What Does Social Media Need to Really Work?

Overthrow Yourself

Here's a tiny question. When you boil it down, what's the human purpose of enterprise? Of industry and ingenuity, effort and toil? When it comes to life, what's the point of work — and when it comes to work, what's the point of life? What's the point of "business", anyways?  Is there one?

You might answer, having spent years in combat on the war-torn front lines of commerce, countless hours ensnared in soul-sucking conference calls, endless days enticed by corner offices and promotions, something like: "Making megabucks, by the most efficient route possible. Hey, dude — got an iPhone7?".  And you'd be perfectly right: the purpose of enterprise is chasing megabucks. If, that is, the outer limits of your ambition screech to a grinding halt at spending your days fine-tuning the just-tedious into the shinily banal.  But no one's going to look back on their deathbed and wistfully remember "Man, I was the person responsible for the lime-flavored energy drink!" 

While it's arguable whether humans have immortal souls, deep down, we all know: to thrive at the art of living, at some point each of us has to take a deep breath, step outside the rusting prison or gilded cage, plant our feet in the soil and reach towards the sky. Life feels actively, furiously lived when we love, trust, wonder, care, believe, dream, think, feel, do, count, matter.

Sure, you can argue that the right, true, and best purpose of enterprise is selling more stuff, at a greater profit, to benefit the already privileged more, through pure financial gain — and the human consequences are merely an incidental, almost irrelevant afterthought; nice-to-have, but as disposable as a plastic razor. But it's a weak argument — and it's getting weaker by the second. Roger Martin has elegantly and brilliantly argued why maximizing shareholder value's a destructive goal; Jack Welch has called the single-minded pursuit of shareholder value the "dumbest idea in the world;" Teresa Amabile has cogently chronicled why higher purpose leads to better performance; Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Tom Peters have both found time and again that the organizations that thrive amidst turbulence are those that aim higher; Gary Hamel has devoted now two must-read books to examining why management's hit a human wall, and what to do about it; Richard Florida has untangled the pulsing link between creativity and prosperity; and Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have pointed to institutions that extract value from people, notably middle classes, as the prime mover of the collapse of societies. And that's just the very short list of my intellectual heroes and their findings.

Here's what we already know. If it's the greatest gifts you want to receive — whether from the people that work for you, invest in you, or buy from you — then you're going to have to come up with a more meaningful answer to the great existential question of enterprise than "another million units of toothpaste — but this time, with heart-shaped light-up tutti frutti polka dots!!" Hence, any variant of the answer to the question "Why are you here?" that goes thus: "selling more stuff to people they don't really need to buy with money they don't have for reasons that don't count to live lives that don't matter" is about as relevant to humans as a pair of ultra-luxe designer sneakers is to a goldfish.

I'd put it like this: at its best, the purpose of enterprise is to evoke the highest human potential. The instrumental, calculative, deterministic view of enterprise, of human effort, of the role work plays in life, is in its twilight. Not just because it's been debunked, but because it just doesn't square with the most basic, shared essentials of a human experience. Allow to me say it kindly for a moment: Unless, you truly and deeply believe that the majority of us should spend the majority of our days during the majority of the best years of our lives being emotionally and intellectually waterboarded in order to satisfy the whims of narcissistic Machiavellian sociopaths, because since they're meaner and nastier than the rest of us, we owe them the moral debt of our McFutures — enterprise, and by that I mean your very hard work and ideas, your talents and gifts, your capacities and skills, the raw stuff of your fragile human potential, has got to be employed with a higher purpose: one that speaks to what it means to be human.

So here's my advice: overthrow yourself. I'd like you to develop a view of enterprise that's not merely instrumental, calculative, and deterministic ("Work, money, stuff, power, status, rinse, repeat") — but humanistic, constructive, and nuanced. And to get there, it just might be time to square up to your own paucity of ambition, take a deep breath, and admit that while the point of what you're probably doing might be good enough for obsessive-compulsive sociopaths seemingly stuck below the emotional development of a second-grader hell-bent on beating his bffs at an endless game of Monopoly forever, it's nowhere near good enough for humanity — as in both "the people inhabiting the earth" and "the set of built-in emotional and logical wetware that elevates us above the feudal, militaristic, and bestial."

