Cast Your Vote: Introducing Social Capital Value Add
As I wrote about last November, social media is at a critical time as it catapults into the marketing mix, blurring the line between traditional and “new” media.
One of the key points in the history of brand management was the whole “Barbarians at the Gate” period, when the link between brand value and corporate valuations was established, touching off a wave of corporate deal making. Deals like Nabisco and Kraft commanded the headlines but the main outcome was the broad realization in global boardrooms that brands are a top priority. They require commitment, investment and special management methods.
I worked with Michael Cayley while he was CEO of a VC-Microsoft backed startup and talked to him today about his idea to establish a link similar to brand valuation, between social media and corporate value.
He developed the idea while doing an MBA in Paris last summer, wrote a paper and sent it around to reviewers for feedback. One of them turned out to be a co-founder of www.ChangeThis.com who suggested submitting it to their editorial board. He did and ChangeThis has posted the idea, along with 15 others selected for this month. ChangeThis is sort of like a www.digg.com, only you vote for ideas instead of news stories. The top ideas on June 19th get distributed to more than 20,000 so-called influencers … editors, journalists, academics, authors, bloggers, etc.
ChangeThis has helped spread ideas by well know authors like Richard Florida, Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters and Malcolm Gladwell. “Introducing Social Capital Value Add” is currently the leading idea posted and Michael made a point about its support, “Corporate valuation is a complex topic. The SCVA manifesto is designed to help break down the walls of understanding between social media and the boardroom table. If the ChangeThis voting gets up over 500, we enter the territory of some of the most demanded manifestos in ChangeThis history. I’m not Chris Anderson or Tom Peters. So maybe there is a demand out there to make the corporation more socially motivated and a need to understand how social media impacts future earnings”.
CMA members all understand that social media is “game changing”. Instigating the conversation about how and why social media is becoming integrated into the marketing mix is an evolving story that we are all involved in and this is one way to help that story emanate out of Canada.
