Five Star Blog

Navigating through many available Social Media technologies can be challenging. The options and types of technologies are endless, and like most technology solutions, finding the best solution to meet your organization’s needs is not easy. Recently, many members of our team read the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. This book is an excellent resource and provides research and practical recommendations for evaluating and building a Social Media strategy. In today’s post, we will outline the book’s four-step planning process to building a Social Media strategy, as we have found this to be of great value.

When building a Social Media strategy, Li and Bernoff recommend that you use the POST method (People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology) to guide your planning process.

1. People – You must first ask yourself, “What are my customers ready for?” As a first step, it is important that you assess what technologies your customers are currently using. For example, if the majority of your consumers are seeking a way to write reviews and rate other comments, then tools that employ more robust social networking uses might not be necessary or applicable to your audience. The authors offer a tool to help you determine your customers’ profile, for more information click here.
2. Objectives – What are your company’s’ goals? Are you likely to utilize social technologies to achieve marketing objectives or to achieve sales goals? It is crucial that you determine what you plan to accomplish with Social Media before you choose a technology.
3. Strategy – How do you want relationships with your customers to change? Do you want your customers to become engaged with your company, or do you want them to help you carry out messages to others? By deciding how you want your customers to change, you can plan for that change and determine how to measure it once the strategy is underway.
4. Technology – Which applications should you build? Once you have addressed the people, objectives, and strategy concerns, you can then begin the process of evaluating possible technology solutions.

A high-performing organization is one that can adapt to new technologies successfully so choosing the correct social media is crucial. There are many other factors that should be considered when choosing the correct Social Media technology (e.g. Will your customers feel secure using the technology?). Yet, the POST framework provides you with a solid foundation to build your strategy. We’re interested to hear what you think about a social media strategy for your company, so feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.

In a recent post, we discussed how Social Media is making its mark on the corporate landscape. In that post, we talked at a high level about the reasons why corporations are using Social Media. These reasons included enabling communication, collaboration, and media sharing within organizations. If you have not had a chance to check out this post, you can do so here.

In today’s post, we are going to continue the discussion by specifically focusing on how organizations are applying Social Media technology to solve real business challenges. There are many applications of Social Media. Although there are many nuances in implementation applications, seven common types have bubbled to the top.

• Organizational learning, , communication, and collaboration – Resources used for people to create virtual communities focused on specific interests, roles, geographies, and professional networks.
• Innovation management – Resources used to leverage the content sharing, rating, and discussion aspects of Social Media in order to ask a population of people, “How would you solve this challenge?”
• Customer engagement and relationship building – Resources used to connect customers based on needs, purchases, and shared interests. Content and media can be shared, rated, and distributed only to those who choose to see that content.
• Recruitment – Resources used to communicate the status of job openings and recruitment events and connect applicants who share the common interest of gaining employment with an organization.
• Marketing and brand building – Resources and sites to enforce an organization’s brand by providing collaborative tools and resources for people who share common needs, experiences, and interests.
• Partner relationship – Resources used to connect partner organizations together based on needs, purchases, markets, verticals, and shared interests. Content and media can be shared, rated, and distributed only to those who choose to see that content.
• On-boarding – Websites and resources used to connect newly hired employees together so that they can share knowledge and information with each other and collaborate with seasoned employees on how to successfully navigate a new work environment.

As you plan to implement a Social Media application, it is important to point out two things:

1. Before implementing any technology, including Social Media, there must be a compelling reason for doing so. Ideally, this purpose should be rooted in the pursuit of helping solve the felt needs of the end users. Most organizations cannot afford to implement novel technology. Therefore, as you explore how your organization can employ Social Media, be sure to take the time to understand your audience and their felt needs so that you can adequately implement technology to meet those needs.
2. Although Social Media applications tend to be much more organic in nature than other enterprise technology, this does not undervalue of good implementation plan. A good implementation plan outlines a clear strategy for how the technology will be deployed and communicated. Most importantly, this plan should identify the feedback mechanisms that will be put in place to ensure that end user comments are gathered and responded to in a strategic and timely manner.

A question we commonly ask ourselves and our clients is “What makes an organization high-performing?” Recently, Five Star hosted a Potential for High Performance Seminar and this very same question was posed to the audience. After a few moments of thought, one participant stated that high-performing organizations are accountable. When asked to discuss how a lack of accountability within an organization manifests itself, one respondent commented that when accountability is missing, “nobody can say yes, but everyone can say no.” This response sparked an interesting discussion about the connection between accountability, empowerment, and decision making. Below are some of the thoughts participants offered about how these three concepts are linked and how they work together to contribute to the creation of a high-performance organization.

1. To build accountability there must be clearly defined goals and an agreed upon commitment by    everyone regarding how each person will contribute their unique talents.
2. Accountability requires that individuals earn and receive a level of empowerment from their leader and their team to contribute their personal talents and experiences. True empowerment is given, earned, and accepted.
3. Leaders must believe that their team members are competent and trustworthy to make decisions that are in the best interest of the team and the organization as a whole.
4. Ultimately, there must be someone who takes ownership of the decisions of a team or work group. If this is missing, the finger pointing game quickly ensues.
5. Although decisions must be made rapidly, in order to make good decisions, there must be patience to think.
6. High-performance organizations track and report out on the effectiveness of decisions over time and reward people for making decisions that advance the mission of the organization.

The connection between accountability, empowerment, and decision making and the role they play in creating high-performance organizations can’t be understated. Offer your ideas by commenting on this post below!

What does it take to build an enthusiastic and energetic workforce? How can you encourage all of your team members to begin each day wondering how they can do their job more effectively? Furthermore, how can you create a sense of urgency, particularly during tough economic times?

The simple answer is strong leadership. Leaders who inspire others with a compelling purpose are necessary in order to cultivate the kind of culture in which employees look forward to coming to work. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to examine each of the four key behaviors of effective Organizational Leadership.

Inspire Others with a Compelling Purpose and Vision

People have a basic desire to be a part of something important. Most want to know that they are making a difference in the world. Strong leaders have the ability to inspire that kind of purpose by effectively communicating the importance of their organization’s mission. They provide a clear vision for the future – a future that can only be reached through the commitment, competence, and energy of everyone on the team.
There are a lot of people in leadership positions who would probably not describe themselves as inspirational. When we think of inspirational leaders, persuasive speechmakers like Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. With his “I Have a Dream” speech, he moved hundreds of thousands of people. However eloquent, it’s not necessary to possess that exact kind of charisma. What is necessary is the ability to personalize the importance and value of your work in a genuine way. Organizational leaders must be able to communicate how their team’s work makes a difference to their organization, industry, customers, and community.

We were recently motivated by this very clear example of a leader who found a way to inspire others. This person is the department manager of facilities for a corporate campus. She leads a workforce of landscapers, maintenance workers, and janitors. Her vision is simple, “We create peace and serenity for our employees and visitors. People should experience serenity when they look out the windows at a beautiful, well-groomed landscape. They should find peace and calm with the cleanliness of the restrooms and other facilities. This peace and serenity leads to higher productivity and employee morale.”

What is your compelling purpose? How do you inspire your workforce to high performance? Share your inspirational story with us by commenting here, and be sure to visit our blog next week to learn the next key behavior for effective Organizational Leadership.