At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic), we are fortunate to work with a set of bright, savvy and experienced clients. For me, they serve as a wonderful resource and sounding board as we develop best practices and continually refine our methodology for the delivery of social media and digital communications services.
For instance, Keith Hodson at Microsoft helped me define each of the three phases of social media maturation based on our experience working together. BroadSoft’s marketing team of Leslie Ferry and Kristin Martell have played a lead role in the creation of BroadBand Ignite, an innovative application of social media designed to support corporate positioning and leadership.
Let’s add Monster’s Janet Swaysland and Erica Pierson to our fraternity of sharp clients.
During a phone call this past week to talk through a soon-to-launch campaign we got into a discussion about Strategic’s approach to social media with its emphasis on lead generation, enterprise sales support, deal capture and SEO. Swaysland offered up this gem:
“It’s not really social media. Your focus is on social business.”
Wow…that’s good. Although a bit conceptual, social business is spot on with our belief that commerce – as measured by sales, profitability and valuation – is the driver of business accomplishment. Any activity that fails to contribute to these benchmarks in a measurable way is a cost subject to streamlined, outsourced or cut.
I’ll gauge the reaction to social business in the coming weeks through conversations with clients and prospects. I will be sure to share their thoughts.
Here are links to a few of “best of” blog posts that overview applications of social business:
Will Premium Content Cross the Last Mile
Social Media and Enterprise Sales Acceleration
Competitive Intel and the Social Media Footprint
Hope and the PR Hop
2 comments:
Hi Marc.
You might like to look at Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus' definition of "social business" before you start using the term too widely. I think it may be already taken
It's a difficult area: social marketing is another term that is also often confused. And that has quite a long history with a different meaning from one related to social media.
Best regards, Pete
That's an interesting concept. We use other terms such as "press release" and "display advertising" to cover a range of different purposes. Perhaps "social media" can be just as flexible. But as you point out, there definitely needs to be a sharper focus on how social media/business can contribute to behavior that ultimately improves the bottom line.
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