THE SOCIAL EMPLOYEE

How Great Companies Make Social Media Work

McGraw-Hill Education

Contents

CHAPTER 1

The New Normal–Even Change Is Changing

The whole world has gone social.

Well, perhaps that's not entirely true. As far as the human race is concerned,the world has always been social. Humankind, after all, would not have lastedvery long if early societies hadn't adapted a spirit of collaboration, commonpurpose, and shared destiny. We are inescapably and inextricably linkedtogether. We rely on these connections for just about everything, frominteractions as simple as checking in with loved ones to activities as complexand multifaceted as coordinating social revolutions. We can no longer ignore thefact that social media platforms have fundamentally rewired the way we buildrelationships in the digital village.

While going social in itself may be nothing new, the nature of the term keepschanging. Each new interpretation manages to redefine the nature of changeitself. Even change is changing, it would appear, and it continues to change sorapidly that it has become the only constant in a business environment driven byits need to accurately project the present into the future.

Discarding Assumptions

A fundamental assumption of marketing over the last century has been that brandswere not only able to anticipate the changes new technologies and innovationswould bring, but that it was their responsibility to drive those changes. Today,save for a few of the more prescient brands, businesses are still struggling toaccept the idea that social networking platforms can—and do—offer a myriad ofsolutions designed to increase productivity and reduce costs.

The sense of urgency surrounding the role of social media in business continuesto grow. Many brands have come to accept that social media is the way of thefuture, yet most don't know how to take the first step in getting there. Adeluge of books have appeared in the last few years to help guide businessesthrough this transitional period. All of these books were written by some of themost prominent thought leaders in the marketing community. They cite a wealth ofresearch to demonstrate the ways a properly structured social business can notonly bolster a company's bottom line, but also help produce a culture of engagedbrand ambassadors ready to shepherd their brand's identity into the modern age.

This book benefits tremendously from the groundbreaking works of these authors.In the following chapters, we hope to add to the conversation with an in-depthexploration of what social business in practice looks like, and how these modelsaffect employees on an individual level. We accept as fact the idea that socialbusiness is no longer just a good idea—it's the reality of the modern brand. Toput it bluntly, companies risk extinction if they aren't having internaldiscussions about what social business might mean for their organizations aswell as for their employees. The well-documented falls from grace of cherished,long-lived companies like Kodak and Hostess have demonstrated that every brandis vulnerable in the digital age.

The Social Employee: Coming to a Workplace Near You

If the stakes sound high, that's because they are! Businesses that fail to adaptwill lose the race to capture the modern brand's most valuable asset, and thesubject of this book: the social employee.

Many reading this book may be wondering: Why have we chosen to put so muchemphasis on the social employee as an individual? Is it arrogant—perhaps evenidealistic—to think that the contributions of individuals can have so muchcumulative value for businesses, from the smallest start-up to the largestmultinational corporation? Perhaps, but we'd like to think that we're simplyobserving a growing awareness in the marketplace, and putting a name to a veryreal phenomenon.

Our friend and expert analyst Mark Fidelman put it best when he said, "The newworkforce wants, even demands, to work for a social business. If you want tohire the best talent (especially the best young talent) you must demonstratethat you are a social business." The reality that we're seeing today is one inwhich the social employee and the social business is a package deal. Even in ourrelatively flat economy, companies are coming to the realization that today'sworkers expect more out of their employers than just a steady paycheck.

According to the data of recent employee interviews collected by Forbes in anarticle titled "10 Reasons Your Top Talent Will Leave You," the divide betweenemployee and employer is reaching dangerous levels:

* Over 40 percent don't respect their superiors.

* Over 60 percent don't feel their career goals align with their current jobtrajectories.

* Perhaps most telling of all, over 70 percent don't feel appreciated or valuedby their employer.

These statistics don't bode well for employers. High turnover rates only consumeprecious time and resources—commodities that no brand can afford to waste in thecurrent economic landscape. Of course, time and resources aren't even thegreatest commodities at stake—the employee is. Companies that fail to activatetheir employees in the social era don't just risk losing their workers, theyrisk losing their best workers.

With this in mind, activating employees around a brand is not just a matter ofemployee retention, but rather a matter of unlocking an employee's hiddentalents. Social business models do much more than improve culture within abrand; they bring the many and varied employee skill sets and areas of expertiseto the forefront—traits essential for driving both disruptive innovation andproductivity.

