Week 10 Blog: Enterprise 2.0, Return on Investment & What You Need To Know

Hello internet and welcome to my blog.

So here we are my final blog.

This week we covered the Return On Investment (ROI), with a case study focusing on social technology implementations. For this week’s blog we were asked to:

“Your task this week is to identify and discuss an additional ROI case example on your blog. What is your view on how ROI was calculated? Did they include all the tangible and intangible benefits? What are the strengths and weaknesses of their approach?”

The Case Study

I’ve chosen to focus on a case study of Cisco’s use of social listening through the use of Salesforce’s Radian6. Reportedly Cisco achieved a ROI of 281% annually from their endeavour, which is nothing to sneeze at. The case study can be obtained from here.           

The Tool

So you mite be wondering what social listening is exactly. It’s exactly as it sounds, Cisco employs the use of techniques to monitor social mentions  of the company and then formulate methods of harnessing this new found information, from assigning experts in the field to leas with users to taking advantage of business opportunities that may not have been available otherwise. In this case they have standardized their platform by implementing Radian6 enterprise wide.

The Benefits

So Cisco wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if benefits hadn’t been readily apparent. In the case study benefits have been separated into three different categories, direct benefits quantified, indirect benefits quantified and benefits not quantified.

Direct Benefits Quantified

To begin with we have the direct benefits; these for the most part involve financial savings. This includes; less creative agency fees, requiring less staff for listening centre operation and avoiding the need for paid surveys.

Indirect Benefits Quantified

Next we have the indirect benefits. This includes; a boosts to customer relations, a boost to employee productivity and a better customer insight.

Benefits Not Quantified

Finally we have the benefits that weren’t quantified yet are still apparent. This includes; increases to profit gained through social media mentions and returns from partner engagement and retention through social listening.

ROI Calculation

Now it’s time to have a look at the actual Return on Investment calculation. First lets have a look at the financial data.

For the purposes the ROI I’ll be focusing on assets and costs under the annual benefits, the depreciation schedule and the expensed costs categories.  The equation for ROI is (((Gain from Investment) – (Cost of Investment)) / Cost of Investment) x 100. For those that don’t want to read the wall of text a diagram has been supplied directly below. So for Cisco’s ROI we take the total annual benefit which is equal to 6,527,250 and minus the cost of the investment which is equal to 1,711,575 which equals 4,815,675. Now we divide that result by the cost of the investment which is equal to 2.81 and finally multiply it by 100 to acquire the ROI which as stated in the case study is 281%. The cost of the investment was a combination of both the values from the depreciation schedule and the expensed costs categories, this initially was confusing due to inaccuracies while trying to reproduce Cisco’s projected 281% but once the depreciation schedule was brought into the equation it made a lot more sense. 

((6527250 – 1711575) / 1711575) x 100 = 281%

Now if we have a look at the financial analysis provided in the case study we can see a few things. Firstly, we can see that much of the ROI percentage is derived from the non-direct benefits with direct benefits only supplying a ROI of 68%. And secondly we can see that the payback period will be less than half a year, which in the case of big business is major benefit.

Thoughts on ROI

From my point of view I believe that all of the tangible benefits have been defined and used properly for the calculation of the ROI. My only issue was with the ROI calculation in that while the benefits were obvious the costs could have been better defined or a mention of the use of the depreciation schedule could have been helpful.

Final Thoughts 

So that’s it for my final blog. Feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments and I’ll leave you with this week’s food for thought.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

Reference:

http://www.cisco.com/

http://www.salesforcemarketingcloud.com/products/social-media-listening/

Week 9 Blog: Social Media & Monitoring Tools

Hello internet and welcome to my blog.

So here we are blog number seven. For this week’s activity we were asked to:

“Step 1: Select a brand or organization that you are interested in monitoring. The organization could be your case study for assignment 2. Other members of your team might look at similar or competitor organizations. Alternatively, choose any organization that you are interested in.

Step 2: Perform an analysis using one or more of the free tools that you can gain access to.

Step 3: Write a reflective blog post describing your experience a) using the tool(s) that you used and b) presenting any interesting insights that you found from your search. Are there any recommendations that you would make to the organization?”

The Company

So, for the purposes of this blog I’ll be focusing on Riot Games[1], creator of the one of the worlds most played online games, League of Legends. League of Legends is a MOBA style online game. In 2012 League of Legends had approximately seventy million unique registered users with approximately one billion hours of game play occurring on a monthly basis.

