Framework: Rings of Influence

Recently, I spoke to a crowded room of senior marketers at a CPG retailer, one of the executives asked “What’s an indicator a company is advanced in the social space?”.  I gave three answers, and one of them was “Developing a thriving unpaid advocacy program to evangelize for you and fight your battles.” The executives, which were used to traditional advertising and direct marketing had a lightbulb go off as I showed them this following framework.

Companies unable to scale into social channels –and hindered by traditional thinking
Companies struggle to quickly respond to the assault of customers who are constantly dialoging in social channels, they simply can not hire enough community managers and the promise of Social CRM systems are in its infancy.  Additionally, the old school thinking of traditional marketing which puts the sole focus on the branded voice of corporate communications, and polished, sanctioned executives.  Yet now, as social tools are pervasive (take a look at all the people accessing Facebook from their mobile phones) the gateways of public communication have given anyone the opportunity to communicate.

Brands must extend their strategy to the outside rings.
In order to scale in both time and mass, corporations must now extend their communication strategy beyond just corporate communications and sanctioned ‘company representatives’ to include the other rings in their communications mix.  In the following graphic, the “Rings of Influence” I’ve mapped out how other roles can and should be used in the communications strategy.   I’ve worked on trust research, and found that in most cases the closer in the rings (corporate) there’s less trust.  Other studies, like Edelman’s 2010 trust barometer indicate similar findings as the most trusted relationships are at the outer rings, see figures 7 & 8 in this PDF.

Framework: Rings Of Influence
As brand embrace the larger circles, the greater opportunity for reach, trust  –and risk.  I hope you use this graphic in your planning docs and presentations, it’s licensed under creative commons as Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Common.  Graphic assistance by Christine Tran, @christineptran

Harness All The Voices In Your Ecosystem –Not Just Corporate Communications
Brands should stop focusing on the corporate ring alone –and benefit by using all the rings in a coordinated fashion.  I’ve broken down the roles into subsets in the above matrix, yet there are some key baseline considerations as your deploy, remember to:

• Recognize that greater opportunity is abound at outer rings –but comes with increased risk. Brands are most comfortable operation in the inside rings, like ‘Corporate’.  Yet the greatest opportunity to leverage trust and reach happens at the outer rings of influence with ‘Customers’ and ‘Prospects’.  Of course, with a greater benefit comes greater risk as there’s less control over conversations on the outer rings.
• Map the  rings to your existing customer experience timeline. These rings aren’t unlike traditional marketing funnels, except that there’s a focus on role and trust, over cycle. In most cases, prospects are in the outer mouth of a funnel, but customers, employees, and corporate can also participate in every step of the marketing funnel. Analyze which roles are needed in what aspects of the customer timeline –and map your strategy accordingly
• Analyze your existing social marketing programs. From Facebook, community, Twitter, to Gowalla, brands must take inventory of each of their existing social programs.  Pull out a spreadsheet and map which each of your social media programs are doing, look at both: 1) Which ring is the primary publisher, 2) Which ring are they trying to reach.
• Be pragmatic, and develop a roadmap: start with smallest ring and move out. Don’t jump on the largest ring of prospects without first getting grounded. Start at the inner circle and work your way out, by building a foundation at the core and building on success and safety in experience. Companies that try to address prospects but lack the internal resources and ethos to deliver may find themselves offering false promises.

This single graphic represents an entire presentation I’m developing for internal client workshops or keynote presentations at marketing and business conferences.  I love to share, and want to get your feedback in the comments below so I can improve it.   Update: Mitch has also extended the conversation in the Social CRM pioneers Google Group, watch it unfold and participate in the group.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 6:25 am and is filed under Matrix, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.