by Tim Hughes | @Timothy_Hughes | LinkedIn
I’m on the train into London to complete another one of our Social Strategy sessions.
We find that companies today see social as a siloed, tactical measure. Social will sit in Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Human Resources (HR) but nobody has pulled all of these strains together. Often as nobody has understood the collective power of using social strategy. I was referred to a large insurance company recently and when I asked about the Social strategy I told they were waiting for one to be sent to them from Boston. Really?
Social Media, touches all departments, sales, marketing, customer service, human resources etc. Social can also gain a company 25% employee efficiency. So much so that social media is now a C-Level / Board strategic issue, which is why we run strategy sessions for company Boards.
It’s worth noting at this point that this isn’t a Twitter course for the CEO. Social Media is now an (incremental) revenue generator, a provider of competitive advantage, it also provides efficiency and effectiveness savings over the processes of the past. And of course your company is already using it, not a system forced on end users, but used by their own free will.
So what do we do at these strategy sessions?
We get the Board of Directors or the C-Suite as it’s called in the US as well as significant others. We asked to be invited along, those people with Influence, but without Authority. People who are responsible for Social Media in the Business. It’s critical that this isn’t a Sales, or Marketing event, but we get cross company support for the event.
We usually run the event for 20 people, but have run it in the Middle East for 250 people.
The day its self is not sitting listening to some consultant talk thorough a big power point deck. We are not an agency that does it to you. It is a highly interactive day, that will have people working in teams of 2 or 3 to come up with answers that are shared with the team.
You come up with a social Media mission statement, which is different from your company mission statement. You mark this (out of ten) how important this is to you.
We then run a number of exercises to allow you to work out, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats you might have in implementing a Social Strategy. These are brainstormed by you and then shared to the team.
This looks not just at the technology components but looking at the people, process and systems. This allows you to not only understand the Business Benefits of a social strategy but also provides you with a road map for implementation.
We then provide a report back, with this all written up and with that roadmap and recommendations.
Often the first step is our 12 Week Social Selling program as the revenues and savings gained from this are re-invested back in the company. Recent examples are the £1million ($1.3million) deal done through the course, this money would then be reinvested. Or the £500k ($650K) recruitment savings a client obtained by writing just one blog. This client reinvested the savings in hiring a 4th junior (in addition to the 3 hires) person.
It’s time to see social as part of your digital transformation and treat it as a strategic way to do more for less.
People who read this article also read these:
https://dlaignite.com/40-sales-and-marketing-books-to-transform-your-thinking/
https://dlaignite.com/40-sales-and-marketing-books-to-transform-your-thinking-part-2/
https://dlaignite.com/but-youre-not-telling-me-anything-i-dont-already-knowas-everyone-says/
