The New Way to IPO

In my role at Jive, I’m responsible for the head-spinning job of doing social media marketing for the social business leader. In other words, up until recently, my parents had no idea what I did for a living. But that all changed when I helped market Jive’s IPO.

The core philosophy of our social program at Jive is to Engage Employees, Engage Customers, and Engage the Social Web in order to help accomplish real business objectives. This mantra came to life as we reached a major corporate milestone. I’m always preaching that we should “Jive on Jive,” so I wanted to share with you a brief case study of how we used our own products to accomplish a New Way to IPO.

Engage Employees.

Marketing Enablement. As you can imagine, an IPO takes lots of internal coordination and collaboration between executives, finance, legal, marketing, etc. It was key to be able to find the people, content and expertise needed to coordinate this important event, so we utilized our own software. Additionally, using out-of-the-box features in Jive, we were able to centralize knowledge and set strict privacy controls. These measures ensured that only key employees and outside legal and financial contractors could discuss and stay updated on the IPO progress.

Executive Communications. During major checkpoints throughout the process, such as filing the S-1, the Jive executive team including our CEO, CFO and Chief Legal Counsel provided key updates to the entire company through their internal blogs. Each post simultaneously reached our 400 employees around the world and enabled them to comment in real-time with any questions or thoughts.

Corporate Culture. Jive wouldn’t be Jive without a little fun. To celebrate listing on the NASDAQ, our internal community manager and designers launched a fresh new theme. This was an easy and fun way for employees around the world to see the impact of the IPO.

Engage Customers

Jive Community. At Jive, we know this exciting day wouldn’t have been possible without our awesome customers; therefore, we paid tribute to them on the Jive Community. From the huge thank you banner to showcasing their tweets and videos, we wanted to celebrate with our community. Jive’s CEO Tony Zingale wrote a corporate blog post announcing the news, we had a livestream to the opening ceremony (as well as a YouTube video for those who missed it), and a place for the community to discuss the IPO.

In-Person Event. We also realized that as much as we love doing everything online, there is no replacing face-to-face interactions. Therefore, we invited key community members to be onsite at NASDAQ. They live blogged the event, recorded time capsule video messages, and celebrated with by toasting each other and Jive executives.

Engage The Social Web.

Social Media Monitoring. Throughout the entire IPO process, we used Jive’s social media monitoring application Fathom Pro. This tool enabled us to mine the social Web for corporate mentions; identify key influencers and PR opportunities; and quickly uncover conversations impacting the brand. We were also able to analyze the effectiveness of product campaigns during the quiet period.

Social Media Marketing. Obviously, one of our business objectives was to share and monitor the exciting news; however, this was more than a public relations campaign. We also wanted to bridge the physical and digital worlds so that we could thank and celebrate with our entire ecosystem of employees, customers, partners and investors. Since we couldn’t bring everyone to the Big Apple, we decided to bring it to them. We created a unique Twitter hashtag for the occasion – #jiveipo – and invited folks to join the online conversation. We gathered, moderated, and then displayed tweets on the 7-story NASDAQ building in Times Square. We also had a livestream video display so that people could see themselves appear in Times Square and share it with their social networks. Beyond the marquee, we posted live updates to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that included rich-media like photos and YouTube videos ( Jive Lists on NASDAQ – Opening Ceremony – YouTube).

Obviously, this social effort required the help of all-stars throughout the company including executives, the internal and external community managers, designers and developers, marketers, etc. And as an end-user of Jive since 2007, this was an extremely special day for me personally. I was thrilled to be able to showcase the power of Jive during an awesome event. Comment below with your questions and feedback!

Music + Social Business = Love

Everyone says, “I love music” but I REALLY love music. I own more than 2k CDs, and last year I saw exactly 88 live performances.

Part of my obsession stems from years of watching Austin City Limits on PBS. I still remember the first time I set foot in the original studio as a student at The University of Texas and my first show there-Corrine Bailey Ray.

As you can image, I was  thrilled when the social media club asked me to participate on a Social Business Panel on the ACL Stage! I was joined by all-star performers:

• Kat Mandelstein at IBM
• Will Staney of VMware (which recently acquired Socialcast)
• Jean-Claude Monney of Microsoft
• and the CREATOR of the Social Business Council, Susan Scrupski

Even though I love evangelizing the new way to work, this particular event had me a bit nervous for the following reasons:

1. Austin has the biggest SMC behind San Francisco.

2. I would be on the same stage where Willie Nelson got his start. I couldn’t mess this up!

3. The panel was filled with some of my closest professional contacts, yet we all work for competitive solutions.

But when I walked into that studio, all of my anxiety went away.  I saw the lights from the fake, out-dated, Austin skyline and realized this was an amazing opportunity for a music-lover like me to talk about the thing I’m most passionate about – social business.

