Next week techMAP holds an event featuring the highly respected Mark Schaefer who is talking about the concepts in his latest book release ROI : Return on Influence.

I wanted to get your opinion on a few things before the event itself, so please take a few mins to give your opinion on the following in the comments section.

Q: What do you think about the concept of Social scoring and ranking influence?

Q: What do you think about influential blogger outreach or influencer marketing?

Q: What do you think specially about Klout?

Q: Should a form of social influence be on your cv?

Your thoughts will help shape how we move forward, so thanks all, much appreciated…

Barry

Today I’m going to be live blogging from The Social Customer conference run by Our Social Times, the event has a fantastic line up of speakers offering invaluable insights into the future of customer service and social media marketing. It will also highlight innovative customer engagement and social CRM strategies and techniques.

I’ll be adding notes into the article below throughout the day… and follow the #SCRM12 hashtag for tweets!

The Rise of the Social Customer
Guy Stephens – Technology Consultant, CapGemini

The rise of the Social Business, its a approach and culture that needs to be adopted, The Cluetrain Manifesto is a must read book if you’re going to attempt it. Guy Stephens explains how social media has been adopted by consumers and how this is changing their relationship with companies. Citing examples of how businesses are changing and adapting their internal structures and processes to enhance their services and meet customer expectations. Making your business Customer Centric is not about technology, but about a cultural shift in the business, this culture and approach will lead you to implement Social technology, but it must follow the shift…

Nice point: ‘Before you make these changes for Social Business, ignore the technology, look at objectives for the business first’ #scrm12

We’d make a huge step forward if we apply the Conversation Prism to Customer Service rather than just marketing #scrm12

How Marketing & Customer Service Can Work Together
Martin Hill-Wilson, Director, Brainfood Consulting

Businesses have a huge disconnect between departments, we still operate in silo’s despite working so hard (well at least talking so hard) for so long… We can only get get over this when we finally work as a business, together, with a single agenda. Are we finally over the bad old days of over promising and under servicing customers? When Marketing and Customer Service fail in this way, the value of customer engagement is lost. Why do we manage these two closely aligned activities separately? What does effective collaboration look like? And, can it really happen? Customer Centric might even allow the business to empower its customer to become a voice in the customer service department – Consumer Managed Q&A forums?

Sky take 50-75million calls from it’s customers – Its not hard to see the value of reducing the volume with Social #scrm12

Smart businesses map the customer journey, look at potential ‘Social’ touch points & develop a common single agenda #scrm12

Panel Discussion: Who Should “Own” Social?
Moderator – Neville Hobson (Communications Consultant), Katy Howell (Managing Director, Immediate Future), Nick Sharples (Corporate Communications Consultant), Martin Hill-Wilson (Brainfood Consulting), Aaron Stewart (Product Marketing Manager, KANA Software)

Moderated by Neville, the discussion floats around the topic of who owns Social. No single person in a business, or no single department should own Social, it should be a communication and engagement channel throughout the company. The higher you are in business the more you experience disconnect, a CEO may provide guidance of strategy, but every customer touchpoint can be empowered to use Social. In most organisations, Marketing has led the way in social media adoption and usage. Some would say, though, that “social” is more attuned to the goals of Customer Services – in which a focus on generating trust and delivering value is not polluted by a requirement to generate leads. I think the answer to the discussion results similar to a comment Neville experienced on his blog, We’re asking the wrong question! But there should be a department that take lead to pass things through the companies eco-system – is this the Social Media command centre?

Social media needs someone to ‘Lead’ it not ‘Own’ it within an organisation says @nicksharples1 #scrm12 #custserv

Customers don’t own ur social media they inform it. Do you know ur customer journey via @katyhowell #scrm12

Insight is great, but it’s useless unless it is actionable, the business still needs the attitude & culture to make things happen #scrm12

Control never really there, a construct that orgs lulled their customers/themselves into believing. Customers finally waking up! #scrm12

Everything Everywhere Case Study: Leveraging Social Customer Service to increase Customer Loyalty
Ben Kay – Head of Digital Strategy and Adoption, Everything Everywhere

A practical case study about the work of TMobile/Orange. Customers made 1.33Bn Calls, 5.5Bn Texts and used 326Bn Kilobytes of Data, they use the data services rather than a call even to ask about Customer Service problems. Listen, Listen, Listen and keep Listening. Everything Everywhere wanted to find out about the brand conversation – who, why, where. Then look at how to we manage this? Ben has an interesting and rather conflicting statement to bust the myth of reducing calls – he says when you have 27 million customers the phone will always ring, maybe we can marginally shift this. We enjoyed a rather honest and critical look at how and why Everything Everywhere participate in Social.