This kind of thinking in the social era must comprise the DNA of a brand'sfundamental principles. As contradictory as it may sound, a brand must first setits sights internally in order to build trust in the marketplace and ultimatelybolster its bottom line. According to Jennifer Aaker, General Atlantic professorof marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business and coauthor of TheDragonfly Effect, "You're finding stronger brands are built inside out where thebrand inside is so powerful, and then eventually that is disseminated tocustomers such that when customers hear about some brand action, it's easier totrust that brand."

We call this process employee branding. The more faith a brand puts in itsemployees, the more willing those employees are to represent their brands inpublic spaces and drive profits. We asked our friend David Aaker, professoremeritus at UC Berkeley and vice chairman at Prophet, what the term employeebranding meant to him.

Employee branding means getting your employees to know what the brand stands forand cares about. One test is to pose these two questions to a sample ofemployees: (1) What does your brand stand for? and (2) Do you care? If theanswers are not forthcoming, you have little chance of brand building, creatingon-brand programs, and avoiding inconsistencies in customer touch points.

As social media continues to grow in complexity, no public space is moreimportant than the digital frontier. The social employee can offer a window intoa brand's soul, driving a brand's reputation to new heights through richengagement and authentic representation. Throughout the following chapters, wewill explore what this new kind of employee looks like, the conditions in whichthey expect to work, and the need for strong leadership to define and build aculture that enables these employees to not simply succeed, but to thrive. Butin order to get there, we must first take a closer look at the current businessclimate in which we find ourselves.

The Paradox of Change

For brands that haven't quite put the pieces of the social jigsaw puzzletogether, the unknowns inherent in change seem to be lurking around everycorner, waiting to spring out and render those brands' best laid plans entirelyobsolete. In a 2012 blog post, John Hagel, cochairman at the Deloitte Center forEdge Innovation, acknowledges the sometimes bewildering nature of change, butpoints out that even within change, people can define constants to guide themthrough the process. "My advice based on the experience that I have accumulatedover the years: decide what isn't going to change, especially in three keydomains: principles, purpose, and people."

We find no small coincidence in the fact that these three domains also accountfor the most essential pillars for success in social business. Hagel believesthese traits fuel "the passion of the explorer," acting as a north star, so tospeak, as a person sets sail for unknown destinations. It's not difficult to seehow Hagel's concepts of change can be applied to modern branding practices. Aswe explored the experiences of social employees at several leading brands, thesethemes cropped up continually. We believe they mark the essential differencebetween playing at social business and actually being a social business.

Hagel also stresses that, when a person sets sail under the flag of change, thatperson can't—and shouldn't—know their precise destination. Brands shouldabsolutely establish the working conditions for their social journeys, but theyshould plan to be surprised by a series of new discoveries along the way. ToHagel, explorers have "a clear and unwavering commitment to a domain of actionthat defines the arena [they] intend to play and grow in. That domain willundoubtedly evolve rapidly, often experiencing disruptive change, and theboundaries of the domain are likely to change over time." Applying this idea tosocial business, we can interpret the "arena" Hagel describes as one that arisesout of a brand's mission, vision, and values—elements that must be championed byevery employee in a company, from the C-Suite down to the summer intern.

It's clear that the journey toward building a business full of engaged,considerate employees cannot be made overnight. We can't know where exactly thisjourney will take us, but we can expect to be profoundly changed throughout theprocess. We asked our friend, social media guru Simon Mainwaring, how brands canexpect to plot their course on the social journey:

There is no map to follow or destination to seek other than the one companiesset for themselves. They must be their own compass in a fast changingmarketplace or leave themselves open to feeling overwhelmed or simplybroadcasting their schizophrenia. So brands must chart a course based on theirpurpose, core values, and vision for what they will offer the world and bringthat to life consistently across new media, channels, and marketing.

The course toward social business may not always be a clear one, but it willshape every aspect of business operations in the coming decades. As MarkFidelman explains: "The skills needed to succeed today are not being taught inthe workplace, high schools, or colleges, as they were in previous ages.Instead, they are learned through experimentation, which yields both bigmistakes and stunning successes."

