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Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle

Categories: Social Media, Web Strategy, Web TheoryPosted on September 12th, 2007

Applying A Social Computing Strategy to a Product Lifecycle

Warning: For Advanced Strategists only
This is for the advanced only, not a company that is still trying to answer “what or why”. To gauge the sophistication of your organization, see this chart. Deploying this strategy without grasping the foundations of social media, the cultural changes it implies or testing trial programs will likely lead to failure.

You: A Social Media Strategist
You’re responsible for the direction of your online strategies for your company or organization, specifically using social media and computing tools to reach, connect, and build communities around your brand. Most folks at your company know this space is important, but don’t know how to do it, they are relying on your expertise to think holistically, integrated, and strategically.


[Think Bigger. Modern companies are already integrating efficient social tools in every announcement, launch, and event. The savvy strategists learns to use them in a holistic way]

Web Strategy Theory to know before you go forward
If you’ve not already figured it out, the corporate website is becoming less relevant, and web marketing (and support) has spread off your domain and google results. You also know that prospects trust the opinions of existing customers (who are ‘like them’) far more than marketers, as these communities of practice assemble, your brand is decentralized –embrace!

How did I learn this strategy?
First or second hand experience. I first learned about this from watching Robert Scoble and the famous Origami launch, a product that was deployed using many of these phases (although I’ve not heard of much of the product since) I then deployed this at Hitachi Data Systems (Shel has the story) for a few product announcements, they were smaller, but effective. Lastly, as the Director of Corporate Media Strategy at PodTech my primary purpose was to advise clients on these strategies. This strategy has been in my head for over 2 years.

1. Listening: The most important step
This is one of the biggest problems for communicators today, just like a real conversation, is learning to listen. Any savvy party goer knows to listen before jumping into a conversation at a cocktail party. Marketers, MarCom, Integrated Marketing, Advertising, PR, have forgotten (or never knew) that by listening to the needs of the market will help them to create more effective messages and then evolve into a conversation.

Tactics include: Creating a feedreader, and subscribing to feeds in your market, using a social media measurement vendor (see this list of companies), create an internal Air Traffic Tower, talk to customers, review support forums, (on your site or elsewhere) and find anecdotes from blogs showing market need. These ‘needs’ and problems that customers state they have will then be used in part 2 and 3.

2. Seeding: Conversations vs Messages
Marketers want everything to go “viral” (what I call velocity) but often fail to realize that by involving the community is one of the most effective ways in encouraging velocity. Engaging in conversations both public and private (embargo) gives ownership to the community. By using step 1 to understand members who have expressed pain in the market, those are likely candidates for involving in these discussions. Show them that you’ve listened to them, and you want them to be part of the solution and eventually the announcement and product.

Tactics include: Conversing with those in the market through comments, email, and other means, involving them. Example: I was a customer of Factiva (Dow Jones), I was using their Insight product, but found several flaws, I blogged it, they engaged, and they started to include me to lead a roundtable, product feedback, and eventually write a white paper with them. Also, many companies involve bloggers in an embargo, as they would want to break the news first and early. Treat bloggers, podcasters, and the like just as you would press and media.

3. BANG! The Integrated Announcement
This is where all cylinders fire together, collectively, and holistically. Depending on your tool set, all blogging, twittering, Facebook, media, and traditional marketing engines need to focus at the same time. The goal? Get the attention and trigger a discussion. Many of the tools should point to a single product blog or product webpage. The worst thing you could do? Link to a static press release. Press Releases don’t inspire and are designed to give information –not encourage dialogue or interaction. instead, point to your lead blogger, who could link to the press release and who will then introduce the product team, where there should be media to trigger a discussion, and let users ask questions in forums. Communications should let the market know that the product team is standing by to answer questions, and will be proactive, their waiting in the ‘conversation booth’.

Tactics include: Understanding how to ‘drop pebbles‘, using an integrated web approach, and engaging one’s community, overlays for events, use tools in a holistic method. Get familiar with the many forms of web marketing.


[Think bigger. Social Media and Computing applies to all stages of the Product Life Cycle, not just Marketing]

4. Hand off: The Product Experts step forward
This is where most social media strategies stop, but in fact, it’s where it should just start. At the BANG! the lead blogger or teams will point to the product group. The product group must be ready to stand by and ask questions in comments or forums. I’ve noticed the successful strategies will include media as a lead in, a video tour, demo, or audio podcast that provides a very human element. Many of the people who come to the product area will not stay, and that’s expected, this is the slide down the narrow funnel.

