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Q8-6 What Is an Enterprise Social Network (ESN)?

If you’re unsure how your organization could add value, start by performing a competitive
analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses in your competitors’ use of social media. Look
at what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.
Step 5: Make Personal Connections

The true value of social media can be achieved only when organizations use social media to interact
with customers, employees, and partners in a more personal, humane, relationship-oriented way.
According to recent studies, younger users are more skeptical of organizational messages
and may no longer listen to them. A 2014 CivicScience study found that 58 percent of younger
consumers ages 18 through 29 were more influenced by social media chatter than either TV ads
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or Internet ads. Interestingly, the study also found that only 29 percent of consumers over age
55 thought social media chatter was more influential than TV or Internet advertising. Such skep-
ticism by younger consumers is understandable. They grew up with more sources of information
and feel comfortable using social media. Skepticism of organizational messages gives a competi-
tive advantage to organizations that can make personal connections with users via social media.
Today, people want informed, useful interactions that help them solve particular problems
and satisfy unique needs. They increasingly ignore prepackaged organizational messages that
tout product benefits. This requires you to engage audience members, ask them questions, and
respond to their posts. It also means you must avoid hard-selling products, overwhelming audi-
ence members with content, and contacting them too often.
The sales force in Apple stores is an excellent example of how to make personal connec-
tions. Team members have been trained to act as customer problem-solving consultants and
not as sellers of products. An organization’s use of social media needs to mirror this behavior;
otherwise, social media is nothing more than another channel for classic advertising.

Step 6: Gather and Analyze Data

Finally, when creating a social media strategy, you need to gather the right amount of data neces-
sary to make the most informed decision you can. You can use online analystical tools like Google
Analytics, Facebook Page Insights, Clicky, or KISSmetrics to measure the success metrics you defined
earlier. These tools will show you statistical information such as which tweets get the most attention,
which posts generate the most traffic, and which SM platform generates the most referrals.
Then you can refine your use of social media based on the performance of your success
metrics. Be sure to rely on analysis of hard data, not anecdotes from friends. Also, remember
that the SM landscape is changing rapidly, and today’s winners could be tomorrow’s losers.
MySpace, for example, was the top SM site in late 2007 valued at $65B, but then succumbed to
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Facebook’s success and was sold for $35M in 2011. Users may shift away from current SM
giants like Facebook toward a group of more customized applications like Instagram, Twitter,
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Snapchat, and WhatsApp. Allow your use of social media to be flexible enough to change
with the times.
Senior managers need to see regular progress reports about how SM is affecting the organiza-
tion. They also need to be educated about changes in social media landscape. Watch for SM suc-
cess stories and communicate them with upper management.

Q8-6 What Is an Enterprise Social Network (ESN)?

An enterprise social network (ESN) is a software platform that uses social media to facilitate
cooperative work of people within an organization. Instead of using outward-facing SM platforms
like Facebook and Twitter, it uses specialized enterprise social software designed to be used inside
the organization. These applications may incorporate the same functionality used by traditional