[Report] Scalable Social Business: How Brands Manage Complex, Distributed Programs, by Jeremiah Owyang and Andrew Jones

Case Studies: Scalable Social Business
How Brands Manage Complex, Distributed Programs
February 7, 2013

By Jeremiah Owyang and Andrew Jones
With Christine Tran
Includes input from 19 ecosystem contributors

Executive Summary
For brands today, the complexity of social business is steadily compounding. For every additional variable — each
account, customer conversation, business unit, location, language, distributor, etc. — social media becomes a
greater challenge. Meanwhile, brands struggle to prepare appropriately and adopt the right technology. This report
includes four case studies that demonstrate how brands are addressing social media proliferation:
• Whole Foods puts local social engagement into the hands of store managers.
• General Motors organizes for social business internally, then supports regions.
• Amway empowers distributors yet maintains brand consistency.
• PUMA scales limited headcount for worldwide engagement.

Methodology Table of Contents
For this report, Altimeter Group conducted qualitative Social Media Proliferation Tests Organizations ................... 1
interviews with both brands and vendors. Our initial Whole Foods Market Lives Up to Its Local Brand Promise:
goal was to investigate how brands use technology to Putting Local Engagement in the Hands of Store Managers 2
address social media proliferation. However, we found General Motors Establishes Strategy and Organization,
many questions remained unaddressed; as a result, Then Empowers Regional Stakeholders to Engage With
we expanded the scope of the case studies. Specifics Customers Globally .......................................................... 4
include: qualitative interviews with 15 technology Amway Invests in Social Media to Improve Brand
vendors and qualitative interviews with four brands. Awareness and Help Distributors Grow Its Business ......... 7
PUMA Scales Limited Headcount for Global Engagement 9
Social Media Management: Trends and Future Evolution .. 11
Conclusion ....................................................................... 12

Social Media Proliferation Tests Organizations
i
Most large companies engage in social media today, yet many find themselves overwhelmed by the number of
conversations taking place without proper resources, training, or tools. In survey data previously published, Altimeter
ii
Group found that brands manage an average of 178 corporate social accounts.
Troublingly, many brands are not even aware of all their social accounts, as stakeholders in different business units,
locations, retail outlets, etc., may create them before guidelines are in place or enforced. Altimeter previously found
that only 16% of brands had a formalized and regularly updated social inventory.iii This exposes companies to risks,
including damage to brand reputation, the release of confidential information, legal or compliance violations, and
identity theft or brand-jacking.iv Companies also face a significant challenge when it comes to measurement, as few
today are able to measure business metrics beyond engagement numbers.v
In the technology realm, social media management systems (SMMS) — software tools that companies deploy to
manage accounts on social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter — have become necessary for many
brands to manage their external social engagement.vi The SMMS industry has evolved quickly, with hundreds of
millions of dollars in venture capital funding and numerous acquisitions. As the market has matured, many vendors
have invested in marketing to improve their value propositions and market positioning.
Nevertheless, we found that brands still lack clarity about to how to address social media proliferation specifically
within their own organization. One challenge is that few detailed SMMS case studies exist, and of those, few include
details beyond technology features. It is not surprising that vendors focus on their products, many of which are
feature-rich and complex all on their own. Yet brands seek to understand the bigger picture: the implications for
their organizational structure, requirements for new policies and processes, how to educate stakeholders, and other
aspects of internal preparation. Technology on its own is insufficient to address the challenge.
The case studies in this document aim to tie these pieces together by showing how brands today manage a complex
social environment and effectively engage with customers. In our report published two years ago, Career Path of the
Corporate Social Strategist,vii Altimeter Group predicted that demands from customers and internal business units
would increase, and that has certainly been the case.viii In order to manage the growing complexity, both internal
preparation and technology are vital.

Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States | © 2013 Altimeter Group | 1

Whole Foods Market Lives Up to Its Local Brand Promise: Putting Local
Engagement in the Hands of Store Managers

Whole Foods Market seeks to increase word of mouth, gain loyal customers, and identify
advocates. With over 640 accounts and over 2,000 team members posting, they also need to
stay coordinated and measure collective results.
Whole Foods Market is one of the largest natural and organic foods chains in the world, with more than 60,000
employees across 345 locations in the US, Canada, and the UK. The company is divided into 12 regions, each with
its own acting head of marketing and the ability to make decisions independently of the other, even to stock different
products. In effect, each store is meant to fit and reflect its local community.
Whole Foods Market sees social media as an important way to build a community outside the four walls of its
stores, stay top of mind and drive traffic back to the corporate website — particularly because it does not advertise
significantly on the national level. With this reliance on word of mouth, Whole Foods Market focuses on overall
engagement, content sharing, and the identification of brand advocates. The ultimate business goals, however, are to
bring more customers into stores and increase loyalty.
The Pain: Organic Social Growth Required a Tool to Manage and Coordinate It
Social media began organically at Whole Foods Market, explains Natanya Anderson, Social
Media and Community Team Lead. “Distributed efforts sprang up at different levels and
locations and without a clear plan in mind,” she says. As stores added their own social media
accounts, Whole Foods Market realized that the complexity of such a distributed ecosystem
would require procedural and organizational changes and new technology to manage it.
In designing governance and workflow, the company needed to keep in mind that most of its
users were not digital marketers but store marketers. Yet there was a lot of trust in employees.
“These are the same people who are talking to customers anyway, so we didn’t need very tight
controls,” says Anderson. As a result, local store managers were entrusted and empowered to
grow their own local social media communities.
Implementation: The Right Tool Would Scale, Facilitate Content Distribution, and
Provide Flexible Reporting
Today, Whole Foods Market uses social media management system (SMMS) Spredfast
to manage complexity and measure results. Setting up the tool was easy, says Anderson,
but “getting the data to the point where you want it, as well as ‘cat-herding,’ is what really
takes a lot of time. Just tracking down account credentials for the hundreds of existing
accounts was a major effort.” Considerable effort went into planning and drawing on
whiteboards.
Whole Foods Market started small, with a pilot group of power users who participated in
a series of trainings and tested the SMMS for six to eight weeks. As rolled the SMMS out
to additional users, Anderson points out the importance of choosing a platform that is
“flexible enough where it doesn’t break as we scale and make changes.” By summer 2013,
Spredfast will have been rolled out to all stores.


The Benefit: Coordination, Content Suggestion and Distribution, and Measurement
Whole Foods Market deployed Spredfast to allow multiple users to work on the same accounts without confusion
about who’s done what or which customers have received a response. The SMMS also helps the company
coordinate content and message distribution. For example, where corporate once provided a weekly suggested-
content list to stores as a Word document, it can now make content available in a content repository. Users at all
levels can also funnel content or messaging to specific stores or regions based on relevance, such as recipes, holiday
ideas, regional sales, or local parties. The governance features within Spredfast ensure that users have access to only
the accounts and data they need, without exposing the company to unnecessary risk.
Just as important as workflow and governance, was making sure Whole Foods Market would benefit from data
collection and insights. This was a particularly important selling point for regional managers, who wanted the ability to
see the health of social channels and to see how well individual campaigns were doing. For example, using aggregate
data, Whole Foods Market demonstrated that its larger communities resulted in more significant engagement. Now,
when the cheese section in a store asks to create an account, for example, Anderson’s response is, “No, we’ve seen
that it’s tough to create enough unique daily content and grow communities around such granular accounts.”

Whole Foods Market, Today and Tomorrow
Today, Whole Foods Market has over 640 official accounts, most of them for local stores, and over 2,000 team
members posting on behalf of the company.
Now that it has its social foundation in place, Whole Foods Market is focusing on new challenges, determining
answers to such questions as “How do we get people to visit the store more because of something they see in social
media?” or “Can we increase frequency of visits to the stores?” It’s still early days, but Anderson says preliminary data
suggests they are affecting not only store visits but also spending.

Whole Foods Market’s corporate
Facebook account sees significant
engagement. This witty post struck a
chord and received 3,545 likes, 903
shares, and 157 comments.

