2020 Social: Because Business is Social » Trends

Getting your organization ready for Social Media with a Policy

Gautam — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:07:31 +0000

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.

Where do you start? First, visit IBM’s page on social computing policies. Social computing policies are not a “one size fits all” proposition, but reviewing IBM’s and other firms in your own industry is a great place to start. Then, go meet your legal team: show them the policies of other firms like yours and the best practices of firms like IBM’s and ask them to draft a set. Champion this effort and sell it in through HR.

Not only will you do yourself a lot of good – in the process, you will become the organization-wide go-to person for smart decisions involving social media – but you’ll also set in place a larger team of people within your organization that understands how social media can be responsibly brought into the business. That’s a huge win, and it sets you and your team up for further advances as you push from social media-based marketing to a more holistic social business.

With your policies in place, the next hurdle you’ll likely face is what to do about employee social media in places like Facebook, where individual pages or pages of their friends may or may not reflect the kinds of activities that you want your customers seeing. I’m not saying…I’m just saying, as the expression goes.

Read the full article. It’s well worth your time!

And also check this list of social media policies courtesy the Altimeter Group.

Cross posted on Gautam Ghosh on Organizations 2.0

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Social Media News Stories 22nd March-2nd April

Hardeep Kaur Rai — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:53:22 +0000

News stories from 22^nd March-2^nd April:

1) The Times of India featured a story ‘India’s first You-Tube star’ by Javed Anwar on 22^nd March that chronicled the rise of Wilbur Sargunaraj after his video ‘Love Marriage’ garnered indisputable fame. The 32 year old from Madurai has joined the ‘fame club’, with even the Digg community featuring him amongst its top stories and the article quoting celebrated movie critic Roger Ebert daring his followers on Twitter ‘not to like this Indian music video with its smiling bride’. However it seems this is not Wilbur’s first attempt with his first song ‘Blog Song’ uploading on You-Tube in July 2007 and numerous others after that.

Comment- YouTube is a rage in India and the above article is an instance supporting it. Whilst, it would be difficult to ascertain the exact geography of its audience, the fact that You-Tube is now a must medium for individuals and brands to communicate and explore is reason enough to watch it keenly.

2) An article ‘Facebookers more loyal to media than Google’ appeared in DNA on 22^nd March that elaborated on the growing prowess of Facebook to pull in visitors to news and media websites than those brought in by Google News.

Comment- This again underlines the influential capabilities of Facebook as an advertising platform and it wouldn’t be surprising if Facebook soon overtakes Google, given its popularity.

3) Twitter makes an interesting addition as the article ‘Enter Twitter’s new @anywhere platform’ by Pradeep Kumar reported on 23^rd March in Bangalore Mirror. The article elaborates on the new offering by quoting Twitter CEO Evan Williams, ‘We’ve developed a new set of frameworks. Soon sites many of us visit everyday will recreate these open, engaging interactions providing a new layer of value for visitors without sending them to Twitter.com. Site owners need to only drop in a few lines of Javascript. This new set of frameworks is called @anywhere’.

Comment- The offering has the scope to facelift Twitter from merely a social network to a new medium of interaction throughout the web.

4) Saabira Chaudhuri’s article ‘Government 2.0’ in Mint on 23^rd March elaborated at length on the role of social media in bringing governments closer to its public while citing the example of the US government to make the point. The article states, ‘ social media forces more transparency in government, offers the public easier access to information and lowers the barriers to political participation’.

Comment- Considering the enthusiastic adoption of social media and the exhaustive appetite of Indians for all things online, it is to the benefit of the Indian government to be at par with its public. With Facebook understanding the sheer power of the online Indians and opening a Hyderabad Office, it’s time that politicos at home understood and made the effort to connect with its audience online. Staying away or avoiding the online sphere will only work to their detriment. The Indian Government can utilize the social platforms for disseminating information and pave the way for policymaking through dialogue and debate.

5) Social media contributes to another cause as reported by Mint’s Krish Raghav in the article ‘Wake up Delhi’ on 24^th March. As reported, a citizen-campaign Let’s do it! Delhi wielded the power of social media platforms to reach out to Delhi-ites in a bid to come together and clean up the city in the run up to the Commonwealth Games. The article states, ‘LDID is unique because of the way it’s organized- completely through Twitter and Facebook and other social networks and its reliance on individuals to spare their time and effort for the cause’.

Comment- Activists and campaigners are the biggest beneficiaries of the social media wave, particularly in India. Social networking sites, blogs, wikis, forums etc are all the now- tools to campaign or advocate a cause or issue.

6) In an interesting and one that would definitely have remarkable after-effects, Financial Chronicle featured an article ‘Brands may contest keyword sales, court rules’ on 24^th March. The article reported, ‘The European Union’s highest court rules that brand owners may have the right to block Google from selling their trademarks as keywords that generate advertisements on Google’s search engine. Advertising agencies say that brand owners face multiple hits from Google’s practice of selling the names as keywords. Not only does it drive up the price the owner hast o pay, but the owner must spend more to protect its brands and it loses sales to counterfeiters or competitors’.

Comment- The ruling brings much relief to brands who have at length crusaded for the sake of maintaining their brand’s authenticity, particularly those belonging to the fashion and consumer segment. However, it remains to be seen how Google chooses to act around losing its business that accounts to a major stake in its revenue.

