Has momentum for change become unstoppable?

Tipping points, according to Wikipedia are "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable". Are we far away when it comes to business use of social media platforms? Or more directly when will the business risk of engaging with social media outweigh the perceived risk it represents?

When not taking a risk is actually taking a bigger risk, according to @murnahan, is ‘when your competition does it sooner and better than you’. So could it be that a basic human emotion is the key driver for many organisations? Is it a balance of fear of lost opportunity against the fear of sustained web attack or more succinctly the fear of losing control of the message?

Many organisations, and indeed communications professionals cite losing control of the message as a key reason to avoid social media as a channel to market. But surely this implies control of the message to begin with? If social media channels are an extension of word of mouth then organisations’ have never really had control, it’s just that the reach of those conversations was more limited. Sure, a badly handled guitar or the (alleged) mold in your apartment weren’t discussed on millions of screens, but even now they are, the issue isn’t message control but lack of engagement and dialogue.

It’s not the message that is uncontrolled it is the channel, and that’s what scares business.

Managing reputation and creating relationships with customers are key drivers for every business. Creating engagement with a customer or entering into a dialogue with them in any other medium would be seen as a positive influencing factor likely to elicit repeat business. But in social media it is risky?

If tipping points are those at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable, surely we are approaching that point at some speed. To actively manage social media channels each business must evaluate its own tolerance for risk and at the very least they should be actively evaluating that tolerance rather than hoping that the societal impact of social media will diminish.

That really would be risky.

Losing control can be fun

It seems those hippies were on to something after all! And in the spirit of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, maybe by loosening the grip on their brand, companies might be able to experience something more out of this world.

Whether it is the integration of user generated content into a campaign or refusing to censor the dissident voice in forums, many brands have been communicated in the voice of the customer in a bold new way.

Unfortunately sometimes the experience can be a disaster, sure to cause painful flashbacks for decades to come. Brand managers can play it safe and minimise the risk, you just need to know what you’re getting into, do it with people you trust and, of course, everything in moderation.

Originally posted by @digitaldaemon

Social Media Revolution

A number of years ago, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, both teachers in the US, created a video entitled Shift Happens; Did You Know? The themes of Did You Know? are global and designed to be relevant to schools and children around the world and to raise interesting topics of conversation around societal shifts largely driven by the adoption of internet protocol. The themes raised are relevant to a much wider audience than schools and children.

The video embedded below, created by Socialnomics09, youtube.com/user/Socialnomics09, follows a similar theme but investigates the reach and impact on societal shift of increasing usage of Social Media.

Enjoy.

Look after the sense and the pounds will look after themselves

In her ‘Stuff and Junk’ blog (http://tinyurl.com/nlmkad) Mandi Bateson, writing as mab397 highlighted the following oversight in a recent eDM she received from travel.com.au. Can you spot the not so deliberate mistake below:

Did you spot anything missing?

The destinations for these great deals perhaps?

$435 is a great price for a flight to some places but not if it’s to Brisbane! For the record, the cheapest flights in all of these offers were not for the airlines’ “hometown” and it took at least four clicks from the eDM to find a destination matching these fares.

As Mandi so ably points out, are we so quick to overcomplicate our campaigns that we miss the very, very basics?