Personal relationships matter in businesses.  I was reminded of this earlier this week whilst attending a meeting with European colleagues this week.  Yes, we can communicate by e-mail, call each other in business hours, have video-conferences or webex conferences.  However, that doesn’t replace relationships which have the opportunity to develop in social downtime such as speaking over dinner, over a beer in a bar or on a coach on the way to a restaurant.

I’m fortunate to work for an organisation whose global top management still see value in this.  The cost of getting people somewhere is outweighed by the value this proximity brings in pulling us all together more strongly as people.  This investment means that discussion/accomodation and understanding is given a real opportunity.  Clearly there are known known’s taken into account such as  travel and hotel costs, carbon footprint, opportunity cost, however the value transcends this as we work together more strongly as a team.

I call this “real-actionships”.    That is; you can get far more done to resolve a problem or query with someone when you know them as a person.  Finding common ground, common interests and common understanding isn’t always possible when you are in meeting room, the business of business takes over, the agenda rules and outcomes count.  If there’s one thing Generation Y need to learn from about social media, is it’s not just about being an on-line practitioner, but an off-line expert in people relationships too.  Generation X have a lot to pass on here, consider it our legacy.  The art of verbal communication and relationship development with real human beings – “innit.”   LOL.

Earlier today on Twitter, I posted this infographic about how social media has emerged over the last ten years or so (I love infographics by the way). 

It’s a game changer and has led to a re-configuration of the world and we are all living through it, some actively, some as bystanders.  What I think is most interesting is the emergence of all these businesses which have entered the market in the last ten years- Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Youtube.

Pre- 2000, many of these didn’t exist as businesses.  If you have a look back at the infographic, you can  how transient social media has been as a technology.  A continuum of ideas, start-ups and failures waiting for their moment for social media traction to grip.  And it has.

I began to think what the next ten years of that infographic might look like and how the worlds wiring is going to change again?  Augmented reality linked to geo-location may take us on a whole new journey of interaction and uncover more possibilities to stay in contact, in real time.  Mobile phone tariffs may offer gigabytes of data in their tariffs, not megabytes.  Mobile phones may need terabytes of disk space and ultra-high performance batteries to keep up with us and our need to update. 

Life-caching is at an unprecedented level.  A detailed breadcrumb trail on you and your movements on a moment by moment basis is being recorded in the cloud.  Life is being recorded in incredible detail for future historians to marvel over, they will be able to replay your life in microscopic detail.  What you did, who you knew, where you went.   Want to see what I mean?  Create a book using Twournal of your Twitter feed.

All I know is, you haven’t seen anything yet in terms of where the cloud or social media platforms may take us.  It’s a hell of a time to be alive to witness it.  Here’s an article on Harvard Business Review which outlines some of the upcoming social media trends for 2011, have a quick look and see whether you’re geared up to be involved.

I finished my talk at the Go Social bootcamp last week with a few points about social media, a couple of them were “Beware the Guru” and “Smell the Coffee.” Interestingly Milo Yiannopoulos of The Telegraph wrote an article on a similar subject last week, which seems to have stirred some strong opinion.   Social Media Editor at Haymarket Gordon Macmillan, quickly put up a spirited defence on social media blog, “The Wall” which you can read here.

I was asked earlier by Twitter user @sarahpowell1988 what my view of this was.   I’ve made a number of posts over time on related issues.  There are a lot of consultants our there jumping on this bandwagon, describing social media as if it were some silver bullet.  My stock response to this is, “it isn’t.” One of my favourite sayings (which you can see in the talk) is “It’s a horse, not a Unicorn.” Social media is just one thing you should do to add to your existing range of activities, it’s not mutually exclusive and is not going to rescue you in a recession.

I am contacted by agencies trying to sell me social media (rather than an on-line strategy) all the time.  A few of them have been sent away with a flea in their ear for not doing their homework, they generally get pointed to this blog rant.  Enough said.

Like anything that’s flavour of the month, you’ll get your self-proclaimed experts who will give the other experts a bad name.  Social media networks allow anyone to package themselves nowadays and – during recessions – businesses want new initiatives to engage with customers.

However, you’d be a fool to ignore it. You have to distinguish fads from trends.  Fads come and go, trends stay.  Social media is a trend. Platforms may be transient over time, however the principal of status updates, right to reply, web 2.0, however you want to put it, will remain.  Got a complicated product?  Simplify it by putting a video on Youtube.  Need to reach out to a specific person in a Corporate?  Linked is your short cut.  Want to pick up on real time search for an audience looking for your product?  Twitter is where it’s at.  These are three really obvious ones.

