Six Steps to Becoming a Socially Adaptive Business
We’re now a decade into the social media revolution. And for the past five years or so, many early adopters such as youth brands, artists and the FMCG sector have been using sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube successfully to engage with their audiences.
Yet stubbornly, most organisations have been very slow in waking up to the fact that these audiences have changed. We now have four separate generations of people – Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and the Millenials, all of who consume the media in entirely different ways. And even within these demographics their habits are constantly changing. For example, over half of over 65s are now on social media (Pew Research Center).
Most marketing and communications strategies are based around a business model dating back to the early days of the internet – or even earlier in some industries! It’s still very much about push marketing, assumptions about audience behaviours not changing and an over-reliance on traditional communications channels.
As a result, social media is often seen as something almost frivolous, which is the preserve of the marketing department, PR consultancy or advertising agency. At a recent Econsultancy round table session which I chaired, it became evident that even well paid community managers of leading UK brands got very little buy-in or support from managers within their organisation.
However, social media not only affects obvious areas such as sales, marketing and IT but it also has large implications for internal communications, human resources, PR, recruitment, corporate governance, supply chain management, customer relations, R&D and even product development. So it is vital that the C-suite and Boards understand the implications of social media.
There is a six-step programme to achieving the desired aim of creating a socially-adaptive business. It isn’t a straightforward process and it won’t necessarily happen overnight, but it could ensure that your business is still here in 5-10 years. Or at the very least, that you can remain ahead of the competition.
The diagram below shows the six steps, starting with an overriding strategy which encompasses any aspects of your business that could in some way be affected by social media. The creation of this strategy can often be painful as it requires a common vision for the business, agreement about where the organisation is heading and unity of approach in reaching out to customers, stakeholders or any other audiences. Now how often do you see that?
Getting the strategy right is vital but so too is having a corporate culture which can support social media. From the management team down to the people in the post room, everyone needs to understand how social media can benefit the business. Already CEOs are being chosen on the basis of how social they are while large organisations are hiring staff who are increasingly ‘customer facing’ not only in the real world but also online. Why? Because people are now permanently connected to the internet and the customer experience can be enhanced or ruined by bad service, whether it is face to face or on a social network. Plus of course, we’re now in an age where everyone is a publisher, including our customers, competitors and staff. So the more people prepared to embrace social, the better.
Next on our corporate shopping list is content. This nebulous concept which is rapidly becoming the most important part of the marketing mix. Even in B2B, senior marketers are now saying they expect to spend a quarter of their budgets on content creation (Content Marketing Institute) while in B2C this percentage is much higher (Marketingland survey October 2014).
With so many channels to manage - in the case of B2C this can be 24/7 - and such a need for quality content, many companies are struggling to meet the demand. Outsourcing to advertising/advertising/creative agencies can be a solution, as can creating internal ‘newsrooms’ to provide a steady source of ideas.
Then there is the question about which channels to use. With so many social networks and social messaging sites now in existence and so many different ‘micro’ audiences, balancing scarce resources with being visible on multiple channels is a constant challenge. The key is to have a strategy which identifies which network is most likely to yield results then monitor the results on a regular basis. This process should then be able to accommodate any ‘new kids on the block’ – Instagram, Pinterest, Ello etc.
One thing is certain though, video content is becoming more and more important, not just for visibility on Google but on Facebook and Twitter too. Cisco estimates that by end of 2015, 86% of all content viewed online globally will be video based.
Creating the content is one thing but managing it is another. Most companies focus solely on pushing out material to audiences. It may sound common sense but social media is about being ‘social’. This means that brands need to listen, respond and engage on social networks and this is very difficult to outsource completely.
As a result, a large number of companies now employ full time community managers to oversee activity on the corporate social media sites. Because they are increasingly being used as networking, business development and customer services channels, you can now see why there needs to be a unified approach to social! PR agencies are great at creating content but they aren’t call centres. Also, creative agencies may come up with wonderfully engaging artwork but their job isn’t to listen out for what your competitors may be doing.
