10+ Sites to Help you Manage beyond Web 2.0
Just read an excellent article on McKinsey Quarterly called, “Managing beyond Web 2.0” by Donna Hoffman from the University of California, Riverside.
According to Donna, today’s customers have become both producers and consumers of their own content and services. People are more interested in reading other consumers’ experiences than the advertising messages promoted by your marketers.
While many giant corporations choose to ignore this phenomenon, smaller companies should learn how to take advantage of it. It is true that these Web 2.0 “conversations” are full of noise and difficult to track. Yet if you can become good at managing and monitoring these new consumers’ online behavior, it will be your new competitive advantage.
In order to do that, Professor Hoffman suggested companies to use the LEAD (listen, experiment, apply, develop) model, a management strategy developed by the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing for Web 2.0 and beyond.
Let’s look at what online applications can better prepare your companies to utilize this effective model.
Listen (Monitor)
Consider the tweet below as an example:
If a Sprint customer service representative saw this message and helped this customer to solve his problem, this could be a strong boost to their PR. Consequently, monitoring and analyzing customers’ conversation can be a early-warning system for your company.
If you choose to ignore customers’ opinions these days, it is not unusual to see negative comments about your company all over Twitter, YouTube, Blog posts, and even mainstream media.
This reminds me the latest saga between TechCrunch and Twitter. I wonder how much the TechCrunch’s brand was hurt by this unfortunate event.
To avoid this happen to your company, below are some useful tools for monitoring social media:
1) Viralheat (link)
Platforms: Nearly 30 video sites, the web and Twitter
Features: Real-time stream of topic mentions between blogs and websites. Delivering analytics that help you optimize your company’s outreach and engagement on social media platforms. Daily email alerts…etc.
Clients: Include Coca-Cola, Tivo, U.S. State Department, Weber Shandwick, Nokia, Hilton Hotels, HP, and Microsoft.
Cost: Starting at $9.99 per month
2) Peashoot (link)
Platforms: Twitter only
Features: Audience Builder automatically follows people on Twitter who are relevant to you or your company. Measure ROI – tracking how much of your website’s sales are generated from you posting links on Twitter. Set & track campaign’s goals. URL Shortening. Real-time Click Map. Google Analytics Integration…etc.
Clients: Include Tokyo Art Beat and 24seven.
Cost: Starting at $17 per month
3) Scout Labs (link)
Platforms: Blogs, forums, social networks, image-sharing sites, video-sharing sites and Twitter
Features: Persistent searches for your monitored keywords. A collaborative space for you and your extended team (unlimted users). Monitor important Tweets, blogs, photos and videos all in one place. Sentiment analysis – assessing the tone of a post. Get support from a live human via email or phone…etc.
Clients: Include Netflix, razorfish, Zippo, loopt, StubHub, eBay, AKQA…etc
Cost: Starting at $99 per month
4) Other Alternatives
For larger corporations, you can consider Omniture and Buddy Media as well. If you only want to find out what people are saying on Facebook only, try Facebook Lexicon. Looking for a simple & free monitoring service in the beginning? Google Alerts would be your best choice.
Experiment
After getting all this information, you have to run some tests to find out the meaning behind it. Since there are not any best practices in the market yet, the only way to do this is through good old-fashioned “trial and error“. However, Professor Hoffman also reminded us that:
Unless you have Web 2.0 experts on your team, stick with small experiments, since big ones can fail badly.
The goal of experiment is to engage with your newly empowered customers. If you see a blog about your company, make friend with the blogger. When someone talks about your brand on Twitter, follow that user letting him/her know that your company is on Twitter, too. If you think your targeted audience is on Facebook, go make a Facebook Page to start the conversation with your fans.
To achieve greater customer awareness and brand engagement, you should create your company’s own social channels to foster communication between you and the users. Below are a few site helping you to do so:
1) WordPress (link)
Benefits: Highest quality. Huge community around this product. Large amount of widgets and add-ons. Integrated stats system. The world’s best comment and trackback spam technology.
