Social Business: It’s Not Just About Marketing
Technology has significantly transformed the business landscape over the last century. It has impacted not only how products and services are produced, marketed, and distributed, but also how businesses communicate, build, and maintain a relationship with their consumers. Numerous technological advancements have strengthened and furthered businesses ability to grow and expand. For example, the Remington typewriter occupied a dominant presence in the workplace through most of the 1900s, and by the 1960s, the telephone displaced the traditional letter as the primary method of communication (Polt 1995; Dillerm 2015). The 1980s marked the beginning of the modern technology era with the introduction of the first personal computer (i.e., Apple’s Macintosh), brick-size cellular phones, and the fax machine (Novell 2013). By the turn of the millennium, the rate of technological advancements exploded. The Internet led the charge. The Web made companies more accessible, e-mail became a popular communication tool, the first smartphone was released, we could send text and photo messages, and e-commerce changed forever the way we shop (Dillerm 2015; Williams 2012). Apple’s iPhone introduction, coupled with high consumer adoption rates of smartphones, further propelled the usage of social media and launched the era of the social consumer. Today, technology is fully integrated into all aspects of our daily lives. We live, work, and play in a digital world.
Historically, businesses held the majority of the power in the marketplace. Companies decided what to produce, when and where to release it, and how consumers would purchase and consume it. This is no longer true; today consumers sit in the driver’s seat. Social media has given consumers a loud voice. They are now able to widely broadcast what they want, how, when, and where they want it. Consumers wield this power through their desktops or laptops, but more likely, through a small, powerful device that sits nicely in the palm of their hand. When consumers have a question, a complaint, or a compliment, they turn to their smartphone and share it with hundreds, thousands, and maybe even millions of other consumers on social media. If a company cannot give them what they want, they discount them with a swipe of their finger or the click of a button. The balance of power has shifted.
For a company to succeed today, they need to embrace the power of social media, to make it part of who they are and what they do. Companies need to evolve into a social business. Those who fail to make this transition may, in time, find themselves left behind. As a wise person once said, companies must innovate or die. Innovation is not just about new product development; it is also about developing new ways of doing business. In this chapter, we will explain what it means to be a social business and why it is important for your company to embrace this change. We will also explain the stages of social business development and how social tools can be integrated to become part of your company’s DNA. Interspersed throughout the chapter are examples of companies that have successfully made the transition. Hopefully, they will inspire you to do the same.
The Social Business
Social business is “activities that use social media, social software and social networks to enable efficient, effective and mutually useful connections between people, information, and assets” (Kiron et al. 2012). When a company becomes a social business, they no longer view social media solely as a marketing or public relations communication tool, but as a tool that can be used throughout various strategic, innovative, and functional areas of a company. A study of 3,478 managers from 24 industries in 115 countries revealed a growing interest in and need for companies to make the transition to becoming social businesses (Kiron et al. 2012). Making the transition is not easy; it requires leadership, resources, and time.
Social Business Maturity Model
The social business maturity model presented in Table 3.1 was developed based on a combination of academic frameworks and industry models (van Luxemburg 2011; Li and Solis 2013; Effing and Spil 2016). The model describes three phases of social business. It identifies activities that typically take place during each phase, the steps and the resources required to move your company to the next phase.
Table 3.1 Social business maturity model
|
Trial |
Transition |
Maturity |
Current status |
|
|
|
Next steps |
|
|
|
Resources required |
|
|
|
Source: Adapted from (van Luxemburg 2011; Li and Solis 2013; Effing and Spil 2016).
Trial Phase
The trial phase of social business is not unlike Hollywood’s portrayal of the Wild West, chaotic and lawless. In this phase, social media is not a formal part of the business. Company social media accounts are often created in silos, functioning independently from other company social media accounts. Those that do exist were created by individual departments or social-savvy, and (in some cases) not-so-socially savvy, employees. These accounts were more than likely created without undergoing a formal approval process. There may even be duplicate accounts, inconsistent posting and engagement practices, and unauthorized or inappropriate use of company intellectual property (e.g., logos, trademarks). During this phase, there is no strategy or goals in place. There is little synergy between accounts. Your company may be using social media as a broadcasting channel—posting the same information on each platform, instead of customizing information for each platform and using specific platforms to engage consumers in conversation and build relationships. Your company may not have a social media policy that outlines what employees can and cannot post. Your employees are often unaware of laws and regulations that they are required to be followed. Sometimes, the intern(s) is solely charged with crafting your company’s social media presence (Tip: Don’t do this). In this phase, the mindset is “let’s give it a shot and see what happens.”
Chaos aside, there is value in experimentation. However, this value will go unrealized if no one is paying careful attention. Social businesses need to listen and learn. So, let’s get a little more focused. There are at least four valuable sources of information you can draw upon to learn about how to use social media for business purposes: (1) publically available information, (2) information about your social media connections, (3) information about your current consumers base, and (4) information about your competition.
