![[ RSS ]](http://blogs.openforum.com/wp-content/themes/amex2.0/images/icon_rss_12_fff.gif){kind=icon}
Subscribe to this page
Previous
What CNN Can Teach Entrepreneurs About Social Media
Brent Leary | September 10th, 2008 - 05:38 AM
(28) found this useful. Do you? 
We don’t often look to a news network for entrepreneurial lessons, but CNN’s Rick Sanchez recently gave us a big one.
Making Customers Feel Valuable
Every customer wants a positive experience when they pull their wallet out to buy something. This experience goes way beyond a low price. Customers want helpful information, a friendly environment, and timely assistance. More importantly, they want to feel important and valuable to the businesses they frequent. Not just for the dollars they spend — they want businesses to show interest in them.
Businesses of all sizes are recognizing that their customers have social needs. Those social needs are critically important in building long lasting, meaningful relationships. In actuality this has always been the case, but the web has made it even more crucial.
Thankfully, the web has also made it much easier to connect with great numbers of people without big financial investments. In fact, technology has given our customers a much greater say in creating and controlling which experiences they wish to participate in.
Seeking Social Interaction
In a Web 2.0 world, business relationships begin with a search for information, clicks on links returned in a list, and content found on pages that should move the searcher to “contact us.” The search may begin on Google, but also by lobbing questions to our friends/colleagues on social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. It can also start by getting the opinions of those we don’t know on sites like ePinions.
Content helps convert clicks into conversations. If a searcher can find a compelling blog post, video or discussion on the other side of a click, it’s more likely he or she will become an active participant. Joining the ongoing conversation can lead to more collaborative experiences and build meaningful relationships, whether it be as partners, collaborators, vendors, or customers.
But the difference — and it’s a big difference — in this kind of customer relationship is that it’s built from the beginning on co-creation and experience-sharing. It’s a partnership built on understanding the value each side brings to the “transaction.”
Getting Customer Input Can be Simple and Fast
While content can be as complex as a professionally produced video or podcast, it can be as simple as a comment left on a blog post – with the comment being just as effective as the video. It can also be a question sent via Twitter asking people to share their thoughts on Hurricane Gustav. This is exactly what CNN’s Rick Sanchez did.
Sanchez not only used Twitter to share his news about what was going on, he invited people to help him cover it. Here is one of his Twitter messages:
Then later, on his show, he shared a number of tweets he received with his television viewing audience. That set the Twitter community on fire.
Rick Sanchez didn’t have to do this. CNN is one of the most watched cable news stations as it is. But by tapping into the Twitter community and engaging in conversations going on, he added a whole new dimension to the experience these people had with his broadcast by making them a part of it. And the community responded in a most fascinating way, by being the feet on the street, and also by being a viral advertisement telling everyone within “tweeting distance” to watch Rick, and to “co-anchor.”
Welcome to the Age of the Social Customer
Rick Sanchez may have changed the way news is delivered with his reporting on Hurricane Gustav. One thing for sure that he did was create a bond with the Twitter community by inviting them to help him cover this most important story in near real time. This no doubt has brought new viewers, and strengthened relationships with current viewers, to CNN.
That’s the impact social media can have on our businesses if we learn how to fully value what customers mean to us – beyond the bottom line. Welcome to the age of the social customer.
* * * * *
About the Author: Brent Leary is a Partner of CRM Essentials. Brent also hosts Technology For Business $ake, a radio show in the Altanta, Georgia, USA area about using technology in business.
Brent is a member of the Small Business Trends Expert Network.
Marc Perramond | September 10th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Great post, Brent.
It’s hard not to get (really) excited about this example from CNN’s Rick Sanchez. It totally changes my experience as a “customer” of CNN’s (and I have to admit, I’ve never been much of a fan.) I think traditional broadcast media outlets have to do more of this to remain a viable source of news.
But here’s an opportunity for news to go from being some abstract, highly produced thing that “happens to other people” to something that I can (and want to) participate in making/shaping.
This brings to mind the VentureBeat article about the speed at which twitter picked up on the 5.4 SoCal earthquake back in June (http://tinyurl.com/5hzn5m).
Twitter response time = 11 seconds
AP news response time = 9 minutes
Tapping into social media is powerful, not just for its immediacy as the CNN example demonstrates, but also for its relevance. What if each of us had a voice in deciding what makes the TV news? (As we’ve grown accustomed to for online “print” news thanks to Digg, Technorati, etc.) Taking the current presidential campaign as an example, what if we could get broadcast media to focus on issues that matter to use (as measured by tweetscans and facebook chatter) rather than who wears a flag pin or the age of the candidates?
----------
Brett Tilford | September 10th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Wow I hadn’t heard of this. Good move by Sanchez to utilize social media because it’s a huge part of our world now. If news agencies arent joining in they’ll soon be scrambling to make up for lost time to their competitors.
----------
Brian Halligan | September 10th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Great post Brent. It is pretty interesting how Twitter can turn VERY offline events into very collaborative online events. We were at the Inbound Marketing Summit yesterday that you attended and there were 300 people there. Because so many of the people were posting video of the speakers on youtube, Twittering about the talks, posting photos of the event on Flickr, etc., the audience for the event went from 300 to 10’s of thousands.
Read more here: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4300/How-to-Add-Online-Scale-to-Your-Offline-Events.aspx
----------
Robert | September 10th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Hey Brent,
I liked the article and it is a very good example of social networks being used in yet another interesting way. So my question is how do you manage all your social network endeavors? Do you pick one as your main tool and dabble in the others or do you spend all day going from one to another?
