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Success Factors & Challenges of Social Media Initiatives

In the section of the book which talks about cooperation and social bookmarking, Niall presents a case study of the healthcare provider BUPA and quotes their Lead Information Architect, Keely Flint, when referring to the challenges of implementing social media initiatives.

Challenges:

1. Find small groups of starters.

2. Avoid complexity.

3. Make sure benefits from use are derived  immediately.

4. Market the idea to the wider employee base.

Niall concludes that there are a some common characteristics of successful social software initiatives.

Success Factors:

1. Speed and Flexibility

2. Ease of Use

3. Demand Driven

4. Individual Value

Have you come across other references on this subject? Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email.

What’s so ‘social’ about the social web?

To me it always seemed obvious why we called social software or social media the way we do. I have read a number of articles talking about dispersed knowledge workers who are collaborating via the Internet. But does it really have to be that sophisticated? In Niall’s book I found a small collection of activities that make the web social. This is how we derive the meaning. The former description is still correct, yet the activities named below better reflect our real world behavior.

A Global Map of Social Web Involvement by @globalwebindex

Media_httpwwwglobalwebindexnetimagespublicmapofsocialweb1000gif_etcvpavsjrhjcjq
via globalwebindex.net

Above you can see a world map of social media involvement. The study was conducted by Trendstream, a research consultancy. The map shows the popularity of different social media services around the world. Trendstream provides total user numbers and the national penetration rates.

What’s the most common pattern of social media engagement?

  1. Managing a social network profile
  2. Uploading photos
  3. Uploading videos
  4. Writing a blog
  5. Using a microblogging service

It is interesting to note that managing social network profiles and uploading pictures seem to be the more common activities regarding social media engagement. Many countries have penetration rates approaching or even exceeding 50 percent. Uploading videos, writing blogs, and using microblogging services are clearly niche activities with the majority of adoption rates being well below 20 percent.

What seems to stand out?

  • Japan’s low overall engagement is due to the high utilization of mobile devices, which have not been included, according to the authors. I feel this is a weakness of the study.
  • India leads the table in terms of photo uploads.
  • Brazil displays the highest rate of users maintaining social network profiles.
  • Russia has the highest rate of video uploads.
  • China counts the highest amount of bloggers.

I would be very interested in finding out why certain technologies are particularly popular in one country, but lag behind significantly in others. Why is blogging so popular in China? What’s the reason behind Brazil’s active usage of social networks? If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment or email me.

When Real-Time Isn’t Fast Enough by @jowyang


via ustream.tv

This is a video of Jeremiah Owyang, who is a Partner at the Altimeter Group, a strategy consulting firm. The other day he gave a presentation at LeWeb, Europe’s largest internet conference. The points that he makes are quite interesting. Below you can find a brief summary of my notes.

1) Start listening now, and quickly offer social personalization features

  • Include contextual information based on social profiles
  • Allow access to services such as FB connect, analyze behavior, and customize the product offers accordingly

2) Develop an unpaid army of advocates who can respond when you’re not there

  • Work with customers and evangelists and use them as an unpaid R&D team
  • Give them recognition and access to exclusive information, not cash

3) Start to invest in systems –like social CRM– that can support the overall strategy

  • Integrative strategy counts; all customer data needs to be stored in one location
  • Future: match Twitter and other accounts with trad. CRM systems and detect customer problems as they occur

If you would like to have a look at the entire presentation, check Jeremiah’s blog.