WO2013123582A1

WO2013123582A1 - System and method for providing sales automation based on social media interactions

Info

Publication number: WO2013123582A1
Application number: PCT/CA2013/000157
Authority: WO
Inventors: Janice DINER
Original assignee: Horizon Studios Inc.
Priority date: 2012-02-21
Filing date: 2013-02-21
Publication date: 2013-08-29

Abstract

A social networking platform is provided that includes a computer network application providing a campaign manager that enables a manager of an enterprise to define the parameters of a sales management campaign or learning campaign directed by the enterprise to two or more enterprise users, the campaign including one or more digital media objects (whether text, graphical content, video, audio or digital goods) for consumption by the enterprise personnel in connection with the campaign and/or one or more actions required of the enterprise personnel or suggested to the enterprise personnel, for engaging with the campaign, The campaign manager is part of or is linked to a computer network implemented social networking platform so as to enable: the enterprise personnel, or a manager of the enterprise, to define one or more social networks for executing the actions using social media interactions on the social networking platform, or apply one or more existing social networks to execution of the actions using social media interactions on the social networking platform; and the enterprise personnel to engage in the actions, or part of the actions, and to consume the objects, or some of the objects, via the social networking platform. The campaign manager and the social networking platform interoperate so that the actions and/or objects are experienced by the sales personnel as part of the social interactions enabled by the social networking platform. Related methods for improving sales performance are also provided.

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR -PROVIDING SALES AUTOMATION BASED ON

SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTIONS

Priority

This application claims priority under 35 USC § 119(e) of United States Provisional Patent Application No. 61/601,255 filed on February 21^st, 2012, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

Field of Invention

The present invention relates to social networks. The present invention also relates to application development technology platforms and methods. Background of the Invention

Across the world, social networks are becoming an increasingly popular medium for staying in touch with friends. Social networks are also becoming an effective tool for business learning, sales and networking. As a result of this popularity, certain social networks such as FACEBOOK™ and Linkedln™ have millions and millions of users. For the most part social networks have been devoted to personal use as opposed to business use.

Various enterprises promote and sell a wide range of products and/or services, Promotion and sales involve various sales activities, including various interactions between sales personnel and channel partners such as distributors or retailers. Enterprises may adopt various technology platforms for managing a number of aspects such sales interactions. These may includes creation of sales material, distribution of sales material, presentations using various media to channel partner personnel, creation and deployment of various promotions to motivate channel partner personnel to promote various products or services of the enterprise, and so on. These various activities are referred to as "sales activities" in the present disclosure.

Various platforms exist for supporting enterprise sales activities such as for example customer relationship management ("CRM") or sales automation platforms such as SALESFORCE.COM, Enterprises devote significant resources to the deployment of such platforms (collectively referred to herein as "sales management platforms")- Furthermore, it is challenging for many enterprises to ensure that their sales personnel, or personnel who fulfil business development roles (perhaps in addition to other responsibilities) use such platforms consistently, and in a manner that is consistent with enterprise objectives.

Various learning management systems or LMS's exist, including for managing educational, learning or training assets, and their consumption by users.^■ LMS's are increasingly being deployed in enterprise environments for the purpose of corporate training, however, they can be expensive to acquire and deploy. Furthermore, the training costs involved in ensuring that personnel knows how to use the LMS can be significant Moreover, deploying corporate learning in a way that provides collaborative learning opportunities can be time consuming and expensive.

There is a need for an improved technology platform and computer network implemented method that enables sales activities in a way that is engaging for users and through a series of workflows and/or user interfaces that are familiar to users. There is a further need for a technology platform and computer network implemented method for enabling sales activities that encourages sales personnel to engage through the platform and method regularly. There is a further need for a technology platform and computer network implemented method for enabling collaborative enterprise training in a cost effective way.

Summary of the Invention In one aspect, a computer network implemented social networking system is provided comprising: a computer system implementing a computer network application providing a campaign manager that enables a manager of an enterprise to define the parameters of a sales management campaign and/or a corporate learning campaign ("campaign") directed by the enterprise to two or more enterprise users, the campaign including one or more digital media objects (whether text, graphical content, video, audio or digital goods) for consumption by the enterprise users in connection with the campaign and/or one or more actions required of the enterprise users or suggested to the enterprise users, for engaging with the campaign; the campaign manager being part of, or being linked to, a computer network implemented social networking platform so as to enable: the enterprise users, or a manager of the enterprise, to define or connect to one or more social networks for executing the actions using social media interactions on the social networking platform, or apply one or more existing social networks to execution of the actions using social media interactions on the social networking platform; and the enterprise users to engage in the actions, or part of the actions, and to consume the objects, or some of the objects, via the social networking platform.

In another aspect, the platform includes a web application that is linked to the social networking platform and that enables the enterprise to; (a) define the parameters for creation of one or more corrrmunities linked to the campaign, including; (i) rules for accessing the communities; (ii) rules for publication of actions and/or objects related to the campaign via the social networking platform; and/or (iii) storing of information generated based on social media interactions between the personnel in connection with the campaign. In another aspect, the social media interactions, or social media interactions of interest, are logged by a logging utility and the campaign manager is operable to enable the manager to define one or more enterprise objectives associated with the campaign.

In yet another aspect, the web application includes or links to an analytics engine that is operable to analyze to social media interactions to generate sales management analytics, including recommendations related to improvement of sales performance.

In a still other aspect, the system further includes a matching utility for suggesting the composition of social networks in connection with the campaign_*

In another aspect, the social networks correspond to sales teams, and wherein such sales teams include enterprise personnel, or enterprise personnel and personnel from one or more channel partners of the enterprise,

In one aspect, the platform presents a sales management interface that is consistent with the user interfaces of the social networking platform, such that campaign related actions are experienced as personal social media interactions.

In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings, The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

Brief Description of the Drawings

The invention will be better understood and objects of the invention will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:

FIG, 1 is system diagram of the system of the present invention;

FIG. 2a is a diagram that illustrates the various user groups of the platform of the present invention, in one implementation thereof; FIG. 2b is a diagram that illustrates the different types of "communities" that may be created based on operation of the platform and the method of the present invention, in one implementation thereof;

FIG. 2c is still further diagram illustrating the different entities that may participate in the "communities" enabled by the platform and the method of the present invention, in one implementation thereof;

FIGs. 3 a and 3b illustrate different aspects of possible workflows for implementing the computer network implemented method of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a representative registration process, in one aspect of the present invention; FIGs. 5a and 5b illustrate possible representative screen displays presented by the campaign manager, in one particular aspect thereof;

FIGs. 6a and 6b are diagrams illustrating particular aspects of leader boards published by operation of the platform of the present invention, in one particular aspect of the present invention; FIG, 7 illustrates possible published actions and impressions by operation of the invention, in one particular implementation thereof;

FIG. 8a, 8b, and 8c illustrate alternate mechanisms for users to sign on to the platform of the present invention; and FIG. 9 illustrates possible reward related features of an administrator dashboard of the present invention,

FIG. 10 illustrates possible input into generation of leaderboards in accordance with one aspect of the present invention.

