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c h a p t e r 10 : ╇ S ocial O bjects╇ ■Identify What Is Talkworthy

When you are creating a branded social object in the steps outlined above, the impor-
tant questions to consider are the following:

• What aspect of what you do will your customers find remarkable?

• What is it about your brand, product, or service that is inherently talkworthy?

• What is it about the answers to both of these questions that your firm or organi-
zation’s beliefs and mission tie directly into?

Touchpoint analysis is one of the most useful methods available to you when
looking for a strong social object to build around. Touchpoint analysis helps you focus
on the issues that matter to your customers, and it helps identify which among these
you are doing “remarkably” well delivering. Anything you do well that is grounded in
the values of your company, and that is talkworthy of its own merit, is a good candi-
date to build around. As an exercise, create a touchpoint map: you’ll see directly where
274 to start.

Note the emphasis on “of its own merit” with regard to candidate social objects:
The implication is that the social object you select needs to be capable of driving its
own conversation. If you have to spell it out, or have to entice people to actually talk
about it, then keep looking and find a more naturally conversational social object.

Link to a Social Need

Next up is linking your candidate social objects to the needs of your customers or con-
stituents. In the case of lifestyles, passions, and causes, the social need to talk already
exists: People naturally engage in conversation around things that they find interesting.
The same applies here: Your task is to identify a need or behavior among your poten-
tial participants that lends itself to social interaction around the talkworthy aspect
of your brand, product, or service. Don’t worry about finding a “big” social object in
your product or service: as they say, “it’s the little things that count.” Samuel Adams,
as an organization, is all about making a better beer for beer lovers, and a community
will certainly form around that. Lesser Evil (http://www.lesserevil.com/)—a snacks
company—has created a solid presence for itself around conversations and ideas related
to “stopping bad snacking.” Applying social objects in a B2B setting? Consider the fol-
lowing: A team of business analysts may be creating reporting tools for their own inter-
nal use on an analytical software platform that your company offers. As these analysts
develop their own reporting extensions, you might create a community—perhaps built
as a forum—that allows analysts across your customer base to share what they have
built with each other. This is exactly what happens at SAS Institute, through ToolPool,
an internal knowledge-sharing network created by SAS Chief Knowledge Officer Frank
Leistner.