The change in a way we communicate has also changed how businesses communicate with their clients. With social media being a large part of our everyday lives, businesses are trying to integrate and shift their means of communication. Web 2.0 provides more of a level playing field for inexperienced users that don’t know the ‘technical stuff’ which makes it easy to use for businesses.
An interesting Web 2.0 tool is Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects which are available for anyone to sign up or join. It is popular amongst small companies or even a group of friends with a great idea to share with the online community in hoping that they will fund them.
Some benefits of using Kickstarter:
- Firstly and most importantly, it funds your project.
- Increases visibility in the market place even before the product is launched.
- Communicates to a large audience and people that are also interested in funding a good project.
- Gets consumers involved. Active consumers are important and a large part of Web 2.0
- Increases company’s reputation
- A large database, open to many great ideas.
A great example of a kickstarter project is OUYA. They pledged for $950,000 and received a total amount of $ 8,596,475 with 63,416 backers supporting their great idea. They were very successful as they were 904% funded.
However, as Adam has outlined in his recent post, social media can be a double edged sword as it can be very unpredictable. Take the ‘#QantasLuxury’ twitter campaign that was not very successful as it backfired. There are many risks to social media especially if you don’t understand it completely. In this case, Qantas lost control of the situation with many negative comments about the company in a short amount of time. This not only harmed their reputation but it will also make them think twice about jumping into something too quickly without considering the consequences. The American Red Cross is another example of a social media ‘fail’. There was a rogue tweet on the Red cross’ twitter page shown below.
Unlike Qantas, the red cross recovered quickly by addressing the issue and even putting a humorous spin on it. Danielle states “Red Cross proved themselves not only smart about social media but brilliant when it comes to PR. Right away, they addressed the ‘oops’ honestly and with a sense of humor.”
Why is it that more businesses are using social media?
In my previous blog entry, I talked about how social media is a large part of how we communicate. If businesses don’t join the social media scene, it risks people not knowing your business, not being able to search it and not being able to communicate with people, reducing the current audience.The shift towards Enterprise 2.0 is not all that easy as there are many risks involved. Without acknowledging these risks may harm your company’s reputation but it is important that if we make mistakes, learn from it.
Stay tuned for my next entry 🙂
marayka 
nice blog and information my friend and good luck
check my blog
http://almaarri.wordpress.com
Very interesting post Marayka!
It is interesting to see how Qantas, in their rush, to enter the market, ended up with such a negative result where others have simply succeeded on their first try, as examples like OUYA clearly show. I found your Red Cross tweet a great example of how companies need to be always agile in this new media world. I wonder how this shift to Enterprise 2.0 and getting more consumers involved will change traditional marketing models and conventions.
Hoping to see more great posts!