Basketball

Basketball will move to “Amazing April” in 2014, “Marvelous May” in 2015, and make the final jump to “Spectacular September” in 2016.   “We were worried we would have to compete with the end of baseball, but when we heard that they were moving that to January to meet with their elongated schedule, we were relieved,” says an NCAA marketer. “What do you think of ‘Spectacular September?’  I came up with that, but was voted down for ‘Sexy September’ as that is when Sports Illustrated is moving their ‘Swimsuit Edition’ and we didn’t want to compete with that.  We are really thinking this through.”

Football

Football will move to a playoff schedule to finally clear the debate against the current bowl game picture. “We are still going to play our bowl game schedule as it stands today, but we have added an additional playoff picture of all division teams in a single elimination tournament.  This will give us about 8 months of playoff games, culminating in the championship game in August,” say a senior secretary with the NCAA regional office in Des Moines, Iowa. “Granted, this will cause some issues for teams who are in training for the new season during these months, but this won’t be a problem for the lesser programs who can’t win playoff games and for Ohio State who will still be ineligible.  Naturally, the entire states of Florida, Oklahoma, and that team in Utah are worried.  But I think if we give them a bigger ‘tattoo allowance’ they may be mollified.”

The Other Sports

Hockey will move to playoffs every 3 months to try to make the sport interesting.

Baseball will follow the new schedule being adopted by Major League Baseball for their “season that never sleeps” with a “best of 13″ series finals in January.  Like the NCAA, MLB is excited for the changes. For instance, a representative for Ballpark Hotdogs is thrilled with the new season schedule. “We have been asked to supply an estimated 3B more wieners to the parks to keep up with the growing demand and enhanced schedule.  With Opening Day happening during the league playoffs, it means we sometimes will have a double-header for say . . . The National League Championship, while those same two teams also play their Opening Day game for the next season.  Pretty exciting if you ask me.  Now we just have to make sure our mustard supplier can handle it.”

“Oh, we can handle it,” says a senior executive with close ties to the mustard industry.

The NCAA will expand the seasons for their other major sports like Tennis, Wrestling, Gymnastics, Golf, Lacrosse, Skiing, etc.  “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to extend swimming or water polo with our current technology, ” says a person who can spell NCAA.  “Have you tried to keep those pools clean year round?  Disgusting!  We just aren’t funded to do that.  We aren’t made of money, damnit.”

The announcement is expected today – April 1, 2013.  What is that day called again?  Oh, yes “April Fools Day.”

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This work is a work of fiction and no animals where harmed in the making of this blog. By the way, I like hockey! Interested in my unique perspective on life and social media? Please follow on Twitter @toddmwilms or LinkedIn.

What is offered below is the entire transcript of the Sept 9th ‘empty chair’ interview with Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, including verifications and citations wherever possible.

Interview:

TW: Thank you for taking some time to talk with us.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Excellent. Glad you are interested in setting the record straight.  Let’s get right to it. By now, most know the story.  Suzy McCloud was forced to pay close to €300 in fees to get her family of 5 back home from a trip because she did not have her boarding passes printed out upon arriving at the airport.  She complained about the exorbitant fee structure on facebook where she received hundreds of thousands of ‘likes.’  You have said publicly “We think Mrs. McLeod should pay 60 euros for being so stupid.” Is that correct?

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Oh, I see. It wasn’t her specifically that was stupid.  It is “all those passengers are stupid who think we will change our policies or our fees.”  So, not the individual, just anyone who thinks you can change.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Ok, I get it now.  It is Mrs. McCloud AND all those passengers.  But you think she should pay for being an “idiot.”  Gotcha

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Yes, I am glad we got that cleared up too.  We certainly don’t want to misrepresent your vitriol for all of those stupid customers. Now, on to other areas.  Your airline is known for being a low-cost, no-frills airline.  So much so that you have been criticized for your lack of customer service and reductions in amenities in your aircraft.  In addition to things like no seat back pockets, extra charges for overweight passengers and getting passengers to carry their own baggage to the plane, you advocated some controversial cuts.  You asked for planes without window shades and removal of additional toilets to add 6 extra seats.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Oh, yes, I did forget.  You did propose charging customers for the use of toilets on your planes.  I imagine that caused some flak.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: I see. Well I guess you can keep yourself pretty insulated from customer complaints if you don’t offer webforms or email addresses for customer service.  It is certainly inspired that you charge them for a premium phone line to complain- thereby making money on every complaint.  That is brilliant.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: You are right – that is not your best.  Your best still is charging all passengers a £0.50 surcharge to pay for the court decision you lost requiring you to provide wheelchairs for your disabled patrons.   Words cannot describe how effective you are in finding ways to leave no financial stone unturned with your fee structure.  Which brings me to my next question.  This weekend, the Italian authorities took a plane out of service for complaints over tick bites on the plane.  Do you have plans to charge the passengers for the bites?

