Download - Cultural challenges of social media
Cultural and organisational barriers inhibiting the ability of organisations to embrace social media
Martin Thomas @crowdsurfing
“Digital communications is a destabilizing force in a bureaucratic environment. And I am sitting right in the middle of a bureaucratic environment.’”Senior corporate communications director
“We’re not set up for this shit”UK CEO
A cultural phenomenon
Our expectations of all institutions have changed:o More agileo More openo More transparento More responsiveo More collaborativeo More engaging
Social media dramatises cultural & operational weaknesses
Slow Hierarchical Bureaucratic Process oriented Distrustful
Social media as a positive force for cultural & organisational change
Good social = Good businessGood business = Good social
Alternative perspective
“70% of business professionals believe social business is an opportunity to change the way their organisation works ” MIT Sloan & Deloitte. July 2013
“We believe social media is about changing our business culture, the ways we work and
the ways we engage with our colleagues and customers”.
Modern Marketing Manifesto, April 2013
Operational & cultural traits of successful organisations
TrustingOpenAgileInformal Collaborative
1. Trusting
o Bedrock of strong internal cultureo Allows shared responsibility & real time decision making
The best company rulebook ever written?
Trust the people in uniform
"It comes down to culture of an organisation & degree of trust you have in your frontline officers. You have to allow them to make mistakes and deal with them as a mistake, rather than coming down heavily on them.”
"The message has to be: 'We trust you with a baton and with the right to take away someone's liberty, I think we can trust you with a Twitter account.”Gordon Scobbie, police national lead on social media
Building a high trust organisation
o Establish freedom within a framework
o Rebalance risk and opportunity
o Smart delegation
o Regard occasional mistakes as an acceptable
price to pay
o Train or replace
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2. Open
o Transparency & honesty non negotiable
“Companies are learning that they can’t count on information about executive pay, finances, employee relations or environmental behaviour remaining private for long. Thanks to social media everyone with an opinion can be heard”
PWC CEO Study, Feb 2013
No Closed Doors
“faith in big businesses is lower than it’s ever been because people have stopped trusting what’s going on behind closed doors. So, from today, there is no ‘behind the scenes’ at Asda. Our aim is to be a truly open, accessible and transparent business so that we can rebuild trust, and drive customer loyalty.” Andy Bond, (former) CEO
From litigation to ‘civil dialogue’
“the one thing we’ve changed in recent years is we have been a lot more open about engaging in dialogue with people so long as they aim to be constructive” (Steve Easterbrook, UK CEO, McDonalds)
Right idea … poor execution
11,466 tweets using the #AskBG hashtag, peaking at 160 tweets in one minute.
Operating an open culture
o Embrace scrutiny and criticism
o Grow a thicker skin
o Avoid self delusion of perfection
o Apologise … resolve problem … move on
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3. Agileo Ability to improvise & operate in close to real
time rather than institutional time
* The social habit (2012)
32%of customers expect brand to respond to tweet within 30 minutes*
9%But only managed to respond within hour*
Committed to answering Tweeted queries within 30 minutes during office hours
Speed of response
o Photo hoax went viral on Twitter
o Quickly countered by social-media team with Twitter statement
o Stock price rose 5% the following day
Creating an agile organisation
o Timeliness more important than perfection– Embrace Colin Powell’s 40/70 rule
o Strip out the bureaucratic ‘fat’– Over-engineered approval processes
o Plan and train for spontaneity
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4. Informalo Being willing to show a human face & a
personality
Think human … not corporate
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Authenticity more important than art direction
“Too much perfection is actually a barrier to collaboration and co-creation, as it disinvites participation. To thrive in the world of social media, leaders need to acquire a mind-set of
openness and imperfection and they must have the courage to appear raw and unpolished”
(Six social media skills every leader needs: Roland Deiser and Sylvain Newton, McKinsey Quarterly, Feb 13)
Embracing informality
o Think human not corporate
o Stop wasting money on polished perfection
o Capture the authentic moment
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5. Collaborative
o Tapping into spirit of collective self expression
o Leveraging people’s willingness to shape service & product offers70% of companies regularly create value through use
of web-based communities (McKinsey)
The Power of Communities
Mutualisation: Collaborating with readers and communities to better understand, explore or reflect situations, topics, perspectives or experiences
Social customer service
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“Social agents are 4x more efficient than telephone agents and result in better NPS ratings” Ben Kay, Head of Digital, Everything Everywhere
“Each view of a YouTube customer support video equates to an £80 saving”Laura Price, Social Media Manager, British Gas
HPs social support community has solved 20% of all problems, helped 40m customers, equating to a saving of $50m in support costs.
Community-powered business model
o People-powered mobile network (O2)– Members receive points for recruiting new
people, making suggestions and solving problems, which are converted into discounts• 20% actively involved• 25% of members will get ½ cost of calls
returned for contribution to community– Plans to involve community in pricing and
marketing decisionso Not reliant on call centres, expensive
marketing and product support
Harnessing community power
o Identify and empower your fan-base
o Research/ NPD, customer service and marketing are not restricted to departments
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If you want to succeed as a social business
TrustingOpenAgileInformal Collaborative
Get your culture right … & the social media will look after itself
@crowdsurfing