposed to your offer. In fact, it’s almost always a problem with how efficient the funnel is and how likely it is that loyal customers tell their friends. If you take care of those two elements, you have a lot more to invest in promotion, and delightfully, the promotion is more effective as well.

Google advertising puts the funnel shape under stress. If you can make your funnel more efficient, then you can afford to spend more money on each person you put into the top of the funnel via a paid ad. If your competitor can convert twice as many people as you can, she can spend twice as much per person, no? And thus the smart competitor will buy up as much of the market as possible.

The only response: shape a more efficient funnel.

Seth Godin

In Real Life & Social Media Perception is Reality!

I have the great privilege of working with many different people inside a variety of diverse organizations. In doing such work, it has become clear to me that these organizations and the people that work there- share one thing in common. Perception is Reality.

You see… whatever their PERCEPTION of something is– IS their REALITY of something.

What does this mean? Are you lost?

Ok—here goes…

Whatever a person “perceives” to be true in the world around them (their perception) is completely true to them (their reality).

All people take in information and then make decisions about the information in different ways. So no matter how a person goes about the process of making a decision– the end result is the same! So think about it from a marketing point of view… the other person now has a “perception” of you in their mind and this perception is their reality.

So the learning lesson we must ponder as we communicate with OR market to others is this:

It is not what “we say we are all about” but it is what “others say we are about.”

Do others perceive you the way you hope that they do? This is a question we MUST all ask ourselves.

The best marketing and communications individuals are those that are able to purposefully and intentionally make the “perception they seek” closely match how they are ultimately perceived by others.

Do you ever think about how you/your organization seeks to be perceived and whether or not this is the reality of how others actually perceive it? Do you realize that the superb new tools available to all of us through Social Media—give us a great way to impact how we market ourselves and control perception and reality?

How do you perceive this post? I hope it matches the reality I was seeking to achieve.

Ryan T. Sauers

Encouraging Executive Participation in Social Media #MMchat with @ScottMonty

For our seventh MarketerMonday Chat #MMchat our SPECIAL guest was @ScottMonty who is the Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager at Ford and also the man who coined the term “tweetup” and our topic for the evening was Encouraging Executive Participation in Social Media!

This is only the seventh #MMchat we’ve held and see #MMchat for more details on MarketerMonday Chat our previous SPECIAL guests, transcripts and our upcoming schedule.

Thanks again to Scott as well as all of you AWESOME #MMchat tweeps who joined us and participated in this interesting and very interactive chat!

Check out the full transcript of tonite’s chat at http://bit.ly/Scott_Monty and please join us next week as @JeffTheSensei joins us! Jeff Wilson is Head Mountaineer at Sensei Integrated and a member of the @TheSocialCMO Crew and will be joining us September 20th at 8:00 pm EST to discuss Online Demand Generation!

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

B2B marketing without creative has no punch

The purpose of this post isn’t to argue the merits of inbound marketing with creative content. I believe that any B2B marketing professional still debating against that is probably not open to the points I want to make.
Since I speak as senior creative director, you may be surprised at how broadly I apply the word “creative” to B2B marketing. I think every part of the process, from assessment of an opportunity or problem, to the formulation of a strategy and budget, to the creative development of messaging and imagery, to the way your story is told all benefit from being more creative.

Fight for your right to be more creative.

Quite a few years ago, I was introduced to an assistant general manager of a client’s field office by one of their marketing directors. She mentioned I was a creative from the ad agency and, as we shook hands, he said,“Oh yeah, you guys are the ones that do all our fluffy stuff!”

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