Search This Blog

Friday, October 28, 2016

Planting Seeds, Growing Networks

     This week's Leadership and Emerging Media’s class readings covered what, at first glance, appeared to be a scattershot of subjects.  These topics ranged from: using social media to improve sales; a full PhD dissertation on using network analysis to identify opinion leaders; understanding how many friends one has in their social sphere; to word-of-mouth marketing; with a couple of TEDTalks included for good measure and digital relevancy.  Having provided that list as a baseline here is what I have deduced with regards to opinion leaders and their use of interpersonal and social media communications: Word-of-Mouth (from now on referred to as WOM), or as Okazaki describes in “Social Influence Model and Electronic Word of Mouth” (2009) the “person-to-person information exchange” is the diffusion communication king.
     Mass media is still able to ignite a buzz and bring awareness to an innovation, service or message through encouraging a perceptual change in people.  It is, however, the opinion leaders that encourage a behavioral change in others through interpersonal and social media communications (Kim, 2007).  WOM is the latest and greatest communication tool for the diffusion job.  This combination of interpersonal and social media influence is exactly what Emily York mentioned in her article, “Starbucks Gets Its Business Brewing Again with Social Media”.  York provides details about, “how the company turned around sales by finding the ‘intersection between digital and physical’” (2010).  They didn’t find a place per se, they found an online and offline community and diffused various messages to the opinion leaders within it and let WOM do the rest.  Starbucks is by no means the only entity developing and employing the WOM model with a targeted opinion leadership strategy.
     One of the readings was a piece about Ford Motors and their similar approach with the launch of a Ford Fiesta Movement.  The article, “Ford launches the Fiesta Movement, But Is It Really Just a Campaign” (Collier, 2009) points to capitalizing on opinion leaders as change agents using WOM.  In this scenario, Ford is using the connectedness of opinion leaders in the social networking world to attach to their WOM campaign.  But here is the intersection, these opinion leaders in the digital world also have an interpersonal connectedness in their social world. 
       So when considering this intersection and the use of WOM as a seed, an image of a garden comes to my mind.  The seeds of innovation and ideas are first planted by the marketing entity and then tended to by the opinion leaders within their respective social network, their community gardens.  A community garden is much like the network coproduction model mentioned by Kozinets, de Valck, Wilner, and Wojnicki (2010) in “Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities”.  The marketer distributes the seed, the “direct influence” to the opinion leader, who is now deemed a consumer and lead gardener if you will.  They in turn use their credibility and communal interests to share the seed in their social network community garden.  All consumers a.k.a. workers within that community garden, that social network, work together by sharing these messages through both interpersonal and digital WOM.  Results for the efficacy of WOM in the garden are in and they are good, really good.  Support was found for just how good in a recent, January 2016, article by Marcdavid Cohn aptly titled, “40+ Word-of-Mouth Marketing Statistics You Should Know.”  I urge you to give this article a read because according to the numbers WOM is indeed like a marketing “MiracleGro”.  The social network community gardens are growing like crazy.
     Case in point, I happen to be a United States Air Force veteran and a proud one at that, so I have some vested interest, a communcal concern, in caring about and sharing with my segment of that community.  Here is the scenario, there is a national non-profit organization named VetTix and about a year ago the message got to me about some of the services they provide. So when this WOM was diffused to me via a shared personal story I learned of the VetTix existence.  I felt like I needed to know more about the organization and what they represented, now I know that I needed to know their “why”.  See Simon Sinek describe the “why” in his wildy successful TEDTalk on “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (2010).  During my due diligence I learned that VetTix started when the founders realized just how many empty seats were always at various sporting and entertainment events.   This organization serves a liaison between event ticket donors (both corporate and private) and military active-duty and service veterans.
     Now that I had the why I was ready to buy in to their organization.  I completed the required application and have had several of my own personal experiences with their ticket distribution process.  All of these experiences have been favourable and all of them were shared by every social media platform I subscribe to, as well as, interpersonal WOM within my own physical social world.
     After sharing my personal WOM experience I’d like to mention that yes I’m fully aware of the attribution theory and my own humanistic basic need to explain and relate my story.  That is the very beauty of WOM, we as humans inevitably want to share and belong to something bigger and collectively better.  Kozinets et al. (2010) summed it up with, “…successful WOM depends on the transformation…to relevant, useful, communally desirable social information that builds individual reputations and group relationships”.  Within the WOM framework, we as individual consumers and as members of common network gardens, are able to share our narratives and in so doing share our “why”s.
     Last but not least, I’m going to start ending each blog with a “bonus share”.  Something that I come across during the week’s reading/research and feel is blog-share worthy.  This week it is all about Mr. Simon Sinek.  First, there is a sign-up website to receive a Sinek – “Start with why - daily dose of inspiration” email or newsletter.  Here it is: https://www.startwithwhy.com/Newsletter.aspx.  Next there is a Simon Sinek “Why Discovery Course” in which Sinek himself will serve as your “interactive video guide” to help uncover, explore, name and frame your Why statement.  I mention this because it is a) interesting to me, and b) associated fees aren’t crazy expensive, but also c) back to my veteran community garden.  At the very bottom of the webpage there is a “Salute to Service” discount for active duty members and veterans.  With confirmation of service the “Why Discovery Course” is reduced to $10 vice the standard fee of $129.   If interested visit: https://www.startwithwhy.com/LearnYourWhy.aspx.

Strategically Yours,

Autumn


WORKS CITED:
Cohn, M.D.  (2016, January 21).  40+ Word of Mouth Marketing Statistics You Should Know.  Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/40-word-of-mouth-marketing-statistics-you-should-know-marcdavid-cohn.