The Monitoring Tool/s

With a player base numbering in the millions more than enough social media usage will be available for testing. Having experimented with a number of the freely available social media monitoring tools including, Topsy[2], Socialmention[3] and Addictomatic[4] I decided to go with Socialmention. This choice was based on Socialmention’s readily available statics that could be used to gain a better understanding of the chosen company’s social media standing.

The Analysis

Okay so now for my results. By using Socialmention to analyse Riot Games social media standing I was able to obtain these results.

As can seen in the results there are a number of different categories to look into. To begin with there are the four different measurements, strength, sentiment, passion and reach. I’d like to provide a small explanation for each.

Strength – The likeliness of being discussed in social media.

Sentiment – The ratio of positive to negative mentions.

Passion – The likelihood of repeated mentions by an individual user.

Reach – The measurement of range of influence.

Below those four categories are a few additional statistics regarding time frames, authors, re-tweets and the sentiment distributions.

Okay so, from the results we can see a number of things. To begin with, both Riot Games strength and passion are approximately a quarter a piece, meaning they are being mentioned a quarter of the time while a quarter of those mentions will have been made by a repeat author. Next we can see that their sentiment ratio is equal to 3:1 meaning they will receive positive mention more often than negative mentions. However as can be seen in the sentiment distributions portion of the stats a far greater number of mentions will be neutral over both positive or negative. Next we can see that their reach is 48% meaning they have a wide range of influence. Next we have the time frame stats. Here we can see Riot Games is mentioned on average every 6 minutes and their last mention was 2 minutes ago at the time of the analysis. From this we can see they’re mention on a regular basis. Finally we have to authorship stats. From the results we can see that there are 238 unique authors and that Riot Games have been re-tweeted 19 times.

My Experience

Okay now for my thoughts on the experience. From my use Socialmention I found the services GUI to be extremely user friendly. By simply entering the companies name and selecting the appropriate categories I was able to gain enough information to form an opinion.

While most of the stats provided were generally straightforward I found that one stat in particular was slightly miss informative. I’m talking about the reach stat. I imagine that it would display demographic info, geographical and age groups for instance. However it was a simple measurement of unique authors divided by total mentions. Which I found to be be far less helpful than demographic information would have been.

All in all I found my experience with Socialmention to be positive and would suggest it to other if they had need of this kind of service.

Final Thoughts

So that’s it for this week’s blog. Feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments and I’ll leave you with this week’s food for thought.

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens” ― Jimi Hendrix

Reference:

[1] http://www.riotgames.com/

[2] http://topsy.com/

[3] http://socialmention.com/

[4] http://addictomatic.com/

Week 8 Blog: Enterprise 2.0, Social media, an insight

Hello internet and welcome to my blog.

Another week, another blog. So for this week’s blog we’ve been given the task:

“This week’s activity requires you to select an organization from the Professional Services Sector (e.g. accounting, advertising and marketing, architecture, management consulting, engineering, IT, legal, and scientific research services).

For your chosen organization: identify and discuss how they are using a blog, twitter, or a wiki to enhance their business. Make connections to the relevant value levers associated with implementing Enterprise 2.0 as published by McKinsey Global Institute, 2012. You should not copy any case examples directly (word for word) from the McKinsey report or from any other source. This must be your own writing and your own creative input. Hint: this week’s reading may be useful for this activity. Create a blog post that briefly describes your selected organization and reports on your findings.”

The Company

The company I’ve chosen this week is none other than Burns and McDonnell [1]. The company is a supplier of a wide range of services including engineering, architecture, construction, environmental and consulting solutions.  They were established in 1898 and have since gather 3600 employees with a wide range of disciplines.

Burns and McDonnell use a wide range of social media including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and their own blog. Here’s a video of their thoughts on the matter.

For the purposes of this blog I will be primarily focusing on their usage of Twitter and their blog. Similarly to last week’s topic the professional services sector has a number of value lever associated with it. There are in all ten levers falling under five different categories. For this blog my focus will be the “Using social technologies for marketing communication/interaction” lever and the “Use social technology to match talent to tasks”. For further reading you can refer to the report published by the McKinsey Global Institute titled “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technology” p 82-92. It can be easily accessed through Google.

