Business and the social web
Stuart Bruce
UK’s Outstanding Small
Consultancy

Samsung
laptop
Digital
Sony Ericsson camera
Portable Bluetooth Sony digital
hard drive head set Flip video
recorder
camera
Sony Ericsson USB flash Mobile broadband
Xperia X1 smart phone drive dongle

IT’S ALL ABOUT
COMMUNITY,
IT WAS NEVER ABOUT
TECHNOLOGY

EVERY SECOND
Two new blogs created Two million emails sent
Seven new PCs sold
1,157 videos viewed
on YouTube
Seven people log-on for
the first time
23 Twitter messages sent
Inspired by Dell’s Kerry Bridge

“The era of mass media is giving way to one of personal
and participatory media, that will profoundly change both
the media industry and society as a whole”
\"Eventually, most businesses will use blogs to
communicate with customers, suppliers and employees“
Bill Gates, Microsoft
\"It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the
huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of
developing technologies to build and destroy - not just
companies but whole countries.\"
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman, News Corporation

May 2005

GARTNER HYPE CYCLE
Twitter
Facebook
Visibility
Websites
E-commerce
Blogs
Second Life
Audioboo
Technology Peak of Inflated Trough of Slope of Plateau of
Trigger Expectation Disillusionment Enlightenment Productivity
Inspired by Microsoft’s Tom Murphy

OUTREACH
OBJECTIVE
Transparent, candid and quick
communication
RESULTS
Join conversations on hundreds
of blogs
VERY positive customer
responses
Pay attention regardless of size
of blog
Negative sentiment has dropped
nearly 30% since August ’06.

RESOURCE
OBJECTIVE
Transparent, candid and
timely communication
RESULTS
More than 400,000 unique
visitors every month
100-200 comments per week
Expanding:
English, Spanish, Chinese, Japa
nese, Norwegian

LISTEN AND ACT
OBJECTIVE
Encourage
ideas, feedback, input and
dialogue
RESULTS
More than 11,000 ideas
generated by the community
Dell has implemented more
than 300 ideas
Integration: new Facebook
applications

CROWD SOURCING

ISSUES MANAGEMENT
ISSUE
Stop the Great HSBC Graduate
Rip-Off!
RESULT
Almost 6,000 members
Mainstream media coverage
HSBC admitted defeat and
backed down

OUTREACH
 Number one watched programme on BBC iPlayer for two weeks after event
 Theme song watched more than 144,000 times on YouTube
 Exclusive previews seen more than 91,000 times on YouTube
 … even an executive interview watched more than 6,000 times!

OBJECTIVE
Catch up and beat other
competitors who ‘did’
social media first
RESULT
“a master class for
companies to actually
implement social media
strategies” - Somesso

XPERIA LAUNCH

LISTEN
METHODOLOGY
 Seeded survey with 21 blogs
RESULT
 More than 200 responses within 24
hours
“This is great news and really a great
initiative. I’ve been begging Sony
Ericsson to get something like this
started for ages now”
“I’m quite happy that companies like
SE also discover blogs and bloggers as
a valuable media source”

BUILD
OBJECTIVE
 Create a trusted community for
two-way dialogue
RESULT
 Almost 255,000 unique visitors
 … with almost ¾ million page
views
 More than 1,115 comments
 More than 209,000 related links
 First page of Google for seven
out of 10 key target phrases…
 … and the top result for three

OUTREACH
OBJECTIVE
Increase awareness of
World View competition
RESULT
Target Result
25 blog 233 blog
partners partners
10,000 page 274,122
impressions impressions
10 countries 32 countries

C-suite
Chief Executive
Corporate
Social media
communications
Human
resources
Legal
Marketing
Customer communications
services

REMEMBER
Think like a customer
Your business units don’t matter to customers
A conversation involves listening
Never try to hide the negatives – you’ll fail
Respond in minutes and hours, not days and weeks
If you say it, then meant it
Your community owns your brand and messages
It’s public relations

“Great companies will excel
in transparency…
… bad companies will fail”