Social Media Heat Map
Wednesday, April 13 2011 22:12 Written by VMGuru
"Social Media" has quite rapidly become the go-to buzzword for marketing professionals everywhere. I see a lot of similarities in how the term is used to how "Cloud Computing" has become the default initiative in almost every datacenter. Everyone is talking about it, it has different meanings depending on who you ask, most of the people who claim they are experts simply aren't, etc. Over the last 9-12 months I've often been tapped on the shoulder at work, by family, and in conversations with other IT professionals to help describe exactly what Social Media is and how it's best used.
One of the first misconceptions that I often have to debunk is that Social Media = Twitter + Facebook. These technologies are just a part of the "Social Media" umbrella, and arguably, are the most popular, but by no means are they all-inclusive to the concept of Social Media. The amount that I was asked to define Social Media ultimately made me stop and analyze just how I personally use Social Media as a Software Professional, Author, and all-around geek.
- I share photos and updates of my personal life with my family members across the country
- I connect with other IT professionals to build and maintain relationships and share ideas
- I capture customer feedback about market conditions or software solutions that I deliver
Ultimately, I view these use cases as quite basic and common knowledge to most people that maintain a similar work and personal lifestyle to myself. About 6 months ago I actually had an evening with apparently nothing better to do and was curious as to why I was wired to think and act this way. Most importantly, this moment of reflection led me to try to identify opportunities that I was missing that would give me some form of competitive advantage or unique perspective on life.
The first thing that I had done is analyzed how Social Media is used. I tried to envision this in the simplest way possible and managed to create 2 axises. On the X-Axis, I defined that I use Social Media for both Personal and Professional reasons. On the Y-Axis, I determined that I use Social Media to Listen just as much as I use it to Talk. This sets the stage quite nicely to start laying out how various Social Media technologies are used.
This layout is HIGHLY objective and is from personal experience for myself and a few others I've vetted these ideas through. It is by NO means a comprehensive list of every Social Media technology available, nor is it fully inclusive of how every Social Media technology can be used.
Yes, you can make an argument that Facebook is not just a personal tool,but professional as well. Fortunately my personal belief and internal argument that Facebook is a mostly meaningless business tool resonates well with others in the industry. I also consider Forrester the single greatest source on Social Media and Marketing matters, mostly because of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. It's an amazing resource that I've read cover-to-cover several times and had to buy twice in paper form and once in eBook because people kept stealing it and never returning it.
As you can see in the map above, there are a lot of overlapping technologies, and this is no accident. I often find myself incorporating YouTube videos into blog posts, then setting up a TwitterFeed to automatically advertise my post to the Twitterverse, which is how many of you are getting here. From a more professional perspective software vendors set up Community Forums to listen to customer support issues and more directly reach out when required. SEO technologies help people find the right answers to the questions they have that have already been answered. It's all eerily harmonious.
After mapping out the common technologies that I used, I started to think what roles or functions within an organization had characteristics that fell along the same 2 axises as the technologies above. Once I cracked open the depths of a typical mid-large sized software organization's marketing department (yes, they are all disgusting and it is amazing anything actually gets done, but that's a separate issue) things started to get interesting.
Again, the above chart is not all-inclusive, and I'm likely being a bit too harsh on the AR/PR folks, as they are adapting and becoming more social. I will not apologize to sales reps because at the end of they day, they just want to get paid. It's all business, all the time with just enough personal to build up a working relationship. For simplicity, I also stayed away from some of the "personal" functional roles, as the lower-left section of the diagram would be absolutely flooded with things like sharing drunken photos, complaining that the world is against me, and other general "Everyone has a voice that must be heard" generational crap.
Similarly to how technologies overlap, so do functional roles. Product Management and Product Marketing interact heavily with sales to gather feedback and share roadmap information to customers. They work with event marketing folks to learn more about their markets as well as interact and vet ideas through a broader audience. Again, you start to see how various individuals within a software organization work together, and how each serves a purpose to maximize the exposure for the company across the 2 axises.
Now that we have 3 dimensions: Talk/Listen, Personal/Professional, and Technology/Function, we have enough data to create a heat map. I know this is not the best way to present this data, but I was lazy with Visio and haven't taken the time to create a more traditional infrared-style view. What this heat map ultimately shows is an alignment of functional role to the technologies used when looking to engage individuals in different ways.
The first thing I should state is that I actually did NOT originally plan to overlay these to create any specific outcome, and that the results of the overlay surprised me quite a bit. Since this map was constructed with a business strategy point of view, the overlay has a strong focus on the sales functional role being the hot area. What we can see is that it is quite balanced though. There is just a little bit more Talking than Listening occurring, but there is a more personal aspect to it than being all business, all the time.
From the overlay above, I came up with the following analysis:
Warm Areas
- Twitter and building networking connections on LinkedIn during event marketing (trade shows) help establish sales relationships
- Community marketing awareness through Twitter with Evangelistic messaging builds and establishes personal relationships and ultimately, trust
- Sales being armed with strategic Press Releases and tactical Blog Posts to hit key messaging hard can be a differentiator against competition
Hot Areas
- Product Management can analyze customer feedback from IdeaStorms, Twitter and Marketing Events to better understand user concerns
- Evangelists can use Blogs, Twitter, and YouTube to drive thought leadership and brand influencing the market to drive Sales interest
- Product Marketing can align product messaging through SEO and streamline the Sales cycle with increased awareness
- Product Management can use LinkedIn to identify contacts at other vendors for partnership or M&A opportunities to drive increased Sales footprint
Opportunities for Organizations
- Increase the ability to better listen to customers and understand the shifts and challenges in the market from the bottom up
- Gain better personal relationships with customers and connecting at a level beyond simply trying to sell them something
- Push Product Management to leverage Social Media to drive product direction and better integrate Social Media into the core of their products as unique and differentiating features
Overall, I was quite pleased with the results I achieved through a random afternoon exercise. It has served me well in helping to battle the many misconceptions and confusion around what Social Media is and educating friends, family, and coworkers on the real reasons as to why it's important.
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