Maria Hilden's blog

Are you missing out on opportunities to connect with and engage your stakeholders?

2010-07-28T10:04:00.007+02:00

Why do people of highly diverse backgrounds connect online? The notion of 'tribe' is the predominant way to convey what social connectivity online is all about. It cannot stand alone, however. Indeed, a preoccupation with online tribes obscures a range of opportunities for companies and organizations to connect with and engage individual stakeholders and threatens to leave obvious business opportunities unexploited.

Tribes
The notion of 'tribe' elucidates how people gather online around shared interests and preferences. The word 'tribe' itself connotes strong in-group ties, stable group belonging and group longevity (born an Apache die an Apache, once a Coca-Cola fan always a Coca-Cola fan). Also, it suggests well-defined demarcations between tribes (either you're in, or, you're out).

The notion is accompanied by the understanding that companies and organizations can support already existing stakeholder tribes and/or initiate and facilitate the formation and maintenance of new tribes. It also suggests that once a company or organization has identified its online tribes it can map out how it intends to tie these tribes ever closer to company products, services and brands.

Now, what if tribes and tribe belonging aren't as stable as all that? And what if tribe 'engineering' isn't as straightforward as suggested? We need to take a closer look at social connectivity and group belonging from the perspective of the individual.

Fluidity
We all have multiple social identities - online as well as offline. It depends on the situation which identity and corresponding group belonging is predominant. When travelling abroad it's relevant to think of myself as a Dane and as belonging to the group - or tribe, if you like - of Danes. Not so when studying Nike's homepage. In the latter context my identity as jogging female and my affinity with other female joggers might predominate. My identity as activist looking for indications of child labour might also be relevant for me in relation to Nike's products and brand, however.

What we see here is the situational or contextual character of identity and group belonging (we slip in and out of our various identities and corresponding groups depending on the situation at hand). We also note that a stakeholder may relate to a company, organization or brand in several capacities (jogger, activist and more). Some refer to this phenomenon as fluid identity.

The way forward
Online identity and group belonging isn't as stable nor tribe engineering as straightforward as implied by the notion of tribe. That is clear by now. The concept of fluidity, however, gives us a handle on the complexity of social connectivity online. The concept enables us to recognize and act on the different ways in which a company, organization or brand is relevant to individual stakeholders. Thus, it allows us to explore and exploit the whole range of opportunities to connect with, engage and do business with the stakeholder.

The notion of tribe remains as the ideal goal of stakeholder community engineering. Obviously, the closely knit and enduring online community consisting of highly loyal individuals is what we strive to achieve when supporting existing stakeholder groups or initiating and facilitating new ones. In the meantime we had better connect with and engage stakeholders both on the group (tribal) and individual level.

Afterthought: It may prove profitable - in all meanings of the word - to consider the idea of fluid segmentation. Fluid segmentation takes the individual customer's needs, interests and preferences - rather than predefined categories - as its starting point. It keeps us focused on the various ways in which the company's products, services and brands may be relevant to individual customers at different times. Online business platforms, traffic tracking and business intelligence make it possible to employ fluid segmentation in a cost-efficient manner.

This post was first published as a guest blog at mindjumpers.com July 27, 2010.

Is your company ready to reap the benefits of social technologies for value creation and customer relations?

2010-07-10T15:04:00.008+02:00

Increasingly, customers expect to have a say in the development of new company products and services. At the same time companies look to customers for innovative inputs to products and services honed to meet customers' needs. Social technologies both necessitate and enable these developments. Indeed, social technologies offer important opportunities for increased value creation and stronger customer relations.

Value co-creation
In the traditional value chain the company creates value for the customer and for itself. The company develops and delivers products and services that are of value to the customer. The customer, in turn, pays the company. With social technologies and digital business platforms value creation is taking on new forms.

We are increasingly witnessing that value is co-created by company and customers. Active customers take part in the value creation by suggesting new products and services, by testing and commenting on products and services in the development pipeline, by supporting themselves and each other in customer support forums and by taking part in online discussions of products, services and brands. Thus, value is not only created in a collaboration between company and customers but also added in the interaction between the company's customers.

Social technologies both enable and necessitate the co-creation of value. On a practical level social technologies make it possible for company and customers to continuously collaborate on value creation. On another level customers experience that social technologies more and more often allow them to influence the agendas and activities of organizations and companies. As a result, customers come to expect that they can influence any company's business. This customer expectation necessitates the co-creation of value.

Customers take centre stage
Whenever value co-creation results in products and services that are relevant to the customers, customers are tied more closely to the company, its products and services and its other customers. Thus, companies can increase the value created for company and customers alike and strengthen customer relations through considered use of social technologies.

The difference between success and failure in this regard will be the company's ability to create and maintain a framework for and contribute to customer relations (including relations between customers) which motivate customers to actively contribute to the co-creation of value. Doing so is more than a matter of implementing social technologies. The most successful companies will engage their customers in continuous dialogues about customer experiences and needs letting customers take centre stage.

Rethinking 'exchange economy' in the light of co-production and crowdsourcing

2010-04-17T11:16:00.000+02:00

We contribute to all kinds of co-production on the web. We often do it on a volunteer basis expecting that - but not knowing whether - others will contribute as well. What we DO know is that we can pick up a multitude of things of value to us from the web, things that others have produced.

The fact that the individual giver does not necessarily get anything in return from the receiver, but certainly from somebody else, gives us reason to rethink what exchange economy is about. An updated concept of exchange economy includes - not only the traditional exchange of goods and services but also - the new 'reciprocity economy': 'I contribute to something of value to you because I know I'll get something in return from somebody'.