Robert with cybernetkids.com
----------
Ginger Conlon, 1to1 | September 10th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Brent,
This is another great example of the power of giving customers a voice, and then listening to them and acting on their insight.
Great post! Thanks.
----------
jgross | September 11th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Excellent post Brent. Glad to see you writing on the OPEN Blog.
----------
Luz Spielberg | September 11th, 2008 at 1:29 am
“We don’t often look to a news network for entrepreneurial lessons.”
Honestly I too, don’t.Most of the time I search for blogs and business forums. Well, you’re right- we must maximize what Social Media can offer to our business.
----------
David Bullock | September 11th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Very insightful blog Brent. Social media has truly shifted the flow of communication in the marketplace. We know can see the chatter in the marketplace and not just speculate about what is being said by whom.
Again, great article.
----------
Kenneth Darryl Brown | September 11th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Brent, what a wonderful post!
These are great points to ponder and implement for ourselves! I love blog posts like this because they are educational and make readers think!
Additionally, it gives readers practical applications that they can put into action now!
Connect, Collaborate and Create!
By using technology, people can create new projects, media content, business alliance or partnerships! We are creating another way to communicate and share with others.
We are creating a new community ONLINE that brings people together through technology! It is simple, easy and affordable!
We no longer have to get up at 5am to attend a morning networking event at 7am. Nor, do we have to attend EVERY business lunch, seminar or workshop! We have an alternative now. We can connect with other entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals ONLINE!
As a result, this saves us time, money and gasoline! This improves our productivity, efficiency and profitability!
Brent, thank you and keep up the good work!
----------
Michael W Thomas | September 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Brent….great article! I attended the Gartner CRM Summit earlier this week and the theme of Social Media resonated throughout the event as it pertains to how companies utilize CRM. You are right on the mark and many companies are trying to figure out how to leverage Social Media to engage their customers.
----------
Brent Leary | September 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Thanks all so much for the kind words and the warm welcome! It is greatly appreciated.
@Marc: I had the same experience a few weeks back with the tremor in CA. I saw a ton of tweets way before I saw it on the news. This just shows how these tools allow us to collaborate the way we’ve always wanted to. And how we as social customers we’re looking more and more to each other to provide answers to business related challenges.
@Brian: The use of Twitter and other social tools during the Inbound Marketing Summit was truly impressive. In fact @Marc sent me a tweet during the event asking me if I could let the events team know there was a problem with the live stream. I let them know and it was fixed!
@Ginger @Michael: I think the customer’s aren’t going to wait any longer for vendors to give them a voice, they’ll just choose vendors who really listen to them.
@David @Kenneth: The tools are getting us closer, but people still have to think differently in order to get the most out of them. In some ways the tools are ahead of the thinking with respect to engaging the social customer.
Thanks again all!
----------
Ryan Zuk | September 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Brent, your classic insight with cutting-edge flair (pls excuse the buzzword)! It’s great to see what people with media reach like Sanchez are doing to prove out the value, immediacy, and personality of social tools. CNN’s iReport is a somewhat similar example, putting the mic and camera in the hands of citizens. I enjoyed following it during the Palin VP-related announcements, and was particularly awed by a reference local for me (Laveen, AZ) that demonstrated just how quickly and easily ‘embedded’ a news organization can now get itself. http://tinyurl.com/4mxbl7
----------
O que a CNN pode ensinar sobre mídia social « Ex Vertebrum | September 12th, 2008 at 7:36 am
[…] Setembro 2008 Um artigo muito bom recomendado pelo Ricardo Jordão Magalhães sobre como a CNN vem usando a mídia social para […]
----------
geekdiva | September 12th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Brent, As always, your post is salient, erudite and shows why so many follow your writings in several forums. Great article and keep ‘em coming!
----------
This so-called Larger Conversation | September 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[…] BAM! Just like that, you’re connected to a much larger conversation than Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any endless amount of Ning’s can provide, and with people that are interested, at that! New media is disrupting the way that information is distributed so much, that even big-name media networks are utilizing the social aspects of “web 2.0″ to hand the microphone over to their viewers. […]
----------
Jeffrey Alexander Brathwaite | September 23rd, 2008 at 1:16 am
Great Post Brent,
Giving people a voice to be heard is a powerful thing. Rick not only did that but he also helped many people get instantaneous news in the process.
I don’t think the founders of Twitter could have conceptualize just how much their service would impact both major news conglomerates and everyday people.
Most traditional news media outlets don’t really understand how to use Twitter just yet. Rick Sanchez became a pioneer on how to use social media and gave
his audience a chance to not just watch the news but become a part of the news while it was being reported. He literally became a real time social news bureau by using
the power of Twitter. Bravo Brent for pointing this out.
----------
The Politics Of Tweeting « Critic(al) Mass | September 29th, 2008 at 8:41 am
[…] his broadcasts. Social media expert Brent Leary recently detailed and analyzed this in one of his posts. It’s a good read if you have another […]
----------
Look Who is Appearing On The American Express OPEN Forum | Small Business Trends | October 10th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
[…] Brent Leary - What CNN Can Teach Entrepreneurs About Social Media […]
----------
hernando pinillos | November 5th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
El señor Sánchez se cree anglosajon y cree que con su ideas fachistas influye en merica latina
usted es un suda más
----------
Faol-Inc.Com - Education Guide » What CNN Can Teach Entrepreneurs About Social Media | December 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
[…] Source: Brent Leary […]
----------