Social Technology Quarterly (Volume 1| Issue 2)

SocialTechnologyQuarterly July - September 2011 Volume 1 Issue 2

SocialTechnologyQuarterlyOverviewWelcome to our second issue of the Social Technology Quarterly. The Social Technology Quarterly isKuliza’s research publication aimed at educating brand and product owners on how they can engagetheir world better using social technologies.As usual we cover the latest research, trends and developments in social technologies and examinehow their potential can be leveraged for businesses. The Quarterly is divided into four sections: com-merce, campaigns, collaboration and CRM. We will show how social technologies add value to eacharea.Along with contributions from Kuliza, Gautam Ghosh, who blogs at www.gautamblogs.com and isamong the top 10 most influential bloggers on Talent Management, HR and Enterprise Social Media,contributes a guest article on talent communities.We hope you enjoy the latest issue. We will look forward to hearing your views.Team Kuliza

Contributors Achintya Gupta | @achintya85 Marketing enthusiast and Brand Manager at Kuliza. Writes on commerce and CRM. Aram Bhusal | @phoenixwizard Writer, blogger and technology enthusiast. Developer at Kuliza. Writes on emerging trends. Diarmaid Byrne | @diarmaidb Psychologist and interested in behaviour change and gamification. Chief People Officer at Kuliza. Writes on communities and collaboration. Gautam Ghosh | @gautamghosh Marketing Lead and Platform Evangelist at Brave New Talent, a career social network that enables companies to build talent communities. Blogs at www.gautamblogs.com. Kaushal Sarda | @ksarda Technology evangelist, serial entrepreneur, Chief Evangelist at Kuliza, and an advisor to HashCube. Writes on commerce and CRM. Kshitiz Anand | @kshitiz UI designer, photographer and Design Strategist at Kuliza. Writes on design and interaction. Nitin Saboo Solutions specialist at Kuliza. Writes on campaigns and commerce.

ContentsContentsCommerceHow are Social Platforms Powering Mobile Commerce 5Achintya GuptaSocial Shopping: The Changing Agenda of Shopping 9Kaushal SardaThe Social Media Construct: A Case of Remediation 12Kshitiz AnandCampaignsAugmenting Reality: A New Age Shopping Experience 15Kaushal SardaSocial Media Marketing by Travel Brands 19Achintya GuptaSocial Media for Political Campaigns 21Diarmaid ByrnePricing Your iPhone / iPad App 24Nitin SabooCollaborationTalent Communities: The Future of Social Recruiting 26Gautam GhoshBuilding Smarter Cities with Social Technologies 28Diarmaid ByrneEnterprise 2.0 for Creating a Fun Work Culture 31Achintya GuptaGrowing Online Communities 34Diarmaid ByrneCRMThe Designer’s Challenge to Social CRM 36Kshitiz AnandThe Evolution of Facebook Privacy 39Aram BhusalNot Just Another Google+ Article 42Achintya Gupta

CommerceHow are Social Platforms Powering Mobile Commerce How brands are using Facebook apps for contests and campaigns Written by Achintya GuptaThe world is increasingly becoming mobile. The strategies and how their mobile strategy istechnology creators of today are creating goods impacting the mobile commerce of today andfor the SoLoMo consumer – people who are so- tomorrow.cial, location and mobile savvy. The social giantsrealize this. They know that social networking of Scopetomorrow (and by that I mean in the next 2 years) I believe that m-commerce has a greater mean-will move largely to mobile phones and that the ing than just monetary transaction using mobilesocial web will be heavily accessed with a loca- phones. In this post I have tried to derive andtion layer. Here are a few stats to get a better work upon this greater meaning of m-commerceidea: and not limited myself to the transaction part of mobile commerce. Hence, I have tried to use• Research shows that one-third (33 %) of m-commerce in the context of marketing, com- Facebook postings are made from mobile merce, sales and CRM - basically the use of devices mobile to move a consumer across every aspect• Americans spend nearly 2.7 hours per day of the sales funnel. connected to the mobile web, and a vast majority of their time goes into social networking Facebook with mobile phones The social network is seeing a heavy shift in its• Mobile users tend to be more ‘social’ than the traffic on to mobile phones. Here are few of initia- traditional desktop users. This can be seen tives for powering mobile commerce. from a study that showed 91% of mobile phone users go online to socialize compared Facebook launched Facebook Places in the USA to only 79% of traditional desktop users and Europe. With this initiative they partnered with a couple of brands that offered discountThe numbers above, together with the increas- deals to consumers on checking-in at variousing mobile penetration predictions, clearly show places. The idea led a lot of brands to createthe future shift in social giants towards mobile marketing campaigns using Facebook Places.and the social networking giants, especially the Starbucks offered free filter coffee to those whobig 5 – Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Foursquare check-in; Mazda offered free cars and cars onand Google. They understand this, and it is not discounts; Dallas airport offered discounts fromsurprising to see that almost all of them have hospitality brands inside the airport on checking-come up with their own set of mobile strategies. in; and Jet Blue launched the go places cam-Moreover these platforms also know that in order paign and a Facebook app that rewarded peopleto generate revenues in the fast growing mobile who checked-in with badges and real gifts.world, to attract brands that want to go mobile,and to boost their own revenue models from a You can see some of the most creative Facebookmobile consumer they will need a heavy focus Places mobile marketing examples in this Mash-towards m-commerce. able article. (Update – Facebook recently ended its deals initiative after testing it in 8 cities.)Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea tosee how the mobile strategies of social giants are Another mobile commerce initiative taken bypowering m-commerce. This article will tell you Facebook is to facilitate Facebook credit pur-how each social giant is coming up with mobile chase with mobile payment. This means that you Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 5

can buy Facebook credits and the charges would for brands is location tagging. This feature, withbe reflected in your mobile bill. Facebook has which you include your location when you tweet,partnered with mobile payment companies Zong can be enabled if you have a browser that sup-and Boku to help consumers buy credit through ports HTML5 and geo location, or with iPhonemobiles. If you are wondering how you can do or Android phone. Your followers can then seethis, visit the help post by Facebook Help Center. where you are tweeting from.You can see some of the most creative FacebookPlaces mobile marketing examples in this Mash-able article. (Update – Facebook recently endedits deals initiative after testing it in 8 cities.)Similarly, Facebook’s seriousness about m-com-merce can also be seen from its HTML5 efforts. Itappears that Facebook is creating a platform thatis fully mobile compatible so that users can ac-cess Facebook apps through a mobile browser.With this, Facebook can sell credits via mobilebrowsers and keep complete control of the plat-form to itself by bypassing the Apple and An-droid appstores. This will greatly help Facebookincrease its revenues from the credit purchasesmade by mobile phone users who will buy virtualgood while using the Facebook apps. The mass popularity of Twitter clubbed with location tagging and SMS features makes it a great marketing tool for brands. However I am yet to see some interesting mobile marketing campaigns with Twitter. The only campaign that comes to my mind is by Kogi Barbeque that uses Twitter to update users about the location of their food truck. Customers can constantly check the tweets on their mobile phones to know the exact location of the food truck. Foursquare When it comes to mobile strategies for social networks I have realized from my research thatTwitter Foursquare has the smartest initiative for brandsFor Twitter, having a mobile strategy is even to power mobile marketing and commerce.more important than Facebook as 43% of Twitterusers access it from mobile while 9% access To begin with, Foursquare has a lot of partneris through tablets. Moreover, Twitter’s mobile brands that reward customers for checking –infocus is obvious, especially as it started with an to their store (something like Facebook placesSMSing service. Twitter’s decided on 140 char- deals). Customers can exhibit their loyalty withacters so that they can fit within an SMS. Twitter frequent check-ins and brands get to know andtoo has created tools to help brands in mobile reward their most loyal customers.marketing. I find the FastFollow tool the mostfascinating. It allows users to SMS the Twitter But it does not end here. Foursquare has anotherhandle of a brand in order to get its updates on offering of Foursquare Pages for businesses.your mobile by sending ‘follow (Twitter handle)’ With these pages, businesses can add tips forto 40404 in the US. Similarly, using the ‘Get’ tool their consumers at various locations. These tipsyou can get the latest updates from a user even if can be brand’s way of sharing its expertise withyou do not follow him [SMS ‘Get (username)]. its followers or engaging them around something more interesting.Another Twitter mobile strategy that is interesting Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 6

Brands have made good use of Foursquare Another interesting aspect of Groupon’s mobilepages for innovative campaigns to increase sales commerce strategy is Groupon’s attempt to be-and gain promotions. For example, the New York come world’s largest mobile advertising network.Times partnered with Foursquare during the 2010 Groupon is partnering with big mobile apps andWinter Olympics to guide visitors to the best app makers to run real time promotions of Grou-tourist’s spots across Vancouver. Similarly, Four- pon’s deals from its clients based on proximity.square partnered with restaurant reviewer Zagat Hence, the next time you use an app like Looptto help users find the best reviews and ratings for and are near a Groupon deal, you will get a notifi-restaurants in their vicinity. You can see some of cation on your phone.the best Foursquare marketing campaigns at thefollowing articles (1) and (2). Google With the recent launch of Google+ and the inte-Another Foursquare feature that has great mar- gration of search with social, it is difficult not toketing and sales potential is Foursquare lists. call Google a social giant.With Foursquare lists consumers can create tipsfor their networks, such as the best restaurants Google has some very interesting mobile com-to eat, top things to buy or places to visit in a merce tools in its arsenal of mobile strategies.particular city by tagging brands. Brands can use The Google Shopper app helps users simplifythese lists to generate advocacy, know who their their everyday shopping experience. The appevangelists are, and engage their customers can be used to scan barcodes or book coversthrough an effective CRM program. I look forward to get more information about the product. Theto some interesting mobile marketing by brands app can also be used to find products, the bestusing Foursquare lists. prices from online stores, or even information about nearby stores. Some versions in specific locations also give you daily deals and deals in proximity.GrouponGroupon’s mobile strategy is more like a locationlayer above its deals model. You get the usualGroupon experience but with personalized deals Google Catalogs, a free app for tablets, makesbased on your location. catalogue browsing and product purchasing a very engaging experience. Users can browseGroupon’s mobile apps help users purchase across multiple catalogues, get rich media infor-deals from their mobile phone, bypass the step mation like videos and high resolution imagesof printing the proof of purchase, and see the that greatly enhance their product research expe-deals near their location. Moreover, with Groupon rience. The app helps users share their findings‘now’, mobile users do not even need to wait for with friends and even purchase them online orthe deal to get activated. They can check the find nearby stores.deals around their location and purchase themimmediately at the touch of a button. Google Wallet is another path breaking initiative by Google to make payments quick and simple.Groupon has some great ideas to facilitate Google Wallet will hold credit cards details thatmobile commerce. Their mobile apps are adding currently are kept in wallets. The app uses NFCa location layer which is greatly improving the (near field communications) to make the fundconsumer experience of purchasing deals. transfer really simple. All you have to do is just Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 7

tap your phone on the reading device in stores tocomplete payment. The eventual aim of the appis to sync loyalty card, receipts, boarding pass,tickets, etc all in one mobile app. Google evenplans to use this for customers to avail of Googleoffers.I hope this research helped you understand thevarious m-commerce strategies by the social gi-ants. There is a summary of this research on ourslideshare channel. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 8

