Social Media at the Tipping Point: Why CFOs Must Get ‘Social’

Social Media at the Tipping Point:
Why CFOs Must Get ‘Social’
A FSN & Oracle White Paper
“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
Contents
2
Introduction
3
What is Social Media?
4
Leveraging Social Media:
the external perspective
4
Leveraging Social Media:
the internal perspective
5
Where is the ROI
7
The barriers to uptake of Social Media
8
How Oracle responds to the challenge
9
Summary
9
“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
Introduction
3
According to a 2012 McKinsey survey of 1,500 C-levels worldwide, most say that three key trends in digital
business – namely, big data and analytics, digital marketing and social- media tools, and new mobile and
cloud computing platforms - are strategic priorities at their companies. Over a third of these executives
predict that these technologies will boost operating profits by 10 percent over the next three years.1 Yet
which of these emerging technologies should CFOs consider when looking to drive real business value?
Oracle and Financial Executives International (FEI) recently sought to answer that question by asking 90
North American CFOs and senior finance executives to rank the business value of key digital business
trends for their organization.
Figure 1. CFOs rank the value of key trends in digital business
Of these, which do you feel will deliver the
most business value for your organization?
32 (46%)
Mobile technologies - 46%
10 (14%)
23 (33%)
4 (6%)
Cloud computing - 33%
Social media - Social Networking - 6%
Big Data - 14%
Source: FEI-Oracle webcast, August 7, 2012.
Mobile and cloud computing platforms ranked highest in terms of business value, earning 46 percent
and 33 percent of the ranking, respectively, followed by big data with 14 percent. CFOs only allocated
6 percent of their votes to social media and social networking technologies, reflecting the skepticism
many CFOs feel about the value of social business.
Most finance executives point to the difficulty of developing an effective ROI strategy for social business
initiatives, because traditional financial metrics used to evaluate the payback on IT investments aren’t
often applicable to social tools and technologies. Others are concerned with information security,
government regulations on data privacy, and the lack of a coherent management vision, strategy, and
structure around enterprise-wide social initiatives.
Despite these risks, the risk of doing nothing when it comes to social may be greater than many CFOs
believe. Social networking sites now reach 82% of the world’s online population. Increasingly, online
consumers want a social relationship with the brands they are interested in, not only to learn more
about a company’s products and services, but also to voice their opinions and experiences – good
and bad. More than 75% of consumers have posted a negative comment on a social site after a poor
customer experience, and 89% have shifted to another brand after a bad customer experience.2 Ignore
these consumers at your own risk, say social media consultants Barbara Giamanco and Kent Gregoire,
who advised readers of the Harvard Business Review that “while social media selling has risks, sitting
on the sidelines is the greatest risk of all.”3
Recent research points to the fact that C-levels aren’t sitting on
If you were a CFO back in
the sidelines, but rather ramping up their social business activities
in pursuit of new growth. A 2012 study by MIT Sloan and Deloitte
the early 1990s and I came
Consulting asked 3,500 executives from companies in 24 industries
to you and said I wanted to
across 115 countries about the impact of social tools and
implement e-mail, and you
technologies on their businesses. Survey respondents agreed that
asked, “What’s the ROI?
the primary role of social business tools and technologies is to
Could you have gotten an
enable customer service and help their companies innovate for
answer? Social media has
4
competitive advantage. They also predicted that the importance of
become table stakes.”
social software will increase by 250 percent by 2015, as it becomes
Nigel Fenwick, Forrester
integrated with enterprise applications, business processes and
Research Principal Analyst
systems to drive a fundamental social transformation of the
enterprise. This includes changing Marketing, Sales, Service,
HR/Talent Management, and ERP by socially enabling these business processes.
Just as forward-looking companies are already relying on social business strategies to innovate in areas
like customer service and competitive innovations, forward-looking CFOs are using social business
tools such as ‘crowd-sourcing’ to drive knowledge management, collaboration, process improvement,
and innovation both within the finance function and more broadly inside the enterprise. Some use the
“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
consumer sentiment analysis they track on Facebook, Twitter, and other social websites to validate or
tweak product forecasts.
This white paper examines the transformational impact of successful social business initiatives,
both beyond and within the enterprise. It challenges CFOs to take a leadership role in helping the
organization achieve real value from social business by partnering with marketing, sales, and other
organizations to create new ways to measure and monitor investments in social activities. This white
paper also examines the organizational, technological, and human capital requirements CFOs need to
help make social business projects successful, and reviews the solutions Oracle has in place to support
social business efforts.
