This document discusses the increasingly complex stakeholder ecosystem that brands operate within across multiple online and offline channels. It notes that stakeholders can engage with brands through many intended and unintended touchpoints that collectively shape perceptions of the brand. Additionally, the document argues that most businesses still operate through internal silos between functions like marketing, PR, sales, etc. that inhibit a cohesive customer experience and limit understanding customer needs holistically. Breaking down these silos is presented as important for standing out in commoditized markets by providing a unified brand experience across touchpoints.

1. DELIBERATELY MEANINGFUL
Robin Hamman, Director of Digital, Edelman
@Cybersoc
1

2. Headshift
Academic Research ITV
BBC
BBS
Lynx, Mosaic Start-Up BBC Edelman
1985 1991 1995 1998 1999 2001 2008 2010
2
A bit about me....
1985 - ran a local BBS service using my apple IIe
1991- went to university requiring all students to have access, from their bedroom, to internet
1995 - MA in Sociology - topic of dissertation was Cybersex in AOL Chat Rooms
1998 - Joined the BBC as the first “Online Community Specialist”
- launched message board platform and training in community management
- launched web chat platform and training
1999 - Completed my part-time MPhil in Communication Studies with study of “Offline Effects of Online Community Participation”; Briefly joined a mobile start up then moved to ITV
2001 - Left ITV to return to the BBC
- rolled out more message boards
- helped define staff blogging and social media guidelines
- launched and ran the BBC blogs
- audience at time I left was 20 million page impressions per month, just 18 months post launch
2008 - joined social business consultancy Headshift
2010 - joined Edelman as Director of Digital

3. PART ONE: A BIT OF THEORY
A Shifting Landscape...
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/apodd/5064813896/
3
Presentation Outline:
Part One - Theory
Part Two - Real World Examples

4. COMPLEX STAKEHOLDER ECOSYSTEM…
Your
Brand
4
Brands and organisations increasingly exist within a complex, multi-stakeholder ecosystem that exists across multiple channels, platforms and geographies - and that is always
switched on.
With so many stakeholders, the job of keeping track of them all is increasingly challenging... but social media tools can help.

5. CONNECTED SPHERES OF DIGITAL
Social
Em n
ba
ss tio
ies
e ga
670
gr
Ag
Seamless
Visibility
Own Search
SEO
&
SEM
5
And just as stakeholders and touchpoints are everywhere, itʼs increasingly important that your brand is everywhere online. The three
interlocking spheres here show how your owned web properties, social media, and search are all interlinked in maintaining and raising your
visibility online.

6. A MULTIPLICITY OF TOUCH POINTS…
Derived from: (CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/3508041510/
6
Stakeholders, consumers, competitors, regulators, recruits... they’re everywhere, and there are many touch-points, some purposefully created, others incidental, and still others
totally unexpected, where these audiences can and will seek to engage.
You’re a parent.You meet another parent outside the school gates and discover that they work for a leading mobile phone company. They love or hate their employer - and
during 3 minutes of chit chat they set your expectations of the brand.
You’re a user of facebook and a friend of a friend introduces themselves.You accept their friend request and watch their updates. They are your interface to the company.
You call a customer support centre and wait 15 minutes to speak with someone. They deny their is a problem.
You are in a retail outlet and have a great experience with a helpful, knowledgable member of staff....
Your financial advisor tells you that a company is going places... you invest...
You read a story in the paper... you hear about a government regulation that will impact an industry... you’re at a trade event... you see an advertisement.
IT’S ALL ONE BRAND and your perceptions of it are influences by whatever contacts you have, good and bad, with the people and messages of that organisation.

7. A MULTIPLICITY OF TOUCH POINTS…
wtf?
Derived from: (CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/3508041510/
7
Stakeholders, consumers, competitors, regulators, recruits... they’re everywhere, and there are many touch-points, some purposefully created, others incidental, and still others
totally unexpected, where these audiences can and will seek to engage.
You’re a parent.You meet another parent outside the school gates and discover that they work for a leading mobile phone company. They love or hate their employer - and
during 3 minutes of chit chat they set your expectations of the brand.
You’re a user of facebook and a friend of a friend introduces themselves.You accept their friend request and watch their updates. They are your interface to the company.
You call a customer support centre and wait 15 minutes to speak with someone. They deny their is a problem.
You are in a retail outlet and have a great experience with a helpful, knowledgable member of staff....
Your financial advisor tells you that a company is going places... you invest...
You read a story in the paper... you hear about a government regulation that will impact an industry... you’re at a trade event... you see an advertisement.
IT’S ALL ONE BRAND and your perceptions of it are influences by whatever contacts you have, good and bad, with the people and messages of that organisation.