Using social technologies for marketing communication/interaction

Though Burns and McDonnell are over the one hundred year mark they have still kept up with the times. Having established their presence on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn; even taking it one step further by establishing their own blog. Each of these social outlets has provided a number of opportunities for Burns and McDonnell.

First and foremost, communications. The Advent of social media has provided them with an invaluable collection of channels for communication both within the professional and public community. To establish such infrastructure could have the potential to cost millions of dollars and hundreds of hours in labour. This has enabled Burns and McDonnell to convey a number of articles with relevance to their field through Twitter, Facebook and their blogs as well as communicate with others.

Use social technology to match talent to task

The true value of social technology for Burns and McDonnell comes with their ability to attract the attention of potential talent. Each communication channel acts as a portal for both potential customers and employees. For instance their YouTube channels features a number of videos featuring interns of Burns and McDonnell covering their experiences with the firm. This could act as a decider for anyone wishing to apply for a position. By harnessing this powerful tool Burns and McDonnell are reaching a much larger demographic for employment at a much smaller cost. Additionally their use of LinkedIn has provided them with a much stronger platform to scout and approach potential candidates.

So that’s it for this week’s blog. Feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments and I’ll leave you with this week’s food for thought.

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” -Abraham Lincoln

Reference:

[1] http://www.burnsmcd.com/

Week 7 Blog: Enterprise 2.0 and the Social Sector

Hello internet and welcome to my blog.

Blog number 6 already how time flies. So for this week’s task we were asked to:

“This week’s activity requires you to select an organization from the Social Sector i.e. a nonprofit institution and non-governmental organization (e.g. foundations, social service organizations, cultural institutions, and advocacy groups, social movements).

Create a blog post that briefly describes your selected organization and how some of the value levers may apply (or are being applied) to your chosen organization. Feel free to think creatively with the application of the levers.”

The Company

The non-profit organization that I’ve chosen to use for this week is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or RSPCA for short.

Now for a little background information, their mission statement which can be found on their website[1] a long with a plethora of other information states their intention is “To prevent cruelty to animals by actively promoting their care and protection.” They are as previously mentioned a non-profit organization depending on public donation while receive small subsidies from government funding; requiring $30 million annually. They maintain facilities in each of the eight Australia states and territories offering services through animal shelters and animal refuges.

The Value Levers

Okay now onto the value levers. To begin with I’d like to briefly cover the value levers being discussed. In all there are nine levers which can be grouped into four different categories. For the purposes of this week’s blog I will be focusing on two specific value levers. Firstly the fundraise value lever which falls under the mobilize resources category. Secondly I will focus on the educate the public value lever which falls under the execute mission category.

Fundraise Lever

Okay, starting with the fundraise value lever. Now, what is it that a non-profit organization needs the most? Funding of course. Without it the RSPCA wouldn’t be able to provide many of their services or even be capable of operating. This is where their reliance of public and private funding comes in. With a required 30 million dollars a year to simply operate their is a definite need to raise public awareness of their organizational needs. This has  been achieved through a number of ways including a web presence through social media as well as TV, radio and Internet based advertisements.

There is however one particular draw back to this strategy, desensitization. We as a public see these advertisements day in and day out and eventually tone out to their significance. If RSPCA were to adopt a some-what more aggressive approach through social media they could generate more public awareness, leading to a potential increase in donations. This approach has several key benefits, a reduction in advertisement costs as well as a potential for a greater amount of exposure. You can read about this in more in depth manner in the report published by the McKinsey Global Institute titled, “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technology” p 101-110. It can be easily access through Google.

Educate the Public Lever

Now it’s time for the educate the public value lever. As mentioned in the previous discussion social media has the potential to reach a far greater audience than older methods such as TV and Radio. With this in mind it could be considered the perfect delivery system for educating the public. By utilizing a social media strategy the RSPCA could spread their animal welfare message much more rapidly than depending upon older media and with luck generate a wider supportive community. This method also has the potential to reach a younger demographic with today’s youth being focused on social media.

So that’s it for this week’s blog. Feel free to leave any thoughts in the comments and I’ll leave you with this week’s food for thought

“No one has ever become poor by giving.” – Anne Frank

References

1 – http://www.rspca.org.au/

Week 5 Blog: Legal Risks, Enterprise and You

Hello internet and welcome to my blog.

