Your CEO doesn’t care about your social business strategy in the same way that you do. As more organizations moved toward implementing social software to engage prospects and customers in 2011, marketing, customer care, and strategy executives have a lot for which to be thankful.
However, chief executives are different. According the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of a 2011 CEO survey by The Conference Board, growth, cost optimization, and innovation are among a CEO’s top priorities, while brand reputation and customer relationships are lower on the list.
The good news is that online communities are the bridge between your CEO’s priorities and operational execution. Social business platforms increase new revenue, account growth, and customer retention by strengthening relationships across the enterprise and throughout the customer lifecycle.
Here are three online community software features that will make your CEO a believer:
1) Vendor Programs
Go beyond on-page advertising to generate significant revenue from your online customer or member community to cover the community’s operational cost and much more.
2) Innovation Tools
Make it easy to gather input from your market, validate ideas, and prioritize product enhancements to create more profitable products and services.
3) Business Intelligence
Help senior management connect customer and employee activity in the online community with high level key performance indicators. Also, track performance over time to make important strategic and tactical adjustments faster.
Social Business Takeaway
Find out what your CEO’s priorities are. As you dive into the trenches to plan, launch, and manage your online customer community, pay special attention to connecting progress and performance to the areas where your CEO is focused. Online community platforms designed for business can impact a variety of core business goals. Make sure you are aligning your community with your top executive’s priorities.