8. SILOS INHIBIT ACTION… “To stand out in a commoditized market, companies must
understand what customers truly value. The only way to
do that is to break down the traditional, often entrenched,
silos and unite resources to focus directly on customer
needs."
~Ranjay Gulati, Harvard Business Review
MARKETING PUBLIC
RELATIONS SALES RECRUITMENT CUSTOMER CARE
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/5500714140/
8
Most businesses, however, aren’t set up to deal effectively with the multiplicity of touch points. In addition to having silos internally, they may also
silo their budgets, and thus inhibit their agencies from working in a more joined up way. Result? You engage the world as if you are a series of
confederated organisations - the logo is the same, but the message and the experience may very well be far from cohesive and coherent.

9. (CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsimages/998243013/
9
We’ve spent some time looking at organisational trends, trying to understand how businesses are dealing with the challenges I’ve outlined. Successful businesses, according to
our research, are beginning to think and act differently -
* they involve their employees, and where it makes sense to, external stakeholders in defining their business objectives
* they recognise that collaborative, open working environments create opportunities for new ideas to flourish
* and they understand that employees at all levels can get involved in “communication”

10. IN THIS TOGETHER
“People at all levels of an organisation
have stories to share - stories that
illuminate their lives and purpose...”
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobyrock/541865315/
10
To deal with this changed communications landscape must take a lot of resource, right?! Well, with the right tools - and by that I mean social media monitoring as well as
guidelines, workflows, and training to enable staff - it’s surprisingly simple to involve your customers, consumers, audiences and other stakeholders in your business.

11. “A new organizational structure is required to accommodate and benefit from the culture of
sharing that social media has fueled over the last four years. The information flow we all
experience daily can no longer be organized into neat org-chart silos."
~Charlene Li, Author of Open Leadership
http://edelmandigital.com/2010/04/21/social-business-planning-aligning-internal-with-external/
11
So the fascinating shift we’re seeing a lot of our clients make - and social media helps enable this shift - is from being closed to more collaborative to genuinely open. What does
this actually mean, in relation to social media monitoring, a topic many of you here today are interested in? It means using social media monitoring to understand the feelings,
thoughts, desires and needs of your audiences, whoever those are, and ensuring that those insights - which might include early warnings of a looming crisis, opportunities to
reach out to an evangelist or opinion leader, opportunities to rectify a failure or shortcoming, and even ideas for product and service innovation - to the people, wherever they
are in the business, who can make use of them.

12. Programs
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http://edelmandigital.com/2010/04/21/social-business-planning-aligning-internal-with-external/
12
The reason I joined Edelman was because I recognised a shift. No longer were marketing and communications activities at the fringes of what brands, organisations and
businesses are doing - they are at the centre, core to a range of business critical activities. In order for that to be successful, you have to first recognise the change, but then it
requires training, technical infrastructure, processes, policies, creation of a shared culture - and perhaps most importantly, permission from the top.

13. MEASURABLE OUTCOMES
13
But there is little point in embarking on this path unless you’ve got a clear view of what you intend to measure, and what success (or failure) might look like. This is a
measurement framework we put together for a client as they began creating what we call social media embassies - brand controlled spaces and accounts on third party social
platforms. But as you might have guessed from some of my earlier slides, I think it goes much deeper than this - in addition to these numbers, there are opportunities for other
measurable outcomes, ones that are tied to business critical tasks ranging from marketing to product and service innovation and delivery. Dig deep with social media and you’ll
find the serious metrics.

14. PART TWO: THE REAL WORLD
A Shifting Landscape...
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/kretyen/3361953041/
14

15. The communications landscape is changing. Driven at
pace by the democratising power of digital and the
continued shift from a shareholder to a stakeholder
society, we are witnessing the emergence of a new
model of Public Engagement. Networks have replaced
channels; influence has supplanted audience; shared
interests are moving us beyond dogma; and
multilateral connection is the new dialogue. We are
faced daily with a chaos of news and views. The
golden age of broadcast is over.
Robert Phillips, UK CEO, Edelman
http://www.edelman.co.uk/public-engagement/
15
Public Engagement offers an interesting framework which describes the behaviours we’re seeing in digital communications.

