Social Media Management Tools – Are they Ready for the Enterprise?

by Matthew Lees

Over the past 6-12 months a lot of companies and technology platforms have entered the market purporting to make it easier for individuals and organizations to participate throughout the social Web. If you’ve got accounts at one or more social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and LinkedIn, why, for example, should you have to log into each one? Wouldn’t it be much easier simply to log into one interface to organize, read, post, and search comments?

I’ve seen the phrase Social Media Management used as a catch-all for these types of tools. That sums things up as well as anything else.

To a basic degree, this is the idea behind Twitter-centric apps such as HootSuite, Seesmic, and TweetDeck. If you’re using Twitter on your own, these programs may meet your needs just fine. But the social Web stretches beyond Twitter and, if you’re responsible for social media at a large organization, you’ve got quite a few requirements beyond convenience. When the stakes are high, when there are more than one or two stakeholders involved, and when time – yours and your colleagues’ – is at a premium, many of these systems fall short.

What Makes Social Software Enterprise* Ready?
I see six main categories where enterprise social applications differentiate themselves from software that isn’t ready or appropriate for enterprise environments:

1. Security – We’ll start with what’s probably the most obvious item on the list. Enterprise social software adheres to high standards of security, both in terms of technology (i.e., secure protocols) and process (i.e., the ability to define access and keep audit trails; see below). How comfortable would you be sending your social security number to someone via a Twitter direct message?
2. Access, Accountability, and Auditing – These are the three As of enterprise social software. (Well, I just made that up…but it works well.) Social software for the enterprise lets system administrators set user permissions and access in a granular and effective way; it tracks activity and creates an audit trail, so you can determine who did what, when; and it allows for passwords to be recovered and/or changed as appropriate.
3. Content Management – Twitter is an example of a very rudimentary form of content management, which is pretty much based purely on a “push” model of publishing. Once you tweet, it’s out there…you can’t take it back and you can’t change it. Enterprise social software includes content management capabilities that let you save, undo, modify, and schedule for publishing at a later date. It also lets you adapt content to the particular channels you’re sending it to, and to choose which channels to send what (i.e., “I want this post to go to Twitter and Facebook, and I want that comment to go to our corporate blog).
4. Performance – This primarily encompasses speed, scalability, and reliability. For example, if Flickr or Facebook go down for a while, you’ve got little, if any, recourse. With enterprise social software, you should have support people to talk with and (usually) SLAs in place.
5. Integration Points – Enterprise social software will have hooks that allow for bi-directional integration, so data can come in from appropriate sources, and be sent out to other places (such as other applications, such as a CRM system, sites on the social Web, or your branded customer community). The architecture is important here, as ideally the platform’s engine is robust enough so that when the next new big social network crops up, it would be easy enough to configure its integration.
6. Analytics and Reporting – Social analytics providers are doing strong business helping organizations make sense of the social Web. Most social sites and tools provide woefully limited statistics. Of course, they weren’t designed with reporting in mind – particularly unified reporting, which lets you look at everything from one place — but if you’re using them for your business, you need to understand their effectiveness and impact. And that goes beyond counting how many Twitter followers and Facebook fans you have.

(Note that many of these items translate into increased productivity. Social Management Tools, whether enterprise-ready or not, are largely, though not exclusively, about making it easier to do social media.)

Social Media Management Platforms
A few of the promising companies doing some interesting things in the Social Media Management space are:
•    Socialize Your Stuff (Butterfly Publisher platform)
•    Regroup
•    Social Agency (Spredfast platform)
•    Spry Hive Industries

Community platform vendors are also thinking about how branded communities fit into all this, as well. On the leading edge of the trend toward connecting your customer communities to the social Web are:
•    Awareness
•    Lithium Technologies
•    LiveWorld
•    RightNow Technologies (Social Experience platform)
•    Pluck

Of course, the tools can only do so much. Technology platforms won’t get you where you want to go without a sound business strategy and a plan for engaging with your customers, members, readers, followers, prospects, etc.  But if you’re evaluating — or reevaluating – your social media strategy and presence, the six items above will play a central role.

* What I Mean by “Enterprise”
“Enterprise” is one of those buzz words that means different things to different people. I’m using it here in a somewhat non-rigorous way to really mean a level of sophistication and maturity. Enterprise software is sturdy and full-featured, to meet the many and varied needs of professional organizations. In this way, it relates to the concept of enterprise architecture, particularly the definition from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research: “Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model.”