What is Social
Business?
Social business is defined by the social networking platforms, social media, and social tools and
technologies that allow individuals, companies and other organizations to collaborate and communicate
in communities. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest are prominent examples of external
social platforms, but social business also extends into the enterprise through social collaboration tools
built into enterprise applications, such as Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Fusion Applications.
The growth in the number of users sharing the best known social platforms such as Facebook and
Twitter has been breathtaking. As of December 2011, Facebook claimed 800 million users worldwide,
with 50 percent logging on each day. Twitter reported an average of 460,000 accounts created per day
last fall, with an average of 1 billion tweets per week. As of November 2011, Linkedin had 135 million
members in more than 200 countries, with two new users joining every second.7
User numbers of this scale and size cannot be dismissed as a fad. These technologies are deeply
embedded in people’s lives and intricately intertwined with each other. Today, consumers in the U.S.,
Europe, and Asia spend more than 2 hours daily socializing on their smart phones. Celebrities are
already adept at building their brand utilizing social networks and companies are beginning to follow
suit. As of December 2011, Starbucks had over eight million Facebook “likes” for its Frappuccino, and
Coca-Cola had around 32 million Facebook fans.7
But how do CFOs translate the popularity of social networks into bottom line impact and top line growth?
Leveraging Social
Business:
The External Perspective
Despite the rapid rise of social business up the corporate board agenda, many businesses are only
just beginning to dip a “toe in the water”. While some uses of social media could be characterized as
experimental and opportunistic, other businesses have notched up notable successes on the back of
deliberate, well-defined social media strategies that support brand building, product innovation, and
creative new ways of delivering products and services.
Brand building
Take for example the case of McDonalds and the launch of its McRib - a limited-time-offer sandwich.
According to Rick Wion, the company’s director of social media, the product quickly established a loyal
fan base “raving about the product” in social media.
What happened next was inspirational. McDonalds identified and engaged with three “super” fans: one
had built a Facebook page for McRib; another had written a book chapter about McRib; and a third built
a Google map of McRib locations, so that other people could find the product in their vicinity. McDonalds
invited the three fans to a media launch, connected them with bloggers, and used them to tell the McRib
story through Facebook and Twitter. The combined efforts created a huge ‘buzz’ not only in McDonald’s
target audience, but also had an unexpected ripple effect. According to Wion, “People were asking, what
is all this buzz about? I’ve never had McRib before. I’m going to try it. I’m going to buy it.” The buzz of
the core brought in a brand new audience.
The case of Procter & Gamble provides another compelling example of how social media can be used
to revitalize a ‘tired’ brand as well as generate compelling returns. Sales of Procter & Gamble’s PeptoBismol had been flat or declining for several years when in 2010, P&G marketers noticed that social media
chatter about the pink indigestion reliever was occurring on Saturday and Sunday mornings—presumably
after users had overindulged the night before. So P&G decided to try to lure potential customers before
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“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
their eating and drinking binges by touting the product on Facebook with the upbeat slogan “Celebrate
Life.” The result was an 11 percent market-share gain in the 12 months through fall 2011.9
Crowd-sourcing innovation
Danish toy company Lego Group planned to launch a new product based on a popular video game.
But instead of conceptualizing the product internally via product development,(as it would have done
traditionally), the idea for the toy came from an adult Lego fan who submitted the idea through Lego.
Cuusoo.Com , a website where Lego enthusiasts submit and vote for new ideas. Within 24 hours, the
new idea received 10,000 votes and got the green light for production from Lego management within a
month.2
Delivering new products and services
American Express has started to put social at the forefront of everything that they do from a
communications standpoint. An example of that the “Small Business Saturdays” promotion American
Express launched after the Thanksgiving holiday in 2010, to help promote small businesses during the
holiday season. Card holders were given $25 gift cards to use at their local small business, and small
businesses were offered $100 in Facebook advertising credits. “Small Business Saturday” resulted in
increased sales for the small businesses that took part in the scheme by 27percent and grew over 1
million fans for the SBS Facebook Page.5
“Small Business Saturday” has now become what many would argue is the third-largest sales holiday
after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, in terms of return on investment. As a result, American Express
has seen usage of its card network grow from 10-25 percent during the Small Business Saturdays,
helping generate substantial additional revenue for American Express and increased sales for small
businesses in local communities.
