Making Order Out Of Social Business Chaos in 2011

As 2010 comes to an end, it is a natural time for reflections and predictions. At this time of year, I take the opportunity to look backwards and take stock of what has happened with social media and customer communities. This year has been dominated by a shift in focus from social media marketing to social business it evolved from being experimental to being a business imperative.

Online communities have become the center of the customer experience and we spent much of the year trying out social media programs, creating customer communities and trying to make sense of the richness of structured and unstructured data the was created through the social channel. And, we face the New Year with profound opportunity to make sense of the experiments and weave the lessons together to inform a cohesive and scalable strategy that will change business as we know it even more significantly as it already has.

As a colleague is fond of saying, "every industry needs a few guys on the hood with bugs in his teeth," we at Leader Networks have endeavored to be out in front to help create order out of the chaos that so many businesses are experiencing with the advent of social media. Over the year, we have tackled tough topics such as developing a social media policy, defined the different kinds of online communities, offered an adaptable social media strategy map, detailed case studies of successful communities (Palladium and LexisNexis Investigators Network), identified steps to create community, discussed how to engage customers online, what to do if the community is flailing, and how to measuring social CRM. I hope the information and insights have served you well by providing solid strategic guidance, food for thought, practical information and the framework for success. We look forward to an exciting 2011.

In the spirit of continued learning, I offer a few of my favorite writings to help you succeed. These are some of the most compelling and useful writings I believe can be found on the topic of social business. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Happy Holidays to all!

• 13 Rules of Leadership for Communication, Influence and Social Media Strategy by Don Bulmer
• 10 Key Guiding Principles for Online Community Building and Engagement by Blaise Grimes-Viort
• How to make social media add up to thought leadership by Christopher Koch
• Making The Business Case For Social Media by Mia Dand
• The 5th C of Community, Social Commerce by Brian Solis