The Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy

by Charlene Li, Brian Solis

Overview

How to align social media with business strategy for real results

For years now, businesses have approached social media in an experimental fashion unconnected to real results. There's a reason why the question about ROI is met with such hostility. But it's time for businesses to get serious about social. In this concise e-book, noted authors and disruptive technology analysts Charlene Li and Brian Solis present seven powerful factors for designing and supporting an effective social business strategy. Li and Solis studied how the best companies create measurable value that aligns with overall business objectives and outline how to incorporate these insights into your strategy and planning process.

Li and Solis focus their findings and recommendations on how to convince and even rally decision makers at the executive level. Based on interviews with thought leaders, surveys, and extensive research, they show you how to define your social strategy, create alignment across the organization, and use that strategy to support overall business success.

• Offers actionable best practices for getting the most bang for your social marketing buck
• Explains seven key success factors for effective social marketing that cover everything from long-term vision and executive support to staffing and technology investment
• Written by Charlene Li, bestselling author of Open Leadership, and Brian Solis, bestselling author of What's the Future of Business, The End of Business as Usual, and Engage

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118715925
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	06/19/2013
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	100
File size:	640 KB

About the Author

Charlene Li is founder of the Altimeter Group and the author of The New York Times bestseller Open Leadership. She is also the coauthor of the critically acclaimed, bestselling book Groundswell, which was named one of the best business books in 2008. She is one of the foremost experts on social media and technologies and a consultant and independent thought leader on leadership, strategy, social technologies, interactive media, and marketing. Formerly, Charlene was vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research and a consultant with Monitor Group. She was named one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company in 2010 and one of the most influential women in technology 2009. Charlene is a frequently-quoted expert and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The PBS NewsHour, ABC News, and CNN. She is also frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Businessweek, USAToday, Reuters, and The Associated Press. She is a much-sought-after public speaker and appeared at the World Business Forum in Radio City Music Hall in October 2010. Charlene is a graduate of Harvard Business School and received a magna cum laude degree from Harvard College. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Alumni Association, as well as The Poynter Institute.

Brian Solis is a Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group. Brian works with businesses on new media strategies and frameworks to build bridges between companies and customers, employees, and other important stakeholders. Additionally, he specializes in change management to help businesses (and the leadership team) introduce new media resources, systems and processes, and management layers to effectively embrace and excel around the connected customer. As a result, CRM Magazine named Brian as an influential leader of 2010. Brian is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. He is the author of Engage, an award-winning reference guide for businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the social web, and he has been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal, among others. A digital analyst, business strategist, and futurist, Brian has studied and influenced the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, and culture. He is an avid speaker, keynoting conferences and corporate events around the world. His blog, BrianSolis.com, is among the world’s leading business and marketing online resources, ranking among the top 1% of all blogs tracked by Technorati. Brian is also ranked as one of the leading voices in the AdAge Power 150 index of worldwide marketing bloggers. He actively contributes to FastCompany, Businessweek, AdAge, Harvard Business Review, and Mashable. Prior to joining Altimeter Group, Brian led interactive and social programs for Fortune 500 companies, notable celebrities, and Web 2.0 startups since 1999 as Principal of FutureWorks.

Table of Contents

1 The Evolution of Social Business 1

Creating a Coherent Social Business Strategy 3

Introducing the Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy 5

How to Use This Book 7

2 Laying Foundations: Goals, Vision, and Executive Support 9

Success Factor #1: Defi ne the Overall Business Goals 9

Identifying Which Goals Matter 10

Exercise: Connect Social Goals to Organizational Goals 12

Tying Social Strategy to Business Goals: The Metric Holy Grail 12

What Happens When Business Goals Aren’t Clear? 15

Success Factor #2: Establish the Long-Term Vision 16

Creating a Vision Statement 18

Exercise: Writing a Vision Statement 19

Success Factor #3: Ensure Executive Support 21

Garnering Executive Engagement 22

Best Practices: Getting Executives Onboard 23

3 Setting the Strategy Roadmap: Identify and Prioritize Initiatives 27

Success Factor #4: Defi ne the Strategy Roadmap 27

Identify Initiatives 29

Learn: Glean insights from social engagement 30

Dialog: Deepen relationships with conversations 33

Support: Assist people and create a great experience in the process 36

Advocate: Enable the best fans to speak on behalf of the organization 38

Innovate: Tap the energy and ideas of others 39

Prioritize Initiatives Against Capabilities and Value 41

Create a Long-Term Roadmap 43

4 Aligning the Organization: Establishing Governance 47

Success Factor #5: Establish Governance and Guidelines 47

Defi ning the CoE 49

Forming a Steering Committee 52

Evolving the CoE into Multiple Hub and Spoke 53

Defi ning Guidelines and Process 53

Beware the Center of Excellence Pitfalls 57

5 Aligning Resources and Technology 59

Success Factor #6: Secure Staff, Resources, and Funding 59

Staffing 60

Education and Best Practice Sharing 61

Funding and the Use of Pilot Programs 63

Success Factor #7: Invest in Technology Platforms That Map to Strategy 64

Plan to Evolve Your Monitoring Platform 65

To Scale, Invest in a Social Media Management System 66

Conclusion 69

Notes 71

Acknowledgments 73

About the Authors 75