Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Today in Branding: ConvertKit Reconverts and Airbnb Logo Stays

On July 1, 2018 ConvertKit announced a new company name and logo to its users. The announcement of the rebrand to Seva wad made at their annual conference. It took only a few days for conversations about the cultural and religious implications of the word to reach scale.

    it was only then that founder Nathan Berry and team started reaching out to customers and non-customers to discuss the name. That's when they realized there was a deeper meaning they had overlooked. As Berry says in an email to customers this week#:

Seva is not just a word that means “selfless service.” It’s not just a word that means “serving without the expectation of anything in return.” It is a holy and sacred practice that involves giving generously to others out of love, tied so deeply to spirituality that it cannot be separated from spirituality itself.

    Whenever we choose a name for a company or a product, we send a message. Before we write that message, it's worth doing a deeper study of its meaning and the impact it will create, beyond what we intend.

    ConvertKit had a pretty self-explanatory story — use our tools to convert customers and clients. it's direct, simple, and easy to remember. In choosing a new name, the company likely wanted to be more aspirational, but why?

    Sometimes companies go with fancy concepts or adopt unusual ideas that are just not worth pursuing. Not everyone is saving the world — some people are just making it run better. A name is also functional, it reflects the useful nature of the product. Caring for creators can translate into a product that helps them get their job done better.

Experience is worth something. In fact, experience is what makes a brand worthwhile

    You may recall, or maybe not, the controversy the new Airbnb logo created almost exactly four years earlier — must be something about the summer. When Brian Chesky published the news on the company's blog# and then rolled it out to a small crowd of power users, he was greeted with mixed reviews.

    The conversation quickly went to how sexual the symbol was. The Bélo was intended as a symbol of “belonging,” as in feeling at home anywhere, and by extension likely an open invitation to come as you are.

    Backlash in social media and strong statements by members of the design community generated several media stories. Among the criticism was how familiar the logo looked#. Another company, Automation Anywhere, was using a similar design at the time.

    The confusion was cleared when Automation Anywhere decided to transition to a new logo — something more angular and appropriate for robotic processes automation. Surely a Google search would have helped, said some. Which goes to show how reliant we've become to searching for answers rather than asking better questions.

    Symbol aside, a focus on belonging resonated with the community. As Chesky said:

“You see, a house is just a space, but a home is where you belong. And what makes this global community so special is that for the very first time, you can belong anywhere. The rewards you get from Airbnb aren’t just financial — they’re personal — for hosts and guests alike.”

    So they are. Belonging is a fundamental driver of humankind. Four years later, the logo has stuck. Because the symbol was connected to a universal yearning that felt true, anywhere in the world. Airbnb's value is the host and guest experience. 

    Airbnb continues to stand up for its values and defend them in its advertising and in the media. The company takes a stand on cultural issues and engages in conversations relevant to its mission. Their narrative focuses on the need for acceptance and inclusion.

Value is activated by use

    Use creates value. Think about important names that have impact — your name. Repetition and use of a name starts lending characteristics to the person's story. We're intuitively aware of how it works. For example, more than one Elizabeth I know goes by Betty, it's more approachable, they say.

    I know a Kim who would rather people call her Kimberly. It's a lovely-sounding name, a bigger story. I've resisted nicknames, shortening, and Anglicization of my name. Because my name tells the full story — fearless, and connected with value and nature.

    In a sense, your name is your first mission in life. It provides clarity for the people who want to address you, and guidance because it's a beginning. Through its evolution it comes to signify what you stand for, aligning your decisions and purpose with your personal culture.

    It's the same with a company name and symbols chosen to represent it. Over time, it's a negotiation between how the business sees itself and what it wants to accomplish, and how others — customers, communities — see them.

    Mission does not create impact without action. How we act and the timeliness of our actions determine the value of our message. By itself, a message is just words. So we should take greater care in meaning what we say and working to be more appropriate in line with our actions.

    When companies say employees are their greatest asset yet behave in ways that don't reflect a degree of care for people in recruitment and management, they're not living up to their statement, and part of the corporate purpose of serving customers collectively.

    Finally, what makes a brand stick — whether it's our charming personality or an organization — is consistency. It's not enough to act in line with our words. The compounding effects of our actions activate value over time. There's no overnight success that raises above the noise for the people who matter and for whom we want to matter.

    A naming exercise is just that, unless we mean it. In that case, we're willing to put in the work to uncover our mission, how we act on it, and continue to do so over time.

    In response to critical politically charged comments about certain countries, Airbnb released an ad that showed the welcoming smiles of hosts in Haiti, El Salvador, and parts of Africa. “Let’s open doors, not build walls,” it says. “Belong anywhere” is a lot more than an idea, though it started that way.

 

[image conversation about the Bélo logo]

You say Tomato, I say Tomato... When Language is the Enemy

 

Things have come to a pretty pass
Our romance is growing flat,
For you like this and the other
While I go for this and that...

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong taught us a thing or two about the subtle disconnects that can kill relationships. All's fair in love and war goes the saying. Lovers that want to stay together resolve their issues, and meet halfway. Isn't it time we stop being at war with each other?

    It's unfortunate that strategy conversations continue to be full of the language of war. Because the focus on killing, winning, and competition is permeating our language throughout organizations. Groups compete for resources, people within departments compete for attention and people would kill for rewards.

