How to attract more visitors – The 10 most important visitor resources for blogs

Is there a secret, why corporate blogs and business blogs have more success than traditional corporate websites? Is it the modern architecture of blogging systems? Is it the exiting and exhilarant spelling style of bloggers? Or is a conspiracy of the digital natives against the internet retirees?

Nothing of it! Blogs and bloggers are simply using some very effective methods to attract visitors.

The 10 most important visitor resources for blogs:

1. Feeds – Blogs are read via feed reader predominantly, not via browsers any longer. Well-known blogs have more than 100.000 feed reader per day. On a normal day in Germany, there are some blogs with more than 10.000 feed reader.
   Highlight your RSS feed on your blog and take advantage of a feed service like Feedburner
2. Google – Visitors through search engines are the second largest visitor group of blogs. Bloggers use always methods of search engine optimization (SEO) in order to achieve good rankings with important key words.
   Write in a search engine friendly way. Use Google’s Webmaster Tools and install a SEO plug-in like wpSEO!
3. Pingbacks and Trackbacks – Links don’t just offer a value-add for your own users but also backlinks and numerous new users.
   Link all directions as often as possible and learn to use trackbacks in a proper way.
4. Twitter – with the micro-blogging service you can approach users faster than with your blog. News with real add-on information are spread via Twitter the “viral” way very fast.
   Work on broadening your Twitter follower base. Promote your Twitter account on your blog and vice versa. Twitter your blog postings at the right time!
5. Social Networks – Promote your important blog postings on XING, Facebook or LinkedIn.
6. Forums – Are you an accredited expert, for example a wine blogger?
   If you see in a forum the question: What are the most expensive wines or the 10 most dry French ones? Write a posting on your blog and post only the link in the forum.
7. Blog directors and RSS feed directories – Just some selected directories (Technorati, Blogoscoop, Bloggerei, Wikio) generate new visitors. Especially, if you are ranking well in these directories.
8. Your comments on other blogs – Make yourself heard on other blogs as a constructive business partner – far and foremost in not well-known blogs. This will result in new visitors. Beware the free of sense comments! This will damage your own blog reputation in the long term.
9. Comments of others on your blog – This is the secret of well-visited blogs:
   Be responsive to comments – You will win permanent visitors!
10. Guest writers – Invite readers/users, other bloggers or “VIP’s” from the offline and online world to write guest posts. Every guest author will be talking to others about it or link directly to this post.
    Your creativity has no limits: travel agents blog about journeys of their customers, hotel managers animate guests to write about their vacation resort, … Your customers don’t want that? Ask them if they want to publish some of their holiday pictures on your homepage! You will be surprised seeing the reaction…

Did I forget something? Is your ranking of visitor resources different? Where do you see options to attract more visitors for your blog? Looking forward reading your comments and reading your ideas and thoughts!

Guest writer Karl-Heinz Wenzlaff is the German expert and consultant for business blogging. He knows the useful tips and tricks, and is specialized on professional company blogs, product blogs or employee blogs. Some month ago, he helped me migrating from Blogger to WordPress in order to set up a magazine theme.

Thank you for being one of my guest writers, Karl-Heinz.

Enterprise 2.0: Classic or Social Media Branded Website?

Some weeks ago, I raised the question via Twitter…

“What is more important: homepage or company branded social sites?”

This all resulted in the post ‘Let’s prove the power of the share economy‘. Why do I post that again? As there is a company example which definitely has to be discussed…

First, there was Modernista and Zeus Jones, now we have Skittles. They relaunched their websites so that it is becoming essentially a social media branded website, i.e. with Twitter search results for the word “Skittles”.

The menu on the Skittles website also offers links to YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia and Flickr,

What this does to their brand? Obviously, create complete transparency… Good or bad?
Good: A great idea to create massive buzz around their brand…
Bad: What if somebody tries to abuse transparency? Moderating? Not possible…

Let’s have and share your ideas on this interesting approach…

Top IT Consultants: What is your Twitter strategy?

Yesterday, we were focusing on the Twitter strategy from top strategy consultants, today we will finish this report with checking the activities from the top IT consultants. If these companies don’t use Twitter there is no reason saying they are the ‘technical specialists in communication’. We will merely focus on the official company accounts and the possible company brand accounts.

