The social media strategy that fits an enterprise best will vary, depending on its organizational model and focus. Gartner's four scenarios will help social media leaders develop a strategy appropriate to an enterprise's business goals.
Many enterprises have experimented with social media and now want to develop a strategy that supports business goals. Gartner's strategic road map presents four different models that show enterprises what their social media initiatives should look like and what steps to take to succeed.
By 2014, refusing to communicate with customers via social channels will be as harmful as ignoring emails or phone calls is today.
By 2014, less than 20% of large enterprises will block all access to external social media, down from approximately 50% in 2011.
Many enterprises have emerged from a period of experimentation with social media in which different business units have undertaken different kinds of projects. Now enterprises want to use social media to advance their business goals in a measurable way. This objective requires a strategy that takes into account how the enterprise organizes itself and where it needs to focus its efforts.
To help those responsible for social media initiatives choose an appropriate strategy, Gartner has devised four social scenarios and described the migration plan to follow to achieve each one. Figure 1 shows the scope of the project in brief.
The scenarios presented here delineate a range of possible futures that leaders can use to develop their enterprise's strategic plans. The scenario planning method used here aims to generate distinct strategic choices for clients. Gartner's community of social media analysts worked together to develop the four scenarios based on discussions with clients about their social media efforts, along with Gartner research into social media trends. The scenarios reflect a combination of known facts and social, technological, political and economic trends.
The two most important factors that shape an enterprise's social media efforts are:
Each of these factors allows for a range of responses (see Figure 2).
The horizontal axis in Figure 2 represents where an enterprise chooses to allocate its resources. Most organizations in the lower left quadrant will be for-profit enterprises so they will focus on profitability and growth. Social media projects must promise a defined payback before management approves investments.
Therefore, these initiatives will involve:
Most organizations in the lower-right quadrant will be non-profit organizations and government agencies or for-profit enterprises with a strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility focusing on the needs of society. They will search for social opportunities to address complex issues such as health, education and the environment. Many different parties and roles have a say in decision making and initiative leaders follow processes only if they serve the interests of the community.
The vertical axis in Figure 2 indicates the way the enterprise organizes work. Those with a fluid organizing model encourage people to participate in social media communities based on their interests and passions.
In these types of enterprises:
Enterprises with a traditional corporate structure assign people to participate in social media efforts.
Organizations of this type:
Combining the extremes of the horizontal and vertical axes yields four scenarios, as shown in Figure 3. These scenarios present possible next-steps for enterprises that want to move beyond experimentation with social media.
We have labeled the four scenarios based on sayings commonly heard in these situations:
A social media strategy will coordinate projects across the enterprise. Leaders of these initiatives will design efforts that tap collective intelligence and focus it on achieving measurable business goals. These goals and the nature of the social projects will vary, depending on the interests the enterprise pursues and the way it organizes work.
Enterprises with a hierarchical organization with a focus on corporate interests will create social media strategies to improve internal collaboration. These enterprises will use social tools to make it easier for employees from different units to work together — particularly when management has not yet set up formal processes — or to find experts to help them do their jobs. Social media will also support collaborative decision making within a framework of decision rights to balance collaboration with efficiency and security.
Enterprises that pursue corporate interests (yet have a fluid organizational model) will create social media strategies for detecting and responding quickly to changing events. For example, to solve a technical problem with a new product or to investigate a new market opportunity before competitors discover it. Workers act as highly-engaged free agents who form teams ad hoc and use social media to find others with the skills and passion needed for their projects. Workers and managers will also use communities to test and develop radical ideas. If the community finds the ideas convincing, the enterprise adopts them. The enterprise accepts failures as a normal part of the process.
Enterprises with a fluid organization (yet with a focus on community interests) allow the community to emerge on its own, usually around a common interest. The community defines its own goals and participation by the widest number of people is encouraged. Community leaders emerge organically, based on their demonstrated credentials, rather than title or position. A core group of dedicated participants spearhead the community, while a large number of others contribute sporadically. Most of the participants will come from outside any single enterprise. Enterprise sponsors (if they are involved) will ensure the community remains healthy, but will not try to channel the community's work in a specific direction. Community development is more important than efficiency.
Enterprises with a hierarchical organization and a focus on community interests will create social media strategies that emphasize collaboration with external parties around a common goal, for example, environmental sustainability or improving human health. Social tools will form a neutral platform on which different kinds of groups (supported by disparate technologies) can meet, share information and work together. The enterprise will work with the community to give participants specific roles to play and to establish accountability for the community's progress. The community will develop formal working methods to reduce friction and speed up decision making.
