Like victims of high school peer pressure, everyone in the digital world is talking about how social business is the next big thing. And I’m not here to argue if it is or isn’t. Brother Armano recently wrote a great post about the evolution of digital that lays it out very nicely and talks about the natural evolution of social media into social business. It’s the next logical step, really. In fact, we’re seeing more and more businesses come on the scene that not only are trying to crack the social business nut, but are actually calling themselves social business businesses.

That’s pretty bold.

In a conversation with Chuck last week, we were discussing the state of the digital industry. It started with the obvious: that social media is just that: media. Tools. Things we can turn on and off and plug in and unplug and dial up or down  – you know, just like advertising. It’s mechanical “things” – at least the media part of it. But social business – this idea that social will come in and permeate every singe section of a company – that’s waaayyyyy different. In fact, it can’t happen unless there’s a fundamental cultural change within a company.

And therein lies the problem. Impossible? No. Hard? Very. To walk in to a company and tell them that in order to become a social business, they’re going to have to fundamentally shift the way they think about everything they do – internally and externally – is a damn hard sell. Because changing the culture of the company is no easy task. Volumes have been written about it. But ultimately it comes down to a willingness to do it from all parties involved and a push from the both the top-down and the bottom-up.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved in word of mouth projects that have ignited cultural change within companies. I wish we could say that we set out to do it in the first place, but it was a result of a long-term, sustainable program that started under the PR division and then spread through marketing, advertising, HR, finance and so-on. It was amazing to watch and within 12 months, the entire company had begun to shift culturally.

So maybe that’s how you start. Small. Bit-by-bit. With something obvious that you know will begin to creep into the dark corners of a company and bring them into the fold. Telling a company of 400,000 people that everything is going to change is a lot harder than letting them see how you can take one section of a company, change it for the better and let them wrap their heads around it.

Change is hard. But when the right people (dare I say “influencers?”) within a company are dedicated to make it happen, it’s a beautiful thing. But before we go throwing around the term “social business,” let’s really be clear what we’re talking about.

There are SO many directions we can go with this report, like going down that deep and dusty path trying to define what “engagement” really means. Or talking about the value of a like or a fan. Or what brands should really be using Facebook for.

But I don’t want to go down any of those no-win rabbit holes. Instead, I want to talk about that 1% (and no, not in the Occupy Wall Street kind of way). I don’t see why so many people are surprised at this number…because this has always been the case. The social media kids are saying that 1% is a terribly low number and then they’ll show you 10 tips on how to raise that number. But I have to tell you that even waaayyyy back in 2006, the Creating Customer Evangelists kids, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, talked about the 1% rule by citing data from Wikipedia and Yahoo that found that 1% of the users overwhelmingly create most of the content.

Breaking it down even more, there’s the 89:10:1 rule, which says that 89% of people who come to your site will lurk, 10% will contribute and 1% will create content.

My point? Don’t freak out about only 1% of people engaging with your brand. Especially on common sites like Facebook. Now, if you create a brand ambassador program and you only get a 1% participate rate, you’re doing something wrong. In fact, the average participation in brand community sites is less than 10%. That’s not so great. And I can tell you from experience that if you build it the right way, you can get a 30%+ engagement rate, which opens all sorts of doors.

So before you go wringing your hands about only having a 1% engagement rate on Facebook, think about it differently. Like what you can do with that 1%. Ohhhh, the possibilities. These are hand-raisers. These are evangelists. These are the people that already spread word of mouth about you (hopefully in a good way). Create offline experiences with them. Ask if they want to engage deeper on other platforms. Or learn about the inner-workings of your company and products. So yes, in this case we’re talking about quality rather than quantity. Because, as we are quickly learning, on Facebook and Twitter, numbers – unless they’re sales numbers – don’t mean a whole lot.

Look, content is important. And while I could argue my own opinion (which has mostly to do with context, not content), there’s something that I’ve learned and has proven to be effective about content: It works best when you give it away.

Late last year I led a team that launched a program for an automotive client (disclosure: I’m not with that firm any more and that company is not a client of WCG). It was the beginnings of an ambassador program and extremely grassroots in nature. There was the usual blocking and tackling that went into building the program, but we also tried some new things. One of which was giving content away.

