Businesses Going Social

Busineses can no longer consider social networking as a fad or a hobby of enthusiasts. Today, several compelling business models exist around social networking that can be leveraged by enterprises

Monday, December 01, 2008

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Social Networking has taken the world of Internet by storm. Today, it's come a long way from being a hobby or a means to get away from boredome, and not without good reason. With more than one billion users online worldwide, organizations are eyeing it as a serious business opportunity. So any software vendor worth his name today has jumped the bandwagon and started offering software solutions that leverage the power of social networking. A recent Forrester study predicts that that corporate social networking market will grow from $258 million this year to $2 billion by 2013.

The beauty of social networking is that it's not been shoved down the throats of employees by the management. Rather it's something that the employees have been using for ages to communicate with their friends, peers, partners, etc across the world. They're already comfortable with the various social networking technologies, which makes the case really strong for incorporating it within an enterprise as an official way of communication. The system has the power to restructure business processes, information sharing and collaboration which will add to business productivity. Additionally, such business-oriented networking can enhance interactions in customer and partner communications. Let's see how social networking can be incorporated by businesses.

Social media for businesses
Social software has core functionality to facilitate companies to restructure internal business processes like collaboration, data capture, data search and reaching experts, apart from augmenting external communications by providing more avenues and enhancing the level of interaction with customers, partners and shareholders.

Businesses can reap the benefits of social networking in multiple ways by making it easy for users to interact with each other and share information. Polls, surveys, communities, Wikis, blogs, forums, etc can all be used to help a user to reach out to others much more efficiently. For instance, an organization could setup an online forum to interact with its employees and customers. Many organizations have introduced blogging into their intranets as a means for the top management to reach out to the most unapproachable of employees. Employees can also use the opportunity to ensure that their voice at least reaches the top management. Online forums can bs used to interact with customers and take their feedback about your products and services.

Likewise, a Wiki could be used to setup an online documentation system on the Intranet. But unlike an ordinary static Intranet, this would be more dynamic, because employees can update it directly from the web browser, without knowing how to write a single line of code.

Thus, a social network can help build a responsive organization by providing the shortest path to key expertise and information, increase team efficiency by mapping networks, improve individual productivity exposing users to broad picture of their network and tapping expertise gaps.

Krista Canfield, LinkedIn

Tips on getting the most out of LinkedIn The biggest piece of advice would be not to forget your manners online. Before you press send on an invitation or an InMail on LinkedIn, make sure that you've read the person's profile on the site before you reach out to them and that they are indeed the right contact for you to be reaching out to. LinkedIn isn't a popularity contest. Only reach out to folks you actually know and when you do reach out to someone, send a personalized message instead of the generic one. Never feel pressured to accept invitations from someone you don't know. Remember, your contacts may approach you for favors, recommendations or introductions to your other contacts later so be sure you're selecting them wisely. LinkedIn also helps businesses in a number of different ways. For example, there is a section in LinkedIn called Answers. Here, professionals can ask or respond to any professional or work-related question that they are trying to solve. We've seen small business owners ask questions like: “Do I need an Internet policy for my employees?” ...but it's not just SMBs that are getting advice on the site. We've also seen questions from users like, “Is now a good time to invest in land/property in India?” A simple search on LinkedIn can help you learn more about a potential client before a meeting. Viewing their profile can tell you where that person went to school, how long they've been in that current role, what groups they belong to and even if you have any connections in common. A person search on LinkedIn could be useful to know about an interview candidate better before you meet in person. It all just depends on how you want to utilize that information to help propel you forward in your career.

Different SN Models
Today, social networking technology has become so advanced that it's a matter of tailoring free and open-source software or paying a minimal fee for someone to build one for you, or even going for a ready-made solution that provides all social networking features out of the box.

There are many white label business networking vendors offering platforms to be rebranded to suit your business needs. They offer the service through a SaaS model, based on a subscription fee which is fairly affordable for businesses of any size.

However, if you don't have the time or will to build your own internal social network or go for a hosted model, you can purchase a ready-made solution. IBM for instance has a social networking solution called Lotus Connections, which is a social software for businesses, allowing users to build their own connections. IBM even has a special technical consulting services called IBM Software Services for Lotus and IBM Center for Social Software” where customers, partners, community members, and universities can come together to explore social computing and work side-by-side with IBM's top researchers and experts to tackle specific social computing projects, test out new ideas, and help address the social computing questions and challenges facing their organizations.

Another company, Blogtronix has a solution canned BTX Enterprise that does the same thing and provides all social networking features like Wikis, blogs, newsletters, etc under one umbrella.

Chetan Yardi, Country Manager, IBM Lotus Software

What's the business value of social networking for enterprises? How important is it for an enterprise to be represented on social networking sites like LinkedIn? Social Networking has started penetrating enterprises and is making significant changes in the business world. Employees have begun to use technologies such as forums, blogs, wikis and personal profiles to help streamline collaboration and enhance the quality of communication with customers. We call such an use of Social Networking technology as Enterprise Social Networking -ESN. The key benefits of enterprise social networking are that it drives business growth by enabling vibrant communities of employees and customers to create innovative products that can exceed customer expectations, empowers organizations to make bold, successful changes by quickly discovering the best knowledge and skills available. It also helps people work smarter and deliver results by connecting to communities of knowledge based on their needs, roles and preferred ways of working. Finally it improves operational efficiency by surfacing an organization's human capital within the context of a business app or process. In order to exploit the wisdom of social media which technologies should enterprises consider? Social Media should enable organizations to tap the collective intelligence and knowledge to streamline information sharing, business processes and collaborative efforts which in turn boost business productivity. It should act as a natural extension of marketing and customer care and attain higher level of interaction in customer and partner communications. Enterprises should look at adopting social networking technologies which help in enhancing stakes for both the suppliers and end users.

Setting up you own social networking platform isn't the only option you have in your hands. There are many business communities already out there which you can join, and perhaps the most popular one of them all is LinkedIn. Unlike MySpace, LinkedIn promotes your career and business. Recently it added nine new applications that are geared to boost collaboration and productivity in an office setup.

There's yet another trend that goes beyond LinkedIn and business communities. That is to create your own online communities and networks for personal and professional use. This is being offered by players like NIng, Nexo and TamTamy. All these augur a new office environment for businesses.

The road ahead
A Forrester Research study showed that more than 40% of marketers using social networks and user-generated content would increase their investments in the current slowdown.

Given the demand of social networks like MySpace, LinkedIn etc. which are visited by innumerable people, it is most unlikely that such a trend would fade away.
However, there is one serious concern. Social networking sites are potential business tools, as long as you approach them with an adequate amount of caution. Although there are specific privacy guidelines on such sites, the information security is still a debated aspect of the tale. Additionally, the lack of physical contact on such networking site can lower users' natural defenses; leading them into divulging information they would never think of revealing to someone they just met somewhere.

So the future lies with enhancing existing functions, adding new ones, and improving the security.

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