Axero Pulse » social software

Enterprise Social Software Integration

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:00:49 +0000

Need Of The Hour – Enterprise Social Software Platform Integration For Seamless Business Collaboration

So you’ve joined into the social software bandwagon and the organization is finally tuned to using blogs, Wiki s, instant messaging and starting to grasp the benefits of each of these technologies and see how they can be used to better their work environment. A team logged in here updating their project Wiki to set the agenda for what’s to be done next and another department using a standalone chat client to discuss an event that coming up soon.

Someone from customer support is logged into a forums software answering questions customers posted the previous day while the PR manager is gathering a list of employee blog urls so they can be reviewed and notified in case something doesn’t quite gel with the companies PR strategy. A training group has just created an account on a social bookmarking site to consolidate articles that may be useful to train the sales staff and will pass on the account details to them when that’s done.

It’s clear from all the activity the business in this scenario has adapted to social software and can be dubbed “enterprise 2.0″ but what’s also evident is every activity is fragmented in some way and they are not using a single platform to bring everything together and that is slowly becoming the need of the hour for several businesses.

A ReadWriteWeb post published in June titled “Becoming An Open Enterprise: Five Lessons from Booz Allen Hamilton” discussed 5 lessons by Booz Allen Hamilton. The firms portal which was adopted by 40% of the 21,000 employees was awarded the Enterprise Innovation Award at the 2009 Enterprise 2.0 Conference. Among the five lessons that the article carried, the fourth one stated:

Create a One-stop Shop

Part of what stalled previous undertakings was that despite having good software like Confluence, their varied systems were segregated. Inadvertently constructing more silos out of multiple enterprise 2.0 platforms creates more problems than you ever had with just email and file sharing.

Now, you might depend on interoperability between your different software packages, but what really worked for Booz Allen was to create a true one-stop shop for information that included individual profiles, communities, forums, blogs, Wiki s, and social bookmarking.

The ultimate aim of implementing social software within the enterprise is to make communication and collaboration as efficient as possible. The use of multiple independent software platforms for each function in many ways adds to inefficiency instead of overcoming it. The issues that come up with multiple platforms are not easily noticeable. Not until you have used an integrated platform that is. It’s easy to ignore those inefficiencies within the processes and keep on going with them but the fact is, there are issues with the system. Issues like:

Multiple online locations to go to
More logins and passwords
Reduced security
No centralized administration
Scattered content
Problems with scalability

The best way of integrating all these systems as the Booz Allen Hamilton success story points out is relying on a one stop shop or single platform which can bring everything together, offers unified management and allows for greater interoperability. This single platform will provide a more comprehensive solution for employees and create an efficient collaborative work space. That should set the organization up for the true enterprise 2.0 experience!

Social Networking Software For Social Change

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:00:21 +0000

A Look Into The Social Software Components That Enable Change

Conversation has been central to the spread of social software in several areas. The very fact that social networking and community websites are great places to start conversations, discuss issues, collaborate and build awareness have made them invaluable tools in the hands of those nonprofit organizations and individuals working towards social change.

Several non-profit organizations have been able to use social software successfully to build momentum and bring the masses together and gather a more collective voice for their causes. We’re going to pick just one of them to break up the different components of a good social software platform and look into how these come together for an organization in achieving their goals.

Kiva.org is a prime example of how social software can be leveraged. The site has successfully taken the concept of micro-loans to thousands of people and benefited equally as many people changing their lives for the better. The site enables users to give out micro loans and uses the social software components very well.

Built on the foundations of a community based social website, the Kiva community has thousands of members who actively use the platform and their work has accounted for impacting several lives. So what are the components that makes a site like this tick? Let’s look into the social software components that makes all this come together:

Membership: As with most sites built around a social networking or community model, the Kiva.org site uses a “Register” option to join the community or sign up as a lender.

Groups: The groups feature as it’s commonly referred to has been aptly modified to create the “Lending Teams” which you will find in the “Community” section of the website. The groups technology helps signed up members join a common interest group similar to the groups you’ll find in Linkedin or Facebook. Kiva has termed these Lending Teams which users can join and each lending team works towards providing finance to a specific cause.

Member Profiles: The member profile or the dashboard feature is a must have in most similar applications and this is featured under the “My Portfolio” section for registered members to track their investments.

