Once upon a time, almost a century back, human occupation was mostly “transformational” in nature. Taking raw material and converting into finished goods. Be it a carpenter at work or be it a worker in a factory or perhaps a farmer engaged in agriculture, a majority of the work force was engaged in the business of transformation.

A few decades later, there was shift in the workforce occupation. From transformation workers we became transaction workers. Ringing up bills at the cash counter, an accountant, a truck driver, an office clerk….all these are examples of a transaction driven workforce (basically doing tasks that are rule based and repetitive in nature).

Now we see another shift taking place i.e. from a transaction-active workforce to an interaction-active workforce. An insurance agent, a nurse, a retail salesman, they are all interaction-workers. Interaction requires ability to use ones experience in a given situation. There are a set of experiences and there a set of situations. And a successful interaction worker is the one who is able to respond to a situation by correctly leveraging his experience. He needs to make complex interactions requiring high level of judgement.

If the world GDP, once upon a time was mainly contributed by transformation workforce, today it is mainly contributed by Interaction workforce. Tasks that were transformational in nature or transactional in nature are gradually being taken over by machines. And tasks that are interactive in nature … here is where Social Media is playing the role of an enabler.

Whether Social Media is going to drive the interaction-economy or whether interaction-economy will spur faster growth of social media…either ways it is mutually beneficial relationship.

Once upon a time life used to be 8×5 …eight hours a day for 5 days a week. For some it would be 8×6, 9×6 or some such combination.

Then Internet came along…and life became 24×7. Internet gurus taught us how our ecommerce store could continue ringing in revenues even while we slept…and with 24×7 revenues, came the need for 24×7 customer service. On the other hand, our bosses gave us laptops with data cards…and we became 24×7 corporate slaves. The concept of time changed completely.  It was no longer neatly bracketed into silos (time to work, time to play, time to sleep, and time to do nothing) … it became one long line…with anything happening anytime.

Let me warn you; all this is set to change, again. For good or for worse I don’t know, but it is going to change be sure.  This is how:

• If I need to get my Dell laptop repaired, I need to either look up their manual for a 1.800 number so that I can call them, or I need to logon to their website, pull out a custserv email id and write them a mail, or I need to fill in a form on their website giving details of the complaint. Right?  … Wrong! No need to do this anymore! (BTW Dell India has one of the worst IVRS….it keeps you on hold endlessly)

• Now all you need to do is logon to twitter and send out a tweet “Having problems with my #Dell laptop. Need help”. Chances are that a Dell representative who is continuously monitoring twitter for tweets with references to Dell, will send you a @ message offering a help. Chances are also that a Lenovo representative (who is tracking competition) will also send you a @ message offering help, even though you are a Dell customer (hoping that Lenovo scores some brownie points with you for helping you out !)

The point is that as a consumer, I no longer need a “definitive” address (phone number, email id, website URL etc.) to reach out to a brand. I can just tweet into cyberspace (even without knowing Dells twitter handle). It is like standing on top of my building’s roof and shouting that I am a Dell customer and I need help… and my expectation is that Dell will hear me and respond!

Social Media will create a huge jump in consumers’ expectations of service levels from a brand. He no longer needs to reach out to the brand. It is his expectation that he can just shout out anytime and from anyplace … and that the onus of listening to him and seeking him out lies on the brand. Brands now need to be truly omnipresent.

Welcome to the new reality: 24x7xEverywhere.

The word “Global Village” has been on top of the charts for many years now. You can’t be at an IT conference and not hear this word at least a few times in the day. But we are truly becoming a global village only now…with the advent of Social Networking Sites.

One huge shift that I see on account of social networking sites, will be an overall shift towards more honesty in general human behaviour. That is a very bold statement to make and I rest my case on the following:

• In the good old times, when we lived in villages, it was difficult for someone to cheat another person….simply because everyone knew everyone. In a megapolis like Mumbai, where neighbours are strangers, it is very easy to get away with fraud and deceit. But Social Networks are again making us a village …where lot of people know a lot of people…and that is going to force more discipline and honesty.

• In any society there will be honest people and there will be dishonest people. If we do a plot of honesty levels on the x-axis and number of people on the y-axis. We will see a bell curve emerge. Extreme ends of the bell curve will represent very honest people and very dishonest people. It is my contention that the middle portion of the bell curve will move more towards honesty…thanks to SNS.

Let me share some examples to substantiate my argument:

• Fudging of resumes is known to be routine practice. Besides fudging names of places where one has worked and the duration of work, candidates also routinely keep 3-4 “versions” of their resume ready. Depending on the job opening, a particular version is put out. Hence a person will have one version of the resume which brings him out as a branding expert (to be used for Brand Manager openings) while there is another version which talks about his expertise in setting up sales and distribution networks (to be used for VP-sales kind of openings). Now both of these are actually 2 different job profiles which require 2 different sets of experiences and skills. Now with something like LinkedIn, the “flexibility” of having multiple versions of “myself” is lost…there has to be one and only one me! I need to be on LinkedIn (that is where people will find me) and I need to be myself (else I will get caught).

• Avinash, who works in the office as sales-in-charge, applies for an emergency leave since “his mother has taken ill and needs to be hospitalised”. Actually Avinash wants to take the opportunity to meet up with his college buddy Rohan who has dropped in from out-of-town announced. While Rohan and Avinash are making merry at a restaurant at lunch time, Rohan goes ahead and posts of picture of him and Avinash at the restaurant on his Facebook page. Little does Rohan realise that Avinash’s boss is actually connected to Rohan (through some earlier interaction) and will also have access to this posting. Imagine Avinash’s condition when he shows up at office next day morning!

With GPS tracking built into SNS platforms or emergence of sites like foursquare.com, even more transparency is going to get imposed on us. Can’t tell my wife “I am at office”, if I am actually out in a nearby pub hanging out with friends anymore!

Truly Social Media will increase the honesty quotient. What is your take on this ?

A white paper on Social Media MegaTrends can be downloaded from  http://www.socialwavelength.com/white-papers-download.php

Everything seems to be shrinking. Besides inflation (which is causing the value of money to shrink), there are two more things that are shrinking very fast: our attention span and our window to the world around us.

First, the shrinking attention span:

• Recently I came across a “research report”. It was called an “Infograph”. In about 15 graphs on a single long HTML page, a research on demographics of Social Media users worldwide and their Social Media behaviour had been conveyed. It took all of 6 “Pg Dn” keystrokes to see the graphs and about 10 minutes to digest the communication. Less than 5 years ago, the same data would have been presented in a 20 page pdf file with lot of words and commentary. Not so anymore. Crisp, to-the-point communication. So crisp that if you are not “into the subject matter”, those colourful graphs would remain just that. With substantially reduced attention spans, who really has the time or patience to ‘read’ a research report! We are now living in a world where research reports have become infographs and paragraphs have become tweets. Finally my 6th standard grammar précis writing classes are becoming useful. Today while writing tweets, the key challenge is how to communicate a complete thought process in 140 characters and also generate a question in order to create back flow of communication (If I remove the characters required for a bitly link and for RT), perhaps you need to finish the communication in 120 characters.

Now the shrinking window (no pun on “MS Windows”!)

• Once upon a time, our window to the world was all that our eyes could see if we turned our head from one side to another. Perhaps our eyes could “see” a radius of about 5 kms (if there was no obstruction).
• Then about 100 years ago, cinema screens were invented. A cinema screen was about 20ft x 20ft. Substantially smaller than our earlier window to the world, yet we could see and experience much more through this screen.
• Then 60 years ago, television was invented. The screens become smaller (24” x 12”), but our ability to see increased (now we have multiple channels to choose from).
• Then 30 years back, PC was invented. The screen further shrunk (12” x 5”), but our vision expanded. The WWW allowed to go just about anywhere you desired.
• And now the cell phone. Our screen size is just (2” x 1.5”).

