Levels of Maturity for Communities
Communities are essential for Social Businesses. All communities go through a community maturity model.
1. Potential: Planning phase of maturity. It typically involves setting up the community elements required for long term success such as roles and responsibilities, strategy, mission, membership planning and activities.
2. Formation of the community. Having a great community manager is a key factor of success. During the formation, the initial members and influencers
3. Building and Evolving. The community builds and evolves as it forms. The best communities stick to their goals but evolve in the way they reach them. Typically building and evolving involves driving traffic to community and increasing member participation. The topic of content curation is also one that grows and questions of contribution of content and consumption is reviewed. The community may review how to improve quality of content and how to train the leaders.
5. Adaptive. This final phase is where the community now takes on the personality of the members. It enables the community manager to drive the goals to the next level.
At IBM, we do Health Checks for our communities.
- Ensure the communities have the design for success
- Clearly defined strategy and active plans
- Produce Healthy communities
- Utilize the Brokerage Service to ensure long term vitality and maturity of the community
One Week Before Black Friday .. did you know Social's role?
Holiday season is upon us! Black Friday is one week away. I am already planning my Thanksgiving dinner, my Christmas cards and caroling, and New Year's Plans!
So let's start thinking about this holiday season!
Did you know that people use social differently during the holiday weeks?
They increase their searches on social networks around products and potential gifts, recipes, and fun. This typically occurs starting now through early January. Their use of mobile goes up using the mobile device to show online and compare when they go into the store.
And don't discount Twitter it plays such a role! So get ready!!!
IBM Announcement: The new Watson Ecosystem!
Today represents a milestone in the IBM Watson journey: the IBM Watson Ecosystem!
As you may recall, the Watson Technology is at the forefront of the next generation of cognitive computers: systems that can mine vast amounts of structured and unstructured data and share insights using natural language. Now, through the IBM Watson Ecosystem, you will have the opportunity to leverage this technology in the Cloud to build your own disruptive applications. We are initially focusing on the healthcare, travel and retail industries (in English language) but will be expanding this over time.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRMevlv673M&w=560&h=315]
So, how exactly can you partner with us to develop ground-breaking solutions?
We offer three options:
1) Application partners can leverage the Watson Developer Cloud to build solutions using the IBM Watson technology
2) Content partners can deliver knowledge and expertise through the Watson Content Store
3) Partners with strong skills in the areas the Watson Ecosystem covers can offer these through the Watson Talent Hub.
Organizations that are interested in collaborating with IBM to develop Watson-powered applications can learn more here.
Saturday Infographic: Surprising facts on Social Twitter
This infographic is courtesy of Masters in finance and researched by Merrill Cook.
Beware of ghoulish cyber-attacks!
Happy Monday and the week of Halloween!
Today, we are going to talk about cyber-attacks and the best practices to try to avoid them. One of the top vulnerabilities is trust through social networking!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrciX3jKFp8&feature=youtu.be]
Friday Social Tip: Spend Time on Your Influencers - The 4-1-1
Spend time on your influencers!
I think this is one of the best social media tips I ever discovered.
First, a definition of an nfluencer. An influencer is someone who influences the rest of the clients and potential clients online and offline, usually about 15% to 20% of your followers or fans!
I discovered this concept in a book by Andrew Davis, author of Brandscaping, The 4-1-1 (for your informtion!) is a way to show value and care to your social influencers.
This concept says that if you communicate 6 things socially, 4 of those 6, or 67% should be showcasing content from your influencers. The other items you should be showcasing are your Point of View or Subject Matter Expertise . The other could be something that is more sales oriented.
Complements of Joe Pulizzi here is a great visual of what this concept is!
7 Key Steps for Social Content Curation - Quiet Marketing
Lately I have been focused on Content Curation as a secret weapon in your Social Strategy. Did you know that 60% of B2B marketers plan on spending more on their content marketing next year than ever before?
What is Social Content Curation? It is a plan to create content, distribute content, promote content, and measure its success in the social world.
7 Steps to Great Social Curation:
- Conceptualize: Before you begin, think through your plan and goals for your social content. Think through details and leave nothing to chance. This requires a lot of preliminary research on your part.
- Plan your space. Select where to place the content. Where you place content will help you shape the content. For instance, content on Pinterest is different than a blog! Did you know that SlideShare is a great place and the largest curation of social presentations? How do you leverage the right tools for your content!
- Know your audience. A good curator needs to understand the audience and to fully communicate and let their Point of View (POV) speak out to the public and to better listen and meet their desires.
- Secure commitment, resources and budget. Who will be your Subject Matter experts(SMEs)? Make sure you secure their time and if you need, money to create the right graphics, video, and pictures to make your content come live.
- Create content. Make sure it is great content. Writing well is a necessary skill for a curator. As is the use of video, pictures, presentations, and all valued content for your area.
- Communicate your content. You have spent a long time on researching and organizing your content; now you want to maximize the viewing for your content and make it truly memorable. Imagine a top rated infographic, or blog. Allow time and budget in order to be able to effectively contextualize your work.
- Have an Opening! Just like a museum curating an art exhibition, make your Social Content opening fun, exciting and memorable. You want to create an exciting buzz so that people will keep coming back. Schedule your opening and begin the opening with a bang -- maybe a SocialChat or a Tweetup. Just as a museum would begin the opening with a live art or music performance or light show, these items !
The Social Sales Team - Knowledge accidents and all!
The Social Sales Team
A good sales team should rarely meet each other. It should, instead, be out meeting customers. It should be working out what your customers want and be maximizing the return for your organization. The problem comes because sales teams have voracious appetites for ideas, comments, case studies, pricing, presentation, market intelligence and so forth. They are generally very poor at following a process and providing forms to fill out and records to keep gets in the way of the sales process. In addition to this, much of what a sales team relies on is experience amongst the members of the team.
The knowledge accidents that occur when they bump into each other in the corridor or at lunch are extremely valuable and efficient to exchange information and catch important snippets. So how do you keep their appetites satisfied, but maximize their time in front of customers?
Make them Mobile
Give them the technology they need to keep in touch easily with the places they need to go to help them in their job. This might be an iPad with a 3G card, or a Mi-Fi device or similar which lets them connect to the office and access your systems.
Collaboration Hubs for Clients
In your social intranet, create communities focused on each of your major customers. Use Wikis, Forums, Activities, Ideation Blogs and all the other tools you need to share everything you have about that customer which would help your sellers. Consider organizing the material around opportunities (perhaps pulled from your CRM system) using tags. That way you can easily find everything about a particular opportunity whilst keeping the structure fluid so that it’s easy to re-use information. For more information on this, please see
Give them some Power Tools
Provide them a social network to interface with other sellers. Teach them how to use the outside social tools . Did you know the most productive sellers in IBM leverage social in their sales process?
One of the best techniques the Sales Team can deploy is to use an informal blog. This lets them express their thoughts, experiences and opinions about the work they’re doing with the customer account without the need for the structure of more formal meeting minutes. It’s in the blog that the seeds of the knowledge accident tree are sown. It’s where short narratives about what’s going on can be captured and stored for the benefit of the rest of the team.
Remember that by putting mobile technology, which is connected to your system in the hands of your sellers, they will be more inclined to participate. If it’s made easy, and they are rewarded for doing so, they will do it.