How do customers seek service? 77% search, 71% go to company site, 48% read reviews, 13% use social networks (Mintel) @Benjamin_Kay #scrm12

Some Orange/TMobile stats: Customers made 1.33Bn Calls, 5.5Bn Texts and used 326Bn Kilobytes of Data #SCRM12 << All about the data...!

Panel Discussion: Measuring the Value and Effectiveness of Customer Communities
Moderator – Luke Brynley-Jones (Our Social Times), Bian Salins (Head of Social Media Innovation, BT Customer Service), Vincent Boon (Community Manager, GiffGaff/Telefonica), Guy Stephens (Cap Gemini)

Value and Effectiveness is one of those metrics that is hard to quantify. We look at cost reduction, renewals (sales), sentiment, net promoter scores etc. Customers are increasingly being asked to resolve their problems through interaction in communities, but do these really work? How can companies measure the effectiveness of their customer communities and what techniques can be used to ensure that knowledge is effectively shared and stored, that problems are resolved and that customer satisfaction levels are maintained? GiffGaff have achieved 85% of support successfully by use of Social and Web support. Again, clarification that Customer Services starts at Google… Your customer know so much about your products, more than you might yourself as a business. Bian almost wins quote of the day with “I’ve leant more from customers than anyone In the business”.

Giffgaff originally started in social to reduce customer service costs. It has since evolved into a way of living! #scrm12

Frustrated community customers can end up being your brand ambassadors by getting the answers they need and being satisfied #scrm12

#scrm12 “I’ve leant more from customers than anyone In the business”. Great quote from Bian Salins

Afternoon Keynote: The Future of Social Customer
Frank Eliason – VP Social Media, Citi

We’re joined by Frank via Webinar (phew, the internet worked!), he’s the voice behind @ComcastCares he successfully demonstrated that social media could enable a large corporation to build genuine relationships with their customers. At Citi he says he is focused on “building a lifetime of trust” between the bank and its customers. In this live video presentation Frank offers his insights into how large organisations should approach social customer engagement. In his whitty manner Frank talks us through the traditional process of customer complaints, it’s tough business. Social Media allows consumers to enthusiastically complain in a public domain, we’re connecting with frustration in a public environment so it has become a priority we need to tackle. Business want Social Service, Consumers want the product to work. For 20 years call centers have slowly become huge cost centers, and therefore sales centres – consumer do not want to be sold to in this environment, but it happens – these are key things to think about in Social Service. Social Media brings out Passion, so driving change in a brand that witnesses bad sentiment online can quickly turn it round and those same people that are passionate will continue to show their now positive passion.

Everything about the call centre is about getting you off the phone via @frankeliason #scrm12

Business want Social Service, Consumers want the product to work #SCRM12

British Gas Case Study: Implementing a Cohesive Strategy for Customer Engagement
Lloyd Salmons, Managing Director, Outside Line and Laura Price – Social Media Manager, British Gas

In this co-presented session British Gas and agency, Outside Line, explain how they employ social media to generate conversation and social currency around their brand. They demonstrate how they brought together different platforms and teams to create one cohesive strategy, how they have tackled internal and external challenges, and how they use social media to try to mitigate negative sentiment, so prominent in the energy industry. The challenge was to create a eco-system of positive sentiment and perception around the brand, so that the customer journey through to support was one that was reinforced with positive messages about the brand. This calls back to the message from earlier talks where we discussed the customer journey starting more than often in Search, the first steps in this journey are just as important as the interactions later in the process whether they’re call center of socially enabled. British Gas have quantified each view of support YouTube videos to an £80 saving (call time, home visits, parts).

Half of British gas mentions every day are #custserv issues. #scrm12

British Gas have quantified each view of support channel on YouTube videos to an £80 saving (call time, home visits, parts etc) #SCRM12

Integrating Social Media into Traditional Customer Services
Carolyn Blunt – People Development Consultant, Real Results

So how did we get here? Hear Carolyn Blunt explains how customer services has been organised, trained and managed for the past 10 years and how social media is starting to impact on it. She explores what this shift means and what can be done to stay ahead of the curve, to maintain and improve the customer experience and to keep staff working confidently and efficiently. The shift in Social Contact Centers represents a huge cultural change for the providers to the industry, they’re fighting for ownership of a platform and technology with the marketing folks. Its becoming a case of be pro-active or die. Goldern Rules: 1) Consistence across channels (Social and Calls) 2) Never Argue with customers 3) Avoid the Chardonnay Tweeters. Creating a sub-team for the Social task force is a great idea, look at Twitter / Facebook but also we’re seeing the rise of the forums.

