Paul Coyne :: Blog :: strategy

Getting ready to return to the UK after what has been a very enjoyable couple of days in Sestri Levante, a gorgeous italian village on the Ligurian cost south of Genoa.

Giunti Labs has been our host and organiser this year for the European Learning Industry Group AGM (22^nd) and the Digital Education Content Marketplaces (DECOM 2008) conference and workshop.

I don't really know where to begin; I think these have been two of the most singularly useful conferences I've attended for a long time. The quality of the audience and the speakers was extremely high so the subsequent opportunities to network and to have extremely interesting conversations with decision makers and persons of influences was tremendous. The content was of an equally high standard and the design of both days allowed for quite a bit of interactvity, group work and conversation on a chosen stream.

Day 1 was the AGM of ELIG. ELIG is positioning itself as the leading voice of the European Learning Industry which really is as broad as the title suggests – representation from Academic institutions, content providers, learning consultancy firms, system vendors, publishers, EU agencies ensured a diverse a range of views as it was possible to get in one room and I think ultimately that is the real value of the group, and the event itself. A couple of things stand out I think – ELIG as a group includes organisations that pursue very different agendas and hold quite conflicting ideas, particularly those around Open Content/Access. This issue alone caused much debate and from my perspective it was very valuable indeed to have a forum where contentious notions of Openness could be discussed frankly and in safety – and I think it worked to a degree. The question of openness is a very nuanced and complex one and this is sometimes not expressed when organisations espouse the moral force for social good that they believe Open Content almost certainly is. This in my view is too simplistic and fails t take into account a whole range of issues including quality, authority, credibility, relevance, preservation, sustainability (in particular), accountability and perceived value – that's just of the top of my head. The fact that there were a number of publishers present helped advance the debate around Openness and helped some organisations to adopt a less naive and a richer view of the question of Openness. This is my hope anyway. ELIG have an important task here to help manage the conflict and tensions of such a diverse group.

The ELIG event was much more than that however, but more later.

DECOM2008, hosted in Giunti Labs stunning coastal HQ, was an equally fascinating and enormously interesting day. The opening presentations from Fabrizio cardinalli, David Worlock and Judy Brown were real highlights for me, not because they were so very new – my own views were very much echoed by the presenters – but because my Chief Exec was in the room and it's nice to have him hear it from someone else – another Chief Exec helps!

This was another very diverse day and allowed for group breakouts in the afternoon to discuss any one of ten subjects on offer. I was pleased to report the findings of our table to the audience and to talk at some length about the future value of Community, social tools and the unbundling of content on the web. The question of Openness was raised again and the assumption always is that as a publisher I'm dead against it – however it's easy to point out some of the different approaches to Openness – Open software, no problem (InTouch is built on Open Source software since we believe building communities is a better use of our time not creating new software), Open Content – what content? User created content I welcome very much. I pursue a 3 C's strategy with InTouch (community, content and context) and UCC is an important part of that approach. UCC adds real value to Editorially created content (ECC) and in fact isn't new. We tie ourselves up in knots with this and it's not that tricky really – all content has spawned UCC however in the past it may have taken the form of conversation, annotation, notes and reviews (Quill pen, ink and parchment). So it goes on the web and we now call that UGC or UCC. I'm relaxed about that content – it's a natural expression of interaction with content and people and can help guide people to make informed decisions about content and communities in terms of relevance, trust, quality, ownership, perspective and agenda.

I'm very grateful to the organisers, Richard Straub at ELIG and Fabrizio Cardinalli (Giunti CEO) for arranging such a stimulating couple of days. It's not often such a diversity of insight, experience and perspective is assembled in the same space and to have the opportunity to challenge and to be challenged on some very important issues is very rare and correspondingly valuable. Thanks guys.

A quick posting to record some thoughts on this extremeely useful and personaly satisfying day.

The OU hosted an event organised by the South East Leadership Academy yesterday on the value of Communities of Practice and Leadership. The day was split it two halfs; the morning for presentations from Ettiene Wengner, Nigel Paine and the team at LEAD in Lancaster University. The afternoon we broke into groups and discussed what CoPs meant to us, the issues and challenges surrounding their growth, adoption and so on. We returned for a panel session in which the breakout group questions were put to the panellists. All very good stuff and I enjoyed it enormously!

