There’s no doubt that today’s retailers are scrambling in their pursuit of ’social’. The idea of having a direct relationship with a customer and knowing their preferences, interests and social graphs is too great a marketing opportunity to pass up. But has social commerce taken off yet? Are people actually buying anything through social media? An infographic from Argyle Social spills the beans.
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
Yammer, a favorite social productivity tool here at Social Times, has just announced their fantastic 2011 results with a large infographic. We can see that they have 85% of the Fortune 500 as clients, and they’ve tripled their sales growth since the beginning of 2011. Pretty crazy stuff, but not unbelievable considering the strength of Yammer’s product.
I remember when I first heard the buzz about this “LinkedIn” social network. I imagined some upstart entertainment social network that would help me keep ‘up to date with all the in stuff going on in my community’. As the buzz continued to grow and the term started getting thrown around more and more, I checked it out, and was surprised to find a neatly organized and clearly focused social network dedicated to connecting professionals. It almost immediately made sense to me — here’s a place where I can develop my professional online persona.
With all of the new media tools at their disposal, organizations have more opportunities and face more challenges in engaging their employees than ever before. Engaged employees are valuable, as they care more about their company and are more likely to see their work as an investment rather than simply a “job”. This can lead to increased employee loyalty, commitment and productivity. A new survey of employee engagement practices reveals some interesting statistics about the tools that businesses are harnessing – and the ones they are overlooking – in order to engage their employees.
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Jive Software is one of the fastest growing Social Business Software companies in the world. Communication has been drastically altered with the advent of the social web, rendering traditional corporate communication, both internal and external, archaic. Social Business is a concept that has risen out of the emergence of the social web and indoctrinates new ways to engage employees, customers and others out in the turbulent waters of the social web. Helping manage these processes are social software providers, with Jive coming out on top according to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Social CRM, 2010. Read more after the jump.