It is interesting that our window to the world is continuously shrinking but our vision or ability to see more is actually increasing!

White paper on Social Media Mega Trends can be downloaded from http://www.socialwavelength.com/white-papers-download.php

]]> http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2010/08/social-media-megatrends-shrinking-world/feed/ 0 http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2010/04/strategising-for-social-media-the-three-circles-of-success/ http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2010/04/strategising-for-social-media-the-three-circles-of-success/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:43:33 +0000 Hareesh Tibrewala http://blog.socialwavelength.com/?p=614

Are you struggling to grow your Facebook Fans ? Or not getting enough quality followers on Twitter? Do a Google search and you will find zillions of articles telling you “10 ways to increase your Facebook Fans” and “5 Tips to Getting more Twitter Followers”. And perhaps following some of these tips may actually help to get some numbers.  However as Social Media matures,  we will see a shift happen from “activity” based thinking to building a “strategic” approach to finding and more importantly retaining Followers and Fans.

I like to the think of a Social Media communication  strategies in terms of 3 concentric circles. Think of the brand as being at the centre.

• Circle (A) is the circle of fans (say on Facebook)  who are already connected to the brand
• Circle (B) is the circle of friends, of all those fans who are already connected to the brand
• And Circle (C) is “rest of the world”

Any Social Media strategy has to think in terms of what to communicate to each of these 3 circles and how to expand A (that is the end objective)

Let us look at circle A.  If you, as a brand, have a  1000 fans on your fan page, you have 1000 people who are willing to receive information from you. How do you keep them engaged?  How do you ensure that they continue receiving your feed? There is always a possibility that a person is your fan but has turned off receiving your feed…..hence you continue to see him in your fan count but he is actually not there.

These are early days, and right now people are going to be joining all  kinds of fan pages, mostly out of curiosity and partly on account  of some tempting promotion or give-away. But as dust settles, consumers will  be more discerning . A consumer does not  want to be scrolling through 10 pages of FB updates on a daily basis. Primarily he want to receive updates from his friends . He wants to know what is happening in their lives…that is his primary reason to be on Facebook. At the same time he is  willing to allow a few brands to send him messages. Hence very soon brands will need to compete for attention from their fans.

In order to ensure that your fan is willing to receive your feed, it is important for you  to occupy some portion of your  fans (consumers) life.  In his daily life, you need to mean something to him. Hence start by identify what part of his life (or his needs) can you fulfil. And this thinking will need to be “outside-in” and not “inside-out”. Do not think “What do I make and how can I get my fan to buy it “. Rather, think: What does my TG (target group) really look for in their day-to-day lives and what part of their needs can I fulfil (which also in some way connects to what my brand stands for). E.g if you are manufacturer of soaps, you can fulfil the need of a beautician in your consumers life. If you are are an insurance company, you can fulfil the need of a financial planner…..and so on. Once you identify what part of your consumers life you can own (and mind you “go thin”. Don’t try to be everything to your consumer. Try to be something very specific…. that will give you the edge), engage your consumer around that.

Note, the word is “engage” not “sell”. While communicating to your fans by way of Facebook updates, follow the 80:20 ratio. 80% of the communication should be about fulfilling the consumers needs, not about promoting the brand.  If as brand, 80% of the time you talk to consumer about something  meets his needs, then maybe 20% time he will be willing to listen to your marketing communication.

This is how you work on engaging circle A and more importantly ensuring that the consumer remains with you and does not hide your updates from his Facebook feed. These are early days and brands that are able to occupy a part of the consumers Facebook timeline, will find it easy to leverage the asset base.