7) Deccan Chronicle featured an article ‘Life after search’ by Deepak Kumar on 25^th March that elaborated on the role of social networking sites and search engines using the analogy of Facebook and Google. The author states, ‘While Google caters primarily to our information needs, Facebook caters to our communication needs and also acts as a gateway to information. In other words, information posted on a social media user page will be more filtered and specific to the user than a search engine result. Also, a good post will often see more information pour in as follow-up comments and links. A corollary would be that search engines are increasingly becoming utilities. That the dominance of search engines is giving way to the dominance of social media implies that we are moving from an information-centric web to a communication-and-information web’.

Comment- It seems that we may be audience to the day when Facebook will overtake Google in terms of website rankings. While the latter currently holds the number one spot, the former provides a tough competition at the second position as per the website ranking engine Alexa.com

8) New entry into the social media this week are the airlines as reveals this article ‘Airliners land on Facebook, Twitter Runaway’ by Mamta Todi in The New Indian Express on 26^th March. The article sheds light on the new trend, ‘In a bid to reach out to more people at an informal level, an increasing number of airlines have started using popular social networking sites to provide flight information and details on latest offers and to get feedback from passengers, among other things’.

Comment- Given the sheer enthusiasm for Facebooking, Twittering and the adoption for other social media in India, it is a known fact that fliers frequently let off steam or praise for airlines online. Thus, it was only natural for airlines to tap into the social medium to connect and interact with potential and present customers.

9) The Hindu featured an article ‘Live Updates makes IPL hotter’ by Ajai Sreevatsan on IPL marking a change not just in the sports arena but also in the social media landscape on 26^th March. The article elaborates, ‘A dedicated YouTube channel, Facebook games and iPhone apps have changed the way sport is telecast and consumed. The venture into virtual space has just solidified the stance. Personalized apps have urged fan following onto push notifications; die-hard love for the game to streaming video replays and sporting success to gripping statistics’.

Comment- IPL has redefined sports marketing and YouTube has a huge contribution to this by enabling live broadcasting. Ofcourse, this also works to the advantage of YouTube in its self-positioning as the ultimate content provider and distributor.

10) The Times of India featured an article ‘Vertical Vortex’ by Mahafreed Irani on 29^th March that elaborated on the new trend in social media of upcoming niche social networking sites. The article states, ‘An increasing number of sites which pigeonhole networkers on the basis of age, gender. Profession, hobby, locality or mode of transport are blossoming. The interaction on these sites tends to be esoteric’.

Comment- Due to their segmented nature, such sites have an added advantage for advertisers who can connect specific target audience for products or services.

11) DNA ran an article announcing ‘Facebook scouting for India head, team’ by K V Ramana on 30^th March. The article quoted Don Faul, Facebook’s director of global online operations, ‘India is one of the most dynamic places to be in the social web right now. India’s innovative and tech-savvy environment inspires us to invest heavily here. We will start with a small initial team and are anticipating further growth as our office in Hyderabad expands. Our team in Hyderabad includes experts in Facebook product to help users with their questions, as well as specialists in online advertising to best serve our advertisers with their campaigns’.

Comment- Facebok considers India as the next hot-spot and to ensure its footing in the right place at the right time for growth in business and operations, it is recruiting local talent for long term benefit.

12) Another IPL news bite comes to light with the article ‘IPL fans hooked to YouTube now’ by Devashree Goenka on 30^th March. The article reported, ‘Cricket enthusiasts are flocking to the website not just to watch match highlights, but also to dissect games with viewers all over the globe.

Comment-Fans are getting a chance to engage via the YouTube IPL brand channel and this has the potential to be tapped into as a community of cricket enthusiasts. The IPL & YouTube saga is a case-study providing quite a learning curve for online interaction and engagement.

13) Financial Chronicle featured an article ‘A 21^st century approach to a search for good old-fashioned salesmanship’ on 30^th March that elaborated on the latest gimmick of a YouTube contest being undertaken by advertising giant OgilvyOne Worldwide as the means to find the world’s greatest salesperson. Shedding light on the contest the article reports, ‘No sales experience will be required to enter the contest, which will be conducted in 15 countries, among them Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India and the United States. The prize is a 3month long job at OgilvyOne-called a fellowship by the agency-during which the winner will help OgilvyIne write a guide to selling in the 21st century. Contest entrants, who must be above 18 years of age, will submit video clips one to two minutes long to the YouTube brand channel. To ensure the playing field is level, all submissions are to be in English, and entrants are supposed to submit sales pitches for the same product: a common everyday red brick’.

Comment- Ogilvy known for its creative ideas has once again come up with a rather unique concept to re-create the art of selling.

14) What does online connect incorporate today comes to light in this article ‘Blogosphere basics: always plugged in’ by Varuni Khosla on 30^th March in Mint. The article showcases the 24/7 online presence of Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 2020 Social and quotes, ‘I live my life on the internet. Between my Lenovo Thinkpad X61, Nokia N97, iPod Touch and Amazon Kindle and the four data connections I pay for, I am always online.’ The article goes on to list his online essential sites, presences and frequently used applications.

Comment- The above is an example of the life of today’s digital nomad and how one’s online personas are an important medium of expression and connection,

15) On 2^nd April Mint featured a story ‘Companies take to social media, target young clientele’ by P R Sanjai and Sapna Aggarwal that elaborated on how Indian firms are increasingly opting for social media to capture the eye of the youth. The article reports, ‘As firms in India jump on to the social media bandwagon they are increasing their digital media spending budgets to promote brands and products through online networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The article further quotes Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 2020Social, ‘Around 60% of Indian marketers are in a state where they are not sure about what to do in social media, while 20% has done some work on social media. The rest are thinking about what’s afte the traditional marketing medium’.

