Altimeter Report: Making The Business Case for Enterprise Social Networks
View more documents from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShareData HighlightsThe report also includes input from 13 technology providers, 185 end users, and surveyed 81 ESN decision makers from companies with over 250 employees (see below in Related Resources for links to the data). A few of the findings and graphics from the report are included below. There was only moderate impact on business goals. On a scale of 1 to 4, the highest impact seen – improving collaboration between departments/teams — scored only a 2.91 (see Figure 5 below).
The latest Forrester Research study on how few people trust corporate blogs (16%) sent Communitelligence looking for good advice. Read these excellent articles and at least you won’t make the biggest mistakes.
A Blog Should Feel Like a Gift: 10 Ways to Improve Your Corporate Blog – Kami Huyse – Communication Overtones
Corporate Blogging: Go Real or Go Home -Mark Logic CEO Blog
Forrester: Consumers Distrust Corporate Blogs – New Forrester Research study
15 Companies That Really Get Corporate Blogging – Sitepoint
People don’t trust company blogs. What you should do about it. – Josh Bernhoff, Forrester Research
Ten rules for effective corporate blogging– John Berg’s Future Visions
Seven rules for corporate blogging – Nicholas Carr’s rough type blog
7 Habits of Highly Effective Business Bloggers – Mario Sundar
Policies compared: Today’s corporate blogging rules – CorporateBlogging.Info: Archive
Corporate Blogging: When, Why and How – Kate Brodock (Slide presentation)
There’s no doubt that Twitter and “micro-sharing” are making huge inroads into the workplace. If you’ve been hanging on the sidelines, here’s 10 good reasons to jump in and start swimming with the Whale:
- How to Use Twitter as a Twool – Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World Blog
- Yammer 201: Yammer as Internal Podcast Platform – From CI Social Media Community Leader Lee Aase
- TWITTER STRATEGY BLOG SERIES #8: INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS – From Ogilvy 360
- How Companies Use Twitter to Bolster Their Brands – Business Week
- How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign – Advertising Age
- Twitterspeak: 66 Twitter Terms You Don’t Need to Know – Mashable
- Corporate Twitter Accounts and Online Reputation – Social Media Today, Niall Cook
- The Long Tail of Twitter – Social Media Today, Marc Meyer
- How to Measure Engagement on Twitter– Kari Rippetoe, The Caffeinated Blog
- Is Twitter a Waste of Time? No, Says Busy CEO – Debbie Weil
I didn’t set out to be a social media rule-breaker. I’ve always been more of a teacher’s pet type, honestly. But the more I get to know what some in the social media industry are pushing as doctrine, the more rebellious I get.
Social media guidelines are nice, but there’s no reason to accept them as gospel. Your brand isn’t average, so the average social media plan isn’t going to cut it. What works for a local brand may not work for an international one. What works for B2C may not work for B2B. You get the idea.
So with that in mind, here are 10 social media rules worth breaking – and what to do instead.1. The best time to post is …
Plenty of studies will give you a “best time to post” figure. The best time to tweet is 5 pm because you’ll get the most retweets. No, it’s noon so you can get a higher click-through rate. And depending on which studies you read, you should either be posting on Facebook every 3 hours or every other day.Instead of running around trying to plan your posts for industry averages, you’re better off determining the right timing for you. Experiment with Facebook posts of similar content at varying times on (try for the same day of the week if you want to be slightly more scientific about it) and then compare your traffic back to site, virality rate and engagement rate. Do similar exercises for frequency. Heck, on Twitter you can even post the same thing twice at different times and see which time sees a higher click-through rate. But now I’m skipping ahead to No. 7.2. Be on every social network
Really? That sounds like a recipe for cross-posting disaster to me. While I’m all for using a service like KnowEm to lock down your brand name on services that matter to you, that doesn’t mean you have to be spending time on all these networks. Instead, get to know your customers and where they’re hanging out and talking. If they’re all on LinkedIn, why are you spending all your time on Pinterest? Good social media monitoring tools will let you find relevant conversations wherever they’re happening so you’re not chasing your tail on the wrong networks.3. Respond to every comment and mention
I’m all for engagement and lively conversation, sometimes it’s important for a brand to know when to keep its virtual mouth shut. In cases where you’re getting abused or berated online, stay out of the fray for your own well-being as well as your brand’s. But the happier flip side of that coin is when you’ve built such a strong community that members are able to answer each other’s questions and drive the conversation on their own. If you’re lucky enough to be in that situation, you may find stepping back sometimes makes your community even stronger.4. Follow everyone who follows you
Some people say this Twitter quid pro quo is just part of being polite online. I say there’s plenty of ways to use Twitter and while I respect anyone’s right to tweet Foursquare checkins all day long, that doesn’t mean I have to sign up to read them all. Social media for business is just that – for business. Follow accounts that provide you useful information and don’t apologize for it. Or if you really feel you must reciprocate, at least make liberal use of Twitter lists (don’t forget private lists, too!)5. Ask for the action
You hear this all the time: If you want people to like the post, ask them. If you want them to share, suggest it. While I’m not opposed to this in moderation – say, asking Facebook fans to share a really important announcement – be careful with how often you’re doing it. Then make sure you balance it out with fun stuff and conversation with no ulterior motive. The same way you’d get fed up with a friend who’s always asking for help without giving you much in return, fans will get fed up with a brand taking lots and giving little. Don’t be that brand.
