Archive for December, 2008

7 Reasons Why Your Company Will Benefit From Creating Its Own Social Network:

When I talk to many small and mid-sized business owners they cringe at the word “social network.” Mistakenly, they believe the tools powering sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn are only for college kids, or just to find a college classmate from years ago. Sure, many of us use social networks in our personal time for that, but the fact is that the corporate world benefits just as much — if not more — from these tools. Those same business owners only start listening when I tell them that some of the largest and most successful companies in the world — big names like IBM, Kodak, Reebok and Oracle — have been using their own social networks to engage their customers and improve employee productivity within far-flung departments and offices.

But this is the clincher: when I tell them that creating their own social network website can make the company money, save on costs, boost their image, and even help them develop future products, suddenly they’re a whole lot more chatty.

It’s No Waste of Time

The problem, I suppose, is the misconception. At its core, social networking is just a series of tools that make it easy for all of us to talk, interact and help each other online. What we do with that tool is really what determines if it’s productive or a waste of time. Think about the television set. You can turn on daytime TV and watch your brain cells gradually atrophy, or you can tune in to an educational course on PBS and learn Japanese a little each day. It’s the same tool, but put to different uses it has two different effects.

The same idea transfers to the online space. Forget about MySpace for a second and create a social network on your own terms on your own corporate site. Watch how quickly your customers connect to help you understand their needs, and step up to help each other solve sticky support questions. Marvel at how easily you can communicate to your own employees, and how they collaborate to get more done in less time, and become proactive about finding solutions to problems down the chain you didn’t even know existed.

7 Benefits of Creating a Social Network

Here’s just a taste. Nothing speaks more to the point than outlining the concrete benefits of creating your own corporate social network. Some have to do with your relationship with your customers, some with your employees, but all of them will help your bottom line.

1. The Ultimate Focus Group – Some companies waste time sending out surveys to ask customers how they’re doing. Instead, what they should be doing is listening to what customers are telling them and what they are saying to each other. There is no better place to do so than through the online forums and discussions of your own networked site.

2. Say It Right – If you think a memo is impersonal, imagine the slosh of corporate emails many of us receive daily. You can communicate your company’s plans (and avoid employees hitting the ‘delete’ button) much more personally, effectively and efficiently by interacting directly with your team on the social network.

3. Spread Your Message – What better place to announce (or test out) new products and ideas than on your own social network? Get valuable instant feedback from the people that matter most: your customers.

4. Engage Enthusiasm – At some point every company that makes good products or provides valuable services creates a groundswell of popular support. However, few of those companies have the means to take advantage of it. With a social network, your customers can evangelize your products more effusively, passionately (and cheaply) than those lame banner ads the marketing team has been pushing.

5. Help Them Help Themselves – Any company with workers or contractors in different buildings (or different countries for that matter) knows that functioning together is key. Social networks make it easy to collaborate, message, build camaraderie, catch mistakes, solve problems and break down even the most ‘virtual’ of walls.

6. Save on Support Costs – Granted, you’ll never really replace customer service, but you’d be shortsighted not to see how much customers can help each other. Companies that implement social networks reduce their technical support costs as users discuss and provide answers to one another — often with surprisingly more detailed solutions than your own staff knows.

7. See Into the Future – What are you customers talking about or complaining about? Which other sites or competitors are they thinking of jumping to? What features do they need implemented right now? You’ll know in real time if these discussions are taking place on your social network and not elsewhere.

I could go on — and I will — in the coming weeks on this blog. Different companies have different needs, and your own social network can (read: should) look and function with your company’s specific goals in mind. There is still a lot to discuss about the technology behind social networking, how to go about implementing your own social network and making sure you are getting the most out of this amazing tool. There are case studies from my own experience I’m excited to share and pitfalls I will make sure you avoid. The technology behind social networks is readily available and truly is the easy part: the strategy is what I want to discuss at length.

I practice my own medicine too — so feel free to leave comments on this blog and let me know what you want to learn more about. It’s a wide, wide Web we live in and interaction is the key to the future.

Posted by admin on December 18th, 2008 | Email | Print |