The masa when companies had at least partial control over what was publicly said about them is long over. Instead, the power has shifted to the customer, who has the tools at his fingertips to tell the masses about his experience with various organizations. And he uses those tools frequently. According to The Realtime Report, there are currently about 250 million tweets per day, with 25 percent of Tweets mentioning brands. Facebook reports that it has more than 800 million users, plus that “more than 50 percent of its active users log in on any given day.”
As more customers increasingly interact with each other in the social sphere, often the topic of those conversations is the companies they do business with, the experiences they have with those organizations, plus the pros plus cons of using their products plus services. Whether their comments are positive or negative, companies have no choice but to interact with their customers online, or risk appearing indifferent.
This new phenomenon is making it all the more important for companies to become social organizations, engaging with their customers plus prospects in the space where they are already interacting, reaching out to them over the channels that they prefer, plus making sure that no query goes unanswered. So, what is a “social organization”? From a business perspective a social organization is one that embraces social sarana plus the associated costumer interactions as part of its overall costumer plus marketing strategy.
Transforming from a company that simply responds to the occasional tweet from an irate costumer or posts the occasional coupon on Facebook to a truly social organization requires a multipronged approach that will ingrain social elements within the company’s overall business strategy. There are five steps to getting there, as well as several pitfalls to avoid. It begins with defining objectives plus metrics, adds gaining organizational buy-in plus building social into the company structure, plus continues with staying relevant. It’s an ongoing process that must evolve as social sarana itself evolves.