Comment- Given the tech-savvy leanings of young Indians, it is unavoidable that online social campaigns would increase. Firms that choose to ignore or avoid the phenomenon will soon be left behind by their competitors.

One can say the past two weeks have definitely been quite surprising on news and trends.

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The Emerging Role of the Community Manager

Gautam — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:02:08 +0000

In my previous post, I stated that soon Recruiters and Hiring Manager would evolve from users of search engines and headhunters – to also adding their skill sets by becoming Talent Community Managers.

A valid question is – what does an Online Community Manager do? What are the skill sets, and what is the nature of this new emerging role? Do they really tweet and facebook all day long? A dream job for social networking addicts, perhaps?

Here’s an interesting post on the Responsibilities of Community Managers by Itamar Kestenbaum (@tweetamar) on the Techipedia blog.

Here’s what the key roles are according to him:

Make friends in the Industry
Look at boring stats and make them interesting
Have a little knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Develop Relationships with Clients
Get Co-Workers Involved Online
Organize Logistics of Social Media generated Operations
Connect Good-Will for brand
Work with web developers to update your site to web2.0
Strategize with your webmaster to create a better conversion
Create and Execute Email Blasts

As more and more organizations move into managing online communities of customers, partners and employees – be prepared to see more and more roles being added to this list.

Until then – go ahead and read the full post.

If you are a Community Manager I would love to hear from you! Drop me an email

cross posted at Gautam on Organizations 2.0

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What Are the Biggest Use Cases For Corporate Online Communities?

Cultural Change in Organizations and Social Technologies

Gautam — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:58:20 +0000

As an Organizational Behavior person, I believe that Culture trumps strategy. And of course, can derail tactics and events that go against the grain of the culture within no time.

Today, I was talking to a CEO of a professional services firm who was sharing how he had tried to champion a micro-blogging tool within his firm to share information across locations and silos and how the fact they were a hierarchical organization probably killed the tool’s effectiveness.

Yes, technology, even when championed by the CEO can fail if it runs into culture.

Think of culture like the running river, and any initiative like a rock. The rock seems strong. With executive sponsorship, resources, and sometimes external consulting. Eventually the river wins. Not by strength but by persistence.

So this post by Paul Greenberg (@pgreenbe) on the Enterprise Irregulars blog was quite interesting.

From 2004 on, people seized control of how they communicated 24/7. What devices they used, what tools they used, what channels they used, when they communicated, what they expected as a result of that communication, what kind of response they got, all shifted into the hands of the individual. In the world of business, communications about a company no longer needed some company venue to occur. For a communication or array of communications to affect a company, it didn’t have to occur with the company’s acquiescence. Even more telling, it could occur without the company’s knowledge. This meant that the company no longer controlled its own destiny in regard to its customers, though it, of course, continued to control its own operations. (the fact that the company still needs to run itself is one of the things at the core of the difference between Social CRM and almost anything else with the word “social” in it) The conversation passed into the hands of the customers – meaning they could damage, grow. or affect somewhere in between, a company without the company having much to say about it.

Culture can be grown – enabled – in the direction which employees want to take it.

The question is – will leaders’ give up the control?

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Social Media Stories 6-12th March

Hardeep Kaur Rai — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:44:12 +0000

So another week passes us by and we bring to you a round up of news stories and happenings from the Indian social media sphere.

1) The Economic Times featured an article on the latest takers of social networking sites ‘Social Networking Bug bites’ by Sarah Jacob and Harsimran Julka on 6^th March. The article states, ‘More than ever before seniors are finding themselves drawn online for the same reasons as young adults; to stay in touch with family and friends, meet new people from the comfort of home, bridge the generation gaps and even find jobs’.

Comment- It was only a matter of time before this would happen. Considering the popularity of social networking sites as well as the speed at which technology is becoming simpler and efficient, it makes sense for seniors to join in on the fun and build on interests while maintaining relationships and other parts of life.

2) Yet again another article elaborating on online security and the threat users face every time they are online. Business Standard featured an article ‘Safety hinges on getting your digital doors right’ by Priyanka Joshi and Shivani Shinde on 8^th March. The article states, ‘According to experts, there’s no ‘perfect’ solution for protecting consumer data and identities online. More and more attacks are going in for direct attacks on the end user, attempting to trick them into downloading malware or divulging sensitive information’. The article then proceeds to list the numerous ways hackers hack user profiles through applications on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, online advertisements on trusted websites including newspaper websites, search engines like Google, emails and the latest trend of hacking mobile phones through applications.

Comment- As mentioned every week, it is imperative the user takes personal responsibility to ensure online security. This includes installing adequate protection software, having different passwords for online shopping, networking and bank accounts and more importantly verifying links and applications before exploring them.

3) The Asian Age featured an article ‘Heat on Web 2.0 companies’ on 10^th March that elaborated on the increasing accountability that internet companies especially Google and Facebook are facing in lieu of increasing malicious online content and activities. The article states, ‘Although Google, Facebook and their rivals have enjoyed a relatively “safe harbor” from prosecution over user-generated content in Europe and the US, they face a public that increasingly is more inclined to blame them for cyber-bullying and other online transgressions’. The article further reports on debates ensuing on the freedom provided by the Internet to all the users and its censorship challenging the very core of Internet.

