Social Business Sandy

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Tag: social media (Page 24 of 25)

The Scottish Qualifications Authority goes Social! #socbiz #ibmsocialbiz #ibmconnect

March 1, 2013 / / 2 Comments

The Scottish Qualifications Authority- the body which creates and manages exams for Scotland’s schools and further afield –  have become a social business with the rollout of the first part of their Staff Social Portal – IBM Connections.  Using Connections they are better able to communicate, collaborate and share information across their 800-strong workforce.  Even before going live there were nearly 400 initial users, and 138 communities set up, dealing with work and socially-focused activities (like their ever-popular jogging club).

As I discussed with Rob Gibson, he commented ” This has been a thoroughly enjoyable project from start to finish.  We spent a lot of time researching how to best sell this type of solution to the organisation and then setting up an “Early Adopters” community to test the set up and iron out any issues before we opened up to everyone else.  

The other main task for the Early Adopters was to populate the system and get the conversation going ahead of general opening. This created a substantial amount of momentum which we have carried on past the launch day.  We started with around 15 Early Adopters and grew to nearly 400 in around three months (approximately half of the organisation).

The system is in full swing with all manner of conversations and networks being built.  I am delighted with the overall response so far but we have some ideas about how we can reinvigorate the system should it require a helping hand in a few months time.  We also have a planned upgrade to a future version of Connections later in the year.  This will give users a great uplift and help to keep the interest levels high.”

A big “well done” to Alan Hamilton (@alanghamilton) at IBM Premier Business Partner Seric Systems (www.seric.co.uk) who used our 10 step Adoption methodology to becoming a social business!
scottish

Diving in Bonaire: 5 lessons of the coral reef & the Social Ecosystem! #ibmsocialbiz #socbiz

February 27, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Last week I was on vacation and finally got to dive in Bonaire!  We went with Bob from http://vipdiving.com!  They were great.  Even though I had a back injury, they helped me tremendously to dive safe and took us to 2 amazing dive sites!!!  I’d highly recommend them to you!!!!

So what did we see on these dives?   I saw tons of turtles, eels, barracuda, flounder, and colorful coral reef.    But my favorite was a first for my dives … I saw my first seahorse there!  He was a bit red, cool, and incredible.   Though I didn’t get a pic, here’s one from a pro that looks just like my sea horse!!!

Bonaire-CJE-2011-13603-Seahorse

YEA!!!!

But while I was diving I was thinking about the social ecosystem!!  (Folks like Dachis, Jeremiah Owyang in the past have done the same!!!)

A few of my thoughts:

  1. What I saw:   Seahorses hanging on for dear life like … many companies struggling with Social.   They cling to the past.   We need to see that social is now a part of the business system.  I’d love to help you embrace it!
  2. What I saw:    Schools of fish being chased like…consumers banding together in communities, being chased by companies!
  3. What I saw:     My guide searching for fish we had not seen like... companies approaching social in a focused way.   Adding value, searching not for the masses but those consumers that matter to their business.
  4. What I saw:      Tons of turtles having fun in the sea but working hard too.  (Did you know that that marine turtles actively, and intentionally, remove algae from coral reefs)  like:  a great social analytics engine to remove the “stuff” that doesn’t matter, and helps you identify what does!
  5. What I saw:    Lots of color and coral formed overtime like a great community platform (IBM Connections!) that enables the different social networks to form!  These tools are important and the security they provide enhances results!

Yes, I know many of you ask “do I ever stop thinking about Social?”   Ummmmm….no!!!

IBM’s Partnerworld is TODAY! Why should small businesses care about #socbiz?! #ibmsocialbiz

February 26, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Today I am in Las Vegas with a group of great partners and will be involved in a Social Business Boot camp for and all there!

Here are some interesting reasons why I am so passionate about helping my partners with social!

  • Did you know that 90% of small businesses are on Facebook, and roughly two-thirds post more than once per week?  Yet, only a quarter of all U.S. small businesses (20-99 employees) and a third of midsized companies say they use social media “to engage with customers and prospects in a strategic and structured way.” Another 20% of both groups say they use social media, but in an ad hoc manner. (eMarketer)
  • More than 80% of small to midsized businesses (SMBs) plan to increase their use of social media in 2013. Not suprising, considering that 87% of SMBs say that social media has helped them either somewhat or a great deal in th past year. Of those using this channel, social media accounts for 32% of SMB marketing activities. (Marketing Charts)
  • Still, not every small business should be using social media—or at least not using it as they are currently. 79% of small business owners on Twitter post just once per day or even less frequently, yet one out of three want to spend less time on social media. These business owners would be best advised to either spend their time on other tactics or hire someone who knows and enjoys social media to interact on their businesses’ behalf. No deposit, no return. (Leaders West)
  • Meanwhile, 55% of small businesses have a blog. (Leaders West)
  • Despite the growing popularity of local mobile search and social activity, only 3% of U.S. small businesses use geolocation services. (eMarketer)
  • Mobile marketing is “becoming mainstream” for small to midsized businesses (SMBs). 18% said they were “very likely” and 31% “somewhat likely” to incorporate mobile elements in their advertising and marketing efforts to reach potential customers in the coming year. Meanwhile, 7 in 10 plan to either maintain or increase spending in this area (Marketing Charts)

We will share our best practices on all of these areas So MoLo

  • Mobile
  • Social
  • Geolocation

Interested in this coming to you!  Let me know!

