Building an Enterprise Digital Engagement System
Terence (Terry) Flynn, Jon Iwata, and Alan Marks
Historically, businesses have engaged their stakeholders primarily through intermediaries—through mass media (both earned and owned content) to broadly disseminate an enterprise’s purpose and point of view and build stakeholder support, complementing and reinforcing direct interaction with stakeholders (see Chapter 5, note 1). The enterprise’s communication function was largely in control of the earned-media dimensions of this engagement, managing it through discrete channels and utilizing push messaging to broad audience segments.1
Today, technology has upended these engagement models. Consider:
• More than 5 billion people use mobile phones, about three-quarters of the world’s population (Constine and Escher May 27, 2015).
• 65 percent of adults in the United States now use social networking sites—a nearly 10-fold increase from 2005 to 2015. Women and men are using social media at nearly the same rates. One-fifth of Americans say they are online “almost constantly.” Three out of four go online daily (Perrin October 8, 2015).
• There are 3.5 billion Google searches every day (Internet Live Stats n.d.).
• 90 percent of smartphone users share their location data by using location services (Pew Research Center January 20, 2016).
• 104.3 million wearables were shipped in 2016, a number expected to double in just five years (IDC June 21, 2017).
• There are 94.3 million subscribers to Netflix streaming services (ReCode April 17, 2017).
• The average consumer belongs to 13 loyalty programs (Ad Age June 17, 2015).
• There were 12.4 million connected cars in 2016, going to 61,000,000 in 2020 (Gartner September 29, 2016).
People are sharing data about themselves at every moment—what they like, think, and eat; where they are and where they are going; their nutrition and fitness; their media, entertainment, and political preferences. All of these data are captured digitally, and people expect companies and institutions to provide value to them based on that data. The organizations that provide a more personalized experience, a better recommendation, time savings, and inspiration are the organizations that win mindshare and lasting affiliation.
At the same time, an organization’s stakeholders are no longer solely “consumers” or “audiences.” They are content creators in their own right. The same technologies enable them not just to receive but to transmit. On social media every minute there are:
• 30,000 minutes of YouTube video uploaded;
• 3.3 million Facebook posts;
• 448,800 tweets;
• 65,900 Instagram photos uploaded;
• 1,440 blogs posted on Wordpress;
• 29 million messages sent on WhatsApp (Smart Insights February 6, 2017).
Like, share, comment: The ability for anyone to perform these simple actions about virtually anything, to virtually everyone, is redefining how enterprises now pursue stakeholder engagement. In less than a decade, social media tools and platforms have evolved from novelty to ubiquity. These are the most personalized media ever experienced (c.f., Li and Stacks 2015), and they generate influence and engagement at a pace and scale unimaginable just a few years ago. Mobile technology has significantly accelerated this new reality. Combined with the predictive power of “big data” analytics,2 digital engagement is transforming how we live, work, and interact with each other.
In this new world, transparency and authenticity are at a premium. “Mass” is out; “personal” is in. “Freedom of the press” used to mean “freedom for those who own one.” Today, everyone with a smartphone is a media mogul, free to speak his or her mind, start a campaign—and engage an enterprise.
Employees can freely share news and opinions about their company with their friends, family members, career contacts, and future potential employees. Investors can activate other investors. Customers can write product reviews that are viewed by prospective customers on the other side of the world. Conversations between vendors and customers are transparent.
All of this content is highly influential. Eighty-two percent of U.S. adults use online reviews before making a first-time purchase (Pew Research Center December 19, 2016); 61 percent of job seekers look at company reviews and ratings before making a decision to apply for a job (Glassdoor 2016); and 60 percent of people rate “a person like myself” as credible as an academic or technical expert (2017 Edelman Trust Barometer January 5, 2017).
This is not new news to CCOs. The opportunity for communicators to engage more people directly or through other people they trust, with exponentially more personal impact, has been known and explored at the edges for years. But fully realizing the opportunity can only be achieved by changing the profession’s old model. This is not just about better use of social media. For one, it would be impossible to hire enough communications professionals to engage directly at the scale now required. These technology-driven social and cultural trends are changing the role of the CCO. In addition to relationships and reporters, CCOs must be able deploy intelligent algorithms and automation.
To create personalized, predictive engagement of individuals, CCOs and the functions they lead require new skills, a new mindset, and new digital capability. Together, these make up a comprehensive Digital Engagement System (DES).
What Is a Digital Engagement System?
As defined in The New CCO (2016), published by the Page Society, a DES harnesses “sophisticated platforms that map stakeholders, engender understanding of them (usually through data) and systematize the process of engaging with them, not merely as segments but as individuals” (p. 32).
