By M. Isi Eromosele

Campaign-centric communities should not be the focus of a social business program. If you find yourself thinking campaign, you are either heading for social-media-based marketing or traditional/digital marketing that is made to look like social media.

The focus of social business, distinct from social media marketing is the application of the Social Web to business in ways that are driven fundamentally through organic versus paid processes and which are intended to benefit your business generally versus selling products specifically.

Organic communities and Social Web activities built around a business are designed to exist independently of direct spending in marketing, with the possible caveat of initial seeding.

They are intended to inform about the business, to connect it to its audience and to encourage collaboration between customers and employees toward the objective of improving the business, sustaining this over time for the purpose of driving superior business results.

This is not to say that there is no value in spend-driven communities. There is potentially significant promotional value that arises out of measured fulfillment against marketing and advertising goals.

However, in addition to these types of marketing campaigns, social business programs are centered on core business objectives and expressed through an appeal to the lifestyles, passion and causes of customers.

These types of programs are specifically put in place to encourage collaborative participation. The collaboration that occurs between customers and between employees is the root focus of social business.

So what is it that drives organic growth and sets the social technology-powered business on the road to being established? It comes back to the initial assertion that organic growth occurs around lifestyles, passions, causes, specific task-based utilities and similar participant-centric activities and interests rather than brand, product or service centered attributes.

The primary challenge is therefore to align or connect the firm or organization to an existing community or to build one around an existing lifestyle, passion or cause that connects to the core business.

Unlike social media marketing, the application of the Social Web to the business itself views the participants as an integral component of the business, rather than simply participants in a campaign. In this context, the naturally occurring (nonpaid) activities of participants are the most valuable. The design of the social business components is powered by the activities that are sustained through participant-driven interest.

The Elements of Social Business

The following are helpful when considering a social business strategy. Taken together and built around a central alignment between Marketing and Operations, these core elements support an organic approach to the application of the Social Web to business.

Customers, Stakeholders, and Employees

Beginning with the conversations occurring on the Social Web, actively listening, responding, facilitating collaboration and retaining customers are among the primary objectives of a successful social business implementation.

Communities and Forums

Built around a cause, lifestyle, passion, or similar attraction, communities and forums encourage social interaction between participants. These community and similar platforms create natural conversational space, controlled by the community participants that can be simultaneously useful to a business or organization.

Social Applications

Social applications are the components of a social business implementation that connect participants within existing communities; think Twitter, Facebook or Orkut to which they belong.

Social applications deliver on a specific need or utility that exists within the community but is not directly provided by it, for example, a Facebook application such as Super Wall or the SocialVibe cause-supportive application delivered through Facebook.

Social applications can be used to express the brand and/or deliver a brand-related value like being able to trigger or direct a contribution to a selected cause without leaving the larger community in which the application is deployed.

Business as a Social Participant

People gather around a shared interest, cause or lifestyle in pursuit of a sense of collective experience. Important to understand is that they are often motivated by an apparent desire to talk about a brand, product or service experience with each other, relating this to what they have in common.

What they have in common may in part be that brand, product or service, but it is generally also something deeper. Apple products and the following they have created are a great example of this: Apple owners are seemingly connected by Apple products, but in a deeper sense they are connected by the ethos of Apple and the smart, independent lifestyle associated with the brand.

A business or organization is itself in many respects a social place. In much the same way, the social business is a place where employees and customers gather together around a common purpose of creating the products and services that define and are often subsequently defined by the brand and its higher purpose.

Employees and customers, together through collaboration, create the experiences they want. Together they are responsible for the business. The conversations that result are a reflection of this shared interest of both customers and employees. The conversations themselves are very likely to be powerful expressions that carry the business or organization forward.

This kind of end result, an expressed passion around a brand, product or service is associated with the higher stages of engagement. Beyond consumption of content, engagement in the form of curation of community interaction, creation of content and collaboration between participants are the activities leading to advocacy.

Brand Outposts

As a result of the growth in social activities on the Web, there is a natural expectation on the part of consumers to find the brands they love in the social sites they frequent. As a matter of course, customers expect this kind of presence and participation.

In addition to the branded community efforts previously described, an alternative (or complementary) approach to connecting a brand or organization with an existing community also exists:

The creation of brand presence, known as a brand outpost within an established social network or online community - a Facebook Business Page, a Twitter presence or a YouTube channel to list just a few.

In creating a brand outpost, in comparison to a self-standing community, there need not be any reason other than the expectation for the brand to be present and a tie back to business objectives that are served by such a presence.

There does, of course, need to be a relevant contribution by the brand, product or service to the community it wishes to join.

This kind of presence in existing social networks is welcomed as it makes sense from the perspective of consumers. Most brands are present in several other places where people spend time: on TV, on the radio, in movies (before the show and integrated into it), in all forms of outdoor advertising and at sports events and more.

Social sites, the new gathering place are no exceptions. Movie studios, soft drink brands, auto manufacturers and more are all building brand outposts on Facebook, Orkut and other social sites because their audience spends significant time on those sites.

Many of the brands and organizations participating in the social web are coincidentally skipping the development of dedicated product microsites and even major TV brand campaigns in favor of a stronger presence in these social sites.

As a part of your overall social business strategy, don’t overlook the obvious: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Delicious…all offer places where your business or organization can add value to the larger social communities that naturally form around these social platforms.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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