LinkedIn Answers: The impact of social media on business
LinkedIn Answers is a feature we introduced half a year ago, to help users leverage the inherent "wisdom of their professional network". In the months to come, we'll feature each week on this blog, the questions that are earning buzz both within LinkedIn Answers as well as outside in the blogosphere. Without further ado, I give you, the question of the week
How do you think social media will impact business in the next five years?
Posted by: Shel Israel, Author of Naked Conversations
All the LinkedIn Answers for Shel's question can be found here. Check out a sampling below:
* Gregg Gallagher (Director, Marketing Practice at Quantum Leaders):
Internally, firms can and are better leveraging their internal resources by providing them the tools and contexts to collaborate more powerfully. This is a particular challenge in larger firms where they may have tremendous knowledge resources that are not being leveraged to the fullest.
Externally, some firms (in both the B-to-B and B-to-C environments) are leveraging social network as an innovation process that helps them bring better products and services to a market interested in buying them.
See other LinkedIn Answers from Gregg
* Kevin Novak (Director, Web Services at Library of Congress):
I think the impact will be huge. I think there is a huge shift in how people seek, access, and interact with information and communities. I think business and government are going to need to change their approaches and interactions.
I also think they how business promote their products, services, and thier companies will continue to change as the web moves from the traditional passive experience to one that is more active and relationship based.
See other LinkedIn Answers from Kevin
...and some questions just lead to other interesting questions:
* Michael Tangeman (Vice-President, Pen Group Communications)
Businesses will take social media increasingly seriously over the next five years, but where they insert it into their communications strategies is the question. Does it fall under the purvey of the marketers? i.e. is it more properly a 'direct marketing' exercise, because an increasing amount of this media will be consumer-generated? Or, because it is 'media' is it still to be tasked to the corporate communications and public relations specialists to be sorted out? And, will this be the case as social media consolidation and merging with other, more traditional platforms continues?
See other LinkedIn Answers from Michael
The genesis for Shel's question is a global survey that he is conducting on behalf of one of his clients. Shel has also asked the same question within the blogosphere and continues to collate answers with each passing day. Here are a couple of blogosphere answers:
Doc Searls (Senior editor, Linux Journal and owner of the Searls Group)
Companies are people and are learning to adapt to a world where everybody is connected, everybody contributes, and everybody is zero distance (or close enough) from everybody else. This is the "flat world" Tom Friedman wrote "The World is Flat" about, and he's right.
(via Global Neighborhoods)
Tom Raftery (Founder, Tom Raftery IT)
- Radical transparency -> Meritocracy
- Improved products and improved customer service
- Increased focus by companies on brand management
- More adoption of open standards by companies leading to greater buy-in from consumers
(via the Social Media blog)
Here is your chance to answer the same question either on LinkedIn Answers, or just leave a comment on this thread.