Recap: How to Develop a Scalable Social Business Program for Today’s Business

At today’s webinar, Jerimiah Owyang of Altimeter Group shared the latest research on social business and social media readiness, based on 63 interviews, 144 survey respondents of medium and large size companies, and analysis of 50 social media case studies around crises.

I was impressed with the case studies and insights Jeremiah shared, as well as his advice for managing social media presence for companies, both large corporations and small businesses.

Key Takeaways

1. Create a firm foundation for social media with:
   1. Education
   2. Thought policy
   3. Process
2. It takes trained professionals to manage your online presence. Only 50% of companies said their employees were trained in social media.
3. Your social media goals must meet business goals. ROI is not about fans and followers, it’s about KPI’s. (Business goals are getting more leads, bringing more feet into your store, improving the customer experience)
4. Make your social media policy clear, what’s allowed and not allowed.
   1. Don’t write the policy with legalese words.
   2. Need an example of a good social media policy? Check out the social media policy Cisco published online.
5. Consider a social media certification program for your employees.
6. US Department of Defense has an internal social media learning program.
7. For companies with more than 1000 customers, the average size of the social media team is 11 people.
8. Set expectations for your customers. If you can’t allocate a person to respond to customers 24/7, put that in your profile bio.
9. Have a triage policy. What do you do if someone speaks negatively about your business or product? Here’s a chart Jeremiah shared on managing response:

   

10. Decentralized social media account control is not scalable. It’s problematic for all internal parties to connect properly.
11. Zappo’s uses the Honeycomb social media method. Each employee is empowered to engage in interaction.
12. For IBM, the goal of the social media guidelines is not to constrain, but empower employees.
13. Metrics: How does social media impact your business goals? Are you using social data to improve your products/services or design new products/services?
14. Companies that are advanced in their social media usage invest in four social business requirements:
    1. Establish governance
    2. Define real-time processes
    3. Foster a culture of learning
    4. Organize into a scalable formation
15. It takes three to five years for a company to evolve to an advanced social business organization.