By Johnny Wright
In a recent Processor article, entitled “Social Successes,” my colleague Craig Robinson contributed some valuable insight into how to implement process and infrastructure within an organization to provide employees with access to social media in a secure and compliant manner. The first step in achieving success, the article suggests, is for IT to develop “an in-depth understanding of the business area’s social media programs and their anticipated impact as well as the programs’ overall goals and definitions of success.” In other words, IT must examine how employees and organizations are leveraging it to achieve real world results.
As a marketing professional, I’ve become more reliant on social media to communicate with our customers and with the marketplace. Most customer-facing professionals, not just marketing but other areas such as sales and customer service, are increasingly using social media on a daily basis to complete their work effectively.
To implement a successful social program, marketing, sales and customer service professionals must regularly listen to what’s being said about our organizations or within our industries. As appropriate, we join the conversations and engage customers, industry influencers and others with insight, data and opinions. It doesn’t help to sit on the sidelines and watch the conversations take place. We have to take time to contribute thoughtfully before we can begin to build relationships with those we’re trying to reach through social channels. It’s only once we’ve established ourselves in the community, be it one that we’ve created for ourselves or our company, or a third-party outlet, that we can begin to look for “warm” sales leads, marketing opportunities or effectively quell controversy and shape thoughts about our brand and products.
Because we’re integrating these social media strategies into our company communications, we (both the business and IT) are providing training and support to employees to make sure they are aware of what is being said through which medium, how to represent and refer to the company, and most importantly, what they are and aren’t allowed to do and say. This will only help strengthen the company brand and image by enabling employees to become active participants in the social media efforts. It’ll also ensure that IT is able to implement a successful strategy—one that won’t perpetuate workarounds and unmonitored exchange of information via social channels.