Super Bowl of Advertising

Super Bowl XLVI is now less than a month away and sports fans across the world will be tuning in to see what team will raise the Lombardi trophy this season. In recent years, the games have been filled with exciting story lines and each had their fair share of excitement. Super Bowl XLII in 2008 featured the undefeated New England Patriots and Cinderella story New York Giants and drew a Super Bowl record 97.5 million viewers and trails only the M*A*S*H series finale as the largest telecast of all time. If you are like me, you are probably wondering what the M*A*S*H series is, not to mention how they managed 105 million viewers in 1983.

If recent history is any indication to the number of viewers that will be tuned in for this year’s Super Bowl, corporate advertisers and sponsors should be as ecstatic as Mel Kiper Jr. on draft day. The unforgettable commercials that million dollar 30 second Super Bowl spots have given us over the years are priceless right? Maybe not so this year. According to a recent New York Times article, the rates have decreased for a 30 second commercial during Super Bowl XLVI. Economic downturn and a rising trend amongst corporate advertisers to buckle down spending have lead to the decrease in 2010. Each 30 second slot in Super Bowl XLVI has been sold for $2.5 to $2.8 million.

Super Bowl ad giants FedEx, General Motors and Pepsi announced they will be absent from the commercial lineup this season. Pepsi has elected instead to launch a social marketing campaign, “Pepsi Refresh,” a program that rewards the best consumer ideas with grants up to $250,000 each. For a fraction the cost of one Super Bowl ad, companies like Pepsi can extend their reach using social media tools, but the appropriate plan, strategy and team needs to be in place to support marketing efforts. Unfortunately for Pepsi, the “Pepsi Refresh” program opened with major problems with security and privacy settings for its users. Pepsi’s flawed launch will undoubtedly damage their brand image and discourage consumers from participating in future efforts online. Companies are diving into social media campaigns head first without any understanding of how outreach relates to core business goals, or if they can achieve them. Only time will tell if companies like Pepsi will continue to launch social media marketing campaigns without the proper resources in place.

Eric Willey
Manager of Client Services

Twitter for Small Business = Great Tactic

Over the past several days, we’ve seen more news on Twitter for small business come out in the press and blogosphere. For example, there’s the AdAge article “Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses” which has several success stories of how small businesses have won customers using Twitter. Even Twitter themselves are contemplating how to help small businesses use their platform to grow. While they are focused on analytics rather than advertising ( a good sign), Twitter is doing a great job of trying to understand and reach an important segment which will help them grow.

We see the use of Twitter with our large clients like Cisco and NetApp continuing to grow. But we are also getting more inquiries from smaller companies who don’t want to host a community, but want to use social media effectively to achieve their goals. In our discussions, we suggest using applications like Twitter, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, MySpace and others to start building their online brand and reputation. The response we get in many cases is:

“Okay, that makes sense but I don’t have anyone to run this.”

We’ve seen a small market emerge in technology to monitor social media and brand reputation (keotag &  boardtracker come to mind). But there also needs to be a new service to help small businesses use social media effectively at a price that works…and that seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle to gaining wider adoption of these tools.

It’s an issue that we’ll be working on in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

Welcome to our new site!

I’d like to welcome you to Impact Interactions’ new web site. Please take a tour around our site and let us know what you think. We’ve consolidated our blog and company information for clients, prospects, and visitors (frenemies too!) trying to learn more about Social Media and/or Online Communities.

We’ve added a new section Social Media Resources to give you quick access to our presentations from conferences and meetings. You’ll find our presentations from Community Unconferences, Business Forums, Internet Strategy Forum Meetings, as well as presentations we’ve delivered to companies wanting to learn more about using Social Media to excel.

We’re also adding a link to our Twitter Account(@ImpactInteract) for those who want to follow our Social Media and Online Community ideas and work issues. For those of you who have been following me at MRowland602 on Twitter, that account will now become my personal account rather than the voice of Impact Interactions. So please consider following @ImpactInteract instead to stay up to date with us.

We’ve also added a link to our facebook account where we’ll add interesting photos from our office and employees as well as additional commentary that runs more to the fun side of running online communities and social networks.

As part of the change, our Blogger account will no longer be updated. All content from our previous blog going all the way back to 2004 has been moved to our blog here. We’ve categorized and tagged the content to make it easier for you to find the information you’re looking for.