Comment- While it is impractical to expect Internet service providers and web sites to police the entire world web, it does make sense to set up rules to regulate content and take immediate action by removing or banning material. While China polices the web and Syria bans Facebook, countries across the world are allowing for guidelines for its nation for web companies to follow.

4) Economic Times featured an interesting write-up on the use and impact of social media in its article ‘Live action’ on 10^th March. The article states, ‘social media is having an explosive effect on the experiential campaigns creating the potential to multiply thousands of brand interactions into millions. Thanks to widespread consumer awareness of Twitter and YouTube, for example, the digital element of campaigns can work before, during and after a marketing event. Some experts argue that social media offers fewer opportunities for FMCG products, but, as manufacturers have discovered, consumers are willing to exchange views online about virtually any purchased product. But because social media is free, its use is ideal for low-budget campaigns. One outstanding issue is how to measure results. The impact of both experiential and social media activity is hard for marketers to quantify.’

Comment- Brands are increasingly understanding the power of online conversations and communities to pull consumers into a dialogue. Having an online conversation works to the benefit of both the brand and the consumers- consumers get an insight into what the brand is really about and the brand gains insights into consumer perceptions. In many instances, brands also gain consumers who are more than willing to become brand ambassadors.

5) Outlook Money featured an informative article ‘The Right Connect’ by Anagh Pal on 10th March elaborating on a profession in the social media industry. Talking about the future of such a niche profession, the article states, ‘Social media in India is still in a nascent stage, but with the number of users estimated to be more than 19 million in December 2008 and growing over 50 %, things are changing fast‘. Further enlightening the reader about the financial packages attached to the profession, the article states, ‘Salaries depend on job profiles, skills set and experience. For a tracker who has the most basic job, it could be Rs one lakh a year or so. With 3-4 years of experience behind him, a person would gradually move into other roles and can expect a salary of Rs 3-4 lakhs per annum. The article quotes Gaurav Mishra, CEO 2020Social, ‘ Social media skills are a multiplier to all sorts of conventional functions. A layer of social media skills over and above your core skills set can help you add value to yourself and your organization.

Comment- Like it or not, social media is here to stay. And this is evident enough with brands, marketers, celebrities and numerous other entities riding the social media wave to engage, communicate and build relationships with the right audience.

6) Hindustan Times featured coverage on MySpace in its article ‘MySpace overhaul to rekindle growth’ on 11^th March and talked about the challenges facing the one-time Internet leader. The article reports plans to roll out a new version of the site that is built to interlock the music and media content. MySpace also faces the biggest challenge of replacing its 3 year advertising deal with Google that expires in August this year.

Comment- MySpace faces a difficult task ahead to gain more users and reclaim its place on the popular site listing. Facebook and Twitter are its biggest competitors and it would be interesting to see how the two new presidents at MySpace will take this forward.

7) The New Indian Express discussed a new trend on social media of ‘Going online to deal with exams’ on 11^th March. There is growing tendency amongst students to explore online communities on Orkut, Facebook, Hi5 and other social networking sites to discuss queries in addition to visiting web sites and blogs to gain information on entrance exams for numerous courses, discuss queries with experts as well as download helpful material like previous papers, official links etc for free.

Comments- Social media comes to the rescue once again paving the way for a brighter future ahead by connecting experts to students who need guidance and support. Communities like Orkut, Facebook and Hi5 lead the way. in such conversations.

8) Another new trend comes to light, though this time from the political arena. DNA featured an article ‘Poll candidate go Tweeting and Wall-Posting before campaigning’ by Sunitha.Rao.R on 11^th March that reported on how Indian political party LokSatta is e-campaigning as part of its Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections.

Comment- With the younger generation showing an interest in politics and political leaders understanding that technology is the best way forward to connect with the next generation voters and also gain feedback, volunteers and even funds from NRIs.

9) The New Indian Express featured an article ‘Tweeple and the virtual reality of T20’ by Joby Joseph on 12^th March that elaborated on how social networking sites are set to become the widest platform for discussing the IPL. Tweets, Live broadcasting, online games and Facebook and Orkut communities are all pushing ahead the IPL fever. The article states, ‘Lalit Modi, IPL Commissioner’s belief in virtual media hardly went wrong with all the traditional media, including print and visual , having started following the internet-driven world with vigour’.

Comment- By broadcasting the matches live on YouTube, Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner has ensured that Indians elsewhere are also hooked on to the IPL fever, in addition to those at home. The IPL is only growing into a full-fledged franchisee with games, merchandise, even team songs being sold online. All this is ensuring IPL maintains a grip on its audience.

10) And again another new trend comes to light with the Asian Age featuring an article ‘Brands convey glamour online’ on 12^th March that elaborated on fashion brands turning to a strong online presence to push e-commerce. The article states, ‘Having created brand strength by emphasizing product design and quality and on their brand aura, fashion groups are seeking to re-create their exclusive store atmosphere online. Great attention to detail, complete understanding of brand’s needs and customization to shopping destinations are important elements for a successful online store. Thanks to all this, a brand’s online store can be a real ‘digital mirror’ in which it can express itself and the brand’s identity’.

Comment- With time becoming an issue, consumers being more tech-savvy and technology becoming simpler with each passing day, online stores can wield a strong opportunity to their advantage by creating an exclusive and attractive online store. Luxury brands can take another step forward by actively conversing with the consumers and providing them with a personal experience.

