Karl Long talks about the McKinsey report on Web 2.0 (we covered it before). He opines on something I dont necessarily agree with:
“IMHO companies are still uncomfortable talking to their customers
directly, actually, uncomfortable allowing “employees” to talk to
customers directly. They like the idea of social networks and
communities, they are easily distinguished from the “company.”

Really? Can you distinguish communities from “the company”. The community is most often an extension of your brand, its presence and your interaction with customers. So how can you disassociate yourself from the community?

If you are, then you are not leveraging the value proposition of communities to extend your brand.

Do you really know who’s on your community?

I think most people expect that if a community is “private” or “invitation-only” then they would end up knowing each other. But if you are running a public community like Digg and expect users to self police, then that creates another mess. Business Week reports on Cleaning Messy Boards, where companies are turning to new tools to prevent “hate-filled arguments or meaningless drivel”.

Every one of our communities does NOT allow anonymous comments, message posts and unidentified participants. That’s the advantage of a Business to Business community versus a Consumer community. We know the users well, their background, most cases have had offline interactions with them at events, etc. so it becomes easier to participate and eases the discussion online.

So then if you do know everyone in your community will you prevent a competitor from joining ?

Vario Creative Blog has a great piece on Business Websites with a Human Side.
Highly recommend you read the entire piece.
“What we’re missing is the human side; the fact that a business is a
community.  If we’re doing our brand right, our customers really want
to think of themselves as part of the team. “

Some important highlights as it appeals to communities:
2. Become the go to source for information on your industry.  You are professional, act like it.  Blog on industry issues,
and bring those blog posts forward to your homepage.  Actively solicite
questions, and answer them on an open format, such as a blog or forum

4. Participate in the online community at large.  Post on forums, comment on blogs,
and do so without trumpeting your products.  It may seem counter
intuitive, but the truth is the web is a place where less can sometime
be more.   By taking part in the online discussion, you will create
good will.  The problem is such groups have extremely limited tolerance
of overt commercialism.  Be careful.

6. Sponsor niche communities in your industry. 
Community sites such as forums generally offer advertising at extremely
competetive rates.  Get your name in front of the right eyeballs by
sponsoring a site where your potential customers would be found.

Referred by My educated Guess

I have been on twitter for a few weeks but never really used it all that much. Got a nudge from a couple of friends so Friday was my “okay lets twitter day”.

Here is a real account of what happened. Most of you that know me would easily agree I have a tendency to “measure every damm thing I do to get better” – but that’s my personality type. I have been an early adopter ofmost web 2 stuff, but only to see if it will save me some time, make my life simpler or make me show that I am as smart as my wife.

I sent my “friend” external twitter  to my closest friends (8 to be exact), not the public mukund one – since that’s for every one else. If you know me well you know my nickname and that’s my “friend” twitter name.

1. Friday 7:54 am: At school; dropping off the kids; I have a few min before the “door” officially opens, so I twitter “I am at school waiting with the kids.” Friend calls me in 2 min – says his forgot to pay $5.50 for his son’s “hot lunch” at Stratford. This is lunch money. He is about 7 miles from school. Asks me if I can go to the office and pay for. No problem I say. If he had to come by from work and drive to and from, it would have taken him 27 min (he is 7 miles each way) and Sunnyvale  by lanes and roads are average 29 miles / hour.

Savings: Gas 14 miles (he drives a 2001 minivan, assuming 14 mil/gallon – saved $3.29 (current costco per gallon price at Fremont). Plus he saved 27 min and at his current pay, that’s $28.8

2. 8:17 am: Both kids are at school, get into the car, my blackberry buzzes. Another friend says “@#$#@$ gas is now 3.92 at SFO.” I have to drive to meet Tom SFO (Market and Embarcadero). Prompted me to check my gas tank – hmm I could use gas.

Savings: My Audi takes 13.5 gallons and at 32 cents savings over SFO, I saved $4.32

3. 4.28 pm: Decide to check out early. Gotta prepare for Rishab’s birthday. Wife calls, saying can you pick up a few things before you come home? Gives me a list of 4 things. I twitter “Gotta go pick up stuff from Whole foods”. I get an immediate SMS and emails from 2 other friend’s wives – they give me a list of 3 other things. Mukund, we are coming to the party tomorrow, so we will pick up the stuff from your home. Average distance to the three friends to Whole foods (to and from) is 17 miles.

Savings: Total miles = 51, cost of gas @ 3.29 = saves 9.87. 3 friends saving 47 min each (not standing and waiting in the line, driving) totals 141 minutes and at their pay it saves us another $56.4

Total savings: 9.87+ 4.32 + 56.4 + 3.29 + 28.8 = $102.68

I know this is not much, but for something I like to do and the amount of time it took it was GREAT ROI – for my friends and their wives.

Here’s what I learned about using twitter for productivity gain:
1. Dont sign up to be followers for a bunch of “known influential twitterers” – much as I like some of them its too much information with not much value. – Keep it close to your friends and really people that can benefit from knowing “what are you doing”?