CommerceSocial Shopping: The Changing Agenda of Commerce Businesses are transforming their customer engagement strategies to flourish in the era of social shopping Written by Kaushal SardaThe mass adoption of social media has resulted transformative change in how commerce hap-in one fundamental change in the way business- pens. We will be moving from a world where cus-es function. This form of media, unlike traditional tomers find products to a world where productsmedia (i.e. tv, radio, newspapers), is not one way. find customers at the right time and place.Hence it is not really governed by any businessor institution. It provides end consumers a scal- We are going to witness commerce changeable way to share their opinions, and genuine around four key aspects:popular opinions tend to bubble-up. AvailabilityWhat this has done, is completely change how Go where your customers spend time as op-people are making purchase decisions. They posed to expecting them to come to you. As anow have a mechanism to get a true opinion result a lot of commerce companies both onlineabout a product or service from people they know and offline are investing in the ability to be closeror are influenced by. These social dynamics have to where their customers spend time. Two keytransformed the purchase funnel into viral loops. platforms where they seem to be investing are Facebook and mobile. Here are some of the reasons why Why Facebook: • It has a clear top of mind recall - 48% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up • Americans spend the equivalent of 101,000 years on Facebook in a single month • 10,000 - the average number of sites inte- grating with Facebook every day since social plug-ins were launched • 56% of Facebook users click through to a retailer’s website because of a Facebook postHere are some statistics that confirm this trend: Why mobile:• 90% of all purchases are subject to social • 81 minutes per day is the average time a per- influence son spends on their mobile phone• 90% of customers trust the recommendations • Smartphone penetration in the US - 40% of people they know (iOS 28%, Andrond 40%)• 67% of people spend more online after rec- Hence most commerce firms are investing in ommendations Facebook promotions, storefronts, and also Facebook connect on their sites. The next phaseMost commerce firms have already started to will be to make all of these tools synchronize tomake investments in solutions that will help them get integrated analytics.leverage this change in purchase behavior and inturn drive more sales. However, what they must Traditional retail firms are looking to connect withrealize is that we are going to witness a their member community through mobile apps to Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 9

have the ability to engage with them throughout Example: Tripadvisor uses Facebook open graphthe whole shopping experience. This is where api to personalize the experience on the site bymobilizing loyalty programs is going to gain mo- prominently featuring a user’s friends’ reviews.mentum. Some statistics on the value brands are Customers will also be able to see where theirgetting from such availability: friends have traveled so they can know who to• 1000: Number of diapers P&G sold on its ask for advice. f-store in under an hour• 6 hours: Time it took for the Rachel Roy Interactivity Facebook jewelry store to sell out Commerce firms need to merge best aspects of• 1m+: Starbucks customers using their e- online and offline shopping to give a much better commerce-enabled Facebook CRM loyalty experience to their customers. program Online ShoppingPersonalization Online shopping allows for easy social interac-It is no longer enough for commerce firms to rely tions but does not provide the feel or experienceon generic demographic data or basic personal of shopping in the real world. There is a lot ofinformation they have about their customers. The investments in building virtual trial, virtual fittinggoal is now to have the ability to leverage infor- rooms, personalized closets to try stuff, mix &mation from their customers’ social network. This match, and get the real experience of shopping.means that commerce companies not only needto connect with their customers on their favoritesocial network, but to also mine information fromtheir customers’ profiles and their social interac-tions to understand their preferences, how theyare influenced by their network, and the prefer-ences of their friends.This gold mine of information along with loca-tion information helps them achieve the followingobjectives:• Local demand forecasting: The ability to estimate product demand of people living in Example: JCPenney used metaio’s virtual the vicinity of the store to manage inventory dressing room software to enable shoppers to more effectively automatically try on clothing within the live-video• Personalized outreach: The ability to know stream. To shop in JCPenney’s virtual dressing which deals and offers are of true relevance room prospective buyers have to activate their to each customer computer’s Webcam and enter the dressing• Gifting: Leverage social graph of customers room. They first select what item interests them and information about their friends’ interests and then position themselves within a silhouette to suggest gifts that pops up on their computer screen. They• Customer experience: Strong understanding have to wave their hands to adjust the clothing of customers’ needs and influence informa- for a proper fit. If they like the item they can take tion can help transform the in-store shopping a screenshot of themselves wearing it and send experience it to friends, post on Facebook, or move on to the JCPenney online store to complete the purchase. Offline Shopping Retailers are using augmented reality, mobile apps and gestural interfaces for engaging customers, store finding, personalization, product details and comparison, learn in real-time about their friends preferences, and get their suggestions. Example: Ben & Jerry’s used Unifeye Mobile SDK to roll-out the AR application “Moo Vision” on the iPhone. By pointing the camera at selected Ben & Jerry’s carton lids, a 3D world is Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 10

revealed which can be viewed from different experience. Wallmart’s acquisition of Kosmix toangles by moving the phone around the lid. This create @walmartlabs seems to be a strong stepprovided customers with a fun and engaging twist in this direction.to sharing in-store product details. Image credits: tripadvisor, nytimes and metaioSocial LayerCompanies will invest in creating a social layerwhich runs across their entire purchase funnel.This will help them provide their customers witha true social shopping experience and in-turnincrease purchasesSome Statistics to justify investments in creatinga social layer:• 57% of people talk to other people more online than in real life• 75% of shoppers spend more online after receiving friend recommendations• $5 billion of physical good will be bought on social networks in 2011To be able to create a social layer businesses willhave to invest in the following areas:• Social promotion engine to introduce various new retailing techniques for social shopping like group deals, sneak peeks, tryvertising, etc• Social recommendation tools like Kaboodle and This Next• Synchronized online shopping through toolbars like Shop Together and Do Together where customers can bring their friends into the shopping experience• Social purchase sharing capabilities like Blippy and Shwowp• Asking advice around purchases like Shop Socially• Customer support communities for post purchase interactions like Get Satisfaction.We think that very soon we will start witnessinglarge retailers coming up with integrated solu-tions that combine all these capabilities withintegrated analytics across the entire purchase Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 11

CommerceThe Social Media Construct: A Case of Remediation Reflecting on the rise of a new kind of media through media theory Written by Kshitiz AnandThey say that social media technologies are the I have with present internet users, who claim toin thing right now. Some call is fashionable, some do just about anything, from watching movies tocall it a necessity to keep up with the times, and hearing music to writing to painting to socializingothers see a real value add in it. While many to entertainment, over a social media platform.companies adopt it, not all understand it com- This article will provide an argument for the risepletely. It is now well accepted that social media of this phenomenon and I use the notion of Re-technologies (SMT) are an integral part of the mediation to provide an argument of why SMS ismarketing budget of any company. The adoption nothing but a construct of the traditional.of SMT should be tied down to a business needand assist with the business processes. Apart Bolter and Grusin in their landmark book, ‘Reme-from the usual goals of increase in sales, the one diation: Understanding New Media’, talk aboutthing that social media technologies have done the basis of the creation of a new media. Theis to make the consumer more informed and help broad claim is that every media re-mediatesthem in taking decisions that are influenced by a itself and it does so through a series of othergamut of reasons. Come to think of it, the advent concepts in the form of ‘Transparent Immediacy’of SMTs follow a similar pattern, resulting in the or ‘Hypermediacy’. They term this as the ‘doubleway audiences are exposed to media. We con- logic of remediation’. We as technologists andsume information in a different way than we used designers are constantly looking to remediate toto in the days prior to the SMTs. To support the create something that could be exciting, engag-claim of social media technology being omnipres- ing and has an awesome user experience. Theent in many people’s lives one has to understand same argument can be applied to social mediawhere this comes from. technologies.Over the course of this article I will do a construct “Remediation is the process whereby computerof the notion of social media technology as a new graphics, virtual reality, and the internet definekind of media. I shall refer to Bolter and Grusin, themselves by borrowing from and refashioningamongst others, to understand why the notion media such as painting, photography, televi-of the social media technology is a new media sion, and film.” This is an important note, as thethat plays out on the notion of remediation. I context of SMTs is an online system. We takewill social commerce as an example case study the notion of the existing mediums of media toand how the notion of media and social media re-create and as a result re-mediate the existingis changing and will continue to change the way into a new technological framework. The rise ofcommerce works. the usage of Facebook (almost over 800 million users) to do almost anything is just a testimony toMarshall McLuhan, one of the greatest writers on that. Americans spend close to 101,000 years ofmedia, said, “We become what we behold. We time over Facebook in a single month! We haveshape our tools and then our tools shape us.” It more and more people checking their social me-is in this context that I will analyze the social media presence updates first thing at the start of thedia technologies construct. SMTs have changed day. This suggests that the boundaries are blur-our lives and that is a fact that we accept. But at ring. The real world becomes analogous with thethe same time it has also resulted in a lot of us- online world. This phenomenon is also manifesters (or consumers) leaving the traditional media in the fact that there is a significant increase informs. I realize this from numerous discussions Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 12

the conversations about the virtual life on the real not stop only at the transparent immediacy, butlife and vice versa. goes a step ahead and makes the user aware of its presence. So the usage of words like tweet, blog, wall, share, likes are a testimony to the act of hypermediacy. The meanings of each of these are signified differently than the original meaning of the words. In the context of social media technologies, it is constructed in a hypermedi- ated manner and the moment these words are used, the users are aware of the presence of the media.Analyzing a medium through a semiotic theoryviewpoint, we know that there is the notion of asignifier (the one making the claim, and in thiscase the media which is the audio, text or thevideo) and the signified (the meaning of what isimplied through the signifiers). The earlier chan-nel for this relation was traditional forms of mediaviz, television, radio, etc. Now it is social mediatechnologies. This notion of “Transparent Im-mediacy” is the perfection, or removal, of the gapbetween signifier and signified, such that a rep-resentation is perceived to be the thing itself. Theintent therefore, is to design and build a mediumthat aims to do just that.Transparent Immediacy is at play the momentyou think about engaging an audience witha strong online presence, where you expect Let us take the example of social commerce. Inthe user to spend more time online. You wish the ideal situation of a perfectly remediated envi-to make the viewer forget the presence of the ronment of the social commerce world, that triesmedium and believe that he is in the presence to remediate the instances of the real life physicalof the objects of representation. Because of the shop, there should be no difference between theextent that social media has taken over our lives, experience of seeing a product in person and onwe are no longer aware of confronting a medium, the computer screen. Designers and technolo-but instead stand in an immediate relationship gists have the challenge to strive towards that. Toto the contents of that medium. The principal of make things simpler, let us take the example oftransparent immediacy refers to users’ desire for an online storefront.immediacy in access, understanding, and inter-action. This is to say, users want an immediate Let us do a small comparison of what aspects anconnection with the medium. This is also true in online storefront remediates in order to providethe present context when we want everything at the same shopping experience as a real store.the tip of our fingers and responses to be faster.For e.g., we write a mail, post on Facebook, or 1. The availability of a product brochure andtweet and expect a reply, likes, or re-tweet or a ability to experience the product in its full form.reply to tweet almost immediately. We forget the In the ideal case the businesses should also bepresence of the medium as a medium and as- able to give the tactile experience to a store too.sume it to be present right there in front. The haptic feedback provided to the user would be the missing cog in remediating the experienceThe other concept is the notion of Hypermediacy, of the store entirely and the physical representa-which is the opposite side of the spectrum to tion of the product catalogue. The detailing of thisTransparent Immediacy. Hypermediacy is a “style experience, which is possible through existingof visual representation whose goal is to remind available technologies, would be an interestingthe viewer of the medium”. Hypermediacy plays thing to work on.upon the desire for immediacy and transparentimmediacy, making us hyper-conscious of our act 2. In a store you ask questions to the sales per-of seeing (or gazing). This means that it does sons. In an online storefront, having the feasibility Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 13

