Competitive Intelligence (CI): a good use for social media

No more paying janitors to recover intel from your competitor’s trash bin. Now, all the info is online and very transparent to the world. The problem is that now there is too much info and the task of sorting and monitoring is daunting. So, why not apply Web 2.0 technologies to organize your CI ? Set up an enterprise wiki to allow your sales and product teams to collaborate on CI and share information conveniently real-time. And, use social media listening platforms to pick up chatter on your competitors and automatically distribute alerts to key stakeholders. Many companies are is still scrambling and scratching their heads on how to show a positive ROI with their investment of time and/or money in social media. Creating a proactive CI initiative using social media and Web 2.0 tools is sure to pay off.

Blogging comes in many flavors.

Do you update your status on LinkedIn and Facebook ?   Do you Tweet on Twitter ?     Or, do you have an account like me on WordPress ?    All of these are  forms of blogging.     Don’t think that you need to write paragraphs of material to be considered a blogger.    You can write short thoughts, quotes, facts, link posts, photo posts and distribute them to your friends, followers, fans or whoever.    All are considered forms of blogging.    As long as content is syndicatble and people have the opportunity to comment on it, it can be considered some form of blog.    So, you may already be a blogger and not know it !

Connect Your Social Networks To Weave A Stronger Web

The more you interwine your social networks, the stronger will be your web presence, visibility and reach.      So, whenever you have an opportunity to link one social network to another, you can exponentially increase the connectivity of both.   In addition to Facebook,  Linkedin and Twitter, be sure to consider YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare as additioanl social networks to weave into your web.  For example, if you want to post a video, .pdf   or photo on Facebook or LinkedIn,  it can be more powerful to post a link to your Youtube or Flickr accounts.     If you want to post a  PowerPoint…..upload it to Slideshare and post a link to it.    This way, your followers can also become followers within your other networks and have an opportunity to engage with you in more than one place.    And, if your followers re-tweet your posts, those people who read those posts will also be drawn to more than one of your networks.   All of this equates to more traffic, eyeballs and exposure to your web presence, which in turn can bring you more followers and higher positions in search rankings and reviews.

Adoption of Social Technologies in Asia

I was interested by Josh Bernhoff’s Groundswell post today on social technologies in Japan and Korea.    http://tinyurl.com/lgp5oc    

This is very exciting stuff.    I had thought about this same topic several years ago when I was travelling to Asia.    Due to the polychromatic and high-context culture of Asians,  especially the Japanese and Korean, social technologies are already in sync with their way of life.  I predict that as soon as there is a critical mass adoption of social media, they will leap-frog the rest of the world in their usage and optimization of the technologies in business.

LinkedIn “People You May Know”

When you have a chance, take a look on the top right of your LinkedIn homepage “People You May Know”.

LinkedIn spiders your contact list and randomly selects people who you “may know”. If you know someone, click “Invite”. If not, click on the “X” and make a selection from the drop-down menu…..

“I don’t know them” or “i dont know them well enough” or “i prefer not to connect”

The more you interact with this feature, the Linkedin Spider will become smarter about you and start serving you more people you know.

Take a few minutes each day to use this valuable feature !

LinkedIn – Why Add a Profile Pic ?

LinkedIn allows you to add one profile photo. Take advantage of this feature !

Just go ahead and upload any decent photo that you have. A mediocre photo is better than no photo ! Why ?

Having a photo will make your profile stand out of the crowd in search results and group listings

When you add a new photo, your name gets mentioned in Network Updates to all of your contacts

A photo gives your profile more personality, placing a your face with your name…….more recognition

More contacts and group memberships on LinkedIn = more detailed search results

The more contacts you have on Linkedin, the more detailed search results you can view !         Why ?

Linkedin lets you see profiles of only the people who are  “in your network” (people who are  1st and 2nd degrees of separation from you, or people who are in a shared Linkedin Group).   So, each time you add a contact or join a group  on LinkedIn, you are enabling yourself to view the full profiles of all of the contacts of your contacts (2nd degree) or fellow group members.    In the case of people who are in  3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th degrees of separation, the search results will simply show the person’s title, company name and location.

To test this out, go to Linkedin and type in “new york”  in the search box.  The results will be displayed in order of people in your network;  starting with 2 degrees of separation or fellow Group members.    If there are no members of your network in New York, then you will only see non-detailed search results of those people who are  3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th degrees of separation.

In summary,  build your contact base …….expand your newtork ……see more detailed search results…..have access to more data  !

Mass Collaboration and Ideagoras

Another flavor of social media that does not get much mention is the use of mass collaboration networks. An interesting example is http://innocentive.com/ It is a mass collaboration “ideagora” site started by Eli Lilly in 2001. It includes 90,000 scientists from 175 countries. Companies post “challenge rewards” for unique projects and tap into brainpower from around the world to spawn innovation. Today, scientists and researchers are networking and collaborating on a global scale like never before.

Web 2.0 – Rising Tension Between Amateurs and Professionals ?

Web 2.0 is marking a new age of the amateur and rising tension among professionals. Today, everyone’s voice can be heard and anyone can build a network of followers around any subject. Amateurs can be respected just as highly as those professionals who have spent many years studying to get prestigious degrees and certifications. Take, for example, Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary TV http://garyvaynerchuk.com/ Gary has over 300,000 followers on Twitter and his weekly video blog has more 100,000 faithful viewers. He has no formal education or degree in wine tasting, however he has become one of the most followed someliers in the world in just a few years. He is surely a very envied person and cause of stress among many “professional” someliers who have studied wine for many years.  I have a friend who pursued a degree in this area from the University of California and it took several years of hard work ! Countless other examples exist in the areas of journalism, economics, finance, healthcare, to name a few. So what will happen to the status of the “professional” as Web 2.0 enables more amateurs to have their voices heard equally ? Are we moving towards a society where education and certification are less valued ? Is this positive or negative ?

Social Media – The New Customer Service Police

In the old days, if you received poor customer service from a company you wrote a letter to the president of the company or their customer relations department and it would go into a dark hole.       Today, with social media, if you receive poor customer service you can immediately blog about it and have your comments permanently documented on the internet for millions of people to read.   

The customer’s voice is now louder than ever, for good or for bad.    Social media provides the ideal platform for easy feeedback, and if necassary, “policing” of customer service.    If you speak with a rep at your cell phone provider and do not like their attitude, you can immediately go online and bash that person by name in blogs, Twitter, forums, etc.      Those posts get indexed quickly in search engines and Twitter search.     If the company has an active social media listening program, the comments will get picked up by management in due time.      If the company is smart, they will tell their customer service reps to always be on their best behaviour because the whole world is watching  !