Tactics include: Product blog, Product forums, Media in the forms of Video, Audio podcast, animation. Product Managers will be using listening tools (section 1) to respond and converse with the market.

5. Filtering: Finding the real customers
As the initial hype from the announcement wears down, the real customers and prospects will emerge and get closer to the product team. These aren’t the analysts, media, press. An ongoing dialogue between the product teams and customers will occur. The product team should be releasing frequent updates, releases, demos, and be very receptive to the market. Update: This stage is a great environment for your company to identify the Tipping Point “Mavens” (from Trevor Speirs in comments)

Tactics include: Continue communication between product teams and customers. Encourage customers to take an active role in deploying products and promoting to prospects. Tools such as blogs, forums, and wikis will foundational. Enhance with an ongoing media series such as video or audio podcasts around best practices of product usage. Encourage customers to create their own media and promote in community. Strategic blogging comparing your product to competitors keep your brand relevant and ‘in the conversation’.


[Savvy companies will reduce support costs by encouraging customers to self-support each other. Collectively, they know more than the product team]

6. Customer Growth: Learning, and Supporting each other
Here’s where the real growing happens, as a thriving community around a product starts to assemble, while many customers never participate a small active group will contribute, and a slightly larger group will occasionally comment. The savvy product team will encourage users to self support each other, why? They collectively know more about the products than the product team. Lastly, there are cost benefits for customers to self-supporting, as well as research information.

Tactics include: Creating an online community platform that encourages customers to self support each other, and for product teams to learn, and help as needed. I deployed the HDS user forums at 4 dollars a week, it’s still thriving today. I setup a global team to watch the forums, keeping out spammers and addressing and alerting product teams to any critical issues. Also remember that support has moved off the corporate domain, a distributed strategy is needed.

7. Research and Development: Build the “Perfect” product
Now the fun starts. By including customers in the product development process using social media communication tools, product teams have the opportunity to build a product right to spec. John Schwartz the CEO of Sun Microsystems was quoted saying that “Intranets are an anachronism, they’re going to die” and that product teams of the future will collaborate with customers in real-time to determine the product needs of the future. Giving customers a sense of ownership will also pay off as you develop customer advocates who are more likely to want to purchase a product they helped to input or build.

Tactics include: Consider creating a voting or prioritizing feature, as it may be hard to justify weight of request on forums. See analysis of Dell’s IdeaStorm, which was also done at SalesForce and WebEx. Encourage customers to create a wiki, to support products, define future requirements. In person meetings, as well as reading what they say will continue to add datapoints.


[Reduce Research and Development costs, involve customers in the product requirements phase: they may advocate, buy more, and reduce sales and marketing costs]

8. Up Selling: “Of course I’ll buy it, I helped design it!”
Every product gets replaced, it’s the law of innovation. As customers are now part of the design process of a product, they’re more likely to purchase the product. Done correctly this could reduce marketing and advertising costs as well as excess inventory. Take Threadless for example, where customers design and rate products. Only highly rated products are created (T-Shirts) and are quickly sold out –little inventory, design cost, or support.

Tactics include: Encourage the voice of the customer to be as strong if not stronger in this phase. Customer References programs are being impacted by social media, so allow the positive (and negative) voices to be featured –you can’t stop it anyways. Reward customers who advocate your products, and engage those who detract, getting them involved, engaged, with a sense of ownership. There’s a variety of tools to use during this process.

9. End of Life (EOL): Product retires
Every product goes away and evolves into something bigger, better, and evolutionary. In this case, because the community of customers have been so close to the process of development for the next revision, many should upgrade to the next version. Support will continue to the products using the tools

Tactics include: Use social media tools to encourage users to learn about new products, in many ways, elements of the first few steps to get the word out to existing customers should also be used in the customer forums. Media and real customer testimonial (positive and negative) may be most effective.

10. Repeat Process:
Listening, conversing, and joining never end. The process to understand customers from their own natural and native voices will continue and the process will continue. It’s my vision that social media is an overlay to all announcements, products, across and up and down the enterprise.

Tactics include: Measuring success, self-awareness to continue to make the process more effective, and communicating internally.

Limitations: Please note there are internal communication strategies that involve social computing and media, this article does not address those. Secondly, measurement should be a core component of the whole process.


