The term social media refers to a set of web-based and mobile tools, technologies and platforms that enable connection, communication and collaboration in ways never before possible. Hopefully you’ve cottoned on to this by now.

The problem is that this definition doesn’t encompass the undeniable impact social media has had on society and business. I’ve been saying for years now that social media is not about tools, but about people. I believe that companies that grasp the ethos behind social media — and the behavioural changes resulting from the integration of these tools into daily life — will easily differentiate themselves from their competitors in years and decades to come.

Modern companies are still constructed on industrial age principles. The way information is disseminated and shared within organisations has not changed much in the last fifty years. Sure, the technologies have evolved but the hierarchies remain. Few technological advancements have been able to challenge this hierarchical mindset until social media burst onto the scene.

The social web gave us things like Wikipedia and Twitter, where influence is determined by what you share and contribute, not by your salary band or the plaque on your office door. There is no direct financial reward for those contributions — we share because we know we’re building something bigger and more important than ourselves. Our Boomer parents were taught that the intellectual property you learned and retained made you valuable and competitive. Today that IP is smeared all over the Web. Becoming an “expert” can be as simple as conducting a few Google searches and reading a few blogs. As the Cluetrain Manifesto prophesied 13 years ago: “Markets are getting smarter faster than most companies can keep up.”

As a result we have employees with an information age mindset trying to flourish in industrial age organisations; Square pegs in round holes.

Countless organisations still ban their staff from using social media during office hours fearing that they will waste time and bandwidth. This is short-sighted — their staff will either continue to engage on their personal computers or mobile phones or, even worse, find ways to access these sites via proxies or otherwise. Instead of banning use, why not incentivise the correct (or most constructive use) of social media during office hours? Make the content that staff find online and share with their colleagues a KPI come salary review time. Judge the relevance and usefulness of these content submissions via a simple internal “Like” mechanism coupled with a points system. This is hardly rocket science — the proof of concept is the web itself. Your organisation should emulate a microcosm of the social web.

Business needs to change. Well, business is changing and you either keep up or become redundant in the minds of your existing employees, your prospective employees and your customers. Because social media is changing human communication at the most fundamental levels, it touches all aspects of business. From a business perspective, social media should describe the tools used to communicate with employees and customers. But we need to start thinking about social business as the term that could address the way rapidly evolving consumers and employees are challenging we way we do finance, legal, human resourcing, strategy, governance and more.

Comments, thoughts?

Before I’ve properly opened my eyes, I open Mail. Spam and random social network invitations flood my inbox. I delete the rubbish, getting back to optimal inbox volume and scan the Daily Maverick’s First Thing for any key news items. Next is Twitter. Mentions first, of course, and then a quick scan through tweets from the last hour or so. A retweet here, a reply there, and I’m ready to move on.

Facebook. Facebook is the sole reason I remember birthdays at all. After a “Happy birthday X! Hope it’s a cracker!” here and an “Enjoy dude, hope it rocks!” there, I’m ready for Instagram. I scan through friend’s pics, comment appropriately, discover an inspiring new Instagrammer or two and ponder for a few minutes why my mates have more followers than me. After that I scan key topics in Zite and share interesting reads with my networks.

It’s 06h17, and I’ve had my first fix of the day. There will be countless more.

I’m not alone. I suspect there are many people just like me. I’m discovering new networks and rediscovering old networks on a daily basis, building follower bases and broadcasting just about my entire life non-stop, and I’ve been at it for over 6 years. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be disconnected. Experiences feel a little emptier if I haven’t shared them and had them “liked” by some random connection.

About a week ago, sitting on the couch in the living room with my kids, my 3 year-old daughter had to ask me to “please put your phone down, daddy”, to get me to focus on her. The irony? I had just posted a picture of her to Instagram and was watching to see how many likes it had received. That’s damn near tragic.

I have absolutely no doubt social media is addictive. And I think I’m beginning to understand why. Participation on social networks is driven by powerful, emotive forces; voyeurism, narcissism, escapism and good old #FOMO (or, Fear Of Missing Out.) We derive a strong sense of validation from the so-called social currency we generate through our contributions of content, conversation and collaboration. We ordinary folk get to be pseudo-journalists, photographers, movie makers, sports commentators and more. “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

But is all this activity valuable and sustainable? This sense of validation is so powerful that we are prepared to compromise on critical and healthy alternatives like privacy, solitude, stillness and real world relationships.

