2. Social media technologies are changing the
way organizations do business and connect
with stakeholders. However, like all new
technologies, social media also creates
certain business exposures. To maximize
its potential within your organization,
intelligent risk management is essential.
3. The emergence of Enterprise 2.0
As the use of social media rises, a new version of business technology is also
developing: Enterprise 2.0.
Enterprise 2.0 refers to the use of social media, cloud computing, and mobile
technology tools and platforms to create and exchange information and perform
functionality. It allows users to discuss, review, collaborate, entertain and build
communities. Participants can include various stakeholders, such as employees,
customers, third parties and investors.
Social media is a change agent that is transforming the way we do business and
communicate. The paradigm has shifted from:
• Web enablement to collective intelligence
• Hierarchical to egalitarian organizations
• Enterprise to customer brand ownership
• Corporate command and control to corporate influence only
• Information management to business networking
• Small networks of strong ties to large networks of weak ties
• One-to-many communication to many-to-many communication
Mobile technology further expands the possibilities. For instance, the inclusion
of contextual details, such as location, time, preferences, introduces a new frontier
with many untapped opportunities. Accordingly, at their most potent, Enterprise
2.0 technologies rapidly create and disseminate content to a large community while
simultaneously facilitating collaboration.
While it may seem like an opportunity at present, soon social media usage, be it
internal or externally facing, will become commonplace in all organizations. Those
that turn a blind-eye to this paradigm shift will likely be left behind.
It’s no longer a question of whether or not your
organization should consider social media – it’s time to
decide how to capitalize on the undeniable opportunity.
Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media 1
4. Taking the plunge into social media
Social media technologies have been rapidly adopted by the general public and more
recently by organizations. Yet some companies remain reluctant to take the plunge
because they lack a clear strategy or a firm understanding of the risks. Skepticism can
be compounded for those who have experienced negative coverage on public social
media platforms. However, negative comments are typically generated by a small user
segment and are commonplace towards any company. In fact, a social media presence
of your own lets you minimize criticism, clarify facts, share your point of view and
respond to your customer base.
That said, diving into social media without a strategy can be a risky affair. It’s
easy enough to set up a business account on Facebook or implement an internal
microblogging tool such as Yammer, but it’s essential to define objectives and
understand the issues – and the risks – before you begin.
For instance, most enterprises look to social media to:
• Increase productivity and operational efficiency through communication
• Foster creativity, innovation and collaboration
• Enhance customer and stakeholder relationships
A social media presence of your own lets you
minimize criticism, clarify facts, share your point
of view and respond to your customer base.
2 Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media
5. The reach of public platforms
Despite the validity of these goals, it can be difficult to determine which platform to
use for your initiative. There are over 300 public social media platforms, many featuring
mobile enablement and location-based services, and the number is growing. While this
scope may seem daunting, certain clear leaders now attract the bulk of online users.
Acknowledging some overlap in functionality, the major social media platforms fall into
six categories.
Figure 1 – Categorizing the social media space
Entertainment Review & opinion
YouTube, Eos, Epinions, Yelp,
Miniclip.com, Google Answers,
Kongregate, WikiAnswers,
Sims Online Yahoo! Answers
Collaboration
Virtual community Wikipedia,
Facebook, MySpace, Delicious, Digg,
Twitter, SecondLife open source content
Social media
Location based Conversation
services Facebook, LinkedIn,
Augmented reality, WordPress, MySpace,
QR codes, location Twitter
awareness
The major public platforms include the following:
Figure 2 – Public social media platform reach in Canada
Platform Type % reach in Canada
Facebook Social networking 79%
YouTube Video sharing 67%
Blogger Blogging 43%
Twitter Microblogging 13%
LinkedIn Professional networking 9%
Source ComScore MediaMetrix Canada (Nov. 2009)
Among the over 25 million Canadian internet users, almost 20 million already converse
on sites such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. It seems only natural for businesses to
turn to social media platforms to connect with consumers.
Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media 3
6. Can social media mean business?
The most popular social media platforms obviously have substantial reach, but to be employed
effectively, they must support organizational vision at a tactical and strategic level. Here are a
few ways social media can be applied both internally and externally across an organization:
Human Resources Support
• Recruit by identifying suitable external candidates • Reduce costs and increase customer loyalty by
• Highlight internal job opportunities quickly fielding common questions on platforms
• Train and coach employees through videos such as Twitter
and podcasts • Post “how-to” and self-help videos, so customers
• Grow an alumni community can troubleshoot their own issues
• Connect customers and allow them to support
Marketing each other in a moderated environment
• Enhance customer loyalty by engaging in
continuous conversation Innovation and R&D
• Conduct market and competitive analysis by • Invite and leverage customer suggestions,
analyzing user reviews, postings and reactions feedback and ideas in the product and
• Create an internal community to determine service development cycle (e.g. through a
marketing objectives and ensure consistency rewards-based contest)
• Conduct orchestrated marketing campaigns • Involve all employees in the thought process
by complementing traditional marketing with through internal collaboration tools
a social media presence • Involve senior leadership in your social
• Protect organizational reputation and brand media strategy to position the organization
by actively monitoring and influencing social as a thought leader in the field
media posts
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Sales • Communicate existing policies and efforts
• Generate leads and find new business • Engage stakeholders to provide input in order
• Bolster in-store sales with increased access to receive instant feedback on what is sent out
to customer reviews and potentially even • Learn what other companies in your industry
product information on 2D tags are doing
• Unify sales personnel with support and • Enhance your brand by keeping an ongoing CSR
marketing to enable better service thereby social media channel, and mitigate the long-term
generating more profit effects of any crisis
• Provide targeted in-store advertisement and
promotion through mobile platforms
4 Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media
7. Monitoring and analytics
To assess organizational effectiveness in achieving any of these goals through social
media, monitoring and analytics are critical. Additionally, considering there is large
amount of user opinion and data available on social media platforms, how can your
organization make sense of it all and construct meaningful connections? Here is where
social media monitoring and analytics come into play.
