This is the second part of my notes from the Hyper-Social Summit sponsored by the Human 1.0 Network.  It is based on research conducted by Francois Gossieaux of the Human 1.0 Network and Ed Moran, Director of Product Innovation at Deloitte’s Global Technology, Media, and Telecommunications, that is documented in their book, The Hyper-Social Organization.

Francois led the event. He went over several factors that characterize successful companies on the social side. First, they are aware of the needs of the communities within their market, Francois referred to these communities as the tribes. He noted that there are many small business communities on the Web and this is an opportunity for marketing effects if done right. The focus needs to be on the people and not on the product.

Successful companies also do not use social media as a channel.  People often buy without looking at company material. They listen to others (because of reciprocity issue) so it is better to use the Web as a listening channel.

Successful companies don’t just talk about themselves. They want to engage in conversations especially where buying decisions are made. They treat the people in these communities like press and give them special access to information.

Successful companies also create content that travels well so that people want to share it. This often involves tips on how to use the product for an activity that uses the product.

Successful companies have stopped thinking about company or product centricity. It is about your customers. They need to be in the center. Francois gave the great example of a Europe scissors company. It created a community around scrapbook people (not about their product) but about application of their product. It attracted a huge following of dedicated people.

Successful companies embrace the messiness of social aspects. They do not exercise too much control. One example is Best Buy. They wanted to enter the high-end music business. They found out who has passion for music in their company and asked them to help with online communities around these instruments. It did matter what area within Best Buy they came from.

Successful companies turn a business process into social process. This is not just putting social tools in place but looking at the human characteristics of reciprocity and fairness, You need to get people to help each other even if it is not their job. You need to allow people to engage in their passion. It will increase the passion and engagement for your product.

A customer acquired through word of mouth is twice as loyal as one acquired through traditional marketing.  When Francois and Ed looked within organizations, they found social aspects in almost every process except legal and finance.

Here are a number of things to think about to implement social aspects to your business. First, bring down the walls. Let the wall around company dissolve. Let internal and external communities and people work together. Then do not build new walls.  Fix the divide between customer touch points in your organization. Make sure they are all on the same page. Your relationship with your s customers is only as good as they last contact they had with your company.

Be sure to not simply do the same thing again. For example, there is a new way of buying so traditional CRM is not relevant. Now buying process is more social so you need more social CRM.

Also, make sure the CIO and CMO are good friends. Think culture before tools. Become the customer advocate and not the product advocate. Establish trust as new business currency.

I liked these words of wisdom and it helped me better think though how I might reach the market for a software firm I am connected with. Now that the focus is more on the people and the community than on the company and the product, smaller companies have a more even playing field. It is not so much the size of the company as they size of the community. Smaller firms can go after the communities and the Web is another big equalizer.

In the third and last part of this series, I will cover a number of the research statistics that Ed and Francois collected in their research.