Caroline Dangson, research analyst for IDC recently participated in an Awareness, Inc. webinar where she presented “Breaking Down Operational Barriers to #Socialbiz Success.”
During the webinar, Caroline shared with us the top ten operational barriers to social business success as well as the ten best practices for socializing your business. I outlined those in this post for you, but I definitely encourage you to check out the complete webinar below.
Top 10 Operational Barriers to Social Business Success
- Organizational Silos
- Command and Control Management
- Top Down, One-Way Communication
- Social Activities Not Integrated Into the Workflow
- Employees Measured on Individual Performance
- Competitive Culture
- No Guidelines or Training
- No Methods for Measuring Social Value
- No Executive Sponsor
- No Role Modeling
If a business truly wants to become a social business, they should definitely focus on overcoming barriers #9 and #10 and go beyond just signing up and purchasing social media tools. I refer to this quote from Scott Monty of Ford quite a bit because it rocks and it is very applicable here – 90% of social media is just showing up. What I mean here is that employees typically follow the lead of their leaders and if the upper managment isn’t particpating in social media, what is their motivation to do so? To truly socialize your business, everyone must participate and incoporate these activies into their daily jobs.
As Caroline pointed out, IDC believes social media is transforming not just how we communicate, but also how we conduct business. Corporations will not be able to easily adapt to this new order if the CEO is not on board. Social media use by employees for work purposes is coming into corporations, but the opportunity to harness it needs support from executives.
Top 10 Best Practices for Socializing Your Business
- Start small – take baby steps
- Lead With a Corporate Initiative
- Tie Measurement Back to Core Business Objectives
- Put your Social People in Front to Champion
- Establish and Official Framework for Participation (Social Media Guidelines)
- Provide Incentives for Community Participation
- Keep HR, Legal, IT Involved in the Process
- Executive Sponsorship
- Role Modeling
- Ongoing internal education, training and outreach
Attendees were also sharing some key soundbites and commentary tagged with #awarenessinc during the session (highlights below), but the one statistic that seemed to resonate the most with everyone was when Caroline shared the results from a national survey of CIO’s by Robert Half Technology which showed that 54% of CIO’s completely prohibit public social networking site usage at work. This study, as you can imagine, gained a lot of attention because this statistic was higher than many expected. Caroline went on to explain that with social media entering the workplace under the IT radar – the CIO has been put in a reactive position and challenged to address employee use of public social media in the workplace.
bellatrixr: Ok, so I have baggage w/this: And in whose hands it rests — “Technology is only as good as a user.” (RT @awarenessinc
karyncooks: AMEN! RT @kayhaswingsNo one should “own” socmed. Shouldn’t be separate dept, should be discipline of entire company. #awarenessinc
dmourey: Need to integrate into biz objectives & empower those who want to bcome cust. advocates, crowdsource ideas, demonst expertise #awarenessinc
aaroncarter: #awarenessincshould there be a social executive officer? I think this depends on structure and needs of your organizaion.
tallbonez: #awarenessinc What is the op operational barrier to SM for your company: 31% said getting colleagues to participate
k8johnson: Technology enables, but doesn’t guarantee success. Culture is a major definer of social & community success via @cdangson #awarenessinc
dmourey: soc media is not just mktg. but across functions- cust. serv., prod dev., recruiting, just mktg limits orgs chance to chg. #awarenessinc
tomassteele: social media is the discipline of the entire company!! #awarenessinc
llgraham: Marcomm the lucky “winner” to own social media in recent survey #awarenessinc
Ignitus: 47.5% of organizations implementing social media do not have published social media guidelines #awarenessinc
christinelexa: Purchasing social software doesn’t make your biz more social – Amen. So true. #awarenessinc
Have your own thoughts to share? Please continue the discussion here or on Twitter by tagging with #awaressinc and @socialbiz – Thank you!
The next Awareness webinar focusing on Social Media Engagement is scheduled for January 14, 2010 at 2pm ET with Katie Paine,CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a NH-based company that provides customized research that measures public relationships and brand image. You won’t want to miss this one! Register Here: http://bit.ly/KatiePaine
