Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Part of an ongoing series dedicated to small businesses

As you read this, the business landscape is shifting right under your company’s foundation. How customers make decisions, how they discover, communicate, and share, how they influence and are influenced, is evolving considerably. In fact, customer behavior is not only changing, it’s fragmenting and opening the door to new touch points. Your business will now have to compete for the customers you know and additionally, a new breed of customers that you need to know. And, to earn their attention and ultimately their loyalty, you will need to better understand the top technology trends and how they’re impacting customer behavior.

At the heart of this customer divide is technology. But this isn’t about the technology we once knew, such as PCs, laptops, iPods, ebook readers, DVRs, etc. This change in consumerism is the inevitable result of disruptive technology and how it has affected behavior and reshaped expectations. Smart phones, social networks, apps, gamified everything, Google Glasses, self-driving cars, smart appliances, the list goes on, are placing consumers at the center of their own universe connected to one another through shared experiences. This plugged-in and always-on customers are learning to see the world differently. They’re empowered and they’re entitled. As a result, disruptive technology is grooming customers to expect information and opportunities to find them.

Everything starts with surveying the landscape for how you reach customers today and how their behavior and expectations are shifting. But this is also about the people you don’t reach now. This research will help understand how to appeal to a new type of customer as well.

If you thought that having a social media strategy and presences in the most popular social networks was enough, think again. What of adding social buttons to your website or in your email blasts? Still not enough? How about developing apps for iPhone and Android platforms? Nope. That’s not the right approach.

It takes research to truly understand how customer segmentation is materializing and how new technologies introduce opportunities to engage effectively with each group. More importantly, it takes interpretation, strategy, and a culture of innovation to recognize and prioritize these new opportunities and execute against them while windows for engagement are open.

Just like customer service, sales, and marketing, technology and your ability to translate trends into opportunities, are now part of your everyday business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your customer landscape, differs from industry to industry and it is your research that reveals where to concentrate and balance your focus and investments. To help, I’ve assembled a list of 10 current trends to evaluate . But, this is just the beginning. Use this list to build a regiment of research and innovation within your business now and over time.

10 movements to review for opportunities…

1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses (note: pay attention to nicheworks as well such as Path and Instagram.)

2. Geolocation check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts

3. Crowdsourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why

4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing

5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic (now HomeAdvisor), and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services

6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty

7. How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing. Also, how they’re comparing options, reviewing experiences and making decisions while mobile?

8. The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. You must realize how consumers are experiencing the online presences you create and whether or not they deliver a holistic and optimized experience for each platform.

9. The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using. Are you steering experiences based on the expectations of your customers? And are you taking into consideration the device or network where the clickpath begins and ends? Are you integrating Facebook F-commerce and m-commerce into the journey?

10. The expectations of connected consumers, what they value in each channel and platform, where they engage and how your business can improve experiences and make them worthy of sharing.

What would you add?

No company is too big to fail or too small to succeed. Simply knowing your customer is one thing. The connected customers does not replace your traditional customer, they simply introduce new opportunities to grow your business. How you’re marketing, selling, and servicing customers today are in many ways missing these important customers and thus limiting your ability for engagement and growth.

Understanding how connected customers make decisions informs more meaning strategies and ultimately effective and engaging programs, products, and services. Now more than ever, the future of business isn’t created, it’s co-created.

Originally published at AT&T’s Networking Exchange Blog

Chart: Shutterstock

I had an interesting comment from someone at an event recently. We were picking apart my Twitter stream and I was explaining my philosophy around it. He raised his hand and said, “Well, to be really honest, I wouldn’t be all that interested in seeing your pictures of bacon.” In this case, he meant quite literally the picture above, but in the larger sense, he was saying, “I want a business-focused person to follow.”

My response was that it was perfectly fair to feel that way, but that it also meant that he wasn’t likely my buyer. In my very specific case, I tend to work with companies that value personality as well as professional ability. It’s every bit as important to me that my kind of customer have an interesting personality, a quirkiness, and a tolerance for the atypical. That’s a choice, though, and it’s something I encourage you to consider.

We Choose Our Customers

Look, when we’re hungry for business, we just want to see the cash register ring. I’ve been there, and I’ll be there again. But when we do have the opportunity to consider our ideal client, it’s important to take a moment and work through that, to really determine what it is that will help you qualify who works with you or not.

