Are you social?

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about PLM’s efforts to engage in social media, so it’s time for an update. On a somewhat depressing note, not that much has changed. Yet. And that’s the good news: a number of PLM companies are still in the watching phase, trying to determine how they can best engage. They are struggling with many of the same issues, so let’s bring them out and examine them one by one:

Who owns the social media program/campaign/effort/content?

It starts when the organization knows it needs to get its feet wet in Twitter, Facebook or by blogging but can’t decide whose job it is. PR? Marketing? Customer Service? IT? There doesn’t seem to be a consensus yet, as the concept is so new, but PLM companies have spread the job to all of these functions and beyond. It seems to work well when a marketing or PR function within the company decides on the venue(s), sets the tone of the conversations and manages the interactions but then lets experts handle the actual discussions.

One element that does seem to be missing (in a good way): farming social media interaction out to a PR agency. I’m not aware of any PLM company doing this; if you are, why was this the chosen route? Is it working?

Who vets the content?

Very tricky. Getting Legal or HR to approve each tweet would be a logistical nightmare, since part of the point of social media is near-immediate interaction. Trusting employees to be conscious of their corporate roles seems to be the best approach. Several PLM organizations are drafting social computing guidelines so that more employees can interact — they may, after all, be a brand’s best proponents. I’m not sure, by the way, that those disclaimers in some Twitter and Facebook bios that “my opinions are my own and not my employer’s” isolate the corporation in any meaningful way.

What is the content, anyway?

The intention of social networking to engage in an honest way with people interested in you, your brand, your company, product, topic or cause. So the content should, in some way, be related to that common interest. Announcements, bragging, apologies, do-overs, contests, customer success stories, interesting links, retweets of customer/client/partner comments, industry news — the list of content ideas is endless.

BUT. This still is my biggest pet peeve: please, please don’t only post links to your own blog posts, press releases or other self-aggrandizing work. The “social” part of the exercise is about making connections between people and ideas — if the conversation is always only about you, people may tune in just in case there is an important announcement, but I don’t think it can be counted as engagement.

Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company, has said that Ford’s social media strategy is to “humanize the company by connecting consumers with Ford employees and with each other when possible, providing value in the process.” He does this by having a team of people listening to customers to determine what they’re thinking about and how they view Ford and the competition; monitoring (and responding with amazing quickness) to consumer posts; and publishing all sorts of content, from articles to videos to contests. His concept is that content is “free” in the sense that everyone should have access to what Ford chooses to share — and that consumers will better appreciate Ford for being open.

How will we know if it’s working?

I don’t think anyone has this figured out yet. Business literature (in this case a report from Business.com at http://www.business.com/info/social-media-best-practices-q-and-a) discovered that companies are measuring tangibles like web site traffic, intangibles like brand awareness and reputation, and other factors such as lead volume and quality to determine if their social media programs are succeeding. But Twitter isn’t like a trade show; no sales rep can follow me from tweet to tweet to see what I’m really looking at or interested in — or what I ultimately buy. I would argue that, for now, the best we can hope for is click throughs to corporate websites and building brand awareness with cool, cutting-edge content.

Just like there are trade shows at which a company must be represented to be seen as serious about a market, participation in social media is becoming more and more essential. That means that the companies sitting on the sidelines today will be entering the fray soon enough. And then it will get interesting.

What’s your social media strategy? Is it working? Please let us know and we’ll post a round-up sometime in the future.