IMPACT Case Study #2: CICS and Social Media?!!!!
The CICS team has been leveraging social network marketing to prepare for IMPACT and beyond. It is catching steam - with active twitter followers, facebook group participants, regular followers like Steve Baugh - a popular blogger - who further broadcasts the message - and expand the reach in the marketplace in new ways.
Here's recent interview w/ with Dave Andrews.
The viral communications afforded by these new media are providing interesting ways to get the word out to new audiences that CICS has some exciting things to offer - the CICS community is delivering robust solutions in increasingly new and innovative ways. Great given the stereotype for a CICS user!!!
Some examples!:
I ♥ CICS
I Love CICS Facebook group
Youtube
Recently, Hostbridge, an IBM Business Partner joined us on facebook - posting information about one of their webcast events on our facebook group to extending THEIR usual marketing reach, driving additional attendence and awareness for this activity. Mike O'Neill and Susan Henderson of Hostbridge, felt this was a very positive extension of their usual marketing efforts and have since worked on a number of co-marketing activites with us. Hostbridge was so impressed with the value of using facebook as a way to establish community contact that they started their own facebook group.
We also had a joint webcast with Hostbridge and IBM - and leveraged all these social networking tools to broadcast registration information and we had a 10x registration rate!!!!
The facebook group is a tool to promote other co-marketing work we cemented (CICS Spotlight articles, webcasts, etc) and extending our reach to other facebook groups that are maintained by various CICS user groups, Mainframe communities, Academic communities, etc.
The viral effect is shown as other bloggers pick up the feed. For example, The Master Terminal actively promotes the I Love CICS facebook group and our recent Youtube clips - extending the usual marketing reach - as are many other bloggers and user groups on facebook.
The more we do to connect the communities....the broader our reach..and that of our partners.
Our facebook group membership accelerates and goes more global, Youtube views are getting picked up faster - as new ones are introduced- reflecting an active and interested community is engaging with our social networking efforts.
Who would have thought for the mainframe community! GO CICS!!! And thanks to Diane Johnson for her leadership here!
Innov8 Success at IMPACT! Social Media Case Study!
I have such excitement from the announcement of INNOV8 2.0 at IMPACT in Las Vegas!
Did you see it-- if not click me!!
The early results from INNOV8's eNurture campaign shows that our click through numbers are exceedingly above industry average: 77.8% compared to an average of 25%.
In addition, since using opt-in registration is a barrier to public score posting, our use of tailored emails worked well where the content mirrors the gamer's scenario interest really works!
Although it is still early, this has been a most excellent pilot for us to explore how we can use games to not only Train but to Persuade, thus showcasing IBM as a thought leader.
Jeremiah - Social Media Guru -- At IMPACT 2009! Hear what's on his mind!
Social Media Guru at IMPACT 2009!
I got to know Jeremiah at a Social Media thought leadership event in the Valley. He is truly a leader and visionary in this space. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremiah and wanted to share what he has planned for IMPACT 2009!
Sandy: How has the economic downturn changed the way people leverage social networking
Jeremiah: Our Technographics Research shows an increase in adoption of social tools from 2007-2008, in fact some pretty large jumps in behaviors. Basic common sense and logic tells us that social media usage for consumers will go up during a recession. Why? People will want to connect with others during crises, build personal brands, learn new skills by reading blogs. Also those who are in between jobs will have more time and certainly need to connect with others to find new job opportunities. Furthermore, we’ve found that 53% marketers have decided to increase their social media spend during a recession on social, however it’s important to note we’re not talking about sizable budget amounts, these are still small potato budgets –all things considered.
Sandy: Is social media superficial branding, or does it truly change the company?
Jeremiah: Sadly, many companies are slapping social features on their corporate websites or launching blogs –yet they are not walking the talk. Many brands don’t truly live an open an transparent workstyle, and as a result, customers see right through it. This research is telling, corporate blogs aren’t trusted by consumers.
Sandy: What is the biggest finding from the many interviews you’ve done with corporate social media teams, what’s the one trend you’re finding?
Jeremiah: Many companies are starting to get organized and are appointing key roles, such as the social media strategist and a handful of community managers. These specific roles, while often perform other traditional marketing tasks, are key to delivering true social media programs to the market. Why? Like all business programs, internal champions are still needed for success –especially new mediums
Sandy: On a lighter note, what's your take on the Ashton Kutcher @aplusk and CNN @cnnbrk race to 1 million followers?
