Month: November 2012 (Page 2 of 2)

IBM surveyed 1,160 business and IT professionals to understand the state of social business adoption to take a pulse on how organizations are tapping the power of social technologies to advance business objectives.

The entire study from IBM’s Institute of Business Value report is superb!  Check it out here!

Our research found the value of social business increasing within an organization. As a result, 46% of the companies surveyed increased their social business investments in 2012.   Companies that are emerging as social business leaders are applying the technologies to drive customer-facing activities such as lead generation, sales and post-sales service.

Don’t be left behind!  Have you started?!

IBM surveyed 1,160 business and IT professionals to understand the state of social business adoption to take a pulse on how organizations are tapping the power of social technologies to advance business objectives.   There were lots of interesting data that was discovered but one that I wanted to focus on here was that only 22% of people embed social into their daily lives, despite having supported the initiative in the first place!

1.   Embed Social into your daily business process.   Unless you make social a part of the way your teams work, they won’t use it!  So embed social into your patent process, customer service, sales, recruiting, and more.

2.  Social should fit the way you work!   For instance, our leader in Australia loves video so we enabled him to do video for his communications in an easy way.   You shouldn’t have to change the way you work for social, social should enhance the way you work!

3.  Follow the leader!  A great way to get this embedded is when senior leaders leverage and set the example for the team!  The team then follows and embeds the new way of working.  For instance , in client service, having the sr leader leverage twitter gets others to try it too@!

I could go on and I would love to help you and your company in this endeavor!

As many of you know, I have been a “CMO” for a few of IBM divisions during my career.   A secret success factor has always been the partnerships — and today, one of the core partnerships for CMOs needs to the CIO!   IBM’s 2011 CMO Study which reveals that CMOs are struggling with how to better reach and engage with customers. The report reveals that CMOs are using social platforms to communicate with their customers, 56 percent view is as a key communication channel.

CMOs today recognize a critical and permanent shift occurring in the way they engage with customers. According to the 2011 IBM CMO Study, 82 percent of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years. The need to deliver a seamless mobile experience has also become increasingly critical to CMOs. According to Yankee Group, global online commerce is expected to hit $1 trillion by 2014 and mobile commerce $200 billion by 2015. Because of this, it’s critical for CMOs to not only be aware of and monitor the social conversation, but to truly understand the sentiment and interact one-on-one with that customer. Taking it one step further would be to integrate these conversations directly into the organization’s web site, providing one place to both network and shop.
We know today’s consumer has unlimited access to information and can instantly share it with the world. This immediacy has raised consumers expectations for 100 percent personalized communications and top-notch service.

Here are a few examples of organization who are successfully forging relationships between the CMO and CIO and are using web experience technology to better reach and engage with their audiences.

• Wimbledon has transformed its web presence to meet the needs of the anticipated 16 million people that will tune in online to the annual tennis championships; by visiting www.wimbledon.com, fans can share information, interact with and connect to The Championships as though they were actually there.
• Cars.com is embracing web experience technology to provide a 360-degree view of its entire business operations, enabling dealers to examine current inventory, change pricing and manage photos, among many other business activities — ultimately providing better services to their customers. Today, Cars.com has scaled to support 200 million unique visitors a year, an increase of 145 million visits since 2007.
• Gruppo Amadori, a wholesale distributor of quality foods in Italy, has improved its online presence, enabling the company to communicate more directly with younger consumers and increase consumer loyalty. The organization can create new mini-sites up to 40% faster, saving time and costs. Amadori has also created an up-to-date database of consumer details, helping them better understand the needs of their customers.

Thoughts?  How do you partner?

In the last week, my daughter had to come to work with me, as we had no (and still don’t have!) power.

In my office, I have a beautiful set of windows.  She and I saw turkeys, deer, hawks, and even a beautiful red fox!  When my daughter was writing the story for her school assignment, she said it was great!  But she wondered how great it would have been if there were also giraffes and a window that opened so that she could feed the animals.

It was off the wall – the thought of giraffes in NY!  During a Hurricane … during the winter!    But then it hit me!

Think different. Don’t do things incrementally better. Take it to the next level  Dream in color!

That is what companies have to do in social.   You cannot just think email is good, but social is incrementally better.   Think totally different!   How could this change business processes?   Like TD Bank, Asian Paints, Lowe’s, Prudential, and more!  Figure out that different thought that leverages social as a competitive differentiation!

I do see those companies who think outside the box taking social into their innovative cycles. What’s your thought?  Who do you see thinking outside the box on Social?  Who can feed the giraffe outside my window?!

Happy Monday!  I hope all of you have power (we still don’t!) but are full of hope and energy for November!

This is a great Social Business Coffee Break on how email fits into the new social world!

It was crowdsourced from you!   Let me know if it hit the spot!

Hurricane Sandy is gone and signalled it with a beautiful set of 3 rainbows on my drive home!!  While I am not back to normal from a power, phone perspective, we are blessed not to have any injuries, etc during the storm.  My heart goes out to those who are far worse off than us and we are happy to host many with what we have.

I love rainbows – and thought of the Rainbow of Social!

R — Reveal!  Social reveals your culture.  I loved Lowe’s quote:  “Social doesn’t transform our culture, it reveals it”.  Our cultural assessment helps you figure out ahead of time areas to work, areas to highlight, and how to get your employees and clients to help you!

A – Analytics – Social analytics help you to begin listening to the conversation!   These “colorful” conversations help us to listen to the market and the employee!

I – Internal Social – Take a look at using social inside your business to innovation and collaborate!  More companies use social now internally than externally!  Have you taken a look at the value here?

N -Nail the Process.  Social is about embedding  social value into the business process.  If you keep social over to the side it usually fails.   Make sure you study your processes and use social to make it more powerful.  Ask me how!

B – Brand Bank Accelerators!   You don’t have to look far in any media these days to see brand value increased or decreased by social!   As a marketer, these withdrawals from the brand bank are of concern.   Of course, the accelerator is social media.   With social media, any gap between what a brand promises and   what it delivers instantly reaches hundreds of people who in turn   reach thousands of people who in turn reach hundreds of thousands   of people.

O –Openness is being prepared to share and collaborate – something aided by social media. Openness and transparency will be new Leadership 2.0 characteristics!

W – What are you waiting for?   The time is now!   We need to move fast to social as it is a competitive advantage!