Brands are not yet settled into G+, but it’s reported that Google is looking for the optimum combination of brands and consumers so that it’s a more natural extension of how consumers want to connect to brands. My hope is that it is not yet another iteration of the interruption driven model that has predominated marketing for decades, but I got to wondering what would it look like if G+ actually addressed the paradigm and sought to try something better, what would a brand interaction in G+ look like? Here’s my take on what it might be like.

For brands to connect with consumers on G+, (when they can) the consumer will have to opt-in to the brand and include them into a Circle that they see regularly. I think we’ll see a permutation of the Google AdWords product that is smarter. Keywords will be scanned and the connection between the conversation and the offer will take on a better meaning. I think that brands will be able to better identify the real influencers in respective markets IF (and this is a big if) the brand can be given access to the social graph / Circle stats of the consumer. How will they get access? Consumers will grant it – usually in exchange for something of value. What kind of value? Some people will trade access to their social graph for a cup of coffee at , others will require a bit more consideration.

Accelerators to adoption will include connections between products like +Personal.com, which I really like, but do not yet understand how they’re going to be relevant if I cannot connect my permissions and profile to the social networks I’m using – profile fatigue is starting to set in with consumers and we, as an industry, have to find a solutions.  OpenID, Google profiles and Facebook Connect are just placeholders for now and the real power in this space I think has yet to emerge.

What to do for now is to develop a presence in the social space in a way that is both genuine and in a way that recognizes that your persona can vary relative to the audience you wish to address without being disingenuous.   Learning this, knowing it and being able to act on it for a brand though will be a challenge – too many of them are wrapped up in an old-school mindsets that places monthly and quarterly.

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Dan’s day-to-day concern is the question of “am I missing something that might be important?”.  Based on what we heard during the interview, I do not think so.  Dan shared an example of something that could not see the ROI on and they decided to test it.  They placed an ad on a job hunting site – the job site was a social site for sure,  but as it turned out job hunters were not good banking prospects.  So they ceased the campaign.

The team at FTB keep an eye on the acceptance by consumers of messages by brands in social media.  If they sense that social media participants begin to actively resent overt advertising and marketing, it might impact the ability of the bank of adopt social elements more deeply.  Social is merging with traditional and fast becoming a feature of ‘Web3.0’.  Dan sees that consumers will be able to interact in social regardless of the platform they use to connect to the web.

According to Dan, the issue for marketers advertising with social is a leverage point; if you got a good product people will know about it, likewise if you have a bad product, people will know about it.  Product flaws and operational errors in the organization will be discovered and commented on, not in attempt to be derogatory, but possibly just a way to be more helpful.  The ability to hide from the conversations is not feasible any longer; you’ll be a part of the conversation whether you decide to participate or not – how you decide to respond will impact the brand.  Participation can enhance your brand, while ignoring the discussion will not.

Dan leaves us with the encouragement to not be afraid to experiment and learn where your place is in social media – get started, but get started in a small way and find out what works.  Wise advice from a pioneer in social media in banking and financial services.

Play / Download Dan Marks / First Tennessee Bank Episode 3 Podcast Here

To get a hold of First Tennessee Bank, look at their website, www.FirstTennessee.com and you can reach them on their Twitter handle of @FirstTennessee.  Dan can be connected with via his Linkedin profile and his Google profile.

Here are links to material related to the interview that you may find useful; the entire conversation in one extended recording and a transcript of the conversation

Play / Download Dan Marks / First Tennessee Bank Entire Interview Podcast Here

Read / view the Dan Marks / First Tennessee Bank Podcast Transcript at Scribd.com

We’re very interested in your perspective on the topic and, if you have a great interview who can add to the conversation, please let us know – we’re looking to interview them and put it up here!

Thank you again to you our listeners – hope you enjoyed the effort and work we put into it!

The Podcast and Credit For Where Credit is Due – This podcast / transcript was developed from a live interview on April 23rd, 2010 between Dan Marks of First Tennessee Bank, Guy Powell and Steven Groves using FreeConferenceCall.com.

The podcast interview was downloaded and processes in Audacity, which is available from SourceForge.com, and with ‘4toFloor.wav’ music loop from member ‘Rooks’ and posted at SoundSnap.com.

The transcripts are sponsored by Social Marketing Conversations and the Introduction Voice Talent is Ms. Cynthia Propst.

FTC Notice: Neither Steven Groves or Guy Powell received any compensation for this post and neither bank with First Tennessee Bank.

