Social Media for Enterprise – Value-adding Practices

Even the best general models don’t solve specific problems of practice, but they should be useful in guiding thinking around specific problems. This particular model proposes a standard path for building value from social media practices within organizations.

Each of the practices has inherent value for particular organizational problems of practice, and each additional practice draws value from the successful presence of preceding practices. The specific value of each of these practices to a particular organization will depend on many factors including organizational readiness & adaptability, product offerings and market environment, all of which must be considered when building solutions in each area.

Note one: The diagram portrays the ideal approach to building social media practices. In reality, presently many enterprises are confusing ‘2. Social Network Interaction’ with ‘4. Social Marketing’. Others are making the right technical distinctions, but are launching ‘4. Social Marketing’ before ‘3. Social Intelligence’. Hopefully this will change as better methodologies and tools emerge for social media-driven market research and other social intelligence areas.

Note two: Objectives definition is critical to ‘1. Monitoring’. Objectives-driven impact evaluation (measurement) is critical to ‘2. Social Network Interaction’ and ‘4. Social Marketing’. Continuous improvement of integrated marketing mix modeling should be prioritized for ‘4. Social Marketing’.

Note three: Item ‘5. Strategic Stakeholder Engagement/Social Business’ includes two distinct but inter-related practices which will be addressed in subsequent posts.