The Future of the Groundswell is Now (reading reflection #3)

While I was contemplating a passage in the final chapter (12. the future of the groundswell) of groundswell, I received an email notification on my  iPhone.  How ironic and appropriate. The passage from 2008, "The net result of all this accelerating activity is that the groundswell is about to get embedded within every activity, not just on computers, but on mobile devices and in the real world." (p. 235), was foretelling what was to be arriving by email in 2013 on my mobile phone:  "LinkedIn Today-Top news for Terri: Five Ways Free Online Classes Will Change College, or Not."

Li and Bernhoff were imagining in 2008 how far online social media and the groundswell would go.  So far their guesservations have been correct.  Many of us are now receiving all sorts of notifications on our smart phones: by Facebook, twitter, YouTube, email, news feeds to name only a few.  Blogs and dashboards are commonplace, and many companies have intranets and wikis for their businesses. 

 Li and Bernoff conclude groundswell "with some advice, not on what to do but on how to be" (p.239).  They leave us with seven principles of groundswell thinking:

1. Groundswell is about person-to-person activity
2. Be a good listener
3. Be patient
4. Be optomistic
5. Be flexible
6. Be collaborative
7. Be humble (p. 240)

The wonderful thing about it is that everyone has access to social media and online marketing.  Small business like Foiles Migrators have just as good a chance at becoming successful as large corporations, such as Nabisco's (snackworks) Oreo, as long as they follow the seven principles of groundswell thinking and utilize social media marketing to its full potential.  

Foiles Migrators have become very successful using social media to create a following on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to promote their goose and duck calls at an expense of $0.

 

They created a community on their official website which keeps their customers coming back.  If they haven't read groundswell, I'd be surprised, because it appears that they are following the seven principles of groundswell thinking.

 

Personally, had I not become part of the groundswell during the last few months in this class, I would not have had the person-to-person activity and had the opportunity to read and learn from my class mates' blogs: I wouldn't have read Den's blog and decided to become more engaged on my LinkedIn account and have it feed to my iPhone.  I wouldn't have read Katrina's blog and decided to create a twitter account.  I wouldn't have read Eileen's blog and become more interested in Pinterest. 


The seven principles of Li and Bernoff are timeless principles to use in every aspect of business, social media and social media marketing.  I can't wait to see what the next five years bring for social media marketing and the groundswell.  Maybe we should ask Li and Bernoff.

This YouTube video shows Charlene Li speaking in 2010 to a group of journalists after her keynote at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference about the future of social media and the groundswell.

Evolution and Transformation (reading reflection #2)

 In groundswell, by  Li and Bernoff, we learned to understand the groundswell (chapters 1-3), we learned many examples of tapping the groundswell  (chapters 4-9) and the steps in doing it well:  1) listening to the groundswell, 2) talking with the groundswell, 3) energizing the groundswell, 4) helping the groundswell support itself, and 5) embracing the groundswell.

Now we begin to learn how the groundswell transforms.   A great example given is of Unilever's Dove brand  Evolution video released in 2006, mainly on sites like YouTube.  The video (shown below) dramatically helped Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty 

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty

that was launched in 2004.  Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty basically "started a global conversation about the need for a wider definition of beauty after the study proved the hypothesis that the definition of beauty had become limiting and unattainable."   This went against the industry norm of using young, thin, perfect models and was a risk.  But they had done their research and knew the public was ready.  The ad and the video had people talking.

 

In fact, according to Li and Bernoff, the video caused a surge of traffic to Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty website more than double what the Super Bowl 2006 ad managed at a cost of $0, compared to $2.5 million for the Super Bowl ad.

Dove also took a chance by partnering with The Apprentice TV show, asking them to air an episode where teams would create ads for Dove.  According to Reality TV Magazine and others, the ads weren't very good, but Dove was able to create positive 'press' anyway, by taking advantage of the buzz, including Donald Trump in their ad, which created more traffic for their campaign.  They had taken a chance that could have backfired, but they were ready for what came and turned a potential negative into a positive.

Unilever and Dove were taking big risks in many different ways with this campaign, but it seems they did it right.  In groundswell we learned that "One of the benefits of energizing with the groundswell is that your organization goes through a mental shift- you become so engaged with the customers that you walk in step with their needs and wants." According to Li and Bernoff, there are three essential elements to this transformation, which the Dove campaign used effectively:

1. Take small steps that have big impact:  By releasing different elements of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty over time, they were able to use each element of the campaign effectivley, adding to parts of the campaign that were already out there.
2. Have a vision and a plan:  The creators of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, Rob Master and Babs Rangaiah, had a vision of letting go by embracing new types of advertising and giving the consumer a voice, but knew it would take time to implement all the elements considering the risks being taken.  
3. Build leaders into the plan:  They also knew that introducing each element separately, and with time in between, to the executives would be more successful.

Dove's campaign and approach to it was very effective.  I have become interested in the Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty myself and think I'll look into it more.  Even though Dove's campaign began in 2004, the topic of too-thin models is still at the top of the news today.  Just this week, we heard from the Today Show and Euronews, among others, about Israel banning overly thin models from working.

groundswell (Reading Reflection #1)

I'm so excited about this book, groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff!   The Social Technographics ladder helps us understand the way people  participate online.  This is an important step in understanding the groundswell and how to use it effectively in social media marketing and communication.

figure 3-2 (page 43)

The 2006 Mini USA case study stood out to me as a great example of how listening to the groundswell (and taking a chance) works.  After monitoring and analyzing online discussions, Mini's head of marketing, Trudy Hardy, was given the freedom to market to current owners rather than to prospective buyers.  Among other things included in the campaign, Mini Takes the States was launched, organizing a series of rallies for Mini owners across America.  This was so successful in creating buzz, the rallies are still held every year.

I belonged to a classic car club for Chevelle owners several years ago, so i related to the notion about Mini owners connecting with each other.  We didn't have the internet way back then, or maybe/probably our club would have been posting photos and videos of our outings and our club might have become much more than it was.