Social Media already has changed Marketing forever. You can't attend a conference or read a blog post without hearing about the latest in this field. Marketing is still playing catch up and will be for a while since we are still at the very early stages of the Social Media game. What makes this different from the adoption of the Web or CRM is that Social Media is changing so much more than those technologies ever did. This makes it harder to keep up.
Social Media is having a big impact on Customer Service as evidenced by all the issues our teams are handling each week for Avaya. We see between 1000-2500 mentions of Avaya each week alone and engage with dozens of customers in any given week. This is very different than even 6 months ago.
Product companies will have a strong social approach to product development using Social Media. Pure Service companies will work with virtual teams to source and deliver work from far flung parts of the world. Finance teams will be getting tweets on billing and finance issues directly from the socialsphere rather than from the traditional channels. Recruiters are clearly already using Social Networks like LinkedIn as their first source of candidates. HR is checking the background of those new hires on Social Networks looking to see what this new hire is all about. IT was already on the scene with Web 2.0 technologies when Social Media hit. And Legal has been working and reworking policies on Social to adapt to the changes. And finally, Learning and Development teams will be harnessing social tools internally to train and enable everyone from new hires to sales teams and beyond.
If you think Social Media is just for marketing - think again. Social is impacting and beginning its reinvention of every area within your company. The question is - are you helping do your share to educate them?
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