FIG. 11 illustrates different types of leaderboards that may be generated by the platform; FIG. 12 illustrate the operation of different implementations relative to integration with a particular social networking platform;

FIG. 13 illustrates a representative home screen of a mobile application component of the computer system of the present invention, in one representative implementation thereof.

In the drawings, embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example. It is to be expressly understood that the description and drawings are only for the purpose of illustration and as an aid to understanding, and are not intended as a definition of the limits of the invention.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

Definitions

In this disclosure, by "social networking platform" any computer network implemented application platform is meant that is operable to generate a series of web pages so as to define a series of user interactions and/or workflows, including social media interactions, that define a social networking environment (104) described herein.

"Friends" refers to two or more users of a social networking platform who share one or more social interaction privileges by operation of the social networking platform, based on one or more pre-established rules. Conferring the social interaction privileges may require user acceptance and/or may be assigned automatically by the social networking platform based on the rules.

"Social media interactions" refer to the various interactions between users of a social networking platform (including "friends"), including various communications (such as platform messaging, instant messaging, videoconferencing, voice messaging, etc.)₃ uploading or posting content in one or more media, downloading content in one or more media, watching content in one or more media, reviewing or rating content including "objects", taking a quiz, selling or trading items such as "objects", and so on,

'Topics" refers to a topic that is relevant to an enterprise objective, such as a sales objective. By operation of the present invention, "social media interactions" are initiated by the platform around "topics". Examples of "topics" include a new product or service and related information, or a new product or service promotion along with supporting information or documents.

"Campaigns" refers to a promotional, information, marketing, or sales campaigns that may be related to "topics", "Objects" include any content or media object that may be used or consumed in connection with social interactions, such as for example a social feed, a message, a use case, a video, quiz, a tip, a discussion, a digital good, etc.

Enterprise Initiated or Managed Social Networking Environment

A first aspect of the contribution of the invention is the discovery that a sales management platform and method may be provided by implementing sales activities using social interactions enabled by a social networking platform. More specifically, the present invention involves the deployment of a novel and innovative social networking environment that integrates in a seamless manner both personal social media interactions and enterprise (for example campaign related social media interactions), thus providing a single, familiar user experience that is engaging to participating users and promotes enterprise objectives. A variety of enterprise objectives are described below. These may includes improvement of sales performance through campaigns targeted to for example sales groups that are created dynamically by operation of the social networking environment. One insight of the inventors therefore is a sales management platform that integrates with one or more social networking platforms, or incorporates a social networking platform, in order to utilize one or more social networking features of the social network platform, including functionality of the social network for creating, managing, and modifying dynamically networks and sub-networks of social connections to enable collaboration between users in regards to sales objectives or campaigns based on these networks and sub-networks.

Furthermore, in many enterprise environments sales activities involve aspects of corporate treuning. For example, enterprise sales activities involving a new product may involve training of sales personnel regarding attributes of the new product. Another aspect of the invention is a sales management platform, as described herein, that may further includes learning management features. In other words, the computer system of the present invention may further include a learning management system ("LMS") or LMS features. In one aspect of the invention, the LMS also integrates with one or more social networking platforms, or incorporates a social networking platform, in order to utilize one or more social networking features of the social network platform, including functionality of the social network for creating, managing, and modifying dynamically networks and sub-networks of social connections to enable collaborative learning between users based on learning objectives that may be defined by the enterprise (for example through a platform administrator). These learning objectives may relate to the sales objectives or campaigns previously referred to. A skilled reader will understand that there may be applications of the LMS incorporating social networking features as described herein for use not in connection with sales objectives but other corporate training objectives such as for example collaborative learning on any number of topics of interest to the enterprise or its management, such as for example knowledge management, workplace safety, corporate social responsibility ("CSR") or other topics. The present invention provides a novel and innovative (A) sales management platform, (B) sales management platform integrating LMS functions, and (C) computer network implemented LMS that leverages social features using one or more system components that both (i) enable an administrator to set parameters for social interactions ("administrator parameters") between a plurality of users registered ("registered users") to a sales and/or corporate learning campaign, where these parameters includes one or more rules for the registered users initiating social interactions on their own provided that they are consistent with the administrator parameters.

The social networking environment should be understood to include conventional social networking aspects but departs from the prior art by incorporating, in an integrated manner, enterprise functions. The social networking environment of the present invention is novel and innovative, as is the way in which the integration of the enterprise functions is achieved.

In one aspect of the invention, this integration is accomplished in a way that enterprises (for example through an administrator) may direct or at least create parameters for social interactions between relevant groups (e.g. between managers and sales personnel, enterprise representatives and channel partners representatives), while providing sufficient flexibility to enable relevant groups (based on the parameters) to direct or initiate social interactions (including for example participation in relevant groups) on their own. The inventors have realized that users who tend to use social networking platfonns regularly for personal use, can be motivated to achieve high levels of engagement with campaigns, topics, and/or objects by initiating such engagement in the form of social interactions that integrate with, "mesh" with, or are similar to personal social interactions, for example as experienced in connection with a social networking platform with which they are familiar.

In addition, users (including enterprise personnel) increasingly use social networking platforms such as FACEBOOK™, LinkedB™ or GoogIe+™ for example to build and maintain their social connections, whether these are personal and/or business social connections. Designing a computer network implemented system that enables the use of these up to date social connections for enterprise purposes provides significant advantages such as for example avoiding the need to import or recreate the contacts represented by these social connections in a different platform such as for example, In some cases, importing these contacts may not be possible, especially in a way that reflects the history of social interactions between particular users which in turn can be used for example to suggest new connections or initiate particular social interactions. In addition, social networking platforms are generally designed to support the growth of social networks and enterprise has an interest in, utilizing these expanding social networks for their sales and/or or learning objectives. Integrating enterprise directed sales and/or learning features with these social networks is not trivial, and the inventors have resolved a variety of technical challenges and developed user insights that constitute important contributions to the relevant subject matter domain.

In one particular aspect of the invention, a novel social networking environment is provided, that is configured to enable both personal social media interactions, and enterprise social media interactions, in a way that the personal social media interactions and the enterprise social media interactions are integrated so that the social networking environment (A) provides a unified user interface that is familiar to the users; and (B) enables enterprise social media interactions that are similar to personal social media interactions such that when a user engages in enterprise social media interactions s/he has the general impression that s/he is engaging in personal social media interactions, or the enterprise social media actions is similar enough to personal social media interactions to be engaging and fun (especially in comparison to use of conventional sales platforms for example).

