Sweet tea and screen doors. Social Businesses could learn alot from them!
Yes, I am southern pure as they come! I love my sweet ice tea, grits with butter, screen doors, and Kudzu.
In the summer, the screen door is an essential element of everyone's home. The screen door's entire point is that it's not a barrier. Its job is to open easily. It is a welcome to all visitor's and friends that approach it.
Is your social media site like that screen door? Does it open and welcome others in?
Tips to make your site as welcoming as that Southern Door!
- Do you make people type in that "code" to enter? Don't!
- Is your site mobile friendly and usable?
- Do you have stellar content ? Content is Queen!
- Is Video part of your strategy? Video is the highest trusted media! Use it wisely!
- Do you have a Twitter Widget on your Home page to engage your audience? (Check out my blog on IBM Voices!)
- Can you feature other guests on your site?
- How do you listen? All relationships listen first!
- Are your employees empowered to really represent the brand on your site?
- Have you chosen the right social tools that welcome your audience? For instance, if you are selling to men, Pinerest may not be the best first choice.
- Do you constantly review the feedback and make changes to adapt and change?
3 G's of Social Communication in A Social Media World!
I was reading an article in HBR on the elements of successful leadership. It was a great HBR article. And as I read it, I thought that it applied to Social Leadership in the way that Great companies should use social -- as a way to build relationships.
Here are the modified Social 3 Gs!
The 3 G's!
- Gifted. Your social communications needs to be both content rich but engaging. Your gifted communicators need to also be able to master having a strong Point of View and to be able to handle conflict without being offensive.
- Game. In social, you need to be able to fail fast. In Social, you need to have the courage to take risks. Just as a leader needs to be "vulnerable and open to challenge and criticism" , your social engagement needs have confidence. The kind of confidence that allows them to be questioned by others without becoming defensive. This is the way that true innovation occurs!
- Generous. Your social strategy needs to put to ensure the goal is for the good of the overall client ecosystem. It should be good-hearted, mutually respectful, and gracious, resisting the urge to dominate, or take the upper hand. Part of being generous with others also means taking an interest in, learning about, and offering opinions regarding your clients and employees.
I think these 3 G's should guide the Social Conversations in the Blogosphere. What do you think?
New role at IBM! Ecosystems on #Analytics, #socbiz , #Mobile, #Cloud & Big Data & Entrepreneurship
I am truly excited to be taking on a new role here at IBM! As General Manager of Ecosystems, ISVs and Entrepreneurs or our IDR group, I look forward to the opportunity to work with a wide range of talented and innovative business partners, clients and IBMers to help enhance IBM's position as a leader - fostering growth and success through influencer partnerships. I'm hitting the ground running. Here's a few areas I am focused on...
First, nurture our Startup partners so we can achieve more together! IBM's commitment to the entrepreneurial community is stronger than ever and will continue to grow, as evidenced by the success of the
IBM Global Entrepreneur Program
Since 2010, this program has helped launch more than 500 new businesses in key areas such as green energy, health care and transportation. How? By nurturing startups, bringing them into our 121,000-strong business partner ecosystem and helping them get their technologies ready for market. IBM's work with startup companies helps us build and strengthen new markets such as cloud, mobile and big data/analytics. It also extends our geographic reach -- for example, to companies like Sproxil in Africa.
Second, continue to grow the IBM SmartCamp initiative. Past SmartCamp participants have gone on to generate more than $90 million in VC/Angel funding following their work with IBM. With your help, I intend to deepen our commitment - focusing on nurturing and deepening our relationships with Startups so we can achieve broader success with more partners.
Finally, in an effort to spur ecosystem growth, we will focus deeper on our fundamentals: drive awareness to recruit new ecosystem partners; work closely with partners to enable our technologies with their solutions; and actively drive our go-to-market activities and sales engagements.