What would happen if you switched off from social media – completely – for a month? Would you lose followers? Would your Klout score decline? Does any of that matter at all? I have no doubt you’d admit that the world would do just fine without you and your updates for a month, but would you be? The technologies that have done so much to bring us so far in terms of connection in the digital sense, may also be stunting, or even crippling us offline. It’s phenomenal that our phones are also cameras, PC’s, GPS’s, radios, TV’s and more – but all that convergence makes self discipline a significant challenge!

When was the last time you took a long drive without listening to an audiobook or your playlist or heaven forbid, tweeting? When was the last time you arrived early for an appointment and just sat, thinking, without checking mail and Facebook? When was the last time you watched the sunset without scrambling to post it to Instagram? If you’re anything like me you’ve developed an intolerance for stillness and silence. That can’t be good.

I’m not proposing that we shut down our profiles and cease all connection with the digital universe. I’m simply suggesting that we be more conscious of what we’re sacrificing for likes and retweets, and strive for balance. Perhaps part of the answer is committing a slice of time every week to being disconnected. Perhaps it’s regular breakaways to quiet retreats that lack cell signal.

All I know is that we’re not getting any less connected and technology isn’t slowing down at all. I’m not sure how much more I have capacity for and hope to find ways to ensure that I don’t miss out on life while trying to simultaneously broadcast, consume and record every waking moment.

Is there an app for solitude?

Our first effort is Car Cricket Century - an app for the game you all played as kids. We’d love you to download the free version, or even better, the ad-free premium version for only 99c!

It’s great fun, easy to play and ridiculously good-looking. If you enjoy it be a sport and write us a review. And watch this space, there’s many more to come.

You’ll understand then why I curtailed my enthusiasm ahead of seeing Ronnie Apteker’s new feature, Material. The SA film industry doesn’t produce movies all that often and so when they do, there’s a crap ton of hype to go with them. Everybody wants you to rally around the new film, hoping that you won’t notice that it’s not all that good and celebrate nonetheless because “local is lekker.”

Ronnie’s previous movies were cool, but he’ll forgive me for saying that they weren’t extraordinary. “Straight out of Benoni” struck a chord with me only because I grew up in Benoni, but it was still little more than experimental fun, and Footskating 101 was somewhat forgetful.

Material is different though. From the very first shot the movie is sincere and absorbing in its attempt to tell an ancient story of the struggle between tradition, culture, religion and modernism.

Cassim Kaif (played by multi-talented comedian and medical doctor Riaad Moosa) is a budding comedian who spends his daylight hours keeping the struggling Kaif family fabric shop in Fordsburg afloat, alongside his stubborn and old-fashioned father, Ebrahim (played by Vincent Ebrahim.)

The story is a familiar one. Cassim must balance his love and respect for his family and their faith while discovering his giftedness as an entertainer in a secular environment. He leads this double life with the help of his best friend Yusuf (played by Joey Rasdien) but all comes to a head when his family discovers the truth.

This sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it? Well it is, but this relatively earnest tale is expertly interweaved with countless genuinely hilarious moments, which one could only expect from a movie written by people like Riaad Moosa and Ronnie Apteker (among others.) Those who have had the pleasure of meeting Ronnie will appreciate and testify to his brilliant sense of humour and all round appreciation for the lighter side of life, while Riaad is widely recognized as one of South Africa’s top comedians. As a result Material is hard to categorise. It’s all at once a fantastic comedy and gripping drama, something we seldom see in SA.

The film is not perfect, but is carried on the brilliant leading performances delivered by Vincent Ebrahim and Riaad Moosa. In fact Moosa surprises with his acting chops – is there anything this guy can’t do? The script is solid and the supporting performances are endearing. All in all Material is a massive leap forward in local cinema, and hopefully a sign of things to come.

Go see Material. It works because it is a story about the things that matter most in life; love, family, forgiveness, reconciliation, perseverance and of course, hilarious laughter. At worst you will be supporting local cinema. At best, it will change the way you see the world.

My first instinct in response to Casey’s sentiment (which, in context, was applicable to all banks with a social media presence) was to be somewhat affronted. After all, the agency I started works hard to help brands establish and maintain their social media presence as a full time occupation. I’d like to believe that all that hard work translates into nothing short of a fundamental transformation in the service culture of those companies.

Casey was right though – few corporate brands achieve a seamless experience between their on-the-ball, client-centric social media profiles and the actual day-to-day touch points between “ordinary” staff and “ordinary” clients.