Of course, we also have our marketing information as well. If you are looking for an experienced firm with the credentials to make your project (and you) successful, please contact us to continue on your path to success!

Thanks again for visiting, we hope you like the site.

Mike Rowland, President & Founder

Are You As Connected As Bill Gates?

Great article today (leap year) on a question Bill Gates asked on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Members Question Gates Query

What struck me as the best part of this article was this little tidbit about Bill’s profile on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn’s public relations firm e-mailed a link to Gates’ profile, which shows that so far he has three connections.

Guess he doesn’t really need any though….

Brand Monitoring: Top Trend for 2007

From the MediaBrains Newsletter today, the Top 7 Trends for 2007 and we couldn’t agree more with their most important trend:

At number 7: Brand Monitoring (or as we call it Brand Defense)

Remember back in high school, when you were worried about your reputation? You found out someone was spreading rumors about you, but you didn’t know who it as? It’s not so different in the business world today. With the popularity of blogs, message boards and other forms of user-generated content, perceptions about products and services – both good and bad – can spread around the globe at lightning speed, making it difficult for marketers to monitor what is being said. Because a great brand can take months, if not years, and millions of dollars to build, it should be the thing businesses hold most precious. If you can’t control what others say online, you can influence people’s opinions about your business. First “Google” your company and see what turns up in the search results. Secondly, regularly post your own opinions and responses on your website and contribute to relevant blogs and forums. Take steps to create your own blog or message board and regularly issue optimized press releases. Another avenue to consider is hiring a company that offers “brand monitoring” services, which provide intelligence about online usage and distribution. To succeed, protecting your brand and online reputation is probably the most important marketing trend for 2007.

Contact Us to learn more about protecting your brand online

Expanded Interactions Management Center Opens

The trend towards outsourcing the moderation of user-generated content to professional services firms such as ours continues to grow. In order to meet the demand for these services and to accommodate our clients’ needs, Impact Interactions has expanded its operations. Our new Interactions Management Center (IMC) serves as a community management hub for our clients, allowing our teams to share best practices to ensure that our clients’ online interactive strategies succeed.

The ability to generate best practices grows significantly when the interaction teams are able to communicate and report upon what is working and what is not with the interactive sites we manage. These best practices are shared with our clients in an effort to help them refine their strategies which in turn leads to higher return on investment (ROI). Our knowledge also helps our client avoid making costly mis-steps with their communities.

We believe that this is a distinct advantage over firms which hire virtual moderators scattered across the country. In the fast moving world of online management and strategy, it is important to quickly and efficiently capture the knowledge gained by our teams and use that knowledge to help our clients grow and achieve results. Combined with our seven years of experience in launching and managing over 30+ online communities, it’s a powerful combination to build client success. That’s why we’ve centralized our teams and operations here in our Maryland offices.

If you are looking into starting an interactive community or social networking site for your organization, we can help with everything from aligning your goals with the appropriate offerings to technology selection to launch activities and moderation services. If you are looking to reduce your costs of moderation, while increasing your results, we can help.

Please use this link to contact us to learn more about our services or for our free consultation.

Why You Must Have a Plan for User Generated Content and Rankings

There have been several great posts and comments on the MarketingShift blog regarding the process for promoting user generated content on Digg.com. From their website, Digg states:
Digg is all about user powered content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote the news that’s important to you!

Ah, but according to many users, the system is rigged. See the Digg article “Troubles In Diggville” started by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch. It appears that groups of Digg users have banded together to ensure that articles that represent a particular viewpoint are pushed off the first page (and in some cases further than that…). The political commentator Michelle Malkin was one of the first folks to point this out and to complain to Digg co-founder Kevin Rose.

In response to the growing criticism, Kevin Rose stated that while user groups recommending content is a great thing, Digg will be updating its algorithm which ranks articles submitted for popularity. The goal is to reduce the impact of groups on rankings while increasing the diversity of Digg’s members who impact the rankings. We’ll see if it works.

Way back when in the distant Internet Bubble years, gaming the system to promote content or earn points in communities was rampant. It continues today. If you are implementing a ratings system or other type of rankings which are controlled by members and impact user generated content, you need to be very clear about those who game the system for their own gain. In short, you must give your moderators the ability to short circuit the gamers for the overall good of the site.

