Cerebra

Boardrooms, marketing meetings, and agencies around the world are abuzz with the words ‘Social Media’, however, “Social Business” is still a relatively new term that needs some clarifying.

Let’s start with the definitions:

Social Media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.
Social Business as a term has quite a few definitions; in Europe the phrase is used to define commercial activity by socially minded organisations, such as non-profits, or a business whose goal is to achieve social impact rather than profits. We’re not focusing on this definition. The second, probably better known to business in the Americas, China and the Middle East, is a standard business using data, insights and analytics to action and foster change within the business, thereby helping it communicate, market and achieve business goals faster, with more efficiency.

Cerebra’s creative director, , outlines what ‘social business’ means for an organisation in one of her recent blog posts. She explains, “At its core, a social business understands that people do business with people. A social business focuses on leveraging conversations and collaboration in order to more effectively achieve overarching marketing, sales, communication, and business objectives.”

I believe that the rise of social media has led to the need for a social business. Social media has demanded that people are able to communicate across continents and share information with communities with greater ease than ever before. This has forced brands that got involved to be able to do the same. But industrial age business is not rigged for information age economies; making decisions quickly, and having employees share and collaborate like they would naturally do on social media external to the organisation. Companies had to evolve to cater for an environment that impacted on the business as a whole, not just one department. This impact started internally too, as employees started using social media, drawing attention to the ‘employer as a brand’ discussion, which is a key driver to social business success.

Generally, social media strategies involve setting up external platforms, driving content to communities to allow the brand to engage with people directly. This direct engagement sparked a need for faster customer service via Twitter, faster answers from senior executives regarding reputational issues, and a customer that has their finger on the pulse of knowledge for better decision-making than ever before. I’ve watched as this has forced businesses to look at new process of taking messages to market, new ways to gain insight from communities, and fundamental changes in the way internal departments are configured. It’s put a need on business to get knowledge around cheaper, and faster than ever and is something the traditional hierarchy or internal tools were not geared for.

The process of becoming a “social business” is not a lick of paint, or a quick implementation of technology or platforms such as Yammer for better internal collaboration and communication. Social business requires a strategy, driven by business goals on the executive level, with a 10-year vision for implementation. In all success cases, it is not one silo or department’s task, but rather a business wide vision and goal for adapting to a changing environment. Governance and guidelines, resources, and funding are all part of a social business transformation, and in many instances it requires its own social committee. For example, look at the very successful implementations of this across multinational conglomerates such as Coke, IBM, Wallgreens, and Ford; all made sure they set up social business councils / committees, comprising of executive to bottom tier representation. This vision was shared with the staff in order to secure buy-in, and rollout of the journey began.

One might say that the difference between social media and social business is merely one of technology or platforms, and that might be somewhat true, but where Social Business is a total transformation of the way traditional business communicates and collaborates both internally and externally, social media is merely the description of where, and why that interaction happens.

Want to join the debate? Book your seat for this year’s Social Business Africa event. The full day conference is scheduled to take place on 20 August in The Forum at The Campus in Bryanston, Johannesburg. Tickets are R1 500 (excl. VAT) and are available from www.socialbusinessafrica.com. Follow sponsors and or the hashtag #SocBizAfrica on Twitter for further updates.