Posts Tagged ‘Web 2.0’
The other day I picked up The New Language of Marketing 2.0: How to Use ANGELS to Energize Your Market, a terrific book on marketing in a Web 2.0 world written by Sandy Carter, a senior person at IBM. From the moment I picked up the book, I was enthralled – here was a book with meat. I must have stood for 20-30 minutes next to the shelf just devouring as much as I could. Frankly, I’m still thinking about it.
One of the things that struck me as I read the book was something Carter called IBM’s Wheel of Influence:
IBM's Wheel of Influence
In this one diagram, Carter managed to sum up the task of corporate communications in a networked world.
In a weird way, it’s also a retro type of diagram, one that could have been drawn up in 1909 as much as in 2009. But there is something exciting and new about it as well.
What do I mean? These days those in the PR business have a whole suite of new tools available to them to reach the Influencers. And what gives this 1909-esque diagram a definite 2009 feel is that the tools aren’t just for telling corporate tales (1909), but for facilitating communication between two or more of these Influencers, even if the corporation doesn’t directly benefit (2009).
It’s also the case that the definitions of some of these categories have been radically redefined since 1909. ‘Local community’ can mean one’s corporate HQ as much as it’s one’s community of followers on the Web. ‘Media’ today means as much the blogosphere as it does CBS and the Boston Globe. And as for ’employees,’ they’re much more connected with the wider world than ever before, especially the talented younger ones, and the wiser corporations are falling over themselves to make sure their ‘internal’ PR is as well-tuned as their ‘external’ PR.
Let’s boil all this down. What I’ve been talking about can be distilled into what I call Donnelly’s First Law of Corporate Communications:
In the world of Web 2.0, the most helpful companies will be the big winners. (And helpful is defined as doing whatever it takes to make others around you better — richer, happier, more connected, etc.)
So, armed with IBM’s Wheel of Influence as a conceptual tool, and then feeding it with some social media mojo, any corporation — and the individuals in that corporation — are bound to come out ahead as the economy begins to rebound.
Listen closely: Selfishness is out. Greed is no longer good. Win-win scenarios are what it’s all about these days.
Social Media & Management Mojo 