Michael Jordaan, as the Twitter-savvy CEO of FNB, has gained notoriety (and I dare suggest a few customers) for his candid, sincere engagement on the platform. His pride and passion are contagious – it’s not hard to get excited about a brand whose fearless leader embraces innovation so willingly. After all, that’s what I want from the brands I spend money with – they must do the basics exceptionally well, and delight and surprise me with market-leading innovations. Michael recently elaborated on his fascination with Twitter in a Mail & Guardian article:

(Twitter) encourages and facilitates quick, impulsive conversations with your customers and the public and shatters the traditional hierarchies and channels of ­executive communication…

But social media are changing the way businesses connect with the press and I love being part of a network that tunes me in to the multiple and overlapping conversations that make our society so vital, interesting and dynamic.

Clearly, Michael gets social media engagement, as do many modern executives and business leaders. But surely the true value of their enthusiasm should be measured in the impact of that enthusiasm on the service culture of the organisations they represent?

I recently switched to FNB. The overall experience hasn’t been bad, but straight away the unmistakable characteristics of corporate silos, hierarchies, competition and anti-collaboration have been evident. I was contacted by FNB Premier banking, and met with a consultant, but even though I qualify as a private client I was motivated to join Premier banking because that was what suited the consultant. I relented on the basis that Premier banking would be cheaper, but the truth is I’m fundamentally lazy and would rather enjoy the pleasure of a Private banker than, well, do any banking-related admin at all. I did explain this to the consultant…

As soon as I signed up for Internet banking, the Discovery Credit Card I have had for years reflected on my profile – because of the link between Discovery and FNB. Today I had a query about that card – yes, the same one that is reflected on my profile – and got told by my assigned Premier assistant that they couldn’t help me with my enquiry but that I had to contact the Discovery Credit Card call centre to get the query resolved. I replied – and yes I sounded like a whiny snob but I think I had a case – that if I wanted to contact the Discovery call centre I wouldn’t have switched to FNB Premier banking. Swiftly picking up on my tone the assistant agreed to email Discovery for me to resolve the query. Surely that should have been the default option?

I’m under no illusions as to how hard it is to replicate the service ethic of social media profiles across corporations, but the goal is to try your level best. After all social media is so much more than a bunch of websites that link people together – it is a fundamental shift in the way we connect, communicate and collaborate with each other, with our colleagues and with our customers. It is incumbent upon brands that invest in social media profiles to educate key service staff, every day, about the evolving connected consumer and how to engage with them. The risk for those that don’t is that the blatant dissonance between the online and offline experience of the brand is so off-putting, that it does more damage than if you’d never been there in the first place!

Am I saying that brands shouldn’t be on Twitter, Facebook and others if they can’t pull a Zappos and present a ubiquitous client-centric brand across all touch points? Absolutely not, that would make me a hypocrite. I applaud all brands that make an effort, but would encourage a more concerted effort toward acknowledging that no two customers are the same and that all attempts must be made to establish departments and teams, failing a service ethic that encompasses this truth across the business, that can ensure a consistently good (or even consistently average) experience of the brand for influential customers.

Client-centricity is a misnomer. Today, brands need to focus on identifying and influencing influencers, because there is no better salesperson than a satisfied customer. Satisfied influential customers influence the masses in turn, and that advocacy will motivate a change of heart in even the most stoic dissenters. This is the value we try to add to our clients – strategies and training that fundamentally shift the experience of the brand in line with the social promise of the brand, in the eyes and hearts of its customers.

Are brands on social media simply smearing lipstick on the pig? Yes. Does it need to stop there or can the pig be fundamentally transformed into a, um, non-pig-like thing over time? Yes. Who can teach your corporate pig how to be non-pig-like? Your clients. So listen to them.

I have asked my FNB Premier consultant to advise me on Private banking. We’ll see how that goes :)

I won’t speak much about the game. We played better than I thought we would, could not take our chances and lost by a very narrow margin to a better-ranked team. Sometimes you win the close ones. Sometimes you lose them. That’s test match rugby at the highest level.

We cannot change the past and instead must look to the future of SA rugby. To be honest, I’m incredibly excited – the future is BRIGHT! We have outstanding talent and enviable depth at our disposal – the only question is how we choose to manage that talent in future. That then becomes a conversation about who SARU will select to succeed coach P Divvy.

I am a big fan of Allister Coetzee, the man Jake White believed should have succeeded him. But Allister will need the support of international brains, as Jake White found in Eddie Jones, and local talismen too. The likes of Rassie Erasmus come to mind.

