Building a Business Case for Customer Community
Blog PostOne of the biggest issues we see today with branded customer communities in the enterprise is the creation of digital islands failing to foster an engaged community. We often find this issue is due to lack of careful planning that accurately illustrates the level of commitment required to build and sustain the community. Many companies dive right into building a community before realizing just how time- and budget-consuming such an initiative will be. Building a branded community ain't cheap, ain't easy and ain't fast. Take the time to plan for success and build a detailed business case for community.
Designing for Decisions in Social Business
Blog PostThis blog post reviews insights about design decisions from Jared Spool's SXSW 2011 Interactive presentation and the implications for social business design.
Today Your Community Manager is King
Blog PostThe relatively new role of community manager has become business critical in today’s dynamic business environment. Those who have begun to establish best practices for interacting daily across an expanse of forums and issues deserve a resounding “thank you” today as we celebrate the second annual Community Manager Appreciation Day.
Blinded By Automated Dashboards
Blog PostCommunity managers should build measurement plans in tandem with community strategy, not in reaction to metrics generated by community dashboards. This blog post offers guidance for how to approach community measurement to capture a holistic picture of health and progress.
How Investor Relations Should Get Started in Social
Blog PostSeventy-nine percent of Fortune Global 100 companies are using at least one social media platform. But according to a survey by BNY Mellon, only 9% of global senior level investor relations professionals are using social media for IR communications. Investors are a critical audience for a company to engage and data suggest blogs and social networks are appropriate channels. So why is investor relations shying away from social?
For Those Ready for Real-time Advertising, Promoted Trends Presents Opportunity
Blog PostBack in April, Peter Kim and I encouraged advertisers to wait until more information was released about Twitter's new ad platform before jumping on the Promoted Tweets bandwagon. We advised brands to find success with regular tweets (the basics) before diving into Promoted Tweets - a new hybrid of paid and earned media. Since that time we have observed how bleeding edge brands like Virgin America and Coca Cola have experienced off-the-charts social media engagement with Promoted Trends, a new advertising concept Twitter began testing back in June as an extension of the Promoted Tweets platform. Promoted Trends are topics already trending on Twitter (meeting a minimum level of popularity) that advertising partners can link their Promoted Tweet to, which guarantees greater visibility and reach for brands.
Planning a Community Is Like Planning a Wedding
Blog PostI tweeted recently that all of the details of planning an online community reminded me of planning a wedding. I submitted the tweet at the very moment I felt overwhelmed by the details of coordinating so many moving pieces weeks before launching the community. In this blog post, I share the lessons I have learned so far in community planning to avoid losing your cool over the details before launch.
Finding Your Social Center
Blog PostWhile the goal of social business is to distribute social responsibility for scale, the edge of the organization is put at-risk if it doesn't operate from a strong center. This post explains the importance of creating a cross-functional team that can act as a command center for governing and coordinating social business initiatives.
Connectedness and Customer Service
Blog PostWhile social technology can automate and innovate many processes, I believe it is the human behind the technology that makes best-in-class customer service. To that end, connectedness is a quality I would recommend preserving and nurturing at the front lines. I explain this recommendation with a personal customer service story from Austin, Texas.
Adding Color to the Outsourcing Social Media Debate: What Not to Outsource
Blog PostA major component of Social Business Design is developing a staffing model to support our clients' desires to harness opportunities presented by customer participation. A question we have had to address at Dachis Group is whether or not any of the new social roles we recommend can be outsourced. I asked this question to the panelists of a session I moderated at Enterprise 2.0 2010 this month in Boston. In this blog post, I give my own point of view.