1. Blogs and Social Networking are highly preferred medium of both customers and employees in the value chain of the business.
2. Videos are extensively used for providing training and customer support.
3. Social Networking and blogs are used extensively by large set of businesses for almost everything.
The usage of social networking and blogs raises an interesting thought. Is social networking (Facebook, linkedin, myspace) really helping businesses do better. Blogs are interesting medium to share, interact and engage with the audience (partners, customers, employers and other stakeholders) but as I understand social networking, which despite being important to individuals and also to companies, consumes lot of productive time of the enterprise. The loss may be argued as an investment by companies but there does not seem to any conclusive study on the benefits of such an investment.
Is social networking hype? How have businesses embraced social networking that provides value. Is this an investment by companies to remain blue eyed within its value chain or is it an investment in anticipation of something better in future?
I don't know the answer and I may be shooting in air. Despite being fan of linkedin which allows personal benefit of connecting with various individuals and facebook which again allows interaction among friends and acquaintances. I am keen to understand the economic value derived by using such 2.0 networking sites by the enterprise.
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1 comment:
Amit,
I also had a similar question in my mind few months back.I posted my question over linkedin and got an interesting reply which you might be interested in:
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You would be surprised how many blogs and social networking groups there are out there about all sorts of products and brands. To use your Starbucks example, just go to Google Blogsearch and search for Starbucks - you'll see tons of results from Starbucks and general coffee enthusiasts. Grocery stores can also benefit - there are thousands of blogs about cooking, food, specialty groceries, etc.
There have been two studies recently that support the use of social media by retailers to engage customers. One that says that 30 percent of online shoppers "say the best way to find discounts online is through link forwarding, peer comments or social sites", and another that says "85 percent of consumers who use social media believe a company should not only be present on social sites, but should also interact with its customers using social media."
I've included links to a couple of great articles to read on the subject, as well as a blog post I recently wrote with ideas for retailers for using social media to drive holiday sales.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/06/7-lessons-on-holiday-social-media-marketing
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/10/social-media-leads-holiday-shoppers-to-bargains
http://thecaffeinatedblog.typepad.com/the_caffeinated_blog/2008/11/using-social-media-to-drive-holiday-sales.html
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