As we work toward making sense of online engagement it’s important we’re able to look to each other for examples of what’s working and what’s not, and speak with each other openly about our strategies and processes for managing our own conversations on the web.

You’ve probably seen a few companies release their own internal engagement guidelines and policies for public consumption in an effort to be candid and transparent about their online interactions. We applaud that openness and feel that kind of process sharing is invaluable to understanding the true potential social media integration holds for businesses.

We’re throwing our hat in the ring this month and offering up our own monitoring and engagement playbook – yes, the one we use within the walls of Radian6 – to give you a taste of what engagement looks like for a company that lives and breathes through the power of the social web.

Because this is our internal playbook, it features processes that lean heavily on the use of our dashboard and Engagement Console, and is also tailored to help us achieve our own goals for social media engagement. Take those couple things into consideration when you’re flipping through the PDF.

Throughout August we’ll be walking down the engagement trail and discussing the nuances of talking and connecting with your online audience on our blog, and we’ll also be discussing the value of framing your engagement initiatives with guidelines and policies to make them scalable and align them with your current company goals and employee practices.

You’ll see us generalizing some of the content in our playbook, as well, and adding some more detail to the engagement picture for you to think through and absorb for your own purposes.

As always, if you’ve got any questions about engagement or about our playbook, please feel free to leave us your thoughts in a comment or email us at community@radian6.com. We’re looking forward to this month in a big way, and hope you come back and join us for the conversations we’ll be having around online engagement.

Wow. I’d like to extend a huge thank you to Charlene Li for today’s spectacular webinar.  She not only discussed her book “Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead”, but also shared some of her favorite examples of open organizations, defined steps to help every company determine how to open up their own businesses, and answered some hard-hitting questions from webinar participants.

We’ve summarized some of the key points below, and have also included a link to the recording. Sit back with a cup of coffee and enjoy!

• Charlene prefaced the discussion by explaining that after Groundswell was released, people routinely kept asking the same few questions over and over again – namely, “How open do I really need to be?” and “How can I manage the feeling of being out of control?”
• The definition of an open leader is one who “has the confidence and the humility to give up the need to be in control while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals.” That’s powerful stuff and has very real repercussions for organizational structures and internal communication channels, not to mention the external activities!
• Charlene reviewed socialgraphics, a new way of understanding how people are interacting with each other, who they’re influencing, and who is influencing them.
• One of my favorite parts of this webinar was when Charlene shared stories about companies like Starbucks, Best Buy, John Deere and Edelman – these companies are all embracing open leadership principles and are integrating these strategies into their business practices.
• Moving into brass tacks, Charlene outlined steps to start your organization on the path of becoming more open, including smart strategies, understood boundaries, tips on how to discover open leaders within your existing organization, and how to prepare your organization to embrace failure instead of running from it.
• One of the most interesting points brought up was the concept of a new way of thinking about how to calculate the lifetime value of a customer, which brings up the ever-popular question: “What is the value of a relationship?”.

Click here to listen and watch the webinar.

Because the file size is fairly large, it’s going to remain hosted on our Web events site. To listen, click on the link above, then navigate to and click on the upper-right-hand tab that says “View Event Recordings”. Click the playback button to the far right and you’re good to go. Take a listen and let us know what you think!

If conversations are any indicator of what’s important in social media right now, there are certainly some hot spots. And based on a high level glance at the industry overall for the past year, we can pick out a few topics that really seem to have the attention of the business world, including us.

Here’s a look at just a few of the leading indicators of what the social media discussion entails today (and that’d be over 64,000 conversations just in the last month alone):

Location, Location, Location

Between the crowd-driven ecommerce like Groupon, location-based Tweets, and the badge rewards for applications like Foursquare and Gowalla, location is as prominent in social media as it is in real estate. And while the social wave started with massive, come-one-come-all social networks, business are now particularly interested in finding their focus, targeting their most loyal and local customer base as well as attracting those in their geographically relevant pools.

Why it matters: Geolocation has long term implications in everything from search to social media analysis and metrics, not to mention increased focus in more traditional communication efforts. Global businesses need to understand reach and market distribution on a geographic basis, and local businesses need to be able to fine tune their efforts. Mash location data up with behavioral data, and you start getting some powerful modeling indeed.

