Adaptive Enterprise

Social media continues to move towards greater business integration. In a study by Booz Allen and Buddy Media, 38 percent of CEOs label social as a high priority, and 57 percent of companies plan to increase social media spending.

There is a lot that can be said, but here's the bottom line: does it help, or does it hurt? What functions of social integration are really important, and what are just nice to have? Is the time and effort working towards a solid relationship with customers, partners and public? Do the channels truly represent the organization's industry, customer demographics and geography? Will this generate useful analytics, help glean social business intelligence, and measure its customers' true pulse? In short, do you have a social media strategy, and do you have criteria, metrics and key performance indicators to measure if the social media message is relevant, if the time and effort are spent on the right goals, and if the campaigns are contributing towards building company's credibility?

An adaptive enterprise can build many such mechanisms into what could be called an adaptive approach to social media integration. The corporation can then use these built-in antennas to sense and tailor its message, optimize the message frequency, and prioritize the most suitable channels (from choices like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, and any other suitable blogs). The company would then need to ensure that its campaigns are within its budget and the capabilities of its staff. They should also ensure that the platform itself and the quality of the content (form both sides) represent its corporate culture and identity.

It is also important to put a process (including a possible publish and approval process) around the social media efforts and adopt internal guidelines wherever practical. This will ensure efficiencies and message consistency. Automation of redundancies, and artificial intelligence and natural language processing may be considered in the near future, however not at the cost of audience's time and intelligence.