social media & social networks

Social Business, maturity and the driver's seat

As we are making preparations for our 2015 State of Social Business in France report with Hootsuite and Adetem (to be published in late August), I came across Ed Terpening’s Altimeter group report today. I am relaying this report per below. Here are a few findings together with my comments:

  • Scaling is no longer an issue for the US businesses surveyed by Altimeter group in that report. The focus has shifted on “integration of social with digital”. I feel like re-living Groundhog day. In my eyes, social media has never made sense in isolation, and to me the issue isn’t even the integration of social within digital (a no-brainer) but the integration of social within all parts of the business. To a large extent, the kind of work I did at Orange a long time ago was about just that. I’m not certain that this is a sign of superior maturity from our friends across the pond,
  • Breaking down silos requires more engagement from leaders but that, in essence, isn’t new either. In my eyes, it not only requires that, but also a lot of courage on the part of intrapreneurs; and social media managers must be intrapreneurs. That, in essence, is also a sign that the grass isn’t much greener across the water,
  • HR programmes and employee advocacy are high on the agenda and I can confirm that we are seeing this happening on this side of the planet as well. There is a renewed interest for that kind of programmes, with large businesses launching employee advocacy and social learning programmes across the board and more often than not, trying to figure out how to do it. My hunch is that, very often, the issue is understood as one of learning skills and induction/teaching issue, whereas it is mostly a question of change management. Our way of handling has more to do with change management than teaching per se, even though training is of course, and more than ever, on the agenda,
  • Digital (and particularly social) advertising is on the rise – that isn’t new either – and I’m not certain that this is a good thing, but as I said in that Hootsuite video recorded in mid 2013, there isn’t much choice about that, because marketers are determined to spend their advertising dollars on social. My two cents again: I believe they should be spending more time and effort on word-of-mouth but I know that it’s hard for anyone to drive marketers from spending money. Those who understand these issues better than others are the ones who, in my mind, will reap the best harvests ever.

Social Business
more than ever, social business requires top management to be in the driver’s seat

Amongst other things I have also noticed the lag of B2B businesses but I see things happening in that area and even though it may be considered counter-intuitive I will continue to highlight that B2B is, in my eyes, a sector of choice for social media. Word of mouth is, in B2B, unavoidable because the issue of the true cost of digital/social advertising looms large on the agenda of B2B businesses. This forces them to find alternative strategies and it’s always in B2B that I find the most interesting and imaginative strategies. Call me stupid, but I think there is a huge potential there and so few agencies focus on those areas and so few have the means of investing in niche/complex subjects that this potential remains – as of today – vastly untapped.

The 2015 State of Social Business by Altimeter Group

2015_State_of_Social_Business_Report_cover_page_001
Audience For executives and strategists involved in digital marketing, social business strategy and digital transformation.   Executive Summary It has been more than 10 years since social media began to disrupt organizations. In that time, it has gone from being a “bright shiny object” that confounded business leaders, to becoming a widely adopted means of customer engagement. Having mastered the nuts and bolts of social media, today’s social strategist is focused less on scaling social engagement and instead looking inward, partnering with leaders to help social business cross silos, support a broader digital vision, and achieve new levels of employee engagement and advocacy. This will require leadership to articulate a social business vision beyond marketing and communications, while also ensuring a governance structure is in place to keep an increasing number of autonomous departments and employees acting together to support a unified, cross-channel customer (and employee) experience. Our analysis is based on interviews with thought leaders, brands, technology vendors and a survey of 113 strategists (social, digital and/or heads of social) at companies with more than 250 employees.   Key Findings

  • 82% of businesses report they are either fully integrated, in the process of, or planning the integration of social with digital in 2015. But only 36% believe they have in place a multi-year digital strategy that includes social initiatives,
  • Across all organizations, only 27% reported that executives at the VP/Director level were active on social, with a measly 9% reporting participation from the C-Suite,
  • Interest in employee advocacy has grown 191% since 2013, with 45% of respondents naming it a top external objective,
  • 38% of responding organizations plan to spend more than 20% of their total advertising budgets on social media channels in 2015, up from 13% a year ago,
  • 55% of respondents named developing an integrated digital content strategy as a top social business priority for 2015.

Via Altimeter Group: 2015 State of Social Report

Yann Gourvennec

Yann Gourvennec created visionarymarketing.com in 1996. He is a speaker and author of 6 books. In 2014 he went from intrapreneur to entrepreneur, when he created his digital marketing agency. Yann Gourvennec a créé visionarymarketing.com en 1996. Il est conférencier et auteur de 6 livres. En 2014, il est passé d'intrapreneur à entrepreneur en créant son agence de marketing numérique. More »

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