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Scott talks about how social media is used by Sessions.edu and how it has supported an almost 10 fold expansion of the number of monthly ‘touches’ with the Sessions Design College audience of prospective student, current students and graduated alumni.  Scott explains how he has embraced the premise of Marshall McLuhan in that “the medium is the message”, but he cautions that too many contacts to an audience can cause them to disengage.  In Sessions case, while social media has allowed them to dramatically increase the number of messages, the reality is that there needs to be quality and sincerity otherwise you run the risk of turning off the audience.

The biggest understanding that has come from the use of social media is that a successful launch has to be gradual and that he needed to segment the conversation to be able to increase the touch points.  Sessions.edu established messaging in three different categories – Culture, Industry & Sell.  With this segmented messaging schema, Scott talks about how each has a particular characteristic and supports a conversation or connection in a specific area of the relationship with the audience.  The recipients have been very open to the connections because each communication is about something different and Scott says it has ‘enriched the conversation’ and allowed the brand to flourish.

Under lessons learned, he cites trying to use every social tool for everything – he’s come to recognize that the content has to match the discussion and the relationship you want to have with your audience.  He suggests that your listeners, followers, and community members need to get something from the conversation and that is a more a function of the quality of the conversation and message than the quantity of messages delivered.

Play / Download Scott Chappell / Sessions College Episode 1 Podcast Here

To get our posts as they happen, follow us on Twitter (@ROISocialMedia) or subscribe to SocialMarketingConversations.com via email or your RSS Reader.

To support the effort in uncovering the ROI question in social media, we’ve set up a Fan Page at Facebook, and a LinkedIn Group.  Come join us and let us know what the pressing issues are in your efforts to determine an ROI in your social media presence!

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These options assume a text blog, but even if it is a video blog or any other type of social platform, we agree that the actions that might be taken are not infinite. 

Is One Action More Valuable Than Another? I think so.  Subscribing to a blog, or opting-in to receive more content from the same author or source, is a much higher value action than just dropping in to consume a single article.  Thinking enough of the content or the author to share with others in your network begins to establish you as an advocate of the content, not just a visitor that consumes the content – this is a holy grail of online marketing, to have advocates for your brand, not just consumers of your content.

The process that takes a content consumer from one level to another is worthy of evaluation by the marketing community and as the content consumer moves along the continuum, ranking the value of one activity over another becomes meaningful.

Why Try to Establish The Value of an Activity or Mention? By assigning a value to the activity, you can develop a more easily conveyed ‘score’ that allows you to determine in non-financial terms, how well you are doing in the effort to leverage social media as a marketing tactic.  The score needs to be couched with other data I imagine, such as number of posts contained in the score and some factor that recognizes the age of the post, but if we are intent on establishing an ROI at some point of the effort, this kind of key indicator data serves a meaningful purpose.

Meet the Social Interaction Scoring Table.  My associate, Guy Powell and I have been discussing and working on the ROI of Social Media and during the conversation this notion came to me.  From that point I developed this table as an example of the scoring that might apply to not just a blog post, but a wide variety of social media platforms.

I share it here for your comment and to open a community dialog on the concept of being able to score the Social Interaction and how it begins to support the process of measuring mentions.

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Today Adam Ostrow at Mashable posted responses from various organization who have put themselves at the front of the personal-privacy-on-the-Internet issue.  They have all come out with responses that portend the end of personal privacy on the web, should users ignore the process and just blindly accept the ‘suggested’ setting proposed by Facebook.

When presented with the dialog box and process today, I took extra time to understand what they we’re asking and what it might mean.  I do recognize that many users will not take the time, they will trust the recommendations and they will just click through the dialog boxes, permitting a level of visibility of their Facebook presence they perhaps did not intend.

If Facebook users are concerned about what they share, this process will allow them to review their setting (a good thing) and establish a level of personal visibility commensurate with their wishes.  If a Facebook user is not concerned with what they share, they will be able to quickly and easily set their account to be as open as the front door at Macy’s on Black Friday.

If later they wish to retract that level of permission, they will be able to albeit perhaps some information may ‘escape’ control of the account holder, but not because of Facebook – it would be because of a personal decision that I think Facebook is making an honest effort to help users confront.

The responses of the ACLU N. California Chapter, EFF, Sophos and Trend Micro are summed up by Adam in saying “All of these sources are essentially saying the same thing: the privacy changes at Facebook have the potential to create significant issues for those who don’t carefully review them, which, let’s be honest, is likely to be most users.”

Yes, it will be most users who ignore the best efforts of Facebook to involve them in this very important and pertinent issue, but the changes are being presented appropriately and honestly by Facebook, not being slipped in at the backdoor under some false pretense.  Instead of taking issue with Facebooks’ legitimate effort, I’d like to see the experts supporting the personal responsibility users SHOULD be taking in addressing their personal privacy, not deriding the effort by Facebook to have them address it.

