The Community Engagement Framework – Part 2: Social Business

Yesterday, I kicked off the Fundamentals series with an introduction to social media as part of the Community Engagement Framework. Today, in Part 2, I’ll continue with social business.

Social business can be seen as becoming involved with social media as an organization. It is a process of an organization building social capital by creating valuable relationships.

The elements that make up social business are:

• Goals and Objectives Organizations need to understand and define what they are looking to achieve by using social media.
• Strategy The goals and objectives need to be translated into an approach that will lead to positive business results.
• Organization The strategy devised has to be rolled out within the organization. Teams need to be formed, employees need to be informed and educated, and the operational details need to be figured out.
• Integration The organization’s social business should be aligned with other business activities to establish consistency and complementary results.

The image below illustrates the elements of social business:

By addressing the elements above, organizations prepare themselves effectively for engaging in social media. I’ll write more about social business and the important aspects organizations should consider as we go along. For now, this is the baseline for the framework. Tomorrow, I’ll be discussing social governance but for now, your comments—here or on Twitter—are welcome.

Photo credit: Dominik Eckelt