So a lot more trends this past week signaling interesting happenings to watch out for in the coming weeks.

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Using Social Tools and Staffing/Recruiting

Gautam — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:40:22 +0000

A friend asked me some questions on doing Recruiting through Social Media. Here’s what I answered:

1. What is the web2.0 (pl explain in the simplest terms!) and which of these can be used by the Staffing team of the company?

Web2.0 is the collective name for a lot of technologies by which people can interact with other people (and organizations) on the web, publicly and in a transparent manner. It can include forums, blogs, twitter, linkedin, facebook, orkut etc.

We believe that Social technologies help people connect around some Core Dynamics – Content Generation, Conversations, Collaborating together, Community Formation and Collective Intelligence. Different functionalities enable users to connect differently

2. How widespread is the use of the web2.0 for finding top talent ? (can you give examples of companies who are doing this?) For instance, are there companies who are using Twitter to keep in touch with the campus crowd?)

The first question the recruiter needs to answer is – who is my top talent and what is he/she interested in? Primarily there are interested in the content and knowledge component of the job. Followed by organizational culture and the mechanics of the job. The recruiting firm needs to reach out to the community where top talent is likely to be present and present the above – by way of blog posts, youtube videos, pictures and discussion forums.

An example of a recruiter using Twitter is Christa Foley [@electra] of Zappos.com. She gives followers an inside look into her career at Zappos. She tweets out examples of negative recruiting interactions with potential clients, outreach she does with high school and college students, and ultimately looks for potential Zappos candidates.

A different example From HBR Blogs on how Best Buy tweeted an opening and then changed it based on feedback from the community:

Consider what happened at Best Buy when they posted a job description for a position as Senior er of Emerging Media Marketing. The qualifications included one year of active blogging experience, a preferred graduate degree, and 250+ followers on Twitter. Yes that’s right: the number of followers you have on Twitter is now finding its way into a job description. This led to internal commentary, and spawned a number of blog posts and dozens of re-tweets and conversations.

What happened next is an indication of the future direction of recruiting: in listening to these conversations, Best Buy decided that the community had other ideas — and good ones — for how this job description should look, and what the qualifications should be. As a result, the job description was crowdsourced, and anyone with an interest was invited to post qualifications to the job role on Idea X, a forum for Best Buy customers and employees. The final job description spoke to the traits of the social media revolution we are all experiencing: humor, collaboration and authenticity.

3. What are the simple ways for companies to start using the web2.0 to connect with top talent?

Here’s some things that EMC has done using social media
External employment branding – encourages bloggers to act as organic brand ambassadors
EMC Careers on YouTube – Twitter – Facebook – Wordpress – LinkedIn
Help Save Nick Glasgow – a social media campaign to save an employee suffering from cancer

Microsoft has Microspotting – An HR and recruitment focused community platform

-Twitter becomes a great medium to share news and information with people who choose to follow you – and making it relevant for their use. On a different note advertising using Google Adwords is a great way for reaching out to people interested.

- Making a Facebook page and Orkut community are other tools that businesses can do to engage talented candidates in conversation.

My view is that someone in the Marketing/Recruiting function needs to take a “Talent Community Manager” role to drive these initiatives – and to get others internally in the organization to get engaged with the candidate community. This community manager needs to have a mindset of open and honest collaboration and organizations must be clear about what objectives they expect from her/him and therefore what metrics to track to check his/her performance.

Social Media can be used as a channel to keeping candidates enagegd between the time they are handed the offer letters to the time they are on-boarded.

I think soon companies will collate all these efforts into a community that they will own – and which will have representation on social networks and blogs.

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Luis Suarez on Why Employee and Talent Communities are Important

Gautam — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:32:52 +0000

Luis (@elsua) recently left a comment on my blog post Use Cases for Talent and Employee Communities – and I think it deserves to be given prominence as a blog post on its own

I will surely be blogging plenty more about it on my blog, when things quiet down a bit after this week’s business trip, but just wanted to venture a couple of thoughts on the relevance of this blog post:

- Communities are the major drivers of social software adoption, both inside and outside of the firewall, so every single social computing strategy should always be accompanied by a community building program to get the most out of it all.
- Communities have been there in existence for millions of years, and in the business world for several decades and if there is anything they have help companies with all along is talent retention and reduction of attrition rates. It’s that sense of belonging, of ownership, of connecting with fellow peers that helps communities become so important and crucial in today’s world and as such
- Social software tools are tremendously relevant in this context, because they help those relationships to flourish and nurture themselves much easier, faster and more meaningful than with traditional tools like email. If there is anything out there that social software is good for is social capital, and that’s at the heart of what makes communities healthy and mature at the same time: that people have an opportunity to help build and sustain personal business relationships through those communities.

But like I said, I will be blogging more about this in its due time; perhaps some time next week, when I get back to the normal swing of things … Thanks again for the lovely blog post! Great read!

We’ll be looking forward to more of Luis’ thoughts on how businesses can leverage communities – to connect with current and future employees and also with customers, prospects and partners.

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Social Media News Stories-Last Week of Feb

Hardeep Kaur Rai — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:48:49 +0000

To begin with, a belated Happy Holi to all of you.Quite an interesting mix of noise in the social media sphere in the last week ofFebruary.

