Four Ways Companies Can Use Open Source Social Publishing Tools to Enhance Their Business Operations

Transcription

1 Four Way Companie Can Ue Open Source Social Publihing Tool to Enhance Their Buine Operation acquia.com Corporate Drive, Burlington, MA 01803

2 Four Way Companie Can Ue Open Source Social Publihing Tool to Enhance Their Buine Operation A look at how leader are uing a menu of more than 12,000 Drupal module to enable ocial haring Table of Content Introduction PAGE 3 1. Create Cutomer Support Communitie PAGE 4 2. Drive Buine Innovation Through Ideation Communitie PAGE 5 3. Build Fan Communitie To Engage And Acquire Supporter PAGE 6 4. Build A Social Intranet To Engage Employee PAGE 7 Concluion PAGE 8 About Acquia PAGE

3 Introduction The Internet i a powerful tool for encouraging ocial interaction and collaboration. In recent year, we ve een the rie of ocial new ite like Slahdot and Reddit, through which uer curate the content by voting and commenting on their favorite torie. Photo-haring ite like Flickr allow amateur and profeional photographer alike to hare their work and group it into community gallerie. Even traditional new organization like The Wahington Pot have embraced ocial media and ocial haring technology: The company recently rolled out a Social Reader app that allow uer to paively hare the torie they are reading with their Facebook friend. Thee high-profile companie are jut the tip of the iceberg: A recent urvey from Regu found that 43% of all buinee in the United State are now uing ocial tool to engage with cutomer and employee and acquire new cutomer. There are ample benefit for buinee that embrace ocial publihing technology. Social collaboration tool can enhance and deepen relationhip, whether among a buine employee, cutomer or propect. Such method alo may be ued to crowdource olution to problem, new idea and feedback on marketing initiative. Drupal, an open ource content management ytem ued by large organization including Twitter, Bet Buy and Stanford Univerity, i an ideal platform for ocial publihing. There are more than 12,000 Drupal module available that buinee can adopt or modify according to their own need. Drupal modular approach allow companie to reduce their development cot, create a broad range of application baed on their need and deploy olution at a rapid pace. In thi E-book, we ll take a look at four of the way that buinee can utilize Drupal open ource technology to engage in ocial publihing

4 1. Create Cutomer Support Communitie Typically, buinee rely on internal cutomer upport repreentative to provide help to cutomer who have quetion or problem about a product or ervice. Thi approach i expenive, low and inefficient compared with a modern alternative: allowing cutomer to offer inight and olution to one another on a collaborative cutomer upport community. By offering earchable cutomer upport forum, buinee can take advantage of their cutomer own knowledge and product experience, allowing them to provide help and feedback to other cutomer who have quetion or iue. Creating a collaborative cutomer upport community i a valuable way to grow uer engagement with a company, while imultaneouly reducing the cot of providing internal cutomer upport. Symantec, the maker of Norton AntiViru and other IT ecurity product, recently created an online cutomer upport community called Connect. Connect offer a number of different communitie baed on the uer interet or role, uch a the Endpoint Management Community and the Developer Community. Uer can elect a community to ak quetion and gain acce to dicuion and corporate reource related to their topic of interet. Currently, more than 250,000 cutomer ue Connect to hot dicuion and repond to quetion; 95% of the information on Symantec Connect i ubmitted by cutomer and partner. Buine ue of ocial networking continue to grow a a mean of winning new buine. 7% more companie have found new client through buine ocial network compared to Q (up from 40% in July 2010). -Regu 3 4 5

5 2. Drive Buine Innovation Through Ideation Communitie Providing cutomer with the tool to ubmit, vote and comment on idea a growing trend known a crowdourcing i a powerful and democratic way to drive innovation within a company. Ideation communitie give a buine cutomer and follower the opportunity to ubmit their own uggetion for new initiative or change, while other uer can vote and comment on their uggetion. Iuing quetion or requeting feedback on corporateled initiative alo can prove valuable; cutomer repone will erve a a virtual focu group regarding the uggeted meaure. A year ago only 27% of companie actively devoted marketing budget to ocial networking, but now more than two fifth ay they do (34%). In a recent urvey, the public relation firm Weber Shandwick found that 95% of the Fortune 200 corporate executive urveyed, who had utilized crowdourcing communitie, had found cutomer feedback valuable in enhancing the organization corporate ocial reponibility program. The executive claimed that crowdourcing helped urface new perpective, drove engagement with key audience, invited cutomer and client from nontraditional ource to hare trategie and brought new energy into the idea generation proce. -Regu Ideation communitie alo can be beneficial in non-buine etting. For example, the Federal Communication Commiion (FCC) recently revamped it web ite and launched an open cutomer feedback dicuion forum, where uer can ubmit repone to quetion about the role of government in new and media. Uer are able to vote on the top repone, and add their own comment to each thread. Thi initiative encourage tranparency in government, and provide citizen with acce to a virtual town hall

