NC State Jenkins MBA Alumna, College Programs are Tapping the Power of Social Media
Q: Are you the first person in your division at Cisco to hold a position involving social media?
A: Perhaps the first person with the title in my group, but not throughout Cisco. Cisco’s unique culture really encourages experimentation with new innovation, so there are lots of employees experimenting in social media from PR, marketing, sales and support.
Q: How would you define social media?
A: Social media is really a set of online tools that facilitate interaction between people. It really transforms marketing from a monologue to a dialogue. Whatever you call it – social media, Web 2.0, crowdsourcing, online interactions – it really is to a way for people to connect regardless of historical boundaries, geography and time. From a marketing perspective, it is really revolutionizing how we do our jobs: no longer will mass marketing be good enough, we must learn to micro market. This revolution will force us to better segment our audiences, understand where prospects and customers are finding their information and how we can interact in a meaningful way. Social media will force us to do micro marketing, and instead of “shouting” our messages, we will be having real time conversations. The voice of the customer can and must be heard and companies will need to adapt their business models to listen, engage, and transform to better suit the needs of its customers.
Q: What kinds of social media do you work with?
A: Cisco as a company is really blazing the trail from a business perspective. We are trying to change our business model to capitalize on the ability to connect with customers in this new way. We are using social media internally to better identify our own subject matter experts, communicate among teams internally and collaborate to a productive end. We are not only capitalizing on this from an external perspective, but have made major investments in our product portfolio to help companies take advantage of this revolution with visual networking tools like Telepresence, Webex video conferencing, and online meeting and event services. We also use collaboration tools like Webex connect, which is a virtual collaborative workspace where people inside and outside the firewall can collaborate. This allows us to take advantage of the partners we do business with all the way through to the customers we serve.
We are also using video, podcasts, blogs, wikis, discussion forums and social networks within the company to work together cross-functionally, but also leveraging external popular tools like Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Plaxo, Ning, YouTube and other viral video sites. We want to use these tools to listen and engage our customers, to not only improve our products and services but also to help educate them to be better buyers. Buying cycles begin online, before any purchase is made. People research online first. Customers want to educate themselves on the options available, understand how these options solve their problems, and help them sell more, reduce costs and gain a competitive advantage in a very crowded marketplace. The most important part for us at Cisco is to listen to our customers and have meaningful interactions online to help them strategically with their business.
Q: What kinds of things do you do with social media?
A: We try to use social media to listen, engage and activate our customers and prospects.
I serve the US Commercial segment; basically any customer with 1500 employees and below. Our team has created the Cisco Interaction Network which creates TV quality video broadcasts for both our technical audience and business audience. These broadcasts are launched monthly. In addition, we produce audio and video podcasts that educate customers and prospects on our products and services. We work closely with our internal teams to promote these assets and begin conversations on several Cisco-hosted and managed communities like Cisco Learning Network. Our technology forum Net Pro also offers marketing and sales teams use of these assets to educate their customers and prospects.
- We have a presence on Facebook with TechWiseTV fan page.
- We use Twitter to engage our TechWise fans
- We host “twebinars” during our live show to connect with our audience in real time where we host a tweme where people can follow the conversations in real time.
- We launch blogger outreach efforts to leverage the power of major influencers in the marketplace to do analysis of our shows and share them with their audience.
- We syndicate our video spotlight [or mini broadcast trailer of the show] on 22 viral video sites, including YouTube to entice people to register to watch the full show and share it with their network.
- We optimize our tags on content to help optimize our content for search and help users find the information to educate themselves about Cisco’s product and service offering.
It is a great change to listen and activate our experts to engage in these conversations, but we do lots of experiments, ask our customers where and how they would like to engage and adjust accordingly. This new way of marketing is still emerging, just like when the internet just started to become mainstream 15 years ago. Everyone was asking themselves, “We know we need a website, but for what? How?” The same thing is happening today with social media. People are saying, “I know I need to be doing something, but who, what and how can we do it efficiently?” There is a lot of noise out there and companies that embrace this opportunity will win out. So that is our philosophy: we want to find where our customers are engaging online and not only be there, but be there in an interactive way.
