How do you get the best connection between your Key Performance Indicators and your Social Media?

Do you consider that your company are in business?

Do you use Social Media in your marketing strategy? 

Have you thought of what the cost is of engaging in social media?  

This could be, considered as a bunch of odd question. The real question you should ask yourself:

What is the cost of NOT engaging social media?

Then when you have taken your decision to engage in Social Media and made it part of your Marketing strategy, you will have to consider what I have mentioned in my previous blogs and how important it is that;

• Social Media have a proper and qualitative content.
• Social Media is about exchange of information and communication among peer to peer.
• Social Media is a matter of listening, communicating and trusting your costumers.
• Collaboration in Social Media is very important.
• Social Media must be, worked with care and advices of how to engage in Social Media is important.
• Social Media is not a sales tool but a communication tool in the overall marketing strategy of the enterprise.
• Social Media is a part of the Social Cloud as you concentrate to do your social engagement instead of how to work the hardware and applications.

Now the time has come to look at how you choose your, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) when you are working with Social Media.  The endpoint for you is to have success with Social Media and that demands a proper strategy of;

• What do you want of outcome, as a company using social media?
• How do you get in position to get there?
• How would you measure tangible and In-tangible, successes using Social Media?

There is a lot of hype around being in Social Media, and companies forget to take the proper precautions described above before rushing into using social media with sometimes, fatal consequences for their brand and company. What you need to do before engaging in Social Media, you need to dig deep into your company culture and make sure that your culture, do care about your costumers and their needs. Start to describe the three things you want out of your Social Media approach and choose your means of engagement with care.

To have the best connection between your KPI and your Social Media you must be as quantifiable as possible. A quantifiable approach could be;

1. Increase online sales by 10%.
2. Increase the number of positive posts each month on all Social Media channels. Goal: 1000.
3. Increase the number of Social communities to 5000 social matter experts or evangelists.

This is specific KPI for your social engagement, which is easy to quantify and with a qualitative aspect, which is measurable. The next step is to decide which analytical tools you will use to measure the above progress with and how often you want to do it. Some love to see a day-to-day basis other want a weekly basis. What ever you choose you need to secure that your tactics are working or you have to change your approach. It is important for your success with social media to continue to measure and refine your measuring points to secure that there will be a qualitative outcome of your effort. As a marketer, you know that if your social media approach do not generate a positive outcome the channel, will be closed and other marketing approaches will be used. One thing is for sure if you define your KPIs properly and combine them with the other suggestions in my previous blogs you will have a success. But as said before there is no conclusion list which you can take from your top drawer you have to work with what is best for your business.

Social Media and Cloud Computing, will it affect the company culture?

Cloud Computing, culture

Cloud Computing has transformed the delivery model of computer capacity dramatically – the company IT-unit once a technology power factor in the company – will be just another division in the company. Each business unit in the company will not be constrained by barriers, borders or gravity anymore. Each business unit will be able to use pre-configured or hosted offerings, which will suite the business unit solutions and fits, their unique business needs. Companies expect to have 50-60% of their workload within the next 5 years in the cloud. Cloud computing relieves the individual computers and mobile devices by offering the hosted offerings in a web based manner that are storing user information in the “cloud”. Users can then access, update, view and monitor remotely efficiently and conveniently in the “cloud”. These new power changes in the company will affect the company culture one way or another. A delivery of capacity on-demand will create changes, which will benefit the user of capacity and help the provider the IT-unit to rethink their position in the company. 

Social Media culture

How do social media, fit into the cloud?  Social media is born of cloud computing. Most social network sites use a cloud computing program to work with the properly effect. As long as people want to be connected and want to listen to their peer for new knowledge, social media will develop together with the cloud computing and as always with good content. These factors will have a huge effect on how the company culture will develop and no doubt, it will affect the culture. It is up to the company how it will affect the culture, and it could be very positive for the company if it takes into consideration that social media and the web 2.0 will become an integral part of each person / employees life, encompassing every aspect of their living. Another part is the rapidly change in communication forms – it is fast, it is for many people to do and it is widespread – some would call it a change in communications culture, I would call it exchange of knowledge.  In the “old” company culture, you had a communication unit who took care of all company content internally and externally. In the “new” social media cloud, you have subject matter experts who discuss with costumers competitors and even sometimes with the press about mutual subjects, on behalf of their company. Be aware that costumers expect your company to exchange information and even knowledge on your products in a fast easy and convenient way, which could make them start the collaboration with their peers to take the decision of buying your stuff. Working the social media cloud implementing cloud computing, tools for marketing purpose, which make your business more responsive to your costumers future demands, eventually this will reward you as a company. Costumers appreciate your business responding with proper content, which they could use in their decision making of buying your services, products or knowledge. Will this affect the company culture? No doubt, it will change the company culture from just a delivery and profit culture to a more responsive listening culture where collaboration will be in the lead.  

What can you do as a company- you can choose between two paths – you can neglect the new streams and continue to do what you have done always or you can take the challenge and start to change and use the change in your favour – What do you do?

Social Media rules of engagement

A couple of days ago I was participating in a internal seminar where a company invited its employees to use Social Media, both in its favor but also for their own use. I think it was a very good initiative from the company, who had a very open mind and wanted the employees to engage as much they could. Company management was not talking about some kinds of restrictions on the use of social media it was the employees, who brought the topic of how they should behave in different situations and asked for rules of engagement. But should we have any rules of engagement?