In the case of media making and your online presence, what you put out there for the world to see on your social channels and your blog is what people are going to weigh into other equations when determining whether to buy from you. At the moment I’m writing this blog post, my last 20 tweets say nothing about what kind of business I’m in. My Facebook account is completely personal and not for business. My last few posts on Google+ are actually more business-focused, but that’s just happenstance. Why? Because I use social networks as a kind of liner notes for the personality behind the business.

Why Choose Your Customers?

Hold on there, Brogan. It’s a barely recovering economy and my kids have to eat. Why should I choose who my customers are? Why should I go out of my way to disqualify potential buyers?

Because customers that aren’t a fit create friction.

Simple. The deal you make when you take on a customer that doesn’t fit your personality or work style is that you’re asking for their money and signing up for however you will clash with them. This, in turn, may (will!) cause procrastination, may (will!) cause a less-than-stellar effort on your part, and will detract from the kinds of customers and clients you have more in common with. Those, by the way, are the people who will spend more with you over the long term, and who will form the core of your business relationships, not these folks you accept because you “need the money.”

Is This Crazy Talk?

I’ll let you tell me. Jump into the comments. Tell me about the times you’ve taken that customer who wasn’t really down with your particular kind of crazy. Hey, if you’ve had the opposite experience, that’s cool, too. I know someone out there wants to share some Kumbaya story about how working through one’s differences is a rewarding experience. My take? Life’s too short.

Guest point by Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman) on why he believes the Social Media Policy at the 2012 London Olympics failed

First off, social media could have at least partially erased the advantage that some state-sponsored “full-time amateur athletes” from Eastern Bloc countries enjoy over self-financed amateurs from Western countries. But unfortunately the social media gag order by the IOC neutered that chance by restricting athletes from sharing posts that mention their sponsors on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else online. Here’s the clause:

“Participants and other accredited persons are not permitted to promote any brand, product or service within a posting, blog or tweet…” [PDF]

Since state-funded athletes don’t need to raise money from private enterprise to support their Olympic bids, social media could have given those who do a way to rally funds.

The financial pressure on US Olympians is no joke. The parents of Gabby Douglas and Ryan Lochte both filed for bankruptcy recently, crushed under the immense financial sacrifice it took to get their children to the Olympic Games. Recognizing the contributions of their sponsors via social media might have offered some relief. But Rule 40 erased that possibility.

The Track & Field Athletes Association, Olympians and fans have been protesting the policy by including the hastags #rule40 and #WeDemandChange in their tweets. Above is an image Olympic medalist Dawn Harper tweeted to protest the gag order.

What’s backwards is the premise of the rule, which assumes that if athletes use social media to promote their own sponsors, official Olympic sponsors and rights holding broadcasters will lose. This is second reason the effort failed. It assumed that the media landscape is a zero sum game and that the absence of unofficial sponsors in social media would be a gain for official sponsors in mainstream media.

But as we seen, social media drives traffic to owned media, increasing the number of eyeballs broadcasters have to sell to paid media.

As veteran reporter Suzanne Vranica wrote in a story about the impact of social media on ratings:

“There have been plenty of negative hashtags assigned to NBC’s Olympics coverage on Twitter, including #NBCFail and #NBCStinks. But on Madison Avenue the hashtag for this Olympics so far is more like: #NBC$$$$.”

The take away is this. Social media doesn’t replace mainstream media. It drives mind share. More mind share equals more viewers. And more viewers means more value for official sponsors and broadcasters. What the IOC failed to appreciate is that tweets, blogs and mobile videos don’t cannibalize prime time viewership. They complement it.

To be fair, the IOC’s social media policy is certainly no anomaly. According to the National Labor Relations Board, most social media policies in the US are unlawful. Rule 40 is just one of many shortsighted gaffes that digitally illiterate gatekeepers from a bygone era have concocted to try and police the digital world by analog standards. Which brings me to the third, and final reason the social media policy at the London Olympics failed.

In the US, we enjoy freedom of speech. When organizations restrict that freedom they provoke real hate, and that hatred severely tarnish their brand. Social media policies govern personal expression and many regard personal expression as a natural right.

If organizations are seen as depriving individuals of what they consider to be their inalienable rights, such as the right to improve their working conditions or the right to bargain collectively, those same organizations are seen as unjust and their reputations suffer, which is the case for the IOC.

To sum it up, Rule 40 not only fumbled the chance to level the playing field for all Olympians, it skirted a ratings gain and stained the reputation of the International Olympic Organizing Committee. They protected themselves in the court of law and lost in the court of public opinion.

