The Business Web 2.0
As CEO of business-based social networking site WeCanDo.BIZ, read my take on the role Web 2.0 technologies can play helping businesses to grow.
Thursday 16 April 2009, 5:38 PM
OpenSocial - the key to making social networks really useful?
I am a big fan of Google Alerts. I have about 30 different alerts set to keep me up to speed on news articles across my industry and those that touch it and the most interesting articles on social media in business I put out on Twitter (@wecandobiz by the way).
Today a couple of articles caught my eye: one on hosted application vendor Zoho moving to support OpenSocial across all their apps; the other on business focused social network XING adding some features or other, but mentioning at the bottom of the press release that their next big update is to better support OpenSocial.
(OpenSocial crash course, courtesy of Wikipedia: OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web-based social network applications, developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks. Applications implementing the OpenSocial APIs will be interoperable with any social network system that supports them, including features on sites such as Hi5.com, MySpace, orkut, Netlog, Sonico.com, Friendster, Ning and Yahoo!.)
You'll know I am a big advocate of the integration of social networks with CRM systems, because it means you can build contacts on networks and then manage them effectively in the best place for the job. But I'd forgotten about OpenSocial -- mainly because hardly anyone talks about it a year on from everyone talking about -- and how it could easily enable the features of CRM to be accessible from within the social network itself. I'd always assumed that the CRM system would be where the stuff is done and that the data would get pulled over from the socnet.
Now I'm looking at it the other way round, it makes sense to add the functionality to the networking site. With both Zoho and XING announcing their allegiance to OpenSocial on the same day, could we see a version of XING with Zoho CRM embedded usurping Salesforce.com's attempts to link with Facebook as the best proper demonstration of CRM 2.0 yet seen?
It's also interesting to note that Salesforce.com has said it will support OpenSocial, as has XING's US-based rival LinkedIn. The permutations are getting interesting.
But there has never been any shortage of talk. Who'll be first to actually show a workable integration Social CRM solution?
As an aside to this, I was interested to read a research paper from TAS Group and ES Research this week entitled "The New Social Media: Do They Enable B2B Selling?" It's findings? It suggests that social media isn't yet "prime time" in helping sales teams win B2B deals. It goes on to suggest that sales methodologies and CRM are the most effective tools those sales teams can have.
(I have made edits to the above paragraph with the benefit of the insight that Dave has brough us below -- my apologies for any confusion.)
(You can find the report at http://www.thetasgroup.com/news/ESR_Research_2009.pdf)
I am totally sold on the second part of this, but I don't think social media perhaps got a fair hearing. ES Research assessed the usefulness of a number of large social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo and LinkedIn, but I see each of them as personal networks, even if the person is in business. On nearly all of those networks the individual persona is presented over a corporate one, meaning that is isn't as easy to find out about companies that members work for, or those companies' needs, as is required to properly progress B2B sales. I admire the objective of the research, but they were looking in the wrong place for their answers.
With a network that is specifically aimed at B2B type companies, with representatives on the site focused towards helping achieve the aims of those companies, and social media starts to be a whole lot more interesting. But that is obvious; then it is built for purpose, where the needs of the business are at the fore. Trying to sell B2B on a social network aimed at meeting the needs of individuals within its demographic, as surely all of the networks they assessed are, is like trying to sell B2B solutions to the crowd at a football game. You might get lucky, but it isn't why people are there.
I'd love to read your thoughts on any of the above.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
PreviousComments on this post
Hi Ian,
Two quick points:
1. The TAS Group did not fund the survey or any part of it. Their contribution was limited to emailing a link to the survey to people on their mailing list as a favor to ESR. ESR in return agreed to have the executive summary of the report available for download on the TAS Group's site, where registration is required.
The TAS Group's list contains both users of their products/services and non-users. There were other sources of respondents as well, including ESR's lists, postings on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and bloggers who posted the link to the survey on their sites. Any comments made by ESR about methodology and CRM are completely independent from The TAS Group. ESR's position about methodology and CRM have been consistent for the past number of years, separate and apart from this survey and The TAS Group. Just to make it clear, the TAS Group had no influence on anything that was covered in the report.
2. We do understand that the social media we looked at are personal tools. ESR did the survey to determine whether salespeople who were spending their time on these social media were investing their time wisely. Our concern was that they were being distracted from focusing on what has been proven to help win business in B2B sales. An example of what has been proven to work is CRM integrated with a well-founded sales methodology. We were not investigating or surveying social media in any broader sense.
By the way, the link you provided in your post is for the download of the executive summary, not the actual report.
Dave Stein
CEO and Founder
ES Research Group, Inc.
www.ESResearch.com
Many thanks for your ocntibution Dave -- especially for the points clarifying The TAS Group's involvement. I have been happy to edit my original paragraph.
Your comments also prompt me to say that so-called "social media" is just that -- media. It is as varied in focus as the print media. Anyone engaging in using social media for business needs to perform the same kind of simple thought process as a marketing department would to engaging print media: is this where my customers and target market are. If not then it's pointless using that particular social media site as a tool for the thing social media gives us over print media, two way dialogue.
To keep that metaphor going, B2B sales people using personal networking sites to try and win customers can prove as distracting and fruitless as handing them all copies of the bikini edition of Sports Illustrated and asking them to find references to potential prospects! They may be there, but I can think of better places to look (for prospects at least...).
That said, I can't say I can criticise the logic in assessing the usefulness of the best known of the social media. Networks focusing on B2B are few and far between, as I have found when I have researched for WeCanDo.BIZ.
We'd be happy to join in with your next survey and I hope you'd see a different perspective. Feel welcome to contact me: https://www.wecando.biz/profile.php?bid=20
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
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