of being able to talk to anyone at any point of mediums that we are accessing the informationtime, during the course of the surfing through in. It is thus opaque and often juxtaposed overthe store, would be remediating the notion of the the virtual-real, which the immediacy had set outsales persons. to bring about. Unknowingly it forces a repeated contact with the interface and as a result it3. Man is a social animal. We choose to shop becomes an integral part our lives. Social mediawith people. We take feedback from people. We technologies are repeatedly doing that. Whatcall others whilst shopping and we immediately was once thought of to be completely immersivetake feedback when we try clothes on. In the and “real” eventually comes to be explored as anremediated experience of the online store, allow- aesthetics of a particular media format and theing the users to experience the same notion of only authenticity lies in the experience that thefeedback is essential. It is this particular notion, media sets out to achieve by virtue of the things itof people relying on and getting influenced by the has to offer.feedback, comments and suggestions of oth-ers, that makes social commerce so much more The arguments will continue that this form of newinteresting (and challenging). media is doing exactly what their predecessors have done, i.e. presenting themselves as refash-4. The ability to provide recommendations and ioned and improved versions of other media. Inpush promotions through a channel that is easy the times that we live in, a medium can neverto access and connect with the customers. operate in isolation, because it must enter into relationships of respect and rivalry with other5. Post-purchase people always provide feed- (and often traditional) media. It is only when weback about something, irrespective of whether understand the above, that we can get a betterit is good or bad. Recommendations are made understanding of the new social media we talkafter the usage of a product or service. Post- about these days and develop an appreciationpurchase engagement is a key part when look- for it.ing at a shopping experience. Remediating thisimportant experience is essential for the successof any social commerce avenue.While the above could be applicable to just aboutany online presence, it is the social part that dif-ferentiates a social commerce platform such asa Facebook store when compared to any otheronline commerce avenues. Thus in my opinion,a social commerce platform is the only platformthat can remediate as close to the real life shop-ping experience.The ChallengesWhat I have mentioned here is remediating theexperience more than the media. The challengeshowever come more when it comes to remediat-ing issues for which there is no real remediationpossible. Remediating the notion of trust, or theissues of privacy is something that continues toremain a challenge to the designers of socialmedia platforms.In conclusion, social media technology can beseen as a construct of the Transparent Imme-diacy and the Hypermediacy. We are adoptingsocial media technologies in a way to remediatethe lifestyle we live-out and the life-worlds welive in. The key is to make this experience moreimmersive and interfaceless when we talk aboutimmediacy. On the other hand, hypermediacy al-lows us to remain cognizant of the platforms and Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 14

CampaignsAugmenting Reality: A New Age Shopping Experience How businesses are augmenting reality to make every stage of the shopping experience more exciting Written by Kaushal SardaIn this era all commerce businesses are really of the campaign was that players use their cellcompared on their ability to provide an engaging phones to play a game of pong on the billboard.shopping experience. So really the explosion in If the player was able to complete the game in 30smartphone sales coupled with the advances in seconds there would be a reward of coupons foraugmented reality provides us with a unique op- free food of their choice.portunity. Indicatively, according to ABI research,the market for augmented reality in the US alonewill be around $350 million in 2014 as comparedto just $6 million in 2008.Businesses can leverage augmented reality andmobile apps to engage and enchant customersthrough creative ways providing information inthe context of promotions, store locations, prod-uct launches, product details, etc. The objectiveis really to take advantage of these technologiesto give customers a unique and talk-worthy cus-tomer experience. This campaign was able to effectively use augmented reality to excite people on getting foodThis article delves into examples of how busi- promotions by engaging with the brand. Onenesses are using augmented reality based key advantage of the solution was the user didsolutions to enhance almost every stage of the not have to download any app on to their mobilecustomer’s shopping experience. devices, hence reducing the upfront effort to get started.The various aspects of the purchase experiencewhere these augmented reality is having an Unilever created a concept “share happy” vend-impact are: ing machine that they launched at Cannes 2010.• Driving customer awareness through engagement• Creating excitement around product launches• Driving in-store traffic• In-store product information• Making product trials more fun• Enhancing in-store engagement• Ensuring continual post purchase engage- mentDriving Customer AwarenessThrough EngagementMcDonalds launched a game-based interactivebillboard campaign in Sweden. The concept Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 15

The facial recognition system in the machine to create a memorable and fun experience forwas able to detect gender, age, mood, and even customers. This results in rapid adoption of suchhow much a user was smiling. The machine’s apps and coupled with their location sensitive na-“Smile-O-Meter” would show how much you were ture will result in more customer visits to stores.smiling and give a free ice-cream when the usercould just not smile anymore.Happiness is a very strange emotion. Unilever’sability to leverage this solution to create an as-sociation of happiness with its ice-cream was aremarkable brand promotion approach.Creating Excitement AroundProduct LaunchesBMW initiated an augmented reality campaign topromote the launch of the BMW Z4. The onlineapplication was in sync with the TV ad where aBMW car uses its tyres to create a color “expres-sion of joy” on a large black canvas.The application used Inition’s augmented real-ity application magicsymbol to help users create In-Store Product Informationtheir own “expression of joy” designs online. The Food tracer is an augmented reality mobileapplication allowed users to control a virtual 3D phone application that helps users visualizemodel of the Z4 to create their own paint trails information about food. Even though this is justusing a simple web cam. They could the share a concept application it can be very useful for athe video on the social web. shopper.Providing users with the ability to recreate theirown version of the ad was a very unique idea.This would have helped to create a unique andfun experience with the car, resulting in a strongrecall and aspiration for the product.Drive In-Store TrafficBelgian beer maker Stella Artois released abeer finder app to help users locate the nearestestablishment serving Stella Artois beverage.The application uses augmented reality to renderStella Artois logos on top of any building servingthe beverage. Consider a scenario where a shopper has to goThis example shows how brands can leverage to a grocery store to pick up some fresh organicthis technology to increase foot falls to stores vegetables. The customer does not find his usualwhere their products are available. The engaging brand that he likes and has to choose betweennature of augmented reality apps makes it easy Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 16

the available choices. The customer can use were considering buying would look like.the food tracer app to get real time informationabout the various vegetables, helping him easily The kiosk allowed customers to hold up any Legomake a more informed decision based on criteria box up to the screen and then it would render aimportant to him. virtual assemble version of the set on top of the box. It also allowed the user to move it to get aBen & Jerry’s used Unifeye Mobile SDK to 360 view of the set. Such apps are not only funroll-out the AR application “Moo Vision” on the for kids but also help parents buy something theiriPhone. By pointing the camera at selected Ben kids would really like.& Jerry’s carton lids, a 3D world is revealedwhich can be viewed from different angles bymoving the phone around the lid. This providedcustomers with a fun and engaging twist to shar-ing in-store product details. IBM teamed up with Israel based EZface to cre-Making Product Consideration More Fun ate a “virtual mirror” that would allow customersConverse created “The Sampler”, an augmented to see how a particular makeup brand wouldreality app for iPhones where customers can try look on their face without having to even opena pair of converse. Converse has a huge range the product. Just by scanning the barcode of theof option for shoes and the app makes it easy for product the virtual mirror would show the shoppercustomers to make a choice. how it would look on their face. This application has been used by brands like L’oreal, Maybelline,All users have to do is select a pair of shoes they Covergirl, and Revlon.fancy from the digital catalog. Once selected,they can visualize how they look just by point-ing the phone camera at their feet. In case usersneed a second opinion, they can quickly take asnapshot and share on Facebook. Ensuring Post Purchase Continual Engagement Nestle sold 26 million cereal boxes across 53 countries that allowed customers with webcamsEnhancing In-Store Engagement linked to their computers to play an augmentedLego teamed up with technology company me- reality game with the main character from thetaio to create an augmented reality in-store kiosk movie RIO. The objective of the game was to usecalled Digital Box. The objective of the Digital the marker on the back of cereal box to lead theBox was to allow parents and their kids to under- animated blue parrot “Blu” to a big bowl of cerealstand what the finished Lego construction they Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 17

3DVIA group of Dassault systems. This augment-ed reality game is a great example of how busi-nesses can continue the customer experienceeven post-product purchase. Such an experiencewill strongly associate the brand with enjoymentand increase the overall brand affinity and recallin the minds of customersHopefully these examples will prompt businessesto look at augmented reality more holistically asa strong engagement tool that can be leveragedat every stage of the purchase experience. Theirobjective should be to use these technologies tocreatively to make shopping more fun, engaging,and memorable for their customers.Image credits: Lucerene University of AppliedScience and Arts, Robaid, Inition, Cult Of Mac,Giuseppe Costanza, Ben & Jerry, Highsnobiety,HPCi Media, and Packaging News Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 18

CampaignsSocial Media Marketing by Travel Brands How are travel brands using social media for marketing? Written by Achintya GuptaSocial Media has always been an attractive community’s social dynamics where consumersavenue for travel brands. The prime reason is crowdsource content for their passion for travelthat travel is a very social experience both as a while some other travel brands use social ap-purchase as well as an activity. People consult plications to connect people to improve the traveltheir friends for travel recommendations and experience.seek their advice for places they should visit, air-lines they should fly with and hotels they shouldstay in. Moreover, people travel with their friends,make new friends during trips. Travelling togetherfor holidays and leisure is always consideredmore exciting that travelling alone.Travel brands are trying to bring this socialexperience online for people to get travel rec-ommendations, share their travel experiences,and improve their customers’ travel experience.Seeing the increasing excitement of travel brandsfor social media campaigns, I decided to look intosome of the most interesting patterns emergingin the social media efforts by travel brands. Social Media CampaignsScope Many travel brands have explored social mediaIn this research I have tried to analyze how travel campaigns to engage its audience and increasebrands are using social media for their market- participation and their fan base. One of my favou-ing campaigns. I have considered all brands as rite examples is the Queensland tourism cam-travel brands that are generating their revenues paign for ‘the best job in the world’. The organiz-explicitly from customer travel or enthusiasm for ers launched a user-generated contest to select atravel (travel guides and travel media fall in this caretaker for an island on the Great Barrier Reefcategory). who would communicate their adventures and experiences to the world. The campaign was aResearch great success.My research shows that there are broadly 8social media campaign strategies being used bytravel brands.You will see that these broad 8 social mediastrategies leverage 4 different social dynam-ics. Social games, social media campaigns andloyalty campaigns leverage consumer gener-ated content to thrive, while blogs and advocacyprograms thrive on smart conversations by thebrand or its representativest to the consumers.Certain forums and social websites leverage the Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 19

