I read with interest the discussion over at TechCrunch this morning about business networking site LinkedIn surpassing 3 million UK members recently. Many commenters mentioned how they have accounts but never use the site, therefore casting doubt on the worth of the 3 million number.
It strikes me though that this is the same issue regardless of what social media site you mention because I hear exactly the same arguments used when people discuss Twitter. “Oh I’ve signed up but can’t see the point so have never used it” they will say.
Of course if people have no reason for using a service then it will be very difficult for them to ever gain any value from it. It’s no different in the social media world than it is in any other activity. If you have no goal in mind and no strategy for achieving this goal then how can you possibly get value from the activity?
So the moral of the story for me is don’t do something just for fashions sake or to keep up with the Jones. If you’re going to use LinkedIn go in with a clear goal in mind for what you want to get out of it.
SalesForce released a new enterprise social networking service today called Chatter with the aim of encouraging people to do what they do on Facebook et al with their colleagues.
It’s one of those issues that’s considerably easier to suggest than to implement as the two environments are very, very different. In community building there is an oft used rule of thumb that for every 100 people looking at a social community, 90 will just read, 9 will reply to topics and just 1 will start new discussions. As with all rules of thumb this isn’t going to be the case every time but it’s worth considering that whereas Facebook, LinkedIn et al have the numbers to make this work, in your own internal network your numbers will likely be much less.
As with most things in life, it’s worth investigating what you wish to get out of this before you get started.
If it’s gaining a more social understanding of your employees then it’s probably safe to say that use of existing platforms such as Facebook is likely to yield better results. There are already many ‘I work at …’ style groups on Facebook so that would seem a good opportunity to mingle with your employees in their natural habitat.
If however you’re looking to improve your corporate knowledge base and encourage knowledge sharing then this offers much more potential. Of course building a platform does not mean people will come, so here are a few steps you can take to encourage knowledge sharing within your company.
Tips for encouraging knowledge sharing
Outline your vision for this. You first need to create a culture of knowledge sharing so need to communicate the vision that this is a positive thing both for the individual and the company.
Reinforce through actions. You then need to reinforce this vision through actions. Reward positive behaviour, not just financially but through praise and recognition.
Start with the natives. There will inevitably be people who will take to this like a duck to water. Start with these people and get them sharing knowledge extensively.
Use success stories to cross the chasm. Use any success stories that these early adaptors achieve to help sell it to the rest of your employees.
Lead by example. You have to do what you’re asking people to do so you should be one of the main users of your internal network.
Embed into human processes. If you can get these positive behaviours included within inductions for instance it will help reinforce behaviour and create the right kind of knowledge sharing culture.
Don’t forget to look outside as well as inside
If you can get that far then you’ve done very well, but don’t restrict yourself to improving the knowledge sharing within your company walls. There is a whole load of knowledge outside of your company. Communities of practice exist in a vast array of areas that can see your employees tapping into the knowledge base of thousands of peers from around the world. The CMI for instance is soon to launch a management community that will be a great place for managers to learn from others. Look out for these kind of opportunities and encourage staff to learn from these communities. This kind of social media is miles from the waste of time that Facebook et al can appear to be.
I’m a great believer in the power of communities and getting employees to talk to one another is a great thing. It would be interesting to hear from people that have done this successfully.
Today it was revealed that Barack Obama has never used Twitter before, something that perhaps the 2.1 million people that follow his account may be a little concerned about.
It seems indicative of a growing trend though. The higher up an individual gets, the more valuable their opinion and knowledge becomes, but the less often they actually share any of it. It’s not just Twitter accounts that are ghost written by PR departments. I dare say most of the columns written in newspapers and magazines are done in the same way.
If what you’re reading is really the work of a PR professional rather than the individual you’re hoping to hear from, it has to be asked, what is the point of it?
