Social media is changing how Frontier Airlines conducts business. With thousands of guests flying Frontier daily, the airline is very aware of the power of the social web and has kindly shared with us their successes.

Maybe you missed the great webinar conversation with Marco Toscano from Frontier Airlines, or maybe you enjoyed it so much you’ve returned to view it again. (Marco is the Senior Manager of Social Media at Frontier. Basically, he’s responsible for designing and implementing their overall social strategy). Regardless of what brought you here, let’s share the highlights!

Using social media for customer service inquiries, sharing great experiences and delivering messaging that is shared through other media channels, Marco explains that being present and active in social media has delivered great value for Frontier Airlines.

Surprise & Delight

Being an airline it is difficult to avoid customer service requests, and customer service is something that Frontier Airlines is doing very well via social media – Twitter and Facebook in particular. In fact, customer service goes beyond waiting for a customer to reach out for help as Frontier is actively listening for potential opportunities to help before a guest asks. When passengers simply tweet to friends about a delayed flight (not directing their comments to the airline), Frontier steps in gracefully and lends a hand by engaging. “Surprise & delight your guests,” says Marco.

Part of their bigger social strategy includes identifying ways they can extend traditional campaigns such as TV commercials and seat sales via social media. This is especially useful when you know your target audience and you’re comfortable within your community. The number of ‘likes’ or ‘followers’ one has does not speak to the grandness of a social media community. Using quality over quantity, Frontier Airlines is confident that their shared messaging is reaching the right people as they build authentic online relationships with their guests.

Speaking of relationships with guests, one very great example of Frontier’s customer service via social media can be found in this case study. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t read it yet, but basically mix horrible weather, unfortunate damage and delayed guests. Typically this spells disaster, but not so for Frontier!

Ignore it or join in

Regardless of your industry, your community is not identical to that of another brand. Even if both brands are airlines, for example. Marco challenged us to, “Jump in and interact.” Don’t be afraid to act. Customers. Guests. Passengers. However you choose to refer to the people in your community, they want to be heard and feel part of something authentic.

Want to watch the whole webinar? You can check it out here.

And one last thing, we’d love to hear your thoughts, comments and feedback! Take a stab at these questions if you need inspiration to get started:

How can you extend your existing campaigns using social media? Do you think there’s a perfect playbook or strategy for like-minded industries? Why or why not? Have you experienced something similar to Frontier Airlines from either side of the social media desk?

Jenn Seeley is a Community Engagement Specialist in the Travel, Transport & Leisure space. She books her flights online and loves engaging with the airlines and hotels she’s a guest at. Say hi to her on Twitter @jenn_seeley

They are vocal.

They want incentives.

And when they’re looking for help, they want to hear from you.

This is a social customer.

In yesterday’s webinar with author Becky Carroll and our own David Alston, we explored this customer mindset and the opportunities they possess for growing your business. (And don’t worry if you missed it – we’ve got the video below!)

During the packed hour and amidst tons of questions and some Q&A breaks (well, there was a free book incentive for asking a question), Becky walked us through R.O.C.K. – the four keys to growing your business from existing customers.

Relevant Marketing
There is certainly a place for marketing messages on the social web, just in a different way. As you’re listening and understanding your customer, you’ll learn their likes and dislikes, their emotions toward your brand and why they use your product or service. Market to them based on this customer knowledge and they’ll be more apt to listen and respond.

Orchestrated Customer Experience
As mentioned earlier, social customers are looking for a response. They might reach out to your brand on the social web – are you responding? If so, you’re very much in line with the needs and wants of the growing social customer mindset, but keep it up. These customers will soon come to expect this quick and efficient response channel. They may even talk positively to others about their great customer service experience.

Customer-focused Culture
It’s not about you. It’s about your customers. But focusing your efforts on customers and their needs starts from the inside. Hiring strong employees with a passion for pleasing customers will go a long way for bettering your business. In addition to a strong internal force, you can make huge strides by incorporating social. This connects the social customers with the passionate employees to create a bond.