1) Business Standard featured an article ‘Turning a Digital Page’ by Neha Bhatt elaborating on the rising trend of digital books and the consequent increasing sales of e-readers. The article quotes Gaurav Mishra, CEO, 2020Social and a Kindle user, ‘I bought the Kindle last year. I was willing to leave behind my collection of 2000 books, since the e-reader could hold over 300 books. What I really like about my e-reader is the audio feature. The fact that the device is so light and easy to carry is another motivation’. The article elaborates that the device works for those who care about portability or those who want to appear chic to strangers or associates. However comparing to US and UK, the article considers e-readers a relatively new concept in India due to lack of e-books, pricing issues and loss of wider entertainment options like blogging, gaming and e-magazines.

Comment- For sure, e-readers have a brighter future and can take the book market by storm if made available within the budget of the common man. And with increased entertainment options, the youth will take to it like fish to water.

2) The Economic Times featured an interview of Harvard Business School Senior Associate Dean, Professor David B Yoffie in its article ‘Indian IT Cos need global makeover’ by Peerzada Abrar on 23^rd Feb. The article quotes Professor Yoffie, ‘Many Indian IT cos are beginning to realize that offering simple BPO or outsourcing jobs is not going to be profitable as in the past. The long term challenge will be to develop newer services and find other areas in the value chain to operate’.

Comment- With the recession hitting the US and Europe markets, the entire business paradigm underwent a complete overhaul. New challenges demand a fresher perspectives and offerings that have a tie-up with IT. Indian firms could have an upper hand here if they choose to couple their current offering-high quality talent at lower costs- with newer creative operatives for a wider scope of industries.

3) The Economic Times reported its tie-up with Facebook in its article ‘ET Facbook in tie-up for Budget’ on 23^rd Feb. The article elaborates on a tie-up between Facebook, Economic Times and ET, its television channel for users to interact with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for the annual budget released on Friday, the 26^th. The article states, ‘the new initiative- ET Facebook: talk to FM will give users an opportunity to post their views and suggestions on the budget by logging on www.economictimes.com. All opinions received would be summarized and presented to the FM in addition to being displayed on the online edition of the paper’.

Comment- Such a move bridges the disconnect between politics and the Indian youth. It lends the youth a voice and have their say in the political matters pertaining to the nation, especially in the discussions preceding the annual Budget.

4) Business Standard featured another article ‘Mobile internet usage on a roll in India’ by Bibhu Ranjan Mishra on 23^rd Feb that elaborated on the growing number of users utilizing the mobile Internet with figures doubling since the beginning of 2009. A major reason for this is the low cost of a general packet radio service , also known as GPRS, ready mobile handsets along with innovative data usage plans being offered by telecom companies. Major usage being for email, messaging, social networking and entertainment.

Comment- Mobile internet trend in India is poised to growth, especially with the young Indian becoming increasingly tech-savvy and 3G services being launched.

5) Business Standard reported ‘IPL catches the Twitter bug’ by Pradipta Mukherjee on 25^th Feb. The article states, ‘IPL commissioner Lalit Modi tweets not only to give updates, but also to comment on controversies. Using Twitter, Modi has also sought bids for the two new teams that will be included in IPL IV in 2011. All teams have Twitter accounts and some have registered on Facebook too’.

Comment- The social media platform can be utilized to its full advantage to reach out to fans with teams ensuring interaction and a wider scope of activities on its websites like video downloading, match replays, special moments, interviews, wall papers, team songs, merchandise, ticket bookings etc.

6) The Economic Times featured an article ‘MS topples Google from leading biz brand slot’ on 26^th Feb announcing Microsoft as the leading business-facing brand, followed by Rolls-Royce with Google being pushed to number 5 in the annual Business Superbrands Top 500 survey by The Centre for Brand Analysis (TCBA). The article reports Handset manufacturer Blackberry as the newest entrant in the top 10 slot of the survey with other brands such as Sony, Virgin Atlantic, Nokia, BUPA, BP and Michelin completing the list.

Comment- The survey depicts mixed results some brands losing ground-particularly the government supported agencies and financial institutions- and others climbing the charts speedily. However, the war between Microsoft and Google for the top spot reveals that both sides are continuing to deliver on their promises and thus proving their mettle.

7) Economic Times journalist Rajiv Banerjee reported ‘You Tube ropes in HSBC as lead sponsor’ on 27^th Feb, stating that the sponsorship will be utilized for live streaming of IPL matches. HSBC joins the likes of HP and Samsung through its sponsorship with You Tube that has acquired a two-year rights to host IPL matches live for an undisclosed sum.

Comment- With cricket being more than a passion in India and IPL symbolizing its craze peak, any association with it presents a big opportunity for any brand to reach out to a huge target audience. And using the more engaging online platform, that is predicted to only grow bigger, ensures more innovative brand exposure at half the price of TV sponsorship.

8) The Times of India featured an article ‘Facebook patents user news feed’ on 28^th Feb that elaborates on how Facebook has won an American patent on its News Feed feature. The article states, ‘The patent summarizes the invention as a method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment. The method was described as US Patent and Trade Office Paperwork as including comments and links posted by social network users for sharing with other members of the online community’.

Comment- This comes freshly after Google’s Buzz launch. With social networking being an important trend, Facebook seems to be taking on Twitter, MySpace, Buzz and all other social networking services. Facebook has got itself a really strong weapon that it can use against other networks.