Other enterprise functions have long established analogous systems and processes that permeate the organization. Human resources runs systems that address people management and the talent resources of the enterprise. Marketing has them to manage the customer’s journey through the marketing funnel. Legal has them to ensure compliance and mitigate enterprise risk. The CCO must similarly become the architect and manager of systems that engage enterprise stakeholders, internally and externally, with content and information that builds trust, fosters commitment, and facilitates action (see Chapter 7).
To understand what we mean by a “Digital Engagement System,” we must look at each word—because each word matters.
It is Digital because digital is where our stakeholders’ data are captured, and because digital is the only way to engage them individually at scale.
It is about Engagement because organizational communications can no longer be based on a “messaging” model. We must create dialogue, and dialogue requires not just speaking, but listening—and intelligent, appropriate, personalized responses.
And it is a System because it is structured into something greater than the sum of its parts. It senses and responds to feedback. It can be measured and managed, and it can operate continuously.
The essential connected elements in this system are:
• The data that fuel it;
• The content that shapes the organization’s dialogue with its stakeholders;
• Its underlying technologies;
• The professionals with the skills and discipline to operate the system, measure success, and improve based on feedback.
Data
Every DES both runs on and generates data—data about who your stakeholders are, what they are saying, what they are doing, what they like, and how they consume, create, and share content. There are also data about trending topics in the world, financial market performance, hyperlocal weather forecasts with their connection to commerce and mood, and data on the effectiveness of specific content.
Some of these data likely already exist in your company. Partners like the Chief Information Officer (CIO) or Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) will be critical in helping you obtain data such as employee information (role, tenure), web or intranet data (what customers and employees visit, download, and share; time spent; traffic flow), e-mail data (click-through rates, open rates, downloads, forwards), and more. Other data can be licensed, retrieved from public sources, or mined using artificial intelligence. And some data must be created through designed experiments.
Content
In a DES, “content” refers to intellectual capital deliberately created by participants in the organization’s ecosystem, inside and outside the company. This content comes in many forms—videos, podcasts, social tiles, articles, infographics, white papers, and beyond. It shapes a dialogue of content exchange—an exchange that is strategically stimulated and managed.
Data are key to that purposeful management. For instance, topics for new content are discovered through mining data. Multiple versions of a piece are tried, tested, and updated based on performance data. Pride of authorship is less important than what works best.
And whatever the form or purpose, the content must be designed to be shared. It must not only be compelling and provocative, but also configured appropriately for various social platforms so it is easy to use and says something about the person sharing it.
Technology
DESs require a range of technologies. These technologies are available for every scale and purpose, often with free or freemium models, as well as premium versions. They may already be at work in another part of your business, such as under the CMO. Examples include:
• Content and Workflow Management technologies to help your professionals create, edit, manage, and deploy content as appropriate to your customers or employees. Today, tools like this include Drupal and Alfresco.
• Data Management and Insights technologies to help you spot trends and patterns in social media conversations that may trigger targeted engagement, distribution of content already in the content management system, or new ideas for content that should be created. Today, Zignal and Marketo make tools for this purpose.
• Distribution technologies to help you find the right audience for your content, promote it, and deliver it to many individuals, at scale. Tools available today include Hootsuite and Sprinklr.
People
DESs require professionals with specific skills. They fall into four primary categories:
• Listening—Communication professionals must be able to find the channels where their audiences engage and listen to the themes and data they are generating, identifying trends and patterns as they emerge as well as finding influencers across ecosystems. Listening is the first step to building effective engagement with the constituents that matter to your organization.
• Editorial and creative—Communication professionals must create content designed to engage individuals at scale, based on listening and overall communications strategy. These skills probably exist on your teams today but may need to evolve to support new media.
• Engagement—Beyond mere publication, communication professionals must share content and participate in dialogue with individuals, including sharing content those individuals have created. They might seed initial engagement through the use of paid media and then amplify the contributions of people who are participating in the conversation with more paid media. They are constantly acting on trends in conversation and responding to direct questions or comments.
• Technologists—To support the earlier work, you need professionals who deeply understand the DES and can implement and customize the tools that underpin it. The more integrated these professionals are with the listening, editorial, and creative professionals, the more quickly the DES can adapt to achieve better outcomes.
Some cutting-edge CCOs have already started to create new roles and to train their teams on the new skills required for this model—roles that previously did not exist, like content and engagement designer, web DJ, digital strategist, behavioral scientist, and culture czar (“The New CCO,” p. 17). Seventy-three percent of respondents to a Page Society poll of CCOs conducted as part of the New CCO report said that they are hiring digital or social media experts. They are also shifting their resources toward content creation. Thirty percent of CCOs who participated in the Page Jam—a two-day online discussion among senior communicators convened by Page—indicated they are rapidly increasing investment in owned media. In addition, 25 percent are hiring big data analysts (Weber Shandwick 2014).