Monitoring both detects and gathers relevant information from digital news and user-
generated social media platforms. Analytics is the techniques that turn information
related to your industry, company, products and services into intelligence through
sentiment and relationship analysis. Both involve tracking and assessing user-generated
content on all digital platforms. As a result, analytics play a key role in gathering
useful intelligence, protecting your brand and informing company strategy. Together
monitoring and analytics tools provide: real-time alerts for important keywords,
sentiment analysis (what users are saying – whether it is positive, negative or neutral)
for brand, products and services, mapping of mentions (what is being said about
company initiatives, products and services) and the creation of social graphs.
Depending on your needs, these tools can help you:
• Gauge consumer perceptions of products, brands and services
• Use findings to rethink a brand or product in response to underlying consumer
concerns
• Enhance market research with unfiltered industry and competitor consumer reviews
Escalation control is another key benefit. Distraught customers who are influential
online can – and will spread bad news and reviews quickly via services such as Twitter
and Facebook. Constant monitoring and early engagement is important in limiting
escalation and defines a new frontier in customer relationship management (CRM).
The growing importance lies in cutting through unavoidable noise in
user-generated content, making sense of what is being heard and
putting analytics findings into context. Data mining is a fruitless
effort unless intelligence and insight can be generated and used
to develop an actionable business strategy.
Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media 5
8. Risks and rewards
The risks associated with social media are different for employee and corporate
applications. However all are very real and must be considered.
Personal employee usage
External information sharing by employees, both accidental and intentional, can
compromise vital data, yet external employee usage of social media is difficult to
control. Easy access from smartphones and cell phones makes regulating social
media usage nearly impossible. Such actions may also hinder recruiting, as candidates
increasingly seek firms that understand their needs. A better solution is to advise and
train employees on acceptable use according to a clear internal policy. Employees must
be conscious and wary of what they post, especially when they are representing the
company. Providing tangible examples of both appropriate and inappropriate use is
the key to effective training and education.
Corporate social media presence
The web is a powerful medium. Information can instantly be transmitted to a large
audience, with little to no control over content. Companies must be aware of the
potential impacts of social media engagement. For instance, microblogging tools
such as Twitter may seem ideal for fielding user concerns, but improper handling
of customer issues could lead to unnecessary escalation.
The need for caution is clear, but the advantages of executing a well-planned social
media strategy are substantial. It is a highly cost-effective means of marketing
and promotion. Companies can easily reach out to consumers and stakeholders,
strengthening relationships by engaging them on a more intimate and individual basis.
Also, a presence in the social media space can help you limit the spread of damaging
and inaccurate information, a danger for any company. You can provide correct facts
as well as your organization’s perspective on issues and limit your organization’s legal,
regulatory and privacy risks.
An effective governance model and training for everyone representing the company
through social media are strategically vital starting points for entering the social
media space.
40% of companies ban social media, citing productivity loss
and security as major concerns. The remaining companies have
either left the matter unaddressed or attempted to institute a
policy, often providing inadequate training or awareness.
6 Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media
9. Going to market
Once you have a better idea of social media and its possibilities, the next step is
to chart out a plan for establishing or enhancing your organization’s presence. This
involves some important considerations, including strategy, governance, program
management, technology and change management. To prepare, it is important to
answer the following questions:
1. What is our strategy, and how do we differentiate ourselves from peers and
competitors?
2. What business outcomes are we looking to achieve through social media?
3. What is our governance model?
4. What are our roles and responsibilities, and legal, regulatory and privacy
obligations?
5. What is our implementation plan, and how do we integrate it with other
business initiatives?
6. What cultural factors should we consider?
7. What technology platform is suitable, and where do we host our solution
and relevant data?
8. What processes do we need to manage and operate effectively?
9. What monitoring, measurement and analytics capabilities do we need?
A social media strategy that supports organizational objectives will address each
of these critical issues. This will ultimately position you to both mitigate risk and
seize emerging opportunities.
Figure 3 – An iterative process is needed for effective risk management
in the rapidly changing social media landscape
Collect
information
Assess Analyze &
risks develop
intelligence
Plan &
execute
Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media 7
10. Talk to us about developing a risk intelligent social media
strategy for your organization.
To learn more about how Deloitte’s professionals can help your organization
balance the opportunities and risk of social media, contact your Deloitte risk
management advisor.
Reza Kopaee Valerie Chort
416-601-5938 416-601-6147
rkopaee@deloitte.ca vchort@deloitte.ca
Terry Stuart Richard Lee
416-874-4341 416-874-3248
testuart@deloitte.ca richlee@deloitte.ca
Brent Houlden Jennifer Lee
416-643-8788 416-874-3344
bhoulden@deloitte.ca jenniferlee@deloitte.ca
Terry Hatherell Perry Finklestein
416-643-8434 416-874-3196
thatherell@deloitte.ca pfinklestein@deloitte.ca
Miyo Yamashita Marcel Labelle
416-601-6211 514-393-5472
miyoyamashita@deloitte.ca mlabelle@deloitte.ca
8 Enterprise 2.0 – Harnessing social media
11. Whitepaper prepared by
Deloitte Enterprise Risk Services
Emerging Technology Risk Group
Enterprise 2.0 Kopaee and Saksham Uppal
Reza – Harnessing social media 9
