Who has ever sat back and thought what social media may offer in the near future or what other new platforms may exist in the coming future. Well I have, have you? Now consider this, dating websites are known as a totally different platform for many years now where specific websites are designed and developed just for dating purposes. Whereas the social media platform of Facebook was designed for the purpose of users connecting with one another throughout the world. However, Facebook has now announced that they are integrating a dating feature into its social media platform where users from around the world will be able to view compatible matches who are making use of the dating feature. This is a great stepping stone towards future growth of the company as it is something that is outstanding and Facebook is the first to offer this feature compared to other social media platforms, giving Facebook a competitive advantage.

Who would have thought that social media would be used for business purposes in reaching a company’s goals and objectives? As social media started to become popular around 2005, people from around the world had a platform where they could share life events with one another. As various platforms came into existence such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, communication between individuals increased and it became a thing to do with much more ease. During this time, as social media was still developing in today’s modern world, organizations saw an opportunity to connect with its consumers and create brand awareness. Considering Facebook, if you recall, there was a point in time where organizations would share posts in regards to advertising their business just a normal Facebook user. Social media metrics were developed not too long ago by social media platforms as it gave benefits to both the users (companies), and the social media platforms themselves as it enabled both to increase profits and gain more insight in regards to specific posts. Adidas had been taking advantage of Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp to engage with its customers. They used these platforms to measure engagement rates, view-through rates, and how many views are generated.  

Communication between an organization, its suppliers and stakeholders are an essential component to any business. Effective and efficient communication is what leads a company to reach its target goals and build a strong business to business relationship. According to TechTarget “Supply chain management (SCM) is the broad range of activities required to plan, control and execute a product’s flow, from acquiring raw materials and production through distribution to the final customer, in the most streamlined and cost-effective way possible.” Throughout the process many companies do not release any information to the consumer until the final product has been created. However in the modern age today with various social media platforms available throughout the world, Adidas and FIFA are using social media in supply chain manage to interact with not only its consumers, but all internal and external stakeholders of the company as well and have noticed positive results. Now as complicated as it sounds you may be wondering how did Adidas and FIFA use social media in supply chain management? Well read on to find more information!

Today’s marketplace is highly competitive. In order to differentiate themselves and stay ahead of the competition, companies must think of innovative ways to streamline their operations, increase efficiencies, and optimize productivity. One such aspect of achieving greater efficiency is through good supply chain management practices. Not super sexy, but super important, supply chains and supply chain management are topics that your business should be constantly evaluating!

The modern workplace continues to evolve, in both technological advances and a shifting work culture. Companies across the globe are becoming more concerned with efficiency, and productivity, culminating in the quest for new opportunities for collaboration and resulting in employee engagement via internal social media. Social media can be effectively used internally within an organization to engage employees, the same way it is employed externally to engage customers. Increasingly, organizations are adopting internal social media platforms such as Workplace by Facebook to inspire symbiotic relationships of mutual support and trust. These platforms can help foster the necessary conditions for collaboration and facilitate cross-pollination of ideas and information throughout the organization.

Throughout FIFA’s divisions, I believe that FIFA has created the most significant collaboration between two of its departments such as Marketing, and Communications & Public Affairs Division. Each department is in charge of developing different aspects of FIFA’s goals. FIFA’s most important goals are; creating opportunities for fan engagement, providing best experiences for fans, players and all stakeholders at events, providing up-to-date information on game time, scores, and ticket information. FIFA accomplishes this through FIFA’s web site, FIFA’s App, and all Social Media channels. Marketing at FIFA consists of many sub-divisions that include Brand & Marketing Communication, FIFA Marketing Russia, FIFA Quality Concept, Hospitality, Licensing, Marketing Alliances, Marketing Event Management, Production, Sales, Strategic Development and Ticketing. FIFA’s Marketing is committed to providing sponsors with “right packages”, promoting events to fuel fan excitement at host nations, managing premium hospitality events, creating innovative and tailor made marketing programs enhancing fan experiences, managing brand identity at FIFA and events. Communications & Public Affairs Division handles public relations, internal communications, and FIFA weekly magazine. FIFA’s digital department is in charge of FIFA.com, social media platforms, FIFA app, and video content through FIFA TV. The digital department is also in charge of the storage of data, photographs and documents. FIFA’s media department handles the communication to the media and media facility services for FIFA events. FIFA’s public affairs department handles the communication, relations and engagement with public, authorities and policymakers. FIFA has established a group to develop a comprehensive mobile and digital strategy designed to improve engagement with FIFA’s stakeholders. The work was built upon FIFA’s established platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the FIFA app, which was downloaded 30 million times around the FIFA World Cup 2014. I wonder how many times the FIFA app will be downloaded in the 2018 World Cup in Russia? In order to watch the video, FIFA has granted permission via YouTube