We will continue to focus on strategic initiatives, including Smarter Analytics, Social Business, Mobile and Cloud computing and our overall Big Data strategy. And we will show our partners and customers how they can use IBM expertise and resources to drive results through our "Learn - Build - Sell" model:
Learn: Understand the benefits we offer our partners and increase their technical and business expertise
Build: Differentiate partner solutions using our resources, and collaborate with leading technical experts
Sell: Expand the ecosystem network and drive demand for joint solutions
With our combined energy, innovation and expertise, I'm confident we can make it happen.
Time to get moving and I'd love to hear from each of you on how I can assist!
Safety is a great Social Business Use Case!
Happy Monday! Today's Social Business Coffee Break is featuring a surprise use case --- Safety. I love this one as it does have high ROI in reduced worker's compensation but the ROI I love is saving employees from injury.
Take a listen!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zTS5uh2RFI&feature=youtu.be]
Social Media Tip of the Week – 3 Social Media sins you should avoid
Social media is a great way to connect and work with people. But don’t make these mistakes in the business world of Social Media:
1. Not responding to messages, post, tweets or comments (-> Social Media means communication!)
2. Sharing every little thing you do or like (-> not everything is for the public world to see)
3. Using every Social Media site ever invented (-> not every platform is relevant and useful for everybody)
Socialytics!
Did you know that CEO’s & CIO’s identified “Insight & Intelligence” as the number #1 focus over the next 3-5 years? Doing Social without Analytics really doesn't make much sense in today's world.
According to IBM's CEO Study, C-level executives are worried about enhancing customer loyalty and better understanding what customers want.
We are calling this Socialytics -- a way that companies can simply collect big data across the social spectrum, and within seconds conduct complex analytics functions that show what your customers are saying and buying. What your competitors are saying and doing. And what is happening in the markets in real time.
It is the combo of Social + Analytics + Big Data!
Essentially we are providing valuable insights and intelligence to business executives so they can make more informed business decisions.
I think this is core to Social -- being able to combine the analytics with the social data.
Innovation is a Social ROI winner!
Happy Monday -- grab that cup of coffee for your Social Business Coffee Break!
Today we are continuing the series on Top Use Cases driving strong ROI for companies around the world.
Today's focus in on innovation -- that #1 rated item for most companies per IBM's CEO study.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnb4onPPbAs&feature=youtu.be]
Speed and Influence of Social --
The slideware presentation demonstrates the speed and influence of social media on enterprises - and the affect of their responses. If you have not seen this, I think you would find it interesting.
5 Year Anniversary for the Women's Toolbox! Why that is important to you!
I was able to catch up with Janet Powers, the CEO of the Women's Toolbox on the help she provides on social business to women Worldwide!
Here's our summary and check out her new focuses!!!
Sketch videos: http://ebusinessgreetings.com
Promotion of member blogs: http://womenstoolbox.com/2013/07/09/add-my-rss-feed
1. Janet, tell us what drove you to start the Women's Toolbox?
I never dreamed of starting a business, I dreamed about starting an on line community for women in business that mirrored the support system I had thanks to my family, friends and colleagues. So many people I knew from my days in corporate America had moved away from their core support group and they didn't have someone to sit across the kitchen table with and discuss the things that mattered most to them. I wanted to create an on line community, a neighborhood, that allowed all women to share their expertise in the hopes that their experience and knowledge would help another woman's journey a little easier, help her succeed in business and life.
2. What is the Women's Toolbox and how does it relate to Social?
The Women's Toolbox is the premier destination on line for women in business to find the information, resources and support they need to succeed. Named by MORE Magazine as one of the best websites for women to polish your professional skills, sharpen your business skills and get your name out there, our tagline is "within you lies the ability to do anything, Find It".
