HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy

Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com. Over the past few months, we’ve talked about whether you should have a social media policy and what should be included in that policy. It only seems logical to discuss the next step in the process, which is what to consider when implementing a social media strategy in your workplace. Just having a policy isn’t good enough — you need a plan to put it in place. 1. Luis Ramos, CEO of The Network, reminds us that creating a social media strategy is a complex exercise because “it includes not only looking inside the organization to establish appropriate practices, usage policies and content parameters, but it also includes looking outside the organization to determine the proper degree of engagement.” Figure out why you’re getting on the social media bandwagon and what you want to accomplish with it. A. 2. 3. 4. 5.

StrategyDriven Business in Beta | Patterns from IDEO Platform for change Companies like Apple and Facebook have learned to harness the energy of outside developers to create new applications. By allowing thousands of new applications to run on their platforms, they create a Darwinian environment where only the fittest survive. Jeff, a developer, noticed that Facebook lacked reminders around birthdays, so he created Birthday Alert. Customers quickly made it one of the hottest apps on the platform. Instead of trying to guess what type of functionality users wanted, Facebook just tapped into smart developers like Jeff who built it for them. Through this process, Facebook learned it needed a mechanism to foster developers who could improve the overall ecosystem. How can you engage your customers and partners to help you prototype new offerings? Front-of-house flexibility The secret behind the unique feel of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s is how employees are empowered to co-create the customer experience. Grassroots growth Making lemonade

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Beyond Adoption to Value Creation « Simon Terry A great deal of attention in enterprise social networking has gone into ‘driving adoption’. A focus on adoption can distract organisations from the real challenge of any business activity, creating value in fulfilment of the organisation’s strategy. Adoption is an intermediate goal Adoption is a means to an end. The desire to move beyond adoption is growing. The logical next step from adoption is the end goal of work. Adoption as a goal alone can lead us astray Our focus on adoption is often reflected with concerns from our traditional hierarchical ways of working. If we don’t have universal adoption, how will people get our messages? Most importantly of all, enterprise social networks are infrastructure, not tools. Often adoption drives demand a lot of overhead and effort. Importantly adoption is rarely a goal that makes sense to the managers and leaders whose support is needed to foster a collaborative culture and role model usage. Personal and Strategic Value