Some time back the European Travel Commis- Advocacy Programsion launched a photo contest on Facebook Certain brands try to generate word-of-mouth byasking users to submit their morphed pictures at providing an advocacy platform to experts to ex-various travel locations. press their opinions and thoughts to consumers. British Airlines has created one such platformLoyalty Campaigns called Metrotwin to promote tourism betweenSocial Media has given many new faces to loy- London and New York by ‘twinning’ the two citiesalty campaigns and completely changed the way and providing recommendations by experts forbrands are rewarding consumers for loyalty. Take the best places to eat, shop, and stay in bothfor instance, Jet Blue’s Go Places app, where cities.Jet Blue is rewarding customers for checking-inat Jet Blue Terminals using Facebook Places.Customers unlock official badges and rewardpoints for real rewards. Tripadvisor has launcheda campaign to recognize its most loyal review-ers and community members. The campaignshowcases Tripadvisor’s star reviewers and theirreviews / forum posts. Social Apps to Connect These apps leverage the fact that travelling is a social activity and people prefer recommendations from their friends or friends of friends when making travel decisions. Tripadvisor has a travel map app that maps places around the world where friends in your Facebook network have vis- ited. AirBnB’s Social Connections app helps you rent places to and from friends in your personal network.Social Games Crowdsourced ContentWith the success of social games like Farmville, It is here that the travel brands leverage commu-Mafia Wars, etc, brands have realized the power nity dynamics to motivate people to put mean-of games to engage consumers. The Travel ingful content on their websites in the form ofChannel has used a similar idea to launch a reviews, ideas and comments. This helps othersocial game called Kidnapped. The game aims users with better travel information. Tripadvisorat increasing customer awareness and informa- and Lonely Planet do this with reviews, likes andtion about various interesting places around the ratings to help customers push recommenda-globe. The game challenges people to kidnap tions.their friends. To escape the kidnapped personhas to answer trivia related to that city. Travel Forums Travel forums have always been a popular desti-Blog nation for people searching for travel information.Travel blogs by brands are an excellent way of Now brands are hosting travel forums to partici-communicating the brand’s passion for travel to pate and support such conversations. Virgin Air-consumers. Lonely Planet does an excellent job lines hosts v-flyer travel forum and traveller onlineof educating consumers about how to make their community to facilitate conversations and socialtravel experiences better. If you visit their blog, relationships. Lonely Planet hosts the Thorn Treeyou will see travel showcase, destination, tips forum to empower such discussions.and stories. Similarly Southwest Airlines’ blog -Nuts About Southwest - communicates to travel- I hope this article helped you understand thelers how Southwest Airlines can improve their various social media marketing strategies bytravel experience. travel brands. There is a summary of the above research on our slideshare channel. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 20

CampaignsSocial Media for Political Campaigns What can Barack Obama learn from the Arab Spring? Written by Diarmaid ByrneCampaigns and social media have been in thenews a lot this year – the Republican primariesand London riots are two examples – and theexposure will increase as the US heads into elec-tion year in 2012.I want to look at how political campaigns haveevolved in their use of the internet and social me-dia, and see what possibilities exist in the near-term. For this purpose I’ve looked at two types ofcampaigns:• Campaigns that are centrally organized by the political party or the candidate’s team. Here I will look primarily at Barack Obama’s became the first social media President. His campaign in 2008 campaign team was the first to fully understand• Campaigns that are organized bottom-up. and harness the potential of social media to com- Here I will look at how groups used social municate his message and energize supporters media during the Arab Spring to donate and vote.Centrally Organized Campaigns Barack Obama’s campaign team didn’t inventHoward Dean’s campaign in 2004 had many anything new but strategically used social media,of the features of successful campaigns: press the internet, SMS and emails to establish hiscoverage, successful fundraising and exciting candidacy and win the elections:people. He achieved this not just through tradi-tional campaign strategies but also by extensive 1. Build his political branduse of the internet. He used his official blog and Obama used social media to lower the cost ofMeetup.com to bring people together and orga- building a political brand. This was essentialnize fundraisers. This was cheaper than tradi- because there was very little brand awarenesstional fundraising and resulted in a hug number of about Obama compared to his major competi-small donations, allowing him to avoid fundraising tors Hilary Clinton and John McCain, apart fromlimits. However, his team missed the crucial ele- two books (admittedly best sellers) and his 2004ment of converting enthusiastic participants into convention speech.active voters. As Clay Shirky points out in HereComes Everybody, Dean created a movement 2. Created MyBarackObama.comthat strongly appealed to some people, but which A full-fledged social network, MyBarackObama.participation became more important than voting. com allowed users to create their own profile complete with a customized description, friendsSome of the same strategies Dean used were list and personal blog. They could also jointaken up by Barack Obama during his 2008 groups, participate in fund raising, and arrangecampaign. Barack Obama was called the King of events. This was the centre of his social network-Social Networking by the Washington Post as he ing strategy and all pages on other platforms brought users here. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 21

3. Present across multiple social media sites found political power because of the ability toObama didn’t use just one platform but ensured use social media to mobilize large numbers ofhis message was spread across multiple sites like-minded people. The most recent large-scalethat complemented his message of change. He campaign was earlier this year in the Middle Eastengaged people, listened and used not only the and North Africa (MENA), especially Tunisia andmajor sites like Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, You- Egypt.Tube and Twitter, but also more specific sites likeGlee and BlackPlanet. There have been a lot of debates on the importance of otherwise of social media to the Arab4. Donations Spring. People make revolutions, but in this caseThe majority of Obama’s donations came from social media played an integral role as a commu-donors giving just $200 or less. He achieved this nity builder and communication tool. Control overby ensuring that on each site there was a dona- communication is vital as uprisings gain momen-tion widget. tum to provide a common purpose to the community, keep them mobilized and updated. Typically5. Encouraged participation during a coup or revolution the first buildings thatTraditionally campaign teams and spin doctors are targeted by the opposition are TV and radio.exerted as much control over content as pos-sible. However, keeping with his change mes- In the case of the Arab Spring, social media al-sage, Obama allowed and encouraged support- lowed protestors to both communicate acrossers to participate by posting videos, photos, and the community and determine the media outputtestimonials. beyond their country without having to control the stations. People were able to instantly self-broad-The effectiveness of Obama’s online strategy cast events, information and ideas, unrestrictedto engage and mobilize people can be seen in by media and news deadlines and editorialsome of the numbers (reference): controls. This contributed to the speed at which• 6.5 million online donations the revolutions moved and the momentum they• $600+ million campaign funds raised, most of maintained, and allowed news networks, espe- it online cially Al-Jazeera, to continue spreading informa-• 13 million email addresses tion and news across the region.• 1 billion email sent• 2 million profiles on MyBarackObama.com I think there are two major lessons from the Arab• 200,000 offline events planned Spring that political parties and candidates can• 400,000 blog posts written leverage:• 35,000 volunteer groups created • Citizens and communities of like-minded people have political clout because of social networks • Democratic movements are about political change driven by social networks rather than by elites. This is where social media and social technologies are going to have the largest impact in the coming years. What Next? Obama was the pace-making politician in using social media but things have changed since 2008. One of the hallmarks of his 2008 campaign was how email, text messages and the internet were used to reach voters for organizing and fundraising. Since then Twitter and Facebook have increased hugely in popularity and smartphones and apps are far more common. In 2012 it looks like Obama will be more expansive in how he uses social media to mobilize funds and supporters. Community will still be at the heart ofBottom-up Campaigns his campaign on barackobama.com, but addition-These are campaigns that are not initiated by a ally he will look at making email, website, texts,political party or a candidate / politician. They are mobile apps and social networks work togethercharacterized by groups of people who have new Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 22

in harmony to communicate his message – “AreYou In”.Here are three things that he and other partiesand candidates will need to do to run successfulcampaigns:1. Control communication using social mediaNo politician can control how the media uses andspins his message. One way around this is usingsocial media channels to distribute the message.Also, with a large community eager to listen it isimportant to speak directly to them. Obama usedYouTube to announce his reelection campaign.Twitter is a far more popular tool now than in2008, and Obama’s campaign team have givenit more importance by setting-up separate Twitteraccounts for all 50 states to target state-relevantmessages to supporters.2. Adapting to the increasing social integra-tion and sharing featuresObama’s campaign team have included socialfeatures on www.barackobama.com, allowingusers to log into the site with their Facebookaccounts, making it easier to invite friends andshare updates. The campaign team has alsoadded an official Facebook app “Are You In”.3.Smartphones and mobile appsThe official White House mobile app is a crucialelement in building his community and commu-nicating directly with supporters with alerts aboutspeeches that can be watched live from the app,behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and up-dates from the official blog.Recently, a great example of using social mediato communicate directly to a community and le-verage sharing features was by the Social Demo-cratic party in Zurich. Rather than only broadcasttheir policies, the party used Facebook as aplatform for voters to suggest ideas and vote onideas that they would like to be put into practice.Once the candidates got elected they took themost popular ideas from Facebook and passedthem as legislation. Hopefully this inspires otherparties to try similar campaigns.Image credits: cqpolitics and giaitri59 Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 23

CampaignsPricing Your iPhone / iPad App The art and science of choosing the correct pricing strategy Written by Nitin SabooIt has been said that the exercise of pricing is as app will only take them so far.much an art as a science. There is no doubt thatpricing is a challenge, especially with iPhone / Getting your app to stand out is always possibleiPad applications due to the nascent stage of the against free apps. Carefully look at the free appsAppstore. iPhone app developers would do well and design your free app to take advantage ofto carefully examine all aspects of pricing as it the free app’s weakness.pertains to their product, make careful pricing de-cisions, monitor and measure sales results, andmake adjustments as needed to maximize theirrevenue. To maximize revenues requires spend-ing some time on the challenging area of pricing.The goal of successful pricing should be the fo-cus on delivering value instead of just a low priceapp. The right price for your iPhone / iPad app iswhere the profits are maximized. Thus the high-est price you can charge without reducing yourpool of customer should be any developer’s goal.Here are some questions you should carefullyconsidre when pricing your app:• How much does your competitor charge for a App Pricing Strategy similar application? After developing the app the big challenge is• What are the differentiating features between monetization and finding the right price point. your app and someone else’s app? There are various misconceptions associated• How would you define your app and the de- with pricing. Often developers think that in order mographic market? to compete on the app store they must price their• What were the actual development costs app either very low or at $0.99. The thinking can involved? be influence by one of the following:• Most importantly - how does my app com- • Developers see a lot of downward pricing pare to the free apps available in the market? pressure on the App store think they had better not price their app too highCompeting against Free Apps • Developers think customers will expect toOne of the more challenging aspects that iPhone pay only $0.99 for an app as this is perceived/ iPad app developers are coming up against as a standard price on the Appstorefrom a pricing perspective is competing against • Developers think a low price will attract tensfree. Many developers get discouraged thinking of thousands of buyers even if they have nothat their app may not fare so well against com- use for the apppeting free apps. However, if your app truly has • Developers think that pricing their app atfunctionality that goes beyond what a free app $0.99 will help their app get listed among thecan do, then you should not worry so much. In top 100 apps by salesfact, some free apps can help drive sales of yourcharged app because the user finds that the free Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 24