Carolyn Blunt is gen X and still wants to phone. Give your customer choice in how they want to converse with you #scrm12

Three responses to social customer, passive, pounce or proactive. Latter is best says @CarolynBlunt #scrm12

Implementing Multi-Channel Social Customer Services
Richard McCrossan (Strategic Business Director , Genesys)

Richard is a huge advocate of Customer Service, ultimately we need to give our customers options. The do not necessarily want to develop a relationship with your brand, they want a good product and they want to quickly resolve any problems in a quick and efficient manner. Customer Service isnt a huge factor in Customer Loyalty, but it’s a major factor in Customer Dis-Loyalty. When we have identified a problem we need to leverage customer service tools, identify the relationship you have with that consumer, deal with the issue there or take it offline, then close the loop.

Being able to empower customer service to move between social and phone can be very powerful #scrm12

Customers don’t want a relationship with an organisation, they want the benefits of it via @dossan #scrm12

Panel Discussion: Does Social Customer Service Improve the User Experience?
Moderator – Maria McCann (Head of Customer Services, Spotify), Dominic Sparkes (Managing Director, Tempero), Amanda Brown (PR Manager, First Direct), David Hughes (Director of User Experience Expedia Affiliate Network), Charlotte Garfield (ACCA).

Nicely put together wrap up of the day. If we took a step back to no Social, would the world be a better place. Consensus on the panel is that we’re enjoying the changing market, brands enjoy the advocacy gained through social and as volumes grow for major brand divertative measures such as social media are ultimately making things possible. Predictions: Sentiment aware websites, faster product development, Mobile Customer Service.

We have some excellent events coming up that SHOULD be in your calender!!

>> techMAP London:
ROI by the guy who wrote the book on it – Mr. @MarkWSchaefer
Join us to listen to the fabulous Mark Schaefer and his exciting ideas and concepts around the ROI of Social Media!
http://www.meetup.com/techmaplondon/events/53024782/

Seduction, persuasion and influence w/ Mr. @RichardSedley
One of our favourite inspiring speakers and a regular techMAP contributor is back, join us to hear about Seduction and Persuasion with Richard Sedley – always a pleasure to here Richard, there are only a few spaces left.
http://www.meetup.com/techmaplondon/events/55873172/

I’m will be attending The Social Customer conference and have negotiated a deal for you guys, check out this line up!!

>>The Social Customer 2012 – London, 29th March:
The Social Customer 2012 is the first in a series of four conferences that Our Social Times hosting this year in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Brussels. Each one-day event will explore how companies are integrating social media into customer service, delivering a better user experience and managing customer engagement between Marketing, Customer Services and Communications. The London conference features an unrivalled line-up of brand speakers from Citibank, BT, First Direct, British Gas, Marks & Spencer, Expedia, GiffGaff/Telefonica and Everything Everywhere.

**10% OFF to techMAP group members http://oursocialtimes.com/socialcustomer/ Using the code: TCM10**

See you at an event soon…

I’ve recently found a lot of conversation surrounding the demise of tweetdeck, the once loved and best spec’d twitter client that was bought by Twitter and ruined.

75% of the useful tools were removed, the RT replaced with some odd ‘quote’ system and generally it’s slowed down our laptops too…

I’ve taken it upon myself to start ‘Project #OldTweetdeck’ and found a source you can download it from

So, Download #OldTweetdeck here and tweet with the #oldtweetdeck hashtag to join the club – bit like a retro 21st century tech version of the TBirds, but without all the Grease…!

****DOWNLOAD ME**** – Windows Version

****DOWNLOAD ME**** – Mac Version

- Thanks to Cafers for sourcing the Mac Version

Today I wanted to say thank you to some of the fantastic brands and agencies that I’ve worked with over the last 3 years in a social recruitment capacity with my business Fresh Resources. I started the company in 2009, and found myself drawn to working with these innovative digital marketing, technology and social media agencies. We’ve placed some really excellent candidates and really enjoyed being a part of growing some excellent teams of people for our clients, and you’ve guided us, supported us and helped us be a recruitment business that is also innovative and ahead of the curve – maybe that’s why we’ve got on so well!

