Developing a Social Business Strategy

The term strategy in the context of Social Media or Social Business has different connotations. I distinguish between three types of ‘strategies’

Business Strategy – or rather a Social Business Innovation Strategy
Execution Strategy, and an
Operations Strategy
I will describe here what you need for a ‘social media’ Business Strategy.

Once you have the foundational stuff in place, namely a good understanding of how social media works (viral mechanisms, influence etc), where the opportunities are, what is happening in your industry, your markets, in particular customers etc, and you also understand the implications for executing such a strategy and what it will mean to operationalize your new solution/s – you are ready to develop a Social Business Strategy. These foundational exercises are in the nature of an Exploration or Discovery. They help you get a sense of the overall landscape and what the opportunity looks like.

Even though one could describe the process of developing a business strategy in several steps, here are three high-level steps one goes through in its development.

Step 1: Identify the opportunities and align with your strategic priorities:

You have to identify the specific opportunities for your enterprise: It is very important to base your strategy in your own context and align it with your strategic priorities.

So one of the first steps is to identify all the possible ways in which you could use Social Media – whether it is in Marketing, Customer Service or Product Development. (I am focusing here on the external perspective, since you are using the term ‘social media’).

If you are thinking broadly, then perhaps you would also want to consider Enterprise-internal opportunities. In fact, in order to be successful with any of the externally-oriented opportunities, you will necessarily have to think systemically, and include internal functions as well.

Develop a framework for assessing value – often it is more than just economic. In any case you will need this to justify some kind of a ‘ROI’ – at least in order to systematically assess what you should or should not pursue.

Step 2: Assess your readiness to address the identified opportunities

Based on your work in Step 1, there might be several opportunities you could potentially pursue, however, you have to pick those that you are likely to succeed at.

You should assess your organization’s prior experience with introducing similar change – particularly if you have no prior history of working with “social technologies”.

There are a number of new concepts and competencies involved when working with social media. Assess therefore whether you have the necessary competencies.

All your stakeholders might not be comfortable with the implied changes. Assess the changes and impacts that the opportunities could have on your organization and who and what that might affect.

In particular you need to assess if your customers would be willing to adopt the new solutions and what would motivate them.

In the assessment exercise, do include technological readiness. Some of the detailed implications of technology might not be apparent till you get to the design stage though.

Step 3: Developing a Strategy and a Road Map

Now that you have a good understanding of the opportunities, the value they will create for your business, and the ability of your organization to execute successfully, you have a prioritized shorter list of what you can successfully pursue.

Identify those from this list that provide the most value and are easiest to implement for your first forays, and develop a road-map to implement the rest over time.

It is also very critical to develop a set of design principles – design not being limited to technology, but all aspects of the new solution.

Establish metrics for success and put in place a good governance strategy to guide and lead the program.

You now have enough substance to build a strategy, and to mobilize all the stakeholders to back you.

Finally, strategy is an iterative process – things will change as you deploy and learn, so be open to revisit and change – quickly!