Elements of a Social Platform
I get alot of questions on the elements of a Social Business Platform.
Our view is that you need 4 capabilities:
Social Networking, Social Analytics, Social Integration, and Social Content
Today I will share key Social Networking capabilities!
Profiles - Find the people you need based on their expertise projects and responsibilites based on the information on the person like certifications, background, and other key information. The profile has information that helps you socially find expertise, open up communications, and keep your networks informed.
Communities - Create, find join and work with Communities of people who share a common interest, responsibility or area of expertise.
Bookmarks - Save, organise, and share bookmarks. Discover bookmarks that have been qualified by others with similar interests and expertise.
Blogs enable you to present your ideas, get feedback from others, learn from the expertise and experience of others who Blog! Usually videos and other rich media make this more adoptable!
Activities: Organize your work, plan next steps, and easily tap into your expanding professional network to help you execute your everyday deliverables faster.
File - Upload and share any type of file with colleagues and communities. Store versions and view downloads comments and ratings.
WIKIS - Wiki spaces for individuals, groups and communities to co-author pages. View changes across pages, ratings and comments.
Forums - Ask questions brainstorm ideas, and leverage the expertise of the people in your organization.
Recognition Badges, Levels - Encourage sustained user adoption, educate and reward users for engaging and contributing.
Cultural Venues Using Big Data to Attract Millennials!
The heat is on this summer for zoos, museums and other cultural venues to increase visitor traffic to grow revenues -- particularly from socially savvy Millennial consumers. IBM is helping cultural organizations use Big Data, analytics, mobile devices and social channels to create a more enriching, personalized experience to generate visitor and business growth.
Our Viewpoint
Museums and zoos are competing with many other attractions for consumer leisure time during the summer. Non-profit cultural organizations need to embrace and analyze Big Data to more effectively market to and serve Millennial patrons and members. Did you know that 2 of 3 of millennials say that museums are a very good value for their time and money!!!
Mobile devices and social channels present new opportunities for cultural venues to uncover insights into what Millennial visitors want from their experience. By analyzing mobile and social data, companies can enable institutions to determine which exhibits and programs are having the greatest impact on business.
Cultural venues with smaller budgets can use Big Data and analytics to gain a better understanding of visitor preferences and encourage repeat attendance.
Did you see this article about how we are helping a small zoo and museum engage visitors. http://zd.net/17sqAbq
IBM is a Social Business! Check out IBM Voices!
Happy Monday and grab a cup of coffee to enjoy our Social Business Coffee Break!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjEn2i5M3bk]
Social Media Tip of the Week – Facebook introduces hashtags
Facebook has just announced the introduction of hashtags. Similar to other social platforms like Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, you can now use hashtags to add context to a post or indicate that it’s part of a lager discussion. Clicking on a hashtag will take you to a news feed containing all posts of users and pages on that particular topic. This will help you to get an overview on a topic or find out what other people think about it. Hashtags won’t affect your privacy settings – you can still decide whether you want to share your posts with the public or your friends only. In the future, Facebook plans to introduce trending hashtags and deeper insights to help people discover more conversations.
Colleagues in Care (CIC) is a Social Business!
Colleagues in Care (CIC) is a global health network of approximately 200 doctors, nurses, medical personnel and other volunteers working together to provide quality health care services, telemedicine, knowledge and training to aid the poor and those suffering. The nonprofit organization is strategically focused on Haiti and is striving to bring a high-quality standard of care that reflects best possible practice in a resource-challenged environment.
In order to better connect the hundreds of medical worker and volunteers, CIC today is using Social Business to provide the global network of healthcare volunteers with immediate access to critical data and information for the current healthcare needs of the Haitian citizens. With Social Business, the volunteers and those on the front lines taking care of patients are armed with an online medical knowledge system that includes treatment options, clinical pathways, and best practices specific to the situation in Haiti.
Through social networking, Web-based meetings, activities, and forums, the volunteers are sharing ideas and information as if they were in the same room.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37743.wss
University of Texas at El Paso is a Social Business!
At the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), faculty and researchers are using Social Business to track the status of research projects and help facilitate knowledge sharing across campus.