2. If I could setup folders of friends who I want to send messages to, that’s better. Beats email – which is SLOWWWWWWWW.

3. If you have a globally located team – like we do at Canvas Group, then twitter is awesome for team based collaboration. No point getting frustrated that Kalpesh is not returning calls quick enough from Bangalore because I know he’s with his friends at a bowling alley where connectivity is poor.

I have been Twittering for the last few weeks – as you can see from the widget on the right. I live on my Blackberry so here’s the easiest way to twitter using blackberry.

1. Get an account on twitter
2. Download Google talk for blackberry
3. Setup IM to Gtalk in Twitter
4. Add twitter@twitter.com to your google talk contacts
5. Send all twitter messages as if you are chatting with twitter@twitter.com

VOILA!

Say you are running a community (Support, Developer, Partner, etc.). Your marketing person gets wind of it and wants to learn more and tells his “executive team” – this thing is going to be huge. How can marketing get in on it?

You realize marketing always has had the opportunity to spend money without real ROI or justification, so you guess getting more budget wont be a bad thing for the community.

You also know that getting them in would mean some things good and some bad for the community.

So what’s your decision criteria to opt-in marketing to the community? Do you say lets keep it clean and simple? OR will you say lets have a party? Let me know.

BTW a side note: I subscribe to Todd And’s power 150 marketing blog OPML file and there is MORE content that comes from that to my feed reader than CNN, CNNFN, CBS Marketwatch, BBC, SJ Mercury News, NY Times COMBINED.

These marketing bloggers sure have tons of stuff to say.

Courtsey of grokdotcom. Poynter Institute released a report on eye tracking and people reading content online.

“When readers chose to read an online story, they usually
read an average of 77% of the story, compared to 62% in broadsheets and
57% in tabloids…

Online, however, about half of readers are methodical, while the other half scan,
the report found. The survey also revealed that large headlines and
fewer, large photos attracted more eyes than smaller images in print.
But online, readers were drawn more to navigation bars and teasers.”

So people do read content online. The trouble is sifting through junk, ok and good to get through the great.

Talking about an effective community manager, lets discuss the typical character traits of such a person:

• Knowledgeable about the community’s domain
  
• Well connected to a range of community members
  
• Recognized by peers as competent in a broad range of community subjects
  
• Widely known and respected for his/her ability to facilitate a group of key contributors
  
• Maintains the group’s focus on establishing areas of common interest and priorities
  
• Puts the community as a priority over the company
  
• Is an educator and teaches the community about the company and its products, often in a non-invasive manner
  
• Uses the tools and communication style of the community
  
• Puts a human face on the company, both online and at events
  
• Connects the right people in the company with the right customers and knows when to get out of the way
  
• Pushes through barriers at the corporate level

I recently read the article “Twitter: All Trivia, All The Time” in BusinessWeek’s April 2nd issue.  I was amazed at how connected people want to be.  I have never Twittered myself but this is a perfect example of a very connected social network. 


If you don’t know what Twitter is, it is a Web 2.0 service that counts about 80,000 subscribers.  It’s service is a take off of instant messaging.  It lets subscribers send short updates about their daily “goings on” through cell phones and personalized web sites to groups of people instead of just individuals. 

The article indicated that people have used it to inform friends about hot parties, restaurants, missed meetings sickness, and panels.  Essentially what ever someone wants.

To me this is a perfect setup of how to get buzz going around a new initiative for a company.  For example, as your development team is producing something have them twitter cool key things about the product or service.  Let users twitter back about these features and it is almost like you are getting feedback real time.  A second example, is a marketing blitz around the launch of a new product.  Have key clients twitter how they are using/interacting with the product all day long. 

However, social networking is put to use it is going to be successful as long as it involves a certain amount of “fun”.

What do you think?

The Pharma industry typically tends to be a good leading indicator for things about software and enterprise software in particular. So I was naturally inclined to read this piece on CNNFN about Pity the poor pharma sales rep.

Here is a synopsis:
“It’s hard out there for drug sales reps–particularly if they work in places where gaining access to doctors is becoming increasingly difficult.”

“Kindler did not explain how the rep would win this coveted half-hour
with the doctor. But Joseph Tooley, analyst for A.G. Edwards &
Sons, said the best way for a rep to get a doctor’s attention is to
have a new product that’s demonstrated, through credible clinical
tests, to have an edge over its rivals.”

So lets review:
1. Sales reps use hard sell tactics – Same for software
2. Generics are preferred by many – Open source movement in software
3. Doctors are slamming their doors on pushy sales reps – Same for an enterprise sale rep

The one interesting thing is that new products that have demonstrated success and have a good product.

That is the easy part. But the other part is to get that information to doctors from other doctors.

That’s where you community comes in. Assuming you have a great product (big assumption) and your “problem” is getting the message about it to potential customers, the biggest champions would be your existing customers.

So if you are talking to the VP of Sales and want to get him to buy into online communities (especially if you are in an enterprise software company) the value of the community as a great door opener (based on the content and based on referrals from other customers) should be obvious.