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Enabling Your Community With Social Software

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:00:44 +0000

Wherever There Are People – There Can Be Social Software

Accounting software as the name suggests is good for accounting and related calculations. Inventory software is useful in any inventory management process and billing software is suited to the billing process. With social software however, the usefulness need not be restricted to any one process. Social software is based on people and human interaction which means it’s application is relevant in just about any scenario where you have a group of people that need to be able to work together and that is a wide scope. It’s about enabling a community by providing a virtual space they can use to collaborate, communicate and work together.

A few months ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who lives in a self contained residential township with about 800 home owners. They have a centralized administration made up of some of the representative owners as well as some staff to look after the utilities, maintenance and management of the mini-township and we were discussing the nightmares of coordinating meetings and communication to the 800 odd households every time something needed to be done.

If something like approving a budget to repaint the common facilities or re-surface the roads needed to be done, they had to arrange for meetings where all owners could come together and discuss before approving the move. Even common everyday issues like not cleaning up after walking the dogs called for a long process which involved drafting, printing and sending out multiple notices.

The frustration among the owners and everyone involved was clear as every task called for communication to all members and this was a mammoth task even for something seemingly simple. The sheer number of people in the community and the need to bring them together for any discussion or decision was a challenge.

This is a classic scenario where social software can be applied to mobilize a community and overcome the problems they are faced with. Oddly enough, this community did have a website but it was a static one-way website with brochure like information and not a “people” oriented website. By integrating a social software platform they can create a login section to the website where the owners can sign into and communicate, discuss and manage their community wherever they are and anytime they are free. Polls can be used to get consensus on issues and important decisions that need to be made collectively.

Messaging can be used to communicate not just to the entire community but among individual owners as well. Profiles can help each person know their neighbors a bit better and connect with each other. Events can be organized and better managed. Discussions can be started instantly on forums without having to wait for a scheduled meeting. The workings of the administration can be easily shared with the others bringing about a much more transparent working. Social software is what you make of it and in this scenario there is a lot that can be done to make the community function better.

Property developers offer all kinds of amenities to prospective home owners and I don’t believe offering a social software enabled website would add much to costs especially considering how much of a help it could be in scenarios like we discussed. Finally, isn’t this the edge social software gives? Regardless of the processes, as long as you have a group of people that need a more efficient way of collaborating, coming together and working better, social software can be the enabler. Wherever you have people, you’re likely to have a good use for social software.

Social Community Software For Business Marketing Strategy

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:00:54 +0000

A Valuable Lesson In Community Building For Your Business & Gaining The Upper Hand With Search Engines

Those of you who regularly read updates on our blog may have read the post titled “Social Networking For Businesses & Advertising Space – Is Your Online Community Space Really Your Own?” where we discussed the risk associated with building a community on a hosted social networking website or a third party network which you may have little administrative control over. While it doesn’t happen to everyone who has a Facebook group or a community hosted by a Saas company the possibility is there and it’s a risk that needs to be considered.

Communities that have been built for businesses are often fragmented across different websites as we have said often and mainly because these websites and networks offer a ready base of users and traffic that would have been difficult or needed more time to cultivate. It’s easier to go to Facebook or to Linkedin where your customers are rather than go through the process of getting them to your site and that’s what most would do. There is however an important marketing lesson to note here:

When you build a business website, all the content that goes on the website and all the content created as a result of activity on the website by others accounts for some value as far as search engines like Google go. Google notes the content on your website whether it’s blogs or discussion forums, documents, comments and so on and this has an impact on the page rank or how valuable a resource your website is seen as. Considering this is a very important strategy for generating better search traffic which can account for more customers and more sales, ideally, you need to keep as much of your activity and content on your own website.

The mistake that many tend to make is overlook this fact and they end up having a blog like yourblogblog.wordpress.com or yourblog.blogspot.com a community like yourcommunity.ning.com and articles posted at yourarticlesarticles.ezinearticles.com. While all of these are still helpful and a small portion of the traffic will still find itself to the main company website by way of links and banners, part of the search advantage from all this content is lost out to the sites that these communities are hosted on where this content is finally posted.

When you use a social software platform which can be integrated into your own business website, you essentially build all your community and content assets into your website and search engines trace all of this to one location or website. That could be blog.yourwebsite.com, articles.yourwebsite.com, resources.yourwebsite.com, community.yourwebsite.com, forums.yourwebsite.com and eventually you ensure that your website is a single valuable online resource for those searching for relevant information also giving you the upper hand with search engines.