But it didn’t have to be a win-lose scenario. They could have had their cake and ate it too. If you’d like to learn how to develop practical, win-win social media guidelines by which your employees can conduct responsible, constructive social media engagement in both official and unofficial capacities, here’s a half price link good until the Closing Ceremonies for the first 50 sign-ups to take my online course on social media policy development.

Your wallet is likely filled with plastic of all stripes: debit and credit cards from Citi or Chase or Capital One. “But in the lower right-hand corner, hopefully you have a little mark for MasterCard,” says MasterCard SVP Ed Olebe. “So why don’t we bring that same approach to the digital space?”

Toward that end, the financial company today announced PayPass Wallet Services, an agnostic suite of tools designed to simplify the digital payments industry. The e-commerce space is fragmented, even at this early stage of development: digital wallets from Google and PayPal, payment solutions from Square and Barclays. Most every major bank and merchant is drooling for NFC-related technology. MasterCard aims to be the service that unifies these offerings into one network. “We realize that when it comes to payments, no single wallet will rule them all,” says Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at MasterCard.

PayPass Wallet Services, which will launch later this year, offers banks and merchants several ways to integrate with MasterCard. First, it will give access to the PayPass Acceptance Network, designed to create a consistent experience across a wide range of services. The PayPass API enables partners to create their own digital wallets, and then tap into MasterCard’s network to make purchases acceptable anywhere MasterCard is accepted, either in store or online, via smartphones and tablets or the PayPass web checkout button. There’s also PayPass Wallet, which lets partners offer their own wallets on top of MasterCard’s solution, which is even open for consumers to use with American Express, Discover, and Visa cards.

“We’re not trying to say that we have the best wallet, and that everyone should switch to ours,” Olebe says. “You can have cards from all different banks, with their with their own name, look and feel, color, and rewards program, like say, frequent flier miles.”

At launch, American Airlines and Barnes & Noble will be MasterCard’s first merchant partners, implementing the PayPass Online checkout button on their sites, while Citi will be one of the first major banks to take advantage of PayPass Wallet.

The idea is to end growing fragmentation in the digital payments space. “Why do I have to learn yet another username and password to use online banking?” Olebe says. In that sense, the company almost aims to become the Facebook Connect of e-commerce, making it so you no longer need to remember accounts with merchants like Barnes & Noble or banks like Citi–but just have to remember one account to connect them all.

“I wouldn’t say we’re trying to become the Facebook Connect of our industry, but we’re trying to enable that same kind of experience,” Olebe says.

Image: Flickr user Mike Reys, Flickr user Greg McMullin

Vancouver startup FlyingFlips wants to build a community of socially conscious graphic designers.

The ecommerce platform lets shoppers vote for their favorite sandal designs, which they’d like to see become available for retail. The most-popular options will be manufactured and the artists will receive a portion of the sale proceeds.

“We’re trying to build a really good social network of graphic designers,” FlyingFlips designer co-founder Trevor Broad told Mashable. “We call it open source flip flops.”

The site, which is hoping to receive funding from Kickstarter, says its flip flops are eco-friendly, made from 20% to 30% recycled materials, and lets you trade in used pairs.

Once designers have submitted designs to the FlyingFlips community, the startup encourages them to share their submissions with their social networks to vote.

For each purchase made, FlyingFlips donates one pair of flip flops to a person in need in the developing world, through Soles4Souls and Fundacion A. Jean Brugger.

The Kickstarter campaign, which runs until the end of May, will fund the first run of flip flops and the creation of the online store. The store will launch one week into June, right after the Kickstarter ends.

FlyingFlips hopes to make eight pairs available by June — the two pairs advertised as Kickstarter rewards, five pairs crowd sourced by designers and one blank pair. Though the team was initially split on creating blank flip flops, lacking a crowdsourced design, they ultimately decided more people could join the buy one give one movement, if they offered a blank slate option.

Would you buy a pair of FlyingFlips? Let us know if you would back this project.

Bonus: Crazy Kickstarter Projects

For many American consumers mobile payments are still something to run away from–and fast.

That’s what research from the University of California has turned up. A new study there implies that shoppers in the U.S. aren’t yet ready for the mobile payment movement.

A large percentage of the American citizens questioned in a nationwide phone study called “Mobile Payments: Consumer Benefits and New Privacy Concerns” were found to “overwhelmingly oppose the revelation of contact information (phone number, email address and home address) to merchants when making purchases with mobile payment systems” and “an even higher level of opposition exists to systems that track consumers’ movements through their mobile phones.” 