Big Data and the Digital PlayBook
Leveraging data is an essential component of an effective DES. Increasingly this means harnessing “big data,” in addition to the more conventional large and small data sets used in normal business processes and measurement dashboards. This is made possible by the unprecedented amount of data generated by the technology we use every day, combined with affordable computing and storage. In virtually every field, businesses, governments, enterprises, and researchers are learning how to leverage enormous amounts of data to create predictive models that lead to new insights and new ways of creating and delivering value.
For CCOs, leveraging big data in ways that are relevant to enterprise goals and objectives represents an extraordinary opportunity to create economic value and competitive advantage, build more integrative, collaborative C-Suite strategies, and drive enterprise-wide approaches to reputation management, influence, and advocacy.
Big data are being applied in almost every area of business. Human Resources, for example, is active in its use of big data analytics. Predictive models are being used to assess hiring and identify the best candidates, manage attrition, and flag other potential outcomes that help an enterprise manage a high-performing culture and workforce. For the CCO, this trend creates opportunity to partner with the CHRO and use big data insights to sharpen and better target employee engagement strategies and content. Such predictive models also can be used to inform employee brand and externally focused reputation management strategies.
CHRO Partnering
Predictive models based on employee data and external market and competitive data reveal trigger points that can be influenced by targeted content and personalized engagement. A predictive model, for example, shows that a certain segment of employees in a technology enterprise are vulnerable to leaving at a certain time of year, or with a certain frequency. Armed with that insight, a communication team creates targeted content to the employees’ manager, reminding the manager to personally engage the team, conduct one-to-one check-in discussions, and ensure the team understands the importance of their work to the entire enterprise. At the same time, personalized content is sent to each employee on the team, highlighting his or her role and contributions to the enterprise’s overall strategy. Other targeted content may highlight enterprise culture, benefits, and values, reminding these employees how competitive and desirable the enterprise is as a place to work. Complementing this targeted content, stories profiling the team’s work and successes are sent across the enterprise, reinforcing the targeted messages and manager engagement. At scale, the DES automates these activities across multiple internal stakeholder constituencies—employees, managers, and leaders throughout the entire enterprise. The results: lower attrition, higher engagement, and more effective people management.
Partnering with the CMO to effectively harness customer data is an obvious area of engagement. Sales and customer service functions are other areas that generate enormous amounts of data that can yield competitive insights and predictive models. And there are many sources of third-party data that, when combined with enterprise-proprietary data, unleash fresh insights and opportunities.
CMO Partnering
1. A DES automatically distributes customized market, sales, product, and competitive content to the mobile phones of the enterprise’s sales executives, based on their geolocation data, as well as proprietary customer and other third-party market data. Regardless of where sales executives travel, they know they will have up-to-date customer, market, and competitive content on their mobile phone, enabling them more effectively to drive customer engagement, deliver customer value, and win new business.
2. An irate customer writes about a negative experience on social media. Other customers have had similar experiences and share their stories (perhaps including smartphone videos), and the issue quickly gains traction. Another customer launches an online petition to force the enterprise to respond. Within hours, calls begin to spike in the enterprise’s customer call center and the enterprise begins receiving media inquiries about the issue. Leveraging a DES, the communication team quickly analyzes available enterprise data regarding the issue, assesses customer call patterns, maps the social media influence of the customers participating in the discussion, and identifies relevant media interested in the issue. The DES enables the communication team quickly to develop and deliver targeted content: talking points to customer service representatives, direct messages to aggrieved customers and targeted media relations outreach to relevant media. In addition, the enterprise quickly develops and deploys targeted digital advertising to the customer segment concerned about the issue and to relevant platforms in geographic areas in which the issue garnered the most attention. The result is targeted customers are satisfied by the the enterprise’s responsiveness, prompting detractors on social media to reverse their positions and speak positively of the enterprise. Media coverage is limited and neutral in tone. A potentially problematic situation is quickly defused.
The CCO is strongly positioned to identify relevant big data opportunities and integrate data analytics into a DES. Traditional communication skill sets and leadership competencies remain vitally important—particularly given growing societal concerns regarding data privacy and security. Enterprises are learning that they have to be very thoughtful about internal and external stakeholder perceptions of how data are being gathered and used to create value. The CCO is well suited to help an enterprise navigate the risks and opportunities associated with big data models.
