If you’re interested in ‘going social’ you need to know why your company should do so. Do you have an answer ready?
Good 🙂
In this post I will ask a few (impertinent) questions and hope they help you decide what to do about ‘social’. In other words, my aim is to make you think. All right, now I’m in trouble 😉
Social business: what we need is a plan
- Social business mixes social media in – inside and out.
While reading some recent articles I noticed that several of them mention the ‘checklist approach’ to social media (I’m borrowing the word from Steven van Belleghem).
It’s a tactical approach: are you on Twitter? Check. Facebook? Check. So you’re ready. Right?
When you ask businesses ‘why’ they are on social media, chances are they’ll tell you something like “the whole world is there, so our customers are somewhere in there with the rest of the world”.
I’m not arguing. But that’s just one step on a long journey.
How does your content strategy connect with your social media strategy?
Yup, this non-strategist is talking strategy for once – but only to ask you more questions.
How will you connect with (not just ‘reach’) people on social media – or even on your own blog or web site?
Does every piece of content you create help your customers in some (small) way? When you read an article it really helps if it’s well-written and either amusing, or interesting, or both. Add a comment below if you disagree with me 🙂
You need people within your company to want to achieve this connection with customers. What value you aim to offer to customers should be clear to all. It shouldn’t be up to each individual employee (or team) to imagine where the link between the ‘top blah’ (vision, mission statement) and your company’s customers might be found.
How will becoming a social business help you help your customers?
An article by Adi Gaskell refers to a recent report by IBM stating that three main approaches have proved successful as starting points for the journey to social business heights:*
- Creating valued customer experiences
- Driving workforce productivity and effectiveness
- Accelerating innovation.
Whichever starting point you choose, you need to integrate ‘social’ into the entire process. It’s not something a few isolated employees can do for you. It takes a plan that involves everyone at some stage, in order to achieve anything above the bare minimum.
In other words, if you want to become a ‘social business’, social media is not the cherry on your chocolate cake. It’s not just the chocolate that glistens on the outside and makes you want to eat until you burst. It’s firstly the cocoa you mixed into the dough. And it’s the chocolate icing. And, possibly, it’s also the cherry – although that’s optional. You get my drift 🙂
Social media creates valued customer experiences
Funnily enough, I wrote most of the above before reading a post which to me seems the perfect inspirational example when it comes to customer experiences (even if you feel there’s no way you’ll ever measure up to this stuff).** Read it, enjoy it, ask yourself what is in there that you could use in some way. How will your use of social media make a difference to your customers?
A few thoughts about social business – and why you need a plan for it
- You can’t add social media to an existing business as an afterthought and expect to become a social business.
- You need a plan so you don’t get distracted by the latest hype all the time.
- Without a plan, you could end up out of breath by going nowhere at all.
Social media has been called ‘disruptive’. I take that to mean it creates a healthy imbalance in places where everything used to stay more or less the same. You need to think about business basics, and see how social media fit into your business.
You need a plan to let social media influence your entire mix of activities in a structured way.
Social business is not a thing – it’s an emergent property of the way you handle the potential of social media.
References
* Adi Gaskell, IBM reveals the secrets to social business success, Business2Community, November 10. Adi refers to this report by IBM, The business of social business: what works and how it’s done.
** Matt Wilson, 3 essentials that power Disney Parks’ social media strategy. PR Daily, November 12.
Hoping I’ve managed to make you think, even for a moment, about the essence of social business – if so, please let me know by using the comment box below!
Content Rambler 