Christopher Carfi

Ant's Eye View

Social Business strategist advising clients such as Google, HP, Cisco, P&G and others.

A question of intent

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Posted on 2012-07-11

The concepts behind Facebook’s rumored “WANT” button are rooted in the idea of the “intention economy” and are generalizable beyond the Facebook ecosystem. Both customers and enterprises, using today’s existing infrastructure and conventions, can create and listen for intention signals using open, lightweight mechanisms, with customers creating those signals and enterprises listening for them. The approach described here outlines one such mechanism.

The Facebook “WANT” button is the canary in the coal mine for the “intention economy”

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Some musings on “small data”

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Posted on 2012-04-06

The concept of “big data” is, ultimately, going to hit a brick wall. Here’s why.

For a number years now, the concept of being able to collect, mine and process massive data sets that predict customer behavior has been a modern day holy grail. However, many organizations struggle to develop customer insights because they primarily focus on understanding markets rather than individuals. Overall, at least 80 percent of CMOs rely on traditional sources of information, such as market research and competitive benchmarking, to make strategic decisions.

With that context, here are a few things to think about:

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The Relationship Funnel

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Posted on 2012-03-23
In many marketing organizations, the steps in the interaction between an organization and its customers have traditionally followed a predictable sequence, starting with “awareness” and culminating in some form of “action” on the part of the customer. It usually looks something like this:
- Unaware: The customer does not know of the company and/or its offerings
- Awareness: The customer has become aware of the company/offering
- Consideration: The customer is considering the company as a potential solution to one of the customer’s current needs
- Intent: The customer intends to purchase from the company...
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Engaging With Customer MVPs and Superfans

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Posted on 2012-02-27
There are three aspects to think about when creating an MVP program for your best customers and advocates. Those three components are:
- Identity
- Privileges
- Benefits
For example, here’s a post here from Porter Gale in AdAge about engaging with Superfans. The key ‘grafs are here:

These are your best and most-loyal consumers. They are the 20% of the Pareto principle (roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes...
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The Customer-Advertiser Arms Race

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Posted on 2012-02-23

“Social media is all about relationships. If you want to find people’s relationships, an address book is the best place to go. It’s like if you want to rob a bank, go where the money is.” – Joe Turow

There was a fantastic segment on NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday that featured Joseph Turow speaking with Terry Gross on how advertisers are tracking customers across the web, social networks and mobile. It’s most definitely worth a listen. I’ve linked both the audio segment as well as the transcript below.

Listen: ...

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Counting “Fans” And “Followers” Is The HFCS Of Social Engagement

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Posted on 2012-02-13

Earlier this month, the NYTimes took a deeper dive into the idea of “good attention vs. bad attention.” I wanted to keep the ball rolling on this idea, as it’s fundamental to thinking about social engagement with (and as) customers.

Although many of us are working in or with enterprises in a role related to connecting with customers, we need to do a shift in perspective. For right now,...

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Good Attention vs. Bad Attention

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Posted on 2012-02-05

The confluence of the Super Bowl and its focus on immense ad spend, coupled with speaking at last week’s NetPromoter conference triggered a thought. Are there two kinds of attention (let’s call them “Good Attention” and “Bad Attention”), in the same way that there are two kinds of profits?

We know that there are two kinds of profits. Good profits are profits that fuel...

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Social Business 2012 Presentation

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Posted on 2011-11-29

I’ll be speaking about social business strategy at the ASAE Technology Conference and Expo CIO Summit next week in Washington, DC. There are three key components to the conversation.

1) The Social Engagement Journey

The Journey is the recognizable progression of social engagement capabilities that large enterprise goes through on its way to becoming a social businesses.

2) The Relationship Progression

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This Week's Social Business Jam

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Posted on 2011-11-12

A number of luminaries participated on this week's W3C Social Business Jam, including Doc Searls (pictured), Alex "Sandy" Pentland and the inventor of the web itself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. A jam is "an online conversation among leaders in business, government and technology about the current state of social business, the future role that social technologies can play in improving the bottom line, and how social...

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Google+ Launches Brand Pages

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Posted on 2011-11-08

The big news today is that Google+ has finally announced their long-awaited brand pages with a blog post here. The top line, from Google:

For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you'll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello.

A number of pages are already available (...

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