How To Adopt Social Media Into Your Business

   So finally Microsoft decides to change its logo design after 25 years by introducing a dash of color in its  logo redesign. From reports making the rounds, Microsoft is making this change to possibly create a hype around the line of products it will be launching during the month of October, which includes; Window 8 O.S for P.Cs, phone software for mobile devices. Since consumers are increasingly choosing the tablets over laptops, weakening P.C sales and curbing Windows revenue.

The New Logo

Well..... i hope there's an improvement on the Internet explorer that comes with the window 8, because the one on window 7 is as ineffective as Chamakh  in arsenal.

Everything in life is a process, you either watch listen, act and hit the jackpot, or you cut corners and when you fail, start blaming your haters or your people in the village.

The same thing applies to adopting social media into your business, whether you are a small or big organization or even an upcoming musician. Social media adoption does not happen by accident.It is driven by planning, and planning is driven by having the right people in the right positions at the right time. It is very rare that a company or a personality can go all-in on social media without going through a series of stage.

So lets see the stages that are involved in fully turning your business into a fully integrated enterprise:

•  Stage 1:Grassroots

For instance you have this idea of a good or services you can offer and you believe people will be willing to pay for it. But getting the word out there seems to be a difficult task because of funds available to you for advertisement. Then someone pitches you on the idea of creating a social media platform for your business

You write down a plan, just like the way you wrote a plan for your business. This plan might include starting a twitter account, a facebook page or even a blog. This initial planning document should lay out the goals and metrics for success. Take a campaign oriented approach and tie your social media efforts to a larger marketing campaign, preferably something measurable.

 What’s notable in this stage is that efforts are usually driven by your passion, not results, and it can stall out without a connection to solving business problems

• Stage 2: Organized

This next stage is when your business starts to get serious. The experimentation is over and social media has grown beyond the initial shiny object syndrome. Various teams across the company or even you yourself, understand the value of social media and can report on metrics that show the benefit, but their efforts still may be soiled.

Activities like listening and engaging have grown beyond just responding to direct mentions of your company on twitter or responding to comments on your blog. This is the point where you hire a community manager to manage your on-line community. Someone with a sense of humor, who is articulate and equally passionate about social media.

•  Stage 3: Engaged

  For your business to be fully "engaged" a Social media manager  must be at the center of your company. He/she stays connected to you the owner of the company, your marketing and PR department on a full time basis. But if you run an S.M.E you could hire one on a part time basis.

Social listening is an important part of the company’s information gathering about competitors and the industry,because it now influences you business decisions and enables you to develop product ideas, and strategies for your business, that suites your target audience.

In Conclusion 

So now your company is fully integrated, social media reporting now reflects business goals and objectives. It is not just integrated into everything that the company does, but the data and metrics from social media activities are used for business planning purposes.

Now your company has become a true social enterprise !