2020 Social: Because Business is Social

Getting your organization ready for Social Media with a Policy

Posted on 03. Jun, 2010 by Gautam in How To Guides, Trends

My colleague Dave Evans has written a great article on Clickz about how critical it is for businesses to set up social computing policies.

I quote:

Current social computing and social media policies range from an outright prohibition of employee participation on the social Web, including at home (yes, some firms do this), to the more open – and very much informed – use of social media by Zappos, Dell, and IBM. Zappos encourages employees to participate. Dell builds disclosure into the social media handles of employees: “@StefanieAtDell” runs @DellOutlet. IBM’s policies clarify that employees using social media should refrain from using “we” and instead use “I” when publishing posts or comments that might relate to the workplace. At SAS Institute, employees using Twitter include a statement to the effect “these views are (mine) and not those of SAS” in their profile.

These are all solid examples of how to smartly approach social media and its use by employees. It’s essential that your employees understand the rules, ahead of time. Situations involving employees and social media will arise. If you don’t have social computing policies in place now, consider making this a priority.

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IT Employer brands on Social Media

Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Gautam in Reports

I blogged about this report earlier, and so the time has come to share the full report with you.

To analyse the conversations and mentions of an Employment Brand on the social web we looked at them in these ways:

1. What are the work and HR related conversations that people are having? These would be linked to an employee’s personal work or a prospective employee’s perception of work in the organization.
2. What are people mentioning about the Organizational Culture?
3. What are people mentioning about the Leadership/Leader of a firm
4. What are the news items around deals, results that are being mentioned and referenced on the social web?

Some highlights:

Analysis of Conversations related to Human Resource issues

• TCS HR issues were mentioned the most followed by Infosys
• Negative mentions in this category were most for Infosys

Organizational Culture issues are a key component of discussions

• Culture gets defined externally by various organizational activities from CSR to Sports
• Such activities are mentioned in an overwhelming positive tone on the social web

TCS and Wipro led the conversations when it came to news - The nature of news determines the tone with news about salary increases being cheered by the online crowd.

The Social Employer Manifesto

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Gautam in Announcements

David Armano recently posted the Social Business manifesto focusing on the relationship between a social business and its customers.
So I thought I’d give a shot to making a manifesto for the Social Business and its relationship with employees.

1. We will no longer view you as “employees” only to do the work you are assigned. Instead, you are co-creators, participants, critics and advocates.
2. We will actively ask for your input on products, services, structures, processes and give it to you to co-create them with us.
3. We will focus not on the time you spend in office but the results you achieve.
4. We will provide value, not jobs.
5. We will provide you the tools to connect across silos, departments, locations to meet the changing demands of a networked economy and social customers.
6. We will focus on your needs vs. our ends.
7. We will together focus on reducing the noise within the organization.
8. We will together destroy processes that do not let us build human relationships within and without.
9. We will encourage you to build relationships that connect all of us with partners, stakeholders and customers in ways where we all benefit.

Analyzing Brands’ Mentions on the Social Web

Posted on 24. May, 2010 by Gautam in Reports

Often people wonder – sure there are people discussing our firm and brand on various social networking platforms like Twitter, Blogs and discussion forums, but how can we quantify it? How are we perceived overall? What are the themes people talk about? And is it mostly positive or negative?

So we at 2020 Social decided to do a little experiment.

We took a look at all the India based conversations on the social web which mentioned 5 Indian IT companies – Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Cognizant and Patni Computers over a period of one month (March 2010) and then analysed them.

The findings were quite interesting.

We found that the themes that these conversations could be classified in the following areas: Relating to HR, Culture, Leadership and News items.

Most of these mentions (86%) were overwhelmingly in microblogs followed by discussion forums and then by blogs.

Most mentions were around news items, followed by Culture and HR

Take Aways from the report:

• There is a lot of discussion about IT firms related to work and HR related subjects .
• There is little or no engagement that the organizations are taking to connect with influencers and to drive the conversations

LiveMint Story on My NASSCOM Foundation Workshop on Social Media for Non-Profits

Posted on 02. May, 2010 by admin in Media

LiveMint recently did a story on my NASSCOM Foundation workshop on social media for non-profits.

Here is the video interview –

Here is the full text of the LiveMint story –

Why and how nonprofits should use social media
Gaurav Mishra, CEO of 2020 Social, talks about how Indian nonprofits can best use social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to further their causes

It’s hard being a nonprofit these days. In an increasingly competitive world populated by increasingly busy people who are increasingly careful about how they spend their money in a post-recession era, nonprofits are struggling more than ever to raise awareness, attract volunteers, and generate a long-term interest in the causes they work for.

Strapped for time, money and manpower, more and more nonprofits are turning to sites like Facebook and Twitter, hoping to leverage these free platforms to generate mass interest at minor costs. However the social media space, like the real world, is crowded, noisy and extremely competitive, and many nonprofits after setting up that Facebook fan page or Twitter account are at a loss as to what to do next.