[The savvy Web Strategist will make communications more effecient, reduce support costs, and build a "perfect" product through customer collaboration using social computing strategies]

Was this helpful, leave a comment?
For additional resources, please review all my posts tagged “Web Strategy“, there are multiple pages.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Social Media, Web Strategy, Web Theory. 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.

73 Responses to “Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle”

« Older Comments

  1. Jeremiah Owyang demonstrates why Forrester hired him - …

    Jeremiah Owyang continues to demonstrate today why Forrester hired him with a great (and lengthy) post called “Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle”. Excerpting from the post doesn’t do it jus…



    2. Posted by Disruptive Conversations on September 12th, 2007 at 9:45 am

  2. This was quite helpful. It’s so true that marketers want everything to go viral, but miss that it’s much smarter and easier to get a community to make things viral or help you become viral, than it is attempting to spark a viral revolution on your own.

    In fact, now that the tools have caught up with the idea of community-driven velocity, I’m very excited about how small businesses will learn to leveraged their communities to help them get past that step. It’s a huge missing piece in the strategy equation, and seeing it mapped out will help companies go from being stalled at step 2 to completing the mission all the way up to step 12, and then go through the cycle over and again.



    3. Posted by Tinu on September 12th, 2007 at 11:51 am

  3. [...] Jeremiah Owyang has a good new post entitled Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle. [...]



    4. Posted by innovation Creators » Social media and the product lifecycle on September 12th, 2007 at 12:05 pm

  4. Jeremiah, Very nicely articulated. Wow!!!



    5. Posted by Rob Bain on September 12th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

  5. Jeremiah,

    I would argue that is probably the best post you have done to date, with all due respect to your previous posts of the past two years. :-)

    Seriously though, great job, well-thought out and nicely articulated.



    6. Posted by Jeff K on September 12th, 2007 at 3:26 pm

  6. BRAVO.. Nicely done & well articulated. I think the key is understand the length of this cycle & how that applies to the x-org needs in a company.



    7. Posted by Josh H on September 12th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

  7. WOW. This is an excellent article that addresses a broad approach to social media beyond the web marketing team and connects the dots between customer support and product marketing. Sending this to division managers… great stuff Jeremiah!



    8. Posted by Bob Duffy on September 12th, 2007 at 3:55 pm

  8. Analysts of social media…

    When Jeremiah announced that he’s joining Forrester, it got me thinking about how few analyst firms are writing about social media. You can’t turn around with bumping into Forrester, and Jupiter is doing some work, but the other big firms……



    9. Posted by The Net-Savvy Executive on September 12th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

  9. Jeremiah,
    Great post presenting a powerful model for Social Media Strategy. I discovered your site last week and have been impressed with the insight that you bring to this area.

    While I generally get involved with a broad range of issues in technology businesses that prevent me from delving too deep into any one area, your analysis of this area has confirmed many of my “gut” intuitions about the changing face of marketing. Thank you for creating this wonderful body of knowledge. It will definitely help me quickly implement social media strategies.

    I love your presentation of the concept and then suggested tactics to accomplish the concept goals. While I would like to add to your discussion, I am impressed with its thoroughness. The one thing I would slightly expand upon is that the 5th Filtering stage is a great environment for your company to identify the Tipping Point “Mavens”. Knowing who these people are and developing strong relationships with them will generate great returns for the business.

    Keep up the great work!



    10. Posted by Trevor Speirs on September 12th, 2007 at 4:13 pm

  10. Bob, Josh, Thanks, I really think Intel could implement this, you’re on the right track.

    Trevor, great points. I’m going to add that in and credit you.



    11. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 12th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

  11. [...] una estrategia social al ciclo de vida de un producto Veo en el blog de Jeremiah Owyang un interesante post en el que argumenta que las webs corporativas de las empresas son un recurso cada vez menos [...]



    12. Posted by Aplicando una estrategia social al ciclo de vida de un producto « genís roca on September 12th, 2007 at 5:38 pm

  12. Great stuff Jeremiah. A solid systemic look at how this fits into business objectives — well beyond the “hey it’s cool” crowd. I have some comments, but readily acknowledge that by making suggestions I am validating the usefulness of the model itself.

    In the real world of customers and products it’s a bit messier than the linear, single product world in the model. Customers often own many of a company’s products in different stages of their lifecycles. This means that the marketing strategy must give a consistent experience from the customer’s point of view. In other words, while it’s convenient for the company to strategize around it’s product schedules, customers don’t organize themselves that way. And of course it’s the customer’s orientation that wins every time.

