• by Mike Spataro , August 17, 2010

Social media has reached mass adoption and is becoming more and more critical to business success. In fact, companies that increase customer satisfaction through online communities are benefiting from increased sales and customer satisfaction levels. This is no surprise given that more than 68% of consumers say a positive referral from a friend on Facebook would make them more likely to buy from or visit a retailer.

If you have already made a business case for social media, you may still be trying to figure out how to maximize the value of your investment and effectively apply social intelligence across your organization. Companies may be doing a good job of listening and measuring online consumer conversations, but if those efforts are not integrated across all departments, the real business value of social intelligence can often times be wasted. The question is, do you have a holistic picture of social media across your company?

To help better understand where you are and how to get to the next level, we have established a social media maturity model to pinpoint where to focus next as you scale your program. Here is a brief overview of the key topics addressed in the maturity model:

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Technology How are you tracking and analyzing social conversations? Are you taking advantage of the best technology and services to capture relevant information about your brand, products, services, competitors and industry to internal groups?

Process Is social media monitoring and analysis integrated across all business operations? Are you turning social data into actionable business insights?

People Is your company committed to improving the "Social IQ" of employees, particularly beyond just the marketing and communications departments?

Governance How are you managing your social media strategy? Is there a unified global steering committee or policy in place to maximize programs, processes and investments?

Metrics Have you set up clearly defined measures of success, key performance indicators (KPIs), operational metrics and/or channel-specific goals? Without this piece of the puzzle it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure the success of your social initiatives.

Once you have answered these tough questions you will have a much better idea of which stage of social intelligence you are in. In other words:

Listening You've taken time to observe, understand what social media is really about and have started to think about how your company can best utilize it.

Learning You're taking listening one step further to hone in on desired intelligence and consumer behaviors. You find out how your customers use social networks to share information, what they're looking for when they interact online, and what they are saying about your company, products and services.

Maturing You fully embrace this new era of social media. You listen, learn and participate, when and where appropriate. Social has become a two-way communication channel for your brand.

Optimized Social media is a natural and integrated part of everyday operations. Being social online is as much a part of the company as using the telephone or sending email: Everyone in the organization is part of the plan.

Getting your business to the "optimized" stage isn't easy. But all the analysis, listening and learning can -- and will -- pay off. As the social media space grows and competition for consumer attention rises, the company that's maturing socially and gleaning actionable business intelligence will ultimately be the one winning more business and satisfying existing customers.