Social Media Goes Corporate
These days, it seems that everyone is talking about social media – from blogs to social networking communities such as Facebook and Twitter to the latest viral video on YouTube. Some may perceive social media to be just a current buzz word, but recent statistics suggest a legitimate trend. A report released from Nielsen in March found that two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visited a social networking or blogging site in 2008 and online member communities (e.g. Facebook and LinkedIn) have become so prevalent they are now the fourth most popular online activity – surpassing even personal email.
With millions of people flocking to these sites and using other social media tools, it’s not surprising that companies of all sizes and scopes are also starting to tap into this space. Businesses are employing social media to not only market and promote products and services, but to forge and build relationships with customers.
While corporate uses of social media have drawn their share of critics, advocates of the medium are eager to convey its value.
“I’m a strong believer in the power of social media and have had tremendous success in applying various tools in deliberate ways to achieve business goals efficiently and effectively,” said Paul Paetz (BGS 2005, Mercer University), CEO of Innovative Disruption, a marketing consultancy firm, and vice president of marketing at Ethoca Limited, an online fraud-fighting community for Internet retailers.
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Paetz’s companies utilize a variety of social media tools such as blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter to establish credibility, thought leadership, SEO (search engine optimization), and customer service and support. Ethoca’s YouTube channel, for example, features a series of customer testimonials.
“A top 10 online retailer videotaped himself talking about why Ethoca is the answer. That is phenomenal when you think that he is the CEO of a $4 billion company, putting a video on YouTube to promote a vendor,” said Paetz. “Ten years ago you couldn’t have imagined doing something like this. You’d have a slick corporate video and spend $30,000 on it and it wouldn’t even have as much impact as that five-minute clip.”
In addition to the relatively low production costs, another advantage of using a video-sharing site like YouTube to market and advertise instead of a TV commercial is that it is “findable,” said Paetz.
“Here is something that people can find if they are searching for information about online fraud,” he said. “That kind of information is going to show up and that’s fantastic.”
At Ethoca, Paetz says social media accounts for 60 to 70 percent of its marketing and complements all of its programs. “Whether we’re talking about direct marketing or prior to a tradeshow, we use all social media materials to support everything else we’re doing.”
Another company that is integrating social media into its marketing and public relations programs is Siemens PLM Software.
“When we first started in this space it was a challenge. There are a lot of consumer brands out there, but we’re B2B and only have a niche of that consumer audience,” said Dora Smith, director of global social media at Siemens PLM Software, a worldwide provider of product lifecycle management software.
The business-to-business company participates in a wide range of social media activities both internally and externally.
But, before jumping on the social media bandwagon, the company wanted to see if it made sense strategically.
“The problem with social media is people want to start out with the technology,” Smith explained. “That is fine to get comfortable with, but social media, like any other communication vehicle, should be thought of strategically. People tend to jump into the technology before they ask themselves what they want to achieve.”
Adamant about not falling into that trap, the company surveyed its customers and employees first to see if they were willing to engage with these tools. The results showed they were, so the next steps involved hosting formal social media training sessions for employees, setting objectives and mapping out a strategy.
Just last year, Siemens PLM Software integrated social media for the first time into a technology launch. The main goals of the campaign included raising awareness for the company, the technology and its other products, and increasing their share of voice within the social media community in their market.
Some of the social media tactics included establishing a corporate blog to enable the company to engage in discussion and provide information to customers regarding the launch and other company and industry news; launching the software online by offering video of the technology and commentary from executives, which was followed by a live Q&A session; and developing relationships with industry bloggers to review the new software.
According to Smith, Siemens PLM Software was able to increase its share of the online conversation three fold and achieve a higher positive sentiment than its competitors. While the intent of the campaign was focused on visibility vs. direct sales leads, it’s worth noting that the launch generated more than 700 qualified sales leads compared to just 150 the year prior. The social media components even earned the company industry recognition. They received the Gold Quill Award from IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators. Smith says the external review of the launch helped underscore the legitimacy and value of social media within the organization.
Today, the company interacts with customers on its corporate blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Second Life; and internally it is experimenting with Yammer, a Twitter-like micro-blogging site that allows businesses to share resources and knowledge within their organizations in a secure network.
Smith says they are now considering doing product launches entirely in a social setting. “We’ve moved pretty quickly from ‘What is social media?’ a year ago to engaging in that way today.”
While many companies have embraced social media, others are hesitant to adopt the technologies. In a recent BGS survey that elicited more than 3,000 responses regarding Society members’ professional uses of social media, only 28 percent said their place of employment uses social media and 23 percent said they didn’t know if their employer is using it at all.
Companies are cautious about using social media for a number of reasons. Some common concerns and opinions include: security and risk management issues, it wastes time, it’s hard to measure ROI, it doesn’t help achieve the bottom line and/or it’s not relevant for their industry – just to name a few.
But, social media evangelists argue that in this digital age the real question isn’t whether to use social media or not, it’s how?
“There is not a company or an industry where social media doesn’t make sense. You just have to think about it and be creative,” said Paetz. “There may be some industries that have a choice, but the real issue is how do you gain competitive advantage and differentiate yourself in the market? How do you establish a unique position? How do you add value?”
These are all questions Paetz says social media can help address, but most often adoption of these tools and applications requires a change of mindset.
Noble Acuff (BGS 2007, University of Southern California), principal technology consultant at The Acuff Group, a professional services firm, said the acceptance of social media has mostly been a generational change. “Generation Y comes into the professional world with an expectation of how things can be done and it is very different than past generations.”
Paetz describes the generational change as a “continental divide” between age groups.
“If you’re 40 years or younger, you’ve probably never not worked with computers. If you’re 30 years or younger, you’ve probably never not searched for social media in some respects, whether you’ve done a lot of work with websites or blogging or not.”
The corporate adoption of social media is starting to dramatically change the marketing and business landscape. Smith believes it has also been a cultural shift for organizations that are accustomed to controlling their brand and its image.
“It’s about being a lot more transparent, and that means putting the personalities of your employees out there versus just your brand,” said Smith. “There’s some great return you can achieve from it, but I think for a lot companies and marketing organizations, it’s a cultural shift.”
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When it comes to social media marketing, the biggest shift is that it used to be all outbound marketing, says Smith. “It was all about how loud and disruptive you can be.” Now, marketing is much more inbound focused, she says. “You are still doing things that you’re pushing out, but you’re much more cognizant about what it takes for people to really come to you and how you can create a dialogue and conversation with your customers and even with prospects.”
It may be that social media efforts rest mostly on the shoulders of an organization’s marketing department, but there are other ways to apply social media to business strategy other than marketing. For example, Paetz’s companies (Innovative Disruption and Ethoca Limited) also apply it for customer service and to monitor the competition.
Social media is about being relevant to your customers, says Paetz.
“One of the things that social media does, that wasn’t possible before, is it allows you to engage in conversation in a very granular way. If you treat it like a one-way conversation, or like advertising on TV, than you’re misusing the medium.”
From product reviews to blogging, social media has allowed people to share their thoughts, opinions and views on virtually anything in a highly visible way. This has resulted in a transfer of power from the marketer to the consumer.
“When consumers are empowered to say what they think and you’re not listening you’re in trouble,” said Paetz. “If you listen and engage in conversation then people will listen to you. And that’s (what social media) is really all about. It’s just enabling a different way of interacting with the world.”