Public Information
The beauty (and curse) of social media is that it is constantly growing and evolving. Platforms that were once popular (e.g., MySpace) lose their appeal and are replaced with other platforms (e.g., Facebook). New platforms are launched and become hugely successful (e.g., Instagram and Snapchat), others transform by adding new features (e.g., Pinterest), and some simply fail to catch on (e.g., Gowalla). The ways in which consumers use and engage with social media also change overtime. A decade ago, social media was used primarily for connecting or reconnecting with family and friends. Today, as we learned in Chapter 2 consumers use it for a variety of additional purposes, such as to meet new people, be inspired, research products, catch up on the latest news, find employment, and be entertained. Social media has certainly come a long way. Strategies that worked well on social media five years ago may not work well today. Companies need to keep up-to-date on the growth and popularity of different platforms and understand who and how consumers are currently using them. Fortunately, there is ample publically available information on this topic. Pew Internet (pewinternet.org), eMarketer (emarketer.com), Social Media Examiner (socialmediaexaminer.com), Nielsen (nielsen.com), Forrester (forrester.com), and McKinsey (mckinsey.com) are all good places to start. See the Appendix of this book for a list of resources.
Social Connections
The key to marketing success is by understanding your consumers. This truism is no different in the social space. Therefore, you need to learn as much as you can from your existing social connections. To begin, select a sample of 20–30 of your social media followers and review their accounts to see when they use social (day/time), how frequently they use it (frequency of posts), and what type of content they appear to be interested in (evident by status updates, shares, likes, comments, and so on). You are likely to find that there are platform differences in how consumers are using and engaging with your brand. For example, consumers may be more active on Facebook than they are on Twitter. They may like watching the videos you share on Facebook but do not engage with those you post to Twitter. Next, examine your social accounts carefully to see what type of content resonates the strongest with your followers. Look for content that receives the greatest level of engagement from your followers (i.e., likes, shares, comments, retweets). Take note of specific content that fails to ignite a response. A final step is to conduct a sentiment analysis, a process by which you perform a keyword search, typically your company name to see what people are saying about your company across social media. Sentiment analysis also quantifies and categorizes comments as either positive, negative, and neutral. There is a large number of free and fee-based sentiment analysis services available: Social Mention (socialmention.com—free), WhosTalkin (whostalkin.com—free), HowSocialable (howsocialable.com—fee-based), Mention (mention. com—fee-based), and Keyhole.co (keyhole.co—fee-based). These will allow you not only to see what people are saying about your company, brand, product, competition, or industry in real time, but also help you determine if they like you.
Consumer Base
While social media can provide a valuable window into the lives of your consumers, you may still need a better view. If you need more information on your consumers’ social media habits, then it is a good idea to survey them. A formal survey can be drafted and distributed via e-mail or social media. Alternatively, you could add a couple of questions to an existing task (e.g., order form) or interaction (e.g., customer service call). An informal, exploratory survey format using social media is another option. A company could simply ask or post a question on Twitter or Facebook and document consumer feedback.
Competition
There is a lot that you can learn about how to and how not to use social media by simply monitoring the social activities of your competitors. Identify three or more competitors to monitor. Select the industry leader and a couple of your immediate competitors and audit their social media activities. Identify which platforms they use, how active they are on each platform, how they use their brand voice, how they embody their brand story, what they post, and the kind of response these posts generate. Try to identify the combination of content and timing of posts that works for each platform. Similarly, identify what does not appear to work. In other words, what posts did not generate much consumer engagement (i.e., likes, retweets, comments). You can learn just as much from their failures as you can from their successes.
To monitor your consumers and your competitors’ social media habits, it may be worthwhile to purchase a subscription to a social media monitoring platform. There are myriad of options available depending on the amount and level of data you wish to capture and the size of your budget. Getting into the nuances of social media monitoring is beyond the scope of this book, but a low-cost and effective option to start with is Hootsuite (hootsuite.com). Other commonly used options include Salesforce, Sysomos, and Viral Heat. See the resource list in the Appendix for more information.
Once you have observed and learned as much as you can from your connections, consumers, and competitors, you will be able to formulate a set of assumptions about the best way to generate a following and successfully engage with your consumers on social media to encourage social word of mouth (sWOM). Now it is time to test some of these assumptions. Pick one or two social media accounts, and over the period of a couple of weeks, pilot these assumptions. Monitor each and every post to determine success. After a couple of weeks of experimenting with different approaches, you will be ready to prioritize future initiatives. Remember the goal is quality, not quantity. It is better to have a small number of well-executed initiatives on a couple of social media platforms that generate positive results than it is to try and be everywhere and do everything. In other words, do not jump into simultaneously creating a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Google+ account. Be realistic about what you can achieve, given the resources you have at your disposal. You have to crawl before you walk, before you run. Your holistic social media efforts are a marathon and not a sprint.
There are two primary social media resources you will need: financial resources for a monitoring service subscription as well as any resources required for your initiatives (i.e., content generation and organization) and human resources to develop, implement, and monitor your pilot projects. During this phase, social media responsibilities largely fall to the marketing department. Someone in the marketing department needs to be assigned the responsibility of managing the company’s social media initiatives—Director of Social Media or Social Media Manager. To assist this person now and in the future, it is essential that you identify and recruit social media evangelists—employees throughout and at all levels who recognize the importance of social media as a business tool. These evangelists can be very influential at gaining companywide support, beginning at the senior level.
Executive Buy-In
Executive buy-in and support are essential for success (Kiron et al. 2012). C-level executives differ in their perceptions of social media and the importance and value of creating a social business. Greg Verdino—author, speaker, and founder of Verdino & Co—offers six reasons why many executives are often reluctant to adopt social (Hootsuite University 2012).
