Product

Depending on your product, you might want to think about these kinds of alignment questions:

• How does it share? – In software, this means adding features like “post this to Facebook.” In physical products and businesses, it might mean giving consideration to how the real-world experience can spread via the online tools. For instance, if I’m Steve Wright over at Jay Peak, I’m going to want to have a bunch of “rental” Flip cameras or Kodak’s Zi8 camera on hand, plus some simple instructions for YouTube tagging and Flickr groups.
• How do we collaborate? – In software, look at the difference between Flickr and Picasa. In the real world, determine if there’s some way to extend relationships between users. To keep with my ski resort example, I might throw together a Ning site, and invite EVERY guest to join a social network around their experience.

Price

With social software, maybe there’s a chance for “invite a friend and you both save X” kinds of pricing options. “10% off if you fan our Facebook page.” There are all kinds of ways to think about how you can align social tools to pricing. Woot.com made a great integration with Twitter. So did Dell Bargain Outlet. Your blog can have specials of the day or week posted there. There are tons of ways price aligns with social software.

Place (distribution)

Look how easy the social web makes cause marketing. Take blogging software, make a post about the cause, throw a ChipIn widget on there, and you’ve got the basics for a charity fundraising experience (technology-wise). Distribution is the web’s best talent. You can put things everywhere. You can build a simple presence framework and move information to where it’s needed. Place is the easiest of the Four P’s to align to the social media world. Make sense?

Promotion

The social web is the talk of the town because of promotion. It’s free and easy, right? Heh. Most people accidentally promote in very damaging ways. They haven’t learned how to promote without being “that guy”. But it’s true that these tools are the best tools for promotion ever.

Through my Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter outposts, I get thousands of new readers and prospective clients every week. Thousands. I make new relationships that I wouldn’t have had before the land of blogging and all the other social tools. I use YouTube and I can podcast and I can make photos on Flickr. There are tons of ways to use these tools to promote and build community opportunities.

What’s Old is New Again

I lined up all the old fashioned marketing “Four P’s” to how social software can interact. I didn’t exactly lay out step-by-step plans, but maybe you can infer a bit from what we started with. You’ll notice something. The tools aren’t all that spectacular and amazing, except that they make performing certain tasks simpler than it used to be. Instead, the potential and the wonderment are all inside the human part of the equation.

What’s exciting about how social media and social software aligns with marketing is that there are new opportunities that far surpass the old methods for marketing, and that’s where the magic truly hides. Marketers do have to understand the tools, but more so, here’s a quick list of what else needs to be understood:

• From bullhorn to phone – Your message is no longer to be shouted, but to be socialized.
• From theater on the stage to theater in the round – Marketing is human again. Don’t stay “on message.” Stay connected to people.
• From millions, to the right 10,000 – Mass never worked well. It just did well enough. Find relationships that yield.
• From campaign to community – You’re in it for the long haul. Build awareness, reputation, and trust by being there.
• From exclusion to “one of us” – Your customers (b2b or otherwise) want to be included in the whole experience, not just to buy.

Truth be told, there are a dozen more things we could talk about in that list. But let’s start with those. You get the starting point. It looks easy, until the boss starts yelling at you for numbers and fast. Farmers can’t rush crops. You can’t join a gym a week before a wedding and drop five sizes. This is re-inventing stuff, not rehashing the old stuff with new line items.

You with me? What else do we have to cover here?

If you’re not yet subscribed to this blog, consider starting your free subscription today, as we’re going to cover even more of this in the coming weeks. You can receive it via email, or in your blog reader of choice. And thanks.

Photo credit wwarby

These could be all within a public system like Twitter, with the private channel activities being performed via Direct Message only, or the private conversations could be via a private platform like Socialcast or Yammer. The benefits to keeping them all in Twitter is a simple user experience for employees of the business. The downside would be the potential to spill private business into the public channel in error.

Now, where this gets interesting is when you think of either b2b additions to this, or affinity relationships. What if all the people up and around Jay Peak in Vermont, like Steve Wright all kept a Twitter list of local related businesses. Maybe Steve’s list would have alternative lodging and dining options, some medical professionals, massage therapists, ski repair shops, etc, all wired together in a Twitter list, so that he could monitor their public conversation for potential crossover opportunities. Suppliers to Steve could see his needs easily. Steve could assist in directing customers to related businesses while being up to the minute with what the situation is at their establishment (this all assumes that everyone’s keeping their channels updated).

The only thing missing is some kind of “memory” for the system. For instance, if Steve finds out that Boyd from the ski repair shop is going away for two days, how will he alert the next day’s crew to this information? And how will the overall “system” stay aware of such logistical changes? It would probably require some kind of alternative platform, like either a Facebook fan page that relates to that wired up group, or maybe a group blog. Either way, it’s not too hard to add it on.

