There is no question; this is the age of social media and social networking. We know that by creating a secure, private, branded employee social network where your former employees can stay connected to your company and each other sends a powerful message about the value you place on your company’s people. We know that consumers actually do like to engage with companies via social media outlets, making all of those channels worthwhile. Still, many have yet to embrace the real opportunities that involvement in social media and corporate social networking can deliver.

A recent study conducted by White Horse helped revealed the following:

“Forty percent of B2B companies devote one or more full-time marketers to social media marketing, as compared to 54% of B2C companies, according to the results of “B2B Marketing Goes Social.” However, say that given the relatively smaller size of marketing departments in B2B organizations, this level of representation is significant and underscores the maturing role of social media as a core component of B2B marketers’ arsenal.”

The report continues:

“Only 10% of B2B companies have engaged an agency for help with social media, as compared to 28% for B2C companies. White Horse analysts indicate this is consistent with B2B companies’ overall lower rates of agency engagement across all marketing activity, but say it demonstrates that agencies offering social media services need to work harder to define their value to B2B organizations.”

Conenza’s Alumni Community Software is unique and stands alone from other social media efforts, by efficiently retaining previous users and keeping them available for future needs. Corporate social networking is a long term investment, requiring expert account management, vision and strategy in order to be profitably executed. Conenza provides that account governance from start to finish.

We’ve seen the value a well planned and well executed program can deliver. Have you?

Omowale Casselle examined the pros and cons of using social networking and social media tools for recruiting in her blog post "Social Recruiting Is Only Cheap Right Now ." Here at Conenza we are focused on building lifelong relationships with  employees to increase business development opportunities and recruiting efficiency.

Employee Time/Energy Is A Real Cost

"Social Recruiting is not cheap from the perspective of resources expended. Unless your recruiting team is filled with volunteers, Social Recruiting is not free or cheap. The main reason being the amount of time it takes to properly define, get buy-in, execute, measure, and repeat a campaign. Much of the time it takes to conduct these initiatives is because of the existing fragmentation of social media tools. From maintaining a Facebook fan page, tweeting on Twitter, writing blog posts, searching for candidates on LinkedIn, and monitoring Google Analytics; the recruiting team can spend a significant amount of time  and energy on these free tools. Individual company recruiting teams that are taking a leadership role in this new space are developing solutions that don’t necessarily scale well. In fact, one could argue that it is in their best interest not to share strategic elements which are most beneficial to recruiting top talent via social media."

Discover why the world’s leading Global 2000 enterprises rely on Conenza’s corporate social networking software and expert community-building services to build and manage their employee and alumni communities .  It hurts when you lose employees, especially star performers, but this does not have to be the end of the relationship or the value that they create for your organization. Smart organizations are actually reframing how they look at the departure of an employee, maintaining connections and continuing to tap into their knowledge, connections, and commitment to do great work.

Conenza is passionate about business social networking and loves this article by Don Tapscott, “Top 10 Themes from 2010 Davos”.  Below are a few highlights that we have pulled from the article that relate to corporate social networking:

The World Economic Forum has wrapped up and the small, Swiss town of Davos has been returned to the skiers. Among top concerns at the World Economic Forum: fix the global economy, sort out executive pay, create sustainability, and enhance collaboration

The state of the world is not good.
The theme of Davos was “Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild,” which may have sounded a bit grandiose to some people. I doubt many attendees think this now. The world clearly needs fixing.

Figures cited at the Forum show we’re a long way from being out of the woods on the global recession. Jobs are and will continue to be a huge issue. It is estimated that unemployment in the world jumped by 50 million during the recession, and that the number of working poor increased by 200 million.

Everywhere new collaborative models are emerging to solve global problems.
Our systems of global cooperation are not rising to the many challenges we face. The global humanitarian response to the Haitian earthquake is showing us what is possible. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake isn’t just a Caribbean island crisis, but a world crisis. Millions of people and thousands of institutions have responded in nontraditional ways, donating time, money, goods, and services via new technologies such as texting, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Social media have become the preeminent tools to connect people around the world, empowering them to become active participants in relief efforts.

