COMMENTS
Thanks Mike! Your summary about how these top-ten social media capabilities are used for marketing and channel management business is very helpful, and this is otherwise very confusing.
I assume that most people know these tools from their private, non-business usage or as business-to-consumer community applications provided on some big-company web sites like those you mention, but not many people think about social media tools for vendor-channel-customer communications. This is a bit harder to implement but without hooking it all up, channels are usually limited to using "last years" tools to try to communicate with "next years" consumers. That probably is not a sustainable strategy in many highly competitive markets. Do you agree?
Great list and very profound explanation Mike. I think a great follow on would be how to use those sites in a channel engagement - most channel managers just don't know.
@AxelS
Great article and I couldn't agree more with you statements. Good job summarizing what channel experts should be and can be doing to keep their place and reputation in the front of the market.
Mike - a well articulated review of the technologies that are rapidly changing the channels business/landscape. The hard part is figuring out the business strategy to make all these things work for you rather than overwhelm you (as you point out). And more importantly, the new strategy must deliver value or else the endeavor is doomed from the start. Once the novelty ("we're on Facebook...ok, now what") wears off, how are your partners going to use this capability as a resource that will make them more productive and drive revenue at the end of the day? If you don't know the answer, you better figure it out before you start. And fast! Thanks for putting this together.
Is this article here just so Mikes friends can tell him how smart he is and give him plugs? These are nothing new and have been in use for years....Lets stop with the shameless biz dev disguised as something useful tactics:(
@Anonymous Interesting feedback. Nothing new? It's out there for years? I'd be VERY INTERESTED to hear about some examples. If you'd be experiencing social media for so many years - you'd never comment as "anonymous" I guess this is a reminiscence from your bulletin board days.
Now - why not check other communities such as Channel Excellence, PartnerPedia, or visit business communities such as the ones from IBM, Oracle, Microsoft all you see and hear is an engagement in getting arms around social media with channels but maybe they are not as smart as you are - so why not enlighten all of us - your comments would be truly welcome.
@AxelS
Profound? Really?
Good job summarizing what channel experts should be and can be doing to keep their place and reputation in the front of the market. Really?
The worst part of social networking are the abuses...When the comments are from folks on each other payrolls that shameless abuse of what is truly groundbreaking technology for the channels.
Im just calling it the way i see it. No offense intended..Cheers!
@Anonymous
Love your "intelligent contribution". I may use it in the next class of social media academy demonstrating what kind of edge cases an open forum like this is dealing with. Obviously you have a reason to hide your identity. I guess you are with a competitor of any of the authors or CCI, the blog owner.
So what one can learn from this incident is how to deal with people like you - hiding in anonymity and trying to steer up a negative discussion.
In this case I - an independent reader - step in. Instead CCI "control" a conversation they let go in an open business environment and let the community deal with it. That is a good behavior. I discuss with you even so I'm not a customer or partner of CCI and neither is Mike. I don't know Joanne O'Conner and John West just from my social network. I know Robb Verna being a member in Mikes Community where I am too and so the effect of social networks is that networks talk to each other.
So what do we learn:
Keep an open dialog, let the community deal with the people even they attack each other. Only in rare cases some of the attacks are made by anonymous "contributors" but still the quality of community determines how to deal with those people.
The other thing we learn from this incident, that competitors (like you probably are) do have an opportunity to at least redirect a conversation. In this case we discuss social media etiquette and behavioral aspects.
But to the advantage of the author and the blog or community owner it drives attention and that is what "intruders" often hope to prevent.
Then one other thing what blogger or community owner learn is to differentiate a heated discussion around the subject matter from an intrusion to kill a conversation.
In this case again, you didn't argue about the subject matter where you provided evidence that certain techniques, methods or tools where old and as such represent your point of view to the benefit if the group - instead you tried to kill the conversation for your personal benefit.
Again I think it is a rather educational case - thank you for that.
Folks, I think you are missing the point of Mike's post. If some of you already understand this and us it, wonderful! Perhaps you can share your experiences so we can all learn. For those who don't, it might be something worth thinking about. He's done a good job explaining the options. Whether you decide to implement them is your choice. Not everything is for everyone. This is not a silver bullet, but these options are worth considering as they apply to your specific business and current situation.
There are very specific ways to determine if your company, business or industry is ready for this.
It would be worthwhile engaging in a discussion specifically to your business situation to see what value can be derived. Only then will you know for sure.
And, just for the record, I'm not affiliated in any way with the author or any of those commenting.
This is an excellent example of why some companies are hesitant to move forward with social media - despite the increasing body of evidence that it is effective at solving a variety of business problems. One nameless person can redirect the conversation from productive to destructive in a few key strokes. It doesn’t matter if the comments are true or false, the fact that they contradict is enough to raise anxiety.
Of course there are two schools of thought on this. Some people think everyone should be up-front and use their real name in order in increase credibility. Others think it’s better if everyone is anonymous so that they can tell the truth without repercussion. When the two mix, we sometimes see heated exchanges like the one above.
People who are on-line a lot develop “persona filters” to place these kind of exchanges in context - all part of the social media experience. In fact, readership of this blog (or any other blog) goes up when there are interesting public disagreements.
Admittedly, I am new to using social media tools. But, it seems to me that whenever you have someone with the background and experience in the channel that Mike has, it makes sense to review the information.
To me, this post gives me an additional set of tools to use in developing and executing an overall sales and marketing strategy.
Nobody has all the answers, but if everybody shares what they do know, we all benefit.
Thanks again for doing the leg work on this subject.