By Jill Kurtz
Online Career Tips Editor
Trend alert: Companies are making the transition from using social media as a tool to using it to create a social business. Bernie Borges, CEO of Find and Convert and host of the Social Business Engine podcast, discussed this trend in a webinar offered by the Public Relations Society of America.
So, what is a social business? According to Borges, “A social business embraces the culture and technology of social media for strategic business applications. It understands that employees across the organization should contribute to brand excellence through external and internal engagement.”
He adds that social businesses use digital communications to allow employees to contribute to brand excellence.
A recent Deloitte study finds that 70 percent of respondents personally believe that social business is an opportunity to fundamentally change the way their organizations work.
More than just a way of marketing or communicating, these businesses use social intelligence to improve every organizational function. A social business uses insights gained from social interactions to:
- Develop internal and external collaborations
- Build and educate the workforce
- Understand and engage customers
- Data mine community expertise
- Improve business processes
Borges added that businesses that have made this transition share several common characteristics, including garnering commitment from the C-Suite. Executives in social businesses have moved past a basic understanding of how to use social media and toward a leadership style that integrates social insight into every aspect of the business.
[Related: Using Social Media to Build your Brand]
Social businesses also treat the marketing function as something that happens across the organization rather than within one department. Everyone can share and receive insight via social media and contribute to building the brand. All parts of the organization are in tune with social data and incorporate that insight into day-to-day decisions and planning.
[Related: Reaching Your Customers on Social Media]
“While social business is a journey, success is not an overnight process,” said Borges. “It’s important to focus on how the culture and technology of social can make a business better, and how people are at the center of it starting in the C-suite. Then the business can take steps to make the transition a reality.”
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