Leveraging Social
Business:
The Internal Perspective
External uses of social media tend to dominate the headlines but enlightened CFOs are discovering
that the internal application of social media also provides rich opportunities for driving innovation,
productivity, and process improvement. Better still it can act as a low risk, low cost entry point into the
world of ‘social’, acting as a ‘proof of concept’ before applying social tools to external interactions.
Because social business strategies rank lower among CFOs than other digital business trends, not
surprising that reported cases of the internal application of social tools in the finance function are
relatively scarce. However, issues of communication, collaboration and sharing best practice transcend
functional boundaries. There are many lessons that can be drawn directly from the early experiences of
pioneers in other disciplines even if the context is different. It may be instructive to consider first what
the context for social media in the finance function might be.
Communication challenges in the finance function
In the transaction-oriented world of finance, the key to enhanced productivity has been the
standardization and automation of core financial processes; hence, the rise in popularity of ERP
systems, shared services, and workflow. For the last two decades, the ability to uneventfully process
transactions at the first attempt has steadily brought down the average cost of a transaction and
increased finance function productivity. Straight-through-processing has been a huge success. But
what happens when a transaction does not ‘conform’? When a dispute arises or an error occurs?
The cost of fixing a wrong transaction is about 80 percent more than one processed correctly at the first
attempt. When cracks appear in automated systems, workers resort to a variety of communications
methods such as email, telephone conversations, ad-hoc meetings, and walking the corridors of a
building to get the information they need to remedy a problem. On average, workers spend 25 percent of
their working day simply looking for information.
The same thing is true of core performance management processes such as financial reporting,
budgeting, planning and forecasting. Know-how, creativity, professional judgment, persuasion,
negotiation and communication are the hallmarks of these processes, but these ‘softer’ attributes are
not well catered to by traditional financial applications.
Adding to that problem is the fact that ‘Generation Y’ workers- the children of the Baby Boomers – are
hitting the workforce right now. They are steeped in the immediacy of the internet, and the speed and
5
“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
variety of communications such as Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and Instant Messaging (IM). They have
instant everything, choose the information they want, and personalize the way that it is delivered. Their
leisure use of the internet bears no resemblance to the clunky and inert ‘user experience’ which is
commonplace in the business world. CFOs may find that attracting and recruiting top talent into the
finance function will be a challenge without modern social tools.
So where is the big pay-off for CFO who seek to deploy social collaboration tools in the finance function?
Although it is early days, the following six areas are ones that hold the most promise based on the early
experiences of first movers.
‘Crowd-sourcing’ ideas and innovation
Strategy development, enhancing business performance, setting accounting policies, process
improvement and delivery of value to internal customers in the organization are all areas that require
creativity and professional judgment. The ability to draw on the skills of the whole finance function is a
worthy prize. Imagine for example, crowd-sourcing ideas for the acceleration of the financial reporting
process, improving margins in underperforming business units, standardizing processes, reducing
inventory and managing risk.
Financial services giant Capital One showed how using just a private Facebook group allowed it to
facilitate twice as much interaction between team members, as well as share articles and insights much
more effectively. And because Facebook is connected to employees’ social lives, the Facebook group
promoted connection throughout the day. For Tom Poole, managing vice president of mobile and social
media at Capital One, the Facebook initiative surpassed his expectations: “When you have an idea you
share it and you’re hearing back an hour later. This is lightening in a bottle”.4
Knowledge Management
According to John Hagel III, co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, success in today’s digital
economy increasingly lies with those who know how to manage the flow of knowledge. “Increasingly,
the ability to succeed hinges on participating in a broader and more diverse range of knowledge flows,
both internally and externally to the enterprise,” noted Hagel in the MIT Sloan/Deloitte study on social
business.4
Finance professionals are highly qualified ‘knowledge workers’ but how much of that know-how is
shared? Using social tools, a CFO can encourage the even distribution of ‘best practice’ and ensure
that accounting policies and interpretation of new accounting standards is rolled out completely and
consistently. Hewlett Packard CEO Lew Platt hit the ‘nail on the head’ when he said, “If only HP knew
what HP knows, we’d be three times more productive.”4
Enhanced Communication and Collaboration
CFOs responsible for managing distributed finance functions operating in different time zones can draw
inspiration from the experience of Craig Herkert, CEO of SUPERVALU a retailer, who used a social tool
-Yammer in this case - to drive up store revenue.4
Like many distributed organizations, Herkert’s management team struggled to get visibility of the
business and share best practice. Communications between store managers were ad-hoc and meetings
only occurred once a year at SUPERVALU’s annual conference. Using Yammer, some store managers
began sharing ideas and photos of successful merchandise displays and specials. An experiment run
during the holiday period demonstrated that that stores taking part in the Yammer initiative had 13
percent more revenue than non-participating stores.