This social business model provides a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution that allows faculty and researchers to share resources and track progress of research projects without clogging up their email in-boxes while aiding in the ever challenging "version control" process for collaborative documents. UTEP has recently expanded its use of Social Business to collaborate with universities across North America who are involved in CASHI, the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
CASHI aims to increase the number of Hispanic students who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in the computer and information sciences and engineering. UTEP uses Social Business to collaborate with faculty at other universities, invite users from the other universities at no cost as guests to work on projects together. They can collaborate, manage projects, assign work, and comment directly with each other!
Sogeti is a Social Business!
Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great Father's day!
Here's Sogeti telling their Social Business story!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV1OnyxuSFo&feature=youtu.be]
Amadori Group is a Social Business!
I am here in Italy with Open Knowledge, a great IBM partner in Milan, London, and US.
So today I thought I would highlight an Italian company that has cross the Social Business mark.
Amadori Group wanted to market its poultry and pork products to evolve with the ever-changing modern lifestyles and dietary needs of young consumers. It sought to create fun ways to engage its target segment by exploiting online marketing and social media. The company sought to use online resources to gain new insights into its target consumer base to help boost brand visibility, encourage customer loyalty and gauge consumers' reactions to its products and marketing campaigns.
This leading food company in Italy gains an unprecedented ability to track and visualize consumer conversations, transforming speech patterns into marketing insights and identifying those who can drive its business.
Influencing consumers’ culinary choices is not an easy task because taste and preferences vary with each person, lifestyle and dietary needs. This food company listens to and learns about its consumers’ culinary needs and desires in near-real time with a combination of innovative solutions. The company uses a powerful web development platform to quickly create highly interactive websites that are tightly integrated with social networking sites for targeted campaigns. It then exploits sophisticated predictive analytics to track and visualize what is said about its brand and products on social networking sites, blogs and forums—in near-real time. Gathering user data from multiple sources, the predictive analytics capture unstructured text and ingeniously separate consumer sentiments from all the chatter. The solution then analyzes the free text against structured data such as user profile information, revealing hidden attitudes and opinions that the company uses to identify consumer buying propensities, foster those who influence others’ purchasing decisions and refine the company’s digital marketing campaigns to generate more sales.
Real Business Results
At Telcommunication Conference - Some Social Stories! China Telecommunications
China Telecom serves over 220 million individuals.
They decided to use IBM's Social Business Platform for ideation blogs to gather information from their customers to identify the most viable new services to offer to the Chinese market. They wanted to invite a broad range of new ideas from the public.
China Telecom enabled consumers to register their ideas, and they encouraged continuous collaboration around those ideas. The wisdom of the crowd helped them select the best ideas to put forward.
China Telecom called their ideation blog, “Voices,” because they were allowing new “voices” into their development process.
Here are some of the interesting points about their solution:
- They received their first idea from a customer a mere ten minutes after launch.
- “Voices” produced over 500 ideas in the first six months
- China Telecom considers a big percentage of the entries to be breakthrough ideas.
- When asked, 88% of the participants said that they believe ideation is fun
The participants identified new product and service opportunities by creating a networked, market- focused culture that makes it easier to bring great ideas to life. This was especially important when China Telecom was working to determine which 3G and 4G services to deploy.
With input from “Voices,” China Telecom has effectively included customers in the gathering of product and service ideas and feedback. That equipped them to develop better products and services. They have also achieved innovation more effectively, and they’ve brought successful new offerings to market more quickly.
China Telecom recognized that the potential of social business extends far beyond simple one to one communications between employees. Social can bring together the whole value chain, including customers, suppliers, consultants or anyone else.
Using Social for Ideation or Innovation is a key ROI social project. McKinsey says that on average a company using Social for Ideation improvements see a 20% success rate improvement in new product, offerings, or program introductions!
Build a Set of Brand Ambassadors!!
What is a brand ambassador? In the past, a brand ambassador was paid to promote a business or service. Think TV advertising. But a true brand ambassador is a client who shares a positive experience or story about your business or product.
Do you know who your supporters or ambassadors are? Do you do anything for them? Maybe just comment and share their tweets. Perhaps a thanks for commenting on your product. They will appreciate the feedback and would love to know that you knew they liked their post!!!
Rewarding them in some way helps too! On Foursquare, you can offer rewards to your mayor! Yelp does the same. One client I was working with brought in all their "ambassadors" for a brainstorming session. One of my clients does a dinner once a month for his best fans and followers. What a great idea and way to say thanks!
What are you doing for your ambassadors?