Comments by Vanessa DiMauro Subscribe

On What Is The Member Gimme In Your Online Community?

Peter

Thanks for the comment. I see your peaceful walk on sustainability beach was not everlasting  - very funny comment about those wiley but persistant sales-content-writers.. they are everywhere aren't they!  (I did very much enjoy your recent sustainability post- and you raised important issues - but I digress)

In so many ways the harder an audience is to reach, the more clear and specific the member gimmes need to be.  There is a direct correlation between time and efficiency within online communities as with most things.  On open social sites - ones that are either consumer focused or accessible by all, there is less known about the membership or readership in some cases, and therefore much more spaghetti-throwing at the wall must ensue.  However, in more gated communities such a those commonly found in the B2B world, feature and content there is a hightened need to get it (it being content/conversations/and/or/features) right almost all the time as there are fewer chances with that audience. 

Moreover, when a person comes to an open social content site, their express intention is to browse for information.  If they were trying to solve a specific problem, chances are they would conduct a much more pointed search to find answers.  So, in my opinion, the goal of open content communities may be very well served by appealing to a broader audience then those typically found (and required) in other more gated community designs.

Just my 2cents!

On How B2B Companies Are Using Online Communities to Get Closer To Their Clients

ChrisO,

Thanks for your comment.  This webinar focuses on customer communities - some public and some private but the commonality is that they are all dedicated to serving the B2B agenda.  In a older webinar I have covered the differences as I see them between building B2B and B2C online communities. 

While online communities have been around for quite some time (think ARPAnet) they have recently been gaining quite a bit of media attention. But the problem with the information being discussed is that it often doesn't differentiate between the different types of communities and there are big differences between consumer and business models. While both seek to influence brand - consumer communities are intended to project or influence outwardly with the focus being on influencer markets and brand evangelism. Meanwhile, business to business communities are more focused on bringing the clients and the company closer together in partnership. Technical support communities fall somewhere in between the two models.

Consumer communities are typically large in number because they most often have a revenue model that is ad supported. Scale is essential to financial success. The more eyes that are on an ad the better. When successful, they are quick to scale but members tend to have weaker ties between them. Sure, there are some core members who are always present in the forums or on the community, but the majority of users collaborate and evaporate. There are few predictable and reliable user relationships over time.

With B2B communities, membership matters more. They are often gated or have authenticated user acceptance policies. A while back,  BusinessWeek did a nice article showcasing elite or private communities for doctors, mobile executives and a few others. Because a membership threshold exists - a member must be a client, or a specific kind of professional or persona – there tends to be fewer members but the relationships between members and the organization are stronger because they are engaging over time. The members also tend to know each other IRL (in real life) so there are greater dependencies among the group.

This is just the most apparent difference – tools, content needs, interaction design all offer important differences that are not interchangeable when creating professional communities.

 

 

 

On Do Customers Expect Companies To Have Online Customer Service?

Sandeemiller,

Thanks for your comment.  You raise a good point about how social yields a new kind of brand transparancy.  Recently Peter Auditore wrote an excellent blog post here on this site about the very same topic.  Social media does offer a chance for companies to solve problems and even see trending issues before they become problems and therefore have a chance to correct them as well.

 

On Top 15 Ways to Kill an Online Community -- Again

Nic,

Too funny- thank you for that witty catch! Noted and fixed.

I love the idea of adding to this list in style:)

best

Vanessa (aka anessa)

On Internal Enterprise Communities - Your Time Has Come!

Peter,

thanks for your comments!

The point about competitive information is about the idea that organizations can create intranets to gather competitive information quite successfully.  For example, some companies create intranets to enable sales and marketing to input kernals of competitive information they have.. for example - when an intranet is set up to enable staff to track and comment on competitors then the organization is enabled to tap into the collective wisdom of the staff about the competitor which enables greater insight.  Take this situation - your company competes with company XYZ.  there is a project page set up on the intranet about that company.  As sales goes out in the market to compete with that company, through the process of selling or marketing, they find out certain bits of information - fresh pricing data, typical discount information, pending leadership change, customer issues with the company.  When these data are pulled into the intranet, before a sales person goes into a meeting they are armed with current information and perhaps even some insight that they would not have had without the intranet project page.  Imagine the power when the social data about that company are pulled in to that project instance as well.  Now there is a 360 degree lens into that competitor and your sales team is smarter and better able to combat objections etc. 

