This post originally appeared on Semacraft’s ‘This, That & The Other’ Blog.

Listening and engagement. Very common terms in the ‘sociosphere’. We may have gotten listening right for the most part but engagement still has a ways to go. Unlike listening, real engagement seems to mean different things to different people making measurement all that more difficult. And probably futile. I do stand to be corrected on that though.

For some brands, engagement happens when their tweets get re-tweeted. For others it happens when people post on their Facebook wall. I like Jeremiah Owyang’s definition of engagement, it makes it easier to demystify this animal. However, I feel there’s a missing component. But first, @jowyang’s definition from his blog article about three years ago.

We seem to agree that engagement happens when visitors show some interest in the content. I think that’s a great place to start. But what happens after they show their interest? Not all of the interest visitors indicate requires some response from the brand but it is increasingly common for brands to [apparently] ignore direct requests for support/service. Take for instance Esteban Kolksy (@ekolsky). AT&T apparently was not treating him right. He tweeted his dissatisfaction at around 3am UTC on 21st Aug, 2010 and from what I have seen as of 1900hrs UTC on the 22nd, they hadn’t responded.

Because engagement connotes some kind of conversation and relationship, factoring the other side of the engagement is necessary in order to determine how well the brand is doing in the social spaces it’s present. If the content strategy is spot on, and the public is commenting, linking, tweeting and retweeting it, we can assume some engagement is going on. If some of that engagement involves questions, suggestions or opinions which the brand ignores, the level of engagement will be difficult to sustain. Even with new content. Why? Because humans don’t do very well in conversations with inanimate objects. A brand that doesn’t respond to engagement by engaging back is inanimate. Speaking back gives the brand humanity. Life.

So how does this affect social CRM? A successful implementation of CRM involves people, data, culture, process and  technology handled right. People and culture are the biggest parts of the mix. If the culture the internal people have isn’t very social, adoption of social CRM is doomed to fail. An inanimate brand in the ‘sociosphere’ is a sign of an organization with a poor social culture internally.

Would love to hear your opinion. Jump in anytime and interrupt my rantings…

Clay Shirky in his latest post ‘The Collapse of Complex Business Models’ makes a statement I find very important for businesses seeking to keep their audience engaged on the web.

“When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to.”  He describes these ecosystems as complex systems where the system’s principals assume that complexity is an automatic advantage.  It’s a post that’s got me considering how I go about doing business.

Complex systems collapse and when they do, they collapse into simplicity.  Clay speaks of some heavy stuff here so it seems really trivial to bring just one simple thought into this and yet it is the one thing that occurred to me.  How complex are the ecosystems we attempt to build around our client’s brands?  It could be as simple as site navigation or account security or even integration with various social media APIs (ok, maybe that last one isn’t so simple).

Visitors to websites are already inundated with a multitude of options online. Once they arrive at a space prepared for them, they shouldn’t have to continue sifting and figuring stuff out.  If they do, they will eventually disperse, abandoning the brand’s online space (probably off-line too) to try a new thing (read competitor).  Simple is the new black.

Is simplicity top of mind for your business?

I see this line in tons of marketing material.  There’s even a remote chance that at some point in the last 10 years I have used it myself (in some way). It’s what we like to think is our unique selling proposition.

The answer that follows the question is usually along these basic lines;

1. We are customer-centric
2. We are team players
3. We believe our customers deserve a personal touch
4. We provide a high level of service
5. We are the best at doing this thing that we do

Seriously. Everyone uses those lines! The whole approach makes your brand seem as boring as your competitors and unimaginative.  If you need to use the line, I think the reasons should be at par with these ones;

1. We are little, we are green and we are men.
2. We will shed blood for you (we love vampires too).
3. We are the only ones around here who can pronounce ‘nchtsm’ correctly.
4. We are faster the Usain Bolt.
5. We will, if you sign up, wear face paint in your brand’s colors for  month. Everyone of us!

So. Why should you customers buy from you? Do you know what separates you from ‘the rest’?

‘…and we can get you on Facebook because social media is big right now!’

That’s some scary advise.  But many organisations hear it all the time from their agencies when talking about marketing or website design.  No strategy, no governance, just multiple channels where the staff can put out great information about the company and its products. Yippee!

Balderdash! I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened at Nestlé, although I choose to believe they went about it a bit more deliberately (being a multi-national and all).  The signs are there to show they have issues with their web governance structures. When their Facebook admin took on some fans in what became a very public and embarrassing spat, a very distressing sign became evident.

