Marcia Conner is a partner at Altimeter Group and the co-author of “The New Social Learning.” She blogs at http://learnativity.com/ and tweets as @marciamarcia.

The book is a good read for anyone interested in learning more about how companies can leverage social technologies and tools to become, well, better companies. I asked Marcia a few questions to go deeper into some of the topics on the book, and here’s what she kindly had to say.

1. If social learning is truly a competitive advantage, how can companies that are late to the game differentiate and compete?

The competitive advantage doesn’t come from the technologies themselves associated with social learning. It comes from the expertise and perspective your people have today that’s often never shared with anyone or put to use in the organization. Social media tools can provide venues for people to connect in ways they hadn’t before, differentiating an organization by the quality and brainpower of their people who now can build new approaches together that they couldn’t before.

2. In today’s culture of sharing, does it make sense for companies to publicly display real-time information about how they are performing and how consumers are talking about them on the social web?

Customer perception — heck, even employee perspective— has been posted on bulletin boards and user group meetings for years. If you don’t believe that, google your company then read 10 or even 20 pages into the search results to see all of the places where you’re talked about now. The trouble with many of those venues is that they are only from a narrow slice of your customers, often without additional insights from people within your organization who have additional information. By engaging with those people in those spaces… or better yet, creating venues for a healthy conversation about what you are doing right and what you need to improve upon, you are far more likely to learn from people’s experiences and correct misperceptions and give people with alternative (and possible more favorable) views a chance to weigh in too.

3. What is needed to inspire and create change at companies with an “anti-social” culture? (more…)

I recently participated as a panelist on a webinar titled “Your Brand Advocates- How to Find Them and What They Are Worth,” along with Kety Esquivel (from Ogilvy), Rob Fuggetta (from Zuberance), and Frank Eliason (on his last day at Comcast — he’s now with Citi). We talked about what a brand advocate is, and how brands can identify and energize them. Here are my slides along with a few thoughts and tips.

Brand advocates, at their core, are people who really like and care about a brand. They are the opposite of critics because they’re out there talking about the brand and recommending it to their friends  (aprox 150 if they’re sharing those recommendations online, according to Forrester). What they say actually resonates with others because there is a trust between friends and connections. These brand advocates cannot be bought, forced or created, so others perceive them as genuine fans of the brand.

Brand advocates are brand advocates because they’ve had good experiences with a brand and they are willing and able to share some enthusiasm. Of course, brand advocates aren’t always positive and they aren’t always the most vocal or social (as we might assume they are). They do expect the best from you… and that is a good thing. (more…)

Here are videos of the Q&A at the Corporate Social Media Summit in NYC last week. Some of the questions asked were around the role of a Social Media Manager, Foursquare for brands, Twitter follower management, and how to be customer-centric when a community continues to increase in size.

There is also one video with questions by the guys at Served Fresh Media.

 Check out the slides and videos from the presentation here.

 DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this blog are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of Samsung. Posts by contributors reflect their personal opinions and not those of their employers.

Here are the slides and video for my presentation about Samsung’s Customer-Centric Approach to Twitter and Social Media at the Corporate Social Media Summit in NYC.

For videos on the Q&A, please click here.

You can follow Samsung USA @samsungtweets and follow me @samsungesteban and @socialnerdia.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this blog are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of Samsung. Posts by contributors reflect their personal opinions and not those of their employers.

You probably already heard about the fake @BPGlobalPR Twitter account that was created to criticize the tragic BP oil spill. The account pretends to be an official BP handle, and with a mere 138 tweets, it already has aproximately 85K followers (and it has been listed by 2095 users!) in just a few days.

Of course, the AdAge article and other media have helped spread awareness of the account, but the reason for its speedy rise in followers is mostly due to the severity of BP’s oil spill combined with the the cleverness and relevance of the tweets.

Humor goes a long way when it comes to Twitter. Fake accounts like this one are created all the time, but they rarely make much of an impact. We’ve seen fake Twitter accounts for everything from presidents dictators (ie. @ChavezCandanga_) to Star Wars characters (ie. @DarthVader), but the most effective ”fake” Twitter accounts are often parodies (ie. @BogusBogusky, @ChuckNorris_ @Nick_Nolte) or created by actual fans (ie. @PeggyOlson and maybe @BadPeggyOlson). However, @BPGlobalPR is going against BP with intelligence, and dare I say it.. strategy? (more…)

If you’re reading this, you’re a human being. A person with feelings, thoughts, joys, passions, fears, etc. All companies are made up of humans; people just like you and I. Sure, you can automate much of what a company does, you can hide it behind buildings and legal terms and conditions. You can even use technology instead of people to make them more efficient, effective, and easier to manage. But, deep down, every company is comprised of people.

If you’re reading this, you’re also a “customer.” The word is not as exciting as “people” because none of us want to be seen as mere “buyers” of things. Still, we are all customers because… we buy things.

So if we’re all humans and we’re all customers, companies could act a bit more like people, right? And they could see all customers a bit more like, well, people. Humanizing a company or brand is not making it less powerful; it’s simply realizing that without the human beings working there and without the human beings purchasing things/services, such company would not be much more than a bunch of tangible and intangible things that would eventually rot.

I bring this up because the rise of the Internet and real-time conversations have forced many companies to be much more human, and that’s a good thing. Still, companies need to WANT to be more human. The power of apologizing is one example of how a company can be more human.

Apologizing does at least four things: First, it acknowledges the harm done. Second, it shows your humility and expresses respect and appreciation. Third, it opens up the door for forgiveness. And finally, it provides the opportunity to change. (more…)

I’ve been thinking about the idea of crowdsourcing a lot this year. Last month, I wrote about giffgaff’s unique approach of crowdsourcing not just marketing and R&D, but also customer service. And, for the 33rd and last “The Social Nerdia Show!“ of 2009, I spoke with Robbie Hearn, the Chief of Member Experience at giffgaff to learn more about how this MVNO from the UK operates. Prior to joining company, Robbie was Head of Retention at Be Broadband, a O2/Telefonica subsiduary where he first realized just how powerful it was for a company to have a very engaged community.

Listen to the entire conversation with Robbie on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio.

giffgaff officially launched on Nov 23rd. “The project as a whole started to take form 9 months ago,” Robbie told me. “It’s gone from nothing to full launch in that period of time, which is very quick for a mobile company.” At first glance one might assume that giffgaff is just a regular MVNO, but giffgaff is truly changing the way a mobile company interacts with its customers.

I asked Robbie to explain what makes giffgaff so unique. ”We see a need and a gap in the market for a new model. We’re what we call people-powered,” he said. “In essence, we’re trying to really leverage all the great new trends and technologies around crowds; we want to engage our members more than any other mobile network in the UK.” Unlike other companies that try to control everything related to their brand, giffgaff lets its ‘members’ interact with the company and with each other online, and allowing them to be part of the company’s “marketing, R&D, and customer service; recruiting members and especially helping answer questions.”

Crowdsourcing Customer Service

Thanks to Wikipedia and companies like Doritos and Starbucks, we’ve all come to know about various forms of crowdsourcing, especially when it comes to marketing and R&D. But crowdsourcing customer service? Now that’s a new idea.

“Crowdsourcing customer service is almost like a misnomer. You don’t need a huge crowd, just a small group that’s absolutely motivated by helping other people; they are the super users,” Robbie told me. ”We don’t have a call center,” he added. “You go online, you type in whatever question you have, and the integrated search identifies an answer based on information giffgaff has submitted as well as information provided by users on the forum.”  (more…)