Source: Facebook, Sept. 14, 2012


General Motors Establishes Strategy and Organization, Then Empowers
Regional Stakeholders to Engage With Customers Globally

General Motors International Operations (GMIO) seeks to gain new customers and increase
loyalty while ensuring brand consistency and capturing data. To do so, GMIO established regional
social media hubs in 40 countries and employed tools for monitoring and coordination, while
providing direction, education, and best practices centrally.
GM is a global company, with multiple brands in more than 120 countries around the world. Over 202,000 employees
plus 21,000 dealers work in 158 facilities on six continents.

Source: Twitter, 2013

Because of the complex, distributed nature of the organization, GM divides management into four distinct regions, each
of which operates independently. General Motors International Operations (GMIO) includes countries in Europe, Africa,
the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Australia. Like its counterpart GM North America, GMIO has primary goals in social
media to increase loyalty, gain new customers, and engage fans so that they talk to and about GM brands positively.
The Pain: Fragmented Internal Social Efforts Ran Independently With No Measureable Results
Before GMIO formally organized for social business, efforts were fragmented. Steve Worrall, Manager, Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), Social Media & Digital Marketing at GMIO, says, “In the places within GMIO it did
exist, social business was uncoordinated, driven by different teams in different regions.” For example, PR was in
charge in one place, marketing in another, and in a few cases both, with competing efforts. The company recognized
the need to move from an uncoordinated approach to an integrated social plan, with cross-departmental participation
and coordinated listening, engagement, key performance indicators, and measurement. Its efforts would be based
significantly on what had already been done by GM North America.


Source: General Motors International Operations, 2013

Implementation: GMIO Organizes in Multiple Hub-And-Spoke Models, Then Supports Them With Resources
GMIO set up an organizational infrastructure for social. In the quest to define ownership, the company desired a
customer-centric approach. Rather than have a single department responsible for social business, it established
a central social hub in Shanghai, where GMIO headquarters are located, made up of marketing, communications,
customer care, legal, and other business units.
This central hub meets weekly with regional hubs at the country and brand levels. Each regional hub includes a Social
Media Champion, a senior leader to help ensure success; a Social Media Coordinator, who is responsible for day-to-
day operations; and representatives from marketing, communications, and customer care. GMIO also encouraged
members from legal, HR, product planning, design, and
other groups to join.
This organizational structure helped formalize governance,
workflow, and learning processes.ix Once these
requirements were in place, GMIO officially introduced a
unified SMMS platform to coordinate engagement and a
measurement strategy to benchmark efforts.
GMIO’s North American counterpart had already
implemented SMMS platform Sprinklr, which improved GMIO’s monitoring tool, Social Media Navigator, shows social
monitoring in GMIO countries.
operational efficiency through increased coordination
and faster customer response time. GMIO leveraged that
relationship, buying additional licenses. It then adapted
North American processes, such as how to spot hand-raisers, people who may be interested in one of GMIO’s
cars, and what to do once they’ve been identified. After launching Sprinklr, GMIO then partnered with consultancies
Convergination and PRIME Research to create a standard monthly analytics and reporting suite for all markets.


Results: GMIO Has an Expansive, Yet Localized, Social Footprint
While there were 10 to 15 people responsible for social part-time in December 2011, there are now over 150 people
across GMIO who work on social as part of their job. There are also social media hubs in 40 countries within GMIO
and 113 corporate-approved social assets on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, RenRen, Tencent, Weibo, Youku, and others.
After only half a year of implementation, over 75 people
were using Sprinklr in GMIO, with the plan that 100
would be using it by the end of 2012. GMIO is only
beginning to assess the business impact of its efforts,
now that it has several months of data. At GM North
America, Sprinklr use has resulted in reduced social
support time from 12 hours to 90 minutes, as well as
correlated with more people coming to GM’s defense
in online conversations. Today, GMIO uses Sprinklr in
countries and regions as diverse as Indonesia, Japan,
Egypt, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand,
Vietnam, and the Middle East.



