social media

LinkedIn Groups Stink

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jul 26, 2012, in Thoughts , tagged with ,

I don’t suppose this post really needs any further words. The headline says it all. But since I don’t like to be purely black-and-white, let’s go deeper.

In two words: Not Good.

Did you know that a Google search for the phrase “LinkedIn groups stink” yields ZERO results? I was shocked. It’s the only time in memory that a reasonable (to me) exact-phrase search gave me nothing.

My interactions with LinkedIn Groups at this point typically involve:

  • Checking out a group a friend or client is part of that seems relevant
  • Signing up, then reading the first e-mail digest I receive from the group
  • Reading the second e-mail digest
  • Deleting subsequent, unopened e-mail digests from the group until a few weeks pass and I finally drop out

If you’ve ever been part of a group you know that the active ones are dominated by self-promoters, purposeful instigators trying to be provocative, and job postings. The flipside of active groups are those that are de-facto broadcast tools without any real conversation or interactivity. It’s a bit of a lose-lose proposition.

I’m not saying that groups are NEVER helpful or NEVER have useful information, but that the hit rate is so low as to be essentially zero.

I looked for arguments supporting groups to see what I’m missing. One that triggered a positive reaction was this post about using statistics to vet groups before you join them. The premise is that you can’t just “hang out here and there” for groups to work, which is potentially reasonable if not necessarily ideal for most people. I want groups to be useful with as little effort as possible on my part, and I imagine most people feel the same way.

So, for now, I’ll remain a skeptic when it comes to LinkedIn Groups, with the very real possibility of becoming a deserter over the next few months.

Who Says You Can’t Talk Product in Social Media?

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jun 20, 2012, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,

“Anything but product.”

That’s what a client said to us recently as we worked through content options for social media. It’s a point we hear regularly and one that the industry seems to generally believe in, either because of regulatory concerns or because of the potential perception of “pushing product”.

Then there’s this:

A BlackRock Tweet from June 3, 2012.

That was followed by another Tweet on June 10th highlighting BlackRock’s Global Dividend Income Fund. And, in fact, the June 3rd Tweet wasn’t even the first. BlackRock specifically mentioned its LifePath Portfolios back on May 28th.

At the very least, this challenges the widely-held notion that product-specific promotion is an absolute social media no-no. It will be interesting to see if this type of content becomes more common moving forward.

Client Quotes: The Pace of Digital Change

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jun 07, 2012, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

In almost every client meeting I hear something memorable. It’s usually something funny, because my brain retains that stuff better. But it’s also always something that reinforces an important idea for me.

Still a dominant force, and a reminder that digital change happens slowly.

This week I heard two things that reminded me just how far our industry has to go when it comes to digital strategy and execution. Every day we hear about a new cutting-edge mobile initiative, or another firm expanding its social media presence, or a unique piece of content.

We hear less on the reality that in many ways the digital evolution is a slow one. Here are two client quotes from last week that hammer that home:

1. “When terrorists send a threat, they don’t do it via PDF.”

This got a big laugh from me. It was a moment of stand-up comedy in an otherwise serious discussion. In this case, the client was lamenting his firm’s struggle to produce compelling output in light of video’s immense impact on how people communicate memorable messages.

The fact is that the industry has gotten markedly better in using video, specifically by:

  • Mixing multimedia content in alongside traditional printed material
  • Keeping videos short, given viewers’ attention spans are at all-time lows
  • Finding the sweet spot among production quality, production speed, and cost

Even so, there’s an entrenched printed material legacy, and clients still prefer the printed option to multimedia in many cases. Video may have killed the radio star, but it hasn’t yet done major damage to the asset management PDF.

2. “I just received the regulatory ‘OK’ for two Tweets I posted in December.”

/re-checks calendar

Ouch.

We recently wrote a piece about the barriers to social media implementation (subscription) for Ignites. We didn’t delve into the issue of regulation if only because it’s so well-established as THE major contingency in many firms’ social media strategies.

That said, we have two active social media projects right now, and this client hammered home the potential negative impact of regulation. Not only do the rules need to be better crystallized, but the processes do as well.

Six-month waits for approval of 140 characters will put the brakes on some firms’ continued adoption of social media.

Social Compliance

Posted by Anu Heda on Feb 21, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , ,
“You say tomato, I say tomato … Let’s call the whole thing off.”
– Ira & George Gershwin (from Shall We Dance)

I heard that song recently.  The chorus reminded me of the conversation we often hear between Compliance & e-Business regarding social media within investment management.

Compliance says, “set up process to archive, show us that it works and then begin with social media.”
e-Business says, “let’s start a little bit, dabble, and then begin a compliance process as we know more.”

Our perspective is to be compliant-at-all-costs.  In 2011, there’s little appetite for being out of compliance and the potential damage that can place on a brand.  So then what?

Well, archiving and organizing social media use is becoming easier.  We see tremendous value in an archiving pilot  that tries out both a leading providers (such as Social Ware or Actiance) and internal processes.  While each pilot at each firm will have different considerations, the pilot’s will include these steps:

  1. Identify a pilot group
  2. Provision their network accounts with access to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
  3. With Compliance, develop a prescriptive set of compliant posts
  4. Have the pilot group communicate the compliant posts
  5. Test the ability to prevent, delete, or retrieve posts

With numerous software-as-a-service solutions, perhaps this is a good place to give a little (to get a little) and begin with an archiving system pilot, before the first post on your facebook wall.

Social Networks Replacing CRM? Stop the Hype.

Posted by Mike McLaughlin on Jan 10, 2011, in Thoughts , tagged with , , , ,

Socialware, a company that provides automated monitoring and archiving of enterprise social media use, maintains an interesting blog.  Good, relevant ideas without being overtly self-serving.  I especially like the $100M Tweet.

One recent post touched on an idea that, at first, struck me as solid:  social networks become the new CRM system.  Instead of having/using a wholly separate tool, why not have the CRM be the tools everyone already uses?  In other words, use the contact and personal information (job history, interests, people they know) captured by Facebook and LinkedIn as your go-to client/prospect database.

I see two problems with the idea:

  • As the post notes, it’s hard to maintain updated information on prospects and clients.  But you know what – it’s no slam-dunk for people to keep their social media profiles and information up to date, either.  The problem of inaccurate information is not necessarily solved.  More importantly…
  • The main value of CRM lies in combining contact information with all sorts of proprietary knowledge.  No social network is going to log past business deals, Web site activity, and when you last saw somebody.  At least not yet.

In fact, it’s likely that social networks will make CRM tools more important, not less.  Applications like Faceconnector integrate social media information with firms’ proprietary databases.  And firms will increasingly be able to bring this information in-house to build even better client/prospect profiles.

So I don’t believe social networks will be replacing CRM tools.  And I think grand overstatements about social media’s potential provide skeptics the ammunition to resist the legitimate opportunities it presents.