One thing before we start: Compared to the strategy consulting companies, IT consulting companies are quite ‘open-minded’ about the share economy. There is no hiding in the communication fields of the old economy. This is -in most cases- talking markets, showing transparency, creating value for the web busisness community and believing in the power of social software.

Let’s make the case…

Top IT consultant companies (in alphabetical order)
The questions that The Strategy Web asked these companies were like… Do you have a corporate Twitter account, how do you use it and what is your strategy behind it? Please find the answers, some were translated into English by The Strategy Web …

Company Account
twitter.com/BearingPoint
twitter.com/GovTwit
The first impression counts in business, the people say… “My personal Twitter strategy I learned directly from MC Hammer – ‘Forget the number of Tweeters – just stay interesting!’.” Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing at Bearingpoint, knows of personal branding, reputation marketing and the changing world of communication in the sense of ‘getting things gone differently‘.

Summary
Let’s talk about the GovTwit account first. This is one of the most excellent examples of a Twitter directory that probably exists on the web with Twitter IDs and links to official government blogs and URLs noted in Twitter bios. Beraingpoint knows how to share and all companies can learn from that example..
Nevertheless, the second one, the brand Twitter account, seems quite down to earth like a simple press release-RSS-push. But there is a clear strategy line as this Twitter account is the access point and traffic driver for the corporate blog which lives and broadcasts social media.

Company Account
twitter.com/CiscoSystems
twitter.com/CiscoGeeks
So, there are two different interesting Twitter streams: the first one for press releases, news on personal and management changes, and it picks up RTs of stories around Cisco from followers (Nice give-and-take scenario!). The second one (start Dec. 2008) pushes their Cisco AXP contest for application developers who are meant to “think outside the box”. No, the top brand account belongs to someone else. And Cisco started early sending tweets out… so this is to everone: you better hurry up to get your brand account.

Summary
Cisco has defintely entered the web 2.0 scenario big way. Using different social media like blogs, FlickR and sure, Twitter – to get all these activities around modern communication and messaging fly high. Twitter seems to be adding value to their marketing, their pr, and pushes corporate branding.

Company Account
twitter.com/gartner_inc
The man behind the corporate Gartner account is Andrew Spender -Vice President, Corporate Communications- and this company has more than 60 analysts (!) on Twitter. The corporate Twitter account from Gartner mixes internal knowledge, pr releases, communication on consulting issues, hints to their analysts and shares company experience from events and career opportunities. It’s the aggregator of their global Twitter and business knowledge satellites.

Summary
“Briefly, we use Twitter to communicate with a broad range of people. This includes IT end-users, technology providers, journalists, bloggers, etc. It has become a very effective way of developing a direct, credible, authentic two-way relationship with people who have an interest in what we have to say about the business of technology. Twitter is a great way for anyone to engage directly with our analysts and we’re always listening for feedback!” (Andrew Spender)
PS: Again, the most obvious account belongs to someone else…

Company Account
Many! – … and the brand account…?
There is nearly nothing that Twitter does not support for IBM: business sections here, here and here, events here and here plus community building accounts here. Is the brand account changing it’s owner? There were more follower, there is no actual IBM logo and there is definitely something going on…

Summary
IBM is a very active user of Twitter. It becomes obvious from the named examples that IBM uses new media for their communication strategy – not surprising as collaboration software is part of their business. “Social media tools are impossible to be taken away from an innovative communication concept.” says Petra Bauerle, Web Managing Editor at IBM – yes, she twitters as well.

Company Account
twitter.com/oracle
Similar ‘strategy’ that IBM has: Twitter for big events like Open World and it’s push as well as it’s blog), for tech communities around Oracle Technology Network (OTN) as well as an ‘cocktail-mixing’ aggregator account. Wanna see all Oracle Twitterati? Go ahead… and check their wiki with Oracle and non-Oracle people.