16. the creation of meaningful
participatory frameworks that align
stakeholder behaviours with
measurable business outcomes
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/gettysgirl/3692150826/
16
What it means, to me, is focusing on a variety of activities that allow you to create meaningful
participatory frameworks that align stakeholder and audience behaviours with measurable
business outcomes. There are seven of these activities, or behaviours...

17. THE SEVEN BEHAVIOURS OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Listen with new intelligence
Participate in the conversation: real time / all the time
Socialise media relations
Create and co-create content
Champion open advocacy
Build active partnerships for the common good
Embrace the chaos
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/lincolnian/1328426678/
17
I’m going to use this framework as a way of introducing a wide variety of case studies. If any
of these captures your interest, feel free to note it down and ask a question about it at the
end - I’d love the opportunity to go into more detail on some of these.

18. 1. LISTEN WITH NEW INTELLIGENCE
(CC) http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/gatorade-social-media-mission-control/
http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/gatorade-social-media-mission-control/
18
Gatorade - PepsiCo is an Edelman client - has set up a “Social Media Mission Control Center” that staff at all levels, and in all roles, can walk into at any time to find out what
customers and other stakeholders are saying about the brand and related topics of interest such as “sports rehydration”.

19. MONITORING STRATEGY
Identify 670
opportunities
for pro-active Online discussion and
engagement community relating to
your core business
objectives and messaging
Discussion of
Brand X
Identify
opportunities
for primarily
re-active
engagement
19
To do all this, you need some tools. Not just social media monitoring service, but other tools including a strategy, workflows, guidelines and measurement frameworks...
1. Monitoring strategy:
Most organisations and brands that are already monitor tend to focus almost entirely on the more obvious opportunity - monitoring for specific mentions of brand, product,
services and the same for their competitors. So, to use an imaginary example, SAS might monitor for “SAS”.
There’s another, often missed opportunity, which is to monitor for opportunities to engage with individuals and communities who are discussing topics and issues that are
important to your brand and it’s messaging.
So, for example, I’d imagine that any large airline would monitor for their name, as well, potentially, for conversations about the airports from which they hub or where they have
key routes - eg. SAS might widen their monitoring so that it also covers Copenhagen Airport, CPH, “Copenhagen to London”, “flights to Copenhagen”, “employment in
Copenhagen” , “careers in travel industry”, “sustainability in the airline industry”, etc etc.

20. MONITORING AND RESPONSE This chart is based upon a model used by the United States
Air Force to guide their response policies for blogs and
a former US Military spokesperson and
communications expert. It serves as a ‘guide, not a ball
WORKFLOWS... potential issues discovered online. It was designed as a ‘field and chain,’ and still accounts for the need to be nimble in
manual’ for USAF representatives in the words of Steven Field, responses to online communications.
Have you found social media
content about your brand?
Is it positive?
NO
Has the content been avail-
YES able online for some time?
NO YES
A constructive, factual and Is this a site dedicated to bash-
well cited response, which ing and degrading others?
may agree or disagree with Avoid responding to
the content, but is not specific items of content.
negative. NO YES Monitor the source for
You can acknowledge the relevant information and
content, provide an endorse- comments.
ment, or let it stand. Is the content a rant, joke,
Do you want to respond? ridicule or satirical in nature?
NO
Respond directly with
Does the content contain YES factual information via a
public comment.
errors?
(See Response
NO YES Considerations below)
NO
Let the content stand Is the content the result of a YES Address the situation,
-no response bad experience for one of respond and act upon a
our stakeholders? reasonable solution.
(See Response
Considerations below)
NO
Add value to the content Base response on your present
creator by sharing information circumstances and influence, YES
about your brand and goals. and profile of content creator.
(See blog response Will you respond?
considerations below)
YES YES
Disclose your Cite your sources by Consider your re- Be polite, respectful, Prioritise the most
connection. including hyperlinks, ponses, but act swiftly constructive and con- influential and highest
video, images or to avoid losing the versational. Aim to profile sources for your
other references. moment to influence build a relationship, target audience.
the conversation. not start a quarrel.
20
Audience fragmentation. Stakeholder ecosystem complexity. Multiplicity of touch points. Silos no longer recognised as meaningful by audiences and inhibiting meaningful action.
Broadcast being replaced with conversation....
To deal with this changed communications landscape must take a lot of resource, right?! Well, with the right tools - and by that I mean social media monitoring as well as
guidelines, workflow, and training to enable staff - it’s surprisingly simple.
(Workflow here is derived from a workflow created by the US Military)

21. MONITORING AND RESPONSE
WORKFLOWS...
21
Audience fragmentation. Stakeholder ecosystem complexity. Multiplicity of touch points. Silos no longer recognised as meaningful by audiences and inhibiting meaningful action.
Broadcast being replaced with conversation....
To deal with this changed communications landscape must take a lot of resource, right?! Well, with the right tools - and by that I mean social media monitoring as well as
guidelines, workflow, and training to enable staff - it’s surprisingly simple.

