A contact of mine, Lindy, sent through a link to an interesting article in the Economist - Social networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business. She also asked some questions of the group she sent the link to
It’s an interesting article, albeit quite short. And it touches on a number of issues that are very pertinent.
She asked:
What are your favourite networks? Are they helping you in a business sense?
Do you see potential for them to help you in a business sense in the future?
The notion of ROI on social networking tools in business (Enterprise 2.0) has been the subject of significant discusson and research the past few months; mostly drawing the conclusion that seeing ROI in terms of dollars on Enterprise 2.0 is difficult at best. A quick Google search reveals more than you might care to ever read.
What is measurable, however is qualitative return on allowing and using social networks, social media and E2.0. Are your people collaborating more easily? Are the silos breaking down? Are the Three Cs of social networking - conversation, collaboration and community becoming embedded in your corporate DNA?
It’s these things that are the true measures of the effectiveness of these tools for business. In using them, risks such as losing information through departure of staff with significant tacit knowledge can be mitigated and positive organisational effects such as provision of a learning-based corporate culture and improvements in employee engagement can be seen.
For acidlabs, the use of and teaching organisations about the use of social networking and Enterprise 2.0 tools are both critical. In the first instance, it’s me eating my own dog food - proving the worth of the information I sell as a consulting product. In the second, I really do believe that open communication, knowledge sharing and breaking down of organisation silos, all aided by the use of good social networking tools is the future of business.
For me, I make use of many social networks. I’m probably active on in excess of 20 and a heavy user of 5-7.
Lindy also asked:
If your social networking is not helping you in a business sense… what do you think could change that?
If using social networks isn’t proving productive and useful for your business - taking into account that the ROI is soft and hard to measure - you’re probably not doing it right. You need to take a look at you activities and maybe the social networking readiness of your organisation.
[…] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIn the first instance, it’s me eating my own dog food - proving the worth of the information I sell as a consulting product. In the second, I really do believe that open communication, knowledge sharing and breaking down of organisation … […]
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I’ve found that there is some sort of return on investment for my offensive t-shirts, because the people that usually think my stuff is funny, use myspace. It really is hard to quantify though. To make it work you have to be a ‘real person’. For example you couldn’t reply to messages as ‘Billabong’ or ‘Volcom’ it’s gotta be a personality.
This is so it looks less like marketing and more like being friendly. It takes a big chunk of time though. The best thing to do is try it for yourself. Another company can do exactly as I do and have a terrible conversion rate if their product doesn’t perfectly fit the friends in their group.
NTC08: Social Media ROI Case Study Slam…
| View | Upload your own I’m beginning to post the slides and detailed notes from the session at NTC08 here on my blog and on my Social Media Metrics Wikispace. The introduction set the ground rules and offer these…