Connie Bensen

It’s no small feat for a company to transition to become a social business. One would think that it’s easier for smaller organizations, but companies of all sizes face the following barriers.

1. Traditionalists are afraid of change. How many times have you heard, “What we’ve been doing has been working, so why change?” The biggest challenge is the concept of placing content in social channels where it’s shareable. The paradigm and the purpose of the corporate website and where content lives needs to be adjusted.

2. Governance stifles creativity. Trust is required to allow staff in a social business to experiment and be nimble. Stringent policies and procedures need to be flexible enough to provide guidance but not be too strict. Consider providing best practices and gain buy in across business units by providing support and gathering a collective group that meets on a regular basis and brainstorms new ideas.

3. Business functions aren’t always willing to share budgets. Cost centers can create silos when the company’s culture doesn’t encourage collaboration. Social isn’t black and white. There is quite a journey to get to the point where the insights and results from social media are being utilized by specific business functions. A company may start out with a marketing presence in the social channels, but quickly realize that customer service also needs to participate. And vice versa, customer support needs in the social channels may draw the organization into social, but information on product marketing needs to be routed appropriately.

4. Executives need to realize that it will take more than a quarter. Social media isn’t a campaign. The more engagement that is realized, the more community building that happens. That results in the optimum customer experience, but it will also require more time to measure the results. Executive sponsorship is imperative and the expectation need to be established that the effort is long-term.

5. Social efforts are managed externally by agencies. As businesses become more social, one of the priorities is to train staff and empower them to engage directly in social channels. The advantage is that business units will start to integrate roles that will take on responsibilities for content calendars, brand monitoring, finding insights and responding to them. I agree with this article that this will result in cost savings for a social business and will encourage faster evolution internally. Complete reliance on agencies makes it difficult to break down siloes and collaborate.

None of these are insurmountable. They do require a consistent strategy to ensure that none of them impede progress. What challenges or barriers do you see organizations have in becoming a social business?

A career in social media requires a varied skill set, but that depth and breadth can also be quite detrimental if focus is lost. Success in social media requires a full range from being detail oriented to strategic.

Mentoring community managers has pointed out a pitfall that is frequently encountered. The good news is that it is easily avoidable. What is it you ask? The need to FOCUS.

Professionals in traditional roles have established expectations. Working in evolving roles such as  Community Manager or Social Media Strategist are nebulous at best. The following are generally givens:

• internal education is always needed to gain project sponsorship and budget
• innovation starts with a pilot where pilot means minimal resources for staffing and budget
• showing value and ROI takes longer due to the organic nature vs a campaign completed in a quarter
• everywhere one turns, there are things needing doing
• in most companies with progressive cultures that have embraced social media, roles blur and overlap

Those of us that have chosen this profession excel at multitasking, managing multiple projects and working cross-functionally. And we see opportunities to make an impact with social everywhere.

You may ask at this point, “Isn’t that that how it’s supposed to be and what one is supposed to be doing in these types of roles?”. My suggestion is to step back and take a look at it from management’s point of view. What do they see? They may or may not realize that all those things need to be done. If you’re working on  a whole bunch of things, is enough of the main project getting done? Could you pare back to one or two main projects? Would that increase your effectiveness?

It’s really important to stop and consider if choosing to be focused can help you to be more efficient and effective. If you’re wondering where you stand in this area, a suggestion is to ask a trusted colleague or mentor in your organization what their perception is. A pilot that is done well will gain much more traction and have potential for future expansion than many small projects that may leave you feeling overextended. A moment of reflection in this area could provide a simple boost to your career.

How do you focus on priorities and manage all of the projects that need doing?

I was asked to present a 3 hour workshop on Community Building as part of Online Marketing Summit in Minneapolis. There is a certain challenge in creating a deck that will provide for an unknown audience over that length of time!

We kicked off the session by talking about the philosophy behind an online community. The most important aspect is the definition of “community”. A community is much more than just a hosted platform. I outlined my definition of community in my post on the ‘Community Strategist Role’.

The deck below outlines five steps. I included a section on digital marketing and SEO because inbound marketing is imperative to growing a healthy community. Efforts in this manner will also make great strides in building organic SEO.

1. Listen: Get to know your People
2. Planning: Create a Strategy & Metrics
3. Digital Marketing: Content is King & SEO is Queen
4. Engagement: Create a Party
5. Reporting: Measuring Success

What are your essential steps to building an online community?

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Over the years I have presented many new ideas. It’s always a challenge to offer new methodologies along with compelling reasons for adoption of them. With social media this usually requires the implementation of a pilot on a small scale. For some the ideas are threats and for others the concept of change and the related fear is more than they can handle.

Over time I heard myself repeating key concepts. Combine this with my habit of providing mentorship sessions and I happened upon the solution to more effective presentation of ideas. It requires the creation of charts and diagrams to structure the presentation of your material. Executives and managers want to see the ideas presented in a simple straightforward manner. This affords the highest probability that your proposal will be understood, well-received and adopted.

I came to this realization during the sessions when I provide mentorship. I sit with paper and pen and talk through my methodologies and philosophy. It allows an interactive approach as well as pushes me to structure the conversation. The result is a much more compelling story for the listener and has greatly improved my presentations.

The following show two concepts that I have expressed in charts to show how marketing has changed:

My role is the convergence of Corporate, Field marketing (lead gen) and product marketing. I work to span these three areas and interconnect them.

This chart shows a concept that has been expressed in a number of ways:

old (push marketing, outbound marketing) and new (pull marketing, inbound marketing)

But what does that mean? How has it changed and how does it affect the marketing organization overall?

Here are some tips on how you can do this:

1. Make an outline of the concept

2. Talk through the steps and jot them down using scratch paper

3. Explain them to someone else and start with the first point and work through to the last (this is where it falls into place in a more graphic manner)

4. Over time the refinement will become apparent

5. Remember that less is more!