Two Strategies for Putting Enterprise Social Media within Everyone's Reach

When Jive Software recently announced its new SBS platform, Dennis Howlett at ZDNet raised the issue of user adoption: in many organizations, it's difficult to get users to contribute content to social media platforms. Usage patterns typically follow a 1/9/90 rule. About 1% of users contribute heavily. Another 9% contribute periodically, while 90% of users lurk, reading content, perhaps, but not contributing any content of substance.

How can social media platform vendors overcome the 1/9/90 habits of the crowd?

One approach, which most vendors are taking, is to make the platform interface richly featured and easy to use. These vendors hope that rich features will spur the creation of rich content, which in turn will make enterprise 2.0 dashboard indispensible—that is, the dashboard will become one of the few windows users always keep open on their desktops. These vendors are taking other steps, too, such as offering consulting services to train users and inculcate useful social-media habits.

Another approach, complementary to the first, is to use widgets to embed social media platform interfaces in Web applications, such as Gmail, that are popular with users. Social media start-up Socialcast is following this route.

This second approach makes sense. Certainly it can't hurt to put access to the platform . If my Socialcast interface is right there in Gmail, I'm more likely to post something to it, perhaps in response to something I've just read or sent in email. I don't have to switch windows. The gadget lowers the amount of work, including context-switching, I have to do in order to use the software.

Socialcast has widgets for a few major applications available now. Many more coming soon in their next release. I look forward to seeing what they come up with and how their user community responds.