“Research has shown that in most organisations it is a small number of people are responsible for a large amount of web usage. Adding [Social Media] applications into the mix does allow more opportunity for overburdening the corporate network. It is this more than anything that concerns the average corporation.“

also:

“The Internet is evolving [and] the corporation must understand the business benefit each of these technologies bring and decide whether access to them is appropriate within their organisation, department, or work-group. Any technology will only bring real benefit when it is intuitive, easy to use, and has a clearly stated value proposition.“

In the past 12 months social media drivers have become stronger for the corporation, yet I would have to say that according to my research corporate understanding has advanced very little. In another article “How to Leverage the Social Media Channel for Business Success” I discuss at some lengths the key components for successful deployment. Sadly too many so-called Social Media ‘gurus’ focus all of their efforts on the marketing and monetising the social media channel. I firmly believe that revenue opportunities do not come about simply because we leverage social media for advertising, they come about because we are involved with the media, because we interact with people there.

Social media provides another level of communication. To leverage the media correctly we are investing in relationships. In fact it can be argued that the media is primarily a collaboration tool:

“If we take one person we can look at their collaborative sphere (shown below) as starting with themselves, they can expand that by working with another person. It can be further build through teams, out through their department to the company as a whole. Each step of this process is bringing in additional expertise. Ultimately our individual spheres of influence touch customers and suppliers, they may also touch various third party partners like haulage companies.“

This process is about strengthening the relationships that we are involved in. Each of the elements of this value sphere bring in distinct expertise and specialities and each helps one individual complete their job. This process happens with or without social media. Social media is simply providing tools that can make this collaboration happen at the speed of the web. Here we are simply managing our relationships with smarter tools, where data is at the heart of the relationship. An ROI can be measured simply by looking at smarter communications alone.

Ultimately our individual spheres of influence touch customers and suppliers, they may also touch various third party partners like the haulage company with whom we are able to build a trusting relationship over time.

In this respect I am keeping an open eye for Google Wave when it comes along. This should be a further collaborative tool in our arsenal. Within 5 years email as we know will have changed forever if Wave is successful. As we develop P3 Social Media I certainly hope to be leveraging Wave as our mail server instead of Exchange.

A year ago I stated “It is argued that there is between a 2 and 6 fold productivity enhancement for any given large organization to adopt collaborative technologies. It can also be argued that early adoption will be progressive and lead to a corporation being at the forefront of an industry”. This is still true today, the Social Media market is still immature, but right now knowledge is building and perhaps productivity levels can be even higher when deployed correctly. Yet also recently I remember answering a question “Have we missed the Web 2.0 bandwagon?” Clearly this executive was concerned that having not been an early adopter they were now too late to take advantage of Social Media capabilities.

The concept of being “too late” is an interesting one, given credence by Bill Gates when he stated many years ago that a business must be on the web by 2000 in order to survive. Yet today many businesses are only on the web because of those words. I would say that it is not essential for every business to be on the web, let alone use social media. The auto-repair business at the end of my street probably derives little benefit from having a web-site, after all I cannot book my car in for a service through their site, let alone get a progress check as it goes through each stage. Any business can elect to get involved with a specific technology at any stage in its development. The decision relating to deployment should be backed up with an identifiable return on investment and a consideration of the process impact it brings with it.

One important policy decision that still has to be made is “What tools should we be using?” and “Who should use Social Media?“. These decisions are business decisions, not technological ones.

Related articles:

Web 2.0 and the Enterprise by Cisco
Tension in Collaboration by Bruce Lewin
Realizing Value from Social Networks: A Life Cycle Model by The Global Human Capital Journal
Feeling the Fear by Elizabeth Bennet
Don’t Set Aside the ROI in Building your Social Media Solution by Peter B. Giblett

“No one has ever experienced overnight success in social media marketing” says Perry. I agree and here are some reasons why:

◊ Too many Guru’s, Evangelists exists, yet many have done little more than use Facebook

◊ The “social media strategists” come from traditional PR or Marketing background and most have used Facebook a couple of times.

◊ They have no consistent approach to present.

◊ Their firm has added social media as an additional service.

◊ Their networks don’t show that they are widely connected and are active in the Social Media space. Their LinkedIn account has not been updated since 2005.

◊ Should you Google them by name, it is difficult to find them.

◊ They don’t have an active blog with weekly posts.

◊ They operate a pay-per-post payment structure

I do thank Peter Shankman and Sarah Evans for providing some of the ideas behind these reasons. Yet as a new person in this space I am one person who is currently proving himself. My background is IT. I have been delivering solutions focused towards both Finance and Marketing elements of corporations for over 20 years. To me there is a massive intersection between Social Media and the ability to measure the results (through Business Intelligence).  Being laid off just before this recession started has allowed to research the development of Social Media. I will never claim to be a marketing expert, although my partner (a brand specialist) keeps telling others that I am. Currently I am working with three small businesses to help them define their Social Media strategy. Each are sewing the seeds to great things.

Social Media differs greatly from traditional PR and marketing. The traditional mode for marketing is to push a message, yet leveraging Social Media it is essential to build trust as a marketing tool. Sure Twitter is a cheap way to advertise, but advertise on there too long and people will stop following you, or worse block you. You cannot use Social Media for ‘push’ marketing other than to advertise on Social Media sites like Facebook and MySpace in the traditional mode.

Dell learnt this lesson when they got involved with Social Media they answer questions in their area of expertise. They are involved in the media and will leverage the media to build trust. on the other-hand CNN has over 150,000 followers yet follows 17 people. They leverage the media for push messages associated with traditional news media, yet I have seen a few occasions where CNN have been ‘late to the party’ when it comes to publishing the news. On one occasion the BBC had published a story about an event in the USA 4 hours before CNN did. CNN is guilty of not listening to the twitter stream.

One IT company I recently advised snagged a lucrative maintenance contract through the use of Twitter, being active on the channel and being the expert in their area. Being the expert in the Social Media involves offering advice to others for free.

One thing that is certain as we go into a new world is that Social Media is not simply about getting involved with Twitter and Facebook, or building you own blog. These elements must be done, but you must have the tools to perform Social Media Intelligence. This is one topic that I intend to return to in the future.

I agree that business cannot turn its back on deployment of such technology. In my earlier Article on www.cio-perspectives.com I argue that ‘corporate officers (should) set… the usage policy’. and further that ‘Web 2.0 applications are no different than those before them; corporate officers must still be concerned that corporate resources are used effectively and do not negatively impact productivity or profitability’.

It may be argued that there is only a semantic difference, but I disagree. In this instance the CIO can only act in the business’s best interests.

The corporate best interest can only be defined when the corporate officers understand the impact of Web 2.0 technologies and set such policies. In his position on the board the CIO is in the respect only an advisor, not the person who should be setting policy – the issues are too important for any one officer to unilaterally set policy.

Much IT in corporations has in the past grown organically, without planning with limited design. CIO’s have had their hands tied not always having the right tools to define and implement a holistic and coherent architecture. Adding Social Networking and other Web 2.0 tools into the mix requires the corporation to understand the impact on it.

Social Networking and Web 2.0 tools have an impact beyond the office walls. It can be a great enabler for tele-working but it can also allow commercial secrets out of the door. A fine balance will need to be made.

In the absence of any corporate policy CIO’s will make decisions based on traditional norms of technology and usage patters that simply do not apply here. The CEO can be as keen as anyone to leverage this technology for the benefit of the business, yet leaves key decisions about its use in the hands of others.