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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.

Social Collaboration Software For The Sales Force

Tim Eisenhauer — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:00:26 +0000

The Social Business Collaboration Software Powered Sales Force

With the sales team being the front line in the quest for success for any organization, the need to strengthen their abilities as a team and equip them to function as efficiently as possible becomes paramount to their effectiveness. From businesses with smaller sales teams to ones with a sales force which can be hundreds and even thousands strong, there are a number of challenges which they can face which are unique to the sales organization. The ability to communicate easily and collaborate as a unit is perhaps one of the most common ones and while CRM software and blackberry’s are associated with making the lives of the sales team better, there is one other technology which is gaining ground very quickly…social networking software for collaboration.

Whether an in house sales force or a network of channel and partner sales representatives, the sales organization is often a widely spread very mobile organization scattered across locations or always on the move. Communication and content is a lifeline for the organization but the common complaint is a lack of a unified platform they can use to communicate on and work with each other. This often sees large numbers of sales representatives working as islands with no sharing of intelligence, best practices and a coordinated effort which could otherwise result in more efficient working and perhaps better revenues.

For the management, there are other challenges such as the need to send out individual communications with each sales rep with the alternative being to email or push out their communications and content across the entire sales force even though a lot of it may not be relevant to each one of them again creating an inefficient process. Training and development of new and existing sales reps is a constant concern with higher employee turnover rates than most other departments and the need to constantly update and enhance skills and information throughout the daily working process. So how is a social networking based business community platform going to address all this?

Building a collaboration network platform for the sales force is a great strategy. Sales teams at IBM, CISCO, T-Mobile and others have already experienced the results of leveraging collaborative social software in providing their sales teams with these platforms and here is just some of what has been observed by companies who have built such online networks for their sales organization:

Greater sharing of knowledge & best practices: – collaboration and social networking environments foster sharing of information and experiences which among sales organizations often translates to a widespread sharing of best practices. These best practices which are often posted by members of the sales team on the job come from practical experiences with customers and the practice of sharing this knowledge alone helps build a better sales organization.

Rapid turnaround time in getting answers to questions:- companies have seen with the ability to simply log in to the network and post a question on the discussion boards or forums, sales reps and channel sales agents find it easy to ask questions on handling situations, on product updates and other topics. What’s more is with all the other members regularly on the network, questions get answered quickly creating a strong process for ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Better objection handling:- it’s been observed that when sales reps come across customer objections while selling and post them within their network, they are replied to with multiple suggestions for handling these objections from others on the community. With everyone collectively pitching in on how to manage these objections, the learning curve increases and everyone gains from better success rates.

Constant pull-based learning & development process:- With the constant discussion, conversation, posting of learning content, presentations, blog posts, videos, webinars and other useful content the network also acts as a platform for continuous learning. Since it’s not pushed on employees it’s not seen as something they are forced to learn and rather, they are encouraged to participate in posting, consuming, commenting on and sharing learning content by seeing others do the same.

Single platform for distribution of content: Rather than have to email each sales rep or go through the other extreme of email the entire sales force with content and material which may not be relevant or useful to all of them, the collaborative network provides a single platform to which content can be posted to. Sales reps can simply login and take what they need whether it’s a product guide, specs update sheet or marketing collateral. This makes it easier for management to distribute content and spares the sales reps from being bombarded with what they may not need.

Single platform for communication and planning:- Perhaps one of the biggest plus points for management is having a single platform they can use to communicate with the entire sales team no matter how far they are spread and where they are physically located. Whether it’s sending out important notices or planning campaigns which need groups of sales reps to participate and discuss, the network provides a platform to communicate, plan and execute on what may otherwise be a daunting task.

Visibility into operations and recognition of performers:- The collaboration network brings a greater level of transparency into the working of the sales organization as well as to information which would otherwise slipped under the radar. Management can spot performers, contributions to the sales organization and spread the word on achievements to recognize outstanding sales reps and also to motivate the sales community as a whole to push the envelope and do better.

