In a previous post I addressed the three conditions for Social Media.
- Ensuring that people with social skills are chosen - or allowed to emerge - to lead projects
- Appealing to both the group and individual needs of the participants and
- Building communities around particular topics/services as a way to scale a population of users
These conditions focus on how social rules are in fact more pronounced - and beneficial to businesses - in a social-media environment. Now that the conditions are understood what are the patterns for how Social Media is currently being utilized.
Pattern #1: Peer production
Peer production is perhaps the best understood business benefit of Social Media. Simply expressed, the idea is that when more people - more staff, more customers, more partners - participate in the creation of knowledge, the quantity and quality of knowledge too increases.
If you look at the publicly available case studies on what businesses are using social media for you will find ample evidence that businesses are using social-media tools to build subject-specific knowledge inside their business. The catalog of case studies in this area is growing fast. There are many blog and wiki case studies reporting improved efficiencies in product development, product marketing, sales and knowledge management.
Technorati tags: Social Media, Peer Production
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