The best strategy to avoid these biased thoughtprocesses is to provide a free version of the appand let the users try it for themselves, hopefullyresulting in a following for the app. This allowsthem to preview the app, test drive it and get afeel for it, before committing monetarily. This isa long term strategy, which will take time but ifdone correctly will help you realize the truth worthof your app.Breakeven AnalysisDevelopers must conduct a breakeven analysisto determine how different price points will affectthe breakeven timing.Let us assume that a developer has spent $5,000to develop your business application with thebelief of selling 100 apps per day. A basic breakeven analysis at different price points for the appwould be:Based on this table it is better to price your appa little higher at first and carefully monitor theresults. This also gives room to adjust the pricingif needed and provides an opportunity to drop theprice for short period to spur sales.Developers should not undersell by pricing theapp too low to begin with. They can always lowerthe price, but it’s harder to raise it. Remember, inany economy people are willing to pay for qualityat a reasonable price but they are not willing topay for poorly designed apps at any price.Reference : iPhone and iPad Apps Marketing: Secrets to Sell-ing Your iPhone and iPad Apps by Jeffrey HughesImage credit: Marketing Hackz Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 25

CollaborationTalent Communities: The Future of Social Recruiting How companies can leverage talent communities to increase employment branding and hire the best talent Written by Gautam GhoshWhile organizations have been quick to explore The other aspect of recruiting is the challengehow social media / online communities and social that has remained constant throughout – the lacknetworks can be leveraged for marketing, sales of awareness of what the role entails. This leadsand customer service, the other external facing to job seekers focusing on only one aspect of theaspect of a business that has not really been negotiation – the salary discussion.explored is how recruiting can leverage socialtechnologies. The Changing Nature of Recruiting As the jobsites struggled under the radar, Linke-Recruiting Now – the Issues and the Chal- din – the business networking site – realized thatlenges a lot of its users who were paying were recruit-The last big innovation in recruiting was the ers, using the site to reach to the so-called “pas-jobsites where organizations could access an sive candidates”. The term refers to people whoonline database of hundreds of thousands of are not actively searching for a job (and hencecandidates. Candidates could search for jobs by considered more valuable – than active job seek-function, experience, location, and apply directly. ers). Slowly Linkedin added features to focus onIt improved the earlier inefficient systems of these paying users and started competing withmanual databases residing in spreadsheets (at traditional job boards and has now evolved to athe recruiter end) and candidates going through platform where users (mid-career professionals)newspaper classifieds and applying via snail go to search for jobs. With its membership cross-mail. ing 100 million, it is posing serious competition to traditional job boards.However, the problem that technology solvedgave rise to different problems later on. With the Linkedin was amongst the first social platformsjobsites making it easy for job seekers to “spray that recruiters embraced. With that some otherand pray”, recruiters started reeling under what startups tried to leverage social tools, but eitherhas come to be known as “resume spam” – could not scale or were before their time, Jobsterhundreds and thousands of resumes that are not in the US and Reffster in India.suitable for the job at all. This leads to a new typeof inefficiency – trawling through all these, which Now however, there is an 800 pound gorilla in theis akin to searching for the proverbial needle in room, and many are trying to ride it to get a slicethe haystack. of the social recruiting pie. Yes, the 800 pound gorilla is Facebook – and recruiters as well as app developers are looking at ways to leverage it for social recruiting. Internal recruiters are making Facebook pages – from basic ones to highly complex ones which try to mimic the careers site on their website. Then there are the apps. BranchOut gained quite a bit of traction, for being the “Linkedin for Facebook” and then Monster. com decided to get into the game to prove that old dogs could learn new tricks by launching their app called BeKnown. Both of these apps go after fresh college recruits who haven’t yet openend a Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 26

Linkedin account. 3. Community engagement and facilitation This would consist of building conversationsSocial recruiting, in the way it is understood now, between external talent and internal experts,is to leverage social networks to “broadcast” jobs. answering questions of talent and triggeringIt is not to build engagement and transparent discussions.communication between employers and externaltalent. 4. Development The focus of the engagement should not be justTalent Communities – Taking Social Recruit- to focus on the people in the talent communitying to the Next Level who have the skills, but to build the overall skillWhere recruiting can learn from Social Media levels of all people in the talent community, byMarketing is to start building talent communities sharing resources with them as well as helpingto engage in conversations with people inter- them learn from each other and from subjectested in their firm. matter experts in the organization.Take a look at the following diagram: The prerequisites for making talent communities a success To really benefit from talent communities they have to be sponsored by the business leadership of the organization that is innovative and willing to be open and transparent. • The role of recruitment needs to be focused on the attraction of talent and building a relationship with them rather than being reactive and chasing candidates • The organization has got to be willing to lift the firewall and allow real employees connectIn traditional recruiting the focus has been to with job-seekers without trying to control thechase the orange circle and spam them. Even conversationin the current model of “social recruiting” this • A willingness to be vulnerable and deal withremains the focus. However, in a talent com- tough questions and not be defensivemunity the organization actually focuses on firstattracting the blue circle and then identifying the If a company is willing to try these they will moveoverlap in the two groups to focus on the people the conversation to things that really matter - thewho are really relevant as well as pre-disposed work, culture and nature of the job - from thepositively towards the company. one large aspect that is currently the focus these days – the salary.Hence the way an organization would build itstalent community would be very similar to its so-cial media marketing efforts. It would consist of: Image credit: Christina Tierny1. Identify and attractOrganizations have two approaches to build this.First, rely on their own databases to ask candi-dates to join their talent community. They canleverage email, careers website, Twitter updatesand Facebook page updates to do so. Then theycan use campaigns on search advertising andsocial advertising to attract new talent to theircommunity.2. ContentCompanies are publishing a lot of content, fromblog posts, to press releases to video uploads,to tweets and job postings. On a talent commu-nity platform (that BraveNewTalent provides) it ispossible to integrate all this content to present aholistic view of the organization). Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 27

CollaborationBuilding Smarter Cities with Social Technologies Community, crowdsourcing and mobile initiatives to make cities a smarter place to live Written by Diarmaid ByrnePeople look for great cities to live in. The Econo- • Governments need to cut costs without cut-mist Intelligence Unit, Mercer and others help us ting services so they are using analytics toout with their annual rankings of the best cities to understand and improve operational produc-live in based on – amongst other things – rec- tivity and efficiencyreation, health care, political, social and cultural • There is competition among cities to attractenvironment, education, housing and infrastruc- businesses to maintain growth and develop-ture. In the future, determining how good a city is ment and to attract people to live and workto live in will also depend on how smart the city by improving the quality of the urban environ-is. So along with healthcare, education and hous- menting people will also look at how the city utilizes • 50% of the world’s population lives in cities.physical infrastructure, such as transport and By 2050 the urban population is expectedICT, and the availability and quality of intellectual to double, further straining city services andand social capital to improve living standards and infrastructuredrive urban growth and competitiveness. • Cities are major polluters: they occupy 2% of the world’s geography but account for 75% ofThere are three defining characteristics of a the greenhouse gasessmart city:• A networked infrastructure Leaving aside the smart city projects that focus• Community intelligence to improve urban on infrastructure and energy management, I want planning, development and innovation man- to look at how individuals, communities and gov- agement ernments are using social technologies to har-• Social and environmental sustainability ness community intelligence, social capital and through the participation of citizens in city improve urban environments and city process. processes There are lots of projects and initiatives happen- ing around the world and I have included a briefThe concept of smart cities has been on the about many others at the end of this article.agenda of governments and corporations for thelast number of years. Investment is also acceler- SeeClickFixating. A recent report by ABI Research estimates There are plenty of enthusiastic people whothat the market for technologies related to smart want to make a difference in their community.cities projects will grow from $8 billion in 2010 SeeClickFix supports hyper-local, community-to $39 billion in 2016. This will include spending driven activism to empower citizens, communityon e-government initiatives, initiatives to reduce groups, media organizations and governmentscarbon footprints, waste and recycling initiatives, to improve their neighbourhoods. Their onlineintelligent transport systems, and wireless net- platform and mobile apps allow citizens to flagworks. There are a number of reasons why there and report non-emergency community issuesis so much investment in smart cities: such as potholes and graffiti, share them on a• There is a limit to how much people and busi- web-based map for others to view and comment nesses can be taxed. Budget crises during on complaints based on location as well as view the recession of the last few years means the profiles of people who report issues nearby. that city governments have to look at long- SeeClickFix also have a Facebook page and an term measures to manage and modernize app with game mechanics, giving users Civic their services and infrastructure Points for performing actions that engage with Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 28

the app including reporting issues, uploading an is branding itself as a solution finder and innova-image or taking action in order to get an issue tor in making cities smarter and cleaner alongresolved. with promoting their hybrid and electric cars. There are three apps that BMW has invested in that use community intelligence and the participation of users to reduce traffic congestion, improve how people navigate their city and life in their cities. DriveNow Running only in Munich at the moment, DriveNow is a car sharing service that gives users access to a car whenever they need it. After registering with their driver’s license, users can reserve a car online or through a mobile app and use the car at a cost of 29c a minute, including petrol and free parking within Munich city.SeeClickFix doesn’t just crowdsource communityintelligence to improve their local environment,but helps to improve city processes by rout-ing complaints to the relevant parties such aslocal governments and media outlets to resolvethem. SeeClickFix provides community groups(neighborhood associations, volunteer groups,business associations) with an online platform toconnect and address the needs of their commu-nity, governments with a dashboard for trackingand acknowledging issues, and media outletswith a platform to stay up-to-date with eventsthat impact the community. It has been a majorsuccess, with over 200,000 users, more than 30government clients, and 50% of user-reportedissues resolved. ParkatmyHouse ParkatmyHouse is the largest online parking mar- ketplace connecting owners of parking spaces who want to earn money renting it out to people who need a convenient space to park. MyCityWay MyCityWay is a real-time, location-aware suite ofBMW i mobile apps designed to help users navigate andIn February 2011 BMW created a $100 million explore cities. It can be used for connecting withventure capital fund to invest in mobile apps that other users, finding a restaurant that allows dogs,make it easier for people to navigate urban areas locating the nearest wireless hotspot, sharingby car, bike, public transport or walking. This is tips, finding parking ahead of time, and checkingpart of BMW i, an initiative to establish a new, live.sustainability-focused sub-brand to integrate theconcepts of luxury and sustainability. Non-auto SignalGurumotive has not been BMW’s interest, but it is to Traffic management systems are one of the ma-its customers and potential customers, and BMW jor features of smart city projects, and are offered Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 29

