2020 Social: Because Business is Social

What Are the Biggest Use Cases For Corporate Online Communities?

Posted on 07. Mar, 2010 by gaurav in Ideas, Reports

My post on the biggest Social CRM (SCRM) use cases set me thinking about the biggest use cases for corporate online communities.

A company can build and host ten different types of communities to serve different business objectives:

1. Communities of Interest: to connect customers and influencers around a lifestyle, an interest or a cause that is related to the company’s or brand’s values.

2. Communities of Practice: to connect customers and influencers around a profession, a skill or an industry that is related to the company’s offerings.

3. Evangelist Communities: to connect customers who are passionate about the company, its products or its brands and energize them to drive advocacy and referrals.

4. Employee Communities: to connect the company’s employees, in order to build an open culture, improve collaboration amongst distributed teams, or enable knowledge-sharing.

5. Partner Communities: to connect the company’s employees and partners, in order to build an open culture, improve collaboration amongst distributed teams, or enable knowledge-sharing.

6. Talent Communities: to showcase the company’s work culture and employees and attract prospective employees to the company.

7. Ideation Communities: to solicit and select product and process improvement ideas from employees, partners, customers and influencers.

What Are the Biggest Social CRM (SCRM) Use Cases and Market Opportunities?

Posted on 06. Mar, 2010 by gaurav in Ideas, Reports

Altimeter Group has recently released a white paper in which analysts Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang have identified 18 use cases for Social CRM, based on conversations with almost 100 users, influencers and vendors.

Roughly, most of these uses cases can be classified across five business areas (Marketing, Sales, Support, Innovation, Collaboration) and four dynamics (Insights, Response, Proactive, and Crowd-Sourcing). I like this simple action-oriented classification better that coming up with names for each use case combination.

Owyang and Wang have further classified these 18 use cases based on market demand and technology maturity. Market demand reflects the urgency by organizations to deploy a use case while technology maturity reflects the market readiness and maturity of the available solutions.

In this matrix, Evangelizables present the most immediate market opportunity, for both product and consulting company, while Early Movers presents the most important marketing opportunity for product companies.

- Evangelizables (high market demand and high technology maturity): Dominated by insights, response and proactive uses cases for sales, marketing and support.
- Near Tipping Points (low market demand and high technology maturity): Dominated by crowd-sourcing use cases in collaboration and innovation.
- Early Movers (high market demand and low technology maturity): Dominated by response uses cases in sales and marketing.
- Early Adoptions (low market demand and low technology maturity): Dominated by insights use cases in collaboration and innovation.

Decoding Social: How Are Social Technologies Changing Business, Media and Society?

Posted on 02. Mar, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements, Ideas, Media

At 2020 Social, we understand that the nature of knowledge is changing from stock to flow and knowledge will become redundant in the blink of an eye, if not shared with others. On the other hand, if we share knowledge with other, often for free, they repay us with attention, and we create more opportunities for ourselves to learn and share more.

In this spirit, we will be sharing all our research, point of view, conference and workshop decks with the community of social media practitioners and enthusiasts we have learned so much from.

We speak at almost a dozen events every month, and sometimes use the same ideas across talks. For instance, I have given several related talks on “how to scale passion?” or “what can entrepreneurs learn from activists?” at BITS Pilani, IIT Roorkee, TEDIndia, Startup Saturday Delhi, Social Media Club Mumbai, IIT Delhi and Pecha Kucha Bangalore. Each talk is a work-in-progress artifact and I have seen these ideas evolve, each time I talk about them. While individual slide decks for each talk are interesting as artifacts, I’m beginning to think that it’s better to share a master slide deck (that’s in constant beta) so that people can easily refer to the latest iteration of our thinking.

New Openings at 2020 Social: Consumer Practice Lead and Build Competency Lead

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements

As 2020 Social’s suite of offerings have evolved, the senior team is increasingly getting stretched across our competency areas and practice areas.

So, Dave leads our business-to-consumer practice and the plan competency, Kaushal leads our business-to-business practice and the build competency and Gautam leads our employee and partner practice and the engage competency, while I help out across all three competencies and practices.

My target is to take Dave and myself off this grid so that 2020 Social can function even when we are away, let’s say, for speaking at conferences.

To get there, we will need to fill three key positions over the next three months: the business-to-consumer practice lead, the build competency lead and the engage competency lead.

Last week, we announced openings for the first two positions:

- Consultant (1): Ideally Mumbai, but also Delhi or Bangalore

Role: Develop the digital marketing strategy and define the business case for social applications and community platforms for consumer and media clients. Establish thought leadership in the domain of how Indian consumers engage with web, mobile and social technologies through blog posts, white papers and conference talks. Set up the Mumbai office for 2020 Social and establish and grow client relationships. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants and Analysts.

Define Your Sandbox Early, But Stay in Constant Beta

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements

STAYING IN CONSTANT BETA WITHIN A SANDBOX

As an entrepreneur, you need to articulate your offering early in your startup’s life cycle, and still stay open to change, especially if you are in the fast-evolving social technologies space.

After nine months of running 2020 Social, I have learned that the key is to define a big enough sandbox early, then stay in constant beta, and play within that sandbox.

THE EVOLUTION OF 2020 SOCIAL

In June 2009, 2020 Social started off as an insights firm, focused on tracking conversations on the social web and identifying trends international clients could benefit from.

Within a hundred days, we realized that the social opportunity in India itself was big enough and reinvented ourselves as a consulting firm, focused on advising Indian and international clients on how social technologies are impacting their business strategy.