What do companies do when they don’t have physical products to sell? Why they sell experiences, of course. And that’s something Deloitte’s new digital division has been squarely focused on – with impressive results – since first launching in 2010. Deloitte Digital is the cool, technology savvy teenager in the conservative Deloitte consultancy family. It’s essentially an ad agency in the traditional sense, but it has been able to bring the rest of Deloitte’s more established global organization, knowledge base and brand to bear for its multitude of clients. The key for Deloitte Digital has been the use of an arsenal of digital tools, including social media, that has allowed it to seamlessly collaborate across the broader organization. Deloitte Digital’s success in such a short period of time shows just how far an organization can go when it adopts a holistic, digitally focused, whole-enterprise approach.

How do you unite a rapidly growing company that has offices all over the world? How do you integrate the work of employees in disciplines that range from architecture to geomatics to wastewater engineering? How do you inspire people who’ve come to your organization through acquisition to buy into your vision?  These were some of the challenges facing Stantec in 2011. In consultation with employees, Stantec built a new strategic framework around the concept of community and launched it in 2013.  “We have evolved our brand to better reflect who we are and what our clients and employees believe about us,” says Stantec president and chief executive officer, Bob Gomes in a news release.   “Our new positioning—focusing on community, creativity, and client relationships—differentiates us in our many market sectors. At Stantec, we design with community in mind: we help our clients meet the needs of the communities we collectively serve.”  Four years later, that concept of community pervades all areas of the organization, on its website, in its employee publications and its marketing materials. And social media plays an important role in bringing the strategy to life. Here are three examples of how Stantec uses social networking and collaborative tools to build a sense of community across disciplines and time zones. 

“Social Tools are not just about giving people a voice, but giving them a way to collaborate, contribute and connect”.  – John Stepper, MD Social Media and Collaboration at Deutche Bank.  The Whole Enterprise Social Media is the integrated approach to the use of social media for business performance improvement.  The use of social media in various organizational areas is beneficial however, even greater benefits are possible if we can link them together and synchronize its use across the organization. Loyalty Digital Solutions Inc. understands the importance of social media and not only using it through its different functions but also integrating it to help connect and collaborate with each other.  Loyalty Digital Solutions is a digital solutions provider, specializing in web, mobile and e-commerce platforms. They maintain, host and drive traffic to your site, all by using the latest techniques in design and development. Their digital marketing solutions focuses on building loyal customers for your business.

So what is the future for social media?  Well, it seems daunting to try to predict the future even more so if you consider the exponential growth of technological innovation so I am going to try to look at the year ahead.   In the article “5 Trends That Will Transform Social Media in 2017”  it is suggested that  66% of adults globally, log on to Facebook every day.  It is clear that social media use continues to advance and using it to advance your business is also critically important.   Other things to pay attention to: Not only is social media usage continuing to increase it is doing so across all demographics. Employees are going to increasingly be encouraged to share business updates. People want real-time “real-time” updates. Increasingly there will be an expectation from consumers for even quicker responses to their inquiries. Decisions will be increasingly driven by analytics.  Social analytic tools continue to get more powerful and can provide valuable information even to beginning users of social media.  On this point, it is important to reflect on the data that is driving decisions.  In the article”  Are We Mining Data Instead of Answering Questions”, it is suggested that the biggest challenge in the big data world is understanding that data analysis is not the same as answering questions.  There are nuances in social data that compliment pure data in understanding what the data is saying.  For example counting the number of likes of a particular post is interesting but if the individual responds with a like and also says “because there were easy to follow lessons” that provides added value. Social video content is important and will only get more important going forward.   I would add to this list in that I think there is a lot more opportunity to use social media for collaboration particularly between businesses and between organizations.  Consumers want to have the full range of services available to them conveniently and are expecting organizations and businesses to be working together to provide that service to them. In the article “From Social Networks to Collaboration Networks:  The Next Evolution of Social Media for Business”, the author argues that the biggest opportunity for Social Networks is the opportunity for collaboration.   These collaborative networks breed co-creation, and most importantly the culture of collaboration.  “The new generation of Millennials and Generation C  (connected, computerized and community oriented) have… Read more »