Summary
“Generally, as a company, we encourage communication among our employees, customers, partners, and others – and blogs, social networks, discussion forums, wikis, video, and other social media can be a great way to stimulate conversation and discussion. They’re also an invaluable tool for experienced Oracle users who want to share information and tips on the use of Oracle products. (…) I’m not aware that we have a formal, documented plan for the use of Twitter, just as we don’t for other social media, but we definitely have a level of participation, since it can be a good way to reach out to and engage with a variety of communities.” Steve Walker, Vice President EMEA

Company Account
None – brand account options difficult.
“At the moment, the trend washes Twitter in the spheres of a brand name like Google: Twitter is not only seen a web-service for micro-blogging but a synonym for for the dialog in 140 words – you “twitter” like you “googled”! This trend makes the service and the micro-blogging attractive for a bigger user group.” Torsten Schollmayer, Senior Associate Marketing & Analytics

Summary
Sapient sees the value of also for business accounts for the benefit of social information finding and -exchange, and supporting own brand building – Twitter offers direct and konvergent 1:1 and 1:n-dialogue with clients, competitors and specialists. That’s the reason why Sapient will be on Twitter in a short time period in order not to lose innovation leadership in te market of interactive consulting. BUT: The brand account is gone, so we will wait and see what the digital consulting experts will be doing… The question remains: Why do they start so late on Twitter?

Company Account
Many – company does not make them public as project-based…
“The motivation for our involvement in Twitter and other micro-blogging tools is connected with expertise. Through the use of these tools, experts of Siemens IT Solutions and Services can not only exchange information or present their expertise, but also interact with customers and stakeholders. Networking and open innovations play an important role within the Siemens group, therefore we also designed the open source tool ESME (Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment), which can be use by every enterprise.” Janine Krebs, Media Relations

Company Account
None – brand account options difficult… or not?!
Unisys pr agency answered briefly: “Unisys has decided not to go with Twitter. The companies opinion goes along the lines that Twitter is interesting, generally speaking, but up to now, there is no response from clients to head for Twitter.”

Summary
I am sure there will be some activity when they have been reading about the Twitter options in this post… if so, tell us in a comment, ok?!

Spot On!
We can learn a lot about the pr and career chances, capabilities and possibilities of Twitter from the IT consulting companies, and nearly all of them are using Twitter in a big way. If you need some more background on the Twitter effect for the benefit of your marketing, you should listen to Jon Samsel’s advice. Generally, the especially the real-time business benefit is obvious…

Before companies even join, they can search on Twitter and monitor what people are saying for any term or terms about their employees, their company, their industry, their branch etc. – and then simply put the results into a RSS feed reader.

The real time focus makes it one of the most valuable resources in fast moving industry days. And it tells companies very early when customers have a problem with their communication (see Johnson&Johnson Motrin example) or customer service.

Seeing all the positive aspects… there is one thing that needs to be said about the no. 1 micro-blogging tool: All the positivism in mind and seeing the wonderful new world of communication, Twitter can also be a time-thief if not treated carefully. For some managers professional support will make sense. Tweets attract your personal psyche, shake their body of words and love the power of anticipation in dissipation just like … does.

Anyway, happy to hear what you think of these IT consultants strategies…

Let’s prove the power of the Share Economy

When the web was born in 1989, the system aimed to facilitate ‘sharing information among researchers’. Now, who are these researchers and what are they sharing today? And, what do companies do about this ‘share’ vision in difficult economic times?

According to research projects, studies and common knowledge (also the common creative one), we all know that the customers is the researcher. He is sharing information and opinions on services, writing product reviews, bookmarking success stories or ‘chatting’ about brands. Customers want the online communication, but do companies want it too?

Yesterday, I shared a question on Twitter after a client asked me in a meeting:

‘What is more important: homepage or company branded social sites? Your answer is…’

And here are some of the thoughts that people shared – all limited to 140 words…

@MarksKiosk “Both. Your home page is basic info, a requirement. Social media churns current info and drives traffic. Vice versa.”
@flobby “well it’s all about information, not about the way it’s broadcasted. but a website is obligatory”
@david_ethority one way talking is history. customer dialog is presence, thus a corporate website without social tools is a phase out model.
@davidgammel “Both. It’s not a zero sum game, there is a lot of value in synergy between the two.”
@samraatkakkar “both, home page is info dissemination, branded social media site is engagement since this wud be interactive
@larsbas Is there a difference? I think there’re just good or bad homepages, depends on your business and what you want to achieve
@tsv1860 “right now: 50/50. and that’s as precise as my gut feeling gets.”

