Let’s face it, the social networking scene is not just something for the younger generation to connect with their friends. Savvy businesses these days are leveraging the different social media platform to extend their business capabilities and reach out to their customers.
Sandy Carter, VP, Social Business Evangelist, IBM Corporation
According to IBM’s Vice President for Social Business and Collaboration Solutions Sales and Evangelism, Sandy Carter, Social Business will grow from $30B to a $50B industry come 2015 in Asia. Did you know that according to comScore, we Filipinos are number 1 when it comes to Facebook penetration worldwide? We are also the highest when it comes to spending time on social networking.
So what is Social Business? If you’ve seen a company using its Facebook page to reach out to its customers, that’s already social business. Or if a companys’ Twitter is used to inform its followers of new products, that’s already social business. Or when a company used LinkedIn to build connections that will enable growth and leads, that’s social business.
Inside and Outside
However, social business is not just for your customers or for Facebook and Twitter. Organizations especially large multinational corporations can also use social networking internally. Effective social business practice within an organization can reap huge benefits for a company through collaboration, employee engagement, knowledge sharing and leads gathering.
Outside the organization, social business can extend different aspects of the business. You can use it to leverage social networking platforms for customer support, sales and marketing, research via crowdsourcing or just to engage your customers and clients to let them know that you’re listening and that your company cares.
IBMs Edge
IBM is the leader in Social Business. They’ve been practicing it internally and externally and more than 35% of Fortune 100 companies have adopted their social software offerings. One of their social software is IBM Connections which provides tools such as communities, forums, wikis and blogs and new capabilities like advanced social analytics, enabling users to expand their network with recommendation of people to connect with based on prior connections and similar interests.
Years before, when a company wants to gain an advantage over competitors, they need to put up a compelling website. Now in the social business era, it’s time for companies to have engaging social networking capabilities. As an advocate for social business, IBM is offering what they call an Adoption QuickStart that would help companies:
- Assess Readiness and Prioritize Roll Out
- Secure Executive Sponsorship
- Support Communications, Training, and Governance
- Train Early Adopters, Advocates and End Users
- Monitor, Measure, and Share Engagement and Business Value
New Jobs
Just like how the internet brought us jobs like SEO specialists and the like, Social Business requires a new line of job roles. One of the most important is a Community Manager who will essentially manage the a company’s organization-wide, departmental or external social network.
IBM is also offering what they call Community Manager Training which would:
- Identify and Train Community Managers
- Define and Launch Top Communities
- Teach Tactics for Promoting Membership and Preparation
- Support Active & Appropriate Content Contribution
Aside from a community manager, other jobs will eventually emerge from social business. Jobs like risk manager, reputation manager and social analysts will work hand-in-hand with the community manager if the social community is huge.
So how’s that for job opportunity? Who will take advantage and be one of the early adopters in the country?
