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Social Climber…iQ talks to IBM Social Media Editor
Along with most of the rest of the world, we reckon Social Media is pretty big news right now. You might have noticed. The whole thing has got technology's "old guard" rather on the back foot as they struggle to keep pace. You might have noticed that too.
What you might not have spotted is that not all of IT's biggest names have been quite as wrong-footed as others. And they don't come much bigger than IBM, which has been using SM for, well, about 30 years now. Karl Roche has the notional title of Social Media Editor for the company ("well, that's what they call me sometimes"), but he insists the phrase doesn't really describe his role. In fact, he's not sure what does…
iQ: So what exactly do you do Karl?
Karl Roche: Well my remit crosses over so many aspects and areas of the business that, to be honest, it's sometimes hard to say! It's actually difficult to find anything that does adequately describe my role.
iQ: Well give it a go…
KR: A big part of my job is getting involved with the "workforce enablement" part of IBM's use of Social Media; working with people in a variety of areas to see how the company can make use of various forms of Social Media in a range of positive ways moving forward. For instance, I've been heavily involved with the introduction of a Social Media messaging architecture right across all IBM's business units.
In essence it's all about "spreading eminence"; evangelising about what can be achieved through the use of Social Media channels. Given all this noise about Social Media I think it's interesting that so many companies still won't or can't accept that it is a key technology and that it's here to stay. And it is. SM is already hugely important and it is going to become more important still.
The fact is that employees and customers are engaging with all kinds of Social Media and firms can either embrace that, or…
iQ: … Or else? Why are some businesses so cautious and even hostile towards the idea of Social Media do you think?
KR: A lot of it comes down to nerves I guess; uncertainty about something that is, after all, relatively new and unknown. That's understandable in certain kinds of business; those whose first instinct is perhaps to run; businesses that fear change.
Such organisations must, nevertheless, open their eyes. They have to. They really have no choice. The longer they remain closed off to the idea, the longer they're going to remain in the dark. Denying Social Media's part in today's business would have been like scoffing at the telephone a hundred years ago and arguing it would never catch on!!
It's all about generating a deeper connection between people before they meet. We may be laughing at Twitter in 10 years time. We may be using something else entirely. The fact is that people ARE using these tools and they are using them NOW – staff, suppliers, partners, customers. For that reason alone businesses need to be using them too.
iQ: So what do we do about it?
KR: First businesses have to recognise and understand two things: one, that Social Media is a powerful way to cultivate and hold on to customers, and two, that it's an equally powerful way for their competitors to do the same. i.e. To recruit your customers and steal them out from under your nose.
Then, for me, it's all about getting the culture right; the first step here being to get a handle on the whole Social Media ideal at a fundamental level. At IBM we saw very early just how big a deal Social Media really could be. It stemmed in part, I suppose, from the company's heritage and background. We are, at heart, a technical organisation, so we've been involved in things like technical forums for 30 years or more. And what are technical forums if not an early form of Social Media?
They may not have been viewed in quite this way at the time, but even the first, earliest blogs were essentially a form of Social Media too – people visited them regularly and voluntarily. Look at it that way and we've actually been using Social Media for quite a long time.
iQ: What was the root of IBM's thinking around Social Media originally then?
KR: From the very outset Lou Gerstner (IBM Chairman 1993 to 2002) told everyone at IBM to go out onto the Internet and "fi nd value" and empowered us all to do so. There was a recognition at a very early stage that – particularly in the context of the Internet and other new media – most of what we do would eventually, one way or another, fi lter down to our customers and end users in some way. Social Media has become a key element of that.
As such we made the decision to introduce the use of Social Media from a grass roots level right up through the business – led, crucially, by people with a deep interest in the medium.
iQ: How, working for a company that's been there and done it, should companies go about tackling and getting the best from Social Media then? And how best can they avoid the pitfalls?
KR: It's a good idea to put some specifi c guidelines in place and to clarify your thinking as early as possible.
Too many companies are still approaching and coming around to think about Social Media with entirely the wrong attitude. They're too often thinking something along the lines of "OK. It's about time we got into this Social Media thing. Right. Who shall we allow to have a blog?"
"Allow?" This completely misses the point. It's called Social Media. Not "corporate media". And it's that way for a reason. Social Media just isn't, or shouldn't be, a "top down" exercise. Asking who are the "right" and "wrong" people to be engaging in Social Media misses the point entirely.
iQ: That's going to make plenty of companies uncomfortable…
KR: Of course. It can be a big culture shock and that's why it's so important to get the cultural aspect just right.
This is where guidelines become so important. It's also important not to be afraid of it though. Accept that your people are already engaging with Social Media externally and embrace that. One way or another they're going to do it anyway; it's a question of tapping into that and trying to turn it to your advantage in some way.
Also, the alternative is potentially hugely damaging. "My company won't let me log on to Facebook or Twitter at work, so I'm doing it on my iPhone under my desk…"
"Really? Who do you work for?"
" Company X"
"I won't bother getting a job there then!!!"
iQ: And the flip side?
KR: There's no doubt about it: Social Media really is a quite brilliant collaboration tool. Take IBM. We're very much a global team and because of that it can be very difficult for us to interact with one another in a timely way – if we tried to do it purely through email, for example, we'd just kill ourselves. We'd never get anything done!
Via Social Media however, we can collaborate and organise and share information, ideas, content expertise, and insights that would otherwise probably be invisible and closed off to us in a "bucket" somewhere.
SM is helping to raise profi le of experts and expertise closeted around the business and so has been instrumental in giving users what they're really looking for. Ten years ago it was content they wanted, and we all populated our web sites accordingly. But that's changing now. What users really want these days is expertise.
It's great for cutting costs too: in reducing email traffic and the demand for storage, for instance. Why have 10 copies of the same document on 10 mail servers and in 10 different peoples' in-boxes when you can exchange the same data via a research tool (IBM has one called CatTail) or a chat forum, or a blog or a micro-blog?
There's also far less need for tools like PowerPoint, which is just as well because there's also less time to use them these days. It's like when you're putting together a presentation now. Chances are there's already stuff out there done by someone else in the company that you can re-use. A quick bit of research can save you a day's work.
SM is also having a profound impact on the marketing function of course. There's already been a big switch from traditional marketing methods to new tactics that factor-in SM techniques. It's not just a new marketing channel, but a whole new customer and prospect engagement mechanism. Campaign-driven approaches are giving way to ongoing approaches – longer-term engagements to make the customer an advocate for the products, the company, the brand.
Put simply, markets are conversations and in that way Social Media makes marketing everyone's job.
iQ: So where do you start? How do you go from 0 to 60?
KR: The first step is simply getting your feet wet. If you haven't already, then get out there as an individual. Sign up to LinkedIn and so on and put your information out there. Get your ear to the ground and fi nd other people like you that can help and complement your business.
Think about what, fundamentally, you're in business to do and get out there and do it. There is so much info out there – start exploiting it. Also, don't think too much about planning and strategising – it all changes so fast anyway. You can't have a "five year plan" around SM – the very idea is a nonsense.
Thinking about what's "On" or "Off Message" is a very 90s way of looking at things. And who reads things like mission statements any more? I don't know. Remember it's not what happened yesterday or even last night. It's what's happening now. No-one goes through their Twitter stream to look at what happened way back whenever.
Overall, think about "the people" and not just the tools and the process and you'll make a much better fist of it –
It is SOCIAL media after all!
About the Author
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