The Women's Toolbox built an engaged, social community long before all the research proved that social builds engagement and increases loyalty, productivity and revenue. We believe that to build a successful social business, you must change the way you engage with an audience. Engagement is not about the most eyeballs, it is about the best listeners. You must provide something every day that interests them, you must help your audience succeed PLUS truly believe that they have value to your organization and are important to your long term success. That has been our mantra in building the Women's Toolbox and it works...not everyone is your target audience, don't try to be everything to everyone, be engaging with the audience that matters and they will be your best listeners.
3. Give us your biggest AHA moment from the Women's Toolbox work.
I have had three AH HA moments the past five years:
First was the realization that my instincts were right...People want to be part of a community. People thrive in groups. People want to belong. In today's world, so many feel like they are all alone and that makes even small challenges scary.
Second was the understanding that the steps, strategies and knowledge to successfully grow a career and grow a business were very related. Whether you are marketing yourself or your business, you need to understand the basics and the best practices related to growth, marketing, pr, social media, money, sales and so much more.
Last, and by no means least, was learning how many people do things the hard way because they are afraid of technology or don't understand what it can do to save them time and money. I hear so many people say they don't understand technology or that they are tech challenged - and my response is always - technology is not hard, change is hard. If adopting new technology was hard, millions of people would not be using social media nor would they be playing words with friends and candy crush on their mobile devices. I think it is our responsibility as women in technology to help those who think they are tech challenged to understand the possibilities for them and their business related to new technology.
We must be committed to using words they can relate to not just industry terms when describing what technology can do. For example, those comfortable with technology talk about being in the cloud...well if you are not up to date on the terminology, you are not likely to ask what the cloud is for two reasons - one you don't want to sound out of date and two, you don't have time to learn something new right now. Instead think how many more people would embrace cloud technology if it was explained in words and concepts everyone already understands...gmail is email in the cloud - people understand that concept.
4. How does this help woman in the social world? Can you give me a example!
This is an excerpt from my about page:
The Women’s Toolbox is a natural outgrowth of its founder’s combined life experience. She started the company following a successful corporate career at Fidelity Investments, where she served as Vice President of Program Management. There she served as a liaison between its business and technology departments, sourcing and building technology solutions to solve the business problems of Fidelity’s internal and external customers. She was also part of a team that brought new products and services to the market.
Earlier in her career, she worked for a global non-profit delivering health programs to expand opportunities for women and families. There she was responsible for educating the group’s regional representatives on how to use technology to run and report on local initiatives. Traveling internationally to deliver onsite training, she witnessed the challenges women face in developing countries.
Today, Janet Powers have melded the two, helping women leverage technology for economic growth. She comes to the table with a solid understand of the women’s market and a personal, deep felt commitment to its long term success. She actively participates in major women’s conferences and philanthropic efforts that support women across the globe.
Here is an example:
Using the Women's Toolbox knowledge of major media's need for experts for their stories and willingness to accept user generated content for their websites, we created 15+ webinars using the IBM Smart Cloud tool to teach women in business how to expand their reach and readership to their blog by submitting content to major media sites for publication.
The results of this initiative can best be described in this testimonial from one of our members:
I love the Women’s Toolbox for so many reasons! I have my articles posted here regularly because of the high quality leads that are generated for my business…I’ve been featured on Yahoo.com, More.com and have gained clients. It’s like my secret weapon for national exposure, visibility and credibility. — Meredith Liepelt, President of Rich Life Marketing, www.richlifemarketing.com
5. What's your vision for the next phase or next 5 years of the Women's Toolbox?
Three BIG and BOLD goals for the next five years:
1. Provide access and training on how women in business can leverage technology to make life easier.
2. Empower women in business to be seen, be heard and be well in the workplace, marketplace and community.
3. Engage an international audience of women in business to understand we are more the same than we are different.
In summary, our vision is to connect women across the globe (international audience) who blog (be seen) get more exposure to their articles and expertise (be heard) by publishing their blogs on the Women's Toolbox using their RSS feeds (leverage technology to make life easier) thus saving them time and energy (be well).