• Being prepared in advanced with: the proper policies, teams, roles, and education programs. These are the foundation needed to build a Center of Excellence.
• Advanced corporations have enabled their business units to deploy social –once they’ve provided the right training, process, then technology (in that order)
• Savvy companies are developing a social support triage process, rather than arbitrarily responding to customers, as it can teach the crowd bad behaviors

Enjoy the embedded video below, as well as access the full research report on the Social Business Hierarchy of Needs.

Also, if you’ve not heard about the Dachis Group, they’re a management consultant, software, listening, and digital design quasi-hybrid solution provider that’s rolling out interesting programs for large brands. Ping Jeff Dachis to find out more, or interact with him here in the comments, as he’s a reader and commenter.

People on the Move in the Social Business Industry:

• Although I’m a few months behind this, first of all, congrats to Mia Dand (twitter, linkedin) is Director, Global Social Media at Symantec, focused on building and leading social media strategy for Symantec’s Consumer Business. Includes content, campaigns, analytics, social commerce, and COE.  I’ve worked with her at her prior employer HP and excited to watch her continued growth.
• Kelby Johnson joins Banyan Branch as Sr. Account Director Social marketing strategy, I’ve worked with Kelby on projects for years, and consider him a friend, congrats to both.
• TechCrunch’s gets New COO, Veteran Exec And Entrepreneur Ned Desmond.
• Patrick Cunanan joins thismoment as Team Lead, Brand Programs. He will lead the Brand Program team and production of all DEC (Distributed Engagement Channel) deployments.
• Brian Snyder joins GolinHarris as Director of Digital Directing interactive campaigns for clients in the midwest
• Rachel Medina joins UnitedHealth Group as Senior Communications Specialist – Social Media focusing on day-to-day social media channel management, measurement and analysis of UnitedHealth Group social media initiatives and assistance with social media strategy development.
• Qais Roussan joins The Online Project as COO. The COO is responsible for leading the financial and operational teams at The Online Project. He is responsible for developing new structures to make the operations more profitable and scalable, allowing The Online Project to effectively serve more high profile clients in the Middle East.
• Bill Robb is promoted at SAP as Sr. Director, Social Media Strategy. Bill has been promoted and continues to run the brand channels and social programs for SAP across our many properties.
• Dana Dillehunt joins Market America/Shop.com as Social Media Writer Primary content contributor for Shop.com and Market America social media.
• Amanda LaRiviere joins Market America/Shop.com as Social Media Manager Managing Market America and Shop.com’s social media properties.
• Patti Sellman joins LiveWorld as West Coast Sales Director Working with marketers on scaling their social efforts through moderation, community programming and insight
• Keith Wiegold joins LiveWorld as Midwest Sales Director Working with marketers on scaling their social efforts through moderation, community programming and insight
• Rita Yampolsky joins thismoment as Director of Operations, Studios Handling managing the operations of the thismoment studios team, including scoping, project estimation and resourcing for custom work at thismoment.
• Laura Burns joins The Institutes (AICPCU) as Community Manager Responsible for The Institutes Community management and coordinating digital marketing strategies, ensuring active and engaged communities.
• Adam Monago joins ThoughtWorks Studios as VP of Marketing Social strategy, customer engagement and product evangelism
• Cameron Uganec joins HootSuite Media, Inc. as Director, Marketing & Communications Cameron is responsible for growing the brand, through the development of an agile Marketing and Communications team that crafts compelling content and stories.
• Brian Bailard joins HootSuite Media, Inc. as VP Global Strategic Accounts Brian is responsible for growing HootSuite’s presence in the very largest corporate and government organizations globally.
• Joeline Hackman joins Strutta as Director of Marketing responsible for helping clients build stronger relationships with their customers.
• Patrick Searle joins Social@Ogilvy as Head of Social, Indonesia Accelerate the adoption of social business solutions by Ogilvy’s Indonesian clients.
• Zena Weist joins Expion as Vice President Strategy As Vice President of Strategy, Zena will work with our clients and demonstrate how Expion’s platform can be utilized as a solution to specific organizational and market challenges they face today.  It’s been great watching Zena’s career continue to skyrocket!
• Rick Corteville joins LUXUS as Chief Executive Officer, Rick will lead all US operations and focus on building on Luxus’s strength as an international digital agency that’s known for creating beautiful work with a laser focus on ROI. Additionally, he will closely collaborate with the management teams in Helsinki and Singapore to further build global momentum for Luxus and its international clients.
• Bob Stanke joins Minnesota Timberwolves as Director, Interactive Services Oversees the strategic direction of the web and social media components for one of the NBA’s up-and-coming franchises, the Minnesota Timberwolves.
• Jeff Peters joins The Halo Group as Social Media Specialist. Jeff is a social media advocate for Halo and their clients; a generator of buzz, awareness and conversation. He is a thought leader and a creative thinker who pushes the boundaries of marketing and communications.
• Clément Chapillon joins We Are Social France as Account Director Responsibility for developing and driving forward existing business, building and developing client relationships

