How to Increase Internal Corporate Community Engagement
“Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. … They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf. While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore [...]
Posted by Shannon Gburzynski on March 31st, 2011 in Best Practices, Internal Community, Owned Media, Strategy, User ExperienceNo Comments
Enterprise Community Strategy: Be Proactive vs. Reactive
It is not a secret that most would prefer to be proactive with a situation than having to be reactive. It’s why we watch the weather before leaving the house in the morning, (#snOMG anyone?) or do background research before sales calls. Being proactive allows us to be as in control as possible, of course [...]
Posted by Shannon Gburzynski on February 10th, 2011 in Best Practices, Case Studies, StrategyNo Comments
The Evolution of the Corporate Intranet to Enterprise Social Collaboration
As the shift in media continues to move at an incredible pace we are beginning to see it reach out and touch more and more aspects of our lives, it notably affects the way we socialize, but most recently we have seen it transforming the way that businesses communicate and collaborate internally especially within their [...]
Posted by Shannon Gburzynski on January 24th, 2011 in Best Practices, Internal Community, Owned Media, Strategy1
Meeting users in their media (a literal translation)
I often advocate to our clients that when thinking about content distribution and seeding, they should “meet users in their media”. Sometimes this concept takes some explanation in terms of what I mean. As marketers look to integrate social media into their existing programs or projects don’t silo your thinking by only supporting a limited [...]
Beginners Guide to a SMB Web Strategy
Web marketing and social media are quite the buzz words lately, but when used properly they are very successful at engaging customers and prospects. The below steps are a very preliminary start to a fully functioning online marketing program, but they certainly give a jumping off point from which a more expansive plan can be [...]
Key tasks of an Internal Community Manager
As social technologies and community spreads throughout the enterprise new roles are being created to support them. One of the most critical roles in the success of these efforts is an active and effective Community Manager (CM). The CM is often the Sherpa for an organizations internal and external community efforts helping with many aspects [...]
Posted by James Davidson on December 28th, 2010 in Best Practices, Internal Community, Owned Media, StrategyNo Comments
Community navigation approaches – And why they STILL matter!
When I first saw iGoogle and the new BBC website a few years ago I thought it would be the end of traditional site navigation (menu structures at the top of a website), and that these traditional approaches would become redundant and inefficient compared to the widgets and personalization capabilities of these new widget driven [...]
Measures of Community Success
Many enterprise communities are emerging as business communication shifts to a more socially designed model. Some of these new online initiatives fare better than others. Measurement is a key piece of the puzzle in determining what causes communities to succeed. Whether you are preparing to launch a new community or hoping to revive an existing [...]
Posted by Don’t silo your community
When considering launching an on-domain community many organizations struggle with where it will fit within their current organizational structure and who will be responsible for taking ownership of it, e.g: Sales/Marketing, Communications/PR, IT, HR and or Support etc. Once this organizational decision has been made most organizations then struggle with where community fits within their [...]
Posted by James Davidson on July 23rd, 2010 in Best Practices, External Community, Internal Community, Owned Media, Strategy, TechnologyNo Comments
Why User Experience still matters in a Community
Today while trying to order my lunch at a local fast food vendor, I couldn’t help but squint and take issue with their menu layout. A combination of unbalanced background colors, photography and fonts completely threw me as I was trying to quickly scan my options and make a selection. Anyone who’s been to In-and-Out [...]