Just several days ago, I wrote a post in my other blog about China’s decision to block Plurk. In it, I linked to a result from Google Website Trend analysis showing that Indonesia brings the most traffic to the Plurk’s website.

Needless to say, it got me really intrigued. I then play around with it, using Twitter and Facebook as a variable to analyze. And these graphs are the results :

As you can see, Indonesia ranks as the 4^th country who brings the most traffic in Facebook, while in Twitter it is listed as the 8^th. Combine it with the fact that it’s the biggest traffic contributor for Plurk, and you get the idea that Indonesia is in fact a very prominent country in the global mapping of social networks.

One will then begin to naturally wonder the implication of this fact. For instance, what does it mean for Indonesia ? How can we capitalize on this seemingly-crucial fact that we are renowned users of social networking sites ?

It seems to me that there are two approaches to think about this issue, – classified according to the direction the effects that will inevitably happen to us. First, there is an inward implication, – although not specifically stated -, that people around the world have recognized the fact that us Indonesians are here to stay. It clearly shows that Indonesians are not just some sporadic users of social network. Instead, we are a large group of devoted people who regularly engage in connecting and networking via the Internet. This can only translate as a good thing because bit by bit, Indonesians will then gain stronger voice in this world. On the individual level, people from Indonesia will also get more opportunity to do some serious networking without being associated with any unnecessary facets of the image of a third-world country.

Secondly, and this is the harder part, is the outward responsibility we have with the fact. Now that we are being recognized as prominent entities in Social Networking world, what are we going to do with it ? Remember Peter Parker’s words when he said, “With great power comes great responsibility” ? Of course, it can be argued that we can then make contributions by building our own social networking sites. And we did that successfully, at least to an extent. But for me, it looks like we could go further than that. Why haven’t we incubate some ideas, – and then execute it, which will be useful for the whole world in a global level? You know, products as revolutionary as Blogspot, WordPress and Twitter.

This is what I offer for you to ponder as I close this fact. I am suggesting that this is the focus that we should develop. Indonesia are so full of talented developers and workers, but few who have the required ability to perform as a brilliant thinker in a conceptual level. And we all know that ideas are where all the great things in life come from.

According to the Wikipedia, the term “Enterprise 2.0”refers to :

“social software used in “enterprise” (business) contexts. It includes social and networked modifications to company intranets and other classic software platforms used by large companies to organize their communication. In contrast to traditional enterprise software, which imposes structure prior to use, enterprise social software tends to encourage use prior to providing structure.”

I believe that we do not need to delve further into the importance of incorporating Enterprise 2.0 in your business. The fact that you are reading this is a clear enough sign that you realize the need to evolve into such kind of enterprise, rather than staying true to the prehistoric status quo of one-way content feeding of Web 1.0. The question is how are we going to do this. In this post, I am going to suggest three ways which seem to me are the keys to plot your successful presence in the world of social networking :

• Register as a member in as many social network as you can afford to maintain. I would suggest three of the most important there is, – namely Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Other than that, be a member of other social network relevant to your business. Remember that the key phrase here is “as many social network as you can afford to maintain”. Having one too many account may stretch your time and resources in such a way that you can’t keep up with the need to update them all.
• Provide useful contents to your networks. Update your company’s official blog. From time to time, post some useful links to quality articles. It doesn’t matter that you don’t produce the content themselves, as long as you mention the necessary accreditations and don’t claim them for yourselves. This way, people in your network will eventually recognize you as a source for good content.
• Engage in conversation or other interaction in your networks. In Twitter, this means actively engaging in conversation by replying to other people’s updates. In Facebook, this may mean commenting to others’ contents or useful links in their profiles. In your company blog, this spells as the need to reply to the comments that your visitors leave in a welcoming and accommodative way.

These three simple steps may seem obvious to you as an avid web user. However, one concept that runs behind them all spell the difference between the successful web personas like Robert Scoble and Guy Kawasaki, – to the rest of the world who seem to never raise up beyond the level of mediocrity. This concept is contained in one simple word : consistency. As I have mentioned once in my previous post, whatever you do in the Internet, you need to update, update and update your page or status or blog. There’s nothing worse than seeing a company’s blog which hasn’t been updated for a long time. It gives your audience the impression that you can’t finish what you started, or even that you are a company that lacks commitment to do your job. Hardly the impression you would want your company to have, would you ?

The good news is, once you hold fast to the concept of consistency, the three methods I mentioned above are easy enough to do, – or at least to manage. You can update them all yourselves, or you may opt to delegate the tasks to a staff specifically dedicated to do just that. However you choose to do it, just don’t give up easily. After all, tenacity is a close sibling of consistency. Do what you need to do, and embrace the fact that you are entering the new, excited realm of Enterprise 2.0. Good luck !

First and foremost, let me state that this post is just an introduction to a Social Media Strategy, – and as such, will quote a lot from other authoritative sources in the field. Among those experts that helped elaborate about this issue are well-known Web Strategist and Gurus like :

• Jeremiah Owyang
• Brian Solis
• Sparkplug blog, by Wendy Piersall
• Chris Brogan

First of all, let’s take a look at why should we need to learn more about Social Media and utilizing it in your Public Relations strategy. There are so many apparent reasons for this, but among the most interesting ones are :

• Mainstream media is increasingly looking to social media to connect with site visitors
• Mainstream media is using sites like Digg, del.icio.us and Netscape to source content. and ideas for their own articles/news stories .
• Search Engines pay attention – the posts that do well on social media sites rank extremely well – and nearly instantly. This also influences your overall site rank (I can only say this second part speculatively, can anyone confirm?).
• Site exposure to new readers/visitors that would never find your site otherwise.
• Significantly increased Technorati and Alexa ranks which translates into higher advertising revenues
• The ‘Secondary Gain” includes all of the above, plus an influx of activity from many smaller social media sites such as DogDott, PopURLs, YCombinator, DiggRiver, DiggMirror/DuggTrends, and many others.

To be more concise, Chris Brogan sums it up succinctly as this list of goals :

• Increase customer base.
• Generate leads.
• Drive sales.
• Build awareness.
• Make money from your content.
• Establish thought leadership.
• Educate customers.
• Customer-source part of your product development.
• Reach new channels of customers.
• Improve internal communication.

Seems obvious ? Indeed. But there are some more important factors to remember before you devise your company’s Social Media PR Strategy. The essential things-to-remember must include :

• Listening: implement at least a rudimentary listening platform. We’ll cover this in a later post.
• Communications: build a starting place to hold your conversations. And by this, I mean a blogging platform.
• Methods: determine the mix of content you intend to create, and build workflow around it.
• Community: most social media strategies have to address community and how you will embrace the people you seek to gather around your business.
• Neighbors: develop a plan to reach out to others in your community, comment, and share.
• Outposts: develop social network outposts where you can communicate with other communities, and also share the way back to your own platform.
• Marketplace: if your strategy involves making money, build a marketplace external to your community. Keep these separate.
• Attention: learn how to build awareness and encourage relationships with the media you’re making.

I encourage you to dig more about this if you aspire to succeed in using Social Media as part of your PR strategy. As I said in the beginning of this post, there are some valuable written gems ( read : blog posts ) out there. Read them up. You can start with the following well-written advices from the experts :

• “10 Social Media Strategies for the Fortune 1000 Corporations” by Jeremiah Owyang

• “The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships” by Brian Solis

• “An Introduction to Social Media Strategy and Socially Driven Content“ from Sparkplug

• And finally, “Starting a Social Media Strategy” from Chris Brogan