    The war metaphor creates the wrong incentives. A mindset of scarcity is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a train wreck waiting to happen. Competition is also keeping people stuck in their ways ― this produces different flavors of thinking about problems and separate languages.

Your customers don't understand Klingon

    This kind of environment explains why organizations often have a hard time getting out of their own way. There's no shared language. Lack of a common language impacts a common understanding of values and culture. When nobody is on the same page, the context shifts based on where you are.

    A few years ago, I was working with a chemical manufacturing company to grow sales in North America. They sourced products in Europe and Asia, operated in a highly-regulated environment, sold though dealers and distributors, appealed to end users via research and field trials, and developed new formulations thanks to customer feedback and trial efficacy.

    There were many moving parts — and specialists working in each group. Plus several cultures were involved. Amazing skills and experience that were useless when it was time to get on the same wavelength. What it took was a common language to understand the issues, and deliver the organization to market successfully.

    Customers don't speak Klingon — and they shouldn't have to learn it. 

    It explains web sites that look like organizations' charts, content strategies that are more like tactics dreamed up by a few brave souls that may connect with a fraction of the potential intended audiences, and customer service where the accent is on an internal definition of “service,” rather than the customer.

A common language is key to creating the environment that delivers consistent experiences

    While the war metaphor has been incredibly successful at creating a common mindset, it has however built the incentive for division. This in turn has permeated our language.We should talk more about love — love of the work as a good starting point.

    Love is a journey, consistent with the journey of life. It's a metaphor that creates choice — we can take a trip, that could be a long and bumpy road, and also note how far we've come. We could be going somewhere, or be off the tracks and stuck. Or bobbing in high seas and foundering.

    But love is also a physical force that can create strong, healthy relationships, or can revive shaky ones. Love is magic, it can cast a spell on us, fill us with energy and goodwill... as long as we don't use it to go to war.

    In its best performance, love by nature evokes caring and abundance. Characteristics we associate with intimacy, personal concern, positive impact, and curiosity. This is the environment conducive to connection, and a common language is the vehicle.

Shared language creates shared purpose

    Ask the people who had to deal with major crises in social media. In fact, understanding risk communication can help you avert an issue altogether. Digital media has not only accelerated conversion, it has also sped up conclusions. People go from hick-up to lightning catalyst in no time.

    While organizations measure the outcomes of service in concrete terms — the flight arrived on time, the rep answered the call on the first ring — we use different variables to judge the experience. A good or positive service experience depends on intangibles like the way we felt, which is subjective.

    Emotions, trust and feelings about control shape how customers perceive their experience:

• Emotions influence what we remember, how we score encounters and the decisions we make.
• Trust is a primitive psychological variable that is essential to any robust and enduring relationship. 
• Control over one’s environment and knowledge of how events are going to evolve are fundamental psychological needs.

    Clear communication is one of the cues we use to judge whether we're going to have a good experience. It's much easier to communicate well when there is a shared language inside the organization. Shared purpose is a consequence of better understanding.

    In a deep analysis of nine crises I performed for Target a few years ago, I found that most of them unfolded from something a company did or didn't do — a decision, a behavior, or a disaster it caused. A lag in response was a common thread throughout.

    The companies involved key stakeholders from different groups on the inside, and brought in public relations firms often to help with social media as well. Social pundits led to velocity, but often weren't the catalyst, total unknown were. Companies' struggles compounded because of lack of a shared purpose.

    Without exception, they rebounded by taking action and communicating about their action. The only way to tell a new story for a brand is to change behavior, or put a stake in the ground about future behavior and communicate directly with customers and other stakeholders, publicly.

     A common language puts you on record, and keeps you there. It's a very productive ground where accountability and shared purpose create the incentives that power understanding. This is how we do our best work.

Language can be your friend

    Your customers don't want the world's best service, they want to become the world's best people. They use your product or service to do that. Do you speak that kind of language throughout the organization?

    See how Ducati customers speak about love#:

A spectacular show of love from all over the globe. 91,596 attendees in three days: the 10th edition of the WDW saw its highest attendance ever.

  

The Four Truths of Great Stories

 

We have no power over the emotions of others. Our sphere of influence resides in the process we use to get to outcomes ― that is what is within our control. The pendulum seems to have swung in everything-is-data-driven direction. But facts, or data points, do nothing without a story that communicates meaning.

    Stories work because they're memorable and contain emotional information.

    We tell stories all day long — to make sense of the world, and to connect with others. Integrity of storyteller and story are essential in business. To share ideas, present a strategy, and collaborate with a group we tell stories.

The decline and fall of content

    If you're tired of hearing about content when we talk about communication, you are not alone. The word content is a catch-all shortcut that tends to include everything we say, publish, and share often to get attention.

    Some estimates say that up to 70 percent of all business content is never read by its intended audience. Yet we still want to learn, understand, figure things out, and improve in the things we do. What we don't need is marketing fluff.

    We all need ― your customers included — access to information that is more appropriate to our situation and can help up make better decisions about the right product, service, or company. We want information that is easier to understand and helps us master what we're after ― photography, gardening, motorcycle maintenance.

Truth in storytelling

   Sometimes quality entertainment is helpful as well. Utility and value go hand in hand.

    For anything we write to resonate, it needs to speak to fundamental truths of human desire and ambition. Entrepreneur Peter Gruber wrote about the four truths of great stories#.