22. LISTENING AS A BUSINESS PLAN
http://editd.com
22
EditD monitors online conversations about the catwalk shows... then uses this information to
forecast trends for clients in the apparel industry.

23. LISTENING AS CONTENT
http://www.shownar.com/
23
Shownar was a BBC service that tracked and linked to online discussions of BBC TV and Radio
programmes - instead of having to host and moderate discussions on bbc.co.uk, the service
allowed the BBC to curate the very best content being posted elsewhere.

24. 2. PARTICIPATE IN THE CONVERSATION
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrojp/92038203/
24
Wikipedia: Conversation is interactive, more-or-less spontaneous, communication between two or more conversants. Interactivity occurs because contributions to a
conversation are response reactions to what has previously been said. Spontaneity occurs because a conversation must proceed, to some extent, and in some way, unpredictably.
In other words, successful conversations require both listening and speaking.
That’s what social media monitoring - and in my mind social media more widely - is all about: having a conversation, to which you both contribute and gain.

25. RIGHT FROM THE START
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/manchester/2006/08/starting_a_conversation.shtml
25
When I was at the BBC, one of the projects I launched was the BBC Manchester Blog. The idea was, as with Shownar, to experiment in monitoring
and linking as a way of bringing the very best user generated content to our audiences without requiring us to host and moderate that content. For
me, the day we launched offered a quick lesson in the value of social media monitoring, when a prominent Manchester blogger raised some
worries about our motivations. We spotted this in minutes, responded within half an hour - joining in the conversation and showing that we
wanted to participate as equals, to everyone’s benefit.

26. SPREADING THE WORKLOAD
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78#%-$9(0:#;1$<#00(%,(0$=:>32%,$?$=&,-#0$#@$A./#*(0()$
http://twitter.com/twelpforce
26
American electronics retailer BestBuy launched, in the US, TwelpForce. It’s an idea that mirrors much of the thinking I expressed earlier in this
presentation as it’s genuinely about breaking down silos and using a combination of tools - social media monitoring, monitoring and response
workflows, staff guidelines and training - to improve the customer experience by enabling thousands of staff to engage - always appropriately,
helpfully, and in a de-risked way - via twitter and elsewhere online.

27. ASK QUESTIONS THAT DELIVER ANSWERS
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
27
Starbucks, an Edelman client, has taken listening and participation in the conversation to heart by asking their customers for suggestions on
improving their product and service offerings. So far, nearly 100,000 ideas have been generated. Most of these are unworkable, but some have
been put into place.

28. BE WHERE AUDIENCES ARE
Purina Website
Purina Web
PRESENCE
28
One brand who exemplifies this approach is Purina, an American pet food brand. Theyʼve used the entire web as their communications
canvas, building a community, rather than focusing on a short term campaign. Emotional, conversational content on twitter, youtube, facebook
and the pet-centric pet lovers portal all link back to rational brand and product related content on their official website. The result? Increased
visibility and deeper engagement.

29. FACILITATE THE CONVERSATION
http://www.openforum.com/
29
American Express uses Open Forum to facilitate the conversations small business owners want, and need, to have. Oh, and if you need some
corporate credit cards...

30. 3. SOCIALISE MEDIA RELATIONS
(CC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/creativecommons/2294317199/
30

31. EMBED AND SPREAD
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesyu/366732694/
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesyu/366732694/
31

32. 4. CREATE AND CO-CREATE
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/lollyman/4424552903/
32

33. CO-DESIGN PRODUCTS
http://www.threadless.com
33
Threadless is an online t-shirt retailer. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of designs - yet not designers on staff. That’s because they ask their
customers to contribute t-shirt design ideas, with other customers voting and offering suggestions to improve the designs. Once a design is
chosen, just about everyone who was involved in the creative process gets involved in telling their friends - that is marketing - the design. Oh, and
the person who designed the t-shirt gets paid.

