When most companies get started with social media, they make it the responsibility of marketing, PR, or even customer service. To achieve maximum business results, new social processes need be implemented across the entire organization.

The web has given a voice to consumers and the tables are turning in real-time.  Recently, we have witnessed industries collapse (energy, financial, auto, real estate and even government) at a time when the public’s voice has become more powerful.  Freeworld Media is taking a new approach in answering these evolving complexities.

“We need to close the gap between what science knows and what business does.” – Daniel Pink

Change is happening and the problems aren’t going to be solved by doing things the way they’ve always been done. So here comes social media… it’s fun and easy to use, but most important to the enterprise is the knowledge found through the social web. By tapping into these open data streams of information, we can better understand how to adopt to the new reality. Ultimately, success will come to those organizations that integrate humanized technology as part of their culture — to engage customers, employees, and stay ahead of the competition.

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” -Peter Drucker

New Organization Models

Recently at the Social Business Summit, leaders from social media gathered to explore the topic of “social business design”.  The Dachis Group describes social business design as “the intentional creation of dynamic and socially calibrated systems, process, and culture.”

Managing Complexity through Systems Thinking

Successful organizations need a way to adapt to an increasingly changing and moving world.  As we look for a more strategic approach to understanding the nature of system constraints and interactions, we look to Complex Adaptive Systems.  Wikipedia describes these complex systems as “diverse and made up of multiple interconnected elements (and so a part of network science) and adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and learn from experience.”  Systems thinking requires a new set of leadership skills to manage the challenges of a complex adaptive system.

“We are shifting from a world where the key source of strategic advantage was in protecting and extracting value from a given set of knowledge stocks — into a world in which the focus of value creation is effective participation in knowledge flows, which are constantly being renewed.”- Thomas Friedman

Networked Organization Benefits

• Becoming more responsive and adaptive.
• Leveraging the crowd through open data streams.
• Serving the customer through rapid communication and response.
• Expanding the collective knowledge of the enterprise by tapping into the network.
• Preventing disruption by understanding the impact of failing pieces and how to minimize those risks.

Holistic Approach

Complex adaptive system is the study of natural systems – how they interact, adapt, and survive over time.  Organizational responsiveness to adaptive change is both multidisciplinary and strategic in nature.  By understanding how social, political and cultural landscapes affect the complex adaptive system, the enterprise can extend their capacity to plan, implement and create results.   Look to social network intelligence technology to radically transform business in the 21st century.

Without purpose, social media doesn’t do anything for your company.
Without value, it doesn’t do anything for your customers.

Many corporations believe that the social web is simply another place to broadcast messages and socialize. But in many cases, the people broadcasting those messages are the customers, not the marketing team. The social web is a place to listen and use customer input to improve experiences with your company in hopes that they start doing the marketing legwork for you.

The social web gives us the ability to turn great service into remarkable experiences.

Customer service is a form of brand currency that translates directly to loyalty, referrals and return customers.  Think about it first in the real world service environment. Maybe the waiter knows everything on the menu and handles rapid-fire questions on gluten content without a blink. Perhaps the travel agent finds a way to rebook your flight without a change fee, and keeps you laughing with jokes and commentary as she’s waiting for confirmations. In both instances, confidence, knowledge and humanity positively impact the customer experience and attitude toward those people and companies for which they work.

So how do these uniquely human transactions translate to the social web? A positive experience for a picky eater is priceless, so you can bet that there will be posts on Yelp and the Celiac forums about the staff that doesn’t roll their eyes when you ask if the flourless cake is really flourless.

The experience with the travel agent brings a new respect for her special skills versus a website to book travel. Her expertise and ability to deliver results may inspire status update that encourages coworkers to book complex, “failure is not an option” itineraries with this agent and save the easy vacation stuff for the online sites.

In both cases, the social web provides a channel to share and persuade based on personal experience. It also provides the company with a direct line to its most productive customers, the people who will go out and either recruit or scare away others.

When we work through the business objectives for a social media initiative, we stop thinking of service as something that takes place at a counter or in a call-center, but something that happens every time a potential customer has an interaction or experience with the brand or company.

But what about results?

Great question. Will social media measurably improve your customer service experience? The better question is, how will consistent positive customer service experiences support your overall business objectives?

Let’s say the goals are to improve account retention, increase participation in customer surveys, and create a quantified improvement in service levels. Social media acts as both a communication channel and a compass in this process. It helps you understand the environment in which you are working, and provides important information for correction when you get off course.

