Strapping new tools onto old processes is a common problem when enterprise start using social media. Enterprise Social Media often requires a process integration effort to harvest online community and collaboration as it can change the way business is being done.
Take for example a client-focused online community – a private area for say 10,000 of your key clients and prospects. You create a community and launch content, user generated content opportunities, forums, polls, etc… the usual suspects. You spend a 6 months focused on this beautiful thing, it launches, clients and prospects love it, and everyone is thrilled. This is a good thing.
Now, the typical enterprise is not stupid. They rose to be a sizable organization for a good reason! But, somehow, because new media is, well, new… companies often don’t know what to do with the assets created by the social media. Sure, they are celebrated, and touted as valuable, maybe even a few good case studies get built: about how social media was able to help support a conference business by bringing in additional enterprise attendees, or maybe it saved a critical client relationship, but so often the integration-point between social media initiatives and business process are not really crafted to support each other. But they should be as that was likely the reason the social media project was begun in the first place, right?
So, take a look at where the business process gaps are within sales, marketing, even product development etc. and also examine your social media efforts with a critical eye. Link the two processes, and create repeated and repeatable measures so they can support each other. Make good use of the data and outcomes of social media through-out your organization. It’s just a matter of time before “new media” loses its “new” luster and you will be ahead of the curve if you build in business process alignment.
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Vanessa,
Great post and it’s good to see someone discussing some of the broader business issues that companies face when they go down this road.
One point you didn’t touch on (and I’m interested in your perspective) is the impact social media initiatives can have on the company culture. In my experience, employees will struggle to deal with the fact that support and innovation (as two examples) can and do occur outside of the control of the company. So where once a company had “subject matter experts” they now find these types of experts are outside of their control – and this can cause significant issues.
We can’t forget about the cultural impacts.
cheers Mark
Ah Mark,
such an excellent and important point.. cultural impact. Thank you for raising this issue. I completely agree that social media does directly impact organiational culture – community and social media projects are definately not neutral and often function as change agents within the organization to catalize around single lens. Sometime disruptive and sometimes concensus building but most companies doing a strategic social media implementation is well served by involving change management facilitators within HR or OSM to help the process succeed long term. Thanks again for raising this point, Mark.
best
Vanessa
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
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