Social Communities – The Hidden Jewel of Social Media

Whilst everyone is getting slap happy about Twitter the one trend we’ve noticed that we believe is far more significant is the growth of social communities. A number of vendors have made significant technical advances such that I think the focus for many companies (large and small) going into the second half of this year and 2010 will be around building a sticky social community.

Social communities represent the coordinated use of many social technologies – blogs, wiki’s, forums, social networks, multi-media, ranking/voting tools etc. There are many examples of Communities already in existence. As a business and as individuals we actively participate in a number of communities both professionally and personally.

Communities can take many forms – from the low cost option of Ning through to the emerging leaders – companies like Awareness Networks, Mzinga, Igloo Software, and HiveLive.

Communities are nothing new.

True, in fact, for the past 6 years I’ve been a member of Australia’s oldest business community – The Executive Connection (TEC). TEC is an affiliate of Vistage International.

With more than 14,500 members, Vistage International is the world’s foremost chief executive leadership organization

Membership of TEC introduces you to a community of like minded senior executives – this is an important point that we’ll come back to as we start to develop some community strategies for TEC in the coming months.

The question is whether TEC can make the transition from a traditional community to a social community – one that is deliberate, capitalises on TEC’s inherent trust among members, reflects TEC’s premium reputation and senior executive member base, and one that delivers long term value.

TEC has a unique opportunity ahead of them. They have a premium service that has at its core business leaders who are striving to build better companies whilst maintaining a thirst for knowledge and personal growth.

What Does This All Mean?

In my opinion, Social Communities represent the Holy Grail of social media – and will be the critical, mandatory component of any business seeking to go down the road of Enterprise 2.0. But whilst they are the Holy Grail, they also represent the toughest challenge. A company like TEC can’t simply decide to ‘do’ community. It requires strategy, resources, planning, investment, and most of all – commitment.

In the coming months we’ll compile a resource pool of articles and content that has been shared with us. We’ve found these resources to be invaluable in helping us understand communities as well as working with our customers to scope, understand, and plan for future social community initiatives.

The Wiki is Not Always the Best Solution

One of my many Google Alerts arrived this evening and a particular entry caught my eye. Despite the fact the first part of the blog post was really good, it went on to propose a resolution to a sales reporting problem that has sent me into a quiet rage.

As much as I support and promote the use of Wiki’s in organisations, suggestions like those contained in this post make me angry as it’s an example of technology being used outside its traditional scope to fix a problem that has been caused by technology being misapplied, and then reinforced by a major dose of general corporate incompetence.

Whilst Stewart’s idea has merit, in essence, he’s suggesting the customer accept a band-aid solution rather than confronting the real issues and working towards a long term, sustainable, best practice outcome. And this is before I even start on the sad fact that this type of ‘work around’ has to be proposed for a terribly archaic reporting structure.

The information presented in the post outlines (at least) two fundamental business issues – and I’m not convinced that a Wiki is an acceptable solution on its own (though I will propose that a well resourced Wiki will help engage and deliver corporate change).

Problem #1

I get the feeling they are using a CRM solution and that it clearly hasn’t be configured to suit the needs of the organisation. Call me a sceptic but I’d say they are probably using Salesforce.com and engaged Salesforce.com PS team to configure the solution – so they have a beautifully configured CRM that does nothing to help them sell more effectively. Based on our experience of sales automation projects I’d suggest the VP of Sales was rail roaded by the Salesforce.com sales reps via their typical colour, light, and movement sales presentation and probably never thought to consult the people for whom the system relies on – the field sales person.

Resolution? Stop listening to your CRM vendor and actually listen to your sales team. Look at your sales processes and start understanding your sales data. A Wiki is not going to do this for you but can become a central knowledge repository for specific sales, process, and how-to guides

Problem #2

Stewart’s proposal that a sales reporting Wiki might eventually allow the VP of Sales to analyse data ‘perhaps twice a week’ is fundamentally flawed. In fact it’s wrong.

Resolution? Get serious about your CRM use and how you report sales information. Implement a solution like Cloud9 Analytics. Cloud9 would provide this VP of Sales with the opportunity to take immediate action to improve sales performance and drive revenues.And by immediate I mean she could focus on the forecast breakers, the major customer deals and have any significant events delivered to her via a dashboard or directly to her BlackBerry.

Problem #3

Either the VP of Sales is in way over her head or she’s been given a charter to be mediocre. The role of a VP of Sales is to be a Sales Leader, not the resident reports monkey. The role of the VP of Sales is to reduce revenue risk, increase team productivity and facilitate collaboration. At a minimum the company needs to invest in a sales coaching tool like Private Sales Coach. This would allow the sales reps to take greater ownership of the progress of their opportunities and allow the VP of Sales more time to spend being a sales coach and sales leader.

A wiki will help this company but not as a sales reporting tool. If the company wants to mature into a true Sales 2.0 organisation then they need to do more than just put a wiki in place.