Amway Invests in Social Media to Improve Brand Awareness and Help
Distributors Grow Its Business

Aligning with its relationship-based business model, Amway invests in social media to empower
employees and over 4 million distributors. To ensure consistent brand messaging, Amway relies
on internal social media leadership, as well as technology and consulting.
Founded in 1959, Amway is a direct-selling company with global sales of $12 billion in 2012. Best known for its
health and beauty products, Amway operates in more than 100 countries, with more than 20,000 employees and
over 4 million distributors.
The Need: Amway Seeks to Empower Distributors Yet Maintain Brand Consistency and Compliance
Amway’s social media efforts began with its distributors. As Amway’s primary sellers, its distributors saw an
opportunity to grow their small businesses by cultivating customer relationships through social media. Amway
understood the opportunity and worked to empower all distributors equally. However, it was also imperative to
ensure consistency in the Amway message and to ensure stakeholders understood what they could and couldn’t do.
Empowerment, therefore, had to be tempered by compliance and moderation.
Organization: A Central Hub Coordinates the
Social Functions of Business Units to Support
Independent Distributors
Jim McLain, Manager of Global CRM and Social Media
at Amway, says the Amway social business infrastructure
operates holistically. The company’s Social Media
Business Council (SMBC) provides overarching strategy,
guidelines, insights and best practices, while various
departments, including digital marketing, public relations,
and human resources, handle platform development,
Source: YouTube, 2013 content strategy, implementation, and campaign insights.
Distributors manage their own social media assets while leveraging support from corporate to meet brand guidelines
and legalities.
To coordinate social engagement between distributors worldwide, offer them training, distribute content, and
measure results, Amway required consulting services as well as technology. Its original SMMS vendor, , McLain says,
“was outstanding yet didn’t get us far enough. We needed a greater emphasis on scale and our distributor focus.”
Amway switched to Syncapse, a platform that could support Amway’s hundreds of corporate users, community
managers, and distributors. Unlike many other SMMS vendors, Syncapse has a large consulting branch that provides
services such as strategy development, custom reports and intelligence, tailored training, and technology integration.
Implementation: An Incremental Rollout With Custom Workflow, Training, and Measurement
Following an assessment of the organization’s challenges and success criteria, Syncapse customized its SMMS for
Amway corporate, with specific roles-based administration and permissions, content calendars, workflow, event
logging, data archiving, moderation features, and data visualization. Syncapse then worked closely with Amway
stakeholders to assess the readiness of key markets and determine where to begin rollout to distributors.


The SMMS rollout began with corporate training, and then expanded to distributors. “Early on, we took a ‘crawl,
walk, run’ approach to SMMS. Training for initial global stakeholders across multiple regions, countries, and
languages was a critical first step in global rollout,” says McLain.
The process was collaborative: Syncapse
provided web-based training, and Amway
social media team members joined via
teleconference as part of the onboarding
experience. Syncapse also helped Amway
tailor the training, and administrative
functions where needed, for local markets.
Says McLain, “Once we had some
momentum in a few key markets, the rest
of the rollout was efficient.”
Results: Amway Distributors Are
Empowered to Ensure Brand
Consistency and Provide Valuable Amway’s Social Media Business Council developed social media guidelines that are tailored
to the needs of different regions, such as Australia and New Zealand, shown.
Insight to Corporate
Source: Social Media Guidelines for Amway IBOS of Australia and New Zealand, July 2010
Amway has deployed Syncapse globally,
supporting over 40 regional and brand pages and sharing content that distributors can adapt for their individual social
media efforts. With a standard measurement framework and success criteria in place, Amway also helps coach
distributors on optimizing their performance and engagement.
In 2013, Amway will expand its social program to support all 4 million distributors. Not only will this rollout help
distributors expand their customer reach, it will also provide Amway with significant insights into its global consumers’
behaviors and consumption habits.

