Social media gets to work by Korn Ferry

Social media gets to work Beyond Facebook and Twitter are new business tools for sharing knowledge and gathering information. The right strategy is key. by Mark Polansky, Alex Martin and Colin Graham

July 2010 Social media is fast becoming an integral part of business operations. Companies are leveraging its business potential, and executives are beginning to appreciate its strategic value. Early adopters have established general principles for use and guidelines for implementation that can serve as practical roadmaps. Indeed, despite the general commotion surrounding it, the social media landscape is rapidly becoming more orderly. Senior executives should be prepared to listen to pitches for social media projects with an open mind, and should begin assembling teams that can execute smart social media strategies.

In just a few years, social media swiftly has evolved into a legitimate platform for corporate communications. Established companies such as IBM and Microsoft are marketing social media solutions for business use, and they are likely to have competition as more organizations seek effective methods of collaboration across global networks. These are simple and powerful computing tools, yet social media remains a mystery to many executives. As a result, some organizations have been hesitant to adopt its use formally, even as others are already establishing best practices. In every decade new technologies emerge that create business value and therefore move from bleeding edge to leading edge, and then into the mainstream of enterprise technology. In the 1990s, it was the World Wide Web and ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. More recently, it was tools for cost management and operational innovation. In the decade ahead, social networking strategies will be â&#x20AC;&#x153;must havesâ&#x20AC;? for chief executives and their key leadership staff.

While much of today’s attention is focused on popular recreational social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, the future of corporate social media will facilitate collaboration and knowledge management in large, decentralized environments. Chief executives should be prepared to discuss such concepts and social media strategy with stakeholders inside and outside of their organizations.

“The biggest misconception is that social and professional networking are the same.” Reid Hoffman LinkedIn founder, PayPal founding board member.

Most of the C-level executives Korn/Ferry speaks with are intrigued about the possibilities of social media and social networking, but they still need validation on how this emerging trend will drive performance for their company. Companies that jumped into social media early have been developing guidelines and standards ad hoc, but it makes sense to analyze their progress. The rules those companies develop likely will shape the best practices for social media in the future, and there is much to learn from their successes and mistakes.

Avoiding misconceptions Much of the skepticism surrounding corporate social media results from a mistaken belief that all social media platforms perform the same function. And yet there are substantial differences between the applications used by high school kids to share party photos and the applications used by large decentralized business organizations to facilitate collaboration among global teams. Reid Hoffman, one of the leading visionaries of the social media revolution, sees the tendency to equate one platform with another as a hurdle that must be cleared before social media can be fully embraced by business users. Many people still think that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are “pretty similar to each other. In fact, they support very different uses,” says Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and a founding board member of PayPal. Facebook, for example, is mainly a platform for recreational socializing within a defined group. Twitter, on the other hand, is a tool for microbroadcasting bits of information. LinkedIn is a highly customizable search engine for networking with professionals anywhere in the world. And while those three platforms are the best known, there are dozens of others, including MySpace, Orkut, Delicious, Technorati, Digg, Propeller and FriendFeed.

The benefits of new technologies are not always immediately apparent, says Hoffman. Although LinkedIn was conceived primarily as a business networking tool, its 70 million registered users now rely on it for a wide range of purposes, including gathering market intelligence and tracking potential customers. “We had one guy who used LinkedIn to figure out how to move 12 million metric tons of cement from China to Dubai,” says Hoffman. As another example, Sky News, the 24-hour U.K.-based news operation owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has installed Tweetdeck on its journalists’ computers. Tweetdeck is an application that aggregates Twitter feeds. Soon the entire news team – everyone from field producers to weather presenters – will be using Twitter as a platform to gather and distribute news. The “Will It Blend?” videos on YouTube represent the most famous example of an unexpectedly successful use of social media as a marketing tool. In this instance, Blendtec, a relatively small and unknown manufacturer, leaped to global brand recognition by posting videos of its blenders destroying familiar objects such as golf balls, calculators, iPods, and even ski equipment. The videos, posted at no cost, became the The executives who surround themselves with social company’s de facto marketing media talent and knowledge will be at the forefront strategy and generated millions of dollars worth of publicity. of this important business revolution. Creative use of new technology is a common method of creating competitive advantage, so it does not surprise Hoffman that social media platforms are now deployed in ways their creators never envisioned. Salesforce.com recently launched Chatter, its own social media platform that fuses its customer relationship management databases, staff profiles and status updates, and outside Twitter feeds to improve teamwork among sales staffs. Microsoft encourages its employees to blog about the details of new software releases. JetBlue keeps its customers informed and engaged with humorous banter via Twitter. When social media first emerged, many industrial and other business-tobusiness enterprises saw the technology as applicable only in the mass market. They are quickly learning that this technology can be a powerful component of their overall business operations.

Practical business applications John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla says he now routinely uses LinkedIn to prepare for face-to-face or voice-to-voice business meetings. “I will always look up someone in LinkedIn if I haven’t talked to them before,” says Lilly. Lilly uses Twitter to follow potential business partners and suppliers. Those people, in turn, often follow Lilly on Twitter. “When they come in the door and we sit down, they already understand where my head is,” he says. “It really lets us get to velocity that much faster.” The complexities of careers also make social media tools invaluable for busy executives who need to keep on top of their networking, says Lilly. In today’s rapidly changing economy, people tend to move from one job to another – and from one industry to another – much more often than in the past. Their careers are also defined by more than job titles.