Watsi is a non-profit crowdsourcing platform that enables anyone to fund life-changing medical procedures for patients in developing countries who might not otherwise have access to healthcare. At the time this case study was written, 22,102 Watsi donors had funded healthcare for 11,559 patients in 25 countries. Patients waiting to be fully funded included Vehn, a farmer from Cambodia who needs a hip replacement, Olga, a single mother from Guatemala who needs treatment for diabetes, and Dah Htoo, a 2 year old boy from Burma who needs surgery to repair burn damage. When Watsi founder Chase Adam was a Peace Corps volunteer, he was traveling through a small town in Costa Rica when a woman boarded the bus. Her son required medical treatment she could not afford; she showed his medical records and asked passengers for money to help pay for his treatment. The town was called Watsi and the idea of developing a platform to crowdsource funding for vital health care in developing countries was born. Soon after the platform launched, the idea gained traction on Hacker News, and eventually led to Watsi being the first non-profit startup funded and accelerated by Y Combinator.

Background Parmalat is one of the largest food companies in Canada with $2.2 billion annual revenues. The company is a marketer of such popular retail brands as Black Diamond cheese, Ficello Cheese Strings, Astro Yogurt, Lactancia Milk & Butter and Balderson cheese. The company has a large and diverse work force of 2,900 people, operating a large corporate office in Toronto, 2 major sales offices in Calgary and Montreal and 16 manufacturing plants across Canada. Challenge Given the scale and complexity of its work force, Parmalat Canada has been searching for effective ways of promoting company’s values and increasing employee engagement across many branches with their unique geography, organizational culture and regional dynamics. This challenge is especially magnified by the company’s work force composition – only about 30% of work force is full-time employees working in main offices or plants, whereas 70% of workers are part-time hourly workers at various plants. The HR Department has turned to Social Media to increase employees engagement. The idea was to encourage company’s employees to share new ideas on  improve various aspects of company’s operations ranging from work processes, life balance, health & safety and even new product ideas. Social Media Solution The choice of social media tools that will allow for maximum participation in the initiative was difficult one. The company’s digital culture has been defined by work force average age (40+), and a long practice of using IBM Lotus Notes as a major source of all inter-company communication. As such, the HR department has opted for finding new ways of using existing technologies, expanding their ability to function as social media tool as opposed to creating new social spaces on Intranet or developing dedicated digital applications modeled after popular applications like Facebook, My Space etc. Towards that end, the corporate Lotus Notes was re-designed to give birth to a large digital project called “Parmalat’s New Ideas” that allowed employees to integrate social media functions with their regular activities on the Intranet.  The new platform provided capabilities to share and discuss ideas on various topics and select the best ideas by employees voting (15 votes required to put the idea for the Senior Management consideration). Real Life Roll-out/Early Wins In 2015, the Communication Manager, Ambra Sultzbaugh , led the roll-out of this initiative to employees in a series of in-person meetings across different regions. Since then, the program has significantly exceeded initial expectations… Read more »

When you’re a global company with employees stationed around the world it’s easy to assume employees in one country know little to nothing about employees or happenings in other offices, but at Unitron, it’s quite the opposite. According to their global LinkedIn profile, it’s “a great thing to be a part of a culture that thrives on making the unexpected happen, and where team members’ work together to go the extra mile for customers.” The “company that designs and manufactures really great hearing instruments” has more than 20 offices around the world with their corporate headquarters located in Kitchener, Ontario.

According to Intercom, “The way businesses talk to people online is broken. Intercom is fixing it. Intercom is the first to bring messaging products for sales, marketing & customer service to one platform, helping businesses avoid the stiff, spammy status quo and have real conversations that build real connections.” Intercom describes its platform as “simple, personal, and fun for everyone”, and a growing number of customers obviously agree. According to Alex Konrad, staff writer for venture capital, startups and enterprise tech at Forbes, “Intercom is now adding 600 paid customers and $1 million in new revenue every 10 days.”

Many churches are finding benefit from promoting their services and events online through social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.  However, if we look to the education world, we may find ways that social media is being used in the classroom that can be effectively adapted into a Pastors role of teaching, including the weekly sermon and Bible study methods. Jason Tomaszewski, Associate Editor of EducationWorld.com, reminds us in his article “Social Media Has a Place in Classrooms” of the findings of Dr. Richard J. Light (Harvard School of Education) with regards to social learning theory and the learning success of college students, “People learn most effectively when they interact with other learners. According to Light, the strongest determinant of students’ success in college is their ability to form or participate in small study groups. He suggests that this is more important than their instructors’ teaching styles. Student research participants who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own.” This study underlines the significant learning impact that small group type Bible studies can have, which could include those happening online.  It also addresses the lecture-style sermon delivery that is the basis for most traditional church services, which may be better absorbed if given the opportunity to be discussed among those who have listened to it.   Social media can provide such opportunities through various means available to pastors and their congregations today.

