Contents
Chapter 1: The Evolution of Social Business
Creating a Coherent Social Business Strategy
Introducing the Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy
How to Use This Book
Chapter 2: Laying Foundations: Goals, Vision, and Executive Support
Success Factor #1: Define the Overall Business Goals
Success Factor #2: Establish the Long-Term Vision
Success Factor #3: Ensure Executive Support
Chapter 3: Setting the Strategy Roadmap: Identify and Prioritize Initiatives
Success Factor #4: Define the Strategy Roadmap
Chapter 4: Aligning the Organization: Establishing Governance
Success Factor #5: Establish Governance and Guidelines
Chapter 5: Aligning Resources and Technology
Success Factor #6: Secure Staff, Resources, and Funding
Success Factor #7: Invest in Technology Platforms That Map to Strategy
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Written by thought leaders and experts in their fields, pieces in the Jossey-Bass Short Format Series provide busy, on-the-go professionals, managers, and leaders around the world with must-have, just-in-time information in a concise and actionable format.
To learn more, visit www.josseybass.com/go/shortform.
The End of Business As Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution (Solis)
Engage! The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web (Solis)
Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead (Li)
What’s the Future of Business: Changing the Way Businesses Create Experiences (Solis)
Copyright © 2013 by Charlene Li and Brian Solis. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
A Wiley Brand
One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104-4594
www.josseybass.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.
Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
ISBN 978-1-118-71591-8 (paper); ISBN 978-1-118-71590-1 (ePDF); ISBN 978-1-118-71592-5 (ePub)
It’s about time that social media and social business grew up.
When we ask people what their social business strategy looks like, we usually get the following response: “Oh yeah, we’re on Facebook.” The conversation continues apace:
But that isn’t a strategy—it’s a series of tactics masquerading as a master plan. Having a Facebook page or Twitter account is like having a telephone or a printer—they’re tools that need a purpose. What you do within these social channels counts for everything. Not only will they help you meet customer expectations and achieve business goals, but thinking about the bigger picture and the overall purpose helps establish a competitive product or service. It is, after all, customer relationships that lie at the center of a coherent business strategy. The same is true for a social business strategy; however, it is not so true with most social media initiatives out there today.
To prove it, we studied how businesses were developing social media strategies and whether or not strategists aligned strategies with business goals. The results were a mix of the expected and the surprising.
Based on interviews with organizations that are investing in social media at varying levels, we learned that there are notable differences that exist between companies implementing a social media strategy and those that are building a social business. A social media strategy lays out the channels, platforms, and tactics to support publishing, listening, and engagement. We define a social business strategy as:
The deep integration of social media and social methodologies into the organization to drive business impact.
A successful social business strategy requires alignment with the strategic business goals of an organization and organizational alignment and support that enables execution of that strategy. However, in a survey of social strategists and executives conducted by Altimeter, we found that only 34 percent felt that their social strategy was connected to business outcomes.1 Only 28 percent felt that they had a holistic approach to social media wherein lines of business and business functions work together around common goals. A mere 12 percent were confident they had a plan that looked beyond the next year. And perhaps most astonishing was the fact that only one half of companies surveyed said that top executives were “informed, engaged and aligned with their companies’ social strategy.” So while the company grows in its social media efforts, strategic focus with a clear goal in mind often falls by the wayside.
There’s light at the end of the tunnel, though. We also discovered that the more sophisticated companies possess two important criteria for a successful social business strategy: (1) social media initiatives are clearly aligned with the strategic business goals of the organization, and (2) these companies invested in the organizational alignment and support that enables execution of that strategy.
This book focuses on how to develop a successful social business strategy that’s both useful and continuous. A fully formed, coherent, and integrated social business strategy doesn’t appear overnight—it develops and evolves over time.2 As with any strategy, your goals will change, the vision will evolve, and the roadmap and detailed execution plans will adjust accordingly. A good place to start is with this question: where are you in this journey and where do you need to go? As you create your social business strategy, put it into the context of where you are on your journey, and make the most of the opportunities to maximize value.
Here’s an example. Royal Dutch Shell concentrates its social presence efforts across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Its Facebook presence, launched in February 2012, is a core primary channel. Their goal: To showcase the personality of Shell in operations, drilling, retail, and careers. The key metric they use is reputation, asking a random population on Facebook—as well as across traditional media channels—two questions: (1) On a scale of 1 to 5, To what extent do you think Shell is actively addressing future energy needs? And (2) To what extent do you think Shell meets its customers’ energy needs in socially and environmentally responsible ways?
The company rarely replies or engages with people who post on their page. On the surface, you might dismiss this company as not “getting” social media, because they don’t actively engage in a two-way dialog. But in so many ways, their strategy is far more coherent than that of companies that blindly engage for the sake of engagement. Read that again. Engaging isn’t always a staple in strategies or metrics. It comes down to aligning social media strategies with business objectives and desired activities and outcomes. Shell measures Facebook on a daily basis to see how reputation is trending in its Facebook community, versus other channels, and thus is able to correlate how Facebook content impacts perception of reputation. In this way, Shell is able to connect a measurable key performance indicator (KPI) to a business goal. They can then also determine which channels are more effective at driving their goal of improving reputation and then invest accordingly.
Sometimes the best strategy is to look inward rather than outward. Instead of comparing where you are to others, look at the success factors of social business strategy to uniquely focus on your organization’s priorities and aspirations. To describe the essence of the journey, Ford CMO Jim Farley used an analogy: “We’re in the awkward teenage years where we have a strategy but it’s not executed the same way in all parts of the company.”
So how can you tell if your social business strategy is successful or failing? It takes more than everyday metrics to show that you’re on the right path. To develop a successful social business roadmap takes benchmarking as well. In addition to the stages a business goes through, we found seven success factors that were common in companies that are seeing business impact from their social strategies. Benchmarking against the following success factors will help you invest in the efforts necessary to evolve social media strategies into meaningful social business transformation.