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Well, I am glad I gave you something to think about.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Yes, I am sure those bugs were “stupid idiots.”

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Just a few more questions.  You have lost a number of high profile lawsuits, including one where it was ruled illegal to charge the fee you charged Mrs. McCloud

(Empty Chair Interrupts)

TW: Gotcha.  That was only enforceable in Ireland and she was in Spain in the time.  Very crafty.  Anyway, you have lost a few of these suits, yet you are still a 9+B company – larger than some of the airlines who do care about customers.

(Empty Chair Interrupts Again)

TW: Yes, there is a point here.  Your stock is down €1.5 just this weekend, coinciding with the “stupid” comments.

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: So you think it will rebound after you engage in another publicity stunt like you did in 2008. What was that one again?

(Empty Chair Responds)

TW: Oh, yes. B***jobs for patrons in your premium cabins. Yes, I saw that video press interview. That was your finest hour.  Never did understand what you did for your female patrons . . . but we will save that for another time.

(Empty Chair Aggressively Responds)

TW: I am sorry that you think this interview was stupid. But, actually, I don’t think I can anatomically do that, especially in your aircraft which doesn’t have seats that recline.

(Empty Chair Leaves)

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For additional insights on the best and worst in customer behavior, follow Todd on Twitter @toddmwilms or connect on LinkedIn toddwilms.  Perhaps we can go on a Ryanair holiday together.

A few interesting findings to make you sound smarter at the water-cooler:

• The conversation is US-centric – Over 60% of you talking about Pinterest live in the US. While the US tends to be more chatty in general, this number is very high, which means that in the US, we love to talk about Pinterest.
• The overall view of Pinterest hasn’t waned – Most sites tend to have “their day in the sun” and then we lose interest. However, over the length of the study, Pinterest has had the same sentiment score. Overall, people like it.
• Barack Obama would be beaten if Timberlake and Paris Hilton married – President Obama has a commanding lead of followers on Pinterest with over 16M. However, the combined power of Justin Timberlake and Paris Hilton would overtake him with 17M. Now if only we could get those two together?

We reviewed the over 5M impressions from online conversations including more than 2.5M mentions of Pinterest in blogs, news articles, social networks. The results: Pinterest people are passionate and positive (Passion Intensity score: 80 and overall Net Sentiment score: 74). What does all that mean? The conversation is overwhelmingly positive and people who talk about Pinterest are really excited about it. But does that mean it is all good stuff? Alas, no. There is no positive without a negative. We explore the top 5 things we love and 5 things we fear about Pinterest. This is the second Social Intelligence report in a monthly series by SAP and NetBase analyzing the latest enterprise technology trends. Future Infographics will examine cloud computing, social CRM, mobile and more. To learn more, read our blog on Forbes.

One of the biggest problems with “social influence” is that it is dismissed as folly or just completely misunderstood.  However, influence is at the very heart of where social society is heading.  To help us in this journey, best-selling author (Return on Influence) and social media luminary Mark Schaefer and SAP’s Brian Rice, co-founder of the AdAge Top 50 Blog, Business2Community.com, provide their insights into this misunderstood topic by defining influence, how it is measured today, where it is going tomorrow, and some areas of influence quicksand.

Influence, defined:

“It certainly is misunderstood,” starts Schaefer. “It is one of the most misunderstood topics in the web today. This is why there is so much emotion around it. Why? Because influence on the web is not a proxy for influence in other areas of our lives – work, home, etc. But that doesn’t mean it is not important – it is critically important. Take someone like Brian Solis, for instance.  Brian did not exist – as he does today – 10 years ago.  But today, his source of power is his ability to consistently get content shared and reacted to by a wide group of followers.  These new influencers exist because of the internet, and a host of free publishing tools – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – that allow them to quickly and easily share their insights, and (equally important) for their audiences to react and share those viewpoints to their friends and network.”

