Relationship Chaining: Building and Activating a Community

A few weeks ago I wrote about an interesting phenomenon I have encountered in Twitter where people willingly pass on information but where few actually take any action on that information exchange, I called it Why Twitter is Making Us Lazy.

I would be willing to bet that this is the same in other low involvement exchanges on platforms like Digg or Facebook.

Of course, people ARE talking about brands and organizations online, and while they like to share the good things, they also tend to discuss the bad news more often than the good and with a higher frequency. You can check out this interesting research by Forrester Analyst Bruce Tempkin in his report How Customer Experience Drives Word Of Mouth.

The reason for this is the high involvement of these individuals is most likely found in the bad experience that they had. But how do you get people to talk about the good stuff, and act on things when they do – both online and off?

My theory is in something that I call Relationship Chaining. I have used some of these techniques in the real world, so it is a bit more than just a theory, but it isn’t backed by solid research.

Relationship chaining, as you can see in the figure above, relies on at least three levels to work, and as your involvement in the community becomes more complex it can grow even beyond these. But for the sake of this post I chose the three I think are most salient, especially as they relate to the online space.

1. At the base level there is the COMMUNITY in which you want to affect a change or an action. This community can be physical, digital, issues oriented or a combination of all of these. It is critical that you identify where this “community” is spending its time, both online and off.
   
   
2. Above that layer are the self-identified “FRIENDS” of an organization. Online these might be the people who are following your organization on Twitter or Facebook, or those who have subscribed to your blog – they know who you are and for some reason have made an effort to vote for your content. Inside of these “friends” there are a number of interests, from the mildly interested, to the radically fanatical to the determined detractor.
   
   
3. The top layer is what I call the AMBASSADOR, and this is where I suggest you invest most of your time. As you build the number of these ambassadors it will have a trickle down effect, growing the number of “friends” and potentially even the definition of the community. These ambassadors become influencers for your and your organization to the community, and when you need to drive action, or if you need protection from your detractors these ambassadors will stand in the gap for you to get it done because you have already fostered a relationship of mutuality.
   
   

Notice I didn’t call these ambassadors influencers. A lot of times organizations look to find the top bloggers or influencers in a niche. That is all fine and good, but the real action is in what David Sifry, former CEO of Technorati, called the Magic Middle. At the time he described it as blogs with 20-100 incoming links, but you could probably expand that to say Twitters with 1,000 to 6,000 followers, etc. At the time, this idea was a real Eureka moment for many of us. In fact, by giving these influencers access you can often strengthen their ascent to influencer status.

We can take a page from community organizing to understand this idea more fully, and also there are a number of measurement vehicles in public relations to gauge the health of the relationships with the communities and “publics” that matter most to an organization.

Getting people to act on behalf of an organization without explicit pay requires some finesse at best and is not as simple as delivering messages or taking the attitude of “build it and they will come.” You need real people to ask their network to act on their behalf.

What have you done to drive action through word-of-mouth? I would love to hear your stories.

Lee Odden Could Get Me Shot! Social Media Rockstars Not Welcome Everywhere

 

It is always awesome to be included in a list. It is especially nice to meet smart and savvy people, and yes, it is even great for the ego.

 

So that is why I considered it a real honor that Lee Odden included me as one of 25 Women That Rock Social Media on his very popular Online Marketing blog.

 

But yesterday I was listening to NPR and State Department Senior Adviser for Innovation Alec Ross, talking about Secretary Hillary Clinton’s speech about the balance between Internet freedom and internet security when he mentioned (a little off topic) that women in the middle east are facing honor killings for participating in social media. Indeed, one Saudi woman was beaten and shot for chatting on Facebook.

 

If I had been included on Lee’s list and lived in a reasonably repressive government, or had a repressive husband, it might have landed me in jail, or worse.

 

Certainly there have been a rash of reports about censorship and oppression and Secretary Clinton’s speech addressed a lot of these:

• The persecution of a Saudi Christian blogger
• The detention of bloggers in Vietnam
• The Egyptian campaign against bloggers
• Widespread Internet censorship by countries like China and Iran
• Cyberattacks, like the one on Google, to extract information for political purposes

And many more…

 

Clinton mentioned the State Department’s Civil Society 2.0 initiatives that also includes software and solutions to get around these censorship barriers and calls for software engineers and geeks everywhere to help the State Department get the “bad guys” and help the everyday world citizen.

 

She calls this new focus 21st Century Statecraft, or Foreign Policy in Cyberspace. Her speech left me with a lot to chew on. But it also left me wondering what to do.

 

Certainly during the crisis in Iran last summer, people on Twitter came up with their own solution to assist, though it is hard to tell if it was ultimately useful.

 

It is so easy to get complacent about all of this and think that we have no role to play in making the world a more civil place. But it is true that the Internet is one of the only truly global places, and it is replete with the same great human spirit and dark corners.

