How to get the right social media strategy

By Jaideep Mehta

When a CIO is asked how he is leveraging the power of social technologies, the answer range from efficient use of Facebook pages to conversations on Twitter and listening posts on LinkedIn. The expressed business benefits range from instant market feedback, closer relationships with customers and superior market analytics. This is excellent. But profoundly incomplete.

A CIO has to think of social in a strategic sense. But before that he has to look at what constitutes Social. There are at least two key dimensions a CIO should be considering: Social Media and Social Business. While the prior is being tapped into, albeit largely in a standalone rather than strategic way, the latter is arguably as big an opportunity which is being missed completely.

As an example of Social Media usage, here is a story of a leading private sector bank who I deal with. I tweeted about a customer service incident and expressed my displeasure with the bank. Within about 10 minutes, their team had tweeted back asking for my contact details so that they could get in touch and resolve the matter. I did not send them my email address or phone number due to privacy constraints. Nothing else happened; missed opportunity Number 1.

Arguably, other companies are leveraging social media in a superior way. Domino’s Pizza’s engagement with their community through Facebook is excellent. From inputs into recipes to feedback on the experience, it is all there. In addition, they drive marketing campaigns quite effectively from Facebook as well: discount coupons and so on to keep the kitchens busy during off-peak hours and certain days. To quote another example the XUV 500 branding exercise on Facebook and other platforms has also been a success story of sorts. Indian businesses are starting to get a sense of how to leverage Social platforms: they are not there yet but getting better by the day.

There is another leverage of Social technologies which productivity hunting businesses need to examine with meticulous attention. Social technologies have been proven to deliver calculable benefits on employee engagement, productivity and collaboration. In addition, they are also getting increasingly popular globally to connect a company and its stakeholders and partners: for example, key suppliers or outsourced design labs.

Consider the case of a leading IT Services company which developed a social platform for collaboration and then shared it with a select set of customers, positioning it as a shared innovation platform. Their engineers and tech professionals started to work together to solve client problems. Ideas flowed from both sides. Software code was being co-written. Project execution times were there for all to see. Over time, not only did this platform help the organisation to drive closer client relationships but also had a measurable 10% incremental revenue impact on top of the secular growth the company was enjoying.

Yammer, a leading enterprise social networking platform is being used by companies such as Microsoft to collapse hierarchies and encourage instant information flows across different levels of the organisation as well as across different functional teams. Senior leaders have the ability to obtain current information from the “ground” and engage with those at the coalface. The benefits, ranging from informed decision making to more engaged employees, are easy to visualise.

Such examples are few and far between, and get even scarcer when one examines the more traditional sectors of the economy. However, at a time when talent scarcity if biting and salary costs are spiralling, it begets business leaders to invest time and energy in understanding the power of Social within their organsiations and leverage these technologies to build a more competitive business. Currently, this is missed opportunity Number 2.

Now let’s revisit the bank. What if they had my Twitter handle on my customer profile, or even installed a facial recognition software which would have enabled them to match my photo in their records with the one on Twitter? And then, what if this technology was integrated with their customer care processes so that they could have called me straight away from their call centre and resolved the matter? Perhaps, I would have been telling this tale in a whole different light.

The integration of powerful technology with best in class business processes ensures the delightful convergence of an organisation’s internal world with the external eco-system. When this happens, the pay offs are enormous. This is merely a distant vision at the moment and constitutes missed opportunity Phase II.

CIOs must first start to understand the power of new technologies and the transformation they can bring to business top lines and shareholder returns. Leaving it to an external agency, or to your team, is not the way forward; you need to commit your own time and energy. And remember to get your business leaders to buy in, early.

Secondly, it is imperative to focus on the impact the technology set can have on the business. There is no need to get into the guts of ‘how’ technology works: the tech sector has finally delivered a simple-to-understand technology paradigm and you can focus on its leverage. In this context, be careful to develop a vision which weaves technology around transformed business processes. This is critical for maximised payoffs.

Third, choose the right partner. New technologies, while being transformation enablers, are also evolving too fast for you and your team to cope with. Invest in a partnership with a high quality system integrator, consultant or IT services company. They will have the wherewithal to help you navigate through this ever shifting landscape. Engage them with your business leaders; remember, this is not just a technology project but a business initiative. If you do not drive it, it won’t leave the parking lot. And remember, cars depreciate in parking lots! Finally, remember that mistakes will be made. You’ll need to try a few times before getting to the optimal configuration of capabilities. Be tolerant of failure.

Once the initiatives start to bear fruit, a CIO will find that information flow into the company has improved. Rapid responses to market movements become relatively easier. No opportunity will be missed. The ability to resolve a customer complaint, and convert an irritated customer to a delighted one will be developed. Similar use cases can be developed in cost management, productivity improvement and human resources scenarios. Go on, Get Social.

- The author is ‎Vice President and General Manager - South Asia, IDC
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