20:20 Social Approach to Social Business Strategy: A Position Paper2020social.com Gaurav Mishra and Dave Evans Page 1 of 9

The 20:20SocialApproachto SocialBusinessStrategy

September 12, 2009

Gaurav Mishra(gaurav@2020social.com)Dave Evans(dave@2020social.com)This work is licensed undera Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0Unported License.

20:20 Social Approach to Social Business Strategy: A Position Paper2020social.com Gaurav Mishra and Dave Evans Page 2 of 9

Introduction: The Need to Align Marketing and Operations

The emergence of social technologies -- that enable customers to connect and shareexperiences regardless of physical location or prior acquaintance -- is reshaping the ways inwhich businesses take themselves to market.It’s an accepted notion now (at least for almost everyone reading this position paper) that thetraditional top down model of marketing is in trouble. It’s no longer enough for an advertisingagency to come up with a positioning for the brand, and push it out to customers through amix of media channels.The brand is now realized on the Social Web, in conversations between strangers, who thenamplify, quash, or otherwise reshape each other’s opinion on the product or service, oftenbased on first-hand experiences.These two sets of messages play off against each other in the mind of the prospectivecustomer, and increasingly, customers are listening to their peers, instead of marketingmessages.The Social Web exposes any misalignment between implicit or explicit expectations set by theCMO in marketing messages and the actual experience delivered by the organization run bythe COO. It is therefore critical that the CMO and COO be in absolute alignment, so that theorganization (over-)delivers on what the brand has promised, leading to customer delight,loyalty and advocacy.The alignment between Marketing and Operations is a critical, but too often overlooked,element in leveraging the power of the Social Web. The Social Web is seen too often as justanother media channel. It’s not. While a well-conceived presence on Facebook or Twitter isvaluable from the perspective of running targeted ad campaigns or viral conversationalmarketing campaigns, that view is inherently limited.It’s time, we believe, to step up from Social Media Marketing to Social Business Strategy."Social Business Strategy" (social technologies + business strategy) is different from "SocialMedia Marketing" (social media + marketing) in two important ways. First, when you stoplooking at social technologies through the "media" lens, you realize that content andconversation are only the first level in what these technologies enable: collaboration,community and collective intelligence are the other levels. Second, when you stop looking atsocial technologies through the "marketing" lens, you realize that their impact goes beyondmerely reaching out to customers, to connecting customers, partners and employees.In this position paper, we offer a step-by-step systematic approach to aligning Marketing withOperations, and using emerging social technologies for transforming business, instead of merely reaching out to customers with marketing messages, through yet another mediachannel.

20:20 Social Approach to Social Business Strategy: A Position Paper2020social.com Gaurav Mishra and Dave Evans Page 3 of 9

The Experience Ecosystem

At the core of our approach to Social Business Strategy is the idea that conversations aredriven by experiences. If you want to drive positive conversations about your brands, youshould start by creating an experience that is worth talking about.The Experience Ecosystem provides the framework for creating talk-worthy experiences. Itconsists of all the touchpoints between the organization and the customer, includingproducts, services and partners, sales and support channels and interactions, and the valuesfor which the organization and its individual brands stand for.Working within the Experience Ecosystem, the best way to create an experience worth talkingabout is to design it collaboratively, with customers, employees and partners. SocialApplications for ideation, support and expertise-sharing enable such collaboration.A collaboratively designed, talk-worthy Experience Ecosystem often results in the formationof communities of customers, partners, employees and even citizens. Community Platformscatalyze such communities and enable them to connect even more closely, ensuring deeperconnections and even more widespread circulation of positive conversations.