There are 100 million people on Facebook Causes—the biggest application on Facebook. These are not just people talking to each other. They are organizing activities in the physical world. I heard of dozens of examples at Davos.

It turns out that the Internet does change everything.
The much-discredited phrase from the dot-com period is not just geek speak. The Internet and social networks were central to many discussions here. The digital age seems to be coming of age.

I  participated with CEOs of most of the important social networks in a session called The Power of Social Networks. A few minutes into it, we solicited questions from Facebook. In the first two minutes, 6,000 questions appeared.

New business models are emerging in every industry and throughout society. I’ve argued that social networking is becoming social production and that a new mode of production is emerging—changing not only how we make software or encyclopedias but physical goods like motorcycles, too.

I was also a panelist at a private session asking the provocative question: “Will social networks replace the nation state?” Of course the answer is no, but it’s significant that we can ask the question. If Facebook were a country, it would be more populous than Russia. Nation states have based their authority on control of individual identity, association, and currency within territorial boundaries. Now social networks operating across geographical frontiers have the potential to offer all these things. They also offer the potential for power divorced from traditional political systems. What are the prerequisites for the emergence of the first digital nation-state?

By David Coursey
Article link

In telling priests to become more web and social network savvy, Pope Benedict XVI is offering valuable advice for businesses, too. And if His Holiness thinks Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are good ways to spread his message, maybe his advice can help your company, too.

If you’re having trouble getting your bosses to adopt a social networking or some other online strategy for your business, the Pope may be your ally. Here’s what he has to say, and with a few word substitutions the advice would be at home in a business magazine:

“The increased availability of the new technologies demands greater responsibility on the part of those called to proclaim the Word, but it also requires them to become more focused, efficient and compelling in their efforts,” wrote the Pope in his message for the 44th World Day of Communications, to be held May 16.

The Vatican already has a multilingual Web site, but has recently launched the “Pope2you” portal, offering a Facebook app, iPhone app, YouTube channel, and Papal videos. But, don’t let the cool “Pope2You” name and URL fool you. Like, like all good CEOs, Pope Benedict warned his managers that they can’t just talk the talk of social networking.

Connect and engage a global workforce and transform corporate alumni into strategic assets with Conenza’s corporate social networking platform. For more information visit http://conenza.com

Conenza agrees with Econsultancy’s article regarding corporate social networking success factors. Conenza provides corporate strategic planning and social networking software.

Most major brands are hip to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. And many have built up an impressive presence on the web’s most popular social hangouts.

But some of the more adventurous brands have also experimented with self-hosted communities of their own. Unfortunately, a large portion of them fail. Amongst the causalities are communities started by some of the world’s biggest brands, such as Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart.

But failure isn’t inevitable for brands looking to build their own communities outside of the Facebook and Twitters of the world. According to BrandWeek, a number of diet firms are finding success with their own online communities. Atkins Nutritionals, for instance, only has 3,714 fans on Facebook but its own online community at Atkins.com has plenty of activity. It reportedly reaches millions of people and appears to have over 400,000 registered members.

While a community dedicated to dieting, for example, has obvious advantages over a community for teenagers run by Wal-Mart, that doesn’t mean that brands can’t develop thriving online communities of their own if they consider the following.

* Focus. Communities develop around subjects that are important to people. That should go without saying. Unfortunately, many brands that launch online communities seem to forget that consumers aren’t interested in interacting around their brands 24/7. Instead, brands should identify how they relate to the lives of their customers. With that, they can focus in on building communities around subjects that are relevant to both their brands and their customers’ lives.

* Branding. Branded communities need to be branded. But the brand can’t be the experience; it has to be integrated into the experience.

* Functionality. Brands looking to reach consumers can’t be lazy and simply throw up a vanilla community with standard social networking functionality. Profiles, photo sharing, forums, etc. are all commoditized. To win, brands have to build functionality relevant to the community’s focus that differentiates the community and gives members a good reason to keep coming back on a regular basis.