Another example is how social business tool can streamline key processes like reconciliations or the
monthly close process. A general accounting manager or supervisor looking at how account balances
have changed over time can drill down to see which employee recorded the journal entry, then reach out
to that employee through the social networking tools embedded in Oracle Fusion Financials to verify its
accuracy. If the entry happens to be a payables invoice, you could see and contact the supplier direct for
that information, saving time and speeding up the reconciliation and closing processes.
Enterprise Search
Social tools embedded in ERP and other financial systems raises the possibility of greatly improved
access to information and problem resolution when things go wrong. Most social media encourage
users to ‘follow’ an individual or to be ‘followed’. This can be taken a step further in a finance setting by
allowing accounting and finance personnel to follow a piece of metadata – say a product or a customer –
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“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
to retrieve vital information in a less structured way. A finance
user, for example, could receive a constant feed (automatically)
of everything that is said or done about that individual customer
or product within the system and then share it with colleagues,
in the way that other social media allow information to be
distributed to relevant groups.
Deeper Insight
‘Sentiment Analysis’ provides fascinating opportunities for CFOs to
improve the accuracy of business forecasts, by combining opinion
harvested from social media with established approaches to financial
forecasts.
7
“Sixty to seventy percent
of headcount time in most
functions is consumed by
handling exceptions, i.e.
things that get thrown out
of automated processes.”
John Hagel III, Co-chairman,
Deloitte Center for the Edge
It works by sampling external views of a company and its products directly from sentiments expressed
in comments posted in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. A variety of specialized search
engines allow simultaneous searching of multiple sources of social media commentary and use
sophisticated algorithms to convert natural language (“I like this product” or “this product is really not
bad”) into quantified expressions of sentiment.
This kind of analysis of forward-looking information can shed light on whether a newly launched product
is being well received or rejected, and can therefore be used to improve the accuracy of profit forecasts.
It is the beginning of a very interesting journey. The search tools are relatively primitive, the databases
are truly massive, and the algorithms are complex but the possibility of capturing and utilizing sentiment
in business forecasting is potentially very rewarding.
Stakeholder engagement
Social networking can be used to promote better engagement with investors and other interested readers
of financial information. In the social media frenzy that has erupted over the last few years it is no longer
possible for organizations to exert the same level of influence over their brand, for example, to ensure
that communications are accurate and fair. Bulletin boards, investor groups and news sites often contain
erroneous information posted by individuals. Rather than standing idly on the sidelines, CFOs and Investor
Relations professionals can use social media as a tool to engage with investors and other stakeholders to
clear up misunderstandings and provide more information about their company, its products, sustainability
policies, green credentials, community efforts and employees, to give a balanced view.
Where is ROI?
CFOs looking for quantitative ways to measure their social investments may need to rethink how they
evaluate the payoff from those investments, whether it’s through the use of social media to lower call
center and customer service costs, to create brand awareness for a new product, or to interact with
consumers in new ways. Calculating an ROI on Social Business investments (social networks and social
marketing) is a contentious area. One school of thought suggests that it is inappropriate to attribute an
ROI at such an early stage of social media development. After all, many endeavors are experimental.
Objectively, there is no doubt that identifying ‘cause and effect’ is a challenge, but the notion that
businesses should abandon ROI does not sit well with CFOs who tend to view investments in social
media through the lens of traditional investment appraisal techniques. However, not all social media
initiatives lend themselves readily to this kind of scrutiny.
The American Express and Proctor and Gamble examples given earlier illustrate clear-cut returns, but
the McDonalds and Lego cases are perhaps more typical of the social media genre. There is no denying
that they created ‘value’, but what exactly was the return on investment? How does an organization
quantify the return on crowd-sourcing an idea for a new product? And in the case of McDonalds how
much of the revenue attributable to sales of McRib was down to Word-of-Mouth rather than eWord­
of-Mouth? All this suggests that the way CFOs evaluate ROI needs to change to more accurately take
account of the unique characteristics of social business.
One characteristic that is specific to social networks and well illustrated by the McDonalds and Lego
examples, is the significance of commentary, reviews, Facebook “likes” and Twitter “follows”. In
particular, the McDonald’s McRib campaign vividly illustrates the ability of individuals to influence
readers via a social network on a truly massive scale.