Without missing a beat, he continues, “what is truly exciting about where we are today is that never before in our collective history has it been so accessible for absolutely everyone to provide their voice to the conversation.  I talk in my book about the ‘democratization of social influence,’ where anyone with ‘humble beginnings’ can make a name for themselves through these tools.  Your ability to influence comes more from what you have to offer, than from your background or your pedigree or financial status.  As you tap into other advocates, those collective voices can be a force to bring change and influence in a very meaningful and believable way.”

Rice adds to this idea, “Consumers and individuals have more power than ever before, and we clearly don’t understand all of it yet. There is still an aspect of influence that is reminiscent of high school – your influence is measured by who you ‘hang out with’ and you can change your influence by who you talk to. Defining some reliable measurements around influence will help take some of the ambiguity out of it.”

Measuring influence, the good and the immature:

There are a score of technologies out there to help us measure influence.  Two recognizable solutions (Klout and Kred) provide relative rankings, scores, and insight on individual influencers. “One of the inherent difficulties for people in understanding influence is the dizzying focus on scoring – ‘what is my score?’ ‘What is it compared to another?’ ‘What is the technology and methodology that went into scoring me?’” intones Schaefer. “The problem is focusing on scoring. Just like it would be inappropriate to base all of your decisions on someone based on their credit score, a measure of social influence is just one aspect, but it is certainly not a measure of everything. That all being said, social influence measuring is become increasing more reliable.”

One new force on the block, Appinions, provides contextual analysis, focusing more on topic-based comparisons, and less on creating an individual score.  Their approach is based on 10 years of data from Cornell University and scans over 5m sources of information on a daily basis. They focus more on who is influential and why on certain topics and trend this over time.

“There is now an entire industry around observing, measuring, and reacting to these influencers,” says Rice. “Years before, you did not have my current role at SAP, let alone an entire team evaluating and orchestrating technology to monitor these behaviors. We are now seeing millions of dollars invested each year in developing, deploying, and staffing these solutions.”

No matter how you look at it, we are in the nascent stages of measuring influence.  The measurements are a predictor of an influencer’s ability to change a behavior in a person.  Influence is contextual: you might read this blog for insight on social media, but probably will not come here for a great restaurant recommendation in Portland.  Furthermore, we don’t announce ourselves at a party by our SAT scores, our IQ scores, or our bowling score, so focusing on your or other’s worth by a “Klout” score misses the point.

Where measurement gets really interesting is when we talk about where social influence is heading.

Where influence is heading:

Think influence is just for unemployed millennials with too much time on their hands, or for a select few with nothing better to do than tweet all day?   The major social platforms will disagree and are betting on influence. Schaefer continues, “The industry is now gaining in their ability to connect online influence with offline behavior.  Facebook, as one of many examples, wants to align people’s opinions and behaviors to drive a behavior in others.  You can then assess a dollar value to an influencer based on their ability to drive offline behaviors (e.g. a blog about wine motivates you to buy wine, or more specifically, a specific brand of wine).” You are starting to see these platforms incorporating everything you do in a day – where you are, what you wear, what you eat, who you talk to -  to help motivate a wider group of behaviors in a wider audience.

“Companies are looking for creative ways to capitalize on this as well,” says Rice. “They incent and develop perks for top influencers in their markets.  Free trips, 1st access to new products, complimentary accommodations, to paid engagements for consulting, influencers are sought after for their insight and guidance, as well as their network.”  “80% of the companies who experiment with programs to connect with influencers come back for more,” chimes in Schaefer. “These are big named brands – Amex, Disney. They ‘get it’ and want to find ways to continue their connections through this new marketing channel.”

Influence quicksand:

Any time there is a new system with big monetary rewards, there is always a risk of someone “gaming the system” for unjust personal gain.  “There is some risk here.  This trend of incenting influencers is becoming mainstream. Some of the rewards are eye catching. So there is a risk.  Right now it is small and in a few outlier instances, but everyone will have to be aware of places where this culpable behavior can exist and take steps to monitor it.”

“We keep coming back to the scores themselves.  Again, this has to be in context.  For influence measuring to gain greater adoption, we have to better understand what it means, what we are measuring, and the value of influence. The industry is moving toward capitalizing on the ability to drive a behavior in all of us.  It is critical we pay attention to this direction and play a role in how it evolves,” finishes Rice.

By the way, I am a long-tail influencer with a Klout score of 46; I bowl in the mid-100s, and an 11E shoe size. Beat that!