Whether in success or failure, the consumer world is watching. The experiencesconsumers have are ultimately what will justify a brand's existence. The way abrand presents itself to the public reflects the way it takes care of itselfinternally. The social brand takes this philosophy to heart and understands thatthe best way to present a unified front is through impassioned individualeffort.

So, before we set sail on this great adventure, it's important to understand thenature of the seas on which we'll be traveling. How exactly are brandspositioned in this burgeoning social age, what challenges confront them, andwhat preconceptions must they shed before allowing themselves to jump into thefray and champion social employee culture (see Figure 1.1)?

Losing Control: A Brand's Greatest Fear

Throughout history, times of transition have always yielded an unfortunate by-product: fear. This is not to say that all fear is bad—expressing one's concernsis an essential part of doing business—but rather that fear's value is limited.It should inform a brand's decisions moving forward, but it should not dominatethe conversation. Too much fear can prevent us from moving forward at all. Whenthis happens, fear is no longer serving us, but rather we are serving fear. Inan era where even the nature of change itself continues to change, theconsequences of inaction through fear are simply too great.

Brands incapable of understanding the social era or unwilling to adapt to itsdemands will inevitably find that they no longer have any say in determiningtheir own public image. They will slowly come to understand that they have lostcontrol of their brand identities, an essential cornerstone of a successfulbusiness. Worse than the loss itself, though, is the fact that these brandswon't understand how it happened.

In reality, brands lost control—or at least lost sole proprietorship—of theirbrand identities the moment social media platforms became integrated into ourdaily lives. The most innovative brands unafraid of the new social frontierwillingly ceded control of their identities. They saw the writing on the wall:today's brands cocreate their images with their customers because theyunderstand the ways social media has dramatically amplified the customer'svoice. As Dion Hinchcliffe and Peter Kim say in Social Business by Design,"Influence and power are inexorably flowing into everyone's hands now that allindividuals have access to equally powerful tools for self-expression." Userscan leverage social media to describe their brand experiences with theirnetworks—both the good and the bad. And they love to share. A recent (andalready frequently referenced) study by the Nielsen Company, a global leader incutting-edge market research, found that 90 percent of consumers trust theopinions of friends in their network more than they trust any other source.

No matter what, users are going to share their opinions on various brands as anatural extension of their social experience. The question is whether the brandwill make itself available to be a part of these conversations or not. An absentbrand has no chance of defending itself or reconciling an issue with a customerunless it ensures that it has a stable, authentic online presence.

The brand that joins in these conversations and shares in these experiences—whethergood or bad—stands to gain a great deal in public esteem. In fact, thepublic's ultimate verdict on a brand often hinges specifically on how a brandresponds to different social media scenarios. Brands have a choice to either usecustomer feedback constructively or ignore it and let the conversation continuewithout their input. In considering the latter, a brand still learning tonavigate the social realm of the digital bazaar should remember that ignoring aproblem doesn't make it go away, but instead makes it grow even bigger. In thesetypes of situations, brands must be prepared to let their employees act as brandambassadors, reaching out to customers authentically and in a spirit ofgoodwill.

Building a Collaborative Mindset

As Don Tapscott said in his 2012 TED Talk, "To me this is not an informationage. It's an age of networked intelligence." This distinction is important,because the latter aspect of Tapscott's binary encourages organic collaborationand data sharing. This mindset first took hold on the consumer end, with casualusers looking for new ways to connect with their friends. It soon extended tobusiness. Now, many brands are benefitting from practical solutions to oldproblems through the collaboration tools offered by both internal and externalsocial networking platforms.

The implications for this new approach to information sharing and collaborationaffect every human discipline—from the sciences to the arts—and therefore theyaffect every industry as well. One interesting result of this process is the newblurring of disciplines. Skilled media specialists are finding new ways tocombine science with art, data with design, or business with pleasure—all inexciting, innovative ways. To see this in play, one need look no further thansome of the current buzzwords swarming around today's marketing principles.Current popular thinking stipulates that the best measure of a brand is its"character," or its "authenticity," words once reserved exclusively for thecreative realm. This begs the question: If brands do indeed depend on thesekinds of intangibles, how do they produce the necessary results? Simple: bytelling a story!
(Continues...)Excerpted from THE SOCIAL EMPLOYEE by CHERL BURGESS, MARK BURGESS. Copyright © 2014 Cherl Burgess and Mark Burgess. Excerpted by permission of McGraw-Hill Education.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.