They Are Not on Social
Many members of senior management are, shall we say, of a mature generation. They were not born into, nor did they come of age in a digital world. Their birth was not announced on Facebook, and they did not immortalize every birthday on Instagram. Pokemon was a video game they or their siblings played on a Game Boy, not an augmented reality game that required players to scour the neighborhood eyes glued to their smartphone. Senior management’s use of social media maybe limited to LinkedIn, and if they have an account on another platform (e.g., Facebook), chances are they are lurkers, or intermittent contributors, rarely posting if at all. They may not have the same understanding of or appreciation for social media as others.
They Do Not Think the Investment Is Worth the Time
Even if members of senior management do use social media for personal reasons, they may feel that the amount of time and effort required to generate and maintain a social media presence is not worth the time. We understand—being social is time-consuming! But, they are also concerned that the resulting impact to the bottom line may not be worth the investment. Return on investment (ROI) is admittedly hard to determine on social media. They see other, perhaps, more traditional media as being a better investment, particularly if those initiatives have proven successful in the past.
Too Much Risk, Not Enough Reward
Whether it is a negative consumer story or a company employee posting something inappropriate, there are plenty of business-related social media horror stories to give any company pause. For example, some years ago, an employee of Best Buy created a series of short YouTube videos illustrating some different sales scenarios. In each scenario, the consumer was presented in an unflattering manner. Best Buy was often, but not always, mentioned by name. Some of these videos were viewed over 1.5 million times. Not surprisingly, the company received a lot of negative feedback (Dunn 2010). In Chapter 1, we offered the example of DiGiorno’s incorrectly using the domestic violence hashtag #WhyIStayed to sell pizza. A final example is the case of the breakfast cereal brand Cheerios. In 2016, music artist Prince died suddenly. Cheerios, which is owned by General Mills, sent out the tweet “Rest in peace” against a purple backdrop, with a Cheerio to punctuate the i, and #prince. A storm of angry comments followed in rapid succession. Grieving fans felt that the tweet was exploitative (Kottasova 2016). In each of these cases, the company was quick to issue an apology and removed the offending post, but not before it was seen by the masses and screen captured to live forever in the virtual vault of social blunders. It is easy to see why some members of senior management are uncomfortable with social media. Without sufficient procedures and controls in place, mistakes are common, and it is difficult to control the narrative and the brand’s reputation.
They Do Not Think the Target Market Uses Social
Ten years ago, this may have been a valid statement. But not today. Social media is no longer just used by teens and twenty-somethings. Today, social media penetration is strong in all age groups (your grandmother is probably checking you out on Facebook right now!). As we learned in Chapter 2, social media adoption rates have changed dramatically over the years. Notably, older adults are increasingly signing up for social media (Perrin 2015).
Another argument is that social media is only appropriate for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies; business-to-business (B2B) companies simply won’t reap its rewards. First, it is important to remember that people run companies. Social media can be an effective way of creating awareness of your brand, building and maintaining a relationship with people who are decision makers, buyers, users, influencers, and gatekeepers. Second, and as you will learn later in this chapter, B2B companies can be very successful at using social media. For B2B companies, being on social media is not about having an account on every platform—not every platform is relevant to you and your consumers. Instead, it is about identifying and adopting a small number of platforms and using them to enhance your business through sWOM.
They Do Not Know How to Measure Results
CEOs, CMOs, managing directors, and board members are those members of senior management who are most likely to view social business as somewhat important. CFOs who focus on return on investment (ROI) place less value on social in part because of the difficulty in measuring results (Kiron et al. 2012). Measuring results in general and ROI specifically has been a challenge. But, social media results can be measured. If your company is unable to measure results, it may be because you did not tie social initiatives to company business goals—key performance indicators (KPI) were not defined (e.g., share of conversation, traffic from social media platforms). Aligning social media with business goals or KPIs and developing specific, measurable, realistic, aggressive, and timely objectives is necessary.
You Are Not Making a Compelling Case
The last reason why senior management is often unwilling to adopt social media is that the person advocating for a social media program is not making a compelling case. In other words, the social media advocate needs to work on his or her sales technique. Social media expert Verdino recommends avoiding the use of dramatic case studies that have little or nothing to do with your industry. He also advises against relying too much on statistics from outside of your company and data from consultants whose primary purpose is to gain business. Instead, he suggests tying your social sales pitch to core business objectives, understand who you are selling to, and adapt your sales pitch to cater to senior management’s understanding of social media and what is important to them. He also suggests enlisting the support of social media evangelists and other potential influencers. Finally, brush up on your sales skills (Hootsuite University 2012).
Transition Phase
The transition phase is the evolutionary phase. Having completed the steps of listening and learning, conducting a competitive audit and piloting initiatives, it is time to put all of this knowledge to good use. During the transition phase, social media activities become more focused. Instead of trying to do it all and be something for everyone, the company directs its social media efforts toward specific consumer groups and social platforms. There is a movement from listening to consumers to engaging with them. Resource allocation has improved, but likely has room to grow. To gain support for additional resources, it is important for you to keep monitoring, measuring, and reporting results. Senior management needs to see that social media is worth the investment. Now may be an appropriate time to acquire or trade up to a more robust social media monitoring and management system. Hootsuite may continue to be a good long-term option for small to medium-size companies. Larger companies may eventually need to upgrade to a more sophisticated system with additional features. Social monitoring leaders include Salesforce, Sysomos, Visual Technologies, and Viral Heat.
