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c h a p t e r4 :THE SOCIAL BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM■Finally, communities and other social platforms—built around passions, life-
styles, and causes or similar higher callings—provide the gathering points for individuals
interested in socializing and collaboration in pursuit of the specific activities they enjoy
together. These communities, support forums, and related social platforms are all places
where your business or organization can participate and add value (including by direct
sponsorship of the social space itself) as is the case with Powered’s customer communities
built for Kodak, HP, Radio Shack, and iVillage or any of the developer’s communities
built on the Jive or Lithium platforms.
By building a community around a passion, lifestyle, or cause and then fostering
and strengthening the relationships between the brand, product, or service and cus-
tomers and influencers, the progression to collaborative participation and higher-level
engagement is enabled.
Importantly, these three—the social graph, social application, and social plat-
form (community)—drive each other. Take any one of them away and the value of
business or organizational participation drops. This follows from the interconnection
between these three: Without the social graph, for example, relationships between par-
ticipants do not form and the “community” becomes transactional and self-oriented
rather than social and collectively oriented. Without the communities and larger social
objects (passions, lifestyles, and causes), the participants lack a sufficient motive to
drive organic social growth. And without the social applications that extend the func-
tionality of the core social platform, the activities within the community are limited to
the broad activities of larger demographic groups, missing the highly engaging and very
specific activities of small groups or even individuals. As a result, the social graph fails
to develop in the way it would otherwise.Review and Hands-On
This chapter connects the audience and the tools and utility applications into the com-
munities where they naturally congregate. By using these tools to properly position your
business as a value-added member of a community and then participating from that per-
spective you can establish a basis for trust. You’ll have to deliver, or course: Where fine
print and high-speed voice-over can legally disclaim whatever expectations an adver-
tisement may have set, in a social setting walking the talk is required. If you say it, you
have to do it.
The benefits are significant: The combination of trust and relevance drives
engagement, and encourages people to share the information that leads to long term
success through the delivery of a superior experience. This applies within your orga-
nization—where the goal is instilling in everyone an attitude and empowered commit-
ment to customer satisfaction—as well as outside, in the store, where as Sam Walton
said, “Your customer has the answer.”