How businesses can get more from social networking
For all the talk of businesses embracing Web 2.0 and social software tools, most companies are still at the very early stages of adoption, says Jonathan Yarmis, an analyst at AMR Research who focuses on emerging technologies. In his latest research note on companies taking their first step into social media, he says that companies must avoid the "Kumbaya Zone" -- the place where social media is ultimately a time-waster and has little business value.
Yarmis talked with CIO.com about where companies have been missing the boat with Web 2.0 and social media, and what they must remember when they get started.
CIO.com: Social networking and related technologies have been popular in the consumer space for years now, but businesses have sometimes had difficulty finding value. What are they doing wrong?
Jonathan Yarmis: The conventional wisdom for companies looking to use social media, and I get sick of hearing it, is that "you need to engage in the conversation" on a Facebook or Twitter. Well, you need to ask yourself, why are you engaging in the conversation? What are you trying to accomplish by it? Merely engaging in the conversation doesn't make some kind of magical outcome occur.
In fact, there are some conversations that aren't a good use of your time and that will lead you down counterproductive paths. You want to get involved in conversations that are meaningful and impact your business.
What Comcast has done on Twitter has been brilliant. Cable companies, in general, do not do well with customer service. But there has been a lot of buzz around about how Comcast been using Twitter to foster customer service and answer questions about their service. That is a case of knowing what conversation to pick. They haven't changed much about their customer service, but they've changed the perception of it with some of their customers who use Twitter.
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