While continuing to build communities on other websites is a good strategy to continue with alongside your main social marketing strategy, the emphasis should be on building value starting in your own back yard which in this case is your primary business website. After all that is where you ultimately want your customers and prospective customers to go and that’s where you expect to start the sales process. If you’re out building a community, keep it close!

Social Software For Managing Customer Relationships

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:00:39 +0000

Keep Your Prospects Close & Your Customers Even Closer – The New Social Enterprise 2.0 Mantra

Customer relationship management is more traditionally synonymous with one-on-one communication with customers through various medium both online and offline. With the development of enterprise social networks and active business online communities, this is where a lot of the customer service is happening and also where customer relationships are strengthened and molded. This transparent interaction between customers and a business has picked up with more businesses using social enterprise software to build strong online communities and communication channels with their customers.

Don Hinchcliffe recently wrote in a post on the zdnet blogs on the topic of social CRMs:

For its part, Social CRM paints a vision of creating a deeper and more engaging community-based relationship with your customers, instead of the traditional approach of managing them, in a very Cluetrain Manifesto way. Part online community, part crowd sourcing, part customer service, Social CRM can create an emergent, collaborative online partnership with customers that can result in an array of improvements to business performance.

Online communities and enterprise social networks are virtual places where a business and its customer connect and engage in communication. The main difference as compared to traditional customer relationships is it’s more transparent and community driven as against the one on one communication. The dialog and interaction between customers is the driving force and they are the ones actively leading the process and that is something businesses need to understand in order to get it right. Used to the push sales tactics and driving customers actions by directing or managing communications is something companies need to be leave behind with social customer relationship management and they will have to learn to take a back seat and let the customers drive most of the activity.

Setting the basic guidelines and providing the platform is the first role of businesses and that can be done by starting online discussions, creating topics and being the catalyst in getting an active community going where the customers know they can freely interact with each other as well as the business. Once an active community is in place, gathering intelligence from the activity is equally important. This is where tools like “online polls” can come in handy while gathering more quantitative data. In a community however, though not quantitative, a lot of the intelligence is right there in the form of comments, posts, questions and other content posted on the platform. Questions on products directly to the business or even other customers could be an indication of interest in a product and building a solid process on gathering such intelligence and making it actionable information is something that needs to be worked on.

Whether it’s customer service, sales or marketing, each function can benefit tremendously from a well built online community and getting customers to participate more closely with the business. The software platforms are easily available and technically a social customer relationship management system can be put into place. The people and process is the bigger challenge and once you have that rolling, you’re on the way to building better, stronger relationships with your customers.

Online Community Software For Customer Support

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:00:48 +0000

Social Networking & Customer Service – The New Business Norm

Let’s take a look at my last few interactions as a customer of some company seeking some customer service or support:

Last month the new 32 GB thumb drive I picked up at some store while I was traveling displayed problems copying data and file names would just turn to gibberish. I did a search for the model number and manufacturers name and finally found answers on a private technology forum. It seems like a number of people had the same problem with this piece and it didn’t take too long to find a working solution to my problem from those who managed to fix theirs.
We decided to do a long weekend break some time ago and heard of this resort from someone. I could have probably called him and asked him but instead I logged into a travel community site where some of the other members post their experiences on places they have visited and resorts they have stayed at. Sure enough, I found two or three good reviews on this place and that made up my mind to just go for it.
One of my laptops had a screen problem. Something I’ve never seen before where it started with a bad pixel, grew into a vertical line on the LCD display and then the lined kept multiplying. I went to the manufacturers website and posted my observations on the support forum there and within an hour someone from the community who had a similar problem got back to me through the thread telling me what to do.
I decided to check out a local band at a club we’ve frequented and grown to like. The problem is when a great band is in attendance, being a small place, it can get filled up quite quickly and we didn’t want to risk having to turn around at the entrance or wait in line. I logged into their social networking platform on their website and used the instant messaging system to have our names added to the attendee list to avoid any disappointment. Being a member of their online community has benefits!

The first and perhaps most obvious conclusion on my own actions above is that my first instinct as a customer in all these cases was to look online for the solutions to questions or issues I may have had. I didn’t bother looking for a phone number, calling someone or trying to directly contact the business. I went online. In some cases I found my solution on a website run by other consumers and general communities and in others like in case of the laptop, a community run by the business. Like myself, a lot of others just naturally prefer to use our pc’s or laptops which are always near us and look for some support online.

