Ready, set, social business agenda

The published number of more than 800 million active Facebook users now will make it the third-largest country after China and India, or two times the size of the US population. Internet users who use the social network site of every age are increasing every month. 

This trend towards embracing social business is global.  According to the 2011 GlobalWebIndex Survey of more than 51,000 Web users, use of social tools is now mainstream in all countries (except Japan), having more than 50 per cent of their respective populations using the tools. Communities are the No 1 social tool being used, with Facebook as the dominating communities, except in Russia, Netherlands, Japan and China where local brands dominate.

It is clear that people are adopting social media as a part of their lives. There is nothing surprising in the fact that companies around the world are now focused on becoming “social businesses”.  

Until recently, social media has been top of the mind for marketing and PR executives, with the focus on leveraging social tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and communities, as a new form of media.  As these social techniques advance, businesses are now applying their value to more than just marketing and public relations, but to all processes in a business – including human resources, marketing, sales, customer service, supply chain and more. A social business is one that uses these social techniques, as well as a wide variety of other collaborative technologies, in all of its business processes. 

So with this major focus, organisations around the world are beginning to ask: “How does my company start the journey?”

As a leader of the organisation, the question is more on how to create personalised social business agenda for the entire  organisation. Let me share with you food for thought based on IBM’s own experience and the social business strategy we worked with clients in helping them staying relevant to the market.  

A – align your goals and culture to be ready to become more engaging and transparent. Do not underestimate the task ahead of you. Culture eats strategy for lunch. If you are looking for the way to get started, you may go take a look at IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines as a reference.

G – gain social trust by focusing on finding your fans, friends and followers, and forming best friends from your tippers or most influential clients or outside parties. It dives into what social trust is all about and how you instill it.

E – engage through experiences with your clients and employees – consider diving into gaming, virtual gifting, location based, mobile, or other stellar experiences to drive that engagement.

N – “Social” network your processes. Since this is about business, figuring out how to add social techniques to your processes is critical. Think about customer service – adding in Twitter to address your customer’s concerns. Or Crowdsourcing for product innovation, or Communities for incrementing your marketing processes around Loyalty.

D – design for reputation and risk management. This is the No 1 area of focus for the C level – managing the risk of having your brand online, your employees being your brand advocates, and even your clients becoming your marketing department. The value typically outweighs the risk, but see how to develop a disaster recovery plan as you plan for the worst, and expect the best.

A – analyse your data. Social analytics are the new black. You need to see the patterns of sentiment, who your tippers are, and listen daily.

As organisations of all sizes around the globe embrace social, it is critical that you’re not left behind. Becoming a social business doesn’t happen overnight though. A culture of transparency and change must be embraced first in order to start the social business journey.

 

Parnsiree Amatayakul is managing director of IBM Thailand. Her article is published in the Hi! Managers column every third Friday of the month.