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Interested in additional social media and marketing insights, look for upcoming articles with 3 enterprise CMOs and more on the business of influence?  Follow Todd at @toddmwilms or connect on LinkedIn.

Have you noticed the plethora of fairy tale remakes or reinterpretations lately?  Everywhere you turn around in popular media you see an evil queen, a virgin heroine, an unsuspecting hero, or a wised mentor helping to overcome the forces of darkness.  Is it coincidence, or an allegory for the times in which we live?  Well, it is no coincidence.

There won’t be many who disagree that as we become more “social,” we also become more distracted.  As we engage in more multitasking behavior, we train ourselves to spend less and less time on each activity.  What is interesting is the reciprocal reaction we have to this behavior.

Call it a craving; just like we sometimes crave a certain food as our body tells us we are lacking something, our brains crave a release from the disconnected onslaught of social media behaviors.  We crave familiarity, we crave connection . . .  we crave myths, fairy tales, and fantasy.

To know why we need Snow White or “Once Upon a Time,” we should quickly understand what social media does to us, explore what myths provide us, and what to do (next) about it.

Social Distracts Us:

We probably don’t need a wealth of proof-points here – we see it and feel it in our daily lives.  Highly-rated social blogger and speaker Jeff Bullas had some great statistics on how fragmented we are in our daily lives as a direct impact from social behavior. Similarly, a review of this great infographic shows our attentions spans waning from (on average)12 minutes down to 5 minutes.

If you can find the time to think about it, it is fairly obvious.  Whereas we used to occupy brain space on everything from “to do lists” to birthday reminders to important phone numbers and all of our daily tasks, we now have Evernote, Facebook, smart phones, and a wealth of apps to manage that for us.  Which means we can spend more time on absorbing every instantaneous happening around us.  We now know a little about everything, but nothing about anything.

There is nothing inherently wrong with our new reality.  It has both positives and negatives. However, we are not natively wired this way, so our brain is telling  us we need something – we have a craving.

Fairy Tales Connects Us:

Professor and Mythologist Joseph Campbell understood the power of the myth.  First witting on the topic in 1949, he gained wider popularity in universities in the 1960s for his ideas around monomyths or what is more typically called “The Hero’s Journey.“  Campbell studied myths and stories from most regions and civilizations in history. He quickly discovered that the components for these myths were all exactly the same.

Put another way, no matter where you were in the world, or in what time, the stories told ALL followed the same framework. While the journey has 17 stages, it can be broken down like this:

An unlikely hero is unwillingly thrust into a land of supernatural wonder and confronted with some new evil which they are unable to battle alone. Retreating they find the help of some wised mentor who shows them how they have the power to defeat evil.  Imbued with this new use of power, the hero goes on to defeat evil and bestow the bounties of this journey on their fellow man.

George Lucas and Arthur C. Clarke directly attribute “Star Wars” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” to their study of Campbell.  We have also just described the collective works of every Pixar movie, “Indiana Jones,” “E.T.,” “Rocky,” “Tom Sawyer,” “The Hobbit,” “The Lion King” and just about every other Disney animated film. The genre accounts for $1.1 Trillion in box office over the last 3 years, and now has two top rated shows on TV.

As we become more disconnected from social, we crave familiarity.  We crave stories to which we can relate.  We crave connection.

Storytelling is Essential:

Social media and our behaviors are not going away.  We will adapt to it as new technology and new demands evolve.  Not surprisingly, fairy tales are not going away either. With big budget movies like “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Hobbit,” and Maleficent in the works, and the recent successes of book series like “The Hunger Games”, we will see more and more of this connective storytelling. We require something to ground us. These common stories – myths, fairy tales, fantasy – all have those connective elements and bring us together in a very human way.

Now that you have read this, you will see monomyths everywhere in popular media. You can’t escape seeing it.  It is like having your eyes opened from “The Matrix.”  Hey, wait a minute . . . that’s another great example.

Their strategy for doing so: letting scientists speak for themselves (it’s just crazy enough to work); encouraging not just listening, but exploration through social channels; and finally, focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) education as essential our combined futures.

The Voice of Science

Throwing down the gauntlet early, Abby Klanecky, Director of Social and Digital Marketing for Dow starts with “Chemistry is captivating and deeply rooted in meaningful change.  What people may not realize is that millennials want to feel they are making a difference in the world.  We are here to show them they absolutely can – directly – through choosing a career in science.”