Submit a new hire:

• Submit a new hire that’s ‘on the move’ with this easy-to-use online form.

Seeking a job?

1. See the Web Strategy Job Board, which includes paid submissions from the top brands in the world.
2. Social Media Jobs Facebook Group
3. Social Media Jobs by Chris Heuer
4. Social Media jobs, filtered by SimplyHired
5. Social Media Job Network by James Durbin
6. 25 places to find social media jobs by Deb Ng

Additional Resources:

• Community Manager Facebook Group
• Community Manager Appreciation Day (Every 4th Monday of Jan, yearly)
• List of corporate web strategists and community managers for 2010
• Social Media Headhunter: Career advice, job postings and services
• New Media Hire community by Jim Long and team

Please congratulate the new hires by leaving a comment below.

After interviewing over 10 software companies and 10 agencies, a new trend has emerged that will change the social business landscape. What is this trend? The marketing performance techniques to refine TV, Radio, SEO and other marketing mediums are now moving to the social space.   Read my definitive post on Mashable to learn how this impacts not only brands, but also Facebook and my long term predictions on how this will play out.

Market Needs
Companies are struggling to scale to keep up with all the conversations in this space, secondly, the noise is becoming deafening with everyone from consumers to brands all shouting in social that targeting is needed to cut through the noise. Those that deploy volume quickly find they’re part of the noise, and get cast by the wayside.  As a result, we’re seeing a new category emerge, called Social Performance Software.

Social Performance Software Defined
Software tools and methods that analyze, plan, deliver, and measure media such as ads, content, and conversations published in social channels. For example, they will analyze the conversations of your followers, then suggest which content and media to publish, then determine when to publish, on which channel, and to whom. As a result, content will reach the intended audiences and result in higher resonation, or higher call to action rates

List of Vendors focused on Social Performance
Here’s a list of the vendors, if you know of others, leave a comment below. Please note that this category stretches across a number of product lines, as this will be a horizontal feature set spanning nearly every social software company.

• Adobe Social, which includes multiple acquisitions including Omniture and Context Optional.
• BuddyMedia, offers both campaign platform marketing tools along with social ads with their Brighter Option acquisition.
• Bazaarvoice, now has turned their earned content from ratings and reviews into a new social ad unit –even outside of FB.
• Crowdbooster, analyzes, measures and then optimizes when content should publish.
• Prosodic, which analyzes the who, what, where, and aids publishers.
• Shoutlet, focused on larger scale companies can help with complicated publishing needs, at scale.
• SocialFlow, analyzes your current socialgraph activity, guides users on content creation, then publishes at highest resonation.
• Tigerlily, focuses on publishing content by theme, audience and location, increasing relevance.
• UberVU, who first mines and analyzes data, then optimizes when content will publish.
• Webtrends Social, tracks content and ads, and measures performance across these multiple locations.
• Wildfire, a campaign platform marketing company has recently partnered with Adaptly to provide social ads and more

I’ve written other posts discussed why this trend will be important, one major industry force is that with Facebook and Twitter now offering ads (and new ad networks will emerge off FB and Twitter) we’ll continue to see social media agencies turn to advertising. I’ll be writing more about this space in the coming quarters, such as benefits and downsides of automation, and where this future will head.

