Finding the Business Value in Social Software and Social Media

© Copyright IGLOO Inc. 2009. All rights reserved.

Author: Yvette NanasiEmail: [email protected] Web: www.igloosoftware.comDate: March 2010

Finding the Business Value

in Social Software


COMPANY PROFILE

• Publicly launched IGLOO Software in May 2008– Web 2.0 Expo, San Francisco

• Leading edge Web 2.0 community platform – Integrated suite of web publishing, content management,

collaboration and social networking features

– Powers some of the smallest and largest organizations in the world

• Cloud Offering – SaaS– Augmented by a complete suite of turnkey community services

• Head Office in Kitchener, Ontario• 54 employees

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Over the past 15 years the Web has dramatically changed our lives

forever.


Web 2.0


THE NEW “KILLER APP”• Consumer Social Networking

– Mainstream 2007

– Free Software (with ads)

– Fun & easy to use

– Set up in seconds

• Central places on the web where people come together

– Network

– Share

– Collaborate

• Most Popular Social Networks– Sharing photos, videos and views

– Creating connections and networks


A HUGE OPPORTUNITY…

• Many organizations are searching for new tools and approaches to improve knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking

CSN for talent, knowledge and

relationship management.

Connect your isolated knowledge workers who

are on the road, in different offices or who

work in other time zones.

Stop vital corporate knowledge being trapped

in information silos like email, laptops and

enterprise applications.

Expand your understanding access and

utilization of your organizational expertise.

“ Social interactions drive business transactions ”

$ 4.6 BILLION Market

Source: Forrester Research


Business is both a personal and social activity...

Companies don’t build products, do deals or make service calls...

...People do!


Managing people is hard.

• Know-how• Skills• Ideas• Conversations• Experience• Expertise• Relationships


Managing teams is even harder.

• Focus• Control• Buy-in• Ownership• Goals &

Objectives

• Collaborate• Share• Problem Solve• Measure• Learn


Managing your entire company without the right tools is darn near

impossible.

Look Familiar ??


NOT A NEW CONCEPT…

• Business Social Networking (BSN) has been around for over 100 years

– “Face to Face” meetings, conference calls, water cooler conversations are all early forms of CSN

• Today... Email is the #1 CSN applicationin the world with over 90 billion messages sent daily

Email now takes on average over 20% of a knowledge workers day.

Gartner Group


INSIDE & OUT

Audience• Internal (employees)

Value Proposition– Productivity

• Talent• Knowledge• Relationships

Market• SME• G9K

Audience– External (prospects, customers,

partners, suppliers, alumni)

Value Proposition– Acquisition & Retention– Market Responsiveness– Engagement

Market• SME & G9K• Government• Healthcare• Associations, NFP’s


If HP knew, what HP knows,

we would be 300% more

productive. Lou Platt

Former CEO, HP



SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

• Search Engine Marketing– Advertise on key words

• Google• Yahoo!

• Site Advertising & Marketing– Advertise on key web sites

– Based on click rates or impressions

– Text and Media Ads

• Social Media Marketing

Social Business Software In Action


www.blackberrypartnersfund.com

BUSINESS CHALLENGEThe BlackBerry Partners Fund needed a way to

promote the fund online, coordinate developer challenges and for partners to complete a progressive due diligence for submitted business plans and then securely invite selected companies online to collaborate.

COMMUNITY SOLUTION• Online promotion and fund awareness

• Online submissions of business plans

• Manage and coordinate 1,000s of applications and their status securely

• Gather partner feedback to facilitate due diligence

• Manage existing portfolio investments

BLACKBERRY PARTNERS FUND

http://www.blackberrypartnersfund.com/


BUSINESS CHALLENGEMotorola needed a way to connect to specific

user groups together online to share best practices, trouble shoot issues and help guide future product directions.

COMMUNITY SOLUTION• Manage and coordinate over 100 distinct

user groups and their activities

• Gather feedback on product features andset up test groups on new products

• Connect members via product usage& product types

• Create and disseminate customertestimonials & stories

MOTOROLA USER GROUPS


BUSINESS CHALLENGEBrenda Halloran, Mayor of Waterloo wanted to

create an online community to promote more citizen engagement, stimulate open dialogue on issues and more transparency regarding local city issues.

COMMUNITY SOLUTION• Mayor’s blog

• Calendar of events and appearances

• Broadcast and promote initiatives and projects happening in Waterloo

• Dialogue with citizens and gather feedback

• Move towards transparency in local government

http://www.mayorofwaterloo.ca

CITY OF WATERLOO

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MEASURING (ROI)

• Do you get new products and services to market—faster?

• Are there resulting cost reductions in existing business units because of improved processes and access to information?

• Has the community improved knowledge sharing (i.e. best practices and tools that improve the quality of processes, products or services)?

