Corporate Communications Today

Social Media Marketing: What are best examples and practices to deal with Loss of Control

Presented by, Sivadurga ViswanathanYounes Ghammad

Introduction

Arise of Web 2.0 and social media

Loss of control

A gentle shift from the system of hierarchy to heterarchy

Danger? Control of parameters that enable the loss of control to be efficient

Agenda

Web 2.0/ Social Media

Loss of Control - Best practices and examples

o Employeeo Customero Brand

Counter Arguments

Web 2.0/ Social Media

Web 2.0 is a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online (blogs, consumer reviews, video exchange platforms)

Goes beyond passive viewing of contents limitations

With the advent of this technology, a new medium of communication has emerged, social media, which is a supplant to the traditional mass media.

Social media are social software which mediate human communication.

Organisational changes in the modes of communication through social media.

Agenda

Web 2.0/ Social Media

Loss of Control - Best practices and examples

o Employeeo Customero Brand

Counter Arguments

Loss of control

Social chang

es brought by social media:

• Many interactive channels• Credibility decreases• Customer is demanding and active• Employees communicate • Uncontrolled messages

Need for

Loss of

Control:

• Creation of more weak ties in a company’s network. • Enable and facilitate knowledge flows, ideas, passions,

skills, and experiences• Push to Pull economy.• Openness - a fundamental requirement for any business. • Provide “creation spaces” for employees and customers

alike• Increase in productivity and loyalty.

Employees are no longer in control

Traditional model of managerial resource allocation has become outdated

Eagerness to do what employees are passionate about

Example: “America's Corporations will lose control of their employees“ - FORBES

Paves a way for ‘knowledge workers’ inside the company find and talk with other experts who may have valid input to particular projects

Some practices to implement loss of control for employees: open source social networks and open HR

Open source social networks

• Dow Chemicals a company that has set up its own social network, to help managers identify

the talent they need to execute projects across different business units and functions.

Dow has even extended the network to include former employees – a smart move.

• Lockheed Martin: Developed a free, open source enterprise social networking platform, Eureka

Streams

Content within Eureka Streams consists primarily of microblogs and internal and external web feeds.

Open HRReplace static piles of proprietary knowledge to dynamic, quickly accessible

expertise

A move from organization-centric to network-centric

• Example:

• frogForward

An open-ended, conversational, and social performance management app.

A 360 degree feedback system for the employees.

• Survey results: A recent study by Birkman International:

• Nearly 20,000 HR professionals found that 83 percent of respondents see great potential in social media-based HR solutions

Loss of control imposed on customer

Consumers are no longer brand loyal

Word of mouth spreads exponentially through social media; example: FACEBOOK

Customers are dynamic and active

The great success of NPR with Open API for its contents.

The different practises for loss of control on customers: Crowdsourcing, Open Ideation, Open Design, Open Source.

Crowdsourcing

The process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

80% of the innovations which are developed by a company on her own are not successful. By contrast 80% of the innovations initiated by customers succeed. (Robert G. Cooper 2010)

Closed networks are of diminishing value.

Example: KAGGLE

Kaggle is a platform for predictive modelling and analytics competitions on which companies and researchers post their data and statisticians and data miners from all over the world compete to produce the best models.

The effect of the live leaderboard, which encourages participants

to continue innovating beyond existing best practice.

It brings in liberalism into the involvement of the participants who include the employees of the company as well.

Thanks to crowdsourcing approach that led KAGGLE to find new market streams such as HIV research, chess ratings and traffic forecasting.

KAGGLE – A Crowdsourcing approach

Open ideation Open Ideation offers plenty of opportunities to increase its product pipeline

and to integrate external ideas into its ideation process.

•

Involves redistributing control of getting ideas from an elite group of thinkers to a broader group.

Direct participation of the users allows for generating ideas that best fit their individual needs.

Few Guidelines for efficient Open Ideation process:

o Start ideation process with clear and concrete assignment.

o Use a team approach to get a structured ideation process with both best ideation results and internal supporters for the innovative outcomes.

o Ideation process isn’t instanteneous

example DELL Idea storm

DELL Idea Storm

Idea Storm is a launched initiative of DELL

Invites people around the globe to suggest product improvements and new product ideas online

Received more than 10,000 idea submissions

Open design research

Everyone can be a contributor to the design process

Design process gets rapid compared to traditional design research method

Open source

In software space, we need open source projects that promotes a universal access via a free license to a product's design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone to create innovation.

Open source gained hold with rise of social media.

Few benefits of Open Source:o Securityo Qualityo Customizabilityo Freedomo Flexibilityo Cost

Examples : LINUX and RHoK

LINUX – An open platform

Provides full access for the users; provides administration rights allowing for accessing more functionality of the operating system.

Provides kernel access to modify the code to make improvements. For instance, fixing bugs.

There are a community of users rendered to fix errors in linux systems who use code sharing to find solutions, unlike Windows, and hence reduces the cost involved.

The LINUX OS has 22% more market share than Windows OS

Google ‘s OS is based on LINUX OS

Random Hack of Kindness (RHoK)

A joint initiative between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank.

A community of “developers, geeks and tech-savvy do-gooders around the world, working to solve development problems particularly during times of crisis.

Hackathons - fast-paced competitions to solve challenges.

Loss of Brand Control

Obsessive control over a brand is ineffective

The integrity and respect of a brand is closely related to how to handle “negative” press and criticisms. Example – NESTLE

Open up a discussion around the platform

Promote negative press

Encourage people to steal the content and work

NESTLE - Response to Criticisms

Characteristics to be followed when implementing loss of control

easy access.

open platforms.

open-ended formats that can evolve as the problem statement changes and enables sharing.

ample room for participation.

strong incentives (intrinsic motivation/social currency)

real-time visibility (through sharable content)

tie-ins to dormant or active social networks.

distributed decision-making.

More into Loss of control…

• Organisational change- Closed versed open models

Agenda

Web 2.0/ Social Media

Loss of Control - Best practices and examples

o Employeeo Customero Brand

Counter Arguments

Counter Arguments

“Many companies are still afraid of loss of control of information by using social media”

Openness as permanent crisis.

o Lack of confidentiality leading to information leaks to the company’s competitors.

o The question of quality and validity of the user entries to the open system.

The same organization that depends on the loss of control for its content very much depends on a highly controlled environment to protect itself and keep operating effectively.

Conclusion

To design for the loss of control, control the parameters that enable it (access, boundaries, authorship, participants, agenda, process, conversation, collaboration, documentation, etc.)

Loss of control can be valuable if there is efficient collaboration between the users/ employees and the business processes.

Loss of Control

Responsibility

Respect

Heterarchy

Coherance

Voluntariness

Trust