(Continuing notes from today's Forrester Consumer Forum. More here.)
Charlene: "Focus on the relationships, not the technologies."
Who's using social computing technologies?
Four levels of participation: "The Participation Pyramid"
- Creators - bloggers, etc.
- Critics - commenting, ratings, reviews
- Collectors - bookmarking, "save to favorites" in youtube
- Couch potatoes - passive
Social media: "It's not about the media, it's about getting people to participate."
Key point: Build community. If community exists, then dissemination is easier, wider (yahudi video #1, not the mentos guys)
Burpee Seeds: "November sales increased by 4x because of RSS"
- Changed twice-yearly experience to a daily experience
- Adding reviews with BazaarVoice increased the clickthrough rate by 43%
Anecdote: BassPro used feedback to redesign poor product. One lure had poor ratings, BassPro noticed, connected with manufacturer, and now redesigned product is selling well.
Getting Started
- Decide how involved you will be with social computing
- Map out what relationship you want to build
- Listen to what is being said to find unmet needs
- Participate in the conversations
How to start
- Start with RSS because it's easy and impactful
- Put press releases in RSS
- Use blogs when you have something to say
- Anyone can have a recruitment blog
- Anyone can have an internal blog
- Anyone can have a recruitment blog
- Deploy wikis where knowledge is needed
- "Less frequently asked questions"
Test original podcasting sparingly
- Start with earnings calls and executive presentations
Best practices in social computing
- Be ready to act on feedback
- Relationships can be messy, be prepared to make mistakes
- Use existing marketing metrics to gauge your success
Key quote: "Markets may be conversations...and trust and relationships create marketplaces."
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