When the focus becomes engagement, it is time to establish a social media advisory board. An advisory board is a group of individuals whose purpose is to craft a company social media policy and provide appropriate guidelines for using social media in the workplace. We cover social media policies and advisory boards in Chapter 5.
Employee Engagement
The primary reason why many companies adopt social media is to connect with and motivate external consumers. This is a legitimate reason, but do not forget your internal consumers, your employees. Social media can be used to build and maintain business relationships between employees, and between employees and senior management. Social media can be an effective communication channel for sharing company news and fostering a sense of company pride.
In their book, The Social Employee, authors Cheryl and Mark Burgess stress that the primary drivers of social business are employees (Burgess and Burgess 2014). They are right. Your employees are the face of your company, engaging with consumers and the public every day. It will be difficult to succeed as a social business without employee support. Company employees are “low-hanging fruit” when it comes to increasing your social media following. Employees have expertise that can be shared on social media and maybe very helpful at spreading positive sWOM. Through social media, employees can foster long-term relationships with social consumers. Empowering your employees to share company information on their personal accounts may make your company more accessible to people outside of your company network.
In truth, not all employees are socially savvy, especially about how to use social media for business purposes. Some employees may also be reluctant to take on additional social responsibilities. To build a culture of collaboration and social sharing among your employees, you need to identify your social media evangelists. Seek out those employees throughout all levels of the company, who are early adopters of technology, those who see the value in social, who believe in your mission, who are good communicators, listeners and are consumer-centric (Burgess and Burgess 2014). Provide these employees with the training and guidance to be brand ambassadors and empower them to lead the charge and spread the word.
Integrating Social Throughout the Company
The chances are good that your company is using social media primarily for marketing and public relations purposes. This is great, but the deep integration of social media into multiple areas of the organization is necessary to transform your company into a social business. It is now time to start exploring opportunities for incorporating social throughout the company.
The following section provides a brief overview of some ways in which social media can add value to a company and increase company-related sWOM.
Strategic Insights and Execution
Social media can help business leaders by offering strategic insights and improve strategic execution. In the case of strategic insights, a company can analyze consumer comments and perform brand sentiment analysis to identify problems with existing products and anticipate shifts in consumer preferences. Personal care brand, Nivea, provides one example of a company that uses social media for social insights. The company assumed that when it came to purchasing deodorant that consumers were most concerned about skin irritations and length of protection. However, when they analyzed social media comments about the brand, they learned that consumers were most concerned about the stains on their clothes caused by the deodorant’s residue (Roberts and Piller 2016). Nivea used these insights to create a new product—Nivea Invisible for Black and White.
Comments can live online forever. Positive comments help consumers evaluate products, make purchase decisions, and also reaffirm their selection. This helps with product sales and brand reputation. However, when a complaint or criticism is shared on social media, it has the potential to do harm. After a comment is posted, it moves from being a private matter to a public one. The source of the complaint will determine the impact that it will have on the brand’s reputation and sales. When the complaint comes from a consumer, who has a high number of social connections, and if these social connection are not closely connected to each other, there is the potential for a firestorm (Stich, Golla, and Nanopoulos 2014). A firestorm is a “sudden discharge of large quantities of messages containing negative WOM and complaint behavior against a person, company, or group in social media networks” (Pfeffer, Zorbach, and Carley 2014, 118). In other words, negativity may breed negativity. Recipients or readers of the complaint may contribute to the conversation by voicing their complaint or sharing the initial complaint with their social networks. For this reason, companies need to have a strategy for handling the negative sWOM. We will talk more about negative sWOM in Chapter 6.
Social media can also be used as a tool for executing strategies. Cara Operations is a Canadian restaurant chain with 11 brands, 840 franchisees, and over 26,000 associates. The CEO of the company wanted to engage the company’s associates in improving service delivery. The challenge was that many of the company’s associates are young part-time workers with a high employee turnover rate, which made it difficult for the company to implement an effective training program. To help engage associates, the company decided against using traditional communication methods of training and instead turned to social media. The company selected a platform that their associates were already familiar with and used on a regular basis, Facebook. Associates were encouraged to connect with the company on Facebook. On the page, the company shared tips on customer service and encouraged associates to post their success stories. Psychological research reveals that consumers share “up to 90 percent of their emotional experiences with others” (Berger 2014, 593). When good things happen, we want to share this news with others. In this case, employees were sharing their good news with their social networks. Fellow associates were able to learn about, recognize, and celebrate their accomplishments. Family and friends who were on Facebook were also able to acknowledge their personal success (Kiron et al. 2012). Just as a rolling snowball increases in size and importance, so too can sWOM as friends, and friends of friends are exposed to and share the good news.
