Know thy audience . . .

Seth Godin who's latest book Tribes focused on the concepts of Leadership and who is leading, included a rather interesting section when talking about participation in the leadership process - this is a little out of context but it fits in nice with the concept of "knowing your audience".  Here goes: 

"Friending ten or twenty or a thousand people in Facebook might be good for your ego but it has zero to do with any useful measure of success."

We've all been caught up in the concepts of trying to put a return on the numbers as we work towards finding the right tools to fit into the strategies that organization are trying to utilize on the social networking front.  And it occurred to me as I was putting together some research for my P2P book chapter ( don't ask, the fight does not go well ) that sometimes numbers for numbers sake isn't the be all / end all for business to look at especially on the tech front.  We are always looking for the right tools to track, slice, dice, segment and then take the next step with - or rather engage our "tribe" to take on a leadership role. 

But are we asking the right questions to get there?  and then what are we doing with the answers?

There was a session called Navigating the Multi-Channel Challenge at the Blackbaud / Target User Forum last week in Boston headed up by Beth Isikoff, Senior Director, Business Development, Merkle, Inc.  Beth contributed not only some great personal experience as a donor to six different large nonprofit organizations but she did something very clever.  She challenged the group to think about the following: at what point in the relationship did marketers cross channels and begin to communicate with our "tribes" in a different fashion? Because, and this was very telling, becoming aware of how you are perceived by others is invaluable as you plan how you hope to engage and cultivate your followers into leaders.

So here was the exercise, ( disclaimer time, I am hoping I don't paraphrase this too much but I am looking at my notes which if you saw my penmanship, is a challenge for some cryptographer - I should have been a doctor )

The room had a bout 85 folks in the room, it was one of the last sessions of the last day so not surprisingly the numbers weren't up, their loss as Beth absolutely ROCKED!  So half way into the presentation she started talking about how one of the non profits she had joined over the phone started asking her what was a series of questions designed to be part of a poll.  Half way into it Beth started asking questions back like "Why are you asking me that?"  The questions didn't seem to resonate or connect her with the mission of the organization.  Which made Beth start to realize we don't always ask the right questions.  She used this little exercise as an example of asking not just the right questions but get at what what matters, who should you really be focusing on to find your movers and shakers?

The room was asked:

• how many of you are pet owners:  3/4 of the room stood
• remain standing, how many of you standing have gotten your pet a treat, something other then just food:  about a third sat down
• of those standing how many got your pet a present either for Christmas or some holiday / event:  another half sat down
• final question - of those still standing, how many of you gift wrapped your pets present:  2/3 of those still standing sat down

That handful of folks remaining were the hard core pet lovers, the movers, the shakers, the ones who if you asked would carry your flag or banner into battle.  Those are the folks we want to be our leaders, those are the folks we are going to get the most out of and cultivate to that next level.  This is harsh to say but I'll say it, it's this group we want to spend the majority of our time on.

It was an interesting exercise as we we went from 60 pet owners who stood up to about 10 real pet enthusists left standing all because we enganged and found out more, we asked the right questions.  Knowing who you want to engage with is key to leadership and as Seth Godin pointed out:

"Followers who do nothing but mindlessly follow instructions, let you down . . ."  

 

Social networking gives you an opportunity to cultivate and engage at a much larger and quicker level but it has to be more then just "showing up".  Meaning that many of us who join Facebook feel like we have to join a group in order to be part of the "social" aspects that make up this medium.  Godin rightfully claims that:

". . . users have the false impression that joining a group somehow matters.  It doesn't."

I agree, the act of joining is meaningless, I want to know who's wrapping the raw hide bone.

Posted via email from Michael's posterous