The effectiveness of your social media efforts reveal more about your organizational health than your communication expertise.
I particularly enjoyed slide #4–Holistic and well-structured businesses see 4x better returns.
41% of Organizations Say Their Structure Keeps Them From Communicating Effectively With Their Customer
The greatest barrier to improving the multi-channel customer experience is organizational structure
Power has shifted from the organization to the individual. This is not a cliche. Between their smart devices and digital connections on social media, each person has more access to information than ever before.
Organizational structures determine resource allocation and coordinate decision making. Many structures were not created to manage the information that employees generate and share with one another, nor the information produced by their customers.
An optimized multi-channel customer experiences requires coordination between departements, executives, key stakeholders, as well as a decision-making process that integrates the digital information shared by employees and customers.
Mobile, social, and cloud-enabled technology catalyzes organizational values. Extremely positive or negative results related to a change or addition in technology have more to do with the culture than the technology.
To learn more about how organizational silos create disparate communication tactics that confuse or prevent customers from engaging the way they want check out these slides on Design for Cross-Channel Experience
Complex systems evolve from simple ones, not the other way around.
Tim O’Reilly, Lessons from the Industrial Internet
Digital media, mobile devices and cloud technology are tools that completely change an existing systems function. Adding any of these onto an existing strategy without considering the fundamental changes they bring may bring little to no improvement.
Cloud technology moves the power of information from the organization to the employee and customer. Information can now be accessed from a variety of places (smartphone, tablet, laptop) at any time.
Moving information to the cloud without improving access to end-users and customers will save money, but not improve the customer experience or information sharing among employees.
When deploying digital solutions it’s imperative for all decision makers to understand what systems level changes they cause as well as what cultural changes must occur for the benefits to be realized.
Redefining Work in a Connected World
Think about your day. You’re in meetings for the better part of each day. You probably spend evenings and weekends catching up on email and actually doing the work you couldn’t get to during the day. And, your co-workers and executives are doing the same thing. So if you try to slow down, you find yourself at a disadvantage as you’re willfully pulling yourself out of an unfortunate culture of whenever wherever business dynamics. If you’re unresponsive or unreachable, someone within your organization or on your team is accessible. Over time, this could contribute to unfavorable impressions.–Brian Solis
Technology Gives You Superpowers
“It’s not an upgrade to your phone, it’s an upgrade to yourself.”
Verizon’s recent Droid DNA commercial features their device as a life-enhancement tool. Digital tools have moved from an optional accessory to an implanted device.
Smart People Plus Smart Things Equals Unparalleled Opportunities
People and things are becoming smarter every day as they integrate digital into their core.
This Cisco video illustrates “the internet of things” and what happens when everything starts talking to everything else. An organization must consider how to participate, learn, share, and build on top of this growing digital infrastructure.
Participating and building the network is more important than advertising on it. Would your organization benefit more from owning a channel or buying an advertisement on someone else’s?
The Power of Helping Others Create and Share Digital Content
Instead of asking ‘What do we need to say?’ consider asking ‘How can we amplify what they are saying?’
“Converse opened a state-of-the-art recording studio in an old dry cleaning facility. Branded Rubber Tracks, the “community-based” recording studio is a place where emerging bands can record their songs at no cost. And there’s no catch.”–source
You have to talk about yourself online, but to use digital media effectively as an organization you must provide tools to empower people. Converse has moved from a company-centric view to a customer-centered view with their digital tools.
From Handles to Hashtags–Creating and Connecting With Customers
An interesting question to ask these days about your organization is “What’s the hashtag you are sharing with your customers?”
Comodo, a restaurant in NYC, now makes it easy for their customers to see their menu on Instagram:
“By introducing the hashtag “#ComodoMenu”, customers can upload pictures of their dishes. Others can access the menu by searching the hashtag, see what people post about the dishes, and decide what to order. Customers can also post their own thoughts and reviews of their meal in the photograph.”–source
To truly share the design and maintenance of their menu with their customers signals a new level trust and transparency that will become more common as organizations of all kinds move towards shared conversations and customer-driven communication strategies.
We’re All User-Experience Professionals Now
“User experience (UX) is the way a person feels about using a product, system or service.”–Wikipedia
Many people contributed to the experience the college coach had with the high-school football player is significant. Few had anything to do professionally with college recruiting.
If everyone that talks about your company or organization online helps define the experience current and potential customers or employees have, what will you do to empower them?