Innovation
Social media can be a great tool for solving problems with existing products and sourcing ideas for new ones. In the case of Nivea, the company was able to use social insights on their deodorant products to solve a problem and create a new product. Nivea Black for White turned out the be company’s most successful product launch (Roberts and Piller 2016). Another company who uses social insights for a product developed is the toy manufacturer, Lego. Lego boasts a team of 120 designers and an active online social community of over 120,000 Lego enthusiasts. The company states that 99 percent of the brand talent does not come from the company, it comes from the community (Highfield 2014). Minecraft Micro World is a Lego product based on the popular video game Minecraft. The idea for Micro World came from a Lego fan who submitted his idea through Lego Cuusoo, a website hosted by Lego for fans to submit ideas for new products. Once an idea is posted, other Lego enthusiasts are invited to voice their support for the idea. Within 24 hours of being posted, the idea for Minecraft Micro World received over 10,000 votes. This is a significant amount of exposure, attention, and positive feedback in a short period. Lego management interpreted this high level of support as social proof that this idea would result in a successful product. Within one month, the idea was approved for production (Kiron et al. 2012). The product was such a success that Lego added two additional models to its Minecraft play theme (Terdiman 2013).
Social can also help extend or enhance your current product offerings. The Tate is an institution that houses the British art from 1500 to current day and comprises four physical galleries (Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives). The Tate’s fifth gallery is virtual, consisting of a website and social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr). On each of these platforms, art lovers around the world can learn about art, enjoy exhibits, and create personal experiences at a time and place convenient to them. In addition to moving art from the physical to the digital world, Tate successfully blends the digital back into the physical world by integrating social media into their art galleries. Visitors to Tate’s physical art galleries are encouraged to share their opinion of live performances on social media. Comments that visitors post on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are immediately projected on the walls of the art gallery contributing to the live performances. During the Art in Action festival, more than 122,000 consumers shared their opinions on social media, each of which was projected on the walls of the art gallery. In the Tate Modern gallery, there are 75 interactive screens installed in the staircases. Comments and photographs shared by consumers on social media are projected onto the screen. A drawing bar allows visitors to create art, which is immediately uploaded to the social web for all to see and share (Avery 2014). The fusion of the real and digital worlds becomes a catalyst for sWOM.
In addition to sharing their experiences with their network, social media can enhance the consumer’s experience. Sporting venues around the world are turning to social media to enhance the live fan experience and heighten team spirit. Many venues now encourage fans to tweet about the game. Tweets are then shared on stadium screens (Miller 2014). Social media can also improve bricks and mortar retailing experiences.
Women are notorious for using their smartphones to take photographs of themselves in change rooms trying on new outfits. They frequently share these images with their social network. Italian fashion brand Diesel identified a way to embrace this activity that would both benefit the shopper and the brand. The brand installed Facebook mirrors in changing rooms of their physical stores. Dubbed “Diesel Cam,” the interactive mirror allows in-store shoppers to take a photograph of themselves wearing Diesel clothing and share it with their friends by posting it directly to Facebook and Instagram. The photos are stamped with the Diesel logo in the corner. This is a clever and effective way of enhancing the in-store shopping experience while also encouraging social sharing and building brand awareness (Marsden 2010).
Human Resources
If you have been employed in the same position for a while, you may not realize just how the recruitment process has changed. Help wanted ads and paper resumes are artifacts of yester year—say “hello” to social recruiting. Social recruiting is the use of popular social media platforms to advertise, source, and recruit potential candidates for a job. At least 84 percent of the organizations use social media for recruiting purposes (publicly owned for-profit—88 percent, privately owned for profit—89 percent, government—68 percent). The top three reasons for using social are to recruit passive job candidates—identify potential candidates who may not be currently looking for a job (82 percent)—increase employer brand recognition (77 percent), and to target candidates with a specific skill set (71 percent). The most popular networks for recruiting are LinkedIn (96 percent), Facebook (60 percent), Twitter (53 percent), and other professional social networking sites (35 percent) (Society for Human Resource Management 2016).
A 2014 survey found that 65 percent of the respondents would consider a job opportunity if they heard about it from a personal connection (Budzienski 2015). Internal recommendations can be a successful way of finding the right people. Therefore, it is wise to enlist the help of your employees to share and talk about the current openings with their social networks. For many companies, including Google, this is the primary method of finding potential candidates (Sannelli 2014).
In addition to identifying potential candidates, social is also used to screen applicants (43 percent). Recruiters report that social media allows them to obtain more information about a candidate than is contained in his resume or cover letter (61 percent). It also allows recruiters to verify the accuracy of the information recorded in an applicant’s resume (50 percent) (Society for Human Resource Management 2016). Despite the popularity and benefits of social recruiting, care should be taken when using social media or other Internet search tools to vet job applicants. Information obtained through social media may be outdated, inaccurate, unreliable, or protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. This information is typically omitted from a resume and job application form, but maybe inadvertently obtained while viewing the applicant’s social media account (Global HR Research 2015).
Marketing Communications
Social media is first and foremost a communication channel. It is a channel that provides a two-way dialog between consumers, between a company and its consumers, and between companies. Social media is a conversation tool. It allows you to communicate with consumers by either broadcasting a general message or to deliver a personalized, individual message. Broadcasting is akin to a megaphone—a company reaches a large number of people with a single message (mass communication). The company crafts a message and talks to the consumer, not unlike the traditional mass media (TV, radio, and print). The difference, however, between traditional and social media is the timeliness of the communication. Social media allows immediate access and real-time communication with your consumers at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. Broadcasting general messages to your entire network may be appropriate some of the time, but certainly not all of time. On social media, you have a direct line to your consumers, much like a telephone. You should use this opportunity to engage specific segments of your network and individual consumers in conversations. Thus, your social media efforts should consist of a combination of mass and targeted and personalized communications.
The best way to sell a product is not to sell it at all.
