When online communities and social networks are discussed, they are largely revered as a way to have a dialogue with friends, peers, or, in the case of businesses, consumers. Last year on Tuesdays with Tukaiz, for example, we reviewed how Apple, Comcast, and Kraft are utilizing communities to build brand awareness, improve customer service, and obtain feedback on new product developments. These activities are commendable, and continue to be pursued by each company to this day. Nevertheless, it is important to note that these companies are largely business-to-consumer, deriving the majority of their revenues from consumer electronics, consumer cable and Internet services, and consumer packaged goods, respectively. Social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are ideal for consumer brands to pool a large group of people together, so they can run promotions, generate buzz, and solicit feedback. What about companies whose primary goal is to provide products and services to other companies? How can business-to-business organizations effectively harness the power of online communities to promote offerings and gather feedback?

As it turns out, B2B companies have a number of online tools and services for internal and external engagements at their fingertips. Businesses are starting to use these tools to provide employees with useful methods of conversing online beyond e-mail and instant messaging. One such tool is Yammer, which bills its technology as “enterprise microblogging.” Yammer is similar to Twitter in terms of look, feel, and functionality, but it adds the ability to share files and the conversation is confined to people within an organization. To take advantage of Yammer, each user within the organization must have the same work e-mail address (e.g., This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ). This network privatization enables employees to provide quick bursts of information, including what projects people are working on, new and interesting ideas they have, and links to relevant information. While Yammer offers a good deal of functionality free of charge, organizations can also choose to pay a per-seat license to add more functionality and flexibility, including data ownership, administration, custom branding, and broadcast network-wide messaging. Additionally, Yammer has mobile apps for a number of platforms , an SMS messaging service for sending and receiving updates, and a desktop application. Over 60,000 businesses worldwide are using Yammer as an internal conversation channel.

For a more public-facing online community solution, many organizations have flocked to LinkedIn. While LinkedIn originally started with simple business profiles and multi-tiered connections, it has added the valuable “Groups” tool, enabling users to create special interest communities. Many companies have created online versions of existing users’ groups, and many more have started their first ones virtually. While LinkedIn is largely public-facing, LinkedIn Groups seem to be attractive to companies because of strong administrative controls that enable group owners to be targeted with who they invite and who they accept into their group. Therefore, you can invite specific clients, users, prospects, and other employees into your group to create conversations with your most important contacts. More recently, LinkedIn added a “Sub-Groups” functionality that is similar to an online forum hierarchy. This gives group owners the power to create multiple niche interest areas within a singular group. While LinkedIn does charge a fee for premium accounts, creating a profile and creating a group is easy and free. LinkedIn also has a wide reach, with over 60 million global users to date.

For a more all-encompassing approach, some businesses are opting to create their own custom online communities through various means. For many years, software companies (among others) have been using online forum tools, such as phpBB and vBulletin, to custom-tailor topics of interest for the company and its users. Online support is often handled through the use of forums as well, where both users and developers can resolve issues quickly. The concept of these forums has been taken to the next level by new online business community software. Jive Software creates enterprise online community software with a dashboard that brings multiple groups, blogs, events, projects, and more together. Itracks provides Software-as-a-Service online communities for the purpose of conducting qualitative market research and focus groups. Communispace helps companies develop private customer communities, primarily to generate conversations with and garner feedback from clients. While each company has a slightly different twist to what it offers, all have a similar goal of helping businesses through the use of online communities.

Whether internal or external, businesses are taking advantage of social technology to create a better dialogue. Sometimes that dialogue leads to a higher level of internal knowledge sharing and coordination; other times it may lead to quicker, more targeted product and service updates that meet clients’ most immediate needs. Approaching online communities by tying them to defined goals, focusing on participation instead of traffic numbers, and having a strong company willingness to participate will help generate the most value.