Met some very interesting and knowledgeable individuals, but the highlight for me was meeting Ettiene! And, he asked me to share my own story with the rest of the audience during the panel session! Don't laugh but I feel like the first guy picked for the footy team! In your face, £$%$£ [name removed for privacy reasons] –

Very interesting discussion on the nature of tension, conflict and the management of personal agenda in horizontal communities along with some practical insight and advice. A good day.

Have to go and prepare my own big day for Emerald now. Dr david Lamon will be here soon to help me facilitate a company wide conversaiton on the value, indeed the very idea of, community and what it means to su and to Publishers. I'm looking forward to it very much.

 

 

Extracted from the IWR blog, October 7th, 2008

Companies must exploit the wealth of customer data, says Gartner

By Tom Young 07 Oct 2008

 

The private sector will need to engage with social media to attract customers, according Gartner, which estimates that more than 60 per cent of Fortune 1,000 companies with a website will connect to or host some form of online community by 2010.

 

Doing so will give companies access to a wealth of customer data and help the organisation to focus on customer needs, the analyst firm believes.

"A key benefit of establishing a community is the amount of information an organisation can gain about its customer base, which can be used for short-term and long-term customer relationships," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.

 

But Gartner predicts that more than half of companies that set up an online community will fail to establish a beneficial purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values.

"Companies will be challenged with what applications to use, who ultimately owns an application and with the management of socialisation itself, from measuring success and mitigating negative interactions to sourcing and cultural restraints," explained Sarner.

 

This pitfall can only be avoided through careful consideration of social sciences and awareness of customer needs, according to the analyst, as well as proficiency in game design to create highly engaging and highly relevant environments.

This is extracted from my ReadWriteWeb feed. Timely since I'm hoping to introduce broader concepts of community and the changing nature of our relationships with our customers. The video in here great!!.

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, and former Forrester analyst, has recently launched her own company, the Altimeter Group.  This week, she gave a keynote at the Social Media Marketing Summit 2008, San Francisco. Known for her commitment to social media, and belief that marketing and advertising are fatally flawed, Li started with a Google search on 'Comcast'.  The ninth result is a YouTube video titled: A Comcast technician sleeping on my couch. 

"This is why social media is so important," Li said, "this YouTube video recorded by 'Brian' resulted in the Comcast brand going down the toilet. You must understand that the power is now in the hands of consumers."

 

Sponsor

Marketing is Changing

Marketers today are caught up in a jumble of buzzwords that mean very little.  It's a confusing time, but to get the marketing right, you need to start thinking about relationships first.  "It's not about selling something anymore; that might be the end result, but to get there, you need to work on the relationship."

One of Li's favorite videos (below) shows the disconnect between advertisers and customers.  "It really captures how advertisers see the world, and how consumers are asking for a divorce."

So, how is marketing changing?  What are best practices and pitfalls?  How do you even start?

When creating your social strategy, Li recommends a four step process:

1. Who is your audience?

2. Very clear goal

3. Action plan

4. Tools, tactics, techniques

Determining Your Audience

To help you determine your audience, you need to consider their level of participation, and classify them according to how they use social technologies.  Are they:

Non Active

Watchers: 52% of online users have watched YouTube, 42% have read blogs, 19% have downloaded podcasts

Sharers: 29% have used social networking sites, 28% have tagged online content, 21% have shared online content that they created

Commenters: 32% have rated a product, service or person, 30% have commented on a product, 22% have commented on newsgroup or site

Producers: 12% have created or worked on a blog; 11% have remixed content.

Curators: People that have edited a wiki - moderated a forum

Once classified, you can use that information to start building your community.

For instance, if your target audience is moms, you don't approach them as producers; they're not going to be at that level.  However, studies have shown that moms are more likely to comment than any other person online because they value the thoughts of others and want to share their thoughts. 

Be Very Clear on Your Target Goal

Set up an action plan. Much like at a dinner party, before you start talking, listen first. Find out what people are saying about you by using various online monitoring tools.  Li uses Google blog search and Twitter to search for her brand online. 

Once you determine what is being said about you online, you can take it to the next level and do something about it.

Companies That Utilize the Social Web Well

According to Li, some companies that use the Social Web well are:

Oracle

Prior to running Oracle Open World, Oracle changed its home page for two weeks.  The page asked for consumer feedback; community involvement was important enough to interrupt the normal flow.