Companies should not view social media as purely a sales channel, but as an as an important contributor to the consumer decision-making process. In truth, the best way to sell a product is not to sell it at all. Instead, a good sales representative will have a conversation with you, she or he asks questions, listens, and provides guidance. Social media allows companies to have one-on-one conversations with individual consumers. It is like chatting with someone on a telephone. As a company engages in a conversation with a specific consumer, other social media users can eavesdrop and may even chime in on the conversation. The conversation may eventually lead to a sale. In Chapters 6 and 7, we will talk more about how to have conversations with consumers by crafting persuasive social media messages.
Humanizing the Brand
Consumers respond positively to brands that represent who they are or who they want to be. Have you ever heard yourself say something to the effect of “Yes, it (brand) is nice, but it’s just not me?” If the answer is yes, then you may be saying that the personality of the brand is not consistent with your identity. When consumers choose to follow and engage with a brand on social media, they do so because they identify with the brand. As we discussed in Chapter 2, this is a motivating factor in why we share. Consumers see their real or aspirational sense of self (i.e., who they want to be) reflected in the brand. Once they follow the brand on social media, the brand becomes part of their online social identity. This brand association becomes one of the many important data points connected to a consumer’s profile(s). Collectively, this information paints a picture of a consumer’s social identity that is broadcasted across the social media network(s). You are who you like. The brand and consumer social identity association, provides numerous benefits, such as, increasing brand awareness, extending your communication reach, and increasing the consumer’s brand involvement. It may also increase consumer engagement, stimulate sWOM, improve the reputation of your company, drive traffic to your website, and improve your search engine ranking. To encourage consumers to make this connection, a company needs to humanize their brand.
To humanize your brand is to imagine your brand as it were a person, to give your brand a personality—a set of traits that people attribute to your product as if were a real person (Aaker, Vohs, and Mogilner 2010). A brand personality makes your brand more relatable and helps to distinguish it from the competition. The greater the congruence between a brand’s personality and the real or aspirational personality of the consumer, the stronger the preference for the brand (Aaker 1997). If your brand were a person, how would you describe his or her personality? Is he (or she) formal or relaxed? Feisty or timid? Conservative or progressive? Innovative or conventional? Energetic or easy-going? If you are uncertain, look to your brand values for guidance.
Brand Voice
Once you have determined your brand personality, you then need to develop your brand voice. That is, you need to decide not only the types of content that you will share, but also how you will communicate with consumers on social media. For example, fast casual restaurant, Smashburger is unlikely to post content related to the virtues of a vegetarian diet or low-fat food. Instead, they celebrate “holidays” such as National Bacon Lovers Day (FYI: It’s August 20). If your company is very formal then when replying to consumer posts, you may decide to address the consumer by his last name (e.g., Mr. Jones). On the other hand, if your company is very informal and spontaneous, you may choose to share witty content and use the consumer’s first names (e.g., Hi Bob!).
Some examples of companies with strong and distinct brand voices include Taco Bell, Intel, and Adidas (Figures 3.1–3.6).
Taco Bell’s personality and brand voice could be described as humorous and somewhat wacky.
Figure 3.1 Taco Bell Twitter example 1
Figure 3.2 Taco Bell Twitter example 2
Source: Images courtesy of Taco Bell’s public Twitter account.
Intel’s voice is smart and enlightening.
Figure 3.3 Intel’s Facebook example 1
Figure 3.4 Intel’s Facebook example 2
Source: Images courtesy of Intel’s public Facebook page.
Adidas is inspirational.
Figure 3.5 Adidas Twitter example 1
Figure 3.6 Adidas Twitter example 2
Source: Images courtesy of Adidas public Twitter account.
Once you have developed your voice, you will need to provide guidelines for employees to follow, guidelines on acceptable content and manner of speech. Employees and third parties who are authorized to post on behalf of the company will need direction to ensure a consistent brand voice, which is essential for presenting an accurate and consistent brand identity. You do not want Jim in accounting being super serious, Jenny in human resources being feisty, and your social media influencers or paid endorsers being totally irreverent.
It is also important to meet periodically with your social media team to review whether or not your social media posts are consistent with your brand voice. Find emblematic social media posts and examples of consumer engagement that embody the essence of your brand. It is also helpful to pinpoint posts that are not consistent with your brand and identify the reasons why (i.e., word choice, tone, subject matter). And it goes without saying, learn from your social media mistakes (there will be many!). Archive and revisit these positive and negative examples.
Up to this point, we have focused primarily on business to consumers (B2C) use of social media, but there are many B2B companies that are effectively employing social media. As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, social media can be an effective way of creating awareness of your brand, building and maintaining relationships with key influencers, and decisions makers. Take, for instance, Maersk Line, a member of the Maersk Group, the world’s largest shipping container company. Headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, Maersk Line has 324 offices in 115 countries. The company operates 605 container vessels and employs 7,600 seafarers and 22,400 land-based employees (Maersk Line 2016). Maersk turned to social media to share news about the company, as a way to get closer to their consumers and to potentially influence the industry. The company has accounts on nine different social platforms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, and Weibo. Each platform has a different target market and purpose. For example, Instagram and Flickr are used to inspire people and to keep the name Maersk top of mind. Google+ allows consumers and experts to engage, and LinkedIn is their corporate platform. Maersk’s strategy for building a social presence began with their employees. The company recognized that social was a great way for them to connect with their employees around the global. Social media helped Maersk build a sense of company pride among employees, which in turn helped to spread positive sWOM. When employees contributed to company posts, these messages were shared with the employee’s extended network of family and friends which were instrumental in increasing Maersk’s reach.