Jeremiah: While silly and trivial, this is a true milestone that Twitter and other social tools are about to go mainstream with media coverage. This however, doesn’t suggest they are mainstream tools, as they don’t have mainstream adoption.
Sandy: How do you feel about celebrities using Twitter? Oprah has 92,000 followers before she ever posted 1 tweet, are celebrities changing the way Twitter is being used and any lessons to be learnt by companies?
Jeremiah: Expect celebrities to monetize this microblogging tool far faster than Twitter themselves. They will extend this tool to help their sponsors reach new audiences, pimp their own shows and content, and use it to broadcast content. Most celebrities won’t understand the true dialog opportunities and will use it like their other tools –broadcast. As a result, early adopters of Twitter will move on, and create a new community that hasn’t become saturated.
Sandy: You will be at IBM IMPACT in Vegas next month talking about the importance of social networking for today's commerce opportunities. Would love to get a sneak preview on this session.
Jeremiah: Social Network adoption is one of the highest participated social activities by consumers –as a result, brands want to be there. In my session we’ll talk about what works, and what doesn’t. I’ll have some practical examples and best practices, and will make it interactive. I hope folks show up, and Tweeting is certainly encouraged!
Gang, come and see us at IMPACT. We have some great social media adventures planned like blogger box seats, Paint your Facebook, and more! Sign Up Here!
P.S. As everyone knows, Jeremiah's puppy is famous and no blog would be complete without a picture!
Social Media Tools for Partners!
Check this one out!
IBM to help SOA partners with SEO, social net tools
By Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director
14 Apr 2009 | SearchITChannel.com
IBM is amping up its partner effort around service oriented architectures with new social networking tools, search engine optimization help and other resources.
An IBM executive said the move is driven by the company's need to help partners get more self-sufficient and profitable in a tough economy.
The offerings, to launch officially next month at the company's IMPACT 2009 conference, include tools to help partners make their web sites more findable via search engine optimization (SEO).
"The number one thing for [partners] is the ability to generate their own leads, identify opportunities and to do it cost effectively," Sandy Carter, IBM's vice president of service oriented architecture (SOA) and WebSphere told SearchITChannel.com.
IBM will train partners in the niceties of search engine optimization to help them generate more traffic to their websites and make their services and products more easily found on the Web. "If you look at [return on investment] for any social media, the number one ROI thing to do is optimizing your pages for search. IBM.com was one of the first groups to figure out the algorithms for this and we will share our best practices with partners," Carter said.
IBM created a tool that it uses to look at its own site meta data, headers, summaries, images and monitor readability and IBM.com has reaped the benefits, Carter said. "It checks how many Google crawls you get, the rate and traffic rating. It's a really nice analysis tool."
SEO is indeed critical to partners, said Devi Gupta, vice president of marketing for Prolifics, a New York City-based IBM software partner.
Prolifics hired an SEO optimization consultant last year but did not renew the contract, Gupta said. "We felt we needed to take another look at our web site and rethink our strategy. IBM is providing this benefit that will makes it effective to jump back in using their recommendations. My understanding is this tool will take your keywords, go through your site and meta tags and evaluate it."
Good SEO is very measurable and tools to help us do it better are very valuable, Gupta said.
Better business by social networkingIBM is trying to more deeply entrench its WebSphere middleware and other software in SOAs and public and private clouds.
An IBM-built and maintained Virtual Forum will replicate the virtual reality aspects of Second Life but tailor them for SOA professionals, Carter said. "This is not just a web cast but a Second Life type version -- fully contained. You can do keynotes, breakouts, partners can have demo booths." IBM partners Prolifics and Sirius Computer Solutions have already worked with in the forum, she said.
In the past few years, IBM, like many tech companies, put a lot of effort into Second Life presence. The problem was business usage did not live up to the hype. Carter admitted that it hadn't taken off as expected although IBM still maintains a few islands for educational purposes. The new Virtual Forum will weed out distractions and focus on SOA-related business
Other deliverables will be live social media training sessions in New York City, London, San Francisco and other locations to help partners get the most out of existing social networking tools -- FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc.IBM trainers will show partners how to "paint" their Facebook page, optimizing it for business use IBM will also host an online business catalog to give partners and customers access to SOA-related resources.