What is it that makes an intranet social and critical? Well this post, rather unsurprisingly called “10 things that make an intranet critical and social” outlines what in the authors opinion are the 10 elements that are critical to the success of an intranet.
- New style social intranets focus more on people then content. Although content is still relevant
- Content is authored collaboratively by anyone and the emphasis is either knowledge sharing or documentation that is useful
- Anyone can contribute and everyone is involved (from CEO to PA’s)
- The intranet supports work processes and helps people get their work done more efficiently
- Publishing workflows and approvals are kept to a minimum
- The intranet has a mix of key social features: activity streams, authoring (wiki style), networking and blogging
Starting now and lasting well, forever, technology and empathy are now part of your business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your markets, will depend on your industry and the rate of adoption within it.
Your priority areas include understanding…
1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses
2. Geolocation check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts
3. Crowdsourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why
4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing
5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic, and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services
6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty
Starting now and lasting … well … forever, technology and empathy are now part of your business strategy. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your markets, will depend on your industry and the rate of adoption within it.
Your priority areas include understanding these 10 trends:
- Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses.
- Geolocation check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts.
- Crowdsourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why.
- Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing.
- Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic, and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services.
- Innovative
- Trusted
- Productive
- Useful
- Pervasive
- Usable
- Essential
- Collaborative
- Coherent
- Strategic
There’s only one word I’d add to this list: ‘asynchronous’ (or interactive). High-powered intranets promote active, two-way or asynchronous communications between the organization and employee users. The true value of an intranet is not in just pushing information to employees, but engaging both sides in an ongoing dialogue while promoting individual, team and enterprise collaboration.
Read the full article 10 words to describe successful intranets.
This is quite a list, and worth taking the time to scroll through and check out those that you haven’t seen or used.
INTEL
Always pause and think before posting. That said, reply to comments in a timely manner, when a response is appropriate. But if it gives you pause, pause. If you’re about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, don’t shrug it off and hit ‘send.’ Take a minute to review these guidelines and try to figure out what’s bothering you, then fix it. If you’re still unsure, you might want to discuss it with your manager or legal representative. Ultimately, what you publish is yours – as is the responsibility. So be sure.
Perception is reality. In online social networks, the lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred. Just by identifying yourself as an Intel employee, you are creating perceptions about your expertise and about Intel by our shareholders, customers, and the general public-and perceptions about you by your colleagues and managers. Do us all proud. Be sure that all content associated with you is consistent with your work and with Intel’s values and professional standards.
It’s a conversation. Talk to your readers like you would talk to real people in professional situations. In other words, avoid overly pedantic or “composed” language. Don’t be afraid to bring in your own personality and say what’s on your mind. Consider content that’s open-ended and invites response. Encourage comments. You can also broaden the conversation by citing others who are blogging about the same topic and allowing your content to be shared or syndicated.
How should employees behave as company representatives on social media platforms?
- Transparency. Should employees acting as company agents identify themselves? Should they use their own names? Should they list their job title? Should there be specific rules that apply their use of photographs or avatars?
- Confidentiality. What information are employees allowed to disclose? Is this information already public? If not, does it require specific approvals? Who gives permission for release of non-public information? Is the information of competitive value?
- Financials. How should employees discuss corporate results or financial situation? This is particularly important for publically traded companies where regulatory agencies are involved.
- Copyright. How are intellectual property (aka IP) issues to be handled? What are the internal procedures? To whom should employees address their questions?
