Leading in the New Normal

The impor­tance of social chan­nels in enabling effec­tive inter­nal and exter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion dur­ing the pan­dem­ic means that ‘social trans­for­ma­tion’ is becom­ing an increas­ing­ly sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment of many organ­i­sa­tions’ wider dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion strate­gies. 

Accord­ing to Dami­an Cor­bet, founder of social media ser­vices firm The Social C‑Suite and author of ‘The Social CEO’, this “mini rev­o­lu­tion in how peo­ple engage” has led to “lead­ers final­ly see­ing how impor­tant dig­i­tal and social media are” in ensur­ing a pos­i­tive employ­ee and cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. http://ow.ly/Y7DF30rlOjg

While some are “still push­ing back and feel­ing forced into it”, many more are start­ing to under­stand the “mas­sive advan­tage” of being able to inter­act with stake­hold­ers in this way and realise “there is no going back”, he told an exec­u­tive round­table in late Novem­ber, which was joint­ly host­ed by social media man­age­ment plat­form provider, Hoot­suite, and busi­ness pub­lish­er, Racon­teur.

Mark Abra­mi, a prin­ci­pal con­sul­tant at Hoot­suite, point­ed to the fact that, while con­sumers have want­ed to use dig­i­tal and social media to engage with brands for some time, there has been a “dis­con­nect” due to brands them­selves being over-cau­tious and there­fore stick­ing to what they already know works.

Because the pan­dem­ic has “forced the sit­u­a­tion” though, “there’s now a greater align­ment with what peo­ple want, and we’re final­ly at a point where the the­o­ry is meet­ing the prac­tice”, he said.

The fact that organ­i­sa­tions have “just had to do it” has led to a “reset of behav­iour and per­cep­tion”, believes Mar­garete McGrath, chief dig­i­tal offi­cer for Dell Tech­nolo­gies UK. This reset will, among oth­er things, encour­age the uptake of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies that “dri­ve a bet­ter con­sumer and employ­ee expe­ri­ence” – and “the more immer­sive you can make it the bet­ter”, she said.

More­over, the cur­rent lack of stan­dard blue­print for how to do things any more now means busi­ness­es have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge both them­selves and their assump­tions, a sit­u­a­tion that will inevitably spark inno­va­tion.

As Mr Cor­bet said: “We have to adapt as an evo­lu­tion­ary response and nav­i­gate nov­el­ty as a way of doing busi­ness. That means lead­ers adopt­ing an explorer’s mind set to nav­i­gate this weird new world and embrace change rather than be afraid.”

The importance of purpose and trust

But social media teams also play an impor­tant sup­port­ing role here in lis­ten­ing and gath­er­ing intel­li­gence to help organ­i­sa­tions adapt effec­tive­ly to chang­ing cus­tomer val­ues and ways of trans­act­ing, which includes in many instances tak­ing a more pur­pose-led approach. http://ow.ly/Y7DF30rlOjg

Doing so is impor­tant, indi­cat­ed David Bai­ley, head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for nation­al enabling pro­grammes at the UK’s Nation­al Police Chiefs Coun­cil, because ulti­mate­ly it is about forg­ing a “con­nec­tion with the dig­i­tal cit­i­zen”.

“It’s not just about vis­i­bil­i­ty and there being ‘this per­cent­age of peo­ple who fol­low us’,” he said. “It’s also about build­ing trust rela­tion­ships and under­stand­ing how many peo­ple trust us.”

Mr Cor­bet agreed. “Trust is vital as it goes to the wider remit of how the organ­i­sa­tion and CEO are per­ceived. Accord­ing to the Edel­man Trust Barom­e­ter, CEOs are con­sis­tent­ly seen as more trust­wor­thy arbiters of truth than oth­er lead­ers, and that has to be lever­aged more,” he said.

Anoth­er impor­tant com­po­nent in enabling trust involves build­ing and lever­ag­ing online com­mu­ni­ties, some­thing that will become increas­ing­ly impor­tant over the year ahead.

“How you build, nur­ture and devel­op com­mu­ni­ties online is a big chal­lenge, but we will see the rise of for­mal com­mu­ni­ty builders,” said Ms McGrath. “They may not be the most senior peo­ple in the organ­i­sa­tion but they will be the most con­nect­ed and it’ll be their job to run com­mu­ni­ties online and make them both cre­ative and inter­ac­tive.”

What this all means is that there is “no going back on the new nor­mal”, believes Flavia Brown, cus­tomer suc­cess direc­tor at Racon­teur. As social media has become increas­ing­ly key in help­ing brands devel­op pos­i­tive cus­tomer and employ­ee rela­tion­ships, it has also assumed a pro­gres­sive­ly sig­nif­i­cant role in their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion strate­gies.

For more infor­ma­tion go to Hoot­suit­e’s Social Media Trends 2021 report

In part­ner­ship with Hoot­suite