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My NASSCOM Foundation Workshop on Social Media for Non-Profits

Posted on 02. May, 2010 by admin in Events

Here is the 175+ slide deck from my NASSCOM Foundation workshop on social media for non-profits.

I built upon the themes from my NASSCOM Emerge workshop on social media for B2B marketers and argued that “social media strategy” isn’t really about “social media tools”, but about answering three questions –

- Who are our evangelists and why will they talk about us? Or, how to identify passion?
- How can we organize and energize our evangelists? Or, how to ignite passion?
- How can we help our evangelists spread the word? Or, how to scale passion?

I also argued that this outside-in cause-first approach should be natural to non-profits, except that non-profits often forget that they are in the business of changing people’s lives, not running a more popular program, with more funding and more staff. I pointed out the irony that I often tell marketers and entrepreneurs to behave more like activists, but also have to remind non-profits to behave more like activists themselves.

My NASSCOM Emerge Workshop on Social Media For B2B Marketers

Posted on 26. Apr, 2010 by admin in Events

Here is the mammoth 225+ slide deck from my NASSCOM Emerge full day Workshop on Social Media For B2B Marketers.

I started off by being provocative and arguing that “social media strategy” isn’t really about “social media”, but about answering three questions –

- Who are our evangelists and why will they talk about us? Or, how to identify passion?
- How can we organize and energize our evangelists? Or, how to ignite passion?
- How can we help our evangelists spread the word? Or, how to scale passion?

I have riffed on the same idea during my GoaFest 2010 talk on how marketing is changing. The NASSCOM Emerge workshop helped me sharpen it and resulted in the post: Everything You Need To Know About Social Media Marketing In Seven Short Steps.

The deck itself is a little rough around the edges, but I’ll tighten it up and replace the present version, so do feel free to embed and share it –

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics Blog For Marketers, Entrepreneurs and Activists.

Everything You Need To Know About Social Media Marketing In Seven Short Steps

Posted on 25. Apr, 2010 by admin in Ideas

Here’s everything you need to know about social media marketing in seven short steps:

1. The biggest risk with social media is in not engaging in public conversations about your brand. So, do engage yourself and encourage your employees to engage. Ask them not to do things that will embarrass themselves or you, but expect them to. All of us have embarrassed ourselves in public, more than once, so will they. It’s okay.

2. The only solution for negative conversations is more positive conversations. Responding to and resolving negative conversations is table stakes. The only way to win at social is by inspiring your evangelists to start and spread more positive conversations about you. So, put in place a process to track and resolve negative conversations, then focus on energizing your evangelists.

3. So, start by asking: Who are our present and potential evangelists? Who do they talk to? Who talks to them? What else do they talk about? What are their triggers to talk? Why do we want them to talk about us? In effect, you are creating a persona for your evangelists, except that instead of using it to design a website, you would use it to design a web of talkworthy touchpoints.

Skills For Social Media Evangelists

Posted on 23. Apr, 2010 by Gautam in Announcements

What do you need to make your business “social”?

Caroline Dangsen puts down some characteristics she thinks the social media evangelist needs to shepherd the organization to become social:

• Passion for the business
• Appreciation for the organization’s cultural heritage
• Limitless determination and stamina
• Ability to influence
• Skills to maneuver the political landscape

These five characteristics are in addition to excellent interpersonal skills and a passion for social media.

Looking at these – it is worth noting that these are similar to Change Management skills – and I think Enterprise 2.0 and social media evangelists should look at the already considerable literature on driving organizational change – and take some pages out for it – and focus less on the tools and more on the cultural aspects. Caroline’s post is worth reading in this light

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What Does the Ning Fiasco Mean For the Future of Niche Networks and the Freemium Business Model?

Posted on 16. Apr, 2010 by admin in Ideas

Earlier today, Jason Kincaid at Techcrunch leaked published an internal memo from new Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal in which he announced his decision to phase out Ning’s free “build your own social network” service to focus on premium networks and lay off more than a third of its staff.

The announcement has triggered a number of reactions, around three predominant themes –

1. Et Tu Ning!: By phasing out its free service Ning is betraying its Network Creators who have bought into its promise of “build your own social network for free” and invested time and effort to build their niche communities. Even though some Network Creators could pay for premium accounts, most would move out of Ning, to other free or premium options like Buddypress, Kickapps or even Posterous.

My take: Ning’s about turn does feel like a betrayal and even network creators like myself who are already paying for premium services will like Ning less for it. However, I expect Ning to offer an entry level premium option in the $10 to $20 a month range, and I expect most networks with more than a few hundred members to stay on with Ning, partly because there’s no easy option to transition the networks to another service.