Many companies still hide behind communication professionals and spokespeople to be their voice in the market.  Dow is going in a different direction: let the scientists speak for themselves. This creates a three-pronged approach for how they engage customers, partners, and future employees in the market. Marketing finds opportunities for engagement, PR and social media staff trains and enables the scientists, and the scientists are actively leading the interactions.

“Our partners, or universities, or customers want to hear directly from scientists who are engaged in cutting edge research.  (Our) Scientists care about their place in the world and how they can contribute,” continues Abby. “This passion comes through when they are allowed their own voice in these conversations.  It builds immediate trust and a much more fruitful conversation – for everyone involved.”

But you don’t just turn this on overnight – especially for a group of smart people who may not be “digitally native.”

Do more than just listen, “explore” instead

Many companies are talking about listening – using social channels to “listen to their audiences.”  Dow sees the key to their success as being more active in this role. Abby explains, “Listening is passive; exploring is active. As a company, we believe in exploring the world around us.  Social is no different.  As marketing, we train and then partner with, our scientists to use these channels to have active conversations and interactions with the world around them.  It has been revolutionary in how they see the world – sharing and receiving unfiltered, real-time insights.”

Dow is starting with high-touch, quality engagements with select hand-raiser scientists today.  Their plans are to focus on scalability next year. For now, they work with their scientists on a weekly basis – identifying communities, updating profiles, asking and answering questions, blogging, tweeting, etc.   They get them to commit and block off hours each week for these sessions.  The key here is to understand that you are helping these folks to fundamentally change how they interact with the world.  You won’t make that shift in thinking from an online seminar or a memo.

“Change takes time. But we see this model working for us,” intones Abby. “We may train a class of 20; 10 may get it; 5 will stay with it.  But those 5 become our storytellers. Over time, those groups of 5 have real power to tell their stories in a very human way that Dow would not get from a press release.”

Is this where they talk about STEM? You betcha.

STEM is all of our futures

A few facts to show why careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics are so important to our collective future:

• STEM jobs will have a 2x growth rate than their non-STEM counterparts over the next 10 years
• STEM jobs pay – on average – 26% more
• STEM jobs enjoy greater security, with unemployment rates near half of their non-STEM counterparts

At a time when unemployment hovers near 10 percent, 1 million new jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math will open up; but only 200,000 new graduates will have the skills to fill them. Abby gets excited talking about this particular problem. “There are some great educational institutions out there focusing on STEM roles for this and the next generation workforce. Our question has always been, ‘How can you get that generation excited about these types of roles’?”

Dow believes that the direct connection between their scientific community, education at all levels, and these generations is key to building that interest, passion and enthusiasm.  Having scientists work with and speak with these groups builds that enthusiasm at the earliest times. “Dow’s culture is very networked and highly collaborative.  Our scientists may be partnering directly with students at top universities, such as the University of Michigan, or providing educational materials and insights to much younger students through social channels.”

Abby finishes with, “Dow has exciting plans for meaningful growth.  We would like future generations to partner with us in creating that future.  Roles in everything from sustainable chemistry to advanced manufacturing make our future very promising and tremendously exciting.”

I will be bringing my kids over there later today.

Is your organization stuck in social quicksand?  Is social not delivering the payoff you once hoped it would?  Have you read every Twitter Best Practices article on Mashable until you are now dreaming in “Top Ten” lists, but to no avail? Well, you only need to change the way you think to be successful.

Social media breaks the mold of traditional marketing where you measured success against a balance sheet. How much do I get (leads, views, clicks, etc.) for how much I give (money, resources, time, etc.)?  If you go into social media marketing thinking this way, you are doomed from the start. OK, “doomed” may be a little harsh – how about “predestined for failure?” Sounds better.

You know social is different (you are clearly smart because you are reading Forbes), but do you know why? Let’s explore why it is different, what will work for you for social, and steps to get you started.

Why is social different?

It comes down to “choice.”  It is the prevalence of choices on what we engage with as consumers.  Do I want your content, or someone else’s? Do I want long-form content (whitepapers) or short-form (:30 videos)? Do I trust what you are saying about yourself, or what others say about you?  It is almost biblical “free will;” Mark Zuckerberg and Reid Hoffman have given us the apple, we have eaten it, and now we experience things differently.  Hopefully this turns out better for us than the previous apple eaters . . .