by companies like IBM as part of their Intelligent ground level upOperations Center. There are plenty of mobile • IBM’s Intelligent Operations Center to moni-apps that try to improve travel by facilitating tor and manage city servicescarpooling, notifying public transport travel times • Amsterdam Smart City – a collaboration be-and connections, or by route planning to avoid tween people, businesses and government totraffic jams. create sustainable, large-scale programs that reduce CO2 emissionsOne (future) app that sounds promising is • Austin’s, Texas, budget allocator to deter-SignalGuru. It was developed by researchers mine which urban projects to invest inat Princeton and MIT to reduce congestion and • City Sourced – a mobile civic engagementfuel consumption in cities. It uses GPS enabled platform that allows residents to report issuessmartphones mounted on car dashboards to es- to the local government for resolutiontimate traffic light patterns. The app informs the • San Jose Mobile City Hall – a mobile en-driver how long until the signal turns green and gagement tool to allow residents to reportsuggests the driving speed to prevent stopping issues to the San Jose government forat a red light. So far in early testing in Massa- resolutionchusetts the app has successfully predicted red • Betaville – a collaborative platform for citieslights to within 0.66 seconds and reduced petrol in which ideas for new works of public art,use by 20%. architecture, urban design, and development can be shared, discussed, tweaked, and brought to maturity in context by individuals and experts • Cooltownbeta – a crowdsourcing consultancy • Reset San Francisco - an online community that brings locals together around ideas and solutions to improve San Francisco.With so many developments in this space, citiesneed a vision for the type of environment theywant to develop and a masterplan of how theywill achieve this that incorporates both largescale solutions and community-led initiatives thatbring together experts and individuals. As excit-ing as these projects are, there are some con-cerns and questions that will need to be debated:• Each initiative creates a huge amount of user information and data, which naturally leads to questions about privacy and how governments in some countries choose to use the data to exert control over their citizens• Who owns the brains of a city? Is it the community and services like SeeClickFix, or large companies like IBM and Cisco with their ‘smart city in a box’ solutions?• What happens when the interests of a large company and the city and residents are no longer aligned?Further Examples of Smart City InitiativesThere are numerous smart city initiatives andprojects underway around the world. I’ve listedsome others that I find interesting:• Songdo in South Korea – the first city to have developed the smart city concept from the Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 30

CollaborationEnterprise 2.0 for Creating a Fun Work Culture Using Enterprise 2.0 tools for creating an interesting workplace and a fun work culture Written by Achintya GuptaIf you are a marketer, brand manager or an en- in the company has been gamified and peopletrepreneur then technically you are not supposed are getting experience points from their manag-to know about Enterprise 2.0 tools. But if you ers that can be exchanged for rewards. (Sourcebelieve that the strongest aspects of creating a – Fast Company)brand start with building the right culture into thecompany, then I will recommend you start spend- The second case is IBM, one of the leadinging time understanding this field since enterprise brands in the world with one of the world’s largestcollaboration tools have the capabilities to not workforces. IBM has made use of some smartonly increase productivity and handle projects but self-developed Enterprise 2.0 tools to createalso power fascinating company cultures. a culture of idea sharing and innovation in the workplace. To begin with, IBMers have their ownWhy do you Need Enterprise 2.0 to Power internal blogs where they can share ideas andCompany Culture? information with the company. On top of this theyAs organizations grow the number of layers also have their own internal wiki that serves as abetween the people who have the enthusiasm hub of information, their own internal bookmark-to take initiatives to brighten up the work culture, ing site like Delicious called Dogear, their ownthe power holders, and others keeps on increas- internal Twitter-like tool called Blue Twit, and aing. It takes more like-minded people to do some- Facebook-like tool to help employees stay con-thing fun in the company and these like-minded nected called SocialBlue. IBM even conductspeople need to be connected and facilitated with companywide jams, online forums for employeethe right tools. Enterprise 2.0 comes handy as brainstorming. The seriousness of these pro-it has the potential to socially connect people at grams can be seen from the fact that the 10 mostwork, initiate and participate in conversations voted ideas internally by the employees fromand discover the hidden potential and interests the 2006 IBM Jam were funded and incubatedamong people. by IBM. (Sources: socialmediaexaminer, adam- chirsten.com and beshayer.com.)How have Some Brands Achieved this?To make my point I would like to share two sto- As you can see IBM is a brand that despite itsries of brands and how they have successfully massive size is making use of Enterprise 2.0used Enterprise 2.0 tools to create interesting tools to power a culture of creativity, innovationwork cultures into their companies. and idea sharing.The first company I would like to talk about is How can you Use Enterprise 2.0 to Power aShopify, at start-up that has tried to gamify the Fun Workplace?company culture with the help of their Enterprise If the above examples of Shopify and IBM have2.0 tool. This tool called UNICORN (created by excited you to use social technologies to makeShopify) not only helps employees share infor- your work place even more exciting, then I havemation and updates but also award points to listed down related use-cases and the Enterpriseeach other. Hence employees are using this tool 2.0 tool that can power them:for activities like posting news, finding hiddentalents within the company, learning more about Gamifying Feedbackcolleagues, and even giving performance re- As discussed above, Shopify might have devel-views. Essentially, with UNICORN, a typical day oped their own tool UNICORN to create a game Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 31

layer over the company processes, but you can Firstly, it makes communication more effectivedo that too with tools like Rypple and Get Work within the organization. Secondly, it helps peopleSimple. share their passion and find like-minded people. Finally, it cuts down a huge chunk of email junk.Rypple is a tool that helps you track your proj-ects, manage performance reviews and also There are many popular tools that help supportgive recognitions to team members in forms this need like Yammer, Salesforce Chatter andof badges, and all in a manner that is fun and Tibbr. These tools have been designed to initiateengaging. You can use Rypple to set your goals, discussion in the company over projects, work,give interesting badges to your team as the proj- passions, interests, or anything else. I would likeect progresses, and also receive feedback from to describe our own experiments with Yammeryour colleagues. Apart from real time continuous inside my company Kuliza. We realized this toolfeedback, the best part of this tool is that all feed- was a great way to educate our employees aboutback is publie, so if you have a difficult boss you social technologies and social design. Once theno longer have to suffer in appraisals. tool picked up popularity the head of the design team and the social media marketing team insideHere is how a typical day with this tool looks like: Kuliza started sharing interesting links about their respective fields. The CEO started using it to brief the employees about key company news and updates, while developers started sharing news about conferences they attend. Employee Ideation Employees have great ideas, and some of these ideas are really valuable to brands for improving their business. For instance, sales people for a business might have the best ideas to improve business performance since they understand the real scenario. Many brands understand this and provide tools to employees to power their ideas. Dell ran the EmployeeStorm campaign where employees could submit ideas about making DellReal Time Rewards and Recognitions a better place to work and vote for their favouriteAnother tool, love machine inc., also helps you ideas. The campaign was powered by Sales-create an open and continuous feedback culture, force’s Force.com platform.but it has a stronger focus on recognition andrewards. Managers can set up goals and allocate Intuit also believes in this philosophy and has areward budgets. The team can then send open couple of tools to generate employee innovation.messages to team members recognizing their Intuit has built an ideation platform called Brain-efforts and the tool provides cumulative perfor- storm to collect employee ideas that are sprout-mance analytics of each team member that canbe used to distribute the reward budgets. ing in the companies and get them noticed by the relevant people. Inside Intuit around 15-20% of the people use this tool every month and around 3,800 ideas have been collected since it started (source). Creating Internal Thought Leaders Many brands, especially services or consulting companies, want to create internal thought leaders and field experts. Moreover, even if you have experts working with you, in a large organization, finding the right expert might be difficult. Enter- prise 2.0 tools like internal blogs (for example SocialText Collaborative blogs) help employees showcase their capability and thought leadershipKnowledge Sharing and Curation to the organization. People can search topics andA culture of sharing knowledge and information find field experts who are talking on those topics.with colleagues is a great asset to companies. One capability of Jive’s ‘Engage Employees’ Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 32

software is to ensure that users can locate fieldexperts within the company.I hope this article helped you realize the potentialEnterprise 2.0 tools have to make your companyan interesting workplace and create a lively workculture. However, tools are only one part of thestory and getting your employees to use it isanother topic. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 33

CollaborationGrowing Online Communities Reflecting a community’s shared interest areas to increase brand engagement Written by Diarmaid ByrneSocial media forms a core element of a brand’s Modclothmarketing as it provides a range of tools for them Modcloth, an e-retailer of vintage women’sto connect to and interact with customers. As fashion, created a community of fashionistas andFacebook is the fastest growing social network, involved them in almost every part of the compa-brands are using it in ever-increasing numbers ny. ModCloth began asking customers to help theas their primary engagement point with custom- company decide whether to carry certain itemsers. As part of their engagement efforts, brands in its store. Their Be The Buyer program allowedunderstand that people need a reason to interact their community to be virtual members of theirwith them, and so offer their fans promotions and buying team by voting on clothing samples. If anexclusive deals. However, studies suggest that item receives enough votes ModCloth will sell it.this is not a long-term strategy that increases This helps them improve inventory management,engagement; people often become fans in order reduce the guesswork involved in buying deci-to receive exclusive deals and offers without sions, and allows them to engage with and buildbecoming more loyal to the brand. their community.Thus, brands need a reason and strategy tointeract with people, just like people need areason to interact with brands. From a sociologi-cal perspective, shopping gives people a senseof belonging to a community and allows them tocommunicate with others, promote themselvesand validate who they are. This gives brands anopportunity to build communities of interest withpeople around their products and so form longer-lasting relationships with their customers andfans after the transaction is complete. Members can vote and leave comments on clothing samples and share their views on FacebookIt is about more than having a product cata- and Twitter. The result is a group of people whologue or shop on Facebook with a ‘share’ but- may not know each other but share a commonton. Brands need to understand how to connect interest in fashion and a desire to talk about it.with their fans and build real interactions and ModCloth however recognize that their commu-relationships. An effective strategy requires nity has more in common than just fashion andbrands to carefully consider what their custom- clothes, so their blog covers recipes , links fromers are looking for and what role a community around the web that their members might find in-should play. Three companies that have clearly teresting, and a book club where members sharedefined this are Modcloth in fashion, Threadless books they are reading.in design and Monster Army in extreme sports.The communities around these brands are not Threadlesspurely to facilitate Q&A or customer service, but Threadless is an international, community-drivena representation of the broader interest of their design platform featuring merchandise designedmembers. by and for its fan base of over one million users. Artists and designers from around the world create and submit their designs and the community Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 34

can vote for the ones they like best and share The current Atrium challenges are listed on Face-their favourite designs on Facebook and Twit- book and on their site. It is not just organizationster. On average, 1,500 designs are submitted such as Griffin and Disney, but also for causesto the site every week. The most popular ones such as American Red Cross Peace One Day. Soare printed on a limited run and sold through the strong is their community that there are regularwebsite and their shop, while the winning design- offline meet-ups across the world.ers receive a prize of cash and store credit. Monster Army Monster Army is an online community of over 1 million members who share an interest in extreme sports. The approach Monster Army took is it to not just provide an online space for their members but to expand this into offline activities, such as sponsorship for a broad range of sports such as BMX, surfing, skateboarding, and winter sports as well as sponsoring individual athletes. This results in a community that is devoted to the brand with the latest news, athlete updates, photos and videos from Monster Army events posted on the website. Their success is down to building a business forLike ModCloth, Threadless recognized that their a community rather than a community for theircommunity is interested in more than just t-shirts. business. Monster Army and their extremely loyalTheir platform evolved to reflect a community base of members online and offline exist in a mu-center for people to blog, chat and socialize tually beneficial relationship: members have anaround design and with design enthusiasts. To interest in growing their sports and the Monsterreflect the design interests of their community brand, and Monster has an interest in supportingthey recently moved beyond designs for just and growing extreme sports.t-shirts to designs for other items such as totebags, scarves, iPhone cases, notebooks, and By broadening the scope of topics around whichbackpacks. They also established Threadless they engage with their members these sites areAtrium, a meeting-place for artists and organiza- building a more loyal, connected and committedtions looking for new product designs. It works community that is motivated to ensure the suc-similarly to the t-shirt designs: Threadless and a cess of the site and the growth of the community.partner post a design challenge, members submittheir designs and vote on them, Threadlessmakes the most popular products. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 35