Source: “The Amway Art of Social Media Storytelling,” The Amway Insider, September 28, 2012


PUMA Scales Limited Headcount for Global Engagement

PUMA seeks worldwide social engagement with locally targeted messaging. To ensure brand
consistency, PUMA first consolidates and then deploys prioritized efforts.
With products in more than 120 countries and 2011 sales of nearly $4 billion, PUMA is one of the most recognized
sport and lifestyle brands in the world. The company employs more than 11,000 people worldwide and has
headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany; Boston; London; and Hong Kong.
In 2009, when the number of Facebook users hockey-sticked from 150 million to nearly 500 million, PUMA
recognized the need to formalize its presence on the social network. Some PUMA stores and country divisions had
already created accounts, yet efforts were fragmented. Christina Holmes, Global Social Media Manager at PUMA
International, says that it was hard to coordinate efforts and aggregate measurement. Another challenge was that
PUMA had few employees dedicated to social media, yet it has a truly global audience. With large fan bases in
places ranging from South America to Europe to South Korea, PUMA prioritized engagement at a local level.

Source: PUMA Social, 2013

The Need: Rein In and Consolidate Efforts to Maintain Brand Control, Then Re-Expand Reach in a
Coordinated Manner
PUMA began by consolidating efforts into a single official Facebook page. Store managers and country divisions were
reluctant to shut down their pages, but Holmes says, “After educating stakeholders about targeting functionality and
the benefits of leveraging larger audiences, it was agreed that an aggregated approach was more beneficial.”
Only after consolidation and effective oversight did the company begin to create pages for different categories,
such as soccer, running, and others. Each page shares news specific to those sports or categories, focusing on
engagement through lifestyle content rather than sales and product promotion. Twitter is set up similarly, with a
primary global account and category accounts. PUMA also has a single, global YouTube page, as well as newer
accounts for Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest.


Implementation: Grow Engagement With the Right Tools and Data
From the outset, PUMA’s social media priority has been to increase engagement rather than simply grow its
number of fans. In that effort, only a limited number of posts are sent globally; the majority are targeted to distinct
regions and languages.
PUMA first looked to SMMS vendor Wildfire Interactive (now a part of Google), primarily to coordinate and schedule
posts. Later, it would rely on Wildfire to help with moderation of spam and inappropriate content, language translation, and
content targeting, as well as governance across its regional markets. Holmes notes that the regional emphases have had a
clear impact. “The company has seen engagement grow significantly,” she says.
Results: A Small Team Manages Worldwide Engagement; Measurement Is Standardized and Holistic
For every post, PUMA tracks impressions, likes, and shares. It collects this data through
Wildfire, which also delivers the proper analytics to the each hub manager. Managers use
this data to understand what type of content performs best in which regions, what times are
optimal to post, and how else to optimize engagement.
Because the brand does little sales promotion on social channels, measurement beyond
social metrics remains a challenge, as it does for many brands today.x However, PUMA
does occasionally run promotions or link to e-commerce offers, and in those instances
the e-commerce team tracks clickthroughs and purchases via links.
Despite a preliminary need to scale back social media efforts to ensure brand control,
PUMA has managed to grow worldwide engagement. Today PUMA has just under 50
accounts and six employees dedicated to social media full time. While efforts remain
centralized, numerous regional stakeholders, ranging from retail and e-commerce to the
Source: PUMA’s Instagram
company’s sustainability group, contribute ideas and content to PUMA’s global social
profile
media program.