H&R Block

When H&R Block realized selling was no longer working, they created a page on FaceBook to provide tax advice. They don't say "come and do your taxes with us," on FaceBook; they only offer advice.

Comcast

Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care for Comcast Cable uses Twitter to look for people talking about Comcast, 'tweets' them, and offers to help.

Skittles

Skittles has a page on FaceBook called 'Mix the Rainbow'.

It's created a spark and now the community is interacting with one another.  The company occasionally steps in with light and fun comments; never with sales talk. 

A recent series of messages on the Skittles wall:

Derek says:  Is it just me, or does there seem to be too many orange ones in the bags now?

Skittles says: Derek despite what you or the Internet may think, we can assure you there is no orange skittles conspiracy - red on the other hand...

Starbucks

Starbucks asks for suggestions on how to make the company better.  If you provide a suggestion, Starbucks CIO will discuss the idea on the site; it's not just a black hole that suggestions go into.  He explains the back end - or what has to happen on the technical level before they can implement the idea.

Wal-Mart

While most people cringe when they hear about Wal-Mart's many failed attempts to get involved with their community online (think The Hub, Across America, FaceBook), Li gives them kudos for continuing to try when others may have given up.  Look at 'Check Out' Wal-Mart's latest offering; it took them a long time to get there, but now, this really works.

All of these companies are closing the loop.  The traditional firewall separating customers and companies is falling away; no longer is it an 'us' and 'them' mentality; it's now a 'we' mentality.

How do You Get Started?

The best way to begin is to go out and meet some revolutionaries.  Talk to them, ask them what's worked and what hasn't.  Take inspiration from them.  Realize you cannot do this alone; go and get help.

Li's disappointment with the advice she has seen on the Web has inspired her to begin the Altimeter Wiki, a list of consultants, social media boutiques, PR agencies, and interactive media agencies.  Li encourages people working in the space to add their name, "there are no judgments at the moment, but there will be in the future."

Recommendations on finding good help:

• Find groups that are focused on relationships, not campaigns
• Find agencies that are using social media successfully themselves
• Ask whether they commit resources to continued learning and training
• Ask whether they make mistakes (Li guarantees that if people are doing this correctly, they will make mistakes)
• Do they have respect for, and are humbled by the medium

In summary, Li walks through the "nitty gritty" details of the action plan:

• Who needs to buy in to the plan?
• Who will 'own the community?
• What's the right level of engagement (corporate vs. audience vs. product)?
• How will we deal with negative comments and customer service issues
• How much should we spend?

And her final tip?  "Realize that you will have to give up the fallacy that you have control."

Discuss

An interesting and relevent piece found on ReadWriteWeb.com. Wonder how this trend will inform our own web strategies? It's kinda along the lines i talked about at a recent web 2.0 talk and publishing and the overwhelming amount of choice out there now compared to 10 years ago, so it's timely too. Will watch with interest...

 

You are not the center of the universe, especially on the internet. That's the lesson that even the biggest web brands are learning fast, and we expect to see widespread cultural changes occur right along side their learning.

One week after we wrote about the leaked screenshots that have since been confirmed as the forthcoming home page design of AOL.com, where 3rd party content and functionality is now welcome to come on in through the front door, now Yahoo! is telling the press that its home page will soon be home to far more content from outside the Yahoo! network than ever before. The era of the walled garden is over.

What's Coming to Yahoo.com

Yahoo told the AP this morning that it will soon roll out the first major redesign of its home page in two years. That redesign will host a wide variety of widgets from rival services like movie links from Netflix, music from iTunes and Amazon. It will be something like the Facebook platform, but with more prominent placement for 3rd party services than even Facebook offers. Yahoo has talked about this plan before, but now is making a media push in preparation for action.

Left: The awesome logo for this week's Yahoo Hack Day

Just Like AOL.com, and Everyone Else On Top of Their Game

Yahoo's plans are similar to what AOL appears to be planning, where activity updates 3rd party social networks and possibly an on-site RSS reader will bring new functionality to AOL users.

As we wrote last week about AOL's strategy:

Aggregation of content from around the web is quite likely a key part of the future for almost all successful websites; the web is too large to pretend you're an island any more, even if your network is sprawling it just can't compete with the options offered by the web at large. While mainstream users used to think that AOL was the internet for years, they are not so naive any more.

