Some statistics that emerged from Jive Software's Business Social Software Jeopardy show which I have lifted from a piece I wrote for IT Counts (closed community so no link):
- 10% of marketing budgets should be allocated to 'social' projects. Marketing budgets usually run at 6.5% of total revenue so for a small business turning over say £2 million, that equates to £13,000. That's a very small number but given much social software is free, there's enough to get some basic consulting and a solid action plan.
- Community sites run by companies need to contain at least 10% negative content in order to be regarded as credible. I take this with something of a pinch of salt because perceptions around service vary among different geographies. Even so, it's always useful to hear when service sucks because that's the primary way things change.
- 9 times the number of online community members visit a corporate website compared to non-members. This is a staggering statistic which speaks volumes to the impact on engagement once a community is built.
- 60% of social computing professionals report to board level or senior management. It's clear that social computing is being taken seriously.
- 60% of companies report having a social software startegy in place. This was a surprise to the panel who believe the answer is much nearer 25-30%.
Sam Lawrence, who devised the game is a smart chap for whom I have a lot of time because of his mastery of creative marketing that is subtle enough to work without offending. The game show format worked well though at an hour long, it tested my patience.
The broader question is whether the evidence presented during the show by Sam and sort of comfirmed by Forrester analysts Jeremiah Owyang and Laura Ramos, are likely to be reflective of what we will see in the UK anytime soon? I really don't know.
Almost all examples quoted were in the context of outward facing marketing projects while I prefer to think in terms of collaboration. Especially when talking about inward facing initiatives that include a business supply chain. Laura's responses were from a business-to-business standpoint so maybe there really isn't that much differrence between consumer and business plays.
However, professionals can draw tentative conclusions from the research that should encourage them to at least put the 'social computing' topic on the partner/board agenda. As I said in my previous post little seems to have changed in the last 18 months on the issue of professionals adopting these new techniques, but there surely must come a point when the dam starts to break?
Having said that, the very people who shout loudest about these things - the marketing and PR blog community - seem as much behind the times as anyone else. It is a favourite topic of mine to bemoan the parlous state of PR which seems as rooted to the past as it ever was. Socail software may be coming, but I seriously doubt how it will be implemented as things stand now.
Having said that, I was delighted when Ms Ramos said in response to the question: "How long does it take to get a community going?" Ms Ramos said: "Much longer than you think. Companies consistently under-estimate the soft cost investment in time but it cannot be circumvented. Metrics could be things like the degree to which it is self-sustaining, self-thriving and self-sufficient."
Too many people give the impresson that throwing low cost software over the wall is enough to make things magically work. It isn't as I have found in the projects I have worked upon. That's an experience confirmed by Suw Charman who, in a recent post on project failure said:
Every now and again I'll be talking to a client or a journalist or some random person at a conference, and they'll ask me if I think that social software is a fad. Invariably they'll have anecdotal evidence of some company, somewhere, who tried to start up blogs or a wiki inside their business, and it failed. That, they say, is proof that social software has nothing to offer business, and that if we give it a few more years it will just go away. Quod erat demonstrandum.
The problem with this interpretation is that these failures - which are common, but largely unexamined and unpublished because no one likes to admit they failed - are part and parcel of the process of negotiating how we can use these new tools in business. They are inevitable and, were they discussed in public, I'd even call them necessary as they would allow us to learn what does and doesn't work. Sadly, we don't often get a glimpse inside failed projects so we end up making the same mistakes over and over until someone, somewhere sees enough bits of the jigsaw to start putting them together.
There is a lot of failure in the use of social software in business, on the web, in civic society, but we need to see this as a part of the cycle, a step along on the learning curve. We can't afford to stop experimenting, just because something failed once, or because it didn't work out for someone else. And we can't afford to take part in the Great Race To Be Second, either, because if you're waiting to see how other businesses succeed (or fail) before you leave the starting line, you're not going to be second, you're going to be last.
I'm fully in agreement with Suw on this one. When we met in Lausanne, I mentioned that a number of the things we had previously discussed last year before IT Counts got fully under way have indeed come true. And then some. At some stage, I plan on writing about what has happened but as we are a ways off from getting a real line of sight into the project successes and failures, it is premature. Let's just say: 'we're working through it.'
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