Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Social Media v. Social Business



The evolution of “Social Business” from social media is a hot topic of discussion these days and I’ve dug up info from a few leading authorities on the subject.   

First, Peter Kim, (@peterkim) a Darden MBA and managing director of business transformation at R/GA, Interpublic Group's big digital agency brand, provides an insightful and thorough report on “social business.

In his 30-slide presentation, Peter explains how (1) increasingly powerful devices, (2) better access to bandwidth, and (3) consumerization of IT are helping to usher in a new era of online business beyond eCommerce.   Much of what he has to say operates on the premise that people do business with other people companies, a theory that aligns closely with our own GSB mantra of always keeping the end consumer in mind when developing business strategies. He defines social business as


“[Social business is] social media applied to communications, whether B2B, B2C, or E2E to make money or save money.”    

Michael Brito, author of a popular blog on the subject, Britopian.com, outlines the key points of differentiation between social brands and social business.  (Michael’s full report: “From Social Brand to Social Business.”






 Ethan McCarty, Senior Manager of Digital and Social Strategy at IBM, offers another simple explanation that helps shed light on the difference between social media, a familiar term, and the relatively new concept of social business:

 “Social media is about media and people, which is one dimension of the overall world of business. With social business you start to look at the way people are interacting in digital experiences and apply the insights derived to a wide variety of different business processes.”
A number of companies have already embraced this concept as highlighted in this report by Constellation Research,  Research Summary: Introducing The 43 Use Cases For Social Business (Social Enterprise).




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