After all we live in a society where honesty and integrity are valued, yet here we have high power individuals essentially duping their followers. Do those 2.1 million people tuning into Obama’s Twitter account care that it’s not actually him they’re getting views from? Maybe, maybe not, but for me it’s a matter of personal integrity that if you’re putting your name to something then it better darn well be you that’s producing it. Anything else is simply not on.
Twitter has recently been gaining prominence in the Google search listings and has this week modified its title tags to improve further the search performance of members tweets and profiles.
Wikipedia has a tremendous reputation for dominating the search listings due to the outstanding architecture and wealth of user generated content. Twitter obviously has plenty of user generated content, and now seems to be working on the search friendly architecture.
Skittles made a bit of a splash in the media world recently with a relaunch of their homepage that essentially created an overlay for their various web properties, starting with a Twitter page displaying all tweets mentioning the Skittles brand name. You could also check out their Flickr photo gallery or their Facebook fan page.
Nice enough idea, but I suspect it will enjoy its five minutes of online fame before falling by the wayside. However, imagine such an approach is used internally on the corporate Intranet. The single great feature of the so called web 2.0 applications is that it puts you in touch with customers as never before. The problem generally is that those customer voices are generally only heard by the web savvy people within a company. The overwhelming consensus still seems to regard Twitter as an oddity that will have nothing of use for them.
Blammo, this would shoot that down instantly. The modern marketing credo puts the customer at the very heart of everything the company does, it’s not just enough for marketing folks to care about the customer, it’s something that each and every employee should care about. But unless you’re customer facing it’s often difficult to know what your customers are doing, what problems they’re having and generally how they’re finding your products. Now that can change.
The Skittles website will probably fade into obscurity within weeks, if it hasn’t already done so, but by jove it doesn’t half offer up a great opportunity for how to put social media into the faces of each and every person in your company.
Today has seen a jester register the http://twitter.com/sirfredgoodwinaccount to poke fun at Sir Fred Godwin, former Royal Bank of Scotland ceo, who suffered in the press recently for plans to receive a hefty pension from his former role at a time when the government are bailing them out.
It raises the interesting issue of how long it will take for Twitter to tighten up the procedure for registering accounts. There are a few examples of Twitter squatting on famous brand names, such as http://twitter.com/coke
It seems only a matter of time before a big brand, or famous name, complains about such activity. At the moment no email verification is required to setup an account so it is very easy to setup up numerous accounts. With the website becoming more mainstream some form of domain name style system seems an inevitable step, maybe even a way for Twitter to make some money.
I wrote on Tuesday about the importance of reviews and word of mouth after a survey came out in support of email to communicate with the younger market out there. Lo and behold today has seen a study by Rubicon Consulting bestowing the virtue of reviews and word of mouth in your marketing campaigns. Some of the key findings of the study were:
The Web is the #2 resource for customer support information, after user manuals. It ranks ahead of calling the manufacturer or asking a dealer.
Website categories that get the most daily usage are search, social communities like MySpace and Facebook, general news websites like CNN.com and NYTimes.com, and online banking.
The websites that Americans value most are (in order), Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook. Although Yahoo’s financial challenges have generated a lot of press attention, it continues to have a very large and loyal following.
Young people (age 22 and under) are much noisier online than their elders. They account for about half of all the content and comments posted online.
Facebook appears to be ahead of MySpace in terms of number of users in the US, and perceived value of the site.
Despite extensive publicity, the community sites SecondLife and Twitter reach only a few percent of US Internet users.
Democrats are more active online than Republicans. Democrats are more likely to participate in online communities, and say they are more heavily influenced in their voting decisions by information they find online.
Of course to do well in these areas requires both an excellent product and a good deal of time and effort to liase with the communities in your industry. Unfortunately many marketers want a short cut when interacting with communities and cannot resist spamming at the first opportunity. The following steps are a good start for those wishing to use communities as part of their marketing strategy.
1) Lurk, work out how things are done.
2) Respond to posts, share knowledge.
3) Start posts on topics of interest.
4) Discuss with the admin/owner any way that you can help them.
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adi on Mar 26, 2009 in 
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