As social media has matured, many Korn/Ferry clients in the business-to-business space have recognized there are also ways to use social media to increase efficiency, productivity, and quality in their operations, thereby reducing costs and increasing profitability.

“People have so many different affiliations today,” says Lilly. “They’ve got their main job, but they’ve also got boards they sit on, or organizations they volunteer for, or causes they’re interested in and support.… I find that discovering the affiliations of people is a key way for me to understand who they really are.” Although the use of social media by business organizations is still a relatively new phenomenon, Lilly predicts it will grow steadily. “Right now, we’re all searching for ways to have authentic conversations with customers and business partners,” he says. The tools are there. Social media is built on proven technology that is readily available and relatively inexpensive. A variety of corporate-specific

solutions already on the market, have been engineered to address real-world business concerns such as security, accountability, compliance and adherence to standards. IBM, for instance, has created the world’s most ambitious corporate social media platform, which will enable real-time collaboration among the company’s 500,000 employees around the world.

A new breed of corporate manager The productivity potential of social media has prompted top executives at many large organizations to re-evaluate their human capital strategies. Some already are re-directing resources to social media functions. As a result, a new breed of professional social media strategists has emerged. Kelly Feller, who drives corporate social media activities at Intel, is one of the more well-known members of this burgeoning field. Feller points to Intel’s cautious approach as a potential model for other large business organizations.

“Discipline and process are critical to the success of any social media strategy.” Kelly Feller

Intel

“Early on, our executives worried that social media projects would just leap automatically from the grassroots phase to the widespread acceptance phase,” says Feller. To avoid this, Intel developed a step-by-step process to ensure that social media programs align with Intel’s business goals.

Best practices Intel, IBM and Microsoft have demonstrated how social media initiatives can be integrated smoothly into a broader corporate communications strategy. SAS, the world’s largest privately held software company, has developed an informal set of principles to guide internal users and to ensure that social media activities are consistent with the company’s standards and corporatewide strategies. “Your social media activities must be aligned with your business goals,” says David B. Thomas, who leads the social media initiative at SAS. ”Your objective is figuring out the best ways for social media to support your existing strategies for marketing, communications, sales, customer service, human resources and other areas of your enterprise.”

Social media outlets also have become a vast reservoir of highly valuable customer intelligence. “Every day, your customers and potential customers are posting information about their wants and needs, their plans and concerns and what’s keeping them up at night,” says Thomas. “This is the kind of information you used to pay to get from market researchers and focus groups, and now it’s freely and publicly offered – if you take the time to look for it.” Like Intel, SAS publishes some of its social media strategy discussions publicly. Following these types of online conversations is a risk-free way for wary executives to learn more about social media and begin setting the course for their own programs.

Global collaboration and communication José Carlos Eiras, former CIO of General Motors Europe and the author of The Practical CIO, sees social media as a natural platform for collaboration and knowledge management in global organizations. “Every C-level officer in the company has a responsibility to market his or her department to the rest of the corporation,” says Eiras. “The most practical way of accomplishing this is through the use of social media. This idea is especially relevant for CIOs, who often need to justify the value of IT investments to a skeptical audience of peers. I think that a CIO who uses social media regularly as a communication tool is going to have an easier time making a persuasive case for greater investment in IT.”

Takeaway tips for ensuring a successful social media strategy •

B egin assembling teams with the appropriate mix of capabilities and experience required to execute successfully on social media strategies.

• The chief knowledge officer can play a key role in promoting and supporting social media strategies. • Social media strategies can support and enable corporate communication, knowledge sharing and global collaboration programs.

• F ollow the emerging set of best practices and adapt them to suit your company’s needs and objectives.

There are compelling reasons for most organizations to begin using social media, says Eiras. “In today’s hyper-competitive markets, speed is absolutely essential. The best method for ensuring rapid and effective transmission of critical information is via social media because everyone on the network can immediately see what everyone else is doing. So if there’s a problem somewhere, you will find out about it fast.” Other organizations view social media as the ideal platform for transferring knowledge across a global workplace. “Social media is starting to become a key factor in supporting organizational knowledge flows,” says Frank Leistner, chief knowledge officer at SAS. Since social media is essentially driven by people-to-people relationships, it can be a natural platform for knowledge management programs.

“ Be willing to put forth tremendous effort without the assurance of a reward.” Craig Omtvedt

Fortune Brands

An experienced, insightful chief knowledge officer can maximize the benefits of a corporate social media strategy. “The CKO, in his role as internal consultant, can help to build a social media strategy that is targeted toward value creation and knowledge sharing with a business focus,” says Leistner.

Mark Polansky is a Senior Client Partner in Korn/Ferry’s New York office and Managing Director of the North America Information Technology Center of Expertise.

Alex Martin is a Senior Client Partner in Korn/Ferry’s Washington, D.C. office and a member of the Global Industrial Market.

Colin Graham is a Senior Associate in Korn/Ferry’s Stamford, Connecticut office and a member of the Global Industrial Market.

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