    So one place where this is important is how the hand offs from one stage to another are handled as the company shifts the conversations in your model. This being “social” media we all take a liking to a particular person and want to hear what they have to say. When customers find a different person is leading the discussion only because the product lifecycle has clicked to a new stage, there is a risk of alienating some of the core customers.

    I would suggest that a company manage this by ensuring there are multiple voices over time that weave together into some continuity. There are natural roles that support this. Product specialists for example have a clear, tactical role in discussing the details. Senior execs are often more suited to information and opinions from a high level, casting a cross multiple products and lifecycles, but without the day-to-day utility of a product specialist. A savvy marketer can find several different roles to weave together for the customer, including vertical expert, ROI expert, strategy expert, installation expert, etc.

    Bottom line, society is complex and social media need to reflect that to stay relevant. A two-dimensional model of a single product lifecycle needs to be lined up next to several other such models at different stages in their lifecycles. With this view a marketer can begin to visualize how to engage with real customers’ real social and product needs.

    PS: don’t give away your best stuff until you can charge for it at Forrester. :-)



    13. Posted by DJHowatt on September 12th, 2007 at 5:58 pm

  13. DJ

    So glad to hear from you again, serious. For those that don’t know DJ, he’s one of those who have helped shape me in my career in marketing, is a nice guy, and races a MEAN go kart.

    1) You’re right, customer life cycle overrides any product life cycle, heh, that’s another post (stay tuned)

    2) Preferrede voice, yes, you’re right. In today’s modern marketing, the project manager or engineer could/should have a voice right along Marketing and communications. They may have a blog, podcast, video, or presence in a social site or forum. The favorite voices (like the community manager) is really a hybrid role –Scoble at Microsoft, Lionel at Dell, Josh at Intel.

    3) Yes, weaving makes sense, great idea.

    4) Yup, these models overlap, one product over another.

    I’m simply suggesting that social media be applied to EVERY phase of the life cycle.

    This is just a sample of what’s coming at Forrester: It’s possible I’ll be able to back it up with data, case studies, and detailed information for EACH of the 10 phases.

    ;)



    14. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 12th, 2007 at 7:04 pm

  14. Great one mate. I think it should be read by all to benchmark themselves on where they are.



    15. Posted by Sanjay on September 12th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

  15. Well, written. I might add a few things about how to integrate the product team and your users. First of all, go beyond the survey. Go beyond beta testing, because that is way late in the game. Get your users involved early on — show them an - easy - to read version of your product specs/requirements. Talk the requirements through with them. Share with them how you went about prioritizing certain features. And don’t leave them once you start developing. There has to be lots of back n forth with them. The same type of back n forth that goes on between your internal folks writing requirements and the engineers themselves. This is a difficult for companies to accept. Make them part of the process. This will help your ‘arm’ your evangilists too — they will know what to promote about your product. This is important because the best type of marketing comes from one customer telling another customer/prospect about your product. You probably know this but ‘engagement starts before the product launch, before kick off.’



    16. Posted by Wilder on September 12th, 2007 at 9:01 pm

  16. [...] Jeremiah Owyang has published an exceptionally detailed article tracking the different ways to engage in social media during a product’s lifecycle. [...]



    17. Posted by User First Web » Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle on September 12th, 2007 at 10:36 pm

  17. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle This is a great strategy guide for product announcements (tags: socialmedia strategy product announcements business) This entry was written by Jason Grigsby and posted on September 13, 2007 at 12:25 am and filed under Bookmarks. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle [...]



    18. Posted by User First Web » links for 2007-09-13 on September 13th, 2007 at 12:24 am

  18. Wilder thanks,

    It’s good to hear from the Quickbooks team, you guys are already living proof that this model works.



    19. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 13th, 2007 at 2:31 am

  19. Okay listen, Forrester man! This post got HUGE. It’s giant. It’s a white paper in a blog. It took a lot of reading to chew on it all.

    But seriously, this is SUCH a useful piece of work. I’m not in the habit of copy/scraping stuff to refer to offline, but this… I mean, this begs to be a separate PDF we can all download and store for eternity next to our other reasons why we do what we do.

    Wow. Great post, Jeremiah.



    20. Posted by Chris Brogan... on September 13th, 2007 at 8:02 am

  20. Chris

    The average time spent on this post was 5 minutes says Google Analytics for Sept 12th. Hopefully it was worth your time investment and you won’t ask for a refund!

    Feel free to PDF it yourself, just credit me and link back to this post prominently, thanks.



