When people talk about social media they immediately start thinking
about Facebook, Twitter etc but social media can be a whole new way of
working for organisations. Instead of talking about social media how
about talking about social business. This is about transforming how you
run your business using social media.
The following outlines ways of changing your business using social media:
Marketing – If you want to market your products, grow your brand awareness, engage with your customers and drive sales online and you want to do this in a cost effective manner then social media is perfect for this.
Human Resources – Instead of going the traditional route and contacting employment agencies why don’t you start searching for, contacting and recruiting directly through LinkedIn.
Before you contact a person you know who they are connected to, who recommends them, what they have contributed online through linkedin groups and questions/answers and what their background is. When you find the right person you can contact them through an introduction and begin the interview process at no cost.
Product Development – When you want to develop new products maybe this time you’ll streamline your product management team and set up a website that will collect ideas for new functionality from existing and new customers. Dell ideastorm is a perfect example. Dell use this site to gather ideas for changes they should make to their products. This saves Dell a lot of money.
Customer Service – How about getting customers to answer queries to their own issues? This is exactly the type of service that is offered through Getsatisfaction. This uses real time, dynamic customer support provided through the wisdom of crowds.
Sales - If you want customers to market your products and increase your sales by referral why not implement a rating and recommendation system that is run by an independent company such as the Irish company LouderVoice. From research 80% of recommendations from friends are trusted but what’s even more interesting is that 60% of recommendations from people we don’t know are still trusted. So if you don’t have a recommendations/rating system in place and you’re selling products then make sure to add one in.
Knowledge Management – There are many ways of modernising how you capture, exchange and share information in an organisation and these tools help promote better communication and a more efficient organisation. For example, you can create Wiki’s to share your documentation, create internal private social networks to increase conversation or implement micro-blogging tools to reduce on e-mail.
Do you think social media will have such a dramatic effect on organisations ?
Marketing – If you want to market your products, grow your brand awareness, engage with your customers and drive sales online and you want to do this in a cost effective manner then social media is perfect for this.
Human Resources – Instead of going the traditional route and contacting employment agencies why don’t you start searching for, contacting and recruiting directly through LinkedIn.
Before you contact a person you know who they are connected to, who recommends them, what they have contributed online through linkedin groups and questions/answers and what their background is. When you find the right person you can contact them through an introduction and begin the interview process at no cost.
Product Development – When you want to develop new products maybe this time you’ll streamline your product management team and set up a website that will collect ideas for new functionality from existing and new customers. Dell ideastorm is a perfect example. Dell use this site to gather ideas for changes they should make to their products. This saves Dell a lot of money.
Customer Service – How about getting customers to answer queries to their own issues? This is exactly the type of service that is offered through Getsatisfaction. This uses real time, dynamic customer support provided through the wisdom of crowds.
Sales - If you want customers to market your products and increase your sales by referral why not implement a rating and recommendation system that is run by an independent company such as the Irish company LouderVoice. From research 80% of recommendations from friends are trusted but what’s even more interesting is that 60% of recommendations from people we don’t know are still trusted. So if you don’t have a recommendations/rating system in place and you’re selling products then make sure to add one in.
Knowledge Management – There are many ways of modernising how you capture, exchange and share information in an organisation and these tools help promote better communication and a more efficient organisation. For example, you can create Wiki’s to share your documentation, create internal private social networks to increase conversation or implement micro-blogging tools to reduce on e-mail.
Do you think social media will have such a dramatic effect on organisations ?