The answers show that some have thought about this question, some not, some even answered more often with different ideas. But all of them have their homepages, probably a few of them have social branded sites on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and so on. Just imagine how…

… many customers have shared this thought. ‘Where do I go first?’
… many of you business partners share this discussion offline?
… many much information could have been shared without 140 character limitation

Spot On!
So, let’s continue sharing this discussion! If this is really a ‘share economy’, then keep sharing this question, keep sharing your ideas in comments to this post in order to give all companies the latest buzz on the question…

‘What is more important: my homepage or company branded social sites? Your answer is…’

How to ‘online’ with school and college students

Yesterday, I got an email form a student saying: “I need some information for my high school exams. Do you have some good links? Can you help?” Well, I gave some advise, definitely. Which made me think about: How to address the modern student with online marketing communication? And surprisingly enough I found a quite new study…

The typical modern student writes, networks and chats social – but emails seem to be outdated. At least if we read what a recent study by eROI, an email marketing and interactive agency, states. The study focuses on how high school and college students and recent college graduates communicate digitally. According to a review published by the Center for Media Research:

The average students reads marketing emails “rarely to never” (61% of respondents). Just 16% are reading marketing emails frequently. Call to action works not for 66% of students on marketing emails.
It seems that company messages via email does not generate direct response effectively in catching their attention personally.

Let’s check the most relevant results…
- 81% got an email address for communicating with family and 52% for communicating with friends
- About one-quarter of students originally got an email address for social networking purposes
- 60% of students take action upon receiving an email only if they are interested in the product
- 47% take action if they are attracted to a special offer
- About 36% of students use email alerts to keep up to date on what’s happening on their social networks

If companies want to reach students they need to be active on social networks (even in business networks).
- 83% use Facebook,
- 65% use MySpace
- 21% use LinkedIn

The study identifies the channels are students using most. The preferred means of communication for college students are:
- 37% Text Messaging (SMS)
- 26% Email
- 15% Social Networking IM
- 12% Email on a mobile device
- 11% Instant Messaging
- 11% Social networking Email

Spot On!
The potential future ‘business elite’ is turning marketing communication upside down. The study shows that communication will not take place via inbox but via quicker and more ‘social’ communication technologies and tools. So, what the social media world tries to tell the present business elite has already touched base for college and school students.

Read the full report here.

News Update – Best of the Day

- Einen sehr interessanten Einblick für Unternehmensverantwortliche über die Do’s zur Nutzung von Social Media Networks liefert der Beitrag von Shawn McCarthy ’16 Rules for Using Social Media Networks’. Er gibt dabei hilfreiche technische Tips sowie unternehmensstrategische Hilfestellung hinsichtlich Guidelines und der Frage: Person oder Brand, wie präsentiert das Unternehmen sich innerhalb der Networks?

- Wie man mit Blogs Geld macht, zeigt das Beispiel Glam. Das amerikanische Blogkonzept scheint zu funktionieren und wirft offensichtlich auch Profit ab. Wie das geht? Man macht einfach aus gut laufenden Blogs eine ‘Vermarktungs-Community’ und bringe deren Post’s auf einer Plattform zusammen. So entsteht ein zentrales Vermarktungs-Netzwerk von Blogs, an dem die Blogger an den Umsätzen beteiligt sind, schreibt die FAZ Online.

- Auch Facebook hat mal wieder einen Weg gefunden, Geld zu machen: mit den User-Daten. Die 150 Millionen User Datenbank soll Firmen als Marktforschungstool dienen. Mittels Targeting wird Facebook zielgerichtete Produkt-Marktforschungen an User adressieren. Zugpferd sind Engagement Ads, die auf der Homepage eingesetzt werden, welche wie eine Art Schneball-System bei eigener Teilnahme an den Umfragen die eigenen Kontakte mit Marktforschungen beglücken – weitere Hintergründe liefert ReadWriteWeb.