Social CRM

Once upon a time we talked about “engagement” as a universal term that meant connecting personally with customers and communities via social channels. The emergence of social CRM has figured heavily into the industry in the last year, evolving beyond simply a suite of enterprise tools and platforms, and more into a mindset or strategy that puts the cultivation of customers and community members – no matter where they make themselves known on the web – at its core. We call it answering the social phone, but the principles are largely the same: greeting your customers where they are, on their terms, and nurturing those relationships for long term, mutual benefit.

Why it matters: Relationship management, in its truest form, is far more nuanced than ever as customers no longer simply gather or communicate in company-hosted environments. And while a good deal of the discussion and engineering (including our platform) focuses on how to tie data together across a business and provide a solid analysis framework for understanding customer behavior and needs, there’s an invaluable and complimentary human framework of listening, communication, content, outreach, and community development that will round out the sCRM space and its business applications.

Measurement & Accountability

First the question was “can we measure social media”, and the overwhelming conversations today agree that yes, we certainly can. Then the question was “how”, so platforms like Radian6 created broader and deeper ways to bring in relevant social data and conduct some analysis around them (especially connecting dots with things like CRM systems and web analytics).

Now the discussions center around what, specifically, businesses should be measuring in their own context of goals and objectives, what social data points actually matter in a business context (and how they’ve evolved from more traditional metrics), and how to derive insights and map out plans based on what we learn.

Why it matters: Social media, in its early adoption phases, is more of a cost center than a revenue channel (and in many ways, the balance may continue to sit heavy on the investment side). Beyond just “ROI”, businesses are seeking to understand the impact of the investment they’re making in people, time, and tools from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. And as social media gains a foothold in an overall business model, companies are very much looking for some direction as to how to tie it into their overall reporting and accountability functions.

Privacy & Participation

The beginning of the social media wave saw celebration of the idea of open networks: anyone could participate, however they liked, and we wanted access to everyone and everything. In the last year, concerns and discussions around privacy and information access have been on the rise as the gleam wears off the shiny social media coating, and we start taking a longer-term view of how social plays into our human networks. In a business context, companies are more closely examining the need for social media participation guidelines and governance, especially in heavily regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, or government.

Why it matters: While we love the free flow of information and ideas that the social web enables, we also want to be sure that we have established expectations, parameters, and understandings about what information can and should go where. As individuals we want to make educated choices about how public our information is, and as businesses we want to be sure our approach to social media is methodical and well-thought (rather than trying to throw a runaway train into reverse).

Social Media Integration

There’s no doubt that social media integration discussions are far more prevalent than they were 12 months ago. And while there are still plenty of conversations around social media roles, campaigns, and ownership inside companies, more and more organizations like PepsiCo, United Healthcare, and Dell are working out ways to wire social media not only into broader marketing efforts, but into other areas of the business like customer service, product development, or human resources.

Why it matters: Social media as a stand-alone entity has a limited shelf life. Much like the phone or even email, communication with customers and feedback from relevant communities drives many areas of the business, and not all of them front-line communication roles. So while vertical adoption of social media can establish a center of operations, horizontal adoption and integration is what will take social media from the tactical front lines and immerse it in the overall business model.

What Has Your Attention?

If you’re a business that’s employing anything from a basic listening strategy to a full-blown social media business approach, what’s your focus right now? What topics, questions, and discussions are top of mind with your business right now?

We’d love to hear from you.

2010 has flown by, hasn’t it? It seems like just last month we were recovering from the freneticism of the holidays, and just last week we were powering through Spring Break. As quickly as this year has passed, it doesn’t suit to keep flying without paying homage to the first half of the year; now’s a great time to step back and review how you did. So, how’d January-June turn out? What did your customers respond best to? What long-term trends have developed around your listening and outreach initiatives?

We practice this mid-year review ourselves, and thought sharing some of our top content with you again would give you the opportunity to catch up on some of our most popular blog posts, and get you identifying on your own some trends that are showing themselves in the social media sphere. You might be surprised at what people landed on most often. Then, to wrap things up, we’ll provide a few of our own insights around these posts.

