Social Media Marketing

(^253) ■

Review and Hands-On

ANDS

-O

N

external reviews in full public view on the “My Starbucks Idea” site. Two hundred
innovations between 2008 and 2010 works to an average of two customer ideas
implemented every week. The business benefit is obvious: Starbucks stock price has
recovered (and at a faster rate than other industry competitors). Microsoft has picked
up on the same theme in its Windows 7 advertising, featuring testimonials wherein
customer ideas that resulted in a specific software feature are highlighted to convey a
sense of ownership for the product to Microsoft’s customers. For a firm whose biggest
celebrations were historically centered on “launch days”—which celebrate Microsoft
employees— placing the customer at the center and making the customer the star is
very smart.

P Table 9.3 Representative Enterprise Collaboration Platforms

Platform Provider Component Type More Information

Jive Software Internal collaborative communities http://www.jivesoftware.com/

Lotus Notes

Lotus Connections

Internal collaborative messaging and

discussion applications

http://www.ibm.com/software/lotus/

Lithium Technologies Support communities and Social CRM

platforms

http://www.lithium.com

Oracle Internal (employee) collaboration based

on social and conversational data

http://www.oracle.com/socialcrm/

SharePoint Collaboration, information management,

and intranet-based collaboration

sharepoint.microsoft.com/

Socialtext Connecting employees across the organi-

zation and specifically around social and

conversational data

http://www.socialtext.com/

Review and Hands-On

Chapter 9 built on customer engagement and collaboration—the subject of Chapter 8—
wrapping it around the business and then bringing it inside the organization. Collabo-
ra tion is a key factor in creating the strong linkages that connect engaged customers
and constituents with the organizations that create the product and service-related
experiences that are the subject of the conversations on the Social Web.
Connecting these conversations with the organization—through the sequen-
tial process of listening, identifying influencers, distilling key issues, and soliciting
ideas—is key to deriving business value: Social CRM—the connection of customer
information though tools that operate internally using the same technological con-
structs as the Social Web—defines the connective tissue that enables customer-business
collaboration.