On Social Media Strategy Map

Hi Matt,

Thank you too for your post - I should earn some sort of crazy award for using social media in the same sentance as six sigma and its sisters :)! 

I talked a little about my take on the situational utility of management frameworks for integrating strategic change below in my reply to Peter's question but I do *completely* agree that with what I hear your point to be - namely- that these tools such as BSC and the like can only serve social media strategy if the organization is already intrenched in the systems and have already undergone the change processes.  Then, and only then, do they have the knowledge base and skills to adapt the methodology of their given management framework to the social innovation.  

There are so many ways- especially for a seasoned management consultant well versed in facilitation - to help an organization bubble of the business goals, values, needs and opportunities of social business with an enterprise with or without the given management systems - they can just help frame the familiar.

What has your experiences been with introducing the strategic face of social into businesses?  What has worked and where are the sticky parts for you?

best

Vanessa

On Social Media Strategy Map

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your comment - so sorry that on some screens the image is not clear.  I have uploaded a better image version (Here is the link) on the Leader Networks website in the downloads area about 1/2 way down the page.  And if anyone wants a PPT version so you can manipulate it just reach out and ask- I am happy to provide. (I don't dare try to edit this post as I broke the link once already a few days ago making a change to the post!)

As for the utility of a tried-and-true management system (such as BSC) as a framework for innovation (such as social business)  I absolutely see the value and quite frankly, a burning need.  The thing is that social media is deeply misunderstood within enterprise-- many strategy decision-makers view social business as social media marketing and all the goofy and or mysterious tools that go along with it. 

Enterprise is just starting to think about social business as a strategic effort as there are limited public examples of success - especially in the B2B world where it is very unlikely, for example, than an organization would reveal its social CRM strategy  or social competitive intelligence efforts etc. publicly as it is quite a competitive advantage. And, enterprises are  often (still) finding great returns and breakthrough business results when they leverage a strategic management system to help align strategy to operations. 

At the end of the day, dispite what many "gurus" are trying to tell the world, social business is not that different and in many ways is a return to how business used to be done - Back to the Apple Cart!  The tools have changed but human relationships remain the same. 

BSC, Lean Enterprise, 6-sigma are far from dead and are often the corner-stone of the strategic footprint of an organization.  Many elements of these systems were designed to facilitate change management and help usher an organization through innovation projects. And they are still well used.  Sure there are elements of the different frameworks that don't or shouldn't apply to processes as dynamic as social business - but the same could be said for other disciplines such as Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) which is the poster child of benefiting from strategic management systems.

So, to sum up my reply - which seemed to have turned into a mini-blog post - my experience has taught me that organizations that are well-versed in a strategic management system can often benefit from applying the tools and best -practice processes to social business when they are appropriate.  They can provide a way of organizing information and making it both digestable, familiar and actionable - and therefore all the more strategic.

Agree? Disagree? 

cheers

Vanessa

On Can Social Media Co-Exist with Traditional Marketing?

Hi everyone,

I noticed the link to download the report is not really the best one.. Here is an improved link that provides a more direct path to the report on Jack Greene's site.  http://www.newbusinessresources.net/Resources.html

On Where is the Social Customer? What is a Social Media Peer Group?

Peter,
Thanks for this insightful post about Social Media Peer Groups.  SMPGs are starting to emerge as a critical part of the decision-makers sphere of influence.  SMPGs are how decisionmakers often support their business choices and decision as social media serves to accelerate the speed to information and knowledge.

Recently, Don Bulmer and I completed some formative research about the rise of social media peer groups in a study we did as part of our research fellowship for the Society For New Communication Research.  Here is more on the research from Don's blog.

Also, to read more about the XPC community, here is a case study about the Palladium Group community:

Hope this helps support your excellent points!

Best
Vanessa DiMauro