6 3. Build Fan Communitie to Engage And Acquire Supporter Cutom-built brand ocial networking communitie for a buine fan and upporter can be ued to build tronger relationhip with exiting fan and to acquire new lead. Companie often ue cutom content in the form of blog, article, video and other multimedia to reach conumer within their target demographic and drive engagement and referral. Social media platform, uch a Facebook and Twitter, can be ueful in extending a buine reach and capturing the attention of new potential fan; however, maintaining an independent brand fan community provide the buine owner with greater control and flexibility with regard to the corporate ocial networking community. Incentive, uch a contet, can drive further engagement and increae uer-generated content. For intance, the oftware company Intuit recently hoted a competition for mall buine owner, in which buine owner ubmitted video torie about their companie. The finalit were elected baed on the number of uer vote received, with the $25,000 grand-prize winner elected by a judge. The initiative proved to be powerful: The grand-prize winner received more than 1,400 vote from member of the online community. Social networking i alo commanding greater budgetary attention from firm; 39% are devoting up to 20% of marketing budget to thi activity. -Regu 5 6 7

7 4. Build A Social Intranet To Engage Employee Internal web ite, or intranet, can be ued to hare information and reource with employee, but they can alo erve a powerful communication tool for employee to communicate with one another or with corporate headquarter. Buinee can take advantage of ocial collaboration module to provide employee with opportunitie to hare multimedia, uch a corporate training video. Employee alo can ue the intranet to participate in dicuion board related to company policie or upcoming taff event. Many organization are taking advantage of ocial collaboration tool in building their intranet: According to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey, nearly two-third of buinee urveyed make ue of at leat one ocial media tool, uch a dicuion forum (52%), blog (51%), and intant meaging ervice (50%). For intance, Verizon created a collaborative Intranet that provide employee with peronalized information baed on their poition within the company: A ale repreentative might ee information regarding the company latet product, while a member of the marketing team would ee detail on Verizon recent marketing initiative. The Intranet alo provide online training opportunitie, acce and communication block where employee can hare information or upload audio or video file. Since introducing the collaborative tool, Verizon ha een it intranet uage rate urge. Employee are actively participating in dicuion and haring media, increaing their engagement with the company and with one another. Mot buinee (74%) agree that ocial networking i an eential activity for ucce, however, 61% believe that ingle channel ocial media campaign will not be ucceful if other media are not involved. -Regu 6 7 8

8 Concluion Social publihing i tranforming the web experience, providing buine owner, employee and cutomer alike with collaborative outlet for problem-olving, idea generation and community engagement. Buinee that make ue of Drupal open ource technology in developing thee ocial collaboration forum are at an advantage over thoe that rely on proprietary tool. Becaue more than 12,000 module are available, developer can quickly adopt the module that bet fit their companie need, and can rely on upport from a network of hundred of active Drupal developer. The flexibility and wide variety of option available to Drupal developer allow buinee to plan their community ite carefully, taking a phaed approach to deployment that mitigate the rik aociated with new behavior. Drupal offer a wide variety of ocial networking and community building module, uch a a Facebook-tyle micropubliher, a FriendLit tool, and a ocial-haring toolbar. Developer may deign community ite by chooing from thee module option individually, or they may take advantage of a ready-to-ue olution like Acquia Common that ha all neceary module and community bet practice built in. For companie that intend to move quickly on developing their community-focued ite, an all-in-one olution provider may be an effective method. Rather than handing you a palette of 2x4 and a nail gun, we give you a houe and you get to furnih it, aid Bryan Houe, Vice Preident of Marketing at Acquia

9 About Acquia Acquia empower enterprie with the open ource ocial publihing ytem Drupal. Cofounded by Drupal creator in 2007, Acquia help cutomer manage their growth and cale their online propertie with confidence. Acquia product, cloud infratructure, and upport enable companie to realize the full power of Drupal while minimizing rik, a it done for nearly 1,500 enterprie cutomer including Twitter, Al Jazeera, Turner, World Economic Forum, Stanford Univerity, New York Senate and NPR. See who uing Drupal at howcae. acquia.com. For more information, pleae viit or call ACQUIA SKU Feb12