- Competitors. Since social media forums tend to be open to the public, how should employees treat competitors and their representatives? Are there specific procedures that they should follow?
How should employees behave as company representatives on social media platforms?
- Transparency. Should employees acting as company agents identify themselves? Should they use their own names? Should they list their job title? Should there be specific rules that apply their use of photographs or avatars?
- Confidentiality. What information are employees allowed to disclose? Is this information already public? If not, does it require specific approvals? Who gives permission for release of non-public information? Is the information of competitive value?
- Financials. How should employees discuss corporate results or financial situation? This is particularly important for publically traded companies where regulatory agencies are involved.
- Copyright. How are intellectual property (aka IP) issues to be handled? What are the internal procedures? To whom should employees address their questions?
- Competitors. Since social media forums tend to be open to the public, how should employees treat competitors and their representatives? Are there specific procedures that they should follow?
You must decide – as an organization and as an individual team leader – what spirit you intend to convey with the participation of your employees in social media.
If your intention is for them to be simply mechanical amplification vehicles for a very carefully crafted marketing message, that can work. You’ll likely see some results in terms of absolute reach and volume of short-term message resonance. You will sacrifice a degree of credibility on behalf of your individual representatives and personality and genuineness on behalf of your brand in favor of a consistent, safe(-r) message. You will also likely sacrifice culturally, since your employees will realize they’re part of a marketing machine, not someone who is entrusted to help build and shape a brand.
If your intention is for employees to become individual voices for your organization and unique representatives of your company’s values, personality and diversity, that can work too. You’ll likely see results in terms of trust and affinity for your brand as well as better identification of your advocates, both internal and external. You will sacrifice a certain amount of stability and potential consistency of message in favor of communications that are more unique and individual. You’ll also sacrifice some predictability around outcomes and need to rely on strong education and culture initiatives to guide your teams and hone their own sense of good judgment.
The bottom line: governance and guidance is important. But it’s a means to more scalable social media, not the end.
We’ve said many times here — and will continue to — that social business transformation is far more cultural than it is operational. Getting your employees involved is no different, and your policies and guidelines need to consider not just what you don’t want to happen, but instead what values, vision and intent you want your teams’ social media participation to convey.
You must decide – as an organization and as an individual team leader – what spirit you intend to convey with the participation of your employees in social media.
If your intention is for them to be simply mechanical amplification vehicles for a very carefully crafted marketing message, that can work. You’ll likely see some results in terms of absolute reach and volume of short-term message resonance. You will sacrifice a degree of credibility on behalf of your individual representatives and personality and genuineness on behalf of your brand in favor of a consistent, safe(-r) message. You will also likely sacrifice culturally, since your employees will realize they’re part of a marketing machine, not someone who is entrusted to help build and shape a brand.
If your intention is for employees to become individual voices for your organization and unique representatives of your company’s values, personality and diversity, that can work too. You’ll likely see results in terms of trust and affinity for your brand as well as better identification of your advocates, both internal and external. You will sacrifice a certain amount of stability and potential consistency of message in favor of communicat
Kyle Lacy pointed us to the Wave.3 Presentation from Universal McCann which included the following facts relating to the power of social media.
1. 394 million people watch video clips online
2. 346 million reaqd blogs/weblogs
3. 321 million Read personal blogs/weblogs
4. 307 million visit a friends social network page
5. 303 million SHARE a video clip (viral marketing anyone?)
6. 272 million manage a profile on a social network
7. 248 million upload photos
8. 216 million Download a video podcast
9. 215 million download a podcast
10. 184 million started a blog or weblog
11. 183 million uploaded a video clip
12. 160 million subscribed to an RSS Feed
Read the other 8 reasons you shouldn’t ignore social media for business.
Number 1. Special Offers
We live in a society that is as distracted as it is informed. People are making decisions on what to read, view, purchase, visit, and sample based on the information that filters through their attention dashboards. At best, even the most qualified information sourced from the most trusted contacts will receive only a cursory overview. The trick is to concisely introduce the value up front. If the offer is compelling and affiliated with their interests, the consumer will make the connection to personal value and benefits and click-through to redeem the special or coupon when ready or so inclined.
For example, @delloutlet uses Twitter and Facebook to send coupons to customers. In just one year, Dell recorded upward of $3 million in sales directly sourced from Twitter.
California Tortilla (@caltort), a chain of 39 casual Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, MD, sends coupon passwords via Twitter, which customers must say at checkout to redeem the offer.