* Participation/moderation. Communities don’t run themselves and brands can’t start them successfully with a hands-off approach. Instead, brands should make sure that they’re actively involved in the communities they run. While the level of involvement can vary, at a minimum brands should be prepared to ensure that their communities aren’t overrun with spam and bad behavior.

* Creativity. Brands often have incredible assets that can be used to create compelling community experiences. Contests, exclusive content, special events and rewards programs can all be employed in creative ways to entice consumers to join and participate. Unfortunately, many brands seem downright uninspired when it comes to using their corporate resources with their online communities.

Obviously, branded communities aren’t for every company and there are many advantages to tapping into the existing audiences on popular services like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. But that doesn’t mean that brands don’t have the opportunity to build something successful that they own and control. By keeping these five success factors in mind, that opportunity is easier realized.

Get in touch with Conenza to discuss your own employee social networking and business social networking software.

For more information please visit our site at http://conenza.com/

Conenza has just announced a new pilot program for Global 2000 companies looking to cost-effectively and quickly prove the business value of a corporate social network.

With an enterprise-class corporate social networking platform and expert community support, Conenza’s “Quick-Start” Program makes it easy to get up and running with a pilot for a selected group or division with minimal impact on an organization’s internal resources.

What’s Included:
* A private, branded, hosted social network powered by the Conenza Community Core, including: Directories, Profiles, Connections, Groups, Blogs, News, Document and Photo-Sharing, and Basic Reporting
* Conenza’s expert support services to help you quickly drive value for those in the pilot
* Access to community best practices that make getting started easy

And, Conenza will work with its clients each step of the way to ensure the pilot’s success.

LAUNCH A PILOT PROGRAM TODAY!
No implementation cost. $500 per month. Register by April 30, 2009 to participate.

Find out more!

By Meighan Berberich, Director of MarCom, Conenza

We had some very exciting news at Conenza this week. Gartner recently published the “Cool Vendors in Social Software, 2009” (1) report and Conenza was one of the four vendors featured.

Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are: Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn’t do before; Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology); Intriguing, have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity in approximately the past six months.

You can check out today’s press announcement here.  

(1)  Gartner, Inc. “Cool Vendors in Social Software, 2009” by Jeffrey Mann, Carol Rozwell, Nikos Drakos, Thomas Otter, March 13, 2009

By Meighan Berberich, Director of MarCom, Conenza

Gartner recently presented its 10 ‘CIO resolutions for 2009’. There are some great recommendations on this list for CIO’s looking to maintain a competitive edge in a challenging economic environment. I encourage you to check it out.

#1 on the list this year was the advice to build a corporate alumni community to retain access to valuable knowledge and hard to find skills and to help bolster recruiting efforts.

Below are a few highlights that we have pulled from Gartner’s recent announcement that relate to corporate social networking:

“1. Start Building an Alumni Network: To maintain legacy skills and complex experienced pools of labour, Gartner recommends CIOs establish alumni networks. This could include a semi-official company IT alumni association with its own web page, use of web social networking tools and re-establishing bounty schemes, where staff are paid for recruits they bring in.

#5. Start using social systems yourself, visibly: Gartner said that CIOs need to start visibly using social networks themselves to kick-start their participation from other staff - lurking in quiet observation is not enough. Gartner advised CIOs to also encourage the leadership team into using social media more openly to communicate internally and externally to rebuild brand confidence, energise the company culture, develop ideas and refine solutions.”

This Gartner report entitled “CIO New Year’s Resolutions, 2009″ is available at: http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=849815&subref=advsearch

By Savan Kong, Director, User Experience, Conenza

At Conenza, our obsession is creating trusted online communities. We spend a fanatical amount of time dissecting how to make our web-based communities as trusted as their real-world counterparts. A critical facet of my job is to study online behaviors and build features to enhance trust. But how do you build something as abstract as trust into tangible objects such as graphics, buttons, links and forms?

To study how people interact with each other, psychologist Kurt Lewin introduced a formula for determining behavior. He observes that behavior is the function of the person and his or her environment. Lewin’s equation, B=ƒ(P,E), argues that a person’s momentary situation drives how she will behave or interact. It’s also interesting to note that P (person) and E (environment) in this equation are not independent variables, as a person’s perception influences the overall definition of the environment.  

