Understanding online communities, social media, social media tools, and social commerce are important to your business, and you need to spend some quality time using them to really get what they're all about. The power of user-driven tools lies in the using. Just reading about them, or spending an hour or two playing with them, doesn't do them justice; you've got to go hands-on to appreciate their power. Start a project, reap the benefits.
Social media tools generate increasing value (online sales and productivity) as the number of participants expands. They offer benefits that traditional business strategies, rigid IT software, and static web sites fail to address. Stay connected - RSS Feeds/Site Map
Social Network Software - Expertise Locator - Collaboration Platform - Knowledge Management - Community Software - Interactive Portals - Content and User Management - Open Innovation Platform - Classification Bookmarking - Idea Management - Multi-site Platform.
From IDC, "...self-service applications [social software] used by groups and marketing campaign teams; brand applications that focus on persistent customer engagement; and enterprise applications that provide more effective ways of working with customers, partners, and other external parties"
Image from Kathy Sierra,"User Community and ROI. Think about all the things a strong user community can do for you: tech support, user training, marketing (evangelism, word of mouth), third-party add-ons, even new product ideas. And that's not including any extra sales you might make on community/tribe items..."