34. CROWD-SOURCE HEAVY LIFTING
http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/
34
Last year, the Daily Telegraph got ahold of a disk containing scans of all MP expense claims. A few days later, that same data was released under
the Freedom of Information Act. The Guardian, like other newspapers was behind the Telegraph by a few days. Rather than throwing a whole bunch
of journalists (scarce resource) at the job of sifting through the documents, looking for stories, the Guardian crowdsourced that job to their
audiences. Within a few hours, those audiences had gone through far more of the documents than journalists at any other paper, and the Guardian
got some great early scoops by creating a platform that allowed journalists and audiences to work together.

35. CUSTOMER LED SERVICE DELIVERY
http://www.giffgaff.com
35
GiffGaff, an 02 spin-off, is a “community run” mobile phone network. Customers are actually
paid to respond to each other’s customer care inquiries, to help develop new service
offerings, etc...

36. CO-CREATE CONTENT = GAIN VALUABLE INSIGHTS
“Glamour Ask a Stylist” on the iTunes App Store
36
This is Glamour Magazine’s “Ask a Stylist” application. Users upload a photograph of themselves, define what sort of event they are dressing for
(eg. casual friday, first date, interview) and what stylist they’d like an answer from.
Data:
* pictures of what their audience is wearing (colour, style, age, type of clothing, etc)
* which stylists are popular
* which “fashion challenges” audiences face
Content:
* ability to identify features of interest to audience and use of content in those features

37. 5. CHAMPION OPEN ADVOCACY
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosengrant/3982140863/
37
Open Advocacy is just as much about giving your stakeholders, audiences and consumers something to love as it is allowing them to share
that love. Give and you shall receive.
(Note RE: CC - not licensed for commercial use - have included in unpaid, informational presentations only)

38. LIKE IT? SHARE IT...
http://www.centernetworks.com/victorias-secret-facebook-free-panty
38
Open advocacy is all about making it possible for those who align themselves with your brand to share their affinity with their friends. Victoriaʼs
Secret Lingerie turned Facebookʼs “Like” into a physical product...

39. 6. BUILD ACTIVE PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE COMMON GOOD
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/irievibrations/3675852330/
39

40. CROWD-FUNDING
http://www.spot.us/
40

41. “REFRESH THE WORLD...”
http://www.refresheverything.com
41
PepsiRefresh is about surfacing great ideas that can change the world, with Pepsi’s help...

42. http://www.enabledbydesign.org
SOLVE CHALLENGES TOGETHER
42
Enabled by Design is a social business run on a not-for-profit basis for the benefit of our community.
Enabled by Design was inspired by co-founder Denise Stephens' experiences following her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 2003. Having suffered a series of disabling
relapses and hospital admissions, Denise was assessed by an Occupational Therapist (OT) and given a range of assistive equipment to help her to be as independent as
possible. Although this equipment made a huge difference to her life, she became frustrated as her home started to look more and more like a hospital. But Denise had an
idea...
In April 2008, Enabled by Design was chosen to take part in the first ever Social Innovation Camp. A weekend long competition, Social Innovation Camp brings together
people with ideas of how to solve specific social issues, with web developers, designers and those with business expertise to develop online solutions to real world challenges.
At the end of the weekend after a Dragons' Den-style pitching competition, Enabled by Design was awarded first prize as the 'project with most potential'. The panel of judges
included innovation expert Charles Leadbeater, Bebo co-founder Paul Birch, Yahoo technical evangelist Christian Heilmann and head of the Young Foundation's Launchpad,
Simon Tucker.
Since then Denise and her co-founder, Dominic Campbell, have been working hard to spread the word about Enabled by Design and get people involved to share their views
and experiences of assistive equipment - yes, that means you!

43. 7. EMBRACE THE CHAOS
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohhector/456611804/
43
And the final behaviour of public engagement is to embrace the chaos. Be brave. Be creative. But also do things in a strategic, de-risked way. There
are massive opportunities out there.

44. (cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/45699481@N04/4664596482/
44

45. dziekuje
robin.hamman@edelman.com
twitter: @Cybersoc
http://slideshare.net/Cybersoc
(cc) http://www.flickr.com/photos/45699481@N04/4664596482/
45
And the final behaviour of public engagement is to embrace the chaos. Be brave. Be creative. But also do things in a strategic, de-risked way. There
are massive opportunities out there.