Bob Pearson: Social Media Not Just For Geeks

Bob Pearson, has just been appointed President of the newly rebranded Social Media Business Council (SMBC, of which I am also a member) after a successful stint as Vice President, Communities and Conversations at Dell. I met with him to ask few questions on how he will use the experience he gained there, in his new role and about his plans for the expansion of the SMBC.

BNET: Isn't social media just for geeks?
BP: No, it's important that companies take time to see the value in building a long-term relationship with their customers via social media. Many of the initial ideas about it may have started with geeks, who I certainly appreciate, but we live in a world today that has over 1.6 billion people online and more than 500,000 new people going online every day for the first time in their lives. Social media is becoming mainstream for customers today and should start to become so for companies in the near future.

BNET: What are the benefits for companies who implement social media initiatives?
BP: There are many benefits for companies, but gaining ideas, co-shaping your brand and unlocking the value of employees are certainly three important ones.

Social media provides an amazing window into how customers think and what they want. For example, why conduct a focus group with 10 people in a single location when you can build an idea community, like Dell or Starbucks and receive thousands of ideas and listen to customers discuss them over months?

For companies, it's also important to co-shape your brand and reputation with your customers online. If you conduct strong analytics and you know where your products are being reviewed, you'll find that a large brand may have as many as 5,000 conversations about itself every day. Ask yourself how many of those conversations you're participating in or knowledgable of.

I've also seen how social media inside a company enables employees to share their thinking and let you know if they agree with the direction of the company via their comments or, in some cases, their silence.

BNET: What are the things you think about when implementing social media?
BP: I've heard people say "make the R small and the I big in ROI". I like that advice. Social media does not have to cost a lot of money to try. What you need are some courage and a willingness to engage directly with your customers. I like asking people "how many customers do you actually speak with every day"? For too many people in companies, the answer is zero.

The key drivers are: know where conversations are occurring about your brand, have clear rules of the road in how you will conduct social media, including an online policy and realize that customers want to hear from you. They do not want to hear from the company, so personalize your approach.

BNET: Tell us about SMBC's Blog Council.
BP: It's very important for leaders in social media to have a private place to share best practices and learn from each other in real time. There is no better person to learn from then a peer who is figuring out the same thing in a different industry.

The result is the formation of the Blog Council, which now has 60 of the world's leading brands as members. Members include Orange, McDonald's, Starbucks, Intel, Microsoft and Coca Cola.

BNET: Those are big brands. Can any company join?
BP: The Blog Council is for larger companies, generally over 5,000 employees. The key is that members are actively seeking to improve in social media. We want members who want to learn by asking their peers questions, share ideas and do it all in an "ego-less" environment.

BNET: Forrester's Josh Bernoff and author Seth Godin say social media isn't for all big companies. What do you think?
BP: I respect the body of work of both Josh and Seth very much, but I could not disagree more with this particular comment. Social media is for every company that wants to improve how it interacts with its employees and its customers. Internally, a company has a major opportunity to unlock intellectual capital of its employees or gain their ideas more quickly to improve products. Externally, we are scratching the surface on how we can empower customers. Imagine opening up new B2B channels between major companies to communicate more effectively, for example.

I've worked inside three Fortune 500 companies and have met with many others, so I'm quite sure of the opportunity ahead of us for companies of all sizes.