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 !

Online Reputation Management is something you and your company can not do without these days. It’s because the need for brand and reputation management continues to increase in importance as consumer time spent on the social web replaces traditional media. Furthermore, let’s not forget the fact that :

· Customers are online – Customers who find products and services via internet channels have various experiences. Many consumers blog, write reviews, make comments and share opinions on social networks. It’s important to have a good handle on customers that are publishing both negative and positive information so the brand can monitor and engage in the right way.

· Journalists are online – Public and media relations is an effective marketing/communications channel for merchants, networks and in some cases, affiliates. Journalists are increasingly researching stories online and the way companies represent brands can influence whether a particular one is considered for a story or not.

· Competitors are online - Brand monitoring online and within digital media provides companies a real opportunity for competitive research. Discover what other brands are doing to be effective and whether they publish negative information about your brand in order to attract sales from products and services.

However you choose to look at it, it means one thing and one thing only : that the future of your brands are also online. It does not necessarily mean that you will kill your brand if you don’t engage in these activities, – but rather that you may hurt your real-world business if you neglect to nurture your online reputation management. Take some time to study it. As usual, followings are a couple of good articles about it for you to dig further :

· Basics of Online Reputation Management

· PubCon : Online Reputation Management

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

It has increasingly became apparent that social networks are here to stay. Granted, there are a lot of unsuccessful followers in the field, but the giants of social networks like Twitter and Facebook continue to stay abreast for the foreseeable future, come low or high tide.

What does it mean for a business owner like you ? In this post, I’m going to talk about three companies who use social network as a way to maintain close communication with their customer; and about my experience as their products’ user.

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First, some explanations are due. The three companies are :

1. Digsby

Digsby is a recently popular chat program that tries to incorporate all your usual chat platform in one software. They are aiming to be a swiss-army knife of instant-messenger applications, – so to speak. At the time of this blog posting, you can use it to chat with your Yahoo ID, MSN Live, GTalk, Facebook Chat, AIM, – and even updating your social networks status in Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. Their Twitter page can be viewed here.

2. Flock

Flock basically is a Firefox equipped with a custom-built add-ons, making it a browser where you can instantly get signed-in in your various social networks and engage in their activities. There is even a built-in blog editor where you can write a blog post without going to your blog platform website. For the newest version of Flock and its features, you can visit its website.

3. Evernote

If you are anything like me, you will feel the need of organizing various notes or snippets of text files that you jotted down whenever you think of something. Standard methods of filing in Windows folder just don’t seem to be enough as it can get wildly confusing after a couple of weeks or so. Here’s where Evernote figures. An organizer software where you can store practically anything, it will also give you a free online account ( with some limitations ) where you can back up your important notes. A couple of months ago, I wrote a short review of Evernote and what it can do that you can read here. Alternatively, you can visit their website.

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What those three otherwise-very-different companies have in common is : They all use Twitter to communicate with their users. By this I mean, they create a special Twitter account where they then use to scan various issues other users may have about their products; and replying whenever necessary.

Now, as a user of their products, I can think of at least 3 ( three ) reasons why I will continue to use their products. Bear with me as I get to the following points :

1. Because they are companies who care about their customers

Some of you may argue this point, stating that of course any company will care about its customers, that’s where the money comes from. Indeed. But a company who cares enough to dedicate time and ( in some cases ) a special staff to communicate with their customer using a supposedly-intangible media as Twitter ? I am impressed.

2. Because of the speed of their response

Let’s admit it. Complaining, – or even just asking, about a feature of a product you just recently acquired is most of the times frustrating. Those dreaded automated phone systems or faxing proof of purchase almost always spends more time than necessary. On the contrary, the three companies I mentioned respond to their users’ complaints and enquiries almost instantly, – sometimes even under a couple of minutes.

3. Because I am dealing with companies who update themselves on new developments of technology

To average people you meet in the streets, Web 2.0 raises more questions than it answers. This means that as a technology, it is still relatively new. Not in the term of age, mind you; but in the sense that more people don’t know about it than those who do. All it implies is that Digsby, Flock and Evernote are companies who make it a point to keep on updating themselves of new technology. I surely can’t complain about company who has that characteristics.

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Let’s stop here and consider my experience as the customer of the three companies and why I’ll be a repeat user of their products. Do you want a loyal, repeat customer who buys your product more than once ? How about five ? Or a hundred, even thousands of them ?

Depending on the nature of the business, now may be the right time to take a plunge to the lake of Social Networking. Sink or swim, it’s your choice…

There really is no easy answer for this question.  And while there are many ways we could approach this issue, I would suggest that first of all, you ask yourself this question :  What kind of industry the domain of your job is ?  That is, what do you do for a living ?  Could you benefit in any ways by engaging in a, – or several, social networks ?

Now, I am going to assume that the readers of this blog are surely familiar with the concept of social networks.  At the risk of being redundant, let it be said once again that in short, social network is the place where you socialize online, – being a network where there are interactive communications, mostly almost instantly delivered, thanks to the increasingly popular AJAX-based sites.  The most famous of them include some well-known names like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

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Going back to our question, I believe that there are business fields where you don’t exactly need to do some serious social networking.  For example, a plumber will need to dedicate his free time more in increasing his knowledge of his trade, rather than replying to some conversation threads in Plurk.  Or a London taxi driver will risk tarnishing a well-known legend if he spends his time in front of the computer instead of studying the streets of London until he knows it like the back of this hand.  Still, I am also of the opinion that even these kind of professions may gain a useful thing or two if they can dedicate a little bit of their time to socialize online.  Who knows, maybe our taxi driver may got a much newer and complete version of London map from his online contact.  The key is, knowing how much time do you need to spend, and act accordingly…

On the other hand, there are some professionals who absolutely need to be a member of some ( if not most of the ) social networks.  An obvious example would be web developers, programmers and writers.  Being a writer, I could tell from first-hand experience that you are only as good as your published works are.  These days, the fastest and simplest way to build your credibility is by publishing your work online.  If you’re good at what you do, people will recognize your worth and start bringing some projects in.  In this context, social networking helps by bringing a badly-needed traffic to your blog, – which is the place where you mainly write.

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So I hope it’s obvious by now that the question of how much should you engage in social networking will depend on how much your job need it.  This is not to say that it’s the only thing you should consider, though.  Blogger Deb of freelancewritinggigs.com publish some excellent criteria on this issue, which you can read here.

All in all, I believe that this is the main reason of social networking exists :  to help people gain edge in what they do.  Do so if it’s part of your job, but do yourself a favor and avoid the trap of idleness which almost always happen when a person is addicted to social networking….