Following the series of asking vendors with Social Business credentials their thoughts on Social Business – bluekiwi is next. Want to read the previous ones? Oracle, Attensity, Fuze Digital, Moxie Software, SAP, GetSatisfaction, RightNow Technologies, and Lithium are already posted.
Where is the social world going in 12 months?
With mainstream adoption of social media in the consumer space, the use of social is naturally progressing into the enterprise.
In the last 24 months the widespread use of social media has dramatically changed purchaser behavior. Facebook has now exceeded 500 million users who share more than 45 billion pieces of content monthly. On Twitter, 150 million users publish more than 8 million brand recommendations. In addition LinkedIn has now topped 80 million users!
These statistics are evidence that it’s time for social to cross over to the enterprise space.
During the next 12 months increasingly more organizations will move from strategic thinking to operational Social Business deployments with tangible results. As an employee, partner or customer, the rise of social inside the business will deeply change the way we envision the enterprise. New and unexpected professional behaviors will emerge as they did in our private lives. Employees will connect with each other regardless of existing silos to get things done faster. Eventually businesses will recognize that social media improves the overall efficiency of the organization. This includes the role of customers in improving products and services.
How Can Businesses Not Be Left Behind?
The first challenge in social business will require the enterprise to look beyond technology and marketing concepts.
Too many organizations still believe that adopting Social Business is just about buying so-called Software. Most of time they forget it’s about changing the way they traditionally do business. Businesses need to think about organizing their resources in a different way including how they engage employees, partners and customers.
The enterprise that focuses solely on the technology and marketing aspects of Social Business exposes itself to dramatic adoption setbacks.
The focus should not be on getting “left behind” but on conducting the transformation in the right way mixing technology and services together. This will ensure the success that the enterprise deserves.
Adopting Social Business takes time and because it takes time, organizations need to get started today. The right methodology to ensure success should consist of:
1/ Establishing REAL business goals and objectives with the high-management of the enterprise
2/ Recruiting REAL business owners and preparing them for a new role
3/ Setting up a REAL Social Business plan including technology but not only
4/ Engaging REAL people, not only Twitter users and Facebook fans but employees, partners, customers, web-influencers…
5/ Measuring REAL business results
What is going to happen 3 years and beyond?
This is a $1,000,000,000 question! Social software is no longer an “emerging technology.”
The most interesting change will be sociological and cultural. A new kind of business relationship will emerge. Organizations will become increasingly more porous—that being said it will be that much more difficult to manage networks that include employees, partners and customers.
In the future businesses will have to manage their business ecosystem-including employees and customers-on an individual basis.
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I think blueKiwi is absolutely correct that “The most interesting change will be sociological and cultural.” We still have a corporate culture that is only slowly beginning to adopt and support both social media tools and their employees using them. And then there are the questions of what to do with all this data. An organization may be on board with integrating social media into their processes but then may struggle to measure its impact or not know what to do with this data once they have it. I think the most revolutionary changes are to come and I am excited to see how that might look.
Great interview! Thanks for posting.
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Thank you for your comment Jennifer, you are right when you say Social Media are creating more and more data to manage both externally and internally. What do we do with all those customers and employees contributions? Today, listening seems to be the answer… I agree but I feel at the same time confused with this limited approach. It’s fine to listen but as a company your job is not only to listen but to do something with them. When I look at what most of “social organizations” do with customers feedback, most of time their actions are limited to a “thank you” (when it’s positive) or “sorry” (when its’ negative) answers. Your contacts deserve much more than this… At the same time it’s impossible to do much more when the solution you use only allows you to listen! To answer a client most of time you need to rely on internal expertise or decision makers, what we propose with blueKiwi is an All-In-One solution that allows you to bring the best conversations insid eyour organization to tap into the right resources and get the right answer to push back.
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