• Are you better connected to your customers, partners and suppliers? Are they more satisfied? Has your retention improved? Are they more informed?

• Have knowledge, resource and expertise sharing accelerated the rate of innovation across your organization? Are your employees generating new product or service improvement ideas?

• Employee satisfaction and motivation, has it improved? Have your employee retention rates gone up? Are more people applying for jobs? Have the number of sick days gone down?


The capacity of 1000’s of knowledge workers

to innovate is far greater than that of a fewexecutives.

Social networks help build corporate capacity

through people – by leveraging the talent,

knowledge and relationships that already exist in

every company.


SO…WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

Common Denominator - allows you to interact with the website and interact with other visitors

Examples of social media websites:•Social Bookmarking. (Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Simpy) Interact by tagging websites and searching through websites bookmarked by other people.

•Social News. (Digg, Propeller, Reddit) Interact by voting for articles and commenting on them.

•Social Networking. (Facebook, Hi5, Last.FM) Interact by adding friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions.

•Social Photo and Video Sharing. (YouTube, Flickr) Interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions.

•Wikis. (Wikipedia, Wikia) Interact by adding articles and editing existing articles.


THINK YOU CAN SIT THE SOCIAL NETWORKING CRAZE OUT?

Facebook is one of the largest social media sites on the web:

• More than 300 million active users• More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each

day• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college• The fastest growing demographic is 35 and older

And their users are very active:• Average user has 120 friends on the site• More than 4 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day• More than 30 million users update their statuses daily• More than 6 million users become fans of Pages each day


WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA?

• Your Customers Don’t Want To Be Your Friend• Single, Non-Smoking Company Seeks Companion for

Laughs, Maybe More• Answer The Question of WHY?• If Your Mom Isn’t Stoked, Your Customers Certainly

Won’t Be

Tip – sometimes a fan is more important than a friend or connection


WHERE TO START?

Source: Unknown – but great!


EVOLUTION VS. REVOLUTION

• Do you want to spread your content and expertise to new audiences?

• Do you want to network with like-minded individuals and companies?

• Do you want to build a community of evangelists?

• Do you want to involve your customers and prospects in co-creation?

• Do you want to automate the process of repurposing content?

• Do you want to reach new audiences in the exact way they choose to communicate?

• Do you want to be seen as a thought leader in your industry?

• Do you want ways to aggregate and filter content so you and your people can digest it?

• Do you want to easily hear literally everything that’s being said online about your brand, products, or industry in real time?

• Do you want to be seen as a trusted source of information?


5 TIPS FOR GETTING MORE FROM SOCIAL MEDIA• Integrate• Amplify• Repurpose• Generate Leads• Learn


CASE STUDYTHEY DON’T USE SOCIAL MEDIA IN MY INDUSTRY

“We don’t need no stinkin’ social media, we just need more sales.”


MANAGING THE SOCIAL MEDIA BEAST

Twice daily• Check Twitter via TweetDeck—preset searches for @<yourhandle>,

<your full name>, and <your company name>

• Scan MyBlogLog

• Respond to comments on my blog


MANAGING THE SOCIAL MEDIA BEASTDaily• Write a blog post—RSS subs get it,

Twitter tools sends to Twitter, Facebook gets it, FriendFeed updates

• Scan Twitter followers for relevant conversations to join

• Scan Google Reader subscriptions to read and stimulate ideas

• Share Google Reader faves—these publish to Facebook and you can subscribe

• FleckTweet any blog pages from my subscriptions that I love—this goes to Twitter

• Bookmark any blog pages from my subscriptions that I love—delicious using Firefox plug-in for right-click posting—this goes to FriendFeed

• Stumble any blog pages from my subscriptions that I love—this goes to Facebook and FriendFeed

• Scan Google Alerts for my name, brand, and products—in Google Reader as RSS feed

• Add comments to blogs as appropriate—mostly response types—Google Reader and BackType


MANAGING THE SOCIAL MEDIA BEAST

Weekly (end)• Scan LinkedIn Questions from my network and respond when

appropriate

• Scan delicious, digg, and mixx popular and select bookmarks for content ideas and trending topics

• Consciously add comments to conversations I want to join—hot topic focused

• Join one Twitter hot trend conversation if appropriate—search.Twitter.com shows these in real time


DOES SIZE MATTER?

• Step 1: Goals - what do you want social media to do for your business?

• Step 2: The Plan - How will the goals be achieved?• Step 3: Implementation & Execution - It is now time to put that

plan into action.• Step 4: Measuring results - you have put in the required time and

effort, now what?• Step 5: Revisit/Refine/Redeploy - you've gathered information

now it's time to look at what's working and what isn't.


CASE STUDYTWITTER TO GO (@COFFEEGROUNDZ)

Questions?