Consider, for a moment, the uselessness of the corporate "vision statement." If it's a difference you want to make, try crafting an ambition instead. A vision statement is egocentric: it's about an enterprise's vision for itself ("our vision is to provide the world's best customer service at the lowest cos—" SNOOZZZZE). An ambition, in contrast, isn't a picture of the enterprise you see in the future, but a portrait of the human consequences that your enterprise (not just your "company", but your ideas, effort, time, ingenuity) creates. How do you want the world to differ — how do you want life to be meaningfully wholer, richer, better?  A vision is meaningless in human terms, but an ambition is only meaningful in human terms. A vision might be about "the cleanest restaurants", or "the most fashionable sneakers". But an ambition is about "the healthiest lives", or "the fittest runners". (I give some real-world examples of ambitions in Betterness.)

Argue with me if you like, throw your gilt-edged copy of the collected works of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ronald McDonald at me if you must, but I'd say: when it comes to the role of work in life, and the role of life in work, there's something akin to a grand ladder of purpose, stretching from the deepest subterranean depths inhabited by the lowest common denominator's immediate gratification up to the snowy peaks of making a lasting, positive, perhaps radical difference in the world. It's at the top of that ladder where the act of enterprise reaches its apex; finds its possibility; becomes its highest self; because it's there that human potential fulminates and culminates in what matters. That's where it becomes possible to earn not just money, but the stuff money can't readily, easily, imperiously buy, because it's not a beige, interchangeable commodity: trust, self-respect, adoration, fidelity, passion, dedication, maybe even a tiny bit of love, fulfillment, and, at the outer limits, a searing sense of meaning.

I'd suggest: it's time to begin firmly scaling that ladder — or get ready to be overtaken by those who can, will, and already are. If your answer to the question "what's the purpose of business" is as sweetly, tenderly naïve as "selling out and cashing in by pushing more disposable plastic junk, odds are, your days are already numbered with a clock counting down to the nanoseconds to zero hour — you just don't know it yet.

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The Future of Profit is Brand Purpose

What’s the secret to successful brand engagement you may ask?   It’s less about the moment and more about the movement.  Meaning, social media is simply a tool set that amplifies and extends your brand where your constituents (and prospects) are online.  

The challenge that most brands are facing today using social media is that their brands don’t stand for anything.   Certainly they make something or provide a service – but they don’t stand for anything.   Bottom line is that your own brand ‘movement’ needs social media, but more than that it needs a higher purpose.  At its core this is our modern reality. 

You’re dealing with a new, wired, evolving, empowered consumer.  Your brand’s success today depends on whether it is perceived as having a social purpose.   It’s increasingly the reason consumer’s select one brand over another.  Customers are no longer satisfied with just lodging complaints or casting opinions. Instead, they are voting with their social capital and turning away from companies that fail to listen and respond. The consumer is able to drive the conversation with or without the brand’s input – therefore only brands that are authentic and transparent will succeed.

In this rapidly changing landscape, marketers are challenged to humanize their brands and seize opportunities to engage customers across a multiplicity of touch-points and channels.  Want to build a future-proof brand that stands for something? Here's a few hints:

1. Be Engaging

Brands that create rich, engaging stories will build relationships. Authentic brand stories are retold by fans and become viral. If you address your customer’s needs, it will foster brand building.  Meaningful and advantageous engagement will shape your brand’s message. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn will give your brand an authoritative voice and build communities. Consistent engagement will increase your visibility, influence and make your brand profitable.

2. Be Relevant

A strong brand must be relevant. Brands that are viewed as “relevant” can go a long way toward making their competitors irrelevant. Instead of focusing on achieving brand preference, it is possible to reduce or make other brands irrelevant. A brand that offers something so different and special will create its own unique category and customers will perceive those as the only option, with no alternatives.

3. Be Accountable

In the future, brands will be held accountable for the good things they do (or do not). For example, Nike is highly engaged in efforts to demonstrate corporate accountability. Employing over 800,000 people worldwide, Nike was once criticized for employment practices of some of its suppliers in developing countries. Now, Nike posts results of external audits and interviews with factory workers at www.nikebiz.com.  Brands build equity by pursuing a customer-centric brand strategy. Companies that reflect their target market’s beliefs, mirror them and link their brands to people’s feelings will succeed.