By October, we were ready to move beyond pure-play advisory services and offer full solutions to our clients. Since then, we have been working hard on building our BUILD and ENGAGE capabilities, apart from strengthening our already mature PLAN capabilities.

TOI Article on How Social Activists in India Are Using Social Networking Platforms

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Media

I was quoted recently in a TOI article on how activists are using social networking platforms.

I like how Indian social activists are using social networking platforms for fundraising, or creating awareness for their causes.

Isha Foundation’s $100K win in the Chase Community Giving Contest is a good example of non-profits using social platforms to get support for a cause for fundraising. A very persuasive lady from Isha Foundation even called me to ask me to write a post supporting their bid.

The Wall Project, Batti Bandh, The Bicycle Project and The Sapling Project have all got attention recently for using Twitter and Facebook for promoting their programs. The Pink Chaddi Campaign, Grassroutes, NGOPost, Bell Bajao and Blank Noise are some of my favorite examples of Indian digital activism campaigns.

However, using Facebook and Twitter to spread a brand-related or cause-related message doesn’t excite me anymore. I would be excited if activists used social platforms to enable collaboration, like Vote Report India did, or build a long-term community, like iJanaagraha is trying to do. I have earlier written about the need for activists to go beyond content and conversations, to tap into the collaboration, community and collective intelligence layers. Ellen Miller’s Sunlight Foundation is showing us how in the area of government transparency and accountability.

Forrester Report on Social Technographics in India

Posted on 23. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Reports

Steven Noble from Forrester interviewed me some time back for Forrester’s Social Technographics in India report. Forrester released the report last week and sent me a copy.

The Social Technographics profile is based on in-person interviews with 353 SEC ABC online adult respondents in metropolitan India (including Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai) between March and April 2009.

Using the top Indian website in each category (as per October ‘09 data from Vizisense) as a reference, it’s easy to see that these numbers cannot be right, especially for Joiners –

- Overall Internet Population: 42.9m

- Creators: No estimates
- Critics (Mouthshut): 0.8m (2%)
- Collectors (Digg): 0.9m (2%)
- Joiners (Orkut): 15.5m (36%)
- Spectators (YouTube): 10.9 (25%)
- Inactives: No estimates

I had earlier tried to estimate the Social Technographics profile of metro India using public data. Since then, I have revised some of these estimates, based on Vizisense data and discussions with the JuxtConsult folks.

Incidentally, Forrester also released its new Social Technographics in the US report last week and added a new category called Conversationalists, to factor in the increased importance of status messages on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.

Global Post Article on Caste-Based Communities on Facebook and Orkut

Posted on 23. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Media

I was quoted recently in a Global Post article on caste-based communities on social networking platforms in India.

I have earlier written about how caste-based communities on Facebook and Orkut reflects the realities of India’s splintered society.

The ancient Indian custom of caste has made its way into the modern world of social media.

Social networking site Orkut — the most popular social media platform in India — is not only a place where young, urban Indians can connect with friends like Americans do on Facebook. It’s also a platform where they can meet others in their caste… (and) engage in benign discussions and debates on various caste-related issues like marriage, religion and politics.

So what’s happening here on Orkut, Facebook and other social media sites in India? Some argue the country’s young people no longer feel comfortable talking about caste in public. Instead, they retreat to an anonymous online world to debate and discuss issues. Not everyone agrees.

Social media expert Gaurav Mishra said Orkut and similar sites do not increase caste discussions. Rather, they accurately reflect that Indians still very much identify with their caste and want to form groups around them.

Read More

Agencyfaqs Story on How Real Time Search Is a Game Changer for Marketers and Content Creators

Posted on 23. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Media

I was recently quoted in an Agencyfaqs story on how real time search is a game changer for marketers and content creators.

I believe that real-time search is indeed a game-changer of search. The real power of Twitter lies not in being able to send and receive 140 letter messages, but in being able to search for tweets about people, brands, locations and events in real-time. Twitter realizes this: that’s why it has put search at the center of its redesigned homepage. Facebook realizes this: that’s why they are moving strongly towards a public status message oriented design. Google and Microsoft/ Bing realize this too: that’s why they are working hard to integrate real time status messages in their search results.

The ability to search real time status updates is already changing search behavior for early adopters like myself. I use Twitter search to discover what people are saying about a breaking news story, who else is present at the event I am attending and what are the early reviews for a movie that was released earlier in the day. The next big step is an ability to search for what my friends, people like me, or people near me are saying. As this behavior is adopted by the mainstream, I expect profound repercussions for both brands and publishers.

Agencyfaqs Cover Story on Indian Newspapers and the Internet

Posted on 23. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Media

I was quoted recently in an Agencyfaqs cover story on whether Indian newspapers are losing out on the web.

I have earlier written about noteworthy social media initiatives from Indian news and media companies. Here’s my take on why we haven’t seen more such initiatives so far and why I see it changing over the next 2-3 years.

Newspapers in the US are rushing to build business models for the web because the print business is in trouble. Newspaper readerships and advertising revenues continue to fall and more young people are reading news online than in print.

In India, the newspaper business is in much better shape. Only one-third of Indians read newspapers, which means that there is a lot room to grow readership. Advertising spend in India is low at half a percent of GDP, compared to two percent in most developed countries, so there’s also room to grow advertising revenues, even after factoring in the increasing influence of TV and digital. Finally, the internet user base in India is only one tenth of the newspaper reader base in India, so the numbers don’t always add up for building an online business model.