Image Courtesy of Alicia Rae on Flickr

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We’re seeing non-profits, for profit SMB and large organizations all coming to grips with the understanding that a social media presence is essential in connecting to their customers, stakeholders, prospects and employees.  What we see is very, very smart people struggling with how to involve themselves with various social media components.  With a klaxon going off in their head and their hair on fire, they are looking for tactics to implement right away.

We’re seeing varying approaches.  Some are staging a social media campaign, others are creating a social media position within the marketing department and others are undertaking tactical deployments of particular set of tools and then waiting to see what happens next.  What these all have in common is a short-horizon demand to prove what social media can do for them.

What is missing in all these efforts is a perspective on how to use social media to connect with their customers in a lifelong relationship, all the while monitoring the things that can be monitored, applying a return-on-investment metric to the data and thus being able to manage what kind of incremental return they can create by a transparent, public presence.

Admittedly, this is my perspective based on years of involvement in online social technology, not one based on the recent boom on attention being given to social media.  What is supportable in all these efforts is that they are steps along the journey toward what I think is a broad, global cultural adoption of a media model that presents a social element in virtually every exposure.

It will start with simple icons identifying where to connect with the brand in print ads, expand to interactive capabilities during broadcasts on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th screens (Television, computer and mobile phone) and with the pending leaps of technology ahead of us in the next few years, a socialized element in media will become an expected, albeit optional part of virtually everything we see.

So that’s the future, what do you do today? Short answer – whatever you are comfortable with that leads you down that path.  Longer answer – Lose the mindset that social media is episodic, or a short run element in an overall marketing program.  Adopt instead a perspective that a social, customer-centric interactive approach is where you and your organization is headed.  Recognize that media, with social elements will impact more, much more than just how your message gets out.  It will impact how you service your customers, find your prospects, connect with stakeholders and develop your products.  How it will do all that is the journey we’re on.

A word of advice is to not get caught up with self-proclaimed ‘experts’ promoting a flavor-of-the-day approach.  Look for partners with experience in business, online communications technology and the ability to work across the organization you already have in place, embedding a social component into the fabric of the enterprise – it’s where your headed anyway.

Images used in the picture courtesy of TodayinArt.com, Guwashi999 on Flickr and overlaid by Steven Groves

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Many, many thanks to the participants and panelist.  The interaction was lively and the topic engaging.

Jay Thompson / www.ThePhoenixRealEstateGuy.com, Tyler Hurst / www.TDHurst.com, Zane Burnett / www.HouseofZane.com and of course, the ultimate instigator of this whole event, Eric Bryant / www.MyRECoach.com.  Guys, just a whale of a good time and thanks for being a part of it.

I had a lot of fun using the Masked Mexican / Lucha Libre Wrestler theme too… Eric weighed in with a jump from the ropes about 1/2 way in and you could hear the crowd cheering or booing along with the ring bell.

By the way, if you’re wondering where the ‘SkyNet’ and ‘Donkey’ came from, as we covered the use of the moniker ‘Web3.0’ and how useful / useless it might be to define the next iteration, in the chat Tyler Hurst came up with his pick for the name of the next generation – yep, ‘Donkey’ is it and you heard it here first!  SkyNet?  Check the Terminator series of movies…

Speaking of hearing it here, here is a link to the playback – thanks again everyone!

(Image courtesy of jpockele on Flickr)

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As I thought about it, I recognized Eric’s involvement in the real estate industry (and with my roots in the real estate industry,) I wanted to cover the impact on social media real estate, but not just real estate. I approached Tyler Hurst at Podcamp AZ and asked if he might be up for a discussion and he leapt at the topic, expressing several opinions.  Zane was the first comment on Eric’s post and when you read it, you’ll see he has a few opinions about it as well.  Lastly, but really the first person I though of as Eric and I talked, was Jay Thompson, an ace practitioner in social media and, of course he happens to also be in real estate.

I wondered how these guy would interact and get along and I realized, it did not matter at all – every opinion about the future of social media is valid and some may actually be sharply contrasting so I moved ahead, accepting that there may be some debate on the topic and then it struck me.

I’m a long time Phoenician and in this neck of the woods, the Mexican style of wrestling, is called Lucha libre (Spanish for “free wrestling” or free fighting) refers to a form of professional wrestling involving varied techniques, characterized by rapid sequences of holds and moves, as well as ‘high-flying moves’.  This theme would be fun to use to stage the conversation and debate on Web3.0, so there you have it.

Are You Ready to RUMMMMBBBLLLLEEE?!  We’re doing it as a BlogTalkRadio event at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/StevenGroves and space will be limited so visit now, get your spot reserved – should be fun, informative and *smack* exciting!

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