By Ytzik Aranov, Managing Partner, Social2B

For those of you who’ve been through business school lectures on Michael Porter’s Value Chain Analysis this doesn’t come as news to you.  But when asked to implement social media practices, policies, platforms, tools, etc., in today’s corporation or enterprise, we throw out all of what we learned that makes the enterprise tick and elect to “surf” it through!

Attention – and I quote:

“Social Media (in the Enterprise) is a Business Process, not a channel, department, or vertical silo”.

End quote.

You heard it here!  Think about it.  Social media touches upon every department, every business process, every channel, every prospect / customer interaction, every investor, every supplier, in short, it touches the entire organization.

In today’s marketplace, social media and an enterprise’s’ online brand architecture and social media footprint is arguably, the most important business process affecting the entire Enterprise Value Chain.  Poor implementation of a solid online & social media platform strategy & tactics directly impacts a company’s ability to market, sell and extend its brand reach, globally.  Failure to effectively implement an integrated social media strategy & tactics across the entire Value Chain could potentially lead to lower revenues (read, shareholder value), slippage in market share, increased financial exposure, risk, and more

One of the most effective measurement techniques to measure enterprise social media effectiveness, both pre- and post-implementation, is to diagnose the “Social Media Maturity Index” (see graphic), which establishes a recognizable industry-specific metric with which to assess the social media value, influence, depth, and footprint of an enterprise’s value chain components – combining both departments and business processes.  Moreover, the social media maturity Index in its very essence is a barometer of how the value chain is capable of moving at the speed of (digital & social) business today.

So, when looking for added revenue stream, cost savings, internal value, constraints, and external interfaces with the world, then social media maturity acutely identifies the lack of, or plethora, of business excellence in sync with today’s pace of commerce.

OK, skeptics, How do we drill down into the Enterprise Value Chain and establish Social Value Chain Maturity & Scalability? Let’s break it apart into pieces.  Look at the following chart that defines touch points throughout selected departments throughout the enterprise, and their social media impacts.

The same goes for every other vertical silo, and, every business processes.  Each and every business process running across – horizontally – the enterprise has multiple social media touch points.

Social media maturity, coupled with an integrated online, SEO, SEM and Social Community Marketing strategy replaces one-way communication with dialogue. Participation by customers, suppliers, employees, the industry, the market, etc., and feedback from them all (!), must be listened to because it has the power to make or break your enterprise or enterprise function.  Social media tools allow us to observe the conversations, measure, monitor, track and quantify the online & social media reach and influence. It allows us to assess and re-assess the correct strategy & tactics from the bottom up to increase revenues, open new markets, capture greater market share, lower costs and in general, improve the bottom-line ROI.

So, what about ROI?

If done right — and you’ll have to come back for a later post on this subject — the Social Media Maturity Index is then mapped by those of you honored to be the “Keeper of the Social Keys” in the enterprise, to any existing enterprise Balanced Scorecard KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in use by the Executive suite (read CFO), in order to assess true ROI, Economic Value & shareholder value. And, by the way, to justify shifting dollars from traditional advertising / marketing into your online / social media marketing budget.

In Summary:

The value in executing a Social Media Maturity Index exercise, as the very first step prior to embarking on that “Journey to the Edge of the Social World”, includes, but by no means is limited to:

• Creating a more aligned and more cohesive internal organization (whether vertical silo or horizontal business process) involved with social media and its offshoots;
• Developing a cross-enterprise social media policy – let me guess, you’re thinking about it, while hundreds of employees across the value chain are uncontrollably blogging & Tweeting about the company without any filters – to manage the social media impact;
• Channeling the endless volume of Content across the enterprise that is not “curated”, re-purposed or managed effectively throughout the enterprise, thereby losing SEO and ranking power;
• Implementing a solid, instantaneous, Reputation Management process – what’s that? – more on that in another post …;
• Hiring – training – more targeted and experienced human resources to effectively channel the enterprise’s social media assets and better utilization of current ones;
• Mapping out a better-defined path to enterprise success by assessing the maturity of the organization and its readiness to embrace a new channel (SM) affecting the entire value chain – from customer service to distributor relations to marketing;
• Establishing a quantifiable and actionable ROI – well, we know what that means (Return-On-Ignoring, Return-on-I (me!), etc. – in short, how we justify the extra capital needed to implement targeted social media campaigns to accelerate products or services sales.