Wochenrückblick: Webstrategie, Internetstrategie, Onlinestrategie

- IP TV wird auch für die Webstrategie der Versicherungsgesellschaften immer wichtiger. Dementsprechend hat die Hamburg-Mannheimer Versicherungs AG ihren Fokus des Portals neu ausgerichtet: Unternehmer rekrutieren und Kunden informieren.

„Das HMI-Unternehmensportal hebt sich deutlich von der Masse der Wettbewerber ab und basiert konsequent auf unserer Internet Strategie ‚Next Generation Internet’ – Internet, in dem der Mensch die Hauptrolle spielt“, so Dirk Schallhorn, Leiter Internet- und Regionalmarketing der Hamburg-Mannheimer.

Hier finden Sie die ausführliche Meldung über die Internet Strategie der Hamburg Mannheimer.

- Obama hat allen Politikern weltweit das Social Media Toolkit an die Hand gegeben. Jetzt ziehen die deutschen Politiker nach und versuchen ebenfalls im Web auf die politische Erfolgsquote zu kommen. Die Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine bringt einen herrlichen Beitrag über die amateurhaften Versuche mancher deutscher Politiker einer persönlichen Internetstrategie auf die Beine zu helfen. Quote macht allein schon die Überschrift… ‘Wahlkampf Online: Wenn Politiker wackeln”.

- Social Media ist das ‘buzz-word’ heutzutage, dennoch hat die Homepage bei der Webstrategie erstmal Vorrang. Adam Landrum warnt vor zu schnellem Handeln hinsichtlich Social Media…

“There are a lot of businesses out there focusing on their social media planning that have yet to focus on a proper web site. Block and tackle first. Crawl before you take off running. Get your web site’s objectives aligned with your business objectives, then, go nuts with social media.”

Dell and Social Media: Efficiency is more than numbers

At the Social Web Breakfast in Munich I was focusing on the efficiency discussion around social media in companies and how firms need to define measurement anew. To start the ROI discussion will be misleading as we have not many proofs in terms of numbers as to how profitable social media will be for companies. Now, finding new solutions of a tracking mode is a big challenge and then finally the C-levels need to believe in that new vision. So, the target must be to elaborate on reasons why companies need to start kicking off social media activities versus just talking about efficiency and tracking methods.

Last week, I did a quick poll on Twitter what the drivers are for social media. My intention was to figure out if there are other efficiency measurement method than just revenue figures. And I was surprised to see that most companies see other reasons as their main argument for social media.

Looking at these results, it becomes clear that marketing, pr activities and sales must work closely together to maximize the companies’ efficiency. Now, we all know how difficult it is to measure pr and marketing (although we have hundreds of techniques) as one tracking number. But the question remains: Do we have to measure every effort we make if we find good examples of proven track record in other companies? They did not have a double bottom when they started – and no measurement method, too. But right, what worked for one company does not have be applicable to another.

Dell has been through this measurement process with Idea Storm. Last week Richard Binhammer explained why Dell decided to face social media. It was a decision backed by ratio and emotion, so not only pure numbers but also the wish to talk to, understand and learn from the client perspective.

Let me quote the most important insights as a summary to motivate other companies to follow this decision:

“1. The Magnitude of Change: One billion people are now online — a figure that will double by 2011. In fact, every day 500,000 new users come online for the first time. Content is exploding.
(…) News cycles can start from anywhere today. News and conversations are not just local/regional, they are global. Single blog posts can have as much power as major news stories. People are publishers, content providers and decision-makers.(…)

2. The Value of Personal: (…) The move from “objective,” fact-based, third party reporting and commentary (traditional media/advertising/controlled messages/interruptions) to individual, “subjective,” and “crowd sourced” perceptions is very powerful. Perceptions are no longer just reality. They are real. The “new facts” are based on real interactions and experiences that people share with each other.(…)

3. Connecting with Customers: Since when did any business not want to connect with its customers? Seriously, what is the issue here? Do we need to justify using today’s efficient, effective and readily available technology to spend 30 minutes or couple hours a day connecting with real customers? Social media is an ideal tool to reach customers more quickly, efficiently, frequently and cost effectively.