Articles: Publishing is key to any site targeting change and Kiva has “Journals” which allows members to get firsthand accounts of what borrowers have managed to do with the support of those micro loans bringing the all important transparency to the community. With regular reports of progress along with commenting features, this forms an important part of website.

Blogs: Kiva features a main blog as well as alternate blogs for developers and Kiva Fellows. A robust blogging platform is what gives a site like this a personal voice through which they can start conversations with visitors and members as well as discuss through the commenting section.

Messaging: This feature is used in a number of places to set up a communication channel internally as well as help spread the word and share. The “Do More” section noticeably uses this well.

Topics: The “help center” which forms the basis of support on the website is built out of an extensive collection of FAQs listed under topics which clears just about any question a user can have.

Needless to say with social software technology and some clear vision, nonprofit organizations can build some very active centers for social change and impact a lot more lives. Building a place for conversation and action towards the better, it’s certain we are going to see a lot more of social networking and community platforms being used for positive change.

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?

Member Profiles In Social Networking

Tim Eisenhauer — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:00:44 +0000

Putting A Face To Social Networking For Business

It’s amazing how many people we work with everyday and do business with are people we have never physically seen or met with in person. With every passing year, this number seems to increase with more people opting to work from home, customers who you’ve connected with through email or phone calls, offshore colleagues and contacts you’ve made through social networks. In larger organizations it’s not uncommon to have co-workers who you’ve never met and you know them as another name on the intranet. Personal contact in business is slowly becoming a scarce interaction as we communicate and collaborate increasingly online. It’s still good to have a face you can put to a person you are working with and that face in today’s context is the user or member profile.

The profile is your online identity and though some may feel it’s not as relevant in the business environment as it may be on MySpace or Facebook, I would differ. With the spread of business interaction on social networks, many valuable connections happen online and the profile is very much what forms the first impressions. Whether you’re on Twitter, Linkedin, someone’s blog or your company’s social software based Intranet, you instinctively look up a person’s profile to learn more about them and decision on whether to connect with them and start a conversation is often influenced by what you take from their profile. While the nature of social software is based on human interaction, the lack of being able to put a face and personality to the person you are working with can play some role in building a level of comfort and trust. Once you’ve seen a photo you can associate with and learned a bit about them through their profile information, it puts you at ease and helps you identify with the person despite not having met.

This may seem a very small point in the scheme of things but it’s very important to working online because it’s what we do naturally offline. When you first connect with someone in your working life you first try to size them up, know something about them which will allow you identify who they are, what are their likes, what are their dislikes and you’ll tread cautiously till you have some idea. We look for the same when we work online. Even before speaking to someone for the first time, you would like to have a brief profile which would help you understand a bit about them and that’s why they are still an important part of social software based website even if it is for business.

So while some traditional corporate Intranets may still avoid a member profile feature in their software, in the world of “social” business we like having a human touch to our interactions and like having a personality we can associate with the people we work with. Don’t you?

Social Community Software For Customer Support

Tim Eisenhauer — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:00:27 +0000

Social Software Enabled Self Service Customer Support – The Way Forward

A recent case study I read which featured a large software infrastructure company reflected what we have been seeing across the customer support organization across industries. The company needed to act quickly given the fact that a large number of customers who would typically prefer the self service support offered under the resources section of their website were now bombarding their call centers and direct support lines.

This is a challenge a wide range of businesses face when it comes to post sales customer support or customer service and puts a burden on their traditional customer support channels including phone, email and support centers. Not only is this a burden on customer support teams who almost always have their hands full with escalated cases but it’s a often financial drain too. With some in-depth research into finding a good solution the company leveraged a social community software platform which they customized and launched into a full-fledged online self service customer support solution offering a great resource customers could turn to for answers. As observed by many, given a good online alternative to direct support a lot of customers prefer self service support.

Most of us are used to visiting the website and searching for help or using the site as a first option for customer service or support. It’s only when we don’t find it there or find it difficult to get what you’re looking for do we call a support number. Businesses need to tap into that by ensuring that first line of customer support is the point at which most of their customer find what they are looking for and that calls for a strong online solution.

Social software geared to deliver customer support help deliver that solution in a way that most customers are comfortable with. An option to log into a community on the website and find documents, resources, videos, podcasts or use discussion boards, forums, Wiki’s or chat to seek out solutions. Here is some of what businesses who have implemented a community based social software customer support platform have seen:

Quick reduction in volume of calls and a drop in the number of emails and other inquiries which were direct burdens on the customer support team. This instantly allowed them to focus their attention to escalated cases and important matters which are not easily resolved trough self service support.

