Wednesday, April 13, 2011

B2B social media - Communities in Medical Industry

I have been researching:
  • Should a B2B Medical diagnositics company start a professional community site for a group of users? Within this are questions:
    • ROI of social media, specifically
      • ROI of professional community sites
        • Direct Revenue from site
        • ROI from increased sales as a result
        • Other measures which influence sales
          • Increased Brand image, Trust -> customer retention
          • Increased Trust -> increased customer testimonials
        • Decreased Customer support calls, 
        • Increase in marketing data collection at decreased cost
        • Increase in ability to hold and record conversations with end users
      • ROI of other B2B social media (facebook, twitter)
      • Costs of implementing
        • Community site
        • Other social media program costs
    • Examples 
    • Concerns about regulated industry what can be done


B2B, Medical and Lifesciences diagnostics;  case studies and best practices examples

ROI 
Compendium on ROI case studes http://barnraisersllc.com/?p=2504
Community sites: 
presentation on why brand communities? Benefits:
http://www.slideshare.net/agentwildfire/it-takes-a-community-to-raise-a-brand-not-a-campaign-presentation

  • Vitabotics ROI from community site
    http://www.freshnetworks.com/case-studies/social-media-case-study-vitabiotics 
    • The UK's leading health supplement manufacturer used social media to learn more about the health and beauty needs of their customers.  Created a community site with forums, blogs, beauty experts to answer questions. 13,000 community members, 1000 women apply for product trials which get a 95% completion rate.
      • learn more about customers
      • find customers to test and trial products and get feedback
      • Promote products to target audience
      • Responses from customers feed into new product development
    Platforms

     Jive is used by Cerner (ucern), Netapp, Charles Schwabb
    see book
    The 2020 Workplace - in depth discussion -
    Company Goals, commmunity, transparency, collaboration -"bottom up" culture
    "community gardners" - from corp learn ing who moderate. Internal launch 2009 - point systems. helpful employees get points from participating online which leads to + performance reviews. system is integrated into workflow not separate.
    http://www.jivesoftware.com/# 
     
    Netapp community http://communities.netapp.com/index.jspa

    Charles Schwabb http://activetrader.schwab.com/research/TradingCommunity.aspx
    trading community. "Share ideas, ask questions, and find ways to improve your trading - plus network, socialize, and learn from other Active Trader clients, Schwab and third-party experts. "

      Customer Development for Startups

      What is it?  It's a way to develop a new product/startup through frequent interaction with your likeliest early customers.


      Bottom line, it's based on the radical idea that you can find out more about "the market" for your "product" by getting out and talking to customers than from complex market research. And it gives hints and structure for these conversations.

      It focuses on the "pain" the product meets (the use) - And on narrowly targeting the "earlyvangelists" (people dying to use your product) for these conversations.
       

      Some concepts:
      • Lean Startup


      Some people:

      Some links 


      Unrelated, but since this post is on startups - On 5 slide venture pitch
      http://knowledgeissocial.com/365-days-10-million-3-rounds-2-companies-all-with-5-magic-slides/