    “Over the years, I’ve learned that the ability to articulate your story or that of your company is crucial in almost every phase of enterprise management,” he says. Stories inspire, educate, involve, and attract. Great stories connect with us emotionally and call us to action.

    The four truths of great stories are:

    1. Great stories are true to the audience.

    Before they can go on a journey with you, people check to see if you get them. What are the beliefs, expectations, and needs of the people you are looking to attract? Then meet them where they are and start a conversation.

    “Listeners give the storyteller their time, with the understanding that he will spend it wisely for them.”  When we try stories out, we should observe for reactions — and be receptive to the emotional needs of our listeners and meeting them with integrity.

    We underestimate the role of products in our storytelling. Fashion brands tell stories with their new product lines. Motorcycle companies build their story with their riders. People are the heroes, not the product, nor the company.

    2. Great stories are true to the moment.

    To be relevant and resonate, both the story and how you tell it must connect to the context of the current situation—in time and place. What's unique in this moment? The telling of a story changes based on the environment where you tell it.

    We can be spontaneous and thoughtful at the same time.

    3. Great stories are true to you.

    The best stories are told with strong integrity from the teller. Sometimes this means saying things the audience doesn't expect or want to hear. Walking the talk is critical to be believable.

    When you tell a story, whether it describes an actual experience or not, you must speak with conviction and authentic voice.

    4. Great stories are true to a higher ideal.

    The true power of a great story is that it delivers a moral or a lesson for the audience to take away with them. The emotional component of the story is the vehicle that makes that moral stick. We embrace the passion of great storytellers, and their belief.

    Gruber has a story to illustrate the value of these four truths.

   In the mid-1980s at PolyGram, Gruber produced a television series called Oceanquest, which took a team of expert divers and scientists around the world—from Antarctica to Baja California to Micronesia—to film their aquatic adventures.

    One of the critical segments for the series was to explore the forbidden waters of Havana harbor. You can imagine the bureaucracy... and the sentiment. Both the U.S. and the Communist regime of Fidel Castro wanted nothing to do with it.

    As luck had it, with support from former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig, Gruber and crew managed to get permission from the U.S. State Department. But Cuba was elusive. So they took a shot at it and sailed over.

    Castro got intrigued and decided to visit briefly with the crew, which immediately asked for permission to film on site. “El Presidente will be here for ten minutes only,” replied the functionary. “But you are certainly free to tell your story. Just remember, no autographs and no gifts.”

    Gruber ended up engaging the Cuban leader with a passionate story about the role of Havana in commerce, diplomacy, intrigue, and war. The story connected with Castro's enthusiasm for scuba and his environmental advocacy.

    Traits the crew discovered when he spent four hours with them, observing and playing with the equipment. “The seas belong to all humankind,” said Gruber, “and so does history. You are the steward of Havana’s history, and it is up to you to share it with the world.”

     To summarize — go for quality over quantity, alignment before action, signal above noise, and strategy and tactics that drive results.

    

Ignoring 2 Billion Internet Users is a Missed Opportunity

 

Of the 4.2 billion people online in the world#, only a little over 2 billion are on Facebook (mostly mobile use#.) This is not an overlooked opportunity. Access is not the same as reach ― especially the kind of reliable reach a business builds by creating value.

    Other means of communicating and interacting with clients that have not gone out of fashion and are algorithm-free to deliver value to brands and clients (win/win) are:

• Websites ― an ad-free product experience easy to underestimate, including product updates.
• blogs ― subject matter expertise, behind the scenes that humanize a business, translating technical and scientific information, building authority (both for search and expertise), developing a strong point of view and voice.
• communities ― learning with customers, discovering answers to common issues, opening the door to peers supporting peers, product and execution ideas, good will. evangelism, advocacy.
• mailing lists and email ― direct connection to topics of interest, signal intent.
• word of mouth ― recommendations, reviews, value-driven influence.
• events ― learning with customers, building community, face-to-face interaction, signal intent.

    It's not an exhaustive list of purpose and meaning. But likely a good starting point for organizations that want to expand opportunity beyond the 2+ billion users of social media. We all want to better our lives, improve our lot. Especially younger people want brands to make their lives easier#.

    People want to read honest communication about products and services, they expect brands won't let them down and will act with integrity at all times#. Having nothing to hide is not the same as being intentional about doing the right thing, and saying something useful#.

“Seventy percent of people around the world believe brands’ motivations to share is based upon self-centered desires to increase profits, rather than part of a sincere commitments to their customers.”

    Identity, communication, and growth are interdependent. To move others, we need to own our communication, and meet halfway in understanding what's on people's minds. it's not just as simple as a translation process. Identity is involved. 

    But all of this, including eCommerce where applicable, is in service of a solid business model and a marketing strategy (complete with margins and costs) that works for your specific brand(s) and market(s).

    What you choose to share in social media and online (review sites, forums, communities, etc.) depends very much on the value you get. That includes a broader array of online media, as applicable, as well as face-to-face interactions in store and at events.

    We're often so focused on task at hand, and context at hand that we overlook opportunities to get help, or learn something new.

    Case in point, just last week in talking with a woman who comes to the same Barre studio I go to we discovered she's looking to take her small business to the next level. I'm quite familiar with her client base, their key questions, and health options.

