For our Webinar on May 1st, 2008 at 2PM ET, I plan to discuss business strategies and tactics around using social media, both as an internal collaboration tool, and as an addition to a company's external networking, lead generation, marketing, and community management strategies. It's a space and a topic that has interested me for years, and has been one of the primary focuses of my research over the past several years. Why? Because I believe this upcoming generation of collaboration tools empowers people to perform business tasks and communication in a far more human way, and that businesses can benefit from it.
When we think social media, the first platforms that come to mind are places like MySpace and Facebook, maybe YouTube and blogs, too. These are good examples, but they don't tell the whole story of what business can do with the tools. For example: is your business asking questions that might lead to business via LinkedIn? Is your customer service arm listening to new channels like Twitter, where companies like Comcast and JetBlue and Dell are already proving out some interesting use cases? Are you listening to the larger landscape of blogs, forums, wikis, and more using advanced listening tools like Radian6?
And inside the firewall, how are collaboration tools like Jive Software's Clearspace Community or KickApps or Mzinga going to replace overloaded inboxes and costly project management software? By providing flexible, customizable, human-centric collaboration methods using all the latest features and functionality to manage status updates, document management, digital process flow, and more.
Is your company or association thinking about social media? Consider swinging by the free Webinar on May 1st, and if you can't make it, no worries. Drop me a line at [email protected] to talk about it further.