How to Scale Your Social Business Program

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 11:37 am Social Media Tagged with: , ,
May 052011

Really interesting talk from Jeremiah Owyang on how to manage the inevitable increase in demand for social interaction. As Jeremiah says;

“We know that many companies are continuing to realize that social business does not scale in a 1:1 basis. Your customer voices will always outnumber the number of community managers you can hire. As a result, companies must invest in these following five programs:

  • Formalize a Hub and Spoke model
  • Become an enabler for business units
  • Scale with peer-to-peer communities
  • Formalize a customer advocacy program
  • Streamline workflow with SMMS.“

Building Your Social Strategy: Prioritizing the Coming Year from Bazaarvoice on Vimeo.

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Creating A Coherent Social Media Strategy

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 10:40 am Social Media Tagged with: , , ,
Apr 202011

A really useful presentation from Charlene Li, outlining the key elements that go into creating and delivering successful social media programmes.

HSM Global-Madrid featuring Charlene Li
View more presentations from Charlene Li

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The Rise of the Networked Enterprise

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 11:13 am Social Media Tagged with: , , ,
Mar 012011

Whilst organisations continue to  invest in the internal adoption of social technologies, it is becoming clear that, so far, only a few have worked out how to make the most of these new opportunities. McKinsey’s latest survey into the use of web 2.0 tools within organisations has identified the emergence of this new class of company – ‘The Networked Enterprise’.

Almost two-thirds of the businesses surveyed by McKinsey are now using social technologies to some degree, benefiting from quicker access to knowledge and internal experts, greater communication and operational efficiencies, increased employee satisfaction and greater levels of speed to market and subsequent success for product/service innovations.

However, as with any new technology, the rate of adoption and the ability to generate significant improvements varies enormously. McKinsey’s report identifies four major types of organisation -

Developing -The vast majority (79%) of organisations are still learning how best to deploy the new technologies. They are realising only modest improvements in business performance and have yet to develop significant usage or integrate tools into daily work flows, as a result they see little change in levels of communication, collaboration or information sharing.

Internally Networked Organisations – Some organisations (13%) focus primarily on using social tools within their company, resulting in higher levels of employee participation and greater integration into work-flows. The major benefits come from significantly more flexible internal processes; information shared more easily and less hierarchically, greater collaboration across silos and a more project-based approach to tasks.

Externally Networked Organisations - These companies (5%) achieve substantial benefits from using web 2.0 tools to connect with customers and business partners. They see benefits in marketing effectiveness and revenues but much less improvement in operational efficiencies and internal sharing and collaboration.

Fully Networked Enterprises – These are the elite organisations (just 3%) that are successfully integrating web 2.0 technologies throughout their operations; connecting the internal efforts of their employees and extending the company’s reach out to customers, partners and suppliers. As a result these organisations are seeing both sales growth through increased market share and higher margins through increased operational efficiency.

The benefits of the fully networked approach not only deliver competitive advantages now but provide the means for businesses to extend that advantage; lessons learned in one market, region or function can be quickly shared and adopted throughout the organisation, leading to faster innovation, greater organisational effectiveness and better products/services.

Key Steps to Becoming Fully Networked

The creation of effective networks, both internal and external, is quickly becoming an organisational necessity. If they aren’t already, senior managers everywhere need to be thinking about how they can enable their business…

  • Integrate the use of Web 2.0 into employees’ day-to-day work activities
  • Drive up levels of adoption and usage
  • Break down barriers to organisational change
  • Apply Web 2.0 technologies to interactions with customers, business partners and employees.

The ‘Networked Enterprises’ already have an advantage, the challenge for everyone else is to join them quickly or risk being left further behind.

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3 Common Mistakes In Running An Online Community – A Reminder!

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 4:45 pm Social Media Tagged with: , ,
Feb 142011

Even now, there are plenty of examples of online communities that are failing to establish themselves and deliver the expected results. It is worth remembering therefore, that more often than not these failures can be traced to one or more of these common mistakes.

What should be clear, is that any new project needs a substantial commitment in both time and resources, and an understanding of the way communities develop, in order to avoid these mistakes.

1. If you build it, they will come.

Probably the most common  community fallacy. Too many organisations believe that simply rolling out a given technology (blogs, forums, wikis, etc.) will be enough to attract and engage users, who can the be left to develop a vibrant community. This can be attributed to the shiny attraction of “social software”, companies jumping at an application or platform rather than looking to provide value for their audiences.

