Rebel Mouse does not just aggregate your social content; it adds dimensions that let others quickly—and subconsciously—consume it

Why did Facebook succeed (where MySpace failed)? What led an odd thing like Twitter to be so valuable? Why did LinkedIN beat entrenched careers sites? How did Groupon get so valuable, so quickly? The answer lies in how they created value first for their members–then leveraged this at scale to reward their investors.

MySpace, one of the original big social media players, is on the sales block for $50-$200 million. Groupon, founded years later, is now preparing a $15-BILLION IPO. What did Groupon do so differently to create 100x more value using social media?

If you simply create a standalone community, you will only create a place where your stakeholders socialize. While this is nice, it will not create a large return on your investment. If you want to maximize the return on investment in your business community, you need to embed it into the your entire enterprise. Here’s how…

It is not sufficient to simply understand the scope of the business problem or opportunity you are trying to address with your community. You also need to identify how you will measure success BEFORE you start building. This enables you to know “where you are going” and plan a route (mapping your community against your enterprise value chain) before you begin spending time and money…

This is my first in a series of 10 posts about how to build effective Social Media communities for business (and government). My first point is that is important to BEGIN with the understanding that Social Media does NOT “change everything,” — it simply adds several new channels for you to interact with your stakeholders…