Visa Small Biz Network – Growing Pains

Visa is doing a very nice thing. They are taking some lumps and creating lessons for businesses who wish to delve into the world of social media in the future.

The Visa Small Business network has the right idea – create a network where networks are already created (see: Corporate Social Networks are a Waste of Money). Facebook seems like a great place to start a network like this. There are just a couple of snags that have emerged.

1. The devil is in the details: Visa promised a reward to users who sign up and the failure to deliver that reward in a usable way has created a storm of negative comments and negative perceptions. Commenters seem to have a tough time seeing past this glitch so much so that some are wondering if there will be a “mass exodous” from the app.

2. Other sites do business talk better: While some may do their networking on Facebook, it skews more personal than business. Linked In has much more of a hold on business talk and connections and their Answers section has the piece of the puzzle Visa app seems to lack. The forum for discussing business issues and getting responses from peers.

3. Content that lingers is lost: Trying to create content for this type of channel almost seems fruitless unless it is written on a blog-type of schedule. The articles have not been streaming in at a very fast pace.

4. I can’t talk to the network: I cannot seem to be able to launch the app and ask a question to the entire network, get responses and connect with those who have responded. This seems a likely use-case and does not appear to be supported. All of the communication options are labor intensive (find a business, add a business, send a message to that business) and 1-to-1 (you pretty much have to build a network to take advantage of the collective wisdom). There does not appear to be a mechanism for experts to emerge.

5. The fine line of being creepy: Some of the comments mention getting marketing calls since signing up and others talk about unsolicited activity related to their personal networks. Visa no doubt wants to make some profits and creating this app is a great learning tool for their marketing and sales efforts. The whole thing could be undermined if the fine line between friendly and creepy is too often crossed. The etiquette for a site like Facebook requires humans talking to humans like humans. That is a huge challenge for multinational corporations.

Overall, this has promise and i hope that it lives up to that promise. I am a believer in businesses taking the leap into an unproven territory. Small businesses need all of the help they can get and Visa is delivering its promise to help owners succeed. It should strive to create more flow with the networking tools. It should also talk to and respond to users with a human voice. Respond to an issue like the coupon “bug” and quell the murmers that could chip away at the credibility and promise of the app.

10 ways for your site to be less awkward

What does it mean to “join the conversation?” I’ve been thinking about that a lot and this is my current take.

When I visit your website, or interact with a piece of your content on another website I am beginning a conversation with your brand. There was a time when your site was simply a destination and the chat was very one-sided. The site talked a lot about you and your business and what it could do for me and it had one gateway to start a conversation off-line — the online form. A little awkward, but hey, there are other channels to really get to know each other.

Then sites started learning about me from my behavior. They watched what I did and made suggestions based on my actions. This was a start but it was more like someone watching me and thinking they know who I am. Not a very great foundation for a relationship.

Then sites began to grow less socially awkward and actually approach me. When amazon.com made a recommendation they at least began to ask whether they got it right. Today, not only are sites engaging in richer conversations with people, actual people are engaging in conversations on sites like Twitter.com and Facebook.com. Now, the bar has been raised on the etiquette a site must employ in order to be a better conversationalist.

The key method for engaging in a richer conversation is to think of how we build personal relationships — over time.
We don’t just tell someone all about ourselves and then expect them to be in a relationship with us. Pure observation is just awkward. We give a little and we get a little. We ask questions. We share experiences. We make observations and we suggest activities. Even those suggestions are opportunities to learn – ‘would you like to eat at Joe’s Diner?’ ‘no, I much prefer that salad place.’

Netflix.com does a very remarkable job of learning about me and continuously asking for my feedback in bite-sized ways.

It wants to know what I thought about the last movie I rented and then it gives me suggestions based on my responses over time. It remembers the things I have told it. When it makes a suggestion it asks me if they got it right. This is a great online manifestation of a brand that is interested in building a relationship over time.

Pandora.com is a music service that allows me to create a ‘channel’ of music that is similar to my favorite artists. This site is friendly because it tells me why it is recommending each new tune. I always have access to this information and it is refreshingly not simply based on artist name, producer, album title, or any other really explicit attributes. They talk about tone, and style being behind the recommendation. Most importantly, they ask me whether or not they got it right. They pay attention to the stuff I skip past and the stuff I listen to. They are interested in learning about me and ultimately I reap benefits from their knowledge. That is the start of a beautiful friendship.

