Digital Business is Social Business. Period!

I've written a lot about why a socially successful brand is key to your digital success. Your digital transformation journey is a failed journey if you are not part of the conversation on social channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Vine (please add more to this list as you continue to see the social landscape explode in the coming years).

Brian Solis, of the Altimeter group defines 6 staged approach to become a fully integrate social business. Take a look at their approach here which is quite interesting. The six stages - according to them, are planning , presence, engagement, formalised, strategic and converged. Converged and immersive engagement is where I would like you to pay attention.

For instance, take a look at how we are feeling about Nestle, Coca Cola and Proctor & Gamble this season.

How are we feeling about Nestle, Coca Cola and P&G this season?

So what is it telling you? Is it aligned with the digital programs you are running to woo them? Are all those campaigns and promotions where you are pouring billions of dollars and euros going to keep your consumers satisfied?

I speak to CIOs, CFOs and CEOs and I am beginning to talk to the CCO (Chief Commercial Officer), and of course the Digital and Marketing Officers. They continue to ask about the following.

Program Director for a large scale digital transformation project.

How do we create an organization that is capable of embracing digital? We are running several key initiatives within digital but cannot gauge the digital capability of our people?

A digital global head complained...

Yeah. We have a lot of digitally savvy folks but our IT people and IT systems are not at all ready for this huge customer centric revolution!

One CIO told me.

I want to reduce cost but at the same time transform my people so they can not only speak but also walk the business talk. I want to become the business driver and no longer the IT order taker. Everything in IT that means something for the business stays, the rest either should shutdown or get outsourced!

It is really hard to see these organisations struggling to shed their old skin and move towards becoming the digitally savvy businesses that are capable of defining each day as a battlefield to go out there and engage with in the marketplace with customers, suppliers, partners and even their own colleagues.

So how can they do that?

• Digital coherence: Getting your organization in the flow is key. Take a look at this article I wrote a few months ago.
• Proactive Social listening should become a way of life for your whole organization: See how leaders such as Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs have continued to stay in touch with their consumers. I'm sure you've heard go the "question mark email forwarding" that Jeff Bezos does. Read more here. (update: added sample social listening flowchart : banking example)
• Build Social Business Friendships! We have to be friends with each otherThere is a popular FOAF model that Facebook uses extremely efficiently to understand the behaviour between / within groups of people. I've written more about this in detail.
• How fully networked is your organization? - Is your organization self learning? Read more here.
• CIO, CMO or C-whatever-O must all take a social leadership role: Digital transformation can and will be a wasteful exercise if the heads are not aligned. You may have had booked initial succes with the oh-so-cool digital hubs within your organization but remember one thing, your goal is to digitally transform your organization not just run some digital project. Capisce? See this infographic.

and finally but probably the most important of all...

• What does digital mean to you as an individual? Your individual transformation is key. How you use social technologies to connect with one another, how you put trust at the hands of others when you cannot see their faces, how you manage your time and schedule as you move from an analog to a digital life. All this I've explained in this article which I am sure will be of interest to you.

Social Listening Flowchart : Banking Example

Concluding...

Digital business without the effective use of social as individuals, within peers/groups, with colleagues and partners and most importantly with your customers will truly be a wasteful exercise. Please don't hire CDOs and allocate budgets that might give you some short term return but leave your organization is complete disarray.

But if your intention is to prepare your workforce for a socially savvy, mobile-hungry consumer and you do consider your people as the primary assets that can bring the change and you plan to empower them to go social, then I can promise you that your digital business will thrive!