Update: This is on the official Altimeter blog, and CMS Wire.

One of the assertions I make is the term “Social Media Agency of Record” (aka SMaoR) will eventually go by the wayside, as those pure play agencies are starting to move into advertising (starting with social ads), digital, interactive, and more. My take? We’ll just have a broader focus as social becomes nicely integrated with other digital efforts.

Listen in to the podcast below using the embed, or watch on Mitch’s website.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments, should the term Social media agency of Record dissolve? Or will this remain as a dedicated type of pure play firm?

Working among our team of analysts and researchers, Altimeter’s Research group has found three common higher level themes that will disrupt all businesses. Working among our analysts from mobile, content marketing, advertising, analytics, leadership, change management, user experience, and social, we’ve distilled all of the trends we’re seeing and found a common thread among them.

We generated the three research themes with the following in mind: the goal was to ascertain business disruption trends –beyond just technology changes. Each Altimeter analyst provided a unique viewpoint to help create a consolidated view of disruptive trends. All Altimeter analysts will focus on these research themes for 2012 and beyond. All our artifacts (speeches, webinars, reports, blogs, and client interactions) will stem from these themes.

Three Disruptive Business Research Themes

1. Dynamic Customer Journey: How can inflexible organizations synchronize with the changing customer?
2. Adaptive Organization: How can an organization adapt and thrive in a real-time world?
3. Sentient World: What’s smarter: A college grad or your future fridge? (intriguing, yes?)

The recording is below, and you can listen in, and watch the slides in this short 20 minute presentation between myself, Jeremiah Owyang, and partner Alan Webber. We will be announcing a blog ring shortly, encouraging the industry to explore each of the three themes in the coming quarters from your own blog. If you’re interested in learning how to get involved email us at info @altimetergroup.com

Whether it’s on a job interview, before a meeting, a first date, and as you walk into a store, more disruptive technologies are on the horizon that will enable social data to be easily accessed and viewable in real world situations. Profiling, which has negative connotations in terms of race, law enforcement, and beyond, is commonly used by marketers (and humans sub-consciously) to sort people around us. Yet in our digital and social world, this same profiling technique will be applied to today’s modern world. In fact, this recent story from Wired shows how an unlucky marketer was unable to land a job due to having a low Klout score.

This simulated image illustrates how Google Googles could allow us to easily profile who has the most social capital –without them even knowing.

‘Social Profiling’ Defined, and the Technologies That Will Fuel It
What’s Social Profiling? Digital technologies that enable social data to easily be referenced in public by others using mobile, AR, or other technologies. New technologies are emerging that allow us to overlay digital content on top of the real world, called Augmented Reality, we’re expecting Google to launch their Google Goggles “Project Glass” this summer. Additionally, it’s expected that Apple’s next iPhone will have facial recognition features that will enable us to identify people, and it’s assumed we’ll be able to quickly pull digital content about them.

Don’t Overly Rely on Social Scores –Understand True Influence
Logic tells us that new mobile applications will emerge that will allow digital content about us, in fact, we should expect apps to emerge that instantly allow us to tell one’s Twitter follower count, Klout score, and Facebook fans. But before we jump to conclusions on how this could help us identify ‘influencers’ take Altimeter’s guidance in understanding that these tools don’t fully tell the whole story. In fact, you should first read my colleague Brian Solis’ report on digital influence, which shows why social scores are not telling the full story, as well as see his presentation he gave on this topic.