One of the key developments in 2014 has been the inexorable rise in social advertising – particularly on Facebook. Every one of the key social networks now offers some form of paid-for promotions for both large organisations and SMEs. Therefore any company that wants to achieve tangible results on social needs to allocate some form of budget, whether this is spent on creating more accessible content or funding ad campaigns.
Again, many larger organisations may need to outsource this to advertising, media buying or specialist agencies that have the expertise and experience to run multi-faceted campaigns.
The key to social advertising, as with any form of marketing, is to understand exactly who your audience are and what they want. To do so in 2014 requires using Big Data - the final part of the socially adaptive business equation.
With hundreds of millions of conversations taking place every day around the world on dozens of different social networks, it can be daunting for companies to make sense of what is going on around them. Factor in the issue that few businesses actually listen on social and you have yourself a potential problem.
Fortunately there is a wide array of software tools available. These range from free tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or the analytics embedded within the social networks, all the way up to incredibly sophisticated social monitoring tools such as Sysomos or Attensity.
The information that can be mined from analysing sentiment, conversations and trends on social can be critical in determining content, product development, ad budgets and ultimately, future strategy. Which brings us neatly back to where we started.
The question you need to ask yourself is: “How close are you to becoming a fully digitally-adaptive business?” Whatever your answer, we can help you reach your business goals.
Painting a clear picture for your business to thrive in a digital world.
At last, businesses can join the digital dots and create effective adaptive strategies to succeed in this post industrial world.
It can be argued that where most businesses are today is through no fault of their own. If you think about the growth and hype around Mobile, Social, Data and Cloud, you’ll find a vendor heavy landscape flocking to provide products and services to specific functional areas of the business around one of the above. What you find quickly is a picture full of tactical and siloed decisions and strategies that lead to short term gain without really providing solutions to the business which will help them become adaptive and holistically competent to deal with the pace of change and new consumer demands.
It’s pretty safe to say that the professional services industry, or management consultancies have been slow off the mark to promote and provide services around digital strategies. Usually when a transformational change happens, a ‘change agent’, there tends to be a consultancy shift towards support services to deal with that change as a result. We might not embrace the traditional management consulting model for a variety of reasons but when they do engage and take note of a shift, the result is copious amounts of surveys and research, swiftly followed by recommendations promoting new models and frameworks to herald the dawn of a new service industry. Yes of course, in this case we are talking about Digital Transformation.
Let’s just take a step back in time to look at how we got to where so many businesses find themselves today, still siloed with presence of digital visible but either ad hoc or tactical at best. Only a few businesses can really say they are embracing the full potential that digital has to offer the audience experience and the resultant business success awarded to those who can look outward and forward, those who can adapt to a changing environment moment by moment – always refining the audience experience to deliver business objectives. As an example let’s look at ACME Co. (only because I used to love The Roadrunner on TV!). As a business they have been adopting various aspects of Cloud, Mobile, Social and Data but mainly in silo; essentially trying to embed channel shift. Why? Because on the surface this seems the best way to cope with the new and evolving environment, especially with lack of understanding or buy in at a senior level. So, channel shift serves a purpose, providing some evidence of success but invariably the audience experience falls short in specific areas and there is an increasing pressure on internal systems, competency and capability.
Around 2011/2012 a tipping point occurs. For whatever reason, be it market analysis, boardroom buy in, a growing confidence in digital spend – we see the big consultancies officially launch a new service industry; ‘Digital Transformation’. For the first time, a customer-focused approach at a business level emerges and a new mindset and wave of thinking begins to bubble up. Coupled with the dawn of digital disruption and the millennial consumer, hindsight shows us something huge and globally relevant was taking place – we just didn’t think it was happening to us right?
Since 2012, Digital Transformation has grown exponentially, as a term, as an industry, as a mindset.
But for us the story doesn’t stop there. A silent shift from consumer to audience has taken place – all driven from the digital opportunity. What this means is that businesses everywhere must look to define and refine the audience experience across all 4 corners of the business: Customer, Employee, Supply Chain and Stakeholder. Dealing with the audience holistically means a pretty big deal for any business small or large, public or private.
You need to break down barriers so that the audience journey can be mapped and refined holistically.
