How you can stop worrying about social media and learn to love the blog
Do you compulsively check TechCrunch every hour? Are you obsessed with the blogosphere? And, do you often ask the nearest teenager, “‘So, er, what’ s the deal with this Facebook?” If you are doing any one of these things you may be suffering from what Josh Bernoff calls “approach-avoidance syndrome.”
Bernoff, VP-Principal Analyst of Forrester Research, addressed “approach-avoidance syndrome” Thursday evening as part of a larger discussion about his new book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, which he is co-author along with Forrester colleague Charlene Li.
The event was sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of New York City.
Unless you have been on Mars the last few years —with a pillow over your head — you know about the growing influence of social media, such as blogs, online video, RSS feeds and wikis, on companies, brands and institutions. It’s one thing to know about social media but entirely another about how to capitalize on them — and that’s the crux of Bernoff’s new book.
It was telling when Bernoff shared a fairly typical response from Forrester’s clients about why they want to get into social media. To wit, “because our competitor did.” It’s honest, but it doesn’t help much. As Bernoff made clear, there has to be a more compelling reason.
(We’re pretty sure the muckamucks at Paramount Hotel Times Square will soon start to monitor the blogsophere, if they haven’t already done so; Boston-based Bernoff, who was staying in the hotel this week, made little secret that after his presentation he planned to go back to his hotel room and blog about Paramount’s less-than-stellar services.)
For companies that do appreciate how blogs et al. can effect the conversation about a product or service, Bernoff recommends taking key roles and giving them a “Groundswell” objective. For example, research equals listening to customers; marketing is talking and engaging with customers and corporate development means collaborating with customers.
Corporate budgets are finite, of course, but Bernoff said it’s a matter of being more creative with the dollars you are already have per social-media tools rather than doing the same old same old.
Bernoff also recommended that companies embrace P.O.S.T, a four-step approach to integrating social media. Cue the harmonica: P is for people (accessing customers’ social activity online); O is for Objective (deciding what you want to accomplish with social media); S for Strategy (a plan for how relationships will change with customers) and T is for Technology (deciding which social technologies to use).
For corporate executives who pooh-pooh blogs, Bernoff made a strong case that with proper planning and training, executive blogs can provide solid returns. “They cost less and generate more value than they did originally,” he said.
To check out a question-answer session with the always-affable Bernoff, press play on the audio link above.
Matthew Schwartz is Senior Editor of ScribeMedia.org and host of the WebTV series, From Print to Digital.
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