This week’s activity was centred around the legal risks that organizations must take into consideration regarding social media. For this week’s task we were asked to cover:

“create a blog post describing your selected organisation (its sector, their business, services etc…). Using the concepts introduced to you in the lecture, and also the reading and additionally those that you can find yourself, identify some of the applicable legal risks for your chosen organisation. Justify why those risks are particularly relevant (e.g. risks for QUT could be different than that of a Dental Practice) and provide scenarios of how some of these risks could apply and what the organisations Social Media Policy should attempt to address.”

Before I start on my analysis of the organization I’ve chosen I would like to cover the actual legal risks as briefly as possible. In all there are five different risks that need to be considered, confidential information, wrongful dismissal, statutory risks, occupation and organisation specific risks and reputation risks. For further reading on the subject refer to DUNDAS LAWYERS article on the subject. Now onto my analysis for this week.

For this week’s task I’ve chosen to cover an organization that deals with large volumes of both confidential and personal information on a daily basis.

The organization’s name is Healthscope, it’s a private health organization that has a presence through Australia. With more than fifty facilities throughout Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam the sheer amount of sensitive information being generated and store is no joking matter.

So let’s start with confidential information. To begin with, in this case there are at least three different kinds of confidential information involved, the personal information of customers and patients, the billing details of customers and information pertaining to patients. Now considering the sheer amount of information involved, a breach of confidentiality could be potentially cataclysmic in many ways.

To begin with, with such a wide network of locations the volume of financial information is large enough that should its security be compromised you’re looking at possibly millions of dollars in losses. This would have a negative impact on public image/reputation. It would also require large amounts of time and resources to recovery lost assets, law suits and ensure such event can never transpire again.

The same can apply to confidential information pertaining to customers and patients. While there may not be a monetary impact initially, it will again affect public image/reputation. The same repercussions would ensue, time and resources for legal issues and fixing problems.

 Next I will be covering the issues of occupation and organization specific risks and touch lightly on statutory risks.

Occupational risks will always be present and can never truly be defeated. There are two kinds of issues, those incurred by people and those incurred by technology. They can also work together to form a series of unfortunate events.

In this situation with such a large organization a wide network of computer will need to be in use. Here we have our two issues, the people and the computers.

The issues with people can range far and wide from unknowingly opening a malicious link in an email  to deliberately misusing privileges to leak information. Statutory risks are created by the people, these involve legal matters such copyright, privacy, discrimination, etc.

The issues with technology can range from incorrectly configured security settings to providing users with access to potentially malicious websites. Many of these issues can be solved through staff training.

Finally we have the reputation risk. Now, how would you feel going to a hospital knowing that there have been issues with patients and malpractice? You would avoid it like the plaque. That’s why such an issue could be considered disastrous for Healthscope.  With Health care and any other industry reputation is everything, you can’t continue with a great big X against your name.

This could arise through any number of channels, complaints from customers/patients, incidents being published in news, or users flaming you in online forums/social media for entire the world to see. Such events can be perfectly avoidable with appropriate business strategies.

Now for the all-important discussion about the use of a social media policy. A social media policy (SMP) is a set of standards used to convey the organizations expectations regarding employee’s use of and conduct within social media. By appropriately organizing a SMP Healthscope could potentially achieve a number of goals including: protect confidential information, limiting negative behavior of employees through social media both in an official and unofficial manner and address a number of other statutory risks.

So that’s it for this week’s blog. Feel free to leave any thought in the comments and I’ll leave you with this week’s food for thought

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.” – Galadriel

Week 4 Blog: Enterprise 2.0, Social Technology Value Levers and Blizzard Entertianment

Hello Internet and welcome to my blog.

For this week’s blog we were asked to:

“Create a blog post that briefly describes your selected organisation and how some of the value levers may apply (or are being applied) to your chosen organisation. Feel free to think creatively with the application of the levers.”

I’d like to start with a brief overview of the levers. In all there are five value levers, Product development, Operations and distribution, Marketing and sales, Customer service and finally Business support. For this blog I will be focusing mainly on Customer service with a minor focus on Marketing and sales.

The organization I’ve chosen to feature in this week’s blog is none other than Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard is responsible for three successful franchises, the Warcraft series, the Starcraft Series and the Diablo series, each carving out their own place in gaming culture.

From a social media standpoint, Blizzard from its early year embraced it with open arms. Even going so far as to implement their own platform in the shape of Battle.net during 1996. Currently battle.net provides users with access to each of the gaming franchise communities which include expansive forums for interaction with both staff and community members.