9) The Hindu featured an article ‘Changes in Cyber Space’ by Sevanti Ninan on 28^th Feb reporting that the net is becoming more of a marketing platform and less of a medium for personal expression. The article elaborates, ‘Sharing is the operative word in social media. Some of the uses of social media are for companies who are advised how to sneak into their marketing into this world of sharing. Marketers found their way through niche blogs and advertisers tie-up with blogs. Marketing tends to inveigle itself into all kinds of communication spaces, including social media, which is all the rage on the Internet’.

Comment- Marketing incorporates selling to its target audience on platforms they inhabit and channels they use. With social media becoming a rage all over, it is to be expected that marketers would soon swamp the medium to exercise it to their advantage whether selling or gathering data. The Internet is a constantly evolving medium that reaches out to more people than any other and marketers tend to use such a medium which is dynamic enough to suit to their nature and needs. Another reason is that both the Internet and Marketing have a strong similarity i.e your tactics depend largely upon your target audience and thereby nothing is constant.

10) In a similar vein on marketing, Hindustan Times featured an article ‘Riding the info mouse’ by Rachit Vats on 1^st March that predicts Information management as the next big marketing opportunity for brand owners. The article states, ‘A lot of marketers are beginning to wake up to the promise, looking at social media, consumer review sites, product reviews, consumer guidance or blogs as interactive knowledge and influence opportunities. They are monitoring content as well as seeding in content to generate the right kind of buzz around their brands’.

Comment- Today’s consumers are an intelligent lot who do not mind spending their money but only after they are convinced on quality. As more and more Indians blog and post product reviews online, brands have realized that monitoring and listening to them works to their benefit through first hand consumer feedback and also build relationships. Both the consumer and the brand benefits through this.

11) The Financial Express featured an article ‘Google Rolls out ad plan for Buzz social network’ on 2^nd March that reveals Google’s move to invite brands to run personalized ads around Buzz. The article reports, ‘ The commercial model for Buzz is based on the ad system it uses for Gmail. It works by detecting the subject matter of email conversations and targeting the user with relevant messages. Media buyers say that Google is asking brands to run ads on Buzz to test their effectiveness’.

Comment- Buzz seems to be going all the way to establish itself as a strong competitor to other social networking sites, particularly Facebook and enjoy some of its success. If brands advertise on Buzz, then they automatically reach out to a massive user base of Gmail. And Google gets a taste of the effectiveness of Buzz through this.

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Social Media Stories Last Week

Hardeep Kaur Rai — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:50:41 +0000

Social Media News Stories This Past Week

So another week passes by and we bring to you a wrap-up of all the interesting tit-bits fron the Indian social media space.

1) Business Line featued an article by Anjali Prayag and Swetha Kannan on how corporates understand that ‘Social Networking is a serious business’ on 14^th Feb. The article states how companies such as IBM and EMC are ‘using employees urge to keep in touch with people to their advantage by also creating their own networking tools, which they believe are useful to businesses’. The article further mentions IBM’s LotusConnections and EMC’s EMC One as social collaboration tools which carry features similar to social networking sites such as blogs, groups, user profiles, wikis, file sharing, photos and forum capabilities that enhance project collaboration for employees.

Comment- While the above trend is increasingly being incorporated amongst corporates, it is still in an exploratory mode in India. Quite a number of Indian firms are still apprehensive and struggling with the concept of social media and perceive social networking as a ‘waste activity’ that slows down the productivity factor of employees. What they fail to understand is that social networking can actually transcend into a tool for honest communication between employees and the firm as well as the employees themselves. Iit is precisely this open communication which sets the foundation for a globally forward firm that will ultimately realize its vision.

2) Times of India chronicled the trend of youngsters from towns and cities across using internet and mobile phone to profess love this Valentine’s day. The article ‘Enter Cupid: Love Blooms in Towns & Tehsils’ by Insiya Amir featured on 14^th Feb states, ‘New media such as mobile phone and internet is a godsend for young couples in several parts of middle India where public displays of affection are frowned upon’.

Comment- Even though in different contest, yet here we see social media doing what it does best i.e connecting people across boundaries albeit here they are societal rather than geographical. Another reason why social networking is massively popular amongst youngsters.

3) In a somewhat similar tone to the above article, Economic Times featured an article ‘Tapping into Love @ work’ by Ishani Duttagupta on 14^th Feb. The article looks at the role of social networking and social commerce in connecting to the younger audience and their needs. The article states, ‘There’s a huge surge in online buying, gifting and internet searches around festivals and events such as Valentine’s Day. For small mom and pop kind of businesses, it makes a lot of sense to advertise around social networking space- even bigger brands are now looking into the space to tap into the youth market in India. In the case of events such as Valentine’s Day which most youth would like to play out in the physical space, the online media is typically an awareness major, an interest aggregator and desire generator’.

Comment- Social media has changed the very dynamics of communications and the consequent marketing and advertising strategies. The fact that most of the younger audience is almost always connected online in some form or the other is changing the way relationships are conducted. Today it does not matter whether your sweetheart is in another city or country. The internet makes it possible to celebrate special occasions, video chat and voice chat. And it is precisely this youth connect that marketers and communicators are looking to utilize.

4) Following last week’s footsteps, this week saw another mention of Buzz. This time around Economic Times featured an article ‘Google fixing bugs to make the Buzz beep louder’ by Debjoy Sengupta and Harsimran Singh. As the title suggests, the article touches upon the flaws of Buzz that Google is working hard to fix. Buzz users have been complaining about flaws such as privacy concerns including auto-follow, Geo-location and Buzz spam thus leading to some amount of backlash.

