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July 10, 2008 |
Backbone’s guide to thriving in a Web 2.0 world
 By Andrew Rideout
Do you write a corporate blog? Post to internal and external discussion forums? Maintain a company wiki?
If not, pundits, business leaders and magazines like Backbone all say you should. And we’re right: the entire social media palette can be a very effective business communication mechanism. Plus, the cost of entry is low and the tools are easy to use. Sadly, social media is also easy to do poorly.
Even companies that do their homework, are diligent about posting regularly and understand it should be the execs who talk to the public, don’t always get the massive response they expect.
Because there are many pitfalls on the new media road, Backbone offers the following guide to get you started. Find the category that fits your company below and, as you read, keep in mind the four main goals of any new media project: identify and create a community, deliver consistent and clear messaging that confirms your expertise within your industry, offer a place for your customers to interact, and provide customers the means to spread your message to other Web sites and social networks. While we can’t guarantee server-crashing traffic, executing on these four goals will ensure you’ll fare better than most in the wild frontier that is corporate social media.
For the enterprise
Recommended tools: corporate blog, blog aggregation, social bookmarking, social networking, internal wiki, Facebook applications.
Keep things as simple as possible and try to focus first on doing one thing well. The easiest place to start is with a well thought-out corporate blogging strategy. This is much easier said than done. A company can’t start a blog on its Web site, assign somebody from communications to blog about how great the company is and then sit back and tell its shareholders it’s taking advantage of social networking.
The best way for the enterprise to get the most out of social media is to utilize its blog to establish the company as a trusted source of information and opinion about its industry or market. Hiring a dedicated blogger is the first place to start. Following that, lay out detailed instructions as to how the blogger should interact with readers. It’s important to emphasize the soft sell when dealing with customers, as overtly self-promotional messaging reeks of desperation and can undermine a company’s online presence.
Combine a well-written and informative corporate blog with an RSS syndication service or use a high-end blog aggregation system to collect relevant posts. Since blog content is available for free, many top companies will include insight and opinion from some of the most influential bloggers in their given industry right alongside their company’s blog. A blog aggregation service can give your company’s social media efforts a veritable slew of written, audio and video content to ensure fresh content constantly. Keep in mind, though, it’s necessary to ask permission before you post actual content from someone else.
The use of meta data and keywords can make the information as targeted and specific as the situation requires. Presenting your company’s blog content alongside the most respected bloggers in your specific industry can work wonders when executed properly. Companies which don’t wish to create content themselves can still participate by working with significant bloggers within their industry.
Using high-profile social bookmarking sites like Digg and Del.icio.us, which allow users to vote for their favourite content, can pay big dividends. Many well-known corporations have taken advantage of what’s referred to as “crowdhacking” — which is when a company pays influential members or an underground service representing a network of registered users who are prepared to vote the company’s information onto the much sought-after front page of these ultra-popular Web sites for a fee. Many users of social bookmarking sites frown on this type of virtual gamesmanship, but it remains a shortcut employed by many companies and agencies. A plausible theory suggests there may be only about 200 people who actually control all of the content on Digg. If your enterprise lacks connections to the key users of these sites, paying for votes can sometimes be the only way to get onto the front page of a top social bookmarking destination. Keep in mind that landing on the front page of a site like Digg will likely result in exponentially more eyeballs than a traditional press release would ever get.
Many companies with a specific product to sell are finding success with Facebook applications. These are small programs that customers download to their profile pages. The core principle is to create something useful that also serves as an advertisement. Your customers won’t use it if they don’t gain anything from it, so try to make your application engaging.
Another excellent tool for the enterprise is the use of the internal corporate wiki. A well-maintained and widely used information source can streamline communication and allow employees in different departments or locations to collaborate. Many large retail chains have begun giving their front-line employees access to internal wikis where they can post their inside tips, tricks and troubleshooting ideas. An external wiki can quickly dissolve into random user-generated nonsense, but employing a wiki to facilitate intra-departmental communication is a safe bet for any company that doesn’t have all its employees in one place at the same time.
For the small- to medium-sized business
Recommended tools: blogs, Facebook/MySpace, online video sharing, social bookmarking
A small- to medium-sized business has several advantages over enterprise users within the world of social media. Typically, an SMB is focused on one specific niche or geographical location and this allows it to fine-tune and target its social media messaging in ways that a large corporation never could. Whether you’re a regional distributor of window finishings or run a small pet food store, you can capitalize on social media and use it to win new business, create a buzz about a new product, conduct inexpensive market research or simply increase customer retention.
