CRM - June 2008 - (Page 30)

2.0 MAKING WEB 2.0 WORK creator and host of social networks based on action sports. “I’ve been a professional athlete, and have competed in motocross, BMX, and downhill mountain biking—and sports haven’t been at the head of Web 2.0.” Participation, Tilton says, is the common denominator—and it levels the literal and figurative playing fields. “When I look at some sports—especially ‘stickand-ball’ sports—the information is out there, but it’s in the hands of a few huge companies controlling the majority of sites,” he says.“In participatory and action sports, there are no monolithic corporate players, and the audience is skewed toward youth.” In this area of sports, interest is driven by personal involvement and passion more than by tracking a team through a season.“Community members are looking for events, discussion, advice—even sponsorships. The older people who come are more focused on training logs, coaching, and feedback.” Sponsorship represents a significant part of Loop’d Network’s value, not to mention its history. In 2001, Tilton cofounded SponsorHouse.com, an online service connecting athletes with sponsors. Forecast: Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Spend By Technology, 2007 to 2013 $5,000 Total annual sales (US$ millions) Widgets Podcasting Mashups Wikis Blogs RSS $4,000 $3,000 $2,000 $1,000 Social networking $0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 COPYRIGHT © 2008, FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC. communities, there are several ways [that] Web 2.0 can help a brand: It can drive purchasing behavior, influence brand consideration and advocacy, or increase product familiarity, for instance.” Perhaps the most efficient of those is product familiarity; Drosos contends that familiarity can pave the way for all the others. “Social strategy should be about making people understand how to world. Where active and overt techniques for marketing and selling may have worked in the past, they will typically fall flat with Web 2.0 interactions. “Customers are OK with some relevant advertising and marketing in a community setting, but not the hard sell,” Drosos says. “Learn to engage the customer’s lifestyle, and the sales will come to you.” Still, he says, the next big thing for BUSINESSES HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR THINKING WHEN IT COMES TO MARKETING IN A SOCIAL WORLD. The experience he gained there was built into the new venture, and continues to inform the sponsorship networking that occurs on Loop’d. “Brands are using our network as a means to sponsor athletes,” he says, adding that, while Loop’d sometimes marries groups together, sponsors and the athletes often find each other. At Powered, a social-media integrator, Mark Drosos, the firm’s chief operating officer and creative executive—a perfect 2.0-style job title—developed a methodology for strategizing and businessenabling that he calls social marketing. (See sidebar, “3+3,” page 31.) As one of three legs in that process, Powered builds branded social community sites and strategies. “Our job is to figure out what the client needs and then build it,” Drosos says. “When you look at building 30 use your product better, or in new ways,” he says. From the perspective of a camera company, for example, a successful social network could appeal to photography enthusiasts and camera owners with information on shooting techniques and camera functions. By making people more familiar with the product, the company establishes itself not just as a vendor but as an expert, at the same time exposing users to other products, such as lenses and tripods. “When we build social sites for our customers, we’ve seen their messaging start to change, from talking about product advantages and the so-called ‘feeds and speeds’ to providing a source of info so customers understand the products better,” he says. Businesses have to change their thinking when it comes to marketing in a social Web 2.0 may be explicit commerce. “The question is how to extract sales,” Drosos says.“We’ve found ways to engage the customer, but have not found a way to drive immediate-action sales.” But immediacy isn’t all; another area for development is establishing lifelong relationships. “Kids looking for a cool camera will want something different in 10 years when they have kids of their own,” he says. VENDORS GET SOCIAL, TOO Social technology isn’t just customerfacing, either.“Turned inside, social media will really take off for the enterprise,” Drosos says. “It won’t replace sales-andmarketing tools, but it will integrate them, creating a central means of sharing information and connecting the dots when it comes to operations and processes.” www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - June 2008

CRM - June 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Making Mashup Masterpieces Trouble in the Air CRM on Twitter Is SaaS Ready for Its Contact Center Close-up? CRM: In the Public Interest Required Reading Lollipop Loyalty Best Practices Series: CRM & eCommerce eGain NetSuite Infor Longwood Software Vovici The Second Coming of 2.0 Believe the Hype About Hosted Contact Centers All Talk So Hot It’s Cool Linksys Gets Shaken, a Community Is Stirred The Risky Risk Business Awana Hears a SaaS Sermon Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - June 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.