So, without further ado, here are our top 10 blog posts* from the first half of 2010:

10. 9 Time Management Strategies for Social Media Webinar

9. 10 Ways to Show Your Community Love

8. A Different Look at Community Management

7. 10 Ways to Share Helpful Content in Social Media

6. 10 Key Sales Metrics to Track

5. 10 Key Awareness Metrics to Track

4. We’re Hiring a Community Manager

3. Radian6′s Social Media Monitoring Platform Now Tracks Google Buzz

2. 5 Steps to a Better Social Media Monitoring Plan

1. 10 Key Engagement Metrics to Track

Iiiiinteresting, right? A few things come to mind right off the bat:

• People are still looking for serious guidance when it comes to social media measurement. They want to see solid, spelled-out metrics that they can apply to their own programs. While we’re happy to share, there is real value in digging deep to identify metrics that no one else has spelled out that best fit your objectives and goals. We say that all the time, yes, but we say it because it’s true. From a content perspective, we’re going to keep sharing these sorts of posts, but also work on giving you more information to get you thinking about the metrics that really work for YOU.
• Community management — as a topic and as a sought-out role — is top of mind right now. If you’re not looking for information on where the community management field is headed, or clarification as to what community management really is, you’re looking for ways to get into community management. Yes, we need to take into consideration the current job market, but this info gives us a bit of proof that we’re on the right track talking about our thoughts regarding community management and how it’s maturing.
• Word-of-mouth promotion is a huge part of extending the reach of your content. Of note, our “10 Key Engagement Metrics to Track” post was shared on the popular Alltop blog, Holy Kaw, which inevitably brought in a new contingency of readers.

What sort of insights can you glean out of this little bit of intelligence we’ve provided? Of course, the level of insight is relative to the grittiness of the data, and this data is at a pretty high level, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t knowledge to be had. Share what you think, and please enjoy some of our posts from the first half of this year!

*For this list, blog posts were ranked by page views.

Radian6 Stands Apart With Superior Software and Strategy for Social Media Monitoring & Engagement

CAMBRIDGE, MA–(Marketwire – July 21, 2010) – Radian6, the leading social media monitoring and engagement platform, today announced it has been chosen as a “leader” in independent research firm Forrester Research, Inc.’s “The Forrester Wave™: Listening Platforms, Q3, 2010″ report, released earlier this week.

In the report, which evaluated the Radian6 Dashboard, as well as a pre-launch version of Radian6′s Engagement Console — a social media desktop client that streamlines listening and engagement across the enterprise — Radian6 ranked above other platforms for functionality and was the only company to receive a 5.00 out of 5.00 score for product strategy and leading scores in market presence in both customers and financials.

Specifically, Radian6 was honored for its:

• Comprehensive Market Presence – “Radian6 delivers one of the most popular listening platforms in the market, with the largest market presence of any vendor.”
• Depth in Functionality – “Radian6 also leads the market with its dashboard functionality — providing more features and tool sets for a broad range of use cases across many business lines.”
• Superior Product Offering – “With the recent addition of its Engagement Console and continued developments for data integration options into CRM and existing analytics systems, Radian6 ups the ante for what features listening platforms must provide.”

Nine major vendors were included in the study, and were assessed against 76 criteria, grouped into three high-level buckets: current offering, strategy and market presence. Data sources used included hands-on lab evaluation, vendor surveys and product demos.

The Radian6 solution provides companies and agencies with the real-time tools to monitor the social web. Thousands of brands already rely on Radian6 to listen and engage with their customers online, including world-leading brands such as AAA, Comcast, Dell, GE, Kodak, Microsoft, MTV, Southwest Airlines and UPS.

About Radian6 Technologies, Inc.
Radian6 provides the leading social media monitoring and engagement platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company’s new Engagement Console enables brands and agencies to monitor all forms of social media, with real-time results, and engage as a team through unique workflow features for tagging, classifying, and assigning of posts. Analysis widgets on the Radian6 dashboard give users the ability to uncover the top influencers and trends as well as which conversations are having an impact online. Radian6 was founded in 2006 and is based in New Brunswick.

We’re thrilled to announce that Charlene Li, founder of the research-based advisory firm Altimeter Group and co-author of the renowned Groundswell, will be joining us for a webinar at the end of this month to discuss her latest book, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead.

When: Friday, July 30th
Time: 9am PDT/12pm EDT
Click here to register.

For quite a few folks, Groundswell was the book that broke down barriers to accepting Web 2.0 as an opportunity to make their businesses better. In many ways, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff began their own groundswell by writing a book that honed in on the paradigm shift we’re experiencing in business today.