A simple blog, written by the owner or somebody who carries a certain amount of pull within the company, is a great starting point as an easy-to-maintain landing page. Keep the postings fresh and treat comments like gold — engage your audience directly and give them calls to action. Make your blog fun to read and informative, and offer incentives for people to interact with the site. Give away product or display top users prominently to create and maintain a dedicated community of users.
A blog can also help you get some free search engine optimization if you use it correctly. For instance, certain open-source blog platforms use each post title as the URL or Web address where the post is ultimately located. Conveniently, this is one of the first things used by search engines like Google to determine which pages show up first on a given search. If you are working in a limited market and your customers are searching for you online, you can use your blog’s title and URL to cherry-pick certain underused keyword combinations and ensure your blog post shows up at the top of the search results. Wordpress is a good example of a blog platform that works in this manner.
Give some thought to what specific search terms your potential customers will employ when trying to find information on you, the industry or your competitors. Incorporate these keywords into the titles of your blog posts, making sure you have an interesting and well-written post, and then go out and use social bookmarking applications to spread your message across the rest of the Web, driving traffic back to your blog.
Geographically focused SMBs can really capitalize by maintaining a presence on Facebook and MySpace. Like all social media, it’s important to emphasize soft sell, but the sheer amount of traffic on these sites makes them too good an opportunity to pass up. The fact that your market is already divided up and organized for you by city or geographic location ensures you’re not wasting your time with people you can’t convert into paying customers.
The world of online video offers a higher gain-to-risk ratio for an SMB than a large corporation, and anyone — from a mom-and-pop operation to a medium-sized company — can take a stab at potential YouTube fame. Online video doesn’t necessitate high production values so the best advice is simply to be creative, be humorous and give consumers something they want to show their friends. Tagging and intelligent use of meta info is vital when trying to attract attention in the online video space. The television world is full of low-budget, quirky local commercials and they keep the same appeal on a computer screen. If you think it’s appropriate for your business, why not give it a shot?
For consultants and the self-employed
Recommended tools: personal blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, social bookmarking
Regardless of what type of work you do, a self-employed person who harnesses the power of social media in the right way at the right time can make valuable business connections and showcase his/her work to a significantly larger audience.
A personal blog is a great place to start, but make sure to have your well-designed portfolio at a separate URL. Point some of the links in your personal blog toward your portfolio page. Use your personal blog to talk about anything that comes to mind, but always remember that people who are (hopefully) going to be signing cheques over to you are going to be reading your blog. Therefore, posting about this morning’s vicious hangover or chronicling how you and your brother-in-law got arrested after a brawl with a Vegas Don Rickles impersonator isn’t a good plan.
Use your posts to talk about your work and offer some insight into your specific areas of expertise, but try not to sound jaded and world weary about your industry. Make it seem like you’re full of insightful information. Comment on the news of the day that’s related to your area of expertise and use social bookmarking applications to spread your message around to as many people as possible. When you’re dealing with a personal blog designed to promote yourself, you likely won’t be getting earth-shattering amounts of traffic, so in order to help yourself build up something of a community or regular cadre of readers, you should use the blog title/URL strategy outlined in the SMB section in this article. Think in keywords and try to nail down search terms corresponding with your local market.
LinkedIn, the social network for business professionals, is a must-have application for a consultant or self-employed professional. Solicit new business, re-establish old connections or keep tabs on your competition by getting active on this site. But remember to not overdo it: devote a specific amount of time every week to expanding your LinkedIn account and getting your clients or contacts on there to leave you some positive feedback. User-generated reviews from credible sources may clinch deals and generate new income.
Regardless of whether you’re a keen photographer, Flickr has an awful lot of traffic and it is easily divided up by geographic location. If you’re employed in a creative industry, include some of your work in a Flickr account or use the site to upload photos and then drive traffic to your blog and ultimately to your incredible portfolio of work and extensive list of satisfied clients.
Definitions
RSS: Really Simple Syndication is a mechanism which pushes frequently updated Web content (such as blogs or news headlines) to users who have subscribed to the service. In practice, RSS helps people stay up-to-date with Web-based information.
Tagging: the attachment of a relevant keyword or term which describes a piece of information (a blog, photo, map, etc.). This aids keyword-based classification and information searches.
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