Axero Pulse » social networking software platforms

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.

Business Collaboration Software

Tim Eisenhauer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:49:41 +0000

Is Social Business Collaboration Software The New Groupware 2.0?

Groupware technology has been around for a long time now. Almost every business organization has been using some form of groupware or another to create a collaborative work environment independent from geography and location of employees. The Usabilityfirst.com website defines groupware technology as follows:

“Groupware is technology designed to facilitate the work of groups. This technology may be used to communicate, cooperate, coordinate, solve problems, compete, or negotiate. While traditional technologies like the telephone qualify as groupware, the term is ordinarily used to refer to a specific class of technologies relying on modern computer networks, such as email, newsgroups, videophones, or chat.”

When you think of traditional groupware software like Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, you think of a suite of email management, chat, address book, messaging, document transfer, and so on. However, the features and tools used in collaborative efforts online have evolved into what we now commonly known as social networking and social media software. Blogs, instant messaging, micro-blogging, wikis, online events, groups, forums, and video sharing are more along the lines of what we associate with online collaboration and interaction in our every day communication with others on the web. So where does traditional groupware technology stand in today’s context where social networking software platforms for businesses are picking up momentum?

Well, some features of traditional groupware will continue to be used, such as email and perhaps chat/instant messaging, but the use of social media platforms integrated in business websites for internal collaboration is rapidly taking over with many large corporations switching over to social business collaboration platforms. More interesting than the adoption of this technology by larger organizations, is that social business collaboration software platforms like our own Communifire are just as accessible to the smaller and mid-sized businesses and cost is no longer a barrier. The geographical boundaries of businesses are being broken down quickly and the concept of “physically being present” at a workplace is blurring just as fast. For this reason, the need for groupware or business collaboration platforms is greater than before.

With the evolution of how we choose to collaborate online outside the workplace, groupware and collaboration platforms need to evolve and incorporate those features. The very nature of business collaboration has already changed, whether we like it or not. Now the only question is, when are businesses going to integrate this into their websites?

Is social business collaboration the new groupware 2.0?

ROI on Social Business Collaboration

Social Software For Online Marketing Of Events

Tim Eisenhauer — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:23:28 +0000

Taking Businesses Events To The Web A Whole New Way With Social Software

Conferences, exhibitions, seminars, conventions and other events are an inherent part of the marketing world and continues to be something businesses rely on heavily to engage their customers, demo their products, kick start discussions, interactions, reach out to people and gather leads for their business. A big concern for CMO’s however was the rising costs of organizing and hosting such events and with growing competition from more cost effective online sales leads the effectiveness versus cost of these events was often questioned.

The global recession didn’t help this plight and we saw more cutbacks on large corporate events. Still, a lot of these business events have years of brand building put into them and are still popular among people. In the technology world alone, names like CES, SXSW, CEBIT and other strike a chord with hundreds of thousands and similarly many businesses have managed to host successful events of their own year after year. While marketers don’t see the usefulness of the events fading, there is a greater pressure to drive more results from these efforts and social software may be one of the best solutions yet.

Social networking software platforms tuned into business use can closely work in conjunction with an offline business event like a conference. While these events are organized to bring people and the business together and interact, social software provides a virtual platform to much the same. When used together, that’s when their synergy is really brought out. A webinar with a large software company in the virtualization space brought out some interesting points on how they managed to extend a very popular annual conference of theirs to the online world. Their goal was to take the conference which lasted a few days online so that the discussion and community around it could continue the discussion around their technology area all year round instead of restricting it only to the few days the conference was in session. Another challenge they had was extending the value of the event that was held to others who could not physically make it to the event and the need to expand the community.

By migrating their static conference website to a social networking driven community website fully equipped with collaborative features like wikis, discussion forums, groups, resources, and more, they managed to turn it into a space where attendees as well as those who couldn’t make it to the event could sign in and continue to benefit from the event. Members could log into the community, access content and material distributed during the event, interact with other members in the community, share experiences and knowledge, interact with experts and thought leaders in the field, attend online sessions and really keep the spirit of the event alive all year round.

Some of the takeaways they managed by extending the event website to build a community are:

Managed to include a member registration process with a detailed member profiling as one would find on social networking sites. This allowed them to profile their customers and partners better and gather more detailed information which is a great resource for sales and marketing.
Built an online resource for content within their field from all the documents gathered during the conference as well as online sessions, discussions, forums and more which could be used by members much beyond the actual event.
Were able to hold several expert sessions and online events throughout the year keeping a wider community engaged at a fraction of the cost of a physical event.
Were able to expand the community and extend the value provided to customers and partners during the event to those who couldn’t make it and drive more traction from the original event.

This example can be extended to just about any business event and highlights what can be achieved by replacing a static event website with a social software enabled one which can help deliver more from a business’s offline event marketing. A simple solution, but one that can take events to a whole new level.