    All communication is persuasion, those started by organizations, and by customers and clients. But not all communication is helpful when it's not consistent, useful, and integrated into a cohesive conversation. Experience is a form of impression, but we don't get to share it when we're not focused on strengthening relationships.

    Facebook is indeed not the only game in town (there's overlap with social media use#). There's more to digital than social media... and more to solving real problems.

    Bonus points for thinking about identity as a lens to understand the web.

    More on #storytelling next...

    

All Communication is Persuasion

 

“As practitioners, we have a responsibility to know what we are doing,” says Faris Yakob in a recent conversation# about strategy. There's a time for every purpose. But there isn't an infinite amount of time (or customers) we can burn through.

    With digital media, building brands has become more approachable by many (see social media)... and more difficult. Because when we make the mistake of conflating short term, direct marketing-like ROI with what we should do to build for the mind- and long-er sustainability, we maximize for confusion.

    Says Yacob:

Brands doing it well are the ones doing holistic comms planning, stimulating and capturing demand, and not confusing the two. Additionally, there is a large middle ground between immediate sales response and long term brand building that needs considering. 

    The market for building websites and banners might have gotten commoditized, see for example Carrd# and Fiverr#, but if you need help putting it all together in a way that is sustainable, and finding the actual value in what you offer, there's still a demand for skilled talent.

    For example, how do you grow your audience, or authority, or identify the right product (and validate it) that is unique to you? Even better, how do you identify if the problem you have is awareness, or if it's value?

    Everyone has been pivoting to customer experience in recent years. But it's hard to understand what it means. “Making things worth people's time is the job of everything,” but there are still distinctions in the continuum. What kind of need do you have? Are you already doing business together?

    To me, the more productive space for consultants and agencies is product innovation (I've helped many professional organizations with service as a product), and business innovation (as in building capabilities.) Growth comes from doing what we do better, doing more of it, telling a better story, and becoming better at doing that.

    The conversation brings up many good points, including a mention of Joe Pine's The Experience Economy update#. Which reminds me of a diagram I pulled together to describe product innovation. Because there's no doubt that in many cases, we're seeking experiences where the product is a better self.

    So I did a bit of an experiment and integrated some of @Faris' comments about the distinction between brand experience and customer experience, as well as @JoePine's thoughts on separating time saved from time well spent (it's still an important conversation for social media/attention trade-offs.)

    See the diagram above. It's adapted from the proven integrated marketing blueprint I've been using with clients for years.

    Does it open new possibilities for you? What would you change?

    Your brand is a proxy that helps ease choice overwhelm ― people spend zero time thinking about you and your content (or new campaign.) They do want to make their choices count. For some products and services we go for good enough. Think about it.

    Which means the options are clear ― we either impress and reset the bar (mostly people do that, but luxury experiences also come to mind), or we're the easiest people to deal with and meet the competence requirement.

    Making time an investment ― e.g., removing obstacles, building capabilities, creating exponential growth, delivering highly entertaining experiences that give joy... all these things have value. Then the question of how valuable becomes how close are you to the problem your specific clients face? 

    On the product side, saving time, or creating a new type of experience ― with trade-offs as appropriate ― works well. Take for example Southwest, easiest to buy, but no reserved seats (though you can pay extra to board early) and paid luggage. It redefined the airline category. Amazon redefined the commerce category.

    A deeper understanding of client requirements is useful in both cases (remembering that we say one thing, and do another.) Word of mouth recommendations and positive reviews depend on your understanding of where you stand on value and whether you deliver on it consistently (including perception.)

 

What's the Number One Thing that Sabotages Your Projects?

 

If you're thinking lack of clear understanding between parties, difference in expectations, miscommunication, awkward hand-offs, too much (or too little) feedback, no clarity on goals or intent, you'd fit right in. Because communication in one form or another is hard.

    It's hard enough when talking on the phone, or in person ― imagine what it's line online. The gap between what we assume and what others are thinking online fills social media. We have the tools to mute, ignore, and (harder) forget what other people are saying. Or we could look at the evidence.

    Spending any time on an activity should be an investment. How do you learn? Find reputable sources, follow the facts (and double check them), say what you do... rather than inventing a persona. All are good steps in the direction of value.

Use language as a problem solving tool

    At some pointy our communications take a nose dive. Imagine the difference between how you envision a project or conversation, how your team operates, how the outcome (your product) reflects your goal(s), and how your clients and public take it.  

    When work is involved, the value of our ideas won't come across if we can't share them effectively. A brilliant idea falls apart when executed poorly, or when not vetted properly. Nicole Fenton has an interesting parallel between communication and deign# (h/t @AnneLibby#).

    “[Writers] are the fastest designers in the world. They’re amazing at boiling down incredibly abstract concepts into tiny packets of cognition, or language.”

[Matt Jones, Google Creative Labs]

    Writing is a way of practicing thinking ― if you can define your intent and describe the steps that will help people draw value from it, then it's easier for you to see what needs to happen. When you write things down, you start prototyping the idea. Words are evidence. Use them on purpose.

Design the communication

    Communication works best when it's at the core of what you do. A tool of change. The product people work to build something, then eventually they flip it over to the writers to launch and promote it. Or executive teams talk about an outcome they want and never talk through the process.

    A separation between engineers, operation and product people, scientists, and writers doesn't deliver the best work. It's a problem agencies often have ― not enough access to the business, or other groups working on communication. Why I've insisted on providing data and information to partners in my corporate days.