It went down like this: we found an individual that had many passions than just the automotive brand we represented, like graphic design. He wasn’t an influencer. He didn’t have a huge social media footprint. But his passions ran deep. So we connected with him and asked if we could come out with a camera and talk to him about his passions on a Saturday.

So we went. And filmed him talking about and showing us his passions – not just the car. And then we did something that might be counter-intuitive to a lot of marketers. We produced a beautiful three minute video, packaged it back up, gave it to him…and then walked away. We didn’t post it on the brands highly-visible social sites, we didn’t ask him to post it anywhere and we sure as Hell didn’t tell him what he could and couldn’t do with it. We just said “thanks” and gave it to him.

Now he had all the power. And that’s all he needed.

He posted it on his favorite forum. All his buddies asked how the whole thing came to be and our first ambassador told them the message and purpose of the program in his own words. Industry blogs picked it up and interviewed him. He changed his social profiles to reflect his membership in the program. And it grew and grew and grew. He even became the most influential person on Twitter about that car model (according to Klout, so take it with a grain of salt).

(There were several other components to the program, but for the sake of this post, we’re concentrating on this one piece of content.)

With all of social media’s great abilities to connect with people, we are still inundated with brands pushing their messages down our throats. And that goes triple for automotive brands. So when it comes to content, doing something thoughtfully and deliberately that’s not all about you goes a long way. As we’ve talked about before, as a brand you have a huge spotlight that you can shine on anything you want. So why not turn it around sometimes and instead of shining it on yourself, you let your customer bask in the glow for a while? And then watch word of mouth in action.

And then they tell you to reach out to influencers.

Do you see the irony here? You reach out to influencers in hopes that they’ll broadcast the message to their audience (we’ve talked about before). Which, you know, wreaks of top-down marketing.

When it comes to building communities or ambassador programs, both ways – top down and bottom up – can be effective. But here’s where it gets interesting. We will use influencers to broadcast that we’re looking for a specific type or person – and one of the qualifiers IS NOT which social sites they are on or how many followers/friends they have. The main qualifiers are based on passion. That’s the core that we’re looking for. And believe it or not, most of the time those good folks are what us marketers would refer to as “the bottom” when it comes to influence and status on social media.

So it takes both. But instead of starting at the top and hoping that your message gets pushed down, or starting at the bottom and hoping something magical will happen, you need start at both ends and meet in the middle. It might be counter-intuitive, but it works.

And what do you do with assets? Everything within your power to protect them.

It is so fascinating to see how those inside and outside of a company view the role of ambassadors. Remember, at the very core, an ambassador is someone who spreads goodwill. And in the context of brand ambassadors, they are spreading goodwill on behalf of your company. That’s it. That’s all. Case closed.

But we see, time and time again, folks with tunnel-vision that want to use ambassadors for other things. First of all, we don’t “use” ambassadors. That word – use – carries with it many definitions. The worst of them pointing towards exploitation. So much time and effort goes into building word of mouth ambassador programs from the ground up. Elevating advocates. Tapping into a passion conversation. Creating a brand identity and sense of ownership. These are things that we do to GIVE to the ambassadors. To raise them up. To empower them. And when it’s done right, our ambassadors feel like we’re ambassadors for them. (See how that works?)

As ambassador programs grow, other departments in the company start to take notice. And when this happens, then those responsible for the program take on a new responsibility – to serve as a shield for the ambassadors. Yes, I hate to say it, but we have to pay attention to the times where we need to protect our ambassadors so they can be what they were meant to be. Ambassadors are not there to get you more views to your YouTube video or more reviews for your product on Amazon. Ambassadors are not there to bump up sales of that old product or retweet your promotion. That’s not their purpose. That’s what the marketing and advertising departments are for. Sure, sometimes as a halo effect those things will naturally happen. But if you go to the ambassador well asking them to do something for you that they don’t really care about, how much are they going to feel appreciated? Did they raise their hand and pick up the banner of your brand so they could pimp out their friends and followers? Or because they believe in something bigger than themselves?

So don’t forget that one of your most important jobs is protecting your ambassadors. After all, they’re out there protecting you – both online and off. And they want you to have their back just like they have yours. That’s how successful relationships work.