Social Media Management: Trends and Future Evolution

As social media proliferates, companies must manage increasing numbers of conversations and involved
stakeholders. The four case studies covered in this report illustrate the need for an organizational and
technology infrastructure to coordinate efforts, meet complex process requirements, and measure results. (For
recommendations and a checklist on SMMS selection and implementation, see our previous report, A Strategy
for Managing Social Media Proliferation.)
SMMS are instrumental in helping brands meet these demands. Below, we look at four trends that speak to the state
of this space and the broader social business environment.
Trend #1: As social media permeates the enterprise, a variety of business needs must be met.
Organizations have varying goals and infrastructures. Internally, they have distinct business units, too, including
marketing, support, innovation, and compliance. To address these differences, SMMS vendors have developed
varying capabilities, some of them significant. (Altimeter previously defined five use cases for SMMS. For details
and a comparison of SMMS capabilities, see our report, “A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation.” )
For example, Hearsay Social and Actiance serve numerous regulated companies with compliance capabilities that
many other vendors lack.xii Social Dynamx (now a part of Lithium) and Conversocial focus on customer service,
providing support-specific workflow, tracking, and reporting. Vendors like Tigerlily and Fan Appz help brands
manage Facebook campaigns, some with more management and measurement features than others. Vendors have
changed direction too, like Wildfire Interactive, which started with self-serve Facebook applications but extended
its capabilities to broader social management. Consolidation has resulted in fewer key players, and smaller vendors
must differentiate themselves or become stagnate.
Trend #2: Companies fail to deliver a unified brand experience as increasing numbers of stakeholders
get involved.
Diffuse social media efforts complicate the delivery of a consistent, customer-centric experience. Customers and
prospects expect a consistent brand experience, regardless of which business unit they happen to be engaging
with. As a result, brands are forced to include more stakeholders in the process of social engagement. We found
that up to 13 distinct business units may be involved in social media (not even including partners or agencies), each
with different objectives and thoughts on how to achieve them.xiii For the sake of consistency and efficiency, groups
beyond marketing, communications, and support — including R&D, resellers, product groups, and others — must
be brought into the conversation. Some brands are doing this indirectly, emailing subject matter experts that are
otherwise not involved in social engagement for input, while other brands are beginning to involve them directly in the
engagement process via their SMMS.
Trend #3: Acquisitions, including several by incumbent players, forecast continued growth in corporate
social media programs and further consolidation of technologies.
The SMMS landscape has gone through considerable change since the publication of our last report on
the topic.xiv Most notably, Salesforce has acquired Radian6 and Buddy Media, Oracle has acquired Vitrue
and Involver, Adobe has acquired Context Optional, and Google has acquired Wildfire Interactive. In a more
recent sign that social support is gaining attention, Lithium acquired small, support-focused SMMS vendor
Social Dynamx, which had only recently launched. We expect to see additional mergers and acquisitions from
companies like IBM, SAP, and customer-experience software vendors within the next 12 months.


Trend #4: Brands are finding they need internal collaboration features to be baked into SMMS for content
management and increased coordination.
In late 2011, we heard from SMMS vendor Expion, “The biggest complaint when brands and agencies have been
working together has been that collaboration takes place outside of the tool.” That sentiment has been echoed with
greater frequency in the past six months. Another vendor, Spredfast, told us that “the whole ideation happens in a
variety of places, but the dominant players are Excel, Word, and shared Google Docs.”
Brand needs for collaboration center primarily around content creation and management, and several vendors are
introducing new features to address this need. Yet as those needs continue to grow over the next 18 to 24 months,
Salesforce, Adobe, Google, and established vendors with partnerships may be best positioned to offer the type of
integrated offerings large brands advanced in social business will require. Ultimately, as social business becomes
standard the same way e-business did,xv SMMS will be subsumed by larger suites of enterprise software.

Conclusion
Corporate social media is more complex than ever. Customer expectations – and their social platforms of choice –
continue to evolve. Social media management systems can help brands manage engagement, yet with or without
this technology, few brands manage to deliver a consistent customer experience across all channels and at scale.
Until social business reaches maturity within the organization – addressing business goals and involving all the
necessary stakeholders – brands will remain unable to fully address their customers’ expectations.


Ecosystem Input
This report includes input from market influencers, vendors, and end users who were interviewed or briefed by Altimeter Group during the course
of this research. Input into this document does not represent a complete endorsement of the report by the individuals or companies listed below.

Brands (4)
Natanya Anderson, Social Media and Community Team Lead, Whole Foods Market
Christina Holmes, Global Social Media Manager, PUMA (now Social Media Strategist at Genuine Interactive)
Jim McClain, Manager, Global CRM and Social Media, Amway
Kellee Montgomery, Manager, Digital and Social Advertising, General Motors North America
Steve Worrall, Manager, CRM, Loyalty and Social Media, General Motors International Operations

Vendors (15)
Attensity Spredfast
Buddy Media (Salesforce) Sprinklr
Conversocial Syncapse
Engage121 The Targeted Group
Expion Thismoment
Fan Appz Vitrue (Oracle)
Friend2Friend Wildfire (Google)
Hearsay Social

Acknowledgements
With thanks to support from: Susan Etlinger, Charlene Li, and Alan Webber

