The web has a knack for spawning new industry buzzwords, and the latest dictionary-defying buzzword is Datafication. Like other words jammed up against the -fication suffix (See: Gamification, which when done right, can go hand and hand with Datafication,) behind the market trendiness and social media cool-factor lives an interesting business case.  As an enterprise business, possessing a comprehensive datasets is can be of enormous value, but knowing how to leverage that data for market research and application development is where the modern business imperative truly lives. Take, for example, our eventNet technology, which matches event attendees to others whom they would derive value in meeting at the events and conferences they are attending.  With the data collected on event attendees we’re able to create smart connections, and provide a networking edge for event attendees and event organizers.

The Method Behind the Madness of Datafication

Alongside these connections comes a mobile-friendly visualization of matched people, making these smart connections easily interpreted within an intuitive interface.  Datafication is the method behind the madness of big-data. For more on datafication and some great examples of quantified-self, continue reading this article from Business 2 Community. Be sure to watch the video, too.  😉 [Read more…]

B2C social media tends to be the louder, noisier sibling of B2B social media, but just because it calls less attention to itself doesn’t mean B2B social media is not an essential part of the social media landscape.  To outline just how important and growing the B2B social media space is here’s an excellent infographic from Clearpoint Agency. [Via: ClearpointAgency.com]

Researcher Jeremiah Owyang has spent the last few months outlining the “Collaborative Economy,” a forward-thinking model for how businesses of the future will operate.  At LeWeb London 2013, Jeremiah gave a presentation outlining the corporate opportunity and structure of this new collaborative economy. To distill the collaborative economy idea, is too stand back and look at the expansive opportunities for better, capital, service and product management. It means to look at unused or underutilized products and services, and maximize their opportunity for use. This could even mean human capital, which bears the question: Are you properly leveraging the expertise of your workforce? Having a hard time visualizing the expertise of your enterprise?  All of these questions fit into the collaborative economy discussion, to learn more, continue reading below. [Read more…]

Great events spur great conversations, but are you doing everything you can as an event organizer to help ensure that those conversations are easily discoverable online?  Liveblogging via Twitter and other social media channels is commonplace, and serves to increase awareness around your brand and your event online.  You want to be sure that you set your event up to succeed, draw attention and engagement, and builds awareness for next year’s registration. Hashtags drive event discussions, help participants find new conversations, and also add an opportunity for you, the organizer, to track and analyze conversation trends and your event’s depth of penetration online. This is especially true now that every major social media platform supports hashtags: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, to name a few, all support the use of hashtags. That means your conversations will spread faster and further, but you have to plug in to play. To learn more, continue reading this article from Social Media Today for more great tips on how to make your next event #hashtag friendly.

Hashtag Tips for Your Next Event

How to Create Your Hashtag Relevant: Make sure the hashtag is related to your event and will be easy to remember as well as spell. If the event is using a mobile app or platform like Bizzabo, it can be helpful to have the hashtag stream directly in the app so users can join right in. [Read more…]

Anyone who says that community management is easy is not being completely honest with themselves. Doing an effective job of engaging your community and establishing relevance is a 24/7, 365 endeavor.  As a community manager you know that keeping your community actively engaged requires a deep understanding of both the consumer and the business as a whole, so that your message is both captivating and brand on.

Do you have an engagement plan for your community?

In this article from Social Media Today, you’ll get a great 5 step plan for engaging your community more effectively.

How to Build a 5 Step Plan for Creating an Online Community

In my last post, 3 Questions to Ask Before Starting an Online Community, the first question I recommended asking yourself is “Should I be using social media?” I also mentioned that you should have a plan established well before you get started, but it can be difficult to figure out just where to start. My 5 step guide makes it simple to create a plan for establishing your community! This guide covers everything from the basics, like understanding why you are using social media, to more complex topics like understanding which metrics you should track, how you’ll keep your community interested in your content, and how you’ll sustainably manage the huge time (and potentially financial) commitment that your online community will eventually become. [Read more…]

Is your company’s infrastructure organized in such a way that your employees’ voices are heard?  Does your company value collaborative creativity from your workforce, but you have difficulty encouraging and capturing that creative collective? Chances are your communications channels can be improved.  Creating the environment where employees can connect and voice opinions is vital to the success of any business.  For seven ways to help facilitate the voice of your company, here is an article from Business 2 Community.

Seven Ways to Drive Your Ideas Upward

Being able to influence upwards allows your ideas to be heard and implemented. This directly enhances your value because you are the owner of that idea. Yet how do you break through the layers of bureaucracy to find advocates for your ideas? Diane McGarry, Xerox’s former Chief Marketing Officer, says, Success at a big company such as Xerox requires an understanding of the many layers of office politics as well as the confidence to put your best ideas forward. You have to know which people you need to get your ideas in front of in order to get those ideas advanced… Here are the seven ways to drive your ideas upward: 1. Know what’s important to your boss. Have a clear picture of what is important for your boss. Keep that as a priority and make sure these priorities are met. It’s not about trying to meet your needs, but thinking about how your ideas are beneficial for your boss. Part of your role is to support your boss for his/her goals. 2. Get other stakeholders on board. To buy into your ideas the right stakeholders must be on board. This might require going upward and across the organization to build coalitions. If your stakeholders believe the ideas you are suggesting are what they want to support and invest in, this can influence a decision in your favor. [Read more…]