Get Real with Spike 7 from Social Fresh on Vimeo.

Or maybe not.

Working at a global agency and for big ‘ol brands, I can tell you this: in the real world, your online influencer rating will probably get you some sort of special treatment or a one-off sursey (that’s Southern for “free, unexpected gift”) every now-and-again. Apart from that, as you might have guessed, your Klout or Kred score isn’t worth much – if anything. And, as you also know, when it comes right down to it, brands engage in social because they wanna sell more stuff. That’s where all marketing and communications paths lead.

So when it comes to influence, I want to know how one person influenced another person to actually make a purchase. That’s the influence that I care about. Crack that nut and you’re on to something.

Using things that exist on the World Wide Web today, here’s a thought: The Klouts and Kreds need to hook up with the places where people leave recommendations or are actively making a purchase. Think Amazon or even something like OpenTable. Because these people are already raising their hand and actively participating to let others know their actions and opinions. So when they leave a rating or review – or make a purchase or a reservation – why not give them a field to “give credit” to the person that influenced them to make that purchase? This could be done by simply entering that person’s twitter account.

Yes, I realize that this is flawed idea. Because people aren’t going to volunteer their buddy’s twitter handle for fear a brand will spam them. That’s valid. But maybe by signing up for Klout you give permission – or even opt-in to a program- to contact that individual. Then people could really be rated on their true influence as it correlates to purchases. Because, while it’s nice for someone with 10,000 followers to tweet about my brand, I’d rather know about the guy who has 75 followers but his recommendation (online or off) led to people buying my stuff. That’s a person I’d want to engage.

It could work with anyone from Yelp to Amazon to TripAdvisor to Target’s website…and maybe has the potential to open up a whole new world.

Again, I know it’s flawed. But it might be a place to start. And if you do build on it and make millions, I have some requests.

Kthxbye.

Yeah, he's being social.

I don’t do resolutions. Or lists. Not that there’s anything wrong with those that do. (There is.) But here’s one thing that I will say about 2012: I’m taking the word “social” back.

Somewhere along the way, after it got slapped in front of anything old that marketers wanted to make new again (I’m looking at you media, business, community, etc.), “social” lost its way. If you were to go to a marketing conference or walked into a PR company and asked 20 people what social meant, yeah, you’d get 20 different answers.

But I digress.

Enough is enough. Now, I’m not implying that we should stop using the word, let’s just start using it like it was intended to be used. Being social online is different from being social offline. In most cases, you’re isolated when you’re using online social media. You’re in your own little world. Maybe in an airport or in your guest room/office at home. No matter what the case, everything you do is being filtered through that glass screen.

Social offline is really SOCIAL in the truest sense of the word. I find it so ironic that one of the definitions of social is “living or disposed to live in companionship with others or in a community, rather than in isolation.” I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from that one.

So, in 2012, I’m taking social back – and not trying to pry it from the hands of the internet kids – to make social, SOCIAL. In other words, we will truly connect online to offline and offline to online. One drives the other. Always. If we are truly social beings, then it’s fair to say that we crave physical interaction from others. (That’s skin and bones, kids, not avatars.) After all, the best times of your life don’t happen on your smartphone or your iPad. And the sooner we all realize that, the sooner we can make social mean something more than the fairy dust we sprinkle on our new biz pitches.

Onward.

Kevin Briody, Director of Strategic Innovation, Ignite Social Media
Joseph Jaffe, Author/Speaker/Consultant, GetTheJuice.com and JaffeJuice.com
Noah Kerner, Founder/President, Noise (Check out Intel Innovators Program)

We chatted about a lot of things, including the leaked Google+ memo, Netflix’s flip-flopping, social presence versus social ad buys and the (non) staying power of celebrity-in-the-making TV shows (and the brands that associate themselves with them).

So sit back, relax and take a listen.

Get the direct link to the show here.

Listen to it on iTunes here.

1. Do you REALLY want a relationship with a brand?

And

2. Do you REALLY want to “humanize” your brand?

I’m thinking “no.”

Get Real with Spike 6 from Social Fresh on Vimeo.