BusinessBlogs Hub

In my last post, I pointed out how professional networks online are not based on friendship and trust, but rather on the sharing of deep knowledge between participants, whether individuals or institutions. Respect and influence are good words to use to describe the outcomes of sharing knowledge within a professional social network. So is credibility.

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Online customer communities are everywhere — you just have to look for them — sometimes in unlikely places. Because they are dedicated to serving customers, often they are not evangelized to the general public or consumer audiences. But they are alive, well and thriving within many enterprises.

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Business-to-business companies have always needed closer relationships with their customers than business-to-consumer firms. It makes sense, since strong relationships help generate repeat business.

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Moderating online communities for a professional membership is as much an art as it is a science. And, as with any art or science, attention must be paid to both the fine details as well as the overall structure.

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We live in a society driven by immediate gratification. “I want.” “I need.” The growth of socially-oriented businesses has exacerbated this condition. For example: I was briefly frustrated this week when my Amazon Prime order didn’t arrive — as promised — within 24 hours of placing the order online.

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Two days of some of the most influential speakers in IT, and a room full of the top IT executives across the major verticals all talking about the impact of Cloud Computing on enterprise – that is what the Cognizant Community Conference has to offer.

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The B2B online community may be the forgotten partner of the glitzy, headline and spotlight-grabbing B2C communities at the center of the social media revolution. In social media land, there is nothing more eye-catching than a community for a popular TV show, a cool consumer-facing site for coffee lovers or a sports team. Not to mention the tantalizing sound of the word “monetization!”

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A disengaged customer is not really a customer, or at least not a good customer. Unfortunately, few companies have implemented effective systems to gauge the level of their customers on social media. Understanding engagement measures…

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Last week I blogged about how to build an online community and offered a detailed process overview to help organizations get started envisioning their community.

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Building online communities can be a richly rewarding experience for the organizations that create them and for the members who participate in them. But a common question is how to start!

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While enjoying the results of a well-planned Thanksgiving holiday dinner last week, it occurred to me that many business firms seem to spend less time developing and executing a social media strategy

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Millennials: can’t live with them, can’t run a business without them. At least, that seems to be the pervasive point of view. But no matter how you slice it, they are in the workplace and are the future of business as we know it. Their rules, their ways, will all become the new normal as boomers age out of the workplace.

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I am a road-warrior. You know the type – a real dyed-in-the wool, hardcore traveler. The kind who knows all the tricks of travel survival and has lots of amazing stories of world-wide adventure for work and pleasure. I have seen riots in Tahiti, floods in Belize, night markets in Thailand and have given speeches in 5 different countries in 6 days.

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It’s common sense — serving your most valuable customers well is basic good business because attracting new customers costs, on average, five to eight times more than retaining old ones.

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