Whilst many senior executives still struggle to see the real value in using social technologies within their organisations, it is nevertheless something that cannot be ignored.
That was the theme that emerged from the it@cork TechTalk event. The event saw executives from LinkedIn and IBM discuss the business potential of social technologies within the workplace.
Connie Gibney, international HR director at LinkedIn, suggested that organisations should be looking to build social brands just as much as individuals currently are.
IBM’s Michael Roche meanwhile shared some case studies of exactly how companies are implementing social business tools.
“Social media is really about social business, driving relevant collaboration and supporting tools for valued business results,” it@cork chairman Denis Collins explained.
“The models deployed by LinkedIn and IBM are examples of the way we can do this, changing the way we do business, and delivering tangible value to the marketplace,” Collins said.
Last month Deloitte produced some research into how companies can translate social business into tangible financial results. It suggested tying in social business projects directly with the main objectives of the business, and then working back from there to see how social tools can help achieve those objectives.
Nevertheless, ROI remains an issue for the industry, with a group called Disillusion 2.0 going as far as to offer $10,000 to any organisation that can prove ROI from social business.
Article first published as Companies Cannot Afford to Ignore Social Business on Technorati.
To be fair I don't think that many companies are ignoring it. There is a difference however between knowing about something and knowing how to use it properly. That's where the problems are at the moment.
You have to engage in some kind of social activity anyways, helps in a lot of ways but it takes some time and consistent efforts
Social media is great, but its well and truly limited to B2c effectiveness for real ROI. B2b is about speaking with people face to face the majority of the time, so sitting behind a profile image will definitely only get you so far.
Google+ and LinkedIn, in my opinion, are the only 2 social media platforms that can actually really give a decent ROI in the long run – Facebook is obsolete.
Hi Marius. There are lots of examples of companies achieving great results in a B2B setting. Lets not forget that social can do a whole lot more than just sales and marketing.
I think social only works for certain types of businesses – more so the ones that you randomly discover such as games. With some industries it isn't relevant at all e.g. a fundraising business
Very nice post.