Social Media

Introduction

Enterprises investments into web portals often turn out to be islands in the vast ocean of the Internet! What does an Enterprise need to enhance its Web Presence? How can the Enterprise leverage Social Computing and Web 2.0 to establish its Web Presence? How can the Web Presence help Marketing, Customer Interaction and Support, and therefore, Customer Loyalty?

A Google Search on an enterprise’s key offerings will reveal the true state of the web presence. A low ranking on Search results indicates poor web presence and, therefore, low effectiveness of the portal. Web Presence is no longer limited to developing a web portal for an enterprise. A SEO/SEM practice will provide delivery of targeted advertising to targeted users. A robust portal promotion strategy and implementation based on Social Computing will provide targeted content delivery to targeted users, to complement an SEO practice. Content Enterprises need to integrate content for Web Presence with appropriately integrated Web Strategy. Let us also recognize the fact that the Enterprise is also made up of people who themselves have their web presence that can be leveraged to increase the “Web Footprint”. Social Computing has revolutionized the way users collaborate for information over the internet. The Enterprise Web Presence Strategy is to increase Traffic to the portal through Integrated Content, Employee-Enterprise Integration and Social Computing

Integrated Content

When creating an online communications strategy, personalized, targeted and engaging content is needed to develop personalized relationships with users to build trust and confidence.

Portal Content can be published in diverse formats giving users an array of choice to aid the relationship:

• Web site content.Provide a broad range of tools and choice for information presentation to help them engage and revisit often. Enable users to cross link to their blogs and forums. needs integrated SEO to provide higher page-ranking. The Website should in itself support link building with other portals such as Facebook and Linkedin.
• Wikis and Blogs.Provide users with useful content focused on their needs rather than company promotion. Blogs provide for public discussion and customer support. Support your employees to blog on public blogging sites and crosslink into your portal content and vice versa. Aid Bloggers to use portal content in as many instances as possible. Wikis turn into online encyclopaedias and first level of helpdesk and knowledge aggregation.
• Online video. Videos provide a variety of purposes, for storytelling and product information to help customers understand how to use products better. This can be particularly helpful for complex products that customers don't fully understand or can't visualize. Training and Support Videos can be hosted on YouTube and linked into your portals to increase Web footprint and conserve Webspace for your portal.
• Photo galleries.Help consumers visualize products and their usage better. Photo or Image galleries customers to share their use of products with others who have similar interests. Allow users and employees to post their Photos on public domain photo sharing portal like Facebook, Picassa and Flickr and link into the Enterprise Portal for issue reporting. Tagging and annotations will make the photo share interesting and intuitive.
• Webinars.While used extensively for business-to-business products, Webinars provide an option for providing users with offline training. Webinars become a “re-visit factor” for most end users.
• Twitter.Twitter can be used to disseminate short helpful information or to give customers timely answers to product-related questions.
• Bulletin boards/customer forums. Forums work well for more products like electronics and software where customers have questions and need help “along-the-way”.
• Social bookmarking.Encourage visitors to bookmark your content to broaden the footprint. Social Bookmarks provide a yardstick for page-ranking and the popularity of your portal content.
• SEO/SEM/PPC. It has been a tried and tested tool for promoting web portals through Google’s Search Engine Optimization. SEO aides in getting a higher listing in Search results on prominent Search Engines. SEM provides an online option to promote the enterprises and its offerings over the net. A concerted Web Strategy to plan and rollout an SEM plan. Pay-Per-Click provides targeted advertising on Search Results.
• Google Maps.Presence on Google Maps will provide additional web foot print to provide Map and Location based services.

   

Social Computing

Communities on Social Networking Portals will help to disseminate information and build relationships amongst users and customers community. Communities build “Trust” among users who are seeking and willing to help. Communities share information and build a self-help system while providing an excellent feedback system. Management presence on the communities will break down the layers of abstraction with users and customers to provide first-hand experience.

• Linkedin.A Professional Networking Portal to share your professional experience amongst your business contacts. Over 30 Million Users willing to be part of professional networks. Helps in building Branding and recruiting for organizations.
• Facebook, Orkut, MySpace and Hi5.Social Networking Portals with communities, photoshare, user groups, etc. Dell and Jeep are already using Facebook for customer support. Victoria’s Secret uses Facebook for user feedback and new product innovation. Facebook and MySpace have over 250 Million users each and growing. Web Presence on social networks will require a dedicated brand community building. Social Networks provide a great opportunity for Reputation Management, especially in case of adverse media coverage and risk management. Portals such as Facebook offer Facebook Connect, a service by which an enterprise can connect and leverage Facebook. Facebook and Myspace are among the Top 10 sites visited by internet users, as per Alexa.
• Blogs.More and more users are beginning to blog on their daily experiences, seeing an annual growth of over 15%. Enterprises need to Reputation Management in order to cover the risk of adverse coverage, while receiving constant feedback from users on the content that would find its way to the numerous blogging sites.
• Wikis.Add organization profile and content to Wiki sites such as Wikipedia and Knol. Users will be able to access the enterprise’s content on knowledge sharing portals.
• Photo and Video shares Portals.Portals such as YouTube, Flickr, Picassa provide image sharing and indexing of Images and Videos. YouTube enjoys the third spot on number of hits, as per Alexa ratings. Employing such portals facilitates link building and rapidly increases the Web footprint.

   

Employee-Enterprise Integration

Unlike the enterprises of the 20th century, Web 2.0 has enabled a large degree of democratization of the Web while providing information for free to internet users. It has broken barriers amongst seekers and suppliers of information, and eventually of knowledge. Individuals now collaborate online amongst family, friends and communities to provide and seek help, share photos, videos and information. Individuals post their professional profile on business networking portals such as Linkedin to collaborate on business and job opportunities while they may actively participate on Social Networking sites ( such as Facebook, MySpace or Orkut) to keep in touch with alumni, communities and groups. The very same individuals may be ardent bloggers sharing their views across the web, participate in forums and explore the web in ways not considered possible a couple of years ago. As the web evolves faster, newer opportunities for collaboration are bound to evolve for individuals. Hence, it can be concluded that Web 2.0 has become pervasive as a way of life, rapidly and across age groups. Forester Group reports that the user groups in the age group 14-45 form over 85% of users of Web 2.0 offerings.

Enterprises need to encourage employees to increase their individual web presence and social computing links into the enterprise portal to increase the web foot print and gain closer proximity with customers and users on multiple formats and across communities. Such a strategy will help provide a stronger and closer relationship with users to understand their expectations better.

Benefits

• Branding.Develop guidelines for consistently portraying products and offerings to associate visuals and content with brands.
• Drive traffic. User engagement may not occur on the Enterprise Portal. Users have to be driven to the portal through diverse channels. Content and Users share a symbiotic interdependence and drive each other up.
• Diversify ways to engage with prospects.Use a diverse media formats to provide cross-links to the portal and personalized and targeted offerings.
• Leverage SEO/SEM. An integrated SEO/SEM Strategy will help drive online Branding across Search Engines.
• Provide product support.Customers seek out product-related information before purchase to refine their buying options and after buying to aid and improve usage. References, Ratings, and User comments are essential to build the trust amongst buyers.
• Build communities and user groups.By doing so, engage directly with users customers. Enable customers to help each other, provide insight into offerings, and create advocates for the Enterprise while understand usage patterns. Take feedback to facilitate Innovation. This forms the first level of Customer support while enabling direct communication with customers and users.
• Leverage Social Computing.Building Web presence through Social Computing portals accelerates User Acquisition. Further, the Enterprise portal benefits from the SEO/SEM effort of these portals as well, providing a double-whammy.

The Next Generation e-Branding will require pervasive and all-round web presence, be built on Social Media integrated with Enterprise and individual content. The E-Branding 2.0 approach will dramatically increase the enterprise web presence many fold and change very definition of online branding for enterprises. Business models will move from transactions to measurable Relationships. Enterprises will have to therefore adapt appropriate models, techniques and technologies to stay in line with user expectations and demands in case they wish to stay connected with the user and build lasting relationships.