Social Web: Getting the Job Done

In my last post, I opened the hood a little on CU Village's objectives for getting onto the social web. The question I left at the end, however, is how do these objectives tie to our strategies related to using the social web? So here is a quick summary of our social web objectives (what we want to achieve) and our strategies (how we are going to achieve those objectives):

Objectives		Strategies
Drive thought leadership		Keep customers abreast of current trends and issues Develop and identify best practices
Build better and deeper customer relationships		Provide easy access to training, resources and support Make client communications easy, meaningful and frequent
Enable and encourage collaboration and dialogue		Garner customer input on product development and customer service Cultivate an ongoing forum for sharing ideas

I am sure we'll be adding to and revising our strategies, but it is a start and meant to evolve.

In terms of who we want to reach, which is an important question to answer when developing a social web plan, we want to connect with you. We want to target those that truly want to leverage the web to serve their members, and play a role in driving the future of doing that.

What are the risks? We may get some critical feedback. No one may show up. We may make it easier for our competitors to find out what we're doing. We could stub our toe on our execution.

Is it worth the risk? A quotation from a recent Harvard Business Review blog post sums up the answer pretty well…

Hold the social web up as a mirror - look at yourself through the eyes of your customers - and you'll uncover new possibilities for growth and innovation that your reflected glory efforts can help deliver. (The Power of Reflected Glory Marketing, Alexandra Samuel)

…in other words, yes it is worth the risk.

Next blog post, I'll dig into the technologies and how we will be using them.