Social Profiling Will Impact Society, Business, and You.
We should expect that social profiling technologies and techniques will impact us in at least three ways:

1) Digital ‘influence’ scores will emerge in the public real world –like it not. The social dynamics of determining who a dominant member of society could change. The largest male, the richest female, may now rival that of the most ‘influential’ person in the room –and everyone will know it quickly. As a result, a new pecking order in business could emerge that breaks corporate hierarchy, wealth, or attractiveness.

2) Marketers will use this to prioritize and reward influencers. Brands have been attracted to influencers for decades, and now they’ve new tools to segment. Hotels like the Palms are already prioritizing guests with high Klout scores to receive special treatment, this will now cascade to hospitality, retail, and more. Expect those with higher scores to be offered special treatment (here’s a breakdown of how it will happen), whether they take the offers or not.

3) New business models will emerge to offer ‘digital grooming”. Like personal grooming in the bathroom, we’ll now have to prepare for our own digital grooming as we venture into the real world. Expect a new form of digital consultant to emerge that will help professionals manage, prune, and improve their digital self, much how image consultants assist those who want to appear their best.

Get ready for this new world where our digital lives will now be easily displayed around us in the physical world, forever changing the social dynamic in which we play, work, and love.

Update: Jason Falls, respected thought leader, likens Social Profiling to a new form of racism is this counter post.

This is a strong move to help web teams become more efficient in working beyond version issues in email attachments, but further show the promise of how collaboration can be applied to the web management process. Although I can’t speak for Adobe’s future roadmap, but as this trend continues, there’s an opportunity for communities to be applied to Creative Cloud that will allow two new use cases: 1) Leverage an ecosystem of web experts available on demand, similar to CrowdSpring, 99Designs, oDesk and others empower transactional services, 2) Tap into final end users and users of websites to rate, collaborate, and even create copy, design, and creative, perhaps using web-based-versions of photoshop elements and beyond.

Perhaps a future version of Creative Cloud will be called “Creative Collaboration” (or even Creative as a Service) as web teams continue to connect closer and closer to their ecosystem, imagine refining all that we do by tapping into our most engaged customers. Let’s watch closely as social technologies are applied to how web teams work, grow, and reach to customers like never before. I work closely with innovators in marketing and web strategy, as a result, we believe in transparency so you’ll trust us more, please note that Adobe is a client, as well as I’ve been using their products nearly my entire career.

Love to hear from you: How can social be applied to today’s modern web team? What new business models will unfold?

I’m pleased to attend LeWeb this June in London (new venue, new date, same quality show) it’s one of the highest production conferences in our space at scale. One of the fantastic things of the high-production global show is the focus on the future of how the web is moving the world, business, and ourselves forward.

I’m glad that Loic has selected the theme “Faster Than Real Time” based on Altimeter’s research themes (Adaptive Org), which will stem the many speeches at the event, and I’ll be there to speak with brands on stage, and conduct research live from these sessions.

What does Faster Than Real Time mean? It means predicting what people want –based on signals, data, and computing.

The amount of data being shared by consumers, and objects around the world is staggering. From body data from Nike+ and Nike Fuel Band, to checkins from consumers on Foursquare to the data rendered in Instagram pictures from mobile devices everything is being captured and shared. Even non-digital items and goods will soon have a digital signature as Google roles out Goggles that allow us to overlay data on everything and anything.

As a result, this data can be processed by machines, allowing us to anticipate and eventually predict what people will want and do, giving rise to an incredible opportunity for brands, governments, and peers to serve up needs before you actually know you need it. For example, Target’s recent example of predicting a young gal was pregnant before her farther actually knew is a bellwether of this future change.

Loic and Geraldine have offered a 100 Gbp discount to readers of the Web Strategy blog, register here and use “JEREMIAH” as the discount code.

