Guest post by Chris Heuer, CEO, Alynd (@chrisheuer) When I heard Marc Benioff was giving up on pursuit of “Social Enterprise” as the focus of Salesforce’s marketing, I remarked to my Deloitte colleagues that “Social Business has won the day.” I felt vindicated after being an early proponent advocating for organizations to become Social Businesses, believing that IBM’s marketing might would be the catalyst to consolidate the movement around this language and meaning. Six months after leaving Deloitte to start…
Visualizing the DNA of a Social Business Via Infographics
Recently, my Altimeter Group colleague Charlene Li and I published an ebook that revealed The Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy. To our pleasant surprise, the industry didn’t just react with positive feedback, but also with fantastic infographics that brought the core of the book to life. I wanted to share a few with you here. Over the years, we studied businesses endeavoring to master social media at various stages. We detailed our findings in our research report uncovering…
5 important questions answered about the importance of social business strategy
Altimeter Group founder Charlene Li and I recently published a report that documented the 6 Stages of Social Business Transformation. In the process, we discovered the most common mistakes and successes businesses experienced along their journey. What was most surprising however, not really, was the cavernous disconnect between social media strategy and overall business objectives. – Only 34% of businesses feel that their social strategy is connected to business outcomes. – Just 28% of companies we studied feel that they…
STUDY: Social Business Strategy – Vision, Purpose and Value drive a new era of digital engagement
In an era when media is largely created and broadcast by the few to the many, social media emerged to facilitate the co-creation of media in addition to creating it. While difficult to trace its origins, the philosophy of social media dates back to the mid-1990s. It wasn’t until the mid 2000s however, that businesses would encounter the idea of a new medium where brand democracy prevailed over brand dictatorship. Suddenly the voice of the customer took on an entirely…
The Gap Between Social Media and Business Impact: 6 stages of social business transformation
In business, social media is becoming a lot like email. Every company has it. In an Altimeter Group survey of 700 executives and social strategists fielded in late 2012, we found that 100 percent of participating enterprise organizations run to varying extents an active social media strategy. But unlike email, organizations haven’t mastered how to effectively communicate through the likes of Facebook or the tweets of Twitter. Over the last several years, businesses have increased the pace of adopting social…
How Social Media is Sparking Organizational Transformation
It is with great pleasure that I share with you some exciting and hopefully helpful news. Salesforce and Altimeter Group recently collaborated on a special project to help executives understand the real impact of social media and in turn how to lead meaningful and lucrative transformation. The result is The Little Blue Book of Social Transformation, a free ebook that outlines 20 principles to lead change. It is available today as a complimentary download here. Now, the backstory… Executives are…
A Facebook Like Does Not Equal an Opt-in
I’m writing this post while visiting Antwerp, Belgium as part of the Social Business Sessions I’m hosting along with The Fusion Marketing Experience. While here, I had an opportunity to spend time with several Belgian journalists. One of the notable conversations was with Erik Verdonck of Pub, a local magazine focused on the advertising industry. The three themes we touched upon are not only timely, but representative of the challenges that face marketers and strategists around the globe. 1. A…
You say you want a revolution? Well, Revolution Season 3 is coming soon
Over 30 episodes and two seasons, Revolution TV is coming back stronger and more engaging than ever. This season, we’re only inviting guests who are proving that they can disrupt what it is that they set out to change. This show is dedicated to learning from their challenges and how they found success. In an era of Digital Darwinism, no business is too big to fail or too small to succeed. This is a time of revolutionaries People who see…
The 5th P of Marketing is People: Engagement begins within
Guest post by Danna Vetter, VP, Consumer Strategies, ARAMARK – Part 2 in a series There are no stronger or truer words in the business world: your people are your product. It sounds so simple, yet time and time again, companies make decisions and take action without including the pieces that make them whole. You are the sum of your parts. With the support and influence of your people, you can accomplish anything at a company. So at a large…
Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise?
You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive…
