Social media is a source of meaningful relationships with all stakeholders. The challenge is cutting through the noise to avoid wasting opportunities to strengthen the brand.
By Joshua Ferdinand

Once upon a time, collecting thousands of "friends" and "likes" was enough for a business to consider its social media strategy a success. Though these statistics still have meaning, they are not indicative of the level of relationship-building the business is achieving through social media. In a connected world, the deep relationships create the most value.

Social media relationships need to be authentic and informative in order to produce a satisfying return on the investments made in maintaining and analyzing social media. Just like a business would not waste valuable resources to produce low-quality customer services, it should not waste opportunities to hold quality conversations with its online community. These conversations are a source of information for improving products and services and for innovative ideas, and can help a business excel competitively.

Connecting in a Meaningful Way
It is easy to think of social media in terms of technology and forget the importance of cultivating the social side of social media. “Social” implies interacting with others and creating networks of people who produce value. Networking involves behaviours, so promoting the kind of behaviours that produce business value is the goal. That is the core of what is meant by meaningful social media connections.

There are social scientists who focus on social media engagement because social media has significantly altered the way businesses engage customers, suppliers and other businesses. As social media matures, and the competition for “friends” accelerates, facilitating engagement behaviours need to mature also.

The goal is to give customers a voice in the business, and attract innovative suppliers and business associates. Behavioural and cognitive factors influence engagement as well as emotional ones.

Using Social Media as an Inclusion Tool
Engaging people online requires humanizing the brand which is challenging. The key to engagement is to make social media users active participants in the company's decisions and strategies that directly impact stakeholders. The business must make social media about meeting needs of people in a way that creates value, whether talking about consumers, suppliers or B2B customers.

For example, American Express developed the OPEN Forum which connects small business owners and enables business experts to share useful information. It is a place for getting information and sharing ideas, meaning American Express and its business customers benefit. The OPEN Forum deepens online relationships, generates creative ideas and supports business growth.

Engaging customers in business strategies and decision-making is not as fraught with potential negative publicity as some companies fear. Companies have used social media to solicit and glean ideas for new products, packaging designs, environmental sustainability improvements, and so on.

A challenge is being able to engage customers in a way that encourages them to contribute insights, making them feel included. Dell's IdeaStorm is a social media site that encourages anyone with an idea to submit it. People can comment and vote on the ideas. The site also offers “Storm Sessions” which are described as "hyper-focused idea generating sessions centered on a specific topic or theme."

Sharing Stories Through Social Media
Successful relationship building on social media requires many of the same strategies as relationship building in person.

For example, people share stories in their personal lives, creating a bond. Businesses can also share. They can share updates on projects or new products, especially focusing on the ones that were originally customer ideas. It is a way to make people feel included which is a key engagement emotion. Businesses can share employee successes and employee involvement in community projects, using video to reinforce the message and meet the preferences of the younger generations.

The same strategies apply to engaging employees through enterprise social media systems or public ones like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Regularly sharing employee projects, success stories, and examples of products and services being used by customers is engaging and encourages employees and customers, depending on who is accessing the system, to behave in the same positive ways. Some companies use social media contests, like “name the product” or “design the package graphics.”

Through social media, businesses can encourage people to share their stories, and then share those stories on multiple social media sites and the company website. An example is Coca-Cola which encourages people to “share your Coke moments” by submitting pictures and a story, some of which are featured on the Coca-Cola Journey. Any size company can implement this type of engagement strategy.

Managing to Get Intentional Results
Relevant and timely feedback is important, too. There is not much point in maintaining social media systems if the business does not respond to or join in comments and conversations.

It is also important to respond to positive and negative comments, keeping in mind the brand's reputation can be irreparably damaged through careless remarks or responses. It has happened countless times. Despite the news media focusing on the most egregious cases, most people just want their issues addressed in a timely and fair manner.

Creating brand ambassadors in the social media world is an effective way to grow the customer base. Respond to people, and they will respond back with desired behaviours.

Suppliers and business associates are increasingly engaged through social media because research indicates that innovation is frequently inspired by people who are not employees and companies outside their traditional markets.

One of the most connected set of businesses is the supply chain. It includes a vast amount of information because of the variety of businesses like vendors, logistics firms and manufacturers. Developing relationships – with suppliers and between suppliers – through social media implies improving communication. For current suppliers, a company can use social media posts to improve communication by doing things like announcing movement of shipments, but social media is an excellent source for accessing suppliers outside the supply chain. The business can search for suppliers providing services in a particular territory or access thought leaders.

In fact, communicating with thought leaders through social media applies to customers, suppliers and businesses. The core principle is to develop a strategy to proactively manage social media and not rely on random postings. Social media, like most technologies, has matured, and business use of it should also mature.