Choosing a social media platform that can be used to build an innovation community and market

There's no shortage of social media platforms that could be considered, and so it is not possible to review them all. It is possible to categorise some types of platform and to suggest some that might be more suitable for the objective of building an innovation community.

Different roles, different types of networks

This section draws heavily on the work of Dr Andrew McAfee and his book Enterprise 2.0, which provides a useful framework in which to conceive of the role of different social media platforms and tools. We have modified it to help categorise various tools relevant to the innovation and knowledge transfer space.

McAfee in turn draws on the work of Mark Granovetter in understanding the role and importance of weak-tie relationships in networks versus strong-tie relationships. Both are as important as each other in the dynamic of a functioning community, but the relative importance of each will shift depending on the nature and goals of the community. This is represented in a bullseye image.

It is possible to relate each of these tools to a best fit for various objectives as follows, radiating out from the bullseye respectively:

Main objective

1. Improving team collaboration. Core to KT 2.0 is the creation of a virtual team of business development agents that, quite deliberately, do not sit in the KTO. Consequently, managing efficient communication and ensuring decent project management are all the more important. This doesn't replace face to face meetings and some of the broadcasting (as well as some one-to-one communications) can also be done via a core social platform.
2. Creating a Community of Practice. Creating a Community of Practice (CoP) of those interested in knowledge transfer is at the heart of the KT 2.0 approach. It's crucial that the community is based on the efforts of those looking to convert research outputs of the university into business and social benefit. It needs to provide useful guidance for those working in enterprise and knowledge transfer.
3. Creating a market place. Without a functioning marketplace the KT 2.0 approach does not work. This is perhaps the most functionally specific requirement for a social media platform used in a KT 2.0 based strategy. Consequently, attention to the characteristics and functionality of any preferred core platform is critical.
4. Spanning Domains. It used to be the case that any communications software was incomplete without an email function and now that applies to any communication platform without a Twitter function. Even standalone tools like Twitter are ideal for overcoming the homophily that often comes with work, or community of practice, based networks. As referred to in the introduction section 'New Game, New Rules', diversity in networks for the introduction of new ideas and connections from different communities is crucial to developing social capital. Twitter is notably good for a bit of boundary spanning, given that is often more open to weak ties, than say LinkedIn. Other services in the R&D space such as Mendeley may also help span boundaries.
5. Broadcasting (Marketing/PR). Too often social media is seen as only another channel to broadcast and sell to new markets. Its potential, as argued here, is far more radical than that. Nonetheless, the ability to disintermediate the press and reach new audiences, can be very valuable. Again Twitter is a useful tool for this.
6. Increasing/gathering intelligence, social media, especially when mediated by people that are well connected in your domain is a powerful information source. Again Twitter is king for this purpose and much of the Knowledge Transfer community has woken up to this in the last couple of years. That said, new in town is Google Plus which has good intelligence gathering functionality.