    We can all benefit from clear language (and a transparent process), but it's easier said than done. Because to work for everyone it needs to be an ongoing process and not a one-and-done. Technical people have a harder go at this. They like talking product specs, rather than business intention-specifics.

    It's one of the reasons so many small businesses and startups have a rough go at building a brand that has legs and can scale. Communication makes things possible, it helps navigate relationships and figure out what's going to happen next. No communication, no forward movement.

Close gaps in expectations

    It's hard enough with people saying one thing and doing another. You also need to think about what people don't say. What words are they using / not using? There's your evidence. Where clarity is an issue, writing things out helps us sort thoughts.

    In theory it all sounds great, but the practice is what has value. Some examples of things to watch out for in expectations:

• are you telling the right story?
• are you working on the same customer journey?
• do you have partial information?
• are you considering situations and feelings you've not experienced yourself?
• do you look at problem variations and translations?

    If you're working on a product, ask for comparable products your client likes. To find the value proposition, try writing a press announcement for the product or service launch. A few weeks ago I shared Amazon's example# in Learning Habit.

    Or you could write a pitch for a service ― what's the main value, what's the supporting evidence? Then you articulate the key benefits in your story using your client's journey as a guideline. The more feelings involved, the more research ― interviews are a great way to drill down on specifics.

Explore the problem

    Interviews also help you keep the problem in the right perspective ― peel back the onion a little. The key is to step outside our point of view, forget what we know. This is very, very hard to do. As all the people who say you should “just”# do something.

    As Brad Frost says:

The amount of available knowledge in our field (or any field really) is growing larger, more complex, and more segmented all the time. That everyone has downloaded the same fundamental knowledge on any topic is becoming less and less probable. Because of this, we have to be careful not to make too many assumptions in our documentation, blog posts, tutorials, wikis, and communications.

    To file away next time you crowd source your problem on Twitter.

    New things are constantly coming to the fore, especially when communication is involved. Because you're now trading in three dimensions. The product or service and who benefits, the context of how your niche and customers behave (alone and together), and the clarity of purpose to negotiate the two.

You're never done, because feedback can make you more effective, which translates into growth.

    So if you feel on chapter 1 of the thick communication book forget “just” and get to work. Asking better questions is a good start.

 

Social Media is Growing up, Good News for CMOs

 

Every second, 11 new people sing up to use social media. Think about that for a moment. The world has four billion Internet users#, and more than three quarters of them are active in social media, thanks to more affordable smartphones and mobile data plans. 

    Nearly a quarter of a billion new users came online for the first time in 2017. In the U.S., where smartphones, tablets, and desktops have been ubiquitous, the people tuned into social media are approaching 70 percent of the population#.

    It's a mature market. And a well formed habit, with frequent check ins ― in fact, daily for about three-quarters of users on Facebook and 60 percent on Instagram.

    This is good news for CMOs who are tasked with the creative and more recently the analytic aspects of company's growth. Social commerce is bringing together aspects of branding and relationship building with transactions.

    It's also creating the need for new skills, and capabilities ― risk management and leadership are likely a new addition for CMOs who have been expanding their role to include business innovation, customer experience, and financial savvy.

    A look quick at the landscape.

Where and what are people doing in social today?

    On the desktop# they're on:

• Facebook (46 percent) reading news and checking in with friends/family (9 percent posts, 5 percent interaction), which means that organic reach is a pipe dream.
• YouTube (20 percent) connecting with influencers and product reviews
• Reddit (18 percent) in online forums, think word of mouth
• Instagram (1 percent) because it's mobile native, though Stories are becoming desktop friendly. What's interesting is that though mobile posts are still hovering at around 10 percent, interaction is hovering at around 94 percent.
• Twitter (8 percent) on desktop sees a total activity at around 81 percent, but interactions have dropped to 1 percent.
• Pinterest (2 percent)
• LinkedIn (1 percent)

    Visual engagement dominates. Instagram's is quite high with relatively little posting. What looks best? Beauty ― 27 percent of posts and 32 percent of interactions ― Auto and active wear also have a favorable ratio of interactions to posts. Brands that use user-generated content and influencer tactics do well.

    Brands with limited product assortments and those that are less enticing visually ― such as explain why sectors such watches & jewelry and CPGs have a smaller interaction to share of posts ratio. Retail brands likely invest in channels where the conversion is more proven.

        In 2015, Pinterest introduced buyable pins, and brands found that the average order value what the highest of all social networks at $50 per order#. Because brands make it easy by highlighting popular products, featuring sales, and explaining shipping, 68 percent of users shop or find a product in 2018#.

    With such good penetration of social media, especially in the U.S., it's not surprising that people are starting to shop using Instagram’s shoppable accounts (41 percent of brands adopted them) or Facebook's Shop Now button (17 percent of brands use it).

    In addition to product discovery, potential people are also looking for customer service.

What are brands doing in social?

    The categories taking advantage of the content/commerce integration are retail, beauty, fashion, active wear, and consumer electronics.

    In customer service Twitter is still king. Having a team there is a good investment for brand management. 67 percent of people have used a company's social media site for service, compared with 33 percent for social marketing#.

    Just like with site's uploading times, people reward prompt responses. Poor social media practices impact brand image, and the bottom line. Leading brands have created a proven process to know how to handle inquiries in social ― private vs public ― and have the power (and evidence) to make things right.