This week Richard Binhammer took the argumentation on efficiency to the next level but sees the problem in the ROI discussions going on at top management level…

“The problem: ROI as it applies in the business world and as understood by C-level executives means but one thing–how much money was returned on our investment. Simply put ROI = gains – investment costs ÷ investment costs. Just because that definition and formula might not meet our needs does not mean we can redefine it in our own way to justify the use of Social Media (SM) and Social Networking (SN) or any set of communications and marketing tools. If we use ROI in any other way than dollars returned, C-level executives will quickly come to lose respect for us and our efforts and see SM and SN as fluff.”

Did not Dell take the ‘fluff’ approach? Dell was courageous and in doing so the IT company has a lot of experience to profit from today – experience through authentic communication. It was not only numbers – but finally resulting in a new measurement point of view.

So, efficiency for Dell means a long-term transition which is defined by a combination of mass usage of media, by the ‘power of the few’ (remember Malcolm Gladwell’s vision?) and by the ‘listening’ factor. The last being one of the first rules in the sales business if you want to be successful. You don’t even have to think about ROI if you listen carefully. If you do so, word-of-mouth is working in your favour. Numbers will follow.

If companies just see efficiency of social media from a financial point of view, then I may ask, why companies ever started building corporate homepages? Did they have a proof on efficiency? No, they had to go down that route because their competitors started and they had to follow to stay in that competition.

Let me tell you our own success story: I asked myself last year why companies were placing pr news and buying space on platforms like silicon which launched in 2000 as one of the first business communities in Germany? This community had no track record and no proof that we might convert our clients’ investment in numbers. Most of the companies were not even in the shape of tracking anything. To be present on the web was key, not more.

There was no such thing like measuring efficiency in terms of new contacts. No lead generation via bannering or newsletters or follow up on calls they had after we published content about those companies. But we called them… When we though their marketing campaign could perform better with different texts – no matter if this campaign will be running on our platform or not. All of these clients came back and numbers followed. Our efficiency was closley connected to pure communication and word-of-mouth.

Talking about efficiency in those days was more a question of: Can you track pis and clicks already? We could not, but it did not bother anyone of our clients. They tried it out as Dell believed in social media before there was a proof of concept.

Spot On!
Be aware that the efficiency discussion around social media will go on. Nevertheless, there is Michael Dell in a Business Week Discussion with Jeff Jarvis encouraging companies to start their efforts on social media.

“The conversations are going to occur whether you like it or not… do you want to be part of that or not? My argument is you absolutely do. You can learn from that. You can improve your reaction time. And you can be a better company by listening and being involved in that conversation.”

If companies see the possibilities, effects and the value of social media, there is no reason to talk about measurement anymore. It’s more a topic of identification and reorganization: ‘Why did you face the options of social media so late and have tried to find numbers to justify social media?’

Warum sich Social Networks für Unternehmen auszahlen

Immer mehr Unternehmen gehen mit Social Networks in die Kommunikation mit Kunden. Jüngstes Beispiel ist Barnes & Noble, die ihre eigene Lese-Community aufgebaut haben.

Nachdem der Trend immer mehr zunimmt, wollen wir hier nochmal eine Top 5 Liste der wichtigsten Vorteile von Social Networks zusammenfassen…

1. Kunde + User = Prosumer
Der ‘stille’ Kunde ist längst Vergangenheit – heute wollen die Kunden gehört und beachtet werden. Geben Sie den Kunde mit einem Social Network die Option, sich darzustellen (beste Testimonials!), zu kommentieren, zu bewerten und zu taggen. Früher machte man Marktforschungen, heute kann man Wissenswertes auch mit einer Community herausfinden und Erkenntnisse sofort abbilden. Als Prosumer hat die Macht der einzelnen Meinung ein viel größeres Gewicht – es gibt keinen Grund, dieses im Sinne der Verkaufsförderung nicht zu nutzen. Öffnen sie sich und den Prosumern die Einsicht in die Community ihrer Kundschaft und motivieren sie diese so weiterhin daran teilzunehmen.