IBM expects several thousand partners to attend the Las Vegas event in May. There it will continue to educate them on the new certification requirements for software partners that have raised hackles among some IBM partners. Under the new Growth Through Skills partners wanting to sell the company's software, must get two technical certifications plus one sales certification for each of 14 different product lines that they want to resell.
Dressing up Social Media. Check them out @ IBM IMPACT 2009
My Virtual Model enables consumers to "try on" clothes online and this is a business model after my own heart! For companies, using My Virtual Model technology improves their bottom-line profitability by increasing revenues while cutting costs. As an IBM SOA business partner, MVM will be at IMPACT 2009.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Louise Guay, the MVM co-founder and wanted to share her insight!
Sandy: This year will be your first trip to IMPACT! What are you most looking forward to?
Louise: I hope that I will have the chance to share our experience of social centrality and target advertising with the participants. The moneytisation of the social shopping and networking is “le sujet de l’heure” and we have an experience conducive to it! We can provide in the core of the shopping experience of merchants a usage of social media (Show me me how people like me wear this product!) and how the users can buy the entire look with a buy all button. Once the users register their profiles (their 3D models of themselves with a picture of their faces), ads can be targeted to them via banners or in emails or when they make their model appear on a product page. We have also an amazing network driving new clients to our merchant clients.
Sandy: I know that My Virtual Model has incorporated Social Media within the online shopping experience for Sears, Cosmopolitan and others. What is the reaction from customers and users?
Louise: Merchants are anxious to make a sound usage of social media. From a merchant perspective these times command a strong metrics oriented results, we also know that users trust more and more their peers comments. Imagine if they can see their peers wearing what they like and would wear also. They can choose seeing it on similar peers body types or same ethnicity or any physical affinity they have with peers! It influences their purchases and drives strong recommendations. It is an effective outfitting approach. Publishers want to go from mass media to personalized media. My Virtual Model brings each and everyone of their readers to literally try on their fashion picks and hints and all the trends presented regularly in their magazines.
Users are more and more visual and very involved in the process. They already rate products. If they can see the products on themselves and on others people similar to them it has a direct impact on their decision to purchase. It boosts their confidence in their styles, their looks and their tastes and preferences. Confirmed in their personalities they feel good to go and get what makes them look great. When we install our product on a publisher/media site like Cosmopolitan, users read fashion tips and trends and are always wandering what it will look like on them and where can they get it? These questions are answered by the virtual models of the users and the comments of other users on their models.
Sandy: What are some of the more popular elements of social media that users have really loved within the new My Virtual Model experience?
Louise: Users enjoy discovering their personal styles. They also develop friendships, affinities of interests and support the efforts of others. Many great talents appear and are encouraged by the Community. Users love to create looks, publish them on their public page and get rated by other users. They also appear in the most recent and popular looks of the Community and rate other users looks. They love to click the “Try On Outfit” button and wear on their model an outfit created by another user. It is a great way to shop and buy outfits. It is quick and highly efficient. They love to describe their looks and tell a story about their looks. They also love to see how each item of their looks is worn by other users utilizing the feature “More looks featuring this item “
Sandy: Why did you choose to base this on WebSphere Commerce?
Louise: WebSphere is well know for it’s foundational excellence and architecture of openness to integrate 3rd party applications that are user centric. By choosing WebSphere we were able to concentrate on what we do best, and leverage a powerful and robust ecommerce platform to create an innovative and solid shopping experience.
This is exciting and thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights! I am looking forward to seeing you in Vegas next month @IBM IMPACT 2009
Messaging with the boss much? You should be!
From Business Week
Messaging with the boss much? Maybe you ought to be. Workers who have strong communication ties with their managers tend to bring in more money than those who steer clear of the boss, according to a new analysis of social networks in the workplace by IBM (NYSE:IBM - News) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The research, released this week, even assigns a dollar value to e-mail interaction with an employee's managers. Among the group studied, several thousand consultants at IBM, those with strong links to a manager produced an average of $588 of revenue per month over the norm.
The results represent an early attempt to understand the value of the broadening variety of personal connections afforded by the Web. Users of social media rack up LinkedIn contacts, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers by the hundreds, if not thousands. But figuring out how big a difference all those contacts make in a person's life, financial or otherwise, is a far murkier matter.
[The article goes on ... ]
The actual study is here ...
Scream in the marketplace with Social Marketing!
