The transformation into a social business

Chris    Social media     social business, social business readiness, social media centre of excellence

Most businesses believe there is value in using social media, the big challenge is the transformation into a social business when the decision is made to get serious about it.

Social media thought leader Jeremiah Owyang from Altimeter explains most businesses organise for social media in one of five models

• 1. organic 2. centralised 3. coordinated 4. dandelion 5. honeycomb

I’ll go over the first three which are the most common.

1. Organic (decentralised)

Social media accounts are run inconsistently and potentially operated in silos to one another.

An example could be different departments start their own social media accounts because they “have to be on social media” to communicate with customers.

This ultimately leads to a fragmented customer experience by the business where one account may be run well by a department with social media experience and another account run poorly by a different department with no social media experience.

2. Centralised

In this case, social media accounts are operated by one group on behalf of all departments.

This leads to a more consistent customer experience compared to the organic model.

However the drawback is that efforts can’t be scaled up as they’re restricted to the amount of resource available in that one department.

3. Coordinated (hub and spoke)

This is where a central group aka Social Media Centre of Excellence helps other departments be successful with social media through training, education and support.

By enabling and supporting multiple departments through centralised resources, a consistent customer experience is provided by the business.

Efforts can be scaled up as needed by enabling more of the business.

The drawback is that it’s costly, requires executive support and cross-departmental buy in to make it work.

Watch video of Jeremiah Owyang explain the five models.

What is a Social Media Centre of Excellence?

Once again Jeremiah Owyang provides the following definition for a Social Media Centre of Excellence:

“This is a program deployed by companies trending in the advanced levels of social business maturity. The Social Media Centre of Excellence (CoE) is a centralised program that provides resources, training, and strategy to a variety of business units (departments) that are deploying social media in order to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and provide standardisation. This team is often run by the Corporate Social Strategist, who’s the business stakeholder and program champion.”

The following diagram explains the key duties:

Why consider a Social Media Centre of Excellence?

• Provide customers with a consistent social experience
• Obtain efficiency throughout the business
• Foster accountability across departments
• Coordination among departments

Intel, Adobe, Dell and Ebay are all examples of businesses who operate with a Social Media Centre of Excellence.

Social Business Hierarchy of needs

As a social business grows and transforms, there are certain needs that need to be fulfilled. The following diagram demonstrates the social business hierarchy of needs.

• Foundation
  This phase is all about developing a business plan and putting governance in place.
• Safety
  The safety phase is about getting organised, choosing the team and getting processes in place especially to deal with crises.
• Formation
  Implement the Social Media Centre of Excellence and connect with departments (business units) to increase coordination and reduce duplication.
• Enablement
  Grow by giving departments (business units) the support and flexibility to reach goals.
• Enlightenment
  The holy grail where real-time market response can be fed into business processes and planning.

Final thoughts

Transforming into a true social business requires a serious level of commitment, investment and readiness that not all businesses may be ready for. For further information on how advanced businesses prepare internally, read the Altimeter report on Social Business Readiness.

Which model (organic, centralised, coordinated) should a business adopt?

Jeremiah Owyang says the following at 36:10 in the following video:

“If social is not a function you want to scale in your company, focus on centralised, it’s a safe bet but you won’t scale … I recommend to scale you go for coordinated hub and spoke.”

5 types of social followers your business needs

Chris    Social media     followers

Not all social followers are created equal. Some will passively consume your content but never engage so you wouldn’t know, some will engage occasionally and some will be right powerhouses who help share and spread the word about you constantly.

Here are the 5 types of followers and the ones you really want for you business:

• The early adopter
• The social sharer
• The born follower
• The popular powerhouse
• The basement-dwelling hater

Understanding viral content marketing

Chris    Social media     viral content, viral marketing

As much as some people think you can make something ‘go viral’ at will, there’s actually quite a few factors that you need to consider to be even in with a chance.

The following infographic should provide some food for thought the next time you want something to be a viral sensation.

My Facebook page experiment

Chris    Social media     facebook

Back in May 2012 I created a Facebook page which I did nothing with, it had only one like which was mine.

I thought I’d see how quickly I could grow an audience from nothing. I didn’t coerce my friends or family to like it, I just used Facebook ads.

I began running Facebook ads at $5/day from 11 Jan 2013, nothing too crazy.

Roughly ten days later I have 605 likes of real, targeted fans and it’s still growing.

So what’s the takeaway from this?

• Don’t be a cheapskate, invest in your social media
• Ads are the fastest way to reach a new audience on Facebook.

Facebook engagement by post type

Chris    Social media     facebook

This diagram from Track Social has certainly been my experience with Facebook.

The near perfect Facebook status, in my opinion, is a photo asking a question that may also include a link.