The New World of Social Media
Enterprise 2.0 in Action

Highly regulated companies often struggle to educate all employees—including frontline, field and remote workers—regarding obligations to observe health, safety, disclosure or information-handling policies. Consistent communication across generations, geography and language differences can be achieved by using a range of media forms.

The virtual enterprise. An online social workplace for employees who work away from the physical office is important. Geographical separation can lead to a disconnection from team- or organizational-shared goals. A social workplace allows distributed organizations to offer a "virtual water cooler" networking experience to remote staff.

Enable the front line. Sales teams, customer service representatives, marketers, inspectors and emergency responders are mobile professionals who require accurate, timely data at their fingertips. Often the most accurate intelligence on field conditions, competitors, hazards or safety issues will come from peers... this is the "buzz," the "scoop," the first-hand observational knowledge. Organizations that get better at capturing and disseminating the intrinsic knowledge held in the frontline field will find competitive advantage.

The Social Marketplace
Social marketplaces are developed to gain trust from customers, prospects and partners. As online relationships bloom into a new phase of online interactivity, customers and prospects will share information, seek feedback and create content pertinent to the business cycle.

Customer engagement and proactive peer-to-peer support and recommendations; development and solidification of communication and recommendation channels; ability to spot and react to new opportunities for markets and prospecting; and community engagement with your brand to build loyalty and customer commitment... these are the fundamental values the social marketplace delivers to business.

Optimize customer service. Engagement and cultivation of new opportunities are top priorities for organizations adopting the social marketplace. Focus groups, self-service sites, peer-to-peer discussion groups, online rich media catalogues, test-drive centers, feedback management systems... this is the new language of customer service.

Enable channels and partnership networks. The social marketplace holds trusted relationships together. Efficiencies and expert sources emerge, reducing duplication of efforts, reinvention of content and minimizing of inaccurate or incomplete information. Social supply chains emerge as organizations adopt rich Web- and mobile-based communities to communicate shared content, set mutual objectives and adopt common customer service obligations.

Spot opportunities in unexpected places. Be willing to extend the social marketplace to where interested and informed people congregate. Understand the online landscape of personal and professional networking sites, social media communication tools and involvement in association or industry discussion rooms. The social marketplace—even as it moves into the less moderated open Web—succeeds only when authenticity underpins the development of this extended trusted network.

Cultivate brand engagement and loyalty. Customers who invest time, money and their staff resources with your company expect to be viewed as stakeholders in key decisions. One-way push of marketing or technical content to customers and prospects no longer resonates; the socially networked world requires interactive engagement... customer reviews, recommendations, feedback and consultation on product and service delivery.

Social Compliance
Social compliance is a proactive perspective on mitigating risk. The enterprise that embarks on a strategy to bloom with the social workplace and social marketplace must understand both rewards and risks. Finding the right balance for your business will mean success, and social compliance permits a layer of control and audit to the safely transparent enterprise.

Beyond the reactive compliance compelled by regulation and e-discovery rules, proactive social compliance allows the enterprise to monitor outward-facing communication to ensure appropriate use and disclosure practices are respected. Providing the assurance and comfort to corporate legal and management that a more open culture will not compromise consistency of message, brand, vision or leak proprietary information, personal data or inappropriate language is the protective layer social compliance brings to the social workplace and social marketplace.

The most valuable information within any organization often resides in the minds of its knowledge workers. This "intellectual asset" has remained relatively untapped because there has not been an effective way for organizations to capture this knowledgebase, allow it to grow and share it company-wide. Social media moves the conversation from the water cooler directly to your secure corporate network, creating a historical knowledgebase of ideas, opinions, experiences and content that can be easily accessed by anyone with permissions at any time. Employees no longer have to rely on email, conference calls or private meetings in employee lounges to share ideas and stay informed. This is a new era of collaboration, of community-based environments where great minds meet, share, network and experience the power of collective knowledge.