Social Media & Technical Communications
STC Toronto Education DayApril 30, 2011
Sherry McMenemy | @smcmenemy
Sherry McMenemy 2011
A story to start
Sherry McMenemy 2011
A few observations
1. Technical communication is (still) mostly one-way
2. Technical communication is more about process than people
3. Technical communication is values being complete over being responsive
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Enter social media
• Media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques – Wikipedia
• Any form of content or presence featuring or allowing multi-directional conversations and content development
• People + process + platforms
Sherry McMenemy 2011
So what’s different?
• “Social” is about tools, but it’s also about:– Genuine opportunities to interact with customers
up close & personal– Flexible, responsive, iterative processes– Multidirectional, crowd-sourced content…– Bringing people & their “job one” to the forefront– Explicit contributions of technical content to
brand, sales pipeline, support process
Sherry McMenemy 2011
What can you use it for?
• Learning more about your customers
• Improve your content• Sharing content• Writing content• Customer communities• Internal communities
• Bringing people to your content
• Connecting people to other content
• Social business/social support
• Meeting customer needs
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Mission statement
The right contentTo the right peopleAt the right timeVia the right channels
Content is appropriate for users when it helps them accomplish their goals. It is perfectly appropriate for users when it makes them feel like geniuses on critically important missions, offering them precisely what they need, exactly when they need it, and in just the right form.
--A List Apart
Sherry McMenemy 2011
The 5 C’s
Context
Curation
CrisisCommunities
Content
Who, when, where?
One-stop shopping
E.g., product recall
Internal, external
Technical, just-in-time
Sherry McMenemy 2011
You are here
Enterprise 2.0, Social Communications…
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Social business
• Strategy: make organizations more adaptable & responsive, increase revenues, reduce costs
• Tactics: – Process: when socialized, is interactive and
iterative– Community management: to ensure productivity– Technology: the tools in the toolbox
Community Roundtable Report, 2011
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Social support
Sherry McMenemy 2011
You’re not in control
ihatedell.netfutureshopsucks.compaypalsucks.com microsoftsucks.orgmac-sucks.comfordreallysucks.com ihaterogers.caihatebell.ca comcastsucks.orgwalmartsucksorg.blogspot.com deltareallysucks.com deltaisevil.blogspot.com southwestsucks.com mcsucks.comgeicoblows.com googlesux.comgooglesearchsucks.combushandcheneysuck.combarackobamasucks.net stephenharpersucks.blogspot.com
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Social media functionsFunction Tools
Listening Google filters, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Communities, Radian6, Social search engines (Google, Blekko, Technorati…)
Writing Forums, blogs (Wordpress, Blogger…), wiki (Sharepoint, Drupal…)
Reading RSS, digg, tumblr, Technorati
Media, viewing Flickr, Slideshare, Youtube, Vimeo
Talking Twitter, IM, Quora, BBM, Texting
Sharing, collaborating Communities, wiki (MindTouch, Sharepoint, …+ 1000s),
Linking, tagging, voting Del.icio.us, reddit, Facebook, Google, Tumblr
Profiles, brand Linked In, Twitter
Locating Foursquare
Supporting Get Satisfaction, Twitter, Facebook
Monitoring, reporting Surveymonkey, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, PostRank, Google Analytics…
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Who the what now?