We are continuing our series on the Angels framework. Today, I'd like to discuss "S" : Scream! ... use technology to scream into the marketplace. Check out the video at:
It highlights the two core attributes of Screaming: 1) Understanding the dichotomy in your marketplace today: understand the nature of digital citizens vs. non-digital citizens, those who are using social media tools and those who are not, and 2) Understand the technology: we are trained in basic marketing but we now also have to understand the new technology.
Areas to Scream:
Leverage your existing website: for example, on-line chat on your website to interact with your customers and guide them to a purchase; a great way to scream your message and go from website 1.0 to 2.0
Use technology to progress a lead, not just to generate a lead: e-nurture your leads, it's critical to stay in touch with your customers on-line, build a relationship with them
How do you sell on-line: customer centric commerce, great examples include Staples and Bass Pro Shops: Dell uses Twitter to sell their excess inventory
How do you take advantage of new technologies coming out: 3D is upon us now, Second Life is another good example and Sears are using a My Virtual Model to sell their products
Leverage the new Marketing 2.0 technologies to really scream into the marketplace!
NYC TweetUp! East Coast Rocks!
Well, we ended up with 62 people are our NYC TweetUP on Madison Ave on Monday night! It was a great group of folks who attended with amazing social media stories of use and value, new applications, and even one person who had never been on Twitter that signed up immediately in the room (yes, they got the invite verbally from a friend!).
Yes, some might say a little formal......but great food, free drinks, and great conversations and networking. It was great to meet face to face with those you have been tweeting with for a while!
I learned about a Social Media Club, a Social Media Breakfast, and some great upcoming events. What more could you ask for?
We will do this again soon! Thanks for joining us!!!
Top 5 Do's and Don't from Jeremiah's Discussion with IBM'S WebSphere Event
Guys ... I took the 10 that Jeremiah gave us into 5!!! He is amazing and loves this space
1) Don't obsess over the tools! His advice? Watch the early adoptors and see what they are adopting. Tons of new tools being developed every month! Choose carefully based on what you want to do! But you will make mistakes and it is ok!
2) Invest in the resources around the tools you choose! You can do a lot for very little money! While growing, the total dollars here are small still. Spend 80% on the strategy, goals, value propositions and 20% on the tools. Examples he gave include Dell, Wells Fargo, and IBM.
3) Do Integrate! Don't forget to integrate! Social tools are not islands. Successful social media works when the social media tools cross link and integrate! Develop an index page of tools!
4) Make sure you have an internal social media process! Several models were reviewed - -the Tire --> employees are communicating with the market with corporate communications still in the center. Second, the control - Company communications owns all social media. Third, hub and spoke -- in the middle is a cross functional team.
He compared this hub and spoke to an airport. The team needs radar to listen. The Signal Tower prioritizes the information and informs the right team. The Flight log shows key results.
Have a place so that people can experiment -- a Social Media sandbox like Yammer, or Blue Twit or Thinkforward internal to IBM. Make sure you make it safe to try this internally!
5) What not to do -- measure the wrong things!
Page views along are not sufficient to measure . Meausring click throughs is the wrong engagements! Measure based on the business objectives.
Bottom line, this is personal, use them! Play with them. The ones Jeremiah suggested.....Facebook, LinkedIn, Yammer, Twitter, Blogs and Pictures. Use search tools like google alerts, twitter search , and technorati.
Social Media Tweetup in NYC! Join Us!
I am so excited! Coming to the East Coast -- live -- a Social Media Tweetup! We had one in the Valley -- that was so energizing but being an East Coast girl, we must try one here!
Every day companies are devising innovative techniques to leverage Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Lotus Connections, WebSphere Commerce, iLog Visualization and other Social Media technologies to develop deeper customer connections. And I see that many many countries are getting more and more interested in Social Media -- like India, Brazil, and others
Many of you, have stories about ways you have deployed Social Media tactics to successfully drive demand. And I want to hear about them! I love social media and if you share that passion and quest for Business Savy in measuring it for great business value.
f you do, please plan to share in a casual conversation, Social Media Tweetup, hosted by Sandy Carter, VP of Marketing for IBM's SOA and Jeremiah Owyang, a Senior analyst for Forrester.
This event will be held in Mid Town Manhattan on Monday, March 23 from 6 - 8 PM. We are limited to 30 attendees so please RSVP quickly
To RSVP or to inquire for more details, please contact scarter@us.ibm.com