In an increasingly digital era many organisations face a daunting challenge – how to compete in a socially powered world. When used effectively, social media can provide businesses with a great opportunity to engage with a large audience, build client relationships and drive brand affinity. Whilst many organisations may have been slow to embrace this phenomenon, the pace is definitely accelerating.

One of our recent surveys shows that only 33% of respondents say social business is important to their organisation today – a conclusive demonstration that UK plc are still testing the social media waters. However, 74% of organisations believe that social business will be more important in 2016. This is a more encouraging figure but highlights some organisations still doubt the value it can provide.

When organisations are faced with the task of implementing a social business strategy they can often encounter several barriers to widespread adoption – a key barrier being lack of operational capability.

What are some of the key operational challenges that are being faced today?

  1. Tracking your social media: Understanding your social presence is important, not only from operational standpoint but also from legal and regulatory standpoint. Building a single view of your social activity requires the implementation of the right processes and supporting technology from the outset.
  2. Managing multiple accounts: As organisations expand their social media landscape, especially with the emergence of new platforms, there is an increasing complexity to managing multiple accounts used internally by employees, and externally by third-party agencies.
  3. Keeping record: Content posted on social media sites can be legitimately presented and used in a court of law. It is important that organisations build mechanisms to be able to archive their content and make it easily accessible when needed; this may even include user-generated content.
  4. Multiple layers of approvals: A number of organisations impose various internal approval stages before any content can be shared on a social platform. These approvals are normally perceived as barriers to achieve the desired outcome, but despite of this there is a need to develop a risk based model. The right process can not only reduce the cost of compliance, but can also augment the overall engagement strategy by allowing appropriate and timely activity.
  5. Consistent application of policy: The diverse and dynamic nature of the social media landscape adds complexity to the management of various platforms. Applying a single set of rules to these platforms is not practical and could lead to non-compliance or even failure in some cases.

Key questions to ask within your organisation:

Are you able to fully define your social presence? How many stakeholders have access to your social media accounts? Does your current governance policy support or impede the use of social media?

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.