So, thanks guys it’s been fantastic!

You might gather that I have some news by now…

I never really saw myself as a typical recruiter and since falling in love with the digital and social media industry it seemed like a good move to consider how my skills and network of trusted network might fit a business in this space. Co-Founding techMAP a couple of years ago has also given me access to a mass of learning material, invaluable connections with fantastic people and a platform to continue to develop my understanding of the market we work in, and so…

I’m delighted to officially announce that I have been offered to work for a business I have known and grown fond of in recent years. Synthesio are a global player in the Social Media Monitoring, Analysis and Insights market, and I’m delighted that I’ll be joining them as Business Development Manager helping to continue their fantastic growth and reach new brands and agencies who see value in understanding and engaging with their customers. I’m really looking forward to the challenges ahead, and delighted to work for a business that is building innovative technology and supplying brands with such fantastic support to understand this exciting market place.

Of course there will be a period of wind down for Fresh Resources, we have a few final clients who have candidates lined up to start – so I’m still around to talk anytime – but as of 28th Feb, I’ll be officially focussed on my new role with Synthesio…

Special Thanks
@ShannonEastman – I’m blessed to have such a fantastic biz-partner (in crime) running techMAP, best mentor, inspiration and friend anyone could hope for!!
@Synthesio – For having me, I’m delighted and look forward to becoming an important part of the team.
@IamNickHarris – For loyal support at Fresh Resources the past 2 years, he’ll go on to great things < Follow him for jobs!

I’ve been having a bit of fun with the DSLR recently at night, and today it snowed, so what better opportunity to go out and get a couple of cool photos of the car… She might have to finally go up for sale soon, so I thought I’d get some photos in…

techMAP kicked of 2012 with a fantastic presentation about our behavior online, the title was of course rather controversial but the presentation was sensitive, articulate and thought provoking.

More information is up on the techMAP blog

Below is the presentation we filmed and posted on Vimeo – enjoy and let me know your thoughts in the comments below…

Social Media is Shit! Is SM driving social change for better or worse? from techMAP on Vimeo.

Wow… I’ve just received the most unbelievable phone call from the iStrategy Conference Company with reference to a tweet of mine on the 14th December.

I’m familiar with iStrategy because they run a Social Media conference, and during last year they approached upwards of 15 times about either buying tickets or selling me sponsorship – it started again this year with two consecutive phone calls from their usual aggressive highly trained sales people, so I kindly asked to be removed from their call list on both occasions.

Today’s phone call was awkward, with the guy suggesting that my tweet was a low blow and directly an attempt to negatively affect the reputation of his conference, and suggested that I don’t do it again or he will be “forced to retaliate and put bad word about my events”…

To be honest, I’m flattered that they see techMAP’s free monthly meetup as direct competition for their £5000 per ticket yearly global conference, but this certainly wasn’t an attempt of a ‘mines better than yours’ game, and I’m not interested in starting a petty social media war over a single tweet…

Having said that I’m truly disgusted by their approach cannot believe that they followed up my tweet with a further threatening phone call… it’s bad form, shows lack of understanding of the space they work in, and it came with a tone that suggested they didn’t want people to talk about their brand and they’d do anything to protect it!

Guys… Don’t call again and enjoy your conference #thatisall

I’ve never posted jokes here, but these tickled me…

These are classified ads, which were actually apparently placed in a U.K. newspaper:

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8 years old.
Hateful little b * stard.
Bites!

FREE PUPPIES.
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbour’s dog.

FREE PUPPIES.
Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd.
Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer £100.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE.
Worn once by mistake.
Call Stephanie.

**** And the WINNER is… ****

FOR SALE BY OWNER.
Complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 45 volumes.
Excellent condition, £200 or best offer. No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.

#HappyFriday!!!

20% off for #techMAP – Social Media Monitoring Training – London, 26th Jan

Luke Brynley-Jones (Our Social Times) and Marshall Sponder are running an exclusive, one-off social media monitoring class in London on 26th January. Attendees will learn how to choose, set up and configure a monitoring platform; how to identify influencers; how to extract meaning from social media data; and how to create a social media measurement framework.

Only 20 places are available. techMAP members get 20% off with this code: techmap10

Book your place here: http://www.monitoring-bootcamp.com/