TCP will help you attract new clients. Before we go to the TCP, we will have a look into social media and try to understand it a bit. Social media has impacted us in more ways than one, not just on an individual level, but also the society, the way we do business and politics. The way we connect to each other, have conversations online, conduct business, maintain relationships, or simply gather information and interact with others has changed drastically, thus affecting our social behavioural patterns. Social media can have a strong influence on a person/group/or community through the dissemination of information via social networking channels, thereby having the power to influence the way people think or act or react to a stimulus. There are social networking sites, bookmarking sites, dating sites, photo sites, video sites, blogging platforms, micro-blogging platforms, discussion forums, Q&A sites etc.
Kaplan and Haenlein classified the social media into six different types based on their media research and published it in an article in Business Horizons. They classified the social media as:
1. Collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia)
2. Blogs and Microblogs (e.g. Twitter)
3. Content Communities (e.g. Youtube)
4. Social Networking Sites (e.g. Facebook)
5. Virtual Game Worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft)
6. Virtual Social Worlds (e.g. Second Life)
Kietzmann et al. studied the social media activities on the Internet and found that the behaviour of the consumers on the Internet had changed from simply expending content, reading it, watching it, buying and selling products or services to now take a more active part by utilizing various platforms like content sharing sites, blogs, social networking sites and wikis – to create, modify, share and discuss Internet content. According to their article, this represents the social media phenomenon, which now has the capability to significantly impact a firm’s reputation, its sales and even survival for that matter. In spite of this phenomenon, many executives are still ignoring this form of social media simply because they do not understand it, or the various forms it can take, and even how to engage with it and learn.
Thus, to help the organisations to engage with, know and understand the social media better, they came up with a honeycomb framework that defines the social media by using seven functional building blocks, namely: Identity, Conversations, Sharing, Presence, Relationships, Reputation, and Groups. Using this honeycomb framework, they have tried to explain the implications that each block can have for how firms should engage with the social media. The figure shows how different social media activities are defined by the extent to which they focus on some or all these blocks. For example – LinkedIn focuses primarily on Identity, Reputation and Relationships, whereas YouTube focuses primarily on Sharing, Conversations, Groups and Reputation.
In this manner, one can study the focus of each social media platform to be able to understand it better and be able to use and engage it in the right manner to get the maximum leverage out of it.
Kietzmann et al., in the article published in Business Horizons, have explained in detail how the framework can be used to compare and contrast the functionalities and implications of different social media activities and also presented guidelines for how firms should develop strategies for monitoring, understanding, and responding to the different social media activities.
Now we will investigate the Conversation Prism and it’s working.
Brian Solis (a principal analyst at Altimeter Group), an anthropologist, a digital analyst and a futurist developed the Conversation Prism (TCP) in 2008, which is a visual map of the social media landscape. His study in digital ethnography is an on-going one that tracks dominant and promising social networks and organises them by how they are used in everyday life.
Brian partnered with Jesse Thomas to bring a unique perspective to the social media ecosystem. Their collective effort in creative design and thoughtful approach helped to make the Conversation Prism the standard illustration for all things social media. As of 2013, the Conversation Prism has gone through four different versions with the version 4.0 marketing the most significant change since 2009.
He defined it as a Prism in the traditional sense of the word, as a prism disperses white light into a spectrum of colours. In this case, the white light is the focused stream of conversations that are often grouped, but not separated by voice, context, source, or outcome. This beam of dialogue is blasted into a spectrum of discernible light to see, hear, learn and adapt. Thus, he has literally brought “conversations to light.”
Halo 1: That is the centre of all conversations, with Brand You. The idea here is that you should explore all the social networks and opportunities that would work best for you (your brand) so that you can gain or introduce value. Here, Value could be defined in terms of not just traditional ROI, but in terms of the brand resonance or equity, relationships, leadership, intelligence etc.
Halo 2: Once you have successfully identified the role that you wish to play in social media, you will need a meaningful engagement within those social networks to bring about effective results. Focusing on this aspect in the Halo 2 are five pillars:
What is your vision for social media, the purpose or reason for being social and if it can be justified logically against other investment opportunities? What is the value you intend to deliver and how will you assess and communicate this value towards the social interactions and relationships that are involved here? However, it is also imperative to understand the level of commitment that would be necessary to provide and gain value as you scale, so you need to be careful before investing in social media. With the advance in technology, the networks, and nodes of doing business are becoming more human and information is readily available at our fingertips thereby bringing in more transparency in all that we do or say.
Halo3: Social is a way of conducting business functions today, be it HR, Sales and Marketing, Communications, Brand Development, Service or Community. All these functions are essential to mature business perspective from a command and control mentality to that of engagement and openness.
Halo 4: The last of the four concentric circles in the Conversation Prism reminds us of the importance of listening in a conversation, and in doing so being able to learn and adapt so as to improve all that we do inside or outside the company, thus, being in the “Always Be Improving” (ABI) mode. Therefore, each of the concentric circles is designed to work together, to help you improve strategies and results to improve the way you work, how you build relationships with employees and customers, the ability to create and improve better products, services and experiences, and overall, the role you play and the stature you earn as a result.
Apart from this to attract new clients you must understand the benefits that individuals will seek from your social media outlets:
1. Personal Use: Individuals can use the social media for personal reasons, which may be for keeping in touch with the latest technology, news, gossip, and happenings around the world or in their own locality. Social media is also fast replacing the traditional means of communications. In this day and age, it would be hard to find a person who does not use the e-mail facility to send messages to friends/colleagues and/or for official purposes or use the social media for collaboration.
2. Explore Your Creativity: The social media is available in many forms, as explained in the previous chapter. People can use this media to explore their own creativity, for example, a person who loves to write can create their own blogs and explore their writing talents. Blogs are the best way for individuals to express themselves, their views, and opinions on any and all subjects. In this manner, a person can establish their expertise in their particular niche subject by using the blog effectively. There are several other writing platforms that allow people to submit content on their site and reward them in different ways. Due to the very nature of social media it is easy to reach a large audience and find an interested readership.
3. Social Interaction: Human beings love to socialise and interact with each other. The social media enables people to interact with each other using the universally accessible and scalable communication techniques that are available today, in the form of websites and the mobile phones.
4. Get Empowered: The social media has succeeded in putting the power back into the consumer’s hands. As mentioned in the paragraph above, any individual can have a “social influence” by virtue of his/her social interactions on the web or via mobile technologies.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath