PDMS, the software development firm specialising in web development services, has forged an alliance with Sherrilynne Starkie, managing partner of Strive Public Relations, to help organisations to build, manage and engage with online communities through social computing.

As part of PDMS’ Digital Design service, the new venture provides a unique combination of deep software engineering expertise along with a thorough understanding of organisational and marketing communications.

“The social network revolution brings many challenges, but it presents even more opportunity through innovation. The winners of the next ten years will be those organisations that really get to grips with it,” said PDMS Managing Director Chris Gledhill.

“Sherrilynne is an internationally-recognised social media expert who has an in-depth knowledge of how people are using Internet technologies to form and participate in online communities. Together we’ll innovate we can develop and implement the social software solutions to meet the needs of today’s organisations.”

PDMS Digitial Design social media services include:
·     strategic engagement campaigns
·     online community building and management
·     Digital PR, SE0
·     corporate blogs, social websites
·     social applications development
·     web content development
·     training and coaching
·     online conversation monitoring & response

Sherrilynne Starkie said, “The alliance with PDMS is the perfect marriage of PR and Web know-how. Social media is changing how humans communicate the world over.  Organisations are struggling to keep pace and those that put web services at the centre of their communications and business strategies are set for success.”

Social media across the organisation:

Sales: Online communities are discussing companies, brands and products and this chatter can impact sales. Insight can inform sales and product strategy. Online promotions reduce cost of sales. Encouraging consumers to share views on social networks drives ecommerce site traffic

Marketing: Brand amplification, core message dissemination, loyalty and awareness are just some of the marketing activities that social media impacts.

Insight: Consumer research, done well, can be costly. Social media provides constant feedback and both quantitative and qualitative data at a fraction of the cost of traditional research methods.

Innovation: Social networks devoted to idea generation among customers, team members, shareholders, or any distinct community can promote innovation, improve quality, streamline production and generally improve the overall development of an organisation.

Government 2.0: Public sector bodies are becoming more open. That means they are using social computing to increase collaboration and transparency to transform the way governments relate to citizens and operate.