Previously, we could market to our customer anyway we wanted – we held the proverbial cards.  Now, as consumers have “choice,” social has changed that.  Consumers want specific content and information at all stages of their buying journey.  What they want, how they want it, where they want it, and when they want it.  Think you can do that in a 28-page whitepaper that takes 6 months to bring to market?

What works?

OK, so if it is so different (and I get that), what works? Doing what you do in traditional marketing, but on social channels is not going to work.  You have the re-examine how you think about social.  This is where “pay-it-forward” comes in.  You should deliver great content, information, and insight without the expectation that you will receive a payoff.  Call it “trust” or “belief” or whatever other squishy term you like, social is more about “being” social than it is about “doing” social.  Provide your audiences with great insight, leadership, value, and solutions to their problems and they will come to you.  It is like feeding squirrels in the park.  Hold out your hand, stay very still, and wait – they will come to you.  Have you ever tried chasing a squirrel?  Really hard.

The truly hard part comes with budgets.  Spending good money on something that may not show a return is risky.  No argument.  Social doesn’t mean forgoing other traditional approaches. But it does mean that if you do decide to invest in a social strategy, don’t set yourself up for failure with thinking immediate return. Be smart, sure.  Measure and look at what is working, jettison what isn’t.  But don’t measure your success by the bottom line right away.

How to change?

Changing how you and the organization view social is no easy task.  There are a few steps you can take now to help that along the way:

• Start small – Think pilot programs that can prove value before you think about changing your entire strategy.
• Mentor 1 or 2 leaders – Spend some “high-touch” time with a few key leaders to show them how to engage in social, develop their brand, etc.  Gain a few advocates by letting them see what social is all about.  Most leaders won’t ask questions on social as they don’t want to appear out of touch.  This approach builds trust and enthusiasm within the “executive class.”
• Set expectations – Lay out a strategy and a timeline.  As you get the inevitable request to do something different because an executive saw someone on “The Today Show” do it, you can have a directional discussion with them, instead of just reacting.  This will help give your program some control.
• Don’t eat the apple in the first place – If you know your organization is just not ready for “trust me, this will work” marketing, stick with what you know and make traditional work for you.  Dabble with social here and there, but unless they are ready for a change, leave the apple alone.  “It will be there when you/they are ready,” says the snake.

Clint Eastwood is the world’s greatest brand manager. This is not one of those “Life lessons I learned from Caddyshack,” or “Everything I need to know about business I learned from coaching 1st grade soccer” blogs.  Businesses and those concerned with managing their personal brand can learn alot from following his example.

He has deftly managed his personal and corporate brand for decades, yielding millions a year in personal revenue and billions for studios.  He has more at stake than most businesses and certainly most individuals.  What we can learn comes down to evolving, diversifying, stretching, and solidifying your brand attributes.

A, B, Cs: Always Be Changing

Any brand can become static.  We all tend to become an expert in one area or fall into some niche definition. It is our area of expertise – what we are known for. It is tempting to stay there, to entrench ourselves.  To think that this is what our audience expects.  This thinking is a real danger for companies and people alike.  Brands need to evolve, to change on a regular basis.  Why? Because the needs or tastes of our audience changes and we will become irrelevant if we don’t.

Clint Eastwood is particularly deft here.  He could be doing Dirty Harry 12 or the Gluten-free Spaghetti Western.  However, every step had a purpose – a goal in mind.  Even when you go do “Bronco Billy” or “Honkytonk Man,” instead of another cop movie, it is because you are defining your skills as a storyteller, which pays-off when he does “Million Dollar Baby” and “Mystic River.”  The idea here is simple: don’t rest on your laurels, have a goal in mind and move toward it, even if not everyone always understands it.

Diversify

Actor, Politician, Hotelier, Piano Player, Director.  A lot of brands – both personal and corporate – tend to think they need to be one thing and one thing only for their audiences or customers.  The belief is that they depend on that deep rooted expertise.  While this can be true, great brands diversify their portfolio or footprint.  Have you ever been stuck at a cocktail party with that person who only talks on one topic?  “Hi, I’m Simon – I live, eat, and breathe social media. Nope – that’s all I do.”  You will set a world record for claiming food poisoning to get out of that conversation.

Not only does diversifying make you more interesting and more valuable to your audience, but it certainly helps you weather market storms as things go out of vogue. Besides, what you learn from these other endeavors eventually “always” spills over into your area of expertise.