CRMThe Designer’s Challenge to Social CRM Dealing with complexity in a connected world Written by Kshitiz AnandEveryday I log onto twitter and I read aboutsomeone complaining about a problem they arefacing with a particular service that they use. Inalmost realtime, a lot of others who face a similarproblem simply re-tweet the initial tweet aboutthe complaint. What this could result in is nega-tive publicity about the service, and even fear oflosing a customer. In almost no time, there arerepresentatives from the company replying to thetweets and assuring of a quick turnaround to thecustomer’s concerns. If that is not enough thereare also social channels that people can reachout to if they do not get a response on Twitter. nt, promotions and post-purchase support, theThis is the new age of customer relationship notion of social CRM goes wider than the abovemanagement and goes by the term social CRMs. mentioned three domains. Amongst all of thisThere is a lot of debate about the legitimacy of change, the main change is in the role of thethe phrase social CRM. On one side of the argu- customers.ment there are the believers who think that thisis just another fancy term riding the Social Wave. What has also changed is the increase in theOn the other side of the argument you have peo- data load of the systems. One is not just track-ple who swear by anything social and believe it to ing and keeping a note of customer feedbackbe of an immense value add. I for one think that and questions and relationships, but dealing withSCRM is here to stay, and it can only promise to more data in an efficient and process-centric way.grow with more and more businesses adoptingsocial media technologies. The ultimate goal of the traditional CRM was to have a customer return to buy more productsI deal with design and through this article I wish from the same outlet or retailer. The goal of theto seek out the challenges that designers face SRCM also primarily remains the same, thoughand should consider when designing for Social the parameters and the channels have increased.CRM. It may be noted that this is just an indica-tive list and not a definitive one. With changes As Paul Greenberg writes, “Social CRM is ahappening almost every day (Facebook intro- philosophy and a business strategy, supported byduced the Timeline as I write this), the challenges a technology platform, business rules, workflow,can only increase. processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversa-In the earlier days of the traditional CRMs, the tion in order to provide mutually beneficial valueengagement with the customer happened around in a trusted and transparent business environ-three domains - sales, marketing, and service ment. It’s the company’s response to the custom-and support. er’s ownership of the conversation.”With the rise of social media platforms being Social CRMs is more like a design strategy exer-used for things beyond just customer engageme- Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 36

cise that is often supported by various tools and important to take care of. Often the user failstechnologies, and the strategy is based around to understand the legal implications of beingcustomer engagement, interactions and experi- involved in a Social CRM solution and it can oftenences. So apart from the traditional goals of mar- lead to situations of brand reputation being atketing, customer query answering and increase stake or to public defamation. It is the duty of thein sales, a SCRM solution is also looked upon as designer to engage the users in a way so as toa source for peer-to-peer customer support, idea avoid these situations.management, market research, product launch-es, advertising channels, promotions, and brand 5. Customers are your Channel of Advocacyreputation management. Decisions on buying and becoming loyal to a brand are highly influenced these days by peersCustomers today are better informed and have and the discussions that happen across the dif-a lot more channels to broadcast their opinions ferent channels. It is not about “sell and forget”and experiences. Therefore, the value addition any more. The relationship with the individualthat SCRM must bring about and influence at a goes beyond that. The design should be flexiblelarger scale is important. This, in my opinion, is a to enable the cycle of purchase, enjoyment, ad-design problem and the solution should be done vocacy and bonding. This will lead to a valuablethrough a proper design and not by force. We are customer for life.not talking about just going overboard with socialmedia technologies as there is always the danger 6. Multiple Channelsof over-selling. Unlike the earlier days where CRM relied on one channel, these days social CRM often relies onIn this context I will outline some of the challeng- multiple channels. Customers define the dyna-es that the designer faces. mism of each of these channels and as a result keep brands on their feet. It is not uncommon to1. The Complexity of Dealing with the Offline hear of frequent changes in brand loyalty theseand Online Worlds at the Same Time days due to the brand’s inability to cater to oneMore and more people are spending more time or more of the channels. In an ideal world oneonline. With the advent of cloud computing and would expect the same customer experienceusage of the cloud to manage large systems, the irrespective of channel, be it the social mediauser is connected 24X7. Our lifestyles are being technologies one or the traditional face to facemonitored all time and as a result we tend to interactions.expect more from services at all times. 7. Changing Platforms and the Issue of2. Understanding Users ScalabilityThis has been a designer’s classic problem With technology penetrating more and more intospace, but with every passing year the users our lives, customers are reaching out to rep-seem to become more sophisticated. There are resentatives at any point of time from differentmore social technologies that are being adopted types of devices. Mobiles, tablets and of courseevery year. One of the biggest goals of the the laptops and hi-tech systems have made lifedesigner needs to be to keep things simple in complex. Dealing with issues of web portabilitythis complex world. In the present context, the and being able to provide the same ‘wow’ userusers (customers) define the processes and also experience across platforms is the key.define the hours in which they seek the customerservice and engagement. 8. Making Sense of the Chaos The main challenge for businesses is to translate3. The Notion of Identity the pillars of social CRM - the fans, likes, shares,In the earlier days of CRM there were more per- and re-shares - into sales. All these pillars ofsonal and face to face meetings. In the days of SCRM lead to a lot of data being generated.social CRM people often tend to have a different Making sense of all of it is important and onlypersona that they present online and in the of- then can SCRM be of immense value add forfline world. So the key is to ensure the seamless businesses. This is also important for customersintegration of both the worlds. since their decisions are formed based on their past experience and that of their network. Thus,4. Share it to Engage in it the key here is to translate it into a data-driven-A lot of things happen in realtime and as a result high-user-experience design, such that it can beof the identity point above, one is often in the risk beneficial for both the designer and the business.of sharing too much. For a designer this is chal- Tools such as information visualizations and ana-lenging as the issues of privacy and trust become lytics can be of immense value to the designers Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 37

too here. hang in there dear designers; you are a valued lot!9. Understanding the Limitations ofTechnologyThere have been a lot of debates around whether Image: Edward Khoodesigners should understand technology or not.In my opinion they must. I am not talking aboutmaking them do coding, but at-least have a goodunderstanding of how technology and the frame-works that they are designing for function.10. Business Process IntegrationsWhatever said and done, social CRM is primar-ily aimed at driving sales growth and improvingcustomer service. For the designer to understandthis means that they need to get a better under-standing of the way the business works. Thiscan be especially important for those businessesadopting social technologies for the first time.The goals for the businesses should be to ensurethat Social CRM can be used in a strategic man-ner and through countless experiments on thecustomer side as well as the business side. It isnot only important to look into the low hangingfruits and reward the customer as a one off thing,but to look at SCRM as a means of engagingwith the customer for a longer period of time, oreven perhaps for their entire life. It is only thenthat can one think of a change that would bemore transformational and would result in theway the business adopts SCRM and as a resultgain the trust of the customer.Businesses need to realize that social CRM isnot merely a channel to push different discountsand deals to either all or elite groups of theircustomers. It is not only about incentivizing thewhole customer engagement model. It is aboutproviding an experience that stays with the cus-tomerthrough the different stages , from promo-tion to engagement to transaction to prophecy toreturn for engagement.In ConclusionOne has to remember that we are not talkingabout anything new, but an evolution of tradi-tional CRM. In order to be a person who canbe good at the whole notion of social CRM, youhave to have an understanding of philosophy,social dynamics, cultural aspects and technologyplatform. In my opinion, a designer is the onlyperson who comes close to having some sort ofunderstanding of the above fields and as a resultfaces immense challenges. Designers who aretrained to think form the human / user / customerperspective are best suited, though no one candeny that this is a lot to ask from one person. But Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 38

CRMThe Evolution of Facebook Privacy A look at Fcebook’s privacy journe from its early days to its present verison Written by Aram BhusalHow deep has the Facebook phenomenonpenetrated into your life? Are you worried aboutthe wilting crops in Farmville or starving fishesin Aquaville? Oh wait! Do I see Facebook openin the other tab on your browser? So now youhave told Facebook so much about yourself, doyou wonder how all this information is stored andwith whom is it shared? It is interesting to knowthat Facebook has come a long way in privacyand like its engagement architecture, even theprivacy features of Facebook have evolved overtime.The Good Old Days!Now it is time to dig deep into Facebook and seewhat we get! Facebook was founded in 2004 andwhen you go to that era to search about privacyyou will stumble upon links where it is beingargued that the data you share is not availableto Facebook alone but to other ‘trusted partners’,it sure is going to ring a bell for you. But whatyou see is that privacy concerns started with Though the idea was great, you would receivethe Newsfeed, which we today take for granted. advertisements on topics you liked and which areThe Newsfeed and mini-feeds faced a lot of actually useful. This was followed by the decisionresistance from users. There was also a group to make Facebook profiles searchable by Google.“Students against Facebook Newsfeed” that was Naturally, people didn’t like this to be the defaultprotesting openly on Facebook. The number of option, and it - as it should have - raised a storm.people joining it showed huge discontent among As usual Facebook shrugged off these concerns,users. The popularity of the Newsfeed was falling or indirectly they said Facebook’s 40 million usersinto a deep pit as users were complaining about should not worry that personal details will be avail-it all the time. It seemed the now seemingly in- able to anyone searching the net.nocent Newsfeed had stirred quiet a buzz with itsinduction to the site. Privacy, the Scary Phase! In 2008 numerous lawsuits were dropped onOther major improvements like targeted advertis- Facebook. A canadian privacy firm found 22ing were introduced by Facebook. Facebook es- breaches of privacy in Facebook. Everybodycalated its use of personal data to target adver- started anticipating another privacy scandaltisements to individual users. Despite mounting by Facebook and started to look for loopholesprivacy concerns surrounding social networking that would be of serious concern. Moreover, itsites, Facebook was boldly looking for revenues was discovered that applications had access toand users felt nervous that their data was being information which they might not even require: ashared. whopping 91% of a user’s data was accessible to Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 39