It should be understood that the present invention is specifically configured to take advantage of time spent on personal social media interactions, in order to advance enterprise objectives. In essence, the user experience is such that user have the impression that they are not on "company time", that they are doing something that is "fun" and of personal interest, that they are engaged in activities that benefit them personally, whereas in the background their activities are being directed or at least guided by the enterprise, and the social interactions engaged in by the users are being captured and either these social interactions are adding value to the enterprise per se (for example by disseminating knowledge or expertise) or value to the company is extracted from accumulation of knowledge from the social interactions, for example by developing based on such knowledge strategies or materials to improve performance etc.

In one aspect of the invention, the platform (100) implements a data architecture (as further explained below) that creates an enterprise data store (151) that that is only accessible based on rules determined by an administrator (who may be enterprise personnel or personnel of operator of the platform (100) acting on behalf of the enterprise). The rules may be established by operation of the administrative utility (152), so as to ensure the sensitive information (that may be in the form of an object) is only accessible to authorized users (for example other authorized members of a social network enabled by operation of the present invention, who may be for example particular personnel of an enterprise and/or a channel partner of the enterprise. A landing page for a user who is part of the enterprise personnel may include for example a reference to a content related to a campaign, but if it is established that particulars of a contest are considered to be "confidential", these particulars may only be visible to f iends authorized to access these details by operation of the administrative utility (152).

For example the enterprise data store (151) may include proprietary information regarding products or service or learning content that may or may not be related to sales objectives. Examples of possible content are provided below,

The social networking environment of the present invention may be implemented using a new social networking platform that implements the personal and enterprise functions as described. In one possible implementation, it may be desirable however to leverage the popularity of existing social networking platforms by implementing the social networking environment within an existing social networking platform such as FACEBOOK™ , Linkedln™, or Google*™ in the manner that is described. The present disclosure references in a number of its aspects Facebook as a particular example of implementation of the present invention. It should be understood mat the present invention is not limited to integration with any particular third party social networking platform.

It should be understood that the present invention may consist in part of a computer network implemented platform that is implemented using for example a Facebook application that is configured to provide certain enterprise functions and features described below, and integrates these within the Facebook platform, so as to provide a novel social networking environment that may be based on the Facebook social networking environment and functions and features supported in part by the Facebook platform, however, based on the enterprise functions and features integrated with personal social media functions implemented using established Facebook features, provides a novel social networking environment overall. It should be understood that even in relation to the Facebook platform in particular different implementations of the functions and features described are possible.

In another aspect of the invention, the platfoim (100) of the present invention enables sales management and/or marketing management to connect with their direct, third party or distributed sales teams in a closed (or open) social system (community) within existing social networks or with a social network Open Graph API outside existing social networks. The platform (100) facilitates the transfer of knowledge through discussion, education, engagement and motivations that assist for example sales people in overcoming product and service barriers, and thereby the platform (100) promotes an increase in sales and mderstanding of the products and services that the users are representing.

The present invention enables the connection of two or more personnel (across enterprise locations or across different businesses such as manufacturer-distributor-retailer) that may not have otherwise met yet together represent a combination of access to information, expertise, local knowledge, product knowledge, customer understanding or other facts that, when brought together within a social networking platform that enables cost effective, familiar and engaging social interactions, can provide create synergistic value around important enterprise objectives. As explained in the Use Case below, despite different organizations at play, different locations, and busy schedules, the present invention is operable to help identify and match one or more representatives from a manufacturer, distributor and retailer (for example) that have the right knowledge and compatibility of hard to identify factors (such as compatible personalities or communication styles) such that they actually enjoy supporting one another to improve their sales performance, for example in competition with another sales team. To identify this type of compatibility would normally require time consuming expensive sales retreats for example and hiring consultants to assess sales personnel, organize them into groups, and work with the groups to set goals and improve performance, In certain sales environments this type of work has been done routinely but is very expensive. The present invention provides the added surprising benefit of enabling the automation of application of some of these sales performance improvement techniques, but in a highly cost effective and engaging manner. The present invention represents a complete reconfiguration, in a highly novel and innovative manner, of technologies and techniques that maybe used to improve sales performance.

In addition to sales teams, the social networking platform (106) of the present invention permits the creation of for example research groups or training communities, and social interactions between them that are logged and resulting information is captured to enable monitoring and analysis of activities of interest to an enterprise, and also provide underpinning to discovery of insights by operation of the analytics engine (122). It should also be understood that in the familiar and informal settings enabled by the system of the present invention, participating users are at ease and more likely to be honest and direct in their communications and feedback for example. In connection with IMS aspects of the platform, it is well known to those skilled in the art that collaborative learning provides positive learning outcomes. Collaborative learning is engaging and thus captures the attention and interest of students. Learning with and from their colleagues, motivates enterprise personnel, and also connects with competition as an additional source of learning motivation. One insight of the inventors is that social networking features may be utilized to create a collaborative online learning environment that incorporates these learning attributes, that is scalable, and easy and cost effective to deploy and maintain. As explained below, the platform (100) may include or link to a mobile application that is used to allows users to interact with sales campaigns and/or learning content, in a social networking environment facilitated by the platform (100). In a particular aspect of the invention, the platform (100) includes a gaming utility (154). The gaming utility (154) implements one or more gamification processes, including for example assignment redemption of rewards or points, badges and/or leader boards, The gamification processes may be linked to various aspects of a campaign,

The system and method of the present invention is operable to distribute knowledge and provide motivation to users or groups of users.

The present invention provides significantly improved user engagement and participation on the part of users (for examples sales teams) in comparison to that provided by conventional sales automation platforms for example.

It should be understood that the social networking environment of the present invention enables engagement between friends, and also between sales teams (including business to business teams) and/or collaborative learning groups, including for the purposes of product or service learning for example. It should also be understood that members of sales teams may become personal friends as well, or sales teams and/or collaborative learning groups may be created on the social networking platform (106) mat may have already been personal friends. In fact, there are advantages in encouraging enterprise or business to business teams to become socially familiar, and this can happen seamlessly by operation of the present invention.

Implementation The present invention consists of an innovative application development platform (100) ("platform"). In one aspect of the invention the platform (100) includes a series of utilities designed to enable enterprise engagement within a social networking environment (104), or in connection with a social networking environment.

It is useful to explain briefly the meaning of "Open Graph" in connection with Facebook, First, it "social graph" is a core component of a social networking platform, and refers to people and the connections they have to everything and everyone that they care about. "Open Graph" refers to capabilities of the Facebook platform that enable extension of the social graph to third party web sites and web pages. For example, "Open Graph" enables people to ^t{like" a third party website and this be reflected within Facebook. Also, it is the "Open Graph" that permits a user to log into Facebook through a third party website relying on FACEBOOK CONNECT™ that enables linking to the Facebook API from a third party website. Recently, the "Open Graph" concept was extended to third party applications enabling for example an action within a third party application to result in the publication of actions within Facebook, i.e. news feeds, tickers, and timelines. This explanation of "Open Graph" is useful in understanding the examples of communities enabled by the social networking platform of the present invention.

