Social business: how this company defines its new practice

What do you call a company that has engagement built into every level of its staffing? One Delaware marketing agency is using ‘social business’ and is building out a team to focus on those clients with hyper-connected goals.

Trellist Marketing Technology, which has provided strategic consulting to clients since 1995, is adding a new ‘Social Business Practice’ to their list of professional services. The new arm will help clients keep their consumer base engaged, develop a powerful digital presence and reach their company goals online.

Heading up the new department is social media lead Chris Wallace, a Northern Liberties resident and Philadelphia University alumnus.

Learn more about social business and other online marketing trends at our Future of Digital Marketing event on April 8 at SEER Interactive during Philly Tech Week.

To be sure, ‘social business’ is a phrase that has been used before, including by some academics to describe firms that have social impact mission. Here, the phrase seems more focused on customer connectivity.

In that way, social businesses do a lot of things—in fact, Trellist material that a proper social business strategy should involve every branch of a company, from the C-suite to marketing and sales to product development. Each department should have a liaison who specifically attends to their social media strategy, and uses social outlets to push their team’s goals—whatever they may be—forward.

At its core, a social business is a forward-thinking company that wants to understand and connect with their customer base where they live—on the Internet. Trellist breaks down what a healthy social business looks like in this infographic.

Key points:

• Go all in—Every internal team should be thinking about how they can use social media to further their aims.
• Listen—Above all, social channels allow you to listen to your audience. Good content development starts there.
• Appoint a Community Director—they should be as whip-smart as they are ready to cheer others on and make sure things get done.
• Measure engagement—Whatever your KPIs (key performance indicators), follow up social business strategy with reports on how well you reached your goals.