Forrester Analyst and author of the upcoming book 'Groundswell ,' Charlene Li, talks about the ladder of participation on the social web at a Forrester Conference in Chicago Oct 10-12, 2007.
They are Inactives (not there yet but on their way), Spectators (all the info feeds my passion), Joiners (my friends are doing it so why not me too?), Collectors (making the lists for others - the hot group for the next 24 months, imho), Critics (i love it or hate it and I'll tell you), Creators (i blog because i have something to share). From top to bottom they represent an inverse pyramid in their numbers.
So what to do with them? First rule is embrace your customers or cherish your audience. This is kind of a no brainer but given the fact that she needs to say it confirms to me that most of the 'leaders' in the room still don't get it. You don't own your customers or the conversation or the brand. They own you, you just own the server.
Give freedom to get freedom. To me this is a corollary to 'cherish your audience' in that if you don't treat them with respect by giving them nearly an equal voice in the conversation (again, duh - unlike the old way of treating them, 'you'll sit in front of the tv and watch what I tell you to watch and you'll like it') they'll go where they get what they want.
Revolve not evolve. This is interesting and I think new for Charlene. I think lots of leaders in this area believe they can evolve from what they've got. I don't think so. The net effect may look like evolution but it takes a radical, unreasonable, revolutionary mindset to move the turd most of us are dealing with. I think this is also where she gets alot of head nodding out or her audience but very little traction. They go back to their cube forests and try to evolve their way out of their current situation. And things likely will change eventually but only because a couple actually revolved and succeeded. That makes it easier for the others to rush in.
How do you get there? POST. People, objective, strategy and technology. Stated another way; Target, Problem, Strategy, Method or TPSM. Simple formula used all over the world to solve all kinds of problems and so difficult to consistently execute.
After the keynote some people asked, "Is there a way to engage my customers even though i have a low involvement product?" To paraphrase and add to the answer; Low involvement is not no involvement. If they're using the product they're involved and you have to find that data - they may not hand it over to you and have a one on one conversation but they are interacting with you. You gotta unlock the data. Unlock the conversation and share it. We tend to think the only way to communicate with our 'customers' is to talk to them or ask them to talk to us. Data is the language of behavior and is as relevant a form of interaction as the written or spoken or televised word.
"What happens if I get bad feedback or hear things I don't want to hear?" If you're asking this question, in my opinon, you're not ready for the conversation and your customers are better off not hearing from you. They may leave eventually and you won't have to worry about it. If you approach your customers like you'd approach a friend then you'll make mistakes but they'll be honest mistakes. You can't learn how to deal if you won't make a mistake.
Try is the word that makes Charlene's presentation relevant. If you're not going to try, you're dismissed.
Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang for the link.