2. Der Prosumer ist aktiv
Prinzipiell geht es beim Aufsetzen eines Social Networks ihrer Firma nicht nur um den Wiki, Blog oder Kommentarbereich. Während Firmen-Homepages als statisches Gebilde dem Kunden entgegentreten, ermöglichen Social Networks das Herausfordern des Users zur Aktivität. Nicht die Firma macht den Content sondern der User. Er ist Schnittstelle für Informationen von und nach draußen und wird somit ihr Botschafter für das Brand, Produkte. Er macht aus ihrem Unternehmen ein lebhaftes Konstrukt für weitere (potentielle) Kunden. Zudem bringen Funktionalitäten wie Foren und Wikis richtiges Echtzeit-Leben und -Erlebnis in ihr Webbusiness, indem es User und Kunden bezüglich neuer Ideen und aktuellem Wissen zusammen firmennahe Lösungen und Produkte entwickeln lässt.

3. Die Community als Erkenntnisträger für das Management
Das Management, sprich die Entscheidungsträger des Unternehmens, profitiert nicht unerheblich von der Community. Ideen, Bedenken und Meinungen der Community und somit ihrer Kunden spiegeln sich hier tagtäglich. Somit können sie schnellstmöglich und teilweise auch proaktiv Schritte zu steigender Kundenzufriedenheit einleiten. Neue Produktideen können in Blogs entstehen, neue Denkanstöße für das Marketing und den Vertrieb durch Massnahmen wie ‘Deine Verkaufsidee für unser Produkt’ nutzen die Kreativität der Community (siehe Dell) und letztendlich bindet das die Prosumer noch stärker an die Marke. Fehlt den Usern diese Option bei großen Brands, sind die Kunden erstmal unzufrieden und dann ist es schnell zu spät…

4. Content is king – Tagging & Bewertungen übernimmt der User
Intuitive Tagging-Systeme, Ein-Klick Bewertungssysteme und Kommentarfunktionalitäten sind Standard Features bei Social Networking Plattformen. Content wird so aus Usersicht besser durchorganisiert, zugängig gemacht und erhält die richtigen Korrelations-Systematik. Zudem wird Content nicht aus ihrer Unternehmenssicht bewertet sondern aus Sicht der Community. Durch aktives Tagging, Bewerten und Verknüpfen des Contents durch die Community wird das gemeinsame Wissen über die Produkte und das Unternehmen gefördert und vertieft.

5. Social Networks bündeln internes und externes Wissen
Der Einsatz eines Social Networks bündelt nicht nur externes sondern idealerweise auch internes Wissen. Wenn man seine Mitarbeiter motiviert, die Social Networking Plattform auch als Basis für Wissensaustausch zwischen den Abteilungen einzusetzen und als Ausschreibungs-Plattform für organisatorische und interaktive Mitarbeiterprojekte zu nutzen, zentralisiert das Unternehmen diverse Informationslieferanten auf einer Plattform und vereinfacht die Zusammenarbeit in der Gruppe. Und die Gruppe beinhaltet alle Seiten der Wertschöpfungskette: die Firma, Partner, Investoren, Mitarbeiter, Kunden – eben die gesamte Community.

Spot On!
Ermöglichen Sie den Austausch, die Kommunikation und das Organisieren von Wissen über ihre Produkte, ihr Brand und ihre Firma mittels eines Social Networks. Der heutige Prosumer ist mehr denn je bereit, sich über Social Networks mit ihrem Unternehmen auszutauschen. Was bisher über Amerika gesagt wurde, gilt offensichtlich laut der Rightnow-Studie auch für Deutschland inzwischen. Ein Social Network einzusetzen, lässt ihre Firma wachsen: an Erfahrung, an Wissen und damit auch die Beisterung für ihr Brand. Basis ist aber eine Plattform, die Ihnen das Zuhören erlaubt… denn Zuhören ist oft effizienter als sprechen.

Social Networks: Barnes & Noble launcht eigenes Lese-Network

Der Trend zum eigenen Corporate Social Network nimmt immer mehr zu. Nach Starbucks, Nike, Dell und Chrysler, die als Vorreiter in diesem Bereich gelten, hat nun auch Barnes & Nobles, Top-Retailer in Amerika, mit My B&N seine eigene User Community gelauncht.

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