In short, the social collaboration software platform can bring a new level of cohesiveness to the working of the sales force and a unified sales force is powerful one. Quicker spread of information, better ability to plan and interact with each other and better communication can be targeted with building a platform exclusively for sales employees and a lot of businesses can benefit from the results seen by those who have been front runners in this space. After all if the goal is to push revenues, what better way than to equip the sales organization with the technology they need to bring home the results?

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.

Social Networks Vs Email For Business Communication

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:00:36 +0000

Is Social Networking Software Pushing Email To A New Role In Business Communication?

This is more a personal observation than a researched study, but it seems that the role of email is changing constantly in the business communications environment as social networking software advances to play a greater role in this space. It was just a short time ago when email was the backbone of nearly all external communication with customers and those outside the office — and instant messaging, along with email is how we would communicate internally.

The best way to really understand the change that I’m talking about is this: a few years ago when you stepped into your office or workplace, what was the first few windows you would have opened on your desktop? For most of us, that would be Outlook or our web mail accounts — which we open like a ritual since this was the channel of all communication and the application that connected us to everyone else. Now, think about what the first few windows or applications you opened as you started your working day today. How many of those were social networking based applications or sites?

Social networking software is increasingly becoming the backbone of business communications. Just looking back to how I started this day and how I connected with others and communicated since the start of today is quite different from only email and instant messaging. 1) There was logging into our own internal community and checking for new discussions and updates to previous conversations. 2) There was checking our shared calendar for calls and meetings scheduled for the day.

Accepting some connections on Linkedin, followed by replying to some internal messages, and answering some interesting questions around social software in one of the groups. Adding my name to the attendees list on a Wiki for an event next month what the next thing I did. Then, replying to a number of direct messages and tweets on Twitter. As the day continues, I’m sure I will end up connecting and having conversations with several others before the day ends — and a lot (if not all) of these conversation will happen outside my email account.

Todd Famous did a post not too long ago on the CISCO blog on new forms of communications and collaboration and said:

“I used to get emails from friends through email but I now get almost all my non-work “email” via Facebook. My legacy email account has turned into an inbox for electronic account statements and alerts from social media platforms.”

This is something I can relate to completely, as a bulk of the email I receive during the working day are now notifications for updates that happen across other social networking sites and communities. The inbox is working more as a place to monitor these various conversations across different locations rather than being the actual place where the conversations themselves happen — and that’s a significant change.

As we move towards using social networking and collaborative sites for more of our collaboration and communication needs, how do you see the role of email evolving within this new environment?

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.

Ownership Of Social Networks

Tim Eisenhauer — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:00:51 +0000

Third Party Social Networks Vs Business Owned
Communities As A Social Marketing Strategy

If there is one lesson that has held true for social marketing, it’s that you have to learn to rely on customers to drive it for you — they will always have control. The third party social software space, which includes all the big social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, form a massive platform for people with common interests to get together and start conversations. If some of those people are your customers and the topic of conversation involves your business, that’s a big concern for you … right? This is a big concern shared by many businesses all over the world. Customers are likely to start conversations around your business with or without the businesses involvement, so the real challenge is “how can a business get more involved in this conversation” and have greater control over their social networks.

Building a community on a social network can be a great way to build a closer relationship with customers, build brand advocates from a customer base, and also help provide a platform to communicate closed loop marketing. Unfortunately, third party social networks only provide limited control — and businesses may find it very challenging to achieve these objectives without a greater degree of administrative control over their community and content.

This is where business owned, hosted social networks score over a third party community. It gives you better control over the content and direction of the conversation around your business — although not complete control over the actual conversation itself (which defeats the purpose of involving customers). A number of social marketing experts have said that customers are constantly looking for place to discuss their experiences and share views with other customers like them.

With third party networks for a business, even as an administrator, you have just as much influence over the activity and conversation as any other member on the network. It has its advantages in the ease of which it can grow, owing to the large size of the parent social network — but from the businesses point of view, it provides very little room to achieve specific marketing objectives and very little control.

