It’s a tricky subject like this that many businesses have to consider when developing their social media strategy. We reviewed the strategies and practices of over 1,100 organizations across many industries and geographies, and we interviewed 70 executives who were in charge of social media projects to get a sense of how companies are tackling the problem. Based on our findings, businesses can choose between four unique social media strategies, depending on their risk appetite and desired level of success.
Practitioner of “predictive medicine”
Utilization is limited to a single domain, such as the provision of customer service. It’s useful for companies who want to minimize risk and produce results that are amenable to standard metrics.
The social media team at Clorox built Clorox Connects, a platform for collaborative ideation with clients and partners, to improve the company’s virtual research and development capabilities. Commonly asked questions include: “We’re developing X product concept. Do you have any suggestions for further features that should be added? Clorox utilizes gamer-style rewards to boost employee engagement. Points are given out for various activities, such as answering questions or commenting on ratings. There are several degrees of challenge on the site, and participants who prove their mettle are given access to challenges that demand even more of their time, energy, and experience. The most insightful participants are highlighted, which makes taking part enjoyable and easy to maintain. The first major achievement came after Clorox asked a query regarding a component company needed for its salad dressings. Quickly, five replies poured in. The business settled on a plan of action within a day and integrated the individual who found the solution into the next phase of product development.
The one who “takes risks creatively.”
Businesses using this strategy welcome uncertainty, conducting pilot projects to examine specific aspects of their operations and identify areas for potential enhancement. They plan to educate themselves by hearing out customers and workers on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. When testing internally, they sometimes employ patented methods.
The technology services provider EMC likes to try new things. Its 40,000 employees throughout the world use internal social media to find relevant knowledge within the organization, which gets special attention. EMC/ONE, a testing platform designed to facilitate communication and collaboration among employees (many of whom were new to the company as a result of acquisitions) allowed the company to significantly cut down on its reliance on external contractors. According to the director of social strategy, “we were quite clear that in two months we might unplug this and attempt an entirely other approach,” Len Devanna. That’s why we were safely behind the firewall in the first place, so we could make some blunders and pick up some valuable experience before venturing out into the open. Large benefits were being provided by EMC/ONE within a year. One department that wanted to make a sales film teamed up with the in-house production team, saving $10,000 in the process. To date, EMC/ONE has saved the corporation around $40 million, according to their calculations.
The undisputed king of social media.
This necessitates ambitious plans with the intention of producing regular outcomes. It could need teamwork across organizational levels and potentially involve participants from outside the organization.
Take Ford’s Fiesta Movement ad campaign from 2009, which was meant to drum up interest in the car ahead of its return to the American market. It was a group effort that included marketing, communications, and the executive office. Ford made the decision to give away 100 Fiestas for six months to people who would then share their honest, first-hand impressions of the cars on social media. It launched a contest online to choose the winners, and it gave preference to drivers who had huge followings on social media. They were also tasked with designing a posting schedule and producing information on “missions” (such as volunteerism) on a regular basis in order to further eliminate ambiguity. There were over 4.3 million views on YouTube alone from the drivers’ content, and they had submitted over 60,000 pieces in just six months. Prelaunch brand recognition among Millennials was 37% thanks to the $5 million effort, which also resulted in 50,000 sales leads to new customers and 35,000 test-drives. These kinds of results are often associated with campaigns costing tens of millions of dollars.
That which “transforms” social media.
This method facilitates extensive connections between internal and external stakeholders, helping businesses to better utilize the unexpected.
Cisco’s Integrated Workforce Experience (IWE) is a social business platform that was introduced in 2010 with the goal of improving internal and external cooperation and decentralizing decision making. This “wall” serves a similar purpose to that of Facebook: Information regarding communities, corporate projects, customer and partner interactions, and the like can be found in a real-time news feed that also offers updates on the status and activities of employees. One executive even made the comparison to Amazon. What you’re doing, your role, and the preferences of others like you are used to inform its suggestions. We’re scaling it up for businesses, he says, so that “relevant information can find you.”
Additionally, Cisco makes considerable use of video. It uses video streaming to PCs and video-on-demand to hold most of its training and meetings online. Users are able to add tags and comments to videos, much like they can on Facebook. Cisco’s “time to trust” has decreased thanks to the widespread adoption of these technologies, which have facilitated the rapid development of trusting relationships and the seamless transfer of information among the company’s widely distributed employees.
Methods of Implementing Strategy
Many companies will cycle through these strategies as they evolve over time. Establishing one’s groundwork as a predictive practitioner is a good starting point for businesses with well-defined goals for the application and evaluation of social technologies within a defined business function. They need to choose a company (marketing, for example) that is actively working to increase its social presence.
Small budgets help drive creative experimenters; labeling a project as “experimental” can free it from return on investment requirements. Both the predictive practitioner and the creative experimenter approaches can generate substantial outcomes and insights rapidly, providing a testing ground for future, more ambitious endeavors.
If other businesses want comparable outcomes, they should adopt or shift to a more comprehensive strategy. Using a social champion strategy, businesses may find and mobilize internal and external advocates for their causes. Ford’s Fiesta Movement demonstrated that strategically engaging people who wield considerable sway in social networks can mitigate danger.
If other factors remain constant, the social transformer strategy has the potential to have the most impact on an organization. This includes research and development, operations, channel partners, and customers. To make the transition from a champion to a transformer, however, large-scale changes must be made across the organization in areas like as incentive systems, business processes, resource management, and leadership styles. We’ve noticed that the socially transformative organizations consider social technology as a means to an end rather than the end itself.
It’s important to keep in mind that despite their pervasiveness, Twitter and Facebook are just five and seven years old, respectively. New technology may be on the horizon, but who can say for sure? Managers would be well served by gaining an appreciation for the ways in which companies are adjusting their approaches to utilizing preexisting social media in order to make the most of the opportunities presented by the platforms of the future.
