Presentation at CPM's social media forum (14th Nov 13)

1. Cultural and organisational barriers
inhibiting the ability of organisations
to embrace social media
Martin Thomas
@crowdsurfing

2. “Digital communications is a
destabilizing force in a bureaucratic
environment. And I am sitting right
in the middle of a bureaucratic
environment.’”
Senior corporate communications director
“We’re not set up for this shit”
UK CEO

3. A cultural phenomenon
Our expectations of all institutions have changed:
o More agile
o More open
o More transparent
o More responsive
o More collaborative
o More engaging

4. Social media dramatises cultural &
operational weaknesses
 Slow
 Hierarchical
 Bureaucratic
 Process oriented
 Distrustful

5. Alternative perspective
Social media as a positive force for
cultural & organisational change
Good social = Good business
Good business = Good social

6. “70% of business professionals believe social
business is an opportunity to change the way
their organisation works ”
MIT Sloan & Deloitte. July 2013
“We believe social media is about changing
our business culture, the ways we work and
the ways we engage with our colleagues
and customers”.
Modern Marketing Manifesto, April 2013

7. Operational & cultural traits of
successful organisations
Trusting
Open
Agile
Informal
Collaborative

8. 1. Trusting
o Bedrock of strong internal culture
o Allows shared responsibility & real time decision making
 The best company rulebook ever written?

9. Trust the people in uniform
"It comes down to culture of an organisation & degree of
trust you have in your frontline officers. You have to allow
them to make mistakes and deal with them as a mistake,
rather than coming down heavily on them.”
"The message has to be: 'We trust you with a baton
and with the right to take away someone's liberty,
I think we can trust you with a Twitter account.”
Gordon Scobbie, police national lead on social media

10. Building a high trust organisation
o Establish freedom within a framework
o Rebalance risk and opportunity
o Smart delegation
o Regard occasional mistakes as an acceptable
price to pay
o Train or replace
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11. 2. Open
o Transparency & honesty non negotiable
“Companies are learning that they can’t count
on information about executive pay, finances,
employee relations or environmental
behaviour remaining private for long. Thanks
to social media everyone with an opinion can
be heard”
PWC CEO Study, Feb 2013

12. No Closed Doors
“faith in big businesses is lower than it’s
ever been because people have stopped
trusting what’s going on behind closed
doors. So, from today, there is no ‘behind
the scenes’ at Asda. Our aim is to be a
truly open, accessible and transparent
business so that we can rebuild trust, and
drive customer loyalty.”
Andy Bond, (former) CEO

13. From litigation to ‘civil dialogue’
“the one thing we’ve changed in
recent years is we have been a lot
more open about engaging in
dialogue with people so long as they
aim to be constructive”
(Steve Easterbrook, UK CEO, McDonalds)

14. Right idea … poor execution
11,466 tweets using the #AskBG hashtag, peaking at 160 tweets in one minute.

15. Operating an open culture
o Embrace scrutiny and criticism
o Grow a thicker skin
o Avoid self delusion of perfection
o Apologise … resolve problem … move on
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16. 3. Agile
o Ability to improvise & operate in close to real
time rather than institutional time
32%
of customers expect brand to respond to
tweet within 30 minutes*
But only
hour*
9%
managed to respond within
Committed to answering Tweeted queries
within 30 minutes during office hours
* The social habit (2012)

17. Speed of response
o Photo hoax went viral on Twitter
o Quickly countered by social-media
team with Twitter statement
o Stock price rose 5% the following
day

18. Creating an agile organisation
o Timeliness more important than perfection
– Embrace Colin Powell’s 40/70 rule
o Strip out the bureaucratic ‘fat’
– Over-engineered approval processes
o Plan and train for spontaneity
18

19. 4. Informal
o Being willing to show a human face & a
personality

20. Think human … not corporate
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21. Authenticity more important than
art direction
“Too much perfection is actually a barrier to
collaboration and co-creation, as it disinvites
participation. To thrive in the world of social
media, leaders need to acquire a mind-set of
openness and imperfection and they must have
the courage to appear raw and unpolished”
(Six social media skills every leader needs: Roland Deiser and Sylvain Newton, McKinsey Quarterly, Feb 13)

22. Embracing informality
o Think human not corporate
o Stop wasting money on polished perfection
o Capture the authentic moment
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23. 5. Collaborative
o Tapping into spirit of collective self expression
o Leveraging people’s willingness to shape service
& product offers
 70% of companies regularly create value through
use of web-based communities
(McKinsey)

24. The Power of Communities
Mutualisation: Collaborating with readers and communities to better
understand, explore or reflect situations, topics, perspectives or experiences

25. Social customer service
“Social agents are 4x more efficient than telephone agents
and result in better NPS ratings”
Ben Kay, Head of Digital, Everything Everywhere
“Each view of a YouTube customer support video equates to
an £80 saving”
Laura Price, Social Media Manager, British Gas
HPs social support community has solved 20% of all
problems, helped 40m customers, equating to a saving of
$50m in support costs.
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26. Community-powered
business model
o People-powered mobile network (O2)
– Members receive points for recruiting new
people, making suggestions and solving
problems, which are converted into discounts
• 20% actively involved
• 25% of members will get ½ cost of calls
returned for contribution to community
– Plans to involve community in pricing and
marketing decisions
o Not reliant on call centres, expensive
marketing and product support

27. Harnessing community power
o Identify and empower your fan-base
o Research/ NPD, customer service and
marketing are not restricted to departments
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28. If you want to succeed as a social
business
Trusting
Open
Agile
Informal
Collaborative

29. Get your culture right … & the
social media will look after itself
@crowdsurfing