    21. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 13th, 2007 at 8:10 am

  21. [...] Owyang has a fantastic post on his blog that you should read and then print and post on your office wall. It is an easy to understand [...]



    22. Posted by Social Computing Strategy for Product Lifecycle - MotiveLab - Social Marketing Group on September 13th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

  22. This is really excellent intellectual capital. We need a lot more of this kind of dialog, over and above the constant buzz of latest news. I agree with DJ–it would be a great addition to this framework to add an overlay of the customer relationship lifecycle, from awareness and education, through satisfaction and advocacy, etc. It just gives a slightly different complimentary angle to many of the great tactical recommendations you make here.

    What I enjoyed the most about this, btw, is the tactical callouts at each stage. It’s always the gap between theory and execution that trips up consultants, and I think you go a long way toward filling the gap with “practical strategy”. Nicely done.



    23. Posted by Chris Kenton on September 13th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

  23. This really is incredible & very useful! I’m looking forward to the metrics overlay. Please? :)

    Thanks for the great info. As Chris said it’s worth archiving for future reference.



    24. Posted by Connie Bensen on September 13th, 2007 at 5:46 pm

  24. Great post. Really helps demystify social networks and how they can quickly create great products. Really nicely explained.



    25. Posted by Anna on September 13th, 2007 at 6:07 pm

  25. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle by Jeremiah Owyang offers the “online strategies for your company or organization, specifically using social media and computing tools to reach, connect, and build communities around your brand”. [...]



    26. Posted by Singapore Entrepreneurs ~ Venture Capital Funding in Singapore » Blog Archive » Entrepreneur Reads for the Day: 14 Sep 2007 on September 13th, 2007 at 10:03 pm

  26. Great read, incredibly informative.



    27. Posted by JIll Golick on September 15th, 2007 at 7:05 pm

  27. [...] has responded to my Social Computing for the Product Life Cycle post, which is a “How to”. In his viewpoint he asks a different question, he wants to [...]



    28. Posted by Innovation: The Mirror, Window, and the Door on September 16th, 2007 at 7:55 am

  28. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle A very comprehensive post about applying social media to every phase of the product life cycle. (tags: productmanagement marketing2.0 enterprise2.0 methodology) [...]



    29. Posted by links for 2007-09-15 | mad dog in the fog on September 16th, 2007 at 3:31 pm

  29. [...] meeting with the likes of  Robin Carey, Shel Israel, Giovanni Rodriguez, Jen McClure and Jeremiah Owyang.  I even had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of Etay Gafni a colleague of mine, [...]



    30. Posted by Accidentally on Purpose » Blog Archive » On The Road Again: Again on September 19th, 2007 at 8:11 am

  30. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle [...]



    31. Posted by ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon » This Week’s Links on Ma.gnolia on September 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 am

  31. [...] from the pie (it is hard to resist not press “mark all as read”), but I found an interesting post by Jeremiah Owyang on advanced social media strategies. Definitely worth a [...]



    32. Posted by MartinKloos.nl » Blog Archive » Some interesting advanced social media strategy… on September 25th, 2007 at 11:20 am

  32. [...] en el blog de Jeremiah Owyang un interesante post en el que argumenta que las webs corporativas de las empresas son un recurso cada vez menos [...]



    33. Posted by Aplicando una estrategia social al ciclo de vida de un producto at genís roca on September 30th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

  33. [...] the social network space, Jeremiah Owyang, wrote a great piece that included a detailed section on listening: This is one of the biggest problems for communicators today, just like a real conversation, is [...]



    34. Posted by Learning to Listen « Fluent Simplicity on October 9th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

  34. [...] A social computing Product Lifecycle Jeremiah Owyang [...]



    35. Posted by It’d take a lot of it to make a man laugh… » Blog Archive » Harnessing Web 2.0 for results on October 12th, 2007 at 10:34 pm

  35. great thoughts - however, the effectiveness and accuracy of social media are still questioned by many and have really undermined the impact of Media 2 on strategist?



