How Is Social Media Changing Your Business?

Thursday was a great day for me as I spent some time at the digiday:SOCIAL conference in New York City. I listened to speaker after speaker and panelist after panelist talk about what companies are doing in social media. And during the breaks, I heard from attendees, too. What came through loud and clear is that social media is changing businesses. It’s not some new thing coming in the future. It’s here now and it’s changing the way we think about our businesses.

I was part of a panel discussion moderated by Stephenie Miller on how to measure social media, which is an interesting topic in itself. Think about what that means, if we need to measure social media–it is obviously going mainstream. When social media was breathtakingly new and leading edge, it was exciting just to talk about anyone able to do anything with it. If we need to measure it now, that must mean a difference in the way business sees it. Social media is no longer the next big thing, it is an important tool in the here and now, which businesses must adapt to their own purposes.
I was also lucky to have a 15-minute speaking slot where I discussed how to create a listening organization. Listening to what’s being said about you in social media is no longer optional, and you must distribute the insights gleaned across your whole organization. That way, those parts of your organization can engage in customer conversations when needed, and can take action on what they learn.
But I missed the highlight of the day. I had to race home to attend a College Fair with my daughter and could not attend the award dinner that evening. Later, I was pleased to learn that my company, Converseon, won the SAMMY award for Best Social Media agency. I can’t take much credit for it, but knowing the people I work with that really did the heavy lifting—it’s well-deserved.
Adding up this whole event, I realized that businesses are changing because of social media. They are measuring it, just like the grown-up marketing tactic that it is. They are transforming their organizations to engage and take action on what is said about them, and social media is important enough for someone to create an award for the agency that does it best.
None of these things were happening even a year ago, so if your businesses is behind on using social media, this might be the time to start.