Why does Nestlé have a Facebook page? What was the rationale behind it? Did they (or do they) have an end-game for it all?  It would appear that they haven’t bought into the whole idea of social media completely.  By the way they handled the outrage on Facebook and YouTube, it is clear that the ‘social’ part of the media is lost on them.  Their Facebook page admin was rude to fans and their request for the removal from YouTube of Greenpeace’s KitKat video irritating.

What’s the lesson for business?  Here are a few.

1. Conversations about your brand are happening with or without you.  Nestle were not the ones who started the Kit Kat conversation on YouTube.  And they weren’t sent an invite either.  The public is having conversations about and around your brand in highly collaborative spaces like YouTube and Facebook.  Are you an oblivious subject? The ability to listen to conversations that affect your brand is a necessity in this day and age. The wisdom to decide which conversations to contribute to and how is imperative for brand survival.
2. You don’t own the conversation.  Nestle’s Facebook admin indicated that the company owns the page and creates the rules for engagement on that page.  Fans have to obey the rules or leave.  The thing is, the conversations crossed over from Twitter, YouTube, blogs and email.  This conversation was happening outside of that page on the public’s terms.  Facebook is not your blog. It’s a cocktail party and you’re working the room. What people wear to the room is a trivial matter. Are you contributing constructively to the conversation? Are you hang up on the hairstyles in the room? You don’t own the conversation and if you can’t contribute constructively you will be tuned out.
3. Establish and enforce web governance.  The decision to take down the YouTube video was made by Nestlé UK.  Did Nestle in Switzerland know the decision had been made and was being effected?  Who would negative sentiments be escalated to? The Facebook admin posted a status that some fans took exception to.  Who approved it? Who provided the guidelines for what the admin can or cannot say to the public in that space?  I’m not suggesting that such strict measures be put in place so as to stifle the company’s engagement on the social media front.  But I do think it should be clear how content (especially in times of crisis) gets approved and what the organisation expects from content posted on the different channels.
4. Prepare for disasters.  Bad publicity is a disaster.  Prepare for it they way you do for fires.  Do a drill, establish procedures and educate your staff about them.  What do we do when Greenpeace hijack our Twitter conversations? What do we do when our Facebook admin tells fans off? What do we do when our blog is accidentally redirected to a porn site (if that’s a disaster for your brand)?
5. Remember the point.  There’s a reason you decided to do this in the first place.  What was it? Keep it top-of-mind.  When things go south, at least you will have a clear picture of the bigger picture and how this affects the business goal your social media presence was aligned to.

Did Nestle drop the ball on the social media front? Could they have handled the whole thing better? I think ‘yes’ on both counts.  But then again, few businesses set out build communications channels for engaging consumers whilst planning what to do when activists hijack them.

What do you think Nestle could have done better? How can they salvage this?

It’s in the details really.

The little things you do in your business that are inconsistent with the overall brand’s identity.  The signals a brand sends out that hint at a tinge of schizophrenia.  They make your customer uncomfortable.  So they hightail it out of there.

Take my recent experience for instance.

I was frustrated and annoyed.

I needed to know if my replacement ATM card was ready for collection and all that stood in the way was the number to call.  I didn’t know it.

And then it came to me.

Genius!

My bank statement was in my bag!  I took it out, tore it open and sighed in relief.  Not only was there a statement in the envelope, there was also a flier announcing a reduction in the RTGS fee.  The latter of course mattered little to me so I perused the printout looking for the bank’s contact details.

There were none.

What about the flier?

Nothing.

How could this be?  That a brand with a continental presence would send me communication without a single bit of contact information.

At the very least, for a bank that is pushing its Internet banking service, there should have been a URL to the company website.

There was none.

It may be small detail but it mattered a great deal to me.  And still does.  That my bank seems to be conflicted about communicating with me worries me a bit.

I might be changing banks.

Any ideas?

‘We would like to inform you that we are currently upgrading this site…’

Those are the words prominently displayed on a local financial services firm’s website. They are a listed company with lots of money and a history of the most successful retail banking marketing campaign in recent times. This website project is probably being handled by different people all together.

That line tells me…

‘Our website sucks, we know. We really aren’t doing anything about it yet but we want you to believe we are, so hang in there while we come up with something’.

BBC redesigned their website early this year and it was a wonderful surprise. One morning I visit the site and I am delightfully surprised by a crisp clean understated interface. They didn’t precede it with a ‘We are upgrading our website…’ line. They just did it.

Technology does not operate in a vacuum. Especially in business. Technology provides the support that great business ideas need. This line is a sign that technology has taken over the organization while the Brand strategy arms of the business have gone to sleep.

If the business was to critically analyze the whole point of pasting a statement of that nature on their website, they would realize that the harm it does the brand cannot be undone by putting up a great website.  It creates the impression that the web strategy and brand management of the business (which incidentally has considerable brand equity) is run by novices.