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And now for the big issue – the role of social media within organisations
Put terms like ‘social media’ into Google and what you’ll get is 95% to do with public social media tools such as Facebook or Twitter: how to use them to promote your business, how to reach and engage customers and so forth. Virtually all the case studies you’ll hear about at conferences are external campaigns – Jimmy Choo’s Foursquare campaign, Cadbury’s viral gorilla… the sexy stuff that make agencies look good and can be neatly packaged with a sales figure as the end result.
But what about social media within organisations?
Why should businesses bother with social media at all?
Someone should patent a curve, like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s Grief Curve maybe, showing the typical stages that a business goes through in its adoption of social media.
I won’t trouble you with the details, but let’s just say that however enthusiastic everyone is at the start, there comes a time when the difficult questions begin. And the most difficult is ‘what is the ROI of our social media activity?’ In other words, what is the payback for all this blogging, tweeting, commenting and community nurturing? Should we be bothering with it at all?
How great social media customer service is adding to Bosch’s bottom line
Yesterday I was listening to a talk about brands and social media, and the point was made that just having conversations and showing a ‘human face’ isn’t enough for brands to differentiate themselves from the competition. The thrust of the talk was that creative ideas are what matter, and have always done so. The ‘big idea’ is what creates excitement, gets people talking and sharing, draws people in – a compelling story with emotional appeal is what sells a brand, basically, not cosying up to people on Facebook. It was a good point, and I’ll admit I was challenged.
Whose data is it anyway?
Tim Berners-Lee spoke The Guardian this week about the availability, ownership and use/misuse of data. He wants us to be able to more easily own our data - not just the photos and other content we upload to the web in order to share it with others, but all the micro information about who we are, where we live, how we vote/shop/browse, when our dentist appointment is, friends’ birthdays, our shoe size … you get the picture. There has been an explosion in the amount of data collected and stored by companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook, says Berners-Lee, and individuals should be free to make use of it in ways that would be useful to us, not only to the companies that are currently hosting and gathering it.