Sharing their extensive digital archive of 14,000+ photographs of ships on social media helped to humanize the brand. Each photograph the company shared on social media was accompanied by a short story. Collectively, these stories help to tell the history of Maersk. Shipping enthusiasts were drawn to these posts and even began posting their photos of Maersk ships (Figure 3.7). By contributing their materials, these followers help to craft and share the story of Maersk throughout the social web. Maersk’s Facebook posts frequently attract thousands of likes and hundreds of shares. To determine the effectiveness of their social media efforts, Maersk conducted a survey. Sixty-seven percentage of the respondents stated that Maersk’s social media efforts had enhanced their perception of the company. Maersk’s success can in part be attributed to senior managements’ understanding that social media is not just a marketing tool, but a communication tool (Katona and Sarvary 2014).
Figure 3.7 Maersk Facebook example
Source: Image courtesy of Maersk’s public Facebook page.
Customer Services
If you had a question about a recent purchase, how would you contact the company? Would you call them on the 1–800 number? Jump in your car and head to the store? Try the live chat feature on their website? Perhaps, you would send them a tweet? Or, post a question on the company Facebook page? Maybe you would not contact the company. Perhaps, you would post a message on social media and let members of your social network respond. Social customer service or s-Care is the delivery of customer service via social networks rather than call centers, retail stores, service counters, and company websites. A recent study of U.S. consumers revealed that while the preference and use of s-Care currently skew toward the younger generation, it is and will continue to be an important service channel for all customers. Over four in five (81 percent) millennials reported that they would use social media to engage with a brand’s customer service, versus 63 percent of Gen Xers and 44 percent of Baby Boomers. Even 40 percent of those who do not currently use social media indicated that they would be willing to engage with customer service through social channels. The most popular platform for s-Care is Facebook (82 percent). Millennials are more willing to use a selection of s-Care channels (Facebook 78 percent, Twitter 45 percent, Instagram 25 percent) than are Gen X (Facebook 84 percent, Twitter 33 percent, Instagram 11 percent) and Baby Boomers (Facebook 86 percent, Twitter 16 percent, Instagram 4 percent). That is not to say that traditional customer service channels are no longer important, rather consumers today expect multiple options and one of them should be social (Dalla Pozza, Wood, and Burkhalter 2015).
s-Care access also appears to be an important factor in deciding which brand to purchase. One-third (35 percent) of the Baby Boomers and nearly one-quarter (20 percent) of Gen Xers and millennials surveyed reported that not having access to their preferred method of customer service interaction would prevent them from making a purchase (Bianchi, Schiavotto, and Svoboda 2014).
In addition to meeting consumers expectations for customer service and potentially impacting future sales, s-Care may significantly lower the cost of customer service operations and increase customer satisfaction (Bianchi, Schiavotto, and Svoboda 2014). That is, assuming a company can live up to service response times. Expectations of the speed of response vary based on age with 27 percent of Gen Xers and Boomers believing that it would take at least two days to receive a response via social media. Millennials (22 percent), on the other hand, expect a ten minute response time (Salesforce 2015). They are not exactly the most patient bunch!
Social media is not only important and effective for dealing with consumers directly, but it is also important for sharing information internally to help solve consumer problems. Take for example, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. A Nationwide customer was stranded on vacation—his RV had broken down. He called the Nationwide call center for assistance—did his policy cover this situation? The call center agent was uncertain and decided to post the case on the company’s internal social collaboration platform. People from all across the company chimed in to help solve the problem. Within 30 minutes, the call center representative had an answer and a detailed approach to help the customer. Without this internal social collaboration system, the problem may have taken hours or even days to resolve, and Nationwide could have lost a customer (Kiron et al. 2012). Furthermore, unanswered questions, unresolved issues, and unreturned calls can often lead to negative word of mouth (WOM). It is not uncommon for dissatisfied consumers to turn to social media to publically air their grievances. This has the potential to create a firestorm. Even if it does not motivate others to complain, it can still discourage consumers from doing business with your company.
Maturity Phase
During the maturity phase, the company’s social media moves beyond marketing to include other functional areas. Policies and procedures may need to be updated, and the role and composition of the social media advisory board modified to accommodate the enhanced use of social media and to include representation from additional areas. Hopefully, all of the C-level executives now see the value of social. If some members of senior management are still wavering, it may be worthwhile to involve them with a specific social initiative that will help achieve one of their goals (Li and Solis 2013).
The key to determining if you have successfully made the transition to a social business is when social is an integral part of the business planning process and when there is companywide support and usage of social. Social is now part of the fabric of your business; it is part of the company’s DNA.
An example of an organization that has successfully transitioned to a social business is the American Red Cross. The American Red Cross was founded in 1881 with the mission to “prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors” (American Red Cross 2016). To help them achieve their mission, the Red Cross made the commitment to infuse social media into every aspect of the organization. First and foremost, they have the commitment of senior management. Senior management recognizes the unique capabilities of social media to mobilize the masses to prepare for and respond to disasters.
