Social Media & Technical Communications

Social Media & Technical Communications

STC Toronto Education DayApril 30, 2011

Sherry McMenemy | @smcmenemy

Sherry McMenemy 2011

A story to start


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


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


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


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


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


The 5 C’s

Context

Curation

CrisisCommunities

Content

Who, when, where?

One-stop shopping

E.g., product recall

Internal, external

Technical, just-in-time


You are here

Enterprise 2.0, Social Communications…


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


Social support


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


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…


Who the what now?


Some terms

• Avatar• Crowd-sourcing• Enterprise/open source• Geolocation• Hashtag• Lurkers

• Mashup• Meme• P2P (Peer to Peer)• Tagging• Tweetwall• Viral content


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


Listen & observe

• Find out who is talking, and about what

• “Lurking” is okay• Use filtering tools• Communities, Twitter, forums,

support calls, Facebook…


Build a picture

• Typical profiles of your users

• What they talk about

• Their pain points• Their job one


Ask questions

• That’s what your customers are doing

• Okay to ask direct questions


Engage

• Start small – ask for comments, ask for ratings

• Do something with whatever you get


Engage

• Identify yourself• Everything is public

• Involve others as needed• Once you start, you need to

keep going, so be ready


Keywords and hot topics


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…


Curated content

•Articles created by users•Ratings indicate useful/popular content•Excellent model for internal knowledge sharing

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/


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


Crowd sourcing

• Pragmatic content• Fast turnaround• Very iterative• Translations with real-world vocabularies,

almost free• Save $$• Build community


Crowd sourcing


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


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


• 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



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


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


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


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


Start with what you can handle, pay attention to metrics, and don’t be afraid to change direction


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/

http://www.mindtouch.com/resources

http://community-roundtable.com/socm-2011/

http://community-roundtable.com/socm-2011/

http://www.tsia.com/research_and_advisory/Benchmarking.html

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.hubspot.com/marketing-resources/

http://www.dachisgroup.com/


Thank you

@smcmenemy