Brands want to be social, but being social isn’t a conscious decision made by a team within an organization. It’s the result of a deliberate process that begins from the inside. An organization that isn’t set-up for social media marketing success won’t go far. It can’t go far.
Read MoreMost organizations have two kinds of people when it comes to social media: the believers who are enthusiastic about the potential for social media to help solve business problems and the detractors who see the risks associated with social media and would rather steer clear.
Both groups are right.
The enthusiasts see the potential for social media to benefit the business in a variety of areas from product innovation and customer service to branding and advertising amplification.
The detractors, on the other hand, have legitimate concerns. An August 2012 study from the Altimeter Group found that 35% of respondents cited reputation or brand damage as a critical risk. Other concerns included release of confidential information, compliance issues, identity theft and others.
The Concerns are Justified…
Social media brings an unprecedented level of transparency, and brands don’t have a lot of control when it comes to what employees share. The platforms haven’t done a lot to alleviate fears with password leaks and questionable privacy practices.
The playing field has leveled and lines have blurred. Information moves quickly and can easily get out of control and cause issues for a brand.
The concerns are legit.
…But Overblown and Can Be Overcome
People don’t start discussing a company once it sets out with a social media program. They started discussing it long before that, but the brand at that time had no opportunity to make its voice heard, join the conversation, correct misinformation, embrace advocates and convert detractors. The bottom line is it’s just as risky (or even less risky) to have a brand presence in the social space than it is not to.
But that’s not exactly comforting news to those concerned with the risks of social media.
It’s important for pro- and anti-social media organization members to come together. Risk will never be nullified, but the two sides can come together to mitigate risk by:
Both voices are important. But it’s important for those voices to come together and find solutions.
Businesses are seeing the value in social media marketing. The overall perspective has changed from skepticism to eagerness to either get started or maximize efforts.
Getting started typically starts with one of three things: an agency providing guidance/framework and execution, a small team of one or two people finding their way toward some kind of measure of success or a consultant coming in to provide guidance and framework for the organization moving forward.
The Getting Started Phase
Leveraging social media marketing doesn’t come with more resources. Time, money and people have to come from somewhere, and there’s generally a phase of getting things off the ground. That might include an agency executing everything or a small team managing the business’ efforts. Those scenarios make sense in the beginning more often than not, but that’s not how the business should stay.
Often, businesses find themselves stuck in this “getting started” phase. They’re able to check social media marketing off of the list and say that they’re making it happen. The bottom line is this is only successful and scalable for so long.
Social media’s value doesn’t really show itself in this phase. These are the first steps to making social a much larger, much more important part of the overall business.
It’s an All-In Effort
Customer relationships don’t belong with an agency or consultant, and they don’t belong in a silo within an organization. Social media allows brands to get close to their customers and external stakeholders and then keep them close. Outside help like an agency or consultant may play a role in educating, providing training and starting the initial phases of external engagement, but the role of building relationships should transition to the business. No one knows the brand or the customer better.
That doesn’t mean the transition should be to a small social media team either. Every stakeholder across the organization should eventually either be communicating with customers or be informed of insights garnered from those who are engaging. That way social insight is acted upon across the organization because the insights garnered can impact product development, communications, human resources, customer service and so on.
The process is slow and often painful. It’s a new way of thinking about customers and the way business is done across the organization, but being a social brand isn’t about a Facebook campaign or creating YouTube videos. It’s a transformation of how internal customer information is shared and how external relationships with customers are nurtured and leveraged to deliver a better product, service and business result. Everyone is involved, not just marketing, PR or digital teams.
The Long-Term Goal
It is a lot of hard work, but the result is the creation of a social business, a company that views social media not as a marketing channel but as a catalyst for building deep relationships with all business stakeholders—internal and external, customers and employees.
The benefits extend across the organization. Businesses can achieve more efficient and effective communication, deeper insights coming directly from customers and better connected, more empowered employees. Customers are more satisfied, product development is the result of co-creation with customers, and activating customers as stakeholders makes them more loyal.
All of this takes the form of an organization with the right people, communication strategies and technologies to connect all aspects of the business. Departments who are connected to consumers are sharing insights across the organizations, and all areas of the business are empowered to use the closer connections with customers to create more compelling, consumer-driven products, services and communication. Businesses may even empower social media mentors to lead each department and steward that thinking forward until it becomes a part of the DNA.
It’s Not Easy
The process is tough. Start-ups are able to incorporate this kind of thinking from the ground-up, which is in many ways easier. Although, they have their own challenges to contend with. Established businesses have the immense challenge of adapting what’s gotten them to where they are, but adapting is essential if they hope to truly use social media to make the business better.
Agencies and consultants can and should help in many instances. But the long-term goal shouldn’t be to outsource this mindset and mode of getting work done. The vision should be for the business to change, not to tack on another marketing channel and cross social media off the to-do list.
The most successful social media marketing executions have one thing in common. Each business has an internal plan to coordinate its efforts to address customer questions, communicate to consumers and steward the brand’s social media presence.
Successfully executing social media in a silo without internal support is a thing of the past. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Leaders need to be brought in, and various departments like HR, IT and legal need to onboard before engaging, not after. All of this is in an effort to ensure social media benefits the organization as a whole and to prevent moving forward in the social space only to find out you need to move backward once you’ve gotten started.
Approach Based on Strategy
A September report from Bain and Company identified three approaches to coordinate social media efforts across an organization.
The first approach Bain calls Command and Control, and this is management at its most basic level with a single entity responsible for all social media engagement. This team may bring other departments into the fold in an advisory role, but ultimately, they are responsible for all communications.