Endnotes
i
O
f Fortune 500 companies, 73% have Twitter accounts with tweets in the past 30 days, all of the top 10 tweet, 66% are on Facebook, and 62%
use YouTube.
Barnes, Nora Ganim. “Social Media Surge by the 2012 Fortune 500: Increase Use of Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and More.”
(http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/socialmedia/2012fortune500).
The Inc. 500 are even more active on social media: 74% are on Facebook, 73% on LinkedIn, 64% on Twitter, and 45% on YouTube.
Barnes, Nora Ganim. “The 2012 Inc. 500 Social Media Update: Blogging Declines As Newer Tools Rule.” (http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesan
dresearch/2012inc500socialmediaupdate).
ii
O
wyang, Jeremiah. A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation. January 5, 2012. (http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/a-
strategy-for-managing-social-media-proliferation). Figure 2.
iii
S
urvey for Corporate Social Strategists, conducted by Altimeter Group (Spring 2011). Question was “5. Which of the following internal resources
relating to social business does your company have in place?”, “Social Inventory: To centralize awareness of existing assets and resources within
the company.”
iv
F
or more information about social media risk and managing it, see Webber, Alan. Guarding the Social Gates: The Imperative for Social Media Risk
Management. August 9, 2012. (http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/social-media-risk-management).
v
F
or more detail, see Etlinger, Susan. The Social Media ROI Cookbook. July 24, 2012. (http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/the-
social-media-roi-cookbook).
vi
A
t the end of 2011, 64% of companies with over 1,000 employees had adopted an SMMS. See Owyang. Managing Social Media Proliferation.
Figure 5.
vii
O
ne social strategist said that the number of internal demands would increase “from four to five times more requests this year from last.”Owyang,
Jeremiah. Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist. November 10, 2010. (http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports/report-career-
path-of-the-corporate-social-strategist).
viii
W
e found companies averaged 178 corporate social media accounts, with up to 13 business units involved. See Owyang. Managing Social
Media Proliferation.
ix
O
wyang, Jeremiah. Social Business Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare Internally. August 31, 2011. (http://www.altimetergroup.
com/research/reports/social-business-readiness).
x
F
or more detail, see Etlinger. Social Media ROI Cookbook.
xi
Owyang. Managing Social Media Proliferation.
xii
O
f course, a focus or expertise in a certain area or vertical does not preclude vendors from meeting other needs and having clients in other
verticals.
xiii
A
s many as 13 or more types of stakeholders may be involved. See Owyang. Social Business Readiness. Figure 4.1.
xiv
Owyang. Social Business Readiness.
xv
E
lectronic business, commonly referred to as ebusiness or e-business or an internet business may be defined as the application of information
and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.


About Us

Jeremiah Owyang, Altimeter Partner, Digital Strategy Analyst
Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) focuses on social business and disruptive technologies for customer
strategies. Previously, Jeremiah was a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, Director of Corporate Media
Strategy at PodTech Network, and Manager of Global Web Marketing at Hitachi Data Systems, where he
launched its social media program from 2005–2007. He writes the Web Strategy blog (http://www.web-
strategist.com).

Andrew Jones, Senior Researcher
Andrew Jones (@andrewjns) is a Senior Researcher at Altimeter Group, where he focuses on social
business strategy, including how brands can manage social media complexity. He researches how
emerging technology trends impact customer experience, and how brands can leverage disruption to their
advantage. Andrew previously worked in digital marketing, public policy research, and served in the Peace
Corps. He speaks German and Spanish.

Christine Tran, Senior Researcher
Christine Tran (@trantastico) is a Senior Researcher at Altimeter Group, where she researches social
business strategy, and manages the research team and research operations. She has conducted formal
research on brand adoption of social media in Vietnam, interviewing brand managers, entrepreneurs, VCs,
and early adopters. Christine has over 10 years of program management experience, at organizations
ranging from the nonprofit to technology sectors.

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[Report] Scalable Social Business: How Brands Manage Complex, Distributed Programs, by Jeremiah Owyang and Andrew Jones

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[Report] Scalable Social Business: How Brands Manage Complex, Distributed Programs, by Jeremiah Owyang and Andrew Jones