Milo’s point I think boils down to this. You need to be able to distinguish between someone who knows what they are doing as part of an overall digital strategy, with clear delivery credentials who can show results.  You might need to cut your way through a jungle of people that claim to be something they are not, what’s new, however due diligence remains as an important part of any new partner you deliver in to your business.  If you’re rigorous bringing experts in, you’ll filter the flaky self-proclaimed gurus out.

Yesterday, I did a short talk at the Go Social Bootcamp in Manchester.  I called my talk “Social Media Sucks (or Bucks?)” to highlight that many leaders of large businesses don’t get social media as they can’t see what return on investment it gives. 

You can view the presentation here, it should show the main reasons why leaders should get involved.  Clearly, it’s missing a load of narrative, if you want to hear that, come hear me speak!

Obsession with the number of followers that you have on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin seems to be where a lot of people are at right now. As if, there is some sort of hard measurement technique as to how good you are at that particular activity or how popular you are as an individual.  It’s completely understandable, as normally, that’s how things are measured.  The more people you reach, the higher the chance of influence or response of say a mailshot or e-shot.

However, any marketeer will tell you that a mailshot mailed to a million homes with poor content or bad design, will have a low response rate.  A personalised mailshot sent to 1,000 homes will have far greater impact.  This is quite a good metaphor for the way social media works.   Car brands  do it all the time.  Low end brands put brochures in Sunday newspapers, Premium brands send personalised letters to target postcodes.

If you are obsessed with followers, hanging on to every new one and de-railing everytime someone unfollows you, you might be taking it all a bit too seriously.  I’ve learned over the last couple of years, that followers on Twitter come and go.  If you follow back everyone that follows you, you begin to manufacture your own junk news channel, it all becomes noise again.  So, choose who you follow carefully to ensure your content is of a high quality.

Additionally, having all these contacts can be a diminishing return. A network, is not a collection of thousands of contacts if you don’t actually know anyone (that’s a thousand contacts).  For me, my business network is people that I know and have met, I call this social2facial.   When you have met someone, you get to know them and build up trust (a key driver in today’s expectation economy).  You understand their objectives and goals better and you can work to assist them in achieving them by making introductions or recommendations to others. Interactions become personalised and more relevant.

Of all the people I know on Twitter, around 15% make it to my Linkedin network (where I store contacts that I have met).  They are the people whom I’m most likely to turn to for opportunities.  Conceptually then, I am using Twitter to identify people I’d like to meet after a period of engagement, then to take that relationship off-line to see where business might go.

Finally, I have limited time to be able to spend on social networks.  I run a big business and have lots of interests away from the office, so it’s all about a balance of how many quality relationships you can actually maintain on and off-line relative to the time you can invest.  If you have a huge pool, you might not be able to engage with them and end up being an information broadcaster, rather than a conversationalist.  Twitter expert Mark Shaw writes lots of great blogs around this topic, check him out.

What do you think?

What is the modern day equivalent of The Little Black Book? Which is the one place, which – aside from all others – all your key contacts are kept?  Is it the address book in Microsoft Outlook (e-mail addresses)?  Your phone address book (text numbers)?  Twitter?  Linkedin? Facebook?

Most people no longer have one single place, probably multiple places.  Varying degrees of social media platforms with differing types of contacts on.  Thinking of my own situation, I use a combination of Outlook, Linkedin, Twitter and Gist.  Outlook primarily as there are a lot of people I know who are not into social media, I still need to keep a kind of e-mail directory of those.  I recently discovered Gist to suck together Twitter and Linkedin contacts so that activity can be tied together, it’s quite a clever little app, albeit a bit slow to respond sometimes (my woeful 0.5mb home broadband doesn’t help).

Even so, you should always keep a closer eye on your top contacts.  Gist allows you to prioritise your contacts, which is a decent feature.  That way, you get to see what’s really going on with your Top 10% of contacts and ensuring you stay relevant in their world. What is evident is that there is a large amount of online intelligence about your key contacts nowadays, digital breadcrumbs are scattered everywhere and applications which draw information together, filter and prioritise, will really help you to understand the challenges, movements and new connections that people you know are making.