Social media efforts remain rudimentary. The organization as a whole is confused about the value of social media and so shows little enthusiasm. The legal department often dictates strict rules for social projects to protect enterprise information. Most uses of social media remain disconnected from formal business processes.
The enterprise has numerous, disconnected social media projects, some successful, others not. Some have become important to the business; others are marginal. The enterprise typically possesses many different social tools and most are not suitable for scaling up to enterprise deployment. It has enthusiastic participants in social communities and best practices for handling social media have emerged, although they are scattered in different parts of the organization.
Vibrant communities have developed and some of them have become effective at mobilizing large numbers of participants. The "hook" is participants' interest and passion about the community's purpose and the community decides on the goals and how it will measure outcomes. Most communities develop spontaneously, but the key to replicating successful, self-forming communities in the other three scenarios remain elusive.
Most successful communities are selective and focused on specific problems. They are chartered, with defined roles, processes and accountability. Community participants have developed some effective work methods that can be made more effective when social media tools are implemented in a way that supports these methods.
Enterprises need to make some changes to enact a social media strategy, regardless of organizational model and focus:
Enterprises also need to make other changes, depending on the type of social media strategy it pursues. Figure 4 shows an example of a timeline for these projects.
Devise a vision and strategy for social media that improves on the enterprise's organizational model rather than trying to go around it, for example, by embedding social media in processes. Seek an executive sponsor for this strategy.
Identify those function leaders (such as process managers) who would be most receptive to incorporating social media and demonstrate how social media can benefit them and run pilot projects. Use these relationships and successes to build support for social media within business units.
Identify cultural barriers to participation in social networks and work with business managers to overcome them. For example, do sign-up goals penalize workers for spending time helping people outside the department? Are people rewarded for participating actively in social communities?
Look for new use cases for social media. Use social software to identify experts and make connections with people who have common interests. Use social analytics to improve decision making. Monitor social media for early indications of problems ("Is anyone else frustrated with customer service?") and opportunities ("Wouldn't it be great if the product also did this?").
Create a central function that finds best practices for social media development within individual departments and then share these practices across the organization.
Craft policies that encourage desirable behaviors by emphasizing more "do's" than "don'ts." Celebrate calculated risk taking by rewarding key participants in communities that develop new products or new ways of doing business for example. Define roles with enough flexibility to encourage people to participate in communities when they want to. Set policies that encourage communities to police themselves and make them accountable for their behavior instead of trying to control behavior through technology.
Monitor social media and use social analytics to develop insight into societal needs and new ways of addressing them. Make this analysis available to enterprise leaders of social media initiatives and employees who use social media in their work.
The essence of this work style is the self-organizing team. Nonetheless, enterprises can capitalize on this apparently chaotic community model by learning what motivates its members. Assign people to research successful communities (for example, by interviewing early key participants) and identify principles that the enterprise can apply to other communities to improve the chances of success. Acknowledge the contributions people make for "the greater good." Encourage employees to build their own brand via continued personal development and social networking outside their comfort zone.
Identify people who are good at helping a community find its focus, then "seed" them into new communities to act as a catalyst. Such people should be good at listening and collaborating so that they can help others define what they want to accomplish. They should have superb facilitation skills to shepherd members toward the community's goals, in contrast to those people with strong personalities who drag a community toward their own personal goals.
Where a well-functioning community already exists, look for ways to use the enterprise's resources to improve the community's effectiveness without harming its dynamics.
Where a community does not yet exist or is not functioning well, choose leaders for key positions who will set the right tone for a community that will consist of multiple enterprises as well as private citizens. Leaders should be focused on achieving the community's goals, as well as able to mobilize participants through persuasion and collaboration rather than through a driving personality.
Use social analytics to scan social media for trends and unmet needs and organize new communities around them.
Make it easy for people to contribute. Simplify information assets to increase consistency and ease of use. Use social software to make it easier to find experts and those responsible for the functions the community needs. Use social media to make decision making transparent, such as including all relevant people in the decision process and keeping records of how decisions were reached.
Note 1
Lilly's Connecting Hearts Abroad Program
Lilly's description is as follows: "Through Connecting Hearts Abroad (Lilly's new global service program) our ambassadors will assist people and communities around the world that often lack basic resources. While serving others, they will gain a broader world view and see the complexities and limitless possibilities, related to improving human health firsthand. The goal: to help others and spark innovative ideas that will make Lilly a better company." (See Connecting Hearts Abroad Program.)
Source: Gartner Research G00227646, Carol Rozwell, 17 January 2012
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