    36. Posted by Free Market Research Tool on October 22nd, 2007 at 5:17 am

  36. Great post! Clear, concise and comprehensive. Many compliments.
    As you hint in your limitations “disclaimer”, this scratch the surface of social media impacts on product lifecycle, it does an great and useful analysis on one of the three kind of “collaborations” (maybe “conversations” in social media terms?) you find in product lifecycle, the one between the product group and the customer. Maybe the most important, but overlapping and integrating with two other kind of collaborations: the one internal to the core product group and the one with the other external stakeholders, like suppliers and partners.
    Putting at the center the “Product” as the collating element (any kind of product, from software to services to cars, etc.), the adoption of social media strategy and tools to support processes and organizations cooperating with customers, internally and with partners may create a fascinating Enterprise grade social network allowing to disrupt current processes, organizations and technologies used in product lifecycle management. For example, current market leader PLM systems such as those from Siemens/UGS, SAP, PTC, Oracle/Agile, typically used to support PLM in manufacturing companies do not integrate with a social media based strategy for product development. They simply were not designed to, and are too complex and based on pre-social media assumptions (e.g. 100% IP protection, projects segregation, complex organization and workflows management, etc.) to be updated. Of course they won’t disappear and there are companies and products requiring this kind of management, but I think there’s space for different, more innovative solutions.



    37. Posted by Eugenio on October 24th, 2007 at 12:00 am

  37. Great points Eugenio, Enterprise 2.0 software can help with this, sadly, I doubt we’ll see any product contenders in the near future, I guess I’m seeing waaay far out.



    38. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on October 24th, 2007 at 3:47 am

  38. Nice post. However, I think there’s a tricky part of EOL that you didn’t mention, Jeremiah: when your product undergoes a major upgrade and those who felt such ownership suddenly feel like the product is no longer the thing they fell in love with.

    I’ve encountered this a lot. I try to find out what they feel suffered in the update and see if we can’t amend that in the product, but sometimes it’s just the feeling that “it’s different”. I’ve had people say they’re going back to the unsupported old product because they like it better.

    Aside from attempting to pull all the good parts (and none of the bad parts) out of your old product, what else can one do in this situation? I’m rather stumped.



    39. Posted by Evan Hamilton on October 27th, 2007 at 5:08 pm

  39. Evan

    Sometimes change is hard, in fact many users will hold on to what is familiar, it’s human.

    One potential tactic is to involve them in the upcoming version so they feel a sense of ownership.

    Some product managers make small, iterative changes so the EOL is never felt until you step back.



    40. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on October 27th, 2007 at 9:11 pm

  40. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle If you’ve not already figured it out, the corporate website is becoming less relevant, and web marketing (and support) has spread off your domain and google results. (tags: strategy socialmedia web2.0 social business marketing) [...]



    41. Posted by links for 2007-10-28 on October 27th, 2007 at 10:24 pm

  41. [...] include customers and prospects in shaping better products and services, I’m all for it (and have written about it extensively) and am in the position companies to [...]



    42. Posted by How to give Feedback to brands using Social Software on November 22nd, 2007 at 9:15 am

  42. [...] article intéressant de web strategist sur l’utilisation des mécaniques sociales web pour l’amélioration continue des [...]



    43. Posted by Left-Right-Brain » Blog Archive » Le marketing social appliqué au cycle de vie produit on December 3rd, 2007 at 10:27 am

  43. [...] al blog de Jeremiah Owyang un interessant post on argumenta que les webs corporatives de les empreses són un recurs cada cop menys relleant per a [...]



    44. Posted by Aplicant una estratègia social al cicle de vida d’un producte at genís roca . cat on December 7th, 2007 at 5:22 am

  44. since you are making me add this …

    I have been in product management and product marketing, for more than 15 years. I agreee with what you present. But, also recognize that the general concept is not new. Yet, despite your intenit, this is truly more geared to product marketing. Product management is about understanding the market, and building products to solve their needs. Product management is about positioning to these needs, product marketing is more about the promotion of that position.

    While the same general principles of this approach can be applied to product management, it needs some revisions to cleanly fall within that discipline.



    45. Posted by Jennifer D. on December 20th, 2007 at 9:01 am

  45. [...] Applying a Social Media Strategy to a Product Lifecycle [...]



    46. Posted by MyTechnologyCompany.com | MyTechnologyCompany Library on January 8th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

  46. Corporate websites aren’t necessarily trustworthy locations — think about what the consumer thinks about various health insurance websites. Anthem Blue Cross to Kaiser to Tenet- they are all playing the same game and using the same rules.
    They don’t want the consumer involved either– they just want to feed them some medicated drivel and let them do their thing.
    However for the rising star sectors or companies that need visibility, that want to build a better mousetrap as well as a lasting relationship with their customers/clients/consumers, it’s a smart move.
    However, be prepared for the re-tool of certain changes that will require further product/program tweaking. You have to aim for the highest common denominator as well as address the lowest common denominator. Ignore both and you miss something. IMHO of course.



