If you haven’t already decided to leverage social media, you probably shouldn’t read this article. I wouldn’t want to hog any more bandwidth detailing the importance of social media and why if you are not on it, you are not anywhere – period. Let’s look at what you should do to continue what you have been doing : Winning at Business with Social Media.

This post is also not about getting you started on social media – frankly that doesn’t take much. You know the top social media sites, and your newest trainee (they are actually the best bet!) can setup your accounts. But then what? The biggest mistake you can possibly make in to create a static presence on social media.

Social media affects every part of your organisation and you need a comprehensive response to it. Ensuring 5 Steps can jump start your ability to leverage social media. Lets look at each step briefly.

1.Listen! : A seemingly simple task, but challenging to implement. It involves monitoring, reading and comprehending the conversations online. There are conversations happening everywhere, and you need to setup mechanisms to monitor the buzz. Beyond this, you of course need to setup the channels of communication so that the stakeholders can directly speak to you. The Kryptonite lock example is cited as a major failure to listen the right cues. The quality of listening is also important – one basic principle is that this has to be non-intrusive.

2.Engage : This is the critical next step which puts the ‘social’ in social media. You need to be able to relate with your online contact. Participation is key. Respond to all queries, comment on as many views and encourage reaction and participation from the contacts. The Skoda Tweet up session is a great example of this – which saw online bloggers, car enthusiasts, active tweeters and social networkers come together in “Tweet up” gathering to discuss about the Skoda Yeti.

3.Align : Any social media initiative will not achieve complete success until the entire organisation is aligned to it. A common misconception is that social media is about marketing alone. In fact each and every function and level can leverage it to the company’s benefit. You will be surprised by the ingenuity with which employees can utilise this medium, given creative freedom. E.g. Black and Decker’s Rob Sharpe uses homemade online video for sales training. However, this will challenge the organisation’s fabric and structure – which can be addressed by the right type of training and policy guidelines. Whether you wish it or not, employees are going to make their presence felt on social media, then its better to have their effort aligned with company goals.

4.Integrate : Social media is a tool and like any other management tool, it would be suboptimal to use it in isolation. Forming a social media crack team and letting them function on their own is like allowing the Forwards play a different formation compared to the Midfielders in soccer … the team is bound to lose. Social media must be integrated with your digital/IT initiative. Ensure that the goals are coordinated with those of search engine optimisation, CRM, content management and other online presence that you already have. The next dimension of integration is with other functions like customer service, vendor management, etc. Dell’s initiative “Dell Go Green” is a good example of integration of social media and its sustainable development function – it is a consumer generated content contest where consumers submit ideas to redesign, reuse of recycle gadgets to make them go green. On the other hand Indian IT companies Infosys and TCS (at the time of going to press) has a limited presence on social media and could have a more integrated effort with it marketing and development teams

5.Measure : This completes the loop on the social media initiative. It is well accepted that “what cannot be measured cannot be improved”. At the same time, measuring effectiveness in this case (as is for marketing and advertising) is an inexact science – and will need to take into account both qualitative and quantitative measures. There are host of social media monitoring tools like – Google and Yahoo alerts, Board reader and tracker, Tweet Beep and search, Social Mention, Seraph and Keota, Radian6, Trackur, Google Analytics, Alexa, Technorati and Netvibes. And these can be used to monitor metrics like Trends in members, topics, discovery of new communities, among others.

I will get into more detail for each of the above steps in subsequent posts.

Today, Social media has done what consumer activists have not managed for over twenty years, or since Ralph Nader came on the scene. It has put the consumer firmly back in the rider’s seat. If Web 1.0 (the internet) revolutionised small business competitiveness – Web 2.0 has revolutionised the customer-supplier relationships. The most important aspect is to transform your business such that it can understand social media and is prepared to take advantage. Because one thing is certain – social media is here to stay. It will, no doubt, evolve and in the next 5-10 years facebook and twitter may continue or will be replaced by some other form – but if you are social media ready, you will continue to win!