Strategy: Seeking Social’s ROI? You’re Missing The Point Entirely…There are More Than 2 Billion People on Social Networks Today, & With the Proliferation of Mobile Technology

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Businesses have been obsessively trying to find the ROI of social media, which is the completely wrong approach. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not that you shouldn’t measure the impact of social media; but the measurement should be a business one, not a measure of social alone. Social Media is an enablement tool, not a standalone channel. And its true value comes in the ability to enable your business.

Meg Bear is group vice president for Oracle Cloud Social Platform.

Meg Bear is group vice president for Oracle Cloud Social Platform.

Merriam-Webster defines enable as “to provide with the means or opportunity; to make possible; to cause to operate.” And that’s what social media should do for business—provide the means and opportunity to make things possible and operational.

Great companies have already begun using social to innovate more quickly and more effectively. For example:

General Motors is developing better automobiles by seeking customer input, as well as making product adjustments on the assembly line by listening to social conversations. Social media has enabled the most comprehensive and insightful focus group ever, and GM is leveraging socially driven customer insights every day for business success.

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Marriott International created an award-winning marketing promotion based on a customer remark on social media informing the hotel that its beds were a customer favorite. By listening to and learning from social media, Marriott was able to execute its highly popular “30 Beds in 30 Days” promotion. This is one example of social media enabling customers and businesses to co-create campaigns that resonate and succeed.

Polaris produced a new line of top-selling, pink snowmobiles thanks to social intelligence that informed product development. The company gleaned from the social web that there was strong buzz around the color pink. And although it went against the grain, they trusted the data and closed the loop with development, producing a new product line that has since become a fan favorite.

LeapFrog brought back a once-retired product simply by taking action on what it heard from social media. LeapFrog got more than 5,000 likes and 400 Facebook shares within only hours of bringing back its Fridge Phonics magnetic letter set.

LEGO has increased its brand marketing power exponentially by empowering employees through its social media driver’s license program. Once they’ve completed this social media training course, employees are allowed to engage with customers across social networks, helping the company share and amplify LEGO stories from across the globe, while enhancing brand marketing and awareness. The program is one example of LEGO’s socially enabled business that is helping drive and meet organizational objectives.

We are talking about real business value here: Customer insights are leading to the creation of more popular products and services, while more engaged and empowered employees are leading to greater brand awareness and loyalty.

It’s about executing business strategy, not implementing social strategy. These innovative companies are using social as a way to operationalize the business—and aren’t treating it like a stepchild of the organization.

When you view social through the lens of enabling your key areas of business, you begin to understand its power. Social should be woven throughout the fabric of your organization. It’s really less of a traditional “channel” than a seamless current flowing through today’s modern communications.

Social does have certain unique and transformational characteristics, including:

  • Data: Social data can reveal not only what consumers are doing, but the why behind their actions, revealing more fine-grained affinities. Businesses can now combine the affinity data that social provides with traditional CRM data and third-party insights to paint a much richer, more accurate picture of their customers. Companies get a universal customer profile that helps them better understand customers and leads to increased engagements and improved customer experiences.
  • Speed: The real-time nature of social allows businesses to understand and meet the expectations of today’s consumer more quickly. Social is instantaneous, and feedback happens in real time.
  • Transparency: Social provides an open, knowledge-sharing platform that has forced a level of transparency on businesses that requires a change in mindset. The days of businesses simply pushing their message without any real way for consumers to respond are gone. That has shifted the power to the consumer and forced organizations to operate in a much more open fashion. This level of transparency has given businesses an opportunity to demonstrate an authentic and human side, and to evolve from customer interactions to customer partnerships.
  • Engagement: Customer partnerships are built from relationships. Relationships develop over time, after a series of two-way connected interactions. Social helps you make these interactions more personal, further increasing customer engagement. And those engagements are opportunities for businesses to provide information when customers seek it, to anticipate customer needs ahead of time, to deliver personalized, relevant content, and in general to provide real value to customers.
  • Scale: There are more than 2 billion people on social networks today, and with the proliferation of mobile technology, there is no sign that this trend will reverse itself or even slow. Television advertising is still a thriving business because it allows brands to tell a story and reach millions. Social is giving brands that same storytelling capability, with a similar reach, but using a two-way mechanism that provides opportunity for amplification and engagement. As the number and power of social networks increase, the opportunity to develop more personalized relationships with your customers grows and expands.
  • Personalization: Social allows businesses to develop highly targeted and personalized interactions with customers and prospects in conjunction with data-driven insights. Relevance in personalization is critical, and social technology provides a path that we had only dreamed of 10 years ago. Today’s customers expect businesses to understand them and to offer them products, services, and value relevant and targeted to them, not generic for all. Social enables brands to tailor interactions that are personal and resonate much more effectively.

To understand and begin to maximize the vast potential of social, businesses must rethink how they view social. As our world becomes more customer-centric and digitally powered, social becomes more critical across every business function, from marketing and sales, to service and product development, to human resources and employee communications.

For 2015, redefine social metrics so that they are tied to business key performance indicators. Leverage the strengths of social to help lift your business objectives and build a deeper relationship with your customers. In short, let social enable your business.

 

Forbes.com |  February 16, 2015  |  Meg Bear 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2015/02/16/seeking-socials-roi-youre-missing-the-point-entirely/