The importance of defining the value proposition of social media
Getting social media in the door to business leaders is difficult. To them, Social Media is this very nebulous thing. They’ve heard of it. They’re probably on Linked-in. They might be on Facebook. However, many of them don’t understand the value proposition of social media.
Simply put, a value proposition is what makes you better than your competition. Wait. Social media has competition?
Well, in business it certainly does. Social media is competing for a share of the budgetary pie, especially in the current economic environment. If I sell a social media project to a client in 2009, most likely, they got the budget for it by cutting something else. Selling social media through the “everybody else is doing it” factor, just doesn’t cut it. So what, if everyone else is doing it! People want to know how it will specifically help or save/make them money. Clearly defining the value proposition of social media is imperative.
Take for example online support forums. Social media is directly competing with salaries for support technicians and managers, rent, and expenses for phone systems and workstations.
Here is how I’d define the value proposition of online tech support forums
“It is a fact, proven by organizations like Dell and Pitney Bowes, that companies who provide online support forums will save money through reduced support staff headcounts and decreased call center facility overhead by reducing support call volumes. One method to reduce call volume though online support forums is to allow customers to support each other. This new model of support allows organizations to resolve a higher volume of issues by simply scaling up support forum infrastructure instead of the very expensive route of scaling up staff and facilities. Another method of savings, which has the same benefits as the first, can be achieved by allowing users to search through an online archive of solutions, and provide self-service support. This is a feature that phone support systems simply do not offer.“
Do you have any value propositions that you would define for social media?
Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Feb. 19, 2009
Comments
Thanks Jim, glad to see you here.
Showing the “C-Suite” the value of social media can be a struggle. The arguments of customer satisfaction, feedback, and brand perception aren’t always compelling enough to convince business leaders to embrace it. Increased sales or reduced costs are.
Posted by Jeremy Hilton on 02/24/2009 07:58 PM
I like the fact that you zero in on online support forums as your example. They’re actually a form of “social” media that I don’t think are the first thing that comes to mind when a lot of folks talk about social media, but it also seems like a great place to start in terms of defining a value proposition that means something to the real bottom line. I think a lot of folks are trying to get their heads around the business case for blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc, before they look at obvious solutions like the one you’ve illustrated.
Congrats on the new blog. Title still makes me salivate tough.
Posted by Jim Hathaway on 02/23/2009 06:05 PM