American Express Case Study on Building Cardmember Communities

Editor's Notes

1. INTRO: As I thought about what talk about with you today about the journey of OF, it occurred to me that the path we’ve been on with OF and the discovery we’ve had in evolving it over the past few years, in many ways parallels mine and everyone’s personal journey with social media . as i go through the case study, i’m going to talk about the success points and learnings ... and what you’ll see is that there is an inflection point when OPEN Forum “found it’s voice” just as for many of us, there is an inflection point with social media when we find our voice
2. just to illustrate what i’m talking about with the finding its voice parallels the personal experience many have with social media. For eg, I’ll never forget day found my voice. Month posting. Sunday am– NY Vintage Wines, Waterworks had closed. Kings Road Home ..looking for furniture forever... wondered why never knew this place - how send others there...…tweeted with the address and endorsement. Twitter for me was personal not business, but what my passions professional/personal came together online. My voice = drive business to the small businesses I love. Surprised little Tweets turned into big conversations & how inspirational participating become for me personally. little background on us... Me w/ Amex15 yrs, 3 w/ OPEN. OPEN = dedicated exclusively to entrepreneurs. What makes us d ifferent is fierce commitment to helping customers grow. Their growth is our growth.
3. OPEN FORUM = one way deliver promise helping CMs grow. core insight: Conversations can generate and DO generate more business for our CMs. in reality small business owners invented social networking – they’ve been doing it long before any of us had a phrase for it. And OPEN Forum started with these conversations 6-7 years ago ... long before we thought to put it online. EG, Rebecca Cenni of Atrium Staffing, reinvent business model after industry suffering Q4 . dinner parties /conversations disparate business owners = access to 10’s mm’s $ new business.
4. What we learned offline is now our basic premise -- that amazing things happen when we bring our CM’s together – M3, WPO, WIPP, Meetup, Score = insights to online platform . offline = platform for online...    II. CASE STUDY interesting story OF start 2007.
5. Slide 5: YESTERDAY (Original OF) Original OF (baby picture)… video feed to scale event series, ITEM (industry icon panel/practical advice) added a l ive chat hosted SS & John Jantsch, Duct Tape. what to expect ? say negative things? … big company, so this experiment required a lot of input from a lot people. event fantastic –LA Film Festival. chat a lot clunky -- due to tech glitches. But insight was “magic”. viewers weren’t just talking about the event– coming together in convo online …as in LA were coming together in convo offline. So decided build on learnings / invest in OF. uploaded video interviews SB stories ITEM eg Seth Godin, Sean Parker, Jimmy Wales, other proprietary content. discussion boards for connections platform there, but something lacking –conversation starter.   KEY LEARNING . 2 roads could have taken … stay course or adjust based on insights. … OF hadn’t completely found its voice step back, abandoned connections until could do right. focused on curating great content . Content as a spark for conversation. terrific talent– Guy , Anita, John, Scott. diversity of content / prominent thought leaders-- the convos took off. site grew.
6. Slide 6: OCT 1, 2008 Another moment of pure “magic” 9/30, 2008 climate financial uncertainty. On phone w/ several SB Advocacy programs … sb across US few resources to navigate the financial situation. Partners wanting to get members info to navigate “credit crisis” in that moment, our CMs needed info and resources to make sense of things, and we needed to respond . over the course of eve – I’ll never forget it … 2 nd night Rosh Hashanah –team worked overnight for the New Economy section-- tools, resources and connections to navigate the new world economy. first article JB “ As the World Turns – Inside Out ” 4:14am October 1st. Anita Cambell followed shortly there after 715 am with “It's: "'m honored! It's: "None of Us is an Island: Why Small Business Owners Like Me Want a Credit Rescue Plan" " . felt like we did something important—and community confirmed that.
7. Slide 7: TODAY 2.0 Distribution took off – twitter, facebook, … Page views Q4 > 600,000 blogs alone traffic +650% to ~ 200k uniques/mo. IAB's MIXX Award 08, Webby Honoree Best Biz Blog 09 and B2B Top Brand.   III. TRANSITION LOOK FORWARD Since then, I’ve started blogging re resilient entrepreneurs / personal convos + of submits. Seth Godin “Everyone should blog. Not for broadcast but to organize thoughts –Blogging is for yourself ”.   Touched me as mkter, would pass on that advice helped me express v alues of amex open – all inspired by resilient entrepreneurs . And experiences given new insights about how to help business owners better use social media to grow.
8. Slide 8: OUR MISSION ANOTHER MAGIC INSIGHT : OUR CMs have High relationship IQ but a low social media IQ …. EG Steamy Corn . Loved owner. Tweeted few weeks ago. Saw him last Fri - set up Twitter…handle his hard to spell name. How bout @steamycorn? Brilliant! b. … OPEN Forum’S MISSION IS TO BRING THE TWO INTO EQUALIBRIUM. bring through learning curve to leverage social media to grow their businesses.
9. Slide 9: ANNOUNCING ANNOUNCEMENT: With insights latest incarnation officially announcing publicly FOR THE FIRST TIME here New OF wider selection of topics …content from current site, + new content , contributors , videos , tools .
10. Slide 10: HTTP//: OPENFORUM heart of site “Connectodex”. virtual rolodex of credentialized Owners to connect companies to do business with. Also Profiles- mkt business . Easy to use / pretty excited about . hear what CM’s of them think about it - (PLAY VIDEO) IV. excited about the exchange of ideas and expertise that will take place in the weeks, months, years ahead on OPEN Forum.
11. Slide 11: INVITATION With today’s announcement want to invite you to participate in beta. Mention that beta behind amex firewall so need Biz Card and Userid/password to manage card acct on line to get started.
12. Slide 12: JOIN THE CONVERSATION I hope that you will join me, Christian Carlson of Kings Road Home, and others on OPEN Forum to continue the conversation – jump in, get started, and let’s learn together