 

What do you think? How can we as global cybercitizens support those whose voices are silenced?

New Horizons, New Partnership for 2010

In many ways, I have come full circle.

When I graduated from college in 1994, my first job was with America’s Charities. I was a young up-and-comer with a passion to use my skills to help people and improve lives.

Then, the world was full of possibilities – and today, it still is.

Then I was working for the Chief Operating Officer to build a communications department, today I am taking on the role of COO for a new agency called Zoetica.

I am joining forces with non-profit blogger and consultant Beth Kanter and entrepreneur Geoff Livingston to form this new enterprise with the goal of using our combined talents to…

make a difference while we make a living.

Beth will serve as the CEO, leading in strategy and training; I will run account services and operations as President and COO, while Geoff Livingston will lead the sales and marketing effort as CMO.

We will have a national footprint with offices in San Francisco, Houston and Washington, D.C.

I am looking forward to the challenge of growing an organization that will meet the needs of non-profit and corporate clients who understand that the way to do good business is by doing good.

In April, I will have been self-employed for nearly eight years. But all during that time I have served many partners by running and serving on award-winning teams. It is one of my strengths. As we grow, I will be looking for time-tested consultants who share our vision and on whom I can lean on to deliver results.

The management has spent a lot of time discussing our individual strengths and weaknesses and we have set up the structure of the company to enhance what each of us does well. Geoff and I have worked on many accounts together over the past three years, and we are very comfortable with each other’s working style. Beth and I have also been connected for many years, both of us learning a lot from each other through our blogs and events.

You can snoop around in our new website to get a better idea of what we will be doing, but we plan to offer a number of services, including market and assessment research, marketing communications strategy, communications training, formulation of guidelines and structure for campaigns, and implementation support for word-of-mouth campaigns.

I am looking forward to 2010 and making a difference with our combined experience and skill.

You can check out both Geoff and Beth’s take on the new company and our official press release.

Image provided by Shutterstock

Anatomy of a Compelling Call to Action

Last week, in a post I wrote about How Twitter is Making us Lazy, Davina Brewer from @3HatsComm sharpened my thinking on why people often pass along information in social networks without taking action.

She said (in part) that action needs to be compelling:

I take action when action is warranted: when I feel compelled to comment, or RT with a comment….It's also a function of the content: was there a call to action? Did the content lend itself to being shared?

Of course relationship plays a big part in this as well. As Bert DuMars from Rubbermaid/Newall and author of the blog Social Web Ecosystem so aptly put it:

I agree with your post and it clearly shows how important real relationships are vs. online or acquaintances are.…As much as we would all like to have 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or more followers on our favorite social media service, it does not matter if no one cares what you say or what you are trying to accomplish. It is just a numbers game with no "social" to it at all.

I know someone who is really good at this. Beth Kanter, non-profit social media diva and a good friend is my poster child for how to get people to take action. And I am not alone in this assessment, Chris Brogan leads his chapter in Trust Agents about the Archimedes Effect (p. 113), which is about leverage and getting people to join with you to get something accomplished, with an example about Beth’s exceptional skill in this regard. Even Twitter recognized her by adding her to the recommended users list when you sign up for an account.

Beth’s Birthday Campaign Takeaways

Case in point, today is Beth’s 53rd birthday and she mounted a campaign, as she has done every year for the past nine, to raise money for the Sharing Foundation. Beth has two adopted children from Cambodia and the Sharing Foundation is a way for her family to help other children who weren’t so lucky to be adopted by Beth and her husband. Suffice to say she has raised thousands of dollars for the foundation. And while her goal for today was only $530, she has already raised $3,151. I think she should have aimed for $5,300.

Here are just four takeaways from Beth’s current campaign that make for a compelling call to action, rather than just something that is retweeted or passed on without action.

1. Outreach. Reach out to your network of friends across platforms to let them know about what you are trying to accomplish. Be clear about your goal.
   
2. Shared Accomplishment. Make the call to action an event. Today, as Beth puts it, she will be indulging in three of my passions: raising money for Cambodian children with social media, teaching a social media nonprofit strategy class at Stanford, and eating chocolate. She invites us to join in. It makes you feel as if you can make the difference.
   
3. Inspire, Be Compelling. Beth inspires people with her campaigns, A few days ago I was contacted by Stacey Monk, who asked me if I would join in a surprise virtual birthday party for Beth, by posting about her goal and also giving to the cause.
   
4. Ask, and Ask Again. Beth is great about multiple touches on a campaign. She understands that it may take more than one ask to get people to move, and she also knows how to do this without annoying people. In this campaign I was asked three times, by Beth in her blog, personally by Beth and then by Stacey, who asked for Beth unbeknownst to her. You can read the other 59 people who participated surprise birthday party (goal was 53).

