According to a report from the Radicati Group, business users send and receive on average 121 emails a day in 2014, and this is expected to grow to 140 emails a day by 2018. Consumer email traffic, however, is slowing down. Consumers on average are sending and receiving fewer emails and are opting instead for other forms of communication such as social networking sites, instant messaging, Mobile IM, and SMS/text messaging. In the world of communications, one must look at the communication trends and assume that business will ultimately follow the same trends.
I’m seeing that at work already. More often than not, when I need to reach someone on my team I’m not using email but instead am using instant messaging, telephone, text or Twitter. The world of internal/organizational communication has rapidly turned into a hyper-personalized web of tools and channels and one in which email is no longer the best (or only) way to get your information across and keep your employees engaged. According to a survey from MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, the importance of social business is growing and remains high with 73% of respondents saying that it is “somewhat important” or “important” to their business. If you’re not all in on social business, you’re getting left behind and losing ground to the competition.
Still don’t believe it’s important? According to the same report from MIT/Deloitte: In 2014, 63% of survey respondents agree or strongly agree that social has had a positive effect on their company’s business outcomes. Why aren’t you using social?
What Is “Social Business?”
- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are social media
- Instant messaging, wikis, blogs, enterprise collaboration platforms are social software
- Internal and external community platforms are technology-based social networks
- The value that companies derive from these activities is social business value
What Are Some Key Metrics?
- New, registered community members
- People following but not registered with community
- Views of content/pages
- Content created
- Content leveraged (predominantly anecdotal)
Further Reading
- Silencing the static: Engaging employees in an unsettled environment (Deloitte, 2015)
- Moving Beyond Marketing: Generating Social Business Value Across the Enterprise (MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, July 14, 2014)