The Squared Root - FG Squared's Blog

As a business development consultant in the area of social media, I frequently participate in discussions with medium to large organizations who are evaluating the need for a social media strategy. Compared to more mature communications disciplines the social media evaluation process is highly variable among corporations. However, I have noticed some emerging trends regarding the roles and motivations of decision makers. Based on my experience, I wanted to share some of my observations to help shed some light on how corporations evaluate social media strategy and technology.

Information Technology (IT)

One of the most prominent groups in the evaluation process is the IT organization. This is for several reasons:

• 1. IT is generally viewed as the de facto internal expert in all things technological
• 2. IT will most likely have to support whatever gets implemented, at least to some extent.
• 3. They are constantly being approached by social media platform vendors and service providers

Let's face it...IT has one of the toughest jobs in the organization. Because so much of what IT does is mission critical, they are often very cautious (and understandably so) about the decisions they make when it comes to new technology implementation. That being said, ‘behind the firewall' solutions or internal deployments of social technology and practices are often viewed as a logical social media introduction because the risk is more manageable. Also, the results are highly measureable - something that ALL decision-makers value. In the case of internal social media applications, ROI's may be based on improved employee communications, knowledge exchange, sales process reduction and effective collaboration across internal teams.

Marketing

Another group that plays a prominent role in social media evaluation is the Marketing team. This group tends to understand the impact social media can have on the customer facing "consideration phase" of the Company's products or services. In other words, the ‘talk' and ‘recommend' (word of mouth) strengths of social media have a high impact on the consideration phase of the purchase process for their products and/or services. Also, measuring or listening to the social web provides a high degree of knowledge that leads to more effective awareness campaigns. In addition, effectively leveraging traditional marketing assets with social media initiatives seems to be an important common goal.

Executive

The Third group is the Executive group. This group is made up of department heads and executive management who determine that the implementation of social media has a critical impact across the organization and within their markets. Assessing the opportunities, risks and overall impact of social media on their business both internally and externally are strong motivating factors in their evaluation. These executive assessments tend to lead to a greater evaluation of scope and deeper long term commitment to the practice of social media.

Common Ground

While the roles and motivations of each group may differ, they are all based around a common set of goals - increase sales, reduce costs, and improve productivity. In all groups, corporate motivations such as brand image, control, productivity, security, flexibility, cost, and usability are potential driving forces in the evaluation of a social media strategy. Building alignment among the different groups around a shared set of business goals is a critical factor in the success of a social media program.

Along those lines, education and knowledge transfer seem to be the key first steps in supporting a successful corporate evaluation. This will help evaluators unlock the potential that social media possesses, and develop an understanding about adoption/implementation from both a technology and corporate culture perspective.

My observations tell me that technology vendors and consulting agencies that understanding these roles, driving motivations, and priorities have a better chance of supporting an effective client evaluation of social media that ultimately meets group expectations, overall corporate strategy and successful social media implementation.