Social Business…the next big thing?

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Posted on April 6, 2010 by Nigel Posted as Past Post Archives

The world is still  a buzz about all things digital, not the conference, the perspective that our world is fast becoming digital in all that we do.

Take Social Business, not a main stream phrase yet. Today you hear about Social Marketing,  Social Media, or Social Networking. Form a business perspective they are relate to one thing, how do I reach out and connect with more potential customers. It’s about building the bottom line.

While my focus is business I am not new to this world, I have a whole 9 months under my belt. In that time I have already been named by Network World as one of 12 CIO’s who twitter. I am also ranked #26 out of 50 by Top 50 CIO and IT Leaders in the Social Media

So what does this really mean? and Why do you care?

For me the perspective is future customers.  For each business the focus may be completely unique.  If I am Apple and I have a hot new product called iPad, then social business is about securing more clients now. At least that is how Dell approaches it.  Maybe you are in a food products business like Immaculate Baking who are creating a community for ongoing customer relationship, product development idea’s and more. As I said for each company the why will be unique.

Depending upon your customer (the person not the business) and in general their age group, the younger they are the more viable this medium is today as a valid sales/customer service channel.  These 20-30 somethings today are starting their careers and as they mature in their business roles, they will increasingly bring these tools they grew up with into the way they do business. So for us being ready to participate in future conversations about international trade is our reason for looking at Social Business as a viable channel to start investing in today.

The rule of thumb is that we do business with people we like and trust, not unknown – nameless business entities. So the question is what are you doing to be more personal with your clients and your future clients?

Thanks for listening…

Nigel Nigel (20 Posts)

Information Technology executive that see's technology as a tool, not an end game. Able to take broad view on technology and it's impact to business. Not afraid to push the envelope when it makes sense, does not seek to be bleeding edge for the sake of technology.


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  • http://twitter.com/chrispycrunch Chris Lau

    What’s your experience as CIO in using twitter as a means to….share ideas, share experiences, gain insight, or gain business? I’ve been fortunate to follow CIO’s of startups and as a customer/user of their business. I hope to add that experience to this blog competition.

  • http://www.daemondefense.com Justin

    Very interesting insight Nigel. I think the biggest challenge most people face in social media is number crunchers in large companies who are reacting to decades of traditional advertising where the coolest ads won all the awards but didn’t result in a single additional sale.

    How can you put a value on what you’re contributing to the bottom line when you can’t accurately measure the impact and results?

    That which cannot be measured has no value…(at least to a lot of companies these days)

    Ironically I’m responding to this originally from a social media site disproving my own point to some degree.

  • http://www.itworldcanada.com/blogs/makingitwork/ pedrocardoso

    Welcome to Blogging Idol Nigel! It sounds like you have been laying down your “social networking foundation” in the last 9 months, and now you are wading in on the blogging scene. Will be interested to see what niche you carve out for yourself in the weeks ahead.

    Are you going to be the voice of Social Business? Will you help define and crystalize that elusive value proposition for businesses – maybe you have an easy to follow formula you can leverage this community to help build on…

    Looking forward to your next post! Keep your posts true to your “magnetic blog title” – stay the course and don’t “bury the lead”! Make your point early and support it through your article! Like the way you engage your audience – but be sure they understand where you stand too!

    Blog Away! -pdc

  • Nigel Fortlage

    Chris, Thanks for your comment. I have found twitter to create another unique network for me to “share ideas, share experiences, gain insight, or gain business?”

    As a point of note, I see gaining business as a by product of creating strong network connections that provide value to both parties. It is an evolution of a relationship, not the point of a relationship.

    If you analyze my follows in Twitter you will find I have 4 main category of folks I follow:
    - IT press folks who get business
    - Consultants/Analysts
    - CIO’s
    - Social Media Leaders

    I find these folks a great audience to help give me what I call, “my 360 degree view on IT”.

    I could follow the same bent as many of my CIO peers and see this as evil and block it, but I tend to be more open minded and like to explore and understand how consumer oriented technologies impact business.

  • Nigel Fortlage

    Justin, Glad to hear from you again, it has been a while since we chatted.

    I think the other angle you need to think about which is our story, in that we never formerly spent real $$$ to any significant degree worth measuring on any form of marketing other than word of mouth.

    In our case we only created a formal sales department after 90+ yrs in business because word of mouth sustained the owners desire for growth at that time .

    So yes your right the metrics add real measure, assuming you know what it is you should be measuring, that’s a whole other topic to discuss.

    But looking at past methods or marketing, it is very clear that there are lots of ways to “suggest” (best guess is what I call them) that the ad’s did or didn’t work. Now that is an exact science compared to what it was. At least that is the understanding I get from the folks who I am fortunate enough to interact with in my networks.

    Finally I am very “LUCKY” that I am peer to our CFO, we both co report to our CEO and Exec. VP. Both our CEO and Exec VP get IT and social business, so I have lots of support from the top down. I have had to handle the political fallout in my 22 yrs at my employer where Finance and Operations have each tried to have IT report under them, in each case I have defended why IT should be an equal partner. (again that is another topic on it’s own.)

  • Nigel Fortlage

    PDC – Thanks for the tips…