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Whatʼs Your Social Media Strategy?
by H. James Wilson, PJ Guinan, Salvatore Parise, and Bruce D. Weinberg
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A global bank executive recently described to us a challenge for our times. It turns out that a customer who normally would qualify for the lowest level of service has an impressive 100,000 followers on Twitter. The bank isnʼt doing much yet with social media and has noformula for adapting it to particular customers, but the executive still wondered whether the customerʼs “influence” might merit special treatment. Itʼs the kind of perplexing question many companies face as they formulate their thinking about social media. To understand how businesses are approaching the challenge, we analyzed strategies and practices at more than 1,100 companies across severalindustries and continents, and conducted in-depth interviews with 70 executives who were leading social media initiatives. Our research revealed four distinct social media strategies, which depend on a companyʼs tolerance for uncertain outcomes and the level of results sought. Understanding Your Current Social media Strategy: A Quiz A companyʼs social media strategy is generally oriented towardone of four types. This quiz can help you identify your dominant approach (the category with the highest total). Then consider whether youʼre using the strategy that best suits your resources and goals, or perhaps diffusing your efforts over multiple approaches when you would be better served by focusing on one.

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The “predictive practitioner.”This approach confines usage to a specific area, such as customer service. It works well for businesses seeking to avoid uncertainty and to deliver results that can be measured with established tools. To increase Cloroxʼs virtual R&D capabilities, the social media team created Clorox Connects—a website that enables brainstorming with customers and suppliers. A typical query posted there: “Weʼreworking on X product idea. What features would you like to see included?” To encourage participation, Clorox uses incentives borrowed from gaming. For example, people who post answers or add rating comments are awarded points. The site features different levels of difficulty, and contributors who demonstrate expertise can advance to problems requiring greater creativity, knowledge, and involvement.The sharpest contributors gain visibility, making participation rewarding and sticky. One early success came after Clorox posted a question about a specific compound for its salad dressings. Five responses quickly came in. The company decided on a solution within a day and brought the problem solver into the product development process.
The “creative experimenter.”

Companies taking thisapproach embrace uncertainty, using small-scale tests to find ways to improve discrete functions and practices. They aim to learn by listening to customers and employees on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Sometimes they use proprietary technologies to conduct internal tests. The IT services giant EMC is a creative experimenter. It pays particular attention to how its 40,000 global employees useinternal social media to locate needed expertise within the company. In an effort to reduce the use of outside contractors, it created a test platform, called EMC/ONE, that helped employees (many of whom were new because of recent acquisitions) network and connect on projects. “We were very clear that in two months we might unplug this and try a completely different approach,” says Len Devanna,the director of social strategy. “This was the reason we were inside the firewall: To be free to make mistakes and learn our lessons before exposing ourselves to the outside.” Within a year EMC/ONE was delivering substantial benefits. For instance, a division that needed to produce a sales video connected with an in-house production group, saving $10,000 as a result. The company estimates that...