Social media case study: IBM

Company Profile

American enterprise software and services giant IBM, headquartered in Armonk, New York, is the world’s second most profitable information technology and services employer and the world’s second most valuable global brand. With almost 400,000 employees worldwide, the company employs scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 200 countries.

The Challenge

In 2007, IBM wanted to implement a social media strategy that would create a cultural affinity for social media within the company and enable staff to make use of social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn. According to IBM, the move was a necessary one because it wanted to convey a series of complex messages to diverse audiences, more complex than its marketing team could convey alone. By regarding social media as a responsibility for all employees, the new tools would enable staff to build relationships and identify ways to improve the business, creating efficiencies of scale and encouraging best practices.

The Solution

The company began by using their core marketing staff, who then implemented social media as a job responsibility for all employees.

The company then created small decentralised groups of marketing and non-marketing employees across disciplines, tasked with spreading the benefits of social media to employees and partners.

The marketing team also set the strategy and guidelines, trained and educated IBM employees on new technologies, and governed social media activity across the organisation.

The marketing team also encouraged experimentation with new technologies such as virtual events tied to major IBM functions.

Results

IBM has benefited from £2.5m a year in productivity savings since it implemented its social media strategy in 2007, according to the company.

Adoption of social media among IBM employees increased dramatically, and the company now has more than 80 IBM-branded Twitter handles delivering IBM news and messages.

There are currently more than 500 IBM groups on Facebook encouraging communication among stakeholders.

IBM has also seen substantial savings due to reduced travel and communications costs by shifting the dialogue to virtual, more interactive platforms.

Source: Computing.co.uk