Clients: CNN’s Political Ticker; Dow Jones’ All Things D; Time Inc’s The Page; People Magazine’s Style Watch; and many more.
Cost: Free
2) Ning (link)
Benefits: Allow you to create features such as photos, videos, chat, discussions, and groups; Customized visual design and themes…etc.
Clients: CNN’s Political Ticker; Dow Jones’ All Things D; Time Inc’s The Page; People Magazine’s Style Watch; and many more.
Cost: Free (not include Premium Support)
3) UserVoice (link)
Benefits: Seamless integration with your brand experience, with the popular “feedback” button on the side and single sign-on system. Analytic tools. Private forum…etc.
Clients: MySpace, Sitepoint, Sun Microsystems, zynga, cafepress…etc.
Cost: Starting at $19 per month with Free basic account.
4) Widgetbox (link)
Benefits: Support for rich media. Feed-based content makes it easy for your users to stay up to date. Simple to build. Work on multiple platforms…etc.
Clients: Perez Hilton, PopSugar, CNN, Dunkin Donuts…etc.
Cost: Starting at $3.99 per month with Free basic account.
5) Other Alternatives
If your company is selling physical products, make sure you have listed your products on social-shopping sites, such as Polyvore, Kaboodle, Stylehive, StyleFeeder and ThisNext. These are good places to find out users’ comments about your products as well. Looking for more users’ feedback? Try blippr.
Apply
After you have learned the users’ online behavior, you need to optimize your web site and content so that they can be shared on every social media sites. Also, you need to have analytical tools to track the results of your experiments.
You may want to try some of the following tools:
1) ShareThis (link)
Benefits: Work on multiple platforms. Strong reporting and analytics. Find out what people are sharing and how. Learn more about your traffic and where your content is going…etc.
Cost: Free
2) Google Website Optimizer (link)
Benefits: A/B split & multivariable testing. Intuitive graphical reporting interface. Required minimal IT support, giving you greater control, flexibility, and speed. Increase your site effectiveness and visitor satisfaction…etc.
Cost: Free
3) Mixpanel (link)
Benefits: Real-time analytics, Funnel analytics, Visitor retention, Custom event tracking, API to get data out…etc.
Cost: Volume pricing with Free low volume account.
4) Other Alternatives
If your content is good and relevant to the users, you should submit your content to social news sites, such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, and Mixx. If you want a simple shorten URL tracking tool, try Su.pr and Bit.ly.
Develop
Today’s web strategy is much more than a simple company’s web site. There are so many tools helping you to integrate social media into your marketing campaign. Google paid ads may be good for ROI; however, they can’t create greater brand engagement.
Advertising was a one-way communication. In Web 2.0 era, advertising should be interactive marketing programs generating conversation with customers.
If you don’t have social media experts in your team, it is hard to create this kind of marketing campaign yourself. Below companies may be able to help you:
1) Buddy Media – App-vertisements (link)
Benefits: Drive unprecedented loyalty and exposure of your brand…etc.
Clients: FedEx, InStyle, HBO, Busch, intel, SeaWorld…etc.
2) Medialets (link)
Benefits: Bring together voice, interactivity, video, and text in your ads. Typical iPhone users are social influencers apt to share experiences with peers. They are highly engaged trendsetters as well.
Clients: Levi’s Dockers…etc.
3) Other Successful Examples
Hang in there Jack – brilliant social media marketing campaign using Twitter, TV, Facebook, Blog, YouTube, Widgets…etc. In addition, viral videos, such as Evian Roller Babies, could be very effective, too 
Conclusion
Like Professor Hoffman said:
Bottom line: by focusing on the fundamental aspects of the consumers’ online behavior— not just current best practices—companies will be better prepared when Web 2.0+ morphs into Web 3.0 and beyond.
If you want to learn more about latest management strategies on the web, I strongly encourage you to follow Professor Hoffman and @MckQuarterly on Twitter.
Photo source: caffeina @Flickr
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