What makes this different than email? Brevity, for one. For another, it’s a more flexible sharing option requiring less duplication of effort. For another, it serves many purposes in the public-facing channel mode, and helps speed up processes on the private in-business mode.

Squint a little, and you’ll see a few other ways to design these experiences for a business. Can you see the value?

When I’m done, I check Facebook to see who’s looking for a friend request (because they have a limit on friends, I have to be picky). I see who’s sent me Facebook mail (normally junk inviting me to someone’s dumb marketing webinar). I try to remember to check the birthdays.

I check in on my blog’s comment stream, making sure to cull out spam, and then diving in to answer questions wherever I see them. I follow some of the comment links back to the authors’ sites so I can learn a bit more about who spends time with me.

I open up Tweetdeck (or once I get re-sizable columns, Seesmic Desktop), and see what’s gone on there since I last checked in. I answer some of my direct messages, and see where people have tried to direct my attention while I haven’t been around.

I write my blog, of course. (Hey, here I am writing my blog.) I find a picture for the post. I might upload or edit some of my other media. I might shoot a quick video for a post. Basically, I have media making chores, too.

Of course, I still have email to contend with. I get close to 500 a day right now (it’s actually gone down over the last several weeks).

Oh, and my job, which is all of those things above, but not just all willy nilly like that. My job, such as it is, is to help companies decide which of these tools to use in what mix and to what end. (That’s at least part of what I do.)

These tools are powerful, useful, wonderful, connective, and they add hours to one’s day. To simply use the tools is probably just as useful as going out and buying a complete set of oil paints, some clay, and a loom and calling yourself an artist. Learning how they apply to your needs might be a prudent step before committing to using up time managing everything.

For those of you worried that this “social media” stuff adds chores and time to your days, it does. It definitely does. And yet, we find new value in it every day. Why? Maybe you’ll share some thoughts on this?

Photo credit chrisada

Finally, many days later, I’ve had a chance to look at it.

Moontoast is a site that enables one-on-one video learning with flexible rate-setting. It means that I could consult with you via a video chat window for an hour using their technology, and I could set my rate accordingly. Want a guitar lesson? Swell. Want to learn how to cook? Just fine.

I think it’s a nice implementation, and that there’s a business opportunity for this kind of product. It’s not like you can’t exactly do this with just using a few tools yourself, but Moontoast puts it all together nicely and makes it easier for people to get down to business.

What’s your take?

Here’s the premise that I believe Shiv’s saying they’re going to try: there’s an ad, but then your “friends” can comment on the ad, or rate it, etc.

First off, I don’t know that this will work. If you post a Ford ad, and I come along and crap all over Ford in the comments for the ad, what will Ford, the site, or the ad platform do next? It would be NICE if we could have both sides of the conversation, but as ballsy as I want companies to be, I can’t see anyone taking that bet.

Second, it’s kind of interesting that I might be able to click an ad and get the metaconversation, but I’m curious whether I’d click in the first place, because that’s saying I’ve chosen to endorse the interruption. It continues the premise that people milling about in some online space want the distraction of an ad.

I’m going to think more about what would work for me in the space of “social” ads. My immediate thought is that affiliate marketing is kind of like that. But I have to consider it a bit more.

What do you think about all this?

Photo credit, Montrasio International

I’m back and forth on rating sites. I think that they offer some value, but I always wonder about traffic. I’ve been looking back and forth at Vendor City in the same way for the last several days (a few months?), too.

To the plus side, it’s great that people have a place to rate and have a voice. My big concern: traffic. How do you get people there, and sustain the interest?

For now, I wish Stephanie luck, and as of this posting, here’s the Top 5 Places to Intern, according to her site:

What’s your take?

How Social Software Merges with the Enterprise

First, it has to integrate with the tools they understand. Sam showed me how Clearspace integrates with Salesforce.com, for instance. This was interesting. Because now, if I’m a sales guy and I’m getting ready to call one of my prospects or clients, I’ll get anything said anywhere within the Clearspace product about that company or prospect as information before I make the call.

If you’re a social software provider, or someone looking to advise companies on social software, think about this kind of usage: merging what Mzinga’s Rachel Happe calls “unstructured data” in with a typical contact record.

Easy and Easier Still

Sam mentioned that Clearspace has an email in and out feature, that allows mobile users and others to get information in and out of the platform simply, and through nothing more than an email interface (for instance). It should be easy to use a community platform, and it shouldn’t always require a full web browser. Most enterprise customers aren’t using iPhones.