    Positive wins over negative. The customer is always right, even when the details may be fuzzy. Responding to feedback is a good way to build relationships. After all, we like positive reviews. They have power. Mobile conversion increases by 133 percent.

    Brands that have been consistent in using social to improve their overall customer experience, make every customer special... and count.

    Though it's convenient to use Twitter for people and brands alike, many still experience how customer service in social is not fair, and may get expensive for problematic issues. T-Mobile is an example of a brand that reaches out to answer questions, concerns, or to address disparaging tweets.

    Brands selling consumer electronics, active wear, beauty products, retail, fashion, and auto have upped their customer service activities on Twitter between 2016 and 2017. While CPGs, and beverages have decreased them.

    I still remember when eCommerce site social discovery went mainstream.

What are the key social commerce trends?

    Sales revenue from social media were greater than $30 million in 2015#. In February 2016, US retailers surveyed by RIS News and Gartner attributed just 2% of their revenues to social commerce. But the estimated $50 million sales in 2016# tells a different story.

    “Social media is growing up. Which is why I'm writing about social again ― it matters to business, and even more to brands.”

    Below, I highlighted some trends I've seen in the last couple of years.

    It's a small world. Product reviews have sway ― think Amazon, where 90 percent of people check them before buying. 67 percent of women still consider online reviews very influential when they purchase from a brand they know. 43 percent of people check then for an item they purchased, to compare their experience to that of others#.

    Social targeting has a dark side. Those pesky retargeting ads that follow you around can be spooky. But some companies have been doing it well.

    Brands like Wayfair are dependent on digital media to drive traffic to their mobile apps and websites, because they're online-only brands (business model.) In 2016, Wayfair, the home good retailer that gets 10 million unique page views every month in the U.S., sold more than 7 million items from over 12,000 brands.

   Targeting becomes easier after product discovery. For that, they used Pinterest. They were one of the first retailers to use the pin it button on their site. It also helps that they have a sound understanding of target customers, perfect for Pinterest. The company upped its game in 2018 with AR/VR collaboration#.

    Online relationships are becoming more personal. Brands that do well here solve a real problem. It's the problem that drives who is attracted to the brand. This makes it much easier to get to know the people you serve, including the reasons why they use social media/each channel.

   “This is why Instagram is doing so well. It's simple... and relatable.”

    User-generated-content (UGC) has a role here. Brands that focus on showcasing how their customers experience a product or service, or their lives are better (engagement) with a curated appearance (accessible) are very appealing ― at the tune of millions of followers.

    Influencers play a role. But brands need to become savvy about who is influential for their customers. It's 2018, we're been talking about this at least since 2011... yet so many are still getting it exactly wrong. It's the brands' responsibility to figure out what works. (This conversation deserve its own post.)

What are the implications for CMOs?

    The role of the CMO has been expanding in the last several years. Technology has been a trend for a while, but it wasn't until recently that it really became a focus for marketers. Data and analytics is the reason. In 21015, Scott Brinker said:

The “marketing technologist” label is simultaneously a big tent and an emerging field. It’s a big tent because it includes people from digital marketing, marketing operations, IT, software product development, ad operations, and agency creative technologists. Their official titles, backgrounds, and job descriptions vary tremendously.

Yet there’s a unifying bond between them — applying technical talent and capabilities in the pursuit of brilliant marketing. [...] It’s an emerging field because, as a percentage of people working in marketing and IT, these hybrids are still relatively rare. But they’re multiplying, rapidly.

    We're all familiar with operational types of technologies ― email, enterprise resource planning (ERP), networks (including security) ― and the need for CMOs to have a good working collaboration with CIOs and CTOs who have been on the front lines of operational tech for decades.

    Strategic technologies may cover manufacturing and distribution, but also involve the systems we use to find customers, service clients, and optimize the product/service value chain. Building efficiencies is part of the work. The more important part is to keep connecting all technologies to solving a specific problem.

    Over the last decade, corporate leaders have been expecting CMOs to elevate their activities from brand and marketing campaign management to business growth and revenue generation for the whole organization#.

    CMOs expanding skills and capabilities. This means:

• becoming a customer expert ― do we have an understanding the whole customer journey? Are we partnering with other leaders to execute strategy?
• making marketing that makes business sense ― how does marketing support the goals of other groups and executives? How does it translate into financial language?
• complementing the art with the science ― does the team have the right capabilities and skills? Are digital/quant people collaborating with traditional/qual people? Are different points of view being heard?

    To these I would add a more specific consideration for leadership skills ― they come into play not just with growing and running the team, but also with a C-level mindset to run the company.

    Finally, especially due to social media's revival ― and its usefulness as a testing ground for product innovation and community building (not just reach) ― risk management seems not far on the horizon. A few years ago, it was about developing an understanding and appreciation of risk communication.

    With social media taking on a bigger role in commerce, the ability to analyze risks and expected value. Social media keeps people connected, especially in extraordinary circumstances... and today, much of Twitter and other social networks qualifies for surprise. CMOs can make this good, or it could be bad news.

 

Additional Resources:

Understanding Audiences in a Connected World

The Many Faces of Marketing

How a Culture of High Performance, Radical Honesty, and the Motto ‘we’re not family’ Drives MarTech Choices

 

What Brands can Learn from How Entrepreneurs Use Social Media

 

The handicap many established brands have is that they have a product or line of products they need to market ― that's often enough to be wired in thinking about social media as channels, rather than tools. Entrepreneurs don't have those constraints. Because they're often thinking only about a problem.