“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
Indeed, 20 percent of online consumers are considered “High Sharers”. They are typically younger, more
active on social media sites, use multiple devices to access the Internet, and are prone to create original
online content. High Sharers are often loyal to specific brands and are almost three times more likely to
recommend products/services to others through social media.9
Industry analysts note that 60 percent of people who use social media also post reviews on products and
services.7 Similarly, 55% of buyers turn to social media when they are searching for information before
making a purchase.3 Given those facts, the metrics by which CFOs gauge the success of social media
initiatives need to change. Even trusted measures associated with the internet age (‘page impressions’,
‘clicks’ and ‘unique visitors’) are rendered less potent in the era of social media which frequently combines
the complex interactions of several social networks running in parallel within a single campaign. New
measures of social business will need to recognize community engagement as a central plank of success
and include measures such as “number and percentage of fans or followers”, “number and percentage of
positive customer mentions”, and “number and percentage of Twitter mentions”.
Justifying social media endeavors inside the enterprise can be just as difficult, although there are bright
spots as illustrated by the SUPERVALU experiment mentioned earlier which led to concrete returns.
One helpful feature is that social media is relatively inexpensive. For example, the Capital One case
illustrates that the benefits of sharing knowledge and internally crowd-sourcing ideas and innovation is
available for as little as the price of setting up a Facebook group for the finance function.
But CFOs need to be aware that there are also risks to ROI on the horizon. Although consumers around
the world seem increasingly willing to divulge more personal data to companies through social media
platforms, companies which invest in expanding their access to social media could find themselves
increasingly at odds with governments. Draft European Union Law is expected to come into force by
2015 which will increase consumers’ rights to move their data between vendors or to sell their personal
data to third parties.8 For instance, a consumer could sell the detailed content of their utility bill to an
intermediary, who could then match their usage with a competitor’s lower tariff. Similarly, downloading
medical treatment records could encourage incentives to transfer between health insurers. In a
nutshell, companies could spend a considerable amount of money and effort collecting social data only
to find it sold onto a competitor. Calculating ROI looks set to become even more challenging for CFOs.
The Barriers to
uptake of Social
Business
The main impediments to rolling out a social business initiative, whether inside or outside the
organization, revolve around management disagreement, lack of an agreed vision, competing initiatives,
and the difficulty of demonstrating an ROI. Unlike the other big technology trends such as Big Data and
Analytics, Mobile, and Cloud Computing, technology infrastructure issues appear to be less of a concern.
Because surveys point to significantly different levels of enthusiasm for social media between CEOs,
CFOs and CIOs, it not surprising that many organizations struggle to develop a cogent social business
strategy. The perceived lack of measurable ROI is a drawback, especially in the face of competing
Cloud, Mobile and Big Data projects which can be easier to measure a return. It is also early days for
social business, and unlike today’s Generation Y youth, many business leaders are unfamiliar with the
workings of social networks and are not sufficiently informed to lend direct support to new initiatives.
Culturally, social networking can be viewed as a threat to organizations or managers that are less
open or insecure about sharing information. There are also legal and other risks (libel, defamation
and reputational risk) that can potentially stifle the use of social media in interactions with
employees, customers and suppliers. Some organizations have misguidedly banned social media in
the workplace altogether.
But these barriers to progress are ephemeral. As experience of social media grows the means to
measure ROI will fall into place, senior managers will become more familiar with the benefits and social
media will enter the mainstream of business strategy.
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“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
How Oracle
responds to the
challenge
In broad terms, social networks are hosted in the public Cloud. Consequently, responsibility for
infrastructure, security, and service continuity vests largely with organizations such as Twitter and
Facebook. The key challenge is not raw computing power, as it might be with a Big Data project. Rather,
the overriding need is to effectively intertwine, coordinate, and measure interactions across multiple
social networks and channels of communication.
This is where Social Relationship Management (SRM) comes in. SRM is about building personal and
engaging relationships with prospects, customers, influencers, partners, candidates through multiple
social media channels. To succeed in doing this, you need to use an integrated SRM platform that
enables you to:
• listen, engage, market, and analyze social interactions
• have a complete view of your constituents, including engagements from both traditional and social
channels
• Be integrated with your enterprise business processes and systems
Oracle SRM offers the most complete social profile for employees, consumers, and organizations
by providing aggregated data from enterprise apps and social data, enriched with data from trusted
external data sources. Oracle SRM provides integrated, complete, and enterprise-class solutions to
enable engagement with the entire brand as a single entity across all the social networks and channels.