Killer Customer Service
Killer customer service can be fun. Find ways to make customers happy to increase engagement. And it doesn’t have to be major. Beaver Creek gives out free cookies at the end of a day of skiing. In addition to being nice, be convenient. If your customers are sharing on forums or blogs, consider going to those places to engage. Communicating on their terms also means communicating on their preferred channels.

This webinar gave us a great customer-centric social media strategy with ways to engage, listen, find customers and grow your community. If you missed the webinar, we’ve got the video.

How do you define a social customer? How does the social customer mindset impact your business? Weigh in here and maybe Becky will check in as well!

Amanda Nelson is a Radian6 Community Content Manager. She is an avid writer, content curator and border collie fanatic. Follow her on Twitter at mileigh13.

“Got my tweed pressed 
Got my best vest
All I need now is the girl
Got my striped tie
Got my hopes high
Got the time and the place
And I got rhythm”

-Gypsy Cast Lyrics

Today I have the pleasure of not only thanking Jason Falls for joining us for a fantastic webinar yesterday, but also for his beautiful singing skills! This garnered virtual applause from the crowd and was the perfect cap to an incredibly insightful and informative presentation.

Having recently launched the book, No Bullshit Social Media, which he co-authored with Erik Deckers, Jason dove right in and cut through the bull to deliver real examples of how social media is benefiting companies daily.

We’ve summarized some of our favorite case studies Jason mentioned below, and have also included a link to the recording and presentation. Sit back with a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Remote Car Starter

Jason’s mom was looking to have a remote starter installed in her car. Her Facebook friend mentioned that his company was selling them. She reached out to book an appointment along with about another dozen interested people from Facebook. This demonstrated a great example of how we can sometimes “break the rules” because, as Jason said, social media purists tell us not to sell on our personal page, but for this gentleman it was successful.

Mr. Splashy Pants

Greenpeace launched a campaign to name one of its humpback whales in its efforts to get some much needed support for its Great Whale Trail Expedition. The winning name turned out to be Mr. Splashy Pants. This is in part due to the fact that the link for the campaign was posted on Reddit where there was a great deal of support for the name. In turn there was a significant increase in campaign awareness.

Fait Ici

Jason told us about a company in Montreal called Fait Ici. They had the great idea of building relationships with their target audience via blog before they even opened the store. Because of these relationships, when they opened their doors and invited these bloggers to the opening, they were met with one of the best store openings in Canadian history.

Papa Johns Pizza

Instead of focus groups and testing their own new pizza flavors, Papa Johns reached out to their Facebook community to let them share their best pizza recipe via video. This brought in tons of submissions and allowed Papa Johns to gather great information about the flavors that their community enjoys.

Miss Shirley’s Sunday Brunch

Miss Shirley’s Sunday Brunch wanted to come up with a new way to engage customers. They decided to inform their customers about Foursquare and reward those who received the mayorship to jump the very-busy Sunday morning lines. This increased check-ins on Foursquare by 427%.

These great examples, and so many more, are available right here in the webinar recording (which includes a musical talent portion) and you can catch Jason’s presentation here. Also be sure to buy Jason’s book which is packed with even more great information!

Melanie Thompson is a Community Analyst at Radian6. When she is not engaging with the Radian6 community she can be found reading or blogging. Find out why she calls herself Mrs. 20 Q’s by reaching out to her on Twitter @MelanieAThomp.

Every night before bed, he’d leave his socks bunched on the living room floor. She told him to pick them up. He heard her words, her request. But was he really listening? After all, the same story would repeat night after night.

In social media, you may hear feedback, questions, requests and ideas from your customers and community. But are you listening? Are you picking up those socks like they asked?

This was my favorite analogy in one of many great ones in yesterday’s webinar presented by Michael Brito (it was his socks). This SVP of Social Planning at Edelman Digital used these stories to demonstrate the Rise of the Social Customer and their Impact on Business (coincidentally, that’s also the name of his presentation).