    47. Posted by Stevie Wilson on April 26th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

  47. American airlines - rail ticket….

    Alaska airlines ticket reservations. United airlines ticket. American airlines ticket prices. Airlines ticket auction. Airlines ticket prices. China cents airlines ticket. Airlines ticket….



    48. Posted by Southwest airlines award ticket purchaser. on June 9th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

  48. Wow, thanks!



    49. Posted by Chris Rottler on June 19th, 2008 at 6:15 am

  49. Jobs for 16 year olds…

    linked this one for my blog…



    50. Posted by jobs for 16 year olds on June 27th, 2008 at 8:32 am

  50. What’s interesting is that the grassroots movement or getting a community to talk about a product is not a new trend. It’s been around for 10 years and had as big an impact (called the lemming effect in some circles) because consumers/people would talk on message boards/forums/newsgroups about a product– positive/negative or ask about a product and someone would answer.
    This effect or behavioral pattern isn’t new but some marketing people had discounted it as forums became more redundant and as some fell apart and disappeared. However if you want to see one in action that’s HIGHLY effective, look at makeupalley.com. Not one of the first of it’s kind but one that benefited from and encouraged the engagement of the readers/participants in talking/rating/reviewing products– both in forums and reviews.
    If you look at how long ago that forum was started and add about 4 years to that (as there were– and still are in some cases– forums, message boards and online magazines that did this), you have a time frame for that sort of commonality of what I call grassroots discussion and the products/brands going viral or picking up velocity.



    51. Posted by Stevie on July 10th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

  51. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle - One of the most helpful posts I've seen from social media guru Jeremiah Owyang. [...]



    52. Posted by Mickipedia » Blog Archive » Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle on July 10th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

  52. Very rich, informative, and well written Jeremiah.. I look forward to your next post!



    53. Posted by Donovan Roddy on July 11th, 2008 at 3:38 am

  53. I must say, it’s an excellent post. I love the points in #8. I’ve just been reading “Selling Blue Elephants” and it’s all about RDE.

    This totally backs up the strategies that I’ve been integrating into our application and how we’ve started to role out our products in the last 6 months.

    I see this method, combined with a product launch strategy that is also engaging on a social loop level, the only way that things will be marketed in the future.

    Companies that are not already practicing this type of engagement strategy with their clients will quickly be left in the dust.



    54. Posted by Web Strategy Expert on July 18th, 2008 at 7:56 am

  54. Thanks WSE!



    55. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on July 18th, 2008 at 7:57 am

  55. [...] The application of Social Media to Web Strategy. [...]



    56. Posted by PuneTech » Reading list for startup-founders on October 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

  56. How is it I missed this when you first posted it? This is a terrific strategic view into social media for business use. It’s exactly the way I’ve been thinking about it for a long time as well. Hopefully companies can manage that critical hand-off between marketing and product dev. I personally love holistic approaches to using tool sets — its why I tend to call it social computing tools instead of just social media, because to me, the “media” part isn’t a complete idea on usefulness.



    57. Posted by robin seidner on October 8th, 2008 at 7:52 am

  57. Thank you for pulling this all together Jeremiah. This is a very logical and well-planned process. I am currently trying to develop a similar process/strategy with one of my clients who, as a major pharmaceutical company, are bound by regulatory restrictions.

    For most products, your strategy seems spot on. For regulated industries, there are more hurdles to overcome.



    58. Posted by Scot on October 8th, 2008 at 8:21 am

  58. [...] Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle [...]



    59. Posted by Random Thoughts 10/09/2008 - New Comm Biz - New media strategies for business on October 8th, 2008 at 11:59 pm

  59. [...] Applying Social Computing to the Entire Product Life Cycle: If you’re thinking about social media for marketing only, you’ll need to expand further. [...]



    60. Posted by Reccomended Web Strategy Reading on October 18th, 2008 at 12:50 am

  60. Awesome!

    “This is just a sample of what’s coming at Forrester: It’s possible I’ll be able to back it up with data, case studies, and detailed information for EACH of the 10 phases.”

    Really looking forward to this. Currently trying to impress the values of social computing to my company. It’s an uphill battle but I am patient and have faith that the core values the company practices within towards their employees could evolve into an outward facing strategy towards the public.



    61. Posted by Adam Gershenbaum on November 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

  61. Adam, I do have examples for each of those, real case studies.



    62. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on November 8th, 2008 at 1:56 am

  62. Jeremiah,

    I found the time over the weekend to look through the links you’ve included in this post. Can’t ever say it enough - your insight is always valued! I’m really glad I came across it!