Do the Selfless Thing Once in Awhile

Doing the right thing – the selfless thing – sounds like a no-brainier.  For your personal brand, it may be easier.  However, for a corporate brand, it can be tricky when multiple forces come to bear.  As mayor of Carmel, Clint Eastwood was telling his community that it was important to him.  More important than writing a check – he took time out to run for and thoughtfully execute his duties as mayor of the town.  That step alone brought needed tourism dollars and attention to the town.  However, his personal brand was increased as people around the globe connected with him for his role in the local community.

Try this – think about the companies you most admire – ones you want to work with?  Are they faceless, soulless corporate entities or are they very human organizations engaged in some level of corporate responsibility. Personally, I am seldom more proud of the company I work for than when we banded together to build for Habitat for Humanity.

Be True to Yourself

It is so easy to believe your own hype.  If I am good at this, I can be good at anything.  How about “good at everything?”  “We are really good at petrol-chemicals so we should make hot dogs.”  (OK, maybe that one kinda makes sense, but you get the idea).  Change and evolve, for sure. But know your limits.  Try some different things and if they take – go for it.  When it doesn’t work, back away and try again.

Clint Eastwood is a storyteller, first and foremost.  He tells interesting stories – the every-man, flawed, but trying to do right.  There is always that connection to your audience.  The authenticity of your brand.  You can be a beer-swilling pugilist or an irascible boxing trainer, but audiences will connect with you because you are authentically you.  Your brand can learn a lot from this lesson.

You don’t ever hear of Clint Eastwood’s “come back” because in over 50 years he stayed relevant – from the constant management of his brand.  OK, maybe after Pink Cadillac, but everyone is allowed a mistake or two.

So, how do you set yourself apart and position yourself for a job in 2012?  Social media, in combination with your current job-searching techniques, is the answer.

5 Tips For Using Social Media To Find A New Job

1: Manage Your “Digital Persona”

Your first step is to see yourself as others will see you.  Most people see this as just your “online resume.”  However, at some point in the process, your future employer is going to do a Google search on you.  Your goal here is to maximize your presence online – to “represent you in the most positive light” wherever you can.

First, remove anything you can that you don’t want an employer to see – start with your popular social media sites like Facebook, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr or Tumblr.  Change the privacy settings to private to help remove this content from the public eye. Those pictures of you at your family cookout – smoke in one hand, drink in the other – may be harmless family fun, but you never know when it will tip the scale for an employer.

Now improve the sites you can control, usually starting with LinkedIn.  If you haven’t figured this out already, the best quote I have heard about LinkedIn is “it is facebook with a tie.”  This is THE place for most employers to find you or research you later.  In addition to the obvious resume-like aspects of your LinkedIn profile, ask for recommendations from current and former co-workers.  Make sure what is included here is how you want to present yourself.

Next, start getting active.  This is discussed further in the next section, but focus on joining LinkedIn groups or communities/blogs/sites that are in your area or discipline.  Focus on those which have relevant conversations on your area of expertise.  Start answering questions, posting or sharing idea, or promoting great content you see.  Think a bit like a magazine publisher – pushing your (and other’s) great content into these groups.  Remember, this leaves a digital footprint- much of which will be on your LinkedIn profile page.  Employers are in these same communities and will see what you have to offer long before you face them in an interview.

2: Create Your Network

Pride, stigma of being out of work, embarrassment, or other concerns keep most people looking for a job in “stealth mode.”  The best advice I have received was to realize that almost everyone has – at one time or another – had to really work at finding a new job.  The vast majority is eager to help you, but in true Jerry Maguire fashion, you have to “help them, (to) help you.”

“Even better than using social networking reactively when applying for a position is to use the tools to build a broad, proactive network,” says John Decker, Executive VP of TMI Executive Resources, a company who specializes in executive career management.  “Spend some time every week to use social media to raise awareness, remind and refresh their network that they are looking, and convey their brand.”

Use your groups and communities to search for former colleagues and connect with them – whether on LinkedIn or other social site or community.  Find a few names or authors you want to follow (I am on LinkedIn, by the way) whose opinion you liked or you see as a good connection point for you.

Now that you have your network, start to leverage it.  First, don’t just say “hi, looking for a job, let me know if you hear of anything.”  You will get a lot of well-intentioned support, but little else.  You need to take the reins here and do the following:

1. Tell them your situation,
2. Tell them what type of job you are looking for (including titles, locations or descriptive terms),
3. Provide them a list of companies you would like to work for (this gives them a place to start steering you),
4. Give them an indication that you would like to set up some time to discuss this with them.