The numbers are stark. When asked if they thought their phones should “share information with stores when they visit and browse without making a purchase,” 96% objected to the tracking, 79% said they definitely would forbid it and 17% said they “probably” wouldn’t allow it–meaning just 4% were indifferent or positive about the idea. When the question was instead about information sharing (phone number, address and so on) at the actual point of sale, 81% objected to phone number sharing–a mere 15% said they’d probably allow it and 3% definitely so. Similar figures emerged when the information shared was home address.

In terms of email addresses, survey respondants were more inclined to share, with 33% definitely or probably happy to share the transaction information. Still 51% said they definitely wouldn’t share email addresses.

And overall, 74% of resondants said they are “not at all likely” or “not too likely” to adopt mobile payment systems, while just 24% say they are likely to do so.

This all sounds very, very bleak for the future of mobile pay tech in the U.S., which is being being pushed by companies such as NCR, Square, Verifone, and even behemoths like PayPal. This news also, um, squares with a recent alert for the Center for Democracy and Technology which worries that mobile payments can “expose” more personal information to multiple groups at the point of sale than traditional transactions, even via credit card, do…right down to third party app writers.

But the numerous different parties in the mobile pay game needn’t worry yet. There may have been a stuble flaw in the questionnaire asked by the University of California team. The problem arises from the study question that asks, “would you voluntarily give McDonalds your phone number and personal details when you walk in their store?” Who among us would respond any way other than: “Of course not!”? After all, that sort of question taps into the part of our personality that is apt to click on a “don’t share my personal details with third party advertisers” when we sign up for in-store loyalty cards. When it comes to privacy issues nd technology, our default setting is: suspicious. And for good reason.

And that’s the key to unravelling this problem right there: When you do use a current-tech store loyalty card you are effectively voluntarily giving the store your personal information, and “tracking” yourself. It’s why the cards exist of course–they’re partly there as a sales incentive, to get customers back in the door via money-off offers, but mainly so the store can collate information about customers and work out what kind of products to stock, what offers to run, and what future products to plan for. And if you have multiple loyalty cards, you’re giving this information away all over the place. A similar situation exists for Groupon coupons, and their ilk. Admittedly, this is on a store-by-store basis (assuming you tick the “don’t share my information” box), but millions of happy consumers do this anyway.

A new Pew Research survey shows that 80% of American adults use the Net, and 71% of those use it for shopping–meaning they’ve typed in all their personal details into store interfaces. And, if you think about it, Google already knows much of this stuff already. And Paypal certainly knows where you spend your online money, on what items and how frequently. Facebook is also trying to get into this game too, and it knows everything about you. All these firms aggregate Big Data independantly, and though this fact sometimes gets blown out of proportion by the media or lawmakers, it still goes on and we (sometimes even merrily) participate.

For these reasons and others education is one route to making consumers warm to the idea of mobile payment. That is, eventually it might make sense for mobile pay industry leaders to join together for a marketing campaign that points out to consumer that they already share much of this highly personal information with merchants and numerous third party companies (like consumer research firms).

And then there’s the novel fact that may surprise consumers: A mobile payments standard may actually allow them better control over this data, because instead of being shared across different loyalty schemes and different merchants and third parties, it’s all corraled in one place–in their phone (or whatever mobile pay app they’re using). It’s all but certain you’ll be able to configure this system to choose how much personal information you share on each transaction, or by store, or by date, or by whatever criteria you choose. The stores themselves may then opt to not offer you discounts, coupons or other incentives, but that’s your choice.

And the Californian research team behind the paper have another solution in mind: ”Adapting provisions of California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, which prohibits merchants from requesting personal information at the register when a consumer pays with a credit card, to mobile payments systems.” This would work because as the survey says personal sharing is a worry, and consumers would actually welcome controls, and “Song-Beverly could be adopted to accommodate those who wish to share their transaction data.”

Essentially, whichever of the many vying firms gets a singificant early grip on the mobile payments market will have to take part in a large-scale, open, frank, “hearts and minds” PR campaign to explain the benefits of signing up to sharing at least some personal information. And they’ll likely have to back it up with some fleet-footed lobbying.

Image: Flickr user Luz Adriana Villa A.

Via Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com

This post was written in April 2012. I’m just dating it so we can check in later and see if it’s still good. Yes, like a freshness date.

If I were a business person looking to understand how to use various digital channel making tools to build up my business, where would I start? What’s the right mix of tools to make this all make sense and work? What would I be able to accomplish? How would I work it all together? What would I do with my time?