The social networking environment (104) is supported and managed by operation of the platform (100), and more particularly a social networking platform (106) that may be made part of the platform (100)₃ or may be linked to the platform (100) of the present invention.

The social networking platform (106) is generally implemented using one or more application servers, as illustrated in FIG, 1. As shown, FIG. 1 illustrates a system (140), including an application server (200) and graph servers (202). The computers of system (140) are connected by a network (204), e.g., the Internet, and accessible by over the network by a plurality of computers (110). The application server (200) manages a member database (210), a relationship database (220), and a search database (230). The application server (200) may also contain a matching engine (208) to enable the suggestion of friend combination based on a series of criteria. Friend suggestions may require acceptance, after which they are added to relevant social graphs managed using the graph server (202). The matching engine (208) may be linked to the campaign manager (150) for the purposes of suggesting friend matches, within users associated with a particular enterprise (whether their personnel or channel partners for example). The matching engine may include various functions or features for matching individuals based on a variety of criteria including for example demographic attributes, personality traits, and also factors related to the enterprise objectives (whether these are sales objectives and/or learning objectives), For example the matching engine (208) may be used to match friends within groups defined by the social networking environment (104) (for example sales teams and/or learning groups) based on similarity or dissimilarity (depending on for example campaign objectives) of experience, training, sales performance, current level of experience, training or education relevant to one or more learning objectives and so on, The campaign manager (150) may provide a series of functions or features that enable a manager to create and manage multiple sales and/or learning campaigns, similar to the functions or features provided by known sales management and LMS platforms. The campaign manager (150) may be implemented as a series of screens made accessible to an administrator, thereby providing access to his/her enterprise databases, and sales management and/or LMS functionality or content that associated with the particular enterprise, For example, the campaign manager (150) may present one or more dashboards for managing the parameters of ongoing campaigns, monitoring performance of campaigns, or designing new campaigns. A skilled reader will understand that various features or functions may be made available through the campaign manager (150) for deploying sales and/or learning functionality in a way that integrates enterprise directed social media functions.

In connection with sales objectives, matching may also be based on attributes associated with for example the retail stores in which users may operate. For example, users may be matched with users working at stores of similar size, of similar size, in communities having a similar economic profile and so on. For example, it may be desirable to a match user 1 who has had sales of product B in the low range with user 2 who has achieved much better sales of product B in a store in a community with a similar economic profile. The purpose of matching user 1 with user 2 may be to enable user 2 to share tips with user 1 in an engaging atmosphere that both user 1 and user 2 are familiar. The social interactions enabled by the social networking platform (106) provide an informal setting for user land user 2 to socialize and in the process share tips. The inventors have found that this is a far more effective mechanism to encourage users such as user 1 and user 2 to share tips for example, rather than mandating this at an enterprise level using a traditional sales platform.

Similarly, it may be desirable to create groups of registered users for collaborative learning that are of a manageable size given for example the particular learning objectives; that match users with similar experience, training or education; or that match users with different levels of experience, training, or education so as to promote learning amongst the group.

In a further aspect of the invention, the platform (100) may incorporate one or more features that enable the creation of profiles for users that incorporate one or more personality traits or other traits that may affect the ability of groups of users to learn from another. For example, user 1 may have one or more attributes or traits that make him/her suitable to teach users 2, 3, and more particularly in relation to content A. In one aspect, the platform (100) may dynamically match user 1 to participate in a collaborative learning group implemented using a sub-network in a social networking platform with users 2 and 3, in relation to content A.

The application server (200) can include a web presentment utility (232), The web presentment utility (232) may be a standard utility or set of utilities operable to present one or more web pages based on the workflow or social interactions described herein.

References herein to devices, for example, such as mobile or portable devices, that may be mobile or portable communication devices, may include many types of devices such as any of the following: cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, digital music players, GPS devices, e-book readers, portable gaming devices, digital cameras, tablets, netbooks, laptops, and any other devices that may be mobile or portable.

In a particular aspect of the invention, the platform (100) enables activation of campaigns (including for example sales incentive programs or loyalty rewards programs) within social networks or through social network Open Graph APIs on any screen. In one aspect of the invention the platform (100) includes a campaign manager (150) which may be implemented for example by operation of a campaign manager dashboard presented by the platform (100) that enables the configuration of one or more rewards or incentives linked with a campaign. FIGs. Sa and 5b show representative interfaces for implementing operations related to the campaign manager (150).

For example, in one example of implementation of the present invention, the system and method enables users to learn about new and existing products or services (or their properties) through, objects such as videos, documents, quizzes, discussion boards and product service tips. All objects may be linked with associations such as ratings, commenting and sharing within platform (100) with other social network users.

For example, users may be rewarded by operation of the invention with points or badges based On specified actions such as meeting discussion, education or other engagement requirements.

The campaign manager (150) enables the configuration of a reward schematic, which may be based on the enterprise, its assets, product, product lifecycle and sales team attributes.

It should be understood that one of the advantages of the present invention is that based on attributes defined by administrative utility (152), groups may be defined for enterprise objectives (for examples sales teams or learning groups) dynamically across geography, across customary enterprise hierarchies. Team creation may be guided by enterprise managers, for example, in part based on output from the analytics engine (122), and use of the matching engine (208) as mentioned above. This could be based for examples on shared strengths or weaknesses within groups, size of groups that is seen to be manageable or optimal from the perspective of enterprise objectives, composition of groups to include a variety of different experience levels, and so on. It should also be understood that groups may be defined dynamically by users "friending" one another, and performance relative to enterprise objectives (for example tied to a contest run by operation of gaming utility (154)), and then based on performance of dynamically created groups, and the analysis of this infoimatioa, yields insights in regards to group performance, and group composition. In one aspect of the invention, as shown in FIG. 2a, a representative social networking environment (104) provided by the present invention is illustrated, bringing together within the social network provided, a number of different stakeholders. For example, for enterprise personnel who are not friends wilhin a particular social networking platform such as FACEBOO ™ (which is used as an example herein), the platform (100) may be operable to display the rankings for all platform users. The platform (100), and in particular graph server (202) may enable the creation of a social graph of published activity for enterprise personnel who are not friends within the particular social networking platform. In particular, platform activity can be published to the user's social networking platform friends (enterprise and non- enterprise) for example through the social networking platform's ticker, news feed or timeline

The platform (100) is operable to generate user rankings and staff rankings for managers and for enterprise personnel who are Facebook users and are registered to the platform (100). The platform (100) also enables publication of platform activity, for example by means of tickers, news feeds, and timelines, In addition, for enterprise personnel with Facebook friends within the platform (100), the platform (100) is operable to display platform activities (such as discussions and rankings within the platform (100) for Facebook friends of enterprise personnel. Application platform activities may be published for example using tickers, news feeds, and timelines.