What is most important for me as a Social Media user and producer, is that I have the freedom to express my views and opinions, but as a content producer I have an obligation towards my subject and to my audience and company that I express my ideas with a proper thought that will enlighten the audience without jeopardizing anybody.  I will give you five advises of how I practice social media engagement, which is a series of common sense and practical to use in what ever you do in your professional life.

Advice number - One.  

Be where your costumers are and be able to deliver a proper content, which will make the costumer listen and respond to you. From an enterprise management perspective, empower your employees to explore social media and learn them to produce proper content.

Advice number - Two.

When you start exploring social media, invest the proper time it takes to be able to create the relationships side of social media. Make sure that you as employee and management know your responsibility and only deliver content, which you want to see for several years ahead. You cannot take it back, when your content first have been published.

Advice number - Three.

If you want to be serious on social media, you have to establish yourself as a subject-matter expert in what you want to communicate towards your costumers or audience. The test for your social media efforts is whether people find your content that interesting that they engage in discussion and favor or share re-tweet or just read your content and continue to do so. This is a rule that works for companies, their management and employees or you as private content provider.

Advice number - Four.

Make your social media engagement personal. Share your personal experience with the audience costumers they like it, they want to know you, which means that you share your personal experiences but remember to recognize the value of privacy. Share things that are of interest to your audience, not just anything.

Advice number - Five.

When you engage in social media act in a sense as a “Bonus Pater Familia” and you will be on the safe side. This is an expression, which your lawyer will recognize, and which is a simple rule to live by.

This is not rocket science, nor a fact book, which can be used for any purpose, but it could be used as some simple guidance for your entrance on the social media arena to start collaboration!

Should SMB and Mid Market companies use Social Media?

How do the SMB & Mid Market handle Social Media?

I have been working with SMB & Mid Market companies for almost one and a half year and during this time, I have seen an increasing number of SMB & Mid Market companies gaining social media presence. Being present on the Social Media is not enough, you have to be visible you have to be able to spread proper content. In other words, SMB & Mid Market companies have not familiarized themselves with how much time and effort it takes to make the necessary changes to work the social media communication channels and make them work towards costumers and employees. Many jump in without any planning of forethought only to abandon their efforts after a short time, due to a perceived lack of response from their costumers and employees.

How should SMB & Mid Market handle Social Media?

To get started properly with Social media as a SMB & Mid Market company you have to have a strategy for your Social Media presence both externally and internally, which will contribute to your company. The SMB & Mid Market companies should as big enterprises have the Social Media as part of the overall marketing plan.

The reality is quite different; some SMB & Mid Market companies are not suited for the internet in general and Social Media specifically. Even if you as a SMB & Mid Market company are not suited for these changes, you have to adapt to the new situation, which Social Media create, because this is where your costumers are and how they want to collaborate and communicate with you. In other words, “it is not the strongest companies that survives, nor the ones with the most intelligence that survives. It is the companies that is the most adaptable to change that in the long run survives.” No doubt, it is a tough scene for SMB & Mid Market companies in the social media space, but that does not grant them the right to neglect not to pay any real attention to their presence on Social Media or even giving up on their efforts prematurely due to sheer ignorance. Social Media is here to stay, whatever happens on SMB & Mid Market. The change in communication from one-to-many over to many-to-many will continue and be even stronger as people want to listen to people and get input from likeminded instead from marketing programs. That is the main reason for SMB & Mid Market companies to maximize their Social media presence.

How present are SMB & Mid Market companies on Social Media?

According to surveys, most SMB companies claim to work with Social Media but when it comes to doing it and show the results of the work it is difficult to find good evidence and best practise for the use of social media in their market. Most SMB & Mid Market companies are looking for methods to spend as little money as possible on marketing and social media strategies. Not because they dislike marketing and social media strategies, but because they have experienced problems, integrating these strategies into their product/services selling. They have experienced it takes time creating a good social media entrance and that is not all, you can even get criticized by your costumers so why use time and effort on this new media.

Problems Experienced with Social Media – Among business owners who use/may use social media

• Used more time on social media than expected – 43% of the answers said they did so in 2010.
• Given people a chance to criticize your business on the interne – 29% of the answers said they experienced this in 2010.
• Hurt your image more than helped using Social Media – 1% of the answers have experienced this in 2010

Many SMB & Mid Market companies want to focus on how to sell their product and service to their market with the most targeted effort as possible. Most of these companies forget that it takes investment to expand your market and not just share optimism in Social Media. Optimism and good faith is not enough you have to go into action and start using social Media in your company. One could argue from a SMB & Mid Market perspective that one should stay away from Social Media and let the enterprise use time and energy on Social Media?

There is only one short answer to this and the answer is NO!

Of course you should work with social media even if you are SMB & Mid Market company, you should just start somewhere else in the Social Media framework[1]. Weather you are a SMB or an enterprise company it is important your start with Social Media where you can use your knowledge as a subject matter expert in your company to spread the company message to your costumers. Lets face the fact that SMB & Mid Market companies has to grow in the Social Media space to gain a share of the voice at their costumers, but they have to act not just being there as passive listeners they have to be active and use the Social Media as part of the marketing strategy. Just being on Social Media is not even half the battle – it is just the start of it. So despite all the obstacles SMB & Mid Market companies has a place on the Social Media arena and they should take part in using Social Media actively in their communication with their costumers.

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[1] Look into my blog ” How to get succes with Social Media in a Corporation”