Starting: Goals

For most businesses, I recommend using the human digital channel to promote media making, sales or memberships, and community/customer service functions. No matter the size of your organization, these are three baseline functions that should matter to you. The goals, then of those three functions are: exposure/awareness/helpful information, more sales or potential future sales, and any functions that will improve an existing customer’s experience with your business.

I’ll recommend some starting points for technology to point you in the right direction.

Starting: The Ecosystem: A Blog-Based Website

For media making, a blog makes a great tool for creating organic search engine optimization. It makes for a good “home base” for your online efforts. It provides a simple site infrastructure to let you build a website. You don’t HAVE to use your blog to write periodical updates and posts. I run several websites built on blogs that aren’t at all for posting or writing. They’re business sites for sales and sales only. But technology-wise, the blog software I recommend is an inexpensive/easy way to get onto the web. And in this case, I’m recommending a blog for media making.

I’d start with a blog running WordPress. Over the years, I’ve used several other platforms, often times the free ones where I just show up, pick a theme, and get going. I no longer recommend that. Here’s what I’m running on my sites and projects right now.

I highly advocate a simple custom theme like those provided by StudioPress (affiliate link). This site’s theme is Generate theme. I would pay for hosting based on the quality of service. For most of my sites, I use InMotion Hosting (affiliate link), who fixed a problem for me about an hour before I wrote this post. Inside of WordPress, I’m also running the Premise sales page maker (affiliate link). This helps me make very simple sales landing pages when I need them, and saves me a lot of time. One quick thing about setting up a blog: immediately make sure it’s equipped with either a dynamic mobile html theme (Genesis has many of these) or use some kind of plugin to ensure a great experience on mobile. I use wptouch on this blog to allow for that.

I would set up accounts to host and post video and audio. At present, I recommend YouTube primarily for video, because it’s not only simple, but it’s the #2 search engine in the world. If you want a second recommendation, I also really like Vimeo. For audio, I really like Soundcloud. I’m using it mostly for my music right now, but I also have used it for recording spoken word bits about business, and it works well, embeds well, and exists on several mobile devices.

Starting: The Ecosystem: Email Service Provider

Now that we’ve got the blog mostly set up, I want to move on to email marketing. I use InfusionSoft (affiliate link), which is a very robust and powerful email service provider. It might be a bit much for most people starting out. At the starting level, I’m a fan of both Constant Contact and Mailchimp. Many other people swear by Aweber. I think they’re great, too, but haven’t used them much personally.

Why have an email solution? Because it’s more intimate than interactions on social networks. It’s a way to maintain relationships with people. And no matter what you read about people switching more and more to social networks and SMS as a means of communication, email is still the backbone of the internet. Swing by chrisbrogan.com and you’ll see my email capture form top and FOREMOST on my site. I live by this.

Starting: The Ecosystem: Outposts

I consider the social networks to be outposts. By this, I mean that you do a lot of communicating and connecting on these sites, but never should you consider them primary to your business assets. They are tools to help you do many things, and though you must keep a gentle hand, your foremost goal is whatever you’ve mentioned above. Is it sales? Then sales might START on a social network, but you need them back to the home base to have that transaction.

Which networks do I find work best for business? Your mileage will vary. Here are some thoughts:

• Twitter – this is the serendipity engine. It’s brief, weird, shouldn’t work, and yet, it’s brought me more business than any other platform.
• Google+ – the new guy on the block. I read more blog posts telling me this network is failing. It’s growing daily, backed by a vastly wealthy and interested-in-its-success company, and widely integrated into several of the top 100 visited websites we all use. I wouldn’t bet against it.
• Facebook – I have never ever been successful selling on Facebook. It makes for a good community management page. There are many customer service functions that it can do well. I’ve never moved a single dollar from Facebook into any bank of mine.
• Pinterest – talk about bleeding edge. This is a visual bookmarking site, widely reported to be unique because it’s very heavily adopted by women (a first in social networks). I think there’s a lot of there there. I’m not an expert on it yet, but especially if women were a key buying element of my business, I would learn fast, were I you.
• LinkedIn – I’ve come to this: LinkedIn has about 150 million users, of which maybe 5 million use the service well. So, I think it’s a great tool used poorly by over 90% of its users. It doesn’t work well for my business, but I’m told that a steady hand and patience works well here.

That’s it for the “primary” social networks, but know this: to me, the magic these days is in finding niche networks that might serve your business well. If you’re selling hammers, hang out with the contractors and don’t worry about Facebook. Where are they? Google away. That’s what we do.