By keeping tabs on who is doing what, you can add value to your network, help solve problems, make new connections and grow the number of people you know.  The more people you do know, the more opportunities seem to come and – ultimately – the more business you’ll win.

Dont worry, this isn’t another 101 reasons for a business to be on Twitter, hopefully we’re getting over that one now, although I am still staggered at the number of small businesses that I meet who could benefit massively from micro-blogging.

Tonight’s article I want to focus on executives in business.  Why?   As usual, nothing gets real buy-in unless it comes from the top, is agreed by the top or understood by the top.  In many large businesses, the board is still dominated by Generation X Executive Directors.  As a result, there is a real danger of the business not staying relevant in the changing landscape of customer expectations.

To them, marketing means mailshots, sales means door-knocking and relationship managment means regular lunches or dinners with top customers.  That certainly did the business a decade ago, how things have changed.  Those things still matter, don’t get me wrong, but their priority has changed.

Social Media is something that all executives – in my view – should be practicing.  To keep an eye on their own organisation, their competitors and their customers.  A few examples: -

1)  I blogged recently about using the Linkedin company search tool to identify staffing movement in key competitors, this allows you to keep your finger on the pulse of what is happening in your industry.

2) A blog in itself is a fantastic way to communicate to staff, customers and potential customers about your views.  A great to underpin your key messages, strategy or positioning.  it’s ideal if you run a larger business where it’s hard to get round the floor.

3)  Twitter is a fantastic tool for reputation management and connecting your message directly to the people who may use your products or services.  There’s no quicker way to establish what people think about your business reputation than to read it in real time.

The key question is always, how much time is this all going to take? The answer all depends on the importance of managing your network and personal reputation.  For me, around half an hour a day.  10 mins at the start of the day to catch up on any major network changes or messages sent directly to me aswell as preparing any Twitter links to send out, 10 mins over lunch doing the same and 10-15 minutes at the back end of the day to run a blog out and again catch up.   In my time at home, I probably invest about another hour a week in total keeping up to date with my overall network.

And what is the financial reward? Return on Engagement is the new Return on Investment.  Like networking of any type, if you think that an immediate financial gain is the only thing that justifies your time, then you’re probably one of those executives I described in paragraph 2.  Looking back on a couple of years worth of time invested in business social networking at a personal level, I would say: -

1. I’ve recruited key staff into the business at no cost.
2. I’ve never been asked to speak at so many conferences ahead of my competitors.
3. I’ve never been asked to sit on so many judging panels, increasing regional and national profile for Brother.
4. I’ve been able to position the business as one of the leading voices on B2B social media in the UK.
5. My network of peer to peer contacts has never been so solid.  I was described recently by the Manchester Evening News as “one of the most connected people in the North West,” and feel I have a great list of C level people I know that I can call on for advice or help.
6. I’ve learned a tonne of stuff.  Twitter particularly is a like a free news channel that you can personalise to your specific taste/requirement.
7. Lot’s of people that I know on social media networks end up buying our products, simply because they know me.
8. The brand reputation has never been stronger.
9. People bring opportunities to you first because you’re accessible (they might not normally make it to you due to your Corporate layers of gatekeepers/filters).
10. You meet some really interesting people and all sorts of outside work opportunities/collaborations/friendships come your way.

Don’t be scared. As you can see, I can clearly demonstrate sound business benefits.  To get the same, you have to get started, throw yourself open to your audience and get engaging.  Don’t have someone pretend to be you, be authentic and Do It Yourself.  Need help or advice, connect with me on Linkedin here or drop me a note.

There are lots of reasons why you’d want to find out a bit more about a company.  Whether they are a competitor you are looking to profile, someone you’re looking to join for employment or a sales prospect.  I’ve written previously about the idea of the CIA in social media, that is, the ability to research and investigate on-line.

A little used feature of Linkedin is the company profile option, which holds some fascinating information.

Here’s how it works. Let’s just say that I wanted to find out a little bit more about Manchester City Council.  Normally with any large public sector organisation, knowing where to start is a nightmare.  So, in Linkedin, go to your top box where you search and change the drop down box to “companies” from “people.”  Then type in “Manchester City Council.”

You’re search return should come to this page.  It shows that there are 501 people on Linkedin who work for the council with profiles on Linkedin, ideal if you want to look through and see a target for connection.  Your direct connections are shown and recent activity.  At the bottom of the page is shows who has moved jobs, great if you want to drop someone a line. 