While in theory, the business may be termed a group owner or administrator on a third party website — it’s very important to understand that privately owned and hosted social networks offer a far greater degree of ownership in it’s true sense, and from a marketing stand point, that’s the level of ownership you need. So, while investing in a comprehensive social marketing program (while third party social networks will still play some role), investing in building a business owned and managed social network offers some clear advantages for marketing to tap into and build those stronger relationships with customers.

They include:

Better administrative control over content and conversations
More control over the direction of the community
Greater ownership and control over the space which can be used for branding and marketing messages
Can be integrated with your other software platforms
Can be customized and scaled along with the growing community
Communities can be divided in to strategic sub-communities to enable more focused targeted marketing
More control over the software also enables the implementation of more analytic and tracking tools to measure effectiveness of marketing and attribute results to specific areas like blogs, message boards, photo sharing, RSS and so on

While both third party and business owned communities are important components of the social marketing mix, if you are looking for a way to control the online conversation around your business and take control of the social marketing direction, a community that is managed and owned by your business can help you claim that control.

Microsoft Office Social Software And Collaboration

Tim Eisenhauer — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:40:28 +0000

Microsoft 2010 For Business Gears Towards Better Collaboration - Is Your Social Software Up To The Challenges?

Microsoft-driven businesses (that includes a lot of businesses the world over) have probably been keeping a tab on the news bits that keep being released around the Microsoft Office 2010 developments. The talk around Microsoft’s vision for Office 2010 started much earlier and Share Point indicated they would focus on enhancing collaboration. Recent news confirms that’s exactly the direction they have gone with the soon to be released version of perhaps the most widely used office suite in the world. The company has looked to improve collaboration and productivity in its latest version, which not surprisingly, will also be more web based than its predecessors.

An article published in PC World online recently stated:

“Microsoft is also counting on a more Web-based manifestation of Office to keep from looking like a corporate dinosaur next to fast and loose Web apps from Google and Zoho, as well as to protect itself from the shift from PCs to more portable devices including smart phones and netbooks.”

According to the article, users can also expect to see better unified communication and ability for multiple users to edit documents real-time when online and have remote access to all office documents. It’s evident that office suites are evolving to move towards a web-based collaborative working environment and with Microsoft moving this direction, this will impact the way hundreds of thousands of businesses work everywhere.

Software used by businesses has for a long time been influenced by the direction Microsoft goes… and developers have always had to consider how their software would work alongside the Microsoft software suites so that businesses don’t run into any compatibility issues or find that they can’t integrate their software with the version of Office that’s being used within their business. When it comes to social software, that still applies — or it is definitely a consideration. If a business is relying on a social software platform for most of its communication and collaboration, the flow of documents within these portals is also important. While previously a business’s online collaboration platform (intranet or website portal) was not always used with its offline office suite like Microsoft Office, with this new development towards web based office suites, the chances are they will have to work together.

To be able to seamlessly use web based office suite applications and manage documents across a social network on the business website or intranet there needs to be some room for customization and integration in the software platform being used. For example the architecture of Communifire which is built on the latest ASP.NET 3.5 platform with AJAX and related web 2.0 technologies allows for greater customization. This leaves a business with the ability to integrate newer components and web applications that the business may need in the future. This can however be an issue, especially in social software and community platforms that are built by weaving several free software components to create a wider platform. In such cases, integrating with other critical software that the business is using can be cumbersome even if it is at all possible.

As more business applications move towards the web based collaborative productivity centric way, the need to integrate a business’s various web based software platforms is only going to grow stronger. After all, if all the components are going to help unify the work environment and make things more efficient, they will have to work together themselves.