Open Leadership picks up where Groundswell left off, offering to social media advocates the fodder they need to help their leadership teams open up business and create a culture that will make social media adoption–and on a greater level, adoption of a social business model–possible and successful.

From Open Leadership’s introduction:

“…put aside the calls to be more transparent, to be authentic, and–my favorite–to be ‘real.’ The question isn’t whether you will be transparent, authentic, and real, but rather, how much you will let go and be open in the face of new technologies. Transparency, authenticity, and the sense that you are being real are the by-products of your decision to be open.”

So listen in on Friday, July 30th at 9am PDT/12pm EDT as we dig into Open Leadership with author Charlene Li. Our Senior Community Manager Lauren Vargas will be hosting this webinar, which will consist of a short presentation by Charlene, a Q&A facilitated by Lauren, and a chance for you, our audience, to ask your questions, as well. You’ll be able to tweet questions to us using the #radian6 hashtag, and you’ll also be able to pose questions directly on our webinar platform.

If you’ve got any initial questions or thoughts, please feel free to share them here in the comments. We look forward to having you join us!

This introductory post was written by Nigel Orfei, Director, Customer Services for Radian6. Nigel will be contributing to this blog on a regular basis to share general best practices about managing customer service in the online social space, and he’ll be answering some of the common questions we receive from our clients about our platform, as well as sharing tips and tricks for getting the most out of your social media monitoring efforts. Interested in more resources about social customer service from Radian6? Take a look at our eBook from May about creating a social customer service model, and sift through our Resource Library.

The processes for contacting Customer Support at your cable company or utility company are pretty clear. Most of you know who to contact (or have a number to call), are aware of how you’ll be helped, and know what information you need to provide in order to get help. Unfortunately, you’re probably also aware of what these Customer Support departments can’t help with.

One of the benefits of social media is its ability to break down walls. You don’t need to — and shouldn’t have to — know who to contact to get in touch with our company. If you reach out to a member of our Community Team, they’ll do their best to help you, or they’ll put you in touch with the person best prepared to answer your questions. This is the same across the board – if you contact us via phone, email, or on Twitter (@radian6support).

These instances are when the Radian6 Customer Support Team comes in. I can say confidently that every member of the team will do his or her absolute best to get you what you need to be successful. Quite often we get a support question forwarded to us that starts with, “I’m not sure if you can help…” so let me clear up what we can help with:

• Impromptu feature/functionality training
• Coaching through our different training programs, why you should attend, help with sign-ups, how it will help you
• Solving challenging how-to questions
• Helping clarify how and why various features are useful
• If anything comes our way that we can’t answer, we’ll find and connect you with the person who can.

To take this one step further, when you reach out to us, provide us the information below for the best response:

• Account name
• Name of your topic profile
• What you need help with
• If you’re having a problem with one of our platforms, describe the problem
• Has anything changed?
• What date/time is best to reach you?
• How can we reach you? Phone or email – please provide one or the other

This is just an introduction to what we need to best help you, and we want to know what you’d like to learn from our team. Talk to us in the comments, share your thoughts on how you’re using Radian6, and let us know what knowledge gaps you think we can help fill about social media monitoring.

There’s quite a demand for case studies in our neck of the woods, and we understand why: When something as new as social media hits the scene, people want to see successful precedent before jumping into the mix. And while it can be a bit tough to find the right stories to share — we’re all still learning here, right? — there are definitely a few worth telling, and we’ve got one for you today.

Intuit’s TurboTax product has been a tax season staple of numerous households for years, and quite a few of the folks in those households have offered great suggestions for product improvements and updates. Six years ago, Intuit decided to organize and empower this tuned-in, passionate segment of their user base and created a user community called the TurboTax Inner Circle centered solely around improving the functionality and usability of the TurboTax product.

In this case study, Christine Morrison and Ali McCourt of Intuit share with us how the Inner Circle came to be, some of the growing pains they faced getting the community up and running, and some of the lessons they’ve learned in building a basic beta testing program into a 25,000-member-strong, highly active community.

Click that link up there to read more about Intuit’s Inner Circle, and feel free to browse through the rest of our Resource Library to find more customer stories, presentations, and content to feed your brain. And let us know what you think about what Intuit is up to!