The legends of John Smit, Victor Matfield, Fourie Du Preez, Bryan Habana and co. have likely had their best opportunity to win another World Cup and if our intention is to achieve that in Japan in 2015 we need to say thank you to them and look forward. If it were up to me, and fitness were not a question, I would play the following 22 tomorrow:

1. Beast Mtawarira
2. Bismarck du Plessis
3. Jannie du Plessis
4. Josh Strauss
5. Andries Bekker
6. Heinrich Brussouw
7. Schalk Burger (c)
8. Willem Alberts
9. Francois Hougaard
10. Patrick Lambie
11. Lwazi Mvovo
12. Frans Steyn
13. Jacque Fourie
14. JP Pietersen
15. Gio Aplon

16. Chiliboy Ralapele
17. Gurthro Steenkamp
18. Danie Roussouw
19. Francois Louw
20. Ruan Pienaar
21. Juan de Villiers
22. Juan de Jongh

A mix of youthful talent and experienced campaigners, I think this 22 contains most of the names that, all things being equal, should take us to 2015 with a realistic chance of regaining our crown. That does depend heavily on SARU and the coaching staff they choose though, which as always should be entertaining to watch!

Regardless of what happens I remain a fan to the bitter (or sweet) end.

As a direct result my clients typically freak out when presented with the reality of social media, the tide of conversation around their brands and the idea that whether they like it or not they are going to be spoken about online. They acknowledge the need to engage, and yet are petrified at what might happen when they open up these channels of communication.

This dynamic has forced me to think carefully about why people complain, what a complaint is and what it actually means for a brand. If we strip down complaints to the core, a few key truths are undeniable:

1. There are only two possible outcomes for every complaint

   Recently I crapped all over Kulula because I received an SMS about a delayed flight en route to the airport one Friday morning a few months back. The delayed flight meant I’d miss an important presentation in Durban, and I was livid. I was on Twitter in a flash, ranting and raving and whining about Kulula’s incessant tardiness (or at least my perception of the same).

   Had I read the SMS better I would have realised it referred to another flight to Durban, also with Kulula, but three days later (the following Monday). Awkward. Once I realised my error I quickly hopped back online and apologised profusely. Thankfully Kulula had a laugh with me about my brainfart and all was resolved.

   I realised through this experience that when someone complains online there are only two possible outcomes: either the consumer is wrong, or the company is wrong. Once you’ve realised that, you can start to learn something from the experience (which brings me to my next point…)

2. Social media communities self-regulate

   If, like me in the previous example, the consumer is in the wrong, very often social media communities self-regulate around the brand. This is not always true but thanks to the open, democratic nature of the social web there is more opportunity for this dynamic to play out than any other forum.

   A number of people responded to my Kulula rants saying they agreed and that their experience of Kulula was the same. But an overwhelming majority responded in disagreement, saying they had not had such a negative experience and were in fact massive fans of the brand. The community self-regulated to the positive, normally a clear indication that a brand is doing a pretty good job and that it enjoys a significant measure of positive sentiment online. The converse is true if the community self-regulates the other way.

   time and time again I see the online community rallying around brands when consumers are truly out of line and in some instances we’ll advise our brands to step back and wait for the reaction of the community to a particularly unruly consumer.

   All that said, most often when a customer complains online it’s not them that are wrong but the brand, and when that is the case…

3. Humility and learning

   …learn from it, dammit! Brands are so defensive, and so afraid of appearing human in any way, shape or form. Let’s face it, if someone complains, and they’re not wrong, then…

   YOU’RE DOING A CRAP JOB.

   When the fit hits the shan and it’s clear you failed, surely you’d want to learn from that mistake and ensure it doesn’t happen again? When Jane finds a staple in her burger, complains to the franchise manager and he tells her “tough luck”, surely you’d want to know that so you can prevent it from happening again?

   Mistakes are the building blocks of innovation. If you never did anything wrong – if you never failed – you’d have no reason to improve as a business, you’d have no reason to invest in your brand. But nobody’s perfect, and you may as well focus on evolving when a chink in your armour is revealed.

   When you do that well, something magical happens:

4. Complaints are testimonials waiting to happen

   Google doesn’t forget – yet another reason our clients panic when they realise they’re getting talked about online. Every compliment and complaint – every engagement with every consumer – leaves an audit trail that other consumers can track, follow and judge you on. As such a paradigm shift is required when it comes to complaints. Every complaint is an opportunity for you to showcase how awesome you are at turning a situation around. Every complaint should be an opportunity for positive PR. Every complaint should be a testimonial.

   As such, approach every jibe and sneer with enthusiasm and vigour knowing that you can completely alter the perception of the brand through every positive engagement online.