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Some terms
• Avatar• Crowd-sourcing• Enterprise/open source• Geolocation• Hashtag• Lurkers
• Mashup• Meme• P2P (Peer to Peer)• Tagging• Tweetwall• Viral content
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Getting started
• Listen & observe• Participate, as a member• Find existing communities• Be up front about your interests, and what
you don’t know• Ask questions, ask for comments• Try things
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Listen & observe
• Find out who is talking, and about what
• “Lurking” is okay• Use filtering tools• Communities, Twitter, forums,
support calls, Facebook…
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Build a picture
• Typical profiles of your users
• What they talk about
• Their pain points• Their job one
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Ask questions
• That’s what your customers are doing
• Okay to ask direct questions
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Engage
• Start small – ask for comments, ask for ratings
• Do something with whatever you get
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Engage
• Identify yourself• Everything is public
• Involve others as needed• Once you start, you need to
keep going, so be ready
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Keywords and hot topics
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Curation = value
• Aggregate relevant content
• Save community members time & money
• Associates thought leadership to you
• You don’t have to write all original content yourself
• Via blog, feeds, links…
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Curated content
•Articles created by users•Ratings indicate useful/popular content•Excellent model for internal knowledge sharing
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Write
• The mind shift that needs to occur:1. You don’t have to write all of the content yourself. 2. This is a good thing.3. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes
faster/informal is better.4. Focus on the most value. Focus is more important
than being “complete”. • Clear hot topics – the 20% that matters• Doesn’t mean you give up on quality or process
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Crowd sourcing
• Pragmatic content• Fast turnaround• Very iterative• Translations with real-world vocabularies,
almost free• Save $$• Build community
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Crowd sourcing
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Corporate communities
• Some companies follow this model entirely– Often "open source" associations or Web 2.0 companies– Willing to hear & address criticism openly
• Others don’t– Associated with more “traditional” companies– May have regulatory or IP concerns
Open communities:•Anyone can post•Anyone can say anything (though the community tends to control aggressive or inappropriate behaviour)•Quality by consensus
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Corporate communities
• Fast, informal technologies can address corporate pain points
• Capitalize on "natural" behaviours• Features:
– lighter process management and overhead– Inclusive, not top-down– exposes knowledge and assets– get around information silos or help to get rid of
them
Sherry McMenemy 2011
• Technical content
• Forums
• Support ticketing
• Direct support
Docs P2P
TrackingReal-time
Social support
Internal communities FASTER time-to-field - critical
knowledge BETTER cross-functional
project work & development BETTER customer service LESS time searching/waiting
for an answer MORE cross-regional
knowledge sharing
• One-stop shopping• Global knowledge transfers• Data management and
metrics• Project Workspaces
“The internal forums have beenthe best way of finding importantinformation as these posts are replied to by users with field experience. Encourage use of forums would be my top priority.”
--Survey
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Internal forum KB topic
SSL Socket Error• --------------------------• --------------------------• --------------------------
Anyone seen an SSL socket error on...?
I saw it at Customer xyz and tried this...
There is an interaction between...
Community Knowledgebase
Technical content
SMEsReview
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Wiki-based release notes
• One location & template• SMEs come to an agreement
within the wiki• No draft docs – wiki is always the
“latest” information • Wiki’s diff feature easy to track
changes• Wiki readily available to anyone as
a reference• Final doc built once, after
checklist meeting• Next step: fully automated
publishing
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Communities maturity model
Free range• chaos• hierarc
hy• silos• barrier
s
Aware• emergi
ng• pocket
s• fragile• barrier
s
Established• standa
rds• benefit
s• culture• tech
Purposeful• integra
ted• flexible• value• confide
nt
Managed• the
way• ROI• critical• sustain
1 2 3 4 5
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Measure useful things
What (specific) content is being used? By whom? Why? What else are they using? Why? | What are the top search terms? Top terms that don’t have search matches? How much time is spent searching for stuff each week? What are people trying to DO based on these terms? | How long does it take to get content out on a hot issue? What’s the correlation between content and support tickets? | How many different people participate? Who are the top participants? | How often are conversations taking place per day? What are the patterns over time? What should you do about it? | What should you stop doing? | How many leads did content bring into the sales pipeline this month? | What’s the support diversion rate?
Common challenges• Fall back on 1-way
(comfort zone)• Already an existing
community• Start, then stop• Not enough
communications• Too formal, too
informal
Support is on Twitter time now
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Start with what you can handle, pay attention to metrics, and don’t be afraid to change direction
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Resources
• http://www.mindtouch.com/resources• http://community-roundtable.com/socm-201
1/• http://www.tsia.com/research_and_advisory/
Benchmarking.html• http://thecontentwrangler.com/• http://justwriteclick.com/• http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/
keynote-invest-in-scalable-social-business-programs
• http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-resources/
• http://www.dachisgroup.com/
Sherry McMenemy 2011
Thank you
@smcmenemy