STC 2010 Strategies for the Social Web for Documentation

Strategies for the Social Web For Documentation
Anne Gentlewww.justwriteclick.com
STC Summit May 2010

Social Media Seems Overwhelming and a Time Sink
Strategies for the Social Web for Documentation
Without knowing how to approach it, social media seems like a hit or miss proposition with lots of risk.
Flickr: couragextoxlive

Our Challenge
We (finally!) have social tools and web analytics for our content.
But challenges abound.
In three steps, find the hits and avoid the misses to meet business goals.
Flickr: ogimogi

Documentation as Conversation
You:
want to deliver content in a way that involves your users and opens collaboration opportunities.
Listen first.
Find your role.
Align content placement with business goals.

Categories of New Media Tools

Listen First to Analyze First
Get a larger picture of what’s being talked about and by whom.
Demonstrate listening tools.
Monitor and report.
Flickr: lilianaamundarain

Monitor Keyword Alerts
Google Alerts
Technorati
Delicious
Flickr: totalAldo

Google Alerts
Emails (or feed) automatically sent to you based on search results.
You can create up to 1000 alerts.
Know Google’s syntax for precise searches.

Technorati Blog Search
Searches only blogs.
Offers a filter based on authority.

Delicious and Tagging
Delicious.com – social bookmarking/tagging site.
Enter a Delicious username at Wordle.net to get a tag cloud.
Example: whurley

Let Conversation Flow
Don’t:
Automate (follows, posts)
Interrupt
Do:
Identify yourself and your company
Be conversational
Flickr: naydeeyah

Social Weather Indicators
A crowded, noisy restaurant with a celebrating Little League team and their coaches
or
A busy restaurant with intimate, romantic, white table cloths, candlelight, and couples dining
Flickr: DiscoverDuPage

Sentiment Ratings
Twitter Search at search.twitter.com gives sentiment options in Advanced Search.
Serious sentiment raters are using Radian6 and other advanced tools.

Create Audience Personas and Perform Task Analysis
Have the data, use it.
Demographics and Social Technographics
Indeed.com and LinkedIn.com demo
Flickr: alex e proimos

Social Technographics
Demographics indicate how likely a person is to participate on the social web.
Age
Country
Gender
Recently they added “Conversationalist” to the ladder.

Job Titles, Tasks, User Profiles
Indeed.com – job titles, task descriptions
LinkedIn – names, faces, locations

Define Your Roles on the Social Web
Reporter/Observer
Enabler/Sharer
Collaborator/Instigator
Flickr: ThisParticularGreg

Reporter/Observer
Listening techniques
Aggregate information
Curate content from users

Enable Comments
JS Kit ECHO – embed comment form on web pages, can store comments locally

Enable Conversations
DISQUS – hosted comments, threaded conversations, moderation features

Enable Sharing
AddThis – register on the site, embed the code, configure the sites on which users can share content
TweetMeme – add a retweet button to any web page

Syndicate Content
Syndication works two ways:
Offering users notifications of your content updates
Embedding content from RSS feeds

Collaborator/Instigator Role
Agile development
Alignment with business objectives

Social CRM
Customer relationship management extended to the social web – profile, followers, activity level, influence level
Know your influencers

Align with Business Goals
Community building also may be your responsibility.
Provide a platform, support a community, when your audience and business goals support it.
Flickr: max-all

Find Existing Communities
Communities exist on:
Blogs – Twitter – Forums – Wikis – YouTube – LinkedIn – Facebook

Community Pitfalls
Too much content, not enough engagement.
Another community already took all the major players attention.
Activity level thin.
High barriers to entry.
Pilot debate – yes or no?
We came out of the gate with way too many topics out there. We quickly learned that with too many topics and not enough interaction to start, it made the community seem empty. It’s what I call ‘empty restaurant syndrome’ — if you look in a window and no one is in there, you likely won’t go in.
– Mike HardyStrategic communications program managerPitney-Bowes

