Recently I noticed that everything in the world is converting to social. We have social media, of course, and social CRM, and social business, and social analytics. We also have social ERP, social SCM, Social Communities - and more socials that I can keep straight. It seems that the turn for e-everything and i-everything has passed and it is not the turn for social-anything.
Well, not quite.
The use of the letter "e" or "i" to precede a word or phrase was in relation to it becoming "electronic" or "interactive" - in other words, of meeting the fate of the internet. They were no supposed to be successful unless they could leverage the power of the letter. Some of them, vis-à-vis iPhone, were very successful - some of them, e-CRM, not so.
The question must be asked then, is everything in this world becoming "social"?
I hope not.
The world was social before technology came along, was social before Twitter and Facebook came along - even before we "discovered" the Social Customer. Customers did not become social because of the advent of social networks and online communities - they were social before. They met at parties, malls, schools, sporting events, and many other places and shared opinions and ideas, they exchanged knowledge and empowered each other with wisdom and data. They even sent emails to each other with links, they used applications that were "social" before it was cool to be social (you may not remember, but Lands End had an online app in their ecommerce site that was called "Shop with a Friend" where you could start a co-browsing session with a friend and "be social" while shopping online).
Even before the internet came along we were social. You may mock them now, but AOL Chat Rooms, CompuServe, The Well, Delphi, BBS - all social innovators of their time. If you don't know what I am talking about, you are probably too young - but that was the Facebook and twitter of its era (remember ICQ? IRC Channels? IM - Instant Messenger?).
So, again, the question begets to be asked-why is everything social now?
Because business figured out what to do with it.
Business began to put money into being social and vendors began to create products to chase that money, and consultants and pundits began to hype the value of "being social" and "engaging" and "listening".
Incidentally, I gave the same advice to my clients in 2001-2005 (you have to engage with your customers, have conversations about the feedback they live you) when talking about EFM (enterprise Feedback Management or Surveys) - am I a social Visionary?
Why am I brining this up?
I wrote before how Social is done and how we need to move beyond making social the evolution - it is not. Focusing on the channel takes the view away from where ii belongs-in the data.
The value of what we are seeing is not about being social; no business will ever make money from simply being social. Listening, engaging, monitoring, conversing - they all yield ZERO business value.
Doing something about what you heard, saw or conversed is where the value is at. Actionable insights are the currency of this social evolution, and the truthful sentiment invoked in unstructured feedback makes them more powerful.
The value of becoming social is not to humanize businesses, which will never, ever happen. Businesses are entities without feelings, emotions, sentiments, or any number of other human traits - and that cannot be learned or gained. The value of becoming social is for businesses to better understand what customers want and deliver on that.
Yeah, I know - that is "so not social". But it works. And what works, sells.
Am I wrong? Is social really more than the prefix of the day? Is there value in listening and engaging if you are not going to do something about it?
Please say no - or yes, but do so after the beep.
BEEP.