Customization and Less Heavy IT Department Lifting

Lots of the changes in 2.5 might seem a bit aesthetic at first, but think about it: If you are building a social software platform and it is to be supported internally, you’ll want something that allows people to change and fiddle with most of it without a lot of effort required from IT. Why? Because they have other, bigger fish to fry. I like this as a trend, and I hope other platform providers continue to make things easily customizable, and yet not especially difficult to manage.

Further Integration

We have to stop thinking of social software as an island. It’s going to be part of the fabric, and that requires integration points, connectivity to the way people create business processes, and flexible enough to fit within an organization’s existing business styles. I saw lots of that in Jive’s latest release, and Sam talked about the company’s further efforts in that department for future visions.

Takeaways

I believe social software has a good opportunity to find its way into the enterprise in a much bigger way. There are other great companies doing this kind of thing as well. I’m excited by what I see from my friends at Mzinga, Telligent, and other platforms working in the enterprise software space.

For the rest of you looking to take your products to an even larger audience, especially if you’re hoping to become part of the way business is done, I think the future comes only once we give people adequate bridges forward from the present.

Here’s a video Jive made of their product, if you want more details:

Clearspace 2.5 from Jive Software on Vimeo.

For those of you who are getting involved in social media a little bit at a time, consider this a list of things you might check out a little bit at a time to see what appeals, what fits into your workflow, and what you can dismiss as unnecessary for your needs.

AND, if you have some resources you think would be good to add to the list, feel free to add them in the comments section.

50 Online Applications and Sites to Consider

Blogging

1. Blogger – free blogging and hosting.
2. Movable Type – paid software, needs host.
3. TypePad – paid blogging and hosting.
4. WordPress.com – free blogging and hosting.
5. WordPress.org – free blog software, needs host.
6. Tumblr – free blogging and hosting.

   Microblogging

7. BrightKite – microblogging, mobile, location.
8. FriendFeed – microblogging/ aggregator.
9. Identi.ca – open source microblogging.
10. Jaiku – microblogging, mobile too.
11. Posterous – microblogging, and/or sends to other sites.
12. Pownce – microblogging and file sharing.
13. Plurk – microblogging and threaded conversations.
14. Seesmic – video microblogging.
15. Twitter – microblogging and mobile.
16. Utterz – microblogging, mobile, video.

    Social Bookmarking

17. Delicious – bookmarking.
18. Ma.gnolia – enhanced bookmarking.
19. Sphinn – bookmarking/voting.
20. StumbleUpon – bookmarking and browsing.

    Social News Sites

21. Digg – social news.
22. Mixx – social news.
23. Reddit – social news.

    Social Networks

24. Facebook – general networking.
25. Flickr – photo and video sharing.
26. Last.fm – music sharing.
27. LibraryThing – book lovers.
28. LinkedIn – professional social networking.
29. MySpace – general networking.
30. Ning – white label social network.
31. Pandora – music sharing.
32. Yelp – rating restaurants and businesses.

    Miscellaneous and Useful

33. Twitter Search (formerly Summize) – search for what matters to YOU.
34. Picnik – free online photo editing. Good for avatar pic touchups.
35. Evernote – online and desktop note syncing/storage.
36. Upcoming.org – event sharing site (great for finding cool conferences).
37. Netvibes – web start page (has Ginger social features now, too).
38. Twingly – blog search.
39. Compete – web ranking analysis.
40. AideRSS – rates your blog posts.
41. Skitch – screen capture tool (mac).

    Video Platforms

42. Blip.tv – video hosting, sharing.
43. Google Video – video hosting, sharing.
44. Viddler – video hosting, sharing.
45. Vimeo – video hosting, sharing.
46. YouTube – video hosting, sharing.
47. Mogulus – live video platform.
48. uStream.tv – live video platform.
49. BlogTV – live video platform.
50. ooVoo – live video chat.

Photo credit, klynsis

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Today, I’m thinking about the various ways in which I spend my time on the web, asking myself how they align with my business and social interests, and wondering what I might be doing out of habit versus that which might be part of a plan. I’m considering how my contributions to social platforms matter, and thinking about ways that I can do good work for others.

How are you spending your time online? Are you making a difference? How much of what you do is according to a plan of some sort? Or is the web just a relief valve?

First, take away from this that the social network technologies you know about in the consumer space are being rebuilt inside the firewall for business. Why? Those apps are perfect for business, because they do a better job of communicating information the way humans figure it out.

Second, understand that there are people looking for more from their social applications than food fight and super fun wall. If you’re developing, consider what might make for good business applications.

Third, bear in mind that what you might be doing for fun and leisure right now on the social networks might give you an edge on using collaborative technologies in upcoming months. It might just be the thing you’re doing at work, and not just the thing you’re doing at home.

What do you think about all this?