Starting: The Ecosystem: Listening and Analytics

I believe that the bigger opportunities in developing the digital channel into a human digital channel that promotes relationship-based business comes from the proper use of listening tools and analytics packages. In the case of listening, there are hundreds of systems out there. The current industry standard, I would say, is Radian6. It’s out of some people’s price range, so I’d also recommend Trackur, which is pretty decent, too. For analytics, I really haven’t found the best tool. Most people give me tools that let me count worthless things like views or likes or retweets. I need something more meaty than that. Maybe you’ve got recommendations.

Starting: Wiring This Into Your Organization

First, no matter the size of your business, align the use of these tools with your goals. Then, align those goals with who within the company is responsible for satisfying them. If you have a few employees, and one is responsible for marketing, while another is responsible for customer service, be clear who then touches what to get which results. It’s strange to say, but where many companies get this all wrong is that they put “one phone on one desk” and think they’ve wired up an office.

While we’re on this, realize that you have to have a conversation about what a salesperson will do with a comment found or a tweet or whatever that points to a customer service issue. Likewise, if a customer service person hears a potential sales lead, have the explicit conversation about next steps. This is the kind of stuff that wrecks it all. If you’re a company of one, this won’t be so hard (tee hee).

If you track sales leads, make sure to add spots for things like “blog, twitter,” and whatever else you want. If you are measuring handling times on your customer service calls, or time to resolve, etc, then make sure you account for these new channels. In short: wire it all in.

Starting: Strategy

Simple strategies are all I’ll give you here. For instance, if you want to promote your great home improvement company, then shoot video walkthroughs of before-and-afters on homes you’ve worked on. Write up a blog post, inviting people to contact you for a free 10-point checklist blah blah blah. Promote the post on the social networks you’ve selected. Use your listening tools to see if anyone’s seeking out what you sell. This is the basics of the homebase+outpost strategy.

Another strategy is the “keep community warm” strategy. Maybe this comes in building out a Facebook presence, backed with an email list. In this, you create interviews with people in your buying community. You follow their successes. You praise them. You write posts that help them do even more with your products/services. You answer most comments. You respond to emails via your email list. Your “calls to action” are minimal, but maybe you track sales by region, and/or use your customer relationship management software to match people on the social channels with buyers.

Another strategy is the “fill the funnel” strategy. Whatever metric you use to get more sales, use your digital channel to get more people into that funnel. If people buy based on referrals, then get more referrals. (Read The Referral Engine to do this better.) If people respond after a 30 day trial, then guide people to that 30 day trial.

Beyond that, my company offers strategic advisory and we’d be happy to talk with you about your business needs.

Just the Beginning

This post is already pretty long. Let’s make this a good ending point for now. We’ve talked about some tools, some strategies, some potential stumbling points. You’ve got a lot to chew on, maybe a lot to start learning about.

But what did I miss? What are you wondering that I forgot to cover? What else can I do to help you paint this picture more vividly?

Facebook defended its support for the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a controversial cyber security bill critics often compare to the unpopular Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

In a Facebook blog post, Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s Vice President-U.S. Public Policy, explained the difference between the two bills and how CISPA would protect Facebook and other websites.

Most importantly, Kaplan says Facebook or other companies would not be required to share its users data with the government or any other site under CISPA. Instead, the cyber bill allows the government to pass along cyber threat data to companies like Facebook to better protect their sites. He explained further that CISPA would not require Facebook to share more information with the government than it already shares, which does not include user’s private data.

“One challenge we and other companies have had is in our ability to share information with each other about cyber attacks. When one company detects an attack, sharing information about that attack promptly with other companies can help protect those other companies and their users from being victimized by the same attack,” Kaplan wrote a blog post on Friday. “Similarly, if the government learns of an intrusion or other attack, the more it can share about that attack with private companies (and the faster it can share the information), the better the protection for users and our systems.”

The post was prompted after several privacy and civil liberties groups have opposed CISPA and asked Facebook to not support the bill. CISPA bill sponsor Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said CISPA is not another version of SOPA, but that hasn’t convinced the critics.

“The concern is that companies will share sensitive personal information with the government in the name of protecting cybersecurity,” Kaplan wrote. “Facebook has no intention of doing this.”

CISPA differs from SOPA in that it protects computer networks from being attacked by hackers, while SOPA focused on intellectual property and copyright protection, Rogers has said. SOPA bill sponsor Lamar Smith (R-Texas) withdrew the bill in January.