The platform (100) may also be used to identify and track activities of key influencers or employees. The platform (100) may track and display key influencer users rankings and activities such as discussions etc. The platform (100) again may publish platform activities using tickers, news feeds or timelines.

The method and system enables sales teams to engage and run programs across any and all regional areas or across multiple different languages, The system also allows classification based on multiple participating retailers with multiple products.

The program tracks all user activity and engagement and provides "clients" with proprietary insights on sales team performance as well as insights on product knowledge and selling techniques. FIG. 2b illustrates the use of the administration utility (152) to create and manage communities and sub-communities.

FIG. 2c illustrates another aspect of the invention, in which the adrnimstration utility (Ϊ52) may be used to create and manage multiple "communities" that may include representatives f om one or more enterprises, and representatives of one or more retailers or distributors. In FIG. 2c also illustrates the various different entities that may be tracked by operation of the present invention including for example store representative managers, key influencers, regional representatives, top sales representatives, trainers and son on.

Workflow As illustrated in FIG. 3 a, the following describes a possible workflow of the present invention.

(A) A user registers with a registration utility (158) of the present invention that enables a user (who is authorized based on the administrative utility (152) to participate in selected areas of the social networking environment (106) (for example one or more areas defined witiiin the social networking environment (104) for the enterprise that engages the user. Registration may involve the user providing certain information or setting certain attributes such as updating sales performance information or signing up for one or more learning modules.

(B) Upon registration, user initiates a request to the application server (200) to activate the relevant programming of the social networking platform (106) to initiate one or more enterprise related functions, so as to define for the user an enterprise environment, or one or more enterprise related social interaction attributes, within the social networking environment (104).

(C) User engages in one or more enterprise related social interactions, which the social networking platform (106) is operable to log by operation of the logging utility (130). The logging utility (130) is operable to store enterprise related data to the enterprise data store (151). Where the social networking platform (106) is enabled is enabled in connection with Facebook, a Facebook application may be configured to implement one or more closed communities that implement the private aspects of the enterprise related social media interactions, and the Facebook application may store relevant information to a database that is remote from the Facebook platform. Alternatively, the social networking platform (106) may be provided separate and apart from third party social networking environment such as Facebook, but nonetheless leveraging the social connections created using the Facebook platform, of the respective users of the platform.

(D) Social interactions may be published, based on publication rules that are defined using the administration utility (152). The social networking platform (106) generates, for example, newsfeeds, tickers and timelines, and publishes these to private enterprise pages and/or to participating users' general use Facebook wall (usually a reduction is published to publicly viewable pages to exclude enterprise sensitive or confidential information), For example, the user's Facebook wall may include feeds that include campaign related activities for example without divulging enterprise information that may be sensitive. In a particular implementation, a user's Facebook wall may include performance badges, without divulging the particular of the underlying campaign that resulted in the badge being awarded. Alternatively, the social content generated in connection with sales and/or learning campaigns may be published through the social networking platform (200) implemented as part of the platform (100), separate and apart from a third party social networking environment.

(E) Activities published openly (for example to the Facebook walls) are stored inside the Facebook platform.

(F) The analytics engine (122) is operable to link to the enterprise data store (151) and optionally also to the Facebook platform to send queries and based on data responses create data sets for data mining and applications of one or more analytical operations. Further details regarding possible analytical operations are provided below. Analytical operations may relate to identifying sales opportunities, rewarding key sales staff, gathering brand insights, monitoring user performance relative to learning objectives, and so on.

Further workflows implementing the computer network implemented method of the present invention are illustrated in FIG, 3b. Registration to the social networking environment (104) enabled by the present invention may occur inside the Facebook platform, however, registration may invoke one or more enterprise functions defined by operation of a Facebook application, In one particular implementation a Facebook application instance may be configured for each enterprise client of the platform (100). User registration data may be stored outside of the Facebook environment. The Facebook application may be configured to enable the integration of all enterprise data with remote systems of the each relevant enterprise, for example the enterprise's data centre, so as to enable access to information generated and capture by operation of the platform (100) in third party applications. Facebook friends of a user of the platform (100) or a Facebook application implementing the platform (100) based on the Facebook platform may be made aware of the platform (100) for example through the Facebook tickers, news feeds, or timeline, By operation for example of the Facebook Open Graph the Facebook application may run concurrently on a company website, thus enabling the integration of social media functions occurring inside of Facebook and also outside of Facebook on selected web sites such as one or more web sites of the enterprise. The Facebook application enables the configuration of game play based on user registration data, business needs and user profiles for example. hi a particular implementation: (A) user activities are associated with particular gaming events, such as the logging of a sale through the Facebook application of a particular product can be published to the users feed, points may be accumulated either based on a generic program activity or custom program activity; (B) the sale may be logged by operation of the Facebook application into remote systems for example the sales performance platform of the enterprise;

(C) other user activities can trigger further activities or rewards such as "POSTING OF SALES TIP" may trigger accumulation of X points as part of a sales training program; or completion of a learning module may trigger accumulation of Y points as part of a corporate training program;

(D) All user activities may be published as user feeds; publication can be directed by operation of the Facebook application e.g. certain user activities may be published to enterprise only friends, and other user activities may be published to enterprise and non-enterprise friends; user activities such as discussions may also be logged to external systems, or alternatively selected discussions (based on semantic analysis) may be automatically uploaded to remote applications;

(E) users may be assigned points, badges, rewards, ranking in leader boards and so on.

FIG. 4 illustrates a possible implementation of a registration process.

FIGS. 8a, 8b and 8c illustrate alternate registration and login mechanisms. In one aspect of the invention, a "linked account" may be provided to capture user accounts prior to launch of a program using the platform (100). One associated workflow is shown in FIG. 8a for ensuring that a particuialr user is connecting to a particular campaign linked to the platform (100) based on creating a set of permissions associated with a social account within the platform (100) and further possibly in association with a particular device. This ensure that content (including information and programs for example) authorized for the particular user, or relevant to the user, are displayed to the user automatically.

FIG. 8b illustrates that if a user attempts to login to the platform (100) using a social account that has not yet been registered with the platform (100), then the user is promoted to register or link that social account to an existing account in the platform (100) that may have been registered for example with a different social network. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 8c, the social account is now part of the linked account maintained in the platform (100).

Data architecture

As shown in FIG. 1, the web server (140) is linked to a database (108). The database (108) is linked to the administrative utility (152) which includes database access functions and database access management functions for managing and/or restricting access to the database (108), and also to individual enterprise data stores (151), to authorized users only, The enterprise data stores (151) may include the various enterprise specific objects, and also the various data logged by means of the social media interactions referenced above.

The database (108) may include a plurality of resources provided by the operator of the present system for example general sales tools and resources, or a series of online learning tools. The operator of the system may also be engaged by an enterprise client to develop custom materials, which may be stored to the enterprise data store (151). By operation of the administrative utility (152), users are able to access the particular resources or information that they are authorized to access. The administrative utility (152) enables for example segregation of information between from one enterprise to another for whom communities have been deployed on the social networking environment (104) of the present invention.

