Introduction

This book is about getting work done with social media and social networking technologies. This is what’s often described as the use of “an internal Facebook” or “Facebook inside the enterprise” — even though many of those who work with the technology have grown to hate the comparison as trivializing what they do.

What is true is that social collaboration products humanize the online workplace by putting a friendlier face on it. We get to know our online collaborators better in something like the way we get to know our Facebook friends and friends of friends. Public social networks are great for the joy of discovering a long-lost high school friend or making a connection with a favorite author. The business equivalent would be connecting with others around the company whom you may never have met in person but who share a professional interest or are willing to share tips and make helpful introductions.

The more expansive enterprise social networking platforms go far beyond cloning Facebook, also including tools for maintaining internal blogs, wikis, document repositories, and project workspaces.

Because this is a book about a category of software products and cloud services, rather than any single social collaboration platform, I can’t promise detailed instructions on how to perform every task or configure every feature, although I do provide examples.

Consider this your guidebook to what is possible with social collaboration and how to get the most out of it.

About This Book

This book is for social business strategists, community managers, and company leaders seeking to put social collaboration to work. I also want you to consider this a resource to share with others in your organization whom you’d like to give a basic understanding of the principles of social collaboration.

If you’re using the software, rather than driving the strategy for its use, I hope I can help orient you to use it more effectively.

There are many business uses of social networking, but Social Collaboration For Dummies specifically focuses on software and cloud services that make it easier for employees to connect with each other in productive ways. It’s about busting communications out of the e-mail inbox and turning them into corporate knowledge that makes the organization smarter. In a well-run, social collaboration network, everyone from the CEO to the new hire gets a better picture of activities from throughout the organization, plus the ability to network with others in specific professional disciplines.

I won’t tell you how to market your business on Facebook or respond to customer complaints posted to Twitter. Behind the scenes, social collaboration can be a tool for helping you do those things better. Internal and external uses of social media are complementary as part of a complete social business strategy.

Like every book in the For Dummies series, this one is designed to deliver information in easily digestible chunks, translating jargon and breaking procedures into simple steps wherever possible. As you read, you will notice a few standard typographical conventions:

Web addresses appear in monofont. This information is also used for Twitter handles like @davidfcarr. If you're reading a digital version of this book on a device connected to the Internet, note that you can click the web address to visit that website, like this: www.dummies.com.

New terms are highlighted with italics the first time they are used.

Foolish Assumptions

This book assumes some basic familiarity with consumer social media although I also explain some of its conventions (such as the use of hashtags) and how they apply to social collaboration for business.

I try not to make many assumptions about your familiarity with social collaboration software. I assume some readers will just be getting started with or planning for a social collaboration initiative. Others may have some social software in use, or even several such products, in which case I hope this book can be useful for developing a better strategy for using it effectively.

Although I tried to make the material in this book relevant to small businesses, some of the concerns I raise will be more relevant to large, complicated enterprises. Social collaboration can be useful for small businesses, particularly those that operate across multiple locations, or employ home-based workers, or forge virtual teams with contractors or business partners.

Multinational corporations may get even more value out of some key enterprise social networking applications, such as the ability to locate experts from throughout the organization and connect them with each other. At the same time, big companies must manage more complexities in terms of technical integration and regulatory compliance.

If I’m spending too many words on a topic that’s not relevant to your organization, you have my permission to skip ahead.

Icons Used in This Book

The Tip icon marks tips (duh!) and shortcuts that you can use to make social collaboration easier or more effective.

Remember icons mark the information that’s especially important to know. To siphon off the most important information in each chapter, just skim through these icons.

The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a highly technical nature that nontechnical readers can skip.

The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information about pitfalls and headaches to avoid.

Beyond the Book

This book is not the last word on social collaboration. It’s not even my last word. Here are the additional resources you can find online:

The Cheat Sheet for this book is at

www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/socialcollaboration

Here you’ll find a summary of the essential elements for social collaboration success.

Online articles covering extra topics are available at

www.dummies.com/extras/socialcollaboration

You can find significant updates from the world of social collaboration at

www.dummies.com/go/socialcollaborationupdates

Social software is a very fast-moving market, so there may be surprises like acquisitions of major players between the completion of the manuscript and its publication. If readers point out errors that the editors and I didn’t catch, this is also where corrections and clarifications will be posted.

Where to Go from Here

This book is addressed to those planning a social collaboration initiative, as well as those who are farther along in their journeys and striving to get more value out of social software. Depending on who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish, you may want to skip or skim certain chapters and jump ahead to others. Like all For Dummies books, this one is structured so you don’t have to read it in a linear fashion — you can start anywhere.

If you’re just getting started with social collaboration, start at the beginning so you understand the basics of what social collaboration, how it relates to public social media, and how the private business applications of social software are different.

For more specifics about how to communicate, build a productive network, and manage projects on a social platform, read Part II.

If you’re in the process of selecting a social collaboration software product or cloud service, you may want to jump ahead to Part III.

In Part IV, the focus shifts to ongoing community management, which is something that you should plan for from the beginning but which requires even more attention as an online community matures.

I included Part V because I expect this book to be read by CEOs, CIOs, sales leaders, and human resources directors, all of whom will have different ideas of what would make social collaboration useful to their organizations and all of whom have a different role to play in making it successful. If you are in one of those roles, that may be the chapter you want to read first. I’d recommend you read the other chapters in this section, too, so you will understand what the other constituencies in your organization are likely to want from a social platform.

The Part of Tens chapters and the case studies in the Appendix round out the book with tips and examples of social collaboration success. Honestly, I want you to read all of it, but I’ll understand if you don’t.

If you have a complement, a criticism, or a suggestion for further research, you can reach me at [email protected] or @davidfcarr on Twitter. Use #SocialCollaborationForDummies in tweets or the subject line of e-mail to make sure you get my attention.