The growing value of social business

by Bert Kollaard



For many organizations, there has been considerable skepticism about the business value of social media.  In many cases, business leaders have associated social media with employees wasting time on Facebook and Twitter. This sentiment has been reinforced by various industry watchers such as Gartner Group who prognosticated as recently as November of 2012 that through 2015 most social business initiatives would fail to meet business objectives.  

However, the latest annual survey from MIT’s Sloan Management Review and Deloitte suggests that "times may be a changing," and that the negative views about the value of social business may have been premature.  The study found that over 60% of managers surveyed report that their social business initiatives were at least somewhat successful and positively impacted business outcomes.

This is especially true for firms that have reached a certain level of social business maturity and have the ability and capacity to derive positive benefits from social business.  In fact, the higher a company is rated on the social business maturity scale the more likely they are to report positive business outcomes.  It is interesting to note that social business maturity involves more than simply implementing and using social media tools. Study participants with higher social business maturity levels have typically adjusted and evolved their business processes to take advantage of the power of social media tools to positively impact business outcomes.  

Source:  MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2014.   

Moreover, as social business maturity rises, the use and benefits of social business tend to evolve from externally focused applications, such as marketing and customer service and support, to more internally focused applications such as innovation and product development.  At the same time, the tools used to measure and assess social business results and ROI become increasingly sophisticated.

For more information and/or strategies and initiatives you can use to raise your organization's social business ma