Corporate Web StrategyWeb Marketing ideas, tactics, trends and more….

The beauty about social media is not about the various ways you let your audience link your site to various social media channels, but more of how you use these social media channels effectively for your benefit.

If you think by putting Facebook, Twitter or Linked-in links on your site is adequate to count for social media presence, you need to think again. Social media is no longer just about the ability to be able to share your site’s content with others.

Social media is about interaction – having a personality behind that social media account and be able to interact with your customers via social media. It means expanding your corporate presence beyond your website. It also means taking your customer’s opinion seriously, and being wiling to take and act on open negative criticism.

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In Jeremiah Owyang’s post – Reinforcing Customer Service in Social Mediums, he asks for submissions of experiences where social media has proven to be more effective, efficient and helpful in customer service.

Today, I will attempt to explore some considerations when it comes to adopting social media as a viable channel to manage customer service in an organization.

There was a comment posted by Sean Odriscall on how he believes that implementing such a change would require extensive business process reengineering, planning as well as a redefinition in measurement metrics. It’s not merely as simple as creating and engaging with an online community.

I totally agree with Sean in this area, but I also believe that if such a change would give a company an apparent competitive advantage, it should definitely be explored. Perhaps a preliminary study on the extent of how social media is currently being used to engage customers in an organization, and the effectiveness of such relationships would help to provide a perspective towards a full and official adoption of social media in organizations.

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Social Media is THE hot topic today. There are hundreds and thousands of sites offering tips on social media usage and trends. However, if you are creating a web strategy you probably need more information on trends, ideas, and a great deal of substance.

Here’s a review of 10 of the most social media sites I have found most useful in helping me craft my corporate web strategies:

1)   Jeremiah Owyang

With roots originating from Forrester, Jeremiah Owyang’s blog is a wealth of knowledge from the viewpoint of an analyst. Read his blog, and you’ll find deep insights on the impact of social media on the marketplace or your marketplace. If you are seeking for social media research, you’ll sure to find lots here. With Jeremiah being part of Altimeter now, the current focus of the site right now seems to be on the concept of Social CRM.

2) Social Media Today

This site is probably more of a collection of blog posts contributed by a string of guest authors. Thus, you could probably find lots of social media tips and tricks here, but probably as in depth as you would like. Nevertheless, Social Media Today is a great news site for lighter reading. You’d probably also find some excellent reference documents and webcasts here as well, especially if you are just learning the ropes on social media.

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I get a lot of people excitedly telling me how Twitter is hot, and that Twitter should be incorporated into web marketing. However, stopping short of using Twitter on a personal basis, most people have hardly any ideas on how to integrate twitter into their web strategy.

Furthermore, in Asia, while there are like 1 million Twitter users in Malaysia alone (I’m not sure how many of these are active), most users are still using Twitter on a personal basis. Nevertheless, with iPhones and Blackberries fast gaining ground here, it won’t be long before Twitter will catch on.

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According to the webcast featured in Social Media in Asia, peer networking is the 4^th major influence on buying decisions after Speaker presentations, Research content and virtual events. This means that prospective buyers are consider the opinions of what they listen from their peers within their social networks.

Another interesting aspect is that people in Asia tend to have more friends online, than offline.

Now, how then can companies build on these relationships in their corporate web strategies to help sell more products?

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By now, the majority of employees are participating, interacting and sharing on social sites such Facebook, blogging or Tweeting. As of end 2009 there are an estimated 27.3 tweets per day, 60 million Facebook users and 126 million blog (www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6MfnuvH4Rs) .

At a personal level, people enjoy social media. But how many people actually agree to use social media professionally? How can you convince your tech professionals to maintain a blog on their areas of expertise? How can you bring your long-standing staff to utilize social media for sales, marketing, customer service and PR, when they have been so accustomed to traditional channels?

1) Communicate the vision of incorporating social media into business functions

Employees first need to see the reason why they need to use social media professionally. While many may embrace this positively, they need to understand how their contributions will help to improve company performance in a competitive marketplace.  Provide them with examples of how social media have transformed other organizations, and an overview of how social media will be used in selected functions in the organization.

2) Create a Web Strategy which defines the role of social media in various organizational functions

Most people are reluctant to change, and more often than not, prefer to remain in their comfort zone. To facilitate this transition, create a web strategy plan that details how social media is going to be used in each function. For instance, if social media is to be used within a marketing function, explain how employees can help promote company products and solutions via their social networks – blogs or twitter.

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