    63. Posted by Adam Gershenbaum on November 11th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  63. Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle…

    Company’s that are social media savvy should leverage social media throughout the entire life cycle of a product. Jeremiah Owyang provides excellent examples on how to accomplish this….



    64. Posted by thewebmarketinghub.com on November 12th, 2008 at 6:58 am

  64. Jeremiah,

    Shouldn’t THE goal of applying a social computing strategy to product lifecycle be to shift thinking AWAY from “a perfect product” to “a platform for a product ecosystem”? That’s what the most successful “products” become.

    The product vendor “seeds” the ecosystem with a product that can be extended, enhanced, configured, integrated, etc. in myriad ways, ie a product platform. And the community then creates the ecosystem around it.

    Offerings like Windows, Linux, SugarCRM, World of Warcraft, Chumby, iPod, and Firefox comes to mind.

    Your vision of “[I]ncluding customers in the product development process using social media communication tools, product teams have the opportunity to build a product right to spec” seems overly centralized and hierarchical. Sort of like the Windows model: tell us where you want to go and we (MSFT) will take you there.

    I think Firefox is one of the furthest along in decentralizing and flattening the evolutionary structure of a product. Much of FF’s evolution is driven by 3rd party addins that the FF team then incorporates into the FF core.

    There is no perfect product for everyone, but there are great product platforms for enabling community members to build the products that are perfect for them.



    65. Posted by Nick Gall on December 1st, 2008 at 12:50 pm

  65. [...] 1, 2008 in UncategorizedTags: social computing Just read Jeremiah Owyang’s blog entry on social computing strategy and trying to map it to some of the activities elsewhere (…) But [...]



    66. Posted by Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle « Jonwinterbourn’s Blog on December 1st, 2008 at 2:00 pm

  66. Great post Jeremiah. I have been watching this space emerge over the past decade in manufacturing (real products, not just bits ;-) and it is amazing to see how far its progressed in the last 24 months.

    One thought on item 7: there is alot more opportunity out there for real innovation here. Social production of software has shown the way: let the users write the code. For manufactured products that means giving users design tools to let them shape the product they want to buy. We’ve seen glimpses in things like the Mazda 3 facebook design challenge last year. I guess all I wanted to add was that there is more that text to the ide of user and designers working together!

    Keep up the good work and really interesting posts.



    67. Posted by Chris on December 1st, 2008 at 6:16 pm

  67. [...] organization, in fact, nearly two years ago, I created this graphic in 2007 which demonstrates how social computing can be applied across an entire customer lifecycle. Maybe you noticed that in 2009 your CIO will start to sniff out the different business departments [...]



    68. Posted by Webinar: Social Media Across the Enterprise on January 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 am

  68. [...] in the wall’ then I’d say Twitter could definitely be your drill.  Here’s a post from Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang (I highly doubt that if you’re reading this you [...]



    69. Posted by Is Twitter Knowledge Management? « DfM on January 28th, 2009 at 10:32 pm

  69. [...] read Jeremiah Owyang’s blog entry on social computing strategy and trying to map it to some of our activities elsewhere (…) But [...]



    70. Posted by Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle » Only Connect on March 4th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

  70. [...] Chris Brogan shows how you can Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes (essential for creating what Jeremiah Owyang calls a “listening post“) [...]



    71. Posted by Your Own Digital Media Dashboard | getSocialAdvice on March 25th, 2009 at 4:26 pm

  71. Я уже сегодня писал вам по поаоду продажи (цены) вашего домена. Но зашёл из дома провреить вш оревт, а своегоо комментария так и не обнаружил. Видимо, я его как-то не так отправил, или у вас спам-фильтры зарубили мой комментарий, я на всякийф случай поменял указаннеы е-мейл, ник и сайт, вдруг они не нравятся вашему фильтру.



    72. Posted by pr1de on April 26th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

  72. [...] Objective - Highlight quick changes that can be made to lead the organization to a long-term change [...]



    73. Posted by A Summer Internship in Social Media Stratetgy | benphoster on May 4th, 2009 at 8:06 pm

  73. “Listening: The most important step”
    This is more often overlooked by marketers…
    It’s very important to “REALLY” listen to your consumers and know what they “REALLY” need. Get feedbacks and respond to it.
    This is a very informative and great article!



    74. Posted by New Media Strategies on June 9th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
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