Now to touching upon the value lever Customer service. Blizzard’s strategy for customer service can be seen as a two tiered operation. At the base we have the communication channel that customers can use. There are a number of ways customers can come in contact with Blizzard. These include customer support pages, in-game chat services and forum access. This is achieved all through their own platform.

Their use of social media isn’t limited to just their propriety platform, this is where the second tier is established. They maintain a number of accounts across social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. For each site they maintain a number of accounts, one for general purpose of Blizzard and several other, each linked with a game franchise. This services to not only provide a larger number of communication channels for customers but also provides a certain amount of separation of franchises.

Now for a brief look at the value lever Marketing and sales. Blizzard’s approach to marketing their franchises through social media has been vastly dependent on appealing to pop culture and then allowing users to spread it. A prime example of this would be their World of Warcraft commercial featuring a number of celebrities. These celebrities included Mr T, William Shatner, Verne Troyer and Ozzy Osbourne and featured the catch phrase “What’s your game?” They begin popular, eventually being parodied by community members. For further reading refer to Know your meme.

That concludes my review of Blizzard Entertainment’s use of social media. As always feel free to leave any thought in the comments. Finally here’s this week’s food for thought.

“No King Rules forever, my son” – Terenas Menethil II

Week 3 Blog: Enterprise 2.0 in Practice

Hello Internet and welcome to my blog,

For this week’s blog I’ll be starting by providing answers to the questions asked in the comments of last week’s blog.

djcoonan asked “Can you give some examples on how to bring the community to you to increase your readership? What is a good method of confidently widening your reader-base?Additionally, could any of these methods possibly create a negative response to your digital profile?”

Some very good questions. There are a number of ways to extend your readership, the main method mentioned in last week’s blog was to network like there’s no tomorrow, however I didn’t elaborate greatly on the topic at the time. There’s the age-old method of visit a wide range of other content and painting the comments red with your links, however this method may garner your digital identity a negative image.

A great example of this would be the situation created within the YouTube community by the “reply girls”. The situation was created by their abuse of the response system and would eventually create a community movement against them. The issue shows the extremes of a negative digital identity. For further reading on the topic info can be found here Social Time and here Know Your Meme.

Now replies are a great way of starting out, but exercising moderation is a definite. A more positive and community friendly method of gaining attention would be to collaborate with other up and coming or established community members. Also simply asking established users how they broke through will work but again exercise moderation, no one likes being pestered continuously.

Conor Farne Sang asked “So I take it from the finishing notes that you’re perhaps a PC gamer and a fan of Tolkien’s work (and perhaps someone who is more of an RPG/Fantasy genre fan as a result)? Why not share some of your interests with us? Any favourites?”

So, starting with my gaming habits. I dabble with both World of Warcraft and Guildwars 2, wow for its story and Guildwars 2 its action oriented game play. I also enjoy both League of Legends and Borderlands 2 for their social aspects. Regarding books, I favour fantasy oriented series but don’t mind reading works by Matthew Reilly. One other exception I made was the Hunger Games series due to its parallels to the film of a similar concept, Battle Royale.

Okay now onto this week’s topic. For this week’s blog we were asked to cover

A. Using a mix of resources (library databases, online, social networking platforms), identify further examples of companies using Web 2.0 to achieve enterprise objectives or organisations using Enterprise 2.0 principles in a significant way. See if you can find at least 2 new ones. Discuss these examples in relation to the Wikinomics business models presented in lecture 3 i.e. Peering; Being Open; Sharing; Acting Global and / or Andrew McAffee’s SLATES (Search, Links, Authoring, Tags, Extensions & Signals)

B. Continue to read and comment on a reasonable proportion of class blogs.

Now before I cover my two selected organization I’d like to familiarize you with the concepts of both the Wikinomics business model and Andrew McAfee’s SLATES.

The Wikinomics business model employs four key concepts:

Openness – This entails a transparent business model allowing the public to see much of the inner working of the business from process to financial standing. Of course there is a line to be drawn when it comes to up and coming products and prototyping. This is of course a double-edged blade in that secrecy of particular product prototypes could have either positive or negative effects on the businesses public and corporate image.

Peering – This involves a certain level of networking/collaboration with other corporation to act in the best interest of all involved. There can be both positives and negatives to this approach however. On the positive side, more minds from many different areas will enable many more opportunities for everyone. On the negative side there is the opportunity for espionage along with the group responsibility should negative events transpire.