After I got the first question, “What is Social Business?” I settled into my chair and had a blast.  Not only was I extremely proud of the way I represented the company that I’ve loved since 2007, but I learned from my fellow panelists, got to network with innovators, and helped people just starting off on the amazing social business journey.

Thanks, Social Media Club Austin for an awesome event!  You can watch a recording of the panel here. (It starts about 10 minutes into the recording).

SXSW 2012 Proposal – Social Pangea: Bridging Public and Private Communities

“Who OWNS social media?” This is a question that has come up on every SXSW social media panel for the last 5 years.

In most enterprises, social media is broken apart. IT drives internal collaboration; support and product marketing manage branded communities; and PR and marketing gurus handle the conversations happening in popular outlets like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.  However, the online continental plates are shifting.

Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Do you know what Pangea means?  That’s correct – it’s the supercontinent.

While several companies continue to fight internally, others building Social Media Supercontinents to not only force technical integration, but to make a measurable business impact by connecting the conversations inside and outside the firewall. They are connecting private employee communities with public customer communities with consumer social technologies.

If chosen, this session will feature real-world case studies of winning organizations that fully-integrate and design processes to facilitate expertise-sharing in order to improve customer loyalty, employee retention, sales, marketing, and product development.

Also, feel free to watch this video of me discussing Social Pangea at the Austin Social Media Breakfast.

Social Business Survey and Infographic: 83% of Executives Leverage Social for Work

As a data geek, I was super happy when Jive announced the results of our 2011 Social Business Index report.  Penn Schoen Berland, which was commissioned by Jive, conducted a study May.  The company surveyed 301 executives, 301 working millennials and 300 general knowledge workers at both large (1000+ employees) and mid-size companies (500 – 999 employees) across various industries.

We identified three key findings:

• Social Business is a top executive strategic imperative;
• App Stores are gaining traction in the enterprise; and
• Email usage is growing but is not solving communication challenges in the enterprise.

Today, I’m going to focus on Finding #1: Social Business Is a Top Executive Strategic Imperative.

The study showed that Social Business is increasingly becoming a strategic initiative for enterprises, especially among executives and millennials. Over half of the executives interviewed believe that their companies would face moderate to high risk if they failed to adopt a Social Business strategy.

Specific findings include:

• Sixty-six percent of executives believe that social applications for business represent a fundamental shift in how work will get done and how companies will engage with customers;
• Fifty-three percent of executives believe they must adopt Social Business or risk falling behind;
• Sixty-two percent of executives cite the potential to achieve “better customer loyalty and service levels” and 57 percent anticipate “increased revenue or sales” as a result of implementing a Social Business strategy;
• Sixty-two percent of all respondents think that businesses need to leverage social software inside and outside their organizations in order to remain competitive;
• Online communities are an important source of information for making purchase decisions, especially for millennials. Fifty-four percent of millennials said that they are more likely to rely on and make purchase decisions from information shared via personal contacts in online communities versus 33 percent more likely to use information from “official” company sources; and
• Eighty-three percent of executives leverage at least one social network for work use.

Despite the urgency around Social Business, only 17 percent of executives think that their companies are “ahead of the curve” in terms of adequate adoption of a social strategy. A closer look at company sizes included in the survey reveals that executives at mid-size companies are more confident in their social strategies than executives at large companies.

For more information on the survey, view this press release. 

Do these results surprise or confirm your beliefs?

Voice of the Customer Conference

Last week, I met with several Voice of the Customer professionals and customer intelligence experts at the Allegiance Engage Summit in Park City, Utah. One of the highlights of the day (beside SNOW IN MAY) included a presentation by author and former Apple chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki.

I wanted to share with you guys, Guy’s keynote address based on his latest book “The Art of Enchantment.”  He provided attendees with creative ways that businesses can become more likeable and trustworthy while engaging customers and winning more business. He pointed out that companies should “remove the speed bumps” and make it easier for customers to do business with them.

Here is a shortened version of his presentation I found online: