Social Media - Changing Society Forever

I have recently discussed the power of Social Media where I argued that these are key tools that are generally off limits to most product market managers – which was a mistake because social media tools provide you with the ability to communicate with a large group of people, for the group to share information and to coordinate and organise very quickly all at almost zero cost – a marketer’s dream. I also discussed the fact that social media has the proved ability to provide the tools needed to organize a revolution – of citizens and consumers (See Social Media Strategies & Social Media Revolutions)

In this post I will reflect on the far reaching nature of social media and explain why it is therefore critical to the way that we converse with our customers.

One of the most far reaching changes in civilization was made by Johannes Gutenberg around 1439 when he invented the moveable type printing press – essentially enabling the economic mass production of books. This destroyed the market for manuscript copiers and more importantly allowed knowledge to be acquired by the masses and not just the privileged elite. This (the ultimate disruptive technology) invention changed the balance of power in civilizations forever.

I think that many of us would regard the Internet in general as being of similar importance as it provides almost everybody with access to limitless information. However, I think that the Internet is not the complete information revolution.

I think that the true Gutenberg style Internet revolution will be driven by two factors:

1. The Kindle (& similar devices) as a reading book is of equal or greater significance – allowing people to simply build, access, annotate and store their personal library.
2. Social media as a way of sharing pre-selected information that interests me; and is probably of at least mild interest to some of my friends and an economic way of sharing commenting and discussing this information.

Sharing and discussing information with social media is incredibly powerful. It is without doubt apologetically subjective personal information. However, it is incredibly compelling information – cleverly presented and recommended by a friend. In many cases a discussion emerges among the social circle. We start of with small pieces of information or knowledge and refine and enhance it by sharing. This in my opinion is similar to the invention of the printing press – I have access to all the information and will generally glance (at the very least) at these recommended items – instant access to important or pre-selected information.

This accessibility and relevance explains why we often see small localized businesses investing in Facebook and other social media. They know that they are not going to get thousands of followers – that is not the objective. Their objective is to be significant among their customers – to be part of the conversation and be part of the small instant information exchange. It is pure customer engagement and customer centric communications.

Equally so discussing what the business has done wrong is trivial and stunningly effective (see Social Media Revolutions) over social media. I believe that it is essential that we understand that society has changed with social media and that we need to embrace the new world – for the sake of our product and our customer engagement.

In my final comment (for now) on social media I would like to recommend this post from Jeff Cole discussing Google +.

Jeff makes some excellent points that are directly and indirectly relevant to product managers – in particular, I would like to reflect on the difficulty in being an expert in social media – and the very best never call themselves experts. This is often the case in many fields. My takeaway from Jeff’s article is that this is such a new and dynamic space there are many right and many wrong ways to do it. Think about what you want to achieve and the best way to do so – but most importantly get out there use the social media tools and do something – social media is enabling revolutions and it is changing society forever - your product and your customers can’t afford to be ignored.

Social Media Revolutions

In a recent post I discussed how Social Media has become an important marketing tool that is often missed or off limits to most product marketers in larger companies. Using them correctly, I believe can increase customer engagement and simplify product positioning.

Over recent months we have seen the power of social media to command people's attention and to motivate them to take part and be involved in activities. Many of these activities were previously well out side their normal comfort zone and in many cases caused them to endanger their lives. I am, of course referring to the Arab Spring and to a lesser extent to the on going Israeli Summer.

In the Arab Spring regimes were overthrown, or revolutions brutally suppressed. In the Israeli Summer on the other hand, we have mass demonstrations that are calling for a new social agenda and consumer price reform.

Both of these phenomena illustrate the power of social media – because they are both being organised and facilitated using combinations of Facebook, Twitter and other media.

The power of social media was discussed (and this year's revolutions foretold) by Clay Shirky in his book “Here Comes Everybody” (Penguin – 2008). To quote the back of the book “The next revolution will not be televised – it will be emailed, texted, blogged, wikied...”

Shirky discusses different case studies - from arrests for mass ice-cream eating in Minsk, to previous unrest in Cairo, to social stunts in Macy's store in New York, to protests against the attempt to hide abuse cases, and to commercial demonstrations against banks and airlines forcing them to reverse unfair commercial decisions. Shirky makes the point that social conversation and interaction follow a power law distribution from small groups with tight conversation, larger groups with loose conversation and then much larger groups that broadcast.

Shirky's message is that groups can organise themselves to collaborate on issues that they believe in or find sufficiently engaging. The critical element is the ability to share information and to coordinate and self organise at very low (negligible) cost – the enablers are social media tools. Speed is also of importance, it is hard to organise a large group of people using meetings, letters in the post etc. – sure it has been done but immediacy makes it so much easier.

The book discusses two almost identical protests a decade apart – the second of which achieved its aims, whilst the first did not. The conclusion reached is that (to a large extent) the availability of social media in the second was the key factor.

So the key advantages of social media are the ability to communicate with a large group of people, for the group to share information and to coordinate and organise very quickly all at almost zero cost. I would add that social media is still considered engaging and cool; and that in itself prompts people to take notice of a message that would be ignored if it were to be delivered by conventional means.

I am not arguing that on any given Wednesday afternoon product marketers or managers can start a worldwide revolution! I am, however, arguing that social media is extremely valuable to us. Consider the characteristics – immediate, low cost, information sharing, collaboration, engagement – these are the holy grails of product communication.

Using social media to interact with our customers we keep them involved, we can communicate messages when we want to without special effort, we engage them and allow them to share information with us that in turn help us to be more responsive to their needs and to better meet their expectations. This applies whether we have a business offering or a consumer offering. In a B2B situation we can help our customers succeed better at their job by sharing information about our product and our industry and it is easy to see how consumer products benefit from this interaction.

One of the apparent risks is that the competition will also join our group. This is true, but, then we have to share information prudently. We accept that every time we update the website, publish a white paper or interact with a customer then we have shared a secret with the public. In the meantime we have built the group chemistry around our product. Customers may share criticism of our product, but, surely they will do so anyway and it is better to hear about it and respond to it quickly (add an update to the next release and tell the world when it will be available.) Feedback is to our advantage, conversation drives our prestige.

The other idea that comes out of Shirky's work is that Social Media provides an easy tool for dissatisfied customers to organise and apply immense pressure on the organisation – it is much better that we also use the tools for our advantage.

Social Media is a low cost (mainly our time) way to regularly engage with our customers, to gain feedback, to help to shape our industry and to share information immediately.

It is hard to build a successful Social Media community – you need to choose the media (Facebook, Twitter, blog, wiki, special community etc.), to get people signed up and to start talking with the customers. Different businesses will use different tactics. By definition when we have a group we have conversation – conversation about our industry but mainly about our product. The conversation makes our entire approach, customer centric and drives our product decisions.

Whatever tactic we employ I believe we can all start our own small product revolutions and engage with our customers in a more meaningful way.