The Social Media Maturity Index provides an immediate snapshot of where every Value Chain component of the organization is today is with respect to social media & market acceleration and what can be expected in terms of performance based on the overall social media maturity of the enterprise. It also maps out where each Value Chain component is lacking and what can be done to accelerate it and better sync it to the other Value Chain components thereby creating a powerhouse enterprise that socially rocks!

By Ted Rubin

Traditional customer service certainly gets its share of bad-mouthing:  endless pre-categorized “service” menu selections followed by long wait times to speak with a customer representative, plus the constant risk of getting disconnected, or the call dropping in the middle of the wait.

Social media is now giving customers an interesting alternative to telephone customer service and the lines at the in-store returns desks.  Many who are getting shunned by traditional customer service are now getting satisfaction through … Twitter.

Using Twitter as a customer service tool actually makes a lot of sense – for your customers and for your brand:

VISIBILITY

For your customer: The direct yet very public nature of tweets gives your customers a way to “keep you in line” and make you pay attention.  One customer tweet including a wisely-placed hashtag (#) and your brand name can make quite a statement.   A customer complaint over Twitter can spread like wildfire.

For your brand: No matter whether the customer tweets are positive or negative about your brand, you have the chance to show your current and potential customers the quality of your customer service.  Good or bad, your customer service is now visible to thousands, so make it GREAT.

NOVELTY

For your customer: There is still a sense of novelty to using Twitter as a Customer Service tool.  Interacting with a brand over Twitter is an interesting story to share with their networks to create a few minutes of mini-celebrity for your customer.

For your brand: Your customer service department members can enjoy knowing this is a fairly new way of working with customers.   Let your business’ customer service be “cutting edge” and that enthusiasm will go far with your customers!

SPEED

For your customer: A Tweet is practically instantaneous.  Compare that to other methods of customer service! The response time to a customer service related tweet tells an important story about your brand, and your customers ARE paying attention.

For your brand: You have a chance to notice, respond to, and resolve customer issues within minutes.  Issue turnaround time speaks volumes for brand, and Twitter gives you a place to showcase your responsiveness.   And remember, your great customer service immediately becomes positive PR — all it takes for your customers to spread the word are a few tweets to their network, and the re-tweets follow from there!

Our customers are looking to Twitter for customer satisfaction – are we there when they “call”??

By Kent Huffman August 22nd, 2009 Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman ===== The explosive growth of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and a host of other social networking tools has led to some significant opportunities for companies to promote their products and services in the Web 2.0 world. But it has led to some significant risks as well. By definition, social media content is created by its users. Therefore, the content is not directly controlled by your company as it would be in the case of your official corporate marketing materials (Web site, collateral pieces, advertisements, etc.). Therein lies the potential risk. One way to help safeguard your organization is to publish an official corporate social media policy for your employees. What a Good Social Media Policy Should Contain