In one particular implementation of the present invention, all actions within the social networking environment (104) which relate to an object that is "owned" by a particular enterprise are logged and stored to a corresponding enterprise data store associated with the enterprise owner of the object, wherein the enterprise data store is implemented as a secure database that is external to Facebook for example.

Based on registration information provided by each user, the logging utility (130) is operable to track each action of the user and capture those actions that relate to one or more active campaigns deployed by operation of the system and in particular the campaign manager (150). These actions may be accumulated as data points that are linked to associated operations such as operations of the gaming utility (154) that enables application of relevant gamification to the data points, resulting in for example updates to leader boards, allocation of incentive points as part of an incentive program created and deployed using the campaign manager (150). The campaign manager (150) may also be used by an enterprise administrator to access various reports created by operation of the analytics engine (122) that enable navigation through the various campaign activities to review group performance, individual performance, performance trends and so on.

Analytics Engine The analytics engine (122) may implement various analytics applications and/or analytical processes. The analytics engine (122) may include a semantic analyzer for example for analyzing semantically for example text captured from various communications that are part of the social media interactions initiated using the social networking environment (104) of the present invention. Access to the analytics engine (122) may be controlled and managed by operation of the administrative utility (152).

The analytics engine (122) may enable an administrator for example to construct and obtain answers to various queries, or initiate the generation of various reports based on data output from the analytics engine (122).

The analytics engine (122) enables enterprises to better understand the marketplace in which they operate. Using the analytics engine (122), the platform (100) takes advantage of the front line workers' viewpoint and acts as the eyes and ears of the organization at the critical "last 3 feet" where consumers are making the actual purchase, The analytics engine (122) may incorporate or link to a suite of statistical and advanced analytic tools to monitor the situation at particular levels of interest, such as for example retail, Given the deployment of the platform (100) in a way that enables targeted information from selected groups or interactions between selected groups, the platform (100) operates as an early warning and competitive intelligence system.

In particular aspect of the platform (100), the analytics engine (122) is operable to provide insights that provide a first line data indicator of trends in sales to consumers or businesses that are currently not available, or only are available based on collection of survey responses which is kaown to be costly to obtain and based on low participation the results may not be representative of trends. The analytics engine (122) may also determine trends in learning and application of learning in connection with learning objectives specific to the enterprise, and in a particular group of learners who are employees of the company. Many enterprises invest significant resources in corporate learning but generally don't have the tools to monitor learning outcomes in an efficient and individualized manner, and also cannot generally access metrics around engagement with learning content Engagement with learning content is particularly important in the area of applied learning. The present invention in contrast allows administrators to monitor performance of users or groups of users relative to learning objectives in an easy and efficient way. Also, the platform (100) generates user engagement metrics that helps for example the administrator to modify learning related parameters to improve engagement and therefore learning outcomes especially in the domain of soft skills training and applied learning.

The platform (100), including based on operation of the analytics engine (122) provides business intelligence that can be segmented by local, regional, national and internationally.

The analytics engine (122) may incorporate or be linked to sentiment analysis functions or features so as to monitor the mood of the sellers in terms of how they are feeling about the products or services of the enterprise.

Social Networking Environment

Certain possible attributes of the social networking environment (104) are described, The web presentment utility (232) is operable to generate a series of web pages, as directed by the social networking platform (106) so as to define a series of user interactions and/or workflows, including social interactions, that define the social networking environment (104) described herein. As stated earlier, the social interactions include a plurality of social interactions that are related to enterprise objectives such as product or service related communications, feedback, education regarding products or services and so on.

As stated earlier, in one particular aspect of the invention, the social networking environment (104) enables users to define two types of web pages: (A) public pages freely accessible via the Internet through a published URL (containing information that may be controlled by the enterprise or a contractor of the enterprise such as personnel of the operator of the social networking environment (104), by operation of the administrative utility (152)), and (C) private pages not accessible from the Internet publicly, but that may be accessible for example by users logging in using their password, and then private pages will display only for other friends who are authorized for access by operation of the administrative utility (152).

The preferences utility (130) enables one or more settings pages in which the authorized user defines various parameters of the web pages described, that determine the social network interactions and/or experiences. For example, relevant settings may relate for example to the following settings related to distribution of applications (100): personal information, privacy and security, application publication, eCommerce information, appearance or arrangement of

It should be understood that the social networking platform (106) may enable the creation and management of a range of different community types including for example:

A. Closed Community on Facebook (Gated):

Only invited guests can register and sign into this community, The user registers on Facebook while logged into ' their personal Facebook account. The activity inside the application stays inside the application, and only registered users can see the activity. All activity in all instances is recorded and tracked on outside servers. There is some tracking by Facebook inside applications that are Facebook only application. Technically this type of community is not using the Open Graph.

C. Closed Community on Facebook (Gated) that is using OpenGraph: Only invited guests can register and sign into this type of community, The user registers on Facebook while logged into their personal Facebook account. This type of community chooses to publish some actions to the Open Graph. This means for example that in this instance select messages may be published, e.g. "Dan King watched a Motorola video" (an object in accordance with the present invention). This message is published to the ticker, an algorithm of his friends who see this activity. His friends can watch the video inside the ticker, but if they click the link to the community they would not be able to get into this closed community unless they have the code to register. All activity in all instances is recorded and tracked on outside servers, There is some tracking by Facebook inside applications that are Facebook only applications. Technically this community is using Facebook Open Graph to publish select application actions.

C, Closed Community on mybwebsite.com (Open Graph - Login with Facebook Connect)

All communities on any third party website that uses Facebook Connect is Open Graph because the user logs into the community through Facebook Connect which is considered an Open Graph API (plugin). All our communities (closed or open) on 3^rf party websites will require the user to log in through a social network. In these examples we are using Facebook Connect to log into the community. It should be understood that similar communities can be built for example in connection with Linkedln, Jive and Salesforce,