Mining data at scale to better understand behaviors, creating direct channels, platforms, and content to leverage predictive data insights, and engaging individuals to shape desired outcomes are the building blocks of a DES and part of the core digital playbook of successful 21st-century enterprises. Led by the CCO, these tools and techniques unlock new ways of driving customer acquisition and engagement; employee recruitment, retention, and engagement; and stakeholder influence and reputation management. It is not surprising that 55 percent of business leaders say better integrating social media with other existing digital platforms and developing an integrated digital content strategy are top strategic priorities (The Altimeter Group July 28, 2015).
Making It Happen
While DESs present enormous opportunities, the reality is that enterprises today are at various stages of readiness. Social media and digital tools may feel ubiquitous in our lives. However, while many enterprises are embracing digital trends and driving innovation, many others are grappling with the fundamentals. Efforts to utilize digital engagement are nascent. There are turf battles over who “owns” social and digital platforms. Senior management buy-in and resource commitments can be a challenge. Digital initiatives are often siloed, making cross-functional collaboration and integration of successful approaches challenging at best.
Consider this: The Altimeter Group (July 28, 2015) says that only 27 percent of enterprises surveyed report active social engagement by their executives, and only 9 percent report active C-Suite participation. That is both a problem and an opportunity. The largest single reported factor in an enterprise’s social media success is C-Suite buy-in, which often requires a cultural change both at the top and throughout the enterprise (Pulse Point Group 2012).
Creating an effective DES means more than adopting social media tools and techniques. It requires:
1. Enterprise strategy and C-Suite integration;
2. Creation of data analytics and behavioral science capabilities;
3. A well-vetted brand strategy that influences social content;
4. Processes for enterprisewide governance, collaboration, design, production, and innovation.
The traditional core skills, competencies, and leadership attributes of the successful CCO make the role uniquely suited to overcoming enterprise challenges and driving digital integration, engagement, and strategy at the enterprise level.
Building a DES Begins with the Basics
Step One: Establish the Fundamentals
We propose the following framework to assess your enterprise’s starting point and determine its strategic path forward. It consists of 10 fundamental questions:
1. Is there an enterprise-level social/digital strategy? If not, do clearly defined social/digital strategies exist within various functions, such as marketing, sales, customer service, human resources, or communication?
2. What are current digital engagement capabilities across the enterprise?
(a) How are social media and digital platforms being used today, if at all? Identify social media channels, platforms, and monitoring tools. Is all relevant functionality of existing technology platforms being utilized? If not, why? Prioritize use cases and identify best practices.
(b) Does the enterprise have data analytics capabilities? If so, where do these skills and responsibilities reside? What is the primary business purpose of data analytics? What data sets is the enterprise collecting? What is measured, by whom, and why?
(c) How are social media and digital structured? One owner? Multiple? Centralized or decentralized? Discrete efforts, or cross-functional and collaborative? Do social/digital governance policies and practices exist? Are they considered effective? Do they need to be updated? Have they been communicated on a regular basis to internal stakeholders and shared with agency partners?
3. Is the C-Suite actively engaged in social? If not, why? Are leaders enterprisewide actively engaged? If not, why?
4. How does the enterprise currently monitor the perceived strength of its reputation? Is a focus on reputation management integrated into existing social/digital monitoring programs and content strategies?
5. What are the social media/digital skills and capabilities of the communication team? How is content created and managed? Are new roles needed, or can skill gaps be addressed through training?
6. How does the enterprise’s social media/digital presence compare to key competitors? To influential stakeholders?
7. Does the enterprise have a plan for a crisis that can unfold or exacerbate in social channels? An inappropriate tweet or client issue explodes into a social media firestorm; what is the social media crisis plan?
8. Does the enterprise have a defined DES approach to measuring the effectiveness of digital engagement? For example, is there a standardized dashboard, updated regularly, that includes pulse checks on reputation and brand drivers, plus other stakeholder metrics derived from social media engagement and other content channels?
9. How is content currently created and distributed? Is there a systematic process in place? Are data analytics used to inform content? How is the effectiveness of content measured? Is content personalized and customized, or is it “one size fits all?”
10. Is a consistent communication planning and content development process used to prioritize relevant business objectives, identify target audiences, define desired actions and behaviors, and measure results?
Completing this or similar DES assessment frameworks is important to establish the starting point for the enterprise by understanding existing strategies, skills and capabilities, and technology assets. These insights are essential to the next step: building a business case.
Step Two: Building a Business Case to Develop a DES
By definition, a DES requires a comprehensive, holistic approach to addressing the strategic needs of the enterprise. Such a system is collaborative and cross-functional, data driven, and technology supported. Effectively managing such an ecosystem requires a horizontal mindset and a highly coordinated, aligned, and integrative approach.