If you aren’t subscribed to Beth’s Blog, following her on Twitter, or a fan of her Beth’s Blog Fan page, I would suggest you do all three. You will learn a ton from her, even if you aren’t working at a non-profit.

And let’s make Beth’s birthday wish on Facebook come true! Donate $10 or $53 and help Cambodian children. Let’s get it up to $5,300.

Happy birthday Beth!

Photo Credit: Beth Kanter with Geoff Livingston at the White House, Washington, DC. by Shel Israel.

Don’t Feed The Trolls: Fostering Civil Online Dialogue and Exchange of Ideas

I have met some of the most generous and wonderful people online and have learned so much from them by mutually sharing ideas, successes and failures.

 

People like Shel Israel, Katie Paine, Geoff Livingston, Shel Holtz, Beth Kanter, Todd Defren and many, many others (see my blogroll for an idea of more) have constructively moved the field of online communication forward and I have enjoyed calling them colleagues and friends.

 

But as much as the online environment fosters collaboration and learning, it also has a much darker side.

 

Call them trolls, determined detractors, or online bullies, there are people that use the social media networks and channels to evoke emotional responses, bait people and destroy reputations.

 

If you have been online for any length of time you have run into some of these bullying types. Some you can reason with and some you cannot. I love a good, healthy and reasonable debate, but this goes beyond debate to ad hominem and other fallacies in logic. Read Ike Pigott’s seminal Evil Greedy Stupid Sheep: 4 Modern Ways to Win An Argument to learn more about how some of these types operate.

 

The conventional wisdom is to ignore it. And I have to admit I have done just that on more than one occasion. It is common to hear the phrase: “Don’t feed the trolls.”

 

“Don’t feed the trolls.”

 

In large part we grumble in private and keep our mouths shut in public, but my friend Andrea Weckerle has started a new movement to do something about improving the quality of online communication and to bring peer pressure to bear on those that traffic in online button pushing.

 

In 2006, she wrote a post called The Online Disinhibition Effect that sheds some light on WHY these bullies operate, but she has now taken them on in an article penned with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in a Wall Street journal article. She has launched a new non-profit organization, CiviliNation:

 

CiviliNation is a global non-profit education and research organization focused on advancing the full capability of individuals to communicate and engage in cyberspace in a responsible and accountable way.  A strong supporter of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, CiviliNation believes that free speech is enhanced through civil dialog and a rational exchange of information and ideas. By fostering an online culture in which individuals can fully engage and contribute without fear or threat of being the target of unwarranted abuse, harassment, or lies, the core ideals of democracy are upheld.

 

You can listen to an interview on For Immediate Release of Andrea Weckerle talking about the new organization. Also, she has asked me to serve on an advisory board for the organization and I have accepted, so if you have any arrows, advice or thoughts to sling, send them my way – but be courteous in the spirit of the organization.

 

What do you think? How do you think that free thinking people can take on cyberbullies? What, if anything do you think should be done?

RT This Post: Why Twitter Is Making Us Lazy

 

It has always been hard to get people to do what you want them to do.

In fact, if you try to get me to do something, chances are I won’t. It is one of my fatal flaws. I am stubborn like that, but I am willing to bet that a lot of you are, too.

 

Public relations professionals and marketers have been trying to overcome this inertia for centuries. It is one of the reasons people look at our profession as little more than spin and persuasion.

 

Then along came social media and…

 

pretty much nothing has changed.

 

People are still people. And if anything, social media communities, like Twitter, have made it worse in some ways. It is so easy now to pass on information via social networks and FEEL as if you have done something without doing anything at all. In a sense it has made us all a little bit lazy.

 

I first really noticed this trend over a year ago when people stopped commenting on posts as often but retweeted them on Twitter. As Facebook got more popular, they “liked” a post instead of adding to the dialog.

 

I then noticed it in some of my client campaigns where we would launch a call to action and many of our networks would “pick it up,” retweet it or pass it on but we wouldn’t get a corresponding uptick in a requested action, such as leaving a comment on a post or making a donation.

 

In other words, people were “supporting” an effort by simply passing it on without taking the requested action themselves. No matter how successfully ideas are spread, it doesn’t amount to much no one takes any action.

 

The first time that we experienced this happening we quickly reverted to grassroots action. One of the things that worked the best was to pick up the phone and ask people to support the effort, not with a RT but with the requested action.

 

It worked, of course, becuase there is no shortcut to relationship and people need to clearly understand what you need to properly respond.

 

John Cass, a PR blogger, recently asked a number of bloggers if they agreed that content is nothing without relationships in the community. His post, while a little bit long for the ADHD social media crowd, is full of some interesting insights.

 

In my experience, real relationships fuel effective social media campaigns while numbers of RTs, fans, followers and so on are much less important than the number of said fans that would be willing to answer your phonecall, e-mail, Direct Message, etc.

 

What about you? Do you find yourself passing on information without taking action yourself?

 

Photo supplied by Shutterstock.com