Michael Brito is a vice president at Edelman Digital. He writes frequently in his social media blog and just finished writing his first social business book, “Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization,” which will be released in July.
As organizations begin to show signs of “social business” behaviors, they will begin to experience different levels of cultural change relating to the people in the organization, as well as its processes and technology. The following are 15 indicators of social business transformation. It’s important to realize that while some of these behaviors are dependent on each other, they are distinct and not necessarily in chronological order.
People
- Organizational leadership begins mandating internal teams collaborate across functional business units, geographies, product organizations and channel partners.
- CEO and/or executive teams are using social technologies to communicate externally and encouraging employees to do the same.
- Social media “Center of Excellence” teams and Social Organization Models start forming.
- Global/functional teams are sharing best practices frequently; organizational silos become nonexistent.
- Social behaviors become ingrained in the everyday fabric of employees’ workflow and process.
- Social business becomes a consistent line item in marketing, operations and IT budgets.
- Human resources adds “social media” in job descriptions, and employees are held accountable.
Process
- Governance models are created, published and shared across the organization, providing a process for new employees to be trained to be social media practitioners.
- Social media policies and guidelines are co-created by senior management and employees.
- Consistent social media measurement frameworks are agreed upon and used to measure both internal and external social initiatives.
- Workflows are created to collect external customer feedback and filter it back to the product organizations.
Technology
- Internal communities and collaboration systems are deployed and are being used across functional business units – sales, marketing, customer support, supply chain management, etc.
- Collaboration is happening more within internal communities than in e-mail.
- Social CRM capabilities, applications and systems become a priority in management and deployment.
- IT loosens up firewall restrictions (bandwidth, IP blocking) of social media usage from behind the firewall.
Every company is different and will experience the transition to becoming a social business in different ways and at different times. These indicators will help business leaders assess their own organizations and start thinking about humanizing their operations in order to more effectively engage with the social customer.
Photo credit: DNY59, via iStockphoto
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This is a fascinating list – thanks for posting.
A lot of these things are just tried and true ideas based on the concept of a learning organization. "internal collaboration across functional business units…" How can companies excel without doing that?
This is really about companies becoming "people-centric," not social. The prevalence of social media has made people-centric the new norm on the web and that new standard is moving into companies. But are companies really becoming more people-centric?
A full explanation of "people centric" vs. "social":
http://ephraimjf.com/2011/03/dont-get-social-get-…
My recent post Quotable- Wrong technology
Love it – glad I know Michael!
This list is a clear indication that for businesses to become social requires a culture change in the organization. It also shows that social web engagement is more than using another marketing channel to communicate. Unless these items listed happen, success on the social web will likely be limited.
Every business should read this post. This will help them to identify their current operational status enable for them to identify if when and how to start social business operation. The people and technology are both affect the social business transition. Thanks for the list, every individual will also benefit. Thanks a lot.
Great post!
It is good to know that more and more businesses embrace social media and make it an integral aspect in their organization.
Perhaps, one thing that may have missed in this article is the significance of corporate blogging, being an integral tool in social media for business organizations. Aside from that, companies have begun or have already hired or even shifted management positions with social media functions and have included social media manager as a distinct position.
My recent post Why Nokia outsourced Symbian developments to Accenture
They only knows that business can be promoted with social media. Direct promotions would also result in Social Media failures. Repeated tweeting or promoting through any other media would result in ignorance of the messages we send through social media
Had to read that twice to understand some of the terminology, but I get it. Yea, IT has to loosen things up! It's funny, I've personally been instructed to block some SM sites (I do part time IT work).
My recent post The Warm And Fuzzy Non Tangible Social Media Imperatives