The CCO is the optimal facilitator of this process—the enterprise champion, leader, and ideal business owner of the DES. Creating and implementing a DES at scale taps the CCO’s traditional reputation management expertise, the ability to see and link opportunities horizontally across the enterprise, to think outside-in, and to align diverse constituencies into a coherent strategy.
This is building authentic advocacy at scale in the digital age. Often, the CCO may share this responsibility with peers in the C-Suite, most likely the CMO, requiring collaboration and clarity of lines of responsibility and accountability.
Here is a suggested five-point approach to building the business case for a DES:
1. Develop strategic rationales for a DES. What business problem(s) will such a system help address? What business value will it create? Will this system facilitate and scale existing engagement strategies, or address emerging business challenges and opportunities? How will measurement occur?
2. Identify required resources (people and technology). This must include the four core elements of a DES: (1) data analytics capabilities; (2) the tools and skills of an effective content strategy; (3) appropriate technology channels and platforms; and (4) the necessary listening, editorial/creative, engagement, and technology skills.
3. Determine pilot initiatives. An effective pilot program should encompass the attributes of a strong DES. It should address: a comprehensive need of the enterprise (not a discrete issue), collaboration and integration across disciplines, data-driven insights, and measurable outcomes. Pilot initiatives are an ideal opportunity to drive C-Suite partnerships and sponsorship, and to model collaborative, cross-functional leadership.
4. Identify and engage partners across the business. Of relevant internal and external stakeholders—customers, investors, employees, suppliers, and regulators—who in the enterprise already may be managing digital outreach activities to these people? Tap colleagues throughout the enterprise to understand their needs, current practices, and opportunities for collaboration.
5. Engage the C-Suite. As previously noted, C-Suite engagement is a critical component of success. While obviously important from a resource perspective, C-Suite support also is essential to model appropriate behaviors across the enterprise. A DES is a 21st-century business tool, designed to create competitive advantage and business value for the entire enterprise. The C-Suite must embrace it in this way.
Step Three: Test, Learn, Refine, Adapt, Measure, and Evolve
A DES, like any system, gets smarter and more robust through testing, learning, refining, and adapting. So it is important to get started. Experience and scale drive an effective DES.
Adopting a “systems” approach requires a new way of thinking for communication professionals. It moves us beyond simply creating great content and pushing it through the right channels or placing it with the right media. It means adapting traditional skill sets based on the predictive insights derived from data. It means understanding the key moments of engagement that drive behavioral change and create desired actions. It means continuously mining data. It means leveraging data, channels, and content in a systematic way to activate the enterprise’s corporate character and authentic advocacy at scale.
Data are an economic asset, and a DES enables the CCO to unlock this asset, creating value for the enterprise. This can translate into an enterprise with (1) a stronger employee brand, more productive employees, and lower attrition; (2) more targeted media engagement; (3) more integrated alignment with the product, marketing, sales, and customer service strategies of the enterprise; (4) the ability to effectively influence at scale stakeholder advocacy on behalf of the enterprise; and (5) greater competitive advantage for the overall reputation and brand of the enterprise.
Summary
In a globally connected digital world, building and managing a dedicated DES is emerging as a central role of the 21st-century Communication function, and a primary responsibility of the new CCO. As noted, this nascent trend not only builds on traditional skill sets and strengths of the CCO, but also pushes us in new directions and broadens the boundaries of the modern Communication function. Data analytics, behavioral science insights, stakeholder-centric content strategies, deep digital acumen, and other skills and capabilities must be developed to capitalize on the opportunities ahead.
Leading CCOs and enterprises are embracing these changes and driving rapid innovation. The trends discussed here are reshaping how enterprises operate, compete, and grow in a digitally connected, platform-powered, technology-driven world. Leaders in all areas are grappling with these disruptive changes. From marketing and sales, to human resources and product development, leaders are learning how to adapt to this new environment, leverage emerging capabilities, and lead their enterprises forward in ways that create new value.
For all 21st-century CCOs, such action and leadership are imperative.
1 Push messaging is one-way, asymmetric communication with inside–outside message flow.
2 “Big data” has been defined as extremely large, nonstructured data sets where the variables can create new variables based on the data being gathered. Big data is typically culled from ongoing Internet connectivity and requires high processing speed and data storage bases. “Large data” can be as huge as big data, but the data are structured in such a way that any new variables must be created by the data analyst or researcher; it is usually used to examine stakeholder norms. “Small data” is typically a reduced variable, structured data set; it is typically used to test hypotheses or answer research questions (Stacks 2017).