To take your first steps in the Social Media Marketing World there is just one question you need to ask yourself
Are you willing to trade Control for Influence?
If you can let go of the need to control all communication to your consumer, of the need to define your product and believe that its not you who knows best, but actually your consumer. If you can give up a little control and place it in the hands of your consumer, if you can give them the power to decide, will the Wisdom of Crowds prevail or Chaos Reign?
It depends on how you organise your consumers world and effectively yours. Simply placing a feedback box, will never organise it well enough for your firm. It just won't cut ice with the product team. Random feedback is never taken seriously enough to implement.
On the other hand if you did what Dell has done and created an Idea Storm. Would anyone within the firm be able to say NO to 30000 votes?
The old school was a Dictatorship, where the company unilaterally decides whats good for itself and the people.
The Dell school is a Democracy, truly by the people and for the people. Which do you prefer?
19 Comments
Ishwar S
30/6/2009 04:31:47 pm
All of the below comments from Siddharth, Shijo and Mihir, happened on facebook as a reaction to the original post.
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Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
30/6/2009 04:35:43 pm
Democracy is great for retail but it gets tricky when you get to media/journalism. How much control does one cede? How much is it about setting the agenda/social responsibility etc. That's proving tough.
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Ishwar S
30/6/2009 04:36:06 pm
Wikipedia is an ideal example of a democracy. Not sure about an accurate definition, but I would classify it as a media house, & a fairly accurate source of information. Most topics have an agenda that is set by the crowds, and pleasantly most topics contain neutral views. Probably I haven't understood exactly what you mean in the context of media... Read More. What Dell is doing is putting the responsibility for incremental innovation in the hands of the consumer. I am not sure if the democratic approach will result in break through innovation, but it makes the process of perfecting an existing product rather easy.
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:36:47 pm
Great observation. I mean wiki works because it allows each individual to contribute. However an equally important point is the wiki framework.
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:37:15 pm
The other important question that comes to mind is whether everyone is equal. I mean would the design chief of Apple be equal to the 300000 votes of the Dell Idea storm.
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:37:31 pm
However both google and microsoft appreciate this fact. And both of them have invest furiously on innovations. The huge research setup is definetly a place where not everybody is equal. But on same hand anybody with a good idea can have his say and get things done ;)
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Mihir Jayaraman
30/6/2009 04:38:05 pm
Nice points. A few thoughts from my side:
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Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
30/6/2009 04:38:23 pm
first of all .. are we talking crowd sourcing or social media? they're related but again quite distinct .. wiki according to me is more crowd sourcing .. Idea Storm on the other hand is a mixture of both ... I think it's necessary to cede control in crowd sourcing (istock and threadless are living examples) but social media could be a a different animal ..
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:38:45 pm
Sid has a point. The thread is no longer what it was ;) I found the concept of Dictatorship vs Democracy interesting. The extent of control is an everyday phenomenon to me. I often feel shackled and so do people under me ;) And thus went focus for a toss and I went all over the place :D
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Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
30/6/2009 04:39:01 pm
I don't know about SAP but I don't think we can generalize the Dell example. I mean .. can Caterpillar have a successful Idea Storm .. Surely not .. similarly .. McDonalds might succeed with crowd sourcing/social media but the Hilton could struggle ..
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:49:20 pm
Very good point. Mine is very operational setup where we discourage innovation at the frontline. The brief to them is to stick to the process. Works very well in our setup. However it can be stiffling at times and despite being so operational there are a hundred ideas that if tapped could have $ implications.
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:49:48 pm
And btw I do interact at some level with McDonalds. Those buggers are extremely process driven. The fries no matter where you have it is always goin to be golden and never brown. The uniform consistency is due to a very high level of compliance.
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Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
30/6/2009 04:50:12 pm
I think it's also a brand thing ... I know that Hilton were reluctant to get into social media till recently because they weren't sure how it would affect their brand ... my point is .. there's no general thumb rule ..
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Shijo George
30/6/2009 04:50:38 pm
Ok. The way I saw it was a little different. My focus was mainly to capture insights and knowledge to manage innovations. So it doesnt necessarily has to be in the public domain. But like what Ishwar said it has to be more than just a random feedback or a suggestion box.
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Ishwar S
30/6/2009 04:51:03 pm
I must say I got more out of the comments than anyone could have from the original post...
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Ishwar SChief Amnesiac Marketing Amnesia??In all the hype around performance marketing, tech startups, platforms & network effects - the world seems to have quitely forgotten that marketing warfare is primarily fought in the consumer's mind. Recent PostsCategories
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