But research into the ways in which business uses this form of communication and collaboration is still in its early days.
With this in mind, Daniel Schlagwein, a lecturer in information systems at the Australian School of Business (ASB), along with one of his students, Monica Hu, studied a sample of 20 Australian companies in an attempt to better understand how social media use can create business benefits and competitive advantage.
“Companies actually do get benefits from social media,” says Schlagwein. “While some companies have stopped using one social media channel and started using another, we hardly see companies moving back out of social media use.”
Schlagwein cites a company with about 50,000 employees worldwide as an example of successful social media use. The firm employs a dedicated social media team to check all pertinent external social media channels.
When the company, or something applicable to the company, is mentioned, the team directs this information to the relevant department, such as legal, marketing or product development.
“The company has reported being able to make quicker decisions, identify trends earlier, and generally be ahead of the curve” Schlagwein says.
Importantly, a number of organisations told the ASB researchers that their internal use of social media – such as in-house blogs, wikis and Yammer (enterprise social software dubbed “the Facebook of business”) – was more important to them than external social media.
Of course, any organisation’s internal communications have long been a crucial factor in its success. So isn't a firm using internal social media just doing what it’s always done, albeit in a slightly different form?
For Schlagwein, internal social media differs from traditional internal company communication in a number of ways, stemming from its ease of access and the element of social interaction. Notably, it allows people within a company to share knowledge that might be relevant to them.
“It’s informal, so the barrier to sharing information is lower,” he says. “It’s easier to respond, and easier to find out what other departments are doing.”
Schlagwein notes the growing popularity of executive blogs within companies: “These reduce the sense of a ‘management team up there’.
“Such use can increase a sense of identification within the company, of employees following posts of managers.”
And Schlagwein believes that social media improves the efficiency of internal processes within a company.
“To give an example, [we found] the information available on many corporate intranets was notoriously out-dated. A wiki as an intranet, however, allows people to update things with minimal effort,” he says.
Tracking customers
Selina Power is a social media specialist for web strategy consultancy Bluewire Media, whose clients range from medium to large firms such as financial institutions, independent schools and franchises.
Among the advantages of social media use for businesses, she notes that it's a cheaper marketing medium over which the business has full control, allowing them to talk directly to their community, and allowing them effective crisis management.
“Social media is a lot about word of mouth,” says Power. “Prior to social media, if you had a complaint about customer service on a product, the company couldn’t track the complaint, or the person who initiated it.
A social media manager can deal with a conversation the moment it happens and minimise the risk of brand damage. If dealt with successfully, a complainant can even be turned into a brand advocate.”
Power cites two examples of companies using social media effectively. First, radio station Triple J.
When it plays any new song, the information is shared on Twitter and the station tracks the resulting number of tweets and re-tweets.
In a world where changing a radio channel requires just the flick of a thumb, these figures are crucial in deciding whether or not the song will be played again.
“Triple J really do trust their community,” says Power. “Their social media followers are their test base.”
Second, Power reports that UBank has a 24-hour customer service team working exclusively on social media, with the primary goal of new client acquisition.
The team searches for online postings criticising rival banks, then contacts the individuals as prospective customers.
In her own work, Power liaises with clients to help them come up with an integrated social media and web strategy, exploring target markets and what content their markets are actually engaging with, and undertaking risk assessment and risk management.
She is always looking for opportunities for clients to “network piggyback” with other firms who have a similar client base but are not direct competitors – such as the joint success enjoyed by eBay and PayPal when the two linked up. As for the future of social media and business, Power believes it’s going mobile.
“Companies can track what devices are being used to access their social media, platforms and websites, and our information is that 70% of this is from mobile devices.
“Websites built four years ago aren’t going to work well on a mobile device, and so companies are creating apps and redeveloping their websites with this in mind,” Power says.
Real-time information
Telstra is a company at the forefront of social media use in Australia. Monty Hamilton is director of digital operations and Nicole McKechnie is director of external communications.
The company helped celebrate NYE 2014 in Sydney, not just by sponsoring the fireworks, but also by developing a free smartphone application – with the intention, as Hamilton puts it, of “using technology to bring people together”.
The app combined 50 free texts and the ability to share photos via Instagram, with a schedule of location-based events. Also included were maps and directions, and real-time information on whether fireworks viewing areas were full.
Telstra makes extensive use of Yammer within the company. It has been the platform for an extensive internal crowd-sourcing exercise, where a call was put out for employees’ views on improving customer engagement and creating customer advocacy.
More than 500 ideas flowed in. Suggestions that were implemented included shared data plans, no lock-in plans and the THANKS loyalty program. The hope is that, over time, Yammer will reduce email use within the company.
Back in 2011, Telstra established Telstra Crowdsupport, as a place where customers and employees could converse.
“Most months, we have close to one million unique visitors,” says Hamilton. “Around 125,000 customers have registered to contribute on topics such as how to use devices abroad.”
He notes that peer-generated content is highly valued by other customers: “Our customers are actually helping us increase customer trust and loyalty.”
While companies often run their social media centrally, Telstra has an extensive local network, including shops and local managers.
“We wanted to see how social media could be integrated into this,” says McKechnie, “and so in January 2014, we launched local Facebook pages, containing information relevant to local communities. It’s a great example of the evolution of how Telstra is using this space.”
The post-hype stage
“As with any innovation, there are early and late adopters,” says Schlagwein. “Some companies have been eager to push the boundaries early, while others waited until the hype was over and are waiting for best practices to emerge.
“We are probably at the stage were organisational use of social media has reached the post-hype stage, and is becoming a part of the general landscape.
“I’m certain that social media and Enterprise 2.0 won’t go away. But companies have to make sure that their use actually fulfils specific business purposes for them, not just ‘to do something on Facebook’ so as to jump on the bandwagon.”
ARTICLE COURTESY http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au
