Gartner says companies need 4 things in order to succeed with social media:
They also say half of companies will fail to manage these initiatives successfully. Read the article here.
(hat tip: beatenetworks)
4 Replies to “But Which Half?”
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The killer quote in the post is “Rushing into social-computing initiatives without clearly defined benefits for both the company and customer will be the biggest cause of failure, …” Your POV about customers being marketplaces is best to communicate the fundamental company mind set that must be established to value the customer with equity in the dynamic and a balanced framework that engaged parties can work from. Ultimately – adopt the best examples from option/review sites like Yelp, eBay, Amazon etc … where the marketplace is about the insights and credibility of the community that enable the transaction take place as an outcome.
Thanks for the post Chris
Pete
http://www.fasano.org
great points, pete. starting with the *community* in mind FIRST really is the key, isn’t it? the transactions are a (happy, necessary) side-effect.
“more than half of companies that have established an online community will fail to manage it as an agent of change, ultimately eroding customer value”
I wonder whether companies that set out to *manage* the communities will be among those who fail to get the change agent results they ostensibly want. Those that participate actively seem more likely to reap the benefits, as underscored by the point about ceding control. Managing communities seems much more like the one-to-many relationship of traditional promotion, and it’s not going to get past the filters people have put in place for that, and there go the creative benefits of many-to-many interaction.
booker, you are right-right-right on. “manage” is COMPLETELY the wrong verb. it’s “immerse,” it’s “support,” it’s “engage,” it’s “particpate”…it’s something very, very different than “manage.”