Comment- Google is eager to see Buzz become popular enough. Its favourable point is that its entwined with Gmail- the email product of Google. What remains to be seen is how Google will play Buzz strategically to gain market share in the social networking space.

5) Financial Chronicle featured an article ‘Small Blessing’ by Ipshita Kumar on 16^th Feb reporting the blessing social media has proved to be for small restaurants. The author states, ‘Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have definitely been a blessing for small businesses like small independent restaurants to even compete with big chain restaurants. The main advantage of a networking site’s ad to the restaurant is targeted advertising’.

Comment- Social networking allows businesses to build a strong presence across target audience. The advantage of social media is that anybody with a small marketing budget can utilize the social networking sites to reach out to customers within one’s vicinity.

6) DNA featured an article chronicling the user experience of Venkatesan Vembu of a new online service ChatRoulette started by a 17 year old boy from Moscow in its 17^th Feb edition. In the article ‘We are all strangers in a strange world’, Mr. Vembu states, ‘On the website, visitors use a webcam to chat with a succession of perfect strangers from anywhere in the world, pulled out randomly from among the thousands online at any given time. Since there’s no registration or filtering involved and you don’t get to choose whom you’ll get to chat with, it makes for a surreal social encounter for both parties. For all its utter pointlessness, ChatRoulette has an oddly mesmeric quality to it partly arising from the oddball nature of the characters you encounter, even if only fleetingly ’.

Comment- The world is already fitting into the palm of your hand and considering the social media space, social interactions are evolving with every passing minute and more so defined by youth culture. The popularity of the above online service ChatRoulette brings to light a new genre of social interactions.

7) DNA featured the case of an online identity theft instance of notable Bollywood director Madhur Bhandarkar in its article ‘Who’s the imposter on Madhur’s social networking site?’ on 18^th Feb. The article reveals ‘The person who is using Madhur’s photo as the profile picture, has written several things including hailing Shah Rukh Khan and his recently released movie’.

Comment- Such instances are increasingly becoming common place along with online death hoaxes. Truly , a scary thing considering the huge fan following and the trouble and confusion it could create for the ‘real person’ and the people following him/her.

8) Time for a film on social networking sites like Facebook? Well so thinks director Roshan Abbas. DNA reports in its article ‘Facebook..time for a film about it’on how the debutant director is making a film on how youth today connect through social networking sites. All of Roshan Abbas’s friends on Facebook get regular updates about his film Always Kabhi Kabhi and also provide regular inputs to him via the same.

Comment- It was inevitable. The youth of today spend most of their time online and any director who wants to capture the true mindset of youth has to bring in his/her’s social networking profiles on these sites into the picture. Case in point being the latest youth oriented Bollywood film Love Aaj Kal where the young protagonists are presented to explore each other’s social networking profiles to know more about each other’s personalities.

9) The Financial Express featured an article ‘Facebook offers more payment options for items in games’ on 20^th Feb that elaborated on Facebook Inc’s new service Facebook Credits that gives it 30% cut off from sales of items sold in virtual games on Facebook. The article reports, ‘ The company will make the service available on many more games ahead of its annual developer conference this April’.

Comment- It is a superb tactic by Facebook to earn some revenue considering its popularity as a social networking site as well as gaming platform. Presently gamers pay for virtual items to Zynga Inc and Electronic Arts Inc. Advertisers will also be able to purchase ads on Facebook through Paypal, a unit of E-Bay Inc.

10) Times of India published an article ‘New Media has disrupted marketing’ elaborating on the recently held CII Brand Summit 2010 in its 20^th Feb issue. The article elaborates on how marketers are finding it increasingly difficult to grab attention of consumers and new media can actually help with better connect with consumers who are spending a lot of time and having conversations on social media. The article quotes Dave Evans, Consulting Director at 2020Social, ‘Brands need to become part of social networks, become part of the conversations’.

Comment- Most of today’s youth spend their time on platforms like internet, mobile devices and are increasingly choosing to hold all interactions on the online platform. This makes it an imperative medium to understand and utilize for every marketer.

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More on the Hyper-linked Organization

Gautam — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:23:26 +0000

JP at Confused of Calcutta is musing about what the Facebookisation of the Enterprise means for IT departments. Here are some of the posts we have done at 2020 Social on the same issue: How to Build a social organization and Making of the Social Organization

As he says:

Was I talking about Facebook? Or was I talking about the IT department

Which brings me to my final point. Facebook does not invest in the edge apps, build them, host them, amend them. They don’t support them, maintain them, back them up. I think IT departments would do well to learn from this. Let the people at the edge build what they want, within a 21st century enabling framework. They know what they want better than any IT department can. What the IT department should do is their utmost to guarantee safety and security of access, privacy and confidentiality, search and subscription tools, scheduling tools, data migration tools, visualisation and mashing tools, prioritisation and ranking tools.

Here’s what I think:

The biggest benefits of the “Facebookisation” is higher employee engagement – hence it is not the IT department that would take a step ahead with that – but the Ops, Strategy and HR groups that would be asking the IT department to follow FB’s lead to create a truly hyper-linked organizaton.

The other big benefit (and this would need to be taken a call by Org Design and CEOs) is do the other systems and processes in the organization support the openness and transparency that the Facebookisation would bring. – if people are rewarded for individual behavior and if the Peformance system does not incentivise a culture of sharing and connecting – the phenomenon would be limited to the “social innovators” within the enterprise alone.

What do you think?

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