Guest Post by Anne Gentle

Meeting business goals with emergent social software, this is Enterprise 2.0. As a technical writer, do you doubt that Enterprise 2.0 can happen where you work? Consider this. Even the most influential and gate-keeping newspapers now allow comments alongside their strictly styled, investigated, and copy-edited content. A browser sidebar from Google called Sidewiki enables annotation on any page on the entire web. Traditional technical communication may not have enabled readers to talk about the content or talk to each other alongside the content, but the times (and The Times) are changing.

You Are Here

Across the software industry today, writers are proving their worth by aligning with business values such as education, training, customer support, presales, marketing, or development. We seek our fit into the overall content strategy in any organization. Some of us are the content strategy advocates in our organization. But social media is sometimes a public relations role, or a marketing role, even though our content has a place on the external website and could be strategically integrated into the overall website. Social software can be overwhelming and a time sink without knowing how to narrow down the choices. Without a strategy, it seems like a hit or miss proposition. Make a map from business goals to social software to get there.

Where is There?

Enabling content creation or content curation through social software is no simple undertaking, nor is it the right fit for every organization. Depending on the business goals and key performance indicators for your success, you can discover where “there” is. For customer support content, responsiveness is important as well as customer satisfaction. For education and training, the amount of time a user spends with a learning product, or how often they share it with others can indicate success. Only you know where “there” is for your success factors. Certain qualities for your content will help you achieve nearly any business goal, such as those in the following list.

Searchable

Searchable content can be listed when searching with major search engines and is available on the Internet. Google’s home page is the first page users go to prior to finding the answer to their question from your content. Also, once a user is in your content collection, search within a smaller set of content may be critical to their success. Searching is easy, finding is hard. Make finding as easy as possible.

Shareable

Due to the economy on the social web where reciprocity and reputation are highly valued, and the currency is attention paid in links and time spent on a site, shareable content means that users can participate in the exchange of links for motivation or payment.

Sociable

Sociable content is interactive, conversational, engaging, and increases a sense of community or belonging when participating on a site. Sociable content works well when customer loyalty or lead generation is important.

Syndicated

Syndication means that a user can subscribe to content updates that are important to him or her. Syndicated content puts the user in control of how much information they receive and how they use it, whether it’s on a mobile device such as a smart phone or in their email inbox. Syndication can work well in a development or support environment when notification about the latest updates is crucial to the business.

Getting There

To find our place in Enterprise 2.0, technical communicators should understand that social media and collaboration is a part of our job to provide a content offering from their company. By approaching the enormous potential of the social web with Enterprise 2.0 in mind, we can make it manageable and avoid time sinks. Getting to know customers through the social web is a good first step. We can also participate with customers on the social web as appropriate. Finally, building a community or platform that enables content sharing and collaboration is the ultimate reach and influence builder for your content. Content that is shareable, sociable, searchable, and syndicated can go far and wide on the social web, helping customers meet their goals, and companies reach theirs.

About the Author: Anne Gentle is the author of the book Conversation and Community, The Social Web for Documentation. She also writes a blog JustWriteClick about Technical Communicators.