Product Marketing And Social Networking Software

Tim Eisenhauer — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:09:11 +0000

Extending The Product Life-cycle With Social Networking Software

Have you read the novel “Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini? It was a very enjoyable book that sold millions of copies and found just as many fans of the author, who was little known before this book. The fascinating thing about a paperback novel, just like so many other products we purchase, is they have a limited life span of usefulness. Once you’ve read the book and enjoyed it, you may spend a day or two discussing it or recommend it to others and in a short while, that stops. You move on …

From the authors and publishers point of view, they would prefer to have people talking about their work as long as possible. The press coverage and hype that comes with launching a book is just a launch pad — but for a book to succeed, it needs readers to promote the book through word of mouth by sharing their experience … and relies on this to keep the ball rolling. The reader has a limited time frame between the time he or she has read the book till the time the effect of the book wears off to share their experience and promote the book. For those selling the product (which, in this case is a book) — that is very precious time.

Social networks and community websites are fantastic tools in tapping into the effect of a good product on a satisfied customer. People who enjoyed “The Kite Runner” are probably going to go online to read up more on the author and explore other works. If they go to the authors website, Khaledhosseini.com, first, they have access to more content like his blog, podcasts, discussion videos, and newsletters … which alone can engage them longer and hold up that interest level … which would have otherwise faded soon after putting the book down. Then, there is a longer lasting effect of signing up as a fan or a member of the online community for the product — which incites active discussions and participation. This is where fans have a place and a medium where they can continue to express their opinions and liking for the book, and in the process, keep up the word of mouth activity …that of which is so important to the success of such a product. In effect, it works to extend the life-cycle of a product which could have ended once the hype around it died out.

People are still talking about books like the Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter. People still discuss their interpretations of The Matrix trilogy or popular TV show LOST on online communities. Every time there is even a tidbit of news around the Apple iPhone it makes the rounds of blogs and news publications. They are all great creations in their own rights and we can’t take that away from them. There is however something else they all have in common. All these products are backed by a strong fan base of happy customers who continue to create a buzz. Social networking software contributes to this buzz by mobilizing these communities and giving them a platform to get together and share their experiences with others.

Marketers can use this aspect of social software to their advantage and extend the product life of such offerings by mobilizing their customers online and letting them drive the marketing.

A little word of mouth can go a long way.

Online Communities – Migration And Control Over The Community Database

Tim Eisenhauer — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:06:37 +0000

Database Considerations For An Online Community Development Plan

A challenge that we have seen both technology decision makers and business decision makers struggle with is the question on whether to opt for a self-hosted social networking platform or one that runs off a third party server / website and is offered as a service. Both of these options have pros and cons to weigh out and decisions are made, taking into account what’s important to meet their needs. I believe one of the most important questions to be asked while looking at communities is “who controls the data?”

Building a really great community, especially an external public facing community, is not an easy task. It requires time and effort to build it, grow it, and nurture it. Once you have this community online that you have invested in and put in so much to develop, the really tangible element of what you take from this is the community database. The community data is not just a business asset, but is also the result of all the efforts that go into the process. When you have a self-hosted community, it’s clear you have complete un-restricted access to all the data — since the database server is also within your reach. You can export, format, and re use that data as required, whether to send out email communications, direct mail invitations to an event, or communicate with the community members when required. If in the future you plan to migrate the community to a new platform or need the user data to extend membership to another online offering, it can be done.

What about when the community is built on a hosted solution or third party social networking site? There is no question that the community is still yours. Communities built on sites like LinkedIn and Ning also allow group administrators and community owners to communicate with their members and perhaps even send group messages across the entire community. But what needs to be asked is, “just how much control and ownership do you have over your community data?” If you don’t foresee the need to be able to migrate the user database or export and use any of the data for anything other than being able to send community-wide internal messages or emails, then a SaaS community platform or one built on a social networking website (like on LinkedIn) may be a good option. If you need un-restricted access and complete ownership over all the data, then perhaps the self-hosted option is the way to go.

All said and done, the database and the data contained within it is a very important consideration while moving ahead with an online community development plan and something to be considered carefully before deciding which the best way forward is.

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.