Circle B is the circle of all those people who are friends of  those people who are already your fans. If you have 1000 fans, and each of these fans is connected to an average of 300 people, then circle  B comprises of 300,000 people. And these 300,000 people are most likely the kind of people that you as a brand are looking for. E.g. If you were a medical brand and all my fans are doctors, then who are their friends likely to be ? Obviously more doctors…and these are exactly the kind of guys you are looking for. Hence the key focus for any social media practitioner should be to find ways to convert people from circle B to circle A.

And how does that happen ?  Via people in circle  A.  People in circle A need to be “motivated” to tell their friends in circle B, to join the fan page of your brand. And how does this “motivation” manifest itself :

• Provide shareable content: As someone said “I will not tell my friends about your brand because I like your brand, I will tell them because I like my friends”. So think, what is it that your fans will find worthy of sharing.  A text posting in not shareable on Facebook. Hence good content supported by visual communication (images, videos) will make the content shareable.
• Polls, quizzes, photo tagging, group activities are other methods of reaching out to your fans’ friends
• Facebook applications : This is one of the most powerful tools to leverage circle A to reach out the circle B. Application should be designed in such a manner that is involves your fans getting their friends to participate via the application. Hopefully while participating, lot of them may get motivated  join your fan page.

And then we come to circle C. This is the rest of the 400 million Facebook users (less people in circle A and circle B) reside. This is the biggest circle in terms of size but also one prone to high wastage in terms of rewards-to-efforts.  Ways to reach out to this circle would be by way of

• Participation on relevant Facebook forums and becoming a part of that community
• Creating virals that get forwarded and talked about
• Creating events and contests that can spread by word-out-mouth
• Advertising on Facebook. These are early days and cost of fan acquisition on Facebook is still affordable

A successful growth strategy has to able to create a ripple effect that percolates from Circle A to B and then to C

In my opinion one should focus one’s efforts as  follows

• Initially build  Circle A : Keep them engaged and involved. Ensure they don’t turn off the update feed that you send them. Try to become an important part of their lives
• Then get on to Circle B : This is the most relevant TG for a brand and perhaps the easiest the crack.
• And finally look at  Circle C : As a brand we need them but then this is like finding needles in a haystack. Facebook advertising or viral applications could act as a magnet to pull out the needles in the haystack.

What  is your opinion ?

If voting was restricted to Twitter alone, Shashi Tharoor could have been elected Prime Minister of India! Sadly for Tharoor, it isn’t, and there is life beyond.

Without a doubt, Shashi Tharoor has done more for brand Twitter in India than anybody else! Common citizens, who are far away from using Twitter, also recognize the word Twitter, thanks to Tharoor, and the news he made, with his cattle-class and such tweets!

But the same medium that made him famous, could well have spelled Tharoor’s undoing. And which is where, there are Social Media lessons to learn, for the rest of us. But I am jumping to the conclusion. Let me cut back to the beginning first.

So the Tharoor – Sunanda Pushkar –  Lalit Modi – IPL saga has been enough in the news, for me to repeat the gory details. And this piece is not about who was right and who was wrong, but more about Shashi Tharoor, and the Social Media mistakes he made.

The genesis of his mistakes though, can be understood, if we understand his personality. And M J Akbar does a great job of describing this in his Sunday piece in the Times of India. Couples of key facts pointed out by Akbar are that Tharoor did not leave his high profile and high pay UN assignment to join Indian politics, rather he left it to try and get the top job at the UN. And that for Tharoor, half limelight is better than no limelight! Also that Bush considered him to be immature.

In all of these statements lie perhaps, the explanations for Tharoor shooting off his mouth every now and then, and for his landing into a mess now, which Akbar puts as “writhing between a mistake and misfortune”.

Tharoor through his wild and popular run as the favorite Indian Twitter celebrity account, made an art of creating 140 character copy. Tweets that would be cheered by Indian Twitterati, tweets that would get huge RTs, and which as a consequence, generated huge Twitter following, and a cheering squad, which was happy to get a ‘cool and handsome MP who was tongue-in-cheek, and had a great sense of humor too, and who was so different from the boring Indian politicians of the day’! Tharoor looking for that half limelight could have not asked for more. To repeat the first sentence of this post, he had reached a position where if an election was based solely on Twitter votes, he had reached a position where he would win hands-down!