Collier, M .  (2009, May 29).  Ford Launches Fiesta Movement, But Is It Really Just a Campaign.  Retrieved from http://mackcollier.com/ford-launches-the-fiesta-movement-but-is-it-really-just-a-campaign.

Kim, D. K. (2007).  Identifying Opinion Leaders Using Social Network Analysis: A Synthesis of Opinion Leadership Data Collection Methods and Instruments (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/ohiou1186672135/inline.

Kozinets, R.V., de Valck, K., Wilner, S.J. & Wojnicki, A.C. (2010). Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities. Journal of Marketing, 74, 71-89.  doi:10.1509/jmkg.74.2.71

Okazaki, S. (2009).  Social Influence Model and Electronic Word of Mouth. International Journal of Advertising, 28, 439-472.  doi:10.2501/S0265048709200692


Sinek, S.  (2010, May).  How Great Leaders Inspire Action [Video File]  Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en

Friday, October 21, 2016

Discussing Roger's Diffusion of Innovations Theory and How Our Plan Went Wrong

     Hello and welcome to “Strategically Yours”, an open discussion of Dr. Everett Roger's theory on the Diffusion of Innovations.  This theory is a general model which has demonstrated usability for a multitude of applications.  At the theory's heart is Roger's definition of diffusion, "...the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a societal system" (Rogers, 2003, p.5).  In his definition he readily points out the four main elements of the theory: innovation, communication channels, time, and societal system.  A look closer at each of these four elements help us better understand their modality.  For this discussion I was able to apply the theory framework to a recent work event and gain some insight into the lack of adoption to a recent communication plan with which I had involvement.
     The above-mentioned event was a commute challenge on a local, two county level.  The challenge lasted for a 90-day period.  The primary goal of the challenge was to have local employers support and encourage commuters to: 1) register for the challenge, and 2) track/log their alternative commutes for a minimum of 30 workdays during the 90-day period.  There were weekly prize drawings for any logged commute alternatives.  Some of these weekly drawings were for as much as a $100 Macy’s gift card, a $50 Cheesecake Factory gift card, and more.  Additionally, for those commuters who tracked/logged their 30-day alternative commutes there were guaranteed $50 gas or grocery cards (commuters choice).  Sounds easy enough right?  The key message was “Go Green – Win Green”.  
  One shortcoming I am already aware of is that we really didn’t tailor our communications differently for each group in the Innovation Adoption Curve.  Maybe if we had researched our markets more and identified the Innovators (2.5%), Early Adaptors (13.5%), Early Majority (34%), Late Majority (34%), and Laggards (16%) we could have developed a much more successful and strategic communication plan.  I share this story because I was having a really hard time understanding where the communications went wrong.  I honestly couldn’t believe more people were not jumping up and down to get involved and “adopt” this challenge. 
     I’ve read all of the assigned articles for this week’s requirements and I’ve watched the videos that I’ve also shared on this blog, one from Dr. Rogers himself on his own theory and one from Simon Sinek’s viral TEDTalk.  From these I’ve been able to understand a bit more about where it went wrong and possible ways to improve for next year’s challenge.   I shared the TEDTalk of the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek not because it went viral, but because it was a) very inspirational, and b) it refers to the Diffusion of Innovations theory as he discusses the Golden Circle pattern and getting to the “Why” of it all.
     In reviewing the Commute Challenge initiative and the results I had to ask, “had we conveyed the Why”?  I can honestly say that yes we had conveyed why the event was so important to participants we were hoping would "adopt" the challenge.  What we failed to do was “inspire believers” (Sinek, YouTube).  I don’t think we effectively gained the believers we needed to get to a tipping point.  We never hit that magical critical mass, the one that can by sheer numbers cause an exponential growth upswing on the diffusion S-shaped curve.
     After studying the results of the challenge there was some good news.  Our challenge enrollment was up 350% and our numbers of tracked/logged 30-day commute participants was up 175% from the 2015 numbers for our organization.  Though these numbers probably look good on paper to most, to me they just aren’t satisfactory.  So I’m looking ahead, I’m planning ahead for next year’s challenge.  I hope to research and recruit our organization’s opinion leaders next year in the early development phase of the challenge outreach.  When I find them, my focus will be on inspiring them to support the “why” of the challenge's participation importance.  Wish me luck, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Strategically Yours,

Autumn

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Simon Sinek: Law of Diffusion of Innovation

Everett Rogers "Diffusion of Innovations" Speech

About Me


   Welcome to "Strategically Yours" a blog for discussions, ideas, and all things related to strategic communication and emerging media.  My name is Autumn and I'm a graduate student at Troy University pursuing my second Master's degree.  My first Master's was an M.S. in Counseling and Psychology with a concentration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.  For this Master's program I am studying Strategic Communication.
    This blog is not only a partial requirement for present coursework but also a method for me to share my findings from the various reading assignments and online class discussions.  This is a place for me to conceptualize and apply the methods and theories of strategic communication and emerging media.  I welcome and encourage you, the reader, to share your responses and feedback wholeheartedly.
     The publication plan for "Strategically Yours" is a weekly posting at minimum.  Don't be surprised if I post more often, as I find the field fascinating.  If you've happened upon this blog by chance, please by all means bookmark it: https://communeok.blogspot.com/.  
    In addition to finding the study of emerging media and strategic communications riveting, I also have somewhat of a history with this field.  I have spent 6+ years as a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force (USAF) as a Public Affairs officer.  My relationship with various media outlets was always a primary duty and one I relished.  After separating from the USAF some years ago I took a break and focused on starting and raising a family.  My family is my world, my passion for media coordination and communication has always been there.  Like Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator in the original movie said, "I'll be back", and here I am.

*Click Here For Audio/Visual*
I'll Be Back

Strategically Yours,
Autumn