Social Media in Business:A PrimerFebruary 9, 2009Steven Fisher

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What is Web 2.0?Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users.

Source: Wikipedia

“Second generation of internet based web

services.”

Web 2.0

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“The rise of Web 2.0 technology has ushered in a era where people are talking, ranting,

complaining, praising, reviewing, and sharing everything online for the world to see.

They are talking about products, services, companies, experiences (bad or good) and providing their feedback, on their terms.

They demand to be heard!

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Social Media A Shift to Publishing a Conversation

Institutional Voice AudienceTrad

ition

al

Socia

l Med

ia

Blogs Communities

Traditional online tactics focus on crafting institutional messages and assets then mass distributing them to a core audience.

Social Media focuses on enabling and publishing a conversation between multiple parties where the community has a steak in the dialogue

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Forrester ResearchSocial Technographics Latter of Participation

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(Image source: Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas)http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html

Components of Social Media Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism

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Social media describes the online tools (created with Web 2.0 applications) that people use to share opinions, experiences, and perspectives with each other. A few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Digg (news sharing), Flickr (photo sharing) and Miniclip (game sharing). These sites typically use technologies such as blogs, wikis, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to engage and interact with eachother.

Social Media DefinedSocial Media

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User-generated content (UGC) refers to various kinds of media content that is produced or primarily influenced by end-users; as opposed to traditional media outlets.Consumer-generated media (CGM) describes word-of-mouth behavior that exists on the Internet. Typically, consumer-generated media encompasses opinions, experiences, advice and commentary about products, brands, companies and services—usually informed by personal experience —that exist in consumer-created postings on Internet discussion boards, forums, Usenet newsgroups and blogs.

Social Media DefinedUser-generated content, Consumer-generated media

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Social Bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

Social media optimization is about implementing changes to a site (or blog) so that others can easily link to it, tag it, post a comment to it; and then submit it to social bookmarking sites; making it social media ready!

Social Media DefinedSocial bookmarking, Social Media Optimization

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Consumers trust each other first − Losing faith in corporate messages

Forrester Study− Consumers trust in ads plunged 41% in last

three years− 69% of them are interested in products/services

that lets them avoid ads− 92% cite that “WOM” is the best source for

researching new products− Most people trust discussion

boards/forums/wikis/blogs than ads in the media

Trends of Social MediaForrester Research

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Study showed that …− 77% of online shoppers read consumer product

reviews and ratings before making a purchase − $2 Billion of online travel purchases a year are

affected by social media− 24% of online car shoppers have changes their

mind about a vehicles purchase based on social media

− 51% of journalists read blogs for story ideas− 28% of top search engine results are social

media sites

Trends of Social MediaJuniper Research

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• Participation• Full Disclosure• Two–way Conversation• Building a sense of community• Connection• Collaboration• Facilitation (facilitating something that is

ALREADY happening)

Distinctive Qualities of Social Media

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Social Media here at Network Solutions

Tools We Utilize:1. Blogs2. Twitter3. Social Bookmarking4. Flickr

Key characteristics• Transparency: forthright &

honest, not always positive. • Active Listening:

responsive to dialogue• Voice of many• Conversational• Facilitate and enable 2

way communication• Contributing to brand &

marketing goals: Bottom line this is for a marketing end.

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How can you and your department benefit from leveraging social media? • Listening - using social media as “real time”

research and gaining insights from listening to customers

• Talking - using conversations with customers to promote products or services

• Energizing - building brand stewardship; and identifying enthusiastic customers and using them to persuade others

• Supporting - making it possible for customers to help each other

• Embracing - turning customers into a resource for innovation

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Before you jump into social media head first

There is some planning involved

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Social Media Tip #1 – Use the POST Method

• People: Assess your customers’ social activates and understand if they even participate in social media.

• Objectives: Decide what you want to accomplish.

• Strategy: Plan for how your relationship with customers change.

• Technology: Decide which social media technologies to use (communities, blogs, twitter, Facebook, etc.)

The POST Method was created by Forrester as a way to provide people with an easy way to decide how to use Social Media

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Social Media Tip #2 – Optimize Your Content to Go Everywhere

• Optimizing content is not just about making changes to a site.  You should have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video, podcasts).

• Submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site

• RSS – allow others to subscribe to your content  

The end goal is to achieve Omnipresence

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Social Media Tip #3 – Increase Linkability

1. Blogging2. White papers3. Thought pieces4. Flash demos5. 2-way dialogue

Remember, the key is to have content that “engages” others and makes them want to link to your site.

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Social Media Tip #4 – Reward Inbound Links

1. Who is linking to you and what are they saying?

2. Track your inbound links3. Allow display of

trackbacks4. Highlight people who

write about you5. Engage in

conversations on blogs that link to you

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Social Media Tip #5 – Make Tagging and Bookmarking Easy

− Adding quick buttons to "add to del.icio.us“− Making sure pages include a list of relevant tags− Adding tags to pages first on popular social sites

A “tag” is just a word(s) that describe content.

Tags that describe the content

Easy to bookmark and add to Social Media Sites

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• Social media is about conversations and relationships• Customers are in control, but not total control

because you CAN participate• People do not want to me marketed to; they want to

be heard and can relate more to another human than a banner ad

• It’s not just about great content, it’s about relationships

• Chances are there is a conversation going on online about your products or services, or even the business itself. Are you going to participate, or let someone else?

Final Thoughts …but wait, there are two more slides

Questions?

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Books− Cluetrain Manifesto − Groundswell− Naked Conversations− Personality Not Included

Blogs− Jeremiah Owyang: http://www.web-strategist.com/ − Chris Brogan: http://www.chrisbrogan.com− Social Media Literacy Project:

http://socialmediaclub.pbwiki.com/Project:+Media+Literacy − Mashable: http://mashable.com/ − Michael Brito: http://www.britopian.com

Social Media ResourcesBlogs, books and other stuff