Perspectives & Strategy

Social Media, Business Intelligence, and Cost Effectiveness are three major business issues that are rarely put together in the same sentence. Yet all do have a role to play in improving business results.

From the ability to leverage Social Media as a Marketing and Customer Services tool that allows our business to communicate more effectively. The advantage of good business intelligence is in our ability to leverage the in broad based information set that we have about historical and present company performance, adding in future forecasts and an analytical capability to improve the decision making process. It does not stop their however because better decisions plus increasing efficiencies and our unique selling proposition give us a competitive advantage.

These are key business drivers. My personal background has always been intertwined with Business Intelligence, but am today building a new Social Media strategy company and we are directly involved with changing how corporations of various sizes are approaching this new Social Media.

On the cost effectiveness front most corporations have severely limited budgets, having to do more with less money so building new systems is for many simply out of the question. This is one area where most Social Media solutions bring good news, for most there is no massive systems deployment. In fact it is possible to leverage Social Media solutions with a zero systems outlay – that figure looks good on the spend side of any business. Yet there is a cost in leveraging Social Media, but it comes in other ways:

◊ Social Media advertising

◊ Person-Time  with corporate on-line intervention

Push advertising differs little on Social Media other than an improved ability to speak directly with your target audience. If you are selling shoes and your primary market is 16 to 30 year old women then Social Media advertising can focus on that group. Most of the existing sites can very effectively break down their membership and allow you access to your target audience. But you will not get an email address, you get access to their on-line presence.

On-line advertising has always been accompanied by a low click-rate. Social Media improved this because your message can be more focused for different groups, but you do have to remember that the message must fulfil their exact needs right now – “I have been looking for one of those…” otherwise people won’t even look at your advert. People have learned to tune-out on-line adverts at an early stage in their on-line life because most of the messages were not for them. The mentality still exists, but not people do spend a large amount of time in front of their trusted Social Media sites and messages can be present for more than the 30 second tv commercial.

One of the aspects business intelligence brings to this situation is the ability to measure the impact of our social media efforts. Visits to the corporate site can have a different entry point for social media than it does in a Google search. The actions can be measured, where they have been, what they have done, how long they stayed, etc.. Ultimately that intelligence can be fed-back into the knowledge cycle and allow the corporation to further refine its intervention.

Managing your on-line intervention is vital and this is where real gains can be made. Social Media is a two way street it involves both listening and intervening. Listening and understanding what is being said about our business is key. Listening and understanding applies to all types of businesses, but how? Googling your brand or company should show your web-site to the top of the search results, but it is unlikely to show what someone just said about your company or its brands and products on Twitter. Part of listening is being seen to be paying attention.

Being seen to be paying attention is a key aspect. In Social Media a listening corporation is one who responds to what is being said, even if this means taking one on the chin – admitting faults when they exist. We must of-course remember that some people have an axe to grind and few of our efforts will placate them. but at the end of the day it is important to be seen to respond in a reasonable manner. More so than ever before  everything that is said is available to 6 billion people across the planet – some right now they may care little about your product but people tend to have a long memory for problems. In this respect it may be better to admit the fault and update everyone on the progress of the replacement than go into a traditional denial mode.

The point here is that without a social media strategy your corporation will not know how to respond but with one the response can be timely, direct, and proportionate.