Oracle’s Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform was designed with the needs of global
campaigns in mind. It provides an integrated platform for Social Marketing, Social Selling and
Commerce, as well as Social Service and ‘Social Intelligence. Social Marketing consolidates publishing
activities by streamlining the management of content, communities and reporting. Social Selling and
Commerce allow the enterprise to identify and target potential influencers and buyers from social data
as well as make personalized recommendations and discount offers. Social Service provides listening
and monitoring tools so that the organization can respond to customer requests. Finally, Social
Intelligence provides user-defined reporting and performance measures.
McDonalds is one of the international companies to benefit from the Oracle SRM platform. It needed
to manage a globally franchised brand and centralize the marketing message while maintaining
communities locally. Using Oracle Vitrue, McDonald’s was able to have a single corporate Facebook
Page while allowing market managers to engage fans in their local markets. Each market is now
able to customize content for their segment based on zip code. Vitrue Tabs includes over 50 modules,
allowing McDonald’s to fully customize the fan experience on their Facebook Page.
Summary
Social networking and social media are transforming the way that businesses go to market. The
phenomenon can be harnessed to accelerate and broaden brand awareness as well as encourage
innovation utilizing leading edge techniques such as crowd-sourcing. Early adopters of the technology,
such as McDonalds, American Express and Procter and Gamble have seen resounding success from
their initiatives which have included product launches in social networks, closer engagement with
customers and the re-vitalization of established brands.
Internally, many organizations have seen ‘quick wins’ from leveraging social tools such as enhanced
collaboration, knowledge sharing and crowd-sourced innovation – often at little cost.
However, despite steadily increasing examples of the successful application of social networking,
CFOs are more skeptical than their colleagues – at least in the short term. Longer term most agree
that social networking will become an essential business tool. However, at this early stage of market
maturity it seems that CFOs have reservations about the ROI of social business initiatives and the lack
of a clear strategy for deployment. Traditional measures of ROI are not up to the job of recognizing the
complexity of social networking interactions or the special characteristics such as ‘commentary’ which
can drastically affect the outcome of a campaign. New measures are required which put ‘community
engagement’ at the heart of performance measures.
There are also cultural issues which are acting as a brake on progress. Unlike the younger generation
in the workforce, senior managers have difficulty visualizing and working with these new tools.
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“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
10
Another challenge is maintaining brand consistency across social business initiatives which cross
multiple networks on a global scale. Fortunately, new tools such as Oracle Vitrue that combine
publishing activities, promote social business and provide important monitoring and reporting capability
are now available to help manage multinational campaigns.
Overall there is considerable optimism surrounding social business. It is firmly on the board agenda
of leading companies and although it is early days, the store of knowledge around how to capitalize
on social tools is growing all of the time. Most compellingly, the rate of social network growth is so
dramatic and pervasive that businesses which fail to get involved risk getting left behind in the race for
both profits and talent.
“Social Media at the Tipping Point” - A FSN & Oracle White Paper
Bibliography
11
Note 1 McKinsey Global Survey, “Minding Your Digital Business,” McKinsey & Company, 2012.
Note 2 RightNow 2011 Customer Experience Impact Report: Getting to the Heart of the Consumer and Brand Relationship.
Note 3 Giamanco, Barbara and Ken Gregoire, “Tweet Me, Friend Me, Make Me Buy,” Harvard Business Review, July-August 2012.
Note 4 MIT Sloan/Deloitte Global Study, “Social Business: What Are Companies Really Doing?” 2012.
Note 5 Oracle/Wall Street Journal CFO Roundtable, June 2012. Note 6 Nagy, Jennifer, “How to Increase the ROI of Social Media Marketing,” Huffington Post.com, July 26, 2012. Note 7 Rosenbaum, David, “Who’s Out There?” CFO.com, February 1, 2012. Note 8 “Shameless Self-Promotion,” The Economist, September 1, 2012. Note 9 Coleman-Lochner, “Social Networking Takes Center Stage at P & G,” BusinessWeek.com, March 29, 2012.
FSN
FSN Publishing Limited is an independent research, news and publishing organization catering for
the needs of the finance function. This white paper is written by Gary Simon, Group Publisher of
FSN and Managing Editor of FSN Newswire. He is a graduate of London University, a Fellow of the
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and a Fellow of the British Computer Society
with more than 27 years experience of implementing management and financial reporting systems.
Formerly a partner in Deloitte for more than 16 years, he has led some of the most complex information
management assignments for global enterprises in the private and public sector.
[email protected],.uk
www.fsn.co.uk
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