From the business perspective websites like the laptop manufacturers support forum or the club’s social networking enabled websites show these businesses know their customers look for service online and they need to be there when they are looking for it. If my behavior as a consumer is anything to go by, businesses which are not easily approachable online are missing out on being able to help their customers where many customers almost expect them to be. A business website which is social software enabled is in effect, that customer service rep waiting to help out. Think about this: what were your last customer service interactions online and did it make you feel better knowing the business had a website where you could find your answers?

Business Blogging Software Platforms

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:00:08 +0000

Corporate Collective Blogging

The blog is now an integral part of any business website. Along with the standard sections of a website such as ‘about’, ‘products’, ‘contact’ and others, ‘blogs’ is one you would expect to see not just in businesses that have a social strategy but any website. It’s almost as if the blog is the first step for many businesses foraying into the “social” organization space. Whether for marketing products, building relationships with customers or simply sharing thoughts and experiences, the business blog is an important component of doing business online and needs a good software platform which is well suited to its objectives.

It’s interesting to notice, in most small to medium businesses you may be more likely to have just one or two representatives posting actively on a single blog. It could be the CEO and the Marketing head or any two managers who are active on social media channels blogging and most blogging platform like Type Pad, Wordpress, and others could serve the purpose well.

When you look at larger corporations, businesses and other organizations it’s almost expected that they have a larger representation on their blog or website. You’d expect their CEO as well as other top management to contribute something to the blog and address the community. They need to be seen as “more accessible” online if they stand any chance of being accepted as a social organization. This is usually where businesses decide to take the collective blogging route and it need not be restricted to large businesses.

When it comes to collective business blogging, there is greater participation from more members of the organization voicing their individual thoughts and ideas through their own blogs but collectively under the same website on a single platform. This is where you’ll come across the “blogs” section versus “blog” which is more common and while you have access to blog posts by different members within the business, it’s multiple blogs under one roof.

Collective blogging, community blogs or enterprise blogs as they are sometimes known as comes with its own unique set of challenges and requirements. Companies like CISCO and IBM, which have their employees contributing to the community through their blogs ensure they are not scattered across different hosted blogging software platforms but on a single platform which can be managed effectively and has centralized administration capabilities much like the platform Communifire carries. This is a critical feature to have in a collective blogging environment where there are multiple contributors and some amount of centralized administration can help keep some uniformity and give direction to the efforts.

Our community for ASP.NET developers www.codeasp.net is an example of such an environment. On this community we have myself and Vivek who blog frequently on our own blogs within the community and also have a number of other contributors which you’ll find appear under the blogs section. It enables all of us to contribute content to the community using a single platform which is far better than each of us having scattered blogs which would not just be a challenge to manage but would mean we will have a fragmented community and not have all readers on a single site.

The use of collective blogging is growing and can be great way to drive your social outreach. With the right software platform to manage all the individual contributors you can truly have a collective blog.

Social Networking For Business – How Big Is The Audience?

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:00:33 +0000

Creating A Social Software Environment That Allows Everyone To Participate

When considering a social software plan, one of the questions we’ve observed that businesses have is … “how big is their target online audience?” … and that is high on the list of criteria while determining if it makes sense to invest in a community or social software platform for their business. After all, if they are to focus their time and energies on engaging audiences online, they need to know if that audience is big enough to put in this effort. The answer we believe is….YES — there is a big enough audience out there for just about any business, and social software is a great way to engage them. Just to put this into perspective — based on research they conducted for a 2009 report, Forrester’s Groundswell blog says:

“More than four in five US adults online now participate socially”

That is saying something! The Groundswell blog post “Social technology growth marches on in 2009, led by social network sites ” also carried the very interesting “Social Technographics Ladder,” which gives an insight into the types of people one is likely to find participating socially online.

What is interesting from the point of view of businesses looking to build a community around their websites as part of their social marketing plan, is that they attract participation and cater to almost all these various profiles providing something for everyone.

It’s a platform for Creators both from within the business or external users (who have signed up) such as customers or experts in the field to publish blogs, articles, videos, podcast and other content. The creators are an essential component of any successful social plan as they contribute towards the content and are the ones responsible for starting conversations and igniting discussion. In the social networking and community software environment it’s easy to open up this role to external users and allow virtually any member to contribute as a creator, taking the burden away from internal resources and employees who would otherwise be solely responsible for driving content.