    Serial entrepreneurs know the drill ― you become obsessed about a problem because you see a gaping hole in the market. What do you do? As you brainstorm with your co-founder(s)/team, you're talking to everybody. Literally anyone who might have an inkling of some part of the problem.

    Because that's what we do in mature markets ― and most markets are fairly mature today. We start with the part that is not quite satisfied. The group of people who has to patch together things not designed to do what they want/need. Or not to the degree they need it.

Assess problem maturity

    It's an issue I've experienced in first person with social media. I was so early on it that I brought it inside brands (in house) when most businesses did not even consider it. Early adopter as a user, teaching others to understand the social customer.

   Figuring out how it would be valuable to learn new things around the environment around a product and service was fun. Another early use case was connecting with the large majority of people who never filled out a Net Promoter Score (NPS) or provided feedback ― the satisfied, but not talking.

    Some companies are looking for innovation. But even making something good better is still an opportunity for many organizations ― inside and outside the corporate walls. Brand leadership is a thing, because most people value loyalty, trust, and service from businesses, yet few say it explicitly in the form.

    But they say it with their behavior in many forms ― transactions, and social media use.

Create native familiarity

    Entrepreneurs of any age are native to the use of social to gain insights. They do more that posting updates when they're online. Business is solving someone else's problem at scale. The process of becoming intimately familiar with it goes through experimenting, sharing, and listening to how people do things.

    It's probably a little easier to build a technology product for marketers because they're all online and ready to engage. But building community and an audience around an idea ― before it's a product ― has become a good method to see if there is a market in the first place.

    The community building part is important in more than one way. It's valuable for feedback, and as initial reach for a potential new product or service. It works well for entrepreneurs because they are one and the same with the company brand. People love to talk with subject matter experts and leaders.

    It's an opportunity you have as an observer, buyer, user of product and services to create a connection with the creators. This is not native to mature organizations.

Build relationships of value

    An entrepreneur who engages in social media is thus the best form of initial advertising for a company. We buy into people and why they do things. Raw experiences have also been making a comeback. The behind-the-scenes experience of engaging with the thinking that informs their choices has value.

    I still remember when Rand Fishkin wrote about his lessons learned raising VC funds. It was an incredibly well-written, thoughtful, and candid report that should be required reading for any startup thinking about raising funds. Rand Fishkin was the CEO & co-founder of Moz, a software startup.

    Now he's working on a new venture (or I should say adventure) to help marketers with influence. @RandFish is someone I hope to meet soon (almost did at Inbound a couple of years ago.) If you're looking for that candid report from a founder, his book Lost and Founder should be a source of inspiration.

    Authorship goes beyond creating value, it also build authority. From there, product development goes hand in hand with audience development ― as you validate your ideas, you map empathy for the goals and motivations of your clients, and learn about what they value. 

    When you see social media as a set of tools everyone uses to get what they want, and not just channels, opportunity opens wide. Because it involves people, business should also be about continuous learning about everyday life.

 

Create the Experience you'd Like to Have

 

It's a simple idea, isn't it? So why is it so hard to do? Well, for one we're not our client. We're someone's client, and many scenarios come to mind. Service situation? Communication disconnect? Can't find what you're looking for?

    We all live in specific worlds and problems. We all use search to find many of the things we want, even when we don't buy online. We also pay attention to the recommendations of others. I recorded some thoughts on finding gold nuggets in online reviews with Target Marketing a couple of years ago.

    Research helps you understand how people view value in products. It also helps you see where existing advice and communication are falling short.

    There are as many problems in search of solutions as solutions for the problems we have online. This is a huge opportunity for people who work on content production and optimization, for technologists who work on products, social media and community builders, innovation and brand people. The list goes on.

    Some of these areas of the business are interrelated.

It's summer, so how about travel advice?

    Every time I research a travel destination I come across an avalanche of information. I end up making a patchwork of advice and writing my own itinerary. I've been working on a side passion projects for the past several weeks. It's something that had been on the back burner forever.

    So shhhh, it's not official yet. But it involves travel and food — two of my favorite activities. it's more than that, though. I'm one of the crazy ones who thinks building bridges is a much better value proposition that erecting walls.

    That aside, I was pleased to see an opinion article on the NYT that offered a simple spreadsheet# to build an itinerary in Google docs. This is what I'm talking about. You can take it a few steps further — specific things that people who like cycling tours do, for example.

    How many people are there? Maybe more than you think.

Do you want to be everywhere, or where it matters?

    That was a simple move by the NYT, and I can see there are 65-68 people online looking at the doc at any one time. It signals definite interest, otherwise why bother. Our job in any business is to understand our clients better so we can continue to deliver value.

    It's word of the obvious, but being where the people you want to serve are, even if it's just listening and not marketing there (in favor of higher value channels), can help you serve existing clients better. If they're still buying from you, they're likely happy or content in some ways. They might not tell you which ones.

    Listening helps you identify things you had not thought about and could add value. You can learn a lot that you might not be able to use right away. However, it can help you see patterns or holes in current services.