The communities on third party web site can choose whether or not to publish content through the Open Graph. For example, closed communities may be provided on third party websites that don't publish any actions to the Open Graph. Users log into this community with their Facebook ID and registration validation. Facebook Open Graph is used for Facebook log in. IN another example, closed communities on third party websites may publish select actions to the Open Graph. Users log into this community with their Facebook ID and registration validation, Facebook Open Graph is used for Facebook log in. The main difference between Open (gated) and Closed communities is based on the user application registration, As seen above all communities on third party websites are part of the Facebook Open Graph because of the Facebook Connect login. Any community can be Open Graph if selected user actions are published. In one particular implementation of the present invention, competition between sales personnel or other personnel can be encouraged, and made fun and social, by generating leader boards associated with relative performance within a sales team for example, based on information that may be obtained from the enterprise data store (151), and published in the form of sales team leader boards, or corporate tiaining leader boards, for example to the walls of the participating users. The users would view these leader boards whenever they access their social networking environment, for example Facebook, and the leader boards may be used as a gateway to additional information regarding performance by other users and for example tips for improving performance. The integration of this functionality within the user's normal social interactions promotes a greater degree of engagement with the enterprise campaigns, such as a sales or learning campaign, in a way that is familiar, fun, social and effective. This is but one example of the advantages provided by providing a social networking platform that is enhanced to include functionality that deploys, based on established social media interactions, various enterprise related social media interactions, in a way that safeguards enterprise information. Examples of possible leader boards are illustrated in FlGs. 6a and 6b. Leader boards may be generated based on for example rankings for all enterprise employees associated with a particular campaign, or across all campaigns for the enterprise. Leader boards may also be generated and published for managers only. Part of the present invention may involve leader boards for example for users who are key influencers. Leader boards may be linked to a range of performance criteria by operation of the campaign manager (150). Leader boards may also display for a particular user the ranking of all of their for example Facebook friends who are also registered to a campaign that is relevant to the user.

Significantly, sales management platforms may include for example features or connected applications that include social networking functions, but these social management platforms are not designed to be social, and therefore these features or connected applications do not benefit from the user engagement levels that are possible using the present invention, The realization that these objectives can be better met by building sales management functionality into for example an existing social networking environment (as described) rather than attempting to implement social functions into a sales management platform, represent a significant innovation that would not be obvious to a person skilled the in art. The improvements in user participation in for example enterprise campaigns is surprising and provides significant advantages to enterprises and also to personnel in helping them to be more effective and more productive in their discharging their obligations. Similarly, LMS platforms are also not generally designed to be social and therefore opportunities to use social networking interactions to promote collaborative learning in an efficient and dynamic way have been missed by prior art solutions.

The social networking environment (104) of the present invention enables a range of events that may be implemented as published actions, for example as illustrated in FIG. 7,

Published actions may be defined by actions that are initiated by operation of the campaign manager (150) for example and then published within the communities referred to above, mcluding private pages and/or public pages within Facebook for example, in the form of news feeds, tickers or timelines. Regardless of whether social networking environment (104) of the present invention is implemented in an open or closed manner, multiple actions can be published to the users friends through the news feed, tickers and timelines.

The social media interactions enabled by operation of the present invention result in defined impressions or "total impressions", which are earned media impressions or the number of impressions of the Open Graph Story (established by operation of the graph server (202) from a particular action, i.e. the number of times the action has showed up in the user's friends' news feeds, tickers, or timeline. Total impressions provide the basis of measurement of social engagement that is initiated as a result of campaigns. In another aspect of the invention, there is a tremendous interest in being able to measure objectively relevant activities associated with a product or service related sales campaign for example. This type of information can be difficult, costly and/or time consuming to accumulate, yet to measure results, is critical. The integration of sales performance solutions and processes in a social networking environment, that is designed to track social media interaction significantly improves the efficiency with which organizations can measure relevant sales related activities.

The platform (100) allows users to be grouped in communities, these communities can be defined by multiple external factors real world, or by game play factors.

Mobile Application In one aspect of the invention, a mobile application may be provided that enables users to interact with the enterprise mediated social media functions of the present invention, for example in connection with one or more sales and/or learning campaigns.

Fig. 13 illustrates a representative graphical user interface for a home screen for accessing user functionality for engaging in these mediated social media functions as well as incentives (that may be designed by administrators) and used to promote campaign related activities in users,

The following illustrate examples of possible features of the mobile application:

- post a sale features in connection with a sales campaign, in order to trigger associated rewards or incentives; the mobile application can also include scanning functionality where a mobile device camera is used to scan a barcode on for example product packaging so as to streamhne sales logging;

- one or more (preferably simplified) sales platform features such as sales progress tracking features that may enable a user to log their active sales opportunities, each of their progress to completion, any associated rewards based on stage of completion, and overall percentage of completion / percentage of rewards earned to date relative to what can be earned for the completed sale;

- progress of the user relative to rewards in a campaign;

- access a landing page for leaniing content, for example sales tips or safety tips; the landing page may include tools for navigating a collection of content, including one or more search features, content lists, ranked lists and so on; learning content may also include for example quizzes; content may include video content, and a further video landing page may be provided for navigating a collection of video files;

- various community engagement features such as discussion Ihreads, electronic messaging and the like; - one or more screens that allow users to upload content such as a tip, e,g, a sales tip or a safety tip; one or more screens that allow users to view for example a tip or quiz and "vote up" or "vote down" a tip or quiz or otherwise log positive or negative impressions of a tip or other content;

- any actions may be associated with rewards or points, and the home screen may include a "rewards" button or equivalent that allows the user to access their points history, their points breakdown, and/or how they compare to the points of their friends or particular sub-groups of friends; further reward related screens to promote other content regarding applicable rewards such as explanation of how to earn different categories of rewards such as "points", "badges" or "rewards" and also specific reward program such as a "top sales challenge" or "group learning challenge"; and

- the home screen may also provide access to a "leaderboard". Example in Operation

For example a wireless device manufacturer may distribute their products through three different wireless product retailers in a given market. These wireless product retailers are independent of one another, do not share information with one another, and may have very different sales processes. Their sales teams may have their own contacts with the manufacturer, and their organization at a retail level, and regional level may be very different. They may have been trained to follow distinct sales approaches. The competitive position of the manufacturer's device relative to other devices sold by the different retailers may also differ. The customer base for each retailer may be different, and may also vary within the same regional market for each retailer. Many other variations may exist that make it challenging for the manufacturer to design and deploy an effective sales campaign.

Based on these criteria, the insights that the manufacturer may be interested in, and the strategies for improving sales performance relative to each retailer may be very different. Furthermore, the manufacturer may currently lack the insight to understand how to optimize a sales campaign for each of the retailers given the consideration above,

Based on the platform (100) the manufacturer may deploy three different communities, one of each retailer, These may be deployed with branding familiar to the sales teams of each retailer, and based on topics and objects that may be easily targeted to each retailer. The manufacturer may work with management of each retailer to initially develop certain parameters for one or more campaigns and also to establish parameters for interactions between sales personnel of the manufacturer and each retailer, Typically, beyond the parameters, the users will be given a degree of control in defining groups, and other factors such as sales objectives and so on, although some of these aspects may require manager approval. In any case, a high degree of flexibility exists to test scenarios, determine what works, develop insights and use these insights from one retailer to customize campaigns for another retailer. Sales personnel typically perform better with a certain degree of freedom and also respond well to competition especially when they are matched with competitors with a profile that, given their own profile, maximizes increase in performance. The platform (100) enables the discovery of insights, and these insights may be used to reconfigure matching techniques implemented to the matcMng engine (208), for example using output from the analytics engine (122), so as to enable optimization of creation of sales teams for example, given profiles of team members and the particular sales objectives. The platform (100) enables these insights to be applied to the matching engine (208) in a user friendly way, for example, using a known rules builder, and then the platform (100) is operable to apply these sophisticated techniques to a relatively large user base. In effect one innovative outcome of the of the present invention is the ability to apply sophisticated matching and customization operations that normally would only be possible using relatively expensive consulting services.