But the fact was that, Tharoor was just a great copywriter and made tweets interesting. He was not really that cool as a person, and he was not that far from the other politicians he would ridicule so often, in terms of his integrity.

And Santosh Desai, in his column again in the Times of India, explains how Tharoor’s slick language and style got him into more trouble than good, and how in this particular case, it landed him into quick sand. When style comes without adequate substance, such slips happen. And Tharoor slipped, ultimately resulting in loss of face, and an ignominious resignation from the ministry.

As Santosh Desai points out, and I have seen in person, in the twitter stream, and in the Tharoor support forums that have sprung up, Tharoor will still remain a favorite on Twitter. But his political future is another issue.

So what is the key Social Media lesson here?

The one and most important fact that this episode brings to the fore, is that on Social Media, you cannot pretend to be someone you are not. Or in other words, it is not just about words you use, but that you really have to ‘be it’. Take into contrast, another celebrity, Anand Mahindra. In fact, there has been a decent compilation of Anand Mahindra’s Twitter efforts, and how effectively he has used the medium. Now Anand Mahindra asks questions, admits he does not know it all, converses genuinely, and helps where he can. In short, he comes out as a regular human being, even if he is not one another common man. On the other hand, Tharoor came out looking larger than life, which unfortunately he was not!

And this is the last thing you do on Social Media. Social Media in general and Twitter in particular, is very public space. It amplifies conversations, and you create a Social Media brand positioning / reputation for yourself. If this is very different from who you really are, the pretense cannot be kept up for too long. Because Social Media has its own way of circling back, and haunting you, for your inconsistencies.

Social Media is about being honest to yourself, it is about transparency, and it is about being fair to your fans and followers.

As someone pointed out, best practices on use of Social Media are yet to emerge. But in the early days as we are, these are some early lessons to pick.

In lighter vein, Shashi Tharoor could attempt another first on Twitter, if he wants. If he chooses to resign from Twitter as well, he could be the first one to auction off his 700-odd-thousand follower account?!

Dear Customer,
The new Financial Year has started. But for us at Social Wavelength, it also coincides with our birthday. We got started in early April, 2009. And wow.. the year has zipped by!

Social Media is exciting. And being in the thick of things, as a Social Media agency, we have had year long excitement! And it promises not to stop, and in fact, it only gets  zippier.

So here are some highlights of the year that went by:

1. The first two months were, well, the first two months! The first two young men I decided to employ left me in 1 day and 2 days respectively.. lol. Then I managed to get a person whom I had worked with earlier, to get started with us. At least she would not run away. Its another thing that she was just not cut out for Social Media, and we had to part few months later!
2. There was still the issue of getting a first client. The only way to do it, was to catch a friend. And get his business. Which is what I did with Kartik Shah. And Skyscape Inc., USA remains a client. In the interim, they got bought over! Maybe we brought them good luck!!
3. How I got my first partner, in this business, is another story. But suffice it to say, that few coffees, few chats, and meeting of the minds, made this happen. An unlikely combination of a 23 year old Engineer, into his first job after engineering, quitting that job, to become an entrepreneur, by joining a 40-something (yes, 40-something is good enough; don’t ask for precise numbers here!) gray haired veteran of sorts, to help the world figure their way around Social Media! Welcome aboard, Mihir Karkare!
4. I did not realize this first. But it sank in soon enough that we were getting into the larger framework of the advertising world! And while I was comfortable about my business understanding, my knowledge on the Internet and Social Media space, but advertising industry was a different world! There was just so much to unlearn and many new things to learn. That khakhis and shirt can often be considered as being overdressed, and that a minimum of one f*** in a sentence was mandatory, were amongst the easier things to learn. Long pre-sales cycles, longer approval cycles, and longest payment cycles were harder to figure out!!
5. I learned that what we were preaching actually works! Yes, Social Media works for Social Media business. Doing no specific business development effort, but by being active on offline and online social media (offline social media = your personal network) generated leads, and then by providing reasonable thought leadership, this converted to business. Does this sound like what I talked to you, when I asked for your business? Well, it worked for me anyway!!
6. October 1 is the birthday of my friend. This happened to be the momentous day when that friend – also my partner at Homeindia.com – came on board at Social Wavelength as a partner. Bringing all of his bald pate, a symbol of his wisdom and capabilities, with him, and we were now more than ready to take on the world! Welcome, Hareesh Tibrewala. Now we kick ass.. !
7. They called us Mr. Keynote. Seeing a virtual deja vu of 1997-98 when we were called to speak all over the place, about the Internet, we now start receiving invitations to talk about Social Media. Hareesh and I need to ration the time we can give for such outings, as “we have to take care of your business too”!
8. We have managed simply. We have limited resources which we deployed well. We have spartan premises. We do not have a pool table. We do not have guitars or any other musical instruments. We serve chai or coffee, but there too, many prefer to go down, smoke and grab a cutting from the guy downstairs. But we have a lot of enthusiasm. We have a great team, who always have fun, who have a smile on their faces, no matter what the clock reads. That’s all we need to go to the next leap now.

