Understanding the difference is important not only for marketing but for business leaders.

Companies that don’t fully understand what this means to them are holding watch over a dying enterprise. Let me explain.

A few years ago the true experts in social media quickly moved beyond that buzz word and asked what did it all mean. The answer had nothing to do with Twitter or Facebook pre se. It had everything to do with the impact to the organization: the accelerated and improved communications and understanding inside a company.

The response to Altimeter Group’s The Social Media ROI Cookbook about the primary business impact of social media is worth noting.

Survey respondents reported overwhelmingly that the primary business impact of social media was not revenue generation, but “insight that helped us meet customer experience goals.”

The next most-reported benefit was decision-making; 51% of respondents stated that social media measurement “enabled us to make better informed decisions based on social data.” Ali Ardalan, Media and Analytics Strategist at Intel, believes that social media has become a critical input to business decisions and to business cases.

Ed Brill, author of “Opting In: Lessons in Social Business from a Fortune 500 Product Manager“, defines social business as engaging employes in a socially enabled process. That is, a process that brings together how employees interact with each other, partners, customers, and the marketplace. It’s about bringing all the right people, both internally and externally, together in a conversation to solve problems, be innovative and responsive, and better understand market dynamics.

SOCIAL EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

You can learn more about social business on November 8, 2012 – 11:00AM
Event: Social Business FutureCast 2020 – Google Hangout video chat
Topic: Discussion of Social Business today and its progression into the future.

Speakers:

  • Jeanne Meister – Consultant, co-author The 2020 Workplace, Forbes blogger
  • Stowe Boyd – Work Tools expert @stoweboyd
  • Handly Carmon – IBM Business Partner, Prolifics
  • Ed Brill – IBM Executive, Director IBM Collaboration Solutions

Event URL: http://www.youtube.com/user/MidmarketIBM/feed

Watch The Video Here

Interviewed:
Ed Brill
Director, Social Business
IBM

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.