The present invention also enables the creation of various sub-communities, for example, based on observed segmentation on sales staff attributes, or market conditions for particular products. Sub-communities may be easily deployed by operation of the present invention for a number of different business reasons. For example based on language trends in particular retail stores it may be desirable to build sales expertise in a second language by creating a new community once these language trends are observer. It may also be found that a particular product features is generating more interest in certain types of markets than others. More education around these features may be dynamically deployed by delivering specialized objects in relation to these features to new sub-communities created upon discovery of the insight The manufacturer may determine that a particular new product (the sale of which may require a significant amount of new knowledge) would benefit from a "sales ambassador" program where one or more designated sales personnel would be connected to one another in a separate group to quickly disseminate information for example based on a special set of gamification methods designed to elicit the desired learning. For example rewards may be linked to providing correct answers to a quiz relate to the new product.

The learning objective may be related to a sales campaign, such as sales skills training or education regarding new products, or may be related to a different learning objective such as improving awareness regarding workplace safety. The platform implements collaborative learning between groups that are defined dynamically and that are a good fit based for the content and the learning objectives.

General It will be appreciated that any module or component exemplified herein that executes instructions may include or otherwise have access to computer readable media such as storage media, computer storage media, or data storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, for example, magnetic disks, optical disks, tape, and other forms of computer readable media. Computer storage media may include volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of infomiation, such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. Examples of computer storage media include RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD- ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD), blue-ray disks, or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by an application, module, or both. Any such computer storage media may be part of the mobile device 10, tracking module 30, object tracking application 34, etc., or accessible or correctable thereto. Any application or module herein described may be implemented using computer readable/executable instructions that may be stored or otherwise held by such computer readable media, A skilled reader will recognize that other example various extensions to the features and functions described are possible, such as incorporate of various semantic analysis functions to the analytics engine (122).

It will also be appreciated that the block configurations, screen shots, and flow charts provided herein are for illustrative purposes only and various modifications thereof are applicable within the principles discussed herein.

Although the above principles have been described with reference to certain specific embodiments, various modifications thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention and the claims appended hereto. Other modifications are therefore possible.

Business Model

The operator of the present invention may generate revenue through enterprise subscriptions and possibly through advertisements. Revenue may also be tied to achievement of performance goals linked to sales performance and/or achievement of interaction goals.

Advantages

Various advantages of the present invention have already been mentioned above. Further advantages of the invention are described below.

The platform (100) is able to provide up to date information that would be very costly to collect using any other methodology in a manner that was similarly current.

It should be understood that because the platform (100) utilizes processes with which users are familiar, training costs are reduced significantly. Also, the platform (100) is relatively cost effective to use and adopt and therefore the return on investment characteristics of the present invention are very attractive.

The platform (100) enables sales personnel to hone their competitive product and selling messaging in a highly cost effective way, As effective messaging can depend on demographic attributes of the buyer audience and on trends that can shift quickly, the platform (100) of the present invention enables the discovery of demographic trends₃ and optimization of messaging to such trends or buyer audience attributes in ways that would not be possible or cost effective using prior art techniques. The platform (100) of the present invention may utilize cluster analysis to better understand user and community populations, and enable the segmentation of these groups to better understand mechanisms associated with customer buy-in and other insights important and valuable to enterprises.

The platform (100) also enables generation of timely and rich data sets enabling analysis of demand to enable for example price adjustments for greater profitability, including on a local, regional, national, and international basis.

The platform (100) enables the discovery of insights on a wide array of topics that are very valuable to enterprises but very costly and sometimes impractical to collect at this time. For example the platform (100) enables the collection of valuable customer satisfaction metrics in a highly effective way that also has attractive accuracy characteristics based on the relative spontaneity of feedback accumulated by operation of the platform (100).

Claims

Claims:

1. A computer network implemented social networking system comprising:

(a) a computer system implementing a computer network application providing a campaign manager that enables a manager of an enterprise to define the parameters of a sales management campaign and/or a corporate learning campaign ("campaign") directed by the enterprise to two or more enterprise users, the campaign including one or more digital media objects (whether text, graphical content, video, audio or digital goods) for consumption by the enterprise users in connection with the campaign and/or one or more actions required of the enterprise users or suggested to the enterprise users, for engaging with the campaign;

(b) the campaign manager being part of, or being linked to, a computer network implemented social networking platform so as to enable:

(i) the enterprise users, or a manager of the enterprise, to define or connect to one or more social networks for executing the actions using social media interactions on the social networking platform, or apply one or more existing social networks to execution of the actions using social media interactions on the social networking platform; and

(ii) the enterprise users to engage in the actions, or part of the actions, and to consume the objects, or some of the objects, via the social networking platform.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the campaiga manager and the social networking platform interoperate so that the actions and/or objects are experienced by the enterprise users as part of the social interactions enabled by the social networking platform,

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer system includes or links to an Internet application that is linked to the social networking platfoim and that enables the enterprise to: (a) define the parameters for creation of one or more communities linked to the campaign, including:

(i) rules for accessing the communities;

( i) rules for publication of actions and/or objects related to the campaign via the social networking platform; and/or

(iii) storing of information generated based on social media interactions between the enterprise users in connection with the campaign.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the social media interactions, or social media interactions of interest, are logged by a logging utility and the campaign manager is operable to enable the manager to define one or more enterprise objectives associated with the campaign.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the campaign manager enables an administrator to create₅ manage, or modify one or more active campaigns based on sales and/or learning objectives that utilizes social networking features of the social networking platform, including dynamic definition of sub-networks of enterprise users to enable collaboration between users in regards to sales and/or learning objectives.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the web application includes or links to an analytics engine that is operable to analyze associated social media interactions to generate sales management analytics, including recommendations related to improvement of sales performance.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the system further includes a matching utility for suggesting the composition of social networks or sub-networks, in connection with the campaign.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the social networks correspond to sales teams, and wherein such sales teams include enterprise users, or enterprise users and personnel from one or more channel partners of the enterprise.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein the social networks correspond learning groups, wherein such learning groups induding enterprise users.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the platform presents a sales management interface that is consistent with the user interfaces of the social networking platform, such that campaign related actions are experienced as personal social media interactions.

11. The system of claim 1, further including at least one mobile device, the mobile device including a mobile application or accessing one or more application features via the Internet that enable a mobile device user to interact with enterprise directed social media functions in connection with one or more sales and/or learning campaigns.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the parameters include one or more rewards or incentives associated with the actions, and the computer system logs actions completed by enterprise users and allocates rewards or incentives based on the completed actions.