You need actionable steps and you want these folks to start connecting you to other people to improve your network.  True story: I knew one woman who was 9 people removed from her original contact to land her perfect job. That is tenacity!

3: Research Opportunities

Besides just checking the job boards and LinkedIn (which is a valuable not-to-be-skipped step), start looking for opportunities not disclosed yet.  Follow your 5-6 ideal companies and read their updates on twitter, facebook, blogs, etc.  What are they saying?  Where are they expanding? What new deals have they won? Do those have a need for a fine professional like you?  In generally, employees are looking for the best person that is the easiest to find.  Make it easy for them.  John Decker continues, “If someone can get to a manager with a problem before they start formally looking for candidates, and can do so with a good introduction, they have a much better chance of being hired. Be the only candidate, not one of hundreds.”

4: Prepare Yourself for the Interview

Great! You have landed that coveted interview.  You need to research the heck out of the company and the people you will be interviewing with.  Visit their LinkedIn profiles and see what they are reading, their backgrounds, their roles, etc.  Guess what – they are doing the same thing about you.  And, since you have worked on your digital persona, you know what they think of you.  Be prepared to answer questions on the “pro” and “con” of you.  Know how to respond no matter which “position” your interviewer takes.

5: Leverage Intel for Your Negotiations

Just because the economy is bad and you may just “need a job,” it doesn’t mean you need to be at the mercy of your future employer.  Try sites like Glassdoor and (again) LinkedIn to see what these companies are offering for your type of job and what the average in the market is.  Check your network to see if they have some perks you can ask for (extra vacation, additional training, conferences to attend, etc.)  Most often, if you leverage this as “career development” you can find most employers willing to negotiate with you.  Worst case, you know that you got the best deal you can, and now you can make the decisions with the benefit of full insight.

Next Steps

Find the few things you know you can do right now.  Some of these may not apply to you.  Pick your battles.  But know that finding any job, let alone that “great job” is hard.  The more you practice “socializing your job search,” the better you increase your odds over the next person. 

If you liked the skills listed above, check out professional career counselors and executive recruiters like TMI who provided great insight to this article.

Oh, and send me a note when you land that next big job.  Would love to hear that even a little bit helped.  Best for a great 2012 for you!

“The Good Old Days”

Before we had access to modern technologies, it was a challenge for the customer, consumers – the buyer -  to engage with companies that weren’t convenient to them.  For many, this was dealing with those within your local geography or those you had access to.  This put the buyer at the behest of the seller.  As time went on, there was greater focus on margins and the pressure was felt by the buyer.  (If you are a fan of movies, every dystopian movie of the 1970s featured “the evil corporation.”  There was a real sense of being powerless against large enterprises.)  However, as technology spread – in the form of PCs, then the Internet, then mobile devices, then smartphones – buyers, customers, and consumers felt more empowered to deal with companies and corporations of their choosing.  With social media, the last few years have seen a tremendous change in how customers can now openly review and engage with companies, provide insight into products and services, negotiate prices with greater effectiveness, and have insights at their fingertips that were previously only held by a select few.

The Decade of Social Business

The next few years will see a further acceleration of the change in buying power of the customer.  Social media is just the first step to this broader change.  What are just tools today will be a more fully integrated experience of allowing the buyer the experience they want – how they want it, when they want it, where they want it – and under which terms they are willing to engage with you as a company or seller. This goes beyond tweeting a service request or using a community to answer support questions or Yelp to read a review on a company’s track record.  These are mere tactics.  It is about a fully engaged experience of always-on, rich data at your fingertips to help make decisions against all aspects of a company and have a more powerful voice to alter and influence the company’s trajectory.

This is Not All One-Sided

This may sound like a power shift toward the buyer, now leaving the seller or company vulnerable.  This is true – for some.  Some organizations will be slow to adapt – and in true Darwinian fashion – will be marginalized.  However, companies that see this shift – and see it now – begin to see the buyer, the customer as an advocate for the marketplace.  This change allows companies to have greater insights into what the marketplace really wants – what its customers are really looking to purchase and how they want to be engaged.  It is a game-changer.  And like all evolutions/revolutions, some will thrive and some will die off.

So, over the next few years, make your business social, think about the true voice of the customer, and empathize with their needs.  Or, consider the ever-shrinking alternatives.

The Infographic was created by Emily Kesselman at Feathered Hat Studios.