Social – or sociable – enterprise?

Catching up with Arjen this morning he mentioned that one of our partners had asked us to talk to them about social enterprise. I was a bit confused. SOMESSO is a platform for discussing social media in corporations; while we believe that corporate adoption of social media is a good thing, we’ll be delighted if we can help companies get to grips with new ways of working and have no aspirations to save the world single-handed.

Eventually I worked out that this partner had picked up on the ‘social enterprise’ phrase – which is becoming something of a buzzword – and got the wrong end of the stick, imagining that a ‘social enterprise’ is one that uses social tools in its day to day operations. Obviously this describes SOMESSO very well. Networked, collaborative, run through a mixture of web-based collaboration and personal contact, active on social media platforms, etc. But not a social enterprise in the accepted sense of the phrase. So it’s clear from our partner’s struggle to find the right phrase that we need more terms to describe businesses that make social tools a core part of their work.

This led me to wonder: what if we were to call users of social tools ‘socialized enterprises’. What sets a socialised enterprise apart from others? Here are some thoughts:

Empowered employees: With cheap and effective social tools in place, it’s much easier to listen and act on ideas generated throughout your enterprise. This will unlock your company’s creativity and help bring forth outstanding ideas that transform your business to the good. This keeps you sustainably on top of competition. Ongoing conversations with clients – and even competitors. Instead of struggling to remain proactive by yourself you become interactive. By opening a channel to listen to your customers’ needs you involve them in development, build trust and collaborate with them on your evolution. Direct savings on marketing. With every year attention turns away from ‘traditional’ channels towards social ones. And great results can abe achieved here at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. But perhaps the biggest difference (and advantage) is that a socialized business – and socialized marketing – only really works if your passion is authentic and your engagement with customers and employees is a genuine dialogue. Opening conversations with employees throughout the business, regardless of hierarchy and power-mongering, and reaping the benefits of widespread empowerment and innovation. Abandoning the losing battle to control your brand image in the social Web and opening conversations with customers, fans, critics and even competitors – and reaping the benefits of knowing what people actually think of you.

These approaches take courage, and in many corporations massive cultural changes are needed before such things can even be contemplated. But in this era of widespread suspicion and criticism of corporations, the power of authenticity cannot be underestimated. Get that right, and you’re building towards a sustainable and – and honest – road to success.