Critics are an equally important part of the equation as you always need their comments, reviews, and participation to carry on a discussion -or- create the activity within the community website. They drive the discussion, and it’s often their participation that intrigues others interest of Joiners and Spectators who may not directly join the conversation but are nevertheless interested in the discussion and activity. Collectors add value in the form of distributing content, creating wider awareness and contributing in some form to the activity.

As a business, you launch individual social initiatives, such as actively using Twitter, starting a single blog or posting a video, you are essentially the only “Creator” and you work towards attracting spectators, joiners, and critics. Those are the roles left open for your community to fill. With the social networking and community software option however, participants can select the role they wish to play within the community — and automatically, some will actively contribute as creators and critics while some may become joiners and others only as spectators. The key is for you provide a platform that includes everyone — and let them decide what capacity they would like to participate.

So what kind of a participant are you?

Lost, Survivor, or American Idol — The After Party Is On Social Networks

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:51:53 +0000

Lost, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, or American Idol — if you’re a fan, the real party begins soon after each episode is aired. Location? The community sites where fans gather, tear apart, critic, discuss and share every minute aspect of the show. That’s where the real party begins.

Everyone’s favorite shows have not just hooked viewers during the half hour or hour during which they are aired. They have learned quickly to capitalize on their popularity and extend their grip over fans using social networking and community software features as an enabler. The official fan sites are equipped with blogs, videos, photos, discussion forums, wall-like updates, activity streams, polls, and everything needed for fans to come together and continue the discussion around their favorite shows.

Survivor now into its 20th season with Heroes Vs Villains sports daily blog posts from Jeff Probst with riveting opinions from the man himself. The steady stream of fan comments and activity provides a discussion base where opinions fly soon after each episode is aired and more is revealed.

American Idol’s site features the MyIdol Fan Community which is a full fledged community extension for die hard American Idol fans complete with blogs, photos, groups, forums and directory of members creating an exclusive online fan base.

Lost is just one of those shows where you compulsively need to discuss and have conversations after watching each episode and the show has no shortage of online communities setup to discuss this intriguing and mind boggling drama.

Fan communities have not just become a norm but have become and extension of tv shows and other events on the web. The enthusiasm they can generate brings together fans, spark conversation and turns them into passionate advocates for their favorite shows. With social networking and community software technology becoming more accessible, the ability to build such engaging social elements into a main website has been thrown open to smaller events and production businesses. One need not have the resources of ABC or Fox to learn from their community building experience and apply it to their own businesses, products, or offerings. Out-of the box solutions like the Communifire platform offer the social features needed to turn a simple information site into an activity filled, captivating community. The social network and fan community is at the end of the day, the online dimension to everything we love to rave about.

Cadence – A Great Example Of Using Social Networking For Business Websites

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:00:46 +0000

We’ve regularly discussed the use of social networking software platforms integrated into business or corporate websites on our blog and talked about the benefits of building an interactive community on your website as against having a “one-way” website which simply pushes information out to visitors. There are several companies both large and small who have been able to successfully weave a social networking into their business website and use it effectively to draw stakeholders whether they are customers, peers within the same vertical or employees. The technology company Cadence is a great example of how social networking can be seamlessly integrated into any business website.’

The “community” section is linked as a prominent section of the website on main navigation bar of the website among “Products & Solutions”, “Services” and “About Cadence”. The main page is an industry-wide community for more general discussions around the industry happenings. Then, you’ll find a number of communities which each tap one topic or area of interest such as “Logic Design”, “RF Design” or “Custom IC Design” among others and each community has:

Blogs
Forums
Resources

The blogs are a perfect example of how multiple blogs and multiple writers can still come under one roof (website) and create a single “go-to” resource for those within the industry. It’s a better long term strategy than having scattered blogs on different platforms where co-coordinating a combined effort is a lot harder.

The forums blend into the look and feel of the rest of the website, are well divided into topics and all the discussions have been kept active and alive once again making it a great resource for information on any of these topics. An important thing to note is the forums are well administered and moderated. This is easier to do when there is a centralized administration process in place and not as easy when using multiple forums software platforms.