    Sometimes, we put so much focus on what we say — or in digital terms what we produce and share — and not enough into what's happening with prospects and clients. What they say and do, especially when not on our web site.

Not enough hours in the day

    I get it. Some of these things are simple to do. If only our plate was less full, or we had a budget to undertake a — you name it, new segmentation study, customer survey, rebrand. Those are all great initiatives that will give you a leg up longer term as appropriate to your situation.

    Short term, you can do more than you suspect. Have you put in place a process to gather feedback continuously? To test and improve your communications as you go? To provide more useful tools to clients regularly?

    Do you have someone who gets your business model and brand voice quickly and can pitch in — do the work, some qualitative research, writing, help sharpen your point of view, coach your team?

    Noticing where the market falls short is super useful. But not being able to fill that void with value on a timely basis means saying goodbye to opportunity. Digital and technology have not changed the rules on business plans and marketing — you still need to make a profit.

    It has created more opportunity to solve problems than you have time for — some of those problems are worth understanding and solving. You could be validating ideas, researching questions, finding creative solutions to help you tell a better story. You can do that by getting to what I call, “five start thinking.”

  

Identity, Communication, and Growth

 

In the heyday of this blog, social media was in its infancy — and it was a boatload of fun. The rules had not been invented and drilled into the collective content avalanche yet. License to play, and experiment. I remember the first interactions on Twitter, and the fail wail.

    This blog was like a big laboratory for learning, acting out new ideas, commenting back and forth. Growth comes from this kind of activity. Once blogs became professional hubs and marketing platforms, it all became very serious. That's about the same time the word “authenticity” became popular.

    Because once the fun, experimental stuff becomes the day job, our identity is closely associated with it. People become brands, brands need to uphold a certain reputation, and keeping some distance in communications is part of that.

    It's the same trap companies fall into — obvious to customers and clients. Authenticity, the most truly prized brand attribute, right? (I wrote that 10 years ago, we've since reached peak use.)

What got you here... won't get you there

    But there's a problem with our need to constantly needing to remember, “To thine own self be true.” It implies that we understand what we mean by real self. “We have a problem if we have to spend so much money just to be ourselves,” says Herminia Ibarra#.

    Ibarra teaches people who've come to the point when what got them there, won't get them to what's next. She says that the way we think about authenticity poses a real danger to our capacity to learn and grow.

    A classic example of this I encounter in my work is people who are amazing technical contributors who now need to get things done through other people. Translating concepts into easy to understand language is often not their forte. They're more comfortable within the technical (or scientific, or financial) domain.

    To move others, however, we need to own our communication, and meet halfway in understanding what's on people's minds. it's not just as simple as a translation process. Identity is involved. An analyst is someone who's really good at analyzing information. It's core to who they are.

    We get stuck in how we see ourselves... and how others see us.

Missed opportunities

    I've seen that play out in senior leadership team meetings. Brilliant executives who had different areas of focus and skills who created friction. The problem is not just that the friction prevents them from shining even more because it keeps them from building meaningful relationships with their peers.

   It impacts the business as well. Broaden the view to the company, and you now see missed opportunities for employee and client engagement. Getting things done efficiently suddenly gets in the way of effective. Get it done kind of people tend to not like stories. Even when they know they're effective.

    Why? Because they don't think they're being authentic if they do. If you've been in the place where you could not make yourself do that, thinking it was like being manipulative, you might give me a call. I can help.

    In all seriousness, it's hard to catch yourself. Is sticking to your way being authentic, or is it being rigid?

What does “authentic” mean anyway?

   To tell the difference Ibarra gives three ways we use to define authenticity:

1. being true to yourself, but which self? The past, today, the future? Does it condemn you to be the way you've always been forever? Or maybe your aspirational self?
2. being sincere, saying what you mean, and meaning what you say. From Latin sine, and cera. Statue merchants might fill in imperfections with wax. Hence the signs on some shops to indicate they were the real deal.
3. being true to your values, for example substance over form or no BS. But there's a time for every purpose. Once you become a leader, you need to broader your repertoire.

    The trade-off is not between what got you here, values and integrity, and what's needed now. This is the moment we go and hide under a rock. A most conservative self shows up and accomplishes nothing. There goes effectiveness.

    Effective communication is about tailoring the message to your audience. You cannot think yourself out of this paradox. You need to act your way out of it. A personal example is my decision to go back to where this blog used to be — conversational, thinking out loud.

Transitions

    At any points in our lives, we go through changes. The only way we make it om the other side is by getting through it. We do that by being curious, experimenting more, asking better questions, getting to know who's around us.

    Our job is to own our role. To do it well, we need to be in the room where the conversation is happening. I worked with so many amazing leaders who did not have all the information, who had lost touch with what was going on in the hallways, how employees and clients experienced the product.

    This is how I came to embrace my role of translator and coach. Communication plays a big role in creating the conditions that increase learning and engagement. it's a service. If it doesn't, act your way into it (with help.)

    Right now I'm working on a project that gets me back into playful mode. I see a huge need for joy and desire to experiment in people's work and lives. Being playful with oneself is energizing. I'm with the ancient Greeks on authenticity — that which you do with your own hands. Being self-authoring.

    It's not a trait. It's the the outcome of a process of learning about yourself. Wisdom is on the horizon. We're not static. Organizations are not, either. Learning is about doing stuff that feels uncomfortable, especially for high achievers.

    Think different, by doing differently.