In 2005 BusinessWeek published a cover story titled “Blogs Will Change Your Business.” Blogs, according to the article, were to be the great equalizer that could give any employee a voice potentially more powerful then the entire public relations department. The authors further warned that your customers and competitors were already learning this blogging stuff and that those who didn’t start to blog would be left in the dust. They had no idea how right they were, or how many people would take notice.

The article was a sensation, attracting loads of visitors, tons of links, and even a few professors using the article as required reading. To this day performing a Google search for “blogs business” reveals that same old 2005 BusinessWeek cover story as the number one result. While most companies would give their right arm to have top ranking on a highly searched Google term, BusinessWeek had a problem; in the last three years the world of blogging has transformed beyond belief, and more problematic then that, social media had far outgrown the narrow confines of simple blogging.

So what’s a magazine to do to preserve the hits yet give relevant information? Update the article of course! “Social Media Will Change Your Business” is the new and improved version of the 2005 classic that has expanded its reach to encompass all of the new media that now dominates the internet as well as the fantastic changes to blogging itself.

Obviously a lot has changed in three years so to highlight the changes in the two articles, the June 2, 2008 issue of BusinessWeek features the article “Beyond Blogs” to fill us in on the three year progression into social media.

As it turns out, blogging wasn’t the only technology to come about and revolutionize the internet. In the past three years sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and MySpace have come from nowhere and developed into dominant properties with millions of users and some major high-stake backers.

While only about one fourth of adults read a blog every month according to new a study by Forrester Research, many more people are excited to communicate virtually through networking sites, videos, pictures, and the million other ways that continue to spring up every day. This means that it is now up to companies not just to establish blogs, but also all sorts of social media to keep up with the Joneses so to speak.

One company that has thoroughly embraced this new social media is the British telecom company BT. Employees there are encouraged to keep up wikis that operate on the same technology as Wikipedia. However, instead of editing the Beatles encyclopedia entry so your name is next to Ringos’, their wiki lets employees post and edit on the site to “write software, map cell-phone base stations, [and] launch branding campaigns.” Everyone from senior engineers to interns has the same access to the site, and employees from around the world can access the wiki to collaborate on projects.

BT has also launched a Social Network in the hopes of bringing the “value of the water-cooler conversations” to the internet. J.P. Rangaswami who runs technology at BT says that the company now has the ability to “understand what these relationships are, how information and decision-making migrate. We see how people really work” This will allow them to pinpoint the people who will work well in teams as well as the people who are transmitting ideas throughout the company.

Best Buy is another company that has used social networks to great effect. Their Blue Shirt Nation network has more then 20,000 active participants and in a company with 60% turnover, the network boasts a turnover of only 8.5%. In addition, a promotional drive on the site helped persuade 40,000 employees to sign up for 401(k) retirement accounts.

The article warns that while these social networks are incredibly useful, the quieter employees could fall through the cracks while those who network, create buzz, and promote their brand surge ahead.

Even the blogging world, the lynchpin of the 2005 article has changed significantly and not followed predictions. Then they expected the old media sites to learn the tricks of the trade and be surrounded by small niche bloggers. However with the advent of “megablogs” with paid staff such as TechCrunch and GigaOm as well as aggregating sites like Techmeme and Digg, the old guard have been pushed aside in favor of these new blogging giants. In fact some of these new blogs arguably have more power then even large newspapers and magazines.

Read the 2005 article Blogs Will Change Your Business

Read the updated 2008 article Social Media Will Change Your Business

Read the June 2 cover story article Beyond Blogs

If your company is ready to get started with Blogging or Social Media BizGrowth Search Engine Solutions can help, click here to contact us.

Tags: Blogging, business blogs, Social Media Marketing, social networks

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Blogging, Social Media Marketing . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.