PRCA 3030: Groundswell Chapters 4-9

Groundswell Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by: Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Chapters 4-9

Chapter 4. Strategies for Tapping the Groundswell- Chapter 4 talks about how companies are realizing that they need to start getting involved in social media (creating Facebook accounts, Twitter, blogs, etc.) but they aren’t sure why.

Li and Bernoff created a 4 pronged approach for creating a groundswell strategy for companies called POST.  “POST is the foundation of groundswell thinking…”

1. People. What are your customers ready for?
2. Objectives. What are your goals? Are you wanting to talk within the groundswell for marketing or generating more sales? Or for tapping into the groundswell to help employees work together more efficiently?
3. Strategy. How do you want relationships with your customers to change?
4. Technology. What applications should you build? After having decided on the people, objectives, and strategy. (Ex: blogs, wikis, social networks)

According to Chapter 4, there are 5 primary objectives that companies successfully pursue in the groundswell:

1. Listening: best suited for companies that are seeking customer insights for use in marketing and development
2. Talking: best suited if you’re (the company) ready to extend your current digital marketing initiatives to a more interactive channel
3. Engergizing: works best for companies that know that they have brand enthusiasts to energize
4. Supporting: effective for companies with significant support costs and customers who have a natural affinity for each other
5. Embracing: most challenging of the 5, and it’s best suited to companies that have already succeeded with one of the other 4 goals.

Chapter 5. Listening to the Groundswell-

One of the most important things that companies need to realize is that “your brand is whatever your customers say it is”; meaning that your consumers are out there blogging, “yelping”, tweeting, and facebooking about your product.  You do not define what your product is because the reviews that your customers are writing define the product.

Li and Bernoff tell us that the best way to gain insight into what your consumers are saying is to work with vendors who provide professional tools by setting up your own private community or by brand monitoring.

Chapter 6. Talking with the Groundswell -

According to Li and Bernoff, there are four ways to “talk” within the groundswell.  They are:

1. Post a viral video.
2. Engage in social networks and user-generated content sites.
3. Join the blogosphere.
4. Create a community.

Chapter 7. Energizing the Groundswell –

According to Groundswell, energizing the groundswell means “tapping into the power of word of mouth by connecting with, and turning on, your most committed customers…”  By “energizing” your customers and getting them excited about your products (by listening to their feedback, and improving upon your products), they will keep talking about those products for years.  And according to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) word of mouth “is the most honest form of marketing, building upon people’s natural desier to share their experiences with family, friends, and colleagues.”

Based on Li and Bernoff’s interviews with companies who succeeded in energizing the groundswell, they found 3 unique techniques that work when “connecting” with brand enthusiasts:

1. Tap into customer’s enthusiasm with ratings and reviews.
2. Create a community to energize your customers.
3. Participate in and energize online communities of your brand.

Chapter 8. Helping the Groundswell Support Itself -

Helping your customers support themselves will make them happier, save money, and generate insights.  But it will require a great deal of effort for the company.  Li and Bernoff outline 3 questions you should ask before you start:

1. What problem is your support activity trying to solve? – Why will people participate?
2. Groundswell support needs your participation – Support communities need activity – few will go to a forum that’s not buzzing with activity.  Activity creates content, which creates traffic and links, which boosts search engine placement, which drives more traffic, and so on.
3. Why build it if you can join it? – You should check whether there is an existing community for your customers.

Chapter 9. Embracing the Groundswell

When you embrace the groundswell, you can move more quickly.  There are two reasons for this.  First being that consumers do not hesitate to tell you what they want.  They are the ones using your product and are interacting with your company.  They know what the problem is and what can be done to fix it.  They often have ideas that people in your company have not thought of yet.  Whenever your company is ready, they can tap into this resource of “innovation”.  According to Li and Bernoff, people who have connected with customers are always amazed at how much more quickly they generate ideas.

The second reason is that once customers are “in the loop”, innovation happens more quickly because you can “iterate” – make continuous improvements.  Once you begin receiving feedback from consumers, you process it quickly, and can go back and ask the next question.

The key factor to remember is to show feedback online.  This way, your customers see that you look responsive, and then you can continue the discussion.

According to Bernoff and Li, the thing to remember is that embracing your customers takes a balance between skill and humility.

PRCA 3030- Chapter Notes Week 2: Groundswell chpts. 1-3 & Survival Guide chpt. 4

Chapter 1: Why The Groundswell* and Why Now?