The users are able to quickly adapt to the familiar social networking environment of the support community and easily find and share resources and information available within the network as well as interact with others to seek answers to specific questions etc.

A large number of questions posted on forums and discussion groups are answered by other users who have encountered similar situations or are perhaps more familiar with the products creating a community support structure. Customers are able to find solutions and in many ways a great sense of satisfaction interacting with others. Even though business representatives are present on the community, they can often play a more moderating role and step in where needed.

The knowledge base within the community builds creating a large resource for documents, best practices, FAQs and other content. This becomes a valuable resource for not just the customers but the businesses too as it has valuable feedback and information which can be used in product development and improving customer processes. The build up in the knowledge around the community also helps reduce the need for more customer support reps and their active involvement as customers are able to find what they need from the vast information already built up.

A measurable reduction in overall support costs from greater adoption of online support through the community, lower dependency on phone support, heavy re-usability of support content on the website and more.

With a strong customer support infrastructure on the website as the front line of support, businesses can use the benefits of social software to achieve greater customer satisfaction levels while keeping a check on costs. It’s definitely the way forward for the customer support and service organization.

The Role Of Community Software In The Online Marketing Strategy

Tim Eisenhauer — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:00:49 +0000

Why Your Online Community Can Be Your Most Valuable Online Marketing Weapon?

Budgets for online marketing are divided among the several options available from spending on more direct advertising, sponsoring banners and buying Google Adwords to spending on SEO, social media marketing and similar tools. While each business works out its balance with the right mix of these it’s good to take an aerial view of the external community for customers and partners and understand it’s role in the overall online marketing context.

Here is a typical flow of an online marketing strategy:

first generate awareness –> accelerate branding online –> generate interest (generate sales leads) –> engage customers / nurture interest (or sales leads) –> retain customers and deliver customer service / support

If this is the objective of a marketing plan, then where would “building and online community” fit into the marketing equation?

Surprisingly, almost through all these stages! While with the right SEO techniques an online community can also generate early awareness among potential customers, one would typically attribute those costs to SEO, online advertising, email campaigns, newsletters, PPC campaigns and more push based campaigns. When it comes to online advertising like PPC, Adwords, banners much like offline advertising like print, television and radio, they are effective for a very limited time period.

That aside, they can only communicate a very small (limited) marketing message and still be very expensive. In case of Adwords, it’s usually a word or two, on television a few seconds, in print a limited number of words and pictures and so on. Eventually, to go beyond just creating initial interest you need to direct people to a place where they can get a lot more information and where you can communicate a more complete message whether a salesperson, landing page or website.

Providing customers and users with an external community to come together, collaborate and have discussions goes much beyond simply providing more information around your business the way a static company website would do. Other than providing customers with a platform to interact and share, it provides marketing with a platform to execute on many stages of an effective online marketing initiative.

Accelerating Branding: Social software platforms for businesses and building communities tap into word of mouth effect and sharing aspect which has made web 2.0 technologies stand out in today’s world. Companies that offer an external community for their customers on partners on their website have observed that after working on building their initial membership, the community in turn helps spread the word and attract a larger base of users with similar interest around the website. Features such as RSS, sharing posts, photos, videos and other content through email and other social sites trigger the spread of awareness about the community and results in a growth in the number of users. In turn, there is an ever increasing number of users who are aware about a business’s brand.

Generating Interest & Generating Sales Leads: While this can also be done by a more static website which can carry a lot of information which can drive interest, an social software based website has the added advantage of a variety of web 2.0 content such as on demand video, podcasts, webcasts, discussions, blogs and more which can all add to helping sell the business and quite indirectly as compared to a sales person. A product or business which is clearly backed by a community of customers becomes an attractive option to any user who can clearly see third party support and not just representatives from the business saying it’s good because they work there. With the ability to freely interact with other customers, ask questions, get opinions and find solutions to problems on the community, it can be an extremely effective tool in selling.

Engaging Customers / Nurturing Leads: Perhaps the area where an online community platform can score over any other solution, keeping customers engaged and having their attention over prolonged periods of time is where many marketing organizations let potential business slip through. Even after initial awareness, a user will only buy if they need something offered immediately. As for all the others, you need a way to keep them engaged and nurture them till they are ready to buy. Whether to develop customer loyalty or to nurture potential customers till they are ready to buy, building an online community is a great solution to hold on to your customers.