The Red Cross operates accounts on a variety of social platforms, each with a specific purpose. To share the history of the company and to help build an emotional connection with the public, they use Instagram, Flickr, and Pinterest. Instagram is used primarily to share pictures of aid workers around the world and pictures of aid recipients. Flickr is used to host photographs of disaster relief responders in the field. The Red Cross Pinterest page contains a selection of boards. For example, there is a board of photos that show the history of the Red Cross, a board that contains promotional posters dating back to the early 1900s, and a board that contains a series of images communicating the importance of giving blood. The Red Cross YouTube account informs the public about disaster response and helps to educate the public on topics such as CPR. Job opportunities are posted on LinkedIn. The Red Cross Google+ account is a place for supporters to engage with each other. Blogs are also to share more detailed information and allow supporters to connect. Facebook is used to share current information with supporters, volunteers, blood donors, and the general public. Twitter is used for real-time updates on disasters and Red Cross services (Figure 3.8).
Figure 3.8 Red Cross Twitter example
Source: Image Courtesy of Red Cross public Twitter account.
In addition to using social media to educate, communicate, and build relationships with supporters, the Red Cross also uses social to make business decisions. By monitoring social chatter and public sentiment, they can identify how to respond to public needs. For example, by tracking keywords like “tornado” on Twitter, the Red Cross can spot exactly when and where disasters are happening and use this information to help manage and track resources and supplies.
Social is also an important tool for fundraising. Supporters can make a donation through one of their blogs or on Facebook. They use Twitter to post messages encouraging followers to donate to specific disasters (Kane 2014).
If a 135-year-old charitable organization, with over 600 chapters, 35,000 employees and 500,000 volunteers in the United States alone can make the commitment and transition to becoming a social business what is stopping your company?
Social B2B Companies
For companies that operate in the B2B market, social media use is often limited to a LinkedIn profile and perhaps a blog. Some B2B companies do not see the value in operating a Facebook page or an Instagram account. After all, who on earth would be interested in a photograph of your frontend loaders, sea containers, or industrial equipment? But, as we saw in the case of B2B company Maersk Lines, social media can be very important for internal and external communications, customer service, and sales (Wichmann 2013). Therefore, we feel it is important to revisit some important facts for those readers who work for a B2B company:
Decision makers are on social media: Although the buying process in the B2B market is fundamentally different to the B2C market, purchase decision makers are more than likely on social media, and this is a great way to reach and influence them.
Social media can help create brand awareness: Brand awareness is still very much a goal for B2B businesses. Other B2B companies are active on social media. Like traditional consumers, they will hear about your company through social media posts and your company’s social media profiles.
Social media can build connections: Social media provides unique opportunities to not only research other companies, but also to make connections with decision makers and industry influencers.
Social media can humanize your brand: B2B companies have a personality that also needs to be shared.
Social media can be used to help educate the public: You should take the opportunity to use social media to educate other companies (and consumers) on the importance of your product. While you may not be directly selling to consumers, if they perceive actual or real problems with your product, they can voice their concerns to others, which could create public relation problems.
Social media is not just for marketing: As we have seen in this chapter, social can be infused throughout the entire company to connect people, information, and assets with the goal of making your company more efficient and competitive.
We conclude this chapter with one more example, the case of SAP (Systems Applications and Products). SAP is a B2B company who has successfully made the transition to becoming a social business.
SAP
SAP makes enterprise software to manage the business operation and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, SAP employs almost 80,000 people in 130 countries. SAP’s vision is to “help the world run better and improve people’s lives” (SAP 2016). To achieve this vision, SAP harnessed the power of social media to become a social business. They embedded social media into their organization for strategic insight and execution, innovation, human resources, marketing communications, and customer services. Like many other businesses, they have a wide selection of accounts on multiple platforms including, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram.
The most powerful illustration that SAP is a social business is the SAP Community Network, a global online community of almost 2 million IT people, technologists, partners, business experts, students, professors, consultants, and influencers from more than 200 countries (SAP 2015). The community that is hosted by SAP includes blogs, wikis, and discussion forums. It is a place where members can discuss SAP products, programming languages, industries, and technology. How-to guides, white papers, and free downloads are all available on the site. Community members can post questions that are answered by either a company representative or other members of the community. The SAP Community Network also has Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube accounts.
A valuable feature of SAP’s community is Idea Place, an online forum where community members offer suggestions for new features and enhanced functionality to existing products. When a community member submits an idea or enhancement, it is visible to all community members. Community members have the opportunity contribute their ideas to the proposed improvement. Members then vote the idea up or down. From here, product managers identify the most popular requests for further investigation.
Crowdsourcing product development and enhancements in this manner benefit both the customer and the business. Allowing a customer to suggest improvements and to vote on each suggestion makes him or her feel part of the development process, that his or her contribution is important and that his or her needs will be met. In return, the company benefits from the collective wisdom of community members, which enables the company to solve existing problems promptly, produce better products, prioritize development initiatives, and continue to meet the needs of their customer base. Over the course of one to two years, SAP community members will submit as many as 15,000 ideas (Kiron 2012).
For a company to be successful in today’s hyper-connected world, the company needs to embrace social media. sWOM begins internally; it begins with engaging with and empowering your employees to use social media for business purposes. Social media needs to be integrated into your company, much in the same way the telephone and the computer did decades ago. Social media is the telephone of this generation—ringing loudly and constantly. The question is, are you going to answer it?
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