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Back to the webcom: imarkscore and some advice from the conferences
1L’art de la gestion de projet2Un projet à succès commence par une bonne gouvernance3Cascade, agilité, demandes de changement?

Back to the webcom: imarkscore and some advice from the conferences

  • TECHNICAL LEVEL
Social Media

The Webcom Montreal conference was held on Wednesday, November 16, where speakers from Quebec and around the world took part. This fall's edition was different from previous ones with the addition of OpenGouv and imarkscore, which took place at the same time as the usual conferences. OpenGouv consisted of a series of conferences on the encounter between government and social media. The imarkscore, for its part, is an initiative of HEC Montréal.    

Yesterday took place the official launch of the imarkscore with the holding of a panel of experts who debated on the results obtained by the companies. In a simplified way, the imarkscore is the ranking of web initiatives (search engines, social media, mobile and web sites and applications) of 85 Canadian companies listed in 15 different industrial sectors. You could find all types of businesses there: from Renaud-Bray to Uniprix, including Radio-Canada and Air Canada.  

The results of this web-based business ranking tool are unfortunately not available for each of the categories, but the final ranking could be viewed. At the top, you can find companies such as Radio-Canada, Ikea and Rogers Communications, while at the end of the ranking companies such as BMR, Nolitours or Réno-Dépôt take their place. Some results turn out to be less surprising than others, because the Web should not be the first priority for home improvement centers versus online retailers! To see the final standings . 

Here are the top 10:

This tool seems interesting at first glance, and I can't wait to see the evaluation criteria used to classify companies given the results obtained from certain companies. Imarkscore is explained through its scientific method . 

Unfortunately, I did not attend all the conferences, but here are some tips from Mario Sundar's conference :  

  • Companies are conversations
  • Light Up
  • Key pieces of socialization are the employees

I would like to emphasize the importance of employee involvement for the social presence of companies. Often forgotten, they are nevertheless the perfect ambassadors that a company could have given that they are already converts. Giving employees the opportunity to participate in company social presences is the possibility of obtaining content that a company could not have thought of. The major fear of companies is necessarily that employees will then be able to say that they are unhappy with their work and lose control. However, we can see large companies like Zappos integrating into their social processes.

Another interesting conference was that of Maria Ogneva which focused on Social Business.  She presented the 10 main steps to transform her business into Social Business:

  • Tie to business objectives
  • Listen across channels
  • Have a response plan
  • Have a clear (social media) policy
  • Connect & Collaborate
  • Integrate systems
  • Mobilize & enable
  • Measure and predict
  • Create a community (Stop chasing the same 10 influencers)
  • Lean, evolve and co-create

I think these major steps represent the reality of a company wishing to be social. It is certain that this process is not done instantly and that it takes time and money! At the end of her presentation, she said a quote that made me happy to hear: “Hire for passion, skills can be taught”.

Small note to say congratulations to Tara Hunt who won the Cartier Prize, a prize that aims to reward the exceptional contribution to the advancement of new information and communication technologies. Tara Hunt is, among other things, co-founder and CEO of Buyosphere , an online shopping community!