Email and Social Networking: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

We all know about Twitter and its phenomenal growth during the past year. Last night I read a post about Facebook’s share of social networking traffic jumping from 20% to 59%, leading the vast migration to social networking sites, or what I like to call the “Famous for 15 Minutes. . .Or Less” web sites.

Then, today, comes this article from the Wall Street Journal about the demise of email and a follow-up piece from OnlineMediaDaily suggesting that email might still have a role to play in the way that people communicate.

All this makes me wonder if the growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are slowly killing off email as an effective marketing tool?

It’s important to put the email versus social networking contest into perspective. As the WSJ itself points out, email continues to grow, as does social networking, albeit at a faster rate:

In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.

The problem with the Journal’s “death of email” article is the assumption that two methods of communication cannot coexist, each having a unique role to play. For decades now, television and radio have managed to survive — and even compliment each other — even though many media experts believed that TV would kill off the radio box. Likewise, the Internet was supposed to kill off everything — but it hasn’t (though I know some magazine and newspaper publishers who believe the Net gave them two shots in the hat).

Email and social media both have a specific utility. One does certain things better than the other — and that utility can and will change over time. Right now email works best for longer messages, communicating with more personalized, targeted audiences, and adding embedded content. Social networking offers greater immediacy, ease of use, a sense of personal empowerment, and potentially higher levels of frequency.

Email and social networking sites are used in different ways and communicate different kinds of information. One easily compliments the other. Like many of you, I tweet, participate on social networking sites, and send out and receive tons of email.  (I also blog, manage several web sites, and participate in various forums, but that’s another story!)  I don’t see the two as competing for my attention. I use them in the way that I need to and choose my tool according to the task I have in mind.

Given the increase in email use by 20% in the past year, I think we can safely say it is not going away. What does alarm me, however, is the attitude within some companies that social networking is somehow evil and should be ignored by employees and the marketing department.

Ignoring 300 million users on social networking sites? Unless you’re selling cruise missiles to the Pentagon and don’t care about consumers, that’s more than a little short-sighted.

Market Your Coaching Services by Selling to “Invisible Buyers.”

Whether we are offering coaching or consulting services, our clients and prospects are always trying to reduce the risks of using our services.

One way they try to reduce risk is to conform to the attitudes and preferences of others. Family, friends, coworkers, and other groups influence your prospects and their buying behavior. Sometimes called reference groups, I call them “invisible buyers.” Your invisible buyers are a point of comparison for your prospect’s own choices and attitudes. Sometimes the influence of others is subtle; other times it is quite apparent.

For example, as a coach, your invisible buyers can influence prospects by. . .

– Directly recommending a specific coach or training approach they already know about or have used themselves.

– Giving your prospect a frame of reference and an opportunity to compare your coaching service to what is acceptable to group members.

– Influencing the prospect to change his or her attitudes about using a coach so that they are consistent with those of the group.

– Providing reassurance and approval to the prospect’s decision to use your services.

Occupation, memberships, social class, and education are all good indicators of which groups are important to your prospect. The prospect may even mention having had a conversation about using your service with a friend or coworker.

By noting how others in the prospect’s reference groups have used similar services, you can reassure your prospect that working with you is a smart choice.

I would strongly suggest that in your first contact with a prospect that you ask if they or someone they know has used a coach before. Probe a little into that area if they say “yes.” What kind of coach? Was it a positive experience for them? Would they do it again? How much weight does your prospect give to their prior coaching experiences or those of friends and coworkers?

The next step is to adjust your conversation to respond to concerns or experiences that might negatively influence a sale. Similarly, you can reinforce positive experiences and subtly refer to them during your conversation to help establish the value of your service.

Best Principles Before Best Practices.

By Ray Blunt

There is a game being played somewhere right now within almost every government organization. The game is called ‘In Search of Best Practices’ and it is played something like this: “We’re about to launch a major change (like putting in a leadership development program). Before we do, let’s benchmark the best organizations around to find out what they do, and especially, let’s see what other government organizations are doing. After all, we don’t want to reinvent the wheel now, do we?”

So the change team dutifully goes out, does their research, makes some site visits, documents their findings, and then prepares a menu of best practices from which a program is built. The game proceeds by briefings up the line which are bolstered by citations from the Who’s Who of Best Practices—prominent companies in the news, selections from the 100 Best Companies to Work For, other Federal agencies, etc. The game is won when the program, designed around the Best Practices, is given the go ahead. So what’s the problem? It may possibly be declaring a premature end to the game by failing to realize that ‘best’ is simply a local term, not a universal one, and that there may be better and prior wisdom that is being ignored in the bargain. It’s something worth discussing.

Interesting Practices
The victory lap cannot realistically be taken until the program design actually produces the results that people intended because somewhere in people’s minds is the sneaking suspicion that if we do it like the big boys and girls we will be like the big boys and girls. But that syllogism can turn out to be false, and some have fallen into that trap—including me.

Dave Ulrich, perhaps the wisest human resources expert around, uses the term “interesting practices” to describe such approaches to a range of human resources initiatives. They may work in the long run–or they may not. The key is to understand the culture of the organization, the capabilities the organization possesses, and the needs it is trying to address. Keeping up with the GEs or the Microsofts of the world or even the IRSs does not mean your approach to leadership development will mirror the outcomes of theirs.

Five Best Principles
It may make more sense to start with a solid understanding of what can be called ‘best principles’ in succession and leader development and then see which practices will work for your organization’s culture and its specific needs for future leadership. If you begin with the best principles, you can then safely test out your proposed practices to see which ones best fit your situation. Here are five principles that have bred success, specifically in excellent Federal Government organizations:
1. They base their practices on the four proven principles of how leaders learn to lead—challenging and varied work experiences; significant relationships with senior leaders; self awareness based upon feedback, reflection and lessons from the hardship crucibles of life; and self development and selected training.
2. They make a business case for developing future leaders with decision makers that helps drive the mission and avoids the trap of simply being something ‘good’ to do.
3. They recognize that initiating leadership development, at least in the Federal Government, is most often a cultural change as well where leaders shape the culture and it is not simply a case of human resources development (HRD) standing up another new training program.
4. They understand that the key cultural change is this: it takes leaders to grow leaders—not trainers, not HRD experts, not consultants: leaders grow leaders—and that it will take a serious time commitment on their part.
5. Senior leaders hold themselves and their human resources development and training partners accountable for results—those results are that a next generation of good, solid leaders emerge (who, in turn, grow those behind them).

Getting It Right
In my opinion these are tantamount to being non-negotiable principles of developing future leaders, forged from experience. These must be the framework around which any leadership development program is designed before anyone starts thinking about best practices. And if you look carefully, four of these five principles are based on an assumption that it takes leaders to grow leaders. These principles are not a menu; each one is critical to success. Successfully applying these principles requires hard work and persistence over a long period of time—make no mistake about that.

So, what do you see in your own leader development efforts in your organization? If you are a leader, are you actively engaged in developing the next generation in your own organization at whatever level (and devoting the time it takes)? What barriers do you face in doing so? If you are an aspiring leader, what can you do to help imbed these principles if they are not yet implemented? Do you think you can make such an impact on those above you? Finally, is it a realistic expectation that the public service leaders of today have the time and the capability to help grow the next generation or the awareness that their contribution is sorely needed?
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Ray Blunt is currently the Associate Director and Fellow at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture. For the past 12 years he has served as a leadership consultant and teacher for the Council for Excellence in Government and the Federal Executive Institute as well as for several government and non-profit organizations. He spent 35 years in public service in the US Air Force and the US Department of Veterans Affairs.