PRWEB — A second annual survey of companies sponsoring online communities shows signs of increasing maturation as enterprises continue to invest in social media tools and online communities. According to the survey, conducted by Deloitte, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research, 94 percent of the respondents indicated that they plan to maintain or increase investment in their communities, while only six percent plan to decrease investment. However, while enterprises are effectively using these tools to engage with customers, partners and employees for brand discussions and idea generation, the survey also indicates that organizations continue to struggle with harnessing social media's full potential...

Beeline Labs recently conducted extensive research into how major corporations are monitoring, measuring and engaging via social media. We spoke with decision-makers in corporate communications, marketing and customer services at companies such as Best Buy, Cisco, GE, IBM, Intuit and UPS to understand their current approaches and learnings. We also interviewed executives of four of the leading social media monitoring services – Cymfony, Market Sentinel, Radian6 and Visible Technologies – to get their frank views on emerging patterns among their client bases. We also included experiences and advice gleaned from publicly available speeches and case studies...

Here’s some of the material from last week’s Conference Board workshop about how to extend brands to employees by empowering employees with social media...

Recently I spoke with Francois Gossieaux of Beeline Labs about the role of online communities in the enterprise. Francois has been evangelizing the learning gained from his recent study “The Tribalization of Business” (see here for the Slideshare presentation)...

One expert in customer engagement and social media shares his thoughts on the essence behind delivering a top notch online community. Online communities are hot property at the moment. Where the U.S. has led the way in terms of branded customer communities, Europe has been quick to catch up over the last 12 to 18 months. Many large brands have recognised the value of communities, the real conversations that go on there and the insight that they can get from observing and interacting with their customers in a social context. Popular with FMCG and other B2C firms, online community use is now growing across both B2B and B2C sectors...