In some of our more recent articles, we’ve been writing about Social Business ROI and the five stages of Social Media Engagement. And that enterprises typically achieve highly desirable social business outcomes through shared value.
We recently came accross this Infographic that helps illustrate the growth of shared value while deftly highlighting our social enterprise roots.
Of course we know that many businesses were very social long before social businesses were referred to as such; and long before social media/social networks came into existence. The new social paradigm, from a business PoV, is really the way that enterprises have reorganized and restructured their business around the social experience. Sounds simple enough but this is quite a profound change in the way that most enterprises operate with their customers and stakeholders (employees, suppliers, stockholders, etc.). It will be interesting to see how enterprises continue to restructure around the continuing social experience evolution. In the meantime, when you look into the background of what goes into the “social business movement,” the threads reach back a long way, giving social businesses far more momentum and much deeper roots than many people realize.
Haydn Shaughnessy, who helped put this Infographic together, describes the three included social strands, as follows.
#1 Technology — Has been pushing businesses towards greater openness and collaboration for a decade. It has its roots in open source, reaching back to the early 1990s.
#2 Marketing — Since the 1990s, marketers have been trying to go social, first with loyalty programs and now with social media.
#3 And then there’s the pure strand: The Social Enterprise — is reflected in good corporate social responsibility. That reaches back to the old mutuals, organizations that did pretty well through the recession.
The implications are that companies need to think more broadly about their social business strategies, and not just confine themselves to doing social media in the enterprise. In essence, they need to look at what additional rewards employees and customers might be looking for, in return for participation with brands. The added reward we call “shared value,” indicating that in a world where the “share” is king (not “content”), sharing has to have tangible value.
Scroll down to see all the strands of social business as they’re evolved over the past thirty years.
Infographic Source: Global Dawn
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Please share your thoughts about Social Business and/or Shared Value (or any other comments or thoughts you might have) in the comments section below.