The evolution of digital and online media and its effect on the marketing and IT relationship was the focus of discussion at the Q3 Georgia CxO Forum held in July. IT and marketing executives from a wide array of industries — from transportation to digital media, telecommunications and consulting — discussed the changes and challenges their organizations are experiencing.
The discussion began with the general topic of digital trends impacting technology and soon boiled down to social media in and of itself. Three themes emerged:
1. Defining ROI: Few companies have a solid definition of what ROI from their social media strategy means for their organization.
2. Copycat syndrome: Many companies are modeling their definition on what others are doing. According to Forum participants, this is a mistake: Organizations must look internally to identify what’s important to them and independently decide.
3. Dueling tactics: Social media is largely being used in two ways: For operational leverage and as a forward-thinking strategy. From an operational standpoint, companies are asking themselves how they can use social media to brand and market in a way that provides lifetime value. Used as a forward-thinking strategy, companies are seeking ways to increase sales exposure.
Monetizing Social Media — or Not
Of course, when it comes to social media, many companies want to know how they can monetize their efforts. This can be tricky. The effect can be indirect and hard to measure, especially when the goal is building relationships and deepening loyalty. However, direct methods of turning social media efforts into profit-generating activity can be tricky, too: What appears to be successful monetization can often turn out to be nothing more than diversion of sales.
For example, if customers are going to your website to purchase your product, are you really creating sales or are you just diverting sales from your storefront to your website? You need to identify what is really creating new dollars for a company and not erroneously count income that was redirected from another avenue.
Those who have forsaken the pursuit of monetizing their social media strategy are working with an entirely different set of questions — ones that everyone should, in fact, be able to answer, regardless of their goals. If you don’t have answers to these questions, you really don’t have a social media strategy —you only have social media tools.
1. Who owns social media in your organization?
Is it marketing? Is it sales? Or is it IT?
2. Who do you want to do business with?
Once you know who you are trying to attract, everything else falls into place.
3. What information is valuable for you to track?
What data do you really care about? How can you capture that data with social media tools?
4. How do you apply the data you’ve collected to solve or support your company’s business objectives?
How is it impacting your business?
As always, the discussion was enlightening. As one attendee shared, social media became corrupted when it stopped being social. Social media is about relationships and building loyalty. Now the challenge is figuring out how to keep it social with a twist of business strategy.
The discussion began with the general topic of digital trends impacting technology and soon boiled down to social media in and of itself. Three themes emerged:
1. Defining ROI: Few companies have a solid definition of what ROI from their social media strategy means for their organization.
2. Copycat syndrome: Many companies are modeling their definition on what others are doing. According to Forum participants, this is a mistake: Organizations must look internally to identify what’s important to them and independently decide.
3. Dueling tactics: Social media is largely being used in two ways: For operational leverage and as a forward-thinking strategy. From an operational standpoint, companies are asking themselves how they can use social media to brand and market in a way that provides lifetime value. Used as a forward-thinking strategy, companies are seeking ways to increase sales exposure.
Monetizing Social Media — or Not
Of course, when it comes to social media, many companies want to know how they can monetize their efforts. This can be tricky. The effect can be indirect and hard to measure, especially when the goal is building relationships and deepening loyalty. However, direct methods of turning social media efforts into profit-generating activity can be tricky, too: What appears to be successful monetization can often turn out to be nothing more than diversion of sales.
For example, if customers are going to your website to purchase your product, are you really creating sales or are you just diverting sales from your storefront to your website? You need to identify what is really creating new dollars for a company and not erroneously count income that was redirected from another avenue.
Those who have forsaken the pursuit of monetizing their social media strategy are working with an entirely different set of questions — ones that everyone should, in fact, be able to answer, regardless of their goals. If you don’t have answers to these questions, you really don’t have a social media strategy —you only have social media tools.
1. Who owns social media in your organization?
Is it marketing? Is it sales? Or is it IT?
2. Who do you want to do business with?
Once you know who you are trying to attract, everything else falls into place.
3. What information is valuable for you to track?
What data do you really care about? How can you capture that data with social media tools?
4. How do you apply the data you’ve collected to solve or support your company’s business objectives?
How is it impacting your business?
As always, the discussion was enlightening. As one attendee shared, social media became corrupted when it stopped being social. Social media is about relationships and building loyalty. Now the challenge is figuring out how to keep it social with a twist of business strategy.