Measurement
Measure social media participation and engagement with web analytics.
Key Performance Indicators depend on overall goals for site.
Engagement indicators may differ from web analytics.
Flickr: HeavyWeightGeek

Key Performance Indicators
Customer support and help sites:
New vs. returning visitors
Searches that had zero yield
Search results to site exits ratio
Download completion rates (if relevant)
Flickr: ~Brenda-Starr~

Engagement Indicators
Number of comments on content
Number of comments responded to
Response time on the comments
Number of edits
Volume on discussion boards
Flickr: atomicjeep

When to Stop
Little engagement
Demographics and Technographics don’t line up
No sense of community with your users
Business alignment isn’t right
Flickr: bug-a-lug

Employers of Corporate Social Media Strategists
Airline: JetBlue, Southwest, Boeing
Automotive: Ford, GM, Toyota
Business Services: UPS, Pitney Bowes, Ingersoll Rand, Thomson Reuters, SAS, more
Consumer Product Goods: PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Eastman Kodak, Rubbermaid, Kraft Foods, Land O’Lakes, Estee Lauder, more
Electronics, Devices, Mobile: Sony, Nokia, Dolby, Samsung
Financial Services: Allstate, Experian, Intuit, Progressive, American Express, more
Health/Life Sciences: Mayo Clinic, Life Time Fitness, Kaiser Permanente, more
Media /Entertainment: Cirque du Soleil , DIRECTV, AOL, NBC, NatGeo, Fox, MTV
Retail: Best Buy, Whole Foods, PacSun, Sears, Starbucks, Kohls
Technology, Hardware, Networking, Component, Computer: Dell, National Instruments, EMC, Intel, Cisco, IBM, NCR, AMD, Creative Labs, Novell, more
Technology, Software, Internet: Microsoft, Juniper, Skype, WebEx, Salesforce, Autodesk
Source: Jeremiah Owyang’sList of Corporate Social Media Strategists

Learn Best Practices
Launch and learn.

Community Content
Community Roundtable report contains some content best practices.
Percentage of user- or community-generated versus professional content impact
Associated content repurposes content (not just single-sourcing)
Accept imperfection
Relationships built not with text alone

Example: Adobe Community Help
Custom search engine with selected resources, per product
Comments, user-generated content, it’s all searchable

Example: Intuit
Studied by Forrester
Online support community
Motivations of its members: reciprocity, reputation, obligation, belonging

Example: Ubuntu
Community doc offered in addition to official documentation
Gives users a place to volunteer
Provides community-based support and learning opportunities

Example: Mozilla
Separate end-user doc from the developer documentation
Comprehensive style guidance for new contributors
Switched from MediaWiki to the MindTouch collaboration platform

Align Content with Business Goals
Marketing & Sales
Service & Support
Invention & Development
Collaboration
Customer Experience
Learning & Education
Flickr: The Wu’s Photo Land

We Can Do It
Flickr: couragextoxlive
Flickr: ogimogi

Documentation as Conversation
You:
want to deliver content in a way that involves your users and opens collaboration opportunities.
Listen first.
Find your role.
Align content placement with business goals.

Conversation, continued.
Ask Anne Gentle
www.facebook.com/conversationandcommunity

Questions?
Anne Gentle
www.justwriteclick.com
annegentle@justwriteclick.com
@annegentle
www.facebook.com/conversationandcommunity
www.linkedin.com/in/annegentle

http://justwriteclick.com	102
http://www.slideshare.net	16
http://www.lmodules.com	3
https://bb9demo.austincc.edu	2
http://www.mediarockets.com	1
http://www.hanrss.com	1

STC 2010 Strategies for the Social Web for Documentation

by Anne Gentle on May 04, 2010

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

6 Embeds 125

Statistics

STC 2010 Strategies for the Social Web for Documentation Presentation Transcript