We even use social media to create our shows and content. We use a private wiki to share information and write and edit our scripts, approve our content. We use Flickr to share our photos with everyone within the company to use for email marketing or websites, but also to use that to share information to our audience.
We look at what we have and try to use social media tools to extend the usage of the assets we create to improve our ROI on producing them, and as added benefit we get to share these assets with our customers and offer them the opportunity to share the assets, content and information with their peers.
Q: How does your MBA education help you in this field?
A: The same principles for business still apply, so a strong foundation in understanding business strategy and marketing is the key to staying focused. In a time where everything is changing, it is essential to understand how business works. While the tools have changed, the guiding principles of business hold true. By understanding the fundamentals clearly, the chaos and change that surrounds the marketplace today won’t hinder your ability to reach the ultimate goal: know who your customers/prospects are, what their challenges are and how you as a company can solve those challenges and move their businesses forward. Understanding how traditional marketing research is used helps me understand how to use the ‘new’ market research. Understanding old school word-of-mouth and how that affects purchasing decisions helps me figure out how this new online word-of-mouth can be used to share information and influence behavior. Believe it or not, Porter’s five forces still hold true today in business strategy. Social media/Web 2.0 is just a new way to apply those principles. My MBA helped educate me on this foundation, so that I have a starting place. Now the trick will be if I can understand how to bridge those foundational principles to these new opportunities the web offers.
Q: Do you think this position will become more common in business over time?
A: Absolutely. But it is more than that. Social media must be embraced by every future business professional. The new business professional must master how to capitalize on the new opportunities social media offers. It will change business, not just marketing. Every functional area in business will need to learn what these tools are and how to use them in order to successfully do their job. This isn’t just a marketing or PR responsibility. It is a responsibility of the new business professional. I think it is a real opportunity for the NC State MBA program to recognize this transformation of how business gets done. A program that touts its understanding of technology and business must prepare its future graduates, and perhaps its alumni, for how to leverage this new way of business to gain competitive advantage in the global marketplace. It is a chaotic and exciting time to be in business today. A real transformation is in progress and it is changing faster than ever before. It is complex and sometimes daunting, but exciting. Business will never be the same as before and technology is at the center of it all.
NC State Jenkins MBA Social Media Network
Ryan Mills (MBA ’09) was an early adopter of what is now called Social Media, setting up his first Facebook account in 2004, back when the new online community was limited to 10 Ivy League colleges. “It included your picture and basic information about you, and then you added your friends,” he said.
Now, Facebook is one of several online communities used by people of all ages for social conversations, professional connections, and other interaction. “It is much more complex, with many features, including video, surveys, and news feeds,” he said. Also, the number of users has grown to 140 million in the past four and a half years.
“Our generation is very individualized, self-focused,” he said. “We don’t know a world without cell phones, the Internet, and we are very free with our self-expression.”
Mill’s job as a graduate assistant in the MBA program is to help facilitate connections between MBA alumni in the various virtual communities. He’s had plenty of practice since his undergrad days when he logged into his initial FaceBook account as a senior at the University of California-Berkeley. “I’m a very social person, and I’ve moved around a lot,” he said. Facebooks enables him to stay in touch with his friends, from Seattle to Raleigh.
Now he’s helping NC State Jenkins MBA students get in touch and stay in touch by updating a number of social media sites, including the blog that he is writing about his first year in the Jenkins MBA program. Following are some of the sites that Mills is moderating. He encourages other alumni and current students to join in the conversation, and to recommend links from other sites.
The MBA Career Resources Office is also using Twitter to help keep students informed of career and other special events.
MAC Program is growing its online presence
Andrea Young, NC State Jenkins MAC program coordinator, is managing social network sites for the MAC program, and also welcomes alumni and friends to join the network.
Undergrad Programs
The Undergraduate Programs Office is also using Facebook to help keep students informed of career events and other news of the program.
Second Life
The NC State College of Management has an island in Second Life. If you don’t have a Second Life account yet, you will need to register, pick a name and go through orientation. Then send a note to Callie Kuhn, aka Claudia Kimbrough, marketing lecturer in the college’s Department of Business Management and manager of the college’s SL island. Kimbrough is one of several College of Management faculty working in SL with their students and colleagues. Kimbrough and the college’s communications office will be working together to post college events and news in this virtual space.
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