The definition of the groundswell is “A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional illustrations like corporations.”  Essentially what this is saying is that now more than ever, people are referring to blogs, websites that show reviews of products or services, facebook etc. to learn what they can and express thoughts, opinions, and ideas about specific products, services, even people and there is no way to stop it.  Furthermore, if “the man” tries to stop what is being said about his/her product or service this usually inspires the blogs and internet users to spread the information to other sites like wildfire.

Why is the groundswell happening now? Three forces are behind it: people, technology, and economics.

Why should you care that it is happening? “If you have a brand you’re under threat” Basically what the authors are saying is that people who have a basic knowledge of your product are going out and talking with other people about the product and and “redefining” the brand that you spend hundreds of millions of dollars making.  They are comparing prices, similar products, etc. This idea of a groundswell has made businesses more vulnerable.  It has changed the balance of power.  People can put up websites and review or “rate” the companies services, start movements, etc.

Chapter 2: Jujitsu and the Technologies of the Groundswell

This chapter is focused on telling the managers of companies how to thrive in a world that is becoming a groundswell.  The groundswell is weakening their control over what is being said about products and services that they are manufacturing, however, once they understand the groundswell they can use it to their benefit.

The chapter outline various technologies (blogs, social networks, wikis, forums and widgets).  It then evaluates, how they work, explains participation, how they enable relationships, how they threaten institutional power, how you (business managers) can use them.

The next step is when evaluating a new technology, one should ask the following questions:

1. Does it enable people to connect with each other in a new way?
2. Is it effortless to sign up for?
3. Does it shift power from institutions from institutions to people?
4. Does the community generate enough content to sustain itself?
5. Is it an open platform that invites partnership?

The groundswell has two key ingredients: technology and people.

Chapter 3: The Social Technographics Profile

This chapter describes how to recognize who your demographics are “your social technographics”.  The social technographics is composed of 6 categories:

1. The  creators – publish blogs, publish web pages, upload videos, etc.
2. Critics- post ratings/reviews, contribute to forums
3. Collectors- Add tags to web sites, “vote” for web sties
4. Joiners- visit social networking sites/maintain profile
5. Spectators-read blogs, watch video, listen to podcasts,
6. Inactives- do nothing

Once a company knows the social technography of their audience, they can use it to build an “appropriate social strategy”, meaning they can target the right buyers with the right media.

*”Groundswell, Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies“- By Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff

Chapter 4: Building a WordPress Powered Website

A Survival Guide To Social Media And Web 2.0 Optimization by Deltina Hay  

In this chapter Hay talks about using WordPress as a place to build a website.  The chapter covers many of the features WordPress offers and how to use/install them.

Hay explains the “anatomy” of the WordPress site, from the header down to the footer and everything in between. I actually found the section on “Widgets” interesting, because I didn’t know you could create your own or find others that didn’t exist already on the site.  For example she shows a WordPress blog with a “Flickr” account that has pictures showing on someone’s blog.

Hay then explains how to get a “hosting account” for your site if you so choose and how to get “FTP” access which would allow you to upload files to your hosting site.

Hay then talks about how you should browse through themes and choose one you like and then install it.  Another thing she likes about WordPress are the plugins.  She says that they give WordPress “tremendous power and flexibility.”

The following sections are about installing Widgets, plug ins and how to build “static” pages.

This chapter was helpful to me especially because I am about 2 weeks new to WordPress and I had not yet thought about plugins but will certainly be checking into them now!

PRCA 3030- Chapter Notes Week 1: Survival Guide pgs. 15-22

The first reading we were assigned for Social Media was to read the Introduction to “A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization” by Deltina Hay.

The introduction starts off by telling the reader that “the future of the Internet is the Social Webb.”  Hay tells the reader that success on the Internet is dependent entirely upon his or her presence in the Webb, and that by improving his or her presence in the Social Webb they can reach potential clients that would not have been attainable otherwise.

So how does this book help you maximize your Internet presence? It can be summed up with 3 general terms:

1. interactivity
2. sharing
3. collaboration.

Hay says that this book is not an instruction manual on how to blog or get more friend requests on Facebook.  This book is to show the reader “how to use strategies and tactics and the tools of Web 2.0 to build a successful Web presence.”

This book is aimed towards business owners, authors, publishers, heads of companies, and even students.