4. Be Collaborative

Technology now shapes the entire customer experience and has transformed marketing. There is a need for more collaboration between marketing and IT. Your customer is a moving target. It is critical for CMO’s and CIO’s to take leadership roles to align and form a partnership with a definitive plan for marketing transformation. There are riches to be won for brands through this partnership.

5. Be Creative and innovative

Brands must aspire to be creative and innovative to win customer loyalty. Even successful brands can become complacent over time and have tunnel vision. CMOs need to take a disciplined and decisive approach and tap into the company’s core strengths.

6. Be Purpose driven

The future of profit is purpose.  Consumers want a better world. Brands that recognize the importance of doing good deeds will be rewarded with increased sales and market share. So, marketers must ask themselves: What is my brand’s purpose? If the answer is, “I don’t know,” there are agencies that can help. (Wink, wink.)

7. Be Responsible

Businesses are increasingly becoming part of the solution rather than the cause of the problem.  What’s clear is that Social responsibility is a differentiator for products and brands that create economic value through corporate social responsibility.

8. Be Simple

Businesses that simplify products and provide clear, transparent, user-friendly communications enable customers to make informed decisions. These are the businesses that will succeed.

9. BE A GOOD ListenER

Aka "Give a shit". ;) We know as Marketers that the better we understand our target consumer the easier it is to engage them. Brands must listen to customers today and build strategies that respond to their needs in real-time. Listening enables the ability to infuse data-driven insights into every customer interaction, thus personalizing communications.

10. BE ONE WITH THE Crowd

Innovative marketers are turning to crowdsourcing.  A crowdsourced campaign might include hundreds of creatives generating hundreds of ideas.  It’s about asking your constituents to offer feedback and input into driving your brand direction (and success). 

One cannot underestimate the importance of having a brand purpose or ideal, a shared goal of improving people’s lives. A brand ideal is a business’s essential reason for being, the higher-order benefit it brings to the world. A brand ideal of improving people’s lives is the only sustainable way to recruit, unite, and inspire all the people a business touches, from employees to customers. It is the only thing that enduringly connects the core beliefs of the people inside a business with the fundamental human values of the people the business serves. Without that connection, without a brand ideal, no business can truly excel.

The business case for brand purpose or ideals is not about altruism or corporate social responsibility. It’s about expressing a business’s fundamental reason for being and powering its growth.  It’s about linking and leveraging the behaviors of all the people important to a business’s future, because nothing unites and motivates people’s actions as strongly as ideals. They make it possible to connect what happens inside a business with what happens outside it, especially in the “black box” of people’s minds and how they make decisions. Ideals are the ultimate driver of category-leading growth.

A viable brand purpose or ideal cuts through the clutter and clarifies what you and your people stand for and believe. It transforms the enterprise into a customer-understanding machine, personalizing who your best customers are and what values you share with them. It helps crystallize your business’s existing and potential points of parity and points of difference with the competition. It illuminates your organizational culture’s strengths and weaknesses, so that you can see what needs to change and what doesn’t, what’s negotiable and what’s not, what can be outsourced and what is core.

Highly adaptive and flexible, a brand ideal is not tied to a particular business model and has no expiration date. It generates effective new business models, strategies, and tactics before the current ones have lost their freshness and begun to produce diminishing returns. Most important, a brand purpose or ideal enables leaders to drive results by being absolutely clear and compelling about what they value. 

Follow along in this blog or on our Facebook page for daily examples of social brand storytelling that effectively demonstrates that - to succeed today and in the future - brands need to demonstrate that maximum growth and high ideals are not incompatible, they’re inseparable.  The good news?   The easiest way to predict the future is to invent it.   

Welcome to the brave new world.  Let us know if you need any help.