Lastly the resources section, which has a rich supply of informative data sheets, white papers and other useful material simply adds value to the overall community resource and works as a great incentive for signing up as a member and having access to all that information. The “Digg” like feature which enables users to rate resources they liked makes it truly social media all the way.

Cadence is a fine example of how a social media platform for a business website can be used and used really well. There is virtually nothing to stop any business small or large from following in these footsteps and getting their own community section. The benefits are worth exploring.

Social And Community Software Platforms – When Time Is Money

Tim Eisenhauer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:20:28 +0000

Developing Social Software Sites & Portals – From Concept To Launch At Light-speed

Several months ago, I had a phone conversation with an entrepreneur who was in the process of developing a portal specifically targeted at providing help and resources for women professionals who have just had a first child and trying to balance work and life. In terms of what the portal would need, everything was clear. From the technical side of things, the plan was to build a Web 2.0 community portal with social networking style usability as well as features like blogs, file sharing, instant messaging, and forums, which are central to building a web portal of this type. It was decided that the site would be developed from scratch so that it could be built exactly as envisioned. A small team of developers were contracted and the work began. And just recently, I had a chance to catch up with her to see how things had progressed with the portal. It turns out, the development process was still underway and there were at least several more months before even a beta launch could be done.

Whether it’s an entrepreneur looking to build a new Web 2.0 portal, a business looking to launch a community, or an enterprise creating a collaboration portal, time to market is a key consideration — there are plenty of advantages in being able to get your projects online and launched as quickly as possible. Getting projects online quicker by building your social network on top of an existing social software or community platform doesn’t necessarily translate into compromising on quality and your exact vision of how the site should turn out. A good social software platform will let you customize and incorporate all the features you need, and yet, give you the ability to greatly reduce the time to market. The architecture for social networking software is not always as simple as it may seem, and building a social site from the ground up can be quite challenging, even for the most experienced development team. It’s easy to overlook many development obstacles, testing time, and bugs, which is why development times for such sites often overshoot their expected time line by several weeks and many times even months. While building from scratch can give you exactly what you envisioned, the time, as well as the total cost of ownership in developing from scratch could end up being considerably higher than budgeted — which is an extremely important factor while deciding between building on an existing community / social platform or developing your own platform.

In today’s context, when so many business software initiatives rely on Web 2.0 and social software components that allow for communication and collaboration, it could make good business sense buying or investing in a strong platform that provides the base features to get your projects from concept to launch in the shortest possible time.

No related posts.

Community Social Software – Towards Two Way Marketing Communications

Tim Eisenhauer — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:07:58 +0000

Turning Your Marketing Communication Into A Marketing Conversation With Community Social Software

I came across an interesting statement while browsing through conversations in a community on social software. It came from a sales communication professional working with a global hotel chain — and having seen marketing sales communications in the industry evolve in the 17 years she has worked there, she observed:

“Nowadays, no one wants another newsletter, so we’re hoping to make our online community a robust forum for sharing ideas and best practices in a conversational format.”

Marketing and sales communications are going through a change, just as they did some years ago with email and newsletters. As peoples in-boxes are flooded with marketing messages and SPAM’s, the effectiveness of these mediums have taken a beating over the last few years. Despite the practice of opt-in email marketing becoming more widely accepted, people who have been bombarded by push-based marketing communication are now moving towards pull based forms, where they can search for and consume the content that they are interested in rather than receiving these communications from businesses. The other real drawback that automated email marketing and newsletters have is in today’s context of Web 2.0 and social software, where conversation is the mantra — these mediums are more one-way communication.

Selling today is more about being able to solve your customers problems and less about pitching a product or service hoping they will take the bait — and this is where more traditional marketing and sales communication is losing out where online communities and social software enabled websites are making ground quickly. Communities that offer a platform for dialog between businesses, customers, and other stakeholders rely on this conversational approach and hope to solve problems and provide solutions to customers. It offers a platform to build stronger relationships with customers and helps them build trust in the businesses through this two-way conversation.

Communities used for marketing conversation can help address the challenge that many businesses face today with the change that’s become apparent with the way customers respond to newsletters and similar channels. Through blogs, forums, document sharing, videos, and other rich content that customers can simply access when they have a requirement or problem they need to address, business can strike those conversations using their community platforms. It needs a dedicated effort and may not be an instant shift, but the online community is looking like the platform of choice for customers and businesses — and marketing and sales communications will be more conversation centric in the days to come.