   There is a worse sin than not turning a complaint into a compliment though…

5. Missing compliments is an even greater risk

   …and that’s missing the opportunity to engage with a consumer who says something good about you. Our clients are constantly scrambling, panicking about all the negative things people are saying about their brands and sometimes forget that missing an opportunity to thank a fan for their advocacy is an even greater risk. Fans are gold. Failure to acknowledge them is death. It is so much harder to win a true fan than convert an “unbeliever”, so when you have them treasure them.

Complaints are not all that bad. Complaints need to be seen as opportunities. Whether you like it or not, they’re going to happen and how you choose to see them and deal with them could be the difference between you succeeding and failing in your attempts to grow brand equity online.

This is a good thing. Brands tend to forget that platforms like Facebook and Twitter were created for individuals to connect with other individuals, and not as business tools. When creating profiles, responding to and initiating conversations, businesses are constantly challenged with this dynamic and as a result have had to unlearn some of the long-standing principles of traditional marketing to succeed.

But that is only one side of the story. Not enough, in my opinion, is being said about the responsibility consumers have when they interact with each other, and with brands, online. The power of freedom of speech and the open and democratic nature of social platforms tends to encourage behaviour that is incongruent with how individuals might behave in “real life”. Consider the recent example of Ard Matthews‘ well-documented foul up of the South African National Anthem on live television. Angry citizens on Twitter and Facebook hurled violent insults and jibes at him – statements I’d be willing to bet they’d never say to him face to face.

I recently had a public spat with Dale Immerman (who is in fact a rad dude, I just didn’t agree with him in this instance), about a conversation he had with @StandardBankGrp, Standard Bank’s Twitter presence. I felt like Dale was bullying Standard Bank (you can see the whole conversation here – http://bettween.com/mikestopforth/idale), and I had a bit of a go at him as a result. I’m probably hyper-sensitive to this dynamic because of the abuse I witness our clients receiving at the hands of sometimes unreasonable consumers.

Uncle Ben (from Spiderman for the non-geeks out there) told Peter Parker that “great power comes with great responsibility.” To say that the average Twitter user with 200 followers has great power is a bit of a stretch, but it’s an undeniable fact that social media users (who have no access to any other media platforms) have greater reach and influence than what they would have had before they built those profiles, and it cannot be ignored. Surely consumers should be more conscious of their behaviour online? Surely, seeing as businesses are made up of individuals and have Twitter and Facebook profiles run by individuals, they should be treated with a degree of respect too? As much as we as consumers expect brands to use social media to connect with us in revolutionary new ways, we should understand that we are required to do so in an equally respectful manner.

There is a danger that consumers who have gained significant levels of influence use that to manipulate and bully brands online. In my experience, practicing responsible consumerism (I made that up) elicits a more positive responsive from brands.

With that in mind I’d like to propose a Connected Consumer Code of Ethics – a set of ‘rules’ (maybe guidelines is a better word) that I believe consumers should follow when interacting with brands online. We had a debate at the office about this, so feel free once you have read through it to disagree wholeheartedly!

The Connected Consumer Code of Ethics

• Do some homework. Your insurance company messes up a claim. It’s one thing if you try the website, phone the call centre, go in to your branch, receive no help and then rant and rave on Twitter. But ranting and raving on Twitter because the volume knob comes off the console of your Toyota Auris before taking it into the dealership is unreasonable. Give the brand a fair chance to solve your issue before dragging their name through the dirt.
• Speak as you would expect to be spoken to. If and when you get to the point where ranting and raving on a social platform is your only solution remember there are other human beings behind the social profiles of even the biggest organisations. Profanity and defamation will probably not get you the results you hope for.
• Don’t be a ‘mobster’. Mob mentality kicks in on social platforms, and all too often. One person complains and before you can say “brainless” hundreds more are retweeting and sharing and re-posting the same complaint. If you have an issue with the brand in question, feel free to echo the sentiments of the originator. But if not, why perpetuate negativity? Surely we have enough of that already? (this tip courtesy of Heike.)
• Balance the scales. It’s human nature – it’s so easy to complain when something goes wrong, but so much harder to remember to give kudos when they’re due. Try developing a habit of complimenting brands as often as you slate them.
• Temper your expectations. Even though you as a consumer should not be expected to differentiate between company structures, departments or silos, you should still have a realistic expectation of what a brand is capable of doing online – specific to the limitations of the platform (this tip courtesy of Keenan.)

Perhaps if we are all a little more conscious of and responsible for our actions online, brands will steadily improve their response rates and willingness to take social platforms more seriously as customer service channels. Regardless, I think how you conduct yourself in relation to brands or other users (especially when it’s safe to hide behind a digital mask), says much about your true character. That should be reason enough.