It is fascinating to apply this thinking to an online community and observe the impact trust has on behavior.

The level of trust influences freedom of information sharing. In most online communities or corporate social networks, when there is a mixture of people, such as personal and business acquaintances, the level of trust will vary across the community. Generally, a community that is comprised of family members has an extremely high trust value. This results in a community where sensitive information can be freely disseminated and volunteered. Conversely, a community of strangers where trust has not been established is less willing to offer personal – or even casual – information.

We break down levels of trust into a few basic categories:

* Low: stranger, new person
* Medium: colleague; acquaintance
* High: friend, close business associate
* Very High: family; best friend; spouse

Privacy settings and permissions controls can help create an environment of trust in an online community. Understanding how people connect and share in different environments helps us determine the granularity of privacy settings and the depth of permissions-controls we offer to our clients and community members in our corporate social networking platform. The safer community members feel about sharing information, the higher the level of trust and ultimately engagement will be.

For example, if I know that I have control over what my connections see and don’t see at a very detailed level, I will be more open to populate my profile and connect with people that I may not know as well in the community. Or, if I know that I can join a private and secure group where I can share information with only my direct colleagues under the umbrella of my larger community, I will deepen the level in which I participate and share. Moreover, the confidence level in the community drives the overall trust level.  And building that foundation of trust is the cornerstone of our communities and our corporate social networking solution.
 

By Sharon Bolding, Product Manager, Conenza Community Platform

I recently read a book by Marco Iacoboni called Mirroring People. In his book, Iacoboni discusses how humans acquire language and create social connections. He proposes that the human mind’s ability to mimic gestures, behaviors and language patterns creates an atmosphere of learning and extends the brain’s capability to evolve language and build social connections. This capacity is based on the ability to see what the other person is doing and hear how they color words with inflection and emphasis, and in turn mimic their behaviors, follow cues and develop trusted relationships. In the context of social networking, however, there is no seeing or hearing. There are just words and pictures.

So how do we as humans, interacting online, make up for the lack of subtle clues as to the intentions and aims of others online? There is an equivalent, albeit not as rich or immediate in context. Online, the language that people use and the behaviors they exhibit are observed and imitated, but in new ways. Think of the way texting, and before it message board and email conversations, has evolved its own shorthand. Someone enters in IMHO and soon others are also using that as an abbreviated way to say “in my humble opinion” which, by the way, also includes a social aspect of politeness (in spite of the brusqueness of a conversation laden with acronyms and abbreviations.) Take it one step further and you have emoticons which inject a substitute for facial expressions. Want to be sarcastic, while conveying the sense that you are joking? Insert a smiley face and the reader will not take your acerbic wit too seriously.

In an online environment, the lack of gestures and body language are compensated for by the use of rich media, such as pictures, animation, and avatars. While we have come a long way since the days of Tron, and are not yet even close to the virtual worlds and avatars of Snow Crash, the hardware, math, and programs for complex graphical representations of virtual space have advanced. However, complex computer animations have not become a key component of social networking. More recently, the use of web cams, webinars, and video conferencing has brought the visual back into play when interacting online. Technical advances such as podcasting have taken off as a means of connecting online in a one-to-many format. But again, none of these mediums have been leveraged as a means of connecting on social networking sites.

We are wired by evolution to imitate as a means of connecting and building empathy and intimacy. So how do you connect online in a way that acknowledges the ingrained habits and learning patterns of our brains? There are several technologies that can compensate for the lack of immediate presence: linguistic tools, web analytics, and behavioral psychographics. Each of these is a method or technology that is already available to us to build stronger communities of practice, network around areas of common interest, and share resources and ideas for innovation.

Here at Conenza, we are focused on building trusted online communities where connections and collaboration thrive, to create unique value for members. This means a commitment to using the latest in social and technical research. In future posts, I’ll write about how these technologies influence and shape the ways we connect and form virtual relationships.

- Who are you? Profiles and building trust within an online community
- Talk the talk: The role of common, everyday language forming connections
- Walk with me: Building viral social networks through reinforced habits