Focus & Simplify - Life as an Entrepreneur using social media

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This post focuses on companies in New Zealand and India. The post above may seem absurd to many as I have seen people still having trouble grasping the concept of web 2.0, forget actually having a web 2.0 strategy. Businesses are missing out on gaining the benefits of the community, networking online, receiving reviews, ratings, and analyzing the online sector to generate revenue.

Large Corporates are aware of this hype of Web 2.0 and are now looking at their existing Website that are backed with “so called powerful Content Management Systems” and wondering if their investment was worth it or are they merely trapped in an earlier age technology that seems outdated.

Before we dive completely into whether Web 2.0 is worth it, lets ask ourselves the following:

• Is your website up to date with the latest information?
• Do you feel that making changes to your current website is a nightmare?
• Do your customers, suppliers visit your website?
• Do you update your website with all the buzz of what’s happening
  in your industry?
• Does your company engage in any kind of market research?
• Within your company do you use any other kind of communication
  medium such as email, messaging, intra net etc,
• Does your company have employees that are situated
  geographically in various places? (i.e. you have multiple branches)
• Do you have sales staff on the road with laptops?

If your answer to any of the above questions is YES then it’s time to start paying attention to Web 2.0, as in a couple of years you will be lagging behind. If currently you do not have an online presence then venturing into this space would be beneficial as you don’t have to focus on legacy applications.

So What’s Web 2.0?

A short definition is that Web 2.0 encompasses various technologies such as blogs, wikis, video, instant messaging, social networking sites, Content syndication, etc, its about rapid development and getting your message across in the easiest and most efficient manner. Its about creating a community where individuals from inside as well as outside your organisation contribute and provide input. With Web 2.0 you do not have to be tied to a specific machine or you do not have to be a SAP expert or a CRM guru. It’s about flexibility, its giving the power to the user. Traditionally and even to date, when a user from a specific department needs a report or a change to the system, a completed change request is necessary. If some information was missed out in the initial stages of the change request, then God save you as the cycle would need to start all over. Such processes just make things more complicated. In Web 2.0 the user subscribes to a service he or she requires. Today’s generation people switch from one medium of conversation to another seamlessly (video, IM, voice,etc.) It’s about information on your fingertips.

Its pretty easy to write about this, but it can be a turmoil to actually go about implementing a practical strategy specially when there are too many fingers in the pie.

So how do you get started??

This is a vast topic but I have tried to list some techniques that could get your mind ticking: B2B strategies do not have to rely entirely on the web. Sure B2B companies currently have massive databases; maintenance of these systems is a nightmare. Most B2B clients are in the same era of having huge systems, Staff within B2B companies complain about their IT systems no matter what.

Ask anybody at work for 5 major IT related things that really bug them and you have your list.

Web 2.0 could be a starting point to resolve factors in-house before targeting your external clients. This would allow every organisation to better gain an understanding of how the web could solve some internal communications, could assist people in their daily tasks. If your target market is purely businesses and not consumers, then at this point you could be focusing on the following:

RSS feeds – Encourage staff to subscribe to your in-house newsletters, when articles are published on your website or new product releases are taking place.

Podcasts - have podcasts that employees can listen to, these could be motivational talks, art of project management, team bonding, etc.

Corporate Blogs – encourage various teams to blog about their team activities, how their week is going, what news have they got to share, what new ideas could be implemented, etc B2B marketing is inherently more complex than B2C.Many people are involved in a decision process as the products and services have more variables.

Corporate Blogs, Social Networks could be used as a medium. Encourage staff to share their input. Create podcasts that speak about your products, hold interviews with – your customers, have interviews with some of your employees, have polls that your website visitors could freely vote on their choice, etc The list can go on and on. I shall aim to cover more tips in my future blogs.

I wish you all the very best in implementing a web strategy that works for you. Should you require any additional information leave a comment.