This is an Important Trend

We've written here about the new class of powerhouse sites that specialize in bricolage, the art of assembling found objects. (Think BoingBoing and Neatorama). We've also written about why online noise is good for you. We don't expect the big portals to go as far with this strategy at first as the edge publishers have, but just like Google's indexing the open web blew the Yahoo! directory out of the water in search - so too is a new paradigm in aggregate publishing out-competing brand-selected, human edited portals.

Right: Hugh MacLeod puts it frankly.

It's an exciting time. We look forward to seeing how the rest of the world changes as the leading sources of information online turn towards a model of intelligent collecting and sharing, as opposed to a closed, self-facing broadcast model.

Discuss

 I Heard a rumour about this development some time ago, looks like it was true.

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2224721/version-amazon-kindle-target

 If this pans out then Amazon becomes a substantial part of a College’s Book library – no further storage or maintenance costs for the Institution with content purchasing done by the students downloaded to the device. I suspect many colleges would also enter into affiliate deals with Amazon and claim a couple of cents on each sale – reduced costs and a revenue stream to boot, who’s going to oppose that?

First found this report via a site i visit regularly, the TrendsSpotting blog. It has produced a thorough overview of Online China, collected from a variety of sources such as Universal McCann, CNNIC, Pew Internet, Hitwise, comScore and more. The report focus on three key themes:

1) China as an online leader,

2) the competitive landscape in Search, IM & Web 2.0, and

3) Business in Online China.

TrendsSpotting says that these are "key indicators of the ongoing development of the dynamic Internet market in China." It's a great report, embedded below.

Web accessibilty is becoming a key consideration for mobile users, with 60 per cent of respondents saying mobile web access is important according to joint research conducted by AKQA Mobile and dotMobi.

Their survey of 2,019 consumers from the UK and US found that 65 per cent of those who intend to buy a phone in the next year will demand a good mobile internet experience. A fifth of respondents use mobile internet daily.

• Forty-six per cent claim a previous poor mobile internet experience has put them off trying to access the web again - the biggest problems were slow connectivity and poor site design.
• Fifty percent of respondents were unaware that there are mobile sites purposed-built and optimised for use on mobile phones
• Eighty-six per cent of participants said they were interested in knowing which sites are easily accessible on a mobile phone.

Reserving and paying for tickets for gigs or shows via mobile was of interest to 65 per cent of those surveyed. Finding local bars and restaurants and comparing product prices each scored 3.9 out of 5 for usefulness.

Consumers would be more likely to choose an airline with mobile check-in facilities over one that did not offer them, with over 90 per cent of respondents confirming as much.

The study highlights the current demand for well-produced mobile internet websites.

Posted by Dusan on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 10:43 am under Mobile Web, Research

The number of subscribers using mobile Internet services will rise from today's 577 million to 1.7 billion by 2013, thanks to the demand for collaborative applications known collectively as "web 2.0" and greater 2.5/3G penetration.

Established mobile players face increasing competition from web-based brands (Google? Yahoo?) and will have to adapt their strategies to accommodate greater collaboration with other members of the value chain, if future revenue growth in the mobile web 2.0 space is to be achieved.

According to the new Juniper Research's report titled "Mobile Web 2.0: Leveraging Location, IM, Social Web & Search 2008-2013," the emergence of such applications as social networking, user generated content, instant messaging and location based services call for delivery of the mobile Internet as it was originally conceived - OPEN! The idea is to allow users to share, collaborate and exploit content/information without any single party controlling the value chain.

This, however, marks a fundamental shift for the industry towards the D2C (direct to consumer) model and places growing pressure on both mobile network operators and handset manufacturers to relinquish some of their control over the value chain.

The report author Ian Chard says: "Major web players have already crossed the Rubicon and established themselves in the mobile domain, placing the onus on MNOs and other members of the value chain to form innovative relationships and grab a share of the new revenue streams being created."

However he also notes that the mobile web 2.0 market is still nascent and business models remain in a state of flux, giving time for players to establish fruitful and reciprocally beneficial partnerships.