Kaplan doesn’t want critics to worry about CISPA having any effect on Facebook users’ privacy. He explains there is still time for the bill to be modified and that Congress is working with privacy and civil liberties groups to address questions and privacy concerns about CISPA.

“We hope that as Congress moves forward in considering this and any other cyber legislation, the result will be legislation that helps give companies like ours the tools we need to protect our systems and the security of our users’ information, while also providing those users confidence that adequate privacy safeguards are in place,” Kaplan said.

Research in Motion has certainly seen better days. Last Thursday, the company announced its first quarterly loss in seven years. By Friday, industry analysts were writing its obituary. This past Tuesday, the release of software that lets corporate IT departments manage iPhones, Androids, and BlackBerries all but confirmed that the company expects to lose even its enterprise customers before long.

It’s almost enough to make you forget that RIM once changed the world.

When the company first introduced mobility into the digital equation, it insinuated the BlackBerry brand into millions of daily lives. That first-mover advantage won it a tribe of supporters who simply couldn’t live without their “crackberries.”

What RIM didn’t recognize at the time was that its tribe was born of necessity, not affinity. Once competition entered the marketplace, it would have to work twice as hard to keep it intact.

Today, RIM’s tribe is dwindling to an ever-smaller band of users that have to buy its product and an endangered number of true believers. Among the myriad reasons why, four stand out as particularly instructive for others seeking to avoid its fate.

End Users are Smarter Than Engineers

RIM’s decisions are driven by engineers. Ousted cofounders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie are technical geniuses who surrounded themselves with top engineering talent. It’s a management structure that served RIM well before real competition materialized. But when the iPhone and Android devices burst onto the market, it was clear that the company’s leadership lacked a true understanding of its customers. The C-Suite was focused on hardware, not the user experience.

RIM’s first foray outside the cozy confines of the enterprise underscores the point. 2008’s debut of the BlackBerry Storm was supposed to be the product launch that put RIM on general consumers’ radar screens. It did, but for all the wrong reasons. The attempt to blend the QWERTY keyboard experience with touchscreen technology was a data entry nightmare for most users. Voice interactivity left much to be desired. The navigation was confusing and cumbersome.

RIM never initiated the cultural transformation it needed to compete with the likes of Apple, Google, and others who elevate the user experience above all else. With Thorsten Heins as the new CEO, RIM has yet another technical wonk at the helm. It’s impressive that Mr. Heins holds a master’s degree in science and physics and boasts an unparalleled technology background, but those assets are unlikely to drive a badly needed philosophical shift toward the end-user’s point of view.

Complacency Kills

RIM saw its enterprise market dominance as a security blanket when it was really nothing more than the business equivalent of the Maginot Line. Just like DEC, HP, or Kodak, the company thought its hold on sustaining technologies would always provide it enough lead time to catch up should disruptive technologies threaten its market share. As a result, RIM wasn’t concerned with maintaining its first-mover advantage and pursued a strategy based on iteration, not innovation.

From one iteration of the BlackBerry to the next, there were no great revolutionary leaps that changed the way consumers and business use their smartphones. The PlayBook’s impact on the tablet market was similarly muted. While Apple and Google were steadily enhancing functionality, pioneering new capabilities, and building the universe of applications that now dominate the mobile device user experience, RIM fell back on the themes of security and dependability that were suddenly far less distinguishable–even to its business customers.

As the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices have aptly demonstrated, we’ve entered an era in which disruptive technologies can fundamentally change markets in as little as 12 months. That leaves even the most nimble of companies barely enough time to react–their best-in-class sustaining technologies notwithstanding. In today’s tech market–or any market for that matter– even the most dominant brands can’t simply piggyback on their competitors’ innovations, they have to develop their own.

Technology is Not Emotional

Consumers don’t buy from Apple because it’s innovative, they buy from Apple because it’s a religion. There is an emotional connection. The company has forged a tribal relationship with its consumers rooted in the ways its products and services enrich and empower people’s lives. That is why Apple was the first information company with the logo on the outside of the devices. Buying an Apple product is something that defines the consumer, not the brand.

RIM sells technology. Apple sells art, music, knowledge, and connectivity. The results of a recent Google Insights search illustrate the point. When studying the number of Google searches for “Apple” and “iPhone” over the last several years, we see similar volume and similar trajectories for both terms, with coinciding spikes during product launches and other high-profile periods.