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SOCIAL MEDIA CASE STUDIES [GB_V74.0]

Ferrari is promoting their new microsite with photos of their new F12berlinetta model on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ -  Luxury Daily

To rally support for the British Olympic athletes, Cadbury has created a virtual parade on Facebook that lets fans create an avatar to join in on the march -  Digital Buzz Blog

The new Facebook timeline offers new ways to tell brand stories (and a new paradigm to engage a community.) Here's a helpful #infographic to use in the development of updated brand styleguides – Infographic

Aussie beer brand XXXX GOLD has actually bought a 15-acre island on the Southern Great Barrier Reef designed to be a 'getaway for mates'. There's nothing on it yet but the idea is that men get to decide what goes on the island by visiting the island website and (social) voting on what activities the island should offer and what should be built  - Website

The True Value of the Facebook ‘Like’ – Article

Frito-Lay thanked their Facebook fans with coupons for chips after the five-day live event showcasing their flavor development kitchen in Times Square drew over 1.5 million new likes -  Chief Marketer

This certainly isn't a 'first' (see Intel’s ‘Museum of Me’) however Microsoft's 'A year in the Like' app gathers all your Facebook comments and images and posts them into a movie starring YOU – Website

 

McDonald's encouraged fans to show their love for Shamrock Milkshakes and submit photos of themselves doing an Irish jig with hashtag #Shamrocking - Ad Age

Toyota has added a fun virtual game board to their YouTube channel to engage fans in their new "The Game of Life with Prius c" campaign -  Brandchannel

Guess is teaming up with a few of their favorite fashion bloggers to judge a Pinterest contest that requires fans to create boards based on the colors of their new line of denim - FashionablyMarketing.Me

Mercedes-Benz is helping fans find a parking spot by syncing Twitter in their "Park Assist" feature and crowdsourcing the nearest parking -  PSFK

What better way to motivate your morning jog then to make you think you're being chased by a pack of Zombies!? Described as 'an ultra-immersive running game and audio adventure' - the game places you in a Zombie story where you're given various 'missions' to escape from the hordes of undead – App 

The American Red Cross has launched a Digital Operations Center to better respond to disasters and help track public conversations -  Information Week
 

Taco Bell shares how their new augmented reality app allows fans to see live tweets about their new tacos on their packaging.  (Now if they'd just use 40% actual meat in their meat) -  ClickZ

An emerging class of “social discovery” apps—which monitor your location and alert you when you’re in close proximity to people who have similar social media contacts or interests - Article 

How Powerade, Kraft Foods, KLM, and more are using Twitter in new and creative ways to engage fans -  Simply Zesty

Social Media Content Strategy Redux – Article

Dos Equis is running its own version of March Madness (or as we call it – crowdsourcing their next ten ads) with fans competing on Facebook. The challenge is to write a witty line about ‘The Most Interesting Man in The World.’ – Contest

Domino's Pizza (Australia) is creating the world's first Social Pizza. Over 7 days the Domino's Pizza Australia Facebook community will be able to vote for their favourite crust, sauce and toppings, with the most popular selection from each day added to the pizza - the final product will also be featured on the Domino's menu. Fans will even have the chance to name the pizza – Video 

Envisioning the near future of technology - Infographic

Whether you belong to one or ten social networks, you’ll likely appreciate ‘Bliss Control’.  Building on the popularity of Notification Control, developers took the one-stop settings shop idea and expanded it to cover every possible setting on 13 different sites – Website

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SOCIAL MEDIA CASE STUDIES [GB_V73.0]

Fanta is experimenting with Facebook's new brand pages by running a contest for fans to find four cartoon characters hidden in the brand's Timeline history -  AdWeek 

BMI has turned the Pinterest repining function into a lottery style game for fans to participate in and win big flight prizes -  Simply Zesty 

American Express' new Twitter program lets cardholders tweet special offer hashtags in exchange for coupon-less savings at participating stores -  VentureBeat

Intel picked up a lot of press when they hired will.i.am as their "creative director. At the same time, Razorfish developed an “experiential publishing engine” that presents content in real-time so that users could listen, touch, explore and connect with the storyline – Ultrabook Project

Coldwell Banker Real Estate's new campaign is sharing their ideas of the "Value of a Home" with fans on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and their blog -  Facebook

Nike+ is often heralded as the king of branded utility, and combines many of its key characteristics: more than marketing, it is a useful product that brings digital possibilities to the real world to build a global community and embed the brand 24/7 in people's daily lives.  The Nike+ GPS app and Path have partnered up (https://path.com/nike) to give you another great way to share your Nike+ GPS app runs.