In 2013, comedian Bryan Callen, asked UFC heavyweight fighter Brendan Schaub to do a podcast with him in his garage. The two were good friends, and Bryan noticed that Brendan had a natural comedic instinct, that could crack up a whole room. While both were moderately successful in their profession, nothing could prepare them for the heights their new show would soon reach. In three short years, the podcast has grown into one of the top 10 sports podcasts on Itunes. Podcasting has allowed the pair to have a stable income, while they pursue other interests. Acting and fighting are no longer their main source of income, and they can rely on income generated from their podcast. The podcast generates revenue from ad reads on the show, with many companies relying on podcasts to generate new customers. Bryan Callen had this to say about the future of social media. What’s really cool about the whole business of internet is it makes it easier and easier to have your own autonomy. The show has produced over 200 episodes, and spun off into various other side projects. Other businesses can look at The Fighter and The Kid, as inspiration to step into the future of social media.

Rolling around on a skateboard is a right of passage for most children growing up in North America, many of them dreaming of becoming the next Tony Hawk, or Nyjah Huston. While many of these people will never attain these goals, they will still have a blast pushing around town on their boards. Skateboarding is a wonderful tool for transportation, but it has a few key limitations. The main problem is hills, and everyone who has ever stepped on a skateboard has a deep fear of the dreaded “speed wobble“. While going down a hill on a skateboard, you don’t have many options for braking and going up hills is also an issue, as it becomes a battle against gravity. Boosted Board is a company that was founded to improve some of the issues that have plagued skaters for years. Boosted Board is an electric skateboard controlled by a small handheld remote. You can adjust your speed and even brake! Skateboarders everywhere now have a solution to some of their problems. Boosted Boards has turned to social media to showcase their product to the skateboarders of the world and get everyone skateboarding again.

Alibaba, the largest online business company, does not manufacture or stock products on its own; Uber, the largest transportation network company globally, actually owns no vehicles; Airbnb, leading hotel and travel company, does not own any real estate. One thing they have in common is that they all create evolutionary ideas to disrupt and reform competitive landscape. Owning no inventory nor product doesn’t stop Alibaba being the supply chain management guru. In fact, in April 2016 Alibaba Group has officially surpassed Walmart and become the world’s largest retailer.  This set the milestone when the world’s largest retail market shifted from offline to online. “We used 13 years to demonstrate the power of a different business model compared with brick-and-mortar retailers,” the Alibaba Group said. A key success factor for Alibaba is to delivery comprehensive while tailored digital supply chain process to customers.  

Social front end product development is a concept that is gaining traction in the business world. Why? Because it yields off the charts results! Front-end product development involves using social media to gain valuable insights on what customers want. But, it’s not just about social listening, it’s about engaging clients directly in the creation and development of a product or service.

Okay a show of hands… who doesn’t like chocolate? Anybody??? Didn’t think so. Perhaps one of the most loved foods in the world, chocolate comes in so many forms it’s virtually impossible to find someone that doesn’t like chocolate in at least one form. I don’t actually have any data to back that up, just my own theory that you’d have an easier time finding a unicorn or a Sasquatch. Perhaps I’m letting my own love of chocolate cloud my judgment but I can’t be that far off considering that the average Canadian consumes 5.5 kilograms or roughly 12 pounds of chocolate each year. Ferrero SpA is the fourth largest manufacturer of chocolate and confectionery products in the world, behind only Mars, Mondelēz International (makers of Cadbury, Oreo and many other brands) and Nestlé. The Italian manufacturer is probably most recognized as the makers of the famous Ferrero Rocher chocolates but are also responsible for bringing us Tic Tac, Kinder and Nutella. Ferrero is responsible for using about one quarter of the world’s hazelnut supply and have almost single-highhandedly caused the hazelnut industry to soar.

It seems like not that long ago that my previous employer instated a company-wide ban on social media websites and blocked us from accessing any of them from our company computers. It also seems like it wasn’t that long after that they lifted the ban and rolled out the enterprise social network Yammer and encouraged its use. So why the about-face? How did social media go from being a workplace pariah to an invaluable business tool? For companies like my previous employer—and many others that deal in consumer products—one of the key benefits to an enterprise social network is collaboration. Collaboration breeds innovation and innovation is key to success when new ideas and products are your business.