Bottom line: The company itself is as popular as its leading product. When we change the terms to “BlackBerry” and “RIM” we see far more volume for the product than the company. That gap tells us consumers know BlackBerries, but don’t know who RIM is or what it stands for. It’s hard to feel any loyalty to a company you hardly know exists.

Brand loyalty is emotional, not factual. RIM never established an emotional connection between its brand and its customers. Without love, customers will always trade up for better, cheaper, cooler, or safer.

It’s all Viral

Over the last several years, the social media conversation surrounding RIM has grown increasingly hostile. Its product launches have been panned, its senior managers have been excoriated, and its brands have taken a beating. Industry analysts, everyday consumers, and even RIM’s own investors have all contributed to the chorus. All the while, RIM has stood virtually mute in the online venues its tech savvy stakeholders turn to most for information–essentially ceding control of its story to critics.

If ever there was a time for a coordinated social media blitz, Thursday’s earnings (or lack thereof) announcement was it. RIM had to know that the bad news would go viral seconds after it was reported. But at this crucial moment, the company again provided its detractors with unfettered influence over the conversation. As of this writing, Twitter sentiment on RIM is trending 62 percent negative and 38 percent positive. The tweets that are dominating the conversation include “RIM hemorrhages cash (and top execs), “my BlackBerry is worse than a Sidekick,” and “you can’t call BlackBerries smartphones.”

It’s almost unimaginable that a tech pioneer such as RIM has repeatedly failed to recognize social media’s power over widespread perceptions. Time and again, it has failed to engage its critics and assert greater control over the overarching narrative. Nor has it leveraged social media to forge consumer connections. The BlackBerry Facebook page boasts more than 10,000,000 likes, but because RIM treats the page like a sounding board, it hasn’t developed the sense of community that social media engagement is really all about. If it had, it could have called upon this sitting army of brand ambassadors to reverse, or at least slow the damaging narratives as they unfolded.

It Can Happen to Anyone

What’s most instructive about RIM’s fall from grace is that it can happen to any company that fails to connect with its consumers; confuses necessity with love; uses market share as an excuse for complacency; or fails to control its own narrative. Tribes of brand loyalists are always rented; they are never owned. When companies take them for granted; the stage is set for competitors to thin the herd.

There’s still a chance that RIM can bring its tribe back into the fold or build a new one in emerging markets. But unlike a decade ago, it must fight an uphill battle. Competitors now hold the brand loyalists that RIM lost. Worse yet, the Googles and the Apples of the world seem to understand that once your tribe falls apart, it’s awfully hard to put back together again.

Richard Levick, Esq. President & CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, represents countries and companies in the highest-stakes global communications matters–from the Wall Street crisis and the Gulf oil spill to Guantanamo Bay and the Catholic Church. Mr. Levick was honored for the past three years on NACD Directorship’s prestigious list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom” and has been named to multiple professional Halls of Fame for lifetime achievement. He is the co-author of three books including The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis and is a regular commentator on television, in print, and on the most widely read business blogs. Follow Richard Levick on Twitter @richardlevick.

Image: Flickr user Ricardo Wang

The Sheraton Skyline hotel in London (out by the airport) had the word “belong” plastered everywhere. If you’ve seen my speeches in the last little while, one of my favorite points to make is that “business is about belonging.” I thought to myself, “I wonder how Sheraton attempts to make me feel like I belong.”

I did a little research and found that Sheraton has been working on helping me feel like I belong since 2006. Evidently, they used to hand out 10 minute phone cards to encourage you to stay in touch with home. There were other touches in play then, too.

My experience wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t so much about belonging. The front desk process was pleasant. I was upsold into the Club area, which cost a bit more, but afforded me access to wifi (rooms only had wired internet), where I was served some drinks, some snacks, and could watch TV and the like (it looked a bit like the first class room at most airports- US level of quality, not Europe, which is to say, not as good).

What Is the Promise You Make and What Is the Reality?

I’ve been thinking about this as it applies to my own business and efforts. I promise to give people quite a useful and energetic and entertaining keynote. I have to deliver on that, or people won’t want me back. I promise to give my clients useful and actionable strategic consulting around business (primarily sales and marketing), communications, and technology, and if I don’t, then they don’t ask me back.

What are the promises you’re making, and what is the reality of what is delivered?

Now, think about that with regards to social media efforts. Just because you have a happy dappy intern talking sweetly about your whatever company on Twitter, does that relate to the experience people will have in your stores? If no, why promise one thing in your online channel and not deliver it when you get offline? How will these experiences match up?

Are you ready to make the promise that people BELONG at your business? And if so, what are you doing about it?