The latest news about Beacon made it obvious that advertisers haven’t found a crack (yet) into the rising star Facebook to successfully penetrate online social platforms. As Alex Iskold states:
The myth goes something like this: because Facebook knows everything about us, it will always be able to serve perfect ads. However, the reality is more like the following:
- Facebook does not know much about us
- The data that Facebook has is not structured
- People are not coming to Facebook to click ads
Social networks are not what advertisers expected it to be.
Last week, I met and interviewed Mike Walsh, the CEO of Leverage Software. In a nutshell, Leverage Software is really good at connecting people based on their assets. The company offers a powerful, fully customizable social platform for customers (SaaS) to create online communities. For example, through Leverage Software, a company can make it really easy for customers to share information with the marketing service, and vice-versa.
People Mapping = Asset Finder
Social networks are publishing systems where the content is produced automatically as the consequence of social interactions. Through Leverage Software, users’ published content is mainly used to define their assets, not their buying habits.
A simple navigation through the People Map makes it really easy for users to find other users by their assets. Some companies use the Leverage Software’s People Map to spot hidden talents within their organization.
Mike Walsh’s company, created in 2003, has already signed up with more than 170 clients. Social networking has been painted as the new marketing landscape for businesses to engage with their communities of customers. Leverage Software makes it a reality.
Online social customers
I’ve asked Mike Walsh to share his vision on the market of social networking: I found it interesting that he did an analogy of the CRM industry to describe what he thought would happen. Online social networks seem to perform better for CRM purposes than they do for advertising. Leverage Software proves it. In this frame of focus, doesn’t it make sense to think that CRM companies could lead the acquisitions of social network platforms?