But all this has happened, thanks to you, dear customer. You reposed your faith in us. You are a leader to embrace this new medium so early. And most importantly – you signed our cheques

The one year is a milestone for sure. But we know we have many more to come. And we look to have you with us on this journey.

Meanwhile let’s do a beer together. Whenever you are free. Tell us. It will be on us (well ultimately, you pay for it!!).

Very warm regards – Sanjay Mehta

Internet  came to town a decade ago and change our lives forever. Not only did it change the way we did business but it changed the way we lived life. Email became our primary communication tool and web URL became the primary way to disseminate information. It was OK if you did not have a physical office address but is was not OK if your business card did not carry a URL.

Web 2.0 is once again re-defining our lives. It promises to be bigger and have a more significant impact on us than Web 1.0. If Web1.0 was driven largely by Internet connectivity and PCs, Web 2.0 will be driven by the mobile telephony and Social Networking Sites( SNS).

To give an example of the power of this lethal combination of SNS and mobile phone savour the following examples

• Imagine you area at a conference where there are another 100 delegates  like yourself. May be there are some people you know, but there is a larger number of people you don’t know. You pull out your cell phone, take up a position at a vantage point and take a picture of the audience.  Your cell phone software very quickly connects to servers to leading SNS sites, does  image mapping , and in just about no time, the picture reappears on your cell phone, except that this time it has been tagged by names of the all the people in the audience with their designations and company names. You click on a name, and that persons profile is right there before you. Now you the faces that you need to catch up with during the tea break!

Each one of us are now fully “identifiable” at any point of time. It is almost like having a name tag pinned to your Tshirt pocket at all times. Even if one wants to remain anonymous, this combination of a cell phone + SNS sites, ensures that there is no place to hide….not anymore

Let us look at another example of how this cell phone +SNS combination is going to transform our decision making process

• Imagine I am tourist who has come to Mumbai from Delhi. Here I am, at the Hanging Garden, enjoying the sight of Chowpatty. Now I wish to proceed for lunch. Once a time I would need to depend on a tourist guide book or the taxiwalla to guide me.  Now, no more!  I flash my cell phone, switch on the camera and hold it against a view of the Chowpatty landscape. I click a button asking for a listing of restaurants. Promptly all restaurants that are  in focus in  the camera appear tagged on the camera. Now I know that there is Pizza Hut and a Rajdhani and a Copper Chimney in my view. I click on a particular restaurant and I can see the menu card and the price list. I click on yet another button and I can see recommendations.  Best of all, I can specifically see recommendations made by people who are known to me.  Technology needs to connect the restaurant website to the website that carries recommendations to my Facebook page…and I can see exactly which of my friends have made what recommendations for a particular restaurant.  So then who decides where I eat ? No longer the tourist guide book and no longer the taxiwalla. It is my friends who are helping me decide where I eat.

