It’s Social Media Week - and far from being a week of cat videos, Reddit memes and “S*** Social Media Experts Say”, you’ll find a ton of useful information about how collaboration is empowering change. And you’ll hear this term a lot: Social Business. What is it? And what’s in it for you?
Supported by Plantronics. Simply Smarter Communication solutions for the Mobile Professional
Social Media: What is it good for?
What is social media?
Social media uses the web and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue, with user-generated content, such as blogging, photo and video sharing.
It’s already transformed the way we communicate with one another. In our personal lives, it’s become inescapable.
In business too, social media has changed the way we promote our products and services and keep in touch with our customers.
But sharing and engaging with media on Facebook, YouTube or Pinterest is just one way in which businesses can explore the ideas of “social”.
The question is: How else can businesses apply these principles to other aspects of their organisation and make things better?
Social Business
What is social business?
Social business extends the ideas and principles of social media to enable employees to have more open and collaborative relationships within the organisation and with the outside world.
By becoming more social, businesses can be more creative and innovative, which - in today’s business environment - is a Very Good Thing.
These organisations make the most of human interactions in each of their business processes by making them more social and enabling better:
- Collaboration
- Mobility
- Employee retention
Benefits of Social Business
Social Media Week is a great time for businesses to think about how they can be social beyond their media output and improve their processes at the same time.
Here are a few reasons why that’s a good idea:
Collaboration
Project management software, like Podio or Basecamp, are geography-beating applications that allow organisations to build teams around skills rather than location - and enable collaboration beyond simple document-editing. While Facebook asks ‘What’s on your mind?’, social businesses ask ‘What are you working on?’
Mobility
The mobile workforce is growing. By equipping these employees with mobile devices and tablets that enable collaboration on the fly, productivity, responsiveness and innovation will soar. Virtual meetings software, like iMeet, keeps mobile employees in the loop and increases a sense of belonging and…
Employee retention
So, social businesses benefit from increased and global collaboration, as well as mobility, to ensure the whole team feels a part of the decision making process.
By building a social business based on trust and transparency, employees can tap into the creativity, innovation and community of the organisation as a whole and accomplish business goals faster and with greater efficiency.
Besides, we’re used to social practises in our personal lives - on Facebook, on Twitter and on YouTube. Isn’t it about time we brought these practices into our businesses and benefited from being social?
San Sharma (@WorkSnugSan) is community manager at WorkSnug
Photo credit: !!sahrizvi!!
What do you think?
How else can businesses take what they’ve learned from social media and apply it to their own processes? Can you see the benefits of being more social as a business? And what steps are you taking to be a more social business?
Let us know your thoughts, your tips and software recommendations in the comments below.
