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Thursday, July 2, 2009
Inside Social Media
Social media is about building relationships
MHT's Galen Moore: New 'hyperlocal' web trend
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: Tech companies may have to wait for stimulus funds
MHT's Efrain Viscarolasaga: How social networking is changing business
The marketing group at Ciena Corp., a provider of optical network infrastructure equipment, discovered that other departments had information that they needed, but that there was no natural way to share that information. “As a marketing organization, we are super sensitive to the fact that the marketing environment is shifting,” said director of web marketing Naomi Marr. The company needed to know more about its customers and partners, including partners who were following Ciena on Twitter and Facebook. It turned out that the sales department had the information that marketing needed. “In their traditional role, they were getting access to these people,” noted Marr.
Ciena set out to extend its social media capabilities, starting with a partner network. The Maryland-based company checked out a variety of social media providers and selected Mzinga Inc. of Burlington. The partner network launched in November with a goal of collecting profiles on 100 partners in one year. Marr said Ciena exceeded that goal well ahead of schedule.
Ciena serves up targeted blogs and provides discussion boards on topics such as doing business with enterprises and working with government agencies. The number of posts by partners may not be overwhelming, compared with popular consumer-oriented forums, with just a few posts each week. However, each post provides Ciena with an opportunity to engage that partner. “In this space you really have to put as much time in responding to content as creating content,” said Marr.
If a post is controversial or highlights a problem that Ciena has to address, a cross-functional team can escalate the issue and fix it, she said.
Marr can’t put a number on how the network may be helping sales — the company’s sales cycle is long — but she is confident that it’s helping with brand awareness and is enabling the company to build stronger relationships.
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