In today’s world, we are all social customers. We search online for answers, go to friends for opinions and ensure we are educated before making our purchasing decisions. And while this concept of peer-to-peer help is not new, it’s now amplified. Opinions are public in a one-to-many conversation environment.

As these social customers share in this wide open space, ambassadors (brand advocates) and detractors (brand critics) rise up and step on their soap boxes. Both are passionate about their point of view although their opinions teeter on opposite ends of the spectrum.

So how do businesses adapt when they’ve got customers yelling from the rooftops? That’s where the social business comes into play.

A social business is different from a social brand. A social brand may have a Facebook or Twitter page. They may measure results. They may even engage. But the internal culture has not changed. Here’s the difference: A social business takes on internal change management. Here are some key aspects of a social business from Michael’s standpoint.

• All employees are educated in social media. That could mean training and/or having a strong social media policy.
• Social media does not work in a vacuum owned by one or two departments – it stretches across the entire organization.
• Measurement takes into consideration employee participation – it’s extending past measuring “likes” and “followers”
• It’s collaborative and cohesive

A social business has a mixture of three key elements:

People, Process and Technology

The people make it happen. The process keeps it aligned and working. The technology is the method or tool behind it all. Read more about this in our September eBook.

Check out yesterday’s presentation and webinar recording.

Is your business part of this revolution? How do you envision a social brand versus a social business? Do you pick up your dirty laundry?

Amanda Nelson is a Community Content Manager at Radian6. She is an avid writer, content curator and tap dancer. Follow her on Twitter at @mileigh13.

In a highly-regulated industry where customers seek individual banking attention, ING Direct Canada had a challenge. How could they break into the social space in a meaningful way that could truly benefit both their customers and their brand?

Hello, Gloria Chik, Social Media Lead at ING Direct Canada, an online bank. We asked her these questions and more during yesterday’s webinar. She was up to the challenge and presented strategies for getting started, growing a community, enhancing product and becoming a social enterprise.

The Methodology

Something interesting was happening on the social web: Conversations were occurring. These cocktail party-like conversations were around savings. They were happening on multiple social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. ING Direct thought about these conversations and the people creating them. The social approach needed to make the most sense for the customer. ING Direct utilized social listening and began engaging when customers needed help.

The Community

As ING Direct took part in these social conversations, they began helping customers on an individual basis. The different departments within the financial institution worked together to ensure sales, customer service and marketing had a clear understanding of their roles. This created a smooth process for helping customers in addition to a full-function, 360 approach where conversations could be taken offline as needed.

ING Direct’s CEO, Peter Aceto, began tweeting. While Gloria adds that not all execs may feel comfortable doing this, she was excited about her CEO’s involvement. He provides fresh content with tips, ideas and updates to the community.

THRiVE Chequing

With the goal of helping customer save money, the THRiVE Chequing account was born. As ING Direct began to understand their customers’ needs and wants via the social web, they added another layer to the mix: Use this customer feedback to make changes to their offerings. They proactively listened and engaged with customers on Facebook, Twitter and the ING Direct website to collect insights about the product and make it stronger for all.

The Social Enterprise

ING Direct is becoming a social enterprise. Internally and externally, they collaborate as a team to ensure all departments are working cohesively and all customers have a voice. They are not only using their brand voice but humanizing the brand with their CEO’s engagement. They are working toward the greater good in the world of social, and that’s what a social enterprise is all about.

Here’s more information about ING Direct: Check out the webinar recording and the case study. Gloria provided her thoughts on additional questions that came from the webinar. Here they are!

Kymberlaine Banks: How do you manage social media training for your monitoring team AND all the others in the organization that are empowered to post?
Gloria: Social Media training is divided – we have something we call “SMED Champions” (and as a side note, we refer to social media as SMED in the organization). These champions undergo a different training that entails an overview of our platforms, participation, as well as the style and guidelines that relate to participation. They’re also given the run down of what is acceptable and what isn’t, and the stance they should take when interacting on social media personally and on behalf of the organization. It’s a fair bit of reading, an exercise on a training environment, and then continual evaluation and feedback sessions.