You need to get buy in from the whole senior leadership team, not just the CEO – yes they should endorse and mandate the business wide change but more support is needed to drive it home.
You need a pretty good situation analysis of your current competency and capability to adapt.
You must ensure that digital doesn’t become either a point to point change programme or a bolt on to your current business strategy: you want a journey that starts but never ends and a business strategy that embraces digital.
You need guts. Not just in one person, that’s not enough, find the people with the guts to try, the guts to drive, the guts to risk and the guts to vision a future.
Don’t think your thinking stops at the business strategy – for this to succeed you need to ensure that there is a strategic focus on culture, which means communications and people. Bring those who lead these areas on board at the start to ensure inclusion, adoption and a basic belief that change for good can be achieved.
Heed this warning: If you are reading this blog, great, but if you are reading it with a half-hearted attitude you’re likely in trouble already. If you are still thinking mobile, cloud, social and data, raise the alarm within your business immediately, these are the forefathers of the modern digital business, they are the building blocks of your future so get them right now. Why the scaremongering? Well we are fast moving into the next phase of the modern digital business, that of ‘things’ and machines. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning algorithms are gaining breakthroughs every day. And it doesn’t stop there. These aspects are already here, around us, part of our lives making connections and creating opportunity, forever new connections that will bare the fruit of a new phase and a new phase beyond that and beyond that.
During a recent conversation with a global business leader he mentioned that the leaders of tomorrow will be those who can look forward and outward. This really resonated with us as a team and as an organisation that provides the support to help businesses and people adapt to this constantly evolving landscape of connections, made possible through digital.
Think forward and outward. Look beyond your current vision to where your audiences will be tomorrow. As the pace of change becomes ever faster, tomorrow might well be here.
So here is a quick summary of where we think we are today:
1. Businesses are not stupid, they know they need to address the digital revolution but they don’t necessarily know how urgent it really is or what it might look like to do something about it.
2. The view of the future is already becoming a reality; those who are only addressing channel shift are behind the curve. Just look to Moore’s Law to see that the future is coming so fast, it’ll hit you when you least expect it.
3. Disruptors will continue to enter markets and industries. It is predicted in 10 years, 40% of the Fortune 500 will no longer exist (Source: Socialnomics), so start to look beyond your current line of vision to influences that might impact your very existence.
4. People matter more than ever, but not just what they can do and how they do it, it’s becoming more about how they think and how they feel. Treat your audiences with the respect you would expect from another human being – that’s the power of digital.
5. There isn’t any area of the current corporate structure that’s immune. This revolution doesn’t discriminate it will demand change across every industry, every size of business, private, public and charity…it really will turn into a Tsunami.
Maybe it really is about adapting or dying...
What does it mean to be Digitally Adaptive?
Let’s not be fooled. Digital Transformation is the current buzzword amongst consulting products and services worth $2.65bn in 2012 alone. But Digital Transformation is not new. It’s been around for decades, thin client, launch of the App store, and launch of the iPhone then the iPad. Every time a major technology development occurs that impacts the way we do things, it creates opportunity for consulting services to be sold. Services to help businesses address that change.
Today is different; today is unique. There isn’t just one change happening, there are multiple things happening at the same time; Mobile, Cloud, Social, Big Data, Internet of Things. Secondly, those changes are in constant flux and constantly evolving. Big Data is accompanied by Fast Data, Internet of things is morphing into the Internet of Everything, what was social media is now evolving into social business. And the list goes on and on.
Businesses do not want help addressing one digital instance of change. They want a way to be able to constantly monitor and adapt to changes relevant to them, when it’s relevant to them. This is what we at Adapt2Digital call becoming digitally adaptive. This is the most important business imperative to happen this side of the launch of the web 25 years ago.
Humans are becoming more connected to and through machines. Machines are becoming more connected with other machines. The world is moving fast towards 100% connectedness. The business impact of this increasing connectedness makes it vital for businesses to monitor change against their own capabilities and objectives to ensure survival.
It is an inconvenient truth - but a truth all the same. The question is, when will businesses stand up and take notice?