From: www.cio.

com
How to Use Social Media to Create Business Value
Kristin Burnham, CIO
November 14, 2012
What makes your business a top business? According to a new report from the IBM Institute for
Business Value, it could be how well your company implements social business.
In "The Business of Social Business," authors James Cortada, Eric Lesser and Peter Korsten argue that
social is no longer "simply a 'sandbox' for the under-30 generation." Merely developing and deploying
the technology isn't enough.
"[...] Companies at the forefront are doing more than developing a presence on major platforms. They
are taking their external social tools and embedding them into core business processes and capabilities.
They are using social approaches not only to communicate better with their suppliers, business partners
and, perhaps, most important, their employees."
IBM's study of more than 1,100 businesses around the globe reveals that investment in social business
is on the rise: Forty-six percent of the companies surveyed increased their investments in social
business in 2012, and 62 percent indicated they are going to increase their expenditures in the next
three years.
The sudden rise of social business is challenging the corporate culture at some companies, which
respondents indicate is something they're struggling with: Nearly three-quarters report they were
underprepared for the required cultural changes.
"Executives are concerned because social business represents a different way of thinking about
employees, customers and how work is accomplished, as well as the potential risks of increased
organizational openness and transparency," the report says.
Here's a look at the study's top findings, plus tips for how your company can transform into a successful
social business.
[How to Succeed at Social Business]
Embedding Social Into the Organization
"Our survey and interviews have made one thing clear," the report says. "Those organizations
experiencing the most success in social business approaches know they have to make fundamental
changes in the way their employees worked across the entire enterprise."
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Click image for full infographic.
Successfully embedding social business into an organization requires three steps, according to the
report:
1. Consider how to incorporate social metrics into traditional enterprises and processes.
According to the report, only about 20 percent of organizations are able to define key performance
indicators and track the ROI of social business efforts. Those that couldn't do so struggled with their
social initiative.
But quantifying results based only on cost-savings isn't sufficient, the report finds. Instead, businesses
should consider piloting a project to demonstrate the hard and soft benefits of a social initiative and
compare it to the performance of individuals not using the social tool.
"We also heard from respondents that justifying the ROI of social effort is only one potential use of social
data," the report says. "Analytics can make it possible for organizations to integrate social and traditional
data sources to make more effective decisions about customers and the workforce. By examining the
residual data from social activities, organizations can develop valuable insights not previously available."
[CIOs Must Embrace Social Networks to Drive Social Business]
2. Understand and manage the risks associated with social business. Respondents to IBM's survey
cite a number of concerns about the use of social business tools: attacks on their brands, legal issues,
data security and privacy, and unintended disclosure of company information.
About half the companies surveyed say they do not have effective processes in place to deal with these
concerns, while nearly a quarter say they do, and another third have efforts underway, according to the
report.
Successful businesses have established policies for employees to follow when engaging in social
business and have a governance structure for managing and monitoring enterprise-wide social business
behavior, the report says. In addition, successful businesses must achieve the following:
Identify potential exposures, proactively involve the right experts and develop risk management
plans.
Think through their problems and understand regulatory drivers and their impact on the
organization.
Ask questions about why a behavior is a risk and how to mitigate it.
Engage key functional experts before problems occur. These include people from areas such as
HR, legal, IT, communications, finance and risk.
3. Establish a unique application of traditional change management principles to influence
corporate culture and performance. According to the survey, 48 percent of organizations have
support from the C-suite, but only 22 percent believe that managers are prepared to incorporate social
business into their daily practices.
IBM suggests three actions that will assist people in understanding the value of social initiatives, involve
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the right stakeholders and provide the appropriate support and motivation:
1. Get people involved in using the right tools. Create hands-on opportunities to use new social
business tools; provide one-on-one coaching and reverse mentoring and encourage leaders to
model desired behaviors to signal social "permission"; and capture success stories through the
use of social tools such as wikis, blogs and videos.
2. Apply traditional change management concepts to support transitions. Appoint a number of social
business champions or subject experts to encourage and accelerate adoption; provide education
about why this is important and what the guidelines are for using social media tools inside and
outside the organization; and recognize desired usage and behaviors.
3. Incorporate social approaches to supporting the change. Develop user narratives and scenarios
of possibilities provided by using social approaches; use social networking approaches to identify
and engage with influence leaders; provide support to employees, partners and customers.
[Employee Education Is Key to Social Business Adoption]
"The case for why more organizations are implementing social business practices comes down to
sustaining their competitiveness and profitability in economies in which rivals, partners and customers
are adopting new ways of conducting business," the report says. "More than simply using social media
tools, we have entered a new period of fundamental transformation in the way work is done at all levels
of the enterprise and across all organizational boundaries."
Kristin Burnham covers consumer technology, social networking and enterprise collaboration for
CIO.com. Follow Kristin on Twitter @kmburnham. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter
@CIOonline and on Facebook. Email Kristin at kburnham@cio.com
2012 CXO Media Inc.
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