“Markets are conversations.”
This statement couldn’t be a more succinctly accurate, relevant description of today’s movement towards a social business climate. When Ben Foster began the “From Social Media to Social Business” event with this statement, I was immediately hooked.
“From Social Media to Social Business” turned into more of a conversation than I was expecting, with Patrick Rooney, Blagica Bottigliero, Amit Wadehra and Ben Foster leading the panel discussion.
Patrick Rooney started off by discussing the importance of social media in today’s business environment, while also addressing the risks associated with the inherent potential for chaos associated with social business. He went on to highlight the fact that everyone in an organization is responsible for contributing to the social media landscape. That’s right, this includes executive leadership. In fact, this shift to social business should start at the top, with leadership encouraging employees to use social media in an effective manner, in order to tie messages to an overall organizational objective.
Blagica Bottigliero continued the discussion, with her “focus Powerpoint slide” clearly illustrating just how many areas social media touches within a business- from product development to security to legal to retail. While she detailed the wealth of analytical opportunities reaped by the “trackability” of social media, I appreciate how she clarified that numbers aren’t everything. Rather, an engagement ratio is also essential, in order to measure customer appeal and global reach (among other things).
Amit was up next, detailing how technology has amplified voices and accelerated the pace of sharing. He presented his company’s internal social media network (“Agency Community”), providing a unique social business approach as compared to the standard Facebook/Twitter social business environments more commonly referenced.
After each individual’s presentation, a panel discussion (think: informal Q&A) ensued, addressing questions from “how” to pitch the need for social media to corporate leadership to the necessary skill sets for an effective social media representative of a business.
My key takeaways from this discussion? Successful social business is reliant on two primary components: the ability to communicate authentically with an audience, while also being able to use the numbers to tell a story.
Succinct, yet relevant. (Yet again, you can thank Ben for that!)