Only by having a detailed plan of action covering this type of user behavior (and it is very common) can user generated rankings effectively help promote user generated content. After all, the idea of user generated content is to drive activity for your site and insight to your team. Gaming only leads to more Paris Hiltons… and that dilutes the experience. So be prepared, write out your plan, test it, and be ready if it breaks down…

Impact Interactions is hiring

Looking for a new challenge? Impact Interactions is hiring motivated individuals to train and work in the online world.

We are a leading provider of online interactive strategy, management, and reporting services for global organizations such as SAP, AARP, and Intel. Due to our growth, we are hiring associates for our interaction management services teams in Maryland.

Job Title: Online Interactions Associate

Responsibilities:

• Work with assigned client teams to moderate online communities by scanning and editing message boards, photo sharing sites, and blogs for content which does not adhere to the community’s Terms of Service
• Answer email sent to online team in a customer focused manner
• Act as a first line of customer support for our clients to answer questions about site use
• Learn basic web metrics and reporting techniques
• Participate in third party communities and blogs which discuss client products and services
• Attend all client meetings including conference calls and meetings at client offices (travel expected to be once per month or less)

Job Requirements:

• Bachelors degree in English, Creative Writing, Journalism, Marketing, or other area with emphasis on writing skills is preferred; Associates degree or equivalent is required
• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to work as part of a team
• Sense of humor
• Availability to work one or two weekends per month according to client needs

(¿Dice usted o escribe en español? Tenemos una oportunidad de usted para usar sus habilidades de lengua en línea.)

Training: All newly hired employees will attend a comprehensive training class covering community management skills, software tools and usage, and basic web metrics analysis and reporting.

Due to our commitment to our clients, our work hours are aligned into shifts covering the majority of the day. We are hiring for the following shifts:

• Monday through Friday 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
• Monday through Wednesday 3:00 pm to 12:00 am, Sunday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm
• Thursday and Friday 3:00 pm to 12:00 am, Saturday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm

We are an equal opportunity employer. Disabled and older workers are encouraged to apply. Proof of eligibility to work in the United States is required. For consideration, please send your resume and a cover letter with your salary requirements. Also, please let us know which shifts you prefer. Please send to Jobs at ImpactInteractions.com

Privacy and Trust In The Age of Social Networks

An interesting article describes the reaction of Facebook members to the News Feeds feature added Monday which allow members to be notified when a friend’s site is updated. From a member’s perspective, being updated when friend’s update their pages is a good thing, right? Not if you’re a member of Facebook apparently. Look at the quotes from a members’ petition which has 500,000 members who are protesting this feature’s addition to the Facebook offering:

“News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go,” reads the petition of the newly formed “Students against Facebook News Feed.”

Other comments revolve around the stalking issue as well. Given Facebooks tighter controls (registered users must have a .edu email address or other approved domain email address), this seems like a bit of an over-reaction. MySpace is a completely different deal as there are almost no controls….

BUT HERE IS THE KEY TO THIS — when planning new features, there is a balance between the trust you’ve gained with your members and the functionality improvements you believe you are giving members. The most important reason why Social Networks survived early on was that their members trusted that only people they knew or wanted to know would contact them. There was at least an outward appearance that private information would stay private. But as Social Networking sites have expanded, the value and the trust has declined in members’ eyes. For instance look at LinkedIn… How many of you have been contacted by someone two or more levels away from your contacts? (Think six degrees of separation or the Kevin Bacon game.)

Will the News Feed feature survive at Facebook? I think it will, but the management at Facebook apparently didn’t think the backlash would come as hard as it did. And that is the second lesson from all this. When you are adding features, be prepared for the worst and have plans to help your membership get through the changes. In this case 5.3% of the members of Facebook (500,000 out of 9,500,000) have signed a petition to protest the changes. That is significant. Facebook’s blog responds by posting “Calm. down. breathe. We hear you,” to its members. That might work with students, but it would never work with adults as it comes off as condescending in its tone.

As mentioned in a previous post on our blog titled “Web 2.0 Collaboration Success Comes From Facilitation”, the role of moderators who can effectively facilitate conversations (especially conversations like this) really make the difference between a site which is trusted by its members and one that is not.

Want to learn more about Privacy and Trust in Social Networks? Contact Us and we’d be happy to continue the conversation.

UPDATE 9/9/06 — After much feedback from its userbase, Facebook has made a change… members can now decide through privacy settings what (if any) details will be available on the News Feed that reports updates to their pages. Good going Facebook, but this whole thing could have been avoided with a little planning.