The Value of Social Computing

The ROI of social computing and its value resides strongly in Marketing 2.0 approaches where web 2.0 can be used to enhance customer intimacy using crowdsourcing, interactive discussion forums,wikis, community engagement experiences... all focused on creating a two way dialogue with customers and increase experience touch points.

These new tools create new ways to have new conversations -- learning about customers, their products and services, developing a new channel for ideation that may result in innovation breakthroughs etc.

A recent study was conducted by Mzinga with Babson Executive Education that reported that marketing at 57 percent is the area most likely to employ social media for professional purposes.

The Mzinga study also found that over 84% of the respondents were not tracking the ROI of social computing. Finding cases that have concrete ROI outcomes are not always easy to find in Web 2.0 but they are starting to trickle out as the industry matures.

For example in the Jan Economist, Intel reported that they saved millions of dollars in recruiting costs by using business facing social media sites rather than using expensive recruiting firms. Scottrade (Scottrade.com) is using a business facing social media social platform to reduce the costs of technology as it moves to more interactive platforms. United Airlines is filling seats by offering last minutes twares to loyal customers over Twitter.

Other companies actively experimenting with Web 2.0 approaches in the Canadian market include: ING Direct (where Peter Aceto has an active twitter following integrating business and personal), Rogers that has numerous customer interaction communities to Molsons which has over 30 active communities celebrating different beer brands with customers.

Inspiration Source Acknowledgement: Dan Rasmus, Friend of Helix Commerce International Inc. (content highlights from KM WOrld APril 2010).