Strike up some online friendships

Feb 11 2010 by Gary Jobe, The Journal

I'VE come across a number of news articles lately describing how businesses aren't utilising social media. Apparently only 2% of UK companies currently run some form of social engagement.

Perhaps businesses are reluctant to embrace social media for fear it will distract employees from real work.

I’ve read with much amusement how some companies think their employees will be constantly surfing the web, affecting productivity, and these concerns remind me of the outcry in 1997 around email.

Social engagement is about conversations, in essence what businesses do on a day-by-day basis. Be it developing a network, updating your customers about a product change, or simply letting them know the latest offers, social media can be a valuable sales or information channel.

For example LinkedIn, the business networking platform, is an excellent place for companies and employees to make connections and develop relationships. The most active groups in this area seem to be recruitment agencies, which use the platform to develop relationships with potential candidates and clients.

Similarly Dell’s Ideastorm uses crowd-sourcing to formulate ideas that can be voted for by its users. If considered useful and effective Dell will implement ideas, for example they recently launched PCs pre- installed with Linux.

Dell has also developed an internal version for staff called employee storm, which gets the staff involved in developing ideas for the business. It has generated more than 2,500 ideas so far, with 130,000 votes cast and this has proven very valuable for motivation and driving the company forward.

Applying this model to a business can only strengthen your customer and employee retention.

With all new approaches it is often the smaller companies that initially utilise the technologies. Platforms such as Twitter are being used to connect retailers to social networks using technology previously reserved for the electronics industry – bagel shops informing their customers when freshly baked products are just coming out of the oven for example. Social networks provide the perfect marketing tool for any business producing quality products that people are passionate about.

Businesses need to start embracing social media as part of their marketing strategies and start testing what does and doesn’t work for them. This won’t go away, and with employees of the future already immersed in the online social culture, social media should be seen as an asset.

I'VE come across a number of news articles lately describing how businesses aren't utilising social media. Apparently only 2% of UK companies currently run some form of social engagement.

Gary Jobe is director of digital at Cravens in Newcastle