The benefit here is certainly more control, while the potential challenge is making this team’s efforts extend across the organization because it is in the hands of a central team. This would likely be the ideal approach for a company used to traditional marketing and is new the social space. Start here then mature into an Empowered Units or Decentralized approach.
The second is called Empowered Units. This approach includes a cross-functional team with a head organization responsible for integration, strategic direction and measurement. While each group has the freedom to deploy social initiatives, they are responsible with sharing their findings and approach with the whole team.
The Empowered Units approach is ideal for companies who want to showcase expertise across the organization. For example, it might be wise to empower technical support to provide guidance to online customers, while a marketing team is responsible for branded communications, while all groups report to a social media department. This approach offers limited control but potentially more empowered employees and diverse online conversation.
The third, I would argue, is potentially the most risky but also the approach with the most potential to truly transform an organization and get all employees engaged with the idea of connecting with consumers, and it is called the Decentralized approach. This includes a small team who works with all or a large number of employees who interact with consumers online independently.
This approach provides the most potential to scale a business’ social media efforts and create a more consumer-centric culture across the organization, but it comes at the risk of losing control. This is why it’s incredibly important to align internally beforehand, get employees on the same page and explain their roles, responsibilities and guidelines for representing the brand in the social space.
No Right Approach
All of the above approaches can be incredibly effective, and the right one depends upon a business’ strategic objectives, comfort level, investment and resources. The critical part is aligning on how the organization will approach social media organization before engagement begins. Get the right people on board, informed and briefed on what their roles and responsibilities will be. This will make life much easier in the future.
In July, PhoneDog.com filed a lawsuit against its former employee, Noah Kravitz, for violating trade secrets and misappropriation of the company’s Twitter account.
Kravitz managed the PhoneDog Twitter account, which was also his personal account, while with the company. Well, PhoneDog filed suit to reclaim his 17,000 followers, claiming that they are actually PhoneDog’s. The lawsuit is for $340,000 or $2.50 per follower.
Owning Relationships
Now, the question has bee raised around who really owns the relationships. Kravitz continued to tweet about PhoneDog even after he left the company because he left on good terms. He put a lot of work into the account and built the following on his own. However, part of that growing following could be attributed to the fact that Kravitz was associated with the brand.
Was it his hard work or his association with PhoneDog that built the following? It’s likely a combination of both, so now the question of who owns the relationship is being decided by the courts.
Instincts tell me that the relationships are with Kravitz, not PhoneDog because people want relationships with other people. Kravitz was the one they interacted with and got to know, not PhoneDog. This is the danger of putting a real human behind a company’s social media presence. Even though it’s a danger, it’s still a very valuable way to build deeper connections with customers. However, I understand PhoneDog’s perspective as well.
Value of Relationships
The $2.50 per follower number is interesting. There’s certainly no shortage of studies out there that claim a follower or fan is worth a certain number, but the problem with this $2.50 number and any other value of each follower study is that they assume ever person is equal.
Not all followers are created equal. People follow and fan for different reasons, and many may never see the brand’s content. In addition, not every brand’s followers are equal. One person may be more valuable to one brand than they would be for another brand. It comes down to purchase frequency, size of purchase, business model and so on.
The outcome of this case will be very interesting, but the true value of each follower depends upon the brand. Every follower is worthless unless the brand does something with them such as converting them to purchase, providing customer service to maintain loyalty and turning their follow into revenue-driving actions. Don’t assume that just because they’re a follower, they’re valuable because that is not the case.
Establish the Ownership Before Relationships
The issue with PhoneDog and other organizations is that they didn’t establish the rules early on. Much of this issue could have been overcome with a social media policy that 1.) outlined who owned a brand account and the relationships with customers, 2.) who was authorized to engage on behalf of the brand and 3.) how social platform management transitions would take place if needed.
Social media is the tempting seductress of the marketing world. It's fairly new and exciting, and it has many marketers drooling. They see others out on the town with her and seeing their success in the form of consumer activity and industry recognition. It's certainly an exciting time to be a marketer.
If all the tools at a brand's disposal were at a bar, social media would be the attractive woman (or man) at the bar that you have to buy a drink for. She's a bit of a mystery, but you know she's what you're looking for. For some marketers, it's a match made in heaven right off the bat, but for others, lust leads to failure because they move too fast.
The Danger of Being Seduced
There is a big danger in being seduced by the tempting promises of social media. Going after the hot and sexy platforms and tactics before your business is ready will always lead to a broken heart.
Before hopping into bed or even planning a wedding, you have to ask yourself if your business is really ready for the commitment. All the stakeholders, key players and organizational challenges need to be identified and addressed first.
Groundwork needs to be set, and everyone needs to be aligned on the reasons why a business is entering the social media space. You need to know what you want to do and how you're going to measure your efforts.
Taking the leap into social media because everyone's doing it and because it's hot and sexy is the mark of death. The level of preparation needed will be unique depending upon the business, but every organization requires some level of prep work. You will, maybe not right away, find yourself down the social media road only to discover that you need to stop in your tracks and potentially move backwards if the prep work isn't done.
Be Honest About Your Organization
It's really easy to look at all that is out there, and say, "I want that and that and that," but you need to look at your organization first. Where are the roadblocks (e.g, Legal, IT, company leadership, HR, etc.)? How is your business organized (e.g., Approval processes, committee organization, etc.)? Are you ready to be nimble, open and more transparent?
Businesses are unique. Some will require much more prep work than others, but it is absolutely essential to audit your business and be honest about what your business can and should do right away and what should be slated for sometime down the road. It may not be the most exciting thing in the world, but laying that initial groundwork will ensure that success won't elude you once you're ready for that first date.