2. Once it’s launched, we’re done.

Many communities launch successfully, only to fade out and disappear. This is often due to a failure in the planning stage to identify and secure ownership of the community and to have a strategy that lasts past “launch.”

3. Bigger is better.

It is often assumed that the overall size of a community is indicative of its success. However, a community’s value to its members  is more about the quality and relevance of engagement and content rather than numbers. This can be challenging for most community managers and businesses to understand, and is often contrary to what they’ve usually been told.

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Better Communications Can Help Conquer The ‘Unexpected’

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 5:48 pm Social Media Tagged with: , , , , ,
Jan 182011

It’s usually the ‘unexpected’ that creates the biggest difficulties for most organisations. Whilst traditional hierarchies and structures often make it difficult to respond quickly, now, social technologies and more open, networked, cultures are enabling organisations to develop timely and effective solutions when things don’t quite go as expected.

The Center for the Edge, part of Deloitte LLP, highlighted the impact ‘exceptions’ have on the day-to-day work of many organisations. Once something falls outside of the established business process, a huge amount of time and effort is wasted following rigid reporting lines, limiting both the speed at which issues can be addressed and the pool of expertise that can be called on to help provide an answer.

More often than not, the answer to the problem already exists within the organisation, or its extended network. The key to a more effective response system could therefore come from the wider adoption of some of the ‘social business’ tools that enable greater networking and collaboration. Mico-blogging feeds or Q+A forums can be used to ask questions of and get answers from the whole organisation within minutes, whilst detailed personal profiles can enable users to search for and connect with the exact people and specific skills they need to create and deliver the most effective response.

As with any new organisational initiatives, it’s not just about the technology. Alongside the tools it’s important to develop an appropriately open and  supportive culture – one in which members are encouraged to acknowledge and share problems early rather than as a last resort, where there is a willingness to accept input and help and a widespread understanding of the value of supporting others rather than keeping your head down and worrying just about your own job.

The technology already exists, the real challenge is in changing the mentality. But a few quick wins and positive feedback from those whose ‘exceptions’ are addressed and it won’t be long before more organisations are looking at ways to connect their members more effectively.

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Managing the Lifecycle of Communities

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 3:18 pm Social Media Tagged with: , ,
Nov 042010

Building valuable, long-lasting, online communities takes time, commitment and understanding. In a recent webinar Rob Howard, CTO/founder of Telligent, shared some great insights into how successful communities grow, and the importance of understanding and managing the different stages of their development.

Four Key Stages of The Community Lifecycle;

  • On-Board: The starting point of any community; potential members are looking for content, most of which is created by the community’s founders, and for help in gaining access to it.
  • Established: The community is becoming self-sustaining, with the members increasingly creating and contributing content, although some reliance on the founders is still necessary. It is the established phases of the community where analytics can be used to understand user behavior and value.
  • Mature: The community is self-sustaining, and clear relationships between individuals are being formed. Users can be recognised as particular types (influencers, seekers, moderators, originators, etc.) and are participating fully. Little or no supervision is required by the founders, who can now simply become credible participants able to interact as equals.
  • Mitosis: Over time, core community members can become distanced from new participants who don’t share the same values. These core community members seek more focus on specific topics and relationships. Successful communities enable this and allow the community to split into smaller nodes, thus returning to an Established phase and repeating the life cycle process.

The better an organisation understands this community lifecycle and then develops specific strategies to make the most of each stage, the more likely it is to develop engaged, long-lasting communities that provide real value to the business.

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Ofcom CMR 2010 – Social Media

Posted by Andrew Cringle at 5:31 pm Social Media Tagged with: , ,
Sep 272010

Some further thoughts culled from Ofcom’s recently released Communications Market Report 2010. This time focusing on the use of social media sites.

Social networking now accounts for a quarter of all time spent online

In April 2007 social networking and blogs accounted for 9% of UK users’ total Internet time, according to audience data from UKOM/Nielsen. By April 2010, this had risen to 23%.

Proportion of adults who access social networking sites on the internet at home

Use of social networking has continued to grow rapidly among all age groups.

Younger people are more likely to access social networking sites, but it is by no means exclusively a young person’s activity;

  • 61% of 15- 34s claim to use social networking sites, compared to 40% of all adults aged 16+.
  • Nearly half (48%) of 35-54s use social networking sites, as do 20% of 55-64s (up 7% over the past year).

However, usage patterns vary substantially between age groups.

  • 89% of 15-24s who access social networking sites do so weekly, but just 50% of 55-64s with a profile do so.

All demographics have seen an annual rise of at least ten percentage points in the number of people claiming to have social networking profiles.

  • ABC1s (46%, up from 35%)
  • C2s (39% up from 29%)
  • DEs (30%, up from 19%).
  • Women (42%) were slightly more likely than men (39%) to claim to access these sites.

Despite the growth of social networking among older age groups, and the high penetration among younger age groups, its take-up still lags behind total Internet take-up, with around 45% of those who have Internet access at home saying that no one in their household accesses social networking sites.

Proportion of time spent social networking, by device

A fifth of 16-24s’ time spent social networking is on mobile devices

Social networking sites have taken advantage of the growing popularity of the mobile Internet and the increasing take-up of smart-phones. Most sites now have mobile-friendly versions and specific applications (apps) for smart-phones. The importance of mobile social networking is highlighted by Facebook, which claims that more than 100 million users access its site through mobile devices, and that such users are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users.

Data from Ofcom’s consumer’s digital day research show that using mobile devices to access social networking sites is particularly popular among younger adults (Figure 4.6). A fifth (20%) of the time they spend social networking is via a mobile device. This compares to the average of 15% for all adults who use social networking sites. The proportion of time spent social networking on mobile devices drops off rapidly among over-45s, at under 4%.

Google, Microsoft and Facebook are the most popular Internet brands

Google has the highest reach of any online brand in the UK, with 87% of active users (someone who used an Internet-enabled computer in May 2010) visiting a Google site in May 2010. This equates to 56% of the total UK population. MSN and Facebook were the next most popular brands, reaching 70% and 64% of all active users (45% and 41% of the population) respectively.

Facebook users spend more time social networking than users of other sites

While Google is the leading brand in terms of reach, Facebook leads in terms of average time spent per person. Facebook users spend substantially more time on the site than users of other social networking sites; 6 hours 30 minutes in April 2010 (an average of 13 minutes a day), down since a peak in November 2009 of 8 hours 39 minutes (17 minutes a day). Bebo was the next most intensively used site, with users spending an average of just under an hour on the site in April 2010. For most other sites the figure was around half an hour or less.

Experience of creative activities, by age

Audiences for many user-generated content sites continue to grow.

According to data from UKOM/Nielsen, many UGC sites’ audiences are growing steadily, although annual growth rates are falling. Photobox (30%), Wikipedia (19%), Blogger (16%) and WordPress.com (6%) all experienced solid growth in the year to May 2010.

YouTube remains the most popular video-sharing site, with nearly 17.5 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of more than two million in a year. But it is increasingly difficult to categorise YouTube purely as a UGC site, since it hosts a significant amount of professionally produced content made available by film studios, broadcasters, record labels and other content providers. For example, in November 2009 Channel 4 made its 4OD catch-up and archive service available through YouTube, and in December 2009 Five made similar content from its Demand Five service available on the video-sharing site.

But…apart from photo sharing and social networking, most internet users have little interest in UGC.

Ofcom research into user-generated content shows that social networking and photo-sharing are very popular. But most other activities are minority pursuits that do not arouse much interest in the wider population of people with Internet access.

  • 49% upload photos to a website,  9% more expressed interest in doing this in the future.
  • 44% claim to have set up a social network profile (double the level of 2007) 5% expressing an interest.
  • Commenting on blogs grew from 19% to 27%.
  • The number of people expressing interest in setting up their own website fell from 17% to 12%.

All activities except social networking and photo-sharing generated relatively low levels of interest (at least 64% of internet users indicated that they were ‘not interested’).

Young people were most likely to have engaged in user-generated content activities online.

  • A quarter (26%) of 16-24 year olds claimed to have made a short video and uploaded it to a website,
  • Only 2% of people aged 55+ with internet access make the same claim.

In general, the older an Internet user is, the less likely they are to have experience of a given UGC activity. However, the exception to this rule appears to be contributing to collaborative websites such as Wikipedia; 25-34 year olds were as likely to have done this as 16-24 year-olds (17%).

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