“Lane and I have been blogging since it started,” said Six Apart (www.sixapart.com) product strategy vice president Michael Sippey, co-hosting the “Monetizing Social Media” session with Lane Becker, co-founder and president of Get Satisfaction (www.getsatisfaction.com), a web start up dedicated to fostering new methods of communication and collaboration between companies and their customers.
Promising to explain how the next generation of blogging and social networking will evolve, the Parallels Summit session Wednesday afternoon took a look at the past, present and future of those two buzz terms, as they converge to provide businesses and individuals with new ways to connect with customers and community.
Using plenty of examples of blogs that exemplify what social media is all about, Sippey made note of the left-wing political blog Talking Points Memo (www.talkingpointsmemo.com) as a site where people socially by interacting with content – which is at the very base of social media.
Becker even shared a more extreme example: “I found a community the other day about flash lights – what batteries to use, different types of beams…” The principles are the same.
They also made note of some blogs that are good role models including The Huffington Post and Boing Boing; news websites ABC, USA today and The Washington Post; and even corporate blogs by GE, Boeing and Siebel.
They also discussed how this convergence opens up opportunities for hosting and Software as a Service providers.
While it is clear that blogging and social media are popular (and for many businesses a necessity), however, it is harder to understand what clear benefits they have for business.
In terms of ways to make money, there are paths to direct revenue through advertising and subscription services. However, Sippey noted that the more interesting ways are less direct. For instance, by communicating with customers and employees, blogs improve customer loyalty and staff retension – even making the business work more smoothly by increasing communication.
Social media also drives new business activity by getting people to your site. The massive connectivity that services like Twitter or Facebook provide help lure people into finding your specific service.
Lane said that the assumptions around blogs are changing “The question is changing from: ‘What does it mean for our company to have a blog’ to ‘What will it mean for our company to not have a blog.’”
This is the question that businesses are going to be asking as social media matures.
