Social Strategies and Business

Whether your business is just beginning to use social media or has been on a rapid adoption curve implementing a range of social programs, there are likely organizational, operational, program/content, skills and talent challenges that are among some of the factors hindering success.

Binhammer Social Business consulting services draw on 6 years of adoption/integration inside a Fortune 50 company, in addition to extensive knowledge and a network of connections that offer insight into best practices and program delivery.  My consulting work is customized to get through your roadblocks and help further integrate and adopt social efforts across business in a way that makes sense for your business to be a better and stronger business.  Examples of these services include:

• Training and social media expertise assessments to ensure for effective programs and results
• Reviews and audits of current program, policies and procedures with advice and direction on best practices/experiences and measurement
• Scaling social programs with practical implementations that include Social Media Center of Excellence Program Development and strategies to continually succeed inside and outside the business; various options for Executive support and involvement
• Best practices for listening and engagement and Social Media Command Centers
• Practical directions for content and community connectivity.

Social Communications

Social media opens the door to re-thinking your corporate communications and public relations strategies and tactics. New opportunities are a click away. By connecting directly with customers, employees &suppliers, investors and the relevant “communities” to your business, you are in a better place than ever to strengthening your business’ corporate reputation with every stakeholder that matters.  Some new challenges exist also.  Such as:

• The media and third parties you formerly relied upon to “tell your story” are in constant change.  The opportunities, approaches and venues for “media” coverage are tremendous— and that includes new media outlets and third-party storytellers, such as Buzzfeed for example.
• Your story is more important than your messages or your PR announcements.  Telling your story or buttressing your thought leadership position through content and connectivity is a wide open new space, especially if your company wants to be a trusted resource.
• Forget crisis “management” in social media.  If a crisis has broken you need to respond and then move on to repair and restore. Hopefully the response you started with gives you lots of room to move on the latter two.  Altimeter notes that running a social media crisis fire drill is a best practice.  Have you run one?
• How you think and strategically plan executive thought leadership, social media training, and even how you measure and show results is all changing – with opportunities for corporate communicators to lead and demonstrate impact in new ways.

The rules are all changing.  Get in front of them.

Social Media Excellence x Expertise

There is an increasing expectation by Executives that social and digital skills will be deployed across their organizations to improve their businesses and drive stronger customer relationships in the next few years.  McKinsey, IBM’s CEO Study, Marketing Profs, Adobe and many others point to not only this expectation but the digital and social skills gap, both in agencies and companies, to meet these expectations.  Effective social media programs require a broad range of skills and expertise related to technology, branding, creative and production skills, Web metrics and analytics, customer and technical support, as well as strong project management skills across various business units and functions.

The SME² skill and talent level matrix begins with more than 30 skill sets encompassing four important categories for any effective social media program —   content production; project management skills particular to social media; social-specific skills; and social media center of excellence leadership skills. The 30+ skill sets have predefined base, intermediate and strategic levels which give you a head start on identification of skills and levels you expect across your business.   We deliver the data and analytics for your business leadership team to have a clear line of site of the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities to realize social program success.

SME² was in development for more than 6 months as we worked on the talent matrix and I am thrilled to offer this in conjunction with Shel Holtz and Mark Dollins.

Speaking and Presentations

I am a frequent speaker about social business and communications at conferences, such as: LeWeb, PRSA Digital Impact, Useful Corporate Social Media, Brand Science Institute Marketing 2.0, Australian Small Business National Convention, AdTech and more. Also a regular contributor to podcasts, blogs and online videos. Check out some of the presentations here.