Craig Gun-Munro: How do you measure the ROI from your efforts?
Gloria: Golden question – and one that we address with the following ideas: costs on calls (deferred from call center), new initiatives (some may have seen our Red Flag Deals Deal of the Day $185 offer in July. This was the first Group Buying deal that was created in Canada). There’s also metrics like the equivalent of media impressions / earned media.

Tim Hanlon and Karin Reak: I’d like to hear their opinion on using the tools and doing it yourself (esp monitoring) vs outsourcing to an agency/social media “expert” company.
Gloria: This is an interesting one – we pride ourselves in keeping SMED within the Orange culture, and absolutely have the “do-it-yourself” attitude when it comes to monitoring and participation. It’s something that we’re constantly learning about, and constantly working to improve our methods and processes. Outsourcing has its benefits – there may be benefits with scale when it comes to having an agency tackle monitoring and participation, but we like to keep it close to home so we all sound like one Orange voice.

Chris James, Director of Social Media for GNC, joined Sarah Carver for a healthy, half-hour, kitchen table-style Q&A session on the brand’s social media successes. That kitchen was brimming with questions from listeners and it soon became a forum of topics ranging from community to strategy insights to the selection of social media platforms.

GNC’s social strategy has a number of goals including a productive net increase in discussion and questions, having a two-way dialog with their community, and monitoring conversations and questions. But moreover, it’s all about getting their community started on their health and wellness journey with GNC being a part of that exploration. And that drills down to each individual. Community members encompass celebrities, athletes, moms and more. They sometimes include dogs. The idea is to turn detractors into brand ambassadors as GNC partners with individuals on their journey, no matter their mindset. “Social media success equals customer success,” says Chris.

But how does a brand get started? While anyone can create a social media program, having a plan in place upfront is the best way to stand out. This infrastructure is built on listening.

• Listen to customers
• Listen to industry
• Listen to detractors and ambassadors

By listening, you will get a sense of what the community is saying and how and where they’re saying it. This sets the stage for your plan. “We’ll change our plans to address customer pain points,” says Chris. In GNC’s case, while the larger share of voice lived on Twitter and Facebook from a medium perspective, blogs and forums housed the bulk of the customer conversations. The brand needed to be there. As Chris noted, “We are closely listening and engaging as part of our business practice.”

Once the plan launched and the community formed, the individual stories began to unfold. There were stories about weight loss, about beating a triathlon time and moms getting healthy. “It validated that what we’re doing is making an impact.” The brand was sure to engage with the community for better information, customer service and to be an outlet for customers 24/7. “The service doesn’t end when the stores close,” says Chris.

For GNC, social media is weaved into the fabric of their brand. Chis hopes that soon, this practice will not be called “social media” but it will just be doing business the right way.

We thank Chris for his time and to the listeners for their great participation. Don’t worry if you missed it – here’s a recording of the webinar. While we didn’t get to all the questions during the session, Chris was kind enough to take all additional questions and answer them right here. Take a look and if you have any thoughts, feel free to comment!

Ricardo Betancourt: Could you tell us how did you choose the social media websites to be part of? Why Facebook, why Twitter, or other?
[Chris James] The truth is, we went where the party is already happening. Our Facebook & Twitter properties pre-dated me coming to GNC but it was really about following the pack at first. Then, once we used Radian6 to ID other properties (forum & blogs) where people were talking about us, we began to slowly work our way into those conversations.

Kyle Spittler: Are athlete & celebrity community paid or earned endorsements? Examples?
[Chris James] Yes and no. GNC and our vendors have paid endorsers we work with. Others are people we admire or have mentioned us on Twitter or are somehow connected to health, wellness or sports.

@Auctionzip: Do you use the GNC name or ‘twitter account’ or fb profile when answering questions on these niche forums?
[Chris James] We try and keep our branded properties consistent with “@GNCLiveWell” but when we engage elsewhere we like to represent the brand as individuals to enhance our credibility on their site and not come off as spammy.