The Marble Effect! Build an Intentional Social Business Ecosystem! #ibmsocialbiz #socialbusiness #socbiz

February 12, 2013 / / 2 Comments

 

 

marbles

 

The Marbles have 300% more surface area!!   So what does this have to do with Social?

Your voice gets magnified the more people in your network.   Your POV and listening impacts the best solution.

Take a look at this picture where you have a tiered Marble impact.    The upper tiers have impact and have direct linkage and work with a Social Business Manager.  The term “brand ambassador” has been a round for ages, but do we really want to create brand ambassadors?  The analogy isn’t quite right.  Nor do we want to put pressure on people to mindlessly share content on their personal networks.  So you need a bit more of a nuanced approach.   An intentional social enablement system!

multiply your impact

IBM has been working on a bunch of different enablement tiers that create an ecosystem of social enablement for IBMers.  Starting with a foundation of guidelines and policy – see our Social Business Coffee Break from yesterday blog post!  – and moving up to general education about social media, cybersecurity and reputation for all IBMers in the Digital IBMer hub.  From that tier, IBMers can move into the Forward Thinker Program which enables them to be surfaced on ibm.com and other external experiences – and also to be identified for the IBM Select program, which is a small group of high-tough, bespoke plan enablement for the top tier.  All of this is managed by people from many different areas within IBM – the social business managers…we’re not suggesting that we create a whole department of social business managers, but this is definitely an emerging set of skills that people need!

I’d love your thoughts on this approach!!!

 

How do you balance Social and the Workday?

February 7, 2013 / / 1 Comment

I love to multi-task and social really enables me to do more than one thing at a time.

However, the study by (Visual.ly) showed that

  •  The typical worker is interrupted once every 28 minutes on average.
  •  28% of the average work day is spent on interruptions and recovery time.
  •  45% of workers believe they are expected to work on too many things at once.
  •  And tasks done in parallel take on average 30% longer to complete than those performed in a sequence

So what are my secrets to getting more done with social:

  1. I schedule social time in.    15 minutes at the start of the day, middle and end so that I can focus on listening and learning.
  2. I plan my social calendar.   On the weekend, I plan my blogs my subjects to focus on, and even the tools of the week.
  3. I focus on what’s important with social analytics tools that help me sort through the rivers of information.
  4. I focus on the relationships and engagements.
  5. I love experimenting and look for surprises and learnings in everything (like see my last blog on the Ducks!)  If you don’t look, you won’t see it!

What would you add?

New Year Resolution: Social Leadership #ibmsocialbiz #ibm #socbiz #ibmconnect

January 2, 2013 / / 14 Comments

Have you set your New Year’s Resolutions yet?  I am still working mine but today as I sat down with one of our clients, and his New Year’s resolution was social leadership.

What does a Social Leader look like?  Act like?

Here’s what we agreed were the top 10 attributes (thoughts?)

  1. Transparent
  2. Non believer in silos
  3. Authentic
  4. Likeable
  5. Collaborative
  6. Comfortable with fast decision making
  7. Explorer of new tools
  8. Active in both internal and external networking
  9. Actively looks for new ideas from employees and clients
  10. Passionate about engagement and dialogure

Would this challenge to be a great social leader in 2013 be a New Year Resolution for you?

How can I help you?!

Cook it in Social Sause!

April 15, 2011 / / 2 Comments

While at BlogHer, I had the opportunity to meet with Michelle Stern, author of  The Whole Family Cookbook.   It was great to hear her story of how her small business is leveraging Social to grow into a Social Business on many fronts!

If we look at our Social Business Agenda, she has really focused on doing this right!

So how did she leverage Social? Let me try to frame it as the A-G-E-N-D-A!

She Aligned her corporate goals to the social business vision.   The soul of the recipes are from social networking sites!

Her focused on Gaining friends by targeting those who have common interests with her company What’s Cooking for Kids.  Her target of course are those who love to cook, and involve their kids.

She engaged her Fans through a number of ways.  For example, she involved them in her process of writing her book.  Once the book was finished, she put together a pdf sample of the book and put it on facebook – as a bonus for people who join the community.  In a matter of days, she grew by several hundred people and has great engagement and excitement of cooking with kids!  And now that the book is actually for sale, she has an amazing group of bloggers doing reviews and giveaways — they are her brand advocates!  Village Harvest Rice also sponsored an incredible movie trailer for her new book.   It helps people to get to know me better and understand where the book is coming from.  Check it out here!  http://whatscookingwithkids.com/landing/the-whole-family-cookbook/

(Social) Networking her processes, even as a small business, she decided that her “product development” process would be social.   What’s her product development?  Developing recipes of course!   All of the recipes in her book were tested by members of her facebook community (www.facebook.com/whatscookingkids).

Analyze the data!  Traffic to her site has gone up by 40% and the Facebook community has grown 50-100 people a day for the past few weeks.  All of these in process metrics are helping her grow her book sales, and cooking classes!

I get lots of questions on can this work for a Small Business…..Michelle is a great example of how a small business can leverage the power of Social Business.    Michelle certainly has!   (Also, check out the new book she has .. I bought it and my daughters have been engaged in learning how to cook!  I love the keys to which recipe steps are for which age children!)

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