A lot of brands have high consumer touch points. Footfalls, if you please. Literal footfalls, like in stores. Or airlines. Or cinema houses. Coffee shops. Etc, etc.
Or virtual footfalls, like in a popular web site.
Or remote footfalls like in television channels, with high viewer base.

When such brands go on to Social Media, as they embrace the new platforms like Facebook or Twitter, they do start from zero. Usually, the approach remains restricted to the Social Media space, and fan base is attempted to be built organically, or through other means, but by staying in the Social Media space, and creating interesting strategies, or spending money there itself.

Why not integrate the physical touch points, and convert them to be your fans?? Would that not accelerate the growth of fans on Facebook? How about converting those Footfalls to become your Fans?!

Here is a presentation that I made to the Social Media Club in Mumbai, India, about this proposition:

The interesting element to note is the second part of the story, viz. getting those Facebook fans, back into the stores. That is often forgotten or left to chance. However very little business is actually done on those Facebook pages. The money to be earned is in the stores, and not on Facebook.

The key element is to get the fan from Facebook, back into the stores, spending money. And which is all about converting the Fans back to being Footfalls!

What do you think about this? Do you see a closer integration of messaging in the offline space, and the Social Media space, for a brand? I’d love to read your views. Please share them as comments here!

Social Media has been a great enabler for communities. It has allowed people with similar passions to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. This much, of course, we know.

For a brand, these shared passions and the communities formed around them provide an excellent opportunity. By facilitating these communities and the exchange of ideas within them, brands stand to gain a lot. This is being recognized in various sectors – many of which one would not expect to be new-media savvy.

Interested in solder, epoxy flux or metal oxides? Indium Corporation has a host of blogs talking about these very topics. People from across the industry – from within Indium corp. and from without now have a go-to place for conversation about these topics and many more.

Schneider Electric ran a petition campaign to raise awareness about the contribution of building (especially high-rises) to global warming. For a certain group of people, this particular topic is extremely important, and the petition reached its goal of having 500 people signing up for it. This included text and video petitions. Schneider, of course, has a building automation solution which can help reduce the adverse impact which buildings have on the environment – so raising awareness served a direct goal

Fair Enough. Brands are providing platforms on which likeminded people, passionate about a particular topic can gather. But how is it actually helping the brand? In many cases, the benefits are quite direct!

Take for example Gary Vaynerchuck. The community he addresses is that of wine drinkers. Not exactly a small niche (*hiccup*) – a large number of people are extremely passionate about wines. Gary understood this (his family owned a wine shop) and he utilized Social Media tools – largely online video – to help the community come together. Gary started Wine Library TV – a video blog – in 2006 and it recently crossed its 800th episode. And what has Gary achieved? Apart from being a Social Media superstar it has propelled his wine business to a completely new level. Interestingly, viewers of the video blog (called ‘Vayniacs’) have created the first ever community wine – the Vayniac Cabernet.

What are the numbers like, for Gary? He has over 80,000 viewers on WLT every day, over 847,000 twitter followers and over 24,000 Facebook fans. Essentially, what Gary did, was that he acted as a focal point around which a community could congregate.

Here’s one of Wine Library TV’s popular episodes:

This is a huge opportunity for companies and brands to tap. If your product or brand is built around an idea which people care deeply about, (or if your target audience cares deeply about anything in particular) give these people a platform. Allow them to assemble there, communicate with each other, and share. Be a part of their conversation. Don’t be pushy about your agenda – people will appreciate the fact that this platform is ‘powered by’ you. What is the idea which Gary speaks about, for example? That together, his audience and he are changing the wine world!

What platform can you provide to your audience? What do you think about this whole platform thing anyway? Let us know, in the comments.