And it dawned on me that, unless I’ve missed something, the writers of Groundswell have made a bit of an assumption around customers and their use of web 2 tools.

Their book suggests that if you figure out who your target customers or users are, decide why you want to communicate with them (e.g. to get ideas from them for new products, to promote new services to them, etc), and then understand how these users make use of web 2.0 tools (ie. their “social technographic profiles”) – well then all you need to do is use these tools and magically customers will communicate with you.

Except that they probably won’t.

The piece that seems to be missing is what Clay Shirky talks about in Here Comes Everybody. Its something he calls “Promise”. Another way of thinking of it is the “what’s in it for me” factor.

For example, just because an organisation has identified its target users as being “critics” (in Groundswell’s  social techno profile) – due to the fact that they tend to rate products and comment on blogs – doesn’t mean they will do this on matters of interest to the organisation.

Forrester charges for access to its detailed information on social technographic profiles but I wonder whether the info considers this dimension – not so much exactly which groups use what web 2.0 tools but also what they talk about when using them. WHY they choose to use them. The “what’s in it for me” element.

Maybe I’ll find out by the end of the book.

And interestingly, in France its the opposite: 21% read blogs and only 3% visit social networking sites. For  organisations trying to tap into the conversations their customers are having online, its important to know this.

In  Groundswell, the writers have defined categories of people (inactives, spectators, joiners, collectors, critics and creators) based on what they do in the web 2 world. They’ve called it the Social Technographics Ladder.

They’ve then conducted surveys to profile different demographic groups across this ladder. Here are their results.

So what are the things that people do that puts them into one of these groups?

Well, Forrester suggests:

Its crucial for organisations to understand the categories their core customers fall into if they want to develop  a successful social media strategy. For example, there’s no point setting up a facebook group if their target customers are “spectators”.

Its not the only thing that drives a successful social media strategy but its a key starting point.

All this talk about people having conversations online with each other, forming groups, getting what they need from the community and other customers rather than from organisations, the challenges faced by organisations around driving value from it all…..

stop right there <looking over my shoulder at my book shelf>. Community Building on the Web, Communities of Commerce, Online Communities, Hosting Web Communities. All excellent books about online communities, all published in 2000.

There’s nothing really new about a lot of this at all – except that this time around, the technologies to enable it are so much better.

I remember back in 2000, when I was working on a project to develop an online learning portal. The big thing the client wanted was an online community for Alumni, so they could remain engaged with them after they finished their courses and could sell them a range of stuff. Among the many challenges we faced (finding partners, developing sensible revenue models, etc.) were with the tools that were available at the time.

Vaporware doesn’t even start to describe it.

This time around, the technology is such that the vision of online communities providing business value is definitely achievable. The tools are there, its just a matter of organisations being creative with the content they provide and courageous with using it to communicate with customers.

Imagine how different our technology strategy for this client would have been had we had the vision of facebook and twitter back then. Though we’d probably be living it up on a tropical island somewhere by now, spending our fortunes earned!

Written by two Forrester analysts, it talks about the importance of organisations paying attention to what their customers are doing online.

They define groundswell as a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.

I’d add to this by saying its simply where people are freely having conversations online and sharing stuff with each other about loads of things including about organisations – but the organisations concerned are not part of these conversations.

And to unlock the business value they can gain from these conversations, they should be. Hence, organisations need to develop their social media strategies so that they can be.

People are using a raft of web 2.0 technologies to have these conversations and share information – everything from wikis to folksonomies to RSS feeds to social networking groups. And they are using these tools to say what they bloody-well want to. They don’t care about brand values, share prices, reputations, being sued and so on.

Here’s a great example.

Now, not surprisingly, the book talks about how Forrester has been asked by many organisations to help them develop their strategies for harnessing this sort of thing.

However, I’d say that developing your own strategy is not rocket science! Based on the book, here’s how I’d propose you did it:

1 – Start by understanding who your target audience / customers are (you should already know this).

2 – recognise the fact that they are most likely to be having conversations online without you and decide what you want to do about it. ie. do you want to listen / support / take part in / lead these conversations etc (Forrester calls these your web 2.0 business goals)

3 – research the types of web 2.0 tools they are using. For example are they creating Facebook groups, do they subscribe to RSS feeds, do they write / comment / read blogs, do they vote on product ratings, etc. Basically, where are they online?? And what are they doing??

4 – select the tools from step 3 your customers are using that will help you achieve your business goals in step 2

The book gives loads of examples of how to do this. e.g. There are thousands of groups on Facebook and myspace for MTV. If MTV wants to listen to the conversations their customers are having, they should at a very minimum observe these groups. If they want to take part, they should consider hosting a group.

But ignoring the conversations is probably not a wise option, as they will carry on happening regardless.

Web 2.0 truly puts power in the hands of customers – and organisations should pay attention. I can think of a few examples of web 2.0-friendly organisations that are already doing this. e.g. Amazon, Virgin Atlantic, Plusnet.

I wonder if McDonalds knows about this video …………

Thanks for reading this. I hope you found it of interest.