See you at LeWeb, London, June.

This is valuable as we can hear directly from Josh his point of view and what others were saying at this Social Media Breakfast. What’s valuable is hearing from Joshua who actually have this role so I could understand their perspective on the two paths of the corporate strategist. You can read the whole report, to follow along with all of the talking points from Josh, and get the further details. I’ve embedded the key framework, which he references.

Just a point on clarity, the “social media helpdesk” wasn’t clearly articulated, we’ve changed the term to “Social Media Sanitation” as this is a role when strategists will be just cleaning up social media accounts for out-of-control business units (read a report addressing this pain), or constantly responding to customers haphazardly without a scalable strategy for social support (webinar here on how to build a scalable program).

We just love how our Open Research reports can spread and impact the good folks work at the world’s largest corporations.

Over the past few years, I’ve tracked the emergence, rise, and growth of this new role within corporations. I see some interesting career opportunities for this powerful role within a corporation. First of all, about this role, while we’ve published a detailed research report on their demographics, psychographics, challenges and aspirations, this role is a major influencer within the corporation, and has a small but growing budget, typically stemming under the CMO or head of corporate communications functions.

Without a doubt, this role is in high demand:  few are qualified, those that are are easily found by recruiters and I’ve heard of some positions with a total comp beyond 200k+ in regulated financial services.  I’ve also been tracking how some folks are switching jobs to respond to the demand, although I’ve cautioned a few to put in a few years before doing this, as it could set a bad record on one’s resume.   Despite the intense demand for this role right now, it’s always important to look towards the future on what’s on the horizon for this talented bunch:

Three Future Career Opportunities for the Corporate Social Strategist:

• Rise into the Head of Customer Experience. That’s right, we’re going to return to customer experience and looking at the entire customer journey (what we call at Altimeter the Dynamic Customer Journey). This role is one of the few in the organization at the business level (not infrastructure or operations) that can span multiple business units and see the entire customer journey from awareness, consideration, purchase, support, and beyond. The opportunity? The Corporate Social Strategist is one of the few that could re-create or lead the customer experience group –or even become a Chief Customer Officer.
• Foster or Lead a New Role in Content Strategy: Working closely with my colleague Rebecca Lieb, she’s illuminated the path on how a new editorial role is emerging in corporations which we’re calling the “Content Strategist” which is part editor-in-chief, orchestra conductor, and herder of pregnant cats (buy the book Content Marketing to get a headstart in your career). With so many business units adopting social, we’ve found the average enterprise corporation has a whopping 178 social media accounts, the number of opportunities –and risks that come with it– are requiring a company to need a new role to tell a consistent story across all channels, all voices, and all tools, in fact Rebecca tells me “It’s critical to note that while this role certainly encompasses social, its purview goes way beyond it: web sites, white papers, events – content is much broader than just social”
• Move into Program Coordination –Or Dissolve The Role Competely: Much like the ‘web master’ role if the late 90s has now become a business function or dedicated social or digital strategist, this role knows that if they can get orginization on board to conduct social in a safe and systamatic way, they’re role becomes more of a coordinator. We’ve discussed at length when this role could potentially go away. The opportunity? Help the company norm to social, and eventually move on to the next technology and help the company re-invent and change, just as they likely helped with the adoption of web, and before that digital communications.

Like all change agents in corporations, sometimes called ‘intra-preneurs’ for their willingness to stick their neck out to advance the company, these folks will certainly find new opportunities in business and lead this wave and the next. Don’t expect this group of calculated risk takers to sit still.

Related Resources

• Open Research Report:  Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist
• See who got hired in this role, I’ve been tracking “on the move” since 2007.
• List of Corporate Social Strategists 2012:  See this updated list of who actually has the role.
• Organizations to meet these peers:  WOMMA, Marketing Profs, SocialMedia.org, Dachis Group Council
• Here’s conferences and webinars I’m attending, where I see these roles.