Busy managers should be excused if they are not current on every development in the social media world. In discussions around digital transformation, one question regularly comes up: "Where is social media heading?" Based on our research and project work, we have identified four emerging social media trends. Overall, social media is morphing from a communication tool to a larger social business enabler.
1. It is not just for the marketers
Marketing no longer has a monopoly on social media programs. Other groups like HR (for external recruiting), product development (for innovation) and customer service (for product support) are increasingly driving usage on these platforms and delivering business value.
2. Content strategies are evolving
Most marketing efforts "push" content out more than 90% of the time. Marketers (and other departments) will progressively become more social, seeking a balance between pushing information and engaging their customers in dialogue around the content. Moreover, visual content will likely become more prominent in these social and collaborative conversations. Expect new social apps to better support the embedding of visual content (including live video) into conversations to better deliver sales demos or technical support.
3. Resetting the community button
Many attempts at community cultivation are failing due to a lack of resources and mismanagement. Equally important is the dearth of dialogue-fostering social elements in the content, such as relevance and uniqueness that cater to specific interests. "At its core, social media is about being social. Your social strategy should be designed to deliver an interesting core message that wants to be shared," says Marilyn Sinclair, president of communications company All About Words. Companies are steadily getting serious about building focused communities that emphasize social sharing.
4. The rise of social analytics
To better target business problems, understand customers and generate enterprise-wide ROI, firms are beginning to analyze, listen and learn from customer experiences, and tap into the social pulse of customers, advocates, influencers and their collective networks. These learnings will improve the quality and quantity of social media interactions.
Social business initiatives are all about enabling workers to collaborate with customers through social media to solve problems or capitalize on opportunities. To do this, participant conversations will need to cross functions, locations and devices, blurring the barriers between the internal and external roles. This transition won’t be easy for every firm. Gartner, an IT research firm, predicts, "Through 2015, 80% of social business efforts will not achieve the intended benefits due to inadequate leadership and an overemphasis on technology."
The following success factors can help a firm exploit the trend towards social business:
- Make strong leadership and expert change management a priority
When it comes to leveraging IT, the corporate Achilles Heel is often internal adoption. All senior leaders — and not just the CIO — should prioritize social business initiatives, model the right behaviours and deploy the right change resources and tools to drive employee acceptance. For example, some CEOs are appointing Chief Digital Officers to drive digital adoption across the organization. In other cases, companies have created senior, cross-functional steering committees to secure alignment, focus and investment. Technology is merely the delivery system
- Establish a clear and compelling purpose for social business from the outset
Most organizations look at collaboration as a technology platform issue not as a solution to a specific business problem. Having a platform view isn’t necessarily wrong from an enterprise perspective but it frequently leads to band-aid approaches that don’t get to the root cause of problems and typically get bogged down in organizational inertia.
"Organizations fall in love with the newest ‘thing’ and they want to be cool, but they forget that their objective is to compel an audience to do something specific. Clear, consistent and compelling messaging that address social business needs across all platforms is key," says Sinclair. "Technology is merely the delivery system." Social business is best enabled when the business problem drives all key decisions including technology choice.
- Consider systems and cultural tweaks to support social business
Many companies today are not well organized to conduct social business. For example, community management and customer-service efforts often lack sufficient capabilities including tools, people and skills to deliver credible programs that address customer needs. In other cases, a firm’s organizational dynamics (e.g., siloed structures, and oblique processes), performance measurement tools and culture norms do not promote free flow communication let alone collaboration.
Companies can maximize the value of their social media investments and efforts when they shift from a marketing-centered, "push" approach to an organization-wide, problem-solving strategy that engages both the community and firm. The first step in leveraging social business comes from exploring how a company can meaningfully talk and listen to their customers and stakeholders to collaboratively address their needs through the right business solution.
Mitchell Osak is managing director of Quanta Consulting Inc. Quanta has delivered a variety of strategy and organizational transformation consulting and educational solutions to global Fortune 1,000 organizations. Mitchell can be reached at mosak@quantaconsulting.com