Your social media policy should begin by defining the term “social media” and detailing why a policy is needed in the first place. That way, your employees will better understand that the policy is not intended to restrict their activities online; rather, to protect the company from liability and brand damage. Explain how the company could be scarred by false or derogatory information on social media networks and how that information becomes a permanent part of the record on the Internet. A well-written social media policy should also detail everything that your employees should and should not do when posting content online. For example, make it clear to the employee that he/she can or cannot: * Identify himself/herself as an employee of the company * Use the company name, logo, product photos, or other trademarked materials * Discuss customers, partners, or other employees * Offer recommendations for other employees (such as on LinkedIn) * Post on social media sites during business hours There are a few more obvious rules that should be included in your policy as well, such as forbidding employees to: * Divulge proprietary or confidential information about the company, its products, and/or its services, including financial data, pricing, strategy, and the like * Discuss or link to your competitors * Talk directly to the media (those discussions should be referred to the corporate marketing department) * Use vulgar words, ethnic or racial slurs, or derogatory comments of any kind The policy should also detail the consequences that will occur when an employee doesn’t follow the instructions detailed in the policy, including stating that the offender’s employment may be terminated for repeated or egregious offenses. It should also cover the responsibility of an employee to report the actions of another employee who violates any of the terms of policy. Before publishing your social media policy, it should be submitted to your human resources department and legal department (or corporate attorney) for review. After that, you should also ask your executive team to review it as well. Make Sure Your Employees Understand and Follow Your Policy In addition to announcing your new social media policy to all company employees after it has been properly vetted, the policy should also be included as a permanent addition to your employee manual. It should also be posted on your company intranet site. Once your policy has been published and distributed, you might want to consider adding some follow-up procedures to ensure that the policy is being followed properly, such as: * Sending monthly or quarterly e-mail announcements to all employees, reminding them about the importance of the policy and where to find it * Making a list of all social media participants and regularly monitoring their activities online, at least by doing spot checks How Your Industry Could Impact the Content in Your Policy Some of the content in your social media policy could be—and should be—influenced by the particular needs of your specific industry. For example, in the retail space, confidential supplier product information is one of the most common areas in which your company can be exposed. “At Best Buy, we are very committed to being an open and transparent brand, as we believe this builds trust,” said Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer at Best Buy. “However, in doing so, we need to be very mindful that not all information we have can be made public on social media sites, especially as it relates to proprietary manufacturer data that has been provided to us by our supplier partners.” If you’re in the financial services industry, extraordinary care must be taken on social media networks to protect your confidential financial information. Eddie Reeves, CEO of Reeves Strategy Group and former Vice President of Media Relations for Merrill Lynch, said, “Obviously, when you’re talking about managing OPM—other people’s money—and the information related to that money, you have to take caution and discretion to a whole new level. That isn’t to say you can’t or shouldn’t use social media, because I believe you should, and I advise my clients to do so—not just with confidence, but aggressively. You just have to think carefully through your policies and procedures. Fortunately, most of the rules and policies that financial services firms already have on the books are usually sufficient with a bit of tweaking.” The healthcare industry is fraught with social media concerns because of the potential liability issues related to medical content posted online and recommendations about other health-related sites, as well as the confidentiality requirements surrounding patient records, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Sam Mallikarjunan, Chief Marketing Officer at American Health, noted, “There is a delicate balance between the interest in utilizing new technology to engage and educate consumers and protecting consumer information. While a social media site that allows people with medical conditions to network or a site that allows patients to track their medical calendars may be valuable and useful, we must be mindful of the chaotic nature of the Internet and its vulnerability to privacy violations.” Mallikarjunan added, “A good social media policy must have mechanisms in place to guide employees towards the proper ways in which to engage customers. Furthermore, we must ensure that employees understand the depth of social media and the need to maintain a professional and respectable presence on all publicly available mediums.” Other industries that may require special content in their corporate social media policies include travel and hospitality, publishing, media and entertainment, professional services, and government. Examples of Corporate Social Media Policies A number of major corporations have published their social media policies on the Internet for everyone to see. Here are a few examples: * Cisco Systems * ESPN * Gartner * Hill & Knowlton * HP * Intel * New York Times * Opera Software * Plaxo * Porter Novelli * Sun Microsystems * Wal-Mart * Wells Fargo Finally, here’s an easy-to-use template from SHIFT Communications that you may want to use as a starting point. For more information about how you can protect your company with a customized corporate social media policy, contact Social2B. Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

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