In the past five years alone, business has changed drastically, especially in the way people communicate with each other. Businesses are utilizing a wide variety of tools and software to keep track of sales, keep track of customers, and to broadcast news and information. Personally, I’m still amazed on how the landscape of business has evolved. Five years ago would you have ever thought that channels of communication like business microblogging could exist?
It's no longer about trying to communicate the importance of social media as part of a marketing plan or customer service. It took awhile, but businesses now understand that the internet is not going to go away. People are going to voice their opinions and share their experiences with others via social media.
The challenge we face now is figuring out how to manage enterprise collaboration. Yes, communication is much easier, but with all these different tools, how do you ensure that all this intra-company communication is organized and customer information is kept secure? How do you manage all the information that comes in from customers? What information gets priority? And once you have that information, what do you do about it?
For further reading, Douglas Idugboe talks about other big social media challenges businesses will face in 2011. If you're a business owner or work in upper-level management, have you thought about or addressed any of these issues? What processes, if any, have you implemented to meet these challenges?
Photo Credit: Intersection Consulting