them. Concerns were legitimate, but as a re- to just shrug them off. 2011 was supposed to besponse, all Facebook did was to send a small the year of reforms. As a Facebook user I startedpress release about information control for users, seeing random changes. There was the mysteri-providing them better control on their content. ous ticker appearing now and then. It seemed IThis period showed how insecure a user’s infor- was not alone, and once again the cries and furymation had become. Applications to which users of users rose.had not given permission also seemed to gethold of personal data. This was becoming more Finally Facebook decided it was time for adifficult for Facebook. change in the privacy settings. Many suspect, including eweek, that this was an outcome ofThe year 2009 started with strong criticism of the competition from Google+. Now users couldFacebook terms of service since it looked as if decide who sees their posts, the tagging policiesFacebook was saying, “We can do anything we changed, and users could add their location withwant with your content. Forever.” This surely was more comfort. To get a complete preview of thenot acceptable. Look at this clear dissection of latest privacy settings you can look at this officialthe terms of use and you will learn why everyone blog post about it. The latest addition to the pri-was shocked. Electronic Frontier Foundation vacy and sharing features has been the subscrip-published The good, the bad and the ugly facets tion button. You can read about it in another of-of the Facebook privacy: ficial Facebook blog. Users no longer needed to• The Good: simpler privacy settings and per- be friends with a person to see what they share post privacy options publicly. Users could also customize what degree• The Bad: EFF doesn’t recommend Face- of updates they want to get from each friend. book’s “Recommended” privacy settings• The Ugly: information that you used to Facebook is slowly rolling out the latest News- control is now treated as “Publicly Available,” feed format, which does little to placate privacy and you can’t opt out of the sharing of your concerns. Users can see what others are doing information with Facebook apps online, even if the other person is not on their friend list.Facebook was receiving serious attention fromits users and became more aware that users In the top right of the image below you can seewanted their privacy maintained. the ticker, telling me what my friends are doing. It is an ‘UNFILTERED’ newsfeed. Below that is theThe Awakening! suggestion of the people I might like to subscribeIn 2010 there was continuous uproar over all the to. This is what Facebook looks like in Septem-changes taking place. You can see this in an ex- ber 2011.cellent graphical representation of how Facebookchanged the *automatic/default* privacy settingsover time.What was worse was that the apps with whomyou shared information seemed to share it withother companies. In the same article you can seehow Facebook was seriously limiting the per-sonal data available to the apps. It felt like a littletoo late. People now realised how their informa-tion was being shared. EFF again released a setof data that was an eye-opener. You can clearlysee how the circle of your private information wasincreasing. The main concerns were that evenif you set your information to private it would notbe very difficult to access it. Remaining ignorantwas certainly no longer an option. A huge chunk The Post-Google+ Periodof your information could be easily accessible The social network competition is heating up.on the public web. Even Mark Zuckerberg was Google+ won hearts with its simple and fast UIsweating during questions posed about privacy. and more transparent privacy settings. Facebook has had to act fast. The latest changes makeEveryone knew that the privacy concerns needed people wonder if Facebook is moving moreto be addressed. Facebook had no more scope towards the Twitter way of sharing information. Though Facebook has addressed the concerns Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 40

to some extent, the constant changes may leavethe average Facebook user confused. The latesttagging facility does help us decide if we wantto be tagged or not but makes tagging a moretedious job.Facebook has the advantage of a huge userbase that its competitors do not enjoy at themoment. Facebook now needs to be on its toesto be able to retain its users. It has come a longway from the privacy settings that “The Face-book” had, but these may not be enough. Withthe rolling out of unfiltered Newsfeed and otherfeatures, Facebook needs to take into accountthe privacy concerns. Indeed Facebook seemsto reset the privacy settings of the users whenrolling out changes in the privacy options whichleads to the dismay of many users. Thankfullyusers today are more informed and more alertthan ever about changes Facebook introduces. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 41

CRMNot Just Another Google+ Article Everything you wanted to know about Google+ but couldn’t find in the flood of Google+ related articles! Written by Achintya GuptaThe launch of Google+ was perhaps one of the Still unclear? Let’s see what Google+ can do andbiggest social technology news items of this try to understand it better.quarter. Over a period of the last few weeks thesocial web was flooded with Google+ articles. What are the Key Features of Google+?Some called it the Facebook killer, others think Google+ has been promoting a lot is its newit will die like Google’s previous social projects, features and they have been a big driving forcewhile still others think it is something different for people to try it. Here is a brief description ofthan just a social network, it is a social layer. some of the key features of Google+:So we thought we should prepare an extensive Circlesreview of some of the best news and opinions on Circles is one of the main features of Google+Google+ to help you understand what is in it for and a key differentiator from Facebook. The ideayou. A note of warning: with the social networks behind the Circles is that we share different infor-waging war against each other, both Facebook mation with different people in our life and someand Google rapidly change their face. As a result people care more about a certain kind of stuffour research knowledge is limited to the time of than others. So instead of sharing everythingwriting this article, September 23. with everyone when it comes to a social network, why not share it only with a certain set that willWhat is Google+? actually care about the stuff you share. Hence, inTo answer this question, let us first see what Google+ you can divide your network into variousGoogle+ calls itself. If you go to the Google+ circles so that you always share the most rel-promo page, here is what it say is it: evant things with the most relevant people.“Real life sharing, rethought for the web”The message sort of fails to explain to me why HangoutsI need this when I already have Facebook and This is another key feature of Google+ and,Twitter for sharing. If I compare this message to according to some experts, the one Google+what Facebook calls itself – “Facebook is a place feature that can make a difference. Hangout isto connect and share with people in your life” - or a group video chat feature with your specificwhat Twitter calls itself - “Follow your interests” - friends or entire circle. The most interesting thingthen Google+’s purspose is not very clear to me. about Hangouts is the range of creative ideasSo let’s explore more and see what experts think people are using to leverage this new feature.of Google+. People are having cooking classes to musical concerts to game shows over Hangout. More-The Business Insider considers Google+ as an over, according to recent updates, people canamalgamation of Google services that we already now broadcast a Hangout. So for example youhave been using with an idea of doing them can have a group concert with musician friendsbetter. David Armano considers Google+ not as over a Hangout and broadcast it to the rest of thea social network but as a social layer above the world. Hangouts now have collaboration featuresGoogle / web ecosystem, which is a better way so that you can share your screen, Google docsof explaining Business Insider’s opinion. Accord- and sketch pad.ing to him Google+ is not a Facebook killer and itdoes not need to be. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 42

SparksThis is another cool Google+ feature. It is es-sentially a recommendation engine to help yousee what is exciting on the topics of your choice.I think in the longer term this recommendationengine has big potential for brands that want topush engaging content to Google+ readers. Youcan read more here.SearchGoogle+ Search is perhaps the evolved ver-sion or the next generation of search where youdon’t find answers on the entire web but in yourfriend’s networks. This social version of search Facebook has tried to replicate these featuresis more trustworthy (you can see from whom it is with post subscriptions and lists. However Face-coming from) and more personal (you can see book never had a privacy DNA and that shows inwhat your friends or network is saying). their design.How is Google+ Different from Facebook? 4. HangoutsI beg to differ with the idea of Facebook just be- As discussed before, they have tremendous po-ing a social network and Google+ being an amal- tential in the field of social broadcasting collabo-gamation or a social layer over the web. I think ration and I see interesting campaigns comingboth the social giants are trying to be that social from brands and agencies here.layer over the web. Even Facebook with its APIs,plug-ins and open graph has been attempting What has been the Reception for Google+?to create this social layer for websites and web Google+ hit 25 million users at the beginning ofpages. So fundamentally you will find 4 essential August, making it the fastest growing websitedifferences between Google+ and Facebook. ever. It took Facebook 3 years and Twitter 30 months to reach this number. The Next Web1. Integration of Search and Social reported that Google+ touched 43 million usersWith Google+, the search giant is leveraging its by September 22nd. That said, however, most ofsearch muscle to create a social layer over its the viral buzz leading to Google+’s growth is dueSEO. So whatever your Google and Google+ to networks like Facebook and Twitter.network, ‘+1s’ is what would be more visible toyou in your searches. Hence Google+ has the What is Google+ for Facebook Users?potential to become a smarter search engine, So what is Google+ for you? Is there a pointsomething that Facebook will never be. having profiles on both Facebook and Google+, or should you leave one for another? If that is the2. Privacy case then why should one leave Facebook forHere again is where Google+ wins over Face- Google+?book, which has always attracted criticisms overits privacy levels. The concept of Circles ensures Online conversations show that the key reasonsyou share things with only those whom you actu- people are using Google+ is its clean UI, coolally want to share. features like Hangouts, or because their friends have moved to Google+. Google+’s present3. Relationships and Sharing growth and traction might be an initial excite-Facebook is a two-way content sharing economy ment, but sustaining this growth and keeping(before it came out with the concept of subscrip- users returning to Google+ is what will make thetions), i.e. you friend somebody and then both difference. In my opinion, Google+ needs a stron-of you can see each other’s content. Twitter is ger social reason to get Facebook users leavea one way content sharing economy, i.e. people Facebook and start using it. It currently lacks thisfollow me and I might not even know them. unique social need that can be fulfilled only by itGoogle+ comes with a difference. If I add some- and no other network.body in my circle I share my content with him /her. If you are wondering how that happens this What is Google+ for Brands?table will help you: Although some businesses like Mashable and Starbucks have tried setting up their Google+ pages, the exact Google+ business model and Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 July - September 2011 | 43

how can brands leverage it is still unclear.Presently there are two aspects of Google+ thatcan be leveraged by brands. Firstly, its integra-tion of search and social has a great potential formarketing. That typically means that what peopleare +1ing on Google+ not only communicatestheir opinion to their network but also makes theirsearch smarter. If Google comes up with brandpages like Facebook, following them can proba-bly increase the chances of brand related contentappearing in Google search.Secondly, with the concept of closed circles,Google+ will encourage candid conversation andhence increase the chances of brand evange-lism and advice being taken more seriously. Forexample, somebody who otherwise prefers notto talk about cool software he has been using,would love to discuss it with his ‘Geek Buddies’circle.What is Google+ for Organizations?Another great use case of Google+ is for com-panies to create internal networks. In a previousarticle I wrote about how internal networks canbe used to create great company cultures. WithCircles you can easily set an internal network onGoogle+ with full features and no additional cost.Add to that collaboration tools like Hangouts andyou have a useful tool to communicate inter-nally that has a great UI and can be very easilyadapted within the organization.What is Next?Clearly Google+ has some engineering advan-tages over Facebook. However whether theseadvantages can turn Facebook’s 800 millionusers to Google+ is something we have to see.Google+ is just a beginning. I am sure it willevolve with time and I look forward to stron-ger reasons from Google to get me hooked toGoogle+. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 2 44

Kuliza is a social technology firmfocused in helping companiesleverage social software, communityplatforms, mobile and cloudcomputing for improving businessperformance, communication andcustomer engagement. ZaSocial ZaMobile ZaCloudKuliza offers solutions for Kuliza offers solutions to Kuliza offers cloud servicesdesigning and building so- design, build and distribute to ensure a hassle freecial software and commu- mobile apps for iOS, infrastructure to sustainnity platforms. Our focus Android and Blackberry. your changing needs. Ourareas are: Our focus areas are: focus areas are:• Online communities • Mobile CRM • Cloud consulting• Facebook apps • Mobile loyalty programs • Cloud migration and• Social commerce • Mobile transition management• Social CRM

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Social Technology Quarterly (Volume 1| Issue 2)

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