Other findings from the report:

• The Far East and China region will be the largest market for mobile web, reaching almost 416 million users by 2013, up from 190 million users at the end of 2008.
• The greatest untapped potential for mobile web lies in South America, while growth will be more measured in markets such as Eastern and Western Europe where fixed broadband penetration is relatively high.
• As with the fixed Internet, many mobile web 2.0 applications will need to be provided at base cost/flat-data rates or even free of charge, forcing industry players to seek new revenue streams (advertising?).

More information about Juniper's report is available on their website.

Below is that list; I hope you'll find it useful and leave comments helping to extend the conversation further. In my mind I'm thinking of everything from RSS and wikis to Twitter, Facebook and blogging. Online tools that leverage social connections.

Last month we wrote about an initiative called The Working Group where people trying to bring about innovation in big companies. Many readers probably know about Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang's fantastic blog, where he explains social media in a business context, often in a format you can take directly to the boss. There are lots of different resources available online to help the intrepid early adopter and I hope this list will be one of them.

Ultimately, I'm not yet convinced myself that persuading anyone is the way to go. If you can make time on the side to use new tools and you can perform - perhaps the benefits can best speak for themselves. If that's not the case inside of a company, I'm sure it is between two companies with different attitudes towards adoption of new social technologies.

ROI is the elephant in the middle of the room, and it's addressed a bit in item number ten below. It's a topic I need more people to chime in on; I live and breathe this stuff and can articulate the benefits of it to a great degree, but it just speaks for itself to me too. So if you're an ROI-head, pipe up. Links, traffic, mindshare, connections between people and early access to actionable information are the things I usually cite without quantifying.

Let's get into the list though, and please do feel free to add your own thoughts as well.

A List of Objections, Replies and Concessions Regarding Social Media and Tools

1. I suffer from information overload already.

Possible replies:

Try just skimming messages in some fora - you may need to look closely at every email you get but you don't have to look at every Facebook friend's update.

The right tools for you will feel helpful in time, not like a burden. Experiment for awhile with new tools and stick with the ones that deliver you the most high-quality information, whether those tools are high-quantity or not. (Thanks to Aaron Hockley and Ruby Sinreich for these thoughts.)

Check out tools like AideRSS and FeedHub - just two examples of services aiming to improve the signal to noise ratio.

Times change and so do information paradigms. Get used to it. The amount of information you had access to 3 years ago was infinitely more than people at any other point in history and we're in the middle of another huge leap right now.

Concession: If you think consuming all this new information is a challenge, wait until you try to find the time to make sense of it! (Thanks to Nancy White for that thought.)

2. So much of what's discussed online is meaningless. These forms of communication are shallow and make us dumber. We have real work to do!

Possible replies:

Much of it is not meaningless, but if you feel overwhelmed with meaninglessness - try subscribing to a search for keywords in a particular service and using that as your starting point for engagement.

Having a presence and starting a conversation is rarely a bad thing - bring quality conversation to a space and you'll find others ready to engage. (Thanks to Banana Lee Fishbones, obviously a fan of open, non-anonymous public communication :) for this articulation.)

Personal information can be very useful in understanding the context of more explicitly useful information.

If learning how the market feels about your organization, engaging with your customers and driving traffic to your web work - all very realistic goals for social media engagement - aren't work, then I don't know what is. Even in the short term, strategic engagement with online social media will have a clear work pay-off.

Concession: The signal to noise ratio will be easier to maximize if you can find an experienced guide to learn from. Just jumping into social media and new tools on your own will not neccesarily lead to a meaningful experience. It could, but it will take longer.

3. I don't have the time to contribute and moderate, it looks like it takes a lot of time and energy.

Possible replies:

If you aren't going to eat that lunch of yours, I'd be happy to, thanks.

With practice, familiarity and technology fine-tuned with a little experience you'll find the time required will decrease.

You might consider this time spent on marketing or communication with existing customer base - perhaps there's something else in that department that isn't working well and could be replaced with online work.

Concession:
Doing anything well does take time and energy. You've obviously been thinking about this stuff a lot, it is important - and it's going to take time and energy.

4. Our customers don't use this stuff, the learning curve limits its usefulness to geeks.

Possible replies:

You might be surprised to learn how many of your customers do already use these new tools. Even more will do so in the future.

The best designed tools are designed like good games - you can get small rewards right away and then learn more advanced skills to win bigger rewards. Among online services that are intended for general audiences, only poorly designed ones are too geeky.