Sharing – This goes hand in hand with both openness and peering. This involves providing access to material or materials in the possession of the corporation to other ranging the public to competitors.

Acting Globally – This involves removing boundaries in many areas including geographical, corporate and walks of life. By doing so many more opportunities have the chance to present themselves.

Andrew McAfee’s SLATES stands for:

• Search – Search technologies
• Links – http linking, Mashup Technologies
• Authorship – Wiki, Blog, Rich text
• Tags – Tagging, Social Bookmarking
• Extensions – Intelligent System Recommendations
• Signals – Feeds – Atom, RSS, Alerts

For a more in-depth read on SLATES refer to  “Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration” by Andrew P. McAfee online.

The first business I’ve chosen to feature is Ebay. Ebay, one of, if not the most recognizable online auction site provides services to users that more than adheres to the four concepts of the wikinomics business model.

• To begin with we have openness, throughout the site users are notified of any fees and terms well in advance, as well as notification of any changes that would impact users.
• Secondly peering, this is achieved by providing users the ability to communicate with the company for issue resolution as well as providing feedback. Users are also able to communicate with each other, which links with the next point, Sharing.
• Users are able to write reviews and provide feed back on their interactions with other users which lends back to Ebay’s openness. Ebay also provides users with suggestions for items they may be interested by extrapolating information from user browser trends.
• Lastly Acting Globally. That’s the biggest perk of Ebay, as long as the user has uninhibited access to the site they are capable of transacting with users from across the globe.

The second company I’ve chosen to feature is Martell Home Builders. The house building company initially depended upon realtors to facilitate business but have since adopted the use of social media heavily to enable a more direct connection between themselves and the customers.

While the company isn’t acting global they have adopted a supreme stance regarding peering, sharing and openness. To begin with each client is provided with a Client Login. This enables clients to work closely with the company to facilitate a positive experience while constructing their home. This also provides a clear amount of openness.

From the very beginning Martell Home Builders provide clearly understandable quotes on pricing and the timeline of the build with no hidden agenda.

To top it off they have adopted the use of their very own blog on the site as well as other social media including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube allowing client to have many easily accessible methods of communication.

On a finishing note to do with comments, at the beginning of each week’s blog I will address any questions from the previous weeks comments.

Finally I’ll leave you with this week’s food for thought and feel free to leave any of your thoughts in the comments.

“Every flight begins with a fall.” – George R.R. Martin

Week 2 Blog: What Makes a Blog Successful?

Hello Internet and welcome to my blog,

For this week’s blog I’ll be exploring the all-important topic of:

“The task for this week is to extend community knowledge on what makes a blog a success and to introduce your blogging strategy.”

So, what makes a blog successful? There are page upon pages upon pages spread throughout the vastness of the Internet that tell us a lot on this subject, some say one thing, some say another. But you’re on this page, so here’s my opinion on the subject of what makes a blog ‘successful’.

Firstly, a blog needs to have a topic that users want to hear about. There’s no point in producing a top-notch comprehensive blog on something that has no community interest. However this hurdle is easily come by implementing the next point.

Networking, that’s right, don’t wait for the community to come to you, it may never happen. Bring the community to you. By creating a far reaching web of contacts throughout your community you’ll maximize your blog’s exposure and in the process generate the all-important community interest.

Lastly, connect with your readership. By creating a sense of connection through your writing you will hopefully entice readers to keep coming back. You should take this even further by opening communication channels through social media.  This will in turn further grow your communication network mentioned in my previous point.

So, enough about what makes a blog successful, it’s time to cover what I hope to achieve with these continuing blogs. I will be posting at minimum a weekly blog covering the topic provided by INB346, and if the need arise maybe more. Any thoughts and constructive criticisms may be left in comments and will be taken  on board with open arms.

Lastly I’d like to mention a blog site that I discovered while looking for news and opinions on a subject I have a great deal of interest, MMORPG’s namely World of Warcraft. The site WoW Insider provides up to date info on pretty much everything you’d want to know from a wide range of bloggers. I believe it’s successful due to the approach of providing up to date opinions from relatable writers.

Finally I’d leave you with some food for thought and feel free to leave any of your thoughts in the comments.

“Little by little, one travels far” – J.R.R Tolkien