@donaldbjackson: Have you considered creating a dedicated GNC community forum? Why or why not? When is it appropriate for a co. to consider?
[Chris James] Yes but we are moving away from that strategy based on our successes with Facebook and Twitter. A branded community is only worth it if you have the resources to a) drive customers there and b) keep the conversation on the site fresh day in and day out. Otherwise, consider a corporate blog or avoid it altogether and leverage Facebook, Twitter or some other hot website where your customers spend time.

@donaldbjackson: Which parts of Radian6 service do you use most? Do you supplement with other services? Which?
[Chris James] We use all of it AND we use point solutions for various platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. The vendors or tools you use should reflect the goals of your social media strategy. There isn’t one single template or toolset to get you there.

@donaldbjackson: Can you talk explicitly about how you tie together social media and customer service? Is this handled all by one department?
[Chris James] No, it’s a shared task currently with Marketing being the ones out there and mixing it up every day and we escalate more serious issues to our phone reps on an as needed basis. At some point next year, the reps will also use Radian6 to proactively assist customers with issues.

Jim King: The word “community” is used so much now. What does community mean?
[Chris James] Pretty simple. It just means a group of people with common interests. I can ID at least 5 “communities” of customers we want to target. The challenging thing is that they are all over the place online. I wish there was one site or place they hung out but by nature that’s not likely so we try and go to as many of those sites as possible or influence people in those communities to speak on our behalf.

Vince Tobias: Have you had any unprecedented experience in your community? Say in an attempt to regain customer confidence, the company gave an exception for this one customer. It then created a trend or mindset for other customers to follow suit because this one customer shared his experience in social media. How did you react or what could you recommend to avoid such unwanted incident.
[Chris James] We haven’t but I’ve seen it happen in prior roles at Dell and AMD. The fact is, they will share their experience no matter what. The only thing you can even attempt to do is mitigate how far their opinion spreads. If your brand is out there actively engaged and helpful, a bad incident is less likely to become a “group think” problem than you can’t control. The only way to know what issues are out there or need to be addressed is if you listen first.

Nigel Linnane: Do GNC customers ever ask/wonder how you have picked up on their conversations. you have not started?
[Chris James] A small few. Most get that Twitter, for example, is not private. We draw the line though and don’t respond to specific Facebook posts that did not happen on our page. That would be creepy. It’s a semantic difference but people who share on Facebook expect their conversation to be private even when their privacy settings have it showing to the whole world.

Ghazwan Almoazen: How much do you promote GNC in your posts?
[Chris James] We are actually heavily promotional because we are a retailer and people expect to get deals thrown at them but we try to be conversational as much as possible. At brands I have worked for in the past, it was very much the opposite. I guess it depends on your business and what your customers expect from you. The more likely you are to be personal and conversational, the more likely they will trust what you say. The more you are a shill for your brand & bottom line, the more likely they are to ignore you. Somewhere in the vast middle ground is the balance.

Ricardo Betancourt: How can you measure the social media impact?
[Chris James] That all depends on what we want to “impact.” Sales? Well that’s tough if we doing anything else besides giving them a coupon code. Awareness? Site Traffic? Conversion? Social marketing is capable of achieving a lot of different business objectives but you have to know how your customers use social media before you can know how to market to them and what you will be measuring success against. It’s not a shortcut to revenue or lower costs, but when utilized properly can absolutely help drive those numbers.

Rosemary  Cafasso: How do you define “listening” — does that include the analytics?
[Chris James] I make a distinction between listening and analytics. Listening is the active act of qualitatively assessing what is being said about your brand or products. Quantitative analytics almost always follow a qualitative assessment and are necessary to judge magnitude of conversation or results from a conversation. However, analytics usually come at the end of something and are a reactive process. Listening is active and can even be a proactive process.

Kyle Spittler: What are GNCs specific measures of success in Social Media (likes/shares/clicks/etc.)? Do these vary based on project/campaign?
[Chris James] Yes, they vary based on what the goal of the social activity is and on the measure outcomes available to us. Facebook engagement consists on impressions, likes, clicks, unlikes and page views. The relevant measure needs to be matched up with the goal: maximizing message reach, driving additional customer attachment, driving .com traffic, unsubscribe rate, etc.

Kyle Spittler: Do you find there is enough social media volume to justify being out there?
[Chris James] Absolutely. Good example is in Twitter. We have 75k followers and get mentioned a few thousand times per month. The amount of times just our brand (not our Twitter account) gets mentioned on the web is 10 times greater. Shortage of conversation is not a challenge in the health & wellness industry.

Joel Kelly: Can you talk more specifically about monitoring and your plan for it? Do you have specific teams handling monitoring, or is it a shared role among people in each department?
[Chris James] We have some sharing of the burden across groups but only specific people are authorized to respond on behalf of the brand they must undergo training to have that privilege. We intend to expand that program outside of HQ and into the stores eventually, allowing associates, managers and franchisees to be a part of the conversation.

Keith Huddleston: With Brand in mind how do address customers who are creating negative feedback or legal allegations?
[Chris James] It depends on the nature of content. In many cases, we simply report it to legal or if there is something we can do we escalate it to Customer Service. A response is only made if we feel it can help resolve the situation. Otherwise, we hold our tongues. We have guidelines in place that help determine the best course of action.

@donaldbjackson: I’m looking for case studies on starting communities. Any you can recommend?
[Chris James] Dell and Microsoft have many case studies. Tech has done online communities well over 20 years.

ING Direct is a different kind of bank. They don’t have brick and mortar branches, instead, they interact with their customers by Internet and phone. It should come as no surprise that this bank has truly embraced the social web and the opportunities that it offers their customers.

ING Direct’s THRiVE Chequing Account was developed with this concept in mind: helping customers save money is essential. The bank thrived on customer feedback and sought to make changes to their offerings accordingly. The challenge was how to gather this information in an efficient and timely manner. The answer was social listening.

The bank took a proactive approach to their customer research and started engaging with their customers on Facebook, Twitter and the ING website. They gathered customer feedback about their THRiVE account every step of the way. This has proven to be a great success for ING Direct as it has increased customer retention, conversations and media results.

To learn more about how customer feedback can help increase customer loyalty, check out the ING Direct Case Study. And please join our webinar on September 8th at 2pm ET when we talk with Gloria Chik, Social Media Director for ING Direct, about their customer-focused approach to social listening.

The 2011 CRM Evolution was buzzing with more than sessions, showcases and keynotes. It housed a live webinar featuring Brent Leary, co-founder of CRM Essentials and Laurie McCabe of SMB Group. Hosted by David Alston, the roundtable-type discussion put the spotlight on small businesses and the transformation process of becoming a successful social organization.

They also discussed spaghetti on the wall. But we’ll get to that.

If you missed yesterday’s webinar because you spent the afternoon in meetings, taking phone calls, checking email or attempting all three at the same time, don’t worry. Today’s post recaps the session, houses the presentation slides, shares the webinar audio recording and more.

So let’s dive in.

Brent and Laurie started with strategy. Social media is a place for strategic vision and for small businesses, that plan is going to lead to stronger effectiveness and results. But where do you begin?

Listening is key. This will enable your business to understand the environment and determine customer sentiment toward your brand. You’ll start to notice where your customers are spending most of their time on the social web. Plus, as Brent Leary put it, “The more you listen, the more people will want to talk to you.”

Think through your content. Before you start pushing out messages, ensure your content is valuable to consumers. That doesn’t mean high quality (some of the best video content can be done with a handheld camera such as simple how-to videos) and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. It should obtain interest and grow conversation and community. This is not about tooting your own horn or blasting marketing messages. After all, why use old media approaches in a new media format?

Institute meaningful engagement. As you listen to consumers and share valuable content, you can also begin to engage with them and start conversations. This is a place for idea creation and connection. You’ll start to foster your own community to nurture and grow. Always think about how to bring conversations into your business. Keep an open dialog to address challenges and build trust. Using monitoring tools will enable you to more easily track these conversations and engage.

Approach with an open mind. Now we come back to spaghetti on the wall. Social media will benefit small businesses in different ways and to determine what works best for you, consider a trial and error approach. Constant gathering and actioning will enable you to see what’s working in order to optimize for better results. You try something to see what sticks, a.k.a the “spaghetti on the wall” approach.

Make it a group effort. Keep all parties of your business involved with social media. Integrate social strategies across multiple departments such as HR, product development and CRM. This will enable a more agile, responsive, and proactive program and will grow and extend relationships internally and externally.

The insights in this webinar will help you go from a marketing organization to a great social media organization. Here’s even more information from the session:

• Audio recording [Adobe Connect]
• Slide presentation
• Laurie McCabe’s blog post recap

What are your thoughts on this webinar? Feel free to share!

Paul Greenberg is what you might call a renaissance man. His blog says it all: CRM, Philosophy, Baseball & Universal Metaphors. And by baseball, he’s talking about his beloved Yankees, in whose honour each season he reduces the fingernails on both hands to mere nubs. President at The 56 Group and author of the hugely successful business bible CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategy, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers, Greenberg is, quite simply, the real deal.

At his keynote during Social 2011 he owned the room. A relaxed, real speaker without pretense, he spoke about how social media has absolutely and without precedent changed our world. And during our recent webinar with him, he hammered that point home again in classic New York style, taking us from hype to depression in one short sentence. Hype can be a killer. But Greenberg is clear on one thing – Social CRM is no hype. It is a communications revolution, and one that has impacted every single institution that we, as people – not ‘customers’ or ‘employees’ but people – interact with every single day. People communicate now, from PCs to mobile devices, around the world and 24/7 if they so desire, in places that the business no longer owns, nor has any control over. This is a game changer. From a business perspective it means one very clear thing: the customer now controls the business ecosystem.

According to Greenberg, quoting the Edelman Trust Barometer, the most trusted brand advocate or spokesperson is ‘a person like me’. Not a person known for years and years, but one that you might have never met face to face, yet who shares similar thoughts, ideas, belief systems, hobbies, etc.. People ‘like me’ have become major influencers to potentially thousands of others through these new communications channels. And because of this seismic change in how people communicate today, their expectations as consumers have changed as well. Here are the top three things that consumers are looking for from companies these days:

• High quality products and services. That’s a given. But read on.

• Transparent – and honest – business practices.

• And a company that they can trust.

Trust is the new barometer. Consumers, people ‘like me’, want companies that are ‘like them’ also. This is key. Greenberg has one incredible example of a company doing just that, being transparent and borderline crazy about how much they share about the inner workings of their organization with their customers. And no surprise, they are consistently the top ranked company in their part of the world, and sailed through the last few years of economic downturn unscathed. He also cites other companies who are killing it at frontline customer engagement, P&G for one, and others who, well, aren’t.

One point he made clear is that companies need to get the heart of the company onboard when it comes to social CRM. It must be a mission statement, almost. Because if one part of your organization excels at it, but the rest doesn’t, guess what? You will ultimately fail.

There is so much take away in this webinar, I could write for days. But hey, I’m no Paul Greenberg. If you missed the webinar, please watch it. If you were there yesterday, watch it again. And again. Each time something new and powerful will resonate. Trust me.

We woud love your feedback on this webinar. Please leave your comments below.

Yesterday we were joined by Bryan Jennewein as we hosted a special Insights overview webinar for our clients. During this webinar Bryan walked us through the capabilities of the new Radian6 Insights platform. He gave us an overview of what Insight does, how Radian6 overlays the data and who this information can be used by. Continuing with the question theme, he then walked us through a live demonstration of the platform showing us the who, what and why behind the topic profile data. All questions that you can answer with insights! We then finished up with a Q&A session that brought up some great questions from our users that you will see answered over the coming weeks in a series of blog posts on the Platform blog.

Many of those in attendance asked about the possibility of getting access to the deck that Bryan used and since we never want to disappoint, we’ve provided that below.

If you missed the webinar or would just like to view it again, you can do so by visiting here.

Big thanks to everyone who joined us!