Executive Breakfast Social Networking / Enterprise: Register Today!!!

Toronto, February 7th,2008, 8:30 am

More and more enterprises are exploring the world of enterprise social networking (Intranet 2.0), exactly how does the enterprise ensure a seamless transition between Intranet 1.0 and Intranet 2.0?

Next week, join NLC and Microsoft Canada for a discussion on social networking within the enterprise and learn about:

• Methods used in enterprise social networking.
• The difference between Intranet 1.0 and Intranet 2.0.
• How to maximize efficiency of the corporate Intranet.
• How to analyze ROI in an enterprise social networking project.
• How to gain a competitive advantage through social networking.
• How to successfully merge Intranet 1.0 and 2.0.
• How to use social networking to tap into latent employee knowledge.
• How Microsoft Sharepoint Services 2007 can improve enterprise social networking.

These and other topics will be covered at the Executive breakfast event on Thursday February 7th , 2008, at the Toronto board of trade.

Don’t miss the Executive Breakfast and Register Today!!!

Read More about Intranet 1.0 vs 2.0

A major risk in any CMS deployment is the non-adoption of the CMS by content authors. Gaining acceptance from users early and architecting the solution to be as easy to use as possible is incredibly important to building a long-term, successful CMS deployment. During client interviews I hear (new) content authors consistently raise the same questions and concerns. The most common include:

• Does this mean I can edit content myself?
• Can I still use the current paper process to get my content online?
• Who has final say over what content goes live?
• If I wanted to create a webpage like ____, could I do it? How?

Most of these questions stem from limited knowledge of what the new system can do, or a general unease about changing the way web publishing is currently done. I generally recommend to clients that they follow four steps to ensure content authors will be comfortable with the new CMS:

1. Run information sessions early

Ensure the users of the CMS are involved early and often. This provides them with a chance to provide input for requirements and feel like they are involved in creating the “right” solution. Short and focused demonstrations of the CMS can eliminate many concerns.

2. Design content templates with the authors in mind

The template structures of the CMS greatly impact usability for the content authors. Finding the right level of granularity can be difficult. User testing of template prototypes quickly identifies sticking points and can provide the implementation team an opportunity to address the issue before committing to a specific structure.

3. Hide complexity from the content authors

Most CMS allow the interfaces to be scaled back based on user roles. Make sure this is done so your users are not presented with irrelevant functions and features.

4. Training should be scenario based and hands-on

When training your new content authors – let them take the wheel. The instructor should use real content to demonstrate the authoring process. After each scenario, content authors should be given the chance to try for themselves – with the instructor there for support.

In my next posting, I will share best practices for the development of content author friendly templates for Sitecore and Ektron.

Amy Quinn pitched me this morning to take a look at her new blog post: “The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base”. While we get a lot of these and can’t write about them all, this is one of those comprehensive and valuable posts that many marketers will find helpful.

Amy and the Inside CRM Editors have compiled a comprehensive and useful list of Facebook resources, how-to’s, background information and targeting strategies in one very helpful article. If you are considering marketing your organization on Facebook, we encourage you to check this post out. You can find it here: The Facebook Marketing Toolbox.

While we’re on the topic of Facebook, it seems like a good time to take the pulse of this social marketing phenomenon.

Current Facebook Stats

According to Facbook, there are now over 62 million “active” users, with an average of 250,000 new registrations per day.They claim over 65 billion pages views per month, and note that people spend an average of 20 minutes on the site every day. To be sure, those are some impressive numbers.

Facebook International?

Recently, Facebook began working on translating the site into different languages in order to make the site available internationally. This should have the effect of reaching a wider global audience and increasing Facebook’s user base, making it an even more valuable target for marketing campaigns.

But… is Facebook worth it?

According to Hitwise, over 72% of all U.S. social network traffic in 2007 went to… well, actually it went to MySpace. Now, while Facebook’s traffic increased 50% last year and MySpace traffic decreased 8%, these numbers do serve as a reminder that what is currently “all the rage” isn’t necessarily currently the most valuable property from a marketing point of view. However, it should be clearly noted that Facebook is making huge gains on venerable MySpace in terms of volume.

Facebook has had it’s share of criticism in the past, and perhaps not all of it undeserved. Facebook’s now infamous “Beacon” system met with less than overwhelming enthusiasm from the tech community in general, and even markets had questions about the system. Users can now opt-out of the Beacon system.

But is Facebook worth the investment of time and energy for your organization? The answer is… it depends. If you have the resources to invest in doing it “right”, if you are confident you will be reaching an appropriate audience, and if the company in general is fairly comfortable with the whole concept of social media marketing, then, yes, it might be right for you.

Remember, Facebook is not the only social network out there… there’s also Twitter, LinkedIn and Google’s upcoming OpenSocial platform, among many others. If your organization chooses to engage with the audiences of these networks, it’s a good idea to investigate the local mores and tools before launching a strategy.

If you are interested in investigating Facebook as a marketing channel further, the following resources may be helpful:

• The Facebook Marketing Bible: 24
• The Updated Unofficial and Smartass Guide to Using Facebook
• CIO: Facebook CEO Appearance on 60 Minutes Leaves Many Underwhelmed
• Facebook as a B2B Marketing Tool
• How to Market Yourself & Your Company on Facebook
• Facebook Marketing: Articles and Resources
• Wikipedia: Facebook
• Mahalo: Facebook

Comcast has just released the Top 50 web properties for December 2007. While the top ten remains, for the most part the usual sites, there are some interesting points to be made.

For the sake of comparing apples to apples, let’s look at data from Dec 2007 vs. data from Dec 2006 (data all sourced from ComScore). Top keep it simple, we have used data only at the top 20 sites.

Round-up of ComScore website traffic data:

• Traffic from the top 10 websites increased slightly year-over-year, with 829,652,000 in December 2006, and 885,195,000 in 2007
• Facebook made the biggest gains with an 81.41% increase in traffic, and moved up in the rankings from position 32 to 17
• Verizon saw a large drop in both traffic and rankings, moving from a ranking of 14 in 2006 to #20 in 2007

Website Traffic Stats

Traffic Winners:

• Facebook was the biggest winner, with an 81.41% increase in traffic over 2006
• The next biggest gain in traffic was Wikipedia, which increased traffic by 34.38%
• AT&T also showed positive gains, with a 26.77% increase over last December

Traffic Losers:

• Verizon saw the biggest decrease in traffic year-over-year with a 16.89% drop in traffic
• The Ask Network also saw a 10.91% drop in traffic
• And somewhat surprisingly, eBay saw a -5.19% drop over last year’s traffic

The following graph illustrates the changes in overall traffic for the top 10 sites as ranked by ComScore:

Website Traffic Rankings

Rankings Winners:

• Facebook moved up 15 spots from #32 to #17
• Wikipedia moved up 5 spots from #13 to #8
• AT&T, Inc. moved up 3 spots from #22 to #19
• Google moved up 2 spots from #4 to #2

Rankings Losers:

• As mentioned, Verizon moved down 6 spots from #14 to #20
• Viacom and Wal-Mart both lost 3 spots each, to #13 and #12 respectively
• Time Warner Network lost 2 spots, moving from #2 to #4

The following graph illustrates the changes in overall traffic rank for the top 10 sites as ranked by ComScore. Note that a downward trend illustrates an increase in traffic:

It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on current traffic trends, in order to ensure that marketing and partnering efforts are being targeted to the most effective properties.