get the culture right & the tweets will look after themselves
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Presentation to Twitter Scotland conference, 20th July 2011TRANSCRIPT
The Twitter Effect
Martin Thomas @crowdsurfing
A Market Matures
o From gimmicks to game changers
o From technological hype to organisational & cultural change
Gartner H
ype Cycle
Which media owner has larger audience than all these combined?
The Twitter Effect?
Increased Client ConfidenceWhich of these have you implemented in past year?*
* PR Week Communications Directors Survey (July 2011)
Compelling Case Studies
o “It doesn’t take much to exceed customer service expectations on Twitter they are pleasantly surprised we are listening”
o “Nobody calls a call centre with positive feedback but they do on Twitter”Martha Roberts Royal Mail
How Twitter is forcing institutions to meet cultural & organisational challenges of a real time world
A Hyper-Speed Culture
o Speed & responsiveness“The trouble with McDonald’s is it’s too bloody slow”
Instant access, instant response, instant gratification “living life through shortcuts” MTV
Acceleration of News Agenda
1952Lynmouth
flood disaster
1952Lynmouth
flood disaster
1988Piper Alpha explosion
1988Piper Alpha explosion
May 2008Sichuan
Earthquake
May 2008Sichuan
Earthquake
Jan 2009Hudson River plane crash
Jan 2009Hudson River plane crash
2 days 1 hour 30 minutes
Real Time
Real Time+
Spring 2011Live blogging during Arab
Spring
Spring 2011Live blogging during Arab
Spring
Crisis Management in Real Time
Service Innovations Heightened Expectationso Speed & responsiveness
Real Time Customer Service
o Taking responsibility for customer service beyond a department
o 2,000+ employees, following guidelines not rules
“Authentic honest, conversational, be
yourself, show respect, expect respect. The goal is to help not be creepy”
“
The Real Twitter Effect
o Driving new behaviours & expectations Dramatizing institutions’ structural, operational
& cultural weaknesses
Connected Consumer meets Disconnected CorporationConnected Consumer meets Disconnected Corporation
“Digital communications is a destabilizing force in a bureaucratic environment. And I am sitting right in the middle of a bureaucratic environment.’”Senior corporate communications director
“We’re not set up for this shit”UK CEO
Why Many Institutions Struggle
o Not configured to work in real time, in terms of speed or resources
10 minutes10 minutes60 minutes60 minutes
* Critical response time for responding to negative comments
Thriving by Loosening Up
o Operational & cultural traits of successful organisations
TrustingOpenAgileInformal Collaborative
Tight Thinkers Need Not Apply
o Organisations & people that struggle with this new worldHierarchicalBureaucraticProcess orientedDistrustful
“the approval time for each Tweet, by the time it had gone through compliance and tone of voice, used to be 10 days”
1. Trusting
o Bedrock of strong internal cultureo Allows shared responsibility & real time
decision making
The best company rulebook ever written?
Nordstrom Revisited
“Prescriptive rules have the effect of infantilising staff & make it harder for them to adapt to different situations. This goes as much for digital communications as for selling socks … Like the Nordstrom handbook we’re trusting staff to follow the spirit, not just the letter, of our guidelines”Meg Pickard, writing about The Guardian’s new social media guidelines, November 2010
How to Build an Empire
“Presumed Competence”
Accepting, Anticipating & Even Leveraging Mistakes
Which doesn’t mean having to tolerate flagrant abuses
2. Open
o Transparency & honesty non negotiable
Capable of transforming reputations
Openness is …
o Being transparento Engaging critics & embracing criticism o Encouraging real conversations with people
inside & outside the organisation
Openness is … Non Negotiable
Social Media is No Respecter of Secrets
3. Agile
o Ability to improvise & operate in close to real time & to act on real time information
4. Informal
o Being willing to show a human face
Informal Access
O2 Twinterviews with senior management 500+ new followers every time
Authenticity More Important Than Production Values
5. Collaborative
o Tapping into spirit of collective self expression
o Leveraging people’s willingness to shape service & product offers
Numbers are Compelling
o 70% 70% of companies regularly create value through use of web-based communities
o Using customer communities to solve customer problems costs 10% 10% of traditional call centres
* McKinsey 2010
The Power of Communities
Create Content
Solve Problems
Collaborate
Contribute Ideas
The Power of Communities
Mutualisation: Collaborating with readers and communities to better understand, explore or reflect situations, topics, perspectives or experiences
Thriving by Loosening Up
TrustingOpenAgileInformal Collaborative
@crowdsurfing
Get your organisation & culture right … & the tweets will look after
themselves