What’s the difference between a social brand and a social businesses? Orientation. If your social activity is all customer facing, chances are you are working on building a social brand but haven’t yet crossed over to becoming a truly social business. A social brand is “any company, product, individual, or politician that uses social technologies in order to communicate with the social customer, their partners and constituencies or the general public,” says Michael Brito, SVP, Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital.
Social businesses, he says, are built on the three familiar pillars of people, process, and technology but they have “integrated and operationalized social media within every job function (and process) internally.” The table below shows the difference between these two types of organizations:
In a recent slideshow (see below), Brito charts the evolution from social customers in 1995, to social brands starting in 2003 to social businesses beginning in 2008.
The Rise of the Social Customer and Their Impact on Business
Is your organization a social business? Why or why not?