Domino's UK hosted a short Twitter engagement where fans could tweet with the hashtag #letsdolunch to save on the price of a pizza for lunch -  Twitter Campaigns

Pantone's latest Facebook effort asks ‘WHAT COLOR ARE YOU FEELING TODAY?’ The ‘Moods App’ lets you select a PANTONE Colour that best expresses your mood, then posts it to your profile to share it with friends - App

Transmedia Storytelling and Content Marketing –Article 

The Coca-Cola Company made a big deal of the Argentinean national soccer team's fan messages on Twitter by printing 2,000,000 of them on confetti and launching the "Papertweetos" into the stadium -  PSFK

How to stay safe and ethical in social media -  Vimeo

What is CONTENT MARKETING? - Article 

During their "Goodest Get Together" campaign, KFC threw a party for one lucky fan and flew in 100 of her Facebook friends from around the world -  Media News in Pics

IKEA has launched a "How to Build" YouTube channel dedicated to helping customers assemble their furniture with easy-to-follow videos -  Apartment Therapy

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♔ Social Media Case Studies (GB_V.72)

Cheez-It is engaging fans with a new promotion that lets them campaign and vote for their favourite flavor of cheese cracker on YouTube and Facebook -  YouTube

eBay share how they're rebooting their social media program to improve users' social shopping experiences -  Mashable

Rubbermaid share how they implemented and grew privately-branded communities -  Vimeo

Orbitz has launched a Facebook game that encourages fans to share with their friends to improve their chances of winning a once-in-a-lifetime vacation -  All Facebook

Country Living Magazine shares how they're using Pinterest to connect with their readers - Ragan.com
 

TIME Magazine has teamed up with Foursquare to allow check-ins and up-to-the-moment updates at the Democratic and Republican conventions -  Business 2 Community

Krispy Kreme is setting out to tour the nation with their "Cruiser" 1960-vintage Starliner bus to mark their 75th anniversary. Fans can track the bus in real-time on Facebook and Twitter, and they're encouraged to connect with the bus on Foursquare, Pinterest, and Instagram -  Customer Insight Group

Boeing discuss how their content marketing and brand journalism strategies are all about telling a story -- not pitching a product -  WebInkNow

KFC share their social media strategy, from handling negative comments and measuring ROI, to their current promotion on Facebook and Twitter -  PROMO Magazine

ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences used social media applications, Twitter, original content, celebrity videos, and a central social hub to keep viewers engaged before, during, and after the Oscars -  Entrepreneur

The Practitioner's Guide to Creating Content Like a Publisher

H+M is one of the most popular brands on Google+ to date due to their frequent photo postings, relevant fashion news, and "exclusive" fan treatment -  Ragan

Dunkin' Donuts has launched a "Like a Boss" application that lets fans create funny video resumes to share with friends on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn -  Smarter CPG Solutions

Corning, McGraw-Hill, and Intuit were announced as BtoB’s Social Media Marketing Award winners for their exceptional work in viral video, mobile, and corporate blogging, respectively -  BtoB

For the first time, ESPN will be streaming March Madness tournament games on Facebook -  Los Angeles Times

Advocate Health Care is interacting with fans on their new live video chat platform, AdvocateLive. Viewers can submit questions, join the conversation on Facebook, and share related videos -  AdvocateLive

UPS shares how they're using social media for customer service -  Vimeo

Subaru has launched a new website that lets fans generate a personalized video story of their very first car. Fans can tag their Facebook friends in the video and then share it across all social media channels -  Torque News

Zappos, Estee Lauder, and Warby Parker are using social media to get personal with customers and improve their service -  Knowledge@Wharton

Macy's discusses their plans for Facebook's new brand Timeline feature and expanding their social media reach to other platforms -  MediaPost

Harley-Davidson is encouraging fans to use the hashtag #StereotypicalHarley to share who they are and why they like to ride -  AdWeek

One of the clear winners out of the 'Facebook Timeline' gate was Red Bull. Not only has the brand done a great job of seeding milestone content since it’s founding, they also launched an incredibly compelling scavenger hunt that spans the history of the company and integrates brand milestones in a seamless manner with the hunt – FB Page

The Mechanics of Social Change, Invisible Children, and Kony 2012 – Article

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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