Enterprise 2.0 – Hear Me Roar!
In the modern world of business, it has been seen as a new step to introduce social media into your businesses day to day use.Adoption of social tools by enterprises was predicted to be exponential.
But how easy is it to adopt enterprise 2.0?
The reality is that adoption has been surprisingly patchy even by knowledge intensive organisations, however, there have been many strategies in order for organisations to combat and successfully tackle this issue.
I shall be using the Brisbane Roar Football Club as relevant example to those football lovers. The Brisbane Roar aim is to build a successful business, as a club and team, to do this they need the support of their fans – just like a retailer needs their consumers.
Doing this they got their fans involved, in creating and redesigning the club. Using social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, forums, opinion polls and Youtube, they have been able to communicate with their followers.
Using the the methods stated above the Roar have evaluate how they can improve the club, boost crowd numbers and improve the satisfaction levels of fans.
Youtube has given the fans an opportunity to get to know the players, as the Roar have posted a “Getting to know you” videos that have enabled fans to ask the players some questions.
Twitter has enabled the Roar to communicate with its fans on games that have not been broadcasted to the public but to also tells followers of what the clubs up to and where they can be seen.
Forums have enabled fans to tell the Roar what they think of the club and just lately have enabled the club fans to engage in designing and choosing the new jerseys for the team to wear.
These are just some examples on how the club has adopted Enterprise 2.0 to expanded and evolved their clients (fans and followers) interest in the club. Although adoption can be difficult, the possibilities are endless for any business.
Enterprise 2.0 
Hi Alyse,
Nice post, very clean and easy to read lay-out.
Do you think because it is a sports club and most fans want to stay up to date making adoption a lot easier?
Is there anything you would have done different?
– Shaun
Hey Shaun,
Sorry for the late reply, have had a very busy week!
Interesting point, I think that sports clubs do have an upper hand because they already have a strong support base – but this could also be a lot of pressure and demand! There will need to be constant updating of information.
I really liked the idea of fans helping the designing the new jersey – although after reading many risks in putting all your eggs in the public’s basket – I would have just got them to choose from three!
Do you think that there is a downside for sports clubs to use social media?
Alyse
Hi Alyse & Shaun
I wasn’t aware that the Roar where allowing their fans to do that to the jersey, But I do remember another sporting club doing this one year and that was the Vodafone Warriors (Toyota Cup of Under 20’s) I fell letting your fans be involved in the team that way is a big bonus, cause the winner of the comp will most likely buy the jersey and membership and promote it to his Social Media friends. So I don’t see that as a Risk I see it as a viable business move.
Hi Alyse. Social media is such an amazing tool for companies and organisations wanting to promote themselves amongst their fans/customers isn’t it? It really is free advertising and it makes it so much easier to communicate with people on so many levels. I love the idea of the Roar allowing fans to contribute to the design of the the new team jersey. Nothing gets people involved faster than the feeling that they are contributing to something important. And I love the fact that they have used youtube to bring the players closer to the fans.
Also there is so much potential for Twitter to be used as a way of getting more fans to attend the games. Like if the Roar promotions team found out that ticket sales were a little slow, they could tweet something like “the next 20 people to reply get a buy 1 get 1 free pass to this weekends match”. This would surely encourage more fans to follow the team on twitter as there is the potential for them to get cheap tickets. It would also encourage people who might not otherwise attend to go along because they don’t have to pay as much.
What do you think?
Hey Candice
Thanks for the feedback – sorry about the late reply, have had a busy week!
Because the success of social media depends on having a community – sports clubs have an advantage as there is already a strong fan base/community that will thrive off these deferent social outlets.
Roar’s strategy in adopting these social medias is quite unique and effective. I love your idea about giving fans different deals in order to encourage online followers. Another idea would be for facebook – “if you like our facebook page receive a free scarf” or “share this picture to win a signed jersey” – this would encourage not only people to follow but free advertising through word of mouth!
Alyse
Evening Alyse well done another great post.
Good idea using the Roars example. May be a slight soccer fan.. The potential is endless when it comes to social media being utilised within organisations, yet as you say its had a patchy start. Why do you think social media has had a patchy beginning in enterprise environments?
Have a good weekend,
Caleb
Hey Caleb, thanks for the feedback!
I think there has been a slow and patchy start because social media is still relatively new. I think it’s much like a contract – you wouldn’t want to sign up to anything unless you understood it 100%.
Some businesses have signed up without fully understanding and have suffered, others have been to afraid to or thought it wasn’t relevant to.
Either way, social media is a stepping stone and it will be interesting to see how businesses will adopt to grow with it – soon they will have department solely to work on the business’s social media identity.
Alyse
Being a fan without really get in touch with the team is similar to a one side love. Brisbane Roar FC has done a good job using social medias to associate with their fans. This is to tell their fan that they care. Their fans will continue to support them because they know that their heroes care about them too. Social medias are great channels that connect people together. Many organizations over look the benefit of social medias so they cannot really communicate with their customers/fans.
Cheers,
Prapat W.
That’s why fans of celebrities love twitter and instagram – because it gives them an insight into their lives. I think Roars use of youtube is a step further because seeing the players interact with each other and watching them play soccer, gives the fans something extra that other social media platforms can’t.
Thanks for the feedback
Alyse
Hi Alyse,
Nice post 🙂 It really is the little things that businesses do that can have the greatest impact. It seems so logical now that people are able to contact businesses via social media, and yet, some still haven’t adopted this practice. I think it’s great that the Roar allowed their fans to be part of the jersey design, it’s a really smart way of allowing fans to interact with the club.
– Matt
Before writing these posts, I used to also think it was bizaar that more businesses haven’t adopted social media – but there are some risks. Yet I think Roar has an advantage as their fan base is already their and booming – it was more giving them an official space to interact.
With their jersey design competition – they put a lot of faith in their fans to think of a really good design. I’ve heard of this going downhill really quickly, a way to counteract this could have been to give them options to choose from. I wonder if this case study was the exception.
Thanks for the feedback
Alyse