Social media has changed the world!

Switch on the TV News and it's about who has tweeted this or tweeted that.  During the last Football (soccer) World Cup two presidents talked to each other over Twitter.  You may not like it, but that is the world we live in today.

Social has also changed the world of commerce.  You are probably reading this on social media or found this article through social media.

Years ago if I had wanted to start a company like DLA Ignite, I would have needed to spend millions on advertising.  In fact, we went global in 2 years and we haven't spent a single dollar on advertising.

At this point most people will say that is not a revelation, in fact most people are using social media and will say they are not getting much from it.

Of course.  Because you are using it tactically and not strategically.

So how do you approach social media, strategically?

A segment or a department at a time.  So where should you start?

 We recommend you start in sales.  Our business transformation program with sales will give you 30% increase in sales and a 40% reduction in the sales cycle.  This is a great business case and in fact can drive the business to be self financing.

So where next?  If you transform one department, then it's just a random act of social.

What about Human Resources?

We have agreed that social media is a frictionless way for us to communicate with other people. There are many issues in the workforce such as ...

How do we get our teams to work together in a frictionless way?

How do we increase the employee experience?  How do we reduce cost at the same time?

How do we support our returners?

How do we support all employees?

How do we get the best talent and before the competition?

How do we retain the talent we have?

How do we get new starters contributing quicker?

How do we get sales people contributing quicker?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do I mean?

We can use social to support maternity returners, make them feel welcome and get them contributing quicker.  In fact we can use social to enhance the employee experience across the business, supporting new starters enabling them to contribute faster.  We can also use it to get salespeople to contribute faster.  This, often is a game changer and the business case for this change in business.

Empowering your staff on social will also enable you to get access to the talent faster.  It will probably even reduce the amount you spend on recruiters and job adverts.  It might even make you the employer of choice in your industry.  This again is often a business case, based on the savings.

But emphasising the employee experience, social is often a driver to help retain employees and impacting on the recruitment process. 

We can use social to unlock the passive candidate and we all know that passive candidates stay longer and are usually higher performers.

Finally we would expect a 25% increase in employee efficiency in using social.  That's 25% more employees for free!  Again, another business case.

In 2020, let's be smart.  Let's start making our people and process more efficient and effective by using social.

Come on change agents and change makers out there, let's start a real digital transformation.  Start small and build out.