Number 2. Ordering
While the distance between introduction and action is only separated by a link, many businesses are using Twitter to log orders. Coffee Groundz (@coffeegroundz) uses the direct message channel on Twitter to receive and prepare orders. Using Twitter as a promotion and marketing channel, Coffee Groundz reports 20 to 30% increased sales and market share.
As an aside, Pizza Hut offers an iPhone and Facebook application that allow hungry patrons to order pizza directly from Facebook and their mobile phone.
Number 3. Word of Mouth Marketing
Moonfruit offered 11 Macbook Pros and 10 iPod Touches to celebrate its 10th anniversary. In order to qualify, contestants had to send a tweet using the hashtag #moonfruit. One month following the completion of the contest, Moonfruit site traffic was up 300% and sales also increased by 20%–and all because of a meager investment of $15,000. The company also realized SEO benefits, by landing on the first results page on Google for “free Web site builder.”
Wendy White, Moonfruit’s CEO, realizes that there’s a fine line between effective and destructive #tweetowin campaigns: “Such campaigns must be courteous and fit with a company’s brand, lest you draw the ire of the Twitter-sphere.”
The wiki is one of the most useful applications in an intranet. It’s certainly one of the most popular applications among Noodle users. And why not? It’s easy, it’s fast, it’s accessible anywhere. Wikis can be edited on the fly, and the more users are given access to create and edit them, the more collaboration can occur.
Organizations are using intranet wikis to document and share knowledge, promote collaboration, and even enhance learning. Below are 25 specific ways you can use wikis in your intranet:
1. Project Management
Create a wiki for a project or special event, and put everything in it: timeline, tasks, notes, progress reports, lists of vendors, images, videos, and everything else that will be needed for it. Those who are involved in the project need to go to just one place on the intranet to find whatever is relevant to that project.
2. Collaborative Documents
Working on an article or report together? Create a wiki where the different authors can directly input their contributions. This eliminates the email ping-pong of drafts that people eventually lose track of anyway.
3. Brainstorming
Need ideas to cut down on the use of paper in the office? Create a wiki where everyone can post their suggestions. Make it judgement-free, so everyone will feel safe to contribute.
4. FAQs
Capture frequently-asked-questions in a wiki. Employees can add, develop, and expand on the answers.
5. Glossary
If you use many acronyms and technical terms at work, a glossary wiki is a good way to put all definitions in a centralized place. Employees can contribute their own definitions. You never know which version will resonate best with each employee.
A very nice resource and one I will continue to follow. Lisa Baziel of Ignite Social Media took 26 companies that she liked from Peter Kim’s more extensive list of corporate examples of social media use to take a closer look at and review. Here is her starting list to look at:
- Animal Planet
- Best Western
- Clorox
- Del Monte
- ExxonMobil
- Fandango
- Graco
- HomeGoods
- Ikea
- Joffrey’s
- Kraft
- Library of Congress
- Miller Brewing Co
- National Geographic
- Open Table
- Patagonia
- Quicken
- Rubbermaid
- SELF Magazine
- Taco Bell
- United Kingdom Government
- Victoria’s Secret
- WhirlPool
- Xerox
- Yoplait
- Zappos
Here is her post on the project and where you can find some of her reviews.
Are you skeptical about using digital and social media in business marketing? Think it’s only for consumers, and that business customers don’t have time for it? Your competitors don’t think so. And they are gaining competitive advantage by embracing new digital and social methods of connecting with their customers.
Those tools are fast becoming the single most important way to attract new business customers and sustain old ones. Search has become one of the most efficient ways to create and optimize leads. Customers are hungry for more and different kinds of digital content, and new ways to network and engage online.
Increasingly, business customers create great content and experiences to market to their own customers, so they know what they want from suppliers when they themselves are the potential buyers. That doesn’t mean Procter & Gamble expects to see the Old Spice guy selling enterprise software (although maybe it couldn’t hurt). Business customers do expect to see the same unique and effective tools they use: from how-to videos on YouTube, to personalization tools, to employees as customer service reps, to intuitive design that rewards past activity and predictive data analytics.
At the heart of successful digital marketing to business customers are three core qualities: Radical Transparency, Micro-Relevancy and Open Collaboration.
Keeping content fresh and interesting is key to capturing an audience for your company’s blog, but it’s easy to fall into a rut when it comes to generating new posts. Janet Aronica offers a sampling of excellent ideas for creating interesting new content from the ebook 100 Content Ideas for Community Managers at oneforty.com to get those blogging juices flowing and keep your clients coming back for more.