Many of these tools provide value vastly disproportionate to the literal number of people they reach. These are like high-value focus groups where you'll gather information and preparation to engage with the rest of the world.

Try asking someone near you to give you an in-person demonstration of one of these tools. You'll find it much easier to learn once you've seen the right paths taken to show what it can do.

5. Communicators [bloggers, tweeters] are so fickle, better to stay unengaged than risk random brand damage. We don't want hostile comments left about us on any forum we've legitimized.

Possible replies:

If you need to, you can require that any comments left on your own site be approved before they appear. This slows down the conversation but if it makes conversation possible for you then do it.

There are far fewer people who will take the time to say hostile things, even on the internet, than you might imagine.

Engage - you'll be appreciated more for it. People are going to say what they are going to say - you can either let any criticism go unanswered or you can be the bigger person/brand for responding well.

Conversations are going to happen online, better to be engaged than to have it happening behind your back. (As articulated by Rick Turoczy.)

It's ok, no one believes that anyone is perfect anymore. Swing for the fences sometimes - you might strike out, but sometimes you'll hit a home run.

Even if you're not responding publicly, you should watch closely so you know what people are saying. Maybe you don't have a blog, but subscribe to a blogsearch feed or alert for your company's name. Maybe none of your people are on Twitter - you can subscribe to a feed for a search via Terraminds.

Concessions:
Some of the critical things that get said about you online might not warrant a response. Just decide which ones do and file the rest away somewhere.

Communicating in this different context is very new and challenging for traditionally trained business people. Good luck.

6. Traditional media and audiences are still bigger, we'll do new stuff when they do.

Possible replies:

They already are, from blogging to online video to social networks to mobile to microblogging - big, established brands are already doing all of it. They may be experimenting but they will bringing all their market dominance into the most useful social media sectors as soon as it suits them. Will that be too late for you? It might be.

Traditional media audiences are also more passive - online audiences can engage with, rebroadcast and otherwise amplify your communication efforts.

Concessions:
That's true and fair, if you think your business can thrive while taking that attitude towards a period of intense social and economic change then you just rock on with your bad self. I'll be taking my love of innovation to the employer down the street.

7. Upper management won't support it/dedicate resources for it.

Possible replies:

A lot of technology adoption has for some time had to happen despite this reality. People adopt new tools on their own at work, without permission. They discover powerful ways to solve their problems and then they share them horizontally.

Compared to other expenses, meaningful engagement with new online technology does not have huge costs.

Concessions:
Meaningful engagement with new technology does require some expenditure of time, energy and money. If you're not willing to do this then you'll be unlikely to see big benefits.

8. These startups can't offer meaningful security, they may not even be around in a year - I'll wait until Google or our enterprise software vendor starts offering this kind of functionality.

Possible replies:

The skills you build and the connections you make will remain with you, though. This is a paradigm shift underway more than it is about any particular tool.

Chose your tools carefully - expect data export as an option so you can back up or switch services whenever you need to. This isn't widespread yet but the best tools allow it.

Concessions:
You do need to be careful, but if you do so intelligently then the benefits can really outweight the risks. It is very possible that any one of these services might shutter in a year or two, but you'll get a lot out of them in the meantime and hopefully won't lose access to your data if that happens.

9. There are so many tools that are similar, I can't tell where to invest my time so I don't use any of it at all.

Possible replies:

A little experimentation goes a long way.

Try asking people in your field who have some experience what tools they are using.

Try searching for keywords related to your work in various sites. You'll find out that way which sites are best suited for you.

Concessions:

It's true, it can be very confusing and very few people are able to keep up with all the new services that are launching. Don't worry about it, just do your best.

10. That stuff's fine for sexy brands, but we sell [insert boring B2B brand] and are known for stability more than chasing the flavor-of-the-month. We're doing just fine with the tools we've got, thanks.

Possible replies:

Some of these things, RSS and wikis for example, aren't passing social fads - they are emerging best practices and the state of the art.

ROI is very hard to measure, but try allocating a little energy over time to experiment and see what kind of results you get. From connections between people and projects, to search-friendly inbound links, to early access to important information - the benefits of engaging in new social media go on and on.

Conclusions

There are no conclusions, this is just a conversation. Please feel free to add your thoughts in comments and check out the comments to read what others suggest as talking points when faced with these objections.