There are myriad ways to join and engage in the conversation between people online.
Here are just a few that have stood out in my travels:

1. Ask me how I liked what I just read
2. Let me share it with someone
3. When you make a recommendation, ask me if it is a good one
4. Remember what I shared with you
5. Show me what you’ve learned about me and remind me of the conversations we’ve had. (Don’t be creepy)
6. Tell me why you are making a particular recommendation
7. If you alert me of something, let me take an action or respond
8. Reply to what I said about you outside of your site
9. Make your content flexible and portable
10. Be as interested in me as you want me to be in you

Many of these don’t require giant efforts or for me to build a robust profile within the walls of your brand. It is ok to think small sometimes. Short conversations are what make up long relationships.

Looking forward, I am going to have more and more information about me online and it will become easier for me to share it with a brand. This can be a very tempting invitation to get greedy and nosey. The brands best poised to reap the rewards of this boom of personal information sharing are those that understand all of the points I’ve made before. They are building relationships. They are not being nosey, or awkward. They are joining the conversation.

Thinking Small: eTrade launches a social network

eTrade launches an implicit and tiny social network-like feature.

I came across this example of a small feature that instantly evoked a sense that there is a community of users on eTrade. I am not an active trader by any means and the actual info within the widget was not what made it stand out to me. It was the fact that I was exposed to the activities of other users within this community in a really subtle way.

This is partly what I was referring to in my post about “The social app that will redefine financial services firms.” Exposing the crowd activity is a type feature that could allow full-service firms to differentiate their private experiences. They are inherently a community of like minds (and often rich ones too).

The key to this feature is that it was not too creepy or invasive and it did not require me to do any work. It also did not make a recommendation to me. I can draw my own conclusions about the list that is presented. I do have to make a certain cognitive leap though to apply context to the list. It makes me ask ‘what types of users are searching for quotes on eTrade.’ That will define how I ultimately interpret the resulting list.

The social app that will redefine financial services firms

I’ve been thinking about why social media has sputtered so much in financial services (beyond the obvious legal fears and constraints). Many attempts to leverage the amazing potential of emerging web trends have fallen short and I think the reason is very simple. The solutions that have been created are often not relevant to people’s everyday lives. The best measure of a social media application is whether or not people would miss it when it is gone.

Email is one of the very first social media digital applications and once we began using it we became very reliant upon it. Then our calendars began filling up — and people began scheduling lunch meetings because that was the only slot they saw open. Our lives were suddenly, yet very organically, run by the schedule and communications within our email applications.

Today, the most successful social media sites are using simple features to embed themselves into people’s lives in a similar way. The difference is they are mostly fun and very easy to use. The barrier to adoption is lower than ever for the average online user. Twitter has Tweets, Facebook has a simple status update and a news feed that tells you about your friends’ activity. This kind of transparency has proven to be quite addictive. So much so we see $8 billion valuations for some sites with little by way of a business model but lots by way of eyeballs.

I saw a twitter tweet several days ago where an international “week without Twitter” was proposed. The networks of people who are contributing and following Tweets often can’t imagine their lives without it.

The stakes are also being raised by sites like Mint.com and Cake Financial. People can gain insights into their finances that are unimaginable in a typical logged in firm experience today.

Apply that “can’t-imagine-life-without-it” lens to some solutions that exist in the financial services world today:
Several message boards, a couple of blogs from Wells Fargo and ING, several small communities built for college students or small business owners. Also, there are very few examples of firms large or small adopting solutions that emphasize any content or data that is not in their control (for reasons that can be understood to a certain degree).

So what will help firms get over legal and business challenges facing the implementation of social media application? What is the app that will redefine the way firms serve information to clients?

The solution won’t just be:

• Launching a blog or online community or message board
• A single campaign
• A single tool or calculator with a strong call-to-action

The solution will:

• Be a series of small features that are slowly and quietly adopted by users until they are pervasive enough to be relied upon.
• enhance the way people go about their lives.
• fill an need for information, insight, convenience, or fun.
• connect people to people explicitly and implicitly
• leverage the wealth of data and information firms have at their disposal to draw connections between customers.
• Offer unprecedented transparency of the client’s information
• It will not be tied to the browser or any other device

Ok. The actual solution is still yet to be imagined, but the potential is great, the clock is ticking and the possibilities make me excited to do what i do.