Some think it started with YouTube and MySpace. Others point to mobile phones and text messaging. Still others say Google with its email, instant messaging and document sharing capabilities were behind it. Collectively, there is an attitude that social media and personal interactions started with the Millennials. These positions are wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Social media in the enterprise has its roots back to the days of forums and bulletin boards. It wasnt called social media back then, but the objectives were the same as they are today: Listening to customers, moderating the interactive communication, providing information and links to address concerns, and most importantly, letting enthusiastic customers be a voice for the firm and its products.
Social media in the enterprise has evolved. It has moved from being one of those fringe applications that only a few people were aware of, to grabbing mind share across companies of all sizes. The value of social media has bifurcated, providing value both inside the firewall as well as customer facing.
FORMS OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THE ENTERPRISE
David Carter, co-founder of Awareness Networks
, a social networking platform company, identified eight ways in which firms use social media for outward facing communications. Most firms use only two or three of these techniques today, leading us to believe there is substantial room for growth and business expansion opportunities with further, deeper implementation.
The eight uses of outward facing social media are:
The corporate voice. These are the firms internal experts who blog. These are blogs and wikis enabled for some bidirectional communication. The objective of the corporate voice is to talk about efforts going on inside the firm.
Campaigns. These are lifestyle communities of interest. CVS Pharmacy has established a social network to support families with members who have Alzheimers Disease. CVS moderates the discussions, but the point is to share the ups and downs of caring for a loved one with this debilitating illness.
Enthusiasts. This social network is topic specific: Apple iPhone users, Specialized Bike riders, Saab owners. These people are over-the-top delighted with their device and want to share cool capabilities they discovered or have learned about the product.
Association or Subscription. These are user groups, generally established by the company, to obtain feedback up and down the supply chain.
Loyalties. This social platform is established to reward exceptional customers. Similar to a frequent flier or guest services, these are the inside specials offered to the loyal customer.
Innovation Community. This social network is for idea generation. It includes people from inside and outside the company. We are seeing more and more of these social networks appearing as firms seek to obtain customer desires, rather than conducting R&D and crossing their fingers that the end product will be cool and widely adopted when released.
Peer Support. This type of social network is a form of CRM. It supports highly skilled users acting in a helpdesk manner even though they are not an employee of the company.
Event Specific. This type of social site is established to cross pollinate between its users and events such as trade shows and webinars. No Jitter also drives participation to and through VoiceCon, a specific event it hosts.
The eight types of social networks also identify a logical way in which firms can start down the social media path, executing in a measured, incremental manner to ensure optimal success.
What are the driving factors behind this relatively recent shift in the adoption of social media in business? What are some of the best practices firms should consider when implementing social media platforms? And what are some of the issues firms should consider before executing a social media project?