Here’s the bit that most people miss.  On the right hand side of the page is a hyperlink to “check out insightful statistics about Manchester City Council employees.”  Click that and it should take you here.  Now if you just work yourself round that page and see what level of information you can see about Manchester City Council.  Right from the number of graduates they employ, how long people have worked there, where people live, where people go to when they leave, whose got a new job title and whose just departed.  All in real time.

This is a stunning research tool, particularly if you are a recruiter or in HR.  What’s really great is that you can click the link at the top that says “Follow Manchester City Council” and this – a bit like Twitter – will send you a weekly or daily digest update on what is happening, job title changes, job changes etc.  If Manchester City Council were – for example – a major account of mine (if I were a salesperson), I’d be following them and keeping right up to date with whats going on within the organisation.   If a trusted contact of mine had a promotion, I’d drop them a card.  If a trusted contact left, I’d want to know where they were going in case there were a chance of business somewhere else.

It’s a terrific feature in my view and – when used properly – another powerful reason why social media should not be ignored by business to business sales organisations.

Please put your phone, your Blackberry, your i-Pad, your laptop into this bag.  We’ll give it you back in 24 hours, now off you go…..

Is your heart racing at the prospect of not being able to be connected to the matrix or are you relishing a break from tech?  It kind of happened to me over the last couple of days, when my Blackberry decided to give up unexpectedly.  This meant no work e-mail on the move and no phone calls or texts, out or in.  To top it off couldn’t get my laptop to connect to the hotel network either.  I was in a digital ghetto.

It felt strange.  Walking along the street with nothing to read, no one to call and no buzzing or red lights flashing at me.  It also made me realise just how many people walk down the street with their eyes fixed on a screen as they go about their day.  Random walking I call it as you invariably have to sidestep them.

First thing I did this morning?  Out of the hotel, straight to Starbucks, log on, sync up and plug back in.   And breathe……  It’s amazing that in the last five years or so how life has changed.  It’s a far cry from my calling back to the office for my messages from a phone box (that was only in 1995),  just as carphones started taking off.  Look how far (or not) we’ve all come.

Good or bad, It’s where we are.  I guess the lesson here is about whether you are a slave to the network or a master of it. Most would probably say we’re slaves to it now, it certainly feels like that.  I think doing without the e-mail was doable, being without a mobile phone was by far the more uncomfortable of the sensations.

Think forward twenty years.  What’s the world going to look like then?   Superfast networks, augmented reality, real time everthing.  Hyperspeed awaits.  Access will be like Oxygen to Generation Y and Z, being plugged in will be the default state to keep up.   Information will be even more bite size, Twitter 2 will probably come out with a 70 character limit and every second of downtime will be squeezed, optimised and maximised. 

So, whose for chucking all those things in the bag for a couple of days and going cold turkey with your tech?  Go on, I dare you….

Will you be my facebook friend, Facebook friend, Facebook friend? You know the type, the digital equivalent of someone that whistles around networking events collecting cards with a ruthless intensity, discarding people like sweet wrappers as they surge towards their KPI of how many they can collect in an evening.  I know they exist, I’ve met enough of them.  That’s why I don’t connect with everyone on Linkedin, I prefer to connect with people that I’ve met in person to keep touch of someone where I have a common interest or business opportunity.

What is nice however is when you do get to meet people as a result of social media.  When something comes off.  When an on-line interaction goes off-line, then gains further traction.  Social media then turbo boosts that relationship, making it more relevant and allowing you to develop your relationship further.  It isn’t the silver bullet as everyone would have you believe, it’s just another tool in the box, albeit a bit like a Swiss Army knife, multi-purpose in its action.

I’ve lost count of the people that I’ve now met on social media that have turned into really solid contacts and friendships.  Without social media we would have never met.  It brings together communities and common interests, like a laser beam on the world, picking people out that might have a propensity to collaborate with you, help you or do business with you.  This is the bit that many businesses still don’t get. They still think it’s about Facebook friends, endless hours of wasted time posting irrelevant status updates and non-profit generating activity.  Deployed badly, it can be.   Deployed correctly, it’s quite the opposite.  If your business thinks that a physical networking event is a good idea, then you need to also look on-line too.  Networking events can be hard work sometimes, you don’t always get quality, you might get quantity.  Take it online and you might increase your propensity to speak to your target audience.