How Social Media Will
Transform the Fortune 500
Gravity Summit –
May 5, 2009
Bob Pearson

#1) Customers are Changing Faster
than Companies
• Breadth – 500k new online customers each
day
• Location -- >40% of online in Asia
• 1st Impressions -- YouTube Is 2nd largest search
engine
• Habits -- Brazil one of leading consumers of
online info
Are you a student or an observer?

GROWTH EVERY SECOND
2.2 Million
e-mails Sent
2 New Blogs Created 7 PCs Sold
31k text
520k links clicked per
1,157 Videos messages per
seond
Viewed on YouTube second

Brazil – from 5MM to 67MM and a
leading consumer of content

#2) A Tectonic Shift is Occurring in
Where Conversations Occur
• Language – customers speak online in their
first language (10 reach 95%)
• Location – Facebook, Twitter, Forums
• Time of Day – Ex/low volume during day, high
volume in evenings
Where do your customers like to hang-out,
learn and share?

10 Languages Reach 95%
Hindu & Russian are Next

#3) E-Commerce Will Become
E-Community
• Reality -- <1% of time is spent buying online.
99% is spent browsing & socializing
• Peer Influence – 3 of 4 customers look to their
peers for advice on a purchase
• Integration – why would we ask a customer to
go to multiple sites? The value is…….?
Convergence is led by convenience

THE REAL WORLD OF OUR CUSTOMERS
ONLINE
Opinions are formed during the 99% of time outside of the purchase path
Broadband users spend 1 hour, The Purchase
40 minutes (48% of their spare
Experience
time) online, and more than
half of this is spent accessing
<1% of a person’s time is
entertainment and
spent actually purchasing
communication
our products

78% rank consumer recommendations as most credible
form of advertising (Nielsen)

#4) The Media World isn’t Changing…..
it Changed
• Media Outlets – do the homework to see who
is driving SOV for your company
• Online Influence – bloggers respect other
bloggers opinions the most
• Conversations – are the driver of SOV,
influence and recommendations
What conversations are defining your brand in
the marketplace? Is your media mix
changing?

The New Media
11

Your broadcast station

#5) Syndication of Content Matters
More than Site Traffic
• Micro-Communities – the social media world
grows & fragments, simultaneously
• Customer-Driven Preference – “I want what I
want where I want it”. Stop “spamming me”.
• Participation is a Choice – if companies don’t
listen, customers vote via lack of traffic and
participation.
What is your content syndication plan?

Q&As matter

Communities Form that are the Size of
Cities

#6) Idea Management will Become a
Core Skill of Leading Companies
• The Idea Lifecycle – gather, integrate and
report (do all three to succeed)
• “Ideas Anywhere” – from your Facebook wall
to new tools to reach any community
• Real Wisdom of Crowds – software to reach
crowds with right knowledge
• Internal & External Ideas – employees to B2B
How are you improving your company today?

Why Would You Not Leverage “open
source” Knowledge?
• The web is the world’s greatest operating
system. It’s all yours and ready to leverage.
• Would you rather do a focus group with 10
people or listen to 100,000 people debate
ideas for a few months and ask them
questions throughout the process?
• Remove the obstacles…..and open your new
R&D center

Receiving Ideas Should Be
Boundaryless….

Over 11,000 Ideas & 325+
implemented

Crowds Really Do Increase a
Company’s Intelligence
• Will next quarter’s sales meet targets?
Will the store in France open on time?
Which product features should we include in the
next version?
How much should we charge for this new
service?
Which potential partner will help us achieve our
business goals?
Which investment opportunity deserves to be
funded?
Will the website launch on time?

You Can Improve Internal Processes
• New ways to improve workflows
• New ways to interact with suppliers
• New ways to interact with partners
• New ways to aggregate customer data
• New ways to personalize the customer
experience
• New ways to support the field
• New ways to integrate innovation into the
product development process
• New ways to reduce OpEx
• New ways to analyze unstructured data
• Etc, Etc, Etc

#7) The Barriers Between Work
& Home will be Minimized
• Access to the World’s Greatest Operating
System at Work – the web
• One Employee/One Computer – why two?
• Enterprise Software will become more
consumer-oriented – the value of complexity
is??????
Are you embracing or resisting the change?

#8) Shopping is Changing Permanently
• Ratings & Reviews – your peers define the
brand and experience for you
• Co-Browsing – your peers help you shop
• Contextual Content – info you want appears
when you discuss it
Individuals in companies can have the respect
of peers. How many “company peers” do
you have?

#9) Understanding Market Dynamics
is Key to Understanding Growth
• New Countries – why do folks join
Facebook?
• New Ways to Communicate – why does
Twitter work?
• Regional Leaders – what are the trends for
Toudou?
• The Next Surprise -- Countries are being
formed that are not being treated with the
full respect that their nation’s population
deserves…

What is being said about your brand in
each key language?

#10) Your Customers are Ready to
Meet You – Are You Ready?
• Do you know where conversations are
occurring that are relevant to your
business?
• What is the search experience like?
• Which communities matter the most to
your customer?
• Where is the real volume of traffic that
matters?

Example using Keyword Results on
Google
• Allstate insurance – 3.99MM
• Allstate insurance company – 943k
• Geico.com – 1.83MM
• Geico insurance – 1.77MM
• State Farm insurance company – 4.9MM
Or
• Insurance quote – 31.99MM
• Insurance group – 22.3MM
• Home insurance – 75.8MM
• Auto insurance – 64.8MM

First Impressions Matter

#11) Customers Like to do Three
Things on a Regular Basis
• Share ideas – let’s improve the next product
or service together
• Share product knowledge – here is what I
know…hope it helps you.
• Help peers with problems – I had the same
problem, here is what I did.

Accepted Solutions empowers our customers to
share their knowledge to benefit the world
Solved button
Solved button
added to
added to
Original Post;
Original Post;
clicking it will
clicking it will
take user to
take user to
AS
AS
AS Post Turns
AS Post Turns
Green and
Green and
logo added
logo added

#12) Create Communities that
Customers Want, not your Boss
• It’s time to meet your communities. They
already exist. You share a common passion.
• You just need to find each other.
• Or create a place for them to gather.

A community-driven site

Whole Foods, JetBlue & Dell
Lead the Way

Customers Prefer
Content that Helps their
business

Partnering with Customers
Free Recycling add $0
Support Reforestation: “Plant A Tree for Me” [add $2]
Recycling Kit and “Plant A Tree for Me” [add $2]

Observations on the Old School
• They are old school, but don’t realize it
• They think tweaking the media mix will work
• The y wear ties, sound smart and have an
answer for everything and often represent
yesterday’s thinking
• They are planning to succeed in a world that
won’t exist in a few years
• They like to “content dump” to get rid of
their messages in hopes someone will find it

LEADERS WILL ENTER
AND BECOME RELEVANT IN
CONVERSATIONS THAT OCCUR EVERY DAY
IN EVERY LANGUAGE ALL AROUND THE
WORLD ABOUT THEIR COMPANY OR
PRODUCT
Companies that cling to the past may not realize it,
but they will lose relevance.

MESSAGE
EXPERIENCE
CONVERSATION
RELATIONSHIPS
AFFINITY
&
TRUST
WE BECOME
CONVERSATION
ARCHITECTS

Key Coordinates
• The Blog Council --
www.blogcouncil.org
• My personal blog -- www.csmg.us
• Everything else --
www.twitter.com/bobpearson1845