Monitoring software can let you know whether your customer service initiatives are resulting in positive and negative sentiment, and help you identify and talk to those customers who are amplifying those messages. In essence, social media not only enables improvement but it also is the tool by which you can test your success.

Creating a social service culture.

The first step is acceptance. Social media is evolving into critical component of corporate strategy. This requires executive teams to trust their employees a little bit more – giving them the opportunity to shine. It also requires a new trust in your customers – they are now the keepers of your brand’s message – empowered to share experiences and problems.

This doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen without planning, insight and a blueprint for success. And yes, when you take a trip to the Freeworld, that’s what we are going to help do – make and manage experiences on the social web that mean better business for you and better service for your customers. Will it be a straight shot? Nope. Will it revolutionize your organizational infrastructure? Not in a day. What we will do is help you understand where your opportunities are and how your employees and customers can help you seize them. Only question now is, are you ready?

In 2010, Coca-Cola is sending three ambassadors to visit the 206 countries where Coca-Cola is sold.

“This mash-up of social media – online photo galleries, video clips, blogs, microblogs, social networking – combined with an amazing journey, enthusiastic travelers and a theme of happiness is a great way for us to connect with people around the world,” said Adam Brown, director, Office of Digital Communications
and Social Media, The Coca-Cola Company. “The global adoption of social media has given us a way to deliver a year-long reality TV series without the TV.”

The journey begins January 1, 2010 in Madrid… stay tuned!

http://www.expedition206.com/

Yong Fook has put together a nice deck about how to measure Social Media ROI.  For accurate measurement, you must define clear goals and decide what the success metrics will look like.

Razorfish recently created a formula to measure the social health of your brand called “Social Influence Measurement” or SIM (if you’re short on time). Their report, called “Fluent” is presented as a big flash file and I suggest downloading the PDF, which is easier to read.

The report wisely begins with the explanation that your brand is not what you say it is – it’s what your customers say it is. As a brand manager, it’s critical to keep an eye on what is being said about your company, your product, and your brand so that you can respond appropriately to the online conversations.

The SIM Score measures two things:

• The total share of consumer conversations your brand has online
• The degree to which consumers like or dislike your brand when they talk to each other about
you online — consumer sentiment

There is a lot of good information in these 58 pages. A couple of big ideas that you should definitely understand is how “Top-down branding will become increasingly impotent” and “Influencers drive brand affinity.” There are also lots of picture pages – so keep turning those flash pages

Here’s how the SIM score works:

1. Calculate the number of positive, negative, and neutral conversations happening for your brand
2. Use the formula (Positive + Neutral – Negative conversations) / Total brand conversations
3. Calculate the number of positive, negative, and neutral conversations happening for your industry
4. Use the formula (Positive + Neutral – Negative conversations) / Total industry conversations
5. Your SIM score is the result of dividing lines 2/4. Ta-dah!

Check out what’s being said on Twitter about SIM Score.

Freeworld media is proud to announce the 2009 Social Media Interns!  Please join me in welcoming Beth Penland, Carolyn Chinchilla, and Marc Epstein.

By studying the fundamentals of social media, researching the emerging trends, and meeting other rising stars in the field, the FWM interns will gain a greater understanding about messaging, analytics and advanced strategies for corporate communications in a downturn economy.

Look for new Freeworld blog content this summer as Beth, Carolyn, and Marc research emerging web applications and learn how social media marketing can be applied to meet business objectives.

Congratulations to Coca-Cola!  Freeworld supports the social media and interactive marketing at the world’s top brand.

http://tinyurl.com/2008brandlist

Connect with your customers by authentic participation in social networks.

Embrace the two-way communication of social networking and begin a conversation with your customers.   They are already using these new technologies (blogs, social networks, etc).   Marketing AT your customers just doesn’t work anymore and you need to join the online community through authentic participation.  Turn your consumers into “fansumers” as they connect around your brand.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Start small - Take it one step at a time with a single idea.
2. Keep it Simple – Pick a single objective and expand what you learn to other parts of the company.
3. Start at the top - Make sure key leadership is on board.
4. Invite Detractors – Tough-sell departments (* cough* Legal) should participate in the process.
5. Hurry! - Speed is of the essence… Move quickly
6. Adapt – make changes based on customer feedback.
7. Connect – make friends & have fun.