Customer Retention / Customer Service: A well-built external community for customers can go on to deliver customer support and customer service which ultimately results in satisfaction. Creating a central resource of support documents, building a knowledge base and providing a platform for them to find solutions to not just issues around products or services but a wider support platform where the community helps each other can result in happy existing customers as well as other users who can turn customers.

With social community software platforms being such versatile tools for marketers to execute on their various objectives, more businesses are pushing their online communities as one of the most prominent features of their websites. Used in combination with advertising and other media to reach out to customers, it provides a central base to gather, nurture and hold onto a business’s most valuable component…..it’s customers.

How Social Software Can Impact Your Organic Search Marketing

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:00:46 +0000

Build A Community And Build Search Marketing Capabilities

Staying on top of SEO and search engine marketing strategies is a constant challenge for any marketing organization, and the battle for the front pages of search results is ongoing. While one on-site SEO strategy like adjusting titles, meta tags, and adjusting copy to include keywords is a one time or periodic activity, the challenge is the daily ongoing work — and that may be difficult for a single person or a small team to take responsibility for and execute day after day. On a more static business website, this is much the way it works — and marketing alone is responsible for the content, updates, or other activity that can help generate more search traffic to the website. Building a community using a social software platform on the site however, changes the dynamics completely and can add a whole new dimension to your search marketing capabilities. Other than the fact that social software platforms such as our own Communifire are built on a search engine friendly architecture, by building a community that’s part of your business website, you are effectively outsourcing a critical part of your SEO activities to your customers and members and leveraging “the power of many.”

By reviewing feedback from businesses that have incorporated social software networks as a part of their website as a marketing strategy, there are some clear benefits that have surfaced. Here are some key benefits of extending your website to include a community with respect to boosting its search traffic:

Increased indexed content pages: One of the first outcomes of establishing an active community of users on the site is a spurt in the amount of content added regularly to the website, as well as the number of pages within the website. The increase in pages within your website will also see an increase in the number of pages indexed by search engines, creating a wider net of content on the web that can bring visitors to the site. With such pages and content being created constantly, this grows consistently over time without needing too much attention from the in-house team.

Build up of useful content and media: An active community inadvertently creates and publishes large volumes of fresh content within your website in the form of discussion posts, blogs, articles, photos, videos, etc. … and are generated daily, adding tremendously to the search marketing opportunities. This volume of content creation and addition to the searchable content is very difficult to replicate for a single person or a small online marketing team.

Wider promotion & social networking effect: Within a social networking environment, the community promotes, shares, and markets, their own content (as well as others) both within and outside the community creating a viral effect. This will give your website a greater reach and distribute marketing responsibilities to the community.

Build up of valuable keyword density: In the course of the interaction and discussions on the community section of the website, some of the primary keywords you need your site to rank for are likely to be frequently used in natural communication, building up the density of those keywords within the site. For example, if you build a community around network security, the words network security, anti-virus, firewall and so one are going to come up frequently during interactions and the site will start ranking higher for those keywords.

Creation of long tail keywords or keyword phrases: Discussions and content on the community are more likely to build more long tail keyword phrases within your website, which even SEO experts may not factor in. This happens during every day interaction and keyword phrases like “how to protect your peer to peer network” may draw some very specific and very relevant traffic to your website. Keyword phrases that arise out of natural language communication will build up on the community and in time be responsible for a significant percentage of all traffic — and more importantly some very relevant traffic.

Quicker link building: Communities and the activity they entail encourages quicker building of both internal links within the website (including to important offering and marketing pages) as well as inward links to the website as a result of members linking to the community and pages within from their personal blogs, websites and sharing of links with others. Link building is critical to the search marketing strategy and the more links that are regularly built, the better.

Page rank development: With more conversations, discussions, and resources built within the community section of the website, search engines are likely to recognize the site as a growing useful resource within the domain and reward the site with a higher page rank — making a great impact on the search traffic results.

It’s important to note whether you use a social software platform to develop your community section or develop your own community software from scratch, for this strategy to work effectively, the platform and the community should be on your website and within your domain. Third party communities hosted elsewhere may help with traffic and marketing, but won’t maximize the SEO potential the way your own community will. There are many areas to consider while developing your search marketing, but few can match the benefits of incorporating a social software based community on your website.

Build a community – build traffic.